Heroic Narratives, Or I Love Champions But...

[Greywind]

Heroes are not perfect. They screw up and make mistakes. They have flaws.

 

If they were perfect they wouldn't be heroes.

[Ninja-Bear]

1 hour ago, Greywind said:

Role-playing and character development. Have you ever tried it?

So bad dice rolls equal role playing?

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

So bad dice rolls equal role playing?

 

Roll playing

 

Hero promises you get to play the character you imagine, not the one the dice impose upon you.

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

So bad dice rolls equal role playing?

 

Equals?  No. 

 

The possibility of a bad turn of the dice / happenstance of fate being considered beforehand, and a character / player basing his decisions and actions on that possibility?  Creeping closer to reduce his range penalty; spreading his attack to up his chances; forming a plan of action that includes his comrades for better odds or as a distraction--   now that _is_ role playing. 

 

Setting up everything, doing everything in your power to adjust the odds (in meta terms: reducing your penalties and upping your bonuses) by doing everything your ability and wits let you do in the situation at hand, and failing anyway--

 

And then _dealing with that failure in-character; reacting to and interacting within the world where that failure happened; deciding how to cope and how to move on? 

 

Yes; that's role playing, too. 

 

Buying all the vowels and consanants and slipping Vanna a fifty to accidentally turn over the only missing letter before guessing the word? 

 

Not so much. 

[Greywind]

I wonder if they'll allow the use of hero points in Monopoly or Risk...

[Greywind]

7 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Roll playing

 

Hero promises you get to play the character you imagine, not the one the dice impose upon you.

 

Then play a game that doesn't require dice if you have an aversion to randomness happening.

 

And as I recall, the slogan was "create the character you want to play", stemming from the predominance of "role your stats" systems at the time. Champions was one of the first point-buy game systems.

[pawsplay]

I don't really understand, on the one hand, embracing failure as a natural consequence of failure, while on the other, saying spending points is somehow cheating or trivial. Does it matter or not if you succeed or fail?

[Greywind]

We learn from our failures.

 

Unless someone is handing out participation trophies.

[pawsplay]

Who is saying something against failure?

[Greywind]

Isn't that the whole point behind the heroic points? To prevent failures?

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

28 minutes ago, Greywind said:

Isn't that the whole point behind the heroic points? To prevent failures?

I thought the idea was to allow a small degree of player intervention in the dice, not always win forever.  To prevent a, singular, failure. 

 

I do feel that a much better system exists than the horribly boring "you may change dice by this much per interval".  Something to turn "no" into "yes, but". 

[Greywind]

There's no "yes, but" involved in any scenario I've seen presented yet where heroic points are involved.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

2 minutes ago, Greywind said:

There's no "yes, but" involved in any scenario I've seen presented yet where heroic points are involved.

That is factually correct.  I was complaining about the current state of affairs.  I was stating that a much better system than the current one exists (in the abstract "one is out there" sense, not the "I have one right here" sense, though I could probably whip up a better one pretty easily). 

[Greywind]

It is binary: you either fail or you succeed.

 

With hero points you're sliding the scale, cheating as it were.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

I agree with both those statements.  I'm not sure why you're directing them at me, as I believe I have indicated my agreement with that train of thought. 

 

I believe that Heroic Action Points (I think that's what they're called) are an awful implementation of metacurrency.  I believe that one of the reasons for them being awful is the raw determinism of them where a player can say "ah, nah, I win right now". 

I believe you agree with these statements, is that correct? 

 

I believe that a much better implementation of metacurrency in the HERO System is possible, and such an implementation should not be based on "I lose.  Actually no, I win." but on more interesting distortions of failure to keep the dramatic tension the dice provide.  A mechanical method of replacing "Roll to see if Hawkeye misses the most important shot of his life." with "Hawkeye makes the most important shot of his life.  Roll to see how bad of a situation he had to put himself in to do so.". 

I have no idea if you agree with these statements, but would value your input. 

[Ninja-Bear]

6 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Equals?  No. 

 

The possibility of a bad turn of the dice / happenstance of fate being considered beforehand, and a character / player basing his decisions and actions on that possibility?  Creeping closer to reduce his range penalty; spreading his attack to up his chances; forming a plan of action that includes his comrades for better odds or as a distraction--   now that _is_ role playing. 

 

Setting up everything, doing everything in your power to adjust the odds (in meta terms: reducing your penalties and upping your bonuses) by doing everything your ability and wits let you do in the situation at hand, and failing anyway--

 

And then _dealing with that failure in-character; reacting to and interacting within the world where that failure happened; deciding how to cope and how to move on? 

 

Yes; that's role playing, too. 

 

Buying all the vowels and consanants and slipping Vanna a fifty to accidentally turn over the only missing letter before guessing the word? 

 

Not so much. 

Two different things. I believe we play these games for enjoyment no? So use the method that works best for you.  Btw Duke we’re playing a ROG not Wheel of Fortune so your analogy is wanting really.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Greywind said:

It is binary: you either fail or you succeed.

 

With hero points you're sliding the scale, cheating as it were.

No, not cheating it’s allowing you to role play and fulfill a game expectation if that’s what the group wants.

[Greywind]

Role-play the failed role.

 

Role-play the fudged success.

 

Not seeing a difference outside of fudging a die roll for your benefit.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I agree with both those statements.  I'm not sure why you're directing them at me, as I believe I have indicated my agreement with that train of thought. 

 

I believe that Heroic Action Points (I think that's what they're called) are an awful implementation of metacurrency.  I believe that one of the reasons for them being awful is the raw determinism of them where a player can say "ah, nah, I win right now". 

I believe you agree with these statements, is that correct? 

 

I believe that a much better implementation of metacurrency in the HERO System is possible, and such an implementation should not be based on "I lose.  Actually no, I win." but on more interesting distortions of failure to keep the dramatic tension the dice provide.  A mechanical method of replacing "Roll to see if Hawkeye misses the most important shot of his life." with "Hawkeye makes the most important shot of his life.  Roll to see how bad of a situation he had to put himself in to do so.". 

I have no idea if you agree with these statements, but would value your input. 

Actually not sure who you’re referring to. However if you are using Hero Action Points as an insta-win then yes you are abusing them.  I’ve never said to use them as an insta-win and every time we used them, there are rules in place of when to use and how to use them. It’s like anything else in Hero, it can be abused.

[Ninja-Bear]

1 minute ago, Greywind said:

Role-play the failed role.

 

Role-play the fudged success.

 

Not seeing a difference outside of fudging a die roll for your benefit.

Because I enjoyed doing a certain move that looked cool that was what I envisioned my character?  Note: still not insta-win.

[Greywind]

Why play a game based on the results of die rolls if you can ignore the die roll results on a whim?

[Ninja-Bear]

And I’ve been in games (and made the bad rolls) which has ruined a whole game.

[Greywind]

Just now, Ninja-Bear said:

Because I enjoyed doing a certain move that looked cool that was what I envisioned my character?  Note: still not insta-win.

 

"Doing a certain move": as in tell the table what you're doing, no die roll required.

[Ninja-Bear]

6 hours ago, Greywind said:

I wonder if they'll allow the use of hero points in Monopoly or Risk...

Different game no? Those are board games not RPGs.

[Greywind]

If you're going to fudge the rolls, does the game layout really matter all that much?