"Point inflation" in Hero

[zornwil]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Chessack, to your longer post, just a few thoughts...

 

I think the "pay for everything" issue is really rooted in the very first edition, though I don't disagree that it's become more of an issue over time. But the very basis of utility versus cost versus player control has begged this issue and it is nascent in the ethos of the game as it started. So I don't feel it's blame factor for 4th or 5th. Perhaps some general guidelines or just thoughts on the issue in a paragraph would suffice in the core book, something to clarify this is a play group decision.

 

Your comment about "this is the right way to buy all this stuff with points," is dead on and I wonder if the tone/method of communicating the message will change in 6th? I know for a fact that the DOJ guys really aren't intending people to feel at all that the book is saying "this is right and other ways are wrong," in fact Darren and Steve both feel that it's a toolkit in that you can pick and choose. Don't want to pay for Contacts? Then don't, it won't break the game.

 

But the problem, as you rightly perceive, is that the book is short on this flexibility in actual description, instead diving into minutiae and clouding the issue, albeit unintentionally. I think also that for people newer to the game, it's harder for them to figure out just what things, if dropped, will break the game versus how far you can go in modifying it - an issue I admit I and RDU Neil and a few others have discussed ad nauseum, but I think you illustrate exactly why it's so important.

[Chessack]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

But the problem, as you rightly perceive, is that the book is short on this flexibility in actual description, instead diving into minutiae and clouding the issue, albeit unintentionally. I think also that for people newer to the game, it's harder for them to figure out just what things, if dropped, will break the game versus how far you can go in modifying it - an issue I admit I and RDU Neil and a few others have discussed ad nauseum, but I think you illustrate exactly why it's so important.

 

I think you've hit part of the problem exactly. "What elements, if dropped ,will break the game?" As someone who played 2nd edition Champions, which was a total of 80 pages, and had half the Powers, 1/4 of the skills (if that), no Talents or Perks, and probably 1/4 of the Advantages and Limitations, I can look at all the new stuff -- all of it -- and say, "It can all be dropped without breaking the game." I can say this with 100% confidence because I played the hero system without all of it back during 2nd edition and the game was not broken. Imperfect, yes. A few balance problems, yes. Broken, no. The #1 weakness was that certain "odd" powers could not be codified/characterized (things such as what we now do with Multiform, Duplication, Summon, Damage Reduction). There were more limits on what you could precisely build... in 2nd edition, pre-Champions II/III, you could build about 85% of the heroes in comics, or that you could imagine, either precisely or nearly so, but the other 15% were just not even doable with a very big wink and a nod (e.g., Duo Damsel or the Transformers).

 

So, having had that experience, I could easily toss every Perk and Talent in the book, most of the skills, and half the rest of it, and know that I will have a working game. Beyond that, I know what to toss. I know from experience that dropping most of the Perks and letting people just put them in their backgrounds will not break the game -- because we played with rich and poor characters, military ranked characters, ex-cops, etc, for years and years, without anyone paying one dime for any of those "perks", and there was no problem.

 

But a new player isn't going to know that. And so, while Long et al. can say every paragraph, "The GM, at his option...(blah blah)", how is the GM to know which options to exercise and which not? There is no way to know, without some serious trial, error, and probably bad game sessions until you get your "sea legs."

 

The examples in the margins of the book are also an issue, in my opinion. It's fine to show some complex examples, but those seem to be all they show. I suppose they figure "Well anyone can figure out the simple stuff" and in a sense that's probably true, but what they are doing is inundating the player with complicated example Power after complicated example Power. The player begins to think that this is "how you're supposed to play Hero system games," when in fact, that's just not so. You certainly CAN play Champions et al. with super complicated Powers on every line of your sheet if you want -- Powers laden with 11 advantages and 35 Limitations. But you don't have to and, what's more, starting players probably shouldn't. A starting player should really be "getting his feet wet", so to speak, playing characters that have just straight powers with maybe 1 advantage or so to make them a little more interesting, or a Limitation or two. I'm not saying that building such characters is always right, but for a starting player? You bet it is... because the system is complicated enough without building a "5D6 EB, NND, AOE, No Range, Hole in the Middle, OIF, Act 14 or less, 12 Charges, Continuing, Costs End To Use, Variable Special Effect" (or whatever). Sure, sometimes doing that perfectly captures what you wanted, and that's fine for an experienced player, but a newbie shouldn't be encouraged to build Powers like that because it makes everything too hard.

 

After all, even in Champions 2nd edition, even without II and III, we got seriously complex after a while. Our first characters were simple, like the Crusader and Starburst examples. But our later characters became more and more complex. They became this way naturally as we got better with the system, understood it better, and became better able to have it accomplish what we wanted. But we didn't try to start that way... and the system really didn't encourage you to start that way. They started out with very simple examples and then once in a while threw in something complicated to show what is possible.

