Doc Democracy

Amazingly, my golden age team is in a very similar situation.  It is 1937 and half the team were captured by the nazis, while trying to help the Spanish republicans.  The nazis want to learn the location of their super-secret hideout, and more specifically the code to enter it.

The scenario will begin with dream versions of the heroes that were not captured bursting into the holding cell and helping them escape with the aid of a Polish hero. They will find it easy to escape the lab, then the compound until they get to Poland. From there they get to London with a package from the Poles that they want the British to analyse, something they claim could neutralise the SeelenRustung being used by an elite corps.

There will be numerous chances for the players to spot the ruse.  Things will be too easy, or too difficult, or wrong, or might change when double checked, like in a dream.  If they learn early then it will be about getting out of the dream, if they don't then it will be overcoming challenges with increasingly heavy hints to the dreaming characters about the false versions.  Ultimately a fight between the characters dreaming and the false dream versions.

When they win, it will be just in time to see the real versions of their uncaptured team-mates crashing into their holding cell.  almost identical to the start of the dream, except, every challenge will be more difficult...

Doc

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I could use the downtime....

I think you need to be thinking about a different machine for that.  Possibly just a good bed away from all commitments...

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

 

Why make a new Limitation when Concentrate at this level does exactly what you want? The costing seems to be appropriate so just use it and move on.

 

Life Support  (Longevity: Immortal; Self-Contained Breathing), Usable Nearby (+1/2), Grantor can take back power at any time, Grantor pays the END whenever the power is used, Grantor can only grant the power to others (22 Active Points); Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (0 DCV; Character is totally unaware of nearby events; -1 1/2), OAF (-1) Cost: 6 Real Points

Well, you are using 15 words to do what 8 words in natural language covers. 

If I was going to be pedantic then I would question whether someone in cryo-sleep was concentrating and ask whether the character was aware of events further away.  But I won't do that, I understand they are game mechanical effects regardless of the word used.

As a GM, I think I could police the custom limitation more easily.  I do think that, even allowing for a liberal interpretation of what is meant by concentration, it leaves things a bit open.

6 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

I have to agree with using LS on this.  In addition to the focus add Concentration O DCV character totally unaware and must concentration throughout use of constant power.  

 

Transformation is not needed. 

I am in the life support camp.  However, I would not use concentration etc, I would simply have the limitation "Character in catatonic state while power in use".  You can cost that however you want but, as already pointed out, this is not something expensive for a base unless you begin adding in significant numbers of chambers for LOTS of people.

2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Here’s a player dilemma which came up in a Fantasy Game once. You defeated the goblins then what? One player wanted to kill them because he feared that they would come back and attack the group. That is a legitimate concern. I knew that the GM wouldn’t have played it that way but you almost need a trope that the world works that way. 

I think it depends on the group.  Some groups are entirely task-focussed.  If the in-game authority signs off that the task is complete, then they are happy to take the reward and move to the next task.  Some groups take ownership and begin wanting to go beyond the strict definition of the task to broader societal issues.  That is when it matters what the background of the game is - both the laid down in-game realities and the in-group sensitivities.  The more involved the players are with their world, the more the GM has to layer on the things that are needed to prevent people going to extremely in any one direction.

If one, or more, of the players is talking about going full Apocalypse Now on the already defeated village then the GM might remind them that the village is within the realm of Duke Nice who might deprecate the actions of the goblic raiders but would be equally distressed about a defenceless village being massacred and raised to the ground.  It is his decsion on whether residents of his demesne live or die, and his liegeman only gave them rights to deal with the raiders, not the potential of future ones.  He might remind them that it is unlikely there will be no witnesses and while some people might laud their actions, there will be others that would be horrified by the slaughter of women and children of any kind.  You might also indicate that these goblins are part of the Red Claw tribe, one that extends quite broadly across the land and that, should they hear of this atrocity, might prioritise the death of these perpetrators, and their life might be detrimentally affected if they go ahead. The GM, in this kind of situation, needs MUCH more information readily to hand to talk about the broader societal consequences of these kinds of actions.  It will rarely be kill good, mercy bad. Or vice versa.

Of course, they might have been tasked with eradicating the village by their superiors.  Then all the variety of different responses still apply with slightly different elements, possibly changing the perspective of the players about their superiors and how they interact with them.  I can see some of the my characters following through on what they have been tasked, whether they agree or not, while others would defiantly refuse to do certain things.  It also might depend on how the GM lays it.  As the warriors are defeated and slain, the GM might fade away with a village in flames, making no reference to dependents, another might have used the fight to give cover to dependents fleeing in a variety of directions.  It would be a real GM decision to choose to present the dependents as a problem for the PCs to consider.

