Number Crunching Vs Roleplaying

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Insaniac99

this is where you bring in the Cinematic gameplay, you fudge a few rolls once in a while, and, the heros won't win the batles all the time, additionally, the high powered characters genneraly have alot more stun than the other players, so unless something really lucky happens, they will be up longer.

 

another problem you seem to be having is that you are only thinking in directly damaging terms so lets go over your points:

 

1 and 2: no problem like you said, but they shouldn't be likely to happen if they really are that much more powerful.

 

3: again not that likely to happen, but what you do is either bring in another guy (a villian is watching them and joins up the combat) OR pengiun uses his otehr stuff, like a poisen gas, superman, being suprised takes a breath and is sent into coughs even though no permanant damage is done and robin keeps working on penguin since he is smart enough to know his enemy's ploys and has his gas mask on.

 

4: Robin whips out a gas grenade (he will get another action before brainiac can do anything) and hides himself and superman, he then helps superman and they retreat untill supes is better, robin feels useful because he saved Superman's life, even if the villians got away.

 

5: robin decides not to use directly damaging attacks against Brainiac, and instead uses his flash or smoke grenades to blind Brainiac, which allows Superman a opening to whomp on Brainiac, superman then thanks robin for istracting him.

 

6: penguin uses his special tricks like sleeping gas and stuff, that robin (because f his knowledge of his enemies) can defend against, like a gas mask against the sleeping gas. superman, unprepared for this, is cought unawares and robin realises that keeping penguin occupied worked well even if he was defeated.

 

remember that batman/superman cartoon movie? two totally differant power levels, but joker takes out superman like he is nothing because he is SO differant from what superman ran into that he didn't expect anything like him and batman saves his butt. that is a good example, because that is how you would run a campaign of diferant powerlevels., it just requires out of the box thinking, and a little more work.

 

there are lots more ways that the situations could be handled, but i just typed this up really wuickly, I'm sure the other's can add more if they want.

Good points. There's no reason to get caught up in straight out damage dealing and not think about the intangibles.

[lemming]

As an example of differing power levels:

I ran a massive crossover in a shared universe. The teams involved heroes that could throw 60d6 to ones that topped out at 14d6.

The final combat involved everyone. Most people were running 3-4 characters plus a smattering of DNPCs. I did have a chart for people so that they could go for power level appropriate opponents. In most cases it worked. The Master Villian was knocked out by one of the DNPCs of a lower tiered hero. She had gotten hold of an agent weapon and rolled well.

One of the reasons it worked for us, was there was plenty of room to work. It would be more difficult with two characters, but Insaniac99 has many good points.

[Kristopher]

The GM shouldn't have to "fudge and nudge" on a regular basis. If you have to overrule the dice multiple times every session, you haven't done your job very well. IMO.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Insaniac99

this is where you bring in the Cinematic gameplay, you fudge a few rolls once in a while, and, the heros won't win the batles all the time, additionally, the high powered characters genneraly have alot more stun than the other players, so unless something really lucky happens, they will be up longer.

 

High power characters do more damage in addition to having more stun. It's quite possible that they take each other out as fast or faster than the low power supers.

 

Originally posted by Insaniac99

another problem you seem to be having is that you are only thinking in directly damaging terms so lets go over your points:

 

I was keeping things simple.

 

Originally posted by Insaniac99

1 and 2: no problem like you said, but they shouldn't be likely to happen if they really are that much more powerful.

 

3: again not that likely to happen, but what you do is either bring in another guy (a villian is watching them and joins up the combat) OR pengiun uses his otehr stuff, like a poisen gas, superman, being suprised takes a breath and is sent into coughs even though no permanant damage is done and robin keeps working on penguin since he is smart enough to know his enemy's ploys and has his gas mask on.

 

Superman has full life support and flies. If this happened in the comics where Penguin takes out Superman with poison gas, the readers would howl. There has already been many threads screaming about continuity and consistency in comics.

 

Originally posted by Insaniac99

4: Robin whips out a gas grenade (he will get another action before brainiac can do anything) and hides himself and superman, he then helps superman and they retreat untill supes is better, robin feels useful because he saved Superman's life, even if the villians got away.

