Is Hero still your "go-to" rpg system?

[Old Man]

2 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Yeah - the granularity of the skill system is something I have mostly body-swerved.  I liked the simple PS: policeman from the earliest editions.  I dont mind being more specific for some things as long as they make the character stand out but it is impossible to buy all the things that make a scientist a scientist in any kind of detail.  I think it might be cool to have lots of charts like the language chart that shows that 5 points in Medicine give 4 points in pharmacology, 3 in a variety of biological sciences, 2 in social work and 1 in a bunch of related stuff.  🙂

 

I always felt that the simplistic skills system in Hero was good for superheroic campaigns but needed to be fleshed out for heroic. 

 

2 hours ago, GM Joe said:

Some of that did come in with 4th Edition, and then more with the later 4e products when character statblocks started getting bigger and more detailed, but to me it really showed itself with the removal of Package Bonuses with the release of 5e, and then it accelerated into 6e with the removal of Elemental Controls.

 

To this day I don't understand why, out of all the frameworks, EC was the one to get axed.  It's the perfect power framework for fantasy spellcasting, and far less abusable than either multipower ultra slots or VPPs.

 

 

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Remember the old Swinging power, before it got folded into a more annoying version of Flight?  Remember how it said 'character is assumed to have an appropriate swingline'?  Not on this board, but way back when chat rooms were still a thing, I watched a five-way argument amongst GMs as one GM was recounting something a particularly quick-witted player had done.  I don't remember all the details (just that I found the detractors really annoying), but rather than focus on the clever thing, they siezed on the part where the character cut his swingline to drop onto a trio of mooks, finished them off with some knuckles, and then proceeded to use the cut length of the swingline to tie up the mooks as he radioed his teammates. 

 

These guys argued for over an hour before I got sick of it and left- if any of those guys was one of you guys, please do tell me how it ended. 

 

The argument was that it was impossible for this character to do that because he did not have entangle. 

 

It was impossible to use a bit of rope to tie up mooks because that would be entangle, and he did not buy entangle.

 

 

In this case everyone is wrong; the player should have bought extra limbs and stretching. 

 

(Seriously though stretching is one of my favorite underrated powers.)

[Doc Democracy]

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

I always felt that the simplistic skills system in Hero was good for superheroic campaigns but needed to be fleshed out for heroic. 

 

I am inclined to agree with you but am not sure it was done correctly. I think that the point inflation due to skills is not equivalent to that using powers.  I think I would always spend 75 points on powers than 75 points on skills, even in an heroic game.

 

I think they could have had "framework skills".  PS: policeman could have had a bunch of skills under it, all at the ability level of the PS.  The PS increases when a set number of sub-skills increase through experience, at which point all sub-skills increase to the PS.

 

Or something like that.

 

🙂

 

Doc

[Old Man]

21 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I am inclined to agree with you but am not sure it was done correctly. I think that the point inflation due to skills is not equivalent to that using powers.  I think I would always spend 75 points on powers than 75 points on skills, even in an heroic game.

 

I don't know about "correctly" but it's true that 5 points of Telekinesis is always going to be better than 5 points of Lockpicking regardless of setting.

 

21 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I think they could have had "framework skills".  PS: policeman could have had a bunch of skills under it, all at the ability level of the PS.  The PS increases when a set number of sub-skills increase through experience, at which point all sub-skills increase to the PS.

 

Ultimate Skill (I guess just Skill in 6e) almost gets there with its breakout of certain skills.  You start running into a granularity problem, though, when you're trying to shoehorn all this detail into two character points.  For PS specifically, I could see them operating as skill enhancers or combined skills, so the PC gets a mechanical bonus for those 2cp rather than just knowing how to (for PS: Policeman) talk on the radio and file an arrest report.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I don't know about "correctly" but it's true that 5 points of Telekinesis is always going to be better than 5 points of Lockpicking regardless of setting.

 

That is my only main complaint about skills in Hero: they cost too much.  Does it really matter if you buy 74 skills?  Is it going to break the game if you have even all the skills in the list?  Is it really worth 3 points to operate radar?   Is it really worth spending 17 points on Survival so you can live in the desert AND the ocean AND the forest?  Should Stealth and Shadowing and Concealment really cost you 9 points for a base roll in each?  The current system basically discourages skill-based characters and gives characters like Dr Destroyer a 1700 point character sheet that looks like a CVS receipt.

 

Villians in particular don't need to buy hordes of skills, just hand wave them: he's good with science, that'll do.

 

Back when Elemental Controls were a thing, I used to routinely buy a skill EC for skill-based characters, to bring down the cost and make them competitive against other similar point value characters.  Was it technically legal?  No, but it worked.  None of these characters were broken or unplayable, proving that skills cost too much.

[Duke Bushido]

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I always felt that the simplistic skills system in Hero was good for superheroic campaigns but needed to be fleshed out for heroic. 

 

were I on my computer, I could move that to where I wanted to group it, but... 

 

Anyway, there are some interesting thoughts coming up from folks that shows a bit of concensus here for this idea. 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

To this day I don't understand why, out of all the frameworks, EC was the one to get axed. 

 

You and me both.  Though for what it's worth, it is easy enough to add back in.  Yes; I know that you know that, and that your complaint refers more to it being officially axed, and I know that you can't get Hero Designer to accept it for a 6e build, but I always hope there is a new guy out there reading these threads....  That was more for him.   

 

My own "issue" (I can't say complaint because I still use both of these things the way that I believe they were meant to be used) with Elemental Control was the interpretation that the community took and ran with for both Elemental Control and Multipower. 

 

You remember the early days: we had nothing.  No settings, no modules, just the rules books.  Eventually we got an adventure or two (honesty time: the original Island of Dr D was _terrible_, and we all know it.  Christopher's rework of that piece is a billion miles ahead of the original-not just for the update, but because it is an RPG adventure and not just a war game capture-the-flag scenario.) and we got an enemies book.   We didn't even have Adventurers club or a third-party rag with any interest in us in the early days. Best of all, we didn't have an internet.  We could do whatever made us feel right about the game and not have to check in to make sure that remote faceless strangers agreed with us, and us remote faceless strangers couldn't get our kicks telling you that you were completely wrong, and therefore were not having a good time correctly. 

 

All we had were the examples in the rules, and by dribbles, in latter supplemental works. 

 

From those examples - the 'how-to' bits in the rules and the actual characters that we would come across, I got the distinct understanding that Elemental Control was more of a theme thing-- like Spiderman had a spider theme, and all of his wall crawling, leaping, and strength would fit into that, _and so could his web shooters _. 

 

Multipower, however, seemed to be reserved for characters who had single power source that they could use multiple ways:  my command of gravity waves let's me fly, repel objects, create strength-sapping zones of heavy gravity, and generate concussive waves of tightly-mixed variable gravities, doing massive damage to whatever I strike. 

 

I can use my ability to create and manipulate heat to loft myself on tightly-controlled thermals, generate blasts of white-hot flame, and create a wall of heat so intense projectiles are vaporized before they get near me. 

 

All of these are _super cool_, right? 

 

And they are _one power_.  The very nature of Multipower demonstrates that:  I buy a control, which has the bulk of my 'stored geavity' or whatever, and slots, each of which represents things that I can do with that gravity. 

 

In fact, because I can only generate so much intense heat, if I raise my forcefield to it's maximum, I have to sort of hover, because there is barely enough left over to fly; blasting someone is just out of the question.  (anyone else remember turning off Flight in mid-air, using a held action to attack full-force, and then turning Flight back on?  Anyone?  Okay; it's just me.) 

 

If you went with ultra slots, it was _painfully_ obvious that you were manipulating a single power source. 

 

The idea held for guns, too- a perinnial favorite build of the Multipower because then you could take that sweet Focus limitation as well (as you do when you are building 'the most expensive way'    ).  You have six slots, (usually Ultras) representing different ammo or different features of the gun. 

