5th Edition Renaissance?

[HeroGM]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I can't speak to AC, but when I wrote for DH the terms were very clear that the published article became the property of Hero Games.

 

Which is what the Writer's Guidelines for 5th pretty much state.

[Spence]

Wow, this thread exploded.

 

So a lot of repeated dead horse beating

 

But a few items, well beaten but none the less true.

 

In no particular order...

 

1) In Play Character Sheets vice Full Build Character Sheets.  This is still a must.  You simply do not need all the annotation on the character sheet in play.  It is simply a wall of numbers and arcane text for the new player.

 

2) Actual Campaigns and Adventures.  To work a campaign has to contain all of the key information required to play.  That means anything not contained in the core rulebook MUST be in the Campaign/Adventure.  If a campaign requires the purchase of yet another book in order to run it, people will pass.  A "One-Sheet" is a different animal.  The "Plot-Point" format is perfect. A supers campaign is not like a fantasy campaign (like D&D/PF) or a horror campaign (CoC).  You do not have to meet Dr Destroyer, Mechanon or Galactis in every campaign.  A character can complete multiple campaigns before they are powerful enough, and that is OK.

 

3) Build criteria, as in point values and caps.  For a campaign or adventure this is determined by the campaign or adventure.  It is not something left to the purchaser to figure out.  Make a decision and mark it as such. Players can always ignore it.  But a player, especially a new GM needs to know so they can plan.

 

4) Play Cards.  I have started calling play sheets this to avoid confusion with Play Character Sheets.  A Play Card has all the information needed to play the specific character on one sheet.   I  am currently tinkering on one to be laminated so a player can make quick notes. 

 

5) From the beginning Hero has always been easy to play.  Character creation, while not difficult once you realize how it works, us completely different and almost counter intuitive to new people.  But I completely disagree that combat drags out more than other systems.  Most of the issues come from familiarity and paying attention.  If a player is actually paying attention they can immediately tell you their action.  It is why I ban devices at the table when I run.  If you want an example of a mind bogglingly complex game that is Pathfinder with its 2 million class variants and 52 volumes of stuff.  I have yet to see a PF game were every action wasn't accompanied by the player and GM flipping pages and pages and pages to verify what they were doing.  Yes, yes...I  know I your game it never happens

 

6) Campaign Setting. Hero doesn't have one.  They have all of the ingredients, arguably too many ingredients.  But nothing organized into a format that a GM can pick up, prep and play. 

[Spence]

On 2/23/2022 at 9:38 PM, Scott Ruggels said:

Tekumel's problem was two fold. It had a background, that unfortunately was not Tolkeinesque, and shared more with the Maya, than it did with Northern Europe. The second problem is that it was saddled with a terrible combat system, unless one used the Mass Combat rules.  THe individual Combat system was similar to the first examples of D&D, but was quite lethal, and klunky. It would be a good candidate for a "Single Book" Hero conversion 

 

It had a third problem that was pretty large and one that was shared by several games/settings that never took off. 

 

It attempted to have it world be too unique.  Games that go out of their way to be too unique requires players to STUDY the setting in order have enough information to do anything. 

 

All I really remember of Empire of the Petal Throne was too much weirdness and too little explanation.  We went on to other games. 

 

Tolkeins Rohirrom (sp?) can be described loosely as plains dwelling horsemen with a culture that resembles Viking/Norse/Celtic and no ships. 

 

100% accurate? No. 

Enough so that a new player can create a character? Yes.

 

To play an RPG a player must have enough information to be able to create a character that fits in a setting. 

 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

On 2/28/2022 at 3:00 PM, Spence said:

 

It had a third problem that was pretty large and one that was shared by several games/settings that never took off. 

 

It attempted to have it world be too unique.  Games that go out of their way to be too unique requires players to STUDY the setting in order have enough information to do anything. 

 

 

 

Now that is the most thought-provoking response I have ever gotten; thank you.

 

I say that because even though Empire's systems were a bit wierd and cumbersome, the Tekumel setting itself has been relased more than once over the years, and for more than one system.  However, it has _never_ caught traction except with a very small handful of people.

 

For what it is worth, I liked it.  I didn't _love_ it, but I wouldn't have minded playing in it for a bit.  However, remember that I was exposed to it during an era when your only other choices for Fantasy were YATRO or "kinda Nordic, maybe?"  and I will always have a bias towards anything that isn't Tolkien-esque; that's just me.

 

Your comments about having to learn the intricacies of an unfamiliar setting actually dovetail nicely into my own complaints about overly detailed setting books, and my suggestions for thinner, lighter setting books that can be slowly expanded on with subsequent adventures-  get into the world when you need to, as you need to, instead of four-hundred page info dumps that read like history textbooks-  mostly because they _are_ history text books; they are simply focused on a fictional history.

 

Dont get me wrong: I, like many GMs, read them for entertainment as well as for potential use, which probably goes a long way toward explaining why I rather liked Tekumel.

 

We point at D and D a lot in these conversations, so to take a break from that, let's point at another equally-beloved and richly-detailed setting: Traveller's own Third Imperium setting.  (First the open honesty: I don't use it that much, but I _love_ reading up on it)  If the Third Imperium had been handled from the get-go the way it was handled in T5 or Mongoose Traveller ("here are three colossal text books with every detail of the setting and its history), I don't think it would have caught on like it did.  Instead, it grew initially as a few disjointed ideas in response to the fanbase clamoring for _something_ of a setting, and grew and grew as needed or demanded.  Miller's Traveller as initially conceived was a lonely place for humans: we were all there was.  As fans wanted to ask about aliens, and grumble for aliens, we got aliens (I blame the entirety of the Asian on the screaming popularity of the Man / Kzinn War books of the time).

