Hello all, I'm new to the forum here. I've been checking out the forums off and on for some time now to get a feel for the community but this is my first post.
I grew up on comic books and Marvel trading cards. As such, superheroes have always interested me. When the recent explosion of comic movies began coming out, my interest was renewed. I began searching for a superhero role-playing game but after over a year of searching I couldn't find a single one that appealed to me. So after much deliberation and procrastination I decided to make my own system.
After a year of work, I finally have a game I am proud of. My initial design was to create a game so simple that it would be easy for those unfamiliar with role-playing games to pick it up and yet still have enough depth, strategy, and versitility for hardcore gamers. Without going into huge detail, I think I have accomplished that objective. Recently, I gave my game to a few independent people through a mutual friend to get an idea of how much work I had to do before the game would be market ready. What I got was those people making me promise that I would get this game published, they liked it that much. So here I am.
However, after reading many of the discussions here on the forums I fell like I'm over my head. I've never published anything before nor have I ever written something this long or involved. I'm pretty much lost as to what I do next. I feel that the game should undergo more playtesting because the game is incredibly expansive and I'm sure there are some flaws somewhere that I haven't found yet, but I'm not exactly sure how to get my game to a larger audience and yet continue to receive good feedback. I also don't have a clue how to even approach publishers with a new game or if even my game is up to par with other games on the market. So really, this is a call for help. What should my next step be?
I'd like to say that this isn't some flake project either. My game is 130 pages long right now complete with tons of different character types, fifty skills, and well over one-hundred powers. I have a full combat system, detailed equipment, rules for car chases and accidents, rules for collapsing buildings, a fleshed out sample campaign setting, and much more. I've spent hundreds of hours on this project and I intend to distribute it to a wide audience, either through standard publishing or through an online source. I also have converted the game to a pdf and I was wondering how I could post it here so people could look at it and give me some feedback.
Oh, and if this isn't the right forum for this I apologise.
Hi Elishar, and welcome to the Forge! A better forum for you post would be "Publishing", but I'm sure we'll be moved there if it proves necessary.
Some ideas:
- A public playtest. That's the way to get both publicity and a wide spectrum of playtesters for your game. Both will serve you well when you go on to publish. You can start by calling for playtesters on appropriate forums, detailing your game and your expectations of what the playtesters will do. You can also put your game up in the 'net to make it easier for potential playtesters to reach.
- Publishing: write a project outline detailing what kind of project it is, what's it's target audience, how it's different from others and what you need from a publisher. Send the outline (a couple of pages, max) to gaming companies that you think would benefit from publishing your work. Be polite, be patient, don't expect much. Also, note that the Forge is specifically a publishing resource for independent publishing; if you decide to go for a mainstream publisher, it's expected that you desist from discussing your project here.
- Indie publishing: come to the publishing forum here and tell us more: what's your target audience, how much money you're willing to risk on it, how much prestige matters and so on. We'll help you get a plan together, whether it's to break in distribution or selling pdfs over the net.
Posting your game: if you can't get it in the net otherwise, PM me and we'll arrange something temporary to give people a look. The other option is to clip choice excerpts and post them here, to give some idea of where you're going with the game. In either case, I'd also like it if you answered some questions for us:
- What's your game about?
- What's fun about it?
- What's different about it?
- What do the players do in it?
- What's your game about?
The game is basically about playing a superhero. The emphasis on the game is dealing with your newfound powers, using them to better society (unless your players take the roll of a villain), and dealing with all of the challenges that come with leading a double life.
- What's fun about it?
The game has all the drama, suspense, and action of a comic book. Combat is fast paced and even from a low level the characters can do some pretty amazing stuff. Combat is also not simple run up and kill stuff. Tactics play a huge roll in combat as does teamwork and is often the difference between victory and death. Character conflict is a big theme in the game as is finding a way to continue your normal life while helping others with your powers.
- What's different about it?
There are quite a few superhero games on the market and it seems they fall into two categories: either they are incredibly complicated or the rules severely limit the grandeur of being a superhero. My game doesn't fall into either of these categories. The game runs of a singe die, the d6, and has one basic system of opposed rolls that determine everything from if a punch lands true against your enemy to if your boss believes your lie. Because the game only has one system of opposed rolls, the rules are very flexible and allow the characters to truly be SUPERheroes.
- What do the players do in it?
Basically, the players try to live out their character's normal lives. However, very soon after the game begins they discover they have superpowers. The characters can either embrace their powers or try to reject them but they still have to deal with them. The game is geared more towards those who eventually accept their powers and try to use them for the good of society. Most people will do this through an alter persona so that they can live a normal life at least part of the time and also so that they can keep those they love safe from retribution of their enemies. The character then begins to establish himself as a hero in the area. The Game Master, or GM, can have the character undertake easier adventures such as stopping muggers and bank robbers. After getting the hang of his powers, the character begins to move up into more dangerous mission such as stopping other superhumans with powers like his or saving citizens from natural disasters, terrorist attacks, or anything else you can think of. The ultimate goal, of course, is for the character to eventually make the world a safer place, save lives and perhaps even become a local or national hero. The character must also do this while maintaining the life they had before they discovered they had superpowers. Inevitably, clashes between his two world will happen such as the character skipping school or work to save innocents or standing up a date to stop a rampaging superhuman from destroying the city. Overall, this game is one of difficult choices. Choices where the character must balance the needs of many with the needs of himself.
This is looking good; not so much the game, but you seem serious about it, which I like. I'm asking a lot of questions here. Let's call it the Socratic method, instead of me being clueless ;)
OK, have you looked at the following games?
- Hero System
- That new diceless Marvel game
- Aberrant
- Dust Devils
- Capes
- With Great Power (especially important, because your goals are very similar to this one)
- Sorcerer
- Wushu
- Pool (especially important, because has clear mechanical parallels to your goals)
If there's something on that list you've not seen, you probably should. Knowledge is power and all that.
Next, how about we talk about your system? What I'd especially like to hear about is why you have 130 pages of text if your game is directed for beginners and purposed to be simple. I don't say this can't be the case; I'm designing a game to those exact specs myself right now. But I do feel that it requires an explanation.
Furthermore, here's some questions inspired by your explanation:
- What kind of issues do newfound powers cause in your game? How (meaning, what concrete event at the table causes them)?
- How about that double life, what kind of challenges are there? How do they come about?
- The role of the villain intrigues me. How is that any different from the role of a hero in your game?
- So, you have to be tactically smart or die, and that's part of the appeal of the game?
- How is the progress from small-scale heroics to big leagues communicated between the play group?
Overall, I like what I'm seeing. You seem to have a grasp on your basic goals, which is good. We're yet to see how the game pulls it off, though.
Is it possible for you to put the game on the net somewhere, so we can take a look at it? It will then be easier to give feedback.
if it possible, just remember that 130 pages is a lot to go through. So if you could point out what in the game, that may not work as well as you want, or something in the system that you want the players to use, but they never do. Or other thing where we can help you making you game better; so we know what to focus on.
I can not promise I can find the time to look through you game, but I will give it a try if you let me.
- Anders
Just some quick questions about the setting, is the rule set tied to the setting? I ask because you mentioned its characters that are new to their powers. Do they share a common origin, i.e. something causes this change in people like the white event from New Universe or Wild Cards?
I think the first thing I should address is the issue of getting my game online. I'm not exactly as computer savvy as I should be so I don't know of any way to get my game to you short of a direct e-mail. I see an 'insert FTP link' button here but I'm not sure how that works exactly. If someone here has an easy way of putting my game up on the internet I'll happily send them it via e-mail.
Until I get the quoting system down I'll just address everyone by name.
Eero Tuovinen
To be honest I hadn't heard of several of the superhero games that you mentioned. I tried for the longest time to find a copy of Aberrant but I was never able to find it. In fact, I have never seen a superhero game in any gaming shop I have ever been to. I would order the games online but I really like to see if the material I'm going to spend money on is worth it.
The reason primarily why the game is 130 pages is that every power needs a paragraph to explain what it does. The power descriptions alone are over 60 pages. I also tried to provide plenty of examples and general dialogue to help new players.
- What kind of issues do newfound powers cause in your game? How (meaning, what concrete event at the table causes them)?
I'm not exactly sure I understand the question but here it goes. The entire storyline is created by the Game Master (GM). He controls the action as well as how all the people in the world react or interact with the character.
- How about that double life, what kind of challenges are there? How do they come about?
So when you start the game you are a normal, everyday guy. You pay your taxes, have a wife and kids, and are generally a good person who tries to help others in ways that you can. Now what if one day you find out you have the ability to lift cars or fly or regenerate even the most grievous wounds? You would probably want to use these amazing abilities to help people (assuming you are the good guy we assume you are.) However, you wouldn't just go walking around lifting cars off of people or flying over crowded intersections in your work clothes. You'd have the feds at your door asking questions by the end of the week. Additionally, you would tell everyone about these powers you have. This is where the double life begins to form. You want to use these powers but not at the expense of being able to continue on with your normal life. So let's say you're going to work one day and you hear on the radio that a school is burning down on the other side of town and there are some kids trapped on the top floor that no one can get to. However, you have to also be at work in 10 minutes. Do you let the kids die, knowing that with your powers you could save them, or do you skip work and risk getting fired over an act that no one will know you did?
This is just one of the challenges that a good game master, or GM, can use to make the game interesting. Really, all of the struggles characters face originate with the game master, because he controls the flow of action.
- The role of the villain intrigues me. How is that any different from the role of a hero in your game?
The game is geared more towards heroes, but it is possible to play a villain as well. Villains use their newfound powers for their own gain instead for the good of others. Instead of stopping the bank robbers they are the bank robbers. Instead of saving innocents they are often putting them in danger. Villains face their own challenges because they quickly become high priorities of the police or even federal agencies. They must lead a double life out of necessity or else have their home swarmed with police very quickly.
- So, you have to be tactically smart or die, and that's part of the appeal of the game?
I have tried to make combat as real as possible in this game. There is no "let's go kill the 100 foot tall dragon and walk away without a scratch." Bullets kill. Fireballs kill. Thrown cars kill. Combat is meant to be a serious deal not only to heighten the action but also to provide some excellent role-playing opportunities once the battle is over. Let's say you tell your wife about your superpowers. One day you run up against another superhuman using his powers to rob a bank and you confront him. Battle ensues and you barely escape with your life. What do you think your wife is going to say when you get home after she sees the battle on TV on the 6 o'clock news?
I also make combat very tactics based because I was very tired with the standard 'I run up and beat the bad guy into submission' technique that seems to happen in many games. I wanted my game to flow more like an intense martial arts or superhero movie with all kinds of amazing moves and breathtaking stunts.
- How is the progress from small-scale heroics to big leagues communicated between the play group?
I do have a system of levels in place in the game that allows characters to improved their powers and abilities over time. This allows the characters to take on bigger and bigger challenges without seriously risking death. I also have developed a system of popularity, which reflects how the general public views the character. As the character engages in heroic (or villainous) actions and make their mark in the paper or on TV, their popularity rises (or falls) and they become more and more loved (or feared) by the general public.
Anders Larsen
Well, over 60 pages of it is simply just "this is what this power does." The real core of the rule set can be found in the first 40 pages.
Certified
In the general game I left the cause of these superpowers up to the Game Master (GM.) In the sample campaign setting I have included, called Armageddon, I made demonic influences the cause of superpowers. This campaign setting has a very dark feeling to it and I've added that when the characters use their powers too often they run the risk of losing their humanity to demonic possession.
Quote from: Elishar on March 17, 2006, 09:23:27 PM
I think the first thing I should address is the issue of getting my game online. I'm not exactly as computer savvy as I should be so I don't know of any way to get my game to you short of a direct e-mail. I see an 'insert FTP link' button here but I'm not sure how that works exactly. If someone here has an easy way of putting my game up on the internet I'll happily send them it via e-mail.
As I said earlier: PM me, and I can host it for a couple of weeks.
Quote
Until I get the quoting system down I'll just address everyone by name.
Click "Quote" on the post you want to quote, so it copies the message for you into the new message field. Then, separate the part you wish to focus on with <quote></quote> tags (using [] instead of <>, as we're doing BBcode) and remove the rest. Or just paint the text you want into the quote box with the mouse, and click the word balloon on the bottom row of the quick links on the posting page. If you're quoting several messages, it's easiest to copy the pertinent parts from the "Topic summary" that appears below the new message field on the posting page.
However: addressing people by name is often better than just blind quoting. At least we know who's paying attention. I'm just using quotes here to give you some examples you can copy.
Quote
To be honest I hadn't heard of several of the superhero games that you mentioned. I tried for the longest time to find a copy of Aberrant but I was never able to find it. In fact, I have never seen a superhero game in any gaming shop I have ever been to. I would order the games online but I really like to see if the material I'm going to spend money on is worth it.
Well, if you're going to write your own game, I certainly hope you can spare a couple hundred bucks for research, eh? I can assure you that the titles I mentioned, while they're not all good games, are all certainly relevant to what you're trying to do. And there's a couple there you're in a big danger of being overshadowed by if you don't take care to actually overcome their challenge.
Or, alternatively, visit conventions and get to know people. I'm sure there's plenty of folks who'd be more than happy to play these games with you. You could even go to Gencon this year and get some of these authors to play their games with you and explain why they did what they did. The best kind of tutoring, if I may say so.
Hey, I forgot one possibly pertinent title from my list:
- Darkpages
Quote
The reason primarily why the game is 130 pages is that every power needs a paragraph to explain what it does. The power descriptions alone are over 60 pages. I also tried to provide plenty of examples and general dialogue to help new players.
Hmm... do you have something useful in those power descriptions? Because the last time I wrote an abortive attempt at a superhero game, the idea of writing separate power descriptions a la Champions never popped into my mind. My thinking is this: either you're going to have players who're familiar with the genre, or you don't. If you don't, are you really going to try to transmit the cultural heritage of superheroes to them via a rpg, instead of advicing some comics on them? If they do, why exactly are you explaining to them what "Elongate self" does? (You do have "Elongate self", right?)
Among the games I listed earlier there are several specifically superhero games that do not have definite power lists:
- Capes
- With Great Power
- Darkpages
Note that these are all pretty new games; this is how they usually do it these days, I should say. And it works, too: the game is easier to play if you have unified power mechanics, there is less balance problems and you can do all kinds of fancy powers a traditional power list couldn't imagine. My own favourite was a character I designed for With Great Power: the president of the United States reimagined as a superhero. His powers? None, except a f***ing big military establisment ;)
Now, I don't say that a definite power list is necessarily a bad thing, but like all things, it should probably support your design goals somehow. So: how does it help your game to have 50% of your text pages occupied by a list of powers?
Quote
- What kind of issues do newfound powers cause in your game? How (meaning, what concrete event at the table causes them)?
I'm not exactly sure I understand the question but here it goes. The entire storyline is created by the Game Master (GM). He controls the action as well as how all the people in the world react or interact with the character.
A fine answer. Now, how does your system ensure that the GM indeed introduces issues related to newfound powers. Especially: will the GM realize that this is what he should be doing? If he does, what if he doesn't know how? If he does know, is it fun for him, too? I mean, I love the idea of a superhero rpg focusing on the complications of power and juggling secret identities, but I don't think this is going to happen by just saying it. Some system needs to be in place.
Quote
- How about that double life, what kind of challenges are there? How do they come about?
So when you start the game you are a normal, everyday guy. You pay your taxes, have a wife and kids, and are generally a good person who tries to help others in ways that you can. Now what if one day you find out you have the ability to lift cars or fly or regenerate even the most grievous wounds? You would probably want to use these amazing abilities to help people (assuming you are the good guy we assume you are.) However, you wouldn't just go walking around lifting cars off of people or flying over crowded intersections in your work clothes. You'd have the feds at your door asking questions by the end of the week. Additionally, you would tell everyone about these powers you have. This is where the double life begins to form. You want to use these powers but not at the expense of being able to continue on with your normal life. So let's say you're going to work one day and you hear on the radio that a school is burning down on the other side of town and there are some kids trapped on the top floor that no one can get to. However, you have to also be at work in 10 minutes. Do you let the kids die, knowing that with your powers you could save them, or do you skip work and risk getting fired over an act that no one will know you did?
That sounds like rather interesting play. How does it come about? I mean this whole "lose your job or let the kids burn" thing. Specifically:
- Who invents it?
- How is it introduced into play?
- What kind of ways does the player have to address it?
- How is it resolved?
- How are repercussions invented?
