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

The other aspect of complications that I love is the slight change in terminology. You now have 400 points, but lose 50 points if you don't have complications, rather than a 350 character who gains 50 from complications.

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.

It's a subtle difference, but it reflects the fact that complications are rewarding you for essential roleplaying hooks, not a way of gaining extra points by layering difficulties to an increasingly absurd level.

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

I'm guessing:

protagonist=the hero

deprotagonize=the act of making the hero less of a hero.

 

at least that's what I'm taking from the context.

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?

Howdy. I am ashamed to admit it' date=' but I'm having a hard time figuring out how the point costs were calculated in the 6th Edition book for [u']Double Knockback -- Mega Punching (p. 334).[/u]

 

Mega Punching: Double KB (+1/2) on 60 STR (30 points)

 

Base 10 STR costs 0 points.

Going to 60 STR costs 50 points (for 60 Active Points)

 

How does applying the naked +1/2 to 60 STR get to 30 points of real cost? I have to be missing something obvious.

 

(And if I have a 20 STR character, how much would the Double KB cost?)

 

Thanks in advance.

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

Just like GMs who offer additional base points for a detailed and evocative backstory, the points garnered from Complications are a "thank you for making GMing easier" offering. Someone who puts down Hunted: Foxbat 8- is telling me they want an occasional injection of wacky into the game. Someone who puts down DNPC: Mother 8- is telling me they want their character's mother to occasionally chime in and that that relationship is a defining aspect of the character. I, for one, appreciate the inspiration.

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.

As a GM, if I don't know which way you are likely to go then I have to design every path possible. If "Waste 'em with my crossbow" is a sporadically used solution by my players then I have to design my game to compensate for randomly dying NPCs, plot threads being cut down in their prime. The suspension of disbelief can't support the weight of groups of anarchists, loners and sociopaths.

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.

Some are able to stay true to their own concept without actually codifying that on a sheet. Absolutely. In most of my games my players don't even have a character sheet in front of them, although I have one on file along with a copy of their backstory, because it's more hinderance than aid. But there is a character sheet somewhere, with Complications on it, and before the game starts I have an idea of what the character won't, will and might do.

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

This is a decent idea on the surface' date=' but the issue is that noone would have any reason to take anything but the minimum level of the Complication (ie 8- Hunteds, Psyc Comps at Moderate etc). Having even a small point minimum for Complications will sometimes make a player decide to take complications that are at a higher point value than the minimum.[/quote']

 

if ou add "other than the fact that its what they want as their character's story and would have fun with it" after "would not have any reason to take anything but the minimum level" then i agree completely with the statement.

 

why is it good for a player to take a comp at ahigher level for any reason other than "i think this will be fun at this level"?

 

and if he does think "this will be fun at this higher level" why does he need to have bonus points for it over the guy who said "it will be fun at this lower level"?

 

both players identified what would be fun for them in the game. they reached different decision, which is fine, right, we want different decisions, but one gets fewer points t buy his character with? why?

 

if i am happiest with "my character never kills" and tom is happiest with "my character tries to avoid killing but ometimes he does so" and we have communicated that to the gm well, why does tom get one less cv level worth than i do?

 

if i say " i want my evil vrother to show up and try and kill me frequently as part of my story" and tom says "i want my ex=partner psycho witch to show up and try and get me to fall back in love with her but only once in a while, rarely" = one being a serious hunted with medium to high frequency and the other bei ng more a "lower threat" hunted occuring rarely - and you as gm give us both what we want -why does one of us deserve less oc v or body or stun?

Re: More Complications, Please

I'm thinking that next time I run a Hero game' date=' I might tell the players, "Just take the 3-5 complications that you really want to have an affect on your character, in-story. Don't worry about points. If you want to anguish about whether or not to kill that villain with the high body count who just keeps coming back, then give yourself a CvK. If you want the Yellow Hobgoblin to make your life miserable, then give yourself a Hunted. Other things, like personality traits or people in your family that you don't really want to play a major role in the game, just mention in your character background and call it good."[/quote']

 

 

as a player in such game, i would love it.