 

It became one of the most published RPG setting of all time, starting with Traveller Deluxe (well, starting even before that, as there were pieces in every adventure and magazine prior to the Deluxe set- the last of the Little Box editions- and on and on until we couldn't fight the universal scream of RPG players who aren't Duke and we ended up with freakin' Space Elves (the Darrians) and I got so disgusted I didn't buy another Traveller product into (or after) The Traveller Book /The Traveller  Adventure combo I found in a game store in Athens.

 

(I cannot fully express the extent of it, so let's instead just understand that it not possible to over-estimate the amount of hatred I have for Tolkien elves and their many knock-offs.  If I said "brooding, Anne Rice -styled metrosexual vampires," I am sure I could get a similar reaction from many of you).

 

Stepping from Traveller to another vast universe with half a million pages of lore, we can look at Catholic Traveller.  I know people-  in fact, I work with a truck driver-! Who will spend hours on the internet reading 40k lore and he doesn't even play- he doesn't play anything!  He thinks RPGs are "weird," but he still loves the 40k lore!

 

And again, that didn't start off with a 400 page tome of what's what; it grew as it was needed.

 

 

To get back on course: I think the relative failure of Tekumel for forty-odd years suggests that it is possible to over-do your setting, and that a massive information dump to process before play begins is something of a barrier brought on by the current approach.

 

 

[Spence]

On 2/28/2022 at 8:31 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Now that is the most thought-provoking response I have ever gotten; thank you.

 

Why thank you. 

As they say, even the blind pig eventually finds an acorn. 😇

 

On 2/28/2022 at 8:31 PM, Duke Bushido said:

I will always have a bias towards anything that isn't Tolkien-issue; that's just me.

For myself I prefer Hollywood Medieval because it is easiest to visualize for me.  

I know, I know, many people think that Hollywood Medieval and Tolkien'verse are the same, but they are not. 

The Tolkien'verse, like many of the settings out there revolve around vast cites and equally vast armies.  I prefer settings where the towns are small and 100 is considered an army.  It is perfect for allowing PC's have a significant impact without the need for Galactus level power.
 

On 2/28/2022 at 8:31 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Your comments about having to learn the intricacies of an unfamiliar setting actually dovetail nicely into my own complaints about over-my detailed setting books, and my suggestions for thinner, lighter setring books that can be slowly expanded on with subsequent adventures-  get into the world when you need to, as you need to, instead of four-hundred page info dumps that read like history textbooks-  mostly because they _are_ history text books; they are simply focused on a fictional history.

 

It is one of the reasons I think Narosia didn't do better.  480 pages of stuff, 8 cultures, 8 races, a buttload of vocations and so on.  All of it wrapped around jaw-breaker names specifically designed to NOT resemble anything.  If they had selected one SMALL slice (region/area) and started there with a functional small town and a mini-campaign it would have been more accessible.  Start in a region that can be described using a real world analog, and then put out additional parts before unleashing the 480 page tome. 

On 2/28/2022 at 8:31 PM, Duke Bushido said:

let's point at another equally-beloved and richly-detailed setting: Traveller' own Third Imperium setting. 

We were actually BIG Traveller fans when is started.  It was actually the way they began tying everything to their specific game world setting that caused us to quit.  None setting specific adventures like Annic Nova and  the Judges Guild ones were great as fillers for when work limited our build time.  But once it basically became their campaign or nothing we moved on. 

I

On 2/28/2022 at 8:31 PM, Duke Bushido said:

(I cannot fully express the extent of it, so let's instead just understand that it not possible to over-estimate the amount of hatred I have for Tolkien elves and their many knock-offs.  If I said "brooding, Anne Rice -styled vampires," I am sure I could get a similar reaction from many of you).

I was never a fan of the dandelion eaters either. But then I always preferred to run a game where the party was all human.  Gasp I can just feel the outrage from some of the readers.  But I was never a big fan if all the people playing humans with pointed ears, short humans with beards and so on. 

It was always more fun to run a game where the Elf or the Dwarf was actually an encounter of its own. That is why D&D 5th has slid so far down my acceptable as an RPG list.  They have doubled down on "races" as just ways to add cool buffs with nothing else.  The Dragonkin and Tiefling was the last straw for me, pure unabashed murderhobo. 

On 2/28/2022 at 8:31 PM, Duke Bushido said:

To get back on course: I think the relative faikure of Tekumel for forty-odd years suggests that it is possible to over-do your setting, and that a massive information dump to process before play begins is something of a barrier brought on by the current approach.

 

Runequest is just as bad these days and their forums are horrid.  They actually expect new players to not only read the existing rules tome, but also the 30+ years of notes and journals that are floating around.  And god forbid you ask for a simple short synopsis on something.  

 

Champions could use an actual campaign setting.  It has all the ingredients, well actually it has FAR TOO MANY ingredients.  But it doesn't have a campaign setting.  It has a massive number of disjointed books and a few timeline books.  But nothing that Bob the gamer can pick up and actually run a campaign. 

[Duke Bushido]

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

For myself I prefer Hollywood Medieval because it is easiest to visualize for me.  

I know, I know, many people think that Hollywood Medieval and Tolkien'verse are the same, but they are not. 

 

Yep; I get it.  People see horses and armor and BOOM!  It's Tolkien.  No; I don't have a problem with medieval or even Arthurian.  They don't excite me, mostly because... well, I think we all had that big medieval fetish for a while; I am just burned out on it, and have been for forty-odd years now. 

