alternate hero advancement

[Mike Holmes]

Yes, the rationale with keyword abilities is not that they're new, but that they were always there at keyword level. You could have used them at that level without ever buying them. So, yeah, if you spend HP on it, it goes up from that pre-existing keyword level.

From a metagame perspective, "discovering" a new ability in the keyword could be worth paying for, however. So, while it's a change from the rules, I think it's not a terrible one. There's only one potential problem with this. If you go this way, and players are creating their own keywords instead of using a fleshed out sample, there has to be some cut off point at which you say, "No more free abilities, now you have to start to pay." So that requires some additional rules on such limits.


Now on to another point. Last night I thought that I'd discovered another entry for the winner category - eliminate a penalty. Healing, basically. My rationale was that healing occurs mechanically, so why not streamline the rule by saying that it's a potential buy on a win.

But, and I think Fred figured this out instinctively, you always get your goal in a contest win, in addition to the reward. So now I'm starting to think that it's not such a good idea. It means one less reward for winning than you normally get.

Thoughts?

Mike

[Vaxalon]

You're right on the money, Mike.

It's interesting that I'm starting to get an instinct for these things...

[Mike Holmes]

Well, what it really begs for, Fred, is something like Mark's "ability-based" injuries (which is like my old "Currency-based Resolution" too). Basically instead of the results of a contest being a penalty, the losing character gets an ability instead. This has lots of ramifications, but it's a good idea largely because it means one less system to deal with. The problem with such systems is determining what level to set the abilities at (do you set a major defeat to a 15W ability - like the TN for healing it - which has only a -4 penalty associated, or do you set it at a level where it can have much more of an effect like the -50% rule currently does?)

Even then, however, these effects are always in addition to the normal effect of resolution. This is a sort of paradox in HQ, that the list system is sorta addressing. That winning you get nothing mechanically, just narration of success, and that the loser at the same time gets a mechanical penalty. In the Currency-based Resolution system I addressed this by saying that, in fact, victory can give you a mechanical bonus instead of giving your opponent a penalty. So, for instance, you're building a house. What would you penalize if you win? The general resistance to house-building gets a penalty to resisting next time? Eh, see my whole thing on Penalizing the World. With the currency system, instead of giving the opponent a flaw, you can give yourself a positive ability.

Even this, however, isn't entirely satisfactory, because it's fun to ponder situations where you get your goal, and the loser is penalized both. The odd thing is that, look at the classic example, combat. In that case, doesn't success mean injuring the target (or putting it to dying)? That is what does one get out of a fight that's not represented by the mechnical penalty that you give the opponent?

So I'm pretty ambivalent on this whole subject. That is, I think that this reward system goes half way to solveing some of these problems, but in doing so they still remain, albeit altered. They're not horrible problems, but I can't help but think that as long as somebody is coming up with a new system like this, that they ought to solve that problem.

Mike