Has anyone done a skilled normals game

[JmOz]

The topic says it all, Has anyone done a skilled normals game (25+25), and if so what advice do you have?

[OddHat]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I have, several times, but usually with later upgrades in mind.

 

In the character creation phase, sit down with the players and discuss what skills and stats are going to be important, and why, especially in regards to combat. At only 25+25, the difference between "the opposition will have SPD ranging from 2-3 and Dex from 8-14" and "the opposition will have SPD ranging from 3-4 and Dex from 14-20" is significant.

 

It's also important to prepare and show to the players sheets for "Karate Instructor", "University Professor", "Beat Cop", "Iraq War Veteran", and other appropriate, generic 25+25 characters you think will fit in the game. Depending on your character building and GMing style, it can be tough to fit even relatively common adventurer types (Hard Boiled Action Cop) into a 25+25 game, let alone the top level normals found in action films and, occasionally, real life (Jackie Chan's real life skills, talents, perks and stats would make it tough to write him up from start to finish as a 150 point character, let alone the stats he has in many of his films).

 

Once play starts, I'd suggest reminding yourself regularly not to face the characters with overwhelming opposition. At 25+25, a street gang is a very serious threat.

 

I'd see a game like this as The Shield or Dexter (with Dexter as an NPC villain), rather than Die Hard or Rush Hour.

[Checkmate]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

Another thing to think about is skill roll. Are you going to make your characters roll for everything or are you going to hand wave the easy stuff?

 

For example, Electronics guy wants to splice wires to make an extension cord longer, does that take a roll, or is just having the skill enough to say he can do it?

 

With the points being so low, if you make them roll for every task, their going to fail at the routine stuff a lot more.

[OddHat]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

Another thing to think about is skill roll. Are you going to make your characters roll for everything or are you going to hand wave the easy stuff?

 

For example, Electronics guy wants to splice wires to make an extension cord longer, does that take a roll, or is just having the skill enough to say he can do it?

 

With the points being so low, if you make them roll for every task, their going to fail at the routine stuff a lot more.

 

Absolutely. At 25+25, I'd allow even 8- skills to grant some utility, especially if a character sunk a point into them.

[Flames]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I've run a popular skilled normals game... it's known as Call of Cthulhu.

[Edsel]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I did it with a Zombies game. It worked out pretty well. With low combat skills the level of terror was greatly enhanced. I also think that low-powered games are more rewarding for the players, getting 2 XP means a lot more to 25+25 characters.

 

My advice is to be careful such characters are much more fragile. That can enhance the tension in the game which is a good thing. But if players die too easily or are overwhelmed too often they may start to think why bother.

[Markdoc]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I've played in a game with a similar premise (Susano was in it too, so he might like to comment) where we designed two character sheets: a competent normal and a full-fledged superhero, which we going to evolve into. We also gave the GM our origin story, so that he could "set up" the character's transition. So our XP was based on story progression in the initial phase of the game. Since it was a superheroic game, we paid points for ordinary equipment, but you could easily do it heroic fashion (where normal equipment is bought with money, not powers) because - you're right - in a superheroic game, mundane equipment is generally no substitute for powers.

 

cheers, Mark

[JmOz]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

Another thing to think about is skill roll. Are you going to make your characters roll for everything or are you going to hand wave the easy stuff?

 

For example, Electronics guy wants to splice wires to make an extension cord longer, does that take a roll, or is just having the skill enough to say he can do it?

 

With the points being so low, if you make them roll for every task, their going to fail at the routine stuff a lot more.

 

I use a system where skill rolls out of combat automaticaly suceed unless you roll a 3, the catch is how long it takes, basicaly the job is given a standard time, for every 2 points you make it by it is one line on the time chart quicker (20 min to 5 min), for every point you miss it it is one point longer on the time chart (5 min to 20 min). The player is asked how long he is willing to work, if it is less than it would take then he fails. This is only used out of combat (or other time sensitive situations)

[casualplayer]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I've ran Pulp games where one of the tiers of characters was 25+25. Riffing off one of the suggestions in the wonderful Lands of Mystery suppliment I had players play multiple characters so that I could split the group and reunite them without "writing" anyone out of the story. You have your plucky sidekicks at 25+25.

