Extra-Dimensional Movement Examples

[Cloppy Clip]

I've recently bought into HERO, and am having a lot of fun picking apart the books to try and work out how different characters and powers would be built, but I'm having a bit of a sticking point with Extra-Dimensional Movement. The rules explain how to use the power to travel between dimensions, but I can't find any examples of what dimensions should look like, and if you were to have a character with a personal dimension, I wouldn't know what limits to set on that dimensions characteristics. If it helps, here are some ideas I've been unable to decide on (assume that this is from the GM's perspective, so there's no issue of permission to be resolved):

 

1. Can a dimension have a different rate of time? For example, could you spend 1 day inside and return to the normal world to find only 5 minutes have passed?

 

2. Can a dimension restrict certain actions? Could I make a dimension that doesn't allow any violence to take place inside, as if this were a physical law there?

 

2b. Can a dimension change how the game is played? In a cyberworld-type dimension, could you rule that all attack rolls are made with Computer Programming instead?

 

3. If using EDM as an attack, does there need to be a condition that allows the victim to escape on their own (for example, tag the character who sent them there)?

 

I get the feeling that most of this is up to the GM's discretion, which I think is a good call, but as someone new to the game I don't have much of an instinct for what would and wouldn't be appropriate limits for this power, so I'd love to hear from some more experienced players. Thank you for reading this barrage of questions, and I'm looking forward to any answers. 🙂

[Chris Goodwin]

The answers to all of your questions are yes.   

 

How dimensions, and Extradimensional Movement, work are up to the GM.  I haven't played in a game since the 80's that made use of characters being able to travel extradimensionally, at all; it's definitely not common generally, though I can't speak for all tables.  

 

The 5th edition supplements The Ultimate Mystic and The Mystic World go into more detail about how dimensions can work, and one particular setup for dimensions.  I recommend those for ideas.  

[Cloppy Clip]

So, if I understand right, there aren't any set answers to these questions and a given table can decide on what they want? It was a very open-ended question so that makes sense. Thanks Chris, and I'll see at taking a look at those books.

[steriaca]

The 4ed book Champions In 3-D is a good and still usable book about alternative dimensions. I definitely recommend it.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Second both Mystic Masters and Champions in 3D endorsements.

[Hugh Neilson]

I think "how do dimensions work" is very campaign-specific.  If a player wants to come from "another dimension" and be able to travel back and forth, the player might set some details about that other dimension, subject to GM approval, and the GM would assess how to integrate that dimension into the specific game/campaign world.

[Cloppy Clip]

Thank you for the follow-up suggestions and endorsements, everyone! How compatible are the 4th and 5th editions with 6th, which is what I'm using? Are there any major rules changes, or can I slot ideas from previous books into a 6th edition game?

 

Also, how feasible would it be to treat someone's personal dimension as a kind of base with a Change Environment power, or something else if appropriate, to simulate the conditions of that dimension? That seems like a fairly efficient way to put a price tag on different ideas to me, and I can't find any rules explicitly naysaying it, so I think this might be a useful way to get a starting point for what should and shouldn't be workable.

[unclevlad]

There's no major rules changes overall.  You may need to adjust here and there, but it shouldn't be a big deal.

 

A personal dimension is simply Another Dimension.  6E2 190.  Nice thing is, the dimensional movement needed is only the baseline:  single dimension, one location.  As noted, the conditions inside are whatever you like.  If you want them to be changeable, so as to mimic another dimension from time to time, then yeah, CE would be the way to go.  But if the conditions are unchangeable after the fact, you don't need CE.

 

Note that "unchangeable" doesn't mean "unchanging."  A great example is the pocket dimension of Littleton in Marion Harmon's Wearing the Cape.  It's set up to have perfect Midwest weather...warm and sunny to cool.  Complete 4 season climate.  The forecast's 100% accurate...down pretty much to the minute, for example, for when the rain starts.  The fact that the device which anchors/maintains the pocket dimension happens to be located on the Marine station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is largely irrelevant;  I believe it follows the day/night cycle, but that's a matter of convenience.  I was in Alaska for a week at one time, for work reasons.  It was June, and while still south of the Arctic Circle, it never got fully dark.  Civil twilight at most.  But the light around, say, 10 PM to 4 AM was striking and unique.  If you wanted that light level all the time?  Fine.  

 

EDIT:  going back to EDM UAA, this is basically like Teleport UAA.  BIG TIME STOP power because it's inherently abusive.  The entire UOO advantage gets one, but here, it's just pretty insane.  There's no defense against them.  Notionally, UAA is against an unwilling person, so the user has complete control of the power...no escape clause.  I think my second most favorite method for completely, irrevocably (short of a Wish) making sure someone was DEAD!!! in 3rd Ed D&D was to plane shift with them into either the Positive or Negative Material Plane.  Positive?  They overload and basically blow up after a while.  Negative?  Their life gets sucked out.  Both planes make searching all but impossible.  In Hero, we can't be quite as absolute, because powers aren't necessarily static...someone could develop some godlike location power.  But an XDM shift into Nothing, then abandoning them?  That's a death sentence, pretty much.  Or just slap them into a dimensional oubliette...the classic oubliette is a deep, smooth hole, usually covered.  Too deep to jump/crawl out.  A dimensional oubliette might be, say, a featureless 10m radius sphere.  Take the prisoner out when and where it's safe to do so.

[Duke Bushido]

22 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

 I'm having a bit of a sticking point with Extra-Dimensional Movement.

 

First, let me,say that Chris Goodwin was absolutely correct: the answers to all your questions is indeed "Yes!"

 

Be on the lookout for the "but" below. 

 

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

 

The rules explain how to use the power to travel between dimensions, but I can't find any examples of what dimensions should look like, and if you were to have a character with a personal dimension, I wouldn't know what limits to set on that dimensions characteristics.

