Further Complicating Things for Experience

[Gaming Tonic]

I am going to be kicking off a new game and changed the one part of the Hero System that has always irked me as a GM, the complications. I am switching the complications so that the player gets one CP everytime they come up, and perhaps two if the player brings it up to perhaps put them self at a disadvantage. I am also allowing only one complication per category unless I approve another one. This will hopefully make the players have to choose larger point complications instead of a bunch of weak 5 and 10 point psychological complications. The game is a supers, city based, 400 pt levels. Have any of you tried something like this? I am hoping the players will embrace their character complications and it will enrich the game, the way it does in the comics. Am I being naive or is there a pitfall I might not be aware of?

[bigbywolfe]

I foresee gamers trying to turn everything you do into something that somehow applies to their complications in order for the tons of XP you'll be shoveling out.

[Killer Shrike]

You might find something useful here:

 

http://www.killershrike.info/AllPages.aspx?Cat=Meta%20Concepts

[Lucius]

Well, you are encouraging players to have one Complication from every category. So everyone will have Unluck, a Susceptibility, a Vulnerability, a Hunted, etc.

 

Even if XP are only given for Complications, you can probably expect an acceleration in accumulation.

 

What's the total max Complications you're permitting?

 

edit: On second thought, what you're really incentivizing is high frequency Complications. So for example, every character will have one Physical Complication that often comes up but is a minor hindrance, one Psychological Complication likewise, etc.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

How many Complications can the palindromedary justify?

[psyber624]

Like any other system you have to take your players into consideration. If they are powergamers, or just xp hungry it will be another way for them to break the system. If they aren't and they like the feel of it then it can work.

 

I will say that limiting players to 1 Complication per category is something I would never do. You are restricting creativity of your players without actually doing anything to prevent them from choosing a bunch of weak complications. You can get nearly pointless complications in nearly every category to EASILY get to whatever Matching Complication goal you have. If you have a problem with your players buying nothing but weak psychological complications some better methods might be 1. Restrict the number of points available per category to force them to buy more than just Psychological Complications, 2. Change your system of xp so that the xp awarded is based on the severity of the complication (if you want cheap meaningless complications you wont be getting any xp, only the big ones are worth any)

 

Of course you can always exercise GM Fiat and turn down any character if you feel they are not appropriate to your campaign. If you don't like seeing lots of cheap Psych Coms tell your players that those concepts wont fly and then turn down their characters if they insist on submitting them like that. Limiting people to one complication in a category, however, punishes players that have good, justifiable, and interesting character concepts while not really punishing the people that are trying to cheese the system.

 

Of course that just my opinion.

[TheRealDeal]

Coming from my D&D side, I might suggest a different tact. I found that rewarding with XP (or CP in HERO) tended to cause a divide between the players, and eventually one PC would be higher level than others, causing game balance issues. Maybe not as bad in HERO, but the idea I used for D&D was to just give out the same XP to all, keeping them advancing the same rate, but reward good play with another bonus.

 

So, for HERO, perhaps you can say each time a complication comes up you can give that character, um, what to call it, lets say a Fate Point. Each Fate Point can be cashed in during the game, but only if GM approved, and only if it advances the drama, to do a list of things you set up. Here are some simple default examples:

1) Allow an Abort to a Defense even during a Segment when you already took an action

2) Allow an Abort to a Defense AFTER the attack has already hit the character, this allows them to in effect cheat fate and "see a bit ahead" and now choose to Abort to defend.

3) Allow an "Attack" action not to count as one, thus, allowing the player to use 2, 1/2 Phase actions to make 2 attacks, without using Multiattack.

4) Allow an immediate Recovery to be taken that imposes no penalty on the character (they just regain their REC in STUN and END for free, no suffering 1/2 DCV and all that) as a free action

5) Allow an immediate recovery from being Stunned as a free action

 

These are some ideas. It gives players a reason to want them, and then, they have a reason to make good on their complications. They are mostly defensive uses, I would avoid allowing too many offensive ones, but that is up to you (like using a Fate Point to turn a hit into a critical hit, or turn a miss into a hit, or choose the hit location, if used, etc.)

 

You may want to set a cap, maybe 3, and say no character may hold more than 3 Fate Points at a time, if they end a gaming session with 4 or more of them, they lose all but 3 of them. This encourages their use and prevents obsessive hoarding of them by paranoid players.

[psyber624]

Coming from my D&D side, I might suggest a different tact. I found that rewarding with XP (or CP in HERO) tended to cause a divide between the players, and eventually one PC would be higher level than others, causing game balance issues. Maybe not as bad in HERO, but the idea I used for D&D was to just give out the same XP to all, keeping them advancing the same rate, but reward good play with another bonus.

 

So, for HERO, perhaps you can say each time a complication comes up you can give that character, um, what to call it, lets say a Fate Point. Each Fate Point can be cashed in during the game, but only if GM approved, and only if it advances the drama, to do a list of things you set up. Here are some simple default examples:

1) Allow an Abort to a Defense even during a Segment when you already took an action

2) Allow an Abort to a Defense AFTER the attack has already hit the character, this allows them to in effect cheat fate and "see a bit ahead" and now choose to Abort to defend.

3) Allow an "Attack" action not to count as one, thus, allowing the player to use 2, 1/2 Phase actions to make 2 attacks, without using Multiattack.

