Markdoc

Re: Social effects Sure - as long as we don't have to buy a gourmet meal when what most of us want are instant noodles, and as long as we don't have to provide it, knock yourself out. Essentially, what you are suggesting is a major change to the way the rules work now. That's cool - this is a tinkerer's forum after all - but when a few people want to make major changes to the way the rules work, the first thing to think of is - "Is this the way the rules should work, or is it something that is best handled as a house rule or a supplement?" I'm guessing that we're not going to see such major changes in 6E (in fact, COM is going away, suggesting that the social aspects will be downplayed in the next edition). As a supplement, I'm guessing "The Ultimate Social Interaction System" would sell right up there with "Ultimate Roadkill Identification Guide", so an official supplement is probably not in the offing. That leaves houserules. Why not actually draft some rules-specific ideas and throw them out there? You won't convince me to adopt them, no matter how artfully presented - I'm pretty much immune to persuasion on this topic - but you would doubtless get some some useful feedback on the concepts. You may end up with something you actually like enough to playtest. cheers, Mark

Re: Hero Philosophy - SPEED I'd be much more inclined to do that by giving good lines from the villain to Delphinia to answer, and playing to the character's strengths and knowledge, rather than simply arbitrarily bumping her SPD up a notch or two. cheers, Mark

Re: Social effects I suppose that's a fair comment, although nothing in the rules contradicts such an approach - it's just not detailed out. Obviously, I agree. This is in fact, pretty much how I run things, with the difference that there is no limit (positive or negative) to the modifiers I assign. It is entirely possible that clever skill use might lead to a situation where the original difficulty no longer requires a roll (in other words, the bonus is so high that failure becomes unreasonable). As I noted, until we started having this discussion, it never occurred to me that GM's would not approach skills like this. I'm not sure that's necessary - as is probably obvious by now, I like to engage player interaction. To employ a complementary, the player needs to come up with some way to employ that complementary. In some cases - a COM roll to complement seduction, for example - might be simple, and require little time. Va Va Voom! For another (say a KS: Engineering roll to try and add to piloting roll on a starship) might take (for example) a couple of phases (I divert power from the shields to the engines!) or 5 hours (I modify the engines to provide greater thrust!) The exact time and utility will be defined by player calls and the GM's estimate of how likely that is. And in other cases, of course the GM can simply rule the complementary out - a COM roll might not be useful if you are trying to seduce the Vulcan ambassador. Indeed, it might be harmful ("Your attempt to sway me with your physical proximity is illogical. Are you not aware of Vulcan mating ritual?". Players will rapidly be weaned off the "mountain o' complementaries" approach when they realize that every failure can add a penalty. They tend to go for the one or two (or three) where their odds of success are best. Unless they are desperate - in that case they'll bounce about like gerbils in a concrete mixer, seeking any bonus .... and that's good. That induces exactly the behaviors, I want as GM: player involvement, players thinking about inventive skill use ... players buying their PC more skills in future cheers, Mark

Re: Social effects For that I recommend using Hero system, pretty much as-is, in in much the same way I suggested you can for social interactions - in other words, break each "event" down into multiple skill rolls. One important point, however - when you do this, the GM needs to be aware that each skill roll is a chance to fail and that if you load an encounter up with them, the PCs will eventually fail. To counter this, the GM either needs to give significant bonuses (or smaller penalties) to make each sub-task easier or make sure each subtask is not pass/fail, but moves the odds of probability back and forth, so that PCs have a chance to recover from a failed roll. Essentially, what I tend to do as a GM is to tell the players that hey can go for a straight roll but the penalty will be nothing/trivial/substantial/overwhelming and then let them decide whether to just tackle it head-on, break it down into subtasks, or try and wangle up some complementaries. I'm usually pretty open to players suggesting subtasks. Even a simple action like "climb the cliff" can be handled like this, where a really difficult climb can be broken down into "ascents" of different difficulty. Will the PCs choose the one roll at -4 to climb the sheer face or try to work around the face by a series of short climbs (at -2) around the corner to see if they can find a better route? This gives the GM the option of choosing "short resolution" or "long resolution", (and shifting back and forth between them) as suits the dynamics of the game, without necessarily tipping the players off which is which. For example , in the cliff climb example, if it turns out that the players are less than enchanted with a blow by blow climbing expedition, the GM can always go "and on rounding the corner you see a chimney that provides an easy route to the top, that was hidden from the ground" - and move right along. It also gives the players some input as to how they would like to handle things, since they can always opt for a more detailed resolution should they want to play it out. That way the system provides a high level of granularity when required, and - equally importantly - doesn't inflict it unnecessarily, when not required. Essentially we don't need new rules, so much as GM's need a new perspective on the rules we have, IMO. I'm keen - as a GM - on skill heavy/social interaction heavy games, so like being able to facilitate that, and this approach is very flexible and non-intrusive, in that regard. And for what it's worth, using this approach I have actually done what some posters here have talked about - run a court case over the span of an entire afternoon and evening's play. Brian (Sir Ofeelya on the boards) was one of the PCs and can give his opinion, but at the time, I thought everyone seemed to feel it was great fun and it worked really well, from the GM's point of view. The speech by one PC as to why he was not guilty of murder went down in game history cheers, Mark

Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System? Oh, I'd agree with that: the old testament Judeo-Christian God is a bit of a b******, frankly. But all gods are, pretty much. They're humanity's foibles, hopes and fears projected onto a larger canvas, and not unnaturally, the unpleasant aspects are amplified as well. cheers, Mark

Re: Social effects

Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System?

