How are Superhero games different?

[fireinthedust]

I'm looking over my copies of Champions (1989 or so) and Mutants and Masterminds (all three editions). I've seen other games, but only vaguely recall them.

I'm wondering: do all superhero game systems necessarily follow the same structure for rules?

ability scores
powers (includes skills, feats, powers, equipment)
complications/flaws
use of power points or build points to buy abilities

I don't have Gurps, or Palladium's system, but I'm just wondering: aren't there copyright issues regarding how similar the premise of the math for these games can be?

In that case: where is the line drawn between roleplaying games? At what point can we say that legally one game is different from another?

For example, most resolution systems work like this: die-roll vs. target number (DC, # of successes on a d10, whatever), beat that number and you succeed. No matter how far removed we are from a game, I've yet to come across a system that isn't a re-hash of this basic principle.

Maybe a cards-based resolution system? But then, if each card equals one side of a dice, then a 52 card deck is basically a d52 for one draw/roll (unless the card is replaced and the deck is shuffled, meaning it's a d52 for every roll).

See what I'm saying?

 

[billd91]

Villains and Vigilantes is quite a bit different. It's not point-buy based. You roll up your powers from a table and each has its effects defined within it. There are still ability scores, though.

That said, you can't copyright the concepts behind game rules, just the specific expression of them. But even with that, Mutants and Masterminds and Champions are quite different the way they handle them. Champions allows a lot of fine-tuning, but characters with broad powers that affect a lot of things (like weather controllers) can be ridiculously expensive or complex because of all of the power variations. Mutants and Masterminds takes a much broader brush to the fine-tuning of powers, leaves things less detailed in how they are defined (which may mean a little more dickering over effects and implications at play time), and makes it easier to work in multiple variations on broad powers. The games both feel super-heroish, but in noticeably different ways when you actually play them. Champions is a bit more exacting and methodical (and slower), M&M a bit faster paced and looser. V&V is, for my money, even faster paced but less based on easily generalized combat principles and more on attack vs defense table lookups.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) You can't copyright game mechanics

2) Palladium's Heroes Unlimited is an example of a game with a different structure, to be sure. You generate Attributes and improve them with Skills. Then you get Powers, which can be done randomly or by choice. Some Powers change your Attributes. As I recall, here is no real way to add Powers, but certain kind of Powers are expandable, like robotics/cybernetics.

 

[Twowolves]

Any point-buy system is superficially the same as nearly any other, but saying "roll a die, beat a number" means two games are the same mechanically is pure insanity. Really now, Shadowrun and Savage Worlds could both fall under that broad category, but they are nowhere near the same mechanically.

The two games you mention aren't that similar beyond the point-buy aspect. Champions uses a 3d6 for task resolution, rendering a bell curve of results, while M&M uses a linear d20 for every roll. Champions then uses a pool of dice to both generate a total and counts "1s" and "6s" to further define a power's result. M&M has a flat, non-variable result that must be saved against (the defender's roll defines the outcome, not the active character's).

Beyond that, Villains and Vigilantes once had you base your character off of your real life identity, having you assign numbers from 3-18 for your primary stats, then roll your powers randomly. I don't think the first two editions even had skills at all. Marvel Super Heroes had you roll your origin, stats, powers, "skills" and even income level randomly, and every single task was resolved on a d% roll with 4 degress of success/failure. Savage Worlds has a superhero setting, and they use different die types for your stats and powers. Really, there is such a variety of systems out there for just this one genre that the very idea that they are all the same because they roll dice is ludicrous.

Or as Mike Tyson would say: "Luda-Crisp!"

 

[mmadsen]

I don't have Gurps, or Palladium's system, but I'm just wondering: aren't there copyright issues regarding how similar the premise of the math for these games can be?

In that case: where is the line drawn between roleplaying games? At what point can we say that legally one game is different from another?

Intellectual property law can be rather complicated, but copyright does not apply to ideas, just to specific expressions of those ideas; it doesn't apply to game mechanics, just to the specific text in a game book.

Theoretically, someone could have tried to patent their game mechanics, in the way that many corporations have patented businesses processes. (This is a contentious area of IP law, by the way.)

What a publisher can easily do is trademark their name and their products' names. You can't claim to offer Champions products if you're not Hero Games -- but that's easy to work around, if you simply leave it implied.