 

How is he doing this? He's still occupied with Penguin. Not to mention Braniac flies, has full life support, and goes first. And 1 action from Braniac is enough to take out Robin.

 

Originally posted by Insaniac99

5: robin decides not to use directly damaging attacks against Brainiac, and instead uses his flash or smoke grenades to blind Brainiac, which allows Superman a opening to whomp on Brainiac, superman then thanks robin for istracting him.

 

Braniac has enhanced senses and probably flash defense. In the comics, there is literally nothing that Robin could do to him. Remember, he's tough enough to take on Superman head to head. And he flies.

 

Originally posted by Insaniac99

6: penguin uses his special tricks like sleeping gas and stuff, that robin (because f his knowledge of his enemies) can defend against, like a gas mask against the sleeping gas. superman, unprepared for this, is cought unawares and robin realises that keeping penguin occupied worked well even if he was defeated.

 

See 3 above.

 

Originally posted by Insaniac99

remember that batman/superman cartoon movie? two totally differant power levels, but joker takes out superman like he is nothing because he is SO differant from what superman ran into that he didn't expect anything like him and batman saves his butt. that is a good example, because that is how you would run a campaign of diferant powerlevels., it just requires out of the box thinking, and a little more work.

 

there are lots more ways that the situations could be handled, but i just typed this up really wuickly, I'm sure the other's can add more if they want.

 

This type of thing only works if it's a cooperative storytelling event where the dice don't apply. And it's assuming that the Superman character is mature enough to step away from the spotlight and give it to Robin. That's not always the case for players who would build a Superman in a campaign where Robins exist.

[Gary]

Originally posted by lemming

As an example of differing power levels:

I ran a massive crossover in a shared universe. The teams involved heroes that could throw 60d6 to ones that topped out at 14d6.

The final combat involved everyone. Most people were running 3-4 characters plus a smattering of DNPCs. I did have a chart for people so that they could go for power level appropriate opponents. In most cases it worked. The Master Villian was knocked out by one of the DNPCs of a lower tiered hero. She had gotten hold of an agent weapon and rolled well.

One of the reasons it worked for us, was there was plenty of room to work. It would be more difficult with two characters, but Insaniac99 has many good points.

 

Did any of the upper levels throw out 30D6 or 10D6 killing area effects?

[Doug McCrae]

Originally posted by Gary

Did any of the upper levels throw out 30D6 or 10D6 killing area effects?

Good point, Gary. If the uber-characters have area effects it could really screw things up. One prays if a big AE goes off in such a battle it would be selective but the more Guy Gardnerish personalities might decide to just 'sweep away the chaff'. All of it.

[Oruncrest]

Fight SMARTER, not harder!

 

Originally posted by Gary

Let's take a simple example. Suppose the hero team consists of Superman and Robin. You as GM create villains who are equal matches for them. Let's call your villains Braniac and Penguin for the sake of argument and let's have them match up vs the heroes.

 

There are 6 possibilities:

 

5) Robin beats Penguin first. Robin tries to help out vs Braniac, but quickly realizes that his best attack barely does any damage (Braniac has the defenses to go toe to toe with Superman after all). Robin feels useless.

 

More like:

5) Robin beats Penguin first. Realizing that he probably won't be able to cause Brainiac any damage (Braniac has the defenses to go toe to toe with Superman after all), Robin tries to find out what Brainiac & Penguin were up to, then puts a stop to their nefarious scheme while Superman puts the kibosh on Brainiac.

 

Success isn't necesarily determined by how many people you can beat up un a turn you know. And who knows, if there's some sort of equipment around that can stop or slow Brainiac down enough for Supes to clobber him, Robin would use it.

 

In fact, there's a Superman annual (#10 I believe) where robin does just that. Superman is wrapped up in the coils of a parasitic plant, the Black Mercy, and Mongul (who put Supes in that predicament, has just finished explaining what the Black Mercy is to Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin and is wondering which of the three he should kill first.

 

While WW is punishing Mongul's fist mercilessly, Batman is getting the Black Mercy off of Superman. Robin tries to give Bats Monguls gloves (which Mongul had to use to handle the Black Mercy safely), but Batman ignores him and becomes the Black Mercy's next victim.