 

It just feels like the whole perspective has changed... the goal has gone from being able to capture the essence of superheroes without getting too bogged down in the details, to capturing the details without regard to how well the essence is being represented any longer. Some of that is the consquence of making Hero Games GURPS out of it instead of keeping it focused on Superheroes. But a lot of it is just a gradual change in perspective that has been creeping into the system since 4th or possibly 3rd edition (I bought 3rd but it was such a mess our group never used it as anything but a surface to write on, so I don't remember much about it).

 

In 2nd edition and the Adventurer's Club around that time, Hero Games writers often said things like, "Well you can do this with points, but you probably shouldn't -- just RP it" (not those words but that idea). Now the philosophy seems to be "do everything with points." You can see this again in the example of Healing with adders like... Resurrection?? Death and resurrection were considered story elements in Champions 2nd edition. I don't think it ever would've occurred to anyone back then to figure out how much "resurrection" should cost... because it would've been assumed to be left up to the GM. It's that kind of thing that makes me just sigh and hit the ol' House Rules file to disallow things... But I wish I didn't have to keep writing over and over, "We will not be using X. Just RP it." I shouldn't have to keep doing that. I never used to.

 

C

[Trebuchet]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Great post, Chessak, and nicely coincides with some of my own experiences with Hero. Fortunately, several of the founding members of our Champions group are "old school" (We started playing Champions in 1982 or '83) and we run a deliberately four-color Champions campaign which is now in its 14th year so we've managed to avoid many of those issues. (The player running a billionaire ultimately bought the Perk: Filthy Rich out of an admirably scrupulous sense of fairness, not because he had to.)

 

Yes, you can build all those complicated Powers and buy all those Perks and Contacts, but should you? I know that as both player and GM I've been a lot happier with a more flexible approach using background story (and it makes a nice reward for players coming up with a solid backstory). While I can see the need for examples of complex power-builds, I'd like to see more simple builds provided in the Hero resource books. Far too many players and GMs nowadays think everything has to be complicated. And how would they know any differerent when too many official character builds are as "simple" as a nuclear reactor?

[Zed-F]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

To each his own. I for one find character sheets that have nothing but a few lines about a few simple powers bore me to tears. I like having those details spelled out. I like being able to specify exactly how hosed my character becomes when the GM chooses to take a focus away or exercise limitation X. I like having a broad variety of options at my disposal that don't just involve variations on the same simple EB (blah to that!)

 

There's no real reason to assume powergaming has anything to do with it. It has to do with creating a more fleshed-out character. Having a character with a few simple powers reads to me like such:

Phase 1: I blast it.

Phase 2: I blast it again.

Phase 3: I blast it again.

Phase 4: I blast...

 

You get the idea. Variety is the spice of life. I fully accept that maybe in your game, things might have more variety than that. But they don't seem to when you look at the character sheet, and that's a bad first impression to have.

[Questar]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Chessack, I really appreciate your passion and your obvious love of the game. And I agree with you in many respects.

 

I do have to say that I also appreciate the love of the game that caused DOJ to preserve it and keep it going. I have a lot of gratitude for that, and a lot of respect for what they have done. And I have tried to support it by buying a number of the new HERO books, because I want DOJ to be successful and do well.

 

For my own preferences, I like 4E in general terms better for a number of the reasons you’ve mentioned. But I think part of our mutual preference comes from the fact that we play superhero campaigns. Like you, I think of the game as “Champions”, not HERO. Like you, I go all the way back to the original game.

 

I don’t think that 5E is really “power-gaming”. I would describe it more as “legalistic gaming” in its tone and in the philosophy it seems to encourage. It has a strong appeal for the type of player that used to be referred to as a “game-mechanic” (as opposed to the “story-teller” or “roleplayer”) That is its strength. And I can understand that in some types of campaigns, it brings a greater sense of realism and simulation to a game. Like you, I prefer a more role-playing approach than a computer-like simulation. As is, 5E allows you to go either way, but it is true that the model is the “simulation” one.

 

For a freewheeling comic-book campaign, where even the laws of physics get suspended on a regular basis, a high level of realism isn’t necessarily a benefit. Personally, I find source material in 5E top-heavy and over-complex to some degree. But on the other hand, I’ve already seen all the simple constructs in the older books, and I don’t need source material for that. I just cherry-pick from concepts that appeal to me.

