The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

[Rapier]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

Rapier' date=' you are entitled to your opinion but that has to be one of the weirdest things I've heard someone say on these boards, but at least you don't seem to understand it either. [/quote']

 

I'm weird like that.

 

I would be greatly in favour of an Ultimate Character, but I just don't see any value in going so granular that we get to the Ultimate END Reserve, the Ultimate Charge and the Ultimate DEX. While the Ultimate Disad might not be as granular as the Ultimate END Reserve I think it is too much of a good thing.

[Harakani]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

I can see where it would be useful.

 

I'm not sure if it would make a good book, but it might very well make a good .pdf, or even just a very nice "free stuff" resource.

 

I like the Alcoholism advantage posted earlier. I also think Steve's writeups of sociopathy would fit well. The disads like that are the ones I would most like, as I can feel them generating plot seeds when I read them.

 

Breaking it down into chapters, I think you could get something like the following...

 

Chapter 1

Introduction

How Disads can add character to a character

 

Chapter 2

Optional Rules for changing the disadvantage systems. Eg Steve's Heroglyph articles. Les Categories.

 

Chapter 3

Default Disads as a way of enforcing Campaign rules; eg "Tech Level"

What changing the disad points on a PC does; eg 50/25 vs 50/250.

How to handle Disads that disadvntage the entire group...

Chapter 4

For each Disad...

* Disad name

* Description of Disad

* Problems Disad causes (in non-game terms)/Impact on character's life

* How Disad can be cured/ameliorated (in non-game terms)

* "standard" writeup (and may be multiple disadvantages, such as an addiction *and* a social limitation)

* (IMPORTANT) Variations (eg "in most fantasy games alcohol was one of the primary beverages. As such Alcohol's frequency should be X", or "Alcohol is illegal in several modern countries such as (x,y,z) and was illegal in America during the prohibition. While still as available, the disad is worth an extra 5 pts to represent stores of alcohol are illegal")

* Complimentary advantages (eg +1 when Carousing, KS: Alcohols, KS: City's Bars)

* Complimentary disadvantages (eg Social Lim: Alcoholic (p XX), Phys Lim: Damaged Liver (p XY))

* Things for GMs watch out for (may fracture group, don't let character's with LS: Poison Immunity (Alcohol) take it, etc.)

* Archetypes

* Adventure Seeds/Plot seeds (should probably be written into the above bits)

 

Chapter 5

Vehicle Disads

 

Chapter 6

Base Disads

 

Chapter 7

Automaton Disads

 

Appendix A

Random Disadvantage tables for various campaign types (so you don't get "Susceptibility to Kryptonite" in a Dark Champions Gritty Realism campaign)

 

Appendix B

"Campaign Plan" sheets, with various lists of things to tick off. Eg; how common is vaccum? "Common, Uncommon... Non Existent" how common are fire attacks? "Common, Uncommon... Non Existent"

 

Appendix C

Breakdown of Disads for quick reference (most common only)

 

Harakani

[Black Rose]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

Don't forget some kind of moderate-depth look at kinds of Disadvantages: physical injuries (and the kinds of Disads by which these can be represented), psychological disorders (fears, hatreds, loves, etc.; remember some 'psychological disorders' can't really be treated medically, so do these qualify as PhysLims?), addictions (to substances, actions, situations, etc.), social "flaws" (bigotry and other negative reactions on the part of the character and/or the "public"), etc.

 

Needless to say, I think this could be a great book. I admit it would be rather HERO-specific, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

[Sean Waters]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

............ Frodo has a nearly indestructible will...................

 

Nothing compared to Sam's.

 

Sean 'out of context' Waters

[BobGreenwade]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

Another thought would be a special (optional and caution-signed) rule for allowing PCs to get points from Disadvantages gained in mid-stream. I had a (2nd Ed) game where I allowed this, provided the points from the new Disad were spent on things related to compensating for the Disad itself. For example, a Champions character losing his legs could spend the points from "Physical Limitation: Paraplegic" on a funky new flying wheelchair, or a Ninja Hero character losing his vision could spend the points from "Physical Limitation: Blind" on Spatial Awareness and other new ch'i tricks to compensate.

