Everything's a Power

[GamePhil]

I've been considering the idea of simply going all the way back to basics and eliminating everything but Powers from the game, and having anything and everything bought up from scratch.

 

Aside from that would make the game too complicated and just, "WHY?!", which I freely admit are potential difficulties, what would be the problems with something like this?

 

Yes, they called me mad. I admit that I would probably never do this for real, but it's like theoretical math: you never know when it will miraculously have a practical application.

 

One of the new Powers would be Skill, and would have a specific cost structure for all Skills. For example, 1 point gets you 8-, 2 gets you 11-, specialties cost 1 point each after the first. There would also be Perk.

 

Talents are already Powers in 5ER.

 

Most of the Characteristics would be Powers. In order to make this work, either everyone would start with a base level of these (you can lift X KG and can buy it up), or they would start with nothing and have to buy the base level before proceeding (X points allows you to lift 1 KG, then double every X points thereafter).

 

My first is the damage-taking characteristics. What are we really buying when we take these? Do they have any meaning beyond beyond a measure of how much damage we can take before unconsciousness or death? Do they need any to be separate Powers?

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

I've been considering the idea of simply going all the way back to basics and eliminating everything but Powers from the game' date=' and having anything and everything bought up from scratch.[/quote']Weirdly, I've been toying with that idea recently too...

One of the new Powers would be Skill, and would have a specific cost structure for all Skills. For example, 1 point gets you 8-, 2 gets you 11-, specialties cost 1 point each after the first. There would also be Perk.

I'm not even sure whether I'd have a Power called Skill or not. I might just make 'em limited Powers. For example, Stealth could be limited Invisibility, Acrobatics could be limited Flight, Conversation could be limited Mind Control, Climbing could be limited Clinging, etc.

My first is the damage-taking characteristics. What are we really buying when we take these? Do they have any meaning beyond beyond a measure of how much damage we can take before unconsciousness or death? Do they need any to be separate Powers?

To they extent they have a meaning other than just "stuff we mark off when we take damage," I'd say that BODY relates to physical mass, and STUN relates to pain tolerance (and secondarily, also to mass).

 

Although things like "will to live" can enter the picture in the case of living beings, BODY generally equates to mass. 2x mass gives +1 BODY, and I think anything with a physical form should have a BODY score.

 

For STUN, I'd think that only beings with the ability to feel and react to pain would have STUN. So to some extent, how much STUN you have indicates how much pain you can tolerate before passing out.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

My first is the damage-taking characteristics. What are we really buying when we take these? Do they have any meaning beyond beyond a measure of how much damage we can take before unconsciousness or death? Do they need any to be separate Powers?

 

When I was looking at characteristics, these are the numbers that the players interface with the game. They are mechanic specific numbers that we have imbued with some meaning to make them fit but they are just markers.

 

What is STUN? When you are below 0 STUN then you are, unconcious in game terms. There is no work up to this, it does not matter if you have 100 STUN or 1 STUN - binary state.

 

What is BODY? When you are at -10 BODY you are dead. Interestingly, there can be work up to this state where at below 0 BODY you can lose more BODY to get closer to the -10 BODY. That dead thing is a binary state as well - doesn't really matter how much BODY you have except in the 0 to -10 part - and even then it doesn't impact on your abilities powers or skills.

 

PD/ED/etc - simply numbers that we subtract from damage before applying to STUN and BODY.

 

REC - a number we use at regular intervals to uprate the current state of STUN,BODY etc

 

END - Though less so than other measures it is essentially a binary thing - above 0 END you have energy to use - doesn't matter whether you have 1 or 1000. At 0 or below then doing anything that would normally subtract from the END score instead subtracts from the STUN score.

 

 

These are what I refer to as the game mechanic numbers of the characteristics. STR, DEX, PRE, INT and EGO have more gameplay interactions - the black box frameworks. CON is a purchasing framework for the game mechanic numbers.

 

 

 

 

Doc

[Lucius]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

For STUN, I'd think that only beings with the ability to feel and react to pain would have STUN. So to some extent, how much STUN you have indicates how much pain you can tolerate before passing out.

 

I have to disagree, or at least question this assumption.