 

Like you, I have found that the overwhelming complexity of the rules to be a crushing weight at times, and tedious to GM. I disregard it, and make rulings on the fly, only to have a player say, “Actually, the real rule is that in this situation you do blah blah blah…” (Shrug) Goes with the territory. Players will always find ways to try to influence the GM, and some will always complain about rulings that go against them, even if you point out chapter and verse in the rule book.

 

Things change. Your favorite artist or writer leaves your favorite title and you feel a loss. Superhero comics themselves don’t seem as much fun as they once were (darker, overdone, trying too hard to NOT be a superhero comic). But, hey. I think we’re lucky to have a group like DOJ that really cares about this system and has preserved it and keeps it going. What you loved about Champions hasn’t gone away. It’s just kind of buried. You can dig it out and even find new things from time to time. And DOJ deserves a lot of credit for that.

[Chessack]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I do have to say that I also appreciate the love of the game that caused DOJ to preserve it and keep it going.

 

Agreed of course.

 

I don’t think that 5E is really “power-gaming”. I would describe it more as “legalistic gaming” in its tone and in the philosophy it seems to encourage. It has a strong appeal for the type of player that used to be referred to as a “game-mechanic” (as opposed to the “story-teller” or “roleplayer”) That is its strength.

You're right. I should have said "Rules Lawyer" not "Powergamer." It appeals more to the sort of player we used to call the "Rules Lawyer."

 

As a GM, I really disliked having to deal with our resident Rules Lawyer. He turned every session into a tedious search through the books to prove whether he was right. Luckily, he only showed up occasionally, and the rest of the time I just used his character as an NPC and we all were able to play without even looking at the book. But 5E reads like it was written for someone like him, so I have a natural tendancy to find it distasteful.

 

For a freewheeling comic-book campaign, where even the laws of physics get suspended on a regular basis, a high level of realism isn’t necessarily a benefit. Personally, I find source material in 5E top-heavy and over-complex to some degree. But on the other hand, I’ve already seen all the simple constructs in the older books, and I don’t need source material for that. I just cherry-pick from concepts that appeal to me.

I agree, but it's a huge amount of work. It has taken me several weeks of hard reading, hard thinking, wracking my brain, and comparing paragraphs in 4E and 5E just to set up my house rules. I used to be able to set up house rules in an evening.

 

 

Things change. Your favorite artist or writer leaves your favorite title and you feel a loss. Superhero comics themselves don’t seem as much fun as they once were (darker, overdone, trying too hard to NOT be a superhero comic).

Yeah but I can still buy back-issues, and fairly easily. I wish they would make 2E available, or heck even 4E, as a cheap PDF download. I'd buy it, I'll tell ya that. And I'd switch my whole campaign over to it in a heartbeat.

 

C

[Chessack]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I like having a broad variety of options at my disposal that don't just involve variations on the same simple EB (blah to that!)

 

First of all, those options have been there from the beginning. NND, AP, Explosion, AOE, Charges, OAF, etc, have all been around since day one. But the original philosophy of the 2E (and probably 1E though I never owned it) design was to assume that even a single advantage changes a Power substantially, and that you therefore don't need 18 of them to make a power different. By combining advantages with special effects every power can easily be made unique. After all my 7D6 AP - Fire is clearly different from your 5D6 NND - Sonic.

 

Second of all, nobody would have said "You have to only have EB" or even "you have to only have simple powers." But I think the precedent set in 5ER from the very outset is, "most powers are super complex" and I think that's a bad message. Our group Rules Lawyer made up some amazingly complex stuff. But he was the exception, not the rule. It's the conversion of the Rules Lawyer style of writing up characters from allowable to default, to which I object.

 

There's no real reason to assume powergaming has anything to do with it.

Right. I used the wrong word. I should've said "Rules Lawyer."

 

It has to do with creating a more fleshed-out character.

That's a matter of opinion. I happen to think a guy with powers like "10D6 EB" and "+20 PD/+20 ED Force Field" and 2 pages of background is far more fleshed out than a guy with "5D6 EB - Explosion - NND - Hole in the Middle - Charges - Cost END to Use - No Range - Does not work on Sundays - OAF" who has a 2 sentence background that is just like every other hero background in the group.

 

Having a character with a few simple powers reads to me like such:

Phase 1: I blast it.

Phase 2: I blast it again.

Phase 3: I blast it again.

Phase 4: I blast...

In our group, I would've said if you were doing that, you were not "playing right." "I blast it" was not considered a valid Phase action even if you only had a single blast and it was all you could do that Phase. You had to describe it... and you had to roleplay, including Soliloquy if appropriate. I used to dock experience for people who just said, "I half move and blast him". That's not roleplaying. In our group, roleplaying was punctuated by game moves... not the other way round. If that's so, then "10D6 EB" is plenty sufficient, because what matters is how you RP that EB, not how many points it costs or what D6 of damage it does.

