How to do Stunts right

[OgreBattle]

It's cool to throw sand in your foes eye or throw your cape the first time you do it.

When you carry around bag of sand in every following battle, it gets kinda weird*. And if "throw sand" is a once per encounter power you have, it will upset people.

The topic of stunting has been mentioned before here:

The reason why MTP is popular for stunts is that because the moment you codify chandelier jump or sand in the eyes, you run into problems.

The first is simply that the stunt no longer becomes cool, because it's just using a game mechanic. In effect, it's no longer a special stunt, just another combat maneuver like bullrush. And this leads to one or two things. Either chandelier jump is inferior to what you usually do and nobody uses it or chandelier jump is better than what you can usually do and everyone uses. Because that's what rules do, they create a consistent simulationist reality.

And either way, the game tends to lose out. You get BS where people are either trip spammers or trip sucks so bad they never try to trip anything in the entire game. Or maybe you get bad compromises like Improved trip and improved disarm that tells people that didn't take the feat to go suck a dick. So now the entire point of the spontaneous stunt has been lost.

What most players want out of stunts is the illogical desire that chandelier jump is badass the first time you pull it out, but after that, it loses its effectiveness and forces you to come up with another over the top stunt to try. The power of stunts is derived from the Rule of Cool, not any fixed mechanic. While sand in the eyes should have a good shot of blinding people the first time its used in the campaign, you don't want your game to turn into Olympic dirt tosser deathmatch.

At best you can have guidelines for stunts, but you never want hard coded rules, because once you do that it it's not longer a stunt. About the best stunt rules I've seen come out of Mutants and Masterminds power stunts and even that has a good dose of MTP where the DM decides if a stunt fits with your power theme.

So, is it possible to make a solid system (For a D&D type game, or whatever else) where 'stunts' are cool one-off things you'll do from time to time to get situational advantages?

I heard Wushu is a game built around stunting, but I've never looked at it.


*On second thought, that's about as weird as 'color spray' being a spell you prepare, and real world humans carry around flash and smoke grenades when they need to murder people in a dungeon/apartment.

[...You Lost Me]

My initial thought is to do it like Munchausen, but that seems time-consuming.

Also, stunts are meant to be rare. They're cool because they're rare, so you simultaneously need to discourage repeated stunts and discourage stunting repeatedly.

And, as usual, MTP'ing stunts will cause all sorts of retarded problems the way MTP'ing anything will cause problems.

[darkmaster]

Mutants and Masterminds has stunting built in you can replicate any power that's related somehow to one of the powers you have and then you're fatigued after the encounter or when you stop using the power whichever comes first, though you can cancel fatigue with your hero points.

That wouldn't work as is for D&D but perhaps a set pool of "inspiration points" that refresh after a period of time, perhaps a week.

[Longes]

Exalted, for all its terrible sins, has a decent stunt system - you get extra 1 to 3 dice to your dicepool for describing your actions in an awesome way.

[fectin]

You also regenerate your nominally-finite power source, as written, which breaks a surprising amount of the combat.

But yes, if you drop that bit, Exalted has a good system.

[Longes]

Well, this is Exalted we are talking about. You can't have a good thing here, without a barrel of shit chained up to it.

[Redshirt]

What about using an action point-type currency, but restricting its use to situational stuff like stunts and maneuvers? If you can't use your action point to ensure accuracy or enhance damage, there's less incentive to dump it in a first-round damage spike. Simultaneously, you could make tripping objectively better than a basic attack without making the basic attack obsolete, because they aren't being bought with the same coin.

[deaddmwalking]

What about using an action point-type currency, but restricting its use to situational stuff like stunts and maneuvers? If you can't use your action point to ensure accuracy or enhance damage, there's less incentive to dump it in a first-round damage spike. Simultaneously, you could make tripping objectively better than a basic attack without making the basic attack obsolete, because they aren't being bought with the same coin.

This is along the lines I'm currently thinking. Having 'stunting' based on a currency rather than situation has some advantages in terms of codifying it. Essentially, the PC would have to describe what they're trying to do to achieve their effect. I can see terrain based situations being helpful if they're looking for a way to do 'cool stuff', and the Action Point keeps it from being done ALL THE TIME...

[Ferret]

But then all you're doing is either saying "You can only MTP a stunt this often" which is as often as your currency refreshes, or you're saying "Spend a chit, get this effect" and ultimately nobody does the awesome description - they just spend the chit for their +3 to hit or whatever.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You also regenerate your nominally-finite power source, as written, which breaks a surprising amount of the combat.

