Skills? How many points are normal?

[Niles]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

I'm pretty sure I could pass that challenge for Superman or Thing. At least, as they are now. Not so sure about them at the very beginning of their publication history though.

 

Out of curiosity, who were the other people on your list?

The full list was: Captian Marvel(the Fawcet one), Superman, The Human Torch, The Thing, or any member of Power Pack. Power Pack was unfair, I know.

 

This is not to say mutant kids or radiation infused janitors are invalid concepts or anything. But I would personally be frustrated if I couldn't contribute anything to the team except ammusing roleplaying and combat. YMMV

There is a Fair amount of amusement value to be had in 50 odd points of overpriced shapeshift versus touch, and I focussed most of my experience into skills, The big problem the game suffered from is that almost every player had the same role envisioned interpersonally for their character(the team misfit). My dude ended up playing fairly differently from my expectations as a result.

[assault]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

The full list was: Captian Marvel(the Fawcet one)' date=' Superman, The Human Torch, The Thing, or any member of Power Pack. Power Pack was unfair, I know.[/quote']

 

I'll concede you Power Pack, of course.

 

I've dealt with The Thing and Superman.

 

Incidentally, I think I could probably do Superman post-Crisis as well. He doesn't seem to be a bad Journalist, which would justify him buying up some of his everyman skills. Furthermore, he could have PS: Farmer, AK: Smallville as well as his Metropolis oriented stuff. He also, apparently, spent a bit of time travelling before starting at the Daily Planet.

 

That leaves the Human Torch and Captain Marvel. Both, of course, started off quite young.

 

Johnny was a bit of a car freak. While you might want to disqualify his Combat Driving, he could also have KS: "Automobile Mechanics and Enthusiasts", Mechanics and probably another KS or two. Admittedly, he probably bought up the latter "later", but he could easily start with a couple of 1 or 2 point skills.

 

Close, but feasible.

 

Captain Marvel, now... That is a tricky one. I don't have enough source material to do this one for sure. Billy Batson could probably be built simply using everyman skills. On the other hand, The Wisdom of Solomon might give Captain Marvel a whole lot of stuff, under the right circumstances.

 

I'll concede him, with that caveat.

[assault]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

I didn't count the skills needed to fly the team vehicle' date=' and probably wouldnt have counted most of the military skills, if anyone had brought them up.[/quote']

 

A lot of the "military" skills would be PS, KS, Bureaucratics and so on, not just immediate combat stuff.

 

Not on the list, Barry's highest skill would be SS: physics, and you could make a good arguement he used it as the control skill on his VPP.

 

Still, he was technically a cop. He could definitely have Forensics as well.

 

or as everyman skill people wanted to pay for even though they were getting them free(PS:My Job is an everyman skill people).

 

Sometimes it is reasonable to buy them up. In some cases, too, like Ben Grimm, and Superman(!), characters could buy multiple PSes.

 

And why shouldn't we assume a first issue aproach for starting characters?

 

No good reason, except that a lot of this stuff is plausibly implied by their backgrounds. In fact, you would be essentially telling the GM: "actually he had them all along, but they never became relevant".

 

Either way is fine by me, of course. I don't insist on all characters being skill monsters. Actually, I'm kind of fond of (partly) using Perks instead... Good old Commissioner Gordon - what would Batman do without him?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

10 points of background skills of no obvious adventuring application.

 

Well here's the main difference between this conversation and that one.

 

We're talking about Non-Combat Skills in General, or even just Skills In General.

 

Not skills with "no obvious adventuring application."

 

So, you're original statement of 0-6 pts in skills just doesn't apply here. At all.

 

Bigdamnhero has a nice method he suggested to me, if you have a skill you'd like to know, or note that you know a subject but there is no chance it will have any application at all in the game write it down, it costs 0pts. If for some reason if does come up way down the line you can spend on XP to get them for real.

 

So yeah - 0 pts of skills with no obvious adventuring application. Everything else should come to (IMO) 10-20% of the character at least.

[Niles]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

So yeah - 0 pts of skills with no obvious adventuring application. Everything else should come to (IMO) 10-20% of the character at least.

That Way lies ten year olds with a higher KS: comics skill than Alan Moore or Julie Schwartz. It's appropriate for some characters, but it completly closes of anything remotely resembling an everyman style superhero.

[Niles]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

I don't read comic books.

I don't want to be rude, but if you are, as you claim, ignorant of the source material how can we give your opinions any weight? And why if you don't have interest in the genre are you even posting on this specific board?

