Modern supernatural game - implementing powers

[Brennan Taylor]

I am taking the plunge for a game design posting here for the first time. I will give a brief overview of the game, so everyone can understand what this is about, and then move on to a rules-specific issue I am puzzling over.

The game itself is currently called The Darklands (working name only, I need to change it to avoid trouble with Microprose who had a computer game of that name about 10 years ago--will probably post another thread asking for game name suggestions later). The premise is a modern-day supernatural game, in which characters have a wide range of choice regarding what type of creature they play (if they want to play a creature at all). Basically, any sort of supernatural being from myth and folklore is available as a player character, ranging from gods and angels to faerie creatures, elemental spirits, or the undead. I have been running this game on and off for over five years and the system clearly wasn't working as originally written. I have pretty much started from scratch for the new version and a couple of issues have arisen as I create new rules.

There are two main focuses in the game: powers and spells. This post will be focusing on powers. The fun of the supernatural beastie game is all the nifty powers you get. All characters in the game may buy powers, which allow them to do fun stuff like fly, perform feats of superhuman strength, mesmerize people, change shape, regenerate wounds, and the like. Originally, characters purchased powers like skills and had to roll to successfully perform the powers. This was creaky for two reasons: first, characters could use their powers indefinitely. There was no resource management mechanic (which I wanted). If you succeeded in activating the power, it worked, and you never became fatigued. Second, there was a high failure chance on powers, especially for starting characters. In numerous scenes, the player would try to activate the power and fail when it was more dramatically interesting to have him succeed. To get around these issues, I created a mechanic that made both powers and spells work in a similar fashion. The character has a pool of "power points" used to fuel both spells and powers. This also allowed me to consolidate the increasingly vast powers list to a more manageable level, as each power has several steps of effect (a few points gets you the lesser effects, more points have greater effects).

Here is where I am running into some difficulty. Some of these powers affect only the character himself. When this is the case, I just want the power to go off. Spend the points, it happens. Some powers can be used to affect other characters, typically mental effects, but sometimes physical ones. I am hesitant to have these just work, I feel that there needs to be some defense for the target character. I'd rather avoid a success roll, maybe just a resistance roll? I also read Mike Holmes excellent rant about opposed rolls, with which I find myself in agreement, and I am in a bit of quandary.

[Chris Goodwin]

Here is where I am running into some difficulty. Some of these powers affect only the character himself. When this is the case, I just want the power to go off. Spend the points, it happens. Some powers can be used to affect other characters, typically mental effects, but sometimes physical ones. I am hesitant to have these just work, I feel that there needs to be some defense for the target character. I'd rather avoid a success roll, maybe just a resistance roll? I also read Mike Holmes excellent rant about opposed rolls, with which I find myself in agreement, and I am in a bit of quandary.

Why not let the player roll?  I'm thinking specifically of some systems where, when attacking an NPC, the player rolls to hit, or if the PC is attacked, the player rolls to dodge.  In neither case does the GM roll for the NPC.  Why not do something like this?  If the player is using a power on a target, he rolls to see if he hits, or to see how successful his use of the power is, or whatever.  If an NPC is using a power on the PC, the player rolls his resistance.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm a bit confused and you may need to clarify. The "Myth" of opposed rolls is that all rolls are opposed. It just depends on how you look at it. The point is that as long as the methodology is well thought out, and you have no more resolution systems than you really need, you're good.

So let's say that I have a character trying to smack sombody else using this system. How would that work? Can that be extended to cover the magic and powers situation? Usually you can just use the one system for everything.

Mike

[Brennan Taylor]

I had fallen afoul of the classic opposed/unopposed model when I first designed the system. As far as it goes, I think an adjustment to the acting character's success chance would be appropriate. I want the resolution system to cover everything in roughly the same way. Sorry if the original post is confusing, there seem to be several issues at play with how I am thinking about this.

Regardless, my main issue right now is the rolls--I am having trouble reconciling the automatic success vs. requires roll. Does anyone else think there is a problem here, or is it just me?

[taalyn]

In answer to the question of how to deal with powers affecting others:

Why don't you make this dependent on the power points used? Say I have a fire-breathing power. If I activate it with 1 point, I can light cigarettes, and with 2 points I can give someone a small, localized, not very bad burn. At that level, it's also easy to dodge it - so the victim gets to resist/dodge, or the player has to roll to hit. But if I spend 6 points to activate it, it's a huge gout of flame, hard to avoid and easy to hit. The victim can't dodge - they have to depend on their armor or natural resistance to damage only.

As Mike said, the point of his rant is to think through your rolling mechanics and be sure you aren't making distinctions that don't need to be there. Resistance/to hit/dodge rolls all seem perfectly reasonable with you powers.

Hope that helps,

Aidan

[Dr. Velocity]

Firstly, I like taalyn's idea of 'pumping up' powers, for differing intensities and danger levels - want a bigger, more powerful effect? Spend more points. Simple.

But addressing what seems to be your main problem:

...Some of these powers affect only the character himself. When this is the case, I just want the power to go off. Spend the points, it happens.

