6e Characteristics

[jtelson]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Steve considered that and rejected it.

We know that ... That Steve considered it and decided not to do it is really neither here nor there. The comment was an expression of dissent. I will be using this method irrespective of what 6E says.

 

I suspect that people might be interested in something more substantive than the sentence "Steve considered that and rejected it." Perhaps "Steve considered that and rejected it, which I agree with because..." or "Steve considered that and rejected it, which I'm not certain about but I understand that it adressess ..." etc. Simply stating what Steve has decided brings less to the discussion than it could, I guess is what I'm saying.

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

If you want a character who is smart but non-perceptive' date=' buy low INT and Skill Levels with Intellect Skills.[/quote']

 

You could also model it as a Physical Limitation.

 

PhL: Unobservant (-3 to all perception rolls unrelated to current "target") (Common, Slightly Limiting) - 10 points

[ghost-angel]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Since INT represents more the ability to process information quickly, than it does just knowing stuff. And Perception is at least partly based on the idea of needing to know what is being perceived as well as how to react to it. Which means it makes sense to be coupled.

 

Some of the problem lies in the fact that processing information quickly and correctly lies also within the realm of knowing what's going on. So INT either also has to represent what a Character knows, or that has to be taken for granted. Which means it doesn't make sense for it to be coupled.

 

Then you have to throw all that out the window and decide on some Mechanical Balances to even out all the parts. Each Characteristic in the system needs a clearly defined reason to stick around, INT is kept to based Intellect Skills off of, which quite frankly are the majority of Skills in the system once you toss in that many (if not most) KS/PS/SS are based on it. But that by itself probably isn't enough to keep INT, so there's some thought as to what else it provides, and maybe it was decided that Paragraph One above (Perception is more reliant on/representative of processing information quickly than what that information is) so it provides a Base Perception Roll.

 

Perception in that case isn't just "do you notice it" but "do you notice it and understand it enough to react to it"

 

Notice that within the rules when you are in a room, not under pressure, and are looking for a Thing you do not roll always Perception. You often Roll Concealment to determine if you're looking in the same places that someone hiding/discarding the thing would put it. In fact it's often a contested Skill Roll.

[Lucius]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

I suspect that people might be interested in something more substantive than the sentence "Steve considered that and rejected it." Perhaps "Steve considered that and rejected it' date=' which I agree with because..." or "Steve considered that and rejected it, which I'm not certain about but I understand that it adressess ..." etc. Simply stating what Steve has decided brings less to the discussion than it could, I guess is what I'm saying.[/quote']

 

Rome has spoken.

 

The debate continues.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Insert approved palindromedary tagline here

[Lucius]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

The more I think about this the more I have a problem: characteristics bloat. Hero is starting to go the way of harnmaster in this regard (the initiated know of what I speak). There comes a point where, consistent application of principles aside, granularity becomes cumbersome rather than beneficial. The parsing out of combat values makes internal sense, but at what point is the laundry list of characteristics too long? If we're going this route, couldn't we just use skill levels with a base reference value and not have combat values as a characteristic at all? The same general method could be applied to perception. A base value (not noted on the sheet) with perception modifiers being purchased (not as characteristics, but as talents/powers) for characters who require them.

 

Ergo, To Hit Roll = 11 + attacker's offensive levels - defenders defensive levels. Its basically the same formula we have now, but references applicable skill levels rather than a characteristic or derived value.

 

 

I'd reputize this if I could...

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is patiently chewing.

[Pattern Ghost]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

What do you think the INT characteristic covers? Just so we don't set off down the wrong path here, I know that it covers intellect skill use and perception in Hero, what I'm asking is what real life sense or ability links those two things. In fact, never mind real life, what genre convention links those two? Are Mr Fantastic's senses as acute as Wolverine's, or even any more acute than, say, The Thing's (with the obvious exception of touch)? No, they are not, and I doubt you'll find any consistent examples of a link between sense accuity and the ability to use intellect skills. Anywhere.

 

Quit trying to map game mechanics to real life. That's where we disagree.

