HAPS - Hero Action Points

[bluesguy]

Most of the groups I have run work very hard to develop their characters and the idea of letting a bad random roll 'kill' them is not fun for them or me as a GM.  Is there a real threat to the characters in my games yes.  They can be seriously injured.  They might be captured.  They might die.  But when they do in my campaign it is too move the story, characters, or plot along - i.e. As a GM I make the decision (often with a conversation of the player).

[bubba smith]

for the PLAYER it is a GAME but for a The CHARACTER it's a LIFE OR DEATH situation

[Tigereye]

See, that's the problem. Preventing misses. People have lost sight of the fact that it's okay to lose. Generally, Hero doesn't need anything that adds time to combat, but the way HAPs work, you might as well just accept these key rules.

 

1) No hero will ever lose a fight.

 

2) No hero will ever get captured.

 

3) No hero's life will truly be at risk.

 

4) Combat will increase in time taken to complete it.

 

These are the key things that make roleplaying games. The possibility of failure when the stakes are high, the possibility of defeat, and the possibility of death for the character. If this is true, why are you playing the game. The moment we start playing the game for narcissism, as a group of gamers, we have, IMHO, lost our way.

 

Everything that's been said here indicates that Heroic Action points are the result of a cultural shift towards negativity and individualism, where preventing loss is more important than learning from mistakes. I'm going to be kind of a jerk now and paraphrase John Wick. (The game designer, not the movie) John is infamous for running our game in what many consider to be a jerky way. However, the problem with this is that most people don't know the whole story, and that people also don't look for nuggets of wisdom even if you don't like the mining operation it stands in.

 

John says "It's not about what happens when the hero gets knocked down. It's about what happens when the gets back up." And that's my problem with HAPs in a nutshell. There's no knockdown. You don't have to watch your back. Mistakes are correctable in the blink of an eye.

 

How did we as a culture move from "Bad die rolls happen, oh well" to "Failure can be rewritten in an instant?" I don't know. But I do know that I don't like this cultural shift. And I know we need to get rid of it before we all become sore losers.

 

That's a valid opinion, Balabanto, but kind of missing the point of RPGs - to kind of step outside ourselves. Some people would rather have more control of their character's narrative lives than their dice will sometimes allow. What if you have a character who should have an ability to perform when the chips are down?

 

Case in point: My best friend, we'll call him Fox One, is naturally unlucky with dice. So much so that his rolls in clutch situations are notoriously bad, Our gaming group jokes that he tortured deer in a previous life as a Roman Centurion. (Obscure joke, but that's my group for you.) By popular acclaim, his Star Trek character was allowed to make one re-roll per game session, because otherwise the game would be hell for Fox One. He never abused the rule - sometimes he wouldn't use the "Fox One Re-Roll" rule at all - but he would do it when he would otherwise botch a situation that would jeopardize his ship and crew. It would be out of character otherwise.

 

To me, there's enough randomness in the game that once or twice in a session (and it shouldn't be more than that), a player is allowed to say, "My character will not fail in this, no matter what." James Kirk will seduce the alien babe. Batman will escape the death trap. James Bond will get the bad guy. Wonder Woman will find the truth.

 

Now, there's something you can do to balance it out - not let the players know how much luck they have left ("Sorry, you used up all your Fate points in the casino last session - you can't use them now against Doctor Meanguy."), make them have to "balance out" their good fortune by a botched roll further down the line or ahead of time, even if done intentionally by the player ("I'm going to let my character get knocked out by the mook as it will let me find out more about their operation.")

 

Remember, BB-  it's a game that's for the players' enjoyment and that of the GM - it's not supposed to be like professional sports or the like. It's not even like a card game - the GM is allowed to cheat if it doesn't detract significantly from the game dynamics. (Why else would the villain get away?) If the GM is allowed to say, "I didn't see that roll", it's OK too. As long as it doesn't hurt everybody's pleasure, and enhances the dramatic tension to allow release, it's cool IMO.

[Balabanto]

That's a valid opinion, Balabanto, but kind of missing the point of RPGs - to kind of step outside ourselves. Some people would rather have more control of their character's narrative lives than their dice will sometimes allow. What if you have a character who should have an ability to perform when the chips are down?

