Which is Better, Figured Characteristics or No Figured Characteristics?

[Doc Democracy]

19 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

but there are no *skill* rolls related to any of them

 

You never ask for a STR roll, or a DEX roll or an INT roll?  I know I often do.

 

I need to think about cost, because +1 to all DEX rolls comes for 10 points.  If half of that is skill based then you get +1 to all DEX rolls for 5 points right now, price it at that.

[unclevlad]

Those are not SKILL rolls, they're CHARACTERISTIC rolls.  You don't pay for those, they're GM's call, you can't improve them save by raising the characteristic.  In short...they have nothing whatsoever to do with skills.

[Doc Democracy]

22 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

STR, CON, EGO, or BODY

 

I would be getting rid of STR, EGO and CON. 

 

I haven't looked too closely at the mental powers (this is not a detailed game design, just a wild fancy that will never happen) but EGO is pretty much just mental defence with an increased chance of making EGO rolls, no?

 

I have never suggested ditching BODY, that is just a game mechanical counter.

8 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Those are not SKILL rolls, they're CHARACTERISTIC rolls.  You don't pay for those, they're GM's call, you can't improve them save by raising the characteristic.  In short...they have nothing whatsoever to do with skills.

 

Of course you pay for them, currently, when you increase your characteristic.

 

I see little difference in skill rolls and characteristic rolls (except characteristic rolls are everyman skills).

 

Now, to counter the claims there is no value, I would be reducing the number of characteristics, reducing the immediate complexity of the game that people constantly talk to me about.

 

 

[unclevlad]

EGO is the counter from which the effect of many mental powers is based, and yes, as the breakout roll from Mental Illusions.  It can also be used as a very plausible Power skill basis;  in fact, I left EGO in place when I edited my HD in this area.  Professional, performance, and power skills can be based on INT, DEX, PRE, or EGO, for me.  BUT, I can't say I've ever *used* it.  

 

CON is the counter for whether you're stunned from an attack.  I suspect CON is also used to offer some general poison/disease resistance, given that life support is generally ridiculously too narrow in this area.

 

Yes, mostly you could remove EGO and just use Mental DEF, but Mental DEF fundamentally feels like a power that normals *don't* have.  They can have a 16 EGO to represent strength of will...or a 7, to represent weak will.  Similarly, low CON represents the kid who's missing school all the time, for this or that...versus the one who never does.  Mechanically, doesn't matter;  flavor/background, does matter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

20 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

Which could be different from what we currently have, perhaps having lifting power accumulate faster or slower than damage, leaping etc.

 

It could be different for each character.  If you choose to buy +8 DCs of HTH damage and 8 doublings of lifting (+40 STR at present), great.  Maybe my character hits harder (+12 DCs HTH) but doesn't lift quite so effectively (6 doublings of lifting).  Unified Power works for both.  Oh look - we each get to build the character as we envision it, without one of us paying a penalty cost for having a concept that does not align with the current STR model.

 

19 hours ago, Grailknight said:

How are Grabs handled in this system? Describe it to me.

 

The abstraction is workable for those familiar with the system but would be terrible for newbies. Characteristics, even with their pricing issues, give some basis for understanding an ability with just one word. Without them you'll have a wordier and harder read than 5th-6th and that won't fly for attracting new players.

 

I can't speak for Doc's vision.  As indicated above, I would start with all HTH-based effects costing 4 points per +1 DC (whether that's a -1/4 limitation on STR or a separate mechanic if we ditched STR as a characteristic), so Grab would work like it has always worked, using those DCs  Just like Martial Grab works with base STR plus any bonus from the maneuver plus any MA DCs. 

 

19 hours ago, unclevlad said:

So we just buy EVERY skill from 11-, mostly separately???  How many points are you gonna give me to buy the skills?  Yeah, fine, if you rarely buy any, that might be OK, but my concepts are typically well trained.  And they're supers, not grunts...so *minimum* 18 DEX and INT.  I'm looking at one of em..."HTH" tough martial artist with extra limbs and stretching.  Skills?  

 

INT:  Analyze combat, analyze style, conceal, navigation, tactics.  

DEX:  acrobatics, breakfall, contort, lockpicking, stealth, teamwork

background:  martial arts, geology, mineralogy, KS finance, PS lapidarist...

 

The only one at 11- is Finance...which only costs 2, not 3.  

 

In your approach, I'd need +3 (23 DEX, 23 INT) on 12 skills...that's 72 points.

 

And as Hugh has pointed out...buying grouped levels?  They only apply one at a time.  They're not baseline.  I like those levels as finishing touches...but not to build that

 

Under my model, 5 points would buy +1 with all DEX or INT based rolls.  You'd buy those bonuses, I expect, unless your skill set was tight enough for a 4-point bonus that only adds to a subset of such rolls - all at once.  +3 to DEX and INT-based rolls - 30.  Getting PER rolls and Initiative with that would cost more (it already does for DEX, but INT remains a bargain doing two things at once).

