Previously Mutants & Masterminds MUX, now a Question! DUN DUN DUN!

[Lithium]

@ZombieGenesis Penetrating, page 143 M&M main book 3rd edition.

I'm not saying they will always be hurt by it, but the potential is there. Rolling a 6 or higher is still a 25% chance of being hurt.

[ZombieGenesis]

No, that's not how penetrating works. It doesn't negate anything it just requires a check against the penetrating rank if the damage is less than the impervious amount (half the impervious rank).

I think you're using the term "being hurt" fairly liberally. He'll be hit with a rocket and be mildly annoyed (25% chance of being -1 on future damage checks).

Anyway, it's TOR time for me. For the record, I do see your points I just don't necessarily agree with them is all. All just a matter of opinion.

[Lithium]

@ZombieGenesis

Cut and paste from the book:

Your effect overcomes Impervious Resistance to a degree; the target must make a resistance check against an effect rank equal to your Penetrating rank. So, if a rank 4 (Penetrating 2) effect hits a target with Impervious 9, the target must resist a rank 2 effect (equal to the Penetrating rank). If the effect were rank 6, the target would have to resist the full effect anyway, since its rank is greater than half the Impervious rank. You cannot have a Penetrating rank greater than your effect rank.

So yes, it negates it.

EDIT: For formatting

Also, that -1 stacks. You can be overwhelmed by law rockets rather easily. Or Tanks. A bunch of tanks shooting at you and you'll go down rather quickly with Rank 9 penetrating 9, even if you are at Toughness 18 impervious because that -1 affects damage resistance, it /will/ eventually kill you.

[ZombieGenesis]

Again, I think this is an interpretation thing. I don't agree with how you are interpreting it. No where does it say the word negate. To me negate means it totally removes and penetrate does not. You still get a save, a full save.

You're also using the term "rather easily" very loosely. You'd have to have 16 people with law rockets to satisfy with the hero not fighting back I think.

Anyway, you have your way of looking at the game and devising your house rules thusly. Which is absolutely fine. I've just been expressing my own opinion on such things.

While all this has led to me deciding I won't be playing on the game I wish you well with it! I think the MU world really needs a few M&M games.

[Lithium]

@ZombieGenesis said:

Again, I think this is an interpretation thing. I don't agree with how you are interpreting it. No where does it say the word negate. To me negate means it totally removes and penetrate does not. You still get a save, a full save.

You're also using the term "rather easily" very loosely. You'd have to have 16 people with law rockets to satisfy with the hero not fighting back I think.

Anyway, you have your way of looking at the game and devising your house rules thusly. Which is absolutely fine. I've just been expressing my own opinion on such things.

While all this has led to me deciding I won't be playing on the game I wish you well with it! I think the MU world really needs a few M&M games.

Negate as in remove the Impervious not the toughness altogether.

So for example: Impervious Force Field is 2 points per rank. You buy it at Rank 12 for 24 points. Someone buys rank 6 attack with 3 points of penetrating for a total of 9 points. Those 3 points negate the imperviousness and thus they get a rank 3 attack on you.

Another example: 3 point gun with armor piercing (penetrating 3) bullets shoots a character with impervious 12 defenses. Instead of it bouncing, all 3 points get through. Admittedly you only need to roll a 6 to bounce it, but that's a 25% chance it doesn't bounce. So you've just paid an additional 12 points that were negated by 3 points spent by your opponent.

That is why it needs a bit of tweaking, either you need to have enough points in penetrating to completely defeat the impervious defense, or some other method needs to be used.

I haven't decided on a course of action yet, all I know is as it works in 3e by default, even the toughest characters aren't very tough compared to the source material.

I'm sorry to hear you won't even check it out when it's ready but good luck and have fun.

[Runescryer]

It's an easy enough fix. House Rule that Penetrating damage is resisted at DC 10+Rank. Then, the Toughness 12 character only suffers a bruised result on the roll of a 1, making the armor piercing bullets far less useful against Superman, but still pretty deadly to Batman.

[TNP]

Yeah, I don't really see any other way to interpret it without stretching things. I just read through it in 3E and that does seem to be the way it works. Generally, it's not a terribly horrible way of doing things but the problem is that it's very unthematic. Superman and the Hulk are not going to blink at any normal weapon, even an armor piercing one.

2E did it better where the Penetrating subtracted directly from Impervious. It also cost the same amount: +1 per rank. Maybe if it was how 2E worked at the cost of 3E since it's easier to get armor piercing rounds than impervious defenses (think teflon coated bullets and all the above mentioned weapons).

[JDCorley]

The only people complaining about the Marvel Heroic chargen never made a character with it and played it. Yeah, you can't min-max it; because the balancing is all in the initiative/action order mechanic, not on a character sheet.

Now, I suspect it might not be too useful for a MU* because the role of a dice system on a MU* is extremely variable and might not hit the sweet spot MHR is looking for (also where do you put the index cards and who keeps track of the Doom Pool?)

