HERO master

[Christopher]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

The "use the skill, get a chance to enhance it" model is a PvP concept, at its core - who can grow their character the fastest?  I find many games have shifted to be a team effort - all characters progress at the same rate.  Bonus xp (i.e. bonus character enhancement) for individual success puts the players in competition with one another.  That may, or may not, be the game model you want, but recognize that it is the game model being fostered.  You will get the game play your own play style fosters.  

Now that you mention it, I can confirm this from nominal "Team" games.

World of Tanks. World of Warships. Kill missions are usually a bad idea to foster teamplay. In order to do those missions, the player has to actively paly against the team:

Let allies go first, even if he is the designated "go in first" verhicle with still full HP.

Holding his fire - potentially letting allies die to a enemy that could be dead 20 seconds ago - to get the kill shoot.

 

It can even panlize certain vehicles. Just try to get a kill mission done in WoT with a British tank (high penetration, high rate of fire, terrible damage). Either the enemy runs away before you can finish chipping off his HP completely. Or someone else will one-shoot something you worked down from 10 hits to 2 hits needed.

 

Of coruse the whole "onlie multiplayer with random team" aspects makes this way stronger. But it is still a noticeable problem.

[Brian Stanfield]

23 hours ago, zslane said:

 

I sorta feel that "good role playing" is what keeps an RPG from being reduced to just a tactical wargame, and I don't personally regard it as optional. Now, if a group isn't into roleplaying that's fine, but I know from many discussions with Steve Peterson back in the day that "good roleplaying" was always envisioned as an integral element of the Champions game playing experience (as I think it would be for any RPG, really). Yet outside of the genre sourcebook, they didn't devote much material in the rules to explaining how good roleplaying ought to fit into the game. They pretty much assumed you knew how to do that instinctively, and would do so without being told to.

 

12 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

And later editions have done little to correct this oversight.  Granted, I think we all understand that the very fact that they are "role playing games" implies the importance of that very thing.

 

 

 

These reasons are exactly why people should read Aaron Allston’s Strike Force. Sure, Duke, there’s a lot of stuff about someone else’s campaign, but the other stuff (like blue booking) is priceless for teaching the importance of roleplaying in Champions. He digs into more than just tactical wargaming and shows how roleplaying can be improved. It’s worth the effort to read, and should be mandatory reading for anyone who takes roleplaying seriously!

[zslane]

3 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Oh, it’s totally optional.

 

Sure, roleplaying is optional insofar as nobody is going to come to your home and take your Champions books away if you don't engage in it, but in any campaign I play in (or GM) it would not be treated as optional. Anyone is free to call their roleplaying-less Champions campaign an "RPG" but I would not agree with them.

 

Having said that, I would argue that even when players do engage in roleplaying, Champions essentially becomes a tactical wargame the moment you go into Phases and minis start moving around a hexgrid. Just the same, there is lots of room during combat for character personalities to take a central role in events and to shape outcomes. All the good Champions campaigns I played in featured good, strong roleplaying throughout the game, even during combat when playing "in character" fell at odds with tactical efficiency on the battlemat.

[Scott Ruggels]

1 minute ago, zslane said:

Having said that, I would argue that even when players do engage in roleplaying, Champions essentially becomes a tactical wargame the moment you go into Phases and minis start moving around a hexgrid. Just the same, there is lots of room during combat for character personalities to take a central role in events and to shape outcomes. All the good Champions campaigns I played in featured good, strong roleplaying throughout the game, even during combat when playing "in character" fell at odds with tactical efficiency on the battlemat.

 

I am not disagreeing with you.  it's also fun to set up painful moral choices in combat (Re: Spiderman and the Original Gwen Stacy). It's just that in the early days, at lunch time in the cafeteria, our little group would use a small Melee Wizard hex map and some coins as counters to test out  Champions powers, builds and theories without roleplay, and had fun doing it.  I also had fun in  Carl Rigney's games, where there was nearly no combat, and it was all discussions between the various factions, for several sessions, until the conflicts exploded into action on the battle mat later, and the fights became quite "personal", but that came about a decade later, after we were all far more experienced. (Carl Rigney also ran great Champions games at conventions).

