Most RPGs you will ever find have two elements: Adventure and Kewl Powerz. Even games that clearly do not focus on such things most often include them.

White Wolf's various games (particularly Vampire) are totally classic examples of this: Many people play them because they want to play depressed, angsty nobles who abuse each other and the peons under them. And yet, the same people aren't happy playing a conflict-laden medieval court, where nobody has exceptional abilities (except their rank) and no threat enters from the outside to disturb the dysfunction.

Yes, I'm sure there are many exceptions, but we have not seen any huge financial support for a "Lion in Winter" RPG, for instance. I'm going to assume that the market as a whole isn't drop-dead stupid. There's a reason for these things, apart from history and laziness. I have theories.

Kant's Categorial Imperative

Immanuel Kant wrote: Act so that the maxim [determining motive of the will] may be capable of becoming a universal law for all rational beings.

Tony, what are you looking for here? I'm not sure what the focus of this thread is. Are you saying that RPGs should have adventure and "kewl powerz?" Or that they shouldn't? Or are you questioning whether or not that's really the way it is? Or something else?

Given that the vast majority of RPGs do have kewl powerz and adventure, I am trying to figure out what purpose or purposes they serve.

I don't, for instance, see them directly contributing to the address of CA very often. My Life with Master would totally still address its premise if there were no Less than Human or More than Human. But it would be a different (and, I suspect, a diminished) game.

Heya,

TonyLB wrote: Given that the vast majority of RPGs do have kewl powerz and adventure, I am trying to figure out what purpose or purposes they serve.

I don't, for instance, see them directly contributing to the address of CA very often. My Life with Master would totally still address its premise if there were no Less than Human or More than Human. But it would be a different (and, I suspect, a diminished) game.

Why is firing a lightning bolt more Gamist than throwing a plate of jello in a carefully strategized, risk-laden food fight?

I'm not saying it isn't. But if it is, then why?

I guess RPGs are a way out of every day's life. They are a way to do things we normally cannot do or won't do for one reason or an other. Two of the major things we don't have normally are those kewl powerz and adventures. But also games about 'special ordinary' things exist, like Breaking the ice (though I have to confess I don't have any experience with that game). Perhaps they stress this point even stronger: in order to find a way out of dayly life, there must be a great difference.

Or another real life example: I'd like to play our frustration with a group of students, leading their kind of protected lives, complaining about things as the government slowly breaking down the educational system (and social security, public transport, the environment, etc). This group could just be me and of my friends, playing ourselves. So why do I want to play this "daily life"? Well, for one time only maybe they DO fight. (again an important difference)

Heya,

TonyLB wrote: Why is firing a lightning bolt more Gamist than throwing a plate of jello in a carefully strategized, risk-laden food fight?

I'm not saying it isn't. But if it is, then why?

I don't, for instance, see them directly contributing to the address of CA very often.

Tony...

Perhaps a useful quote of one of my players:

I want to have other powers. Why should I allways play someone who is weak or human? Then I'm just leading my normal life. I want to be able to do stuff normally isn't possible.

Leaving Kant's categorical imperative for what it is (I personally detest Kant as an ethicist, with a deep and profound loathing), I am nevertheless intrigued by your suggestion that we want our characters to be exceptional so that we can let them do exceptional things. Let me just offer some theories why this would appeal to us.

1. Escape responsibility. If the characters are exceptional and are allowed - or even forced - to act in certain ways we would normally classify as 'immoral', the players do not have to take full responsibility for these actions. We kill everyone we meet? Sure, but that's because we're in a dungeon! To be fair, I don't think this reason is very important.

2. Create meaningful decisions. The greater the impact of your decisions, the greater their weight, their import, their meaning. If you are the only one who can defeat the orcs, then whether you succeed or not actually matters. If anyone has the same chance as you, your character is not central to what is happening in the story world, and therefore not very interesting as a protagonist. I think this is a very important reason. Now, it is obvious that one can play a protagonist without special powers - Breaking the Ice is a very clear example - but this may be harder to design.

