Weaning people off of the Martial power source.

[Username17]

I remain unconvinced that this "fourth option" exists. K is still using Val Kilmer as a model and has not committed to retiring the concept when characters in the party grow to the level of Bavmorda. That's the same "fighters can't have nice things" setup that inspired this thread to be created in the first place.

-Username17

[Orion]

Err... He's made fairly explicit that Protection from Magic is something a Fighter can just TAKE on level-up, as either a magic talisman or a permanent buff cast by a cohort.

[Username17]

Err... He's made fairly explicit that Protection from Magic is something a Fighter can just TAKE on level-up, as either a magic talisman or a permanent buff cast by a cohort.

So what? He's still Val Kilmer. The concept of being a guy who is all tricksy and can maybe pull an acrobatic stunt and kill a monster is just never going to be as impressive as someone who can effortlessly transform an entire enemy army into harmless animals. Even if you personally get to protect yourself or make a save or some shit, that doesn't make you equal, that just gives you an opportunity to take a turn. Willow managed to protect himself from pig transformation, and that in no way made him equal to Bavmorda.

Check out Gakuen Alice. While the main character's anti-power power is a power, it is also the shittiest power. Flame production, super science, psychic communication, and every other one of those X-men powers has some sort of use outside a confrontation. And power negation does not. Even total magic immunity doesn't make you as good, or even nearly as good as someone who can actually do shit.

Golems are magic immune. Do Wizards shit themselves when they show up? Or do they just dump them in an acid fog or rock to mud and move the fuck on with their lives? When the power level has gotten to the point where people can do awesome Hindu-mythic shit, being a guy who still has to run up stairs in order to jump down onto a monster's back is bullshit. The real characters will just turn it into a fiddler crab and step on it.

The basic and unavoidable fact is that when people do epic things, being a guy who doesn't do epic things makes you a shitty character - even if combat numbers are messed with until you can personally kill other characters who can do epic things. And K has not presented an answer for that. And since we're on page 7, I don't believe that he will.

-Username17

[Orion]

No. On a mechanical level he quite clearly did.

He explicitly said that you'll be required as you advance to select abilities of higher-level lists, eventually selecting powers like flight, plane shifting, fire blasting, and so on. He also said that you handle this by letting players write their own loot, bloodlines, and whatnot into the game extemporaneously.

That's a solution I find kind of *stupid*, because it largely destroys the ability to tell a coherent or predictable *story,* but on a mechanical level I don't see where it's unsatisfactory.

[Username17]

No. On a mechanical level he quite clearly did.

He explicitly said that you'll be required as you advance to select abilities of higher-level lists, eventually selecting powers like flight, plane shifting, fire blasting, and so on. He also said that you handle this by letting players write their own loot, bloodlines, and whatnot into the game extemporaneously.

No. See, that would, if it was going to work, be an example of Retiring the Val Kilmer Archetype. K said that he was not going to do that, which is why his system will not work.

You can have whatever flavor reason you want for why a warrior becomes a king and then a sorcerer king. But the point is that if you're going the "select from higher level power lists" option, the character does have to stop being a warrior at some point. That's option #2:

• Force "non-spellcasters" to get spells at some level.

K rejected that for an incoherent "fourth option" that will somehow allow a character who is "acrobatic and good at killing people with a sword" to be a meaningful character in a game where the witch queen can create and destroy entire planets. I am not only dubious, I am at this point contemptuous of this plan. Because it fails on first principles.

The only functional "fourth option" is the "Fourth Edition Option" where spellcasters never get to do anything nearly as cool as Bavmorda and are stuck on the Willow end of the spectrum the entire game. If Wizards also don't get nice things, then the fact that Fighters don't is no longer an obstacle to game balance. Of course, then you can't use Willow as source material.

-Username17

[Orion]

Ah, you're using the word "spells" as a shorthand for "effects like flight, teleportation, mass hold, and summon monster as class features."

In which case yes, eventually everyone needs spells.

K seems at this point to be arguing, although it is admittedly unclear, that he will give out those abilities to warriors. When he says warriors can't get spells, he seems to be using "spells" to mean "effects produced by incantation of mystic languages, long study, and precise gestures." It is indeed possible to go to any power level without getting any of those. Take Superman.

