Points buying system

[Lamorak33]

Hi all

Caveat: I use terms here from the glossary. Reading the three articles relating to aspects of Creative Agenda would also be advisable. (Regulars tell me if this assumption is a given)

I have been trying to think of a very good reason why magic should be so expensive in Heroquest after GM'ing for sometime and seeing how my players have developed their characters. I suggest that non concentrated magic skills cost 2 points to increase and concentrated only 1. Of course, there is a setting requirement for concentration (although that also could be ditched IMHO together with that alien world penalty but thats a whole 'nother thread!!).

My reasoning is founded in the thought that the cost system for experience is a simulationist/ gamist hang up and to redress it somewhat would reduce drift (Changing from one Creative Agenda to another).

Example: For newbies I ask them to spend points during character creation on a 1 for 1 basis. This has yet to be abused as the signal they get is that each skill has the same general utility and they do not therefore minimax (as if I would be bothered anyhow)

Generally the point buying system is fading into just guff in my mind to be dispensed.

Thoughts/shoot me down in flames

Regards
Rob

[Ron Edwards]

Hi,

I agree strenuously. I vastly prefer the Hero Wars system in which a point was a point and an ability was an ability, with none of the Currency mod that was encrusted onto HeroQuest.

Best,
Ron

[Mandacaru]

Sorry Rob, I wish I could disagree but I can't, so no lively debate from me either.

I also find it, when I am a player, annoying that I have to fiddle around with these different costs when what I just want to do is do cool stuff. Odd isn't it? In Wushu (if I'm not mistaken), the more cool stuff you do the more likely it is to succeed. In HQ, for magic (kinda, in that 3 points on an affinity may increase five skills), the incentive is rather the other way there.

I don't much like unconcentrated magic costing more either - for me, a concentrated hero can still use the other stuff, just with consequences. I also made relationships cost half as an incentive.

Sam.

[Brand_Robins]

I agree.

I used to make characters that bought everything at 1 to 1 in C-Gen. Then the eratta came out saying that some things were more expensive, even in C-Gen. I ignored it.

A player pointed out that this made buying magic cheep in C Gen very attractive. I agreed, and so cut the increased cost for buying stats of any kind. A point is a point is a point.

[joshua neff]

Having GM'd and played HeroQuest, I am also in complete agreement. My feelings as a player are like Sam's--I want to do cool things, but magic is so expensive (and the conditions for how players are given Hero Points so nebulous--basically, GM whim) compared to any other abilities that I rarely beefed magic up. As a GM, I always have players spend points 1 for 1 for any and all abilities. If there's anything in the rules that says to do otherwise, I've ignored it.

I also think, after playing HQ scads, that "concentration of magic" is all kinds of dumb.

[droog]

What about the point-cost differential between retainers and sidekicks? Is that still a useful distinction?

[Brand_Robins]

What about the point-cost differential between retainers and sidekicks? Is that still a useful distinction?

I'd forgotten there was such a thing. I don't know, maybe others find it useful.

[droog]

I'd forgotten there was such a thing. I don't know, maybe others find it useful.

It's just that, as written, sidekicks are more useful than retainers (in that they have more abilities).

I agree in principle that eg Concentration tends to gum up the system. But differential point-costs already existed in HW, and I'm wondering if there isn't some bathwater adhering to the baby.

[Brand_Robins]

It's just that, as written, sidekicks are more useful than retainers (in that they have more abilities).

::shrugs:: Could be worth differentiating -- but in play I rarely find it worth it.

As it stands, you can buy one Sidekick with three abilities or three followers with one ability each for the same cost. There are ways in which having the sidekick is nice and feels cool, but when they get removed from play (injured, left behind, etc) all three abilities go away at once. OTOH, the followers go out one at a time so if you lose access to one ability you don't neccisarily lose access to all abilities. So it's questionable if the cost is worth it one way or the other.

The more important point is that buying a Sidekick or Follower isn't usually a matter of getting lots of abilities or game effect in the actual play of my groups. It has much more to do with the interest and intimacy level of the character and the PC and to story above anything else. I've been playing for a bit now and had people take followers rather than sidekicks repeatedly despite both costing the same.

Of course, not all groups will be mine, so....

OTOH, I'm also not playing with any Animist PCs and there are some issues around animism and ally spirits that can get fugly if they cost the same as everything else. But I don't have any actual play around the issue, so can't say.

[Lamorak33]

It's just that, as written, sidekicks are more useful than retainers (in that they have more abilities).

