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HERO SYSTEM VEHICLE SOURCEBOOK -- What Do *You* Want To See?


Steve Long

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I agree re no reprints (unless you cram it in tiny, tiny text! but that's absurd), but sidebar is a great idea.

 

One thing I can think of is "animals as vehicles", like the Lone Ranger's horse, a griffin a fantasy hero rides, etc.. The difference from the bestiary being quite specific, that is to demonstrate how the beast survives combat and such (defenses, luck, whatever) and how it is attuned to the owner (RSR with penalties for non-owner, telepathic link, etc.). I would find that cool.

 

Actually, complete tangent here, how about a new electronic side-product - a subscription that, after every book comes out, gives the subscriber a MULTI-BOOK index of EVERYTHING! By "everything", I simply mean the combination of indices from the various books. The problem though is that people could easily give it away to others. What if you gave it to the current DH/Playtest subscribers via their login? It shouldn't be too hard to maintain (again, I'm not asking for anything beyond combining the work already done, just adding on the book it's in to the pages) and therefore shouldn't "cost" too much to HERO if it gets abused a bit by some piracy (I am NOT advocating or excusing piracy, just looking at it from the concerns you guys would have). You could publish it as a PDF like you do now. Just a thought...it might increase sales even as people see the various references - ?

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Originally posted by zornwil

Actually, complete tangent here, how about a new electronic side-product - a subscription that, after every book comes out, gives the subscriber a MULTI-BOOK index of EVERYTHING! By "everything", I simply mean the combination of indices from the various books.

Second the motion for an on-line multibook index. Good idea, especally from a reptile.:)

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Originally posted by Space Cadet

By the way, Doc A., the self-propelled artillery piece that you were probably trying to think of is the Paladin Mobile Gun, a 105mm(?) gun currently in use with the U.S. Army.

 

Yeah, I think that's the one...at least it *sounds* right! :)

 

 

Oh, and count me in on the "multibook index" thing. Hey, my avatar *is* a brain! Is that good enough for ya, Zornwil?

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I was in the middle of writing a DH article for realistic spaceflight that was going to include current-day space vehicles writeups...if you run out of space in this book, Steve, let me know. :)

 

Another no vote for reprints here.

 

One thing I'd like to see is some sort of summary for complex vehicles, particularly military ones. Trying to run off the writeups for the big tanks and ships in TUV is very hard.

 

I don't have specific vehicle suggestions, but I'd like to see as much breadth of coverage as possible, so that (in theory) I could use this book to pull out any vehicle a modern or near-modern group could need, maybe tweaking the numbers slightly if they have a good or a bad model. Ultralights, mini-subs, etc.

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Hobby/Sport vehicles -- balloons, hangglinders, skateboards, rollerblades, bicycles, SCUBA gear & flippers, gocarts, dune buggys, nascars/racecars, pogo stick :).

 

P.S. For someone to be "more powerful" than a locomotive, it'd be nice to know how powerful a locomotive is.

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I'd vote *against* reprints; especially at 1/5 to 1/4 the book's contents. Since TUV isn't out of print, this material is available.

 

If you get "specific", including a car such as the Stutz Bearcat, you might consider a section on how this car was different from similar cars -- this would be of benefit to those who wished to make something more generic.

 

I also wonder about this: how many of the "little touches" that differentiate one vehicle from another in the same general class actually have (game) mechanical impact? If you wrote up a specific car, would you spend a lot of effort attempting to find mechanical reasons why that car wasn't like other similar cars?

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Originally posted by Dr. Anomaly

Yeah, I think that's the one...at least it *sounds* right! :)

 

 

Oh, and count me in on the "multibook index" thing. Hey, my avatar *is* a brain! Is that good enough for ya, Zornwil?

 

Sweet! Steve can't deny us now! Although we are more like a super-villain team - a brain, a reptile, and a pro wrestler - heck, that sounds like a fun team to fight, maybe I'll make that for this weekend's game.

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I agree with Doctor Anomoly.

What I like are good generic writeups with lots of options.

I image a Generic Sportscar writeup, with option packages for specific cars, like Porshe, and Ferrari, etc...

I would also be interested in seeing more about mecha and cyberpunk type vehicles.

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My $0.02

 

There have already been tons of good replies.

 

First my vote on reprints? **NO**

 

I'd like to see more non-generic vehicles that will tend to be involved in games. I can make up my own stats for a Ford Escort (4 hexes, ZERO Def, great gas mileage, starts losing body randomly for the next 8 years before you sell it for scrap.)

 

What vehicles end up in games?

 

Ground Vehicles:

Cop Cars ( See the film The Blues Brothers ;) )

HUMMV

SWAT Panel Vans

Cleveland Police Mother II (look it up, it rocks)

Commando 150 Armored Car

 

Choppers:

Bell Huey

Sikorsky Blackhawk

Cobra Gunship (thankfully not in the hands of Viper!)

News 5 Eye in the Sky ;)

Sky Crane (saw one once as a kid - they should appear at least once in every modern game because they are cool.)

Chinnok

 

Boats:

Any thing the US Navy Seals use in the Special Boats Units

Special Boats Unit Description with pics

Other Brown Water craft such as the PBR, SWIFT, and River Monitor, Very Slender Vessel (no, really, its called that), Mark V Special Operations Craft (MK V SOC -- the Hummve of the Sea!)

 

Unusual Vehicles:

Jet Packs

Ducted Turbo Fan Flight Pack

Moller Skycar (See it here )

Tilt Trikes (like General Motor's Lean Machine ) Oh if only they had come out with these!!!

 

Those are my crazy ideas for now. Hope you like em.

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Re: My $0.02

 

Originally posted by CorpCommander

Moller Skycar

I'm about 97.3% sure this is already in the manuscript. (I had one written for TUV, but while Steve kept the write-up he didn't include it in the book, commenting that he wanted it for later. I kinda figured this was what he had in mind.)

 

As with the Skycar and other volantors, I'd like to see plenty of vehicles that are currently in the design/prototype stage. These would be very handy for those near-future settings as well as "ahead-of-the-tech-curve" superhero games.

 

On another note, while a TARDIS-like time machine was included in TUV, I'd like to see one similar to that associated with H. G. Wells. (For that matter, I don't think you'd even have to file off the proverbial serial numbers on this.)

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__________________________________________________

Originally posted by BobGreenwade

__________________________________________________

 

On another note, while a TARDIS-like time machine was included

in TUV, I'd like to see one similar to that associated with H.G. Wells.

(For that matter, I don't think you'd even have to file off the

proverbial serial numbers on this.)

__________________________________________________

I'd wouldn't mind seeing something along those lines myself,

especially if said time machine bore a resemblance to the

one that appeared in the TV-movie version (the one where

the inventor of the time machine went forward in time and

discovered that superweapons he had designed in his own

era were responsible for the near-destruction of mankind).

 

Space Cadet :cool:

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Looks like a lot of good ideas have already been posted. One of these days I'm going to camp out waiting for Steve to post one of these "what do you want" threads so I can get credit for the good ideas and not just be the guy showing support for them....

 

As the guy showing support for good ideas, I say no reprints (cross-referencing is great though), and go generic for most writeups and give us packages to modify for specific models. I like the detail in TUV, but each write up took up the better part of the page, especially for modern military vehicles. Too much to get much variety into a workable page count. On the other hand, a generic WWII battleship with specific packages could take up two pages and cover damn near every battleship in the war....

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