 

There are no such limits.  Even your imagination is not a limit, because you can ask someone else for inspirational help.

 

There is still a "but" coming up, though.   

 

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

 

1. Can a dimension have a different rate of time? For example, could you spend 1 day inside and return to the normal world to find only 5 minutes have passed?

 

As Chris pointed out: yes.  This is entirely within the scope of EDM, because you are making a whole new dimension.

 

Or maybe you are not; maybe you are using a dimension with which we are quite familiar.  I had a player in the 90s buy EDM as a movement power: he would send a letter, then move himself to "the second dimenension," manifesting as a drawing in the letter.  He would move back to the third dimension when the letter arrived at his destination.  He would hitch a ride with a teleporter by moving to the second dimension and manifesting as the photo on the teleporter's driving license.

 

Yes: I know that the rules say you need to use some other power or adder or advantage or what-have-you if you want  to reapper in the "the normal world" at a place other than where you left it.

 

Let me tell you why (beyond the sheer novelty of it) I ignored that completely (and quite often still do).

 

Because Hugh Neilson (sorry if I misspelled that, Hugh- my son is Neil, so that's what sticks) is also completely correct: EDM is best handled as a completely narrative thing as opposed to a structured (and kinda pricey, since you get nothing out of it except paying to meet the needs of the story:

 

"Well, I have this great adventure planned where you guys are going plane-hopping.  One of you will need to buy EDM."

 

Excuse me?  Just set it here; we can grab a bus and go county-hopping.

 

"No; this needs to,have that dimension-hopping feeling to it.  So; who is going to pony up?  Ooh!  You could all pitch in for a dimension-travelling bus!  That's only one point for five, and you can share the cost!  Pretty cheap if you ask me...  ")

 

Now here is the wierd thing:

 

In the Long Editions- and possibly even back to 4e; I can't say because we always used "dimensional movement" not as a special power,  but as a special effect.  I do know that examples from the Long Editions are pretty clear that it is acceptable to know that you have to fight Galactus and his ridiculous hat, and spend some points to travel to the dimension where I won the fight with Galactus (and his hat), then live out the rest of the campaign there as if this had been my life all along.

 

Now let me explain why Hugh is also correct, and Dimension hopping is something that should be handled narratively.  I am going to start with your passage of time question: can this dimension have experienced a much longer time than the one in which the campaign is set?

 

Yes (as Chris said), _so long as there is absolutely no benefit to you_ from that difference.

 

For example:  you are in battle in Campaign Dimension, and you are doing quite poorly.  You leap over to Quick dimension for some medical attention and two weeks bed rest (and all those lovely recoveries) and leap back to Campaign Dimension a mere half-phase after you leaped out, fresh as a daisy!  You even mended your costume.

 

 

No.  You can't do that. (Unless the GM says 'well, it's the only way he is going to beat Galactus; he nearly died just trying to dent that hat.)   You can _simulate_ that, though: Regeneration, Healing, Aid- whatever it takes to get yourself,back to fighting trim, and declare that the special effects are "I nipped off to the Quick Dimension for a month of surgeries, six weeks of rehab, and a lovely weekend at the beach, then popped back here a mere microsecond after I left."

 

That is legitimate.  That is legal.  That is also technically not EDM; its SFX are EDM, but mechanically, the are not the same.

 

This is doubly frustrating since, for the exact same points (and often considerably less points), you could have bought EDM directly to the dimension where Galactus had a glass jaw and you felled him with a Presence Attack, then live out the rest of the campaign as the Galactus Slayer, because this universe was identical in every other way except that it was trivial for you to take out Galactus.

 

That _is_ legit, but getting a bit of freebie healing and going back?  Not so much.

 

All in all, it is a but maddening, and casts a lot of shade on making "the dimenion where I cannot be defeated" a book-legal thing.

 

 

22 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

 

2. Can a dimension restrict certain actions? Could I make a dimension that doesn't allow any violence to take place inside, as if this were a physical law there?

 

Again: yes, you can! 

 

but only so long as it brings you no benefit in Campaign Dimension.  I can't think of any right now (because I am exhausted and a bit malnourished), but immediately coming to mind is, again, taking a breather while your opponent doesnt have the ability to fight you, then hoping back to finish him off.   Yes; it is the same example,  but it is valid.  I have no doubt that fresher minds could think of other reasons:

 

hey! Let's go sneak into his house and look for clues! Even if this dimension's version of him finds out, he can't exact any vengeance!  Then we will be a leg-up when we get back!

 

I am afraid not. Buy Clairsentience or PS: detective' 28 or less- something to pay for the benefit you expect to receive.

 

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

 

2b. Can a dimension change how the game is played? In a cyberworld-type dimension, could you rule that all attack rolls are made with Computer Programming instead?

 

 

Cyber HERO (4th edition product.  It always felt unfinished (turns out it was.  The author was killed in an auto accident right after announcing his intention to do a follow-up book) specifically suggests EDM to model Cyberspace).  I do not remember for certain, but I think Kazei 5 dis as well. I will have to re-read that.

 

But Again, even that takes a bit of GM fiat if you are doing things like "I hack his brain and render him a drooling zombie!"  Why? Because by the strictest dedinition of EDM, you did that to an alternate dimension's version of him, and not Campaign Universe him.   True: for cyberpunk games, that GM fiat is almost always in play, but strictly by the rules, you'd have to EGO Attack Campaign Dimension him to render Campaign Dimension him into a drooling zombie.  The special effects, though, would be "I hopped my cyberdeck,and hacked his brain."  Either way, by the definitions of HERO, it is something that you would have to buy that is _not_ EDM to get the effect you want. (Barring, of course, GM fiat, which- again- is likely already in play for such a game.  Just be aware that the rules _must_ be bent to make this work.)

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

 

3. If using EDM as an attack, does there need to be a condition that allows the victim to escape on their own (for example, tag the character who sent them there)?

