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Is Hero still your "go-to" rpg system?


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On 2/9/2023 at 7:28 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

I was going to say that about skills. In 4th to he a doctor you need to buy both professional skill and knowledge plus perk. 

 

Technically, to be a doctor, you need KS: appropriate field, such as KS: Medicine.

 

Even in the real world, that is all you need to be a qualified medical doctor.

 

The Perk would be a lisence to practice, which you only need to practice, and even then, only if your GM deels you should pay points for it.  Truthfully, I dont know how one could define PS: Medical Doctor that isnt covered under KS: Medical Doctor.  All I can think of is business-related things and scheduling, and typically, there is staff to handle that.

 

Either way, though, your point is well-understood: 4e,qas the point where skills became lind of a mess, owing to the combination of looser (or free-form, if you will) implementation and then leaving it up to,individual groups to define thw skills and what sub-skills were or were not umbrellaed by the Skill:  does cooking include open fire _and_ pan-frying?   Boiling _and_ baking?  Does Baking include pasties, or just meats and casseroles?  What about smoking meats to prwserve them?  Is that under cooking, or is that a separate skill?  Or is it a knowledge skill that combines with the professional skill of "cook?"

 

And as we went forward, we embraced that mess and leaned into it hard.

 

I am am for open skills:  define a new skill and pay for it, but I think it might have helped to stop the divide at Characteristic-based and Knowledge-based, and let the KS/PS separation just die.  If a player wants his "skill" to be likitwd in some way- perhaps "academic knowledge only" or "learned by rote," then let him take a small limitation on the Skill (the horror!) to represent that.

 

Another option is to get rid of familarity as it's own thing.  Yes; it was and continues to be an interesting idea, and so far as I know, unique to HERO.  Why not just assume that a Skill level of 8- means "Familiarity?"  As opposed to an in-depth knowledge, I mean.

 

Yes; you are correct: what about Transport Familiarity? 

 

Well, what about it?  As I said, so far as I know (again: just within my limited scope of experience), other games seem to do extremely well without this construct, and for most of my HERO career, I have never seen it used in any way that wasn't a points vacuum first, and an important mechanic for the setting second.

 

The typical construct is "I see you want to buy 'street racing,'  but you haven't bought Transport Familiarity with any kind of car yet.  What kind of car do you want to be able to street race?  Okay, muscle cars is cool, but remember, you can't drive the company can until you buy a TF: Vans.  Oh, and specify automatic, stick, or ODT transmissions.  Yes; they drive differently.  No; you'd never really know the difference between an ODT and an Automatic as more than the difference from car to another, but they are different, so pony up."

 

Currently, for 25 points, I can make a guy who breathes fire and levitate in the air.  For forty points, I can let him fly a bit and do 2d6RKA- with a Ultra multipower, I can have him do 3d6 or fly pretty well.

 

For _fifty_ points, I can make a guy who can drive some cars real good, and others not so much.  It is not necessary.  I have long suspected the whole point is to slow the rate of character improvement buy slurping away a proportion if earned experience on prerequisiste hoops through which he must pay to jump.

 

If you want to control the rate if development, work up a leveking system for the campaign or let the players know up-front that "hey, XPs are going to be a little harder to come by in this campaign.  Are we all good with that?"

 

Of course, neither suggestion can address the skills-breadth issue, but they do get rid of some things that for a lot of folks has been nothing but a caution-based points-vacuum anyway.

 

With the right combinatiin of advantages and limitations (nit permissible on skills without special permission), you can blow a hold in a bank vault and make off with milliins for fewer points that the skills needed to earn 50K a year.  It does not _matter_  what can or cannit be modeled via the system (which could be modeled via "skill do this" and limitaions to exempt certain elements- such as the 'manual skills only' or 'academic knowledge only' examples mentioned above).

 

Fantasy games that require TF: horses always make me recollect an anecdote I heard in college.  Allegedly, there was a polish-langauage dictionary took a no-nonsense approach to its job as a handy rederence for things unfamiliar.  Supposedly, it contained many entries like the following:

 

Horse.  Everyone knows what a horse is.

 

Same with a feudal Europe styled fantasy:  even a peasant knows horses can be overworked, must be collee after work, can sprint only briefly, can eat certain grasses and not others, etc.  It makes more sense to have a character who _doesn't_ know this take a limitation:  physical limitation: "what's a horse?!"

 

Yes: the standard answer is "well that should be under everyman skills!" and You are _right_!  But it so very rarely is.  I am willing to bet I could open one of Steve's fantasy books- genre, world, or NPCs- and find someone from some middle earth analogue who has TF:horses.

 

I won an auction some,years back for a spare copy of  Fantasy HERO companion to give a friend.  Inside of it were two pieces of looseleaf notebook paper that had been pressed into service as character sheets.  Each of them had TF: Horses.  One had TF: Chariots.  The other had TF: wagons.

 

That is when I really started thinking about the "value" of familiarity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 2/9/2023 at 7:28 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

 

Also it seems that the concept of having every seemingly minor disadvantage having a point cost to it. 

 

 

Yeah- kinda....

 

I mean, I know where you are coming from (I think; forgive any erroneous presumption, please).  I think following the traditional "if it is worth points, it comes up in play" helps put a stop to that:  "Tobasco!  My only weakness!  How do they know?  How do they always know?!"

Though the GURPS "Quirks" thing works reasonably well, too; we have had a couple of discussions about that:  "Okay, these are more "role play required traits" than mechanics. But I will give you a point apiece to a maximum of five points for as many as you want; if you fail to consistently role play these things, you lose the points.  Agreed?"

 

It"s a pretty tidy way to kind of wrap all those "but I think it would be interesting to play a character with X" where X isn't seriously worth calling a limitation.

 

The diminishing returns thing on Limitations seems to work,fairly well for my groups, but I have heard horror stories about people wanting two points for a missing finger (because a hand is worth 10) or having 6 Hunteds and 6 crippling phobias, or that a penchant for a particular brand of socks was in fact Unusual Looks and worth 15 pts or that you should be abke to take CVK twice because you also have a code against doing it on accident, too, or that the bone-stock 10 COM was unusual looks because of how strikingly normal it was, or that hay fever was debilitating in unfathomable ways.....

 

I got lucky.  The worst I had was a player who, during Char Gen, needed fifteen minutes to figure out that EGO Attack was a,power he could buy and not a disadvantage that affected him.  The same guy couldn't wrapbhis head around UNTIL, either:

Okay, we are going to lay low and wait for UNTIL.

 

Until what?

 

What?

 

Until _what_?

 

What?

 

We are waiting.

 

Right.

 

Until _what_?

 

Just UNTIL.

 

Just until _what_?  Until _what_?!

 

Just UNTIL!

 

Something is going tobhaooen, right?

 

Right.

 

And we are waiting until it happens, right?

 

Right.

 

And how Will know when that has happened.

 

Because UNTIL arrived.

 

_and how do we that until is here_?

 

Because we will see them; they are looking for us.

 

Who is looking for is?

 

UNTIL is looking for us!

 

Until _when_?  Until they stop?

 

I dont see what is so hard about this!  You guys have contacted UNTIL.  They are on the way-

 

Who is on the way?!  What is this secret?  Is it screw with the new guy night?!

 

UNTIL is looking for you!

 

Wait!  Wait a \%#$×( minute!  Until is a _person_?!

 

Pealsbof laughter all aroubd the table.  

 

GM:  okay, wait; let me back up a bit..,,,

 

Yep.  That was the worst I had to-- oh; no.  Sorry; wait... That was me.  Both times, actually.  That was the worst Jim hd to deal with.

