Stats And Hero Purity

[CTaylor]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

It takes muscle to hit harder too, but we have Hand-to-Hand attack as a power. For that matter we have leaping as a power. Simply being strong doesn't make you a superior leaper by default, and that's what the present system indicates. For that matter it doesn't make you hit necessarily harder, either.

 

But all that aside, it would fit the toolkit concept better to strip them down a bit more.

 

And the world record involved a guy lying down when he landed, which is not a feature of hero games leaping. Plus for that much strength you can jump over six feet straight up without a run. Try that some time.

[Tonio]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

The HERO concept is built around defining abilities in terms of effects (not SFX, but "what they do; how they affect reality"). Strength isn't an effect, it's SFX. "I can lift a lot because I have a hydraulics exoskeleton." is a different SFX from "I can lift a lot because I'm super strong.".

 

Having STR as a stat is useful and convenient, but it "breaks" the HERO concept. It's like having a "Fire" stat, which would give you a fire-based Damage Shield, fire-based Flight, fire-based Energy Blast, and Change Environment to raise temprature. 50 Fire gives you 5d6 EB, 2d6 Damage Shield, 10" of Flight, and +5 temp. levels at a 5" radius. (Numbers made up, not based on any sort of AP cost or anything.) That's what STR is doing right now, only it's lifting capacity, HA, Leaping, PD...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

Strength is a mechanic.

strength is one possible Special Effect of Strength.

[JmOz]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

The HERO concept is built around defining abilities in terms of effects (not SFX, but "what they do; how they affect reality"). Strength isn't an effect, it's SFX. "I can lift a lot because I have a hydraulics exoskeleton." is a different SFX from "I can lift a lot because I'm super strong.".

 

Having STR as a stat is useful and convenient, but it "breaks" the HERO concept. It's like having a "Fire" stat, which would give you a fire-based Damage Shield, fire-based Flight, fire-based Energy Blast, and Change Environment to raise temprature. 50 Fire gives you 5d6 EB, 2d6 Damage Shield, 10" of Flight, and +5 temp. levels at a 5" radius. (Numbers made up, not based on any sort of AP cost or anything.) That's what STR is doing right now, only it's lifting capacity, HA, Leaping, PD...

 

Sounds ALOT like a EC to me, as I said up thread, Prime Characteristics are basicaly super common Power frameworks...

[OddHat]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

Simply being strong doesn't make you a superior leaper by default' date=' and that's what the present system indicates. For that matter it doesn't make you hit necessarily harder, either.[/quote']

 

You keep repeating this. Every sports science text book I've read over the last twenty years that touches on the subject (and every coach and sensei I've spoken to) disagrees with your opinion. Not to say that it has anything to do with what should or shouldn't be included in a game, but still, Generic Athlete A will, all else being equal, jump farther if you increase his relative strength to weight ratio. Generic Athlete A will also, all else being equal, be able to strike harder if you increase his absolute strength.*

 

Your opinion that damage and leaping should be separated entirely from all other aspects of strength has something to be said for it, but an appeal to "realism" isn't going to help.

 

If strength had nothing to do with sports performance, you'd expect to see more quadriplegic track stars and kickboxers.

 

*There are many types of strength; explosive, support, strength-endurance, etc, etc. Hero could brake them down, but that would be pointlessly complicated; instead, they get lumped into STR. It works well enough.

[zornwil]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

Whether acquired naturally or by practice and skill, isn't it still Dexterity? It's only when the character wants parts of the benefits of a stat that the issue becomes problematic.

 

To my mind, NCM creates a good portion of the problem. A 5 point "+1 with all PRE skills" level is overpriced if you can buy +5 PRE for the same price, but seems far more reasonable (and a reduced price far less so) if +5 PRE costs 10 points due to NCM.

