Panels, again

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I was greatly pleased to see Clinton begin the thread on The game formerly known as Panels, as this is something I've wanted to see for a while now.

A couple of private messages as well as that thread have finally clarified for me how the game works.

1) A hero has a single number for his basic "effectiveness." Just rate the character at 1-10, which to my mind is also related to the general scale of his impact on things and the kind of problem he deals with.

2) A hero also has a several numbers, each associated with a given relationship or tie to something. I strongly suggest these not be abstract like "justice," but very concrete. When

Right about now, someone is going to post going, "B-b-but Spider-Man's webs are more powerful when holding something than when they hit someone! B-b-but the Flash isn't as bulletproof as he is fast!"

This kind of highly compartmentalized descriptive thinking comes up whenever anyone discusses superheroes, and Clinton and I agreed, long ago, that it's wholly misplaced if the goal is to generate superhero stories. In other words: bullpucky. The Flash is not going to get shot, because he is too fast. Spider-Man will hit you hard, with whatever (improvised missile, bound up with his li'l fist, or web-club/thing).

"B-b-but Spider-Man isn't going to beat Galactus just because he cares about someone!"

Yes, he is. That is exactly what happens in comics. When the Fantastic Four generated a relationship with the Silver Surfer and his desire for personal freedom, they could beat Galactus. That kind of tie is so strong, in narrative terms, that the bond between those characters has persisted to this day.

It all comes down to relationships. When a super-hero cares more, he is more effective, and that's all there is to it. Whether it's vengeance, romantic love, basic decency, family ties, friendship, or anything we as readers can (a) relate to and (b) identify with that specific hero, then the goal at hand becomes more possible.

Thematically, superheroes are about nothing else - the expression of personal values through highly symbolic, colorful, powerful action.

When editorial fiat or poor writing interferes with this principle, you get tortuous, repetitive, nonsensical storylines that cannot help but repeat and re-write and struggle with the "node" of thematic failure in their histories. The case in point is the Phoenix storyline, which was not permitted to play itself out sensibly in the mid-80s, and ever since has been the endlessly-revisited, endlessly-revised "node" of The X-Men.

So the goal now is to see whether the system embraces enough internal cause to be cool as well as thematically satisfying. In other words, if my character Nocturne uses a Relationship to power-up the number to beat the villain's number .... well, this is kind of bland, especially if we now just make up a bunch of justifying "stuff" ... kind of ho hum, isn't it? But how can we get around it without going back to linear-cause Sim thinking?

I have some ideas on this score. But first, anyone else? Clinton?

Best,
Ron

[Bankuei]

Prime examples of the caring is daring theme:  Dark Knight Returns(Batman beats Superman!), DK2, Mr. Blank, Scud the Disposable Assassin, and of course, the ultimate superhero power trip: Dragonball Z.

:)

Chris

[Jared A. Sorensen]

No contested rolls. They always strike me as being very blow-for-blow, player vs. GM oriented...and while the concept of a contest between two characters is very much in-line with the comic book superheroes image (the classic slugfest across panels, culminating in a splash page smackdown of the loser), it's not necessary to use the system mechanics to get that across.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

First - not sure what you're getting at with no contested rolls, Jared. Please clarify, especially because as of my current thinking - there will be only contested rolls, and no uncontested ones.

As for Ron's question: I definitely see your point, Ron. The ways I'm thinking of approaching this are:

- The relationship (or trigger, as it's called in the game) must be narratively present in the scene before it can be used. This means that the story must have already defined that the super-hero's girlfriend is being held by the enemy, or that personal freedom from government is the major issue in the scene (with Contracycle, Enemy of the State, as the superhero), or that there was just a big flashback to the hero's parents getting gunned down. In other words - you can't use it and make stuff up retroactively, as Ron mentioned.

- All triggers have a negative side as well. The positive side adds to power, while the negative side subtracts from control. If Dark Knight runs into the thug that killed his parents, and the objective of the scene is to kick this guy's ass, Dark Knight will get a hefty bonus. If the objective is to catch the guy in a crime, or even interrogate him, Dark Knight will get a penalty. So, just because you get yourself into a situation where your triggers are used does not mean that they'll work for you.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

First - not sure what you're getting at with no contested rolls, Jared. Please clarify, especially because as of my current thinking - there will be only contested rolls, and no uncontested ones.

