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Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. The Afreet are a type of creature in my urban fantasy campaign. They are fire elementals summoned into the bodies of humans who have died by fire. They are, however, biased in terms of which bodies they like to be summoned into. They love cops, military types and, well, anyone who gets to use guns on a regular basis. They appreciate the wry humour in phrases like "gun fire" and "fire power". Nice pic, Storn. I especially like the two-gun pose, and the light from the fire reflecting in the guns.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. That's a nice piece.

Re: HERO 5th Revised So I picked up a copy of 5th Edition Revised on the weekend and... Holy Moley! It's huge. It's a phone book. It's a tome! It's... it's... dare I say it...? "To Serve Fan! It's... a cookbook!"

Re: OIF for Powered Armor why?

Re: The Legion Thread

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want? Oooo. I second that.

Re: An EB by any other name... Well said. I'm always surprised when people can't get the difference between "Here's something that I'd like to talk about" and "You must do this thing because I'm complaining."

Re: Champs Worldwide: Whaddya want? I agree with a lot of the posts that have already been made: - eschew stereotypes and super-patriots - mix up cultural myths and stories I'd probably also add: - don't forget minority populations in foreign countries. E.g. a major hero from the Nederlands might be of middle-eastern decent. But what I'd also like to see are characters that seem to have history in their nations. For example, what does the Super Proletarian do now that the USSR has fallen? Has he taken on a new name, new costume? Did he have trouble adjusting to new ideals? "For the glory of the workers... er... I mean: For the honour of Mother Russia!" Did the cultural revolution in China lead to a high number of plain-clothes heroes, rather than the traditional spandex? "Superhero codenames are too bourgeois, Comrade Wu". Does a third-generation Australian Aborigine hero never refer to his ancestors (it's taboo to say the names of the dead)? And, hey, forget that "Tasmanian Devil II and Tasmanian Devil III" naming system. I'd like the worldwide supers to seem as well-established and rich with history as, say, the Fabulous Five.

Re: An EB by any other name... Obviously I know nothing about your con experiences, but I think I know a number of the people you've gamed with. My perception is that they're: - mathematically/technically inclined - read a lot - long-time rpgers - who have their own copies of the rulebooks It doen't surprise me that a group like that doesn't have a problem with a very math-like way of organizing information ("We define 'stunned' as..."). I often play with a lot of first-time gamers, and even when I have players with RPG experience, it's almost never with the Hero rules. I struggle, regularly, with trying to simply and easily communicate Hero concepts to these people. I really grok the original point of this thread -- trying to identify potential areas of confusion and looking for alternative ways of communicating the concepts. (This also overlaps a lot with what my job is about -- trying to design computer applications in a way that ensures that people who are nothing like me can take them over and change or support them relatively safely).

I've been rolling this around in my head for a few days. It started out with me trying to create a Hero Designer export template, and then started to expand from there. Some of my favourite rules books from Hero have been the UNTIL Super-powers database and the Grimoires. And my perception, especially in the case of the former, is that people have really responded to those well. One of the things that strikes me as very different about those books is the layout of powers. The description, special effects, etc. all take centre stage, and then the construction details follow in a "oh, here's how you'd build that" kind of way. Speaking for myself, I think that this is a much more accessible way of writing up powers and spells than just the traditional "here's the construction" way. As a lot of people noted, when the book came out, this accessibility was extremely helpful for new players (and for people who just prefer to think in concrete terms, rather than abstract terms). So the thought I had was this: how might I restructure character sheets if I was much more interested in highlighting the concept rather than the rules? Some thoughts I had were: 1) It'd be nice to have "expository text" prior to a power construction that allows one to write up an ability in a format similar to USPD. 2) Sometimes the existing divisions of abilities is arbitrary. For example, in a Cyberpunk setting where characters can buy cybernetics with points or with money, the Powers/Equipment dichotomy is kinda artificial. 3) It'd be nice to categorize abilities and put them in different places on a sheet: e.g. in a Fantasy Hero campaign, it'd be nice to pull all the "spells" together and put them in a "spells" section of the character sheet. In Hero Designer terms, lists are a good start on this, but you still can't really change the character sheet layout based on what kind of list it is. (And I say that with clear knowledge that HD is a leader in the "design your own character sheet" world) And I do think that's meaningful. Perhaps not in a supers campaign where characters have "superpowers", and you want to have characters sheets with a common "here are my powers" area. But in other types of campaigns, the categories have more significance. Examples: vehicles in SF campaigns -- propulsion and weapons and sensors are different types of things and I would like to design character sheets that help me compare the relative capabilities of, say, two different starships. So, I'm interested in hearing if other people have done experimental things with character sheets, and what other people think of the ideas.

Re: Unused Bird/Flying Creature Motifs Kestrels. (There was one Hawk and Dove villain named Kestrel, but it's much less common than hawks). Petrel is also an attractive name for a bird; I also think one could do something interesting with the phrase "stormy petrel".

Re: Good "Four of a Kind"'s... One more: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. (And the team could be called Armageddon Married In the Morning)

Re: Good "Four of a Kind"'s... *shudder*. Howzabout Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy?

Re: Good "Four of a Kind"'s...

Re: The Meta X MR Wild Card Gene Syndrome Virus is Female Dominant!

Has anyone thought of running a campaign based on the TV Series, _Lost_? (I must confess I've always been really fascinated by the use of cinematic devices such as flashbacks in RPGs).

Re: Turakian Age: Why should I buy it? I didn't like it. It has made me reconsider my "buy one of every Hero Games product" policy. I haven't yet passed up a product, but I'd be content to do so, now.

Re: Modern-Day Urban Fantasy I'm currently running a modern-day fantasy on HeroCentral called Things Unseen.

Re: National Warrior Archetypes Do smug and polite go together? BC

Re: Alternate Earth 20: Paradise Island Lost

Re: Favorite Published Villains As a concept, I'm a fan of the 4th-ed punk villain group from _Road Kill_. I think their powers are a bit boring, but I think they're much more interesting than people who are just "evil". They want to rid the world of lame boy bands. That's inspired. In 5th-ed, I like Captain Chronos.

Re: Death with Dignity : An examination of the Golden Age

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: Space: 1889, HERO-style! On a similar topic, I was recently really impressed by the Steam Trek campaign description and wondered what it'd be like with the Hero rules.