Hero Haters

[TrickstaPriest]

It does make quite a difference, playing out different systems. Canned settings can be nice when you don't have the time to make your own, or if you need a break from writing up all that stuff. It is still possible to run games using specific books for a similar genre, but a different setting, but I find it easier to know only one or two systems and go with that. I've run quite a few Tri Stat games that work out very well, and I'm learning HERO slowly but surely. Learning two different generic systems should give me a handle on just about anything I want to run (I hope ^.^). Now, if I can just convince the players that I have to give HERO a bit of a chance, I can experiment with it a little more.

 

and PS...

...speaking of blankets and towels (from much earlier), I just realized that a major villain of mine uses a 'blanket'. Rather, a long and thin but extremely durable cloth that he can control... getting entangled with it and then "wrung out" is a major owwie... I still haven't decided what the "extremely likely to cause dislocation of various joints" effect would be.

[Shinobi]

To me, it seems like with so many systems, gamers are forming mini-communities. The more fanatic are attacking other systems or even a type of game. They are more vocal thus they get more of the attention.

 

At a gaming store here, gamers would argue over playing styles for one game let alone the insults for playing games they don't like. The store did get several emotionally unstable people but I have seen it at other places, granted not as extreme. Over time, the gaming community will be extremely fragmented.

 

Can't we just get along?

[James Gillen]

Originally posted by Bengal

Now my wife wants to know how many points to have a costume that sticks to her, so she doesn't fall out of it when she's slugging it out with some bad guy.

 

Which is a less dumb question than it seems, since one of the NPC vigilante anti-heroes in the campaign has an attack that shreds clothing.

 

Normally that sort of thing is just hand-waved as a special effect. In Champions it's pointed out that heroes usually have costumes that are armored and/or resistant to their own energy powers or whatever.

 

So if the NPC in question has an attack specifically designed to shred clothing, ask how the attack is designed. RKA vs. non-living matter? Drain BODY? Then get a specialized defense (Armor or Power Defense) only vs. such attacks.

 

Again, this normally wouldn't even be necessary, but you said the NPC (let's call him 'The Stripper') could attack clothing specifically. If your wife is worried about popping out of her costume, well there are not- deliberately are not- rules for such an event. Unless the heroine has Unluck, or you've adapted the Bimbo Point rules from Superbabes.

 

JG

[ghost-angel]

Originally posted by Bengal

Now my wife wants to know how many points to have a costume that sticks to her, so she doesn't fall out of it when she's slugging it out with some bad guy.

 

Which is a less dumb question than it seems, since one of the NPC vigilante anti-heroes in the campaign has an attack that shreds clothing.

 

You know... we run into this all the time, apparently our GM is under the impression the battle hasn't gone well until one or all of the PCs have been stripped by an explosion of some kind.

 

I finally made a character who that can't happen to:

 

Instant Change: Clothing - Triggered to "Clothes shredded to less than 50% coverage by attacks." Just set the trigger when I go into battle and voila, the character stays in clothing.

[badger3k]

I haven't gone to RPG net, but on WotC's and Kenzer's boards there isn't much mentioned about other systems. Hero was mentioned a few times, and it was pretty even-handed (at least the ones I read) - some were against the system, some for, but nothing too extreme - not like what the D&D players say about each other and their rules interpretations. I haven't seen too much like those arguments here (except perhaps in the NGD) - the last one I looked at (at Wizos) was around 40 pages basically discussing what "effectively" meant. They get into the same type of rules debates that we get here, but here I've found a more relaxed attitude about it. While we may disagree, I haven't seen the "I'm right and this is the only way to do it" argument that really really ticks me off.

 

I think the generic nature of Hero seems to bother people - until now, the campaign material has not been that strong. It's that information, despite peoples claims to prefer homebrew material, that gets peoples attention. D&D has the Realms, Greyhawk, and others. Vampire has their World of Darkness. Gurps has books specifically centered on a particular world/genre/etc. Hero is mainly associated with Champions (which is a hit from those who prefer fantasy, it seems), and the fact that (until soon) FH has no "official setting" books that people can associate with it. The other point that people seem not to like is that it is very individualistic - one persons campaign can differ from anothers in the simplest rules. In D&D, if you make a fighter or a wizard, you pretty much know what he can do no matter what campaign settting you use. In Hero, my wizard can be very different from yours, and the next persons can be nothing like either. That makes it sometimes hard to talk/compare/brag (especially the latter, which gamers seem to enjoy) - at least in the particulars.

 

Add in the fact, as has been mentioned, Hero is harder to learn (but even my new players are learning the system after 3 sessions, enough to add their own experience), and games like Rolemaster (or Roll-master, or Chart-Master, etc) get hammered sometime.

 

Then you have the age factor - there is a groundswell of new gamers, many of them D&D/d20 players due to the glut of books, and in many cases the younger you are, the more you talk trash (not universally true, but we older folks have usually been there and done that, and at least in many cases I can see that responding or acting like that is stupid and serves no purpose). The new group of players also tend to be more rabid (as most converts tend to be) in their defense of their chosen system. I think we can be just as rabid, but we may be more polite about it sometimes. We also tend to have experience in other systems, since many of us gamed in the great RPG-bloat of the late 70s and 80s. I've played a huge number of systems, most of which are not published/heard from anymore. Today, when you can get an RPG in s normal bookstore, and its usually only D&D/d20/WOD, what will an individual just starting out tend to run into? People today don't have the experience in a world full of RPGs that we experienced.

 

Finally, to stop this thing sometime, as someone said - Gamers love to argue. We are a contentious lot, and since the game we play reflects something of our likes and attitudes, when someone mentions a game different than the one we chose, we might get defensive, since it can seem like an attack on us, not just a comment on a system.

 

PS - Bengal, I had a similar hard time getting my group into champions - they didn't understand buying equipment with points, and not killing (at least, some had problems, coming off a D&D campaign - well, all our last games were typical kill the bad guy games), and they had a hard time with the genre. I switched to the FH campaign and am getting them used to the system. So far it seems ok. Good luck with your game.

 

I'd do an attack that shreds clothing as an Ego attack (since suddenly being naked can cause quite a shock). Mind Control (embaressment), negative skill levels, transform, CE (lose OCV from having to hold body parts!). Lots of ways for an interesting attack. Gotta remember that one.