In a different thread, Majestic had said that he had not (sic) seen a single instance of Weakness Detection successfully used. This really made an impact on me to read because he's been running V&V for a very, very, very (30 years +) long time.

The game has Weaknesses in it, and because of the structuring of character generation, they can be optionally discarded prior to ever seeing the light of day.

This brings me to the point of asking what's the point of having Weakness Detection even listed as a formal power?

The other side of the coin is that I've always been a huge believer in characters in *any* super hero roleplay having gameable Weaknesses in exchange for some value of their character.

Weaknesses aren't going away from V&V as I am sure we can all agree that they are an intrinsic part of superhero narrative.

How can we make the system of having Weaknesses more meaningful?

Well... about reduced stats as Weaknesses; perhaps they only apply to saves?
If a character is "sickly", any save using an Endurance roll comes at a penalty and so forth?

Phrennzy wrote on Feb 18^th, 2015 at 8:26pm:


As written, Black Bolt's "Mute" weakness is within the rules since he's reluctant to speak.

I'd just like to add:
What about overcoming weaknesses through training/inventing?  What should be the limitations on that?

I'm interested in Weaknesses because they are one of the few tables that every super powered hero and villain rolls on. Used well, they can elevate a character with a dilemma, an obstacle or a true danger that adds richness to the story. Used badly, they can wreck a character and disrupt the fun we are trying to create.

The biggest challenge with weaknesses is balance. The guy who starts his character with just 3 powers is reluctant to drop another one in order to do away with the weakness, even if it's a whooper. Meanwhile the gal who has 7 powers can pick and choose - a doozy of a weakness can be avoided by dropping the power that least fits their character concept (or just isn't powerful enough), while somewhat minor weaknesses can be better tolerated with their wider array of powers.

It's a real problem that I think most GMs encounter at some point in a V&V campaign, and some really struggle with. I don't, of course, but that's probably because I'm not afraid to bend the rules.



RAMBLE

Ramble wrote on Feb 19^th, 2015 at 2:34am:


The thing is Jeff and Jack flat out tell you that if a rule is a problem, or you just don't like it, change it. They encourage you to make modifications to the base rules. If something is causing you heartburn, or just doesn't sit right with you, alter it to your liking, and the same should go for weaknesses. If it's to powerful, downgrade it.

Ramble wrote on Feb 19^th, 2015 at 3:10am:


This, in my view is part of the issue. I'll break it down by prefacing that the reason some (all) of us at one time or another find issue is because some (all) of us have *house rules* to cover deficiencies we perceive.

The 1d6+2 powers random roll is a huge thing not because the random, but because it's only half the weight of fairness in a final character.

Think ((1d6+2) x (Power x Versatility)) - Weakness =  Value

All Powers just aren't created equal and in the formula above we complicate it further by randomly rolling to see what each Power is.

I see the issue with that being too much variance across the board with mechanical uses of each power.  We all can agree that Ice Powers are far more versatile than Waterbreathing.

This is the Versatility that currently is left to the player to recognize and GMs to arbitrarily modify and I think this is a major symptom why we all have house rules that don't match.

If we had a system to weight each of the Powers into categories by Versatility (instead the current organization of the tables by "power", "device" or "skill"), then Value could be balanced and give Weaknesses a fair shake to not be dropped.

For me, the goal is to get to a place where new GMs and players can easily pick up this game and still use 33 years of awesome.

This is a good perspective thread. What is the 3.0 thing? I didn't see that mentioned?

Over 1000 posts! Just noticed that. John, I see a donation coming your way! 

AlabasterKnight wrote on Feb 19^th, 2015 at 5:59pm:


Jeff and Jack's V&V 3.0, which a few of us saw a small preview of a few years ago (and they've shown small bits on their website, mostly a few years ago).  Here's how I've adapted it to our current game, just to give you a flavor (note that this is just similar to their concept):

Instead of receiving 1d6+2 superpowers, characters get
four base powers (rolled randomly), then two powers
(chosen) that are tied to two weaknesses. When rolling
for the four base powers, the player can choose two
tables from the list of superpowers on p. 2-3. One must
be the Skills chart, and the second can be chosen from
any other list. As an example, a player decides to select
from the Magic/Psionic Items table and the Skills table
and rolls a 23. They then have a choice of taking Emotion
Control or Heightened Defense. After rolling randomly
for the four base powers, they may then choose any two
powers from any of the tables (working with the GM to
insure game balance). These two selected powers are
directly linked to two weaknesses, rolled on the
Weaknesses Table on p. 3. For instance, a player chooses
Heightened Strength and Invulnerability. They then roll
for weaknesses and get Low Self-Control and
Phobia/Psychosis. These two are now linked, so
Heightened Strength corresponds to the Low Self-Control
and the Invulnerability ties to the Phobia/Psychosis. The
player then gets to choose how significant the weakness
is, but it is tied to the super power for approximate
power level. To do this, the player should select A
(weak), B (standard, generally as per the rulebook), and C
(strong). In other words, if a person takes Heightened
Strength and gets +20, then their Low Self-Control will
have to be something quite severe that affects the
character regularly. If the player only got +7 from the
Heightened Strength, then the Low Self-Control should be
much less significant.

I think every character should have some kind of weakness whether or not it's formalized on the list of powers. At least the player should give his character something like that to make the Roleplay more interesting.  Perfectman doesn't interest me. The overconfident showboater who gets in over his head, or the granny's boy struggling to makes ends meet while feeling compelled to risk his neck fighting crime, those guys are fun to play. But I don't really need it spelled out in the rules.

