Ninja-Bear

I put this one to the test. I recently painted a couple of Reaper Bones miniatures and painted their bases with parchment-colored craft paint. The bases were undercoated with different colors. The wizard's base has a gray undercoat, while the dwarf's base has a brown undercoat. The other two miniatures have clear bases that were included for comparison. The battle mat is made from paper with one-inch grids and laminated with clear wrapping paper. The wizard's base comes closer to the mat than the dwarf's base and has a cooler tone from the gray undercoat.

I ran across an interesting video by Needy Overanalyer on creating custom Mechs. He first shows how to break the game then goes into how to nerf designs to fit in with the fluff and also suggestions of when to add them in to the game. The main reason is to make the game enjoyable. I find this relevant to Hero system in that there are so game breaking Powers or builds out there. That can be fun for its own sake. However making a character that fits in should be the goal. So I think min-maxing a little to make character to be in concept (or playable) is fine if it’s done with restraint. 
 
Basically Nerdy talks about making custom Mechs in the spirit of the game and that’s what I think is applicable to Hero System.

Played by Shaquille O’Neal.

After laying off a bunch of staff a couple of weeks before Christmas (while their CEO nets a multimillion dollar bonus), WOTC is advertising for a digital retouching artist:
 
 
Absolutely none of this is code for "we are replacing our artists with Midjourney and need someone to fix weird hands."

Usually, when we set up a campaign in a game without narrative mechanics (We have used this method for different games) we first choose a theme, a short statement that guides the events in the story. Then each character is created with a fatal flow that suits the theme, the player chooses the fatal flow based on the challenge he wants to face while playing.
This helps to reduce the "arms race" feeling around the table while also easing the creation of good transformation arcs that help the story development.
 
If you want to play the best swordsman of all time by a huge margin, that’s fine, but you also have to answer the following question:
1) What is your goal (taking into account the campaign theme)?
2) How can you fail?
3) How will your temperament be tested?
4) What is the price of failure?
 
 
Obviously, this method is not a silver bullet that solves all the problems, it doesn't cover any possible kind of story and it isn't the only way to create a good story. Nevertheless, I think that is a small trick to help players communicate their desires for the game and to reflect on their character from a different point of view.
 

The other significant appeal to AS is that people with gigantic collections of minis can hope to play games that actually use a company or three of them without having to commit an entire day or more to the project.  Classic BT's still my preference as well, but pushing around more than a lance or two per side can get pretty draggy, while AS has a sweet spot that starts at a company and goes up from there once you're used to it.  I never let myself over-purchase figs for BT, but I know plenty of more dedicated fans who have multiple regiments in their collections.
 
Reminds me of the tradeoff between complexity and detail versus grand scale and abstraction that Task Force Games used to showcase with Star Fleet Battles compared to Starfire.  

I think you see a trend in lighter rules because of people’s attention spans. A buddy went to try out the new Alpha Strike game for Battletech. I asked him how it went and he told me it was fun. 20mins 4 turns and the game was over.  Though he rather play Classic. I picked up the box set then 1)  The minis are the same for either system. 2) I can convince my kids to play AS probably more often that Classic. And really it’s another reason why Basic Fantasy has gotten played more often at my house. My youngest had a friend over, he wanted to play and in 15 mins. the dice were rolling and it wasn’t too difficult to explain. Yes, I understand how limited BF is compared to Hero but when you don’t play that often? The limitations aren’t so bad. Plus with the Advantage/Disadvantage rule imported and I as a FM feel comfortable to wing stuff. You can actually do more than what is written.

I think you see a trend in lighter rules because of people’s attention spans. A buddy went to try out the new Alpha Strike game for Battletech. I asked him how it went and he told me it was fun. 20mins 4 turns and the game was over.  Though he rather play Classic. I picked up the box set then 1)  The minis are the same for either system. 2) I can convince my kids to play AS probably more often that Classic. And really it’s another reason why Basic Fantasy has gotten played more often at my house. My youngest had a friend over, he wanted to play and in 15 mins. the dice were rolling and it wasn’t too difficult to explain. Yes, I understand how limited BF is compared to Hero but when you don’t play that often? The limitations aren’t so bad. Plus with the Advantage/Disadvantage rule imported and I as a FM feel comfortable to wing stuff. You can actually do more than what is written.

Yeah I had my share of suboptimal builds when I was first learning the system.  Almost forty years later I cringe thinking how bad they were.

@Rich McGee, I have created many a burdensome character because I went by Hero Benchmarks. 😂 If Speed 4 is top human then I should only take 4. This was in a Dark Champions game where everyone else had Speed 5 and that’s acceptable on that game. So I learned about the “character tax” where sometimes you buy things up higher than you are “supposed” to.  To be like what Old Man said, playable. Btw I got to play in a 600 pt ish game once and yeah I felt bored. I want to be competent but I don’t need to be Silver Age powerful either.

