Re: Aquaman...

When did Aquaman change? 1994. His mini-series which redefined him by putting the guy through the wringer - he got his hand eaten off arm by piranha (they ignored his mental commands because they're dicks. Seriously). He'd already gotten his son murdered by Black Manta... like I said, the dude was put on the road of Marvel-levels of pathos. He got more ruthless. Ironically, he edged a lot closer to Namor. The writers definitely got more creative with him.

Harpoon/No-Harpoon - does add something to Aquaman, but lets be real, Namor has willingly gone up against Thor with Mjolnir. Aquaman on his best days isn't even in the ballpark of the same city, in the same state of the games in which the league that Thor is the MVP whose team bus stops to take a shit in on their way to the real stadium where his games take place.

But I do think it matters. Just not enough.

So I've read the latest beta watched a session, and I have thoughts.

[editing]

Quote from: tenbones on April 01, 2024, 12:55:32 PMLet me throw some out there:

Deathstroke vs. Captain America
man I could do this all day...

Cap never loses. Source: I am a major Cap fanboy.

Quote from: Brad on April 23, 2024, 12:43:31 PM

Quote from: tenbones on April 01, 2024, 12:55:32 PMLet me throw some out there:

Deathstroke vs. Captain America
man I could do this all day...

Cap never loses. Source: I am a major Cap fanboy.

I confirm the source is valid and irrefutable.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on April 22, 2024, 10:37:59 PMSo I've read the latest beta watched a session, and I have thoughts.

[editing]

Such as?

Quote from: Brad on April 23, 2024, 12:43:31 PM

Quote from: tenbones on April 01, 2024, 12:55:32 PMLet me throw some out there:

Deathstroke vs. Captain America
man I could do this all day...

Cap never loses. Source: I am a major Cap fanboy.

I'm a massive classic Deathstroke fan. And I would never dispute any of this, as I'm also a Cap fanboy.

I'm sure we all know Character X vs Y is all about popularity (probably with one notable exception: Spider-man. He gets his arse kicked every issue sometimes in the most unlikely manner. He's very much like Kick Ass in that his super power is to take a beating). With that in mind Deathstroke (a 'B' Tier character in DC - popular but not Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman etc levels, where each has had TV series/Films/merchandise forever. That said he's been a bad guy in a TV show and in cartoons so is better known than many others) is, in Game terms, stronger, faster and tougher than even the peak physical attribute human. A 'super soldier' for sure.

The MCU saw Cap get an upgrade in abilities and popularity. It's a win for CA over Deathstroke despite the latter being in the IN/40 Strength range, though it'd be dragged out over a few pages. I'd put Deathstroke as:

F IN40
A IN40
S IN40
E IN40
R GD10
I EX20
P EX20

In the old Marvel terms. I'd put Cap as the same (physically) aside from S RM30 and F AM50. He has more Karma than Deathstroke and also the Shield so Deathstroke struggles to land a blow but skills are probably very similar. Actually in game terms if Deathstroke can get the Shield away then it might come down to a coin flip.

In MEGs terms they'd be pretty much on the same columns for most things though Cap would have the 'Force Shield' power which makes him nigh invulnerable unless you can blindside him or take it away (Limitation: Requires Shield to use). The Block maneuver doesn't apply unless he 'braces' to stop something really big/bad coming at him. At least how I see it anyway, your mileage may vary. Deathstroke can 'Trick shot' to bounce a thrown or fired weapon from a surface to attack from Blindside/Flank and bypass the shield, but that makes it harder and Cap ain't exactly easy to hit.

Cap would have more Hero Points so takes a win there too, but neither fight (MSH/MEGs) is completely foregone. Rolls and tactics may mess things up.

I still think this guy would prevail.



Aside from the popularity thing he's the consummate planner. Plan for everyone, aside from Wonder Woman who he admitted he could find no weaknesses for. Same character as Cap. In his own book battles mooks and struggles against super villains sometimes. In the group books both punch far, far above their weight against Darkseid and Thanos, for example.