[zslane]

I hear you. I'm just trying to clarify and focus the frame of discussion. To my mind, narratively isolated sessions that test character builds in combat are basically wargaming sessions not roleplaying sessions. On the other hand, when characters are earning XP from multiple, ongoing, narratively connected adventures and using it to simulate character progression/development, that's when you have a roleplaying campaign. And I just feel that RPG campaigns ought to, you know, feature roleplaying, right down to the way players spend their XP. In that context, roleplaying (i.e., doing that which fits the character's concept) ought not to be thought of as optional.

[Duke Bushido]

3 hours ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

 

These reasons are exactly why people should read Aaron Allston’s Strike Force. Sure, Duke, there’s a lot of stuff about someone else’s campaign, but the other stuff (like blue booking) is priceless for teaching the importance of roleplaying in Champions. He digs into more than just tactical wargaming and shows how roleplaying can be improved. It’s worth the effort to read, and should be mandatory reading for anyone who takes roleplaying seriously!

 

 

I hear you, Brian, and for the record, I _did_ finally read it-- roughly two years ago.  unfortunately, it wasn't really eye-opening stuff.  At least, not at _that_ point.  There wasn't a lot in there that we weren't already doing.  Were we superior beings or gifted role players?

 

No.  Of course not.  It's stuff we'd learned through playing.  Stuff that over the years developed naturally-- like off-table / bluebook role playing.

 

Was it a good reference?  Lord, yes!  I really do wish I had known more what it was way back when (pre-internet days, when you only had the jacket blurb to go buy if none of your friends had it ), simply because we could have been leaps and bounds ahead of where we are now, and we could have gotten there without the difficulties, annoyances, and struggles that lead to us doing it as the need became overwhelming.

 

Not only did I wish I head read it a couple decades ago, it led to me occasionally picking up other "GM aids" as reading material, just to see what else someone else might be doing better, or easier, or looking for over-all inspiration.  On that note, one of the best things I read was about how to speed up combat (it wasn't system-specific, and most of what was system specific can't be applied to HERO because of it's unique Character Speed system, but even in the generalities, there were useful tidbits).

 

So on Strikeforce?  Yes; it is worth the read, and _every_ GM of _any_ system should at least read an expurgated version that covers the role-playing-specific bits.  Champions fans should read the whole thing.  And it should be read as soon as possible, for it is most helpful to newer groups, where the ideas may be new and stress-saving.  Further, it's a good idea to at least periodically pick up other such "how to play better" materials.  Even two completely conflicting viewpoints can lead to an inspiration.

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

6 hours ago, zslane said:

Having said that, I would argue that even when players do engage in roleplaying, Champions essentially becomes a tactical wargame the moment you go into Phases and minis start moving around a hexgrid. Just the same, there is lots of room during combat for character personalities to take a central role in events and to shape outcomes. All the good Champions campaigns I played in featured good, strong roleplaying throughout the game, even during combat when playing "in character" fell at odds with tactical efficiency on the battlemat.

 

This, exactly - the players should be making in-combat decisions based on their characters; personalities, skill sets and biases -  not exclusively on the best tactical choice.  That can influence choice of targets, selection of action, whether one delays or acts impulsively - but that will not happen if the consequences are failure.  Instead, players will look for character choices that make the characters ruthless, emotionless machines who always go for the best tactical option.

 

2 hours ago, zslane said:

I hear you. I'm just trying to clarify and focus the frame of discussion. To my mind, narratively isolated sessions that test character builds in combat are basically wargaming sessions not roleplaying sessions. On the other hand, when characters are earning XP from multiple, ongoing, narratively connected adventures and using it to simulate character progression/development, that's when you have a roleplaying campaign. And I just feel that RPG campaigns ought to, you know, feature roleplaying, right down to the way players spend their XP. In that context, roleplaying (i.e., doing that which fits the character's concept) ought not to be thought of as optional.

 

"Roleplaying" is not "character concept".  Many characters do not choose their powers.  Ben Grimm would not spend xp getting stronger and tougher - he'd rather spend it removing his Distinctive Features.  The writer (the player) does not choose to allow that, because it is not the character concept (or because the player just wants more combat capability - he isn't isolated from the rest of the world by a rocky shell).

 

Playing an Overconfident Super who holds back and delays phases, rather than leaping into the fray to stop the criminals in their tracks, because he's not sure how tough the opposition is?  That's bad role playing.