 

This, so far as I know, is the single best (read: nastiest) use of EDM; EDM:UAA; banish them to dimension of complete vacuum.

 

And accordingly, almost every GM I know either disallows it out or hand, or requires that there be a time-limit or other means for the banished character to return to Campaign Dimension.  (Note that this is also a bending of the rules- unless the Long Esitions have codified it as a mandate- but as it is a bend to the rules to prevent an outright rape of the spirit of the rules, I am one-hundred percent okay with it).

 

Now I do know one GM who required that the character using EDM as an attack continue to pay END to keep the target banished, but I spent some EPs on Reduced EN-  okay; Okay.  It was me.  Davien had it coming.  He had wrecked like six  attempted campaigns already, and _something_ had to be done.  Jim was just too easy-going to tell him "be a team player or GTFO."

 

Anyway, he came around to the "no; you can't do that" side of things pretty quickly. 

 

other fun things (not just from mt characters):

 

Desolidification UAA

x10 END Cost on X points of (villain's most annoying power) UAA, Ranged

 and on and on

 

 

 

 

 

22 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

 

I get the feeling that most of this is up to the GM's discretion, which I think is a good call, but as someone new to the game I don't have much of an instinct for what would and wouldn't be appropriate limits for this power,

 

 

Realistically, like everything else with this game, do not start with how the thing happened.  That will almost always be SFX.  Start with what you want the end result to be and figure out how to build that.  In my experience, the ultimate goal is rarely "I want to go to another dimension and look around, maybe get some cheaper groceries....), but instead something tangible:

 

I want to travel to the X-plane and seek the counsel of the wizened masters 

 

I want to pop-off for some healing and pop right back into battle

 

I want to pop into the quick dimension, catch a bus, and pop back out in Wisconsin almost instantly.

 

I wish to do battle with eldritch threats that endanger our universe

 

Okay, that last one was a trick.  That last one _was_ EDM; the others are best handled by other power constructs, claiming EDM _as the special effect_.

 

That last one, however, could be better handled narratively:

 

Okay, you spent a lot of points on the ability to bring the whole team to this dimension and provide whatever life-support, footing, and sanity-defenses they will need to battle this monster.  Shame you didn't have any points left for powers to battle this monster, but let's hope the team is up to it without you...

 

 

Narratively:

 

Your sources were sketchy; some od the details conflicted from account to account, and not everyone involved in bringing you the few manuscripts remaining was reputable, but after what seems like endless hours of study and cross-checking rhe various journals and accounts of half-remembered conversations from long ago, you _think_ you know how to open rhe gate.  Wordlessly, rhe team assembles behind you  as you take your feet.  The amulet is the key.  You concentrate on the signature hatred of your target, and your will to end his millenium of terror.  You press the amulet to your forehead, and with your sleep-deprived giddiness, you wonder if it is waterproof against nervous sweat....

 

You press it to your heart and recite your vow to stop this foe, then cast the ruby-and-gold amulet into the fireplace.  It rises from the flames.  "Are we agreed?" You bellow, never taking your eyes from the amulet floating in the fireplace.

 

"We are one mind.  One promise.  One vow" you hear them chant solemnly behind you.  A small crescent of pure black spirals from rhe fireplace.  It gows larger, blacker, and somehow closer.  You extend youe hands, and feel firm, resolved grips in return.  The crescent is a spiral now; you can see stars!  It continues to grow, faster and faster, and before it can swallow you, as one, the team steps through--!

 

 

And enters a world gone mad....

 

 

 

 

See?  Naratively handled.  Why?  Because ir was essential to the story of the planned campaign.  It has been a rare game where I allowed someone to pay for EDM- mostly fantasy games where there really and was something to be gained for the points: communing with knowledgeable dead people, speaking to the Gods in person, hiding your candy bars, etc- where ir was somerhinf that you acrually used a,lot, and got good vakue doe rhe points spent.

 

Before the inevitable "well Blast is essential; should the GM just give out guns if no one buys blast?!"

 

That is silly. Blast has immediate and obvious benefits both through the use of violence (superheroes are poor role models for conflict resolution, Kids!) and through the threat of violence.  There is immediate and obvious utility to the ability to to damage to one's environment and subdue one's foes.

 

EDM, on the other hand, provides- realistically provides- damned little in terms of value.  While corner cases can always be found (I even gave an example of one myself, from one of my own games-  but even then, the entire universe had been built _specifically_ to give EDM practical utility), but by and large, what most people want to do with EDM is better modeled with other powers using dimension-hopping as a special effect.

 

EDM is like FTL in Traveller: it is an enabling device.   It is like long-distance travel in almost any game or story: the author has set some of the action in Location X.  Because he has done that, he is responsible to make certain that his characters have some sort of access to location X.  If no one on the team has enough movement / recovery to get there, he is going to either have to rewrite a major portion of the story, or have the characters discover a great group rate discount on a Carnival Cruise.  Either one works.

 

Forcing the characters to buy swimming: 50", x16 NCM _is_ viable, but if you are only going to go to Atlantis just the one time before proceeding to the next eight sessions in Des Moines, culminating with a big boss fight in the Mojave....

 

Well, it'a a jerk thing to so.  Maybe the governmenr will ask them to test out the new experimental submarine instead.

 

Again: it is more of,an enabling device than it is a useful power in most games.  Make sure that EDM for its own sake is exactly the right thing before buying it or requiring Your players to buy it.

 

If you don't want a ship's mortgage in Traveller, you can still fly coach to get where the GM has set the next leg of the adventure.

 

 

 

 

20 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

So, if I understand right, there aren't any set answers to these questions and a given table can decide on what they want?