::shrugs:: Could be worth differentiating -- but in play I rarely find it worth it.

As it stands, you can buy one Sidekick with three abilities or three followers with one ability each for the same cost. There are ways in which having the sidekick is nice and feels cool, but when they get removed from play (injured, left behind, etc) all three abilities go away at once.

I  hadn't considered the retainer sidekick things at all, but I broadly agree with you both, as I think that broadly speaking you agree! A point is a point is a point. Sidekicks get a keyword AND three abilities, retainers get just a keyword.

The reason I stick with 2pts for unconcentrated magic is merely that to become a devotee, or not take higher negative modifier for using, say, theistic feats is that you are not allowed access to other forms of magic (its a religious imperative in the game). Hence you should get something, or, IMHO, you're 'Just Paying To Suck' ('A feature of System in which buying an ability for a character with some sort of Currency .... even worse ..... Widely considered undesirable.')

Maybe an alternative would be to say that only Devotee's can use the feats, and keep the point is a point is a point?

I have an animist practitioner, so thanks for flagging up guys I will have to review that system for advancement when I get my rulebook back from the player I lent it to Monday!

Cheers
Rob

[Lamorak33]

The more important point is that buying a Sidekick or Follower isn't usually a matter of getting lots of abilities or game effect in the actual play of my groups. It has much more to do with the interest and intimacy level of the character and the PC and to story above anything else. I've been playing for a bit now and had people take followers rather than sidekicks repeatedly despite both costing the same.

This has been my experience. I am always chuffed whatever they go for as it gives another relationship to map to generate potential conflict.

Regards
Rob

[Mandacaru]

I have a point to make below, but first to Brand:

As it stands, you can buy one Sidekick with three abilities or three followers with one ability each for the same cost....The more important point is that buying a Sidekick or Follower isn't usually a matter of getting lots of abilities or game effect in the actual play of my groups. It has much more to do with the interest and intimacy level of the character and the PC and to story above anything else...

I had forgotten that sidekicks were more expensive but now I remember, I'll not enforce it. I'd hope that a player doesn't really want more than one sidekick, perhaps two at most. Not as an absolute, just because sidekicks can add a whole different dimension to a character and you don't necessarily wish to dilute your character so much (I don't see the concept of sidekick as being very plural anyway). In this vein, another advantage which Brand's players may feel with having followers (i.e. all those categories below sidekick) rather than sidekicks is that they can leave more of the narrative control to the GM; they can be rather more dangerous 'abilities' to have than pretty much any of the others. Perhaps the sidekick is the alternative voice, the follower is the plot device. Different beasts, should have an equal cost therefore (mebbe).

Concentration and Common Magic - for me, those five or so common magics are a grand idea. They really add colour to a character, bring in the mundane and the clan/city or whatever's history, and some of my players have come up with some wonderful ones. I love the idea that a concentrated theist may still have (access to) a local charm he got from his grandma which, say, might get him the girl. Losing that at concentration (or not having it at chargen) is a shame. So, to me, they remain available, developable but may have in-game consequences (you get polluted say) of their use which can bring in fun consequences. They should be active too.

[Sorry if this seems like thread-drift, the point I am aiming for is the paramountcy (?) of the fun over the rules (d'oh!) which is I believe what Rob was getting at]

Concentration and the main magic - I have one player whose character switched from theism to concentration on CM. He keeps those affinities and can try and use them sometime if he wishes - the consequences would be great. I have a hero I play in another game who is not devoted - boy do those feat-less affinities look dull having seen the list of what I don't have! So, how about, with affinities, you have a one-for-one cost, a new feat costs one, if not devoted you have one feat, say, rather than always having improvisation penalties or using it to augment (cf conc. magic being active above)?

Relationships - It costs you a point to increase your relationship with the clan weaver. Likewise with the godtalker. Likewise one of the other pc's in your clan. It gets expensive and it can also get confusing - how does increasing relationship with clan fit with a relationship with the clan weaver? I introduced relationships with groups as mini-keywords in my game. It is a bit of a balancing act, but not overly so. As I hinted above, this can include individuals who cost half to raise. If one wishes to think back to increasing skills in Runequest, increasing relationship skills has to be easier than swordplay, for example, no?


My point:
The reason I have used these different examples is that, as I am sure many here would agree, any cost to increasing a skill should relate more to its importance for the game, the hero etc than a predefined concept. Although HW/HQ is rightly feted for having done  away with combat as a separate rules set, it introduced more complex, case-by-case rules sets for chargen/character development instead. (To me, this has just been a revelatory moment which crystallizes Rob's first post and Ron's response).