 

Superman wakes up. Robin points him in Mongul's direction and off Supes goes to open up a can of WhoopAss. Meanwhile, Robin uses Mongul's gloves to pull the Black Mercy off Batman (gotta love the glove) and goes off in the direction of the Supes/Mongul fight. Good thing too, 'cause Mongul had just gotten the upper hand when Robin shows up and drops the Black Mercy on him.

 

Useless? No. Even though Robin was well out of his weight class, he certainly wasn't useless.

[Insaniac99]

Originally posted by Gary

High power characters do more damage in addition to having more stun. It's quite possible that they take each other out as fast or faster than the low power supers.

 

 

 

I was keeping things simple.

 

 

 

Superman has full life support and flies. If this happened in the comics where Penguin takes out Superman with poison gas, the readers would howl. There has already been many threads screaming about continuity and consistency in comics.

 

 

 

How is he doing this? He's still occupied with Penguin. Not to mention Braniac flies, has full life support, and goes first. And 1 action from Braniac is enough to take out Robin.

 

 

 

Braniac has enhanced senses and probably flash defense. In the comics, there is literally nothing that Robin could do to him. Remember, he's tough enough to take on Superman head to head. And he flies.

 

 

 

See 3 above.

 

 

 

This type of thing only works if it's a cooperative storytelling event where the dice don't apply. And it's assuming that the Superman character is mature enough to step away from the spotlight and give it to Robin. That's not always the case for players who would build a Superman in a campaign where Robins exist.

 

I'm not gonna quibble because i don't read that many comics, and only really watch the TV shows.

 

the point is, you need to use your brain and get the players to use their brains, and not be thinking in terms of "my club will only break if i hit him with it, I'm useless" and instead think "well, i can't hurt brainiac, so how can I help Superman"

 

you do need players who are in this for fun, but I haven't had many problems at all

 

by Kristopher

The GM shouldn't have to "fudge and nudge" on a regular basis. If you have to overrule the dice multiple times every session, you haven't done your job very well. IMO.

 

so, you are telling me, that if after a huge run where the players are learning that {Insert Master Villian Everyone Should Be Afraid Of} is involved and face them in the big smackdown, you are telling me that you would let some lucky shot by a member to take {IMVESBAO} out in one hit? if you are you are only hurting the fun for their players, make {IMVESBAO} all the suddenhave a few more defenses, a bit more stun, or some damage reduction, or have some goons rush in to occupy the PC's time while {IMVESBAO} recovers and is back in the fight.

 

it may be the differance in my playstyle that creates this differance of opinion, I go in with at best a plot seed amount of information, and then let the players run with it taking everything in stride, then when they want the battle i jsut think up something that sounds OK to get them there, then i run a very cinematic type game, if you should be able to do it, you can even if you don't have it exactly in your character write up. I only gave my players a AP limit, and even that wasn't rigid, that was just a suggestion and i let quite a few powers that go over that, i just trust my players with this responsibility. it is a bit extra work for their battles, but it is worth it.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Fight SMARTER, not harder!

 

Originally posted by Oruncrest

Success isn't necesarily determined by how many people you can beat up un a turn you know. And who knows, if there's some sort of equipment around that can stop or slow Brainiac down enough for Supes to clobber him, Robin would use it.

 

I agree. I was a player in a game where I was the lowest-powered, slowest character in the game. Heck, my character got taken out by an agent (Malvan trooper) of Firewing. In one shot.

 

Despite this, my character saved every other character in the game at least once, mostly because I was considered the lowest threat. As the slowest, I also had plenty of time to watch what was going on and figure out what the bad guys were *really* up to.

[Brandi]

Originally posted by Gary

Superman has full life support and flies. If this happened in the comics where Penguin takes out Superman with poison gas, the readers would howl.

 

Actually, I think Supes was retconned in the comics back to needing to breathe, and I'm quite sure in the animated series he needs to (he wear breathing equipment when travelling in space for sure).

 

I think previous comments on how Robin may have advantageous knowledge of Penguin's tactics compared to Supes are very relevant here, though there's always the problem that a given PC's player isn't quite as clever as his PC is supposed to be...

