Ok, so I like the ORE system and ran a well-received REIGN campaign last year, and I'm a really big fan of what Greg Stolze did with Progenitor. I want to run a Progenitor-based game and I'd like to use Wild Talents to do so.But if I want to run a game of Wild Talents for this group I'm going to need a very firm grasp of the power creation rules. You sit down and throw me a power idea, even random ones like 'can see what people secretly desire' or 'I can give people knowledge, about anything, for the rest of their lives' or 'I make the world a better place just by being in it'? I can make it in Mutants & Masterminds, likely in about 10-15 minutes, probably in less than 150 power points, if you don't mind something that needs some fine-tuning.I need to be able to do that with Wild Talents, or at least something close.Soonish, if it's going to be the system I go with. And frankly as I read through the Wild Talents: Essential Edition I'm having trouble wrapping my head around things about the time we get to Qualities attaching to various different dice groupings.So, does anyone have a great way (and the saintly inclination) to break it down for me? Or will I just see if I can power through it in the next few days?It'd be much appreciated.
Tabletop Game / Wild Talents. While Godlike's talents made the world a weirder place, the end results of World War II are recognizable. Contrariwise, after WWII, history goes Off the Rails with dramatic ferocity, creating an elaborate hi-tech Alternate History full of heroes, villains, the uncanny, and the all-too-human. Alright so there are two things you should keep in mind when making powers for Wild Talents. First is to do exactly what you've done: describe the full breadth of the power's effect. Second is that you work backwards: figure out the moving parts that add up to the whole. These moving parts.
Lemme see if I can break it down for ya, all easy like.Powers have three unique attributes to them. Qualities, Extras/Flaws, and Capacities.Qualities are what you can do with a power. They're attacks, defends, and useful (anything not attacking or defending).
Capacities are what you can affect and how you can use the power. Extras and Flaws are just like with Mutants and Masterminds.The key thing is that any one power can have multiple capacities and qualities. If you have flight, for example, it could be used both as a defensive and useful quality (moving around and dodging blows). It could even be used to attack (sonic booms or slams).
This is nice in that you can have one power to do everything useful.Let's take your examples.' Can see what people secretly desire'This one is actually the easiest.
Your Quality is going to be useful, as it's hard to imagine how you could attack or defend with that power. The Capacity is going to probably be Range, as it's a sight based thing. So far we have:Sense Secret DesiresQualities: UCapacities: RangeThat right there could be the total power. It'd cost you 2/die for that power. But we can easily jazz it up a bit with a few extras.Sense Secret Desires 5/10/20Qualities: UCapacities: RangeExtras and Flaws: Radius (+2), Subtle (+1)Now the power affects everyone in a radius and it's hard to notice.
Very handy indeed. Maybe this person sees auras.' I can give people knowledge, about anything, for the rest of their lives'Now, this one is a bit trickier, at least at first glance. Granting knowledge of anything could include combat skills, so we need to give this power all three qualities - attacks, defends, and useful.
Our capacity is going to be touch.Where the real magic happens is with the extras and flaws. First we need Augment, as we'll be adding dice to represent the gained knowledge. We'll also need the Permanent extra to make it last forever. Now, with those extras it's going to be 30 points a die, which is really spendy! We're going to have to add on some flaws to make it cheaper.A power like this seems like it should take a quick training montage.
So we add on Delayed Effect, Exhaused, and two if/then statements (only works for other folks and you have to do a training montage) and we're done. Once per scene you can teach someone anything, adding dice to their pool forever.Grant Knowledge 9/18/36Qualities: A D UCapacities: TouchExtras and Flaws: Augment (+4), Delayed Effect (-2), Exhausted (-3), If/Then: Only works on others (-1), If/Then: Must Complete Training Montage (-1), Obvious (-1), Permanent (+4)'I make the world a better place just by being in it'This last one is a bit open ended for a power. I'd probably just make this a Useful quality with the Radius and Endless extras and call it a day.Does that help at all? To recap: Qualities are what it can do, Capacities are what it can affect, and extras and flaws are used to get the proper result. Thanks, that does help a little.And my examples were mostly just supposed to be sort of odd 'requests' or ideas I've had before (the 'better' one ended up translating to an aura that gave everyone who saw or spoke to the character a boost to charisma and wisdom while instilling a strong feeling of hope, with it being contagious, subtle, and lasting basically until the guy who didn't realize he was doing it decided to turn it off).Seriously, though, just approaching it from that top-down perspective you gave might help and any tips are welcome. Wild Talents powers are the most complex thing the ORE has ever done.
