Question, how would I handle a power in which my power comes from controlled minions that have their own stats? Someone like The Darkness for example. Say I have smash 0, but my minionswarm has a better chance to say bust down the door in my way, do I use my smash still?
Thanks
I’m not really sure what you mean. I haven’t heard of The Darkness either. We don’ t have any rules for making your own minions and stating them up, if that’s what you mean?
Stats are just numbers to show how good your character is at doing something – how you describe them doing it is up to you. If what you do triggers a move, like Take Down for example, and you’re using direct force to Take them Down, then you’d add Smash to the roll.
So if you wanted to make copies of yourself and they, and by extension you, gang up on and punch a villain in the face. Then you would make the same roll as another character who shot a psychic blast at an enemy to Take them Down. The mechanics are the same, it’s the descriptions that are different so you can get pretty creative with your powers.
They use your stats. Or you roll to control them in the right way. Potentially with Influence.
As Kyle Simons says, and taking your The Darkness example, he can create demon-like creatures to do his bidding, so The Darkness would use his own basic stats, as they represent the way the character deal with conflicts. In the example, the Darkness should likely have Smash+2 ;D
On the other hand, a problem arises when you have a character that has mind control or charming powers that force NPC to act on behave of him. In this case, I don’t know if there is any mechanic in WiP to deal with such situation.
Taking control of someone’s mind outright would end up being a Seize Control move.
Otherwise, you could use your powers to do psychic damage, or temporarily take control of them to harm themselves or others. That would just be how you narrate your hits though, mechanics would be the same.
I see what Tory’s trying to do, though I don’t know the Darkness either. Imagine a wimpy guy who doesn’t get into combat himself but summons thugs to muscle things for him. Imagine Howie Mandel if he could summon gorillas to do all his touching for him…
The only thing that leaps to mind without resorting to actually reading the manual (hey, I’m a guy) is to give him a Smash +2 and a limitation that he can’t personally use his Smash, that stats for his summoned minions. Oh, or maybe his Smash is 0 but his power gives him augmentation to his Smash, again with the limitation that he can’t personally use it; it’s the Smash value of his minions.
I would definately try to avoid giving his minions stats of their own unless they’re actually more like sidekicks. If they’re going to always competently do what he tells them with no chance that they would deviate for their own pusposes then they should just be the narative way he interacts with the universe.
What I’m hearing descibed is a summoning spell. Depending on what you summon, the effects could be quite different from what the character can do herself, so using her stats would not make sense, would it?
Maybe have a look at the DW sumoning spell.
Basic stats aren’t about what can the character do but how he deals with conflicts. If he has a high smash he’ll tend to use his summoning powers as brute force.
So say hes an average joe with smash success but he has a swarm of goblins that are great at it and do anything he says while he is more an influence expert. If he tells his swarm to bash the door I still use my smash or is that influence or fiction in the power? Its not a summons they are more sidekicks.
Falcon telling Redwing to do something he cant is a good example.
Telling him to do something he can’t do? I would just treat Redwing as part of Falcon’s “powers” or as extension of himself, if that’s an easier way to describe it. So if you tell Redwing to do something and use direct force, roll Smash as if you were doing it. You aren’t influencing Redwing right, he’s going to do what you tell him to do, so no need to roll to see if he actually does do what you tell him to do. That would make for a different game. This way, if you want it to be like Redwing might not want to/can’t do it, the EIC can work with that on a miss.
Ok so the fact the minions may be better at something is in my powers then?
Yeah, stats signify how good a character is at doing certain things, and by extension everything he uses to accomplish and succeed at any obstacles. Whether they use the power cosmic, their pet wolf, a quiver of arrows, or a bunch of minions, how well (re: how often they succeed) is going to be shown in the stats. The hero with the power cosmic might have a +1 Smash, and the heroes with the pet wolf, quiver of arrows and minions might all have +1 Smash as well. The die roll is all going to be the same for them whenever they use direct force, it’s just the way they narrate what they’re doing that’s going to be vastly different, and the things they can get away with doing (re: if they can do that) is going to depend on what they put for their powers. Hope that helps!
