This is a follow-on from my last post - please excuse anything I repeat or go over again. This post should stand alone, but it might be worth taking a look at the last one, just to see how my feelings and thoughts have changed (or not).
Okay, recently I played (for the first time ever) Hero System. I've bought the 6th Edition (6E) stuff since it came out (and I have a pretty hefty collection of 5th Edition, too), and have been wanting to actually have a game for quite some time.
Well, the opportunity occured: I arranged one of my legendary weekend sessions, where a group of friends come round to my house on Friday night and leave sometime on Sunday, and in the middle there is MUCH gaming.
So, here are some thoughts about it, after the fact - I didn't make any notes while I was playing, so this is all from memory.
I ran a 5th Edition adventure (Champions Battlegrounds, in case anyone knows it), tweaked slightly to fit the 6E ruleset, and everyone was a complete novice to the system. I'm going to take various parts of the system in turn, and just let you know my thoughts.
Character Creation
I have to admit, this is where the Hero System really comes into its own. The character creation system is comprehensive. It quite literally covers everything. Want to create a spell-wielding mage, able to make the laws of physics sit down and shut up? Can do. Want to create a superhero who is faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings at a single bound? Go for it. Want to make a gritty secret-agent type with gadgets and gizmos? This system can accommodate you.
It's a point-buy system, with differing point totals for different power-levels, and the GM can set the "realism" of the game in various ways, too, but the long and short of it is that points mean prizes. Some of you may recall from previous posts that I like to create certain characters in different games, to see if I can squeeze the concept into the rules, and since I look at Hero System as a Superhero game (though it can be applied to any genre, since it's a completely generic system), and my Superhero Character is Shadowe, I took a stab at crafting him. Guess what? He works like a charm. The character is extremely powerful (his point total puts him somewhere in the Cosmic-level Superhero genre), but that's not the point: the point is to see if it can be done. And it can. Some of his abilities took a lot of tweaking to get right (like the fact that the more injured he is, the faster he heals), but at the end of the day I had a character I would be happy to sit down and say "This is the definitive description of Shadowe" about. Yes, this system really is that flexible.
The greatest feature of the system, to my mind, is the utterly generic "Powers". There aren't things like "Fire Blast" or "Electricity Blast" or "Firearms" in this system. All of those fall under the utterly bland name "Ranged Attack". It then becomes up to the player to determine the "special effect" of their particular version of Ranged Attack. So player 1 might say "my Ranged Attack is called Fire Blast and is a stream of flame", while player 2 says "I can summon lightning bolts to strike my targets" and player 3 says "I have a gun". Each can then tweak their Ranged Attack with various modifiers that increase and/or decrease the point cost of the power. So, player 1 might just stick the basic Ranged Attack to simulate his Fire Blast, but player 2 adds the Indirect Advantage, allowing him to strike at foes behind a wall without them getting the benefits of cover, and player 3 uses the Charges Limitatation to simulate the ammo clip of his gun, and adds the Killing Attack Advantage, to simulate the general lethality of bullets.
So yeah, making a character who can fire electromagentic radiation and particles that are summoned from another reality... is pretty trivial. It's a Ranged Attack.
The skills are comprehensive, and there are character advantages called Perks and Talents (things the character has and things the character can do, respectively), as well as Attributes (which cover everything from how strong the character is, to how quickly he can act in combat, as well as his resilience to mental, physical and energy attacks and so forth).
Another excellent thing to note is that all of these things are balanced against each other with precision - unless you go out of your way to break the game (and it's very possible to do so, but the game very clearly makes the GM the final arbiter of what's allowed and what's not), you can quite happily say that a character point spent in X offers the same utility as a character point spent in Y.
Core Mechanic
It is perhaps unfortunate that the core mechanic for this game is the way it is, but without some sort of comprehensive rewrite, I can't immediately see a good way to fix it: it's 3d6, low roll to succeed. It may just be me, but I hate low-roll mechanics. They're counterintuitive to me. Unfortunately the whole game is written this way, so changing it to a high-roll system would be problematic to say the least. That's not to say it would be impossible - I could easily make a case for changing the Target Number (which is almost invariably based on the character's Attributes) to a Bonus, and it would be pretty simple to figure out how to keep the roll total target to the same probabilities. I could do it. But I don't want to, because the game system should do it for me. This particular downfall is exacerbated by the fact that Effect Rolls, which can include Shadowrun-like numbers of d6s, need high totals. That sort of discontinuity seems jarring to me, especially when trying to teach people how to play the game: "Well, to succeed, you need to roll low, but to see how well you succeed, you need to roll high".
It also makes combat a bit of a nightmare to figure out: 11+OCV-3d6 = DCV hit.
Whu?!
Okay, to remove some of the mystique, OCV is "Offensive Combat Value" (how good you are at hitting things) and DCV is "Defensive Combat Value" (how good your target is at dodging things), but seriously... that is the simplest form they could come up with for an attack roll? How hard would it have been to have made it a high-roll system where 3d6+OCV is your attack roll, and you need to beat 10+DCV to hit the target? Because those numbers have the same probabilities as the ones in the rules. It seems to me that the creators of Hero System have become wedded to their core mechanic (sorry Mr Long, but it's true) and are refusing to change it because doing so, while it would simplify the system no end, will make it look like they're following the bandwagon (hint: D&D 3E removed the low-roll mechanic for a VERY good reason - doing the same is not a bad thing).
As you can no doubt tell, I'm really not a fan of low-rolls.
Combat
The true test of any game-system, particularly one that is meant to be quite as flexible as Hero System, is how well it handles fights. And I'll be honest, it stands up very well, if we ignore the problems I have with the game's core mechanic.
This is not to say, however, that it is without problems. It has one that leaps out screaming at me with neon signs and alarm bells, and it is this: The Attribute called Speed (SPD).
Allow me to explain. A game turn is broken down into 12 one-second "segments". Your characters SPD determined which Segments he gets to act in (when he gets to take a "Phase"). The higher your SPD, the more actions you get in a turn. And it is relatively linear: A character with SPD 2 gets to act in Segments 6 and 12. SPD 3 in 4, 8 and 12. SPD 6 in 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12, and the lunatic player who burns a hundred points in SPD gets to act every Segment.
The average human has SPD 2. Most heroes have a SPD somewhere around 4-7. And any game that allows one player to act 6 times as often as another player has a problem.
This problem doesn't crop up if everyone has roughly the same SPD Attribute - in the game I ran, everyone was in the 4-6 range, and it worked out nicely, particularly since the bad guys tended to be in the same ballpark. But if someone had decided to have SPD 8, I can see that being problematic. Now, I'll admit that the game does include limiting mechanics - acting costs Endurance, and if you act more often, you'll burn through your Endurance faster - so it's not an insurmountable problem, but it is a problem. I got round it by the simple expedient of setting the SPD range I wanted the players to have, but I really dislike such heavy-handed tactics.
Everything else that springs to mind about the combat system works. It's (relatively) simple to grasp once you've got over the insanity of the core mechanic. The fact that there are two different types of damage (BODY and STUN) adds to the system as a whole - I've always had a soft spot for systems that include some form of difference between real injuries (BODY damage, in this case) and what I think of as "getting worn down by the fight" (STUN). Getting players to understand the difference and how to calculate how much they've done of each was simple, but it took a few tries before everyone was comfortable with it.
Adventuring
Now, since I didn't have a lot of time to lay out background, explain the world and setting, and generally get everyone hugely invested (we were all interested in getting down and dirty and trying out those nifty superpowers), and the amount of "out of combat adventuring" was strictly limited. The plus-side being that the game has automatic GM-prompts for things to include in adventures, in the form of Disadvantages - things like Dependent NPCs (DNPC) (think Aunt May from Spider-Man, or Lois Lane to Superman), Hunted (someone looking for you, though whether it's just to observe, to punish or to kill is up to the player), or Social Complications (the ubiquitous Secret Identity). Disadvantages are something a GM should think of including in adventures. In the game I ran, one of the PCs had a DNPC who was the character's girlfriend, and on one memorable adventure involving an amusement park, the girlfriend was there - thus automatically creating an additional source of tension for that player, as he had to decide between normal heroic action and looking out for an important person to his character.
Conclusions
As the D&D 3.5 fan that I am, Hero System 6E is unlikely to steal my affections as my game of choice. That said, though, it is a very robust system, with lots of background material and supplementary rules, and great pains have been taken to make it backwards compatible with earlier editions of the game (so it's trivial to use a 5E adventure in a 6E game, for example). The infinite flexibility of the character creation system means that you can play literally any game you want using the ruleset, with the downside that there are so many rules to take into account that you might struggle to get exactly what you want without spending hours doing so.
The core mechanic is a poor choice. While it certainly isn't flawed, there are more intuitive ways to get exactly the same results, and I would like to see the next edition of the game move in that direction, however unlikely that is. (And for anyone inclined to knowing how I would handle it, and who knows how Hero System works, I would make the base Target Number for unopposed tasks 22, with 3d6 + (current TN) as the roll for success. Penalties reduce the current TN, bonuses add to them, just as in the current game. This would keep the maths essentially the same, and would convert Hero System into a simple high-roll system. Combat would use the 3d6+OCV vs. 10+DCV I mentioned earlier.)
I will definitely be playing it again, and looking for a slower, more measured pace to the adventures I run, and I'm very glad I tried it out, but for now... my weekly game is going to stick with Pathfinder, which is the D&D 3.5 rules with improvements.
