The Politics of Tabletop RPGs

[clockworkchaos]

Honestly, weirdly I'm kinda digging the XP-based leveling that's in the AP we're playing, because there's more XP you can get than you need for each level, so there's this kind of very minor dopamine hit when you get to the next level an encounter early because you found hidden clues or aced this or that task (often not fight-based so far, because Strength of Thousands is less fight-heavy).

I don't know how to describe it, honestly?

Of course, the other campaign I'm in with the same group does Milestone leveling and I like that too, so.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. I think a huge part of what makes SoT really work is the extra XP feels like 'bonus objectives' things you feel good about doing by being smart and clever rather than just extra work. With fights, you have to take out all the enemies anyways, so it feels like extra work, rather than feeling good about doing it. I suspect you'd get better results in a fight based one if like... you had fights with 'goals' that were like 'finishing this off in 3 turns' or 'defeat this enemy last' or other things that feel like you are doing it better, rather than simply grinding.

(real talk, the success of SoT and the recent social challenge means I'm going to work in future sessions to add more minor 'you did well' stuff in IiH).

 

[itsbread]

yeah but on the other hand Fate: Accelerated will never, ever feel like actually PLAYING Superman because it cannot actually model his superpowers or, uh, really anything but his personality. If you strip all the flavor and nuance and ability to express their powerset and put them at "they just Do Their Role" sure, they're about the same.

Click to shrink...

i'd argue that superman IS his personality; like, one of the most common problems faced by writers trying to do a totally incisive superhero satire is that superman's most distinctive, core trait is 'being a fundamentally decent person' and if you take that away you're left with... i don't know, Hyperion from Squadron Supreme, maybe.
like, on the superpowers front, superman's powers aren't even a little bit consistent; he's been:

• a guy who's real fast, real strong, and able to jump good (but not fly) in the pre-Fleischer-shorts era, Smallville, and the first few issues of grant morrison's Action Comics run
• a guy who can do literally anything as long as the writer tacks "super-" on the front in the Silver Age
• a guy with instinctual telekinetic powers in john byrne's post-crisis revamp
• a Star Trek-style energy being who only looks like a guy because he's used to it in the brief (but actually pretty good, imo) Electric Superman era

and i think the only one of those anybody could seriously claim "isn't a proper Superman" is the Electric era (but they're missing some good shit, imo). like, modern superman is generally able to lift exactly as much weight as the plot calls for, fly at the speed of plot, and hear exactly as well as the writer needs - no more, no less - because, like, most writers don't give a shit about 'feats' or whatever.

 

[Terrabrand]

Yeah... superman's powers are just...

1: the baseline generic flying brick package, if only because of his popularity.

2: Who The Fuck Knows What.

Literally the only thing I can predict from any given appearance of superman is He Probably Has Eye Powers and is otherwise 'a generic flying brick superhero'. He flies, he's tough, he's strong, but so is Hawkman or Thor over in marvel or whatever.

Most of these evil superman expies are identifiable as such not because they're pulling from his power set, but because they're given his approximate colors/costume type, his approximate backstory, (except secretly evil), and his approximate personality usually (except he's secretly evil, again).

Because when they just do the power part, they wind up nebulously indistinct from a hell of a lot of superheroes, since both in Marvel and DC and more obscure, independent type stuff 'super hero that moves fast, hits hard, takes a beating, and flies' is literally the most generic package around.