3. Intrinsic fun. Sure, faery tales, superpowers an whatnot are simply fun. We delight in hearing stories about the impossible, the fantastic and the exceptional, and exceptional characters fit neatly into this enjoyment.

I've been wondering about these questions as well, as I'm wrapping up a Sorcerer campaign where the players have tried to get as far from "cool powers" as possible. (We never had any "adventuring".)

The closest we've gotten to a power fantasy is our most pop-culture player enjoying the fact that her actress character is married to the game world's Russell Crowe analog.

We have a fair amount of sorcery in the game, but mostly it's been a convenient shorthand for letting characters trip themselves up in their frustrated desires. If I were to do it over, it'd have been just as easy for the junior professor to blackmail his department head with research rather than Hint, or for the aspiring pro wrestler to turn to steroids rather than Boost.

Okay, we do have one PC with a katana that gives him superpowers. But it's turned out to be far less important than the fact that he's an obsessive medical student who uses expensive clothes and formal etiquette to cover for his total lack of confidence in social situations. (Take the sword away, and two scenes in the entire campaign change.)

I will admit that "cool powers" were a convenient hook to grab the group's interest. As it turned out, though, I didn't need them: We decided up front the game would be about crossing lines to fulfill your desires, and that's been the focus. As it turned out in play, though, neither the experienced roleplayers nor the newcomers wanted to use the supernatural to make things easier, just to introduce additional difficulties.

If there was a "We're different" hook that applied to the characters, it was uniformly "We're damaged people who are all in danger of drifting into sociopathy." There is some escapism there, but nobody wishes they were their character, that's for damn sure. If anything, we'll consider it a win if those characters come out of the campaign more like us.

Yeah, it's examples like Andrew's that undercut my ability to just casually accept that "powerz are fun" is the end of the discussion. Powers are, indeed, fun. But so are many other things. In several of my Capes sessions the world-shaking powers at the disposal of every single character were left untouched because the emotional tangles on the table were so much more interesting.

So the notion that almost every RPG ever written has kewl powerz and adventure, and that's just because it's "fun" is sort of like saying "Well, pretending to be an elf or a dwarf is fun... so it's no surprise that every RPG ever created is in a tolkien fantasy setting."

Imagine that world for a moment. No non-fantasy RPGs, at all.

From the point of view of us, people who have seen different types of fun (modern-day, sci-fi, horror, old west, etc., etc.) the world where every RPG was Tolkien would seem flat and unnecessarily restricted.

So, now, imagine our current world: No RPGs of plain human drama. No romantic comedy RPGs. No Columbo or Agatha Christie murder-mystery RPGs. No Shakespearean tragedy RPGs. Just action, in its various denominations. That seems flat and restricted. I'm not ready, though, to say that it is unnecessarily restricted. Exceptional characters in life-threatening situations clearly serves a purpose above and beyond "It's fun."


Victor: Your statement that an unimportant character isn't an interesting character resonates with me, and strikes me as very strange, all at the same time.

I've certainly felt it in my own games. But then, in many other forms of entertainment I've felt exactly the opposite. Seriously, who do you value more as a protagonist in Futurama: Zapf Brannigan, who has all the power to change the world, or his oppressed sidekick Kiff who has no power whatsoever? For my money, Kiff is the more interesting and entertaining of the two characters.

I definitely agree that it's hard to have fun playing such a character in an RPG, though. So... why? What is it that the power and meaning contribute to fun in RPGs that isn't necessary in (say) television?

I have a few thoughts on why rpgs are fantasies about characters with larger than life powers in larger than life situations.

1) Fantasy events are insubstantial. By portraying larger than life we may well be amplifying the fantasy so it is more meaningful to the real people.

2) In fiction, events and characters are often arranged with unique traits in order to highlight a particular theme. Same for RPGs?

3) This month's Discover has an article on how computer games engage the human desire for challenge, clear cut decisions and reward. I think this same mechanism appears in RPG play. Larger than life situations and characters may well allow the challenge, choices, and rewards to be clearer.

