Dust Raven Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 So I'm reading and posting and thinking through these drop something or add something or change something in the Hero System, and I thought, what would you change the name of and why? Basically, I've noticed a lot of confusion (to put it mildly) over what something is called. Either the name seem to imply something it's not meant to, or otherwise doesn't actually convey the proper meaning in the first place. One clarification though... I'm not asking for redefinitions... just new names. What do you think is poorly named and what do you think it should be called? Personally, I'd rename Stunned to Dazed. Stunned sounds too much like STUN. Dazed means the same thing and there's absolutely nothing in the game that sounds like that word. A long time ago I might have renamed Phase to simply Action, but over the years I kinda like Phase. In any case, it makes more sense to say you spend your phase doing nothing rather than your action. How can doing nothing be an action? So what would you rename? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MitchellS Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... I would rename: Armor to Tough [armor implies focuses such as knight's armor or Ironman]. Damage Resistance to Resistance. Ego Attack to Mental Attack. Energy Blast to Ranged Attack. Hand-to-Hand Attack to Hand Attack. Mind Control to Mental Control. Mind Link to Mental Link. Mind Scan to Mental Scan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Taylor Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Energy Blast to Ranged Attack. Ditto on that. Energy Blast can be agaisnt Physical or Energy Defense, so the name quite simply isn't appropriate. RA is consistent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Seeman Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Ditto on that. Energy Blast can be agaisnt Physical or Energy Defense' date=' so the name quite simply isn't appropriate. RA is consistent.[/quote'] Same here. I ran my younger brother through his first combat over the holiday's and he had a little trouble grasping the fact that Energy Blast was a generic term for "attacks that do normal damage". And he's a nuclear engineer at GE. He did have fun though, until my nephew started attacking his own teammates. (see my sig) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Taylor Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Another one I'm not keen on the name of is Entangle. To my mind it's too evocative of a certain narrow range of special effects rather than the actual game effect, which bascially is to stop a target from being able to act. I don't have a great suggestion for an alternate name though. Anybody have an idea? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ben Seeman Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Another one I'm not keen on the name of is Entangle. To my mind it's too evocative of a certain narrow range of special effects rather than the actual game effect' date=' which bascially is to stop a target from being able to act. I don't have a great suggestion for an alternate name though. Anybody have an idea?[/quote'] Entrap? Ensnare? That's the best I can come up with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Taylor Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Entrap? Ensnare? That's the best I can come up with. Ensnare is pretty good actually. It's better than the thoughts I had, which were along the lines of Impede, Hinder, and similar, none of which sound right. Probably the most technically correct term in the English language would be Arrest, but unfortunately that just really doesn't sound right, probably because of the police-related connotations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Taylor Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... It only just occured to me, Restrain fits quite well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Nothing. I wouldn't change any of the names. There's no need, and no reason, other than pedantry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Personally, I'd rename Stunned to Dazed. Stunned sounds too much like STUN. Dazed means the same thing and there's absolutely nothing in the game that sounds like that word. Stunned? So you mean out of STUN, or CON Stunned? This is the only proposed name change I've seen so far that makes much sense to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kristopher Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... I would rename: Armor to Tough [armor implies focuses such as knight's armor or Ironman]. So we should start renaming powers based on the things that you infer? When someone speaks of armored dinosaurs, do you picture a large creature in chainmail? Does a reference to an armadillo's armor confuse you? Armor makes a lot more sense than "tough". "Tough" isn't a noun, it's an adjective, at least as used here. I think it would be the first Power name that isn't a noun, IIRC. Naming a power using the noun variant of "tough" would make even less sense. Damage Resistance to Resistance. Why? Isn't there already a power or talent with that name? And it's not like the old name or your proposed truncation are crystal clear on what the Power really does. Energy Blast to Ranged Attack. Or people could read the first paragraph of the power's description, which gives multiple examples of physical attacks built using EB. Hand-to-Hand Attack to Hand Attack. Why? Ego Attack to Mental Attack. Mind Control to Mental Control. Mind Link to Mental Link. Mind Scan to Mental Scan. I guess I'm neutral on those, since they'd all be together alphabetically in the book. **shrug** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Raven Posted December 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Stunned? So you mean out of STUN, or CON Stunned? This is the only proposed name change I've seen so far that makes much sense to me. That's the issue that confuses most of my players. At home, I tend to call it CON Stunned, even though there is no such term in the rulebook. At conventions I deliberately call it Dazed in hopes of getting other players in that habit and perhaps force the writer editor to do the same some day in a future edition of the rules. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dust Raven Posted December 30, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... So we should start renaming powers based on the things that you infer? When someone speaks of armored dinosaurs' date=' do you picture a large creature in chainmail? Does a reference to an armadillo's armor confuse you? [/quote'] Actually, that reminds me of an illustration in Transdimension Turtles for TMNT by Palladium. I think it was a triceritops, but I'm not sure... all I remember is that he didn't need a helmet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MitchellS Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... So we should start renaming powers based on the things that you infer? When someone speaks of armored dinosaurs' date=' do you picture a large creature in chainmail? Does a reference to an armadillo's armor confuse you?