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

I don't want to be rude' date=' but if you are, as you claim, ignorant of the source material how can we give your opinions any weight? And why if you don't have interest in the genre are you even posting on this specific board?[/quote']

 

He didn't say he had no interest in the genre ... he said he doesn't read comic books. There's a difference. I play lots of Fantasy games, but I've never read a fantasy novel.

[Kirby]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

I don't want to be rude' date=' but if you are, as you claim, ignorant of the source material how can we give your opinions any weight?[/quote']He didn't claim to be ignorant of the source material, just that he doesn't read comics. I don't read comics. Any more. I haven't had a subscription to a comic book in probably 16 years, I don't recall purchasing a comic within 5 years and haven't been an avid reader of friends' comics in 10 years. However, comics aren't the only source. There are/were cartoons as well as dozens of threads on this board about comics, including the turn for the worse they have done.

 

And why if you don't have interest in the genre are you even posting on this specific board?

This is a mistaken assumption on your part. He never stated or even implied he had no interest in the genre.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

First, thanks to CrosshairCollie and Kirby for jumping up in my defense.

 

I suppose I should amend my statement to "I don't read comic books anymore." Which is why I am of the opinion the writing sucks, because I believe it does.

 

Though, the Comic Book as a medium of story telling appeals to me, the Comic Book as commonly presented by Marvel, DC and Dark Horse (being the major players there) do not appeal to me. It does has a lot to do with the fact that I don't think they're taking story telling seriously and their need for monthly issues that kills them.

 

Love & Rockets is pretty much my favorite comic. That should give you an idea of my tastes.

 

As for the Champions Genre, being directly derived from Comics. OK, I admit it is my least favorite genre to play in. It also happens to be the genre I end up playing the most of. Therefore I have become very familiar with the Genre as a Role Playing Genre. And there is a VERY important distinction between Playing and Writing. Mostly that in Writing one person has control of the story so the characters know exactly what they need no more and no less.

 

RPGs on the other hand are not as predictable as the GM may decide to throw a Mystery adventure in every once in a while. Or any number of things.

 

Source material is great for an idea and a start. Generally it makes for very poor games though.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

That Way lies ten year olds with a higher KS: comics skill than Alan Moore or Julie Schwartz. It's appropriate for some characters' date=' but it completly closes of anything remotely resembling an everyman style superhero.[/quote']

 

Not remotely. The Skills are still persuant to GM permission, and most likely limited to a base roll.

 

Besides - if they have no practical adventuring application - who cares how high the roll is. So the 10 yr old has a KS: Comics at 27-. If it never comes up, has no practical use and a roll will never be asked to be made it's kind of a moot point yes?

[Bloodstone]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Well here's the main difference between this conversation and that one.

 

We're talking about Non-Combat Skills in General, or even just Skills In General.

 

Yeah, I gotta agree with ghost here.

 

When Niles said background skills I thought he meant skills that fleshed out the charcters background, not Background skills as in the HERO System category for Professional, Knowledge and Science Skills. Damn, but that capitilization actully makes all the difference in the world sometimes

 

That said, many characters do not have more then a few Background skills unless you feel the need for some serious granularity. Other concepts deffinitly call for MANY.

 

That Way lies ten year olds with a higher KS: comics skill than Alan Moore or Julie Schwartz. It's appropriate for some characters' date=' but it completly closes of anything remotely resembling an everyman style superhero.[/quote']

 

Funny you should say that. One of my sons is 10 years old. While he can't beat his old man (let alone Alan Moore) in a general discussion of comics or Manga, he deffinitly knows WAY more about things like Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, Naruto and Zatch Bell!

 

So while I might have KS: Comics and Manga 11- he probably has KS: Shōnen 11- and KS: Comics and Manga 8-

 

Whether or not that sort of trivial knowledge is worth spending any points on really comes down to a play style. In many cases it wil not be worth it and the GM will probably let you know that. In other cases, it might be a pivotal part of the character that could end up saving the day!

[Niles]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

I suppose I should amend my statement to "I don't read comic books anymore." Which is why I am of the opinion the writing sucks' date=' because I believe it does.[/quote']

I owe you an apology, I am sorry.

 

I had misinterpreted your statement as an expression of pride in ignorance, an attitude I detest.