 

You are absolutely correct.  In fact, for most uses of EDM, a group will have to decide on how they want it to work,  simply because typically, EDM doesnt provide it by itself-teleport, healing, knowledge drops, etc: these all have extant powers that will have to be bought _unless the entire group decided they are okay with EDM allowing rhese rhings to happen (like the healing scenario) jusr because.  If they agree, then so be it: that is how it works, at leasr doe this campaign.  Remember that if a power has some serious "freebies," there are likely to be a few villains with that same power, enjoying those same freebies. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cloppy Clip]

Thank you again for the elaboration. I think I was getting caught up in treating the special effects as the power ('This power involves going to another dimension, so it should use EDM'), when just working out what I want the dimension to do for the game, and then building the power for the character around that is much more workable. It's probably obvious to people who've played this game for a while, but I really hadn't thought about it like that, so thanks again for breaking it down for me.

 

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given how large the rulebooks are, but there's a lot of depth to this game, so I'm glad there's such a knowledgable community here to help out. 😀

[Duke Bushido]

I can't lie to you, Amigo:  if I had never played before, I sure as Heck wouldnt start now.  Just the amount of rules to have to have to learn from scratch is....  Well, politely put, "off-putting."

 

Like a huge chunk of the membership here, I started when the rules were less than 80 pages, and just kind of grew with it as it swelled.  I think the majority here found 4e to be the sweet spot, and 5e isnt too different from that- it is different, to be sure, but not so much that you couldn't move from one to the other without really noticing.

 

A few others found 2e or 5e to be their personal jam, and I never rwally left 2e.  (There is a lot to be said for an 89 page rules book.   )

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Like a huge chunk of the membership here, I started when the rules were less than 80 pages, and just kind of grew with it as it swelled. 

 

The thing is, if you break it down just to the core of the rules its still about 75 pages.  The reason its bigger is not because the rules became ridiculously complicated, they still run pretty much the way they did 2nd edition.  Its just that everything has been very carefully explained, with suggestions, with ideas behind how to run them and how to combine the rules.

 

But the bare basics?  Still the same.  That was the whole idea behind Champions Begins, to provide the core rules in a fun way, combined with an adventure and it was WAY less than 80 pages for the Player Book.  Building characters is more complicated, but you can still pull it off.  Its just a question of how much explanation and detail you want, and I think a Sidekick-like "here's just the fact's ma'am" book would probably be a smart intro to everything.  Put it all in there, but without the heavy detail and examples and "how modifiers work with this power" section, without the section on overall rules about how powers work, etc.  You could bang that thing out to a tenth the size of a standard Hero rule book.

 

Its not that the rules got worse, its that the effort to help people see how things interact and how to work with exceptions etc got more detailed.

[unclevlad]

But the reason why so much explanation was necessary was the incredible explosion of fringe, rarely-taken, and often problematic options.  And recognize, if we accept the "core rules" can be expressed in 80 pages (IMO dubious, I'd say more like 200)...there's still close to 800 pages.

 

The flaw is that the base book stopped being an introductory book, and became a comprehensive, massive pair of books.  Champions Complete is probably a much better starting point than 6E1 and 6E2;  it's under 250 pages, and most of the rules that'll get used frequently, it's 160 pages.  (So maybe 200 is an overstatement.)  Much of this may simply be better organization;  in CC, the discussion about adjustment powers is a bit over 2 pages.  In 6E1, it's 9, from which you can take out maybe 1/2 page for the illustrations, but you're still talking 4x as long.  Some of this may be, as you note, more about oddball interactions and exceptions, but I suspect there's also a good deal of better phrasing, and less redundancy.  And perhaps simple excess verbosity.  From Aid:

 

6E1:  

Only Aid Others (-½): This form of Aid does not work on the character who has the Power. He can only use his Aid to improve other characters’ Characteristics or Powers.
Only Aid Self (-1): This form of Aid only works on the character who has the Power. He cannot use his Aid to improve other characters’ Characteristics or Powers.

 

CC:

Only Aid Others (-½): Prevents the character from using his Aid on himself.
Only Aid Self (-1): Prevents the character from using his Aid on anyone other than himself.

 

The CC statements are shorter and clearer.  I think this would help a fair bit.  Plus, you don't need to bounce back and forth between 2 books for core rules...like the combat maneuvers.

[Duke Bushido]

80 pages is very much doable: the 2e book is 88 pages; 8 od those pages are character sheets.

 

The 1e book is 60-some pages long, and 8 of _those_ pages is character sheets.

 

You are quite correct that eliminating "excess verbiage" has a lot to do with  this difference.  CC was indeed much more concise, which is why I reas that one more than once.   I am not trying to make a grandiose commentary when I say "I read 6e once and will never read it again."  I am simply statinf the truth: I am 62.  I work roughly 80 hiurs a week.  I have kids to finish raising, a home and vehicles to maintain, and a total of six people in my household.  My last heart attack left 40 percent of my already-enlarged heart dead and useless, amd I have a chronic rattling cough that will never let me forget that I have begun the decade-or-so long process of drowning to death in my own juices.

 

Even if I had an absolute gaurantee that I woukd live another sixty-two years, my personal time is too hard-won to waste it reading all of that to learn to play a game (assuming I had no prior experience, I mean).  I just wouldn't; it fails an important test of practicality for me.

 

In my case, I _did_ read it (took about eight months, my schedules and life demands being what they are), and there is absolutely no way I will ever do it again (though the books do look nice crammed against each other on their private 40-inch 6e-blue-books-only" shelf.

 

Even if you dont accept that the game can be presented playably,in under a hundred pages, you have to at leasr grudginfly accept that 38 inches of "core rules books" is a textbook example,of "unnecessary", or at least "dauntingly extreme."

 

The Sidekick books were great; HERO System basic" is pretty good; Champions Complete was extremely well-done.

 

How many words could be dropped from the pale blue encyclopedia if we just cut the individualized lists or "X _must_ do Y when added to rhis power, and may never do Z" that follows every single power entry?  The entire "advantages" list follows every single power!  It's nuts!

