"Point inflation" in Hero

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

One thing I find interesting is that this so-called "point inflation" really only happened in supers, not in the other genres. We still see the 75+75 heroic characters that were common in 4E. What this tells me is that a large focus of 5E may well have been to bring super-heroes back into the mainstream HERO System rules set. It gives them the points to have the skills of a normal person as well as their powers. In previous editions, supers were overall simpler characters than their heroic brethren; they don't have to be simpler any more.

 

For a data point in the opposite direction (not just being contrary, honest!) way back in third edition days, my group quickly realized that 75 base points wasn't enough, so we routinely set heroic level PCs of all genres up as 100 base and 50-100 points in Disadvantages (and those were half-value, too!).

[Lucius]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

 

And yet he owns a computer...

 

 

Actually, the computer belongs to someone else in the household.

 

But I pay for the cable internet connection. No cable TV, but we do use cable internet.

 

Of course, all this is getting us way, way off topic. More to the point, if my character didn't pay for a computer or for internet access, can he go to the library and get online there? If he's a collge student, can he utilize the university's computer resources?

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Do I have a license for this palindromedary? One moment, officer...I'm sure it's in the saddle bags somewhere....

[Metaphysician]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

NP. That's why I clarified my position.

 

I seem to recall a poll from 4E which listed average defenses, attacks, CV, etc. Those numbers jived fairly well with the recommended ranges which were used in 5E. The extra 100 CP I believe was deliberately intended by DOJ and Steve Long to let players build more "comic book like" heroes with a broader range of abilities. Since our campaign was already headed that way, quite naturally we all thought Steve Long was a genius for thinking like we did.

 

I think most campaigns still get there by XP, not initial CP. I retired my first and most experienced PC, Ranger, with 125 XP. My next one, Spirit Ninja, retired with 75 XP. My current PC, Zl'f, has 70 XP (and still climbing). The average XP for our superteam MidGuard right now is just under 50 points. Added to the initial 350 points it's a pretty creditable level of power and/or capabilities IMO. Of course 50 XP is a lot less significant increase to a 350 point PC than it is for a 250 point one. (An extra 14% as opposed to an extra 20%.)

 

I think 250 CP was explicitly stated in earlier editions of Champions to represent a "beginning" character from the comics; not that character after years of costumed crimefighting. 5E essentially discarded that trope and allowed characters with more experience or skills. An early Spider-Man, Iron Man, or Human Torch is fairly easy to build with 250 points. Nowadays of course they've all been heroes for 40+ years, so who knows how much XP you could reasonably assign them? 200? 300? 500?

 

500 sounds about right. While a fair number of heroes would come out buffer than 850, mostly those are people who started out buffer than 350.

[Trebuchet]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

More to the point' date=' if my character didn't pay for a computer or for internet access, can he go to the library and get online there? If he's a college student, can he utilize the university's computer resources?[/quote']As with the car example above, I think basic computer access is an Everyman Skill (at least in most of the Western world). If the character wants to do more than browse the internet, then he needs to buy Computer Programming and/or the Perk: Computer Link. Computers, like cars, are pretty ubiquitous nowadays. Assuming the PC hasn't taken a Poor Disad, I see no reason to assume they don't own and/or have access to a computer. I have friends who haven't been employed in years but still have computers at home better than mine. Computers are appliances now.

 

A player character in our Dark Champions game who is a college student and TA routinely uses the school's computer, so my answer to your question is "Yes."

[Questar]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I think 250 CP was explicitly stated in earlier editions of Champions to represent a "beginning" character from the comics; not that character after years of costumed crimefighting. 5E essentially discarded that trope and allowed characters with more experience or skills. An early Spider-Man, Iron Man, or Human Torch is fairly easy to build with 250 points. Nowadays of course they've all been heroes for 40+ years, so who knows how much XP you could reasonably assign them? 200? 300? 500?

 

 

I think 500 points would be close for many comic book heroes as they are presented. There’s a wide range, of course.

 

Interesting that for me, the point inflation came going from 3E to 4E. I got the new rules, and decided to upgrade a group of super-heroes I had created under 3E. And I decided not to worry about point costs, but to create them as I really had envisioned the characters, with no compromises. It was partly an exercise in character creation, I really had no campaign to use them in.