[Brian Stanfield]

So, just out of curiosity, how do y'all keep track of player Complications to help reinforce good roleplaying? This gets to be quite a bookkeeping process on top of just doing the combat stuff. Do you have ways to help encourage keeping with the character concept without the use of "crits" and such?

 

*I'm asking for a friend*  ?

[Duke Bushido]

Typical limitations:  codes and phobias and the like are simply  ommited to memory, as are enraged and it's variants.  Hunted /hunting, DNPCs and most anything with a roll (except psych lims; for some reason, I have never had a problem remembering those) I usually role (or make a judgment call on) while everyone is settling in, but before they're actually ready to play.  That gives me a few minutes to determine when and how, and what changes I have to make to work an encounter in.  Sometimes it's as simple as replacing one character with another.  Sometimes it's disrupting enough that it's easier to toss out something that distracts from the main story and leads to a "side quest" of sorts.  And remember that just because your hunted showed up doesn't mean that there is going to be an in-game confrontation.  Sometimes he's observing you, studying your habits and looking for trends or weaknesses.  Other times, he has begun working on a long-game plan that will come to fruition in a big way somewhere down the line. 

 

Vulnerabilities and the like I simply mark in my notes where they may come into play. 

 

I can't really give you an exhaustive list of how I handle each type, but suffice it to say that if you have it on your sheet, it will get worked in regularly.  Perhaps not every session, but regularly enough that it justifies the points you gained and reinforces the concept you had for your character. 

[zslane]

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

"Roleplaying" is not "character concept".

 

Character concept should be driving and informing the roleplaying. It should also be driving and informing the expenditure of XP. Surely this is rather obvious and not at all controversial.

[Duke Bushido]

Agreed on all counts, with everyone.

 

But on the subject of Role Playing and Character Concept:

 

Over the years, I have seen a number of groups (this seems to particularly be a problem with the newer "rules light narrative-driven" games, and with relatively new groups) that hold character concept to be so inviolable as to prevent actual Character Growth (which is something I myself really enjoy roleplaying, but it does require very long campaigns).  to the point that even when the in-game role-playing has been showing a character becoming more and more mature or tolerant or short-tempered, or what-have-you-- you know: growing-- 

 

That character makes an a-typical decision that is still in keeping with where he has been the last few session, and the GM stopping him cold with "but that violates your core concept."    That, my friends, bugs me every bit as much as not roleplaying at all.

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

For me, there are two major wickets for character advancement, and ideally both of them should be met by a given advancement scheme.

 

The first concern is player engagement. Is a player excited to see their character develop and grow, and are they happy with the way in which their character develops and grows. Are they empowered to build or shape their character into whatever form makes them happy to play that character week to week?

 

The second concern is that most rpg games (and heroic fiction in general) are powered by the dynamic tension of protagonists being challenged and tested, being resisted or threatened by some form of antagonism which is initially formidable, but which the protagonists ultimately triumph over after a period of struggle followed by growth. 

 

 

If the first concern isn't being met, players become frustrated or disinterested in the emerging story of the campaign. 

 

If the second concern isn't being met, either the players don't feel challenged because their characters are already too capable to be challenged by the available threats, or the players feel frustrated or overwhelmed because their characters never advance to the point that they can overcome the antagonists arrayed against them. There is some room on the cusps of this (sometimes it's fun to play on "god-mode" for a little while as in high powered supers or the extremes of high fantasy, sometimes it's fun to play in "doomed mode" for a little while as in horror), but eventually or if taken too far, there's no dynamic tension and thus interest fades out. 

 

 

Any kind of advancement scheme that meets both criteria is a good one...if players can craft the character they want and the GM is able to keep opposition correctly tuned to challenge, force growth, then fold or relent and then recur that pattern without the players noticing or getting bored with the formula, all will be well regardless of the specifics.

 

The Hero System is actually very good at meeting the first concern as is, but it does require player skill. Unskilled players, unassisted, are generally unable to leverage the system effectively while skilled players can easily squeeze the system to produce a supremely customized character to suit themselves. There is a high skill cap. Direct translation of XP to character points, and the build what you want model is about as directly empowering to players who know exactly what they want and how to get it as a system can be, and the complexity of the system and abstract thinking it can sometimes demand of a character builder is about as opaque and unaccommodating as a system can get for those who don't know what they want and / or don't know how to get it.