Doc

4 hours ago, MrAgdesh said:

 

In order to lessen the impact of failures (not a bad thing but repeated failures are not fun), I've toyed with Heroic Action Points (HAPs) in the past but I've never really been happy with implementing them in terms of the bookkeeping involved. I've found that players tend to forget about them and I've typically forgotten to remind them, but I do like the idea of them in principle (like Karma in the old TSR Marvel Superheroes game).

If you are a face to face group, I find the best thing for that is to have physical tokens, glass beads or poker chips or something and a hat or other receptacle at the side of the table.  Players are likely to have those things in their hands, especially the ones that also like fiddling with their dice, and so be quite awre of them.  If they want to use them, they throw them into the hat, which begins to accumulate tokens.  I keep thinking that I want to do something with that hat and the tokens inside it, but I am never sure what fits.

One idea, was that I did not use HAPs as normal.  I would give out tokens instead of experience points, the used tokens are the core pool for what I had out at the end of the game (adding things in for specific stuff - like player invokes a complication).  When a player uses a token, THEN they mark down an XP on their sheet that can be used for growing their character.

Doc

Of course, in my current campaign, I have pledged to my players that any villain captured an imprisoned will never escape unless they specifically request another scenario featuring that villain.  In essence, every villain put in prison "dies" for the purpose of gameplay.

I do not have the same need as comicbook authors to write the ultimate Joker, or Doctor Doom story. Though the principle is the same, it's not Batman's fault that the Joker lives to kill again, it is the fans'.

8 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

But that isn't the major problem.  It's tying CV to DEX, because CV is critical for the game mechanics, for most, and it's expensive.

I am in complete agreement with this and everything that came after it.

Yup.  I reckon two or three of the superheroes in my games have died.  I tend not to kill a character due to bad rolls but, if they have "died" in thus way, I will find a bendy physics reasons for them to survive.  I then talk to the player, saying that I am open to finding a heroic death for their character somewhere in the next few sessions. 

If they are up for it, and so far it has been three for three, I build scenarios where there may be opportunity for an heroic sacrifice and, if they take it up, they probably won't survive but I will guarantee their sacrifice will be successful.

RIP Vortex

RIP Firelord

RIP Black Ninja

Doc

35 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Even _I_ appreciate the breaking of the DEX /SPD connection.

I think one of the problems with SPD is that it is a game mechanism masquerading as quickness.  It essentially tells you how many game actions you get in a game turn. 

There is a general feeling that a fast character should have higher SPD.  Even just saying it feels like it makes absolute sense.

However, like many common sense things, it isn't actually true.  When Flash is in the comics he tends not to get more panels devoted to him than any other character, not even more than poor old Green Arrow who just fires a bow.

That suggests their SPDs are pretty similar regardless of what velocities they might be able to achieve.  Speed should be an SFX, not a characteristic.

Doc

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

3rd edition has fewer pages of rules. 3th edition is still manageable, as the last third of the book is that big adventure.

I think one thing we can ALL agree on is that the rules have grown significantly edition by edition.  🙂

16 hours ago, unclevlad said:

The problem, I think, is the fact that figured characteristics in 5E gave you *so many* points.  As Chris noted...I don't ever recall not seeing at least an 18 DEX and 18 CON either.  How can you NOT, from a costing perspective?  For grins, I built the same baselines...30 STR, 23 DEX, 25 CON, 20 BODY, 5 SPD and the same figureds, mostly basing on the 5E...11 REC, 50 END, 48 STUN.  I didn't bother with the Leap...that's of variable value.  Also, no INT or PRE (costing is the same), and no EGO.  The value of ECV is build-dependent.  STR is, too, of course, but 30's not crazy high, and would be appropriate for a fairly wide variety of builds.  

Anyway:  6E, it's 186 points.  5E, it's 127.

Took me a while to go and take a look at the rulebooks.  It is instructive to look at this.

5th Edition suggested a standard superhero be built on 350 points.  For a characteristic oriented character 230 of those points would go on characteristics, otherwise it would be 125.

6th Edition suggested a standard superhero be built on 400 points.  For a characteristic oriented character 280 of those points would go on characteristics, otherwise it would be 160.

So you were pretty spot on in the bog-standard characteristic value for 5th Edition.  It is higher than might then be expected for 6th, IF you bought the same characteristics.  But, of course, you might not choose to do so.  It would be easy to see how you might lose 25 points of characteristics because they were of less game value in 6th Edition.  Do you want/need that 30 STR if it does not provide the PD/REC/STUN? Do you want/need the DEX when it does not provide the SPD? Do you need the 25 STUN when it is not needed for the additional ED/REC/END/STUN?