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

 I prefer settings where the towns are small and 100 is considered an army.  It is perfect for allowing PC's have a significant impact without the need for Galactus level power.

 

 

Ditto.  It's one of the reasons I prefer low fantasy, and quite often "no magic" fantasy.  I mean, it exists, in theory, and part of the history of the world or something, but that's about it.

 

Yeah; I have done high fantasy with magic-wielding characters, etc, etc....   Just not too often, as they don't appeal to me as much as they seem to appeal to other people.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

It is one of the reasons I think Narosia didn't do better.  480 pages of stuff, 8 cultures, 8 races, a buttload of vocations and so on.  All of it wrapped around jaw-breaker names specifically designed to NOT resemble anything.  If they had selected one SMALL slice (region/area) and started there with a functional small town and a mini-campaign it would have been more accessible.  Start in a region that can be described using a real world analog, and then put out additional parts before unleashing the 480 page tome. 

 

Here's a bit more commentary on the subject (of "too much background;" not Narosia in particular):

 

I bought Narosia within a day or two of the announcement that "it's available now!"  I even thought "hey, I might do a review after I read it! "  I don't remember precisely when it came out, but I can tell you it's been a bit.  Narosia is still sitting here on my desk, waiting for me to find time to read it.  I wish I was kidding, but life is what it is, and that's a _lot_ of book to try to read ten pages at a time the way I can do other books. 

 

Remember the original Greyhawk setting?  The little brownish-grey booklet about like an extra-thick original Traveller LBB?  A setting that could be devoured in under an hour, and that got thousands upon thousands of hours of play across the country?  Big difference.  My favorite published-by-HERO setting book is Tuala Morn.  As I sit here, I have to wonder how much of my appreciation for it is, as I am fond of saying, because it is different from the vast majority of fantasy settings, and how much of it is because it's the thinnest thing Steve ever wrote?   Sure; some of it might be because, as Celtic mythos fan, I had less new information to learn, but if I was coming at if for the first time, it, too, would likely be a bit overwhelming: it's pretty dense, info-wise.

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

We were actually BIG Traveller fans when is started.  It was actually the way they began tying everything to their specific game world setting that caused us to quit.  Non setting specific adventures like Annic Nova and  the Judges Guild ones were great as fillers for when work limited our build time.  But once it basically became their campaign or nothing we moved on. 

 

Here is an interesting thing:

 

I have had the occasion to watch Marc Miller run a Traveller game, many, many, many moons ago (I have been to exactly three-and-a-half conventions in my entire life.  I live in a bad part of the world for them).  You know what he ran?   Classic Traveller.

 

Classic had been through five editions already (1, 2, basic / deluxe (which were essentially the same thing; one had some extras), Starter Set, and the Traveller Book).  2300, TNE, and Mega were all out and being played.  The Imperium was already one of the most fully-developed setting ever published, and it was still growing.

 

He totally didn't use.  Not a single bit of it.  He _barely_ used the rules.   I remember more than the game the Q and A after the game:

 

You didn't set your game in the Imperium!

-- I didn't want to.

 

But it's a wonderful detailed setting!

-- It is.  Parts of it are beautiful.  There are also parts of it I don't like at all.

 

Why would you write something you don't like?

-- Most of it I didn't write. 

 

But you have always had final approval over everything!

-- most of the Imperium was written by you guys-- the fans-- with requests and demands and ideas that ranged from the interesting to the inspired.  GDW (who, at the time, published all things Traveller) is a publishing company.  If you want to buy it, they want to publish it.  They need sales to remain valid.  Most of the Imperium was created by fan writers, and sometimes professional writers, and contributors from all over the world.  I retained final approval not because I had a setting in mind that I wanted to be perfect, but because if we were to have a setting, I wanted all of it to work together.  Things that contradicted things already established were re-worked or disallowed.  Things that were better than what came before were allowed to replace them.  I wrote the game; I was the steward of the setting.

 

So why didn't you use it?

 

--Traveller was never intended to be anything more than a generic system for adventures in space.  Even the idea of running a campaign of more than two or three sessions was an afterthought.  The original vision was that a group of friends could relive favorite books or movies or even create their own settings.  I never saw Traveller being tied to anything specific until you-- the fans-- started asking for just that.  This is not a complaint!  What you have-- together-- created is a beautiful world that anyone would like to visit or set a game in.  Today, I did not want to, so I didn't.

 

 

You let them pick their careers!  Then you didn't even roll through the skills charts!

-- I hardly used the rules at all.  Traveller is a cooperative game.  The rules do not exist as mandates.  Traveller should be fueled by cooperation and imagination.  The rules are to be consulted when one of those things fails.  There is nothing wrong with letting them guide everything, of course; that's just not how I play.

 

 

PLEASE--  _PLEASE_ keep in mind that I am paraphrasing; there is no way that I can accurately quote something I heard once from the middle of crowded and foul-smelling conference room thirty years ago, okay?

 

But that was the gist of it.

 

Some years later Joss Whedon would create Firefly and say that it was loosely based on a Traveller campaign he had played once.  That's decidedly not the Third imperium. 

 

 

I know Traveller is universal, if you want to work at it: we've used it for westerns (you have to make your own skill tables) on many, many occasions (we already knew the rules, and the lethality was second only to Boot Hill  (we didn't have Boot Hill when we did this.  When we did finally get Boot Hill-- Holy Crap!  We stuck with Traveller!  Amusingly enough, the reason most of my Traveller-on-Champions-legs group liked playing on Champions legs is because the lethality is even lower! 

