tesuji

Re: if you don't want your xp, I'll take it. RE the shared xp approach As others have said it depends on the group but it also depends on the GM. While Luke is built on more pts than hansolo, and the plot revolves around luke, that doesn't mean han gets a lot of sitting around time. The idea would be, do you as Gm provide enough "you are the key player right now" monments for each character, regardless of points, for the game to be fun? in a superfriends game, every lengthy scene "should" provide challenges for both supes and hawkman, even though supes might be catching a mountainous sized meteor while hawkman is saving people off a burning bridge. Supes paid more for his "catch a meteor" level strength than hawks did for his "can carry people while flying" but that doesn't mean supes should get more screen time. A potential risk there is the following: if players realize "the amount of points i spent on stuff does NOT affect how much screen time i get, how much "key to the scene time" i get or "how much fun i get" they might ask the obvious question - "so why did we have to do all this math anyway?" The philosophical underpinning of HERO system is "more points earns or is derived from more effectiveness" and thats effectiveness in actual play not some theoretical but never seen effectiveness. So once you as Gm show the players they have as much fun and are as important to the play and get as much screen time as everyone else REGARDLESS of points, you really start to undermine that core. A valid question is "if a character who is really good with compiters (cost maybe 30 cp) is just as vital and involved and on screen as the guy with "i fly and shoot laser beams and can pick up aircraft carriers" (cost maybe 150-200 cp) why do all the m,ath and not just have them write these down on their sheets without calculators and software involved in figuring up a total cost? What exactly is gained by figuring "total cost" in these circumstances? (figuring total cost != detailing abilities - you can say "i fly 20m per phase and it costs me this much end, etc" regardless of whether you put a price beside it or not) Before i would try a shared cp/XP or disparate levels Cp/Xp game, i would try a pointless game, where we never worry with cp/xp at all and just define our abilities to suit genre and whatever campaign benchmarks and reasonable evolution. if "how many Cp/Xp I have" isn't going to actually matter much to the players, why force that math on them at all? What is gained by it? regarding no xp gaming - done that. it works fine for a more discrete short term campaign, where say one major story is resolved then you move on. IMO.

Re: looking for some opinions on Focus and Power Frameworks. character 1 has two different focus lims while character c has one focus lim with more points in it. as a very basic starting point, that means character a loses rgem more often while c suffers more when his is lodt. out of 10 sessions, for instance, a would lose one of his foci 4 times - say two each - while c would lose his one foci twice. assuming all the powers were 60 ap, then a would have four sessions down 60 ap while c would be down 120 ap twice.

Re: More Complications, Please Guess i am not that subtle an individual. When you tell me definitioons change and text change, i usually can get that. But then you throw math into the mix and for me, subtlety and math don't mix well. math is math and math is precise and doesn't see "subtleties". Saying "you have 350 plus up to 50 more for comps" to me is the exact same thing as saying "you have 400 minus up to 50 if you dont have 50 comps." They are both identical ways of conveying the same mathematical formula and result in the same values. Sorry but absolutely NOTHING in the two ways of expressing it you described says one thing about either these being limited to "essential roleplaying hooks" or not being taken " to an increasingly absurd level" Those are both SUBJECTIVE judgements that apply to either way of phrasing the math equally well. It doesn't matter whether you are explaining the formula as "start at 400 then minus" or "start at 350 then plus" for whether this is an essential roleplying element (if you believe such exist) or whether its an absurd piling on. Now, certainly, maybe the fluff text and descriptions and explantion text of "what comps are for" etc all switch the focus away from "more points" to "essential" etc blah blah but the formula change does not. At least, not to me and not to any of my players who recall the associative law in math.

