Why should there be generically superior moves?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:58 am

To be honest, I never really understood this but a lot of people support this. And this came up in the Winds of Fate thread a few months back but I wanted to split this question off from that thread.

Me, I'm one of those people who don't believe in Super Moves. Kenshiro (pre-Musou Tensei) didn't have any moves that he preferred generically. Green Arrow's boxing glove arrows (in theory) are just as useful all-around as his explosive ones. I do think that there's a time and a place for a character to temporarily steal the spotlight in combat, but that's what critical hits are for.

So what is the deal?

Murtak · Post by **Murtak** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 9:03 am

Super moves are useful when you want characters to occasionally go berserk and knock their enemy through the wall and the wall behind it, but you also want them to have control over when they do it.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:05 pm

As a player of Dynasty/Samurai Warriors, Street Fighter and Guilty Gear, I feel super moves are essential. From a flavour standpoint, it's unleashing that last little bit of reserved energy you have when pushed to your limit ("This is it Akane, I gotta' blow the spring up with one final all-or-nothing blast!" "No matter what, I've only got one more attack left... Hiryu! Shouten! HA!" and so forth. Works best when there are conditions such as - in vidya/rpg terms - low HP or a gauge that fills up as you fight and get hurt).

From a mechanics standpoint, it helps spice things up - you can borrow the spotlight a bit in a way that doesn't depend on what the dice feel like doing, and it can do something more interesting than just extra damage, providing some other ability or effect that your normal attacks don't, and even encourages you to take the combat to that last stand - there are certain games out there where everyone whips out a wand/gun/sword/penis and BAM! Someone dies. Or they unload everything at the start and then run away. Supers can encourage people to actually fight things even when broken in half, rather than hiding under a rock with a bandaid box.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 11:12 pm

Koumei wrote: From a mechanics standpoint, it helps spice things up - you can borrow the spotlight a bit in a way that doesn't depend on what the dice feel like doing, and it can do something more interesting than just extra damage, providing some other ability or effect that your normal attacks don't, and even encourages you to take the combat to that last stand - there are certain games out there where everyone whips out a wand/gun/sword/penis and BAM! Someone dies. Or they unload everything at the start and then run away. Supers can encourage people to actually fight things even when broken in half, rather than hiding under a rock with a bandaid box.

I'd like to say that I've seen this happen when I play Tome characters that use physical damage I tend to pile on powers to turn the character into a heavy hitting brute.

Even when I help friends optimize their characters, I try to make them so that they can either deal a lot of damage if they stand still (Barbarian, 3 attacks at reach; dealing about 350+hundredish damage per round; or moving up to 70-90 feet and dealing 200ish damage against anything that get's within reach.

Now, this is semi-risky, and can involve the character taking damage.

I've also built lower level characters that can one round kill monsters of their own CR (or at least 90% damage most creatures their CR in one round over several attacks, allowing the character to roll over excess attacks in subsequent rounds onto new targets).

However doing so means that the character has to to very specific types of actions (throw dual-weilded weapons while within 60' of the target, provoke an AoO, and throw weapons that are quick-drawable; it was a TWF, Blitz, Point Blank Shot and Sniper fighter with a level of monk that relied on good hiding and moveing silently to get in close).

The trouble is that sometimes a character's weaknesses will seldomly be noticed, and those weaknesses could be really bad.

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 4:03 am

I have a major affinity for super moves, which I cannot fully explain. You spend several turns trading blows back and forth, but then you come down and explain to the enemy, in no uncertain terms, "This is why I'm a badass. Hadoken!" I mean, the idea of a critical situation and a person going all-out in a blaze of glory is completely ubiquitous, and not just in fighting.

"I have to make sure this message gets to the vanguard before it's too late!"

"If I can't pull everyone together and make them see eye-to-eye, this treaty is never going to go through."

"I've been preparing for this moment my whole life - the princess must find this cake exceptional."

Or whatever. I really can't give any more elaborate explanation than, "I like it," but then, I don't think a more elaborate explanation is necessary. I think a lot of people like super moves, and if some people don't, that's fine, they can leave them out.

Ganbare Gincun · Post by **Ganbare Gincun** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 5:54 am

In fighting games, Special Moves are primarily there to provide additional tactical depth to what might be an otherwise staid game. Otherwise we'd all be playing the equivalent of Karate Fight, but with jumping! But if you ignore your fundamentals and spend all day throwing out Special Moves to "show off" or to play up dramatic tension, then you're dead meat...