I could go either way on it. There has been an odd cognitive dissonance to how Slade has been written ALL while he's been slowly power-creeped to nowhere (apparently). For some reason post-Titans he was moved from being a Titan villain to being a Batman villain without actually making him *better* than Bats (except for their original meeting in Deathstroke's own book where he kicked the shit out of Bats - of course Bats learned from it and beat him right back).

But ever since then, the whole Bats/Deathstroke thing effectively is a wash in the comics. To the point where literally all of the "superhuman" aspects of Deathstroke are completely ignored in lieu of showing a good fight to no real conclusion. Both have "beaten" each other in straight up combat, both have done so using weapons/gadgets etc.

I think it's just weak writing. If Deathstroke has all the shit he's attributed to having - he would be Bats. He's more ruthless, faster, stronger, fight just as well - clearly - by the rules of Triangulation of Asswhoopery, Deathstroke has fought and beat some of the *only* people Bats has lost to: Bronze Tiger and Lady Shiva. To me this puts Slade on the same tier.

But it's hairsplitting. If you were GMing me and had Slade with IN(40) fighting show up - I'd still give him mad respect and wouldn't want to fight him.

Aaand my editing window timed out.

Anyway, after reading the beta and watching a few sessions I've decided it's not for me. It's a classic heartbreaker which prioritizes familiarity over functionality. I have no past with this so that's a bug, not a feature. And since none of my issues will be addressed it's not worth putting much energy into explaining them.

But for what it's worth:

I never want to hear fans complain about disassociative metacurrency as Karma is as narrative as it gets. I like how it's earned/lost for thematic actions, and how it must be spent to attempt a Feat in the process of learning it. I do not like how spending it must be declared before a roll, and then spent in the double digits to do double digit subtraction to determine how much must be spent to achieve a specific result.

The Whimsey Cards created dissonance between the fiction and mechanics. For example, the card 'Legend' was played on a nat 100, which resulted in everyone gaining a Karma bonus, picking up some Renown, and the adventure becoming legendary for... a hero not being stunned when they failed to phase through a door. This is a common problem with mechanics which determine fiction in situations where the results don't make sense.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 01, 2024, 09:35:12 PMAaand my editing window timed out.

Anyway, after reading the beta and watching a few sessions I've decided it's not for me. It's a classic heartbreaker which prioritizes familiarity over functionality. I have no past with this so that's a bug, not a feature. And since none of my issues will be addressed it's not worth putting much energy into explaining them.

But for what it's worth:

I never want to hear fans complain about disassociative metacurrency as Karma is as narrative as it gets. I like how it's earned/lost for thematic actions, and how it must be spent to attempt a Feat in the process of learning it. I do not like how spending it must be declared before a roll, and then spent in the double digits to do double digit subtraction to determine how much must be spent to achieve a specific result.

Well I've only been saying this on this forum since I arrived. I detest "narrative mechanics" - I'm that guy. But haunting me for 30+ years was the fact that MSH was one of the original games that used it, which I've been running the whole time. To me, it's *always* been the exception that proved the rule because it worked. And it serves as a cautionary warning to reactionaries that would extoll only non-narrative mechanics and in the same breath wax poetic about Old School games and even include MSH in there. It's always boggled my mind.

The reason *why* you have to declare Karma use (with a minimum of 10-points spent) is because if you don't the economy of Karma accrual will get abused and get off kilter. You want your players to have a stake in their actions ESPECIALLY when using Karma. It creates tension because if they get a bad roll, and didn't declare, they know going in if the roll is important and they blow it, they gotta eat the results because they were saving that Karma for other things.

In Heroic it is *more* important to declare (imo - this is not my design) because Karma is decoupled from Advancement. So you want that economy of draining those pools as a GM while giving justifiably to players that earn it.

