FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

[Steve Long]

OK, folx, now that the new message boards are working, it’s time to start the promised thread about what you’d like to see in Fantasy Hero.

To guide the conversation, and hopefully save everyone time, I’m going to start with two things. The first is a brief summary of the outline and contents of the book as they now currently exist in my pointed li’l noggin and computer files. You’ll note that it’s similar in structure to other genre books, particularly Star Hero. The second is a list of things I won’t be doing or including.


FANTASY HERO OUTLINE

Chapter One, The Fantasy Genre: an exploration of the various subgenres of fantasy (high, low, epic, s&s, and so on), common genre “bits,” and how to use all this stuff in your game.

Chapter Two, Character Creation: Racial Package Deals for many different races (ranging from your typical elf and dwarf to weirder stuff); Environment/Ancestry Package Deals (for peoples living in the mountains, underground, the sea; giants; and the like); Professional Package Deals (lots); and a review of the various game elements (Skills, Powers, etc.) as they pertain to fantasy gaming. Among other things, I intend to create a lot of new sample Talents, to cover common genre abilities and to show how easy it is to create your own to flavor your fantasy setting.

Chapter Three, Combat And Adventuring: various new/optional rules pertaining to combat; stuff about weapons; mass combat rules.

Chapter Four, Magic: Magic system creation; spell creation; magic items and their creation. Will include approximately a dozen sample magic systems, each with four or more sample spells; I may try to make one or two spells the same in every system, just to demonstrate the variations. Will also include lots of sample enchanted items.

Chapter Five, Fantasy Worlds And Races: How to create a new race or Package Deal; what you should think about when creating a realm or world for your character, or as the setting for a campaign.

Chapter Six, GMing: All sorts of nifty advice about creating and running FH campaigns and adventures, monster and NPC creation and use, all that sorta thing.

Chapter Seven, Sample Characters: Five or six example PCs, various example bad guys, including some generics (such as Orc, Ogre, Wily Merchant, etc.).

Bibliography (already discussed in another thread for some months now)


THINGS I WON’T BE DOING

1. Creating a default magic system. FH is an “instruction manual,” not a straitjacket. It’s going to show you how to create your own magic systems, and provide plenty of examples. No one’s going to be forced to do anything. Heck, you’re not even required to have fun with FH, though I sure hope you will.

2. Creating a default world or setting. See #1.

3. Making wholesale changes to existing rules or existing published material. I’m perfectly happy with, for example, the rules for lycanthropy in the Bestiary, so I’m not going to change them in FH. No one and nothing is perfect, but there’s nothing in the published 5E canon so flawed that it requires a reworking in FH.

Of course, FH will take a closer look at some subjects, and therefore may provide more rules for them. For example, in discussing archery, it may provide more detailed rules about and writeups for bows. But that’s an exception deriving from the nature of the book.

4. Providing conversion notes for other RPGs.

5. Huge amounts of historical research. While I enjoy researching subjects and turning them into RPG material, in this case I can’t, for two reasons. The first is time. In theory I have two whole months to write this book, but the reality is I’ll get interrupted so much I’ll be lucky to have a month. The second is that historical information is often of questionable value for fantasy RPGs (at best). Fantasy games are primarily based on what’s dramatic, cool, and fun, not historical accuracy — particularly since the existence of magic often makes historical comparisons a moot point. I may delve into a few subjects just to provide some data points, but that’s it.


There you have it. So, what do you want to see in Fantasy Hero?

[Yamo]

1. Include an unarmed martial artist-type character among the archetypes/templates/whatever. Even though this might seems like something that belongs more in Ninja Hero, you don't want D&D monk enthusiasts to feel left out. For that matter, don't miss any of the D&D core classes.

2. Justa minor thing that might help with the races section: I would make sure include the popular D&D "dark elves", complete with innate abilities as close to the original as you can get away with without provoking a lawsuit. Some players just can't get enough of those.

3. I would try making example PCs and villians for each of the major subgenres instead of a group of them at the same power level ala Star Hero or Champions. Have a low fantasy hero/villian, a high fantasy hero/villian, an urban fantasy hero/villian, and so on. A lot of people are still complaining that Champions didn't include example characters from the "Golden Age", "Silver Age", "Iron Age", etc and that Star Heros defaults were all for generic Star Trek-style space opera. More variation in sample characters helps showcase the system better.