So, yes, I think you do see a diminution in the stats characters are likely to present with an increase in their cost.  I dont think it often comes with a diminution of the abilities the heroes present in game, nor do I think it is an enhancement.  I think they did their damnedest to ensure increases in costs were met with an increased budget.

There will obviously be builds tailored to 5th Edition that will suffer but there will also be builds in 6th Edition that benefit from the lack of figureds, not least the lack of a NEED to buy those kinds of characteristics to be competitive.  I looked at the cost of the 5th edition character buying their figureds with no primary stat (except DEX - I wanted that for the CV as there was no way to change CV in 5th).  by not buying the primaries you save 6 points (120 points compared to the 126) but STR/CON/BODY are all 10.  In 5th, if you wanted that kind of REC/STUN/END then you could get the STR/CON/BODY for free.  A character that wants those figureds in 6th pays 103 points, 17 points less than 5th Edition (and still has that additional 50 point budget to put to powers or skills). 

Ultimately, I think a lot of the point cost differences are lost down the back of the sofa, they did a decent job of trying to keep things stable and increased the budget to pay for things that were, previously, held in a black box.  I think it does come down to a preference with the simple caveat that 6th allows a bit more freedom on where to put your points.

Doc

On 8/19/2023 at 10:33 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Aw, Geez....!

 

You said that out loud!

 

Quickly, go stand in a circle of salt, rub your rosary, and chant over and over "it was a mistake; do not take my soul!" from noon until midnight, and, for all that's Holy, do _not_ open your eyes, no matter what you hear!

It was only after posting that I realised that Scott might have been talking about reading the rules rather than the extended onversations that went on about them...

1 minute ago, Scott Ruggels said:

It's these sorts of discussions that chase me back to want to use 2nd or 3rd edition rules. Much less to read.

Ah come on now Scott, you are old enough to remember the many, many words written about the rules in almost every edition (not least the Great Linked Debate).  I think there were also more words because we had more folk writing them....

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Okay.  Now. Go ahead.  The dogpile starts just below. 

Too late, the dog pile started before!  It is good, it is healthy to get things out, say what you mean.  🙂

Sometimes we all forget we are just playing elaborate games of let's pretend.  We want some rules around it to help when there are disagreements but if everyone at the table agrees, then no rulebook is going to stop the table having fun.

We also get precious about our rules.  We have invested in them and if someone says they are rubbish, and going to use a different ruleset (different edition, different game even) then we feel betrayed or that we are losing.

Thing is, nothing has changed.  You can still play the games you want with your friends, in the way you, and they, like playing them.

I am a poor rulesmith.  I hate reading rulebooks, I need to use them to comprehend them, I remember what I like and often forget, or ignore, what I don't.  My aim, as a GM, is to make my friends happy and, as a player, to engage with the story and find ways to do cool things from my character sheet.

I am a tinkerer though. Nothing is ever perfect.  I never really bought into the universality of the system but I kind of like an underlying system toolkit that allows us to build the games we want to play. The problem is that the system was not written for that purpose, it is an evolution from crashing several related products together. And then streamlining and adapting.

I think I am disassociated from the RAW enough that I am always content to consider extreme changes, indeed, I want to see what they might do and whether it enhances or degrades.  I want to see what other people think.  I am kind of interested in what other people feel. Because all that informs the value of potential change.

What I never understand is folk getting annoyed in such discussions.  I miss having a place to go.  when I was young White Dwarf was my broad gaming community.  when I got older, the UseNET and then these boards were my community.  There is nowhere now that has the level of activity and engagement I want. I will back out of interesting discussions here when they get fractious because I value the space more than "winning". 

I am here to chat to folk that share an interest in the mechanics I most enjoy tinkering with.  There are already too few of us here, I would rather not lose the remnants of that community by falling out. I am not perfect, I too get drawn into arguments, feel heated and get stroppy.  I left the boards because I felt disrespected and unvalued (how ridiculous!  I pulled on my big boy pants, gave myself a talking to and came back with an ambition to be more dignified).

Anyway.  @Duke Bushido as usual, I loved everything you said.  How it can come from a 2nd edition hold-out, I will never understand!!  😉

44 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

NO, it doesn't provide something for nothing.  You paid for the STR. 

But it IS something for nothing.  KineticBlastGuy doesn't get to add his STR to his Kinetic Energy Blast, or his blast to his punch, even though he paid for his STR and his Blast and they work versus the same defence.

It feels common sense that the stronger guy does more damage with his axe/sword/pencil, but it deviates from the core principle of the system that you get what you pay for.

Doc

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Therein lies the disconnect in a nutshell.  Because Grail and I might accept your "gameplay is the thing"...but what you appear to mean by it, and what we mean, are not the same.  There's a cognitive dissociation that's a Bad Thing...particularly with STR, which is a very concrete, measurable, comparable value.