Re: help with "must follow grab" as an alternative you could buy the drain as a trigger power, apply the advantage, set to go off "when you squeeze for damage" and get both the squeeze damage and the drain at the same time. i haven't reread the combined attack rules tho to see if " i squeeze and i drain" is a valid combined attack.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear pretty much dead on on the contextual meaning. like many game related terms it has many different nuances. In my examples, the issue is this. The character is supposed to be a STAR of the "show" we call an rpg. he is ONE of the stars because there ar other PCs. he is appropriate for the genre and has a defined strength, emphasis or role within that genre. in this case the example is "combat fighter" but it could just as well be master thief or wizard. if i run scenes setup to deliberately REMOVE or NEUTER that strength, that focus, that emphasis while still having it be the role he plays, i am deprotagonizing him. You could also simply say i am stealing his fun. "the navy seal beaten up by a cook" may be funny, to everyone but the navy seal player who is suddenly doubting whether his character is worth anything. On the other hand "the navy seal has to baby sit a family he is protecting and deal with precocious 8 year olds running amok" will be funny likely to even him, is an actual "fish out of water" scene, and doesn't impune his character focus, doesn't take his "schtick" and spit on it. Now, in a PAY THE POINTS GAME, where the player has the CHOICE of "if i pay full cost for my armor i dont suffer "out of armor scenes often enough to matter" or "if i take focus and reduce the cost I must accept out of armor scenes frequently enough to matter" that choice lies with the player and i as Gm feel no qualm whatsoever in having the guy who chose the focus lim suffer the XONSEQUENCES. in a "free equipment game" where the character made no such choice, thats another story and it comes down to genre more than anything else. In many" higher fantasy or even some dark fantasy the "nuts and bolts" of wearing armor and carrying weapons almost never if at all factors into the story. Its not normally a strong element of the genre. So if a player playing in a free equipment game chooses the concept of armored fighter then in my view it is OUT OF GENRE and inappropriate to impose these consequences often enough to matter, or in a situation serious enough to matter. For hero purists - assume when i cost out the equipment builds in such a genre assume i did not apply focus lims. Sure that raises the cp cost but hey, its free equipment, so what? this is a "match the genre" design issue. Just because its a suit of regular armor does NOT mean it has to be built with the focus lim. Whether it gets the focus lim is determined by whether or not those penalties will be applicable and reasonable within the setting. So, its really not "make him pay the cponsequences of focus" because I, the GM, did not assume focus as a lim onthe build. to be blunt - in how many scenes in excalibur was the knight caught outside of his armor and suffering on account of it? So, to me at least, I dont like the results i often see when i script scenes to "show the drawbacks" for in genre decisions that apply directly to the character's strengths. it tends to diminish the players enjoyment and thats not my goal. i find much better results when his weaknesses are played up, not when his strengths are pissed on.

Re: Point Cost for Double Knockback on STR? the +1.2 is applied to the ACTIVE POINTS just like all other advantages. if i add +1.2 0 end to a 12d6 ev (60 ap) i pay 30 pts for it. total cost 90 If i add +1/2 super punch to 60 ap of strength, it costs 30.