Tuesday, 21 September 2010
Friday, 19 March 2010
I need a Hero!
Well, as anyone might have guessed, life has been a little hectic lately, so I’ve not been keeping up with my blogging, which I’ll have to admit is a great shame.
Having listened to (most of) the latest offering from the guys at the Limited Edition podcast, and partway through it there was a brief interlude where Hero System 6th Edition was discussed.
Now, being the RP-fiend that I am, I couldn’t help but decide that I needed to put my thoughts about that system down, and this seemed like a good place to do it.
What is Hero System?
Well, it’s a roleplaying system that was originally designed for a Superhero game, and has grown into a generic system that can be used for any genre you’d care to think of. Importantly, I don’t mean that it can be adapted to fit any genre – I mean that the game as written can be used for any game you can imagine.
It is an incredibly powerful set of tools but, like all powerful tools, it has some drawbacks.
How does the game work?
This is the sort of thing you could write a six-thousand word essay on. It’s a point-build system, and everything gets purchased using the points. Skills, powers, stats, you name it, you pay points to have it. There are 17 distinct statistics for a character, an insane number of skills and an effectively infinite variety of powers that can be constructed. Dice rolling in the game is, unfortunately, a combined “high and low” system. Roll high to determine effects, roll low to determine success. Success rolls are all based around a 3d6 roll vs target number – the lower the target number, the harder the task is, so “bonuses” increase the target number, making it easier to succeed. Once you’ve got your head round that, though, it’s actually fairly simple to understand.
The combat system is quite complex, dividing a single 12-second “turn” into 1-second “segments”, on which your character may or may not be able to act, directly dependent on his Speed stat (if you have a speed of 4, you act in segments 3, 6, 9 & 12, for example). In any segment in which you get to act, you have a “phase” (turn, go, chance to take an action), and various actions use up some of all of your activity for your phase. So far so good, though it does mean that high-speed characters (who, admittedly, will have spent a LOT of points getting the stat that high) have the potential to dominate the action. The choice of actions is huge, covering pretty much every possible eventuality.
As I’ve said previously, superhero games tend to get judged by me on their ability to simulate a particular character of mine, and, true to form, I’ve dug in and started trying to model Shadowe using this system. And it works. Oh, how it works. In fact, it works so well that I keep refining things, adjusting the particular advantages, limitations and even entire powers, just because I can make it better, more accurate. And, because of the complex nature of the system, I went ahead and purchased the Hero Builder application, which lets me do it all on my computer (which, considering that the character creation system is very maths intensive, is a VERY good thing).
Now, at this point, it’s worth me mentioning that I’ve never actually played the system. I’ve never seen it in action, and I have no idea how it pans out at the gaming table – I intend to change this as soon as possible, but for the moment, I have no idea what the experience will be like.
It’s worth noting that the game comes in two books: Character Creation and Combat & Adventuring. Both books are hardbound with glossy paper. Book 1 is all about the rules that let you make your character, and is a good two inches thick. It contains nothing but rules for making your character, in incredible detail. Book 2 is about 2/3rds the size of the first one, and is all about the rules for combat, the environment and so forth.
There is also a “Basic Rules” book, which I also got my hands on, which covers the bare essentials of the system, and is a great aid for creating characters and quick rules references. I’m extremely glad I got it.
Now, the downsides. The biggest problem with a freeform system like this is that it is essential that you have a good idea about the character and abilities you want that character to have, before you even pick up the book. Creating a character without having an idea of what you want the character to be able to do (and pretty detailed idea, at that), is an exercise in futility. So my advice is to pick concept first, and the more detailed the better, because what the Hero System lets you do is create that concept in extreme detail. In the interests of game balance, it might be weaker than you originally intended (particularly if you have lot of powers – since your points have to be spread around more, the individual powers are going to be less, well, powerful).
On balance, if you’re looking for a system that lets you tell freeform stories with minimal rules, this one is NOT the system for you. Alternatively, if you like a well-balanced system where you can control every aspect of your character’s capabilities, not being restricted to the “powers” that the game lets you have, then it actually doesn’t get more comprehensive than this. I certainly fall into the latter group – I love options, but I love rules that work to make those options fit with the options everyone else has. I love this system, even though I’ve never played it (I will persuade my Wednesday night group to dig in and have a go at some point), and I can’t get over the flexibility of it. There are other generic systems out there, certainly, but they tend to generally be quite freeform in some aspects (not all of them, I know) – Hero System is fully unified.
I know that this system is not for everyone – my wife prefers either rigid structure to her games, or incredibly freewheeling, rules-light games, and while the combat rules of Hero System are clearly delineated, the character creation rules are so utterly open-ended that she can’t always decide what she wants from a character, which makes building them pretty difficult.
If crunching numbers and the prospect of fully detailed and well-balanced abilities appeals to you, though, this is a good system.
One other thing that puts people off about the Hero System is that the core rulebooks, at about 3 ½ inches thick, taken together, are actually imposing. They look daunting. Well, the Basic Rules are a soft-cover 138 page book, and contain everything you actually need to play the game. The core rules themselves just provide more options.
Monday, 8 February 2010
Weekly Games: Mutants and Masterminds
First of all, I'd like to apologise to my players for dropping out last night. It wasn't the right thing to do, and I understand that, and it would have been better to talk to you all and explain things, I recognise that fact. But the truth of the matter is that I saw red, and I knew that if I had said anything, it would have been a screaming rant, and that wouldn't have helped anyone.
So I just quit.
No, I haven't quit the game, I have a huge storyline that I want to continue, but last night was too much, after a pretty rough weekend.
I won't go into all of the personal reasons for my poor state of mind, since it's not relevant. What is relevant is what happened last night that pushed me over the edge.
Simply put, it's two things. Firstly, I do not have much patience for players deciding not to act. It is not my problem, as GM, if you have three different directions you can go in and you can't choose between them. I don't want to railroad the plot. Any of the three would have eventually led to the right place, that's built into the plot already. "Optimum path" doesn't exist. There is no walkthrough. This is not a computer RPG, this is a game where the GM reacts to your decisions. If you go off track, I will adapt. The only "wrong" thing to do is to do nothing. But I'm prepared for that, too. But I can't say what's happening if I don't know what the PC's are doing (or not doing, as the case may be).
For the record, going to the US Naval Base is a good move. It might not be the best one, depending on your preferences and desire to get to the bottom of things, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Please note, I'm only saying this now, after the decision was made. I will not say so in advance. It is up to the players to decide what to do and where to go. Definitely not me.
The second thing is to do with relevance. If I do not provide a piece of information, it is safe to assume that I have not thought of what it is. So, I know that the commander of the Naval Base is Captain Foster. I do not know what rank someone at the guardpost is likely to have. Nor do I care to take the time to find out, because it's not relevant to the story. Further, I doubt many civilians can recognise rank insignia for their own country's armed forces. So if I'd said "Two red stripes in a curved "V" shape on the left upper arm", I'd only tell you it was a PO 2nd Class with less than 12 years of service if your character has a military background or appropriate skills.
It wasn't relevant, as far as I could tell, since it was a walk-in character, not plot relevant, and I had a LOT of things on my mind at the time. Like writing up the introduction to Captain Foster.
I will note that the two things above actually point to something. If I'm trying to move the plot forward, being distracted by irrelevant details will only slow things down, which will only make the plot move slower, which will only cause even more delays in player decisions, because the information the players have isn't important to moving the plot forward.
Right now, this may all seem very mysterious to the players, but that's okay, because it's meant to be. I am prepared to say that this is actually part of the overarching plotline. This is not a side-quest, not a mini-adventure. This is the full-on main plotline. The characters don't know it yet, because I've been careful about what information they have. This part is all about gathering that information, and all will become clear, sooner or later.
Now, on to some thoughts, since I hate these posts to be pure ranting on my part.
Thoughts about playing online through a text-based medium, really. I'm still puzzling through how this all works. Learning to adapt my style of GMing to the environment. If I'm round a table with some friends, it's easy for them to tell from my expression and mannerisms when something is a distraction. Online, all the players have to go on are my words. I will always just lay out plot elements in terms of what players know, see, hear. I'm not a fan of explaining my reasoning until after the fact, or commenting on player decisions until the action is resolved.
I've reached the conclusion that it's impossible to deal with everything. With five or six players, all asking questions, some of those questions will be missed or forgotten. It happens in tabletop games. Just because I have a text interface doesn't suddenly make my memory perfect, or force me to notice something. The ability to PM me with questions does two things - it prevents me from reading posts in the main window, and it prevents me from writing descriptions. I hand out player-specific information via PM's, but I despise getting PM's that could be directed to me in the main window.
Why? Because it's another window I have to have open - I've already explained the 11+ windows I need to have up just to play this game, in a previous post - and it actively prevents me from paying the other players any attention. Any. It's not something I can sit to one side and deal with at the same time, because it's something that is demanding my attention there and then.
So, anyone planning to play an online game using a game system that isn't designed for it, and without custom software designed to smooth the running of the game, don't be afraid to ignore PM's from your players. If it is something that actually matters to the game, it can be said in OOC chat. Save PM's for secret information. Don't ever discuss game rules or characters once the game has begun. You are the GM. You adjudicate the rules. Once the game starts, your word is law. You may get it wrong - if you do, make a note, and don't get it wrong next time. But the important thing is to keep things moving.
