Limitation Boondoggles?

[Dust Raven]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Just to be clear' date=' you're saying that the Lims come up roughly in equal portions according to value (assumings like set limitations of -1/2 come up 1in 3 sessions, all that)? Like I said, the point wasn't the specific lims so much as the issue - but that can be a legit answer, that they are fine.[/quote']

 

Pretty much, though it's not as cut and dry as a 1 out of 3 anything. It will vary from Limitation to Limitation, Power to Power and campaign to campaign.

 

Of course, there is always the possibility that the GM will make the mistake of forgetting the importance of some Limitations and effectively give a character free points.

[zornwil]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Pretty much, though it's not as cut and dry as a 1 out of 3 anything. It will vary from Limitation to Limitation, Power to Power and campaign to campaign.

 

Of course, there is always the possibility that the GM will make the mistake of forgetting the importance of some Limitations and effectively give a character free points.

Sure, for sake of a systemic view I'm just assuming the GM "plays by the rules" (so to speak).

 

I hope everyone will forgive my lack of forthright statement on the matter. I wanted to read more - and you've all provided that. It's appreciated.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Of all the limitations, Activation is the only one (I can think of right now) that doesn't really give the GM any opportinity to "exploit." The guy has lots of charges? Send him on an extended adventure where he can't replentish them. The guy has "Doesn't work in X circumstance"? The GM can make sure X circumstance happens. etc. But with Activation, the die roll is the die roll. The GM can't really fudge that.

 

I am not much for activation rolls because I find too many activation rolls slows down gameplay. I generally find it easier and more dramatic for the GM to decide when an activation roll fails. In some cases I find the activation roll limitation a useful guideline for a power that always works except when it suits the plot for it not to (the primary example of this is when I have a group of dimension travellers whose EDM always works except when I need them to be trapped in some peculiar dimension and find another way out). Of course this treatment of activation rolls makes them again dependent on the GM instead of the more pure randomized variety' date=' but if it makes for better gameplay, who cares?[/quote']

Or can they?

[Dust Raven]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Of all the limitations, Activation is the only one (I can think of right now) that doesn't really give the GM any opportinity to "exploit." The guy has lots of charges? Send him on an extended adventure where he can't replentish them. The guy has "Doesn't work in X circumstance"? The GM can make sure X circumstance happens. etc. But with Activation, the die roll is the die roll. The GM can't really fudge that.

 

 

Or can they?

 

As I GM, I have the right to decide the result of any random roll rather than actually rolling. So I can, at will, simply state that the Power fails to activate any time I want, no roll needed.

[incrdbil]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

But with Activation, the die roll is the die roll. The GM can't really fudge that.

 

 

Or can they?

 

It depends on the activation fx, among other things. If the device is based on finicky, unreliable technology, levels of maintenance, an absence of parts (or the temporary use of higher quality parts) could modify that. If the activation is based on a characters inexperience, blind luck, or taking extra time or concentraion could be a rationale to modify it--or distractions on some other disturbance to the character could be the rationale for a penalty.

 

But as for undoing the effects of a roll--its hard to justify undoing what the player blatantly rolls at times. Maybe the GM could roll the activation rolls .

[zornwil]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

As I GM' date=' I have the right to decide the result of any random roll rather than actually rolling. So I can, at will, simply state that the Power fails to activate any time I want, no roll needed.[/quote']

Sure, but that does abrogate, in the case of Activation, an agreement that one would not expect to be terminated in such a manner. I would certainly ask a GM why he's decreeing my Activation roll failed despite its actual result, and I think it'd be a pretty heavy-handed way of playing, short of some other related disadvantages to the power or some sort of specific SFX issue.