Start with simple powers.And treat each power as a single Power Quality. None of these Attacks and Defends and has three Usefuls things. And don't bother with Augment or Variable Effect.That'll still cover a vast swath of whatever powers you want to do, and if you don't try to wrap your head around the hard parts first it'll make more sense.That one with the charisma-boosting aura that's subtle and contagious is in the non-basic category.
Not that it can't be done - Hypercommand, Radius, Controlled Effect, Duration, and a pretty beefy custom Extra called 'Contagious' to handle the contagious part, maybe worth +4; total about 13 points per die - but I'd recommend getting comfortable with the basics before you do something like that.Power Qualities and Dice Groupings: I know what you mean, and it's really, really easy to not worry at all about those rules. They're there in case they're useful.Basically, they're for cases where I can stack abilities' dice pools together - I have my native, un-Talented strength with its own Body stat of 2d or whatever, and then I have my superhuman strength that adds to my native strength, and it has let's say seven dice (7d) and crazy extras because I can make things explode in purple flame with my fists.
But just when I'm using the superhuman strength.I paid for those extras on 7d but not on the original 2d, so they apply only when I roll 7d. If I use those extra 2d, those extras drop away.Want an easy way to not worry about that? Just buy your Super Fiery Purple Strength power at 9d and only roll those 9d. Don't worry about the mortal 2d at all unless somehow you lose your Super Fiery Purple Strength power.
You could even take a -1 flaw, 'Doesn't ever stack with native Body' or something, and save some points if you want.Now, the real reason that matters from a game perspective is not when you pay for 2d that are crappy and 7d that are awesome and expensive, but when you want to pay for 2d that are awesome and expensive and boost them with 7d that are crappy. Wild Talents pretty much scoffs at such notions as game balance, but that situation was too much even for us. Hence the detailed breakdown of when it's kosher and when it's not.I notice that I just talked a lot breaking up a dice pool based on extras, not Power Qualities, but the concept's the same. If you paid points for a Power Quality on some dice but not on others, generally you can't use it with the dice that didn't pay for it.If that makes any sense at all. I'm overstressed and underslept with GenCon looming, so, you know.
Wild Talents power creation is very fluid and can give you just about anything you want. The other point-buy systems do this through a nit-picky lists and overly complicated math.2. Creating a power is usually simpler than it looks from the outset. Break it down into steps and it will make a whole lot more sense. First figure out if it is Useful, an Attack, or a Defend and that will make it a heck of a lot easier.3. Look at the example Miracles in WT and in Progenitor (since I know you have both). Those will give you something to work from.
Greg Stolze knows how the system fits together perfectly since he was one of the parents, but he also knows the pitfalls of power design and generally tends to point them out in the text.4. It is often cheaper to take several Useful effects or an Attack and a Defend together, but remember if something nullifies that power all those effects won't do you a bit of good. I you can deal with this drawback, then it is worth the effort.5. Keep your power cost around 10-20 pts at the maximum. When they start getting into the 25-30 pt. Range just for a normal die its going to be really expensive to buy the nifty tricks like wiggle and hard dice. Sometimes a power with the right amount of hard dice is worth more in game effects than one that is not.
Remember this.6. A 2HD useful power can do a lot and will carry you through on most non-story effecting powers (ageless, breathing water, seeing in the dark, etc.). There are some great examples of those in the books.It took me forever to really 'get' Wild Talents, but I was coming into it from HERO and M&M territory. I was making things to complicated by thinking it cold never be so simple. I love the system now, it shold never take more than 10-15 minutes of thought for even the most complicated powers. You'll be shooting them out in no time!
