Protectable Roles

[Username17]

Much discussion has been had of late as to the nature of "role protection" and its potential utility in the design of a table top role playing tactical game. And it is a difficult thing to get one's head around - not the least because the purpose and the execution are wildly different from the most successful games that have utilized strong role protection in the last few years. Which in turn should not surprise us, because those games have invariably been computer games that are played from your fucking house while you are alone.

Anyway, the following is an example of a set of characters and their roles that could be defined and protected within a game. These are gimmicks that characters have that make them special and unique, and by extension gimmicks that would not be allowed to be split up or siphoned off by copycat characters. Notes also that of course, many (indeed all) of these characters will have abilities that are not protected. The fact that Cheshire can swing a blade does not have meaningful impact on whether other characters can.

Cheshire
Cheshire is a swordsman who fades in and out of reality, has a winning smile, and stabs things by always being where he needs to be. Cheshire can teleport to where he needs to be and make favorable melee attacks against them. He can also fade out of reality for short but extended periods, allowing him to avoid being attacked altogether.
What Can Be Protected: There's no pressing need for anyone else to teleport in combat, or even to have incorporeality. Cheshire can be the undisputed master of mobility, able to bypass more battlefield terrain and cover than any other character. Enemy leaders can look forward to being stabbed in the back - by Cheshire.
What Can't Be Protected: You can't copyright "stabbing people," nor can you hold a monopoly on "moving" or "looking cool." Obviously, other characters are going to want to do those things, and even have abilities that allow them to do them very well. Furthermore, while Cheshire can be the only guy who becomes unattackable by fading out of reality, he can't be the only character who can skip out on being attacked - after all other characters could just go inside or something. Other players can still get auras of peace or cocoons of stone or whatever to get a similar game mechanical effect.

Soot
Soot is a spooky demonologist who summons up one of a small collection of fiery demons, and has them do most of his fighting for him. He can select between his Hell Hound, his Nightmare, his Doom Knight and his Fire Elemental depending on his needs of the moment. He can dismiss whichever he is currently using and quickly call up another.
What Can Be Protected: Soot's tactical options are mostly defined by whatever demon he has out at the moment, and that demon is pretty nearly the equivalent of one of the other characters. Soot is balanced as a whole by the fact that he presumably chose a demon relatively suited to the situation, and his demon still has a vestigial wizard attached to it that opens up a few "being in two places" options. And there's no reason that any other character should be able to have a pet that is nearly that powerful. Indeed, since other characters are doing competitive stuff right now, it would be totally broken if they picked up a pet that was nearly the equal of one of Soot's.
What Can't Be Protected: People can set shit on fire. Some pitch, some flint, some steel, it's totally a reality. Furthermore, people can hire some thugs for like money and shit. Soot can't own the idea of having pets or starting fires.

Titus
Titus is a time mage who runs around in a blue cloak and stabs people with a trident. He can slow time down and he can speed it up. He debuffs opponents with slows and he buffs allies with hastes. And he can change ocean currents and make people wither with seeming age. And stab them in the face with a trident.
What Can Be Protected: Ultimately you win the battle with actions and you lose the battle with actions as well. Adding extra actions to your side and taking them away from the enemy is a huge deal that is immediately noticeable, and it's entirely defendable as a schtick. He can be the only guy fucking with the action count, and that's plenty special.
What Can't Be Protected: You can't get pissing just because other people are tossing buffs or debuffs. People are going to do that shit. And stabbing people in the face is older than dirt. You can't protect that either. While he could copyright the specifics of his wither power, the fact is that "weakening" an opponent is fundamentally available to pretty much anyone (through poison or even just attacking at the end of the day).