 

[Kaiya]

i'd argue that superman IS his personality; like, one of the most common problems faced by writers trying to do a totally incisive superhero satire is that superman's most distinctive, core trait is 'being a fundamentally decent person' and if you take that away you're left with... i don't know, Hyperion from Squadron Supreme, maybe.
like, on the superpowers front, superman's powers aren't even a little bit consistent; he's been:

• a guy who's real fast, real strong, and able to jump good (but not fly) in the pre-Fleischer-shorts era, Smallville, and the first few issues of grant morrison's Action Comics run
• a guy who can do literally anything as long as the writer tacks "super-" on the front in the Silver Age
• a guy with instinctual telekinetic powers in john byrne's post-crisis revamp
• a Star Trek-style energy being who only looks like a guy because he's used to it in the brief (but actually pretty good, imo) Electric Superman era

and i think the only one of those anybody could seriously claim "isn't a proper Superman" is the Electric era (but they're missing some good shit, imo). like, modern superman is generally able to lift exactly as much weight as the plot calls for, fly at the speed of plot, and hear exactly as well as the writer needs - no more, no less - because, like, most writers don't give a shit about 'feats' or whatever.

Click to shrink...

Yeah... superman's powers are just...

1: the baseline generic flying brick package, if only because of his popularity.

2: Who The Fuck Knows What.

Literally the only thing I can predict from any given appearance of superman is He Probably Has Eye Powers and is otherwise 'a generic flying brick superhero'. He flies, he's tough, he's strong, but so is Hawkman or Thor over in marvel or whatever.

Most of these evil superman expies are identifiable as such not because they're pulling from his power set, but because they're given his approximate colors/costume type, his approximate backstory, (except secretly evil), and his approximate personality usually (except he's secretly evil, again).

Because when they just do the power part, they wind up nebulously indistinct from a hell of a lot of superheroes, since both in Marvel and DC and more obscure, independent type stuff 'super hero that moves fast, hits hard, takes a beating, and flies' is literally the most generic package around.

Click to shrink...

And Fate Accelerated cannot model flying brick at the level Superman runs at. The "plot demands" element is stuck way lower, unless you're just floating it. The powers Fate gives can't model a supers fight mechanically, it just gives a loose lens to fluff it with if you're fine going "eh, whatever".

Like, you can't use his powers, you can just play his vibe. It's fine if you don't like mechanics, but I would object to saying it lets you play Superman, as opposed to having such a generic frame that you can vibe whatever and describe anything you want if you don't care about the mechanical feel of something.

 

[Drascin]

I ran PF2E for about a year, and that wasn't our experience at all.

We had a party of both martials and casters, and everyone got their licks in. The fighter scored lots of crits and the monk was suplexing people, sure, but the druid could use an Aqueous Orb spell to roll up whole troops of zombies like it was Katamari Damacy while riding a bear. Spellcasters can't compare to martials when it comes to single-target damage, certainly. Martials wouldn't have a reason to exist otherwise! Spellcasters are usually better at buffing, debuffing and battlefield control, and almost have a monopoly on multi-target damage. And those things win fights. Every +1 for your allies or -1 for your enemies is a greater chance to hit and crit. Every action that an enemy loses or has to waste standing up or moving is one less chance for them to attack you. Teamwork is actually a huge force multiplier, and everyone is better off mixing damage and support actions. (Martials are better off using their third action to make a skill check against the enemy than to make a third attack.) And unlike a lot of versions of the game, one of the players doesn't have to dedicate themselves to primarily playing a healing role, which is about the most boring thing that you can be stuck doing every round in an RPG.

To players used to how casters completely dominate the meta in D&D, I'm sure it seems like a downgrade, but the fact that that they were better than everyone at doing everything was exactly the problem.

Click to shrink...

I'm aware of the standard arguments, yes. Including the usual implication that the only reason why I as a GM spent literally half of the inter-session prep time in the entire 1-5 adventure I ran trying to find ways for the Sorcerer to actually get one fight where they're kind of the Main Character for once because it was never ever happening when running the game normally, only for several of my attempts to end up helping the noncasters more anyway (fun fact - trying to seed the adventure with a pile of enemies with catastrophic Reflex saves so the Sorcerer can land his saves largely just results in the Barbarian with the guisarme that was already the team's arguable MVP to become even more so as now she can also use Assurance Athletics to Trip things without even spending MAP, making everything lose actions AND giving the others +2 to attack, and thus becoming also the team's best debuffer or their best striker, as needed) is because I must have never played anything other than D&D and thus can't stomach casters not being horribly overpowered.