 

The Hero System relies entirely upon the GM's discretion for the second concern, having little in the way of structured encounter building and a relative dearth of canned adventures and scenarios. It provides tools better than almost any other system, but not much guidance or handholding. If you are a good GM already and can handle the crunch, you'll have little problem crafting and running scenarios and encounters in the HERO System, but if you really need published adventures or material to follow, or can't handle the system crunch and how unique and unexpectedly synergetic Hero System characters are going to be, you will likely have problems. A good GM is easily able to meet the second concern in the HS.

 

 

However there are situations where, even though it is actually a game with a really good and consistent advancement model, the Hero System struggles. The first is in play by post or remote play. The sheer crunchiness and granularity of ability definition in the Hero System makes it more difficult than usual to administer and run the game in a non-face to face situation. A more abstracted / simplified model of character definition and advancement can be pretty appealing for these cases.

 

Another common issue for the Hero System is that, because XP is typically gained in small increments session to session, it is common for players to constantly be spending small amounts of XP to make small gains. This increases record keeping quite a lot, and also prevents a character from experiencing moments of dramatic growth or improvement. This isn't a problem per se, but it is usually difficult for most players to practice sufficient self control to save up large chunks of points towards the delayed gratification of a major upgrade, which can cause some players to feel like their characters "never get  any better" as the impact of lots of micro improvements isn't as memorable, splashy, or satisfying. A lot of people just can't seem to save up their resources, they spend spend spend, and then complain they have nothing saved. It's not the system's fault for allowing immediate gratification any more than it is a hospital's fault if a patient keeps hitting the painkiller button...but they put a regulator on that morphine drip anyway because there isn't much to be gained by fighting human nature. 

 

So, for me, normally I was perfectly happy with the way HS handled character progression, but in some circumstances or with some players, I felt that either less crunch or more restriction on when XP could be spent was in order for me to fulfill concerns 1 and 2 for a particular campaign or with a particular group of players.

 

The skill-up as you go model falls into that same bucket as "lots of micro improvements"; with some players or for a certain style of campaign, it's great. It would really fit a lower powered, grittier setting and help support the feel as in real life people generally just get incrementally better at things they actually do over time; if "realism" is desired, then it is a good fit though it interferes a little bit with concern 1 because it forces players to jump thru hoops to shape the character they want. It would be a very poor fit for higher powered settings where characters are more dynamic and capable of dramatic, unexpected changes or growth and would interfere with both concerns 1 and 2.

 

[Killer Shrike]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Agreed on all counts, with everyone.

 

But on the subject of Role Playing and Character Concept:

 

Over the years, I have seen a number of groups (this seems to particularly be a problem with the newer "rules light narrative-driven" games, and with relatively new groups) that hold character concept to be so inviolable as to prevent actual Character Growth (which is something I myself really enjoy roleplaying, but it does require very long campaigns).  to the point that even when the in-game role-playing has been showing a character becoming more and more mature or tolerant or short-tempered, or what-have-you-- you know: growing-- 

 

That character makes an a-typical decision that is still in keeping with where he has been the last few session, and the GM stopping him cold with "but that violates your core concept."    That, my friends, bugs me every bit as much as not roleplaying at all.

 

Most narrative games that I'm familiar with actually do the opposite...they allow a character to change based upon how they are being portrayed. Some, Fate comes to mind here, explicitly incorporate this in the advancement...on minor milestones no real power ups are gained, but a player can replace an Aspect with a new Aspect that better serves or describes the character at that time. You can also swap a stunt for a different stunt. Similarly, at major milestones a character can change their high concept entirely, which is to say the character's main idea can be altered between story arcs. Cortex is similar; you can change your milestones, your traits, your distinctions, whatever, as play continues. 

 

Fate Aspect example; over time a character's growth isn't just plus 1's and more stuffs; the essence of the character can change and mature as well.

 

Cortex milestone example; they're meant to be replaced as a character's priorities and personality change.

[Duke Bushido]

Certainly I am not blaming the lack of dice or narrative focus--  it's not every time I see such a group; I have seen that problem in across the board.  I just tend to see it most in newer players using highly narrative systems.  I don't think the problem lies with the game as much as I do new players who are encouraged to focus so much on all aspects of their character so much that the idea of a static character seems correct. 

