Sketchpad

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I don't know who Reed Richards is, but I have seen enough Marvel Movies to know the others.  HANK Pym was Kirk Douglas, Tony Stark was RDJ, and David Banner was some other guy.  I must have missed Reed Richards, but these three will do. 

 

Let's look at Stark.  From the movies and your suggested differentiations, Stark has engineering, Robotics, and physics. 

 

We look at Pym, and the ant man suit and the wasp suit, which the movies specify that he designed and built himself-and he, too, has engineering, Robotics, and physics. 

 

I didn't watch any of the Hulk movies, but given Banner's use in the movies I did see, he clearly knows physics and engineering, and I am willing to be that if we asked enough comic guys, they could cite examples of every one of the three (four, because of Richards) casually knocking out feats of all four of your categories, bringing this right back to 'how many of these skills was it necessary to separate and charge individually for? 

 

Please be aware that I am not saying you are wrong; I am simply asking if, between these characters, there was enough difference in their documented knowledge bases that they could not just as easily bought "super-science" and declared a specialty within the field of super-science (because I know Banner is supposed to be the most knowledgeable about gamma rays or radiation or some-such to warrant a specialty there)?  Stark buys Super-science and declares a specialty in Robotics or engineering, or maybe he has a double- major, but except for shrinking, there seems to be a ton of overlap between him and Pym (and Banner and Peter Parker, whose single limitation seems to access to funds as opposed to a lack of super-science know-how). 

 

So does it seem more correct that each Character pay five points a whack (or whatever 6e is charging for them) for the identical four skills then buy either one up or three down to create an essentially negligible (and in the source material, generally ignored) distinction between the four, of to buy the one similar skill, and either declare a specialty, or buy a second skill for the specific specialty or- my favorite _at the moment_: buy two skill levels for use with rolls pertaining to their particular 'specialty'? 

 

The problem is that all of these are valid.  All of these are accurate.  Alll of these are rules-legal (so long as you are ignoring the 'most expensive is most cotrect" rule the same way that the published material does). 

 

The only guidance is'"look how our amazing free-form skill system let's you do exactly what you want!" without even a fingerpoint in even one direction you might wish to go. 

 

Put another way: at one table, the same four skills at differing levels for these guys is perfect.  At another, it is not enough, and at a third, it is a waste of fifteen points, 

 

And all of these are correct. 

17 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

My instinct is to agree with you but in game terms, what difference do those things make to those characters?  In the comics they are geniuses and all fill the same space in stories. 

 

It feels to me like the science skills are almost equivalent to the special effects that we give to powers, they don't cost extra but they give small context-specific bonuses or penalties.

 

I think they are most useful at deciding which PC might be the one who notices the important information or makes a conceptual link in the adventure.

 

Also, while there is indeed a difference between superhero and heroic genres, I still think we should be looking at ways to use skills to flesh out the characters rather than bleed them of points.

I think we just run different types of games. Sure, you could use a "Super Science" skill to cover everything, but, for me, that loses some of the charm of the game. One of the elements I've always enjoyed in the examples I listed is to see how certain specialties are used in comics (particularly in the comics). The same could be said about looking at the Bat-Family of characters. Each has their own method of working on a crime, and some overlap better than others. Should there be a "Crime Fighter" skill to cover everything they can do? If it works in your game, awesome. For me, I'd prefer the extra details. I believe that's where a character can shine the most. I'm not saying that anyone is wrong, but rather it's not for me (especially after running broad skill systems for so long).

33 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

On 2/18/2023 at 7:30 PM, Sketchpad said:

In the example of the PS: Policeman skill above, you'd use the Expertise: Policeman in basically the same way. 

 

It won't work. 

 

At least. It won't work as a drop-in to HERO _as it stands now_. 

 

I say that because we are discussing the problems of initiate splitting of such things as Professional Skills. And PS: X  from HERO _is_ Expertise: X from M and M.  That is what it is for:  it is a catch-all for unspecified skills related to this field. 

 

The problem doesn't go away: a lack of guidelines on when to split or just what is covered under what, and when does this umbrella not cover that problem.  