 

imx whether there is a mechanical benefit or not, the players who prefer scripting out some background elements to drive their characters story - will do so.

they dont do it less when 'it aint points up front"

similarly, the players not intersted in such, who want a front driven story, dont do it "more" when it is points. dont get me wrong, most of them find a way to put comps down on paper and get their points, but it was never "i hope this happens to me" as much as it was "well i gotta put something down or get less points."

making them write in the back elements that dont interest them, having those elements play a role - did not make the game more fun for them.

 

in short -

if it something the player wants, he doesn't need points to do it.

if its something he didn't want and would not have done except for the points, having it come up in play DOESNT make him have more fun, usually less, because its not something he wanted.

Re: More Complications, Please

]Sure, except why would this character stop their best friend rather than run for the hills from a murdering half-demon,

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.

does "stop" mean for this character incarcerate, rehabilitate or two to the head

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.

and what drives this regular high school girl to use her soon-to-be-acquired demon powers to fight for justice rather than get rich?

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.

Sounds like more than 50 pts of Complications just answering those questions, then you have demon-based drawbacks in addition.

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"

 

I couldn't write and run a fun game for a character that didn't answer these questions. I wouldn't know or even have a hint at what way they would turn when confronted with a plot twist.

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

Complications aren't penalties or handcuffs or some kind of quid pro quo to wring more cps out of the GM; they are how you tell the GM this is the kind of angst and drama I want the character to experience in the game.

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

50 pts of Complications barely counts as a hint of a character. Not even a character sketch. I can't think of a single lead character in any halfway decent piece of fiction that has such minimal personality hooks. I can think of lots of characters that jot down "Not Rules, Guidelines, PTSD and Violet Eyes" and think that counts as fleshed out. How can you even get such a cypher involved? Or anticipate their actions? How do you plan your game?

If your players weren't seriously considering getting less than the potential amount of Disadvantages before, IMO, you weren't getting your points worth out of them. My initial group back in the BBB day were 270, 295 and 320.

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?

I'm perfectly willing, in many cases to let a player choose "complications" during play. "Oh that sexy villainess we just met, she is so going to be my character's romantic interest."

 

When the rules get in the way of the game, they become the problem, not the solution.

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

Lucius' date=' I'm going to have to disagree with that idea. If the GM says 200+100, you get a 300 point character, no matter how many extra Complications/Disads you think are appropriate for the character.[/quote']

 

would you also agree with...

the GM says 200+100, you get a 300 point character, no matter how many FEWER Complications/Disads you think are appropriate for the character

 

if not, and if complications in play have an actual impact on the character, why only cut one way?

 

if i already have the cap in comps and i add "vulnerable to fire attack common 2xstun and 2xbody for 0 pts, i am not going to be anywhere as near effective as the same character with only the cap in comps. thats 5e stats btw.

 

so how is anything served game wise by "preferring" me to take that comp at 0 pts?

Re: Combined Attack vs. Multiple Attack

Would a Combined Attack with a sword and a gun incur penalties for off-hand use unless the character had Ambidexterity?

 

As a design issue, doesn't a Combined Attack seem extremely effective? Why do anything else?

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

 

i really don't like the "AoE 1 hex" rule of Dark Champions 'cause with that i can shoot 2 or more guys at 10 meters without hitting the 25 mob at 5 meters from me

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.

Re: More Complications, Please

While this is true' date=' any Complication is going to have an effect on game play (especially Hunted, Physical Complication, and Vulnerability) and so should have a point value. Otherwise we're a step back toward playing a points-free, rules-free "make-believe" game. (Not that there's anything at all wrong with that; it's just not what HERO is for.)[/quote']

 

not what hero is for?

 

i see a logic problem here.

 

off the top of my head hero 4, 5 and 6 have all supported and had in their basic rules for chargen the explicit option if alloowing or maybe even recommending 0 pt disads/comps for more comp beyonf the caps - whether its the total comp cap or the lower per category cap.

 

thats conservatively the last 25 years of hero.

 

might be in 3rd or 2nd but i am not gonna go digging on my shelf.

