Cortex Notes

Probability figuring out thing

https://ramblurr.github.io/firefly-rpg-generator/probability.html

http://anydice.com/program/3c71

Examples

http://www.margaretweis.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=288

Core Concepts

Keep in mind that the beating heart of the game is "Build the narrative, then build your pool."

Timed Actions

http://www.margaretweis.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=376&sid=76ae05d782ea96c8061bae1172d637b5

Doom Pool

Does every mechanical action, particularly changes to the Doom Pool including SFX that do so require a narrative justification and description?

Short version? Yes.

Long version: The mechanics exist to resolve the narrative description that's occurring in the action. When the doom pool increases, it's because the action is getting more chaotic and the tide is turning against the PCs in some way; when it decreases, it's because the villains are running out of steam as they use their big guns and the action is swinging back toward the heroes. Tie the mechanics to the narrative, and not the other way around. PCs have to describe how they're using their dice as well as what they're doing, and the same is true for the Watcher, though a little less explicitly in some instances. (Like, you don't necessarily need to say the villain's Distinction, but you should make reference to it in the narration.)

If you hand a player 3 PP for 3d6 to the doom pool, you have three dice to activate three different things. If you hand him 1 PP, you give the PCs less resources to draw on and you only get d10; you can activate a bigger thing (like keeping an extra d10 for a total), but you can only do one thing with it. It's not that one has an extra payoff. It's that they're different options for different situations.

Scene/Location Distinctions

When I'm using these dice, I follow the same rule of thumb as the Difficulty die table. So, if it's a little dark, it'd be a D6, but if it's midnight, it'd be a D10. In total pitch black darkness, the die would be a D12. The majority of my scene Traits are between a D6 and a D10, normally, with D12 representing an extreme circumstance. In your hospital example, the size comes into play, with small being a lower die and larger being a higher die type.

Stress

"Mental stress includes confusion, disorientation, "brain fog," and being incapable of making decisions or putting two thoughts together. It is very different from emotional stress, as it is largely connected to rational thinking and perception while emotional stress is being overwhelmed by emotional triggers, such as sadness, anger, frustration, even joy or lust. Stress is an impediment to doing something, so think of any type of stress as an impediment: physical, mental, or emotional."

Order of Operations

Marvel OM48 has this (key points underlined):

FIND THE TOTAL AND EFFECT DIE

Roll the dice. Choose two dice and add them together as your total. Any dice that come up 1 are opportunities and they’re set aside. At this point, you can spend a Plot Point to include a third die from the remaining dice on the table—you can add as many dice to the total as you have Plot Points you want to spend. Then announce the total.

Marvel OM49 goes on to say:

THE REACTION ROLL

After you've rolled the dice for the action and there’s a total and an effect die, your opponent gets to roll a reaction.

Then Marvel OM50:

RESOLVING ACTION

Once you have the two totals (action and reaction) you can compare them to each other. You’re looking to see if your opponent’s reaction total is greater than your action total. If this is the case, your action fails.

The sequence is divided into discrete stages, and there's no suggestion of the player making the action roll being able to further boost the total after the reaction roll.

Complications

Basically, the way MHR represents hindrances against a character mechanically is not in a restriction on what that character can do with their action (as in something like D&D 4th Edition, where the "Dazed" condition, for example, limits characters to a single action per turn of any type), but rather in giving any character a freebie die that they may choose to use in actions against the Complicated character. The same is true of Stress: Stress doesn't stop a character from doing something (usually), but their opponent can use it against them.

So we have a new round. Last round, Spider-Man was able to put a d8 "Covered in Webs" complication on Doctor Octopus. For Doctor Octopus' turn, he is not *restricted* from being able to use a die from his Robotic Tentacles power set, or the Stretching, Superhuman Strength or Enhanced Reflexes from it, to act against Spider-Man. But, when he attempts to use Stretching to grab with his robo-tentacles Spider-Man's leg, Spider-Man can choose whether or not (and spoiler alert, if you've inflicted a complication on someone, you probably want to use it against them, because *why create it* otherwise?) to use the "Covered in Webs" complication as a die in his own reaction pool.

Let's say Spider-Man chooses to use it in the reaction pool; he narrates it, as part of his reaction, that the webs keep getting in the way of Doc Ock's tentacles, keeping them from moving as quickly, and Spider-Man uses his Superhuman Reflexes to dodge out of the way.

In other words, to use a Complication (or stress) against a character who has one applied to them, it's on the person initiating the action (or rolling the reaction) to decide (a) if they are taking the Complication die in their pool and (b) how they are using it (subject to Watcher approval, naturally, but usually it's not too hard to make up something in the narrative or tailor one's action/reaction to incorporate it).