So I just quit.
No, I haven't quit the game, I have a huge storyline that I want to continue, but last night was too much, after a pretty rough weekend.
I won't go into all of the personal reasons for my poor state of mind, since it's not relevant. What is relevant is what happened last night that pushed me over the edge.
Simply put, it's two things. Firstly, I do not have much patience for players deciding not to act. It is not my problem, as GM, if you have three different directions you can go in and you can't choose between them. I don't want to railroad the plot. Any of the three would have eventually led to the right place, that's built into the plot already. "Optimum path" doesn't exist. There is no walkthrough. This is not a computer RPG, this is a game where the GM reacts to your decisions. If you go off track, I will adapt. The only "wrong" thing to do is to do nothing. But I'm prepared for that, too. But I can't say what's happening if I don't know what the PC's are doing (or not doing, as the case may be).
For the record, going to the US Naval Base is a good move. It might not be the best one, depending on your preferences and desire to get to the bottom of things, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Please note, I'm only saying this now, after the decision was made. I will not say so in advance. It is up to the players to decide what to do and where to go. Definitely not me.
The second thing is to do with relevance. If I do not provide a piece of information, it is safe to assume that I have not thought of what it is. So, I know that the commander of the Naval Base is Captain Foster. I do not know what rank someone at the guardpost is likely to have. Nor do I care to take the time to find out, because it's not relevant to the story. Further, I doubt many civilians can recognise rank insignia for their own country's armed forces. So if I'd said "Two red stripes in a curved "V" shape on the left upper arm", I'd only tell you it was a PO 2nd Class with less than 12 years of service if your character has a military background or appropriate skills.
It wasn't relevant, as far as I could tell, since it was a walk-in character, not plot relevant, and I had a LOT of things on my mind at the time. Like writing up the introduction to Captain Foster.
I will note that the two things above actually point to something. If I'm trying to move the plot forward, being distracted by irrelevant details will only slow things down, which will only make the plot move slower, which will only cause even more delays in player decisions, because the information the players have isn't important to moving the plot forward.
Right now, this may all seem very mysterious to the players, but that's okay, because it's meant to be. I am prepared to say that this is actually part of the overarching plotline. This is not a side-quest, not a mini-adventure. This is the full-on main plotline. The characters don't know it yet, because I've been careful about what information they have. This part is all about gathering that information, and all will become clear, sooner or later.
Now, on to some thoughts, since I hate these posts to be pure ranting on my part.
Thoughts about playing online through a text-based medium, really. I'm still puzzling through how this all works. Learning to adapt my style of GMing to the environment. If I'm round a table with some friends, it's easy for them to tell from my expression and mannerisms when something is a distraction. Online, all the players have to go on are my words. I will always just lay out plot elements in terms of what players know, see, hear. I'm not a fan of explaining my reasoning until after the fact, or commenting on player decisions until the action is resolved.
I've reached the conclusion that it's impossible to deal with everything. With five or six players, all asking questions, some of those questions will be missed or forgotten. It happens in tabletop games. Just because I have a text interface doesn't suddenly make my memory perfect, or force me to notice something. The ability to PM me with questions does two things - it prevents me from reading posts in the main window, and it prevents me from writing descriptions. I hand out player-specific information via PM's, but I despise getting PM's that could be directed to me in the main window.
Why? Because it's another window I have to have open - I've already explained the 11+ windows I need to have up just to play this game, in a previous post - and it actively prevents me from paying the other players any attention. Any. It's not something I can sit to one side and deal with at the same time, because it's something that is demanding my attention there and then.
So, anyone planning to play an online game using a game system that isn't designed for it, and without custom software designed to smooth the running of the game, don't be afraid to ignore PM's from your players. If it is something that actually matters to the game, it can be said in OOC chat. Save PM's for secret information. Don't ever discuss game rules or characters once the game has begun. You are the GM. You adjudicate the rules. Once the game starts, your word is law. You may get it wrong - if you do, make a note, and don't get it wrong next time. But the important thing is to keep things moving.
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
Time passes...
Well, it's been an age since I've posted anything here, but I didn't want anyone to think that I'd forgotten this place. Life has been a bit busy, recently, and a change at work means that I no longer get the opportunity to write these blogposts in the office, which is what's really put the brakes on doing so.
For those interested, I'm still running my weekly games, and this is just a brief update about where I am with them.
Mutants & Masterminds
This game is on Christmas hiatus right now, resuming in the New Year, having basically finished the last plotline. Go players! Especially since I managed to sneak in the old "reverse morality fight yourselves" trope. Which was, frankly, awesome, especially since it was the single largest combat I've run so far, and it went a lot more smoothly than I anticipated. Here's a hint to any budding online GMs out there - make the players do as much of the work as you can! That saves you time all the way down the line, allowing you to focus in rule adjudication and description. I'm still working on whether I should ask my players to write the descriptions of when they get hit in combat, as well the effect of their own strikes. I'd love it if they're willing, because it will allow them even more creative input into events, and simultaneously free me up to concentrate on keeping the game running smoothly, which could well chop combat time to about 2/3rds of the current length (which is still far too long for my liking).
For anyone interested (and assuming at least a basic knowledge of the M&M damage system), when a player hits an NPC in combat, I will write the outcome in a very simple format, straight into the OOC chatbox. These range from "Miss" to "Hit, no effect" through "Hit, Bruised", "Hit, Stunned", "Hit, Stunned, KB 25 feet" all the way up to "Hit, Unconscious, KB 1000 feet, hit a wall, wall does Bruise". It is then up to the player to describe the action in the IC chatbox, as well as the effect. This works brilliantly, because it means that as soon as I've said that in the OOC chatbox, I can call for the next character.
The problem I've experienced, though, is when I get multiple NPCs acting one after the other. Since I've retained control of the descriptive text for NPC actions, it can tie me up for several minutes while I detail it. If I can pass that across to the players, in a similar format (I'm thinking, say, "Speedbreak punches Liberty Belle. Hit, Stunned, Staggered, KB 10 feet" or "Death Knell uses mace on Scrub, Hit, Bruised") and leave it up to the players to write the descritpions for me, that could save me an inordinate amount of time.
I know that some of my players read this blog, so let me know what you think.
Dungeons & Dragons
My D&D game reached a natural pause point just before Christmas, so we paused. And entered into a huge debate about whether we like 4E enough to carry it on. The quick answer is "No". The long answer is as follows: D&D 4E is an incredibly sophisticated miniatures combat system, well balanced, very MMO-esque... and not flexible enough. I do not dislike it. I just don't like it as the premier fantasy RPG on the market. So, rather than playing D&D 4E, my Wednesday night gaming group is shifting to D20 Modern and giving that a go. I'll let you know how it works out for us.
City of Heroes
Obviously, as anyone who knows me even a little bit will be able to atest, I roleplay in City of Heroes. A lot. I still am. I've been very consciously avoiding major plotlines recently (which actually caused some friction in-game recently, since my character ended up refusing to help someone for possibly spurious reasons), but still going along regularly and getting involed with in-depth character interaction. There's a lot going on, as usual.
That's pretty much all there is to say for now. More soon, hopefully!
For those interested, I'm still running my weekly games, and this is just a brief update about where I am with them.
Mutants & Masterminds
This game is on Christmas hiatus right now, resuming in the New Year, having basically finished the last plotline. Go players! Especially since I managed to sneak in the old "reverse morality fight yourselves" trope. Which was, frankly, awesome, especially since it was the single largest combat I've run so far, and it went a lot more smoothly than I anticipated. Here's a hint to any budding online GMs out there - make the players do as much of the work as you can! That saves you time all the way down the line, allowing you to focus in rule adjudication and description. I'm still working on whether I should ask my players to write the descriptions of when they get hit in combat, as well the effect of their own strikes. I'd love it if they're willing, because it will allow them even more creative input into events, and simultaneously free me up to concentrate on keeping the game running smoothly, which could well chop combat time to about 2/3rds of the current length (which is still far too long for my liking).
For anyone interested (and assuming at least a basic knowledge of the M&M damage system), when a player hits an NPC in combat, I will write the outcome in a very simple format, straight into the OOC chatbox. These range from "Miss" to "Hit, no effect" through "Hit, Bruised", "Hit, Stunned", "Hit, Stunned, KB 25 feet" all the way up to "Hit, Unconscious, KB 1000 feet, hit a wall, wall does Bruise". It is then up to the player to describe the action in the IC chatbox, as well as the effect. This works brilliantly, because it means that as soon as I've said that in the OOC chatbox, I can call for the next character.
The problem I've experienced, though, is when I get multiple NPCs acting one after the other. Since I've retained control of the descriptive text for NPC actions, it can tie me up for several minutes while I detail it. If I can pass that across to the players, in a similar format (I'm thinking, say, "Speedbreak punches Liberty Belle. Hit, Stunned, Staggered, KB 10 feet" or "Death Knell uses mace on Scrub, Hit, Bruised") and leave it up to the players to write the descritpions for me, that could save me an inordinate amount of time.
I know that some of my players read this blog, so let me know what you think.
Dungeons & Dragons
My D&D game reached a natural pause point just before Christmas, so we paused. And entered into a huge debate about whether we like 4E enough to carry it on. The quick answer is "No". The long answer is as follows: D&D 4E is an incredibly sophisticated miniatures combat system, well balanced, very MMO-esque... and not flexible enough. I do not dislike it. I just don't like it as the premier fantasy RPG on the market. So, rather than playing D&D 4E, my Wednesday night gaming group is shifting to D20 Modern and giving that a go. I'll let you know how it works out for us.
