Late to the party: Marvel Heroic Roleplaying ?

[John Magnum]

Reflect on that for a few seconds the next time you start jerking off to a game with so few rules and a bunch of injunctions to play the story, not the rules.

[silva]

what do you want ? the game is all about genre-emulation. If you dont aprexiate that, there is a ton other supers games out there. coming to the game with a D&D3 munchkin-paradise mindset will only result in frustration and disappointment.

[Stubbazubba]

In my experience, specific hoops that you have to jump through often get roleplayed in a very perfunctory manner. E.g. "Hey buddy, can you resign from the team? Okay, thanks. Oh wait, I changed my mind you're back on the team. Ten XP please!"

Lack of player buy-in isn't really a fault of any system. If the group just doesn't care that much, then fine, that doesn't break the game or anything. XP aren't the primary result of what you do in the game, anyway. In fact, there are very few mechanical incentives to do anything in the game. I can't bring myself to say that's a flaw in the system, though; RPGs became more than XP treadmills decades ago.

MHR is neither designed for nor suited to extended, campaign-style play where heroes go from low to high. It's really best for pick-up games or convention play, where everyone just starts at a power level and ends up at essentially the same power level, having gone through the adventure. You get some one-off or temporary boosts, but the system offers very little meaningful, permanent increases in power.

I think this is actually a thoughtful decision by the designers to actually emulate comic books, not just emulate other RPGs. The idea is you drop in, play one character until you get bored and want to try another, then switch them out. The team has a rotating membership, like every super hero team does. The team goes out and does things and most of the time nothing fundamental ever changes, like the vast majority of comic book stories. There are options to have things really change, but it's just not that kind of serious game. It's great as a one-shot, it's great at a convention, it's great in small doses. It doesn't hold up in the traditional campaign paradigm.

This is why they decided chargen didn't matter; the appeal of the game is the buffet of characters you can just pick up and play because you already know them. One shot, convention. If you want to make your own, that's cool, but the flavor of the game is so closely tied to expressing personality that it's often easier and more satisfying to take one you already know pretty well and ham it up. The Milestones remind you and prompt you to do that.

Even if everyone was totally on board with playing supers like supers, without the mechanical prompts it wouldn't come up much. Yes, in D&D combats you sometimes get an interaction that really evokes someone's character, but unguided and unrewarded it's rare because the mechanics are indifferent to it. MHR has you choose to put Spidey's wisecracking personality into the dicepool over some other personality trait, a choice that reminds any minimally-engaged player to try and come up with a quip if they can. It's not required, but it is prompted. That's not a Milestone, but those work in a similar way; instead of making up how Cap would relate to younger heroes he considers in need of his leadership, it gives you a script to do so and a reason to keep looking at it. And it works, it draws out role-play for anyone playing in good faith.

Now, while it draws out evoking a personality quite well, it also undercuts decision-making role-play with the constant meta-gaming. But anecdotally, the game is actually pretty good at getting you away from perfunctory compliance; most everyone who talks about playing this game talks about the way it achieves buy-in through these engagement-building prompts.

[silva]

Awesome post, Stuba. Nice to see my initial suspects were correct. Cant wait for my copy to arrive.

Any tips for a group of newbies ? (1 gm and 2 players)

[hogarth]

In my experience, specific hoops that you have to jump through often get roleplayed in a very perfunctory manner. E.g. "Hey buddy, can you resign from the team? Okay, thanks. Oh wait, I changed my mind you're back on the team. Ten XP please!"

Lack of player buy-in isn't really a fault of any system. If the group just doesn't care that much, then fine, that doesn't break the game or anything. XP aren't the primary result of what you do in the game, anyway. In fact, there are very few mechanical incentives to do anything in the game. I can't bring myself to say that's a flaw in the system, though; RPGs became more than XP treadmills decades ago.

Let me rephrase my point (although I have no doubt that silva still won't understand it):

Having extra rewards for good roleplaying is a stupid idea. In 30+ years of playing RPGs, I have never, ever seen anyone improve their roleplaying just because there was some kind of PC bonus at stake. Never. Not once. So what's the point? Bribing players into being good roleplayers just doesn't work.

[Laertes]

Having extra rewards for good roleplaying is a stupid idea. In 30+ years of playing RPGs, I have never, ever seen anyone improve their roleplaying just because there was some kind of PC bonus at stake. Never. Not once. So what's the point? Bribing players into being good roleplayers just doesn't work.