[Niles]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Not remotely. The Skills are still persuant to GM permission' date=' and most likely limited to a base roll.[/quote']

Where else is a ten year old going to spend a GM mandated 35-70 points on skills? Not all character concepts call for alot of points of skills, you have conceeded this in the specific but still you endorse a minimum skill expenditure, so high it closes of many character concepts, and forces others to buy skills far out of concept, or to buy huge lists of KS's or SS's that between them rightly are one or two skills at most.

 

Whenever I see characters made for campaigns with a minimum ependiture on skills I see stupidity such as this:

KS:the martial world

KS:famous martial artists

KS:noteworthy martial artists

KS:interesting martial artists

KS:martial arts history

KS:history of martial arts

etc.

[Questar]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Well here's the main difference between this conversation and that one.

 

We're talking about Non-Combat Skills in General, or even just Skills In General.

 

Not skills with "no obvious adventuring application."

 

So, you're original statement of 0-6 pts in skills just doesn't apply here. At all.

 

 

So yeah - 0 pts of skills with no obvious adventuring application. Everything else should come to (IMO) 10-20% of the character at least.

 

I think most of my characters would be in line with your 10-20% requirement. But I have to admit that I don't understand why you would make such a requirement. Why do you feel that this is better? What purpose does it serve? Are you including such skills as lockpicking, breakfall and combat skill levels? I just don't see any difference in a character buying these types of things or buying better characteristics or powers.

[Kirby]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Where else is a ten year old going to spend a GM mandated 35-70 points on skills?

Ten-year-olds shouldn't be out fighting adults. That's setting the adult up for child abuse and not a heroic thing to put someone in that position. They should be getting an education.

 

As an aside, in a previous gaming group I was in, when we played Champions and started a new campaign, I noticed that the main three "team leaders" (myself included) started making characters younger and younger to avoid being the leader. (Being team leader isn't as fun for many.) I realized this when I had created my youngest character of 18. The players/PCs asked me to be leader and I said "I'm only 18" to which the GMPC responded "so am I" and then the players were 16, except for the "veteran drunk" and the nonconformist. I thought back and noticed that the other "normal leaders" had high school students (the norm used to be college students or adults) in my games. I pointed this out and made a new rule that everyone had to be at least 18. The other GMs slowly implemented this as well, but I was surprised that some people would make their characters as young as 13 to avoid being a team leader.

[Kirby]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

But I have to admit that I don't understand why you would make such a requirement. Why do you feel that this is better?...I just don't see any difference in a character buying these types of things or buying better characteristics or powers.

While I can't speak for Ghost-Angel (well' date=' OK, I [i']could[/i], but it wouldn't be right and he'd probably get upset with me ), I can say that in my experience, players that don't spend points on skills tend to make soley combat characters (even if poor ones) and don't tend to participate in the game when combat isn't happening. This can be very frustrating for the other players and GM when a mystery needs to be solved or interaction with NPCs needs to take place.

 

I've been guilty of this myself (early in my HERO career) and I noticed it when ONE player was a role player and the rest of us were combat wombats. I felt very bad for that one player, since the rest of us were being disrespectful to him and stressing him out because of our lack of participation. I've been a GM where I've only had two people roleplay and the others just wanted to roll-play. That's not fun in a mystery or in a scene where you need to bump ideas off of each other.

 

The best GM I ever had offered up to 25 bonus XP if you wrote a one page background AND spend at least 15 points on non-combat skills. He called it "I have a life" and we quickly started to referring to them as "I have a life" skills. This encouraged character depth and subtley urged roleplaying. (And it worked!) After a stressful or long adventure, he would often run a "party" adventure where the team would go out in their civvies and socialize. We would go to dance clubs, have barbecues, picnics, and play sports (though, the sports was often done in the training room), amongst other things. This made the game more enjoyable for all (how else will you have a bachelor party race in the sewers?) including the girl who popped brian cells on doing anything other than combat. (This reminds me of a quote to add to the "Quote of the week" thread.)

YMMV

[Rapier]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Whenever I see characters made for campaigns with a minimum ependiture on skills I see stupidity such as this:

KS:the martial world

KS:famous martial artists

KS:noteworthy martial artists

KS:interesting martial artists

KS:martial arts history

KS:history of martial arts

etc.

 

Wow. Our play experience is VERY different. I have never, ever in my 15 years of playing Hero EVER seen a list like that. Never, and I've played in a number of games where there were skill requirements.

 

But again, it comes down to are we talking about Background Skills or background skills. I can state for a surety that those of us talking about 5% - 20% are talking about background skills. Background Skills usually run about 10 pts worth and is usually a PS and a related KS or two, perhaps a language or SS.

