Talents

[Sicarius]

1 minute ago, Duke Bushido said:

Off topic:

 

I _know_ what it means; you can skip that part.  Can someone tell me just how Splatbooks came to be called by this ridiculous name?

 

 

Splatbooks are sourcebooks devoted to a particular facet, character class, or fictional faction in a role-playing game, providing additional background details and rules options. ... Since the asterisk is also known as a "splat", this gave rise to the term "splatbook".  So says the web!

[Duke Bushido]

Who calls an Asterisk a s ---

 

ah, never mind.  It's probably that same group of lunkheads that have no clue what an octothorpe is....

 

 

 

[Sicarius]

18 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Who calls an Asterisk a s ---

 

ah, never mind.  It's probably that same group of lunkheads that have no clue what an octothorpe is....

 

 

 

Ya! Exactly what I was thinking. 🤔

[Spence]

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

The thing is, there is an intro package of sorts. If you buy the Book and PDF from Hero Games, Surbrook has an intro adventure and guidelines on how to build characters and magic straight from FHC. The down side is that I don’t think you can get this PDF from other sources. And I don’t think that it’s well advertised the the PDF has it too.

 

As soon as you say "build" you have abandoned the "intro" concept. 

Hero is literally dying on the vine because all you get is the tool kit with a lot of unrelated examples.

 

Hero does not have an "Intro" because I cannot go to the store, drivethru, etc, and find it by title.  If I go here and there and find this and find that and do this and do that and on and on and on.....

 

It is 2021 and gamers simply do not do that.  Period.

 

errr...delete rant.

 

You hit my button again

 

But the only way to get people to play a Hero based game is for them to actually play.

If they have to build the game setting and then build the building blocks to then build a PC........

 

The word build is the death curse of Hero for new players and only reinforces the perception that Hero is super complex. 

 

56 minutes ago, Sicarius said:

Splatbooks are sourcebooks devoted to a particular facet, character class, or fictional faction in a role-playing game, providing additional background details and rules options. ... Since the asterisk is also known as a "splat", this gave rise to the term "splatbook".  So says the web!

 

I don't know, I remember calling the sourcebooks that were shoddy and extremely unbalanced splatbooks. 

The ones that were worth the purchase we called good sourcebooks.....

[dmjalund]

It came from the fans of White Wolf's World of Darkness games. "Splat" is another name for the asterisk character ('*'), which is often used as a placeholder or "wild card" in a name by technical types of people. Someone somewhere starting referring to all of WW's various Clanbook/Tribebook/Guildbook/Kithbook supplements for their various games as "*books", pronounced "splatbooks."

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The word build is the death curse of Hero for new players and only reinforces the perception that Hero is super complex. 

 

While I understand what you mean, that's a bit misleading.  You "build" characters in D&D, you "build" characters in savage worlds.  When someone makes a character in Skyrim, its a "build".  The concept doesn't have to mean complicated or difficult.  I mean, almost every game uses points to buy stats and abilities these days.

[Ninja-Bear]

13 hours ago, Spence said:

 

As soon as you say "build" you have abandoned the "intro" concept. 

Hero is literally dying on the vine because all you get is the tool kit with a lot of unrelated examples.

 

Hero does not have an "Intro" because I cannot go to the store, drivethru, etc, and find it by title.  If I go here and there and find this and find that and do this and do that and on and on and on.....

 

It is 2021 and gamers simply do not do that.  Period.

 

errr...delete rant.

 

You hit my button again

 

But the only way to get people to play a Hero based game is for them to actually play.

If they have to build the game setting and then build the building blocks to then build a PC........

 

The word build is the death curse of Hero for new players and only reinforces the perception that Hero is super complex. 

 

 

I don't know, I remember calling the sourcebooks that were shoddy and extremely unbalanced splatbooks. 

The ones that were worth the purchase we called good sourcebooks.....