 

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

So, on your, let's say, INT skills...are you giving +1 to ALL of them with these "levels" you're using?  At the same time?  Cuz that's not how +1 to INT rolls is now.  If so, what's the cost?  Does it apply to background skills?  Even overall levels don't apply to background skills.  Do Intellect Skills include the Knowledge and Science skills?  What about the Professional Skills based off INT, like Architect or Accountant?  Others use DEX or PRE, tho, so it can't be all of em.  And if you say, ok, cross-list them?  You're just making things messy again.

 

No, it's not how skill levels work now. That's why you buy a super-smart, super-agile character instead of a well-trained character.  Well-trained characters are mechanically inefficient under the present model.  But they are identical mechanically.  One driving force behind either Doc's initiative or mine is that the same mechanical results should carry the same CP cost regardless of the special effects.  And "my character is super-agile so he has +3 to all DEX rolls" is exactly the same, mechanically, as "my character has obsessively trained for years so he has +3 to all DEX rolls".  Under the current rules, one should have +15 DEX and the other should have +3 from skill levels. The current approach doesn't even allow the skill rolls due to "one at a time", and the cost would still be a penalty even if they were "all at once".

 

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

There's no gain here.  There's gain to

--splitting DEX into AGILITY and INITIATIVE, each of which are 1 point

--dropping the numbers for the 3 skills, and going to a ranks approach.  (Whether it's an overall NET gain is a separate question, but it does offer advantages.)  This, by and large, WOULD be the net effect of what you're suggesting, but I'd rather see it under Characteristics than skills, as would appear to be how your notion would best be implemented.

 

Your model is a gain if you think "all of these disparate skills are driven by one single aspect of the character, but initiative is not".  If you take a look at the DEX (or Agility) based skills, some are based on gross motor skills and some tie better to hand-eye coordination and fine manipulation.  Initiative might best lay with the former, but then a gunslinger might find it closer to the latter.  Some might consider it to be its own, third ability.

 

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

It feels like this is being motivated by the notion that notable aspects of STR, CON, EGO, or BODY are somehow tied to skills.  They're not.  I'll grant that the character sheet gives that impression...but there are no *skill* rolls related to any

 

I would say, rather, that it is motivated by the notion that "characteristics", "skills" and "powers" are all just labels - special effects - for various mechanics.  The game already acknowledges this with, for example, its reference to characteristics and skills as powers, superskills - powers reflecting a superior ability with a skill.  Defenses are another great example that we buy with characteristics, characteristics as powers (resistant advantage), powers directly or even a form of skills ("requires an acrobatics roll").

 

If we start with the premise that Hero presents a series of mechanics - the building blocks of a character - then characteristics, skills and powers become means of constructing a specific special effect using those mechanics.

[Doc Democracy]

27 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

If we start with the premise that Hero presents a series of mechanics - the building blocks of a character - then characteristics, skills and powers become means of constructing a specific special effect using those mechanics.

 

Preach!  😁

[IndianaJoe3]

On 8/12/2023 at 1:08 PM, Grailknight said:

The abstraction is workable for those familiar with the system but would be terrible for newbies. Characteristics, even with their pricing issues, give some basis for understanding an ability with just one word. Without them you'll have a wordier and harder read than 5th-6th and that won't fly for attracting new players.

 

I see this conversation as being useful on an SRD/SDD level, but I don't think I'd want to play it.  

[Doc Democracy]

2 hours ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

I see this conversation as being useful on an SRD/SDD level, but I don't think I'd want to play it.  

 

That is often what I hear many gamers say about HERO.  I don't think they are right in the same way I don't think you are.

 

In both cases this is a character creation issue, not a gameplay one.

[unclevlad]

If people can't understand the rules, then it's a gameplay issue.  

 

If people can't make characters with which they can connect, it's also a gameplay issue...because they'll play a different game.

[Doc Democracy]

If they can't understand what I am doing with this then HERO is not the game for them because it is entirely the same as the whole power building element of the game.  So many things there far more complex.

[Grailknight]

2 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

If they can't understand what I am doing with this then HERO is not the game for them because it is entirely the same as the whole power building element of the game.  So many things there far more complex.

 

This isn't about gameplay so much as it is about marketing.

 

HERO is a Supers game at heart and has always been linked most strongly to Champions in the gaming world. So, when we look at first impressions, newbies will want their PC to "Be as strong as the Hulk", or "As nimble as Spider-Man", or "An engineer as good as Tony Stark". And what will your system show them? Not a tangible value but a bonus to a roll. It takes 6th edition and makes it dryer and wordier and you'll still have to use Characteristics to describe the roll type. All you're really doing is eliminating high base skills because you'll have to buy the bonuses for each or at a higher rate for a group so no Figured Skills.