 

The characters came out at around 400-500 points. Part of the increase was in improved combat capabilities: the speedster got some new speed abilities, the power-armor guy got new weapon slots in his multi-power. But the base damage and defense of the characters remained pretty close to what it was.

 

The largest increase in points came from adding the full range of skills that their backgrounds called for, just as seems to be the case with campaigns in 5E. I defined these characters very precisely, with specific science skills, area knowledge, professional skills, even hobbies. It felt good to me to put down on the character sheet all the things I had had envisioned for the characters.

 

Only one of these characters wound up being used fairly frequently in games. But what I found was that these new “granular” skills made practically no difference in terms of game play in our campaign. Neither I nor those in my group were good enough GM’s to make them seem anything other than a sort of backdrop. Occasionally, a skill would be used by a GM as a tool to advance the story line. But it never really felt like the PC exercised that skill, or that it really made a difference in which way the adventure went.

And in fact, that was what was modeled in the “official” adventures. (“If a PC has STREETWISE or a CONTACT, he can find out X. Otherwise, bring in an NPC with these skills so the PC’s can learn X.” Skill or no skill, you’re going to be given X. )

 

Anyway, I seem to be moving back away from the gobs of detail on character sheets these days, and preferring a more streamlined approach. I tend now to just assume a character has what KS, PS and AK skills would go with his background story and not bother to have them spelled out (and paid for). There are probably some exceptions…

[Cosmosemeritus]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

As with the car example above, I think basic computer access is an Everyman Skill (at least in most of the Western world). If the character wants to do more than browse the internet, then he needs to buy Computer Programming and/or the Perk: Computer Link. Computers, like cars, are pretty ubiquitous nowadays. Assuming the PC hasn't taken a Poor Disad, I see no reason to assume they don't own and/or have access to a computer. I have friends who haven't been employed in years but still have computers at home better than mine. Computers are appliances now.

 

A player character in our Dark Champions game who is a college student and TA routinely uses the school's computer, so my answer to your question is "Yes."

 

Half joking: Work a day of internet (or other) tech support and see if you still feel the same.

 

To the rest of the thread:

As I've read through this I keep thinking to myself "That depends on the campaign."

 

For the supers campaign using the recommended point values yes granularity is increased due to more points being made available. I hesitate to call it inflation because the point costs of most individual abilities haven't changed. But my fantasy game is still 75/75; 1890's pulp game, 50/50. It is my belief that the recommended points for supers were increased in response to player feedback and to cover for the few cost increases that did occur between 4E and 5E. Whether a 1pt perk to practice a profession is worth purchasing depends on the campaign. It doesn't exist in the fantasy campaign; may be worth up to 1 point in the supers campaign, but in the right campaign could be worth a significant social disad if missing.

 

As for the changes in character design philosophy that has lead to more detailed characters, I don't believe that the system caused that. 15 years ago the coolest character I made (and was very proud of) was an invisible, gravity-manipulating brick who could lauch the space shuttle into orbit while waltzing through an H-bomb explosion. These days the cool character is the spare-time hero trying to make the world a better place while worrying about keeping a job, feeding the kids and trying to recover from substance addiction. My tastes have changed, as have those of my fellow players.

Perhaps its just me but I think we as a playerbase have grown up a bit and that's the cause of the change we see in design philosophy.

[Questar]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

As for the changes in character design philosophy that has lead to more detailed characters, I don't believe that the system caused that. 15 years ago the coolest character I made (and was very proud of) was an invisible, gravity-manipulating brick who could lauch the space shuttle into orbit while waltzing through an H-bomb explosion. These days the cool character is the spare-time hero trying to make the world a better place while worrying about keeping a job, feeding the kids and trying to recover from substance addiction. My tastes have changed, as have those of my fellow players.

Perhaps its just me but I think we as a playerbase have grown up a bit and that's the cause of the change we see in design philosophy.

 

I think you have made a very good point.

 

When I was a kid, super-hero cartoons were simple and one-dimensional. Comic books were much more complex than the cartoons. Now I see cartoons like the Justice League and others that are more complex (and with deeper characterization) than even many of the comics used to be.

