7th Edition thoughts

[Nolgroth]

Wait! We actually GAME here? I thought we endlessly recycled old topics to argue about.

 

Now I'M gonna have to quit the boards for a while. I'm so disillusioned.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree that letting characters shift complications as time goes on is a good move.  Maybe his DNPC breaks up with him, maybe his Aunt May dies.  Maybe he gets over that psychological complication.  But he's got a new hunted, and now he has a reputation.  Keeping the same points but changing complications over time is a way to keep things interesting and fresh.

[thewomble]

The fact is that complications don't balance out in the way that other aspects of the game do. Otherwise more players would be willing to forgo taking their full complications along with some character points. But as it is, pretty much every player is willing to take the full complications because it's so obviously worth it to get max points. 6e went some way to recognising this but 7e should take it further.

[Ragitsu]

Is anyone here interested in social interaction rules given even a tenth the detail that combat rules receive?

[IndianaJoe3]

Is anyone here interested in social interaction rules given even a tenth the detail that combat rules receive?

 

Did you mean something like the social combat rules from APG2, some sort of social interaction table, or something else?

[zslane]

Do we really need rules to simulate social interaction? Most of us have an innate sense of how to handle that, otherwise I don't think we'd be involved in a hobby called roleplaying...

[Nolgroth]

Well I think it is more for simulating skills that the player doesn't have. Case in point, many years ago, I tried to role play a merchant selling something to a player character. In turn, the player wanted his character to sell a pony to the merchant. In real life, the player had a trading at 15- and mine was/is about 5-. That's where social combat comes in. I have not read those rules, nor do I have the APG2 (only APG1). For me, a simple staged skill vs. skill roll is all that I ever feel I will need. If more granularity than that is ever needed, it is nice to imagine that there is something out there.

 

I can imagine it is a very useful system to simulate those intense interrogations we see in police procedurals or the tricky cross examinations we see in legal dramas. Perhaps intense negotiations a'la the "real" Picard maneuver (drone on and on until the aliens get bored hearing his voice and just move on to something more fun).

 

Obviously it is one of those season to taste phenomena.

[dmjalund]

linear cost for movement made sense when range penalties were linear. Now that range penalties are logarithmic,  movement should be too.

[Lucius]

linear cost for movement made sense when range penalties were linear. Now that range penalties are logarithmic,  movement should be too.

Noncombat movement already is.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Then there's the palindromedary moving in two directions at once

[ghost-angel]

Is anyone here interested in social interaction rules given even a tenth the detail that combat rules receive?

 

Definitely.

 

To start with I'd like the system to place equal emphasis on both Combat and Non-Combat interactions; starting with dropping the cost of DEX to 1:1 to bring it in line with the rest of the Characteristics. The system currently artificially inflates the importance of combat ability by making it cost more. The number of DEX based skills over PRE based is not enough to make it cost twice as much either.

[ghost-angel]

linear cost for movement made sense when range penalties were linear. Now that range penalties are logarithmic,  movement should be too.

 

Range penalties did not change going from 5th to 6th (or from 4th to 5th for that matter). So I'm not sure what this means exactly... I believe the Range Penalties as they stood in the very early editions are now an Optional Rule in the book you can use.

[Balabanto]

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.

 

Keep comliness out. You can't count on players to not do things that defy intelligence. You have to look at the other stats and how they scale. There isn't a guy in the world who won't give a stupidly pretty girl whatever information they need for free, and you can't have a stat that substitutes just being pretty for every social skill in the game. (But I'm 64 times as beautiful as aphrodite, why can't I just smile at him and get him to tell me?) That's why they removed comliness. People weren't buying skills.

[dmjalund]

linear cost for movement made sense when range penalties were linear. Now that range penalties are logarithmic,  movement should be too.

 

 

Noncombat movement already is.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Then there's the palindromedary moving in two directions at once

but non-combat is just that - non combat, and range penalties, - by definition - are combat

 

Range penalties did not change going from 5th to 6th (or from 4th to 5th for that matter). So I'm not sure what this means exactly... I believe the Range Penalties as they stood in the very early editions are now an Optional Rule in the book you can use.

