mhd

Storyscape, core ruleset to be designed by Robin D. Laws. I didn't even care all that much about the mapping part -- doesn't make sense unless there are multiple tables or a huge one and I'm not a big fan of detailed maps in any format. But the parametrized rule system sounded intriguing. Apparently the GM could adjust some parameters at the start of the campaign to adjust lethality, magic use etc. And with mechanical help, having umpteen different parameters for some rolls really blends in the background. Although given Laws' predilections, the parameters themselves were probably just generic "-2 for distraction/windspeed/fog" instead of detailed simulationist stuff. I think you could do something interesting pretty cheaply, maybe with a GM => tablet, player => phone setup (the latter preferably optional). Don't think the game industry has the money for that, though. Out of four to six players, we rarely had more than one rulebook for any system anyway. Even when there was a separate "player's handbook". Is that much different in other groups?

I very much agree. I think this is what most game masters of heroic settings are doing anyway in the initial campaign prep phase, and it's a section that would benefit from more mechanical support. Ready-made settings are one option, of course, but more dials and switches in the core rules wouldn't hurt. The big issue with this is its complexity. This adds another layer onto the whole system. For every power, you have to reference your "options & house rules" section, which quickly becomes cumbersome. Especially if you don't play that same campaign for 10+ years, but switch to other "rulesets" occasionally. This would be a good place for electronic help. But apart from a recent failed kickstarter, I haven't seen any good attempts in that direction. Superheroic settings generally go down to the very turtles, as there's just such a wide variety of backgrounds and power sources. Heroic games tend to move in more orderly fashions, and are often quite idiosyncratic. Applications like Hero Designer favor the former. Now with enough system support (both from the core rules and the program), it would be easy enough to adjust some dials and get a base framework that e.g. players who make their own spells or maneuvers can use. Possibly even a good cheat sheet (if the rules themselves were in an electronic format, adjustments could even appear there). Steve Long gets plastic blobs, the GM gets lego, the spell creator gets building blocks, other players get playsets, lazy players get pre-built ones with stickers already applied. That would be a way to manage a system that is that much fine-tuned. Otherwise, optional rules and formula changes should probably best be kept to a minimum.

Never mind that the superhero RPG market looks quite different from what HERO has to offer these days... Everything that's been out post-D20 makes the old Marvel game look positively crunchy.

Considering that "race" doesn't mean that either, why not go with "species" if you have to stay that clinical? Neither do drow, orcs etc., but that's in-game, which is a totally different matter entirely. It's not like the waBantu talk about "OCV", either. Again, it's not like we're not used to this in RPG circles, and IIRC, the Nymabe D20 RPG also used the terms. Then again, back in Gygax' days we also didn't dare to use the female pronoun when it came to players (arguably with good reason). Not trying to go all SJW/PC/Baatezu on you. Personally, this wouldn't really affect me that much, there are worse tropes out there.

On the other hand, it seems increasingly common to have dexterity as another source for damage, often requiring special weaponry. This happens frequently in games that have no other way to let accuracy impact damage, e.g. with hit locations. Or where this would just require too much investment for something that seems common enough... Now, let's not get started about dealing damage/hitting better with charisma, because you're so flamboyantly flashy. Looking at our GURPSian neighbors, you'll find that they've got problems with strength, too. With a more physical model, you'll get in lots of trouble if you try to assign strength values that integrate things like dead lift ability, pulling back bow strings or joules of impact from a punch. Bruce Lee, Arnold and English yeomen don't really seem to be the same body type. Realistically, "strength" is a very aspected thing. Ask any rock climber. For superheroic games you'll get other problems, like being able to move planets vs. not punching anything to pulp, but in that attribute range, we clearly left earthly physics anyway. Yet if we eliminate too many derived values from the core attributes, why do we actually have them at all? Mere tradition?

I wouldn't mind if the term would be eliminated from new RPGs in general. But yes, it sounds especially bad in an African context, especially if it's about preserving cultures and not some pulpy "dark continent" deal. And it's not like we don't have alternatives... Sure, it's pretty much grandfathered in (like simplistic morals and bad armor & polearm terminology), but any game that is not D&D shouldn't have much difficulty in applying another term.

