Yes, but what about the other guys?

[Sean Waters]

OK, we need a 'Rant' prefix for these posts...

 

I just wanted to say why I really really do not like the EDM version of wish fulfillment. Someone may be able to correct my philosophy or physics and make me feel better about it.

 

First off it seems to me that Wish Fulfillment EDM can only work in a multiverse where there are an infinite number of different versions of reality to travel to. If the multiverse consists of Here, Valhalla and another place that always looks like Coventry Bus Station on a Wednesday afternoon, it just isn't going to work. Unless you come up with some pretty specific wishes.

 

Even given that, let's think about what is happening here.

 

So, WishMaster!! is in a room with his DNPC family and the walls are moving together to crush them. No worries - he has EDM so he shifts to another reality where he manages to do something heroic and save the day. His DNPC family is saved - or are they?

 

Sure He saved a DNPC family. They look and act like his, but in fact they are a perfect alternate reality iteration of his actual DNPC family. The real ones he abandoned to a grisly fate in another reality. Even if he bought enough UBO to bring them with him, what happened to the ones who were here, in the new reality, holding place for them until they arrived? Presumably they got shunted elsewhere. Let's hope it is nice there. And what happens if he wants to deflect that dinosaur killer asteroid - let's hope he bought enough EDM for everyone on the planet, eh?

 

How, in the name of Mungo, Mary and Midge, is that heroic? You're not WishMaster!!, you're the Incredible Running Away Man. EDM is a movement power. All your power does is prevent you from having to watch awful things happen to people you like, and cushions you against the harsh realities of your existence.

 

Let us look at it from another perspective - that of the DNPC family. They are trapped in a room with WishMaster!! and the walls are closing in, about to crush them. The self deluded idiot shouts, 'Don't worry, I'll save you!' and VANISHES. They spend the last moments of life cursing his name.

 

EDM as wish fulfilment has to be the most selfish, gutless power there is. I hate it, I do.

 

Having said that, I'm not keen on the alternatives. Sure you can build a stonking great cosmic VPP but who has got the time mid-combat to design a custom wish?

 

So, I'm looking for suggestions for a new power. Something quick and easy to administer. I'm thinking something like define your wish, GM sets a Wish Level (something like the way many mental powers work, but based on area and effect and stuff - cosmetic changes, minor, major and world changes and sets a 'Reality Inertia' level, that works like EGO does in mental powers. We'll probably need tables) and you roll some dice to see if you can manage it. All a bit woolly, but it has got to be better than what we've got right now.

 

You may have much better ideas. Let's hear 'em

[ghost-angel]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

1) I think you're thinking too hard about it.

 

2) Using EDM allows you to add on a Point Total to quantify the ability if you feel it must absolutely be paid for. At that point take the Point Total and relabel "EDM" as "Wish" and be done with it.

 

3) If 2 doesn't work for you - make up a point total, charge the Character that and get on with the game.

 

Wish is just another way of saying Plot Device anyways. Not like we need to attach any actual mechanics to it beyond "please don't break our game."

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Wishmaster's power works mechanically like the Incredible Running Away Man's, but the SFX is different.

 

I find EDM to be an inelegant mechanism for wishes myself. If you work up that system you describe, I'd be interested in seeing it.

[Markdoc]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

I find EDM to be an inelegant mechanism for wishes myself. If you work up that system you describe' date=' I'd be interested in seeing it.[/quote']

 

Agreed. It's a really clumsy mechanism, but it's hard to conceive of an effective one because by definition, Wish can do anything: alter time, bend reality, duplicate other powers, etc. You're moving into an arena where points and mechanics break down as effective metrics. How much is wish worth in points? Depends...

 

cheers, Mark

[schir1964]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Alter Reality [Reality Affecting]

This power allows a character to alter his reality. Each use of this power must be approved by the GM.

 

Each point in the power allows the character to alter 1 Point of Reality without risk. If the character tries to alter reality beyond his level of ability, then a flat skill roll is required with every point beyond his ability adding one penalty point to the roll. The consequences of a failed roll are also determined by the GM.

 

Cost: 1 Point Per Point Of Alter Reality

 

Reality Points

The GM must decide the value of Reality Points for any given Alter Reality attempt.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[ghost-angel]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Alter Reality [Reality Affecting]

This power allows a character to alter his reality. Each use of this power must be approved by the GM.

 

Each point in the power allows the character to alter 10 Points of Reality without risk. If the character tries to alter reality beyond his level of ability, then a flat skill roll is required with every point beyond his ability adding one penalty point to the roll. The consequences of a failed roll are also determined by the GM.

 

Cost: 1 Point Per Point Of Alter Reality

 

Reality Points

The GM must decide the value of Reality Points for any given Alter Reality attempt.