 

You get the idea. Variety is the spice of life. I fully accept that maybe in your game, things might have more variety than that. But they don't seem to when you look at the character sheet, and that's a bad first impression to have.

For us the variety came from the RP, not the points on the sheet. The points and dice represented a way to resolve a conflict whose outcome was indeterminate, not as a way to dictate play. So, for example, if character A wants to shoot character B, the only (fair) way to determine whether he hits, and how much damage he does, is to use points and dice (since those are objective). But for everything else, we just RPed it.

 

As for simple characters being boring, one of the best villains we ever had was the old Enemies villain Fox. In the book, all he had was a good DEX and teleportation Power (he was one of the weaker villains) and a few other things (I don't remember his other stats but my recollection is they were unremarkable). As written I'm not sure what you were supposed to do with him, but it said in his background that he was humorous and he liked to throw pies at people and hit them in the face. Now, he didn't have pies on his character sheet. But I ruled that the pies would act as a 1-phase Flash and that your Flash Defense did not protect you, because realistically you were spending time clearing Pie out of your face, (which is why your DCV went down). It only acted vs. one person (in those days Flash was default AOE and the concept of "single target flash", which came out in Champions III I think, did not yet exist). Fox had some floating locations so I would find a spot on the map for him to store his pies, and he would "bamf" in and out of the battle field and hit the heroes with pies while his allies (the "real" villains) were fighting.

 

Fox caused no end of trouble, and became a group favorite, both for me and the players. For the first few encounters he drove them completely nuts, but then someone happened upon his "pie stash" after a fight and realized what was going on, and after that when he showed up, they'd task one person (usually the Mentalist) with "Find his pies" so he would stop bothering them.

 

All done without points... all done based on a single sentence in the background. Nobody but our rules lawyer argued "it's not on his sheet." And when he argued that, everyone just told him to be quiet, since they liked Fox as an enemy.

 

Now you could say, "Well that's just what your group did," but I don't think that's accurate. Our group was doing what the 2E books encouraged us to do... which was to NOT be slaves to the character sheets, but rather, do what was fun and what made sense, and allow players to use Powers in creative ways. In the old days because a lot of things were NOT pre-defined in terms of costs and effects, GMs (at least in our group) would let players make things up, like the time my fire/ice hero put out a fire by putting his fire and ice hands together and making water. Since nowadays everything IS defined already, including how fire extinquishers work, there's less incentive for the GM to just allow it, and far more for him to point at the line in the book and say, "You didn't buy this so you can't do it."

 

Again experienced "old school" GMs will still allow it, but I don't think newer ones are as likely to. And I consider that to be a shame.

 

C

[Questar]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

 

 

 

For us the variety came from the RP, not the points on the sheet. The points and dice represented a way to resolve a conflict whose outcome was indeterminate, not as a way to dictate play. So, for example, if character A wants to shoot character B, the only (fair) way to determine whether he hits, and how much damage he does, is to use points and dice (since those are objective). But for everything else, we just RPed it.

 

 

Oh, man, what a great post! I'd rep you again if I could. The Fox of Crime!!!

 

I admit, I turned up my nose at the Fox of Crime to begin with. There were plenty of these harassing humorous characters in the Silver Age, but I always found the stories too silly and annoying. My group was far more interested in battling foes like the awesome Seven Horsemen. One player threatened to quit if I ever used CLOWN or a gweenie.

 

Yet I was persuaded to use the Fox of Crime by a player who had used the character as GM with another group. It turned out to be a terrifically fun session. We laughed and howled. I realized that there's a big difference in using a character like that in an adventure and reading about one in the comics. To this day, someone will bring up something that happened in that session and cause us to laugh at the memory of it.

 

Your description of your campaign and your philosophy of roleplay hits a big nerve with me. As I get older I find I want fewer rules, not more. I want more scope for that kind of spontaneous creative energy you describe so well. The Ultimate series has no interest at all for me. Guess we're just old school.

 

But if it's "back issues" you want, they are available. One of my players picks them up on Ebay from time to time. You can probably find them elsewhere on the internet. (But I will not sell you mine).

[Zed-F]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Right. I used the wrong word. I should've said "Rules Lawyer."

I think that's still the wrong word. Just because a player likes detail and flexibility in his character builds, does not necessarily make him a rules lawyer. It doesn't even make him a rules lawyer if he knows more about the rules than the GM (though IMO in that event the GM could stand to learn something from him.) What makes him a rules lawyer, is if he consistently uses his knowledge of the rules during play to obstruct the flow of the game. This might well have been true of the person in your original group that you got such a negative vibe off of. But it does not apply to anyone (or even most people) who prefer mechanically detailed character write-ups.