So, the way I see it, abilities should be judged on their narrative importance first and foremost and should cost accordingly. As this will vary from game-to-game, player-to player etc, a starting point can be that they all cost one point to raise. Simple. Then, it seems there are two tools (which I have thought of, I am sure there are better ones) which are perhaps more of a positive way to do it than is making things cost more:

1. The 'flaws' - I don't like to classify abilities as flaws per se, but if an ability (e.g. sidekick) brings with it sub-abilities which may seem too much, then ensure that there are the costs (in terms of what is good for the hero specifically) there - the narrative importance of that ability of course makes the consequences of it part of the fun. With thi, for followers at least, is narrative control (GM/player) as another balancer)

2. Keywords - I'm talking mini-keywords in the first instance here, such as the relationships with groups I described above, but also a sidekick with his/her/its abilities, then also to magic at the affinity/grimoire etc level. Although the Keywords (proper) are great for chargen, the 17/13 split between keyword vs. 100-word abilities is an issue which illustrates that what the player thinks is important may not be what comes out in the numbers (at chargen and subsequently). If any ability is of sufficient importance to be divided into sub-categories, then perhaps that ability should be easy to play with (e.g. cost one point to raise) and any sub-categories should be cheaper. I am not sure exactly how this fits with the keywords proper, this is where I would need help, but I do have PC's whose keywords are not very important while one ability (in the 100-words, rated 13 initially) is key to the character concept. What I can imagine is that rather than starting with three keywords and associated magic at 17, you take five abilities from the start to have at 17, subdivided as seems appropriate into specific abilities, and work from there.

Sorry for the rambling, but I feel I am on to something here which fits Rob's OP and the responses. I find that all the sub-rules in HQ, for character development at least, pass me by, versus the central mechanics which are great. The things I have tried, as detailed above, have worked very well and I think, seeing what other people say, that there is a way to redesign the system (not that I've been appointed the task :) .

Sam.

[Mike Holmes]

I wanted to let everyone else post first, but I have some comments (I'll be playing Devil's Advocate a bit here):

High Cost of Magic
There is a theoretical prescedent for having magic cost more, and that is the rule that says that magic used against a "passive" resistance, only goes against a 14 TN instead of a normal resistance. Of course, as Ron has pointed out, using conflict resolution there really isn't anything like "Passive Resistance." Worse, even if you're playing as some sort of task resolution, what constitutes passive, and what active. It's not at all clear from the text. So I think that this rule gets chucked in practice as well.

So, yeah, an ability is an ability, and it should cost one HP.

That said, what about groups of abilities?

Affinities
Given that an affinity probably contains 5 feats, or is at least a pretty broad ability, doesn't the triple cost make sense? This is a classic mechanical trade-off invented for the Champions game system way back. Is there a problem with this that I'm not seeing? I'd agree that it's probably not all that important to have in the game system, but I don't really see it as damaging. In any case is the replacement just getting rid of it, or some other associated cost. Note that Hero Wars also had this cost in it (IIRC).

Grimores are pretty much the same case. Note that there are some nuances here, but that they don't seem to affect the value much, and you can play without them quite easily. Like the limitation of not being able to augment more than once from an affinity. Not really an important rule, but doesn't affect the value tremendously, either.

Fetishes and Tradition Charms
These are an odd exception in that they're heavily discounted and you can jump into high level abilities, effectively, but that the ability levels can't be increased. I don't think the rules are too problematic, but I also think that eliminating them as an exception doesn't do much harm to the rules, either. Increasing ability with a fetish ability can be explained not as the spirit getting better, but the character employing the ability better or something (Ron would say it's just metagame anyhow). Much as one can get better with a magic object.

Sidekicks/Retainers
This is really complex. That said, I'm not seeing the objection to the difference in costs between Sidekicks and retainers. I'd agree that you could probably get rid of one or the other without much missing. But you get more than enough "bonus abilities" with the sidekick to make the cost worthwhile. So I'm not seeing the trouble there.

There is a question as to how the general rule works, however. That is, is that keyword that the follower gets a "real" keyword. Do they theoretically get all of the keyword abilities? Can they augment with them all, for instance, if appropriate? Can you use a sidekick's extra points for raising abilities to add to keyword abilities? Or just to the three additional abilities?

