The Forge Archives

Heya,

In this thread (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=15775&start=15) Tony wrote this:

QuoteMy argument is that they address something that is hard to address in other ways. Which is why, in fact, games without them usually don't function well.

I don't think kewl powerz and adventure are necessary. But I think they are a reliable technique for addressing something that is necessary. If I could just figure out what it is then I could address it in a different way in Misery Bubblegum, which would (I suspect) help the game tremendously.

To which Euro replied:

QuoteThe something necessary addressed by kewl powerz is characterization. Being a <insert character type> obliviates the necessity of indentity. You can shoot lightning out of your butt? Good for you, that makes you a superhero. As you can see, the kewl powerz are just a justification for the identity, not the identity itself. Both D&D and WW games demonstrate this principle very clearly, although the kewl powerz tend to overshadow the original purpose. Look at D&D, for example: it's definite history that the original purpose of character classes and class powers was niche protection and tactical variety.

Tony asked that we take this to new threads, so I am honoring his wishes.  So, to continue:

I believe Kewl Powerz also provide motivation.  For instance, "Yeah, you can shoot 'lesser lightning' out your butt, however if you schore six more character points you can upgrade it to 'greater lightning' and really deal some damage."  Kewl Powerz, often in Gamists games IMO, spur players on to take risk, address gamble/crunch, and alter the SIS.  This way their characters advance and give them greater strategic options.  For Sim and Nar I'm less clear on what function they serve exactly, but that's what I want this thread to be about.

Euro posed "characterization", I posed "motivation", but what other functions do Kewl Powers serve in a game?  Is there a difference in function between, Gamist, Simulationist, and Narrativist games?

Peace,

-Troy

People like to pretend to have Kewl Powers so they can pretend to be powerful.  Imagining you can shoot lightning out of your butt has a strong psychological appeal to those who feel powerless. This "power fantasy" drives a lot of sim-color gaming, the terrain explored being "what is it like to be powerful and cool?"

Kewl Powerz also have another very important function, gam-wise: they add complexity. The more complex a game is, the more different strategies and tactics you can explore. That's the reason I enjoy playing spell using characters in D&D so much: more Kewl Powerz, more options, more flexible tactics!

Troy,

Quote from: Troy_Costisick
Euro posed "characterization", I posed "motivation", but what other functions do Kewl Powers serve in a game?  Is there a difference in function between, Gamist, Simulationist, and Narrativist games?

As Jeph mentioned above, Gamist definitely has a flexible tactics as their motivation for kewl powerz.

For sim, I guess two explorations are appropriate:

A. Exploration of system. This is a no-brainer: more complexity means more to explore, I guess.
B. Exploration of character: A lot of people want to distinguish themselves from normal live. A way to do that is to have kewl powers one normally doesn't have. They can feel more like the character (because the kewl powerz are defining the character) and it's really a different person.
<EDIT>: I guess the being a different person is called the Dream, but I'm not sure of that.

Nar: Well, there is only one thing I could think of: kewl powerz give the opportunity to adress some Premises in normal life probably couldn't exist or at least couldn't be put in such a strong contrast (or provide a method to create a more difficult decision). Example: Sorcerer. The strive for power could be adressed by using political characters, but situations are given more impact by choosing something as radical as a demon (even if the demons aren't demons from hell).

My two cents.

Perhaps powers give the players a sense of greater authorial control over the story. Which would be why most of the examples of non-powers games are indie titles, coming from the foundation that stance and control of the story can be divvied up by design. Whereas in traditional games, the idea of GM-as-god has so much weight that character powers give the player a sense that they have a mechanically proteced method for exerting control over the SIS.

One of my favorite games is Universalis, in which each player has equal control of the game and the story. I don't think this is coincidence. Another great game is Capes, where, again, all participants have equal control. Thinking about it, this could also be the reason I enjoy Breaking the Ice so much. Quite clearly in this game, characters have no powers, yet authorial control is equally shared. Universalis could easily be played without any sort of powers, and Capes could be drifted so that the mechanics handled, say, politcal machinations or a love story without significant effort. And, I think, they'd be just as much fun.

Quote from: Andrew MorrisPerhaps powers give the players a sense of greater authorial control over the story. Which would be why most of the examples of non-powers games are indie titles, coming from the foundation that stance and control of the story can be divvied up by design. Whereas in traditional games, the idea of GM-as-god has so much weight that character powers give the player a sense that they have a mechanically proteced method for exerting control over the SIS.

Thinking about that, kewl powerz are a type of niche protection. When the group of PC's are all normal, they all do roughly the same stuff. While kewl powerz give each PC a niche. This means that if the opposing player (ie the GM) renders useless the abilities of several PC's, one PC might still have the capacity to get through. If everyone is the same, then when the GM renders one PC's abilities useless, as much as they are all have basically the same abilities, they are all rendered useless.

Kewl powerz give the players different approach vectors to the SIS...it's part of the exploration process, discovering which PC isn't really blocked in a particular situation. Knowing which PC's are and aren't blocked, helps you learn about the game world. I think this is a CA neutral technique.

Callan, that might be true, but wouldn't that also be the case with other Effectiveness traits? In a game about political scheming, one character might have the "Uncover Dirty Secrets" skill, which allows the group to achieve their goal. Differentiation might be accomplished by powers, but I think it could also be accomplished by other means.

Hi Andrew: I see what you mean. However those other means you end up using may themselves become 'kewl powers'. 'Uncover dirty secrets' sounds pretty kewl to me.

I think I said it wrong before: Rather than this providing niche protection, this is what niche protection is supposed to provide. It's not so much about being different and differentiation, but some toe hold on the SIS like with your 'GM is god' idea. Each player owns patches of SIS, different patches from anyone else. Then we see what happens when everyone collides.

Heya,

Okay, we can add escapism, complexity, and niche protection to the list.  And to add to what Callan said, I agree niche protection has been the rationale for many games to have Kewl Powerz.  

But the point is here to deconstruct Kewl Powerz so that we can find both alternatives and better ways to implement them.  So, what would happen in a game full of Kewl Powerz (Dnd3e for instance) if a character was made lacking them.  What might the play look like?  What might the player do to compensate?  Could the character survive?

Peace,

-Troy

That was a deconstruction. Kewl powers give keynote arguements. Imagine the fighter trying to say he sneaks up and steals something...imagine how much effort he's going to have to put into convincing you. Now imagine a rogue saying he sneaks up and steals something. He's not going to have to work as hard at convincing you.

That character who lacks cool powers? He's always going to be having a hard time. See, the fighter from above could, instead of just sneaking, hybridize his arguement...sniping some guards with his bow, then trying to sneak past the rest. This uses his characters kewl power to help him from sweating as much in trying to convince you of what he's doing.

Once you have something you can rely on in game, it provokes clever roleplay (like the sniping/sneak combo from above), because you can build ideas based on the 'fact' of your characters kewl power.

Perhaps cool powers are just the same as using some hard facts in an arguement. Once you have those hard facts, you will try to use them to underpin your arguement that an idea is true/would work in the game world. Without hard facts, what have you got to work with arguement wise?

Rambling a bit here.

That's what the kewl powerz do to empower the player of that character.  Any thoughts on what they do to empower the other players (including the GM)?

Because in niche-heavy games, I've very commonly heard the complain from GMs that an imbalanced party makes it impossible for them to do their job.  Which always struck me as odd and illuminating.

Quote from: TonyLBThat's what the kewl powerz do to empower the player of that character.  Any thoughts on what they do to empower the other players (including the GM)?

They facilitate exploration of the setting.

A basic example: the maguffin is in a locked and trapped chest behind a locked secret door. Without characters who can find the door and open the locks, the plot can't continue and all of the players (including the GM) can suffer.

(Notice that there's no thought given here to the GM deciding that the maguffin doesn't have to be locked away.)

The same goes with knobs on for any obstacle which requires magic to pass.

In niche-heavy games, an individual character can be quite limited in what they can achieve in the game world. There's a whole range of challenges that can no longer be "fairly" thrown at the players.

Consider the cleric in the context of "classic" D&D play. Typically, this is a support role. Because of the slow healing rates in the game, most of the perilous adventures are just too damn perilous unless there's someone around to zap your wounds better. No cleric, no dungeon crawl - that's a whole avenue of exploration closed to the party.

Three-stage argument here. Bear with me!

QuoteTragedy is when I stub my toe; comedy is when you fall into a sewer and die.

1. Intensity

The implicit question is, "Why do I care about someone who isn't me?"

And the way Kewl Powerz answer that question is by saying, "Because there are HUGE horrible wonderful strange things happening to that character! Look! He shoots lightning out his butt! At space monkeys! With angst!"

And I'm like, "Cool - monkeys!"

Because to engage my intense interest in me, all you have to do is make me stub my toe: That frickin' hurts! Or give me a cracker: Crunchy, crunchy in my mouth, mmmm. Because this stuff is all actually happening to me, sending pain or pleasure signals up into my brain.

A step removed, to engage my interest in my baby daughter, all you have to do is make her cry, or giggle cutely, because I have socially beneficial hardwired primate parenting instincts to make me empathize intensely with her feelings: What happens to her isn't happening directly to my body, but my senses take it in and my brain's pain/pleasure centers fire anyway.

To engage my interest in some poor starving kids in the Third World, people I don't know and who aren't here? Maybe a few seconds of camera footage, so I can see their faces and read their body language and my primate social empathy can kick in. (My conscious brain knows they're not members of my little tribe, sure; my subsconcious doesn't).

To engage my interest in some fictional character, someone who is not only not-here but not-anywhere? Maybe let me watch a skilled, charismatic actor pretend to be that chacter, so (again) my primate social empathy kicks in. (My conscious brain knows they're not real, sure; my subconscious, not so much).

But to engage my interest in a fictional character whose very existence is only conveyed by the (probably iffy) acting and narration skills of my fellow players and myself? Just to get my attention in the first place, you probably have to turn the dial up to 11. If that character flies through the air shooting lightning bolts and then has a skyscraper dropped on him -- that's how hard you probably have to push it before I feel the same degree of pleasure and pain as I get when I, myself, take a nice brisk walk and then stub my toe.

Big Important Caveat: I am not saying here "if only we were better artists (actors, writers, storytellers, whatever), we would be able to engage people's sympathies without any of this juvenile Kewl Powerz crap." Skill does matter, immensely, but anything that is not happening to me personally (or, maybe, my baby) is just not going to feel as intense. And there are some degrees of intensity in anyone's life that can ONLY be expressed through Kewl Powerz -- that's why people speak in metaphor and simile ("She smiled at me, I felt like I was flying!" "He hated my project, I'm crushed!") and in myth.

All this applies equally to any medium, though, from movies to the morning paper. So what about RPGs, specifically?


2. Choice

In real life, most of the time, we don't actually have a lot of practicable choices. Yes, I could seek horrible revenge on the guy who cut me off in traffic, blow off work to post on the internet (err, hmmm), cheat on my spouse, or -- alternatively -- rescue people from burning buildings and feed the hungry, but it'd be hard, with a high ratio of effort to return, e.g. of dangerous driving to jerk humilation, or of soup ladeled out to people lastingly helped.

But if I had powers -- aaaah. And haven't we all heard something infuriating on the radio and thought, "if I were in charge, I would..." or seen an opportunity to do good (or a temptation to do evil!) and thought "if only I could..." or even mused "if I had a million dollars..."? Any more-than-ordinary ability makes impractical options into practical ones; superhuman abilities can make impossible options into practical ones.

