To dice or not to dice?
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It's important to note comic book writers aren't remotely free of controversy and accusations of having their own agenda either. In fact nothing could be further from the truth.
We need to keep in mind that for many of these the character(s) they're writing aren't theirs. They get to play with someone else's toys for a while but many writers are simply given a chance on a title (say, a Green Lantern arc) and they use it as their vehicle to prominence if they can get editors to go along with it (say, if the GL sales are low). Then when they go and villain-ize or kill off a character people care about in order to introduce their own replacement under the hero's name, nerdrage ensues.
The times that's happened over the years are numerous. The Spider-clone saga, Kyle Rayner replacing Hal Jordan, Azbat, etc. Just because a writer wants to tell a certain story it neither means that story is good nor that people want to read it. Or that it's not and they don't.
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Everyone has an agenda.
Everyone.
Being accused of having an agenda is being accused of having a personality. Maybe the problem here is that we are asking the wrong question. I'm pretty sure it is.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain It's more like accents. Everyone has one, but everyone also denies having them and just says that everyone else has one.
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I don't deny having an agenda, I'm just so wrapped up in my awesome self that I don't always know what it is.
Except to prove that I'm awesome.
Also, not a robot.
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I don't think the question is wrong. Asking how the comic book writers do it is interesting and informative, but has little to do with what this community does. It is definitely a better way to come up with more compelling stories that everyone wants to read, but it isn't a realistic method for MU*s in general, superhero or not. At least not for games open to the public.
So to the question of to dice or not to dice, I say it doesn't really matter. Combat will not necessarily be faster or shorter either way. Freeform combat can go much faster between cooperating players than dice combat can between non-cooperating players. By the same token dice combat can go much faster by cooperating players than freeform combat between non-cooperating players.
Basically, IMO, the speed of the combat ultimately comes down to the players involved, moreso than the system you use.
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The reason to look at what comic book creators do, is because playing a complicated war game is not evocative of super hero comics.
Mind, I love a system that can let me describe and measure a super power etc with lots of detail. However, dancing just far enough away from an area attack each time to wear someone down shouldn't be an emergent strategy based on endurance cost for powers, an action/ initiative system, and my movement rating. It should be more explicit so it feels less twinky and more like action and tension and tactics.
I think enthusiastic writers can make a crappy war game seem to sing, but it is their leveraging the sensation they aren't utterly in control and adding that to the sense of excitement, atop their utter control via writing tat makes many games work. The sheer fizzle factor (whiff factor) in games is stunning compared to comics.
It is not the only possible solution though.
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@Sunny said:
@DnvnQuinn said:
Dice prevent the "I hit you!","Nahuh I blocked it with my laser gauntlet!", "Nah uh I'm faster than you!" arguments.
Really? Thankfully, I don't have that problem amongst the people I tabletop with, either in person or online.
I find it happens sometimes even with rules and dice. Especially with people who use purple prose and pose walls of text about how seductive/intimidating/awesome their character is despite them having no codified stats supporting such poses. It really irks me, because they then start spazzing out about how I'm a roll player and not a role player. They often really lose it when I suggest they play the role listed on their sheet.
Part of me thinks this is the same three or four people following me from mush to mush being dinks. Like, if charisma is your dump stat, please stop posing like you're the second coming.
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@SG said:
I find it happens sometimes even with rules and dice. Especially with people who use purple prose and pose walls of text about how seductive/intimidating/awesome their character is despite them having no codified stats supporting such poses. It really irks me, because they then start spazzing out about how I'm a roll player and not a role player. They often really lose it when I suggest they play the role listed on their sheet.
There's no way to reconcile different playstyles if people aren't willing to compromise and meet each other halfway. Neither way is wrong - some folks hate systematized social interactions (or even any kind of mechanics taking away from players' freedom to pose what fits a scene) and others dislike the subjectivity and deadlocks which can come from someone's unwillingness to suffer setbacks or 'lose'.
It all depends on what kind of game you are playing. MU* can't be all things to all people, choices need to be made. So if you're somewhere meant to be played with dice and codified stats on sheets then either tolerate it or walk away. Other games are meant to be RP heavy and dice are only there to settle disagreements.
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Dice dice baby
(to roll, to roll).
I want them dice dice baby
(to roll, to roll) -
@Thenomain said:
Has anyone ever asked the comic book writers how they do it?
No, they're not looking a PvP situations, but they are looking to tell a story with characters whose powers are limited not by statistics but by narrative.Apples and oranges, I think. A comic book writer doesn't have to deal with the 'actors' playing Hulk and Iron Man getting their noses out of joint because they don't like the way the scene turned out. Once you have multiple people involved, everyone has their own agenda for what they think is the best narrative and they don't necessarily agree.
If players can work it out amongst themselves, great. But if it comes down to staff intervention, you can save yourself a lot of headaches and time arguing if you just say: "OK, roll."
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Fair, but not without correlation. A comic book writer is all about giving the powers to a character based not on a list of stats but on the needs of the story they want to write, from a list of known abilities and personalities.
Comic book fans get their noses bent out of shape when their favorite character does something that they don't think is appropriate or right, and seem to follow writers for this exact reason.
So in asking how writers come up with this, what I hope is that through example players can be encouraged to think of themselves as writers of the story and not players of a character.
