The 2 week spoiler timer needs to be posted front page if people are going to be shitty about people saying they were surprised.
It's not a consensus around the world, or around the internet. If you think its precious that someone not want spoilers you invite me to spoil things 24 hours later, because if you weren't there for the private prescreening, you should try harder.
JFC.
@Arkandel Here I was hoping you were referring to The Murderbot Diaries.
Or just remove speedster as one of the viable ideas.
Super Speed in DC Heroes is basically the magical concept of getting things done, and that's pretty much how everyone else uses it. And people will argue that while they can place their finger the same place a million times a second to melt or press through steel, at the same time they won't explain how they manage to breathe a million times faster but not use up the oxygen in the area. Applying any sort of "logic" to it doesn't work, it needs a writer to make it interesting and somehow challenge the speedster.
Watch Quicksilver in X-Men: First Class.
Watch Superman in Justice League.
Now how does anything ever challenge that level of speed? They have what ten, twenty times the actions of a usual game inside a single second where no one can perceive them, search every place and everyone for items and get prints and dna samples and read all of the known case history on a given issue at the same time?
I know its just fantasy, but people try to apply logic to it, and it's not just a slippery slope, it's a slippery cliff face. I worked with it for years, and a good player will restrain themselves, but the idea of being able to do everything faster than people can see is just a game breaker for being involved with anyone else, or presenting any challenge.
I'm still good with people having movement powers that can make any turn instantly, and super sonics speeds without creating sonic booms. It's just the idea of extra actions, and any logic linked to it.
@Ashen-Shugar I actually thought along those lines as well. I got what the OP was talking about, but I couldn't help but think about how immersion isn't really a thing, as you can't throw all the information at players to constantly remind them of the setting and its realities, physical, social, economic and so on.
Then I realized that if you think about immersion along the lines of a person sinking into water, you can say you are immersed, but you aren't a fish. We can do more to make you feel like you are a fish, but you won't be, and its all just illusion and willingness to focus on what is in the fiction over whats in the real world.
That worked well enough for me.
Meanwhile, things like current shared weather, population levels and what they are doing in this place at a given IC time are always helpful to me. I would love things that told me how cultures and groups are relating, what has the populaces attention, what am I hearing and seeing on the streets, all moderated by my skill levels and perhaps what my area/region/culture thinks is important to pay attention to. It's a lot of work and the emits get intrusive.
Consistency of context helps, by which I mean that the importance placed on a given thing is fairly consistant, so a character's actions are placed in context. I think that many games resort to its the end of the world because they don't know how to make lesser things seem universally important to players.
Is killing someone a big deal in a realistic modern suburbs setting? How about in a swords and sorcery setting? When you stand up for racial or cultural respect, are you in an 1830s England, 1950s US, or Federation of Planets setting?
@mr-johnson Actually, you can just post about it on your game.
Explain the goal, the positive thing you are trying to get others to join you in creating and maintaining. That will address the given player, and communicate your vision to all players including future ones.
1d6 RKA Autofire 0 End 1 Hex AoE No Range Mods Piercing X3 Continuing.
Players won't even want to sit through chargen. Atop that if anyone underestimates even one thing, they can be effectively powerless. And then there are all the "Don't Build This" examples.
Templates could work of course, but then you don't have all the flexibility, just a bunch of complex items that end up being the same.
How are special effects handled? Can my flame power light a candle? Use up the oxygen in a room? Boil water? Burn a costume/uniform? Can it be deflected with wind power? How about a flat surface? <--- This one is fun, every supers game doesn't really deal with it.
But really, what is it people want to DO with their supers? Are the powers important at all?
@lithium Yep, and I think that since it's for every character and every new power spend, it represents a task no one has time for. And because the players are mostly telling their own stories, they have to be able to emulate this sense of balance every time they make something new as well.
To give you an idea, I've had players act as guest GMs in a setting they had been playing in for years, with characters that had IC reason to know some of the behind the scenes truths, and they still directly went to exactly what wasn't a match. Multiply that by 30 players.
In my eyes, Hero System (Champions) is meant to let you describe your character in lots of detail, so you can play the super that you want to play. The GM is then tasked with creating interesting mixes of foes that will challenge and entertain the players despite their potentially massive power level differences and weaknesses.
(Getting rid of Speed is always a good idea, that way everyone gets a turn, and no one has a multiplier to the value of their movement, attack and recovery powers.)
I would say that you would want to use the approach that Mutants & Masterminds does, where the power level of attacks and defenses are assumed to be set to some value, and that you can make a few tradeoffs to move those values up or down. However, M&M uses a d20 for resolution, and powers and defenses modifiy that result on a 1:1 basis, which makes those tradeoffs seem to be about even. Hero uses 3d6, and more D6, vs set numbers, so trade offs are very tricky to calculate, and due to the system details easy to mitigate the trade off.
Champions CAN be balanced. By hand, for every game.
@mr-johnson The first question really is: what do you want your players to DO with their time associated with this game?
The usual answer is something like "tell stories, use the system to get on the same page, use system and culture to create and resolve the stakes of a given story".
Almost ALL superhero games are just combat games. They will talk about other aspects and have IP associated with storytelling (comics, television shows and movies and novels), but it's rare that the system really makes anything other than fighting worth tracking.