And the potential players could have also used several pre built characters out of FHC. I’m not saying it was perfect. What I’m saying is that Surbrook did put together a sample campaign and scenario that used all the elements of FHC. Now if MORE people knew of this when FHC came out we as a group could’ve put up some finishing details. We could’ve had a contest of creating 175 pt characters that fit into Grishun (sp). (Yes, it is confusing that he left potential GMs with the option of Heroic and Super Heroic, probably just kept Elves and Dwarves where they were at point wise and still just call it Heroic level.)  so my point is that although Grishun wasn’t 💯 percent of what you’re looking for, it still go you to at least 90% but again as a resource it fell through the cracks. I don’t think that it was ever utilized at all. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Ok warning this may come off as a rant. I’ve noticed Duke Bushido echo sentiments in OSRs that is, older games are better because there are less rules and more GM rulings and we had fun. This isn’t wrong per se. Glad if you had fun and were able to make fair rulings. But know one yet has looked at the other side (and perhaps that’s why they’re on OSR because of good experiences.) Namely why was there an increase of rules? I think the two main reasons were 1) GM could be pricks.  If you had to rely on a GM who let the game be a “god” well, I know I’d be tempted! Seriously if I was given certain super powers, I might be a super villain.  Anyways with rules in print (even if you don’t like the rule) everyone is on the same page. 2) GM confidence (I’ve routinely pointed this out that I’m in this category). Hey game company what do you mean I have to make a decision? That’s what I paid for the rules for. More importantly  how do I know I’ll make a fair and reasonable decision? Let’s face it some of the guidelines in the older books on how to make a ruling is very vague. Anyways now that I got that off the chest, the rant not about OSR or what edition you enjoy but rather I don’t ever see someone pause and say hmmmm.....this worked for us but what is the down side? How could this fail? Could we be in the minority with this?  Iow, just because you (OSR) didn’t have a problem doesn’t mean that there wasn’t potential problems with it. 

[Sicarius]

21 hours ago, Spence said:

 

They went from publishing actual playable RPG's to publishing the rule structure to create your own RPG.

 

 

Exactly.  But I would propose that in addition to those two product types, "Hero Toolkit" and the "RPG  built using the Hero rules in the background".  Another one is a smaller "introductory" product that contains a "starter" game designed to allow the players to actually play a few sessions using pre-generated PC's and a pre-built adventure.  This allows them to "test drive" the game such as a generic Fantasy adventure.  Game play would present everything without any annotations or costs on the character sheets or stat blocks.  An appendix at the end would have full write ups for reference later.  

 

A person buys Fantasy Hero Complete but get hung-up because of the lack of pre-built spells and stuff.  I know of too many people that bought a version of Hero and then gave it up because they could not just play it.  So you have a "Intro" package, maybe via HoC, that presents a "generic" and complete adventure they can just play.  After seeing the game actually in play they will have many of their questions answered and can go on to their own ideas or just expanding on the intro.

 

 

I think your right.  Like a D&D starter kit or GURPS boxed fantasy set.  Right now Hero is not really geared towards the casual or new player. It is geared towards a subset of the most aloft, egotistical, megamonicial control freaks in the rpg community who want mastery of every nook and cranny of the universe in question.  BWAHHH Haha... where did that come from? 😯

[Ninja-Bear]

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

While I understand what you mean, that's a bit misleading.  You "build" characters in D&D, you "build" characters in savage worlds.  When someone makes a character in Skyrim, its a "build".  The concept doesn't have to mean complicated or difficult.  I mean, almost every game uses points to buy stats and abilities these days.

I will say though that Necessary Evil did come with pre built Archetypes that you could just grab and go. So did Mechwarrior 1-2ed and I believe D6 Powers was similar Star Wars D6 where you had a type and the just assign X dice to the skills you wanted to be better at. But, I get your point and agree with it. (What was annoying with some of the archetypes in both Savage Worlds and Mech warrior was even though you could create your own, they didn’t show how they came up with archetypes and their system was wonky enough that it was hard to just swap out things for other that you really wanted.)

[Ninja-Bear]

20 hours ago, Spence said:

 

As soon as you say "build" you have abandoned the "intro" concept. 

Hero is literally dying on the vine because all you get is the tool kit with a lot of unrelated examples.

......

 

But the only way to get people to play a Hero based game is for them to actually play.

If they have to build the game setting and then build the building blocks to then build a PC........

 

The word build is the death curse of Hero for new players and only reinforces the perception that Hero is super complex. 

I’ll make you a good faith offer Spence. If you tell me campaign limits for an Intro game, I’ll gladly help write up a bunch of starting pre made characters. 

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Ok warning this may come off as a rant. I’ve noticed Duke Bushido echo sentiments in OSRs that is, older games are better because there are less rules and more GM rulings and we had fun. This isn’t wrong per se.