But yes, if you drop that bit, Exalted has a good system.

Of course you also have the problem is that there are no guidelines or limits to when or how you can stunt.

I've played a couple of Exalted games, read a lot of logs online, and let me tell you that Exalted stunts encourage a preponderance of filler. People feel the need to pad their actions with meaningless extra prose in order to get a bonus. And of course the padding escalates over time. That kind of maladaptive response might be okay for a PBP game in which it's considered okay to spend three days resolving a combat, but it's hell on a system that's supposed to be run in real time.

[fectin]

Go play FantasyCraft.

Seriously.

There is a ready-made prototype already out there; go look at it. It's not an especially fun system, but it implements all the mechanics people here keep suggesting, and is functional enough to not collapse immediately.

Off the top of my head, FantasyCraft covers:
Action Points
Armor as DR
Mix-n-match armor
Multiple damage tracks
Scaling, templatized NPC generation
Spell points and casting checks
Priest spheres
Non-feat Weapon tricks and separate proficiency system
Keywords weapon traits
Grand unified advancement schedule in addition to classes
Social currency
Social system
Stronghold system, based on social stuff
A bunch of crafting stuff
Rewickered skills and max ranks
A scaling system that acts as a magic item "slot" limit.
etc. There are many more, I just ran out of stream-of-consciousness examples.

Most/all of those implementations are not great. Overall, I generally describe FantasyCraft as "3.5 - now with more spreadsheet!" However, it tries out quite a lot of good ideas, and if you're interested in how those ideas work out (which you should be) then you should go look at FantasyCraft.

[fectin]

Exalted stunts encourage a preponderance of filler.

In my experience, you can mostly fix it if you drop back to just the bonuses (no essence/WP), and explain them as follows: "1 die is any description beyond what roll you are making; 2 dice is a description which includes an established or new bit of the environment; 3 dice is so awsome that you will never get it." PCs often (but not usually) go for one die, because you might as well, and for important rolls they'll go for a little ambience as well. Generally though, Exalted dice pools are huge anyway, so a 10-20% bonus is just not worth worrying about.

(I know, I know: that's Oberoni. I think of it as hotfixing or customizing an otherwise decent system, but if you're concerned about it: yes, Exalted stunting is completely broken as written).

[Plague of Hats]

You know, it's not actually the Oberoni fallacy if you're not excusing the game's faults when you discuss how to fix it.

[Dean]

Exalted stunts encourage a preponderance of filler.

That has been exactly my experience as well. It is a bad and unusable system because you have tied mechanical bonuses to people describing a thing more intensely. Which means there is extra time used to describe every attack, massive extra time used to describe important attacks, and extra time put to negotiating what bonus was earned with the GM. It adds up to a phenomenal amount of time spent at the table listening to people backflipping far beyond what you or they could possibly care about.

I like the idea of either using stunts as effects that come pre-loaded with every given environment. So sand pits would have "throw sand" but not everywhere would. Or tying stunts to an action point like resource, where you get points or dice you can add on to attacks that aren't on your normal sheet of options.

[shadzar]

So, is it possible to make a solid system (For a D&D type game, or whatever else) where 'stunts' are cool one-off things you'll do from time to time to get situational advantages?

i would think not because a "stunt" would be an abnormal advantage for unusual situations, but there are too many players now that "build" character around advantages. like a bag of CLW, your bag of sand would always exist. there is little reason for things like 4th "encounter" powers. throwing sand in a guys face that you jsut threw sand in isnt likely to do much while he is currently blinded so would be ineffective, but throwing acid after acid would do something.

there are jsut too many situations where a "stunt" could happen to nail down a system or any reasonable arbitrary...reason for only allowing them on occasion if the ability to use a stunt presents itself every combat round.

[Seerow]

Mutants and Masterminds has stunting built in you can replicate any power that's related somehow to one of the powers you have and then you're fatigued after the encounter or when you stop using the power whichever comes first, though you can cancel fatigue with your hero points.

That wouldn't work as is for D&D but perhaps a set pool of "inspiration points" that refresh after a period of time, perhaps a week.

Personally, I really like this. The Fighter doesn't have improved bullrush but a perfect opportunity shows up where a bullrush would be useful? He suddenly has access to it for this encounter, at some cost (being fatigued later, using an action point, whatever); and if you utilize the environment in some way you get to negate that cost (so the fighter jumps onto a chandelier and swings along kicking the enemy in the face to knock him back, he gets that bullrush without paying the price).

[Mask_De_H]

M&M also has the problem that it's far easier to stunt with magic than it is to stunt with super strength or whatever.