 

The worst I had to deal with was Davien.....

 

Davien left shortly after 4e debuted, but I will never forget his attempt to ravage the new skill rules to turn in a character with Knowledge Skill: everything, professional skill: everything, and Familiarity: everything and everywhere.

 

I rejected it out of hand, and he resubmitted it with PS: Do Stuff, KS: Know Stuff, and had ditches the familarity.  If even that guy cant find a compelling reason to keep familiarity, I certainly won T ever be so lucky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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6th edition is very much my go system right now, after nearly 20 years of it being 5th edition. 

 

My only issues with 6th are some of the nomenclature changes (Disads to complications for instance) and changing from inches and hexes to meters. Otherwise I like a game that tells me the rules and then gets out of my way.

 

Much as I liked 5th edition. I thought that the change in figured characteristics would bother me, but damn do I prefer the current system. 

 

I started with fourth and really enjoy the direction the game has moved in since. As a GM it's my only system. My players love running other stuff and I enjoy playing those games, especially stealing rules from those game, like Fate Points, Flashbacks, and Clocks.

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14 hours ago, Old Man said:

John Carter is a little weird--the stories are public domain but the character is trademarked (as opposed to copyrighted).  So you could use Barsoom, but not John Carter.

 

Flash Gordon is also a little weird--certain films are public domain but the strip might fall into public domain in six years or so.

 

Likewise, Conan is due to fall into public domain in 2029, but he's popular enough that I'm sure someone will fight you for it.

 

Dark Sun, Star Wars, and Moorcock are right out.

 

But I would play the hell out of this campaign.  I'd throw in some Jack Vance as well, just to tweak the D&Ders.

 

Filing off the serial numbers covers all of this.

 

I'm a bit intrigued by how Conan would fit in a game cooked from these ingredients. He and the Hyborian Age seem a bit redundant.

 

Moorcock on the other hand: are you saving the world or destroying it, and is there a difference?

 

Naturally the game wouldn't have to be about this, so small picture Swords and Sorcery could work as well. Boo to metaplots!

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Could turning Champions Complete into less of a toolkit and more of a game achieve the goal without alienating the current 6e/CC/FHC player base? Or is the player base so small that releasing a "recapture the glory days, only better" type product that starts with an earlier edition and grows from there be a better move?

 

Well, modifying CC seems like it would be a smaller lift, and therefore could be something more achievable by DOJ. But what would need to be done? I'm glad you asked. ;)

 

Quick thoughts on Improving Champions Complete

Introduction: Make it clear this is a game, not a toolkit. Talk about the game world and its assumptions. Include an in-game-world short story?

Core Concepts and Game Basics: Talk about Session Zero, how to run one, and how important doing so is to having a successful campaign. Also include a discussion of Heroic Action Points as a core concept if they're to be used at all.

Characteristics: State the range for each characteristic at each level of play in this game world. What are the standards for a street-level campaign? A standard campaign? A galactic campaign? And so on. Something like what's in the Beyond Points article in HERO System Almanac 1.

Presence Attack: Revise to emphasize this flexible short-term influence system. Go into more detail about how it can be used to rally allies, fast-talk a mark, or manipulate a crowd in a crisis situation. Adventurer's Club issue 7, page 7 "Presence of Mind" is a good place to start.

Skills: Make it clear this is the main mechanic through which players interact with the game world. Spend time on how to run a game so that characters don't get to the equivalent of a door they must open but which they cannot unlock or break down. No dead ends, just costs that must be paid to get to the next step, with the opportunity of avoiding those costs through clever role-play and/or straightforward application of game mechanics.

Powers & Power Modifiers & Power Frameworks: Simplify. Cut this all down as much as possible to be more along the lines of what was included with the base Champions 1e-3e game. Also include plenty of pre-built powers based on those commonly seen in superhero comics and adaptations.

Complications: Include a discussion that this is one of the ways in which players participate in creating the campaign world and determining how it interacts with their characters and their allies. Complications are a player responsibility that limits the actions of the GM and fellow players while lending flavor and verisimilitude to the players' characters.

Champions - Superheroic Roleplaying: Have a full discussion of the game world. Not to minute detail, but enough to give GMs and players a good idea of what the game world is like. And, given that this is a game with a specific game-world, include lots more advice on how to run campaigns of various types in it, from start to finish.

Examples: Include more example characters and teams, but especially include more Templates. At each level of campaign (street, standard, etc.), it should be possible to use the appropriate Template to come up with a whole supers team based on any one common archetype and still end up with highly individual characters who compliment each other.

Presentation: Improve the layout, organization, art, etc. to the limits of the budget.

Adventures: Add a section with a solo adventure so the GM can learn and practice the basic game mechanics and see how it's run. Add a beginner GM'd adventure, and ideally a larger adventure along the lines of the Viper adventure in 3e.

 

Hmm. I don't know. It'd sure be nice in many ways to go back to 1e, 2e, 3e, or even 4e and build from there. Taking another crack at the skills system may be worthwhile. Come up with a skill system that naturally scales from the simplicity of Champions 1e-3e all the way up to the sort of highly detailed system one may want for other genres, for example.

 

But that's a lot of work and at some point you're selling a new game so why weigh it down with the HERO System name?

 

What (if anything) would you do to modify CC to make it sell better?

 

What (if anything) would you do to make a new, more appealing product line for HERO System?

 

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On 2/7/2023 at 10:48 PM, Duke Bushido said:

A lot of us started with 1e.  I stopped with 2e (still play; I just didn't go in for newer rules sets) and back-ported a few things from 4e (not many), Champs 2 and Champs 3, and of course, I also back-ported the _must have_ "Create' from the original Fantasy HERO (as easy as back-porting and up-porting are in HERO, absolutely no edition has attempted to touch Create.  I cannot believe that forty years later we are still putzing around with trying to beat Transform into doing the job of Create on staff of using the thing that actually does that- that actually creates, and it has been hanging right there in front of us, with a large label,that says "use this to create!").

 

As someone who's been playing since 2e, I have to admit I never thought about that. Like you, I've taken bits from each edition...but not that one. Sometimes I wonder if those of us who grab bits from here and there got together, could we come up with a superior HERO System by bringing back elements that are part of the history of HERO System (whether from a HERO System game, supplement, article, or whatever)? Or at least the start of one?

 

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as easy as back-porting and up-porting are in HERO, absolutely no edition has attempted to touch Create.

 

Its actually mentioned in 6th edition, I expanded considerably on that and brought it back in the Jolrhos Field Guide as a method of enchanting items.

 

Again, I think any concerns with 6th edition are not so much about the actual rules as with their presentation.  I think they are set up to be so dense and intimidating as to make people turn away.  And I think that's a mistake.

 

Hero System 6th 2 books was supposed to be the user's guide, the deep dive into the rules, not the main rule book.  People were supposed to grab Champions for superheroes, Star Hero for sci fi, etc and use them.  Then if they wanted to make their own campaign or see how everything worked behind the scenes, they could get the two-book how-to that covered everything more completely.

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7 hours ago, assault said:

 

Filing off the serial numbers covers all of this.

 

It does!  But at the same time people are willing to pay for the name brand product over the generic, even when the generic is literally the exact same thing as the name brand, made by the same people in the same plant.

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1 hour ago, GM Joe said:

 

Hmm. I don't know. It'd sure be nice in many ways to go back to 1e, 2e, 3e, or even 4e and build from there. Taking another crack at the skills system may be worthwhile. Come up with a skill system that naturally scales from the simplicity of Champions 1e-3e all the way up to the sort of highly detailed system one may want for other genres, for example.

