Melchior777

Never leave a great story up to luck.

"It's a shame that a lot anime from the 80s and earlier will never be produced for the English-speaking market. One outstanding anime film that most English speaking fans have never heard of is Arion, a harsh, over-the-topic epic about the Greek gods wiping each other out. This is the sort of serious anime film that can only be compared with the likes of Akira or Mononoke, and I simply can't put into words the kind of ambitious fantasy imagery it contains." You want it? I got a bootleg copy around here somewhere. You wouldn't beleive the amount of fansub's exist out there.

"It's a shame that a lot anime from the 80s and earlier will never be produced for the English-speaking market. One outstanding anime film that most English speaking fans have never heard of is Arion, a harsh, over-the-topic epic about the Greek gods wiping each other out. This is the sort of serious anime film that can only be compared with the likes of Akira or Mononoke, and I simply can't put into words the kind of ambitious fantasy imagery it contains." You want it? I got a bootleg copy around here somewhere. You wouldn't beleive the amount of fansub's exist out there.

True, but Macross (Robotech), Transformers, and the Battletech board game have been around for ages. Why are people only now starting to pick them up?

I noticed someone mentioned Deathstalker. Note that Deathstalker and the warriors from hell has be MSTed, which makes it much more watchable. Also, one more to mention: SHREK

This question actually came up very early on in my game. The answer is effect based. Characters taken as followers have character statistics and can therefore do anything you ask of them. ( Fight individually, forge a new sword, etc. ) Characters that are not taken as followers, while they still exist and are loyal to the player, do not provide much in the way of "usefull skills or combat." It is accepted that they are there more as flavor text and it ends up that they cause or are in volved in more problems than thier worth. Basicly, the followers are your closest advisors and generals, or anyone in a command position.

Allow the player to 'buy off' the "only through animal follower" limitation on the clairsentience and telepathy power. As they put more points into it I would create a scale. The lowest point would be "only through animal follower." The next level could be "Only through animal follower and weirwoods" or "only through dreams."

Looks good to me. The only part I would add is an experienced level to simulate the effects that Brandon had late in book three where he spoke to John through a tree.

Convert the light into heat, (not hard to do) and you have an extremely efficient way to produce electric power by the standard method (boiling water to turn a turbine).

I think part of the reason for the recent popularity in Mech games is Microsofts Mechwarrior computer games. Plus the resurgence of BattleTech in the form of the Mechwarrior: Dark Age clix game. I'm currently working on converting seveal of the mech's to Hero. Also, the Kazai 5 book that's available for download from the e-books section of this site does a good job with mechs.

Perhaps a "special edition" hard cover if the soft covers sell really well?

FH is what GURPS fantasy should have been.

Legend The Princess Bride Ladyhawk Gladiator (historical fantasy) The dozen or so different TV movie renditions of King Arthur Robin Hood: Prince of thieves Willow Can't think of any other Hollywood fantasy movies right now, but if you expand to the Anime venue... Record of the Lodoss War Those who hunt elves Princess Mononoke Bastard!! Ys Orphen El Hazard (kinda) Rayearth (kinda) Many more that aren't comming to mind right now.

I've found that all the books I've had the binding shaved off then three hole punched or spiral bound wear out faster. Nothing beats a good hard cover binding.

My local gaming store owner suggested this when he saw the size of my FH folder. I think it would be worth the extra cost to have FH in hard cover, especially considering the page count. If not in hard cover, then maybe three hole punched like the old Rolemaster books used to come.

Nice to see I'm getting some responses to this post. Thanks for the info. What sort of skill package do you think the average POV has? What Everyman and what exceptional skills?

Ok, I agree with you on the broadsword. However, I just watched BotW again and paused the movie during the fight sequence. The two short swords have a post extending vertically from the cross guard. These are toped with a circular piece of fluted metal. He's not just spinning them between his fingers. There is some kind of grip there.