Admittedly, I may be totally misreading him, but I'd rather assume people are making some sense than assume the opposite. We can only hope that at some point he will explain what he's talking about.

[IGTN]

The two of you are using the word "spells" to mean different things.

Frank, you're using "spells" to mean magical effects. This is what it means in pretty much everything we're used to.

K is using "spells" to mean "things you find in a spellbook instead of cast from a wand or beseech from a spirit or breathe because of your heritage or use your lightning spear for." This is an utterly ridiculous definition that I've only ever seen on the saving throw table in my 2E books.

That's right, he wants to bring back "Rod, Staff, or Wand" and "Spell" as meaning two different things game-mechanically, even when they do the exact same thing. Explicitly, even.

(e: Ninja'ed)

[K]

I wrote some stuff here, but I deleted it. I'm done. Everyone but Frank gets it.

[Username17]

I wrote some stuff here, but I deleted it. I'm done. Everyone but Frank gets it.

What fucking ever. So when you say you are rejecting Option #2, you actually mean that you are accepting option #2 and then redefining terms in-game even though we were talking system neutral.

I think you're the person who doesn't get it.

-Username17

[Orion]

Exalted seems to do pretty well for itself. Imagine how many people would play something like that with actual mechanics.

[Orion]

Whatever, K. You had the opportunity to affirm that you actually do intend to keep "warriors" on the same page as "wizards," and specifically failed ot do that, instead choosing to spout something about the maximum power level you wanted to cover.

But guess what: Elric-level power depends on getting effects which Trollman is calling "spells."

[K]

Exalted seems to do pretty well for itself. Imagine how many people would play something like that with actual mechanics.

Exalted calls itself epic, but at no point is anyone playing Frank's planet-destroying Hindu demigods RPG. It's actually set at about mid-level DnD.

I think it works at all because it's about a third as complicated as DnD, and that's a strong selling point.

[K]

Whatever, K. You had the opportunity to affirm that you actually do intend to keep "warriors" on the same page as "wizards," and specifically failed ot do that, instead choosing to spout something about the maximum power level you wanted to cover.

But guess what: Elric-level power depends on getting effects which Trollman is calling "spells."

Here's what I wrote a few pages back. Frank wants to argue I didn't say it. I'm done here.

People need to pay class features for powers as good as class features. This means that at X level when a Wizard chooses a new spell like Fireball, some other character like a fighter needs to choose how to make his Flame Sword create Fire Waves.

Then you put magic items everywhere. Fire Swords are literally sold in high-end shops and in the hands of bandit leaders, BUT only powerful heroes can make those Fire Swords do anything more interesting than being a light source and easy way to light campfires.

Fighters can still get interesting nonmagical abilities: being charming can be the nonmagical version of mind control, fancy coup de grace strikes instead of death rays, and parrying lightning bolts with swords instead of casting dispel magic, but at the stage when people should be doing overtly magical things like planehopping the wizard gets a gate spell and the warrior takes his lightning spear and pokes a hole in the universe.

Repeating myself is a drag.

[Kaelik]

The point is K, that you are describing something that is in every single fucking way completely 100% identical to Option 2. And is in fact explicitly option 2. And then you are calling it a fourth option for what I can only assume is that you enjoy fighting with frank.

Because other than pissing off Frank, there is no fucking reason in the entirety of the universe to not just admit that your "Warrior" is casting fucking badass magic spells.

[Orion]

You're also managing to be vague about whether you want flight, demon binding, and crowd control in your game

[K]

The point is K, that you are describing something that is in every single fucking way completely 100% identical to Option 2. And is in fact explicitly option 2. And then you are calling it a fourth option for what I can only assume is that you enjoy fighting with frank.

Because other than pissing off Frank, there is no fucking reason in the entirety of the universe to not just admit that your "Warrior" is casting fucking badass magic spells.

At that point in the conversation we were discussing how I was reserving the flavor of spells for Wizard's magic powers. Then I was accused of setting up a system where spells had to be better because I was reserving them for Wizards despite the fact that I had explicitly said other people would have magic powers.

After clearing that up I was then accused of not giving magic powers to fighters. Again. After defending against that charge twice.

So yeh. This is why I don't post ideas here anymore. The signal to noise ratio on feedback is really bad, especially if you don't agree with Frank.

