Specifically, the issue that keeps coming up is the Defense Dilemma: If you haven't bought up your mental and physical defenses to Extraordinary or above, you're boned the first time you run into Jean Grey or Superman. This potential pitfall exists in other games, too -- most notably Hero and M&M -- but that doesn't change the fact that it's a pitfall. On one hand, I'm heartless and inflexible. Of course someone without appropriate defenses is going to be screwed, and rightly so. But my frosted side knows it isn't fun to get one-shotted by a psychic from a mile away.
So, in the spirit of that, here are a couple clarifications currently present in the rules as they stand.
First, a mental attack is defined as the Attack trapping plus the Unusual topping, to account for its telepathic aspect. Those two plus Range makes your standard Ego Whip at least one trapping more expensive than a run-of-the-mill attack power like force beams or fireballs.
Second, as free hatani has pointed out:
Correct me if I am wrong, but couldn't Superman, under you hack, just pay a Fate point to gain "Mental Defense" trapping on his Super-skill for the scene?This is absolutely correct, as I acknowledged in the comments yesterday, with two caveats:
- Superman's Concept aspect must be something that could reasonably be invoked for effect to improve his Mental Resistance. It doesn't have to be dead-on perfect or anything -- "Last Son of Krypton" would be fine, if the player could make a case for it. It references the fact that he's an alien, so maybe his alien mind is harder for a psionicist to navigate. "It's A Bird! It's A Plane! It's Superman!" would be less fine, because it doesn't reference anything except the fact that he's neither a bird nor a plane.
- Superman must have a super-skill onto which Mental Resistance could reasonably be tacked. As with the Concept aspect, as long as it's close enough, it's fine. Not to repeat myself from yesterday, but a super-skill called Alien Physiology would work, Man of Steel might, with a lenient GM, and Kryptonian Vision just would not do, ever.
Keeping that in mind, here are some other things I'm considering:
- Make Psychic a topping of its own worth two trappings. You'd apply it to any trapping that doesn't already fall into that category, like Attack or Perceive.
- Invoke an aspect for effect to increase the tier of a defensive skill for one exchange. That's not exactly elegant, but nor is it unthinkable.
- Reduce starting points to 80 instead of 100. Combined with the Psychic topping, this would make mental attacks a more serious investment. Hell, I might do this anyway, psychic attacks or no. It isn't a nice round number like 100, but there's more to this than nice round numbers.
- Something involving consequences that I'm not ready to discuss yet.
I once wanted to play a character that wielded two weapons. I reasoned, you could have a cumulative penalty for multiple actions in a turn, a stunt to hit multiple opponents with a single attack, a stunt to hit a single opponent multiple times. Then I realized I just thought using two weapons was cool. I didn't need to have any additional rules, or worry about weapon size or type. A barbarian can swing two two-handed swords because it's cool and you just roll 4df + skill as usual.
ReplyDeleteI have to ask myself, how much of playing a super is just cool?
If you want to be able to punch a guy through a wall, you could just narrate your success that way and roll 4df + skill + tags. Then the problem of having a super defence for a every possible super attack just goes away. FATE does a great job of normalizing attacks and defences. Winning or loosing is more about strategically gaining and spending your FATE points. That's cool!
Glad I can help :). I'm keeping a daily eye on the posts.
ReplyDeleteOne word of warning I'll add from the playtest I did of my first fate supers game. In this version I was allowing some dynamic stunting to use skill X as Y. What it made one of my players remarked after realizing his highly focused (and cool gun-fu character) couldn't stunt nearly as many things as the sorcerer supreme - "hmm, I guess I should have made someone with cosmic powers who could excuse any power instead of having a gun theme".
Point was that dynamic "run time" stunts favor those with very flexible concepts. So if superman can excuse a good will defense from his kryptonian heritage, what can't someone with "Sorcery" do?
Biff-Dyskolos. I think that Fate would make for awesome supers games as the cool is right there in aspects, maneuvers, etc. Attacks and defenses are normalized by everyone being within the same range of 0-5 (and some major threats 6-7). If you are happy in that range, then the rules will work out for you.
I'm wanting to just redefine the existing fate scale to cover supers. I'm leaning toward a mix of Powergame and Wild Talents for power definition. My Mythic Heroes rules need some rewriting based on my new thoughts.
