So Many Statistic Check Systems!

[Christopher R Taylor]

This kind of post always puzzles me, maybe I'm just too old and too much a grognard to really understand.  People are learning to play stuff like D&D every day, young people.  They do not seem to have a difficult time learning how to use the skills, or the characteristic rolls, or the saving throws, or the combat system even though each is different.  Yet somehow when it comes to Hero all this stuff is too hard?

[Doc Democracy]

Because it comes on top of everything else and all of the scaffolding is showing.

 

HERO out of the box does no hand holding demands system rather than game or setting based questions to be answered and the does not even have the decency to look cool once it is all over.

[greypaladin_01]

3 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

Because it comes on top of everything else and all of the scaffolding is showing.

 

HERO out of the box does no hand holding demands system rather than game or setting based questions to be answered and the does not even have the decency to look cool once it is all over.

 

 

Pretty much this.   There is very little wrong with HERO at the purest mechanical level, but it completely lacks polish and presentation of a finished game.  Because it is NOT a finished game, it is a gaming toolkit.

 

It is the difference between giving someone a LEGO set and a trash bag full of LEGO pieces.  Both can be used to make things, but the guided set is going to be easier for someone to create THIS THING, the bag of parts will let you make anything you can assemble...but the colors might not match and it may look a bit clunky and weird at places.

Which is more likely to excite and interest the First-Time Buyer?    All I am saying is that for HERO to have a chance to capture new people as time goes on, it needs to have a way to cover the Inner-Workings up at the User Level.   Not hide them forever but make it so things work and can be put simply on a sheet for people to try and like and play.   Then SOME can go do Advanced Toolkitting and customize the games to their liking.

[Cloppy Clip]

I think that a big problem HERO poses for new players is the hidden fixed variables. It's all well and good to present the game as a toolbox that let's you finetune it for your own purposes, but there are some factors in the design that do need to be accomodated. Often I find that once you identify these factors you can appreciate the underlying structure of the game even more, as I did when I bumped up against low-DC Mental powers in another thread, but without the proper guidance or experience these hidden assumptions can derail a game before it's even begun.

 

So I'm all in favour of specialised presentations of HERO, that don't change the fundamental mechanics but just put some guidelines on the game for new players, to help us avoid traps and pitfalls that more experienced players would know to avoid.

[LoneWolf]

Most of the time when different methods are used it is because the circumstances are different.  In some cases you want to have a chance of a character with a lesser stat being able to win the contest, in others you want to give the advantage to the character with the greater stat.  

 

When you are making an opposed characteristic or skill roll the character with a lesser stat has a better chance to succeed.  The character with the greater roll still has the advantage, but the character with the lesser roll has a chance to succeed.  A character with  30 STR has a 15 or less STR roll.  95% of the time I will make my roll, but I still fail it about 5% of the time.  The character with a 10 STR has a 62 % chance to make his roll.  So 3% of the time the character with a 10 STR can beat the character with a 30 STR.  If I am rolling dice and counting body the overwhelming advantage goes to the character with the greater number of dice.  The chance of a 10 STR character beating a 30 STR character by rolling more BODY is .1%.   The larger the spread of dice the worst the results become.

 

Characteristic rolls will give you more variance in who wins the contest.   BODY rolls will heavily favor the stronger character.   To me this is a good situation because it gives more chance of the player succeeding out of combat, but still gives the advantage to the stronger character in combat.  
 

[Doc Democracy]

In an arm wrestling competition, possibly the definition of STR vs STR, how often do you think a STR 10 character should beat a STR 30 character?  Definitely not as often a 1 in 33 attempts...possibly never.

[Duke Bushido]

Surprise kiss on the mouth?

 

It works for me, usually.

[Christopher R Taylor]

While I agree that Hero taken as a whole raw and slammed into your face is a bit much to take, so is every other game system.  AD&D was full of rules that most DM's just ignored like Psionics and the unarmed combat system jammed into the back of the book.  But it was beloved, played for years, and considered a simple, easy to learn system.

