Re: [BNW] Improving Powers

[MKirk2112@aol.com]

In a message dated 8/11/2000 10:27:44 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
whytcrow@io.com writes:

<< However, I feel that while simulating comic books is a 
 good thing, one must always remember that comic books are written 
 without consistent rules, by many different authors over time, and 
 thus applying logic is like trying to logicize Star Trek.  (Assume 
 logicize is a word).
 
 Now, once again, if someone feels they want to more simulate comic 
 books more closely, they should feel free to do so in whatever manner 
 they see fit.  (Standard disclaimer so people don't feel I'm 
 attacking them).
 
 I personally don't think that much of the improvements chars make to 
 their powers within comic books are really b/c they improved--I think 
 it is more the writers fitting reader demand, variations in how 
 things are presented, or tricks (extra damage, extra range, etc). 
 But that's my opinion. >>

No, I would agree with you.  Comic books are comic books and RPGs are RPGs.  
The writers of any fiction are not thinking at all of RPGs or any underlying 
"rule structure" when they write their stories ... as well they shouldn't.  
My point was more along the lines of trying to identify the "reasons" why so 
many people want to have a mechanism in the BNW game to increase power 
intensities.  I think one of the reasons is because we have seen these types 
of increases in comics for a long time, whether this is right or wrong, 
accurate or inaccurate.

I agree that many increases in comics are of the trick/skill/stunt variety, 
but many are also blatant power intensity increases.  I was reading "The 
Essential Uncanny X-Men" the other day (basically issues #1-#24) and Marvel 
Girl was having trouble using her TK to hold a stunned Angel in the air to 
keep him from falling and hurting himself.  Even before the Pheonix fiasco 
(ugh!), Marvel Girl could lift far more weight than that with her TK.  Was 
her inability to lift the Angel for a long time important to the plot?  Yup.  
Was it probably a "writer's license plot device" move?  Yup.  However, this 
"lack of strength" happens many times in the first 10 or so issues of the 
X-Men (and always at the worst possible time, darn it!) and I think it still 
contributes to our belief that power intensities increase, whether they do or 
they don't, because it obviously "looks like it" sometimes in the literature.

I know in the Marvel game
>the optic blast started out as Remarkable (by started out I mean that this
>was it's level in X-Men #1 when he began as a teenaged hero) and, last I
>checked, is currently Amazing (that's two big power level jumps for those of
>you who are not familiar with the game ... it almost doubled in intensity at
>least as far as points of damage goes).

I'm always dubious about literary chars written up in game 
supplements, again b/c it is hard to take something someone 
wrote--where any powers are literary devices--and set consistent 
rules to it.  As someone who has run a rpg based on a book series for 
2 1/2 years (in which only one new book has come out), trust me. 
Authors don't think about rpg design when they write, even if they 
are gamers.

That having been said, if you want to model something, you need to 
take into account even the stuff that's obviously an author screwup. 
That means if Cyclops does something *truly* powerful in one issue, 
you can't just wave your hand at it when you are tryign to model him 
as an rpg char.  It is maddening, I tell you.

True, but I am selecting Marvel on purpose because the purpose of the game is 
to play in the Marvel Universe, so their efforts in game design were to 
capture, as accurately as possible, the Marvel characters as they are in the 
comics.  100% accurate?  No way!  Nonetheless, it is interesting that they 
make these sorts of power intensity differences, e.g. "Remarkable" when he 
started out as an adolescent X-Man and "Amazing" now as an adult.  These are 
the "general" power levels, not from any one instance.  For example, there is 
a somewhat older issue (I guess in the lat 80's) where Cyclops shoots his eye 
beam through the Blob's body.  In the game, the Blob has Monstrous resistance 
to energy attacks.  Would I want to increase Cyclop's energy blast to 
Monstrous or higher?  Nope, because that was just one instance, as you point 
out.  That would be a mistake and it is impossible to totally model character 
abilities in a RPG from their performances in literature.

