Vanguard

15 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

Dandelion eaters.  They make good fertilizer....

Found the Shadowrun player.

(At least I think so.  That's the only place I've heard the slang for elves)

(PS: Not really sure why elves are getting hated on so much but to each their own.)

7 hours ago, Spence said:

 

I don't know, I have never seen the issue.  The selection of a non-existent "race" of "beings" as irredeemable enemies that are to be exterminated for the good of all is not that hard whether they are called zombies or goblins. 

 

I just don't like zombies because they have been overused.  I've started to use Vampires and Were's more since they have fallen out of favor. At least they are not in every single anything about anymore.

I haven't seen the issue either and didn't think it was one till I read one of the other threads on here.

But yes, they have been overused in the recent years.  Although, they do seem to be (heh) dying out as I believe most of the shows (with the exception of The Walking Dead) are either being cancelled and/or on their last season. (Not sure if they can be called "cancelled" or not when that happens)

12 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

As one of a variety of encounters, zombies are tolerable me. As the main threat, like a zombie apocalypse, I just find them so boring. They have no personality, nothing to really interact with. And they're so disgusting. Intellectually I grasp why people want to use them, but emotionally and physically they repel me.

This is very true.  I've found that I've had the most fun when the zombie encounter is a one off or part of a larger storyline that doesn't revolve solely around the zombies.  To me, trying to run an entire campaign that's based on The Zombie Apocalypse just doesn't seem to be viable in the long term.  Not unless you're planning, and everyone's onboard with, just making a pure survival campaign.  Where the players know that there's nothing that they can do and that, in the end, they're probably doomed.

7 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

For that purpose I prefer animated skeletons to zombies. Not overused, and IMO less repulsive and cleaner. It helps that I'm also a fan of Ray Harryhausen films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad and Jason and the Argonauts. 😎

 

When I needed to upgrade them to make them tougher foes, I introduced metal-plated skeletons (an idea I got from an Aaron Alston adventure in Adventurers Club). 😈

I did think about skeletons right after I posted  . . . They're another type of "inconsequential" enemy type that shouldn't evoke . . . issues.

Metal Plated? Aren't those just zombies in armor or do they have actual plates grafted to the bones?

5 hours ago, tkdguy said:

Not a fan of zombies either. However, I have used vampires and werewolves alongside Highlander-style immortals in my urban fantasy campaign.

All three are good ones.  We used the Highlander type immortals in the Gatecrashers game I used to play in a while back.  That was a mishmash of just about every type of genre out there.  Was a blast to play.

True to make Highlanders work in Hero was a bit of a mental exercise but even that was fun.

4 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

is the day that I forget he could kill a baby.

If I remember correctly, he couldn't kill Harry because the his mom sacrificed herself to protect him.  He sacrifice created some kind of magical feedback thingy that made Voldemort's spells rebound back at him and wouldn't allow Volde to touch him without causing pain/damage.  

At least that's what I recall from misty memory.  It's been a while since I've watched the movies and haven't really felt the urge to watch them again so could be misremembering.

On 3/13/2020 at 12:22 PM, Spence said:

And the last for this post is zombies.  I am sick of them and will simply walk away from a game when they appear.  Zombies are even worse than the Vampire/Werewolf craze of the 80/90's.

I dunno.

Even though they've been done . .. to death (sorry) . . . I still kind of like 'em for a game setting.

It neatly bypasses the "moralistic issues" that may arise when needing "a despicable something "that the players can just mindless decimate without having to worry about it being analogous to something in the real world.

14 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

Having read many of the books of that setting it's incomprehensible how they aren't getting butchered by the city militia on sight.

it's the glowing "Player Character" sign that's above them.

That sign is what allows the players to get away with a lot of what they do that they shouldn't.  Both in regards to PCs and NPCs.

Nothing to see here . . .please carry on

21 hours ago, dmjalund said:

Nah - if John Wick was a gun magnet, he'd never have to kill people with pencils

A freakin' PENCIL!

On 12/9/2019 at 5:27 PM, Spence said:

 

Ditto

I've never liked the "ship as a character" in any system. 

Ran out of reactions so . . .

