Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[Fenris-77]

"HP" "Levels Period"
Those D&D mechanics have always been quite meta. Like, why do you suddenly gain this big chunk of class abilities all at once, etc?

Yes you can tolerate them because of other things the system does that you like, or simply not care, but that's hardly the only option. Shadowrun, GURPS, and Mythras require substantially less contortion to 'explain' what's going on (though they do offer the more D&D type XP options as well, the granularity of picking up new abilities one at a time is a valid design choice, and so is not having JRPG style rapidly ballooning HP pools - GURPS also has learning through training. Levels, rather arbitrary XP, and quickly accelerating HP pools are not the only option).

That's very true, but those work because those systems were designed that way. The core D&D system is not designed that way. IF you want to play D&D you're kind of stuck with levels and the abstraction of XP. Different strokes and all that. Levels have never bothered me personally, but I know some people vastly prefer the more granular advancement you get in BRP games or GURPS. Let's be honest though, both Mythras and GURPS are catering to the same-ish subset of RPG fans. Levels and XP aren't even remotely an issue for a lot of folks. It's certainly not a 'problem' that needs 'fixing'.

 

[Umbran]

In Shadowrun, planning out the job as fallible humans with "the map" is a lot of fun - no flashback mechanic required. But that playstyle will never result in you being Batman.

Yeah. Batman isn't a fan of the hail of bullets that is the primary Plan B for Shadowrunners...

 

[VHawkwinter]

Yeah. Batman isn't a fan of the hail of bullets that is the primary Plan B for Shadowrunners...

One time, we had set up what seemed like the perfect mirrorshades run. We took on legitimate jobs at the heist site and worked there for over a month, made friends with all the staff, etc. The GM's monkey wrench (which I think was perfect) was as we were about to pull off the job after getting and copying the keys to the server room and having infiltrated building security so the cameras could go down before the job, etc - very professional heist movie tactics, a bunch of Pink Mohawk Shadowrunners show up and hold our new office coworker friends hostage, wanting to steal something else; and we all blew our covers to save our coworkers and kill the other Shadowrunners. IIRC we stole the whole harddrive and used our "escape through the into the sewers" plan, but now we were wanted for stealing the harddrives. Still. Our office worker friends didn't get fragged.

That's very true, but those work because those systems were designed that way.

Absolutely

The core D&D system is not designed that way. IF you want to play D&D you're kind of stuck with levels and the abstraction of XP. Different strokes and all that. Levels have never bothered me personally, but I know some people vastly prefer the more granular advancement you get in BRP games or GURPS.

Yeah; Reworking my heavily modified 3.x to have that kind of granular advancement has been one of the biggest parts of my game project. It's MOSTLY done now, but I spent a few months on just that, and have a giant spreadsheet.

Let's be honest though, both Mythras and GURPS are catering to the same-ish subset of RPG fans.

Absolutely. And I am pretty firmly in that subset. Even the Shadowrun I like, is the one with the point-buy characters by default.

Levels and XP aren't even remotely an issue for a lot of folks. It's certainly not a 'problem' that needs 'fixing'.

No, certainly not. For many people, that approach is perfectly fine. But it is quite meta, and I haven't seen anyone besides myself who had a "Reworked 3.x; less meta and more simulationist; tied to this original campaign setting and different playstyle" project. It might exist, but I haven't heard of it. Frankly most people just buy 5e or Pathfinder (whatever is current) and run published adventures, without much actual concern for the game mechanics at all.

There are Eclipse: The Codex Persona, from back in 2007, and BESM d20 and BESM 5e, I suppose.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Different measurements by different people. Why would you expect them to be entirely consistent with each other? And even so, in a general sense that consistency is roughly maintained in my experience.

Its not been infrequent for it to not even be close. So at that point, you've got mostly people in setting making guesses that aren't particularly well founded. The Spider-Man note has hardly been a unique situation.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You probably know it better than I, but that game never struck me as heavily meta-currency dependent. Most mechanics in it map to features of the setting to my mind (which is my definition of whether or not something should be considered "meta").

Like I said, the way the damage save system works, you'd just have supers that folded up ridiculously frequently on a first shot without Hero Points, because the D20 roll has so much swing in it. and the categories are so broad. Something like Champions can get by without use of metacurrency because its heavily designed to make it actually really hard to put down someone with one hit (and for many editions, killing attacks broke this fairly frequently because, again, the stun multiple die was a single D6 producing massive swings). M&M--isn't that. Other elements of the game you could write-off hero point usage if you wanted to and not get gross problems, but you'd have to really rework damage if you wanted to avoid using them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's my point. It's genre emulation, not physics sim. I can manage some of that in a supers game, but that kind of retcon is a bridge too far for me. IMO if you want to play someone who good at making contingencies, you should do that yourself. Plan in-session.

I have to point out that's back to something you've been on the other side of in other threads: "You can't play this kind of character unless you're as smart as he is" which is in practice "You can't play him unless you're also a strategic and logistical genius."

 

[Thomas Shey]

The sort of inconsistencies mentioned here regarding the superhero genre have always bugged me. Personally I'd love a supers setting that was actually more coherent and the powers were consistent and their effects applied more realistically. I think the Boys is closest we have to that.

That's really more of a people-with-powers setting. You can do that with some systems, but its not going to look much like a superhero setting at all, other than the fact powers are present.