 

Your system does make system costs more balanced, but it lacks emotion in character creation. The RPG industry has been going for 40+ years and I've never seen a product with no Characteristics. And all of those games use those Characteristics to (Wait for it...) give modifiers to rolls. They just make it easier to visualize a character concept and certainly to individualize one. 

 

HERO's problem isn't in how fun the gameplay is, it's how complicated character creation is perceived to be.  As a halfway measure you could just change the costs of Skills. Make them cost 2 points for a base 11 or less and 4 points for a base of 9+Char/5. You can only add All Combat/Noncombat and Overall levels to the 2 point Skills but can buy up the 4 point Skills at +1 per 2 points.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Grailknight

[Hugh Neilson]

To me, the better answer is to break down the component parts so that they can be purchased separately, but retain the characteristics as the sum of those component parts.  So we have skill levels that cap out at 5 points for +1 to all DEX/INT/PRE based rolls.  Lightning Reflexes (Initiative) caps out at +1 for all actions at a cost of 1 point.  Perception costs 5 points for +1 to all Perception rolls.  +1d6 PRE attacks costs 5 points.  +5 DEX/INT/PRE costs 10 points (2 points per Char point) and gives you the related abilities.

 

If you now want to remove characteristics, you have the component parts available, but they remain part of the game by default.

[Doc Democracy]

42 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

The RPG industry has been going for 40+ years and I've never seen a product with no Characteristics.

 

Depends on what you mean by characteristics.  But there are plenty of games out there that do not have STR, DEX etc.  Two off the top of my head would be Fate and Masks.  I have only dabbled and would need to check but I think both Spectaculars and the Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG are also lacking any kind of traditional characteristics.

 

I would repeat, what I am suggesting would not remove even half of the characteristics currently deployed to build a HERO character.

 

56 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

So, when we look at first impressions, newbies will want their PC to "Be as strong as the Hulk", or "As nimble as Spider-Man", or "An engineer as good as Tony Stark".

 

You don't get an engineer as good as Tony Stark by buying a characteristic.  You get as strong as Hulk by buying STR but you add a lot of other things.  You get nimble as Spiderman buying more than DEX.

 

I think we can all agree that the gameplay is the thing. How the player experiences the power.  If the Hulk player gets a Huge Punch power and told they can lift the Empire State building, and gets to add 12 to rolls related to feats of Strength, I reckon only the last bit feels abstract.  It will feel mighty when they compare that to the 5 being added by the Spiderman player.

 

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

It takes 6th edition and makes it dryer and wordier and you'll still have to use Characteristics to describe the roll type.

 

You seem to know my system better than me. I actually agree 6th is dry.  It is a toolkit, not a game,and it reads like one.  I am a big fan of getting some games "powered by HERO" that have been suggested on these boards.  Those games might use characteristics but the toolkit should help deliver them, not mandate them, so I agree with Hugh.  Remove the black box, show us the moving parts and allow us to use them as we want.

 

Doc

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

I think we can all agree that the gameplay is the thing. How the player experiences the power.  If the Hulk player gets a Huge Punch power and told they can lift the Empire State building, and gets to add 12 to rolls related to feats of Strength, I reckon only the last bit feels abstract.  It will feel mighty when they compare that to the 5 being added by the Spiderman player.

 

 

Therein lies the disconnect in a nutshell.  Because Grail and I might accept your "gameplay is the thing"...but what you appear to mean by it, and what we mean, are not the same.  There's a cognitive dissociation that's a Bad Thing...particularly with STR, which is a very concrete, measurable, comparable value.

 

But we've beaten this to death, brought it back, and beaten it some more.  

[Doc Democracy]

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Therein lies the disconnect in a nutshell.  Because Grail and I might accept your "gameplay is the thing"...but what you appear to mean by it, and what we mean, are not the same.  There's a cognitive dissociation that's a Bad Thing...particularly with STR, which is a very concrete, measurable, comparable value.

 

I could take exception to that "might" but I believe you are not trying to say I am talking in bad faith, so I won't.

 

I don't know your gaming circumstances but my group play a variety of games, HERO is part of the rotation.

 

I have a LOT of feedback on HERO and have been adapting my presentation of the system over and over again to help my friends get to the gameplay.  Too often they get stuck in the numbers all over the place or simply play their character sheet rather than the character.

 

Everything I have done with the system is about delivering gameable content.  What you are calling cognitive dissonance appears all over the game system and I call separating mechanics from game effects. I have gone a long way down the path of stripping numbers from the character sheet until only a fraction of the system is visible in play. 

