Quote from: TristramEvans;653233In the real world people don't have set scores of attributes or know their odds beforehand when attempting a task. However, in the real world people do make the decision to put extra effort into a task, whereas a random roll where the GM determines the results afterwards and then says "okay you put effort into this because you rolled high" isn't even remotely more realistic.

Word.

Quotea mechanic that doesn't fit your incredible narrow Hero-system worship.

No, Gleichman worships only at his own altar.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;653124I don't know that willpower is best defined as a resource. I mean, there are cases where grandmothers have shifted cars (cracking some vertebrae in the process), but I don't think even Olympic athletes tap into the same reserves reliably. I'd rather give someone a morale bonus on their Strength check if the situation demands.

Grounding hero points in a in-game interpretation does make them less metagame, but is likely to raise all sorts of questions as to whether a task can reasonably be boosted, and by how much

Quote from: Bill;653207The magic vs physics thing is more about 'There are fireballs so normal humans can leap 100' without magic'

And the 'normal person lifting a car' is a largely a myth.

You might get a small adrenaline boost but nothing superhuman like actually lifting a car.

It is based on people not accurately assessing the facts and physics involved and then the story grows when it is told.

This is a ridiculous excluded middle.  There are few games where a normal human can leap 100 feet or lift a car - whether they use hero points or not.  However, there are a ton of games that intentionally diverge from realism in less extreme ways in order to allow for larger-than-life heroes - like D&D, Savage Worlds, the Hero System, and so forth.  

I also don't like it if the system would allow a normal person to leap 100 feet.  The few cases where this can happen is rare cases of exploding die rolls like Torg or DC Heroes or others - one of the reasons I'm not fond of exploding die rolls.  

However, I am OK with a system that allows larger-than-life heroics like James Bond 007 or the Buffy RPG.  And when I suspend disbelief to accept that there is a character like James Bond, I can also accept that the character does have reserves that they tap into when they really need to do something.  Yes, it stretches reality - but in my experience no more so than hit points, knockback, or many other features from heroic systems.

Quote from: jhkim;653252This is a ridiculous excluded middle.  There are few games where a normal human can leap 100 feet or lift a car - whether they use hero points or not.  However, there are a ton of games that intentionally diverge from realism in less extreme ways in order to allow for larger-than-life heroes - like D&D, Savage Worlds, the Hero System, and so forth.  

I also don't like it if the system would allow a normal person to leap 100 feet.  The few cases where this can happen is rare cases of exploding die rolls like Torg or DC Heroes or others - one of the reasons I'm not fond of exploding die rolls.  

However, I am OK with a system that allows larger-than-life heroics like James Bond 007 or the Buffy RPG.  And when I suspend disbelief to accept that there is a character like James Bond, I can also accept that the character does have reserves that they tap into when they really need to do something.  Yes, it stretches reality - but in my experience no more so than hit points, knockback, or many other features from heroic systems.

For me it is all about the expectations the game sets in the beginning. I am fine with James Bond type heroics, if that is the game I am expecting to play. If you are playing Savage World, that is pretty much the assumptions. It is meant to be cinematic like that.

Quote from: jhkim;653252This is a ridiculous excluded middle.  There are few games where a normal human can leap 100 feet or lift a car - whether they use hero points or not.  However, there are a ton of games that intentionally diverge from realism in less extreme ways in order to allow for larger-than-life heroes - like D&D, Savage Worlds, the Hero System, and so forth.  

I also don't like it if the system would allow a normal person to leap 100 feet.  The few cases where this can happen is rare cases of exploding die rolls like Torg or DC Heroes or others - one of the reasons I'm not fond of exploding die rolls.  

However, I am OK with a system that allows larger-than-life heroics like James Bond 007 or the Buffy RPG.  And when I suspend disbelief to accept that there is a character like James Bond, I can also accept that the character does have reserves that they tap into when they really need to do something.  Yes, it stretches reality - but in my experience no more so than hit points, knockback, or many other features from heroic systems.

I always have trouble articulating my point here. It has nothing to do with settings allowing for heroic/superheroic characters.

