{"id":661,"date":"2019-07-26T00:45:15","date_gmt":"2019-07-26T00:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/cinemechanix-super-power-rules\/"},"modified":"2023-03-09T04:54:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T04:54:29","slug":"cinemechanix-super-power-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/cinemechanix-super-power-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Cinemechanix: Super-Power Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m trying to work out how to make the rules for powers to work in Guardians of Shymeria. I\u2019ve had several false starts so far. Every time I actually start writing the rules, I find myself lost once again in the Land of Crunch. I don\u2019t want the rules to come from the Land of Crunch, so I keep having to start over. Eventually I realized that part of the problem was that I kept coming at it from the effect side of the equation.<\/p>\n

Defining costs in terms of effect works fine when you\u2019re dealing with things that have clear mechanical definitions in the game. For example, saying \u201cAn attack that causes X damage costs Y points\u201d works just fine. It doesn\u2019t matter whether the attack is a super Kung-Fu kick or a flamethrower, if you spent Y points on it, it causes X damage. If you want special effects (like a kick that knocks the opponent out or a flamethrower attack that keeps them burning for several rounds), you either already have rules for that or have an add-on special ability the player can buy.<\/p>\n

The same logic also works for a while when you\u2019re comparing apples and oranges. If you\u2019re using the core mechanic to determine effects using powers the same way you would skills (GM sets a Difficulty, player rolls to beat it, the amount by which the player exceeds the Difficulty determines effects), then a +1 in \u201cFlying\u201d costs the same as a +1 in \u201cSwords.\u201d There\u2019s no more need to weight the cost based on the perceived usefulness or weirdness or whatever of the power than there is to make the \u201cSwords\u201d skill cost more than the \u201cSlam Dancing\u201d skill. If the player wants to be more useful in a mosh pit than on a battlefield, that\u2019s the player\u2019s prerogative.<\/p>\n

The problem comes when you hit the powers that lie outside the rules. Automatic and \u201cAlways On\u201d are one problem. Since you never roll for \u201cUnderwater Breathing,\u201d for example, you don\u2019t really have a handy skill bonus to tie a cost to, and making players pay for some high bonus that basically guarantees an automatic success means that relatively limited skills suddenly cost way more than more useful things (Are you going to spend 50 points to get \u201cBreathe Underwater\u201d at +10 when for the same number of points you could buy \u201cShoot Lasers From Your Eyes +5\u201d and \u201cShit Lightning,\u201d also at +5? Of course you\u2019re not). And on top of that you\u2019ve got things like \u201cNight Vision\u201d which is more likely to negate a penalty than give a bonus, and usually manifests more as a matter of narrative than rules.<\/p>\n

That brings us to the stuff that\u2019s purely narrative. Eventually you\u2019re going to run into something like Trap Jaw\u2019s switchable hands. Since the ability to swap a hook hand for a laser gun hand is a purely narrative power, you start getting into Champions territory where you\u2019re trying to fit weird equipment into the powers rules as well as powers, which can easily trickle down to things that would normally be handled purely as a matter of story. At that point you start getting into situations where (if you follow the rules), Green Arrow has to use his bow as a club because the player forgot to buy the \u201cranged\u201d property for it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s pretty much the problem I kept running into. When you use effect as a way of defining powers, internal consistency requires that you quantify every game element in terms of its \u201cpowers.\u201d Either that, or you try to draw a line where narrative and common sense end and mechanics take over. Depending on where you draw that line, you end up with end up with a set of rules that\u2019s crunchy, vague, or limited.<\/p>\n

The good news is that I think I\u2019ve started to get my head around an alternative that will offer a good mix of flexibility, simplicity, and \u201cgame balance\u201d (in the \u201cavoiding Mary-Sue-omancy\u201d sense, not the \u201ceveryone is mathematically equal, ensuring fairness!\u201d sense). The bad news is that you\u2019ll have to wait two weeks for me to tell you about it, because I\u2019ll be at GenCon next week. We\u2019re in room 243 of the convention center his year instead of the J.W. Marriott, so plan accordingly. All but two of our games are sold out, but there\u2019s always a chance of getting in on generic tickets or talking the GM into allowing an extra player.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m trying to work out how to make the rules for powers to work in Guardians of Shymeria. I\u2019ve had several false starts so far. Every time I actually start writing the rules, I find myself lost once again in the Land of Crunch. I don\u2019t want the rules to come from the Land of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2000,2064],"tags":[1981,2122,2121,2120,2119,2109,2088,1984,1982,62,1843,1826,1778,1739,1129,649,69],"class_list":["post-661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-design-ramblings","category-shymeria","tag-powers","tag-fire-ice","tag-thundarr-the-barbarian","tag-she-ra","tag-science-fantasy","tag-ralph-bakshis-wizards","tag-champions-of-shymeria","tag-weird-stuff","tag-supers","tag-game-design","tag-masters-of-the-universe","tag-heavy-metal","tag-he-man","tag-cinemechanix","tag-super-heroes","tag-frank-frazetta","tag-magic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3590,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661\/revisions\/3590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}