do you prefer a system simplified by fewer details or more details?

[dugfromthearth]

This is a basic game philosophy question. Do you prefer a game to be simplified through fewer details or more details.

 

Example: Attack power

 

You could have one attack power, and then have adders and limitations for range, killing, avld, nnd, comes back over time not with recovery, based on ECV, etc.

 

So a drain would be an attack with no range, avld, and comes back over time not with recovery. An ego attack would be an attack with range and based on ECV, etc.

 

Now you could regard having one attack power as being simpler. There is only one power. Everything else is just built off of that.

 

Or you could look at it as being more complicated. If you want an HKA you have to construct it, instead of just using the pre-built power HKA.

 

So would you rather have some "simplified" version with an attack, defense, movement, sense, aid, etc power set and then construct everything from those, or have the full set of pregenerated powers with their own little quirks?

 

For me, I would prefer to have a simplified system with only a few core powers, lots of adders and limitations, and then a big list of "standard" powers built from them. Much the way Fred includes examples on how to build poison, handcuffs, spells, etc. So players could just use the pregenerated powers or go down to the core level and use the raw powers plus adders and limitations.

[Derek Hiemforth]

I prefer fewer core mechanics and assembling everything like a big Lego set.

 

I'm not sure I'd call it simpler, though. More flexible, yes, and more elegant, but perhaps not simpler. A game where you could only have powers that were explicitly defined in the game, and you simply picked those off of a list, would be very simple. Even if the list was massive, it would still be essentially simple: pick a power and you're done. But such a game would not be very flexible; if you happened to want something they didn't think of when assembling the list, then you'd be out of luck.

[tesuji]

i prefer having some of both.

 

IMX having either one totally does not work well.

 

having very few basics and everything built from them tends to create very similar or homogenous results with little distinction or flavor in practice. The tendency is to take the basic blocks and build very besic components. once veerything becomes "build it up from scratch", its like the build becomes the important part. Sometimes the "build process" becomes more important than the result. (During a hero discussion i once had someone tell me, yell me emphatically, that their result was correct. The goal was a power which was 0 end in some circumstances and normal end in everything else. By their build it was cheaper than the same power paying full end all the time. This meant to me it was wrong... the results did not end up being sensible. however, they were extremely emphatic that they had done it right and therefore it was the right cost. The "build was done right" to them was all that mattered.)

 

On the contrast, if everything is viewed as an individual component without necessareily any ties to any other component with no "build" basics, you can just as easily get into an inconsistent mishmash where all you have to go on is rote memorization.

 

So i prefer most things to be built from a few basic core mechanics with a WIDE latitude for what the range of FX can do (Think in hero terms of having everything under -1/2 or +1/2 as FX fodder and even some of the 1/2ers as FX.) as well as having lots of pre-built components to pick from that are as tweaked as need be to break the mold and give you the flavor.

 

bend the system to meet your needs, not vice versa.

 

[Killer Shrike]

I prefer modularization and overloading, which is to say fewer base effects, but those effects should be highly extendible.

 

In the case of attack, I think there should be one "Deal Damage" power, with a +/-0 Modifier to determine if it is vs PD or ED, and then a host of advantages and limitations to tailor it into the HKA/RKA/EB/HA subsets, and so on.

 

Would this be simpler? No, but it would be cleaner, IMO.

[Killer Shrike]

Heck, I would have been somewhat appeased had 5th Edition just had a Blast power that you could think of as being a "Physical Blast" or an "Energy Blast" after you've determined what defense it works against, but would still call simply "Blast" (ie, just like HKA/RKA is handled); rather than an "ENERGY Blast" power. Trying to explain an EB vs PD to a noob is just embarrassing.

 

And surely HA could have been resolved similarly to HKA/RKA, so that it is a Blast with no Range, but you can add STR damage to it?

 

Thus you would have a Ranged Blast RB or a Hand Blast HB, either of which work vs Energry or vs Physical.

 

Much more consistent IMO.

[TheEmerged]

The best way to describe what I like is a system with internal consistency, built in flewibility, house-rule friendly and a LOT of *options* I can pick and chose from. And whattayaknow, that's practically the definition of HERO

[Snarf]

I think pre-made things like HKA vs. RKA makes things easier for beginners but doesn't matter much either way for experienced players.

 

For the most part, I'd prefer a carefully balanced and consistent premade power for each commonly used ability. For instance, I'd rather regeneration was it's own power instead of a form of healing, because it's common and applies to all genres, but I'm fine with hancuffs being constructed through a long list of modifiers, because it's pretty rare and occurs in different forms in each genre.

 

I still like to have a ton of options though, even if I don't want to use them all the time.

[AnotherSkip]

I like V&V and HERO, so both options are pretty good.

 

V&V has most fo the basic SFX stuff coverd and what one group of people saw as the basics for each power(lightning magnetics, Ice, Weather, Sonic, Vibratory, etc...)

 

Hero can get Very Detailed and Very "bleech-It's-vanilla-man" without a central defined concept.

 

For example Lightning powers can let you have the option to control electrical based items with a single die roll. Any noob after 2 seconds of reading his electrical power in V&V can easily turn around in the game and run this power effctively.

 

The same noob in HERO would have to concieve of the power, build the power(not very easy as there are about 10 different ways to do it, ranging from obscenely complex to heavy GM input) then pay points for it.

 

Frankly give me something with a good explanation of why it was built that way and i'll be pretty happy.

Show me the thought, SHOW me the THOUGHT!!!!!!!