 

so for over two decades the core rules for chargen in hero have explicitly stated it and i have seen many people on this very board, often when the complaint about disads was "players take them because of the points" extolling how frequently players take 0 pt disads.

 

net result, there seems to be a disconnect between your logic going from:

taking 0pt disads heads to free form make believe leads t not what hero is for.

 

now maybe the disconnect is that 0 pt disads does not lead into free form make believe

or maybe its that free form make believe is not what hero is for

or maybe both.

 

but when 2.5 decades of hero core rules embrace someting, a logic that starts with that and ends with not what hero is for is flawed.

 

heck, almost everything else about comps/disads has evolved quite a bit during that 25 years while that aspect - take 0 pt comps once you exceed cap - has remained constant. so singling the consistent element as the part thats somehow not hero is very odd to me.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

Why not? The fish out of water that overcomes the adversity is a classic trope of fiction.

where we seem to be disconnectting is i dont see those examples as fish out of water at all. they are fish IN WATER and yet still drowning.

they are taking the character's strength, his focus, his schtick, deliberately hobbling it, and forcing him to then answer a challenge in that theme.

its taking what he was intended to be good at and spitting on it and still asking him to perform.

he did not play a computer guy to have to handle simple computer tasks, regardless of whether he is hurt or not.

I dont believe in neutering the character at his strength.

that imo tends to annoy and deprotagonize more than it spotlights his heroism.

imx

when i do fish out of water, i do fish out of water.

the warrior gets put into a situation where he has to cook something

the computer guys gets put in a fight.

remember die hard?

did john mclean wind up injured taking easy kill shots to highlight that he was hurt but still able to shoot as well as an untrianed grandma?

no, even hurt at the end he was faced with a difficult challenge with low ammo and wife threatened needing quick snapshot one shot kills.

meanwhile it was funny when the limo driver punched the compiter geek.

in one game i ran in, the party combat guy cut through a kitchen and "for fun" the gm had him beaten up and knocked uncomscious by the irate chef. she did not think twice about having his focus be basically shat upon.

out of water scenarios are great, often humorous and dont squat onto the character's focus, the player's vision.

but hobbbling his strength and then providing easy enough "challenges" isn't imo an out of water scenario.

i prefer to let the character shine in his strength, excel in his focus and overcome difficult challenges and be awesome in those areas and play out of water with his weaknesses, using them for unusual and funny, not his main theme.

a difference in styles, but imx the more you as gm degrade the character's main focus the less enjoyment the player tends to get, tho others sometimes take extreme joy in seeing them "taken down a peg".

in hero terms - i let him use what he pays a lot for to its utmost and exploit his complications or areas he did not pay for for the "out of water" challenges.

to me that seems reasonable and fair.

but my way is certainly not to everyone's taste.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

This is worth saying again.

 

 

I tend to prefer the lower magic settings, and even when I run D&D, I tend to do it with the idea that all the weirdness going on is the exception rather than the rule, and the PCs are just fated to be there when it happens. Hence, I prefer the idea that you don't tool around town in a heavy sweatbox.

 

On the other hand, whenever I do decide to go with a high magic setting, the PCs are doing such outrageous feats of derring-do that they are known wherever they go as saviors of the kingdom. Hence, no one thinks anything wrong (and probably count themselves lucky) when they see them in their full armored, beweaponed glory.

 

In either case, if the players thought they needed to set a guard on their stuff, basically sidelining one of themselves for the night, I would make sure that anything particularly interesting that session would happen in the inn rather than out in the town.

yes but if someone walking thru a fantasy street and not causing an uproarexplodes suspension of disbelief all on its own, i shudder to nthink what "every time we leave a pc guard stuff happens" will do the SoD.

we handle it more simply... i as gm dont ask the players to sweat over town inventory vs adventure inventory and i dont make those items an important or relevent part of the story. the whole "did you take off your armor or not" is simply not an issue we waste/spend time on. nor is "do we leave our stuff"

i dont blind the computer guy and set him into a computer programming challeng scenaria combat challenge.

i dont hobble the speedster and put him in a race challenge.

i dont force the player character into incompetence and then challenge them in that area.

nor do i strip the weapons guy of his weapons and then throw him into a combat challenge

side note - unless he pays me to do so by taking complications or lims that save him points for just that outcome - in which case he has told me "make this a part of the story".