If you don't have that many real, practicable choices, if there's really only one thing you can do that makes any sense, there's not much challenge in achieving victory that way (Gamism) or much moral impact in choosing that path (Narrativism). But if you have enough power -- particularly power to survive the consequences of your choices -- relative to the obstacles, that effort:return equation starts changing, and you have more options to play (literally) with.


3. Alternatives to Powerz?

I didn't start this little essay with any in mind, actually; and my Big Important Caveat is that there's always a place for Powerz; but as I've written, a few have come to mind:

(A) Intensity - stakes: Give the real people playing the game something (more or less) real to care about that corresponds to the things their imaginary characters care about. This, I think, is part of the appeal of Story Tokens, Hero Points, Experience, etc. -- your character cares about getting or losing Imaginary Thing X, but you the real person care about losing Corresponding Thing Y, which doesn't exist in the character's reality but does in yours, if only as a means of (in turn) shaping the character's story in the way you desire. Perhaps this is why people get so intensely involved in gambling games: Dice and cards hardly attract empathy, but when their fate is intertwined with your finances, you start caring really fast.

(B) Intensity - empathy: Make the players feel the same things as the characters, albeit in different degrees towards different objects. E.g. if my character fails an Awareness check, maybe I don't get as much information about the situation in-game, so I and my character are both confused; if my character is being seduced, maybe I am offered a pile of Story Point Things if I go along, so both I and my character are tempted.

(C) Choice - reduce burden: If you play characters who are "built to suffer," then it doesn't matter that their effort:return ratio is lousy, because you don't want them to succeed. (I do this a lot). A game might encourage this by rewarding defeat (e.g. Story Tokens in Capes).

(D) Choice - increase options: This is probably the hard one. If you build a game where all people can do is fight, then of course normal characters will be unsatisfying, if not swiftly dead; if you build a game where the things ordinary people can do -- love, hate, lie, cheat, tell the truth -- actually make a difference, then ordinary people become attractive characters. "Make a difference," here, means not just in the Shared Imagined Space of the game, freeform: I think it really has to mean (as in option A above) something in the real world of the players as well.

Quote from: TonyLBThat's what the kewl powerz do to empower the player of that character.  Any thoughts on what they do to empower the other players (including the GM)?

They don't empower other players, quite the opposite! They add hurdles for the other players to jump. Beneficial ones, as coping with how powerful someone else is in a particular area, will help get you out of your comfort zone (even if it just results in a Legolas Vs Gimli style kill count races, it's still busting you out of your comfort zone). Coping with someone elses power also involves the places you'll get into that you couldn't have without their power.

Quote
Because in niche-heavy games, I've very commonly heard the complain from GMs that an imbalanced party makes it impossible for them to do their job.  Which always struck me as odd and illuminating.

I'm not sure about answering this one...it sounds like illusionist GM's having trouble making things go just as they wish, when too much force will kill some PC's, but too little will not control the strong PC's.

That's disempowering the other characters, but doesn't it empower the players to address the challenges that the kewl powerz provide?  A player, for instance, doesn't usually have the power to address a challenge that doesn't exist.

GM-wise, for instance, a group with no wilderness skills means that the GM simply cannot present most wilderness adventures.

Quote from: Troy_CostisickEuro posed "characterization", I posed "motivation", but what other functions do Kewl Powers serve in a game?

No one's posted this yet: powers externalize the internal.  

They are metaphors for characterization and personality and perspective. They visibly display something about a character that would otherwise be left unseen.

Take Green Lantern, for example: the only limit to your imagination/power is your will and a few things (wood, yellow) you cannot change directly.

CU

Quote from: chadu... They are metaphors for characterization and personality and perspective. They visibly display something about a character that would otherwise be left unseen ...
CU

I agree wholeheartedly. Compare the powers of the Fantastic Four to their (original) personalities.

Sorry, I was offtrack there, Tony.

But I'm still not sure there about the word 'empower' when it comes to the other players. It's pushing them out of their comfort zone, which is giving them the chance to empower themselves, by granting them the chance to conquer this zone. It's a chance at self empowerment.

Driven by someone elses happyness, strangely. If one player does have kewl wilderness powerz, then they are quite happy to push for a wilderness situation (and wilderness encounters are enabled/the GM can run them), much to everyone elses 'detriment'.

Thinking on it now, kewl powers are a sort of two punch combo. Like moths to a flame, they draw players to them, hungry to use them. But then the players use them, and provide adversity for others. The hunger drives the adversity. That's why kewl powers need to be keeeewwwwl, because the kewlness directly drives that adversity. The kewler it is, the higher the adversity!

Someone tell me I'm way off, cause thinking of it this way blows my mind (and is killing my dreams of low powered campaigns).

I don't know if you're way off, but I don't agree. The lack of wilderness powers, for example, doesn't limit the GM. It just means the characters aren't as effective in a wilderness setting, so they'll have to be more creative.

Whether the GM is limited or not isn't the key point. A bunch of players who have no wilderness skills will be pushing to leave the wilderness pronto. In fact, although the GM may not seem limited, if the players aren't particularly happy being fish out of water, there's not much point in a GM presenting a wilderness adventure.

However, if one player does have kewl wilderness powers, he will be pushing to stay in the wildnerness. His push for it inadvertantly pushes everyone else out of their comfort zone.

I really don't think that's true, Pronto.

I recall an adventure (Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes) where a bunch of James Bond style super-spies crashed in the middle of the Amazon jungle and had to somehow make their wacky spy equipment and skills work for them in an environment that they weren't designed for.

While the characters were distinctly uncomfortable, the players around the table had a grand time dealing with the situation.

I agree with Vaxalon. I've had plenty of fun play experiences where much of the enjoyment came from the "fish out of water" situation.

Yes, exceptions happen.  But overall, I'm with Callan in saying that the exceptions do not disprove the trend.  The pattern is that GMs target adventures to the powers on hand for one purpose and target gaps in power for another (IME, far less common but still fun) purpose.  And, therefore, the presence or absence of powers is a resource taken into account in the GM's planning.  

Are we agreed upon that?

Tony, I don't think it is a case of using exceptions to disprove the rule. Rather, I'm saying that of the times I've encountered this situation, it has been enjoyable more often than not. So, we obviously have different experiences on this front. I don't think placing characters in situations they are not optimized for significantly reduces options, it just removes the easy answer. And what's fun about taking the easy way out?

Okay, maybe this is a difference in our experiences, and I'm just conflating my own history with general principle.  

In the games where you've had this happen, was it a consistent thing (i.e. more sessions than not were dealing with areas where you had no applicable skills)?  Or were such "fish-out-of-water" scenarios a relative rarity?

I think it's important to note, that these scenarios do not involve NO applicable skills/equipment/attributes/whatever.

They involve no OBVIOUSLY applicable skills.

For example, in the MS&PE game that I was in, one of the pieces of equipment we had was a laser cutter, designed to cut through glass silently.  Not much use in the jungle, is it?

We discovered a bee's nest, and while wild bees don't make a LOT of honey, they do make SOME... we got a good distance away, and using the scope from a sniper rifle, aimed the laser through the entrance of the beehive.  This didn't set the hive on fire, but it did create enough smoke to render the bees torpid until we could raid the hive for honey, thus garnering a few thousand much-needed calories for our trek.

That's part of the fun of that kind of adventure.

Heya,

Quote from: TonyLBOkay, maybe this is a difference in our experiences, and I'm just conflating my own history with general principle.  

In the games where you've had this happen, was it a consistent thing (i.e. more sessions than not were dealing with areas where you had no applicable skills)?  Or were such "fish-out-of-water" scenarios a relative rarity?

-In my experience, they were a rarity, and I also concure that in general they are a rarity.  However, in the couple of cases I experienced the "fish out of water" campaign, they were quite enjoyable.  

-The important thing for this dicussion is that Kewl Powerz were not rendered useless in these campaigns, but instead were adapted to fit the situation.  Therefore the role of powers remained even though the use of them changed.  At least in my experience that's how it went down.  Was everyone else's the same?

Peace,

-Troy

Quote from: Troy_CostisickI believe Kewl Powerz also provide motivation.  For instance, "Yeah, you can shoot 'lesser lightning' out your butt, however if you schore six more character points you can upgrade it to 'greater lightning' and really deal some damage."  Kewl Powerz, often in Gamists games IMO, spur players on to take risk, address gamble/crunch, and alter the SIS.  This way their characters advance and give them greater strategic options.

Sorry for coming late to the party, but I would like to return to this post for amoment. I would like to make a distinction here. The kewl powerz themselves in this example are not the real motivations per se. Rather, I think what's happening is that players are using the kewl powerz as a gauge for social standing/esteem whatever. In other words, it's not about the powers per se, but rather having earned the powerz proves that the player "has what it takes".

Gamism in particular is all about building social standing/esteem.

These situations were far less common than the reverse, Tony.

Heya,

QuoteSorry for coming late to the party, but I would like to return to this post for amoment. I would like to make a distinction here. The kewl powerz themselves in this example are not the real motivations per se. Rather, I think what's happening is that players are using the kewl powerz as a gauge for social standing/esteem whatever. In other words, it's not about the powers per se, but rather having earned the powerz proves that the player "has what it takes".

-This is exactly what I am looking for.  Nice post Tim.  So the Kewl Powerz are a linkage to Social Esteem in this case.  That might be helpful in coming up with other rules/mechanics that can replace them.  Whatever they are must lead to Social Esteem in a Gamist type game, yes?

Peace,

-Troy

Is it social standing/esteem or is it... hrm... how to phrase this:  How much responsibility the character is justified in taking for the problems presented in the situation?

Like, suppose you're all part of a diplomatic caravan to the Mongols.  One of their warlords blocks your path:

• The diplomat feels justified (almost required!) to step up and try to negotiate.
  
• The fighter is justified in starting a fight, but probably not as justified in negotiating, because he doesn't have Leet-Diplomacy-Skillz.
  
• The cook will (most likely) enter into either a fight or diplomacy only as a matter of absolute last resort.  I'm imagining Samwise bopping goblins on the head in the Mines of Moria from the Fellowship movie, here.[/list:u]In all cases, it's not that the characters (or players) won't do things unsupported by their powers, but that they aren't looking to do these things.  There's going to be a fairly natural hesitation and drag... a "There's someone else to deal with this, right?" moment.
  
  If those moments are happening constantly, what does it do to the tenor of a game?

In a "fish out of water" game, those moments don't happen, because it's clear from the outset that NOONE has the easily applied attribute.  The first person to come up with a reasonable replacement plays it.

QuoteFrom Session 37 of Mike Holmes Shadow World Game (http://random.average-bear.com/ShadowWorld/Session37)
Holmes: An hour later, Okhfels sits before a pile of snail shells. "Yes, just string them on this gut line, and I'll summon the spirit to them."
Holmes: Alshor seems confident as he starts his string.
Okhfels assists.
Holmes: As Okhfels picks one of the shells up, he crushes it accidentally. They are quite delicate.
Okhfels: "I'm not the best person to be doing this, Alshor."
Okhfels: "I have no skill for such things."
Holmes: "We must each make our own. Or the spirits will not help the maker," says Alshor encouragingly.
Okhfels: "I see."
Okhfels looks darkly at the pile of shells.
Okhfels thinks of Isadora, and Elahra, who are counting on him... and his men, who look up to him...
Okhfels picks up another snail shell, gingerly... knowing that there are not many of them here...
Okhfels licks his lips as he considers how to go about this...
Okhfels has a flash of insight ...

