Stunts or Powers?

[Starfox]

Quoted from another thread:

[...]It is just that the more you provide specific things a person can do then the less a person thinks of alternatives that they may want to do.

It also changes how a player expresses their description of actions.

When I played 1e and 2e it was common for me to use terms like "I bang twice high on the Orc's shield to get her to protect her head and then sweep a shot low to the thigh hoping to get past her guard."

Again, I'm sure that people that play more 4e then I do could say they do these types of descriptions (though personally I don't see it in the games I've played as the player often just says they are doing an X maneuver because anything more would be more confusing to the GM to understand).

4e is fun and kwel but it also has this reduction in free form. Some may like this and some may not. For some, it may depend on the GM that they play with and how that person handles free form solutions or how that GM adapts to using a power, feat, spell in a new stunt way.

What I want to discuss here is how the balance should be between pre-described exact-by-game-terms powers and improvisational spur-of-the-moment stunts. In other words, should what GM Dave describes here be a power written on the character sheet, or just an invention of the moment?

There are arguments for each approach. Powers are satisfying from a read-the-rules standpoint, and makes the game designer feel good. They offer players ready options they can use with little thought, promoting fast game play. But as discussed in the thread GM Dave posted in, having more than 3-4 available power options slows the human brain down and limits our ability to be imaginative. Powers by their very nature limits thinking outside the box. And once there is a power to do that GM Dave does above, the option suddenly becomes unavailable for everyone else as a stunt - "Hey I paid for that power - its not fair that he can do it just on the spur of the moment".

Clearly, the balance lies somewhere in the middle - the issue is just where. Traditionally, spellcasters in DnD have used powers, mundane characters stunts or nothing at all. I felt 4E was too power-oriented. It was a part of their drive towards class balance, but ended up with everyone on the same limited palette. Games like White Wolf's MAGE (edition 1-2 at least) were at the other end of the spectrum - each use of magic could turn into a rules debate.

Where does your balance pint lie, and what tricks, rules,and methods have you come up with to get the best of both ways?

 

[Starfox]

Decided to make this a separate post, as it is wildly off center in the power-stunts scale and I wanted the first post somewhat more balanced.

Continuing from above, Mage has rules for how you use powers. I have played quite a bit of the Maid rpg - or at least used its system in other genres. This is everything 4E is not. It is a very basic system, with one universal conflict mechanic that is used for everything from fighting giant robots to baking the best cake to flirting. It basically has no powers* - everything is stunts, and describing stunts is a major part of the game. It has 6 attributes, any of which can be used for any task as long as you manage to convince the GM that its applicable. Which makes the description of stunts very important. If you want to bake cakes using Athletics rather than Skill, you can always try to describe a kung-Fu-baking sequence and hope the GM likes it. In this case, extreme simplicity makes way for exiting and imaginative stunts. What Maid is not is a boardgame - the rules could never work without a gamemaster present. It also requires a large degree of player restraint, so that you stay within your role. It can be prone to god-moding until the player group has set a power level among themselves. Still, as we contrinue to use this system, we find a need to create some "powers" to define how our characters bend the laws of reality. So apparently Maid is too loose even for my preferences.

* Not entirely true, but lets say so for the sake of argument

 

[LostSoul]

I don't think you need powers at all - if you're doing something that any fit human is capable of. (Spring Attack, really?) If you have supernatural abilities you need to define what they can and can't do. You will probably need some powers there.

 

[Sadras]

Where does your balance pint lie, and what tricks, rules,and methods have you come up with to get the best of both ways?

Interesting, I feel this is more an explorative 4E question than about 5E. In our 4E campaign it took some time, but I provided the players a little more freedom with their powers for most of the reasons posted above. Innovative spells or any creative flare in our campaign is rewarded with XP. So there is a definite incentive to make the players think out the box.
For instance, a wizard who can cast a fireball, can surely summon up a flame within his hand if he wanted to - logically speaking. Further leeway is given that sometimes the spell powers take the effect of the surrounding terrain. For instance the druid in our campaign has this deadly thorn spray (forget the actual power name) - well the party was travelling through an icy-dungeon so we changed the thorns to become flying stalactites and stalacmites instead - she pulled the icy from the walls causing the shards to rain down on her victims. Of course it made tremendous noise and alerted dungeon critters further down the passageway but it was great cinematic play.
Furthermore, if you worried the characters becoming too powerful and having too much freedom, you could have these changes in powers cost a surge if they are a significant change.