 

I agree that guidance is important. Really, at that point is a bump of the rules or one of the game master? Could you revert to a PS skill that can be used as a blanket skill? If it works for your game, sure. Using the example of PS: Policeman, it could be used as a KS: Law Enforcement, KS: Crimes & Criminals, Deduction, Interrogation, Combat Driving, and whatever other skills the GM finds acceptable. 

In a note similar to what GM Joe said, the skill system many of you are looking for kind of exists in the Mutants & Masterminds, Third Edition system. The Expertise skill there is a catch all that allows characters to include a profession, specialized knowledge, or a catch-all for a skill that everything else doesn't cover. In the example of the PS: Policeman skill above, you'd use the Expertise: Policeman in basically the same way. 

Personally, I enjoy the more inflated skill system that Hero has had since 4th ed. I realize I may be in the minority in this thread, but the skill list has been something that's helped me define characters better. What's the skill differences between Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner? Depending on the system, not much. Using a more broad skill list, they'd all have science/scientist. In Hero, however, it's more specific and leans into the individual skills better. SS: Quantum Physics, SS: Physics, SS: Engineering, SS: Robotics, etc. For me, it works better. 

On 2/13/2023 at 10:07 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

Duke, did I sign up for a graduate class in my sleep?  

Can I borrow your notes? I was late for Professor Bushido's class and missed almost the whole thing.

On 2/13/2023 at 10:07 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

I did an experiment of Friday on Reddit that I may post, but asking for a crunchy, non-narrative TTRPG system gave interesting results.but the most recommended system was GURPS, followed by Pathfinder 2, and Savage Worlds.   Hero was 4th or 5th. 

I did something similar on Facebook, but was a "Which superhero game do you play" poll. Champions came out on top, followed by V&V and M&M. I was a bit surprised. 

On 9/13/2022 at 8:12 PM, Sketchpad said:

I'm not far from DD here. I've always been a big HERO fan, particularly Champions, but the game needs... something. I've gone over what I think it needs in at least three or four threads, so I'm not going to go into that. But the big thing that it needs is some publicity and some kind of "It Factor" that makes people want to carry it in stores. I remember back in the day when Champions was in almost every game and comic shop that I went to. Now, shops that remember it think it's dead, and new stores have no idea what it is (and are less likely to run demos based on that). 

 

These days, I mainly play some Mutants & Masterminds, AGE, and 2d20... but I always long for running HERO again someday. 

I'm changing my above answer. One of my goals over the next few years is to play/run more Hero... Champions in particular. I have two campaigns that I'm going to start working on, and a slew of characters to convert. But I'm going to run it, and maybe make Hero my "go-to" system once again. 

I'm a fan of a full cast kind of game. I tend to at least make notes for people that are important to the player characters and have them pop up here and there. There have even been times where we've staffed their base with fun NPCs that they can interact and create bonds with. Mind you, I also like having sprawling cities with gangs, villains, cops, and all sorts of other NPCs for folks to bump into. Sometimes its just a neighborhood cat that they pet, other times it could be a group of high-tech hoodlums lurking around the local electronics store.

On 2/7/2023 at 10:08 PM, Steve said:

Not sure if this is feasible since Hero Games sold the Champions Universe IP years ago and uses it under a license from them now.

I wouldn't be surprised if there could be some licensing deal made. Honestly, I'm surprised more games like Overwatch and Fortnite don't have minis out. 

Alternatively, rather than hiring in someone for STLs, licensing out the characters to a popular STL creator might work better.

Never cared for the way Deathstroke was treated past 4e. I used the group as a great foil for a few of the teams I've ran for in the past, and even gave them additional gear. I've since made my own version of such a team that was inspired by the original. 

3D Printable Minis would be a great draw to the Patreon.

On 1/23/2023 at 4:00 AM, Cloppy Clip said:

Thanks everyone, that's some great advice. Thinking over it, and having a look at the perks section of the rules (one I'd mostly skipped over on my first time reading through), I wonder if the Followers perk might not be the simplest way to go about what I had in mind: you end up with an ally with powers of some description, but the SFX is that, instead of recruiting this person, you've granted them the powers yourself.