 

Another part of the problem is the fact that some aspects of certain stats can be purchased separately (figured characteristics; Hand Attack; Leaping; Levels with skills) but others can only be acquired separately with limited characteristics ("No Figured"; lifting capacity; OCV; ECV; Lightning Reflexes; resistance to being Stunned; offensive or defensive PRE effects).

 

An alternative to elimination of characteristics would be the elimination of other approaches to buying their effects, such that you must buy +X PRE, only for enhancing PRE skills, and cannot buy skill levels.

 

 

 

D&D rolled those dice with 3e, rendering former characters incompatible. They clearly won that gamble. Whether Hero could, much less should, is another question.

One could argue if it can't, it oughtn't, which is sort of along the lines of also saying "keep the system the same and just sell rehashes." There's not anything necessarily wrong with that. Though an interesting point here in general is the role of gaming society in adoption, by which I mean very specifically one own's circle and on the more micro level, not the macro. As gaming groups have any population start to adopt the new, the group naturally moves there. So evolutionary, seemingly organic, change would seem likely to succeed. I think part (but only part) of Fuzion's problem was its revolutionary, contrived change.

 

But some companies have embraced rather great change, even aside from WotC, and survived. Runequest is perhaps one of the better examples.

 

More comment to DD's post.

[zornwil]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

Stronger people do jump further and hit harder' date=' [u']all else being equal[/u]. See any basic book on weight training for sports. Mel Siff, Tudor Bompa, the ACSM manuals, etc, etc.

 

That said, a 274 pound Olympic style weight lifter isn't going to jump further than a 174 pound Olympic long jumper. The legs, lower back, core, and probably mid-back of the track athlete aren't that much weaker than those of the weight lifter, and the 274 pound weight lifter is moving much more weight through the air. Bodybuilders and Powerlifters muddy the water further, as neither work as much as the jumper on explosive strength. The elite track athlete, OTOH, is doing many of the same Olympic style lifts as the Olympic Lifter.

 

Bruce Lee could hit very hard and very accurately; had he added 50 pounds of muscle and bone, with the right training routine, he'd have hit even harder. Physics doesn't give a fart about fandom. Of course he would have out-punched a weight lifter of equal weight and similar body composition without martial training; skill is part of strength, and learning how to optimally perform one movement (say a Clean) does not mean knowing how to optimally perform another (say a punch). This is an area HERO models fairly well, with MA and DCs adding to Strength damage, in much the same way that practicing optimal movement with a given attack in the real world adds to the impact a fighter can generate.

 

Strength itself is tricky to define or tie down; Strength-Endurance, Limit Strength, Support Strength, Explosive Strength, strength divided by bodypart, the jargon gets thicker the more you look into the issue. These all vary by diet, the health and rest state of the athlete, type of training performed by the athlete, training phase, etc.

 

In the end, Hero is a game system. Characteristics are an abstraction that lump together a bunch of traits that fictional characters display, in a way that's useful for players and GMs when designing characters. Not many players are going to design a "Strong" character who can't throw a punch; there's little reason to overcomplicate the game by separating STR from Damage, let alone trying to accurately simulate real world Strength.

 

And as a side note, I don't see many gamers who've been playing Champions / Hero System for 25+ years being all that happy about giving up characteristics. For a lot of them, it's part of what makes Hero "Hero"; turn it into a purely generic game with only "Attack", "Defend", "Sense" and "Move" plus modifiers, no skills, and no characteristics, and while it may be a playable new game, it won't be Hero system anymore.

But what if what we would have as a result could also build the recognizable HERO, and that recognizable HERO were one of the results, albeit probably with some recosting and caveats in the build up from the foundation?

 

I would argue much of this population would love that. Even might be passionate about it.

[zornwil]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

Strength is a mechanic.

strength is one possible Special Effect of Strength.

Well said.

[zornwil]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

I hav thought that stats were an anomaly for some time. It is something I will change in all future games based on Hero that I run.