[Kirby]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

In addition, (well, maybe as an aside) my 2nd to last gaming group, when we were forming, the guy told me he and his girlfriend were great roleplayers and were very excited about starting up Champions (he tried GMing without ever playing and said it didn't go well, but knew there was potential). When we started our first game, I did (tried?) some roleplaying with the two of them and when that didn't go well, I asked the "I thought you liked roleplaying?" To which he said yes, roleplaying games, but they both preferred combat. I asked about his DNPC (basically, why he had one if he didn't want to talk with him) and their response was to get points and for the DNPC to get captured so they could rescue them.

 

YMMV.

 

PS: My current gaming group is much better, if only 3 of us. The problem is, we game on average three times a year.

[Kirby]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Wow. Our play experience is VERY different. I have never' date=' ever in my 15 years of playing Hero EVER seen a list like that. Never, and I've played in a number of games where there were skill requirements.[/quote']I haven't either. Ever. The closest I've seen (because I did this myself) is:

KS: Supers (or Super world)

KS: Superheroes

KS: Supervillains

 

I started this for a San Angelo game, because not every super in the game takes up crime or fighting it (a game where "Elastic Man" may be your house painter). The KS Supers was the primary roll and then the hero/villain could be used as either a complimentary roll, or to get more detailed information. (Sort of like having a SS: Geology and then SS: Tectonic Plates.) I've had a couple or so people follow this in my games, but I've never seen anything as ludicrous as the martial art example.

[Hermit]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

For many Character Concepts 0-6 points is more than sufficient. Don't let anyone tell you any differently. Also remember your everyman skills.

 

Depending on the concept, I would and have allowed this. Heck, I've played this in my attempts to make a characters who are burger flippers in their day to day jobs but too new to the hero scene to have a lot of Knowledge skills about villains and such. I try to get them growing fast, as they soon decide not just to be better heroes, but that they want more out of their lives when out of costume too. It can be interesting and usually does lead to them getting more skills as time passes.

[Vondy]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

In normal Champions games that mimmic Silver and Bronze Age comics investment in skills tends to be fairly low - you could probably get away with ~20 points not including combat skill levels. In games that mimmic Iron Age comics' date=' or have a more investigative/espionage flair, you will want to go higher than that - perhaps significantly higher.[/quote']

 

As for my games: 50 points is more the norm, and a few characters have closer to 100. At the same time, my game isn't a traditional super-game, and has a good deal of espionage/detective and social situations that require good skillsets that crop up. Also, my players tend to like a lot of character definition in terms of background skills, which are frequently relevant, or become relevant, to play.

[Niles]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Wow. Our play experience is VERY different. I have never' date=' ever in my 15 years of playing Hero EVER seen a list like that. Never, and I've played in a number of games where there were skill requirements.[/quote']

I exagurated for effect, but I have on this board.

 

Repeatedly.

[Vondy]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Depending on the concept' date=' I would and have allowed this. Heck, I've played this in my attempts to make a characters who are burger flippers in their day to day jobs but too new to the hero scene to have a lot of Knowledge skills about villains and such. I try to get them growing fast, as they soon decide not just to be better heroes, but that they want more out of their lives when out of costume too. It can be interesting and usually does lead to them getting more skills as time passes.[/quote']

 

In a traditional silver or bronze age game, with a hero whose concept is an "everyman concept" (such as burger flippers), I'd allow it too.

[Niles]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Depending on the concept' date=' I would and have allowed this. Heck, I've played this in my attempts to make a characters who are burger flippers in their day to day jobs but too new to the hero scene to have a lot of Knowledge skills about villains and such. I try to get them growing fast, as they soon decide not just to be better heroes, but that they want more out of their lives when out of costume too. It can be interesting and usually does lead to them getting more skills as time passes.[/quote']

Oh indeed, a character with few skills at the start of the game is likely to be an inexperienced hero, whose development is best reflected by adding skills with experience. But those heroes exist.

[Niles]

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

 

Ten-year-olds shouldn't be out fighting adults. That's setting the adult up for child abuse and not a heroic thing to put someone in that position. They should be getting an education.

Teen heroes (an occasionaly child heroes) are a part of the genre. I also note the way you are repeatedly ignoring every mention of everyman heroes for whom it is out of concept to have more skills than a standard normal.

 

How many skills does Ronnie Raymond have really?