@Duke Bushido, I actually wavered between most and many. I’ll even go with many. I think the issue I have with Min-Maxers is that in wargamming they ignore the spirit of the game just to win. And with that complain about suboptimal builds as being dumb. Let me say too that I can appreciate an efficient design in Hero System especially trying to fit a character concept to points.  I do agree to that having a sub-optimal character doesn’t equate to Roleplaying. 

Hot take coming in. Anyone else seen this that “Min-Maxers aren’t so bad”? Now I agree that being a Min-maxer doesn’t automatically make you a bad roleplayer. I just think that though most min-maxers I’ve come across aren’t worried about roleplaying.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as "most" but I'll give you "many" based on my experiences. 
 
On the flip side, I've seen a fair number of people who throw together characters who are just plain burdens on their fellow PCs in many circumstances (eg can't survive a fight, or can't deal with any but the narrowest social situations, or are otherwise totally lacking some capability the game engine/setting expect some competence in) and do so in the name of it making for interesting roleplaying.  It might be interesting for them, but unless at least some of the other players are okay with being crutches for them it's pretty inconsiderate.  You certainly can have a good time with it - look at Runequest Glorantha, where having a truly pacifist Chalana Arroy worshipper in the group often works out fine because they're rarely just pure healers - but it requires some group buy-in that you don't always see from...whatever the opposite of a mini-maxer is.  It's at least as Not Okay as a mini-maxed combat machine who refuses to engage with anything else but fighting is without that.

Hot take coming in. Anyone else seen this that “Min-Maxers aren’t so bad”? Now I agree that being a Min-maxer doesn’t automatically make you a bad roleplayer. I just think that though most min-maxers I’ve come across aren’t worried about roleplaying.

Not sure if a conversation like this has been done before but I thought it would be a good idea to have a discussion as to what are the best ways to start a new campaign. It of course does not matter what type of campaign, Superheroes, Fantasy, Horror, Spy, Space, whatever, but what should the creator of the campaign look into so that his game has a good start.
 
My first thought is that the GM should make sure that the players he has available are interested in the type of game he is looking to start. And if not, could it still go on with some minor changes or is he/she completely off the mark.

There is nothing wrong with a GM telling a player that is a cool concept but it is not going to work in the game I am running.   The game is a cooperative effort that is supposed to be fun for everyone.  When your concept starts to create problems for the GM and especially for the other players you need to be willing to modify your concept.  In fact this is something that a good GM will do to ensure everyone is enjoying the game.   I would go so far as to say that it is a responsibility of the GM to ensure that no character ruins the fun for the rest of the group.   
 
A good GM will should give some advice on how to tone things down so you can play a character you want. But they should make sure that no one character dominates the game or creates problems.    
 

The one conceit of gaming is that concept and dice rolls don’t always mix. 😁

The whole legal situation with Harmony Gold and the Battletech IP is a convoluted mess, especially when you move beyond the tabletop games and onto the more lucrative PC and console games.  It's a deep rabbit hole when you start really getting into it, with a lot of dubious claims from some very shady people.  FASA's founders are probably still regretting the decision to license art for Battledroids rather than pay for original work to this day, but that Warhammer sure did make for a striking cover.

One comic I particularly liked was Wally feeling a pressure against the back of his neck.  Then he noticed that everyone in the movie theater, and the movie, were frozen.  He'd had someone shoot him, the bullet touched him, and he went into super speed mode defensively, so fast everything was frozen.
 
And Wally was never as powerful as Barry.  No, the Flash shouldn't ever be hit, but its very difficult to find a challenge for someone as powerful as DC makes their heroes.  So their powers vary wildly between comic to comic and even page to page in the same comic.  That happened constantly in the Flash TV show, he was either faster than a bullet or wasn't, depending on what the scene required.  Drove me nuts.

Wish more people remembered that.  No wrong way to paint miniatures as long as you enjoy yourself doing it - which made doing commission work kind of a poor choice for me in the long run.

The one conceit of gaming is that concept and dice rolls don’t always mix. 😁

Another rule is that if a hero does a heel turn and becomes a bad guy, they gain 50% or more power level.  Conversely, a villain who turns good loses a good half of their power or more.

Interesting through. One thing to always make sure is that your player's characters can work together and don't use each other's sticks. Can be hard to do sometimes.

I was always more focused on the character i was trying to make rather than ruthless efficiency, so I built bricks with 13 DEX and energy projectors with 11 CON.  Was it the best possible build with secondary characteristics?  No, but it fit the character design I had, no matter what the breakpoints were.  This guy wasn't especially durable no matter how many points of END I'd get for free, so he had a low CON.  But I admit that I was an outlier in this.

@Rich McGee, yup I agree the newest TRO should have Heat Sinks slotted. I think it’s bad that they didn’t even mention it in the newest TRO that they might have to be accounted for. I’m sure that someone must’ve looked at the Commando and asked why are his Heat Sinks listed on the record sheet but not in the description. Perhaps I missed it earlier in the intro rulebook but I only caught it the Construction Rules and also Fan made Record sheet Programs. Well at least my friends aren’t that much of sticklers that it won’t matter.