 

Now to bw fair to your assertion that it cant be done in 80 pages:

 

2e does not include T-form, Dispell, Damage Reduction, and Damage Negation (and I think one or two other powers), and that will run the book over 80 pages.  Still, thise that appeared in 2e /3e supplements such as Champs II and Champs III and the old AC magazines coould still retain their original "here is a short paragraph about what this power does" and modidiers xould retain their original "this sentence is all you nwes to know to have fun with this" entries, and the book couls still land at under a hundred pages.

[unclevlad]

Well, let's see.  I don't have 2E but I do have the PDF for 3E.  Bring up the ToC;  bring up HD....

 

Absorption, Aid, Automaton, Damage Negation, Change Environment, Clairsentience, Clinging, Dispel, Duplication, Healing (!), Images, Multiform, Deflection/Reflection, Summoning

 

So, it's more than one or two.  Skills...3E has 9, and martial arts (I didn't count, it's really structured as a power in 3E) is very narrowly structured.  Granted, in 6E, many skills straddle between conflict resolution and background, and it would probably be better to reconsider and shorten the 6E list.  Somewhat the same with Talents...they tend to be of the "get what you pay for, pay for what you get" of 5E and 6E and less of the "wing it" on non-encounter stuff, of 3E and earlier.  Which is also a reason why the rules are much longer.

 

So some of this is, what exactly defines the core?  Some things could be deferred, like Automaton, but no Healing?  In something closer to the Golden Age, well, maybe so...but more modern Supers is bloodier.  And I think player attitudes are different...hosing over a character in such a way as to force him to be in the hospital for a week...but he still WON the fight...is more Old School Gaming.  And of course, moving away from 4-color supers to fantasy, it becomes an absolute necessity.

 

And that is likely touching on the single biggest reason why 6E1, in particular, is so freaking big.  It's trying to be universal, principally drawing on supers, fantasy, and agent-level stuff.  So we've got Dispel, Healing and Summoning from fantasy, and the full martial arts system, the breakout of 3E's Detective Work into multiple separate skills, and probably the inclusion of the background and professional skills, for agent-level or Ninja Hero.

[Cloppy Clip]

This is all a bit above my paygrade, but would there be a better book to look into learning the game from than the core rules for 6e? I went for that since, from what I gathered, it seemed the most recent and comprehensive, and I can follow along well enough reading it for the most part. Would anybody suggest a different edition to start with, or is it more a matter of familiarity with whatever you learnt the game on?

 

I hope it's not an imposition to ask these sorts of questions: coming into a game with as much history as this one leaves me a bit boggled, but in a good way. I feel like there's so much to learn, and I want to try and take it all in as fast as I can, even if that might not be the most sensible approach!

[Chris Goodwin]

12 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

This is all a bit above my paygrade, but would there be a better book to look into learning the game from than the core rules for 6e? I went for that since, from what I gathered, it seemed the most recent and comprehensive, and I can follow along well enough reading it for the most part. Would anybody suggest a different edition to start with, or is it more a matter of familiarity with whatever you learnt the game on?

 

I myself started with 3rd edition,. though a lot of people started with 4th.  It's really more a matter of familiarity.

 

I'd recommend starting with Champions Complete.  It includes the full HERO System rules in a cut-down version with a lot less verbiage; lots of us (including me) use the full 6th edition core books in PDF for reference.  And while Champions Complete is complete, it's worth it in my opinion to add the Champions genre book, or Star Hero or Fantasy Hero if you're interested in sci-fi or fantasy gaming. 

 

12 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

I hope it's not an imposition to ask these sorts of questions: coming into a game with as much history as this one leaves me a bit boggled, but in a good way. I feel like there's so much to learn, and I want to try and take it all in as fast as I can, even if that might not be the most sensible approach!

 

Not at all!  We love answering questions around here, and many people have told us that we're one of the friendliest gaming forums on the web.  😁  And to be fair, the HERO System is like a big room full of LEGO bricks: there's a lot of pieces that can fit together in a lot of ways.  Don't be afraid to ask for help!

 

Edit to add:  I also recommend Hero Designer, the character creation software.  It runs on Java, so any modern PC can run it. Output formats are created by the community, and they are plentiful!

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

I'd recommend starting with Champions Complete. 

 

 

What he said.

 

If you have decided that 6e is going to be your bag, this is the best place to start: much easier to use as a reference, a lot less redundancy, etc.

Be aware that its concise nature makes it very information dense, though.  That is my personal preference, but a lot of people don't enjoy that kind of reading (hence the up-front warning label).  For the first few years of 6e, all I had was CC and HERO System Basic.  I cant say objectively, already having been a long-time user, but I am pretty certain that the entire 6e experience can be distilled from just those two books.  If you have some Champions experience, you could likely get by with just Basic.  If you need the "how to play" and the adventuring rules, etc, then CC is, in my opinion, the best book out of the entire lineup for a brand-new player (second choice is Fantasy HERO Complete, but there is a specific focus there that might influence your interpretations of what you are reading.  Put HSB with either of those and you are golden for prerty much anything 6e can throw at you.)

 

Still, if you already have the big Books 1 and 2, I can understand not wanting to buy another book that is essentially a condensing of those books.  If this is the case, then work out what you can as best you can, and feel free to post a hundred questions here.  The status of HERO (and pretty much any non-DnD game being what they are these days, we see few enough new players or GMs that I can all but promise two hundred answers. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

19 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Well, let's see.  I don't have 2E but I do have the PDF for 3E.  Bring up the ToC;  bring up HD....

