FANTASY HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

[tgaptte]

My .02 on FH

 

I would like to see the following in the new FH:

 

- Information on how to build spell systems, including MP, EC, VPP, END Reserve, Ley Lines, Nodes, Foci etc.

- Packages: Cultural, Professional, Racial

- Tips on how to balance magic users against other party members, both at the beginning and over time.

- Ways to differentiate magic from super powers, as well as making Divine, Nature, Arcane and other magic all "feel" different.

 

In short, pretty much most of what you're including!

 

Thanks for listening.

 

Tim

[Steve Long]

I say, you'll have to wait and see until I write it. I'm sure I'll provide some additional discussion of armor, but I don't want to start promising specifics until I'm further in to the project (and maybe not even then).

[Old Man]

Speaking of armor, an armorer or armorsmith skill would be nice to see.

[Old Man]

Armorsmith/weaponsmith skill should be fleshed out so that it's not as prone to abuse as the current weaponsmith skill. Too often have I seen players buy weaponsmith for their character and then claim they can crank out (effectively) magic items for everyone in the group. I'd like to see some kind of chart for what the penalties are wrt fixing and making various types of weapons and armor, and what kind of forge and tools and materials are required, and what level of weaponsmith should be required to build "superior" weapons, and how long it should take.

 

There ought to be some readily available info on this subject since blacksmithing is still treated as a trade. Base weaponsmith should be enough to make crude knives, arrow/spear heads, and farming tools. It should be harder to make swords and mail, and harder still to make articulated plate armor that fits.

[PhilFleischmann]

FH Requests (Long)

 

First of all, you definitely DON’T need to include what always seems to come at the front of every HERO System book: A list of all the Skills, Perks, Talents, Powers, Advantages, Limitations, and Disadvantages and explain how each one can be used in the genre. We already know that an Area Effect Energy Blast can be used to make a fireball spell, and that Invisibility can be used to make an invisibility spell, and that orcs might have a Social Limitation in a world of humans.

 

Second, you definitely DON’T need to include the “Original Magic System Design Sheet†from 4th ed. pp. 76-77. It was nothing more than a list of game elements with checkboxes next to them. These were the most useless pages I’ve seen since the “Record Sheets†from Champions III.

 

I second the requests for:

- travel times over various terrain, sea, and even air. What’s the airspeed of a mage who has transformed himself into an unladen swallow?

- Mass combat & sieges.

- discussion of the way magic and monsters change the world, and how to control the amount by which they do so. These deviations from history can have an impact on every area of life: economic, military, politics, travel, communication, etc. If wizards can cast desolid spells, will there still be castles with stone walls? If people can teleport, why build roads? Galley ships rowed by ten giant golems with 30 STR would probably have a totally different design from one rowed by 160 human slaves with 10 STR. Most of the time, GMs will want their worlds to have some resemblance to historical Earth. How do they make sure that it works that way?

 

I don’t mind that you won’t be including maps, but it might be nice to see some hints on map creation. Like how to arrange geographical features in a plausible way. I know I’ve gotten much better at this but I’d still like some hints as to how to make the world look realistic. How far is it to the next town? To the next large city?

 

And when you say “no maps,†does that include locations, like those given in the 4th ed. Fantasy Hero Companion and Companion 2? Those would be very useful and could be included without having to create a default world. It might be nice to have a few generic maps of cities, just to give an idea how a tribal village or a walled city is arranged. Also, the castle presented in FHC was not the most useful. It was “a combination of the historical and the fantastic.†I’d like to see two (or more) sample castles: one that is strictly historical in style, and one that is totally fantastic.

 

Also, there was an important sub-genre missing from the old FH books. I’m not sure what it’s called, so I’ve taken to calling it “ultra-fantasy.†I’ll write it up somewhat like the way it would have appeared in 4th ed. Fantasy Hero:

 

-----

EXAMPLES

C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series, much of mythology from around the world, most fairy tales, L. Frank Baum’s works, some movies such as The Dark Crystal, The Last Unicorn, Labyrinth, The Never-Ending Story, The Tenth Kingdom. I would also put the movie What Dreams May Come, in this category (somewhat). I’ve heard that Terry Pratchet’s (sp?) works also fit into this category, but I haven’t read them. A lot of it, but certainly not all, is primarily intended for kids, but there is some that is actually quite inappropriate for kids.

 

CHARACTERISTICS

Similar to High Fantasy, Ultra-fantasy is usually on a smaller scale, even if the story or conflict has world-wide implications. Ultra-fantasy often takes on a surreal feeling. The story is often highly personal and psychological. The conflict often centers on the protagonist battling his own flaws, rather than an evil enemy. Sometimes the internal conflict must be resolved in order to defeat an external enemy.

