HERO master

[Hugh Neilson]

10 hours ago, zslane said:

We'll have to agree to disagree there. Unleashing a flame bolt is impossible to role play out at the table; it can only be represented through dice rolls. A persuasion attempt against a guard, however, can be role played out in its entirety, and therefore the GM has far more latitude to let the player's "role playing performance" influence the dice roll (or obviate it entirely).

 

Then tell players not to bother with social skills.  Take PRE out of the game entirely.  This will be adjudicated based on player skill, rather than character skill.  If Player 1 invests 50 more points in combat abilities than Player 2, he should be commensurately more skilled in combat.  If Player 2 spent the extra 50 points on social skills, he should be commensurately more skilled in social situations.  Otherwise, the player investing in social skills feels ripped off - and that feeling is not unjustified.

 

If a player spends 50 points on anything, and I as GM let him spend those 50 points, then the onus is on me to make that 50 point spend valuable, on a comparable level to what any other player spent their 50 points on.

 

10 hours ago, Greywind said:

Stark had heart issues stemming from a boobytrap in Vietnam. This led to the magnetic chest plate.

 

Stark also had other medical issues (spine) after being shot by Kathy Dare.

 

I didn't go far enough into the history to get to the spine injury, or Extremis making his armor a part of him, etc.  Most games won't run as long as the comic.  But his medical issues were pretty much always there, sometimes emphasized much more than others and frequently evolving in some manner.

 

4 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

So, not that anyone particularly cares, but I agree w/ both Hugh and zslane on character skill vs players skill, and attempting to roleplay vs directly stating mechanics. 

 

Since I prefer players to stay in character as much as possible, I encourage players to have "tells" that they communicate or describe from the perspective of what it would be apparent to the characters in the scene, AND THEN state the mechanics being leveraged. 

 

If a player gives a good roleplaying attempt for a social or combat or utility effect, I feel its in my best interests to encourage them to do so as it helps the player experience / makes the campaign more interesting. So, depending on what is going on, I may allow a bonus or a reduced impact of failure (plot consideration), or respond in kind to the player's descriptive contribution with some reciprocal narrative hand-wavium. 

 

Whether the player describes / portrays a fun combat "panel" or action sequence or an elaborate social one is irrelevant. Whether what is going on in the scene parallels real world ideas or is entirely mythical doesn't matter. In a game of make-believe it's ALL make believe.

 

First off, I at least care.  Your comments are always well-considered and great food for thought, whether our views align perfectly, oppose entirely or fall anywhere in between.

 

Above, you nail it for me where I have emphasized.  Whether bonuses are provided, and to what extent, could vary markedly and still be fair to everyone at the table, provided that they are applied across the board.  If an eloquent player can get bonuses to enhance his character's social skills, and the combat-savvy player can enhance his character's combat skills similarly, that's equitable.  The extent to which success depends on player skill vs character skill may vary between games, but it is success in all aspects of the game, not just some aspects, so that combat-savvy player gets bonuses for his player skill commensurate with the bonuses our social butterfly gets in social situations.

 

Players lacking any personal skills important to the game (like a nuclear physicist in a fantasy game) may feel left  behind, and that may be an issue for the group, but a player who is proficient with the rules, uses his abilities at the right time and leverages the environment also has advantages - player skill, in some form, cannot be removed entirely from the game.

 

4 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

However a character who is mechanically good at things the player is particularly bad at or vice versa can be problematic. Either a player is able to make it work regardless of the disparity, or they cannot...in which case they should consider picking a different character that they are better able to pilot more effectively.

 

I get to say "I swing my sword at the dragon", "I karate chop the thug" or "I throw a grenade in the middle of the room".  I then get to roll based on my combat skills.  If I wish to "persuade the guard that we are invited guests", then I should get to roll based on my social skills.  I have provided no reason, in any of these cases, to expect any bonus to the rolls. 

 

Maybe I flip over the table beside the thug, bringing a crushing blow down from overhead, and get a bonus for my description (and/or for use of the environment) - say +1 DC. Maybe I make a more eloquent speech, including elements from game play (say, we know the Duke is paranoid about an invasion from the south, so I build in our having news from the south into my speech), and I get +2 to the roll (equates to 2 levels placed in DCs).  That's allowing for player skill in description, and in using the in-game elements to their advantage.

 

Perhaps our group allows only use of in-game elements (no bonuses for OOC skills allowed).  That's fine too.  I'd find a game where you can't use in-game elements to your advantage more frustrating, and pretty bland, but that's an option as well.  But when only some actions can be affected by player skill, and others cannot, that does not seem fair to the player whose skills don't grant bonuses compared to the one whose skills do.

 

4 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

When there is a major discrepancy between a player's abilities and their character's abilities, it can suspend disbelief only so far before it just doesn't work and detracts from the game for other players at the table. People usually want to march out the social skills argument here; the character who's got the stats to be a "face" and the player who is socially hopeless. The gamist approach is that the player should be able to just roll dice or exercise their character's abilities to be good at the thing the player is not in the same way that the couch potato player who has never been in a fight in their life can rely on mechanics to play their sword swinging barbarian; this can work if the table is being run in a gamist mode. But in a simulationist or narrative mode it doesn't work very well. In the simulationist scenario, the player probably doesn't even really understand how a socially capable person sees the world or the boundaries of what is and is not attainable by such a person; the dunning-kruger effect as well as general cluelessness...such a player is not 'right' for the role of that character as without constant coaching they are going to struggle to initiate actions and react to situations in a way that more or less simulates how such a person would really act. In the narrative mode, a similar situation can occur wherein the player just can't affect or influence the emerging narrative for similar reasons. It isn't wrong per se; different styles of play value different things. And it can be made to work with enough effort, but it can detract from the overall experience.