[Mike W]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

My take on Limitations has always been pretty simple:

 

1. Any attempt to say "a -1/2 limit makes the power 1/3 less effective" and the like simply doesn't work. Sure, in theory, it's SUPPOSED to work like that, but really, it doesn't. I mean, for one thing, you quickly get into diminishing returns, especially after -1(Once you get to -1, which makes the power 1/2 as effective, in theory anyway, you need ANOTHER -1 limit to reduce it to 1/3 the effectiveness which in and of itself saves you about 1/3 of the points that the first -1 limit did). Also, there are too many variables like campaign style, genre conventions, and the like for them to really work out. After all, it makes sense to buy power armor OIF, but in the comics, it just doesn't limit you 1/3 of the time. The same logic that says a -1/2 limit should reduce the effectiveness by 1/3 would also mean that multipower slots past the first one or two should be only 10-20 percent effective, since you're getting such a huge cost break for them, but we know that isn't true. And as we've often said on this board points do not equal effectiveness. I would argue that that can just as easily apply to individual powers as individual characters. Sure more points will generally equate to more power, but not always. 6D6EB AOE line and 12D6 EB cost the same ponts, but which one is better? Well, the first one is great for agents, but useless against supers. The second one is good against supers and can work against agents, but not as effectively as the AOE would. Given the choice though, most of us would take the 12D6 EB over the AOE.

 

2. Limitations are more like flavor, and certain ones just make sense for certain powers or character types. As long as the overall character balances, you're fine. Sure, this will make certain power sets "more powerful" than others, but that will happen no matter what you do. You could ban all limitations and frameworks and some characters would still come out more powerful for the same points. It's just the nature of the beast. Just try to rank limits based around natural progression and what we have now and go from there.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

There is more to the limitation of a...well...limtiation than how often it effects the character.

 

A character may have a focus with most of his powers in it, or at least some really important ones, and, if it gets taken away, the character simply can not compete with other characters of a similar power level in a straight fight. Now even though it is an OAF, there is no way I would rule that means that the character should not have access to the OAF half of the time. You have to factor in not just frequency but consequences.

 

To re-plough the activation roll furrow, generally, IME, activation rolls are far more potentially devastating if applied to constant powers than instant ones. It is a shame if your grenade does not go off, it is a disaster if your life support cuts out.

 

It is virtually impossible to properly assess a limitation value simply because there are any number of factors involved, not least of which are individual play style, campaign, house rules, the enemies you are facing, etc, etc, etc.

 

Assigning a limitation value is always more of an art than a science, and, like art the world over, people are going to argue about its value, and everyone is going to have a different picture hanging on their living room wall.

 

You know what I mean.

 

I'm thinking the 'Limited; table should look more like this:

 

-¼ Occasional inconvenience

-½ Frequent inconvenience or occasional problem

-1 Constant inconvenience, frequent problem or occasional bloody nuisance

 

I'd leave 'occasional, frequent and constant' and 'inconvenience, problem and bloody nuisace' definitions up to the GM rather than try and define them numerically, and I'd only really bother sweating over a value if either:

 

1. I was running a game it was going to be used in, or

2. It was going into official material as canon

[OddHat]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

I'm thinking the 'Limited; table should look more like this:

 

-¼ Occasional inconvenience

-½ Frequent inconvenience or occasional problem

-1 Constant inconvenience, frequent problem or occasional bloody nuisance

 

I'd leave 'occasional, frequent and constant' and 'inconvenience, problem and bloody nuisace' definitions up to the GM rather than try and define them numerically, and I'd only really bother sweating over a value if either:

 

1. I was running a game it was going to be used in, or

2. It was going into official material as canon

 

That's good. I'll rep when I can.

[Vorsch]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

As I GM' date=' I have the right to decide the result of any random roll rather than actually rolling. So I can, at will, simply state that the Power fails to activate any time I want, no roll needed.[/quote']

 

Does this mean you roll all players activation rolls?

 

How about attack rolls? Damage rolls?

 

Seems a very heavy handed play style, one i imagine could upset certain players.

