Why everyone, including LM, does tiers wrong

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Why everyone, including LM, does tiers wrong

Post by Dean »

I feel like most people's explanation of what the "Tiers" are are not well thought out or explained enough. I believe that it is a useful concept but if we simply keep saying "Their are Experts, Hero's, Champions, Paragons, Olympians, then Double-hero's" without defining those words or the rubric we are using to determine the use of those title's then I think we're spinning gears. The following is how I have determined I will separate characters in all fiction into 5 broad tiers of power so as to compare and understand their abilities. The Tiers are as follows.

Tier 1: MUNDANE
Exemplar: You, also Mystery, Peter Pan, Princess Leia, Bill and Ted, Jubilee
Qualifier: As competent as a normal adult human. This is the easiest one to understand because you're one of them. It should be noted that it's not the mere absence of supernatural abilities that make a Tier 1 characters it is the absence of supernatual CAPabilities. There are very few jobs I would prefer Philoctetes for over a trained human despite the fact that he is technically magic.

Tier 2: MUNDANE AWESOME
Exemplar: Aragorn
, also John McClane, Conan, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, Leonardo da Vinci, Han Solo, Rambo, Leonardo da Turtle
Qualifier: As capable as the best humans ever. The peak of human potential. If a tier 2 character is focused on one area (investigating, driving, blackjack, but not all three) they can surpass the limit of human potential. Characters in this tier influence the people around them but if one is in the room he's not automatically in charge. If Conan walked over and took your sandwich you'd let him but later you'd pretend you wouldn't next time.
Tier 2's own the situation around them

Tier 3: SUPERNATURAL
Exemplar: Buffy
, also Wolverine, Captain America, Luke Skywalker, Spider-man, Master Chief, most characters in the fantasy or sci-fi genre
Qualifier: More capable than any human ever. These characters are as good as talented people at things they don't even focus on or really care about. These characters own everything around them to about lunging distance. You show Wolverine respect if you're at a bar with him but if he's in the Empire State Building and you're on Staten Island you genuinely don't give a shit if he has a problem with you, because to get you he'd have to take the fucking ferry. If Wolverine took your sandwich you wouldn't make a scene, because since he walked in the room that was his sandwich.
Tier 3's own the building they're in

Tier 4: SUPERNATURAL AWESOME
Exemplar: Magneto
, also Wonder Woman, Neo, Hulk, Corwin of Amber, Thor
Qualifier: This is where people stop interacting with the world as you know it or playing by the rules of the game. They are better than anyone ever can be at things they don't care about and likely aren't aware of, and at things they do care about their scores are set to "TEXA$!". You can be invulnerable here and it's not that big a deal because when the aliens attack the only person immortality helps is YOU. Characters here own everything in the state or small nation they are in. If you're in Queens and Magneto lands on the Empire State Building you turn on the fucking news because that shit might legitimately affect your day. This is the first Tier where a character could legitimately declare war on a country or concept.
Tier 4's own the state they're in

Tier 5: DEIFIC
Exemplar: Superman
, also Darkseid, Goku, The Prince Who Was A Thousand
Qualifiers: Characters here don't make sense. You can't if you want to get in. Superman is an object with mass that can move at light speed. The Prince Who Was a Thousand fights people backwards in time of when he starts fighting them. Characters here have a wide variety of invulnerabilities and capabilities because even the best one-trick-ponyism is not acceptable here. Characters here own the planet they are on. No matter where you live if Darkseid teleported into Antartica you would turn on the news because that means your planet is at war. These characters still operate and interact with things like mass, time, and distance but they bend the rules so heavily as to make them unreliable.
Tier 5's own the planet they're on

Their are also 2 outlier tiers which I'll describe below for completeness.

Tier 0
Exemplars:
The Goonies, Shortround, Fivel, George-Micheal Bluth
Some stories are actually improved by having protagonists that are less capable than adult humans. Home Alone doesn't work at all if the guy in the house looks like this. Also at this tier are most animal protagonists, who are traditionally so low powered that their entire conflicts are that they ARE in a PLACE.

Tier 6
Exemplars:
Cthulhu, also Franklin Richards, Galactus, Q, The Beyonder, Spider-Pig, and Dr. Manhattan (whom I dislike)
This is the tier of any walking Macguffin character simply made to be "Too powerful for the human mind to grasp!". They serve only a few plot purposes. First to be mysterious, difficult to conceive, and hard to predict. Second to let you write basically any plot you want and have them show up and demand the plot happen absent any other good reason. And third to make the thing in your setting that's so big that any plot involving it mandates everyone stop what they're doing and take notice.