[Super Squirrel]

Money
I have had the hardest time figuring out how to handle money in a fantasy game. Anything you can do on how to regulate pricing for equipment and gear. Maybe a sample system or just some really good examples.

[Steve Long]

Money and such gets plenty of coverage in Chapter Five.

Don't worry -- already got unarmed combat guys and elves in the list of Package Deals. For a drow, you'd take the "Elf" Racial Package Deal and the "Deep" Environmental Package Deal, perhaps add a few minor magical powers, and voila.

[Blackout]

It'd be nice to see some samples of martial arts styles that are weapon-based. I realize you can easily extrapolate things from fencing, but it'd be nifty to see something using a "fantasy" weapon or fighting style.

I'll second the vote for money. I don't want page after page of prices for stuff. Just some guidelines on balancing monetary cost vs. utility vs. point cost.

I like that you don't intend to establish a "house" setting with the FH genre book. Publishing a setting independently is well and fine (and probably a good idea), but putting that in the genre book instills - however subconsciouly - the idea that what's printed is the only way to do something. At least in the minds of some people (though less so with most Hero players I've come across).

(Preaching to the choir on that, aren't I?)

I'm an inveterate homebrewer, so I'm all for tons of hints and tips on how to do something rather than hard and fast "rules" and "classes".

[Greenstar]

1. Something on religions, gods, mythology, etc. would be nice. Particularly how to handle "Gods are vvery active" vs. "Who knows if gods are real" vs. "something in between"

2. Armor and weaponry lists, plus maybe some rules on "cheap" and "fine" equipment.

3. Some martial arts styles with weapons, yes.

4. LOTS of magic examples

[Michael Hopcroft]

Things I'd like to see in Fantasy HERO :

* Unusual fantasy races like bakeneko (cat people)

* Fantasy norms from several different cultures. There's room for things like Oni as well as for the pseudo-Tolkien stuff.

* Suggestions on combining fantasy with other campaign types, like modern-day or space.

* A range of magic levels, from "everybody knows a spell or two" to "magic is a forbidden secret that only a hunted few know".

* A range of power levels, from normals with a little bit of skill to mages who can hold off entire armies.

* A variety of social types. Everyone assumes fantasy worlds need to have some degree of feudalism. This isn't neccesarily true, people!

* A little bit about the role of dieties -- founts of power, sources of divine punishment, etc. Also desribe the possibilities of fantasy worlds with only one god or no gods at all.

* Clarke's Law ("any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") and its opposite ("any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology"). What if everybody in the Royal Guard had a +2 longsword because the court mages were mass-producing them?

* A section on how to use Multipowers, Elemental Controls and VPPs to simulate a wizard's spellbook.

* A few words on how to balance things so that non-magic-users have a chance against wizards if the need arises.

[Fitz]

I'd like to see stats for generic siege engines, generic medievaloid shipping, camel trains, ox trains, and what-not. How much can an eight-ox wagon team haul, and how fast, and how far?

I'd like to see guidelines on travel times in a pre-industrial society: for example, how far would a message rider be likely to travel in a day, as opposed to a huge 200-camel caravan?

I'd like to see some in-depth examination of the likely effect of magic on a pre-industrial society. How would the existence of flying troops affect fortifications? How would magical scrying and divination impact on international relations? What about the impact of something as apparently trivial as permanent magical street lighting?

In a similar vein, what about the implications of a world which is not merely interracial, but which might consist of perhaps hundreds of different intelligent species? What are the campaign implications of having the human race not be the dominant species?

What about religion -- how can one go about creating a credible world in which gods are demonstrably real? What are the implications of having a milieu in which gods (and god-like creatures) physically appear and take part in the lives of their followers? How would this sort of thing affect the relations between secular and temporal rulers? How do you go about creating multiple gods, or pantheons of gods, without having to have your entire world erupt into permanent religious warfare? If it does, why would or wouldn't gods take part directly?

