7th Edition thoughts

[Ninja-Bear]

We have wealth rules?

 

 

Yes those with the wealth makes the rules!

[Lucius]

Yes those with the wealth makes the rules!

I think that was meant for a joke, but it really hits close to home here.

 

I love the idea of a generic universal system, but the ones with the wealth - that is, the people who have money to spend on games and do spend it on games, thus defining the market - are more interested in a specific, concrete setting.

 

I love the idea of a build-your-own-game toolkit, but the ones with the wealth - that is, the people who have money to spend on games and do spend it on games, thus defining the market - want a pre-built game.

 

I loved the idea of customized character classes and it would have been the one thing to keep me coming back to D&D if it had caught on, but the ones with the wealth - that is, the people who have money to spend on games and do spend it on games, thus defining the market - wanted restrictive character classes with predefined advancement paths.

 

 

And any hypothetical 7th edition that's not a vanity project is, again, going to have to appeal to those who have the dollars and numbers on their side. You are quite right; those who have the wealth, in a very literal sense, make the rules.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I get to make the palindromedary taglines

[Christopher R Taylor]

My wish list would return Comeliness, Suppress, and Transfer to the rules again.  I'd add an extension to drain allowing it to add limitations and complications to opponents, and I'd come up with a way to use AID for short-term, fire and forget granting powers.  Further, I'd dig through the Advanced Players Guides and add some of the parts of those.  Barrier needs a bit of reorganizing (to examine the "trap people in bubble" effect, if it should be part of barrier or not), and skill levels need to be repriced vs CV costs.  Another useful thing to add in is at least some version of the spirit rules from 4th edition supplements, and a new look at vehicles, bases, and computers would be good.

 

I would also consider restructuring the entire array of mental powers to work more like transform, and eliminating the requirement to state a target level and instead an intended effect.    I'd also suggest HTA lose the -1/2 limitation which seems to be left over just from old rule and not because it makes sense any longer (if it ever did).  I think Power Defense should be costed differently: 3/2 for all effects and 1/1 for specific effects (like magic, radiation, etc).

 

Shapeshift seems a bit expensive for what it gives, and that's worth rebuilding.

 

Structuring the book I'd put characteristics before skills and powers; sort of a psychological effect to help players realize they're part of the character's creation rather than a tack on at the end.

 

I would prefer missile deflection be returned to the rules and defined more specifically and clearly; the present system is a bit odd.  Being able to bat arrows and bullets out of the air shouldn't be something anyone can do with GM permission but a specific power you buy.

 

I'd call the whole line Champions rather than Hero, so its Fantasy Champions and Pulp Champions.  That ties the whole rule system together to its flagship and best known game.

[Lucius]

Structuring the book I'd put characteristics before skills and powers; sort of a psychological effect to help players realize they're part of the character's creation rather than a tack on at the end.

Did you mean to say, put Complications ahead of Skills and Powers?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that Characteristics have always come before Skills and Powers

[Christopher R Taylor]

Sorry, yes, complications after characteristics, but before skills and powers.

[Lucius]

Sorry, yes, complications after characteristics, but before skills and powers.

I think I like that idea.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is in two minds about it

[lordkangarew]

I say NO 7th for many more years as I just finished buying almost all of 6th edition stuff.

 

Now that I got that out of the way, I like 6th edition as it is but then again I have only been playing since the day 6th came out. I would also say that the my only real issue with 6th edition is players that don't get it or try to abuse it.

[ghost-angel]

There's only one serious change to the rules I think could improve the overall approach to the system;

 

I would remove Points from Complications completely, but not Complications. Instead those need to be turned into "Plot Complications" and a player will choose 2-5 items they would like to see brought up in the story by the GM.

 

They can become more broad as well, they don't need to be so narrowly defined;

Weakness: Cryptonite - the player and GM can work together to determine how that works both generally and on a case by case basis. reduction in powers, damage, become deathly ill, erratic powers... something interesting to the story instead of just "Susceptibility: 2D6 / Phase" or whatever.

 

Psychological Complications become guides for how a character will act, and how others can take advantage of these actions...

 

The point is they should become ways for GMs and Players to create the story, while being integral to the core of the character. A long list of Complications to meet a point requirement more often than not becomes an exercise in mathematics and "well, what else can I add..." and in some cases from a GM point of view, there are far more Complications in play than will ever come up in a game - making the point exchange useless.

[zslane]

It seems to me that the problems of taking Complications only to fill a point deficit and Complications taken that don't ever come up in play are ones easily managed by the GM. After all, Complications that don't hinder a character aren't worth any points. It is up to the GM to assess whether any particular set of Complications exceeds his ability to effectively employ them in play. It is also up to the GM to assess whether or not a set of Complications fit well within a character's concept (and aren't just generic point grabs). A GM who can't do these things probably isn't equipped to "work together with the player" to figure out a new, more vague version of the Complication system either.

