Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

[Mentor]

This is a tangent to Zornwil's excellent thread on the purpose of a system. I would like to explore why players play a particular game system.

 

Why Hero rather than GURPS, or Rifts, or D&D, for example. Likewise, I wonder what causes players who say that they like the Hero system to constantly tinker with the rule system.

 

My approach is that like any game or sport, Hero is a set of rules which challenges a player to accomplish a specific task or set of tasks within the confines of the parameters enumerated by the character stats, rules and randomized by dice and declared actions.

 

Thus while action is limited by the rules and "playing field", the actions and ability of the player do make enough of a difference that the GM must take them into account or there is no need for players. Whether it is a Champions hero doing a move through and accepting damage to themselves to hurt the bad guy or a football quarterback calling a gimmick play to offset the defensive strength of an opponent, it is how well a player succeeds within the confines of all parameters of the game that determines success. While a basketball player might lament that he can hit three point shots all day if only nobody were allowed to guard him and justify that he and his buddies would enjoy a higher scoring game more than the lower scoring ones, that doesn't mean basketball is broken. Likewise, numerous gamers over my 25+ years experience have fiddled with damage charts, hit charts, critical charts, magic systems, skill and power increase tables and so on in order to better reflect reality/their concept of ability/a certain sci fi or fantasy universe etc. Likewise, I have seen dozens of attempts at a sort of "unified hit/damage/defense/saving throw theory" which have been about as successful as the quantum version.

 

Anyway, I and to a large extent my group's players accept the Hero rules mostly as written as the limits of construction and combat, but also accept the suggestions in the rules that some things are not necessarily mathematical precise or determinative. This particular structure, that is either a lack of randomness for certain things on the part of the GM or the lack of perfectly quantifaible progression, seems to really bother some players, including some within our own group, while other could care less. I don't know why.

 

Utimately I come down on both sides of a philosophical fence. One side says play the game as constructed and accept the mental challenge presented by your discomfort making victory all the sweeter. The other side, of course, is that the rules are guidelines and not holy writ so you are the GM or you are running the character so play the concept and SFX and then let the rule definitions cover them as best agreed upon by player and GM.

 

 

To conclude (yay, finally, you say:D ) the Hero rules, IMHO aren't broken, because no set of rules is pefectly representative of reality, mathematically consistent, or sufficiently all encompassing to have predicted everything.

 

I am intersted in the views of other GMs and players.

[zornwil]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

"Likewise, I have seen dozens of attempts at a sort of "unified hit/damage/defense/saving throw theory" which have been about as successful as the quantum version." - Yes, I guess you nailed it...though I feel offended as one of those "unified theory" provocatuers (just joking!).

 

First, let me commend you on boldly discussing the more gamist aspects of not jsut the system but actually PLAYING the system where many have tried to get away from that.

 

To respond to that first, I think one dirty little secret, as you make me think about it, is that many GMs and groups change rules because "they're too hard" which means "I can't play them well!". We can dress it up in verisimillitude or claims of broken mechanics, but often it's things like "Phooey on that rule, I don't understand it and/or I can't figure out how to make it work the way I want." Which is perfectly okay, but we ought to admit it, I suppose. And we ought to be careful we're not ruining someone else's fun in a group or actually tearing at the core of the game (unless we really also want to do that and face the consequences).

 

I am that way about Autofire. Just never much liked it and it feels like it rips things to shreds too easily. It's primarily a kneejerk response, and I just say "take AoE and more damage." However, if someone ever really wanted to play it I'd revise, it's just that nobody's asked when I've pointed out at campaign starts that I just don't like messing around with Autofire (as a GM). (Which is interesting, as now I have to sit down and actually overcome my avoidance since I'm writing a system and I really MUST address it in SOME fashion given it's over-the-top swashbuckling action, so you have to have something like that)

 

I can tell you what I like about HERO's mechanics...consistency. It was the first game system I really intuitively understood and, while I certainly tinkered with it, I felt I was tinkering "correctly". This just came up in referencing vis-a-vis M&M, and, without reference to that system specifically, I find too many systems (as mentioned elsewhere with GURPS) require lots of learnings and lots of interdependencies to do things (I was glancing and it seems M&M v2 "fixed" (i.e., made it as I like!) this, but in M&M v1, anyway, it really bugged me that to get some skills you had to buy other ones as prerequisities, without a specific visible hierarchal model, making it complicated). Many systems with powers aren't nearly as building-block oriented as HERO, either. I absolutely adore Savage Worlds' combat system, but their way of creating powers is less rationalized than HERO's, as is GURPS - IMHO, anyway.

 

And that's where I tend to get hung up on HERO as "broken" in places, where it violates that sense of consistency. Among other things, but that is normally my first focus.

 

You mentioned something else, the tinkering...I am by nature a tinkerer. To add to my mentioning of Dogs in the Vineyard in nearly every other thread, I fought my instinct to tamper whatsoever with the mechanics as they're quite elegant and rather pointed, i.e., I can see how you easily start messing up the game itself if you mess with any of the mechanics, but I ended up tampering with the setting because the book allowed for that. I wrote a note to Baker about the setting I had written for it, and he was nice enough to write back and indicate he liked it but asked why I did it the way I did, and in some part I had to admit, I just HAVE to tinker and the door was opened somewhere for that.

 

And I think HERO does indeed encourage it. First of all, its actual vision as a game is quite agnostic, moreso than Savage Worlds and Mutants and Masterminds and Silver Age Sentinels. Its parameters for how you play supers or other genres is quite broad, it basically just assumes you must do something fairly action-oriented and that your heroic characters are at least somewhat heroic or "anti-heroes" as fiction goes (the system is a bit too abusable for villainous characters, I believe, but that's okay since when I play villains I WANT to allow for that, I want mean cruel catharsis! ) and it presumes action (I think, this could be hotly debated) on a scale from just somewhat realistic cinematic to somewhat over-the-top. Anyway, the point is that it is agnostic about how you make your game within those (or similar) broad parameters, and that fits my play style AND allows by its nature for somewhat broad tinkering, since that loose basis means the rules themselves have to allow for broad play experiences and thus the core isn't going to be so fragile (unlike a single-purpose game or a game with very specific mindsets about how heroes or worlds are).