 

If i suceed a activation roll on my mega blast and KO the bad guy before the Gms ready for him to fall thats the GMs problem not mine and i would feel cheated if it was handwaved away.

 

Not trying to be contentious, just my feeling on the subject.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

As I GM' date=' I have the right to decide the result of any random roll rather than actually rolling. So I can, at will, simply state that the Power fails to activate any time I want, no roll needed.[/quote']

 

I agree with Vorsch on this one. If you are going to decide when an activation roll succeeds or fails, will you also decide when To Hit rolls succeed and fail, that the damage roll was realy not below or above average, that a successful skill roll actually failed or a failed roll actually succeeded, etc.?

 

To me, the random rolls are there to adjudicate success and failure in an unbiased non-arbitrary fashion. If the GM simply makes all the calls, we go back to cowboys and indians in the playground. "I shot you; you're ead".

[zornwil]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

There is more to the limitation of a...well...limtiation than how often it effects the character.

 

A character may have a focus with most of his powers in it, or at least some really important ones, and, if it gets taken away, the character simply can not compete with other characters of a similar power level in a straight fight. Now even though it is an OAF, there is no way I would rule that means that the character should not have access to the OAF half of the time. You have to factor in not just frequency but consequences.

 

To re-plough the activation roll furrow, generally, IME, activation rolls are far more potentially devastating if applied to constant powers than instant ones. It is a shame if your grenade does not go off, it is a disaster if your life support cuts out.

 

It is virtually impossible to properly assess a limitation value simply because there are any number of factors involved, not least of which are individual play style, campaign, house rules, the enemies you are facing, etc, etc, etc.

 

Assigning a limitation value is always more of an art than a science, and, like art the world over, people are going to argue about its value, and everyone is going to have a different picture hanging on their living room wall.

 

You know what I mean.

 

I'm thinking the 'Limited; table should look more like this:

 

-¼ Occasional inconvenience

-½ Frequent inconvenience or occasional problem

-1 Constant inconvenience, frequent problem or occasional bloody nuisance

 

I'd leave 'occasional, frequent and constant' and 'inconvenience, problem and bloody nuisace' definitions up to the GM rather than try and define them numerically, and I'd only really bother sweating over a value if either:

 

1. I was running a game it was going to be used in, or

2. It was going into official material as canon

Just as a brief comment, I agree with your values as guidelines.

[zornwil]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

I raised this point, as I said earleir, out of curiousity what people would say on the whole.

 

I think the consensus implies that the Limitations constitute one of the least quantified areas of the system in actual use, in terms of assigning any hard level of occurrence and criticality against the values assigned to them. No shock there, of course.

 

I really liked the commentary by some regarding viewing the Lims holistically, and especially in terms of suggestions made to create that bridge from the values to the game experience, what with looking at numbers of points in Lims and so on. What I find particularly meaningful about it is that it well supplements the book, which, in ALL editions, hasn't really addressed the topic in this way and by implication, accidentally, leads many, I think, to view the Lims only on the micro per-power basis. These suggestions and more exploration could make a great Digital Hero article or even a free resource to players to download from the site.

 

Anyway, this macro-vs-micro (if you will) exploration really also exposes, to me, that while Lims might be balanced on the individual level of powers, the real potential abuse, aside from tactical tricks we all know and love, level lies in the min-maxing of Lims to the point where a character is built on tons of points from Lims and those Lims are distributed enough in effect that it's difficult for any one circumstance to really impair the character compared to his effectiveness. At best, he's a little impaired all the time, which would be fair but may or may not be balanced if we're talking about a character with an unusually high number of points from Lims; at worst, he's a munchkin wherein it's "perfectly balanced" in the weeds.