I suggest that the easiest way to answer these questions is to write an excerpt of what we call "imagined play". This is a description of an imaginary session (or part of one) of playing your game, preferably line-by-line. You don't have to describe all mechanics in detail, but you should mention it when they happen and what they do. Like this:
GM: OK, let's roll the dice! <rolls dice; finds out whether the hero succeeded>
This kind of imagining gives us valuable information, which can be compared to your actual mechanics and their implications. If your game and your imagined session actually match, you're better off than half of designers tend to be.
Quote
This is just one of the challenges that a good game master, or GM, can use to make the game interesting. Really, all of the struggles characters face originate with the game master, because he controls the flow of action.
So, tell us, what kind of rules structure does the GM need to support the endeavour? What kind of rules structure there actually is? What I'm driving at is, if the majority of dramatic content is created and controlled by the GM, surely the rest of your 130 pages of rules are for the sole purpose of helping the GM in doing it? So those rules are what I'd like to hear about, next.
Quote
- So, you have to be tactically smart or die, and that's part of the appeal of the game?
I have tried to make combat as real as possible in this game. There is no "let's go kill the 100 foot tall dragon and walk away without a scratch." Bullets kill. Fireballs kill. Thrown cars kill. Combat is meant to be a serious deal not only to heighten the action but also to provide some excellent role-playing opportunities once the battle is over. Let's say you tell your wife about your superpowers. One day you run up against another superhuman using his powers to rob a bank and you confront him. Battle ensues and you barely escape with your life. What do you think your wife is going to say when you get home after she sees the battle on TV on the 6 o'clock news?
You do realize that this is dramatically opposed to how superheroes work in comics and movies? This is not necessarily a problem, but I suggest that you make it exceedingly clear that this is not genre-faithful superheroes game; otherwise you risk massive confusion as players send their Captain Heroics to certain death on account of playing faithful to the role.
Actually, that kind of reminds me of some dungeon rpgs of the kind typically termed "hack'n slash". Some of those approach the dungeon the same way, with the convinction that characters should die, and if they should live, at least the danger heightens the experience. I've been playing perhaps the best example of the style, the Finnish
Praedor, for a while now, and it's great fun, let me tell you.
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I also make combat very tactics based because I was very tired with the standard 'I run up and beat the bad guy into submission' technique that seems to happen in many games. I wanted my game to flow more like an intense martial arts or superhero movie with all kinds of amazing moves and breathtaking stunts.
Just make sure your system encourages intense martial arts and breathtaking stunts as valid tactical choices; a common problem with "tactical" rpgs is that they confuse tactics with realism. Realism usually means laying low and attacking with surprise, so the amazing moves are few and far by in most tactical games.
That said, I think tactics and varied battle coreography are quite doable in a superhero game. I'm reminded of the aforementioned With Great Power, which is a very tactical game on the player level, while staying quite true to the superhero genre on the story-level.
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- How is the progress from small-scale heroics to big leagues communicated between the play group?
I do have a system of levels in place in the game that allows characters to improved their powers and abilities over time. This allows the characters to take on bigger and bigger challenges without seriously risking death. I also have developed a system of popularity, which reflects how the general public views the character. As the character engages in heroic (or villainous) actions and make their mark in the paper or on TV, their popularity rises (or falls) and they become more and more loved (or feared) by the general public.
Sounds good to me. Would you say that the popularity system controls the size of the stakes (what is endangered in the exploits of the heroes), or is it just some ancillary numbers scribbled on paper?
An experience system is again rather opposite to how superheroes work in fiction, but if you think it's necessary for the kind of game experience you want, then go for it!
QuoteHmm... do you have something useful in those power descriptions? Because the last time I wrote an abortive attempt at a superhero game, the idea of writing separate power descriptions a la Champions never popped into my mind. My thinking is this: either you're going to have players who're familiar with the genre, or you don't. If you don't, are you really going to try to transmit the cultural heritage of superheroes to them via a rpg, instead of advicing some comics on them? If they do, why exactly are you explaining to them what "Elongate self" does? (You do have "Elongate self", right?)
My general format for power descriptions is to explain exactly in real world terms what the power does and then discuss the rules for the power. Here's an exerpt from the example you brought up:
Elongation
Type: Body Control
This always-active power allows the character to extend their limbs as if they were rubber. This allows the player to attack targets 5 feet per two ranks further than normal reach (10 feet at rank 1, 15 feet at rank 3, and 20 feet at rank 5.) This power also allows the character to move more quickly by extending their legs, as if they had the lightening speed power at three ranks lower than this power (if the player had 5 ranks in this power they would move at 60 feet. If they had only 3 ranks in this power their speed would not be improved.)
Quote
Among the games I listed earlier there are several specifically superhero games that do not have definite power lists:
- Capes
- With Great Power
- Darkpages
Note that these are all pretty new games; this is how they usually do it these days, I should say. And it works, too: the game is easier to play if you have unified power mechanics, there is less balance problems and you can do all kinds of fancy powers a traditional power list couldn't imagine. My own favourite was a character I designed for With Great Power: the president of the United States reimagined as a superhero. His powers? None, except a f***ing big military establisment ;)
Now, I don't say that a definite power list is necessarily a bad thing, but like all things, it should probably support your design goals somehow. So: how does it help your game to have 50% of your text pages occupied by a list of powers?
I'd have to say that my system was heavily influenced by the other role-playing games I play, primarily D&D. I know, it seems like D&D could never influence a Superhero game but it did help me. So in a sense my power descriptions are very similar to the spell descriptions in D&D. Additionally, I also took what I perceived as problems in D&D, such as powergaming and general rule exploitation, and I tried to eliminate them from my game. The main way I tried to eliminate this is by making power selection rolled randomly. I know at first this might seem like a bad idea but I've put some safeguards to make it better. When you do roll for your powers there is a significant chance you will get the choice of a 'double roll.' What this means is that you get to roll randomly twice for powers and then choose which one you prefer. If you roll 'double roll' again that increases the number of powers you have to choose from. In addition, let's say you randomly roll for the power "Resistance to Fire." Under that power description there is a heading called 'allows' that list all the powers relating to fire such as Absorption(fire), Energy Reflection(fire), Fire Control, and Fire Missile. You can choose any of these powers relating to fire without having to randomly roll for them. Thus you begin to get this massive web of powers that connects together in a variety of ways, providing non-linear power trees.
Additionally, if you really don't like any of the powers you are able to choose from, you can re-roll for other powers but you take a penalty to the starting power level of the power.
So yes, power descriptions do have a place in my game and I can't see any way adapting my game to include a free-form power system, though if any of you can I am open to suggestions.
Quote
A fine answer. Now, how does your system ensure that the GM indeed introduces issues related to newfound powers. Especially: will the GM realize that this is what he should be doing? If he does, what if he doesn't know how? If he does know, is it fun for him, too? I mean, I love the idea of a superhero rpg focusing on the complications of power and juggling secret identities, but I don't think this is going to happen by just saying it. Some system needs to be in place.
I have included a section of my book specifically for the GM to help him understand his role in the game as well as give him suggestions as to how to run the game. The game does not require the GM to introduce issues or character conflict into the game, it is simply highly recommended by me. Some groups may prefer to simply use the game as a fun way to blow stuff up and not include much plot or substance to the game and that is really up to them, but I have tried to steer GMs in the direction that I find makes the best game.
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That sounds like rather interesting play. How does it come about? I mean this whole "lose your job or let the kids burn" thing. Specifically:
- Who invents it?
- How is it introduced into play?
- What kind of ways does the player have to address it?
- How is it resolved?
- How are repercussions invented?
I suggest that the easiest way to answer these questions is to write an excerpt of what we call "imagined play". This is a description of an imaginary session (or part of one) of playing your game, preferably line-by-line. You don't have to describe all mechanics in detail, but you should mention it when they happen and what they do. Like this:
GM: OK, let's roll the dice! <rolls dice; finds out whether the hero succeeded>
This kind of imagining gives us valuable information, which can be compared to your actual mechanics and their implications. If your game and your imagined session actually match, you're better off than half of designers tend to be.
Most of the things you brought up are decided by the GM. The GM essentially acts as the storyteller and controls the flow of the plot as well as events in the world. The GM also controls the actions of all the NPCs in the world. So let's take the example I provided and say that the character decides to skip work to save the kids. On the upside, the character gets a great deal of applause from those watching the rescue and a fair amount of positive media coverage on the TV (which raises his popularity.) On the downside, the character will have to explain to his boss why he missed work. This would most likely involve the character having to be very diplomatic as well as lie a fair bit for his boss to let him off the hook. To resolve whether or not the boss decides to go easy on him, the character would have to make a Persuasion check followed by a Bluff check (both of which are skills that the character can take.) The boss would make a Sense Motive check to see if he recognizes the character is lying to him. If the character succeeds on both checks, the character keeps his job. If the character ends up failing one of the checks, the GM might rule that the character keeps his job but he is put on some type of probation or he loses his yearly bonus (basically anything that a boss would do in the real world to punish a worker without firing them.) If the character ends up failing both his checks, the GM could rule that not only is his boss not moved by the character's attempts to butter him up, he also is offended that the character would lie to his face and so his boss fires him.
QuoteSo, tell us, what kind of rules structure does the GM need to support the endeavour? What kind of rules structure there actually is? What I'm driving at is, if the majority of dramatic content is created and controlled by the GM, surely the rest of your 130 pages of rules are for the sole purpose of helping the GM in doing it? So those rules are what I'd like to hear about, next.
The GM controls the plot and the flow of the game but just about any type of interaction or task is decided with opposed rolls. If the character is being opposed by another character or NPC, they roll a corresponding number of dice described in the rules. If the character is trying to accomplish a task where he isn't being directly opposed by someone, like if the character wants to lift a car, the GM can assign a difficulty to the task to see if the character can accomplish it.
If I was a little vague with that it will all become clear once your read the "Opposed Rolls" section of my game.
QuoteYou do realize that this is dramatically opposed to how superheroes work in comics and movies? This is not necessarily a problem, but I suggest that you make it exceedingly clear that this is not genre-faithful superheroes game; otherwise you risk massive confusion as players send their Captain Heroics to certain death on account of playing faithful to the role.
Actually, that kind of reminds me of some dungeon rpgs of the kind typically termed "hack'n slash". Some of those approach the dungeon the same way, with the convinction that characters should die, and if they should live, at least the danger heightens the experience. I've been playing perhaps the best example of the style, the Finnish Praedor, for a while now, and it's great fun, let me tell you.
Well, I think I should explain myself better. Every superhero has weaknesses. Professor X could not survive a punch from the Hulk and Wolverine, dispite his regeneration, is powerless against mental attacks. Spiderman, even though his agility is virtually unmatched, would be in serious trouble if a bank robber actually managed to shoot him with a lucky shot. The point is that even though you may be Super, it doesn't mean you can simply wander into combat without any tactics and not expect to get hurt, especially when you go up against other superhumans.
Character death is not something I would like to happen regularly in my game and it is not something I expect to happen in my game very often. However, characters are going to want to rest a while after facing off against an enemy superhuman, I guarantee that. Healing damage is a slow process in my game unless you have a power like Regeneration and often serious injuries still require medical assistance unless your character has superhuman constitution. This very fact can lead to even more adventures as the character must somehow find a way to explain how he received his injuries to curious medical professionals or find a doctor he can trust with his secret.
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Just make sure your system encourages intense martial arts and breathtaking stunts as valid tactical choices; a common problem with "tactical" rpgs is that they confuse tactics with realism. Realism usually means laying low and attacking with surprise, so the amazing moves are few and far by in most tactical games.
That said, I think tactics and varied battle coreography are quite doable in a superhero game. I'm reminded of the aforementioned With Great Power, which is a very tactical game on the player level, while staying quite true to the superhero genre on the story-level.
Yeah, my game is more in favor of amazing action as opposed to incredible realism. Believe me, its pretty realistic, however, there is only so much realism you can have in a game about superheroes before it begins to detract from the fun. The tactics emphasis is more on using special attacks, teamwork, flanking, and power augmentations to bring down foes quickly before they can hurt you.
QuoteSounds good to me. Would you say that the popularity system controls the size of the stakes (what is endangered in the exploits of the heroes), or is it just some ancillary numbers scribbled on paper?
An experience system is again rather opposite to how superheroes work in fiction, but if you think it's necessary for the kind of game experience you want, then go for it!
Popularity basically determines how the general public views the character. Do the citizens cheer or run away in terror when they see the character? Do police officers aid the character or pull guns out the instant they see him? That's what popularity is good for. Popularity also plays a role when a character tries to persuade or intimidate someone, with positive popularity helping you persuade someone and negative popularity helping you intimidate them.
My experience system is basically a numerical way of tracking the development of the character. Over time in comics characters will become more proficient with their powers the more they use them. Some comic book characters train themselves to be faster or stronger or more resilient to attacks. Some characters take up martial arts once they begin fighting crime or continue going to school and get degrees that advance their quality of living in their normal life. Basically, they never stay static. That is why I have included an experience system in my game. If your character never has any way to grow or improve that seems to take a lot of fun out of the game.
I'll have to split this one in two parts due to length. I'll just snip at a random place, I guess...
Quote from: Elishar on March 19, 2006, 12:15:04 PM
My general format for power descriptions is to explain exactly in real world terms what the power does and then discuss the rules for the power. Here's an exerpt from the example you brought up:
Elongation
Type: Body Control
This always-active power allows the character to extend their limbs as if they were rubber. This allows the player to attack targets 5 feet per two ranks further than normal reach (10 feet at rank 1, 15 feet at rank 3, and 20 feet at rank 5.) This power also allows the character to move more quickly by extending their legs, as if they had the lightening speed power at three ranks lower than this power (if the player had 5 ranks in this power they would move at 60 feet. If they had only 3 ranks in this power their speed would not be improved.)
Ah, I see where this is going. Now, I'm going to suggest that your approach is fundamentally uncompatible with the superhero genre of comics (Marvel, DC, etc.). This might be hard to believe, especially as you've clearly worked on your game a lot. If you come to the same conclusion I do after the discussion, you can either rethink your approach or make it absolutely clear that this is
not a game of superhero comics so much as a game of "superhero D&D". Nothing wrong with that, again.
Why am I so skeptical? Well, just look at that rules excerpt, which tells us how your game handles Mr. Fantastic, pretty much. Now compare that with the following, documented occurrences in the comics:
- Mr. Fantastic is punched/shot at /impaled, but due to his stretch powers he escapes any serious harm. Indeed, he frequently takes bullets for other, weaker people. Shouldn't the power description take this into account?
- How much is the reach of Mr. Fantastic? In some situations he's been hard pressed to stretch, say, twenty meters. In other situations he's stretched to the heights of skyscrapers.
- How thin can he get? Mr. Fantastic has crawled through the lock of a door pretty recently, if my memory doesn't fail me. Does your power description take into account the benefits of fitting into a really small space (somebody's pocket, say), or the ability to go through the tiniest crack? Especially when he has or doesn't have these powers depending on the writer?
- I admit this one's rare, but I remember not so far in the past (this decade, anyway) how Mr. Fantastic literally
stretched his brain in some story or other to shift around his mental faculties.
The point is, while it would seem that Mr. Fantastic is a "single-power" superhero, in reality any "effect-based" system like yours has to use many, many powers to describe what he is capable of. Would you say that this is a problem? Champions works exactly like this, and sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn't, depending on what you're trying to do. Usually it breaks down exactly when you have powers with weird combat uses like the elongation, because the power rules are solely concerned with gauging combat effectivity. But always, without exception, it is impossible to faithfully convert a comic-book superhero into the system and expect him to work the same way he does in the comic. It's not just Mr. Fantastic, it's the f****ing Wolverine, even! Actually, I wouldn't bet that you could do Punisher with any effects-based system, now that I think of it.
What's more, metering feet, seconds and pounds of force has little to do with how superhero comics work. You don't really think that Mr. Fantastic as conceived in the comics really has such variable and fuzzy limits to his powers? No, how it really works is that the current writer gives him whatever limitations he feels good about, reflecting the recent history and thematic focus of the comic. If you'll simply read comics from thirty (or even fifteen) years ago and compare with today, you'll note that heroes today tend to "break their limits" much more often; the aesthetics of superhero comics have changed, and nowadays the writers literally salivate at the chance of writing a scene where Mr. Fantastic, broken by rage and madness, does something utterly surprising to his long-time fans, like flows into the lungs of Dr. Doom and chokes him to submission. There's this "Whoah! That guy has actually pretty bad-ass powers!" thing the writers like to focus on, nowadays.
