mhd

I just want to say, it's so great to see new products coming out regularly again, thanks in large part to HERO Games' decision to start the Hall of Champions program and HEROphiles' willingness to step up to the challenge of becoming Champions.
 

It's a great analysis. And he definitely should be heeded when he warns about using some of the fonts for nostalgia's sake. (I'd add a lot more to that list than just Souvenir, but, welp…)

Yeah, that's the way I see it, too. Which kinda-sorta ruins it for me nonetheless, as I'm not that into Tekumel to warrant the effort to do so.
 
I'm a bit perplexed by the people saying that this is just a Galaxy Brain troll effort.

Yeah, that's the way I see it, too. Which kinda-sorta ruins it for me nonetheless, as I'm not that into Tekumel to warrant the effort to do so.
 
I'm a bit perplexed by the people saying that this is just a Galaxy Brain troll effort.

This is a free pdf on drivethrurpg. The author basically reversed engineered the books from the ODD (Little Brown Books), D&D B/X, BECMI and AD&D 1st. Margins, table strokes, layout, etc along with what fonts were originally used as well as alternatives. Included is the PDF of his findings as well as InDesign files setting up Master Pages for the different layouts.
 

I recently found my old Fantasy Hero 3 books again, and noticed that "back then" armor encumbrance actually was a more serious thing. This bothered me a bit in 6E, and I think I house-ruled something the last time I ran it (geeze, 6 years ago). 
 
Let's say I pick a "field plate", weighing 28kg (actually not that far off from reality), and I'm reasonably buff for a Heroic campaign, i.e. STR 15. 
 
In 3E that means I get -3 DCV / 4 END per Turn. Reduced by my strength to 3 END / turn.
 
In 6E it's a percentage of my STR, where I'm at the lower end of the 11-24% bracket, so -1 DCV / 0 END per turn.
 
Quite the difference. I have to say that I like the 3E version a bit better. Fantasy Hero 6E suggests raising the weight of the armor for encumbrance purposes only, but it's not like a huge backpack version of this would be that much more sane. HERO's lifting capabilities are certainly on the more extreme side of things, so basing encumbrance on those shifts things into the superheroic quite easily (and having "realistic" characters being constrained to STR 10-13 would be a bit weird).
 
I like END/round. Sure, it's bookkeeping, but a neat way to distinguish lightly armored and armed fighters from the heavy ones, and taking extra recoveries makes lengthier battles feel more visceral.
 
How does the rest handle this? House rules? Don't care for armor penalties? Still using earlier editions?

The Goblin Emperor, by Katherine Addison. A less funny King Ralph scenario, where the whole Elvish royal family gets wiped out in an airship accident and the 18 year old half-goblin son has to come out of exile to become Emperor, having to struggle against court intrigue and prejudices.
The elves & goblins are not what we're used to, more a way to get some racial tension into it, no immortals or squatting hordes here. The court seems rather baroque, tech seems advanced enough (clockwork & airships), without become to annoyingly steampunk.
 
What I really liked about the books was that you as a reader are thrust into this unknown setting along with the main character. All people have weird names & titles and it takes you a while to get all of that sorted out.
 
Don't expect any Game of Thrones and/or Gormenghast shenanigans here, it's more focused on character development than courtly intrigue and there are plenty of nice lords & ladies around. Actually, at times I found things a bit too far into that direction, approaching Eddison/Lackey territory. (It seems fantasy these days either goes into this YA/Disney group hug territory or tries to emulate Martin/Abercrombie torture fests.)

He's a family values candidate. Odd family, but stil…

It is also amusing to have Google have collected data used against them.

I've "binged" Bosch, the Amazon-funded police procedural where someone made the insane casting decision of letting Titus Welliver play a good guy (the horrendously named Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch, LAPD detective).
 
Didn't even hear of the novels, but liked the series, especially how they took their time and solved a crime in 10 40-minute episodes, something that a CSI metastasis might've handled in one.
More time for creating a modern, yet noir-ish point of view.

I'd never dare to suggest that.

You mean people thinking they should continue to milk more cash out of a franchise created by Michael Crichton?

I think looking at video games as close relatives isn't without total merit. I wouldn't go overboard, as that's really not a good place for innovation in general (still hell-bent on classes & levels, for example). But regarding character creation, there's certainly a trend towards simplicity and less front-loading. I remember when basically every game required you to create 6 (six!) heroes from scratch, and a wide variety of races and classes was a major selling point. But when games centered more on personal plots, they focused on you creating your own alter ego, with the rest of the party being basically NPCs, cf. Ultima/Baldur's Gate.
 
And nowadays, it seems we completely ditched character creation in AAA computer games. Maybe you pick a class, but that's about it. The games are still crunchier than a lot of the tabletop RPGs, it just comes later and usually is more structured (ability/perk trees).
 
There haven't been many attempts to recreate this. I regard D&D's feats system as something similar, as earlier "heartbreakers" often added plenty of class abilities or point-buy talents/advantages, but rarely ones that you can get after character creation. That has changed a lot. But even in more rules-lite games, there's still plenty to before you can slay your first goblin. HERO certainly not being an exception.
 
But I would say that there are possibilities. We already "break" the strict point buy rules in heroic games (equipment, some magic systems), we could go further. Although this would probably only work with some mechanical support, whether that's a well-made check list, ability/perk cards or a more incremental Hero Designer.

I'd actually favor going beyond competent, both for male and female characters. It's not like you'd find good role models on the spear side, either, and just being able to shoot really, really well isn't a good characterization. Just because 12 year old boys probably don't want anything more shouldn't mean that that's supposed to be the end of it.
 
Yes, there are exceptions, but for every Gordon Freeman you'll find lots of BJ Blaske... Blaso... Doom dudes.
And that's still better than all the empty voids that exist merely for you to project your own image into (granted, there's some room for that in RPGs).
"Elevating" women to the same plateu of hyper-competent badasses without feelings or layered motivations seems good for equality, but if we're really starting to change some things, maybe a target than "equally bad" would be nice.
 
 
And wow, we're still doing the "the PC crowd is oppressing me" shtick?