 

This holds up as evidence that you really have only a single power: Gun.  If Arkelos the Mage casts "Dispell: Gun," you are _screwed.  If the GM decides it is time for that Focus limitation to bite you just a bit, you do not have any of your slots because you lost the only one power you had: Gun. 

 

The most telling thing- to me, I mean-- was the rebate.  The rebate was _huge_ (still is) for Multipower, which suggested some significant drawbacks.  In modern discussions, when someone prooeses a 'not in the presence of X' type build where they cannot use one power when using another, or the two are somehow scaled, we recommend 'lockout' and similar limitations, which are fine, of course, but they don't offer the rebate value of Multipower. 

 

Finally, and this one goes all the way back to 1e: Multipower did not start out listed as a power framework.  It was listed as a power. (as was Elemental Control, actually).  I know a lot of you that never played 1e bought the Bundle of Holding when it popped up.  Go check it out: Multipower was listed as a power that allowed one set of points to feed multiple abilities.  Much like today; the wording really hasn't changed much at all. One set of points rolling from one power to another, or being split amongst the slots-- a single power : a multi-use power; a power that can be tapped and expressed multiple ways. 

 

So from the earliest days of Power Drain, we applied those Drains to _the whole multipower_.  We treated it as one power.  To this day, those are the types of builds for which I encourage Multipower (assuming the player is willing to accept the inherent drawbacks, of course). 

 

Now until I got online, I had no idea people bagged on Elemental Control so badly.  (I also had no idea how many people were using incorrectly, and over-discounting the powers within, but that's another story.  Well, a couple of examples: pay full price for your most expensive power and all others are half price.  Pay full points for your first power, and all others are half price.  How many people, do you suppose, had Instant Change or +1 STR as their first power at _that_ table?!). 

 

From chat rooms, then to Red October, and finally to these boards, people were constantly trashing Elemental Control.  (I would like to point out that, much like "Killing Attack is broken!"  the complaints almost always seemed to come from the "points are for game balance" camp.  I do not know if that is significant, but the possibility is strong enough that it seems worth mentioning.  Ironically, when used properly, the discount for EC didn't outweigh that of Multipower until you got up to eight or more powers, possibly more depending on how you built (you could over-pay on your control and end up paying too much for a slot with a low-cost power in it, or underpay your control cost and end up paying additional full-cost points far too often.  You want my honest ooinion?  People bagged on EC because it was complicated. )

 

Then along came- was it 4e or 5e?  I seem to remember it was 5e, but that may just be the first time I noticed it- the declaration that Elemental Control was, in fact, one single power with Multiple aspects, and that adjustment powers that affected any EC power affected all EC powers, etc. 

 

Now I have read everything 4e, just as many of you have.  I am pretty certain that I own everything 4e up on the bookshelves, including the dual-stat ICE stuff, because if you wanted a module for anything that wasn't Champions, then you had best be playing Fantasy HERO.  (For those who did not venture into the world of Kulthea, it could be a bit dark.  It could also be a bit murder-hobo ish, if you weren't careful.) 

 

Anyway, I have read it.  Yes; I saw the same trends as everyone else: Multipower popping up on lots of places I would have gone with EC, and a few the other way around.  My only thoughts at the time where, the construct doesn't really seem abusive, and Multipower _is_ easier to use, but the limitations..... 

 

Anyway we got to a point where the official rules stated that EC now has all the drawbacks that you assumed MP had, and MP does not. 

 

And I just kinda moped right out of that.  Well, there commentary.  So much commentary.  So very much overly-colorful commentary.... 

 

Some of the less colorful was "yes; this make sense.  Because Peter Parker got bitten by a radioactive spider who came back a week later and handed him some sweet web-shooting bracelets.  That is just how these things go.  Because draining his web"-shooters should automatically reduce his vertical leap. 

 

 

Anyway, as has been suggested before, "Unified Power," applied to enough slots, will eventually get you to the rebate point that Elemental Control used to get you, but it removes all the hoops, so now you can apply it to two powers.   Not gonna stop using EC, though, and you aren't going to get all of your powers modified because one got adjusted. You will with Multipower, though. 

 

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

It's the perfect power framework for fantasy spellcasting, and far less abusable than either multipower ultra slots or VPPs.

 

Gid dinged right it is!  More than anything, this is the biggest use I have for it these days. 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

In this case everyone is wrong; the player should have bought extra limbs and stretching. 

 

 

 

8 hours ago, Old Man said:

(Seriously though stretching is one of my favorite underrated powers.)

 

 

Agreed again! 

 

Dude, even an inch of stretching, held as a surprise, can totally change a tactical situation, plus the fun things you can do: ersatz Swinging, climbing, grabs and holds.  By far, though, my favorite use of just a small amount of Stretching is "Surprise! Looks like _one of us_ is in melee range!" 

 

7 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I think they could have had "framework skills".  PS: policeman could have had a bunch of skills under it, all at the ability level of the PS.  The PS increases when a set number of sub-skills increase through experience, at which point all sub-skills increase to the PS

🙂

 

 

That!  That right there!  Cascade skills are the thing for heroic or realistic type games, and I heartily encourage someone who does not write the rules (because I cannot imagine anyone thinking we need a longer rule book) to give this a try.  You might go around and gather your players' skills and create your own lists for them to have when playing, though I would recommend asking your players something like "pick 5 skills that fall under that heading that you want at that level, then pick either two each from each of those that you want at (some lower level)" or even  "then pick ten skills under that main heading you want at (some lower level), and possibly go to 15 total on a tertiary level. 

 

Shoot me, but I think that as an exercise, it would be _awesome_!  Of course, I forgot to take all of my blood pressure and heart meds today, so I am feeling much better than I have in months, with energy and excitement to spare, so bear with my enthusiasm, please. 

 

I think it would be fun to do; seriously.  I also think it would be a pain the rear to play, because there will be some aspect of police work that you or the player did not consider, and now he doesn't know how to do that. 

 

So here is an alternative:  pick X amount of skills that believe comprise your specialty in 'police work.'. Pick Y amount that you are only passingly familiar with.  The first set will be at the level of your Police work skill; the second set will be at 8 or less; all other aspects will be at (some agreeable midpoint).  This way, the player gets to specify both his strengths and his weaknesses, but he won't necessarily come up shot in the clutch because he had to create a specific list of everything he knows. 

 

When Police work goes up, they all go up by the same amount, or, just to keep it lively, all but one from each group goes up with it (players choice, of course).  You get a degree of granularity (possibly with increasing variation), and you are still reasonably close to Hero-normal. 

 

Just thoughts, and I would love to see someone try them.  I likely won't, because I took a lot of inspiration from Marc Miller and don't often play a skills-heavy game: buy skills for things that you do exceptionally well, and we will do characteristics rolls or what-have-you for things that you just know or know about.  (in supers, anyway). 

 

 

6 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I don't know about "correctly" but it's true that 5 points of Telekinesis is always going to be better than 5 points of Lockpicking regardless of setting.

 

 

 

Right up until you are looked in a windowless room, anyway. 

 

 

I  agree with the sentiment, thought, that skills are priced a bit high, at least for a superhero game.  That is why I tend to (see above). 

 

For heroic games, I find them to be about right, and I don't go o super-granular (like that guy that wants me to tell him what five parts of my job I suck at).   I run them tighter than I do in supers, but I also keep in mind that for normals, skills kind of _are_ their "special powers," so the pricing seems more fair.  Besides, I fold a few things into them, 

 

Even then, though, this is a conversation about value for your points, and points balance because costs are similar and values are not.  It doesn't make one of them wrongly"-costed, though.  Still, because the skill system in Hero is so fascinatingly devoid of explanation, the best thing I can suggest is selecting a level of breadth that you are comfortable with: woodcraft instead of survival, msybe: I can survive, build a fire, hunt game, skin it and tan the hide, and build a log cabin.  I can dig a well, read the seasons in tree bark, and the weather by the turn of the leaves.  I can walk without leaving a trail, and am unimpeded by underbrush.  I can craft a jug from tree bark and a canoe from deerskin.

