CorpCommander

Re: Book Recommendation I saw a documentary on that. Fascinating stuff. It is amazing how people will start with a conclusion and turn science on it's ear an a desperate attempt to prove it. Great recommendation. I'm going to the link now.

Re: Dodge Motivational Poster Brilliant analysis Outsider!

http://bigtmac68.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/dodge.jpg Hilarious. Goodness it is good to be on vacation finally. Actually it is a trendy Staycation and I'm spending part of mine working on my next Hero Campaign! Yay! I hope you all are doing well. It's been a while since I was back here! CC

Re: Online Spacer's Toolkit Interesting discussion! I had contributed one write up ages ago for a droid. I wasn't doing anything with Star Hero then. The last couple of weeks I've been working with another GM to start running a Star Hero campaign. I'm sorry that toolkit isn't around anymore in a way that we can start submitting our writeups to it but I am putting together a new website for holding my gaming materials in general. Maybe if there is interest I can open it up so that Herophiles can upload writeups to it. The site is still under construction and will be until late summer but the url is http://VictoryPoints.com. --Pete

Re: Traveller starship combat Oh and another thing, on shots missing something big that is close... I've seen that. Think of it this way, you probably shouldn't be that close anyway as your weapons and sensors aren't tuned for such close combat.

Re: Traveller starship combat Size shouldn't even matter in a megascaled environment. The influence of size doesn't make sense. Really, what is the difference between a 10m long ship and a 1000m long ship when they are 100,000m apart? 1 point of DCV difference on the "to hit" curve of 3D6 in thousands of times greater than the influence of size at that kind of range. So my advice is to just not have a DCV modifier for size. I wonder if that is a setting in Hero Designer? Just looked and it is not. Still - it is quite a valid approach I think. --Pete

Re: Indiana Jones 4 Trailer is now out!!! But what does 1B7731 mean? http://corpcommander.blogspot.com/2008/02/indiana-jones-and-crystal-skull-decoded.html I think it's a cryptic message. Lucas loves them and its too well framed in the shot to not be something. Maybe I'm crazy but it struck me as meaningful the first time I saw it.

Re: IK Hero? Wow, great thread. I just noticed it today. I ran IK using Hero shortly after Warmachine came out. I ran it for about a year. We did the first module of the Witchfire trilogy in that time period. It was definitely a lot of fun. I like the discussion of conversion. However I would suggest that deriving high dexterity from DEF is probably a mistake. I would suggest that high DEF probably indicates combat skill levels with a magical or focused based special effect.

Re: Where is Hero? I've been on the opposite end of the ray and its no picnick here either. It turns out the opposite of money is time. So while I am doing well money wise I haven't the time to even perform a zero phase action. :-(

When do presence attacks happen? It seems assumed that they generally can happen at the begining of a segment since one of the results allows the sucessful character to go first in spite of DEX. For example in a duel that begins on Segment 12 it might be the very first thing to occur as the Heroes attempt to gain an advantage over the Villians. Since this type of attack has nothing to do with DEX it seems plausible it could be done before DEX rolls. Would one wait to see the results of the DEX roll in the case of Hero and Villian operating in the same segment? Ex. Wyatt Earp beats Doc Holiday to Oak Grove and faces down Johnny Ringo in a duel. Johnny Ringo outclasses Wyatt in DEX and would probably win the DEX roll to see who goes first. However Wyatt does have a fearsome reputation and would like to try to intimidate Johnny to prevent him from putting a lead bean in his noggin. "Go ahead Ringo, skin that smokewagon and see what happens..."

Re: 6th Edition Hero System While the points made here are quite subtle concerning senses the fact is that GM Fiat overrides everything. If the book says you can't but it makes sense to the GM then it CAN. If the book allows it but the GM thinks it breaks his game - then it CAN'T. 5ER: It's a toolkit - not a religious document.