 

- Christopher Mullins

 

Wait.. is it 1 Character Point per Alter Reality Point, or 1 CP per 10ARP?

 

The description and cost aren't matching up in my head.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Someone may be able to correct my philosophy or physics and make me feel better about it.

 

First off it seems to me that Wish Fulfillment EDM can only work in a multiverse where there are an infinite number of different versions of reality to travel to.

If it makes you feel any better about it, this is basically what the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics suggests is the case in the "real world."

If the multiverse consists of Here' date=' Valhalla and another place that always looks like Coventry Bus Station on a Wednesday afternoon, it just isn't going to work.[/quote'] You can still use the example of "Here, Valhalla, and Coventry Bus Stationland"... you just have to define "Here" as being "the physical universe including all of its quantum variations."

[schir1964]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Wait.. is it 1 Character Point per Alter Reality Point, or 1 CP per 10ARP?

 

The description and cost aren't matching up in my head.

Doh!

 

Corrected. Thanks.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

The problem is that a Wish is just another form of absolute. You can change absolutely anything. What should the cost of that be?

 

Well, it should scale depending on the power of what you want to change.

 

But I want unlimited power to change anything.

 

Then the cost should also be unlimited.

 

No, I want a defined cost I can pay to do anything.

 

So we get the EDM Wish.

 

Really, a Wish is a huge VPP that allows you to do anything - up to the limits of that VPP.

[SSgt Baloo]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

The power to make wishes come true can lead to every other PC in the campaign becoming redundant, if handled improperly. Personally, I'd go for the really big VPP with the limitation that you either have had to think (write) the wish out in advance or otherwise "done it before". In other words, the player better have some preliminary wishes in his arsenal that he has already submitted to the GM for approval, and the GM had better work with that player before play begins to ensure these pre-wishes are suitable for use in this game. He might also want to watch the Fairly Odd Parents and come up with his own version of Da Rules.

 

Read Larry Niven's "All the Myriad Ways" to get another take on the "Many Worlds" theory. I once had a character who was loosely based on that theory and the protagonist from the Strange Luck television series. His schtick was that he subconsciously caused the the best available outcome from all the possibilities (within his multiverse) to occur in HIS universe, at least within the ability of his power. At the time I simulated that by giving him 12 dice of luck, but neither the GM nor I could figure out how to exploit such a power. Nowadays I'd just use luck as the special effects of a suite of powers.

 

Altering reality over a large area is a difficult, if not impossible task. Of course, if the EDM-ing guy could get transport to the asteroid and had temporarily acquired the assistance of the Bureau of United Mad Scientist's (B.U.M.S.) they might use super-science to temporarily augment his ability to warp spacetime in the vicinity of the asteroid just enough to make it miss.

[Vondy]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

EDM is a kludge power. Its traditionally been written in such a way as to cater to "RPG plane hopping philosophy," which is separate from physics. It has a certain mythological "manual of the planes" feel to it. At the same, in this incarnation, it seems to have started to blend with "reality warping for dummies." In the case of wish fulfillment, you wonk your way to the desired effect by saying "go to a different world where what I want is reality." At this point the power is probably incorrectly named based on what its being used for, though I cannot think of a better name right now. But, if it makes you feel any better, Quantum Mechanics does contain a theory that every possible state (possibility) exists simultaneously and reality comes into being via actions, circumstances, and the like. Reality "collapses" into being. By shifting quantum states you could - and this is wild theoretical quantum mechanics - alter reality. Our understanding of "dimensions" has evolved well beyond what was understood "back in the hayday" of early game development, and a lot of gaming (and comic book) portrayals of such things are archaic bordering on superstitious. Its more dantes inferno than serious physics. As always, remember that the mechanics, irrespective of their names, are abstractions. Its the effect that is concrete.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Extra-Dimensional Movement also covers time travel, no? Maybe if one thinks of it not as fleeing to some parallel universe containing the desired outcome but rather altering the past to overwrite reality with said outcome it would seem more thematically appropriate as the power to use?

[Istaran]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Wish:

Luck, Costs Endurance, Instant, Limited (Only to make a verbally requested effect occur), Extra Time (Full Phase), Incantations.

 

GM assigns a number of 6s needed to achieve the stated wish as the GM thinks it is intended (You could alternately use pips or Normal Body Damage if desired). At the GMs descretion, a roll that fails to meet the required number may cause a distorted version of the wish to occur which meets the wording of the wish but obviously not the intention (note that this should be either a good thing or irrelevant; if the wish can go awry that is Side Effects). Otherwise, the wish may simply fail.

 

Note that with this Wish build you can Push your Luck.

