BoneDaddy

Re: Help in evaluating a character

Re: I need a trained parrot writeup

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity? I'm going to commit a minor board heresy by pointing out that it's ONLY A GAME. More rules is not necessarily better if it means that a twelve second combat encounter takes more than an hour to figure out. More rules would only serve to decrease playability for the minor (near non-existant) benefit of more accurately modeling the physics of a flying invisible man who shoots lasers out of his eyes (see how silly that sounds? Accurately modeling fantasy is an odd thing to do in the first place). Lets take two examples from other game systems to show what the hell I mean. First, Shadowrun, an old fave of mine with which I am pretty familiar. Oodles and oddles of d6 are rolled. Metric buttloads of d6, in some cases. Sixes are re-rolled ad infinitum. The oppo is reduced to a sort of runny curry on the sidewalk. Low complexity, high playability, limited (lets call it streamlined, it sounds better) realism. Combat is fast and furious. Next, consider everybody's favorite whipping boy, AD&D 2.0, with all the trimmings. Speed factors, weapon size (important when trying to use a broadaxe in a tunnel), armor type, damage type (crushing piercing or slashing), armor class, hit dice, THAC0, reaction bonuses, morale checks, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum. Hours pass. Blows are traded back and forth at a rate of one swing per minute. Limited realism, overburdened complexity, and eventually the good guys mug the bad guys and loot the bodies. Combat takes a buttload of time and consultation of thousands of tables. The point is, realism isn't important. Having a good time is important. If realism was the whole point, you could go wash the dishes and take out the trash like your wife wants you to back in the real world. If more rules doesn't mean more fun, more rules is bad.

Re: M&M pees in HERO's cheerios... In addition to being rather nasty, I find this proclivity physiologically puzzling. When I'm in a particularly erotic frame of mind, peeing is rather challenging to do. Hard, even (so to speak). I don't get it. But hey, if the chicken in question promised to set himself on fire first, I'd see what I could squeeeze out for him. Weirdo.

Re: Horror/Fantasy Sick Concept I like the idea of the necromancer blowing into it and it howling with the previous owner's voice. It sounds blood curdling. It's a wonderful, awful idea.

Re: Musings on Random Musings Imaginos, dammit! Well, for my own collection anyway. (Edit: I just checked amazon,, and a used copy can be mine for $48! Yumpin Yiminy!)

Re: Horror/Fantasy Sick Concept Screw the science - is he or ain't he a necromancer?

Re: Kong: the movie King Kong was a great 2 hour movie stretched out to 3 hours. The Apatosaurus stampede was simply too long and ended in a tangled heap of quivering grey flesh - I laughed. I don't think I was supposed to. Additionally, Mr. Jackson succeeded in finding the limits of CGI: frequently the actors appeared to be running while CGI effects stampeded around them, as opposed to interacting with the world they were supposed to occupy. The valley of the bugs was needless, disgusting, and ... oh yeah, disgusting. The man eating worms were horrid and pointless, the arachnid thingys were oversized and undersensed, the whole scene just seemed a bit too video-gamey. The T-Rex fight scene was awesome - King Kong is Jet Lee with fur. And the scene was too long by about five minutes or so. The natives were standard pulp fair, which means (to me) that they were wretched caricatures of brown primitive peoples the world over. I won't bother to call it offensive, since there are no actual skull islanders to offend, but "benighted" would fit. They should have made sense - that would have pleased me. Are there no other herbivores on that island except for the apatosauri? I wanted some plot and character development. The trip back to NY would have been worth watching. I'd have taken it over 3 more minutes of stampede. That said, I liked it. It is chock full of gaming ideas. It was just like Titatic, only boat was smaller and the guy in DiCaprio's role had better lines.

Re: Chris Craven - quick 5th ed update As you have him written up, Andy (your first one) is a bigamist. One of those DNPC's should be a child, I think. Additionally, his Change Environment is always on but his wife is unaware that he's Frostbite? BUT, I like all of these, I'm bookmarking this thread, and rep for you.

Re: And For My Next Trick... This cries out for "side effects." "Whoops, musta grabbed the wrong hat!" "Again!?"

Re: The Last Word That particular dish, for whatever reason, consistantly makes me barf (three times now, I haven't had it since.) I don't mind the taste or anything, it must be some terribly complex combination allergy.