 

This depends a lot on genre, tone and the nature of the game.  A lot of fantasy game combat abilities are not realistic.  Can I simulate a firebolt?  Probably not.  But how do I simulate a 50 PRE and +10 to Persuasion skills from a real-life perspective?  The Barbarian can soak up more damage than an elephant, and cut down a dragon 100 times his size.  Why can't the Casanova achieve similarly legendary "beyond normal human" feats with his similar investment in social abilities?

 

In a gritty, realistic game, we will have neither.  But we will also have a much better frame of reference to imagine a more mundane use of social skills, so does it really matter that Bob cannot simulate the suave seductiveness of Roger Moore's James Bond, or that it's hard to picture the 350 lb sweaty guy with 3 days' beard growth as the sweet elvish maiden he plays in this campaign? I'm playing an RPG, not taking a college-level drama or debate class.

[BoloOfEarth]

On 10/30/2018 at 9:27 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

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.

 

I'd have to dig up the actual comic to say how long the sequence was, but they did show Cap training Tony.  As I recall, Cap started by telling Tony to attack him from behind.  And then when Tony did, Cap flipped him and said that when someone offers a free shot, they probably have a trick up their sleeve.  Followed by a montage of them practicing punches, kicks, and throws.  I think it took maybe a page or two.

 

23 hours ago, Greywind said:

Tony asked Cap to teach him during the Armor Wars, as I recall, so he wasn't completely inept without his armor.

 

I'm not sure if it was the very start of the Armor Wars, but the actual impetus was that Justin Hammer was radio-overriding his armor's functions, causing Iron Man to accidentally kill a foreign ambassador (repulsor blast through the chest), so Tony had to turn the armor (altered to make it inoperative) over to the government to prevent Iron Man getting arrested.  (Of course he had other armors, but the big problem was that he couldn't stop the override.)  So Tony had to go without armor for a while, and approached Cap for training.

 

So while it may have been out of the character's core concept, it made perfect sense (at least to me) that he could learn how to handle himself out of his armor.

[Lucius]

23 hours ago, Brian Stanfield said:

 

Dr. Strange suddenly knowing martial arts is downright ridiculous without some sort of explanation. Again, players should be able to do whatever they want with their characters, but it behooves them to have a good reason why the changes occur. Otherwise, given enough time and XP, all characters will begin to look alike as they add on more and more random abilities with little or no rationalization. 

 

 

23 hours ago, Greywind said:

 

Dr. Strange also learned at least one martial art while he was studying under the Ancient One. A need for the unification of mind, body, and spirit.

 

He was trained in what amounts to an Asian monastery. He probably learned a lot of Strange things.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And who knows what you might pick up, hanging out with a palindromedary?

[massey]

8 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

So, not that anyone particularly cares, but I agree w/ both Hugh and zslane on character skill vs players skill, and attempting to roleplay vs directly stating mechanics. 

 

Since I prefer players to stay in character as much as possible, I encourage players to have "tells" that they communicate or describe from the perspective of what it would be apparent to the characters in the scene, AND THEN state the mechanics being leveraged. 

 

If a player gives a good roleplaying attempt for a social or combat or utility effect, I feel its in my best interests to encourage them to do so as it helps the player experience / makes the campaign more interesting. So, depending on what is going on, I may allow a bonus or a reduced impact of failure (plot consideration), or respond in kind to the player's descriptive contribution with some reciprocal narrative hand-wavium. 

 

Whether the player describes / portrays a fun combat "panel" or action sequence or an elaborate social one is irrelevant. Whether what is going on in the scene parallels real world ideas or is entirely mythical doesn't matter. In a game of make-believe it's ALL make believe.
 

However a character who is mechanically good at things the player is particularly bad at or vice versa can be problematic. Either a player is able to make it work regardless of the disparity, or they cannot...in which case they should consider picking a different character that they are better able to pilot more effectively.

 

(snipped the rest)

 

This also makes me think of another issue that comes up sometimes.  Occasionally there's a situation where the player is legitimately an expert on a subject, and the GM doesn't know anything about it.  One of the guys who used to play in our group was in the Navy and actually ran nuclear reactors.  He knew more about that subject than everyone else at the table put together.  The GM didn't even know enough about nuclear physics to set up a plausible scenario.  He could say something like "the reactor is going critical, it's going to explode!"  And the player would say "American reactors are incapable of exploding.  They are designed differently.  It literally can't happen."

 

In the end we just had to treat each other with respect, both for our respective areas of expertise, and for our roles at the table.  The GM has to be able to say "this is just fiction, for purposes of the game it works this way".  We all know that Rob knows nuclear science better than us, but we also respect that the GM has taken the time to try and tell an interesting story.  

 

In real life, I'm a criminal defense attorney, but nobody wants to set aside what their characters are doing in the game to listen to me talk about how things "really" work.  Years and years of inaccurate TV legal dramas have convinced me to just shrug my shoulders and say "the law works differently in that world".

