Worlds in Peril / Hero System Question:
I am not the most familiar with Worlds in Peril yet, but I’ve been playing Dungeon World for awhile now and am fairly familiar with it. I have only had the chance to skim over Worlds in Peril’s rules a couple times. From what I have seen, the Power Creation part of Worlds in Peril is very abstract.
I have also been looking at the Hero System recently. I really love the character creation from that system. It has enough freedom to suit my needs and I really like how multiple characters turn out to work together when all are built with the same number of points. The problem though is that I do not very much like the Hero System after character creation is complete. The numbers quickly get in the way during play after the specifics of the powers are discovered.
This is where Worlds in Peril comes in. Dungeon World is currently my favorite RP game and the World System in general makes play quick and fun. I was wondering if there would be some way that I could take a character created with the Hero System, so that all the characters are more in line with each other and to avoid the abstractness of Worlds in Peril, but then take that character and use it within the streamlined rules of World in Peril without loosing the detailedness of the Hero System Character’s Power. Is it possible to get some balance between the two systems? Character creation from one but gameplay from the other?
I don’t see why you couldn’t take a Hero-generated character and use that sheet to fill out your Powers Summary and Powers Profile. Bear in mind that there most likely wouldn’t be an exact correlation between the two, as you only have a set number of things in your Powers Profile to start and Hero gets a lot more complex than that from my understanding. I would advise sticking to World of Peril’s numbers of Powers available regardless of what the Hero system sheet says. I don’t think it would necessarily break anything if you didn’t (it would just mean that you would save yourself some Push rolls later on), but the Power/Bond tradeoff and the characterization and growth that comes out of it seems like it would be somewhere that the system really shines (sadly haven’t gotten to play yet, so can’t speak to that with any real authority).
That said, I feel like there’s an underlying apprehension here about character balance, so here’s my two cents on that: power doesn’t matter. The ability for each character to engage with the fiction is what matters. It’s a subtle distinction, but an important one–and keeping Powers strictly narrative rather than mechanical, leaving the mechanics of it to the universal moves and relying on Bonds to a large degree, does a lot to give everyone that same ability to engage with the fiction. At the end of the day, the fiction and the mechanics that back it up are mostly about Bonds and the relationships they represent; punching bad guys in the face is more like the pen you write that story with, so it’s fine if one pen has a picture of Superman on it and the other one has a picture of The Question on it, because they both write just fine.
Would any sort of stat or damage conversion make sense? Or would it just turn out better to wholly use the Worlds in Peril attributes?
I would like to be able to fully bring in any powers that they buy in the Hero System but I’ll keep what you said in mind because I might see that you’re correct once I study this system more.
I’m also not completely sure how bonds work in this system. I’m used to Dungeon World bond and my current understanding is that Worlds in Peril is very different.
I’ve mostly just wanted to pull on elements from the Hero System because I’ve found it to be a good source of inspiration when creating a character.
If I recall Hero goes from 0 to 100+. Divide by 30 to get the WiP score of 0 to +3, may work. Hero system is a bit complex comparably so it may not be so easy.
I made a conversation system for classic marvel for FASRIP and for marvels power ratings tables, but they are far simpler systems.
Dex is maneuver
Str is smash
Int is investigate
Pd/Ed or End is protect
Ego or Pre is influence
My best guess?
That sounds reasonable.
You’ll need to account for -1 in WiP. Maybe less than 10 in Hero is -1 since 10 is average in Hero or 0 in Wip.
Maybe keeping the original stat distribution from Worlds in Peril would make the most sense then. Only changing it if they have incredibly high or low stats purchased in the Hero System.
Well, the issue with any stat distribution alterations at all is that the Push Move exists and is a pretty big part of character advancement, such as it is. A person who dumps a lot of build points into stats is probably not putting that many into powers and other neat tricks-but since they can always Push their powers into new territory if it makes sense for the character, that’s not actually that limiting.
Meanwhile, there’s no Push to make your stats bigger, and actual mechanical growth along those lines is going to be crazy rare, so characters who didn’t focus on stats are just going to be rolling lower, which means an imbalance in fiction engagement potential.
That is going to make it difficult to do anything besides possibly helping to scope out a concept for a hero then isn’t it
If your main aim is to keep the PCs balanced against one another, yeah, probably. If you’re not terribly worried about that and just want to hang out and punch bad guys in the face it might not be that big a deal if there’s like a one or two point stat difference along the board–but if one person is mostly rolling twos or threes and another is mostly rolling zeros and ones or whatnot it’s probably not going to be fun for someone. Just something to think about; love playing around with mechanics, but I wouldn’t want your game to suffer for it, so keeping an eye out for potential troubles is all.
I’ll keep that in mind. A one or two point difference might make sense depending on what heroes are in play and what powers they have. I’ll have to keep track of it so that the rolling is mostly balanced, at least until people level up and focus on different things.