Re: Exclusive: Collector Amasses Complete DC Collection Think of the knowlege this guy and his team have about the DC Universe though. Some of us who play the game probably haven't touched a comic in years. I'm guilty as charged on that account. Someone, perhaps on this list, has a complete collection of all the Hero books. I have a nearly complete collection of DOJ Hero books and several older titles including the most hated versions of Hero that shall be left nameless. While not even close to equivilent, it is still something to consider.

ORIGINAL STORY HERE: http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/scoop_article.asp?ai=5726&si=122 COPY: Exclusive: Collector Amasses Complete DC Collection Superstars, Scoop, Friday, July 09, 2004 A private collector in the northeastern United States has accomplished the astounding and unprecedented feat of assembling a complete collection of every comic book ever published by DC Comics. For those of you who have trouble visualizing the enormity of the task, that's over 30,000 individual comic books! Amazingly, with the exception of a small handful of items toward the end of the quest, this collection was achieved the old-fashioned way with a lot of legwork and mileage, scouring comic shows and stores large and small from coast to coast. Almost no Internet usage was involved in assembling this amazing collection. The collector, who has chosen to remain anonymous at this time, started on the road to this accomplishment in 1970, when it was decided on whim, to accumulate all the back issues of all the DC superhero comics. Subsequently at the San Diego ComiCon (as it was then known) in 1987, with the superhero titles virtually completed, the collector had reached a crossroads. "What do I do once my primary collecting goal has been achieved?" was the basic gist of the discussion, a situation many collectors have faced. At the urging of the staff of the now-defunct Sparkle City Comics, the collector chose to expand the parameters of the collection to include all of the comic books ever published by DC. For 5 years, until its dissolution in 1992, Sparkle City served as the main conduit, funneling vintage DC Comics into the collector's hands. With their heavy annual show schedule, the company was able to easily connect with other dealers and private collectors throughout the country in order acquire needed items. A dedicated band of fellow collectors and other supportive dealers also actively participated in the hunt over the years. It was common practice at the beginning of a major convention for the hunters to congregate at the Sparkle City table for copies of the latest want list update, before fanning out into the dealers room. In early 1992, Mike Wilbur of Diamond International Galleries and Alan Grobman (both then of Sparkle City) entered the ranks of the select few who have personally seen the collection. They spent three weeks that winter at the collector's house. Day after day, from morning until after midnight, they flipped through a seemingly endless succession of boxes, as they checked, verified and toke notes. Complete runs of Action, Adventure, All Star, Batman, Detective, More Fun, Sensation, Superman, and other titles both well-known and obscure passed through their hands as the weeks progressed. From early rarities like Big Book of Fun Comics and New Fun Comics up through the Golden and Silver Ages to then-current titles, the main core of the DC collection was there. All that remained at that point was to finish filling in the fringes with the rest of the war, western, romance, mystery, and humor titles. Ongoing new releases were covered through a long-standing arrangement with a local comic shop. "It was an almost surreal experience," Wilbur said, "just box after box of books that most collectors can only dream of seeing." Among the more esoteric items in the collection is the two-volume set of Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, published by DC in 1978. With a print run of only 35 copies, these books contain stories left over following the infamous "DC Implosion." Printed for copyright purposes, these were distributed internally to creators whose work it featured. The collector's copy was acquired from The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide's publisher Bob Overstreet. Included with the books is a cover letter to Overstreet from then-DC Editor Mike Gold, detailing the information for the Guide. "I remember [the collector] spent a lot of time visiting when we were still down in Tennessee," recalled Overstreet, "I sold [the collector] an Action Comics #1 and a few other things." The almost final book in the collection was the romance title Girls' Love Stories #56, a nothing-in-particular issue of a nothing-special title that was simply frustratingly difficult to locate. Acquired in late 2002, this was thought to be the end of the long road, until the discovery of the obscure Golden Age DC comic, the Fat and Slat Joke Book. Once this additional piece became known, a copy was acquired within a couple of months, in early 2003. Since the assembly of the collection was primarily a labor of love and not a search for glory, the collector had chosen to avoid the limelight. However, in light of the historical importance of the achievement, the collector did acknowledge to Scoop that "The First Complete DC Collection" was a reality. The collector would like to extend personal thanks to Joe Vereneault of JHV Associates, Alan Grobman, Gene Carpenter of All-American Comics, fellow collector Mike D'Alessandro and Wilbur, with special mentions also going to Joe Mannarino, John Verzyl of Comic Heaven, Mike Goldman of Motor City Comics, Ron Pussell of Redbeard's Book Den, Harley Yee, Richard Evans of Bedrock City Comics, Rob Ronin, Michelle Nolan, and Nostalgia Zone of Minnesota for their assistance, support, and encouragement.