Okhfels is a huge, beefy guy, being asked to do some VERY delicate work... something he has no skill in.  I had absolutely no attributes that applied... so I was going to be rolling a 1d20 against a default 8.  Bad news.  I wanted a better chance to succeed... I scanned through the sheet and found "Gentle Lover - 18".  Instead of using his fingers to hold the shells, he used his lips and tongue.  Mike allowed me to apply that attribute at -5, which made a 13 instead of 8.  Better than nothing.

Now in this case, it was a kind of solo play moment, but it could just as easily have been any number of characters.

Quote from: TonyLBIn all cases, it's not that the characters (or players) won't do things unsupported by their powers, but that they aren't looking to do these things.  There's going to be a fairly natural hesitation and drag... a "There's someone else to deal with this, right?" moment.

If those moments are happening constantly, what does it do to the tenor of a game?

This doesn't seem to be specific to "Kewl Powers" per se.  It seems to me that any differentiation of the characters will do this.  i.e. Having a "diplomatic" trait or keyword isn't really a kewl power, I would say.  But it produces differing capability and influences tendency to act, as you note above.

Quote from: TonyLBIs it social standing/esteem or is it... hrm... how to phrase this:  How much responsibility the character is justified in taking for the problems presented in the situation?

I was mainly discussing the original post, which was discussing kewl powerz in a Gamist context. Gamism is all about social esteem/standing. That's what differentiates it from other CA's.

Now, kewl powerz can have other functions (or multiple functions) within a given game. But I believe that alot of the time, the type of vast and never-ending accumulation of powerz is really a front for the... err, meta contest for social standing/esteem.

I hope that made sense.

[quote="John Kim]This doesn't seem to be specific to "Kewl Powers" per se.  It seems to me that any differentiation of the characters will do this.  i.e. Having a "diplomatic" trait or keyword isn't really a kewl power, I would say.  But it produces differing capability and influences tendency to act, as you note above.[/quote]

I'd reiterate my belief that "kewl powerz" are externalization of internal qualities. However, let me add something to the mix: this externalization of internal qualities adds enhanced scope to a character's actions.

The difference between kewl powerz and skills (except maybe the most extreme, almost or utterly beyond human, levels of ability) is that kewl powerz "widen" the way that the character can interact with her or her world.

They are dramatic, notable, and often extremely efficacious ways of the character -- and thus the player -- making his will manifest within the setting. Not only that, but in a way that someone or something will notice.

Now, whether this increase in scope is real or only perceived is another question. A post-apocalyptic "unpowered guy" may have more actual effect on his tribe than the chances of a four-color superhero in a typically four-color world has of affecting the status quo. But the perception of the differences in scope between the Road Warrior and Aquaman still seem quite large.

CU

Tim:  But Gamism is about the social standing of the players, isn't it?  Are you saying that the kewl powerz of a starting character reflect the social standing of a starting player, without any history?  Or... something else?

Okay, I don't know that powers are different than skills. They are just Effectiveness traits which allow the character to affect the SIS in some way, right?

So how are they qualitatively different than skills or tools? How is "Force Bolt" significantly different than "Energy Weapons" (as a skill) or a "Force Blaster" (as an item)?

Quote from: TonyLBTim:  But Gamism is about the social standing of the players, isn't it?  Are you saying that the kewl powerz of a starting character reflect the social standing of a starting player, without any history?  Or... something else?

Well... I'm not sure that focusing on new characters is the best way to approach this topic. All processes must have a beginning. I'm more interested in how they function once the ball gets rolling.

But that said, I believe that chargen often does play into the the whole social standing/esteem thing. IME of playing DnD & DND heartbreakers, there was often a certain amount of pressure to pick "the right" starting abilities. Since starting abilities often influence later options, choosing certain abilities often will impress the other players -- or more often, choosing bad options causes you to lose social standing.

But on a side note, to a certain degree kewl powerz are just color. That was a point I was trying to make. The powerz themselves aren't as important as social esteem the player gains.

Quote from: Andrew MorrisOkay, I don't know that powers are different than skills. They are just Effectiveness traits which allow the character to affect the SIS in some way, right?

So how are they qualitatively different than skills or tools? How is "Force Bolt" significantly different than "Energy Weapons" (as a skill) or a "Force Blaster" (as an item)?

Often there is no difference, at least in the typical DnD-type heartbreaker. The powerz just serve as color.

Quote from: Andrew MorrisSo how are they qualitatively different than skills or tools?

They are "cooler" (or "kewlr," if you prefer).

Quote from: Andrew MorrisHow is "Force Bolt" significantly different than "Energy Weapons" (as a skill) or a "Force Blaster" (as an item)?

I'd say that because "Force Bolt" is usually seen as part of the character: an "Energy Weapon" or "Force Blaster Gun" that cannot be taken away without measures that are typically out of the norm.

Compare "Flying" to "Pilot Biplane" or "Owns a Biplane." They all do the same thing, but they're different.

Bringing it down to more mundane levels, consider the difference between a character who is naturally (inborn) charismatic to one who is not naturally charismatic, but has learned to be friendly, engaging, and diplomatic. Now, with all the information you have right here, you can see that these are two rather different characters.

To one, being charming comes easily and works across, say, cultural and species boundaries, while the other had to work at it himself, for a particular end .

Furthermore, the latter character obviously either sees value in knowing how to be friendly, etc., or had that assessment of value forced upon him, in order to specifically learn the ability. We don't know if the former character sees value in being charming.


CU

Chad, when you say "they're cooler," I hear "I like them better." That's a difference in your opinion, not in the function.

As to the "Flying - Pilot Biplane - Owns a Biplane" example, I'd say those aren't similar enough for comparison. It's tough to grab a good example out of the air, but one thing to consider is that powers could potentially be taken away, and skills/items might not. Depending on the setting, there could be an "anti-power" spray or field or something like that. Again, depending on the setting, skills or items might be impossible to remove from the character.

Let's look at it in a more abstract form. If Power A, Skill B, and Item C all accomplish effects X, Y, and Z, how are they functionally different?

Maybe the problem is that we really haven't defined "powers" yet.

Quote from: Andrew MorrisChad, when you say "they're cooler," I hear "I like them better." That's a difference in your opinion, not in the function.

I do not disagree. Indeed, that may very well be my point. It's opinion. Why are there cool powers? Because people want to play with them, and people want to write about them. That's the reason they're in games.

My question is "what is the reason for wanting them?" Is it escapism? Enhancement of scope? Some sort of metaphor? Protection of qualities?

Quote from: Andrew MorrisAs to the "Flying - Pilot Biplane - Owns a Biplane" example, I'd say those aren't similar enough for comparison. It's tough to grab a good example out of the air, but one thing to consider is that powers could potentially be taken away, and skills/items might not. Depending on the setting, there could be an "anti-power" spray or field or something like that. Again, depending on the setting, skills or items might be impossible to remove from the character.

While this is true, I would argue strongly that in the majority of the source material for games -- books, comics, movies, cartoons -- powers are less-often neutralized than skills are rendered unusable or equipment is taken away.

Consider Star Wars: the Force is never blocked, but Han's piloting is useless (until the tractor beam is disabled), as are their cool blasters (in the garbage compactor) and targeting computers (in the Trench Run).

Quote from: Andrew MorrisLet's look at it in a more abstract form. If Power A, Skill B, and Item C all accomplish effects X, Y, and Z, how are they functionally different?

I think you just created a non sequitur. "If A, B, and C can do the same functions, how are they functionally different?" Well, they ain't.

I think what you're getting at is "how are they qualitatively different?" (If not, please let me know.)

And I stand by my earlier point: "powers" are seen as part of the nature of a character in ways that simple skills or equipment are not.

I can fly. <--- internal, relies on only character

vs.

I know how to fly a plane. <--- also internal, but relies on something external to the character

vs.

I have a plane to fly. <--- external

Now, the interesting question is when you talk about the middle group, in terms of charisma/manners or mathematical genius/calculus; the external portion is minimized.

CU


[/i]

Okay, it seems we're arguing two different things. I'm coming from the perspective of "how are powers, skills, and items functionally different in altering the SIS" while you are coming from the perspective of the "player's preferences."

Quote from: chaduAnd I stand by my earlier point: "powers" are seen as part of the nature of a character in ways that simple skills or equipment are not.

I'm half with you on this. I think powers and skills are part of the character's identity, while equipment is more likely to be seen as external.

But let's look at this. "Emotional Control" as a power, "Manipulate Emotions" as a skill, and "Hypnotic Projecter" as an item might all let you change someone's emotions. Make the Hypnotic Projector a cybernetic device hidden in your character's molars, and there's really no difference other than the "feel."

Quote from: Andrew MorrisBut let's look at this. "Emotional Control" as a power, "Manipulate Emotions" as a skill, and "Hypnotic Projecter" as an item might all let you change someone's emotions. Make the Hypnotic Projector a cybernetic device hidden in your character's molars, and there's really no difference other than the "feel."

Not quite.

In almost all situations I can learn the Skill, or purchase the Equipment.

The power is unique in that, as part of the SIS, there may be no way to obtain it - in fact the only way to gain a power is often via a metagame.

Powers are a manifestation of Player intent as opposed to Character intent - if you see what I mean.

Simon, that's something that can easily vary by setting. Who says you can't obtain a particular power? Likewise, instructors in a skill may be difficult/impossible to find, and items may be rare/impossible to obtain in game play.

I don't see powers as any more of a manifestation of the player than anything else that allows them to manipulate the SIS.

Quote from: Simon MarksIn almost all situations I can learn the Skill, or purchase the Equipment.

The power is unique in that, as part of the SIS, there may be no way to obtain it - in fact the only way to gain a power is often via a metagame.

Powers are a manifestation of Player intent as opposed to Character intent - if you see what I mean.

Simon,

"I can learn the Skill, or purchase the Equipment...  there may be no way to obtain it - in fact the only way to gain a power is often via a metagame" contains a certain assumption about how a particular system works. It would be easy enough to create to create a system (if one does not already exist) that explicitly grants players the ability to gain "powers."

I'm also not understanding what you mean by "Powers are a manifestation of Player intent as opposed to Character intent." I'll assume for the moment that there is such a thing as "character intent," but could you elaborate on this idea?

Heya,

I am very willing to buy that Abilities, Skills, Equipment, and even Cash can all fall under the "Kewl Powerz" heading.  I strongly feel it is important to denote the difference between each subset, BUT here's the kicker.  We may be closer to finding a substitute for Kewl Powerz within Kewl Powerz itself.

I, like Tim, often associate Kewl Powerz with things like Feats, Abilities, Background Options, or whatever else is not a skill and/or equipment.  But if we're looking for substitues for those, can skills, equipment, and wealth substitute?  This idea intrigues me.  I'm not sure however, if I'm saying it right.

So, I guess what I'm kind of asking is something like can the Powers of Superman and the Gadgets of James Bond serve the same function in a game?  Or rather, *do* they serve the same function?

If so, is that what we're really looking for when it comes to finding what else can function like Kewl Powerz?  If not, what do both Powers and Gadgets grant both characters and players exactly?

Peace,

-Troy

I'll attempt a definition of "kewl powerz", skills and equipment in terms of how much it takes into account the character as being an important part of the process, rather in what it looks like in SIS.

Equipment, which is external can be easily lost, and only begs to bear a label saying: "Anyone can use me to get a kewl effectz!"
How can I get social esteem from using that except through the skill I have in using/creating it?
Why do soldiers in movies often customize their weapons? So as to personnalize them, and make them more like themselves.

Which brings me to skills, which are a bit in between equipment and "kewl  powerz". They are inherent to the character, but require some external conditions to be met.
Someone good at shooting a gun needs a gun, or he won't be able to show it off.
(There's one problem with this: purely mental skills seem very close to "kewl powerz", but I'm not sure that Mathematics for example compete for the same effects).