 

Good, because I have a minor quibble. 

 

I prefer not necessarily old games; I prefer games that say "sure; if you want."  I _detest_ games that say "no" or "never" at the same time they say "you can do anything you want."

 

What I really like-- and bear with me here-- is games that are easy to teach, easy to grasp, and can be read completely in one or two sittings.  Honestly, the older I get, the more I like that-- the more I _need_ that, given that the closer I get to dead, the less the time remain is actually _mine_.  Makes no sense, but there it is.

 

I also like games that have a setting already, even if I chose not to use it.  I like games with an adventure or two-- it establishes benchmarks and gives me an idea of how the creators saw the game rules being used.

 

 

Now the more on that part:

 

Champions gets a pass (at least, Champions when it was an actual game gets a pass) on not having a setting, because everyone I have ever met knows enough about comic books and superheroes to throw something together, so long as there are example characters and an adventure or two to get the hang of the rules.  Fantasy could _almost_ get a pass for the same reasons, but you'd need sample races and magic, etc, which is why I think the original Fantasy HERO was solid: it had enough of those things to get you started.

 

In short, I like games you can pick up and play.

 

Savage Worlds is _hardly_ Old School, but you can pick up the "Lite" version and be up and running the next day.  Hero hasn't been able to make that claim in _years_.  Honestly, I don't even know if D&D can still make that claim, assuming someone who has never played before picks up the latest set of rules and gives it a try.

 

Short version: I don't fault you for thinking I'm an OSR sort of person: the things I like in game were far more common once upon a time than they are today, after all, but the fact is that what I want is a book I can read in one or two sittings and be able to play the game.  HERO can't deliver that anymore.  If I had to be one-hundred-percent honest, if I hadn't been playing since the first Champions, there's no way in Hell I'd've picked up 5e, certainly not 6e, and so long as we're being honest-- I _might_ have picked up the 4e HSR book, but probably not the Champions BBB version.  Why?  Because this isn't really a new thing for me:  I've had a work life and adult responsibilities -- just like the rest of you-- for a long, long time now, and time to do extra stuff-- like learning a new game-- is so scarce that it is absolutely precious, and I won't squander it.  If I want to game with friends, I want to be able to get ready for that game quickly.  When I am in mid-game, I want to maximize all of our enjoyment of that time together.  That means if I have to stop and look something up, I need a reference I can thumb through quickly and an answer I can get into play in seconds.   That's why I still play older editions: I don't have twenty years left, realistically, and I'm not going to waste it cross-referencing an encyclopedia when I'm supposed to be playing a game.

 

You will find me playing (or most likely just reading: HERO has been my system of choice for everything but Traveller, though I do dabble a bit in that, too) new games as well, but they are all going to be in the 100-300 page range.  I really prefer less than 200, but that's just me, I suppose.

 

 

7 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

But know one yet has looked at the other side (and perhaps that’s why they’re on OSR because of good experiences.) Namely why was there an increase of rules?

 

Your ideas are completely valid, and forgive me for shortening them, but I am leaving the premise so as to demonstrate that they are indeed valid. 

 

7 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I think the two main reasons were 1) GM could be pricks.

 

 

7 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

2) GM confidence 

 

 

I offer some other reasons:

 

3) Social pressure.  Conventions in the early days; the internet now.  The pressure of "you're not doing it right."  Perhaps not called that directly, but there is (was?) always that "oh.  You do it that way.  We don't do it that way."   What difference does it make?    Sure-- we can make up all kinds of things:  "because!"  Or "if you want to be in a Con game" which eventually became "if you want to be in an online game" and even "if you want to discuss it on the chat boards"---- all of that pressure to "make sure you are doing it "right." 

 

When the rule is unclear, who is to say what's "right?"  What happens when "well, we played it this way for years, but the new version says "NO!" in very clear letters.  Guess we'd better do it that way.

 

If that rule removes some of the fun you were having-- sure "you can remove any rule you don't like," but judging from the comments and replies on this board and at game stores over the years, I seem to be the only one who does more than give lip service to that: people will drag rules out of auxiliary paraphernalia to make sure they are giving "the official response."  APG II-- so I bought a thousand pages of rules, but since there was still some other book with more rules in it, if I'm using the rules I have to do x, I'm wrong because someone came along and added some more rules.   Nice.

