Steve

Missed this the first time around. An interesting idea.

Missed this the first time around. An interesting idea.

I started to post a theoretical game scenerio about an artificial intelligence terrified for her lost freedom hoping to see how others would have their heroes react...
 
then I realized "I've done this before"
 
I think my brain is calcifying.

In your character's adventures he or she encounters "Wynnie Wonder", who seems to be a super heroine in her late teens, or at least certainly no more than twenty. A typical flying brick in her power set, her personality is kind, wholesome, and brave. She protects the innocent, values life, and tries to be a good role model. If she has a failing it is that she can seem a bit of a Goody Two Shoes. Some heroes may also be surprised to find that they make a doll of her, and other toys related to her. They appear to be quite a hit with young girls. Even boys are sometimes caught watching her cartoon, though she'll never be the most popular hero, since she just isn't cool enough.
 
A year later, and you encounter her again, seeming a bit more worldly wise, though with her relative innocence intact. Wynnie now understands flirting and so forth, though still has some old fashioned values herself. Her costume has changed more in keeping with the times, but the courage and goodheartedness remain. It would appear that "Wonder Toys" has changed their dolls to match.
 
Six months after that, you encounter Wynnie, and she's wearing a much darker, even risque costume. She cusses, she no longer pulls punches, though she hasn't killed anyone (yet anyway), and doesn't have time for pulling cats out of trees or other "loser" stunts. She will still fight by your side when an emergency comes up, but is so antagonistic that she's now a pain to work with. She also prefers to be called "Wynn Wicked" because it sounds 'cooler'
 
In one battle, the young woman is struck by a powerful electromagnetic charge, and you hear her say "Drive in danger, save and transmit, switch to backup, return to base" . The heroine then gets up, looks at her costume, and immediately covers herself with renewed modesty. She looks at you, tears streaming out of her eyes, and says "Help me, please, don't let them change me again" then starts to fly towards Wonder Toys as slowly as she can, as if fighting it every inch of the way.
 
It would appear that Wonder Toys has more than just a contract with her. Their former owner built her. Wynnie is a robot, but when the owner died months ago, Wynnie , as property to a man who had no surviving relatives, and all her control codes were company property. Wynnie can laugh, she can cry, she can even sneeze, but as far as the company is concerned, she's 'just' a machine. Wonder Toys was recently purchased by "Edge E. Industries" , and Wynnie went with it. Now trying to market Wynnie to a older and more jaded crowd, Wynnie has under gone a reprogramming to go with her new costume. They can't just build another, the designs were kept in the late creator's head, though they can repair and reprogram. Edge E has a lot of money, a lot of lawyers, and sadly, the 'new Wynnie" is a hit with a lot of people so she and her image ARE profitable. The local law seems to be on Edge E's side, and even if you can fight it in court, it could take years.
 
WWYCD?
What would your character do?

I'd say it's not an official HERO Games product/book but a fan website that best captures rules for a Greyhawk/Dragonlance type D&D campaign. 
 
That website is my favorite of all the HERO fan-sites, Killershrike's 'High Fantasy HERO' site (it's primarily 5th edition content to boot). I'm willing to bet his 'World of Generica' is just what your looking for,
 
He breaks down feats, classes, races and especially magic in 5E mechanics. It's got SO MUCH content it's amazing IMO. If I won the lottery I'd pay to have all that content professionally laid out and setup for Print on Demand books. 
 
I'd also recommend checking out his other HERO content, he's got Sci-Fi and Cyberpunk and Super-HERO pages just as detailed and content rich as his Fantasy HERO page. Not to mention pages for other RPG systems.

I've had a fit of pseudo-creativity again, and wanted to put the results to words, and also perhaps get some constructive criticism. It's a fantasy setting -- a plane somewhere on the outskirts of the multiverse, a small world that started out sort of standard Sword & Sorcery-ish, with different folks living . But about twenty years ago, the ransom travels of the plane took it into the attention of a Qlippothic Hell that started to drain the vitality out of our little world. Over the past generation, disease has spread into plagues, bountiful fields have become dust bowls, all gods but one has fallen silent, and lately no children of any kind have been born.
 
The gods are gone, giving up their existence in a futile attempt to push back the invading realm. Only the Lady of Sorrow and Hope, known to most as Lacrimosa the Ever Crying, survived. She saw that her world is doomed beyond salving, that all life in it will go to feed those who are never sated. 
 
