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Post by hakkonen on Sept 29, 2011 15:53:15 GMT -5
Greetings, all. I'm new to MURPG, having played three sessions and GM'd one (I am the relief GM in our group, running the game once a month to give the regular GM an opportunity to play). It's an interesting system, and I think it has things to recommend it, but I also perceive parts of it as being poorly thought-out. I'd appreciate some help.
#1. Passive defense. In last week's session (I was the GM), the climactic fight involved a bad guy with Toughness 4. As I understand it, Toughness reduces all damage dealt to the character by its level; so in this case, the PCs had to hit him with 5-stone attacks to even scratch him. Is my understanding correct? One of the players seemed very frustrated when she put six energy into an attack and had no effect (the bad guy had also put two stones into active defense). This seems to me like it biases the game quite severely toward characters with Toughness or equivalent. If you have flat damage-reduction that requires no energy expenditure, and the other guy doesn't, basically the only way you can lose is if his Durability is astronomically higher than yours.
#2. Energy expenditure and regeneration. Character regenerate one-third of their energy every round in combat (Energy = Durability * 3, energy regen = Durability). It seems to me that any given character's best tactical option is to alpha-strike with everything they have, then run around like a ninny for three turns while they recover. Maybe put a few stones into active defense to be marginally less squishy. If you put less than your entire pool into your alpha strike, you run the risk of it simply being no-sold, which I really don't care for.
#3. Binariness in general. The whole resource-allocation mechanic, while I can appreciate it in theory as an attempt to bring novelty and innovation into RPGs, seems to me to distort the probability curve in an undesirable way; namely, that it creates two spikes at 0% and 100% with nothing in between.
Again, these are just my perceptions of the game.
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 29, 2011 16:01:08 GMT -5
It took you all of one session to discover some of the major problems with the RAW. Your perceptions are correct all around.
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Post by Gryphynx on Sept 29, 2011 16:07:59 GMT -5
Yeah, those perceptions are why almost every house rule you commonly hear of on these boards are about Energy.  There are a LOT of ways for a player to counter the flaws in the game (and not even need to use House Rules to do it), but that tends to result in a lot of very similar characters... So, best to House Rule. |
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 29, 2011 16:15:59 GMT -5
Well, he also found the flaw with Passive Defenses being WAY too cheap and WAY too good, which takes most players much longer to realize (sure took me longer), so he's on the ball.
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Post by dorkknight23 on Sept 29, 2011 16:16:18 GMT -5
I wish I had better advice than "houserule and duct-tape it all into something more reasonable." But there you go. You did zero in on all the big issues.
It works pretty well for online play, though!
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 29, 2011 16:18:17 GMT -5
I wish I had better advice than "houserule and duct-tape it all into something more reasonable." But there you go. You did zero in on all the big issues. It works pretty well for online play, though! All the big issues aside from the massive inequity of certain Actions and Mods. IMO, while the energy and defenses are bad, it's when players start realizing that some actions are infinitely better than other Actins with similar costs that the game really falls apart. |
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Post by Jet on Sept 29, 2011 17:44:29 GMT -5
Okay, for a GM I have one major advice that applies to pretty much any system that doesnt rely on rules for everything (and I mean- EVERYTHING, right down to unzipping your pants or riding a horse):
CHEAT.
Cheat like crazy. But dont get me wrong- cheating in an RPG is bad for players, but not GM. They are the world, they set the rules, even if it means bending or downright demolishing several common rules of physics or probability. If it makes the game good, its okay.
-Players cant match enemies defense but trying their hardest? Let them win. Maybe not by "injuring enemy", but maybe doing something different? Make them miss and hit the wall and let the falling debris finish the job.
-Players are about to one-shot an important villain? Throw a mook as a shield and let the baddie shine.
I cheat like crazy in all games I gm'ed, always following only three rules:
1. Rule of cool- MURPG is a system of superheroes, which are supposed to be cool. Those who are acting like cool superheroes should be rewarded. Those who play as total jackassess deserve a penalty.
2. Rule of fun- If someone wants to play as a private detective, add mystery. If someone is a magician, add magic to the game to make him shine. Players want to have fun and their character is a clue as to what they mean by it. As long as nobody objects, feel free to make giant robots of the size of galaxies if thats what makes you all happy. What are the galaxy rules? Who cares!?
3. Rule of challange- being cool and having fun is good, but this is still a game, it involves using your brain. If a player thinks he can make a quadruple sommersault, shoot seven mooks with twin machine guns and end with throwing a granade at a Godzilla, not putting a single stone into defense and expecting to come out unscratched... well, prove him wrong. I always make sure my players know that they can lose if they get careless, especially when ignoring 'heroics' over 'beating villains shitless'.
And one more important thing- dont ever tell your players that you're bending the rules. If they lose, it must look like THEY made a mistake, and contrary- victory must be something THEY earn with their own hands.
Cue several users that completely miss my point...
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 29, 2011 18:32:11 GMT -5
Right on playah
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Post by mrmackadocious on Sept 29, 2011 20:22:33 GMT -5
*pulls a contract of servitude in his firstborns name for playah to control*
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Post by Brainstem on Sept 29, 2011 23:54:41 GMT -5
Also don't feel like you need to write up CADs for everything. Gauge how much the players are putting into a Challenge by how much effort they invest in overcoming it. Occasionally make that Mod-hog PC not succeed at his/her Actions because (s)he's only throwing 1r of effort towards it. If players start to go on auto-pilot, challenge the auto-pilot by combating specifically what they're doing.