 

Our expectations of what the super genre should be has changed because of how we have seen it develop in the comics and in media. Not because of an extra 100 CP.

[Jhaierr]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

As for the changes in character design philosophy that has lead to more detailed characters, I don't believe that the system caused that. 15 years ago the coolest character I made (and was very proud of) was an invisible, gravity-manipulating brick who could lauch the space shuttle into orbit while waltzing through an H-bomb explosion. These days the cool character is the spare-time hero trying to make the world a better place while worrying about keeping a job, feeding the kids and trying to recover from substance addiction. My tastes have changed, as have those of my fellow players.

Perhaps its just me but I think we as a playerbase have grown up a bit and that's the cause of the change we see in design philosophy.

 

That's a good point. What I want from a game now is quite different from what I wanted when I was 19-20 when I started on Hero. Comics have changed as well, and I suppose in some ways the granularity is a reflection of that.

[CBikle]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

In my old game group' date=' the general rule of thumb was that if you spent points on a skill (particularly background skills), then the GM would try to make sure that the skill would come in handy at one or more points in the game.[/quote']

 

As a GM and a player, I don't think that's the GM's responsibility.

 

I feel that it's the player's obligation to think of and suggest creative ways to use powers/skills/etc and that it's the GM's obligation to keep an open mind to these suggestions and to encourage this as a practice.

 

It's also the GM's responsibility to give the PC a heads up if he's dumping lots of points and energy into stuff that'll be of limited use in the campaign (tons of starship and navigational-related skills in what will be a Star Wars game that'll rarely leave Tatooine).

[RDU Neil]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

As a GM and a player, I don't think that's the GM's responsibility.

 

I feel that it's the player's obligation to think of and suggest creative ways to use powers/skills/etc and that it's the GM's obligation to keep an open mind to these suggestions and to encourage this as a practice.

 

It's also the GM's responsibility to give the PC a heads up if he's dumping lots of points and energy into stuff that'll be of limited use in the campaign (tons of starship and navigational-related skills in what will be a Star Wars game that'll rarely leave Tatooine).

 

Absolutely. I would never intend that a player's desire for their PC should utterly shift the game. Just that when a player comes with points spent, the GM needs to understand why the player spent them... what the player expects those points to represent in a game. If the GM feels that will not be supported in the campaign, they need to tell the player that.

 

Part of the reason why Hero can lead to incoherent play is that it's design empowers players to create such "personal" PCs that there is then an underlying conflict between the players individual desires and the game. Now... many GM's get past this in a very authoritarian way. Here is the game I run... conform to that. I actually don't think that is a bad thing... as long as the GM still takes the time to work with every player to say, "Ok... you spent 10 points on Oratory and more on Presence for a game you know is going to be about fighting crime from the shadows and running from the corrupt law. What is your intent for using those points in game? Now, maybe the player is thinking "Ex-actor who is frustrated by his life on the lam and will use his charisma in underground speeches to get street people on their side... and he has visions of eventually leading a rebel army against the despots. Ok... cool... that might work well in the game. Or maybe the player is saying, "I want a character against type. I want the flashy, happy guy amongst all the brooders." GM can and should say, "Playing against type just to be against type doesn't support group play or this game... I'm not comfortable with that." The indicators may be that this player really doesn't want to play this game. This is possibly a violation of the social contract.

 

Points spent are "flags" to be examined... but without questioning how and why they are intended to be used we don't really know what those flags mean.

 

Point inflation CAN (not always, but can) result in conflicting flags... less coherent character concept because of the Sim desire to stat out every detail... but then finding as Questar stated above... that more detail doesn't really change play at all.

[Jhamin]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

It seems to me that we are confusing two different things: The Hero System and the Champions Universe.

 

Hero 5th edition stull supports the "Cop: 12-" roll just like 4th did. It's just that the Genre books don't generally use that system.

 

What changed is the character design philosopy in the 5th ed Champions universe. There were several basic assumptions of 4th edition design that were modified.

 

-Attacks generally gained 1-2 dice, while defenses stayed the same or dropped a point or two.

-Power frameworks were much more common, characters with several were no longer the exception

-Skills became much more granular.

-Most powers had several advantages and limits. "Vanilla" powers became very uncommon.