I'm talking original Champions here, where ranges were -1 per x"

 

if we make combat movement logarithmic, we would just make 'non-combat' a limitation to be put on movement rather than a different set of math

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm against anything that makes the rules more complicated, to be honest.  They're already complicated enough as is.

[zslane]

I'm curious what a detailed simulation model for social interaction would be. Combat is largely driven by the underlying physics of physical force and resistance (which can appear in a dizzying array of forms, especially in a superhero or fantasy context). It is an inherently complex activity with lots at stake (often your character's very life!). Most social interaction is not, which is why nobody bothers to construct more complex/detailed mechanics for it.

[Old Man]

Is anyone here interested in social interaction rules given even a tenth the detail that combat rules receive?

 

You know, that's a tough call.  On the one hand, it's a roleplaying game, and much of the fun is in playing out the social interactions.  On the other hand, you know what I suck at?  Social interactions.  Specifically, things like negotiation, or intrigue, or drawing information out of people--things that characters in fiction tend to be pretty good at.  So I could see where it would be useful to have a system to simulate these types of interactions.

 

That said, I have no idea how to go about simulating such interactions.  Even haggling seems almost impossibly complex to try and model.  Don't even get me started on politics.

[Christopher R Taylor]

It seems to me that social interaction rules would take the roleplay out of the interactions, not enhance it.

[Ndreare]

In my games I use social interaction rules when needed, but the bonuses or penalties I give the player to his characters rolls is based off of effort not efficiency.

 

So the introvert who is trying hard to work out of his comfort zone would get a +3 while the extrovert who is casually using his real life skill may get no bonus at all.

I find it works well because if Mr Introvert has a right to be rewarded for his efforts even if he is not convincing me. After all I do not penalize the warrior for his player's lack of fighting skills.

 

Likewise though I reward players in combat who describe their characters action well. While if the player says "I hit him with My sword" will find he suffers no bonus at all until he spices up or game for us.

 

It works really well on both systems and doors not require complex rules only a little GM fiat.

[ghost-angel]

You know, that's a tough call.  On the one hand, it's a roleplaying game, and much of the fun is in playing out the social interactions.  On the other hand, you know what I suck at?  Social interactions.  Specifically, things like negotiation, or intrigue, or drawing information out of people--things that characters in fiction tend to be pretty good at.  So I could see where it would be useful to have a system to simulate these types of interactions.

 

That said, I have no idea how to go about simulating such interactions.  Even haggling seems almost impossibly complex to try and model.  Don't even get me started on politics.

 

 

It seems to me that social interaction rules would take the roleplay out of the interactions, not enhance it.

 

Pish Posh. There's a way to not only keep in RP, but use it as part of a social interaction. I have several ideas on ways one could simulate "social combat" type things while still relying on role playing to either replace or enhance various dice rolls.

 

The first is a simple Success Tally, you need to success "X Many Times" to get what you want in a social situation - like any basic Skill Challenge system; with bonuses for RP or just RP ideas like Ndreare described.

 

The second is a more involved sliding scale of give and take between player and NPC; which can be used to enhance, or instead of, actual RP scenes. Give me a few days to write it all out and polish to coherence.

 

Other things to keep in mind in social things:

As Teh Bunneh has often said, and it applies anywhere, if Failure is as interesting as Success, dice rolls are in order. If the story hinges on Success then either failed dice rolls give disadvantage rather than failure, or RP becomes an interesting conversation.

 

And sometimes just Having a social skill means the Player "wins" anyway, and you don't need to RP or roll dice for the interaction to succeed....

[mhd]

Pish Posh. There's a way to not only keep in RP, but use it as part of a social interaction.

