[RPG Theory] "Who'd Win?" Abilities

[stevekenson]

One thing I’ve noticed about certain fictional settings, especially comic books, is they are often self-defining. That is, you often hear discussion about characters in the setting (even by characters in the setting) in terms of other characters: “He’s almost as strong as Superman!” “Wow, and I thought Batman was scary...” and so forth.

It’s something that could become the basis for an ability scale, Amber Diceless Roleplaying style: where does a character rank on the list of Strongest, Fastest, Smartest, and so forth, or is the character merely “Average” (or whatever the default may be) in an ability? Given how often comic book characters are touted as “The Worlds Greatest _______ “ it makes sense to calibrate a scale to that standard. You’d have to decide if ties were possible and, if so, what that means for the game mechanics, and if there is essentially an infinite amount of space between ranks. Are the ranks based on the heroes (player characters) as the yardstick or something else?

Obviously, there’s a lot to consider in terms of the application, but the ability “Strongest in the World” does have a certain appeal.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Doesn't Nobilis more or less work that way?

[stiobhanrune.livejournal.com]

Ok, that's really cool. That sort of reminds me of the Master Mage Benefit you can buy in the Book of Magic.

I was thinking about it, at one point- wouldn't it be cool to have a whole range of those? The Great Diviner, the Runemaster/Runemistress, etc.? You know, "this universe has archetypal magi who guard/caretake/tinker with/are bent upon destroying this universe. And there's a vacancy- which can be filled by one or more of the players.

That was a fun concept to play with.

Then I thought it would be really cool to give people Tarot-based feats, showing that they sort of had a "destiny" to their existence, a powerful purpose that sometimes gave them benefits of some sort. In addition to the benefits, they'd have some sort of duty they'd have to play out, some sort of task they'd have to fulfill every campaign, to keep the position.

I've come up with a few of these, but they're all magical-based, as I'm sort of a one-trick pony there. LOL In the end, it sort of came out like the Adepts from Piers Anthony's "Apprentice Adept" series, or his "Incarnations of Immortality," rather than anything Amberish.

That sort of disappointed me, so I came up with a few other ideas to reflect the Amber model- four Supernal feats, rankable up to half the level of the game. Possession of either of these allows (in certain circumstances) bonuses to absolutely any roll you make. But, almost every one requires you to use a hero point. LOL

I'm a jerk to my players. *grins*

Anyways, the kinks are still being worked out, but the game has been massively fun.

[emessar.livejournal.com]

I think it would be interesting (at least for a superhero type game) to see a system where your abilities become absolute if the margin between it and whatever you are comparing it to are large enough. When the margins are small enough, then it comes down to dice rolls.

[lcp-patron.livejournal.com]

While it is, of course, not official, for M&M, there are the benchmark tables on the ATT (http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=33496).