Core materials: Action Points and Insider

[KarinsDad]

You speak as if second winds are a purely fictional concept. Boxers actually do get up off the mat and resume fighting, Soldiers actually do grit their teeth against the pain of severe wounds and pick their weapon back up. Injured people do refuse to go into shock and die. People actually do "feel better" through a sheer act of will. So, I'm not sure why you think it doesn't make sense in-character.

In Star Wars terms, what you are describing here is going up on the Conditions chart. Not second wind. Going from damaged with laser burns to not damaged at all is not in character and it is a totally fictional concept.

 

[Agamon]

"Forced to ham it up"?

Oooooh, you mean players are rewarded for immersing themselves in the game through roleplaying. Yeah, that's an awful design. Simply dreadful. :\

You think that's bad? I hear there are some games where you're forced to get into fights and kill things in order to advance one's character.

Seriously, though, there are multiple options for gaining APs in M&M. Roleplaying (i.e. "hamming") is just one of them.

LOL! They should change the name of this genre of game. Instead of role playing games, they should be ham up games, or HUGs! I think we'd get a lot more of the fairer sex to play if it was a HUG.

 

[BadMojo]

The whole Action Points thing strikes me as a security blanket for people who don't want to expose their imaginary characters to any real risk. Ultimately, they'll make the game boring because all thrills come from the perception of risk and danger.

I've had plenty of imaginary characters die from imaginary sword wounds, eaten by cat people, decapitated by fungus...all while using action points.

The action points didn't lessen the sense of danger. Sometimes they helped, but quite a few times they were last ditch efforts that didn't work when things went from bad to worse then on to horribly, mind-numbingly bad.

Players making "bad decisions" is sometimes players making decisions appropriate to heroic characters who do heroic things, including fighting against impossible odds and possibly becoming cat chow in the process.

 

[Clavis]

Wow. That has to be some of the worst DMing advice I've seen in a long time. DM's should cheat to save PC's, but, PC's should never have the ability to save their own hides. Whoa.

Sorry, I play entirely in the open. No Wall of Death for me. My players see 100% of my rolls, either when I make them or afterwards. I left that sort of DMing behind years ago and haven't missed it in the least.

I, on the other hand, am shamelessly and unrepentantly old-school. I do not buy into the current game design philosophy WOTC, or their apparent vision of the emasculated DM. I believe the best DMs are equal parts referee, storyteller, world-builder, social director, game-designer, and stage magician. The stage magician part comes in with misdirecting the players into believing you mean to kill their PCs them while actually trying to keep them alive.

IMHO all the "empowerment" of players is an attempt to appeal to CRPG and MMORPG players who are used to playing without a DM. It's ultimately wrong-headed, because a tabletop game can never do what a computer can do better. If our hobby is to survive, it must emphasize what cannot be replicated on a computer. Social interaction. PCs who can wander off the map. Spontaneously generated and constantly evolving storylines. Attempting action for which there are no written rules. All of that requires a strong DM to anchor the game, and a flexible rules set that in no-way straitjackets his or her power.

Unfortunately, I see WOTC going the way of post-Gygax TSR. Game decisions are being made for business-model reasons, and all of us player (and especially the pesky DMs) had better shut up and buy what we're told. I am not at all convinced that 4th edition is going to solve the fundamental problem with 3rd edition; its OVER-DESIGNED. Instead of just cleaning up the essential mechanics of the game, they fundamentally changed the game into something it was not, an seem set to continue on that path.

I don't like Action Points, not because I'm a "killer DM" with delusions of grandeur, but because they are not organic to the game. They seem necessary because of the incessant power-creep (which has frankly become a power run) that infects the "official" materials. If there's little the PCs can't do, there's little way to really challenge them. I have no hope whatsoever that the 4th edition is going to solve this. In fact, everything I seen so far indicates the opposite.

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

I, on the other hand, am shamelessly and unrepentantly old-school. I do not buy into the current game design philosophy WOTC, or their apparent vision of the emasculated DM. I believe the best DMs are equal parts referee, storyteller, world-builder, social director, game-designer, and stage magician. The stage magician part comes in with misdirecting the players into believing you mean to kill their PCs them while actually trying to keep them alive.

IMHO all the "empowerment" of players is an attempt to appeal to CRPG and MMORPG players who are used to playing without a DM. It's ultimately wrong-headed, because a tabletop game can never do what a computer can do better. If our hobby is to survive, it must emphasize what cannot be replicated on a computer. Social interaction. PCs who can wander off the map. Spontaneously generated and constantly evolving storylines. Attempting action for which there are no written rules. All of that requires a strong DM to anchor the game, and a flexible rules set that in no-way straitjackets his or her power.

Unfortunately, I see WOTC going the way of post-Gygax TSR. Game decisions are being made for business-model reasons, and all of us player (and especially the pesky DMs) had better shut up and buy what we're told. I am not at all convinced that 4th edition is going to solve the fundamental problem with 3rd edition; its OVER-DESIGNED. Instead of just cleaning up the essential mechanics of the game, they fundamentally changed the game into something it was not, an seem set to continue on that path.

I don't like Action Points, not because I'm a "killer DM" with delusions of grandeur, but because they are not organic to the game. They seem necessary because of the incessant power-creep (which has frankly become a power run) that infects the "official" materials. If there's little the PCs can't do, there's little way to really challenge them. I have no hope whatsoever that the 4th edition is going to solve this. In fact, everything I seen so far indicates the opposite.

I think that the pool of gamers, who fit your profile, may suffer (but I see many of them still buying the new version, even if just to house rule a bunch of it). The pool of "new-age gamers" is what they are trying to capture, while also trying to bring in new "potential gamers" who may look more kindly on the new system.