Asena
Asena is a young girl who is possessed by an evil wolf ghost. She floats around in a chittering shadow of malevolence holding onto a giant saw that she uses to cut people to pieces. Also, the wolf spirit can reach out and grab other objects and throw them around and even puppet other people for short periods of time, but it always goes back to tormenting Asena. The torrent of darkness she lives in is a literal nightmare, and drives lesser men to flee in panick.
What Can Be Protected: Domination effects are incredibly powerful and game changing. And even though Asena spends most of her time doing telekinetically assisted leaps to hack people to death in a frenzy of saw cuts, it is actually borrowing enemies for short periods of time that is going to be the most in-your-face tactical effect. And it is that power that Asena can hold onto as her own.
What Can't Be Protected: Being fast, throwing stuff, and murdering people with a sharp implement are things that real people can really do, and you can't claim prior art on any of that shit. Even being scary isn't something that a player can call dibs on, because scaring enemies away is part of the job when you're expecting to kill large numbers of goblins anyway.

Helene
Helene is a gorgon. She has snakes growing out of her head, and she can turn people into stone with her gaze. Also, she has three different kinds of snake poison that she can and does milk and save. She carries a shield that is festooned with javelins that she has previously poisoned and a boar spear (also poison).
What Can Be Protected: Having a deadly and reactive ranged attack that you can use even if surprised is no small thing. And it is not unreasonable for Helene to be the only person on the team who has such.
What Can't Be Protected: Anyone can use a spear or throw a javelin. Heck, poison is something you can just buy. While Helene can be the only character with poison snakes on her head, her player has no legitimate claim to keep other characters from poisoning spikes on their gauntlets or some shit to get their own poison hand to hand attacks.

Meesha
Meesha is a singer whose songs call woodland animals to her aid. She dresses like a Disney Princess and sings. Then actual combat is done on her behalf by birds and deer and such. What she has to work with each battle is fairly random, and none of it is that effective. But she puts a lot of chaffe on the ground and she can reasonably expect to tie up a number of enemies.
What Can Be Protected: Horde summoning is so potentially useful that the 4e D&D design committee won't even let you do it. And once you've bought a set of real estate in the action economy, it is reasonable to demand that other players not buy the same parcel.
What Can't Be Protected: As previously noted, you can't copyright having pets or troops at all. Also, you can't expect that no one else at the table is going to be artistic.

---

Now as you can see, there are a number of places where the DM may have to bring the foot down. If Titus wants to have a teleport that is based on stopping time... he can't. He can have a time stop that gives him a burst of regular movement that other characters can't respond to (which is a lot like a teleport), but actually phasing to the other side of a wall of fire is Cheshire's "thing" and Titus can't do it.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Now as you can see, there are a number of places where the DM may have to bring the foot down. If Titus wants to have a teleport that is based on stopping time... he can't. He can have a time stop that gives him a burst of regular movement that other characters can't respond to (which is a lot like a teleport), but actually phasing to the other side of a wall of fire is Cheshire's "thing" and Titus can't do it.

I'm not sure what you're implying. Would the DM object because the game would suffer with two overlapping character schticks, or would the DM object because his players would complain about not having unique schticks?

I've played in games where there have been two basically identical characters (twins, for instance) and no one complained.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Now as you can see, there are a number of places where the DM may have to bring the foot down. If Titus wants to have a teleport that is based on stopping time... he can't. He can have a time stop that gives him a burst of regular movement that other characters can't respond to (which is a lot like a teleport), but actually phasing to the other side of a wall of fire is Cheshire's "thing" and Titus can't do it.

So if Cheshire dropped out of the campaign would Titus's character suddenly be allowed to be more interesting?

[Username17]

Now as you can see, there are a number of places where the DM may have to bring the foot down. If Titus wants to have a teleport that is based on stopping time... he can't. He can have a time stop that gives him a burst of regular movement that other characters can't respond to (which is a lot like a teleport), but actually phasing to the other side of a wall of fire is Cheshire's "thing" and Titus can't do it.

So if Cheshire dropped out of the campaign would Titus's character suddenly be allowed to be more interesting?

No. Because the entire point of role protection is that you hard code it. So once you've arranged all your thought experiments for what characters can do and what is worth protecting, you end up with a situation where Time Magic can give you speed boosts but it can't teleport you, while Dimension Shift can teleport you.

Role Protection only has to be enforced in an ad-hoc fashion by the GM in open-ended point-based games like Champions. Once you've designed your classes and ability lists, the role protection should be hard coded in a manner that needs no further management by the GM.

