Jkeown

Re: No Horses For You

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1170820#post1170820

How's this? I did this a while back, but maybe it's relevent to this thread... If not...

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs

My Orcs (Zarku) were made citizens of the Empire by the stroke of somebody's pen. Most of the younger ones don't know or care that they are now citizens, and the older generation is still of the "Empire as Target" mindset.

It's a wonderful thing.

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs

I have many races. In fact, I've been thinking of cutting back since no one plays anything but Humans and Elowan and Dharzooni in my games. As you can see from the link, I renamed all the races, and Half-Elves are a true-breeding race, not one-off hybrids. To confuse matters, Half-Elves do happen, and most folks call them Elowan out of ignorance.

I'm about to revise the setting and put out a new guide (the old one is 10 years old and only 144 pages. The new one could go twice that length!).

Races are one thing I'm considering overhauling. Forever (since 1986 at least) every intelligent critter has had a player-accessible package deal. Why I do not know... completeness, perhaps. Also, I hate the idea of a Non-Player Race. If the campaign point levels allow, shouldn't you be allowed to play anything? No?

We'll see. I think the players will like the new book, even with NPC races.

Re: CthulhuTech?

I've a bit of it done, actually... I have etherflyers done, some vehicles, races (kinda bashed together, since race in S1889 meant only stat changes), and skill conversions. I've yet to do the professional package deals or the exclusively Martian packages. RPGs from that age make me just a little nostalgic and prone to sitting and reading them instead of doing actual work. But that will change.

Re: CthulhuTech?

We played a long drawn-out Miskatonic University campaign from c.'87-'93 it was... different.

I think I'll shelve this idea until the core book becomes available again. Meanwhile, I think Space:1889 needs a HEROfication.

Anyone had a look at this? I was thinking of a conversion. (Then again, I was thinking of converting Dark Heresy as well, and we ended up playing right out of the book!). This is a different sort of Mecha setting, based on Lovecraft... but the system itself is awful. My players liken the dice conventions to Yahtzee. HERO makes everything easier IMO...

Re: Colonial Gothic?

Here is the Skills and Knowledges stuff, plus one possible version of Witchcraft... the game doesn't go into to much detail on casting times, but in the interest of not having fireball flinging Colonial magi running around, I settled on longer casting times.

Re: Colonial Gothic?

I'm keeping things intentionally simple. Package deals are little more than Cultural in nature at the moment. Here they are.

Let me strees... this is a very rough draft... I added some disads, mostly Distinctive Features. If a GM doesn't want to deal with the ugly reality of Race Relations from those days, I think such a GM should delete any references to appearance. I myself am not sure how I'm going to run it. Heroes are different from the masses, so they might not worry that one of their number is a freed slave or a Native... other groups might go for Ugly Reality, though... to each his own.

I'm about halfway through converting Rogue Games' Colonial Gothic. It's an interesting setting. America, April 1st, 1776. Your character is a warrior in a different battle waged alongside the Revolution. A battle against the forces of the Dark Native Gods, angry animal spirits, Old World Sorcerors, Amerindian Vampires and the maddened Land Itself that rages against the on-coming European Tide of colonization.

One thing that bugs me about the original rules is that it applies different stat modifiers to Native Americans and those that are adopted by them. For example, Natives get extra STR and CON (in HERO terms) and Adopted get extra INT and EGO. Why is this? Amerindians are just as smart as any European, with the exception of Tech Level.

Anyway... I'm going to push ahead... and start on the magic system. If there's interest, I'll post some stuff later.

Re: Name that flag-suited hero!

Captain Constitution?

Re: ShadowrunHero game?

I am currently running Caleon 1337. It's my normal Fantasy Hero Timeline, but 750 years in the future of our last game, and a few dozen years before the planet gets eaten by a great cosmic magical rift-thingy. I make the PCs pay points for Cyberware, Bioware, Decks and Magic. Guns and stuff are paid for with cash.

This has resulted in high SPD characters who are so wired they can't think straight. They take damage after they use that SPD, though... so it's not so bad.

I'm planning on getting this and ripping into it big time with Hero Designer. I figure with these guys producing 40K stuff at a reasonable rate, I should be able to keep up with them for a while. I know the idea has merit, but I don't know how interested we all are.

Does my stuff at HEROWiki get much interest? If not, I'll keep the conversion to myself and my gang.

Re: Atlantis? What do you do with it?

I think my plan is to have some villian or group disrupt the on-going negotiations between Atlantis and the UN. Who is a good question. I've had one of Teleios' Cloned Soldiers try to assasinate a non-superpowered Atlantean visitor and the IHA attacked one of the mutant heroes. The PCs have conflated the two events, so I might try to justify the IHA having a beef with Atlantis. I do not think that's too far out of bounds. They may view the near-human Atlanteans with the same eyes as mutants. I feel Teleios and the IHA would not work together, but for one to find the other working toward the same goal might be fun. The PCs, too, might enjoy being caught in the middle as the Clones and the Mutant-haters try to maneuver.

