Trebuchet

Re: 1905: The New Century Campaign

Still going, but Mentor hasn't felt like posting synopses. We've had about a half dozen sessions and hope to squeeze in another one later this month.

Re: Superhero Noir

Repped.

Re: Stalin versus Hitler

Yeah! Go Stalin! Because he's not.... as bad.... as Hitler? Um.

 

I have a boiling, seething, red-hot hatred for Stalin because in my opinion he is almost single-handedly responsible for the utter perversion of the communist ideal. He was, in spirit, a fascist, and has tarred communism with his execrable paranoid totalitarianism ever since. I'm not one of those starry-eyed idealists who think the sun shone out of Lenin and Trotsky; they were both pragmatic opportunists, to put it generously. But I am sure that things would have been very, very different if Stalin had never come to power.

Re: New to Hero System - kind of...

Hero Designer works just fine on a Mac - it's what I use. Anything on the planet that runs the full version of Java 5 can run Hero Designer 3.

Java 6 is better than Java 5 for running Hero Designer in my experience.

Re: New to Hero System - kind of...

You're a very talented artist. You could do well here with some commission work; there's a ton of people here (myself included) with no artistic ability.

Welcome back to Hero. There's quite a few of us here who've been playing Champions/Hero since the early 80's, so you're among friends.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Just finished watching/listening to the concert video of one of my favorite albums, Jeff Wayne's fantastic The Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. It featured the London Symphony Orchestra.

Until last week, I never knew it had been done as a show.

Re: "Es lebe die Freiheit!"- German Resistance Champions

If I remember right' date=' wasn't the major motivation behind Nazi Germany's forming the Todt Organization to bring in free labor from Occupied Europe to cover for all the working-age men on the front lines?[/quote']If you mean "free" as in "conscripted" or "slave" labor you're dead on. Even workers from ostensibly allied friendly nations like Vichy France and Italy were treated badly by the German industrial machine. Those from smaller or conquered countries such as Poland suffered under conditions approaching the concentration camps.

Re: "Es lebe die Freiheit!"- German Resistance Champions

I spend some time thinking further about this.

I came up with a problem.

Germany has the Draft (which Legatus elegantly sidesteped. Bravo !).

This means that potential german resistance Supers have to be female, elderly or very young.

Youth also has a little problem, namley the little Issue that nearly every german Child/Youth was in the Hitleryouth or Bund deutsche Maedel (if female) (Currently I am investigating if that was actually required or voluntarily.)

There were other ways to be exempt from the draft, including being in certain militarily critical industries.

Re: Normal/non-super/average people

I've used Hero for non-super for decades (I first decide Hero could do anything when I tried it to build a sage character for a fantasy game instead of AD&D and it worked perfectly). Since then I've used it to do several levels of supers, fantasy, spies, and pulp era.

Hero was originally designed to do supers and I think that bias still shows a bit, but I think it'll do almost anything pretty well.

Re: Caps and averages for your campaigns

Treb' date=' IIRC your games had one cap that I always found interesting, limiting the sum of DC's + SPD, which enforced a requirement that capacity for above average damage required reduced frequency with which it could be applied.[/quote']I probably should have noted that. It's actually DC + SPD <= 20; although we've been considering raising it as the campaign progresses. It's also considered a guideline and not a hard and fast rule.

 

I'm not a big fan of caps overall. I do like a conceptual framework of averages, such as average damage being, say, 12DC, average defenses being, say, about 25 and average SPD being, say, 5 - 6 and the typical character having maybe three roughly equal powered attack options. Average OCV and DCV might be about 9 each.

 

A typical character would likely be above average in a couple of areas, however there would normally be tradeoffs. Having defenses into the 30's might require a lower DCV. Higher than average attacks might trade off with lower OCV, reduced SPD and/or less flexibility in attacks. An Archer with campaign average attacks, high OCV and many attack options might have lower defensive abilities than the average.

 

I tend to be nervous that campaign caps quickly become campaign standards. Everyone has a 12 DC attack, 25 PD and ED, a SPD of 6 and an OCV and DCV of 10, so all the characters look the same. I'd rather see more variety, beyond "my 12 DC is an Energy Blast and my 25 PD and ED comes mainly from a Force field", "my 12 DC is STR and my 25 PD and ED comes from PD/ED", and "my 12 DC is in mental powers and my 25 PD and ED comes mainly from an armored costume".