We even did that for the druid change shape ability, allowing her to change into a different animal than what she was accustomed to. It cost her a surge, and when character reverted back she was nausious for a few minutes thereafter (all fluff).
Giving the players that freedom with powers allows you to break the 4E boxed-power-thinking. And in the end the DM always has the final say...

 

[Raith5]

I think words like powers, healing surges carry too much baggage from 4th - even when/if these mechanics appear in D&DN. So I would vote for "abilities", bland but at least it can capture the various magical or mundane things a PC can do.

 

[Ellington]

I don't think you need powers at all - if you're doing something that any fit human is capable of. (Spring Attack, really?) If you have supernatural abilities you need to define what they can and can't do. You will probably need some powers there.

I may be 'capable' to do a lot of martial arts maneuvers, but I sure as hell don't know how. Any human can try to spin around in a circle with his weapon. Chances are it won't do anything. However, if someone's trained to perform a Whirlwind Attack, it should be that much more effective. In theory, performing a cleave attack is simple enough, but not just every bozo out there can cut through someone and into another effectively. It requires a certain strength and/or expertise.

There's a big difference in knowing how something works and being able to perform it. I think that's where powers come in. They represent what maneuvers your character knows and is able to perform consistently.

 

[LostSoul]

I may be 'capable' to do a lot of martial arts maneuvers, but I sure as hell don't know how. Any human can try to spin around in a circle with his weapon. Chances are it won't do anything. However, if someone's trained to perform a Whirlwind Attack, it should be that much more effective. In theory, performing a cleave attack is simple enough, but not just every bozo out there can cut through someone and into another effectively. It requires a certain strength and/or expertise.

There's a big difference in knowing how something works and being able to perform it. I think that's where powers come in. They represent what maneuvers your character knows and is able to perform consistently.

That's a reasonable point of view.

My point of view is that we already call for an attack roll, and that can resolve whether or not the attack works.

If you limit potential actions by creating a list, players must consult the list before they attempt anything. In AD&D this was "I can't climb, I'm not a thief"; in 3E this was "Do you have the feat for that?"; and in 4E it was "Do you have a power for that?"

Not that there's anything wrong with that. But it means that the way players make choices is going to be different.

So we ask: what do players do in this game? Do they pick from a list of possible actions and execute the rules that relate to that action, or do they come up with an action on their own and apply the general action resolution rules to resolve it?

I prefer the latter because I think it draws on one of the strengths of RPGs - so-called "tactical infinity". (You don't really have infinite options because you're limited by what's plausible in the setting, but you get the point.)

 

[nightwalker450]

Powers work to provide expectations. You use the power and it says exactly what it does, and its not up to the DM not being in the mood... Or it would ruin the NPC's plans.

And regardless of system, if something works well it will be done repeatedly, the powers aren't the limiter. The first time the GM allows "I stab him in the eye" to do ridiculous damage, or auto-kill... It will be what the player will attempt every time. There were no powers in 3e, but once trip was shown to be effective trip builds were a main stay.

 

[LostSoul]

Powers work to provide expectations. You use the power and it says exactly what it does, and its not up to the DM not being in the mood... Or it would ruin the NPC's plans.

To work without powers you have to assign authority to someone. Then the system tells that person what their responsibilities are in that role. I'd shy away from "If you're not in the mood, or you feel like making the player's choices irrelevant, don't let them succeed."

And regardless of system, if something works well it will be done repeatedly, the powers aren't the limiter. The first time the GM allows "I stab him in the eye" to do ridiculous damage, or auto-kill... It will be what the player will attempt every time. There were no powers in 3e, but once trip was shown to be effective trip builds were a main stay.

That's an argument for a better action resolution system. Without powers, you want some actions to work better than others - otherwise what's the point?

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Which makes the description of stunts very important. If you want to bake cakes using Athletics rather than Skill, you can always try to describe a kung-Fu-baking sequence and hope the GM likes it.

Highlighting that phrase for comment, then on to my own feeling.

Those 6 words are a dealbreaker for some. They don't want the GM to decide if something works, they want the surety of the rules to let them know if it can be done. This isn't anything good or bad, just a playstyle.

As for me - I tend towards 3.x/PF versions, and I play HERO as my primary system. I have no issues with coming up with flavorful descriptions of what I do, even if there is not mechanical impact to the descriptions. I just like to be in the moment and that helps me do so.

In general I don't like stunting rules where the description of what you do impacts the mechanical effects of the game - the sorta shy person who plays D&D because they don't want to be in a big social scene could be greatly handicapped in that situation.

So I tend to be on the powers side, and as a GM will tell players "I don't want just the power name, I want some sort of description" and leave it at that.