Michael Hopcroft

Correct my if I'm mistaken, but if Normal Characteristic Maxima is the norm in a campaign (as it is in most fantays HERo camapigns), it isn;t worth points to the character, is it? So why give the orc 20 free disad points for NCM when PCs don;t get those free points? You could certainly base the orc on 25+25 (competent Normal) and have the same basic effect.

All this talk about swords has had me wondering what it must be like on the Elemental Plane of Sharpness. This would be a very hard plane for humans to survive in, as the very air cuts like, well, something very sharp. the ground cuts like something very sharp to. fact is, everything cuts. Still, you could summon things from the elemental plane of Sharpness that are, well, sharp. Sharp enough to be extremely effective weapons if handled very, very carefully. beings from that plane would be Sharpness elementals. Their touch is a potent HKA, Always On. Everything they come into contact with is cut. they can slice through armor like it was paper, and the only thing that stops them from being unsotoppable killingg machines is the fact that all they care about uis getting back to their own plane where nobody minds that everything is sharp.

Now that's a sword that needs a dulling spell to be placed in its sheath! What are the game effects of cutting the fabric of space-time? This particular sword is sharp enough that it can cut into the astral plane, affecting beings with astral bodies. You could slay Sauron with a sword like this.

If the theory is ture, and there is indeed an infinity of parallel universes, then somewhere everything happened. Now suppose there were things in these alternative universes that someone on this Earth wanted to retrieve. never mind how he knows about them. Never mind why he wants them or why they are of any value. The point is that you, P.C. Hero, and your colleagues have been given the task of retrieving these things for him. Oh, and did I mention you can;t go home until you have them all? The mechanism by which you go between dimensions is not that important, and is out of your control anyway. All you know when you arrive at a new universe is that there is a specific thing you are supposed to retrieve. You'll need the unique skills you were hired for to retrieve it, but first you'll have to find it in a completely unfamiliar world. Plus the people who have it now are unlikely to just give it to you. No, that would be too easy. Plus somehow you;ve got to stay one step ahead of the Dimension Police, an extratemporal organization whose sole reason for being is stopping people like you from doing exactly what you're doing. Who knows what those darn cops are going to do to you when they finally catch you -- you keep hearing rumors about how when they find out who you are and where you came from they can do something like prevent your birth or something equally nasty. So you'll just have to make sure they don;t catch you. Not that you were told in advance about them, of course.....

That's a good thought. You could have "Magical Ranged Attack" as the base power with Variable Advantage that enables the user to simulate the effects of fire attacks, cold attacks, lightning, blasts of pure mana, blasts designed to affect astral or ethereial bodies, etc. That still doesn;t answer the basic question of whether having Spells as a separate, cheaper (due to the multiplier) class of pwoers counts as a framework in itself. Especially if you allow a Limitation called "Spell" to reflect that the power is in effect a spell; it may be Instant (just say the word and the spell goes off) but it won;t work in any area where magic is nullified, is automatically affected by any Dispel Magic effects, etc.

Infintely sharp? As in "this sword was forged by magic on the Elemntal Plane of Sharpness" sharp? I have a hard time imagning something that shapr. At least the wielder should be greateful the hilt isn't sharp....

Would it be simply too much power for characters to take a Magic Mutliplier for their campaign and then be able to build power Frameworks such as a Multipower within that framework? I'm trying to model the effect of a wizard who has a basic attack spell with many variations on it, such as fireballs that do different things depending on the user's intent.

Re: Re: Re: So many possibilties I wish i knew more about the saying, but someone in the anoicnet world was quoted as saying something to the f\effect that the Egyptians were so obsessed with magic that"When God handed out ten parts of magic to the world, Egypt got nine". I wish i knew the exact quote or who said it. Egyptian fantasy would be quite fascinating, especially if you included the afterlife much as the Egyptians perceived it. A HERO equivalent of the d20 supplement Testament (it'sbeen on my to-buy list sof so long that by the time I get around to actually buying it it might be out of print) might also be very interesting, although how you do it without offending everyone is an interesting question. The conflict between the Israelite traditionalists and the Baalists who thrived in the Holy Land would be a quite interesting environment for replaying. Think it'd be easy to choose sides? Think again.