If these are meant to be actual keywords, and not just broad abilities, then they're a collossal bargain. 1HP gets you one ability at 13 normally, but with a follower it gets you a whole keyword full of abilities at starting keyword level of 17? The notion is that it's worth a discount because the follower might not be willing or available to do what they do. But that's also Champions thinking, and really not very HQ. That is, if the roll to see if a follower does what he does only comes up when asked to do something against it's nature, how often will that actually happen? Will it actually be more often than the restrictions on when any other ability is useful? I mean, you can only use Strong in certain circumstances - are these any more common, really, than using your porter's Strong ability? I mean, sure he might be out to lunch...

What seems to be implied is that the GM should feel free to muck with the availability. But not for items? It just doesn't wash.

Don't get me started on the problem with the free Species Keyword. That said, I havn't seen anyone try to take a Dragon retainer yet...

Supporting Characters
This is even worse in some ways. Do NPCs have abilities? Abilities that they can use in the stead of the PC? Let's say I have "Friend of Aggar the Strong" can I have Aggar stand in for me for a contest where his tremendous strength would apply? Seems reasonable, though if you read the rules closely, it says that only PCs have contests. So does this mean that in such a case that I just adjudicate success as narrator? Doesn't that void the tension of the contest in question? Or is a player asking to have an NPC do something asking not to have a contest (other than possibly to get them to do it)?

Basically if I take "Friend of Harrek the Berzerk" does that give me some control over an NPC with lots of four mastery abilities or worse? I'm less concerned about this in terms of abuse than in what players are doing in terms of purchasing. That is, if they percieve an NPC to be more powerful than buying a follower would allow, then they're purchasing them as just a relationship to a supporting character, and trusting that I'll stat the thing appropriately. Should this be disallowed? Should I tell them that the level of ability listed for their Harrek sidekick is just metagame? If you catch my drift?

On the other hand, if this can be done without problem, then perhaps all NPC troubles aren't problematic. The way that I've rationalized all this in the past is that any decentralization of ability out from the character should be really cheap because it's taking the focus off of the character, and just giving the player more power. I dunno, though... The best argument for how the rules are designed is that from what I can see, despite these concerns, somehow they work...

Flaws
This seques nicely into flaws, which have much the same problem. That is, for 1 HP I can buy an ability at 13 that can be used for or against my character as situation dictates, or for free I can get an ability at any level I can con the narrator into allowing that can be used for or against my character as situation dictates. Put more simply, there is no mechanical line between what constitutes a flaw, and what constitutes an ability, it's just whether or not the narrator buys the ability as a flaw. In practice I find flaws getting used as bonuses at least as often as they get used as penalties, and other abilities are actually similar. Basically you're being given an incentive to make the character more interesting, but I think that given how they work mechanically, that players would still buy them if they had the normal cost.

Concentration
I've written a lot on this already. But I'll summarize it here again. If, in fact, Concentration represents some sort of trade-off, then I think that an argument can be made for it. That is, if you're really giving up the ability to do magic of other types by concentrating, then somebody might consider not concentrating. But there's only one odd avoidable circumstance in which it might be a trade-off, from what I can tell. That being that the player insists on taking common magic of the "wrong" type, and then has to consider concentration. All the player has to do is not take that sort of common magic, however, and there's absolutely no downside to concentrating.

In practice the only time I've seen people not concentrate (like myself) was when they didn't understand that there was no downside. So I just assume that everyone concentrates these days, which puts us back at the 1HP per ability level for magic. Which kills two birds with one stone, really.

Now, that said, if we posit a universe in which its not next to impossible for characters to pick up specialized magic of more than one otherworldm, then I think it has some legs. The only problem at that point, and this is a problem with the "rapid development" costs, is that "doubling," while the lowest integer increase in cost you can have without going to fractional costs, represents a huge increase in cost. A prohibitive one, really. So the cost increase should be less, or, even better, another way to represent this should be found.

and I think, seeing what other people say, that there is a way to redesign the system (not that I've been appointed the task :) .

As it happens, I have been assigned this task, at least with respect to being a soldier on the team putting together Quest Worlds. I can't really talk about what'll be in the game, but I can say that I'm listening intently to the discussion here for ideas on what might be the best solution for these things. Just some incentive to come up with some good solutions.

Mike

[Brand_Robins]

As it happens, I have been assigned this task, at least with respect to being a soldier on the team putting together Quest Worlds.

You're on Quest Worlds?

Well then, my excitement about the project just doubled.

And I was already pretty hyped about it, so that's some steep shit for you to live up to.

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not heading the team up, note. Though very good people are.

I think it'll live up to expectations.

But...thoughts on costs? :-)

Mike