 

This also, to me, highlights some sort of need for Lims to be somehow thematic or otherwise work in such a way that when taken on the whole a given circumstance affects some significant portion of the character or the character truly is always "a little impaired". For example, really take a look at a character who has a scattering of Lims such as "only vs. demons," "only in heat," "only vs magnetics," and so on, along with a scattering of the more quantifiable lims (activation, charges, etc.) as it may be that the character is really a perfect jack of all trades and can rise above any circumstances, not a good balance if the character is getting back a ton of points. Now, on the other hand, if a character is built on a large smattering of the quantified lims (as aforementioned), probaby not so bad as his "theme' is that "something goes wrong somewhere every game," and it's fairly self-enforcing.

 

So the real boondoggle, if there is one, is with that construction of array of Lims, the composition of those Lims across many powers. Approaches as earlier discussed by looking at the total points from Lims and the types thereof will help a lot in diagnosing the relative balance/effectiveness of characters.

[Storn]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

It's even more of an issue for Constant Power, which must make that roll every phase. Imagine having an Act 14- on your Flight. How often are you going to be using it for extended travel? For high altitute maneuvers?

 

Neil and I talked ftf about this the other day.

 

I would like to point out that Limitations are not only mechanical limitations.... but Player "Govenors & Predictors."

 

If I have Flight Act: 14- because I have "prototype jump boots".... I will be pretty damn sure to stay close to the ground and use my Flight for quick, short bursts of getting around. I, as the player, has LIMITED myself in PLAY. My character Vector has had Flight of 0 end for years.... he floats around while doing household chores. He has flown over oceans. I, as the player, do not limit myself with Flight with Vector.

 

If I have Armor Act: 11-... and it is my only armor... I"m not going to be running up to the frontline like a Brick would... unless I bought the DisAd: Deathwish.

 

If I have EB: Doesn't work vs. Fire.... then I won't even bother when confronted by Firestorm, the living Flame. And I might not bother when confronted by Smouldering the HazeMan... Smouldering is NOT on fire... but his sfx is Heat... how nitpicky do I make my GM be? See? I just limited myself again. I've put myself in this place of not even trying to roll the dice.

 

I agree with Neil. Our criteria for a 1/2 limitation is a 1/3 game sessions event is based on 80's comic book trope and early 80's rpg game theory. This was their way of saying "HEY!!! GIRLS AND BOYS! POSSIBLE PLOT HOOK!!! LOOK, LOOK!!!" It was a way of SUGGESTING complications and plot hooks for players. It shouldn't be a rule or some kinda yardstick.

 

And it worked. I was blown away by disadvantages and limitations when I came upon Danger International from D&D. Here is where I said; "a hero is defined more by his limitations than his strengths".

 

But we've come quite some ways since then. In fact, Silver Age Sentinels's term "Complications" {and I think Fuzion tried it too}... is a better term than "Limitations". Just in terminology. "Complications" drive story. "Limitations" curtail Players.

 

And mechanically, I think Mutants and Masterminds of just adding and subtracting pts (for advantages/limitations) instead of all the division is more ELEGANT than what we have in Hero.

 

But Hero is the basis for M&M and SAS... lets never kid ourselves. There wouldnt' be M&M and SAS or even Necessary Evil, w/o Champions.

[Storn]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Zorn.

 

I think it is a matter of scale.

 

I think M&M's complications/ advantages of few points either way doesn't upset the scale. It is a savings of a shave.

 

But ECs, Multipowers, OIHID, OAFs... these are point savings of enormous amounts of points. It isn't that they exist... it is that they are so efficient. A character could have hundreds of "hidden" points.

 

It is my opinion that Hero needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Not more and more tricks added to the creaky foundation. And it is creaky. 10 years ago, Supers were strongly suggested to start at 250 pts. Now, it is 350 pts. But a skill is still 3 pts.

 

At 350 pts, I can come up EASILY with a viable, interesting, dynamic character with a 120 STR.... I still have 230 pts to play with! And in our game, the highest strength is 90 or 100 and that is a character who has been around for a decade plus.... but I could eclipse him with a beginning noob super... (not that Neil would necessarily let me...but I could try).