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

I think that another aspect of this conversation is the assumption that because "we" are making the players stow their gear that "we" are going to automatically "screw them over" whether that is attacking them with overwhelming force while they're "naked" or steal their lewtz.

 

In all honesty that is a terribly false assumption. In my 30 years of GMing, I have only once actually stolen anything from a PC and that was because the item was a MacGuffin as it was.

actually the assumption i a making is much simpler.

if the gm is making this an element that FTF game time is spent on as in do we hire a guard or leave someone here to watch our stuff or amking the players adjust inventory in game to show different "looks" for "city stuff" than for "adventuring stuff" then that same exact gm IS ABSOLUTELY going to make it play a role, likely a significant one. now where you came up with "overwhelming force" as a premise i dont know.

if the gm doesn't make it play a role, a noticeable one or maybe a significant one, then he is screwing the players by making them waste valuable ftf game time or prep time or both on inventory management issues that are not going to play a role.

in my games this rarely occurs, hasnt in a long time. we dont waste time on it.

in similar vein, if the plots lead them to need to take a boat across the straits, then unless they are going to have an eventful boyage, one wherestuff happens, we dont bother much if at all with the "meet the captain, meet the crew, day to day on boat roll for seasickness

' stuff.

if you want your game to spotlight these things, thats great.

but movies and stories have cut scenes for a purpose... to keep the focus on the important and fun stuff. we prefer those pacings, especially since as we get older gaming sessions shorten.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

Tesuji, you quote my posts and then use them out of context.

 

snip...

You seem to be arguing as if this is a black & white situation when it clearly isn't. Not a single one of my players would say I was screwing them and I highly doubt any of Markdocs would either. Yourself and your players likely would, but that's because you are playing a different style of campaign.

actually you are correct on several counts.

i did cite your quote out of context - to put CONTEXT first and foremost in the spotlight.

the context of the game sets the "reasonable" and thwe "strange"

note the post above where someone points out that if the town isn't safe enough to leave your stuff you should be wearing it. that doesn't speak of magic at all, merely how safe an area you are in, which seems to raise even in non-magic setting the notion of the "common sense" of leaving guard while you go about town.

so, if the town isn't safe enough to leave stuff alone in hotel room with you the owner hiring or providing on site security, why would i as a reasonable person think it safe to walk around myself without protection? are the streets somehow safer than the inns?

but the next comment is very much on point.

see i responded because it seemed the "shouldnt be able to walk around in plate and sword " crowd was expressing this as a black and white issue.

the references to "m16 on main street" or how "common sense" this wa isn't at all one iota putting forth a warm fluffy shade of gray everyvody is right nobody is wrong vibe, is it?

it comes across as if the players wanting to walk around in plate aren't playing smart or want - what was the line - to do whatever they want?

do whatever they want...

its just common sense...

expecting to walk down mainstreet with m16...

beyonf suspension of disbelief...

none of these phrasings and others like them are leaving me with this warm fuzzy "not a case of black and white"

as for me ad my players and what we like, normally we dont make our games focus on equipment that much over characters so little to no time is spent on the more traditional inventory management side of frpgs. so spending time having characters get into and out of armor and tracking what weapons they are carrying right now as opposed to later is rarely plot elements we worry over. the idea os spending valable face to face time going into detail over whether your armor is on or you have your secondary leathers and whether you have your dagger or your sword and the corresponding time spent on the player trying to save time by developing "adventure inventory" and "town inventory" lists is just not what we are at the table for.

we have done it in the past but the bookkeeping seemed to not add to the story or enjoyment.

we dont tend to run low to no magic fantas more along the lines of black company or dread empire or the series with chess title whose name escapes me or even the classic myths. we also tend to focus on action oriented games for fantasy as opposed to courtly intrigue, so not a lot of time is spent in "shopping" and so forth.

not sure myself if the myth of perseus or achilles would have been better if it spent time on what he wore in the cities as opposed to when out and getting into trouble.

so its less, in spite of protestations to the contrary, "they want to walk around town carrying m16" than its "we dont want to waste our valuable ftf gaming time doing silly inventory crap so the gm can throw "unarmed city stuff at us" when thats really not going to be part of the story we came to play in?

yeah yeah people can protest all they want that the gm isn't going to "screw" them and he wont be taking dvantage by throwing stuff at them while unprotected or wont be stealing their stuff etc...

but if ou aren't gonna make it play a role in the scenes anyway, why spend game time working with it at all?