 

Just because you don't feel "pain" (trust me, you're not missing anything) doesn't mean you should have Takes No Stun. If you get hit by a lightning bolt, it's still a shocking experience. You can be "stunned" just as effectively as if you felt pain, and you can be rendered temporarily inoperable as readily as a Human can be rendered unconscious - and they are the same thing mechanically (pardon the expression.)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is re-reading Stunning News for Robots

But I think a robot suffering an electrical attack could easily be "stunned" in the mechanical sense of the word; struck motionless and helpless for a phase. And what is the difference, in game mechanical terms, between "unconscious" and "deactivated but not destroyed?"

[GamePhil]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

Weirdly, I've been toying with that idea recently too...

Well, not all that weird, since it was a discussion last DDC that made me start thinking along these lines.

 

I'm not even sure whether I'd have a Power called Skill or not. I might just make 'em limited Powers. For example, Stealth could be limited Invisibility, Acrobatics could be limited Flight, Conversation could be limited Mind Control, Climbing could be limited Clinging, etc.

 

Thought about that, but I wasn't sure just how much I would want to dump skills, if only because there might be some things that just can't be simulated well with Powers. That could just mean that there are holes that need to be filled, though. May need to spend time just building Skills as Powers.

 

Haven't thought of a response to the rest, yet. Still needs more thought.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

Well, you'll certainly remove the problem of homogenization; it's guaranteed that until someone figures out where the new baseline should be for efficiency, characters are going to be all over the map. This is pretty far outside of my concept, though. While I will freely admit that the concept of stats and derived stats can be seen as 'archaic' in some cases, I don't actually have a problem with any of it. I think that it makes more sense at the end of the day for verisimilitude, and that's done with having a stable system. It sounds to me like you're really talking about going the OGL route with HERO and using the foundation to create an entirely new game.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

Well' date=' you'll certainly remove the problem of homogenization; it's guaranteed that until someone figures out where the new baseline should be for efficiency, characters are going to be all over the map. This is pretty far outside of my concept, though. While I will freely admit that the concept of stats and derived stats can be seen as 'archaic' in some cases, I don't actually have a problem with any of it. I think that it makes more sense at the end of the day for verisimilitude, and that's done with having a stable system. It sounds to me like you're really talking about going the OGL route with HERO and using the foundation to create an entirely new game.[/quote']

 

Well, essentially you are not making any huge change to the game. You are simply removing stats as a collective of purchasing power or framework of powers and everything is bought individually.

 

You need a baseline/template or something that makes it obvious where you begin from. I dont think that things would be all over the place just that something like 'strong' would not appear on the character sheet unless there was a particular need to say something about it.

 

If your character was very strong you would define how much that meant in the way of lifting, in fighting, punching grabbing etc and how much in extra leaping etc. You wouldn't choose a number of strength points and hope that made sense across a number of genres and body types.

 

A human character is 15 STR and has a base leap. If an elephant is the same STR then it also gets the same base leap. That is wrong and yyou have to correct for it.

 

With this system you buy the stuff as you need it/it makes sense to.

 

 

Doc

[GamePhil]

What do the mechanic-specific numbers do?

 

If Doc doesn't mind me stealing his description.

 

I'll try to describe my problem with them better: If they are to be Powers that you don't *have* to have (most characters will, just like always), what is the benefit to having them? Stun implies that you can be knocked out, Body implies that you can be killed. Is there a viable way to have these scores be something you don't have to have to function as a character? Or does lacking them simply mean that you start out "dead"/having no physical form or always being unconscious?

 

Perhaps if you don't have Body, as Derek says you have no physical form. That would mean that having the Power, Body, gives you the ability to interact with things that have Body. So, if you have no Body you can also do no Body. You may have further restrictions.

 

Same could be done with Stun: you can't cause Stun damage if you can't take Stun damage. Or something like that. It's not that you start unconscious, but merely that you don't interact on that basis with other characters.

 

One thought: rather than having separate Automaton Powers, what you would instead buy is the Stun Power and use the Absolute Effects Rule to say that you just have so much Stun that you can't be knocked out.

[GamePhil]

Stun Is Pain. Or, perhaps not

 

It may be more generic to describe Stun as shock, rather than pain. Any character that can be rendered a similar state to "unconsciousness" would have Stun, whether that is because of massive pain or causing a shut down/reboot process.