But she still saw hope for the people of her world. The dying world now has only rather petty magic, fit for jugglers and swindlers, to entertain and deceive; but in the far past, great empires wielded the highest magic. The mage empires are long gone, and the memories of them and their high spells are all that remain. The most renowned of the mage kings of old was Eyeless Tongue-less, who alone could walk at will between worlds. Lacriomosa saw this as a possibility for escape, not for her -- she was bound to the world -- but for the world's inhabitants.
 
Still, there were problems. Eyeless Tongue-less had written of his magic in his legendary Tome of Gates, but no copies were made, or if they were made, none had made it through the ages. The original, however, still ought to remain in Eyeless Tongue-less' sanctum, but that, too, was lost; he had hid it too well, even from the gods. The Lady of Tears could certainly find it, but not without cost, and all her attention must be turned to the Qlippoth. Lacrimosa would certainly need agents.
 
Here's where the PCs come in. In her desperation for men and women of action, the goddess turned to ... the more unsavory elements of the world -- thieves, robbers, slit-throats, sell-swords, hucksters, entertainers, and bawds. A select few of these she empowered with what little strength she could spare, for the expressed purpose of bringing her the Tome of Gates to save the world.
 
But they will have to hurry -- in her struggle, the goddess' strength is failing, and the Qlippoth have been started to find ways to slip into the world, in search of prey.

I’m glad to hear that things are improving, especially that your husband is coming around at last. Hopefully it keeps moving forward to a better place.

That’s a Kidney Punch, but I guess a Liver Punch could be built the same way. I was hoping to avoid making it too lethal though which is why I was looking at other options.
 
The Liver Punch comes in around the ninth and tenth ribs, so low in the Chest area or maybe the Stomach area, but to the side. In boxing, it’s usually done with a left hook since it has to hit the lower right side of the opponent at the bottom of their ribcage.

I have an update.
 
First up, I asked the GM: I need an honest answer -- is the plan for the Bad Guys to "win" whenever we have our next session or does our party have any sort of chance?
 
His response
 
...so yeah.
 
So, I showed the GM's response to hubby.  Then we talked properly, him and I, about my concerns.  How I didn't liked the bait & switch when I was initially told the campaign was us supposed to be saving the day, not setting up things for what's now the "real" game.  How it frustrated me as a player and as a writer myself that I'm supposed to fulfill a predestined plot as opposed to playing a game.  How, even if I wanted to go out as a Big Damn Hero, it could all be rendered moot by a bad dice roll anyways.
 
And I told hubby how frustrated I felt with him pressuring me to keep playing anyway.  That it wouldn't be fun for me like that.  And I reminded him that we do still game together (Wednesdays with the plan for us GMing together towards the end of the year), so it's not like Fridays are the only thing.
 
...I think he finally got it.  And he'll accept my choice.  I did say that I would finish this campaign first and to see how I'm feeling if I will continue on Fridays.  And I told hubby that I'm totally fine if he chooses to keep playing even if I don't.

For a city, you don’t need to be very detailed. Here are the docks, there is the city center region, the local university, and so on. Add more pieces to it and detail as needed for players.
 
Call it Generic City or Everytropolis and start playing.

Just touching on this:
 
Classic Traveller never went into detail about what went into a tech level.  Personally, I never found that odd, as most games of the era either "left it up to you" or figured you could understand the underlying logic well enough that it wasn't worth detailing on their limited budget.
 
I say that to point out to any younger folks (young folks playing HERO!  Ha!  I slay myself!) that this sort of thing was _so incredibly normal_ that the tendency was to assume that there was something already stated that gave you the information you needed to answer your question (word processors, digital documents, and a sharp drop in printing and publishing prices and options have changed all that, though).
 
Anyway, we always assumed that the tech level- much like the law level- could be seen as a result of the other statistics rolled, and didn't really bat an eye at having to use that information to "figure out why" either of these were like they were:
 
High water percentage? Less-than-ideal atmosphere?  High population?
 
Well most likely any and all resources were being pumped into keeping people alive- food production, shelter-- that 20 percent land mass might only be half arable- or habitable at all- and the overpopulation has resulted in a sub-standard educational system, and the higher-tech items are specialized toward farming, building arcologies, and air purification; not starships and weapons.
 