The only thing that might exist at Tier 7 is the Abrahamic God (Only weaknesses:Iron Chariots and internal consistency!) Tier 7 is literal omnipotence.


Fun Facts About Tiers!
Almost all fantasy universes consist of 3 tiers with normals being the lowest, the heroes being in the middle, and the bad guy (and sometimes the best good guy) being the highest. So LoTR is 1-3, Silence of the Lambs is 0-2, X-men is 2-4

In small groups people can defeat characters 1 tier above them, but GTFO abilities will prevent lower characters from being able to affect the plot, almost no matter how many their are. Characters more than 1 tier below their opposition need special circumstances, preparation, or rituals to affect them. So a Werewolf or a Wraith (Tier 3) could be killed by a grizzled detective (Tier 1) if he had time to cast silver bullets or prepare some summoning ritual.

In my conversations I also separate "High" and "Low" within the Tiers to avoid the assumption that all same-tiered characters are neccesarily created equal. This is also helpful because any character who exists for long enough will rise in tier and bump up every decade by about half a tier, like low tier 3 to high tier 3 (Iron Man), or high tier 1 to low tier 2 (Xander).
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Post by Ghremdal »

I like it for the most part.

What I don't like is defining SUPERNATURAL+ tiers that they are better then experts at things that they don't know. Wolverine might be super awesome, but if he never danced Swan Lake, his first try would not be better then a dancer in training.

He would probably pick it up exceedingly quickly if he took the time.
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Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

An immortal flying 8-year-old boy is "mundane"? Lolwut?
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Post by tussock »

Superman is maybe an 11th level Wizard. Q is maybe a 13th level Wizard. Cthulhu's special power is getting killing by tier 2's, repeatedly (which by your spoiler makes him tier 4).

The God of Abraham ("all-father", biblical names are stupid) was beaten in a wrestling match by Jacob ("one that takes by the heel", because that was his winning lock), so no. Told people he created the universe? Tier 3, maybe. It's a bronze-age story, not that imaginative.

The problem with tiers is people can't agree on tiers, and a 20th level Wizard is better than all of them, by a long way. Your attempt is maybe better than mine though, so good on ya.
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Post by Dean »

Ghremdal wrote: What I don't like is defining SUPERNATURAL+ tiers that they are better then experts at things that they don't know. Wolverine might be super awesome, but if he never danced Swan Lake, his first try would not be better then a dancer in training.
Well Wolverine isn't Super+. Wonder Woman could absolutely crush a ballet performance. Corwin might have written Swan Lake and if not hes certainly seen it performed dozens of times and combining that with superhuman memory and agility means he would probably nail it. As the winning move he could also alter reality until the dance he did WAS a perfect performance. And yes Neo could literally perform swan lake exactly with no prior knowledge of it and combine a perfect performance with cool shades to rave reviews.
Desdan_Mervolam wrote:An immortal flying 8-year-old boy is "mundane"? Lolwut?
I would go head to head with Peter Pan at almost anything and not be worried. Physical fight, songwriting contest, soccer game, drag race, whatever. In a hundred random challenges I think he would lose more than he'd win. His ability to beat me by a lot in the high jump doesn't mean you would pick him over me for most games in gym class. He's technically supernatural yes, but he's not supernaturally capable.
tussock wrote:Superman is maybe an 11th level Wizard. Q is maybe a 13th level Wizard. Cthulhu's special power is getting killing by tier 2's, repeatedly (which by your spoiler makes him tier 4).

The God of Abraham ("all-father", biblical names are stupid) was beaten in a wrestling match by Jacob ("one that takes by the heel", because that was his winning lock), so no. Told people he created the universe? Tier 3, maybe. It's a bronze-age story, not that imaginative.

The problem with tiers is people can't agree on tiers, and a 20th level Wizard is better than all of them, by a long way. Your attempt is maybe better than mine though, so good on ya.
Bulldonkey. Superman is retarded. Make me an 11th level wizard with free action greater teleports and the ability to scry an entire plane. Your 2 6th level spells a day are gonna have to go a long way because you're competing against an entity that even in the average man's understanding of him can be anywhere instantaneously, hears everyone at all times, and is invulnerable. Disintegrate is a good spell but I don't know if two of them a day earns you a red S. I don't care that much about Superman so I don't intend to turn this into a wankfest but when we're talking about somebody who operates faster than the human mind can perceive you are dealing with a legitimate threat to any character that takes HP damage or minds if someone removes their spine. D&D characters tier-up fast but don't write checks your ass can't cash.