 

That sort of thing. 

 

 

5 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

 

 

Sorry; wrong quote. 

 

 

On 2/16/2023 at 1:18 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Basically its a way of making sure people aren't making super cheap cheaty builds

 

That's the quote.  And honestly, I feel that stating precisely that would be far, far better that saying "use the most expensive build" and then demonstrably violating it a few dozen times in the rules ever was. 

 

It encourages the new player or GM to get comfortable with the rules-comfortable enough to identify a 'cheaty build' - and provides actionable advice: you make a build that does the thing, but it should have a reasonable price tag.  It also doesn't say hat this price tag has to be the most expensive option.  It just works better all around. 

 

Still, there is one more thought,  but not right here. 

 

 

On 2/16/2023 at 7:48 PM, Scott Ruggels said:

 

But the cheaty builds were part of the fun in the beginning of Champions, It showed mastery of the system.

 

Right here. 

 

I think we should _encourage _ chesty builds, at least for a while.  We _all_ did it during our learning phase.  We did it because it was _fun_!  We all _loved_ coming up with something outlandish (I once wiped out all my friends with a super I had built on eighty-eight points.   It was _awesome_!) 

 

I can one-hundred percent truthfully say that if it wasn't for various challenges from Jim like 'we are doing a free for all tonight.  You have one hundred fifty points to make a character, and we start fighting in twenty minutes, " that there is very little chance that I would know this system the way I do, or that I would have even been interested in learning it so deeply.  (I have to say that we never really appreciated Jim as the GM he was.  So much of what he did that we thought of as silly, or copping out because he had forgotten to prepare something, or tons of other things-- he had been gone for over a decade before I really understood how much he had taught me about not just learning a gsmr, but understanding it and running it in a way that worked for everyone-players and characters-at the table that nihht- about not just _knowing_ the rules, but totally _underdstanding_ them-- not as instructions, but as a favorite piece of fiction, to be enjoyed over and over.  Jim was awesome, and I didn't know it in time to properly thank him. 

 

 

Anyway, you can't really _see_ some of the more clever "cheaty builds" until you know exactly what you are looking for.  Or, as my gransfather once said, you don't look anywhere you don't already know a fella could hide. 

 

There are a number of reasons-famiarity with the system being topmost-that I feel we should _encoursge_ cheaty builds, even if only as a fun exercise with which one could do a battle Royale and show off to his friends. 

 

I also think it might be helpful to explain that this type of build can be harmful to a campaign, where not every player is going to be as savy as any other player, and mention that learning to "cheat" on a legendary scale can both demonstrate the problems with such builds, and help lewnr how to look for them.  Whatever else we might do, I think we should encourage it as a 'special ourpose' sort of event that is catahrticc every now and again. 

 

I still enjoy doing it once in a while, and I have ebeen playing a long time.  I learned so many things that way: Crain End (old rules) was stupid cheap; drain Recovery was more brutal than Driain Body, and for the same price.  Nothing goes with T-form like a nice round of Drain: Bidy, though.  Desolid: usable as Attack takes anyone completely out of combat, instantly.  +10 Recovery usable as attack makes you everyone's favorite teammate. 

 

These aren't particularly cheaty, mind you.  They re just a list of some of my favorites from way back when. 

 

 

On 2/16/2023 at 7:48 PM, Scott Ruggels said:

 

Besides it's always up to the GM to allow or deny, so the point should be moot.

 

Exactly. 

 

 

 

21 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Yes, exactly. Thank you for this, Duke.

You're welcome, Sir. 

 

Always delighted to make an OG Champions playtester happy.   

 

 

 

21 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

This illustrates the problem of that legalistic mind set. Why going past 4th or even 3rd edition is getting pointless. 

 

Well, you know I didn't.   

 

Hinestly, I would have loved to see the new ideas keep coming in the Champions II and Champions III type format.    You know: here are a few new ideas, and we have some revamps if you have found X to be too troublesme.  A few disads, and we thought you might like these new disadvantages.  That sort of thing.

 

Maybe one a year, and after 5 of them, release a new core rules that is the original rules with the new material worked in.  I know me well enough to tell you that I would buy bith: I couldn't wait five years for the new edition, so I would buy the updates as they came about, then I would buy the new edition to have it all organized so I wouldn't be flipping throu so many books to find what I want.  Your core system wouldn't change: you would just have more powers, Disadvantages, limitations, and such to play with.

 

4e got some mileage like that out of Hero System Almanac, but it hasn't really been done since.  One could say the APGs were kind of like that, but I read them essentially as 'here are some pre-built powers you might like" with some light advice scattered about. 

 

 

 

21 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

I would definitely allow a character to do that, out of combat.  Its not a display of power, its a plot element: you caught the bad guys and defeated them

 

Oh, I agree.  I very much agree.  But as I said: it was an example of something that we have all seen right here.  I chose this example specifically because I was confident it didn't involve anyone here; I wasn't trying to call anyone out. 

 

Barely related note: has anyone seen Filksinger since Red October shut down?  I miss that guy. 

 

 

 

 

21 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 But I do understand the complaint, 6th is so detailed and granular that one begins to feel as if you have to have it all written down and built

 

This isn't even an edition complaint.  This happened in the age of chat rooms!  When we all had free internet because those AOL disks just kept coming.... 

 

At the very latest, they could have been playing 4e.  This was a the game is the mechanics / the game is what you do debate: which is more important?  Creatively solving the problem with the resources and mechanics at hand, or mandating every mechanic be adhered to at the expense of a creative solution debate.  This was the birth of 'Powe skill' kind of debate, where we created a catch-all to make certain that no possible action goes uncharged for. 

 

 

19 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

Coming up with loopholes and abusive tweaks may have seemed pretty clever at the time,

 

 

That is because it _is_ clever.  It is players using their skull meat to plumb the depths of possibility, and teaching themselves how the elements of the game can be combined to interesting effect.  I cannot discourage that practice as an exercise because it has too much value as a method of learning. 

 

 

19 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

 

but frankly these days it's mostly a way to make yourself unwelcome at most tables. 

 

 

Also agreed.  It should not be allowed in a "regular" game, but I still think a nice throw-away munchkins cage match can inspire a lot of self-directed learning. 

 

 

19 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

I tend to doost of the writing of characters in my games. I love building and writing up characters, so it's all pretty collaborative. Some of my most experienced players come to me with starts and I tend to finish. Also I love to build system on Hero,

 

Ditto on most counts. 

 

 

19 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

 

I use variations on the skill system and a full Jedi Arts/Force Powers system built with hero. 

 

There is a guy on this board who might want to compare notes with you.  He is currently running a HERO Star Wars game.

 

 

19 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

luckily my group has decades since shed the urge to take advantage of rules and loop holes.

 

 

You still remember how much fun it was at the time, though, right?  Who are we to suggest depriving new players of those sensations when there is so much to be learned from the doing? 

 

 

17 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I never really "got" this logical train. 

 

You lost me there, Sir. 

 

17 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

Every time I bought a new edition, I saw it as new suggestions on how to play.  I guess my approach to the game was never to know/master/follow the rules but to play the game. 

 

 

Really?  You never at any point saw character creation as its own game, and sat down to see how much you could get for some minimal amount of points?  Not once?  Or wondered about a particular combination of powers or moddlifiers- never wondered enough to just try it and see what happened? 

 

 

17 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

As such each new edition was additional possibility, not an increasingly heavy blanket on my creativity.

 

Similar here, but that is primarily because I am browsing for things I might want to add to my already-extant game; I have zero quibbles about just ignoring rules changes or new constructs with which I disagree. 

 

 

17 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Ultimately I will play my powers not the game mechanics.  If the GM focusses too heavily on the mechanics (of whatever edition) then we might not be a great match.

 

Doc

 

Agreed completely. 

 

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Really?  You never at any point saw character creation as its own game, and sat down to see how much you could get for some minimal amount of points?  Not once?  Or wondered about a particular combination of powers or moddlifiers- never wondered enough to just try it and see what happened? 