Some powers can be used to affect other characters, typically mental effects, but sometimes physical ones. I am hesitant to have these just work, I feel that there needs to be some defense for the target character. I'd rather avoid a success roll, maybe just a resistance roll?

I am... unsure as to exactly what your problem is. You state precisely what you want and what you do not want, and you yourself GIVE the ideal mechanic, since its your OWN idea here - and yet you ask for ideas on how to do this... is there something preventing you from enacting this? From saying, "If the power affects only your character, it automatically succeeds, otherwise, there will be a resistance roll, for powers which affect other characters"? Not meaning to be smart-aleck but seriously - why not do this just as you say you want to do it? It sounds really simple to me, straight-forward and reasonable and I would good-naturedly say that you're silly for NOT going with this obvious solution.

And combining the pumped up power idea, you could even spend extra points for more powerful or 'penetrating' effects of a power to help overcome other characters' resistance rolls, etc, regardless of whether you went with a simple modifier to the affective character's power roll or if it was truly opposed.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm a bit unsure as to the issue, also, Dr. V. But I think what he's saying is that the "self always works" idea seems to be a messy exception to an otherwise consistent system. Is that a good synopsis, Brennan?

If so, what I'd do is to have the self stuff require a roll like anything else, but have your system include the idea that one can always resist something with less than their full score. Such that a player who casts a spell on himself can effectively lower the resistance to zero.

This has other ramifications as well. It means that casting spells on friends is easier if they don't mind it. And, given the system, there may always be room for failures, which can be dramatic in such situations. Further, if there are other modifiers, then they can be applied to such rolls. For instance, if you rule that there's magical interference in a particular place, the character might reduce their resistance to zero voluntarily, but the interference might effectively raise the chance of failure anyhow.

Also, in the same vein, consider a standard range modifier. That is, a "self" spell would have no penalty. A "touch" spell might have a -1, etc. In this way, self spells become more reliable than others by this standard set of universally applicable modifiers.

These are pretty standard ways to accomplish what you're trying to do, used by lots of games. Do they strike you as suitable? Or won't they work with your system? If you could describe the resolution system, we could probably give better feedback.

Mike

[simon_hibbs]

Here is where I am running into some difficulty. Some of these powers affect only the character himself. When this is the case, I just want the power to go off. Spend the points, it happens. Some powers can be used to affect other characters, typically mental effects, but sometimes physical ones. I am hesitant to have these just work, I feel that there needs to be some defense for the target character. I'd rather avoid a success roll, maybe just a resistance roll? I also read Mike Holmes excellent rant about opposed rolls, with which I find myself in agreement, and I am in a bit of quandary.

I think you missunderstand Mike's possition. he's not against opposed rolls, he's just saying that if you use opposed rolls you should coonsider using them for everything. Alternatively you can replace opposed rolls with a system for calculating a resistance number for the 'passive' character in the conflict and have the 'active' character roll against it as a conventional fixed difficulty or target number. I'm sure there are other ways of resolving the problem.

Therefore you could approach your problem in similar ways. Have all plain ability rolls opposed by a default resistance, for example. It's a non-problem.

As an asside, D20 gets round this problem by having every roll made agaionst a fixed, calculated difficulty number. To Hit is rolled against a target number calculated from the opponent's armour, defence bonus, etc which are all static numbers. Character's use abilities against each other all the time, but never roll against each other even when using non-combat skills (there are some D20 varaints where this isn't the case, but they are exceptions).

Hero Wars goes the other way and while it's possible to roll jsut against your ability, in my experience most GMs mhave all ability rolls made against a resistance that also get's a roll.


Simon Hibbs

[W. Don]

... I think what he's saying is that the "self always works" idea seems to be a messy exception to an otherwise consistent system.

That seems to be my reading of it as well.

If so, what I'd do is to have the self stuff require a roll like anything else, but have your system include the idea that one can always resist something with less than their full score. Such that a player who casts a spell on himself can effectively lower the resistance to zero...

Something like how saves work in d20? -- the way it says someone can always voluntarily lower their saving throw roll. Would this be a good thing to add to your system, Brennan? There are implications, as pointed out by Mike, however it does seem to fit if I've read the problem correctly.

Good luck with the design!

- W.

[Brennan Taylor]

I'm a bit unsure as to the issue, also, Dr. V. But I think what he's saying is that the "self always works" idea seems to be a messy exception to an otherwise consistent system. Is that a good synopsis, Brennan?

That was pretty much my issue, yes.

If so, what I'd do is to have the self stuff require a roll like anything else, but have your system include the idea that one can always resist something with less than their full score. Such that a player who casts a spell on himself can effectively lower the resistance to zero.

That is a really good idea. My resolution mechanic is still a bit up in the air--I would like to tie skill resolution more closely to power resolution, which was not originally the case. I really like this suggestion, though. It helps me resolve a lot of issues. Some things, such as spirit possession, will be extremely difficult to do as most hosts are not interested in otherworldly spirits running them around, but in the case of some individuals, like a spirit medium or Vodou priest, the resistance would be voluntarily lowered. I definitely think this could work.

I will be posting some crunchier system stuff soon, and I appreciate everyone's feedback on this particular item.