And obviously the God bit is a joke, I love the wrestling story, Tier 7 is just a placeholder for any genuinely omnipotent being.
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Post by JigokuBosatsu »

Superman comes with a lot of baggage. Think The Plutonian from Irredeemable instead.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

Peter Pan is probably a bad example of any specific tier.

He flies and imbues the ability to fly in other people - those are pretty big deal abilities. On the other hand, the mere concept of sewing completely eludes him, so he's roundly impressed by "pockets".
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Post by Desdan_Mervolam »

I will give it one thing, this thread certainly does seem to be proving that everyone, including Lord Mistborn, does Tiers wrong.
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Post by Juton »

tussock wrote:Superman is maybe an 11th level Wizard. Q is maybe a 13th level Wizard.
Tussock, you write a lot of dumb things, but this is particular egregious. Deanruel87 covered Superman. Q on multiple occasions has done stuff like create his own personal play dimension and summon creatures to populate them (Genesis + Gate). I would call you a retard but that would slander people with developmental disabilities.
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Post by Red_Rob »

tussock wrote:Q is maybe a 13th level Wizard.
Image

A frail old man with a number of powerful tricks that can only be used once each? I agree! :thumb:
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Post by Ice9 »

That's a pretty granular tier setup. But that leads to the question - what are you using tiers for?

If they're your main level system, and advancement within a tier is just selecting abilities, then yeah, they should be pretty granular.

If you're using them 4E style (well, what 4E was supposed to be), as a meta-category that you still level-up within, then you only need a new tier at the point you're getting abilities that would make no sense in the previous tier. So for example, Mundane and Mundanely Awesome could be folded together.
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Post by Doom »

Red_Rob wrote:
tussock wrote:Q is maybe a 13th level Wizard.
Image

A frail old man with a number of powerful tricks that can only be used once each? I agree! :thumb:
AH...I thought he was referring to Q from Star Trek TNG, who strikes me as well past 13th level.

I wouldn't put Bond's Q at much past 5th at best...I'm not seeing him do much over third level (though a handful of plastic explosives can make a decent fireball, I reckon).
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Post by Dean »

Doom wrote: AH...I thought he was referring to Q from Star Trek TNG, who strikes me as well past 13th level.
We were, Red Rob was joking : )
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Post by K »

Mundane and mundane awesome don't need to exist as separate tiers. Any examples of exceptional abilities at that tier are always offset by huge weaknesses (Sherlock Holmes and Rambo have no points in social skills and fail those encounters) or should be pushed into Supernatural because of plot immunity powers (John McClane, Conan, Indiana Jones, Batman).

Tier 0 is fine for normal humans and exceptional children like the Goonies or Lost Boys (not the vampires, but the followers of Peter Pan) and exceptional subhumans like talking mice. They offset some near-supernatural skills (trap-making in Home Alone) in exchange for being sub-adult.
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Post by Stubbazubba »

Though in a fight against a level 13 Wizard, Superman would have issues, because he is specifically vulnerable to magic.
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Post by Red_Rob »

deanruel87 wrote:
Doom wrote: AH...I thought he was referring to Q from Star Trek TNG, who strikes me as well past 13th level.
We were, Red Rob was joking : )
Or was I???
Yes I was.
K wrote:Mundane and mundane awesome don't need to exist as separate tiers. Any examples of exceptional abilities at that tier are always offset by huge weaknesses (Sherlock Holmes and Rambo have no points in social skills and fail those encounters) or should be pushed into Supernatural because of plot immunity powers (John McClane, Conan, Indiana Jones, Batman).
I think there is mileage in a seperate "Movie hero" tier. Most people would balk at calling John Mcclane or Sherlock Holmes "supernatural", particularly if that category includes Spiderman and Luke Skywalker, but they are clearly a cut above what even the most skilled "real" human could achieve. I suppose it depends on how granular you want to get, but I could definitely see differentiating between an average Joe and Conan in a fantasy game.
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Post by K »