The next step, clearly, is to plan Atlantis' reaction to the assasination attempt, would they send a few superpowered heroes to complicate matters or cut off dealings with the landers? Obviously, if they retreat beneath the waves, the story is over. So what other Atlanteans have powers? I'm thinking they should have a supergroup and a Batman analog, plus several solo heroes... any of them taking a serious interest in the suface will draw Stingray and a few solo Atlantean villians to Millenium City... and viola... those folks who hate or fear Atlanis will have a field day.

Now the campaign has all these undersea-types using MC as a proxy battleground. The PCs won't know any of these strange visitors and misunderstandings will pop up like toadstools after a downpour.

Thanks for your input, both past and future!

Anyone tried their hand at Hancock?

Flying Brick... bad attitude... Looks like it will be a fine film.

How do you handle Atlantis? I'm just starting to introduce it in my Sunday Game, and I'm interested in its history in your campaigns. I've read everything about it in CU, CKC and other books, so I know the Official stuff....

I think it will be a fun arc, in a game that won't have any sort of meta-plot. All my other games feature long-drawn out stories, I think I want my Champions game to be very episodic.

Re: Game Design: Champions Online

Fine. How's this?

Champions Online

A Proposal to Revolutionize Massively-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.

Champions broke ground decades ago by replacing Dungeons and Dragons’ Character Classes with a points-driven system that allowed the creation of the character that players wanted to play. Now, with the advent of a number of successful Online Games, Champions can once again revolutionize gaming by acting as the background for a game that breaks the mold.

Player Experience

Character Archetypes

MMOs are dominated by a number of archetypes. These go by various names, but generally breakdown into Direct Damage, Support, Tanks and Melee/DPS types. Champions has the opportunity to break out of this and into a true player-driven experience. Certainly, each of typical Champions archetypes can be used to create the “Classic MMO Archetypes” but the freedom exists to do otherwise, and create a quality single-player experience. The MMO types are replaced with Champions Archetypes that reinforce what is actually seen in comic books, more accurately reflecting the genre. We feel this will result in a more satisfying experience for the player.

MMO Stereotype Typical Power Set

Tank High Defense, Taunt, Melee Attacks, High Health

Direct Damage Low Defense, High Powered Ranged Attacks, Low Health

Support Low Health, Healing, Buff/Debuff powers.

Melee/DPS Medium Health, High Powered Melee Attacks (occasionally Stealth)

HERO characters scarcely map to these stereotypes. The centralizing feature of HERO being character concept, we propose breaking out of the stereotypes and into a concept-centered game engine. Carrying this into an MMO would be relatively easy, given the HERO System's auto-balancing points-based design.

HERO Archetype Typical Power Set

Brick High Strength (“Brick Tricks”), High Defense

Energy Projector High Powered Ranged Attacks

Gadgeteer Technological or Magical Items

Mentalist EGO-Based abilities

Metamorph Shape Shifting

Mystic Magical Abilities

Powered Armor High Defense, Ranged Attacks

Speedster High Movement, Speed-Related Attacks

The first fifteen minutes of play are the most important in any game. You must inform the player of how he will advance, what he must do to advance and what the rewards of advancing are. This can be show-cased in the character creation sequence. When the character is created, its potential is laid out for the player’s review, he knows where he’s headed well in advance of getting there. This helps him make choices in an intelligent fashion.

Each HERO Archetype carries with it a set of “weighted” powers. After the player defines his concept, he chooses an archetype that most closely matches it. He is presented with a selection of powers that are most commonly associated with the Archetype. For example: Bricks are free to choose ranged powers in the Champions pen and paper RPG, and thus should be allowed to do so online. Some limiting factor must be implemented as the game’s internal balance will be thrown off by several million flying, energy-projecting bricks logging in each day. If too much freedom is given, the game will become stale. Stale games don’t sell.

Thus, the Brick chooses most of his powers from the Brick List, and can choose from other Archetypes power lists, though these powers are reduced in effectiveness. In HERO terms, they are the same powers, bought at a lower Active Point level. Perhaps his “Primary Powers” all have a limit of 50 AP, his choice of powers from the Energy Projector List are capped at 25 AP.