City of Heroes
Obviously, as anyone who knows me even a little bit will be able to atest, I roleplay in City of Heroes. A lot. I still am. I've been very consciously avoiding major plotlines recently (which actually caused some friction in-game recently, since my character ended up refusing to help someone for possibly spurious reasons), but still going along regularly and getting involed with in-depth character interaction. There's a lot going on, as usual.
That's pretty much all there is to say for now. More soon, hopefully!
Monday, 2 November 2009
Villainy - the depths of depravity and beyond.
In my last post I examined my personal beliefs about heroism, and what it means to be a hero. This post is about the complementary subject - villainy.
Firstly, I will say that I believe that there is a fundamental difference between villainy and evil. To me, evil is the belief that one can impose ones thoughts and feelings on others, and that one has the right to do so. Evil has no regard for the feelings of others, because to the evil being, other people are not important. On the other hand, villainy is simply the conscious choice to act out of selfishness. It accepts that the feelings of others exist and are important to them, and then does something potentially hurtful anyway. Not usually because the villain believes he has the right to do it, but because he has a need to do it, because some external force is bearing upon him.
Taking a quick look at some iconic villains, then:
Lex Luthor. Lex is, to my mind, actually evil. He may not be casually cruel, but he certainly feels that he has the right to do anything he pleases. His own cunning allows him to temper his activities in such a way that it is not obvious to the world at large, but his core drive has no sympathy for the plight of other people.
Darth Vader: Okay, not a villain in the superhero sense, but a totally iconic villain nonetheless. The important thing to note about Vader is that he changes. I'm going to ignore The Phantom Menace, because he's too young to actually make reasoned choices, but in Attack of the Clones, Anakin Skywalker is clearly a hero. However, in Revenge of the Sith he rapidly shifts to villainy as a result of his fears of the future, and leaps to evil later on in the same film when Palpatine manages to convince him that taking iron control of his future is the right thing to do. While I think that it was done too quickly, it was actually an interesting visualisation of the fall from grace.
Catwoman. Not sure why I'm pulling DC villains out for this, other than that my exposure to DC was a lot higher than to Marvel when I was younger, because, frankly Batman is COOL. Anyway, Catwoman is a villain. She's a crook, a thief, not out to rule the world, just out for what she can get. She doesn't try to impose herself on other people except to get things she wants.
And, just for completionism, a look at my own villain from City of Heroes (well, City of Villains) - Psychonova. He's evil. I'm really not sure that I can go into all of the reasons why, but he is. He was meant to be, and continues to be, a truly despicable person, without any care or regard for the thoughts of feelings of others. Out for what he wants, and willing to do anything to get it. He's pretty much textbook evil, as far as I'm concerned.
The themes prevalent in those who are truly evil become obvious - some event or knowledge convinces the evil person that they have the one true vision of the way the world should be. Conversely, a villain is usually driven to their actions by some outside force or impulse. While it is possible for a villain to descend into evil, it is quite rare for someone who is evil to then ascend back. But it does happen. Darth Vader is a good case-in-point of this, with his redemption at the hands of his son. One thing that I'm not sure I've ever actually witnessed, though, is an evil person changing to become merely a villain. They will usually jump straight back to good or heroic. The change of heart that makes someone recognise the rights and values of others tends to blot out any prospect of villainy.
I can't take the time to discuss the myriad means by which a villain can descend to that level - might as well try to count the stars in the sky, because there are at least that many answers.
When it comes to roleplaying, then, it is always a good idea for the GM to know if the "bad guy" is villainous or evil, because the flavour of their activity will be coloured by it. A lot of modern comic books take the time to delve into the psyche of the antagonist, to explore what makes them the person that they are, and that is a good thing, since it allows us to explore the human phase-space of experience and events in a safe environment, but the thing that I personally enjoy is a well represented evil character. The Joker. Lex Luthor. Galactus. Megatron. Sometimes I like to hate the bad guy. It's why I made Psychonova as evil as he is - I get a lot of joy out of trouncing someone who is unequivocally evil, and offering that chance to my fellow RPers is part of the joy I take in running plots and GMing.
In conclusion: While similar, villainy and evilness are by no means the same thing. Evil may be a sub-set of villainy, but there are some clear distinctions and knowing the boundaries of each is worthwhile for anyone preparing to play a villain or an evil character. And, while it is a perfectly valid thing in this day and age of social awareness to ascribe motivations and reasoned actions to characters, to give them the chance at the sympathy vote from players, a GM should not be afraid to introduce a "bad guy" who is just plain EVIL. Being able to pound on someone because doing so is simply the right thing to do, without having to second-guess your actions, is one of the great pleasures in roleplaying, and it never hurts to let the players do it.
Firstly, I will say that I believe that there is a fundamental difference between villainy and evil. To me, evil is the belief that one can impose ones thoughts and feelings on others, and that one has the right to do so. Evil has no regard for the feelings of others, because to the evil being, other people are not important. On the other hand, villainy is simply the conscious choice to act out of selfishness. It accepts that the feelings of others exist and are important to them, and then does something potentially hurtful anyway. Not usually because the villain believes he has the right to do it, but because he has a need to do it, because some external force is bearing upon him.
Taking a quick look at some iconic villains, then:
Lex Luthor. Lex is, to my mind, actually evil. He may not be casually cruel, but he certainly feels that he has the right to do anything he pleases. His own cunning allows him to temper his activities in such a way that it is not obvious to the world at large, but his core drive has no sympathy for the plight of other people.
Darth Vader: Okay, not a villain in the superhero sense, but a totally iconic villain nonetheless. The important thing to note about Vader is that he changes. I'm going to ignore The Phantom Menace, because he's too young to actually make reasoned choices, but in Attack of the Clones, Anakin Skywalker is clearly a hero. However, in Revenge of the Sith he rapidly shifts to villainy as a result of his fears of the future, and leaps to evil later on in the same film when Palpatine manages to convince him that taking iron control of his future is the right thing to do. While I think that it was done too quickly, it was actually an interesting visualisation of the fall from grace.
Catwoman. Not sure why I'm pulling DC villains out for this, other than that my exposure to DC was a lot higher than to Marvel when I was younger, because, frankly Batman is COOL. Anyway, Catwoman is a villain. She's a crook, a thief, not out to rule the world, just out for what she can get. She doesn't try to impose herself on other people except to get things she wants.
And, just for completionism, a look at my own villain from City of Heroes (well, City of Villains) - Psychonova. He's evil. I'm really not sure that I can go into all of the reasons why, but he is. He was meant to be, and continues to be, a truly despicable person, without any care or regard for the thoughts of feelings of others. Out for what he wants, and willing to do anything to get it. He's pretty much textbook evil, as far as I'm concerned.
The themes prevalent in those who are truly evil become obvious - some event or knowledge convinces the evil person that they have the one true vision of the way the world should be. Conversely, a villain is usually driven to their actions by some outside force or impulse. While it is possible for a villain to descend into evil, it is quite rare for someone who is evil to then ascend back. But it does happen. Darth Vader is a good case-in-point of this, with his redemption at the hands of his son. One thing that I'm not sure I've ever actually witnessed, though, is an evil person changing to become merely a villain. They will usually jump straight back to good or heroic. The change of heart that makes someone recognise the rights and values of others tends to blot out any prospect of villainy.
I can't take the time to discuss the myriad means by which a villain can descend to that level - might as well try to count the stars in the sky, because there are at least that many answers.
When it comes to roleplaying, then, it is always a good idea for the GM to know if the "bad guy" is villainous or evil, because the flavour of their activity will be coloured by it. A lot of modern comic books take the time to delve into the psyche of the antagonist, to explore what makes them the person that they are, and that is a good thing, since it allows us to explore the human phase-space of experience and events in a safe environment, but the thing that I personally enjoy is a well represented evil character. The Joker. Lex Luthor. Galactus. Megatron. Sometimes I like to hate the bad guy. It's why I made Psychonova as evil as he is - I get a lot of joy out of trouncing someone who is unequivocally evil, and offering that chance to my fellow RPers is part of the joy I take in running plots and GMing.
In conclusion: While similar, villainy and evilness are by no means the same thing. Evil may be a sub-set of villainy, but there are some clear distinctions and knowing the boundaries of each is worthwhile for anyone preparing to play a villain or an evil character. And, while it is a perfectly valid thing in this day and age of social awareness to ascribe motivations and reasoned actions to characters, to give them the chance at the sympathy vote from players, a GM should not be afraid to introduce a "bad guy" who is just plain EVIL. Being able to pound on someone because doing so is simply the right thing to do, without having to second-guess your actions, is one of the great pleasures in roleplaying, and it never hurts to let the players do it.
Weekly Games: M&M
Sorry I've been away for so long, dear readers - new job combined with lots of holiday very rapidly has left me in a position where I've pretty much always found something more important to do thant write in this blog.
Plus, my memory being what it is, I'm undoubtedly going to forget a load of stuff that's been going on in my weekly games. I also have a post that I'm writing about a game I took part in a couple of months ago, now.
For the purposes of this post, though, I'm not going to focus on the events of the game session that happened, but rather on the implications of it.