This was our experience as well; which is why when we switched from 4th Edition Hero to 5th we dropped the caps we originally had required. Happily, it increased the diversity in the team; a couple of characters (including mine) actually got slightly weaker in combat.

Re: Caps and averages for your campaigns

Hmm... 100 XP in... 16 years... thats pretty restrained character growth. Im not sure how my players would respond to 6 XPs a year.

Re: Caps and averages for your campaigns

Our campaign started in 1992 as a 200 + 150 Disads, but most of the characters now have 60+ XP and one just topped 100 XP. Power creep has been minimal; characters have focused more on broadening combat capabilities (versatility is its own strength) and acquiring useful non-Combat Skills. We don't use caps anymore since we all have a pretty good idea of where our characters should be relative to one another and proposed changes have to be discussed and approved by all 5 GMs, but our averages are about:

DEX: 23 (Low 20; high 43)

SPD: 5.5 (Low 4; high 9)

Active Points: 65 (High 95)

Damage Dice: 13d6 (Low 10d6; high 16d6 - Pushing, Haymakering, and/or Move Through not included)

Defenses: 26 (Low 12; high 33 and 25% Resistant and Hardened)

CON: 25 (Low 18; high 33)

We worry more about protecting each others' schticks than the numbers.

Re: "Es lebe die Freiheit!"- German Resistance Champions

Neat idea, Herm. I've been reading quite a bit about Nazi Germany lately so I think it'd it would be a natural for a WW2 Champions campaign.

I'd call the team White Rose in honor of its first martyr and to honor the real life White Rose group who were murdered by the Nazis for passing out anti-Nazi literature.

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

I finished Saul Friedländer's excellent two books Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 and Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Extermination, 1939-1945 last week.

I'm about halfway through Ian Kershaw's massive 1056 page tome Hitler: A Biography (An abridgement of his two books Hitler: Hubris and Hitler: Nemesis).

Re: Start of an Alien Invasion

My thought would be to leave global communications intact because there's no upside from the GMs point of view to eliminating it. Everything you destroy or disable reduces possible storylines. How will the heroes know the invasion is worldwide and /or find each other if communications beyond the horizon is eliminated?

You can always have the aliens discover the mistake later if it becomes necessary.

Re: Order of the Stick

So' date=' Roy is currently dead. Halley is likely to die, Belkar could be going to meet his death. V is who knows where right now but based on the tail he/she picked up V could be in grave danger. That leaves Elan and Durkon. I wonder what the chances are the somehow Elan will save everyone?[/quote']Given that this is Order of the Stick, I'd say about 100%.

Re: Mammoth Genome Decoded -- Clones on the Way?

I wasn't sure whether to put this here' date=' or in the Dark Champions forum. Then I thought, "Would it be cooler to fight a Mammoth, made by cutting-edge science, with up-to-the-minute weapons; or to fight one made by Weird Science™ with Webley's and a Tommy Gun (if you're lucky!)?"[/quote']Who cares as long as it has frickin' lasers on its head?

 

I can see the perfect title of the pulp magazine story (scenario): Mystery of the Mammoth Master

Re: What ratio of superhumans to humans do you use?

We figure about 2000 metahumans of all levels - from one-trick-ponies to immortal demigods - so I guess that gives us about a three million to one ratio. The assumption is that at most a few hundred participate in the "superhero/villain" thing; most operate behind the scenes or aren't interested in anything but their own pet projects. That number includes those few using high tech to operate as supers. Guys in less powerful "turtle armor" equivalents or the like are considered police/military assets rather than supers

Re: Order of the Stick

is glad people still are' date=' really. i'd hate to see the fan base dry up, really, it has had so much good stuff. we'll see.[/quote']I think with the last couple of episodes Rich Burlew is starting to put everyone back together again. I don't think it'll be too much longer before the OotS is reunited (after a few rescues and resurrections, of course).

Re: Free Strike

I think of it as more an "attack of opportunity." Like when a Defensive Lineman, fully engaged with his blocking assignment, can nevertheless throw out an arm to arm tackle an on-rushing running back. I don't want extra speed, movement or what have you for the character, but I wanted a way to make rushing past him, even if he was fully engaged with another, dangerous.

 

With the advantage cost for the trigger, the DC's involved are roughly half strength.