The things that bug me are like this:

Character is in a burning building, and his clothing and equipment is unharmed, but he is wounded from the fire.

Character is undrwater, swimming in his platemail, shield, and greatsword.

But some people will say "But there are unicorns and wizards!"


Thats what I am talking about.

Quote from: TristramEvans;653233In the real world people don't have set scores of attributes or know their odds beforehand when attempting a task. However, in the real world people do make the decision to put extra effort into a task, whereas a random roll where the GM determines the results afterwards and then says "okay you put effort into this because you rolled high" isn't even remotely more realistic. You're basically championing a mechanic and conflating it with "realism", when its anything but. In fact random roll mechanics are highly unrealistic.

The problem with "extra effort" is that a lot of what people do in RPGs is the kind of life-of-death stuff that would cause "real" people to put in extra effort. I totally get the line of thinking that says "OK my character would be trying really hard to kick this door down because his cat is behind if and the room's on fire". But how often do PCs kick down doors where they're not too bothered about the result?

As is true in many things, I think that FASERIP Marvel has one of the best implementations of this concept. You say what level of success you want, and pledge to use Karma to get there if needed. Then you roll the dice, and if you come up short, you add Karma to get you where you need to be. If you don't have enough Karma to get there, then all your Karma is used up and you fail anyway.

Now of course it's possible to have enough Karma that you can succeed no matter what you roll, so it likely doesn't pass the Gleichman barrier for 'not being metagaming'. But I think that for a lot of people it's a solution that would work well.

Quote from: BillCharacter is undrwater, swimming in his platemail, shield, and greatsword.

Goodbye, Beowulf?

Screw that. Goodbye clueless, tone deaf, anachronistic and utterly arbitrary dictates.

Quote from: Phillip;653220Trouble is, I'm not hearing that except from people who very vaguely suggest that someone else somewhere has once upon a time said it.

That is not contributing anything worthwhile to the discussion, I think.

You see it a lot in fighter vs wizard arguments, in my experience. There are people who take the view that for D&D fighters to be competitive they must at level 20 be the Incredible Hulk (or similar). Since others prefer Fighters to exist at a more sort of "badass normal" level, this is where the "if there are fireballs then why can't Conan jump 50ft in the air" arguments tend to come in.

Quote from: Grymbok;653277You see it a lot in fighter vs wizard arguments, in my experience. There are people who take the view that for D&D fighters to be competitive they must at level 20 be the Incredible Hulk (or similar). Since others prefer Fighters to exist at a more sort of "badass normal" level, this is where the "if there are fireballs then why can't Conan jump 50ft in the air" arguments tend to come in.

Except that you are incoherently trying to have your cake even as you eat it.

Is "the Incredible Hulk (or similar)" the same as "badass normal," or are they different? Make up your mind one way or the other, and cut the weasel bait-and-switch crap.

Quote from: Bill;653267I always have trouble articulating my point here. It has nothing to do with settings allowing for heroic/superheroic characters.

The things that bug me are like this:

Character is in a burning building, and his clothing and equipment is unharmed, but he is wounded from the fire.

Character is undrwater, swimming in his platemail, shield, and greatsword.

But some people will say "But there are unicorns and wizards!"


Thats what I am talking about.

Offhand, those things would bug me too.  

All of these examples are irrelevant to the main topic of discussion, though, which is hero points and their variations.  The defense of these isn't "But there are unicorns and wizards".  The defense is instead "But there is James Bond and/or Tarzan and/or Legolas" - i.e. heroes who do incredible feats without magic.

Quote from: jhkim;653281All of these examples are irrelevant to the main topic of discussion, though, which is hero points and their variations.  The defense of these isn't "But there are unicorns and wizards".  The defense is instead "But there is James Bond and/or Tarzan and/or Legolas" - i.e. heroes who do incredible feats without magic.

All right! The question, then, is, does Our Hero know that he is trivially certain of accomplishing the feat in question (if that's the situation the hero points or whatever in fact produce)?

By "trivially certain," I mean to exclude the 1 in a million type of exception that we pretty routinely and widely exclude from our attention regardless of whether such a mechanism is in play. Different folks select different members for that set, but I have yet to see a game in which it is empty.