 

Or maybe it's because they're younger, and have grown up on serialized entertainment that resets the status quo at the start of every---

 

No.  That's not it, or we wouldn't be growing characters inspired by comic books. 

[zslane]

The way I look at it, "character concept" is a set of flexible guidelines that shape a character's behavior and the actions the player takes when taking on that role. It isn't some kind of holy writ that rigidly limits what the character is allowed to do. Most GMs I know (who care about such things) will let players do what they want as long as it fits reasonably well within the established character concept.

 

Personally, I've only ever used character concept to make sure players aren't doing things that are wildly inconsistent with the established ideas for their characters. There's a lot of interesting conflict and drama inherent in the boundaries painted by character concept, and I feel the benefits of benign enforcement of "character concept" outweigh the associated loss of total, unconstrained freedom such enforcement might impose on the players.

[massey]

On 10/27/2018 at 9:51 AM, Christopher said:

In that case I would asume this would happen:
You say your Character always spoke Russian.

a) The GM agrees and you either get it for free (because Languages are not a big thing in the campaign) or have to spend your next XP to get it

b) The GM disagrees.

 

Most GM's I played with grew bored of the language barrier quickly. So it never really came up longterm.

 

It's not only languages, that's just one example.

 

There are a lot of reasonable justifications for spending XP.  "I've been studying for months during my down time to learn this skill" is one of them.  So is "I was thrown into this situation and had to learn on the fly".  Suppose a plane crashes in the wilderness, and the character has to survive in the jungle for a few months before he finds his way to civilization.  Justification for buying the Survival skill could be "Through blind luck and some half-remembered TV shows, I managed to live long enough to learn what I was doing".

 

To me, having always had the ability in question is a good justification too.  Suppose you want to raise your character's Body score.  Right now, mystic urban vigilante Doctor Moonlight has a Body score of 10.  But, in the course of gameplay he's never actually taken any Body damage, let alone be dropped to negative.  But last session a superpowered werewolf tried to gut you (he missed with his claws before you zapped him with a spell).  You looked at how much damage his claws do and realized that had he connected, you'd have been in real trouble.  So you decide to buy up your Body score.  "What's your justification?" asks the GM.  And you tell him that you've always envisioned your character as a tough, durable guy, and his average Body score needs to be higher to reflect that.  Assuming you aren't breaking some campaign power level guideline by buying it up, I don't see what the problem would be.  From a visual perspective, your character has never had an appearance where he demonstrated a low Body score.  The first time the "reader" sees him take Body, it's with his new improved higher score.

[dsatow]

I haven't read through a lot of this thread, but I'd thought I'd toss in a few cents worth of thoughts. (i'm on break so I'll have to make this quick)

 

Back in the day, I was trying to get players to more actively role play out their character's conversations and actions (it was the in thing).  I had read a lot of the GM aid style books (I always like to try and improve my GMing) and was following its advice.  This was when one of the players pulled me aside and gave me a bit of advice which summarized to "Some players will never act out a conversation or skill or feel too uncomfortable to do this.  Game play shouldn't make the player feel uncomfortable but rather have fun."  Now these aren't the exact words but their meaning.  A player wanted to be a con man but his own personal abilities just wouldn't let him do this in any conceivable way.  And even though I never penalized him or the other players, he wasn't having fun.  Another player caught on to this more than I did and told me.  I went back to the 3d6 roll and summarized the results.  For him,  blue booking, etc. just wouldn't work.  He wanted to role play out a fantasy in the game but didn't have the personality or skill to pull it off.  Worse, it made him feel uncomfortable to play in that way.

 

[zslane]

That's a tricky issue. I understand that roll playing can easily substitute for role playing, and it feels perfectly legitimate when we're talking about abilities the character has that the player does not. But this can also be abused, wherein a player buys up Super Intellect, and then expects to be able to solve every mystery and every puzzle presented by the GM with a dice roll they can almost never fail. Now you're ruining everyone else's fun.

 

My old-school philosophy would be to tell players not to build characters whose personality or intellect is beyond their own ability to represent themselves through role playing. This will filter out players who aren't ready for a more advanced game experience, and I think that's okay. Not every campaign (or gaming group) is going to be suitable for every player. Back in the day, I wasn't invited to play in the better Champions games at Flying Buffalo Games until I demonstrated that I could play up to the standards established by the rest of the group before I got there. I wasn't offended by that; in fact, I appreciated the fact that they had such standards.