You can't bribe bad roleplayers into being good roleplayers. You can't bribe people who don't buy in, into buying in. However, you can sometimes bribe people to not be disruptive; and that's often the best you can hope for.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Having extra rewards for good roleplaying is a stupid idea. In 30+ years of playing RPGs, I have never, ever seen anyone improve their roleplaying just because there was some kind of PC bonus at stake. Never. Not once. So what's the point? Bribing players into being good roleplayers just doesn't work.

I've seen it happen with Exalted and its stunting bonus. Granted, the incentive ends up being so stupid and painful that it actually hurts the game as a whole, but it has happened.

[hogarth]

Having extra rewards for good roleplaying is a stupid idea. In 30+ years of playing RPGs, I have never, ever seen anyone improve their roleplaying just because there was some kind of PC bonus at stake. Never. Not once. So what's the point? Bribing players into being good roleplayers just doesn't work.

I've seen it happen with Exalted and its stunting bonus. Granted, the incentive ends up being so stupid and painful that it actually hurts the game as a whole, but it has happened.

I guess that counts, although it's not quite the type of bribe I was thinking of.

[silva]

Let me rephrase my point (although I have no doubt that silva still won't understand it):

Having extra rewards for good roleplaying is a stupid idea. In 30+ years of playing RPGs, I have never, ever seen anyone improve their roleplaying just because there was some kind of PC bonus at stake. Never. Not once. So what's the point? Bribing players into being good roleplayers just doesn't work.

I think youre coming at it from the wrong angle. I would say the point is not "improve roleplaying" (whatever that means) but simply rewarding players to take decisions appropriated to their heroes. You make it sound like its a matter of acting skills like an eloquent actor on a stage or something, when in fact its just directing the decisions and conversation at the table to the right direction. No rpg designer wants people to perform like John Malkovitch, it just wants people to play (aka: take decisions) in-line with the genre its trying to emulate.

Its like in NBA 2K Kobe getting a little bonus for shooting from the sideline, in Fifa 14 Neymar getting a little bonus to dribbling aimlessly, and in UFC 15 Anderson Silva getting a little boost for disrespectfully teasing opponents. Its the little incentives that make players want to immitate their real counterparts and make passers-by say "wow, this game looks real man! Look at Messi and how it cant play shit for Argentina national team! " and all that.

[PhoneLobster]

RP Story objectives have been tried before, repeatedly and never seem to be particularly successful. Here are some of the basic reasons they fail...

1) Co-operative Story Contributions cannot be handed to you by the GM/System and still be good.
"Hey, the great thing about co-operative story games is the bit where players contribute story! So, to encourage that, I the GM/Game designer have given you a list of the contributions you are going to make to the story!"

2) If players have nothing to contribute they can't write a list of things to contribute
"Hey, I'm desperately afraid that during game play you guys might all just be too busy wasting time having fun playing the game to remember to generate story bullshit! SO, now you can't even start to play and have fun until you generate a list of story bullshit in advance and hand it to me! That sounds like better fun right?"

3) It undermines incentive to do anything NOT on the list
"Stop having a love interest Bob, your character doesn't have "love interest" on his fucking list and you are wasting our fucking time and making it harder for you and everyone else to actually tick off their fucking lists!"

4) It doesn't actually promote genuine investment in the story and in fact can promote the opposite
"Look, all I'm saying is my list just says "turn over leadership of the team" it doesn't say "... to someone who is competent, or to someone who is nice, or even to someone who isn't a giant evil super villain" so fuck you I let Mentallor enslave everyone forever and I walk away with my fucking list XP!"

5) It punishes people for not making their hit list regardless of their contribution to or enjoyment of the game
"Well, sorry Sally, but Bob and Andy got through THEIR lists so THEY get to HAVE NICE THINGS, you Sally must now suffer and not have nice things because you did not somehow contrive to get yourself kidnapped or whatever bullshit it was we didn't even have time for after going through the 4 point lists of 5 other players this session! No I don't care if you helped Bob fulfill his "eat his enemy" objective, it wasn't on YOUR list and even if I did care you'd only get shitty consolation prizes with everyone else."


... Now someone is going to argue there is some edge case where someone somehow has something to contribute to the story, but can't do it without a list in advance, but doesn't need the GM/Designer to hand it to them, yet can somehow themselves generate a quality list in advance in a timely non-painful manner, and won't miss and therefore produce a disincentive for things not on the list that might come up in play, but will manage that without writing a list that is sufficiently vague/brief as to promote exploitative or unpleasant outcomes.

And they will do so without any appearance whatsoever of comprehending just how much of an edge case that is.

[Longes]

Having extra rewards for good roleplaying is a stupid idea. In 30+ years of playing RPGs, I have never, ever seen anyone improve their roleplaying just because there was some kind of PC bonus at stake. Never. Not once. So what's the point? Bribing players into being good roleplayers just doesn't work.