Ah, it's just my "big thing" these days. The players roll to resolve situations, but there's no counter-roll from the GM. In other words, the super-villains don't have stats like the heroes do. The hero either has a trigger that helps him or hurts him (and thus helps the villain). I see villains (ideally) as being agents who cause the hero's triggers to give him or her a penalty.

The way most superhero games handle it, super-villains are just super-heroes who are against the heroes. Mechanically, they're identical (both have relationships, power ratings, etc).  It's assumed to be a necessary design element and I challenge that assumption.

[Kenway]

Jared, but what about the inevitable PC hero vs PC hero fights that occasionally break out?

 Ron:  I assume you're talking about the Dark Phoenix saga.  It's been some time since I last read it.  Could you please explain what you mean?

[C. Edwards]

Most excellent.

 Panels sounds mechanically simple yet very focused.  Which is just exactly the kind of game I like to gm/play.

 As with Jared, I also find having the players roll to resolve a situation preferable to the blow-by-blow rolling many games employ.

 Panels seems to fits the spirit of "transparency" that was discussed on the Transparent Game System thread.  It's mechanically simple but not generic by the virtue that the system looks like it supports and encourages a specific style of play.  
 
 I really think that Panels would be great for more than just superheroes.

-Chris[/quote]

[Steve Dustin]

In other words, the super-villains don't have stats like the heroes do.

The hero either has a trigger that helps him or hurts him (and thus helps the villain). I see villains (ideally) as being agents who cause the hero's triggers to give him or her a penalty.

I think having some adverserial aspect should exist in a super-hero game, though. Maybe its too gamist, but I believe that some tension should exist in there, somewhere.

With that said, I don't think villians have to be statted out either. The GM could just use base stats that reflect the story problem, and then adjust with something similar to "triggers" on his end. For example, his one stat, Plot: Bad Guy Going to Blow Up City, but list all the elements that entails like the minions, death trap, whatever.

Or, maybe what the GM rolls is the trigger, and depending on how that hero relates to that trigger (as a bonus or a penalty) depends on how the player's roll is interpreted against the GM's roll.

Just thinking off the top of my head.

Or the GM could start the game with a number of trigger points, which the players (through narrative control) attempt to get "gifted" to them by making their character emotionally invested in the story. The character's get these temporary trigger scores (for this adventure only), which the GM then can use as a bonus or penalty against their action later. The trick is, the players can't seriously consider defeating the issue at hand without first gobbling up these "trigger points".

So players first screw their PCs as much as possible, and once the points are gone, attempt to dig their way out, hoping the GM doesn't hose them with their high trigger scores.

Anyway, my thoughts

Steve

[Walt Freitag]

"B-b-but Spider-Man isn't going to beat Galactus just because he cares about someone!"

Yes, he is.

As the one who said "but Spider-Man..." on the previous thread, I agree. In fact, that was my whole point. I apologize if I expressed myself so poorly as to give the impression that I'm some sort of fanboy complaining that his favorite character isn't depicted powerfully or "realistically" enough. My point was actually that the single power rating is too all-encompassing in that, in the system as described so far, it overshadows the triggers too often. Spiderman would need triggers totalling 13 to have an even chance of beating Galactus (assuming Galactus were indifferent about success, i.e. had zero triggers on his side). Could the system plus the participants' best efforts ever make that happen?

I have one mechanism to suggest: a character should be able to "sacrifice" a trigger for a one-time-only greatly multiplied trigger effect. For example, protecting his secret identity would normally be a trigger for Batman; he'd act more effectively if his secret identity were at stake or less effectively if the course of action itself put his secret identity in jeopardy. But if circumstances were to allow him to bring greater resources to bear at great need, at the cost of irrevocably and publically revealing his secret identity, that should be a much larger trigger effect. If Superman lets Lois Lane die to save a whole city, same idea. These kinds of events are extremely rare (but industry-news making when they happen) in comics, where characters have to endure for decades; in a game they could be merely rare.