.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

FYI i haven't seen player sitting at the inn guarding the stuff either, but then I have never had anyone suggest thats that is reasonable for the setting either.

Don't like leaving your stuff in an inn by itself? Leave someone to guard it or hire a guard.

he did note hire a guard as another option but the reference still stands. also in a strange town (you are strangers, right) finding someone to trust... an issue.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

In my seven years of RPG experience I have never seen one PC babysit gear while the others go and have fun. That's just bad GMing, unless that one PC really really wants to sit and do nothing.

 

Gaming is a lot about the willing suspension of disbelief. With a decent enough explanation, I can buy that forces beyond my understanding can reanimate a corpse. Some things, however, are just so ingrained in our understanding of basic human behavior that I can't buy the deviation. Personally, if I see a group of strangers armed to the teeth walking down the street, my first instinct will be to contact the guards.

 

*shrug*

and if a group of skin ny strangers with no apparant weapons walked down the same street (in a world where a mage can throw fireballs or call lightning from the sky) what would you do then?

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

Has anyone here ever GMed a game for a PC sat as a guard of 'stuff' while the other PCs went of and had an adventure?

 

I never have in 20 odd years GMing. Dragons only fly cos they're inherently magical in nature. Stone statues only walk if a magician animates it. A zombie only only rises again by magic.

 

Magic doesn't explain away why a normal villager would blink away a strange soldiers dressed for war strolling up and down the main street. And certainly doesn't explain why the local law would ignore it.

One of the earlier posts referenced how much sense it made for pc to leave someone to guard their stuff at the inn while they were out.

The key element in your description is the word STRANGE...

In a world of dragons and walking dead and magicians throwing fireballs and flying carpets and teleporting parties and golems and what not - exactly how strange is a man walking around armed? or in armor?

Why of all the things fantastic happening all around are the peasants even hardly noticing the guy in armor with a sword and the local law getting their panties in a bunch?

ANSWER - because in a setting based on our non-fantastic historical models that might make sense and we definitely ought to enforce that since the similarites between our historical non-magical no-dragons no mages no-fireballs setting and one with all those things have to be great, right?

if wearibng armor and using a sword is going to get me jacked and pimp slapped and mean i spend a lot of time underequipped but being a mage means i always have my spells in case there is trouble - give me a mage.

or maybe the tow requires EVERYONE wear gesture hindering gloves because by common sense you dont want potential fireball throwing guys just walking around unmolested?

Certainly not if you want to be consistent with roughing up and causing trouble for a sword, right?

its just common sense.

oh and how do we check every stranger to make sure he isn't a shapeshifter who can transform into a bestie much more dangerous than a sword guy?

its just common sense, right?

to me there is a disconnect between a seriously fantastic setting and imposing "historical setting common sense" on an easy group to pick on. it also flies in the face of most of the genre.

you dont have to follow genre.

you dont even have to have your setting rules make sense.

but when you then start tossing "its common sense" and so forth as justification, you bring the setting reference into question.

should a peasant give an armed figure a wide berth or handle with care? Sure. just like if he saw a snake or a bear or other freqently encountered dangerous setting element.

should he go ape#$%^ and call in the local gendarmes when he sees an armored warrior when the guy over there with no armor and skinny to boot who just rode in might be able to incinerate everyone within a block with a few words and a gesture?

its just common sense.