 

I like the fact that there is a template that says that the average human PC will have CV 3, run 6", be able to detect noise within the human audible range, see in the human visual range of the electromagnetic spectrum, lift about 100kg and manipulate objects unless restrained from so doing.

 

I'm probably missing something along the lines of 20 STUN, 20 END 4 REC and 2 SPD. These are real game related statistics as opposed to the above which are narrative.

 

I would probably default all other characteristic type rolls to 11- (coz that's what most of them are).

 

That is the human template. I'm sure I could come up with some other templates that could be costed at zero as well with different assumption.

 

Anyway - the game stats could be purchased just like stats (not much c an replace them) while anything else this character needs could be bought with powers.

 

Thus when a player looks at the character sheet they get the default template unless something has been changed along with a list of powers and skills - takes one whole section of the character sheet (and a large list of numbers right off the character sheet).

 

 

Doc

I think you're right, and I don't think it would be that difficult at all. Much if not most of the system would also work well - what if we allowed for Lifting as a skill (and of course we can always just have a Strength more general skill, if we like) where:

 

10 pds -1

20 pds -2

40 pds -3

80 pds -4

 

etc. - just purely an example, don't take the #s seriously.

 

I think it's easier than we think to say "whatever you do is 11- unless you have a skill that can do more." Of course, skills would have to be allowed to be frameworked and we'd need some thought to the matter of building skills, but I say both would only strengthen the way HERO plays and ease of use (in both creation and execution) and learning.

[OddHat]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

But what if what we would have as a result could also build the recognizable HERO, and that recognizable HERO were one of the results, albeit probably with some recosting and caveats in the build up from the foundation?

 

I would argue much of this population would love that. Even might be passionate about it.

 

From a philosophical point of view, I agree with the point of view that you don't need characteristics, the SPD chart, or skills. You could model everything with a list of basic Elements (Move, Act, Target, Avoid, Damage, Sense, Change, etc). It would work fine.

 

As a longtime Hero fan (like you and most people still playing), I wouldn't want to see a version of Hero that drops Characteristics, SPD and Skills, even if they're then rebuilt from the ground up. It wouldn't be the game I've been playing for the last two and a half decades, and I'm not convinced it would be an improvement.

 

As to the much more modest proposal of just separating Damage, PD, REC, STUN and Jumping from Lifting, I have nothing philosophically against it. It could work fine, and I expect some of it to happen eventually. I don't think it makes the game more playable, and I don't like the idea, but mechanically it works well enough.

[CTaylor]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

You keep repeating this. Every sports science text book I've read over the last twenty years that touches on the subject (and every coach and sensei I've spoken to) disagrees with your opinion.

 

I apologize for not being more clear. Yes, being stronger can make you leap farther, but merely being stronger does not translate into further leaping, if that makes sense. In other words, lifting weights won't make you leap further. In other words: merely increasing strength does not make you jump any further.

 

Yes, again being stronger can make you hit harder, but merely being stronger does not. A really huge, musclebound steroid monster is hugely strong but they can't really swing well enough to hit hard because they're so musclebound.

 

Dex and attack ability is the same way.

 

Does that make more sense now?

 

Your opinion that damage and leaping should be separated entirely from all other aspects of strength has something to be said for it, but an appeal to "realism" isn't going to help.

 

I agree, but that is just a personal beef,although it adds to the poor design of stats. Sure, some kinds of strength training can add to leaping and hitting hard, but not strength by default, which even from the perspective of believability is a problem.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

The crux of your argument falls into the various kinds of strength that Oddhat mentioned - none of those factors are inherent in the system, to model them would bring unneeded complexity to both Character Creation and Play.

 

"Wait, are you using your Explosive Strength to run after Devastator, or just the lifting Strength you built up in the Superbases gym?"

 

 

... and just to be sure - we're talking about believability in a system that wants to help model laser beam eyes right? OK, just checking. Because those are not believable and should probably be removed because of that....