 

Interesting question.  My instinct was to say, of course I have, but on reflection, I think the answer is no (to the end part).

 

I spent INORDINATE numbers of hours building things but the design was always how I could make the system do something I had seen or thought about, concept-driven tinkering (hmm, wouldn't this wild west themed villain be great with Guys and Gals minions? What if the Gals had a garter they could throw that choked you!  How would I build that?).  I can honestly say I never looked at a mechanic, or limitation and wondered how they would work in combination...

 

So, when I am struggling to make something work, I go rummaging through the rules, and I may have done that so much I have attained a level of mastery but, even at the start of the 1980s, I found it almost impossible to sit down and read a rulebook without falling asleep.

 

Doc

[Joe Walsh]

20 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

That!  That right there!  Cascade skills are the thing for heroic or realistic type games, and I heartily encourage someone who does not write the rules (because I cannot imagine anyone thinking we need a longer rule book) to give this a try.  You might go around and gather your players' skills and create your own lists for them to have when playing, though I would recommend asking your players something like "pick 5 skills that fall under that heading that you want at that level, then pick either two each from each of those that you want at (some lower level)" or even  "then pick ten skills under that main heading you want at (some lower level), and possibly go to 15 total on a tertiary level. 

 

I don't recall if you're familiar with it, but that's similar to how Supers! Revised Edition handles it. For anyone reading who may not know (and without getting stuck in the details), in Supers! Aptitudes are broad skill categories (like Academia, Athleticism, Investigation, Military, Occultism, and Technology) that characters can choose, and can gain proficiency in up to the third level of proficiency (out of seven). If they want to add proficiency above that, it can only be done through specialization. So for example, a character can't have Academia at the 4th level or above, but they can have Academia at the 3rd level (indicating broad competency across a range of academic subjects) and then, say, History at the 4th level.  The game includes 21 Aptitudes, each with a range of suggested Specializations, but adding Specializations and even whole Aptitudes is fully supported and expected.

 

On the other hand, Super Action Role-Play goes even further into broad skills with its Backgrounds (Arcane, Art, Athletics, Blue Collar, Business, Criminal, Espionage, Exploration, High Society, Journalist, etc.) Typically there are five levels of competency a player can distribute over up to five chosen Backgrounds. So, a player might assign 2 levels to one Background and 1 each to three others. Or however they want to distribute their five levels. Unlike HERO's Skills and Supers!' Aptitudes, Backgrounds basically function like old-school Traveller skills in that the value next to the Background indicates the die modifier to be applied to the task roll. Eighteen Backgrounds are included and, as with Supers!, adding new Backgrounds as needed is expected and fully supported by the game. Specialization isn't part of the game, but for those who want a more specific skill can choose one of the game's Boosts (which are similar to HERO's Talents): Super-Skill. It lets you add a significant bonus to your die throw for one appropriate non-combat characteristic check such as Disguise, Intimidation, Inventing, Swimming, Tracking, etc.

 

I like both of those systems, and prefer such systems to the totally freeform ones ("Tell me two things your character is good at and one they struggle with") and the ones with giant lists of skills.

 

20 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I took a lot of inspiration from Marc Miller and don't often play a skills-heavy game: buy skills for things that you do exceptionally well, and we will do characteristics rolls or what-have-you for things that you just know or know about.  (in supers, anyway). 

 

Me, too. Because of him, I tend to think, "Given that we have Characteristics we can base rolls on, what do we need Skills to do for this campaign?"

[Sketchpad]

In a note similar to what GM Joe said, the skill system many of you are looking for kind of exists in the Mutants & Masterminds, Third Edition system. The Expertise skill there is a catch all that allows characters to include a profession, specialized knowledge, or a catch-all for a skill that everything else doesn't cover. In the example of the PS: Policeman skill above, you'd use the Expertise: Policeman in basically the same way. 

 

Personally, I enjoy the more inflated skill system that Hero has had since 4th ed. I realize I may be in the minority in this thread, but the skill list has been something that's helped me define characters better. What's the skill differences between Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner? Depending on the system, not much. Using a more broad skill list, they'd all have science/scientist. In Hero, however, it's more specific and leans into the individual skills better. SS: Quantum Physics, SS: Physics, SS: Engineering, SS: Robotics, etc. For me, it works better. 

[C.R.Ryan]

47 minutes ago, Sketchpad said:

In a note similar to what GM Joe said, the skill system many of you are looking for kind of exists in the Mutants & Masterminds, Third Edition system. The Expertise skill there is a catch all that allows characters to include a profession, specialized knowledge, or a catch-all for a skill that everything else doesn't cover. In the example of the PS: Policeman skill above, you'd use the Expertise: Policeman in basically the same way. 

 

Personally, I enjoy the more inflated skill system that Hero has had since 4th ed. I realize I may be in the minority in this thread, but the skill list has been something that's helped me define characters better. What's the skill differences between Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner? Depending on the system, not much. Using a more broad skill list, they'd all have science/scientist. In Hero, however, it's more specific and leans into the individual skills better. SS: Quantum Physics, SS: Physics, SS: Engineering, SS: Robotics, etc. For me, it works better. 

I actually like the system the skills work on. Unfortunately for certain campaigns I do find the costs to really flesh out a character a bit exorbitant. So I create other cost structure to lay over what I think is a nicely robust skill system that can be as broad or granular as you like, in terms of the actual skills themselves. 

 

I do really like how the skills play in game, though. I'm one of those guys too who tries not to make PCs roll for everything either. Especially when the fail case doesn't effect the game at all.

[Ninja-Bear]

On 2/17/2023 at 12:52 PM, Old Man said:

 

I always felt that the simplistic skills system in Hero was good for superheroic campaigns but needed to be fleshed out for heroic. 

I like this but instead of superheroic = simple for example. It should he more simple if the GM feels that the game warrants it or complex because the game (players) want a more detailed system. Like a dial or switch to he thrown. 
 

What edition was the PS: Policeman example from?  I’m thinking for a Third edition game of having Scientist be a skill at 5pts. 

[Alcamtar]

I encountered GURPS 2nd a matter of weeks before being introduced to Fantasy Hero 1E, and the Hero skills list seemed very short, elegant and concise to me. (At the time I had never before seen another skill based game.) Things got a little bloated after 4th edition; i don't really need all the science skills broken out, or really even need to distinguish science skills from KS/PS.

 

I've recently come to realize Hero has an awful lot of needless distinction; not nearly as much as GURPS, but they still clutter up the system. Forensic Medicine and Animal Handler could both just be PS, no need to these odd professional skills to be called out separately. User defined is fine; if the writers feel that it is REALLY important for the reader to think about forensic medicine as a skill, just provide a list of genre-appropriate PS ideas. (I do love the way user-defined skills are dynamic in breadth, it is amazingly elegant.) And why do we have both EB and RKA, when we could have a single Attack power that costs 5/DC, and just let the player decide which kind it is? The powers are virtually identical otherwise. These are only a couple of very obvious iceberg-tips... I feel the system really needs an editor, and obviously I'm the best guy to do it... 😇

 

I think the skill costs for heroic games are pretty reasonably. If you are spending 150 points in a fantasy warrior, he needs something to soak all those points. Wizards mostly take KS and can cheapen those with Scholar.

[Doc Democracy]

10 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

What's the skill differences between Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner? Depending on the system, not much. Using a more broad skill list, they'd all have science/scientist. In Hero, however, it's more specific and leans into the individual skills better. SS: Quantum Physics, SS: Physics, SS: Engineering, SS: Robotics, etc. For me, it works better. 

 

My instinct is to agree with you but in game terms, what difference do those things make to those characters?  In the comics they are geniuses and all fill the same space in stories. 

 

It feels to me like the science skills are almost equivalent to the special effects that we give to powers, they don't cost extra but they give small context-specific bonuses or penalties.