 

I just found out the other day (seriously: I'm really out of touch these days, kids, wife, jobs, aging parents-- Hell, I'll be sixty-two in a couple of weeks! ) that we weren't the only group that realized Traveller was essentially just an engine.  Apparently "The Cepheus Engine" is just the guts, pulled straight out of Traveller.  So.... cool! 

 

 

There is an interview-- in fact, the same one I mentioned to Scott talking about artwork just a few days ago-- with the guy who was the head of DPG; it's still online somewhere, I'm sure.  At any rate, what he says about Marc and his playing style-- and what he says about the creation of the Third Imperium, as it seems that DPG was responsible for the the biggest part of it over the years-- ring true simply because they line up so well with what I heard myself from Marc with my own ears.  He goes a little further, and admits that there are some parts of the setting that Marc actively dislikes, but allows because they work with parts already established  (goes back to that "steward" thing, kind of).

 

And as long as we're this far off topic, 

 

let me continue with I don't use the Third Imperium much myself.  I have, a few times, just to try it out, but it's not somewhere I tend to stay.  There's a bit too much incentive to stop adventuring and start mercantile-ing.   

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

I always preferred to run a game where the party was all human.  Gasp I can just feel the outrage from some of the readers.  But I was never a big fan if all the people playing humans with pointed ears, short humans with beards and so on. 

 

You won't hear any from me, because I am exactly the same way: I prefer a party of all humans.  There are tons of GM-related reasons, but even then, just as fiction-- where I am _not_ in charge of finding some reason that everyone is involved-- I have always preferred parties of all-humans.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

It was always more fun to run a game where the Elf or the Dwarf was actually an encounter of its own.

 

Again: Ditto.  I have nothing against other races (though I do run a Traveller game (the one on Champions legs) where there are no other races); I just have a laundry list of reasons that I prefer an all-human party.  I don't _force_ that on anyone, of course; it's just a preference.

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

That is why D&D 5th has slid so far down my acceptable as an RPG list.  They have doubled down on "races" as just ways to add cool buffs with nothing else. 

 

Dude, if you haven't, pick up a PDF of Talislanta.  I had several of the books for years, but when I moved here, they were part of my massive culling of game stuff I hadn't used in a long time and new I was never going to use again-- I pared down to HERO, Traveller, and one solo board game.  Anyway, here's how you make a new race in Talislanta:

 

Pick any two characteristics.  Give them both +2.

Pick any other two characteristics.  Give them both -2.

 

Now describe everything there is to know about his new "race" in half a page.

 

Done.

 

 

Best part though, is right on the cover:  NO ELVES!  (which, no lie, is the exact reason I bought it).

 

The second or third printing change the blurb to "STILL NO ELVES!"

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

The Dragonkin and Tiefling was the last straw for me, 

 

I really, _really_ get the feeling that we should totally game together.  I really do.....

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

Runequest is just as bad these days and their forums are horrid.  They actually expect new players to not only read the existing rules tome, but also the 30+ years of notes and journals that are floating around.  And god forbid you ask for a simple short synopsis on something.  

 

Agreed.  While I haven't played since the first edition, I have kept an eye out every now and again.  Honestly, if it wasn't for the internet making it so stupidly easy, I wouldn't, but.....

 

Though if you think that's bad, have you see what's become of Rolemaster since that weird guy "saved" it?  (Not my words: he has the rights now, and he's doing e-stuff with it, but.....

 

It's pretty much the same thing, only with the game we loving call Roll Master.      No idea if he picked up Spacemaster or not  (sue me: I _liked_ Space Master.  I liked it better than Space Opera, honestly, but my players at the time gelled better with Space Opera, so that's the way we went.  Tried Universe once.  

 

 

Once.

 

I just want some rules to play a game, and a sense of flavor: I don't actually need scientifically-accurate data to go out and build an Honest-to-God universe, nor do I need enough information to mathematically understand everything there is to know about the one in which we live.   

 

 

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

Champions could use an actual campaign setting.  It has all the ingredients, well actually it has FAR TOO MANY ingredients.  But it doesn't have a campaign setting.  It has a massive number of disjointed books and a few timeline books.  But nothing that Bob the gamer can pick up and actually run a campaign. 

 

 

I believe that has been the thrust of several threads now.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Dude, if you haven't, pick up a PDF of Talislanta.  I had several of the books for years, but when I moved here, they were part of my massive culling of game stuff I hadn't used in a long time and new I was never going to use again-- I pared down to HERO, Traveller, and one solo board game.  Anyway, here's how you make a new race in Talislanta:

 

Pick any two characteristics.  Give them both +2.

Pick any other two characteristics.  Give them both -2.

 

Now describe everything there is to know about his new "race" in half a page.

 

Done.

 

 

Best part though, is right on the cover:  NO ELVES!  (which, no lie, is the exact reason I bought it).

 

The second or third printing change the blurb to "STILL NO ELVES!"

 

 

And just as a corollary to Duke's recommendation (which I heartily endorse), almost everything published in the past for Talislanta -- and there's a lot of it -- has been made available by the setting's creator and IP owner in PDF form for completely legal FREE download: http://talislanta.com/talislanta-library

 

BTW a new edition of Talislanta has been announced which will be dual-statted for DnD 5E, as well as Tal's more traditional system: http://talislanta.com/

 

And the page with the announcement proudly proclaims in big bold letters: 35 YEARS LATER... STILL NO ELVES!

[Spence]

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

They don't excite me, mostly because... well, I think we all had that big medieval fetish for a while; I am just burned out on it, and have been for forty-odd years now. 

