Humanity Rating?

[Dead guy on tab]

Based upon the discussion in this thread:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59296

I got to thinking about a way to track a characters evolution throughout a campaign. I was thinking about how the measure of a hero is how he relates to the average person. Consequently, I was thinking of a humanity rating akin to the sanity rating of Call of Cthulhu. Characters could add to their humanity by spending more time with everyday people, focusing on solving their problems. As a corollary, a hero who becomes more involved with cosmic events would see his humanity rating decrease. Comics abound with examples of heroes who lose touch with humanity (e.g. Miracleman, Dr. Strange at points, Green Lantern, Spectre, etc.) These characters would all have low humanity ratings. Spider-Man with his constant rescues of Aunt May and worrying about his friends and so on would have a high humanity rating.

 

What do people think of the idea? What actions would cause changes to a character's humanity rating? What are the benefits of a high humanity rating/costs of a low humanity rating (e.g. a character with a low humanity rating may have minuses to his perceptions to notice normals during a battle/disaster)?

[jkwleisemann]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Actually, I've been thinking of a similar thing for my Mad World campaign idea, but I don't think it's quite what you're looking for - much more Lovecraftian in general focus.

 

As for the idea in general... I kind of like it, but some of the interpretations of it that I've seen have been iffy at best. If done well, it could be a good idea, but most of the time it falls short of its potential, and ends up resented by players (assuming they don't glorify in driving their Humanity down to the nubbies....)

[Bloodstone]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Vampire used a system like that.

 

I saw many players ignore the role playing implications of it and focus almost entirely on the mechanics.

[OctoberRaven]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Hm. This makes me think of the nWoD's morality system... or whatever it was called. I forget.

 

Basically, it was a 0-10 rating, with 7 being the default, but you can make it 6 for extra points. Each tier from 1-10 had a 'threshold', a sin that would cause you to make a roll (the higher your rating, the more dice you rolled). If you failed the roll, you lost a point, and gained a mania as well. The thresholds for your number and down applied to your character, and ranged from something like "Not going to your place of worship every week" at 10 to "Killing random innocent" at 1. The lower your number, the less 'human' (or Werewolf/Vampire/Whatever) you were. At zero your soul was pretty much so screwed up that something bad happens to you (this might have been just for werewolves, though) and now you're irredeemable.

 

Say what you will about nWoD, that's a nice little mechanic that shouldn't be too hard to fit into HERO system.

 

Example: Humanity

 

10 CP per point of HUM (Humanity), base 7, and set defined threshold sins based on your campaign/genre (a 10 HUM in Champions could be breaking the law for any reason, for example). When it's failed, they roll 3d6 for 14- if 10-8, 11- for 7-4, and 8- for 3-1. Failing the roll means you lose a point, and gain a Psychological Limitation based on the severity of your failure at GM fiat. (An 18, for example, would get a Very Common, Total). A character who reaches 0 HUM gains a DF: Corrupted Soul (Not Concealable, Extreme Reaction, Detectable by Magic or appropriate senses) and a Psychological Limitation: Hopelessly Twisted And Evil (Very Common Total), and at GM's discretion might become a GM character if not killed outright by the PCs.

 

 

Edit- Semi-ninja'd. Also, that's kind of a shame, Bloodstone. I think that was a great mechanic to encourage roleplaying walking the line of sanity and madness.

[assault]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

What do people think of the idea?

 

Kill them all. Ghod will know his own.

 

Slightly more seriously: I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

 

EDIT: If you really want to get into this kind of thing, I suggest you take a look at Squadron UK. It handles this kind of stuff pretty well.

[rjcurrie]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Personally, I think it is a matter best left to role-playing. I think there is the distinct danger as mentioned earlier of people simply playing the mechanic. "Oops, I spent a few days in space dealing with cosmic threats, so I'd better spend some time rescuing cats out of trees to balance it out". Unless they're willing to let their humanity go because they think it will be interesting to play out. So, basically, it boils down to the humanity rating only affecting those that want to be affected by it, so you may as well just leave it to role-playing.

[Lamrok]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Personally' date=' I think it is a matter best left to role-playing. I think there is the distinct danger as mentioned earlier of people simply playing the mechanic. "Oops, I spent a few days in space dealing with cosmic threats, so I'd better spend some time rescuing cats out of trees to balance it out". Unless they're willing to let their humanity go because they think it will be interesting to play out. So, basically, it boils down to the humanity rating only affecting those that want to be affected by it, so you may as well just leave it to role-playing.[/quote']

 

This has been the central conflict of my character in Zornwil's long-running Supers game, something that has been riffed on many times without any mechanics involved. (His issue is that he has INT of over 200, so he doesn't see things quite the same way others do.) As a player, you know when your character is getting too close to the line, the fun is in how you handle it. I'd rather keep that sort of thing discretionary rather than build a bunch of rules around it.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Vampire used a system like that.

 

I saw many players ignore the role playing implications of it and focus almost entirely on the mechanics.

 

I knew some V:tM players who wanted to lose as much Humanity as possible just to see how fun to was to turn their characters into depraved psychos, and how long they would last.