Erm, is it really unavoidable to use the term "race" in this kinda setting?

That makes sense, of course. I'm more used to heroic gaming, where acting on the same segment is often more the rule than the exception so I didn't jump to that conclusion right away.

Quick query: I've just downloaded the "Hero Combat Survival Guide" and I'm a bit confused by the "It's phase 12" column in the "If you are problems hitting your foe" section. The recommendation is waiting until your foe moves as he can't abort then. What's so special about phase 12 here? I mean, if I wait after the foe took his actions, he can't abort anyway, as that would mean acting twice in a segment (6E2 22 is pretty specific about that happening in segment 12 as well). And if the attacker is acting right before the character, I didn't see anything that prevents him from using his first phase in the next turn. But, well, my reading comprehension was wrong before often enough

For a component-heavy mage of action, photo journalists might be a good way in general. Those vests might be ugly, but the only other way to get that many pockets and loops would be either tailoring or looking like an EDC survivalist d-bag.

Like 5 feet squares in D&D? I always thought that having to cope with the worst possible measurement system helps prepare one for these situations (12! 3! 1760! Whut?). And it's not like HERO is an enemy of division. Apart from the units, I've always liked the GURPS scale of 1 hex/1yd. Especially due to the fact that this also made reach matter a bit more.

Does anyone actually have problems converting meters/yards/shaku to hexes/squares/inches on the fly? But speaking of grids and the like, I wouldn't mind some optional facing rules.

In my experience, social interactions have a lot in common with traps. Erm, in games, of course. Sometimes it's enough to circumnavigate them with a single roll. Sometimes it's enough if the player(s) tell you where to look and how to defuse it. And sometimes you might want a more complicated mechanical approach. Apart from the aforementioned FATE, Torg had a nice version of this. Mostly due to its unparalleled initiative system. I just hope that any system that includes this is clear about how this plays out. D&D 4E made it look like its challenge system was mostly about making investigation and social interaction pass quick enough to not get in the way of the omnipresent combat encounters. And so more mechanical emphasis on social situations led to less actual time spent playing them. Let's not forget that nowadays there's plenty of computer games filling that niche...

Yeah, I've heard that over and over again, I've read all kinds of rules attempts at that, yet I mostly stay unconvinced that this is worth the page count. If you just want to abbreviate things that would take too long (seducing wenches/stableboys, haggling), a simple skill roll suffices (I don't mind FATE-like challenges if that's not the only part of the rules where they're used). Anything beyond that is just beyond the pale for my usual first person playing style. Maybe if the trope of 12-year old introverts just sitting around and mumbling "Well, urm, Lord Dashington is, like, really burning the courtier" would be that prevalent as some people say it is, I can kinda-sorta see it. Or generally totally different attitude when it comes to narrative. If used to "salt" normal repartee between NPC and PCs, it feels weirdly interruptive. Anyone remember the insult fencing from the good Monkey Island games? Where you traded insults, and if the barb really stung and no appropriate reply was brought forth, you were allowed to tag your opponent, who was out of the game after three hits. Elaborate social interaction rules often feel like that, at least once they graduate to social interaction "martial maneuvers". My yardstick here would probably be Larp rules or martial arts sports. There you hit each other, but as there are no actual broken bones and blood spilt, you keep track of how often you are hit and how well your armor protects you. Along with some good judgement whether that hit actually would've counted... Now add on a few other layers, and it really gets silly: Shouting out damage numbers or special maneuvers ("can't parry! shieldbreaker! direct damage! three! magic! poison!). If you're bouncing back and forth between different meta-levels, it really ruins the gameplay experience. Then again, considering US sports, this might be a smaller issue for some Not saying that this is "wrong", just my opinion on this as a general trend. I do think that it would be very hard to integrate something very complicated into the HERO mindset. While I'd agree to anything that amps up the skill system a bit more, giving it the same treatment as combat as has been said here seems way, way out of reach.