 

Absorption, Aid, Automaton, Damage Negation, Change Environment, Clairsentience, Clinging, Dispel, Duplication, Healing (!), Images, Multiform, Deflection/Reflection, Summoning

 

So, it's more than one or two.  Skills...3E has 9, and martial arts (I didn't count, it's really structured as a power in 3E) is very narrowly structured.  Granted, in 6E, many skills straddle between conflict resolution and background, and it would probably be better to reconsider and shorten the 6E list.  Somewhat the same with Talents...they tend to be of the "get what you pay for, pay for what you get" of 5E and 6E and less of the "wing it" on non-encounter stuff, of 3E and earlier.  Which is also a reason why the rules are much longer.

 

So some of this is, what exactly defines the core?  Some things could be deferred, like Automaton, but no Healing?  In something closer to the Golden Age, well, maybe so...but more modern Supers is bloodier.  And I think player attitudes are different...hosing over a character in such a way as to force him to be in the hospital for a week...but he still WON the fight...is more Old School Gaming.  And of course, moving away from 4-color supers to fantasy, it becomes an absolute necessity.

 

And that is likely touching on the single biggest reason why 6E1, in particular, is so freaking big.  It's trying to be universal, principally drawing on supers, fantasy, and agent-level stuff.  So we've got Dispel, Healing and Summoning from fantasy, and the full martial arts system, the breakout of 3E's Detective Work into multiple separate skills, and probably the inclusion of the background and professional skills, for agent-level or Ninja Hero.

 

The key issue, to me, is that "Hero" actually began with 4e.  Hero is a game system used to design games. It is not a game itself.  4e began the publishing of the full system, rather than games constructed with that system.

 

The 3e you are referring to is 3e Champions.  3e Fantasy Hero definitely had Aid, Dispel, Healing and Summoning.

 

Absorption, Duplication (Light) Images and Multiform were in 3e, but in Champions supplements.  Pretty sure Automatons were in those as well.

Clinging and Missile Deflection were in 3e, and Reflection in one of those supplements.

 

I can't remember where Clairsentience first showed up, but I believe it was in Enhanced Senses.  I can't recall where CE first showed up either.

 

Damage Negation did not exist before 6e.

 

Hero needs actual games people learn and play before diving into the depths of the Hero System.

[steriaca]

Prehaps the simplistic dimension to create is the Alternative Earth. Simply pick an event and change it. What if the United States lost the Revolutionary War? What if the world never experienced COVID-19? What if the United States never had a President, but an Empirer? And that Lord Trump is fighting against Empirer Biden and trying to force him to accept the Constitution?

 

Well, enough of that.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I can't remember where Clairsentience first showed up

 

Images and Clarsentience was in Fantasy Hero I, 3rd edition stuff.  As did Aid, Detect, Dispel, Healing, Shape Shifting, and Summon.

 

FH was such a brilliant, visionary book, right up there with Strike Force.

[Lord Liaden]

Cloppy Clip, since you are using Sixth Edition, if you really want to explore the possibilities of EDM, I would suggest picking up Book Of The Empress, a supplement for Champions. The focus of the book is primarily on the Champions Universe's grand interdimensional conqueror, Istvatha V'han, "Empress of a Billion Dimensions," and her immense empire. But as an essential element of how she functions, BOTE also goes into detail on the various classic types of dimensions, how to design your own dimensions, campaigning within and across dimensions, and even includes a random dimension generator. It also describes dozens of example dimensions from across the Champions "multiverse," in moderate to great detail.

 

There have been other applications of EDM beyond moving through other physical dimensions. For example, the book called The Ultimate Speedster details an optional expansion of EDM, "Enter the Speed Zone," to simulate the classic super-speedster's ability to act so fast that everyone around them appears to be standing still. Essentially, the character moves to another "dimension" which has the characteristics corresponding to the effect they want.

[Cloppy Clip]

Book of the Empress sounds like a good choice to look into, as well as these other books. Is Champions Complete basically the same as the core rules + Champions, but presented more concisely? So, say if I got Complete, would it be worth getting Champions as well or not really?

 

Oh, and I hope I've fixed this, but got a bit confused with the reactions, and thought the red arrow pointing down was somehow going to give me more choices to pick from. So, sorry for the (temporary) downvote, steriaca! 😅

[Asperion]

If you have a copy of Ultimate Speedsters,  they breakdown how EXTREMELY high speeds operate.  Essentially,  the speedster will hop into an alternate dimension where time passes faster,  perform action,  then return to normal reality.  

 

The basic principle here is that the alternate dimension is someplace where you (gm) gets to go back and totally recreate EVERYTHING! If suddenly fire powers work at 2x power (cold powers at 0.5x) then that will be the case.  Can you imagine what will happen with those fireballs?

[Duke Bushido]

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

The key issue, to me, is that "Hero" actually began with 4e.  Hero is a game system used to design games.

 

To add (not to contradict):  in terms of what HERO is today, yes: that idea of the "HERO System" began _officially_ with 4e.

 

Range modifiers and END costs were really the only thing that was different from all that had gone before; realistically, it was Expanded Champions: two minor tweaks and a bunch of new-to-Champions stuff pulled from various games and supplements (including Champions supplements) and put in one place.  This was also the first stress on using the game for multiple genres without adopting special rules from supplemental sources.  (Not as amazing as it sounds, since this worked because Bell had already gone through the existing supplements and pulled those special rules from them and into the core rules before hand.  This was a new(ish) idea at the game, but Superworld and Palladium had already demonstrated it could be done while GDW was busy proving that it could be done badly if one wasn't careful.)

 

The actual term "HERO System" had begun to appear in marketing before the release of 3e: advertising for Espionage had changed from "by HERO Games" to "built on (something-or-other-award)-winning HERO System."  Similarly, extant advertising for Champions had changed from "using the HERO Games system" to "using the HERO System," while a few adds and a couple of reviews for Champions supplements would also use the phrase "HERO System."  The cementing of this advertising came when an official logo appeared in HERO Games advertising- usually in the lower right corner, featuring a generic superhero, a stack of hexes (cant remember if it was 3 or 5 hexes) and a tag line that featured "HERO System" prominently.  This logo started to appear just before the launch of 3e Champions, and would exist throughout its run.