Limitations are built into the powers when the character is created. In order to simulate the advances normally gained in MMO’s players use experience points to buy off these limitations. Two mechanisms of advancement spring to mind; a “power-editing” feature that allows the removal of a limitation of the players choice, or a “power scale” in which increases in effectiveness alternate with limitation removal on a menu of advancement. Certainly, the Power Editor provides more player choice, it gives a greater range of freedom which allows character concepts to stay in place. One player might choose to increase a Brick’s defenses over time, whereas another might choose to remove limitations from those defenses, this method results in the “no one right way” approach that Champions is known for.

Disadvantages

After selecting his Archetype and Powers, the player can select from Disadvantages. This was a new concept when HERO introduced them in 1980 and they will be new to the MMO scene as well. The character will literally be a part of his environment, and different from those around him, because his character is not just distinguished by how he affects the world. The world will affect him. Some disadvantages from the HERO system are very easy to code into the character. Vulnerability simply requires mathematical adjustment of incoming damage. Powers will be flagged with a Special Effect and Vulnerability Logic will read the tags and adjust the characters status each time his special effect is applied in the form of an attack or environmental effect.

Even a Dependant NPC can be included at this stage. When the player chooses this option for his character, a separate, low end character generator is invoked. The character picks the details of the DNPC from available options, chooses an in-game avatar from those available, and decides how much danger the NPC can experience. Simply having the NPC puttering around would be meaningless. The game will make the PC earn the points gained by actually involving the DNPC in the games mission structure. Missions can be generated that involve the NPC, placing them in danger or in the path of on-rushing doom that the PC will have to rescue them from. Perhaps at log-in, the player can toggle a series of Game Event click-boxes that allow DNPCs, Rivals, and Hunted missions to be generated by the game’s environment. Experience gained is modified by the number of Game Events the player selects. If he gets bored with saving Cousin Jed every day, he un-clicks the DNPC box and selects his Hunted instead. Now he’s fighting Viper agents this session, and a more individual character narrative unfolds, rather then the player simply wandering through the in-game plotline.

There is more... but its in even rougher form than the above mess.

Re: Game Design: Champions Online

On my hard drive at work, I've a multi-page doc I was going to send to Steve, but I might post it here. You might find my plan a bit out of scope as well.

Re: Most Oscure Reference You've Ever Worked Into a Game

The personal correspondence between Jung and Freud and how it was connected to a Nazi plot to steal atomic weapons from the future.

The Greek invention showed up as a colony administrator in another time travel game (and again in Gamma Hero) as "Archimedes Screw."

Bits of Richard Feynman's Autobiography.

Whole chapters of Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins.

Things Adam Sessler has said on X-Play.

I could go on... but I won't.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

I play Bob Violence on Virtue. My Global is Bob Violence. He's a Mutant Tanker. About Five-foot nuthin' Goggles, big honkin' steam-powered fists. Can jump half a mile. Fun Fun Fun

Re: Traveller Hero... What's Next?

I think an "Enemies" book would be nice...

Re: Our First Traveller HERO Game...

glad to hear it went well!

 

we'd be happy to hear any further commentary, especially from new players.

 

if you have any suggestions on running Call of the Wild as a TH game, we can pass them on to Avenger as well.

I think I just might convert all of Call of the Wild and its sequels to TH, ask Avenger and you guys what I should do with them. Perhaps Avenger could include TH stats in future revisions of their product if we create them... a Hero Community Service?

Re: Our First Traveller HERO Game...

It was a little rough around the edges, but everybody really relaxed when "Pavel" showed up. I switched to my "Lazy Russian" accent, slouched in my chair and offered everybody a drink... "Ve haf... um... Beer... and.... um... Beer."

I'll be converting most of the critters and people to Hero over the weekend. I think next week will be even better!

...went very well. It was thrown together quite quickly, two folks played "Virtual Characters" meaning they didn't have character sheets yet. They played off of package deals and we just played to get a feel for things.

The scenario was "Call of the Wild" from Avenger. It is a very detailed adventure. If you're ever going to do a planetary survey type game, you should pick it up.

Bottom line.. We had a blast!

... my current game is Gamma Hero, with 150pt post-apocalyptic heroes gaining mutations and high-tech gear at a frankly alarming rate. But this is the way I designed it. If someone gets Radioactive Goo on him, he developes strange abilities and we go on.

But what about an even more rapid rise to power? How about 50 pointers getting all sorts of power very suddenly. Normals gaining 250 pts of superpowers in a weird accident, or normals in a modern world who discover alien dimensions and the bizarre paths to power that lurk hidden just beyond sight.

How would you go about introducing your players to such a world? My folks reject it practically out of hand. They don't want to play as those folks before the accident, the big reveal, the Dark Secret that changes their lives in an instant.

They want, in other words, to start out as Heroes and that's it. I think it would be more fun for them to know nothing about the world and let them wonder for an episode or two where all this is leading. Suspense is often a rarity in gaming, methinks.