Another avenue of this discussion that's worth noting in the "PCs aren't making heroes, but super-powered bullies" vein is that the whole genre of comic superheroes is so broad that where the line between heroes and bullies falls is rather dependent upon the particular heroes and era you prefer.

In the campaign with my aforementioned super-strength hero I play him in the vein of the classic no-killing, truth, justice and the American Way type, but at one point another player made her character into essentially a female version of the Punisher and another made one who's basically an Avenging Angel on Earth to fight a secret war against Satan's legions and another  does do hero stuff, but only if dragged into it because they're all about their PC's family adventures (she's got a non-powered husband and kids who help her maintain her secret base that is more a zoo than a base... she's basically a G-rated superhero with animal shape-shifting powers that are more important for including "here's some cool facts about the animal kingdom" exposition segments into the show than actually fighting super-villains).

All four are valid comic book protagonists, but the focus of each is so different it's difficult to overlap it much and we've got the same dichotomy where the Joker runs free in a world where Superman exists so that Ballista can have her arch-nemesis committing heinous acts (his "super-power" is being really good with knives) while Paragon (who's powerset is "as fast as a speeding bullet, as powerful as a locamotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and impervious to anything less than an exploding shell.") isn't allowed to interfere for "reasons."*

There's also the issue of the "never kills" and "always goes for the kill" heroes in the same campaign. My PC has probably used his Interpose skill more often saving the lives of bad guys (often mooks) in Ballista's sights than in actually protecting my allies. And of course "let's turn them over to the proper authorities" vs. "let's torture them information." Sometimes the GM has literally thrown in a threat to the city just so Paragon would be too busy to stop Ballista from "doing her thing."

* The real problem is the nemesis as Ballista's player defined them in her backstory wasn't some behind the scenes mastermind the law couldn't touch (like a Kingpin or Lex Luthor), but that he was a lead-from-the-front gang warlord type who's only free because the police are too scared of him and his men to go into his no-man's land territory to try and get him.

Anyway, the point is there's way bigger problems than multi-powers in most superhero campaigns even if everyone is staying true to a genre so broad that The Punisher and Superman are both considered to be part of it.

Quote from: jhkim;1102416The Multipower is an imperfect way to address the problem that one big effect is worth more than a choice of several small effect. To take an example:  

Captain Power has a single 15d6 force blast. That's 75 points.

Captain Flexible has five different powers: a 3d6 force blast, a 2d6 armor-piercing ice blast, a 1.5d6 ego attack, a 1.5d6 gas attack (no normal defense), and a 2d6 no-endurance attack. Each of these is 15 points for a total of 75 points.


These are the same cost, but the 15d6 attack is vastly more effective. No one is going to want Captain Flexible on their team, doing almost no damage in five different ways. I would argue that the multipower cost scheme is a more reasonable price for flexibility. With a multipower, Captain Flexible could have slots with a 10d6 force blast, a 6d6 armor-piercing ice blast, a 5d6 ego attack, a 5d6 gas attack (no normal defense), and a 6d6 no-endurance attack. I think that's a more reasonable peer for Captain Power.

The Multipower construct limits the character's ability to use more than one Power at a time, excluding among other options Multi -Attack. If it has non offensive powers in it, such as defenses, etc,you're stuck without them until your next Phase once you perform a Phase ending action. Finallym your characters powers are much easier to monkey with as Adjustment target the base Multipoer. So if you have 5 50 point powers, it doesn't 250 Drain results to shut them all down, just 50.

This has been gone over and over again for literally years.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1102641It was quite an irrational thing to do. But I completely lost my cool because of the frustration that was built up. And it's something I deeply regret in retrospect.

I wouldn't describe it as irrational. Crime of passion perhaps. This is why I very carefully select my stable of players, though. GMing is enough effort and care on my part already. I need no additional wrinkles, and I will not tolerate troublemakers. I game and run games for fun, not doing accounting for others bullshit. On that account I would say you were right for leaving them in the dust.

Quote from: CarlD.;1102643The Multipower construct limits the character's ability to use more than one Power at a time, excluding among other options Multi -Attack. If it has non offensive powers in it, such as defenses, etc,you're stuck without them until your next Phase once you perform a Phase ending action. Finallym your characters powers are much easier to monkey with as Adjustment target the base Multipoer. So if you have 5 50 point powers, it doesn't 250 Drain results to shut them all down, just 50.