So if we're talking about "comics-style" superheroes, your approach is somewhat backwards, I should say. What you get with your methods is "rpg superheroes" like those Champions (Hero System) has been doing now for twenty years, not so much superheroes that feel like Spiderman or the Flash. Two points:
- Champions (the superhero game that utilizes the Hero System) does what you're proposing here really, really well. It's also the system of choice for many, many people who like to play this kind "realistic" superhero game. And it's not alone! The majority of superhero games, especially the popular gamer games, are like this: both Tri-Stat superheroes (
Silver Age Sentinels, for example) and
Mutants and Masterminds (which is, literally, superheroes utilizing the D&D rules) have exact, realistic (more or less) rules with long lists of powers, which each are defined very clearly on what they can do. They're focused on superhero combat with tactical complexity and risk of injury, and do it admirably well, especially if the players are interested in really working the system. I could mention many other games that go this way, like
Godlike and even
Sorcerer. The point is, you should learn from those games if you wish to be better than them!
- You won't get a game focused on dramatic issues if your rules are focused on how many feet Mr. Fantastic can elongate himself. Not surprisingly, you will get a game that focuses on how many feet Mr. Fantastic can elongate. Your rules will transmit the values of play to the players, and they will, indeed, focus on whatever it is they've paid for in those rules. If it's the limits of elongation and how getting longer makes you faster, then that's what their play will be about. This is a thoroughly documented phenomenon; you can read descriptions of Champions play and see how play in a system like that looks like.
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I'd have to say that my system was heavily influenced by the other role-playing games I play, primarily D&D. I know, it seems like D&D could never influence a Superhero game but it did help me. So in a sense my power descriptions are very similar to the spell descriptions in D&D. Additionally, I also took what I perceived as problems in D&D, such as powergaming and general rule exploitation, and I tried to eliminate them from my game. The main way I tried to eliminate this is by making power selection rolled randomly. I know at first this might seem like a bad idea but I've put some safeguards to make it better. When you do roll for your powers there is a significant chance you will get the choice of a 'double roll.' What this means is that you get to roll randomly twice for powers and then choose which one you prefer. If you roll 'double roll' again that increases the number of powers you have to choose from. In addition, let's say you randomly roll for the power "Resistance to Fire." Under that power description there is a heading called 'allows' that list all the powers relating to fire such as Absorption(fire), Energy Reflection(fire), Fire Control, and Fire Missile. You can choose any of these powers relating to fire without having to randomly roll for them. Thus you begin to get this massive web of powers that connects together in a variety of ways, providing non-linear power trees.
What would you say if I told you that I think powergaming is pretty much the point of D&D? I mean, look at the facts: the game's about heroes penetrating into hostile environment to grab gold and magic items from the paws of evil critters. You do better in the game if you have a stronger character. Where do you get the idea that the game
isn't about powergaming? And rules exploitation, I don't even understand what that means in the D&D context! Is it, like, when players use the rules of the game to their benefit? Like they do in Monopoly?
This is an important point, because what you're doing is, you're taking a well-crafted game and using it as an inspiration in building a completely different type of game. Shouldn't you, seriously, take a peek at what others have done when they've explicitly written "superhero games focused on comics-style storytelling and drama"? I cite Capes, With Great Power and Darkpages again, because what you told about the focus of the game being on the problems of having power and a double life sure sounds much more like those games than D&D. Looking to D&D for inspiration in building a game of drama is like making a campfire out of old tires, or am I wrong?
I should note that I completely adore and support the idea of doling out superpowers randomly in a superhero game. It's a great idea almost regardless of where the play is supposed to be going. It's also how I'd probably do it if I was making a superhero game. What better way to transmit the idea that you're
not playing a superhuman, but rather
a normal person who gets these powers through no choice of their own? However, you should make sure that the rules of the game either ensure equally "good" powers for everybody, or completely support different power levels in play. I'd like to think that the latter is closer in spirit to how superhero comics operate; we never get to see how the X-Men dynamics fail to function because Cyclops has a weaker power than other's after all!
Also: what I'd like you to think about and tell us is, if you hypothetically had to choose between the dramatic themes we've talked about, or the D&D-influenced power lists and tactical combat, which is more important to you? I mean, if, hypothetically, it proved that you can't have both, or at least you'll have to put one of those into a weakened and secondary position, which would be the more important part of the game? I think both of those would make a fine game (your character generation actually seems genuinely interesting from a D&D perspective, just like the themes we discussed earlier seem fruitful for a dramatic game), but I have doubts about whether you can fit them both in there just like that.
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A fine answer. Now, how does your system ensure that the GM indeed introduces issues related to newfound powers. Especially: will the GM realize that this is what he should be doing? If he does, what if he doesn't know how? If he does know, is it fun for him, too? I mean, I love the idea of a superhero rpg focusing on the complications of power and juggling secret identities, but I don't think this is going to happen by just saying it. Some system needs to be in place.
I have included a section of my book specifically for the GM to help him understand his role in the game as well as give him suggestions as to how to run the game. The game does not require the GM to introduce issues or character conflict into the game, it is simply highly recommended by me. Some groups may prefer to simply use the game as a fun way to blow stuff up and not include much plot or substance to the game and that is really up to them, but I have tried to steer GMs in the direction that I find makes the best game.
So, would you say that these thematic elements of the game are essentially free-form, with no rules support?
Freeform is fine for what it is, but I suspect that you've not realized the effect rules have on the overall play. Having rules always trumps not having rules, simply because the rules are there in the book sitting on your lap when you play, while the "no-rules" is nowhere in sight. Thus, if you have two possible ways your game could run (like, say, beating mooks in tactical combat or making hard choices about ruining your civilian life), I predict that the one that actually has rules present wins. I think that you can only disagree with me if you can tell us about the unforgettable session of Monopoly where you all were sitting there, ostensibly playing Monopoly, but actually playing football. Football does not spontaneously rise from Monopoly because the players, by the virtue of being there to play Monopoly, have no way of getting inspired to play football, instead. To the contrary, I should think that even if the miracle happened and one player started to set up goal posts, the rest would probably complain vehemently about him ruining the perfectly fine game of Monopoly they had going. Even if the goal-posts player was the banker in Monopoly, I don't think he could make the others believe that Monopoly is actually supposed to be played with a ball and two goals, when the other players can perfectly well read the rules included with the game of Monopoly they're playing.
If you want to check out roleplaying games that were designed for the purpose of drama and introducing thematic elements (the football of our example), I suggest, in addition to the superhero games I've mentioned, games like
Dogs in the Vineyard,
Fastlane,
Dust Devils,
The Shadow of Yesterday,
Mountain Witch... the list is rather long, actually. There's plenty of games that do not pretend to be Monopoly while being football, or rather, do not pretend to be football, when they're really just Monopoly.
And here's the second part...
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That sounds like rather interesting play. How does it come about? I mean this whole "lose your job or let the kids burn" thing. Specifically:
- Who invents it?
- How is it introduced into play?
- What kind of ways does the player have to address it?
- How is it resolved?
- How are repercussions invented?
Most of the things you brought up are decided by the GM. The GM essentially acts as the storyteller and controls the flow of the plot as well as events in the world. The GM also controls the actions of all the NPCs in the world. So let's take the example I provided and say that the character decides to skip work to save the kids. On the upside, the character gets a great deal of applause from those watching the rescue and a fair amount of positive media coverage on the TV (which raises his popularity.) On the downside, the character will have to explain to his boss why he missed work. This would most likely involve the character having to be very diplomatic as well as lie a fair bit for his boss to let him off the hook. To resolve whether or not the boss decides to go easy on him, the character would have to make a Persuasion check followed by a Bluff check (both of which are skills that the character can take.) The boss would make a Sense Motive check to see if he recognizes the character is lying to him. If the character succeeds on both checks, the character keeps his job. If the character ends up failing one of the checks, the GM might rule that the character keeps his job but he is put on some type of probation or he loses his yearly bonus (basically anything that a boss would do in the real world to punish a worker without firing them.) If the character ends up failing both his checks, the GM could rule that not only is his boss not moved by the character's attempts to butter him up, he also is offended that the character would lie to his face and so his boss fires him.
Wow, it does really sound like D&D, with all those Bluff, Persuasion and Sense Motive checks ;) I suggest you familiarize yourself with
Mutants & Masterminds without further delay; it's the most popular D&D-based (d20, rather) superhero system, and probably has thing or two you could learn from.
Your example did answer many of my questions, but it left the most important one open: say that I really like the situation you're offering here, the whole save-the-kids-and-maybe-get-fired deal. I want to play the game that has stuff like that. The questions is still, how, exactly, does that situation come up in play? Is there, like, lists of these kinds of situations in the book, and the GM picks one whenever he feels the game isn't moving anywhere? Assuming he does, can he just frame the PC into the situation so that the player doesn't have any chance of preparing? What if the player thinks that his character would have, of course, got special dispensation for unexplainable disappearances from work already when his powers manifested? Overall, my question: say we've got to the point in play where the GM asks me whether I'm going to save those kids. How, exactly, did we get there? What kind of activity was necessary from me and the GM for this intriguing situation to take place?
The part where the consequences are decided and the situation is spun further is also important, but it seems to me you have that well under control. I imagine setting difficulty levels for all those rolls is going to be quite a chore for the GM, but if you think it's important, I'm sure he can handle it.
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QuoteSo, tell us, what kind of rules structure does the GM need to support the endeavour? What kind of rules structure there actually is? What I'm driving at is, if the majority of dramatic content is created and controlled by the GM, surely the rest of your 130 pages of rules are for the sole purpose of helping the GM in doing it? So those rules are what I'd like to hear about, next.
The GM controls the plot and the flow of the game but just about any type of interaction or task is decided with opposed rolls. If the character is being opposed by another character or NPC, they roll a corresponding number of dice described in the rules. If the character is trying to accomplish a task where he isn't being directly opposed by someone, like if the character wants to lift a car, the GM can assign a difficulty to the task to see if the character can accomplish it.
If I was a little vague with that it will all become clear once your read the "Opposed Rolls" section of my game.
Hey, I love the opposed rolls here. Sounds quite streamlined and progressive. I also love giving reference works, as you've probably seen, so I direct you to one of the definitive works on opposed rolls mechanics,
Heroquest; if that game's not familiar, I'm sure there's plenty there to learn.
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QuoteYou do realize that this is dramatically opposed to how superheroes work in comics and movies? This is not necessarily a problem, but I suggest that you make it exceedingly clear that this is not genre-faithful superheroes game; otherwise you risk massive confusion as players send their Captain Heroics to certain death on account of playing faithful to the role.
Well, I think I should explain myself better. Every superhero has weaknesses. Professor X could not survive a punch from the Hulk and Wolverine, dispite his regeneration, is powerless against mental attacks. Spiderman, even though his agility is virtually unmatched, would be in serious trouble if a bank robber actually managed to shoot him with a lucky shot. The point is that even though you may be Super, it doesn't mean you can simply wander into combat without any tactics and not expect to get hurt, especially when you go up against other superhumans.
Agreed, those are good examples of the phenomenon. But think of it this way: when ever has Spiderman actually got shot? When did Hulk hit Xavier? When did Wolverine get beat by mental attack? The precedents are there, you'll note, I don't claim that heroes are invincible. But if you think about it, you'll also note that those situations are rare, and always the matter of great consternation and strict story control. Spiderman never got
killed by a gunshot. Xavier never got
a full hit from Hulk. Wolverine could
always break free from mental domination when it really mattered. Is that realistic? No. Is that genre-faithful? Yes, yes it is. Superheroes do not die, or if they do, it's a big, dramatic deal, not something decided by the writer rolling dice.
You'll also note that while superheroes have weaknesses, they are well aware of them themselves, and when they are not, they do indeed get a beating. It's not a matter of tactics or luck at all, when you look at the genre in general; when superheroes lose, it's because they were overconfident, or because they were desperate, not because their player couldn't play smart enough.
I suggest that there is two issues here: one is a matter of stakes, whether PCs should die or get otherwise totally screwed by the mechanics. One is a matter of play style, whether winning or losing one small and large scale should be about player tactics. It seems to me that you're currently answering both the same way D&D does, which is mighty strange for a superhero game, as D&D is anything but that!
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Character death is not something I would like to happen regularly in my game and it is not something I expect to happen in my game very often. However, characters are going to want to rest a while after facing off against an enemy superhuman, I guarantee that. Healing damage is a slow process in my game unless you have a power like Regeneration and often serious injuries still require medical assistance unless your character has superhuman constitution. This very fact can lead to even more adventures as the character must somehow find a way to explain how he received his injuries to curious medical professionals or find a doctor he can trust with his secret.
Sounds good to me. It also seems that death as a rules feature arising out of tactical mistakes is not what you should be driving at. Why not just have rules where characters can get very badly hurt, but will never just die like that? Many games have rules like this. For example, here's how it works in
Trollbabe: when a character fails her third reroll (goes to negative hitpoints, whatever), the player decide that she dies. If she does, the player narrates how. If she does not, then the GM gets to describe where and in what condition she comes to. Perhaps it's as a prisoner, perhaps she was saved by somebody. Never know.
Something like that would seem greatly more appropriate than the chance of random death, if you don't want meaningless deaths in the first place. Never design something you don't actually want in your game.
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Yeah, my game is more in favor of amazing action as opposed to incredible realism. Believe me, its pretty realistic, however, there is only so much realism you can have in a game about superheroes before it begins to detract from the fun. The tactics emphasis is more on using special attacks, teamwork, flanking, and power augmentations to bring down foes quickly before they can hurt you.
That part sounds good to me, again from the D&D perspective. Special attacks, teamwork, flanking and power augmentations are core to superhero tactics, as opposed to the kind of stuff military genre has. You're well off in this regard, it seems to me.
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Popularity basically determines how the general public views the character. Do the citizens cheer or run away in terror when they see the character? Do police officers aid the character or pull guns out the instant they see him? That's what popularity is good for. Popularity also plays a role when a character tries to persuade or intimidate someone, with positive popularity helping you persuade someone and negative popularity helping you intimidate them.
But isn't it hit or miss whether popularity has any effect on anything, then? This is like the Paladin thing all over again, with the AD&D paladin restrictions varying wildly in significance between GMs, situations and play groups. That kind of mechanics are problematic, because you get situations like players who drive actively towards nullifying the significance of the mechanic. I can already imagine how it's perfectly useful in your game to try to
avoid popularity-based situations, just so you don't need to deal with the mechanic.
What I was thinking, based on what you said about the resposibilities of the budding heroes growing with time, was that it would be interesting to have fame and popularity be a kind of "adventure scale"; the more popularity you have, the bigger adventures you end up having. Now there's a popularity mechanic with teeth!
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My experience system is basically a numerical way of tracking the development of the character. Over time in comics characters will become more proficient with their powers the more they use them. Some comic book characters train themselves to be faster or stronger or more resilient to attacks. Some characters take up martial arts once they begin fighting crime or continue going to school and get degrees that advance their quality of living in their normal life. Basically, they never stay static. That is why I have included an experience system in my game. If your character never has any way to grow or improve that seems to take a lot of fun out of the game.
In D&D you'd be right in these remarks. If your game is like D&D, then I guess your game should have experience system in place as well.
However, there's nothing like that in comic book superheroes. Nothing. Some few stories are specifically about the early steps of the heroes, or about the changes they go through in life, but they're a minority, and there is no dramatic arc where characters start small and work their way up. Captain America in his first story is essentially just as big a hero, with the same powers, that he has fifty years later. The same holds true for practically any hero you care to name: Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, X-Men, Hulk, Avengers, The Fantastic Four... any changes to any of these are due to rewrites and social progress in their personal lives, not in their powers or the kind of adventures they have. The D&D leveling up concept is simply not applicable; I would even say that it's more common for superheroes to
lose powers than gain them, if you care to start counting.
As for whether a game in general can be fun without xp, I assure you that it's more than possible. I again cite both Capes and With Great Power as superhero games that specifically have nothing even resembling an xp system. WGP comes closest with the player option of switching in secondary aspects when you want to re-emphasize something or other in the character, but the amount of player power involved varies only within a single story, not long-term.
But, that's that. I'll take a look at the rules you posted while you think on the points I raised here. Perhaps I can give you some more generic feedback after looking at the entirety, instead of discussing things in principle?
What exactly will happen if a player wants his hero to have a publicly known identity? What will happen if a hero's identity is exposed by accident or by an enemy? What will happen if a hero tries to abandon his old life, fake his own death or something and live entirely as his hero persona? There's presecence for all of these things in superhero comics. The Fantastic Four, The Spirit, Batman at the end of Dark Knight Returns, and countless others don't live by the standard double-life formula. Will your game allow these things to happen to the player characters at all? If maintaining a secret identity is meant to be one of the main challenges for your players, then the possibility of exposure must be real or there is no challenge.