 

Now that I think that's taken care of, I do have one silly question about Transform duplicating other powers. Page 307 is quite clear that you shouldn't use Transform to replicate other powers, like Christopher says, but page 306's "Adding or Removing Abilities" seems to be saying that powers can be granted as a part of the transformation (e.g. giving someone wings gives them Flight). But in comic books you have examples like Superman, who looks exactly like a human but has a large array of potent superpowers. Where would you draw the line, personally? For me, it feels like the question of whether there's an example of the result in the real world matters; so, if Kryptonians are a part of the universe then a Transform might be able to turn someone into Superman, but it would definitely be off the table if they aren't.

In my experience with the Hero System, both as a player and as a GM, there are some restraints that need to be placed into a game. To begin with, you should look at the baseline points for your game. For many, a starting Player Hero will begin at 400 points. You'll use this to buy stats, skills, perks, talents, and powers. In addition to this, there should be some beginning limits, examples of which can be seen throughout Hero products. Since you're talking Superman, I would suggest looking at Champions 6e pg. 135 where it shows suggested limits for your Active Points in a power, as well as giving you good character guidelines overall. 

So let's look at the Transform that you were looking at. Superman, if built as the power level as seen in the comics, is a fairly powerful character that could be hundreds of points easily. But let's say we're building him on 600 points of powers, and that's the way you'd like the Transform to work. To give someone the full deal and turn them into Superman, you'd need to roll (120 + the target's BODY) x 2 to succeed. So if we figure the target has an average BODY of 10 with no Power Defense, that means you'd need to roll 260 on your Transform dice. To this in one shot, and taking into consideration that the average roll is 3, that would mean you'd need an 87d6 Major Transform, which would be 870 active points just for that single power before any limitations or advantages. 

Oof. That's a LOT of points that are nowhere near that 400 point character I was talking about in the beginning of this post. As a GM, I wouldn't allow it in my game.

2 hours ago, DShomshak said:

I appeal to the wisdom of the Forum. What are the tropes? What powers are standard for someone like Queen Nocturna, and what minions should she have? Are there any must-have locations? Standard story elements?

It sounds like they may have a bit of Princess Amethyst (from DC Comics) in there as well. Taking the shows as inspiration, most of your villains can fall within a kind of mismatch of power sets and levels. You have Queen Nocturna, who could easily have darkness/shadow powers with a mystical flair, or perhaps some kind of sleep/nightmare abilities. You could easily draw upon both to get "troops/mooks" that serve her in the same way countless drones serve Master Villain X. As for her lieutenants, you usually have something like:

- Monstrous Villain: A monster of a being, perhaps combining a handful of animals or monsters into one. 

- Element Villain 1: A humanoid adapted to a specific element (with maybe a few powers from it).

- Element Villain 2: See Element Villain 1, but with a different element.

- Magic Villain: Usually the major domo of Master Villain X. They occasionally will have conflicting feelings for the hero, or someone close to them. They may also transform friends into enemies.

- Weird Tech Villain:  Someone who uses either weird tech, or uses tech weirdly. They may have several mechanical faces, a helmet with a sense based power, or something else weird. 

- Weapon Villain: Take a weapon and make it weird, and go over the top. 

- Betrayer Villain: Once a friend, this villain has been transformed into something different (usually over something petty). But they may still have feelings for their former friend. 

Many of the villains in Sailor Moon are one-offs that follow a kind of Monster of the Week kind of trope. It's only through the "magic of the moon" that they can finally be defeated. Not really unlike Voltron and his blazing sword to be honest. 

Overall, think "high concept fantasy meets technology in a weird corner of a comic book universe where everyone is either muscle men, muscle male monsters, or hyper-pretty" and you'll be on the right path for the most part. Hope this helps.

5 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Dragon grew out of a short-lived publication (The Strategic Review?).  Dungeon came along much later, and only published adventures.  I don't know if Dungeon ever published non-D&D adventures, much less non-TSR game adventures. 