One area other games get it wrong in my opinion is giving players extra power in exchange for taking a weakness or a responsibility or code of conduct.  I feel those things should go without saying in a comic book super hero roleplaying game. Maybe it's just me and the folks I play with.

Matt wrote on Feb 21^st, 2015 at 7:03pm:


I agree that personal codes of ethics and responsibility are generally part of a character's ethics and shouldn't be counted as a weakness.

For example, Batman's decision not to use guns or Spider-Man's decision to take care of his aunt aren't weaknesses IMV. These are character choices.

AlabasterKnight wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2015 at 12:22pm:


Not sure I follow what you're saying. If Spider-Man's comic was an RPG, throughout the course of the campaign, Doc Ock began dating Aunt May. It's a Revoltin' Development!

But that's not a weakness you'd put down on a character sheet. Spidey doesn't have Weakness: Aunt is engaged to a super-criminal.

I disagree about codes against killing as a weakness, since the rules pretty much say that heroes don't kill villains.

Some very interesting conversation here.  Just to muddy the waters a bit, I'll add a little more.

While I don't normally consider an avoidance of killing as a weakness per se, I think a lot depends on the why of it and who is killed. 

If the character has a great reverence for life based on faith, deity, philosophical requirement, etc., that would be a weakness and needs to be role-playing accordingly.   If the character has an aversion to killing based on the code, that is something different.  It should have an effect but should not be debilitating.

Now if the victim is an innocent bystander, especially a kid, that is killed or even severely hurt by a missed shot from the hero, I would expect that hero to be twisted for a while. Maybe even to the point they need professional help or perhaps withdraw from the hero business . That opens up a great plot line for the GM to get the hero to hero again.

The frail old aunt, I would not have as a weakness despite that being the weakness assigned to The Suit in Hostile Takeover.  A dependent child, however,  might qualify. 

Quote:


Exactly what happened to Black Lightning in an old storyline. Caused a psychological block where he "lost" his powers. "Regained" his powers in Batman & the Outsiders #1 and eventually dealt with the inadvertant death of the bystander in a later issue.

What would the weakness "lack of self-esteem" do? I'm asking from a game perspective, what would a hero with this look like?

When I think quirk, I think GURPS, which made quite a bit of sense for that game. What would a V&V character with quirk look like?

I included a weirdness magnet in my Signs of the Zodiac book, so I'm totally behind that one... although for some it's an advantage. :-D

RAMBLE

Just for the record, every one of Oni's characters shows every single weakness on this list

Well the "dark secret" one definitely anyway (my favorite one on the list, sounds cool to work into the game)

Majestic,

I love

Weirdness Magnet. That would fit really well in our Weird West Campaign!!!

I took all the ones so far and put them into a percentile chart.  The original RAW Weaknesses were mostly each a 7% chance, with two at 8% and only one (Diminished Senses) at 12%.

So for this new chart I went:

3% each for each of the old, familiar ones from V&V 2.0/2.1

Removed most of the Lowered BCs (leaving only Charisma)

Also went with 3% for the most typical comic book trope weaknesses.

Everything else at 2%.

It leaves you with:

Weaknesses

01-02      Addiction
03-04      Amnesia
05-07      Arrogant/Overconfident
08-09      Bigotry
10-11      Bloodthirsty
12-14      Code of Conduct/Oath
15-16      Compulsion
17-19      Dark Secret
20-22      Dependent NPC
23-25      Diminished Senses
26-27      Disgraced/Notoriety
28-30      Duty/Obligation
31-33      Enemy/Rival
34-35      Fanatical/Zealot
36-37      Fearful
38-39      Flashbacks
40-41      Glory Hound
42-43      Greedy
44-46      Hunted/Wanted
47-49      Identity Issues (Public or Secret)
50-51      Lack of Self Esteem
52-54      Limited Education
55-56      Lone Wolf
57-59      Low Self-Control
60-62      Mute
63-64      Paranoid
65-67      Phobia/Psychosis
68-70      Physical Handicap
71-72      Poverty
73-75      Prejudice
76-77      Quirk
78-79      Reckless
80-82      Reduced Charisma
83-84      Social Awkwardness
85-87      Special Requirement
88-89      Stubborn
90-91      Treacherous
92-93      Vengeful
94-96      Vulnerability
97-98      Weak-Willed
99-100      Weirdness Magnet

Phrennzy wrote on Aug 5^th, 2015 at 11:55am:

I can understand the thought to keep things general and say "this fits that" and leave the ambiguity to the GM and players. However, the reason for coming up with specifics isn't for the benefit of older players who have their own way to game it; not really...
Persons who are completely new to this game in my experience don't understand how to present different nuance of the broad category consistently and thus the expanse of a million muddy house rules. It'd be nice to not have to explain all the variances in my house rules whenever I play with someone else?
It's equally as nice to give concrete guidance across the board for the broad rule like "Special Requirement" and how in it's current form it might be vastly different:
Mjolnir has a special requirement that a wielder be 'worthy' or they simply can't pick the thing up...
Addiction is completely different. As time goes by where a character doesn't have their fix, it could result in stat damage or diminished power, or even psychological effects.

I'm in the camp that the game really needs two tiers with a general list supplemented by sub-tables with examples that include specific possible effects in their description. Those guidelines would afford those who want crunch their crunch and those who want creamy to continue on.

Slatwall going up on the walls of the shop.