Heroes of the New Wave

[GMSkarka]

I just wanted to extend a welcome to all new posters coming here from the design column for Heroes of the New Wave, at http://new-wave.blogspot.com

Discussion for each weekly entry will be held on this forum.  Feel free to start your own threads--I'll be doing my best to keep up with all of them, and answering what questions I can.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Designer (and Forum Moderator),

GMS

[Stephen]

Cool.  I'm looking forward to joining in on these discussions -- I'm a child of the '80s myself.

(Though I was also a geek, and thus not nearly as well-informed as you might expect of a teenager at that time....)

[godfather punk]

Congratulations on the new start.  I'll keep an eye on this column.

Chees,
Marc

[mythusmage]

Just the idea is cool. Then again, I grew up with cheesy sci fi flicks on Saturday afternoon and devoured most of the ERB ouvre. (There was even a time when I thought Robert E. Howard a fine writer*.:))

In my considered opinion it's about damn time we got back to adventures and story lines. I'm sick of the 'RPG as wargame' paradigm. TSR failed not because people got sick of 'story', TSR failed because they wound up producing crap.

So good luck with the beast.

And remember, "Many men smoke, but Fu Manchu."


*Then again, in a past life I knew Robert. Stereotypical closet homosexual if you ask me. Most everything he did was an attempt to deny his nature. I think the closest Howard ever came to putting himself on paper, as he saw himself, was Solomon Kane. Conan was Bob as he thought he should be.

[xiombarg]

I'm just jazzed by what sounds like, in essence, the "Buckaroo Banzai" RPG.

[Jason L Blair]

I'm just jazzed by what sounds like, in essence, the "Buckaroo Banzai" RPG.

*ahem*hrm*ahem*

Um. No...Gareth would never dream of doing that...;)

[Eddy Fate]

I'm just jazzed by what sounds like, in essence, the "Buckaroo Banzai" RPG.

*ahem*hrm*ahem*

Um. No...Gareth would never dream of doing that...;)

Nooooooooo... not GARETH...

[Theron]

Dude!

Totally tubular concept!

- ready to surf this wave TB

[peteramthor]

After reading the first entry in the Design Journal I have a suggestion.  Since the figuring of the target number for skills uses multiplication why not include a table in the back of the book near the character sheet.  I mean every folder I ever owned during school in the 80's had one in them.  Only this one would need to go from 1 to 20 instead of the usual 1 to 10.

Just a thought.

[GMSkarka]

After reading the first entry in the Design Journal I have a suggestion.  Since the figuring of the target number for skills uses multiplication why not include a table in the back of the book near the character sheet.  I mean every folder I ever owned during school in the 80's had one in them.  Only this one would need to go from 1 to 20 instead of the usual 1 to 10.

Just a thought.

Good idea, too---in fact, in the James Bond 007 game, the multiplication table was ON the character sheet.

GMS

[Stephen]

Suggestion for a really simple degrees-of-success mechanic, too:

Get less than half your target number:  Exceptional success (something cool or unusual).
Get less than 10% your target number:  Critical success.
Roll 100:  Critical failure, regardless of target number.

You should also have a Drama Point mechanic... howzabout:

Plot Twist Points (aka PTPs):  Pulp heroes never just fail by sheepishly falling on their face (unless they're the Comic Relief in which case the failure probably doesn't matter much)--they fail in ways that send the adventure off in a whole new direction.  So if you fail at something, you can spend a Plot Twist Point to convert it into a "skewed" success -- you'll either nominally succeed at what you were doing, but it will turn out to have prices you didn't expect --

(GM:  "As the flames run along the ceiling beams, the drug dealer on the balcony draws back his knife, PCP-crazed glow in his eyes...."
Jake Barton, Trucker Vice-Cop:  "I shoot him right between the eyes!  (rolls)  97.  Frick.  Okay, uh, Plot Twist Point!"
GM:  "Your foot shoots out from under you just as you pull the trigger; the bullet goes awry and smacks a burning support beam right amidships... and with a vast creaking and groaning crash, the entire balcony collapses, burying the dealer in a mass of flames."
JB:  "WOOHOO!"
GM:  "It also buries the door leading out."
JB:  "Crap.")

-- or your failure will turn out to be more beneficial to you down the road than you might expect -- after all, if Han Solo had never failed that sneak-up roll on the stormtrooper in RoTJ, the Rebels would never have made contact with the Ewoks and the Emperor's plan would have worked....

[GMSkarka]

Plot Twist Points (aka PTPs):  Pulp heroes never just fail by sheepishly falling on their face (unless they're the Comic Relief in which case the failure probably doesn't matter much)--they fail in ways that send the adventure off in a whole new direction.  So if you fail at something, you can spend a Plot Twist Point to convert it into a "skewed" success -- you'll either nominally succeed at what you were doing, but it will turn out to have prices you didn't expect--

EXACTLY.

That's similar in some ways to the way Jared Sorensen's octaNe handles GM influence on player actions (partial control and moderator control), which allows the GM to either introduce an external force that changes the situation, describe an unforeseen event which changes the direction of the plot, or just make things more difficult.

It's all a way to get rid of the "whiff" factor of mundane failure.

GMS

[Jeff Klein]

Suggestion for a really simple degrees-of-success mechanic, too:

Get less than half your target number:  Exceptional success (something cool or unusual).
Get less than 10% your target number:  Critical success.
Roll 100:  Critical failure, regardless of target number.

IIRC that is the James Bond result table.

[Eddy Fate]

Suggestion for a really simple degrees-of-success mechanic, too:

Get less than half your target number:  Exceptional success (something cool or unusual).
Get less than 10% your target number:  Critical success.
Roll 100:  Critical failure, regardless of target number.

IIRC that is the James Bond result table.

I think that is, too.

If you're looking for good retro mechanics, GMS, have you looked at Top Secret, S.I.?  There's some nifty percentile ideas in there, IIRC.

[godfather punk]

Hi,

In your example you talk about a 'difficulty number', which is used as a multiplier to calculate the chance of success.  So the lower the value of Difficulty is, the harder it is to perform the task.  

This could lead to confusion.  Wouldn't it be better to rename this term from 'Difficulty number' to 'Chance multiplier' or such?  

(In JB007 the term used for this parameter was 'Ease Factor'.)

Cheers,
Marc