DFRPG In Other Time P... *AHEM!* Yadda-Yadda, Something About Claws and Stuff.

[Mr. Death]

Honestly, I'd argue a supernatural martial artist ought to have a mix of the supernatural and mortal stunts. Mix Inhuman Strength with Lethal Weapon and Killer Blows.

Otherwise, I completely agree with Orladdin. The RPG is not just about mechanical benefit vs. mechanical cost. Powers work a certain way not just because it's a given shift value for a given refresh cost--they have reasons for what they do in the narrative and aspects associated with it.

A vampire gets +2 to its Fists damage not just because it spent a refresh for it; it gets the +2 because it has big, noticeable knives attached to its hands.

PS: Retractable claws would definitely get Human Form to work either way; if they're retractable, that means that they're not going to be cutting anything when they're retracted anyway, so +1 for voluntary transformation.

[UmbraLux]

Eh, they didn't try to reproduce every difference in otherwise similar powers.  No way they could have. 

Modifying existing stunts and powers or even creating your own is expected.  I think that's explicit, but will have to look for the reference another time.

[Sanctaphrax]

Actually, mechanics are about mechanical benefit vs mechanical cost. And the mandatoriness of Claws is a mechanical concern. The other stuff, while important, should be handled in other ways.

Orladdin, your argument is wrong. Looking weird is actually not bad, since it earns you Fate Points. That's why players who have characters with no appearance-altering powers choose to have their characters look inhuman. And it's why Human Guise is free.

So removing the silly restriction on Claws's appearance does not make Claws stronger.

And if it did, it wouldn't be a problem. Because Claws really isn't that strong.

PS: Technically, Human Form doesn't work for retractable Claws. Retracting your claws is not shapeshifting. But that's a part of the rules that really should be ignored, like the rules for Claws visibility. The thing that really ticks me off is that Human Form is an advantage in this case.
PPS: Mr. Death, you've done a fair bit of writing for DFRPG. If you do more of it, I am fairly certain that you will eventually come to realize that what I'm saying here is true. Writing good mechanics for this game is so, so, so much easier when you look at things my way.

[Pbartender]

Creatures that have claws actually have claws.  They don't just hit harder (unless they have supernatural strength, which is provided as a separate power).  Claws as a power was written to be claws.

Not exactly...  Reread the power. 

"You have claws, fangs, or other natural weapons that let you add damage when attacking with your “bare” hands."  -YS162

"You have claws (or something similar) which act as Weapon:2 for your Fists attacks." -YS162

"Could you take Claws multiple times so you have, say, claws AND fangs?" -YS162 [Harry's comment at the bottom of the page.]

It doesn't have to be claws, really, just anything that makes your natural attacks -- "Fists" -- more powerful.  It could be claws, fangs, spines, horns, antlers, hooves, a stinger on a tail, an ankle spur, razor-like bone ridges, or unusually hard knuckles.

It just has to be something that's A) natural, rather than supernatural, and B) obvious to the casual observer.

[Orladdin]

...It just has to be something that's A) natural, rather than supernatural, and B) obvious to the casual observer.

You are correct-- and I was considering that.  I just didn't feel like writing "claws/fangs/protrusions/etc." everywhere I was talking about the feature.  My argument still stands.

Orladdin, your argument is wrong. Looking weird is actually not bad, since it earns you Fate Points....

So removing the silly restriction on Claws's appearance does not make Claws stronger.

I'm not saying looking weird is a "bad" thing.  I'm saying that (claws) + (ability to hide them) > (claws) + (no ability to hide them).  One of these you have more choices than the other.  Period.  With one you can choose to have them visible or hidden.  With the other you cannot.  Let me spell that out in a way that is more "mechanical" for you:

(Choices) > (No Choices)

And to answer the next point I find you'll make; yes, I understand that "looking weird" can generate fate points.  You can still get those same Fate Points if you have claws that you're capable of hiding.  If someone catches you with them out, boom fate points.  And then you can hide them after.  Choices > No choices.

That's why players who have characters with no appearance-altering powers choose to have their characters look inhuman...

Actually, I'd say they do that for narrative flavor.  That's why I do it.

And it's why Human Guise is free.

And human guise isn't strictly free-- it costs you the pure mortal bonus as an opportunity cost.  That's neither here or there though, so, moving on...

PS: Technically, Human Form doesn't work for retractable Claws. Retracting your claws is not shapeshifting...

I was talking about human guise, not human form.  Human guise does let you hide them.

PPS: Mr. Death, you've done a fair bit of writing for DFRPG. If you do more of it, I am fairly certain that you will eventually come to realize that what I'm saying here is true. Writing good mechanics for this game is so, so, so much easier when you look at things my way.