Re: More Complications, Please Some other games, like amber, take it even further giving more points for things like "i the player will keep a campaign diary" or "i will bring snacks" and so forth. In my experience, handing mechanical character advantages does not help get people to do these things or enjoy these things (whether evocative backstory or bringing donuts), and if its not something the player wants to do then putting him at a disadvantage in play is rather offputting to many and IMX counterproductive. My goal as Gm is to have everyone have a good time and be treated rather evenly and fairly, not to pick one guy and say "i like you and what you do so you get bonuses to your character" and another "i dont like what you do or that you aren't doing these other things so you dont". an evocative backstory is great, if its one you the player want explored in game. But an eviocative backstory you put together "to avoid penalty" or "to please me" that you aren't really into, serves neither you nor me. false dichotomy - the lack of an extensive list of comps locking in character behavior isn't the same as meaning anything and everything is possible - the old dnd chaotic neutral misconception. A "normal guy" isn't likely much at all to choose "waste them with crossbow" except in extremely unusual circumstance. A pc with the same mindset is just as predictable as a normal guy. he might well choose "waste them with a crossbow" in a scene where vampires are killing his friends and coworkers but likely not when the line at the atm is moving slowly. The lack of having "i dont kill people for taking too long at the atm" being written down and assigned points doesn't mean its something you the gm have to plan for. And again, for me as gm, i do like some level of uncertainty. My having to react to player/character decisions is part of the fun for me. if i was running a game where everyone nailed down their personalities so much that I knew what they would do in most if not even all circumstances, it could become rather dull for me, to an extent. and in some of my games, the players are ones who like to develop those kinds of character aspects more IN PLAY rather than as pre-play conceptions. Their character concepts often evolve during play quite a bit as they - the player - seem more hands on about the setting and the genre being reflected in this particular instance. They identify what interests them and move to accomodate it. A more liberal example of this is what i tend to call "on the fly" development. in these style games - often used to emulate Tv series where you are shown a little bit about the main character each episode and you find out new backstory and new traits as you "watch the episodes". his "lost brother" isn't mentioned until episode 12 and up until then you had no idea he had such. Or, in episode 9 he reveals he is actually good at hacking, usually tieing in with a new backstory element that plays a role in this scenario. in these types of games, chargen is ongoing as the game progresses. in HERo terms, imagine if you had 300 pts to spend but could opt to only spend 200 of it, and "spend" the rest literally during a scenario on the fly as long as you whipped out a backstory tie-in sufficient to explain it. "Actually, when i spent a summer in vietnam working for Docs without borders after graduation i picked up the language and met Dr Nguen so i might be able to get us in to meet him in spite of the security." Another example i have seen in play, in a game where traits were rated by dice not scores, you got a varied list of "this many d4s and this many d6s and so forth and had to assgn at least half of them in chargen including a certain number of the highest and lowest but the rest could be assigned on the fly in play with the backstory element requirement. Again - certainly - i provide a detailed evocative backstory that identifies to a large extent how my character will react in a wide range of circumstances and what his goals are" etc... is ONE WAY of generating enjoyable play. But IMX with players who want more "put me in interesting and unusual dramatic events and let me figure out how i will react" or "my story is really just beginning to get interesting now" forward focused characters, there is no less fun or no less emjoyment or no less role playing to be had. because of that, given not everyone likes pastrami, even though i do, i don't find it serves me to hand out mechanical bonuses to either ONE of those groups. Asd a GM i can handle and produce enjoyable games for both types equally well. The backward guy provides me with a lot of info which i NEED to bring into play. Thats good in one respect - i have predeveloped stories for him. But its bad in another - those stories can limit where i go if for no other reason than spending time on them takes away time from other stuff. The forward guy doesn't provide me with canned material but also leave me a wide open canvas to work in stuff i want to use. i prefer both, matter of fact, i like having BOTH in the same campaign. if everyone has their own unique backstory for me to work into as major plot elements frequently, i usually have very little time for "other cool stuff i know they will like but isn't backstory related". it gets crowded with all that baggage. On the other hand, if a few characters are the blanker canvas, they provide a significant element of "gm playground" to handle things. they provide more flexibility for me. IMX at least. i wouldn't be thrilled to have a campaign of ALL blank canvas types, all forward driven, nor would i like a game where everyone had their own unique evocative backstory and baggage to be resolved. So i don't se benefit in having my sysstem mechanics provide bonuses to only one of those groups over another. i prefer a mixture and so i prefer the system to treat them evenly.