Again, I wasn't saying necessarily that BNW should be handled this way, in 
fact as I indicate later I don't think it should.  I was just trying to 
indicate a reason why many gamers believe that power intensities should be 
able to be improved.

You didn't like the Wildcards books?  Oh, you only read the first one.  I 
highly recommend books 2 and 3.  They are quite good!  I wasn't a huge fan of 
the first one either, and after book 6 I think the series goes way down hill, 
but the first 6 are quite good, I think anyway.  They are great sources for 
ideas for BNW adventures and NPCs.

This is a strawman, IMO.  The only way a package "gets screwed" is if 
we are trying to compare game balance, which again IMO is a holy 
grail that we should stop galloping after blindly.  Game balance is a 
myth--we can try very hard to set things up to be balanced, but you 
never know what skills, powers, traits, etc are going to be 
important.

Well, that depends on what you mean by game balance.  Game balance in the 
sense of all things in the rules being equal for all situations is impossible 
as you indicate.  I am speaking more from a theoretical point of view rather 
than a practical one.  Practically, game balance is a holy grail.  I used to 
like to play thieves way, way, way back when I was a kid playing AD&D.  The 
trouble was, I played them in a group that was "fighter dominant."  It was no 
fun, and I was completely useless.  There was no "balance" between what I 
could contribute to the game and what the fighter characters could.  You are 
correct, that that type of game balance is an impossibility if you are trying 
to use "cold rules" to accomplish it.  RPG rules have to be flexible enough 
to allow for many different situations to be represented in the game, so that 
sort of balance cannot be attained.

But, I do think that some types of balance can be obtained are are not "holy 
grails."  "Cold mechanics" is a place where we can strive for game balance.  
Like, you wouldn't have the rule that everyone but the person who plays the 
shoe in Monopoly gets $200 for passing Go.  That is an imbalance (obviously!) 
at a rules level.  Using a RPG examle, Champions (although I don't like the 
game) is a good example of a game that tries to be fairly balanced from a 
mechanics point of view.  Different attributres cost different points because 
they, in general, have different game effects, some of which are more 
influential on average than others.  If they made all the attributes cost the 
same number of points, then this would create a situation where there is a 
lack of game balance at a rules level.  This has nothing to do with what sort 
of campaign is run, or what sort of power level, or what sort of characters, 
or even what sort of attributes or skills or powers will be most beneficial 
for the types of adventures the characters find themselves in.  It is game 
balance in the sense of a "cold mechanic" of the system.  When I pointed out 
the "Goliath/Blaster" mismatch earlier, it is this sort of game balance I was 
talking about.  I'm not talking about whether they are functionally the same 
in all types of games, or whether certain campaigns will favor certain types 
of characters, etc.  I'm talking pure "cold mechanics" here ... and they 
aren't equal.  However, as I've said in many other posts, this doesn't seem 
to cause a "practical" problem, so I'm really not going to worry about it for 
my game.

I also think we do accomplish game balance in our own games at a more 
practical level, and we don't do this by using the rules.  In fact, if you 
have been running the same game for 2.5 years, you have to have accomplished 
that or your players wouldn't keep coming back.  This kind of game balance 
has to do with the fun of the game, not the "cold rules," and has to do with 
a "balance" of a player feeling like their character matters and is enjoyable 
to play.  As you suggest, that can't come from the rules, it has to come from 
the playing group.  We have all had the experience of having good groups with 
bad rules, and bad groups with good rules.  I honestly think the rules aren't 
that important.  

I was just pointing out an interesting game mechanic difference in the rules 
that had to do with increasing power intensities that didn't appear 
"balanced" to me.  But, in the whole scheme of things of making a good game, 
it really doesn't matter much.

Whew, are my fingers tired!  I guess being mainly a Guide I am overly 
sensitive to these sorts of rules dynamics.  All in all, when the dice start 
"flying" and a game moves along nicely from week to week, all these little 
rules issues don't mean squat.  Also, you are totally correct ... BNW (and 
all superhero games for that matter I think) should be about the people with 
the powers, not the powers themselves.

Thanks for the discussion!  Always fun!

Guide Matt