Orion

Re: Would you allow this?

I'd allow it in a heartbeat, and am surprised that there was any question about it. Characters don't need to be optimized, nor do they even need to be reasonable builds. If the background and personality of the character fits the campaign, and the player wants to play it, then let them. I'll tell a player that I think a character is a bad idea, but in the end it's up to them. As for getting bored after 5-10 sessions, not a big deal. That character retires or goes solo, and another character joins the group. Happens all the time.

A character I played a long time was similar to this. I was sick of having superhuman characters be scared of agents with pistols, so I asked for a character that would be invulnerable to all small arms fire. These days damage negation would probably do the trick, but back in 1990 the GM said to use 3/4 damage reduction, 40 resistant defenses, and high CON. Bit more powerful that I expected, but as he only had 25 STR, he couldn't really hurt anything with powers in that campaign. I played him off and on for several years and enjoyed it.

Re: Under the Agony Star: a sword and planet campaign

I'm thinking of porting in a few D&D monsters into the game' date=' even if I stick with Traveller. Mongrelmen would work, as would purple worms. Anything else?[/quote']

 

I use Mongrelmen in one of my campaigns as a catch-all race. Gnolls, ratmen, lizardmen, etc. - all are just types of mongrelmen. Gives me a great excuse to have any oddball humanoid creature show up if I suddenly feel the need for it during a session. "Never heard of the bird men before? Well, there aren't many of us, and we're all way down south, so I'm not surprised."

Re: Women of the Champions Universe (Fanpictorial)

The finger touching the chin looks a little short to me, but that's pretty minor. Overall, I think this may be your best one yet.

Re: What if there are no super-prisons?

There are no Strongholds on my campaign yet, and when they do arrive in a year or two they will never be as good as really needed. Part of the campaign premise is the heroes deciding what they need to do with the "evil" they capture in such a situation. Given the nature of the campaign, killing them in combat is acceptable, but PRIMUS will try to take custody whenever possible. It's likely PRIMUS will be harsher than anything the group comes up with, as they are somewhat in league with the IHA and Genocide.

In your situation, I'd say the government quickly deputizes the characters, so that the prisoners are legally under their control. As long as the PCs stay in the good graces of the government, this fiction will be maintained by all. Behind the scenes the government will be doing all it can to gain control of the prison, or at least copies of the technology. If they ever gain the technology, they will then demand the transfer of all prisoners. If I were running it, I'd use this as a prison break scenario, as the government's new prison wasn't as good as they thought. I'd also serious consider having various world governments claim control of the secret base, regardless of their being able to get to it, and wanting the prisoners for their own nefarious purposes. Sooner or later, some government would manage to gain control of the base, probably through the use of hired Icons, and then the PC would be out of luck.

Re: Ratios of Superpower Archetypes

Never even considered it. I make up whatever is interesting at the moment. Usually, that means coming up with a background, and then a general description of the powers. Only much later, if at all, do I actually stat the character out. If I happen to need a generic brick or blaster for a scenario, I am much more likely to pull one out of an old Enemies booklet than create something new.

Re: Do you consider Batman to be a Gadgeteer or something else?

For me, Batman is first and foremost a gadgeteer. I don't care who creates them - it's the use of numerous gadgets that defines the archetype to me. Being a detective is a close second to gadgeteer. The belt, car, plane, cycle, etc are more iconic to me than his detective skills. Being a martial artist is way down the list, as the stories I have read tended to concentrate on him tricking opponents and capturing them with his gadgets, not beating criminals up. From what I see in today's comics, there's probably a good argument for this order to be reversed.

Re: Alien Flagship Falling From Orbit

Orion would try to blow it up before it hit the atmosphere. He'd make sure to teleport off in time to save himself, then head back to the crash site to help out however he could. Afterwards, he'd try to completely disappear for a Long Time. No matter what really happened, he'd get the blame for it.