Wild Talents powers are the most complex thing the ORE has ever done. Start with simple powers.And treat each power as a single Power Quality.
![Wild Talents Example Powers Wild Talents Example Powers](/uploads/1/2/5/6/125606233/819612483.png)
None of these Attacks and Defends and has three Usefuls things. And don't bother with Augment or Variable Effect.That'll still cover a vast swath of whatever powers you want to do, and if you don't try to wrap your head around the hard parts first it'll make more sense.That one with the charisma-boosting aura that's subtle and contagious is in the non-basic category.
Not that it can't be done - Hypercommand, Radius, Controlled Effect, Duration, and a pretty beefy custom Extra called 'Contagious' to handle the contagious part, maybe worth +4; total about 13 points per die - but I'd recommend getting comfortable with the basics before you do something like that.Power Qualities and Dice Groupings: I know what you mean, and it's really, really easy to not worry at all about those rules. They're there in case they're useful.Basically, they're for cases where I can stack abilities' dice pools together - I have my native, un-Talented strength with its own Body stat of 2d or whatever, and then I have my superhuman strength that adds to my native strength, and it has let's say seven dice (7d) and crazy extras because I can make things explode in purple flame with my fists. But just when I'm using the superhuman strength.I paid for those extras on 7d but not on the original 2d, so they apply only when I roll 7d. If I use those extra 2d, those extras drop away.Want an easy way to not worry about that? Just buy your Super Fiery Purple Strength power at 9d and only roll those 9d.
Don't worry about the mortal 2d at all unless somehow you lose your Super Fiery Purple Strength power. You could even take a -1 flaw, 'Doesn't ever stack with native Body' or something, and save some points if you want.Now, the real reason that matters from a game perspective is not when you pay for 2d that are crappy and 7d that are awesome and expensive, but when you want to pay for 2d that are awesome and expensive and boost them with 7d that are crappy. Wild Talents pretty much scoffs at such notions as game balance, but that situation was too much even for us.
Hence the detailed breakdown of when it's kosher and when it's not.I notice that I just talked a lot breaking up a dice pool based on extras, not Power Qualities, but the concept's the same. If you paid points for a Power Quality on some dice but not on others, generally you can't use it with the dice that didn't pay for it.If that makes any sense at all. I'm overstressed and underslept with GenCon looming, so, you know. One way to consider it, and this helps me because I was very confused at first with the switch from WT1 to WT2, is to consider each Power Quality as like a skill. It's one thing you do with that power. Several Qualities are grouped together, add their costs, and share one dice pool, and that's the Power.Functionally, there's probably no difference between taking two powers, one Defends only and one Attacks only, and taking one power with a Defends Quality and an Attacks Quality.
So it's just a way to lump related uses together under the banner of one power. You combine the Quality's definition with a Capacity to get the basic effect of that Quality, and you use Extras and Flaws to enhance the basic effect of the Quality.Capacities can be tricky when you have a mix of them on something.
Take the idea of an Attack that has Range and Mass capacities. This is pretty well demonstrated by Cyclop's eye beams. By adjusting the dice he devotes to one or the other capacity, he can make a long range sniper beam or a wide blast that obliterates everything up close.For Capacities, it's also worth noting a few of the very common Extras and Flaws.
Booster is a very easy to abuse (and that means FUN! In Wild Talents) extras since it doubles capacity with each application. 10 quick points in Booster (on top of a nice pool of hyper-stat dice) and you've got Flash speed or Hulk strength or a gun that can shoot targets on Jupiter's moons. Note also that Touch and Self capacities are usually flaws.I'm with Shane on skipping Augments and Variable Effect until you need it.