 

I've always wondered why Hero used 3d6 for skill checks instead of the 5/1d6 STUN/BODY model.  The latter would enable finer granularity, and counting 'stun' vs. 'body' on the dice would let you simulate degrees of success, like how long it takes to pick the lock or how big of a discount you get from the merchant.  More importantly, it gives another reason to throw fistfuls of d6es.  But I confess I haven't really thought this through.

 

1 hour ago, GM Joe said:

 

What (if anything) would you do to make a new, more appealing product line for HERO System?

 

 

Boardgames.  Although those are expensive, so maybe a line of Choose Your Own Adventure books, with Hero mechanics thrown in.  The latter would be hard to write, but could be a free PDF that leads players through the basics of the rules one piece at a time.

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50 minutes ago, Old Man said:

I've always wondered why Hero used 3d6 for skill checks instead of the 5/1d6 STUN/BODY model.  The latter would enable finer granularity, and counting 'stun' vs. 'body' on the dice would let you simulate degrees of success, like how long it takes to pick the lock or how big of a discount you get from the merchant.  More importantly, it gives another reason to throw fistfuls of d6es.  But I confess I haven't really thought this through.

 

Wayne Shaw once said that it was because that's how the system he was working on (that inspired George to make Champions) did it. He mentioned regretting that he hadn't unified the system by using the same mechanic for both. I haven't seen anything from George about why he kept it that way for Champions, though. Maybe because they were all so young at the time? :)

(Oh, how I wish Wayne hadn't gotten himself banned from rpg.net.  He was a great resource for a lot of this stuff.)

 

50 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Boardgames.  Although those are expensive, so maybe a line of Choose Your Own Adventure books, with Hero mechanics thrown in.  The latter would be hard to write, but could be a free PDF that leads players through the basics of the rules one piece at a time.

 

Ooh. That would be neat! 

What do you think of solo adventures for HERO? SJG's The Fantasy Trip seems to be having good success with them, and there's continuing interest in solos for T&T and Monsters! Monsters!.

On Kickstarter, it seems like any tabletop game with a solo option or emphasis tends to get significantly more funding than one without, all else being equal. Unsurprisingly, I suppose.

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28 minutes ago, GM Joe said:

 

Wayne Shaw once said that it was because that's how the system he was working on (that inspired George to make Champions) did it. He mentioned regretting that he hadn't unified the system by using the same mechanic for both. I haven't seen anything from George about why he kept it that way for Champions, though. Maybe because they were all so young at the time? :)

 

I always assumed that skills were kind of glossed over because Hero was originally Champions and skills just take a back seat to powers in Champions.

 

 

28 minutes ago, GM Joe said:

 

 

Ooh. That would be neat! 

What do you think of solo adventures for HERO? SJG's The Fantasy Trip seems to be having good success with them, and there's continuing interest in solos for T&T and Monsters! Monsters!.

On Kickstarter, it seems like any tabletop game with a solo option or emphasis tends to get significantly more funding than one without, all else being equal. Unsurprisingly, I suppose.

 

Solos (and boardgames) also help to get around the lack-of-a-GM problem that eternally bedevils TTRPGs.

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Also @Duke Bushido about Limitations that I wanted to clairify is that it seems in older editions that there were several and that the author though choose those or rather something close to it and just described how the Power was limited. Now it seems that we have a a longer list and more of “this is the only way” to use the limitation.  

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I prefer different systems for different tasks, personally, as long as you don't have too many.  Using the same model for everything usually doesn't work well for most of the things, its like using a hammer to dial your phone and cut tomatoes as well as hammer in nails.  Use it for what its good for.

 

As for choose your adventure, they are actually not as tough to work out as you'd think but the main problem is that its a lot of reading and flipping pages, so if you didn't make it an app (something that does actually take a lot of trouble to do) its just not going to be very popular these days.  If someone came up with a generic "make choose your own adventures" app and then people could just input info, it would be a much easier task.

 

Other than the graphics, which you have to have or people will just give it 1 star in a review and dump it.

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4 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

. Now it seems that we have a a longer list and more of “this is the only way” to use the limitation.  

 

 

Consider this a note to adress that comment when I have time, Sir.  :D

 

That is the tree I have been barking up for years, but there is a lot to both sides of it.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I always assumed that skills were kind of glossed over because Hero was originally Champions and skills just take a back seat to powers in Champions.

 

I remember Duke saying he uses a skill system that's more in line with HERO combat.

 

Edited to add: I found the link I'd saved to Duke's brief description of his skills system --

 

3 hours ago, Old Man said:

Solos (and boardgames) also help to get around the lack-of-a-GM problem that eternally bedevils TTRPGs.

 

So true! And as we saw in the GDW figures I posted earlier, well-done RPG boardgames can actually sell reasonably well (in terms of RPG sales numbers anyway).

 

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1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I prefer different systems for different tasks, personally, as long as you don't have too many.  Using the same model for everything usually doesn't work well for most of the things, its like using a hammer to dial your phone and cut tomatoes as well as hammer in nails.  Use it for what its good for.

 

Agreed.  It's not exactly analogous, but I always considered it a strength of Classic Traveller that it had multiple systems you could swap in or out as desired for character generation, shipbuilding, personal combat, space combat, world building, and trading.

 

That said, I wonder what today's RPG consumers think of the idea. It may be that as long as it's not something goofy like "Well, with the Skills system you roll 4d6 and it's roll over, whereas in combat it's 3d6 roll under" it may be fine with them too.

 

Edited to add: Speaking of different systems for different things, I remembered another thing I'd add to Champions Complete if I were trying to make it into a game instead of a toolkit: the James Bond 007-inspired vehicle chase rules from Danger International. Would be fun for Batman type campaigns.

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5 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I've always wondered why Hero used 3d6 for skill checks instead of the 5/1d6 STUN/BODY model.  The latter would enable finer granularity, and counting 'stun' vs. 'body' on the dice would let you simulate degrees of success, like how long it takes to pick the lock or how big of a discount you get from the merchant.  More importantly, it gives another reason to throw fistfuls of d6es.  But I confess I haven't really thought this through.

Melee/Wizard used the 3d6 mechanic before Champions. In addition TFT, the broader RPG based off of Melee Wizard introduced an escalating die mechanic where really difficult tasks were rolling 4 or even 5d6 vs your stat. (low rolls being better)

 

I often wondered why it wasn't an option in HERO to roll more dice in order to achieve greater results in skill rolls.

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1 hour ago, BNakagawa said:

 

I often wondered why it wasn't an option in HERO to roll more dice in order to achieve greater results in skill rolls.

 

 

I am guessing because Steve didnt play TFT.  :lol:   

 

though the way things are going on open-ended iotions choices, it might be better to say "I wonder why it isn't an option in HERO _yet_...."

 

 

58 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I'd have to do or see a mathematical breakdown in how this plays out vs penalties to the roll to really analyze it.

 

 

It builds tension; I can tell you that!

 

Instead of changing the target number, you are changing the nautre of the bell curve, making it even more likely that you will roll closer to average, which kind of sucks id you nees to roll towards the extreme end of the curve.

 

As an example, we all know that you have an 83 or so percent chance of rolling 5 or less on a single d6.  Traveller players (and anything else that used the 2d6 and it's faithful Bell Pyramid) know that the odds on 2d6 are  just under 28 percent, and HERO players know that the odds of 5 or less on 3d6 is a measly 4 and a half or so percent.

 

Bur you already know those things, most likely.  Like HERO, TFT was a 3d6 system, so let's go with numbers you were more likely to encounter.  At 3.5 per die, the average result on 3d6 is ten and a half, which is why to equal combatants in chamoions have an 11 or less chance to hit: this is the "fifty/fifty line," if you will.  Well, just a hair over it-  I think that was actually closer to 55 percent, but it is as close to even as you are foing to get on 3d6.