 

I agree with you that Hero doesn't model animals well overall. The baseline character sheet is built to model a human, afterall.

 

Get back to the initial statement that I addressed of yours, that has nothing to do with the game.

 

Animals do not, in fact, have superior senses to humans. They have senses that are superior in some ways, and we have senses that are superior to many animals in other ways. Get it?

 

Here's an example:

 

Most predators have superior vision for spotting movement. We have superior vision for discerning detail.

 

Get it?

 

There are a lot more examples, but I'm not going to sit here and dig them up for you.

 

The point is the system is not capable of addressing anything so complex in a realistic fashion.

 

The way current builds work, is fine. It's a little clunky in some regards, but it works.

 

I wouldn't mind divorcing PER from INT either, though. Then you don't need special classes of Disadvantages (Complications) for animals regarding the type of animal intellect they have. It would make modeling the quick thinking lower-perception types a lot easier, too.

[Sean Waters]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Quit trying to map game mechanics to real life. That's where we disagree.

 

I agree with you that Hero doesn't model animals well overall. The baseline character sheet is built to model a human, afterall.

 

Get back to the initial statement that I addressed of yours, that has nothing to do with the game.

 

Animals do not, in fact, have superior senses to humans. They have senses that are superior in some ways, and we have senses that are superior to many animals in other ways. Get it?

 

Here's an example:

 

Most predators have superior vision for spotting movement. We have superior vision for discerning detail.

 

Get it?

 

There are a lot more examples, but I'm not going to sit here and dig them up for you.

 

The point is the system is not capable of addressing anything so complex in a realistic fashion.

 

The way current builds work, is fine. It's a little clunky in some regards, but it works.

 

I wouldn't mind divorcing PER from INT either, though. Then you don't need special classes of Disadvantages (Complications) for animals regarding the type of animal intellect they have. It would make modeling the quick thinking lower-perception types a lot easier, too.

 

 

I'm with you in what you say about sight, but it isn't as straightforward as that in many cases. Many birds, for instance, have greater visual accuity than humans for both moving and 'detail'. Where they differ is that they interpret the whole thing in terms of what matters to them: danger, food and sex.

 

Dogs have better nightsight than us, they are not (contrary to popular belief) colour blind but they don't much care about colour. It is perfectly true that their sight works better for moving objects...but that is because they tend to pick up important detail from scent and hearing that does the detail thing. The amount of information you can extract from what you CAN percieve is a function of intelligence, experience, knowledge and instinct, but whether you can perceive something is not connected to that not only in 'reality', but in every genre you can think of.

 

Talking of nightvision, let me try a different tack.

 

Hero defines nightvision as +4 sight PER. Does that mean that if you have 30 INT you can see in total darkness as if it were normal daylight? 30 INT gives you a +4 PER roll compared to a normal human.

 

Also, and I appreciate that I'm real worlding here, but some things have to be based on real world experience as that is also how it works in game, and the various sources we base our games on - unless someone has an injury or disease, human visual accuity, hearing accuity etc is pretty much constant. It really does not vary that much - we all see the same stuff, but what we do with that information varies enormously

[ghost-angel]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Nightvision.

 

Night Time light levels are defined as a penalty, as long as there is still some kind of ambient light you can attempt to see. Nightvision is a bonus to directly counter that penalty.

 

Anyone can attempt to see at Night, and the GM can have them make a Perception Roll. Applying either the Night penalties (-4) or not because Nightvision immediately cancels them out and thus the character is Effectively seeing as if light levels were normal (i.e. have a Normal Perception Roll).

 

Total Darkness is not the same thing as Night. You cannot see in Total Darkness. The book even mentions this.

 

So yes, the person with a 30 INT can suck up the Night Penalty and make a Perception Roll at 11- instead of their normal 15-. They have enough visual acuity and quick thinking that even at night they're pretty perceptive.

 

Perception is more than "just identifying" with a sense. It's more than merely Seeing an object, or Hearing a sound. It's processing that in a meaningful way.

 

And I contest that humans don't also identify everything as Danger, Food, Sex. All evidence points to the fact that everything we interpret it filtered through those three things.