[OddHat]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

I apologize for not being more clear. Yes, being stronger can make you leap farther, but merely being stronger does not translate into further leaping, if that makes sense. In other words, lifting weights won't make you leap further. In other words: merely increasing strength does not make you jump any further.

 

Yes, again being stronger can make you hit harder, but merely being stronger does not. A really huge, musclebound steroid monster is hugely strong but they can't really swing well enough to hit hard because they're so musclebound.

 

Dex and attack ability is the same way.

 

Does that make more sense now?

 

Sorry if I'm being pedantic. I'd stress that, from a Game point of view, I think you have a good point. It's in the area of real world strength training (one of my hobbies, which is why I'm nit picking) where I don't agree.

 

That said, if I take a trainee and have him do the correct exercises for three to four months (squats, deadlifts, cleans, snatches, maybe others), and I feed him so as to keep him from adding excessive weight, he is going to leap further than he would have before he started. His gains would be less than if a good coach just taught him how to perform a given jump, but his jumping ability would still increase, just from increasing his base strength. If he were taught how to perform a specific jump correctly, and also trained with the right combination of exercises, his jumping ability would increase even more.

 

The huge steroid goon almost certainly hits harder than he did before he became a huge steroid goon (and I'd add that many bodybuilders are deficient in explosive, relative and absolute strength,* as their training focuses on adding muscle rather than increasing strength). Train him in how to throw a punch, and he'll hit far harder still. The idea of people becoming "Muscle Bound" is mostly a myth, stemming from the fact that many trainees who focus on adding muscle don't spend enough time working on flexibility or sports specific movements.

 

*when compared to other athletes with similar muscle mass

[zornwil]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

From a philosophical point of view, I agree with the point of view that you don't need characteristics, the SPD chart, or skills. You could model everything with a list of basic Elements (Move, Act, Target, Avoid, Damage, Sense, Change, etc). It would work fine.

 

As a longtime Hero fan (like you and most people still playing), I wouldn't want to see a version of Hero that drops Characteristics, SPD and Skills, even if they're then rebuilt from the ground up. It wouldn't be the game I've been playing for the last two and a half decades, and I'm not convinced it would be an improvement.

 

As to the much more modest proposal of just separating Damage, PD, REC, STUN and Jumping from Lifting, I have nothing philosophically against it. It could work fine, and I expect some of it to happen eventually. I don't think it makes the game more playable, and I don't like the idea, but mechanically it works well enough.

I think you're missing the point - if it's built from the ground up, how would you know the difference?

[zornwil]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

The crux of your argument falls into the various kinds of strength that Oddhat mentioned - none of those factors are inherent in the system, to model them would bring unneeded complexity to both Character Creation and Play.

 

"Wait, are you using your Explosive Strength to run after Devastator, or just the lifting Strength you built up in the Superbases gym?"

 

 

... and just to be sure - we're talking about believability in a system that wants to help model laser beam eyes right? OK, just checking. Because those are not believable and should probably be removed because of that....

I think, but might well be wrong, the crux of his argument is not realism but the purchase of a lot of ill-defined capability, which may - or may not - make a characteristic more or less worth its cost.

 

I think in general there should be a re-genericizing of the "toolkit," back to basics (but devoid of being specific to superheroics). Revert to fewer absolutes (maybe Desolid should be 8 BOD/phase, e.g., and not have free rein as an invulnerabilty tool and so on). Critically examine for an effective 5 points/1d6 paradigm, with allowance, of course, for certain allowances, but at least know from a design principle we want those - e.g., I have long argued STR is worth 1 per 1 for the simple reason that STR is such a common and necessary virtue in the heroic fiction we model. But shouldn't we (not necessarily us personally, but we-who-know-the-design) be proceeding from that explicit decision and understand the broader implications across different play groups? (Such as, the commonly high perceived value for bricks in so many play groups - and how that plays against the system's absolutes, such as Damage Reduction?)

