Doc Democracy

You have a catch 22 situation.  Only experienced players should be allowed to play a Cosmic power pool.  A cosmic power pool in the hands of an experienced player is a terrible thing! 🙂

I often have multiple players with small (20 point) power pools.  Some are tightly defined others are not.

The rule of taking time at the table is a good one though, if the vpp player is not ready, they use a different power.  No getting time to think it through in detail.

You find those players will develop a list of powers they use all the time and use the flexibility mostly out of combat.

Doc

That is another point.  A complication showing up should not always be straightforward, your arch nemesis might simply have told your current enemy what your weaknesses are.

1 hour ago, Tjack said:

 He rolled everything up just the way it says to in the book. 

I was so busy being smart I forgot a point I meant to make.

The book explicitly mentions rolling for hunteds and DNPCs.  It does not make mention of vulnerabilities or that crazy rider you allowed on Captain Swiss Army that limits his flexibility.  You do all that on the fly too??  I assign them dice numbers and throw it all into the mix....

Doc

1 hour ago, Tjack said:

    With all great respect for Doc Democracy

Quite so! Harrumph!  😄

1 hour ago, Tjack said:

 He rolled everything up just the way it says to in the book.  ((ALL HAIL THE BIG BLUE BOOK!!!!))  I just kept a mental tally using 8 or less, 11 or less etc. as a guide for how often these things should show up. That way I could build episodes in a more natural way.

 A Hero’s 14 or less hunted hadn’t shown up in a while....well let’s do a three or four part story with them as the prime villains. Then you might not see them for another six months of real time.
Doing it this way let me spend more time on the storytelling side. It all depends on the GM’ing style your comfortable with.

Well.  I tend to plan my sessions in advance and, by memory, the book talked about rolling up ahead of the session.  I have the next four sessions - each one with complications rolled for.  I might admit to a little cheating, if a DNPC or Hunted has not shown up in a LONG time, throwing them in.  I sometimes swap things out.  I might have a hunted appear that really does not suit the adventure planned but someone else does, in this case I would use the suitable hunted but kit him out such that it really impacts the player whose hunted should have shown up ("But Sergeant Disaster NEVER used to use a flame-thrower - Paper Guy is in real trouble this time!!)

As you say, narrative need often over-rules book-keeping.

Doc

Ha!  I feel for you Gnome.  🙂

It is often the way that the players do not have the same investment as the GM.🙂

There is indeed a challenge at the start and for groups that do not game together regularly.

I notice a query from Zarthose to Steve that I think will come over here.  Might be worth getting a head start on the issue but I thought I would broaden it out.

How do you handle PC complications?  Hunteds and other things have a chance of turning up.  I frontload all of this.  When I create a scenario, my first action is to roll for all of the complications of the characters likely to play.  I then try to weave those things into the scenario from the ground up - I dont want things bolted on or causing a distraction from the main action.  It also makes it easier to build in the disadvantages related to powers not working in certain circumstances.  If a hero has "only in Hero ID" on his powers then I will, every now and again be building scenes where this is going to become an issue.  Where DNPCs feature, it is easier to involve them when the scenario is created with the explicit knowledge they will be involved.

So.  My system is to roll the dice for all complications (sometimes simply based on the fact that a complication or disadvantage should impair 1/4 of the time or more).  Once I have all those details I can begin to weave a story around them (sometimes the way the complications fall down, the implied story is better than the one I was thinking of!!).

How do other people manage it?

Doc

8 hours ago, Cancer said:

I don't believe there is a legal requirement that governors of Texas be rich idiots (emphasis on the idiot), but in fact it almost invariably works out that way.

A quote about the old House of Lords was:

"Individual peers are born independent, independently take their seats in the Lords and independently vote Conservative".

🙂

well, good news on treatment here...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281

We have no Jedi - the Edge of Empire setting is distant from the rebellion stuff and focussed more on "normal" action heroes.  🙂  It is more like a Han Solo RPG than a Luke Skywalker RPG.  I have not intorduced the Force in any way but future games might feature something of it.  I do have a wookie but the player there is closest to the playing style I want anyway, it is the others that need encouragement.

2 hours ago, assault said:

New Zealand records two new COVID-19 cases after virus-free streak

The shame of that is the infection was introduced by visitors from the UK. 

Watch our Brexiteers outrage as 'clean' southern European countries ban visitors from 'dirty' Britain....

Yeah, the most frustrating thing is that we all know the stuff well, are steeped in the material.  We even know the system, having played FFG Warhammer which was a more complex implementation but made us familiar with the dice basics.

I have used the destiny pool to good effect.  I just want to come up with a charter to free their minds and drive the feel of the game.

As I said to Ninja Bear, I think we have fossilised as a group and I need a tool to smash them into a different play style.