- Walt

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Jared, but what about the inevitable PC hero vs PC hero fights that occasionally break out?

In player character vs. player character situations...does it matter who wins? I mean, sure it matters to the characters -- but does it matter to the players?

[Walt Freitag]

I assume you're talking about the Dark Phoenix saga. It's been some time since I last read it. Could you please explain what you mean?

I believe Ron is referring to what happened after the Dark Phoenix saga ended (poorly, due to a bizarre editorial decision at Marvel Comics). It was as though the X-Men creators couldn't move on from there. There was a recap issue telling the whole saga over again (with slightly changed details and emphasis, trying to patch over the original inconsistencies). There was a What-If Phoenix had Lived? issue of the What-If title. There was a Darkseid-Dark Phoenix Marvel-DC crossover issue. In X-Men itself, there was a "Rogue Storm" story and two or three other characters who took turns going "dark." A character identical in appearance to Jean Grey named Madeline Pryor showed up, then later they got rid of her and brought the original Jean Grey back. Every time they flashed back to the Phoenix story they'd change a few more details, for example all of a sudden Phoenix wasn't really Jean Grey after all. Practically every issue teased the possibility of the return of Phoenix for the next issue. And all of this happened in the first year or two after the original story arc. (At that point I stopped reading X-Men, after writing the only letter I've ever sent to a comic book editor, in which I asked: "What's next? Howard the Duck as Duck Phoenix? Dark Tuscon battles Dark Flagstaff to decide the fate of the galaxy?"). If they've kept it up for the almost 20 years since then, I can't imagine how many more permutations and revisions they've gone through.

And what ever did happen to that solid gold tree in Central Park, anyhow?

- Walt (flashing back to an almost forgotten period of his life)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Walt,

I wasn't parodying you directly, although the Sim elements from several posts in the first thread did prompt my point. I'm glad to see we agree on the point.

You've also nailed the Dark Phoenix reference, not that I thought it was obscure, which only shows how old we're all getting. For the youngsters, the comics in question (roughly X-Men 98-137) represent a serious impact on a whole generation of fringe/pop culture. Kind of like The Breakfast Club (same era) but for comics people.

Oh yeah, one more thing - I think the system-stuff for Panels remains shrouded in mystery, with the material Clinton posted being very provisional. The one-number thing I describe, for instance, came from some private messages. So we all have to wait regarding how the one-number, the triggers, and adversarial target numbers play out relative to one another in quantitative terms.

Other points about other posts ...

I totally agree with Jared that hero-hero conflict, including combat, is rarely if ever "important," and it certainly can be resolved much differently from the way Real Problems are solved in these sort of comics. Usually it's a matter of discovering that the heroes share the same trigger, or similar ones.

Best,
Ron

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ok - I'm about to let loose serious Panels madness.

I do not have the system done. I keep experimenting with different styles of resolution. As of my most current thoughts, here's what I have:

Power is defined by one big dumb number. Power will be determined by the "scope" of the campaign - a low-power street level campaign will probably have all the characters at Power 2, and a world-spanning, stop Dr. Death from blowing up Canada, sort of campaign will be Power 8.

You have one Sphere: the concept of your powers. This is a phrase that describes you, like "Spirit of the Twentieth Century," "Dark Avenger," "Mutant Spider Guy," "Lord of Flame," "Mystic Warrior," or whatever. Notice this is not a list of powers - powers just must fit within your Sphere. Read The Authority for good examples of this in action - the characters there have no "defined" powers, but always do things that fit within their concept.

I haven't decided whether to add this yet or not, but just to satisfy the powers geek in me and others, I might add Stunts - things that you get an extra die when doing. You'd get two or three. An example for Spiderman would be:

sensing danger, cracking jokes, swinging off sides of buildings

If any of those came up in an action, you'd get an extra die. And yes, this does mean you get a die if you crack a joke while punching a villain.

Triggers

Triggers will be written like this:

Loves Katherine, his sister (protect/endanger): +3.

The relationship is defined by the first phrase. The two words in the parentheses are the positive and negative sides of this trigger. This hero gets +3 on all dice when protecting Katherine, but -3 whenever he endangers her by an action.

