Powers Profile – powers are broken down into Simple, Difficult, Borderline, etc. At what point do you have to Push or Burnout in order to accomplish something on your powers profile? My instinct says “Borderline”, but I don’t see it spelled out.
What’s the mechanical difference between “Simple”, “Difficult”, “Borderline”, etc.? I would assume that doing something “Difficult” would be harder than doing something “Simple”, but I don’t see anything under Powers Profile that describes these differences. Is it spelled out elsewhere? If so, may I suggest a reference to page XX and possibly a brief synopsis under the Powers Profile section?
Regarding pushing, in draft 1.2 on p.57 it states that “The Push move is all about doing something that is not on your power profiles yet – if it is already on there, then there is no need to make the move.” Pushing, from a game mechanics’ perspective, is your means to expand your powers. From the fiction, this is when our heroes try using their powers in a new way, which means it’s not a guaranteed outcome.
The second part of your question is a good one: in other systems you would expect a Difficult power capability to be -1 on rolls or simply require rolls, whereas simple would be automatic. Here I would expect that a Difficult power usage would come with tradeoffs that the EiC will propose depending on the fiction. Then again, maybe it’s defined later in the book. I’m only halfway through this draft. ;)
To your first point, things that are Impossible are technically on your power portfolio, as are things that are “possible”. I wouldn’t be inclined to let a player do either without some compelling reason in the fiction and a move like Push.
The crux of my first question is, what can a character do under normal circumstances, without compelling story reasons? A Borderline move seems like the limit to me.
Jeremy DM Baldwin Some great questions. So your instincts are right, with the Push move you can only ever go up to Borderline. The only way a hero is ever going to be able to do something Possible is with Burnout, which means things are already pretty hairy. Impossible is only there to set the ceiling – impossible you aren’t doing no matter what (but who knows, characters get retconned all the time, right)
Kyle Simons, so:
Simple = normally no roll
Difficult = roll
Borderline = Push
Possible = Burnout
?
Oh, sorry I may have misunderstood the question. If it’s not on your Powers Profile but fits with your Powers Summary and character concept = roll (Push if it’s Simple, Difficult or Borderline; Burnout if it’s Possible).
If it is on your Powers Profile = no roll, but still need fictional justification for doing things, as always (if I’m in life-and-death melee with a villain, I probably can’t stop to concentrate and do something borderline, even difficult might be tricky, without consequences right).
So the distinctions between Simple, Difficult, and Borderline are mechanically meaningless? They exist only in the fiction?
(I don’t mean to imply that’s a bad thing. Just seeking clarification. If I’m right, I think that could be called out more explicitly in the rules.)
Nope, yeah you’re totally right. They have some mechanical distinction in that, to do something Possible, you have to make the Burnout move and when you try to do something that is not on your Powers Profile you have to Push. And there are consequences to the Push move that also depend on whether it’s Simple, Difficult or Borderline. But mostly yes, fictional distinctions and to help you figure out boundaries and what your character can and can’t do.
That actually makes total sense to me, and fits well with the free form style of the game. I think it’s an inspired choice.
May I suggest somehow calling it out more explicitly in the text? For experienced gamers especially, but I think for novices as well, when we see distinct tiers, we want to understand how they work and why they’re different.
To put it another way, it’s obvious once you grok the system. Until then, it’s not entirely clear.
Understood! I’ll make sure to put it in, maybe a text book saying exactly that. Thanks!