I've previously described the party that is undertaking this game, at least in general terms, but what hasn't been covered in detail is my intent for the campaign. The most interesting thing to note from this perspective is that only a couple of the characters - Liberty Belle and Procyon - strictly fall within the specific genre I'm going for. The game is probably best described to comic geeks as "Bronze Age", but I'm not massively up on my terminology, so I might have that a little wrong. What I'm aiming for is slightly over-the-top villainy (the bad guys are bad, monologue lots, and have dastardly plans for taking over the world!), coupled with a more realistic appreciation of the lives of the heroes, and the things that matter to them. Ultimately, the direction I'm trying to guide things is that the interactions between the PCs, their lives and the things that matter to them are the important things. What the villains are up to is entirely secondary to that (though in a given session it might not seem that way).
Anyway, Liberty Belle and Procyon are Silver Age-esque "heroes are heroic!" characters, but with sufficient character flaws and complications to give them some traction. The rest of the party - and by no means do I consider this to be a bad thing - are more gritty and realistic.
This led to an interesting question raised in our last session. To briefly explain the situation - the heroes are currently on "Anti-Earth" - sort of the dark mirror to their own world, where the good guys are bad, and the bad guys are good - or dead.
The party quite swiftly fell into two camps regarding their responsibilities to the world in which they found themselves: Group A want to liberate the people, free the oppressed and generally be all-round good-guys. Group B want to do what they came here to do and get home.
Personally, I'm in Group B, but as the GM, and given that I want the players to make this sort of decision for themselves, I don't have any say in it. Nor do I want to influence the decision, because this is exactly the sort of theme I'm trying to explore in this campaign. Yes, hello players, you're all guinea pigs in the GM's social experiment.
A little bit of background for anyone not familiar with the Freedom City M&M setting. Anti-Earth is, as previously stated, the dark mirror to the universe of Freedom. For anyone familiar with City of Heroes, you won't go far wrong if you imagine Praetorian Earth as represented in the game so far (and definitely ignoring the dystopia that it will be revealed as in Going Rogue). The world is ruled by a cruel group of villainous super-powered beings called the Tyranny Syndicate, and the entire world is riddled with corruption, graft, cruelty, and all the vices of the modern world, expanded into the mainstream. It is not this way because some event made it different from the world of Freedom - it is like that because that's the way the world is.
Now, the standard superhero trope of "fight your doppelgangers" has already popped up in reduced form, and the heroes have already met Anti-Earth's sole, lonely hero, Mind Master (who, on their own world, is the villainous Mastermind). They are here to perform a rescue, arrived unplanned, with reduced resources... and the upstanding true-blue heroes among them are determined to "save the world", while the more down-to-Earth (I want to say pessimistic, but that's not really true) members of the group want to just do the rescue and make their way home.
This, then, raises the true point of this post: In a superheroic setting, are there any circumstances in which it is "reasonable" for a hero to be less than completely heroic?
This calls to the fundamental nature of a "hero", I suppose. To me, a hero is someone who, for whatever reason, helps to improve the lives of others without regard for personal gain or safety, and without regard for whom they are helping. I make that distinction quite purposefully, because it's possible for someone to help a specific person without regard for personal gain or safety, and not be heroic at all.
Now, in comics, the true, dyed in the wool heroes are larger than life personalities, clad in spandex, going around rescuing cats from trees, helping old ladies with their shopping and foiling bank robberies. The interesting stuff all tends to happen when a) their personal life gets involved or b) a particularly dastardly villain proves more than they can handle. But this particular situation is neither of those. It's a question of whether they truly are heroes, and what does being a hero mean to them.
Of course, I'm not so megalomaniacal that I believe that my definition of a hero is the true one, but I've not really seen anything that makes me want to change it. Nor am I going to enforce my beliefs onto my players - they have their characters, and they can play them however they want to, as far as I'm concerned.
For this situation, I'm only interested in the spectrum of heroism, rather than the full range of human responses. So, given that a hero's natural reaction to "bad things" is going to be "fix bad things", the range of possible actions is limited. As I see it, though, in the situation as presented, we have the two ends of the spectrum already - one the one hand there's "help those we came to help, and then get home", and on the other is "help everyone".
In a world not your own, where you are strangers, possibly feared, certainly hated by the powers that be, where does each hero stand? And why?
As I see it, a hero should want to help everyone. But in this circumstance, is it really feasible for their actions to match their desires? I don't actually think so. It's not their world, they have responsibilities to discharge in the universe they belong to, and the sheer scale of the problem on Anti-Earth is specifically tailored to be beyond them. They cannot just leap in and expect to win. And if they try, then they are running the risk of failing their own friends and families back home. But that should never stop the desire to help everyone. To have the potential to be larger than life.
Some may reach this conclusion quickly, for various reasons - perhaps they are smart enough to recognise that to win, they need more time to prepare, to gain every advantage they can. It's not something that can be won with fisticuffs - it needs social engineering on a grand scale, and is vastly beyond the intended scope of the current adventure. Which doesn't mean I would be upset if the players got proactive and decided to do something about it in the future.
In conclusion: A hero is still a hero even when they step away from a fight they can't win. Sometimes they are a hero because they step away from a fight. It is not actions that define a hero, but intent. And the intent should be an unthinking reaction to the welfare of others, and working to improve it. A hero is not a hero because they reasoned that it was the right thing to do, or because they feel responsible for others, or because they are looking to learn something about themselves. A hero is a hero because it is a fundamental part of who they are, which makes them do things to better the lives of others, and they don't think about it. They just do it. Not always the way they want, not always when they want, but they never turn their face away and give in.
Some people will say that a hero is someone who risks themselves to help others, but I don't see that. In the broader context of superheroics, characters like Superman are rarely in danger (Kryptonite notwithstanding), but I wouldn't dispute that he is a hero. One of my own roleplaying characters, Shadowe, in the City of Heroes MMO, is effectively immortal and unkillable, yet I believe that he is a hero, despite not really being in any true danger, no matter what he does. Spider-man is mortal, and became a hero out of guilt, and the awakening knowledge that "with great power comes great responsibility". Peter Parker could have taken that trite little phrase to mean that he has a responsibility to punish the guilty, as a way to assuage his own guilt. But instead he took the more difficult, and vastly more heroic, path to the real responsibility that heroes have - to help others. Because it is not about the dangers that heroes face. It never was, and never should be. It is about the ideals that they hold dear, and the constant striving to make the world a better place. Or, as Shadowe has been known to put it: "Making the world a nicer place, for one person at a time."
Plus, my memory being what it is, I'm undoubtedly going to forget a load of stuff that's been going on in my weekly games. I also have a post that I'm writing about a game I took part in a couple of months ago, now.
For the purposes of this post, though, I'm not going to focus on the events of the game session that happened, but rather on the implications of it.
I've previously described the party that is undertaking this game, at least in general terms, but what hasn't been covered in detail is my intent for the campaign. The most interesting thing to note from this perspective is that only a couple of the characters - Liberty Belle and Procyon - strictly fall within the specific genre I'm going for. The game is probably best described to comic geeks as "Bronze Age", but I'm not massively up on my terminology, so I might have that a little wrong. What I'm aiming for is slightly over-the-top villainy (the bad guys are bad, monologue lots, and have dastardly plans for taking over the world!), coupled with a more realistic appreciation of the lives of the heroes, and the things that matter to them. Ultimately, the direction I'm trying to guide things is that the interactions between the PCs, their lives and the things that matter to them are the important things. What the villains are up to is entirely secondary to that (though in a given session it might not seem that way).
Anyway, Liberty Belle and Procyon are Silver Age-esque "heroes are heroic!" characters, but with sufficient character flaws and complications to give them some traction. The rest of the party - and by no means do I consider this to be a bad thing - are more gritty and realistic.
This led to an interesting question raised in our last session. To briefly explain the situation - the heroes are currently on "Anti-Earth" - sort of the dark mirror to their own world, where the good guys are bad, and the bad guys are good - or dead.
The party quite swiftly fell into two camps regarding their responsibilities to the world in which they found themselves: Group A want to liberate the people, free the oppressed and generally be all-round good-guys. Group B want to do what they came here to do and get home.
Personally, I'm in Group B, but as the GM, and given that I want the players to make this sort of decision for themselves, I don't have any say in it. Nor do I want to influence the decision, because this is exactly the sort of theme I'm trying to explore in this campaign. Yes, hello players, you're all guinea pigs in the GM's social experiment.
A little bit of background for anyone not familiar with the Freedom City M&M setting. Anti-Earth is, as previously stated, the dark mirror to the universe of Freedom. For anyone familiar with City of Heroes, you won't go far wrong if you imagine Praetorian Earth as represented in the game so far (and definitely ignoring the dystopia that it will be revealed as in Going Rogue). The world is ruled by a cruel group of villainous super-powered beings called the Tyranny Syndicate, and the entire world is riddled with corruption, graft, cruelty, and all the vices of the modern world, expanded into the mainstream. It is not this way because some event made it different from the world of Freedom - it is like that because that's the way the world is.
Now, the standard superhero trope of "fight your doppelgangers" has already popped up in reduced form, and the heroes have already met Anti-Earth's sole, lonely hero, Mind Master (who, on their own world, is the villainous Mastermind). They are here to perform a rescue, arrived unplanned, with reduced resources... and the upstanding true-blue heroes among them are determined to "save the world", while the more down-to-Earth (I want to say pessimistic, but that's not really true) members of the group want to just do the rescue and make their way home.