Getting distracted by a Wild Talents game (specifically Kerberos Club setting) to try out some of the concepts in those rules. So many games, so little time (and such difficulty finding players - my fate supers system is atrophying due to not being able to put together a group to playtest regularly).
If you want to be able to punch a guy through a wall, you could just narrate your success that way and roll 4df + skill + tags.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely. That's totally valid and works for many people. If it works for you, go for it. It just doesn't really work for me, that's all. I want something different for this than stock FATE.
This whole thing may fall flat on its face next month when I playtest it for the first time, but until then, I'm still committed to playtesting the material I have so far. If it fails, so be it -- it's back to the drawing board to come up with something better. Sic semper FATE supers hacks, in my experience.
So if superman can excuse a good will defense from his kryptonian heritage, what can't someone with "Sorcery" do?
This is a fair point, and I'm certainly guilty of giving players the benefit of doubt when it comes to character creation. Green Arrow's Concept aspect won't be nearly as flexible as, say, Dr. Fate's, but hey, not everyone wants to play Dr. Fate.
I realize that isn't really much of an answer, but then again neither is this: A player who's just looking to min-max would generally be better off playing something other than FATE, IMO.
That said, I can't very well say that I want to support concept uber alles when the mechanics don't exactly support all concepts evenly. So I'll think on that -- and more importantly, we'll see how it shakes out in practice. I mean, we can all look at the math and make some pretty accurate predictions, but I still want to see it in play (unless I/we hit upon something I like better by then).
I realize this has simulation issues, but it seems like rather than requiring everyone to buy up super-defenses, why not just say direct attacks and defenses don't use super-power ranks?
ReplyDeleteIf Superman punches a dude, that guy defends with Fists or Athletics or something like normal. If the Punisher punches the dude, he defends in the same way.
On the other hand, if Superman punches a wall, then his super-strength comes into play and the wall shatters, whereas the Punisher just hurts his fist.
It'd be a straightforward refinement to say that superman's super-strength still gives knockback on his attacks, it just doesn't do any additional damage.
@inkylj
ReplyDeleteHurrah!
You've crystallized the point I had previously tried to make. Thanks!
I realize this has simulation issues, but it seems like rather than requiring everyone to buy up super-defenses, why not just say direct attacks and defenses don't use super-power ranks?
ReplyDeleteMy problem with this, if I'm reading you right, is that it seems like it makes a .45 as dangerous to Superman as it is to the henchman who's shooting it.
It'd be a straightforward refinement to say that superman's super-strength still gives knockback on his attacks, it just doesn't do any additional damage.
This is exactly the sort of thing I have in my notes for a previous version, actually:
"Super Skills stay in the skill pyramid, but are treated differently in conflicts. Against a non-super opponent, or a super opponent using a normal skill, a Super Skill is always successful. The only thing you're rolling for is to determine special effects. The target is still a matter of debate, but what's certain is this: Spend shifts to achieve those special effects. If you're super-strong and you want to punch a guy through a building, roll the dice and see if you get enough shifts to do it (let's say each side of the building is a barrier, and each barrier costs 1 shift to get through -- and the building's in another zone, which means having to spend a shift to punch him that far in the first place). If you can spend the shifts, you do it. If you can't pay for the entire effect, you only get part of it -- say, you punch him into the next zone, but he falls short of the building. If you completely fail, you just get what would ordinarily be a routine success: You knock him out, but he doesn't go anywhere but down."
I still like the spend-shifts-to-add-effects thing, though, and plan to include it somehow.
My problem with this, if I'm reading you right, is that it seems like it makes a .45 as dangerous to Superman as it is to the henchman who's shooting it.
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily -- the henchman is a minion, right? Basically, it seems to me you have three typical situations in comics: one or more average dudes against a superhero, a "normal" superhero (or supervillain) against a superhero, or a "big monster" like Galactus or Loki against a group of superheroes.
This suggests to me we're basically talking about two or maybe three tiers of power here, and FATE already has the minion system to handle that, since PCs aren't going to ever be on the bottom tier.
You do sometimes get "superhero vs several lower-powered superheroes" but it seems like, again, you could handle that by making the lower-powered superheroes companion-level in terms of power.