[OddHat]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

I think you're missing the point - if it's built from the ground up' date=' how would you know the difference?[/quote']

 

Depends on how well its built from the ground up and at what stage it ends up being presented to the end user.

 

Regeneration was rebuilt from the ground up to fit in with healing; personally, I liked the end product better when it was a straight 10 points per BOD per Turn, without facing players with an overly complex presentation.

[zornwil]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

Depends on how well its built from the ground up and at what stage it ends up being presented to the end user.

 

Regeneration was rebuilt from the ground up to fit in with healing; personally, I liked the end product better when it was a straight 10 points per BOD per Turn, without facing players with an overly complex presentation.

No, that's not a real example. Building from the ground up includes "And we're ignoring this rule because..." But at least it starts from the rationalized basis, which is then suspended or altered as need be.

[CTaylor]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

It's in the area of real world strength training (one of my hobbies, which is why I'm nit picking) where I don't agree.

 

OK here's the problem as I see it.

 

You can train your strength to jump further, but what you're training there is called "leaping." You can train your strength to hit harder, but what you're training there is called "damage." If you train your strength to be stronger you don't get any better at jumping and not any better at combat.

 

Take two Olympic athletes: a long distance jumper and a weight lifter. How much stronger is the weight lifter than the jumper? Immensely. How much further can that weight lifter jump?

 

Take two guys, a body builder and a martial artist. Which is stronger? Which hits harder?

 

As I said yes, increasing strength can increase these abilities but not merely increasing strength. The training is not in being stronger but in building abilities you use in your sport. You get stronger, but there's a significant difference, wouldn't you say?

 

Hero at present automatically presumes strong=jump, and there's not any such correlation in real life. Being immensely strong doesn't make you jump far, it makes you lift lots. Being well trained as a jumper makes you jump far, and be somewhat stronger.

 

I can't put it any more clearly than that.

 

For the record, I know what Steve was trying to do, but I liked Regeneration and Instant Change much more when they were distinct powers instead of a rule tweaking construct. It's needlessly complex in the present build.

[OddHat]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

OK here's the problem as I see it.

 

Let's step away from weight training for a moment. Assuming both have no training whatsoever in any martial art, an eight year old does not hit as hard as that same human at twenty. The change, in Hero terms, is reflected in the fact that the twenty year old has gained "Strength".

 

100 pounds of added muscle and bone, greater intra-muscular coordination, and a greater ability to recruit muscle fibers makes a difference. It doesn't much matter if those changes come from physical maturation or training.

 

And, of course, more specific training causes even greater improvements. In Hero, this is reflected by the fact that you can buy extra inches of jumping and extra DCs of damage on top of what you gain from Strength.

 

Take two Olympic athletes: a long distance jumper and a weight lifter. How much stronger is the weight lifter than the jumper? Immensely. How much further can that weight lifter jump?

 

The jumpers relative (i.e. pound for pound) lower body and core explosive strength is every bit as great as the weight lifters, if not greater. After all, they do many of the same exercises.

 

Take two guys, a body builder and a martial artist. Which is stronger? Which hits harder?

 

Body builders do not train primarily for strength; they train for size. Pound for pound, the martial artist (assuming he practices an external style) likely has greater explosive strength, and generally relies on his well trained legs and hips for much of the force of his strikes. His training in performing the movement finishes off his ability to hit (much) harder than the bodybuilder.

 

The body builder, meanwhile, still hits harder after having lifted weights for a few years than before he started.

 

As I said yes, increasing strength can increase these abilities but not merely increasing strength.

 

Merely increasing Strength does in fact increase how hard you can hit and (if we're talking about relative, pound for pound strength in your core and lower body) how far you can leap.

 

General strength training alone does not increase performance as much as training to perform specific movements (such as delivering a punch or performing a long jump).

 

The training is not in being stronger but in building abilities you use in your sport. You get stronger, but there's a significant difference, wouldn't you say?

