Pegasus40218

We're getting ready to start a new campaign (after several months of Pathfinder)...I'm trying something a little different this time around. To get my players to focus on concept, complications, and cooperation I'm giving the FATE Core system a try to get things started. Once we have concepts and some background and setting material put together, we're going to build the characters using HERO and start play...Once we have the builds I'll post them for review.

As someone relatively new to HERO who is trying to GM, two pages about how to identify unbalanced builds would be helpful. (I have a group of min-maxers and have trouble identifying unbalanced builds until I see them in play.)

The difference is how your arrive there. Sadly, a significant number of players suck at math (though these same players manage to figure out how to min-max their characters to the hilt)...so asking them to perform 2 calculations (OCV +11 - 3d6= DCV) is more confusing to them than simply saying "give me 3d6 + OCV"...You (as the GM) handle the DCV + 10 calculation. This mechanic is something that players coming from a d20 system will find familiar and easy to work with. The only thing they have to adjust to is the odds on 3d6 vs d20. Additionally, there have been a couple of people who mentioned the GM not providing the DCV...Certainly, as someone who runs a game, I can understand the urge not to reveal DCV prematurely -- players will look at the odds, and if they're not good, they'll opt to do something other than attack -- even when they have no realistic means of recognizing that they're opponent is that difficult to hit. However, in my experience trying to be secretive about the target number tends to be a waste of time. Furthermore, HERO has the advantage of constantly changing DCV (based upon CSL allocation, combat maneuvers, situational modifiers, etc) -- most of which aren't available in other systems where you pretty much have a static armor class...and, by the end of the fight, the players will have figured out their opponents' ACs/DCVs anyway...At least that's my opinion on the matter.

How about: King Solomon's Mines (or any other Allan Quatermain movie for that matter)...

Yeah...the first attempt is pretty plain with no real "action". While the second doesn't depict a great deal of action, the characters in the forefront at least appear realistically serious and engaged.

Two characters (and a vehicle) for you to play with (thought they'd be fun): "The Killer" and "Cow Patti" Song: Cow Patti (Jim Stafford) Lyrics From the badlands came the killer, he lived by his knife and the gun. He'd cut you just for standing, and shoot you if you tried to run. He was as big as a tree, and did what he pleased, and everything he did was bad. They said if you was to kill him, it'd only make him mad. From the goodlands came the cowgirl, Patti was her name. She was hot on the trail of that killer on a moped she called Flame. Cause the killer had killed her daddy just for spittin' in the road, And you only had to kill her daddy once to get that girl p.o.'d. Yippee-i-ay - Cow Patti! Yippee-i-ay - Cow Patti! She rode into town to find the man that killed her daddy! Yippee-i-ay - Cow Patti! The killer hit town at daybreak, ate the door off the local saloon. He started to drinkin' and you could tell he was thinkin' There'd be a showdown soon. Patti hit town in a cloud of dust, old Flame was buzzin' like a saw. And the whole town got quiet as a church when the killer stepped out for the draw. Forty shots rang out. Forty people fell. Patti and the killer missed each other but they shot the town to hell! The killer took a step toward Patti, said, "It's time I gunned you down"! But he slipped in something that was laying in the street And was shot before he hit the ground. Yes, the killer slipped and it cost him his life And Patti said as she raced out of town: "You got to watch your step, when you know the chips are down." Yippee-i-ay - Cow Patti! Yippee-i-ay - Cow Patti! She rode into town to find the man that killed her daddy! Yippee-i-ay - Cow Patti!