👍

On 2/16/2020 at 3:39 AM, Doc Democracy said:

Lots of little niggly things.  The big one that annoyed me was the first time I deleted it.  A few months later my friends got me to reinstall.  Without signing into anything it knew who I was etc etc.  So it had not uninstalled.  That is a red line for me...

Hmm.  I can certainly see where that would cause. . . concern . . .

i can see where that would be a problem.  I've never tried to uninstall so haven't run into that yet.

But I did happen to run across something similar with a Java based program a while back.  Turns out that the program was deleted but user/install information still hung around like GBi  mentioned.  You needed to go into the .jre user app thingy and delete that as well as uninstalling the program.

Wonder if Discord has a similar set up.

On 2/2/2020 at 4:03 AM, Doc Democracy said:

I so hate Discord...probably completely irrational but it has behaved like malware on my PC in the past and I just don't trust it.

 

Doc

Behaved like malware?

What do you mean?  I've got it on 2 systems (don't use it much though, only for voice chat when my son and I play games) and it doesn't seem to be causing problems.

I do have it so that it doesn't start on boot up so if I want to use it i have to actively start it.  I dislike having software start on boot up.  If I want it running I'll start it myself, thank you. (There are exceptions of course . . .antivirus software, etc).

7 hours ago, Brian Stanfield said:

Is this indicative of the HERO system as a whole? I'm not brazen enough to suggest that I represent a microcosm of the problem, but I am suggesting that it is at least indicative of the problem that would continue with HERO. 

I think it is.  I think most of us (well you guys really since you're WAY more knowledgeable about, and been with Hero a lot longer than I have )  had the time in the misty pasts to use Hero to its full toolkit and create-from-scratch glory but now as life has moved on, the spare time just isn't there anymore.  The "prebuilt" stuff that wasn't really needed/necessary back "in the day" is now something that would be really, really useful.

And Hero doesn't have it.  Other systems do but Hero never, truly, developed that kind of game system support.  They're trying to remedy that with the Hall of Heroes (i think that's what they called it) but I don't know if it's too little too late or what.

9 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Further, it's a comparison:  "this is what makes it different from  / possibly better than other games you are familiar with."

You're onto something here.

When I first started playing Hero (it was Champions), the GM at the time explained what it was and he said "for me, the best part about the game, which makes it better than D&D, is that you can create the character YOU want.  Right out of the gate".

So this is something that could be focused on.  The pros of the game system and what makes it unique/different from the "mainstream" games out there.

5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

It took me three times to watch the video. I don’t mind the suit. The Bat logo was fine.

I don't mind the suit either.  Not 100% onboard with the logo . . . especially if it does turn into a batarang.....

No sure how Pattinson is going to do as Batman though.

On 2/10/2020 at 10:19 PM, Duke Bushido said:

everyone bags on the amount of pollution coming out of China.  Fact is, it's _our_ garbage.     ).

Our garbage . . . their non-existent and/or totally lax environmental laws that allow it.

Which is why said company shipped it's highly expensive, but proven process, there.

Anyway, I've only backed one project on kickstarter and it wasn't delayed at all.  I thought that KS had rules on that?  Or is the only rule that if the project isn't funded, the backers get their money back.  But if it is funded, the project can take as long as needed to get done . . . as long as it does get done.  I seem to recall Palladium games getting nuked and luosing a license due to delays and not fulfilling orders . . . ?

On 2/13/2020 at 6:02 PM, Duke Bushido said:

But it's gone now.  Sure: there are, just like HERO, some diehards still plugging along.  But for the most part, it's just as dead as HERO.   But how, with that amazing setting? 

World of Darkness died when they decided to reboot it and rebrand it for the 3rd(?) edition. 

The gave some kind of apocalyptic meta story arc that pretty much killed off/combined a lot of the "monsters" and totally changed the way things interacted and the world worked.

As you can tell, nobody liked it so it died.

This a case of the setting being good and well liked enough to launch an phenomenon and then that setting got changed and those that played the game didn't like said change and the rest is, literally, history.

Note: My information is maybe a decade old so I could have somethings wrong . . . but I know *I* stopped playing it when they changed everything.  And so did a few of my friends.

@PhilFleischmann

Thanks.  I tried to look for them and, as I said, must have missed there mention.

23 hours ago, Cassandra said:

 

Actually there was suppose to be only one Slayer, but then Buffy changed the rules.