Now its my turn to break up a post.
QuoteAh, I see where this is going. Now, I'm going to suggest that your approach is fundamentally uncompatible with the superhero genre of comics (Marvel, DC, etc.). This might be hard to believe, especially as you've clearly worked on your game a lot. If you come to the same conclusion I do after the discussion, you can either rethink your approach or make it absolutely clear that this is not a game of superhero comics so much as a game of "superhero D&D". Nothing wrong with that, again.
Why am I so skeptical? Well, just look at that rules excerpt, which tells us how your game handles Mr. Fantastic, pretty much. Now compare that with the following, documented occurrences in the comics:
- Mr. Fantastic is punched/shot at /impaled, but due to his stretch powers he escapes any serious harm. Indeed, he frequently takes bullets for other, weaker people. Shouldn't the power description take this into account?
- How much is the reach of Mr. Fantastic? In some situations he's been hard pressed to stretch, say, twenty meters. In other situations he's stretched to the heights of skyscrapers.
- How thin can he get? Mr. Fantastic has crawled through the lock of a door pretty recently, if my memory doesn't fail me. Does your power description take into account the benefits of fitting into a really small space (somebody's pocket, say), or the ability to go through the tiniest crack? Especially when he has or doesn't have these powers depending on the writer?
- I admit this one's rare, but I remember not so far in the past (this decade, anyway) how Mr. Fantastic literally stretched his brain in some story or other to shift around his mental faculties.
The point is, while it would seem that Mr. Fantastic is a "single-power" superhero, in reality any "effect-based" system like yours has to use many, many powers to describe what he is capable of. Would you say that this is a problem? Champions works exactly like this, and sometimes it works well and sometimes it doesn't, depending on what you're trying to do. Usually it breaks down exactly when you have powers with weird combat uses like the elongation, because the power rules are solely concerned with gauging combat effectivity. But always, without exception, it is impossible to faithfully convert a comic-book superhero into the system and expect him to work the same way he does in the comic. It's not just Mr. Fantastic, it's the f****ing Wolverine, even! Actually, I wouldn't bet that you could do Punisher with any effects-based system, now that I think of it.
What's more, metering feet, seconds and pounds of force has little to do with how superhero comics work. You don't really think that Mr. Fantastic as conceived in the comics really has such variable and fuzzy limits to his powers? No, how it really works is that the current writer gives him whatever limitations he feels good about, reflecting the recent history and thematic focus of the comic. If you'll simply read comics from thirty (or even fifteen) years ago and compare with today, you'll note that heroes today tend to "break their limits" much more often; the aesthetics of superhero comics have changed, and nowadays the writers literally salivate at the chance of writing a scene where Mr. Fantastic, broken by rage and madness, does something utterly surprising to his long-time fans, like flows into the lungs of Dr. Doom and chokes him to submission. There's this "Whoah! That guy has actually pretty bad-ass powers!" thing the writers like to focus on, nowadays.
So if we're talking about "comics-style" superheroes, your approach is somewhat backwards, I should say. What you get with your methods is "rpg superheroes" like those Champions (Hero System) has been doing now for twenty years, not so much superheroes that feel like Spiderman or the Flash. Two points:
- Champions (the superhero game that utilizes the Hero System) does what you're proposing here really, really well. It's also the system of choice for many, many people who like to play this kind "realistic" superhero game. And it's not alone! The majority of superhero games, especially the popular gamer games, are like this: both Tri-Stat superheroes (Silver Age Sentinels, for example) and Mutants and Masterminds (which is, literally, superheroes utilizing the D&D rules) have exact, realistic (more or less) rules with long lists of powers, which each are defined very clearly on what they can do. They're focused on superhero combat with tactical complexity and risk of injury, and do it admirably well, especially if the players are interested in really working the system. I could mention many other games that go this way, like Godlike and even Sorcerer. The point is, you should learn from those games if you wish to be better than them!
- You won't get a game focused on dramatic issues if your rules are focused on how many feet Mr. Fantastic can elongate himself. Not surprisingly, you will get a game that focuses on how many feet Mr. Fantastic can elongate. Your rules will transmit the values of play to the players, and they will, indeed, focus on whatever it is they've paid for in those rules. If it's the limits of elongation and how getting longer makes you faster, then that's what their play will be about. This is a thoroughly documented phenomenon; you can read descriptions of Champions play and see how play in a system like that looks like.
Yes, I realized that this could be a very large problem with my game. That's why I implemented an attribute called Energy, which basically allows characters to do pretty much anything they want as long as they pay enough energy. The system still needs a lot more development and expansion but it's a start. I am also debating whether or not I should increase the amount of energy points characters have to make the game more dramatic.
The other thing I realized what that there was no way I would think of all the things a given power could do. That's one of the chief reasons why I wanted more playtesting done. Players with the elongation power should be able to do all the things Mr. Fantastic power can do and my chief job is allowing the characters to do all of them and yet retain balance. So yeah, maybe I should include a power augmentation where if the character pays one energy point they can act as if they had the Body Armor power for one round at an equal rank, thereby duplicating how Mr. Fantastic absorbs bullets with his body.
QuoteWhat would you say if I told you that I think powergaming is pretty much the point of D&D? I mean, look at the facts: the game's about heroes penetrating into hostile environment to grab gold and magic items from the paws of evil critters. You do better in the game if you have a stronger character. Where do you get the idea that the game isn't about powergaming? And rules exploitation, I don't even understand what that means in the D&D context! Is it, like, when players use the rules of the game to their benefit? Like they do in Monopoly?
This is an important point, because what you're doing is, you're taking a well-crafted game and using it as an inspiration in building a completely different type of game. Shouldn't you, seriously, take a peek at what others have done when they've explicitly written "superhero games focused on comics-style storytelling and drama"? I cite Capes, With Great Power and Darkpages again, because what you told about the focus of the game being on the problems of having power and a double life sure sounds much more like those games than D&D. Looking to D&D for inspiration in building a game of drama is like making a campfire out of old tires, or am I wrong?
Yes, having a strong D&D character is important, but D&D characters are supposed to be more then great stats. They should be living, breathing characters with opinions, thoughts, hopes, dreams, fears, and everything else that make us human. It seems that many people when playing D&D forget that part about the character and that is what I hope to avoid with my game.
Rules exploitation is basically taking the immense amount of material available for D&D and coming up with unbeatable combos that were clearly never intended by the creators of the game. I think the most recent is the Artificer that can take out the Tarrasque at level 6. These clearly broken combos are what I want to avoid and I have a feeling that they will be even more numerous in a game about characters who throw around cars like they're baseballs and are capable of pretty much having a building collapse on them and walk away with little more than a slight headache.
QuoteI should note that I completely adore and support the idea of doling out superpowers randomly in a superhero game. It's a great idea almost regardless of where the play is supposed to be going. It's also how I'd probably do it if I was making a superhero game. What better way to transmit the idea that you're not playing a superhuman, but rather a normal person who gets these powers through no choice of their own? However, you should make sure that the rules of the game either ensure equally "good" powers for everybody, or completely support different power levels in play. I'd like to think that the latter is closer in spirit to how superhero comics operate; we never get to see how the X-Men dynamics fail to function because Cyclops has a weaker power than other's after all!
Yes, that is the exact the role-playing reason for why I made powers rolled randomly. I've been working hard to make sure that all powers are pretty balanced so no one feels like they get the short end of the stick but I think only more playtesting will show how well I've succeeded.
QuoteAlso: what I'd like you to think about and tell us is, if you hypothetically had to choose between the dramatic themes we've talked about, or the D&D-influenced power lists and tactical combat, which is more important to you? I mean, if, hypothetically, it proved that you can't have both, or at least you'll have to put one of those into a weakened and secondary position, which would be the more important part of the game? I think both of those would make a fine game (your character generation actually seems genuinely interesting from a D&D perspective, just like the themes we discussed earlier seem fruitful for a dramatic game), but I have doubts about whether you can fit them both in there just like that.
Well, the thing I always loved about comic books was the character conflicts so that is what I would have to choose. However, that doesn't appeal to everyone and I wouldn't spend my money on a game that didn't have great role-playing, tactical combat, and great game balance. So really, I won't stop working on this game until I feel like I have the complete package.
QuoteSo, would you say that these thematic elements of the game are essentially free-form, with no rules support?
Freeform is fine for what it is, but I suspect that you've not realized the effect rules have on the overall play. Having rules always trumps not having rules, simply because the rules are there in the book sitting on your lap when you play, while the "no-rules" is nowhere in sight. Thus, if you have two possible ways your game could run (like, say, beating mooks in tactical combat or making hard choices about ruining your civilian life), I predict that the one that actually has rules present wins. I think that you can only disagree with me if you can tell us about the unforgettable session of Monopoly where you all were sitting there, ostensibly playing Monopoly, but actually playing football. Football does not spontaneously rise from Monopoly because the players, by the virtue of being there to play Monopoly, have no way of getting inspired to play football, instead. To the contrary, I should think that even if the miracle happened and one player started to set up goal posts, the rest would probably complain vehemently about him ruining the perfectly fine game of Monopoly they had going. Even if the goal-posts player was the banker in Monopoly, I don't think he could make the others believe that Monopoly is actually supposed to be played with a ball and two goals, when the other players can perfectly well read the rules included with the game of Monopoly they're playing.
If you want to check out roleplaying games that were designed for the purpose of drama and introducing thematic elements (the football of our example), I suggest, in addition to the superhero games I've mentioned, games like Dogs in the Vineyard, Fastlane, Dust Devils, The Shadow of Yesterday, Mountain Witch... the list is rather long, actually. There's plenty of games that do not pretend to be Monopoly while being football, or rather, do not pretend to be football, when they're really just Monopoly.
I would agree with you to a point but I am very hesitant to place rules in place that could limit the creativity of the GM or in any way constrict where he wants the plot to go. This is one of those things that I hope to improve upon after some playtesting to see if these rules truly do need to be implemented or if they would end up doing more harm than good.
QuoteWow, it does really sound like D&D, with all those Bluff, Persuasion and Sense Motive checks ;) I suggest you familiarize yourself with Mutants & Masterminds without further delay; it's the most popular D&D-based (d20, rather) superhero system, and probably has thing or two you could learn from.
Yeah, I won't deny that I dipped into D&D for some skill names, but that is about where the similarity ends. Besides, there are only so many words that describe the ability to lie or the ability to see through those lies.
QuoteYour example did answer many of my questions, but it left the most important one open: say that I really like the situation you're offering here, the whole save-the-kids-and-maybe-get-fired deal. I want to play the game that has stuff like that. The questions is still, how, exactly, does that situation come up in play? Is there, like, lists of these kinds of situations in the book, and the GM picks one whenever he feels the game isn't moving anywhere? Assuming he does, can he just frame the PC into the situation so that the player doesn't have any chance of preparing? What if the player thinks that his character would have, of course, got special dispensation for unexplainable disappearances from work already when his powers manifested? Overall, my question: say we've got to the point in play where the GM asks me whether I'm going to save those kids. How, exactly, did we get there? What kind of activity was necessary from me and the GM for this intriguing situation to take place?
The part where the consequences are decided and the situation is spun further is also important, but it seems to me you have that well under control. I imagine setting difficulty levels for all those rolls is going to be quite a chore for the GM, but if you think it's important, I'm sure he can handle it.
I thought about including a list of events that the GM could draw on to create character conflicts but I opted instead for a couple pages instead on how to construct adventures. Its kind of that 'give a man a fish' or 'teach a man to fish' type of things.
Well, let's look at this as if it was real life. If you were a superhero do you think you would ever have a chance to prepare for a building burning down with kids in it? I wouldn't think so, unless your character had the power of precognition (which I have included by the way.) Additionally, would you in real life get any special dispensation to miss work because you were secretly a superhero? The answer to that is a definite no unless your boss knows about your secret.
So how do we get to an interesting scenario? Well, we could get to one based on the character being proactive. Maybe the character spends his days off cruising the city looking for wrongs to be righted or maybe he decides to research some unsolved murders so he can find the bad guys. This basically causes the GM to react to the actions of his players. The GM can basically use this pro-activeness to lead into an interesting adventure (the character stumbles upon a robbery or a forgotten clue in an unsolved case) or have it lead to nothing (the day is pretty calm lawlessness wise or perhaps the unsolved cases do end up in a dead end.) The other way these interesting scenarios occur is the GM introducing the event to the character. This would include our current example with the character hearing about the burning building on the radio while driving to work. This causes the character to react to the events that are occurring in the GM's world. The character in this case can also either further the event into an adventure by skipping work to save the kids or he can end the scenario by simply continuing to drive to work.
QuoteAgreed, those are good examples of the phenomenon. But think of it this way: when ever has Spiderman actually got shot? When did Hulk hit Xavier? When did Wolverine get beat by mental attack? The precedents are there, you'll note, I don't claim that heroes are invincible. But if you think about it, you'll also note that those situations are rare, and always the matter of great consternation and strict story control. Spiderman never got killed by a gunshot. Xavier never got a full hit from Hulk. Wolverine could always break free from mental domination when it really mattered. Is that realistic? No. Is that genre-faithful? Yes, yes it is. Superheroes do not die, or if they do, it's a big, dramatic deal, not something decided by the writer rolling dice.
Your point is well taken and I think I will re-write rules for dying because of it. However, its about equally as rare that a superhero walks away without a scratch from a battle. My approach to creating this game was what if I woke up one day and was a superhero. I'd want to help people with my powers. I'd also not want to shout it to the world that I had them either. And if it came down to it and I got into a fight with robbers with guns or another superhuman I'd be scared and I'd fear for my life. I'd still fight the bad guys, but that wouldn't change the fact that I would be scared shitless for my life when doing so. That is what I hope to recreate with combat in my game. This game is so much about the emotions of being a superhero that it felt out of place to not make combat a very, very big deal.
QuoteYou'll also note that while superheroes have weaknesses, they are well aware of them themselves, and when they are not, they do indeed get a beating. It's not a matter of tactics or luck at all, when you look at the genre in general; when superheroes lose, it's because they were overconfident, or because they were desperate, not because their player couldn't play smart enough.
Yes, but I would argue that bad tactics and characters being overconfident or desperate are often the same thing. Overconfidence and stupidity usually walk hand in hand, so players not playing smart (and therefore their characters not being smart) is simply nothing more than a reflection of what is often the downfall of comic book characters as well. The only exception I can see for this is if the players don't play smart because they don't understand the rules or the game, in which case it is the GM's responsibility to adjust accordingly.
QuoteI suggest that there is two issues here: one is a matter of stakes, whether PCs should die or get otherwise totally screwed by the mechanics. One is a matter of play style, whether winning or losing one small and large scale should be about player tactics. It seems to me that you're currently answering both the same way D&D does, which is mighty strange for a superhero game, as D&D is anything but that!
Again, I'd like to make character death a minimal occurrence in my game. If the character screws up and gets beaten by his enemy he rarely dies outright. More often then not he is knocked unconscious. This can take the adventure in a completely new direction when the character wakes up in his enemy's secret lair bound to a table and is not something that should be avoided because people have it in their head that the good guys are always supposed to win. On the other issue, I think that my game has at best superficial relationships to D&D and rather shares a closer tie to what would happen in the real world. If you end up with two, evenly matched humans or superhumans, who is going to win the fight? The answer is the person with better tactics. On another note, how many times has Spider-man defeated an opponent by pummeling them into submission? Not often I can tell you. Spider-man beats his opponents by out-thinking them. The same can be said for dozens upon dozens of other superheroes. That is why I place such an emphasis on tactics in my game.
QuoteSounds good to me. It also seems that death as a rules feature arising out of tactical mistakes is not what you should be driving at. Why not just have rules where characters can get very badly hurt, but will never just die like that? Many games have rules like this. For example, here's how it works in Trollbabe: when a character fails her third reroll (goes to negative hitpoints, whatever), the player decide that she dies. If she does, the player narrates how. If she does not, then the GM gets to describe where and in what condition she comes to. Perhaps it's as a prisoner, perhaps she was saved by somebody. Never know.
Something like that would seem greatly more appropriate than the chance of random death, if you don't want meaningless deaths in the first place. Never design something you don't actually want in your game.
You bring up a good point here and I will rework death when I come out with my next revision (which should be in a week or so.)