[zslane]

4 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

If Player 2 spent the extra 50 points on social skills, he should be commensurately more skilled in social situations.  Otherwise, the player investing in social skills feels ripped off - and that feeling is not unjustified.

 

Right. And I already explained how this would be handled with a combination of role playing and dice rolling. You keep wanting to ignore the details of what I write and characterize my position as being at the extreme end of the spectrum just so you can argue against it. Please stop that.

[Killer Shrike]

7 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

...

I get to say "I swing my sword at the dragon", "I karate chop the thug" or "I throw a grenade in the middle of the room".  I then get to roll based on my combat skills.  If I wish to "persuade the guard that we are invited guests", then I should get to roll based on my social skills.  I have provided no reason, in any of these cases, to expect any bonus to the rolls. 

...

 

When I refer to a player who is particularly ill-suited to play a character I'm not referring to the player who wants to just say "I do the thing that my character can do" at relevant moments. That kind of player, the player who knows what they want to accomplish and just doesn't know how to make it sound legit and / or work within the game mechanics to accomplish it is a player who can be worked with, assuming they get better at playing the role over time.

 

I am referring to the player that has to be constantly told, reminded, coached thru, or line prompted by the GM or other players at those moments when they should take focus, because the player just doesn't even recognize the moments in the game where their character could, would, and should do something relevant per their concept, backstory, role, etc. Sometimes a player is just ill-suited to a character concept in the same way an actor can be ill-suited to a role.

 

In acting, some actors have a wide range and can play against type, but many are best within a narrower range of roles that they have a feel for. It's the same with gamers. Some gamers can play virtually any character and make it work, others can manage to pilot a particular kind of character or perhaps a few, but can't just sit in front of a sheet do a cold read, snap into character, and make it work.

 

Player skill is a thing, fit is a thing. When they align its great, but sometimes they don't. If its a matter of skill, that can be developed. Fit is trickier.

 

The player who has no feel for their character at all, and has to be told the opportunity for their character to do their thing is dancing around in front of them begging them to engage with the scene, will probably be happier with a character that better suits them and their natural proclivities. 

 

 

 

 

[dsatow]

23 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

 

Hulk sees dead people, everywhere...

 

Perhaps this is a power that the Hulk will never show off in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s nonetheless an interesting one that is hidden among the curiosities of the Hulk comic books. It all started when Bruce Banner accidentally killed his father, and fearing that he would come back to settle the score, Bruce gave the Hulk the ability to see ghosts. Because in the comics that's just a thing you can do...

 

With the Hulk’s unique ghost-seeing ability, he is one of the only beings that is able to see Dr. Strange when he is in his astral form.

 

No wonder he's so angry.  He's never alone.  I mean just think of how frustrated he must be when trying to use the bathroom... ?

 

[dsatow]

20 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Not sure Stark ever used his martial arts in armor - he just surprised some thugs, noting that he has, after all, been trained by Captain America.

 

 

I seem to remember some Avengers comic where the Scarlet Witch or the Wasp mentions that Cap teaches all members of the Avengers at least the basics of self defense.

[Killer Shrike]

12 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

This depends a lot on genre, tone and the nature of the game.  A lot of fantasy game combat abilities are not realistic.  Can I simulate a firebolt?  Probably not.  But how do I simulate a 50 PRE and +10 to Persuasion skills from a real-life perspective?  The Barbarian can soak up more damage than an elephant, and cut down a dragon 100 times his size.  Why can't the Casanova achieve similarly legendary "beyond normal human" feats with his similar investment in social abilities?

 

I would allow that, per se. Presense attacks were a thing at my table when I ran HS games. I'm all about maintaining parity between caster, martial, and social. It's one of the reasons why I gravitated in later years to games that were a little more intrinsically balanced in that regard and required less effort from me to maintain.

 

As to simulating a firebolt...I think there may be some confusion as to what I meant by "simulationist". I was referring to GNS theory (gamist, narrativist, simulationist). Unless you are doing the LARP thing (which I've never been inclined to), you wouldn't literally simulate a firebolt anymore than you'd simulate chopping someones head off or simulate seducing a NPC by physically wooing the GM (ugh). 

 

The rules of a game that lends itself to simulation measure and define all of that...that's the mechanics. But the player is responsible for trying to simulate how a character who HAS those abilities would behave in the context of the setting and pilot their character appropriately in a way that maintains the verisimilitude of the scene. 

 

Lets say you have two players, Bob and Joe.

 

Bob is not a wizard in real life; he can't cast spells, he knows no arcane secrets...why he didn't even attend a mystically oriented collegium nor did he apprentice to a master...in fact the world he lives in has no magic at all. Bob however intends to portray a wizard in a game of make believe with friends. You know, for fun. 

 

However while Bob isn't really a wizard and has no personal body of knowledge to call upon for the specifics of how to actually cast spells, and isn't really naturalized to know how a real wizard would really behave in the setting of the game if such a place were really real...he does have a good understanding of the fantasy genre, understands the color and tone of the setting, and has ideas on how such a character might behave and act and perhaps even speak and interact with others.