Emerald Knight and Gunslinger would try to steer it to the Australian Outback for a controlled crash landing. Failing that, go for the ocean. They want to minimize damage, but really, really want to salvage as much as possible from this ship in order to better understand the technology. Neither are that great at geography, and would figure that the Outback is a barren wasteland with nothing living there, so it can't hurt anything, right?

Re: The One, True Son of Krypton

Very True. Seriously though you could in the setting of Doc's, drop the Doc Savage moniker, and call him Superman and he would be Legit as Superman. That was his Niche. That type of guy.

~Rex

I think this is the key point of the argument for some of us. You say Superman is a niche idea. I say it is a person with a distinct set of powers and abilities. To me at least, there is no possibility of agreement in these two positions. Your position is so far from mine that I had never even considered it before, nor heard it mentioned before the current discussion here.

If someone wants to reuse the name Superman for their new character, more power to them. Just don't try to claim "this is the DC character from X story". If they want to say it is Superman, then I feel it must have all the powers and abilities of whatever version they are modeling. Points, playability, and game balance don't enter the equation at all. Don't leave off some of the powers and say that getting the important ones is all that matters - include them all. There is a difference between modeling a character, and making a character that has similarities to an existing one. Both are fine to do, just don't confuse which is being done.

Re: Magic and END cost?

I do more #1 than the others, but not really.... I don't currently use a END pool method, and few spells depend on the caster's END. The energy for the spell does not come from the caster, but from the universe. Instead, some spells tire the caster, and may also injure them, but the energy level of the caster isn't really important to getting a spell off. For that matter, the cost in END, STUN, and BOD is pulled out of the air at the time I create the spell, and is based solely on what flavor I want for the spell, not on point costs.

While the mechanical aspect is essentially the same (cast a spell, get tired), it matters a lot in-character.

Re: How do you work gaining Package Deals during game?

Steve didn't like the "something for nothing" aspect. About the same time they stopped being "deals".

Yep, that was my problem as well. And yes, I am using primarily 4th edition, as Ive never upgraded. I'd like to, but play so little these days it just isn't worth it to me.

Re: Advocacy on other sites...

What other gaming fora do you frequent?

1. The HarnForum (http://www.lythia.com/forum/). Discussion of the Harn campaign setting, the HarnMaster rules set, and occasional forays into related matters. While politics, religion, personal life, etc aren't banned, off-topic stuff is rarely brought up. We stay pretty much on topic.

2. Battletech (http://bg.battletech.com/forums/). Discussion of real life religion and politics are strongly discouraged. I think it is officially banned, but not 100% sure. Mention of almost any historic event since about 1900 will usually get a warning from a moderator. If it is a controversial topic (Holocaust, 9-11-01, etc.), there is a guaranteed mod notice and the thread is locked if anyone else continues. There is actually a shared alternate universe event that people use in their fan fiction just so they can reference a Very Bad Event, because saying Holocaust or Hitler can get the post removed. The mods will step in if a discussion gets even a tiny bit heated. I think they go too far, but it does ensure people stay on the topic of Battletech, and stay nice to each other. Overall, I'd much rather put up with overzealous moderators than bad posters, so most of the time I don't mind.

Now the hunting forums I used to read are another matter. Some of those get downright toxic in regards to politics and religion, and posters regularly force their opinions into threads about hunting and guns. I've pretty much given up on them until after the election.

Re: Advocacy on other sites...

If talking about Hero on other forums is being considered, I would personally only do it in 3 situations.

1. Someone has a question about the system, or an egregious untruth is being spread. I'd give a plain, factual answer, with no comments.

2. Someone asks about the system used for a certain genre, or what you've played in the past. I may do some advocacy in order to explain why I choose one system over another, but often may not.