 

This was not a change in Hero System, but a change in the "Campaign Guidelines" worksheet for Champions.

[Trebuchet]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I think you've hit the nail on the head here: It's not a change to the system; it's a change to the philosophy.

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with (for example) continuing to take the "Cop: 12-" approach in Champions, especially if being a cop is just a background Skill for the character. But if you want your hero to be really competent at policework because he's a Dark Knight-type then you can break "Cop: 12-" into its constituent bits (Streetwise, Criminology, Combat Driving, WF: Firearms, KS: Legal System, etc.) and become considerably better at it than a basic "Cop 12-" gets you. That's what the extra 100 CP allows. You can now afford to get those complimentary skill rolls that help so much to offset penalties instead of the vanilla "Cop: 12-". That allows a lot more flexibility for character design and roleplaying. Now you have enough CP to build a character who is both powerful in combat and has some very useful non-combat Skills. To me that allows more interesting (and hopefully better) characters.

[zornwil]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I technically started with 5th, so I haven't exactly noticed an increase

However, talking to various old school HERO gamers, I've been told at various points that:

 

- I want too many background skills, most of which will be useless.

- My non-hero ID is too competent (only really applies to OIHID and Multifom users, but I play a lot of those)

- I stat out too many trivial things about my powers

- I don't "properly" limit my powers, which apparently means that I don't try to cram a 500 pt character into a 250 pt package.

As a side note, more and more I tell people that for their regular background skills, anything defined by their history/write-up and as they interpret in play (bearing in mind they are held to consistency and reasonability), they get a regular INT roll. Sort of as Savage Worlds does it, applied to HERO.

[Vondy]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

As a side note' date=' more and more I tell people that for their regular background skills, anything defined by their history/write-up and as they interpret in play (bearing in mind they are held to consistency and reasonability), they get a regular INT roll. Sort of as Savage Worlds does it, applied to HERO.[/quote']

 

This boils down to philosophy, but its a good one, IMO.

[zornwil]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

This boils down to philosophy' date=' but its a good one, IMO.[/quote']

Thanks, I see where this can be disruptive to those who really want to have it all spelled out and for whom each point matters. But I don't run games much that way in general, in some part because I think the game produces points only as an approximation, that the granularity is such that there is no real difference between a 75+75 character and an 80+75 character, assuming both were written fairly independently (even if for the same campaign). In another part, it seems to make some character write-ups more elegant plus it encourages (to me) a healthy push on players to think about and develop their characters directly in play - something I see as more important in con games given people are just handed character sheets. I'm a bit tired so this may not have come across well...

[Questar]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

 

There's absolutely nothing wrong with (for example) continuing to take the "Cop: 12-" approach in Champions, especially if being a cop is just a background Skill for the character. But if you want your hero to be really competent at policework because he's a Dark Knight-type then you can break "Cop: 12-" into its constituent bits (Streetwise, Criminology, Combat Driving, WF: Firearms, KS: Legal System, etc.) and become considerably better at it than a basic "Cop 12-" gets you. That's what the extra 100 CP allows. You can now afford to get those complimentary skill rolls that help so much to offset penalties instead of the vanilla "Cop: 12-". That allows a lot more flexibility for character design and roleplaying. Now you have enough CP to build a character who is both powerful in combat and has some very useful non-combat Skills. To me that allows more interesting (and hopefully better) characters.

 

I don't think I view PS:Cop exactly the same way you do. I don't think breaking it down into smaller bits makes you better at any of these things unless you buy them at a higher level. Nor do I see that it makes your character more versatile. (And just how far do you carry it? Do you need, for example, KS: Police Procedure, Fam: Street weapons, Fam: Forensic evidence, KS: Blue Brotherhood, Perk: License to carry a weapon, and so on?)

 

I wouldn't say that PS: Cop would automatically give you skills like Combat Driving or Criminology but I think it would cover the other territory without having to stat it all out. With PS: Cop your character would still have KS: Legal System, WF: Firearms (depending on the campaign), License to carry a weapon, and so on, but it would all come under the umbrella of PS: Cop.

 

I think that's part of why there is such a big "point inflation" in the characters in the source books. But versatility is not really increased. In fact, it may be decreased. If you forget to put some cop-like knowledge skill on your sheet, does that mean your cop character doesn't have it?