[Sean Waters]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Nightvision.

 

Night Time light levels are defined as a penalty, as long as there is still some kind of ambient light you can attempt to see. Nightvision is a bonus to directly counter that penalty.

 

Anyone can attempt to see at Night, and the GM can have them make a Perception Roll. Applying either the Night penalties (-4) or not because Nightvision immediately cancels them out and thus the character is Effectively seeing as if light levels were normal (i.e. have a Normal Perception Roll).

 

Total Darkness is not the same thing as Night. You cannot see in Total Darkness. The book even mentions this.

 

So yes, the person with a 30 INT can suck up the Night Penalty and make a Perception Roll at 11- instead of their normal 15-. They have enough visual acuity and quick thinking that even at night they're pretty perceptive.

 

Perception is more than "just identifying" with a sense. It's more than merely Seeing an object, or Hearing a sound. It's processing that in a meaningful way.

 

And I contest that humans don't also identify everything as Danger, Food,

Sex. All evidence points to the fact that everything we interpret it filtered through those three things.

 

 

Actually I was quoting from the book: you CAN apparently see in total darkness with +4sight PER, just not the darkness power (5ER 163)

 

 

Anyway, no human can see at night as if it is daylight. Human eyes do not work that way. That amount of light simply does not trigger our colour perceptors. Total darkness (or even a really dark night) won't trigger even the black and white receptors. You are not going to be able to re-construct everything around you from a few stray photons no matter how smart you are.

 

To be fair, I think the night vision power is ill conceived and comes about because of an inconsistent approach to how senses work.

 

Normal vision is not defined as a detect and it should be: you detect EMR in the visual spectrum within certain limits.

 

The trouble with that is that if the detect is simply a matter of definition, you could simply define a broader range for your detect. What we need is a better point/effect definition, which is not that difficult.

 

Until we do that though we are stuck with +4 sight PER, which works badly for all kinds of reasons.

 

IMO.

[Sean Waters]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

........................

 

Perception is more than "just identifying" with a sense. It's more than merely Seeing an object, or Hearing a sound. It's processing that in a meaningful way.

 

............................

 

 

You simply can not combine the two and get something meaningful, except for a very narrow range of characters whose perception and processing abilities match.

 

You can have rubbish senses and deduce a lot of information from what little you get. How does Hero do that?

[ghost-angel]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

If you're adding Nightvision to a Character - you've left the realm of Normal Real Person completely anyways, why quibble the small stuff.

 

I won't say I'm the biggest fan the Nightvision Build being a simple cancel to the Night Time PER Penalty. But it's a usable Mechanic, which makes it useful.

 

Seriously though, if you're playing Normal People HERO the ability to even take Nightvision on your Character is off the list. So why compare it? As you pointed out no real person could do this. But Game Characters CAN.

[ghost-angel]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

You simply can not combine the two and get something meaningful, except for a very narrow range of characters whose perception and processing abilities match.

 

You can have rubbish senses and deduce a lot of information from what little you get. How does Hero do that?

 

Combination of INT, Enhanced Perception Power and Physical Disadvantages covers the gamut of pretty much everything being talked about.

 

The problem here is the idea of looking for a single aspect to capture all these concepts. It's 1) not going to happen cleanly and 2) No even properly modeling the interaction of this so called 'reality' anyways.

 

Why try.

[Sean Waters]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

If you're adding Nightvision to a Character - you've left the realm of Normal Real Person completely anyways, why quibble the small stuff.

 

I won't say I'm the biggest fan the Nightvision Build being a simple cancel to the Night Time PER Penalty. But it's a usable Mechanic, which makes it useful.

 

Seriously though, if you're playing Normal People HERO the ability to even take Nightvision on your Character is off the list. So why compare it? As you pointed out no real person could do this. But Game Characters CAN.

 

 

Consistency.

 

Why not get it right across the board? It makes no sense to deal with the ability to sense something or not by simply adding bonuses to your PER roll. Whether you can sense something or not is a matter of what senses you have, not what your PER roll is. If you can't detect Xrays you can't detect Xrays even if you roll a 3 and have 100 INT.