Agree about looking over the rules when there's a conflict (and with my group there WILL be conflicts! ). The last time I tried running HERO, CC had not been released yet, so we're using 6E1&2 -- which doesn't invalidate anything you said above. However, here's why I (and I'm sure some other GMs) struggle with a system like HERO with a group such as I have. The opening paragraph on "Surprised" reads: "This Combat Modifier applies when a character is attacked from behind, above, by an invisible attacker, from ambush, or any other situation where he's surprised by the attack." In many cases, the players will use this to argue that they should get a surprise bonus whenever any of these situations occur. It's not until you get into the "When Suprised Applies" section (2 paragraphs later) that you run across the following statement: "The GM should interpret the phrase 'expecting any attacks' in a common sense fashion." This type of statement (the GM should interpret...) occurs frequently in HERO; and therein lies the problem. The rules lawyers in my group want to and will always try to use the rules to force things to be handled / interpreted in a specific way. The positive of this is that it helps to eliminate ambiguity and create consistency. Leaving things open to situational interpretation risks inconsistency, which my players will not like, and will argue vehemently against...and as a part-time GM and part-time player, it often just isn't worth the inevitable hassles and arguments. And before anyone asks -- Yes, we have multiple GMs in the group and tend to take turns running games for several months at a time. Several of the people in the group refuse to even TRY to run for this group because they don't want to deal with the arguing. Unfortunately, this hasn't been effective at getting the message across to the players to knock off the arguing, partly because someone else has always been willing to fall on their sword and run a game of some sort for everyone else to play. ... On a side note, Tasha, I absolutely LOVE your 2-page guide to creating HERO system characters. It has been an invaluable tool to me as both a player and a GM. I was wondering if you or anyone else had ever attempted to put together a similarly concise guide to help GMs with establishing campaign parameters and what to watch for when reviewing player characters to see if they're over or under powered for the campaign?

Oh, but my group seems to have these issues regardless of system...DnD, Pathfinder, HERO -- it's all about min-maxing (particularly combat capabilities) and then arguing rules constantly. We play every week for 4 to 5 hours, and spend 30 to 60 minutes arguing some rule or another. As an example of the sort of thing that happened in our first attempt to play HERO, the players discovered that they get a positional advantage for being behind an opponent. In one combat, they found themselves facing a group of opponents roughly equal in number though slightly weaker individually. The combat basically devolved into a game of "leap frog" as every character on his turn moved to get behind his opponent. When the opponent would turn to fight, on their next turn, they'd use their movement to circle behind the opponent again. Now, maybe there's something I missed in the rules regarding zones of control or adjustments of facing, but I couldn't find anything. I wouldn't have a problem if players using teamwork (successfully) were able to gain positional advantages; but, just because you have a certain amount of movement (6 to 12 meters minimum) shouldn't automatically result in you being able to circle behind your opponent every single time you get a phase to attack him from behind. Unfortunately, with a group like mine, I almost have to have something spelled out explicitly in the rules to prevent it. Simply saying that it's completely unrealistic that in a one-on-one fight you're opponent is going to let you run around behind him every time you attack isn't sufficient. Admittedly, this is more of a "player problem" than a "system problem", but it does pose certain challenges when trying to introduce a system like HERO to a group like this. As the guy trying to run the game, I can guarantee that any ambiguity in the rules will invite an opportunity for exploitation. For example, in a recent Pathfinder game, there was a rules argument regarding attacking while grappling (or grappled). One of the characters -- a grappling specialist successfully grappled a small dragon (about the size of a large horse). In the description of the "grappled" condition, it states "A grappled creature takes a -2 penalty on all attack rolls and combat maneuver checks, except those made to grapple or escape a grapple. In addition, grappled creatures can take no action that requires two hands to perform..." In the section on combat maneuvers, the rules state "Instead of attempting break or reverse the grapple, you can take any action that only requires one hand to perform, such as cast a spell or make an attack with a light or one-handed weapon against any creature within your reach, including the creature that is grappling you." Well, the initial ruling was that, in spite of being grappled, the dragon was able to use ALL of its attacks (2 claws, a bite, two wing buffets, a rear-claw rake, and a tail slap) -- all directed at the grappler. Under that ruling, the dragon proceeded to inflict enough damage to almost kill the grappler in a single round. A 45-minute rules argument ensued with the players arguing that in the second rules quote above the rules state that you can make "AN attack" -- implying only one, while the GM argued that in the description of the grappled condition, the text explicitly refers to "attacks" (plural) implying that the dragon can use all of its attacks since they're natural weapons (and thus should be considered "light"). Of course, from a simply visual perspective, this would require that the grappler is extremely stupid with no survival instincts and grappled the dragon from a position that would allow it to bring all four claws to bear (directly underneath it). A more "realistic" visualization would involve grappling from the side or back of the creature (unless the dragon were the one grappling). Applying that visualization, a reasonable person could agree that perhaps the dragon should be able to reasonably attack (with the aforementioned -2) with a bite (assuming a traditional long-necked dragon), maybe one of the fore claws, one wing (if the grappler is on the side) and the tail. But that option was not even considered because the rules-lawyering required that the dragon either be able to use ALL or ONE. Yes...my group will argue rules over the plurality of a word in the rules...So, you can imagine the challenges someone like me -- who is relatively inexperienced with the HERO System -- is going to face when attempting to run HERO for such a group.