 

IMO, what really defines a character's background is not the skills, but the background story. That's what separates and makes a character different from another with similar or even the same skills. I really like Zornwill's idea of giving an INT roll for background skills that appear in a character's write-up. That actually seems MORE versatile to me.

 

I understand the good feeling about a character that has a detailed character sheet, but I just don't see any difference in game play. It may be because I play mainly supers where background skills don't have as much impact. It could also be that this is a really weak area of my GM abilities.

 

I would really appreciate reading a thread about how different GM's use background skills in their games, and how PC's use them in ways that actually affect the game play. It might spark some ideas for me.

[Metaphysician]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I think the current logic behind the "PS: Cop" type skills is that they are *not* self-sufficient, in themselves, and they don't actually cover most of the stuff covered by other skills.

 

Rather, PS: Cop covers stuff like understanding police radio code, knowing how to fill out paperwork for incident reports or requesting evidence access, how to take legally-useful interviews with witnesses, basic evidence collection, etc. It doesn't cover stuff like driving or shooting at all.

 

Or, to put it another way: a Profession Skill *cannot* substitute for a Non-Background Skill, except perhaps in a very narrowly defined situation and at a penalty.

[Questar]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I think the current logic behind the "PS: Cop" type skills is that they are *not* self-sufficient, in themselves, and they don't actually cover most of the stuff covered by other skills.

 

Rather, PS: Cop covers stuff like understanding police radio code, knowing how to fill out paperwork for incident reports or requesting evidence access, how to take legally-useful interviews with witnesses, basic evidence collection, etc. It doesn't cover stuff like driving or shooting at all.

 

Or, to put it another way: a Profession Skill *cannot* substitute for a Non-Background Skill, except perhaps in a very narrowly defined situation and at a penalty.

 

 

No, I'm not talking about driving or shooting, as I specifically said. I'm talking about cop background skills like KS: Legal system; KS: Police Procedure; Fam: Forensic evidence, license to carry a weapon and the like. I'm talking BACKGROUND skills.

 

PS:Cop has never been a substitute for Combat Driving or combat skill levels with a pistol.

[Lucius]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

No, I'm not talking about driving or shooting, as I specifically said. I'm talking about cop background skills like KS: Legal system; KS: Police Procedure; Fam: Forensic evidence, license to carry a weapon and the like. I'm talking BACKGROUND skills.

 

PS:Cop has never been a substitute for Combat Driving or combat skill levels with a pistol.

 

Well, you did say it included a weapon familiarity, didn't you?

 

I would say the PS: Cop would cover the kind of knowledges you cite, and I would certainly include the license to carry, and for that matter, everything under "perk: police powers." As you may have noticed, I am particularly unfond of "perk inflation." As far as I'm concerned, if you have an appropriate professional skill, and other relevant skills, you should be licensed to practice, barring any good reasons you shouldn't be.

 

Of course, a police officer's knowledge of things like the legal system would be restricted to the parts of the system they have to know for their job, or come in contact with. A lawyer's knowledge would be broader on the law, but a lawyer would know much less about police procedure.

 

If you are interested in seeing background skills discussed, come to the Fantasy Hero forum and look up the thread Professions of Arms. There may be other good threads around on the topic, but I can't think of any offhand.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

KS: Palindromedary

[Questar]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Well' date=' you did say it included a weapon familiarity, didn't you? [/quote']

 

Ah. I see your point, but I did say that this WF was dependent on the campaign. If a PC has paid points for a gun in a super campaign, then he doesn't have to buy WF for the gun. (at least that's the way it used to be. Did 5E change that?)

 

But actually, it was the previous post that implied that PS:Cop used to be used to cover such things as WF and Combat Driving but they have now been broken down to constituent parts. I don't think PS: Cop ever covered such things, and that was part of the point I was making. Or trying to.

 

I would say the PS: Cop would cover the kind of knowledges you cite, and I would certainly include the license to carry, and for that matter, everything under "perk: police powers." As you may have noticed, I am particularly unfond of "perk inflation." As far as I'm concerned, if you have an appropriate professional skill, and other relevant skills, you should be licensed to practice, barring any good reasons you shouldn't be.

