Environment Issues

[BobGreenwade]

Because we have a Life Support governing Sleep (the amount of it), there should be some rules/guidelines for the more general conditions of not getting good/restful sleep, good but insufficient sleep, or just no sleep at all.

There could be Talents like Can Sleep Anywhere, and/or Can Sleep Though Anything that works to offset various poor conditions.

I really, really like this idea. Really. A whole lot.

[PhilFleischmann]

I would tend to agree that linear damage from velocity is not always optimal in a game system.

Well, looking at actual physics, the kinetic energy of a falling object is directly proportional (linearly) to the disance fallen.

But, yes, falls are hardly ever as dangerous as they should be. Consider that no matter how tough your skin is, if your body is moving at 60 mph and comes to an instant stop, your internal organs are impacting your tough skin with just as much force as they would with weaker skin. Or your squishy body is impacting the inside of your armor, no matter how tough your armor is.

I'd prefer to call falling damage Penetrating (or maybe some "worse" form of it) it ignores to some extent any PD you may have. Maybe there coulf be a Life Support entry for "internal toughness" that protects you from falling damage. An earth elemental or golem that has no internal organs wouldn't me hurt that much from a sudden impact with the ground.

[Chris Goodwin]

Well, looking at actual physics,

That's the problem right there. Despite the close physical resemblance, the HERO System is not in fact a physics textbook but a roleplaying game of cinematic action.

[PhilFleischmann]

That's the problem right there. Despite the close physical resemblance, the HERO System is not in fact a physics textbook but a roleplaying game of cinematic action.

I must strongly disagree. Physics is important, and should be considered as the "baseline" for any game that has at least some reasonable amount of simulation in it. Once this baseline of reality is established, the cinematicness can be added on as desired - both for flavor, and for simplicity. (and you can't get much simpler than linear falling damage.)

Remember that "cinematic" is a moving target. The degree of realism varies between genres, between settings, between subgenres, and even between authors/GMs in the same setting and subgenre, and also between different works/games with the same author/GM - even when in the same setting/genre/subgenre.

"Cinematic" is not at one fixed level. Therefore, the only baseline that we have in common to start from is reality.

[Chris Goodwin]

I must strongly disagree. Physics is important, and should be considered as the "baseline" for any game that has at least some reasonable amount of simulation in it. Once this baseline of reality is established, the cinematicness can be added on as desired - both for flavor, and for simplicity. (and you can't get much simpler than linear falling damage.)

Remember that "cinematic" is a moving target. The degree of realism varies between genres, between settings, between subgenres, and even between authors/GMs in the same setting and subgenre, and also between different works/games with the same author/GM - even when in the same setting/genre/subgenre.

"Cinematic" is not at one fixed level. Therefore, the only baseline that we have in common to start from is reality.

Agreed, but the place to start is not by writing up reality to five decimal places.

By starting with "reality" and adding "cinematicness," you get GURPS. IMO, HERO goes the other way.

[CTaylor]

What you want is plausibility or "believability" within the framework of the game setting. Presume magic and dragons and so on for the setting then make it work as well as possible without insulting anyone or being just goofy (unless that's the genre). Realism is a terrible metric for a game system.

[PhilFleischmann]

Agreed, but the place to start is not by writing up reality to five decimal places.

True. Fortunately, no one is proposing that.

By starting with "reality" and adding "cinematicness," you get GURPS. IMO, HERO goes the other way.

I don't see what you mean by this. My point is that by starting with cinematicness and trying to add reality, you get a convoluted mess. Western cinematicness and Golden-Age comic book cinematicness are probably the opposite ends of the cinematicness spectrum.

Realism is a terrible metric for a game system.

Unfortunately, it's the only one we have.

Here's another way to look at it:

Start with reality.
Simplify it - remove cumbersome details, so that we're left with a playable and consistant game system.
Add in the elements of the fantastic - super powers, aliens, magic, monsters, sci-fi technology, etc.
Modify the system further (usually this involves more simplification), to achieve the desired level of cinematicness for the particular genre/setting/game.

[SteveZilla]

Well, looking at actual physics, the kinetic energy of a falling object is directly proportional (linearly) to the disance fallen.