[Murtak]

So from simply scanning page 7 it looks to me as if both Frank and K are saying that both fighters and wizards need to get abilities of similar powers. Frank seems to argue that K is irrational because he wants to preserve the Val Kilmer archetype who merely negates others powers instead having any of his own.

If that is what K is saying, Frank has a point - at some point merely being personally unaffected by others' powers simply is not enough. If, on the other hand, K is merely saying the Val Kilmer archetype should remain as a stepping stone this is merely a misunderstanding.

Or perhaps I am missing something here. Off to read the rest of the thread.

[mean_liar]

I wrote some stuff here, but I deleted it. I'm done. Everyone but Frank gets it.

I have no idea what the confusion is about, and happen to like your idea quite a bit. As a pet project I've been writing my own fantasy heartbreaker RPG and this mechanic is very, very close to how I'm setting things up.

I think the problem is that people are arbitrarily assuming that "magic" is the only possible explanation for the far end of the spectrum of powers. For example, summoning a horde of undead. That's a good example for me because I've given it some thought -

You can either have instant-army of say, size 1. That's magic and there's no real other way to do it. But maybe that magic is from spells, or maybe it's because you're Aragorn and you call spirits because your bloodline means the Universe owes you one, or whatever. Or you can summon a horde over a day, of call it size 1.5. That's the locals hearing your call. Or over a month, of size 6. Because you're charismatic.

This is all basic effect-driven stuff from HERO or MnM... why is the flavor an issue here?

[Avoraciopoctules]

So yeh. This is why I don't post ideas here anymore. The signal to noise ratio on feedback is really bad, especially if you don't agree with Frank.

Is there anywhere you do post ideas regularly? Because I'd be interested in seeing some more of this system.

[Username17]

why is the flavor an issue here?

Bcause K keeps making it an issue.

We have Madmartigan, right? He does some stuff. It's kind of cool stuff, and we're pretty happy with the character. Buuuut... Bavmorda is right over there and she is much more powerful than Madmartigan, not just numerically, but also structurally. And that's fine for this adventure because she is higher level than he is. But here's where we get to the problem, because after defeating her Madmartigan gains a level. Now Madmartigan was already listed as the top end of what K would accept from the "Martial Power Source." That's a problem because in gaining a level, he is definitionally going to exceed that point. There are now three (and only three) options:

• Madmartigan stays "Madmartigan" but he gets an additional power source grafted onto him. This is called the "gadgeteer" option, because as he continues to advance in this manner the Orb of Silt and the Blade of Shattered Hope will loom much larger than him in the story and he will eventually be just a launching pad for all the stuff his cool ear can do.
• Madmartigan is forced to become a Sorcerer Hero or Divine Champio or something that does not have the Martial Power Source limits anymore. Madmartigan stays level appropriate, but the flavor of him being a mortal swordsman is lost.
• Madmartigan is allowed to take Martial Powers that exceed the limits that K, Random Casualty, and the D&D orthodoxy have placed on him and everyone else with the Martial Power Source. He keeps his flavor, he stays level appropriate, and people have their suspension of disbelief deeply offended. People will call it "weaboo" or "retarded."

Those are the choices. Period. End of story. And K continues to insist that he has a fourth option where... I don't even fucking know.

He says that the character can take explicitly magical powers and that the higher level power lists will be made up of that sort of thing. People say "Hey, that's exactly the same as the second option." And then K says that he is rejecting the second option and starts spamming his previous comments all over the thread as if no one else had ever read his words. Then he goes on about magic spears and tattoos and stuff, and people say "That's the first option." And then he gets offended again.

So, yeah. K does not have a fourth option. There are three options, they all work, they are all offensive to some people. You need to choose one and run with it. Or you need to use the actual fourth option: which is the 4th edition D&D option where you remove Bavmorda from the playspace and just have everyone in the gameworld top out at Madmartigan.

There is in fact a very interesting system that K is working on, but it's not a method of solving the "Madmartigan gains a level" problem and I don't even know why he started arguing with people on this thread about it.

-Username17

[Orion]

K, I'm not asking you to come back to this thread, which has gotten a little heated, but it saddens me to think that you wouldn't post your ideas here. I haven't always agreed with you, but I've always been glad to see your posts. And, I definitely agree that the atmosphere here is a bit too fannish towards Frank--I do it myself, sometimes. Not that I'm blaming Frank, but it would be really nice if the board didn't revolve around any one person. You have the reputation and the charisma to disrupt the Frank-centric atmosphere, I'm sure, if you stick around a little bit.