Mutants and Masterminds is easier than HERO and GURPS but that really isn't the end of the question. My question is: what's the purpose of the dice system going to be on this MU*? Plenty of superhero games exist and have existed without one. What does this bring to the table?

[Runescryer]

@JDCorley said:

The only people complaining about the Marvel Heroic chargen never made a character with it and played it. Yeah, you can't min-max it; because the balancing is all in the initiative/action order mechanic, not on a character sheet.

Now, I suspect it might not be too useful for a MU* because the role of a dice system on a MU* is extremely variable and might not hit the sweet spot MHR is looking for (also where do you put the index cards and who keeps track of the Doom Pool?)

Mutants and Masterminds is easier than HERO and GURPS but that really isn't the end of the question. My question is: what's the purpose of the dice system going to be on this MU*? Plenty of superhero games exist and have existed without one. What does this bring to the table?

Speaking only for myself, I prefer a dice system for a couple reasons.

1. Consistancy due to stated values. I know that comics have a history of 'flexible' powers (aka the Superman Strength Rule), but for me, it doesn;t make sense that someone struggling to lift a takner ship in one comic/episode, has the same struggle to push an incoming asteroid out of orbit the next comic/episode. Oh, I understand the idea of 'narrative drama' there, but the lack of consistancy still bugs me. And this inconsistancy runs over into superhero MU's quite easily where the power values are mostly narriative in their description rather than quantitative.

2. Randomization and Limits. Let's face it: in many super games, there are certain characters who can overpower and run roughshod over everything when it comes to narriative combat. Superman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter...the upper tier characters have to hold back in order to give other players the chance for some time in the spotlight. Having randomness gives a chance, however small, of something failing or going wrong, which adds drama and tension in pickup scenes instead of LOLSUPERMANWINS! Without the chance for failure, it's my experience that there are many players of the powerhouse characters who won't add such drama in a pickup scene unless forced to.

[Runescryer]

Another thought in the 'Impervious/Penetrating' debate...

So, the scanrio is: mook with a Damage 3 pistol loaded with Penetrating 3 rounds vs. Paragon with Impervious 12 Toughness 12...

When the Paragon is hit, Penetrating acts and requires a Resistance test vs 18 (15 standard + rank), The paragon succeeds on a roll of 6 (equal or greater is a success). That means that it's a roll of 1-5 that will cause a Bruise, leading to -1 Toughness on future Toughness rolls. That's a 25% chance of failure.

There are 10 turns in a minute. Regeneration 2 heals 2 levels of damage per minute, or 1 level of damage every 5 rounds. Assuming a 20% miss rate on the part of the mook (unlikely), this means that every 5 rounds, the Paragon will be hit 4 times, and 1 of those hit will cause a bruise. That's 2 buises per minute that will be soaked up by the Regeneration 2 power. So, for 2 points, the Paragon can overcome the advantage that is given by the 3 point investment in Penetrating.

[Thenomain]

[Lithium]

@JDCorley Because without dice there is nothing other than glorified cowboys and indians. There is nothing but consent. Consent is great for just telling stories, but there is /nothing/ nail biting or exciting about consent. There is nothing that gives any sense of achievement to consent. There is no risk, and without risk there can be no reward.

[Misadventure]

Dice are by far not the only way to make decisions be other than whim and petulance.

Bidding, hand/trump building, deck building, resource/outcome trading, resource use, asymmetric goal setting, asymmetric resolution are just a few, and each comes in many forms.

It's not all I win/lose, and people would do much better to see both their source material and their own enjoyment outside that false dichotomy.

[Runescryer]

@Misadventure said:

Dice are by far not the only way to make decisions be other than whim and petulance.

Bidding, hand/trump building, deck building, resource/outcome trading, resource use, asymmetric goal setting, asymmetric resolution are just a few, and each comes in many forms.

It's not all I win/lose, and people would do much better to see both their source material and their own enjoyment outside that false dichotomy.

This is true, but I think that superhero games, especially ones set in published universes, are a special case. There's two components to superhero players that you usually don't find in many other games. First, you have the love of certain characters; players choose them because these are their favorites. Many times, the players have loved these characters from a young age. The second aspect dovetails with the first almost perfectly: a sense of 'I can do better'. There's a great sense of dissatisfaction among most superhero gamers in regards towards how these beloved characters of theirs are being currently portrayed in comics. So, a great proportion of superhero gamers are trying to prove how much better they are at telling the stories of these characters than the writers of comic books. So, this leads to a greater amount of 'I must win all the time and suffer no setbacks' than in other games, IMO.

[Coin]

@Runescryer said:

@Misadventure said:

Dice are by far not the only way to make decisions be other than whim and petulance.

Bidding, hand/trump building, deck building, resource/outcome trading, resource use, asymmetric goal setting, asymmetric resolution are just a few, and each comes in many forms.