Writing "good" mechanics is so much easier if you ignore anything but raw numbers?  Yeah, I'm sure it is.  Lots of things in life are "easier" if you ignore the bits that you personally aren't good at.  You, personally, are highly skilled at balancing numbers against numbers.  Everyone on the forums knows that.  On the other hand, you've shown time and again that you either aren't able or aren't willing to see how things that aren't numbers can and do provide real, apreciable effects.

Actually, mechanics are about mechanical benefit vs mechanical cost. And the mandatoriness of Claws is a mechanical concern. The other stuff, while important, should be handled in other ways.

The DFRPG is a narrative system.  Suggesting that narrative effects have no mechanical component is ignoring what the entire thing is about.

[Mr. Death]

PS: Technically, Human Form doesn't work for retractable Claws. Retracting your claws is not shapeshifting. But that's a part of the rules that really should be ignored, like the rules for Claws visibility. The thing that really ticks me off is that Human Form is an advantage in this case.

It's shapeshifting inasmuch as Wolverine turns from a dude without claws to a dude with claws--not only his appearance changes but, at will, his claws either apply to his attack or they do not.

PPS: Mr. Death, you've done a fair bit of writing for DFRPG. If you do more of it, I am fairly certain that you will eventually come to realize that what I'm saying here is true. Writing good mechanics for this game is so, so, so much easier when you look at things my way.

Easier, perhaps. But as I've said before, I tend to prefer to work with the rules as written (or at least, not directly contradict or change them) and change what I have in mind to work within the system rather than change the system to accommodate something I have in mind that might not fit the rules.

[Sanctaphrax]

(Choices) > (No Choices)

Not so.

If your lack of a choice concerning your appearance causes trouble, then it earns you a Fate Point. If it doesn't cause trouble, then it costs you nothing.

So there's no situation where the choice is helpful.

Human Guise can probably never remove the Pure Mortal bonus by the RAW, actually. It requires you to have supernatural abilities. Personally, though, I'd ignore that. And I'm fine with supernaturally-flavoured stunts anyway, so there's that.

I don't ignore narrative factors when writing mechanics because I'm bad at them. I think I'm an OK story-teller. But I've learned, from experience, that mixing narrative stuff into your mechanics makes your mechanics bad.

The real, appreciable, effects of narrative stuff are cool, but unless FP are involved they have no mechanical value. That's why even optimized characters in DFRPG have narrative flaws.

This is good. You don't want to make players choose between power and interesting-ness. Good mechanics make it so that the most powerful choices are narratively interesting.

Easier, perhaps. But as I've said before, I tend to prefer to work with the rules as written (or at least, not directly contradict or change them) and change what I have in mind to work within the system rather than change the system to accommodate something I have in mind that might not fit the rules.

This is a mistake on your part, I think. If you intentionally bias yourself towards the RAW, you'll make less good decisions. All bias is to be avoided if possible.

I've seen horrible silliness from D&D 3.5 and Exalted players using your approach on their games, because those games are pretty broken. The good mechanics of this game make it possible to trust the writers implicitly, but they don't make it a good idea. Because while the writers make fewer mistakes here, they don't make none.

(Not sure if that last paragraph made sense, sorry if it didn't.)

[Orladdin]

Not so.

If your lack of a choice concerning your appearance causes trouble, then it earns you a Fate Point. If it doesn't cause trouble, then it costs you nothing.

So there's no situation where the choice is helpful.

This is so completely obviously wrong to me.  I'm feeling very frustrated as to why you don't see it my way.  I am willing to admit there may be something I'm missing here, but it's so rudimentary that I'm just boggled.  Let me go into an example, then, and get your feedback on it, because I think you're either over-valuing Fate Points, I'm under-valuing them, or you're forgetting that compels need to be bought off.


Let's say, hypothetically, that there is something happening in the game where you are inconvenienced for having claws.  We'll call this "the event."

Let's say that for once, it's very important to your character to be able to go through with option A, but your claws being visible (or any other narrative drawback) prevents you from taking option A and forces you to take option B.  It would garner you a Fate Point, sure, but now whatever bad thing happens in B.  If you don't have a Fate Point in this situation:
If you have claws which you can hide, the entire thing is glossed over.  You can take path A if you wish.  Important character event achieved.
If you do not have claws that you can hide (a "narrative" drawback, you claim) you are forced to take option B.  Chance at important character event lost.

