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Originally Posted by Nightshade

I can't agree; the difference in power between, say, Superman or Green Lantern and the other founding members in the comics is quite a bit more pronounced than it is in the cartoon; I'll give you there's a bigger gap with the expanded roster members, but its not a coincidence that most of those signficiantly weaker than the founders don't appear in episondes with them very often; when you see them, its normally with each other (other than a few like Captain Atom who are clearly in the same weight class as the originals)

That is more of a issue of limited time to teel the story. In the comics, you can split off with such characters for a subplot. With 22 minutes and 6 main characters, you can't do that. Also, for a Super TV show, things revolve around fights. The same is true with comics in general.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

While I won't disagree that Crises lopped off the top of the power curve, I stand by my opinon above about the cartoon. You see the cartoon Superman bothered by things that no version of Superman since the 50's would be.

I still say crisis. Pretty much every film and TV version of Supers since the 70s is bothered by such things. Supers now has to strain to stop a train or falling 747.
As for "compression", you can do that a bit more with characters like Superman because they are so powerful, that they can be scaled down quite a bit without most people noticing a difference. For instance, only comics fans are aware of Crisis and how post-crisis Superman is significantly weaker that pre-crisis. As long as he is bullet proof, can fly, has X-Ray and HEat vision, can crash through wall, and can pick up a car or truck, it is enough for most people to say, "That's Superman!".



[quote=Nightshade;3344]
Well, yes, but that's a genre convention, not an issue of power per se; superhero comics are intrinsically unrealistic in their handling of physics and biology.
[./quote]
Yes, but from the RPG standpoint, a comics based RPG needs to mirror that paradigm.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Vulnerable perhaps, but not hopeless. That's not true in most other areas of specialty. And it doesn't change the fact that the specialists in combat can't handle the problem by themselves in the majority of cases, while the specialists in intrusion don't usually need anyone else (in fact, you usually don't even need more than one).

We disagree here. I'd like to see some of your gaming groups, since in my experience the best way to whack a group is to take out the front rank fighters. Generally the first rank fighters are better than the typical monster, but the second rank fighters aren't.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

This is no different than most other adventure-fiction genres; in almost all of them, whatever else anyone can do, they're at least competent fighters. Barring specialized subgenres (mecha or fighter jock environments for example) you can't say that about virtually any other field of endevor; some will be completely hopeless, and its unusual for more than one or two to be more than at best competent. Even the occasional exception tends to change over time when it comes to the random noncombatant.

No, it depends on genre and style. It is just that most RPGs emphasis combat. If other skills aren't that important is is becuase that is what the GM/style is encouraging.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Given I've seen the same pattern in a dozen groups, some with no overlapping members over the years, I don't have any sign its unsual. And _all_ the local RQ groups did this back when RQ was a going concern. Its not at all hard to pull off with BRP or RQ; you just take a fair bit of casualties until characters get to a certain level of competence, and then you take the occasional one thereafter.

Again, style. Fist off, most of your casualties in RPGs are based on player competence rather than character competence. In most of the groups I've played in, it's the same people getting killed each week, regardless of characters.

Originally Posted by Nightshade

No, we really can't. Even if we'd done it the same time, what that does is eliminate the idea that my experience is aberrational. That's why I brought it up, not as an appeal to authority. Short durations in the hobby can sometimes lead to insular experiences; longer periods with a variety of other players makes it a much less convincing explanation.

Yes we can. How long someone has been doing something doesn't necessarily mean that someone is skilled or experienced. As I pointed out earlier,. I know a group that's been playing the same crummy way for over 25 years. They make all the same mistakes, the same people keep dying, and they have the same complaints week after week.

Playing the same way for a long time, doesn't validate your argument. It is the diversity of your RPG experience that would apply here. I've played and run RPGs that don't revolve around combat. They work. If you haven't, that doesn't mean that they don't. Just that either that you haven't done so, or that it didn't work for you.

On a similar tact, most gamers I've talked to think that classes, levels, increasing hit points, and lots of magic items are the only way to game, and that other methods "don't work.".

Originally Posted by Nightshade

No, it works for some people. My claim is that those people are in the minority, and I'm afraid its going to be next to impossible to convince me otherwise, for reasons I indicate above; it goes against more than 30 years of experience in the hobby. You're welcome to disagree, but at that point I think we have a fundamentally irreconcilable difference of premise.

Of course they are in the minority. Anyone who isn't playing Room/Monster/Treasure D&D is in the minority. But if all you want to do is fight, why not play D&D. Or just play a wargame. I know a lot of people who play computer "role-playing" games. Most of them have no actual "role-playing" experience whatsoever. It just a first person shooter with customizable character. Not role playing.

It is that most people don't bother to try anything other than what they have been told is "they way" that such is the minority. Its the same reason why RQ/BRP is in the minority, and will stay there. Same reason why D&Ders who "know" how to game, keep getting slaughtered whenever they try RQ.