Historically (and I use this term loosely), real-word wizards (speaking of loosely...) have opted for the anachronistic quite often. After all, in almost all cases we're talking about masters of ancient wisdom here, so allusions to the exact source of his awesome power are just bound to happen. That often entailed Egyptian or qabbalistic symbols, or the well-documented garb of the Atlantean high priests. But that's "office wear", of course. For your casual adventuring Fridays, you're probably going for something more mundane. Although it's hard to pick out something that avoids major overlap with hipsters, goths, new age hippies and Doctor Who fan art. Never mind that the absence of suits clearly wrecks any attempt at true style from the very beginning I'm a big fan of Nehru jackets, if a minimalistic silhouette is desired. Otherwise, chaotic layers would probably be great, mixing at least one article of formal fashion (jacket, coat) with sweaters, jeans etc. I'm getting a bit tired of old-fashioned shirts, though. Even the less frilly ones. Another option would be high fashion. I mean, look at what some male runway models wears. They're either aliens or wizards. With cheekbones.

This reminds me a lot of a previous RoleMaster campaigns, where your staff/amulet/ring served as a power point multiplier. So it wasn't an absolute must, but if someone got at your precious item, you were reduced to a third of your power, and soon out of play. So I'd expect even more focus-grabbing and -smashing in a campaign where this is even more important. I'd almost recommend that one of the primary abilities of a focus is that its indestructible. Accessibility is another big issue. If I can freely choose between staff, clothing or ring and cast the same amount of spells through it, I'm going to go for the ring or magical underpants, as this really reduces my risk of suddenly losing my casting ability. So something has to be done in that area. Either the type of focus is tied to the type of spell (clothing -> protective, staff -> attack) or the amount of power is proportional to its size and structure (END reserves, staff -> 50 pts, ring -> 10 pts.). Or something more colorful like side effects (on spell failure, the item can get really hot, which is okay with a wand you can drop but not okay with your magical nipple stud). And the rest really depends a lot on the amount of magic. In my current FH campaign, there are almost no magic weapons at all, so a group used to that wouldn't consider this a big loss, just a reinforcement of magic user fashion choice tropes. But if we assume a D&D-ish level of power, this would be different. Which brings me to my next question: Is it just that no weapons can serve as focus in HERO terms (i.e. no magical items of that kind) or that you actually need "magic users" for 90% of the magic? If it's just the former, then I would suspect that life, uh, finds a way: Instead of a "+1 sword", you'll get "+1 Bracers Of Sword Pwnage", a "+1 Ribbon of Spear Enhancement" and a "+1 Scabbard of Flamey Blades". Or an influx of minor spellcasters who'll just use charges from their "+1 Wand of Weapon Empowerment" prior to combat. Or just a lot of +1 DC martial artists, if that's easier/cheaper. Or spellcasting will involve more buffs. Which could lead to even more focus-grabbing, as nullifying the source of weapon power of one side becomes paramount to any good combat strategy. But in general nothing really exotic, and I would expect most groups to be okay with that. At least it's not like you get your magic from something inherently squishy like a familiar or even a regular person (like in Guy Gavrial Kay's Fionavar series).

My current campaign uses two custom attributes, "Mana" and "Mana Recovery", which function pretty much like regular REC and LTE. Works pretty great, although I wouldn't consider this neither Vancian nor D&D-ish. D&D always had a pretty short-term resource cycle when it came to magic (and nowadays hit points as well). Unless you really went for the Bastard GM trophy by severely limiting the re-memorization time (in older editions, where it wasn't just a flat hour). One issue that I had in HERO was that its balance is really centered around combat, i.e. short bursts of intense action. END is vital, but recovers pretty fast. Extra Time is a big issue in combats, cutting down your actions per combat big time. Now, if your MANA doesn't recover as fast, even relatively tiny drains (per minute, per hour) add up. And the regular per phase drains are way more important than a per phase END drain for the Fightey Dude. Although if magic is the only source of "super powers" in the campaign, this might just be the inherent "tax".