 

I don't see it exactly that way.  I haven't seen a game set in a semi-medieval setting in decades.  D&D may have kept a thin veneer, but it abandoned most of the trappings years ago.  Other games as well. 

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Remember the original Greyhawk setting?  The little brownish-grey booklet about like an extra-thick original Traveller LBB?  A setting that could be devoured in under an hour, and that got thousands upon thousands of hours of play across the country?  Big difference.  My favorite published-by-HERO setting book is Tuala Morn. 

 

Greyhawk?  Absolutely, I have the original book buried in my collection somewhere.  Tuala Morn is also one of my favorite Hero Books. But it was still too lengthy to be useful in the real world.  It could have benefited from a smaller book focusing on just a slice like D&D5th did by just putting out the Swordcoast.

 

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Ditto.  It's one of the reasons I prefer low fantasy, and quite often "no magic" fantasy.  I mean, it exists, in theory, and part of the history of the world or something, but that's about it.

 

Yeah; I have done high fantasy with magic-wielding characters, etc, etc....   Just not too often, as they don't appeal to me as much as they seem to appeal to other people.

 

I am actually slowly designing a small numbers high fantasy with cinematic powerful magic and combat.  Mostly because the rule-sets that claim they are "high fantasy" simply do not measure up.  I have always preferred lower level D&D games because characters and creatures above 8th to 9th level just seem lacking and the encounters have a big meh to them.  There doesn't seem to be that feel of dynamic power that should be there.  Hero based high fantasy always felt meh as well, mostly because the makers were simply porting the same things over that made D&D meh.

 

When I think High Fantasy I am envisioning things like Goblin Slayer, Record of Lodoss War or  The Tower of Druaga: The Sword of Uruk,  where battles include unique spells combined with skillful weapons use and the PC's can and will get knocked through a wall with actual knockback. 

 

Actual cinematic high action fantasy adventure. 

So much fun when you are lucky enough to stumble into a game.

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I just found out the other day (seriously: I'm really out of touch these days, kids, wife, jobs, aging parents-- Hell, I'll be sixty-two in a couple of weeks! ) that we weren't the only group that realized Traveller was essentially just an engine.  Apparently "The Cepheus Engine" is just the guts, pulled straight out of Traveller.  So.... cool! 

 

Cepheus Engine?  Never heard of it. 

Another item on my ever expanding list

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

You won't hear any from me, because I am exactly the same way: I prefer a party of all humans.  There are tons of GM-related reasons, but even then, just as fiction-- where I am _not_ in charge of finding some reason that everyone is involved-- I have always preferred parties of all-humans.

 

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Best part though, is right on the cover:  NO ELVES!  (which, no lie, is the exact reason I bought it).

 

The second or third printing change the blurb to "STILL NO ELVES!"

 

15 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

35 YEARS LATER... STILL NO ELVES!

 

OK I have to object here.  You are being to pro-elf in these posts.  They are Dandelion Eaters.  Dandelion Eaters expressed with a disdain suitable to their ilk.........

 

Just saying....

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Dude, if you haven't, pick up a PDF of Talislanta. 

 

15 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

And just as a corollary to Duke's recommendation (which I heartily endorse), almost everything published in the past for Talislanta

 

And yet another item on the list

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I really, _really_ get the feeling that we should totally game together.  I really do.....

 

We do seem to share a lot of ideas on what a game should be...

 

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Though if you think that's bad, have you see what's become of Rolemaster since that weird guy "saved" it?  (Not my words: he has the rights now, and he's doing e-stuff with it, but.....

 

It's pretty much the same thing, only with the game we loving call Roll Master.      No idea if he picked up Spacemaster or not  (sue me: I _liked_ Space Master.  I liked it better than Space Opera, honestly, but my players at the time gelled better with Space Opera, so that's the way we went. 

 

Ah...Chart-Master.  I can well remember the days.  I could spend hours just reading the critical charts.  Virtually unplayable, but a real hoot to read.

 

I actually have my copy of the 2nd Edition rulebook where they combined the GM, Player and Tech books into one.  I still use the star system and planet generation rules if i need to create one quickly.  I've even used it for the new Star Trek Adventures game from Modiphius. 

 

Space Opera!  We played the heck out of SO in the day.  I still have the rulebooks up on my shelf. 

[SCUBA Hero]

21 hours ago, Spence said:

For myself I prefer Hollywood Medieval because it is easiest to visualize for me.  

I know, I know, many people think that Hollywood Medieval and Tolkien'verse are the same, but they are not. 

The Tolkien'verse, like many of the settings out there revolve around vast cites and equally vast armies.  I prefer settings where the towns are small and 100 is considered an army.  It is perfect for allowing PC's have a significant impact without the need for Galactus level power.

 

May I suggest Harn from Columbia Games and Kelestia?

 

It is very detailed and there's a lot of history and some unique words (a strike against it from a pick-it-up-and-play immediately perspective), but it's enough like 1200's England that most of its elements are easily understandable (Oh, Orbaal are Vikings, several feudal kingdoms, Tharda is Romans).  You can pick up the 58-page HarnWorld module, that gives you the overview, then maybe the Kingdom module for your starting location, maybe a city or castle if you want.

 

Edit:  Columbia Games has a 'Beginner's Guide' to get you hooked - HarnWorld, HarnDex, Cities and Towns, and the full-color map - for $1!  😵  That is a bargain!!

 

I ran a Harn campaign for my group some years ago using their system (HarnMaster).  We liked it.  If I run another Harn campaign, it will probably be using HERO System rules.

