"Based on something in the setting vs. out of thin air" though has nothing to do with "In Character vs. Out of Character".  Just because I'm drawing on things available in the setting or the current situation doesn't mean I'm doing it from the point of view of the character or that whatever mechanic I'm using is something my character is capable of or even knows about.

Quote from: CRKrueger;895972It's actually pretty good as a superhero comic book storytelling game.

This is the nicest thing you've ever said about my stuff. Thank you.

Cheers,
Cam

Quote from: Arminius;896181But if I'm in a firefight and I duck behind a wall, reminding the GM that I get a +2 for cover is nothing like spending a point and narrating a wall into existence to justify my arbitrary +2.

This reminds me of Dogville movie.

Quote from: Nexus;896188AIU, Marvel Heroic Role play (and I guess other Cortex games) seems fall in some middle ground between outright scene editing and "traditional". You can't, afaik, really call things into existence. It has to be justified in some way by the ongoing reality in the game. The GM/players can veto things that don't make sense. The terminology "creating an Asset/Resource, etc" isn't literally pulling it out thin air. If your character is an area described a a broad open field you can't declare you jump behind a wall for cover unless you have some ability, like mutant Earth Mastery, to create one. There's going to be allot of edge cases though and the game is very handwave driven in many ways.

The influence here was from Robin Laws' Feng Shui, which explicitly allows players to create things in the scene as props for their stunts and attacks, within the context of the location that's already been described. So, if the GM says you're having a fight in a bar, it's pretty obvious there are bar stools, so you can say that you're picking up a bar stool and swinging it into the head of a dude and everyone else at the table should go with that.

What I went for in MHR was having that be the case in general, but also that if you wanted the thing you've just narrated into the scene to have some kind of actual dramatic weight ("this bar stool really matters in this panel, see how I've drawn it hitting the guy in the head with a loud CRACK") you have to spend game currency to give it a die and add it to your pool. You could describe using a bar stool to hit somebody with if you don't spend the die, but it doesn't add any dice and is just color.

Cheers,
Cam

AFAICT. "Moving behind cover" In MHRP is creating an Asset or a Resource (using a scene Distinction i a certain way) or.  in Hero System is making a half move or taking a Dive for Cover action but they're both in character actions just described differently mechanics and terminology wise. The character still decided to take cover and took in game actions to do so.

Quote from: Cam Banks;896192This is the nicest thing you've ever said about my stuff. Thank you.

Cheers,
Cam

You're welcome.  I also said a while ago,

Quote from: CRKrueger;697402Emulating Comic Books and their narrative tropes isn't what I'm looking for in a roleplaying game, but I will have to say if I was, MHR looks like it does it really really well.

So, while I'm not your audience, I applaud your ability.  Also you've always been a good sport on forums, even when you're getting piled on. :hatsoff:

Also, for people like me who aren't all that narrative, you might want to check out a Cortex+ system for the dice pools.  I do think it's interesting the way you can customize the die pools for what you're trying to accomplish, and you don't have to go Full.Story with the rest of the mechanics either.

I still think the way you construct the die pools in the system is interesting and could be used in a kind of Over The Edge or Barbarian of Lemuria way without necessarily having Effect Dice passed around.

Quote from: Cam Banks;896195The influence here was from Robin Laws' Feng Shui, which explicitly allows players to create things in the scene as props for their stunts and attacks, within the context of the location that's already been described. So, if the GM says you're having a fight in a bar, it's pretty obvious there are bar stools, so you can say that you're picking up a bar stool and swinging it into the head of a dude and everyone else at the table should go with that.

What I went for in MHR was having that be the case in general, but also that if you wanted the thing you've just narrated into the scene to have some kind of actual dramatic weight ("this bar stool really matters in this panel, see how I've drawn it hitting the guy in the head with a loud CRACK") you have to spend game currency to give it a die and add it to your pool. You could describe using a bar stool to hit somebody with if you don't spend the die, but it doesn't add any dice and is just color.