-Username17

[shadzar]

I always like to think of it as rogue v wizard and lock picking.

The rogue job, amongst many, is to open things. The wizard should not be doing it and taking away the player participation of the rouge. The wizard has the ability to do some of the rogue abilities via knock to open locks for when the rogue isn't around, or one isn't available. But it is at the expense of other things the wizard could do, and the loss of that spell slot for doing it is the cost of being able to do it somewhat better because there is going to be something he could have used in its place should the party had a rogue to open the lock himself.

If someone near a fallen comrade can bandage another, then the cleric doesn't have to worry about healing right away because the fallen comrade will not continue to bleed out and to death, because you will have time to do it later.

Also just because each person has a function, it just means they are to be better at that all around function, and not the only ones allowed to do it. So the wizard could knock one place while the rogue unlocks another. You just shouldn't use some min-maxing or other gamist approach to purposefully overshadow other players, since you are supposed to be working together.

You do what you are going to do and let the memories and excitement fall where they may, not try to make a name for yourself as a player; but for your group as characters in the game.


Don't be an attention whore and abuse the other gamers that allow you to play with them....

[Lago PARANOIA]

No. Because the entire point of role protection is that you hard code it. So once you've arranged all your thought experiments for what characters can do and what is worth protecting, you end up with a situation where Time Magic can give you speed boosts but it can't teleport you, while Dimension Shift can teleport you.

So how do you arrange role protection? All of the lists you made are pretty arbitrary, so I think doing it by special effects is a non-starter; some SFX are just superior to others. Helene is never going to be a more interesting character by her powers than Titus; Starfire is never going to be more interesting to watch in combat than Cyborg, even if their powersets are similar.

I think it would be better to organize role protection by teamwork. Copyrighting teleports or anti-surprise tactics is a nonstarter. Teleport spam or group anti-swarm might be better. That way you're protecting an application of the special effect rather than the special effect itself.

[Username17]

I think it would be better to organize role protection by teamwork.

No. You can't role protect tactics, because that forces people into proscribed tactics for their entire adventuring career like a fucking MMO.

The examples here are arbitrary. However you divide up the powers for your game, it's going to be fucking arbitrary. There's no way around that. And then once you've made those divisions, you have to stick to your guns.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

Some supernatural roles can be unprotected. Changing into a wolf probably shouldn't preclude other characters in the game from changing into bears or slightly taller and fatter members of the opposite sex, although it could. You do have do decide that if changing into a wolf is going to be a major thing, nobody can play beast boy.

True combat teleportation just isn't something that you have to hand out all willy-nilly. It's a complex and interesting power in its own right, without any support. Same deal with telekinesis and time control.

On the other hand, I'd like to see where the Ice Queen (Sleigher of Eternal Winter) fits in this whole thing. She can turn people (and other objects) into ice sculptures with a gesture, turn things made into ice back into their real counterparts, and mess with the weather. Does this step too much on the toes of Helena the Gorgon? Obviously Zato-1 and Cheshire are incompatible, but what about a wraith?

I I had to guess, I'd say that role protection is NP hard.

[Lago PARANOIA]

No. You can't role protect tactics, because that forces people into proscribed tactics for their entire adventuring career like a fucking MMO.

You know what's also MMORPG-like? Saying that you can't ever learn how to teleport or summon demons for the rest of your life because you studied shapeshifting at the academy.

It's like asking why Starfire doesn't carry a utility belt or why Cyborg doesn't learn martial arts. Role protecting tactics might make things boring, but protecting special effects is just insulting.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Furthermore, if you protect Insect Swarm Summoning or X-Ray Vision you are also condemning the people who picked up these abilities into the Hordebuilder and Scout for the rest of their life. People who picked Teleport Sword and Elemental Beams are never going to be able to get to do those things. Which means that the sucker who picked X-Ray vision is also forced into taking the Scout role because he's the best at it. And since he can't learn other abilities (because that would be infringing on other peoples' roles) he'll never be able to leave the Scout roles.

You know, like an MMORPG.

[hogarth]

The examples here are arbitrary. However you divide up the powers for your game, it's going to be fucking arbitrary. There's no way around that. And then once you've made those divisions, you have to stick to your guns.