 

The Limited limitation is almost certainly +0.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Luck. Nice. I like that. Kudos.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

So' date=' WishMaster!! is in a room with his DNPC family and the walls are moving together to crush them. No worries - he has EDM so he shifts to another reality where he manages to do something heroic and save the day. His DNPC family is saved - or are they?[/quote']

 

Let me look at the thesis behind this post rather than the mechanics. You worry that the hero is a transient where he abandons bad looking situations to find better ones, ones where he looks heroic? The guys left behind see nothing but failures...

 

Think about it like this instead. There is only one universe that has infinite potential. The EDM allows the hero to collapse all of the potentialities into the one that is most preferential to his situation, thus there is never anyone left behind, just the hero having more influence on collapsing the infinite potential universes into the one that actually happened.

 

Happier? You shouldn't go through Friday feeling bad, it might upset the weekend....

 

 

Doc

[Markdoc]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

I kind of like the luck idea, though you'd need a lot of 6's to change world-shattering events.

 

cheers, Mark

[Utech]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

I, also, like the Luck approach. It does smack of dice pools, though. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing in HEROdom...

[Istaran]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

I also like the idea of a Nega-Wishmaster. He looks identicle to Wishmaster, except that he goes around suddenly being warped from perfectly good situations to horrifically bad ones. (The ones Wishmaster wishes he wasn't in.) Fortunately, he is very powerful with an uber-cosmic-VPP and can fix the problems.

 

Some day he will meet Wishmaster in person. And when they do, 'Wishing' won't get Wishmaster out of that fight. (It will just transpose the two of them.) *evil hand rub*

[Sean Waters]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Nega-Wishmaster: nice

 

As to luck I think that works well for cetrain types of wish - the ones where you hope something is going to happen. I think it works less well - asit is - for the sort of wish where you are trying to change what has already happened.

 

I can see two approaches here to deal with that (if, indeed, anyone else sees it as a problem):

 

1. Apply a 'retroactive' advantage to luck, possibly at different levels (+1/4 for last phase, +1/2 for last turn, +3/4 for last minute and so on) OR

 

2. Use the luck 'total generator' as the basis for a seperate wish power with clearly defined parameters - which is a lot more up-front work but much easier to administer in the long run.

[badger3k]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

OK, we need a 'Rant' prefix for these posts...

 

I just wanted to say why I really really do not like the EDM version of wish fulfillment. Someone may be able to correct my philosophy or physics and make me feel better about it.

 

First off it seems to me that Wish Fulfillment EDM can only work in a multiverse where there are an infinite number of different versions of reality to travel to. If the multiverse consists of Here, Valhalla and another place that always looks like Coventry Bus Station on a Wednesday afternoon, it just isn't going to work. Unless you come up with some pretty specific wishes.

 

Even given that, let's think about what is happening here.

 

So, WishMaster!! is in a room with his DNPC family and the walls are moving together to crush them. No worries - he has EDM so he shifts to another reality where he manages to do something heroic and save the day. His DNPC family is saved - or are they?

 

Sure He saved a DNPC family. They look and act like his, but in fact they are a perfect alternate reality iteration of his actual DNPC family. The real ones he abandoned to a grisly fate in another reality. Even if he bought enough UBO to bring them with him, what happened to the ones who were here, in the new reality, holding place for them until they arrived? Presumably they got shunted elsewhere. Let's hope it is nice there. And what happens if he wants to deflect that dinosaur killer asteroid - let's hope he bought enough EDM for everyone on the planet, eh?

 

How, in the name of Mungo, Mary and Midge, is that heroic? You're not WishMaster!!, you're the Incredible Running Away Man. EDM is a movement power. All your power does is prevent you from having to watch awful things happen to people you like, and cushions you against the harsh realities of your existence.

 

Let us look at it from another perspective - that of the DNPC family. They are trapped in a room with WishMaster!! and the walls are closing in, about to crush them. The self deluded idiot shouts, 'Don't worry, I'll save you!' and VANISHES. They spend the last moments of life cursing his name.

 

EDM as wish fulfilment has to be the most selfish, gutless power there is. I hate it, I do.

 

Having said that, I'm not keen on the alternatives. Sure you can build a stonking great cosmic VPP but who has got the time mid-combat to design a custom wish?

 

So, I'm looking for suggestions for a new power. Something quick and easy to administer. I'm thinking something like define your wish, GM sets a Wish Level (something like the way many mental powers work, but based on area and effect and stuff - cosmetic changes, minor, major and world changes and sets a 'Reality Inertia' level, that works like EGO does in mental powers. We'll probably need tables) and you roll some dice to see if you can manage it. All a bit woolly, but it has got to be better than what we've got right now.

