Steve

LARP.
 
Those are the crossfit gamers.
 
Lots of these videos are no longer available
 
So...   Google involvement, or a buttload of C and D orders flying about?
 
 

Well, sure. Just create a halfling that is a spellcaster with healing and/or good buff/debuff spells and team it up with a beefy well armored martial character and go all Master/Blaster on people.
 
I am currently playing a halfling Summoner in Pathfinder(1) who has taken feats that enable her to pass for a human child when she dresses and acts appropriately. She also has a stupidly strong humanoid outsider that she summons that has the appearance of a heavily armored man. They are doing the Little Sister/ Big Daddy schtick from Bioshock.

Phineous Fingers in the Dragon Magazine had evil theiving hobbits in it, mean little assassins.  That was back in like 1982

The final episode of Darren's podcast Explain This, Comics Guys!! has been released.

I've pulled muscles sneezing -- one day, it'll happen when I roll dice.

A company must be hit hard in their wallet, often repeatedly, before they listen.
 
Cancelled accounts are a good way to get Hasbro to pay attention that they have a problem on their hands.

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.

“Armchair gamers”? How is that different from, like, …gamers?  Is there some kind of hardcore crossfit gaming I’m unaware of?

Because those are two different ecologies. Humans mine and quarry underground, but with a few historical exceptions we don't live underground. We have a psychological need to see the sun, to smell and touch green growing things, to feel the fresh wind on our face. The natural environment for dwarves is the deep places of the Earth, the comforting darkness and the feel of solid stone, the beautiful glitter of rock crystal and veins of metal.
 
OTOH there are people for whom the tilling of soil and raising of living things is a deep spiritual experience and satisfaction. Why not a race for whom that is an inborn need? For whom the rhythms of their bodies and minds and souls are deeply bound to the turn of the seasons, to the open sky and pouring rain, to sprouting seeds and birthing livestock?
 
Humans invented all the creatures and races of legend to fill a role in the natural order as they perceived it. If you want to fit a race into your world, I recommend first defining its niche.

Ah yes, the classic Halfling-Thief-on-a-rope trap detector.

I didn't see this mentioned in the 4th Edition GURPS Basic Set, but there is a note under Bulletproof Nudity that topless females get an extra +1 to active defenses when this cinematic combat rule is in effect.

The bell curve follows my understanding of real world statistics of probability whereas a d20 does not. So 3d6 and 2d6 yields a certain measure of predictability that a d20 does not, and I prefer 3d6 for this reason. As a GM, this helps me in tailoring campaigns and requires far more bad die rolls than a d20 setup does.
 
It’s rarer to see a TPK of heroes using 3d6 than I’ve ever seen using d20 resolution mechanics. This is not to say I’ve never seen them, but they seem to happen far more frequently with a d20 resolution mechanic in my experience, especially when dealing with the lower levels of power.
 
I just don’t find d20 to be statistically reasonable in its outcomes.

You could make a statistically reasonable system using d20s, but you'd have to build the bell curve in somewhere else, exactly like how D&D doesn't.  D&D only sort of works in a sense because it's so abstracted.

It's tempting for a serious RPGer to want to look to the content of games for explanations of success.
 
But, D&D had a unique arc, it made a splash among wargamers initially, because it was quite different, but it became a fad when people started hearing about it in the mainstream.
 
Not because fledgling TSR had an advertising budget, but because of suicide, steam tunnels, and Satanism.  Yes, any free publicity is good publicity.
 
And, to this day, D&D remains the only TTRPG with mainstream name recognition.

The bell curve follows my understanding of real world statistics of probability whereas a d20 does not. So 3d6 and 2d6 yields a certain measure of predictability that a d20 does not, and I prefer 3d6 for this reason. As a GM, this helps me in tailoring campaigns and requires far more bad die rolls than a d20 setup does.
 
It’s rarer to see a TPK of heroes using 3d6 than I’ve ever seen using d20 resolution mechanics. This is not to say I’ve never seen them, but they seem to happen far more frequently with a d20 resolution mechanic in my experience, especially when dealing with the lower levels of power.
 
I just don’t find d20 to be statistically reasonable in its outcomes.

Even Traveller has better mechanics, using 2d6 for combat and skill resolution and varying amounts of d6s for damage. If I wasn’t playing Hero, I’d prefer Traveller’s system over d20 mechanics.

I think Hero needs to revamp its strategy if it wants to sell in the current markets.  It can't just provide a rules set and an array of choices.  It needs to provide actual games, with adventures. The market wants tons of choices (Hero provides that better than any system), but it also wants out of the box playability before we learn all those choices. Like 5e D&D "if you want a quick L1 Wizard, just pick this background, these skills and these spells, and use the pre-fab gear - you are off to the races. For GM's, a pre-fab setting and an Adventure Path to play in it.
 
While many gamers move from "pre-fab character" to "using the many choices", a much smaller proportion move from "pre-fab setting and published adventures" to "create my own world, or even adventures in someone else's world". They definitely don't want to design their own game, even with a broad system to use for that purpose. 
 
Whether Hero publishes those games or makes it easy for third parties to use Hero System to create and publish their own products, they need to get those products out there if the system is going to thrive and grow (or perhaps even if it is to survive).  But I don't think Hero can just make the full rules set open source.  Maybe a stripped down version of the core mechanics, without examples or flavour text, but even that is a fair chunk of the value of Hero IP. At the same time, that IP is not generating any money if no one plays games powered by Hero.