3. They have a specific sub-forum for discussion of Hero, or at least for other systems being used.

I generally am far more interested in genre and setting discussions than I am in the rule sets, so rarely give more than a brief mention of Hero outside this forum. And given my low tolerance for flame wars, trolls, snide comments, and such, what I have heard of the rpg.net forums have generally scared me away from them. Of the gaming fora I frequent, this is the least friendly, which says a lot about how picky I am.

Re: How do you work gaining Package Deals during game?

For years and years I hated package deals and refused to use them. As I understood them, they were basically bonus points for taking stuff the players might not want, but should have taken anyway. So, just a way to convince players to keep to the character concept. I felt that if a player needed to be bribed, they weren't worth having in the group.

Within the last year, I've started to see them differently. I don't give any points for them (as I pretty much ignore points to start with), but use them as a required list of stuff a character must have to be in that group. Want to join the City Guard - here are their requirements. Get lycanthropy - here's the list of powers and disads you just gained. Etc. I don't worry if the character has the points or not, as it is something they get because of the storyline.

If it something the character would want to get rid of, like lycanthropy, then I play up the disads so it doesn't seem a power boost, and the rest are just glad it wasn't them that got it. If it is something the player would want to keep (awakened psionics), then it would need to be accepted by the group before I would even give it out. Some players would be fine, because they know they'll get theirs soon, while others don't care if character abilities are equal or not, Either way, the player would have need to give me some indication ahead of time that their character could be changed before I'd do it.

And then there are the players that need all characters to be roughly equal, and would be upset if one character got something, and they didn't. This is one of those things that need to be covered in the pre-game. If some in the group just don't like the idea, then the only time it happens is when a new storyline is starting, and everyone gets points, does a rewrite, or starts a new character.

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

I see them as two very different things, and think the best solution is to use both. As a GM, I'd never allow most of the uses either have been used for by many other GMs, but they each have their place.

Re: What have you used?

1st edition Fantasy Hero got some use, but I've basically just stuck with the BBB for everything. Never saw a need for anything more. For some reason they didn't bother to ask me about how magic and monsters should be before detailing them, and so got them all wrong in the official books. I've done all my own writeups of monsters I want to use, as well as a generalized description of how magic (divine and sorcerous) works in the setting. Never had a PC be a priest/cleric/healer type though, and the mages were always fighters with one or two minor spells, so the magic system has severely languished from disuse.

For me, the combat rules are important, but the setting is critical. The official settings are so far away from what I want that it's not worth the work to redo them. I use Harn for the gritty, low-magic stories, and I created the Witch King campaign world for a more standard level of magic and monsters.

Any time I have been the GM, it has been non-campaign style, and characters never lasted more than 1-2 sessions. Unfortunately, the people I know only like zero-to-hero dungeon crawls with large amounts of magical loot, and I prefer stories with little or no magic, characters that seldom change, and spending lots of time on intrigue and politics. Oddly enough, in my superhero stuff I have no day-to-day life stuff, and no romance at all, whereas both are important in my fantasy storylines.

Re: Time Frame for Appearance of Superhumans

It really' date=' really seems like deliberately impoverishing the genre if you go with the "all superheroes appeared last Tuesday. Because of the White Event."[/quote']

 

Yes and no. It limits the genre, but I wouldn't say it impoverishes it. Of the examples you gave, there is only one (archeologists digging in ruins) that I would even consider, and it is unlikely. The rest are thing I would never use in a superhero campaign, either because I feel they don't fit it or are totally uninteresting. Some campaigns want to be catch-alls; I tend to go for a very specific feel in each, and thus toss out many possibilities based on what I want for that campaign. If anything, having superheroes around for a long time seems limiting to me, because they are no longer new and special, which is a key concept for me.

