Hearts and Souls: Heroic fait accompli

[Sidhain]

In comic books there is a tendency for this structure.


A)Hero gets connected to plot events set up by the villian (discovering it, falling into it and so on)

B)Hero struggles with villian, either physically or mentally--most of the challenges occur at this top of the arc situation. The first time they fight, the villian wins typically.

C)The hero then goes out and discovers some means to beat his foe--either strategy/tactics, devices, or knowledge which somehow shifts the odds--the nect fight they have--if a true physical encounter the hero wins--no matter how hurt, wounded or stressed during B above.


Central to Hearts and Souls is the concept of stress, as a hero suceeds he takes stress in the effort. Not /always/ but a significant poriton of the time, they suceed by suffering small minor things--the middle arc, they are haggard and tired, and the villian/gm may trigger a setback event or something which stops them while he escapes.

This covers the middle arc.

But the final arc as it stands still puts the advantage on the villian. Bevause the Hero is the focus of the game.

Now there are two methods of handling this the first one I've tried and works well, but may cost some problems with others.

Solution 1) The hero makes a test against an attribute Resolve/Resiliance and if successful can ignore all stress until /after/ the villian is defeated. This makes such things as the hero collapsing into the arms of his loved one after rescuing her work.

Solution 2) The villian can have stress--if he's the archtypical "plot" villian he is immune to any stress being triggered as a major event (he can fail in small doses but nothing big) until the end--and all the stress he has from facing the hero is /kept/ the entire time, he's no recovery and only once the hero battered and tired confronts him that last pivotal moment can the player (or GM) trigger it, making the battle somewhat one sided.
This works for making the villian suddenly falter at the pivotal turning point.


Should one of these be the handling of the situation, or should it be both, or some half-breed combination of the two?

[Mike Holmes]

You could do a flip-flop. In phase B, the villain get's bonuses for his stress, and the player gets penalties for his. In phase C, the villain is penalized for his stress, and the hero gets bonuses for his.

BTW, ltereary theory would have it that the character goes from Phase B to C right at the moment that his personal issues are sorted out.

Mike

[s/LaSH]

Something weird occured to me while reading this... stress as a villain resource. I don't know if this fits the paradigm or rule set, but what if a villain can 'spend' hero stress in certain ways, like making his dramatic escape or tormenting a hero's loved ones? That way, the hero's stress goes away and the villain sows the seeds of their own downfall by making their foe stronger.

It's not traditional, but it explains the story conventions in terms of a game mechanic...

[Andy Kitkowski]

Interesting, Sid.  Unfortunately, I'm not too big into comics, so I don't know the structure, but...

Quick side-question: I was wondering, how will you determine the differences between the Phases so that everyone is on the same page? Will they be like Acts in the Act/Scene breakdown that many written adventures use?

Will you say, "OK, folks, we're in Phase 2 now", or maybe have a card/token/marker to indicate what scene you're on?

Will the players have any say of how they discover the bennie (baddie's weakness, new strategy, new invention, etc) to end Phase 2 and begin Phase 3? Or will it all be up to the GM?

Interesting idea, man.  I'm big into having the rules simulate the world/genre, and this looks like it could be really cool.

-Andy

[Sidhain]

You could do a flip-flop. In phase B, the villain get's bonuses for his stress, and the player gets penalties for his. In phase C, the villain is penalized for his stress, and the hero gets bonuses for his.

BTW, ltereary theory would have it that the character goes from Phase B to C right at the moment that his personal issues are sorted out.

Mike

Pretty much stress /is/ the penalty--or rather its a potential penalty which can be triggered.


And yes--literary theory does say that, but in a game that may no occur at a pre-planned moment, but when the GM/Players reach a consensus--(usually unspoken)

[Sidhain]

Something weird occured to me while reading this... stress as a villain resource. I don't know if this fits the paradigm or rule set, but what if a villain can 'spend' hero stress in certain ways, like making his dramatic escape or tormenting a hero's loved ones? That way, the hero's stress goes away and the villain sows the seeds of their own downfall by making their foe stronger.