But yeah, like I said? I've found it easier to balance player spotlights in multiple games that are unbalanced on purpose than in this supposedly Meticulously Balanced game. So, not a fan.

 

[itsbread]

And Fate Accelerated cannot model flying brick at the level Superman runs at. The "plot demands" element is stuck way lower, unless you're just floating it. The powers Fate gives can't model a supers fight mechanically, it just gives a loose lens to fluff it with if you're fine going "eh, whatever".

Like, you can't use his powers, you can just play his vibe. It's fine if you don't like mechanics, but I would object to saying it lets you play Superman, as opposed to having such a generic frame that you can vibe whatever and describe anything you want if you don't care about the mechanical feel of something.

Click to shrink...

Fate Accelerated is a 48-page booklet designed to be photocopied and handed out to your game group when half of them couldn't make it this week; complaining that it "can't model" superman to your liking is like complaining about a kei car's low horsepower and poor off-road performance - like, that's not what it's for!
if you want an ultra-crunchy powerscaling experience in Fate, you'll have to put it together yourself like the absolute maniacs who wrote Diaspora.

 

[Kaiya]

Fate Accelerated is a 48-page booklet designed to be photocopied and handed out to your game group when half of them couldn't make it this week; complaining that it "can't model" superman to your liking is like complaining about a kei car's low horsepower and poor off-road performance - like, that's not what it's for!
if you want an ultra-crunchy powerscaling experience in Fate, you'll have to put it together yourself like the absolute maniacs who wrote Diaspora.

Click to shrink...

Yes. Fate Accelerated is bad for playing superheroes. This is the point I've been making.

 

[Chloe Sullivan]

Yes. Fate Accelerated is bad for playing superheroes. This is the point I've been making.

Click to shrink...

i think this is a terminology mix up.

Fate is bad at modeling comicbook superhero powers.

Fate is no worse than PbtA for playing superheroes, if all you want is a superhero narrative and modeling and using distinct and detailed superpowers doesn't matter to you.

the suggestion they gave for running superheroes as narrative skills is not much different from how Masks does it, IIRC.

the issue is that if you want to have "superman can casually fly across the globe and leverage that to get results in a complex setting/ecosystem" instead of "superman enters a scene, does a thing, and gets a narrative outcome" then you need a system that can do that, and even a lot of actual "designed to be" superhero RPGs (e.g. Smallville/cortex) can't.

If you want strategic and consequential play, where there is a whole world around you and not just scenes, then obviously games that don't model or systemize that are a bad fit.


but there's multiple possible approaches to running a superhero game.

 

[Kadmus]

Yeah, Fate is bad for modelling superheroes, if you feel that 'modelling' means 'has every tiny crunchy detail listed on the sheet'; you might find that makes it hard for you to get into playing superheroes in the system.

Unfortunately, all the games that try for the 'every tiny crunchy detail on the sheet' tend to end up with strong degenerate character design (that is, certain powers/skills/stats are Just Better and the more of them you have, the more Just Better you are; this tends to be whatever the speed stat is due to action economy) and/or a total inability to field e.g. Batman next to Superman, or Hawkeye with the Hulk, or whatever 'allegedly normal person with Really Super person' set you want to think of.

I personally find the fluff of the game to be by far the most important part, and so have no desire for a huge pile of fiddly mechanics most of the time; I find Fate and PbtA and so on to be great games for a lot of things, and would definitely use Fate or Masks (a PbtA superhero game) for superheros; Sentinel Comics is also solid IMO.

 

[TreeFrogSoup]

Yes. Fate Accelerated is bad for playing superheroes. This is the point I've been making.

Click to shrink...

Fate Accelerated and other narrative RPG systems (PbtA for example) are about the narrative and character of superheroes. Just because you can't explicitly model the precise range of Lasergazer's eyeball blasts doesn't mean it's bad at modelling the fact that Lazergazer is a highschool teen trying to be the most mature despite being the youngest in his superhero team; The Youth Fighters.

