Variable Augments - Used?

[Paul Albertella]

Keith, that's a lot of modification. Can you tell us how it played? Do you think the modifications were good?
Mike

Speaking as a player in that particular FTF game, I think it was pretty good overall, but it might be a matter of taste. Using D10 made things fairly lively, because it meant that there were a lot more criticals and fumbles. It also encouraged ability development over bumps by making HPs spent in this way more valuable.  

The variable augments also tended to make things more dramatic by introducing a further unpredictable element into the outcome of actions. At its best, this encouraged inventiveness, but at its worst it make contests rather drawn out and a little frustrating.

The post-augment idea compensated for this somewhat, encouraging bold actions and giving players the opportunity to push marginal situations one way or another with clever use of augments. It could work well as a half-way house between a simple contest and a full-on extended contest. On the down side, it could also encourage ability-scanning and number-crunching instead of role-playing.

I'm not sure that we really had the opportunity to play this way for long enough to give it a thorough run for its money, but I'd certainly be tempted to try the D10 approach again. We did use it briefly in a PBEM too, which seemed to work quite well. I believe Keith (who was narrating) used the digits of email times as a replacement for dice.

On the whole, though, I think that the standard D20 system is better balanced for most games. Variable augments still seem chancy, but I'm not completely convinced by automatic augments either. The latter can seem a little arbitrary and artificial if over-used, but they certainly make life easier in PBEMs :-)

[Gelasma]

We never use variable augments - we decided to exclude this rule, since we thought it's only kind of "backward compatibility" to HeroWars.

[Balbinus]

Oddly enough I have an actual play experience of this particular issue.

At a con game a while back the GM required us to make variable augments from time to time rather than straight ones, I think because in his experience nobody ever used them otherwise.  Certainly none of the players on the day would have but for it being insisted upon.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't take to them, I had a little dice game suddenly intrude into the story which I found very jarring and I had an uncertainty enter into events at a point which didn't make sense to me in terms of anything happening in the game world or in terms of dramatic impact.

I'm not persuaded it's a terribly good rule, it felt again like a minigame, a sudden gambling mechanic by which I can wager for a better result.  It seemed to fit oddly with the other rules and the apparent intent of the game.

I'm happy to add further detail, but don't want to turn this into a post just talking about who did what in the session, so please ask if my actual play experiences could usefully be expanded upon.

[Ian Cooper]

Hi Mike,

Just in case its not clear to folks Hero Wars had only variable augments. Automatic augments were introduced in Barbarian Adventures. I think it was first proposed as a means to making it easier to figure out NPC's numbers from all their augments without rolls. People picked up on the idea and used auto augments for augments after that, partially for speed, partially to avoid whiff factor.

We still use auto-augments. We do so when an augmentation strategy is risky amd might back fire. Say for example you want to augment someone engaged in hand-to-hand combat  by firing your crossbow at his opponent. You might hit the wrong guy, so we would use a variable augment. So we use them a fair amount to suggest this kind of thing.

[Ian Cooper]

oops.  should read: we still use variable augments

[Brand_Robins]

We still use auto-augments. We do so when an augmentation strategy is risky amd might back fire. Say for example you want to augment someone engaged in hand-to-hand combat  by firing your crossbow at his opponent. You might hit the wrong guy, so we would use a variable augment. So we use them a fair amount to suggest this kind of thing.

I've noticed that I do the same thing -- but mostly only when it is a simple contest. Extended Contests I let the AP decide on, but in Simple Contests I'll use variable augments a lot.

As a matter of fact, I think the Simple Contest with lots of variable augments has become my groups' "step between a single roll Simple Contest and a long Extended Contest." Sort of a "medium length contest" as it were.

[Mike Holmes]

Hi Max, long time no hear from. Good to see you post again.

I think that a useful principle is emerging from all of this. First, if the player isn't interested, I think that Variable augments can probably be left unused. That is, I doubt that there's much to be gained in terms of "tension" or such from Variable augments unless the player has a desire to use one.

But that said, I'm finding that some players do like to drag some contests out, like Brand points out, by zooming in on some particular ability. Does it work or backfire in this particular case? For example, the one player I have who regularly rolls his Origami 13, to see if the little things he folds help or distract from the negotiations he's always making with other characters. In one case, he got penalized the full amount, and I narrated that the flower he'd made for a little girl turned out to look like one that symbolized death for her culture. And so we made something out of that little part of the overall interaction (and he did fail that contest scaring the little girl with whom he was trying to make friends).

So, at this point, I'm seeing it as a tool for players who want to drill down on certain abilities that they find interesting. Opposite this character with his Origami 13, is another character with Strong 10W2, and his player gambles against this a lot. Which is cool, I think, because it can make the strength really much more telling, but also means that sometimes it just doesn't help at all. So, as the player is interested, so am I.