 

Perhaps it is a more "Meta Solution", and I appreciate that being pointed out, just as I do when I get called out for being a munchkin.

 

I think ghost-angel actually indicated the real thing I was trying to accomplish, that is to say providing the character with a zone of control in their immediate vicinity even if engaged with another combatant.

 

Now the question is, would you allow it? I'm very much of two minds about it. On the one hand, it does seem to be a good way to accomplish the goal I set out. On the other, it potentially, greatly increases the number of "attack phases."

 

Thanks for the feedback.

Re: Free Strike

I'm not familiar with DnD Rogues, sorry.

 

The difference between the two versions is the first provides unlimited Free Strikes, where as the second only allows one until the character's next phase. To illustrate.

 

Brick, the brick, is surrounded by 6 ninja from "Bad Ninja Group, Inc." Brick is Speed 2, Dex 15, Running 6", the ninja are Speed 4, Dex 20, Running 14". Without any Free Strike power, the Ninja could attack Brick in hand to hand on Phase 3, and then half move 7" out of melee range on Phase 6 before Brick could act (and attack from range with shuriken or what have you). Similarly they could half move 7" back into melee range and make melee attacks on Phase 9, and flee on Phase 12. So long as the ninja's half move was greater than the target's full move, the target, essentially, can never engage the ninja in melee.

 

If Brick took "Multiple Free Strikes", however, when the ninja fled on Phase 6, Brick would get a free strike on all six ninja as they fled, and then would be able to use his normal Phase 6 actions.

 

If Brick took "Singular Free Strike" Brick would only be able to Free strike 1 ninja as they fled on Phase 6. He could then reset the trigger as a 0 phase action on his Phase 6.

 

The difference is whether the character should be able to make a free strike upon each and every target that leaves melee range, or only the first one.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but my feeling is that adding Powers simply to compensate for perceived combat weaknesses instead of working within the game to overcome those weaknesses is metagaming.

Re: Nazi Flying Saucers

Well heck' date=' you start talking about killing people by the millions (or even the tens of thousands), you can bet paranoia is involved.[/quote']I'd like to think so, but I'm afraid in all too many cases sheer lust for power is all that was needed to become a mass murderer.

Re: Shunamitism

-isms can be bad' date=' but -philias can be worse [/quote']I've become more open minded about this issue; and think there might even be something to it.

 

If Jessica Alba and Taylor Swift will come to my apartment pronto, we can get started on the empirical (and totally scientific, of course) tests immediately.

Re: Various Powers at Edge of System

Just curious if you’ve read the book yet? As has been pointed out' date=' over half the stuff you asked about is right in there, and much of it is even fairly simple to build (though possibly expensive). Seriously, if you had read the book I would have thought you were simply looking for ways to break the game. I’m a newb and I read it cover to cover before asking questions on here, and still apologies when I ask something that is blatantly obvious if I would have simply looked in the right section of the book.[/quote']I haven't decided if sindyr was a troll trying to bash Hero or just an incredibly arrogant gamer who didn't believe there should be limits to anything he wanted to do; but either way I agree it was clear he'd never read the rules through or played even a few practice combats to see how it actually worked.

 

Nothing wrong with asking questions (that's why we're here, after all) but questioners should at least be willing to listen to the answers and not simply dismiss them out of hand.

Re: Various Powers at Edge of System

The time travel power brings to mind the old "What's good for the goose" saying...

 

Our proud heroes fight as hard as they can, but they cannot overcome the Lesion of Doom! But then, just when things look their bleakest, Time Slipper says, "I think we'll have to try this again." And with that, time rewinds.

 

Our heroes stand at a door. Before Impulsive Lad can reach for the handle, Time Slipper says, "Wait! We tried this before."

 

"We did?"

 

"Yup. And it was bad. The whole Lesion of Doom is waiting for us on the other side. And they've got traps waiting for us and everything. But I'm pretty sure I know how we can beat them..."

 

A few minutes later our proud heroes are wiping the floor with the Lesion of Doom! DNPCs cheer! And then the Lesion of Doom's newest member, Tardy?-I-don't-feel-tardy! Lass says, "I think we'll have to try this again."

 

Our heroes stand at a door. Before Impulsive Lad can reach for the handle, Time Slipper says, "Wait! We tried this before. Twice!"