[Scott Ruggels]

51 minutes ago, zslane said:

That's a tricky issue. I understand that roll playing can easily substitute for role playing, and it feels perfectly legitimate when we're talking about abilities the character has that the player does not. But this can also be abused, wherein a player buys up Super Intellect, and then expects to be able to solve every mystery and every puzzle presented by the GM with a dice roll they can almost never fail. Now you're ruining everyone else's fun.

 

Part of of the reason, I never have puzzles in my games as a GM. It’s not about me trying to be clever. Everything is straightforward, but needs to be discovered through investigation, whether it’s talking to folks, or rolling your Batman skills, It’s bad scenario design to have one solution As a player, I dislike puzzles, give me something to hit. 

 

51 minutes ago, zslane said:

 

My old-school philosophy would be to tell players not to build characters whose personality or intellect is beyond their own ability to represent themselves through role playing.

 

The problem is this filters out introverted players, for one, and kind of blunts the escapism for some. I filter for maturity, and if they bring something to the table. Now, I admit there are deadweight players, but most of the time they self eject (unless they are another’s significant other, and then you are pretty much stuck with them).  If the players are engaged with the scenario, and help the plot along, as long as everyone is having fun, I have no problem with roll play. I am an introvert, but I can fake extroverversion really well. It’s exhausting, though. After running a game, I want to sleep for a week. I sympathize with the wallflowers at the gaming table. Sometimes, location or circumstance limits you selection of players, so you play the hand you’re dealt. 

 

51 minutes ago, zslane said:

 

This will filter out players who aren't ready for a more advanced game experience, and I think that's okay. Not every campaign (or gaming group) is going to be suitable for every player. Back in the day, I wasn't invited to play in the better Champions games at Flying Buffalo Games until I demonstrated that I could play up to the standards established by the rest of the group before I got there. I wasn't offended by that; in fact, I appreciated the fact that they had such standards.

 

I got invited to the Fantasy Hero playtest, because a few of the Hero games folks saw me at cons, doing the “Draw your character” schtick. The wanted character art for the campaign, and knew I knew the rules and combat fairly well. I learned at their feet how to be a better player. 

[Duke Bushido]

4 hours ago, massey said:

 

To me, having always had the ability in question is a good justification too.

 

I don't disagree with you. 

 

Seriously: I don't. 

 

But the player and the GM both have to be careful.  That's how you get Superman.  The infallible, has every plot device power ever needed for any weird turn of events.  It's how you go from a transplanted heavy worlder who is incredibly strong and can leap vast distances (or over a barn!) and who's incredibly dense muscles are impenetrable to small arms fire to being able to do warp 12 through the cosmos while yawning as the enemy pelts you with nuclear missiles. 

 

Some of my favorite superman powers over the years have included the super nerve pinch, super ventriloquism, super typing, time travel, and super hypnosis that is so powerful it sticks to and emenates from photographs of him.  The list goes on, but those are my favorites. That, and his knowledge of everything: a knowledge pool so deep and so fast it makes Doc Savage look like he was doing little more than rubbing his brain with a sponge he found in a mud puddle. 

 

There are other characters who are little more plot devices, as they are little less that perfect, but that's not why I'm here; I just came to say "be careful." 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, dsatow said:

Some players will never act out a conversation or skill or feel too uncomfortable to do this

 

 

And that's fine, too.  It's a out having fun, after all.  Let _everyone_ play at the level that they enjoy.  A lot of socially uncomfortable people will rise to the occasion eventually, as the group bonds.  Not all of them, but a lot of them do.  Just don't emphasis what they aren't comfortable with, and everyone will get _something_ out of the game.  My new youth group is reminding of that; my groups have been together so long I'd almost forgotten what a new group felt like.

[Mister E]

Yes.

 

I played in a game where we could only advance if we succeeded.

 

Call Of Chthulu.

[Christopher]

12 hours ago, zslane said:

That's a tricky issue. I understand that roll playing can easily substitute for role playing, and it feels perfectly legitimate when we're talking about abilities the character has that the player does not. But this can also be abused, wherein a player buys up Super Intellect, and then expects to be able to solve every mystery and every puzzle presented by the GM with a dice roll they can almost never fail. Now you're ruining everyone else's fun.