Why would he endanger her? Because it's too important. The GM will put characters in situations where, for example, he could save his sister, or stop a bomb from blowing up a bridge, but not both. What will he do?

Purely negative triggers (or purely positive ones): I kind of want these, but don't know how to implement them with the positive/negative triggers above. These are good for things like Superman's weakness to kryptonite, frex:

Guilt over destruction of home planet: -8

Panel Points

I've been thinking heavily about adding a resource system called Panel Points.

If I do this, the game will go back to a lot of it's original concept, which was to actually use "panels" as units of game play. Action won't take place in "rounds" or in total scene resolution, but in "panels." You would pay to add things to panels to increase your abilities. Good examples would be: having the villain suddenly reveal that he has your girlfriend, or adding an entire "flashback panel" where you remember something your uncle once said to you that inspired you.

These would cost a number of Panel Points equal to the number of triggers you're invoking. If the GM has already set up a situation that invokes your triggers, it costs nothing.

Panel Points might also be spent to determine the scope of a scene - you could pay for a page-wide panel, or even a whole splash page. What this would mean in the context of the game is that you could stake a lot more on the roll - you could win an entire fight against three guys instead of take them out one at a time.

How this will work yet, I do not know.

Resolution

There will be no uncontested rolls - rolls to do something against the environment. You either can or can't perform an action, as determined by your Power and your Sphere. These actions, though, can gain you 1-3 Power dice for tactics.

For example, if your opponent leaps a fence to get away from you, you don't roll to climb the fence. If you can't fly and have to climb, your opponent would gain 1 Power die for a panel of running away from you because of tactics.

Another example: you're a big bruiser type, and are fighting another guy. You say that you rip a flagpole out of the ground and beat him in the head with it. If you have enough Power (probably 4 for this), you'd add a Power die to the scene for beating him down.
Rolls are done as stated before: roll a number of d10's equal to your Power and add all applicable triggers to each roll. 5 and up is a success, 10 and up 2 success, 15 and up 3 successes, etc. Count all your successes and compare to your opponent's - whoever has more successes wins.

What you win is determined before hand - you decide what your objective in this panel is. This will also determine how your triggers work: if you're playing the Dark Avenger, and he has the trigger "Hatred of the Mob (destroy/restrain self): +4" you'd get +4 if you state "I'm going to try to kill this guy in this scene." You'd get -4 if you said, "I'm going to capture him and find out where Jimmy No-nose is hiding."

[Buddha Nature]

I think one of the unique things about Panels is the dichotomy of the triggers.  There are tons of systems out there that have Advantages and Disadvantages (which basically map to pos and neg triggers).  I think you can always think of a + for any -.  For your Superman example ->

Guilt about the destruction of his home (-8) / Protection of his new home (+8) -> of course this would mean he would get the bonus only if he was doing something that was going to save the whole world from destruction (not just Metropolis or Smallville).

I think it just takes a bit more thinking about the basis of a hero to figure out those dichotomies.

On the Panel Points thing, two points:

1) I think these could be a great thing.  They really give the opportunity to the players to fill out the scene, their character, or even the world right there in play.

2) Should I assume from the name "Panels" that you are making a comic book game, not just a superhero game, but one whose remise is deeply rooted in the ideas and mechanics of comic books?  The reason I ask is that the Panel Points would completely make sense if it were true and the game was really tending towards Narrativism.  I would say you might want to think about the points if you are trying for a general superhero game (which might have a bit of Sim in it) depending on the feel you want to put out.

I think Steve's idea of a set amount of trigger points is a good one, but might be expanded a bit.  What might be good is to have a certain set amount of trigger points which the group must be "gifted with"/deal with before they can get to the denoumont of the story.  If anything it at least forces the characters to really work with their characters a bit, to get into them and to "bring them low" before they can excel to the top.

Just some thoughts.  It looks to be a great system - hopefully it could even be adapted for other genres.

-Shane

[Blake Hutchins]

Clinton,

I really, really like this.  Shades of RISUS, but with a lot more narrativist snap, crackle, and FOOM.  Totally cool stuff -- can't wait to play it.

Get this done.  I think you're very close.

Best,

Blake