(Related crazy system hack: let superman and batman treat the same group of enemy soldiers as minions of different quality levels, maybe by spending a point on the Man of Steel aspect or something.)
Not necessarily -- the henchman is a minion, right?
ReplyDeleteDoes it make a difference? Minions still have skills, even if it's just an Average Minion with Average Guns. The .45's still just a .45, and Superman can take a shot from that in the eye without blinking. That's the main thrust of my issue with that.
Even giving Superman Legendary Anti-Bullet Defense isn't enough to guarantee bullet immunity. Three Good-quality Minions with Good Guns have a +6 attack equal to his +8 defense. I can accept that for Batman and his body armor, but not Superman.
In all fairness, my system doesn't guarantee total bullet immunity either, but it makes it much more likely, to a degree with which I'm comfortable.
This suggests to me we're basically talking about two or maybe three tiers of power here, and FATE already has the minion system to handle that, since PCs aren't going to ever be on the bottom tier.
Well, first of all, Minions, especially large groups of Fair or Good Minions, are, in my experience, a serious threat to the average character. An Epic skill is nothing to sneeze at, nor is the 9 stress required to fully take them out.
Relegating Minions to their own tier and saying that all PCs are above them doesn't really work for me, because not every facet of every PC is going to be super, and not every skill of every Minion is going to be inherently worse than those of the PCs. I mean, Spiderman is way better at jumping and dodging than the average person, but I wouldn't say he's similarly superior when it comes to, say, Empathy, or Resources, or Survival, or plenty of other skills. If there's to be a tier for mundane skills achievable by non-super people, some of the PCs' skills should fall into it, IMO.
Even in the pulp craziness of SotC RAW, Minions and Companions can be just as good as or better than the PCs in any given skill. There's nothing that makes a PC's Average Fists any better than a Minion's Average Fists, and that's as it should be.
I'm going with four tiers of power for a few reasons. One, I felt that the three tiers of my earlier version weren't granular enough. Two, five tiers lets me account for normals (Mundane), super-skilled normals and low-power supers (Extraordinary), "average" supers (Superhuman), high-powered supers (Godlike), and cosmically-powered entities that aren't so powerful that they're just plot devices (Cosmic). I like the split; those categories feel pretty intuitive to me. Three, I want combatants to interact based on their relative power levels, not their "objective" power levels, and five tiers gives me that plus room for PCs to still threaten (and be threatened by) opponents who are close to their power level. Four, there are four Fudge dice, and that corresponds nicely to four tiers/die replacements above the baseline.
(Related crazy system hack: let superman and batman treat the same group of enemy soldiers as minions of different quality levels, maybe by spending a point on the Man of Steel aspect or something.)
So to Joe Average, they're Good Minions, to Batman, they're Fair, and to Superman, they're merely Average? That is a cool, wacky idea, and essentially in the same spirit as what I'm doing, even if the mechanics are different. Instead of shifting down by one point, I'm shifting them by 1d6.
I want to reiterate something I said before: I really appreciate all the commentary and suggestions. It constantly forces me clarify what I think of all this and further articulate my ideas, and that's been a huge help. So thanks! Keep it up! The response to these posts has been unprecedented!
In my own Fate Supers hack, I decided that supers would generally squash normals in combat. This meant that fragile types like Professor Xavier were ruled out. This was good thing, since I was trying for an action-packed, anime-styled setting.
ReplyDeleteI also decided that psychic stuff wasn't on the same scale as the physical super powers. So a character with normal-scale willpower is on an even level resisting mental whammies.
Huh. Something about your comment, Strangething, made me think of a possible remedy.
ReplyDeleteHave a topping called Mental that turns any trapping into a psychic power. Taking Mental on a trapping doubles its super-skill's tier cost. For example, Attack (Mental) or Persuasion (Mental) would double the tier cost, but an inherently mental trapping like Mental Resistance wouldn't.
Normally, Extraordinary is 10, Superhuman is 20, and so on, but with Mental, it'd be 20 for Extraordinary and 40 for Superhuman. The characters I've been working on for OrcCon are built on 80 points, so even 20 points spent on a single super-skill represents a pretty serious investment.