I have no problem taking Vincent Baker's "say yes or roll the dice" as a valid play style, but my scant experience with superhero role-playing games have it either super-hard stat systems (M&M) or whatever-makes-sense-within-reason (trait-based). As an amateur Mu* Historian, I remember more of the latter than the former.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
It's also not really fair to say that comic book writers -- at least superhero comic book writers at the Big Two -- are the only people involved in their process. They have an editor for their books, and also teams of editors for whatever grouping their title may fall under. (The Spidey books have a team, the X-Men books have a team, etc.) Along with the higher-ups at Marvel who absolutely have opinions about what can or can't happen in a given title. Sometimes the process works great, sometimes you have writers fired because they couldn't get along with their editorial team, sometimes you have writers quit because they found the writing conditions to be unamenable to the stories they wanted to tell. But there are definitely multiple people involved.
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Generally, with a known IP, you should be aiming to have presented events and the characters "as they should be". As Thenomain points out, you have a sort of list of powers, abilities, and personality traits (Original Concept or not), and if those were treated well, you have succeeded at the scene.
A typical example would be if the villain shows up, does a crime fitting with their known goals and personality, reacts to the hero as they have in the past, and either get squashed, or have a new thing to hold off the hero that will have to be overcome next time, if they do all that, they have succeeded, even if they get sent to jail.
I personally do not like playing canon characters, but I think I am right in saying that the players who do like that, want to do more of that. So win/lose shouldn't matter. Showing off the characters, and how they fit with, and contrast with the canon in this incarnation, is awesomesauce. Right?
So all the details of powers and abilities are about getting it right.
The scene is all about showing things things off.
There may be an additional role of moving the characterizations along, like showing off the black spider suits as making Spider-man even tougher, and perhaps a little off.
Do I have that right?
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@Roz said:
It's also not really fair to say that comic book writers -- at least superhero comic book writers at the Big Two -- are the only people involved in their process.
Then change the question to what makes sense. The goal is clearly stated, so the information is interesting for education, but not really the point.
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One reason I enjoy having dice as an option (apart from my love of randomness) is my experience starting on consent-based games. Where, as bad as this sounds, I felt like I spent the majority of my time being an outwardly-graceful loser because I inevitably didn't want to Internet Argue as long as someone else. It wasn't even so much, "I shot you! Nu-uh!" stuff as, "OK, well, it's their turn to be awesome this time, I can be awesome next time...or next time...or next time..." And so on. As much as I know it's fundamentally incorrect - because I've had very fun and unpredictable experiences on stat-less games with players I trusted - I associate systems with occasionally getting to do notable things, not as a hindrance to it.
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@Three-Eyed-Crow said:
Where, as bad as this sounds, I felt like I spent the majority of my time being an outwardly-graceful loser because I inevitably didn't want to Internet Argue as long as someone else. It wasn't even so much, "I shot you! Nu-uh!" stuff as, "OK, well, it's their turn to be awesome this time, I can be awesome next time...or next time...or next time..."
That could have been a mileage thing but I can definitely see where you're coming from.
Since we're on a comic book tangent though, do you think it could be cool to adopt the comic book trope where certain heroes are simply better in their own books? You know, the classic Spider-man versus Wolverine thing where if you're reading a Spider-man title he wins but if you're reading a wolvie title Logan does, but on a MU*?
So when there's a plot it's thrown for a main protagonist each time whose powers are just more pronounced for its duration. Either the game is statless and their player gets to decide the baseline or there are dice involved and the character has a buff which lasts for the scene? It might help with the rotation of awesomeness you're referring to.
- He who takes offense when not intended is a fool. He who takes offense when intended is a greater fool.
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@Arkandel said:
@Three-Eyed-Crow said:
Where, as bad as this sounds, I felt like I spent the majority of my time being an outwardly-graceful loser because I inevitably didn't want to Internet Argue as long as someone else. It wasn't even so much, "I shot you! Nu-uh!" stuff as, "OK, well, it's their turn to be awesome this time, I can be awesome next time...or next time...or next time..."
That could have been a mileage thing but I can definitely see where you're coming from.
Since we're on a comic book tangent though, do you think it could be cool to adopt the comic book trope where certain heroes are simply better in their own books? You know, the classic Spider-man versus Wolverine thing where if you're reading a Spider-man title he wins but if you're reading a wolvie title Logan does, but on a MU*?
So when there's a plot it's thrown for a main protagonist each time whose powers are just more pronounced for its duration. Either the game is statless and their player gets to decide the baseline or there are dice involved and the character has a buff which lasts for the scene? It might help with the rotation of awesomeness you're referring to.
Welcome to "but he's awesome because all the plots revolve around him".
Also, Wolverine is always badass, in general, regardless of the book he's in. Every book is a Wolverine book when he's in it. Except Ms. Marvel.
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Margret Weis Production's Marvel game had an interesting concept. You got an extra die, the type of which depending on whether you were fighting solo, in a team up, or as part of a larger team. So, Wolverine got a bigger bonus die for fighting solo, where the Thing got a bigger bonus die for fighting as part of his team.
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@Runescryer I'm playing in a Marvel table top game using those rules. It's actually quite a bit of fun. I especially like how you get XP for playing to your character's cliches.
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I used to be against combat systems in MU*s, but after being on a few places, I now really like how they aid in keeping things fair and adding an element of randomness. Granted, I'm coming from a non WoD or superhero comic background, so YMMV.
The way I see it, the thing to keep in mind is that the system should be tailored to the MU* and its theme, not the other way around, and it should be optional. It's a fun tool that can be used to organize a large fight, and if all the players involved in a scene want something to happen, it can be easily circumvented with various commands.
Really, though, I find it's nice to leave it up to a system whether or not your fireball hits, instead of determining if the other player is going to get mad at you because your fireball keeps hitting or not.