Re: Social effects Strawman argument. As I have said before, you're the only person suggesting that characters can dismiss social effects on a whim. What has been suggested is that people cannot be forced to interact socially. Very different thing.

Re: Social effects Why buy and use a game I no longer have an interest in? There are a few minor things that I don't like about Hero and I houserule those, but I use it because the core of the system is overwhelmingly good. Change a major part of that to something bad and .. well, I have better things to do with my time than rewrite a game system. cheers, Mark

Re: How would you stat up gods in Hero System? Actually, to me, that's as good a description of most of the pre-monotheistic gods as one could ask for. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Maybe it's just a place that it doesn't rain very much. Some castles in Transjordan had flat roofs cheers, Mark

Re: Social effects Again, that's a given. I was responding directly to your quote: While history has yet to reveal anyone with immunity to physical attacks, it has thrown up many thousands of examples of people who are apparently immune - at least in some contexts - to social attacks. So, no, I don't believe "anyone can be made to do anything" - in fact, I find such a belief slightly naive, no offence intended. It's just so very much contradicted by history or even by my own personal experience. Social and physical processes are not really equivalent. There really are people who will say "No. Not ever. Not even if you kill me and my family" - and mean it. Edit: and in sad truth, this kind of personality doesn't even seem to be that uncommon.... cheers, Mark

Re: Social effects

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Unwilling to bend the knee to "those Norman B******s" he fled the country ahead of a murder charge. Historically, the Varangian guard was originally mostly composed of "Rus" - a mixture of vikings and Russians. In the 11th and 12th centuries, it started to fill up with English Huscarls who had ended up unemployed in the wake of the Norman conquest and by the 13th century it started to include Irish and Scots warriors who had lost their lands the same way. cheers, Mark

Re: Social effects Of course - again, that goes without saying. And also of course that means that sometimes, saying "No chance of success" or if you prefer "A sufficiently large penalty that there is no chance of success" is also appropriate. cheers, Mark

Re: Social effects I was using it in the sense the prior poster alluded to: Hard systems encode specific actions/beliefs. Soft systems do not. Hero system social interaction, as I play it involves much dice rolling but that dice rolling provides the flow of information and attitude between PCs and NPCs: it doesn't enforce actions that must be taken by either side. cheers, Mark

Re: Social effects

Re: Social effects

Re: Social System All of this is true - and good roleplaying more or less requires that the player tries to see things through his PC's eyes. However, unless he's genuinely schizoid, a true seperation is simply not possible. Ever. Moreover, since the PC is the player's avatar in the game world, I am not even convinced it's especially desirable. If the player's emotional investment in his PC is weakened that weakens the game, IMO. And thus you keep coming back to the core point, on which we essentially agree: that you cannot compel roleplaying. If the player is prepared to roleplay his PC, rules that hard-code detailed reactions are mostly not useful and may actually hinder play. If the player is not prepared to roleplay, rules that hard-code detailed reactions are definately not useful and will almost certainly hinder, or end, play. To me, the question, then is "Why would you want rules that are almost never useful and which are often a hinderance to enjoyment?" I think social interaction is very important, in-game, so guidelines in this area are good - it's become clear to me in the course of this discussion that the rules are not as clear as they seemed to me. But I remain convinced that more restricting rules, that attempt to compel PC behaviour are essentially doomed to failure. cheers, Mark

Re: Social System The character, obviously - though you can't (and IMO shouldn't) realistically completely seperate them - the player is the chracter's mind and memory The GM or player, obviously. The GM, after all, decides everything else external to the player, degree of suspicion shouldn't be a stretch. Likeiwse, telling the player "Don't be suspcious, you have no reason to be" is essentially an exercise in futility. We keep coming back to this. The GM cannot make a player suspicious or unsuspicious by fiat. He can declare that the PC will behave as though he was unsupicious and insist the player run from that aspect. But at that point, he's starting to usurp the player's actions - and in most cases, he'll be running his games with smaller groups or no group at all once he does that. It's a rare group that is happy with diminished investment in their PCs - which is why gaming rules which do tend in that direction tend to be a much more abstract, negotiated style of play - or more usually, not played very much at all. I can see why - but I can also see why the decision was made to do that: the emphasis is on active responses, not background modifiers. So I understand your point - but agree heartily with the game design decision. Sure, here I agree: to me the rules seem plenty explicit, and we've obviously been using them as written without problems (PRE attacks have always had a social intercation aspect included, as long back as I can recall) and some skills like Oratory explicitly interact with PRE attacks in the rules, but expanding on them a bit would not be a bad thing. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Here's a character I did the other day: this is my PC for a game set in an alternate, late medieval Europe. He's Briarius (Brendan) an Irish Galloglaich now serving in the Varangian guard of Byzantium. cheers, Mark