 

We've been playing Necessary Evil. The power constructs are somewhat more open and interpertive than Hero. One can take limitations on the powers as well... but no one did except Neil's Cannonball character who has shotputs and they have the equivalent of OAF limitation in NE.

 

I think it is very interesting that no one came up with concepts that NEEDED limitations on their powers. Now, my ice character has an Advantage to on Energy Control: Ice to imply Ice like SFX... but no disadvantage. No, doesn't work vs. fire... in fact rules are written right in the power construct dealing with that issue of opposite forces...

[zornwil]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Zorn.

 

I think it is a matter of scale.

 

I think M&M's complications/ advantages of few points either way doesn't upset the scale. It is a savings of a shave.

 

But ECs, Multipowers, OIHID, OAFs... these are point savings of enormous amounts of points. It isn't that they exist... it is that they are so efficient. A character could have hundreds of "hidden" points.

 

It is my opinion that Hero needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Not more and more tricks added to the creaky foundation. And it is creaky. 10 years ago, Supers were strongly suggested to start at 250 pts. Now, it is 350 pts. But a skill is still 3 pts.

 

At 350 pts, I can come up EASILY with a viable, interesting, dynamic character with a 120 STR.... I still have 230 pts to play with! And in our game, the highest strength is 90 or 100 and that is a character who has been around for a decade plus.... but I could eclipse him with a beginning noob super... (not that Neil would necessarily let me...but I could try).

 

We've been playing Necessary Evil. The power constructs are somewhat more open and interpertive than Hero. One can take limitations on the powers as well... but no one did except Neil's Cannonball character who has shotputs and they have the equivalent of OAF limitation in NE.

 

I think it is very interesting that no one came up with concepts that NEEDED limitations on their powers. Now, my ice character has an Advantage to on Energy Control: Ice to imply Ice like SFX... but no disadvantage. No, doesn't work vs. fire... in fact rules are written right in the power construct dealing with that issue of opposite forces...

I have Necessary Evil, haven't gotten to reading it yet, kind of got bogged down in reading GURPS (GURPS will do that to you...man, talk about minutiae).

 

Also, been busy on my own game stuff.

 

To your point, I found construction in M&M similar; one doesn't tend to take drawbacks.

 

However, in NE, was this a matter in some part of scale, i.e., a lack of granularity (not a bad thing, just different)?

 

Are you suggesting, by the way, that HERO pretty heavily encourages Lims, to the point where people are building them in whether truly needed or not? I just want to be clear on your point. It's an interesting one - I agree you don't see that sort of thing so much in other games. But then other games also don't tend to be so granular.

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

One thing: it is about making it user friendly...

If I saw activation rolls written up literally...

14- written as a -1/10 limitation (or even worse, a -.102) I would have stopped playing Hero. Much easier for everyone to keep it at 1/4 steps.

 

BTW: For those interested MinMaxers- here are the point cost to occurence differences... a negative value meaning it is that much cheaper than the statistcal value. Positive means it costs MORE than the statistical value. Obviously, 14- is a GREAT deal....

 

+07.41% 8-

+02.50% 9-

-5.56% 10-

-12.50% 11-

-16.93% 12-

-24.07% 14-

-15.37% 15-

[Storn]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Are you suggesting, by the way, that HERO pretty heavily encourages Lims, to the point where people are building them in whether truly needed or not? I just want to be clear on your point. It's an interesting one - I agree you don't see that sort of thing so much in other games. But then other games also don't tend to be so granular.

 

I'm not saying it is good or bad... but, yeah, Hero encourages to take Limitations and makes NECESSARY to take Disadvatages.

 

AS for NE or M&M... I think one can have really powerful, viable supers w/o a lot of number crunching. I tend to like highly skilled and well rounded characters... I have interests in many things... so should my PCs. It *FEELS* to me like I can do more with my powers and skills in those other systems than in Hero. That the powers themselves are more complete. I can do more with less.