Then you can ask why do you want people to be on equal footing? Are they spotlight hogs? Prone to fighting it out whenever they disagree on anything? Those aren't system solvable. Those are player problems.
Some games (Such as Smallville, City of Mists, Masks, and sorta almost Aberrant) try to dig into some sort of mechanics about being a hero/super/meta. Some (sentai games really) dig into teamwork as necessary, but that's almost always back to ... combat. And I will admit, if the system allows for superhuman intelligence, personal influence, and skill, really, how is anything but combat a challenge?
This may sound like it's totally undoable, but I'm really asking about what you want the players to be doing, and be concerned with, then think about what will help with that. I can tell you right now that every build a super game out there can be abused, and even just basic knowledge of what works will overwhelm players who don't know how the system works out.
I say this as someone who has played decades of Hero System, where you end up realizing that its ALL about what the GM and players agree to, not what the system says.
I personally like the freedom to design what I want to see at a competent level for a super being. Street level games really should be designed to allow granularity at humanish levels of tech, ability, and powers.
@jennkryst For changing target numbers, the usual easiest way (but more detail to track) is something that reduces penalties for harder than average tasks. I usually recommend that a negative modifier not be reduced below half (but round down).
Example: In a system where you add skill to a roll to beat a target number (lets say 2d10 with +10 being well trained and experienced, +15 being elite, +20 being a world-class master) you might list someone as +13/4, meaning they get to add 13 to the 2d10 roll, AND they can cut any negative modifiers in half up to shaving off 4 difficulty for a -8 or worse modifier. So range, size of target, injuries, uncertain ballistic performance of an old and untried weapon, partial cover, moving targets, etc all are partially canceled.
Or you can go nuts, and have a scope and a penalty reducing skill that deals with long range shooting, something else for picking a good (critical) target, one for dealing with movement prediction and timing, a skill to ignore wounds when firing (or in general), etc etc etc. I like details. However, +13/4 is pretty easy to remember.
Dice are dice, and there are more ways to apply them than just read the numbers off them. An example is having a set skill value, and havinf the die roll determine what percentage of that total (upper limit) value you apply to the situation. That way everyone has the same bell curve, but their skill ratings matter.
I believe Silver Age Sentinels used that idea, applying 50/75/100% of damage. This gets around the issue that 5d6 will roll near the upper values far more often than 10d6 will roll those same numbers but X2. This is why hero System has to watch Killing Attacks, which cost 3X as much, but can roll higher totals, and will do so more often than equivalent cost in regular attacks.
Otherwise, I prefer a roll and keep system, especially paired with the ability to "spend" the result on specific flavors of success.
Another is to approach the story as having a large cast of characters and cast the players as roles in the scenes where things are happening.
You could allow the same character to be played by the same player every time, but it still diffuses the self investment some.
Ars Magica did this, where you had 1 Mage you could play, and when your Mage was busy, you could play your Companion (heroic non-mage), and everyone could take turns (or not) playing all the support NPCs that were associated with the Chantry.
I really think the answer is a step beyond just rewarding failure, you literally need to make failure critical (from an OOC point of view) to progress. The protagonists have setbacks. If they were never outside their comfort zone, we wouldn't care.
@thenomain I believe what I need is a giant robotic artillary platform in the form of a giant Mountie fighting the PAX Corp in the Maple Leaf Zone.
With Manny Moe and Jack unit icons. And the robot has big tail fins, and chrome.
@rizbunz It needs more commercial icons than the Hardboiled comic.
What was Canada's advertising and government presentation like in the 40s-60s?
How would Organized Crime and local Crime figures who present as upper class get represented? They are neither here nor there in either neighborhood.
Just something to think about.
I think what I am saying is I appreciate the visions, and the efforts of those who create these games, whether or not I am in the audience who finds the final product.
@Apos
@faraday
@Lotherio
@Cobaltasaurus
That list is ultra short, as I have no memory, or in many cases, no knowledge of who it was that drove a game into creation. Or I don't know their name here.
Please tell me more names of folks who have a vision of their game, and they drive it, make sure it comes into being and drive the stories and set examples of what they see for others to emulate. You can tell who they are not in the beginning necessarily, but in the end, when they leave their creation.
I also appreciate those who support and help nurture these projects. The coders, the player story tellers, the grid descers and playtesters.
This is from Penny-Arcade.
"Cory Barlog, the Director on the new God of War, posted a video of himself checking the Metacritic for the game. It’s like an unboxing video, but for the potential of the human spirit.
I had a sense what the video would actually be about before I started it, and ultimately time would prove it correct: it’s not personal in any way. it’s the relief of having lead people through a very hard place and, with the number in front of him, having independently verifiable proof that their trust had not been misplaced. He did not lead them astray. Until he saw that, he didn’t know himself."
Think about that as a game designer. He has dozens of talented people, researchers, scores of support, and a powerful gaming platform or two to work with. And still, in the end, he can't know if it will be good in the publics eyes
Now think about trying that with a MU*, with this audience.
You have to be somewhat mono-visionary about it when you work to create something with direction, and then it has to find an audience.
After a certain amount consumed at once, parts of your liver shut down and accrue damage as the poisons aren't being processed. Drink enough often and it happens fast.