[Mentor]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

If you're implying that I at some point said there wouldn't be enough material to fill such a book' date=' you're incorrect. I've never said any such thing as far as I can recall, and if someone else said it I don't agree. Filling such a book wouldn't be a problem. There are many problems with such a book, but lack of material ain't one. [/quote']

I'll go a step further. An ultimate Disad or Limitation type book would be way too "Metagamey" for my taste. I confess that I like my Campaign Creative stuff in a separate place from my Rules and Construction stuff. Hero campaign kosher if you will.

[Toadmaster]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

Another thought would be a special (optional and caution-signed) rule for allowing PCs to get points from Disadvantages gained in mid-stream. I had a (2nd Ed) game where I allowed this' date=' provided the points from the new Disad were spent on things related to compensating for the Disad itself. For example, a [i']Champions[/i] character losing his legs could spend the points from "Physical Limitation: Paraplegic" on a funky new flying wheelchair, or a Ninja Hero character losing his vision could spend the points from "Physical Limitation: Blind" on Spatial Awareness and other new ch'i tricks to compensate.

 

 

When I read the first part of this I didn't like the idea but when I got to your examples it would fit very well into some genres, particularly supers where many characters would compensate for many disads, particularly gadget heavy characters.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

When I read the first part of this I didn't like the idea but when I got to your examples it would fit very well into some genres' date=' particularly supers where many characters would compensate for many disads, particularly gadget heavy characters.[/quote']Yes, exactly. The only time the rule was actually applied was when a gadgeteer in the game got a new Hunted. I don't remember who the Hunter was, but when the gadgeteer realized he had this terrible new enemy he went right to his lab to build a sensor, a weapon, and a couple of other items to handle them.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

Sean - good point.

 

Bob - I actually like this, it makes sense to me.

[Patriot]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

Just an opinion here folks:

 

 

**IF** this book were to be made, It should be set up along the lines Of the Until superpowers database. Also it should cover Advantages, limitations , and disads.

 

By my estimate , we are all pretty creative here, but A book like this could help flesh out any character in any genre( a druid with a 5 pt disad brown thumb(couldnt even grow grass)

 

Yes, I would buy it, so would a good number of my players.

[radix]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

How about...

 

Susceptibility to Water?

 

Well, since the human body is approximately 90% water...you should be having that near death experience shortly after character creation!!!

 

Of course, if you have an alien physiology...your results may vary.

 

Yeah, the Divunids (PCs) I mentioned in the thread http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40514 (Human Batteries) will all need to take that. If they submerge themselves in water, their charge freaks out and they hella zap themselves into oblivion.

 

FWIW, an Ultimate Disad book does seem a bit over-the-top to me.

[zornwil]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

I don't hate it. I just don't get it. Clearly Steve feels he can fill an entire book with it, but I'm still asking the same question (and maybe I'm just missing your answer here) "Why would you want to?"

 

Eh, that's a good a way of putting it as any. What about this book are you so passionate about?

 

Further: What would you see in it, that would make it both good & approachable?

I think there's a few areas such a book would help with. First and foremost, it would help explain that Disads are about restricting choice, not necessarily about being per se "damaged" or directly penalized, and explain how to play this in games and how GMs can utilize those limitatons of choice. It can also help with issues of when disads become advantageous (resisting certain mental commands). Building disads from personalities can be explored, including how to make effective true disads, and how to make nuanced disads so everyone doesn't show up with "impulsive," "overconfident," and so on but with detailed versions that are richer and influence play more interestingly. Ideas on the interaction of differeing characters' disads, what to do when disads conflict with teamwork (and not just "drop the disad"). That sort of thing could be useful and interesting, and help raise the bar, as it were, on how people purchase and play disads, and give GMs a lot of options and ideas on managing that with players who might be just using disads as simple ways to get points with unimaginative traditional disads or who don't see a good way to justify disads.