 

The idea behind the Disadvantage system was that they were always optional. But I think the inevitable "moar powrz r better" mentality sets in and everyone sees the maximum allowable total CP as absolutely necessary for survival. Players feel forced to take questionable Complications in order to reach the point cap. But maybe instead of changing the inherent nature of Complications (a points reward for adding weaknesses to your character, which is actually a brilliant mechanic), try changing the campaign culture so that not having any Complications whatsoever is the norm, and that taking Complications (in order to have more points to play with) will have a significant impact on them during play.

 

The problem, as I see it, isn't with the way Complications work right now, but with the way they are typically (mis)used by GMs and players. Any misused mechanic can be seen as a flawed mechanic, but it would be a mistake, I think, to change the wrong thing (the mechanic).

[Old Man]

The idea behind the Disadvantage system was that they were always optional. But I think the inevitable "moar powrz r better" mentality sets in and everyone sees the maximum allowable total CP as absolutely necessary for survival. Players feel forced to take questionable Complications in order to reach the point cap.

I actually think this was intentional, and brilliant. Disavantages are a key feature of the superhero genre, but how do you get players to cripple their own characters and not complain? Bribe them with points, of course. Yes, objectively, a character with no disads isn't likely to be balanced compared to one that's gone up to the point cap. But a character with no disads is a poor example of the genre and should be discouraged anyway.

[ghost-angel]

I would definitely never scrap Disads/Complications. They're too good of a part of the system.

 

But the campaigns where the GM has said "give me 3 to 4 good, solid, Complications you want to see come up and drive your part of the story" versus the traditional "meet a point requirement" have been, for me, a much deeper and more involved experience. That isn't to say that the point-based Complication campaigns weren't/aren't good - but they also feel like my character's complications are more a side part of the story instead of a driving force of the character - partially just due to the sheer number of them written down. 3-4 versus 5-6+ I have to work with.

 

It's along the same reasons I absolutely liked the name change from Disadvantages (bad things happen) to Complications (story plot is driven forward). It's a psychological thing.

[zslane]

A GM can also say "Give me 3 or 4 solid Disadvantages and take whatever points they grant you, be it 30 or 100." Disadvantages are supposed to help drive the character's story, not to help meet some arbitrary point threshold. It is part of a GM's job to see to it that players understand how to use the system properly. If they are just taking Disads to add points to their total, then that's a player problem, not a system problem.

 

This problem is not unique to the Hero System, though, nor is it a product of it being point-based. Virtually every RPG that has ever adopted a Powers/Disads system (e.g., Storyteller calls them Virtues/Flaws, etc.) wrestles with this problem. And that's because at the end of the day, players are good at finding exploits in any system--the more flexible the system, the more exploits there are to find. It is always up to the GM to reign that in and make the system work as intended despite player's best efforts to min/max the hell out of it.

 

Again, the important thing here, as I see it, is to recognize that this isn't a system problem. It's a player problem. Changing the system (by making it non-point-based) is treating the wrong disease.

[Lucius]

I haven't noticed anyone proposing to change Hero System by making it non-point based.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

did the palindromedary suggest it when I wasn't looking?

[zslane]

ghost-angel said: "I would remove Points from Complications completely, but not Complications. Instead those need to be turned into 'Plot Complications' and a player will choose 2-5 items they would like to see brought up in the story by the GM."

[Lucius]

ghost-angel said: "I would remove Points from Complications completely, but not Complications. Instead those need to be turned into 'Plot Complications' and a player will choose 2-5 items they would like to see brought up in the story by the GM."

I see. I was reading this

 

Again, the important thing here, as I see it, is to recognize that this isn't a system problem. It's a player problem. Changing the system (by making it non-point-based) is treating the wrong disease.

as implying that someone wanted to actually change the system by making it non-point-based, but what you're trying to say is that some of us want to change only a part of the system (Complications) by making it non-point based.

 

I'm sorry, I'll try to read and post more carefully.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I can't blame the palindromedary for that one

[ghost-angel]

It may be a "player problem" but how you present information and rules is equally important to how they are used. I have only encountered a gaming group that doesn't take the "full point allotment" of Disads/Complications on extremely rare occasions (maybe one player fifty or more) - which places the focus on the mechanic on making sure you have enough points & Complications that fit the character. If you remove one you can fully concentrate on the other.

 

Points are to balance things against each other; creating like power-levels or similar-effect-levels. Making sure This Amount Of Power X is roughly equivalent to This Amount Of Power Y.

 

Complication Points are mostly a book keeping facet. You will see things like a 20 Point Complication should come into play more than a 5 Point Complication, but that's a very vague way of approaching it when a GM has 15 5 Point Complications, seven 10 points, some 20 and 25 point complications, and his story - there is no direct correlation to how much plot each point of Complication should encompass. There is only creating a good story around the players, the plot, and their complication. By removing the peripheral book keeping aspect and saying "Give me some focus to flesh out the story" with a requested Number (not point total) you're placing emphasis on narrative control, not point totals.