To be honest, that is my role in the group.  If I am not running the game I am usually driving the play, I think they have let me do it so long they have forgotten how to do it for themselves.  🙂

Or you have a multipower, one slot pops out a globe, the other fills it with life support. 🙂

I still think some extra DEF (to talk Old Skool) for the physical manifestation is the simplest solution...

All the characters (and indeed most of the NPCs) in one short-lived campaign had 4D6 Telepathy (only within caste) (only for communication).  It was to represent a kind of hive mind where it was possible for two members of the same caste to communicate with each other and exclude all those of other castes.  That worked pretty well and it is amazing how such a small power could have dramatic effects on how the game worked, how the characters interacted and how it encouraged players to produce characters from a single caste.

Doc

Just now, Tjack said:

Wasn’t there a whole thread about capture and deathtraps a while ago?

There was, but this is a positive way around the issue - if the players can be sure that capture is essentially a doorway to adventure rather than an existential threat to their alter ego, then we may have a different dynamic in the game.

🙂

It was probably that thread that brought that up as my starter for ten...

I have just run three sessions of FFG Edge of Empire.  It was great fun, it has a definite Star Wars feel and some cool bits that helped the action along.  My concern is that the players did not trust me enough to run through the scenario rather than edging their way along feeling out the walls and floors for secret traps. We are a long standing group and pretty open to trying new things but a chunk of the players are cautious by nature which slows the game down.

I want to draw up a charter for a Star Wars game - something that makes it clear what I want as GM and for the players to hold me to when playing (in the event that I show recidivist behaviour, sliding back to my 14 year old D&D GMing style).  🙂

The question is, what should the charter contain?  What are the key tropes to fast-paced Star Wars gaming?

My first thought is to remove concerns about capture:

1 - If you are captured, there will be obvious and ready ways to escape.

What else?

Doc

Dont see Duke in this thread, so why dont I throw a Duke-ism out.  If you buy LS-usable by others, then the bubble itself is simply the SFX of that power - you see a bubble of force surround the person.  How do you pop the bubble - define that.  If it is not for imprisoning people, then is there a huge need for defences?  You can give it a reasonable defence as part of the SFX.

We do fall into the trap of trying to cost everything, even when it is not entirely necessary....

Doc

The big element in HERO that is missing in other systems is the ability of the GM to make the physics and metaphysics of a campaign world work exactly as desired.  The cost of that is a lot of upfront work and thinking time.

If you want all poisons to be affected by a Cure Poison spell, then you need either to make all poisons use the same mechanic OR ensure that all poisons have a common limitation (effects mitigated by use of Cure Poison).  You can then define Cure Poison as Healing, only versus poison.  Once that is in place then it does not matter whether the poison is a SPD drain, an entangle, a Killing attack or anything else, you can pro-rate the Healing as 1D6 = 1 DC of effect on whatever the poison is.

Doc

17 hours ago, JmOz said:

Real hard time building a power

 

I know it is a linked barrier and life-support.  Basically the Barrier is a 4" Length (free floating) globe.  The globe has life support inside it.  The power is intended as a prison/rescue device  

Well, as GM, I would be content with someone presenting with area affect life support, usable by others, physical manifestation with some resistant defence only for the physical manifestation. I would be asking how it works, how it moves, END requirements but I would generally be facilitative.

Doc

You say this as if we should expect more than three.  I am appalled at the killing of one unarmed man...

1 hour ago, ScottishFox said:

Yeah, in a country of 328 million they killed a whopping 3 unarmed black men last year that were not fleeing.  Better run for your life!

13 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

I think you’re doing it backwards, just like you drive on the wrong side of the road! 

I do it to the satisfaction of my wife I’ll have you know, and she enjoys driving on the right side of the road....

5 hours ago, Greywind said:

One  thing with Hitler and the Nazis is that people refuse to believe the Holocaust happened.

And that is despite the monuments and memorials....

2 hours ago, Badger said:

I didn't like the way the statues were removed, though. From purely historical viewpoint. Needed to be locked away in a museum to  be shown as an example of our mistakes.  The people of 1000 years will be all the dumber for our actions this week.

I am not convinced that removing the statues will do that much damage, to quote a tweet I saw this week

“After WWII Germany took down and removed all of the statues and monuments associated with the Nazi regime.  That is why, today, no one knows who Hitler was.”

I think we have plenty of things that tell us what we need to know and I struggle to understand what part of history those statues will enlighten us about.

People are problematic, it is rare to have someone you can immortalise in marble that people will not have issues with, because humans are flawed creatures.  I prefer my public works of art to be more abstract and anonymous.

Doc

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I'll just note without comment that the first of those plaintiffs above is cancelling the subscription for himself, his wife, and her boyfriend.

Such an alternative lifestyle and yet still against the SJWs who would fight for his right to live that way...