 

Characters at that point level have to be aware that a mugger with a knife is a serious threat. If they try to Last Action Hero it, they'll get maimed.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I did it with a Zombies game. It worked out pretty well. With low combat skills the level of terror was greatly enhanced. I also think that low-powered games are more rewarding for the players, getting 2 XP means a lot more to 25+25 characters.

 

My advice is to be careful such characters are much more fragile. That can enhance the tension in the game which is a good thing. But if players die too easily or are overwhelmed too often they may start to think why bother.

 

That's a key piece of advice from Will Mistretta's excellent Twilight of the Dead zombie-survival HERO campaign web sourcebook. 25 + 25 is the power level he recommends, and he details the rules and guidelines for such a campaign.

[The Monster]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I haven't run 25+25, but I've run a lot at 75+75, without superpowers (one or two characters had a few special abilities, pulp mysticism and the like). Basic things to keep in mind with characters like this:

 

Stuff that's dangerous in the real world is also dangerous to the PCs. True, guns aren't necessarily as lethal as in RL, but with the hit location rules the possibility of a incapacitating or lethal hit from even a small gun is noticeable. These characters are not going to be able do big long set-piece cinematic battles.

 

You don't have to do a lot of damage to make the player feel it. A few points of BODY, a few points of Drain (via poison or whatever), and things are bad. Similarly, using rules and situations to get an extra +1 makes a bigger difference than it does at supers level.

 

SPD is huge. Remember that a person with SPD 3 is half again (or more!) effective than a person with SPD 2. In my pulp games (75+75), the PCS are all SPD 3 except for one or two martial arts types; most people are SPD 2, and only special NPCs are SPD 3 or 4. The only time I've used SPD 5 or 6 is with animals or supernatural creatures, and that almost never.

 

 

All that said, I think it would be a lot of fun to either run or play. I much more enjoy dealing with "normal" characters over supers (not to mention how much easier it is to deal with the lower spread of SPD and the fewer wild powers).

[jtelson]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I've run games at the 25+25 point level in the past, but they've tended to be short lived. (My group has several GM's and we vote each session for who we'd like to run from who's available to run that night. Low powered/Low leveled/historical/horror campaigns tend to recieve no votes)

Characters are going to be more fragile than you're used to and you may want to scale skill checks appropriately. The other thing to look out for is character balance. On a smaller point total disparity of effectiveness can stand out more than in more traditional games. (In a 500 point game if 25-50 of my cps are never/rarely useful it's not a big deal in a 50 point game 5cps tend to seem more valable)

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I did once. Nobody really enjoyed it, myself included. It worked mechanically, it was just too low powered for the play groups preferences.

[Shaft]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I was in a Western (actually, a "Northern", as it was set in the Yukon) where we were 25/25 charaacters. It was a lot of fun.

[tancred]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I haven't run 25+25, but our last Fantasy Hero game my co-GM, who is new to running Fantasy Hero (and a long-time D&D DM), started us at 50+50.

The goal was that we would grow into 125-150 point characters, but start at a low enough power level that he could get used to the game.

 

Worked very well indeed, especially since we had to concentrate on exactly what skills we wanted to start with. It made sure that none of use stepped on each other's specialties.

[Jaxom]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

As one of the players in The Monster's pulp campaign, I have to say that it is *very* enjoyable. My observations are along the lines of his, but I will make the following comments as well...

 

Players have specialties (linguist, wrangler, mathematician/code-breaker, etc.). We've got loads of points into skills and *don't* handwave much. The campaign is well designed to reward skill use (by comparison, I have seen supers campaigns where investigative powers were unused)...

 

Low-level powers like Mysticism or Chi manipulation are expensive compared to skills so people are either Jack-of-All-Trades or "special" in some way.

 

By the time you have played for a while (or starting in the 50/50 or 75/75 regime) your characters may have targets in the 18- range for some of their trademark skills so it is important that they either be facing environmental modifiers or skilled competition or both (e.g. a 20- combat pilot who faced minuses for unfamiliar controls while stealing German planes and was trying to outrun skilled (16-) German pilots).