 

Second, as I said, it's consistent at its core, and consistent mechanics are much easier to tinker with, because the results tend to be more easy to see. I won't pretend that unintended consequences can't and don't occur, but I feel that with some thought they're rarer in HERO for a tinkerer and when they occur they're also fairly easy to patch at least temporarily in actual play.

 

Did I address what you're talking about Mentor? (Feel free to say no or ask more questions! Sometimes these issues are esoteric enough a point is easily missed) Sorry I can't rep you yet, out for the 24 hours.

[schir1964]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Hero was the first "Point Build" system I was exposed to. It's consistency is was stood out to me. Yes, I'm one of those that is hung up on consistency. Thus it's also why I like try to make the system even more consistent.

 

However, I'm not a tinkerer. (BTW: I've got this bridge over in california I'm trying to sell, it's painted a nice gold...)

 

Anyway, I've even joined a group where I try discover the consistencies and inconsistencies of the system and hope to come up with more consistent mechanics in the hope of improving the system.

 

Sidenote: The purpose of a game system (Hero) is to attempt to approximate the source material to a degree to give the feel of that source material. Those who play such game systems will have varying reasons for doing so. Whether they want that feeling of being the hero, or in my case playing the part of a character who strives to do the right thing (Champions style), or even win by doing what must be done (Dark Champions style), as long as they can get enjoyment out of it, that's what drives it. There are even those who don't care for the game system, but enjoy just getting together with thier friends, and that's what gives them thier fun, so to speak.

 

Interesting topic.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[sinanju]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Why Hero rather than GURPS' date=' or Rifts, or D&D, for example. Likewise, I wonder what causes players who say that they like the Hero system to constantly tinker with the rule system.[/quote']

 

I play Hero system--when I do--for several reasons.

 

1. It's the best superhero game system I know of, vastly superior to GURPS in that regard. GURPS is fine for normal humans, but the Superpowers/Psionics rules are badly broken and always have been. I hear good things about M&M, but as a D20-based system, I simply have no interest in it.

 

2. It's what the PbEM games I participate in are run with, so I use the rulesets the GMs want to use.

 

3. It's well-suited to PbEM games. The slowness of the combat resolution system (in my experience, excruciatingly slow) isn't a problem in an email-based campaign. Which is why I am currently ONLY playing Champions by email. Face-to-face games in my gaming group have never lasted long.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Hero was the second point build system I was exposed to (the first being The Fantasy Trip by Steve Jackson - the proto GURPS)

 

It was the first game system I found that incorporated disadvantages. It also had a cool meta-system for defining new ones (frequency/severity) on the fly.

 

I play it primarily because it lets me construct a character that is closer to my imaginary concepts than any other, and in a concrete fashion.

 

In essence, it's become my native language in RPG-speak. Fluency counts if you have anything to say.

[Mentor]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

"Likewise, I have seen dozens of attempts at a sort of "unified hit/damage/defense/saving throw theory" which have been about as successful as the quantum version." - Yes, I guess you nailed it...though I feel offended as one of those "unified theory" provocatuers (just joking!).

 

>> too much good stuff to repeat<<

 

Did I address what you're talking about Mentor? (Feel free to say no or ask more questions! Sometimes these issues are esoteric enough a point is easily missed) Sorry I can't rep you yet, out for the 24 hours.

I hope I didn't sound offensive.

Some day someone may come up with a real successful formula and I would have egg on my face if I denigrate the concept too much.

 

I really appreciate your comments on consistency and the tinkering aspects, Zorn. I certainly fall into the category of skipping over rules that are too complex for me to want to deal with at the time, then players in our campaign, like Dangerous Dan who likes esoteric builds or Blackjack to whom the minutae of legalistic detail is meat and drink come up with these great uses of the "hard" powers and force my hand.

 

Neither do I consider either the tinkerers or the unifiers intrinsically wrong. I guess my approach just one more based on a gaming "chaos theory" which assumes that player decisions and actions, good or bad, will destroy any premise of mathematical balance, predictability, directional flow or any other design assumption made by the GMs. Our team has almost gotten taken out, with only Z'lf sneaking up the rafters to rescue us later, by mediocre enemies and gloriously defeated Eurostar while separated and ambushed. Even the dice didn't account for those random events.

 

Your answers were great and only brought up more questions for discussion, which is in the nature of good conversation.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

HERO is one of my two favorite systems. Oddly enough, it's almost completely opposed, philosophy-of-game-design-wise, with my other favorite (Amber Diceless).

 

In any case, why HERO when I have the option to chose?

 

First, I am a tinkerer, both in the physical sense (building things, improvising things, etc.) as well in the more abstract sense...I'm a programmer, after all. (Computer programming is, in the end, nothing more than the world's best LEGO or Erector set! ) In the RPG arena, HERO fills that need/urge I have to be able to build / tinker / program. It's a point-build system with a ton of nifty options. Every time I sit down with the book, I feel like a kid in a candy store!

 

I also like structure. A lot. (There's the mathematician in me coming out. ) HERO lets you define things in the amount of detail you want, and you can tell just how one power matches up against another in terms of "will it work against it / will it be helpless vs. it", etc. I'm not a slave to the rules by any means, but I do like having the tools & options available to me.

 

And while I do enjoy D&D as well (it's the game that I started RPGing with, back in 1979) I suck at dice rolling, esp. during character creation. Having a system where I buy or build my character, exactly as I want it, and without having to worry about crappy die rolls giving me a character with substandard abilities, is extremely appealing.

