More Stalwart Design Thoughts - A Deep Dive

The master table on page one of the rules is basically the greatest thing ever. I keep realizing that every problem I run into is already solved on the table. To whit, I was trying to figure out how to balance character creation and dice rolling to create reasonable results. I toyed with rolling your tier die (meh), rolling one below your tier tie (that sucked), rolling one above your tier die (that was a little better, but you still had a really good chance of ending up with a D4 even at higher tiers), or rolling your tier die + a set modifier (that was about the best solution, but I didn't love it). Then I realized I could just say you roll your tier die + that tier's SV... and the problem solved itself. Here's why:

• As a normal, you roll D4+2. You end up with either 3-5 (giving you a D4) or 6 (giving you a D6). A normal has a 25% chance of having an expert-level trait. That feels right.
• As an expert, you roll D6+3. You end up with 4-5 (giving you D4), 6-7 (giving you D6) or 8-9 (giving you D8). You have a 33% chance of being a paragon of something, a 33% chance of having some expertise, and a 33% chance of a trait being normal. Seems reasonable.
• As a paragon (the lowest level a superhero might be), you roll D8+4. Now things get interesting. You have a small chance of having a D4 (roll a 1+4=5 rounded down to 4), 25% chance of having a D6 (6-7), 25% chance of having D8 (8-9), 25% chance of having D10 (10-11), and a 12.5% chance of having D12 (12). I'm thinking characters like Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Daredevil (Nightwing, Aqualad, and Black Canary too) are at this tier. I can build any of them with these ranges.
• As a super (the most common tier for superheroes), you roll D10+5. The lowest you can have is D6 (you roll 6-7; 20% chance), but you have a 20% chance of getting D8 (8-9), 20% chance of D10 (10-11), and a 40% chance of hitting D12 (12-15). You are likely to have lots of ways to trade 2 for 1 here, and bump something up to D16 if you really want it, but are likely to have some decent dice one way or another. 50% of the MCU is in this tier. A lot of DC characters are, too (although most of the big names are the next tier up).  
• As a legendary character (the highest tier I would recommend for PCs), you roll D12+6. You cannot get to cosmic, but nothing is going to start normal. You are going to at least have a D6 (7), or will have D8 (8-9), D10 (10-11), D12 (12-15), or might even grab a D16 or two (16-18). These are Iron Man, Thor,... Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash... Batman and Captain America are capped at D10, but they've got so many bonuses that offset the relatively low dice at this tier. I think you can build them in this game (looking forward to trying).  
• Who is titanic? Thanos. Darkseid. Hela. Superman. Hulk. Maybe Silver Surfer. Thor after he becomes the 'god of lightning' in Ragnarok. It's a short list.
• This is a great distribution of scores. I really like it. 

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Character advancement is just NOT A THING. I've decided to abandon a lot of (what I consider) bedrock RPG concepts - there is no character advancement, and I'm not particularly concerned about game balance. 50 soldiers with rifles are not going to harm the Hulk. That's just how it is. There's no treasure to recover, cool gadgets to unlock, or other 'advancement' markers. The game is a story-based game of superheroes. It is what it is. Anything else ends up making it feel less like the source material, and more like a game loosely-inspired BY the source material. A 'campaign' as it were will happen if you love the characters and are compelled by the story you are building together. A new campaign will start when you don't. It's like comics in that way, too - if you like it, you'll keep reading. If you don't, you'll try a different comic for a while. Maybe a new creative team will come in with a new story idea that revitalizes the characters - and maybe that character you put in a folder three months ago will get dusted off when your group comes up with a great storyline to tell together. I think I'll be using the word storyline instead of campaign, because that's what it really is.

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I don't think that the core book should include much in the way of setting or background or campaign structure. I want the rulebook to be tight and focused, and to keep the page count low. 16 pages should be enough for the entire game; I've already got a bunch of other resources available. I like the model I'm using for Hack'D. The core rules are a dollar for the PDF, but everything else is PWYW or just linked for free to the site. 

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I like how simple the descriptions are for gifts, and I like the built-in limits for bonuses based on tier. A +1 or +2 is a significant boost when you are rolling 1d10 against a target of 6. You quickly go from 50% chance of success to 60% to 70% with those bonuses. There's a nice, natural progression that keeps the numbers low. I'm very pleased with how I've found a way to scale a game at a superhero level without letting the numbers scale beyond the low 20s in almost every situation. It keeps math at the table relatively simple, which keeps the game moving. I think there's a real danger in having numbers so big that the experience bogs down. Yes, it's awesome to roll 12 dice and deal 73 damage, but then we wait while you subtract the 73 damage from the 142 hit points (but don't forget the 10% damage reduction ability, meaning that the 73 becomes a... wait... 73-7=65? Is that right? No. 13-7 is 6, so it must be 66. Okay. And 142-66 is... dang. Where's my calculator again?). The dramatic tension just slowly drains from the gameplay experience.

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The single best thing about the design so far might be the rules for being felled and getting back up. This is the single mechanic that shifts this game from being a RPG where you reduce your foe to 0 hits and win to a game that emulates how comics and comic-based movies work. Your team FINALLY knocked down rampage... and now you hold your breath as the GM rolls, hoping he doesn't get back up again...