I'll consider "kewl powerz" to be abilities inherent to the character (part of the character and his identity). As has been noted before, they can be used to reflect the character's personnality, and their evolution may be a metaphor to internal changes.
What it means for a character to have the power to fly for example, is that he will, on nearly all occasions (save kryptonite), be able to use his power. His character is reliable, more than his skills and certainly more than his equipment.
When considering such complex things as social esteem, not only success, but also the reliability of future success might be a factor for granting esteem.

Of course, in a setting in which "kewl powerz" are easily countered I wouldn't count them as anything but skills.

This all very vague and not very thoroughly thought of, but somehow there's this double aspect of symbolism (I'm powerful! look at the lightning I'm shooting out of my backside!) and great reliability in the future (I will always be able to shoot, no matter the situation), which I think "kewl powerz" are very good at portraying, thus being a good start for gathering units of social esteem.

(emphasis added)

Quote from: Andrew MorrisBut let's look at this. "Emotional Control" as a power, "Manipulate Emotions" as a skill, and "Hypnotic Projecter" as an item might all let you change someone's emotions. Make the Hypnotic Projector a cybernetic device hidden in your character's molars, and there's really no difference other than the "feel."

I think that's precisely an important difference. People will go a long way for the difference of "feel" in a game. The Gamist-GM might gain social esteem for giving his games the most attractive feel far around.

Quote from: Simon MarksPowers are a manifestation of Player intent as opposed to Character intent - if you see what I mean.

Hmmm. I think I'd agree with that.

CU

Quote from: Simon MarksIn almost all situations I can learn the Skill, or purchase the Equipment.

The power is unique in that, as part of the SIS, there may be no way to obtain it - in fact the only way to gain a power is often via a metagame.

Powers are a manifestation of Player intent as opposed to Character intent - if you see what I mean.

Well, I would agree that purely metagame methods (i.e. experience points) are usually the only way to gain power.  However, actually the same is often true of skills.  i.e. In many games, the character cannot learn new skills just by studying them.  There are also cases where the character can gain new powers by in-character action.  For example, Ars Magica provides in-character ways to research new forms, techniques, or other magical abilities.  

Furthermore, skills and even equipment can be gained and maintained by metagame means.  Notably, in Champions (i.e. the superheroic option of the HERO System) you can buy a power as being through a Focus.  But that means that metagame that object is an inherent part of your character.  If it is lost or stolen you will have a way to get it back.

I think there are a lot of directions we can go, in looking at cool powers, like social esteem, internal expression of character, etc.

But looking at what they do to play, the provoke players to take the other players to places they would never have gone to normally.

For example: Think of a D&D party without a cleric. Can you easily imagine them getting themselves into situations where it's easy to get hurt but there might not be any gain? Can you more easily imagine them leaving the dungeon well before their HP have dropped much? Can you imagine them turtling like mad?

Now add a cleric, with his kewl healing powerz.

Can they still turtle? Can they still shy away from any serious exploration?

Well, yes and no. Because I, the clerics player, will be applying social pressure: "Oh come on! Let's just get in there and see what happens...I'll heal you if you get hurt, ya big babies!"

For a whole range of reasons, I can't stand to see my powers sit idle. And because of it, I'll push the direction of the game out of everyones comfort zones and toward something far more exciting. There are hundreds of reasons that I like and want to use powers, but the effect is the same each time: I agitate for exciting stuff to happen, that normally wouldn't.

PS: I notice that with the spies in the jungle example, the spies intent revolved around leaving the jungle/leaving the conflict. I'm talking about how cool powers draw players toward conflict, instead.

Quote from: timfireI can learn the Skill, or purchase the Equipment...  there may be no way to obtain it - in fact the only way to gain a power is often via a metagame" contains a certain assumption about how a particular system works. It would be easy enough to create to create a system (if one does not already exist) that explicitly grants players the ability to gain "powers."

I am making assumptions, based on the idea that it isn't a Skill (something you can learn) and isn't Equipment (something external you can purchase).

I believed that was the dividing line we where drawing?

The difference is that (in theory) *anyone* could have a skill, *anyone* could have the equipment - but only "The Gifted" have "Kewl Powerz"

I think we have a definition issue here.

Quote from: timfireI'm also not understanding what you mean by "Powers are a manifestation of Player intent as opposed to Character intent." I'll assume for the moment that there is such a thing as "character intent," but could you elaborate on this idea?

Umm, let me see.

There are things that happen to a character, a character has or a character wants because "it fits the genre, characters, background, whatever"

(Example, Peter Parker is a Photographer)

There are things that happen to a character, a character has or a character wants because "the player wan'ts to explore that"

(Example, Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider)

The difference between the tool used for exploration, and what is being explored?

Heya,

I'd like to discuss what the Kewl Powerz do in a Gamist game for a sec and then examine how that might apply to other CA's.  In a Gamist game, several have posited that Kewl Powerz link directly to Social Esteem.  They link a player to his reward.  I can definately see that.  If Gamism is all about stepping up to risks, gambles, and strategic challenges, then Kewl Powerz (whatever they might include) are the channels a player goes through to get his reward for good game play.  They pave the road he travels and make it a smoother way to get to his destination.

If that is the case, what do Kewl Powerz in Sim and Nar games link?  In what way to they pave the road for these kinds of players?

Peace,

-Troy

In Nar games, they can facilitate adressing the premise.
For example, in Sorcerer, all which has got to do with demons is directly linked to how much power one gets in exchange for humanity.
Even if demonology is not considered a Kewl Power, similar examples could certainly be found involving them.

In Sim games, they are part of exploring the SIS. I guess players will have a direct interest in the Powerz themselves.

That's all for now.

Troy,

I recently wrote a bit about this in my blog, and the relevant stuff I'll post here:

In a narrativist agenda, kewl powerz can help you explore premise and do all that nifty stuff. However, they can only do it if you know why the powers matter in terms of the story and use them in those terms. What, exactly, does "With great power comes great responsiblity" mean to you? The responsibility to defend your neighborhood? To campaign for gay marriage? To kill George Bush? To take over the world so that it will be run correctly? While you can address such premises without powers, it's much harder as the average person can't shake the world the way the Authority does.

From a gamist agenda the kewl powerz are about the ability to rock the world and step on up and do it big style. However, if you are going to go about it that way you have to have powers that are specific, precise, and not all equal under all circumstances. If everything comes out the same in the end, then there is no ability to push it farther than others can and really get your game on. This can lead to powers giving social respect and player empowerment, those that can use the system bravely and assertivly get to push their character to the limit. Because many powers are inherently linked to specilizations ("fireblasts are good for this, but invisibility is good for that") and tactical choices they can make a good basis for gamist play.

From a sim agenda, there are a lot of things that kewl powerz can be about. They can, as Chad Underkoffer has pointed out, externalize the internal (though that gets into the narrativist agenda to) and widen the scope of the ways in which a character can interact with their world. You cannot pick up a tank if you don't have superstrength, and if no one has superstrength then no one can pick up a tank. So if you want tank picking up to happen in your game, you gots ta have da powerz. If you want to build a world that looks like the X-Men, you can't do it without powers. If you want to have stories like your favorite fantasy/sci-fi/comic stories the powers are inherently important to what you like about the game.

Heya,

Quote from: Brand_Robins

In a narrativist agenda, kewl powerz can help you explore premise and do all that nifty stuff. However, they can only do it if you know why the powers matter in terms of the story and use them in those terms. What, exactly, does "With great power comes great responsiblity" mean to you? The responsibility to defend your neighborhood? To campaign for gay marriage? To kill George Bush? To take over the world so that it will be run correctly? While you can address such premises without powers, it's much harder as the average person can't shake the world the way the Authority does.

-Okay, but are you saying that Narrativist games are all addressing "shake the world" premises?  I doubt that you are.  There is no reason to think that Narrativist games necissarily have to address issues on such a large scale.  Nor does it appear necessary for Nar games to have super powers to address premises of a highly focussed and internal nature such as the choice between doing good or doing evil or risking one's heart or not risking one's heart in a romance.  So, what do Kewl Powerz porvide in narrativist games that has so many of them including them?  It goes beyond just an aid to addressing premise.  There is something else there.  What other feature of gameplay to they support in tandem with addressing Premise?

Peace,

-Troy

Again, kewl powerz provoke the player (the nar player in this case) to go out and seek conflict/premise.

I mean, what stops you in real life going out and choosing between good and evil? You've got bills to pay...you need to have food in the fridge, you need a whole bunch of boring crap done.

Kewl powerz will take the narrativists mind to somewhere a little more interesting than that. When you can shoot lightening out of your butt, is the first thing you think about is doing the dishes? No? Good!

Kewl powerz provide a focus for premise address, which wouldn't happen with any clarity if your thinking about how your PC has a zillion domestic chores to get through.

Quote from: Troy_Costisick-Okay, but are you saying that Narrativist games are all addressing "shake the world" premises?

Nope. Not at all. I was, to be honest, thinking about nar based supers games in the vein of the Authority and such.

QuoteSo, what do Kewl Powerz porvide in narrativist games that has so many of them including them?

Sometimes I don't know. Some of it may be tradition, or the interests of the designers. Some of it is to address theme in a particular mode. Sorcerer, for example, uses demons and horror elements to address its theme of losing humanity in a far more accessible way than a game that focuses on... I don't know, working for a cigarette company. Both could do the same thing, but Sorcerer does it through tropes of a genre we're familiar with and uses it externalize internal pressures (demons actually trying to screw you, rather than you conscious rubbing you raw).

There are other nar games that have it for sim, or thematical simulation/set up reasons. Dogs in the Vineyard, for example, can be argued to not have cool powers – as the priesthood elements are pretty much just in the realm of "things Christians (Mormons in particular) believe actually work with just a little set-dressing differentiation." But without them the whole aspect of God's chosen using God's powers to fight the enemies of God goes away. You could still do the game, and have it rock, but the priesthood/paladin element (which was a big part of the game's inspiration and the historical period's draw) would vanish fairly quickly.

With Great Power is supers, therefore super powers (though it focuses on the thematic and story elements of the powers rather than the power element of them). This ties in with the "if you want tank lifting you need tank lifting powers" in the Sim category, but with a different emphasis. In the Sim game the power is often the point of the power, and the character can be built from it: For example, John Kim* recently gave me some good examples of how powers can lead to characterization in a simmy game: such as the speedster who is always zipping about people, showing her impatient and flashy personality. In With Great Power, however, the power is secondary to the person, but the power is still important because the game wishes to address issues that you can't address without the powers. You cannot ask "What would you do with the powers of a god" for example, if you don't have the powers of a god. Nor can you ask "If you had the ability to change your neighborhood by use of powers considered dangerous or abnormal that the law will not let you use, what would you do" if you don't have dangerous and abnormal powers, and that's what games such as this delve into. It's pretty much based on the way that comics build meaning and deal with issues, which is a very deep and powerful method no matter what prudes and literary elitists say.

Not to mention that set dressing is important. There is a real way in which we often respond differently to the same structural situation presented in different clothes. If your character is a modern person with no special abilities having to face the choice to use violence to stop a robber, your (the player's and the character's) reactions will probably be different than if you are a sword and sorcery badass who lives and dies by his barbaric code of honor, and different yet if you are the Dark Knight. Human (or semi-human) behavior is largely contextual and contingent, and using different power sets and settings allows for the same premise to be addressed in different ways.