Spending Karma to learn Stunts (not Feats) has *always* been part of the game. And it's cheaper and easier now than before. Again, as you mentioned, this might be due to your lack of experience with MSH to know. No harm no foul there. But it is a very good system and it works for comic-genre emulation.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 01, 2024, 09:35:12 PMThe Whimsey Cards created dissonance between the fiction and mechanics. For example, the card 'Legend' was played on a nat 100, which resulted in everyone gaining a Karma bonus, picking up some Renown, and the adventure becoming legendary for... a hero not being stunned when they failed to phase through a door. This is a common problem with mechanics which determine fiction in situations where the results don't make sense.

Easily dealt with: don't use them. I don't.

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMWell I've only been saying this on this forum since I arrived. I detest "narrative mechanics" - I'm that guy. But haunting me for 30+ years was the fact that MSH was one of the original games that used it, which I've been running the whole time. To me, it's *always* been the exception that proved the rule because it worked. And it serves as a cautionary warning to reactionaries that would extoll only non-narrative mechanics and in the same breath wax poetic about Old School games and even include MSH in there. It's always boggled my mind.

Then I think it's worth considering what makes them work at this point. Is it because it can be considered an actual element of the setting in this case? Is it because it's only used to modify rolls? Why exactly is this the exception?

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMThe reason *why* you have to declare Karma use (with a minimum of 10-points spent) is because if you don't the economy of Karma accrual will get abused and get off kilter.

The advantage of spending after a roll is in avoiding a potentially unnecessary step in resolving an action which causes a break in immersion. And the requirement for double digit spending could be eliminated by simply using a d20 instead of dividing a d100 result by 5. There's cruft here which could be removed, and if familiarity wasn't a priority should.

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMYou want your players to have a stake in their actions ESPECIALLY when using Karma. It creates tension because if they get a bad roll, and didn't declare, they know going in if the roll is important and they blow it, they gotta eat the results because they were saving that Karma for other things.

All depends on how much Karma they have, and how much they expect to get. Tension is often more the product of these economic factors rather than individual rolls, but considering them is potentially immersion breaking. And as the other example highlights folks are more likely to spend Karma on rolls to avoid negative outcomes rather than achieve positive ones, which isn't very "heroic".

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMIn Heroic it is *more* important to declare (imo - this is not my design) because Karma is decoupled from Advancement. So you want that economy of draining those pools as a GM while giving justifiably to players that earn it.

You're right, I must have been crossing the streams.

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PMSpending Karma to learn Stunts (not Feats) has *always* been part of the game. And it's cheaper and easier now than before.

But as you mention it's not. You just need a series of Reason Feats, one Red, one Yellow, and how many Green again? Sorry but this is ridiculously byzantine and does nothing to support genre emulation.

Quote from: tenbones on May 02, 2024, 02:15:27 PM

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 01, 2024, 09:35:12 PMThe Whimsey Cards created dissonance between the fiction and mechanics. For example, the card 'Legend' was played on a nat 100, which resulted in everyone gaining a Karma bonus, picking up some Renown, and the adventure becoming legendary for... a hero not being stunned when they failed to phase through a door. This is a common problem with mechanics which determine fiction in situations where the results don't make sense.

Easily dealt with: don't use them. I don't.

Better solution: Give them narrative triggers, not mechanical ones. There's a reason 'fiction first' is a thing despite how many here are allergic to the concept.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 06, 2024, 10:08:13 AMThen I think it's worth considering what makes them work at this point. Is it because it can be considered an actual element of the setting in this case? Is it because it's only used to modify rolls? Why exactly is this the exception?

I think it should be important to point this out specifically about Heroic - it exists specifically to cleave as close to MSH as possible without changing it fundamentally. So naturally it's going to inherit any perceived strengths and deficiencies, with the intent on minimizing those deficiencies.

