Phraze

Simon wasn't abused. Melessqr complained about changes to the rules that made it more expensive to buy speed, especially in cases where DEX and SPD both increase OIHID. Simon then said melessqr was wrong on everything, that a) it wasn't really more expensive (and posted about three pages of examples that showed he really didn't understand the issue), and it wasn't a change because the rules have been this way forever (which prompted the discussions of earlier editions of the rules), and c) you'd know all this if you'd only read the online FAQ which is about as long as the rules themselves, and d) it doesn't matter what you think because I didn't write HD for you, I wrote it for Steve Long. I'm on the verge of starting to run Hero again after a long absence (2 editions worth). I've got FrED, but both the errata and the FAQ are so enormous that I'll probably blow them off. If this means I'm playing wrong, oh well. I won't be wasting my time with HD either.

I completely agree with this in principle. In the current circumstance, it seems to me what happened (going only from the accounts of Patriot and the other player, and at the risk of having AgentX call me names again) is that the players, or at least Stellar's player, went in expecting a different kind of situation, namely a combat rescue, and reacted accordingly. Even in the comics scenes you describe, there's usually a team hothead who charges the bad guy without thinking (against the team leader's wishes) and gets smacked down for it. In this case, unfortunately, it seems the team leader IS the hothead, which is a problem. I think it's telling that the player, according to Patriot, still doesn't think he did anything wrong, that it was all a set-up. This indicates to me that he did not intend or expect the building to collapse. My 2 cents: I'm glad that AgentX agrees with me that going through a protracted trial will just be flogging a dead horse, and no fun for anybody. On the other hand, if, say, the investigation were to show that Stellar's power DID collapse the building without a doubt, but that the normals were killed afterward and buried in the rubble to make Team Vanguard look bad, that could have the dual effect of getting the campaign back on track and putting Stellar out to pasture. The UN could let Team Vanguard keep their sanction only if Stellar leaves, for example.

Once again, I think this is mostly a case of people getting different interpretations from the brief summary of facts presented by Patriot. Without seeing a map (and I don't really want to see one at this point, since Patriot makes things sound as if the situation is well on its way to being resolved), I gathered from the description (iirc, he teleported the group and a section of floor, killing normals in another section of the building) I gathered that he took a section of floor (only) out of a fairly large room. Admittedly, I'm not an architect, but it doesn't strike me that this would cause the collapse of a building, unless supporting pillars or load-bearing walls were taken as well, especially if the floor were taken without a violent shock, which is what I imagine in a teleport situation. Flooring doesn't strike me as a "structural support" in the way walls or pillars are, especially one room in a much larger structure. It may make it unstable, but I wouldn't see it collapsing the building so completely and instantly that more of the normals coudn't have gotten out. But then, of course, Stellar wouldn't have been taught a lesson. Then again, this is a very old winery, which means the room in question may have contained a lot of pillars which were taken with the floor, in which case I would expect a collapse...

This is so not what I said (or meant to say). I said that Stellar's player might have felt railroaded by the scenario, which is not to say that Patriot purposely antagonized him, just that the player could have interpreted the scenario that way. I'm not disturbed by the PC's leaving at that moment. The only immediate threat to the winery staff came through PC anatagonism. Removing the PC's should have removed the danger, to a far greater degree than, say, starting a super-battle would have. I really didn't intend to get into Monday Morning Quarterback thing on the scenario, except to mention that people were acting like the PC was this purposeful killer, when from what I had read, the PC was just acting like an ass and might not have intended to kill anybody. This isn't like driving drunk (oblique Rodney King ref) where you can unintentionally cause real harm in the real world. The GM makes all decisions about the consequences of actions in the game world, and GM's often make consequences worse for players who act like asses. As far as I can tell, it was the GM's decision to collapse the building, setting in motion this whole chain of events. Now nobody's happy: the GM's upset at Stellar, the other players are upset at Stellar, and Stellar feels he was set up. I think we've all been in games which have turned bad, when no one in particular really wanted things to go that way. The thing now is to figure out what went wrong and how to patch things up, and I think Trebuchet's suggestions cover the bases pretty well.

