So hey y’all.
I have been working on an alternative take on powers. I felt that the default was just a bit restrictive.
So I’ve written up something that I hope people enjoy, it’s intended in much the same spirit as the alternate harm rules for Apocalypse World.
Let me know what you think.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1drvgZmVzleHdpkc_HYZPn6JkrcTknoY–yjINvIm8_M/edit?usp=sharing
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I.. Think these rules are more restrictive, not less. I see what you are going for, and that’s fine, but billing it as less restrictive than the default seems weird.
How so?
The default says the bull only gets to be super strong, tough, and good at fighting.
The legacy has only a few sets of powers to choose from.
The nova has to choose 2 “themes” for their powers.
And so on.
How is “make up anything you want, ranked by difficulty” more restrictive?
Would you be willing to provide an example for each Playbook using an existing character from fiction under these rules?
I see where Mike is coming from.
The default rules say (for example) that the Delinquent has two powers chosen from a short list. With those two powers he can do anything that would fall within their narrative purviews.
Under your system, the Delinquent is no longer limited to any list of powers aside from some vague guidelines on what kind of powers Delinquents have. But he can only do three things. And a Moment of Truth (that applies conditions to yourself).
I can see that. On the other hand its still restricting since your tightly defining the reach of the powers by the diff level. As opposed to being able to do basically anything that generally fits in the pervue of the powers like now. So more and less flexible.
Instead of trying to re-write rules for a game that hasn’t even been published yet, why don’t you express your concerns about those rules in the form of questions, so the developers of the game can address them. Maybe you’re misinterpreting their intention? Maybe they have particular reasons why they did it their way instead of yours? Maybe they would find some clarification and insight from your questions and make some adjustments?
If I were a developer and someone posted “Hey, I fixed your rules for you,” I wouldn’t even read it, because it’s so off-putting. But if I read that someone felt uneasy with the rules I wrote, I would want to explore why and see if there are ways to deal with that.
I don’t understand why everyone’s already trying to mod and hack this game when it’s only been in beta form. Try it as it is and then give them feedback instead of trying to “fix it” for them.
Adam West
It isn’t my intention to fix anything, any more than the ‘alternate harm’ rules were intended to fix apocalypse world. If this came across that way, then I apologize.
I did raise the issue a couple times, and was told the powers were done as they were intentionally, so I saw no harm in writing this up for anyone who would like it.
I don’t really see how this is any different than others making playbooks, which it seems you take issue with as well. I can tell you I am in a couple games right now, played by the default, and I love it, I just also love tinkering 🙂
As for others’ comments, I’ll happily go through and address them later today, when I can be at my computer.
We’re always happy to see folks tinkering with the rules and providing alternate solutions. We usually have a reason for the design decisions that have been made (in this case, we’re trying to align powers and narrative), but alternate systems are fun looks at new ideas.
This is also why we’re excited to see Masks be released via Creative Commons! We would love to see these rules polished up and published as a separate product. 😀
Well said, nice birdies.
Ok, so the rest of the comments: Mike Pureka Jared Abad Riley Crowder
Going back over this. I’m finding a mix of “I didn’t explain what I meant clearly” crossed with “I didn’t think of that, I’m going to change that in the next version”.
Thank you for taking the time to point this stuff out, I really appreciate it.
I don’t think I mentioned before, but the thing I love most about Masks, is the way each playbook isn’t about your powers. It doesn’t matter if you’re strong, or fast, or weird, or crafty, it’s about how you handle yourself handling your powers, what kind of a hero you are, etc.
So in that sense, powers aren’t important in the slightest to who and what your character is.
In another sense though, powers are a critical fictional detail, because in every hero story, powers go a long way to defining how heroes interact with their world and others in it. The only real difference between Conan the Barbarian and Luke Skywalker are using the Force and the Lightsaber; important fictional elements even if the overall narrative impact is minimal. Plus, defining your hero’s abilities is also a ton of fun!
My intention was, and still is, to serve both ends in removing the limited choices without altering any of the “core” important parts of Masks (the playbook themes, character interaction, character growth).
Moving On
I’m going to switch up the difficulty mechanic entirely, but for the sake of clarity and discussion I’ll explain more fully what I originally meant.
Each difficulty was supposed to work as a broad theme similar to what Jared said,
“With those two powers he can do anything that would fall within their narrative purviews.”
This was my intention the whole time, I just communicated that badly in this draft.