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Spence said:

 

 

When I think High Fantasy I am envisioning things like Goblin Slayer, Record of Lodoss War or  The Tower of Druaga: The Sword of Uruk,  where battles include unique spells combined with skillful weapons use and the PC's can and will get knocked through a wall with actual knockback. 

 

Actual cinematic high action fantasy adventure. 

So much fun when you are lucky enough to stumble into a game.

 

 

For fantasy of that ilk that's Hero-fied, I suggest the campaign source book, The Atlantean Age. Rather than faux-Medieval European, this setting is faux-Classical Greco-Roman in style and motifs. Characters can be true divine-blooded, superhuman demigods, and may fight near-divine monsters. The magic is literally world-shaking, and the action can be as high-powered as fantasy gets without turning into four-color superheroics.

 

The world is greatly simplified compared to other fantasy worlds published by DOJ, with only a few major empires and cultures (albeit with some internal diversity) and few non-human races (and none of the cliche ones discussed on this thread). There are plenty of locations and events to set diverse adventures in, but if you want an overarching plot to a campaign, the conflict between Atlantis and Lemuria for global dominance can be as epic as you need.

[Scott Ruggels]

1 hour ago, SCUBA Hero said:

 

 

Edit:  Columbia Games has a 'Beginner's Guide' to get you hooked - HarnWorld, HarnDex, Cities and Towns, and the full-color map - for $1!  😵  That is a bargain!!

 

I ran a Harn campaign for my group some years ago using their system (HarnMaster).  We liked it.  If I run another Harn campaign, it will probably be using HERO System rules.

Harn is being run on the Hero Discord Server, using Hero, 8pm Eastern, on Saturdays.

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, Spence said:

 

Ah...Chart-Master.  I can well remember the days.  I could spend hours just reading the critical charts. 

 

my personal favorite was "Arrow enters ear plunges through head, and protrudes from opposite ear.  Hearing impaired."

 

 

 

Jim's favorite-- and I have no idea why, but hey: you like what you like, right?-- was "trips over imaginary deceased turtle and lands on weapon."

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Spence said:

Space Opera!  We played the heck out of SO in the day.  I still have the rulebooks up on my shelf. 

 

 

Gonna level with you:

 

I have mentioned before that I stripped out my game collection prior to moving where we live now.  Without exaggeration, I could have filled three or four footlockers with stuff I donated to the local game store.  Space Master and Space Opera were two of the three hardest to get rid of.  I paused briefly with 1e Gamma World and both editions of Star Frontiers, but those first two, and Cadillacs and Dinosaurs-- were really, _really_ hard to get rid of.

 

Macho Women with Guns was a no-brainer.  Expendables had some elements that I kind of liked, but not enough to pause over.  I had no idea that Starships and Spacemen had additional editions or a fan club, or I might have held onto it.  It really wasn't bad, but by then,-- well, it was only twenty years ago-- everything we played was a variant of HERO or Traveller.  The rest were just fun reads (except for Macho Women with Guns and its companion books, and for Battlelords of the something or other.  Those were just turds clearly marketed an audience much younger than I was even when I bought them), and I had read the all I was going to, so....

 

  Superbabes wasn't bad-- no; I'm serious!-- but that title..... >shudder< 

 

 

Anyway, despite the fact that a lot of people like to bag on Space Opera, it was fun to play, and in my own opinion, that is far more important than mathematical balance, scientifically accurate, internally-consistent, or any of the other things that you so often hear people crying out for.  I mean, if I wanted mathematical balance or scientific accuracy, I'd have invested that money in textbooks!     I bought a _game_!  I bought it to have _fun_!

 

 

[Spence]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

For fantasy of that ilk that's Hero-fied, I suggest the campaign source book, The Atlantean Age. Rather than faux-Medieval European, this setting is faux-Classical Greco-Roman in style and motifs. Characters can be true divine-blooded, superhuman demigods, and may fight near-divine monsters. The magic is literally world-shaking, and the action can be as high-powered as fantasy gets without turning into four-color superheroics.

 

The world is greatly simplified compared to other fantasy worlds published by DOJ, with only a few major empires and cultures (albeit with some internal diversity) and few non-human races (and none of the cliche ones discussed on this thread). There are plenty of locations and events to set diverse adventures in, but if you want an overarching plot to a campaign, the conflict between Atlantis and Lemuria for global dominance can be as epic as you need.

 

 

Oh, I have a copy and have read through it.  It just never grabbed me. 

 

There was a time I spent a lot energy reading Greek and Roman myths and stories.   But they never grabbed me the way the Norse, Celtic and more northern European mythology did.

 

I am looking to have a Heroic campaign in a faux-Medieval European setting. 

Just a small one. 

One where only a part of the land that the adventure is actually taking place on is made.

The rest of the world is a big blank, nothing here, there be dragons, not developed, nor even sketched out.

 

If a low tech, non-starship using fantasy game has a map of their entire world in the book, it has already failed as a fantasy RPG setting.

 

[assault]

22 minutes ago, Spence said:

I am looking to have a Heroic campaign in a faux-Medieval European setting. 

Just a small one. 

One where only a part of the land that the adventure is actually taking place on is made.

The rest of the world is a big blank, nothing here, there be dragons, not developed, nor even sketched out.

 

Hmm. Possible. Since you like Norse/Celtic etc. mythology, a relatively northern setting. So, not Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne. (Where Roman paganism blurs into the Cthulhu Mythos!)

Cold. Brr!

Clearly there needs to be space for monsters. A fringe area, or maybe highly corrupted. Forests, hills, swamps, ruins (but there's that Roman stuff again).