 

I think they are most useful at deciding which PC might be the one who notices the important information or makes a conceptual link in the adventure.

 

Also, while there is indeed a difference between superhero and heroic genres, I still think we should be looking at ways to use skills to flesh out the characters rather than bleed them of points.

 

Doc

[Joe Walsh]

12 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

I actually like the system the skills work on. Unfortunately for certain campaigns I do find the costs to really flesh out a character a bit exorbitant. So I create other cost structure to lay over what I think is a nicely robust skill system that can be as broad or granular as you like, in terms of the actual skills themselves.

 

I hesitate to say it, but would something like an EC for skills fix a lot of the cost issue?

[Steve]

2 hours ago, GM Joe said:

 

I hesitate to say it, but would something like an EC for skills fix a lot of the cost issue?

I like using Expert for this, grouping a bunch of skills together and giving a -1 point cost modifier to each of them for following a theme.

 

It reminds me a bit of the old package deal modifier from early editions and works pretty well in saving points on skill lists from the various package deals in the current books.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I hesitate to say it, but would something like an EC for skills fix a lot of the cost issue?

 

That's what I did in previous editions.  Its not much of a savings, but its a few points off each and that can add up on a skill monster.  Going back more to more broad skills then skill levels for specific types would be a good approach as well.

 

Instead of science skills, engineering, and dozens, even scores of variants, having Science as a skill would be more useful: you're skilled at all sciences.  Then you can buy "+3 with bioengineering" as a skill level, for example.  In certain very specific types of campaigns you could have more granular skills of specific types, but the general rules could be more general.

 

Stealth could cover shadowing as well, for example.  Social Skills could cover conversation, oratory, etc.

[Spence]

On 1/18/2023 at 3:28 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

I’ve seen the 2D20 around. I think its for the newest Conan and John Carter. How are the mechanics?

 

Sorry for the super late reply.

 

Modiphious is the company and they have several games sporting the 2d20 system beside Conan and John Carter.  Achtung! Cthulhu, Dune, Fallout, Dishonored, Homeworld, Infinity and Star Trek Adventures. Cohors Cthulhu is in development. 

 

I really enjoy the Star Trek game. 

 

I am running short on time and have to get on the road or I'll be late.  I will give rundown on the mechanics tonight. 

 

[C.R.Ryan]

4 hours ago, GM Joe said:

 

I hesitate to say it, but would something like an EC for skills fix a lot of the cost issue?

I don't know. Sometimes I deal with it by simply having broader skills. I'm not the biggest fan of Science Skills, when every other profession just has KS and PS. In pulpy or superhero games I often just give the scientist "PS: and KS: SCIENCE!!!", or "SS: SCIENCE!!!" I only concern myself with more granular Sciences if multiple characters are scientists and need their own expertise. 

 

I literally uses skill enhancers too.

 

In an earlier post I described the "Skill Sets" (Spacer, Smuggler, Doctor, Bounty Hunter, Jedi, ect) I use in Star Wars, 10, 15, 20 point professions that give a PC access to a broad scope of skills based on the situation they're in. Any time during the game when they think their PC should have a skill under a Set they have they can ask to use that skill and I decide if it's appropriate and at what level (8-, 11-, full skill).

 

They can also specialize in skills that are clearly in the skill set (Spacer: Combat Piloting) by paying 2 (+1). In that case they actually write the skill down (full skill roll+1) and we never need to have the dramatic justification of them using the skill.

 

Also for years I've been giving characters like 10pts in background skills for free (not including their native language). In a lot of games this gives a PC a profession, and a little bit of Knowledge to fill out their back story with out costing the a skill level or cooler skill (I like that Shadowing is separate from Stealth now they can have both for example). 

 

So I think if someone of someone has an EC idea for Skills then probably I'm into it. 

 

I like hero as a gaming code, that we can create systems and interfaces over. The game is running underneath giving any of these these systems a bit of sense and consistency.

 

Sorry if I'm beginning to repeat myself. I love talking through this stuff. It reenforces my understanding of the game and the way I build. This really is my favorite system.

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by C.R.Ryan
For apology

[animemun001]

Indeed. I usually build heroes in Hero System 

[Joe Walsh]

3 hours ago, Steve said:

I like using Expert for this, grouping a bunch of skills together and giving a -1 point cost modifier to each of them for following a theme.

 

It reminds me a bit of the old package deal modifier from early editions and works pretty well in saving points on skill lists from the various package deals in the current books.

 

Exactly! Something more proportional than skill enhancers may be more appropriate for some campaigns.

 

 

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Instead of science skills, engineering, and dozens, even scores of variants, having Science as a skill would be more useful: you're skilled at all sciences.  Then you can buy "+3 with bioengineering" as a skill level, for example.  In certain very specific types of campaigns you could have more granular skills of specific types, but the general rules could be more general.

 

Stealth could cover shadowing as well, for example.  Social Skills could cover conversation, oratory, etc.

 

When I really think about it, broad skills like that seem like they would work great for my past supers campaigns and, frankly, many (most?) of my heroic campaigns as well. It'd even work when characters share archetypes, thanks to the option to specialize in a slice of the broad skill.

 

 

2 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

I don't know. Sometimes I deal with it by simply having broader skills. I'm not the biggest fan of Science Skills, when every other profession just has KS and PS. In pulpy or superhero games I often just give the scientist "PS: and KS: SCIENCE!!!", or "SS: SCIENCE!!!" I only concern myself with more granular Sciences if multiple characters are scientists and need their own expertise. 

 

Seems like maybe we're approaching consensus on broad skills.

 

 

2 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

I literally uses skill enhancers too.

 

In an earlier post I described the "Skill Sets" (Spacer, Smuggler, Doctor, Bounty Hunter, Jedi, ect) I use in Star Wars, 10, 15, 20 point professions that give a PC access to a broad scope of skills based on the situation they're in. Any time during the game when they think their PC should have a skill under a Set they have they can ask to use that skill and I decide if it's appropriate and at what level (8-, 11-, full skill).

 

Have you felt a need to keep a record of such decisions for later reference?

 

2 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

They can also specialize in skills that are clearly in the skill set (Spacer: Combat Piloting) by paying 2 (+1). In that case they actually write the skill down (full skill roll+1) and we never need to have the dramatic justification of them using the skill.

 

Also for years I've been giving characters like 10pts in background skills for free (not including their native language). In a lot of games this gives a PC a profession, and a little bit of Knowledge to fill out their back story with out costing the a skill level or cooler skill (I like that Shadowing is separate from Stealth now they can have both for example). 

 

That's a neat idea. It sounds like you've put a HERO spin on how some modern (and OSR) games use a character's backstory to determine some capabilities on the fly during play.

 

Have you tried giving folks a pool of "background skills points" that can only be spent when situations arise in  play that their character's background indicates they should have a related skill? Seems like it would take the onus of new players particularly, but even old hands may appreciate not having the pressure to predict every background-related skill that will be worth buying for the campaign.

 

But, there I go again, trying to apply a fix to the current system when it seems obvious that broader skills would solve the same problem more elegantly. 🙄

 

 

[C.R.Ryan]

There is something to be said for granularity in certain campaigns. The ability to have skills granularity on a slider is I think more useful then a whole sale change. I do think in general though I do tend toward the broader skill motif. Navigation just lets you navigate, Survival lets you survive unless your are WAY afield of your home terrain. Unless it's baked into the game that various characters all have different science background the SCIENCE!!! PC get SCIENCE!!!

 

This is why I think in spite of our current RAW feeling more restrictive to some people, I'm happy with it, cause I like most of what Steve has done and if I don't like something, f*#& it, I'll do it myself. 

[C.R.Ryan]

@GM Joe I don't really track what skills have been used in the past. We are an old group, I've been playing for 35 years and two of the members have been with me for 30 of those years. A lot of trust. Which of course means I can under design a bit and me and the players can work things out in game. Would definitely need a bit more tooling to realize to people outside my group.