 

I love superhero comics (or did, pre-1986 or so) and still love the genre. HERO is, in my experience, the best system for letting me play in that kind of world with the sort of feel that I'm looking for. Obviously, for other people, a different system may work better for giving them the feel they are looking for; but for me, HERO does it best.

 

I like the fact that when you buy powers, what you're buying is a generic framework that you then dress in the SFX of your choice. I like that ever so much better than things like the Marvel or DC rpgs where you buy "flame blast" or "ice blast" or whatever. With HERO, you have pretty much an infinity of powers available to you, of whatever kind of SFX you can want or envision.

 

I like the fact that it can be used to play other type of games, other genres, and have in fact used it for that (Dr. Who / Time Lord campaigns, fantasy campaigns, a Stargate campaign, and so on). Superheroes is the biggest attraction, but it can do the others as well. So why do I use it for these other genres if I think it might not do them as well as it does supers? Because I'm comfortable with it. I know it quite well. When needing to make judgment calls on the fly, I'm perfectly capable of doing so without feeling like I need to stop every 10 minutes and look something up. Plus, on those occassions where I need to cross genres (an SF-based campaign that, via a dimension breach, winds up where magic works) then anything written in or for that other type of genre plugs in, pretty well seamlessly, using the same game mechanics. I don't have to worry about adapting materials, write-ups, or rules from one game system into the one I'm using for the current campaign.

 

That's the sort of thing that d20 has tried to do since the release of D&D 3.0 -- Urban Arcana, d20 Modern, and so on -- but I still think HERO does it better. But then, I'm biased.

 

So, if I were to try and boil all that down, what would I get?

 

A system with all the structure I want, all the tools I need for tinkering, all the complexity and options that I need or want, and one that fulfills the feeling I'm looking for when emulating my favorite comic books.

 

A system by itself may not equal "fun", but one like HERO is a heck of a good foundation to use when building "fun".

[Mentor]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Hero was the first "Point Build" system I was exposed to. It's consistency is was stood out to me. Yes, I'm one of those that is hung up on consistency. Thus it's also why I like try to make the system even more consistent.

 

However, I'm not a tinkerer. (BTW: I've got this bridge over in california I'm trying to sell, it's painted a nice gold...)

 

Anyway, I've even joined a group where I try discover the consistencies and inconsistencies of the system and hope to come up with more consistent mechanics in the hope of improving the system.

 

Sidenote: The purpose of a game system (Hero) is to attempt to approximate the source material to a degree to give the feel of that source material. Those who play such game systems will have varying reasons for doing so. Whether they want that feeling of being the hero, or in my case playing the part of a character who strives to do the right thing (Champions style), or even win by doing what must be done (Dark Champions style), as long as they can get enjoyment out of it, that's what drives it. There are even those who don't care for the game system, but enjoy just getting together with thier friends, and that's what gives them thier fun, so to speak.

 

Interesting topic.

 

- Christopher Mullins

Good point on the point build issue. I too spent my early gaming years rolling dice to determine characteristics and even class. I am also very guilty of the "I follow the rules and define the environment exactly according to the book...well except for...

 

The only real departure I have is that if something not entirely consistent is more fun for for a specific player or more glorious for a specific character, and doesn't overbalance the campaign or shortchange the other players (a nonsystemic hand wavy call if ever there was one:D ) then we go for it, but by consensus as there are 5 GMs involved in our campaign.

[Mentor]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

HERO is one of my two favorite systems. Oddly enough, it's almost completely opposed, philosophy-of-game-design-wise, with my other favorite (Amber Diceless).

 

"Edited for space"

 

So, if I were to try and boil all that down, what would I get?

 

A system with all the structure I want, all the tools I need for tinkering, all the complexity and options that I need or want, and one that fulfills the feeling I'm looking for when emulating my favorite comic books.

 

A system by itself may not equal "fun", but one like HERO is a heck of a good foundation to use when building "fun".

Your last sentence nails it perfectly and should be a sig.

 

--I still have to spread some Rep around before can get you, Doc--

[zornwil]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

(snip)

 

In essence, it's become my native language in RPG-speak. Fluency counts if you have anything to say.

 

This alone is a fascinating note. "Fluency" is an interesting issue in RPGs. First, the fluency in general RPG-speak, which just barely exists as a workable vocabulary. I mean, there's a lot there that we understand among systems, but when we speak at a higher level about play experiences, game theory, and the like, we haven't much of a vocabulary at all. Not a bad thing, at this point, as the art is merely 30 years old, essentially, but it is an issue.

 

But more so in terms of what you reference, a "native language", just as the d20 crowd has, a way of expressing game mechanics. I sense a rebellion against the very notion by boutique designers, but I might be wrong, since they readily use terms like "stats" and don't seem rebellious against that, but anyway the point is that there are some frameworks, and inherited from D&D are some very general ones which don't exist in every game but everyone basically knows (like "stats").

 

Anyway, pardon my rambling, but there is this non-exclusive subculture that exists for each reasonably major game system and the language we use in those subcultures influences how we even view gaming, as you say it is "native" to us. And I think, while it facilitates ready understanding, it does also staunch, as all cultural traits tend to, the "us" vs. "them" feel or at least that misunderstanding potential among the subcultures.

 

I'm not going anywhere here...I'm just reacting because you raise an interesting and ultimately critical thought.

[zornwil]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

I hope I didn't sound offensive.

Some day someone may come up with a real successful formula and I would have egg on my face if I denigrate the concept too much.

 

I really appreciate your comments on consistency and the tinkering aspects, Zorn. I certainly fall into the category of skipping over rules that are too complex for me to want to deal with at the time, then players in our campaign, like Dangerous Dan who likes esoteric builds or Blackjack to whom the minutae of legalistic detail is meat and drink come up with these great uses of the "hard" powers and force my hand.

