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VPP and Magic


steph

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Hey guys !

 

Just a little one for the fantasy GM. Do you accept in your session improvise (Spell on the fly) spell when a VPP is use with your magic System ?

 

Steph

 

No I don't allow people to improvise spells at the table with their VPPs.

 

Well that is kinda the main reason to have a VPP.

 

That being said I don't allow VPPs in fantasy games. Partly because I worry about them being too powerful but mostly because I don't want people wasting precious game time designing spells on the fly.

 

VPP does not have to be used that way.  A VPP can have a set of effects assigned to it.

 

In my campaign world magic is based on where you are from (race, ethnicity, region).  Each of those groups has their own kind of magic.  Mages can't learn a second kind of magic.  Also there is another distinction.  Some mages have a natural talent (i.e. Hero custom talent) that gives them access to greater power and versatility.  Archmages can have a VPP.  Also, anyone can learn magic but they can never be as versatile as an Archmage, although they may be as powerful with some specific spells.

 

For more info look at my Nyonian campaign site.

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With VPPs, I prefer those that require all powers to be written up before hand.  If I know the player is well versed in the system and is capable of making up powers on the fly without being disruptive, then I'll consider it.  However, even then, I only allow it for small utility-type powers.  This applies regardless of VPP SFX. 

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I allow it.

But I do not allow players to slow the battle if they do not have a build ready then they only get a simple power without advantages.

 

Honestly my experience from most games is the players that slow the game down are the ones who ask a hundred questions because they are indecisive or where not paying attention. Those players can slow a game down regardless of if they are playing a brute fighter or a arcane master with a Defence VPP, a Offense VPP, and a Movement VPP.

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I agree with the trend of the answers before:
If I know a player is a fast thinker with a good grasp of the rules, and if he plays a archmage-like intellectual expert or a "force of nature", then a VPP with improvized and always surprising new spells is fun and a gain for the game.
Otherwise it's not worth the effort.

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Hey guys !

 

Just a little one for the fantasy GM. Do you accept in your session improvise (Spell on the fly) spell when a VPP is use with your magic System ?

 

Steph

Assuming they have the kind of VPP that can be change quickly, than I do, with caveats.

 

In the past I have always been the de-facto Hero expert and GM for my tables. So when a player is playing a character using a VPP, I typically ask them if they have any requests, and then build them a dozen or so example powers for their VPP. I encourage players to derive powers from those examples, use a resource such as ​Champions Powers, or to write very simple powers when they improvise. For example, it isn't hard to remove a limitation and recalculate the cost of the power, or to build a simple "Flight Spell" using just X number of meters Flight and applying common casting modifiers to it (such as Gestures, Incantations, & Restrainable) can calculate its cost.

 

Since I have a hard copy of both FHC and CC, I'll let my players use one while I keep the other to double check combat rules with. I also typically set up an empty Prefab in Hero designer on my laptop so players can putz with that if they need to as well, while I use my smart phone to reference any PDFs that I need access to.

 

If for whatever reason, I do not think a given player can write a power on the fly given all of the aforementioned resources and restrictions... than I will strongly discourage that player from building characters which have VPPs that can be changed that quickly.

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No I don't allow people to improvise spells at the table with their VPPs.

 

 

VPP does not have to be used that way.  A VPP can have a set of effects assigned to it.

 

True enough. And I might allow a VPP that had a specific list of spells. I've toyed with the idea in the past.

 

But I'm still kinda gun shy about VPPs on account of munchkins from the past.

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Mark another one down for "Only if I know the player's up to the challenge."

 

In our current FH game, one player has a build-on-the-fly VPP but he's a Hero veteran and can whip up a quick build in his head while it's someone else's turn, so it doesn't slow things down. Even then, we both prefer to have powers written up and approved ahead of time wherever possible.

 

In our last Champions campaign, I let a player talk me into doing his power suit character as basically one big walking VPP he could modify on the fly. It was...shall we say, less than optimal from an efficiency standpoint? The player knew Hero reasonably well, but couldn't really do builds in his head and was math-challenged to boot. We eventually wound up creating 3 standard "load-outs" he could alternate between, with a few points left for the occasional "I want to make a _____." In hindsight it might've been much easier to do it as a Multiform or something like that.

 

For the convention/demo games I run, I sometimes give low-level build-on-the-fly VPPs, either as "Miscellaneous Magicks" or mad-scientist type characters and the like; I try to give them a half-dozen sample builds they can either use as written or at least as starting points, and just assume I'm going to wind up building whatever they think up. I have Hero Designer running and 30+ years of building stuff in Hero, so I can usually ballpark something close without losing a lot of time. It can be a great way to Unleash Player Creativity as long as you're prepared to do the heavy lifting.

 

Something I've found works well for a lot of fantasy settings is to use the VPP structure, but limit it as "spells must be invented or learned ahead of time." That lets you handle the learning/gaining of new spells narratively without tying them to XP.

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You know the maximum Active Points for a Power in the pool, right?  You could write up a chart.  One column is Base Points, the next column is the maximum amount of Advantages permitted with those Base Points.  Like, say, for a max 45 Active Point pool, it would look something like this:

Base	Max	Act
Pts	Adv	Pts
---	---	---
5	+8	45
10	+3 1/2	45
15	+2	45
20	+1 1/4	45
25	+3/4	43.75
30	+1/2	45
35	+1/4	43.75
40	+0	40
45	+0	45

You should also know about how many Real Points you have left to play with, to ballpark about how much in Limitations you'd need.  That would be a bigger chart, maybe, but it shouldn't be too hard to remember that if, for instance, you've got 8 Real Points left, and a 45 Active Point Power, you need at least -5 worth of Limitations to fit under that.  

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If it's a Fantasy Hero setting, I like using the HS Grimoire as a base for my spells. Each spell includes cost differences for variations on a spell. It's a way to start someone thinking about varying a spell, but gives them a limited amount of variations. In time as they learn how it works in terms of calculating Active Points, Advantages/Limitations, and Real Cost on the fly, they can begin to play with their own variations later on. 

 

As for actual manipulation of the pool, however, I have a limitation set for the VPP that requires extended time between adventures to make the changes, at least until they become much more experienced. But that all fits into the narrative of my spell system: begin small and shaky and become more competent over time, expanding one's repertoire with XP, and then eventually buying off limitations as well. It eventually leads to a person who is (hopefully) more comfortable with building spells on the fly.

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