That said - why did Karma work in MSH? I think it really requires we contextualize this - it was the early 80's, other RPG's obviously existed, but none of them in my experience at that time, not even Villains and Vigilantes (which was my first superhero RPG which bounced off my group) where the following felt true:

1) That the system made me feel like your character was not fighting against the limits of the mechanics (and by mechanics I mean the standard binary pass/fail of D&D) and it scaled the abstractions of gameplay very high.

2) The Karma system was completely new - it worked with the "Action-Panel" design of combat to represent that "Heroes can pull out the stops" as needed and placed it in the hands of the players. That it was plugged into advancement and conduct for accrual had the novel design conceit of creating self-imposed regulatory economy for multiple subsystems all at once.

IS it necessary though? By design it is only because its lashed to Advancement. Could it be decoupled? Yes, but you'd have to make up for the natural "swinginess" of d100 systems by providing more depth to the Talents system to help absorb that blow.

ALTERNATELY - you could possibly do this by converting it to a single d20 (something I'm actually working on as a test  case for a house system), which could greatly mitigate the need for Karma as a task-resolution modifier. Even potentially eliminating it.

I think for its time, and even now, it very much works as intended. The animus of disgust towards narrative mechanics would come later - which only makes MSH stand out as an oddity that doesn't break the narrative flow of the game. I've found that it actually enhances and reinforces it.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 06, 2024, 10:08:13 AMThe advantage of spending after a roll is in avoiding a potentially unnecessary step in resolving an action which causes a break in immersion. And the requirement for double digit spending could be eliminated by simply using a d20 instead of dividing a d100 result by 5. There's cruft here which could be removed, and if familiarity wasn't a priority should.

Let me break this out - it's something that would be an interesting thread on its own if I didn't think it would descend into a shouting match over the usual banal arguments pro/con narrative mechanics using the worst examples instead of good ones. BUT! for the purposes here you're making dig deeper into my perceptions of Karma and how people with potentially less experience might assume about it from the outside.

Karma is an easy design that is pro-player to emulate "comic logic". Which comic-logic? All of it. Most gamers are not deep comic readers, they may not even know about the different conceits to comicbook eras, and in my experience there is a shockingly small amount of overlap between RPG players and Comic enthusiasts. It IS narrative mechanic used to emulate literal narrative conceits by allowing a PC to *do* something that needs to be done.

It's hard to see from the outside where today, once we say "Narrative Mechanics!?!??" and we grab our pitchforks and torches, because that general lack of genre understanding we refuse to look at any literary genre beyond pass/fail mechanics that dominate our hobby because we're gamer's first.

The truth is Comic RPG's that don't have these kinds of mechanics tend to be way too crunchy (Hero System), or they spread the narrative mechanics across the system (Fate based supers) or use their own brand of Karma (like Hero Points in M&M or standard Savage Worlds Bennies) or varying degrees of crunch/abstraction.

The Karma economy regulates itself once players go a few sessions and simply follow the Karma awards cooked into the game - which clearly rewards PC's with the behavior expected of most superheroes. But it's hard to see it from the outside simply looking at the mechanics.

What I am finding today is the having introduced a LOT of new players to Supers, and MSH in particular, is the complete lack of understanding on "what is a hero?" It might sound like a no-brainer, it isn't. Most players come into my MSH games and go through the following phases:

1) OMG the POWER! - new players are always floored about how powerful their characters are relative to 99% of all other RPG's they play. And I let them indulge.
2) OOPS! - they overuse their powers and inevitably cause hijinks that rise up to and include accidentally killing innocent people.
3) No limits - players realize in the hands of a cogent GM, MSH is really free flowing, but it can allow for near limitless playability.
4) Oh Shit, limits! - players then realize to their chagrin, that even though *I* don't push everyone to be heroes, the game only really rewards you for being one. No Karma for being a villain.

What most new players show me is they want to be Deadpool or Wolverine or what they think their D&D character would be if they had these awesome powers. FOR *me* this is not an issue. My campaigns are very self-regulating - act like an asshole and yeah the Avengers/JLA may come show up to show you the error of your ways. But I can tell that 99% of my new players only know comics as a genre from TV and the Movies. So this only reinforces the lack of understanding of why the Karma mechanics exist in the first place.