Why?

As far as I can tell, the only reason to protect roles like this is etiquette -- you don't want Joe's character stepping on Bill's character's toes. But if Bill's character is no longer there because Bill quit, what's the point of keeping the same restrictions on Joe's character?

(I even dispute the point of the GM enforcing this kind of nicey-nice stuff in the first place, but then again, my players are usually mature enough to work this stuff out by themselves.)

[shadzar]

There is no point. When Bill is no longer a part you may then change the way things are done, but not as long as Bill is there. Just being consistent and giving everyone a chance to play, rather than letting someone come in and be a douche to try to take over is the problem. You set the rules as a group. As the group changes, the ruels adapt to either tighten or loosen for the benefit of the group.

You can be an ass and step on Fred's toe if you don't want Fred to play, but then don't bother asking why Fred quit playing, and don't blame the system for it.

It pretty much boils down to gamer etiquette which seems to have been lost in gamer empowerment over the DM and such.

Joe is there to have fun, Bill is there to have fun, and Fred is there to have fun, so one shouldn't be able to abuse either of the other two.

SHIT! I just stepped on Frank's toes with this post.

[mean_liar]

Yeah, I think it's got to be fiat by the GM and collective agreement of the players. Re-skinning the abilities is the only real hurdle that should be placed if necessary.

Hopefully you've got a large enough toolbox of abilities that you're not railroaded into being a one-trick pony and feel like you have to protect that schtick because its all that you've got.

[Manxome]

There is certainly a case to be made for not having strong role protection in a game.

But if you're starting with the premise that you want to have protected roles, it is stupid to come in and complain that we're not letting people mix-and-match roles and bleed into each other. Preventing that was the entire fucking point.

Yes, there will always be some orthogonal set of roles that you could have created, but which you can't add to the game because they overlap with the roles you actually did create. If you don't like it, play a game without role protection.


"The players should negotiate and not overlap more than they're comfortable with" is not a game system, it's telling the players to rewrite the game to their own tastes. From the perspective of designing the game, that is exactly the same as just not having role protection at all.

[Lago PARANOIA]

But if you're starting with the premise that you want to have protected roles, it is stupid to come in and complain that we're not letting people mix-and-match roles and bleed into each other. Preventing that was the entire fucking point.

Oh, I agree. Role protection has some concrete advantages to it.

I'm just not seeing why limiting special effects is a good thing and limiting tactics is a bad thing. And if you have the former in a game with strong role protection then it becomes more likely that you will have the latter, too. Which makes it puzzling to support one and not the other.

[Manxome]

I don't think anyone proposed limiting things based on special effects. Frank specifically said that letting Titus duplicate Cheshire's effects with different flavor text was not acceptable. He seems to be talking about protecting game mechanical effects, like passing through solid objects, directly controlling opponents, using special swarm rules, and passive attacks. That is not the same as limiting things either by tactics or by SFX.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That is not the same as limiting things either by tactics or by SFX.

Yes, it is.

Passing through solid objects and directly controlling opponents and other such shit creates new tactics for players, which means new roles.

When you say that only Titus can go through solid objects then you're also pretty much saying that Titus is also the only scout/assassin. Which means that if no one else can learn Titus's teleport trick and he can't learn any new tricks himself he's pretty much stuck being the scout/assassin for the rest of the game.

[Prak]

That is not the same as limiting things either by tactics or by SFX.

Yes, it is.

Passing through solid objects and directly controlling opponents and other such shit creates new tactics for players, which means new roles.

When you say that only Titus can go through solid objects then you're also pretty much saying that Titus is also the only scout/assassin. Which means that if no one else can learn Titus's teleport trick and he can't learn any new tricks himself he's pretty much stuck being the scout/assassin for the rest of the game.

Actually, if I understood what Frank wrote, then "teleporting to the other side of an obstacle" is a protectable shtick, going through an obstacle is not, because other people could find a window, or bust a large hole in the obstacle. So Soot summons a demon that bashes through a wall, or carries him through flame, protecting him with it's fireproof body, Asena's wolf spirit dissolves a big hole in it.

