Which brings me to the rubber science here. The character can "manipulate light" -- that's the Cause. Okay. So lasers, invisibility, holograms -- I'll give you all of that.
But the "hard photons" for flying and armor just reek of game mechanics. That's bending the Cause to allow game-essential abilities (if he can't fly and stop bullets, he's not going to be much of a superhero, so we come up with "hard photons").
It seems that doing Cause-based powers should include some kind of ground rules about how much rubber science you're going to allow. Can a super-speedster like the Flash accomplish pretty much any damned thing by running around in a circle really fast?
This is why we have effects-based systems, I think. Nobody wants to spend the game arguing about "hard photons" or what you can accomplish with a superfast vortex.
There ought to be some way to keep the best of both worlds -- let the guy with light powers bend the searchlight beams even though he never bought Darkness or Suppress (Change Environment: Light) or whatever. But also allow the GM and any right-thinking player to call BS on the hard photons.
Maybe allow a certain number of "power schticks" based on the Cause? Plausible ones are cheap or free, but ones which require lots of handwaving are expensive? So to get "hard photons" out of your light powers costs a lot of accumulated experience, but learning how to bend light beams is free?
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-04-11 01:25 pm (UTC)Sorry, got a hard photon in my eye.
Which brings me to the rubber science here. The character can "manipulate light" -- that's the Cause. Okay. So lasers, invisibility, holograms -- I'll give you all of that.
But the "hard photons" for flying and armor just reek of game mechanics. That's bending the Cause to allow game-essential abilities (if he can't fly and stop bullets, he's not going to be much of a superhero, so we come up with "hard photons").
It seems that doing Cause-based powers should include some kind of ground rules about how much rubber science you're going to allow. Can a super-speedster like the Flash accomplish pretty much any damned thing by running around in a circle really fast?
This is why we have effects-based systems, I think. Nobody wants to spend the game arguing about "hard photons" or what you can accomplish with a superfast vortex.
There ought to be some way to keep the best of both worlds -- let the guy with light powers bend the searchlight beams even though he never bought Darkness or Suppress (Change Environment: Light) or whatever. But also allow the GM and any right-thinking player to call BS on the hard photons.
Maybe allow a certain number of "power schticks" based on the Cause? Plausible ones are cheap or free, but ones which require lots of handwaving are expensive? So to get "hard photons" out of your light powers costs a lot of accumulated experience, but learning how to bend light beams is free?
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