 

The approach the GM takes makes a huge difference, and so does presentation which is why we all worked on the Champions Begins project.  We need more pre-packaged, easy to digest stuff for Hero, I agree.  But I suspect the problem is much less the complexity of Hero rules than it is the attitude and capacity for reading of modern players.

[Doc Democracy]

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Surprise kiss on the mouth?

 

It works for me, usually.

 

You have just used a PRE attack, made your opponent hesitate or worse and taken advantage of that...

[Doc Democracy]

On 5/30/2023 at 11:00 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

This kind of post always puzzles me, maybe I'm just too old and too much a grognard to really understand.  People are learning to play stuff like D&D every day, young people.  They do not seem to have a difficult time learning how to use the skills, or the characteristic rolls, or the saving throws, or the combat system even though each is different.  Yet somehow when it comes to Hero all this stuff is too hard?

 

I dont think anyone here would disagree with you but reputations are not gained through untruths.  HERO, at the very best, appears complex and difficult to enough people that it has a reputation for complexity.

 

As you say, there is probably more complexity in D&D but, as a player, you do not need to deal with that and, if the group is not a hardcore one, it probably does not hugely impact your gameplay experience.  The questions you are asked are steeped in the flavour of the game or setting rather than system.  Do you want to be an elf, dwarf or human? A fighter, rogue or magic-user? Will you be good, evil or neutral? Your choices put flesh on the skeleton these big choices provide.

 

In HERO, the skeleton needs to be built from scratch, you dont roll your dice, you choose everything and you are having to do that when you have no appreciation of what is good or bad.  The player needs to engage with what, for many, is overwhelming detail, all upfront.

 

It is not about how much, it is when the complexity is faced, the detail being asked for and the sheer quantity of it all.

 

Doc

[unclevlad]

7 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

While I agree that Hero taken as a whole raw and slammed into your face is a bit much to take, so is every other game system.  AD&D was full of rules that most DM's just ignored like Psionics and the unarmed combat system jammed into the back of the book.  But it was beloved, played for years, and considered a simple, easy to learn system.

 

The approach the GM takes makes a huge difference, and so does presentation which is why we all worked on the Champions Begins project.  We need more pre-packaged, easy to digest stuff for Hero, I agree.  But I suspect the problem is much less the complexity of Hero rules than it is the attitude and capacity for reading of modern players.

 

IMO this completely ignores the underlying reality.

You can ignore psionics altogether.  You can ignore unarmed combat altogether.  They were peripheral to the core.

 

The problem with Hero isn't at the periphery, it's central.  Some of it is, IMO, intrinsic to trying to be a universal system.  GURPS shares it;  the newbie is overrun with the details.  The toolkit approach, assembling from parts, will always have loopholes.  There's a core, IMO almost insoluble conflict between narrative and definite.  The source material has significant narrative aspects...points, schmoints.  Green Lantern's power ring is a zero phase, zero time VPP...so what?  That's POINTS, not power.  But the game can't do that, or else creates a major imbalance.  Pricing anything in the toolkit/piecemeal approach will ALWAYS have these issues;  it's simply infeasible to have everything balance.  There's implicit dynamic tension between "mechanics trumps SFX" versus "SFX is more important than mechanics."  Even making such an issue of SFX, guarantees newbie confusion.  

 

For an introductory approach?  I'll offer up stuff specifically for supers.

--eliminate Drain, Transform, and Aid, and therefore Power Defense.  

--Cut WAY back on some of the complex modifiers, or the manipulative ones.  Damage over Time.  Charges can be useful, but keep it simple...ditch the continuing charges at least.  Gestures and incantations is D&D, how often is it ever in play in supers?  Fine, keep the general Restrainable limitation.  

--Do supers games really need a complex dimensional structure?  What IS extra dimensional travel in this context?

--I'd leave the rules for mental powers, I think...but treat them as non-core.  They're very complex and potentially something to add after players and GM become accustomed to the system.

--Eliminate Multiform and Duplication...?  Or at least greatly simplify them.