As for other nar games:  Dust Devils doesn't have them at all. Primetime Adventures doesn't really require them, nor does My Life With Master (or am I remembering wrong?). Trollbabe has them as part of genre, and to reinforce the separate yet entwined elements of troll and human that make the trollbabes necessary outsiders. TSOY certainly has them, but it was designed as a "fantasy heartbreaker" style game, and ties the magic in with the setting and themes of the various cultures and races. HeroQuest is, to a degree, founded upon its cool powers as they are the stuff of myth that forms the world and gives the background to much of the tension and premise of the setting. The Pool and Universalis don't require them, though most games I've seen with them have them because the players want them.

So what do powers add to nar games? Ease, externalization, focus on specific elements and background building, myth and world support (a semi-sim concern, yes, but when used to support premise it can be a Nar one as well), and direction. However, they aren't necessary to successful Nar games, at least those coming out of the Forge, as several Forge Nar games do fairly well without them. But in the games where they are needed, they tend to be very necessary because they have been made a core part of the premise and the way it will be addressed.


*Which I totally missed the point of at first. Sorry John.

Sorry for jumping in late here...

Quote from: SimonThe difference is that (in theory) *anyone* could have a skill, *anyone* could have the equipment - but only "The Gifted" have "Kewl Powerz"

I think this point needs to be emphasized, given the topic of this thread.

What makes kewl powerz kewl is that they are extraordinary. Great stories are always about people doing extraordinary things. That doesn't have to mean they're supernatural--they do things and say things that we usually would not in similar situations. Maybe looking back we wish we did, but we didn't. A good exploration of the "extraordinary" aspect of protagonists along with the need for the protagonist to be empowered to address the conflicts of the story can be found in Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel.

When we roleplay, we create stories. Now, we can worry about the underlying CA later, but protagonists are always involved. We want the protagonists to be extraordinary; that's part of what makes them protagonists. Kewl Powerz are an easy way of achieving this goal. It's much harder to be extraordinary when that has to come from your decisions alone instead of your capabilities, which is why breakout literary fiction is harder to write than genre novels with magic or supertechnology or whatever. And that might also be why I've seen several Narrativist game designers express their desire to create games without kewl powerz from here on out--because kewl powerz are the easy road, and it's much more challenging to make a great game about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.[/quote]

Heya,

Quote from: xenopulseSorry for jumping in late here...

Quote from: SimonThe difference is that (in theory) *anyone* could have a skill, *anyone* could have the equipment - but only "The Gifted" have "Kewl Powerz"

I think this point needs to be emphasized, given the topic of this thread.

What makes kewl powerz kewl is that they are extraordinary. Great stories are always about people doing extraordinary things. That doesn't have to mean they're supernatural--they do things and say things that we usually would not in similar situations. Maybe looking back we wish we did, but we didn't. A good exploration of the "extraordinary" aspect of protagonists along with the need for the protagonist to be empowered to address the conflicts of the story can be found in Donald Maass' Writing the Breakout Novel.

Would you be more comfortable with saying something like, equpiment grants Kewl Powerz or skills grant kewll powerz.  With things like abilities and feats being Kewl Powerz in and of themselves?  Or are you describing something different?  Like super powers?

Peace,

-Troy

This issue of extraordinary circumstances is one that resonates with me.  Take Inigo Montoya, for instance:  Is his kewl power that he's a great fencer?  Or is his kewl power "You killed my father"... the circumstances of his story that justify his extraordinary actions?  Which is more important to the story?  I tend toward the latter, because he is not diminished as a fascinating character by dismally losing the only sword-fight in the first two thirds of the movie.

EDIT:  But maybe I'm trying to make "kewl powerz" mean too much, attributing it like that.

Quote from: TonyLBEDIT:  But maybe I'm trying to make "kewl powerz" mean too much, attributing it like that.

I think so. If "melodramatic personality trait" is a kewl powerz, then there is gong to be very little of RPGs or movies that aren't chock full of kewl powerz all the time. Dangerous Liasons is just as power-laden as Fantastic Four, and The Borne Supremecy the same as Goldeneye.

"Function" or "story grab" aren't inherently the same as powers in the minds of most people, I'm thinking (though powers often get used to help fill those roles). But if we do want to make them the same, then the answer for why they are needed is "because without them you get Waiting for Godot, which is a nice piece of theatre, but I wouldn't want to play it."

Heya,

Quote from: TonyLBThis issue of extraordinary circumstances is one that resonates with me.  Take Inigo Montoya, for instance:  Is his kewl power that he's a great fencer?  Or is his kewl power "You killed my father"... the circumstances of his story that justify his extraordinary actions?  Which is more important to the story?  I tend toward the latter, because he is not diminished as a fascinating character by dismally losing the only sword-fight in the first two thirds of the movie.

EDIT:  But maybe I'm trying to make "kewl powerz" mean too much, attributing it like that.

It depends.  If "You killed my father..." gave him his second wind, his ability to sustain and ignore wounds, and his sudden ability to defeat a more skilled foe, then yes it is a Kewl Power.  Used only once to achieve the end goal of a life quest.  You could label it "Burning Hatred", you could label it "Destiny", or you could label it "You killed my father..."  The label of the mechanic isnt as imortant (to me at least) as the effect.  Do others see it that way?

Peace,

-Troy

Hey  Tony,

I'd be inclined to think "You killed my father" is a kewl power (just like SA in TROS) except its too focused. When you can, for example, jump in front of a train and stop it with your bare hands, it leads to all sorts of situation that involve such a feat. If you can only stop a train when it's to do with your dead father, this revolves just around your PC. This rather than take the whole group somewhere that's out of their comfort zone.

Well, "You killed my father" could easily take the whole group out of their comfort zone. But I think that rather than focus on being out of their zone, the group will focus on the relationship between the PC and his dead father, and what he does in the name of that.

Quote from: TroyWould you be more comfortable with saying something like, equpiment grants Kewl Powerz or skills grant kewll powerz. With things like abilities and feats being Kewl Powerz in and of themselves? Or are you describing something different? Like super powers?

I think powers, skills and equipment all can be extraordinary. Powers tend to be those that are more unique. Shooting fireballs, in our world, would be a kewl power. Being moderately good with an M16 would not. However, if you have skills so mastered that they become quasi-unique, they turn into powers. I.e., if you can use that M16 to shoot out a cigarette from 500 yards, I'd call that a kewl power. I think the line is blurry somewhere in the middle--there's a grayzone with skills--but we can often tell whether something is a kewl power or a kewl skill. And kewl equipment can also do extraordinary things, but, as someone already said, it's more something external to the character.

Quote from: xenopulseAnd kewl equipment can also do extraordinary things, but, as someone already said, it's more something external to the character.

Well, like almost everything, it depends on the game. Would cybernetic implants be "external to the character?" How about a magic gem that's fused into the character's body?

While others have made good points about what powers can do in different CAs, and now we're discussing exactly what constitutes powers, I think it might be more valuable to try and figure out what it is that can only be added to the game through cool powers.

Heya,

Xenopulse Wrote:

QuoteI think powers, skills and equipment all can be extraordinary. Powers tend to be those that are more unique.

I think uniqueness might be a part of it perhaps.  Would you consider skills that are restricted to a certain class/race to be Kewl Powerz and/or unique enough to qualify?  Something like pick-pocket that is a thief only ability or encryption hacking for a techie in a Mechwarrior type game?

Noon Wrote:

QuoteI'd be inclined to think "You killed my father" is a kewl power (just like SA in TROS) except its too focused. When you can, for example, jump in front of a train and stop it with your bare hands, it leads to all sorts of situation that involve such a feat. If you can only stop a train when it's to do with your dead father, this revolves just around your PC. This rather than take the whole group somewhere that's out of their comfort zone.

Ah, but what if the "You killed my father..." was an ability that boosted your skills/stats/attributes when and only when you were about to resolve the character's issues with his/her dead father?  Sort of like a Destiny mechanic.  Is that a Kewl Power or instead a Plot Device?  I am very interested in your answer to that.

Brand Wrote:

Quote"Function" or "story grab" aren't inherently the same as powers in the minds of most people

Well, if those things grant a character abilites that look like a power, walk like a power, and quack like a power, should people change their minds about things like story hooks?  Or is there still a fundamental difference?

Andrew Wrote:

QuoteWhile others have made good points about what powers can do in different CAs, and now we're discussing exactly what constitutes powers, I think it might be more valuable to try and figure out what it is that can only be added to the game through cool powers.

Andrew makes an awesome point.  I am very, very interested in the answers to my questions above- they will help form a good base from which to discuss the larger issue.  But what Andrew brings up in his response is where I'd like the discussion to really head.  Once we have that centered on, then I think we can intelligently talk about alternatives to Kewl Powerz.

Peace,

-Troy

What makes Kewl Powerz different from "plot devices" is who gets to trigger them. In most cases, KP are triggered by players, while PD come into play at those times the GM feels like it.
When one is trying to overcome a challenge, Kewl Powerz are more reliable.

If KP are metaphoric extensions of the character that let them participate in conflict, then there are only two things that I see that can only be added to the game through KP:
- scale (shooting lightning out of your butt will allow you to face godzilla, whereas ordinary archery does not).
- feel (it feels cooler to have KP than just have a plain old skill).

Quote from: ArtanisWhat makes Kewl Powerz different from "plot devices" is who gets to trigger them. In most cases, KP are triggered by players, while PD come into play at those times the GM feels like it.
When one is trying to overcome a challenge, Kewl Powerz are more reliable.

So in a game like Dogs in the Vineyard or Heroquest relationships and personality traits function as cool powers. That can make sense in some ways, especially if in HQ you have a really high personality trait that lets you alter the course of the world through use of personality. Mr. Furious vs the Lunars!

I do think in the case of Inigo we could be talking about a personality trait/relationship as a power. It let him practically come back from the dead, which is beyond the normal scope of what a really big personality trait lets people do. OTOH, de Valmont's (Dangerous Liasons) personality traits didn't let him do anything different than normal people do, so in his case it may not.

OTOH, the same definition applies to normal human level strength in a game like D&D. Is there a difference in power/not power between a magic missile and an 18 Str? Or a 12 Str? A 40 Str?

If "ability to effect the game when the player wants to" is a power, then everything that characters do on a normal basis is a power. At which point I don't know exactly what we're talking about anymore because every stat on every character sheet becomes a power -- which I'm pretty sure is not what most of us were thinking when we started down this road.

I think there needs to be some kind of "that normal human beings could not do, or could not do reliably" or else we're just using "power" to mean "any character based ability." (Or, to avoid the "what is realism" issue a "something neither I nor most people I know could/would do reliably.")

Quote from: Artanis- scale (shooting lightning out of your butt will allow you to face godzilla, whereas ordinary archery does not).

The difference between Archery and Super-Archery (or lightning bolts) being the difference between a kewl powerz and a not-power? This does work in a lot of games, I think. However, games like With Great Power can collapse this definition as your "powers" (in terms of that game's mechanics -- aspect powers) and your "convictions" (which non-powered characters can have) could both let you face Godzilla.

Perhaps in WGP all abilities are essentially kewl powerz? As all of them can let you do things normal people do not normally do? Where as in GURPS a 13 in archery isn't?

Quote- feel (it feels cooler to have KP than just have a plain old skill).

I think that one is always important. And that feel can be used to develop all manner of things in the game, from character to premise. As I said, set dressing counts.

I think I'm going to pass on the good rule of reading the whole thread before posting to it. If somebody's already said this, feel free to PM me with bitching. I blame the way RPG theory threads fill up fast with all kinds of purposeless back and forth.

You folks are obviously pretty confused about the whole kewl powerz thing. What ever gave you the notion evidenced in the last couple of pages that kewl powerz are an in-setting thing? Because it's not. There's exactly one thing that differentiates between a "kewl power" and another kind of player resource: being a discrete and qualitative resource.