The event is one that you don't want to happen.  You have to pay a fate point to avoid it.  On a normal day, you can wander around with your claws out and gather all the fate points you want.  When the rubber hits the road, you're able to hide them.  Retractable claws are simply better than non retractable ones.

(Choices) > (No Choices)

I don't see how you can claim that Choices == No Choices or rather Choices < No Choices.  I'm sorry, but it simply does not compute for me.

[Mr. Death]

This is a mistake on your part, I think. If you intentionally bias yourself towards the RAW, you'll make less good decisions. All bias is to be avoided if possible.

You might think it's a mistake, and that's fine. I just prefer to work with what I'm given, because then it's less to keep track of. And, for the most part, the RAW makes sense to me. I find greater satisfaction in answering the challenge of "How do I get this to work--or a reasonable facsimile--within the rules as they're written?" than in answering "How can I change the rules so I can get what I want?"

Given that I've no experience with Exalted and my experience with D&D of any kind begins and ends with reading The Order of the Stick, I don't feel I can respond to that last graph anyway.

And what's "broken" about the Claws power that it needs fixing? That it doesn't allow you to make a Kung Fu master? As pointed out, there's plenty of other ways to achieve it, and the Claws power doesn't seem to have been meant for that.

The power was written to answer "Okay, this monster has claws, how does that affect its ability in battle?" it wasn't written to answer "How can someone get +2 on his fists attacks and how much refresh would that cost?"

[UmbraLux]

Not so.

If your lack of a choice concerning your appearance causes trouble, then it earns you a Fate Point. If it doesn't cause trouble, then it costs you nothing.

So there's no situation where the choice is helpful.

Have to agree with Orladdin here.  Look at it from the opposite point of view - when a player doesn't want the claws to affect the story the guy who can't choose to hide them has to pay a fate point.  It's a cost.  Sure he can earn fate points...but he'll also have to pay.

The real, appreciable, effects of narrative stuff are cool, but unless FP are involved they have no mechanical value. That's why even optimized characters in DFRPG have narrative flaws.

This is good. You don't want to make players choose between power and interesting-ness. Good mechanics make it so that the most powerful choices are narratively interesting.

Also have to disagree with this.  Particularly for FATE which has mechanics to directly modify the narrative but also in general.  Making the choice is what's interesting.  The sheer number of choices are why people spend time on CharOp boards for a certain popular game.  Something which opens up narrative choice is just as viable.  Take the Changeling and Emissary of Power templates as examples - strip them down to pure mechanics and I don't think you'll have many, if any, differences.  But the choice between them is still valid and interesting.  Are your powers inherited or granted?

This is a mistake on your part, I think. If you intentionally bias yourself towards the RAW, you'll make less good decisions. All bias is to be avoided if possible.

This just seems odd to me - we have to start somewhere.  Particularly on a public forum.  I don't mind home brew at all, in fact I like it and often tweak things to fit what is needed.  But, unless stated otherwise I'm going to evaluate based on the book.

Luckily for both of us, the book explicitly encourages tweaking, modification, and creation of new material!  This is where I think Orladdin goes wrong.  The book itself says changes may / should be made.  Why consider a given power sacrosanct?

I've seen horrible silliness from D&D 3.5 and Exalted players using your approach on their games, because those games are pretty broken. The good mechanics of this game make it possible to trust the writers implicitly, but they don't make it a good idea. Because while the writers make fewer mistakes here, they don't make none.

(Not sure if that last paragraph made sense, sorry if it didn't.)

The last paragraph is another fallacy.  :/  There's no need to argue "this is like something I don't like therefore it's a Bad Thing (TM)".  Particularly when you can make your argument for custom content using the book.   

[Sanctaphrax]

Last paragraph can't be a fallacy, UmbraLux, because it wasn't an argument. It was just an anecdote. Stuff like this fuels my distaste for conversational formal logic.

The main thrust of my argument towards Orladdin can be summed up as follows: Compels are not bad.

The one and only advantage of making your Claws retractable is that you receive fewer Compels. You don't want to receive fewer Compels. If you did, you'd intentionally make your Aspects boring.

And retractable claws or not, you can't choose whether you get compelled or not. You also can't decide how harsh the compels will be. So your supposition that people will leave their Claws out for soft Compels and retract them for hard ones is simply wrong.

The problem with Claws is that it has a pointless flavour restriction. It's just a small piece of silliness, but it bugs me.

Breath Weapon, despite its problems, is a good model for what Claws should be. Breath Weapon can be and is used to represent handfuls of flaming poop. Claws should have the same level of flexibility.