[GamePhil]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

Well' date=' you'll certainly remove the problem of homogenization; it's guaranteed that until someone figures out where the new baseline should be for efficiency, characters are going to be all over the map. This is pretty far outside of my concept, though. While I will freely admit that the concept of stats and derived stats can be seen as 'archaic' in some cases, I don't actually have a problem with any of it. I think that it makes more sense at the end of the day for verisimilitude, and that's done with having a stable system. It sounds to me like you're really talking about going the OGL route with HERO and using the foundation to create an entirely new game.[/quote']

 

I currently have no such ambitions, I'm fine with HERO the way it is for the most part. If it were to, after some discussion, turn out to be a viable idea, I might adopt it for my own games, but more likely I'll get some ideas from it, and hopefully other's will as well.

 

On the other hand, years ago I started using incomplete characters for my games, so it could happen.

[GamePhil]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

Well, essentially you are not making any huge change to the game. You are simply removing stats as a collective of purchasing power or framework of powers and everything is bought individually.

 

You need a baseline/template or something that makes it obvious where you begin from. I dont think that things would be all over the place just that something like 'strong' would not appear on the character sheet unless there was a particular need to say something about it.

 

If your character was very strong you would define how much that meant in the way of lifting, in fighting, punching grabbing etc and how much in extra leaping etc. You wouldn't choose a number of strength points and hope that made sense across a number of genres and body types.

 

A human character is 15 STR and has a base leap. If an elephant is the same STR then it also gets the same base leap. That is wrong and yyou have to correct for it.

 

With this system you buy the stuff as you need it/it makes sense to.

 

 

Doc

 

 

That's pretty much where I'm going, though I'm toying with the "what happens if you don't buy the Power?" idea. Not a necessary part of the plan, though I have a long affection for it.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: What do the mechanic-specific numbers do?

 

If Doc doesn't mind me stealing his description.

 

Not at all!

 

Perhaps if you don't have Body, as Derek says you have no physical form. That would mean that having the Power, Body, gives you the ability to interact with things that have Body. So, if you have no Body you can also do no Body. You may have further restrictions.

 

Same could be done with Stun: you can't cause Stun damage if you can't take Stun damage. Or something like that. It's not that you start unconscious, but merely that you don't interact on that basis with other characters.

 

This is quite interesting. I'm not sure you are there yet but I think you are going somewhere! :-)

 

What is BODY. To me BODY is your buy in to the gameworld. As a player you have BODY, when you run out of it then you lose your ability to take part in the gameworld forever.

 

What is STUN. To me STUN is the thing that allows you to have in game effects as a player - you can consciously, deliberately effect the game world.

 

With those it would not be possible to play a character with no BODY. A character with no STUN would be interesting though - a ture automaton with no volition just following preset rules - possibly with some randomiser for unexpected events. Like the rules presented for palying Dragonnewts in Runequest II.

 

 

Doc

[Lucius]

Re: What do the mechanic-specific numbers do?

 

Not at all!

 

 

 

This is quite interesting. I'm not sure you are there yet but I think you are going somewhere! :-)

 

What is BODY. To me BODY is your buy in to the gameworld. As a player you have BODY, when you run out of it then you lose your ability to take part in the gameworld forever.

 

What is STUN. To me STUN is the thing that allows you to have in game effects as a player - you can consciously, deliberately effect the game world.

 

With those it would not be possible to play a character with no BODY. A character with no STUN would be interesting though - a ture automaton with no volition just following preset rules - possibly with some randomiser for unexpected events. Like the rules presented for palying Dragonnewts in Runequest II.

 

 

Doc

 

 

Now THAT is a new take on things, for me at least. You are putting STUN in the place that the Rules as Written imply for EGO.

 

And it even makes a kind of sense. I think. I will have to think about it.

 

 

But the way the rules are now, an automaton is something with no EGO score, not something with no STUN score. And having Stun and running out of it doesn't make you an automaton, it means you stop acting at all.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Automating a palindromedary

[Doc Democracy]

Re: What do the mechanic-specific numbers do?

 

But the way the rules are now' date=' an automaton is something with no EGO score, not something with no STUN score. And having Stun and running out of it doesn't make you an automaton, it means you stop acting at all.[/quote']

 

You are right about that - I hadn't thought - you are getting true stream of consciousness stuff! ;-)

 

I am however talking at a true meta-gaming level. How about....