 

TYPICAL CONVENTIONS

The world is extremely different from our own. Magic is usually as pervasive as air. Superstitions can be real because everything contains its own inherent magical nature. The laws of physics could be totally different. In Narnia, the world is flat, and you can sail off the edge! To the people who live there, these things are well known and accepted.

Animals talk. And sometimes, so do inanimate objects!

There are no “humans.†Or humans may simply be a tiny minority. Sometimes the protagonist’s race is something like a human, but not quite. The hero in The Dark Crystal was a “gelfling,†and was believed to be the last of his kind.

Everything is a metaphor. Enemies, allies, places, etc. often represent abstract concepts, such as the hero’s own doubts and fears. That big turtle-thing from The Never-Ending Story was the personification of apathy.

The hero is from somewhere else. Often the protagonist is not a native to this world at all, often coming from “the real world.â€

 

THE UNIVERSE

Beneficial, even if extremely scary or annoying. The hero is often “destined†to prevail – fulfilling an ancient prophecy or something like that – but to do so, he must learn a difficult lesson, or go through an uncomfortable change.

-----

 

In the character creation section, it would be great to see something that isn’t in the fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue mold of deendee.

 

One last thing: One of my all-time pet peeves with a certain other gaming system was the proliferation of weird words – some made up, some simply obscure – for monsters, weapons, places, equipment, etc. with no indication of their pronunciation. I’m sure many of you out there remember classics such as “otyugh,†“ixitxachtl,†and “nycadaemon†(hard ‘c’ or soft ‘c’? And how do you pronounce “daemon†to distinguish it from “demon�). If you’re going to include words for things that don’t appear in a normal dictionary, be sure to tell us how to pronounce them!

 

Whew! Long winded son-of-a-gun, ain't I? I originally wrote this as a 5 page Word document, but I whittled it down to a page and a half before posting.

[Nelijal]

Re: FH Requests (Long)

 

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann

First of all, you definitely DON’T need to include what always seems to come at the front of every HERO System book: A list of all the Skills, Perks, Talents, Powers, Advantages, Limitations, and Disadvantages and explain how each one can be used in the genre. We already know that an Area Effect Energy Blast can be used to make a fireball spell, and that Invisibility can be used to make an invisibility spell, and that orcs might have a Social Limitation in a world of humans.

I would tend to disagree with this. Yes, some of such material may seem redundant, but what's obvious to one isn't always obvious to another. This info should just be specific to FH.

 

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann

What’s the airspeed of a mage who has transformed himself into an unladen swallow?

African Swallow or European Swallow?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: FH Requests (Long)

 

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann

First of all, you definitely DON’T need to include what always seems to come at the front of every HERO System book: A list of all the Skills, Perks, Talents, Powers, Advantages, Limitations, and Disadvantages and explain how each one can be used in the genre. We already know that an Area Effect Energy Blast can be used to make a fireball spell, and that Invisibility can be used to make an invisibility spell, and that orcs might have a Social Limitation in a world of humans.

 

Oh really? How do we know this? We know this because we've got two editions of FH already telling us this, plus scads of experience with the system. What happens when someone picks up FREd and FH3 for the first time and says "Wow, I'd love to run this stuff, but I can't figure out how to build spells? Should I build my Fireball as Area Effect or Explosion?" We've got people already asking this stuff on the boards for Champions;it would be nice to have it already available for FH.

 

Yes, we definitely DO need that stuff.

 

Second, you definitely DON’T need to include the “Original Magic System Design Sheet†from 4th ed. pp. 76-77. It was nothing more than a list of game elements with checkboxes next to them. These were the most useless pages I’ve seen since the “Record Sheets†from Champions III.

 

Dude! FREd is nothing more than two pieces of cardboard with a bunch of words inside.

 

I happened to get a lot of use out of this. It makes it easy to say "Here's what you can and can't use to build spells." Make up a master, photocopy it a few times, hand it out to your players, and you're saving yourself a lot of time explaining everything at the beginning, or answering the same question from three players who were too busy writing down their spells to hear you the first two times you explained it.

 

I would say cut it if you need the room, and if nothing else make it available as a PDF download.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Two pieces of cardboard

 

If FRED is "two pieces of cardboard with a bunch of words inside", then what are the softcover books? The e-books?

 

I'd like to see Fantasy HERO supplemented with a few extra downloads myself. A monster tracker sheet that users could print out and photocopy at need would be nice, as fantasy adventures tend to use adversaeires in larger masses than in other types of campaigns. A sheet where a spellcaster can track the exact spells in his VPP or Multipower would be nice as well, especially if his VPP is constructed in such a way that he can only use each spell a few times per day. A "realm profile" form would also be nice, detailing such things about kingdoms, dukedoms and other political units as what the major cities are, who lives there, what kind of government they have, etc.

