Been playing ICONS for a few weeks now and I'm loving it for fast play. I've noticed that sometimes it becomes a bit overpowered (HA!) when trying to gauge success/failure. It takes a cool hand as a GM to call if giving max successs on all situations. (ie. PC's beating the difficulty by a lot and over doing things, etc.) But beyond this low fidelity, combat is really fast. Really fast.

My FLGS has a copy of ICONS and I picked it up and seriously considered buying it.  When I saw it was based on FATE I put it back down.

I guess for my superhero fix I will wait for M&M 3 to be published

Quote from: Daedalus;397175My FLGS has a copy of ICONS and I picked it up and seriously considered buying it.  When I saw it was based on FATE I put it back down.

I guess for my superhero fix I will wait for M&M 3 to be published

It's not really based on FATE, it has a few items stolen from it, but its about like saying FATE is too related to AD&D to pick it up.

Quote from: Silverlion;397178It's not really based on FATE, it has a few items stolen from it, but its about like saying FATE is too related to AD&D to pick it up.

This.

And honestly, after reading the M&M 3 rules as they appear in DC Adventures, there's a REAL good chance you were never ICONS target audience, if that's what you're holding out for, Daedalus.

Really, it's Marvel Classic, just simplified and with player defined Advantages and Disadvantages added in.

I ran my first Icons session yesterday.

Like the guys said, it's much more Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP) than Fate. In fact it is shamelessly like MSH, virtually a retro clone.

It think it improves on MSH in a few important areas.

The powers in Icon are better packaged which is really important if you are going to roll for them randomly. For instance instead of just having "Water Breathing" as a power (score!) Icons has Aquatic which is much more rounded.

The basic resolution mechanism in Icons is not as wildly random as it was in MSH. Even a very competent character (Incredible) still has like 30% chance of failing on a routine roll. Without lots of Karma I'm not sure the colour coded charts of MSH would be playable.

MSH, by default has a very flat difficulty scale. In most instance you just need to roll a "Green" to succeed which leads to the common criticism of MSH which is that, all things being equal, it's as just easy to hit Aunt May as it is to hit Spiderman. In Icons variable difficulties are a core part of the action resolution - it's a basic Target Number system.

One the flip side, although I really like games in which the GM is not required to roll dice, I think this is one game in which this is not such a great idea. You have to mentally reverse the equation for Stuns and Slams depending on whether its for a PC or NPC and it leaves you nowhere with NPCs with powers fuelled by Determination Points.

Challenges, as written, are a mess. There is just too much of a grey area between when a challenge in play is truly acting to the detriment of the character and when it is just  business as usual. Likewise it can be hard to call when is it a new instance of a Challenge in play or just continuation from the previous scene. Frankly in all the examples (from the published stuff and Actual Play) you can see there is zero consistency in how it's applied, with GM's frequently forgetting about it in the heat of the moment, all of which is made even less consistent by the notion of "temporary Challenges".

Essentially Challenges act as a licence for GM fiat. The thing is, if your group is okay with GM fiat, you don't need a licence, if its wary of GM fiat, this ain't going to wash.


But overall it's good fun. Andd, unlike a lot of new games, Icons seems very tweakable. I think it lends itself to house-ruling and mods in a way that doesn't break the rest of the game. So if you wanted the GM to roll for NPCs, replace Stamina damage with Fate Stress Tracks or get rid of Retcon use of Determination Points and the core game would still hang together nicely.

Quote from: Soylent Green;397213The basic resolution mechanism in Icons is not as wildly random as it was in MSH. Even a very competent character (Incredible) still has like 30% chance of failing on a routine roll. Without lots of Karma I'm not sure the colour coded charts of MSH would be playable.

MSH, by default has a very flat difficulty scale. In most instance you just need to roll a "Green" to succeed which leads to the common criticism of MSH which is that, all things being equal, it's as just easy to hit Aunt May as it is to hit Spiderman. In Icons variable difficulties are a core part of the action resolution - it's a basic Target Number system.

My problem with that is Determination is even stingier than Karma as written, without taking challenges. It kinda hosed the advantage of "less" random with the "less karma/determination" a bit. Sure you'll rolls will be more consistent, but that means if you fail anyway, there is less of a wild shot to get out there as well.


I'd probably done a more traditional 2d6 system, but that's me.

Quote from: Silverlion;397216My problem with that is Determination is even stingier than Karma as written, without taking challenges. It kinda hosed the advantage of "less" random with the "less karma/determination" a bit. Sure you'll rolls will be more consistent, but that means if you fail anyway, there is less of a wild shot to get out there as well.


I'd probably done a more traditional 2d6 system, but that's me.

Yeah I worried about the low amount of Determination too particularly as I don't consider the Challenge mechanics all that sound. We were lucky because both players rolled character with 3 starting DPs.

I had considered house-ruling so that the Challegnes just become roleplaying background information but with not mechanical ties and instead give the players 2 extra starting DPs. They chose to go for the other option of self-compels I outlined above. Predictably one player was more players was more brazen about playing up his Challenges to gain DPs than the other. It's just not a good mechanic.

As for dice, actually I very tempted to go back to FUDGE dice.

But the important thing is the game itself was very good, the characters really clicked and there was a really good vibe. We played half of the introductionary scenario at the back of the book, which I though might suck but actually it makes for a good, flexible framework to embelish on.

Another mad idea that had occurred to me is to double the amount of DPs, but also double the cost for certain things (for instance pusing DP to power Wizardry and possibly for Retcons). That way you get more DPs to play without necessarily breaking the game.

But I've not really though this through. There is something about the game that makes it (in appearance at least) easy to tinker with. But I'm going to try to play it as writtne a bit longer to make sure I really understnad what's under the hood.

http://bit.ly/bU7GBb

April O'Neil, Splinter, Baxter Stockman and Krang!

Plan for next week is Casey Jones, Leatherhead, Slash and The Rat King...

From all I've seen it looks to be very much FATE, only a particularly old-school orthodox kind of version of FATE.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;397556From all I've seen it looks to be very much FATE, only a particularly old-school orthodox kind of version of FATE.

RPGPundit

That's the best assesment of it I can give too.