 

I wasn't kidding some time back when I said I'd owned Champs III for nearly a decade before I used anything out of it: the rules we were already using were quite sufficient for anything we wanted to do up until that point.  Ultimately, it was just a lark:  Hey, you know-- it might be fun to use Transform for _something_.  We made a "turn to frog" spell for a Champions-Based fantasy game. (Didn't have Fantasy HERO-- hadn't even heard of it at the point in time.)

 

 Sorry; that's not quite accurate.  We _re-made_ a "turn to toad" spell.  Up until that point, our "turn to toad" spell was pretty much just a "kill-it" power-- either Energy Blast or RKA; I don't know that we didn't have some version of each, honestly.  _Probably_ EB just because of pricing, but that's not really important now.  We counted damage; when it was dead, it was a frog.   How did T-form work in Champs III?  It was Killing Attack.  It wasn't called that, but you counted damage.  When it was dead, it was a toad.

 

How did the new rules help with that?  That's a Major Transform:  Guy into Toad.  Oh, and it's permanent, so we have to buy up some time scales here to be "effectively permanent."  Reasonably common something or others......

 

It didn't add anything originally, and it just added cost later on.  It was easier to change the spell component to "dead guy" so we could just keep paying RKA or EB pricing to get something that wasn't one bit more special than a dead guy.

 

"Oh!  But a frog could be useful for--!"

 

Bull.  Okay, if you just have to watch a dog salivate uncontrollably for twenty minutes, nothing does that like tossing him a toad, but really-- have you ever had any adventure-- or ever planned or even _conceived_ of an adventure where the key to the puzzle was a quart-and-a-half of dog drool?  No; of course not.  Dead guy equals toad or dead guy equals anything else as useful-- as _for real_, _in-an-actual-game_ useful; not "oh but potentially--"

 

There's another problem there that leads to rules bloat:  "Oh but potentially--"   _Potentially_, Godzilla is completely terrified of toads, and we could save an entire nation with this spell.  _Potentially_, dog drool is C'Thulu's only weakness.   People worried about completely out-there possibilities get to these social gatherings and start asking about them, and even if they hear a thousand "who care?!" answers, there is that subtle "I want to play it right!" pressure.   Now, if you and your friends are having fun, you're playing it right, aren't you?  Playing it the way that some other guy you will never see again-- is that more right?

 

 

Okay...   I am _not_ going to swear....   I am not going to swear....  But I really want to-- not at you, or at _any_ person, of course, but at memories of this:

 

The endless "shapeshift" discussion.  "But there were never rules for that before Champs III !"  

 

Bull.  I'm not getting into it again-- seriously.  I will not respond to anything shapeshift related in this thread; I am holding it as an example, and not an invitation to resolve that debate.  So we get more rules for it in 5e, and what was the bulk of the response to that?   "Too pricey!  Too complicated!  Too weird!"  and to a lesser extend "why am I not the thing?  I look, sound, feel, smell, and taste like the thing, but when am I actually the thing?"

 

Lots and lots more rules and words; no solution.

 

 

Sorry; I haven't been numbering-- I got carried away. 

 

Number L ) Reading comprehension.  Elemental Control is a great example of that.  Used as presented in the earliest editions, it's at most a -1/2 Limitation, but the screaming was what a total giveaway it was.  There is half a sentence in 2e that is quite possibly the most overlooked bit of rule in the history of this game:  there is not just an Active Point minimum price, but a Real Point minimum price, too.  That's right: if you built your EC for 40 AP slots, you had to have 40 AP of powers in each slot.  All after the first cost 20 RP.  If you wanted to skate buy and slip in something that _wasn't_ 40AP, you had to pay 20 RP anyway.  Instant Change?  Twenty points, please.  What a bargain!

 

As with Shapeshift, I am not inviting discussion on this, but offering it as an example.  You have a Limitation "only in X ID" which folds out quite nicely for use as shapeshift, but that part wasn't comprehended.  Thus, a lot of folks perceived that there were no rules for Shapeshifting.  The fact that the guy who wrote the latest for-real-this-is-shapeshift rules actually wrote those rules demonstrates that this is _not_ an intelligence problem, either: the man's a lawyer.  Despite the popular jokes, you can't get through the education for that if you're a dummy, right?