 

It may be "a player problem" but you have to address the player approach, and you do that through the Rules. Change the Rules, change the approach, reteach the players how to think about their characters and the story/campaign at hand.

[Ninja-Bear]

Ghost Angel when I started to play Champions, it was never explained to me that you could create a character with less disadvantages than the campaign limits. However would I have? No, because then I would have been weaker than the rest of the party. But then I started out as a war gamer too. Again though I'll point out that the Hero system has the fix to the perceived problem, just give a higher amount of base points thereby reducing the amount of complication points.

 

Here's aside thought (and its general, I'm not saying that its Ghost Angel) where is the line of balance and points value crosses over to the kids syndrome of 'Dad Joey got one more pea on his plate than me!"? I love the Hero system but I swear at times people get so wrapped up in the name of "balance" that we start to split hairs and create more problems than they actually solve.

[Christopher R Taylor]

For me its always been about hungering for enough points to properly build my concept, but the complications I often end up with more than I get points for.

[Greywind]

...but then at that point, it's where you are build a starting character and have to grow into the full concept. People seem to want to skip the "grow into" phase and just want it now.

[ghost-angel]

With a system like this there's definitely room for both styles; I don't think there's an issue with either idea.

 

I know more players who end up with "extra" Complications than come under the point total - Which just means that the Points side of Complications means even less to that player. They're going to write down any and all Complications they feel are important to their character, regardless of the point balancing involved.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Often, I've had players who can't come up with a full set of complications take "mystery" and just filled them in as the campaign went along and their character concept gelled.  No campaign can go far without creating new hunteds and problems for the characters.

[ghost-angel]

This is very true, additional emphasis on adding, removing, and changing out Complications is also a good direction.

 

Character's are not static, their Complications list shouldn't be either. And I don't mean "buying them off" - I mean changing them as time goes on. Life rarely gets less complicated, but the things that were a big deal then may be a non-issue now...

[zslane]

It may be a "player problem" but how you present information and rules is equally important to how they are used.

Without question. And, in fact, I would argue that the presentation of the Hero System since 5e has suffered from excessive attention to minutiae, making it exceedingly difficult to extract out the essentials.

 

I feel that is a separate issue, however. In my view, the Disadvantage system as a system is just fine the way it is (note that I am not speaking about the Complication system now because I feel that its departure from dice-roll-based frequency determination led to some of the usage ambiguities you allude to). No matter how the rulebooks manage to obfuscate Disadvantages, the underlying system itself is still a very sound one, IMO. The biggest question is that of how to properly make use of that system in your own games. But that is the same issue the entire game system carries with it (as does pretty much every point-buy system that exhibits any degree of flexibility).

 

Regardless of what the rulebooks say (or don't say) on the matter, it is still up to you, the GM, to police player character designs so they don't pose problems, be they problems of concept, power level, or plot integration. The rulebooks can't possibly know how you like to run your campaign, or what you find overwhelming as a GM. Only you know how you want Complications to function in your game. By the same token, however, I happen to feel that the complexity of the game can be managed quite well without resorting to altering the fundamental nature of the game's subsystems.

 

I have only encountered a gaming group that doesn't take the "full point allotment" of Disads/Complications on extremely rare occasions (maybe one player fifty or more)...

And I've rarely encountered a group of D&D players that didn't spend all their time at the table hyper-focused on killing things and taking their stuff. That doesn't mean that is how I intend to run a D&D game of my own should the opportunity ever arise.

[megaplayboy]

Downscaling complexity is a must for any edition of the rules, methinks. You can always upscale the complexity as needed, but new players should not be confronted with several hundred pages of rules. Champions Complete was a step in the right direction in this regard. The full rules should be the equivalent of a master toolkit for experienced GMs and players.

[ghost-angel]

And I've rarely encountered a group of D&D players that didn't spend all their time at the table hyper-focused on killing things and taking their stuff. That doesn't mean that is how I intend to run a D&D game of my own should the opportunity ever arise.

 

Here's my thoughts on that:

 

Any given gaming table can, and will, alter the rules to suit both their style and desires. Hero is intended to do that from the start...

 

But it's a cop out to say you shouldn't change rules based on that. Every time I read a D&D rule book all I get from the Intent of the system is "murder things for XP and Loot" - and it doesn't matter how the table plays, that's the underlying focus of the rules.

 

So as long as we're talking about things we could look at to change in the system - I think changing the intent on how Complication are used (and I firmly believe 6E was a step in the right direction on that) we do change the intent of the rules.

 

Also, it is simpler. Removing points removes one more step in the process from 0 to Game.

 

Anyway, it's obvious you and I will not see eye to eye on this, I put forth a suggestion and I'm not in the mood to argue why it has no merit, I find that boring and why I left these boards for a while. Happy gaming.