Re: A Question of Balance & Lethality

(do you guys like the name Combat Luck? I hate it. I prefer to call it Toughness or Resilience)

Hate the name, and hate the concept. Resisting damage, being harder to hit, and being lucky in combat are three different things. They have three different mechanisms for handling them. Don't say you want one thing, and then choose a mechanism for something else. I typically call it the PC Halo. I'll allow a better defense, better DCV, or luck, but most want Protection from Storyline, which I don't allow.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy

Either there's no way to make a setting "wildly popular" with Hero's customer numbers' date=' or Hero's customers just aren't into pregenerated settings.[/quote']

 

This. In my experience, almost all gamers, regardless of the system or genre, want a generic world. If doing fantasy, they want elves and dwarves, chain mail and plate, magical sword, and fireball throwing mages. They don't care what the name of the city is, the name of old king whose tomb they are robbing, the culutre and hostory of the kingdom, or the politics between the nobles, high priests, and merchants. The don't want maps with beautiful artistry and well-thought out geography, or a working ecology that includes monsters, they just want to know how many days it is to the dungeon, and and whether wolves attack them while they are sleeping in their armor. Settings are to make the GM happy, not the players.

Re: Time Frame for Appearance of Superhumans

In the campaign world I created, the first metahuman appeared 10 years ago. I don't like the idea of a superteam in every major city, or them being a normal, accepted part of the world. I want them new and different and exciting, so there aren't many of them, and they are pretty new. In fact, I've often considered starting the main story back about year 5, rather than year 10, to better play up the "new" aspect.

I started writing this world back about 1986, shortly after I started playing Champions. I've tossed most of the early characters, as they were homages, and I no longer use them, but the world remains. Of the many new characters I did create in the late 80's, I've had to update them numerous times. Adamant was a Vietnam vet, then a Gulf War vet, and now maybe an Afganistan vet. Updating got old, so now he's just a former vet. Likewise, I had the year of birth and first appearance for them all, along with other major events. I got tired of updating them as time went on. I eventually decided that the appearance of supers led to a new dating mechanism - the Third Age. You have BC, AD, and now TA. With this, all dates are now given in + or - TA time, and it is always 10 TA in the storyline.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

4) A Vigilante will eventually kill an innocent person. That's the cliche, isn't it? In every story were someone decides killing criminals is right someone will use that against them. Someone will be framed and then revealed to be innocent after the vigilante kills them. Then you're "He's cool because he gives the criminals what they deserve" reputation turns into "He's a mad dog killer who murdered an innocent man".

In the real world, I would expect that to happen. I would also expect the police and private detectives to quickly figure out the secret identity of most of those wearing costumes. There would be no secret bases, because everyone in the city would remember that 3-year construction project putting those underwater laboratories in the bay. Heroes that weren't bulletproof would quickly be shot because they didn't have the PC halo around them. We do the types if stories we want to see, and if we don't want to see the action hero go to court for shooting a bad guy, it doesn't have to happen.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

The main issue with Punisher is that' date=' basically, he's in the wrong setting. He works in a world where things are broken, the system doesn't work and more extreme means are necessary (or at least understandable). In the mainstream Marvel universe that (was) generally not the case.[/quote']

 

I would argue that the Punisher does fit in the Marvel universe, and that he is not a square peg-round hole case. It all comes down to how you see the world. Does the Avengers represent the world, or is it just a tiny little part of the world, and quite unrepresentative of it? I've always seen comic book "heroes" as the corner case, not the norm, for their world. It's great that they can save the world, and it's fun watching their adventures. I'll even admit they are often the type of person you want to emulate and look up to. Need someone to stop the alien invasion - they got you covered. But common crime in every large city - that they rarely do anything about. There either aren't enough of them to have an effect, the character ignores problems at that level, or the writers simply won't let them have an affect.