I suppose it's safe to mention this now I am publishing two different anthropomorphic games in 2004 that take totally different approaches to the problem of carnivores. In Fuzz: the Furry Police RPG one of the central tenets of civilized existence is that you don't eat sentient beings. It's a gigantic social and religous taboo; in the words of Ibrahim, founder of the first of the OVerfaiths, "Eat nothing that thinks". Not all the animal races rose to sentience, so there are plenty of non-sentient animals for the carnivores to eat. And those carnovires who do violate the taboo are considered the worst of sociopaths. On the other hand, the world of The Kevin & Kell Roleplaying Game (based on the popular online comic by Bill Holbrook) accepts predation as a fact of life. in fact, it's big business. The heroine of the comic is an employee of herdthinners, inc., leading supplier of groceries to the civilized carnivores. herbivores have come to accept that they might be eaten at any time, and it keeps them on their toes. The central theme of the comic is what happens when a wolfess and a rabbit overcome their natural tendencies, fall in love and marry. Kell, the wolf, remains a carnivore and a top-flight predator, who goes out into the wild every day to go to work (and her job comes with its own paid lunch!). But so far she has not eaten her husband (well, not in any manner he would object to:) ) and she restricts herself to prey that has chosen to live in "the Wild" and accept the risks therof. The circle of life is respected by all in that world, and it is generally accepted that the fate of the old and slow is to be, well, dinner.

Well, it certainly looks like a fun film if nothing else. It'll be interesting to see how close it strays to the dangerous territory of self-parody, though. I wonder how machine-gun bullets stand a chance against those robots no matter how good a pilot Sky Captain is....

Someday I'll have to go to one of the big anime cons. You get to see the most interesting stuff at the big cons, plus the license announcements are always made there. The thing about Voices of a Distant Star is that it is essentially a solo project. I didn;t think that was entirely possible in anime. In the meanwhile, thosemecha would be quite interesting. And I don't quite understand the ending -- is she alive of dead?

I just realized that the Xellos writeup needs -- work. He doesn;t JUST have a VPP to work with, although most of what he coes could be modleed with a VPP. I guess i had a problem with hero Designer when writing him up. I'll have to refamiliarize myself with the software again and make one more try to add a few of his extra powers. For one thing, Xellos has the annoying habit of teleporting all over the place for no apparent reason. That merits a separate power, especially since he can teleport ANYWHERE.

Is the advanatge of having a full 360-degree view of your surroundings in the cockpit of your spacecraft, mecha or plane enough of a combat advanatge to be worth points in the vehicle design process? I was inspired by this anime I saw (which i mentioned in another topic) in which the pilot of the space fighter appeared to be sitting alone in infinite space. She could see everything that was going on around her in all directions, which is actually something you really need in 3-D combat environments, when something could come up from beneath you as easily as from in front or behind. Of course that mecha also had a heads-up display and sensors that showed the relative position of the enemy.

I just saw an anime movie I had purchased, but had not watched for a while. Why on Earth was i foolish enough to put off wtaching Voices of a Distant Star? This movie, which was done by a very small crew, is utterly inredible. In one sense, it's a story fo a mecha pilot and the boy she left behind 9and it does have some incredible battle seuqences), but on the other hand it's a wrenching story of the effects of relativity on a relationship. Advanced cellphones can send messages light-years into space, but they can only travel at the speed of light so a message can take years top get from Sirius to Earth. Not to mention the necha are very cool -- especially the cockpits, which seem to be floating in the middle of space giving the pilot a 360-degree view of the surroundings. Strangely enough, the vision only reinformces the terrible isolation felt by the heroine as the film progresses and she gets farther and farther from the boy she loves.... It's amazing that all this was essentially done by one mand, working pretty much alone. make me wonder why I'm doing games when i could be making movies. Oh yes, i can;t draw. that's why.