 

Neither do I consider either the tinkerers or the unifiers intrinsically wrong. I guess my approach just one more based on a gaming "chaos theory" which assumes that player decisions and actions, good or bad, will destroy any premise of mathematical balance, predictability, directional flow or any other design assumption made by the GMs. Our team has almost gotten taken out, with only Z'lf sneaking up the rafters to rescue us later, by mediocre enemies and gloriously defeated Eurostar while separated and ambushed. Even the dice didn't account for those random events.

 

Your answers were great and only brought up more questions for discussion, which is in the nature of good conversation.

Not in the least offensive, not at all, I was truly joking re that no worries, though I would indeed fit that, and do so with pride, however...

 

I really love that you brought up this "chaos theory," and how, I think, ALL good GMs (heck, and players of course) have to weigh this in, intuitively, when gaming, and moreover how there's also a point here that "system <> game reality" and that we, all of us, wing it and suspend rules habitually in play for all sorts of good reasons. This relates back to consensus...the group has a consensus on how it thinks things should work, and groups readily gloss over rules or use rules differently than other groups might (e.g., one group might enforce skill rolls at frequent junctures, while another group only does so at the very most dramatic moments, one group might gloss over a big damage roll, saying "okay, he's out," while another might want excruciating detail). It relates back in the same vein to another post I made in General Roleplaying as to "rules light" or "rules-regardless" play (on a somewhat extreme end of the spectrum) - to the extent a GM and group like to play a certain way, that is paramount - as it ought to be.

 

Anyway, the point here really is that there's solid reasons to be insistent on "no house rules, but 'arbitrary' GM rules throughout," particularly when and where a group has a strongly developed consensus already, because of course that is where the rules really exist, in that consensus.

 

I wrote to a couple game designers and on these boards about my own feeling that no game designer can really impart their absolute pristine 100% vision, that no game system will truly see play experience precisely as intended. Jared Sorenson wrote back that he sees the importance not in completeness (as measured by the rules being all that are needed, no more no less) but in coherency, which I like very much. The more coherent the game, the more easily a group of people can adopt it and use it and the more likely the vision comes across. And the more easily it enables the group consensus to meld with it, assuming of course the group consensus shares an ability to play with this game at all.

 

Now, back to your point, all this speaks to that "chaos theory"...and how we understand and play to that, how we actually make a game truly work, because as you say no system can really do that on its own, the players must perform a task (which makes this one of the most exciting art forms, in my mind, in existence), a task well beyond simple consumption and regurgitation.

 

To extend your thoughts, a game can indeed be perfectly run with system + chaos engineering, if you will, and your approach is not just sound, it's rooted in the deepest traditions of our craft, the way we all had to do it when we started. And you raise the issue we ought not neglect. In fact, you could argue that a GM needn't master consistency (i.e., house rules, really, that's what they are, a way of consistently translating how the GM/group wants things to work) but rather could master this chaos engineering, and indeed we all know it can be done with different rulings in different situations but quite apropos to moving the game along AND (importantly) fulfilling the needs of the GM and player in envisioning the game world.

 

An excellent discussion indeed, thx Mentor.

[tesuji]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

I tinker with any ruleset i use. Always have and always will.

 

My approach is that like any game or sport, Hero is a set of rules which challenges a player to accomplish a specific task or set of tasks within the confines of the parameters enumerated by the character stats, rules and randomized by dice and declared actions.

 

This view is about 180 degrees opposite of my view. Thats Ok tho, since everyone games for their own reason.

 

I specifically DON'T want the system to challenge the players. I don't want "doing an action" to be the hard part. I don't want "building the character" to be a challenge at all. The goal of the game is not to get the players to be better with numbers or better with chargen or best at picking combat manuevers.

 

To me, those are all fine and dandy goals for a wargame and they are bad goals for an RPG.

 

Wargames are fun and i love wargames, dont get me wrong.

 

For me the gaols of the system are basically to establish an easy shorthand between player and Gm as to what traits a character has and what's reasonable and unreasonable within the setting for the game. To be "good" at this, there are several things the system must do:

 

1. Have quick chargen without a lot of upfront learning required so that new players can get started quickly. I really DO NOT WANT to see there being a NOTICEABLE difference in capability/power/impact of the character between a new player's character generation and an experienced player's.

2. be as intuitive as possible, with "what does this do?" bveing most oftern obvious just by looking at a trait or maneuver

3. have pretty consistent internal mechanics so that once you learn a single (optimally) resolution mechanic you have the basics down. Also, the "odds" in a general sense, and hopefully even a specific sense, should be obvious to even players without strong math skills, so they can know "this is a desparate move" or "this is likely to succeed." and they have a decent knowledge of what a "penalty" or a "bonus" is doing to their odds.

4. at nearly every point in the process, with style and text flavor and trait names and the like, push the setting style and theme and spark character ideas and story ideas. The new player's first read thru chargen should not leave him thinking of numbers and trait values or emphasize optimization but of characters and stories and excited to get playing.

 

In play the system should allow and make easy to resolve events, scenes, actions in keeping with the themes common to the chosen setting.

 

As such, i tend to choose game system after i have chosen game setting. I choose the best system for running the setting and tweak it for my specific needs.

 

As for tweaking the system or even making wholesale changes, well thats just expected, isn't it?

 

The game designer is publishing a product he hopes to sell to many people and when design is done compromises are made to make it more palatable to as many as possible. This doesn't insure the "best way" to do anything is there, but more leans to "the way more people would like" does.

 

And thats fine! . The final product is going to be, if they knew what they were doing, the closest to "what i wanted" to as many as possible. That serves a seller well.

