Spence

Bad assumption? Don't get it, no assumption at all. My most memorable stretch of gaming was when I spent a year in school at NATTC Memphis. We had around 8 regular players/GMs and then a a rolling number of short term players that be there for anything from one game to a dozen before shipping out. For us the player that wanted to build the killer types were the rare ones. We had a Ninja too, he had sworn an oath to never kill again and all his Ninja weapons and tools were non-lethal versions that he imbued with Chi and would knock out and capture his opponents. 82-91ish I don't recall murder hobo being common. Though it made it's appearance in the 90's and was full blown by 2000 and on. Of course we can't call it murder hobo anymore......... Yep, things like that would happen. But they were the the unusual, not the norm. Plus there were usually in game consequences, like super-prison. Don't remember when Stronghold came out. Players that persisted in making villainous PC's tended irritate most of the players and GMs I knew, and they would drift back to D&D, RQ, Boot Hill and so on. I do remember a small group split off and started a Super Villain game, but I never noticed where they went. It has been what, 36, 37 years? I can't point out a specific date for when "it" happened. But somewhere people redefined "superhero" to plug in vigilante, thug, killer etc. to all be considered "superheroes". What a person considers fun is completely their call. But personally, I haven't read a DC or Marvel book in years that features Superheroes. They usually have mostly "People with Powers" versus "Evil People with Powers". Occasionally one or two characters may be an actual Superhero or a Supervillain. Right now the best treatment of actual Superheroes is an anime called My Hero Academia. Which is actually sad.

Well, I will confess that I started with 1st Ed and that may influence my memory. The tone of the games back then were still superheroic as they hadn't converted all the Heroes into deranged headcases yet. To me pre5th reminds me of a time you could run a superhero game without explaining how heroes don't use Area Effect 4d6 AP Killing Attack in a crowd just because Deadpool wouldn't care. I guess incidents like those have tinted my views.

It is well worth it to me. I wish I could have found a physical copy.

Ad Astra with Brad Pitt. Meh....very very Meh. Can I get my 2 hours and 3 minutes back?

Yes. On steroids. What I mean is that it is a complete 480 page mega world as most Hero 6th style products. In character creation you have to decide on: one of eight Races one of eight Cultures one of four Archetypes one of ten Vocations Following the hero species imperative, they worked hard on making sure there was no intuitive connection by name/title to any "standard" fantasy setting. So in order have any chance of building a PC that you may like, you have to digest all of them. A GM will need to STUDY. Magic has two sections. The Grimoire that has spells split into five Arcana (types/disciplines/schools). They are listed by name. There is nothing resembling a list to break them down by purpose (offense/defense/utility) or common usage (apprentice/journeyman/master or level equivalent). The Codex is 17 pages of what I am assuming are priestly/clerical equivalent. This means a person considering playing a mage will need to STUDY and carry an understanding of the spell list before they can hope to make any intelligent decisions. All in all, the character creation portion is 213 pages that must be read and understood by the players. There is a prebuilt party of six PC's, Talisker's Company (17 pages for 6 PC's) which is good. It adds a section with rules for Divine Influence (Divine Intervention, Grace, Malice, etc.) which was pretty cool. Along with the standard Hero rules sections needed to build stuff. It also has a nine page adventure called "The Ruins of Baradahm". All in all it is a great, fully realized setting. A fully realized 480 page setting A humongous 480 page setting with 213 pages of CharGen. A Fantasy Hero setting that successfully avoided resembling any "traditional" RPG setting or one based on a book/film/video game and set a fantastic mark for being original. Which means it is far steep an entry curve for the modern mostly casual gamer. There is no way that you could buy the book Wednesday and run the adventure on Saturday with new (never heard of Hero) players. I have a copy and enjoyed reading the parts I was able to. But I wasn't able to finish it and have a reasonable handle on things, enough to run it, that week. With my limited time and the way the local players went from interested to meh... to "man, lets just play D&D" when they found out there were "cultures" on top of races and classes (vocations). They simply did not have the free time to invest. It is like the 5th Ed D&D Midguard Setting. Huge GM's World Guide and a separate Players Guide. I know of five locals who bought it. No one runs it. Narosia was too huge and too deliberately not like traditional settings to be easily entered by anyone. A pared down entry version may have had a chance. One or two Races One of Culture Four Archetypes Four basic Vocations (only one magical type) A short "1st level" spell list for that one magical type. Shortened skill list, equipment list, talent list......basically shortened everything allowing new players to play an intro with PC's that closely resemble their D&D/PF/13thA analogs. In the end, if you put out a massive in-depth new setting, either there has to be a spectacular reason or incentive to get people to read 400+ pages of text to learn a completely new world/game or their needs to be a short easy intro that will spark the players to want to read 400+ pages of text to learn a completely new world/game.