 

Of course, a police officer's knowledge of things like the legal system would be restricted to the parts of the system they have to know for their job, or come in contact with. A lawyer's knowledge would be broader on the law, but a lawyer would know much less about police procedure.

 

You and I seem to agree that PS: Cop can be used to cover a wide variety of different knowledge skills including legal system, police procedure, police powers of detain and arrest, and more. Others prefer to define the "constituent parts" more carefully, and in doing so define exactly what TYPE of cop the character is. I'm not saying that approach is not valid (although I think they would ALSO have to have PS: Cop to cover all the bases). The 5E source material uses and encourages this approach to some degree.

 

What I'm saying is that I strongly suspect that in gameplay, there is no substantive difference between the two approaches. One takes higher point levels, yes. But the character does not become more versatile because those knowledge skills are spelled out in greater degree.

 

 

 

If you are interested in seeing background skills discussed, come to the Fantasy Hero forum and look up the thread Professions of Arms. There may be other good threads around on the topic, but I can't think of any offhand.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

KS: Palindromedary

 

I appreciate the tip. I will check it out.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Well, you did say it included a weapon familiarity, didn't you?

 

I would say the PS: Cop would cover the kind of knowledges you cite, and I would certainly include the license to carry, and for that matter, everything under "perk: police powers." As you may have noticed, I am particularly unfond of "perk inflation." As far as I'm concerned, if you have an appropriate professional skill, and other relevant skills, you should be licensed to practice, barring any good reasons you shouldn't be.

 

In Cops Hero, you'd want to break out everything separately. In Mega High Powered Champions, call it a PS and be done with it, IMO.

[Lucius]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Ah. I see your point' date=' but I did say that this WF was dependent on the campaign. If a PC has paid points for a gun in a super campaign, then he doesn't have to buy WF for the gun. (at least that's the way it used to be. Did 5E change that?) [/quote']

 

No, I think that's the same, but you make me think of another use for PS: Cop. You'd have familiarity with all kinds of street weapons - not in the sense of using them, but in the sense of recognizing them and knowing what they are and maybe such things as how they're used, how they can be concealed, where the crooks are getting them these days....

 

You and I seem to agree that PS: Cop can be used to cover a wide variety of different knowledge skills including legal system, police procedure, police powers of detain and arrest, and more. Others prefer to define the "constituent parts" more carefully, and in doing so define exactly what TYPE of cop the character is. I'm not saying that approach is not valid (although I think they would ALSO have to have PS: Cop to cover all the bases).

 

I think you're right. One of the ways I explain PS: skills to people new to the game is to say that they're there to cover everything we didn't think of explicitly in character creation.

 

What I'm saying is that I strongly suspect that in gameplay, there is no substantive difference between the two approaches. One takes higher point levels, yes. But the character does not become more versatile because those knowledge skills are spelled out in greater degree.

 

Maybe, maybe not. I think a game where the Operations Director is encouraging players to take the "nuanced" multiple skill approach is probably one where, if one player just took "Profession Skill: Cop" and another took all the ancillary skills, the latter would have an actual advantage in play, coming across, in effect, as the keen cop who does the homework, pays attention in briefings, always reads the bulletin board in the squadroom so he knows what's going on, etc. As for the perks, though, they can't really take different approaches - that comes down to the guy running the game saying, one way or another, what's required.

 

Where there's a disconnect is when a player THINKS he needs more different skills than he really does to function in a given game. In that case, at some point he may ask "Hey, what did I spend all these points on Knowledge Skill: Police Procedures for?" and I think he should probably get to trade in some points if he spent them on a mistaken impression. Either that, or get the spotlight shone on his expertise more often.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Area Knowledge: Palindromedary Habitat

[Chessack]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I've been with Hero ever since 4th edition Big Blue Book. Since 5E and 5ER and all the (fantastic) new books since, I've begun to notice a slow trend with Hero: it's what I refer to as "point inflation".

 

I just bought 5E myself after years of hiatus from Champions, and one comment I made to an old friend of mine (both of us have been playing since 2nd edition in oh about 1982 or so) was, "5th edition reads like it was written by and for powergamers." Honestly, for a while I just sat and stared almost with tears in my eyes, apalled at what has been done to the game that was once my favorite of all time.