However, at the same time, Titus, by nature of being a time mage, should be capable of weakening a portion of a wall by directing his time magic at it, or even make a flame harmless by stopping time.
So, honestly, I'm not entirely sure whether I agree with Frank or not. Just because Asena's got a ravenous aura that dissolves barriers, doesn't mean that Titus shouldn't be able to "do time magic" to them to also wear big holes in them, and Soot should be able to summon a demon of decay that can do the same. It's the same mechanics (there's now a man-sized hole in a wall) and the same general flavour (using something magical to create said hole) but specific flavour has subtle differences (though the differences between a decay demon and Asena's wolf spirit in this one case are academic at best).

I think "not stepping on others' toes" is something that should be handled by the group, not the rules.

My friend's bard in our runequest game has basically a reptile flavoured marvel symbiote. I'd love to get something like that for my demonologist, but, apart from it being a patently bad idea based on the nature of demons, I won't even allow myself to pursue that because that's his thing, and I can do plenty of other things with my demons and enchanting.

[Manxome]

Moving through solid objects was actually Cheshire's protected schtick in the example, not Titus'.

If your point is that the set of mechanical effects at your disposal will influence your tactics, that's certainly a given. But I think there's still a big difference between saying "here's a thing you can do that is qualitatively different from what anyone else can do; find creative ways to exploit it" and saying "here's a direct bonus to make you better at using tactic X than everyone else."

So sure, only Cheshire can move through solid objects, which means that any tactic that requires moving through solid objects can only be done by him. But "scout/assassin" could also benefit an awful lot from being able to be in two places at once (Soot), react faster than your opponents (Titus), or get a single opponent out of the way without actually having to fight them or give them a chance to raise an alarm (Asena), depending on the circumstances and your exact goal. The fact that Cheshire is the only one with access to one particular mechanical effect that happens to be useful for scouting doesn't automatically mean he's always the party scout. In fact, if you're in a forest (or some other place with few actual walls), the "moves through solid walls" mechanic might not even help with scouting.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The fact that Cheshire is the only one with access to one particular mechanical effect that happens to be useful for scouting doesn't automatically mean he's always the party scout.

Then why have roles in the first place unless the DM is putting up obstacles that can only be solved in one way?

If the task is 'get this golden statue out of the wooden chest' then you could bust the chest open with your super strength, teleport the treasure straight out, time magic the chest backwards until it's just some twigs , etc..

Then the question becomes 'why do we even have roles in the first place'-- unless you tell the players 'no, you can't time age the chest until it rots, no you can't have your snakes eat through the chest, no you can't dominate the chest-owner and have them unlock the chest; only Chesire can get the statue inside'.

It seems that if you want a bid for screentime you should cobble together abilities that give you a generic ability to overcome obstacles--which defeats the purpose of role protection in the first place.

[Prak]

The fact that Cheshire is the only one with access to one particular mechanical effect that happens to be useful for scouting doesn't automatically mean he's always the party scout.

Then why have roles in the first place unless the DM is putting up obstacles that can only be solved in one way?

If the task is 'get this golden statue out of the wooden chest' then you could bust the chest open with your super strength, teleport the treasure straight out, time magic the chest backwards until it's just some twigs , etc..

Then the question becomes 'why do we even have roles in the first place'-- unless you tell the players 'no, you can't time age the chest until it rots, no you can't have your snakes eat through the chest, no you can't dominate the chest-owner and have them unlock the chest; only Chesire can get the statue inside'.

It seems that if you want a bid for screentime you should cobble together abilities that give you a generic ability to overcome obstacles--which defeats the purpose of role protection in the first place.

