Mr. Negative

Re: A Plot Idea ... With No Good Resolution Well, I don't exactly know how the Dream-fragment got 'loose' into our reality, but you might look at some of the old H.P. Lovecraft Dreamlands stuff. Perhaps the heroes have to journey into the land of Dreams to find out exactly what happened, so they can fix it. Possibly, they even have to achieve a symmetry to be able to undo the Dream, by bringing a 'chunk' of reality into the land of Dream. Alternatively, they might have to bring someone anchored to the Dream (perhaps someone whose wishes have been granted by the Dream) into the Dreamlands, so they can use that person's psyche as an anchor to the Dream-fragment, and pull it back into the Dreamlands. Alternatively, you might find some hyper-rational scientist whose fondest dreams are that magic and mysticism would go away, so we could actually get some research done, and toss them into the Dream.

Re: Cthulhu-esque suggestions? Chiming in a bit late here, but instead of focusing on 'which big icky caused the hurricane', you might have an interesting campaign instead focusing on the effects of the hurricane and their relation to the Mythos. You have an event where social order breaks down almost completely, with people being forced to live like animals, and other people treating them like animals. You have a social situation where an entire society is dislocated and displaced, perhaps never to return. You have disaster survivors who are forgotten, shuffled off, and marginalized. You have the elderly and ill abandoned to die, and not even being recovered for burial. The social unweaving implied by the mythos ("living and killing freely and unbound") has a very strong resonance with the Katrina tragedy. Volunteers, rescue workers, or social workers could discover not that the King in Yellow is actively pulling strings, but that the trememdous moral and social disruptions caused by Katrina is echoed in the rising influence of Hastur and the other gods. Discovering that your work to help others isn't just morally important, but is working to shore up the fabric of reality doesn't sound like Lovecraftian horror, but discovering that every single failure, every single lost soul or crushed dream, works to wear down the walls between us and Them could easily be a good horror tale. Of course, to be really Lovecraftian in a 'indifferent universe' way, you would need to instead set up Katrina as being a casual by-product of an action or machination of Something Man Was Not Meant To Know. If you have a good group of role-players, discovering that the massive disaster and human tragedy WASN'T part of a master plan to seize power, but rather an inconsequential ripple effect caused by intelligences so vast and labyrinthine as to be incomprehensible, might be an interesting gaming experience. "It's not enough to thwart their plans! We can't even understand their plans! We have to counteract the consequences of plans we can't even fathom! Aaaaaaaah! My head hurts!"

Re: Good-by Brick Desolid. Can't touch this.

Re: Resolving a Combat in One Roll? If you like Sean's idea, you might want to treat non-essential combats kind of like Presence Attacks, and somewhat related to the resolution system in the Amber RPG. The PC's declare, roughly, what they are doing: "I'm going to beat these guys up using my superior Karate training." or "Since we need to be quiet, let's sneak up on them and use silenced pistols." You decide what the opposition is using to respond. "These guys aren't well trained, but there sure are a lot of them." or "Well, once you peg someone, everyone else is going to take cover and open fire". Give each side some dice to roll, more based on their capabilities and good ideas, and count Body. Highest BODY total wins. Presence attacks already require the GM to make judgement calls on stuff like whether the PCs are more powerful or less powerful than the opposition, and whether the actions are violent or incredibly violent. Just let them describe it, rate it, and roll: "You decided to try to attack the gun-wielding gangsters by charging across the street shouting and then punching them. You roll 3d6, they roll 6d6." "You decided to call out the karate-goons by striding boldly down the alley and picking out the toughest ones to fight with your best fighters. You roll 4d6, they roll 2d6". This system still requires all the judgement and handwaving, but it does allow PCs to suffer unexpected defeats (and unanticipated victories). Plus, it relates to an already familiar aspect of the game (Presence Attacks) and encourages and rewards creative and descriptive role-playing while penalizing thoughtless or boring players.