It's not traditional, but it explains the story conventions in terms of a game mechanic...

Yes indeed! Pretty much though in this case part of the game discusses that the GM or the player can trigger stress into a stress /event/ (everything from a wound, to setbacks: Struggling for the gun it goes of and damages the machine which can save the ailing heroes child..) and so on. But I should perhaps focus the setup that the GM triggers it /through/ a villianous event.

[Sidhain]

Interesting, Sid.  Unfortunately, I'm not too big into comics, so I don't know the structure, but...

Quick side-question: I was wondering, how will you determine the differences between the Phases so that everyone is on the same page? Will they be like Acts in the Act/Scene breakdown that many written adventures use?

Will you say, "OK, folks, we're in Phase 2 now", or maybe have a card/token/marker to indicate what scene you're on?

Will the players have any say of how they discover the bennie (baddie's weakness, new strategy, new invention, etc) to end Phase 2 and begin Phase 3? Or will it all be up to the GM?

Interesting idea, man.  I'm big into having the rules simulate the world/genre, and this looks like it could be really cool.

-Andy

To the first question no. Because fundamentally too much structure forces the plot into a denoument stage, which doesn't allow for variations--and comics do vary from this pattern some of the time (taking a year of comics to follow the pattern, a single issue, or even crreating a "feint" version that doesn't actually reach conclusion)

To the second question--I've so far relied on the players to come up with their own plans for their heroes, creating new devices and such are genre tropes, and will be discussed but again we don't want to force particular choices being "better" in the game. (other than the one where continuing to strive will leade to success)

Although, I may serious consider adding something of a support--some suggestions for how heroes can triggers villians stress /through a new tactic/ or /with this device they cooked up/...

[Sidhain]

I've actually come up with a solution that I think is elegant while working on my chapter on running super villians. See the set up of H&S is that the action focuses around and upon the heroes, and while villians get spotlight time, they get just enough to do their thing---that is I decided Villanous drives /counter/ stress. Heroes drives allow them to suceed by accepting the stress of pushing so hard, but villians temporarily ignore stress using their drives--this is a delaying tactic only which means they can and will suffer setbacks later in play. As their resolve in their drives flag--because their confidence is shaken, or because they are shocked at the gall of the heroes to keep going even when they are broken and tired.


This works especially well since it allows some villians who are mad to keep going and going for long period then just freak out over the good guys spoiling their fun (Joker) but also allows calmer, more normally rational and calculating villians to be worn down and tired-working on "recovering" when the heroes arrive (Say Dr Doom.).

[Valamir]

I'm intrigued by the concept, Sid...do you have any of the actual mechanics for this detailed somewhere?  I'm having a little trouble visualizing it in practice.

[Sidhain]

I'm intrigued by the concept, Sid...do you have any of the actual mechanics for this detailed somewhere?  I'm having a little trouble visualizing it in practice.

Not in great detail. I do have playtest versions of the rules available, if you'd like to see one.

Mechanically speaking here roughly is how a challenge works.


Example:
Fulcrum attempts to hold up a collapsed support beam in order to allow the last few people in a crumbling building to escape.

The "editor" (ed.) asks him to perform a challenge--

His first roll "fails" he doesn't get a sufficiantly high number on the die to beat the challenge. But this is /not/ a Pass/Fail test this is a Pass/Try harder challenge.


Because of his drives "love for humanity" Fulcrum used an inner monologue to give himself a pep talk.

"I hafta do this, can't let all those people die."


He takes stress for this (or optionally the Gm can say that the pep talk was good enough that he isn't stressed out by the task)

then he rerolls the die. Meeting the target number

So Fulcrum's force field and muscles strain against the crumbling building.

He suceeds at holding the collapsing roof up and the Last few few innocents to escape.