Re: Furious Counterstrike I like your write up quite a bit. Linking a power to a specific END reserve that is filled only when certain actions take effect is quite nice and subtle. Good job!

and discuss!

Re: Bleeding The games are one offs set in the Great Back of Beyond circa 1920 - 1937. They are attempts at getting stodgy old fellows like myself out of the rut of just playing historical miniatures games and adding some flavor to it all. That being said, they are being eased into it all by basically being shown the combat system and having games run with a lot of miniatures! We did a fun game with the Japanese encountering an insurgent aid station in Manchuria with a resulting firefight. Each player had 4 NPCs and 1 main character. It was fun. As for body armor, there is none. Unless you count helmets which were good for protection against near hits at best and made a fine sink for washing up in. For soldier stats we used the basic soldier in the villians section of Pulp Hero which worked fine. The problem was that it was unlikely that anyone got killed by one shot. The usual thing that happened was they bleed to death, while fighting! So since the players are running the privates I basically can't nerf them. They won't buy it and suspension of disbelief is critical here. The game has to work fairly. Since the character creation is not critical at this junction its ok for the leaders to get killed off - they will just pick someone else to lead. The key here is that people still fighting after multiple wounds is not going to fly. I might use the standard effect rule for the guns which will simplify things a bit. A Japanese rifle will do 6 points of damage. Normally this would only be 12 to the head. If I double it, it will be 24 which is death. If there is a 2 def helmet (some roll to activate) involved then it goes 6-2 x 4 = 16. Assuming no other injuries, this person can be saved with a decent paramedic roll, assuming not everyone is on the line blazing away! I think that will work. The idea is to maintain a lot of flavor (the strong point of RPGs) without making the combat too cumbersom with an infinity of die rolls to be made each turn.

Re: Bleeding Actually, compared to other systems, I like the diversity in the ways you can get wounded in Hero. I am not sure that doubling the body damage is actually accurate but I am going to try it. I did not like the extra die rolling for bleeders since typically there are in the games I am running 20+ combatants. I've simplified many of them but still it means a lot of trouble. Also in the game I am running, resistant armor just doesn't exist so its all about tactics and moving to cover and shooting from there. The type of game where it really means something to step out into the line of fire if you are attached to your character. I considered making the NPCs a bit more "nurfed" but it just didn't seem right. So, it will be very important for characters to use their skills to get all the advantages they can.

Re: Bleeding Tried it in a larger combat and decided I actually didn't like the extra die rolling. I've decided to amend the hit location chart and double the damage multipliers for realistic damage. The problem is we had a lot of bleeders and a lot of people who continued to fight on after taking 4-5 shots. I am not sure if that is realistic or not. Given that the rifles used were pretty standard WWII guns I think the damage was not high enough... thus the change. Thanks for making the comments though!