 

But for my game, i want the best fit for my campaign, for my themes, for my players, for their characters, and so forth. The designer had NONE of this knowledge when he built the game. I do when i build my campaign. So it would be silly of me not to take the bits that don't suit these items quite right and take advantage of my knowing all those things and altering the RAW to fix it.

 

I mean, most of you go out to eat, right?

 

When you order your steak and potato do you tell the waitress "have the chef cook it however he likes and put on the potato whatever he likes and we will just go with that?"

 

probably not.

 

You probably tell the waiter "i want my steak medium rare, and on the potato i want butter and sour cream, and i want ranch dressing on the salad" and you may even have her crack fresh pepper on the salad and you might even want steak sauce chosen by you or use salt and pepper at the table etc...

 

Well, all those, whatever they may be, are your "house rules" for the dinner.

 

My typical game runs 2-3 years. I would be silly to not be as picky about that long an investment as i am about my supper.

 

As for balance, I find a really bad system, i mean really bad, can make balance harder but a really good system which spends a lot of effort on balance doesn't help a lot. The 800 lb gorilla of balance is script. The challenges presented to the characters by the script and which traits are best suited to answering those challenges determines the value of those traits and no prefab point list can be "right" with one exception... if the Gm chooses his scripts to "make the points in the book seem right". ("Firestorm and Laser Lass both have 20 pt vulnerabilities, so i ought to make sure those appear about the same amount of times." is an example of this as would also be "Well we have had three encounters with guys vulnerable to fire so i oughtta throw a couple vulnerable to lasers or light in too.")

 

IMX a lot of number crunching for balance-sake really boils down to a lot of numbers telling the Gm how he should populate his challenges. When the system tells you "make SFX be neutral so that firebolt and lightning boolt cost the same" its also telling you that basing a campaign around adversaries like say "vampires who take aggravated damage from fire" is a problem. Its certainly not an insurmountable problems, but it is a problem for keeping balance between Laser Lass and Firestorm.

 

I am much happier not having me or the players have to deal with a whole lot of excess number crunching in search of balance and instead let us generate traits quickly and characters quickly and then do eactly what i had to do anyway... script the challenges to show balance in play. less time spent on the numbers and more time spent on "how can i spotlight this trait in play?" to me means better balance and less work.

 

 

All, of course, IMO.

[zornwil]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Lots of snippage.

 

I also like structure. A lot. (There's the mathematician in me coming out. ) HERO lets you define things in the amount of detail you want' date=' and you can tell just how one power matches up against another in terms of "will it work against it / will it be helpless vs. it", etc. I'm not a slave to the rules by any means, but I [i']do[/i] like having the tools & options available to me.

 

I love structure, and I love to "disregard" (I put it in quotes because I like to think it's underlying in my actions and I'm exercising what I now refer to, per, Mentor, as chaos engineering) it when I'm actually doing something...a bit of a contradiction but one I suspect is well-shared among many of us HERO gamers.

 

I agree with your point. Sometimes I poo-poo building something when it's a plot device, but sometimes it CAN be important. When I built the device, I wanted something that could be affected by player mechanics in a fashion I could quantify, because it needed to be understood whether/how much of NYC got irradiated. I also needed to understand precisely how much time and damage would occur.

 

And speaking of this, re the unpredictability of gaming, they did exactly the opposite of what I thought...I had them so concerned and fearful of what force they would face (rightfully so... ), they deliberated and took a lot of time to act, more than I expected, so by the time they got to the villains, the device had gone off and permeated the greater metropolitan area! So while I thought they would be in a more direct combat which they'd be less prepared for, endangering themselves and with the main villain (Dark Phoenix among her trilogy "taking over the world!", she was utterly mad, of course) almost certainly getting away, instead NYC became mutant central but they completely defeated her. Well done on their account, because it forestalled a longer-term problem while also creating a whole new landscape in mutant-human relationships, and their followup actions have gone on to have impact, too. In fact, it was as momentous as it was intended to be, just in a different way than I envisioned!

 

The point here is that it was easy, with the system, to understand the precise mechanics, while also playing out things in a way I didn't foresee, although all perfectly logical, especially in hindsight. To add on here, as to why, one of the PCs has dimensional travel and clairvoyance based on this: he looks into multiple possible futures, never sure which will occur, and bases what he tells the group on these possibilities. Because of how they things were "likely" to go, he foresaw tremendous personal fall-out with one team member often dying, and so he and the group, in response, changed the probabilities by reaching out to other major world supers, calling in chips and using every ounce of influence they could muster. I let them...not saying I'm special or anything, but some GMs would cop out and explain why Spiderman, whom they now know personally, wouldn't help, or why China Left, China's premier super, whom they also met, wouldn't do anything (in her case they used brilliant persuasion and so she didn't fight the villains directly as she never really agreed to that, but she did provide valuable on-the-ground support and assistance, helping the people (you know, the humble proletariat!) and from that fighting off one other major villain who really would have given them a hard time). Of course, I did have Dr. Strange unavailable but also for a good reason, a distraction deliberately planned by an ally of Dark Phoenix, since he lives right in NYC and they could easily foresee they needed to get him out of the picture.

 

Anyway, the point is, we do need to be chaos engineers as well as have these structures, fusing what Mentor brought up with this.

 

And while I do enjoy D&D as well (it's the game that I started RPGing with, back in 1979) I suck at dice rolling,

 

I love hearing a mathematician say this! Yes, a friend of mine (Lamrok) was discussing how dice rolling really doesn't follow the probabilities it really should, he's sure, for some people, some situations, and I agree! That's a whole tangent, but I think it's an interesting topic - even if it can be proven as perception, it's interesting, because it really does influence how people game even if it itself is not real.

 

I like the fact that when you buy powers, what you're buying is a generic framework that you then dress in the SFX of your choice.

 

I like it so much I have a hard time with other systems that don't do it!