 

Make it a 16-page free PDF with all of these forms, to be printed out as needed.

 

By the way, is it possible to create a country in a roughly similar way to the way you create a character? Obviously countries don;t have Characteristics, but they do vary in terms of attitude, power, customs, laws, favored weapons and styles, and so on.

[Nelijal]

Re: Two pieces of cardboard

 

Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft

By the way, is it possible to create a country in a roughly similar way to the way you create a character? Obviously countries don;t have Characteristics, but they do vary in terms of attitude, power, customs, laws, favored weapons and styles, and so on.

Now that's an interesting idea. After all, we build everything else using Characteristics, Talents, Perks, Powers, and Disadvantages, why not countries? I think such a build would be useful only in a big picture sort of way, describing the way societies as a whole interact with each other, but that's not a bad thing. It would probably help many--including me--to start world creation at such a high level in order to solidify that big picture. From there, the details of the individual societies would be easier to flesh out. I like it.

[Southern Cross]

Daemon Pronunciation

 

"Daemon" is pronounced "day-mon".

[Old Man]

Actually I think the D+D monster whose name generates the most intense pronunciation discussions is "drow".

[Geryon]

Thats odd...... I've never heard it pronounced anything but Drow as in rhymes with Cow. I've heard a million of these stupid arguments about pronunciation though..... from demon, daemon potayto potahto baatezu bayatezu it seems pretty common amongst gamers.

[Zoth]

I read through most of the post in this subject and I don’t think my ideas have been brought up yet or at least in the same way. So besides some of the good points already laid out here is a few of my suggestions.

 

1. Class and race package deal continuity with starting points levels.

I would like to see class and race package deals that are built around what is gone to be considered the average starting points.

If a cleric package deals cost 45 I don’t want see a paladin costing 80+. Exp. If the average starting level is gone be considered 100 I like to stuff like cleric cost 45 and may be paladin 55 and elves 42, est. Some of the templates in various GURPS book do not do this and while there are some situations where you have to do this I think the standard package deal should be somewhat balanced.

a. Class package deal scaling. This kind goes along with package continuity. Instead of having the package deals only list what the perfect class would have, I like to see package deal list what the class would start with then have a list of suggested talents and powers that they might have as experience, advanced or master. Now I’m not talking about trying to make a level system for fantasy hero, however in any game the characters usually don’t start out having it all. Finally this would be useful for campaigns that don’t start off at the normal starting point levels and give players an idea about how to advance there characters.

2. Quick Fantasy character generator. Something like the quick superhuman generator in champions. Real long running and good campaigns have always started at the last minute and a drop of the hat because everyone was bored and had nothing to do Anything that can help speed up character generator or give the newbie a place to start is good in my book.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Daemon Pronunciation

 

Originally posted by Southern Cross

"Daemon" is pronounced "day-mon".

 

Very good! Now how do you promounce "dweamorcreafter"?

 

The one problem with Gary Gygax' Dangerous Journeys RPG (the one that sunk its publisher into bankruptcy), aside from a system with eighteen different characteristics, was that Gary decided to fill his book with so many weird words that spellcheckers across the land committed suicide in droves.

 

Aerth, the setting for DJ, looks like it would be a good Fantasy HERO world setting, actually. It had life, breadth and enormous potential.

[Michael Hopcroft]

For Fantasy HERO

 

I know you can;t do much in the way of character conversions and the like, but I would like to see a section on converting other fantasy worlds to HERO. It doesn;t have to be long -- just a set of guidelines. But it would help people who really want to play in places like the Forgotten Realsm, feudal Japan, Middle-Earth (easy for Steve!), ancient Rome, Ravenloft, or any of the numerous other fantasy settings out of the market into the HERO system.

 

Maybe if someone were to independently model the D20 spellbook for HERO I could figure out just how powerful a 1st Level magic-user is supposed to be as opposed to a 20th-level magic user.....

[Sketchpad]

What I'd like to see is genre notes on styles of Fantasy games ... Dark, High, Low, Urban, etc ... and some unique races as well Hero should have some iconic races IMO

[Southern Cross]

Level Costs

 

If memory serves,in Fantasy Hero !st Edition an AD & D level was supposed to be the equivalent of 20 experience points.Thus a 20th level wizard would have 180 more points than a 1st level wizard.

[James Gillen]

Re: Re: Daemon Pronunciation

 

Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft

The one problem with Gary Gygax' Dangerous Journeys RPG

 

The ONE?!?

 

Aerth, the setting for DJ, looks like it would be a good Fantasy HERO world setting, actually. It had life, breadth and enormous potential.