 

I think I drew more inspiration from the old Skills in Shadowrun where you might buy Firearms, and then specialize in rifles or something. I think it hues close to 5e backgrounds though. I hadn't really thought of that, some design space to think about. Thanks.

[Christopher R Taylor]

When I really think about it, broad skills like that seem like they would work great for my past supers campaigns and, frankly, many (most?) of my heroic campaigns as well. It'd even work when characters share archetypes, thanks to the option to specialize in a slice of the broad skill.

 

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I'm gonna lean that way with my Fantasy Hero campaign, expect to see something along those lines for Fantasy Hero.

 

The exception being Herbalism (very powerful potential) and stuff like Professional Skill because that's a pretty specific thing.

[Duke Bushido]

On 2/18/2023 at 6:33 PM, GM Joe said:

 

I don't recall if you're familiar with it, but that's similar to how Supers! Revised Edition handles it. For anyone reading who may not know (and without getting stuck in the details), in Supers! Aptitudes are broad skill categories

 

I am not familiar with Supers, save having heard it mentioned in these forums a few times.   I am not shooting it down, of course-- I can't! I know nothing about it. 

 

I know that it is difficult to keep track of the details of what are essentially faceless strangers with a common hobby, so as a soft reminder, allow me to politely state that by and large, Superheroes isn't my bag.  I have played, and do still play, _a lot_ of Champions, because after my Travellers /Tunnles and Trolls group broke up (the GM's wife was military, and had been reassigned to another duty station) way back in '79, the next non DnD group I found was a Champions group, and even if supers was not my favorite, I confess to having a romantic appreciation for clear-cut good guys and dastardly villains, so as long as the story is good, I can play supers. 

 

I was never a comic book kid (gearhead for life.  Even as a kid, I loved tearing into engines and seeing if I could get them running again), so I had no serious self-insertion attraction to the settings or the characters, nor even a serious understanding of the tropes (he was bombarded with radiation and then _what?!! _. No-no-no-!  I think you misread that.  I think you meant gelatinous death via rapid cellular destruction and tissue degeneration.  Or at least cancer, and lots of it). 

 

My preference is science fiction, my heart belongs to Classic Traveller, Cyberpunk is great from the 80's interpretation of the genre, and it is tied with post-apocalyptic adventures (and what is Cyberpunk but a unique take on an apocalypse of social structure and not just the entire human race?).  You heard that right: I _loved_ Gama World despite it's absolute goofiness (up until the garbage that was 3e),  had a love/hate relationship with Aftermath, and all of our Car Wars games were straight up Mad Max.  There were two dozen other failed post-apoc games on the shelves, and I tried most of them. Pulp action is fun, but the people who really "get it" started dying off twenty-five years ago, and I can get into a well-realized non DND fantasy game. 

 

Then, after all that, comes superheroes and war gaming, in a constant switching of which I would prefer in that moment. To be fair, war gaming would win more consistently if I wasn't terrible at it. 

 

After all that, there is going to work, complete social isolation, self-mutilation, and repeatedly striking my thumb with a hammer.  Just beyond that there is DnD, and finally, when self-torture starts to seem sort of pleasant, there is LARP. 

 

After that is taking a third job, then bobbing for French fries, eating okra, and then military RPGs (sadly, this includes FASA'a Star Trek, which made no allowances for non-Starfleet characters): those games where you are not your own agent and are tasked with goals in which you have no actual interest, and then get shot and die.   It's like the retail industry simulator; why on earth would I want to do that to relax?

 

Finally, at the bottom of the bottom, like the earth beneath the feet of the elephants that support the world (unless you are one of those who believes it is just more elephants all the way down forever, you heathen, you) , there are collectible card games. 

 

The shorter version of all this is that alternate ways to play superheroes really aren't on my radar at all, but if I find an inexpensive PDF for Supers, I might check it out for the skills system. 

 

Now to be fair, I will read adventures and modules from _any_ game, because ultimately, stories and plots are universal, and you never know what inspiration you might find or where you might find it. 

 

 

On 2/18/2023 at 6:33 PM, GM Joe said:

 

Me, too. Because of him, I tend to think, "Given that we have Characteristics we can base rolls on, what do we need Skills to do for this campaign?"

 

Oh, yes.  It was quite an eye-opener, really, and it was the first time that I really started to notice that-- especially for 4e (latest and greatest at that time)-- too often, characters were being required to buy skills that one-hundred percent should have been everyman skills in their campaigns, and I started to realize that there were distinct levels of 'everyman skills' within a single campaign. 

 

Perhaps in your fantasy world "horse maintenance" is not an everyman skill.  Is it possible that it should be an every-adventurer skill?  If you find that you are requiring every adventurer to buy the same skill,  then that skill, Sir, should be an every-adventurer skill.  Any skill required to simply be in the game--

 

Let's paint me as the bad guy, because I did this one prior to having Miller open my eyes:

 

I _required_ characters in a fantasy game to buy some sort of skill to represent their ability to get food while trekking across the continent.  FOOD!  I didn't care if it was foraging, hunting, trapping, fishing, or woodcraft, I insisted that all of the characters have a skill related to feeding themselves. (my favorite response to that request was Seduction, if you were wondering).  You need to eat to stay alive and you need to stay alive to play in the game, and I was requiring them to pay for that simply because it _was possible_ to pay points for it, because the skills existed at all. 

 

That was when I began to look at how many skills that characters held that ultimately were not really necessary.  If the skill does nothing but keep you in the game (never once have we ever role played hunting or fishing or fungi collecting for subsistence reasons.  When we did, it was always about discovering (or failing to) something while in the process of doing the thing.  I can't tell you how many times a player has picked up dice to roll his hunting skill when the party makes camp, and I responded with "no need. Game is plentiful here, and within the hour you have returned with meat enough for the entire party"), then that skill is a points suck. 

 

If the level of your skill is the same as your most relevant Characteristic, then purchasing that skill is a points suck.   If it is lower than your most-relevant characteristic, then it is most _definitely_ a points suck because of Brick Fingers. 

 

No; that is not a typo.  You guys remember Brick, right?  I didn't use him, so other than poring over his 2e sheet for examples, I never kept up with him other than to note the squaring of his head for 4e, but if you remember Brick, then you likely remember "Brick Fingers: Cannot do fine work.". It's right up there with'"no fine manipulation" on Telekinesis. 

 

It is a _limitation_.  A _disadvantage_.  You can use your INT and DEX together for great feats of nimble-fingered adroit deftness, but _I cannot, as my brick finger do not allow me to do fine work. _

 

Here is a thing that I cannot do as well as my normal rolls indicate that I should.  It is a personal flaw worth character points. 

 

If you have an INT-based Skill worth less than the Characteristics roll.... 

 

No; I am not saying that the characters should suddenly lay claim to thirty skills at 8 or less and then claim disadvantages because their INT roll is 12 or less.  That way lies madness.  Or Davien. 

 

If you have an INT of 16 then you have an INT roll of 12 (13 under super-permissive GMs).  If you are being made to pay for an INT- based or even an INT-related skill with a roll of less than that, then that skill is a points suck. 

 

 

 

On 2/18/2023 at 7:30 PM, Sketchpad said:

. In the example of the PS: Policeman skill above, you'd use the Expertise: Policeman in basically the same way. 

 

It won't work. 

 

At least. It won't work as a drop-in to HERO _as it stands now_. 

 

I say that because we are discussing the problems of infinitely splitting off such things as Professional Skills. And PS: X  from HERO _is_ Expertise: X from M and M.  That is what it is for:  it is a catch-all for unspecified skills related to this field. 

 

The problem doesn't go away: a lack of guidelines on when to split or just what is covered under what, and when does this umbrella not cover that problem.  