I asked myself, "how come in Hero, when you get cut by a knife or stabbed and are not killed you are in no further danger assuming you don't receive additional wounds?" In real life if you get cut or shot or stabbed or pummeled really hard such that there is internal damage more often than not you are going to bleed to death either externally or internally. So I revisited 5ER pgs. 417-18. There you can find a decent rule for bleeding that has rational limits on it. The question is, should I include this in my Heroic campaign? I think I will and here is why. In a super-heroic game the emphasis seems to be on saving others and success is measured in terms of the greatest good you can achieve. In a heroic game, the risk of losing your own life changes the equation quite a bit and there is a lot more motivation derived for personal reasons, I think. In a heroic setting the characters take measured gambles to achieve their goals (braving the dart trap to get the golden idol, engaging the henchmen guarding the secret door, dodging the machine gun fire to breakout of the encampment with the mysterious suitcase..) The rule makes wounding a bit more dangerous to the players and thus ups the risk factor. Players have to be much more careful (and sneaky and ruthless) when they make decisions. In a straight-up super-heroic game its all about frontal-assault, get in, stomp on the bad guys, stomp on their minions and then get out. Heroic action is more about recognizing you are vulnerable and taking that into effect as you plan how you are going to get in, grabbing what you want (or whatever action is warranted) and then getting out. Alive. While fun, you aren't required to stomp on or exterminate 100% of the bad guys to achieve your goals. This will date me but I was thinking about a short campaign based on the 1970's film "Kelly's Heroes" (fitting title, eh!) in which a WWII motley crew of disaffected soldiers go AWOL in search of a gold shipment behind German lines. As one puts it, "its the perfect crime!" What holds them together is the fact that the task is impossible to accomplish solo. Ultimately their rational is personal enrichment; a rather non-heroic goal! They have to balance personal greed with the greater good of the group. At what point are you heroic and at what point do you concede to your own instinct for self-preservation? Clearly that decision is based mainly upon the answer to "how likely am I to die?" Since the bleeding rule is official, and Hero System is the ultimate gamer's toolkit, I think its sufficient to say that very few other gaming systems out there are as flexible as Hero in this regard. What other optional rules do you favor that ad spice to Heroic level games?

Does anyone allow this? It was originally in Champs III I think. Basically the idea was you earned some Character Points and then wagered them in the danger room. If you survived the exercise without having to hit the Emergency Stop! button or getting KO's/KIA'd then you gained an extra CP. I can't remember if its in the new Champions books or not. Another thread here on Goodman got me to pull out the old books and I came across Champs III's handling of danger rooms and the bit on CP Wagering. Fun stuff!

Re: Future submarine warfare? well current SC systems require more than just shape. The Russians are releasing a chemical that coats the body with bubbles. This reduces the drag an extreme amount. The nose cone is not pointy either but rather flat. Bullets would have to have the same type of system and would therefore be very bulky. Probably not what you want. I assume you are thinking of an anti-torpedo defense? The best defense is to break the solution either with stealth or deception. IMHO. --Pete

Re: Future submarine warfare? Most likely subs will deploy lots and lots of robots in the future. You may get a solution on the primary but you will have to be wary of all the robots that will A) try to defend the sub or, failing that, seek revenge. Robot subs coordinated by the primary are not very new idea and have been discussed for 15 years now. However the technology for them to be more and more autonomous is starting to take shape. They can be small and built for a specific purpose like anti-air (pesky P3! Go away!) or they can be medium sized and capable of a lot of interesting tasks. --Pete

A few years ago I got back into the Hero System thanks in large part to Rod Currie for running an excellent game at Origins and the Hero Designer software (which made life sooooo much easier!) I ran a fantasy campaign for 18 months, having converted the Witchfire Trilogy (Privateer Press) over to Fantasy Hero (which, in my humble opinion, worked much better than D20.) About 18 months have gone by since that campaign ended and I am thinking of starting a new one. However things have changed. I don't see the old gang much any more as many have moved on. Recruiting new players has always been a big challenge for me. What general advice do people have for recruiting new players? --Pete

Scooby-Doo Cthulhu resource guide Pretty funny stuff! Since Horror Hero isn't out I figure this fits here better than in the other places. I think the Mystery Machine needs rockets and a twin .50 though. ;-) --Pete

Re: Magic Missiles Heh, I like how people argume more about DnD on the Hero boards than they do about Hero itself... :-p