This has been gone over and over again for literally years.

They took out the adjustment powers automatic limit on Power Frameworks in 6th edition. And literally made it an additional limitation. So that adjustment powers do not affect the frameworks that way as a default.

Did I mention? 6th Edition made literally everything about the game system more complicated.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1102579The thread so far is interesting...

Summary:

Let me say something I know is not going to be popular.
Say something that most people find is not true.
Refuse to engage in the examples that people provide showing how it is not true.
Get angry at everyone for disagreeing with something that was known to be unpopular.
Realize that it isn't a system issue and that it has something to do with people being jerks, refuse to retract original claim.

Aka: The Darrin Kelly Special. He's had a bug up his ass about Hero System for years and this is fairly regular dead horse to him to flail and deeply representative of allot of threads he start on HS or otherwise. Suggestions to just find a new game and more aligned players will generally be ignored or some thin 'explanation' for why not thrown up.

Quote from: Antiquation!;1102644I wouldn't describe it as irrational. Crime of passion perhaps. This is why I very carefully select my stable of players, though. GMing is enough effort and care on my part already. I need no additional wrinkles, and I will not tolerate troublemakers. I game and run games for fun, not doing accounting for others bullshit. On that account I would say you were right for leaving them in the dust.

You know how they say success is the best type of revenge?

Together with my partners. We have written nine all ages graphic novels and four prose novels. Based on characters and concepts I salvaged from the ruins of that campaign. The characters and cultures are better defined. More based on original material. And just better in every way. And we have built our own fanbase.

So what do I have to say to those two selfish destructive players? It's their loss. They were too short-sighted to even pay attention to the campaign world or the other characters in it. They were too focused on themselves and their own wankery. Instead of actually contributing.

Quote from: Chris24601;1102642Another avenue of this discussion that's worth noting in the "PCs aren't making heroes, but super-powered bullies"

They're playing the Supes  from Garth Ennis' The Boys and the GM doesn't want that? Say No. Changing the system, what ever system won't stop them, all systems can be gamed and massaged even totally random (just keep rolling until you get what you want). Hero System isn't perfect or for everyone, but this seems to be a case of blaming the tools for the shady choices of the workers.

Quote from: CarlD.;1102649They're playing the Supes  from Garth Ennis' The Boys and you don't want that? Say so. Changing what ever system won't stop them, all systems can be gamed and massaged even totally random (just keep rolling until you get what you want). Hero System isn't perfect or for everyone, but this seems to be a case of blaming the tools for the shady choices of the workers.

Yeah, my point is mainly that one person's "super-powered bully" is another's superhero... See people who think Deadpool is a superhero and not a villain protagonist... or people who think Carol Danvers is a superhero and not a fascist supervillain.

None of these are problems caused by the existence of Multi-powers.

Honestly, I wouldn't even BE in this discussion if not for the fact that DK insisted on dragging in M&M's use of arrays under the same umbrella even though M&M absolutely does NOT share HERO System's "must use the most expensive method possible" pretense to hang the argument for why Multi-powers go against the spirit of the game on.

M&M instead says "use the least expensive means you can find to emulate the powers you want and arrays are a standard way to set up having multiple different attack types." It even adds in that you might not even need to pay points for some of them at all (as in 0 PP) simply because really rarely used ones can instead just be acquired using the power stunting system in the game.

Bitching that M&M's arrays are breaking the rules is like claiming D&D's magic system being Vancian is breaking the rules when both are part of the foundations of their power/magic systems.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1102469Fuck me! How many pages? How many of the text could be shaved of without losing the essence? Yeah, that's so not for me! I'll stay with older Champions versions, the ones with the rules in it.

Champions Complete. The entire game in 240 pages for $10.00. That's all you need. We've been playing Hero for three years on a regular basis with nothing but CC and Hero Builder (the computer character creation program.) Our GM has the 8 pounds of books, sitting on the shelf. Never used.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1102574Will check out the SRD and see if it floats my boat. If so then the book goes to my wish list for when I have the money/permission from the wife to buy yet another book!

MM3 is a great system, but our assessment was it was almost as complex as Hero and provided the about the same results, so we went back.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1102646They took out the adjustment powers automatic limit on Power Frameworks in 6th edition. And literally made it an additional limitation. So that adjustment powers do not affect the frameworks that way as a default.