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

Re: ORCS! What makes them our favourite enemies??? This is interesting, because that's precisely what Games Workshop did with their 'orks' in Warhammer 40K (their futuristic miniature game). Orks reproduced by spores, grew underground, and emerged with their basic personality and even skills developed. Their rationale was some sort of extremely complicated genetic engineering in the far distant past to create a race of warriors. However, what this did, functionally, was create a relatively believable rationale for having a species who created societies which were violent, aggressive, and cruel, but didn't think of itself as 'Evil'. After all, Orks did not receive any sort of nurture when young (as they emerge fully grown), nor do they have to care for either young or for pregnant females. Ork society was based completely on the strong ruling over the weak (with the added caveat that orks who successfully dominated their peers would actualy grow larger than them). Even horrible practices like forced labor for children and the elderly were viewed as routine by Orks. They themselves didn't have 'young orks' who needed time to grow and mature, nor did they have elderly Orks who were infirm (they evidently didn't age, but either prospered and grew stronger, or faltered and were killed). The lack of any parental care (and any need for parental care) is quite alien to relatively intelligent species (both in the real world, and in most fictional worlds), so it has always struck me as an idea with interesting ramifications. GW, of course, went even further, and envisioned their Orks as growing larger and stronger from any successful conflicts (which leads them to seek out war and strife to prosper). Orks seek out conflict the way that other races might strive for stability. Thus, they created the perfect Horde/Fodder enemy: they live to fight, they love to fight, and they reproduce like mad (even dead orks shed viable spores).

Re: combat luck and armor........ Just an irrelevant point noted here: Whether or not 'stacking' is a D&Dism, Combat Luck appears to be a D&D inversion. In D&D, armor is represented as 'being more likely to be missed by attacks'. Combat Luck is 'being more likely to be missed by attacks' represented as Armor. Of course, it is also a "dodge" to reduce effectiveness (specifically the effectiveness of weapons). And on a more serious note, preventing stacking is quite a good idea for several genres. Another idea would be to limit Combat Luck to prevent it from stopping the first point of BODY damage. This would allow for characters who are scratched up, but not seriously wounded. It also allows poisons and other attacks based on "must do BODY" limitations to function. This is a different sort of Combat Luck though; more of a 'Only a Flesh Wound' sort than a 'Just Missed Me!' feel.

Re: Your PC's might be underpowered if... ...your DNPC can beat up your nemesis. ...Aunt May has YOU as a DNPC. ...you had to pay points for your little sister as an Ally. ...all of your fights have been over before anyone could take a post-12 recovery. ...your battle cry is "Abort to Dodge!" ....the only newspaper editor excoriating your performance prints a weekly church bulletin. ...the city is still using the same light bulb that was originally installed in your emergency signal. ....you can't use your team communicators except on nights and weekends, because you don't have enough minutes. ...your utility belt contains spare keys, condoms, and breath mints. ...your HQ is also your parent's garage. ...you don't stop bank robbers; you stop people from stealing pens from the tellers. ...your patrols all end before your curfew.

Re: Best supporting non-super character in comics? Gwen Stacy. I don't know exactly why, but she really always got to me. Particularly in Spiderman: Blue, where the whole story almost breaks your heart. Assuming that I can ignore the recent Norman Osborne love affair, accelerated aging clones story lines, of course.

Re: Make them Pay! Here's my question? Many, though not all, of the people who are against "making character pay" points for equipment seem to assume that assigning points to ordinary equipment necessarily means that you are restricting the development of the character in some way. For instance, it is commonly being brought up that a PC might decide not to pick up a sword because the player either doesn't have the points to spend, or wants to spend the points elsewhere. Where is it written that character point totals are relatively fixed and cannot vary freely, but can only slowly increase with experience? Man-at-arms Johann Schmidt is plonking along, a 100 point character. He picks up a Halberd. He is now more effective than he was just minutes ago. Assuming that Johann isn't planning on dropping the halberd, or abandoning it immediately after the next fight against those zombies, why NOT recalculate his total? After all, he's a more effective character, and the points are a rough way of tracking character effectiveness (and the points he'd "spend" on a halberd are probably more directly related to his effectiveness in a quantifiable way than 1 point spend on PS: Rat-catcher. Note that I'm not advocating that Johann Schmidt be forced to spend accumulated XP to buy a Halberd. He has a halberd. He just picked it up, and he's intending to keep using it, rather than use it as a weapon of opportunity. Poof. His points total goes up. Later, a half-maddened half- orc hacks his halberd haft in half with a hand-and-a-half sword. Poof. Johann's points total goes down. Rather than subscribe to the "D&D" mentality of steady, continuous progression via the acquisition and spending of experience, why not reward your characters in different ways, and allow the PCs to be built "as desired" from the start? Why assume that the only way to reward PCs is either with experience points that go to skills and attributes, or with free gear? What would be wrong with going---"You get a suit of armor, it increases your points total by 7 points."? The points are just another tool to track relative PC ability and effectiveness; they don't HAVE to represent the "experience" gained through play, unless you want them to. I think it would be fine to go (as a GM): Hmmmm. The party is having a rough time in this adventure. I'll make sure they find some equipment to make them a little bit more able to compete. Bill doesn't have a lot of experience running a rogue very effectively, and it's lowering his enjoyment. I'll let him find a crossbow, which should reinforce his role as a second-line fighter. You can do either of these WITHOUT altering CP totals, and you can do both of them AND alter CP totals. What's the big deal?

