I’ve gotten a little bit of a rundown about this elsewhere, but I’m still a bit confused about powers profile and difficulties.
What differentiates a simple and difficult ability? And when can a player use borderline?
It seems limiting enough that they have to Push (and thus take conditions most of the time) to use abilities in their summary that are not on the profile. Having things in the profile seems, to me, that they should be pretty much automatic, and I can’t find rules that say they are not (though I’ll admit that I may have missed it).
So, what’s the difference between the difficult levels as they occur in play?
Here’s an example:
Powers Summary: super strength, invulnerability, expert wrestler, frightening appearance.
Simple: scare people with an intimidating stare.
Difficult: punch someone with deadly force.
Borderline: lift/throw large objects.
Possible: lift objects weighing 50 tons.
Impossible: lift objects weighing in excess of 50 tons.
He obviously has to push to be invulnerable (which I’m still trying to get my head around) or any advanced wrestling techniques. But what does he have to do to “punch someone with deadly force”? That seems like it’s already covered in the Take Down move anyway.
Sorry if this has been covered (and that I brought up two different issues, kinda), but I’m still suffering some cognitive dissonance between the idea that you can do whatever you have listed in your power summary, and then reading that you have to Push to do so (which is why I have a hard time grasping that bit about the invulnerability – the text says that he’s justified in being invulnerable, but if he wants to do some sort of advanced wrestling maneuver he’s not justified in just saying so?).
First, always ask the question, ‘What makes this… Difficult/Borderline/Possible/Impossible?’
Why is it Difficult to punch someone with deadly force? Is it a moral dilemma? Is it a matter of lining up a hit? Maybe they need to take a turn simply declaring their getting ready to do a deadly hit.
What makes lifting or throwing large objects Borderline? Is it muscle strain? Concentration? Or just the limit of his super stength?
Don’t think of them as all the time things, think of them as varying levels of power with higher costs in narrative justification.
Push is to add new powers… again with justification. So why does he become invincible? Is it all the time? Then it’s Simple. Does it require some minor cost? It’s Difficult. Does it need a really big cost or specific instance? Borderline etc.
If I were doing your Wrestler I’d do it this way…
SIMPLE: Super Strength, Scare Mooks with an Intimidating Stare
DIFFICULT: Perform combination aerobatic wrestling moves.
BORDERLINE: Dramatically enter the scene with a game changing wrestling move.
POSSIBLE: Become invulnerable after hearing the final words of a dying persons desire for revenge until the first rooster crows on the new dawn.
IMPOSSIBLE: Lift more than 50 tons.
My understanding is that the difficulty levels are purely a narrative thing, if you’re attempting something which is listed as difficult there’s no roll it’s just that it requires more effort on your characters behalf and changes the fiction accordingly.
Hi Ryan, let me know if I’m answering the questions you want asked properly – so your Powers Summary is basically a list of things that it is possible for you to do – you will never be able to do anything that is outside of that summary. If you don’t include anything about running as fast as a speeding bullet, you won’t be running as fast as a speeding bullet.
Your Powers Profile defines what aspects of your powers you can do at will and that you don’t have to Push yourself to do. So if I can run as fast as speeding bullet (and I know that because it’s in my Powers Summary), then I have to determine for myself how difficult it is for me to do so (Simple, Difficult, etc.). The difficulty levels are purely narrative, as already mentioned – if it’s simple I’ll be able to do it easily and without difficulty, if it’s difficult than I won’t be able to do without consequence if I’m under attack maybe, grappling with somebody, maybe even just angry (if you’re the Hulk, etc. this will depend on the fiction and the character). If it’s not listed in your Powers Profile at all, then it means that it’s possible for you to do it (since it’s on your Powers Summary) but you either haven’t tried to do it yet, it’s hard for you to control, or you don’t know what will happen when you do try.
Thanks, that clears up the difficulty bit, but it seems contradictory to the description of defensive abilities.
In the draft, it’s suggested that defensive abilities shouldn’t be added to the profile, as they aren’t something you do. If those being in the summary is enough to do them, then there is dissonance between the other powers you have that must be brought into your profile to be used.
If that’s the case then the draft is not up to date with the final text – defensive powers are part of your profile as well. I’ll be putting up a new draft soon that has layout done but has filler spaces for art before the final PDF goes out. Sorry about that, I thought the newest draft was up to date minus some copy editing but it looks like it was more than that.