Consider: in D&D, nobody would say that Strength stat, whatever the value, is a "kewl power". At least nobody outside this weird thread. However, "Great Strength" might well be a kewl power in another system that makes having great strength a matter of qualitative break with the rest of the game. My example is Vampire, which has that vampire power of... whatever it's name is, I forget. The one that increases your strength. That's a kewl power, and it is that because you get to buy it and say that you have it, while other guys do not have it. And it allows you to do stuff they can't. Which is simply not true in D&D, although both a +2 in D&D and a dot in this vampire power whose name I forget in Vampire are representations of great strength.

Now, the above description of a kewl power means that there is no kewl powerz in HQ, for example, while there most certainly is in D&D in the form of feats. More weirdly, having a camera could well be a kewl power in the right game, so what's up with that? The reason for the apparent disconnect is that kewl powerz are not just about discrete powers, they're about value systems also: the term is only used in connection to power fantasy and character-simulation games, where it's very important to have something discrete. I already gave a reason for this in the other thread: kewl powerz are a tool of character identity for these kinds of games. The camera is only a kewl power if the character identity is really about being a Cameraman, the best there is at what he does. Which is possible, but that'd be a pretty weird setting.

So in that sense talking about kewl powerz is just like talking about railroading or bangs; it's special terminology that applies only to a particular kind of game, and disappears in others. Capes, for example, as far as I know, doesn't have kewl powerz. Same for many other indie games. Notably, Sorcerer has them. And this has nothing to do with power level or whether those powers can be taken away or whatever, and everything to do with whether character identity is defined in terms of having powers or not. Exalted is purely about kewl powerz, while Sorcerer only has one important kewl power, that of summoning demons.

--

To be clear, you can think what you want. I just think that all this talk about relationships as cool powers or whatever is pretty useless for any real purpose. Using relationships or feelings or property as game currency is nothing new, but that hardly makes it a kewl power. If your game has a character class of "Rich boy", on the other hand, and other characters cannot get rich, then money can indeed be a kewl power. Certain applications of Cyberpunk fall into this category, when the suits get to use their connections and cash in ways that justify their coolness.

That's that, folks.

Quote from: Eero TuovinenThere's exactly one thing that differentiates between a "kewl power" and another kind of player resource: being a discrete and qualitative resource.

I think part of the confusion of this thread is stepping back and forth between this structural definition of "kewl powerz" and the more standard definition of "able to blow shit up by looking at it." I think that focusing on it in this way has good potential, though there are still some issues to be worked out.

QuoteConsider: in D&D, nobody would say that Strength stat, whatever the value, is a "kewl power".

That depends. If you have a strength in human ranges then probably not. However, if you have "strength of the dragon" that gives you a Str 40 then probably so. That could, however, be because it goes out of the normal ways in which Strength is gained for a character.

QuoteNow, the above description of a kewl power means that there is no kewl powerz in HQ, for example, while there most certainly is in D&D in the form of feats.

In HQ I could see it, though by the other definition there certainly are. In fact part of the "cool" factor of HQ is often defined by its ability to let you have wierd ass abilities. So if we're saying it has no cool powers, what term should we use for the setting-based abilities that certainly are cool and power-based? We obviously need terms to set the two apart, if we want to keep the differences clear.

QuoteSo in that sense talking about kewl powerz is just like talking about railroading or bangs; it's special terminology that applies only to a particular kind of game, and disappears in others.

I agree with this, as you've presented the structural argument.

QuoteCapes, for example, as far as I know, doesn't have kewl powerz.

This is problematic. There are different classes of ability in Capes, those which create debt and those which don't, and those which do are labeled as "super powers" and avaliable only to certain types of characters. (Of course all types of characters are avaliable to all types of players, but the mechanical effect of the "skill" vs "power" is very solidly defined.) The generation of debt, however, is one of the things the drives the game and certainly makes some characters more interesting and versitile than others.

It's also an especially tricksy case as one of the themes of Capes is "having powers is cool" -- so once again, without some term for structural vs. setting "cool power" we're going to get into trouble.

QuoteI just think that all this talk about relationships as cool powers or whatever is pretty useless for any real purpose.

Unless relationships or personality traits are a special class of thing relegated to those who are able to use them? That is to say, unless the relationships you have are used to define who you are in terms of things you can do that others cannot?  Such as, for example, Inigo having an ability that lets him come back from the (mostly) dead while no one else can? Or Fezig having freakish strength while everyone else is spefically "normal" in terms of strength, thus making his strength a power?

Hi Troy,

QuoteAh, but what if the "You killed my father..." was an ability that boosted your skills/stats/attributes when and only when you were about to resolve the character's issues with his/her dead father? Sort of like a Destiny mechanic. Is that a Kewl Power or instead a Plot Device? I am very interested in your answer to that.

The emphasis makes it a plot device.

Imagine a kewl power of mega wilderness survival. And imagine how the other players have to cope without wilderness skills in the wilderness. The other players will be really focused on coping with that.

Now imagine you have the power of mega wilderness survival when your about to deal with your dead dad issues.

At that point the other players could be focused on surviving in the wilderness and coping without skills there. But are they really going to focus on that stuff, when everyone could watch the melodrama of how you finally cope with your dead dad?

Man, it's too distracting! The former example leads to players (those who don't have the kewl power) having to cope with being out of their comfort zone. The latter throws that out the window...can you imagine trying to describe how you start a camp fire, when some other player is finally facing his fathers death?

Side note: There's a lot of focus in this thread as to why people love kewl powerz. I'll admit, people don't love kewl powers because they push everyone else out of their comfort zone. But I do think that is the primary function of kewl powers, none the less. They do other stuff, but in terms of shaping group play thats where they have their most significant effect.

Heya,

Eero Wrote:

QuoteI already gave a reason for this in the other thread: kewl powerz are a tool of character identity for these kinds of games.

If this is true, then is not "You killed my father..." another tool of character identity just in another kind of game?  I mean if Heat Vision defines Fire-eyes the Superhero's character identity, then is that all that dissimilar to the "You killed my father..." power that defines Inigo?  I'm really interested in pursuing this train of thought because if it is indeed powers that define identity, then we may have a useful definition for them.  

Noon Wrote:

QuoteAt that point the other players could be focused on surviving in the wilderness and coping without skills there. But are they really going to focus on that stuff, when everyone could watch the melodrama of how you finally cope with your dead dad?

Are you talking simultaniously? Then no.  But if all the characters were walking through the Dread Swamp, then the guy with Wilderness Survival would be of keen interest to them.  Wouldn't you agree?

Peace,

-Troy

Quote from: Troy_Costisick
If this is true, then is not "You killed my father..." another tool of character identity just in another kind of game?  I mean if Heat Vision defines Fire-eyes the Superhero's character identity, then is that all that dissimilar to the "You killed my father..." power that defines Inigo?  I'm really interested in pursuing this train of thought because if it is indeed powers that define identity, then we may have a useful definition for them.  

Certainly. That's what I told Tony: if you can create a context for character identity without kewl powerz, then you don't need kewl powerz. Heroquest, for example, gives characters genuine cultural identity, which is the whole point of the game. You're an Orlanthi of the cult of Issaries. This is not a kewl power, but it does define character identity, so there's no pressing need for kewl powerz. You could have them, but nobody's going to miss them (assuming you're not playing with broken individuals).

So, understand that powers defining identity are a function of a certain kind of game, not a general dictum. A game can handle powers in ways that do not make them a character identity thing. And games can handle character identity in ways that do not depend on powerz. Only when you support the kewl powerz with system you really get the phenomenon.

Quote from: Brand_RobinsSo in a game like Dogs in the Vineyard or Heroquest relationships and personality traits function as cool powers. That can make sense in some ways, especially if in HQ you have a really high personality trait that lets you alter the course of the world through use of personality. Mr. Furious vs the Lunars!

Never played either game, nor did I read the books, so I can't really tell.
But there's nothing I can see so far that tells me to exclude relationships and personality from possible types of Kewl Powerz.
Except maybe the relationship in the sens of a specific relationship to some particular character.
There's a difference about something that has already been set up before play through continuous (and perhaps mundane) events, and the "power" to make friends easily.
Does that sound like something worth exploring? How does it work in DitV or HQ?

Quote(...) It let him practically come back from the dead, which is beyond the normal scope of what a really big personality trait lets people do.

I don't know the story you're talking about, but wasn't it triggered by something external to the character?
Classical KP such as flying, shooting laser, growing natural weapons, etc. all work in all cases (except when "kryptonite" pops up), and a player would know that in most cases he can count on them.
Such things as Wilderness Survival or Avenge my Dad only work when you're in wilderness or when it has directly something to do with your Dad (but then it's almost sure that you can do something).
It's a bit "triggering conditions" vs "effects". Maybe I'm far off, as Eero suggests later on.

QuoteIs there a difference in power/not power between a magic missile and an 18 Str? Or a 12 Str? A 40 Str?

In terms of character effectiveness, there surely is, but it's not necessary to go that far. There's always the "what it looks like" (the feel) and character identity.

QuoteIf "ability to effect the game when the player wants to" is a power, then everything that characters do on a normal basis is a power.

I just used that criteria to distinguish between Plot Devices and Kewl Powerz. My take on other things can be found here (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=15790&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=47).

QuoteI think there needs to be some kind of "that normal human beings could not do, or could not do reliably" or else we're just using "power" to mean "any character based ability."

Isn't that covered with "scale"?

Quote(...)games like With Great Power

I haven't the slightest idea what this game looks like, so I can't delve further into that part of the analysis, sorry.

Quote from: EeroWhat ever gave you the notion evidenced in the last couple of pages that kewl powerz are an in-setting thing? Because it's not.

Well, to some extent it is, although your criteria seems to be more powerful.
The thing you're talking about in Vampire whose name I also forget is setting based. It's a discipline and as such is linked to your clan. It's powered with blood points, which you get by drinking blood. A pretty in-setting thing to me.
Kewl Powerz need this link to in-setting, or they're not that cool. Or else you'll have to show me how they definetly don't need to be, because it's not a straightforward thing to see.
I do agree that the opposite is not always true.

QuoteNotably, Sorcerer has them [kewl powerz]. And this has nothing to do with power level or whether those powers can be taken away or whatever, and everything to do with whether character identity is defined in terms of having powers or not.

And how has that nothing to do with power level? Isn't Sorcerer all about "how far will you go for power?" and giving you the opportunity to get that power?
I agree that reliability on a power is perhaps not so good an argument though.

Quote from: Artanis

Quote from: EeroWhat ever gave you the notion evidenced in the last couple of pages that kewl powerz are an in-setting thing? Because it's not.

Well, to some extent it is, although your criteria seems to be more powerful.
The thing you're talking about in Vampire whose name I also forget is setting based. It's a discipline and as such is linked to your clan. It's powered with blood points, which you get by drinking blood. A pretty in-setting thing to me.
Kewl Powerz need this link to in-setting, or they're not that cool. Or else you'll have to show me how they definetly don't need to be, because it's not a straightforward thing to see.
I do agree that the opposite is not always true.

The Vampire thing is a fine example, let's use that: imagine that you were playing Vampire in Heroquest rules, and vampire super strength was just defined as a really high strength ability. Suddenly, although the in-setting thing is nearly unchanged, the strength is no longer a kewl power. It is no longer mechanically special, it's just the same as the strength of another character. Interestingly, this wouldn't be a big problem exactly because vampires have a strong character identity anyway. This is why kewl powerz in Vampire are ultimately a redundant mistake of reality modeling.