Re: Re: Re: One minor point Since this was posted in response to a response to my post, I figure I'm at least one of the sad psychoanalyzers in question. I don't think I was attempting to psychoanalyze, but merely trying to relate the story to my own experience. I don't think my analysis of the game scenario in question was unreasonable. 1) According to both Patriot and the other player who posted, the building collapse side effect happened maybe only once(?) with a part-time GM several years ago. It's apparently not built-in to the power. 2) The team didn't know about the building collapse until they saw it on the news the next day, so it doesn't seem as if the collapse was intentional or expected. 3) The player was asked about his limitation as far as "Protects Innocents," but there was also a completely different threat to innocents going on at the time (Fiacho threatening the cook), so there may have been some confusion. I think my original point (and I apologize if it sounded condescending) was that the entire building collapse/UN trial scenario sounded like an outgrowth of a GM-imposed Unintended Consequence in response to a player's attitude. The Unintended Consequence is like the Phillips screwdriver of the GM's repertoire, but it can backfire if the player feels as if he's being singled out or railroaded, as it seems Stellar's player does. Patriot says Stellar's player insists it's all a set-up by Eurostar, and he may be justified in thinking so. After all, the initial set-up felt like some kind of trap, Fiacho was already threatening to kill at least one member of the winery's staff, and none of the team members actually saw the building collapse. For all Stellar knows, Fiacho collapsed the building after their departure to get Stellar in trouble, knowing that something similar had happened years before (maybe a possible retcon if Patriot feels charitable). I have never been in a campaign that ran 12 years, but I have run a campaign which the players purposely blew up because they felt railroaded by a particular scenario, and I had to play out the consequences. I agree with Trebuchet's list of options for the long-term campaign. The UN trial storyline has a lot of dramatic possibilities, but it also has the potential to wreck a long-running campaign if it's not handled carefully.

One minor point Without joining either the "pile on the player" or "pile on the GM" camp, I'd like to bring up one thing that no one else has mentioned and that might bear some clarification: Did the player really kill the NPC's in question or did the GM? The scenario as I read it: Eurostar captures team member (as a means of getting Team Vanguard into a parley session? Kind of silly to mask the character's presence with Mentalla's powers if it was all just a ruse to get the players to the table) Team shows up to rescue said team member Fiacho invites team to dinner Stellar refuses Fiacho threatens innocent and orders team to leave (a rather odd and extreme reaction - he's just invited them to stay, now he's saying "get out or the cook gets it" - must have been some mighty strong words from Stellar) Stellar mouths off and then does as Fiacho said, using an Area Effect T-port or something What hasn't been addressed is, did Stellar's player mean to collapse the building when he left, or was that something the GM did in a fit of pique over having his scenario thwarted? Because this is all too common (and I've been guilty of it myself). Player does something the GM doesn't agree with, and suddenly, the world blows up in his face. Player: "We're wasting our time with this villain. I'm using my powers to get us all out of here now." GM: "You teleport out, and a chunk of the floor comes out with you. The building collapses, killing everyone inside. You're now a murderer. Have a nice day." IN this case, although the PC's action is nominally responsible, it's really a GM fiat that killed the civs. Which would mean that this whole UN resolution, trial-of-a-hero thing is not due to a hero acting unheroically, but a GM who's upset that his scenario got derailed. Not to pile on Patriot. Take this as a learning experience. If your intention was to get the players to learn something vital about a UN conspiracy or something, kidnapping a PC was probably not the best way to do it. The scenario screamed "Trap," and I know few players who would be inclined to negotiate peacefully with a terrorist who had just kidnapped one of their teammates, not even for a free meal. On the other hand, if the player said, "I'm teleporting us out and collapsing the building around Fiacho's ears, killing as many innocents as I can in the process," that's a whole other kettle of fish of a different color...

I think one of the points I was trying to make, and not very well, is that we're talking about players creating characters for a campaign that hasn't started yet. I'm just coming back to gaming from a long absence, so I don't know how things work nowadays, but (Abe Simpsons's voice here) "in my day" characters didn't create character backgrounds in this much depth. The old Enemies books had a couple of paragraphs at most to cover origin and personalities. Some players may be a bit reticent about creating a huge supporting cast for fear of stepping on the GM's toes (the player creates a gang of neighborhood kids as DNPC's when the GM intends to make a globe-spanning campaign with the heroes in an airborne floating base). Yes, the GM has final say on the disads, but at this point, you're turning preparation for the game into a pretty long chore. Sometimes, you just want to whip up a character and go, and fill in the blanks as the campaign develops and you get a better feel for the world.

3 observations about your example list of disads, Starcorp Man, because I think it illustrates my point as well. 1) Your list is based on a character with 20 years of continuity. His personality and supporting cast have had years to develop. In Spider-Man #1, only the Daily Bugle and Aunt May were around, for example, and his Overconfidence was an Inferiority Complex. 2) Your list has three Hunteds, a Watched, and two DNPC's. Even though they're only 8's and 11's, that means that at least one of those Hunteds/Watcheds will show up almost every session, and the DNPC's at least every other session. Hope you like those characters, and that the GM has a lot of imagination to keep them from getting stale really quickly (not to mention if 3-5 players all have that many). And God forbid the GM rolls hot and hits ALL of them at once. When I GM'ed, I stopped rolling Hunteds for this very reason, preferring to work them into plotlines in advance, just using the roll numbers as a guide to how often they appeared. But I don't claim to know how all GM's run their campaigns. Extreme example: Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor and the Hulk team up to fight the Sinister Six, when suddenly Kingpin and his goons, Electro, Mandarin, a knot of AIM agents, Loki, Absorbing Man, and the forces of Thunderbolt Base attack from all sides. And caught in the middle are Aunt May and Betsy Ross and... 30 If the campaign is new, the players may not have the kind of detailed knowledge of the campaign background to come up with 3-4 Hunteds or a Rivalry. I'm not saying that 150 pts is crippling. I'm just saying that these are the kinds of concerns that players, especially players new to the system, might have. Mystery disads help, and GM handholding during the character creation process also helps, to make sure the backstory is filled in enough.