 

Bob, despite being woefully un-wizardly in real life, is well set up to portray a wizard and make the other people at the table feel that he is doing so competently in a way that enhances the overall shared make believe for all of them. He says wizardly things, and knows the story beats or cues for when he's supposed to apply his characters mechanical abilities. Bob is ready to go.

 

Joe is also not a wizard in real life, etc. However, unlike Bob who at least understands the purpose and practices of portraying a wizard in a fantasy roleplaying game, Joe is kind of clueless in that area. Whether its because he has no background in the genre, or because he's never played one before, is not relevant. Maybe sometimes Joe has a vague idea that he's supposed to do certain things or fill a certain niche or tries to make some hay, or maybe he doesn't but most of the time he just bumbles from scene to scene tagging along, waiting to be told by the other players or the GM what to do next. "Joe, cast firebolt on the troll already!" or "Joe, go talk to the learned sage and do smart guy stuff" or "Joe, maybe you should go investigate the obviously magic thingy that only your character has any hope of figuring out".

 

Unlike Bob who can pilot their character effectively and make the game better (or at least more interesting) not just for themselves but some or all of the group as a whole, Joe is just kind of there and scenes where he could have or should have interacted in some way played out some other way than they would have with a more capable player piloting the same character. Overall this detracts from the verisimilitude of the setting and acts as grit in the gears of the simulation.

 

12 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

In a gritty, realistic game, we will have neither.  But we will also have a much better frame of reference to imagine a more mundane use of social skills, so does it really matter that Bob cannot simulate the suave seductiveness of Roger Moore's James Bond, or that it's hard to picture the 350 lb sweaty guy with 3 days' beard growth as the sweet elvish maiden he plays in this campaign? I'm playing an RPG, not taking a college-level drama or debate class.

 

Bob may or may not be able to actually be as seductive as Roger Moore's James Bond in real life, but he may very well be able to simulate it. 

 

• Gamist: Bob says "My character has very high Seduction  (whatever mechanical form that takes in the game at hand). Bob rolls for effect / success / whatever is necessary to apply it to the situation; usually a single roll against a difficulty and perhaps opposed or unopposed depending on the game. Bob succeeds or fails based upon the outcome. The goal here is to win the scene or overcome the obstacle to get to the next one in an efficient way until some final obstacle is overcome and the game or session is over. Did we triumph? If yes then happy gamists.
• Narrativist: Bob says "Because my character is The Sexiest British Spy Alive (or whatever), it makes sense to the story that he should be able to seduce his way through this scene"; the table agrees and it either happens or if it might be interesting if he fails some kind of mechanical resolution occurs. The goal here is to tell a good story, ideally one that makes some kind of sense based upon the canon of the ongoing story...much like television. Was it a good episode? If yes then happy narrativists.
• Simulationist: This one is more complex depending upon what genre / tone / etc is being simulated. Basically, the campaign has some kind of specific framework in which things are supposed to behave in an internally consistent way and there are rules in place that attempt to model some kind of reality via mechanics (this is how you determine what happens) or fiat (the rules assert what happens) or both. In a campaign attempting to simulate James Bond or similar "internationally famous secret agent" hijinks, then to even make a character in such a setting one must have gone through the steps of justifying why Bob is allowed to play a Bondian superspy. There may be classes, or life paths, or package deals, or careers, or archetypes, or templates, or whatever, but probably something is defined that says, if you want to be this kind of characters this is the basic model for that. If, in this campaign, Bob has jumped thru the necessary hoops or checked the necessary boxes and perhaps filled in some gaps with elective choices to justify his character's background and get the abilities appropriate to a James Bond like character, and Bob understands the story beats of the genre well enough to know when to say "My character intends to use seduction to ultimately get useful information from the femme fatale"...then Bob can simulate being as seductive as Roger Moore's Bond. How that resolves may be gamist, or narrativist in nature, or a prolonged set of challenge and response / multistep resolution, or the player describing an elaborate evening out with dinner reservations at an exclusive restaurant carriage rides luxurious hotels, and so on. The goal is that whatever happens should be internally consistent to the thing being simulated as a whole. Was the session a good simulation of what it might be like to live in whatever period piece the game represents? If yes then happy simulationists.

 

Joe, unlike Bob, might have to be told..."maybe you could try seduction" whenever the story beat came up that way. Or Joe might go the other way, and not understand when seduction was an appropriate approach. "The big bad Bloviated, your arch nemesis, strokes his shaved lap poodle and quirks his eyebrow as he reaches for the big red button to activate the death trap you have fallen into 'No, Mr. Dobbs, I expect you to DIE!'...what do you do? 'Uh...I try seduction?' I'm supposed to be good at that right?".

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

4 hours ago, massey said:

 

This also makes me think of another issue that comes up sometimes.  Occasionally there's a situation where the player is legitimately an expert on a subject, and the GM doesn't know anything about it.  One of the guys who used to play in our group was in the Navy and actually ran nuclear reactors.  He knew more about that subject than everyone else at the table put together.  The GM didn't even know enough about nuclear physics to set up a plausible scenario.  He could say something like "the reactor is going critical, it's going to explode!"  And the player would say "American reactors are incapable of exploding.  They are designed differently.  It literally can't happen."

 

In the end we just had to treat each other with respect, both for our respective areas of expertise, and for our roles at the table.  The GM has to be able to say "this is just fiction, for purposes of the game it works this way".  We all know that Rob knows nuclear science better than us, but we also respect that the GM has taken the time to try and tell an interesting story.  