QuoteBut isn't it hit or miss whether popularity has any effect on anything, then? This is like the Paladin thing all over again, with the AD&D paladin restrictions varying wildly in significance between GMs, situations and play groups. That kind of mechanics are problematic, because you get situations like players who drive actively towards nullifying the significance of the mechanic. I can already imagine how it's perfectly useful in your game to try to avoid popularity-based situations, just so you don't need to deal with the mechanic.
What I was thinking, based on what you said about the resposibilities of the budding heroes growing with time, was that it would be interesting to have fame and popularity be a kind of "adventure scale"; the more popularity you have, the bigger adventures you end up having. Now there's a popularity mechanic with teeth!
This is an interesting point and I would like to see how it plays out in playtesting. Though it is hard to avoid popularity-based situations because it governs how the entire world looks at you.
I like the idea of popularity tying into adventure scale. I'll have to run that through my brain a bit to see if I can find a way to make that work.
QuoteIn D&D you'd be right in these remarks. If your game is like D&D, then I guess your game should have experience system in place as well.
However, there's nothing like that in comic book superheroes. Nothing. Some few stories are specifically about the early steps of the heroes, or about the changes they go through in life, but they're a minority, and there is no dramatic arc where characters start small and work their way up. Captain America in his first story is essentially just as big a hero, with the same powers, that he has fifty years later. The same holds true for practically any hero you care to name: Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, X-Men, Hulk, Avengers, The Fantastic Four... any changes to any of these are due to rewrites and social progress in their personal lives, not in their powers or the kind of adventures they have. The D&D leveling up concept is simply not applicable; I would even say that it's more common for superheroes to lose powers than gain them, if you care to start counting.
As for whether a game in general can be fun without xp, I assure you that it's more than possible. I again cite both Capes and With Great Power as superhero games that specifically have nothing even resembling an xp system. WGP comes closest with the player option of switching in secondary aspects when you want to re-emphasize something or other in the character, but the amount of player power involved varies only within a single story, not long-term.
But, that's that. I'll take a look at the rules you posted while you think on the points I raised here. Perhaps I can give you some more generic feedback after looking at the entirety, instead of discussing things in principle?
Well, I would disagree that comic book characters don't change. Spider-man improves his webs from time to type or creates different batches. Jean Grey consistently works on improving her telekinesis. Batman always gets new gadgets to beat his enemies.
And is it really realistic to have Captain America remain unchanged for 50 years? Not really. I think that the reason for this is that the writers realized that if their creations kept improving eventually any task thrown at them could be accomplished easily. This is the problem you see with these anime shows like Dragonball Z. Eventually you wind up with characters that can basically destroy the universe with a thought. Therefore, it is simply not wise to have a comic superhuman improve if you want to continue that comic franchise for as long as it is making money.
However, this game isn't a comic book. I will concede that an experience system may not be the best idea but I think that it is vital to have a way for the players to improve their characters. It just doesn't make any sense to me that someone who could control fire wouldn't be able to control it better after years of experience or that a person with super-strength couldn't improve their bench press like a normal human can. If that makes my game different from comic books then my game is going to be different from comic books.
billvolkQuoteWhat exactly will happen if a player wants his hero to have a publicly known identity? What will happen if a hero's identity is exposed by accident or by an enemy? What will happen if a hero tries to abandon his old life, fake his own death or something and live entirely as his hero persona? There's presecence for all of these things in superhero comics. The Fantastic Four, The Spirit, Batman at the end of Dark Knight Returns, and countless others don't live by the standard double-life formula. Will your game allow these things to happen to the player characters at all? If maintaining a secret identity is meant to be one of the main challenges for your players, then the possibility of exposure must be real or there is no challenge.
Yes, I have written fairly extensively on all these things and they will all be options in my game. Once Eero Tuovinen uploads my game to his website check out my section on "Campaigns" and see if you feel I need to elaborate on these details more because they are very big topics in comic books and I want them included in my game.
oh, and here's my game for your viewing pleasure. If you see any problems or anything that is unclear let me know and I'll be sure to fix it during my next revision.
http://www.arkkikivi.net/muut/Superheroes%20V1.0.pdf
Under your special abilities section, you include a sidebar for both Contacts and Skills to be chosen/randomly rolled by the players as an optional rule. Wouldn't a logical extension of this be to include the super powers in that rule as well? Unless your game is extrememly dependent on powers being random, I don't see why you wouldn't want to give that option. A player coming in to read this text is going to find the fact that you have two of the three topics sidebared for flexibility while the third is not to be "flagging" the random nature of super powers, and I would take a guess that one of the first houserules made on this game would be to allow selecting powers.
Quote from: Eric Bennett on March 19, 2006, 08:09:57 PM
Under your special abilities section, you include a sidebar for both Contacts and Skills to be chosen/randomly rolled by the players as an optional rule. Wouldn't a logical extension of this be to include the super powers in that rule as well? Unless your game is extrememly dependent on powers being random, I don't see why you wouldn't want to give that option. A player coming in to read this text is going to find the fact that you have two of the three topics sidebared for flexibility while the third is not to be "flagging" the random nature of super powers, and I would take a guess that one of the first houserules made on this game would be to allow selecting powers.
I was thinking about that but I felt that making powers random was important enough role-playing and balance wise (for reasons explained earlier in the thread) that I should not offer an optional rule for it. If players end up house-ruling that they want powers determined I can't really stop them, though as the creator of the game I advise against it and that is why I didn't make it an optional rule.
I'm reading in bits and pieces while I eat, so forgive me if my commentary seems slightly fragmented.
One you thing you may want to check the document over for is lines like this
QuoteThe system used in
SUPERHEROES is the d6 System, named because the only die required to play
is a standard six sided die (some role-playing games have up to six different
kinds of dice)
Never ever ever bash other games in your text. That is a great way to turn players off to what you are offering, I think, and shows a lack of decorum that is very unappealing. Just look over at some reviews on RPG.net of things like The Short-And-Sweet Roleplaying Game review where the "we are not D&D vibe" overwhelmed what the authors were saying. (Note, I am referring to an older review than is on the frontpage there.)
Anyway, I'll keep reading through this and if I see anything else that jumps out and waves a red flag at me, I'll let you know.
reading machine,
Eric
Hey all,
I haven't had a chance to check out much of the game yet, but it looks extensive. I'm only chiming in because your original post mentioned "market ready" which I'm guessing means you intend to sell your book. If so, I want to give you some advice: You may need to change the title. The term superhero is not a generic term. Marvel and DC comics share a joint trademark on the word, which is why they are the only ones who have superheroes and everyone else has posthumans, powers, supers, novas, ultras, deltas, science heroes, etc. I don't know the extent of the law, or the extent of your publishing plans, but I thought you should know. Also, I wouldn't mention any Marvel characters in your book, even if you are just using them as a point of reference. If this is just a fun project and not a money maker, then I'm sure its no problem, otherwise exercise caution.
Not sure if anyone else has brought this up yet or not. I don't mean to hijack the thread...so, carry on. I hope to chime in again once I've had a chance to read the book.
Take care,
Ken
Quote from: Ken on March 19, 2006, 11:10:28 PM
Hey all,
I haven't had a chance to check out much of the game yet, but it looks extensive. I'm only chiming in because your original post mentioned "market ready" which I'm guessing means you intend to sell your book. If so, I want to give you some advice: You may need to change the title. The term superhero is not a generic term. Marvel and DC comics share a joint trademark on the word, which is why they are the only ones who have superheroes and everyone else has posthumans, powers, supers, novas, ultras, deltas, science heroes, etc. I don't know the extent of the law, or the extent of your publishing plans, but I thought you should know. Also, I wouldn't mention any Marvel characters in your book, even if you are just using them as a point of reference. If this is just a fun project and not a money maker, then I'm sure its no problem, otherwise exercise caution.
Not sure if anyone else has brought this up yet or not. I don't mean to hijack the thread...so, carry on. I hope to chime in again once I've had a chance to read the book.
Take care,
Ken
Those are some good points. Superheroes is just a working title because I haven't thought of anything more original yet that I like. Adding the references to Marvel was a late addition that I included for those who are familiar with those games. I'll probably axe it in later versions to avoid copywrite problems. Yes, my goal is eventually to get this published but that is a long way off. My main priority right now is to make the game as best as possible and to get some people to playtest it. Actually getting the game published is a whole new can of worms that I don't even want to deal with yet.
Some comments on the design of the document itself:
You chose an interesting font for the genre you're covering. It seems more suited to a fantasy setting than a modern one. Is this because you wanted to convey the somewhat non-traditional flavor of your Armageddon setting?
Are you considering creating or commissioning illustrations? If you don't want to invest in hiring an artist, which is perfectly reasonable, at least consider creating your own cover art. Even if you don't think you can draw well, nothing can convey flavor more clearly than a picture, and some potential users (myself included) appreciate designers that do their own art and won't scrutinize them as much as they would scrutinize commissioned artists.
Quote from: billvolk on March 20, 2006, 12:05:24 AM
Some comments on the design of the document itself:
You chose an interesting font for the genre you're covering. It seems more suited to a fantasy setting than a modern one. Is this because you wanted to convey the somewhat non-traditional flavor of your Armageddon setting?
Are you considering creating or commissioning illustrations? If you don't want to invest in hiring an artist, which is perfectly reasonable, at least consider creating your own cover art. Even if you don't think you can draw well, nothing can convey flavor more clearly than a picture, and some potential users (myself included) appreciate designers that do their own art and won't scrutinize them as much as they would scrutinize commissioned artists.
Yeah, I definetly wanted something special for the Armageddon setting. In addition, all of the more modern fonts I looked at (I looked at over 1,000 different fonts) were either hard to read or didn't appeal to me and while this one could be seen as a bit of more fantasy in style I think its better then using a generic windows font.
I used to be a pretty good artist but its been a long time since I drew anything. I'd like to have some good artwork in my game but there's no way I can hire an artist on my non-existant budget right now. I definetly think cover art is a must though I'm a bit stuck on what image I want to be the coverpage of my game. A combat scene doesn't seem completely appropriate for my game and are incredibly difficult to draw but I do want something that jumps out at the reader. Any suggestions?
I did some reading on the other superhero games mentioned and got a bit more inspiration for my game. I wanted to do something very interesting with how rounds are played out in combat in my game. That is why I came up with the reverse initiative system I have in place right now. If I remember correctly it's a bit similar to Whitewolf's combat system. However, the system never sat completely well with me as it seems overly complex and potentially could make combat too slow.
After looking at the other systems though I think I have a better alternative and I'd like to hear from all of you if you think that its better. This new combat system introduces a new Attribute, called Speed, which determines how quickly and how often a character can act in combat. In this system combat is broken into 5 second rounds. Each round is then broken into 5, 1 second sections called moments. Combat begins by each participate in the combat rolling a d6 for each rank in Speed they have. The d6 rolls for each participant are summed together and the characters are listed on a sheet of paper in order from highest to lowest. This determines who is quickest to act at any given moment. At the beginning of each round, each character then again rolls a d6 for each rank in Speed they have. For every 3, 4 or 5 the player rolls their character can act once in that round. For every 6 the player rolls their character can act twice in that round. For example, a character with 4 ranks in speed that rolls a 6,5,2,1 could act 3 times in the first round.
At the beginning of each moment each character, from lowest speed roll to highest, indicates if they want to use one of their actions in that moment. Then, each character that has decided to act in that moment, in order from highest to lowest, can perform any one action they desire.
Actions Include:
-Attacking in melee
-Performing a special attack
-Firing a gun
-Using a power
-Using a ranged weapon
-Moving (standard movement is 10 feet per action though the Lightening Speed power increases that amount.)
-Climbing
-Jumping
-Standing up from prone
-anything else that takes a second or two for a normal person to do.
Here's an example of how combat can play out. Because I lack the creativity right now to come up with superhero names, I'll just use the names A, B, and C.
A, B, and C first roll a d6 for each rank they have in speed and sum the d6 rolls together. A has 2 ranks in Speed and rolls 6,5 giving him a total of 11. B has 4 ranks in Speed and rolls 4,3,3,2 giving him a total of 12. C has 3 ranks in Speed and rolls 5,2,1 giving him a total of 8. So the order of action is B, A, C. Each character then rolls a d6 for each rank they have in speed again, this time keeping track of how many fours, fives, and sixes they roll. A rolls 4,2 which means he only gets to act once this round. B rolls 6,4,3,2 which means he gets to act 3 times this round. C rolls 5,4,4 which allows him to also act 3 times this round. If a character winds up being able to act more than 5 times in a round he may act twice in a single moment though his second action of the moment follows all other people acting in the moment. Any actions not used by the end of the round are wasted and cannot be carried over to the next round.
Now that these rolls have been made, combat is ready to begin with the first moment of the first round. C, having the lowest sum, must decide if he wants to spend one of his actions this moment. C decides to save his moments for later and passes. A, having the next lowest sum, is next to decide if he wants to act this moment. Because he only gets to act once this round, he wants to make it count so he decides to save his action as well. B is the last to decide if he wants to act because he has the highest sum. Seeing that neither of his opponents have decided to act B decides to start things off with a bang and acts. B, using one of his powers for his action, fires a Piercing Missile at A. B and A make an Accuracy vs. Agility check to determine if the Piercing Missile hits. B has 2 ranks in accuracy and rolls a 5,4. A has 3 ranks in agility and rolls a 5,3,2. Both player's highest rolls are a 5 so neither character gets a success. B's next highest roll, a 4, is higher then A's next highest roll, a 3, and so B gets one success. B is out of dice but A still has one die remaining. Because that die isn't a 1, A automatically gets a success. Because each character has one success and tie goes to the defender, B's piercing missile misses A by a hair and slams into a nearby wall instead. B now can only act two more times this round.
We now move onto the second moment of the first round. C leads off in decided if he wants to act and decides that he wants some action too. A only has one action and is loathe to use it early, despite B's attempted attack on him, and decides to pass this moment. B, suspecting that C wants to get the jump on him, decides to spend his second action during this moment. Because B has a higher sum than C, B gets to act first in this moment. B uses his action to move and take cover behind a wall to avoid being flanked by C. C decides to be tricky with his action though and slashes at B's mind with his Psionic Attack power. Because the power is range dependent no Accuracy vs. Agility check is needed to see if the attack hits. C and B make a Rank vs. Wisdom check, as decribed in the power description, to see if the Psionic Attack stuns B. B, not wanting to potentially lose the chance to act by becoming stunned, decides to boost his Wisdom by 2 for this opposed roll by spending 2 energy points. C has 4 ranks in Psionic Attack and rolls a 6,4,3,1. B has only 3 ranks in Wisdom normally but because he spent 2 energy points to raise his Wisdom he gets to roll 5d6 instead of 3d6 and rolls a 5,5,3,3,1. C's 6 matches up with B's 5, giving C one success. B's next roll is also a 5, which beats C's 4 and gives B one success also. Both B and C have a 3 for their next roll so neither player gets a success. C's last roll is a 1 while B has another 3, giving B another success for a total of 2. C is out of dice while B still has one die left but that die is a 1 so B doesn't receive a success for it. The final tally is B with 2 successes and C with 1 so B does not become stunned. Looks like B spending energy points paid off. B now only has one action remaining for this turn while C still has two.
Next comes the third moment. C starts and decides he wants to use his second action this moment. A decides to hold out a bit longer and passes yet again. B only has one action left and he wants decides he wants to save it and passes as well. C is the only player who decided to act so his character is free to act. C uses his action to move, increasing the distance between him and A while maneuvering so that B's cover no longer protects him from C's attacks. C now only has one action left.
We're now up to the fourth moment in the first round. C decides to save his action for the last moment and passes. A decides the time is right and makes his move here. B, also decides to spend his last action in the fourth moment. B gets to act first and decides to activate his Invisibility power, causing to disappear from the battlefield. A is next to act and uses his action to move to where he last saw B so he has a better chance of noticing the slight distortions the Invisibility power causes. A and B now has no actions remaining this round.
Now for the final moment in this round. C is the only character with an action left so he decides to use it because wasted actions don't carry over until next round. C can no longer see B but A is in clear view so C decides to blast A with his Energy Missile power. C and A roll an Accuracy vs Agility check. C has 2 ranks in accuracy and rolls a 4,3. A has 3 ranks in agility and rolls a 3,2,2. C's 4 matches up with A's 3, giving him one success. C's 3 then matches up with A's 2, giving C another success. C is out of dice and A's last roll isn't a 1 so A gets an automatic success. The final tally is C with 2 successes and A with once. The Energy Missile slams into A with incredible force and C cackles madly as A is consumed in brilliant energy. Because C hit he and A must now make a Damage vs Constitution check. Damage for Energy Missile is the rank of the power, as stated in the power description. A decides not to augment his Constitution by spending energy points. C has 5 ranks in Energy Missile and rolls a 6,6,3,2,2. A has 4 ranks in Constitution and rolls a 6,5,3,2. Both of C and A's first roll is a 6 so neither player gets a success. C's second roll of also a 6 beats A's 5, giving C one success. C and A's next two rolls are both equal so neither player receives successes for them. A is out of dice but C still has one die remaining. Because the die isn't a 1 C get another success, raising his total to 2. A winds up with zero successes and so he must cover C's successes with 2 of his Health Points.