But honestly, Fate Accelerated is bad in general. Too much stuff for a oneshot, too little to be worth more than one session.

 

[itsbread]

Fate Accelerated and other narrative RPG systems (PbtA for example) are about the narrative and character of superheroes. Just because you can't explicitly model the precise range of Lasergazer's eyeball blasts doesn't mean it's bad at modelling the fact that Lazergazer is a highschool teen trying to be the most mature despite being the youngest in his superhero team; The Youth Fighters.

But honestly, Fate Accelerated is bad in general. Too much stuff for a oneshot, too little to be worth more than one session.

Click to shrink...

FAE is a stripped-down version of Fate that's roughly analogous to 5th edition dnd's Basic Rules, and i wish people would treat it that way instead of complaining that it can't do things it wasn't designed to do. like, the intended use for FAE is, as i said, 'make a bunch of copies and hand them out the next time your rpg group is down too many people to do their regular game' and it performs admirably in that role.
if i had to guess why people keep complaining that the simple ruleset is too simple, i'd blame whatever wizard's curse also renders people unable to read the bits of FAE where common criticisms like

why would anyone use anything but their strongest approach? this is dumb!

Click to shrink...

and

what if my high concept is 'the greatest swordsman in the world', huh, what then?

Click to shrink...

are explicitly addressed (with, respectively, "because sometimes a character's strongest approach won't be applicable or would just make the situation worse" and "that's bad aspect-writing; you wrote a bad aspect.").

 

[Dark Lord Bob]

and i wish people would treat it that way instead of complaining that it can't do things it wasn't designed to do

Click to shrink...

I imagine @Kaiya is talking about FAE because they're explicitly responding to someone saying, "It's trivial to balanced versions of Superman and Batman in games like Fate Accelerated Edition".

 

[Kaiya]

FAE is a stripped-down version of Fate that's roughly analogous to 5th edition dnd's Basic Rules, and i wish people would treat it that way instead of complaining that it can't do things it wasn't designed to do. like, the intended use for FAE is, as i said, 'make a bunch of copies and hand them out the next time your rpg group is down too many people to do their regular game' and it performs admirably in that role.
if i had to guess why people keep complaining that the simple ruleset is too simple, i'd blame whatever wizard's curse also renders people unable to read the bits of FAE where common criticisms like

and

are explicitly addressed (with, respectively, "because sometimes a character's strongest approach won't be applicable or would just make the situation worse" and "that's bad aspect-writing; you wrote a bad aspect.").

Click to shrink...

I imagine @Kaiya is talking about FAE because they're explicitly responding to someone saying, "It's trivial to balanced versions of Superman and Batman in games like Fate Accelerated Edition".

Click to shrink...

Well, it's nice that someone read what I was saying, anyways. Because, yes, that's why I was talking about Fate: Accelerated. Of course it's trivial to balance Batman and Superman in a system that broadly rejects having actual mechanics. There's nothing to balance, they just each have an approach they do and the story says okay. It's not far from saying it's easy to balance Batman and Superman in comics, because you can just write them as a balanced team.

 

[TreeFrogSoup]

FAE is a stripped-down version of Fate that's roughly analogous to 5th edition dnd's Basic Rules, and i wish people would treat it that way instead of complaining that it can't do things it wasn't designed to do. like, the intended use for FAE is, as i said, 'make a bunch of copies and hand them out the next time your rpg group is down too many people to do their regular game' and it performs admirably in that role.

Click to shrink...

It doesn't even do that well though.

 

[Queshire]

I'm only familiar with FATE from the Dresden Files ttrpg, but the system should work if adjusted for superheroes. I think the big thing would be the ability to deal "consequences" instead of HP damage. Sure, that mugger in a back alley can't scratch your Superman-alike's invincible hide, but if they manage to crit against you then suddenly a nearby building explodes into flame and the Superman-alike now needs to wrap the fight up quickly so that they can help with that. Basically the building catching fire would be the damage from the crit.