Re: More Complications, Please

Re: More Complications, Please

Re: More Complications, Please note the "when she came after me" when the demon tried to kill her, she stopped it. more or less a normal reaction. well within the realm of "what a normal person would do" had the situations allowed flight, say she had figured it out in time, she might have chosen that. her "reaction wasn't necessarily limited, she had both fight or flight options within the scope of her personality, like most everyone does, were she limited by personality to "choose fight even when it isn't reasonable" or "choose flight even when other options prevail" she would be different from "most people" and deserve a comp, but by definition "does what most people might do," and makes reasonable decisions based on circumstances" aren't comps. in this case, story wise, it meant kill it in self defense. in other circumstances, it would mean the other options perhaps. you seem to want her to have a significant bias, but her makeup, like most people i know, would allow for imprison if that were possible and reasonable, kill if that were, strip of demonic powers - curing her friend - if that were possible, etc. In other words she could have chosen a variety of options depending on circumstances. like most normal people do every day. thats a reaction to the circumstances that occured during that story, derived from her ordeal. had she just suddenly woke up with "magic powers" she could have chosen "get rich" or maybe "get famous" or maybe "impress the local football star" depending on what struck the young teenage fancy that day. much like almost every other teenager. you seem confused. i said the character whose story starts AFTERWARDS has comps, she is a backstory driven character. we agree that "post demon chick" has comps. my point was "pre-demon chick" doesn't. yet both stories are good ones, worthy of rpg and there seems to me no reason that other characters similarly "not backstory driven" characters should be told "you mmust be weaker" well, see, thqat may be indeed a limitation you have, but gms have run games for characters without detailed psyche write ups for over 3 decades. i myself run for both back-driven and forward driven characters in my games all the time. and you know what, as gm and as a player, it is sometimes fun to not know "which way will he go" and be surprised as you discover a new facet to the character. in fact, over the decades, i have seen it quite common for some players to be of the opinion - i find out who he is more in play" and they have lots of fun with that, as opposed to mapping out his personality in detail before dice ever hits te table. like i said - nothing wrong with backward facing characters and their stories, but also nothing wrong with forward ones either. certainly not enough to warrant an accounting difference of significant magnitude. imo and some players dont want to define that. they dont mind figuring it out as they go along or they dont mind and even prefer to be more reactive to whats happening, having "the interestiong events that shape this character" happen at the table, not in some backstory fiction. i just haven't seen in play that either one deserves or earns or needs a significant mechanical edge over the other due to this. i haven't seen games improved by such. what i have seen is when there IS a solid mechanical differenc eenforced by the system, ittends to drive a number of bad results, at times. some players are "driven" to try and gamethat mechanics, taking comps/disads that seem "less trouble than their points" some feel driven to take comps in order to feel "equall" to the other. i see far fewer "forward drien" characters, where they have few or even no comps and are ltting the upcoming story be their drivibng forces, because they dont seem to be treated fairly by the system i also tend to see less "evolution" in disads because to change one involves accoubnting stages - whether finding new comps to replace the old ones or spending xp to buy them off. its not "wow, that was agreat reolution to that story" but also "so now i gotta find more comps" things written down and calculated into the chargen and build are less likely to change as readily as things not, imx. but basically, lack of personalit defining comps is not the equivalent of say old school dnd "chaotic neutral" misdefinition by some players t mean "i do anything, anytime" its just means "not different from most people. for instance, there are comps for "casual killer" and comps for "code vs killing" but not a comp for "wouldn't normally kill but might in the right circumstances. lack of a oomp doesn't mean "might kill an infnt for no reason one day and respect the right to live of a drug dealer the next" any more than you would expect that of a normal person. in the case of most of the behavior comps, there is a wide rnge of "normal - no comp" in netween the various "will do this" and "wont do this" comps. if a gm believes "acts like anormal person" is worth 50+ points of comp, then his average guy templates must be quite potent with those extra points. :-)

Re: More Complications, Please this is one place we tend to differ. i see there being two basic types of character, at extremes, story driven ones, and many levels of the inbetween. one type is the high comp guy whose story started well before now and he has a lot of background issues to deal with. a lot of his future story is resolving or working thru stuff already defined in his past. this type of character may be more typical of more modern comic types, for instance, where highly flawed personalities in addition to dealing with the villains, have to muddle through sometimes soap operatic personal issues. i tend to refer to this as the backward fcing character because the gm tends to spawn much f the storylines from that character's background. another type is the opposite. his background rarelt plays a role. he is dealing with the NEW problems. otherwise he is fairly normal. a lot of "normal guy thrown into abnormal situations" can run this way. but basically, the story lines are based on all new stuff, not linked to his backstory. EXAMPLE of the former -" i was a regular teenage high school irls until this evil band kidnapped my best friend for satanic sacrifice but they botched it so she came back as a half demon and tried to kill people but when i found out what was up she came after me and i stopped her but not before getting demon blood in me so now i am hunting down the evil band and using my partial demon powers to hunt and kill other dark monsters" losta comps, lotsa baggage, lotsa room for the gm to spawn stories derived from her past. Example of the latter - that same character just before that horrific series of events happened. her story is basically just getting interesting. both sets of events make for good story and provide meaty roleplaying fodder but have radically different levels of comps - unless "like a normal person" is a comp" equivalent to "demon infected, hunting evil band, etc. in a super vein, games more akin to superfriends or some older less complicated comics would be more along this. the stories are about the hero and whats happening now and soon, not their past catching up to them. remember, comps are not "what i am" but "things about me that play a role and have an impact on the story" their frequency is "how often it matters in play". two guys can both have a total commitment fear of snakes, but one is not a comp because it isn't something the players wants to be a part of the story and another have it be worth points because he wants it to be a regular problem. two ndifferent characters can both be stunned by green meteor rocks but again, one doesn't count as a comp because green meteor rocks shouldnt appear in the campaign while for another it is because it will occur and matter. my players tend to split. some go more with a lot of backstory and lot of unresolved issues. others tend to design "normal guy with powers" and rely on me to involve them not by dint of their scripted backstory but by providing them interesting stuff, introducing them to their new "drives". one hands me events and aspects to script in, to work in - the other leaves me a blank canvas to work with. neither is better for my game than the other. neither is worse. neither produces better rpg events. they both work and produce fun and interesting stories and games. so neither need to recieve a mechanical bonus, imo, img, etc. i mean, frankly, i dont see a story or rpg difference between one character who "fell in love two weeks before the campaign starts" and gets a 20 pt comp for "loves someone who will be threatened in the campaign" and another character who "falls in love session two with an npc i introduce and who tries to save her when threatened" that warrants the former getting 20 cp more stun and body to play with, because he reached 100 comps while the other guy only reached 80 and so was docked 20 cp for not having matching disads. if both players enjoy their plotlines and both plotlines are interesting, why the mechanical bonuses?