 

If you take a look at the old example of Crusader, who was supposed to be a typical "starting superhero" the guy was 200 points -- 200! (This was in 2nd edition). And Starburst was about the same. These were the two sample characters in the books. The other thing you noticed about them (relative to the sample characters of today) was their relative simplicity. They had things like EB, Force Field, Flight, Martial Arts, and some skills.

 

In the old days you just didn't see single powers that took up 5 lines of text like you do today. Part of that is the new "writers' guidelines" format (which I've complained about relative to Hero Designer and been told "that's how it's done now", sigh), which has apparently foregone the obvious abbreviations (EB, RKA, etc) in favor of writing things out longhand... But a lot of it has to do with the fact that everything is spelled out as an advantage or an adder now.

 

But you're right... Ever since 4th edition (this was done a bit in 4th edition but way more now in 5th), Champions/Hero has gone from a game where you paid points for the basics and used your imagination to fill in the details, to a game where you pay for all the damn details and if you don't pay for them you can't do it. The great 4th edition example of this bloating is Perks. Other than Vehicles and Bases, which have existed since Champions II in 1983 or so, every other Perk is something that, in prior editions of Champions, was just part of your background and RPed. Being rich or poor was not based on points -- it was just an RP device. Having some highly placed contact, again, as a roleplay device. And so forth. I suppose the designers decided that these things were so good you should have to pay for them, but frankly I have always thought that the effort to codify every niggling detail of the verisimilitude into points was a mistake.

 

This has been taken to an extreme in 5th edition. Also, they seem to have deicded to "generalize" things. So, for example, Regeneration is now a very complicated option fo Healing, rather than being a simple power. In part because of this generalization, which forces it, and in part because the philosophy has "gone powergamey" on us (on me, at least), what used to be the exception in Champions, occuring once in a few character sheets -- long spammy powers with multiple stacked advantages and limitations -- has now become the norm, and is "standard character design."

 

I think this is a mistake from a number of angles, not the least of which is the stifling of player creativity. In 5th edition every little thing is codified on your sheet, and if the sheet doesn't say it then (barring a GM like me saying "*bleep* that, we're playing old school") you can't do it. In 2nd, 3rd, and to a lesser degree 4th edition, you just bought the BASIC stuff, and then all those details we now pay for, back then, were just "in the imagination." I for one prefer it the other way. And the only reason I don't still play freakin' second edition Champions, is because the books are long since gone. If I had them, I swear I'd scan 'em into PDFs and e-mail the PDFs to all my Champions play-by-email group and that's what we'd use.

 

But since the beginning of 5th edition, I've begun to notice that many of the "core" books of Hero, mainly the 5ER book and the Ultimate series, seem to be subtly upping the amount of points you need to create the character you want to create. For instance: power pools of "[archetype] tricks" that might've been assumed or worked out on the fly before, and lots of new adders and advantages that (to me) seem to express things that the GM might've assumed already (e.g., flight working underwater assuming the SFX was appropriate).

 

Not to say that those are bad. Actually, they are quite cool. But it does mean more points that need to be spent to buy them.

And a lot less "on the fly" creativity by the players just coming up with cool ways to use their powers.

 

Now, of course, the GM can still allow it. And an old school GM like me does. That's why the campaign I'm about to start has no less than 22 House Rules already, some of them with sections "a" through as far as "t", most of them either disallowing the options I think are just catering to powergamers in the first place, or replacing the 5th edition stuff with more old school interpretations. (For example, I keep telling people, "Don't buy perks like Contacts or Fringe Benefits. Just put it into your background.")

 

Of couse you can always point out that the book says about twice a page, "at the GM's discretion" or something like that, and it tells him to ignore the points in favor of RP in the GM section. However, expecting players who have been given 5 pages of detail on how to do something to just wave their hands and ignore it is expecting the unrealistic. Once you show players "this is the right way to buy all this stuff with points," the natural tendency of anyone who only knows that way of playing, is going to be to use all the details. Only someone like me, who has seen the other way of playing -- the "in the imagination" way -- is likely to wave his hand and say, "Screw the points, use your imagination." The rules SAY you can do that but at every turn they promote just the opposite way of thinking. In short, I think the way 5th edition is built is teaching people the wrong thing about how to play Champions: it's teaching them that the points are gods, and that every little detail in the universe can be codified into game terms. Now, it's always been true that every detail in the universe could be codified, but it generally wasn't ACTUALLY codified in the past... and it is, now.

