Wolf

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated How bad is it that I not only get that... but I mean I get that... lol.

Re: Running Hero at Gaming Conventions And they say that there is no original ideas in the world... there is egg... on my face. lol. Well, cool then. :}.

Re: The best Superpet? lol, I can only answer with a joke: The CEO's of Coors, Budweiser, Miller, and Guinness all gathered together once to drink some beer and blow some steam off. The CEO of Coors said to the bartender, "Give me the best beer in the world, give me a Coors." The CEO of Budweiser said to the bartender, "Give me the best beer in the world, give me a Budweiser." The CEO of Miller said to the bartender, "Give me the best beer in the world, give me a Miller." The CEO looked down the bar at the rest of them, shrugs and says to the bartender, "Okay then, well... Give me a coke." The rest of the CEO's look at him indignantly, and one asks, "What's wrong, I thought we were going to drink together." And the CEO of Guinness says, "well guys, if you aren't going drink real beer, then I won't." LOL.

Re: Who is sticking to 4th or 5th Ed HERO Oh, I see his point... At some point you have to look at conversion time vs. cash investment vs. Set-in-my-ways-itus vs. willingness of the core gaming group to deal with the same things. And that equals [edit: okay, not equals, but greatly influences] your desire to change. Probably why the APG works best for him. It looks like the things that he uses out of 6th will be less than the things he uses out of 5th, so it just doesn't justify the output of moneys. I say cool... I'm that way about some things... after spending a dogs age trying to get weapon speed factors to work right with the 3.x system, I finally just gave in and said, I prefer 2nd ed.

Re: Running Hero at Gaming Conventions I just had a thought, I've seen people (and even agree with them) say that in ever game, especially Hero Character generation is a game in and of itself. Has anyone tried "running" a collaborative character generation "game" for Hero at a con. You could even incorporate it into a game later... like the first group will all work together to build the villain that the second group fights in their adventure (or not). Whatever the case, I think that would help some beginners get into Hero... I doubt that old timers would dig it as well, but It would help show people what the system can do. You know, bring a concept, and we'll make it. If there's time we'll make more... Get like 4-6 people and show them how Char-Gen works.... I dunno, it could suck, I could see it going both ways, either really working... or really sucking. LOL. I think if you challenged people to come up with some weird builds, or even show them that it can mimic other systems, etc. You might show some folks what the system can do, maybe even better than by just running a game. Then again, if you get a bunch of people who want fast Char-Gen, then you're gong to loose them fairly quickly. Like I said, you may loose them.

Re: Who is sticking to 4th or 5th Ed HERO Yah, this... I've played since 4th, and never have I even considered it an interpretation of the rules that you can just "keep" taking disads to get more points. We've always played (including the dude who "brought me into Hero") that the GM sets the total limit of disads available when he sets the points. And when we talk about point total for characters when we are asking how much points to build a character on for "tonight's game" the "total points" are told (example: 350 points), then usually someone asks, "so that's with 50 points of disads?" And unless it's not set at 50 the answer is yes. I seem to remember it even going so far as to say in the rules that you can feel free to take more disads, you just don't get any CP out of them. Not to gang up on you here, but yah, that's totally a foreign concept to me (this is the first I've ever even heard this line of thought (even if I may have read it earlier, and just don't remember it, I am getting old after all), even from friends who bothered to read the rules, most don't...), and there is no way in heck I'd ever let players do that, never, even if it is a rule that I read wrong. Sorry, but, yah, that's how I see it. P.S. Steamtech: please don't see this as an attack, it seriously totally took me off guard, and I had to voice my surprise and feelings on the matter. I apologize right now if it reads as an attack.

Re: The best Superpet? I see the issue.... yes of course your dog has been... er... bad. However it appears that these two dogs are quite intelligent. Not even the dog, it appears, will drink the Coors light; however, the Guinness... well, as we have said, the Guinness is open, and empty.

Re: Running Hero at Gaming Conventions lol, figures that he's an "official" Super (IE from one of the big 2 companies). Still, he's unique.

Re: Running Hero at Gaming Conventions Cool Character by the way... he's unique in a way I can't quite describe... but I like that, for whatever reason. It seems to add a sort of charm about him.

Re: Running Hero at Gaming Conventions What ever happened to the League of Heroes or whatever it was, the "official" Hero playtesters? As I recall they had their own spot on the forums. I don't know how organized it was, it was the first time I'd seen a company do that (we didn't have many gaming stores where I came from, we just stumbled our way into gaming). Maybe we can start a "less official" group, or at least a forum header that includes help for those who want to do this.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated Don't forget Elfquest (along with D&D and Talislanta) one of the first games I ever played.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated I'm pretty sure that Chaosium still holds the CoC RPG... And after a quick check of the website, they still do. http://chaosium.com/

Re: The best Superpet? That dog needs more training... that's an empty can... you can't pull one over on this Guinness lover, lol. But I'll rep ya for finding a way to show me some Guinness. edit- apparently I have to spread rep first.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games I just want to know the movie that came from... looks like it would be interesting at least... I mean it could suck... but I'd be willing to give it a try.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated My 2 lead then

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated The only math issue I've really seen, and see as the "problem" though not much of one is the (from a new player standpoint) (X+11)-Y. People often ask me, why, do we need that... once I show them the closed system, and how when both OCV and DCV cancel each other out, that plus 11 gives you your avg target number, and then moves the difficulty around from there, creating a sliding range in that system. After that they seem to "get it." and we have no more issues. But yah, I've been asked many times, "why add 11?"