O.k., so I just finished watching Brotherhood of the Wolf. I'm not making any statements about the movie itself, the acting, the plot, anything. (I'm not saying I didn't like it. It's just not the point of this post and I want to make that clear.) In the final fight sequence the two characters use extremely exotic weapons. The main good guy uses paired short swords with complex guard that allows him to easily spin the sword as he is striking. The main bad guy uses a broad sword which can extend on a chain that traverses the interior length of the blade. I was wondering does anyone know if: A) These were based off of factual weaponry. ( I have a feeling that the spinning short swords were probably around, but the extending chain sword is a bit of a stretch. ) What the actual name of such weapons are. C) Where I could find information on such weapons, if they do exist. D) How would they convert to Hero?

First of all, thank you all for your valuable information. Including Tesuji, even if your tone was a bit pretentious. Special thanks to Killer Shrike for the comprehensive response. So here it is, the first night after our first game with the new rule conversions. Verdict by the players... 4 loved it, 1 hated it. The one that didn't like it stated the reason was that there wasn't any combat. My response was that the group had decided initially that this would be a political game. Hence, little combat. Since he's playing a "tank" (Read as cleric of a warrior god.) I understand this. I have left it open for him to make a new character at any time. The toolkitting conversions that I did from Hero worked great. It made the NPC's very realistic and provided a lot of history and personal depth on their part. This is one of the primary features of the "Game of Thrones" that I'm trying to capture. I feel that is a major feature in Mr. Martin's books, the level of detail and number of characters. Currently, I'm sitting at just under sixty fully fleshed out NPC's with stats, histories, and a timeline to cover all of their activities so the players have plenty to get involved in. Don't take this to mean that the timeline is set. Having the players mess it up is part of the plan. I found that the best way to make up for the lack of social skills in D&D was to use the knowledge skills in the Oriental adventures book as a basis instead of over using Diplomacy, sense motive, etc. Toolkitting also provided a much easier way to create the players homes, castles, forts, weapons, etc. As this game is a continuation of the previous Lord of the Rings campaign, many of the players had used their money to buy such things. My players are already beginning to see the advantages to Hero. Although, we are still split down the middle on Hero vs. D&D, they admit that the materials I've produced for them using Hero are much more realistic. I've taken the approach of allowing the players to get as specific or as general as they want with their characters. There are, of course, the limits of the game world itself, i.e. the Middle Earth. But beyond that, if they want to tell me each specific type of armor they are wearing and where all of their weapons are for quick access, they can. Even better, I have rules that actually give them some advantage or at least some kind of effect for such detail. As for disadvantages, I haven't built that into the character creation simply for the fact that all the characters already existed. Besides, I've heard both sides of the arguement about disads. One side says that you shouldn't reward players for taking disads, since it encourages taking to many unrealistic disads to maximize the number of points. I've had long experience with this while GMing Gurps and any White Wolf game. On the other hand, rewarding players for creating characters with more of a personality is a good thing. Either way, the GM has to look over the character write up to make sure things are square. Follow ups will continue, if you are interested. I still say, D&D is a good combat system. The feats, skills, and spell lists create an easy framework to play in. Problems lie in the scaling from one character class to the next. There are certain classes that are just plain superior to other classes of the same level. Can you do the same thing with Hero? Yes, certainly. You can create a combat god with 150 pts. that could wipe the floor with 300 pt. characters that were not so combat inclined. By "balance" I wasn't implying that this couldn't be done. It can be done with ANY system. Instead the point system for Hero provides a SCALE by which you can measure everything, and I'm not just talking about combat. Bases of a certain point total have a certain scale by which you could measure other bases to them. Similarly characters can be compared by the point totals. A quick look at the sheet can tell you if the character was made using effective techniques. If you have two characters that are of the same point totals, they may have different focuses, different areas where they are better or worse, but they are on the same scale. This is what I was looking for, an effective method of measure. This, with experience, will provide a means of translating ideas into a comparable scale to game with. Ok, end of that. No more, I promise. Anyway, the group had fun, that's what's most important. Well, most of the group. BTW- Tesuji, if you would like to know the full character creation guide lines that I made for this campaign, including available races, spells, languages, skills, character classes, prestige classes, history specifics, etc., please send me you e-mail address and I will be happy to mail it to you. I didn't think it was appropriate to post all five pages of text just for you.

Yep, been there. Thanks though.