 

Has anyone else noticed this? If so, do you guys feel this is a good direction? I do like the new additions and ideas, but I also value simplicity in a game system as well.

Yes, I've noticed it, and no, I don't think it's a good direction. I find it rather sad, actually. I used to say Champions was the greatest RPG in the world. I still think that. It was. No question. Hero 5th is merely a good game. It doesn't suck, mind... But I think in the effort to make Hero's version of GURPS (it even says in the back of 5ER that they were purposely making a generic game, rather than a superhero one), we have lost what was so special, so unique, about Champions.

 

I remember being able to play 2nd ed Champions -- even with the optional Champions II and III rules -- without having to look at the book. I could GM whole game sessions without opening the book to consult a chart, table, or paragraph of text. That's because the rules were streamlined, and this encouraged players and GMs alike to build simple characters and then roleplay everything else. It made the game easy and flexible at the same time.

 

Now it has neither of those traits. As I look over the characters in my PBEM campaign that players are working on, I have to hit the blasted rulebook to look up things that used to be simple, like freaking Public Identity for crying out loud (which is now a Social Limitation for some reason I will never understand). It never used to be this hard. It was never this spelled out.

 

I'm sure some people like that it's all super-spelled out, but I don't. I preferred it back before it was "Hero System: The Generically Complex Roleplaying Game..." back when it was "Champions: the Superhero Roleplaying Game."

 

And I miss it.

 

C

[Chessack]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Well said' date=' Neil. In my old game group, the general rule of thumb was that if you spent points on a skill (particularly background skills), then the GM would try to make sure that the skill would come in handy at one or more points in the game.[/quote']

 

Any GM worth his (or her) salt has always done this.

 

C

[Chessack]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

Um, no.

 

If I buy a Driving skill and don’t pay a point for Perk: Driver’s License, does that make it illegal for the character to drive a car?

 

For that matter, if I don’t pay a point for Perk: Local Citizen, or Perk: Resident Alien, does that make my character an illegal alien in whatever country the game happens to be set in?

 

If I did not pay a point for Perk: Legally Married, are my character and her DNPC “living in sin?”

 

Just because a character with the appropriate skills does not have “Perk: Licensed MD” written down on the character sheet, it does not follow that the character is practicing medicine without a license.

 

I agree with you, but I think the problem I have with 5E (and 4E to a lesser extent, which really started this trend of "codify everything" that 5E is kind of taking to the logical conclusion) is that it encourages this kind of super-nitpicky thinking on the part of especially newer players and GMs. Those of us who have been around since the early days would not ever think that way, but why would a GM who just bought the books last week and does not read these forums or know anything other than what's in the book, NOT think exactly in this super-detailed, "pay for everything" manner?

 

As a great example, I'm starting up a new campaign with some new players, some of whom are Champions vets, and some of who have never played it before. When the new players who had played only the online game City of Heroes before (which has no such things as perks, talents, etc) started working on character sheets with nothing more than 5ER and Hero Designer, I got initial submissions from them with 30-40 points in Perks... all sorts of silly things like "military rank" and "passport" and such like. I gently said, "Guys you do not have to pay for this" and eventually made a house rule prohibiting the purchase of more than 2 perks. This was mostly for the new players to help them understand that they don't have to pay points for everything. "Just put it in your background guys!" And luckily for them they have a GM who is old school and doesn't charge them points for what amount to RP devices.

 

But this is my point: without someone experienced in the older version of the system, it is very easy to become overwhelmed by all those details and end up building characters with powers 8 lines long when a simple "Energy Blast" would easily do just fine, and 10 perks worth 40 points when a simple sentence "My character was a police officer before the fateful accident" would suffice.

 

The problem is that 5E provides no real guidelines to help new people figure out what really needs to be paid for, and what really belongs in the province of "roleplay it." Without those guidelines, the default for most people is "everything has to be paid for."

 

 

C