Maybe base it on the Holy Roman Empire - lots of microstates, with at most a nominal overlord. Or more fringe still - the west of Scotland might work. Notionally part of the civilized Medieval world, but still carrying on like a bunch of Vikings.

The Church? Hard to extract from medieval society. There probably needs to be something to take its place, even if it is de-emphasized.

Here Be Dragons? No, that's where you are.

Elves? Heh. Why of course: but Lucifer, not Legolas.

It could be a "Paladins and Princesses" game, but only until the sun goes down...

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I don't get why people hate elves so much.

[Duke Bushido]

You see them as some special, unique-to-Tolkien thing.

 

The rest of us see them as Melllvar in that episode of Star Trek written by Mellvar:

 

Mary Sues are just---

  yeuch.....

 

 

[Spence]

41 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I don't get why people hate elves so much.

 

Not as much hate them as dislike that weedy taste. 

 

Though a little dressing helps....

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

 

Mary Sues are just...

 

Not relevant to the discussion.

 

There's nothing about elves that makes them a mary sue.  I don't see them as something Tolkien invented either, elves were in European mythology millennia before Tolkien was born.  Elves are just a race.  I think you guys have a particular type of elf you have hated in previous games that tainted the idea to you, but there's nothing inherent about the concept which makes them that way

[Duke Bushido]

26 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Not relevant to the discussion.

 

I don't know precisely how "point of order" works, but point of order:

 

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I don't get why people hate elves so much.

 

 

Giving the exact answer to the asked question is, as far as I understand, just about as on-topic to the discussion as it is possible to be.

 

I grant that it might not be where you wanted the discussion to go, but it is exactly the information you asked for.

 

 

 

 

26 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

 

I think you guys have a particular type of elf you have hated in previous games that tainted the idea to you,

 

 

Yes: a particular type:

 

Tolkien elves.   It's not a hidden secret: I have littered this board with my distaste for exactly Tolkien elves.

 

[Scott Ruggels]

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Yep; I get it.  People see horses and armor and BOOM!  It's Tolkien.  No; I don't have a problem with medieval or even Arthurian.  They don't excite me, mostly because... well, I think we all had that big medieval fetish for a while; I am just burned out on it, and have been for forty-odd years now. 

 

 Because I never read anything Tolkein wrote past The Hobbit, My knowledge of Middle Earth is mostly from the movie trilogy.  My inspirations have always been historical at their base, usually with the serial numbers filed off, but you can tell, because of character names, what sort of culture folks are from. The Current Campaign is early Byzantium. Previous Campaigns borrowed heavily from 1400s-1500s Europe. I have wanted to do something with Persia, but I need to do a lot more reading on that

 

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Ditto.  It's one of the reasons I prefer low fantasy, and quite often "no magic" fantasy.  I mean, it exists, in theory, and part of the history of the world or something, but that's about it.

 

Low to no magic works, but you may have to address healing rates, or the players get extremely Risk Averse, because while they won't die (It's Hero after all), spending time bed ridden, and out of the action causes players to tune out, look at their phones, or not show up.  The die rolls in an epic combat eventually go against the PCs.  Otherwise the games tend to be pretty engaging.  Adventure construction, though becomes kind of critical.

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Yeah; I have done high fantasy with magic-wielding characters, etc, etc....   Just not too often, as they don't appeal to me as much as they seem to appeal to other people.

 

Depends on the set up, but I can see the negative attraction to set ups like that.  Who's power fantasy is thos?  THE GMs, or the Players?

 

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

 

Here's a bit more commentary on the subject (of "too much background;" not Narosia in particular):

 

[Stuff about the size and scope of Narosia, Tuala Morn, and the old Greyhawk little gray book.]

 

 

 Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Pathfinder just have a mapos of Golarion, and some Kingdome names, names of capitals, and  vague descriptions to start out with, and it was up to the Adventure Paths to fill out the individual kingdoms? The Mummy's Mask did a fine job of filing out Osirion, and the Emerald Spire not only filled in a fairly blank spot on the map, but also illustrated the expansionistic nature, and bureaucratic excellence of the Cheliax. Other Adventure Paths which I have not seen, have detailed out a fair amount of the globe.  Again. I think this is, or should be the model for Champions Adventures  moving forward.

 

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Here is an interesting thing:

 

I have had the occasion to watch Marc Miller run a Traveller game, many, many, many moons ago (I have been to exactly three-and-a-half conventions in my entire life.  I live in a bad part of the world for them).  You know what he ran?   Classic Traveller.

 

--Traveller was never intended to be anything more than a generic system for adventures in space.  Even the idea of running a campaign of more than two or three sessions was an afterthought.  The original vision was that a group of friends could relive favorite books or movies or even create their own settings.  I never saw Traveller being tied to anything specific until you-- the fans-- started asking for just that.  This is not a complaint!  What you have-- together-- created is a beautiful world that anyone would like to visit or set a game in.  Today, I did not want to, so I didn't.

 

Once upon a time I was a player in Paul Gazis' 8 Worlds Campaign. [ http://paulgazis.com/EightWorlds/index.htm ] The feel of that game was a bit more  16th -17th century sociologically and their tech level was  at the top, quite a bit lower than the Imperium was.  The "Empire" had fallen and most places had disconnected from each other, so the game was just 8 worlds in a trading  relationship, and he had a couple of alien races.  I do remember that space combat was nigh unto lethal, so you would try to avoid it, because you would place your character in a section of the ship. and then you would roll to see what section of the ship got hit by successful missile or projectile attack.  Then you would roll to see if you you were hit by shrapnel, or a direct hit. If hit directly. Roll a new character. It was a very unique, and somewhat blackly humorous campaign. Run by a (now retired) Engineer working for Nasa, Physics could be deadly, and without Gravetic technology, lets say Maneuvering was conservative in that Universe. 