He is tired, and trembling from the strain.

However the stress remains, it doesn't just go away until certian things occur

A) The player or the GM trigger the stress into an event.

B) The hero performs some task/action to reduce it (Humor is one, living up to commitments another)

C) The Gm simply decides it fades away after rest/relaxtion done "off panel"




Now Stress when triggered into an event can be minor, or very bad--depending on what the player or GM do with it.  (The disadvantage of this is that the event often lingers and doesn't fade "on its own" like stress will.)

There are certian kinds of stress (called flavored stress) that when triggered are always going to be one type of event--a wound. But most stress isn't so specific.


An example of an event occuring:


The heroine Dauntless may suffer a failed Brains roll while working on a finding a cure for the radiation sickness of her ally Haunt. The player defines the stress as "fatigue".
 
Attempting to stay awake, she fails another roll and unable to come up with a Drive based retry -- the ed. decides that this new Stress point is also fatigue and because of it, for now, she will be unable to find the cure without some rest.  So bleary eyed she staggers to bed, tomorrow she will find a solution.



and


While battling his hated foe Thrill-seeker, the hero Devil Jack is forced to wrestle a gun from the Thrill-seeker's hands.

Devil Jack's player tells the ed. "I am trying to tear the weapon from his grasp before he uses it on someone", the ed. takes this of course as an action which if successful will apply Flavored stress to Thrill-seeker. Specifically Thrill-Seeker will take the setback -"Weapon pulled from grasp." if the stress is triggered.  Since Thrill-seeker is a minor (and currently drive-less) foe, he won't be able to delay the stress (or the triggered event.)

[Valamir]

Ok, that makes a good bit of sense.  So kind of like Troll Babe in a way, where a missed roll doesn't mean failure, the player can call for a reroll if he can justify it from some drive.  The effect of needing the reroll is then quantified in Stress levels rather than the Troll Babe injury levels, but the effect is similiar.

Devil Jack's player tells the ed. "I am trying to tear the weapon from his grasp before he uses it on someone", the ed. takes this of course as an action which if successful will apply Flavored stress to Thrill-seeker. Specifically Thrill-Seeker will take the setback -"Weapon pulled from grasp." if the stress is triggered.  Since Thrill-seeker is a minor (and currently drive-less) foe, he won't be able to delay the stress (or the triggered event.)

Ok, so what if Thrill-Seeker was a major villain with a drive.  How would delaying the stress in this instance look?

[Sidhain]

Delaying stress would work like this Thrill-Seeker would have a drive, probably in this case "Thrillseeker" (No name for it yet but basically a villanous variation of the heroic "Spirit of Adventure")


In this case the GM would make a justification through the character..

"HAHAHA. You ain't getting my gun Jack, cause I'm the one with that makes this fun! Admit without me you ain't the same Jack.."  (or something to that effect)  this delays the stress Devil Jack was trying to inflict and prevents the event.

So Thrill-seeker can ignore that (and with a bit more of struggle can escape..)

Only later the struggle wasn't /without/ stress Thrill-seeker may be mad, and fairly oblivious but even he can crack furthur--so when Devil jack catches up with him a gain he's friven to mad laughter because Devil Jack /just won't stop coming/. (The GM now triggers stress accrued and creates an event--probably like the Joker uncontrolled mad babbling which makes it hard for him to make and effective defense against Devil Jack.

[Valamir]

I like the sounds of it.  Attacking the genre from the angle of its tropes rather than as a laundry list of super powers.  

I look forward to seeing it.

[Sidhain]

I'm working on it. Trying to present it well, and get art and finish up all the writing that needs be done.

(Mostly I've been trying to get over a few hiccups I've had with writing the villaisn chapter before hitting the NPC's/setting stuff--I decided knowing how villains worked would be important to writing them up.)

Now that I've resolved how their drives work (above) It shouldn't be a problem.