 

Having no EGO makes the character an automaton - having no STUN makes the character an NPC! :-)

[pawsplay]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

This sounds like the child of HERO and Fudge. I am afeared.

[GamePhil]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

This sounds like the child of HERO and Fudge. I am afeared.

 

Well, yeah, but Fudge has some pretty good ideas. Besides, it's not as if we're going to mash the two games together and try to market the result or anything. That ship has sailed.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

Well' date=' yeah, but Fudge has some pretty good ideas. Besides, it's not as if we're going to mash the two games together and try to market the result or anything. That ship has sailed.[/quote']

 

Stupid Fusion. But seriously, as I said, it really does sound like you're trying to make a new creature from two other creatures. A Chimera of roleplaying, and that's fine! Seriously, it's totally fine. But I think you'll lose a lot in the translation. I'm not saying it won't work, I try to refrain from statements that make people get all uppity and then go "prove it." I'm saying I can't imagine it working, not because it's a bad idea, but because it's too broad.

 

-- Characteristics are a static measurement. Without all the hooplah of "how did you build that?" we have a shared language wherein we know precisely what to expect from something with, say, 45 STR. Or an 18 INT, or a 0 COM (or even negative COM *shudder*).

 

-- Skills are a shared language; sure, maybe "Conversation" is built as "Mind Control, RSR, RSR is subject to Skill v Skill Rolls) but it's simpler and more elegant to just call it "conversation" and be done. Again, it gives us a groundwork of shared language, and more importantly, makes someone who paid for "Mind Control, RSR, Subject to SvS contests" a little bit more special and a little bit "less normal."

 

-- Powers make GREAT superskills in the system already (see both Pulp HERO and Dark Champions) but they aren't for everyone. Using this mechanic I have mental fits trying to build "skills" for "normals." Which isn't to say it won't work, like I said, but it seems like walking around the county to cross the street.

 

I think part of what I'm asking is "Why?" And maybe I'm just stuck in the past and I'm so accustomed to the "old" way of doing things (Stats, Skills, Powers -- the universal language of roleplayers, basically) that breaking outside of it is Plato's Allegory of the Cave for me. But I still don't understand why you'd want too, and maybe that's where I'd like to be enlightened.

 

Lord Captain Thia "Livin' in an if it ain't broke, why break it? World" Halmades

[Sean Waters]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

To me, stun is just a counting mechanism that you can apply sfx to, with mechanical implications (i.e. unconsciousness etc). Body is slightly more complex, but basically the same.

 

Clearly stun is not necessary (see automatons, vehicles etc) but if it is not there it needs to be replaced with something that dispenses with it (see automatons etc).

 

A 'count mechanism' is a fundamental particle in the Hero Underverse (the shadowy realm where Hero mechanics and powers are constructed).

 

It has long been a dream of mine that we reduce the Hero system to its absolute fundamentals: Attack, Defend, Count, Change, whatever. Then we would rebuild it's complexity using the fundamantal rules, so that you have powers like Drain and Energy Blast and Armour, all built on the same principles and useable, as a final product, in much th esame way talents are constructed abilities that you don't need to know the build of to use.

 

That would mean the real tinkerers could build everything from fundamental partices, but the majority of Heroites would just utilise end-user constructs. The extra comlpexity would be embedded, but not make life more difficult for the average user, indeed it need not even be visible to the average user.

 

I live in hope

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

To me, stun is just a counting mechanism that you can apply sfx to, with mechanical implications (i.e. unconsciousness etc). Body is slightly more complex, but basically the same.

 

Clearly stun is not necessary (see automatons, vehicles etc) but if it is not there it needs to be replaced with something that dispenses with it (see automatons etc).

 

A 'count mechanism' is a fundamental particle in the Hero Underverse (the shadowy realm where Hero mechanics and powers are constructed).

 

It has long been a dream of mine that we reduce the Hero system to its absolute fundamentals: Attack, Defend, Count, Change, whatever. Then we would rebuild it's complexity using the fundamantal rules, so that you have powers like Drain and Energy Blast and Armour, all built on the same principles and useable, as a final product, in much th esame way talents are constructed abilities that you don't need to know the build of to use.

 

That would mean the real tinkerers could build everything from fundamental partices, but the majority of Heroites would just utilise end-user constructs. The extra comlpexity would be embedded, but not make life more difficult for the average user, indeed it need not even be visible to the average user.