So yes one could build anything from the basic three books. However that was then, and this is now, where people do not have the time, or inclination or willingness to buck authority to homebrew these days.  I contemplated running Traveller lately, after our other GM ran it for about a year. If I did, to ramp up quickly, I would use the current Third Imperium, and get a couple of Adventures and Boom! ready to go.

 

 

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

 

Some years later Joss Whedon would create Firefly and say that it was loosely based on a Traveller campaign he had played once.  That's decidedly not the Third imperium. 

 

Being a bit of a Browncoat, yes, I have heard of that.  and his background, much like Paul Gazis' 8 Worlds, the tech level was lower than the Third Imperium. 

 

 

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

I know Traveller is universal, if you want to work at it: we've used it for westerns (you have to make your own skill tables) on many, many occasions (we already knew the rules, and the lethality was second only to Boot Hill  (we didn't have Boot Hill when we did this.  When we did finally get Boot Hill-- Holy Crap!  We stuck with Traveller!  Amusingly enough, the reason most of my Traveller-on-Champions-legs group liked playing on Champions legs is because the lethality is even lower! 

 

Mongoose 2nd Edition Traveller, feels like a cleaner version of Classic Traveller.  It's pretty harsh, but unless you have put yourself into static Firing range conditions, it's very hard to  hit anything, especially when it's moving.

 

Using Hero for Traveller seems to work fairly well.
 

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

 

There is an interview-- in fact, the same one I mentioned to Scott talking about artwork just a few days ago-- with the guy who was the head of DPG; it's still online somewhere, I'm sure.  At any rate, what he says about Marc and his playing style-- and what he says about the creation of the Third Imperium, as it seems that DPG was responsible for the the biggest part of it over the years-- ring true simply because they line up so well with what I heard myself from Marc with my own ears.  He goes a little further, and admits that there are some parts of the setting that Marc actively dislikes, but allows because they work with parts already established  (goes back to that "steward" thing, kind of).

 

And as long as we're this far off topic, 

 

let me continue with I don't use the Third Imperium much myself.  I have, a few times, just to try it out, but it's not somewhere I tend to stay.  There's a bit too much incentive to stop adventuring and start mercantile-ing.

 

 

Well.... yeah.... it happened with our recent run of Traveller.  Once you purchase a ship, you kind of have to pay the mortgage on it, Sooo...   In those situations Adventures happen to you rather than something the crew seeks out. You need to have the proper players for this. (generally math savvy grognards, that like to roleplay negotiations and brokerings, but it's not a game for the young and passionate.

 

 

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

You won't hear any from me, because I am exactly the same way: I prefer a party of all humans.  There are tons of GM-related reasons, but even then, just as fiction-- where I am _not_ in charge of finding some reason that everyone is involved-- I have always preferred parties of all-humans.

Again: Ditto.  I have nothing against other races (though I do run a Traveller game (the one on Champions legs) where there are no other races); I just have a laundry list of reasons that I prefer an all-human party.  I don't _force_ that on anyone, of course; it's just a preference.

 

I'm sometimes the opposite. I like playing non-humans on occasion. I'll read everything about them, and try them out.  I've been in games with mixed crews of Human and Vargr in Traveller. I won an old D&D contest at a convention playing Hector the Hippogryph. 

 

 

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I just want some rules to play a game, and a sense of flavor: I don't actually need scientifically-accurate data to go out and build an Honest-to-God universe, nor do I need enough information to mathematically understand everything there is to know about the one in which we live.   

 

I just want Hero, or a similar rules set. I like a little it crunchy. I want some game in my RPG, not so much an interactive narrative.

 

 

 

[assault]

Tolkien's Elves didn't have particularly strong roots in folklore/myth. Few previous representations had them as such physical beings.

 

By themselves they were just ordinary folks, in a mythological kind of way. They only appeared superior when they were compared to humans.

 

Even then they were just gosh-wow forces of nature - until you get Legolas. He's the Mary Sue.

 

And then you get all the RPG players. . 

[Scott Ruggels]

So, then we are agreed that we should put  out thin adventure books around a loosely defined campaign background that Hero Already owns, and that is after a highly edited version of Champions Complete? so as to fill in things in small, easily digestible chunks over time? This seems plausibly achievable. Anything else? Am I missing anything?

[assault]

Except that parts of what already have been written are dodgy.

 

Example: Australia in the official CU is nearly unusable, and a couple of the published characters are quite racist. So they would be prime candidates for being written out.

 

More generally, over writing "canon" would have to be a thing.

[Lord Liaden]

So we don't use the "dodgy" parts, or modify anything that we do want to use. We're discussing a more tightly-focused, "starter" campaign setting, deliberately not including everything right away.

[Chris Goodwin]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I don't get why people hate elves so much.

 

Duke's opinion might differ from mine, but for me it's not just elves.  It's the D&Dish, Tolkienesque combo, and the notion that fantasy has to include them -- or even diverse races -- or it's not fantasy.  

 

Why?  Why does fantasy have to lick D&D's or Tolkien's boots?  

 

I think the Mary Sue comment (which I've made myself) comes from Tolkien's near worship of them.  They were taller, more beautiful, longer lived, and just plain better than humans -- never mind hobbits!  

 

I sort of imagine that when a new fantasy game or setting comes out that there's a significant percentage of the fanbase whose immediate first reaction is: what are their elves like?