 

On 2/18/2023 at 7:30 PM, Sketchpad said:

Personally, I enjoy the more inflated skill system that Hero has had since 4th ed. I realize I may be in the minority in this thread,

 

 

 

 

I do not believe that you are in the minority for liking it; I believe we all have a considerable appreciation for it, as there is nothing inherently wrong with the concept.   The problem is a complete lack of guidance (again, not really an issue once you realize that this skill means what the players and I have decided they mean, but still: that is considerably different from any sort of explanation or even an example of "this is too broad" and "this is too narrow.".  If I may borrow your own examples:

 

 

On 2/18/2023 at 7:30 PM, Sketchpad said:

 What's the skill differences between Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner? Depending on the system, not much. Using a more broad skill list, they'd all have science/scientist. In Hero, however, it's more specific and leans into the individual skills better. SS: Quantum Physics, SS: Physics, SS: Engineering, SS: Robotics, etc. For me, it works better. 

 

I don't know who Reed Richards is, but I have seen enough Marvel Movies to know the others.  Hank Pym was Kirk Douglas, Tony Stark was RDJ, and David Banner was some other guy.  I must have missed Reed Richards, but these three will do. 

 

Let's look at Stark.  From the movies and your suggested differentiations, Stark has engineering, Robotics, and physics. 

 

We look at Pym, and the ant man suit and the wasp suit, which the movies specify that he designed and built himself-and he, too, has engineering, Robotics, and physics. 

 

I didn't watch any of the Hulk movies, but given Banner's use in the movies I did see, he clearly knows physics and engineering, and I am willing to be that if we asked enough comic guys, they could cite examples of every one of the three (four, because of Richards) casually knocking out feats of all four of your categories, bringing this right back to 'how many of these skills was it necessary to separate and charge individually for? 

 

Please be aware that I am not saying you are wrong; I am simply asking if, between these characters, there was enough difference in their documented knowledge bases that they could not just as easily bought "super-science" and declared a specialty within the field of super-science (because I know Banner is supposed to be the most knowledgeable about gamma rays or radiation or some-such to warrant a specialty there)?  Stark buys Super-science and declares a specialty in Robotics or engineering, or maybe he has a double- major, but except for shrinking, there seems to be a ton of overlap between him and Pym (and Banner and Peter Parker, whose single limitation seems to be access to funds as opposed to a lack of super-science know-how). 

 

So does it seem more correct that each Character pay five points a whack (or whatever 6e is charging for them) for the identical four skills then buy either one up or three down to create an essentially negligible (and in the source material, generally ignored) distinction between the four, or to buy the one similar skill, and either declare a specialty, or buy a second skill for the specific specialty or- my favorite _at the moment_: buy two skill levels for use with rolls pertaining to their particular 'specialty'? 

 

The problem is that all of these are valid.  All of these are accurate.  Alll of these are rules-legal (so long as you are ignoring the 'most expensive is most correct way" rule the same way that the published material does). 

 

The only guidance is'"look how our amazing free-form skill system let's you do exactly what you want!" without even a fingerpoint in even one direction you might wish to go. 

 

Put another way: at one table, the same four skills at differing levels for these guys is perfect.  At another, it is not enough, and at a third, it is a waste of fifteen points, 

 

And all of these are correct. 

 

On 2/19/2023 at 6:27 AM, Doc Democracy said:

 

My instinct is to agree with you but in game terms, what difference do those things make to those characters?  In the comics they are geniuses and all fill the same space in stories. 

 

Precisely.  I get what you are going for, but the source material-- and in-games, the GM-- kind of invalidates it. 

 

In the source material, we know that these characters will be gifted with the knowledge of any field pertaining to the desires of the author.  I am not familiar with the source material, but I have seen that just in the movies. 

 

I saw a couple of flinches when I said the GM will invalidate it as well. Well, here is why I believe that:

 

The GM designs your adventures and he approves your characters.  He helps you build them and makes suggestions to ensure that your character lines up with what the adventure has in store. 

 

If your GM approves your hydrophobic desert-dwelling non-swimming character and then declares that this campaign will deal with ancient and mysterious forces massing in the Marianas trench, and only characters with Submarine Ops and Scuba skills need apply, everyone on this board would call this 'a dick move," except possibly Hermit, who would have a much nicer way to say that it was, in fact, a dick move. 

 

The GM is going to make certain that either your characters work in the story, or the story works for your characters.

 

Why?

 

Well, what are Skills for in-game?  Finding short-cuts, solving puzzles, and finding clues. 

 

Short-cuts:  hey, if I use my PS: electrical lineman right now, I can route the power directly to those massive servos and make this hidden gate open up, and we won't have to spend the next two hours combing the hills looking for a concealed airshaft to sneak through! 

 

That is a pleasant little windfall for the players, and shortcuts them further along.  But if no one has PS: electrical lineman?  Absolutely not a problem, because there is a hidden ventilation shaft that can be used to gain entry. 

 

If no one has Concealment?  Well, there is a narrative delay as the troupe spends _hours_ looking for a back door, (and any timed events advance that much closer), but the heroes  _will_ find a way in, with or without the appropriate skills, because the story is _jnside_. 

 

I have yet to see a GM (outside of old school DnD) who would say "well, no one here has PS:electrical lineman, and no one has concealment.  You comb the hills for several days, and the thermonuclear device goes off, resulting in a TPK and the death of over twenty-million people.  You guys suck; buy the right skills next time. "

 

If you have the right skills, a spectacular shortcut will reward you.  If you don't have the right skills, then the GM will have a less-glorious and possibly more time consuming alternative route for you, and it was probably the one he built the adventure around to begin with, because what kind of killer GM builds the adventure around the necessity of you finding the way forward with a die roll? 

 

 

Finding clues (because I no longer remember the order in which I laid out the topics of discussion, or exactly what those topics were, and the new larger keyboard I downloaded means I can see even less of the screen now.):

 

As Chris Goodwin once perfectly stated, clues _want_ to be found.  If a clue is hidden behind a die roll, then the odds are that either that clue is helpful (providing a certainty for something the character already suspects and is investigating anyway) in a shortcut-for-the-plot kind of way, or was a fun an interesting but otherwise unessential tidbit (that may or may not come around elsewhere, later), or that you haven't found that essential clue _here and now_, because if it is essential to the plot that it be found, the GM will move the clue to the next opportunity for discovery, or reveal it blatantly just before it is too late, or, depending on the kind of game you play, just as or after it is too lye, but again: if it is essential, it shouldn't be hidden behind a die roll at all,  but if it is, then it will be hidden behind a die roll for a skill or skills already found within that character group, and there will be multiple opportunities to find it. All you are really rolling for is to determine where and when you find it. 

 

Solving puzzles.  This is your typical deathtrap situation: Hailey and Henry Hostage are tied to a rocket pointed at some culturally-important building in an antagonistic nation, and there are only seconds before the rocket launches!  You must have Science Skill: Rockets to deactivate the rocket! 

 

Or Professional Skill: rocketry. 

Or Computer Programming. 

Or Security Systems. 

Or make a perception roll to notice the data cord going to the rocket and the terminal it is hooked to seems to still be uploading data. 

Or make a Luck roll to see the large red Abort button. 

Or shoot it in the computer. 

Or have your brick mangle the fuel nozzles. 

Or knock it over, and let the failsafe kick in. 

Or any of a dozen other the things the GM already knows will be acceptable, with perhaps varying degrees of success (you know: for fun!).   Maybe Henry doesn't make it or something. 

 

Still, if it is absolutely essential to advance the story, there is more than one way to succeed. 

 

In your pivotal moments-the climax of the session, that is really the only point at which a pass/fail is really likely to occur, the only point where it is all going to hinge on a roll of the Skill dice, maybe, and unless you are playing for humour or your GM is really in to the TPK concept, that one critical skill has already been determined to be one that at least one party member has a 'close enough' version of. 

 

Yes, that is all incredibly meta, but that is the tool by which we measure objectively, as well as the mindset of the writers of the source material: if Banner needs to know something about Pym particles, he just will, because it falls under the superscience skill,  but only if there are no Pym particle specialists on stage at that moment. 