Keep in mind that the beating heart of the game is "Build the narrative, then build your pool." When you describe a complication you're trying to inflict on someone, that's "how the complication works" in the first place. It just gets a die attached to it to model the penalty in mechanical fashion, and instead of making it be this thing that tells players "you can't do X", it's this thing that says to players "if you want to use this thing when you perform an action, you get a bonus die".

Complications that might not affect you

Wouldn't the part in italics (mine) mean that in the example being bandied about, Emma would retain the ability to make telepathic actions, since being webbed up doesn't hinder them?

Yes, and no.

Mechanically speaking, someone who is "stressed out" or "complicated out" is removed from the action order, and cannot take actions of their own (they can still be targeted by ally or enemy actions, and can explicitly still make reaction rolls to avoid taking more stress or trauma, though obviously with a complication this must remain within reason).

Narratively speaking, I would say it's at the Watcher's discretion whether they can still do things that affect the narrative even when not in the order themselves (for example, she could telepathically ask an ally to come remove the webs from her). This is something I'd say is appropriate to allow for PCs but not to do for NPCs necessarily; even though rounds and action scenes are usually pretty quick, it's still pretty nice to allow PCs to still affect the narrative in some small way if they're stressed out.

That being said, a stressed/complicated out character can also be helped by an ally back into the fight with an appropriate power or support action (let's say this example is an Avengers vs. X-Men style superhero fight, and Emma has Cyclops on her side to blast her out of Spidey's webs; the Watcher can say that Cyclops can take an action against the Doom Pool to try and blast away the webs, and that successfully stepping it down would allow Emma to take actions in the action order again).

You might say that somebody who is "complicated out" is not in any real position to do anything requiring focused effort, whether or not it's physical or mental complication. On the other hand, sure, perhaps this is something Emma can reliably do despite being entirely encased in webs or rusted metal or whatever, in which case, this is why you don't just snare the psychic Omega-level mutant, you knock her out.

This particular thing is a game contrivance, really. Cause the game is designed to emulate a universe in which a powerful multiversal being was defeated by a teenager and her squirrels. In other words, it's meant to play where anyone can take down anyone else

Watcher and Assets

Can Watcher characters create Assets?

Yes, and quite easily - as Watcher characters don't roll against Doom, any situation where you would roll against Doom, just assume you succeeded, pick the highest die from the pool you would have built, and use that as the effect die. Creating assets with Watcher characters (and Grandstanding - adding an effect die straight to the Doom Pool) is a quick way to resolve a minor character's turn and move on to more important characters.

Watcher Notes and Gameplay Balance

1. This is very important for people to understand about the system. When you look closely at the Events and some of the text that can be easily glossed over, you see some interesting tidbits:

2. Players can generate nearly limitless Plot Points, fairly easily, as long as they put themselves in danger.

3. The Watcher is only supposed to establish 1-3 Scene Distinctions at any given time. Adding more costs Doom.

4. The Watcher is often advised to make reinforcements and additional villains cost Doom Dice (you see this in action in Breakout, but it's only passingly mentioned in Civil War).

5. Arrogant villains often "grandstand," which adds to the Doom Pool, but notably takes an action. Same with villains Supporting one another; it's free (no dice roll), but it costs an action. This makes named villains in small groups (without mobs or lackeys) work a very specific way, as they'll be losing actions if they do too much grandstanding or Supporting.

It's a very structured, interesting play experience that provides balance in a way completely different from CR ratings or XP budgets.

Limits

If I may piggyback a question on this thread, how do you handle a situation in MHR where a character takes stress/trauma from mere exposure to something and NOT from the result of any other character's attack action? For example, a vampire bursting into flames upon exposure to sunlight.

Generally speaking, one would model it as a Limit attached to a Power Set; in fact, Limits are exactly the kind of thing the game intends you to use to model those weaknesses, since it's an important genre conceit that superheroes have flaws and weaknesses, and therefore every Power Set a character has has at least one Limit, if not more.

Let's say we had Power Set: Vampirism, and all kinds of goodies related to folkloric or literary vampires (mind control, gaseous form, bat form, etc.). We attach to it a Limit that says "Vulnerable to Sunlight: Add d6 physical Stress, or step up existing physical stress by one, and gain 1 Plot Point (PP)*, when fighting in direct sunlight; if affected by a light-based attack, step up the stress inflicted by one", or something like that. This model probably represents significant danger to the PC, since it could (and probably would) keep stepping up the longer the vampire is in sunlight, unless the character is able to use their action to move away or otherwise neutralize the sunlight.