I can also see how having a GM trying to emulate the MCU/DCU from the movies will struggle because the Karma rewards system seems WAY too "goody-two-shoes", when in reality Karma should flow in use and accrual. which includes PC's doing bad things. The problem is players today have a very mechanistic view of rules and want to overoptimize, and that's where the Karma rules feel bad.

So the "Kruft" which you speak of *shouldn't* exist if you're challenging your PC's appropriately to comic-logic. MSH is a game that is so old that it doesn't really explain it because it assumes 1) the players are going to be doing MSH modules and adventures, 2) there was really no thought of having to explain pacing etc.

Once in play, especially if you do sandbox play like myself, players are always in Karma threatening situations, but likewise I'm pushing non-superhero stuff to accrue and use Karma too (civilian identities are as important in my games as their superhero lives). They shouldn't be making rolls that couldn't blow up in their faces, but they should always be allows to roll to make things better if they want. So the 10-point Karma rule keeps them honest about it. Otherwise it would be endless hording.

Often our suphero fights are brutal enough to where my PC's bank a LOT of Karma to do the big fights, and they still regularly "barely win" or even lose outright.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 06, 2024, 10:08:13 AMAll depends on how much Karma they have, and how much they expect to get. Tension is often more the product of these economic factors rather than individual rolls, but considering them is potentially immersion breaking. And as the other example highlights folks are more likely to spend Karma on rolls to avoid negative outcomes rather than achieve positive ones, which isn't very "heroic".

I do not find this to be true at all in my games. That said - I also am extremely experienced in running Supers games, and I'm a former massive comic collector (over 60k) and I used to write for Image back in the day. So I am probably the outlier here. The tension of Karma use in my campaigns comes from me as the GM always raising the stakes commensurate to the PC's ability. Having mega-powerful PC's means having mega-powerful problems, which means mega-powerful potential for Karma LOSS. Yes, knocking people through buildings can cause 1) DEATH to innocent bystanders 2) massive damage to the area, which can spread 3) villains will use Karma losing situations to distract PC's from their goals, diversion tactics that can force PC's to burn Karma to keep up with a well laid plan.

MOST GM's new to Supers games don't really understand this. Again this is due to engaging in pass/fail mechanics, and lack of experience with the genre. Supers plays *very* differently otherwise. It's one of the reasons that Aberrant feels more like a Sci-fi game than a Supers game. Same with Rifts, even if you drop a Heroes Unlimited character into the mix.

I'm *not* saying I couldn't achieve this without the Karma system. I can. But I'm saying that the Karma system does help with it. For a new GM? Doubtful. Which is one of the many reasons why Supers RPG's are not popular. They're played on-the-nose which is like telling a GM to run D&D starting at 30th level.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 06, 2024, 10:08:13 AMBut as you mention it's not. You just need a series of Reason Feats, one Red, one Yellow, and how many Green again? Sorry but this is ridiculously byzantine and does nothing to support genre emulation.

I just ran into this in my weekly playtest. So you're *correct* in terms of cost. BUT! Defacto, you're basically going to pay the same amount because it's an AM(50) Reason feat - which MOST characters are not going to remotely be close to, and you need a Red result. So yeah, you're likely going to need 100 on the roll. So Karma.

Genre emulation - I think it serves two purposes. 1) Stunts are a MASSIVE part of the game, and in fact, if you don't have some alternative method to learn them where PC's are actively doing things to make progress that's a good thing. 2) It feels better to do it in-media res. But nothing says you can't hand-wave it if you let the PC's take time to train. Counter to that, you can always gatekeep a stunt depending on the nature of someone's power. For instance my sister (Ninebones) is currently playing an air-bending kung-fu martial artists and some of her wilder air-control powerstunts are locked away behind "secret techniques" she has to learn from her master. 3) There is plenty (PUH-lenty) of examples in the comics where characters are training *in combat* to learn stunts. Nightcrawler for instance learned how to slowly increase his teleporting payload, distance travelled (fun fact: he can teleport further north and south than east or west), and to use it combat where he has sub-stunted his multi-port slapfight distraction to multi-port stunning people going along for the ride. And many of the times he failed, which ironically is why the Danger Room exists. The Fastball Special never existed until someone wrote it into the X-Men canon. Etc. etc.