 

Then again, they were playing Sabbat vamps.

[Dead guy on tab]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

This is where meta-gaming comes in. I envisioned that the players would know that some sort of rating exists, but not the actual contents of their scores. I t would be up to the GM to introduce the changes to how the character perceives his surroundings. I thought this might be a useful GM tool to examine how players use their XP. A character does not necessarily become more heroic as they become more powerful. Instead eschewing power is usual they means to true heroism. I was trying to think of ways to capture the characters progress through the campaign as they either spiral towards a demigod isolated from mankind or they manage to balance the need to protect their world and to keep their humanity.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Interesting idea, but I can't see any real purpose to it. I think this should be handled with role-playing, and if this kind of information is really desired by the GM it would be more useful to quiz the players about their characters than assign numerical ratings. That smacks me as far too mechanistic.

[Tigereye]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

I, too, agree with the above, at least in the context of the Hero System, at least in most games. It could certainly work with more than even the systems given above. I could also add "Pendragon" in its personality matrix. I'm not rejecting the idea out of hand. I just don't think it could apply to a certain group of characters.

 

My character is a perfect example. He is just chock full of foibles and weaknesses. He is not above a little selfishness, he can be extremely cruel, he's a phenomenal seducer, he's not comfortable in a public setting except when he's anonymous. He can be obsessive, and feels depressed when there's no action he can take.

 

On the other hand, he gives all his found money to charity (especially to widows or orphans of fallen heroes) and is keenly interested in environmental protection, especially marine life and birds. He's the one who generally gets the most banged up in a game trying to protect others, innocents, even more powerful heroes. (He would gladly drag an injured comrade off at great personal peril to himself.) In a crowd setting, he literally drew the fire of an energy projector (a pistol with Penetration does wonders for catching attention) just so the crowd could evacuate. He fought with a painful shoulder and chest burn for the rest of the combat. It's just the kind of person he is.

 

Is he human? Absolutely. But defining humanity is a multi-dimensional spectrum, and there are things in most people that just aren't nice. To cross game systems for a moment, we each have a Dark Side Point somewhere. Many humans are simultaneously good and bad. They beat their wives while giving generously to charity. They swindle and fleece while opening up food pantries. They kill millions of people while refusing to eat meat because that would mean killing an animal. Where do you draw the line? It's certainly not a bright one.

 

There are also villains I know in comic books who have more understandable and comprehensible personalities than some of the heroes (Magneto's motives are understandable, even if you do not approve of his actions or goals whatsoever, while the Punisher seems to have lost nearly all his humanity in seeking justice.)

 

Nope, I don't like it. Some games where you want that, certainly, but not in Champions.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Shouldn't a well conceived character's "humanity rating" be already pretty well defined by his Disadvantages?

[Dead guy on tab]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Shouldn't a well conceived character's "humanity rating" be already pretty well defined by his Disadvantages?

 

Not necessarily. I am trying to capture the consequences of a characters choices on his ability to relate to the mankind. Compare Captain Marvel to Miracleman. The build should be close to identical. However, as Miracleman progressed and he became more powerful, he chose to distance himself to humanity (e.g. no longer transforming to his alter ego, etc.); whereas Captain Marvel continually struggles to balance his alter ego. I would consider that Miracleman would have a very low humanity score. Another genre that would use this is cyberpunk, as you gain more cyborg attachments you lose your humanity. Certainly the character disads would inform how much humanity you started with and avenues to gain or lose humanity, but I thought it would be a way to track the cumulative consequence of a character's actions throughout a campaign. I guess I am trying to figure out how much a character behaves as a SUPERhuman vs. a superHUMAN.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

I still don't get what you would do with it--would having a lower or higher humanity rating force the character to act in a certain way? I just don't see the mechanics behind it.

[Scifi_Toughguy]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Shadowrun has/had something like this, I'm sure its like the cyberpunk version. It was based on the idea that technology and magic were opposite. The more technology you had in you limited your magical ability. It should be a role play function. Unfortunately not all of us are priveledged to play with persons who are capable of doing it on that level. Mechanics are for those people.

[Dead guy on tab]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

I still don't get what you would do with it--would having a lower or higher humanity rating force the character to act in a certain way? I just don't see the mechanics behind it.