You also have to consider how the protective gear and ball would have to be modified. Perhaps gear modifications could put certain restrictions (suppress extra-dimensional movement/powers to address the initial example) on the players. The ball itself might need to have some form of resistant protection to avoid needing to be replaced after every play.

I guess one question would be: is it more common for the average person to get seasickness, or is it more common for them not to? If it's more common for people not to become seasick, then maybe it could be modeled as a disadvantage with an activation roll (since a person doesn't ALWAYS get seasick), rather than setting up a game where immunity has to be bought by everyone to avoid it.

Conceptually, I agree; however, as someone trying to convert (and drag my gaming group along with me) from systems such as D&D and Pathfinder, my experience has been that the players (admittedly, "rules lawyers", at least in my group anyway) have an expectation that the rules will define unambiguously what can and can't be done. This seems to be born from a lack of trust in their GMs such that, rather than allowing a GM to make a ruling during the game, they'd rather dig through the books and argue for 30 minutes in order to get a +1 advantage or some such. It's sad, but that seems to be how many of the people trying to convert from other systems tend to look at and handle things...at least, in my experience...

MMMMMMM....Cherry Cheesecake magic...My favorite!

I like to try to provide my players with the broad strokes of the campaign setting, but (within reason for the campaign setting) let them play what they want, with a strong emphasis on creating an interesting back-story for the character. I then take that back-story and try to work up adventure ideas and encounters that build upon the characters' backgrounds. I try not to plot more than two or three games' worth of material, that way, I can adjust to whatever it is that catches the player's imagination and run with it. If there's a sudden change, I'm not out a huge amount of prep work, and I try to organically evolve the story to fit what they've taken an interest in. Sure, the players can (and will) throw a curveball forcing you to wing-it for the rest of a session, but that's generally not too difficult to deal with (particularly if you've got a few rival NPCs you can throw into an encounter to help you get through the session). Simply put, I like the characters (and by extension) the players to help direct the story. With a good group of role-players, I've found that this works relatively well. If the group is more into "roll-playing", it tends to fall flat.

Amen. Over the years, I have come to despise "canned" adventures / campaigns. As someone in a gaming groups with rotating GMs, I recognize that having pre-genned material is an IMMENSE time-saver. However, I've seen a number of problems -- and this may be something particular to my gaming group. First, quite often, the GMs seem ill-prepared for the material they've selected to run. This may be a result of my group meeting and playing every week, and it can be difficult to find the necessary time to prepare. Second, with "canned" adventures/adventure paths, the characters very rarely matter to the overall story...What's going to happen is going to happen. A character's background, motivations, etc. don't really matter...and character evolution during the course of the campaign doesn't result in any evolution of the overall plot. The end result of this in my gaming group has been that nobody bothers to come up with character backgrounds or motivations anymore. The characters have devolved into 2-dimensional card-board cut-outs consisting mostly of min-maxed combat statistics. Furthermore, when someone tries to run a different type of game -- one that will account for player character backgrounds and interests -- it's as if the players creativity when it comes to coming up with interesting and imaginative characters has atrophied from lack of use. Everything is basically hackneyed or cliched -- the simplest thing possible to meet the GM's "requirement" to provide a background.

Cleric (to Wizard): What? You got a paper cut unrolling that vellum scroll? I'm sorry, we're going to have to take your arm at the shoulder!

There are a couple of problems that seem to occur with the most extreme elements of any movement. 1) They tend to be the ones who get the most press. 2) Because they draw attention - in spite of the fact that it's negative attention - the majority of participants (who want attention drawn to their issue(s)) don't renounce them / do anything to separate themselves from the radicals. 3) If the "silent majority" in a movement do nothing about the radicals that give their movement a bad name, then they (the silent majority) are largely irrelevant. A small but vocal minority will cause the tarnishing (and possibly the eventual collapse) of a well-intentioned movement. Of course, the challenge is this: in a free society, what CAN you do to reign in the most radical elements of a movement without infringing upon their rights? Simply attempting to distance the majority of the movement from these radicals probably won't draw enough media attention to be successful...So what's left?