Red_Rob wrote:
K wrote:Mundane and mundane awesome don't need to exist as separate tiers. Any examples of exceptional abilities at that tier are always offset by huge weaknesses (Sherlock Holmes and Rambo have no points in social skills and fail those encounters) or should be pushed into Supernatural because of plot immunity powers (John McClane, Conan, Indiana Jones, Batman).
I think there is mileage in a seperate "Movie hero" tier. Most people would balk at calling John Mcclane or Sherlock Holmes "supernatural", particularly if that category includes Spiderman and Luke Skywalker, but they are clearly a cut above what even the most skilled "real" human could achieve. I suppose it depends on how granular you want to get, but I could definitely see differentiating between an average Joe and Conan in a fantasy game.
Well, people do talk about how John McClane is basically invulnerable. It is a thing. Indiana Jones has been nuked with no better protection than a rusted refrigerator and James Bond has had an unlikely number of bullets shot in his direction, and that is no more or less interesting than Luke Skywalker sometimes jumping high and bouncing slow-ass blaster shots.

The only disconnect is the word "Supernatural." You could replace that with some word that does not bring to mind magic and people will accept it.

In the same sense, people will balk at "deity" because it brings to mind the Christian god or the DnD gods and not something that can be punched in the face.
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Post by wotmaniac »

K wrote: Well, people do talk about how John McClane is basically invulnerable. It is a thing. Indiana Jones has been nuked with no better protection than a rusted refrigerator and James Bond has had an unlikely number of bullets shot in his direction, and that is no more or less interesting than Luke Skywalker sometimes jumping high and bouncing slow-ass blaster shots.

The only disconnect is the word "Supernatural." You could replace that with some word that does not bring to mind magic and people will accept it.
I think that what you are referring to here, if boiled down to game terms, can simply be attributed to the "PC halo".
yes/no?
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Post by Username17 »

wotmaniac wrote:
K wrote: Well, people do talk about how John McClane is basically invulnerable. It is a thing. Indiana Jones has been nuked with no better protection than a rusted refrigerator and James Bond has had an unlikely number of bullets shot in his direction, and that is no more or less interesting than Luke Skywalker sometimes jumping high and bouncing slow-ass blaster shots.

The only disconnect is the word "Supernatural." You could replace that with some word that does not bring to mind magic and people will accept it.
I think that what you are referring to here, if boiled down to game terms, can simply be attributed to the "PC halo".
yes/no?
Not really, no. It's the thing that happens to people who are the protagonists of single author fiction. It is the halo that surrounds people whose actions have scripted results rather than being procedurally generated in any sort of "realistic" manner.

Indiana Jones can survive a in a refrigerator-based fallout shelter because dice are not actually being rolled. The attack and defense aren't even being compared or considered in light of physics or story continuity. The mere fact that we're discussing that event in what is overall an extremely terrible movie should tell you something about how offensive it is to have established causality violated in that manner. But it should also tell you something about how contemptuously easy it is for characters whose stories are written rather than generated to violate established parameters of their character's ability set or the physics of the world around them. The author simply declares it so and it is so.

In a role playing game, or cooperative storytelling exercise of any kind for that matter, people like John McClane and Indiana Jones would necessarily have to have measurable abilities far in excess of that of a normal man. Because in multiple author fiction, you actually can't simply rely on authorial fiat and story inconsistency to muddle through. Nuclear blasts and hand grenades have actual damage values. And player characters will not survive in those scenarios if they have to actually roll dice unless they have real abilities that do real things to allow them to survive.

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Post by wotmaniac »

I think you may be over-thinking this, Frank. Or perhaps looking at this through the wrong prism.
Yes, with single-author fiction, everything happens simply because of author fiat. But if comparisons are gonna be made, then you do kinda have to make certain concessions, such as retroactively applying the hypothetical game mechanics that would have come in to play in order for a given scene to be able to happen in a game setting.
For example, John McClane evidently made his reflex save (and possibly had evasion) in order to be able to survive the explosion.
Or whatever.
And if you have to hang a couple of lampshades, then so be it -- it kinda goes part and parcel to the genre.

Or are you talking about something completely different?


EDIT: I just watched fectin's link (and I've never seen Crystal Skull) .... and I stand by my point.
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Post by Username17 »

wotmaniac wrote:I think you may be over-thinking this, Frank. Or perhaps looking at this through the wrong prism.
Yes, with single-author fiction, everything happens simply because of author fiat. But if comparisons are gonna be made, then you do kinda have to make certain concessions, such as retroactively applying the hypothetical game mechanics that would have come in to play in order for a given scene to be able to happen in a game setting.
For example, John McClane evidently made his reflex save (and possibly had evasion) in order to be able to survive the explosion.
Or whatever.
And if you have to hang a couple of lampshades, then so be it -- it kinda goes part and parcel to the genre.