 

In real life, I'm a criminal defense attorney, but nobody wants to set aside what their characters are doing in the game to listen to me talk about how things "really" work.  Years and years of inaccurate TV legal dramas have convinced me to just shrug my shoulders and say "the law works differently in that world".

Agreed. I'm a tech guy from way back, hardware, software, network. I'm constantly cringing at bad-wrong tech in fiction. Sometimes its just too much and I can't enjoy the fiction, but usually I can set it aside and enjoy the material on its own merits. 

 

And nobody, I mean nobody, wants to sit at a gaming table while I hold forth on specifics of a technical nature. Or set theory. Don't get me talking about set theory; it would be traumatic for both of us.

 

However sometimes there is an issue. For instance, a GM running a modern game offered up a plot element that was stuff written down in a foreign language. What he wanted was for the group to go find a scholar to translate it which would be the bridge to the next bit of the story. Of course someone said "I whip out my phone and google translate it". The GM, who is somewhat behind on modern tech, was like...no way that's impossible. Hi-jinks ensued.

[Greywind]

34 minutes ago, dsatow said:

 

I seem to remember some Avengers comic where the Scarlet Witch or the Wasp mentions that Cap teaches all members of the Avengers at least the basics of self defense.

 

I recall an Avengers comic where it was snowing and Jan was freezing. The Beast offered to let her use his fur coat but he couldn't seem to find the zipper.

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, zslane said:

 

Right. And I already explained how this would be handled with a combination of role playing and dice rolling. You keep wanting to ignore the details of what I write and characterize my position as being at the extreme end of the spectrum just so you can argue against it. Please stop that.

 

Here is what you actually wrote I have added some bolding for emphasis):

 

On 10/30/2018 at 11:20 AM, zslane said:

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.

 

If they are  not even allowed to make the Presence Attack, then their success is dictated exclusively by your satisfaction with their role playing, as they will not be permitted to engage in any dice rolling.

 

20 hours ago, zslane said:

We'll have to agree to disagree there. Unleashing a flame bolt is impossible to role play out at the table; it can only be represented through dice rolls. A persuasion attempt against a guard, however, can be role played out in its entirety, and therefore the GM has far more latitude to let the player's "role playing performance" influence the dice roll (or obviate it entirely).

 

The elimination of the dice roll again results in success dictated exclusively by your satisfaction with their role playing. 
 

Our 8 PRE, no social skills character gets to success because his player gave a "role playing performance" you liked - no die roll, so the lack of any character abilities had no impact.  Meanwhile, you did not like the role playing of the player whose character has a 50 PRE, so that player does not get to use the character's abilities in which points were invested.

 

Reviewing your comments above, it feels like you are ignoring (or, more likely, forgetting) the details of what you wrote.  Perhaps you would care to elaborate on what you actually meant.

[Brian Stanfield]

On 10/31/2018 at 7:40 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

Doc Strange?  He had martial arts because he had trained in them at the same time he trained in the Mystic Arts - but it had never come up before.  Your dismissal of his xp spend as "downright ridiculous" feels like you deciding for the player what his character's backstory really is.  Funny... you were OK letting Wolverine away with his "sudden" addition of some Japanese connections in his backstory.

 

Fair enough. It has already been pointed out a couple times that I misunderstood Doc’s background. It makes sense given his origin. I made a judgment where I shouldn’t have.

 

But I will still maintain that if any character suddenly showed up with expert martial arts training (which takes years, not weeks of training) I would find it downright ridiculous. There really ought to be some constraint on what is possible, agreed upon by everyone at session 0 before gameplay even begins. 

[Lucius]

 

I wonder if this is another of those conversations in which people feel, metaphorically speaking, as if they are at opposite ends of a football field, when actually they're within arms reach of each other in a small room.

 

That is to say, regardless of how people are expressing their positions, in actual practice I suspect you're all closer to one another than you realize.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And a reifier of palindromedaries

[Christopher]

23 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Then tell players not to bother with social skills.  Take PRE out of the game entirely.  This will be adjudicated based on player skill, rather than character skill.  If Player 1 invests 50 more points in combat abilities than Player 2, he should be commensurately more skilled in combat.  If Player 2 spent the extra 50 points on social skills, he should be commensurately more skilled in social situations.  Otherwise, the player investing in social skills feels ripped off - and that feeling is not unjustified. 

 

If a player spends 50 points on anything, and I as GM let him spend those 50 points, then the onus is on me to make that 50 point spend valuable, on a comparable level to what any other player spent their 50 points on.

That. Either make them cost 0 from the begin with, or later delare it cost 0, freeing up a  ton of points for the player. It is the right of the GM to give out 0-cost powers (like the Justice League Communicators). Social skills are just a more extreme example. Or change the cost on any skill to 0 points.

 

Doing so does have it's perk for the GM btw.:  If you hand out a 0-point power, you can also always disable it at any point without much explanation.

Everyone in a superheroic campaign might have 0-point Mobile Phones. But so do all Villains have a 0-point Mobile Phone jammer that prevents them being used against them (unelss the GM wants to drive home how dumb the Villain is).

If something cost points, you are somewhat resposible to onyl deprive a player of it with a proper build (that is part of the whole opposition calculation).