 

Again experienced "old school" GMs will still allow it, but I don't think newer ones are as likely to. And I consider that to be a shame.

See, this is the part of your argument that I don't really buy. I agree that a good GM/player/gaming group is flexible, uses detailed background stories to describe what a character's about, encourages roleplay, and makes good use of descriptive combat. I do all that myself, or at least try to. I just don't think that what you have written down for character mechanics has anything to do with it. I've seen good GMs that prefer simple character descriptions, and I've seen bad GMs that prefer the same. The same holds for those that are perfectly happy with the most complicated detail-oriented builds.

 

In my experience, those players who build the most simple characters are the ones that put the least thought into their characters before play, and they are also the ones who put the least thought into their characters during play. These are the players that are there to be entertained by the GM, not to participate in crafting an immersive story. So in that respect, what you describe for your group is the exact opposite of my experience. This leads me to conclude that there is no causal relationship or even casual association there. It's purely a matter of how and from whom any given GM/player acquired his or her GMing/playing style. And, in the case of a bad GM/player, what if anything you can do to teach them better, or whether you should just cut them loose and find someone else to game with.

[Chessack]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

I admit, I turned up my nose at the Fox of Crime to begin with.

 

So did my group.

 

We used to rotate GMs so everyone got Enemies right when it came out. We all read all the villains and knew most of them. Everyone turned up their nose at Fox. No GM wanted to use him. In those days once someone used a villain from Enemies in his adventure, he had "called" the villain, and it became "his" (no one else could use it without permission, just as if I had created it myself). After the first session with Fox, the other guys in the group were VERY bummed that I had, in effect, "called" one of the best villains in the book.

 

(I apparently had an eye for this sort of thing though I didn't think about it at the time. With Enemies II I also was the first person to use Foxbat, and thus "called" him as well.... Which ultimately led to the Fox + Foxbat teamup scenario. MUH-hahahah.)

 

Guess we're just old school.

Yup. I openly admit it. It took the other guys about a full year to convince me to move my campaign from 2nd edition to 4th (nobody liked 3rd so that was never an issue). I'm an old fuddy-duddy. Guilty as charged.

 

I don't mind people preferring 5E and using it. I just wish I could (easily) get a nice newly minted copy of 2E and use that, too, if I want. It's a shame that for all games, not just Hero (D&D does this too), once they put out a new edition, all the old stuff is gone forever. Barring your E-bay suggestion of course. That's a decent idea but I'm wary of E-bay.

 

C

[Questar]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

So did my group.

 

We used to rotate GMs so everyone got Enemies right when it came out. We all read all the villains and knew most of them. Everyone turned up their nose at Fox. No GM wanted to use him. In those days once someone used a villain from Enemies in his adventure, he had "called" the villain, and it became "his" (no one else could use it without permission, just as if I had created it myself). After the first session with Fox, the other guys in the group were VERY bummed that I had, in effect, "called" one of the best villains in the book.

 

(I apparently had an eye for this sort of thing though I didn't think about it at the time. With Enemies II I also was the first person to use Foxbat, and thus "called" him as well.... Which ultimately led to the Fox + Foxbat teamup scenario. MUH-hahahah.)

 

C

 

I couldn't resist digging out my old Enemies book to look him up. "Frederic Fagin was a mutant with unusual features ... his favorite weapon is a banana cream pie, and he employs nothing more deadly. The FOX gives to the poor and goes out of his way to keep normals out of danger." His disadvantages list him as being a coward in the face of physical violence.

 

He was updated in Classic Enemies for 4E, and that's when they started calling him the Fox of Crime. But in 4E, they did put the pie on his character sheet (2d6 Flash vs sight OAF pie) but only 1 "charge". I much prefer your handling of the stash of pies and ruling it as a 1-phase flash that Flash Defense did not protect against. Makes more sense.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

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.

 

I repped you earlier. I do want to discuss a little...

 

This is sort of an object lesson in how not all constructs are necessarily useful for all games. Just about all of the Perks and most of the Skills came about from the heroic level games that came after Champions (Espionage, Fantasy Hero, Danger International, Justice Inc., primarily). In a game of spies or soldiers or cops, you're gonna want those Perks and Skills -- in fact, you'll be relying on those to differentiate your PCs. (Going back to the discussion re: cops; in a game of cops, you'll want to break out PS: Cop, KS: Police Procedure, KS: Criminal Law, WF: Pistols, AK: The City, Combat Driving, Bureaucracy, Perk: Police Powers, etc., while in a Champions game where your character is a cop in his secret ID that stuff is probably overkill.)

 

But.... I remember us using skills from Danger International in our Champions games, and I do recall trying to build a paint sprayer or a guy who could summon miles and miles of chain link fence in 3rd edition (as a joke, honest!).