I don't remember ever seeing Ian's "medium length" contest, given that I don't think anyone has ever rolled more than one augment (not since they had to roll them all in HW) for a single contest. But if the situation were right and the player wanted to, as long as I didn't detect pained looks on the other players faces, I'd say go for it.

Mike

[James Holloway]

Oddly enough I have an actual play experience of this particular issue.

At a con game a while back the GM required us to make variable augments from time to time rather than straight ones, I think because in his experience nobody ever used them otherwise.  Certainly none of the players on the day would have but for it being insisted upon.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn't take to them, I had a little dice game suddenly intrude into the story which I found very jarring and I had an uncertainty enter into events at a point which didn't make sense to me in terms of anything happening in the game world or in terms of dramatic impact.

I'm not persuaded it's a terribly good rule, it felt again like a minigame, a sudden gambling mechanic by which I can wager for a better result.  It seemed to fit oddly with the other rules and the apparent intent of the game.

I was in that same game, and I was annoyed by the variable augments too. It didn't help that we were doing stuff with simple contests that really should have been done with extended contests, and the whiff factor made it very frustrating and depressing. It just seemed to add a pointless element of randomness, with very little reward for the added time.

[Scripty]

"Variable Augments - Used?"

Yup. I like 'em for some things such as "springboard for creativity" and "zeroing in on an ability" points mentioned above.

As a player, I'd be annoyed if they weren't on the table as an option. Who's to say I can't gamble for a +4 augment off my "Loves Mom 17"? Sometimes it pays off (especially with a Hero Point). Give us a lucky roll and we're off to the races.

As a Narrator, I don't enforce my preferences on the players. I let them know that auto augments are assumed but if they want to try for a variable augment then it's their call. There have been settings, though, where I've said that certain types of abilities can only be used for variable augments. This would be like Wild Talents or doing magical things in an uber-low magic world.

For me, it's just another tool for the box.

Oh, and despite the rumors, I am not dead.

[Vaxalon]

Speaking as the player of the character with "Strong 10W2" I want to add that the variable augment sometimes allows me to justify using that gigantic stat when it's questionable.

"Gee, is strength really going to be helpful in this?"  Now Mike has never said "no" to an augment (to my knowledge) so it's not him that's asking the question, it's me... but by rolling on a variable augment, I can answer that question to my own satisfaction.

[Mike Holmes]

Just to be clear, I do say no to augments on rare occasions (just nixed on in the PBEM yesterday, and I've told Adrienne no more than once). It's more that my players only activate interesting augments to me than that I'm permissive that makes this rare.

Basically the players are like you, self-monitoring what's interesting by using variable augments when appropriate and such, that makes it so rarely neccessary to say anything. In fact, I sometimes will come in and nix a shakey augment just to keep in everyone's mind that there's a community standard that we're all adhering to. Lax as that standard might be.

But, yeah, that's precisely what I'm talking about with variable augments. If the player finds it interesting, then I find it interesting.

Mike

[Scripty]

"Gee, is strength really going to be helpful in this?"  Now Mike has never said "no" to an augment (to my knowledge) so it's not him that's asking the question, it's me... but by rolling on a variable augment, I can answer that question to my own satisfaction.

That's a really cool way to use variable augments that I hadn't thought of. In fact, it's among the best arguments for keeping them around that I've heard, whether you intended it to be that or not.

Very cool. Thanks.

[Vaxalon]

There's also a very, very gamist way to look at it.

Let's say that your bonus is k.  If you make a variable augment out of it, then you have a chance that it'll be k+x, and a chance that it'll be +0.  So the average bonus (b) you get out of the variable augment is p(k+x), where p is the fraction of the time that the roll will "succeed".  Now I don't know the rules well enough to tell what it is, but p is actually a function of x.  (I always just ask Mike for how that all works out).

So you get b=f(x)(k+x).  Given k (your bonus), you can maximize b by choosing the right x.  At low values of k, I suspect that your best chance is to roll a very risky chance for a big bonus, and at higher values of k, you're better off taking small risks, or none at all.

[Scripty]

There's also a very, very gamist way to look at it...

That's how the players in my Cthulhupunk-HQ game tried to use them. They were a very gamist group, even going so far as to mess with each others' plotlines in order to "get ahead" or whatnot. Because most of them were starting level (17/17/1w, IIRC) they didn't get much mileage out of this approach but I think it could definitely be helpful if we're talking about higher ratings (as with the Freedom City-HQ game I almost talked the group into).