[/quote'] Your armadillo example illustrates my point. When you say armor it brings up a certain visual idea like your armadillo. You think of an actual visual representation of something which does not look normal; something which is visible and unnatural. Armor is invisible and has no visible representation. The word armor brings to mind something visual and different like the armadillo's skin, it doesn't bring to mind Thor's skin. Armor makes a lot more sense than "tough". "Tough" isn't a noun, it's an adjective, at least as used here. I think it would be the first Power name that isn't a noun, IIRC. Naming a power using the noun variant of "tough" would make even less sense. I don't care for the name Tough myself, but I was thinking that there might be a toughness feat in d20 and so that's where the name came from. I just do not like the term armor because the power cannot be seen or felt like every example you can ever name based on the word armor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... That's the issue that confuses most of my players. At home' date=' I tend to call it CON Stunned, even though there is no such term in the rulebook. At conventions I deliberately call it Dazed in hopes of getting other players in that habit and perhaps force the writer editor to do the same some day in a future edition of the rules.[/quote'] That might be the best explaination I've seen of why people say CON stunned yet. I still hate the term, but maybe I'll see if I can start using Dazed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... I changed "Energy Blast" to simple "Blast" a long time ago - actually that's what the ranged Normal Damage attack power was called in the first edition of Fantasy HERO. I just stick Physical or Energy in front of it on the character sheet as appropriate. Otherwise I don't have a serious problem with the system's naming conventions, although I'd like a change to either Normal Characteristic Maxima or Non-Combat Multiplier, just because the acronym's are exactly the same. Without clear context that can be confusing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vurbal Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Or people could read the first paragraph of the power's description' date=' which gives multiple examples of physical attacks built using EB.[/quote']That assumes that everyone wants to read through the descriptions of every power before they start playing. A lot of people would rather look for the powers they need for their first character. If someone new to Hero is trying to build a ranged physical attack like a gun he's not likely to think a power called Energy Blast is what he needs. Also, if he already knows that energy and physical defenses are separate he's likely to assume from the name that an Energy Blast is related specifically to Energy Defense. It also makes sense for internal consistency. The killing equivalent to a Hand To Hand Attack is a Hand To Hand Killing Attack, but the equivalent to an Energy Blast is a Ranged Killing Attack not a Killing Energy Blast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rjcurrie Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... That might be the best explaination I've seen of why people say CON stunned yet. I still hate the term' date=' but maybe I'll see if I can start using Dazed.[/quote'] Yeah, I hate CON stunned as a term too. I've never understood how people could get confused by Stunned. It was certainly never a problem in the groups I played with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fitz Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... My votes would go to: Energy Blast ==> Ranged Attack Entangle ==> Restrain Paramedic ==> First Aid I've never really had any problem with confusing STUN and Stunning, though I've noticed that others have. Maybe a terminology change might help, but I suspect it would be more trouble than it's worth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mhoram Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... CON Stunned? Pedant mode on: There is no such thing as CON stunned. If the damage exceeds your CON you are stunned. That is stunned. If you lose all your stun you are unconcious. Repeat - There is no CON stunned. Pedant mode off: Sorry. Pet peeve. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Mhoram Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Yeah' date=' I hate CON stunned as a term too. I've never understood how people could get confused by Stunned. It was certainly never a problem in the groups I played with.[/quote'] Yeah. I never ran across the term till I hit the net. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southern Cross Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... I'm with Lord Liaden on renaming Energy Blast just Blast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silbeg Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Yeah. I never ran across the term till I hit the net. I first heard it at a convention. However, it sort of stuck (especially since we have added players that we met at the same convention to our gaming group). I kind of like "Dazed" myself, right now... Granted, that "Stunned" is still technically correct, I understand where the confusion is, with the STUN characteristic. As for the others... I would agree with Energy Blast -> Ranged Attack (matches up with RKA well) However, I would go with: Hand-to-hand Attack -> Melee Attack Hand-to-hand Killing Attack -> Melee Killing Attack Granted, this causes an acronym issue w/ Martial Arts, but nothing is perfect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... DISCLAIMER: I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies if I'm duplicating any ideas here. At this point, I probably wouldn't change the name of anything. None of the names are desperately bad, IMO. Just kinda sloppy. And if it's not desperately needed, I'd generally prefer not to change it. The new names might be simpler for new players to grasp, but -- as evidenced by the fact that there are still hordes of players who call the game system "Champions" -- many of the current players wouldn't adopt the new names. And having the experienced players calling concepts one thing, while the book calls them another, would probably confuse the newbies as much as or more than the current names do. Having said all that, there are a lot of names I think are less than ideal. And if I was just now creating the game, I might name them differently. Ones I can think of off the top of my head... Endurance --> Stamina Disadvantages --> Drawbacks Limitations --> Disadvantages Package Deal --> Package (the word "deal" implies a lessened cost that doesn't exist) Energy Blast --> Normal Ranged Attack Killing Attack - Ranged --> Killing Ranged Attack Hand-To-Hand Attack --> Normal Melee Attack Killing Attack - Hand-to-Hand --> Killing Melee Attack Haymaker --> All-Out Attack Seduction --> Enticement? (not sure... just think Seduction is a bit misleading) Stunned --> Dazed Force Wall --> Barrier Force Field --> Defense Field Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Neilson Posted December 30, 2004 Report Share Posted December 30, 2004 Re: An EB by any other name... Count me in for "Blast" and "Dazed". And the term CON Stunned creates its own problems as people then think there's yet another condition, in addition to Stunned (hit for more than your CON) and Knocked OUt (out of Stun). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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