Having just finished reading FH, here is my initial response. MY DEAR SWEET MONKEY! How in the world you managed to sum up, or at least mention, nearly every piece of medival historical data concerning fightning, armor, weapons, etc., I've learned in my four years in the SCA is astounding. The wpm thing is cool, but the sheer amount of information in this book is unreal. Steve, you are 'da MAN!

Actually, I heard that GOO just got the go ahead to do it. I didn't think they had exclusive rights. So if someone wanted to publish a Hero version, I'm sure they could with Mr. Martin's permission. Whom I understand to be a gamer himself.

I tend to agree with Markdoc and Hierax, and not just because they are telling me what I want to hear. One of the main reasons I have for toolkiting things from Hero is that the rules simply don't exist in D&D. The simple answer would be to make something up, adopting a house rule to deal with the situation. The problem that I have with this is that I am a firm believer in game balance, something that D&D completely lacks. Yea, your players are supposed to level up after 13.33 encounters with similar powered adversaries. To bad that the progression for leveling is strictly liniear, increasing by 1,000 xp per level. At that rate you level up after 3.33 encounters of equal challenge rating to your party. After talking with my players and reading over all of your valueable insights I believe I've come up with a plan that will work for everyone in my group. The first step is, that while their characters may be D&D architypes, they are somewhat unique in this setting. I.e. priests are not uncommon, but warrior preists of Tulkas that can fling magic around are extremely rare. The second step is hurling the monsters manual out the window. To many of my players have this particular tome memorized. I can't suprise them with anything out of there. By using hero to create the monsters, then transfering them to D&D, I'm able to create things that they don't expect. ( Sure, it's just another Dragon. Except that this Dragon has completely different abilites from the one in the book. ) I'm also using Hero to create all of my NPC's and castles. The reason for this is that this makes the NPC's more real, by giving them stats for things like social graces and the like. Where as with D&D NPC's were described as AC, Attack Bonus, Special Manuevers, and Saving Throws. As far as the castles go, Hero gives me the rules to make them, something that D&D lacked in all but the vaguest sense. ( Note that I have not read ALL D&D or related books, I'm refering in the above instances to the PH, DMG, and MM, specificly, where the information should be, but isn't. ) I do still have a couple of questions for those still keeping up with this thread. First, my rules for D&D conversion are actually for star wars D20. Right now I'm using all stats transfer on a one for one bases up until they hit 17, then they are two points of Hero for every one point of D&D. Skills are simply +1 = 8-, +2 = 9-, etc. Armor Class = DCV + PD + 10. Attack bonus = OCV + CSL's. Does this seem resonable? Any suggestions? Second, I'm having a little trouble figuring how much xp I should be handing out considering; 1.) I no longer have challenge ratings to go by for all the monsters, and 2.) D&D doesn't really have rules for giving out xp awards for social or investigative victories. I was thinking about giving the players 100 xp for each successful skill roll and 500 xp for each extremely successful (read important to the plot) skill roll. The catch would be that I wouldn't tell them that this is what I'm doing, thus preventing the excessive use of skills just to get more xp. I'd just make a tic mark on my copy of their character sheet. Then tell them the total at the end of the night. Sound O.K.?

The series is by far the best I've read since "The Lord of the RIngs." My gaming group wants to play in a "Game of Thrones" setting and I was looking for references on the power level of the characters. Specificly, how many character points they were made off of, how many disad points they had, etc. If you haven't read this series, DO! It is the best. Heck, even the card game spin off is good.

Thanks for the info First off, thank you all for your insights. I'll be sure to take them into consideration. To clarify slightly, this is a continuation of a Lord of the Rings campaign that was started back when the first movie came out. I used the D&D rules at that time because they were convienent, not because I liked them. The story takes place about six years after the war of the ring. The first section of the campaign was mostly hack and slash, so the D&D rules fit well. However, now my players and I have all read George Martins "Game of Thrones" and they want a more political game, with that kind of feel, while continueing their old D&D characters. I originally suggested that they make new characters under FH, but they didn't want to. I feel that Hero provides a better skill base and attributes for a political game than D&D. I warned them that if we stuck with D&D rules they would be making charisma checks constantly and using Diplomacy where it was inappropriate. To put it simply, D&D isn't designed for the type of game that THEY TOLD ME they wanted to play. Hence the conversions.