Hulk Smash! --How Do You Save Civilians?

[Supplanter]

It is work not to be offended by the terms in which people keep trying to cast these issues. (Let me be VERY clear that I am NOT including Cam in this whine.) I keep telling myself that people don't realize what they are implying, or else they wouldn't be propounding false dichotomies in the first place. But like I say, it's work.

So let me be as clear as I can possibly be:

* the issue is NOT whether to make the game "simulative" or "narrative"
* "simulative" DOES NOT EQUAL "driven by mechanics"
* "narrative" DOES NOT EQUAL "NOT driven by mechanics"
* mechanics aren't incidental to MHRP, or a side issue - if they were, the game would represent a massive waste of dedicated, skillful effort on the part of a number of people whom I not only respect and admire, but in several cases have considerable affection for as people. In one case, our dogs have play-dates.
* Between us Bill and I have played Nobilis, Capes, Dogs in the Vineyard, Polaris, Everway, Over the Edge, Amber DRPG, Fiasco, Primetime Adventures - Hell, I have played, actually played, Theatrix. NOBODY'S PLAYED THEATRIX! I was online for rec.games.frp.advocacy in the late 90s and Teh Forge in the early Aughts and the blogs since then and all of that. I have been through the Effing Wars over all of these problematic terms and concepts. Please take it from me that you are settling nothing at all when you point out that MHRP is not a simulative game. Of course it's not.

I'm not - I swear to you! - saying that I am way too sophisticated to be wrong about this stuff, or that You Are Not Worthy. I am saying that I feel like some people are trying to cram my concerns into the wrong box, and it's uncomfortable seeing them all scrunched up like that.


Jim

* Confession: I only played Theatrix once.

[Mailer33]

No one is cramming anyone's concerns into any box--you're just way over thinking it.

Here are your concerns as you stated them:

1. Hitting the heroes emotion track somehow isn't "heroic" enough because the hero is motivated by avoiding emotional damage instead of just doing it out of the goodness of thief hearts.

Answer: The players are doing it because they are heroic--damage on stress track represents just how much the heroes give a damn. Yes, the players are trying to avoid emotional damage, but the characters are doing it because they care. You are fixating on a tiny mechanical term and simply over thinking it. It will seem quite heroic during game when the heroes are busting ass to save civilians, and they will feel the heat as the emotion track fills up.

2. You want more "tactical choice". To be represented.

Answer: That is all fine and good, but the system is already loaded with THREE layers of tactical choice--dice pool tactics and narrative tactics, and the management of assets, complications and scene distinctions. These used properly can more than adequately simulate the collateral damage, endangered civilians and tough choices already--no real need to add a 4th mechanic.

3. You are concerned that a scene distinction just doesn't have enough oomph, and that hulk wouldn't even need to use it because he can just use his own distinctions.

Answer: This leads me to believe you don't entirely understand distinctions. You use it for the following reasons--A: scene distinctions brings the civilians into focus, rather than just being part of description. B: When Hulk uses the endangered civilian distinction rather than just plain old Hulk Smash distinction, the dice might be the same, but again, it draws more attention to the fact that civvies ARE IN BIG DANGER. And encourages the players response to narrate around helping them. C: scene distinction is there to provide more options for narration and the plot point game. D: Scene distinction can be removed by players, thus "saving" civilians. E: all the other things scene distinctions do regardless of the context.


Like it or not, Jim, this IS a narrative game, but maybe you are misunderstanding what That means. It means the game doesn't try to invent a new mechanic to simulate every odd situation that will come up. Instead--it gives you a VERY flexible SINGLE mechanic that can handle ANY game situation, including endangered civilians.

In short--you are over thinking it.

[Cam]

I continue to praise our forum members for being able to conduct themselves in good spirits while engaging in spirited debate. Remember, argue the position and not the person. Great discussion, if contentious.

Carry on,
Cam

[Supplanter]

No one is cramming anyone's concerns into any box--you're just way over thinking it.

