mhd

That's a very odd definition. Usually a lot of grid-based games are thrown into the "gamist" category and D&D 4E certainly fits that description. Apart from the "realistic" angle, my personal rule of thumb is how combat works. "Simulationist" games tend to express this in terms that are somewhat recognizable from the real world, even in more cinematic/superheroic settings. So you often have "attacks" that get "parried" and if you have some move that does more damage, there's usually a somewhat believable explanation for this (head shots, wind ups). "Gamist" systems might use some of those terms, but they're mostly window dressing. You'll find lots of maneuvers that are barely tied to reality and mostly address some need derived out of the rules themselves, not the other way around. Another common idiom are combos, where your power/maneuver can only be triggered if a certain condition is extant (generally/target-based). Narrative systems vary widely, but mostly aren't concerned with the actual mechanics of combat, but more about motivations and how to best get a good story/paragraph out of all this hustling around and hitting things. Of course, any sufficiently complex X system is indistinguishable from a Y system. I'm sure you could even have some kind of gamist narrativism, although I'm quite sure that this wouldn't be my cup of tea at all. Regarding HERO, I'd say the basic combat is simulationist, but as soon as powers get into play, it's more likely to get more gamist. Especially once limits are approached and you've got multi-powers full of attack abilities depending on whether your enemy has more DCV, PD or other defensive abilities. But by writing that I've basically reached my limit of interest into those overly simplistic theoretical approaches. I find that most styles and systems are a mix of everything and the terms themselves rarely help to properly describe anything.

More like an "inbred cousin Jedediah" thing...

Another question to ask is how common and effective healing herbs are. If the local flora contains plants that can miraculously cure wounds, this changes a lot. The usual trope to keep this from being peasant health care is restricting it to dangerous areas, like fey forests or mountain tops. I think it's especially appropriate for diseases, although I'm not a big fan of games where those are common enough, apart from the occasional plot point. And Christopher, we don't talk about the Dark Eye changelings. Ever.

Pretty much the same as in D&D. In some campaigns, micromanaging spell components is a fun part of the story (if managing resources in general matters), in some it's just part of what happens in the background, like travel rations. Quite often it's a mix, depending on how expensive, rare and importent the ingredient is. In HERO, you could easily build two types of "requires component" limitations for this, one where it's expendable, one where it isn't. Generally I'm not the biggest fan of the concept, especially if it's mandatory and ubiquitous. I recently posted a thread where components weren't required, but replaced the "requires skill roll" part. In that case, tracking them is important, of course.

Ah, fell into the trap of "using acronyms popular on other fora" again. At least it's harder to misconstrue this, as opposed to the time I signed off with "IANAL". (I Am Not A Lawyer.)

Non-euclidean adventures?

Let's put it this way, it isn't exactly a viable way of getting the whole group back into in fighting shape. NTTIAWWT.

I wasn't "raised" on D&D, so non-divine healing is perfectly normal to me. Actually, divine magic in general is still not my cup of tea (I like my deities either remote and "unknowable" or running around in the setting, not having time to "grant miracles"). In the game I wasted my youth on, healing was elven magic. The two most popular spells being your run-of-the-mill "laying on hands" type and a serious boost to the nightly regeneration. Both in line with the "nature magic" aspect of elves, as they mostly enhance what's already there. Of course, curing poison was a human invention. I also liked what the "witches" were doing: They could, erm, have a sleepover, and either grant you their nightly regeneration or take yours.

Arnis, Lua, Fencing, Swordfighting, Tai Chi and two genre-specific ones.

What Markdoc said. It's been a while, but as far as I remember the only sources for non-lethal cold damage were exposure. Also known as "rules nobody ever used anyway".

Even the sparkly kind?

That's practically "Life Support: Safe Environment: Character is safe in Intense Cold", so 2 points. For the Dorns, I'd just say that they have a larger "comfort zone" (6E2 146) and leave it at that. That does pretty much the same as the D20 version, but isn't really worth any points (esp. considering that the total immunity is 2 points).

The reign of Dark Lady Lorraine Williams -- thrice-blasted be her name -- lasted from 1986 to 1996, when a magician hailing from far-off shorelines arrived, hailing in a new age.

In my experience, archers tend to gravitate to the heaviest bows possible. Understandably, and "+5 STR; only for bow usage" is quite realistic. For magical arrows -- unless you're fighting ultra-heavy beasts -- a +1 STUN mult is more fun than AP. Can emulate both a heavy whoomp and excruciating pain.

I don't think you need VPPs and school access talents in Midnight, if you're emulating the source. Magic users were hunted, and each single spell was a valuable thing. Unless you're in league with the enemy, of course. Legates get more shiny goodies.

HERO doesn't really have a big granularity when it comes to DCs, especially at the Heroic scale. So it's a bit hard to decided where you position your weapons. And for bows, people went for the "rounding up" option, so they end up being rather effective, basically on the same level as huge friggin' polearms or mounted lances. With a standard heavy longbow, you're able to pierce most plate on average, and that doesn't even include player abilities (weaponmaster, martial arts, CSLs). That's more than what's possible in the real world and thus I see no real reason to provide the players with a standard way of increasing that further. Certainly not via the common explanation of "as is it's hunting arrows, these are war arrows". I'm fine with magic, as that generally limits availability and increases the price. "You use one of your four remaining elven dragonslaying arrows?" is cool, "I'm buying another few bundles of AP broadheads" isn't. But hey, that's just me, I'm generally a more "armor should matter" guy and if I ever get around to remodeling my FH weapon tables, a lot of weapons would be nerfed.

Larping with dice is a thing?

I considered it, but in the end we decided against AP arrows. The bows are too good vs. armor anyway as is. Without the use of magic, I see no realistic justification for AP in FH.