Re: Re: Re: How does sharpness affect a sword? The magic on this particular blade from fiction amde it so sharp that a dulling spell had tgo be cast on it just so it could be scabbarded. otherwise, it was so sharp it would ahve cut right through any sheath you tried to carry it in.] Apparently this is an artifact-class weapon....

One thing I've been wondering is how a sword beign sharper than a normal sword affects the damage it does? Particularly if the sword gets sharper all the time as it is affected by the magic that makes it extra-sharp? In hsort, is there a real upper limit to the DC even a magic sword can have?

I blieve there is at least one thread on fertitlty magic on the board already. And if you don't want to make any religoous comments, then by allmeans don't. None of this is helping me work out the spell in HERO terms, however. perhaps we should ahve a separate topic, "Mage's Workshop", for people who have a spell efect in mind but are having trouble working it out in game terms to get help.

A piece of fanfciton I just read had an extremely interesting "Clerical" spell that played a central role in the story and which certainly surprised the charavcter it had been cast on. basically it's a spell that is part of the standard wedding ceremony of a particular culture that binds the couple for lfie magically as well as socially. In toehrwords, once the sepll is cast on you you WILL NOt part until death. Nor will you want to. further, there is no undoing the "binding" spell. The race that uses this spell is extraordinarily long-lived, and this spell was designed so that a marriage could theoertically endure formillenia. The spell does nothing to prevent disputes, arguments, fights, etc., between the couple. It does not enrue they will be especially "happy". But it does prevent the marriage from being broken up -- even if you try to leave, you will always come back. One could make ths epll even more intense by having it enforce fidelity as well. those it is cast on lose sexual interest in all persons except each other (and have continuing, intense desire for each other). This could be even nastier when cast on someone who was not expecting it.

At what rate is an END battery recharged? And what is the modifier for a ONE-USE END battery (in other words, onc ethe END in the abttery is used up it's come forever -- sor of like non-replaceable Charges that can be used for any power the character can normally draw from the battery on.)? Finally, can you choose to put off recharing your END battery for later if the recharged END comes from your perosnal store of END?

If two characters are fixated enough on each other that it domoinates their thoughts, but are they unwilling to admit it even to themselves, can they take a disadvanatge to relfect such a 'relationship"? And if the nature of the relationship changes (i.e. they come out of denial) can they keep but alter the disad to reflect their new relationship? I'm trying to model the "couple-in-denial" syndrome, a common anime trope, in HERo terms.

I have a question about this armor belt: if you are transforming your clothing into chainail armor, wouldn;t it be very uncomfmrtable to wear? perahps it would be better to write it up in such a way that is has some properties of armor (the protective one) but not others (it still "breathes", it still absorbs your sweat, etc.) so that you can wear it in comfort, especially in hot weather. It would be even better is it still looked like your normal clothing. there may be areas it won;t protect (the head, the hands, etc.) but it would be an excellent form of discreet protection. Kings and other powerful nobles would pay parge sums for magical items with those properties as protection against assassins that get through their bodyguards or against sniping archers.

I haven;t decided on things like power and technologylevel, whether there will be magic, etc., but I just got a weird idea. Can you imagine a game world in which the USa had been dissolved and each of the 50 states was in indpeendnent country? This would probably only happen if technology, transportation and communications had broken down to the point that such a large country could no lger be held together. And the sytats would not remain independent long if the saem phenomenon had not happened in the rest of the world. Transportation would be animal-profelled, sailing ships, and the like. Weapons might be the remnants of the weapons that exist today utnil the ammunition runs out -- after that, it's back to black powder and cold steel. I suspect one of the circumtances that would bering something like this about is the world running completely out of current energy sources such as oil and coal, making it impossible to do things like power vehicles or generate electricity. The pricniple question is what would keep the large states like California and new york from swallowing the smaller states like Oregon, Nevada and Connecticut. Of course, if magic returns this becomes a humans-only fantasy game (unless magic is used to create monsters). Since books can still be read scientific knowledge, even though it may not always be usable, was not lost. Scholars know how petroleum products were made, for example, but with no petroleum the knl\owledge is useless. less useless is the cultural heritage of the past -- and I can imagine that as 'the end" approached a massive effort was made to convert all the digital and film history into a form that can be disseminated without expending energy. Thus, Casablanca still exists, but instead of watching it on a screen you read it in the form of a comic book. You don't listen to the Beatles, but you read theyr lyrics and play the sheet music on your acoustic instruments. Minstrelry is back, with two hundred years of pop music hisotry to draw on. if everybody is in the same boat, will there be new 'wars between the states" or is there a diferent dynamic going on?