[Gary]

Re: Fight SMARTER, not harder!

 

Originally posted by Oruncrest

More like:

5) Robin beats Penguin first. Realizing that he probably won't be able to cause Brainiac any damage (Braniac has the defenses to go toe to toe with Superman after all), Robin tries to find out what Brainiac & Penguin were up to, then puts a stop to their nefarious scheme while Superman puts the kibosh on Brainiac.

 

Success isn't necesarily determined by how many people you can beat up un a turn you know. And who knows, if there's some sort of equipment around that can stop or slow Brainiac down enough for Supes to clobber him, Robin would use it.

 

In fact, there's a Superman annual (#10 I believe) where robin does just that. Superman is wrapped up in the coils of a parasitic plant, the Black Mercy, and Mongul (who put Supes in that predicament, has just finished explaining what the Black Mercy is to Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin and is wondering which of the three he should kill first.

 

While WW is punishing Mongul's fist mercilessly, Batman is getting the Black Mercy off of Superman. Robin tries to give Bats Monguls gloves (which Mongul had to use to handle the Black Mercy safely), but Batman ignores him and becomes the Black Mercy's next victim.

 

Superman wakes up. Robin points him in Mongul's direction and off Supes goes to open up a can of WhoopAss. Meanwhile, Robin uses Mongul's gloves to pull the Black Mercy off Batman (gotta love the glove) and goes off in the direction of the Supes/Mongul fight. Good thing too, 'cause Mongul had just gotten the upper hand when Robin shows up and drops the Black Mercy on him.

 

Useless? No. Even though Robin was well out of his weight class, he certainly wasn't useless.

 

Yeah, but does this happen consistently in the comics?

 

Remember, we're talking about a PC team where Superman and Robin are going to be in virtually every adventure together. If there are 10 combats, I'm willing to bet that a good chunk of them will have the Robin character feel pretty useless. There are only so many times where a Robin level character can do anything vs a mega power.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Insaniac99

I'm not gonna quibble because i don't read that many comics, and only really watch the TV shows.

 

the point is, you need to use your brain and get the players to use their brains, and not be thinking in terms of "my club will only break if i hit him with it, I'm useless" and instead think "well, i can't hurt brainiac, so how can I help Superman"

 

you do need players who are in this for fun, but I haven't had many problems at all

 

 

 

so, you are telling me, that if after a huge run where the players are learning that {Insert Master Villian Everyone Should Be Afraid Of} is involved and face them in the big smackdown, you are telling me that you would let some lucky shot by a member to take {IMVESBAO} out in one hit? if you are you are only hurting the fun for their players, make {IMVESBAO} all the suddenhave a few more defenses, a bit more stun, or some damage reduction, or have some goons rush in to occupy the PC's time while {IMVESBAO} recovers and is back in the fight.

 

it may be the differance in my playstyle that creates this differance of opinion, I go in with at best a plot seed amount of information, and then let the players run with it taking everything in stride, then when they want the battle i jsut think up something that sounds OK to get them there, then i run a very cinematic type game, if you should be able to do it, you can even if you don't have it exactly in your character write up. I only gave my players a AP limit, and even that wasn't rigid, that was just a suggestion and i let quite a few powers that go over that, i just trust my players with this responsibility. it is a bit extra work for their battles, but it is worth it.

 

Yeah if you have mature responsible players, it would probably work. However, mature responsible players probably wouldn't design characters that are too far apart in power level and effectiveness in the first place.

[BoloOfEarth]

Originally posted by Gary

Yeah if you have mature responsible players, it would probably work.

 

Pardon me, but exactly what are these "mature responsible players" you're talking about? Are we talking about some alternate universe here?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Re: Fight SMARTER, not harder!

 

Originally posted by Gary

Yeah, but does this happen consistently in the comics?

 

Remember, we're talking about a PC team where Superman and Robin are going to be in virtually every adventure together. If there are 10 combats, I'm willing to bet that a good chunk of them will have the Robin character feel pretty useless. There are only so many times where a Robin level character can do anything vs a mega power.

 

Well, World's Finest ran for years teaming Superman and Batman. The Avengers run with a Thunder God on one hand and a guy who talks to ants on the other. Compare the Thing and Mr. Fantastic.