 

Sometimes it's not the power or the advantage, but the sheer open-ended use.  Trigger fits here;  so might Uncontrolled.  There's a major, critical fallacy in the rules:  not all game elements should be combined.  Yeah, fine, they have the occasional disclaimer (Usable at Range can't be used with STR, say) but that just reinforces the notion that "anything not officially prohibited is allowed."  That can be OK for people with the experience to review things and say No, but that precludes newbies.

 

And the assertion that D&D is just as complex is debatable at best, and badly misleading in any event.  Yeah, when you dig into the weeds, it's got its messes.  Hero's complexity is Right There from moment 1.  Those are two completely different things.

[LoneWolf]

The way I see it is that you use a contested roll (3d6) on things that are not a direct completion.  Both characters could succeed but what you are looking for is who did the better job.  These types of rolls are often using different skills to oppose each other or use different aspect of the same thing.  For example, a character is using his perception to spot a character using stealth, or a computer programmer trying to hack into system that someone else setup.   One programmer is looking for flaws, where the other is trying to fix the flaws.  Often these contests have a lot of modifiers.  The programmer may take extra time or have special equipment he uses.  

A BODY roll is used for more direct completions.  In these types of contests, you have a winner and a loser.  You are also using the same thing to directly oppose the other character's ability.  These are usually contests where you are using raw ability without many modifiers.  The arm wrestler is pitting his raw STR vs the opposing character.  Outside of Duke's suggestion not much else besides the characters STR matter. 

 

Having both methods available allows the GM to have more flexibility in running his game.  
 

[Bezzeb]

To the OP:  I think it's brilliant that you've enumerated a few roll types.  It's made a light bulb go off in my head...

      For a future reprint of 6E I think all of these dice throwing variations should all be enumerated, named, and given little icons to be used used throughout the book so that the commonalities would be clear.  This is a serious aspect which throws off new players until they get a deeper feel of the system.  New players don't know there is a finite number of rolling mechanisms, and get the feeling it's arbitrary and infinite. 

     I routinely bring new players into hero system with good success.  As a GM I'm often pointing out patterns and deeper reasoning to which players respond well.  It would be GREAT if these patterns were put at the forefront in future publications.  Systematized.  Would help expose exactly how consistent and simple the system actually is under the hood.  They are not random, each has different mathematical characteristics which were well chosen by the game designers for each situation

 

     Now, I didn't see anyone mention that Chracteristics and Skill rolls are already identical.  Nobody needs to learn anything new in this example, and using contest rolls with no opponent - for example making a dex roll to avoid slipping and falling on ice, kind of breaks things and leads to less consistency not more.

     Everyone i'm sure knows but just in case, the Characteristic roll is already beautiful and elegant.  The 9+ (CHAR/5) is simply designed to put average vanilla base 10 characters at 11- or less, like a low level skill roll.  Spending character points to raise skils or characteristics helps there respective rolls and all of the mechanics stay essentially identical.

 

    That said, there are lots of opportunities to add a contest roll into the game to spice things up.  I once had a character haggling and turned it into an INT based contest roll, giving them an extra die for some kind of merchant related background profession they had.

 

     So I encourage taking any pcvpc or pcvnpc situation which makes sense and making it a contest roll !!  But please don't break things by fixing them. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Having both methods available allows the GM to have more flexibility in running his game. 

 

Yeah, I swap between in a game based on gut feeling; this is what should be used this time.

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Bezzeb said:

 

     So I encourage taking any pcvpc or pcvnpc situation which makes sense and making it a contest roll !!  

 

 

 

To that end, I will re-state something I do for contested rolls:

 

Many years ago we kind of figured out that this is the basis of the attack roll: one using his CV to attack, opposed by one using his CV to not hey attacked.

 

Using Concelament as an example:

 

By the rules, the concealer rolls his skill when he hides the thing,  then the seeker rolls his skill when he seeks for it, with his roll being modified by the hider's success.

 

 

Alternate:

 

Roll (11 plus hider's concealment  skill) minus (finder's concealment skill) or less.

 

Not only do I find this to be faster-  there is only one roll, and no pressure to pregenerate a bunch of skill rolls for all the hidden whatever's on the map, the dice are in the Player'a hands and not mine.  It doesn't seem like much, but there is a noticeable change in both morale and ability to cope with a "blown roll" when all the rolls belong to the Player.