Archaic? Not convinced. None of my players have ever complained about it. It also serves as a very very important Karma spender to deflate those pools. And my players are *constantly* trying to develop new Stunts for their powers. How often can you say that of D&D Wizards and their spells where the players are actively trying or even *able* to do novel things with their magic in-play or out? Nah, Stunts are awesome. When players are self-training in-game, those are potentially powerful scenes in and of themselves if you're creative.

How cool would it be for an NPC(s) to wander onto their rooftop in NYC and see a team of young up-and-comers training? Maybe it's a reporter? Mayber it's a guy who's into pigeons? Maybe it's the heroes' rivals or enemies? Or you can handwave it off camera in downtime.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on May 06, 2024, 10:08:13 AMBetter solution: Give them narrative triggers, not mechanical ones. There's a reason 'fiction first' is a thing despite how many here are allergic to the concept.

*I* don't like Whimsey Cards. I think the Karma system and the Stunt system and good GMing should handle all of this. But I agree with you 100% on this. I don't think Narrative mechanics are the problem alone. They've become radioactive here because of the morons out there that have given such mechanics out-of-context bad PR and use narrative mechanics to play a metagame outside of the RPG in question. I'm with you.

Appreciate the lengthy and informative responses, and glad I decided to take a closer look after all.

Like most classic RPGs the majority of the 'kruft' is on the GM's side. Players only need to worry about their action declarations, trait Ranks, and Karma spends. But the magnitude of the numbers and steps in resolution can be greatly reduced, and it's a shame this new system didn't do that, as none of it facilitates the genre and only makes the GM's job more difficult.

Karma itself on the other hand is the beating heart of the system. It effectively emulates the likes of Superman's moral constraints in an immersive manner. And it doesn't disrupt my verisimilitude as the Marvel/Heroic universe is an inherently moral one, and Karma is as real a thing as alignments are in D&D.

I've even come around on announcing Karma spends before a roll. However based on what I've observed with systems like this players are likely to only spend it to avoid negative effects unless they know exactly what the results of a successful action will be. So I'm very interest to hear more about the kind of situations you put characters in to tempt them to spend it for easy wins.

Mechanically the system is based on buying results with Karma. Die rolls are simply the default amount spent on the action in question. So with enough Karma everything becomes an automatic success, and the universe may even cooperate with you to do the impossible.

Resolution is unnecessarily complex. The d100 leads to unnecessary math. There's no reason to differentiate between Ranks and Degrees. And ultimately the range is far more constrained than The Chart and d100 suggest. In fact a range of -2 ~ +2 would not be unreasonable as long as the bell curve was tuned, with Karma spends and moral compromises being used to push it further.

The problem with rolling for Stunts is that it can simply be rerolled on failure. And the problem with using Reason as the basis is that it makes that trait way too overpowered. A Sorcerer or Speedster with Uncanny Reason will be chewing the scenery and trivially overcoming mild inconveniences. And the complex series of Rank/Degree rolls is just more confusing kruft over an otherwise simple concept.

Finally I have no issue with Whimsy Cards in principle as long as they don't result in dissonant additions to the fiction. For example #Genesys doesn't work for me because of how the abstract dice results demand changes to the fiction without providing any guidance as to what those changes should be. You get good/bad, really good/bad, and also good/bad, all of which you have to consider for every action requiring a roll, which is why many players simply ignore them as opposed to take time to interpret them in ways which ultimately don't make sense.