 

 

 

On 2/19/2023 at 6:27 AM, Doc Democracy said:

It feels to me like the science skills are almost equivalent to the special effects that we give to powers, they don't cost extra but they give small context-specific bonuses or penalties.

 

Agreed.  I badly-stated a similar comment up-thread regarding cost complaints: skills _are the powers_ of heroic-level games.  Drop 60 points on an RKA and no one cares; that is what you do when you are building a superhuman.  Drop ten points on two world-class level skills, and it is too much.  Well, if you are playing supers, it does cut pretty deeply into your powers budget,  but if you are playing heroic, well, as long as those skills aren't just mandated points sucks, go for it.  It is your area of excellence. 

 

 

 

On 2/19/2023 at 6:27 AM, Doc Democracy said:

 

Also, while there is indeed a difference between superhero and heroic genres, I still think we should be looking at ways to use skills to flesh out the characters rather than bleed them of points.

 

Doc

 

 

Agreed again.  Now let me go a little bit into my comments about being inspired by Marc Miller. 

 

Miller ran the game such that the characteristic roll was the important roll.  Everyone's complaints that Classic Traveller had too few skills and too few opportunities to earn buckets full of them were generally because they didn't understand that this was intentional.  (to my dismay, in each subsequent edition of Traveller, to include the career books that eventually got published, Miller capitulated and made more skills and made them more attainable by the bucketful.) 

 

It was Miller's position that the character's backstory- both his service history and his history before that-determined if there was a chance that a character knew how to do something. 

 

You are going to hate that, Scott; and to be fair, it is one of only a tiny handful of pure-narativism bits with which I agree. 

 

If the character did not have the skill, then he made a characteristic roll.  It was Miller's stance that a list of skills could not possibly be assembled that would cover even a portion of what a character actually knew, and that listed skills-those skills actually on the character sheet-represented those things at which the character was exceptionally-well trained or learned. 

 

I find that adopting that idea to Hero means that 'exceptional skills' can be represented by specific skill levels, and even combinations:  two levels of 'life sciences' and then two levels of the more specific 'botany' and one more for 'plants with unusual effects on humans.' 

 

 

Now the standard defense of all the zero-guidelines rules and optional-optional-optional rules, at least since 6e published, is "well, it's it is no longer a game; it is a set of mechanics from which one picks and chooses and creates a game.'". But let's remember a couple of things:

 

One, there are no useful guidelines for what is possible and 

 

Two, it has been like this since 4e, when it actually was still mostly a game. 

 

 

Now a look at going the other way-going toward increasing and possibly hyper-specificity. 

 

There are myriad little problems, but I think the most important one is lock out. 

 

Look at the example given above: for every single skill created, you are making the rule that 'no other skill does this.'. We can have superscience, or we can have superphysics, superchemistry, super radiation expert.... 

 

Going more humbly:

 

We have paramedic.  My character wants paramedic.  Your character does not, but he thinks first aid might come in handy.  He buys that for the same campaign.  You have three choices:  let their matching costs slide, alter the cost of one, or remove first aid from the wheelhouse of paramedic.  Another character decides that he learned triage as a corpsman, and now the paramedic must buy three skills when before he needed only one. 

 

Forensics can be broken down into... Well, _lots_ of skills, taking each one out of the skill forensics and creating a CSI skills group worth over a hundred points. 

 

At the end of the day, there is absolutely no single solution that solves this problem for everyone short of either preparing an exhaustive list of every available skill per campaign, with definitions (hello, APGs three through forty-one) or removing skills entirely from the game, and let's be honest, the only reason that this solution is equally-just for all is because we will all hate it equally. 

 

 

[Sketchpad]

33 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

On 2/18/2023 at 7:30 PM, Sketchpad said:

In the example of the PS: Policeman skill above, you'd use the Expertise: Policeman in basically the same way. 

 

It won't work. 

 

At least. It won't work as a drop-in to HERO _as it stands now_. 

 

I say that because we are discussing the problems of initiate splitting of such things as Professional Skills. And PS: X  from HERO _is_ Expertise: X from M and M.  That is what it is for:  it is a catch-all for unspecified skills related to this field. 

 

The problem doesn't go away: a lack of guidelines on when to split or just what is covered under what, and when does this umbrella not cover that problem.  

 

 

I agree that guidance is important. Really, at that point is a bump of the rules or one of the game master? Could you revert to a PS skill that can be used as a blanket skill? If it works for your game, sure. Using the example of PS: Policeman, it could be used as a KS: Law Enforcement, KS: Crimes & Criminals, Deduction, Interrogation, Combat Driving, and whatever other skills the GM finds acceptable. 

 

 

 

 

[Sketchpad]

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I don't know who Reed Richards is, but I have seen enough Marvel Movies to know the others.  HANK Pym was Kirk Douglas, Tony Stark was RDJ, and David Banner was some other guy.  I must have missed Reed Richards, but these three will do. 

 

Let's look at Stark.  From the movies and your suggested differentiations, Stark has engineering, Robotics, and physics. 

 

We look at Pym, and the ant man suit and the wasp suit, which the movies specify that he designed and built himself-and he, too, has engineering, Robotics, and physics. 

 

I didn't watch any of the Hulk movies, but given Banner's use in the movies I did see, he clearly knows physics and engineering, and I am willing to be that if we asked enough comic guys, they could cite examples of every one of the three (four, because of Richards) casually knocking out feats of all four of your categories, bringing this right back to 'how many of these skills was it necessary to separate and charge individually for? 

 

Please be aware that I am not saying you are wrong; I am simply asking if, between these characters, there was enough difference in their documented knowledge bases that they could not just as easily bought "super-science" and declared a specialty within the field of super-science (because I know Banner is supposed to be the most knowledgeable about gamma rays or radiation or some-such to warrant a specialty there)?  Stark buys Super-science and declares a specialty in Robotics or engineering, or maybe he has a double- major, but except for shrinking, there seems to be a ton of overlap between him and Pym (and Banner and Peter Parker, whose single limitation seems to access to funds as opposed to a lack of super-science know-how). 

 

So does it seem more correct that each Character pay five points a whack (or whatever 6e is charging for them) for the identical four skills then buy either one up or three down to create an essentially negligible (and in the source material, generally ignored) distinction between the four, of to buy the one similar skill, and either declare a specialty, or buy a second skill for the specific specialty or- my favorite _at the moment_: buy two skill levels for use with rolls pertaining to their particular 'specialty'? 

 

The problem is that all of these are valid.  All of these are accurate.  Alll of these are rules-legal (so long as you are ignoring the 'most expensive is most cotrect" rule the same way that the published material does). 

 

The only guidance is'"look how our amazing free-form skill system let's you do exactly what you want!" without even a fingerpoint in even one direction you might wish to go. 

 

Put another way: at one table, the same four skills at differing levels for these guys is perfect.  At another, it is not enough, and at a third, it is a waste of fifteen points, 

 

And all of these are correct. 

 

17 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

My instinct is to agree with you but in game terms, what difference do those things make to those characters?  In the comics they are geniuses and all fill the same space in stories. 

 

It feels to me like the science skills are almost equivalent to the special effects that we give to powers, they don't cost extra but they give small context-specific bonuses or penalties.

 

I think they are most useful at deciding which PC might be the one who notices the important information or makes a conceptual link in the adventure.

 

Also, while there is indeed a difference between superhero and heroic genres, I still think we should be looking at ways to use skills to flesh out the characters rather than bleed them of points.

 

I think we just run different types of games. Sure, you could use a "Super Science" skill to cover everything, but, for me, that loses some of the charm of the game. One of the elements I've always enjoyed in the examples I listed is to see how certain specialties are used in comics (particularly in the comics). The same could be said about looking at the Bat-Family of characters. Each has their own method of working on a crime, and some overlap better than others. Should there be a "Crime Fighter" skill to cover everything they can do? If it works in your game, awesome. For me, I'd prefer the extra details. I believe that's where a character can shine the most. I'm not saying that anyone is wrong, but rather it's not for me (especially after running broad skill systems for so long).