mzum
New Member
Posts: 10 
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Post by mzum on Sept 8, 2014 21:15:25 GMT -8
It occured to me that most of the character card does not change during a session. Life Points and Power Points do however.
If implemented as Thresholds (you can't go over the listed threshold OR ELSE), functionality is changed minimally, and everything on the card functions the similarly.
A few possible additional perks:
+Fewer Life point cards on the table at any given time; they can simply be dealt out as players take damage.
+ Power points can be reflavored as Stress/Strain/Fatigue. Not every Joe throws fireballs. As a threshold we can use yhe Power Point value to track exhaustion, fear, or what have you. It also gives SimpleSmiths an easy mechanic to bolt onto.
Take a Zombie apocalypse setting for example. The GM might allow players to take stress to perform an extra move/attempt. Over your threshold? Take a Complication (lowering all checks) until you fix that up.
Thoughts?
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Post by aetesaki on Sept 9, 2014 3:28:05 GMT -8
I agree that some scenarios would work better with negative points, but for most positive points are more fitting.
But, then, if you make such a scenario, you can provide the cards you need.
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mzum
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Posts: 10
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Post by mzum on Sept 9, 2014 5:12:02 GMT -8
What I like about the threshold concept: it models extreme effort, with minimum fuss. It's a more "generic" mechanic. Certainly not necessary. Being able to mechanically show characters pushing their limits is awesome. The wizard/superhero/fighter performing at the end of their rope, and taking a complication(s) as a result... That's what stories are made of. I can see other ways to model it... (Spending points past zero gives a complication for the encounter). Possibly this is something to be handled purely through setting cards. I do think "Power Points" is a term with connotations (possibly only for those of us who've played certain rpg's  ). It might be worth a line about in the rulebook emphasizing how flexible Power Points are (not just for supers/aliens/magicians). |
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Ziphion
Full Member
Resident Mathematician
Posts: 132
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Post by Ziphion on Sept 9, 2014 5:38:47 GMT -8
This is awesome, I love this. Change Life cards to "Damage", change Power cards to "Fatigue", and the GM hands those to the players instead of the players handing them to the GM. It can also apply to Dying cards, which don't need a name change! I also love the idea of going beyond one's limits with Fatigue and getting complications for it.
You know, this has a really great side benefit: each Simple System boxed set doesn't have to have as many cards in it. As is, everyone needs a lot of cards to hold onto when at full capacity, and so each physical set needs that many Life cards, Dying cards etc. With this, the likelihood of everyone being near-death is much lower than everyone being at full health, so you don't need as many Damage cards as the sum of the players' Life Point totals, and you definitely don't need three Dying cards for each character (because that would be a total party kill anyway)! Yay for cost savings!
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mzum
New Member
Posts: 10
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Post by mzum on Sept 9, 2014 6:05:09 GMT -8
This is awesome, I love this. Change Life cards to "Damage", change Power cards to "Fatigue", and the GM hands those to the players instead of the players handing them to the GM. It can also apply to Dying cards, which don't need a name change! I also love the idea of going beyond one's limits with Fatigue and getting complications for it. You know, this has a really great side benefit: each Simple System boxed set doesn't have to have as many cards in it. As is, everyone needs a lot of cards to hold onto when at full capacity, and so each physical set needs that many Life cards, Dying cards etc. With this, the likelihood of everyone being near-death is much lower than everyone being at full health, so you don't need as many Damage cards as the sum of the players' Life Point totals, and you definitely don't need three Dying cards for each character (because that would be a total party kill anyway)! Yay for cost savings! Precisely! I could see scenarios where Power Points/Fatigue got out of control, however (if we allowed them to stack beyond the Threshold). Everyone would be encourage to have up to their threshold, with others going over. Easiest to have a 'hard' cap at the Threshold level; Fatigue over that level gives you a complication instead. |
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Post by Dashing Inventor on Sept 9, 2014 8:22:16 GMT -8
I think this idea is inspired mzum, truly. I've been thinking it over since you posted it, and there is really only one drawback that I can think of so far: it would require players to compare totals from their Character Cards to what they are dealt during the course of an action sequence. When a character has run out of life points or power points, there is no question about it in their mind because they don't physically possess any more of those cards. It's the difference between playing with what you have and what you don't have. It may not seem like much, but it's asking a lot more from players than just turning in cards as they are spent as in the current scheme. I had been planning to comment on alternatives to using the support deck for a while, but since it has come up here I may as well touch on it. Instead of using the provided cards, you could easily pick up a couple bags of gaming stones or a box of poker chips of different colors to keep track life points, dying points, power points, hero points, and story points. To be quite honest with you that is what I intend to do with my games, for several reasons: - Takes up less space on the table
- Poker chips are fun to play with
- They are easier to distinguish from one another than cards, easier to handle, and faster to deal
The reason the physical box sets are coming with cards is because I didn't want to ask anyone to have to provide their own materials to play, and because it would have been too expensive to include another medium such as poker chips. |
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mzum
New Member
Posts: 10
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Post by mzum on Sept 9, 2014 10:45:13 GMT -8
A good point. With new characters this isn't much of a problem (Ability's are so low). For the most part, the relatively low numbers we're dealing with alleviate potential arithmetic problems: Characters drop really fast.
At level 6 this could be more of a problem.
On another note: Poker Chips are an RPG's friend.
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Post by paulooshun on Sept 10, 2014 0:36:43 GMT -8
This is ingenious.
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Post by directedbyme on Sept 10, 2014 10:07:18 GMT -8
I think having tokens is a better idea! Whether they come in the box or not. Less cars, less clutter! I think the fatique/damage system could work. What about a card that has numbers on it and you place your token on the number therefore you have no math to do. The card could also have modifiers or damage effects on it.
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Post by SirManCub on Sept 19, 2014 4:58:05 GMT -8
I think this idea is inspired mzum, truly. I've been thinking it over since you posted it, and there is really only one drawback that I can think of so far: it would require players to compare totals from their Character Cards to what they are dealt during the course of an action sequence. When a character has run out of life points or power points, there is no question about it in their mind because they don't physically possess any more of those cards. It's the difference between playing with what you have and what you don't have. It may not seem like much, but it's asking a lot more from players than just turning in cards as they are spent as in the current scheme. I had been planning to comment on alternatives to using the support deck for a while, but since it has come up here I may as well touch on it. Instead of using the provided cards, you could easily pick up a couple bags of gaming stones or a box of poker chips of different colors to keep track life points, dying points, power points, hero points, and story points. To be quite honest with you that is what I intend to do with my games, for several reasons: - Takes up less space on the table
- Poker chips are fun to play with
- They are easier to distinguish from one another than cards, easier to handle, and faster to deal
The reason the physical box sets are coming with cards is because I didn't want to ask anyone to have to provide their own materials to play, and because it would have been too expensive to include another medium such as poker chips. Especially for long-term games, one could really replace any of the support deck cards with scenario-appropriate materials. If you're playing a wild west game, for instance, use poker chips for hero points, and little bullet-shaped tokens for life points. |
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). It might be worth a line about in the rulebook emphasizing how flexible Power Points are (not just for supers/aliens/magicians).
