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Advice on a Star/Fantasy Hero Game


DairuggerXV

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Hello, I'm about to run my first Hero System game, and while I've played Hero System games, the game I'm looking to run is a bit different than what I've actually played using Hero System. For starters, the game I'm looking to run is actually a Space Fantasy game where advanced technology and magic not only exist side by side, but sometimes people (in the setting) mix the two. Most of the game I've played were either Superhero games where people could be as strong as warships and no one batted an eye, or Martial arts games where cars were "free" because they had no practical impact on the game beyond personal style. I have a few questions I wanted to pop forth before I get too far in the pre-setup for the game. Fair warning, chunks of the setting derive inspiration from the like of Xenosaga/Xenogears, a variety of anime, and Star Wars, while still having the majority of it not direct rip-offs of any of that.

 

Some things that ARE set:

 

1.It's a Heroic game and equipment management is actually going to be a thing the players have to deal with (to emulate to a degree the console RPGs and MMOs most of my players love, without tying everything to points)

 

2. all players will have vehicles that can operate in space. The game also allows for space-operating mecha (so it could be a fighter, mecha, reasonably sized freighter), if they want Gundam-like mecha or something more along the lines of Mazinger or Dancouga is up to the player. Just no kilometer long capital ships directly under player control.

 

3. Magic operates on "pacts." That is to say magic using characters will ALL have the dependency complication (that must be sufficiently stringent to be worth actual points) set up that if they don't behave a certain way (to be determined at time of character generation), then the PC will lose access to their magic

 

4. Psionics are considered magic.

 

5. FTL is available (in 3 flavors, no less, though all of them take several hours between uses before being usable again), teleportation of people is NOT.

 

6. Cybernetic enhancements are equipment, biological enhancements are powers.

 

7. It is 4000 years in the future, and there are civilizations that run roughly 12 billion light years of space.

 

8. Interstellar nations are not necessarily set up along species lines. In fact, very few species actually belong to solely on nation, and just as rare is the nation that is only one species.

 

9. Aliens exist, but most of the "humanoid" life are genetic off-shoots (natural or artificial) of humans.

 

10. AIs and robots are not looking to overthrow the biolgical species of the universe, for the most part. There are some places that even have AI elected into government office, with biological support.

 

11. There is no one standard of ethics across the universe. Robots and clones are nothing more than property in some nations, and in some nations they are citizens with all the rights of any other citizen, with a gamut of perspectives on the matter in between.

 

Some of the questions I have:

 

1. Most of the time that I play games where vehicles and mecha come involved those games have different damage scales between people and vehicles. While I don't quite want to get to the point where the damage disparity is such that people with the right equipment/powers can't take down a vehicle at all, I'd like an armored vehicle to be a tough opponent to people on foot. Are there recommended benchmarks for defense and killing damage that someone may have so I don't accidentally make a vehicle too tough or too vulnerable? I know that you want 2 points of defense for every die of damage that you can reasonably expect to take (at least I think I got that right), but the examples I have available to me don't seem to be concerned with such things. Case in point: there is some armor in the equipment manual that have 15-20 PD/ED for personal armor and the mecha and fighter in Star Hero have roughly the same PD/ED, as does the Warship (before taking Forcefields into account in that case).

 

2. Do people have suggestions on how to handle money in Hero System, it's been in a non-issue in games I've played with Hero System, and many of the games I've played outside of it reduce money to being something of a resource system that doesn't track every penny. What has been people's experience with this in Hero System?

 

If I come up with more questions I'll ask. Thanks to any who read/answer/express interest in this post.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

If you are using 6th edition, look into using Damage Negation for vehicle and big mecha defenses, and Reduced Negation for weapons meant for such opponents.

 

You might organize equipment into Categories of some kind based on how many levels of each they have.

 

"Sure it's fast, and it has Category 4 armor (8 levels of Damage Negation) but the main guns are only Category 2 (2 levels of Reduced Negation)"

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The Millenium Palindromedary

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If Cybernetics is considered equipment, but biowear is counted as as powers, you might run into some issues. Especially if money is not based on some sort of resource system based on character points or is not heavily and strictly controlled by the gm. 

 

If the cybernetics can be easily disabled and/or taken away, and I do mean as easy as any gun, car, or pair of shoes that the character has could be stolen or ruined, then things might be fine. Otherwise you could quickly have a power level gap between characters that have to spend character points (and money as I assume they will have to pay to have the work done to them) for biowear compared to characters that just spend money for equal power from cybernetics and who will then still have their character points left over to spend on stats, skills, skill levels, other powers and abilities, etc... 