 

However I probably have my own holy grails I would be unwilling to give up.

 

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

But we've beaten this to death, brought it back, and beaten it some more.  

 

You are correct.  I will forbear adding to the binfire we have created.

[Hugh Neilson]

11 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

There's a cognitive dissociation that's a Bad Thing...particularly with STR, which is a very concrete, measurable, comparable value.

 

 

Is it measurable?  Two characters have STR 75 and 80.  The player with 80 STR is told that his character is twice as strong.  The lift backs that up. The damage is only 1d6 higher - an average roll of 56 versus 52.5.  Twice as strong?  If they face off in a feat of strength (tog-o-war?  arm wrestle) it's probably resolved with opposed STR rolls (for which the doubly strong character gets only a +1 bonus) or "count the BOD" on 16d6 vs 15d6.

 

Shouldn't the "twice as strong" character win virtually all the time?  Cognitive disassociation.

 

Most games have these issues to some extent so that results are not preordained.  Certain;y d20 sees it when a +7 bonus rolls a 3 and fails, and a - bonus rolls a 20 and succeeds.  Rolls resolved by 3d6 reduce that dissonance, but do not eliminate it.

[Grailknight]

I'll sum up my feelings and bow out also.

 

There is merit in Doc and Hugh's ideas. More system balance is a good thing.

 

But I feel they are diving too deep into the mechanics and losing the passion. They're writing for The Advanced GM Guide while I'm working on the Player Handbook.

[Chris Goodwin]

Breaking down everything into abstractions is a good idea... in the abstract. 

 

But we're people, who don't think about these kinds of things in the abstract.  We're playing a game in which our "playing pieces" are intended to represent people. 

 

We're not playing a physics engine or a biology simulator.  I'm fond of saying "good enough is good enough", and I think that what we've got in 6e is good enough.  The mix of stats and the breakdowns and all. 

 

If we keep breaking everything into pieces parts, you could have a character who can lift 12.5 tons but can't damage a normal person by punching them, but I can't imagine a person (which is, again, what our playing pieces are supposed to be) who can do that. 

 

It's nice to keep some concrete representation.

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Breaking down everything into abstractions is a good idea... in the abstract. 

 

But we're people, who don't think about these kinds of things in the abstract.  We're playing a game in which our "playing pieces" are intended to represent people. 

 

We're not playing a physics engine or a biology simulator.  I'm fond of saying "good enough is good enough", and I think that what we've got in 6e is good enough.  The mix of stats and the breakdowns and all. 

 

If we keep breaking everything into pieces parts, you could have a character who can lift 12.5 tons but can't damage a normal person by punching them, but I can't imagine a person (which is, again, what our playing pieces are supposed to be) who can do that. 

 

It's nice to keep some concrete representation.

 

While I think it should be possible to buy the component parts separately, at a comparable total cost, I would not favour losing the characteristics in their entirety. If someone envisions a character whose lifting ability and HTH damage do not follow the progression of the STR chart in lockstep, why should that character not be possible to create?

 

We already allow for INT rolls to be bought up separate from PER rolls, initiative separate from DEX rolls, PRE skills and PRE attacks.  Most components of characteristics can be purchased in other ways.  Why not extend that to all components, and make the pricing equitable?

[unclevlad]

I CAN buy HTH damage separate from STR.  I *do*...almost ALL the time.  For every 5 points of STR over 20, I'll pay for either 1 MA DC (HTH) or a d6 of HTH.  It's trivial.

[Hugh Neilson]

14 hours ago, unclevlad said:

I CAN buy HTH damage separate from STR.  I *do*...almost ALL the time.  For every 5 points of STR over 20, I'll pay for either 1 MA DC (HTH) or a d6 of HTH.  It's trivial.

 

It's not trivial if you want extra Escape, Grab, etc. (not just +xd6) for a character lacking MA maneuvers.  At best, No Lift is a -1/4 limitation on STR, so 4 points.  That costs END, which highlights the discount price of MA DCs.

[unclevlad]

Then buy MA maneuvers.  They work massively better anyway.

[Hugh Neilson]

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Then buy MA maneuvers.  They work massively better anyway.

Sounds like "they are also markedly underpriced for their utility".

[unclevlad]

<shrugs>  That's your take.

[Ninja-Bear]

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Sounds like "they are also markedly underpriced for their utility".

Well, I thought the argument was that STR itself was underpriced and that caused the pricing issue. If STR was costed at 2 pts I believe then MA would be fine. And If I recall, the reason was that STR was so cheap was twofold. 1) Because of point totals you wanted STR cheap. 2) Because most Heroes had STR higher than Normals, being SuperHeroic, it was easy to have people like GL and such to be stronger than normals for a few points.