 

Again, none of this changes what Hugh has said; none of this contradicts what Hugh has said.  It does reinforce the idea that the creators had also come to realize what a lot of us has come to realize:  the building-block style of characters, powers, and _items_ (personally, I find this to be the most important "breakthrough" aspect in terms of making the existing Champions game truly universal) and the disrinct split between SFX and mechanics made the game universal as-is-- or rather, as-was.

 

We discovered this back with 1e:

 

We had 1 GM and 9 Players, and only the GM and his brother really knew anything about comic books (surprise to all you Champions fans way back when who thought non-comics guys would not be playing your perfect comic book simulator!    )

 

After a lengthy 'how do I make a superhero' and 'let's rummage through some comic books' session-- as an aside, I have mentioned in the past that there were _always_ comics scattered around Jim's (the GM) house back then.  This was _specifically done_ because we as his Players had only a fractional knowledge of comics; that fraction, in the words of the great Oliver Wendell Jones, was best represented as Diddly/Squat.  Browsing comics during breaks or after the game or wating for everyone to show up-- it helped us get the tone, get inspiration, etc.

 

Anyway, back on course: 

 

During the first game for which we were allowed to design our own characters without Jim's or his brother's assistance, we all made superheroes, but none of them were superheroes.  That is, none of them were mutants or exposed to radiation or given super-serum or bitten by a thing or blessed by an aztec God or what-have-you.

 

We had two straight-up DnD characters- one wizard and one meaty slab of barbarian, both of whom had activated a trap that slid them to our remote dimension (they decided they were coworkers after noting they were both fantasy-themed, and tweaked their 'origin' to reflect this).

 

I had a time-travelling character from the future with high-tech weaponry, a force field, and teleport who has been pursuing a criminal through time when he fo9t trapped here: his target had laid a trap that destroyed all but the barest of functionality from his time travel equipment.  Like any other policeman, he can _drive_ a Crown Victoria,  but has no idea how to build one from scratch.

 

There was a vampire-type who had simply lived long enough to still be around, an alien power-armor type ended up stuck here, a demon who had been summoned to do a vile thing that he refused to do (he hated being tricked more than he hated being stuck here), and couldn't go back until he did the thing he refused to do (he had a low-level Hunted by other demons that had been summoned to make an example of him for his disobedience)--

 

Well, everyone was like this (except for the straight-up superhero Jim's brother made, who became our defacto  leader) we were none of us as players really comfortable with putting on tights and being virtuous and just because it was morally superior; we all had favorite genres, and we had been exposed to enough comics to see that gods and knights and spaceships and aliens were all cool in comics, and we kind of focused on the wrong parts of genre-crossing on comic books (remember: we were fully-formed adults being exposed to comics for the first time in our lives).

 

We presented our characters, Jim looked a bit disappointed, his brother said "I think I have a high enough Presence and the right skills that I can get them to cooperate (not that we wouldn't have: we were all well-experienced with role play, just not comic books).

 

Jim started his campaign, and about ten minutes in, he said "wait; i've got a better idea!  We Will get back to this next week.  Break out the Atari!"

 

The next week, the superhero had been reworked as a dimension-hopping mystic, and we were a team assembled from various dimensions (read that as "genres"), assembled to thwart an insane god bent on pushing all dimenions into one, watching the inhabitabts destroy each other in the ultimate war over resources, then ruling over whoever was left, with the idea that no matter who lost most (or all) of their followers, the other God's would be weakened enough that the villain could easily destroy them, too).  I won2t go much further on the plot, as most of the participants here are westerners, and as the plot unfolded, well...  Ultimately, the villain was Jehova, who only escaped his final justice by having himself be reborn as a human child.  That's enough, right?

 

 

At any rate, the campaign was incredible: one month we were playing straight-up DnD for four or five sessions, then Traveller, then some post-apocalyptic nightmare, and on and on.

 

It was great fun (if annoying, because Jim painted himself into a corner when he realized that, him being who he was and many of us being who we were, he couldn't _really_ let us just kill God).

 

But it was during that first arc- when we were trying to save the fantasy dimensions (failed miserably, by the way), that we all knew we could do pretty much anything with Champions, and for years it would become our go-to system for everything.

 

In fact, the first game I ran in 2e was a western that eventually took on some hardcore occult angles.  It ran for three and a half years.

 

Getting back on track (again): the game designers had already developed and released Espionage, which was built on Champions, with the idea of just hiding the fiddly bits: guns don't take OAF or detail their builds; they just cost money.  Things like that.  Even as the marketing began to shift toward "HERO games System" and then into "HERO System," it is obvious that the designers already knew what we had just started to discover, and I am one-hundred-percent certain that one small group of South-Georgia rednecks could not possibly be the only people to have figured this out.

 

I know a lot of people tout the separation of SFX from mechanics as the reason that all the cross-dimensional utility exists, but I have aleays maintained that without the Focus rules from the very first release, that separation would not have been enough.

 

Why?  Because unless an item can exist as a solid, stand-alone set piece, it cannot exist at all.  If I buy Blast, I am free to call it a gun, but that gun can never be lost, can never run out of bullets, and can never be given to another person, etc.  It will always be my character pointing at another character and yelling Bang!  Why point? I can shoot it from my eyes, if I want to! It is not _actually_ a gun, after all.

 

It is not a gun- no matter what I call it; no matter how I use it- until I make it a physical object- a focus.

 

We _could_ build zero END, usuable by others (only one at a time), and other reasonable custom modifiers into the power.   Maybe something like "Subject to periodic loss", (then lots of custom rules for how and when that happens), and _eventually_ we would be able to use Independant (when did that happen?  More importantly, _would it have happened if we dis not already have Focus rules?  Is that not what it was originally intended for?)