Wasn't it Willow that changed the rules, through magic, but at Buffy's behest?

Did anyone mention the Autofire Skills that do what everyone is talking about or did I miss that?

Not sure if they're "Standard" Hero now or if they were moved to the APGs with the advent of 6th . . . 

Anyway, from what I recall they do everything people are talking about.  Make it easier to hit, more damage, allow more rounds to hit etc . . 

Of course, you have to pay for the abilities, which i think you should.  Of course, as the GM, they could be considered "Free" and just optional autofire maneuvers. But I, personally, wouldn't go that route.

Edit:  Core Autofire Skills - 6th Ed V1 pg 65

          Advanced Player's Guide v1 - pg 35

          6th Ed version of Ultimate Skill - pg 85 (probably just a reprint of what was in 6th ed v1 but not sure)

6 hours ago, Tech said:

 

Or maybe the idea of decoupling Str damage from Str isn't the best idea.

The only reason this is a concern is because of the way characters are created at the moment.  It's like when the figured stats were decoupled.  People, theoretically, had to rethink how they built characters and/or deal with the fact that some concepts where going to be a tad more spendy than they were before hand or there'd be odd disconnects.

Same result in this situation.  If STR was decoupled, the player would have to either come up with a reason as to why they could lift 200 tons but only hit with a force of 2D6 or they'd have to pay for the damage. 

On 2/3/2020 at 11:14 AM, Tech said:

Scot & Gnome, a person's consists of more than just lifting ability, it's also jumping, crushing, holding power, etc. It would be very odd hearing of a hero who can lift 200 tons only doing 2d6 from a punch because Str was decoupled from damage. Again, the Hero System isn't made for realistic damage, it's just there for a way for people to simulate comics. I don't think any system will be able to accurately do a hero fight, short of multiples of charts (probably needing calculators).

Then it sounds like the player should've have spent some points on his damage, as well as his lifting, capabilities.

On 1/29/2020 at 1:49 PM, greysword said:

That said, it sounds like if a player does spend a character point for these documents, it means they want them to be relevant, in some way.  The trick is how to make them relevant. 

Not necessarily.

A player may purchase a fringe bene with no thoughts of it being relevant to the game.  They're doing to just to round out and complete their character.  I've done that and my wife has too.  I know that those points I'm putting in X aren't going to be used but it's something the character should have so it goes on the character sheet.

On 1/21/2020 at 7:02 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Cheesy player construct, meet cheesy GM ruling:

 

"Grond strikes you with his mighty fists.  Immediately before taking the damage, you Teleport 2 meters away.  On materializing, [clatter of dice] you take 65 STUN, 19 BOD and 24 meters of knockback from Grond's attack."

 

Hey, if you don't take the damage, then the Teleport isn't triggered - it's triggered immediately before taking damage, remember?

Brilliant!

19 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

But I'll leave with one question. How many times between 1st and 6th editions did you ever complain about not being able to have 60 STR penknife man be a thing?

Never.

But that's probably because we never had a 60 STR character in a Heroic level game so it was never an issue.

And the 60 STR character's we had in a superheroic games, never used penknives and also never used "real weapons" so the doubling rule never came into effect.

Am also not really sure why you thought I agree with the whole penknife thing to begin with as we seem to be on the same page here . . . 

1 minute ago, Tywyll said:

 

I'm pretty sure it's in both the 5th and 6th edition UMA books.

Thanks.  Must have missed it.

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

And you're ignoring them being floating DCs that can apply to, for example, Energy Blast

Since when can you add a MADC to EB?

That may be RAW but we've never used it.  We've always ruled that it only applies to your actual martial arts (meaning actual martial arts maneuvers).  If you've purchased a "martial arts chi trick" that's built as an EB, you don't get to add the MADCs to it.  That's WAY too efficient . . . and cheesy.

On 1/17/2020 at 1:11 PM, Grailknight said:

The problem still exists but I'm happy you haven;t encountered it. Still, the 60 STR Hulk with an Adamantium pocket knife should not get 12d6 and 5d6 KA while the 15 STR Swordsman with a 4d6 KA can do only 3d6 along with his 5d6 KA

And there comes a point where common sense must come into play or, if that's not possible, then the GM needs to step in.