Do women in zebra print get nervous around women in leopard print?

Yep, I thought of that and used it...I think we may have also done some other things incorrectly (again, we were all relatively new to the system), so it proved far less effective than you'd expect. (I think I was allowing them to abort to a defensive action [such as dodge or "dive for cover"] in a segment in which they had already acted...It was over a year ago, so it's hard to remember the details of every mistake I made.)

It might also be worth looking up "The Iron Kingdoms". I believe what started as a D&D / Pathfinder campaign setting may have evolved into its own game system.

As the GM in question, I can say it was a combination of factors: 1. Lack of any recent experience with the system (hadn't played it since 1994 and was trying to run a game with a single read through 6E1, 6E2, and 6E Fantasy Hero. 2. That lack of experience made it difficult to figure out where to set the limits / guidelines for the type of game I was wanting to run (low fantasy). 3. Min/max type gamers. We decided to play a "gladiator" campaign in an empire roughly similar to ancient Rome. The characters were all slaves (for various reasons), but all sold and sent to the same gladiator "school". This set up allowed for the characters to choose to play just about any race (captured on the battlefield, or in a raid of some sort) and character type (being captured in a fight makes it more likely that you're a warrior-type, but if your warriors lose, then pretty much anyone could be captured and taken). I believe the relevant portion of my campaign guidelines wernt something along the lines of this (it's been 2 years, and things went so badly I pitched my original notes, so I'm working from memory: 1. Averge OCV and DCV would be in the 4 to 6 range with a max of 8 or 9. One particular character caused me a problem. The player decided to play a kobold warrior,setting up the kobolds as a tribal culture near the borders of the empire. His reasons for playing a kobold were simple: smaller than man-sized, -2 to the opponents OCV. He also took martial arts, but he only ever used one maneuver: Defensive Strike (+1 OCV, +3 DCV)...And, of course, he bought the campaign maximum of and 8 or 9 base DCV. The end result was that he effectively had a 13 or 14 DCV. Tack on a few combat skill levels, and you have a nightmare -- a character who is only hit on a 3 on 3d6 vs any opponent with an average (even upper end of average) OCV. After the problem became apparent, I approached the player and asked him to "tone it down a bit". The response I got was basically "I'm not going to make it easy for you to hit my character." My response - "I'm not asking you to make it easy, but it SHOULD be possible. If I have to build something that will be capable of hitting you, it's going to pretty much slaughter everyone else." This was still met with refusal. Other characters had similar issues, though not as egregious (that -2 to opponents' OCVs made a BIG difference). Since that campaign collapsed, I've purchased and read many more HERO supplements, and started reading and posting to these forums for advice, and I've learned quite a bit along the way. I've gotten a better handle on what to include when calculating the campaign guidelines (for example, it was not clear to me until we started playing that CSLs and benefits from maneuver should be considered when figuring out whether or not a character "fits" within the guidelines). I still think, with my particular group, I'm going to wind up having to create the initial characters in order to wind up with a set of characters that will be fun for everyone. I also need to get better at defining campaign guidelines and recognizing builds that are going to exceed those guidelines. I also need to get a better understanding of the tactical options that are available in HERO.

Checking out the Fate Core system now. We've tried a couple of different systems, so far, the most role-playing heavy system we've used is been Pendragon; and even in that system, the vast majority of characters focused (as much as possible) on improving combat capabilities ahead of everything else. After I've read through the Fate system and feel comfortable enough with the rules to give it a run, I'll run out and buy some sponges...Gonna need something to clean the grey matter off the walls when their minds explode!

I think this is an appropriate question/comment for this thread: How do you handle "effectiveness limits" with new players? The problem I've run into is that I have a group consisting of 6 players and the GM. All of the players come from a D&D / Pathfinder background, which (nowadays) encourages munchkinism. In fact, in many of the "canned" modules/adventure paths, if you don't min-max to the hilt, there are tasks you have no chance to succeed in. Given that background, when I set campaign guidelines, such as average DCs around 4 or 5, with a maximum of 8, my group tends to wind up creating characters with 8 DCs BASE (then add in skill levels, martial maneuvers, pushing, etc.). It's simply how they think. And they do that with EVERYTHING. I plan to address this in my next attempt by creating the characters for them, so they'll be reasonable. My concern is, as soon as they start getting experience points, I'm going to see them immediately invested in maxing out attacks and defenses. So, the question is: how do you convince players to change their style of play? Or do you?