[Scott Ruggels]

I ended up despising those "Low mechanics" systems like  Fudge, Fate, and the rest.  Even with a GM I liked running them, I was supremely unsatisfied.   When Killer Shrike popped up with GNS Theory, My ears perked as I was on rec.arts.frp.advocacy and watched and participated in the philosophical brawl in those old USENET days. As i said before, I came out of war gaming into RPG's, and  haven't left it entirely behind (WW2 Re-enacting leads to Postscriptum, and dabbling in Arma). I came to love role playing, and making up the characters personalities. However, I did not leave my love of tactics and mechanics behind.
For me Hero was/is the perfect system for what I want, because the tactics make sense, within the mechanics, and Role play gave context for the fights.

 

My disagreement above is the Role play snobbery, in that enforcing  personalities to be equal to the players. I do not know about you, but I did not game with theater majors.  Games like FATE prioritize that thinking, often at the expense of plausibility, and the Theater Majors tend to dominate the session. (Now I like role playing with theater majors and actors, but in the circles I gamed it, they were not common, except at conventions, also high crunch systems tended to curb their excesses.) Also those games did not have tactical problems to solve. Solutions tended to be what is seen in movies and TV, rather than reflecting the situation on the ground.

 

The other problem, is that you have to play with the people that brung ya.  The hobby, I will say, does attract it's share of the socially inept. In a number of cases also the handicapped. What I want to see if the game, is not so much great acting, but engagement. If that engagement is because someone who is not  a good fit for a hard Boiled detective, has that as one of his fantasies, then YES I will let him roll what is on the sheet,  even if it's  "I roll my intimidation". Now there may not be any bonuses unless they elaborate, but I am willing to allow a roll to determine the  outcome. But engagement, and not reading, or checking their phone, is what I am after for good players at the table.  Role play can be learned, tactics can be learned, but to learn takes basic engagement. Enforcing a table house rule of only allowing characters who's personality matches the players, sounds limiting, and , well kinda mean. 

[Duke Bushido]

14 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 

 

My disagreement above is the Role play snobbery, in that enforcing  personalities to be equal to the players.

 

Gotta agree with ya, Scott.  Actually, I gotta go to bed, but before that, I _do_ agree with you.  Except for the "snobbery" comment.  I don't think it's snobbery; I think it's an attempt to sort of "help" a player create a character he can successfully role-play.  However, I think it's more hurtful than helpful and I think it's counter to the game itself. 

 

I think it's hurtful because it's making a player choose between hanging with his friends and being unsatisfied, or doing something else without the company of his friends.  I know what it's like to repeatedly sacrifice your personal satisfaction for the company of your friends: I did it every time I sat down to play D&D.  And I know what the results were, too, in the long run: I don't play D&D anymore.  Most of those friends still do.  Some of them I haven't seen in a number of years.  

 

I also think the rules of the game-- the mechanics that I generally refer to as being _second_, after the drama-- already allow for this situation.  The Skills section exists almost _exactly_ because this is not just a problem for a few people, but a problem for _everyone_.  There may actually _be_ a master detective somewhere on this board.  

 

But he ain't me!  I can promise you that.  Computer programming?  FEH--!  My personal "computer programming" skills amount to "Hey!  Here's a program!  Let's use it!"  Unless the Apple IIe or the C-64 make some kind of stunning and unforeseen return to the computing scene, it's probably going to stay that way.

 

Yet my character, the master detective, not only figured out just where Mr. X's hidden office is, he picked the lock on the door and let himself in (something which I personally couldn't do unless you count a brick as a lock pick), decrypted the security, and copied everything on the hard drive.  Then he wiped out all traces of his mucking about in the computer, locked the door behind him, and stealthed on down the alley, avoiding the hidden cameras as easily as he did on the way in.

 

Okay, so those aren't _exactly_ personality, but we have Seduction, Oratory, Presence, Comeliness (I do, anyway, as does Cassandra.  The rest of you all look like department store mannequins unless you want good looks to complicate your life.  feh!), High Society-- we have all these ways to help me simulate the social skills I lack.  It doesn't seem right that you can play a character who can fly and bounce bullets from your chest when there is no way you have the slightest idea what the feels like (armored veterans who have survived direct hits excepted, of course, on at least one of those counts) or what effect it has on you and your personality, yet I can't roll those same dice to be a little better at schmoozing than I am in the real world?  The place where I thought it involved an actual Schmoo?

 

It's not snobbery, I don't think, but I do think it's wrong, because I think it is unjust and penalizes a buddy that just wants to hang with his friends.  i mean, if he wasn't on good terms with you, you wouldn't have offered him a chair to begin with, right?

 

I also don't think it's inherently mean.  I just think it's a bit misguided.

 

 

But what do I know?   I'm a sleep-deprived zombie who _won't_ be going to bed because his wife just called and left her lunch here.  

 

Good night, All.

 

Duke

 

[Scott Ruggels]

Good lord, Duke... You type fast. XD.

[Duke Bushido]

Data entry is but one of the various mindless things I do to feed my family.  I love me a good keyboard.  Hate touch screens like I'm on now (waiting for the wife's food.  She'd left her lunch on the counter; it's too late to cook, but I wasn't trusting something left out that long, you know?) 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

On 11/1/2018 at 8:18 PM, Brian Stanfield said:

But I will still maintain that if any character suddenly showed up with expert martial arts training (which takes years, not weeks of training) I would find it downright ridiculous. There really ought to be some constraint on what is possible, agreed upon by everyone at session 0 before gameplay even begins. 