Frank,

K seems to have rejected the "first option" because in one of your statements it implied the game needed a treasure system with DM-seeded loot and GP values and stuff. He wanted people to be able to pick powers first, and then decide to have those items, as far as I can tell.

[Josh_Kablack]

Despite all the shouting past each other at cross-purposes - I'm loosely with K here.

What the fuck do power sources even matter?

Within the mechanics of a game, it's power effects that matter.

If you have a game where only Circe-types get to turn crews of sailors into pigs - then yeah, sure everyone needs to eventually get Circe-type abilities. And that's dropping the martial power source as something that goes obsolete after Level N.

But if instead, you have a game where anyone can pick up a Porkalator, or a Nagra Rock and change fools into swarms of pigs or toads - then the folks with the best weapons skills are going to be the best at doing that sort of thing and the martial power source does not go obsolete. Heck, in games like that, you can also let Black Mages have a Toad spell that changes enemies into a toad and heck even allow a skilled Mediator to just Threaten folks until they turn into literal chickens. Thus warriors change people into toads by using a special weapon (which doesn't deplete any spell points), wizards turn people into toads (without needing a weapon) by spending their spell points, and diplomats turn people into chickens by talking at them (without needing a weapon or spell points, but generally taking multiple turns). Thus everyone has access to similar abilities with minor mechanical differences to represent flavor.

But K, the thing is that the second system falls under what Frank termed "Chakras" back on page 3. Sure he only outlines it with 2 sentences so it's not terribly detailed or developed - but damnnit man, your system will be just an actual development of that sort of system.

And Frank and fans, it seems that K's idea has everyone getting flavor differences and not just plugging abilities into their item slots. The details of the abilities will be different - as the example of the transform enemies attack available to FFT Black Mages vs the one available to Knights and the one available to Mediators illustrates. The differences between these are small, but they're not insignificant. So in this set-up everyone does get slightly different mechanics based on power source - not the exact same mechanics used in "chakras" (where "a 10d6 energy blast is still just a 10d6 energy blast) and yet the martial power source does not necessarily go obsolete.

[Mask_De_H]

At that point in the conversation we were discussing how I was reserving the flavor of spells for Wizard's magic powers. Then I was accused of setting up a system where spells had to be better because I was reserving them for Wizards despite the fact that I had explicitly said other people would have magic powers.

The 64 million double dollar question is why K? Why would you make spellcasting out of a book a special tier of flavor ability when "being a prepared caster" is something many systems can do out of the box? Why have somebody work for a basic character concept like that, unless in the hypothetical system you can have a guy take "Wizard" out of the box by taking the necessary [Magic] abilities?

Either a) you want to make Wizards special by having them go through hoops for an iconic ability, which is against design rules you wrote yourself before this shitstorm.
Or b) you can achieve this out of the box and this has all been a misunderstanding borne of vagueness about both Frank's Chakra system and your own (cool sounding) idea.

If it's b, then your idea has an analogue in the 4uccess project and if it's a I don't know what the fuck.

After clearing that up I was then accused of not giving magic powers to fighters. Again. After defending against that charge twice.

So yeh. This is why I don't post ideas here anymore. The signal to noise ratio on feedback is really bad, especially if you don't agree with Frank.

No K, the reason this has been a seven page yelling session is that you've been really vague about what your aiming for, and when we think we're on the same page you say something that throws the whole conversation out of whack. And then Frank e-yells at you. Shit, I don't even know if what we're arguing about is even germane to the thread topic anymore.

[Psychic Robot]

What the fuck do power sources even matter?

Quite a few people--myself included--feel that fluff is important to the game. I believe that the source of one's power should have an impact on how one's power operates.

If you have a game where only Circe-types get to turn crews of sailors into pigs - then yeah, sure everyone needs to eventually get Circe-type abilities. And that's dropping the martial power source as something that goes obsolete after Level N.

If the Circe-types are weak and vulnerable whereas the Conan-types are powerful and capable of stabbing the Circe-types to death, you don't need to give the Conan-types Circe-type powers.

[MGuy]

I'm not sure whats being argued anymore can someone clear it up?