 

The catch is that the writer makes it work - there's always something for Superman to do, and somewhere for Batman to shine. Mind you, this leads to theories like "The scientists and super-advanced aliens just go duh, what do we do Batman - therefore Batman has an area effect INT drain."

 

Of course, the writer doesn't have to put up with Superman's player interrupting "But I can do this to deal with it", or explaining why a gun that topples the Thunder God doesn't kill the carny guy with the trick arrows. Plus, the writer gets a month at a time to come up with a new adventure. He also gets to decide that the character who can solve it all, or who has nothing to do, is otherwise occupied.

 

Regardless of genre, there are always some staples of the written material that just don't work well in the game.

[Kristopher]

Re: Fight SMARTER, not harder!

 

Originally posted by Oruncrest

More like:

5) Robin beats Penguin first. Realizing that he probably won't be able to cause Brainiac any damage (Braniac has the defenses to go toe to toe with Superman after all), Robin tries to find out what Brainiac & Penguin were up to, then puts a stop to their nefarious scheme while Superman puts the kibosh on Brainiac.

 

Success isn't necesarily determined by how many people you can beat up un a turn you know. And who knows, if there's some sort of equipment around that can stop or slow Brainiac down enough for Supes to clobber him, Robin would use it.

 

In fact, there's a Superman annual (#10 I believe) where robin does just that. Superman is wrapped up in the coils of a parasitic plant, the Black Mercy, and Mongul (who put Supes in that predicament, has just finished explaining what the Black Mercy is to Wonder Woman, Batman, and Robin and is wondering which of the three he should kill first.

 

While WW is punishing Mongul's fist mercilessly, Batman is getting the Black Mercy off of Superman. Robin tries to give Bats Monguls gloves (which Mongul had to use to handle the Black Mercy safely), but Batman ignores him and becomes the Black Mercy's next victim.

 

Superman wakes up. Robin points him in Mongul's direction and off Supes goes to open up a can of WhoopAss. Meanwhile, Robin uses Mongul's gloves to pull the Black Mercy off Batman (gotta love the glove) and goes off in the direction of the Supes/Mongul fight. Good thing too, 'cause Mongul had just gotten the upper hand when Robin shows up and drops the Black Mercy on him.

 

Useless? No. Even though Robin was well out of his weight class, he certainly wasn't useless.

 

And so the GM spends more of his time contriving situations that prop up the low-powered character than he spends on anything else. Sorry, no go. That kind of thing only works so often, and it's a lot easier to pull off in fiction where all of the characters and events are completely under control.

[Lupus]

Re: Re: Fight SMARTER, not harder!

 

Originally posted by Kristopher

And so the GM spends more of his time contriving situations that prop up the low-powered character than he spends on anything else. Sorry, no go. That kind of thing only works so often, and it's a lot easier to pull off in fiction where all of the characters and events are completely under control.

Seconded. That situation is something that I hate in comics. Once is okay. Twice, maybe. If it happens every time, then it seriously stretches credibility.

 

Where it /is/ possible is if either the lower-powered guy has skills (and serious skills) in an area where the higher-powered guy has serious gaps, and the adventure is a mix of scenes. So they each get their chance to shine. Sure, the big guy is better in a fight, but he wouldn't be there without the little dude!

 

It's also possible if the player of the less-powerful character is in the game /solely/ for the kicks, and doesn't mind sitting out half of the session while unconscious. 'Course, this stops being fun for the other players if that character is constantly knocked out/held hostage/otherwise leads to them being slapped.

 

Take Jubilee just after the relaunch of the X-Men title (round 1993). She hung around with the X-Men, tended to keep herself safe, hardly did anything useful (but did sometimes, when appropriate) and kept a positive demeanour. I probably wouldn't be happy playing her, but I know some people who would.

 

Even if only so that they can say: 'I fought Dr Destroyer, kicked him, and I lived!' 'Yeah, but you only lived because Ultra-Man stepped in front of you and deflected his power blast.' 'Yeah, but I lived! I rock!'

 

And that's a good way to use a low-powered character. Just takes a very special player.