Now that's more like it.

1. Hitting the heroes emotion track somehow isn't "heroic" enough because the hero is motivated by avoiding emotional damage instead of just doing it out of the goodness of thief hearts.

Answer: The players are doing it because they are heroic--damage on stress track represents just how much the heroes give a damn. Yes, the players are trying to avoid emotional damage, but the characters are doing it because they care. You are fixating on a tiny mechanical term and simply over thinking it. It will seem quite heroic during game when the heroes are busting ass to save civilians, and they will feel the heat as the emotion track fills up.

This one is a matter of preference. I own mine. The blog links (to me and Malcolm Sheppard) explain why my preferences are what they are. People can disagree, and that's cool. But it's not something I'm wrong about, any more than the people who are cool with treating civilian harm as a hero's emotional stress are wrong. It's also not a question of "narrative" or "not narrative." It's a thing I want to accomodate within the conventions of the game, and that I think can be accomodated. Not for your group - unless you decide to; for mine.

2. You want more "tactical choice". To be represented.

Answer: That is all fine and good, but the system is already loaded with THREE layers of tactical choice--dice pool tactics and narrative tactics, and the management of assets, complications and scene distinctions. These used properly can more than adequately simulate the collateral damage, endangered civilians and tough choices already--no real need to add a 4th mechanic.

Indeed! But let's be clear what I meant by tactical choice. In that bullet, I was wearing my Watcher hat. What I want is a thing to throw at players, that threatens mayhem and collateral damage, that does not take up my major villain's action for the turn and does take up the action of some number of players. Coming up with such a thing does not mean reinventing the game entire! It just means figuring out what suite of character types and options - doom pool; doom dice triggering events; scene distinctions; FIVE DIFFERENT character types; FIVE DIFFERENT effect types - brings the most satisfying gameplay in re keeping civilians from getting themselves kilt.

3. You are concerned that a scene distinction just doesn't have enough oomph, and that hulk wouldn't even need to use it because he can just use his own distinctions.

Actually that was Bill. (I'm agnostic about incorporating scene distinctions somehow.)

Answer: This leads me to believe you don't entirely understand distinctions. You use it for the following reasons--A: scene distinctions brings the civilians into focus, rather than just being part of description. B: When Hulk uses the endangered civilian distinction rather than just plain old Hulk Smash distinction, the dice might be the same, but again, it draws more attention to the fact that civvies ARE IN BIG DANGER. And encourages the players response to narrate around helping them. C: scene distinction is there to provide more options for narration and the plot point game. D: Scene distinction can be removed by players, thus "saving" civilians. E: all the other things scene distinctions do regardless of the context.

Now we're getting a little off track again. Also, if you're concerned about what people don't understand, do please note that Bill has repeatedly stated that he's not talking about the Hulk attacking civilians.

I do like the reminder that under certain circumstances players can remove a scene distinction. There's some usefulness there.

But lemme ask you, under your method, if Hulk makes a successful attack on a hero using "Civilians in Danger," does this mean some number of civilians are dead? Injured? How many? Who gets to say?

Like it or not, Jim, this IS a narrative game, but maybe you are misunderstanding what That means.

Again, please stop this.

It means the game doesn't try to invent a new mechanic to simulate every odd situation that will come up. Instead--it gives you a VERY flexible SINGLE mechanic that can handle ANY game situation, including endangered civilians.

The fact that it is indeed VERY flexible means that it's not at all as simple as your statement seems to imply. And it is positively bizarre that:

* this is a fan community where our default response to any question of the form, "But how do I do this?" is "Why, you could do that any of these six ways!" and follow that up with "Your table, your rules."
* but somehow, on this topic right here, I'm supposed to agree that there's exactly one appropriate way to do it, and my table can darn well get with the program.

Does. Not. Compute.