Plus, many common uses of those two powers can be figured by starting with a prebuilt miracle, like Aces or Cosmic Power or Create/Control(Element), and then tweaking the existing rules.Once you get a feel for cranking out powers, don't be afraid to make up a power and try to work out how you'd get there. A number of 'build powers' threads here and elsewhere (in addition to the books themselves) showcase creative usage or interpretation of an Extra to yield just the right effect.I made an example of a power to let a character 'show up' at a scene as though he had already been there, but I felt like it was pretty verbose for the end result so I spoilered it. Feel free to look if you just want one more example of a power build. So let's make up a weird power, see what we can get with a little craft. I want to play a super name Nicholas, 'Nick of Time' Turner. His power is that he always shows up, seemingly from no where and often in disguise, just at the right time.I'll model this as two powers: one is his super disguise ability, the other his super-natural punctuality.
Disguise is easy: it's just Dead Ringer, straight from the book. I could maybe attach it to his punctuality power, but I like the flexibility of being able to do either one independently, so I skip that. Buying the right dice for a power is just as important as working out the price of those dice: I'll get 4 hard dice in Dead Ringer for 28 points, so now I can quickly and effectively disguise myself.Punctuality. Ok, what is the game effect here.
Can I attack? Nah, not really. Maybe, but it might do better to model a separate 'lucky defense' power.
Useful, definitely. I'll say it's useful ability is 'Always turns up in the right place at the right time.' I could probably justify that in several ways, but let's build it off the Speed capacity. My character has a 5th dimensional means of travel that gets him where he's going very quickly. I'll get Useful +2 (2 levels of the quality) so I can ignore penalties that might hamper me (lousy traffic!) and that's my base.Extras and Flaws.
For Extras let's get No Physics and Subtle. My power ignores any kind of physical boundaries or situations like 'there's no way he could be waiting for us up ahead, there's only one way into this facility!' Subtle just sets up the nature a little further in that he doesn't arrive on the scene in a flash, but rather he seems to have already been there ahead of time. We're at 6 points per die so far, very cheap. Let's add 4 levels of Booster to Speed, so that I can really get where I'm going quick.Now for flaws.
I could take quite a few on this one, it being a very limited power, so I will! Exhausted makes sense. The power really would only works once per scene. I'll also take an If/Then 'Must be unnoticed to activate' since the idea is that he just shows up, not flashes in and out. Down to 6 per die, and I didn't even take Self Only.
The If/Then kind of covers that, but it means I could move someone else with me if they wouldn't notice it (maybe if I'm driving we can all arrive on time, or if someone is unconscious I can just show up with them).At 6 points per die, this is a reasonable power with a limited but very specific effect. I could buff it further with more boost, extra useful levels, or other extras, but I think I'm satisfied for now.
I'll get 2 WD for 48 points and 4D for 24 more. My power is reliable, flexible, and pretty potent for what it does.By rolling a set with this power, the character shows up in the scene suddenly, as though he was always there, even if there's no way for him to have gotten into the area without notice. This power lets me avoid a lot of trouble by ducking out early then showing up later, but it won't help me at all once I'm in trouble. I wrote this a while ago, a 'Wild Talents 101' type thing for building basic powers and characters.
I'm pretty sure all my math and such is right.I also have a formatted version that might be easier to read.Wild Talents 101 – The BlasterLet's make a very basic Wild Talents character. For starters, we'll make a fairly straightforward superhero type; the Blaster.The Blaster generally has one power: he can shoot a beam of some sort of energy at his foes. So let's make Captain Blasto; a low-end (125 point) superhero who has the ability to shoot beams of Generic Comic Book Energy at his foes. In the interest of education, we'll make a complete character, starting at the first step:Step 1: StatsWild Talents has six stats: Body, Coordination, Sense, Mind, Charm, and Command. Each stat is rated from one to five dice, with two dice being human average. Each die in a stat costs five points.Let's start by giving Blasto two dice in each stat to represent a baseline human.
That costs 60 points (2 dice per stat. 5 points per die. 6 stats). It wouldn't hurt to put another point into his Coordination (to make him a bit nimbler), and two more in his Sense (so he's more aware).