 

As a GM, I agree with you regarding the whole "You don't need to buy that" part, but as a player it's an arms race; the game is driven by the players who come up with the really baroque builds. In all fairness this is nothing new to even 4th edition, though 4th and now 5th seem to be written to encourage those tendencies.

[Enforcer84]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Man, you don't get into the spirit of these discussion at all!

 

Spoilsport.

Get off my lawn!

[Enforcer84]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

It's all a ruse to lure you into a false sense of security. Don't fall into his traps. I've seen his writups!

 

Enforcer84 = Point Creep

 

So you've figured out my secret Identity!

At least capitalize my name!

The Point Creep strikes again!

[Enforcer84]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Enforcer84 = Post Creep

Is that like Post Modern?

[Enforcer84]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

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

You would, me not so much. I'd probably find most of my characters would be at campaign minimums with oddly related skills, in either campaign. I'm just weird like that.

[Chessack]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

As a GM, I agree with you regarding the whole "You don't need to buy that" part, but as a player it's an arms race; the game is driven by the players who come up with the really baroque builds. In all fairness this is nothing new to even 4th edition, though 4th and now 5th seem to be written to encourage those tendencies.

 

That really is my point. The rules before allowed but did not encourage these tendencies. Now they seem to encourage them. And I wish they didn't.

 

I realize I am probably not just in the minority, but in the vast minority. Doesn't change how I feel about it though.

 

C

[zornwil]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

I agree with you' date=' 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 [i']encourages[/i] 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

Just to play devil's advocate in defense of the 30-40 Perks position - by paying for those, he expresses not only control but a certain amount of direction. If he wants to pay, then that means that those not only should come up but are situations where his character will have some coolness compared to others. A character who does not pay might have them but they are more of a gray area where the GM has more clear control over whether they are applicable and arise for that character.

 

I don't think "pay for everything" is necessarily bad. The issue more comes to the point I think you make about play group expectations and defining what happens if one pays for things versus what happens if they don't, and if paying does not matter then we need to assess if the capability even needs to be statted at all. In other words, if having those Perks you mentioned are free background items and have no special meaning according to paying for them, then that means those items shouldn't even be considered as valid Perks, they should be removed (so to speak, I mean via house rule) from the book for that play group.

 

But I do think that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater - the Perks are a great utility for lower powered games where such details and player control issues really matter and should actually not be free. The fundamental issue is explicating how the system might be used.

[zornwil]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

I repped you earlier. I do want to discuss a little...

 

This is sort of an object lesson in how not all constructs are necessarily useful for all games. Just about all of the Perks and most of the Skills came about from the heroic level games that came after Champions (Espionage, Fantasy Hero, Danger International, Justice Inc., primarily). In a game of spies or soldiers or cops, you're gonna want those Perks and Skills -- in fact, you'll be relying on those to differentiate your PCs. (Going back to the discussion re: cops; in a game of cops, you'll want to break out PS: Cop, KS: Police Procedure, KS: Criminal Law, WF: Pistols, AK: The City, Combat Driving, Bureaucracy, Perk: Police Powers, etc., while in a Champions game where your character is a cop in his secret ID that stuff is probably overkill.)

 

But.... I remember us using skills from Danger International in our Champions games, and I do recall trying to build a paint sprayer or a guy who could summon miles and miles of chain link fence in 3rd edition (as a joke, honest!).

 

As a GM, I agree with you regarding the whole "You don't need to buy that" part, but as a player it's an arms race; the game is driven by the players who come up with the really baroque builds. In all fairness this is nothing new to even 4th edition, though 4th and now 5th seem to be written to encourage those tendencies.

I think your last couple sentences are telling. As I stated earlier on, I don't really blame 4th/5th in that they are simply drawing on what was already there in the system, and as you say the attention/control/interest/what-have-you that the more "baroque" builds in the past drew was a merely correct use of the system And therefore I don't know that 4th and more so 5th so much even attempting to "encourage" those tendencies as much as they are addressing what was a development ongoing among those playing the game, and a tendency becoming more frequent with, as you mention, lower-levelled games where minutiae and min-maxing (meant in its best way, as deliberate and effective use of the system to work within points constraints) really matter (as opposed to high fantasy, space opera, and supers, where they don't matter at least in the same way).

[Chessack]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

Just to play devil's advocate in defense of the 30-40 Perks position - by paying for those, he expresses not only control but a certain amount of direction. If he wants to pay, then that means that those not only should come up but are situations where his character will have some coolness compared to others. A character who does not pay might have them but they are more of a gray area where the GM has more clear control over whether they are applicable and arise for that character.

