TheDarkness

I agree with you guys. I especially agree with the sentiment to put certain titles on the backburner for a time. In practice, I can only pretend they're doing that during the periods of bad writing. As for continuity, it is nice to find a comic with no ties to the others. Too often, some currently popular story, which also is obviously rehashed and hamhanded, has to involve EVERYONE and their Aunt May. In regards to the original JSA, I must confess, I love them so.

It all comes down to knowing your group. The group I played with also didn't really fuss much over a rational assessment of what their stats would be, so it worked. If it works for yours, then there's really no big concern. It's not like you're going to then reveal that one of them is Hydra agent. Or are you?

Except most TV dads don't always do the right thing. Especially for sitcoms, the genre is based on characters making mistakes which then lead to a resolution. Superman tends to do what most people would think is the right thing, which the writers too often make be the right thing. A reasonable amount of fallibility is often missing, which often makes the character a bit flat, imo.

I think the difference, for those examples, is that those were mostly plot changes, not changes in the characterization of a flagship character. Now, they did actually change the characterization of Bucky, but changing Bucky, who was gone for an extended period, is a lot different than changing Captain America, something they did change that actually stuck. Superman, they've had very little success in adding compelling changes to that became canon. Someone did make a great point about some comics where major characters had changes that stuck in the cases of comics like Flash and Wonder Woman because the comic previously had not been exactly vibrant in readership. I would say Miller's Daredevil is another example. Miller's Daredevil was really the first point in the comic where Daredevil became a character of his own, imo, and so it wasn't so much changes, as finally defined. And Miller's Bullseye, taking this kind of campy character and giving him real characterization, even if it was a psychotic hatred of Daredevil's mercy, made the whole thing more compelling. This is sort of the advantage of a certain era, where there were some comics that had established branding of their main characters, but, because they had always been written for little kids(Flash is a good example), there had been less emphasis on writing and characterization, so there was room to move, as it were. That is less true now. Now, the characters who have never had strong writing are from the grimdark era, and it poses different problems for the writers, especially since everyone and their brother is a tough loner. I mean, how many years can Wolverine be an X-Man and claim to be a loner? Actually, Wolverine is another good example of a character whose character doesn't really change. And the backstories they've added on to him don't help.

The advantage of the game I described above was that the stats for ourselves, which we could debate, but were not crazy out there(because we were well accustomed to the brutal honesty of a number of our friends), in the end did not matter. We were space marines fighting aliens in a sewer imagining(due to hallucinatory gas) that we were a group of twenty year olds in a basement fighting demons. When one of us was grabbing a stick in order to hit the demon, in reality it was a space marine grabbing whatever melee weapon he or she had, and the stats and damage, though we didn't know it, were based on the space marine stats. What was funny was that we, as space marines, were outgunning our foes, and so they were confused by our retreat deeper into the sewer(or, in our minds, out of the basement), and assumed it was a clever ruse on our part.

Oh, I totally agree on the source of the problem. I was just pointing out that Captain America had changes that are now canon in his personality and direction, mind you, those changes were still true to the character, and so work to a large extent, while this really has not worked with Superman. Superman seems square in relation to Captain America, which is actually pretty hard to achieve.

MCU Captain America is heavily influenced by the era of comics in which Captain America's character was altered in ways I would argue Superman writers have never been able to successfully alter Superman. Perez's Superman comes to mind, but far fewer of his alterations became permanent facets of the character, as compared with Captain America from the sixties to the eighties. And the fault often lies with readers, imo. Superman is simply not allowed to be changed. So the comics get around this by doing huge changes that everyone knows will be retconned out of existence in under a year. As an aside, Batman began as grimdark. He's been every iteration, from campy to golden age in character to family friendly and back and forth. Superman definitely had campy details in the stories, but that was largely because it was written for kids, his character really hasn't had that many permanent details added on that stuck, campy Superman and golden age and silver age and bronze age all present a remarkably similar character. I think part of the problem is also that he is a national symbol. But Captain America was, too, but the writers saw that it was unrealistic and extremely limiting to make him both a symbol of American ideals and a symbol of American authority, whatever authority that might be, whereas Superman writers have been largely unsuccessful in making a permanent change to the character that makes him a symbol of the ideals, but willing to involve himself in choosing whether the authority ought to have his services. This is not to say that there are not stories of him doing so, but that these have not stuck in the general viewer's idea of his character, and so, Doctor Manhattan before being manipulated into leaving Earth is the perfect depiction of the pitfalls of that characterization. This is not my critique of what Superman is when well written, but what he always seems to default back to afterwards.