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If you are using 6th edition, look into using Damage Negation for vehicle and big mecha defenses, and Reduced Negation for weapons meant for such opponents.

 

You might organize equipment into Categories of some kind based on how many levels of each they have.

 

"Sure it's fast, and it has Category 4 armor (8 levels of Damage Negation) but the main guns are only Category 2 (2 levels of Reduced Negation)"

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The Millenium Palindromedary

 

Thanks this makes sense rather than trying to micromanage ED and PD beyond what probably should be done anyway.

 

If Cybernetics is considered equipment, but biowear is counted as as powers, you might run into some issues. Especially if money is not based on some sort of resource system based on character points or is not heavily and strictly controlled by the gm. 

 

If the cybernetics can be easily disabled and/or taken away, and I do mean as easy as any gun, car, or pair of shoes that the character has could be stolen or ruined, then things might be fine. Otherwise you could quickly have a power level gap between characters that have to spend character points (and money as I assume they will have to pay to have the work done to them) for biowear compared to characters that just spend money for equal power from cybernetics and who will then still have their character points left over to spend on stats, skills, skill levels, other powers and abilities, etc... 

Excellent point, I failed to think that one all the way through. I will probably make Cybernetics and Bioware bought in the same way, and probably as powers.

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  • 4 weeks later...

With that username, i would think you were trying to run VOLTRON or something.

 

One of the big problems hero has is balancing armored vehicles and attacks meant to damage them against people in the setting.

 

Its actually not that difficult. there are simply a few rules you need to remember.

 

1: body is paramount. what i mean by this is keep body scores in the reasonable range for the mass of the object or beings in question. for humans, that's 10 body (100kg). the normal range should fall between 8 and 12. more than 12 body is unusual and should be rare. up to 15 body isnt really a problem for the big guys in the campaign, but more than this and the characters start coming out to be as tough as rugged vehicles. try to avoid this if at all possible.

 

2: design your weapons to interact with the appropriate body score. if a weapon is meant for anti-personnel duty, the average damage should fall somewhere between 5 and 8 body damage. for example, a 2d6 killing damage attack does an average of 7 body. a person with a body of 10 getting shot by that with no armor on is in serious trouble. if it hits a critical zone (the head or vitals) it will kill them outright. a weapon meant to do damage to a mecha with 25 body should do between 5d6k and 6d6k damage. average damage on 6d6k is 21 body, which would blast an unarmored human of 10 body from the face of the planet (more than double the body...essentially nothing left...they go splat) so while it seems like there isnt much of a difference between a body 10 human and a body 25 mecha, the difference is actually quite huge. remember that in general +1 to damage class is equal to about a doubling of attack energy. the difference between 1d6k (a 9mm pistol) and 2d6k (a .50 desert eagle) is 8 times the energy.

 

3: keep armor reasonable for the scale it is meant to protect. for example, human scale armor doesnt ever really need to be higher than 10 resistant defense, otherwise it gains the ability to deflect tank weaponry. Maybe a really powerful grade of powered armor could go as high as 15 resistant defense, but this should be rare. the armor for mecha or tanks would start at 15 resistant (hardened) and go up from there (should average around def 20 depending on where your average cannon damage lies and how easy you want fighting vehicles to take each other out)

 

Balance those three aspects at the right scale and your game will work perfectly. it takes a bit of practice but you'll get it down. just remember not to get caught up in numbers inflation because then the system quickly breaks down when you do that. balance is the key.

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I'm running a heroic campaign and using money for the first time. It's fantasy, but there are lessons that might help you:

 

1) I linked the cost of weapons and equipment to their points on an exponential scale. For me, that meant that every 3 Real Points of cost in a piece of equipment basically doubled its cost. I had to do a lot of adjusting from that base, but it gave me a good starting point.

 

2) I made weapons, armor, and such expensive enough that they represented a significant capital investment. A sword or bow costs the equivalent of a few thousand dollars. Plate armor costs a few hundred thousand. These are not easy to get or replace.

 

3) I didn't worry about cost of living. The characters are well off and can buy basic supplies without having to worry about money. The characters have to pay for their weapons and armor, their books and tools (which are important in this game), but when they buy things like a prybar or a spot on the floor at an inn, I don't keep track of it.

 

Too soon to tell how this will work, but it's promising, and the players like it. They have motivation for adventuring, but don't have to do a lot of annoying bookkeeping.

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