That's another 15 points, bringing the total to 75 points for stats.Your stats also determine your Base Will and starting Willpower, but we'll get to those later.POINTS SPENT: 75 (stats)BOD 2d, COORD 3d, SENSE 4d, MIND 2d, CHARM 2d, CMD 2dStep 2: SkillsThere are 29 skills all told, each of which is tied to a specific stat. Wild Talents uses a stat+skill system, but it's important to note that your powers aren't tied to your stats or skills unless you design them that way; you can be a total klutz with one die in Coordination and no skills whatsoever, but can still be a killer shot with a blast power.Skills cost two points per die. For Captain Blasto, let's buy Athletics 2d, Brawling 3d, Dodge 3d, Scrutiny 3d, Perception 3d, Persuasion 1d, and Stability 2d. Again, these are all pretty self-explanatory (except for Stability, which is basically your mental strength). That's 17 points of skills, so that's another 34 points.POINTS SPENT: 75 (stats) + 17 (skills) = 92 pointsBOD 2d, COORD 3d, SENSE 4d, MIND 2d, CHARM 2d, CMD 2dAthletics 2 (4d), Brawling 3 (5d), Dodge 3 (6d), Scrutiny 3 (7d), Perception 3 (7d), Persuasion 1 (3d), Stability 2 (4d)Step 3: The ArchetypeThe Archetype is the broad-stroke description of your character and what he's capable of. Your Archetype is made of three parts: Sources (which determines where your superpowers come from), Permissions (which determine what kinds of powers you can buy), and Intrinsics (which determine any deviations from the human norm).
While you don't need to have a Source if you don't actually have superpowers, you still need Permissions. Sources, Intrinsics, and Permissions do cost points, but on the plus side your first Source is free.For the Source, let's pick Genetic, which means that the blasts are an inborn ability. Normally this would cost 5 points, but again the first Source is free. I could take another Source (such as, say, Conduit which means he's pulling energy from Somewhere Else) if I wanted, but just the one will do.Sources mainly come into play for the purposes of cancelling types of powers.
If someone negates the Genetic source, then he can't use his powers. That's the purpose of multiple Sources; they're like redundancy circuits in case something shorts out.Permissions determine what kinds of powers Captain Blasto can buy. There's a range of options here, from Peak Performer (you can only buy special dice on your normal stats & skills, but no Hyperstats, Hyperskills, or Powers) to Power Theme (all your powers have to fit a single concept) to Super (go nuts). Since our boy Blasto just wants to zap people, let's take One Power for 1 point.
This means that Blast can only ever have one Power, period. In Blasto's case, this means he can't have Hyperstats, Hyperskills, or other powers. He can zap people and that's it.Intrinsics are things that really only come into play in situations where the character is not a baseline human. Intrinsics cover stuff like having a weakness to a certain substance, having an inhuman appearance, or being an amorphous being. Since Captain Blasto is pretty much human, we can bypass this step.Putting the Sources, Permissions, and Intrinsics together give us our Archetype. Admittedly it's a fairly limited one, but that's okay. Let's say that he's basically a mutant, but unlike most mutants (who would probably have the Power Theme permission for 5 points) his genetic ability is pretty limited.
Just to give our Archetype a name, let's call it 'Drifter' since he has a smaller genetic drift from the baseline compared to other mutants and I'm bad at coming up with names.Archetype: Drifter (1 point)Source: GeneticsPermission: One PowerDescription: 'Drifter' is a (slightly derogatory) slang term among mutants for people whose abilities aren't as versatile as the majority of the mutant population's. While 'normal' mutants tend to have a wide array of abilities, Drifters have only one. This isn't to say that a Drifter can't be more powerful than a mutant; they're just seen as 'limited'.POINTS SPENT: 75 (stats) + 17 (skills) + 1 (Archetype) = 93 pointsBOD 2d, COORD 3d, SENSE 4d, MIND 2d, CHARM 2d, CMD 2dAthletics 2 (4d), Brawling 3 (5d), Dodge 3 (6d), Scrutiny 3 (7d), Perception 3 (7d), Persuasion 1 (3d), Stability 2 (4d)Step 4: Powers (Miracles)Now we get to the meat and potatoes: Miracles.Miracles are build from Qualities, which are the three basic things a power can do; it can be used to Attack, to Defend, or is Useful in some other way. A Miracle can have any combination of these, and can have each one multiple times.
