Doc Democracy

Re: Logical Consequences vs. Conscientious Point Allocation

Re: Cotu!

Re: Logical Consequences vs. Conscientious Point Allocation To me, that's what points are all about - the ability to skew the story in the favour of the player character. If you spend points on something then it is yours to use (unless you limit that use). If you indicate that you want to grab opponents and smash them into the ground then you might try that using STR and opposing etc. You might also buy it as a large hand attack to represent that extra damage that comes from driving people into the ground.... You take control of the narrative agenda by having spent points on something....so if the points are spent to represent opportune cars then that is what you get. Doc

Re: Logical Consequences vs. Conscientious Point Allocation Good point. Another reason way for the GM to limit the seemingly endless benefits of simply buying STR over other powers. Doc

Re: Logical Consequences vs. Conscientious Point Allocation

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others Just in case it wasn't obvious from the COTU title on the thread - Sean was as good as his word and went away and did exactly what he was speaking about here. Worth going to look and see what can be done, even by Sean, in just three days. Thread is here. Doc

Re: Cotu! That's a very quick effort. I would get my friend to have a look he's got a really good eye for design and the page would look fantastic. I'm amazed that companies do not put more effort into their character sheets - they are the interface through which every player accesses the game. As such they can invoke so much genre feel that I think it is criminal when they become nothing more than a collection of numbers on a page.... Doc

Re: Cotu! Here is a quick effort at a more colourful character sheet.... It's a bit blue but I was limited to using the presentation element of open office.... Doc

Re: Logical Consequences vs. Conscientious Point Allocation I say that the guy who buys STR can do it if the GM says that a car is available. A guy who buys the brick tricks will always find a car or something else suitable to do the attack... Doc

Re: Cotu! Getting better. You do know that colour is free in electronic documents? If I get time this week I will try to have a go at doing this in colour.... Doc

Re: Cotu! If I give you another three days, would you come back with a nicer character sheet? It is very....functional! Doc

Re: Cotu! Lets start with something irrelevant. Why 1 in 1,650,000, why not 'less than 1 in a million leaving fewer than 4000 SPBs in the world'....? I prefer Appeal, Brawn, Cognition and Dexterity to AMA, AMB, AMC and AMD. More evocative. Beyond that I think it'd make an excellent little game to play... Well done. Doc

Re: Cotu! I always miss you when you're not here Sean - I look forward to seeing your name appear in threads. Not so sure when you're in a rampant phase though!

Re: Cotu! Is this what has kept you so quiet? Are there other challenges we can give you?? Doc

Re: core "modes" of gameplay Well put. Repped.

Re: A few questions I never rely on PCs running away. Usually I tell them if I think that there is a good chance they will fight to the death that there is another way out - suggest they find something else etc. But if I put them in a situation where I need them to run away then I know they will not - even if it looks obvious to them that they are all going to die... Doc

Re: core "modes" of gameplay We could save this as a classic example of board discourse.

Re: gravitic well I would have read this as, if you are constantly affecting an area and you want to add or remove people from being affected in the area then you have to switch off the power and switch it back on again. However, if someone enters the area then you can decide whether to affect them or not without switching on and off. Makes more game sense. Doc

Re: gravitic well

Re: gravitic well I was always slightly against the use of TK for modelling gravity. Having read a few other threads on the use of TK and seen official answers, it is not a good power to model gravity with. An area effect TK will only affect the total weight that the TK could lift. So 40STR TK lifts about 6 tonnes. Using TK it actually gets less effective the more things that are in the gravity well. That might not be an issue - after all it is the equivalent of 64 agents (and I presume despite not being able to move the 65th agent in the area that they all have to fight against a 40STR to get free). Just thought I'd point this out.... Doc

Re: A few questions There are a few traps for the unwary and many of them revolve around the use of 3D6 for the to hit. When combat values are equal characters have a 62.5% chance of a successful hit - the game is more fun when you hit more often. A +2 advantage in CV means you hit 83.8% of the time. A -2 disadvantage in CV means you hit 37.5% of the time. So a differential of 2 in CVs means a big difference in the chances to hit. If the differential goes to 4 then the contest can be over (unless the damage caused when hitting is very different - no point in hitting all the time if you are essentially tickling the opponent) So - be aware of CV differentials and be wary of providing too many hefty (+2 or more bonuses) - they can have a bigger impact than you intended. Doc

Re: Buy Off Disadvantage Yeah - it does get very deadly very quickly. Might be worth staging between long term endurance and more serious dependency issues. Would be easy to use the time chart to identify the frequency of things and provide points as appropriate. Doc

Re: Buy Off Disadvantage Mechanically I think that the character has a dependency upon his powered armour. If he does not have it then he begins to take damage from the sun, the air etc etc. So I would buy a dependency disadvantage and work out a cumulative damage. I would then buy off the normal 6" running that all characters come with which will make him unable to move except through using powers that I assume use the armour as a focus. Without the armour this character takes damage and cannot move. With the armour he has movement capability and does not take the damage. That what you are looking for? Doc

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others I dont think this kind of direction is likely with HERO. D&D is a game. It keeps the mechanics pretty much hidden from both players and GMs. In 3rd edition it looked like the mechanics were going to be made pretty explicit and the variety storm of D20 games that came from the release of the licensing documents showed that many other people found that getting their hands on the D&D levers was a desirable thing. 4th edition has put all of that away again. It has decided it doesn't like showing the mechanics and put it all behind custom built character classes which it will release more of each and every year. HERO is a game where all the levers are already out there. The most radical thing that can be done is to replace certain levers with new ones. You might like that or you might not but it is not the same kind of deal that you have with the new edition of D&D. Doc

Re: Philosophical: Definition Of A Mechanic I think that this is at the core of Chris' question. How far can a power be stretched before it is not performing the role that it should be. When a player says they want an interdimensional-semiphasing device, the response should not be - so you want to be desolid? It should be more like - so what does that accomplish for you? Then you find out whether they can walk through walls etc. If they want a power that allows them to walk through walls then you might draw desolid out of the box. If they want to be able to ignore certain types of attack (I do not think that this would be a part of the 'indexing sentence' of the power) then you might have to look at other powers, depending on the way that this worked. If a player wants to be able to interact with the physical world and yet ignore physical objects (mist form) should we modify desolid or design a new mechanic designed and costed for this purpose. Chris' question is (as I understand it) where this line should be drawn. Doc