TonyLB wrote: Why is firing a lightning bolt more Gamist than throwing a plate of jello in a carefully strategized, risk-laden food fight?

I'm not saying it isn't. But if it is, then why?

Hi Tony,

Kewl Powerz are popular because they fulfill adolescent wish fulfillment, both in terms of control over one's life as well as a self esteem boost in being special. You'll find a similar kick for fashion and wealth in romances, for ballistics in gun magazines, "elite warriorship" in martial arts, great holy wisdom in religion, etc. etc.

Rpgs happened to key in on the fantasy/sci-fi/comic book crowd and for the most part, have stayed firmly there.

Chris

Heya,

Tony Wrote:

Powers are, indeed, fun. But so are many other things.

My argument is that they address something that is hard to address in other ways. Which is why, in fact, games without them usually don't function well.

I don't think kewl powerz and adventure are necessary. But I think they are a reliable technique for addressing something that is necessary. If I could just figure out what it is then I could address it in a different way in Misery Bubblegum, which would (I suspect) help the game tremendously.

TonyLB wrote:
...
I definitely agree that it's hard to have fun playing such a character [without power] in an RPG, though. So... why? What is it that the power and meaning contribute to fun in RPGs that isn't necessary in (say) television?

Andrew: Yeah, I do think that the powerz thing is a self-reinforcing cycle. But also...

Okay, new thought. As I've been contemplating this, I kept thinking about what Powers do for players, and what Adventure and challenge does for the GM. But what about the reverse? How do things look when we view the cool powers of the characters as GM resources provided by the players and the adventures as player resources provided by the GM?

It's already been mentioned that adventure and threat (and, generally, exceptional circumstances) empower players to have a broader freedom of action. They feel justified in doing more things, because they are in the charged situation... they're "driven to it."

Mind you, their characters could go and (say) break into Fort Knox and rob the US of its gold reserves even if there were no external threat to motivate them. But the players couldn't do that. They need an external threat ("If you don't gather this gold to create the Stardust Glitter Beam then the alien armada will vaporize earth!") to justify taking such an extreme (and fun) action.

Conversely, an uncaring universe could go and have two thousand cybernetic monkeys bear down on a character with intent to kill, even if the character were powerless. But the GM can't do that. They need the character powers ("Vector has the strength of a thousand men!") to justify presenting such an extreme (and fun) threat.

This is clearly a virtuous cycle, with positive reinforcement: If the characters are powerful enough the GM gives them a massive threat, which in turn justifies them taking extreme action, which will prove them capable of taking on yet greater threats, and so on.

But if the characters are too mundane, too much exactly like (or weaker than) those around them then it's hard to justify starting the cycle. Which limits everybody: the players because their characters aren't threatened enough, and the GM because the characters aren't powerful enough.

Thoughts?

TonyLB wrote: So the notion that almost every RPG ever written has kewl powerz and adventure, and that's just because it's "fun" is sort of like saying "Well, pretending to be an elf or a dwarf is fun... so it's no surprise that every RPG ever created is in a tolkien fantasy setting."

Andrew Norris wrote: See, if I want to run a game with high fantasy magic, I get tons of information I can throw into the SIS, and mechanics legitimizing its use. I want to run a game with human drama, and apart from a couple of pages of GMing advice, I need to wing it. (Actually, there's tons of source material, it's just novels, TV, and film. But that goes back to "Do it".)

So what I think we need is a game that describes how to do "everything else" in as much detail as it does "powers and adventures". Give me mechanics that help me run a dramatic story arc of tragic love. Show me with examples a few different ways to actually model in play what I see on TV.

TonyLB wrote:
I don't think kewl powerz and adventure are necessary. But I think they are a reliable technique for addressing something that is necessary. If I could just figure out what it is then I could address it in a different way in Misery Bubblegum, which would (I suspect) help the game tremendously.