[zornwil]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

I agree. And to be honest' date=' it's an angle I don't recall ever seeing tackled in exactly that way before. Most RPG books I've seen that are specifically about designing interesting, well-developed characters fall into one of three groups, and the first two deal mostly with creating the character-as-RPG-playing-piece, rather than with creating the character-as-a-well-realized-personality.

1. Thinly-disguised collections of crunchy bits, aimed at players who want to make their favored character types more powerful. These include the plethora of D&D books aimed at certain character classes (and stuffed with optional classes, kits, stunts, feats, and assorted doohickeys), as well as (to a much MUCH lesser extent) Hero's own Ultimate series.
   
2. Books full of randomness, to give uninspired players and GM's a kick-start (such as the Central Casting books from Task Force Games).
   
3. Books aimed at GMs. (In other words, it talks about building interesting, well-developed villains, but not about characters in general).

I think it would be great to see a book about the sort of stuff novelists, playwrights, and screenwriters think about when creating characters for their stories (motivation, psychology, inter-relation with the world and with other characters, etc.), but written with a slant specifically aimed at applying those concepts within the framework of creating those well-developed characters for a role-playing game. For example, it would touch on how internalized character traits -- which work fine in novels -- are hard to convey well in RPGs, and so on.

 

This would include, by necessity, a lot of discussion of Disadvantages, simply because they're the "crunchy bits" of the game engine where the character's character (so to speak) is the most perceptable. In fact, in terms of specific application to RPG mechanics, the Disadvantages section would certainly be the longest. It wouldn't be a laundry-list thing like the USPD, with gobs of pre-made Disads and values on page after page. But it would be a detailed look at how character traits convert themselves on paper into Disadvantages, and would of course have to include a lot of examples and discussion of setting values appropriately.

 

In other words, it would be about how to create an interesting, well-developed, cool character profile (as opposed to a character in the RPG-playing-piece sense of the term), in a way that's particularly suited to RPGs, and then how to translate that character study into the RPG's language. And since it isn't specifically aimed at PCs or bad guys, both players and GMs could benefit equally.

 

I think that'd be a great book... I'd buy that in heartbeat!

Great idea, that's the best way to handle it on all accounts, I think.

[zornwil]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

One of my problems with the HERO system (despite it being my favorite overall game system) has always been the Disads. HERO seems to come from the school of gaming (and more broadly, writing) which esposes the belief that flaws are what make a character. I've always been lukewarm at best towards that position. While I find perfect characters that overcome all challenges -- external and internal, combat, social, whatever -- with style, grace, and smiling ease to be boring and cardboard, I also loath the school of writing that requires one to be sadistic towards the characters and that wallows in their shortcomings.

 

HERO takes this flaw-centered style to the point where a character can be quite interesting and fleshed-out, with plenty of plot and development potential, and it's not enough, because in-system the character's flaws aren't considered "enough" in terms of the points. I rarely find myself with too many points in Disads, and not because I'm creating perfect flawless people.

 

On superhero-level PCs, where I have to follow the assigned balance, I often end up with things that feel forced, or contrived, or inappropriate for that character, in order to hit the 150-point mark. My NPCs rarely have a full slate of Disads, although some have more than they would need by the book, and that doesn't bother me one bit.

No offense, but I think this is exactly the incorrect interpretation of disads even though it's been implicitly encouraged for decades now (i.e., even soe of the designers have fallen for this). Disads CAN do this and SOMETIMES should, sure, but I think Jack Butler?Worldmaker put it best with his explanation somewhere on the boards regarding how disads are more about restricting choice. I'd add that this well represents where a player has ceded control, in a way, in a game where points very much represent control.

 

PS - although to your point I do not require as many disads as the book suggests

[prestidigitator]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

I wouldn't say that it takes flaws to make a character. I would say that flaws definitely tend to make a character more interesting. Disadvantages can certainly hamper a character in play, but they also make them, "more human," if you will (even for completely inhuman characters).