 

Add a die, and the odds of 11 or less drop to about 24 percent- call it _half_ the chance you had before. There are other things, too: that half a percent chance you had to roll a 3 is completely gone, obviously, but that half a percent to roll an 18 is now somewhere around 15 percent!  :D   However, we are looking to roll low for this example.

 

11 or less on 5d6 is under 6 percent.

6d6 it is 1 percent, and drops again with each die added, until you hit...  I think the odds are negligible (less than 1/10 of a percent) at 8 dice or so, but it might be 9 dice.  Honestly. Anydice.com could give you exact numbers if you are really interested in the math.

It goes withiut saying that if you pull it off with more than 11 dice, you are a cosmicly-powered entity, and should start passing out super powers as quickly and efficiently as you can.  :lol:  if you are taking requests, i' like the abioity to sprout facial hair from other people's faces.  Just dor the confusion, you understand.

 

 :D

 

 

 

 

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10- is %50. 11- is 62.5%

 

I imagine the default being 11- is so that success is that much more common than failure. Misses slow down the game.

 

As for rolling more dice, it would be a nice feature if you wanted to give high skill low damage combatants a means to combat opponents with unbreachable defenses without obliging them to build their characters with NNDs all the time.

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Misses slow down the game.

 

yeah, I tend to design my villains with middle or, compared to some campaigns, low DCV unless they are particularly hard to hit by design.  Since attacks end your phase and you have to wait until you can act again, missing really sucks.  I'd rather people  hit, but didn't hurt the enemy much, than miss a lot but do a lot of damage.

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On 2/9/2023 at 10:03 PM, assault said:

 

Filing off the serial numbers covers all of this.

 

I'm a bit intrigued by how Conan would fit in a game cooked from these ingredients. He and the Hyborian Age seem a bit redundant.

 

Moorcock on the other hand: are you saving the world or destroying it, and is there a difference?

 

Naturally the game wouldn't have to be about this, so small picture Swords and Sorcery could work as well. Boo to metaplots!

 

Coming back to this, I did some research into what public domain characters are out there that Hero could take advantage of.

 

Mythology: Greco-Roman, Norse, and to a lesser extent Egyptian.  Other mythologies remain an untapped resource but you start to run into a familiarity problem if you're targeting an American audience.

Folklore: Fairy tales, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Beowulf, Sigurd, St. George, Sinbad, Ivanhoe, Paul Bunyan, Aladdin

Victorian/Pulp: Frankenstein, Dracula, the Headless Horseman, Cthulhu, Zorro, King Kong, Captain Nemo, Long John Silver, Dr. Jekyll, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland, Allan Quatermain, Scrooge, Gulliver, Three Musketeers, Airboy, Tom Sawyer

Pulp (and later) Supers: Daredevil (red and blue version), The Phantom, Atoman, Moon Girl, Miss Fury, Black Terror, Phantom Lady

 

So the biggest problem for Hero is the lack of recognizable public domain supers.  The ones I list are pretty awesome, actually, but the only reason I know of any of them is because I've gone down some serious rabbit holes during superdrafts.

 

Otherwise, fantasy has the biggest public domain footprint, since it's a broad genre that can include myth, folklore, fairy tales, and horror.  Pulp has a surprisingly large public domain body of work to draw on as well, especially if you include horror again.

 

The strength of Hero is that the system could easily support a sword-and-planet pulp pirate horror fairy tale mythology setting...

 

 

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On 2/10/2023 at 1:46 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

Also @Duke Bushido about Limitations that I wanted to clairify is that it seems in older editions that there were several and that the author though choose those or rather something close to it and just described how the Power was limited. Now it seems that we have a a longer list and more of “this is the only way” to use the limitation.  

 

Okay, I am going to make a stab at doing this via phone.  I feel like a time traveller, just outside of reality, knowing that I am seeing and speaking to you folks right now, but you will have no perception of my communication, possibly for days....   :rofl:  

 

we had a rather lengthy thread on this some months back, and I was actually _delighted_ by how civil it was, considering the staunch defense of opposing positions, and by how informative it was for both positions.

 

you know the technological handicaps under which I currently labor, so please forgive me for not touching on every possible point and skipping straight to what I see as the core problems that lead to both the rules bloat and the ever-increasing oppression of "must, can't, always, and never," which become increasingly common as the rules continue to expand.

 

Math.

No; I do not think math in itself- particularly with it being the key to all science- is the problem or even _a_ problem.  In fact, I would like to take a moment to point out that when from time to time you hear me state "that doesn't make science," it is _not_ a typo.  It _is_ a pun though, and you are just going to have to live that...  :D

 

Champions is _full_ of math.  One of the contributing factors is the belief that the math is significant; that the math is a fundamental part of the underlying framework that actually holds the game together-- that it is as equally important as the mechanics themselves.  This is line of thinking is easy to understand: the mechanics are by and large mathematical functions, after all.

 

The Math _does_ have a purpose: it serves the same purpose that clocks serve in the real world: it measures the dwindling of a limiting resource.  I did not say a limited resource: time will go on forever.  However, everything that happens or must happens uses time: it could take ne all weekend to finish this post, for example.  So this amount of time will be spent on this task, and any other task will require not just a different amount of time, but different time altogether: I cannot spend this particular scoop of time swimming down at the river.  I have poured it onto the creating of this post.  I must return to the time poke, ooen it, and scoop out a fresh batch of time to pour into my next task.

 

When the poke is empty, I have no more time.  It is not limited, however; to refill it, all i need to do is live longer, and my little poke of time will continue to refill.

 

_I_ am limited.  I will only live so long.  Time will go on forever, and I can keep scooping and pouring time onto various tasks, but ultimately, I will only get so many things done.  Clocks measure the time I have used, and I can roughly extrapolate the time I have remaining.  We make a big deal out of clocks (which is wierd, as none of truly want to know precisely how much time we have left), but they really don't do much.  The clock is not neither the limiting factor nor the enabler.  On the same clock, with the same scoop of time, Usain Bolt would use far less of the scoop than I would to run a quarter mile.  Time,is theblimiting factor.  Time prevents me from doing everything, and the rules of time- one scoop per task- prevent from doing more than a few things all at once.

 

The Math in Champions is similar. It does nothing but measure a limiting resource.  That resource is character points.  They are not limited: characters may continue to earn them.  Some characters- Superman, Spiderman, Sherlock Holmes, Conan, Buck Roger, Long John Silver- they will earn points even after their creators have run completely out of time.

 

However, the points are limiting.  Like a poke full of time, there are only so many points available at once.  All the elements upon which points can be spent have a finite cost.  Points are dispensed one scoop at a time.  Points mean that no one can buy everything.  Eventually, the poke will,be empty, and nothing else can be purchased until that poke is refilled.  Points serve as a means of ensuring that no two characters will be the same, because no one can buy everything.

 

At least, they couldn't until the Multipower of Everythi-- I mean, VPP- was given validity.  Even then, though....

 

There is another limiting factor, though that even VPP cannot completely overcome:  levels.  Plus one.  Blocks.  All the points-based elements of Champions are purchased in increments.  Energy Blast is bought one die at a time.  Running is bought one inch at a time.  Armor is bought one bit at a time.

 

This means there are degrees of things.  Each degree has a cost.  There is no enforced upper limit by the rules as presented.  With the limiting factor of points cost, we have both a temptation--  how much of this characteristic would you like to purchase?  How much od this power would you like your character to wield?