If sunlight doesn't *hurt* the vampire per se, but makes it harder for them to Be A Vampire, the Limit might instead read something like: "Gain 1 PP and shut down one trait from Power Set: Vampirism (or possibly the whole Power Set). Recover by activating a Watcher opportunity, or by making a recovery action vs. the Doom Pool".

You could also turn it into a complication in the same way; let's say sunlight forces the vampire to go to his gaseous form, and he can't interact with the world until he gets into darkness or a shadow; "Gain 1 PP and turn <Power Trait> (probably Shapeshifting or Intangibility) into a complication; recover by activating an opportunity or making a recovery action against the Doom Pool."

Because it's a narratively-focused game, and generally player-driven, a player choosing to activate their own character's limit usually gains a PP for doing so, unless it's a limit like Conscious Activation, where the power set is simply shut down under certain conditions; the Watcher can also burn doom dice to activate a character's Limit, but the character always has the opportunity to do so first in order to gain the PP.

Grappling

Would grappling be an attempt to inflict physical stress, add a complication or both/either?

Typically, I assume that initiating a grapple is creating a complication (that is removed immediately when the grapple ends), but continuing the grapple can easily be physical stress (once you've grappled, you're in a better position to inflict actual harm).

Area Effect

It has been suggested by several folks that since a push die costs 1PP, Area Effect the SFX is too powerful. With that, it requires no additional PP cost, you just add a target. It has been suggested that a d4 is a better choice.

Chases

How should I adjudicate a chase? Did I just miss the rules on this? Do I just check the relative movement powers and highest wins? How about an alley foot chase or being chased by a jaguar through the jungle?

More importantly, how do I narrate it and make it interesting?

Option 1

Well, there's been some entire posts written on suggestions for this, and I think a couple of blog postings too. A common suggestion is to have a Complication on the other side of the chase and step it up to d12+ to capture them, or to elude your pursuit. A variation on this (particularly in chases with a large number on the other side of the contest, as complicating out all of them might be too daunting a prospect) is to allow for an Asset to be stepped up beyond a d12+ in order to "win" in such a contest.

Another suggestion is to have a "chase die", which represents the distance between the two parties in some relatively abstract manner. Start it around d8 (for a balanced contest); the fleeing side needs to succeed in order to raise the die, the pursuers lower it when then succeed. If it drops below d4, the pursuers win; it increased beyond a d12, the pursued make their getaway.

For myself, I kind of like the idea of using the Leverage contest method: each side keeps going back and forth, attempting to continue beating their opponents last total, and if they fail they loose. For me, this works well with a lot of actors on both sides, as each person can roll individually and anyone failing has to drop out of the chase at that point, so can model just some of the group getting away, or some pursuers just falling too far behind, without needing quite some many rolls as the Complication/Asset methods.

Option 2

In MHR, every die should be something that can be added into a pool at some point, so using dice purely as tracks shouldn't be adopted. However, a chase die works because it represents the inherent advantage that the fleeing character has (distance). Treat it as an asset for the fleeing character to use in pools or a complication for those pursuing the character, one that the chasing characters are trying to step back with their effect dice and the fleeing character is trying to step up. On any action, a pursuing character may try to step back the chase die (closing the distance), try to make an attack on the fleeing character (in which case the chase die is added to the reaction pool to represent distance), or somehow create a complication on the fleeing character (which may or may not involve the chase die, and often doesn't - using elemental powers to rip up the road to make it harder to run, summoning lightning bolts to dog the target's chase, etc). A fleeing character can do the opposite: try to step up the chase die (widening the distance), attack back at the pursuer (chase die adds to the target's reaction pool, however), and so forth.

What's key in this situation is that simply running and maintaining the chase die at a neutral step (neither stepping it up or back) shouldn't really require an action or an effect die of its own. We tend to just assume characters can move in MHR, and only require them to roll movement powers when they're trying to do something significant, like catching up to a fleeing character. So, even if the two characters do nothing but snipe at each other while they run, the chase die stays at the level it's at, and acts as a complication to both.

A Sample Scion Conversion

When I designed a quick-and-dirty conversion, I wrote it as follows:

Legend: d8 Heroic, d10 Demigod, d12 God

Fatebonds: d8 or d4+1pp Heroic, d10 or d4+2pp Demigod, d12 or auto 1 + 2pp God

Power Set (Heritage): Max Powers d8 Heroic, d10 Demigod, d12 God

Power Set (Panoply): Max Ranks d8 Heroic, d10 Demigod, d12 God

Specialties: go up to d10.

Extra Rules: Heroes can only spend 1 PP to add a third die to a result.

Demigods can spend up to 2 PP to add dice to a result.

Gods always add a third die to their results, and can spend 2 PP to add dice.

This makes gods pretty devastating; 4d12 + d10 keep 3 is a lot stronger than 5d8 keep 2.