Can’t do this one.

Did some work. Manager T acknowledged receipt of the project, but is also out this week, so I don’t expect anything to happen until Tuesday week.

Read (graphic novel): The Prince and the Dressmaker (Jen Wang): He’s a prince who likes to wear beautiful dresses. She’s a seamstress with a talent for designing beautiful dresses. Together they take c1900 Paris by secret storm until everything goes terribly wrong.

Written (game design): 343:

Limitations are the hard part of any of this. Advantages are easy. Maybe
we’re back to trying to establish a completely different relationship to
limited powers, which might go beyond just the cost curve if we’re
sufficiently creative. For example, we could say powers just have the
limitations they should by special effect, and global limitations like a
wizard having to be able to say the Words of Power aloud are
Complications. With free-form special effects, this leads to powers with
few limitations, since a simple special effect without complications is
easy to come up with, but that’s not necessarily bad, even if it’s not
very Hero. Or, we could have a list of special effects with their
associated limitations to pick from. Also not very Hero, even if we give
the different special effects different costs (could be either positive,
where you have to have one to have any powers, or negative, where you
don’t have to have one but you can get more powers if you do) based on
how limiting they are.

It seems natural to long-time Hero players that limitations are a
multiplier on the active point cost of a power, but they don’t have
to be. Maybe they’re anti-adders that give you a flat number of
points back. There would have to be a limit of half the cost of the
power, or the cost – 1, or whatever; the perennial problem with
limitation systems is avoiding zero or infinitesimal costs, which is why
dividing by an increasing number works so well.

Of course this changes the relative cost of powers when various
limitations are applied, but it was never more than a shot in the
dark that this power with this -1/4 limitation is 80% as “useful”
(whatever that means), never mind the general case of any power and
any legal -1/4 limitation. This is part of the reason for chonky
points: let’s not pretend to a precision that we not only don’t
have, but can’t have.

We say “limitations”, but what does that actually include? There are a
bunch of ways a power can be limited, including but not limited to:

– Requirements to use the power (gestures, extra time, focus)
– Side effects (reduced DCV, uses resources, attracts attention)
– Only works in certain conditions/on certain targets (under full moon)
– Does less than normal (only body, reduced penetration, turn mode, no range)
– Uses different attributes (mental power vs con, inaccurate)
– Limits mechanical options (can’t spread, can’t push, can’t squeeze)
– Easier to block or interact with (area effect blast is a grenade)
– Interaction with own powers (linked, lockout)
– Like D&D equipment (Str min, encumbrance, hands)
– Unreliable (activation/skill roll)
– Doesn’t activate/deactive at will (always on, no conscious control)

That seems like a lot, but there are 75 power modifiers that are always
or sometimes limitations in Hero 6E, so even this crude categorization
is a big help conceptually.

It would probably be ideal if all limitations had the same kind of
effect on cost, but it’s not mandatory. We already mentioned having
“limitations” like powers that can’t be used in strong magnetic
fields, or spontaneously activate when you don’t want them to, be
Complications instead. Limitations that change what a power does
vs ones that limit when you can use it could also be different. If
players can handle the difference between a sale price vs mail-in
rebate vs tax credit vs being entered in a raffle with purchase, a
couple of different ways to reduce the cost of a power shouldn’t
be too hard, right? Right?