 

I was thinking it would provide modifiers to the character's actions, i.e. a low humanity character would have difficulties noticing/interacting with normals (minuses to perception rolls/persuasion rolls to individuals), but might be better at commanding action (pluses to oratory/presence attacks/interrogation, deduction rolls to see the "big picture"). A perfect example in comics is when Green Arrow confronts Green Lantern about his top line behavior and Green Lantern agrees to travel with Green Arrow to regain his humanity. In this case, Green Lantern's humanity was low and he responds with a means to increase it. Sort of can you see the forest or the trees idea.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

I was thinking it would provide modifiers to the character's actions' date=' i.e. a low humanity character would have difficulties noticing/interacting with normals (minuses to perception rolls/persuasion rolls to individuals), but might be better at commanding action (pluses to oratory/presence attacks/interrogation, deduction rolls to see the "big picture"). A perfect example in comics is when Green Arrow confronts Green Lantern about his top line behavior and Green Lantern agrees to travel with Green Arrow to regain his humanity. In this case, Green Lantern's humanity was low and he responds with a means to increase it. Sort of can you see the forest or the trees idea.[/quote']

 

You don't need a new mechanic for this. This can all be handled with changing disadvantages--as characters change, their experiences and personalities should change, giving them different Psych Lims. Just have someone pick up a different Disad, and be done with it. If GL's been off doing things in the cosmos, he gets a Psych Lim or Social Lim, and the player needs to RP that change. No biggie.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

I was thinking it would provide modifiers to the character's actions' date=' i.e. a low humanity character would have difficulties noticing/interacting with normals (minuses to perception rolls/persuasion rolls to individuals), but might be better at commanding action (pluses to oratory/presence attacks/interrogation, deduction rolls to see the "big picture"). A perfect example in comics is when Green Arrow confronts Green Lantern about his top line behavior and Green Lantern agrees to travel with Green Arrow to regain his humanity. In this case, Green Lantern's humanity was low and he responds with a means to increase it. Sort of can you see the forest or the trees idea.[/quote']I think this can be better represented with Disadvantages and/or Presence. Why should "inhuman" characters get more commanding actions? Wouldn't they just be scarier or more intimidating - i.e., with higher PRE - to the average Joe? Doesn't Captain America have oodles of commanding presence? If you make this some kind of score players will play to the score rather than roleplay.

 

Look at ST:TNG. Would Lt. Commander Data have been better represented with a Humanity Score? Or was portraying Data working persistently over seven seasons (and several films) to understand and attain emotion and become "human" without some sort of artificial score a better way? Why should it be any different in Champions?

 

Players are the ones who make their characters human or inhuman. Scoring won't change that.

[casualplayer]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

Ya know, Enraged and Berserk don't have to be all Hulk Smash! Yaar! Sometimes they are just when you can't come up with a reason not to smack the annoying person with lethal force. It's even more unsettling when the person just goes about dispassionately eradicating bystanders and ripping off limbs; mad dogs don't always froth at the mouth.

 

You can do this with existing disadvantages. Enraged/Berserk, Psy. Lims that wax and wane and even Susceptability that causes long-term EGO damage whenever their humanity isn't nurtured. Lowered EGO makes the rolls to avoid acting on Strong Psy Lims harder which might lead to developing Enrageds which might lead to inhumane acts triggering the Susceptability....

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: Humanity Rating?

 

The most recent (ie, year 2000 or so) game mechanic that I've seen that handles stuff like this well is the Stress/Hardened mechanic from Unknown Armies. It works as follows:

 

1. You have a number of mental attributes: Violence, Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, and Self. These attributes have a ranking of 1-10.

 

2. Occasionally you will be tested against these attributes. Tests are rated 1-10 as well. If your attribute level is higher than the test, you don't need to make the test. If it's lower, you have to make the test as an EGO check.

 

3. If you fail one of these tests, you start picking up disadvantages based on the failure. (You also run away screaming, or go bezerk, or any other short-term consequences of failing an EGO check.) If you succeed in the tests, your attribute improves and you start picking up disadvantages based on the success. Note that you can have disadvantages based on both failure and success. Yes: it sucks either way. It's a game mechanic that punishes you for putting your character into psychologically damaging situations.

 

It's actually a bit more involved than that, but that's the basic gist. Here's an example of the "Violence" attribute

 

Test

1 - you're attacked in a fight.

2 - you see someone get tortured.

3 - be tortured (briefly), or get shot.

4 - kill someone.

5 - be directly involved in a massive land battle.

6 - perform torture.

7 - deliberately kill someone who is helpless.

8 - long-term torture (1+ hour)

9 - be involved in a mass execution.

10 - watch a loved one be tortured to death.

 

Consequences of having failed (number of times)

once - superficially fine.

twice - starting to get quirky. (gain a -5 point disad about violence.)

three times - start to become uneasy around symbols of violence (-10 point disad)

four times - phobic about violence (-15 point disad)

five times - you've gone crazy. (-20 disad, plus you automatically fail any EGO checks when tested against Violence)

 

Consequences of success (aka: becoming hardened):

1-3. superficially normal

4-5. attitudes towards violence show up in conversation (-5 quirk)

6-7. Stop showing reactions towards violence and pain (-10 disad)

8-9. Your attitues towards violence are easily seen (-15 disad)

10 - Life, violence, and death mean nothing to you (-20 disad).

 

For example, someone with a Violence rating of 5, and who has failed the test twice would likely come across as a professional soldier: they could kill people in fights and not crack, but they don't talk about their experiences in combat at all, and tend to be a bit jumpy. (both -5 disadvantages.) Most Superheroes would probably sit at 3, with 1 failed test.

 

EDIT - you can buy down your ratings, if you want to - via medication, psychological counseling, or (I suppose) Mental Transformations.