I could have given Xellos another 5 disad points because of Filia. It would be Rivalry with the Dragon shrine maiden, but the question is what kind? Professional? or Romantic? Let me explain. the usual definition of a Romantic Rivalry is that you and your rival are after the same person. Like two ace pilots after the pretty nurse back at the base. But Xellos and Filia fight with such gusto that many fans suspect an underlying attraction. It's the "couple-in-denial" syndrome that is very common to anime, of which there are too many exambples to list. There are two couples in Slayers that are regarded as 'canon". that is directly supported by the source material. Xellos and filia is more of a 'fanon" couple -- the fans suspect but there is no direct proof.

Here is my first attempt at Slayers most imafm\ous mazoku -- Xellos the Trickster! Xellos the Trickster Priest Player: NPC Val Char Cost 20 STR 10 23 DEX 39 18 CON 16 19 BODY 18 23 INT 13 39 EGO 58 20 PRE 10 18 COM 4 10 PD 6 9 ED 5 4 SPD 7 14 REC 12 60 END 12 38 STUN 0 6" RUN02" SWIM04" LEAP0Characteristics Cost: 210 Cost Power END 212 Mazoku Powers: Variable Power Pool (Dark magic), 100 base + 112 control cost, Conditional Power Power does not work in Very Uncommon Circumstances (Power does not work when it goes against interests of Beastmaster Xellas; +0), Usable By Other (+1/4), Powers Can Be Changed As A Zero-Phase Action (+1) (212 Active Points) Powers Cost: 212 Cost Skill 3 Acrobatics 14- 3 Acting 13- 3 Bribery 13- 7 Bureaucratics 15- 5 Conversation 14- 7 Interrogation 15- 3 Lipreading 14- 3 Persuasion 13- 3 Seduction 13- 3 Sleight Of Hand 14- 3 Tactics 14- Skills Cost: 43 Cost Talent 3 Absolute Time Sense 15 Beast Speech 10 Follow-Through Attack 6 Lightning Reflexes: +4 DEX to act first with All Actions Talents Cost: 34 Total Character Cost: 499 Val Disadvantages 20 Psychological Limitation: Secretive: (Very Common, Strong) 20 Social Limitation: Subject to orders for Beastmaster Xellas: (Very Frequently, Major) 20 Susceptibility: Joy and Happiness of Others, 1d6 damage per Phase (Common) 10 Dependence:: The Pain and Suffering of Others Takes 3d6 Damage (Very Common, 6 Hours) Disadvantage Points: 70 Base Points: 75 Experience Required: 354 Total Experience Available: 354 Experience Unspent: 0

I have this idea for building as a superhero character for a Golden Age-style game Cogito -- the Smartest Man Alive. I'm trying to figure out what to buy for a character whose only superpower is an amazing intellect. No Mental powers -- he's just smart. Naturally he would have a very high INT -- just how high is open to debate. But he would have a lot of knowledge skills, a lot of the INT-based skills, a lot of sciences and the like. And he'd have detective skills up the wazoo. The problem is what would he do when he had to resort \o physical violence, as all superheroes have to do at some point? Hhe could certainly learn martial arts manuvers, but a supervillain with powers would wipe the floor with him unless he somehow managed to psoition himself to ALWAYS have the advantage. I'm going to have to try to create this character sometime, but I have a feeling he would be very difficult to play properly. I may be smart myself, but am i THAT smart?