 

Punisher has never been shown to ultimately have an affect on crime. He slows it down here and there, but just like Spider-Man and Batman, it goes back to normal as soon as he leaves. But for some of us, it is viscerally satisfying to have the bad guy bite the dust, and to know that specific piece of evil is never coming back. We're not looking for someone to look up to, or heroes, or for rehabilitation of criminals. Those things are needed in some stories, but not in every story. Anyone remember the Marvels storyline of some years back? It's a reporter covering early Marvel superheroes. It was a new way of looking at the superhero world. I thought it one of the best comic stores ever. There are super-powered individuals in the world, but the great majority are not. Having stories about people without powers, and having different goals and ethics is a good thing, in my opinion. We don't need every story to be about the Mr Fantastics and Captain Americas of the world - let us have Millie the Model and the Punisher as well, and show how they all live together in one world.

Re: Jeremiah - the Watcher

Rose - I agree with your thoughts, and admit I probably would have stated mine much stronger. The ability to model almost anything is a big plus of the Hero System. But the way that so many players want to twist the rules around, just because they can, is the thing that turns me off from it the most.

Re: How do you Hero GMs prepare for new campaigns?

My preferred process:

1. Decide if I am going to design a campaign world I want, and then find players, or find players, and design a campaign world based on what they want. I'm a genre fiend, and pretty much refuse to change a campaign world around just because a player wants something different. I'll design based on their requests, but once done, it ain't gonna change.

2. Once the world design is done, I write out a world guide for the players. Brief overviews of the political units the game will interact with, geography, races, deities, how magic works, etc. This document is completely system agnostic - no rules whatsoever in it.

3. I write out a detailed rules guide that gives the house rules, if any, expected ranges of combat and skill levels, etc. for the rule set to be used. This would include any templates, recommended skills, common magic spells, and divine intervention rules.

4. Based on player input, the campaign style is then determined. Gritty, realistic, or cartoon. Deadly serious or goofy fun. Expected time to be spent in combat vs roleplaying. Dungeon crawls, murder mysteries, political intrigue, or some of everything. Zero to hero, or stable skills. Low, medium, or high level of ability. How much magic will be available to the players, regardless of how much exists in the world. etc etc etc

My normal process:

Player says - "I wanna kill something next week. Make me a character. Don't bother writing anything down about the world, cause I ain't gonna read it anyway."

For the first 30 years of my gaming career I met exactly 1 other player that cared anything about the campaign world, and no GMs. Each time it was a simple generic world, usually with some reliance on a published world for the rare bit of characterization. When I have been the GM, I've never had a player that cared in the slightest about the world. I have recently met in person several people that care as much as I about campaign world, but it was at a convention, and none live close to me.

Re: 6E - Low Fantasy Hero - Game Balance Issues - Advice Requested

A suggestion to get the players to take skills and develop a bit of background:

1. Have everyone develop a 15-year-old kid. They have to decide the family members, profession of family, whether they live in a big city or rural village, what job they are doing as an apprentice, etc. Right here you get a professional skill at a very basic level from knowing what the parents do, and maybe something in a different skill set from the apprenticeship. You have at least one area knowledge as well at low level.

2. Next, have them determine what happens over the next 2-4 years. They've learned a little of whatever profession they've chosen, a little more of the world, and may have moved out from the parent's place to whoever is teaching them their trade.

3. Jump forward 5 years at a time from here, slowly developing what the character has been doing all along. If you go far enough, start reducing physical skills because of advancing age.

4. The game starts. Everyone gets tossed into a cell and are told they are now gladiators. Or a lightning bolt hits you and you suddenly gain super powers. Or you've just been knighted at the end of a large battle.

Sure, this takes longer, but it will ensure that at least some background is developed, and that each character has a reasonable set of non-combat skills. Now maybe the players aren't interested in spending any points on skills - no problem. They develop the 15 year old kid on 50 points, and you assign skills and knowledge based on their background. At age 18, give them 15 more points to spend as they like, and then give them 5 more points of skills that you chose.

Re: Everybody Has Powers! (source material request)

Look for the Top 10 comic book series, by Americas best Comics/Wildstorm. Written by Alan Moore. It's just what you are describing - everyone has some type of powers. The story revolves around the officers in the 10th police precinct.