Role-differentiation for low-level mundanes

[Username17]

With probability asymptotically approaching 1, you want to have a game available in which some of the characters are computer hackers.

This is actually one of the central arguments for a 'challenges first' approach. The hacking landscape, unlike a jungle full of goblins, does not even have an implied metaphor for how it might be interacted with. If you write a number for a character, it means nothing. If you write an ability for a character, it means nothing. 'Hacking 6' Is that good? 'Automatically identify an icon' is that good?

The real question is what needs to be done to get access to the target data. Can you bridge an air gap or do you physically have to plug a wire into the evil computer? Or do you just need line of sight and a futuristic Bluetooth? If you get to the enemy server (in a virtual or physical sense), what do you need to do to 'log on'? What do you need to do in order to get 'permission' to access the important file? What do you need to do to find the important file? What do you need to do to read or copy the important file? Once you have access to the file, do you need to do something to 'use' it? Which of these actions require specific character abilities or equipment (hardware or software)?

All of those questions have to be answered in pretty hard fashion before a hacker character's abilities and equipment can even make sense.

The role I worry most about is Groo - who is only mighty and doesn't contribute anything else. Groo is comic-relief character for a reason. I think all mundane fighting types need something besides being fighty to contribute.

Interacting with the physical world as a 'badass' is different from being a hacker in that we can easily imagine how a badass might contribute to various real world situations. So long as the challenges are roughly analogous to real world situations (or 'real' themed fantasy such as Game of Thrones or Mission Impossible), you can imagine the badass contributing by being badass. You need only ask what a character played by Tom Cruise, Vin Diesel, The Rock, or a younger Bruce Willis might do and you have your answer.

The problem comes when you introduce science fiction or fantasy elements. If the problem is on another planet or exists only virtually in cyberspace or is another plane of existence, or is on a cloud castle or the bottom of the sea... being 'badass' doesn't have any direct effect on any of that.

Once the challenges are weirder than 'tense negotiation with the Yakuza' and 'fight some Mafia goons' and 'break into office building' the utility or lack thereof of mundane ability sets is determined by the parameters of those challenges. Can you get through the magic mirror to the mirror world by punching it? If not, maybe Jason Statham has nothing to contribute.

-Username17

[DrPraetor]

Yeah, Molly Millions is a better template for someone who is "just badass" than is Groo; but she has a clear competency that Groo doesn't, since Groo gets no respect.

So if you had:

Class	Is Mighty	Is Clever	Sneaks or ...?	Por ejemplo
Assassin	YES		Sneaks	Fitz
Champion	YES		Is a badass	Molly Millions
Thief		YES	Sneaks	Bilbo
Courtier		YES	Is persuasive	Bren Cameron
Ranger	Yes	Yes	Sneaks	Aragorn
Soldier	Yes	Yes	Is a leader	Louie

So you are either stabbing people from concealment or you have some designated social advantage. That seems like it's probably fair? Or should "intimidate" just come packaged with mighty?

Anyway, at least at a magical tea party stage, things hold together better.

[deaddmwalking]

How is a 'mighty badass' different from a 'mighty anything else'?

[Foxwarrior]

A "mighty badass" is very strong, but also mentally pretty with it. They tend to be able to figure out what's going on around them and don't just stand around stupidly. When it comes to pretty much any situation outside the nerdy wizard's area of expertise, the badass probably knows more than the wizard does.

[deaddmwalking]

A "mighty badass" is very strong, but also mentally pretty with it. They tend to be able to figure out what's going on around them and don't just stand around stupidly. When it comes to pretty much any situation outside the nerdy wizard's area of expertise, the badass probably knows more than the wizard does.

And the Ranger who is specifically Mihhty/Clever/Sneaky? Which part of the badass not standing around stupidly is part of the Ranger package?

[Foxwarrior]

Uhhh...

[Username17]

The problem with 'sneaks' is that in an RPG there is the assumption of a shared spotlight. That is, characters do not normally have sequential scenes but simultaneous scenes. Splitting the party is a very dangerous endeavor, and people make memes about not doing it. It disrupts the flow of the game and the story and the role playing.

What this means is that for a character to contribute, they need to be making positive contributions rather than negative contributions. That is, if your character 'can't be attacked' or 'can't be seen' or whatever, that's not going to matter because the other characters are still going to be there.

You can see this clearly in the Horse Archers and Paladins discussions of 4th edition D&D. Being out of melee range is good for you but it's bad for the rest of the party so long as they cannot also get out of melee range. Being tough enough that the monsters don't want to attack you is good for you, but it's bad for the rest of the team unless they are also similarly tough.

Which all comes back to the idea of a character being sneaky. It's OK for a character to have abilities that are themed as 'sneaky' but only if those abilities function meaningfully when the other characters who do not have those abilities are in the same room. So the ability to not set off an alarm is useless if the other characters will set off the alarm by not having that ability. The ability to disarm an alarm is useful because it allows other characters to pass without setting off the alarm.

Picking pockets, sneak attacks, disabling traps, and unlocking doors are all classic 'thief skills' that are meaningful and useful in a standard cooperative storytelling game. Moving silently is useless, because the other player characters make noise when they move.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

Reading Robert E Howard's Shadows in the Moonlight, Conan gets KO'd in the middle of talking to pirates (someone throws a rock at him while he's trying to explain that since he killed their captain he should be the new captain). There was a dainty princess ally hiding from the pirates.