It's true that kewl powerz need to have an in-setting component, because their meaning in the setting is ultimately what makes them kewl powerz instead of just special powers. It's equally true that the in-setting specialness is not enough, you also need the mechanical component. So, to put it shortly:
(qualitative, discrete mechanics)+(in-setting specialness) = kewl powerz, which bestow a character with identity. He's special and protagonism-worthy by the virtue of being able to do this.
(qualitative, discrete mechanics) = special powers, which do not define character identity. The ability to disarm others in D&D is an example of this, as everybody can do it, even if it has it's own mechanics.
(in-setting specialness) = color, which doesn't define character identity. HQ abilities are all like this. There is nothing kewl in having "Ultimate Hellfire Sword" when it's a part of the resource economy of the game just as other things are. You could as well just have a "Sword" with the same rating, and it'd work the same.

You have to remember the context wherein I first answered the question: Tony was asking how he could not have kewl powerz in his bubblegum game. In other words, what's the reason for having kewl powerz. My answer shoots for that question, so it's not necessarily an useful definition for some other priorities. I don't know why you people are discussing the kewl power thing, so for all I know it might be useful for you to try to find an in-setting, literature phenomenon that could be called by that name.

You see, in Tony's context, the question is about roleplaying. And in roleplaying both the in-setting and mechanics become part of character identity. If you were to play a boardgame, the kewl powerz would work quite fine without an in-setting component. Similarly, in literature you don't need the mechanical component. In rpgs, however, the most efficient design has both, and that's what I'd like to call an actual kewl power, instead of just a bit of rules or setting.

Quote

QuoteNotably, Sorcerer has them [kewl powerz]. And this has nothing to do with power level or whether those powers can be taken away or whatever, and everything to do with whether character identity is defined in terms of having powers or not.

And how has that nothing to do with power level? Isn't Sorcerer all about "how far will you go for power?" and giving you the opportunity to get that power?
I agree that reliability on a power is perhaps not so good an argument though.

No, although Sorcerer the game is about power and it's use, the kewl power factor is not dependant on it. Each player character is a sorcerer, who can control demons, and this is the only kewl power characters have in the game. It's the same for everybody, and, interestingly enough, it's importance is not diminished even if the setting is defined such that the demons are wimpy little things compared with normal powers. You're still a special person, a Sorcerer, who risks his humanity for your goals. That has nothing to do with power level, and cannot be taken away even if your demons can be killed with machine guns.

I think it was Mike Holmes who gave an useful comparison about this a couple of years ago: imagine waking up one morning and realizing that you can cast the Light spell from D&D. Now, you're suddenly an incredibly special person, with a huge mystery howering over you. This, despite the light spell being the most meassly spell in the game, and despite there being electrical light in abundance for everybody. What has happened is that you gained a kewl power, and your identity was suddenly redefined by it. You are no more Bob the counter clerk, you're Bob the Mage. This is what I mean by the kewl powerz being used to define character identity. That's their only useful function as far as I can see, though; if you give the players tools of character identity in some other form, you don't need kewl powerz either. Like Heroquest does.

Ok, I buy your two arguments. Thanks for explaining!

Quote from: Troy_Costisick
Noon Wrote:

QuoteAt that point the other players could be focused on surviving in the wilderness and coping without skills there. But are they really going to focus on that stuff, when everyone could watch the melodrama of how you finally cope with your dead dad?

Are you talking simultaniously? Then no.  But if all the characters were walking through the Dread Swamp, then the guy with Wilderness Survival would be of keen interest to them.  Wouldn't you agree?

Well, as noted the power only activates when your dealing with your dead dad. So it's either....

A. Going through the dread swamp has nothing to do with the PC's dad and the power wont activate. Since effectively no one has wilderness powers, they all push for the game not to include going through the dread swamp to begin with.

or

B. Going through the dread swamp does have something to do with the dead PC's dad and coping with that, so it will activate. Everyone will go through the dread swamp, but they are distracted by the PC coping with this issue.


But I might not be getting what you mean by "But if all the characters were walking through the Dread Swamp, then the guy with Wilderness Survival would be of keen interest to them.". I guess if the GM uses force techniques to get the players into the dread swamp this PC will gain more interest. But sans force techniques, the players will avoid the dread swamp like the plague to begin with (situation A). And if the GM is using force to get them into the swamp, then the players shouldn't be interested in the PC but instead interested in the GM, as to whether he'll decide at some point that the swamp activates the kewl power and saves all their butts. But that looks like illusionism/participationism to me and I think my idea about kewl powers breaks down when it comes to that.

Heya,

Eero Wrote:

QuoteSo, understand that powers defining identity are a function of a certain kind of game, not a general dictum. A game can handle powers in ways that do not make them a character identity thing. And games can handle character identity in ways that do not depend on powerz. Only when you support the kewl powerz with system you really get the phenomenon.

Okay, I think I'm following you.  Could you list a few games that handle character identity without anything you would label as a Kewl Power?  I think this will be very helpful in aiding me with using this concept in both discussion and in design.

Noon Wrote:

QuoteA. Going through the dread swamp has nothing to do with the PC's dad and the power wont activate. Since effectively no one has wilderness powers, they all push for the game not to include going through the dread swamp to begin with.

or

B. Going through the dread swamp does have something to do with the dead PC's dad and coping with that, so it will activate. Everyone will go through the dread swamp, but they are distracted by the PC coping with this issue.

I think we might have had a tad of miscomunication.  I probably did not state things clearly, and I appologize.  I wasn't talking about GM force or anything like that.  I meant to say that if one of the PC's had Kewl Wilderness Ability then when the PCs went thru the Dread Swamp his power would be well appreciated by the players and they *would* take interest in it.  Then, later, when another of the PCs met his arch-nemisis and his "You killed my father..." power came into play, it would be well appreciated and the others would take interest in it.  Make sense?  I wasn't treating the Dread Swamp as an obsticle to "You killed my father...", altho I do concede one could look at it that way.

My point, however, was to demonstrait that a Wilderness ability and a Revenge ability might not be all that different mechanically speaking.  Did I get that accross or am I still rambling? :)  

I appreciate your thoughts and insight.

Peace,

-Troy

Some of these things have been pointed out, some have not. I think the aspect of how giving the characters power can help streamline (= "forget the uninteresting bits") and focus the game is possibly the most important, and I'm a bit surprised that it hasn't been discussed to death already. (Or maybe it has, and I just didn't notice, I admit I didn't read all the messages that carefully.)

So, giving the characters kewl powerz:

a) helps to free the game from the trivialities of mundane life (escapism)

With powerful characters it becomes a lot easier to just ignore things that are irrelevant to the story, but would otherwise realistically need to be noted. I haven't played Amber myself, but I understand that in that game this is quite often the case.

For example, having a lot of money means having a lot of power in a modern society. With money you can have the characters travel anywhere they want, dress any way they like, eat and drink what ever they like and have what ever reasonably mundane equipment you want them to have, and still keep realism intact.

b) helps to free the game from matters that are irrelevant to the story

If Superman wants to go to North Korea, he can just fly there. No need to talk about border patrols or the price and availibility of plane tickets.

The Bride can just walk into a yakuza club to have her revenge, no need to make a plan.

If a player wants his millionaire character to enter through a window on a Harley Davidson, you don't need to ask "where are you going to get the Hog?" There is no point (or need) to get into the details.

c) creates new narrative possibilities

Things that were previously impossible now enter the realm of possibilities. What if you could live for a thousand years? What if you could possess anyone you like?

d) can help in focusing on certain themes

For example empaths and telepaths easily end in heated discussions about privacy and things like "my right to feel miserable" or "your friends right to know". Necromancy can bring focus on death, the dead and for example the meaning and existance of a soul. Immortality puts life and history in a new perspective. If you could just kill the people you think are bad, would you really?


So my contribution to why most RPG's give the characters kewl powerz is that it's a really easy and obvious way of giving powerful tools for storytelling. (Or in other words, stories with powerful characters tend to be more entertaining, which is the end result of the previous idea.)

Unfortunately this tool is usually poorly used (and thought out), both in the games we buy and the games we play. I think White Wolf was propably among the first to really understand that the powers the characters have a big effect on the themes, and the easiest way of creating games with certain themes was focusing on a certain type of supernatural characters with appropriate powers. They too could've done much better in this I think, but still. It was a good idea, and it did/does work to some extent.

This also pretty nicely helps explain why indie games tend to have less of cool powers. They have, use and give other means to focus and streamline the stories/games.

(Btw: after a second reading I do notice that what I'm talking about here is not best described with "kewl powerz". Replace with "unusual amount of power" or "superpowers", if that helps.)

Quote from: Troy_Costisick

QuoteSo, understand that powers defining identity are a function of a certain kind of game, not a general dictum. A game can handle powers in ways that do not make them a character identity thing. And games can handle character identity in ways that do not depend on powerz. Only when you support the kewl powerz with system you really get the phenomenon.

Okay, I think I'm following you.  Could you list a few games that handle character identity without anything you would label as a Kewl Power?  I think this will be very helpful in aiding me with using this concept in both discussion and in design.

Sure.

I'll start with Heroquest, because it's been mentioned several times in the thread. In it, the players are assumed to derive character identity from the setting: either you support or oppose the cultural paradigm of each of your keywords, and that is you. The keyword in this manner becomes the defining framework for the details of who your character is.

Another example is Vampire. It has kewl powers, but they are largely reduntant for the game, because character identity is tied to the clans. Being a camarilla nosferatu or whatever is exactly the same as being an Orlanthi convert to Lunarism in HQ.

An opposite example by the way is Hunter, in which kewl powers are indeed the definition of character identity. You are a hunter because you can do this stuff nobody else can. Really backwards thematically, but there you have it. A more sensible example of the same is Mage, in which character identity is also all about having these powers. It's less invested in the kewlness thing, though, because the mages do not need to prove their specialness constantly.

Still another example is Call of Cthulhu, which deals with character identity much more weakly than any of the above examples. The main idea is that your character is somebody who's interested in the occult. Apart from this, however, the game doesn't proffer tools for character identity. This can be a good or a bad thing, but the fact is that you pretty much have to build your character yourself, perhaps utilizing period cliches.

A list of other games that do not use kewl powerz for character identity follows. Note how each of these games has some precepts and tools concerning character identity, and generally they are stronger than corresponding tools in kewl powerz games.
- Dogs in the Vineyard: characters are all soldiers of the faith, by situation fiat.
- Fastlane: the only explicit tool of character identity is the aesthetic guideline of living fast, dying young. However, the rules encourage building a web of nihilistic social debt, too.
- Universalis: no tools, except lots of genre expectation and cliche.
- Vespertine: your identity is your clique. A prime example of how a social group can function in replacing kewl powerz.
- Dust Devils: the Devil functions to replace kewl powerz as character identity.
- The Questing Beast: character identity comes from the antropomorphic animal and the setting cliches. Strong stuff.

A list of games in which kewl powerz as identity are especially strong:
- kill puppies for satan: a mockery of the phenomenon, and thus very clear example of the same.
- superhero games: very much so. Especially the Aberrant cycle of games. The whole point is to explore the implications of your superhumanity.
- Exalted: it's a superhero game, of course.

The main thing to understand is that kewl powerz, although prevalent in rpgs, are a matter of inability to think outside the box. There's only one theme evidenced by kewl powerz, and that by itself is kind of sad. All the WW games, for example, are ostensibly about this or that lofty theme, but they all come down to identity-through-power. Pretty limited.

