tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post5724828907365596194..comments2023-03-12T03:07:50.202-07:00Comments on Spirit of the Blank: Supers: In Which I Shoot Everyone DownMike Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post-84697471701232370842010-01-17T20:25:25.367-08:002010-01-17T20:25:25.367-08:00My concern with the replacement of dF with d6 for ...My concern with the replacement of dF with d6 for tier displacement isn't "+++6" there is a small chance of that. My concern is the average "0003" and "0034". At 1 tier off you will get on average 50% of the time what normally only occurs 4.95% of the time (rolling a +3 on 4dF). All things being equal you will likely just win/loose (depending on which side of the divide you are on).<br /><br />At 2 tiers off... you basically just win (or loose if you are on the low side), don't bother rolling other than to see if you were just one shotted.<br /><br />The ranges also change from -4<=>+4 to either -2<=>9 or 0<=>14 for those rolls.<br /><br />Again it puts things in the realm of - "buy every possible defense up to the campaign limits or run the risk of an instant take down"<br /><br />It looks like you would expect a Tier "C" (supers) game to require everyone to buy up to that tier for anything they might want. This makes it likely players will forget to buy up some defense and be unpleasantly surprised when they are just pwned. <br /><br />Yes as the GM you can just not send them up against people like that ... but what if one player made a mentalist and the others are more physical? Then you have the "this villain will kill anyone but player X because their mental attack is a high tier" or "all my villains have to have a very high tier mental resistance or player X will just mop the floor with them"<br /><br />One of the reasons my preference is to keep everyone in the same 0-5 (ish) range just like normal Fate is to keep things in an expected range that the dice probabilities support. I'll just redefine what that range means for my campaign. <br /><br />If I'm running a "cosmic-level" supers game everyone is in that league, not a few people who are normal humans, a couple that are avengers level, and then the silver surfer. Having a few more fate points without needing to accept compels doesn't seem cool enough to me to offset being taken out when someone sneezes.Robert Stehwienhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18158506849512588527noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post-77688399266125966472010-01-15T20:45:19.546-08:002010-01-15T20:45:19.546-08:00You can work out the kinks between Batman vs. Supe...<i>You can work out the kinks between Batman vs. Superman or Doctor Octopus vs. Aunt May but I a player wants to be a Giant Bug, do you say "No" because you don't have a Giant Bug tier?</i><br /><br />No, I say "Come on, Biff -- does every game have to have giant bugs in it?!"<br /><br />Seriously though, I guess it depends on where you want to peg your giant bug's skills. I mean, what is the "Giant Bug tier" to the player? If you have points to spend, you can buy a couple skills in the top tier, but it'd probably mean being left with no Refresh.<br /><br />If the issue is that that top tier doesn't go far <i>enough</i>, then I acknowledge the shortcoming. I'm not worried about leaving Azathoth out in the cold, to be honest.<br /><br />BTW, the only reason I shied away from the Death Star is example is because I'd want to break it down into both accuracy and damage, and that's a level of special-case detail I really didn't want to get into. Without that factor, I'm perfectly comfortable with calling the two-meter exhaust port a major weakness and reducing the Death Star's defense by four tiers.<br /><br />But for the record, I can almost always be distracted by the invocation of Star Wars.Mike Olsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post-49924730679427725892010-01-15T19:11:50.080-08:002010-01-15T19:11:50.080-08:00@ Mike Olson
Either you are using mind affecting ...@ Mike Olson<br /><br />Either you are using mind affecting powers on me, or I am starting to see more clearly what you mean.<br /><br />Must...resist....logical...arguments..free hatanihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03687856763229529616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post-70399374195770513062010-01-15T18:11:10.366-08:002010-01-15T18:11:10.366-08:00I support your right to shoot us all down, However...I support your right to shoot us all down, However... I don't think the Death Star example is that "far afield." It illustrates the problem of scale in a generic sense. You can substitute <em>Galctus</em> for <em>Death Star</em> if you like but the problem of scale remains. Disparity of size scale is just as much an issue as disparity in power scale. You can work out the kinks between Batman vs. Superman or Doctor Octopus vs. Aunt May but I a player wants to be a Giant Bug, do you say "No" because you don't have a Giant Bug tier?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post-68625243330690154102010-01-15T15:30:15.991-08:002010-01-15T15:30:15.991-08:00Even fighting only other supers, if there is a 5 p...<i>Even fighting only other supers, if there is a 5 point scale, you are going to be coming up against the difference a lot!</i><br /><br />Let me shed some light on how I see these tiers playing out, even though I don't have names for them right now. (For now, I'll give them letters instead of numbers to try to cut down any confusion between tier levels and skill qualities.)<br /><br /><b>Tier A:</b> Street-level supers with mundane equipment -- guys like Gangbuster in <i>Final Crisis</i>, or the Harbinger of Justice from <i>Dark Champions</i>.