Remember, it's not cheating, it's using sit mods.
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Post by Revan on Sept 30, 2011 0:25:02 GMT -5
Also don't feel like you need to write up CADs for everything. Gauge how much the players are putting into a Challenge by how much effort they invest in overcoming it. Occasionally make that Mod-hog PC not succeed at his/her Actions because (s)he's only throwing 1r of effort towards it. If players start to go on auto-pilot, challenge the auto-pilot by combating specifically what they're doing. Remember, it's not cheating, it's using sit mods. Agreed. One of the things I've learned is that for those goons and bosses you have with static defenses, there are also static offenses and modifiers that will help. Weapon modifiers are good but since it's probably a super power based game you would want to add something like targeting or perhaps a re-hashed/renamed version of claws to compensate. There is also the fact of using something with Armor Penetration provided the enemy doesn't have Ignore AP. Like a few people said above, there are also various house rules that address the energy/regen flaw. Lastly, sitmods are your friend. So you have a guy with a toughness of 4, you can always aim for the eyes or set some kind of trap to have something debris fall on the baddie as stated above. A good deal of the time all it takes is one or two players who know how to think outside the box. Here's a little thing we came across in one of the games a friend of mine was running. He had this creature similar to an Ultralisk if you are familiar with the Starcraft series and the creature had a toughness of +5 with no armor penetration and it had absorb energy as one of it's actions. Now physically we couldn't hurt the thing out right no matter how many stones we put into it, so I decided to take a risk. A friend of mine distracted the creature, I examined it from behind, and I stuck a frag grenade where the sun don't shine. So we asked the GM and reasoned it out... a frag grenade being an internal attack would theoretically bypass the armor defense and because it is an internal attack the grenade would do 2x, maybe 3x damage, and there isn't exactly a way to block that kind of attack aside from crapping the thing out. Long story short the hangar we were in ended up being a huge mess. So basically what I'm trying to say is that sometimes it just takes a bit of creativity from the GM and the players. |
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Post by WildKnight on Sept 30, 2011 5:30:34 GMT -5
Remember, it's not cheating, it's using sit mods. Epic level truth |
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Post by hakkonen on Oct 6, 2011 1:49:43 GMT -5
Well, it's good to know I'm not entirely out in left field here. Next time my turn to GM comes around, I may see if I can persuade the group to play something else. Legend of the Five Rings looks neat. Okay, for a GM I have one major advice that applies to pretty much any system that doesnt rely on rules for everything (and I mean- EVERYTHING, right down to unzipping your pants or riding a horse): CHEAT. Cheat like crazy. But dont get me wrong- cheating in an RPG is bad for players, but not GM. They are the world, they set the rules, even if it means bending or downright demolishing several common rules of physics or probability. If it makes the game good, its okay. -Players cant match enemies defense but trying their hardest? Let them win. Maybe not by "injuring enemy", but maybe doing something different? Make them miss and hit the wall and let the falling debris finish the job. -Players are about to one-shot an important villain? Throw a mook as a shield and let the baddie shine. I cheat like crazy in all games I gm'ed, always following only three rules: 1. Rule of cool- MURPG is a system of superheroes, which are supposed to be cool. Those who are acting like cool superheroes should be rewarded. Those who play as total jackassess deserve a penalty. 2. Rule of fun- If someone wants to play as a private detective, add mystery. If someone is a magician, add magic to the game to make him shine. Players want to have fun and their character is a clue as to what they mean by it. As long as nobody objects, feel free to make giant robots of the size of galaxies if thats what makes you all happy. What are the galaxy rules? Who cares!? 3. Rule of challange- being cool and having fun is good, but this is still a game, it involves using your brain. If a player thinks he can make a quadruple sommersault, shoot seven mooks with twin machine guns and end with throwing a granade at a Godzilla, not putting a single stone into defense and expecting to come out unscratched... well, prove him wrong. I always make sure my players know that they can lose if they get careless, especially when ignoring 'heroics' over 'beating villains shitless'. And one more important thing- dont ever tell your players that you're bending the rules. If they lose, it must look like THEY made a mistake, and contrary- victory must be something THEY earn with their own hands. Cue several users that completely miss my point... I agree wholeheartedly, and that climactic fight with the Toughness 4 villain involved a considerable amount of GM fiat on my part. One player (the regular GM), being rather more familiar with the system than the rest of us, had built a power-armored character who was rather more effective than the other PCs, to the point where he was in real danger of curb-stomping the bad guy. I meant for the baddie to become a recurring villain, so having him captured in his first appearance simply would not do. After Power Armor shot Tough Guy with a tranquilizer dart (which would normally have put him down instantly), I handwaved that Tough Guy's extraordinary constitution meant that he could resist the tranq for a little while. Next turn, when he started to feel the drug's effects, he leapt out a window and escaped. The PCs won the day, but the blackguard lived to fight again. ;D |
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Post by justice009 on Oct 6, 2011 1:58:12 GMT -5
Agree with Playah ;D and Welcome also nice ending to your game ;D
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Post by Jet on Oct 9, 2011 2:57:57 GMT -5
Gotta say, you did a good job saving the game. I think you'll be fine in a long run.
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There are a LOT of ways for a player to counter the flaws in the game (and not even need to use House Rules to do it), but that tends to result in a lot of very similar characters... So, best to House Rule.