What was ironic was the group's aversion to Extended Contests, which is a total gamist tool in HQ. If you know how to work the AP, Extended Contests can definitely up your chances of success against a stronger opponent, IME. I guess it was just too much work for them to figure out, even with M. Galeotti's very helpful sidebar in the Hero's Book.

So, gamists but lazy gamists.

Sorry to digress so... Again, a very good point on Variable Augments. Thanks, Vaxalon.

scott

[Mike Holmes]

Scott,

The fact is that extended contests are only really advantageous to the side that has the higher level of ability. Essentially by breaking the contest up into smaller chunks, you take some of the randomness out of them, making it more likely that the superior side will win unless the inferior side is willing to blow lots of HP. This is why it's beneficial to the smaller side to make large bids. If they can, their best bet is to do everything in one shot, making the contest a simple contest once again.

In terms of ability use (switching and such), you can be as creative with that in either form of contest as the narrator will allow, so that doesn't make a difference.

Yes, knowing the odds and such, you can get a gamism challenge out of an extended contest, trying to best play the odds. But even that is not all that interesting a challenge. HQ removes most gamism incentive, and what's left is only probably mistaken perception of potential gamism. That said, for narrators who allow players to alter tactics via creativity (allowing different abilities to be used when situations are shifted and such), there is a sort of gamism there, too, but it's  very non-level playing field. That is, largely players are constrained to what the narrator allows by fiat.

I think that HQ avoids gamism largely, and I think that's intentional and a good thing. I don't see players making decisions based on gamism much if at all.

What about Variable Augments? Well, the resistance, Fred, is 5 per +1 - a +4 has a TN of 20, for instance. This is twice the normal augment rate, but the expected value of return, as Fred has deduced, depends on the probabilities of the different outcomes - Full bonus, half-bonus, no bonus, or negative bonus. Given HQ's torturous curve, this is difficult to calculate because the expected value bounces around quite a bit (but I've been through this before, so I have some idea of the math).

There are a few things we can say in general. First, and most telling, I think, is that at low levels of ability, the expected value is less than the automatic augment, and it never improves much. That is, at less than 20W, you're better off taking the automatic augment if you're looking to maximize your outcome. After this point, what happens is that the absolute margin between the difficulty and a higher payoff can be made large enough to give a high enough chance of victory that the expected value becomes higher than the automatic augment.

For instance, at a rating of 20, if you go up against a TN of 20 for a +4, you're as like to lose as to win. Losing means no augment, but winning only means +4 if it's more than a marginal. Marginal is only +2. So you can see that the expected value is something less than +2. If you hedge your bets, and only go for the +3, then your odds of winning go up very slightly, but the payoff in each case goes down, and you're still left with something less than than +2 for your expected value.

If you have a 20W, however, and you take a +5 for a 5W resistance, then you can see how the significantly increased chances of a minor or higher victory, and decreased chances of failure, make the payoff more likely. Still, however, you're not much better off with a variable augment here than with an automatic augment at +4. If you go for the +8 even odds, then you're back to the situation you had before with the 20 vs 20 in terms of odds, and you can see that the payoff is less than the automatic augment. Lesson: if you want maximum payoff, go for an augment that's less than double the automatic augment.

Yes, at higher levels this shifts somewhat, but the expected value never really increases much over the variable augment while in the human range. In fact, the players best payout is almost always at just one or two over the automatic augment. Take for example a character with 10W3 in something, a usual +7 automatic augment (note that I'm taking medium case scenarios - the auto augment for 5W3 is the same as for 10W3, but with worse chances for variable aguments). Going for a +8 is the best strategy, but only yields a .44 increase to 7.44 expected value. The higher the augment you shoot for, the closer you get to that inefficient equal odds bet.

A god augmenting with a 8W10 ability pulls away from this slightly, with his best bet being a +24, producing a 22.32 expected value over his normal +17 auto-augment. So, as you can see, variable augmenting as a strategy only starts to really pay off for gods. And even then, the proportion is not terriffically high.

So, yet again, we see that HQ doesn't really promote gamism, other than, perhaps, trying to figure out where the best expected value is. Instead what happens is that people make intentionally bad gambles with these, understanding that failure here is as interesting as victory. Oh, it didn't work in this case, because I was going too long on that ability. Cool. Also, players are sometimes willing to burn a HP here, to make a big augment come out, presumably because it's so very cool to have the augment work at the high level in this case. This is a "waste" of HP as compares using them to simply bump the outcome of a contest. But considering that you can only use one on the outcome (and, if you crit, you can't even do that), it is also a way to spike the odds even further in your characters favor if you're willing to burn the HP to do so.

So what it supports is players looking at their abilities and seeing if they want to play around with how much effect each is having on each particular contest. Again, I think as long as this is interesting to the players to look into it's fine.

Mike