D&D General Heroes of Myth and Legend

[Garthanos]

We do talk esoteric do not let it get to you. I personally find it hard to resist. Flexible Attribution is a thing it is related to reflavoring ... ie where do or did I get this ability is just not nailed down. Did I learn it through discipline and training? Is this really a racial trait that manifests selectively? Did I suddenly remember the ability form a previous past life? Did it flow into me from my recently acquired magic item? I used this same idea in 4e even if it was not presented explicitly.

If I understand correctly HoML has more generic categorizations over all (skill sounds like it nails down where you got the talent ie it implies you learned it when the same mechanic could apply to you were born with it) and knack is a name which attempts to put that characterization more explicitly in your hands. (may not succeed because it kind of implies it is more a talent)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

We do talk esoteric do not let it get to you. I personally find it hard to resist. Flexible Attribution is a thing it is related to reflavoring ... ie where do or did I get this ability is just not nailed down. Did I learn it through discipline and training? Is this really a racial trait that manifests selectively? Did I suddenly remember the ability form a previous past life? Did it flow into me from my recently acquired magic item? I used this same idea in 4e even if it was not presented explicitly.

If I understand correctly HoML has more generic categorizations over all (skill sounds like it nails down where you got the talent ie it implies you learned it when the same mechanic could apply to you were born with it) and knack is a name which attempts to put that characterization more explicitly in your hands. (may not succeed because it kind of implies it is more a talent)

Right, and frankly I am not wedded to any specific terminology. Its a bit of a pain to change stuff, but whatever. If it makes the thing easier to understand and gives the right idea, good. So, maybe 'proficiency' is not the best term either. It was a good term to use with skills, and traditional for D&D, but 'proficiency with a knack' is a pretty awkward formulation. 'knack' seems more appropriate as a replacement for the word proficiency, in at least some places. OTOH what do I call them?

 

[Garthanos]

Right, and frankly I am not wedded to any specific terminology. Its a bit of a pain to change stuff, but whatever. If it makes the thing easier to understand and gives the right idea, good. So, maybe 'proficiency' is not the best term either. It was a good term to use with skills, and traditional for D&D, but 'proficiency with a knack' is a pretty awkward formulation. 'knack' seems more appropriate as a replacement for the word proficiency, in at least some places. OTOH what do I call them?

Well ability means either talent or skill.. and basically does not imply where it came from it might be the root word to rule them all. And an attribute is a quality of something which might imply ability or simply nature.

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we can have basic ability or basics and advanced ability or advancement and focused ability or focus.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well ability means either talent or skill.. and basically does not imply where it came from it might be the root word to rule them all. And an attribute is a quality of something which might imply ability or simply nature.

So, I never spelled it out, and I might have been inconsistent here and there, but the terminology is that there are 'objects' and 'scenes', which can have 'attributes'. Technically everything is based on that (and I would say, though it isn't really stated, that a scene is a type of object, honestly I have not talked about scenes or developed any concept of how they work beyond the GM initiates them, in general). Anyway, 'creatures' are objects, so they have attributes. Abilities are the 6 specific traditional 'ability scores'. Their values are technically one of None, Poor, Average, Above Average, Strong, Exceptional, Mighty, or Godlike. Poor through Mighty have associated ability bonuses STR, CON, DEX, etc. In general an attribute is just a name<->value pair, but technically EVERYTHING is an attribute, each boon, your calling, species, etc. are all attributes. Whatever you write on your sheet is an attribute, they are just a 'grab bag' of properties of characters and other objects. PCs obviously have a lot of specific ones that other creatures (I have not really used a consistent term, NPC, monster, whatever) may not need.

I guess my point is, knack proficiencies are attributes. As of the existing terminology they aren't technically called 'abilities', but again I'm perfectly willing to entertain any ideas for terminology and organization of rules. I'm just more wrestling right now with the questions of tone and genre.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And in the vein of talking about tone and genre... Exactly what do we think? I mean, "Mythic Heroes" are an oddball category! First of all VERY few of them are actually human in the myths of this world. 99% of them are demigods or something like that, if not outright gods. It does shade a bit into "super powered humans who were fated to be extraordinary by nature" here and there, but basically the D&D 'adventurer model' isn't all that consonant with mythic characters.

OTOH, I've kind of wedded myself to the core D&D-esque model of a power progression over time for PCs, and that also is a bit off from myths to an extent. I mean, most mythic heroes seem to have innate talent, or talent that was developed offscreen and generally started with some kind of supernatural origin. Now, you could build on that and say that every PC in HOML is a 'nascent hero' and has the potential to be mythic, and they are all supernatural in origin. I'm not sure how to convey that. I mean, I could lean into it and make 'supernatural origin' a big part of a PC build.

OTOH LEGENDS are much more amenable to being portrayed in a classically D&D-esque way. Beowulf didn't start out as a super bad-ass, he was perhaps talented and maybe fated, but at some point in his youth he was just a fairly ordinary warrior of unusual talent. Heck, even at the end he's not a MYTH, he's just an exemplary human, the dragon still beats him!