 

Dragon did gradually reduce articles not related to TSR games - they sometimes had sets of articles on multiple games in a genre (there was a Supers one with Champions, V&V and a couple of other games each providing a very powerful female Super). Not surprising either as a house publication or as D&D was the big RPG seller.

I know Dungeon had done a few Marvel Superheroes modules. I believe one was a con adventure. And maybe a Traveller one... though I'm not 100% on that last one.

I think the superheroine in question was a character called Quantum. Maybe in Dragon #111?

55 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Also who I do vaguely remember, Orphanmaker and whatever his "mother" was called.

Nanny. They've been in some of the recent X-Comics lately. 

On 1/7/2023 at 4:53 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Its a bit against the rules, but when I build races for Fantasy I "balance" them with complications to 0 points.  Theoretically, in Hero terms, all the characters are the same point value that way because they all have drawbacks to offset their abilities.

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

This was how things were done in the days before sixth edition. In third addition, the package deals didn’t balance, and encouraged people to take them by being “bargains”. I much prefer that method as Encouraged players To take skills, and perks, that they would not otherwise purchase for efficiency sake.

I kind of liked the Package Deal Bonus for the same reasons Scott mentioned. 

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

Why would he ever need to be brought back anyway?  I hated Voyager's premises so I almost never watched more than bits and pieces, but why would the Doctor ever be in a physical confrontation?  And if he's an AI, his 'death' wouldn't be from disrupting his projected body anyway.

 

Realistically, I don't see much more than some Really GOOD skill rolls...science skills xenobiology and medicine, paramedic, that sort.  Eidetic memory.  Speed reading.

 

9 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Why does he need more than SPD 2?    

 

And away missions?  Can he?  How?  He's a holodeck projection.  And what's he supposed to add?  He's an AI for medicine.  

 

Yeah, OK, if you really must have him on an away team?  Duplication.  it really won't be that expensive...and there's very little the character needs to buy anyway.  A 5E AI only has DEX, INT, EGO, and SPD.  The rest will be skills, and perhaps the Duplication.

The Holo-Doc was a bit more than an AI in the show. He could take on a physical form akin to the holo-projections like in the holodeck, had his own personalities, and often worked on the various members of the crew. He really wasn't that different than having an actual doctor on the ship, except that he was tied to Voyager and could only leave under unusual circumstances. 

I would use a complication "Holographic Being" which would cover what happens if the "bee" is damaged or shut down, as well as the things he wouldn't be able to do. I don't see a need for Desolid based on what I've seen in the Trek shows. Mostly KS/PS skills, with Regeneration/Immortality so long as the programming remains intact. That said, a potential second complication "Subject to Programming" or even a vulnerability "Computer Effects" may also come into play.

1 hour ago, tombrown803 said:

It's: 978-1-58366-129-1

Thanks!

33 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

If no one else chimes in, I will try to remember to check that when I get home.

 

If rhe link on my sifnature still works, it will take you to a pet project; check page 2 for rhe "almost done" data.

Thanks, Duke. I see the product number, but not the ISBN. If you happen to have it when you have a sec, it'd be appreciated. Thanks!

Does anyone have the ISBN for the HC 6th ed Fantasy Hero handy? I'm looking to buy a new copy, but everything points to SC. Thanks in advance.

9 hours ago, Cygnia said:

3d6 Iron Array -- and you had to declare what your class was before you rolled.

Back in the day, when we first started playing RPGs with 1e, that was the way we thought stats were rolled. After some time, rather than roll and extra die, we would roll three characters at a time and choose the best array of stats.

Fun idea, @dean day! I've played around a few times with making a campaign using other game books in the past. Back in the '90s, I had a few V&V villains show up in a Champions game, and have had both V&V and Champions characters show up in an M&M campaign. The big problem I had was conversion. In the end, I found that converting by concept over some magical mathematic formula works best. Mind you, it also helps that Freedom City's creator, Steve Kenson, had dropped some conversion on the boards almost a decade ago (see attached). 