That's a good point, about identity. For example, Over the Edge tries to dispense with the clear-cut categories for easy identification, offering instead a generous philosophy of "Play whoever you want." It makes "wierd powers" available, but suggests that more mundane characters, particularly deeply fleshed-out ones, can be more rewarding (The Player's Survival Guide even has extended advice on this topic). But in practice, players seem (in my experience) to gravitate toward the special powers, or equivalent qualities like "Uber-leet superspy." Partly this could be power fantasy, but I think it has at least as much to do with identity: presented with a menu of "Anything," they blank out and grab the nearest available "hook" to hang a character concept on. And, tragically in a game like OTE where your Traits are as much about WHo You Are as about WHat You Can Do, I've found it's like tooth-pulling to get new players invested in personality traits and what-not. It's all "Fighting Ability," "Cool Powerz," and "Uh, what should my third trait be?" There have been exceptions, but my experience has largely been an uphill battle.

Peace,

TonyLB wrote: I don't think kewl powerz and adventure are necessary. But I think they are a reliable technique for addressing something that is necessary. If I could just figure out what it is then I could address it in a different way in Misery Bubblegum, which would (I suspect) help the game tremendously.

Wow... so we've got "plausibility", "characterization", "inspiration to action"... plus all the other things entered earlier in the thread, and they're all somehow connected to the powers and adventures. That's COOL!

I don't know how to say this that it couldn't be misinterpreted, because you can't hear my voice tone. So know that the emotional content here is that I am pleased, and impressed by all of you, and frustrated and excited all at the same time. And now, let me say: I don't think any of us know what this stuff does for a game. I think that we think we know because we have a lot of experience, and our native comfort with the form is so strong that it creates a huge blind spot where we have great difficulty creating any strong theoretical framework.

That's exciting to me. That's unexplored territory right smack in the middle of the way we game. But I now think that it's well beyond the scope of one thread to deal with. So I'm going to use this to spawn further threads, and some PM discussions, and I certainly encourage other people to do the same.

Bankuei wrote: great holy wisdom in religion

Adventure

Everyone has a some "thrill seeker" desire in them. In everyone it's set against some amount of risk aversion. People who are high on thrill seeking and low on risk aversion go rock climbing, white water rafting, skydiving, bungee jumping, and other active dangerous activities, if they're physically able to do so. People who tip the scale the other way don't.

Adventure stories provide surrogate thrills. We watch Indiana Jones or Spiderman or James Bond because the risks are over the top, so we experience the thrill of identification with the hero. Role playing games let us do the same thing with our own heroes.

Also, as compared with other kinds of stories, adventures more easily support multiple protagonists. You can do a game like Matchmaker, but the focus of the romance is the couple. Multiple detectives are very difficult to manage in mysteries. An adventure creates the possibility that you can have several players each individually be heroes.

Powers

In one of the first reviews of Multiverser, the writer said he would never play it as an I game because he knew himself too well ever to believe that he, personally, would make a good adventurer. I think that missed a great deal of the point of Multiverser, where no matter who you are you can become a great adventurer; but it underscores an aspect of why we have kewl powerz in games. We don't always really believe in ourselves, that ordinary people like us could ever do anything really remarkable.

Of course, you don't have to have kewl powerz to do something remarkable; but most people who do something truly remarkable do so maybe once or twice in their entire lives--any more than that, and it starts to redefine remarkable, that is, it becomes mundane. Further, doing something remarkable often involves having one's peculiar talent match up with an opportunity.

What kewl powerz do is make it considerably easier to do something remarkable, and to do so again and again in new situations. Superman comics remain interesting over the long haul because the writers find new ways to use the established powers. If you can do something no one else can do, not only does that make you special (and that's something which appeals to more than just adolescents--everyone wants to perceive himself as special), it also makes it possible for you to apply that ability to solve new problems. Even if there isn't an obvious match between the problem and the ability, if the ability is remarkable enough you can find a way to use it so that you can solve the problem no one else could solve.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

Edited out, wrong thread.