I guess the question is, are we dealing with outright MYTHS, or something closer to LEGENDS? The later fits a lot more easily into a paradigm similar to D&D, which works well for a 4e-like game. It is certainly possible to go further and stick to the 4e paradigm of Epic play where you BECOME a mythic figure, transcending legends. The difference being you're not really addressing classical (say classical Greek) myths exactly. It is maybe closer to the RQ "hero questing" kind of design where you get to Mythic Tier and then you start running into gods, adventuring in 'heaven' or 'hell', etc. Again, we just go along with the 4e model here, pretty much.

I'm really not sure how you would even approach the classic myth sort of model. I guess it would be a bit like Exalted or something like that where the PCs were created de novo as supernatural beings of some sort and that was that. It sounds like an interesting concept, but I'm inclined to stick with the "you are a hero from the start, but not even a legend yet, and entering into Myth is something that some mortals do in this world" Maybe when you reach Mythic Tier one of the boons you can get is a revelation of a supernatural element to your nature that manifests at that time, sort of like an ED.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well ability means either talent or skill.. and basically does not imply where it came from it might be the root word to rule them all. And an attribute is a quality of something which might imply ability or simply nature.

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we can have basic ability or basics and advanced ability or advancement and focused ability or focus.

OK, so lets parse this out...

Currently: Knack represents an approach to doing something. You get to add a proficiency bonus to your check if the Aspect which governs the check matches up with a knack you have proficiency with, and the underlying ability score bonus that matches that knack is also added (regardless of proficiency or not). Kind of awkward formulation...

So, is 'Aspect' a good term? I'm not sure of another one, I think a few other games have used this term as well. The other question is what are a good set of aspects? I just generated a list one-for-one with the 17 knacks, but I am not wedded to it. There could be more or less of them, though if they don't match 1-to-1 then it will introduce a choice for the player or the GM of which knack is germane to the situation (I guess it would then just depend on the action the player proposes).

'Knack' feels more like a replacement for proficiency anyway, like "I have a knack for athletics", but then what term to use for Athletics? Is it a 'skill'? I wasn't too fond of that as it implies training vs more of a 'propensity'. Talent might not be a bad term, but then we have 2 terms that produce the same results, proficiency for weapons, implements, tools, etc. and Talent for problem-solving approaches (maybe Approach is better than Aspect).

Anyway, lets see.... You would have a Talent for Athletics, and if a task implied an Athletic approach (IE you are jumping over something) then you would add the ability bonus for STR and the proficiency bonus for the Talent. I guess the thing itself, Athletics would then still be known as a Knack? Or maybe we just call it an Approach, so you are Talented in the Athletic Approach and you get a proficiency bonus when you use it. I guess that's OK. Suggestions are welcome!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

On another note, anyone who is hankering to fool around with playing some half-baked RPG, I do have a roll20 game that I created way back when. I was thinking of using Astral instead, but it really is not that much of an improvement on roll20 (if any) and they just announced they are closing up shop, so I won't spend any energy on THAT.

So, Roll20 is the share link for a game. There's not really much there currently, but we can play around and get something started.

 

[Garthanos]

LOL. not exactly what you mean but.
When you say approach my brain drops back to a very general "Direct, Responsive, Deceptive, Analytically, Chaotic(Instinctively)" , think of them as being like rock paper scissors, spock, lizard.

Direct approach is defeated by a responsive, a responsive is defeated by deceptive etc. Approaches are to me a form of immediate tactics. They might be partially determined by pure inclination or the methods the individual is best at. But are dynamically selected.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

LOL. not exactly what you mean but.
When you say approach my brain drops back to a very general "Direct, Responsive, Deceptive, Analytically, Chaotic(Instinctively)" , think of them as being like rock paper scissors, spock, lizard.

Direct approach is defeated by a responsive, a responsive is defeated by deceptive etc. Approaches are to me a form of immediate tactics. They might be partially determined by pure inclination or the methods the individual is best at. But are dynamically selected.

Yeah, some games have used that, but I always thought it was not all that informative of what is actually going on. I mean, 'Direct' doesn't really tell you all that much. What is 'analytical' in a knife fight? How does it differ from 'responsive'? I think there are niche domains where that kind of thing works fine, if you are always dealing with social situations or something.

 

[Garthanos]

Yeah, some games have used that, but I always thought it was not all that informative of what is actually going on. I mean, 'Direct' doesn't really tell you all that much. What is 'analytical' in a knife fight? How does it differ from 'responsive'? I think there are niche domains where that kind of thing works fine, if you are always dealing with social situations or something.

Analytical is overcoming a feint by recognizing it is a feint .. direct is just ignoring the fient.

There are generally only subtle differences between Responsive and Analytical (responsive is more immediate) or between Chaotic and Deceptive. Their might be differences in degree of domination.

Technically you can go with just 3, Direct, Responsive and Deceptive. (just as one can play 3 or 5 or more point roshambo)

A wild flurry of attacks might be characteristically Chaotic and if you respond you generally only stop one of them well but if you attack direct you interrupt them all. A wild flurry of attacks is not readable by Analysis and wont likely figure it out.

A given combatant only technically needs to use 2 of them to be roughly effective and characterize their fighting style. For instance. The Incredible hulk would almost always use Direct or Chaotic, but would you call anything he did deceptive?

Analytical might even be seen as using what you did a moment ago to predict what you are doing now.