I got that part, just was not sure about separate entities that can potentially act on their own. Thanks
No worries, I’m just glad my explanation helped 🙂
Ok, not to prolong this but can a character have stats aranged in different ways based on their form like Hulk and Bruce? So as bruce my investigate is high and as hulk smash is high.
There are no rules for that, no. If you wanted to work something like that out for EIC you could do that though I suppose.
Ok cool. I actually came up with something pretty cool for doing that. That would solve my issue perfectly. I wanted to be able to have stats for when me and my minions are together, have stats for when I’m by myself in which I would be more effective in certain areas and have stats when I send my minions of to do something by themselves. I did not see them as an extension of myself more of like a master villain and his thug’s, they’re always loyal but for sure they don’t share the master villains effectiveness of doing things. Ok im all good now. Thanks for your time Kyle!
So to update, what I did is this. The character is called the Morlock or John Morlock aka Mr. Grim. He has mobs of faithful protoplasmic-goblin creatures with a nasy appetite that support him and do his will and can be apart from him and act on their own.
for his stats he has three sets:
Morlock Solo: Smash 0, Influence -1, Investigate +1, Maneuver +2, Protect +1
Morlock with minions: Smash +1, Influence -1, Investigate 0, Maneuver +2, Protect +1
Solo minions: Smash +2, Influence -1, Investigate 0, Maneuver +1, Protect +1
Say Morlock is held by some machine and his minions find him. He tells them to go find the power and shut it down. They have just enough brains to get this done. They run off and do it on their own. While playing the minions I would use the SOLO MINION stats and only the abilities they can use wich is not much and none of Morlocks powers.
They smash the controls, Morlock is free and decides to hack some computers, sneak around and go capture the evil scientists that put him there and tells his minions to meet him at the top floor. Now Morlock uses his SOLO MORLOCK stats and all his powers but no minon powers since they are not present with exception to his telepathic communication and sensory link to them. He gets his stuff done and head up to the top.
There he meets his minions and has to face some guards, now his stats are the MORLOCK AND MINIONS stats which actually hamper him some since he has to control his brainless minions.
The only external definitions were to give a brief power profile for the minions which is nothign really spectacular since thier powers are listed in Morlocks summary. When using them they count as a mob of some size nothing more unless they are solo in which they act as a single character entity with limited use.
Does this work well, thoughts?
My only thought is: So, is Morlock the main character here then? Why not just use his stats and roll up whatever he’s doing with his stats instead of jumping around. I would just treat my minions as a part/extension of my character. This way, if he’s got a minion off doing stuff, and then Morlock is off doing something else, you’re playing two characters and maybe hogging some of the spotlight from other players is my worry. You might have to resolve multiple point-of-views is all. Just more complicated than I would go about it, but if you’re playing a solo game or the rest of the table knows what the game is going to look like I could see this working.
Yeah , true. So if I had a good description in my power summarry of how the minions work is that enough? They dont have any spectacular power but they are not normal either which means I have to list that in my power profile right? Ok, let me try thinking of something else…maybe let the EIC control them and I just give orders???
Depends on how elaborate you want to go I guess. I would just put them in my powers description and I would just be responsible for saying what they do, etc. When you roll a move, just add your stats but say what’s going on with the minions, you, or both. On a miss the EIC can work with the description and say the minions end up doing this, etc. At the very least you’d want to let the EIC know how the minions act, what their motivations are, etc. Maybe the EIC ends up treating them as a separate faction or incorporates them into the Plan even, but If they’re always under your control and you know what they’re going to do and all that, you might as well just handle all the narration for them though and incorporate it into your rolls.
Ok, that sounds reasonable. So if knowing from the summary the minons can chew through a steel door and are not a direct extension of my capabilities, is enough then thats good for me I suppose. Just have to be descriptive. Its hard adapting from Champions and M&M style point-buy games to narrative games apparently. 🙂
Haha no worries! I’m sure it’d be just as hard for me to move in that direction! And yes, definitely want to be up front and descriptive about powers and capabilities.