 

We have the limiting factor of the initial,scoop of points:  what will you forego so that you may spend enough points to ger the level of this ability that you hope to have?

 

Obviously there is some math there: I must subtract the fifty points I spent from the 150 I was allowed, so that I can guide my selections as I continue through the creation progress.

 

That's it.  That is the purpose of the math.  The red herrings- in my completely and totally unprofessional opinion, mind you- come from the modifiers.

 

Once the points in our scoop start to run low, we can make some decisions about what we are buying.  I may want to be able to fly a bit faster than I can afford to buy.  What options do I have?  I do not see my character patrolling the city from the skies, so perhaps I will agree to give up some not-so-good-in-combat aspect of the power.  I can voluntarily relinquish the NCN that is part of the power and thus earn a sort of "discount" on the cost of this now-less-expensive version of the power.  Alternatively, one could tweak their power upwards a bit: they could reduce the Endurance cost.  They could declare that their power was able to better penetrate through armor.

 

For a lot of people, this was a sign that the math was the most important part of the game- not just damage calculation and cost tracking, but everything- the scam of the powers, the facr that they are bought in increments, the fact that there are several different kinds of powers and characteristics to buy, the fact that they could be incrementally modified-- all of these things required math, and for a lot of people, this was more significant than it should be-- well, more appropriately, they felt that it indicated something that it can't: a mathematical balance; a way to ensure that characters are "even" purely by the math.

 

The fact that "active points" is a thing that is tracked could be taken as some kind of proof.  If the active points spent are the same, the characters are some sort of "even," right?  In spite of the fact that this has _never_ held up to any kind of scrutiny, there are still a lot of Champions players that continue to either believe it true, or cling to the idea that with enough tweaking, fudging, and reformulating, it can be made to become true.

 

No matter what tweaks are made, Energy Blast, Flight, Force Field, and Life Support will never, ever be even.  If I am falling from the skies, Flight will be the only power on that list that is remotely useful; all others are wasted points, at least in that moment.  If I am tied to a ship's anchor about to be dropped into the frigid black depths of the ocean, Life Support  will be king!  Perhaps an Energy Blast would prevent me from getring into that situation, but here I am. I can only assume it did not help.

 

Even moving away from the obvious examples of completely different types of powers, we can see problems with assuming a mathematical equality.  If someone is trapped behind a barrier with 10 DEF and he has used 25 of his points to buy 5d6 of Energy Blast, he is trapped there forever.  Another character who has used 25 of his points to buy 2d6 of Energy Blast with Armor Piercing x3 will eventually be able to escape, and without much difficulty.  Alternatively, he could have spent 23 points for 3d6 with APx2 and have escaped eventually.  For less points, this character is free to fight the food fight all over again.  Still spends less points than the first guy, but he isnt trapped.  By the same,token, however, under the modern rules, he,could have spent 20 points on 2d6 at Zero Endurance and been able to blast away all day long, but he would have been trapped behind a mere 6DEF wall.

 

So this is one example, and one example only, which is easy to cherry pick, I know, but what is faster?  10 inches of flight with its NCM, or 3" of flight with enough NCM to spend equal points?  If you have to race across town to stop a bomb, which is better?

 

50 inches of flight, or 15 inches with zero endurance cost?  If you have to race across _Wisconsin_ to stop a bomb.... Well l, the cheaper, slower build will work out better for most folks.

 

Two charcters have a 12d6 Energy Blast.  One has spent 10 more points for an additional point of Speed; the other has put those same 10 points into Endurance.  Are they evenly matched?  If the faster one then puts 10 more points into Skill Levels and the puts ten more into Recovery, they become even more lop-sided.

 

 

This goes on forever, of course, and needs to be brought up every now and again as a reminder that points do not and cannot Crete or enforcw balance.

 

But it continues to be believed that it can, even in subtle ways; the "you get what you pay for" mantra.  It implies that you can spend your way to ultimate power.  To use a military analogy I first heard during Desert Storm and found pretty amusing:

 

Multi-million dollar tanks,being taken out by barefoot goat herders with five hundred dollar rockets.  We can do this all day long with Champions, if only because each charaacter concept has a strength, and owing to the inability to evrything (barring VPP), every charactyer is foing to end up particulalrly vulnerable to something else, even if it was not by design.

 

Then sometimes something is so skewed that everyone picks up on it.  Remember the 4e Trifecta of Cobble?   Couldn't find a power that did exactly what you wanted it to do?  Well, most likely there was some tweaking of Transform, Desolidification, and Extradimensional Movement that could set you right up!

 

Want to be as invulnerable as Superman but don't have the points to buy up every kind of defense up to over the campaign limit, or dont have a GM,who has set a campaign limit?  No sweat!  Desolidification: only versus Damage!   Desolidification only versus Mind Control!  That's pretty sweet.

 

I will let you in on a secret: you will recall that I have said numerous times that I have backported a few things from newer editions?  Forty-point Desolidification was one of them.  I didnt own 3e until until the twenty-oughts, and to this day I cant tell you if 40 pt Desolid was a 3e or a 4e thing, but in 1 and 2e, Desolid was a movement power.  It was some of the late-run abuses of Desolid that convinced me to abandon that and return it to a movement power.  Now don't misunderstand: I had no issue with using it for a very tight sort of invulnerability, at least initially: the king of the fire elementals probably _should_ be immune to fire-- that sort of thing.  But using it to let a normal human ninja "Dodge" a 40-hex AoE Autofire attack of any SFX and still be in the same hex at full CV right after was a bit much, I think....  Of course, your mileage may vary, and if that works in your campaigns, then I encourage you to do it; if your having fun-  if the whole group is having fun-  then you are doing it right, no matter what you are doing.  

 

Interesringly, such builds were endorsed by the guy who wrote the last couple of rules sets, in spite of also writing that the most expensive option is the correct option.  Going to points equals balance: if there are two options to do one thing and the costs are significantly different, how do points enforce balance?

 

Another one from the Trifecta, and also endorsed by the current rules custodian, was Extradimensional Movement.  Why buy any powers at all When you can stand before Takofanes and shift to the dimension where you just fisnished kicking his butt?  It is _definitely_ less expensive than buying other powers that could be used to defeat him.  Problematically, it means that all of your friends are out of the game as they are now NPC copies,of themselves (and What do you so about the version of you that just took out Takofanes?  Arm wrestle to see who gets to stay and be you?  For some reason, though, such builds solve these problems by refusing to adress them at all.

 

Essentially, these are endorsed rules that in one way or the other violate at least the spirit of the rules, and all-too-often, the letter of the rules in those editions that state you must use the most expensive possibility (which is most often doing it with Major Transform:  Major Transform from super villain to supervillains who has taken 3d6 normal damage, and that power itself bought through a VPP, but no; we dont enforce that, either. 

 

Well, if nothing else, we demonstrated that 40 pts of expenditure for Desolid can negate 200 pts of an attack.  Points do not translate to balance.

 

We have also established that the rules are kind of a mess, and that adding lots of new rules and mandates hasnt really helped that.

 

 

But given that there is math, and points to use it upon, and formulae with which to calculate discounts and additional charges for various custom builds.... Well, with all of that, and with so many people who enjoy math for its own sake... Well, it is inevitable that some folks should reach the conclusion that somehow, this proves there is a mathematical balance within this game.

 

But let's look at those things from a different perspective.

 

Points are a way to prevent any one character from starting with everything.  If a campaign runs long enough, he may earn enough points to dabble in every possible power, but as most people don't want their character totally eclipsed by people who have a greater amount of some ability, a player is not likely to spread out too far beyond where he started; most will pick up another power or ability they really wanted for the concept but could not,  without an unacceptable sacrifice elsewhere, purchase during character generation.  For the most part, they will continue to focus on what they percieve as core traits for this character, and,even "non-core" elements will be increased more slowly than the core items.