 

Now, I still love Hero... love to play it, not so much fun to GM for me. So the above paragraph is not a slam... just different sports cars analogies.

 

I think Limitations and Disadvantages are linked philosophically in Hero. YOu get something for having drawbacks. And they are PROMPTS for GM and player... notifications on the character sheet to Govern and Predict PC behavior.

 

Mechanically, they are a bit different from each other... but they both have overlap in use.

 

In Burning Wheel, you have Beliefs, Instincts and Traits. They are pretty much like Ads & Disads. You get Artha pts (their Hero/Bennie/Fate pts) by working those "BITs" into the story. So almost by definition, a negative Trait... (ex; Wanted by the Law, or Cowardly) are going to get worked in more often than positive ones (Handsome)... because stories are about conflict.

 

A handsome PC who is a letch is going to drive a lot of story. His face will get him in and outta trouble. A handsome PC who is a wall flower is going to need more prompting. Both are totally viable character concepts... but the one who is putting out there on the line... is going to get more opportunities to garner Artha/resource pts.

 

I've glanced at M&M 2nd ed. And they've changed their Hero pts rules. In 1st ed, you started with 5 (more if you had Add'l Feats). Now, it is much more like Burning Wheel. You start out with 1 Hero pt. For Complications and Setbacks, you get Hero pts. So, by playing out your "disads" and "limitations" you get a reward of Resource.

 

I'm very comfortable with that kind of mechanic. I think it really, REALLY emulates comic books. Peter Parker being put into detention because he was saving the a cabbie from falling off the Brooklyn Bridge, that then makes Spider-Man late to the Sinister Six's throwdown with the Fantastic Four at Rockefeller Square... that IS a comic book.

 

Having a couple of extra Hero pts comes in handy when Mr. Fantastic is knocked out and high school science nerd Parker has to figure out the geniustastic macguffin device that will strip the Sinister Six's combino-form's powers.

 

Or put another way... by taking a setback now, the player gets a resource and a mechanical enforceable spotlight later.

 

Getting back to Power Limitations, this philosophy of the Limitation is there to drive story... not to save pts... is interesting to me. I think that is where the emphais should be. I recently took a limitation on a mUlti slot that saved me NO pts, just because I WANTED the power curtailed.

 

silly example time: Moongod's +40 STR Only at Night lim is now to drive story. Not to make him uber cost effective. Moongod is more powerful at night. More confident. By doing adventures during the day...when it is more risky to Moongod... mayhap a Hero pt or two will come his way.

[Storn]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Let me also add... I think the switch in philosophy to accepting a Setback (and getting a reward) takes away the sting of when GMs Do Bad Things To Your Character.

 

It fosters GM/Player cooperation and communication. It helps break down that advesarial realtionship that many games, including some of my own, can suffer from.

[zornwil]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

10 years ago' date=' Supers were strongly suggested to start at 250 pts. Now, it is 350 pts. But a skill is still 3 pts. (snipped) [/quote']

 

BTW, to this point, I was fairly vocal against the 350 step up when it happened. I'm ho-hum about it now, I have mixed feelings. In any case, I have a feeling that in some large part this was done specifically to encourage builds which allowed for broader power sets and therefore could compete on the source material end with the higher-powered supers of today but also to compete, on the game level, with the designs coming out which emphasize the broader and looser power constructions. (PS - and I don't think this works well on that level, if that's the approach, the inherent workings of HERO don't lend to "here's more points" to fix such things)

 

One thing I'd really like to see in 6th is a real approach towards "power stunts," as they're now called, but more generally I mean flexibility in power without serious points crunching. Then again, maybe it can't really be done without rewriting the system. Even in that case, any such rewrite, I'd believe, should not detract from the granularity of the system...which such broad/loose constructs don't fit well! So it's a challenging dilemma.