Time will tell, but I see it as a positive step in growing the game/hobby.

 

[KarinsDad]

I, on the other hand, am shamelessly and unrepentantly old-school. I do not buy into the current game design philosophy WOTC, or their apparent vision of the emasculated DM. I believe the best DMs are equal parts referee, storyteller, world-builder, social director, game-designer, and stage magician. The stage magician part comes in with misdirecting the players into believing you mean to kill their PCs them while actually trying to keep them alive.

IMHO all the "empowerment" of players is an attempt to appeal to CRPG and MMORPG players who are used to playing without a DM. It's ultimately wrong-headed, because a tabletop game can never do what a computer can do better. If our hobby is to survive, it must emphasize what cannot be replicated on a computer. Social interaction. PCs who can wander off the map. Spontaneously generated and constantly evolving storylines. Attempting action for which there are no written rules. All of that requires a strong DM to anchor the game, and a flexible rules set that in no-way straitjackets his or her power.

Unfortunately, I see WOTC going the way of post-Gygax TSR. Game decisions are being made for business-model reasons, and all of us player (and especially the pesky DMs) had better shut up and buy what we're told. I am not at all convinced that 4th edition is going to solve the fundamental problem with 3rd edition; its OVER-DESIGNED. Instead of just cleaning up the essential mechanics of the game, they fundamentally changed the game into something it was not, an seem set to continue on that path.

I don't like Action Points, not because I'm a "killer DM" with delusions of grandeur, but because they are not organic to the game. They seem necessary because of the incessant power-creep (which has frankly become a power run) that infects the "official" materials. If there's little the PCs can't do, there's little way to really challenge them. I have no hope whatsoever that the 4th edition is going to solve this. In fact, everything I seen so far indicates the opposite.

I agree with this.

However, the thing that bugs me about 4E is that "everything is cool" appears to be the mantra. I've heard "cool" multiple times on the podcasts.

I don't want cool because cool leads to power creep. Most of the 3E power creep stuff is the "cool stuff" that some game designer added to the game.

I want balance. I want a reasonable number of actions per round, not 4 or 5 per PC.

I want a few "go to the well" abilities for PCs (not players, PCs) to pull out when it is all going south, I do not want action points for the players to pull out. JMO.

And I want NPCs to have the same abilities as PCs. There should be nothing in the game system that tattoes PC on the PC's forehead.

 

[Jackelope King]

No. I am talking about forcing your character to ham it up for the DM in order to gain more AP. This happens in M&M. You have to perform in order to get them and if you do not have them, you can be seriously screwed. I detest that mechanic.

Couldn't disagree more. I ran a game of M&M just last night. One of the players is brand new, having joined only a week ago. Another is a good player, if a bit of a limited roleplayer (every single one of his characters is just his personality in a different costume). And the last one really is a great roleplayer, but she's playing a very reseved, very subdued character (emotionally scarred/retarded psychic ninja).

Last night, the players gained roughly three hero points apiece.

The first one was gained when one of the enemies they faced use the Inspire feat to grant his minions a +2 bonus to their attack rolls and saves for a round. Whenever an enemy uses an ability that would cost a hero point, the heroes instead get one apiece.

The second one came when the heroes managed to corner the leader of this little gang and start questioning him about why he stole some biological warfare agents from a former supervillain's storehouse. Before he could answer, the sniper who had been hidden somewhere on the rooftop shooting at the heroes during the fight put a bullet in him, apparently to keep him from talking.

The third one only came about because of complications. For the second player, whose character summons matter and energy from different universes, it was when he chose to lose this power permanently after learning that the world he was drawing from was suffering for it (he used the power for healing and summoning objects, and the loss of both huge chunks of tissue and parts of their homes had dire effects on the other world, which he just learned about). For the third player, the one with the emotionally retarded psychic ninja, it was because when she got home to her sort-of-adopted-family, a television special was just starting to air which was promising to reveal her identity.

So out of all of these instances of awarding hero points, exactly one really had to do with a player roleplaying well (in the group's opinion). And even then, he wasn't exactly "hamming it up". Rather, he was forced to make a tough decision and made it in the way his character probably would have. That's how complications net you hero points. For the kind of games we play, it's perfect. Players actually want to give the GM plot hooks with this system, and we love it.

But I might be misunderstanding you. What exactly do you mean by "hamming it up"? Are you refering to coming up with a character background or motivations? Or using those motivations and complications to guide how you play the character? Or are you refering to the single line of text in the rules that states the GM can award a hero point if the player does or says something so funny that the whole table starts laughing (which to me falls under the Princess Bride quote clause... if it makes the game more fun, you'll be rewarded for it).

 

[Jack99]

Personally I think that action points are yet another attempt at making DnD less hardcore and more fun.

I dont know if my players will like them, but if they do, we definitely will. As a DM, I am first and foremost about making the game fun for them.

If they dont like action points, i strongly suspect as Mouse (i think) said earlier, that it should be easy NOT to use them. If some classes or races get more action points, and thus lose out if we remove them, I am sure that either I or the good people of ENworld can come up with some sort of compensation without too much hazzle.

Cheers,

 

[Agamon]

Wait. The PCs need to be afraid for their lives before any fun can be had? Really? I was not aware of that fact. I'll make sure to let my players know that they aren't allowed to have fun until their PCs are lying in a pool of their own blood.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Wait. The PCs need to be afraid for their lives before any fun can be had? Really? I was not aware of that fact. I'll make sure to let my players know that they aren't allowed to have fun until their PCs are lying in a pool of their own blood.

You can do better than hyperbole, right? There is a difference between people having fun because their characters are dead, and people having fun because the CHANCE for it exists in the game, and comes pretty close sometimes.