4) Allow an immediate Recovery to be taken that imposes no penalty on the character (they just regain their REC in STUN and END for free, no suffering 1/2 DCV and all that) as a free action

5) Allow an immediate recovery from being Stunned as a free action

 

These are some ideas. It gives players a reason to want them, and then, they have a reason to make good on their complications. They are mostly defensive uses, I would avoid allowing too many offensive ones, but that is up to you (like using a Fate Point to turn a hit into a critical hit, or turn a miss into a hit, or choose the hit location, if used, etc.)

 

You may want to set a cap, maybe 3, and say no character may hold more than 3 Fate Points at a time, if they end a gaming session with 4 or more of them, they lose all but 3 of them. This encourages their use and prevents obsessive hoarding of them by paranoid players.

HERO actually has a system like this called Heroic Action Points (HAP's) as an optional rule. It may have been left out of CC tho.

[Killer Shrike]

Coming from my D&D side, I might suggest a different tact. I found that rewarding with XP (or CP in HERO) tended to cause a divide between the players, and eventually one PC would be higher level than others, causing game balance issues. Maybe not as bad in HERO, but the idea I used for D&D was to just give out the same XP to all, keeping them advancing the same rate, but reward good play with another bonus.

 

So, for HERO, perhaps you can say each time a complication comes up you can give that character, um, what to call it, lets say a Fate Point. Each Fate Point can be cashed in during the game, but only if GM approved, and only if it advances the drama, to do a list of things you set up. Here are some simple default examples:

1) Allow an Abort to a Defense even during a Segment when you already took an action

2) Allow an Abort to a Defense AFTER the attack has already hit the character, this allows them to in effect cheat fate and "see a bit ahead" and now choose to Abort to defend.

3) Allow an "Attack" action not to count as one, thus, allowing the player to use 2, 1/2 Phase actions to make 2 attacks, without using Multiattack.

4) Allow an immediate Recovery to be taken that imposes no penalty on the character (they just regain their REC in STUN and END for free, no suffering 1/2 DCV and all that) as a free action

5) Allow an immediate recovery from being Stunned as a free action

 

These are some ideas. It gives players a reason to want them, and then, they have a reason to make good on their complications. They are mostly defensive uses, I would avoid allowing too many offensive ones, but that is up to you (like using a Fate Point to turn a hit into a critical hit, or turn a miss into a hit, or choose the hit location, if used, etc.)

 

You may want to set a cap, maybe 3, and say no character may hold more than 3 Fate Points at a time, if they end a gaming session with 4 or more of them, they lose all but 3 of them. This encourages their use and prevents obsessive hoarding of them by paranoid players.

That's a fine and good approach for some groups / campaigns, but for other groups the lack of recognition for personal effort will be demotivating. Many players enjoy being rewarded more for bringing their "A" game than those who just showed up, and in a more measurable way...i.e. advancement.

 

Also, some groups, or within the context of some campaigns, asymmetrical advancement is a feature. For instance, if you were running a campaign based on the JLA or Avengers where players have a stable of characters across a variety of point levels. For instance, The Costumed Crimefighting Collective!

 

It all depends on what you're trying to accomplish, really.

[TheRealDeal]

Coming from my D&D side, I might suggest a different tact. I found that rewarding with XP (or CP in HERO) tended to cause a divide between the players, and eventually one PC would be higher level than others, causing game balance issues. Maybe not as bad in HERO, but the idea I used for D&D was to just give out the same XP to all, keeping them advancing the same rate, but reward good play with another bonus.

 

So, for HERO, perhaps you can say each time a complication comes up you can give that character, um, what to call it, lets say a Fate Point. Each Fate Point can be cashed in during the game, but only if GM approved, and only if it advances the drama, to do a list of things you set up. Here are some simple default examples:

1) Allow an Abort to a Defense even during a Segment when you already took an action

2) Allow an Abort to a Defense AFTER the attack has already hit the character, this allows them to in effect cheat fate and "see a bit ahead" and now choose to Abort to defend.

3) Allow an "Attack" action not to count as one, thus, allowing the player to use 2, 1/2 Phase actions to make 2 attacks, without using Multiattack.

4) Allow an immediate Recovery to be taken that imposes no penalty on the character (they just regain their REC in STUN and END for free, no suffering 1/2 DCV and all that) as a free action

5) Allow an immediate recovery from being Stunned as a free action

 

These are some ideas. It gives players a reason to want them, and then, they have a reason to make good on their complications. They are mostly defensive uses, I would avoid allowing too many offensive ones, but that is up to you (like using a Fate Point to turn a hit into a critical hit, or turn a miss into a hit, or choose the hit location, if used, etc.)

 

You may want to set a cap, maybe 3, and say no character may hold more than 3 Fate Points at a time, if they end a gaming session with 4 or more of them, they lose all but 3 of them. This encourages their use and prevents obsessive hoarding of them by paranoid players.

You have to know your players, really. If you know that your players are motivated by this extra CP approach, and will really improve like you want, great. If, however, you know it really will not change them as you hope, and in the end, it will just be another thing to track, and lead perhaps to an equality in CP you did not want, well, you should find another approach.

 

One thing to remember as a GM, once you give something to players, it is very hard to take it away again. So make sure this is really something you think will work, because it will be hard to take this away once you realize it is not working, players get used to things and do not like being weakened. Adding something that is seen as neutral is usually fine to players, and if seen as an advantage, it is almost always accepted, but when seen as a weakening, it is resisted.