 

I can understand that we can deal with intensity with a roll, up to a point, and you can deal with how much information you can get from what you are perceiving.

 

Some people will notice things that others won't.

 

THEN however, what they do with that information depends on many things.

 

Example: Three people (all equally smart) see an interview with a crime suspect. They all see (it is taped) that the suspect trembles and winces when answering the question 'Where were you on the night of the 14th'.

 

The first has no specialist skills. They don't think anything of the wince.

 

The second has some training in interpreting body language and predicts that the answer was a lie as these are signs of lying (I have no idea if the actually are).

 

The third is a doctor and correctly diagnoses that the suspect had a minor petit mal seizure.

 

If they had not had the luxury of the tape they would probably have to make a PER roll to spot the tremble and wince.

 

The inforamtion that they actually derive though is all about their specialist skills or lack of them.

 

A PER roll on its own doesn't give the richness and detail that the system is capable of. It is not even that good as a shortcut.

 

A PER roll should, in my little world, determine how much inforamtoin you get within the limits of your ability to perceive. That then acts as a complimentary roll to a straight INT roll (possibly at -3 for being 'nonspecialist' depending on what information can be derived) or a skill roll.

 

Sherlock Holmes saw no more than Watson*. What mattered was what he did with the information. PER ignores knowledge skills. You can not even usefully use a PER roll as a complementary roll to a KS or other intellect skill because they both derive from INT.

 

The current way of doing things misses out on so much.

 

 

 

*Or if he did see more it was because his knowledge told him where to look

[Sean Waters]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Combination of INT, Enhanced Perception Power and Physical Disadvantages covers the gamut of pretty much everything being talked about.

 

The problem here is the idea of looking for a single aspect to capture all these concepts. It's 1) not going to happen cleanly and 2) No even properly modeling the interaction of this so called 'reality' anyways.

 

Why try.

 

I'm saying PER is a single aspect and that is too simplistic. Seperate PER from INT, treat PER as a complimentary roll to an INT or Intellect skill roll. Bob is our uncle. Much closer to a game system that works well and more closely models expectations of reality, and makes beter use of a character's knowledge and experience. Much easier to realise concept.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

With the mention of SIZ as a charactertistic, I don't think that'll happen. What I see in its place for characters is a variant of BESM's "Inconvenient Size" drawback -- you are either so big or so small that you can't do many things normal people do like walk through doors (though you might be able to walk through buildings if you're big enough). This would probably be a heavy-duty Physical Limitation.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Actually I was quoting from the book: you CAN apparently see in total darkness with +4sight PER, just not the darkness power (5ER 163)

 

 

Anyway, no human can see at night as if it is daylight. Human eyes do not work that way. That amount of light simply does not trigger our colour perceptors. Total darkness (or even a really dark night) won't trigger even the black and white receptors. You are not going to be able to re-construct everything around you from a few stray photons no matter how smart you are.

 

To be fair, I think the night vision power is ill conceived and comes about because of an inconsistent approach to how senses work.

 

Normal vision is not defined as a detect and it should be: you detect EMR in the visual spectrum within certain limits.

 

The trouble with that is that if the detect is simply a matter of definition, you could simply define a broader range for your detect. What we need is a better point/effect definition, which is not that difficult.

 

Until we do that though we are stuck with +4 sight PER, which works badly for all kinds of reasons.

 

IMO.

Going with what you say here I’d argue that the problem isn’t how PER is modeled, but with how “Night” or “Dark” is modeled. If you don’t want bonuses to be able to cancel the penalties then penalties are not the right way to model what you want and you should treat any “total darkness” (the lack of any light source at all) the same as you treat Darkness the Power, not how you treat “night time” or “diminished light”.

 

Consistency.

 

Why not get it right across the board? It makes no sense to deal with the ability to sense something or not by simply adding bonuses to your PER roll. Whether you can sense something or not is a matter of what senses you have, not what your PER roll is. If you can't detect Xrays you can't detect Xrays even if you roll a 3 and have 100 INT.