 

[fireinthedust]

Any point-buy system is superficially the same as nearly any other, but saying "roll a die, beat a number" means two games are the same mechanically is pure insanity. Really now, Shadowrun and Savage Worlds could both fall under that broad category, but they are nowhere near the same mechanically.

first: Thanks for the responses, everyone.

Second: Let me explain. I've been doing system design recently, and while I'm no mathematician, I've been coming up with a few different resolution systems, or picked up a few tricks through gaming. While different games may have different expressions, I no longer think they're as different as I used to. Palladium may look different from d20 systems, but if you divided the skyrocketing percentile numbers (some of which are far higher than 100%) by 5 you'd have a perfectly usable d20 bonus modifier.

Maybe some of the games are different, but it comes out to variable vs. target number. You can write it as 1d12 or 2d6, and there can be trend differences; you can even make it number of successes rather than dice+modifier. Still, the idea of the roleplaying game is that there is a resolution system that gives a general sense of how well a character does with their attempts.

Mathematically, that's what a system is.

An engine: you put energy in one end, the engine turns that into movement for the wheels on a car. You can use a battery, steam power, gas power, solar panels, or put wheels on the bottom of a mouse trap, but you'll get motion from that energy.

Playability is the question for a game, then.


Dannyalcatraz: So why do I need the SRD to publish a d20 game? Or is it just to say "d20" on the book I want to put out?

 

[Twowolves]

I'm curious how you would handle task resolution in a game that used dice at all without either a target number or number of successes. Why use the dice at all? See how far you can throw it?

Even though d%/5 ~ d20, neither = XdY. Bell shaped curves mean non-linear values for a simple "+1" modifiers. Cyborg Commando had a d10 x d10 die roll, but it still ened up being a target number (25 for most tasks) on a chart in practice.

 

[Corathon]

Second: Let me explain. I've been doing system design recently, and while I'm no mathematician, I've been coming up with a few different resolution systems, or picked up a few tricks through gaming. While different games may have different expressions, I no longer think they're as different as I used to. Palladium may look different from d20 systems, but if you divided the skyrocketing percentile numbers (some of which are far higher than 100%) by 5 you'd have a perfectly usable d20 bonus modifier.

Maybe some of the games are different, but it comes out to variable vs. target number. You can write it as 1d12 or 2d6, and there can be trend differences; you can even make it number of successes rather than dice+modifier. Still, the idea of the roleplaying game is that there is a resolution system that gives a general sense of how well a character does with their attempts.

Mathematically, that's what a system is.

While any system that uses dice does indeed have odds of success and of failure, they are still very different in play.

Some systems don't give a degree of success, they just tell you pass/fail. In Champions if you hit, you hit, if you miss you miss (although margin of success may matter for skill rolls).

I think that assuming that all dice rolling systems work the same is pretty far off base.As mentioned above, there's a big difference between single die systems (with a flat probability distribution) and multi-dice systems (with a bell curve). Let's take your example of d12 vs 2d6. On a d12 rolling a "1" is just as likely as rolling a "2", or a "7", or a "12". On 2d6, rolling a "1" is obviously impossible, and rolling "7" is 6 times more likely than rolling either "2" or "12".

If one just doesn't like dice, as you said there are cards. There are difference there is that some random results are "used up" each time, until the deck is reshuffled. Another possibility is a "rock-paper-scissors" approach, where each opponent picks a strategy and a fixed rule determines which strategy prevails. As for me, I like dice.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Dannyalcatraz: So why do I need the SRD to publish a d20 game? Or is it just to say "d20" on the book I want to put out?

The OGL- which let the SRD get created, let's you use the unique aspects of OGL games that ARE copytightable: unique, specific terminology, images and fluff that distinguish one game from another.

For instance, if Ixitachitl were in the OGL, you could use them in your game as long as you complied with the OGL. Without the OGL, you're free to make some kind of evil fish creatures. Psionic anglerfish that could walk on land would be perfectly allowable. Vampiric minnows would be cool. But the closer they are in fluff, terminology and imagery to the Ixitachitl, the more you risk a copyright lawsuit.

 

[Umbran]

Dannyalcatraz: So why do I need the SRD to publish a d20 game? Or is it just to say "d20" on the book I want to put out?

Technically, you don't *need* the SRD. However, extracting the rules content, while using none of the original's phrasing in a recognizable manner is extremely difficult. Doing it improperly means the original publisher can nail you on copyright infringement, stop your publication, and possibly seed damages.

So, if the publisher hands you a useable license (like the OGL), then it really pays to follow that license, rather than do it yourself.