"Don't sabotage the game" is a implied rule in all RPG's. Or at least I asumed it was.

 

12 hours ago, zslane said:

My old-school philosophy would be to tell players not to build characters whose personality or intellect is beyond their own ability to represent themselves through role playing. This will filter out players who aren't ready for a more advanced game experience, and I think that's okay. Not every campaign (or gaming group) is going to be suitable for every player. Back in the day, I wasn't invited to play in the better Champions games at Flying Buffalo Games until I demonstrated that I could play up to the standards established by the rest of the group before I got there. I wasn't offended by that; in fact, I appreciated the fact that they had such standards.

I can not fight or cast magic to save my life. And those times I played "myself as a Character" just had me playing a terrible Character. That leaves very few Characters I could convincingly roleplay.

Your rule is nice for your specific group, but not for a RPG in general.

 

As I said on the last page:

We can warn you that you are handling a loaded gun. We can not prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot anyway.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 10/28/2018 at 8:37 PM, zslane said:

 

Character concept should be driving and informing the roleplaying. It should also be driving and informing the expenditure of XP. Surely this is rather obvious and not at all controversial.

 

On 10/28/2018 at 9:14 PM, Duke Bushido said:

But on the subject of Role Playing and Character Concept:

 

Over the years, I have seen a number of groups (this seems to particularly be a problem with the newer "rules light narrative-driven" games, and with relatively new groups) that hold character concept to be so inviolable as to prevent actual Character Growth (which is something I myself really enjoy roleplaying, but it does require very long campaigns).  to the point that even when the in-game role-playing has been showing a character becoming more and more mature or tolerant or short-tempered, or what-have-you-- you know: growing-- 

 

That character makes an a-typical decision that is still in keeping with where he has been the last few session, and the GM stopping him cold with "but that violates your core concept."    That, my friends, bugs me every bit as much as not roleplaying at all.

 

This is actually an issue exacerbated in Hero.  For my character to grow, I may have to buy down, or buy off, certain complications (he has learned his limits, and become less overconfident).  So he gets less xp to direct to "power creep" and falls behind his peers, unless I as GM allow him to exchange, rather than buy off, complications.

 

But his "character concept" included overconfidence, so the GM expects he will be locked in that mold forever.  Maybe his concept was that he's a geeky scientist who developed powered armor, or a former surgeon who was trained in the Dark Arts of Magick.  Clearly, spending points on martial arts is completely out of character concept.  And yet...

 

Tony Stark knows martial arts now - he was trained by Captain America.

 

Dr. Strange has also demonstrated martial arts training.

 

In neither case did we see them training in martial arts in the comics.  It just came out of nowhere - completely out of their core character concept.

 

Wolverine's fluency in Japanese came as a complete surprise to the X-Men.  Should that XP spend have been rejected?

 

Often, the issue is not that the player is violating character concept, but that he is violating the GM's vision of what his character concept is, or should be.  It's the player's character - their vision for the character should always govern.

 

15 hours ago, dsatow said:

Back in the day, I was trying to get players to more actively role play out their character's conversations and actions (it was the in thing).  I had read a lot of the GM aid style books (I always like to try and improve my GMing) and was following its advice.  This was when one of the players pulled me aside and gave me a bit of advice which summarized to "Some players will never act out a conversation or skill or feel too uncomfortable to do this.  Game play shouldn't make the player feel uncomfortable but rather have fun."  Now these aren't the exact words but their meaning.  A player wanted to be a con man but his own personal abilities just wouldn't let him do this in any conceivable way.  And even though I never penalized him or the other players, he wasn't having fun.  Another player caught on to this more than I did and told me.  I went back to the 3d6 roll and summarized the results.  For him,  blue booking, etc. just wouldn't work.  He wanted to role play out a fantasy in the game but didn't have the personality or skill to pull it off.  Worse, it made him feel uncomfortable to play in that way.

 

100% this

 

14 hours ago, zslane said:

That's a tricky issue. I understand that roll playing can easily substitute for role playing, and it feels perfectly legitimate when we're talking about abilities the character has that the player does not. But this can also be abused, wherein a player buys up Super Intellect, and then expects to be able to solve every mystery and every puzzle presented by the GM with a dice roll they can almost never fail. Now you're ruining everyone else's fun.