 
Low population, fifty-percent landmass, good air?  Even a High planetary population, with so much land, could be a very frontier-esque world, with no single settlement of more than a thousand people: not the ideal situation for think tanks and large-scale industry.
 
 
Again: I am not saying we were _right_ (and honestly, more recent versions of Traveller may have mandated certain reasons; I couldn't tell you), but it worked well, was kind of fun when you had a tough combination, and we still use it today.
 
 
 
Oh- meant to add:
 
We usually allowed a variance, particulalry on balkanized world's (perhaps a hundred years of warfare has pulled the citizenry away from high-tech pursuits and toward more urgent survival technologies?) that the tech level was the average; there was always a chance to find a place here or there whose tech was one level higher, and perhaps two levels in a very narrow field or via importing items related to a specialized on-planet need.
 
 
 

So, a question about Tech levels.   A low tech level means they can't make stuff above a certain level. However is it a case of knowledge, or resources, or a combination of the two?   Tech Level 8 planet with a class B starport and on the X-Boat Route. They may not have the money or the manufacturing base, or even the population to support any tech level above 8, but... They would definitely have the knowledge of technology, and possibly have items imported from higher tech systems, just no ability to locally repair it, unless they pay for a service call and move the items to the starport to get fixed on board a factory ship.  Otherwise, citizens of  the local planet would have to watch the Imperial Equivalent of "Game of Thrones" in a technologically downgraded format for their local nets?  I would assume that the X-Boats would be carrying  culturally significant items from the Imperial Capital to systems along the route, with the news being up to a year out of date by the time the X-Boat reaches the edge of the Empire.  So the B Starport, Tech 8 System (Probably growing a lot of food for export, or providing resources), would be reasonably well informed, just a bit lean, technologically?   
 
The next version would be a "Disconnected" colony that has slipped back to Tech Level 5, due to war, population decline, or economic collapse, and it's star port has slipped back to an open field with some markers and a Gap Transmitter beacon, and no services and no local expectation of any real traffic, other than the occasional visit by the ISS.  They may not have the knowledge other than vague rumors or how the higher tech stuff worked.  Am I "reading" this correctly?
 
The final one would be a Tech level 3 planet crawling slowly up the ladder, that has no starport, or any groundside industry, other than food production for it's local populace. 
 
For the first example. could we assume some importation of higher tech items, from entertainment systems among the rich, or Military Hardware for enemies both foreign and domestic, or  Higher tech motors, to be assembled into otherwise domestically produced vehicles? (For a premium?)
 
For the second, They would have a reasonable memory of their history, but no ability to create anything past basic radio, and most of their entertainment would be live music, and primitive recordings. But they have huge gaps in their knowledge due to their previous electronic record having evaporated due to EMP or simply time? It's aqll printed material now.  So they know what a grav vehicle is, and that they used to be on a Starship trade route, but have lost the knowledge to maintain, repair, or build a starship or a grav  vehicle.  Their accent, speaking "standard" is quaint".
 
The last example I have no further knowledge of, but How far back would the other races fall? Similar? less, or more?

 

"You be careful, sweetheart.  These things will kill you, you know."

"Feelin' lucky, pal?  You know I am!"

This should be work-friendly, if not kid-friendly.  .  .

Doc Savage: Mad Mesa by Kenneth Robeson (Lester Dent) - The most interesting thing about the story is that the 'Mad Mesa' was inspired by the Devil's Tower in Wyoming, not too far from where Lester Dent grew up. Other than that, no interesting details to mine for scenario ideas, the crime, the criminals, the mcguffin were pretty banal by pulp standards.
 
Hollow Earth Expeditions, Revelations of Mars by Exile Game Studio - This book is gorgeous.  Expands on some of the history in the core Hollow Earth Expeditions book, this is a complete setting for Lost World Romance style pulp adventure on the red planet.  I found it on ebay, and it is also on drive thru rpg.

Wow.
 
 
That... Uh...
 
That should certainly take the fight out of them....
 

 
 

Hey Herophiles! On the evening of September 27 I'm appearing on Marc Tassin's awesome Out Of Character podcast! Please come give us a listen to hear us talk about fiction, gaming, and all sorts of related topics!
 