It's not all I win/lose, and people would do much better to see both their source material and their own enjoyment outside that false dichotomy.

This is true, but I think that superhero games, especially ones set in published universes, are a special case. There's two components to superhero players that you usually don't find in many other games. First, you have the love of certain characters; players choose them because these are their favorites. Many times, the players have loved these characters from a young age. The second aspect dovetails with the first almost perfectly: a sense of 'I can do better'. There's a great sense of dissatisfaction among most superhero gamers in regards towards how these beloved characters of theirs are being currently portrayed in comics. So, a great proportion of superhero gamers are trying to prove how much better they are at telling the stories of these characters than the writers of comic books. So, this leads to a greater amount of 'I must win all the time and suffer no setbacks' than in other games, IMO.

And yet superhero games are universally where I have seen the greatest amount of people being okay with losing as part of a narrative, compared to other games.

[Misadventure]

Weird. Eventual winning more or less comes with the territory, so clearly the fiction contains more than winning. Personality, mood and theme changes in a character and their setting.

It's like someone saying "I want to play a dungeon crawl, but where I am Superman" instead of saying well anything that relates to the actual hero. Comics might be a power fantasy, but I thought we outgrew that a teeny bit, eventually.

I wonder if reading some of the less fight oriented superhero RPGs would change anyone's approach? Smallville and Masks both focus on other elements while maintaining the usual kind of situations.

I think someone needs to redefine victory as "Character had interesting opportunities for expressing their character and themes, and potentially changing." Stories can be specifically about winning (overconfidence, the pyrrhic victory) and losing (the moral high ground, role of media, fights that should be lost), but that is by far not the strengths of characters with personalities and stories of their own.

[Arkandel]

@Coin said:

And yet superhero games are universally where I have seen the greatest amount of people being okay with losing as part of a narrative, compared to other games.

This could be (and it's conjecture on my part, I've very little experience playing in superhero games) because in the source material heroes and villains lose all the time. It's part of the narrative that consequences for defeat aren't that dire; you are knocked unconscious and the villain goes away cackling, or you're caught and put in a super-secure prison you'll break out of next week. No biggie.

In many games either defeat is followed by a fatality or at least people feel it will be and respond accordingly - which amounts to the same thing, drama. I don't know how many times I've seen some guy in a WoD game pick a fight at a bar and follow it up with spending willpower, all out damage. And while PKs are usually rare in actuality, the communal impression remains.

I dunno. Maybe that's partly the cause?

[Coin]

@Arkandel said:

@Coin said:

And yet superhero games are universally where I have seen the greatest amount of people being okay with losing as part of a narrative, compared to other games.

This could be (and it's conjecture on my part, I've very little experience playing in superhero games) because in the source material heroes and villains lose all the time. It's part of the narrative that consequences for defeat aren't that dire; you are knocked unconscious and the villain goes away cackling, or you're caught and put in a super-secure prison you'll break out of next week. No biggie.

In many games either defeat is followed by a fatality or at least people feel it will be and respond accordingly - which amounts to the same thing, drama. I don't know how many times I've seen some guy in a WoD game pick a fight at a bar and follow it up with spending willpower, all out damage. And while PKs are usually rare in actuality, the communal impression remains.

I dunno. Maybe that's partly the cause?

I doubt it, but I couldn't tell you why.

Edited to add: actually, I suspect it's because when playing superhero MUs, people are much more concerned about the actual narrative. This is by far a generalization as there are both attitudes in all genres, but I see it more in superhero games, especially those sans dice, where the story and consensus are, by far, the ruling factors.

I wonder if on XP games (like WoD) it would make a difference if letting someone live after a beat down got them XP (as some of the new rules in the actual books suggest) and killing another PC *cost * them XP. In a game where XP doesn't rain from the skype, PKing might just not be cost effective--but you can still beat the living shit out of someone.

[Arkandel]

@Coin said:

Edited to add: actually, I suspect it's because when playing superhero MUs, people are much more concerned about the actual narrative. This is by far a generalization as there are both attitudes in all genres, but I see it more in superhero games, especially those sans dice, where the story and consensus are, by far, the ruling factors.

I wonder if on XP games (like WoD) it would make a difference if letting someone live after a beat down got them XP (as some of the new rules in the actual books suggest) and killing another PC *cost * them XP. In a game where XP doesn't rain from the skype, PKing might just not be cost effective--but you can still beat the living shit out of someone.

I can't address the first point because I've no clue.

The second one... well, I doubt it, but that's because actual PKs are freakin' rare. People worry a ton about them but - no small part because it's such a shitstorm when they do occur - incentivizing players to keep other PCs alive might not change much, since it's the paranoia that does more damage here than the action itself. But maybe giving them thematic reasons to avoid it, in the way Uratha have about killing each other could help alleviate some of it. Maybe.

[Runescryer]

@Coin

It's certainly possible. Like I said, this has just been my experience, but I've been on places like Heroes Dreams. But again, YMMV