 

What you seem to be saying here is, "The player can tell the GM by paying points for things that he wants them to be important." I suppose I could see that.

 

However, to me a good GM caters to his players whether they pay points for things or just write up a damn good background paragraph. As a GM, if I see that the player has taken the time to write a whole paragraph about his character's "girlfriend", then even if she is not a specced out "DNPC", I will know he cares about this character, and I will bring her into the story. In fact, something rather like this happened, though not from a background. One of our heroes developed a bit of a relationship with an UNTIL agent and she ended up being around a lot, because he liked RPing that, and I could tell he did... so I kept adding her in, even though originally she was just a one-shot "throwaway" character. In fact she showed up so much (and he rescued her so often, with the player enjoying every minute of it), that he at one point said, jokingly of course, "I should get points for her!"

 

I suppose if you want, as a GM, you could say to your players, "Pay for the stuff you want to RP about, with the most points going to the things that are most important to you." Personally, I'd rather just ask the player, "Hey, do you like RPing about this?" than do it in a roundabout way like using points, though.

 

In my case, people were running out of points they needed to build important Powers that they really wanted, and they were running out because they thought that, to play a character in the military, as a background element, they had to buy contacts, military rank, etc. I don't require them to pay points for such things, and their reaction was, "Oh, that makes it easier."

 

It's the same character, with the same background, and the same military rank, and it WILL come into play. They just get it for free because they wrote a good background, so they can spend their points on other stuff.

 

C

[zornwil]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

What you seem to be saying here is, "The player can tell the GM by paying points for things that he wants them to be important." I suppose I could see that.

 

However, to me a good GM caters to his players whether they pay points for things or just write up a damn good background paragraph. As a GM, if I see that the player has taken the time to write a whole paragraph about his character's "girlfriend", then even if she is not a specced out "DNPC", I will know he cares about this character, and I will bring her into the story. In fact, something rather like this happened, though not from a background. One of our heroes developed a bit of a relationship with an UNTIL agent and she ended up being around a lot, because he liked RPing that, and I could tell he did... so I kept adding her in, even though originally she was just a one-shot "throwaway" character. In fact she showed up so much (and he rescued her so often, with the player enjoying every minute of it), that he at one point said, jokingly of course, "I should get points for her!"

 

I suppose if you want, as a GM, you could say to your players, "Pay for the stuff you want to RP about, with the most points going to the things that are most important to you." Personally, I'd rather just ask the player, "Hey, do you like RPing about this?" than do it in a roundabout way like using points, though.

 

In my case, people were running out of points they needed to build important Powers that they really wanted, and they were running out because they thought that, to play a character in the military, as a background element, they had to buy contacts, military rank, etc. I don't require them to pay points for such things, and their reaction was, "Oh, that makes it easier."

 

It's the same character, with the same background, and the same military rank, and it WILL come into play. They just get it for free because they wrote a good background, so they can spend their points on other stuff.

 

C

I would just point out, back to the system roots, the original system and its evolution prior to 4th generally makes no provisions (at least in supers) for freebies based on background descriptions (though I believe there is some commentary on providing in-combat bonuses for good narrative, so a vague precedent could be construed here), so there is a systemic issue of sorts that has generated the current state.

 

I think a fundamental issue that needs to be explicated is just what the role of points in this particular points-based system are. We know they afford control, essentially, to the player as well as declare limitations on that control (either with specific Limitations or Disads). But the core books have remained implicit rather than explicit on this at its core, and we really need some clearer philosophical guidelines to understand system construction and application.

[Lucius]

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero

 

Is that like Post Modern?

 

Is that like Post Mortem?

 

The Palindromedary

 

"Hey," says Lucius Alexander "What am I doing down here in the tagline?!"

[Lucius]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

But I do think that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater - the Perks are a great utility for lower powered games where such details and player control issues really matter and should actually not be free. The fundamental issue is explicating how the system might be used.

 

There's a lot here I agree with, but with a certain caveat: there are some perks I don't see as anything but "point sinks" and frankly just don't see as contributing anything to the game. Generally, "licenses" fall into that category, for example.

 

Others, like contacts and favors, I can see as useful, but you could run the game very well without them.

 

On the other hand, take away Followers and Bases and Vehicles, and certain kinds of options become harder or impossible for a character.

 

More than any other section, I think the "Perk" chapter could possibly use a paragraph pointing out what things could easily be excised from the game, and which can be removed only if you're willing to give up some options. I wonder if Sidekick even has Perks?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Perk: Palindromedary License

[zornwil]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

I have Sidekick but not the PDF and I'm a few thousand miles from home, would be interesting to check re Perks.

