[Torg] Jumping in Torg

[Benjamin Grant]

I didn't see anything new here - was there something I was supposed to
comment on?  Seems like recycling is all that's going on - great for the
planet, less so for discussions.

-Benn Grant
eFix Computer Consulting
benn at 4eFix.com
603.283.6601

-----Original Message-----
From: torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com
[mailto:torg-bounces at justintimeadventures.com] On Behalf Of
travisjhall at optusnet.com.au
Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 9:10 PM
To: torg at justintimeadventures.com
Subject: Re: RE: [Torg] Jumping in Torg

Benjamin Grant <benn at 4efix.com> wrote:
> 
> With an EFFECT based game (like the Hero System) your character cannot 
> purchase or have a power, all you can do is buy power EFFECTS.  What 
> this means is that if you want the character to have an overall power 
> - such as the Power of Fire, you have to pre-think out every EFFECT 
> you want to be able to do, and buy *those*.

I'm afraid I have to agree with Phil here, despite your later emails. You've
just demonstrated a huge gap in your knowledge of Hero System. If you want
to play a character without having thought through all the effects of that
character's (presumably quite flexible) abilities, Hero specifically
provides a mechanism to do it. All you have to do is buy a Variable Power
Pool. Then you have access to every effect you can think of, up to the value
allowed by your pool.

Sure, it's expensive, but what do you expect? You're looking at playing a
character with no specified limits on his abilities. If you are going to be
placing limits on what characters can be built by assigning values to powers
and restricting how high the total can go, a character with no specified
limits really should be more expensive than one that has inflexible limits.

If you don't even want the limitation of a point value on your improvised
powers, you clearly don't want to limit characters' total power levels, so
just play without a CP limit.

And if Hero System can handle this, so can other effect-based games.

> Any effect that you did not 
> think of ahead of time you have no access to, no matter how silly that 
> seems.  For example, if you buy 5 or 6 fire based powers, but overlook 
> buying "Environmental Change", than the GM is fully within his 
> rights to say that while shooting fire around damaging your opponents, 
> you have no ability to light any of the stuff in the room on fire!

"If I screw up using the system, the system doesn't work!" Diddums. That
applies to any system (or even no system - player screw-ups can be a real
hassle in systemless play). If you want to cover yourself for this, shell
out for the VPP and be done with it.

> EFFECT based gaming is favored by GMs that are afraid of or don't 
> trust their players, or by GM's that feel uncomfortable with the 
> larger aspect of being a GM - dealing with the unknown and making 
> rulings.  Some GM's, for example, are uncomfortable telling a player 
> "no" without a rule to back them up.

Again, I have to agree with Phil. This is incorrect and insulting towards a
large number of users of systems like Heroes and M&M.

BTW, the sort of game I'm known for locally is systemless freeforms. That's
not really the sort of environment for a GM who isn't comfortable making his
own rulings, given that there is no system whatsoever to fall back on. I'm
not simply reacting to a perceived insult towards myself.

Travis Hall
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