Steve

In your average TTRPG group, even with just a handful of players, if each of them takes DNPCs, Hunteds, Contacts and Followers, that can quickly become a cast size that could overwhelm a GM. So, how many NPCs is too many? Should a limit exist on the number of NPCs a group can bring to the table as their supporting cast? How about an individual player? What if one player’s supporting cast is significantly larger than those of other players? Should a limit be imposed to keep their NPCs from taking over the campaign?

I am strangely not surprised by this, given how much horror-themed anime, manga and movies there is in Japan. It was surprising to read that women are the majority of players there though. I guess men there prefer video games?

Combining these two posts, I’ve now got the image of a WerePoohbear in my head.

The new team could be a family affair. Maybe the mutant power gene runs in their family and the new members are cousins or half-siblings. One cousin without natural powers could be the new Steel Commando.

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.

Politics could also make this even more interesting. Evil organizations could keep the PCs quite busy without them ever leaving the Fortress of Doom. Does the Dark Lord have children? Are any of the PCs his children? Are there other lieutenants or henchmen? Do they plot and scheme against each other? Will they try to involve the PCs? Do they want to get rid of the PCs and usurp their place at the Dark Lord’s right hand? The Dark Lord’s beautiful but treacherous daughter may try to use her femme fatale wiles to ensnare a PC in between her time spent pining for the unattainable Hero. Does the PC get jealous and sally forth to stomp on their Hero rival? Perhaps the Dark Lord has more than one daughter from his various mistresses, and they are struggling with each other in the pecking order. Perhaps the Dark Lord’s eldest son is a powerful brute but dim of wit, but the younger son is clever but physically weak. Are there rival factions in the Legions of Doom trying to pawn off their failures on the PCs or get them to do the hard work? Do the PCs have someone lower in social status trying to suck up to them? You could get quite the soap opera going with only a little bit of effort. The PCs may end up having so much going on in the Fortress of Doom that they don’t seem to have much time to get out and enjoy some looting and pillaging. And then there’s the paperwork. It’s all fun and villainous to march around and tyrannize the peasants, but you haven’t seen real evil until you’ve had to deal with the Dark Lord’s bureaucrats. They have ways to make you suffer without ever lifting a sword or wand.

An alternative to the nation-conquering version of Deathstroke might be to have them be the “secret masters” of a large town or small city they took over in the intervening years since their last appearance. It would give them a base of operations and set them apart a bit from other villain teams with more grandiose plans. They could have secret IDs as upstanding citizens and maybe even be raising their kids with powers as the future of their operation.

I would also add to this that subtracting a point of SPD from all characters could also help stretch points. So 3 SPD Bricks and 4 SPD Energy Projectors. Agents could be built cheaper too.

In addition to Hugh’s analysis, there are also the defensive powers Damage Negation and Damage Reduction to consider. Damage Negation should probably be limited to a third or a quarter of the DCs being thrown about. If a character has Damage Reduction, the odds of being stunned drop a lot and should be limited as well. A character with both Damage Negation and Damage Reduction should have a pretty low PD/ED number or they would become functionally invulnerable.

There’s also growth in power to consider. Are characters fixed in their ability maximums or do those increase with time? It’s easier to plan the campaign if you have fixed maximums as that forces characters to spend points on different things unrelated to combat, like buying skills, bases, vehicles, followers, etc.

Humble Bundle - Kobold Press and Friends Just shy of twelve days remaining as of this posting.

Just seen this morning. Champions 6E Hero 6E Three weeks remaining as of this posting.

I'm wondering what the purpose is for Inventor and the unnamed KS skill on the INT Skills list. Is that for Secret ID usage? Maybe the above human ability amounts for CON, PD, ED, REC, END and STUN could also go under the Asguardian Strength list?

Well, that’s gotta sting quite a bit. After blowing their own faces off with their stupid attempt to bully the RPG industry into compliance, followed quickly by tens of thousands of D&D account cancellations happening, the fans then go and buy record amounts of other RPGs instead. I wonder if someone’s getting fired over this? D&D is (was?) one of Hasbro’s biggest cash flow IPs.

It will be interesting to see how the fans react. Lots of YouTube activity on this subject has been going on. On the OGL mess Hasbro had on their hands, I mean. I wonder if anyone will be fired over this. They blew their own face off with this stunt.

Hasbro does Stranger Things merchandise, but they could also charge the show for using their trademarked stuff like Vecna. There is some sort of contractual arrangement going on between them, so it seems much more complicated than just product placement.