[zornwil]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

The game designer is publishing a product he hopes to sell to many people and when design is done compromises are made to make it more palatable to as many as possible. (lot of interesting stuff snipped)

 

Tesuji, I got really yelled at the design workshop at GenCon when I made a comment along these lines! The designer of Burning Wheel, Luke Crane, got quite upset, out of passion, not personal affrontery per se, at the suggestion of commerciality.

[zornwil]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Hero was the first "Point Build" system I was exposed to. It's consistency is was stood out to me. Yes, I'm one of those that is hung up on consistency. Thus it's also why I like try to make the system even more consistent.

 

However, I'm not a tinkerer. (BTW: I've got this bridge over in california I'm trying to sell, it's painted a nice gold...)

 

Anyway, I've even joined a group where I try discover the consistencies and inconsistencies of the system and hope to come up with more consistent mechanics in the hope of improving the system.

 

Sidenote: The purpose of a game system (Hero) is to attempt to approximate the source material to a degree to give the feel of that source material. Those who play such game systems will have varying reasons for doing so. Whether they want that feeling of being the hero, or in my case playing the part of a character who strives to do the right thing (Champions style), or even win by doing what must be done (Dark Champions style), as long as they can get enjoyment out of it, that's what drives it. There are even those who don't care for the game system, but enjoy just getting together with thier friends, and that's what gives them thier fun, so to speak.

 

Interesting topic.

 

- Christopher Mullins

Christopher, I'm really looking forward to kicking things into higher gear, with the fundamentals out of the way, and have very much enjoyed your work. Just a brief comment, as it isn't said enough.

[schir1964]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Christopher' date=' I'm really looking forward to kicking things into higher gear, with the fundamentals out of the way, and have very much enjoyed your work. Just a brief comment, as it isn't said enough.[/quote']

Looking forward to your comments on some of my ideas. Guess you've been busy with other things. (8^D)

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Toadmaster]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

One of the reasons I like HERO is because I know how to play it, that sounds kind of simple but I am very comfortable with the rules (I should be since I have been playing for 20 years), in many ways I actually think GURPS is a better system for my type of gaming but HERO is "easier" everything is done in a similar way, so I know a skill is going to cost 3 pts and it really doesn't matter what other skills I have, only what skills I think I should have, while GURPS has all these variable costs and prereqs (which part of me thinks is a great idea but that part isn't the one looking them up). So on some level I like GURPS better but in the end I prefer to play HERO if that makes any sense.

 

I used to sit in the back of class writing up characters, I didn't need books because for the most part I could remember what I needed to know to make a character, I could fine tune it when I got home and correct errors here and there. I could never do this with most games since I would actually have to look up the pre-req or the cost or roll a die and consult a chart.

 

Like most I started out playing D&D (78-79? I guess) but I don't particularly like random stats plus that system all stats were basically the same unless you had a 16+ and if you had that legendary 18 STR, Con and/or Dex you really overpowered the other characters which I think is a weakness particularly considering the randomness of it all. When I found HERO and the idea of building the character you want to play instead of learning to like playing the character you rolled up, I suppose for the "true" roleplayer it is as much fun to play a character who's stats are so bad you can only pick from a class with no minimum standards but for most this is simply frustration. While some games follow the progression from a peon to a great hero, with HERO that is not required and in fact most games have the PC's start as pretty competent individuals (there is a reason the Conan stories and movies gloss over Conan as a child, reading about Conan fighting a 40' snake is exciting, Conan getting pounded by an aggressive squirrel is not, quick question how many of you lost characters to Giant rats in D&D, makes you feel pretty lame doesn't it?)

 

Now there are times I like a random stat system but that is generally in a system with a high mortality rate and the idea of playing someone forced into a situation not of their choosing, for example a WW2 grunt in Behind Enemy Lines where Uncle Sam sent you a letter and said, hey we have a job for you, how do you like French beaches , or Call of Cthulhu where somebodies rich uncle died and left you their house... (along with some unfinished buisness in the basement )

 

I like the fact HERO doesn't have a lot of preconcieved notions telling you how to play, if you want to play a sadistic drunken Holy warrior you can, so long as you can sell it to the GM, the rules won't say you can't. I also appreciate the fact that while the "official" write ups for somethings may not be the way I think they should be the rules allow me to build them the way I think they should be and still maintain some uniformity between them. For example a mace could be done as a 1d6+1 KA, or a 1d6+1 KA, +1 Stun or a 1d6 KA, +1 Stun and penetrating etc, one is the "official" way but the others are still following the "rules".

 

There was a time I tinkered with the rules but I've found in recent years I rarely tinker with the rules I tinker with the writeups.

[Mentor]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Hero was the second point build system I was exposed to (the first being The Fantasy Trip by Steve Jackson - the proto GURPS)

 

It was the first game system I found that incorporated disadvantages. It also had a cool meta-system for defining new ones (frequency/severity) on the fly.

 

I play it primarily because it lets me construct a character that is closer to my imaginary concepts than any other, and in a concrete fashion.

 

In essence, it's become my native language in RPG-speak. Fluency counts if you have anything to say.

I have to jolin Zornwil in commenting on the native language concept. I was one of those who, perhaps like others reading here, went from "saving throw", "armor class" and "hit points" to "CV", "skill levels" and "DEX" as terms of normalcy. These tings are most useful in that the game system not only allows but ncourages multiple and even cross genres. This is true even though IMHO the "Super" roots are unmistakeable.

[Mentor]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

I tinker with any ruleset i use. Always have and always will.

 

 

 

This view is about 180 degrees opposite of my view. Thats Ok tho, since everyone games for their own reason.

 

I specifically DON'T want the system to challenge the players. I don't want "doing an action" to be the hard part. I don't want "building the character" to be a challenge at all. The goal of the game is not to get the players to be better with numbers or better with chargen or best at picking combat manuevers.