The princess then waits for the pirates to get drunk to cut Conan from his bondage and the adventure continues. This is a story though, in a party tabletop game the princess doesn't do much in combat time... but it does make 'sneaking' a game insurance thing for continuing the story after the players were reduced to 0 HP.

--

In a set piece combat game you can be a lot more abstract with how sneaking works.

Warhams kill team has the 'scouting phase' to place or disarm traps or move terrain features. Then the 'setup' phase the stealthy characters have more freedom to setup and the alert characters impose penalties on enemy setup.

[Username17]

Reading Robert E Howard's Shadows in the Moonlight, Conan gets KO'd in the middle of talking to pirates (someone throws a rock at him while he's trying to explain that since he killed their captain he should be the new captain). There was a dainty princess ally hiding from the pirates.

The princess then waits for the pirates to get drunk to cut Conan from his bondage and the adventure continues. This is a story though, in a party tabletop game the princess doesn't do much in combat time... but it does make 'sneaking' a game insurance thing for continuing the story after the players were reduced to 0 HP.

That kind of adventure story fully highlights how inappropriate hiding is as a distinguishing character ability for an RPG. In scenarios like this, the hiding character is not acting in the scene that the non-hiding character is and vice versa. The character hidden in the rafters who comes down and rescues the other character later might as well be 'back at the base' or 'back in the van' or 'in another town.'

The characters who are hiding from the current action in order to act later are functionally not in the current action. They are 'in reserve' which is potentially militarily useful but not functionally different from splitting the party. Thus the ability to hide away from enemies that another character is interacting with is generally not much use.

The exception of course is characters who are like picking pockets or going through visitor logs while another character 'keeps the guards talking.' That kind of Ocean's Eleven style multi-character stealth action has characters acting in the same scene in a meaningful way even though one character's contribution is to 'not get noticed.' But if the goal is to use hiding to keep from being attacked by the guards, one character hiding and another not accomplishes absolutely nothing.

-Username17

[Whatever]

If you're going to hide under your Cloak of Darkness, you better have brought enough for the whole class to share.

[hyzmarca]

Reading Robert E Howard's Shadows in the Moonlight, Conan gets KO'd in the middle of talking to pirates (someone throws a rock at him while he's trying to explain that since he killed their captain he should be the new captain). There was a dainty princess ally hiding from the pirates.

The princess then waits for the pirates to get drunk to cut Conan from his bondage and the adventure continues. This is a story though, in a party tabletop game the princess doesn't do much in combat time... but it does make 'sneaking' a game insurance thing for continuing the story after the players were reduced to 0 HP.

That kind of adventure story fully highlights how inappropriate hiding is as a distinguishing character ability for an RPG. In scenarios like this, the hiding character is not acting in the scene that the non-hiding character is and vice versa. The character hidden in the rafters who comes down and rescues the other character later might as well be 'back at the base' or 'back in the van' or 'in another town.'

The characters who are hiding from the current action in order to act later are functionally not in the current action. They are 'in reserve' which is potentially militarily useful but not functionally different from splitting the party. Thus the ability to hide away from enemies that another character is interacting with is generally not much use.

The exception of course is characters who are like picking pockets or going through visitor logs while another character 'keeps the guards talking.' That kind of Ocean's Eleven style multi-character stealth action has characters acting in the same scene in a meaningful way even though one character's contribution is to 'not get noticed.' But if the goal is to use hiding to keep from being attacked by the guards, one character hiding and another not accomplishes absolutely nothing.

-Username17

That depends on how you metaphorize hiding and incorporate it into the minigame being played. If you treat sneaking around as basically contested invisibility, then you can use it as an alternative defense in a combat minigame. The tank uses his huge HP and toughness to just absorb all the damage thrown at him and hacks away from the front. The thief or assassin uses his high sneaking stat to remain unseen so that enemies don't even know to attack him, then shanks them in the back while they're focusing on the big guy.

I've been playing a lot of warframe lately, and though it's a realtime action video game rather than a pen and paper tabletop, it does this quite well, with stealth and DR both being viable combat options at most levels (though DR eventually becomes useless use to scaling enemy damage, while stealth doesn't because AI perception doesn't scale).

It's easy to justify this with an invisibility ring or whatever. But it can also be done by saying that the character just moves while everyone else is distracted and uses terrain features to remain unseen. Though this obviously doesn't work as well in an empty open plane.

[DrPraetor]

Stealth can be game-mechanically equivalent to "has a bow" - you strike enemies who can't strike you - but as with "has a bow", it also creates problems.

Is the party strictly better if everyone has a bow and kites the same enemy? If so, the tank is a liability because you have to hang around while he gets stabbed.

This isn't insoluble given the right mix of challenges and the right mechanics for kiting and/or sneaking, but I think it's better if stealth is an offensive mechanic (like sneak attack), or a choice-of-target mechanic (also like having a bow), rather than a perfect defense.

That's a pretty minor point on the scale of the discussion. "Is a badass" solves problems because people respect your badassitude. It's not the same as being good in a fight - it's a power fantasy of being admired for being hard, rather than just being hard. It is a charisma power rather than a stealth power. Tough characters in fiction often solve problems this way.