Played a game of 40k role play years ago. We were a unit fighting tyrannids. Anyway, one day, the GM decided to turn it into a bit of a pick up game. It started as a firefight in the sewers. A grenade went off near us, and we were enveloped in smoke. Next thing he said was, everyone was themselves, in the room we were in, and there were demons all around. We acted as we would, some running, some making escape possible(mind you, we had three martial artists and one former SEAL in the group). We were a bit confused for a bit, but ended up getting into it. After a few rounds of this, we were space marines again. Turns out it had been a hallucinatory gas grenade. As for granularity and difference between the characters, I think it is sometimes good to get in situations that remind us that the system is in service to the play, not the other way around. Suddenly finding yourself not a unique butterfly often can lead to unique choices as players.

What sort of things would be in the fire magic framework? Also, when you say you cannot link to or out of the framework, does this mean you cannot do naked advantages? If so, this could be problematic for martial arts, as various manuevers are based off of strength, though I may be misunderstanding. EDIT: I have since found the answer to that last question, as +10 STR is not a naked advantage, merely a stat as a power.

Part of the problem is that if, decade after decade of comics, Superman is always what he is, it becomes a bit stale for most. Kind of the problem with stories without ends.

I find wish fulfillment to often become ugly without the need for deconstruction. That said, the darkness of Watchmen(the comic) was extremely well done and had a point. In the end, the grimdark of many comic book movies is more akin to Spawn(the comic or the movie), more about the style of the darkness, but empty of anything else.

Bringing your comment to the front, because I think it's a good place to start. I'll start. Broadly speaking, MPPs allow a number of powers, set from game to game, that can be used, to some extent at the same time. VPP gives a broad range of powers that can change from game to game. Both give a fairly strong discount. Stronger than I suspect the pool we are talking about should get, otherwise you can buy the whole skill catalog for 1 pt. per skill. For martial arts, this could also prevent some munchkin tendencies. For example, using the counterpunch I discussed earlier in the thread, where it was a triggered event. If the discount is not too large, then it will be cost prohibitive to try to make a counterpunch that is too good. If the pool works like others, where there are points in reserve to cover the APs of any use, then the cost of those reserves will quickly rise just to cover that one counterpunch.

Christopher Taylor nailed it. The martial arts costs in the table you are talking about are a patch over the existing system, they cannot really be used to design things as freely as the overall game system allows in everything else. They also limit martial arts to only that which is included in them, and that particular interpretation of martial arts and how it should play out in the larger system. The counterpunch is an example I have used a number of times. The counterpunch is defined the way it is because that is how it is written in the rules. However, something much closer to an actual counterpunch is perfectly possible outside of the martial arts frameworks, but totally impossible inside it, because it lacks Hero's ability to make what you imagine. My avoidance of using the existing frameworks is that there is solid reason not to allow naked advantages and skills in the existing frameworks, because at least the former could easily lead to abuse. However, if a framework existed specifically for exactly those two things, built in a way that did not create the same abuses, then this would be helpful not just for the martial artist, but for a number of other character types and uses. I will admit to currently being stumped on how to build it. Out of curiosity, I know magic came up in reference to the use for such a framework, not having played the fantasy version, what sort of things are needed for such a framework that would aid magic? As far as martial arts is concerned, really a framework that did not allow powers, was largely dedicated to added STR. naked advantages, penalties, CSLs/OCV and DCV bonuses, and allowed no naked advantages to powers, would suffice. For eye pokes, one could simply buy flash outside of the framework. But for magic, I'm not sure what is called for.

On the southpaw thing: for boxing, the main issue is that fighting against a southpaw basically takes away the role of the lead hand jab, which is to open up the opponent for attacks, because the position of a southpaw versus an orthodox boxer means that the angle of a lead jab to the face is, barring setup, closed for business. For fencing, for much the same reason, it makes defense against the most easily struck angle into something that requires setup. But that angle is also closed for the southpaw. I would say one needs a skill, fighting southpaws. The southpaw shouldn't have an innate advantage, because, if they are dealing with someone who knows how to fight southpaws, there really is no advantage on either person's part. A skill deals with this most simply and accurately, imo. Don't have the skill, then face the penalty.

That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification!

I was working under the erroneous assumption that to build upon them, we would need a clear idea of their costs to determine active points on any further builds. That's probably not the case. Alright, I'm on the same page. Now we just make a framework model, easy peesy.