Well, actually you are on the Hero boards and that thought is sacrilege Years ago I and others made the same arguments we were subjected to the BBS version of “shouted down”. My version was to create the equivalent of a D&D starter with prebuilt everything for a small standard fantasy game through the 3rd “level”. All the lists shortened to just the basic delving needs. Not details for builds in the “lists”. Just what it does and the final point cost. For example: Spell: Fire Bolt, does 4d6 Normal Flame damage. Cost ## char points. Weapon: Broadsword, 1d6+1. Cost ## gold. Just enough information to make 3-5 basic heroes that can go into a small dungeon and kill some goblins. And then “level up” a little. The entire point to to simplify the initial character build by pre-packaging as much as possible which allows new FH players to exercise the game system before having to learn the build system. An appendix in the “Fantasy Hero” starter would list everything that had been provided, weapons, spells, etc. and their point builds for the players after they have run through a few games and want to “customize”. Being able to compare a build they have actually played in a game to the rulebook is very helpful. Especially if they are self-teaching. Take a humdrum “standard” or “typical” party of PC’s 1st level Human Fighter 1st level Elf Ranger 1st level Human Wizard 1st level Halfling Thief 1st level Human Cleric There is practically no difference for these basic builds in D&D, Pathfinder, 13th Age, etc. A thief is a thief. A fighter is a fighter. And so on. The world they are placed into are also virtually identical, just bearing different sounding made up names/labels. I have personally mixed and matched adventures between the systems. The point is not to present a unique and exciting all-encompassing world. The point to quickly and easily present a few stereotypical PC’s and run them through a small number of learning/practice games. They can then use that experience to give them a perspective on the full rules. The difference between Hero and many other RPG’s is that most popular RPG rules give the players prepackaged options but do not actually release the underlying structure that was used to build the options. They give you the rules to play and build PC’s, but not the rules to make the rules. Hero plops the underlining rules needed to build everything and then expects everyone to simply understand with no frame of reference. With each edition of Hero, any intuitive understanding of the game concepts was drowned in the unbelievably verbose walls of text. At least in my opinion.

I have a copy of Mythic D6, but haven't had an opportunity to read it.

To which one?

but but but..... if you didn't someone might lose They might feeeeel bad

Don't forget you have to circle an arbitrary number of "bubbles" on the worksheet and then randomly pick a final number that will be "close enough"

Gah....... Some mental images are just wrong.....

Great pics. I can't place them, but I have seen to hull designs somewhere.

Just watched the Yakuza fight in Kill Bill vol. 1. Over the top live action anime style fight! Woot! Always liked Lucy Liu.

I don't really see the point of playing math games when it is already straight forward. Unless the point is to drive prospective new players away? Active Cost = Base Cost x (1 + Advantages) Real Cost = Active Cost / (1 + Total Bonus from all Limitations) Are pretty basic and hard to mess up. And even if math is not your thing there is a chart......

I haven't watched NFL in years. I do watch some college and other sports, but NFL lost me when they fully transitioned from football to ruleball with commercials. It was one of the superbowls (I cannot recall exactly which year now) where a call was made and had everyone confused, once I payed attention to the time it was over 20 minutes before anyone could find the call. Mass confusion and then crying because it changed the game and most people/players/coaching staff/commentators didn't even know it was a rule. From later commentary it had been a rule for a while. but not usually enforced. That ended my interest, when a game has so many rules and regulations that they become impossible to remember, well it is no longer a game. Just an opinion of course, many of my friends are still big fans. I just cannot get up any enthusiasm anymore. Not when there are so many great sports to watch out there where you can actually follow all the rules in play real time without a book and research team to check it.

Just watched Richmond (85) winning over Geelong Cats (66). Australian Football. I have no idea of the rules or what was happening. Just seemed to get sucked in and found myself watching the whole match.

This is me too. The only reason I recently leaned toward 5thR was I can actually get dead tree books. For the secondaries, they are fantastic in eliminating what we called the "6 Million Dollar Man" syndrome. The figured's gave you a general baseline to reflect the minimum structure to support the attribute. It may not have been perfect, but it far better IMO than the big nadda of 6th. It is like the stun multiple for KA's, we had misread (or something) and we ran it as 1d6-1 giving you a 0-5 multiplier. Which fell perfectly into a cinematic simulation of something that has been known in reality. Body was the physical damage and Stun was the shock/stun damage. We had been trained that immediately after a high stress/adrenaline pumped event that threatened injury you should check each other for injury. Because it is not only possible, but will happen that a person has been stabbed, shot or has a piece of rebar sticking in them and they do not notice and never felt it. Zero stun. Bam!! It has also happened where a person takes a relatively minor hit and gets knocked out or dazed. x5 Stun. Bam!!! When I got introduced to Champions in 82, it was the only system that actually modeled that little speck of reality into its cinematic action. Not to mention how the integral inclusion of Knockback into the combat was pure awesome. Whenever I read a new Supers/Anime/Pulp'ish Action RPG one of the first things I look for is how they handle Knockback..... Ramble over.......

Don't worry. You were obviously referring to the superior one true Hero. Not the fake stuff those other people are trying to play.

I've come to terms that Follywood is incapable of reading source material and consider the 1970 Harlequin Romance the height of literature. Especially TV shows. So if I turn on the tube I set my expectations suitably low. The Witcher was actually pretty good for 2019. My having zero knowledge of it before now probably helps.

IIRC it was bonus material for the FHC KS.

Bob.... Don't mess with Bob.....

Ahhhhhhhh!!!! Heads exploding everywhere!!! The HUMANITY!!!!!! Aaaaaahhhahahhahhahhah!!!!!

I don't know how I missed it, but I never made that connection. It is like the old Traveller I remember before the big empire stuff, minus Jump drives that is....

I never cared. I just did the calculation and took the resulting value. None of the math was inherently hard. A reality that the mathematicians can not grasp is that perfection does not exist and anything is balanced for play if everyone has the same options. Yes yes I know, heads are exploding everywhere. But I know this. 1st and 2nd Edition were FUN! 3rd Edition was FUN. 4th Edition was FUN. 5th Edition was fun...ish 6th Edition was....well after we bought it we never really got a game going past the odd single session.

Godzilla. See that wasn't hard.