 

Most importantly to me, unlike a pregenerated penalty number based on a skill roll you threw two days prior while planning the scenario, way more of the rolls are out in the open.

 

So: Players are "in charge" of more rolls, more rolls are in the open, things go a bit faster, it is not a new mechanic to cobbled on top of everything else, and it keeps the attack roll from feeling like an orphan-  Players have less quesrions about "why is this one thing like this" when the see more uses of it as a skill-versus-skill concept.

 

Things going just a tiny bit faster is just a nice bonus.

 

 

[Bezzeb]

On 6/3/2023 at 2:54 AM, Duke Bushido said:

...

Most importantly to me, unlike a pregenerated penalty number based on a skill roll you threw two days prior while planning the scenario, way more of the rolls are out in the open.

...

Huh, really interesting!  But aren't you just talking about a special form of a bog standard Skill V Skill contest?  Namely one that's time deferred?

 

I can't say i've had this happen as a GM often, maybe ever...  But the way i'd resolve it is by saying to the player who hides something for later searchers:  "Okay it's hidden, we'll find out how good of a job you did if someone ever walks past or comes looking for it."  I know myself, i would not be interested in writing down numbers for a future search.

 

And if they did hide a USB stick between some bricks where uninvolved pedestrians required a more immediate success/fail test, I'd definitely expect the player record how well they made it by.  I'm with you.  GM'ing is hard enough, memorizing pre-generated penalty values is an unreasonable ask for a rule-system.   👍

[Duke Bushido]

I am not entirely certain what your asking (sorry; I had some students this morning, so part of my mind is preoccupied with listing motorcylce repairs that will have to be made before the next round of "practical labs."), so I will try to cover everything I can think of right now:

 

Yes; it is just skill versus skill; the attack roll is skill versus skill.  The attack roll can be broken into a pair of skill rolls:

 

Attacker rolls (11 plus OCV) or less and notes,his "level of success:"

 

Woo-hoo!  Made it by six!

 

Defender rolls (11 plus DCV) or less and notes his success:

 

Too bad; I made it by eight!  You missed me!

 

This is perfectly valid as a replacement for the current to-hit system, and is bases on the current guidelines for contested skill usage that are in the book.

 

We don't do that.  Why wouldn't we?  It "eliminates an orphan mechanic," so that might be worth considering.

 

Well, for one, it is not an orphan mechanic.  It is a mathematical shortcut that resloves two rolls at once.  When the attack roll is "missed,"  the defender made,his roll roll (enjoyed a higher level of success) than did the attacker.

 

As another reason, it puts the dice in the player's hands.  That is, everything related to his attack is all right there in the roll that he makes.

 

How does it speed things up?  Well, there is only one roll.  Using the given contested skill guidelines, there are _at a minimum_, two rolls.

 

I say at a minimum, bevause under the current system, this is possible (and I offer anecdotally that it _does_ actually happen, and quite often in heroic-level skill-heavy games):

 

I made my roll by four!

 

Uhm...  I _also_ made my roll by four.  Who won?

 

Well, let's see....  I suppose we can go with the character who has the higher skill level...

(The player who's character has the lower skill level will almost _always_ balk at this).  Okay, who has the higher base characteristic for this skill?  (Not all skills have base characteristics, amd when they do, the player who's character has the lower base  characteristic tends to balk:  I paid more to get my skill up there; my character studied harder and practiced more to be at the same level!  It isn't right!

 

Okay, fine;  just re-roll.

 

Uh....  Mr GM, Sir...?  You are not going to belive this......

 

Okay, reroll again.  Finally!  We have an answer!

 

In this scenario, it would have saved five rolls.

 

And finally:  you have never seen an attack roll end in a draw.  Not once.  One player succeeds against the other every single time.  It completely eliminates ties.

 

Don'r get me wrong: I have nothing against the idea of a tie.  It suggests that the narrative should reflect an,extended amount of time or an increased difficulty resolving the task, but that is still possible via the attack roll mechanic (which, for us, is the "contested skill mechanic."  Simply see how well or poorly the character succeeded by checking his roll against his target number, just as you would have done to determine a die roll penalty in the first place.  