 

This changes a bit with VPP: a character now _can_ start with every single possible power. (This is one of the reasons I find VPP to be something of a step backwards for the core rules) Still, he is limited in quantity by the amount of points he has available, as all abilities are bough in small increments. (Except for the changes to size powers, which are now bought in large-step "templates," and which I also find to be a step backwards- or at least out-of-synch-  with the core rules.   One does not buy "super amazingly strong!," but instead buys a quantified amount of Strength, which may be greater or lesser than the amount bought by someone else.  This leads me think the credo should be "you get what you paid for, and not one single thing else."  Unless, of course, you have a VPP, but even then: you only have X much of every possible thing.

 

So it is possible that the points only exist to impose a limit on what you can buy at any given moment; it is possible they were never reslly intended to balance characters with each other, but to ensure that those characters were finite in all things, and thus able to be challenged.

 

It is possible that the math imposed by power modifiers was created because it seemd just that a less-effective version of the power should not cost as much, or that a more effwcrive version of the power should cost more.  It may well be that this, too, has nothing to do with mathematical value, but as something of a means to reinforce the idea that the characters should be finite, and thus challengeable.  A character wanting an edge to his power must choose between that edge or the things he could,but with the points that must now be spent for his upgrade.  A character choosing to self-limit himself by purchasing a weaker version of the power four himswlf with a few points available to spend elsewhere.  Self-imposed limits are rewarded; increasingly power up abilities are penalized.  While many folks see this as further proof that mathematical balance is possible, or was an original intention, it can equally prove the hypothesis that all the math and numbers do is to ensure that characters are limited in some way, to encourage self-limiting, and to allow for increased efficiency without discouraging it, but while ensuring that it would be limited by reducing the amount that could be purchased at any given time.

 

A lot is said about Active Points, and how Active Points are the key to mathematical balance.  However, it is also possible that Active Points are necessary-- that they even exist at all- exclusively because they are necessary for the formulae of the various Power Modifiers.  Take the basic cost (initisl active points) and multiply by (1+total,advantages 'costs') and you get the new active points.  You need this number to then apply limitations and get the final cost.

 

Suppose that is all it is?  A unique name for a term that you need every time your character tweaks his powers or spends some XP?   Do you remember that power level comparison that was publsihed years and years ago?  I can't remember if it was from a magazine or an,update or from GSVC at the moment, but every single person who remembers it remembers using it, and I am willing to bet that my group was not the only group that had fun skewring its validity by "proving" that out equivalent of someone like Leroy was an even match for someone like our equivalent of Doctor Doom.  When it was published, we already had a few years of using Champions for other genres as well, and we had great fun proving "mathematical equality" between  Doc Holliday and Mechanon and things like that.

 

And I bet you that some of the very same people who did that themselves are in the "points can be used to determine balance" camp today. 

 

 

Yes; we were talking about power modifiers and,the infinite branching.  Still, it was important to explain that points have yet to be proven to be what a large portion of the fandom wants them to, and that this may well be because they never were that thing, regardless of what any original intentions were, but that there is a thing that they always have been, and may well have always been.

 

So we have taken a brief look at Math and Champions as a possible contributor to rules bloat.  How so?  If you recall, the original rules way back when suggested building custom limitations by looking at extant limitations and find one that seems to limit in the same way or to a similar extent.  This can go two ways: do what the rules suggested, and model off the limitation that _feels_ similar in limitation, _or_, as seems to have been what happened, try to mathematically,determine what percentage of possible uses for the power are limited, and what percentage of possible uses your proposed limitation will prevent, and price the value of that limitation accordinf to the results of that math.

 

Now I feel that it is important to say that I understand that.  It is both understandable against the existence of all the math already in the game, and it is verifiably "fair," at least in a mathematical sense.   It also completely ignores two things: which one _seems_ right, and what is the nature of the campaign?

 

Every edition (I think; I only read 6e once and do not specifically remember this about that rules,set) has paid some kind of lip service  to the idea that assumptiins about the specific campaign _will_ change the value of some power modifiers.  Then it proceeds to give no useful detail.  We do the same,thing on this board: I have seen people ask for suggstions on the value of a proposed custom modifier and I have seen dozens of people suggest answers.  I almost never see someone ask for the leasr bit of information about the game in which rhe limitation s to be used. (Hugh tends to be better about this than the rest of us are. Yes: "us."  I am as guilty as anyone else.  Except Hugh.  He doesnt do it all the time, but he does it more rhan the rest of us).

 

Why does this matter?  It shapes thinking.  It keeps at the rop of the mind the fact that power modifiers are _flexible_..  They sont have to be exactly what they say they are.  Better Still, you can apply that to both ends of the modifier!

 

And That brings us to the next issue.

 

Semantics.

 

This is also something that we have discussed before, but since it is not math, and since it is subject to a hundred interpretations, it gets quickly tossed aside in favor of quantifiable, reliable, repeatable math.  The same math that demonstrates regularly that it is not the key to the game.

 

My favorite example- and no; I am not opening up this topic for yet another rehash- is Only in HERO Identity.  Going by the semantic rule of custom modifiers, we find that our desired new custom limitation "only in X identity."  It seems equally as limited: the character will have to assume some other identity to access any power with this limitation.  The Semantics part of the rules- the "feels" rules, have been satisfied.  The Math part of the rules says 'well, how difficult is it to assume that form?  How often will he not be able to assume that form?  How does that compare to the frequency of being unable to assume his HERO Identity?

 

The problem with semantics is they arent math.  For whatever reason, Champions draws in the math crowd, and the fandom reinforces the over-exaggerated importance of the math (there is a lot of false evidence that supports this, as we discussed above) and the equally-important  semantics part of the rules are lost, and pushed further and further from the core with each subsequent edition.

 

Don't believe me?   In six linear editions, we have fone from "change anything you want to suit your games" to "don't change the things I changed already" in the latest edition.  In the interest of accuracy, it is _try_ not to change the things that I changed, but given that I disagree with pretty much all of those changes, it's just best for me not to use it all, and to revignize that any subsequent editions have already moved away from my interest, fanboy or not.

 

So how does that lead to rules bloat?

 

In our earlier discussion on the semantics portion of the rules and their importance, and especially their relevance to to power modifiers, we discussed the fact that not everyone is going to interpret a specific bit of language the same way.  We estsblished the fact that this lack of sameness makes some people uncomfortable.  Interestingly, I find it wonderful.  I _love_ seeing an interpretation that differs from my own.  It is both inspirational ("how did I not see that?!") and introspective (do I still think my interpretation is valid in light of this viewpoint?"  Note 'valid' as opposed to 'the one correct solution'.).  I love it as both an opporrunity to learn more- or gain more insight into- the game and as a means to customize individual campaigns just by slanting the understanding a certain way.  (That one is a bit harder to explain, and it is off-topic enough that at this point- my third day wroking on this single post- that I am not foing to go into that right now.)

 

So how does that lead to rules bloat?  Going back to my,favorite example power modifier:  only in her ID is, essentially, only in X ID.  For example, I have Ghost Rider who has all of his powers as Only in HERO ID, but the Wildman has "only in werewolf form.  The fact is that not everyone will make this leap- will not realize that this is the same limitation.  Still others may realize that this _is_ the same limitation, but in spite of the rule saying "it's Okay to roll your own," they just can't bring themselves to use anything that doesn't have Marlboro on the box.  (Do they still make Salems, or have Newports completely eclipsed them?  I don't smoke, so I haven't paid much attention.)  So a minority is unable to see possible off-brand uses for this medication, whike a larger minority- or perhaps even a majority- aren't comfortable,usinf something that isn't specifically for the treatment of their particular illness.  They can either focus on the math, sinve it _should_ be the same from person to person, or they can ask for more rules.