Well, my real experience with what's being talked about here was when I played M&M and it was really "power and flavour" protection. For instance, it was very unlikely that anyone else would be allowed to teleport, because Photon did that. (there was also the matter of finding a way to explain teleportation... being an object mimicking shapeshifter, turning into "light" and pointing at photon's player wasn't enough...) At the same time, being an expy of Clayface wasn't allowed, because that's what Everyman did. On the other hand, just because Major Justice had red white and blue psionic energy that allowed energy blasts, empowered strikes and flight did not mean my character couldn't mimic fire and do the same damn things. Hell, Photon did those things too, but the difference was that Major Justice was a psionic warrior archetype, Photon used light to blast and strike (I'm really not sure how her flight was explained) and my charactered mimicked an appropriate object to do those things. I could also mimic water and kinda sorta pull some of Everyman's tricks, but my real shtick was object mimicry.

This isn't role protection though, it's protecting different characters' shticks so no one feels like they may as well have stayed home.

In werewolf, there's no real harm to having everyone be ahrouns, or even having everyone be theurges, because both "combat heavy" and "shaman" are things where cooperation works well, but having more than one Galliard, or Philodox don't work well, because when you're the storyteller or judge, you need your own spotlight.

a pack full of ragabashes... I don't know.

[Manxome]

Then why have roles in the first place unless the DM is putting up obstacles that can only be solved in one way?

Frank's thesis, as I understand it, is that that is the one thing you must avoid doing with roles at all costs. If you've got a task that can only be accomplished by one specific role, that means that:

• If the party doesn't have someone playing that role, they automatically fail.
• You're railroading the players into a particular solution, so they don't get to make real choices about how to accomplish the task (you've specifically designed it so that there's only one workable approach).
• No one else gets to participate in that scene.

You can certainly insert arbitrary plot devices designed to require a specific PC to do a specific thing you want, but that's part of designing an adventure for a specific party, not building role protection into the engine.

Rather, the goal is to make it so that every PC plays differently, has different options available, and can't simply have another PC copy what they're doing. Every PC has some way that they can theoretically accomplish the larger mission, but the strategy that works for one PC can't be used by another PC, because he doesn't have access to the same abilities--the other PC would have to come up with something different.

It's like you're playing Cosmic Encounter and everyone is allowed to break the rules in a different way. Any of the powers can win the game, but the way in which they win is different.

But it was never about making sure that a given PC is screwed in situation X and excels in situation Y. It's about methods, not results.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You're railroading the players into a particular solution, so they don't get to make real choices about how to accomplish the task (you've specifically designed it so that there's only one workable approach).

I don't really agree about this. If you salami slice an adventure enough you'll get railroading results, sure--this particular hallway to the treasure room requires super stealth since you can't invisible your way past the golem guard nor teleport into the vault.

However, if you zoom the particulars of the adventure out more (get the Kali-Ma statue from the value) you 'suddenly' have the options of bribing the guard, researching spells to defeat the ward, seducing the queen so that she gets it for you, drilling underneath the soft earth with your summoned umber hulk with no one the wiser, and so on.

While one particular path to the goal may have a railroady solution the goal itself should multiple routes. In the above scenario, rather than forcing someone to make stealth checks you could just send them back to the drawing board and they find another way into the vault.

But once you do that, you end up with this:

It's like you're playing Cosmic Encounter and everyone is allowed to break the rules in a different way. Any of the powers can win the game, but the way in which they win is different.

Then it doesn't matter what particular powers the party picked; as long as they're at a particular Power Level they overcome obstacles anyway as long as they can think of ways to use them.

... which makes me wonder how this is supposed to resolve spotlight-hogging. It doesn't. It just ensures that Joe Blow will have an opportunity to steal ANY scene, since no matter what the situation is if he thinks hard enough his Demon Summoning power will be good for anything.

[Manxome]

I'm sorry, was this supposed to prevent spotlight-hogging? I wasn't aware that was a goal.

I thought the goal was just to ensure that everyone got to be unique, and able to make contributions that couldn't be duplicated by anyone else.

The only way to force the PCs to trade off is to make every one of them indispensable at some point, and the only way to do that is to custom-tailor the adventure to the party. That's not something that the engine can do for you, unless it also dictates your party composition. Though this does help, in that it ensures that the PCs have distinct ability sets, and therefore that each of them has some ability you could target that someone else won't just emulate.

[shadzar]

I thought they were supposed to duplicatable, but not at the expense where one character could do everything all the rest could to the exclusion of the other characters even being present...???