The Dragon Age RPG has a system where you can stunt if you roll dubs on an attack/magic roll, and FATE Core has both stunt on critical success and stunt as catch-all not face punching option.

[Mask_De_H]

M&M also has the problem that it's far easier to stunt with magic than it is to stunt with super strength or whatever.

The Dragon Age RPG has a system where you can stunt if you roll dubs on an attack/magic roll, and FATE Core has both stunt on critical success and stunt as catch-all not face punching option.

[Grek]

I was really excited when I thought the title was "How to do Shunts right" and thought the title was about Eclipse Phase.

[Wiseman]

M&M also has the problem that it's far easier to stunt with magic than it is to stunt with super strength or whatever.

The Dragon Age RPG has a system where you can stunt if you roll dubs on an attack/magic roll, and FATE Core has both stunt on critical success and stunt as catch-all not face punching option.

Well that's because magic can mean a broad number of things, while super-strength doesn't have much conceptually to work with.

Same thing as fighter and wizard.

[Redshirt]

This is along the lines I'm currently thinking. Having 'stunting' based on a currency rather than situation has some advantages in terms of codifying it. Essentially, the PC would have to describe what they're trying to do to achieve their effect. I can see terrain based situations being helpful if they're looking for a way to do 'cool stuff', and the Action Point keeps it from being done ALL THE TIME...

I don't know if I'd want stunting to be completely tied to spending a single resource. If you want to spend some feats to become Pushimus Maximus, Master of Shoves, your ability to bull rush people into chasms shouldn't be doubly constrained by both the availability of chasms and a resource muzzle.

In addition to the AP and Build paths, simple MC allowance should be encouraged as well. If you describe the stunt convincingly, the MC could waive the cost. Codifying APs as an absolute requirement would discourage this, rule 0 be damned.

In other words, basically this:

...The Fighter doesn't have improved bullrush but a perfect opportunity shows up where a bullrush would be useful? He suddenly has access to it for this encounter, at some cost (being fatigued later, using an action point, whatever); and if you utilize the environment in some way you get to negate that cost (so the fighter jumps onto a chandelier and swings along kicking the enemy in the face to knock him back, he gets that bullrush without paying the price).

[Heisenberg]

Exalted, for all its terrible sins, has a decent stunt system - you get extra 1 to 3 dice to your dicepool for describing your actions in an awesome way.

In and of itself, this is a good mechanic. I've seen it elsewhere too.

[Lago PARANOIA]

(I know, I know: that's Oberoni. I think of it as hotfixing or customizing an otherwise decent system, but if you're concerned about it: yes, Exalted stunting is completely broken as written).

What exactly is decent about it?

[*] There's the narrative filter and escalation issue.
[*] As you said, the bonuses aren't big enough to make a failing tactic into a winning one. This doesn't encourage creativity; it just causes people to stick with 'winmore' stunts.
[*] It's fundamentally unfair. Do you reward effort or do you reward results? If you reward effort then you're incentivizing people to sandbag their writing ability so the ST doesn't pull a 'I know you can try harder than that, English Lit Major Bobby'. If you're rewarding results, you're punishing Grandma and Lil' Timmy and discouraging them from writing -- why can't you make as detailed of a pose as Bobby? No bonus for you.

The Champions M&M system kicked around works slightly better for fostering creativity and better writing. Since you're using an old power in a new way (thus getting the old bonus), you avoid the problem of outside-the-box tactics being a priori not good enough. It's still not perfect, what with the Super Strength v. Magic problem and the fact that boring practical stunts compete for resources with creative ones, but it's still better.

[Cyberzombie]

M&M also has the problem that it's far easier to stunt with magic than it is to stunt with super strength or whatever.

This problem could probably be fixed by requiring a Broad Stunts extra to the power so it costs more.

M&M is probably the best system for a stunt system that I've seen, since it treats stunts basically as powers you could have taken during character creation. Unfortunately, it's just not very easily portable to other d20 systems, and that assumes that people haven't spent all their extra effort getting extra actions, since it's usually better to just get an extra action as opposed to stunting.

[fectin]

You reward results, with a low bar. Exactly as the rules say: 1 die is any description at all. 2 dice is anything that involves the environment. 3 dice basically doesn't happen. That is pure RAW in 2e (I don't know about 1e).

It's possible that MCs you've seen have all used houserules making stunts harder, but that's not really supported. As written, "I hit him with the hammer" is not a stunt, but "I get mad and hit him with the hammer" or "I punch him right in his stupid face" is a one die stunt.