The problem with biasing yourself in favour of RAW is that it makes it impossible to judge the rules accurately. See, Mr Death cannot honestly ask himself how Claws should be written. Because he defers to what's in YS. It's fine to use the canon rules without modification, of course, but you should look at them without bias and without favouritism. That's the only way to accurately see their flaws.

And they have flaws. All things, if complex enough, have flaws.

[UmbraLux]

Last paragraph can't be a fallacy, UmbraLux, because it wasn't an argument. It was just an anecdote. Stuff like this fuels my distaste for conversational formal logic.

We can open a thread on philosophy and use of logic if wish.  To me, it appears you're attacking use of logic to avoid defending the argument.  As for the "anecdote" quoted, it takes the form of "X is bad, Y is similar to X, therefore Y is bad".  Guilt by association in other words. 

In regards to modifying powers, I actually agree with your conclusions.  Just not with your reasons.  The book explicitly supports it and the authors have supported it...all else is gravy.

[Pbartender]

An interesting thing to notice...

Claws, at -1 Refresh, gives you a built-in Weapon:2 with "Fists" that is obvious.

Inhuman Strength, at -2 Refresh, gives you a built-in Weapon:2 with "Fists" that is not obvious, a +3 to Might when breaking or lifting objects, a +1 to Might when grappling, automatic 2 Stress damage as a supplemental action when grappling, and a bonus when using Might to modify rolls.

Granted the two of them can stack, but holy cow...  Inhuman Strength gives you a lot of bonus goodies for that extra -1 Refresh.

In regards to modifying powers, I actually agree with your conclusions.  Just not with your reasons.  The book explicitly supports it and the authors have supported it...all else is gravy.

If fact, they devote more than two pages to guidelines on modifying stunts and powers or building new ones...  YS147-149

Plus the book explicitly states that the Stunts and Powers listed in the book are just examples that can be used as is or as templates for your stunts and powers.  To wit:

"The stunts provided here are examples. We’re giving just a few for each skill but, as indicated above, this is absolutely not intended to be a comprehensive list. When you don’t find something here that suits you, use the guidelines above (page 147) to grow your own."  -YS149

So, for example, one might consider a "Retractable Claws" Power at -1 Refresh, that only gives your "Fists" Weapon:1, but is concealable until used.

[Mr. Death]

I am looking at the rules without bias or favoritism. By just taking them as they are instead of trying to change them when there's an inconvenience. I'm not here to judge the game, I'm here to play it.

One might consider Evocation's three element limit as a "pointless flavor restriction." After all, if the result is a Weapon:5 attack rolled from 5, mechanically speaking it doesn't matter if the element is fire, water, air, or potatoes (things get weird with an Entropomancer in the party). The element is, after all, just flavor, so why not rewrite Evocation to remove the restriction to only three elements?

As for the whole "compels are not bad" thing, I think this goes back to the discussion we've had elsewhere about how other players, many of them, don't just consider the raw mechanics and how many fate points you can get.

Do I want a fate point? Yes. But do I also want to be able to save the damsel/stop the evil wizard/not blow my cool and have to give up a powerful artifact in recompense? Also yes.

Not every compel is something the character or the player wants. That's why the game bribes you with a fate point for it, and why there's an option to buy out of it.

If you want to talk raw mechanics though, go back to the example previously: Wolverine and Sabertooth want to get through somewhere unnoticed. Wolverine's claws are retractable, so he faces no compel. Sabertooth's, however, don't retract, so he gets compelled. As mentioned, he doesn't want to be noticed, so he buys off the compel. Which means if they started from the same total, he's a fate point behind Wolverine for the same result.

Compels aren't a bad thing, but they're not always what the player wants either. They can cost Fate Points just as much as they're a source of Fate Points.

[Pbartender]

As for the whole "compels are not bad" thing, I think this goes back to the discussion we've had elsewhere about how other players, many of them, don't just consider the raw mechanics and how many fate points you can get.

Do I want a fate point? Yes. But do I also want to be able to save the damsel/stop the evil wizard/not blow my cool and have to give up a powerful artifact in recompense? Also yes.

Not every compel is something the character or the player wants. That's why the game bribes you with a fate point for it, and why there's an option to buy out of it.

If you want to talk raw mechanics though, go back to the example previously: Wolverine and Sabertooth want to get through somewhere unnoticed. Wolverine's claws are retractable, so he faces no compel. Sabertooth's, however, don't retract, so he gets compelled. As mentioned, he doesn't want to be noticed, so he buys off the compel. Which means if they started from the same total, he's a fate point behind Wolverine for the same result.

Compels aren't a bad thing, but they're not always what the player wants either. They can cost Fate Points just as much as they're a source of Fate Points.

Your signature amuses me.