Cheers,
Cam

That's how I understood it. It didn't seem "out of character". The character is still deciding to do things, interact with their environment and make choices based on their personalities, goals and tactical choices. The degree of scene control seems to be really context and group based. You could go completely gonzo with it but its not required and baseline assumption seems to be near a "traditional" game with more freedom of narration. I wouldn't have a problem with a player saying the snatch up a bar stool in a bar right even if I hadn't explicitly described them being there. The "narrative weight" issue can be funky (it was for my group) but Hero System has some similar blurry issues when it comes to Mechanics vs Special Effect. MHRP seems to lean more toward the story driven side of things.

and, IIRC, there are some story/plot manipulation things that GMs and players can spend PP and Doom pool on?

MHR can be played across quite a spectrum of comfort levels with things like truly story-like assets (such as "New York protects its own!") at one end and explicitly physics-based assets (like "sack of hammers!") at the other. I've seen some folks play it super light on the story assets and hard on the gear/physics/defined environment assets, and vice versa.

The reason it ended up this way is that I don't personally have a strong preference one way or the other - I am just as happy playing D&D as I am playing Gumshoe or Dogs in the Vineyard. When I'm designing games I usually aim for some kind of intended play experience but once folks get hold of an RPG they're going to play it however the hell they want to.

Cheers,
Cam

The idea of "narrative weight" and "color" right there is what makes it OOC. A person doesn't pick up a stool and swing it because it looks badass to some audience on the other side of the fourth wall. They do it because it will effectively scare enemies and break heads. So you either do it and you're done, or you don't do it. The player's decision to spend a point and define the action as narratively weighty instead of color doesn't correspond to anything the character can think or do.

Rolleyes at the incoming rule zero apologia.

Quote from: Cam Banks;896201MHR can be played across quite a spectrum of comfort levels with things like truly story-like assets (such as "New York protects its own!") at one end and explicitly physics-based assets (like "sack of hammers!") at the other. I've seen some folks play it super light on the story assets and hard on the gear/physics/defined environment assets, and vice versa.

The reason it ended up this way is that I don't personally have a strong preference one way or the other - I am just as happy playing D&D as I am playing Gumshoe or Dogs in the Vineyard. When I'm designing games I usually aim for some kind of intended play experience but once folks get hold of an RPG they're going to play it however the hell they want to.

Cheers,
Cam

That makes sense. One of the stumbling blocks my supers group ran into with was the concept of "narrative weight". They did things that made sense in the context of the situation as always and it felt "in character" but the mechanics didn't acknowledge unless they could pay for it which felt jarring. To be fair, it was similar to how Hero System used to handle improvised weapons in Superheroic campaigns in that way.

On the plus side, it is really good at handling the more improvisational and out there uses of powers seen in comics in an elegant way that holds together with the rest of the rules. And if played in a highly narrative mode is does a good job simulating crafting a comic book story. That's just not what we wanted at the time.

Quote from: Cam Banks;896192This is the nicest thing you've ever said about my stuff. Thank you.

Cheers,
Cam

Someone on a different board mention that Marvel Heroic was designed to play a comic book, rather than play superheroes.  Which in my opinion fits the game perfectly.  It's also something I actively do not want in my games (Not saying it's bad, to be clear, just not my thing.)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;896209Someone on a different board mention that Marvel Heroic was designed to play a comic book, rather than play superheroes.  Which in my opinion fits the game perfectly.  It's also something I actively do not want in my games (Not saying it's bad, to be clear, just not my thing.)

If the system was more granular and, for lack of a better term, crunchy, I'd probably be willing to use it in a lower narrative mode. One of my group really like it.

Nexus, when you're talking about games that have OOC mechanics you have two things happening.  The character is doing what they are doing, engaging mechanics like normal and the player is engaging mechanics the character has no knowledge of and doesn't represent so much the character action as a modifier, clarifier, enabler of the character action.  You're doing two things at once.  For a lot of people, because the OOC stuff is tied to what the character is doing, they see it as all the same thing and it doesn't seem jarring or interrupting the roleplaying.  Not everyone wants to do those two things at once.  The fact that you like it or that it doesn't bother you doesn't turn two things into one thing.

Also, the general gist I'm getting so far is that a Narravist game allows a non-GM player to edit the scene, whether by adding, removing or otherwise altering something the GM has already placed, usually by some (and often, in my opinion contrived) mechanic that 'allows' them to do so.

This is pretty much what everyone has either agreed, or said, in this thread that's been consistent.