And yet I suspect the vast majority of them will continue using D&D rather than try another system (or maybe shift over to Pathfinder). Who knows? Maybe GURPS will experience a Renaissance or some new players will come here. I'm now torn on whether I want to see the upcoming movie or wait for it to hit streaming. While I’d like to see more D&D movies, I don’t want to reward Hasbro and WOTC for their bad behavior.

That does sound awesome! I found the posting where it is linked, but the download link doesn’t work. I could imagine insane Marauders warping reality to make a superhero paradigm around themselves wherever they go.

Like the webcomic Penny Arcade pointed out, D&D is a culture, not a brand. WOTC was already making money hand over fist thanks to MTG and D&D, but that wasn’t good enough. Oh no. The suits at the top (who aren’t gamers by the accounts I’ve read) wanted to have more money flowing into their coffers and boost their share price and annual bonuses. Paizo: Come play with us! We support the gaming culture and want to keep going with what’s been working. Buy books from us and the other creators you like and keep on playing. WOTC: We aren’t making enough money off this game system and want to charge everyone at every game table a monthly fee to play with our new VTT and access our digital libraries. If you don’t have a DM, we’ll even provide an AI to act as one. Oh, we’re also going to kill the OGL that brought us to the top of the TTRPG world and gave D20 mechanics about 85% of the TTRPG market because it isn’t bringing _us_ enough of the money being spent on gaming out there. All your dollars belong to us. WOTC caused themselves a self-inflicted wound by deeply angering the RPG fandom and Paizo skillfully stabbed them in the face while they were down. Well played, Paizo. Well played.

The problems going on with WOTC right now are due to decisions made by their upper management, which _is_ a who’s who of soulless corporate shills hired from Microsoft and other such companies, where the bottom line and stock valuations are the be all and end all of their existence. One of them admitted she doesn’t even play D&D and seems to view it like a video game franchise. In contrast, the creative types working for the company were hired from third-party creators and are aghast at what is going on now, and they are the sources of leaks being revealed to the public. One important thing to remember about the OGL is that it was a brilliant bit of viral marketing. You mentioned that the OGL stagnated gaming. This is true. Why come up with a new system when you could use d20 mechanics? So their share of the TTRPG industry went from around 50% in 2000 to around 85% today, and helped earn WOTC a BILLION DOLLARS in revenues per their public reports. They earned Hasbro MORE revenues and net earnings then their toy lines did. The consideration WOTC earned from enacting the OGL was gaining them an army of third-party publishers and the legions of rabid fans of those companies acting as their advertisers and proselytizers for the d20 system and helping people play the game using those mechanics. These creators took a chance and invested their own money to publish their works, print and online, each of which contributed to ever growing numbers of D&D core books sold. Sales of the core books were driven through the roof by this. Rather than paying for the uncertainty of advertising, they instead gave third-party publishers some crumbs of the pie without spending a dime of their own money. Now that its grown so large thanks to those independent efforts, they want the whole pie, and they have an army of lawyers ready to do their bidding in court to see that they get it. Will they win? Maybe. But it seems like it will be a Pyrrhic victory that fractures the gaming community into a myriad of competing d20-like systems, and other mechanics selling what books they can in the margins. The d20 OGL changed expectations of how a company publishing game mechanics can operate these past two decades. Those that don’t follow this model are in danger of being marginalized and left on the ash heap of gaming history. Gaming culture works on a principle of proselytizing by fans, and that is a big part of what enabled D&D to be where it is now, the most well-known TTRPG in the world. I do what I can to support Hero, buying books and using the mechanics in the games I run, as I’m sure other fans of the system do, but it seems to be a losing battle in the face of what the d20 OGL culture has wrought.

YATRO?

I've seen some people at conventions get quite physical at the gaming table. Even rolling dice while standing up and acting like they're at a Las Vegas craps table when they roll well.

In all my years of gaming, I don’t think I have ever played a halfling.

Unfortunately, Hero seems to be the game system that the RPG community has mostly forgotten about. Like “Hero’s still around? They did Champions, right?” While its peers like Chaosium and Steve Jackson Games will probably enjoy a surge as a result of Hasbro’s epic display of stupidity, I don’t think Hero Games will get to see much of that, sadly. Joining the ORC community that is forming might help, as Hero is one of the elder statesmen of gaming. More people just need to be made aware it still exists.