 

To this dialogue, one of the directions I've sworn to take with Cyber Ninja Pirates in Space/Sorta Swashbuckling Universal System is to create the background system documentation as a toolkit, with explicit instructions on how to build your own game from it, and with specific insight as to how Cyber Ninja Pirates was built with it. I probably will give the system away as a PDF and sell the game, to the extent possible (I'm really not about to whore out my gaming interests, so not sure exactly, probably will provide some sort of freebie version of CNP because I tknow the market is tiny and I am an unknown voice, so I want to get it out there, so likely some sort of "crappy" PDF version and a nice print-on-demand version via Lulu or such - I could take the plunge and really print a bunch myself, I could ultimately afford it, but I would probably end up with a lot of books taking up basement space...I don't know if RDU Neil shared anything with you of the first pass at the game, but it's improved a lot since then...and will improve a lot more, I swear it will be cool!)

[Lamrok]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

This is inspired by another thread.

 

Okay, so we all know that a 14- Activation means success just over 90% of the time (or at least we can easily look it up! ). 8 Charges manages to defeat both END cost AND is very often going to be adequate for a fight, especialy in a team setting. We know that the rules say a -1/2 lim affects a character roughly 1/3rd of the time, but these, among others, defy that logic.

 

Do you care? Why do you think the system encourages this? Or are these values entirely fair? Why? Curious what people think.

 

First, I'd like to point out that some of this is a matter of GM vs player perception. When I played The Troll in your game, several of his powers were based on charges. In about one third to half of the sessions, he ended the session severely depleted or out of charges (if he didn't use all of his charges, I felt I hadn't played him to his potential). This was exciting, and part of the design, but it wasn't something to make a big deal out of. When charges were gone, it was just a sign that tactics had to be changed. I'd mention it when it happened, but I don't think anyone else ever really noticed, and I wouldn't be surprised if you weren't aware it was happening.

 

In a way, taking the charges lim is betting that combat won't go past a certain point. If the amount of combat in a session doesn't exceed the charges threshhold, the player wins. If it exceeds it by a large amount, the player loses (though as has been previously mentioned, these types of losses often make memorable sessions so they can often be seen as tactical losses but role-playing wins.)

 

I personally think that activation rolls and "Requires Skill Roll" lims are seriously muddled, but at this point in my experience with Hero, I see this is symptomatic of a fetishistic focus on complexity for the sake of complexity, rather than a discrete issue to be addressed. I can still build the characters I want, and keep them legal, even if it means jumping through unnecessarily silly rules to do so.

[Springald Jack]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Continuing on a couple of points:

 

One thing that is interesting about Limitations is that they provide Quantitative Rewards for players at the cost of Subjective Cost during game play. Hard points are saved, quantifiably greater ability is on the character sheet... at the cost of subjective, story driven, often view as arbitrary penalties during game play.

 

 

This to me is problem thinking. For me a good role-playing game is about the World and the events. A rules engine whether HERO or something else is a tool which is subservient to the groups desire to emulate this world. So the "subjective" costs are far more real than points. After all the characters understand what "my power ring doesn't work on yellow things" means but not about points.

 

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am of the firm opinion that "game balance" is ultimately a myth game designers and players tell each other rather than a meaningful thing.

[Gary]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Activation Roll would be nice and balanced if you simply extended the chart logically.

 

11- (-1)

12- (-3/4)

13- (-1/2)

14- (-1/4)

15- (-0)

 

14- only has a -1/2 because of its legacy from 1st Edition.

[zornwil]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

Activation Roll would be nice and balanced if you simply extended the chart logically.

 

11- (-1)

12- (-3/4)

13- (-1/2)

14- (-1/4)

15- (-0)

 

14- only has a -1/2 because of its legacy from 1st Edition.

Hey, I thought you'd gone forever! Nice to see you back!

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Limitation Boondoggles?

 

You're back, after nearly six months!