 

To me, those are all fine and dandy goals for a wargame and they are bad goals for an RPG.

 

Wargames are fun and i love wargames, dont get me wrong.

 

For me the gaols of the system are basically to establish an easy shorthand between player and Gm as to what traits a character has and what's reasonable and unreasonable within the setting for the game. To be "good" at this, there are several things the system must do:

 

1. Have quick chargen without a lot of upfront learning required so that new players can get started quickly. I really DO NOT WANT to see there being a NOTICEABLE difference in capability/power/impact of the character between a new player's character generation and an experienced player's.

2. be as intuitive as possible, with "what does this do?" bveing most oftern obvious just by looking at a trait or maneuver

3. have pretty consistent internal mechanics so that once you learn a single (optimally) resolution mechanic you have the basics down. Also, the "odds" in a general sense, and hopefully even a specific sense, should be obvious to even players without strong math skills, so they can know "this is a desparate move" or "this is likely to succeed." and they have a decent knowledge of what a "penalty" or a "bonus" is doing to their odds.

4. at nearly every point in the process, with style and text flavor and trait names and the like, push the setting style and theme and spark character ideas and story ideas. The new player's first read thru chargen should not leave him thinking of numbers and trait values or emphasize optimization but of characters and stories and excited to get playing.

 

In play the system should allow and make easy to resolve events, scenes, actions in keeping with the themes common to the chosen setting.

 

As such, i tend to choose game system after i have chosen game setting. I choose the best system for running the setting and tweak it for my specific needs.

 

As for tweaking the system or even making wholesale changes, well thats just expected, isn't it?

 

The game designer is publishing a product he hopes to sell to many people and when design is done compromises are made to make it more palatable to as many as possible. This doesn't insure the "best way" to do anything is there, but more leans to "the way more people would like" does.

 

And thats fine! . The final product is going to be, if they knew what they were doing, the closest to "what i wanted" to as many as possible. That serves a seller well.

 

But for my game, i want the best fit for my campaign, for my themes, for my players, for their characters, and so forth. The designer had NONE of this knowledge when he built the game. I do when i build my campaign. So it would be silly of me not to take the bits that don't suit these items quite right and take advantage of my knowing all those things and altering the RAW to fix it.

 

I mean, most of you go out to eat, right?

 

When you order your steak and potato do you tell the waitress "have the chef cook it however he likes and put on the potato whatever he likes and we will just go with that?"

 

probably not.

 

You probably tell the waiter "i want my steak medium rare, and on the potato i want butter and sour cream, and i want ranch dressing on the salad" and you may even have her crack fresh pepper on the salad and you might even want steak sauce chosen by you or use salt and pepper at the table etc...

 

Well, all those, whatever they may be, are your "house rules" for the dinner.

 

My typical game runs 2-3 years. I would be silly to not be as picky about that long an investment as i am about my supper.

 

As for balance, I find a really bad system, i mean really bad, can make balance harder but a really good system which spends a lot of effort on balance doesn't help a lot. The 800 lb gorilla of balance is script. The challenges presented to the characters by the script and which traits are best suited to answering those challenges determines the value of those traits and no prefab point list can be "right" with one exception... if the Gm chooses his scripts to "make the points in the book seem right". ("Firestorm and Laser Lass both have 20 pt vulnerabilities, so i ought to make sure those appear about the same amount of times." is an example of this as would also be "Well we have had three encounters with guys vulnerable to fire so i oughtta throw a couple vulnerable to lasers or light in too.")

 

IMX a lot of number crunching for balance-sake really boils down to a lot of numbers telling the Gm how he should populate his challenges. When the system tells you "make SFX be neutral so that firebolt and lightning boolt cost the same" its also telling you that basing a campaign around adversaries like say "vampires who take aggravated damage from fire" is a problem. Its certainly not an insurmountable problems, but it is a problem for keeping balance between Laser Lass and Firestorm.

 

I am much happier not having me or the players have to deal with a whole lot of excess number crunching in search of balance and instead let us generate traits quickly and characters quickly and then do eactly what i had to do anyway... script the challenges to show balance in play. less time spent on the numbers and more time spent on "how can i spotlight this trait in play?" to me means better balance and less work.

 

 

All, of course, IMO.

It was really interesting reading your post and realizing that we don't play all that different from you at all. We are substantially in agreement as far a play style superceding numbers goes. In fact, your point on letting play be more important than number crunchig is a central theme of the Midguard campaign. SFX and concept trump the rules in our game. I think what may have given that impression from the post you quoted is that portion that you quoted is that in a campaign is that with a maximm of 8 players with characters of whom 5 GM, it would be impossible to play a game where very week one of us came up with a revised combat system or a new take on Elemental Controls or changes in the use of EGO. We are neber going to want to convert 13 year old PCs to new approaches in basic game mechanics. At some point you have to stop tinkering and go with the system you have. You need some sort of benchmark to determine if the heroes are attempting an easy, medium or hard task. And chaos will still reign. That, BTW, is a good thing.

[zornwil]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Looking forward to your comments on some of my ideas. Guess you've been busy with other things. (8^D)

 

- Christopher Mullins

Partly, and also kind of hesitating until we can dig into some things specifically post getting the methods and such down.

[ross_winn]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Zornwil said:

To respond to that first, I think one dirty little secret, as you make me think about it, is that many GMs and groups change rules because "they're too hard" which means "I can't play them well!". We can dress it up in verisimillitude or claims of broken mechanics, but often it's things like "Phooey on that rule, I don't understand it and/or I can't figure out how to make it work the way I want." Which is perfectly okay, but we ought to admit it, I suppose. And we ought to be careful we're not ruining someone else's fun in a group or actually tearing at the core of the game (unless we really also want to do that and face the consequences).