Way Out on a Limb I don't know that it's the best, but I have a soft spot for Champions II. At the time it came out, I was really divided between Champions and V&V. V&V seemed to have all the advantages: slicker production, more adventures, more intuitive for D&D players to cross over to. I had played Champions enough that I was getting over the initial culture shock of the point-based system, but the two games still seemed pretty evenly-matched to me. And then Champions II came out and expanded Champions in every direction. More powers, more combat options, bases, vehicles, campaigning tips. All of it fit in well with the existing system, it added genre flavor, and there was enough advice for players and GM's that our games became much more enjoyable. I think it was the first step that really began to put Hero ahead of the rest of the pack. And as much as I hated Mark WIlliams's art when I first saw it, I really miss the guy now. I thought the Foxbat bit on the opening page was hilarious ("Send me your extra experience points"). [Edited for grammar]

I think 150 pts. in disads seems more restricting in chargen than actual play. I agree, it's pretty easy to come up with 100-120, but then you start having to take multiple Hunteds, multiple DNPCs, random Vulnerabilities or Susceptibilities just to eke out the remaining points. And sometimes Hunteds are hard to come up with, because the player may not know the GM's universe; who would make a good Hunted? That's what mystery disads are good for. The GM might have a perfect villain or organization that the players just don't know exists yet. Part of it may be a trust issue. If you have 5 characters with 2-3 Hunteds and 1-2 DNPC's each, with an average roll of 11-, that's a lot of possible complications. And if the players think that all you're going to do is roll encounters randomly and have 7-10 Hunters and DNPC's wander into every supervillain battle, then you'll have trouble getting them to commit to those extra Hunteds. Mystery disads can help here, too, by making the players feel as if they don't have as much weight on their shoulders until they trust you to handle it.

Actually... I just happened to dig out all my old AC's over the weekend, and Starcorp Man has it right. It was issue #2. I would have to agree with some others on this thread, though, and say that my favorite was "Terror in the Treasures." Not because the plot was so great, but because the Overstreet Museum is such a great idea for a location. I've used it several times.

Worst character in one of my Champions games was pretty average, probably. He was called DeadEye. He had this super rifle with a kewl scope and tons of levels. While the other heroes were getting down and dirty with the bad guys, he would lurk on a rooftop a couple miles away and play Charles Whitman. Can't remember if he had N-Ray Vision for when the characters went indoors. I allowed the character, because I knew the character wouldn't last long. He was just no fun. He played exactly once. And the worst name for a character I ever ran across was in V&V. A guy in one of my games ran a dude with a metal body who could fire organic bullets from his fingertips. He called the guy BWOD (Bulkish Weapon Of Destruction). When I had trouble pronouncing it, he helpfully amended it... to Bwando.

Thanks for the input. Still trying to get used to some of the additions from 3rd ed (just picked up FREd a couple of weeks ago). Since I wanted to have the flexibility of having gadgets in either guise, I went with a VPP without the OIHID lim. Instead, I've added the advantages no Skill Roll to change and change as a half-phase action (so that I can flip the VPP at the same time I Transform my clothes and any objects I'm holding) and the limitation "Only change to preset alternate list or in lab" (-1/2). I also took two Transforms, 1 Major 4d6 Transform for things I grab (limitation "Only objects I'm holding" (-1/2, same as 0 Range)), and a 2d6 Cosmetic Transform for my clothes (linked to the major one. It all adds up to a pretty expensive package, but it's his only real "power", and he's an NPC, so points are not an object The idea is that he can either commit a robbery in costume and dash out of sight, then instant change to a disguise (with loot Transformed into air). Or, if he knows he's going into a combat-heavy situation (rarely), he can dress in identical outfits with a double load of weapons (what a surprise for our heroes when his gun switches from empty to fully-loaded again).

I'm working on converting a character I had used in 3rd Edition. He is similar to DC's Creeper (as originally written). He has a device implanted that allows him to change his clothes instantly. He is also a gadgeteer and can use this to allow him access to a new set of gadgets. So far, this is pretty easy to simulate in a couple of ways. The tricky part is that, as a thief, he also uses this ability to make things disappear . So, for instance, he might steal a bag of money, or a secret device, or a magical artifact, then transform to his other mode, and whatever he was carrying is gone. I had previously represented it as a VPP Gadget Pool, with the limitation that he could only access half the points at a time; if he wanted to make anything disappear, he had to have enough unspent points in the pool to cover it. What's the best way to handle it now?