"Ruby-Quartz Visor" Limit

[alai]

Jeez, settle down, Doc. People aren't going to want to come here with questions if they just get insulted for their efforts.

+1. On the topic of "harsh", that's certainly what I thought when I read DH's reply... and then I read the second one. Let's do people the basic courtesy of responding as if we believe them when they say what their intent is, and not go out of our way to read something else entirely into it.

And finally, while you do need doom dice of the proper size for certain actions (boosting totals, mostly), you don't need a ton of dice. Keeping the doom pool at 3-5 dice is best, IMO.

RQ -- as in RuneQuest? or is your middle name Quentin? -- has, in the space of two threads, been lambasted for being a DP spendthrift, and for being a DP miser. It's well-known that you can't win, but you really can't win, can you?

That seems like a healthy number of dice to me, too. And perhaps uncoincidentally, the sort of range of PPs players feel "comfortable" in... (BTW, I've completely mislaid the thread this comes up in (did I mention that 'search' is effectively useless here), but is there a rule that 'resets' PPs between Acts, or am I thinking of the 'min PP' XP buy?)

[igorbone]

Picking a lock or evading security can be non-issues or near-impossible based solely on the current level of the Doom Pool. There isn't even a basic "difficulty level". This is something that needs to be fixed going forward and something I will certainly houserule.

I respectfully disagree with this point. The joy of the game is the narrative base. In actual comics those things do not have a basic difficulty level - sometimes they are easy, and sometimes impossible, depending upon how the action fits and furthers the story. The Doom Pool as a mechanic is meant to represent the seriousness/severity of tone to the story being told at that moment. I have found that managing the Doom Pool is as much about that for me as Watcher than about how I use the dice. For the lesser moments, I find the Doom Pool is very fluid with lots of d6 and d8, and when things start getting iffy for the heroes we look down and find the doom pool with something like d12 3d10 2d6...and everyone knows things are bad. Of course my players treat PP about the same way...

I would like to add that there is also the automatic success rule. It's not that a lock is harder to pick if the Doom Pool is higher. You could just say that your Covert applies to it and you don't even have to roll. It's just that the place you are trying to pick the lock is a dangerous place to bw, and when you are spotted all hell will break loose.

The Doom Pool is also part of the narrative and you should try to make it happen. If the players are in a supposed easy scene, but with a Doom Pool of only d10+, just ignore the Pool, give them automatic success, stop buying opportunities since there is nothing raising the risks... and make the hard times come when it's the proper time.

[Sobran]

Picking a lock or evading security can be non-issues or near-impossible based solely on the current level of the Doom Pool. There isn't even a basic "difficulty level". This is something that needs to be fixed going forward and something I will certainly houserule.

I respectfully disagree with this point. The joy of the game is the narrative base. In actual comics those things do not have a basic difficulty level - sometimes they are easy, and sometimes impossible, depending upon how the action fits and furthers the story. The Doom Pool as a mechanic is meant to represent the seriousness/severity of tone to the story being told at that moment. I have found that managing the Doom Pool is as much about that for me as Watcher than about how I use the dice. For the lesser moments, I find the Doom Pool is very fluid with lots of d6 and d8, and when things start getting iffy for the heroes we look down and find the doom pool with something like d12 3d10 2d6...and everyone knows things are bad. Of course my players treat PP about the same way...

I would like to add that there is also the automatic success rule. It's not that a lock is harder to pick if the Doom Pool is higher. You could just say that your Covert applies to it and you don't even have to roll. It's just that the place you are trying to pick the lock is a dangerous place to bw, and when you are spotted all hell will break loose.

The Doom Pool is also part of the narrative and you should try to make it happen. If the players are in a supposed easy scene, but with a Doom Pool of only d10+, just ignore the Pool, give them automatic success, stop buying opportunities since there is nothing raising the risks... and make the hard times come when it's the proper time.

This is what I currently do. It works and I don't have a HUGE problem with it. That being said, I don't think the fact that I am able to work around it necessarily means it isn't a flaw in the system. If Luke Cage is trying to leap an alley in the middle of a Kree invasion, with fire and lasers raining everywhere, I have no problem with the difficulty spiking--he's stressed. There are other situations where I don't find this appropriate and find myself reduced to either handwaving it or assigning an arbitrary die pool.

On the other hand, assigning an arbitrary die pool is essentially what any other RPG would do in this situation. The only difference is that they have a table of arbitrary numbers. *shrug* Either way, we'll just have to disagree on this point.


ON TOPIC: Having read OP's reply here and in the other thread, I do see a recurring theme of "gamist mentality". In that case... fair enough. I can see two ways to approach this.

A) Try to modify the group's behavior. I think this is the way a lot of GMs would go; particularly inexperienced ones. It certainly has its merits though. If you could try to explain the merits of a narrative system, ect ect, they may come around. This may not be the best solution though.

B) If your group really DOES want to just take the rocks as they hits 'em, play up the teamwork. In fact, while someone could say, "Hey Scott, it's just to your left!" and then hand them a resource die or whatever, they could also just run over, pick it up, and hand it to him. In the latter case, the roll isn't even necessary as they HAVE all their senses available. They just give up an action and slap Cyke's visor on. No handouts and the players are happy. (I hope.)

[craggle]

I'd disagree to some extent about MHRP being "non-adversarial": mechanics like the doom pool and plot points exist to some extent to help balance going strong against the players. True, going full-on isn't the best idea, but I'd also be against the deliberate choosing of a lower target number just for the sake of making things easier; it seems like it would be cheapening the experience.

In terms of Cyclops loosing his visor though, was it remembered that players have first refusal of taking the plot point in activation of a limit? True, the Watcher can push to have it by spending doom dice.

Also, remember that some complications (one of the possibilities for the limit) are sometimes intended to be removed when it makes narrative sense: if Wolverine picks up the discarded visor and hands it to Cyke, that's probably going to remove the complication without a roll (and I'd probably also argue it should be true for recovering the power set if shut down too).

And as others have said, why weren't the other characters assisting with targeting the complication? If Toad still had the visor, then maybe they should have been attacking him to get it back (spending a plot point for a second effect die seems like a good idea here). And if you want to lend a hand, maybe narrate Toad throwing the visor at another character in the "throwing the empty gun at Superman" style.

Of course, there is certainly the possibility to rework the character sheet to better fit your vision of the character. For myself, I'd probably look to giving Cyclops a Limit that added a complication to his lack of visor, but didn't remove access to the power; after all, it's not like he can't use his optic blasts, it just gets very dangerous and troublesome when he does.

[alai]

In terms of Cyclops loosing his visor though, was it remembered that players have first refusal of taking the plot point in activation of a limit? True, the Watcher can push to have it by spending doom dice.

The way I read this was that it was less a matter of the Watcher first triggering something, then "pushing it", as of "this is happening now, do you want the PP, or do I burn a DPD?" Otherwise, since this is something the player can choose to activate for themself, it just amount to a Watcher "suggestion". (Or bluff!)

And as others have said, why weren't the other characters assisting with targeting the complication?

Perhaps the heroes were having something of a grandstanding faceoff of their own.