 

There is one other issue, and it can be quite a bit uglier. A lot of bad GMs use tweaks to attack the players. They hate it when you call them on it, and it is passive agressive in the worst way. In some groups how much you adhere to the rules is a sign of how well the game is run. At least in my experience the more house rules there are the worse the game is.

[tesuji]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

I think what may have given that impression from the post you quoted is that portion that you quoted is that in a campaign is that with a maximm of 8 players with characters of whom 5 GM, it would be impossible to play a game where very week one of us came up with a revised combat system or a new take on Elemental Controls or changes in the use of EGO. We are neber going to want to convert 13 year old PCs to new approaches in basic game mechanics.

 

definitely we have radically different campaign parameters.

 

my typical campaign runs 2-3 years with the same characters.

I do not make significant rules changes AFTER a campaign begins barring a really egregious need, and typically only a small clarification is required.

I don't normally run games set in "the other campaign's setting" or allow "character from this other game" ports. Each game is its own entity.

 

So, none of the above is applicable to my games and to my players at all.

 

I could understand how, if these were the norm, that I might feel differently or have a grossly different experience base to draw on.

 

Again, my primary focus is whats best for this campaign and for these characters, not all those other considerations you have to deal with. heck, about 80% of my campaign design is done AFTER i have the PCs known and statted, so as to best spotlight their traits and stories.

[tesuji]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

Tesuji' date=' I got really yelled at the design workshop at GenCon when I made a comment along these lines! The designer of Burning Wheel, Luke Crane, got quite upset, out of passion, not personal affrontery per se, at the suggestion of commerciality.[/quote']

 

 

Well, i was speaking in generalities, not in specifics.

 

But, i have been involved in design and playtesting and editing and proofing and so forth for a number of games, wargames and rpgs, and so far i can say that to a man every designer i knew when push came to shove chose "broader appeal to fans" over "the best way but..." when it came down to final cuts.

 

Now, to be fair, sometimes they can make compromises, like the most recent one where, after saying "this is the best way but the majority of the playtesters did not like it so..." the designer i worked with put the preferred by majority rule in the core rules and the "yeah, this is best..." rule into "optional rules" in the Gming sections.

 

Do not get me wrong. i am not criticizing this type of decision. A game which is closest to what more people would want, even if that means not choosing an option you like better, serves more people more well and so it is not just a good business decision but also a good-for-consumer one.

 

Might there be some who either in fact or in their own mind "made no compromises" in their design? sure, there might. If a designer got all hot and bothered at the suggestion, i would simply nod and say something like "well, sure, you may be an exceptional designer." and move along... but they would almost certainly have just driven me away from, not towards, considering their products for purchase.

 

Thanks for the tip... not that BW was on my buy list anyway.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

definitely we have radically different campaign parameters.

 

my typical campaign runs 2-3 years with the same characters.

I do not make significant rules changes AFTER a campaign begins barring a really egregious need, and typically only a small clarification is required.

I don't normally run games set in "the other campaign's setting" or allow "character from this other game" ports. Each game is its own entity.

 

So, none of the above is applicable to my games and to my players at all.

 

I could understand how, if these were the norm, that I might feel differently or have a grossly different experience base to draw on.

 

Again, my primary focus is whats best for this campaign and for these characters, not all those other considerations you have to deal with. heck, about 80% of my campaign design is done AFTER i have the PCs known and statted, so as to best spotlight their traits and stories.

We've been running the same campaign for 13+ years now, and while new players and GMs have come on board (and others departed) the campaign essentials have remained constant. With 5 GMs currently in our campaign, house rules which changed between individual GMs would be impractical at best and disastrous at worst, so we stick pretty close to the rules as published. While we do require all Stop Sign Powers to be approved by the GMs, I don't believe any such requests have been denied to date. Indeed, I'd say we don't even have any house rules in our group; our only noticable restrictions are 1) Don't step on another character's schtick; and 2) Max DC = (20 - SPD), and even these can be violated if the other player is amenable or there are enough restrictions on the Powers exceeding our guidelines. (Mentor's mentalist Prodigy has a 95 point VPP, but since he has to do everything out of it, including defenses and any movement beyond basic Running, I don't believe he's ever used more than 65 AP in any single Power.)

 

That's not to say there aren't significant differences in scenario flavor and approach by our various GMs (Blackjack, for example, dislikes the Knockback rules and seldom uses them except in extreme cases.). Indeed, those differences are one of the things I most enjoy about our campaign. With 5 GMs (Mentor, Blackjack, DangerousDan, El Tripon, and myself) and a 6th set to run his first scenario in a couple months), everybody gets to play and nobody gets burned out on gamemastering. While this might cost us some coherence in plot development over the long term as opposed to a solo-GM campaign, we've managed through constant communication with our co-GMs to get around a lot of these types of weaknesses. One of our implicit rules is that we don't use each other's villains; and we generally reserve certain regions of the world for the GMs who already have story arcs operant in them (Mentor, for instance, has "dibs" on Russia since my player character is Russian and has appropriate Russian Hunteds. Having first used them, Blackjack has essentially has exclusive use of Eurostar.) These aren't explicit rules so much as common courtesy to our fellow GMs.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Purpose of Playing a System-Philosophical, Unscientific and Wordy

 

I like HERO because when you sit down and play it the character sheet can take a backseat to the game, unlike most systems where they have to be in front of you.

 

And then there's the idea that I can easily and quickly build exactly what I am imagineing as well as cross-genre's without it looking like I just pasted my swashbuckler into a sci-i setting and end up writing a new character sheet for it.

 

And the fact that I can mess with the rules, but don't have to. That's really important - something may be broken for one type of game, but work perfectly for most of the others.

 

oh, and no "classes" or "occ" or whatever ... you make people. How cool it that? really. The only way to do it better is to write fiction.