Or are you talking about something completely different?


EDIT: I just watched fectin's link (and I've never seen Crystal Skull) .... and I stand by my point.
No. You're still wrong. Basically, you're falling for the Elennsar Fallacy.

John McClane didn't "make his reflex save", he could not fail his reflex save. In an actual game, his Reflex Bonus has to stupidly, tremendously, ridiculously large. What people who want to play John McClane say they want is to have decidedly mundane Reflex bonuses. But they also want to miraculously make all their Reflex saves. So they really want superhuman bonuses to their Reflex saves. They just won't admit in public that they want that.

John McClane, when translated to an RPG character, does not have mundane stats. He just doesn't. A character having even vaguely mundane stats would not survive the encounters that John McClane survives on a regular basis.
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That is an absolute, undeniable fact. If rolling a 1 at the wrong moment kills your character, and you roll a 1 5% of the time, and a potential wrong moment comes up 10 times in the campaign your character has a 59.8% chance of surviving that campaign. You are free to not agree with that, but since it's an absolute undeniable fact, don't expect anyone anywhere to take you seriously if you don't.
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Post by ishy »

What Frank is trying to say (if I'm correct) is that in fiction the protagonist succeeds if the author wants the protagonist to succeed. The protagonist suddenly has the exact tools required, or can start to do impossible things etc.

You can't really do this in most game systems. Because the rules are usually static. If you can do the impossible in scene A, players will want to do the same thing again.

Imagine playing tombs of horros. The character in fiction will by author fiat do the exact right things in the adventure. When you actually play it in a game yourself, you actually have a chance to stray from the path the storyteller put forth.
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Post by John Magnum »

Yeah, it's kinda bullshit to go "McClane has a mundane Ref save, he just happens to roll natural 20s when it's huge flashy stuff and only ever fails it when it's minor 'pop a couple blood squibs, grunt, and carry on' moments."
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Post by wotmaniac »

Okay, so I do indeed understand exactly what Frank is trying to say. And I'm also saying that this perspective has got it all wrong.
John Magnum wrote:Yeah, it's kinda bullshit to go "McClane has a mundane Ref save, he just happens to roll natural 20s when it's huge flashy stuff and only ever fails it when it's minor 'pop a couple blood squibs, grunt, and carry on' moments."
It's not bullshit at all -- it's the exact point of the genre!
FrankTrollman wrote: No. You're still wrong. Basically, you're falling for the Elennsar Fallacy.
No. Elennsar is talking about a game concept where he basically just wants to crowdsource alternate-ending fanfic.
I'm simply talking about retroactively applying game mechanics as an explanation for how a given piece of fiction happened; i.e., "if said fiction were to have been the result of a RPG, how would it have to have played out?" -- nothing more than a hypothetical mental exercise.
There's a difference.
John McClane didn't "make his reflex save", he could not fail his reflex save.
No. In game terms, JC rolled a 20 -- Whether or not this is hand-waved is irrelevant. And given the genre, you expect the rolls to get fudged.
What people who want to play John McClane say they want is to have decidedly mundane Reflex bonuses. But they also want to miraculously make all their Reflex saves. So they really want superhuman bonuses to their Reflex saves.
No, because that shit gets boring after about 2 sessions. They simply want the ability to make relatively-high reflex saves (and in this context, that's a DC~20-25) to be statistical plausible. Or they're 12 years old.
John McClane, when translated to an RPG character, does not have mundane stats. He just doesn't. A character having even vaguely mundane stats would not survive the encounters that John McClane survives on a regular basis.
"statistically improbable" does not necessarily equal "must be supernatural". Likewise, "lampshading" doesn't necessarily equal "supernatural", either.

So, if Jimmy Olsen all of a sudden just happens to get lucky and implausibly survives a building collapse (relatively unscathed, I might add), is he now suddenly a "supernatural" character?
I don't think so.


Not only is that the analogy, that's the extent of it as well. Putting any more thought in to it than that is just silly (and that's assuming that the original thought wasn't silly to begin with; which I'm not entirely convinced that it isn't).
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