 

I believe both can be worth some points. The in-game issues can help to balance the character's power (making that nice big EB a little less unbalancing), and it is really nice to be able to reward the fleshed out character background, personality, and details of a well thought out characer. The latter is the same principle upon which many GMs will award a few points of Experience to a player that puts some time and effort into a nicely written background story.

[prestidigitator]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

I wouldn't say that it takes flaws to make a character. I would say that flaws definitely tend to make a character more interesting. Disadvantages can certainly hamper a character in play, but they also make them, "more human," if you will (even for completely inhuman characters).

 

I believe both can be worth some points. The in-game issues can help to balance the character's power (making that nice big EB a little less unbalancing), and it is really nice to be able to reward the fleshed out character background, personality, and details of a well thought out characer. The latter is the same principle upon which many GMs will award a few points of Experience to a player that puts some time and effort into a nicely written background story.

[Kristopher]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

No offense, but I think this is exactly the incorrect interpretation of disads even though it's been implicitly encouraged for decades now (i.e., even soe of the designers have fallen for this). Disads CAN do this and SOMETIMES should, sure, but I think Jack Butler?Worldmaker put it best with his explanation somewhere on the boards regarding how disads are more about restricting choice. I'd add that this well represents where a player has ceded control, in a way, in a game where points very much represent control.

 

PS - although to your point I do not require as many disads as the book suggests

 

First, I'd love to see a broader and less "flaws-make-the-chracter" view of Disads, if we're going to have them. What is it that you think implicity encourages that interpretation of them, and that thinking in general? Why do think that idea has become so popular?

 

Second, can you expand on the idea of Disads as "restricting choice" and why that's a better understanding, and on why we would want to use them under that understanding more than we'd want to use them under the "flaws make the character" understanding?

[zornwil]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

First, I'd love to see a broader and less "flaws-make-the-chracter" view of Disads, if we're going to have them. What is it that you think implicity encourages that interpretation of them, and that thinking in general? Why do think that idea has become so popular?

 

Second, can you expand on the idea of Disads as "restricting choice" and why that's a better understanding, and on why we would want to use them under that understanding more than we'd want to use them under the "flaws make the character" understanding?

I think the question isn't what implicitly encourages that so much as what has implicitly discouraged it, which includes of course the name "Disadvantage" and the mantra "a Disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage isn't worth poitns." But if you look at the various Disads actually used and you look at examples of how they come into play, they're often more about choice and slant than overt disadvantage.

 

PS - I'll have to try to get it at home later, sorry.

 

As to "restricting choice," I'll have to look up WM's old post and link it, it's a favorite at home but I'm on the road for almost all of the next 2.5 weeks. However, if you consider that points seem to be about control, where what is paid for is what is controlled and what is not paid for is where control is lost, this makes Disads make more sense in that light rather than a strict disadvantage light. After all, the point of the game is for the heroes to be victorious, anyway. So "overconfident" or "passionate" make more sense as influencing the direction, not the outcome, as in fact do even harder disads, such as a Hunted, which will influence play but in the end we know (most games, not claiming all) that the hero will ultimately win. The Hunted doesn't actually hurt the PC per se - actually, he's a defining entiity that indicates a villain the PC WILL face and who has a particular vested interest, which again is limiting the choice of the PC in determining enemies.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

It seems to me that this entire discussion on what Disadvantages are for, and how important they are, is just the sort of thing that needs to be covered in a Disadvantages book.

 

Just my side tuppence....

[Kristopher]

Re: The Ultimate Disadvantage, talk about it here

 

I think the question isn't what implicitly encourages that so much as what has implicitly discouraged it' date=' which includes of course the name "Disadvantage" and the mantra "a Disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage isn't worth poitns." But if you look at the various Disads actually used and you look at examples of how they come into play, they're often more about choice and slant than overt disadvantage.[/quote']

 

Poor wording on my part. I was trying to ask what had implicity encouraged the "Disadvantages as flaws, flaws make the character" interpretation. I think you still answered it, though, by answering what had discouraged the other interpretation.