thread: 2005-03-23 : Strong Stuff Indeed
On 2005-03-25, Chris wrote:
Hi John,
What Dogs supports mechanically that doesn't appear in many other games:
1) NPC usefulness
If you want to get useful information out of a character, its all about a conflict roll and it happens. The rules do not support the GM stonewalling players, whether we're talking friendly or unfriendly ties. In ST, you could have a contact who never actually is helpful, while here you get a guaranteed chance that your relationship will be useful.
2) Cycling relationships
If the GM decides that an NPC will never show up again, no problem, the resolution system makes it very easy to pick up new relationship traits to any NPCs who are relevant and current to the situation.
3) Thematic statement by way of relationship
Whenever you declare you're making a relationship trait, or changing it, you're saying the table something very meaningful. "Doesn't think much of Brother John", "Jealous of Sister Truth", all these things say a lot about your character as much as the situation.
Now, when we step to ST, or most other games with contact/relationship type things, they're basically advantages or disadvantages, not a focus of play. They're also not mechanically backed to be useful, nor easy to change.
If we're looking at superheroes specifically, heroes and villains are very often changing sides, falling in love with the opposition, being redeemed, going evil, breaking teams, forming new ones, etc. etc. I don't know Champions, but in GURPS the only way to do this is to have the GM fiat the points flowing and shifting back and forth- there are no hard rules for constantly shifting Allies, Enemies, Dependents, and developing new ones on the fly.
If my game group does this, that doesn't mean GURPS facilitated this in any way... it may mean it didn't get in the way, but it didn't help either. The work of actually getting a focus on relationships was on us, not the system. I could end up taking my character, the Redeemer, with all of his relationships and such to another GURPS Super game, and it all means nothing. More than that, all the stuff that my old GM fiated about forming and reforming new relationships doesn't happen here.
Going back to the idea of a game that doesn't have rules for combat- it doesn't get in the way of combat occurring in play either, it just does nothing to help or facilitate it. The extreme position of this is the argument for freeform ("The rules can't get in the way"), which is true while ignoring the fact that there is nothing to help the focus of play.