A theoretical Bull might have looked like this:
Impossible: Time Manipulation
Borderline: Teleportation
Simple: Density Control
Simple: Gravity Manipulation
Impossible powers and the Moment of Truth
I didn’t intend for your Moment of Truth to specifically involve your Impossible power (though you certainly could, and per the MoT itself, you would take no conditions if you did use it there), only to serve as a measure of your power instead of saying “at level X you gain a new power”.
Reaching your MoT means you have this power now, it’s only when you actually use that power in play that you would take a condition representing you “hurting yourself” with the strain.
But that’s all past tense now 🙂
POWERS version 2
I’m thinking I’ll simply encourage creative power description more clearly. I’ll make difficulty an element that the player can decide to excercise if they want or the situation calls for.
Powers/Abilities: This section will just be a blank space to ‘write your own’ accompanied by flavor text to help keep a player on theme, (I can pretty much use the existing bits for each playbook before the difficulty lists for this part.)
Difficulties (no more lists, for anything)
Simple:
Essentially the standard way powers already work with regard to triggering moves and the like.
Borderline:
Spend 1 Team to roll with Willpower (3d6, take 2 highest).
intended to help in a pinch, but shouldn’t destabilize the game (especially useful if you just got your labels shifted in the middle of a fight, but you refuse to give up.)
There’s no extra bad outcome if this results in a 6-, you already had to spend Team (a limited resource) to do this, so no sense in adding insult to injury here.
Impossible:
When you absolutely, positively, MUST succeed, no matter the cost to yourself, you may take the 10+ result without needing to roll, but take a condition right now to do it.
And I’ll be changing up just about everything else in this doc for v2.
– Some default moves will have alternates (like Doomsigns), though I need to go back and rethink that one quite a bit.
– The protege is still going to have the Shared, You, Mentor split, but there will just be blank space for writing powers instead of the current list.
– I’ll keep Push around (maybe under a different name), and rework it to fit the new direction. I like the idea of discovering new powers.
I would say considering they are light impact light powers that if you want to keep Borderline as is (inspiration wise) just say they spend a point of team and the power goes off as expected. Rolling an extra die and taking the best pretty much guarantees success, and, if your going to do that you might as well just assume success anyways.
Considering a mid level success on an power use can trigger a condition anyways Impossible doesn’t seem to make much sense because it basically means it is equivalent to rolling mid range on your power usage abilities (compared to the core system).
I will also add that the powerset for your Theoretical Bull makes very little sense. Their is almost no connecting thread between the powers, and the don’t seem to really fit the theme of always being ready to rumble. That seems more like a powerset for a Doomed or a Nova.
Riley Crowder
I’m on my phone and won’t be able to reply to the mechanical comments until later when I have my notes and the masks docs to refer to, but I wanted to address this part:
“I will also add that the powerset for your Theoretical Bull makes very little sense. Their is almost no connecting thread between the powers, and the don’t seem to really fit the theme of always being ready to rumble. That seems more like a powerset for a Doomed or a Nova.”
You are entirely correct that those powers could work just as well for doomed or nova, that was intentional.
A Bull with gravity control is going to be concerned with and do different things than a nova with the same power. This is where that part about “the focus should be on the playbook, the powers are set dressing” comes in. They are important set dressing in my opinion, but still just set dressing. In theory you could have an entire team with “identical” powers who are still unique because their playbooks encourage focusing on different aspects of your character than your powers.
As for those powers needing to be connected to each other, I disagree. That is 100% in the fiction.
Taken at face value, many popular heroes’ powers are similarly disjointed.
Batman’s superpowers are ninjutsu and money.
Wolverine’s superpowers are regeneration, sharp senses and a metal skeleton with claws.
It’s all about how the player chooses to tie it all together that makes it coherent.
If I were to play that theoretical bull character right now, I’d tie it all together this way:
“A young intern is caught in a disastrous accident at Halcyon University’s dark matter research lab.
He awakens from his coma to find himself suffused with dark matter, as he tries to learn more about his physics defying powers, a mysterious benefactor leaves behind clues that his “accident” may not have been as accidental as everyone thinks. (who made you?)
Now he’ll stop at nothing to find the people responsible (ready to rumble) for making him into…
Einstein Rosen-bridge, the relative man!“
Okay I can follow where your going with that. It was more of a matter that they didn’t seem to even fit together thematically: So if we are assuming Dark Matter power. Density and Gravity Manip Make sense…but time travel and teleportation? That’s a bit of a stretch. Also if the Impossible power he gets permanent access too after his first moment of truth..you suddenly have a character who has constant access to time travel powers? Yes it can work but you have sudden allowed a game to become crazy complicated.