 

My old-school philosophy would be to tell players not to build characters whose personality or intellect is beyond their own ability to represent themselves through role playing. This will filter out players who aren't ready for a more advanced game experience, and I think that's okay. Not every campaign (or gaming group) is going to be suitable for every player.

 

To the "solve every puzzle", this is a GM issue.  Telepathy and Retrocognition are not appropriate abilities for a "solve the mystery" focused game.  If you don't want the ability in the game, don't allow it.  But if you allow a huge INT, or a huge PRE/interaction skill, the player is not unreasonable to expect that point expenditure to have in-game benefits, just like the player who spent all his points on combat abilities expects to have a character who is good at combat.

 

More to your second comment later.

 

2 hours ago, Christopher said:

I can not fight or cast magic to save my life. And those times I played "myself as a Character" just had me playing a terrible Character. That leaves very few Characters I could convincingly roleplay.

Your rule is nice for your specific group, but not for a RPG in general.

 

As I said on the last page:

We can warn you that you are handling a loaded gun. We can not prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot anyway.

 

This, again, 100%.  Let's focus on 2 players. 

 

Bob is a social wallflower and painfully shy.  He's also a martial arts expert (he has three black belts in different arts), a gymnast one cut below Olympic level and a sharpshooter.  His character is a combination James Bond and Casanova, with huge points spent on PRE and social skills.

 

Fred's hand/eye coordination has seen him banned from having an open beverage container on the gaming table, and he is morbidly obese.  He needs two rest stops to climb the 15 stairs from the basement, wheezing all the way.  He's very well-spoken and articulate.  His character spent most of his points on combat abilities and physical skills.

 

So, when we "role play", Bob does not get the use of his points, since he cannot role play a persuasive, seductive con man.  Fred gets all the benefits of the points he spent (no one asks him to role play that Kirk shoulder roll past the guard, leaping to his feet to land a crushing blow against the enemy leader behind him, then firing off his blaster to hit the door control 50 meters away, preventing the arrival of reinforcements.  Plus, he role plays interaction so well he gets GM assigned "role playing" bonuses that let his 5 PRE, no social skills combat monster be better at social interaction than Bob's character.

 

So, is that fair?  I suggest it is not.  Why can't Bob role play his 3 CV character in a manner commensurate with his own personal skills, just like Fred can? 

 

Is it good role playing?  I say thee Nay!  Fred is a terrible role player - he built a character lacking any social skills, but that's  not how he is playing the character.

 

Fred gets to use the points he spent on combat, and gets to avoid the consequences of spending no points on social skills. Bob does not get to use the points he spent on social skills, and must accept the consequences of spending no points on combat skills.

 

In other words, only certain types of players, and certain types of characters, are allowed to be successful in the game.

[Christopher]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Tony Stark knows martial arts now - he was trained by Captain America.

  

Dr. Strange has also demonstrated martial arts training.

Or what about about Shade from Justice League Cartoon? Once he got disarmed by Batman, getting the online "Maybe you should get a strap for that". Resulting in this exchange:

https://youtu.be/lEnAGsIyGvg?t=107

[zslane]

I'd tell players to build whatever characters they want as long as they can convincingly role play them. For me, role playing by definition means taking on the personality of the character and using your own brain to make decisions and formulate plans, theories, and solutions to all in-game problems yourself. I might, under certain circumstances, give hints or subtle bits of help in the event players are really stuck and they make successful dice rolls. But the heavy lifting for intellectual and social activity must come from role playing not dice rolling. To the extent that things like INT or PRE are set to beyond-human levels, I would merely require a comic-book interpretation of those abilities to be role played out, and then let the dice pick up where human limits leave off.

 

For example, a player playing a superhero with a 50 PRE (way beyond human limits) might say, "I jump into the middle of the crowd, and with my commanding voice say, 'Everyone leave this area NOW!'", at which point the Presence Attack is resolved with dice normally. But if the player doesn't make any effort to try and sound commanding and tell me what they are saying in order to sway the crowd, then they won't be allowed to even make the Presence Attack. Role playing tells me what you are trying to do and how, and the stats on your sheet then help me determine how effective/successful you were. This is not rocket science; it is how role playing games have been played since the 70s.