 

Remember that "only in HERO ID" took a single sentence to explain initially; three or four in 2e (where they felt it necessary to point out that this means the character has two identities and must change between them, and that something might be able to prevent him,from assuming his other identity). 

 

Whatever the reason, the general lack of interest or ability to apply this limitation in a slightly different way led to Multiform.  We went from a very short paragraph of rules to a page and a half of rules that do the same thing.  Now dont get me wrong: I don't blame those uncomfortable with the semantics exclusively; to some point, I blame the minmax guys a bit for this one, too.  They knew good and well what the rebate was for Only,in X ID, and somehow convinced the powers that be that it should be pushed up to a -4 Limitation.  That is what Multiform boiled down to, at least in the 4e incarnation: one point for 5 is a -4 Limitation.  We Now find a newer rule that violates the "most expensive" rule, and Dude, it _destroys_ it.

 

Something that does not recieve enough attention, likely because it isn't math, and therefore is not interesting to large portion of the fans then or now:  Multiform _proved_ something suggested by Only in HERO ID.

 

There was no additional charge for having a brand new form.  The character paid only for the powers and abilities that form granted him.  A crippled doctor (in Champions, a Skilled normal, with a physical Limitation) became a Norse God- big, tall, beautiful, not crippled- for _zero_ cost.  Multiform was identical in that respect: your new form cost _nothing_.  You paid only for the abilities that form granted you.  In the examples,given in the 4e text was a character who changed into different animals-  he literally became a hawk (or an eagle- it was a bird of some kind) and ...  Was it a dinosaur?  It was something big.  And doing this cost him _nothing_.  He paid (at substantial discount) only for the powers he gained in that form- you know: the powers he had _only in that identity_.

 

The reason Only,in HERO ID is my favorite example is,because of just how far this cognitive split has run in the history of the game.  The examples given for OIHID in the original works implied there was no charge for a new form in and of itself: Ghost Rider doesn't pay to be a flaming skeleton; he pays for the boost to his Presence.

 

This makes sense.  When you make your character, you dont pay to be an alien or a human or a particular ethnicity or a cyborg or a rock monster or a being of living electricity or a robot.  You pay only for the in-game abilities you gain in that form.  Just because,your character is a robot doesnt mean that you must buy imortality or need not breathe; you only pay for what you intend to use in-game.  But again, that is a different conversation.

 

Still, there were people who were either unable to make the leap, or who were not comfortable with assuming the connection they saw was valid.  Still others were not comfortable bevause the connection was not made with math. Because of all of these things, and possibly more, Champions III introduced the second-most convoluted rules for shapeshift ever published under the HERO imprint. For the first time, you had to pay for what you were, even before any abilities were bought to go with that form /shape / whatever you would care to name it.

 

I would like to point out two things at this point:

1) those rules sis _not_ make it into 4e.  I do not think they made,it into 3e (like 6e, I read it once, after buying it, but that was it).  I susoect they didn't simply because the bulk of the membership here seems,to have discovered the game during the 3e era and were excited when 5e "finally introduced" rules for shapeshift.

 

I have to wonder about some things at this point.  See, for _decades_ we used "only in appropriate ID" to build shapeshifters.  It was based on OIHID, and, as per the semantics portion of the modifiers rules, we would vary the cost according to the number of "shapes" that could access the power and how difficult it might be to access or be prevented from assuming that shape.

 

Here's a ludicrous example:  

A Transformer, in car form, has stopped to pick up two humans stranded,in the combat zone.  As he accelerates away to speed them to safety, he is ambushed!  So he has a choice: does he remain a car and try his best to escape, or does he twist, bend, and unfold himself into his humanoid combat-monster form and counter attack, knowing that the transformation process will crush to death the squishy humans he carries inside?  Or does he eject them and leave them to their own devices, trapped between two Decepticons and their very large feet so that he can turn and fight?

 

It could happen.  Something could prevent him from assuming his alternate form.  (Slightly-related sidenote: this was the greatest Champions /Robot Warriors hybrid campaign in which I ever played!).

 

2)  what would have happened if....

 

 

Back in the heyday of the RPG hobby, there we're _lots_ of third-party gaming magazines.  There were lots of house mouthpieces as well, but the third party ones were my favorite.  While it was frustrating to sift through three or four issues to find even a word about your favorite games, they also exposed you to games that you might not have otherwise heard about.  That's how I discovered SpaceMaster, actually.  For those who arent familiar with it, it was the sci-fi version of RoleMaster, which was the fantasy game that introduced their house system, which I have lovingly come to call "ChartMaster."  ;)

 

These magazines also provided other people exposure to the games,_I_ loved, and most oublishers happily took advantage of that.

 

During the 2e era of Champions, George McD and Steve Perrin- names that I do not think need explaining to this crows, in spite of what is likely some horrible misspellings- published an article in Different Worlds magazine- one of the many third party magazines, and one that I had a particular fondness for (it oublished more non-DnD adventure scenarios that any other third party book, and is in fact the source for the Star Devourer adventure that has been bootlegged all over the net for thirty years now.  That article was a series of Champions write-ups for the New Teen Titans.  This team had a shapeshifter, one who could turn into any sort of animal.  This was accomplished by purchasing several powers and several "+X" amounts of characteristics, all with the limitailtion "only in appropriate form."

 

That was it,  no charge for the individual forms, just foe the powers they granted.  I recall a long time back posrinf an excerpt of that write-up to this board surinf yet another Shapeshift declaration.  I say declaration, because they havent been discusssions in a long time: it is two sides, each telling thebother why they are the right side-- and guess what?!  They are basing that argument on math! Or at least numbers.  On the idea that you _must_ pay for the SFX of being in a given form.   In spite of the fact that no other power requires that you pay for the SFX.  In spite of the fact that from character generation to OHID to Multiform, no one has ever had to pay for their forms, even if they had more than one..  In spite of the fact that two of the original creators demonstrated that you do not.

 

And that's what I wonder:  if that article had been publsihed in Adventurers Club, or White Dwarf, or Dragon, or better!- a special supplement or a crossover adventure module!  The Guardians meet the New Teen Titans!  Some place other than a consistently-good but under-circulated third-party magazine; some place that more then- and future-players would have seen it, what would have happened?  Would we even have Multiform?  Would we have than most convoluted rules for shapeshift ever published under the HERO imprint?  Would it have done anything other than delighted the Thirteen Ghosts (the unofficial name that Straight John gave to our gaming group) by showing us that we were doing it "the official way?"

 

We will never know, of course, because it didnt happen, unless we EDM to the dimension where it did.  ;)

Instead, we slowly moved the focus of the rules away from the semantic more and more, and into the math.  At some point, someone declared "you get what you pay for," and the focus has been numbers-first ever since.  (For the record, though: do you get what you pay for?  If you pay for 12d6 RKA, Autofire x5, zero END, AoE: Cone so that you can take out wave after wave of opponents, you have paid _a lot_ to get that.  You are Der Stuka; you are the God of Death.  You can do this in any edition, actually.  And in 2e, you can be completely useless against a character with ten points of Desolidification.  In later editions, that cost rises to to 40 points, but it is still significantly less than you paid to be the grim reaper.  Did you have enough points left to stave off the beating you are about to get?  You paid to not have to deal with a melee-style butt whoopin', but you didnt get that.