This concludes the first round of combat. All three player will again roll to see how many actions they receive in the next round but the order of their action remains the same (B,A,C.)
So, what do you guys think? I think it might be better then my current system but it would require me to rework a lot of the powers to adjust for the smaller time interval with which powers can be used.
Some thoughts. . .
Quote from: Elishar on March 19, 2006, 05:59:08 PM
Yes, I realized that this could be a very large problem with my game. That's why I implemented an attribute called Energy, which basically allows characters to do pretty much anything they want as long as they pay enough energy. The system still needs a lot more development and expansion but it's a start. I am also debating whether or not I should increase the amount of energy points characters have to make the game more dramatic.
With respect, this seems like a patch job solution--rather than redesigning the foundational mechanics to avoid the shortcoming, you're going to slam a mitigating mechanic on like a band-aid to try and correct for the problem after the fact. This reminds me of the design philosophy of some collectible card games (at least back in the day). They would have the initial set of cards, and as those got played, really broken and overbalancing cards would emerge. So then the next expansion would include a card to counter that card; the best examples were general-use, but the worst of the breed were as specific as "Play to counter [name of card]." What you're essentially saying is, "Hey, I know the powers are overspecific so you can't do what you really want, but guess what? I;ll give you points to spend so you can do what you really want." Why not just let players do what they really want from the start?
It occurs to me, though, that to fully understand what you even mean about the Energy Points, I'm going to need your definition of "pretty much anything they want."
Quote from: Elishar on March 19, 2006, 05:59:08 PM
The other thing I realized what that there was no way I would think of all the things a given power could do. That's one of the chief reasons why I wanted more playtesting done. Players with the elongation power should be able to do all the things Mr. Fantastic power can do and my chief job is allowing the characters to do all of them and yet retain balance. So yeah, maybe I should include a power augmentation where if the character pays one energy point they can act as if they had the Body Armor power for one round at an equal rank, thereby duplicating how Mr. Fantastic absorbs bullets with his body.
I think you're laboring under the misconception that to, for instance, support "all the things a given power could do," you've got to model the power exactly, adding more and more parameters until it's practically computer code for that power's physics. And this is one way to go, surely, but NOT the only way. And as Eero has been saying, Champions already pulls off this design preference well, and is the preferred system for this play style. Which means that if that's the direction you want, you're going to have to
beat Champions. Or at least, offer something very unique that Champions ain't got.And anyway, I don't think this "wheels within wheels" approach to modeling the nuances of powers (Elongation becomes Speed for this usage and becomes Body Armor for
this usage and. . .) is the most elegant way to go. At least, what others seem to be suggesting is a more freeform approach with fluid limits to the power. ("You want to stretch all the way up to the skyscraper's roof? OK, make your power using roll. . .3 successes! That'll do it.") It'll require more good faith in the players that they'll stay within reasonable confines of the power's scope, unlike, say, Reed stretching his brain (and probably get them to define that scope at chargen--"I can't stretch too far, but I've can do
wicked shapes!), but it'll eliminate that downer experience of "well, this power is KIND of like what I want to do, but not quite. . .I guess I'm stuck with it." Also, I don't want to open up a can of worms, but you might want to consider the difference between task resolution and
conflict resolution. the latter asks not, "how many meters did I stretch," but "did I stretch
far enough." i.e. far enough to save the falling bystander, or far enough to cut off the villain's escape. It would really fit with the flexibility of powers' limits in actual comics, plus it would slot in really well those dilemmas you want to focus on, such as Save Kids vs. Keep job.
Quote from: Elishar on March 19, 2006, 05:59:08 PM
Well, the thing I always loved about comic books was the character conflicts so that is what I would have to choose. However, that doesn't appeal to everyone and I wouldn't spend my money on a game that didn't have great role-playing, tactical combat, and great game balance. So really, I won't stop working on this game until I feel like I have the complete package.
I think you're issing the point here, which is design focus. I don't think the game has been made, and isn't likely to be, which supports and facilitates all styles of play equally, and well. It's not that a game isn't a "complete package" if it doesn't support both heavy tactics and heavy dramatic issues. In fact the design philosophy that's being alluded to here is that it's
impossible to support both equally, so a good design should focus on what it wants to be most important.
Quote from: Elishar on March 19, 2006, 05:59:08 PM
I would agree with you to a point but I am very hesitant to place rules in place that could limit the creativity of the GM or in any way constrict where he wants the plot to go. This is one of those things that I hope to improve upon after some playtesting to see if these rules truly do need to be implemented or if they would end up doing more harm than good.
I think what you're failing to realize is that the system you've GOT is going to "limit the creativity of the GM" and "constrict where he wants the plot to go." In your game, the GM doesn't say, "OK, this cool thing happens and it happens like
this." He says "OK, so this thing happens. . .it's moving at a rate of. . .(checks book) 50 MPH, and has Armor of. . .(checks) 3. . .it lands. . .(counts) 30 feet from your characters." The point of this hypothetical is not that the system bogs down in details (though that is a danger you should consider), but that the GM didn't get to say (well this guy moves about yea fast and it lands where I damn well want 'im to." He's bound by the movement rates and other parameters the powers have.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It may be just what you want in a roleplaying experience. But you should be aware of just what effect it will have on play. And consider that your design choices aren't so much about limiting or not limiting, but in deciding
which areas to limit. Kinda like (to get political for a second) when people advocate "Free trade," they're not saying "completely deragulate commerce,' they're saying "well, of COURSE regulate commerce, but regulate it in our favor."
Quote from: Elishar on March 20, 2006, 01:21:13 AM
After looking at the other systems though I think I have a better alternative and I'd like to hear from all of you if you think that its better. This new combat system introduces a new Attribute, called Speed, which determines how quickly and how often a character can act in combat. In this system combat is broken into 5 second rounds. Each round is then broken into 5, 1 second sections called moments. Combat begins by each participate in the combat rolling a d6 for each rank in Speed they have. The d6 rolls for each participant are summed together and the characters are listed on a sheet of paper in order from highest to lowest. This determines who is quickest to act at any given moment. At the beginning of each round, each character then again rolls a d6 for each rank in Speed they have. For every 3, 4 or 5 the player rolls their character can act once in that round. For every 6 the player rolls their character can act twice in that round. For example, a character with 4 ranks in speed that rolls a 6,5,2,1 could act 3 times in the first round.
Wow. This system definitely would seem to tip you over the tactics side of the fence. So much so, in fact, that it seems hopeless to me for your game to try to truly support your stated dramatic goal, if this is the way you're going to proceed. If this level of tactical detail is really what you want, go for it, but trust me, it's going to overshadow any other aspects of the game. And it seems like it would og down, even for the most hardcore of "realistic," tactics-modeling players. Myself, I couldn't get through your play example, I mean all that stuff is merely
one round of combat. Definitely not to my taste.
One question, you said initially you searched for a satisfying superhero game and didn't find any you liked. What games DID you try, and why were they inadequate? That's probably help you figure out what you DO want out of your own game.
Anyway, hope this helps. I'll shut up now and let Eero come in and say it all three times better. ;)
Peace,
Joel: good stuff, but let's not take up conflict resolution and all that stuff now. I think there's plenty to discuss without going into theory. Also, it seems to me that Superheroes has the basics of conflict resolution down good enough at this stage.
As for the publishing stuff: I suggest that Ian should start a new thread on the "Publishing" forum if he wants to get into that. We can suggest a bunch of things about that, but this is not really the place. Let's focus on the design side, instead. Really, font choice (which is fine, by the way) won't save or fail his game as far as design is concerned!
I'll pull a quote here, just to emphasize something:
Quote from: Melingor
One question, you said initially you searched for a satisfying superhero game and didn't find any you liked. What games DID you try, and why were they inadequate? That's probably help you figure out what you DO want out of your own game.
Yes, I want to know this one, too. Especially whether Ian's had experience with Champions (or Hero System in general), which is pretty much the backbone of the genre in rpgs.
Meanwhile, Ian: I skimmed the Superheroes rules, and... well... this won't be very constructive, but I'll give you my impressions anyway. The point is, perhaps I should pull out of this particular discussion after this; otherwise there's the very real danger of the thread drifting into "Eero tells everybody how they should design a game". Sometimes it just doesn't pay to insist on dialogue.
The good: The game seems pretty complete and well thought out. Definitely ready for independent playtest. You didn't exaggerate when you said that you're serious about this. Start that thread in Publishing, and we can discuss ways to capitalize on the game.
The bad: As far as I can see, the game is little more than
Champions-lite design-wise. I'm pretty sure based on my gaming experience that actual play will resemble the basic Champions-M&M-Tristat fare more than a little. This being: careful chargen (to make sure your character can hack it), constrained story possibilities (as the GM duties are heavy enough without having to generate villains etc. in the middle of the game) and heavy combat focus (as that's where the interesting rules interactions are). I don't expect to see strong thematic play along the lines of superhero comics so much as a GM struggling to keep the game within the genre while the players pretty much capitalize on the aesthetics to procure a fast win over any obstacles the GM cares to set. (Again: being like Champions is cool. Playing D&D superheroes is fun. But there's also plenty of games that do it well, so you better be ready for stiff competition.)
The ugly: I wouldn't want to play the game, really. Starting from the top, my attention starts to flag in the "Character types" section, which as far as I can see is a clumsy effort at categorizing superheroes based on their power sources, but for no discernible reason. Around page fifteen it's pretty clear that as a player I will have no chance to make a meaningful contribution to the contents of play; the best I can do is get a chuckle out of playing a "valley girl nerd" (my favourite character type by far). I could go on, but my point is that while I can see a tiny niche for the game in my play profile somewhere below Champions, it's pretty unlikely that I'd settle on this instead of the aforementioned; Champions is really good at what it does, and while it's a tad more complex than Superheroes, well, complexity is a good thing in this kind of game! If I don't want complexity, chances are I won't want tactical combat, either. If I don't want tactical combat, I settle for one of the superhero games I mentioned earlier. Even if I wanted tactics... hmm, I guess I'd pick Mutants & Masterminds, which has roughly the same complexity in it's chargen as Superheroes, with the added benefit of being d20.
So: my take is that you should think long and hard on what kind of enjoyment you're offering
for the player, as opposed to the GM. (GMs are notoriously good at entertaining themselves with prima donna behaviour and being blinded by their own brilliance, so I wouldn't worry about them so much.) Clearly this has something to do with winning the fights with good tactics, as that's mainly where the player choices seem to count. But I fail to see how the game ensures that there's good fights to be had! The following questions are left completely unanswered:
- When the fight starts? Can the GM just decide that there's no fights this session? Do the players have any choice in the matter?
- How the situation is driven towards fights? Fighting is a staple of the superhero genre, so perhaps the players and the GM know how to get there. Perhaps.
- How to ensure that the scenery is tactically interesting? By which I mean: it's not that trivial to think up good places to place civilians, collapsible structures, breakable and non-breakable walls and all that stuff. How do you expect that the GM does a good job of this?
- Will the power levels be fair? No idea; one of the main reasons I'd pick Mutants & Masterminds, which has something resembling a challenge meter.
- Will the opponent tactics be entertaining? It's an enormous job to figure out a suitable force composition for a villain team, for instance. Take the first appearance of Marauders in X-Men sometime in the eighties, for instance, if you remember that; those aesthetics of combat against the Morlocks and the X-Men didn't exactly come out of thin air! Add the trouble of putting statistics to it all to the mix, and you're looking at literally hours and hours of GM preparation, with no way to ensure that it'll work in practice.
- Will the players have leeway in their goals? Considering the fictional situation leading into the fight, how to ensure that the players have several, possibly conflicting goals for the fight, and success or failure on those goals will have real repercussions? Setting up a fight is easy, but making sure it has stakes that are fictionally relevant is a tad trickier.
- Will the fighting mechanics be entertaining? They might be, but I can't tell right off. For all I know they might be too heavy to play comfortably, or too light to offer any options, or, worst of all and suprisingly common in rpg design, both too heavy and with too few choices.
To repeat something that's been up in the air for a while: I really think you should take a loot at some other games, to compare your solutions to what others are doing. That's simply the best way to make sure your work is at all relevant to the field in general. Especially, the games that I think you really, really should know:
- Champions, simply because it's the grand-daddy of the game type you're making here.
- Sorcerer, because it's designed by a long-time Champions player who felt that the game lacked proper tools for bringing theme and drama into the mix.
- With Great Power, because it deals with the themes of power, secret identities and all that stuff very efficiently, with tools made for the purpose. The polar opposite of Champions if you will, and a game I think you'd like very much if you gave it a shot.
- Capes, because it's very competitive between players, completely faithful to the superhero genre, very dramatic, and has no GM at all.
PSA:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/18/marvel_comics_steali.html
"Marvel Comics is continuing in its bid to steal the word "super-hero" from the public domain and put it in a lock-box to which it will control the key. Marvel and DC comics jointly filed a trademark on the word "super-hero." They use this mark to legally harass indie comic companies that make competing comic books."
Alright, looks like I have some work to do.
On a side note, do you think that I should keep my Armageddon setting just an offshoot of this game or is it original and interesting enough that I should make it my main focus to differentiate it from the other pack of superhero type games. As far as I know there aren't any other superhero games that have demonic possession as a cause for superpowers. I also really like the idea because the character is constantly trying to balance using their powers for good while not using them too much that they become evil.
Elishar,
I would say that if you keep nothing else, make it the Armageddon setting. The idea of superpowers as the result of demonic possession and having to keep a balance there is very appealing, at least to me. It takes the familiar and casts it in a new (and interesting) light.
Yes, focus on the Armageddon setting.
I was beginning to take a deeper look at your game, but is seems like everything I could say have bees said.
If you want to change the system, a good starting point is to write down the important conflict in the game. It could be something like:
* Your duty as a superhero contra your duty to your friends and family.
* Try to keep up popularity, and still do your job properly.
* Use demonic power in the service of good, but risk succumb to evil.
* etc.
And from there you can slowly try to build mechanic the support these ideas.
- Anders
Well, I don't want to muddle the concensus here, but it seems you're all willing to throw away an awful lot of solid design work ;)
First, in case it's unclear to somebody - a game can have all those power lists, special combat rules and all that, and still cater to drama. There are ample examples, of which I only mention Sorcerer and The Riddle of Steel. So let's not get carried away and assume that all this design is for naught.
Also, if I were the designer, I would think long and hard on the goals of my design. It wouldn't be the first time I'd written a hundred pages of a game, realized that it doesn't do what I want it to, and then found out that it does something else perfectly well. The point: while the game as it is indeed doesn't do a very good job in the thematic department (IMO and all that), who's to say that it's not a kernel for a really good game of grim tactical superhero combat? It's not like that market is full or anything, even the best examples like Champions have dire lacks in the tactical part, not to speak of breaking genre all the time. I can totally see how I'd design a game with all those power lists, danger of death and so on.
So that's my bid to slow things down. I know how hard it is when your game gets completely stymied: my biggest design ever was a 300 page game that pretty much does everything Heroquest does, but based on d20 and better. It was totally superceded on the market when Clinton R. Nixon published his Shadow of Yesterday. While my game does maybe 10% of the stuff better than TSOY, I pretty much lost all my motivation to finish my mammoth project after reading Clinton's game, and still don't know what to do with it. So I know that making massive changes in a project that's almost published is not easy, and shouldn't be done without thought.
As for Armageddon: I don't know, apparently I'm a minority, but I wouldn't be that excited about the campaign setting. The ideas in it are solid, but you have to understand that the fiction material and ideas regarding that are something roleplayers come up with easily, especially with good rules. So pretty much the only reason to give attention to the setting is if you have rules that tie specifically into that, or if it's something with genuine literary value. It's quite possible to make a game out of Armageddon, make no mistake - but as Anders says, it should be a game specifically about that setting, not a generic superhero game with the setting tied in.