 

I'll agree with that. A setting which allows medieval France to exist at the same time as the Roman senate and ancient Eg- uh, AEgypt would be really neat to use.

 

JG

[PhilFleischmann]

When I said that the Original Magic System Design Sheet was useless, I meant that it doesn't help a GM to design an original magic system. It's just a list of all the Powers in the game. We already know what those are. They're in FREd. There's nothing on the sheet that indicates an actual style: D&D-type one shot spells, Mana pools, inherent magic abilities, etc., or gives any abitiy for a GM to design such a system, original or otherwise.

 

And if a new player or GM can't decide whether to make his fireball AE or Explosion, or agonizes over which way is the "right" way to do it, then this person doesn't understand the basic concept of HERO: You can use your own creativity, your own vision, and your own decisions. You get what you pay for, you pay for what you get.

 

And by the way, "daemon" is correctly pronounced "DEE-mon," exactly the same as "demon." The only people who say "DAY-mon" are deendee players who needed to make a distinction between the two. Deendee (or perhaps other RPG's) is the only context where there even IS a distinction. To the rest of the world, "daemon" is just an alternate spelling of "demon."

 

Look it up!

[Chris Goodwin]

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann

When I said that the Original Magic System Design Sheet was useless, I meant that it doesn't help a GM to design an original magic system. It's just a list of all the Powers in the game. We already know what those are. They're in FREd. There's nothing on the sheet that indicates an actual style: D&D-type one shot spells, Mana pools, inherent magic abilities, etc., or gives any abitiy for a GM to design such a system, original or otherwise.

 

A list of the Powers can be really useful in designing a magic system. Heck, it can be really useful in other games. There's no reason not to include it unless you absolutely positively need the space for something else.

 

And if a new player or GM can't decide whether to make his fireball AE or Explosion, or agonizes over which way is the "right" way to do it, then this person doesn't understand the basic concept of HERO: You can use your own creativity, your own vision, and your own decisions. You get what you pay for, you pay for what you get.

 

It was kinda my point that there are people who are new to the system who are still getting the basic concept of the system. Not everyone who picks up FH3 is going to have ten years playing HERO under their belts; we've been seeing that for months now already with Champions.

[Old Man]

I'm under the impression that FH will be sold as a supplement, not a stand alone product. If this is true than a list of powers is not needed. Some suggestions might be nice but FREd has many many examples in it already.

 

Maybe a page reference to FREd would be good when explaining concepts or ideas.

[Black Rose]

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann

And by the way, "daemon" is correctly pronounced "DEE-mon," exactly the same as "demon." The only people who say "DAY-mon" are deendee players who needed to make a distinction between the two. Deendee (or perhaps other RPG's) is the only context where there even IS a distinction. To the rest of the world, "daemon" is just an alternate spelling of "demon."

 

Look it up!

 

Granted, I come from a deendee background, but I always said "diemon" myself; comes from my Latin classes, where "ae" is pronounced "long i". Though I can see "deemon", too.

[AnotherSkip]

mebbe Steve could do some reseach on that really big series Wheel of Time. Im sure he would just love that. Something really juicy to sink his teeth into.

 

 

that looks like a good place to start fantasy hero...

 

[AnotherSkip]

Re: Re: Two pieces of cardboard

 

Originally posted by Nelijal

Now that's an interesting idea. After all, we build everything else using Characteristics, Talents, Perks, Powers, and Disadvantages, why not countries? I think such a build would be useful only in a big picture sort of way, describing the way societies as a whole interact with each other, but that's not a bad thing. It would probably help many--including me--to start world creation at such a high level in order to solidify that big picture. From there, the details of the individual societies would be easier to flesh out. I like it.

 

 

Actually there is an article in Dragon Magazine that was a point based system.......That pretty much did that, ask nicely and ill dig up the issue number.

 

 

however the concept was definately not fleshed out enough, I played with it some but never got it written up.

 

Steve i would lke to see a few ideas on "removing fingerprints" to make something feel new. not just slight rewites but ideas to rename/refeel the same old things. Mercedes lackey has Psionics in her books but they dont feel like psions, renamed and with the serial numbers filed off they work great, besides there are some great examples for Power Skills usages n the blasted things that really go forward with the whole mysticism concepts with out costing points.

 

Frankly changing spells on the fly as one shots with Power Skill Rolls should be a good concept to explore. Definately adding depth to the mages spells without costing more points is a good thing.

[Bazza]

Re: Re: Re: Two pieces of cardboard

 

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

Actually there is an article in Dragon Magazine that was a point based system.......That pretty much did that, ask nicely and ill dig up the issue number.

 

I remember that article, but not the issue number of hand. Unless Anotherskip beats me to posting it, I'll look for it and post it.