This is nonsensical. No one perceives X-rays. Everyone (that isn’t blind) perceives physical objects. (I know you might argue that they are perceiving, or “detecting” light, but come on, how far are you going to take this?). A lessening of light is defined as a Penalty to what every character can normally Perceive with their “Sight Sense Group”. Nightvision is a Power. Try ignoring the +4 PER only to counteract X and just consider it means you can see in the dark. Wow, that’s easy. The only reason Nightvision is defines as a bonus at all is because night is defined as a penalty. Again, the problem isn’t on the PER end, if anything it’s with how the system models “night”

 

 

I can understand that we can deal with intensity with a roll, up to a point, and you can deal with how much information you can get from what you are perceiving.

 

Some people will notice things that others won't.

 

THEN however, what they do with that information depends on many things.

 

Example: Three people (all equally smart) see an interview with a crime suspect. They all see (it is taped) that the suspect trembles and winces when answering the question 'Where were you on the night of the 14th'.

 

The first has no specialist skills. They don't think anything of the wince.

 

The second has some training in interpreting body language and predicts that the answer was a lie as these are signs of lying (I have no idea if the actually are).

 

The third is a doctor and correctly diagnoses that the suspect had a minor petit mal seizure.

 

If they had not had the luxury of the tape they would probably have to make a PER roll to spot the tremble and wince.

 

The inforamtion that they actually derive though is all about their specialist skills or lack of them.

 

A PER roll on its own doesn't give the richness and detail that the system is capable of. It is not even that good as a shortcut.

 

A PER roll should, in my little world, determine how much inforamtoin you get within the limits of your ability to perceive. That then acts as a complimentary roll to a straight INT roll (possibly at -3 for being 'nonspecialist' depending on what information can be derived) or a skill roll.

The PER roll determines if any of them even notice the trembling or not. The rest has to do with Knowledge Skills and has little to nothing to do with PER.

 

Sherlock Holmes saw no more than Watson*. What mattered was what he did with the information. PER ignores knowledge skills. You can not even usefully use a PER roll as a complementary roll to a KS or other intellect skill because they both derive from INT.

 

The current way of doing things misses out on so much.

 

*Or if he did see more it was because his knowledge told him where to look

Just my opinion, but I’d say Holmes definitely had a higher PER roll than Watson. He had a higher PER roll than almost anyone in his continuity.

[ajackson]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Again' date=' the problem isn’t on the PER end, if anything it’s with how the system models “night”[/quote']

Mostly a matter of magnitude. On average (based on theoretical modeling with noise and photon counts), inadequate light will reduce spotting range as the 1/4 power of light intensity, so -4 perception (1/4 spotting range) should be about 1/256 of a 'zero penalty' light level, which is probably about right for the difference between bright indoor light and bright moonlight. A moonless light would be more like -10.

[The Main Man]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

I have to admit that PER continuing to be based on INT and ECV not being renamed to "Mental Combat Value" due to decoupling are a pair of non-changes that are probably going to bother me a lot when 6e first comes out, but hopefully I'll get over it soon enough.

 

As for my thoughts on Nightvision: I think that nighttime effects could have been corrected as being akin to temperature levels, with a level that represents absolute darkness; Nightvision would be gradual and built as levels against darkness penalties.

[Sean Waters]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Going with what you say here I’d argue that the problem isn’t how PER is modeled' date=' but with how “Night” or “Dark” is modeled. If you don’t want bonuses to be able to cancel the penalties then penalties are not the right way to model what you want and you should treat any “total darkness” (the lack of any light source at all) the same as you treat Darkness the Power, not how you treat “night time” or “diminished light”. [/quote']

 

I agree, but I think it is sypmtomatic of the approach that is taken to PER. The ability to see at night could be built as an adder (greater range of sensitivity) or a seperate detect, but should not be built as a +PER.

 

+PER would allow you to pick up more information in light conditions that still allow you to see, but dimly. You would still be seeing dimly, not matter what your roll, you would just be able to extract more of the available information from the environment.