 

So there's a creativity problem on the part of some folks as well.  No; strike that-- it's not a _problem_; it's just a fact: some people are more creative or more able to read parallels into what they are reading.  It's neither good nor bad; it just _is_.  

 

Those folks need specifics: they have to be told "Yes," in spite of the fact that nothing there said "no."  That may go back to your point on confidence, but I maintain that there is a deeper level there: lower creative talents.

 

I also maintain that the fact that 5e was huge, 5er was bigger (mostly more examples, but still: bigger), and 6e-- well, you know what that is....  I maintain that this is proof that increasing the number of rules and the number of words is _not_ going to resolve this problem.  It certainly doesn't lend to GM confidence when the occurrence of "no" and "must" and "only" goes up and up and up.  "Must use Images to model a flashlight."   Clearly, we had no flashlights before we had Images.  I am not alone in having always used Change Environment for that.  It would still work for that except that CE now specifically says "can't."  (I will go to my grave ignoring that, but I don't encourage anyone else to do anything they aren't comfortable with.  Seriously: you do you.)

 

Additional rules pull away from that, too:  you can't do you, because it's not allowed.  Unless you want to ignore some rules-- and you pretty much have to, because there are a hell of a lot of them these days.  We all _say_ "you do you" and "the rules say ignore or change rules at your whim," but show of hands:  How many people got just a bit rankled when I said I will never use Images to make a flashlight?     See?  That's the social pressure that you should play the way I do.

 

I really, _really_ love discussing things with you-- you're a _great_ sport, you don't take things personally (and they certainly aren't intended that way, ever), you have some really interesting takes on things-- I could discuss things with you for hours had I the time.   But you know what?  I am _never_ going to play a game with you.   That's not personal, either:  that's _physical_.  You don't live near me; the only convention that's near me I boycott because I am not giving my money to a pedophile, and my work schedule means that if I travel ten hours from here, I will have exactly enough time to turn around and head back in order to make it to work, and even that twenty-hour block of "me time" is only every fourth week.  Physical Limitation:  Can't ever game with Ninja-Bear.  Frequent, not too terribly impactful.  10 pts?  15? 

 

Given that this is a fact, why do I _care_ if you're playing the game the way I do?  (for what it's worth, I don't.  I care that you are having a good time when you play, period.)  I don't use the Martial (hah-- I had typoed "Marital Arts!" ) Arts rules either.

 

What's really strange to me is the people who take the effort to tell me "but that's wrong!  You can't use Skill Levels and just call it Martial Arts!"  Two things there:  1) Yes; I can.  I know I can; I've seen me do it.  2) people like that are a huge part of why more and more rules sell: people to whom the _letter_ of the law is far, _far_ more important than the spirit of it.  At the risk of being (genuinely) unintentionally offensive, I really believe it's people like that who _write_ them to begin with:  That nagging "there's a corner case potentiality here; I better make sure people are handling it the way I would."

 

There will always be corner cases; there will always be outliers; there will always be those things that _someone_ wants to try but the rules are vague or even non-existent on.  At some point, you either have to create a perfect replica of all the laws of physics (_all_ of them; known and unknown) and let that model the result, or decide that "enough is enough; they can deal with it if it ever actually comes up."

 

Given how little has ever actually come up that can't be dealt with in the rules I use, I am just far more content without every power description containing a list of how it interacts with all other powers, and just how each Advantage works with that power.  Actually, I'm quite content way, _way_ below that level.

 

It's got nothing to do with being Old School; it has to do with the rare number of times the rules I use couldn't handle the situation, and how little time I have to invest in reading doctoral theses on nineteen potential corner cases.

 

 

 

[Spence]

4 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I’ll make you a good faith offer Spence. If you tell me campaign limits for an Intro game, I’ll gladly help write up a bunch of starting pre made characters. 

 

I am actually working on something.  Trying to make what I have been talking about and it's actually harder than I thought it would be. 

I have to keep adjusting things, but eventually I hope to be able to place it on HoC.

[Ninja-Bear]

53 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

I am actually working on something.  Trying to make what I have been talking about and it's actually harder than I thought it would be. 

I have to keep adjusting things, but eventually I hope to be able to place it on HoC.

Cool. Offer still stands. Or if there is something else I can help with, let me know.