I've seen it happen with Exalted and its stunting bonus. Granted, the incentive ends up being so stupid and painful that it actually hurts the game as a whole, but it has happened.

The problem with Exalted is that the stunting bonus (mote regeneration) is so incredibly important, that you either stunt, or lose combat. So everyone stunts every single dice roll.

[silva]

The problem with Exalted is that the stunting bonus (mote regeneration) is so incredibly important, that you either stunt, or lose combat. So everyone stunts every single dice roll.

Yeah, I can see how that can be problematic. In MHR, as Stuba said, XP effects look more subtle, so youre are not forced to go for them if you dont want to.

[Laertes]

The problem with Exalted is that the stunting bonus (mote regeneration) is so incredibly important, that you either stunt, or lose combat. So everyone stunts every single dice roll.

This. It's not disruptive in my experience, since the crowd I play with tend to narrate all actions anyway, but it's bad system. If the choice is between "gain something" and "gain nothing" then people will choose the former, even if it slows down play.

Another example is Legend of the Five Rings. In third edition, if you got three dice in your pool come up with a ten, you regain a Void Point (this is fantastically good.) As a result the correct thing to do after you've spent a bunch of Void Points is to make a whole pile of bullshit rolls in the hope of getting those three tens. It was written in as a cute little gimme but it results in players grinding their fucking Flower Arranging rolls.

System matters. Think about your system and its implications before you write it.

[erik]

I think if I were doing xp I would be tempted to have a single xp bar that everyone contributes to. When it hits a certain point everyone can level.

[Neurosis]

Scharzkopf, what do you have against FATE exactly?

Fail forward as currently understood is a cancer on the hobby due to its disastrous implementation. The same thing with "opt-in" player death i.e. concede defeat: ugh. FATE CORE at least has skills, FATE ACCELERATED reduces every action you could possibly take down to six pathetically vague options just like AssWorld. Every aspect a character could have is mechanically identical which makes character creation fucking boring.

Finally, though, my biggest problem with FATE is that it fails so hard at being a world simulation/genre simulation because every action is determined by intent rather than any objective simulated physical reality.

I really wanted to like FATE, because I'm an indie (as in smaller than paizo and wotc, not as in fapfapfap storygames) game dev, and it's SUPER FUCKING POPULAR, but I played it once recently and hated it, then I looked through the rules and I was REALLY not taken with them.

STUBBAZUBBA: Thanks for the overview of MHR. It sounds like it's not for me, compared to something crunchier, like HERO System.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Fail forward as currently understood is a cancer on the hobby that due to its disastrous implementation.

Go on.

[Neurosis]

"Success with a cost" as currently understood and implemented is a broken, toxic concept and a cancer on the hobby.

So look...even in something like Shadowrun 4E where a non-critical glitch might cause a GM to only need to come up with a 'success with a cost' a few times a game session, you'll probably get several instances of an attempted 'make up a success with a cost off the top of your head' that fail completely to BE a meaningful success with a meaningful cost, by either...

a) not really being a success
or
b) not really being a cost

And that's in a game system where "success with a cost" results (i.e. non-critical glitch) are fairly uncommon, and a game system where you actually have a permanent, non-quantum pool of equipment that actually physically exists, so you can do something like "While you're climbing up the elevator shaft, your smartlink/low-light goggles slip off your nose and full down into the darkness shattering a few hundred meters below you." and have it actually have some weight to it.

It's just fucking HARD to come up with a "meaningful" success result paired with a "meaningful" cost result for any arbitrary action off the top of your fucking head without slowing down the game or resorting to quantum bears.

In FATE, a game where most aspects are transient and equipment is by default hugely abstracted and occasionally quantum, "success with a cost" is something a player can opt for virtually EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY FAIL A ROLL. This is going to cause a GM to have to generate "success with a cost" results up to dozens of times per game. The problem with that is that several of these examples will be...

a) not really being a success
or
b) not really being a cost

The classic example around here of "success with a cost/fail forward" done wrong seems to be the *World "hard bargain" for sneaking into a camp undetected being that you are detected by a teenage sentry who you then have the option to shank murder.