Re: Combination disadvantages: Schizophrenia? Why do you need to stat this out? For a PC, realistic schizophrenia is a non-starter. DareDevil gets away with blindness, but nobody makes a decent superhero with that cross to bear. My cousin is HEAVILY medicated, and still has such pearls of wisdom to share as "I used to have brown eyes like yours - a buddy of mine put cigarettes out in them. But I got better." With proper medication, he is an incapacitated threat to himself and others. On the other hand, I had a classmate in law school who was schizophrenic, and he did well enough in many ways. The meds blunted so much of his affect - I still don't see him in tights. So for a PC, I don't think you can do it. For a villain or an NPC, hand wave it. Either way I don't think you need to stat this one out. Just my 2AP

Re: And For My Next Trick... A shill is an essential to many good magic acts, especially mind reading and the like. Convincing henchmen to become HER henchmen would be a handy trick, and par for the course. Perhaps a little mind control with a RSR: seduction?

Re: A Thread for Random Musings If he ends the year on that strip, I might just kill him.

Re: The cranky thread

Re: Musings on Random Musings Extramarital affairs are horribly overrated. Divorces are horribly underrated, IMNSHO. Good luck to you and yours.

Re: Standard Effect ... why 3? Standard effect is a boon to mentalists. Knowing that you can either control, delude, or mind-read a goon with little more than a hand wave is very nice. Add cumuulative, and you can know how many rounds you have to evade the baddy before you have him under your power. It's also good for Transform, for the same reasons.

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel Tangential conversation man. He's talking loudly on a cell phone, about facts that relate directly to what the PCs are doing, and predicting dire circumstances. The thing is, the conversation isn't directly about the PCs, or even remotely about the PCs, but it applies too perfectly to what the PCs are doing. Example: the PCs are going to an arranged meeting with an organized crime figure. In the elevator, they stand next to this guy who's yammering into his cell phone. "You can't be serious! They're going to get chopped up and fed to his pigs. No, I'm serious, he keeps pigs and feeds people to them. ... People he thinks need killing, what do I know? I'm not a mobster. ... Anyway, they're toast." If interrupted, he will respond with the same hostility that anyone would if their private conversation was interrupted by a stranger.

Re: How would you build this real-world device in Hero terms? I was in the field artillery. Now the only high pitched noise I hear is tinnitus.

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel He Ain't Heavy - He ain't. He's a medium height, medium build, medium complexion sort of a guy. But his footfalls sound like an elephant's. He doesn't stomp or anything, but the floor sounds like it is straining heavily under his medium wight. Stairs creek, elevators quiver, once in a while a tile on the floor cracks under his feet. When he gets into a taxi, the shocks strain and the car lists to one side. He travels long distances by train only. Picking him up is easy - he's about medium weight. I'd avoid letting him step on your foot, though.

Re: When sfx become an advantage Hoist the munchkin by his own petard. Missile Reflect his ninja right back at him. Spiny Bards? I'm reminded of the frontman from Prodigy. Although calling him a bard is a bit of a stretch.

Re: Musings on Random Musings Sobriety sank in.

Re: Musings on Random Musings So True - they frequently wind up with a four-cheeked look, with two upper buttocks and two lower ones, attractive only to South Park's five-butted monkey. Alternatively, if the girl has more curves than the denim will allow, you wind up with muffin tops. Nothin' wrong with a little curve here and there. Flattering it is what counts. Mauling it is a bad thing.

Re: Who Would be Your Character's Sidekick? Hmm. Marshall Becker is an alien, and looks like one - six tentacles emerging from a spheroid trunk, 2 eyes on stalks at the terminus of each tentacle. Sidekick... Should be an Earthling, someone who could help him interact and adjust to Earth civillization. Someone to announce to terrified bystanders that Marshall is the hero, like the Hulk's old sidekick, whatsisname. A Japanese schoolgirl would probably be in poor taste, but I'm going with it for now. She'd have to be a martial artist of some sort - she could learn a variation on arshall Becker's native fighting arts, using a chain in place of tentacles. Conditions? Mutual dependence. If it was apparent that she was mission essential. Of course, he'd be VERY concerned for her safety, since deputizing a native and getting them injured is strictly against GDF policy. He'd rather not, but she'd be invaluable as a translator (not of the language, but of the culture) and ambassador. More realisticly (?!), he'd likely have a 'bot salvaged from the wreckage of his ship as a sidekick. Use him as a research aid and 'bot Friday. "bidi-bidi-bidi..."

Re: Final Sanity Rules I like these rules better than the old CoC game rules. It seems much more like a lingering risk rather than an impending plummet. Impending plummet is fine for roller coasters and fiction books, but playing a game with a character who is quickly doomed is not much fun, unless the game is Paranoia.