zornwil

Re: The cranky thread Well, I just finished some work...that took a bit longer than expected. And I don't think it was the best stuff I've done, but for having received little instruction, little guidance, having managers with competing goals, and then having some deadlines pushed way up...well, none of that should be an excuse and it isn't, but on the other hand I just can't feel all that bad about it.

Re: Superhero Images I like it, it seems like one of the works that imparts more of the sense of the character. Does he have those antennae-sort of things in secret ID (if he has/had a secret ID)?

Re: Mental Powers Hey, lay off the Ferengi, they're cool!

Re: Mental Powers

Re: Mental Powers Depends on SFX. These are exactly the questions one asks the player. Thankfully, the rules do not go into this level of detail, for which I am grateful as I wouldn't want it dictated. Okay, thx. It is consistent with the ES rules, for right or wrong. I suggest it is at least partially wrong, and as to your latter paragraph I therefore naturally don't deal with these issues. Nothing, I misread your point... I'm unclear...I was pointing out that your examples cited where in other places of the system they may have broken things cited as broken with CoM. If that is true, it simply condemns those parts of the system and is irrelevant to whether CoM is good or bad (except as to where those parts of the system establish a specific preexisting mechanic that CoM is relating to). Well, you don't have to be swayed by it, this may be an issue where we have a core difference. First and foremost, I think you might be ignoring that I have agreed that there is often an improper handling of these real-world requirements as manifested in the system. But there is another difference here, and I am saying it is an important consideration and I sene you are saying that it is not, and that difference is that these attempts to model real world situations are necessary and as such these system inadequacies are necessary evils; if they are flawed due to various constrictions/restraints in HERO, these may be truly necessary evils and not fixable. If they roughly approximate the desired effect or at least allow people to do so, then it may "have" to be acceptable and if not one has to find another system. But CoM does not fall into the class of something that has been required, at least to my way of thinking. You may not be swayed because you consider that there is no systemic necessity to reflect real-world situations as you've indicated so you see a direct parallel to CoM; I do see a systemic necessity so I see cause for divergence.

Re: Mental Powers Hope you don't mind me chiming in yours and Hugh's exchange...just a couple points, heavily snipped original post: Until the problem statement is clear - and beyond Machines it is not - that is not an issue. All that needs to be identified is that the existing methodologies are adequate and that this subsystem lends little to that. There is no burden to prove a better way, only a burden, for those supporting the rule, to prove that it solves some particular problem and a burden on those opposed to prove that it has no special, compelling advantage over existing methods. If it has only a marginal advantage, I would say back to the drawing board as it introduces a whole new system paradigm. Yes, but this is handled in a straight-forward manner by simply ensuring the SFX are understood. Is it based on the character's belief of whether the target is female, or the target's belief, or biological factors? That is simply the normal part of the character definition process, and as others have stated is still necessary with CoM, so what is CoM really buying aside from resolving the situation with machines with no EGO?

Re: Mental Powers It discourages one from saying that, and that to me is enough of a cause for immediate criticism. Page 567: "However, changing the rules can be dangerous. One of the key concepts underlying the HERO System is that of game balance. The HERO System has been designed so that the cost of things, and the rules applicable to them, are reasonable balanced. ... One [game element of same cost] may be better than another in a given situation, but overall the usefulness should balance out." Emphases NOT mine, they are from the book. While naturally there is encouragement to adapt and modify as needed, all rules changes, particularly those affecting cost, need to bear this (reasonable) comment in mind. Given that the codification is made of Alien/Animal/Human, the strong suggestion is that there is a related game balance issue that this resolves "overall". For those unfamiliar with prior editions of HERO, this becomes a more gripping concern from lack of prior system familiarity. As stated CoM is therefore a disservice to future generations.