Oh! That makes sense, then.
Yeah, the one that’s posted here says that defensive powers shouldn’t be added, which is where my confusion was found: if one thing works in the summary, why not everything?
Looking forward to seeing the most recent draft.
Here’s the rough for now, sans art and Daniel isn’t finished with it yet, but you can check out the finished text. Sorry for the confusion, Ryan M. Danks
https://www.dropbox.com/s/31jb7u65rerkyzt/WorldsInPeril%20R1.pdf?dl=0
No worries. Thanks, very much!
Okay, I’ve read it, and it seems much clearer.
One area that is confusing to me, though, is how to handle a defensive power that completely avoids an attack, like a danger sense. How would you handle someone who has on their power profile: Dodge Direct Attacks?
I don’t think it’d be too big a deal in the game. Despite his spider-sense, Spidey still gets beat up plenty – knowing an attack is coming is not the same as being able to get away from it. So I probably just wouldn’t allow something that said “Dodge Direct Attacks” because well, dodging is an action right? There is no power like “Punch someone in the face every time”. If the power was “Sense any immediate danger to my person” or something, then I’d be fine with that, as it just allows for fictional positioning and how I’m going to describe their character succeeding when they Defy Danger, or how I set up scenes for them in the form of moves: “Spidey, as the group is about the round the corner, you get that familiar tingling sensation – something’s not right.” It’d be a similar deal to a healing factor – it would affect how I narrate and is a consideration for the game, but it’s not going to provide extra mechanical benefits if the form of bonuses and such (unless it’s worked into a move that provides one).
That makes total sense. I think I’m beginning to grasp this a little better. One more?
What about someone like the Flash? The player wants them to be able to use their super speed to avoid attacks.
I get that such a move works similarly to how you just described the Spidey, but to say “that’s not allowed” but then allow another player to ignore bullets…
Thanks for your time in teaching this to me.
Oh, I totally don’t mean that it’s not allowed to have cool stuff like spider-sense or super-speed, I’m just saying there are no extra mechanical benefits and such. The actions you put in your Powers Profile are things you can do with your powers every time though – you’ve mastered it, are in control of it, know you can do it. So things like “Dodge all attacks” or “automatically land all hits” isn’t really an appropriate thing to list under powers, because the situation is going to be different every time. Things like “Spider-Sense – sense any immediate danger to my person” or “Pin-point accuracy – hit an apple off a dude’s head from a block away” is appropriate (not only because they help you judge and put up the boundaries of your powers, but that too) because they’re going to be true every time, whereas as dodging an attack, or punching someone is more of a situation than just an action.
A die roll is very rarely about whether the action I endeavor to take succeeds or not, though that’s part of it. On a miss the EIC has a ton of things they can have happen that may, or may not have anything to do with the action being undertaken by the player (in going to punch a villain at superspeed maybe the Flash accidentally slips into the speed force/ maybe some other lackey gets thrown into him, or the ground beneath him collapses as a result of failure, etc.)
So, say the Flash wants to zip out of the way of a punch, like you say. Depending on the situation, I might look at it and go, “yeah, you see it coming, to you it looks ridiculous. The guy looks desperate and crazed but his fist is coming at you in slow motion.” But if it’s in the midst of a fight and there’s all kinds of things that could go wrong, the villain is screwing with their powers with a device, the area is packed with minions, I’ll probably still have him roll Defy Danger, but I would narrate failure differently than I would for someone else too, right. On a miss, I could say, “all the thugs just try to take you down via their sheer force of numbers, realizing that they’ll never be able to hit you, they dog pile on you. You zip around and dodge any number of attacks, but one of them finally gets a hold of your leg and brings you to the ground.”
Part of being the EIC and knowing you players powers is also knowing how to put each character in danger as well – it can be tricky because you’re going to have to be a whole lot tougher on Wolverine than Kitty Pryde, for example. Moves will trigger for some characters and not others – like Defy Danger for Colossus and the gun example. If someone points a gun at him, and threatens to shoot him, I’m not going to have him Defy Danger when he decides just to step into it and punch the guy out. But I’m also not going to be challenging him with those kinds of situations often, because I’ll want to be coming up with threatening, dangerous situations for him and my other players as well.
Hope that helps! And no worries on the questions, like most designers I have very little trouble rambling on about my game.
Cool. I think I’ve got it. 🙂