But, yes, falls are hardly ever as dangerous as they should be. Consider that no matter how tough your skin is, if your body is moving at 60 mph and comes to an instant stop, your internal organs are impacting your tough skin with just as much force as they would with weaker skin. Or your squishy body is impacting the inside of your armor, no matter how tough your armor is.

I'd prefer to call falling damage Penetrating (or maybe some "worse" form of it) it ignores to some extent any PD you may have. Maybe there coulf be a Life Support entry for "internal toughness" that protects you from falling damage. An earth elemental or golem that has no internal organs wouldn't me hurt that much from a sudden impact with the ground.

IMO by this reasoning we would wind up with a game system that enforces damage on a Speedster every time he did a hard turn at high speed.

[CTaylor]

Unfortunately, it's the only one we have.

I would argue that what you want is plausibility and believability, not realism. We don't want games to be realistic, we want them to be plausible, given the setting.

[Klaus Mogensen]

I would argue that what you want is plausibility and believability, not realism. We don't want games to be realistic, we want them to be plausible, given the setting.

Which setting? Hero is supposed to be a generic system. Given a great variety of genres, styles and settings, reality seems like the logical baseline - unless striving for realism makes the rules too unwieldy.

- Klaus

[PhilFleischmann]

IMO by this reasoning we would wind up with a game system that enforces damage on a Speedster every time he did a hard turn at high speed.

By whose reasoning? Certainly not mine. Please don't put words in my mouth.

[PhilFleischmann]

I would argue that what you want is plausibility and believability, not realism. We don't want games to be realistic, we want them to be plausible, given the setting.

Fair enough. I think that's just semantics. If you like, feel free to replace the word "realism" with "plausibility" or "believability" if you like, or use one of my favorite words: "verisimilitude."

[steamteck]

I would argue that what you want is plausibility and believability, not realism. We don't want games to be realistic, we want them to be plausible, given the setting.

I understand what you mean . A larger than life Heroic setting not what would happen if real people tried these things PCs do in our real world...
I get your GURP statement also. GURPS is a kind of closer to life scale system that can be forced bigger with a little effort. HERO's natural state is cinematic or larger than life. You want it to have its own larger than life plausibility and believability not the nuts and bolts of the real world.

[SteveZilla]

By whose reasoning? Certainly not mine. Please don't put words in my mouth.

I did not intend to put words in your mouth -- just to make a logical extrapolation from what you were proposing. Specifically, these portions:

Consider that no matter how tough your skin is, if your body is moving at 60 mph and comes to an instant stop, your internal organs are impacting your tough skin with just as much force as they would with weaker skin.

I'd prefer to call falling damage Penetrating (or maybe some "worse" form of it) it ignores to some extent any PD you may have. Maybe there could be a Life Support entry for "internal toughness" that protects you from falling damage. An earth elemental or golem that has no internal organs wouldn't me hurt that much from a sudden impact with the ground.

If sudden stops (like falling) cause damage in part because of the "internal organs are impacting your insides" special effect, then (to me) it stands to reason that when a Speedster is running at "falling velocity" (say ~30") and makes a hard turn, their internal organs would impact their insides just as hard as if they had taken a fall.

[PhilFleischmann]

I did not intend to put words in your mouth -- just to make a logical extrapolation from what you were proposing. Specifically, these portions:



If sudden stops (like falling) cause damage in part because of the "internal organs are impacting your insides" special effect, then (to me) it stands to reason that when a Speedster is running at "falling velocity" (say ~30") and makes a hard turn, their internal organs would impact their insides just as hard as if they had taken a fall.

I don't know why you'd come to such a conclusion. Starting from reality, "speedsters" don't exist. And yes, a person moving horizontally at terminal velocity who makes a sudden stop or an instant 90-degree turn would tkae damage just like someone hitting the ground at terminal velocity. That's reality. Starting from reality, we can then add in elements of the fantastic, such as superpowers and magic and aliens, etc., which don't necessarily follow these rules of reality. For example, a speedster can move his legs so fast that he can run at hundreds of miles per hour. It would be perfectly reasonable to conclude that if his feet and legs can take such rapidly repeating impacts, that the rest of his body can take such rapid impacts as well. Or it could be justified that his body is infused with "The Speed Force" - his body acts and reacts in sped-up time: if a distance can be run in 1000th the time it would take a normal person, a 1/100 of a second sudden stop to a normal person could feel like a 10 second stop to him.