My other issues about FATE go deeper than this. Do you remember the theory that players have different stances? Not GNS theory, I'm talking about...director stance, actor stance, author stance, and so on? Well...FATE fucks with people who are into actor stance roleplaying, i.e. people who are primarily into roleplaying to think about what their character would do in a given situation and do that, because there are always quantum bears, quantum grenades, and what have you. A player can always spend a FATE point to "make something true" about the story, which takes me right the fuck out of where I want to be, in character. I don't WANT to have meta-control over the narrative. I want to control only my character in a world simulation that is, if not realistic, then an adequate genre emulation.

coming to the game with a D&D3 munchkin-paradise mindset will only result in frustration and disappointment.

silva (am I engaging with a troll? if you were a troll would you tell me?) it seems to me that the fact that the Human Torch is immune to all attacks that don't kill him in two hits is a fairly serious problem with the game mechanics, all indie trappings of story milestones aside.

[Stubbazubba]

I'm with Schwarzkopf on fail forward. In addition to the sheer practical difficulty of combining meaningful successes and costs at the drop of a hat (i.e. on a per-check basis), it has a tendency to shift all weight off of PC choice and place it on stats. If costs are only associated with failure, regardless of what you have chosen to do, then PCs can simply follow the path of highest modifiers to a world that only reacts positively to them. If your check result determines whether any negative consequences arise from you attaining your goal, and if your Torture skill is higher than your Negotiate skill, then you are more likely to avoid any repercussions by torturing your captive than by negotiating.

That means all of your role-playing (and by that I mean in-character decision-making) will be informed more by what you're good at than what would actually make sense in the situation. It means the world is utterly senseless because natural consequences only follow if you fail forward, there is no predictability to what'll happen. If you kill the crime boss' brother, will he make it his personal business to turn you to paste? Only if you roll bad, so put a big boost on it somehow and you're good. To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, you are so preoccupied with whether or not you can that you don't stop to think if you should, because in this world those are on the same axis.

Character choices are meaningless calculations if the greater consequences of your chosen method only trigger on a failure. Success/failure should be in attaining a narrow, immediate goal, not in warping all of reality to conform to your interests. The method you choose to attain your goal has to have consequences independent of immediate success/failure for the choice of how you accomplish your goal to be meaningful in the first place. Otherwise, the world doesn't respond in a way that makes sense, and the decisions you are making are utterly cheap and meaningless.

[silva]

Yeah, I dont know Fate well, but if its amything like Shwazza describes, then its bad nees for me. Player being able to edit the story like that, and opting when to succeed with a cost doesnt appeal to me at all. Luckly for me both AW and MHR implement the concept differently.

Thanks Schwazza. I was almost buying Fate Core from a nearby store but now I wont.

[Neurosis]

silva: you should probably burn your *World books too, they pull the same bullshit even worse. "Success with a cost"--albeit not opt in--is literally the most likely result to any action in AW, mathematically speaking. So it's got the problem even worse than FATE Core. edit: yes it depends on the moves being employed by the player and the MC, no I don't give a fuck about the particulars because AW has got the storygame badtouch and I like RPGs, damnit.

That said, I'd probably recommend FATE Core over AW, at least it isn't filled with glaringly awkward and problematic "sex moves".

[Username17]

I would definitely recommend FATE CORE over Anus World. It's not even a fair comparison. FATE is a weird game where rolling poorly on a dramatic jump doesn't cause you to fall into the ravine but does cause you to subsequently have relationship problems with your girlfriend. That is bizarre, but once you wrap your mind around what it is, the players have agency.

An especially good roll means that you have an opportunity to activate negative traits and gain fate points, while an especially bad roll means that you probably have to activate your good traits and spend fate points. Meanwhile, you recharge your fate pool by using narrative control to make shitty things happen to your character. Therefore: rolling better means that you have less relationship problems during down time, not that anything different happens during action scenes.

That's weird. But that is a game. Anus World is not a game.

-Username17

[TiaC]

So you win at FATE by playing the comic relief? Just be that sitcom character with horrible luck and you'll never be low on Fate points.

[Laertes]

IIRC that was also the way to win at cinematic unisystem.

[silva]

silva: you should probably burn your *World books too, they pull the same bullshit even worse. "Success with a cost"--albeit not opt in--is literally the most likely result to any action in AW, mathematically speaking.

See, what bothers me is the "opt in" feat you describe. The Fail Forward concept per se I find pretty cool. But then I dont bother much with "world physics simulation".

By the way, how the concept works in Marvel HR ? I see its there (Complications) but cant quite understand it.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

You don't "opt-in" to success at a cost in Fate. It's a tool that allows you to do checks that would normally be save-or-die, like Frank said, one where you're trying to clear a chasm.

Basically, all they've done is write down the gentleman's agreement in regards to pass/die rolls. Even X World, when 6- COULD logically result in death, doesn't necessarily mean the GM has to kill you, and very well might not.

You can see for yourself: read Fate (it has a free online SRD). If you just filter other people's posts with confirmation bias, of course you'll always conclude that Fate bad AW good.