Quote from: Eero TuovinenThe main thing to understand is that kewl powerz, although prevalent in rpgs, are a matter of inability to think outside the box. There's only one theme evidenced by kewl powerz, and that by itself is kind of sad. All the WW games, for example, are ostensibly about this or that lofty theme, but they all come down to identity-through-power. Pretty limited.

Would you please care to develop this point?
Do you think kewl powerz could serve other themes? How could one avoid the trap of focusing exclusively on "identity-through-power"?
What's your take on using kewl powerz for matters of scale (the way Itse described it just a few posts up for example)?

Quote from: Eero TuovinenThe main thing to understand is that kewl powerz, although prevalent in rpgs, are a matter of inability to think outside the box. There's only one theme evidenced by kewl powerz, and that by itself is kind of sad. All the WW games, for example, are ostensibly about this or that lofty theme, but they all come down to identity-through-power. Pretty limited.

I don't agree with this.  Identity-through-power is a device, not a theme.  As a non-roleplaying example, the film X2 made great use of powers as identifiers, but the thematic subject of the film wasn't identity through power.  Thematically, it was about different sorts of human identity, especially gender identity.  I see the same thing in superpowered RPGs.  Players create their characters with powers, and those powers inevitably symbolize human things which the players are interested in the real world.  

It's not limited at all.  I've played at least a half-dozen extended Champions campaigns, and each one had different themes.

Quote from: Artanis

Quote from: Eero TuovinenThe main thing to understand is that kewl powerz, although prevalent in rpgs, are a matter of inability to think outside the box. There's only one theme evidenced by kewl powerz, and that by itself is kind of sad. All the WW games, for example, are ostensibly about this or that lofty theme, but they all come down to identity-through-power. Pretty limited.

Would you please care to develop this point?
Do you think kewl powerz could serve other themes? How could one avoid the trap of focusing exclusively on "identity-through-power"?
What's your take on using kewl powerz for matters of scale (the way Itse described it just a few posts up for example)?

Well, to my mind the term "kewl powerz" indicates a particular kind of mindset: character-focused play with competence-based identity being a high priority. Many games have superpowers or heroism, but only some have kewl powerz. Risto (Itse) himself noted how his points are more about superpowers in general than kewl powerz in particular.

So, as I understand the phenomenon, kewl powerz really are their own theme, and thus cannot serve or support other themes. To wit, you could remake any of the WW games without the kewl powerz, and the actual themes the games ostensibly shoot for would have that much better chances to actually appear. Imagine Vampire without the Disciplines and generations, if you will. Especially, imagine Vampire without some über-rare exclusive assamite off-shoot bloodline Disciplines. A completely different, and perhaps more focused, game.

Superpowers and heroic feats, on the other hand, are a much wider category of concept. They're just a literary meme, and thus can be applied for many, many things. Risto gave some examples of their use.

Thus, my take is that we're talking about two separate things. The question is not so much how to use kewl powerz for other things, but how to perhaps have a variety of super powers and neat stuff without falling into the kewl powerz syndrome. The answer to this is to simply remove the super powers as goals of character development and crux of character identity. Simple, but efficient. Many games do this, but most achieve it by removing the crunch from the super powers. An example of a game with power crunch but no kewl powerz syndrome... can't really think of one. Perhaps the sim-friendly setting heavy-games like Burning Wheel or Riddle of Steel are such? I haven't played either, but I imagine that kewl powerz can't be a particular focus of either game.

Quote from: John Kim
I don't agree with this.  Identity-through-power is a device, not a theme.  As a non-roleplaying example, the film X2 made great use of powers as identifiers, but the thematic subject of the film wasn't identity through power.  Thematically, it was about different sorts of human identity, especially gender identity.  I see the same thing in superpowered RPGs.  Players create their characters with powers, and those powers inevitably symbolize human things which the players are interested in the real world.  

I don't disagree, although I've yet to see the movie. I think that that kind of game isn't a kewl powerz game, though. Let me give an example of what I think as the core of the kewl powerz fetish:

We're playing Vampire. I get this idea for a Caribbean character, say, who's a vampire voodoo priest. Now, it's a really cool character concept, I think. However, I have this problem: to fulfill my character concept, I need my character to have this power to, say, contact the loa of the dead or something. This is because my character won't be cool without that power. My concept won't be supported if my character doesn't have this thing others can't do. He needs the special power that says that he's a voodoo priest. If he were a voodoo priest with just Celerity and that strength thing with the name I still can't remember, then he'd just be another run-of-the-mill vampire. He wouldn't be cool or special at all. Which is of course weird, when you remember that he's a vampire.

This is what I understand by kewl powerz. A game with them needs to have a wide variety of different, flashy and setting-embedded powerz, because character identity is constructed from mastering these special powerz. Not having a particular kind of power is the same as not supporting a particular character.

This is completely different from merely having a game include super powers or other cool stuff. It's a matter of setting and mechanics supporting power-identity, and can be considered pretty much a theme, when you see how players act to define their characters through their powerz.

Quote from: Eero Tuovinen

Quote from: John KimI see the same thing in superpowered RPGs.  Players create their characters with powers, and those powers inevitably symbolize human things which the players are interested in the real world.

This is what I understand by kewl powerz. A game with them needs to have a wide variety of different, flashy and setting-embedded powerz, because character identity is constructed from mastering these special powerz. Not having a particular kind of power is the same as not supporting a particular character.

This is completely different from merely having a game include super powers or other cool stuff. It's a matter of setting and mechanics supporting power-identity, and can be considered pretty much a theme, when you see how players act to define their characters through their powerz.

Well, from your description, I think that what I'm talking about is definitely what you call "kewl powerz".  The players are acting to define their characters through their powers.  That's how it worked in the Champions games I played in.  The advantage of Champions was that it had an extremely flexible powers-creation system, so it supported a wide variety of different character types.  

I doubt I'd be interested in a game which "merely include superpowers" as part of the background without them being used for identity.  What's the point of the superpowers in such a game?  

Quote from: Eero TuovinenWe're playing Vampire. I get this idea for a Caribbean character, say, who's a vampire voodoo priest. Now, it's a really cool character concept, I think. However, I have this problem: to fulfill my character concept, I need my character to have this power to, say, contact the loa of the dead or something. This is because my character won't be cool without that power. My concept won't be supported if my character doesn't have this thing others can't do. He needs the special power that says that he's a voodoo priest. If he were a voodoo priest with just Celerity and that strength thing with the name I still can't remember, then he'd just be another run-of-the-mill vampire. He wouldn't be cool or special at all. Which is of course weird, when you remember that he's a vampire.

Right.  As I generally play, I'd be trying to get those special voodoo powers as a player, and as a GM trying to support the request for voodoo powers.  Celerity and/or Potence for such a character is pointless -- they don't represent the stuff which the player wants to externalize.  It would be like handing out costumes in a theater performance without any thought as to character.

Quote from: Eero TuovinenI'll start with Heroquest, because it's been mentioned several times in the thread. In it, the players are assumed to derive character identity from the setting: either you support or oppose the cultural paradigm of each of your keywords, and that is you. The keyword in this manner becomes the defining framework for the details of who your character is.

Unless you're playing the Heroquest where your identity comes from discovering surfing, doing origami, or being a duck. Or the one where your identity comes from having the secret of Six Cuts Silk, or being able to jump over the sun. What you're talking about is certainly present in HQ, but only focuses upon it that tightly and exclusively in ForgeQuest.

However, this is using "unusual abilities" to make identity -- which is, as I understand your argument -- different than "kewl powerz" because all of the unusual abilities still use the same basic system as the rest of the abilities. Your Six Cuts Silk may sound cool, and be narrated cool, but isn't a powerz because it isn't any different (mechanically) than Sword Fighting.

One of the places it may cross over, however, is in secrets of religions and in the magic rules in several places. While the magic rules all come out of your culture (or a culture, at least) they also have the only HQ examples of special rule systems (augments that work differently, some abilities that force the way you spend AP, etc). So despite the fact that they may come from culture, they are powerz because they change the normal rule systems and work differently than all the other abilitys of the game.

So in HQ you can have unusual abilities that have little to do with your culture, either for or against, that make up a good part of your identity. You can also have abilities that do not follow the rules for abilities from the rest of the game. Which means there may well be the potential for kewl powerz -- all you need is the kind of player who would use the rules for spirit-based augments, kill a god and wear its skin to use those special rules to build his personal identity, then make up the kind of background where his culture is created in order to support his role rather than the reverse. (Cough)

All in all I think HQ is a very iffy example in this, as it floats back and forth along the line. Of course, that could aslo make it a perfect example as one of its strengths is that it does different things and can be conformed to different visions of the game without having to drift the system proper. You can have characters that get their identity from their special abilities, or their culture, or both. You can also have characters that have abilities that use slightly different rules than the rest of the abilities in the game, which may be tied to their culture or may not.

Which ties in with what John Kim is saying, I'm thinking. It may well be that your character starts out as a character in HQ with the "kewl powerz" of "I'm a duck and can talk to the dead" and end up creating the rest of the theme based around those powers, rather than the reverse.

Heya,

Here's what I've come to conclude so far.  Feel free to lambast, counter, and/or agree with as you see fit.  I am very interested in all feedback :)  I think I can break down all that we've talked about so far when it comes to Kewl Powers and mechanics of that ilk.  Here's what I've got:

Function: This is anything a character can do.  It's rather broad, but that's the point.  Everything below pretty much falls into that catagory.

Ability: This is a generally static special function of a character.  Some have said it is a unique feature, but I would prefer rare.  IE, it would be "rare" for a character to have laser eyes.  However several characters may actually have laser eyes.  Unique would me only one character potentially could.  Abilities tend to only be upgraded by other abilities, not by various currencies (like exp).  Examples of abilities include feats, super-powers, or Background Options.

Skill: This is a function of a character that is common (as opposed to rare) and can be upgraded by currency (eg. Exp, Character Points, etc.).  Usually, these are tied to a Stat or Atribute.  Examples include Pick-pocket, encryption, navigation, sword swinging and so on.

Attribute: This is a static value for a character, and may not be a function at all.  Things that fall under attribute are Stats, Saves, Personality Mechanics, age, and so on.  Having a high stat is not a Kewl Power.  Examples are Strength, Dexterity, Resistance to Poison, Brooding personality, and so on.

Equipment: These are objects the character can use.  Whether magic or non-magical, they are not in and of themselves a Kewl Power.  However, one may have to have a certain Ability, Skill, or Attribute in order to use them.  And, they may grant a Kewl Power to a character.  However it seems to be general concensus, the object itself is not a kewl power.  Examples might be rayguns, magic wands, lock pick kit, computer, etc.

Kewl Power: This is a near synonym with Ability, however it must also meet a few other criteria.  First, it must help give the character identity, ie make the character have idividual significance separate from all other PCs and NPCs.  Second, it must be a vehicle for the player's creativity.  In other words, it must help the player use the character and engage the player's imagination.  Third, it must directly aid in engaging the CA of the group.  Otherwise it is useless.  Kewl Powers are often unique, but can be rare.  They are never common.

So, what do you guys think.  Am I close to nailing what we've talked about?

Peace,

-Troy

Just a little note...

Typical heroic fantasy (Conan/Star Wars) seems to be about man versus idea.  For example, the hero battles evil directly as personified by a wizard.  Thus, the wizard can transform into a snake not because the wizard is snake like, but because snakes are evil.  The magic used by the wizard is simply an extension of what the wizard symbolizes in the story.

That's just looking at it from one rather specific genre.  The purpose of powers can be considered a genre convention, because their role would vary with genre.  Metaphor, externalization of character motivation, and character identity I think are all nice ways of looking at it, but I don't think you'll get any deeper without first identifying the genre you're talking about.