<br /><br /><b>Tier B:</b> Low-level supers, or "super-skilled" heroes, or heroes with exceptional/super-scientific equipment. Many iterations of Captain America would fall into this category.<br /><br /><b>Tier C:</b> "Normal" supers of every stripe. The difference between these heroes and the Tier B heroes is largely one of preference. Batman could fall into either category, as could early Superman or Spiderman. Basically, it depends who's writing that issue.<br /><br /><b>Tier D:</b> High-power heroes -- the Superman that can reverse time by flying around the world (that's not how that works!), or the Bat-God, or Dark Phoenix on a Tuesday afternoon.<br /><br /><b>Tier E:</b> Galactus. Cosmically powerful beings.<br /><br />My expectation is that the "average" super-powered character would have one or two Tier C powers, two or one Tier B powers, and few Fate Points. A super-skilled, non-powered character with all his skills in Tiers A or B would have proportionally more Fate Points.<br /><br />With that as an assumed baseline, conflicts between supers would <i>generally</i> involve a difference of one or two tiers, which is hardly overwhelming, IMO.<br /><br />The key to keeping it that way is how everything's priced (especially the stunts that give you access to higher-tier powers). Taking a higher-tier power should practically necessitate selling back/buying less Refresh.<br /><br /><i>Just to clarify my Superman, Batman example: I feel that they should both have exactly the same Story power to take out the thugs.</i><br /><br />IMO, they do, but via Fate Points. Batman will, generally speaking, have many more than Superman. It's more than just being able to get a +2 bonus here and there -- Batman can edit details more frequently than Superman, add trappings on the fly, and even refuse compels (how many times has Batman seemingly abandoned allies in peril only to return later with exactly what's needed to save their lives?). Fate Points are a great way to account for Batman's real superpower: the ability to be prepared for <i>anything</i>. <br /><br />For example, if Batman and Superman are up against, I dunno, Aluminum Weakness Man, Batman is going to be more capable of paying a Fate Point to have aluminum Batarangs in his utility belt and still have Fate Points to spare, whereas Superman is mostly likely going to be stuck going toe-to-toe with him. More to the point, Batman's player is more capable of paying a Fate Point to declare that Aluminum Weakness Man is vulnerable to aluminum -- as if his name didn't already give it away! -- and if the GM agrees, he is. Superman could do this too, but since none of his powers could legitimately bring aluminum into play on his side, it isn't likely to do him a lot of good.<br /><br />That's a terrible example, but I'm tired. Hopefully you can see what I'm getting at, though.Mike Olsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11547961835994778883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4491933635924780786.post-45372082117176295772010-01-15T13:22:07.756-08:002010-01-15T13:22:07.756-08:00I very much enjoyed the post. There is not much I...I very much enjoyed the post. There is not much I like more than discussing the philosophy behind certain game mechanic choices. And you state your case very eloquently. <br /><br />Just a thing or two I wanted to clarify. I wouldn't say that tagging a Weakness should be the ONLY way to mitigate scale difference, just the easiest. I would say ANY narratively appropriate Aspect could work. So "Under Artillery Bombardment" works just fine as a tag against the Hulk. Likewise "Exploding Trap" works against the Flash. No need to enumerate all possible weaknesses. They should flow from clever Maneuvers. It should follow the "rule of cool". And for a high tier super, it may be the easiest way for them to earn sweet FATE points.<br /><br />I disagree though about how often scale difference will come up. Even fighting only other supers, if there is a 5 point scale, you are going to be coming up against the difference a lot! Especially play an Avengers or JLA type game. I want the scales to feel different, and higher scales to have an edge in a fight, but I don't want the higher scale powers to always feel like a better choice.<br /><br />Just to clarify my Superman, Batman example: I feel that they should both have exactly the same Story power to take out the thugs. No bonus for Superman just for being a higher scale. He already has so little to fear from them, they can't really touch him. That is his benefit. Batman and Superman should have the Same odds to take out just as many mooks. I want Batman to be a street-level crime fight for a reason. That is his world. Superman isn't any better at cleaning up mooks than Bats is. If anything, Batman might be better at it, maybe with a Mook Fighting stunt. <br /><br />And if a high level super is fighting a lower level super, I don't want the lower level to go down any faster, I just want the higher level one to be harder to take down. Call it a pacing issue.<br /><br />Now if you keep the Will mechanic, then Superman could spend a point get a couple d6s, and really go all out against lower levels. An active bonus, not a passive one. His scale becomes more important then, because he chose for it to feel important. This is is key. Higher scales characters, I feel, should not automatically get more narrative take down power (which is what rolling the dice represents), than someone who chooses to play at a lower scale hero. <br /><br />But keep at what you are doing. I really am on board with most of what you have. I think the differences we have are so minor, that they will come down to table preference anyway. :-) Now enough about scale, get cracking on prices for all them skill trappings!free hatanihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03687856763229529616noreply@blogger.com