Re: Mental Powers Similarly, I'm just trying to explain so at least we agree to disagree on the correct foundation, so bear with me equally... First, I do understand your point, I think, in that one can still quite readily declare SFX and then, essentially, matrix that against the CoM and/or adjust the CoM accordingly... (right?) Second, what I am trying to say, is that it is in fact a degree of SFX by indicating that CoM exists...it presupposes a bit as to how mental powers work generally in that they "should" "more or less" (explanation on chosen quotes in a moment) work. I say "should" because, after all, it is a rule now as to CoM, and this indicates that like types of mind work along the lines (adjustable, granted) of Human, Animal, Alien as a dichotomy (I'm leaving out Machine only because we all seem to universally agree as to this being a useful part of the CoM construct). Where they do not, it is aberrant from the standard definition (not saying aberrant is bad, just that it is). So, literally, I believe the system is indicating a "should" as to the fundamental workings of mental powers, which is an SFX under-pinning, just as ED/PD is an SFX under-pinning to all physical attack manifestations. I put "more or less" in quotes because, again, this is a rather literal view of the rules, as they suggest that the GM may change these classes, but in the absence of much more information or rationale, there leaves a strong suggestion that change really is something to be thought about carefully and therefore the existing classes are somehow sound. Given that I don't see whatsoever a rationale to presuppose that in an overwhelming number of settings across all genra or as critical to even the most basic gameplay in significant genra (which is where I would place the bar for inclusion in the core rules) that the SFX of mental powers manifest along these lines, I see this as an unfair intrusion of SFX. I.E., SFX = any information on how a power or talent or such manifests in actual game-play for the character, and this construct does presuppose something about that manifestation, and, notably, something deeper merely than organic vs inorganic targets. This is not an attempt to change your mind, but merely to be clear what I mean by this bearing on SFX (whether or not that is appropriate, but I tried to explain a bit further as to why I do not see it as appropriate in this case).

Re: The cranky thread

Re: The cranky thread Ugh, sorry about that. Can you cancel your contract somehow? Maybe complain to them that they shouldn't have done it without your permission? Can BD make up some good-sounding legal mumbo-jumbo for you to scare them with? Phone companies are bad about this - believe it or not, until we put an official "block" on it, apparently our long distance service could be changed by ANYONE calling and giving our number, as in fact happened to us. Isn't that unbelievable? But true, at least with Quest. Now that we have a block, they know that we don't want to let just anyone change our long distance service (since, after all, why would you NOT want just anybody in the world to do that... ).

Re: Mentalist Conundrum PS and a separate note, but I was just noting the Champions II rules on "mental combat maneuvers", that might be of interest for you to revisit - I don't think it solves what you're referring to, but might be of help with ideas.

Re: Mentalist Conundrum Great point, I should add I do something similar, when people indicate what effect they're shooting for, I judge the level of course (as normaly done), and the degree to which they make that level is the degree of success and the degree to which the target is buying it. So if a Mind Control is "kill your teammate" (with better elaboration, ideally, of course) and, as one would expect, one is extremely opposed but the level reached is, say, within 1 level of effect, I would typically say, "Your teammate (x) looks like he's about to strike an innocent (if that were applicable to the details of the Mind Control), you better stop him!" which results in an attack but not a "kill" mentality. Or it might simply be an indecisive moment and a phase is wasted. That sort of thing. For 2 levels short I'd probably just let it fail outright, since it's such an extreme command, but if the right level of richness and nuance were presented then some sort of effect might occur, if it makes sense in the situation. Sorry, can't think of a non-abstract example, but I hope that communicates the idea.

Re: The Last Word Tommy gun! You can be a hero in an age of none! - the Clash

Re: The Last Word Is this Last Word or the Random thread?

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want? Oh...teaches me to speak up about CU matters I don't know about! Sorry!

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want?

Re: Mentalist Conundrum I haven't had problems, either, as players cooperate and play the genre or to a level of balance. I brought it up though because every GM does have to decide about sort of level at which they prefer it to function, much like people generally do Rule of X or other sorts of things to balance the physical world of combat.

Re: Mental Powers Specifically, re mental powers, I think the only requirement was/is to fix how mental powers can affect automotons and the like when they affect EGO. Otherwise I think there was no cause to do anything. Generally, I expect the system to use as few subsystems and mechanics "as possible", and what does exist should be conformed as much as possible, so as to assure learnability and reuse.