 

How far does this extend?  Every VIPER agent has martial arts - did the cannon fodder all have years of martial arts training?  Martial maneuvers can be simulated with a few combat skill levels.  How many game years are required to buy a skill level?  How many years do you think Tony Stark spent undertaking grueling training from Captain America?  What can xp be spent on in the short term?

[Scott Ruggels]

I think in our campaigns back in the early 80’s all of our heroes bought martial arts with XP eventually, especially after encounters with high speed/ high dex martial arts villains. Can’t use that shiny energy blast when you are face down on the concrete. It eventually became part of the super team package deal. 

[archer]

On 10/31/2018 at 10:44 AM, Greywind said:

Dr. Strange also learned at least one martial art while he was studying under the Ancient One. A need for the unification of mind, body, and spirit.

 

Strange has also receives continuing training in the martial arts from Wong. One of the quotes from the comics is Strange saying about Wong, "In some areas he's my servant, in others, my master".

[Duke Bushido]

On 11/1/2018 at 1:15 PM, zslane said:

 

Right. And I already explained how this would be handled with a combination of role playing and dice rolling.

 

This.  This is, as Lucius has already pointed out, most likely where we _all_ are, to one degree or another. 

 

Now we make mountains out of perceived extremes when the differences are very small: someone mentions something for the sake of discussion, and someone else takes it as an extreme.  Pointing out "here is something important to me" just isn't the same as stating "this is the most important thing there is, period.". In truth, to some degree or other, it's most likely important to all of us (except Comeliness.  Evidently there's a good chunk of us who think good looks can only exist as a problem. I have a joke hypothesis as to why this might be, but this isnt the time or the place) 

 

What I don't understand is why we can't see that we are all not only pretty close to each other, but act as though there is some way to make us all agree on not just the order of importance, but on some unattainable mathematical absolute value of importance for each detail. 

 

It's not going to happen.  We can't even agree on which assigned values of the mathematically-derived game system elements are correct or more important. 

 

We can't even agree on which version of the game is most ideal! 

 

I'm still using a rulebook published almost forty years ago.  Cassandra is using one of the two prior to the current book.  Joe is using the one from the ICE age.   We all have our reasons, and debate, discussion, or outright browbeating isn't going to alter in any way the reasons behind our decision.  Fine: it's nice to know you think I'm a backwards fool or a hipster God or just a little odd or cool or whatever. 

 

But the fact that someone thinks a certain thing a out my decision isn't going to change the facts that lead me to that decision. 

 

And that's where we are here: we are quibbling over what, when this thread is read objectively, seem to be differences more minor than our style of dress.

 

Here's one:

 

In one of my wedding photos, my pocket knife can be clearly seen hanging off of my pocket. 

 

What sort of abject pagan freak does that make me? 

 

It doesn't.  It makes me a guy who has had a pocket knife on him every single day since his grandfather gave him his first one for his eight birthday, and after spending the 50-idd hours before his wedding wide-awake making final preparations didn't notice that life-long habit made him grab his pocket knife on the way out the door. 

 

Now the picture where my tape measure is evident, that might mean something.  Have fun with it. 

 

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

How far does this extend?  Every VIPER agent has martial arts - did the cannon fodder all have years of martial arts training?  

 

This needs to stop.  I mean like universally, all over the board.  Maybe it's because there has been a special book for martial arts over half the generations of the game.  Maybe it's because MA has always had a special bit tossed in, what with "access to the special maneuvers table" and some firm of supplemental damage and extra not-getting-hittedness; I don't know. 

 

Maybe it's the wild and exciting movies; who knows. 

 

Martial Arts does not mean some secret ancient technique of physical mastery and blending soul and spirit and universe into the art of inhaling up one nostril and down the other. 

 

Martial Arts is a mechanic.  It is one of many, many options that the system offers to the player that can be used to simulate "really good at fighting."  For my money, it's not even the best method of saying that, but it had one Hell of a following.

 

You don't need a mystic master and a secret school and forty years of training.  How can I say that?! 

 

Well there are boxers in their teens down at the local gym that I am pretty sure could kick my butt all up and down US1 if they wanted to.  There are nine year olds at all three of the local MA schools that I suspect could do the same. 

 

Did Viper agents go to ancient Asian fighting schools?  Are the capoeiristas giving lessons after door-smashing-down class?  If course not. 

 

It's quite possible-- likely even, that agent-level villains grew up fighting, and got good at it. 

 

I am not saying anything we don't all already agree to.  We've all said it ourselves at some point or other.  But every single time a discussion about learning it in-game or having it appear in "inappropriate" places comes up, we devolve straight back to Ninja legends and Tibetan monasteries. 

 

Ordinarily amusing, it's downright disgusting when it happens amongst people who all know better.  Is that harsh?  No.  It is not harsh, because when it happens amongst people who know better, it is straight-up evidence that it is being done _solely_ to create or continue a non-productive argument, and that is reprehensible. 

 

For the most part, I have very much enjoyed this conversation; i sincerely have.  But I think I'm going to drop out and go follow the wise sage on the double-barrelled camel for a while. 