You can be an utter lackwit if you don't follow the Hermetic tradition. Never mind that AP maps very badly to any kind of in-world power.

It's been a while since I ran Midnight, but wasn't "Innate Magic" just a fancy word for "the other stuff" when it came to magical abilities, i.e. all non-spell based magic? So items, a creature's spell-like abilities and -- most importantly -- the "Heroic Paths". So I don't really see the need for any kind of talent, most of it would just be a standard Power. There probably should be a big difference between Divine and Channeling. Not necessarily Vancian casting for the legates, but a setup that is both more powerful and a bit more predictable wouldn't hurt. And what would be your definition of "Non spell casting profession"? Even in D20 Midnight that line was a bit blurred by the fact that multiclassing was rather common, so you had people with just the Magecraft feat, chars with a few levels of Channeler mixed in and pure dedicated spellcasters, probably even going for the "ancient traditions", i.e. the prestige classes that closely resembled the D&D defaults. In HERO, that's just how many points you're willing to spend. A second-rate perk that limits progression seems a bit artificial to me. I would probably consider limiting the amount of points you're allowed to spend at character creation and during adventuring (e.g. a certain fraction of general power points). Something similar would apply to their innate magic talents, to ensure that there actually is a Heroic Path for them. (Before they all die anyway...) Midnight's spell energy was pretty harsh, if I remember correctly. Level + attribute modifier for dedicated casters? So about three of your most powerful spells per day, and then you'd end up with no "change" for minor magicks. Dipping into your health was rather common when I ran it. As opposed to normal Con drain, you got everything back the next day, so powering one or maybe even two additional spells certainly within the realm of the possible (i.e. with enough hit points left to spare and survive whatever's coming). Now how to model that in HERO is a matter of taste. Is it two or three spells per combat or actually per day? Does skill come into play or just mere innate power? And do you stick with the remaining D&D-ism of "per day" or make spell energy regeneration take a while? Actual BODY damage or a drain that's closer to the D20 version? How important or special locations? Personally I'd feel inclined to go with an endurance reserve that closely mirrors BODY. Same limits, same recovery time. Special locations provide a bonus to that (either straight REC if you want them to camp there, or the equivalent of Healing if it's really powerful).

This probably assumes that the one converting it shares my general taste in rules adaptions and view of the particular setting? Which isn't rather likely, so depending on how much that differs my benefit from this varies. I'd rather see more settings where the mechanics don't matter that much and it isn't cluttered with needless NPC statistics (Worst example: Every D&D book about religions. You want to know more about churches and beliefs, and what you get is friggin' stat blocks for the deities. Especially in 3E, where this took several pages.) Having said that, I'd like a WFRP conversion. Low-level HERO is something you don't see that often and I would wonder if they even could get some limited lifepath character generation into play.

I'm on rpg.net as "Sosthenes", at least every few years for a short bout until I despair of the gaming zeitgeist or humanity itself. Usually prompted by all threads being about the same system, mostly by guys who write more about why it's all that nifty for their once-in-a-full-moon PbF. In a related note, is therpgsite still all about the "swines"?

I'm not really sure whether social skills really relate to most "combat style bonuses" you're likely to get. In most systems where you get a bonus out of description/narration, it's because it sounds "cool", not because it's realistic or makes sense in this particular situation. Mostly because rarely all parties concerned are equally informed about physical combat and aren't prone to "my Kung Fu is better than yours". I've rarely had "But Thalhoffer wrote/but in my basic training we did..." come up. So the social equivalent to a combat stunt would would be a pithy one-liner, not a persuasive and eloquent argument by the player. The endless threads about social skills vs. player skills mostly argue about the latter. More like "Go ahead, make my day." and not "Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world...".

Two quick questions: 1.) Is there anything like the inverse of the standard effect rule, i.e. turning a fixed advantage into a dice-based one? For example, I might have PD 2d6 instead of PD 6 -- either determined when activating the power (e.g. when I'm drawing some material to form armor and its presence varies randomly) or after each hit (e.g. surrounded by swirling metal plates or when I'm really keen on simulating RuneQuest). Requires Roll is just a binary decision and RR + Proportional sounds a bit overly complicated for this. 2.) How would you build a limitation for the total effect of a power? Let's say I have Healing 3d6, but want to limit this to 50 point of BODY per day (or per charge, or with something like a REC recharge). Endurance Reserve/Charges would limit the activations, which have different costs, of course. (Another common example would be a force-field belt that can only take so much before shutting down) I'm thinking of a standard-effect based solution, again. So if I get 3d6 Healing for 3 END, that means I roughly get 3 points of BODY for 1 END. Thus I'd just buy the "effect reserve" as an Endurance Reserve for 1/3 the cost (plus a -1/4 or even -1/2 if it just applies to that one power).

I'm generally quite happy with my players' roleplaying, but it never hurts to encourage a few things. For one, it's easy to get into the rote of just declaring your attacks and defenses in rule terms. Slightly better if it's a more evocative Martial Arts maneuver, but even that quickly descends into a litany of "Eviscerating Puma Strike!" phase after phase. I often tend to fill in the description myself -- I have to state the effect anyway, and so just include the player's action in that phrase or two. So what do you think about mechanical ways to help this along, i.e. provide some in-game benefit to the player's descriptive elements? A few games do that, and not only those with generally a more narrative bent. In Fate if you modify your skill roll by using one of your "aspects", you have to narrate how that comes into play. In Exalted, you get a bonus if you declare a more or less outrageous "stunt" (I'm not the biggest fan of the latter for more realistic games, where it's not just about the effect itself.). So, a general +1 for good description? That almost forces the players to do it. Not sure about that... Maybe a post-roll +1? So players will do it if they think that they might fail otherwise (but not too badly), plus when they really feel like it.