Yeah, I've heard that over and over again, I've read all kinds of rules attempts at that, yet I mostly stay unconvinced that this is worth the page count. If you just want to abbreviate things that would take too long (seducing wenches/stableboys, haggling), a simple skill roll suffices (I don't mind FATE-like challenges if that's not the only part of the rules where they're used). Anything beyond that is just beyond the pale for my usual first person playing style. Maybe if the trope of 12-year old introverts just sitting around and mumbling "Well, urm, Lord Dashington is, like, really burning the courtier" would be that prevalent as some people say it is, I can kinda-sorta see it. Or generally totally different attitude when it comes to narrative.

 

If used to "salt" normal repartee between NPC and PCs, it feels weirdly interruptive. Anyone remember the insult fencing from the good Monkey Island games? Where you traded insults, and if the barb really stung and no appropriate reply was brought forth, you were allowed to tag your opponent, who was out of the game after three hits. Elaborate social interaction rules often feel like that, at least once they graduate to social interaction "martial maneuvers".

 

My yardstick here would probably be Larp rules or martial arts sports. There you hit each other, but as there are no actual broken bones and blood spilt, you keep track of how often you are hit and how well your armor protects you. Along with some good judgement whether that hit actually would've counted...

Now add on a few other layers, and it really gets silly: Shouting out damage numbers or special maneuvers ("can't parry! shieldbreaker! direct damage! three! magic! poison!). If you're bouncing back and forth between different meta-levels, it really ruins the gameplay experience. Then again, considering US sports, this might be a smaller issue for some

 

Not saying that this is "wrong", just my opinion on this as a general trend. I do think that it would be very hard to integrate something very complicated into the HERO mindset. While I'd agree to anything that amps up the skill system a bit more, giving it the same treatment as combat as has been said here seems way, way out of reach.

[ghost-angel]

I don't think any Skill System needs to get nearly as complex as the Combat rules are, but I certainly think we could get more in depth than "make a skill roll" on it.

 

There will always be a Role Play element, that is why most of us are here - I know many gamers who want to show up, hang out with friends, roll dice, and go home - no real desire to have in depth in character conversations; by the same token I know plenty of gamers who don't care if an actual combat session never comes up at all.

 

I would wager that most of the time, for most tables, a simple Skill Challenge system works just fine. Go around the table, ask each player a general idea of what the character is doing, get some talking in, make a skill roll. Enough successes either individually or around the table and you reach the Goal.

 

Some want more in depth systems - or it wouldn't have been expressed here.

 

And some will leave all that business up to in character talking.

[mhd]

I don't think any Skill System needs to get nearly as complex as the Combat rules are, but I certainly think we could get more in depth than "make a skill roll" on it.

In my experience, social interactions have a lot in common with traps. Erm, in games, of course.

 

Sometimes it's enough to circumnavigate them with a single roll. Sometimes it's enough if the player(s) tell you where to look and how to defuse it. And sometimes you might want a more complicated mechanical approach. Apart from the aforementioned FATE, Torg had a nice version of this. Mostly due to its unparalleled initiative system.

 

I just hope that any system that includes this is clear about how this plays out. D&D 4E made it look like its challenge system was mostly about making investigation and social interaction pass quick enough to not get in the way of the omnipresent combat encounters. And so more mechanical emphasis on social situations led to less actual time spent playing them.

 

Let's not forget that nowadays there's plenty of computer games filling that niche...

[zslane]

I think the candidate for Social Interaction Most Similar to Combat would be the kind of interaction covered by Persuade Skill(s). I think the Mind Control power gives us some hints as to ways we might elaborate upon a simple Persuade skill roll. Even things like Interrogation, Negotiation, and Seduction are ultimately forms of persuasion. You are persuading someone to part with information, goods, or their heart. All the same elements found in the Mind Control rules are at work during mundane persuasion campaigns. However, chances are you're going to have to add some sort of new resource to measure the compliance of the target over time. More bookkeeping, yay!

[Cassandra]

My thoughts on the Seventh Edition.

 

Drop everything from the Sixth Edition and build upon the Fifth Edition.

[rjcurrie]

My thoughts on the Seventh Edition.

 

Drop everything from the Sixth Edition and build upon the Fifth Edition.

 

While 6th edition is not perfect, I see no need to put things like figured characteristics, Comeliness, Elemental Controls, and game inches back.