Re: battle Wear vs. Town Wear

It's exactly how I've been running things for decades (even when I ran D&D) and I really haven't seen any problems' date=' or had players complain or leave. It's funny: the idea of people taking calmly to heavily-armed unknown warriors strolling into their town and wandering about armed to the teeth is ... well, so odd, to put it politely ... that I simply couldn't take a game like that seriously. Doesn't mean I wouldn't play, of course I [b']have[/b] played games like that. But I never have been able to take them seriously.

 

It comes down to common sense, in the end: towns and cities exist as long as order is able to be maintained in them. If it isn't, people leave or die and the town becomes a fun ruin to be explored. If the local rulers are not able to enforce order - and that includes telling wandering gangs of armed strangers that they will put their stuff away and behave - then either they get replaced by people who can or the area drops into anarchy. "Having fun" doesn't have to mean "Can do whatever you like".

 

cheers, Mark

by the same token "common sense" and "realism" being extolled as virtues in a world with m,agic and dragons and zombies seems a bit on the "so why do we choose this particular aspect to i9nflict common sense on again and not all these others???"

i mean "common sense" tells me a multiton lizard with wings that size cannot fly.

Common sense tells me a stone statue cannot move, much less attack me.

common sense tells me dead dont rise up and try and eat the living.

but all those are fine and acceptable but "i walk down to the inn past the assassins guild wearing my aromr" triggers the common sense police to start "making the player's life difficult"?!?!

Someone mentioned "well just leave one of you behind sitting at the inn to guard your stuff" or somesuch which is fine and dandy except for... thats a PLAYER sitting alone in a hotel room to PREVENT anything happening, which might suit the common sense police fine, but they aren't the guy sitting in the corner watching everyone else play the friggin game he showed up expecting to play too.

Now, sure, the gm can have stuff happen, have robbers show up frequently etc, which really enforces the whole "towns exist as long as they protect" theme doesn't it?

If you have bad stuff happen that often in the inn, that starts to strain the common sense too, doesn't it?

There are a lot of things that "make sense" but don't necessarily fit into a good play experience for "a half dozen people gathered at Joe's place Sunday afternoon" even if they are realistic or in genre.

But it all boils down to shared expectations and satisfactions between players and gms. If the players enjoy the "one guy left as guard" and "selective common sense enforcement" then thats great. Heck, even if they tolerate these "sidebars" because the rest of the game is so good, thats fine too.

For me as a GM, I would never expect one of my players to sit "guarding our stuff" while the rest of the players went off to "do stuff in town" in the name of "common sense". My players are there to play, not watch the rest play, and while the obvious occasions where they split up and do different things cause brief periods of this, thats a wholly different animal than guard duty. So i would not set up the world in the genre i am running to make this be necessary.

I just find players have more fun when doing something more than sitting and waiting in case something happens, so i don't make that kind of thing a significant element in my games.

But i percieve a belief that players "dont get it" when the issues of "leave your stuff at the in n and walk around without your gear" comes up and I believe it is NOT a case of "we wanna do whatever we want" as much as its a player-based "i am here to play, not sit and watch."

Heck, i know if i showed up for a fantasy rpg for my first run and the gm setup the scenario such that i got to sit on guard duty in our room at the inn while everyone else went out into the town and did stuff for the session - I likely would not be back for a second session. I mean, really, i can sit and not do stuff at home and have all my snacks and be able to watch my dvr shows etc a lot easier than i can get over to joe's to sit and watch them play while I sit waiting for nothing to happen.

maybe if the Gm showed up for a session and the players told him "you sit in that chair and we will oet you know when you get to do something" and they pulled out a card game or board game and played it for an hour os so while he sat, he might rethink the whole notion of "how much sense it makes to leave someone behind to guard our stuff."

Re: Heroic v. superheroic genres and the use of powers

A lot of combt tricks would be built as powers or as naked advantages.

A "superkick" martial arts attack might be written up as an HA with double knockback or just a naked advantage on so many dice of attack.

A rope master might use "entangle" with limitations to make a "more effective than grab" maneuver

Flashes, NNDs,

a thief might buy clinging or even invisibility(limited to crowded circumstances)

none of these magic or anything more than " he is really really good at this" kind of abilities.