 

[Arawn_Emrys]

I'm only familiar with FATE from the Dresden Files ttrpg, but the system should work if adjusted for superheroes. I think the big thing would be the ability to deal "consequences" instead of HP damage. Sure, that mugger in a back alley can't scratch your Superman-alike's invincible hide, but if they manage to crit against you then suddenly a nearby building explodes into flame and the Superman-alike now needs to wrap the fight up quickly so that they can help with that. Basically the building catching fire would be the damage from the crit.

Click to shrink...

People play Superman to feel like Superman. That means you have to let them trivialize any combat encounter with a normal person or it defeats the point. You have to challenge them in ways that don't invalidate the powers but are situations where having the powers doesn't solve the issue.

 

[Hologram Killer]

I'm only familiar with FATE from the Dresden Files ttrpg, but the system should work if adjusted for superheroes. I think the big thing would be the ability to deal "consequences" instead of HP damage. Sure, that mugger in a back alley can't scratch your Superman-alike's invincible hide, but if they manage to crit against you then suddenly a nearby building explodes into flame and the Superman-alike now needs to wrap the fight up quickly so that they can help with that. Basically the building catching fire would be the damage from the crit.

Click to shrink...

doesnt this put a ton of strain on the person running the game to have a bunch of consequences that are logical yet impactful? i dont mind improvising, but it seems like it could put you under pressure in the moment.

 

[Kaiya]

I'm only familiar with FATE from the Dresden Files ttrpg, but the system should work if adjusted for superheroes. I think the big thing would be the ability to deal "consequences" instead of HP damage. Sure, that mugger in a back alley can't scratch your Superman-alike's invincible hide, but if they manage to crit against you then suddenly a nearby building explodes into flame and the Superman-alike now needs to wrap the fight up quickly so that they can help with that. Basically the building catching fire would be the damage from the crit.

Click to shrink...

Dresden Files TTRPG is a heavily modded and expanded version of a completely different edition of Fate. And even it can't actually model physical superpowers well, because even the Mythic Ects can't do much against a dedicated attacker. It can't even model the upper levels of Dresden Wizards without falling apart, let alone a comic setting. Fate Accelerated is even worse for it.

 

[Terrabrand]

I'm only familiar with FATE from the Dresden Files ttrpg, but the system should work if adjusted for superheroes. I think the big thing would be the ability to deal "consequences" instead of HP damage. Sure, that mugger in a back alley can't scratch your Superman-alike's invincible hide, but if they manage to crit against you then suddenly a nearby building explodes into flame and the Superman-alike now needs to wrap the fight up quickly so that they can help with that. Basically the building catching fire would be the damage from the crit.

Click to shrink...

I feel like any situation in which you're talking about a mugger in a back alley being a serious threat to a superman alike is not so much a failure of the system as a failure of the GM or module, because like.

in what world do even the superheroes who are nominally vulnerable to 'mugger with a knife' actually consider that a threat unless it's literally first day with powers type shenanigans?

When Batman or Spiderman or whoever is meaningfully threatened by 'a man with a knife' it's because they're secretly a ninja or some such. It's dissonant if you're throwing down with people who explode buildings and then next encounter is One Ordinary Dude, Equipment; A Mundane Knife.

There's a series of sidequests in act 5 of Diablo 3 wherein a bunch of rebellious nobles are trying to pull a coup on the king, leading to the story acting as if the player is threatened by people who are, at best, mercenary wizards and mostly literal peasants, when you're currently fighting legions of soul stealing evil angels as the main threat of the act and have just finished getting into a punch out with Prime Evil Diablo aka Diablo but also with the power of all the other six most powerful demons, 1v1 and winning after scything through the best legions hell has to offer and various corrupted angels.