 

Case in point: My best friend, we'll call him Fox One, is naturally unlucky with dice. So much so that his rolls in clutch situations are notoriously bad, Our gaming group jokes that he tortured deer in a previous life as a Roman Centurion. (Obscure joke, but that's my group for you.) By popular acclaim, his Star Trek character was allowed to make one re-roll per game session, because otherwise the game would be hell for Fox One. He never abused the rule - sometimes he wouldn't use the "Fox One Re-Roll" rule at all - but he would do it when he would otherwise botch a situation that would jeopardize his ship and crew. It would be out of character otherwise.

 

To me, there's enough randomness in the game that once or twice in a session (and it shouldn't be more than that), a player is allowed to say, "My character will not fail in this, no matter what." James Kirk will seduce the alien babe. Batman will escape the death trap. James Bond will get the bad guy. Wonder Woman will find the truth.

 

Now, there's something you can do to balance it out - not let the players know how much luck they have left ("Sorry, you used up all your Fate points in the casino last session - you can't use them now against Doctor Meanguy."), make them have to "balance out" their good fortune by a botched roll further down the line or ahead of time, even if done intentionally by the player ("I'm going to let my character get knocked out by the mook as it will let me find out more about their operation.")

 

Remember, BB-  it's a game that's for the players' enjoyment and that of the GM - it's not supposed to be like professional sports or the like. It's not even like a card game - the GM is allowed to cheat if it doesn't detract significantly from the game dynamics. (Why else would the villain get away?) If the GM is allowed to say, "I didn't see that roll", it's OK too. As long as it doesn't hurt everybody's pleasure, and enhances the dramatic tension to allow release, it's cool IMO.

 

Well, in the games I run, my friend, all the dice are rolled out in the open. My groups are always playtesting, so this doesn't hold water. If you don't let the dice fall where they may, you can't find out how the characters actually work. It is a game, that is for the players enjoyment and the gm. This isn't about "professional sports." It's about "good sportsmanship." I never say "I didn't see that roll." Not everything is about dramatic tension. This is what I mean about "A shift in dynamics." In a dramatic tension game, the individual players are the focus.The other week, a PC died. But he accepted it graciously. Heroic Action Points are part of, in my opinion, a bad attitude.

 

What about the TEAM? This doesn't encourage teamwork, or working together, or anything of that sort. When I've been forced to use them in the past, I usually burn them for excessive power tricks to rescue innocents, rather than unloading on the bad guys with them. A good team will not allow things to get so dramatic that they are forced to burn their heroic action points to fix stuff. That's the point. A skilled group of characters working together should be able to defeat their enemies capably most of the time.

 

"It was over in an instant, the outcome never truly in doubt. They are the Justice League, and when united, no one can stand against them." I don't remember what issue it's from. But people forget about that "united" part all the time.

[Mister E]

What is Superman'a HAPs?

 

110

[Tigereye]

Not everybody is in a team, Balabanto - perhaps you've forgotten? I run a lot of my games one-on-one. And if everyone uses them, in a coordinated manner, it can only help teamwork. And why do you think they invented the GM's screen? Just to hide the maps? I've made a lot of rolls that would be lethal to an entire party of PCs that I pretend didn't happen.

 

Like I said, BB, I think your point is valid, insofar your group is concerned. You don't cheat as it violates the purity of a game that is meant for player enjoyment alone. YMMV. In my view, that makes the enjoyment of the game a slave to its mechanisms, rather than the other way round. The mechanisms should serve the player's enjoyment - otherwise, why play an RPG?

 

I think my viewpoint is as well, and it is based on 35 years of GMing experience. It isn't cheating to allow a re-roll once in a while, and it isn't "Monty Haul" to allow the character to escape a life-or-death situation in the process. The core of the role-playing experience is "let's make believe...". Players, especially those who have invested years in their PC's development, sometimes don't like it when failure can result from the throw of a single set of dice. And in many game universes, that can happen. Remember, winning in a RPG is not wiping the floor with the party. RPGs have plots and sub-plots and character development through experience and things like that.

 

Again, that's my opinion.

[bluesguy]

I am a slave to a good story/plot and the players having a good time.