This, then, raises the true point of this post: In a superheroic setting, are there any circumstances in which it is "reasonable" for a hero to be less than completely heroic?
This calls to the fundamental nature of a "hero", I suppose. To me, a hero is someone who, for whatever reason, helps to improve the lives of others without regard for personal gain or safety, and without regard for whom they are helping. I make that distinction quite purposefully, because it's possible for someone to help a specific person without regard for personal gain or safety, and not be heroic at all.
Now, in comics, the true, dyed in the wool heroes are larger than life personalities, clad in spandex, going around rescuing cats from trees, helping old ladies with their shopping and foiling bank robberies. The interesting stuff all tends to happen when a) their personal life gets involved or b) a particularly dastardly villain proves more than they can handle. But this particular situation is neither of those. It's a question of whether they truly are heroes, and what does being a hero mean to them.
Of course, I'm not so megalomaniacal that I believe that my definition of a hero is the true one, but I've not really seen anything that makes me want to change it. Nor am I going to enforce my beliefs onto my players - they have their characters, and they can play them however they want to, as far as I'm concerned.
For this situation, I'm only interested in the spectrum of heroism, rather than the full range of human responses. So, given that a hero's natural reaction to "bad things" is going to be "fix bad things", the range of possible actions is limited. As I see it, though, in the situation as presented, we have the two ends of the spectrum already - one the one hand there's "help those we came to help, and then get home", and on the other is "help everyone".
In a world not your own, where you are strangers, possibly feared, certainly hated by the powers that be, where does each hero stand? And why?
As I see it, a hero should want to help everyone. But in this circumstance, is it really feasible for their actions to match their desires? I don't actually think so. It's not their world, they have responsibilities to discharge in the universe they belong to, and the sheer scale of the problem on Anti-Earth is specifically tailored to be beyond them. They cannot just leap in and expect to win. And if they try, then they are running the risk of failing their own friends and families back home. But that should never stop the desire to help everyone. To have the potential to be larger than life.
Some may reach this conclusion quickly, for various reasons - perhaps they are smart enough to recognise that to win, they need more time to prepare, to gain every advantage they can. It's not something that can be won with fisticuffs - it needs social engineering on a grand scale, and is vastly beyond the intended scope of the current adventure. Which doesn't mean I would be upset if the players got proactive and decided to do something about it in the future.
In conclusion: A hero is still a hero even when they step away from a fight they can't win. Sometimes they are a hero because they step away from a fight. It is not actions that define a hero, but intent. And the intent should be an unthinking reaction to the welfare of others, and working to improve it. A hero is not a hero because they reasoned that it was the right thing to do, or because they feel responsible for others, or because they are looking to learn something about themselves. A hero is a hero because it is a fundamental part of who they are, which makes them do things to better the lives of others, and they don't think about it. They just do it. Not always the way they want, not always when they want, but they never turn their face away and give in.
Some people will say that a hero is someone who risks themselves to help others, but I don't see that. In the broader context of superheroics, characters like Superman are rarely in danger (Kryptonite notwithstanding), but I wouldn't dispute that he is a hero. One of my own roleplaying characters, Shadowe, in the City of Heroes MMO, is effectively immortal and unkillable, yet I believe that he is a hero, despite not really being in any true danger, no matter what he does. Spider-man is mortal, and became a hero out of guilt, and the awakening knowledge that "with great power comes great responsibility". Peter Parker could have taken that trite little phrase to mean that he has a responsibility to punish the guilty, as a way to assuage his own guilt. But instead he took the more difficult, and vastly more heroic, path to the real responsibility that heroes have - to help others. Because it is not about the dangers that heroes face. It never was, and never should be. It is about the ideals that they hold dear, and the constant striving to make the world a better place. Or, as Shadowe has been known to put it: "Making the world a nicer place, for one person at a time."
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
City of Heroes vs. Champions Online
While I have absolutely no doubt at all that there are a huge number of blogs, reviews and general discussion about the virtues of Champions Online compared to the virtues of City of Heroes, I feel it's time to put my view across.
A bit of background, for everyone who's not bothered to read my profile on this site: I am, first and foremost, a roleplayer, but I've been playing City of Heroes for 4 years, now, on the European servers, and I've been roleplaying there for about 3 1/2 of those years.
I really enjoy superheroes as a concept, but I'm not really much of a comic reader - I'll buy the odd graphic novel, but that's about it.
Superhero roleplaying, though... that's where it's at!
I have a character for superhero games. He's a sort of Batman/Ironman character in terms of motivation and apparent power, but his true source of power is the ubiquitous "radiation accident". I won't bother describing him in too much detail, for now. He's my character, and while roleplayers love their own characters, I know that most don't really enjoy listening to other RPers talk about their characters.
Character Design
Now, I've been playing Shadowe (that's him, the "e" is silent) as a character in City of Heroes very solidly while I've been there. I have a number of different costumes for him: Casual Civilian, Smart-Casual Civilian, Formal Civilian, Spandex (really leather, but who's checking?) and Battle-armour. Each gets pulled out depending on his current RP situation, and whether he's in a fight. His appearance has been fine-tuned to an art - he looks exactly the way I want him to. As a City of Heroes character, he is an Energy/Energy Blaster, meaning he does insane amounts of damage, but is squishier than an overripe melon. All of his powers and attacks are based around the ability to project and manipulate energy, which is perfect for his core concept.
Part of me judges games on the basis of how well I can fit it to Shadowe's concept, and City of Heroes scores very highly, there. Essentially, even within the constraints of the Archetype/Powersets system, I've been able to get exactly what I want, in terms of appearance and powers, and on those few areas where the game-world doesn't match his original concept, there are things I can fudge for RP purposes.
Champions Online, on the other hand, doesn't have the restriction of archetypes. Power Frameworks of linked powers exist, but it's possible to pretty much make a character have whatever powers you want him to have. Now, my current version of Shadowe was only created last night, and is only 6th level. He has one costume, and I elected to go for the Battle-suit version (for concept reasons), with flight as a travel power. So far, it's working out very well. During Beta, though, I got a very similar character up to about 15th level (I wasn't trying very hard), and some of the things that happened to him didn't really match the concept perfectly. I think that's mostly due to my lack of knowledge of the game and the options, so I'm not going to penalise it too heavily. However, despite all that, the "non-heroic" costume options are rather primitive, so I'm not sure how likely I am going to be able to get his civilian side working correctly.
CoH has lower-quality graphics, and really needs an upgrade, soon. That said, though, the character models, poses, stances and actions are very good, very polished, and I really can't fault them.
CO has significantly improved graphics (my slightly-older machine's graphics card is on the low-end of supported cards, in fact), but I find myself wincing slightly whenever my character runs or fires off his attacks, because he looks like a lumbering, thudding moron. He's designed around the "heroic" pose, which looks awesome when he's idle, but the instant he moves, he hunches over and lopes along like an ape. While CoH doesn't have similar poses, at least all the heroes stand up straight and proud. Whenever I'm playing my CO character, my camera angle naturally elevates until I'm looking down at him at a 45-degree angle, because that's the direction his head is pointing! Female poses seem much better, but I want an upstanding, proud man, and I can't seem to get one.
I read one commentary on CO that implied that the villain models and textures are on the most part very poor, but I haven't seen it, myself. Perhaps it's that my card doesn't support the whizziest graphics options, so I'm not getting the real impact of it all. I'm due for a graphics card upgrade myself, soon, so I might get to see for myself. Millenium City looks and feels more like a real city than Paragon City does, and I hope that Paragon Studios are paying attention, because there is a lot of good stuff they can do to make CoH even better.
CoH: 8/10
CO: 7/10.
Gameplay: Controls.
I tend not to change default keybinds for games. There are a couple of reasons for this: Firstly, because I want to see how the developers think the best way to play the game is. Secondly so that other people can intuitively use my PC to play games without having to learn a whole string of new keys that might differ from their setup at home.
There are a couple of significant problems with this, pretty much all of which can be explained with the following statement: I'm left-handed. I mouse left-handed. I don't reverse my mouse-buttons, for exactly the reasons given above. This means that I WSAD with my right hand on the keyboard, left hand on the mouse, and I adapt. I have to.
Both CoH and CO use a right-mouse = turn mechanic, which I now find completely natural, tab to cycle through targets, and the number keys to trigger powers. So far no difference. Where they do differ, though, is in the activation of powers. I'm going to have to change the defaults in Champions. A lot. Whereas in CoH you hit a power, that power goes off, then you wait while it recharges before you can fire it again, CO is a button-masher. You target a foe, hit "1" to activate your "Energy Building" power, and then mash the other buttons whenever you have sufficient energy. Okay, so I know that situation isn't going to continue forever, since in a few levels I'll be picking up "Maintained" combat powers that you just hit once and they annihilate everything until you run out of Energy. They're awesome. But the ability to mash buttons to trigger a more powerful attack is... annoying. It means that, unlike CoH (where there are two types of powers you can activate: Click-powers and Toggle-powers), CO has three - Energy-builder (toggle), Damage Click-powers (button mashers) and Damage Toggle-powers (toggle). It's just an added level of complexity, and I'm not sure it works. I'm also not sure it doesn't. Right now, though, at the low level I'm at, I click on my Energy-builder (I need to switch it to automatic), and mash my clicky-damage power as often as I can. My poor finger starts to ache in big fights.