There's lots, lots more that needs to be considered when creating a fantasy campaign, but now my brain hurts so I'll stop for a bit.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Fitz
I'd like to see stats for generic siege engines, generic medievaloid shipping, camel trains, ox trains, and what-not. How much can an eight-ox wagon team haul, and how fast, and how far?

I'd like to see guidelines on travel times in a pre-industrial society: for example, how far would a message rider be likely to travel in a day, as opposed to a huge 200-camel caravan?

I think both of these are good points. How many miles a rider can go on a horse before it becomes exhausted is a big issue, as well as travel times of the various types of caravans (horse, camel, elephant, exotic such as griffon)? A big issue to me would be how encumbrance effects the animal and it's traveling speed.

I would also like to see some discussion about creating magic items as far as who pays the experience points for the items (does the mage use his XPs to make magic items to sell?). That seems to come up quite a bit on the message boards and in the forum.

[Spyritwind]

Hmmm ... I'll have to think for awhile on this one and will probably add more later, but for off the cuff ...

I couldn't help but notice the "nothing is so broken in the core rules to ...". Hmmm ... I could presume this may have been a pre emtive strike vs. the weapons chart, but who knows. He, he. NEway ...

For me one of the worse things is getting slowed down, or hampered up on some detail that's still may be import such as money. Some times the simplest of things are so useful.

Complete cost listings (generic) for weapons and armor as well as mundane items, food, animals of burden, boat ride, ferry, road tax, mercenaries, inn's etc.

Travel times for on foot, on horse back, on a ship etc. Variences for terrain, weather, etc.

Altough I have no trouble making them up on my own martial arts style examples for races etc might be cool for others. Some type of monk, or warrior monk arch type/package deal etc.

Barding.

Break down for different peices of armor at varying levels of protection so one can mix and match individual armor pieces.

Hmmm ... back later.

[Enforcer84]

Well, seeing how popular they were with the Ninja Hero crowd, how about some maps? Castle, Inn, sample cave complex, etc.

perhaps a bit on the "what items you pay points for" and "what items you find/buy." debates.

[Jerry A!]

I'd like to see some detailed examples of how to create and work with various magic frameworks. Maybe a concrete example on creating a lvl/spell book based system (like D&D) and a sorcery-based system (like Ars Magica).

Not conversions, just a decent yardstick and a good kick in the rear to get things going.

Beyond that, Chapters 2 & 5 sound exactly like what I've been waiting for.

[Jhamin]

I would like to second a list of sample characters from various fantasy subgenres rather than an "adventuring party" selection from the same one (as we saw in the old fantasy hero)

I would also like to see:
*A discussion of magic types vs. fighting types vs. mixed characters and point costs.
This will probably be part of the genre or magic discussion but it seems to me that with most attempts to have magic in a point system, spells are either so expensive that wizards who have a selection of spells are too expensive to be player characters, or magic is so cheap that everyone benefits from a simple 3 point spell or two.

*A discussion of how to spend XP and remain within Genre. How do fantasy heros improve and what new abilites do they develop over time?

[Thirdbase]

1. A large blurb explaining that normal items torches, ropes, backpacks, food, clothing, etc. do NOT have to be defined by points. Sorry I nearly lost it when I saw someone defining a torch on the temp boards.

2. Tie the bibliography in with Chapter 1. These books are high/low/epic etc.

3. Examples, lots of them.

4. Even more examples.

5. Travel, seems most people don't realize how big the world is.

6. Did I mention examples?

7. Good and accurate pictures/descriptions of weapons and armors.

8. A really good bibliography.

Thanks

[TechnoViking]

1. Maybe a chapter on adding Fantasy elements to other genres. I would really like to see fantasy modern (non-super) and Fantasy elements in Star Hero.

2. Conversion rules for Power cost to money for Magic items.

3. Naval Combat, mounted combat, unless those are in TUV .

4. Hardback . ok I'm the only person whose Fantasy Hero did not last very well though the years. I would like to have Fantasy Hero bound in the same dryer proff way FREd was.


Also, I think having the Grimoire come out as soon as possible after Fantasy Hero would help sales of both books, especially if both were out by GenCon. You may want to consider switching VIPER and the Grimoire on the schedule (ducks to avoid Steve and Darren wraith ).

Mike