Re: CHAR: Midnighter

Re: Marvel's Ten Best Metamorphs OK, I can understand the whole debate about what exactly constitutes a metamorph, but how can anyone not list the Impossible Man at #1? Annoying? Yes. Best metamorph? Also yes.

Re: Make them Pay! Unlike many people here, I DON'T think that this is a bad idea. Here's why: In a lot of heroic fantasy genre stuff, you see a lot of various character types. The mage/wizard has a lot of spells, but generally very little in the way of armor, shield, swords & crossbows. The "heavy fighter" generally has a set of really good armor, and a couple of good weapons, and a good shield. The barbarian fighter/beastmaster guy has a loincloth, but is often a better fighter, or has cool supernatural abilities. The thief/rogue type often doesn't have a great deal of armor or a really powerful weapon, but often has loads of skills, contacts, and favors. There's no reason whatsoever for the barbarian, thief, and wizard not to tote around armor, crossbows, shields, and flails. However, if you choose to charge points in some way for them, THEN there's a reason (to the players) why the fighter has good equipment, and the bard, wizard, barbarian, and thief don't. There's no "Game Rules" stating that you HAVE to charge points for wealth either, but a lot of fantasy campaigns do, I think. However, I would put two caveats on this. First, I'd borrow something from GURPS 4th edition: the concept of "signature gear". If something is yours, has a story behind it, and you'd want to recover it (and the GM WILL give you the chance to recover or replace it), then its "signature gear". The sword you just found isn't signature gear; the sword of your father, passed to you with his dying breath, or the sword of your mortal enemy, pried from his dead hands, is signature gear. Consider distinguish stuff you'll just go out and buy again from stuff you'll beg, borrow, or steal to get back. Charge points for just the second class. Thus, the fighter might pay for his plate mail, but not the thief for a rope. The thief might pay for his crossbow pistol, but not the fighter for a throwing dagger. Secondly, consider (just as a matter of bookkeeping and emphasis) putting the points spent on equipment as a separate listing on the character sheet. You might have Johann the warrior with 125 points and 25 points of gear, and Sharkey the thief with 145 points and 5 points of gear. This way, you could reward characters both with "character points"---"you learned how to fight better, so you can buy up your CSLs" OR with "equipment points"--"The smith is so overjoyed that you brought his daughter back alive from those cultists that he presents you with a finely-forged sword". Also, the (real or perceived) ST points imbalance largely goes away if those big beefy fighter types have to pay for both their strength AND the weapons they use it with. This doesn't have to be a "weapons and armor only" issue either. Since you're charging points for equipment, the wizard might have magical charms to use, or you could charge the thief for smoke bombs and sleeping draughts. The priest might have healing balms and holy water. I've always found it very useful to have some rough sort of points accounting for equipment carried. A well-prepared and fully equipped character is MUCH more effective than a half naked hero awoken in the middle of the night, so why shouldn't the sheet represent that?

Re: First time Hero buyer Welcome to HERO! Chiming in on this debate to further obfuscate the issue, there's another dimension to the ST pricing debate. On one level, we have a debate about the straightforward cost vs. utility of strength as something to spend points on. A very valid debate, and one that many intelligent people can disagree on. On another level, the ST pricing debate is one of the few areas in HERO (multipowers seem to be another) where pernicious power builds seem to inflame the debate. What I mean to say is that when you see certain character builds using high ST, that character may seem grossly disproportionate in power to another character built on the same points, but spending them on other abilities. Thus, this leads people to conclude, ST is priced incorrectly. However, it is going to be possible to find some pernicious power builds for many, many things that are going to seem grossly overpowered (search the threads-we're quite inventive!). This does not necessarily indicate that the underlying cost structure of the basic ability/power is wrong (although it could be). For whatever reason, though, if these are found in ST oriented builds, it's usually taken as evidence that ST is undercosted itself. Coming at all of this from a D&D background, which was then filtered through GURPS in college, the one thing that took the longest to really absorb about HERO was: CAN LEGALLY TAKE does not equal CAN HAVE D&D basically lets you advance your character and pick out the skills, feats, and spells allowed to that character type. GURPS (particularly before 4th edition) makes good stuff really, really expensive. In HERO, however, your starting characters can all have ST20, even in fantasy. Having the points to take something, however, doesn't mean that you should take it, or even that you should be allowed to take it by the GM. If you and your group can keep in mind that the conception of the character is more important, and limiting, than the points allotment given to the player, most HERO system woes will go away.

Re: SPD Standards