Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - [Powers] Are Multiplicative Modifiers Fairer?

Anaraxes · 08-23-2019, 12:01 PM

I find MM comes in handy when the game contemplates more significant powers (supers, powerful mages, creatures, whatever). There are a lot of large positive modifiers in the rules (+100%, +150%, +300%), thrown around fairly casually when there's a big increase in utility. Not unjust -- but there's no corresponding set of large negative modifiers (-100%, -150%, -300%) to balance them out.

(Even on the forum, "-80%" is used as shorthand for "almost completely useless" or "having nearly all utility removed". But that's really more a job for "-300%", letting the "nothing below 80%" floor save us from the math. Once you consider more than one positive and one negative modifier on an Advantage, then -80% is no longer a useful cap for individual mods. There's an intermediate calculation to be done.)

The chief drawback to using MM is that all those percentage values were arrived at by experienced judgement, playtesting adjustment, and cross-comparison. There's not a way to just derive a fair, proper value de novo, by breaking individual Limitations down into micro-modifier atoms. And the existing balance of all those numbers (to the extent that they're balanced) assumes that you're using AM. With MM, some of those numbers likely ought to change. There can be wonky builds with AM, but you can probably get more with MM. So it calls for that much more GM/player cooperation and judgement.

08-23-2019, 12:01 PM	#7
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: [Powers] Are Multiplicative Modifiers Fairer? I find MM comes in handy when the game contemplates more significant powers (supers, powerful mages, creatures, whatever). There are a lot of large positive modifiers in the rules (+100%, +150%, +300%), thrown around fairly casually when there's a big increase in utility. Not unjust -- but there's no corresponding set of large negative modifiers (-100%, -150%, -300%) to balance them out. (Even on the forum, "-80%" is used as shorthand for "almost completely useless" or "having nearly all utility removed". But that's really more a job for "-300%", letting the "nothing below 80%" floor save us from the math. Once you consider more than one positive and one negative modifier on an Advantage, then -80% is no longer a useful cap for individual mods. There's an intermediate calculation to be done.) The chief drawback to using MM is that all those percentage values were arrived at by experienced judgement, playtesting adjustment, and cross-comparison. There's not a way to just derive a fair, proper value de novo, by breaking individual Limitations down into micro-modifier atoms. And the existing balance of all those numbers (to the extent that they're balanced) assumes that you're using AM. With MM, some of those numbers likely ought to change. There can be wonky builds with AM, but you can probably get more with MM. So it calls for that much more GM/player cooperation and judgement.