As it turns out, we had "Focus" from day 1, and I maintain that this is what makes the all-genres from one rule set possible, because it is _the_ subset of rules that makes divorcing _all_ SFX from _all_ mechanics.  Without Focus, a gun would never be a real gun; an axe would never be a real axe.

 

 

 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

It is not a game itself.  4e began the publishing of the full system, rather than games constructed with that system.

 

Unlike the previous quote, I have one quibble here.

 

4e _did_ publish "all the extant rules" (at least, at the time it was published), but then it went on to continue the tradition of publishing more rules in various additional sourcebooks.  When the First HERO System Almanac was released, I had hoped that this was an attempt to collect the various new rules and put them into one easily-references sourcebook, but... Well, not so much, nor was the second.

 

Second quibble is that war gaming worked well enough with the rules in HERO System (4e) precisely as presented.  One could build a very complex board game immediately, even with no other knowledge of Champions, but there was no genre: there was nothing to flavor your games beyond example snippets in the book itself,  all of which were very carefully chosen to include a broad selection of genres (remember Arkelos the Mage?  I was starting to think he was a bumbling idiot by the time I finished reading the Powers section)

 

Biggest quibble is the idea that 4e was the first publication of a system from which an entire separate game could be built.  Our own experiences demonstrated that this happened with the first release of Champions.  The release of Espionage (2e), Danger International, and others (3e), along with the steady and deliberate changes in marketing confirm that the developers knew it, too.

 

I am not contradicting what  Hugh said; I am wishing to add a qualifier:

 

4e was the first time that HERO games was intentionally marketing that particular strength of the game, and the first time the rules were available in a "genre-free" (sort of) version.

 

 

 

 

 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Absorption, Duplication (Light) Images and Multiform were in 3e,

 

Multiform was in Champions III, which- if going purely on publication dates- makes it a 2e construct.

 

Absorption and Light Illusions were decidely 2e, originally released in '82, in the supplement Champions II, while the first printing of 3e Champions was in November of '84.  Similarly, Champions III was released before 3e- but just barely: it beat 3e to presses and to store shelves by a mere month.

 

Like Enemies,  Champions II would get a rerelease with a new cover during 3e, though  Champs III did not: there wasn't any reason to do so, as the two were nearly simultaneous anyway, and while Champs III did not have the 3e logo that all 3e products (including the two re-released products) would bear, it also did not have the iconic (if dated) 1 and 2e logo, either, and was the first published product to feature the layout that would be characteristic to all 3e products.  In fact, the only things tying Champs III to 2e were the Williams cover and the release date.  As both supplements work perfectly with both editions, there is no end of debate as to which edition they were released for.  One of the bits of evidence that supports the idea that Champs III was intended as a 2e product is that 3e was released two ways:  there was a boxed set _and_ a perfect bound all-in-one book.  While I no longer remember which came first (because I no longer remember the release date for the perfect bound book), it is worth noting that even with the opportunity to work the better Champs 3 material into the second format, it was never actually done.

 

 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

but in Champions supplements.  Pretty sure Automatons were in those as well,

 

 

I would have to look that up, as I really don't remember when automatons showed up in official rules- like vehicle rules (2e), we already had something in play when official rules got published, so,we never really adopted the official rules; they werent too far from what we had anyway.

 

 

I _believe_ automatons were originally an article in the Adventurers Club, but I am not one-hundred-percent in that.

 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

Clinging and Missile Deflection were in 3e,

 

I would hope so.  They were both introduced in 1e.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

 

and Reflection in one of those supplements.

 

Yep.  First published in 2e's supplement Champions II.

 

 

 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I can't remember where Clairsentience first showed up, but I believe it was in Enhanced Senses.

 

If ir helps, I cant either, at least not at the moment.     Doubly amusing since LL once referred to me as a frustrated librarian.   

 

It did end up in Enhanced Senses eventually, however- I _think_  that was in 4e.  I know it was not in any version of Champions 3e and prior.  Fantasy HERO?  Not sure.

 

Same with Change Environment.  Honestly, I am not as "up" on things that originated outside of Champions simply because we used Champions to play those games as well.  Want Fantasy?  Fine. Make Champions characters that are appropriate for Runequest (or whatever).  Want Gamma World?  Cool.  Make,Champions characters appropriate for that, etc.

 

 

 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Damage Negation did not exist before 6e.

 

Correct.  We has to use cobbles of various defenses to demonstrate high-level resistance to things prior to 6e, though the eventual release of Damage Reducrion helped a lot with that.  In truth, we still use those cobbles- they are not necessarily better or worse; we are simply already familiar with them and they work fine for our needs.

 

On 12/10/2022 at 7:56 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

Hero needs actual games people learn and play before diving into the depths of the Hero System.

 

 

Good God, _yes_!

 

Though how many people bought Lucha HERO?  Just me and Darren?

 

PS 238 I think underperformed as well, though I suspect because it was ultimately a sandboxed Champions game.  MHI had real potential, but the owner of the IP wrecked a lot of interest in that.

 

 

 

15 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

. Is Champions Complete basically the same as the core rules + Champions, but presented more concisely?

 

Yes.  Though with considerably less "Champions."  Not to say that it isnt there, but there is consistent flavor throughout.  Sacrifices were to get all the rules n there, so you dont learn a lot about the official setting, bur you get enough that win minimal elbow grease, you can get a superhero game off the ground and keep it running for a long time.

 

 

15 hours ago, Cloppy Clip said:

So, say if I got Complete, would it be worth getting Champions as well or not really?

 

 

That depends entirely on how invested you are in the official setting, or how much guidance you would like with setting the tone of your games.  For instance, I have been  playing since 1e, and have never set anything in an official setting.  The closest thing we came to an official setting was killing off the 4e Champions one-by-one as part of a background plot.  (We didnt want to create background characters just to kill them off, so let's use these characters that none of us really like anyway)