 

If his target number was 13 and,he rolled a 6, he had no difficulty at all finding the thing-- "even a rank amature should have taken a moment to position the couch so that the legs were pressed into same divots in the carpet!  This was too easy!"

 

If he made it by one, then,took some time, and was impressively well-concealed.  If he just did hit his target, then he was really puzzled or taxed, and only,a tiny clue finally,led him to locate hising place.

 

See, this is what happens _anyway_.  When ties are rolled, or when successes are compared and,very close, we express that in the narrative.  The narrative takes a few moments to describe the difficulty of the search, wxplaining away the ties or close levels of success (as it should), but becoming longer amd taking up more session time,in,the progress.

 

And that is on top of the time taken up by the re-roll and sidebar on the breakers.

 

The net result is a bit of time savings, and players getting to do their favorite thing: be in control of the dice (psychologically, anyway).

 

 

I hope that answered whatever it was you were asking.  If not, please, feel free to rephrase amd ask again.    

 

 

[unclevlad]

On 6/2/2023 at 6:54 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Most importantly to me, unlike a pregenerated penalty number based on a skill roll you threw two days prior while planning the scenario, way more of the rolls are out in the open.

 

 

Why should this be an open roll?  The compartment in the desk drawer was installed months or years ago.  The master carpenter spent a DAY making the compartment and the latch...or, maybe he's better and spent an hour.  Why are you ever making a skill roll for this?  The NPC that did it, is not interesting...unless you want to make him interesting, because you want the PCs to identify the guy to pump him for info, or somesuch.  But mostly?  Why bother making the roll?  HIS skill level...and the various factors that could go into it, like time and complementary skills and the base skill level for the guy...he's going to go for VERY GOOD execution when he can.  So why roll?  He can go, hmm, that's not very good, let's go at it again.  At least, pretty often.  HIS skill execution is not time-limited;  the PCs are.

[Duke Bushido]

I am not making it an open roll.  The way I do it. I am not making a roll at all.  Still, id I were to so it the book-given way, I would be making a roll.

 

There are two options: anticipate every single thing the PCs will try (Ha!) and predetermine every penalty number either by whim or roll for every possible contingency, or roll for what they actually _do_ try as they try it.

 

This has reasons as well:

 

I dont have a lot of time to prep a session.  I run three monthly, one bi-monthly, and one at the whim of the player's (the youth group, not all of whom are "driving age," making getting that group together quite sporadic).

 

I work a 72 hour week between two jobs. I still have Dad work, husband work, and homeowner work on top of that.  Frankly, they are lucky if I show up with a pre-drawn map instead of scratching them out while everyone is still getring settled in.

 

More importantly, at least to me, is that I one-hundred-percent expect my players to adhere to whims of the dice.  To me, if the rules say this is a dice off-- that the penalty the player faces is assigned by the whim of the dice, it is nothing less than bad faith to not hold myself to the same rules that I hold them.  

 

Sure; I can pick long-gone NPC's skill level out of my left ear: he can have a 2 or less; he can have a 20 or less.  But if I am going to hold the playera to a roll, then I am going to hold myself to one as well.

 

Over the years, I have recieved variohs comments-  both bad and good- about my GM style.  However, I can say with absolute honesty that I have never- not even once- had my "fairness" or impartiality questioned.

 

For the second part of the question, why _wouldn't_ I make this an open roll?  The only thinf the player knows is "this is your target number."  That tells him absolutely nothing about the character he is trying to defeat save how much he made his roll by, if I am doing it the book-straight way.   Oh yes-  there is a one-half of a percent chance that he rolled "3", resulting in his maximum possible penalty, but-  well, if that maximum is still "4," the player doesnt get the information people are worried about him getting.  We wont go into why we are worried about them knowing it, because that isn't this conversation, and because I have never seen the problem with the players knowing their opponent is good or bad at something.  It's not like they wouldn't figure it out it in short order just from the narrative anyway.