Re: Social System There's quite a lot there: here's one example from the rules (it's for persuasion). It seems pretty dice-based to me, and as you can see, it covers almost everything Sean suggested. typically the target gets to make an EGO Roll in a Skill Versus Skill Contest to resist the suggestion or see through the lie. The GM may modify the Persuasion roll based on the quality of the character’s statements, the believability of what he’s saying, the target’s Psychological Limitations, and other factors. (Alternately, the GM can modify the EGO Roll instead.) Some possible modifiers include: —the target wants to believe the character: +3 to the Persuasion roll (or -3 to the EGO Roll) —the target is skeptical or suspicious: -1 to -5 to the Persuasion roll (or +1 to +5 to the EGO Roll) —the target has a Psychological Limitation that agrees/disagrees with the character’s statement: +1/-1 to the Persuasion roll for a Moderate Psychological Limitation, +2/-2 for Strong, +3/-3 for Very Strong (reverse the modifiers if they’re applied to the EGO Roll) —use appropriate modifiers listed under Presence Attacks (page 428) as a modifier to the Persuasion roll (for example, a +2d6 modifier would equal a +2 Persuasion roll modifier [or a -2 EGO Roll modifier]). I don't seperate those two things - indeed, I don't want to seperate those two things: I see them as two indissoluble parts of a single whole. To me it makes no sense in the slightest to treat the PC as "separate" from the player. It's the player who makes the base decisions, supplies the personality, provides the spirit that animates the PC. You can no more seperate PC from player than you can seperate actor from role. Just as an actor can "inhabit" a role and potentially play multiple different roles, the same is true of a good player and a PC or PCs. A PC is not a character in a novel. He doesn't have an internal life apart from that supplied by his player. If he did, he'd be an NPC. As a GM, I don't want PCs to become more NPC-like. As a PC, I detest the concept. See above. You call it a good system. I'd call it a very bad system. No question, though, it's not what Hero does: on that I agree with you. Good analogy - but not the kind of game I'd want to play. I go to some lengths as GM to encourage immersion in the game: the last thing I want is an alienating mechanism introduced. cheers, Mark

Re: Muskateer It depends on whether you want musketeers á la Dumas or just guys with muskets (shot). The three musketeers were members of the King's Guard, hence not actually musketmen but what we would call dragoons or carabiners - light horsemen who fought on foot or on horse. Basically they were elite fast troops. The "musketeer" part came because the Kings' Guard carried heavier but longer-ranged and more accurate muskets instead of the light carbines carried by regular dragoons. So .... if that's what you had in mind then the characters should have the nobility package, good sword skills, riding, and good musket-handling skills. Things like PS: soldier or PS: Forager, or Tactics would not be out of place, but should not be required. If the poor sod with a musket was what you had in mind, then PS: Musketeer (or PS: soldier + 1 CSL in musket) is probably all you need, with levels and extra skills added to taste. The degree of training for such soldiers varied widely. Muskets, of course, are not very renaissance, however. If instead you mean arquebuses, the situation changes slightly. Arquebuses are too heavy and cumbersome for mounted troops to use - they didn't take to firearms until the invention of the wheelock pistol. That meant renaissance-era gunners were footmen - and thus, only rarely gentry. Also arquebuses are more difficult to use effectively, and gun-making was a rare skill back then, so guns were expensive and most gunners thus tended to be professional soldiers. In that case, a bigger skillset would be appropriate including PS: soldier, PS: forager (or survival), weaponsmith:arquebus, maybe streetwise, etc. Note that I've added weaponsmith since arquebusiers were specialists who had to maintain their own weapon. If it broke, it wasn't like you could just get one from the commissiary. cheers, Mark

Re: Sword MA and question. The other option - especially for fantasy martial arts, whether Wuxia or Western - is to build the maneuvers as powers. You don't have a problem with maneuvers like an "aborting bind" then. You build it as a triggered "attack" (a Bind is esentially a grab) Thus: Binding Block: +10 STR (for bind only, -1), +1 OCV, trigger: incoming attack. 20 active points (since there are two "invisible" levels in OCV to counter the grab penalty). And since it doesn't use an action once the trigger is set, you can do a combined "Grab and hit" maneuver where you grab your opponent's weapon arm and then kick him. You need GM's permission to stick it into a multipower (because of the levels), but that should not be too difficult. If you want to use it only with weapons, the math is slightly different because only 5 point levels can be limited. In that case the active cost is 25 points, but you can take a -1/2 limitation (Weapon of opportunity), which brings it down to 17 points real cost.