Did I mention? 6th Edition made literally everything about the game system more complicated.

On this we agree. HERO 4E was 220 pages, 6E "simplified" the game by adding about 800 pages... and removed the soul of the game while they were at it. :confused:

Quote from: Aglondir;1102654MM3 is a great system, but our assessment was it was almost as complex as Hero and provided the about the same results, so we went back.

Whereas our group found M&M 3e is a step down in complexity from M&M 2e and quite a few steps below HERO. It's closer during the character creation process, but falls off precipitously in actual play.

I can mainly attribute this to a number of interrelated factors; 1) No Endurance tracking, 2) no SPD phases, 3) familiarity with d20-system derived mechanics (roll + modifier vs. DC; high roll is always good), 4) no bucketfuls of dice you have to read two ways for damage resolution and, related to that, 5) one health track instead of two (BODY and STUN).

A major unrelated one on the GM side is... No bonus build points for non-mechanical complications (i.e. DNPC's, Hunteds, Secret/Public Identities, etc.) or the associated headaches of managing that; no players trying to min-max their flaws for maximum gain at minimum cost and, particularly, none of what I call Supporting Characters Pile-ups* or the player trying to hog the limelight by leveraging multiple high occurrence DNPCs and Hunteds to keep the story always about what's going on with them**

There are other factors, like not even pretending you need a battle map and general over complexity of rules (ex. turning rules for flight, non-combat movement vs. combat movement [an artifact of trying to keep combat on a single tabletop map], etc. ... there's a reason everyone I've ever played Champions with has compared its task resolution negatively to BattleTech), but just the stuff above was more than enough for the people I play with to pick M&M 3e over HERO (even 4e) every time.

* A Supporting Character Pile-up is where the rolls the GM is supposed to be making for every session regarding those DNPCs/Hunteds indicated that multiple of each should be coming into play in the same session. The problem being that you either use them as rolled, which can completely derail the entire session with unrelated elements, or (which I think many players kinda bank on) you ignore them because they're too much of a hassle and let the PCs clever enough to put most of their flaws into those sort of categories have free build points relative to the other players (who took more physical flaws that actually impact them without derailing whole sessions) without having to pay for them.

** I once had a fellow player try to present a PC in HERO who had five DNPCs (slightly less powerful, useful non-combat positions and skills; very frequent; 10 pt. each), five hunteds (less powerful; mildly punish; very frequent; 10 pt. each) and TEN rivals (romantic and professional; less powerful/inferior). I'm not entirely sure whether they were hoping for their 20 member supporting cast to keep the sessions always focused on their issues or if they were banking on that may rolls for involvement meaning they're de facto never going to be able to all be employed at once because the GM's immediate reaction was "not just 'no', HELL NO!" Regardless, M&M 3e's complication system means PCs get rewarded when they come up (Hero Points) AND when they don't (no complications that session), but they don't get any extra build points out of it so whoever is GMing doesn't have to decide if a particular complication is actually worth the points the player thinks it should be.

Psst! The biggest secret to rein in flaws/disadvantage/etc. negative point choices is reserve them as rewards.

In fact, you can attach the XP system dirctly to Flaws, so that as PCs progress they become more flawed, more "complex." So no flaws until you earn them through play. Hey, it's how every major superhero became what they are, (with their tortured melodramas, roster of villains, and vast supporting cast,) by adding them slowly over time.

Just a thought! No longer just starting points for power, but a play reward goal that has to be built up through play.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1102688Psst! The biggest secret to rein in flaws/disadvantage/etc. negative point choices is reserve them as rewards.

In fact, you can attach the XP system dirctly to Flaws, so that as PCs progress they become more flawed, more "complex." So no flaws until you earn them through play. Hey, it's how every major superhero became what they are, (with their tortured melodramas, roster of villains, and vast supporting cast,) by adding them slowly over time.

Just a thought! No longer just starting points for power, but a play reward goal that has to be built up through play.

That's pretty much M&M's approach. Complications aren't worth any build points, but give a reward (Hero Points) whenever they actually come up.

Quote from: Chris24601;1102686but just the stuff above was more than enough for the people I play with to pick M&M 3e over HERO (even 4e) every time.

I happen to agree with those that prefer M&M3e to HERO (of any edition), so shouldn't this be a discussion of removing arrays/alternate effects from M&M3e then?