I thought that when Greeks fought Greeks, they often were. Small armies, no sieges, so when you actually met, it was on designated ground and terms. So that lambda on your shields meant that you were in fact amongst the very first lettermen. Of course, once you get unfair outside attackers, things change.

Sounds like the cumulative effect of a Transform to me.

Well, I guess I can always highlight this in the HD prefab to tell the player to adapt the skill to his relevant power skill… Same goes for other "double roll" spells like those involving Detects and Universal Translator. Maybe I am thinking a bit too rigidly, damn these genes…

This isn't really all about simulation, more about simplifying mechanics. Player just has to roll once. Saving time ain't bad. That this would tie in the magical ability with the simulated skill would be a neat side effect, unless of course you're summoning lock-picking demons in-game. And why an advantage? Well, you rolled low enough to trigger the spell, so that's a already a higher chance that the effect will go off, too (unless Power Skill is sufficiently high). GEnerically speaking, sure, but we're already within a contrived and artificially constrained campaign-specific subset, where fairness isn't everything. If that's how Bramblemore's Chant of Opening works, than that's how it is. It also means that you don't have to recalculate everything once you raise your magic skill. You might not even have the spell on your own char sheet (if it's handled like equipment or just part of a generic VPP).

Well, "just buy it as a magical skill" or "just buy it at your Power skill level" are handy ways to treat this, but as I've mentioned in my initial post I'd prefer something more generic, something that isn't an individual tailored power but a spells from a grimoire (and/or HD prefab). The time part is clearly relevant to this skill, less or more so for others. Yes, I could stack some PSL's on there if it's really an insta-open spell with a constant duration, but for simplicity's sake, I could just say that's part of the magical solution, where it doesn't really matter whether a -5 penalty to open comes from the time saved or from the complexity of the lock. So a rather mediocre thief with time to spare might be better for a certain lock. No problem with that... Heck, in this specific case I might as well make it a Transform.

Quite often you apply a Requires Skill Roll to something that then results in yet another roll. Prime examples would be attack abilities or spells that emulate skills. Using the rules as written, the former is slightly more complicated, as it combines skill and attack rolls, so let's set that aside for now. (I'm cheating, as I've unified the two systems for my campaign anyway) But here I've got this "Open Lock" spell at 13-, and if successful, I get a one-time use of Lockpicking 20-. Two rolls, and how good I'm at spell-casting (generally or for the specific casting) doesn't affect the success of picking the lock. So let's say I want to have a modifier that let's me apply the roll I used to cast the spell to lockpicking roll. This usually means that I can't completely screw that up, as the spell already went of. So that sounds like an advantage. +1/4 or +1/2 ? And while we're at it, what would capping the evoked skill to the Power skill? I could do something more complicated with Enhanced Successes from the APG or build a power where skill equals Power Skill, but if I just want to jot it down as a simple and generic modifier, what would that be worth?

I totally get that, and I actually use this mechanic. We even switched the skill system to this, which had me write some JavaScript to fix the Hero Designer output automatically… Don't doubt my commitment to sparkle motion Yes, players and math really gets weird and makes me glad that I'm not a teacher. Strangely enough in cases like this it's often all about the phrasing. "Take your OCV + 11, roll 3d6 and subtract this" took more mental fortitude than "Take OCV + 11, roll 3d6 and tell me by how much you made it". My question to Greywind really was what's different about the two mechanics regarding the player's awareness of the DCV. I see no big difference there, and most of the time I don't tell my players the "armor class". That's also a main difference between good fighters and bad ones, not just the amount of CSLs, but how obvious it is how they applied them. Taking all of your levels into DCV might look like ducking behind your shield for one goon, but might not be as obvious for fencers or lieutenants of the thieves guild. (I do jot it down in those cases just to prevent allegations of fudging).

Why would the player need to know that? What's the difference between the usual "I hit DCV 6 or higher" and "I hit 16 or higher"?