IMHO, it might be best to start small. Take a single city, populate it with NPCs, villains, any heroes that you want players to interact with and prep for running. Say you decide to use Freedom City (using the attached file). Just mix in what you'd like and then start working on your first game. When you have some time, start on the next city that your player heroes may interact with. Rinse, repeat...

26 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

I don't know what superhero game supplement might have mentioned "Emerald City," but it's Seattle's self-chosen pseudonym.

That would be one of the cities in Mutants & Masterminds, Dean. They had a 3rd edition sourcebook that came out with info on it. It's basically a stand in for Seattle. Fun book.

fchero-_1_.txt

First off, welcome to the boards and the Hero System, @WreckItDavey. Hero isn't always the easiest system for folks to grok, believe me, I understand. I have a group of excellent players that the system stumps more than once. That said, if your Game Master doesn't mind, I would ask them a bunch of questions, as they may have the insight on the campaign they're planning on running, and any house rules they may like to see.

I would lean more toward the Multiform-style of character, myself. Blake and Thor were very different characters (as can be seen in last year's issues of Thor), and the character might reflect that. This means they may have different skills, complications, and, of course, abilities. I've always worked from the more powerful character and made the weaker form an alternate of that form (not visa-versa). So maybe give the Spartan form increased abilities (like Strength and Constitution), while also having some powers (maybe a "Thunderbolt of Zeus" attack, or "Shield of Athena" defense) while in that form. Meanwhile, I would build the solider on around 200pts to make them an exceptional human being. He may have some useful skills, talents, and perks while in that form, and maybe both beings are aware of the other... even if they're not happy about it. If you want to make things interesting, you might give them both the Accidental Change complication with the Spartan appearing while "under moments of high stress" and reverting to the solider while "out of combat." 

4 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I have a sealed boxed version of Justice Incorporated. It and Espionage were the ones I remember being boxed, along with Champions back in the day. 
 

What I remember vaguely was a story as told by Bruce Harlick, was they were planning on boxing Fantasy Hero, and Danger International for the then upcoming GenCon. Going over the numbers, they didn’t have the money to get the boxes made, and if they missed GenCon, it would have doomed Hero Games. So Bruce made the decision to put out the product as “Perfect Bound” (Square bound) books, without maps and dice, and hope they didn’t get bad reviews. But the opposite happened, and the reviews were quite positive and the public  all loved the form factor. 
 

As for Danger International itself, it was my second favorite thing to run, after Fantasy Hero. Danger International run right wasn’t James Bond, but an 80s action movie.  The rules came out smack in the middle of that genre. From buddy cops, to muscle men in jungles, to Cold War escapades, all were a good basis for a D. I. Campaign. But better than running it, was playing it with the author L. Douglas Garrett. He would run a recurring session at conventions, with other industries pros as players every nation wide convention. From the jungles of the fictitious Costa Diego, where Communist Rebels opposed the Junta, to the streets of Los Angeles fighting drug cartels. The games came across as a much smarter, and more chaotic 80s action movie.  Doug could really spin a tale. These games continued until Doug moved to Japan, where he still is to this day. 
 

Being as Doug was also one of my Traveller GMs, one could use the bones of D. I. For hero based Traveller in the days before Star Hero, but then someone published rules for running a Miami Vice campaign using classic Traveller rules. No space craft and everything was tech levels 5-7. But it was D. I.’s versatility that really made it the best modern day rules. 

That sounds like a blast, Scott. So did he use a fusion of sorts between Hero and Traveller for the game? Or was it more a style from DI in Traveller? 

1 hour ago, DShomshak said:

Has anyone else blown up their campaign, or had the players do it?

A few times, sadly. The one that probably burned me the most was a long running campaign where one of the players just locked up on me after I gave them a spotlight. The events that led up to it and the eventual disappointment was enough to kill the whole game for me.

@Jason S.WaltersAny chance we might see color HC of the 6th ed books at DTRPG/Amazon/Hero Shop in 2023? I'd love to get a few copies of books like Fantasy Hero or Star Hero, but would rather have a copy closer to the original.