You should also know that the basic premise of Armageddon, corruption vs. power, is done very, very well by that old favourite, Sorcerer. So well, in fact, that I can see it much easier as a Sorcerer mini-supplement than a game of it's own. Perhaps you should write a Sorcerer mini-supplement, Ron offers very good terms on those ;)
QuoteWell, I don't want to muddle the concensus here, but it seems you're all willing to throw away an awful lot of solid design work ;)
Nothing of the sort! ^_~ I probably chose my phrasing slightly poorly. I was simply expressing how much I enjoyed the concept of superpowers derived from demons. That is the single best thing about this game, but that doesn't mean the rest isn't decent, too.
I'm definitely not throwing away any of the work I've already done. However, I like a lot of the ideas brought up here and I think I'll pursue them to see if I can implement them better in my game then what I already have. I also have a lot of reading to do to see what my competition is offering. The biggest thing that interests me is a free-form power creation system. I'm not sure exactly how to do it yet but if I can it will make the game a whole lot simpler and probably a lot more fun and true to the superhero genre. Here are some areas I want to explore/change in my game:
1) Rework character types so that the system is more streamlined. This will be accomplished by having a base template upon which simple augmentations can be done to increase or decrease bonus points available for character creation.
2) Rely more heavily on opposed rolls.
3) Remove constraints on powers by making power creation free-form and generalized as opposed to having strict rules for everything. Use opposed rolls to resolve power abilities.
4) Introduce a concept of scenes to better control pacing in the game.
5) Make combat more general, focusing more on imagination and description as opposed to gritty tactical details. Resolve combat with actions and reactions as opposed to defined rounds.
6) Eliminate contacts, income, and lifestyle. They add little to the game overall and will most likely just confuse new players.
I really think that running with the Armageddon idea will re-center the focus of my game back on character conflict and development. Plus, I really love the idea and would agree its one of the best things I've come up with yet.
Okay, I cranked out a very rough power creation system that is less constricted. I also included a rough idea of how you would resolve the character using their power in creative ways. Its far for being complete but I think I might be onto something better then page after page of power descriptions. The downside I see to this is that the system relies on a lot of subjective decisions from the GM as he decides how difficult tasks are.
The player first comes up with a base idea with which to base his character's power on. A base idea should be something very general that a normal human is unable to do. A good example of a base idea would be that the character's limbs are flexible and stretchable like rubber. The next step to flesh out the power a bit more with possible ways the power could be used. Several of these could be extending limbs to perform attacks, save falling people or climb tall buildings with ease, using your elasticity to absorb blows from enemies and flattening out you body to pass under door cracks or access otherwise inaccessible places. The final step is to include any restrictions or limits to the power that you have. These would include having to retain a constant mass and volume or limits on how far exactly you could stretch.
After you have a power that you are content with you must submit the power to the GM for review as well as how many creation points you are willing to sacrifice to be able to take this power. The GM then evaluates the power and determines if the sacrifice the player is willing to make is appropriate. The general rule for evaluating a power is to consider how the player could otherwise spend the creation points he is willing to sacrifice to gain the power. For example, if it is more beneficial for the character to raise one of his Attributes then to take the power then the sacrifice necessary to take the power shouldn't cost more then the points necessary to raise one of his Attributes.
During the game the character can use his power in any way that his imagination allows as long as it doesn't contradict his power limits. Any time the character uses his power to accomplish something significant, the GM should require the character to pass a rank check at a difficulty that corresponds to the difficulty of the action. By how much or how little the character fails or succeeds on this rank check determines how successfully he is able to use his power to accomplish the specified task.
If the character fails the task he can spend some of his Energy Points to increase his number of successes.
For instance, let's say our character has the power to make his body stretch and bend like rubber and he wants to use his rubbery body to provide a shield for his friends against enemy gunfire. The GM requires the character to make a rank check against a relatively high difficulty because stopping bullets is no easy task. If the character fails the check the GM could rule that the character was not able to absorb the bullets fully and must make a Constitution check to soak the remaining damage not absorbed by his power. If the character is unable to soak the remaining damage then the bullets cause him lethal damage and his health points are reduced accordingly.
Its vague but it might work. Ideas? Comments?
Good to see you're at it. I'd probably stop to chew myself for a couple of weeks, myself. It's easy for us, we're here just chatting. You have to actually design the game.
A little comment on your latest: trust in player sensibilities some more, and leave less for the GM to gauge. GMs are human like we all, and they get tired and make mistakes when they have to make a lot of judgements. Furthermore, the worst sort learns to like fiddling with inane "judgement calls" instead of creating drama.
But still, I imagine that this system would work pretty much as well as having those long lists, as far as it goes. And you save many, many pages of text, so it's all good.
How I'd do this kind of power-creation system, just as an example: player comes up with the base idea, like "stretch powers", as well as things he can "specifically do" and "specifically not do" with it, the same amount of both. This doesn't cost anything special, all these characters are super heroes! Then, during the game, the player can do all kinds of stuff with his powers, except some things he can't, and some things he can very well. Those he can do well, there he gets a suitable bonus to succeed with it. Those he can't - whenever the character fails because of the limitations of his powers, give him a cookie. By which I mean, give him something cool, like experience (old-fashioned already, that), energy points or good karma or whatever. The thing is - this system of mine is just as balanced as yours, isn't it? Except in my system the GM doesn't need to make a difficult adjucation about how much the power costs. How could he do that anyway? Should he, like, punish some player for picking the wrong power, or what? As if one superpower was really better than another.
The next step: remove the need to list things powers can do and can't do, and just have players choose powers: "My guy can fly, but nothing else!" "My guy can stretch!" "My guy can shoot lightning bolts and rip cars apart with his bare hands!" "My guy is exactly three times as good as a normal human genius at !everything!" Also, whenever the players face adversity, give them three options: roll for it, succeed automatically, fail automatically. If they fail, that's because their power was not enough, and they get the aforementioned cookie. If they succeed, the situation was exactly what their power is for, and they pay for it in energy points or bad karma or whatever. If they roll for it, they get whichever result, but no reward. This system? Sure it's crude, but it also has nil GM arbitration and power limitations - characters can literally have whatever powers the players want, as long as they fail roughly as often as other players. So I can play this fumbling demigod (like the Outsider from Marvel), while you can play a keen street hero, and we both are balanced! That's pretty good for something I'm designing while I type along.
There's more under the sun than the red dragon knows. Like, there's superhero rpg systems that are a thousand times as honed and intricate as what I just wrote here. And that's just superheroes, which is a very underdeveloped rpg genre.
Quote from: Eero Tuovinen on March 20, 2006, 07:58:47 PM
Good to see you're at it. I'd probably stop to chew myself for a couple of weeks, myself. It's easy for us, we're here just chatting. You have to actually design the game.
A little comment on your latest: trust in player sensibilities some more, and leave less for the GM to gauge. GMs are human like we all, and they get tired and make mistakes when they have to make a lot of judgements. Furthermore, the worst sort learns to like fiddling with inane "judgement calls" instead of creating drama.
But still, I imagine that this system would work pretty much as well as having those long lists, as far as it goes. And you save many, many pages of text, so it's all good.
How I'd do this kind of power-creation system, just as an example: player comes up with the base idea, like "stretch powers", as well as things he can "specifically do" and "specifically not do" with it, the same amount of both. This doesn't cost anything special, all these characters are super heroes! Then, during the game, the player can do all kinds of stuff with his powers, except some things he can't, and some things he can very well. Those he can do well, there he gets a suitable bonus to succeed with it. Those he can't - whenever the character fails because of the limitations of his powers, give him a cookie. By which I mean, give him something cool, like experience (old-fashioned already, that), energy points or good karma or whatever. The thing is - this system of mine is just as balanced as yours, isn't it? Except in my system the GM doesn't need to make a difficult adjucation about how much the power costs. How could he do that anyway? Should he, like, punish some player for picking the wrong power, or what? As if one superpower was really better than another.
The next step: remove the need to list things powers can do and can't do, and just have players choose powers: "My guy can fly, but nothing else!" "My guy can stretch!" "My guy can shoot lightning bolts and rip cars apart with his bare hands!" "My guy is exactly three times as good as a normal human genius at !everything!" Also, whenever the players face adversity, give them three options: roll for it, succeed automatically, fail automatically. If they fail, that's because their power was not enough, and they get the aforementioned cookie. If they succeed, the situation was exactly what their power is for, and they pay for it in energy points or bad karma or whatever. If they roll for it, they get whichever result, but no reward. This system? Sure it's crude, but it also has nil GM arbitration and power limitations - characters can literally have whatever powers the players want, as long as they fail roughly as often as other players. So I can play this fumbling demigod (like the Outsider from Marvel), while you can play a keen street hero, and we both are balanced! That's pretty good for something I'm designing while I type along.
There's more under the sun than the red dragon knows. Like, there's superhero rpg systems that are a thousand times as honed and intricate as what I just wrote here. And that's just superheroes, which is a very underdeveloped rpg genre.
I need a bit of clarification on your ideas. Are the things you can do and can't do with a power are equal or can each person have their power do a specific number of things and not be able to do a specific number of other things? How would you balance someone who wants more than one power?
So what you're saying is make failing actually a good thing in some cases? That's an interesting idea. As I understand it basically in the system you've described you can automatically succeed in an area that you have specialized in with your power, though you have to pay an associated cost to it. Now do you also automatically fail in an area that your power doesn't cover or can the character try to overcome that challenge with another Attribute? Additionally, how do you make it so that each character fails as much as the others? Does this just even out as players who fail more often get more cookies and thus can spend cookies later on to succeed more often?
Hi!
OK, first suggestions:
DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes - These are two games with the same mechanics. It is on the crunchy end of the spectrum with Champions and M&M, but it is not so modular as Champions, making it simpler to make a good character and get started. Also, it might give you some ideas as far as scaling and creating "complete" powers as opposed to buying effects. I've played this in a supers game and as a platform for a KOTOR campagn. It does do a decent job (not great) of connecting the drama to the mechanics. You get XPs for doing good and spend XPs on improvement, one-time roll bonuses and emergency damage recovery rolls.
Heroes Unlimited - This is made by Paladium and all there stuff is d20 based, but not on the OGL or anything. Again, a power is a complete package and it shows another level/class based approach to superpowers. I've played it for lower power campaigns and had tons of fun.
Capes - I haven't played it, but if drama is THAT important to you, maybe there are mechanics in it that can be effectively transplanted in your game.
I think Eero's cookie idea is brilliant. Smart players will want to throw some challenges in the beginning in order to succeed in the denouement.
Finally, can you swing a cpoy to dindenver@yahoo.com? I tried that link and it just times out for me.
Well, it sounds like you have the foundation of a great game, keep it up!
It seems to me that by switching to a more freeform power design (like the ones mentioned earlier) you lose the effect of having the powers randomely thrust upon you. I admit that a good role-player would have few problems with roleplaying a new power that he actually created, but I feel that random generation really aids in the roleplay process.
A way to have freeform power creation while still retaining the "thrust upon" feeling would be ideal IMO. One way to do this that I can think of is to have players roll randomely on a list of Keywords (such as: shrinking, fire, x-rays, etc.) and then have to use those keywords in the powers that they create. This could lead to some very unexpected powers. One problem I could see with this though; is the potential for comedy where you wan't to encourage drama.
Just putting it out there,
-Dan
Quote from: Elishar on March 20, 2006, 10:01:25 PM
I need a bit of clarification on your ideas. Are the things you can do and can't do with a power are equal or can each person have their power do a specific number of things and not be able to do a specific number of other things? How would you balance someone who wants more than one power?
Well, I'd make it so each player can have however many "can do" and "can't do" things he wants. The trick is to ensure that he can't use the "can do" to overpower the other players, and his "can't do" won't unintentionally cripple him. That's where you need reward mechanics that compensate for the "can't do" and somehow limit the "can do".
As for separate powers - stop to think about it, will you? "Separate power" and "application of existing power" are things that are
inside the fiction, not on our tables as game designers and players. We don't have to care about such meaningless divisions if we don't want to! Like the elongation example - is it two powers if it allows you to reach the upper shelf AND stop bullets? Or the
power cosmic, if it comes to that - what power, exactly, is "power cosmic", pray tell?
Of course it matters what the characters can do - but it matters primarily inside the fiction. Outside the fiction it's paramount to ensure that the players have equal possibilities of making their mark in the drama! The classical way of doing this is to give each player a character, and make sure they all have roughly "as good" powers. But as we've already discussed, there's all kinds of problems there. And those problems are emphasized by the fact that I can write
five lines of rules to create a system that, while it does not comment on the fiction at all, is absolutely fool-proof in ensuring that the players are balanced against each other.
So yeah, I see no problem in whether the player lists several powers or just one. If a character has a wide-application power with lots of "can do" and little "can't do", then he won't be getting many cookies. If you make it so that the players get cookies whenever their power is not applicable, then you give the players incentive to police themselves - if they have too good powers, they don't get cookies to fuel their power, but if they have too useless powers, they won't have many opportunities to use their cookies.
Quote
So what you're saying is make failing actually a good thing in some cases? That's an interesting idea. As I understand it basically in the system you've described you can automatically succeed in an area that you have specialized in with your power, though you have to pay an associated cost to it. Now do you also automatically fail in an area that your power doesn't cover or can the character try to overcome that challenge with another Attribute? Additionally, how do you make it so that each character fails as much as the others? Does this just even out as players who fail more often get more cookies and thus can spend cookies later on to succeed more often?
It's easy to ensure that everybody fails as much as everybody else - put in a cookie counter and some rules that require players to gain as many cookies as the next guy, with some repercussions (hubris is good) if they don't. But the next step is to realize that you don't actually need to ensure that all players fail as frequently - instead, you need to make sure that each has
equal chances to win. This can be as simple as some bidding mechanic - in the really tight spots, bid cookies to win. The thing is, it isn't necessary for everybody to get as many cookies (losses) as the other guy, because some characters get into critical situations more frequently, and against harder bidders, than others. So one player might play low-burn, getting few cookies and thus bidding smaller in crisis situations, while another loses big and wins big. It's all good.
As for how to relate powers and other abilities - now we're getting into the actual design kernel of a superhero game. You could go the route of "everything is a power", meaning that you don't differentiate between powers and other things mechanically. This is how I play superhero
Dust Devils, and it works great. The other option is to make "superpowers" work differently, to emphasize their thematic special role. This is how
Capes does it. The thing is, what is a power? Is Batman's batmobile a power? In Capes it is, because we're interested in powers in thematic sense, not in the fiction sense of being supernatural.
You could well have a system where if your character can't do something with their power, they absolutely can't do it. That'll make the meaning of the limitation crystal clear. But even more interesting might be if the character had two layers, his human nature and powers, and they had different methods of resolution. So even if your powers fail you, as they often do in the genre especially on the social arena, you might still pull the situation off with your normal abilities.
--
But anyway, that's just me pondering a basic alternative to balancing powers by designer or gm fiat. I'll use my familiar refrain: I'm not saying anything new or original here, I'm just jamming based on game designs that have come before. For example,
With Great Power, my own favourite superhero game (if you didn't notice already) does this kind of stuff routinely, and builds all kinds of interesting stuff on top.
--
Dan: good point about random powers. I agree that it's one of the better concepts in Ian's design, so it'd be nice to keep it. Random keywords seem a bit clumsy, though. I'd be tempted to use the power tables he already has - nothing wrong with them. Another option would be to have the players brainstorm a number of superpowers - twenty, for example, as it's fun to do. Then shuffle them, draw some for themselves, and let the GM use the rest to build the game world. Meaning, make the rest of those powers into villains and NPC heroes and government agents and all that. The point being, the GM
cannot introduce superpowered individuals from outside the player-approved list, making for an interesting design challenge.
Hey, that sounds like a very feasible method of superhero world building. Have to remember that one.
Hi!
It's not a superhero game, but you may want to look at character creation in Dogs in the Vineyard. You have to RP part of becoming a Dog in this game and I think that method would be apprpopriate to your game. RP'ing becoming super and what your char decides to do about it.
I have a new working title for my game: "Gods Among Insects". Sound good?
Ok, now to expand on the ideas we've been talking about. What if instead of getting cookies just because you automatically fail because your power is limited you instead get cookies for overcoming a situation that exploits your weaknesses using imagination, tactics, other abilities, whatever. So instead of a character getting a cookie because their character fails to defeat Hydroman because one of his weaknesses is water the character get's a cookie by finding another way to defeat Hydroman despite his aversion to water.
Now the next thing on the list to resolve is what exactly these cookies do. Its easy to say that they can be used for an automatic success in a task but what if a character applies them to a damage roll or something? Should the cookie just act as if the character had rolled a max roll in whatever task he was performing?