 

We focus more and more on points and we accept rule after rule intended to bring closer and enforce something that objectively never existed and subjectively seems to have never even been the point of the numbers to begin with, and we move further and further away from what _feels_ like the original goal.  It gets easier to do with every step we take away from the semantic: we are making it less important with each new stab at the numbers.

 

We have more and more modifiers for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the,creeoing inclusion of "will must only" that at one time did not exist.  This works,_against_ the semantic portion of the rules- the part that says "find something that seems appropriate and model your idea on that."  More and more we see "only this" and,"only that" and this mandates that.  Well, if we want to model something new and similar but not quite the same, seeing "this can only" is going to have a larger impact on those mentioned above: those who are shaky on their interpretations or who are not comfortable intuiting from an existing pattern.  They are eddectively being more shut out; the creative process is being discouraged and replaced with more math: split modifiers each have their own values, established for you, and the rules now say "change anythinf you want, but try not to change the new changes."  I can only come,up with onw statement more discouraging for the uncertain, but we will have to wait foe the seventh edition to,see it print, I think.

 

I do not want to seem uncharitable about the ever-growing list of modifiers: I am in favor of snything that helps those less comfortable with doing something without guidance.  Realistically, it is entirely possible- in would go so far as today _equally possible_ that someone not comfortable acting without any sort of guidance to arrive at a limitation vakue of -2 when someone else arrives at -1/2. 

 

So on the one hand, a slew of new modifiers may make it _easier_ for a player to create his own custom,modifier; the odds are better that he can,find somethinf similar to what he has in mind- he may even find _exactly_ what he has in mind.  I cannot find fault with this.  The inclusion of "can't only must" in so much of the material, though, is a bit discouraging of tinkering, and ultimately I think it creates its own need for even _more_ ultra-specific modifiers, which will no doubt arrive with their own extensive pages of can't only must.   

 

Each bit of that- each bit of can't only must serves to move the focus away feom individual creativity and simultaneously creates a need for even more specific rules to replace the lost abilities once held by flexing  the existing ones just a bit.  A lot of us old guys routinely point out that Champions is so old that it's wargame roots are still visible.  If we keep cutting creativity and forcing specific usage and interpretations, we will go full circle and end up right back there, with no need- or at least no room- for creativity anywhere outside of tactics.  It was only- what? Two days ago that Old Man suggested board games powered by HERO?  I won t lie: I was sort of excited by the idea, having used an old Judge's Guild module to build a Super Agents board game once.  :lol: I was quite happy with how it came out, but I missed the RP elements.  ;)

 

in summation:

 

math has inflexible rules and every permutation of math is covered by its set of rules as well as the rules of how numbers will interact with each other.  The more we stress The math of HERO, the more inflexibke rules we need for the game to make sure the math works out.  I would be fine with this, if I had ever bought,into the idea that mathematical balance determining game balance was ever the point of the math, actually possible, or remotrly desirable.

 

okay.

 

three days, to include the best possible proofreading I could inflict considering the interface I am forced to use.

 

do feel free to tear it to shreds, but be kind enough to keep in mind that it is presented as nothing more than an opinion piece, and an honest attempt to address,Ninja-Bear's question.

 

Why all the effort?  To insult or smear the direction the game has gone? 

 

No, and,I would think that "obviously not" would be a free one conclusion.  I have said it before, and I will say it again: I might disagree with a lot of what Stebe has done, but he did the thing that none of the rest of us could, amd made HERO viable again, at least for a while.  I have too much respect for someone who would do that (even those who would but could not) to simply dump on them.  That is not what any of this was about, and if that is all you got,from it, well, that says more about you than I ever could.

 

All of this effort was for one reason, and,one reason alone: in spite of the number of times,we have disagreed, I _like_ Ninja-Bear, and I respect him and his contributions to this forum.  I wanted to give him rhe best potential answer (remember I am no more privy to official thinking than most of the rest of you are) that I could.

 

I hope I have done that, and I hope you are all abke to apprexiate that I did my best to answer potential questions that might be raised, and that I am not interested remotely in composing this much via this interface ever again, and so will liekly not reply to any in-depth questions about this post.  I am sorry, but this was tedious and exhausting, and it is going to take a week for my eyes to uncross.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

On 2/10/2023 at 12:18 PM, Old Man said:

 

I always assumed that skills were kind of glossed over because Hero was originally Champions and skills just take a back seat to powers in Champions.

 

 

 

I always assumed it was because the game,was released in 1980, and that was just knid of par,for the course.  And of course, because the focus was meant to be superpowers, and the onlt skills originally,offered were all very "Batman has these skills"

 

 

On 2/10/2023 at 2:14 PM, GM Joe said:

 

I remember Duke saying he uses a skill system that's more in line with HERO combat.

 

Edited to add: I found the link I'd saved to Duke's brief description of his skills system --

 

 

 

Yes, but I need to point out for rhose who dont want to read that thread that I usually do it for opposed rolls.

 

I find,it saves a bit of time, and that players are happier rolling they dice than they are when the GM rolls them.

 

 

 

On 2/10/2023 at 6:46 PM, BNakagawa said:

10- is %50. 11- is 62.5%

 

I imagine the default being 11- is so that success is that much more common than failure. Misses slow down the game.

 

That last sentence is worth its wait in gold.  It took me _years_ to figure that out: players would rather have to take an extra couole of whacks at a beefier, tougher opponent than to miss him with every third attack roll. 

 

 

 

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I'm reminded of the 1st ed discussion of Special Effects and the example of the shapeshifting character with the ultra multipower.  One slot was Flight,,special effect: turns into an Eagle; another, Growth: turns into a giant ape; HKA: tiger; etc.

 

(It thought: Make it multi slots and turn onto a wider variety of things.)

 

It may seem primitive or lacking granularity or something, but, really, it was fine. 

 

(I suppose you could have added a physical limitation just as a catchall, "can't do things the form he assumes couldn't.")

 

So yeah, no need for Multiform (though I suppose you could think of Multiform as whole characters stuffed into slots of a huge multipower) :lol:

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Duke, did I sign up for a graduate class in my sleep?  
 

n I will let you in on my secret. I’m terrible at math because I have a bit of a phobia about it. I never built any of my own characters. I would do layouts, and stack up disadvantages, then pass it to a friend that make the math legal. However, not being able to do math, did not prevent me from finding ways to abuse the system, like how my draconic character, Lord Morvath Broadwing, abused, multi form, to turn from a weak, crippled exile, to a fire breathing, leather winged, pocket strategic bomber. 1st version of Fantasy Hero allowed it. Subsequent versions of Multiform made it far less possible. 
 

When the BBB came out, it came with a 3.5 inch floppy of Heromakr.exe. After that I didn’t need to bother my friends to square the math. It may be that the focus on the math was due to the software.  There used to be a lot of spreadsheet based character generators for Hero, but I never learned to use spreadsheets.  Math, don’t ya know.  Most of my GMing, myself was Heroic level games, so I never had to deal with powers, and I allowed my players to design and build spells as long as they took advantages and limitations appropriate to their home cultures, and did not exeed X number of points.  I wasn’t playing in the 5e era. And 6th came out during my exile in Los Angeles when I wasn’t gaming. But 6 was different enough to feel unfamiliar. Math, to me, was not a selling point.

 

I did an experiment of Friday on Reddit that I may post, but asking for a crunchy, non-narrative TTRPG system gave interesting results.but the most recommended system was GURPS, followed by Pathfinder 2, and Savage Worlds.   Hero was 4th or 5th. 

 

 

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