Batman makes sense..he has money..so he with his money finds the best possible training, and then engineers all the best devices available.
Wolverine was a mutant that had the regen, strength and scent powers, and then got experimented on to get his skeleton with claws, which fits more into your theme of unconnected powers, so I don’t entirely disagree with the flexibility.
I like the idea of disconnecting the powersets from the archetypes, it was a good plan, I think the extra stuff you were doing complicates things in the wrong direction.
That being said I am excited to see where your plan goes because your new ideas you mention are interesting with a bit more refinement.
Also generally I will add as I thought more that slightly story shaping but otherwise inconsequential uses of the powers probabaly shouldn’t cost anything. That’s more of a narrative drive not a threat requiring a expenditure.
Right. Reminder that the theoretical Bull is not how things are anymore (your original feedback lead to me changing it) I only mentioned it to clarify my original intent.
Now, you just list your powers. And during play the difficulties may or may not come up.
I made quite a few edits to the doc linked at the top, if you haven’t already seen. Its where I’m going into most detail.
Again, the mechanical discussion will need to wait until later though. But I’m happy to discuss it.
“Also generally I will add as I thought more that slightly story shaping but otherwise inconsequential uses of the powers probabaly shouldn’t cost anything. That’s more of a narrative drive not a threat requiring a expenditure.”
This describes a Simple power almost exactly. If it triggers a move, then you roll, but otherwise you just do it.
I like the idea of the unlocked powers with less defining.
I also like the idea of rolling for powers, and not starting with any powers listed, so each use of the powers is a difficult challenge untll you master them. And the first 3 powers are slightly easier perhaps (not what you had listed but generates interesting ideas for game play).
Also I feel like the borderline should just allow you to spend Team to add +1 as many times as needed. I dont remember if Team can already do that.
First off, thanks for the continued feedback, I’m going through and making changes to the doc linked at the top as I go through this, so feel free to check in there to see how things are shaping up, now for the comments:
Rolling with Willpower
This is the same Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic that several games are using. It isn’t a guaranteed success, but it works out to being slightly better than a +1 forward which I felt was fair for asking someone to spend a resource on.
Here’s the probablility math a friend put into a handy spreadsheet comparing dicerolls with advantage (the way willpower works) regular 2d6, and with disadvantage (3d6 take the 2 lowest) and ranks them by modifier (-3 to +3)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1U9CzqL3-63wwplTm-imzRsOjnWQhL-WczzloY8JWtJc/edit#gid=0
Rolling with Willpower makes you less likely to roll a 6-, but doesn’t guarantee a 10+ result.
Marking a condition to do the impossible
yes, that is the 7-9, but the purpose is that you are taking narrative control in that moment. Instead of maybe getting a condition (chosen by the GM) OR having the effect be unstable, dangerous, or temporary.
You are choosing your own condition to ensure that your power works exactly as you need.
Also, your powers might not even trigger the Unleash move, it might trigger Directly-Engage, or Provoke, or Assess, and so doing the impossible is specifically taking control of your narrative (not full control, that’s what a MoT is for) via explicitly taking the 10+ option with your power at the cost of taking a specific consequence.
Hrm…so would you replace the using the Team for a +1 with the Willpower for 3d6 instead? Or is it just a secondary option?
Also..I do find the achieving the Impossible concept interesting. I am not sure if I will use it but it does add interesting ideas.
no, as written, spending Team gives someone else a +1.
or you shift one label up and another down when you act selfishly.
My addition is that you can also choose to spend it to roll with Willpower to push your powers to their limit.
Ah right…Its been a while since I’ve looked at the main notes. It seems like Willpower for a bonus could be selfish or unselfish, but I follow where your going theme wise.
yeah.
I mean this is all rough draft stuff, so it’ll be polished and revised a lot.
but that’s the basic idea.
In context..as you have changed it. This seems more like “Effort” than it does difficulty. Because with the narrative direction of the game the GM is rarely ever defining the difficulties of things, and a matter of how much a character is willing to push themselves and the team to succeed.
Id perhaps rename them to if that’s the context:
Normal
Pushing the Limits
Do the Impossible
You could also even separate this out of powers and really have it have to do with use of any move.
You have a point there.
This is definitely a player-defined difficulty, but I’d still think it should be powers only.
Gadgets and skills count as powers just as much as super strength would, but I want to keep the special effort stuff limited to whatever the player has written down as a power.
but calling it effort instead of difficulty makes a lot of sense.