The problem that I keep addressing is the myopia of people who privilege their very personal selection, asserting that it must be some kind of universal (indeed multiversal!) standard.

Bringing that around to the popular (at least in these parts) criteria for distinguishing a "story game," we might say that in that context the player does not much give a fig what Our Hero thinks. What matters is that (A) the outcome matches expectations based on James Bond movies or such, and (B) the process is fun as a game.

Quote from: jhkim;653281The defense is instead "But there is James Bond and/or Tarzan and/or Legolas" - i.e. heroes who do incredible feats without magic.

Oddly enough I find it easy to represent these characters without Hero Points. Thus why would I suffer the extra mechanic and the meta-gaming downsides?

Really what this comes down to is that the proper defense for meta-gaming mechanics is the statement "I like meta-gaming mechanics if they have the following characteristics...", not the denial that they exist or are troublesome for some players.

All too often people fight against the truth, even when it really doesn't reflect badly upon them.

Quote from: TristramEvans;653233In the real world people don't have set scores of attributes or know their odds beforehand when attempting a task.

You might be surprised depending upon what we're talking about. Why are there such things as 'Errors' in baseball for example? And I know my chance of hitting a target of a certain size on the firing range to a level greater than that represented in many RPGs- that's why I go to the firing range.

But really that's all besides the point. Game design does not provide the odds because it thinks the players know the exact numbers, it provides the odds so that the action can be resolved.

After that simple fact, letting the players know the odds is a short and quick way to give them information. True the degree of accuracy of that information may exceed a real world input- but it's just about the only thing in an RPG that does. All other description in a table top game is of lesser resolution. Combined with the fact that the player may be running a character who's a much better judge of the reality he exists in, and providing the odds becomes an offsetting advantage for all the disadvantages facing the player.

Thus providing the odds (for players running capable PCs) enhances the final realism of the campaign, and better meets player expectation of skilled PC performance.

Quote from: TristramEvans;653233I'm guessing you don't know many games that use these or the varied approaches to it.

I'm guessing that you completely missed the extensive notes and house rules on Deadlands on my websites, and all the posts about Shadowrun I've made over the years. Or the post where I detailed our experiences with the then newly released James Bond game back when.

In short, don't make up lies about my history and claim it as a debate point. Either find out on your own or ask.

Quote from: Phillip;653285All right! The question, then, is, does Our Hero know that he is trivially certain of accomplishing the feat in question (if that's the situation the hero points or whatever in fact produce)?

I would say yes, the hero does know this.  

Obviously, lacking voice-over narration, there is no way to know exactly what James Bond really thinks.  However, he certainly acts as if he is confident in his ability to accomplish the amazing at just the right time, even though he sometimes fails.  I can think of a few cases of heroes who are always surprised at how well they succeed, but most cinematic heroes are not this way - certainly not James Bond.  

The real question about treating this is whether you use (1) high stat and skill levels plus hero points; or (2) even higher stat and skill levels.  

In the case of #1, the system helps emulate the genre feature where the hero still fails some of the time - but when they really need to succeed at just the right moment, they always do.  

In the case of #2, the system doesn't emulate this feature - but still portrays the hero as larger-than-life.  

Certainly there are tradeoffs - so it's a matter of taste which you prefer.  However, I don't agree that hero points are inherently out-of-character.  It is possible to spend hero points based on in-character logic of what actions the character really cares about - and further this logic emulates the particular confidence that cinematic heroes like James Bond generally show.

Quote from: gleichman;653299Thus providing the odds (for players running capable PCs) enhances the final realism of the campaign, and better meets player expectation of skilled PC performance.

See the emphasis there? "Realism" is judged by the outcomes the model produces, not by the process of role playing. Many people find the other aspect more important to their enjoyment.

Many Story Gamers would probably agree with your emphasis, but they might disagree that (A) what you accomplish in the first place is satisfactory, and (B) the means you use are not more cumbersome. To the latter point, I note that it seems very hard for you to explain in the forum what your methods are, whereas the "hero point" methods seem quite easily conveyed.