Hmm, fights, that brings me to another thing. The standard control options for CO result in your character automatically turning to face their target, regardless of what you're telling the character to do. Ranges close down very fast, since almost everything prefers melee to ranged combat, and that frequently has meant that I've missed blocking opportunities because the taller bad guys have displayed off the top of the screen. I'm sure that's a settings problem, and not a problem with the game itself, but when the default display and camera motion options actively interfere with my ability to fight, it puts me off a bit.
CoH: 7/10
CO: 5/10 - might go up to 6 once I've tweaked the controls.
Gameplay: Rewards
City of Heroes has an almost insane number of reward types. I mean it. It's too much. Here's the list of possible rewards from defeating an enemy: Experience Points, Influence, Prestige, Inspirations, Salvage, Recipes, Vanguard Merits, Architect Tickets, Enhancements. I don't think it's possible to get all of them from a single foe, but the first four drop from any foe, anywhere in the game, as long as you haven't outlevelled them.
Scarily, I understand why each of them has been introduced, but I'm really not kidding: It needs simplifying. There's just too much complexity in the different reward systems, and I'm certain it could be reduced.
Champions Online might be even worse. There are "pills", which amount to power-ups, you earn "Resources" (more on those in a bit), and sometimes "Equipment". Depending on your current missions, you might get specific drops of the things you need to complete that mission. You can also find things that help with crafting skills. Okay, so that's a lot less than City of Heroes has, but it's not the variety that's the problem. It's the implementation. And it all boils down to this: Whatever developer came up with the "Resources" implementation needs to be taken out into a dark alleyway and SHOT. I'm not even slightly joking. It is such a ham-handed, obvious, crass, pathetic excuse for a game-system that my rage once I figured it out was unspeakable.
Here's why. You earn Resources for defeating foes. A varying number, depending on the type of foe, probably the level of the foe, and so forth. All good so far. The problem comes with how they are displayed to you as a player. The units and tens are grouped together, and symbolised by an orangey-brown disc. The hundreds and thousands are grouped together and symbolised by a grey disc. The tens of thousands and above are symbolised by a yellow disc. Yes, everyone, Champions Online has Copper, Silver and Gold coins! WHAT THE HELL?!
Bear in mind, this is a game that is set in the modern day. It is not a fantasy game. The standard monetary unit in the places where the majority of the game take place will be modern day currencies like Dollars. So WHY AM I COLLECTING COPPER COINS? The developers need to just have done, and call them Dollars. It would make so much more sense. As far as I can tell, it's just a way to make Fantasy MMO players comfortable with the standard unit of currency. There is no game-world reason for it, and there is no excuse.
City of Heroes gets away with things by not including a currency that is effectively "money". Yes, Influence does the same job, and Influence as a concept is a bit ridiculous in the implementation, but at least they don't artificially quantify it as the gold coin. I'll be honest - ANYTHING other than the coin system would be better. Because it just makes me think that COs developers are trying too hard to make the game something it isn't.
Other things seem to be okay, though. Crafting is fairly easy, though there are some issues relating to the restrictions you're under about what you can and can't take apart and build. I get the differences between Arms, Science and Mysticism, but since drops seem to be completely random as to the type of reward you get, it's a little draining to realise "Oh, look, I just picked up another Bind-on-Pick-up Mysticism item that's not quite as good as the one I have, so I can't trade the blasted thing". Bind on pick-up? I will never understand how something that is a representation of an in-game-world item can't be given to other people. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
CoH: 6/10
Champions: 5/10
Gameplay: Missions
Okay, this is where CO really comes into its own. The variety of missions I've seen so far is pretty staggering, and the choices for how to complete them are useful, too. It's not simply a case of "kill ten rats", with three variants of how to go about it. The game uses instances and deliveries sensibly. It uses open-world-spawn events sensibly. The only downside to this is that it can lead to spawn-camping of the particular foe you're looking for, which can get rather annoying. In CoH, once you've seen "generic warehouse map 5" for the twentieth time, it gets frustrating. In CO when something spawns right on top of you for the twentieth time, and you get suddenly hit by five enemies who simply weren't there two seconds ago, it gets frustrating. And the place where both games fall down worst is that enemies in open zones pretty much just stand there. Some form of semi-random walking AI for enemies would make some sense. Move them off their spawn points, please!
CoH: 7/10
CO: 7/10
Fluff: The world
In CoH, you're just one of thousands of heroes wandering around Paragon City. You're really nothing special. You work your way up from being "newbie pleb" to "hero of the city", but you don't really feel massively valued.
In CO, you're one of thousands of heroes in the world, but the end of the tutorial actually makes you feel a bit special. It gives me a buzz to see the military saluting me, the mayor giving me the Keys to Millenium City, and to actually feel like I've achieved something. It's a little thing, but the little things count.
The City of Heroes zones are artificial, and while there's a game-world reason for them, you can't help but feel tied down. I want to be able to fly from one end of the city to the other, without hitting a wall that prevents me from going any further.
CO zones, while also artificial, are very large, and the views are phenomenal. I love flying my main character up into the sky, and just barreling along, coasting over the wonderful terrain below me. Also, the city seems crowded, whereas in CoH the population seems a little sparse at times, depending on where you are.
CoH: 5/10
CO: 7/10
Roleplaying
I've not tried RPing in CO yet. I've been RPing in CoH for a long time. I'm not going to slate something I don't know about, yet, but I will say that the emotes system in CoH is pretty clear (once you know where to look), and so far I've not seen any indication actually where emotes might be in CO.
The biggest problem with CO for RP purposes, though, is actually the chat box. I've not explored all of its functionality, so I'm not going to talk about that, but here's something that leapt out at me: If you click and drag on the top edge of the chatbox, you don't extend it in that direction. You can drag the box up, and then drag the bottom edge down but that seems decidedly silly to me. Also, dialogue boxes are displayed on a layer behind the chat box, so if you've made the chatbox a half decent size, you can't click on dialogue box options if the chatbox obscures them. CoH allows you to select which box has focus, just by clicking on the box, and neatly sidesteps that problem.
CoH: 7/10
CO: 4/10
Overall
I love CoH. It's my first MMO, and it's great fun. I still play it an awful lot, and I love RPing there. I'm looking forward to trying to RP in CO, and for a new game, it really has a lot going for it. But it also has some glaring problems that I thing could be addressed to make the game better from an immersion perspective, and thus allow it to reach its potential.
CoH: 40/50
CO: 35/50
Considering that CoH has 5 years of polish, while CO is less than a week on general release, those numbers are pretty close, but CO has a lot of work to do to make up the difference, because while it's trying to reach the same level as CoH, that game will also be improving, and tweaking. It's an exciting time for online Superhero RP, and I for one welcome the variety and challenges.
A bit of background, for everyone who's not bothered to read my profile on this site: I am, first and foremost, a roleplayer, but I've been playing City of Heroes for 4 years, now, on the European servers, and I've been roleplaying there for about 3 1/2 of those years.
I really enjoy superheroes as a concept, but I'm not really much of a comic reader - I'll buy the odd graphic novel, but that's about it.
Superhero roleplaying, though... that's where it's at!
I have a character for superhero games. He's a sort of Batman/Ironman character in terms of motivation and apparent power, but his true source of power is the ubiquitous "radiation accident". I won't bother describing him in too much detail, for now. He's my character, and while roleplayers love their own characters, I know that most don't really enjoy listening to other RPers talk about their characters.
Character Design
Now, I've been playing Shadowe (that's him, the "e" is silent) as a character in City of Heroes very solidly while I've been there. I have a number of different costumes for him: Casual Civilian, Smart-Casual Civilian, Formal Civilian, Spandex (really leather, but who's checking?) and Battle-armour. Each gets pulled out depending on his current RP situation, and whether he's in a fight. His appearance has been fine-tuned to an art - he looks exactly the way I want him to. As a City of Heroes character, he is an Energy/Energy Blaster, meaning he does insane amounts of damage, but is squishier than an overripe melon. All of his powers and attacks are based around the ability to project and manipulate energy, which is perfect for his core concept.
Part of me judges games on the basis of how well I can fit it to Shadowe's concept, and City of Heroes scores very highly, there. Essentially, even within the constraints of the Archetype/Powersets system, I've been able to get exactly what I want, in terms of appearance and powers, and on those few areas where the game-world doesn't match his original concept, there are things I can fudge for RP purposes.
Champions Online, on the other hand, doesn't have the restriction of archetypes. Power Frameworks of linked powers exist, but it's possible to pretty much make a character have whatever powers you want him to have. Now, my current version of Shadowe was only created last night, and is only 6th level. He has one costume, and I elected to go for the Battle-suit version (for concept reasons), with flight as a travel power. So far, it's working out very well. During Beta, though, I got a very similar character up to about 15th level (I wasn't trying very hard), and some of the things that happened to him didn't really match the concept perfectly. I think that's mostly due to my lack of knowledge of the game and the options, so I'm not going to penalise it too heavily. However, despite all that, the "non-heroic" costume options are rather primitive, so I'm not sure how likely I am going to be able to get his civilian side working correctly.
CoH has lower-quality graphics, and really needs an upgrade, soon. That said, though, the character models, poses, stances and actions are very good, very polished, and I really can't fault them.