Re: More Complications, Please first a couple of things. IMX seeing same players in variousbsystems, some that used disads/comp as free points up front, some that use them as in play bonuses such as passions in ars magica and as spawners of hero points in fate, mnm, and some that simply dont make them a part of the system mechanics at all. (yes dnd for instance or traveller) again watching same players... i got the best overall effect of comps etc from the latter - non-system. the players still wrote in things like "hunting murderer of father" and "hates orcs" etc all the significant story elements they wanted. there was just "for fun" aspect to them, no mechanics or points needed. my players do NOT need an accounting system to spur them to make their characters interesting and story worthy. also, with these things entirely off the books, they were free to evolve and resolve those issues in play with no need to find other compensating ones or do accounting. i never had a player under such systems apply a disad/comp they actually did not want to occur in play. the other two methods i cannot say that about. the second best was the middle - in play bonuses" since it let them evolve but there was still some cases where the players worked in things "for the points" but these were rare. finally the worst of the lot with extensive play was the upfront points. i saw lots of cases where stff added was just for the points and where the player looked for "easy but high pointed" disads. it encouraged gaming the system. thats our experience. a question tonothers. do you feel your players NEED to have a points reward, or in 6e terms an avoidance of reducing their points, in order to add story worthy in genre elements to their character? if not why not have comps be free all 0 pts, and simply let them define them for the ones they like? lucios - would making all comps/disads 0 pt resolve your dilemma? here i get into a quandry. would you also allow thepc who took 10 body damage to temporarily get those points to spend until he heals? if there is any mechnical aspect or chargen aspect involved i am reluctant to let the definition be any variation of - what i am about to do now" if a villain angers the character in play can he swap off a disad for "angry at so and so" until he calms down? whether these are free off the books, in play bonuses, or up front points, i like them to represent not short term spur of the moment things but long term serious elements of the character story. evolve/resolve - sure. but "hey shes cute gimme points" = nah, not for me.

Re: More Complications, Please

Re: Combined Attack vs. Multiple Attack in a superheroic level game, where you py points for weapons, the difference is huge combined attack - you have to pay cp for both attacks. multiple attack - pay once and use tha attack multiple times in a phase. Now in heroics, where weapons are free it gets a little more effective but you still have targetting issues. In my games, i MIGHT consider just dropping combined attacks as general available and rely on multiple attack, with an exception for truly combined attacks like say a sword with poison blade - combined attack -rka and dependent nnd.

Re: [How to Build] Shotgun area of damage so, a question: are you okay hunkey dorey with this "shoot thru 25 mob to hit target on the other side" when we are taking rifles, pistols, autofire smg, etc? what about lasers or firebolts? should i be able to throw a bolt of flame thru the 25 mob and hit those on the other side? what if i am spreading the attack to hit two guys in the same hex? or are you going to apply some fix for all of them individually. not going to bother to look up the "cover" or whatever hero calls it rules for hero, but it seems to me that if you need this level of "genre emulation" then that is a system rule not a build rule. its a broad fix not a item by item build fix. not everything should be handled by build. sometimes you need to make the core rules adapt to the genre. put in some rules where you say "for direct fire weapons, objects and people in the line of fire can be hit instead of the target." and define the specifics. this btw will also affect the notion of people down range from your target. after all, if there are 25 mob behind your targets and you miss the targets, or even if you hit, some of the mob might be hit. if i were going to define it with a build, i would start by using LINE AOE possibly as an explosion style loss of damage as it goes further. after all, your basic issue with shotguns is that between barrel and target there is a danger zone and those in the wa can be hurt. that sounds more like line aoe than other options. so i would start there. but again, i think its not a build issue but a case of system rules not reflecting genre.