What's New Issue #0 - Additional Intent Categories
Back in December, I was working through the first chapter and decided I needed to formalize some additional intent I was Back in late December I was working through the first chapter and decided I needed to formalize some additional intent categories. These are things that I have intuitively been doing at the table for a long time; and you could see if you read between the lines but it really needed to be spelled out explicitly. Here's a detailed rundown:
In addition to the standard defensive, functional, offensive and reactive intents, I added versatile, time + potency, modification. We also get sub-identifiers area and contingent.
For those who may not know, intent categories are one of the three parts you use to define the Talents that you create for Simple Superheroes. The other two are a Talent rank (the number of dice you get to use) and an Ability category. For more on that go grab a copy of the Heart of Simple Superheroes. You of course get to come up with the name of each Talent yourself.
A little more on the new intents:
Versatile: a strongly themed Talent, that allows significant flexibility while bearing some drawbacks. This works well for arsenal type Talents (the classic archer with a plethora of arrow types), and can also be useful for power mimcry, shapeshifting, and flexible magical devices etc.
Time: time is used to model heroes who can create inventions, spells, or other constructs. The Time Talent usually works in tandem with Potency.
Potency: this intent is the usually the second Talent in a time+potency pair. It determines just how potent creator's creations/effects are.
Modification: this intent is used for any Talent that modifies the standard rules used by Simple Superheroes. A common example is having extra Lifepoints or Stainpoints, or being particularly good a multi-targeting opponents.
A little more on the new sub-intents:
Area: if you want to hit multiple metahuman opponents, add this to your Talent. A sonic blast Talent could be written 3-sonic blast [Mgt:OA] (read as rank 3, Talent name, in the "Might" ability category, with offensive area intent.)
Contigent: if you want to add some character to your Talent, have a particularly powerful effect or include some drawbacks that may allow you to have a Talent at a slightly lower than normal rank, Contingent is your friend. Contingent is often paired with Versatile. It works well to reflect devices or magic items that your hero could be separated from.
The new intents have been thoroughly worked up across the book with examples, and appropriate revisions and tweaks to all 35 example Heroes & Villains write-ups.
I'd guess that about 80% of all Talents fall into the standard 3 (offensive, defensive, and functional) with a few more in reactive. And you could run the game with only these. But you'll often have a couple players at the table whose concepts would be best served by using one of these unusual intents.
Questions? Comments? Chime in and let us know what you think.
For those who may not have noticed you can now Pre-order Issue #0 which will give you immediate access to a PDF with all this new juicy info. (Canadian shipping is included, and Shipping to the US is heavily discounted).
In addition to the standard defensive, functional, offensive and reactive intents, I added versatile, time + potency, modification. We also get sub-identifiers area and contingent.
For those who may not know, intent categories are one of the three parts you use to define the Talents that you create for Simple Superheroes. The other two are a Talent rank (the number of dice you get to use) and an Ability category. For more on that go grab a copy of the Heart of Simple Superheroes. You of course get to come up with the name of each Talent yourself.
A little more on the new intents:
Versatile: a strongly themed Talent, that allows significant flexibility while bearing some drawbacks. This works well for arsenal type Talents (the classic archer with a plethora of arrow types), and can also be useful for power mimcry, shapeshifting, and flexible magical devices etc.
Time: time is used to model heroes who can create inventions, spells, or other constructs. The Time Talent usually works in tandem with Potency.
Potency: this intent is the usually the second Talent in a time+potency pair. It determines just how potent creator's creations/effects are.
Modification: this intent is used for any Talent that modifies the standard rules used by Simple Superheroes. A common example is having extra Lifepoints or Stainpoints, or being particularly good a multi-targeting opponents.
A little more on the new sub-intents:
Area: if you want to hit multiple metahuman opponents, add this to your Talent. A sonic blast Talent could be written 3-sonic blast [Mgt:OA] (read as rank 3, Talent name, in the "Might" ability category, with offensive area intent.)
Contigent: if you want to add some character to your Talent, have a particularly powerful effect or include some drawbacks that may allow you to have a Talent at a slightly lower than normal rank, Contingent is your friend. Contingent is often paired with Versatile. It works well to reflect devices or magic items that your hero could be separated from.
The new intents have been thoroughly worked up across the book with examples, and appropriate revisions and tweaks to all 35 example Heroes & Villains write-ups.
I'd guess that about 80% of all Talents fall into the standard 3 (offensive, defensive, and functional) with a few more in reactive. And you could run the game with only these. But you'll often have a couple players at the table whose concepts would be best served by using one of these unusual intents.
Questions? Comments? Chime in and let us know what you think.
For those who may not have noticed you can now Pre-order Issue #0 which will give you immediate access to a PDF with all this new juicy info. (Canadian shipping is included, and Shipping to the US is heavily discounted).