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated For me, I've seen the roll low as a slight stumbling block, but usually one that disappears after the first game session, as it's really an easy concept. But again, that's my experience, and everyone seems to be having a different time with this. See, the problem, like what happened with D&D, when you change a system (Thac0 to "target number," I say this because Thac0 was never roll under, a nat 20 still was what you wanted, the skill system sure, but I never heard any complaint about the skill system in 2nd ed and before). is you usually change the dynamic of the system. Why does D&D feel different when at higher levels (in 3.x and 4.0) than it felt (in 2nd ed)? because you got rid of the closed system. Used to be that you had 20 "places" if you will that you defense could occupy. Everyone knew that the best you could do was -10 AC. When they made the switch to Target number, they got rid of that system entirely, and the system suffers at a higher level because of it. They try to mitigate it by limiting what AC buffs can be used together, but you still end up with either "to hit" going way over the avg. AC, or your AC outstripping the avg. "to hit." And this usually happens at the same time with two different PC's in your party. They also effectively removed the limits to spell casters, but that's a different discussion. The point is your problem occurred when you took a "closed roll" system and opened it up without a MASSIVE overhaul of the system... So everything went out of control... look at the magic items in 2nd ed... (the stat buff ones) they don't give you +xyz to stat, they say that it just puts you at xyz stat number. They had a control over the explosion of stuff. I don't care, roll low, roll high, but one reason Hero works so well is you are kept to a internal and sliding (but CLOSED) system. No matter you could have a OCV of 300, but if the dude that your fighting also has a DCV of 300, then your STILL only rolling 11-.... I'd hate to see an explosion that goes outside of this closed system, because when you open the doors (if you will) to the system then you get problems containing the interaction of characters. Before I get my stuff jumped all over, yes in both Thac0 D&D, and Hero you can go slightly outside these restraints (10 through -10, there was a dragon I think who had an AC of -11, and if you were a lvl 20 ftr with a magic weapon, and high str bonus, you went over. And in Hero you have from 3-18 but you can go around these slightly) but in the end in both games those limits are not encroached on very often, and even when they are, it's not game breaking, it's that these folks are far superior to their "normal" counterparts... not to mention it takes a massive amount of time and work to get your heroes to that point, so there is some level of you earned it. Now you keep the system closed, fine, I don't care, roll high, roll low... whatever. I don't see the issue being a problem, however I think if we moved things to a roll high and didn't change the closed system, I fear you would still have math that would have to be used to make the system closed again.... and the math is the problem. Lazy, Lazy people, and they encounter math, so then their brain decides, "this is entertainment, I don't want to work." There is your problem, not the roll under. My 2 Copper.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated I recently found out that my FLGS has a group of pre-teens that are playing 6e once a week. Apparently the GM's dad got him into 5th while young... it was awesome to see kids playing (heck, anyone playing) Hero in a game shop, first time ever seeing that for me.

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them? Ghost Angel had a thread around here that, I think, if I remember right, had spells as proficiencies, much like weapon proficiencies. Here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/77454-Spells-As-Skills

Re: Real Costs for spells and how you handle them? I used the spells as skills method, I gave my player (had one mage in that game) his choice of spell and version of the spell, I think they were priced (in points) with the active points/10, then +1/2 points (as normal skill levels). Then they paid the difference in the roll if they wanted to modify the effect of the spell (IE, they bought the basic version of the spell for AP/10, but would pay difference (in penalty to the casting roll) between the two, made weaker versions easier to cast, and harder versions more costly. Worked well. He was also the only one I used End rules with, so that limited him in that way. In my Heroic games I normally don't use End... But they can't buy them off. I don't know if I made sense or not... but there it is.

Re: Psionic powers -- any comments? I was thinking this also, however it's built with blast, not mental blast... so Prestigitator is correct in his original assessment... If it were me I'd add to the changes that I'd make that Psychic Blast built with the power "mental blast" rather than "blast" but that's just how I'd do it. I'd also do something differing about the Ice and Fire blast, I agree that SFX are important, however they are the exact same power as is... so make it so a person would want both, if that's how they want to roll. Ice Blast- 2d6 RKA Physical (little balls of ice) maybe even piercing or Armor Piercing (little sharp chunks of ice) and/or use an all or nothing NND w/ life support. Fire Blast- 2d6 RKA- no range- AOE cone, possibly AP or NND with life support... Make one that is AP and one that is NND, now you have two very different sfx and game effecting attacks... you could even use Autofire for the Ice and say that there are many little pellets/shards of ice that are projected with it...

Re: HERO SYSTEM BESTIARY Sneak Peek: The Cover Seriously though, I'm digging it.

Re: Talislantan Hero? I played a bit of it concidering It was the first RPG I purchased (right before Elf Quest), as my parents wouldn't let me get D&D due to it's bad reputation.... I believe that was back in 85-86.... Maybe as late as 87. It was fun to play, I usually took a Thrall when I was able to play.

Re: Modular Heroic Design I really didn't expect them to be played in my game... lol. Na, seriously though, you could really just take the collegiate packages and not give them the Military packages. I think I've got some of the non-military packages on there, but it's been a while (something like '05... wow, it has been a while) so I really should look at it. But this was based off my special operation forces game, and we really didn't have non SoF in that game.

Re: Modular Heroic Design I did this kinda thing with my Special Forces game from back in 4th edition.... Essentially I'd start with a "basic training" package, and then it would get modified by each training school that the character went through (Basic, Infantry, Indirect fire specialist, Airborne, Ranger tab, SERE school, Jump master, etc) to create the character they wanted. I included officer training courses, A-noc, B-noc (NCO training courses). That worked for me for a good 8 years or so, until the game was done. I revised them for 5th ed, and added a Stargate package for a SG-5 style game I was going to run, but it never got off the ground... I think I'll work on making the packages for HD for 6th... if the need ever comes. I found and added my work. I need to re-do much of it, long ago Vondy pointed out some problems with it, and I think it was just me not working inside the system, and I want to change some things up... but it's an idea of what I was working on.