Jim

[Mailer33]

Again, Jim, no one is telling you how to play your game--and you should realize that when people are posting in this discussion, they aren't necessarily speaking only or directly to you. Most of my posts about how to use scene distinctions were directed to all followers on this thread and an attempt to show how to tackle this issue:

I wasn't actually speaking directly to you until you tossed out the rant about putting your concerns in a box. Truth is, prior to that, I had at one point posted that I see the merit in your way, but preferred the the scene distinction myself--you know, at MY table

Now onto your actual questions--

Q: what happens on Hulks turn when hulk succeeds in "attacking" a scene distinction--are civilians dead, injured, or what?

A: This all depends on exactly what Hulk is doing. Example below

Let's say Hulk is rampaging down the Vegas strip--he's not actually trying to hurt anyone--but his blind rage is putting everyone in danger. Spiderman and captain America arrive.

Scene Distinctions: Endangered Civilians, Hotels and Casinos, Traffic Jam (this is lots of stuff for Hulk to smash)

Watcher Turn(Hulk): In a rage, Hulk picks up an SUV, with family still inside, and hurls it through the air at The Luxor Casino. Spiderman is swinging nearby, maybe he can save the SUV and the hotel. (mechanically, this is an attack on Spidermans emotion track)

Spiderman responds by trying to create a big web net to catch the SUV or at least slow it down.

So you build the Hulks dice pool and Spidermans resistance dice pool. Hulk would use scene distinction traffic jam to because he grabbed a car off the street.

If Spiderman fails--SUV flies right on by and crashes right into the Luxor Casino--yes, there is a lot of damage, and people have probably died (narrate level of death and destruction according to size of Hulks effect dice). Spiderman takes emotional stress--he has failed to save lives, he is totally kicking himself for failing even though it is not his fault, cause that's how Spiderman is. If you like, you could even spend a d6 from doom pool to add a new scene distinction (flaming SUV dangling from third floor)

If Spidey succeeds on his resistance roll, the net works, SUV is saved, next turn.

Maybe on another turn, Hulk does a double fist smash on the street, opening a fissure that is swallowing up cars--once again this is an emotional attack on one or all of the heroes. Heroes make a resistance roll based on trying to keep people from falling into the fissure--fail, more people die, more emotion damage.

But what are the players doing on thier turn? One of several things-- attacking hulk directly, creating assets (look, there is a good evacuation route here, says captain A), saving civilians by removing the scene distinctions, or creating complications for Hulk (Spiderman tries to draw the Hulks attention away from bystanders and onto himself by creating th "distracted by Spiderman" complication on Hulk)

[Supplanter]

I wasn't actually speaking directly to you until you tossed out the rant about putting your concerns in a box.

You know, on reflection, even though it wasn't my intention, I can see how you would reasonably interpret that post as singling you out. I was really expressing frustration over a series of comments by multiple people in this thread and others, but you were most directly between me and the target at that moment. While I stand by the points I made, I was careless in the way I made them, and I am sorry for that.


Jim

[konate]

Very good step-by-step example of how to use scene distinctions, as well as, assets and complications, etc; very clear.

I need that type of visualization to wrap my head around this very open/narrative/creative system. I've heard many people speak of using the mechanics this way (scene distinctions or large scale threats), but never really "got it". This was an epiphany for me. I just hope I remember it when I need to and that I will continue to see such fantastic examples of application by people who have a better understanding of the game than I do.

Thank you all.

[Dunlaing]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Does anyone have an opinion on my other question about using Berserk for a Watcher character?

Also, is there any way to get the board to stop using red text on a black background? It makes it really hard to read on my iPhone while I'm driving.

[Cam]

Dunlaing, you should be able to change your forum settings to use a different theme, rather than the red on black. I switched mine to the default the day after the forums went live.

Cheers,
Cam

[EldritchFire]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Does anyone have an opinion on my other question about using Berserk for a Watcher character?

Also, is there any way to get the board to stop using red text on a black background? It makes it really hard to read on my iPhone while I'm driving.

[PSA Hat]
The moderators of this board do not condone nor recommend reading on any mobile device while driving.
[/PSA Hat]

-EF