 

In this regime, we've also found modified speed rules to be very useful. As The Monster said, speeds are in the 2-4 range. Generally, that means we run a turn as follows... Everyone with Speed 3 goes in Dex order followed by Speed 2 folks. Repeat. Then folks with Speed 3 go again. Any martial artists (one major NPC and one PC at this time) have a "held action" that can be used as an interrupt once per turn.

[SCUBA Hero]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

Absolutely. At 25+25' date=' I'd allow even 8- skills to grant some utility, especially if a character sunk a point into them.[/quote']I'd let 8- skills have utility regardless of the point level.

 

The example in question was making an extension cord longer. Can I do that? Heck yes! Do I have an 8- in Electrical Repair? Well... yes, probably. But I sure as heck don't have an 11- roll (equals 'able to get a job in this field')! OTOH, I have no experience in plumbing. I probably couldn't do a home copper pipe repair without a manual (I probably could do it with a manual, although not very well.

 

The 8- 11- breakpoint is something I don't think Hero System handles very well...

[The Monster]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I'd let 8- skills have utility regardless of the point level.

 

The example in question was making an extension cord longer. Can I do that? Heck yes! Do I have an 8- in Electrical Repair? Well... yes, probably. But I sure as heck don't have an 11- roll (equals 'able to get a job in this field')! OTOH, I have no experience in plumbing. I probably couldn't do a home copper pipe repair without a manual (I probably could do it with a manual, although not very well.

 

The 8- 11- breakpoint is something I don't think Hero System handles very well...

 

Thing about skill rolls vs reality is that skill rolls generally are the chance of doing the task when under a certain stress level (i.e., combat or other threat looming), and in a single short space of time (a single round or single time increment for that skill. (I remember an old Murphy's Rules panel pointing out that in Hero, a person has something like a 25% chance of picking up the coke bottle from the table in front of them - amusing, but when you consider that, if you need a roll to to it, it means other things are going on, including the pressure of getting in in one grab within a couple of seconds.) I, too could claim an 8- in general repair (Familiarity: Mechanics??) - but the only time I succeed at doing anything is by taking a lot(!) of Extra Time, including Research (a Complimentary Skill Roll), and a nice bit of luck anyway. And then there's the times, like when I replaced the toilet, but ended up calling the plumber anyway, because the leak was still leaking. Turns out I actually did the toilet replacement just fine; the leak was in the connection behind the toilet! So the task I *thought* I had to accomplish was a success - but it was the wrong task. Of course, that's part of the skill roll anyway, but an interesting twist from a GM's perpective.

[Silbeg]

Re: Has anyone done a skilled normals game

 

I'd let 8- skills have utility regardless of the point level.

 

The example in question was making an extension cord longer. Can I do that? Heck yes! Do I have an 8- in Electrical Repair? Well... yes, probably. But I sure as heck don't have an 11- roll (equals 'able to get a job in this field')! OTOH, I have no experience in plumbing. I probably couldn't do a home copper pipe repair without a manual (I probably could do it with a manual, although not very well.

 

The 8- 11- breakpoint is something I don't think Hero System handles very well...

 

The key to this is (and has been said otherwise, I am sure) that the rolls are only really needed for events happening under stress, or under other difficulties.

 

Taking things a little more generically, I would say it would be safe to say that I personally have a Familiarity in PS: Home Maintenance and Repair. I can usually do minor tasks, but not necessarily with a great deal of skill. Given enough time, I can usually fix minor things, but I don't like to try more complicated things (or high risk things, like electrical, or gas, or what have you).

 

Skill rolls are really only needed when the level of success makes a difference. This is especially true whenever there is a Skill-vs-Skill roll needed, but everyday events probably don't require rolls.

 

Take for example, driving a car. Everyone (in a modern game) has TF: Small Motorized Ground Vehicles, but most don't have Combat Driving. This is fine, because the TF takes care of most of the needs of driving. Only in high-stress (combat, or otherwise) situations should the need arise for Combat Driving. How often is someone being chased, or shot at, when driving to work, or whatever?

 

So, even a Familiarity with a skill should be good enough for most mundane events.