Re: Mental Powers I don't want the book to declare a level of detail that is setting-specific. And because it has now been begged by the book, we now get into where one's setting-specific details clash with the approach. It may be well-valid for you to discuss that the current ES rules are adrift from actual game-play too much, the only reason I haven't gotten into that level of detail is that we're discussing these concepts at a high level and we're discussing this particular concept (CoM) in detail, so naturally the conversation turns to "how do we use CoM". Out of curiousity, what are you referring to in that last sentence? To me, the rationale is simple. We have mental powers and thus a related Sense as we have well-developed Sense Rules, all of which relate to real- and any non-real game mechanics. There are no Mystic or Chi or Temporal mechanics in the game. If they exists, we would need related Senses. Because SS is consistent, at least, with existing mechanics and introduces nothing new and divergent. No EGO. That's a simple mechanical issue. The lack of EGO reflects the lack of willpower of non-sentient machines. A rule with costing implications is a declaration of balance concern de facto. Otherwise there would be no costs involved. Hence you are now, as a good GM, "encouraged" at the least to consider that somehow there "must" be an issue. In fact the Design Considerations state that balance is something to be concerned with when recosting/changing things - and that is entirely a reasonable statement. I agree as to the way SFX are implemented in Martial Arts. The consideration/reason given for embedding them is their real-world basis; no such consideration/reason exists for CoM. But I don't disagree that there should be a more elegant way to handle the various consequences and SFX of martial arts maneuvers. There's some good material in UMA but not in the core book. But there is a real-world problem in this regard - maneuvers (martial arts or not) have a variety of real-world consequences which need to be reflected. So however we do it, we do have to address those. I think Shape Shift needs to be changed, and I don't disagree with the series of issues here. But at least the fundamental build involves no system changes, so it passes through a different type of scrutiny. Rather than divert this thread into being about Shape Shift, suffice to say if there's the same issues with SS, then it would need to be fixed as well, but I think there are different issues. I agree, but, again, at least with LS we have (setting aside the fantasy elements) real world modeling requirements. Your argument seems to boil down to "2 wrongs make a right" - just because other parts of the system are problematic doesn't excuse creating yet another problematic mechanic. What a lot of your comments beg and I fully agree with is that where HERO has been required to enshrine real-world requirements it has defaulted to simple mandates and strayed from existing mechanics. Point granted. What we would hope to find (and may or may not) is that in actuality things like LS are built on other existing mechanics, but I doubt it.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I have a random musing.... AAAAAAAAAUUUUUGHHHHHHHHH!!! Work is nuts...on the regular old con call while on the boards

Re: The Last Word Yippe-yi-ki-yay! (bah, my boards don't have a 30 second rule!)

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

Re: Superhero Images

Re: Mental Powers Where are the instructions for CoM? Because Limited Power has a considerable amount of instructions and examples. "...not meant to be all inclusive..." is granted - but what is the basis for inclusion? Animals, Aliens, and Humans are of a balanced ubiquity and utility? That is a highly debatable statement from the get-go. It is not at all clear as to the basis, and, besides, my point was, what IS the rule for something that is "not quite Class of Minds"? Is that a Limitation? On which...? Are Plants a subset of Animals? If the construct is to be useful, it ought to be useful enough that at least the confluence of CoM with Limitations should be clear and the approach to values for partial adders and such stated (is it a Lim on an Adder? Or is it an Advantage on the Power?) In point of fact, the rules are staring us in the face and saying "it is suggested it is wrong to lump your aliens, animals, and humans together," and now we must justify something that required absolutely no justification before, and rested rather nicely on individual campaign world SFX. I don't know why...quite literally I have zero clue as to why this was an issue, whereas as DR pointed out earlier, I can understand why Machines with 0 EGO presented a problem. But he rules simply throw down that while solving this problem we also "desire" in HERO a further division among organic beings, with no explanation as to how this ties into the Machines Class or why this is desirable. But it certainly begs to any intelligent person who has no history in HERO that "if you let you rmentalists affect aliens, animals, and humans, it is unbalancing!" Yet I recall very few balance issues with mentalists that referred to these related issues, usually other issues are at the fore. Curiousity, what do you mean? Okay, I see. Shape Shift is based on senses. I don't entirely like it, but I see the logic and in point of fact it is easy to replicate that logic, and the entire Senses construct serves as a holistic mechanic that works across the entire system. And the grouping of senses is hardly arbitrary, aside from a few esoteric ones, and even then we have good explanation as to what and why that is. Life Support is based on real-world analogues and is entirely explicable in this context as well, and, besides, has no abstraction in its grouping that quarrels with SFX, instead its SFX bindings are reasonable.

Re: Mentalist Conundrum I'm not concerned, I'm just indicating that everyone balances things as they choose, and I'm interested in those choices. NND is another good topic.