 

 

This is nonsensical. No one perceives X-rays. Everyone (that isn’t blind) perceives physical objects. (I know you might argue that they are perceiving' date=' or “detecting” light, but come on, how far are you going to take this?). A lessening of light is defined as a Penalty to what every character can normally Perceive with their “Sight Sense Group”. Nightvision is a Power. Try ignoring the +4 PER only to counteract X and just consider it means you can see in the dark. Wow, that’s easy. The only reason Nightvision is defines as a bonus at all is because night is defined as a penalty. Again, the problem isn’t on the PER end, if anything it’s with how the system models “night”[/quote']

 

Normal eyesight for humans detects light in the visible spectrum, not 'physical objects' or you would not be able to see energy, which means you would not be able to see the sky, for example.

 

I think we need a standard and it makes sense to use human senses as that standard as we are all familiar with them. Let us call human senses 5 point detects, poorer sesnses are 3 point detects, better one (that cover higher frequencies/intensities) +5 or lower frequencies/intensities +5, or the entire spectrum +15.

 

That way we can model someone who has human sight (5 point detect) or someon who has the same range as human sight but in a different art of the spectrum (5 point detect) or someone who can detect visible light and far into the infrared (10 points) or visible light and far intot he ultraviolet (10 points) or both (15 points) or the entire EM spectrum (20 points).

 

Then we can have another adder for thresholds: +5 allows you to detect much lower concentrations of whatever you are detecting than a human, +10 allows you to detect minisclue amounts (so you could buy a 30 point detect to be able to pick up single photons of any frequency in the EM Spectrum.

 

It is not difficult to build a framework, and basing it on human senses means it is relatively easy to understand.

 

 

The PER roll determines if any of them even notice the trembling or not. The rest has to do with Knowledge Skills and has little to nothing to do with PER.

 

I think many would disagree: PER is not simply the ability to notice something (which I'm arguing it should be) but also the ability to recognise that as useful data and process it. That is too much for one roll, and prevents a wealth of interesting situations from being modeled.

 

 

Just my opinion' date=' but I’d say Holmes definitely had a higher PER roll than Watson. He had a higher PER roll than almost anyone in his continuity.[/quote']

 

You might be right but that is largely because he knew where to look. There are several examples of Holmes asking Watson if he notices such-and-such, Watson saying he did, and Holmes explaining what it means. They both perceived it, only one recognised it as important.

 

Anyway, that's what I think, but it isn't happening, so I'll have to store my opinions for the 7e discussion.

[Hierax]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Since DEX decoupled OCV and DCV then how about doing the same with the Initiative portion that determines who goes first in the Phase and make it a separate Characteristic as well?

[ghost-angel]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

The Initiative Characteristic would be called... Dexterity.

That's what it does.

 

At least CVs were derived. Initiative was never a derived value.

[Hierax]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

It never was dervived (or was derived at a 1:1 ratio) but it is a component of what DEX currently does.

 

If you break PER off from INT, how is breaking Initiative off from DEX any different?

[ghost-angel]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Perception is a separate Power, Initiative never was.

 

STR provides Lift

DEX provides Initiative

CON provides Stun Threshold

BOD provides Death Threshold

INT provides Perception

EGO provides Mental Effects Threshold

PRE provides Pre Attack

 

those are some basic effects of what each provides, some provide Skill Rolls, some provide some other effects as well (STR has Damage).

 

Saying Initiative should be "decoupled" because CVs were is nonsense.

[Vondy]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Saying Initiative should be "decoupled" because CVs were is nonsense.

 

Agreed - it doesn't follow.

[Hierax]

Re: 6e Characteristics

 

Perception is a separate Power, Initiative never was.

 

STR provides Lift

DEX provides Initiative

CON provides Stun Threshold

BOD provides Death Threshold

INT provides Perception

EGO provides Mental Effects Threshold

PRE provides Pre Attack

 

those are some basic effects of what each provides, some provide Skill Rolls, some provide some other effects as well (STR has Damage).

 

Saying Initiative should be "decoupled" because CVs were is nonsense.

 

OK, that thinking about it that way makes sense.