 

Skill increases help. So do base strength increases.

 

Hero at present automatically presumes strong=jump, and there's not any such correlation in real life. Being immensely strong doesn't make you jump far, it makes you lift lots.

 

Gaining relative (pound for pound) lower body and core strength will in fact let you jump farther.

 

Being well trained as a jumper makes you jump far, and be somewhat stronger.

 

And that bit is true.

[CTaylor]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

General strength training alone does not increase performance as much as training to perform specific movements (such as delivering a punch or performing a long jump).

 

Thank you, that's been my point all along. Just getting stronger does not translate into hitting harder or leaping further. Thus, these points are going into leaping and hitting with the special effect: strength training.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

I apologize for not being more clear. Yes, being stronger can make you leap farther, but merely being stronger does not translate into further leaping, if that makes sense. In other words, lifting weights won't make you leap further. In other words: merely increasing strength does not make you jump any further.

 

Yes, again being stronger can make you hit harder, but merely being stronger does not. A really huge, musclebound steroid monster is hugely strong but they can't really swing well enough to hit hard because they're so musclebound.

 

Dex and attack ability is the same way.

 

IMO you are taking STR to a extreme in your analogy, and then over-applying a minor real-world factor (hugely muscled people are not as limber as others). This does not translate into the Game System. Buying up one's STR does not hinder the use of their DEX.

 

Take Mr. Strong And Fit. He is well (but not hugely) muscled, and can hit with a certain amount of force when punching. If you take 1/3 of his muscle mass and change it to an equal mass of fat, I challenge you to insist that he can still punch with the same force. And if he can't, then that automatically means when he was stonger, he could hit harder.

 

And the same goes for his ability to leap. When he was stronger he undoubtedly could leap further.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

Thank you' date=' that's been my point all along. Just getting stronger does not translate into hitting harder or leaping further. Thus, these points are going into leaping and hitting with the special effect: strength training.[/quote']

 

I can see where you are coming from. And the thing is, Hero System already has this abiltiy to break it down further. A character can buy more Strength, and gain an increase in their leaping and hitting force ability; Or he can buy Leaping and Hand-to-Hand Atack. The second route is cheaper, thus maintaining your point (though I'm not sure I agree with it).

 

A lot of it depends upon how one *defines* Strength. To me, Strength encompases, but is not limited to, "explosive" strength. Which I belive is the kind most important in being better at leaping and striking.

 

But that's no different mechanically than just buying +5 STR - Only for Leaping & Punching Damage(-?) IMO.

[JmOz]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

I think what we need is something called lift added to the game, lift would be 1 point per, oh I don't konw every 2 or 3 points of Str that would just increase your lifting ability only, of course str gets left alone. Strength becomes the base line, then a weight lifter would buy extra lift, a leaper leap, a puglilist Hand attack...

[Trebuchet]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

General strength training alone does not increase performance as much as training to perform specific movements (such as delivering a punch or performing a long jump).

 

Thank you' date=' that's been my point all along. Just getting stronger does not translate into hitting harder or leaping further. Thus, these points are going into leaping and hitting with the special effect: strength training.[/quote']

 

Boldface mine. You're apparently not paying attention to what he said. Oddhat said strength training doesn't have as large an effect as training in specific movements. He didn't say it has no effect.

 

If a skilled martial artist begins strength training but his martial arts skills remain static, when the strength training is done he will hit harder than when he started. How much more will probably depend on several factors, such as how much his strength increased, what martial arts style he practices, how skilled he is at it, and perhaps others. But he will still be better.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Stats And Hero Purity

 

Thank you' date=' that's been my point all along. Just getting stronger does not translate into hitting harder or leaping further. Thus, these points are going into leaping and hitting with the special effect: strength training.[/quote']

 

Actually getting stronger does translate into hitting harder or leaping further, by doing nothing else than getting stronger. It is just that specialized training in those areas improves more.