 

Edited November 4, 2018 by Duke Bushido
Left off critical thanks for two important people

[Duke Bushido]

EDIT:

 

I want to make it clear before I leave this thread that I am _not_ shaking a finger at anyone in particular: we are all of us guilty of doing this thing, and we should all be ashamed that we can we get incensed toward our peers when we should be trying to work together.

 

The two individuals I quoted above I selected exclusively because my own brief history has shown them both to be exceptionally logical and thick-skinned, so I had reason to believe that they would both instinctively understand that they were not being targeted in any way. 

 

I thank them both for putting up with this.  Feel free to destroy me in absentia if I am wrong.  After all, I didn't ask first, so I probably deserve it. 

 

Duke

[Brian Stanfield]

5 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

How far does this extend?  Every VIPER agent has martial arts - did the cannon fodder all have years of martial arts training?  Martial maneuvers can be simulated with a few combat skill levels.  How many game years are required to buy a skill level?  How many years do you think Tony Stark spent undertaking grueling training from Captain America?  What can xp be spent on in the short term?

 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

This needs to stop.  I mean like universally, all over the board.  Maybe it's because there has been a special book for martial arts over half the generations of the game.  Maybe it's because MA has always had a special bit tossed in, what with "access to the special maneuvers table" and some firm of supplemental damage and extra not-getting-hittedness; I don't know. 

 

 

Thanks, Duke, if you see this, but I did bring this upon myself with a couple of bad examples. I deserve to be corrected. I will say, however, that I agree that my statement is taken to an extreme to make a valid point: the GM should not be the only arbiter of what the player chooses as he progresses and grows. But what is ignored, or perhaps not gleaned from my intended message, is that the players ought to make sense in how they choose their growth in a way consistent with their concept. I think we've all agreed on this. What that looks like is where we've diverged (but only minutely). 

 

So Hugh, I always respect your comments and admire your mastery of the complexities of HERO System. But I think you're unfairly dumping on me here. If I go back to my Martial Arts example, I'd say the VIPER agents have as their concept a good deal of combat training, martial arts, etc., and skill levels to match. If one of them suddenly showed up throwing fireball spells, I'd say that doesn't fit well and needs to be rationalized in some way to fit the campaign (training in a flamethrower? Fine explanation. Sudden magical gifts? Not so fine an explanation). Conversely, if I have a character who depends on a fire power Multipower suddenly shows up with 15 points of martial arts training, I'd insist on the XP expenditure have some kind of rationale behind it. Even Aaron Allston, who allowed major reworks of his players' characters mid-campaign, required that they at least explain why they suddenly changed their character conceptions (global catastrophe, radiation exposure, whatever). The number of XPs involved to create a totally new addition to the concept will take some time to collect, so it shouldn't be too hard to come up with some kind of explanation for the addition of new skills, etc. But I will still insist that there must be some kind of rationale. I think maybe that was my main point all along that got lost in the discussion (I equally lost sight of it, I think). The martial arts is just a simple, maybe-not-as-obvious-as-I-thught example of how players try to simply bulk up on something new just because. If everyone starts adding whatever they feel like, each player becomes less unique and they all begin to lose their niche in the group. 

 

So what does this have to do with the roleplaying part of the discussion?

17 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 

My disagreement above is the Role play snobbery, in that enforcing  personalities to be equal to the players. I do not know about you, but I did not game with theater majors.  Games like FATE prioritize that thinking, often at the expense of plausibility, and the Theater Majors tend to dominate the session. (Now I like role playing with theater majors and actors, but in the circles I gamed it, they were not common, except at conventions, also high crunch systems tended to curb their excesses.) Also those games did not have tactical problems to solve. Solutions tended to be what is seen in movies and TV, rather than reflecting the situation on the ground. 

 

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Yet my character, the master detective, not only figured out just where Mr. X's hidden office is, he picked the lock on the door and let himself in (something which I personally couldn't do unless you count a brick as a lock pick), decrypted the security, and copied everything on the hard drive.  Then he wiped out all traces of his mucking about in the computer, locked the door behind him, and stealthed on down the alley, avoiding the hidden cameras as easily as he did on the way in.

 

One part of the discussion to this point has been, "Should players be allowed to add/improve skills without actually using them? Should they be given bonuses for using them frequently?" The roleplaying portion of the argument grew out of this: "Do you have to roleplay the skills you want to add/improve?" I think that we all agree, nominally, that a successful RPG session is one in which everyone has fun. Part of this is using the character the ways one imagines the character might behave. GNS theory aside, this is going to vary from player to player and group to group. No skin off my nose. That's as it should be, and what makes HERO System so playable. But the GM must act as referee among individual, group, and campaign goals to keep things fair and playable.

 

But I will still stand my ground on this basic assumption: growth and change in the game ought to make good sense within the game. I used the examples of Wolverine, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange rather ham-fistedly, but my intended message remains the same: The rationale of the player's conception, in conjunction with his growth, is contextual in the same way that roleplaying and roll playing is. There should be a balance between these extremes, IMHO, and pushing a common-sense argument to it's extremes goes against the spirit of cooperation that I'm trying to express, however poorly I've done that.

 

Thanks all for your input on this thread. I always enjoy the theoretical discussions, even if my hypotheticals suck!