 

I think the license stuff only makes sense in very low-powered games or extremely granular/super-detailed (which is not to my taste) ones.

[Chessack]

Re: "Perk inflation" in Hero

 

I would just point out, back to the system roots, the original system and its evolution prior to 4th generally makes no provisions (at least in supers) for freebies based on background descriptions (though I believe there is some commentary on providing in-combat bonuses for good narrative, so a vague precedent could be construed here), so there is a systemic issue of sorts that has generated the current state.

 

Not explicity, no.

 

But since the game system originally had no mechanism for buying any of the Perks and most of the Talents, and since many characters HAD those things, there wasn't much a GM could do but either "allow it" based on background, or "disallow it."

 

Take Eidetic Memory for example. Before that came into existence, we had the occasional character who had a Photographic Memory. How would you do this in Champions, 2nd Edition (no II or III either)? You really couldn't do it with points, so the GM either had to "allow the player to RP that" or not. The rule of thumb then became, if the player can reasonably justify it in a way that makes sense, he can have it. If the player is just making stuff up to give himself freebies, and not really justifying it well in his background, then it's disallowed. I don't have 2E or any of the AC mags anymore but I am quite sure this was not something my game group made up -- we got the idea from the writers of Champions 2E.

 

Other examples are things like Money. Again, there was no Money Perk or Disadvantage. In our group, the same player, at different times, played a brick who worked at a meat packing factory and lived in the boiler room of his building and rode a rusty bicycle, and (at a later time) a wealthy guy who lived in a penthouse condo on Park Avenue and had a butler and a chauffer. In 2nd edition, there was no way to work this out with points, and in fact, I believe the 2E rules even stated somewhere (or it might've been Adventurer's Club) that in Champions, money is something that is a background element, and that you RP -- it's not something that costs players points. I know I still retained the text I'm referring to (though I don't remember the source any longer) when 4th edition came out, because when the first player bought the BBB and was showing me the perks, I exclaimed, "What!!" and pulled out the text and showed him right there, where it said you don't do money in Champions with points. I considered this a fundamental departure from the basic design philosophy -- and still do.

 

The difference between Classic Champions and the current Hero System is really this: In Classic, since a lot of stuff was not accounted for by the rules, you really couldn't pay any points for it (or get any via Disadvantges), and therefore these things had to be controlled via the Character Background sheet (or in Champions III, the Character Development Form). In Hero 5, they've got basically everything you can think of covered one way or another, so almost anything you can put into the background of your characdter, could be codified with points -- and many GMs will, in fact, insist that you do so if possible.

 

We insisted you do so if possible back duing 2E also, but the difference was that Classically, "if possible" did not cover everything and the kitchen sink. It covered major comic-book genre effects, and the details (things like whether you have a driver's license or whether you're rich), it was not possible (without inventing rules from whole cloth) to codify with points.

 

One of the (I'm sure unintended) consequences of this situation is the slow but steady deterioration I've seen in Character Background development. The Background used to be extremely important for us. Since, as I said above, there often was no way to codify with points the fact that you were rich, were a secret agent in secret ID, had a passport, etc, people had to write all that stuff into the background and, as a result, were compelled to explain and justify it. Once 4E came out (and I see this trend in 5E as well), where everything could be codified with points, I started seeing people adopt more of a cavalier attitude. They paid for the passport with points, so why justify it?

 

I ran into this problem a lot when I ran a MUSH based on Champions. I ran the game for five years, and each character had to have 3 "GM approvals." As the head GM I did one of the approvals on most characters -- probably 200 if not more, from gamers who were everything from totally new to both MUSH and Champions, to vets in both areas. The #1 comment I left when refusing to approve a character was, "You need to justify the following things in your background: ....." Often, Perks were the ones I mentioned... sometimes talents, etc. Players constantly complained I was "nitpicking" because after all, if they paid points for it they should "get it" and why was I asking them to explain?

 

But in Champions, the points are supposed to be codifications of an existing idea -- the points are not the idea itself. That means the idea should be separate and independent, and should be expressed in the Character Background (or other appropriate elements of the Character Development Form, such as "Enemies and why they are foes"). At least, that's how I always saw it... how my game group always saw it... and how, to my recollection, the writers and editors back in the 2E era, always seemed to intend it. They regularly wrote that the elements of the Character Sheet, or the expenditure of Experience Points on new or improved Powers, required "justification" -- you aren't supposed to just slap some points into a power and then "have it."

 

And, in a game system where not everything has been codified, the idea of "justifying" is obvious to the player. But in a game where every possible thing you can imagine is already codified with points, many players seem to have begun thinking that paying points is the justification -- and it never has been, and never really should be. If points become the justification then characters become just a "bag o' points", rather than characters.

 

C