The rationale is that anything in the realm of psychic ability is already pretty "extraordinary" or "superhuman," in the conventional use of those words. Even at the Mundane tier, being able to hurt someone simply be thinking about them is still pretty huge.
This makes psychic ability a little rarer, since it costs so much more. On the flip side, defense against psychic powers would be as cheap as any other trapping.
A Modest Proposal
ReplyDelete(for Super Heroes/Villains)
First, no points.
I propose adding a "Super" quality to aspects, skills, and stunts. I'll enclose these "Supers" in braces {} to distinguish them from the normal varieties.
A Super must have at least one {aspect} and take the stunt "Super (Hero/Villain)". This stunt buys them a new skill called Power.
The Power skill has several uses that give the Super their power.
1) it increases the stress tracks
Physical = base + Endurance bonus + Power
Composure = base + Resolve bonus + Power
( base is whatever your base stress track normally starts at)
2) a {skill} roll is 4dF + {skill} + Power
3) tagging an {aspect} gives a bonus of (2 + power)
4) a {weakness} is an aspect that an opponent can tag for a bonus of (2 + power) on their roll
5) a {stunt} adds a supernormal power as a trapping to an existing skill
6) every {aspect}, {skill} and {stunt} reduces refresh by 1
7) every {weakness} increases refresh by 1
Obviously, Power needs to be Average or better otherwise the character is just a normal. Average Power gets you +3 when you tag an {aspect}, +1 on a {skill} roll and +1 to your stress tracks. Superb Power gets you +7 when you tag an {aspect}, +5 on a {skill} roll and +5 to your stress tracks.
The "Super (Hero/Villain)" stunt may not be necessary. I added it because stunts are supposed to break rules and the Power skill that it buys is a big rule breaker. The {skills} do perturb the skill pyramid but then so did the Tier concept.
There are several ways you can put the pieces together depending on your character concept. For example, consider a flying character:
- they could take a {stunt}, {Flight (Athletics)} that adds the trapping "Flight" to the Athletics skill. This will get them off the ground an not much else.
- they could take the {stunt} and a {skill}, {Athletics}. This not only gets them off the ground, it improves all their athletics, including flight.
- they could take an {aspect}, {Flys like a bird}, with or without a {stunt} or {skill}. {Flys like a bird} not only gets them off the ground but they could pull off legendary feats depending upon how many {aspects} they can bring in to the roll. (i.e. fly around the earth at the speed of light and turn back time.)
I also think that this may solve the defence dilema. By adding Power to the stress tracks it makes normal combat (physical and composure) less deadly, unless its against another super of equal or greater Power. And remember, stress is not damage. When Superman gets shot in the eye, the bullet may bounce off but that doesn't mean that it is painless. If he takes enough bullets to the eye he may need to take minor consequence of "irritated". Now that I think about it, maybe consequences can be modified by Power somehow. I need to think about that.
Final note - I didn't mention any trapping for the Power skill. It could be used for some powers or abilities that are common to all Supers.
Biff, that really isn't far off from some of my notes from a couple years ago. I order you to playtest it and report back.
ReplyDelete[Power] could be used for some powers or abilities that are common to all Supers.
Are there any of those, though? I mean, what do Batman and Professor Xavier really have in common, ability-wise?
@Mike
ReplyDeletewhat do Batman and Professor Xavier really have in common, ability-wise?
They both have superhuman abilities.
I did not intend to imply that they would have super abilities based on the Power skill. It is simply the one thing that all Supers have in common - it makes them Supers!
It may be useful for some meta-game stuff.
- a morality mechanic. Superb Power is so far above human, perhaps that power is corrupting.
- limit breaks effects
- what if a character is not in full control of there power? If Bruce Banner ran out of FATE points to resist compels with, would Hulk take over? Forever?
This is sort of tangential, since I don't have the tools to really tackle the Hulk right now -- the whole transformation thing is potentially a pain in the ass -- but I'd like to see him done with stress tracks and consequences. As Banner takes Composure stress, as some point he'll need to take a consequence or be Taken Out, and that consequence is his transformation into the Hulk.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe that's what Taken Out is -- turning into the Hulk. It's a matter of perspective, I guess, although the latter option might be better. After all, Banner doesn't really have a choice in the matter. Piss him off enough and eventually he will Hulk out.