Yeah, thinking about it now, the stat alteration for the free moves makes more sense. I think I was thinking about the martial maneuvers/paid maneuvers, where it would start getting costly to buy DCV and OCV for each move, versus buying CSLs that could be shifted from move to move as needed. Why the 'counts as attack action' portion? Isn't it a defense?

So, bear with me, but if I understand it, CSLs can only be assigned once per phase. Assume no free maneuvers. Everything is happening under CSLs I have bought. 1) Let's say that, at the beginning of a phase, I assign my only three CSLs to OCV, then part way through the phase I am forced to abort to dodge, can I still do this, since it would require assigning them twice in one phase? 2) Let's say I abort to dodge, but have a triggered counterstrike that the dodge triggers. If the trigger involves putting my three CSLs to OCV after the dodge put them to DCV, will that happen, even though I have already assigned the CSLs in that phase? The reason I ask is the answer determines the number of CSLs needed to build the current martial arts stats. If, in one or both of the above examples, it is not allowed, that means that more CSLs are needed, if both are answered yes, then shared CSLs would suffice.

So, if the cost of maneuvers is whatever additions they have over their closest free maneuver cousins, the simplest ones to determine are: martial block requires 4 CSLs martial disarm requires 2 CSLs and +10 STR martial dodge requires 2 CSLs Martial Grab requires 1 CSL and +10 STR Martial Strike requires 4 CSLs Defensive Strike requires 4 CSLs

Looking over the rules, block is a seriously tough build. It's defensive, so it can be aborted to. But, the whole forcing an OCV vs. OCV test. And making it determine the initiative of the next round. The test could be triggered, I suppose. How do you build something that gives you initiative the next phase, if and only if both people have actions in that phase? This is making me think I was mistaken before. The free maneuvers, which are the base of most other maneuvers, perhaps should be seen as rules as is. Builds that improve them pay for improvements, nothing more. Something like that. Maybe...

I generally find in any game system, gaming the system requires gaming the GM. Hero is highly flexible, to keep that flexibility, there is a trade off. I think one of the things that often happens is a system assumes you will use its range. Playing Champions, if there are no mentalists, certain character types may seem more powerful than they would seem if they were suddenly puppets to the limits of their own build. I think the difficulty, with Hero, is how often builds can mask the active points involved in them. Plus hard to see special effects of certain builds.

I think the main thing is granularity. The basic maneuvers are good and necessary as is, in regards to play. In regards to their cost structure and the martial arts maneuvers, I think the system works, but prevents the same granularity that the rest of Hero benefits from. That said, block is a tricky one, now that you mention it.

So dodge Dodge ½ phase — +3 DCV Dodge all attacks, Abort Cost wise, it's pretty simple: 3 CSLs. The abort does not need to be represented, because abort rules define any defensive action as something you can abort to. So the CSLs represent the main cost. I don't know if how long an action takes(1 phase, 1/2 phase) in Hero is figured into cost, or is just a default to the type of action, so I'm not figuring that in. If 3 small group CSLs(because specific CSLs cannot apply to DCV), then 9 pts. If +3 DCV, then 15 points If all HTH, then 24 points If all combat, then 30 points Forgive me if my numbers are off. Now, we would assume that a martial artist would more likely find one of the above more useful than the others, likely the all HTH CSLs, since martial dodge will not be the only maneuver they wish to use CSLs with, and not all the maneuvers will be defensive. This would put martial dodge at 40 points(or 16 points, if we assume the basic free dodge is a giveaway that we can build on). But, since it doesn't exist outside a framework, this cost only represents the maneuver as is, not how a martial artist would incorporate the build. Of course, for a number of maneuvers, simply having the CSLs can fully represent the maneuver, but not nearly all. I'm starting to wonder if one basis for a pool for a framework should be the cost of the skill levels involved, with another perhaps being the maximum number of skill levels that can be used at one time. Thinking out loud again. Then, the discount would be at the level of the advantaged and disadvantaged uses of stats and skills.

You're correct. I probably didn't word that well. Unless dodge costs what three CSLs for the dodge costs, the price might be problematic for builds off of dodge(martial dodge, for instance), at least for our purposes. I just think we need to avoid arbitrarily assigning values(or grandfathering in old values) if they don't fit or if they actually represent some form of discount. I'm talking about the cost structure of the maneuver, not the maneuver. I was planning on doing some builds of basic maneuvers, I'll see if I can make myself clearer.

This thread has just gone to a dark, dark place...