I could take exception to that "might" but I believe you are not trying to say I am talking in bad faith, so I won't.

I don't know your gaming circumstances but my group play a variety of games, HERO is part of the rotation.

I have a LOT of feedback on HERO and have been adapting my presentation of the system over and over again to help my friends get to the gameplay.  Too often they get stuck in the numbers all over the place or simply play their character sheet rather than the character.

Everything I have done with the system is about delivering gameable content.  What you are calling cognitive dissonance appears all over the game system and I call separating mechanics from game effects. I have gone a long way down the path of stripping numbers from the character sheet until only a fraction of the system is visible in play. 

However I probably have my own holy grails I would be unwilling to give up.

6 hours ago, unclevlad said:

But we've beaten this to death, brought it back, and beaten it some more.  

You are correct.  I will forbear adding to the binfire we have created.

42 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

The RPG industry has been going for 40+ years and I've never seen a product with no Characteristics.

Depends on what you mean by characteristics.  But there are plenty of games out there that do not have STR, DEX etc.  Two off the top of my head would be Fate and Masks.  I have only dabbled and would need to check but I think both Spectaculars and the Sentinels of the Multiverse RPG are also lacking any kind of traditional characteristics.

I would repeat, what I am suggesting would not remove even half of the characteristics currently deployed to build a HERO character.

56 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

So, when we look at first impressions, newbies will want their PC to "Be as strong as the Hulk", or "As nimble as Spider-Man", or "An engineer as good as Tony Stark".

You don't get an engineer as good as Tony Stark by buying a characteristic.  You get as strong as Hulk by buying STR but you add a lot of other things.  You get nimble as Spiderman buying more than DEX.

I think we can all agree that the gameplay is the thing. How the player experiences the power.  If the Hulk player gets a Huge Punch power and told they can lift the Empire State building, and gets to add 12 to rolls related to feats of Strength, I reckon only the last bit feels abstract.  It will feel mighty when they compare that to the 5 being added by the Spiderman player.

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

It takes 6th edition and makes it dryer and wordier and you'll still have to use Characteristics to describe the roll type.

You seem to know my system better than me. I actually agree 6th is dry.  It is a toolkit, not a game,and it reads like one.  I am a big fan of getting some games "powered by HERO" that have been suggested on these boards.  Those games might use characteristics but the toolkit should help deliver them, not mandate them, so I agree with Hugh.  Remove the black box, show us the moving parts and allow us to use them as we want.

Doc

If they can't understand what I am doing with this then HERO is not the game for them because it is entirely the same as the whole power building element of the game.  So many things there far more complex.

2 hours ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

I see this conversation as being useful on an SRD/SDD level, but I don't think I'd want to play it.  

That is often what I hear many gamers say about HERO.  I don't think they are right in the same way I don't think you are.

In both cases this is a character creation issue, not a gameplay one.

Now that is a simpler concept. 🙂

It all comes down to how things happen in-game.  If the character spent most of its time in robot form, then I would be content for him to jump into the ship and "be" the ship. I would consider the ship to be his body and destruction of the ship would kill the character.

Special abilities that he could use, while the ship, could be bought "only while in ship form", possibly 1/2 limitation.  Obviously those abilities would not be available to other players flying the ship when he was in robot form.

If it was 50/50 robot and ship, then I might consider also allowing those characteristics only used while in robot form to be bought down to zero, then repurchased as powers with a 1/2 limitation "only while in robot form".

That avoids all the messiness of multiform.  he is always the same personality, so this, to me, works better.

Doc

27 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

If we start with the premise that Hero presents a series of mechanics - the building blocks of a character - then characteristics, skills and powers become means of constructing a specific special effect using those mechanics.

Preach!  😁

I think a big problem with gaming in the transition is that it is about minimising loss and suffering rather than stopping it. 

Getting players feeling happy that they only lost 45% of those they were protecting, rather than all of them, is a tough gig.

It would be a campaign filled with loss and suffering, you would need to work hard to avoid it being grim and depressing.

I think that is why post-apocalypse is more popular, there is hope and progress to chase after.

Actually, I had not focused on the other element.  You want a character with possession abilities, that has been a long-standing issue that has been "solved" multiple ways.

The official one, in one of the APGs I think, uses desolid as core of the build.  I would suggest following that possession build and including computers as part of that.

Doc

Have you considered using attuned (or innate) items in attending a new item.  So you might have a+1 sword and a +2 dagger.  You want attune thus +4 plate armour with some additional abilities.  It is just out of reach but by using these items, attunement is attainable but those items are drained of magic whether or not the roll is successful...

That might help explain why there are not mountains of minor items, they have all been cannibalised to attune more powerful items.