CO has significantly improved graphics (my slightly-older machine's graphics card is on the low-end of supported cards, in fact), but I find myself wincing slightly whenever my character runs or fires off his attacks, because he looks like a lumbering, thudding moron. He's designed around the "heroic" pose, which looks awesome when he's idle, but the instant he moves, he hunches over and lopes along like an ape. While CoH doesn't have similar poses, at least all the heroes stand up straight and proud. Whenever I'm playing my CO character, my camera angle naturally elevates until I'm looking down at him at a 45-degree angle, because that's the direction his head is pointing! Female poses seem much better, but I want an upstanding, proud man, and I can't seem to get one.
I read one commentary on CO that implied that the villain models and textures are on the most part very poor, but I haven't seen it, myself. Perhaps it's that my card doesn't support the whizziest graphics options, so I'm not getting the real impact of it all. I'm due for a graphics card upgrade myself, soon, so I might get to see for myself. Millenium City looks and feels more like a real city than Paragon City does, and I hope that Paragon Studios are paying attention, because there is a lot of good stuff they can do to make CoH even better.
CoH: 8/10
CO: 7/10.
Gameplay: Controls.
I tend not to change default keybinds for games. There are a couple of reasons for this: Firstly, because I want to see how the developers think the best way to play the game is. Secondly so that other people can intuitively use my PC to play games without having to learn a whole string of new keys that might differ from their setup at home.
There are a couple of significant problems with this, pretty much all of which can be explained with the following statement: I'm left-handed. I mouse left-handed. I don't reverse my mouse-buttons, for exactly the reasons given above. This means that I WSAD with my right hand on the keyboard, left hand on the mouse, and I adapt. I have to.
Both CoH and CO use a right-mouse = turn mechanic, which I now find completely natural, tab to cycle through targets, and the number keys to trigger powers. So far no difference. Where they do differ, though, is in the activation of powers. I'm going to have to change the defaults in Champions. A lot. Whereas in CoH you hit a power, that power goes off, then you wait while it recharges before you can fire it again, CO is a button-masher. You target a foe, hit "1" to activate your "Energy Building" power, and then mash the other buttons whenever you have sufficient energy. Okay, so I know that situation isn't going to continue forever, since in a few levels I'll be picking up "Maintained" combat powers that you just hit once and they annihilate everything until you run out of Energy. They're awesome. But the ability to mash buttons to trigger a more powerful attack is... annoying. It means that, unlike CoH (where there are two types of powers you can activate: Click-powers and Toggle-powers), CO has three - Energy-builder (toggle), Damage Click-powers (button mashers) and Damage Toggle-powers (toggle). It's just an added level of complexity, and I'm not sure it works. I'm also not sure it doesn't. Right now, though, at the low level I'm at, I click on my Energy-builder (I need to switch it to automatic), and mash my clicky-damage power as often as I can. My poor finger starts to ache in big fights.
Hmm, fights, that brings me to another thing. The standard control options for CO result in your character automatically turning to face their target, regardless of what you're telling the character to do. Ranges close down very fast, since almost everything prefers melee to ranged combat, and that frequently has meant that I've missed blocking opportunities because the taller bad guys have displayed off the top of the screen. I'm sure that's a settings problem, and not a problem with the game itself, but when the default display and camera motion options actively interfere with my ability to fight, it puts me off a bit.
CoH: 7/10
CO: 5/10 - might go up to 6 once I've tweaked the controls.
Gameplay: Rewards
City of Heroes has an almost insane number of reward types. I mean it. It's too much. Here's the list of possible rewards from defeating an enemy: Experience Points, Influence, Prestige, Inspirations, Salvage, Recipes, Vanguard Merits, Architect Tickets, Enhancements. I don't think it's possible to get all of them from a single foe, but the first four drop from any foe, anywhere in the game, as long as you haven't outlevelled them.
Scarily, I understand why each of them has been introduced, but I'm really not kidding: It needs simplifying. There's just too much complexity in the different reward systems, and I'm certain it could be reduced.
Champions Online might be even worse. There are "pills", which amount to power-ups, you earn "Resources" (more on those in a bit), and sometimes "Equipment". Depending on your current missions, you might get specific drops of the things you need to complete that mission. You can also find things that help with crafting skills. Okay, so that's a lot less than City of Heroes has, but it's not the variety that's the problem. It's the implementation. And it all boils down to this: Whatever developer came up with the "Resources" implementation needs to be taken out into a dark alleyway and SHOT. I'm not even slightly joking. It is such a ham-handed, obvious, crass, pathetic excuse for a game-system that my rage once I figured it out was unspeakable.
Here's why. You earn Resources for defeating foes. A varying number, depending on the type of foe, probably the level of the foe, and so forth. All good so far. The problem comes with how they are displayed to you as a player. The units and tens are grouped together, and symbolised by an orangey-brown disc. The hundreds and thousands are grouped together and symbolised by a grey disc. The tens of thousands and above are symbolised by a yellow disc. Yes, everyone, Champions Online has Copper, Silver and Gold coins! WHAT THE HELL?!
Bear in mind, this is a game that is set in the modern day. It is not a fantasy game. The standard monetary unit in the places where the majority of the game take place will be modern day currencies like Dollars. So WHY AM I COLLECTING COPPER COINS? The developers need to just have done, and call them Dollars. It would make so much more sense. As far as I can tell, it's just a way to make Fantasy MMO players comfortable with the standard unit of currency. There is no game-world reason for it, and there is no excuse.
City of Heroes gets away with things by not including a currency that is effectively "money". Yes, Influence does the same job, and Influence as a concept is a bit ridiculous in the implementation, but at least they don't artificially quantify it as the gold coin. I'll be honest - ANYTHING other than the coin system would be better. Because it just makes me think that COs developers are trying too hard to make the game something it isn't.
Other things seem to be okay, though. Crafting is fairly easy, though there are some issues relating to the restrictions you're under about what you can and can't take apart and build. I get the differences between Arms, Science and Mysticism, but since drops seem to be completely random as to the type of reward you get, it's a little draining to realise "Oh, look, I just picked up another Bind-on-Pick-up Mysticism item that's not quite as good as the one I have, so I can't trade the blasted thing". Bind on pick-up? I will never understand how something that is a representation of an in-game-world item can't be given to other people. Suspension of disbelief only goes so far.
CoH: 6/10
Champions: 5/10
Gameplay: Missions
Okay, this is where CO really comes into its own. The variety of missions I've seen so far is pretty staggering, and the choices for how to complete them are useful, too. It's not simply a case of "kill ten rats", with three variants of how to go about it. The game uses instances and deliveries sensibly. It uses open-world-spawn events sensibly. The only downside to this is that it can lead to spawn-camping of the particular foe you're looking for, which can get rather annoying. In CoH, once you've seen "generic warehouse map 5" for the twentieth time, it gets frustrating. In CO when something spawns right on top of you for the twentieth time, and you get suddenly hit by five enemies who simply weren't there two seconds ago, it gets frustrating. And the place where both games fall down worst is that enemies in open zones pretty much just stand there. Some form of semi-random walking AI for enemies would make some sense. Move them off their spawn points, please!
CoH: 7/10
CO: 7/10
Fluff: The world
In CoH, you're just one of thousands of heroes wandering around Paragon City. You're really nothing special. You work your way up from being "newbie pleb" to "hero of the city", but you don't really feel massively valued.
In CO, you're one of thousands of heroes in the world, but the end of the tutorial actually makes you feel a bit special. It gives me a buzz to see the military saluting me, the mayor giving me the Keys to Millenium City, and to actually feel like I've achieved something. It's a little thing, but the little things count.
The City of Heroes zones are artificial, and while there's a game-world reason for them, you can't help but feel tied down. I want to be able to fly from one end of the city to the other, without hitting a wall that prevents me from going any further.
CO zones, while also artificial, are very large, and the views are phenomenal. I love flying my main character up into the sky, and just barreling along, coasting over the wonderful terrain below me. Also, the city seems crowded, whereas in CoH the population seems a little sparse at times, depending on where you are.
CoH: 5/10
CO: 7/10
Roleplaying
I've not tried RPing in CO yet. I've been RPing in CoH for a long time. I'm not going to slate something I don't know about, yet, but I will say that the emotes system in CoH is pretty clear (once you know where to look), and so far I've not seen any indication actually where emotes might be in CO.
The biggest problem with CO for RP purposes, though, is actually the chat box. I've not explored all of its functionality, so I'm not going to talk about that, but here's something that leapt out at me: If you click and drag on the top edge of the chatbox, you don't extend it in that direction. You can drag the box up, and then drag the bottom edge down but that seems decidedly silly to me. Also, dialogue boxes are displayed on a layer behind the chat box, so if you've made the chatbox a half decent size, you can't click on dialogue box options if the chatbox obscures them. CoH allows you to select which box has focus, just by clicking on the box, and neatly sidesteps that problem.
CoH: 7/10
CO: 4/10
Overall
I love CoH. It's my first MMO, and it's great fun. I still play it an awful lot, and I love RPing there. I'm looking forward to trying to RP in CO, and for a new game, it really has a lot going for it. But it also has some glaring problems that I thing could be addressed to make the game better from an immersion perspective, and thus allow it to reach its potential.
CoH: 40/50
CO: 35/50
Considering that CoH has 5 years of polish, while CO is less than a week on general release, those numbers are pretty close, but CO has a lot of work to do to make up the difference, because while it's trying to reach the same level as CoH, that game will also be improving, and tweaking. It's an exciting time for online Superhero RP, and I for one welcome the variety and challenges.
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