So you can have one power that can attack in three different ways, or can defend you from harm while providing some sort of utility. Each Quality a power has costs 2 points per die, and can be modified by Extras and Flaws (which we're not going to worry about with this character).(A power can also have multiples of the same Qualities; a power can have, say, three different Attacks qualities and two Defends qualities, each one doing something slightly different. We'll worry about that later though.)Captain Blasto has one power; his 'Energy Blast'. In terms of Qualities, all it can do is Attack.Each Quality may also have Capacities that determine the overall scope of what the power can affect. The Attacks Quality comes with either the Mass or Range Capacity for free.
Mass means that the attack is a physical hit and can cause knockback, Range means we can use it at a distance. Obviously, we'll take Range.Now, our Energy Blast power costs 2 points per die. Since it has the Attack quality with the Range capacity, that means that when we make a successful roll with it, the target (who doesn't need to be nearby) takes the width in Stun and Killing damage.Now, the next question is 'how many dice do we want?' We can buy normal dice, Hard Dice (which cost double), and Wiggle Dice (which cost quintuple). Normal dice are rolled as usual, Hard Dice are set to 10 before rolling, and Wild Dice are set to any number you want after rolling.At this point we have 32 points left, so let's see what that gets us.Now, we could just buy 10 normal dice at 2 points a pop for 20 points. But let's see what we can do with other types of dice and how they affect the power.We could buy all Hard Dice for the power; that's double the cost of a normal die (so 4 points), which means that 5hd would only cost us 20 points, same as 10d.
However, this means that the power is always effectively rolling a 5x10 result every time it's used. That's more than enough to grease anyone who gets hit with it (assuming they don't have any type of defense). In fact, you can't not pop someone's head with this power; Hard Dice are always all-or-nothing. If you want to use your Hard Dice, you have to use all of them or none at all. Needless to say, that isn't very heroic. Hard Dice are better suited for defensive or useful abilities.Wiggle dice cost four times a normal die; in this case that's 8 points per die. We could buy 4wd for our remaining 32 points, which means that instead of rolling the dice we can set them to whatever we want; we effectively always have a width of two or three, and whatever height we want.
We can’t outright kill anyone with this power (not enough dice), but on the plus side we can put the blast wherever we feel like. Of course, the small pool means that others can still beat us in terms of speed.Let's split the difference and buy a mix of normal and wiggle dice. For 28 points we can buy 6 normal dice (12 points) and 2 wiggle dice (16 points), which gives us a nice mix of power and flexibility. The power's range is determined by the total die pool; an eight die pool has a range of 1,280 yards.At the end, our power looks like this:Generic Comic Book Energy Blast 6d+2wd (A; 2 per die; 28 points)Attacks Capacities: RangeWhen we want to use this power, we roll 6 dice, and then after rolling we can put down two more to match whatever we want. While not as flexible as the 4wd, we can get wider and higher sets now.POINTS SPENT: 75 (stats) + 17 (skills) + 1 (Archetype) + 28 (powers) = 121 pointsBOD 2d, COORD 3d, SENSE 4d, MIND 2d, CHARM 2d, CMD 2dAthletics 2 (4d), Brawling 3 (5d), Dodge 3 (6d), Scrutiny 3 (7d), Perception 3 (7d), Persuasion 1 (3d), Stability 2 (4d)Generic 'Comic Book Energy' Blast 6d+2wd (A; 2 per die; 28 points)Attacks Extras and Flaws: None Capacities: RangeStep 5: Base Will and WillpowerLastly, we have our Base Will, and Willpower pool. Willpower is spent to boost rolls, offset penalties, and the like.A character's Base Will is equal to his Charm plus is Command, but we can increase it by one for three points. For Captain Blasto, that comes to 4, and I'll boost that to a 5 for three points.
His Willpower pool starts equal to his Base Will, but we can buy more for 1 point a pop.