 

I live in hope

 

Your dreams frighten me, Sean.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

Your dreams frighten me' date=' Sean. [/quote']

 

Remind me to tell you the one about the overbearing turtle and the rubber banana...

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

Remind me to tell you the one about the overbearing turtle and the rubber banana...

 

On a vaguely serious note, when you say "Count," what do you mean? I think (and I'm being my sincere in my queerly literate way) that what you're saying is to break everything back down to truly granular elements, and instead of even using the mechanics as we have them now, we wipe the system and reboot from 0. So, FREX:

 

Armor and FF are costed differently; you're suggesting we rebuild the power (DEF) and then for Armor we call it Persistent, Reduced END (0 END) and then apply SFX as necessary? Whereas a Force Field is neither Persistent, nor at a 0 END cost, and hence they "rebalance" back to wherever they should be? Do I understand the core premise correctly?

 

And again, so it's not lost: What is Count?

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

And again' date=' so it's not lost: What is Count?[/quote']

 

Far be it for me to try and interpret the mysteries that are Sean but I think when he says count (as in count mechanism) he means the numbers we use to keep track of stuff. So the STUN lets us count how much STUN damage has accumulated to a particular character and whether that character is available for active participation in the game.

 

 

Doc

[GamePhil]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

I think part of what I'm asking is "Why?" And maybe I'm just stuck in the past and I'm so accustomed to the "old" way of doing things (Stats, Skills, Powers -- the universal language of roleplayers, basically) that breaking outside of it is Plato's Allegory of the Cave for me. But I still don't understand why you'd want too, and maybe that's where I'd like to be enlightened.

 

Partly because it's there. Partly for the mental exercise. Mostly because I think the discussion may spawn new ideas, even if the concept as a whole proves unworkable. If I were to get one good idea from such a discussion it will have served its purpose.

 

Which is not to say that I wouldn't personally use a system like this if something suitably workable were to be hashed out. Just that such is not necessarily the only goal.

[GamePhil]

Re: What do the mechanic-specific numbers do?

 

Having no EGO makes the character an automaton - having no STUN makes the character an NPC! :-)

 

heh. That's amusing.

 

I still like the concept of STUN and BODY as being buy-in Powers, but that's good.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Everything's a Power

 

On a vaguely serious note, when you say "Count," what do you mean? I think (and I'm being my sincere in my queerly literate way) that what you're saying is to break everything back down to truly granular elements, and instead of even using the mechanics as we have them now, we wipe the system and reboot from 0. So, FREX:

 

Armor and FF are costed differently; you're suggesting we rebuild the power (DEF) and then for Armor we call it Persistent, Reduced END (0 END) and then apply SFX as necessary? Whereas a Force Field is neither Persistent, nor at a 0 END cost, and hence they "rebalance" back to wherever they should be? Do I understand the core premise correctly?

 

And again, so it's not lost: What is Count?

 

I think Doc's answer has it: it is just a mechanical system we use to keep track of things: so Stun would be a count to zero, with appropriate consequences at zero. Think of it, I suppose (and I'm not a programmer, so apologies if the analogy is off) as the commands of a programming language. you can build complex structures with a great deal of functionality from the basic commands, and a count mechanism would have to be one of them, if we are to emulate Hero and many other game systems.

 

As tot he armour/FF thing, that's the general idea. Hero is not a perfectly elastic system (not saying it should be): at present it is +1/2 to MAKE something persistent and -1/4 to make something non-persistent - you can't start here, go there, comeback and end up in the same place.

 

I'm not sure that everything needs to be perfectly interchangeable, but it would certainly make point/utility balancing easier if it was

 

Ultimately you'd still have an 'Armour' power and a 'FF' power, and the costs might well be identical tot he current versions, it is just that you could pop the hood and see how it is built, maybe tune some bits up and so on.

 

To take things noe step further, I suppose I'm talking about building a language that defines the mechanical systems not just of Hero, but potentially of any game. You can include or discard anything you like - there is no need to 'point balance' for instance if you want to include another system for game balancing, or even leave game balance to chance. We really would have the ultimate toolkit then, not just for creating any character, but for fundamentally defining the precise systems and emchanics we want.

 

Probably a tad ambitious