 

You may have much better ideas. Let's hear 'em

 

The simplest solution is that while the character moves to an alternate reality, the old one disappears, written over by the new one. This of course, destroys the old, but since the new are the same to the Nth degree, there is no difference. It's the same as the Star Trek transporter, since the person is not sent. They are encoded and transmitted to somewhere else and reconstructed, so essentially they are killed and remade anew. If there was an original James T Kirk, he has been dead and gone a thousand times over. The same can be said of us, where our cells and molecules are replaced over the years - there might be very little of the you that was born all those years ago - you are essentially a new person in a similar configuration to the old person, enough for us to handle continuity.

 

Same thing. You are not so much "retreating" as you are "rewriting" the universe at a fundamental level. EDM can be viewed as the cosmic etch-a-sketch.

 

Now, the Noble Causes comic book used a similar EDM plot device in their story. A bit weird, since we're not used to looking at things like that, but it hasn't stopped them.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

The simplest solution is that while the character moves to an alternate reality, the old one disappears, written over by the new one. This of course, destroys the old, but since the new are the same to the Nth degree, there is no difference. It's the same as the Star Trek transporter, since the person is not sent. They are encoded and transmitted to somewhere else and reconstructed, so essentially they are killed and remade anew. If there was an original James T Kirk, he has been dead and gone a thousand times over. The same can be said of us, where our cells and molecules are replaced over the years - there might be very little of the you that was born all those years ago - you are essentially a new person in a similar configuration to the old person, enough for us to handle continuity.

 

Same thing. You are not so much "retreating" as you are "rewriting" the universe at a fundamental level. EDM can be viewed as the cosmic etch-a-sketch.

 

Now, the Noble Causes comic book used a similar EDM plot device in their story. A bit weird, since we're not used to looking at things like that, but it hasn't stopped them.

 

It is a little different from the transporter thing because nothing else actually changes - even though the original JTK may have been annihillated and we are now interacting with an nth generation copy, that's JTK's choice - he's not imposing his will on the universe by transporting - it does not annihillate and reform anyone else.

 

Doc Democracy also suggested we were collapsing the probability wavefront, but that really does imply that this particular character is very much the centre of the universe. Moreover, it also implies that there is only one 'active' timeline and so changes that are retrospective are impossible - the wavefront would already have been collapsed to a single point and that would then be immutable as there is no longer a wavefront of possibilty to collapse.

 

I had an interesting epiphany the other day reading Iain M Banks' Excession where he was talking about a shuttle vehicle decellerating and the bodies inside it feeling a gravity-like effect. I wondered about why we are having so much difficulty with unified field theory and and specifically with tying gracvity intot eh equations. What if gravity is not a force but an apparent force that we percieve by its effects rather than its presence. What if, in fact (and this was the bit) we are FALLING through time, and gravity is what falling through time feels like? We are trying to unify the wrong thing.

 

I also had an interesting epiphany about the nature of the mind of God. Thursday was a really strange day. I'd been thinking about Marie Curie and how, if I could time travel back and speak to her I would go about explaining that her defining discovery would kill her.

[OddHat]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Steve has stated several times that EDM can also reflect interacting with reality differently: Thus, Enter the Microverse, the Macroverse, the Speed Zone, etc.

 

That said, I don't like EDM for wish granting either, and wouldn't use it. Generally I'd give a character with "Wish" powers Luck or a VPP, with Wishing as his SFX. Pretty much the same way I handle Bewitched style Witches and other TV magic.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

Doc Democracy also suggested we were collapsing the probability wavefront' date=' but that really does imply that this particular character is very much the centre of the universe. Moreover, it also implies that there is only one 'active' timeline and so changes that are retrospective are impossible - the wavefront would already have been collapsed to a single point and that would then be immutable as there is no longer a wavefront of possibilty to collapse.[/quote']

 

I am so much happier changing the future or the immediate present than the past.

 

In fact, I think that changing the past would be more along the lines of creating a new universe and hopping from one to the other. The past is another country, someone said...

 

 

Doc

[JmOz]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

I use luck, In the old Mayfair DC hero games there was the idea that you could use "Hero Points" to change things around you, (Hawkman fighting solumon Grundy can spend some hero points to be able to grab a vial of acid to throw in the guy;s face was the example IIRC). I liked this idea, I also liked the idea of "Luck points" (Option 2 in the book IIRC, with some minor adjustments), so I allow Luck points to be spent to change the world, the only catch is how big of a change affects howmany luck points, so the hawkman example would be 1 point, while saying "No more mutants" (and it working) would be at least 100 luck points, probably more...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Yes, but what about the other guys?

 

I am so much happier changing the future or the immediate present than the past.

 

In fact, I think that changing the past would be more along the lines of creating a new universe and hopping from one to the other. The past is another country, someone said...

 

 

Doc

 

Yes, it was a klingon, I think...