I really like the idea of characters spending time to create 10 or 20 powers and then basically drawing those powers out of a hat and then the GM uses the remainder for the game. It really cuts down on GM work and should make it easier to create villains on the fly.
I think I come down on Capes side with making everything from superpowers to cool vehicles and equipment powers, doing otherwise seems to make things more complicated then they need to be.
The whole human/superhuman abilities has been a big question in my mind lately. I think there should be a distinction but it seems like the two are joined at the hip at some points. For instance, all humans have strength. It might not be much, but they do have it. On the other hand, a common power is super-strength. Now it seems that if a character has this superpower his super-strength just simply overrules his human strength. So what happens when the character runs into a situation that prevents him from using his super-strength? Does he simply just revert to his human strength? And on a related note, should the character's human strength influence his superhuman strength? For instance, is a human character who is really buff and gains super-strength going to have proportionally greater super-strength then a skinny pale kid who also gains super-strength?
Here's a new idea. I'm thinking that my current opposed roll system isn't going to work very well in this revised game with our new cookies. I was thinking making all attributes and powers out of 100 and then have the players just simply roll a d% or some other combination of dice and add their score in the corresponding ability to it and match it up with that difficulty.
One big problem I have is that the same score in attributes and powers mean different things. If you set a 10 to be corresponding to an average human with an attribute, a 10 in a power does not correspond to an average human. This problem becomes even more apparent when encounter situations with powers like super-strength. Let's say a normal human with a 10 in strength goes up against a superhuman with the power super-strength, also at a 10. They both have the same score but it is clear that the superhuman is a lot stronger than the normal human. The question is, how much stronger? Does a 10 in human strength equal a 1 in super-strength or does it equal something less or more? And if there is a relationship why have both of them?
Quote from: Elishar on March 21, 2006, 03:25:01 PM
I have a new working title for my game: "Gods Among Insects". Sound good?
Heh, I had a similar name for an abortive superhero game I wrote once. Apparently the idea of superhumanity is a big deal here, as opposed to more human angles.
Quote
Ok, now to expand on the ideas we've been talking about. What if instead of getting cookies just because you automatically fail because your power is limited you instead get cookies for overcoming a situation that exploits your weaknesses using imagination, tactics, other abilities, whatever. So instead of a character getting a cookie because their character fails to defeat Hydroman because one of his weaknesses is water the character get's a cookie by finding another way to defeat Hydroman despite his aversion to water.
Indeed, quite possible! It all depends on what kind of activities you're going to reward and make feasible => where you're taking the game in general. If overcoming challenges through player guts and inventiveness is a big point of your game, sure you should make that a prerequisite of getting cookies, of whatever kind.
Quote
Now the next thing on the list to resolve is what exactly these cookies do. Its easy to say that they can be used for an automatic success in a task but what if a character applies them to a damage roll or something? Should the cookie just act as if the character had rolled a max roll in whatever task he was performing?
Well, perhaps that's something you should worry about when you have a good handle on your resolution system. There's many ways to do "cookies", and they all depend on the systems involved. In
Capes, for instance, there're two kinds of cookies: one kind allows you to "split" your d6 into 2d6 to get better results, the other gives you extra actions, allows you to introduce more characters and so on.
In your case, you could just decide that cookies don't operate on the same level your task resolution does. Like, damage, what's that to cookies? Nothing, necessarily. You could just say that by using a cookie the player can end the fight there and then, but inconclusively; the villain will get away. This way it'd be a powerful and useful tool (reasons to end the battle inconclusively: you're losing, civilians are threatened, you need to be someplace else...), but it would have nothing to do with rolling successes or whatnot. (If you have trouble imagining how you "end a battle inconclusively" without actually playing it through, just imagine how they do it on comics: you just skip to the next scene and mention in passing how the battle was a bitch, shame the villain got away.)
But ultimately, what cookies are good for should be decided based on the prospective game's larger reward cycles and resource management flows. Like, if you get the cookie by taking the beating in battle, is there somewhere where that kind of cookie should be used? You could let a player use it for success in a later battle, yes, but you could also let him use it to solve his character's social problems, for example. It all depends on what kind of dramatic arcs you want to build. What should follow from losing battles? Personal crises seem to double up on comic-book heroes who lose battles, but they also manage to find the inner strength to prevail at some point. Perhaps the cookies are that inner strength, and when there's enough, the hero goes into hyper-mode and starts really kicking ass. Just another possibility.
Quote
I really like the idea of characters spending time to create 10 or 20 powers and then basically drawing those powers out of a hat and then the GM uses the remainder for the game. It really cuts down on GM work and should make it easier to create villains on the fly.
Ah hah, not characters! Players.
Yeah, that's a powerful technique, indeed. But it's not just that it cuts down GM work; it's powerful because the definition of powers necessarily structures a "setting architecture" with wide implications for the campaign. Like, if the players decide to create distinct "types" of superpower sets, that has implications: if all the superpowers in the hat are "mutants", you'll probably get something like the X-Men, and so on.
You'll note that I consider the "superpower" to include things like where it comes from and what drawbacks and limitations it has and so on. All of these can be pretty much bolted onto an actual character frame. The interesting tension comes from the GM riffing off the powers; if the players include a power of death, say, drawn from the abyss dimension, will the GM use it for a villain? Or will Captain Death be a secret government superhero? Or even a highly public Superman type who hides the source of his powers? Or a superpowered monkey in Africa? The GM has lots of leeway, but ultimately the result will be a fruitful combination of creativity.
Quote
The whole human/superhuman abilities has been a big question in my mind lately. I think there should be a distinction but it seems like the two are joined at the hip at some points. For instance, all humans have strength. It might not be much, but they do have it. On the other hand, a common power is super-strength. Now it seems that if a character has this superpower his super-strength just simply overrules his human strength. So what happens when the character runs into a situation that prevents him from using his super-strength? Does he simply just revert to his human strength? And on a related note, should the character's human strength influence his superhuman strength? For instance, is a human character who is really buff and gains super-strength going to have proportionally greater super-strength then a skinny pale kid who also gains super-strength?
Both ways of playing it have merits. For instance, Heroquest is a game where superpowers are indeed qualitatively identical with normal capabilities; you just have so much more of it that it's "super". Capes, on the other hand, has a qualitative difference, with superpowers running off a completely different resource mechanic. Capes way means that it is, indeed, sometimes better to have "normal" powers than "superpowers".
Generally the effect of having special rules for superpowers is to emphasize those powers as a separate phenomenon. That's fine for many kinds of superhero games. I myself like the other kind a lot, though; one of my favourite superhero campaigns was a gritty NY Frank Miller Daredevil -type thing played with
Dust Devils. The system in question doesn't care whether you have superpowers or not, which is good, because then you don't have to fiddle with awkward abstractions where somebody's car is "kind of" a superpower, just so he can use the same mechanics the other superheroes use.
Quote
Here's a new idea. I'm thinking that my current opposed roll system isn't going to work very well in this revised game with our new cookies. I was thinking making all attributes and powers out of 100 and then have the players just simply roll a d% or some other combination of dice and add their score in the corresponding ability to it and match it up with that difficulty.
Works just as well as anything else. The concrete die mechanic often isn't so important as the probability curves you want to impose on play. Usually it's better to figure out what kind of probability developments you want, and then pick your die mechanic based on that. For example, if you want to keep large variations in power scale meaningfully competing, you probably shouldn't use a linear die mechanic, but instead something where larger bonuses have less impact on the probability.
Quote
One big problem I have is that the same score in attributes and powers mean different things. If you set a 10 to be corresponding to an average human with an attribute, a 10 in a power does not correspond to an average human. This problem becomes even more apparent when encounter situations with powers like super-strength. Let's say a normal human with a 10 in strength goes up against a superhuman with the power super-strength, also at a 10. They both have the same score but it is clear that the superhuman is a lot stronger than the normal human. The question is, how much stronger? Does a 10 in human strength equal a 1 in super-strength or does it equal something less or more? And if there is a relationship why have both of them?
Sounds rather confused to me. First, why do you need attributes? There's a ton of different options that don't have the problem you mention:
- Assume that all non-powered people are identical system-wise, and only powers differentiate people. If the name of your game is "Gods Among Insects", I'd say this is a logical thematic step. You could decide, for instance, that all normal people are "Strength 0" on the super-scale, if you're going to have such a thing.
- Get rid of superstrength, and use strength instead. Switch to a die mechanic that allows for the differentiation you want. While you're at it, make it so that characters only have the attribute in question if they're somehow different from the baseline; most of the time characters are "zero" in strength.
- Assume that superpowers always win against normal resources. It's a superhero game, right? If somebody wants to go toe-to-toe with superheroes, he has to get supered somehow.
I suggest you check out
The Pool. It's an enormously influential rpg, available on the net for free. It's also a good baseline for thinking about your own design; if you have stuff that's not in the Pool, and it doesn't seem to be doing anything, chances are that it's there for no good reason at all.
QuoteAh hah, not characters! Players.
Damn it. You have no idea I many time I had to re-read my game and change 'character' to 'player' or vise versa. That was probably one of the most time consuming things I did.
QuoteWorks just as well as anything else. The concrete die mechanic often isn't so important as the probability curves you want to impose on play. Usually it's better to figure out what kind of probability developments you want, and then pick your die mechanic based on that. For example, if you want to keep large variations in power scale meaningfully competing, you probably shouldn't use a linear die mechanic, but instead something where larger bonuses have less impact on the probability.
Yeah, its not just the probability curves that I need to consider but also how quickly and easily opposed rolls are resolved. The big question in my mind is how big of an importance should I place on the level of a power. Should someone with a 1 in a power be able to succeed against someone with a 100 in another with some incredible luck or should the power difference be so great that he automatically fails? And if he can succeed how often should it happen?
QuoteSounds rather confused to me. First, why do you need attributes? There's a ton of different options that don't have the problem you mention:
- Assume that all non-powered people are identical system-wise, and only powers differentiate people. If the name of your game is "Gods Among Insects", I'd say this is a logical thematic step. You could decide, for instance, that all normal people are "Strength 0" on the super-scale, if you're going to have such a thing.
- Get rid of superstrength, and use strength instead. Switch to a die mechanic that allows for the differentiation you want. While you're at it, make it so that characters only have the attribute in question if they're somehow different from the baseline; most of the time characters are "zero" in strength.
- Assume that superpowers always win against normal resources. It's a superhero game, right? If somebody wants to go toe-to-toe with superheroes, he has to get supered somehow.
See, the problem I have with that idea is that in my mind I have the idea superstrength at a low level isn't much better than say a human, professional athlete. Yeah, the superhero is stronger and never had to work as hard as the athlete to get to where he is but the athlete isn't exactly a cupcake either. While I want simplicity I don't want characters to neccesarily be defined by just their powers. I'll take Wolverine as an example to illustrate my point about only defining characters by their powers. If you did this Wolverine would have claws, regeneration, and enhanced senses. That's it. The problem I see with this is that Wolverine also has abilities, while not superhuman, that define him just as much as his powers do. In particular is how fast and fit he is. Sure, his strength, speed, and agility are in the human range but he's certainly not an average joe in these either. That's why I'm hesistant on completely axing attributes.
Rather, I was thinking of having any positive score being superhuman and any negative score being simply human. Both would roll the same dice for attributes, the only difference is that humans could at best roll close to the max dice roll while superhumans could reach much higher levels. Thus, any positive value for powers would also be considered superhuman and we have some consistance between powers and attributes. The other reason I was thinking of doing this is that I do want some character customization involved. With attributes still intact the player receives their randomly generated power and then gets to tailor their character's attributes to better complement the character's powers instead of simply having the sole defining aspect of their character being determined randomly.
The other thing I want to bring up is skills. I was thinking of using skills as basically the closest thing humans have to powers. The thing is that superhumans would have them too and I want to make it very clear in my game that skills nowhere near approach powers in their versitility or power. I could make them work like human attributes where they only can have negative values but I'm not sure if this will wind up to be a solution or just a patch job.
QuoteI suggest you check out The Pool. It's an enormously influential rpg, available on the net for free. It's also a good baseline for thinking about your own design; if you have stuff that's not in the Pool, and it doesn't seem to be doing anything, chances are that it's there for no good reason at all.
I did a google search for The Pool and I couldn't find it. If you'd include a link to it in your next post it would be appreciated.
I thought up some more but since editing of posts has been turned off I'll make a new post instead.
After some more thinking about skill I came up with another idea of how to apply them. Instead of working in the negatives like human level attributes and having them added together with rolls of the dice why not use skills more as "insurance" for the character when using abilities they often use. What I mean by this is when the player rolls the dice and adds it to his rank in whatever attribute or power that applies at the given moment, he gets to choose his dice roll or his ranks in the associated skill (whichever is higher.) This makes skills quite a bit more powerful and useful but still makes powers completely unique and far superior to skills.
This probably belong more in theory then design but I also thought about a new rolling system that could be exactly what I'm looking for. The system still only uses d6s but in a completely different way. For every opposed roll each player rolls xd6 (I haven't decided what x is yet and I'd like some input on this.) As long as the number isn't a 6 the player simply adds up all his dice rolls together and that is the modifier he gets to apply to whatever attribute or power applies to the check. However, if the player gets a 6 he treats it as a 5 and also gets to roll an additional d6. If the player rolls a 6 with this d6 roll he treats it as a 5 and rolls yet another d6 (etc, etc, etc.) I like it because the odds are heavily sided to the person with the higher ranks but it is never impossible for the weaker character to prevail.
I've also been thinking more about our cookies and how to apply them. I think that cookies should be awarded anytime the character either loses because of limitations in his abilities or when his abilities barely help him at all and instead he overcomes the situation by good tactics, imagination, and smart thinking. Because I dislike having characters remain static why not let each cookie you get raise the rank of a power or attribute or skill by some minimal amount. This would reflect how the character learns from his experiences and changes himself, although minimally, to better combat his enemies. I'm thinking that as a requirement to get this increase the player will need to describe how his character improves a specific aspect of himself ("The Eliminator spends weeks in training lifting cars in abandoned lots to better improve his super strength.")
The final thing I'm thinking about is our opposed roles and how best to run them. I'm thinking that the best way to make if very free form. A character can use any ability he has to oppose his enemy as long as he can on the spot think of how that ability will help counter his enemy's move. I'm thinking of going even as far as providing guidelines to penalize or give bonuses to the character's role based on how well they explain how they are using the ability they've chosen.
Hi!
I THINK this is the pool everyone is talking about:
http://www.randomordercreations.com/thepool.htm
Hi!
Two thoughts have been bouncing around inside my head:
1) The idea of balancing your secret identity with yor superhero identity might be flawed. I am not trying to shoot you down or question your abilities in any way. But I just started thinking about the scenarios. You have 4 potential audiences for your secret identity, Random individual, friend, enemy, public-at-large. In each of these cases, there are only a couple of stories to tell and all of them NEED to end a certain way or the secret identity is gone. I mean, if the public finds out about your secret identity, you can only use the stunt double (aka Alfred in a Batman costume) trick so many times before someone notices. If a random civilian finds out, you either have to befriend them, bribe them or distract them with something else entirely. With friends you can trust them, you just have to get past the drama and with enemies, you either have to kill em, find a secret about them or do what they tell you to do and hope they keep their word.
Just seems like there is not a lot of places to go with this. I may be wrong and you might have all kinds of cool twists in mind, but if you do, put it in the rules so others can benefit from your wisdom.
2) There is a tendancy in supers games to put numbers on things and once you do that, it is easy to conceive of characters with higher and higher numbers. So, I was thinking, since it is supposed to be a game about SUPER powers and your characters are supposed to be one of maybe a few dozen super powered beings, why not have your power be a ranking. In other words, if you have a Strength of 1, that means you are the number one strongest person in the world (potentially the universe). Not only does it make die rolling more intuitive (rolling over your ranking on a die and higher is better), but it gives your character something to strive for, how do I stay in 1st?
Both are just ideas. And they might be things you already thought of, but I figured I can put in my 2 cents and maybe help you out.
I wrote out about 30 pages of my new superhero game before realizing it was a less fun version of capes. After doing much soul searching, I came to the conclusion that I don't have enough experience with story-based role-playing games to actually create a story-based game. I do have plenty of experience with tactical games, though the superhero market seems to be in abundance of these games already.
Don't worry though, I'm not giving up. I decided to take the advice of some people and focus on my Armageddon setting and create a dark, tactical game with some superhuman overtones. I renamed the new game 'The Beast Within' and have started a new topic on it.
I still am interested in creating a superhero game, I just think I bit off more than I could chew for my first time. If you have any more ideas keep them coming and once I have some more experience I promise I'll go back and finish the job.