And entirely aside the politics of whether I even should be spending time crushing a popular rebellion instigated by a corrupt nobleman vs an inept king while Literally Every Human In The World is going to die if my main quest fails, it comes across as farce because, come on, if I can come out on top vs Super Satan, a bunch of random peasants aren't a threat to me and no I don't buy 'some noble moron with merc wizards' is narratively relevant either.

This problem is true if your superman expy is up to the point of being A Justice Leaguer Type Dude, not because 'he has invincible skin' but because if you've been prevailing against things far more dangerous that Random Muggers, your Random Mugger comes across as comedy or farce on the face of it. It doesn't matter if you are The Incredible Hulk if you're already been throwing down with people like The Incredible Hulk it's going to be off to then seriously act as if A Mugger is a level appropriate threat, and more off if they do in fact have the stats to outclass Doctor Magic Ray Gun, Destroyer Of Houses you fought last week.

 

[Kaiya]

i think this is a terminology mix up.

Fate is bad at modeling comicbook superhero powers.

Fate is no worse than PbtA for playing superheroes, if all you want is a superhero narrative and modeling and using distinct and detailed superpowers doesn't matter to you.

the suggestion they gave for running superheroes as narrative skills is not much different from how Masks does it, IIRC.

the issue is that if you want to have "superman can casually fly across the globe and leverage that to get results in a complex setting/ecosystem" instead of "superman enters a scene, does a thing, and gets a narrative outcome" then you need a system that can do that, and even a lot of actual "designed to be" superhero RPGs (e.g. Smallville/cortex) can't.

If you want strategic and consequential play, where there is a whole world around you and not just scenes, then obviously games that don't model or systemize that are a bad fit.


but there's multiple possible approaches to running a superhero game.

Click to shrink...

I mean, I think PbtA is generally pretty bad at doing superheroes, too, but I know people disagree with me there. Like, I think Masks is exceptionally bad at doing Superheroes. I have fun in the Masks game I'm in, but that's because everyone has neat characters and the GM is fun, not because Masks is, itself, making me feel like it's a cool superheroes thing.

 

[Spartakrod]

I think American Superhero Comic Books are kind of a poorly suited genre for TTRPGs as a whole and any attempt to emulate them is always going to leave some itch of the genre unscratched. It's doable but the genre has a lot of idiosyncrasies that fans of it are attached to that I think generally make for less than ideal group play.

 

[Kaiya]

I think American Superhero Comic Books are kind of a poorly suited genre for TTRPGs as a whole and any attempt to emulate them is always going to leave some itch of the genre unscratched. It's doable but the genre has a lot of idiosyncrasies that fans of it are attached to that I think generally make for less than ideal group play.

Click to shrink...

honestly, agreed. I criticize Masks, but it's not like I've ever found any other system doing superheroes that I didn't immediately go "hm that doesn't work for me" about.

 

[Spartakrod]

honestly, agreed. I criticize Masks, but it's not like I've ever found any other system doing superheroes that I didn't immediately go "hm that doesn't work for me" about.

Click to shrink...

The genre is just far too broad in what it can be for something as mechanical as a game if you genuinely want to be true to the "anything goes and its all presented with a straight face" nature of American Superhero comics.

 

[Kaiya]

The genre is just far too broad in what it can be for something as mechanical as a game if you genuinely want to be true to the "anything goes and its all presented with a straight face" nature of American Superhero comics.

Click to shrink...

I'd take "can effectively model a decent set of superpowers without being annoying" honestly. Only Deviant ever came close, and it's not even a supers game.

 

[Queshire]

Finally got my hands on Pathfinder's Tian Xia character guide instead of having to rely on YouTube videos. It's great. You can do all sorts of crazy things with the stuff in it and it's very flavorful. I do wish that they included a sidebar about ways to include concepts introduced in the book in settings outside Tian Xia.

It introduces the idea of a spirit world, but even as flavorful as it is it's not entirely clear if it's meant to be it's own plane, a general term used on the continent for all the various near planes or what.