tetsujin28

The point being: they're not worth the trouble. If I really want to use BESM or Pendragon magic, it's best to play those games and play to their strong points. Hero's strong point has never been spontaneity, but rather its intellectual rigour.

An excellent point. Whilst I don't see the base FH magic system as "inflexible", it's true that for some conversions there's no way around the VPP. As an example, my two favourite magic systems, that found in Pendragon and the dynamic sorcery power from Big Eyes Small Mouth, are both best represented by VPPs. However, I still feel that VPPs are just too big a can of worms in FH. I called up 7 friends last night, all with from 3-20 years of experience with Hero (the mean being 10). I asked them if they would allow VPPs if they were running a fantasy campaign, and five of them gave responses ranging from "Are you crazy?" to just "No." The other three answered that they would allow them only if they (the GM) created all the effects, and that they weren't up to doing that much additional work.

Be sure to just ditch any healing abilities of the Aid power.

Notice what the first words in my post were: "Not to be mean." Nothing in my post was a personal attack on anyone. By "It's not Champions, so just live with it," I was drawing on many years of Hero experience (I co-wrote some of the powers that found their way into Champions II), and the fact that VPPs (and other power frameworks) were never designed to work in any setting other than Champions. It would appear that some members of this board have even thinner skins than most gamers. My opinion was asked, and I gave it. Based on my experience running Hero in a fantasy context for more than 20 years, my reply is still to not allow VPPs or MPs in a fantasy context. They're just too powerful. Re: no power being able to be "game-busting". A power can easily be over-effective if it does too many things too well for too little cost, which is what power frameworks do in FH, especially VPPs and MPs with ultra slots. What especially happens is the D&D syndrome of skills being replaced by magic and magic items.

Couldn't you replicate this by simply using the Variable advantage advantage?

Markdoc, I agree. There seems to be a lot of "armchair anthropology" regarding mages being weak in FH. As I mentioned in another post on letting mages use VPPs, I've run fantasy games with Hero since before the original FH was published, and the problem has always been how to rein in the mages, not the non-magic types. My solution was to convert WW's Exalted - that way, everyone uses magic in some form or another.

Agreed.

I'm going to be converting WW's Exalted, so all PCs will have access to charms (heroic abilities) and some will have sorcery (mostly summoning and the like).

I don't remember you saying anything in the least bit offensive. You asked for opinions, and many people have voiced theirs. There's nothing wrong with that - that's what game-related message boards are for. Remember that gamers tend to be an opinionated and contentious lot to begin with, especially on a subject like VPPs, which have been the subject of more discussion than nearly anything else since they came out in Champions II. (The only thing I can think of that's caused nearly as many arguments is the cheap cost of STR.) Hero players are alot like Talmudic scholars - we gain pleasure from the minutiae of the rules. Also like Talmudic scholars, we can get into some pretty heated arguments. But in the end, all that argument is over something we love, to whit, the Hero system. My opinion on VPPs in Fantasy Hero is that they're not worth the trouble they cause, in terms of added complexity, game balance issues, and time wasted at the table. If you have players who are willing to devote lots of time to pre-prepared lists of spells for every occasion, then it can work. But few players are willing to do this, and it just causes more headaches than its worth. I also feel that the VPP/MP mage, unless heavily restricted, becomes a game-busting "bag o' tricks", being able to add extremely useful abilities (Life Support, Change Environment, Desolid, &c.) either at a whim (VPP) or with the addition of hardly any points at all (MP with an ultra slot).

It's interesting that no-one has mentioned my favourite way to start a campaign: find some period in history that piques your interest, and run with it. I've never given a hoot about what happens to the fabled Kingdom of Gaga, but Japan, India, the Roman Empire? Now you're talking. If you want to take a look at settings that have a created world, I can't recommend Midnight from Fantasy Flight Games enough. It's a gritty, low-down campaign of fighting the ultimate evil. Well thought-out, classic Tolkeinesque fantasy with a twist of horror. I love it, and I don't even like Tolkein Scarier than Ravenloft, way more fun than Forgotten Realms. Some people love the 7th Sea world, Theah. I loathe it, for the reasons mentioned in paragraph 1. Why make a fantasy 16th-century pseudo-Europe that makes no sense politically, religiously, or geographically, when you could make a fantasy 16th-century Europe, with all the coolness that implies? I picked up Victoriana, since it was Fuzion based, but was greatly disappointed. Far better was the Septentrionalis campaign, which was a fantasy 17th-century D&D campaign in the Americas. No longer available on the web, but I still have all the PDFs if anyone is interested.

Being a former Chaosium contractor, I can tell you that the following (possibly apochryphal) story is how ducks came about: Dragon Pass wasn't part of Glorantha, nor was Prax. That they were included was due to the poplularity of White Bear Red Moon and Nomad Gods. When the map for WBRM was being drawn up, Wil Church included a place on the map called "Duck Point". Someone mentioned that since the place was named Duck Point, there had to be ducks, right? And gaming history was made.

ACK! No! Even at the increased cost, nothing gets rid of the main problem of VPPs: they're a pain in the butt to run on the fly. As if having 13 stats for a skeleton for weren't enough for the GM to handle...

Not to be mean, but abso-frickin'-lutely NOT. I've run fantasy Hero since before there was Fantasy Hero, and nothing causes more problems than VPPs. It's not Champions, so just live with it.