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 7:56 am

Can we not use the fighting game analogy? Fighting game tactics are much different from RPG ones.

I mean, really? Cartoons and shows that have supermoves suck in my opinion. We know ahead of time that none of Naruto or Goku's fights are going to be decided until they use their supermove. Yes, the setup might differ or the filler in-between might change, but the fight is not going to be changed by these piddly tactics.

This isn't the case in tabletop RPGs. They don't follow the law of narrative causality; your PC is just as likely to die on the way to Takeshi's office to Lonestar as they are to die in a climatic fight for the fate of the world.

But anyway, as was pointed out having generically better moves do not add dramatic tension in RPGs. We've seen it happen in D&D; wizards bust out their best spells first and psions use their best mojo repeatedly. In 4E D&D, characters churn through their best moves FIRST and only use At-Wills when they don't have anything better.

So we've talked a bunch about a way to make it so that wizards don't open every combat with multiple castings of Weird. The only one I've found that was any good was the Winds of Fate.

But here's the problem: WoF decides when you get to use your supermove, not the plot. When you're facing the big bad of the story that killed your sister and turned your mom into a zombie, there's a good chance that you won't get to use any of your supermoves out there. You're down to your last chips, you got nothing left in the tank and only your Shinkuu Hadouken or Hiryuu Shoten Ha or your Oozing Dick Laser can save the day. BUT YOU NEVER GET THESE MOVES. Or for the reverse, you're running down the hall, get into a fight with some guards and you easily chew them. You only get your dinky entry-level moves but still manage to win, but just before you take out the last guard you roll your dumbass Oozing Dick Laser move for overkill.

What kind of narrative causality is that? I mean, if Iron Man defeats Iron Monger without using his Chest Nuke we don't really notice because his Shoulder Cannon and Repulsor Array Fist moves are just as good. But when Sailor Mercury only gets her dumbass bubble move on mooks on the way to the Crystal Dungeon it makes us wonder what the point was.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 10:04 am

It might be possible to encourage using super-moves at only legitimately "last ditch" times, if they were limited in a real way, like per-level. Now you still might have the "this is the big boss, so I'll throw out a couple super-moves first thing" problem, but that could be solved by needing to build up combat edge or whatever first.

Of course, that has two of its own issues:
1) It only works if the super-moves are an extraordinary effort, not fully under the character's control. If the move is just "your highest level spells", then justifying a per-level basis tend to break the 4th wall.
2) When players are close to levelling and have a bunch of super-move uses saved up, they'll probably "go nuclear" on any fights.

Alternately, limit-break style super-moves. You only use them when things are dire because you only can use them when things are dire. The main issue here is gaming the system - characters intentionally going into battle wounded just enough to spring their supers, for instance.

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 3:38 am

Ice9 wrote:Alternately, limit-break style super-moves. You only use them when things are dire because you only can use them when things are dire. The main issue here is gaming the system - characters intentionally going into battle wounded just enough to spring their supers, for instance.

I'm curious to what extent people think this is a problem. I mean, the way I see it, such a character has two options:

1) Start the battle at full health like a normal person. Beat down on your enemy, then, when things get dire, activate your super mega ultra special move.

2) Start the battle in overlimit like a moron. Spend your limit break, then be at a very low HP total while you struggle to bring down your enemies who still probably have half of their HP or more left.

Even if the person choosing option 2 gets healed the next turn and carries on, we can simply say the special move can't be used more than once per combat, so they haven't really accomplished anything by their tactic that they couldn't have done otherwise, plus they're down a healing spell. What am I missing here?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 7:45 am

Is Higher Ground or Mounted Combat or longbow in 4e or 2h in 3.5 'generically better'?

-Crissa

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Apr 07, 2009 8:29 am

Lago wrote:What kind of narrative causality is that? I mean, if Iron Man defeats Iron Monger without using his Chest Nuke we don't really notice because his Shoulder Cannon and Repulsor Array Fist moves are just as good. But when Sailor Mercury only gets her dumbass bubble move on mooks on the way to the Crystal Dungeon it makes us wonder what the point was.

Actually Sailor Moon is about the worst possible example you could have made, because SM actually does work that way and it works fine. It's an ensemble setup and it seriously does vary episode by episode who gets to be the star and release their super move. I mean, Sailor Venus only gets to launch her meteor strike like two or three times in the entire series.

It's a rotating star system, and it actually holds interest very well. Now it's actually called "Sailor Moon" and thus Usagi gets to use the game ending super move a lot more often than the other characters. But there's no reason that has to be the case for a nominally fair RPG.

-Username17