Pathfinder campaign. The party finds themselves exploring the ruins of a keep. We're looking into an area that looks like some sort of large animal pens. Inside the pens, we see what appear to be giant severed hands. The rogue moves forward cautiously to investigate further, when suddenly, the giant hands spring to life (think The Addams Family's "Thing" only he's about 10 feet long...and has 7 brothers). As the hands prepare to attack, the monk in the party hollers to the rogue: "Don't let them flank! They'll give you the clap!"

Crash and burn. ...at least with my current gaming group. I first played Hero back in 1994, but that campaign only lasted a couple of months, so I only had a basic inkling of what could be done with the system. I absolutely LOVE the idea behind Hero (at least as I see it) -- You can build anything you want (within limits set by the GM). I think what holds the greatest appeal for me is that characters can evolve more organically. If your characters find themselves constantly running into scenes where a particular skill is useful, anyone/everyone can develop that skill (with appropriate background/role-playing of course!). Skills aren't pigeon-holed based upon character archetype or having to gain a particular level. You want to learn something, find someone to teach you or set aside time to self-educate and you can learn to do whatever (again, within the constraints of the campaign). My group is primarily AD&D / Pathfinder players, and the regular weekly gaming sessions usually involve running canned campaigns. These games tend to be extremely combat heavy, and as such the players build characters to reflect this. In fact, if you try to run something that isn't combat-centric, you're still going to wind up with combat-oriented characters (that seems to be what almost everything in D&D / Pathfinder is about). Since the campaign / adventure paths are pre-scripted, character backgrounds don't really matter, so nobody generally bothers to come up with one...(I usually put some effort into background, but with the current adventure path, even I didn't bother ) So, I decided to try running a Fantasy HERO game with this group. I had picked up and read everything I could get my hands on for 6th edition (i've purchased just about every book in hardcopy and PDF). The problem I ran into, given my lack of experience with the system, was figuring out where to set the limits for the characters. I also tried to let the players create their own characters as well -- with my help...but again, not knowing where to set limtis / what reasonable limits for the type of game I was wanting to run would be (magic-rare/low fantasy) I wound up with a bunch of characters that were nigh invulnerable, impossible to hit, or were capable of slaying a "normal" NPC with no chance of missing...Of course, they didn't have any skills outside of combat (except for stealth), so other than as killers they were pretty much useless. We went through several iterations of toning characters down, adding skills, complications, repeated attempts to get some kind of background before we eventually settled on a group of characters that I estimated would at least be "playable". Each character was required to have ties to at least one other character. I was trying to avoid having to come up with a scenario to introduce the characters to each other...I wound up with two groups of tightly-knit characters who had to have an introductory scenario...and when they met, they decided they didn't like each other and tried to kill each other (even though the scenario clearly put them all on same side)...GAME IMPLOSION. Next attempt. Since we had struggles with where the limits ought to be, we took our next run at running Champions level characters, where the limits (or lack thereof) would have less of an impact. Of the 5 players in the group at the time, only two put any effort into back story -- the others simply went through the motions (kinda like doing something just to get it done because someone said you had to). I eventually told them that if they didn't come up with the backstory, I'd come up with it for them (and that's what I wound up doing). They were more focused on "playing the powers" than building the characters. Still, we came up with some playable characters, and started to play. I had difficulty building encounters that would prove in any way challenging for them, and when I did, they immediately spent their experience points to eliminate their weaknesses...(That mentalist really messed us up, I'm spending all my XP on mental defense! [until its impossible for even Charles Xavier to even detect that I have a mind]) I haven't given up. For my next attempt, I'm returning to my favorite genre: Fantasy. This time, after visiting the forums and having picked up a couple of additional source books, I have a better idea of where to set the limits and what to include when calculating those limtis. All the same, I'm going to have the players provide me with the character concept and background (if I can drag it out of them), and I'm going to build the characters. We'll have to wait to see how it goes...

Last year, I picked up "Last Dominion - Echoes of Glory". I've been trying to find or create a good "low-magic" / "magic-rare" campaign setting for Fantasy Hero, and so far this was the best source book I've found. In reading the book, several references are made to additional related books ("Rivers End" and "Night of Fire"); however, I've never been able to locate either of these two books. Does anyone know where / how they can be found?