That's not in the OP's example. Combat hand gestures are probably a 1 point language skill, but that doesn't sound like what was being described. (ASL would be a full language.)

IIRC, "Strike Force: Morituri." Latin for "We who are about to die," from the salutation Roman gladiators gave the Emperor before the games.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

Developing superpowers In statistically significant portion of the population would be bad. Western nations would lose their philosophical underpinnings with regards to equality, and would either go totalitarian, or dissolve.  Less developed nations would factionalize into might makes right situations. The unpowered would hide, and the labor market would become unstable.  Civilization would collapse, or regress into feudalism. Rule by Kryptonian level thugs or powered sociopaths would become the norm.  

Another to read
 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52039930-awakening
 
It is the first in a series about Evolved Ones, people who one day develop some sort of super power.  Most are low key, but some are more obvious and so the people become the target of .... less than scrupulous entities.   In the case of the MC she's being hunted by a scientist who wants to use her for experiments to find out how EOs come about, if he can duplicate the process to create it artificially, and finally what can be spun off from the abilities (Ex. one lady can secret a substance that can render a person unconscious with NO side effects).  
 
So there is the approach that IF people can develop super powers, CAN we do it artificially, control the process, and even choose what abilities they will get.
 
A comic called Strike Force: Mortuary ended its run with a similar.  The process to get super powers would kill you after 1-2 years, but later the process was improved and that onerous SE eliminated.  Now we have a world where it is possible to buy super powers.

The manga/anime series My Hero Academia the majority of the population has super powers.  While it is a "superhero universe", I'm quite sure there is a major portion of the population which has no intrest in becoming a superhero or supervillain, and simply go to school to control their quirks (what there universe calls super powers).
 
Most everyone in the world has an extra bone in their feet(?) which indicates if they were going to develop a quirk or not.
 
...while there are the main manga and various support manga (like MHA Vigilante), there is not a manga focused on 'normal' quirk using people with no heroic or villainous aspirations...yet.

It all depends.  There is no fixed, correct answer.  
--"Superhuman" doesn't equal "godlike"...and Superman is INSANELY powerful.  Obviously, it depends on which one you're talking about, but he's several thousand points IMO, in Hero.  (EDIT:  built a mostly reasonable version.  Characteristics and powers are coming out at about 1300 with, I think, almost all the big stuff included.)
--One of the critical, huge scenes in WtC happens very shortly after the Event.  I don't recall if it's in the first book;  it's definitely in the RPG, and I believe in one of the books eventually.  Atlas, Ajax, Touches Clouds, and the rest of those who would become the Sentinels walk into a Congressional hearing about a bill to restrict supers.  Ajax gives a speech that is awesome..."we will stop them."  And that's the start.  
--What's the draw to be a hero?  Celebrity status like nothing else.  In both Hayes' SPU and WtC, popular culture is completely swept up in hero culture...and in WtC, villain culture, but not per se of the "go out and STOMP" villain types.  Those are in super prison.  
 
Push comes to shove...if suddenly very powerful supers (I like to build SPU characters at around 600-650, with 16 DC attacks max) arise in today's polarized, nervous, and hair-trigger environment...then honestly?  I think a billion people would die inside of a couple years, and infrastructure collapse would happen in many places.  But that, in itself, could lead to a transition whereby heroes form...and knowing that the entire planet came VERY close to being obliterated, a semi-stable arrangement could be reached.  In WtC, Cuba was taken over by the Tyrant...who might well be called godlike, his powers aren't made clear.  He has absolute control...but he's not there to exploit.  It's described as a mostly free, almost libertarian state.  OTOH, there's Juarez, which is still an ongoing war zone that spills over onto both sides of the border.  
 
But some of what you're thinking...it's self-correcting to a degree.  Mind...it's bloody UGLY.  I kinda think that's why Harmon skipped 10 years forward.  In Hayes' SPU, where powers became public and more common in the late 50's, there was an extensive stretch where hero vs. villain battles were VERY frequent, and VERY bloody.
 
Another interesting series is Drew Hayes' Villain's Code.  In SPU, heroes are heavily restricted and seriously trained.  In VC...they're not.  In some ways, it's like The Boys...and yes, there's more problems.  But one of the subthemes in VC is that a chaotic situation where people run wild, at some point *some* form of control will develop.