Vondy

I was terribly sad to hear Darren had passed. He was far too young to go. I enjoyed the content he produced and the few interactions I had with him were genial and productive. Our little corner of the community is a niche within a niche, but his loss is felt.

If the US were to join, based on UN funding patterns, I you would see a fairly consistent US presence in UNTIL's top echelon. It wouldn't necessarily be every Secretary-Marshall or Field-Marshall, but having one of those positions be filled by a US citizen would probably be common. You would also have at least one US citizen on the board of directors at all times, and the the US, Canada, and Mexico would probably have some sort of agreement on how the North American regional commander ends up being appointed. Don't underestimate soft-power and influence. Trade dollars, non-UNTIL defense spending, and non-UNTIL contributions to the UN as a whole means the US would be well represented, and have negotiating power, even if its not always in the big chair. I don't think it stretches credulity that the US would join UNTIL even if its not always in the top-dogs chair. After all, once US dollars are flowing, one of the biggest sticks is that those dollars will stop flowing. Treaties are voluntary. Nations have a right to leave. People minding budgets will be conscious of that.

UNTIL: Defenders of Freedom indicates that they prefer to appoint commanders who will be well-received by the host country, which often means a citizen of that nation. Its not universally true, but its definitely "best practices."

"I muse therefore I am." --Descartes, Hero-style.

I like both characters, but I somewhat prefer the one with a "Y." More clothes and a fouler mouth. In fact, the one female character I played, who became one of my unexpected mainstays, had the tagline "Red Sonja with Clothes!" Still, chainmail bikini! Its got its own cachet!

Right. Its written in a surreal maybe-maybe-not sort of way and, even if yes, how reliable is his delirious recollection of the purported events? This was one of Howard's earliest stories, written when he was very young, and its possible he was still just experimenting and exploring the final version of Conan he wanted to portray as he developed the character and his world. People often forget that authors are often just feeling their way with characters early on. In this case, Conan may have matured along with Howard. That the early story has an escape hatch is pleasantly convenient. It may also, however, have been a sociocultural escape hatch for Howard. Writing about rapey barbarians in the 1920's, let alone in the land of Southern Belles and the Queens of the Ball, was transgressive then and there, too.

True! However, Conan doesn't belong in a Champions campaign. And, Champions morals and mores don't belong in Hyboria. Different genres and settings have different operable moral baselines and mores. The play groups should be comfortable with those, of course. Not every genre is for every group, or even for every reader. It boils down to different strokes for different folks. This isn't super-redeeming, but he also gives the victims of his piracy and armed robbery the chance to surrender and comply without violence, too. He'd rather not murder you for your loot... (facepalm!).

Yes, I am a notorious aphasia-driven speller-man. Mosuo.

I like it. I also like that you didn't go full-on Pro From Dover and overbuild her. I have the same feeling about your Conan build. Pretty solid and not over-baked. The combat luck is a good choice for REH characters, and I laughed when you listed the bikini which appears to provide no mechanical benefit. Another option, from Pulp Hero, would be to use the "I'm not afraid of your spears, either!" version of Heroic Grace, which gives 10rPD/10rED armor, but always lets the first body through. Combine that with the rapid healing talent from Dark Champions and you have a pretty resilient bare-chested barbarian / chainmail bikini wearing / or even just dapper light-fighter approach. And you could slap a level of CL onto that, too!

The elves in my campaign follow the pattern of Masuo people. They are matriarchal and matrilocal, and practice "walking marriage," though its really walking romance, because not all Masuo romantic relationships are specifically closed (though many are). Masuo women who come of age are often given room with exterior doors on the outer part of the clan-house. The Masuo traditionally honor their fathers on their birthdays, and it is considered unseemly for a woman not to be able to identify her children's fathers, but uncles were are primary male caregivers and figures in a child's life. Masuo men, historically, were hunters, warriors, and merchants, but women had a much more prominent role in trades, farming, land-administration, financial management, etc. For my game I made a few tweaks. My elves are somewhat egalitarianism in terms of 1) female elves more freely pursuing traditionally "male" roles and 2) stolen from an African matriarchal tribe, the local "elf-lord," which presumes a more charismatic style of "kingship," is always a son, or sometimes nephew, of most powerful local clan's matriarch. So, technically, they have a king, but his role is fairly strictly limited to being the magistrate and war-leader. The succession, however, happens when his mother (or aunt) dies! Most of the internal political tension of the elves in my campaign happens between women jockeying for clan leadership, and then clans jockeying the becomes the "first clan" of whatever settlement.

Note: What follows only applies to Howard's stories. Other people depict him as doing all manner of things... though John Maddux Roberts' pastiches are probably the most Howard-esque and truest to Conan the Character (TM). Did it? In a book, if it happened "off screen" and wasn't specifically referenced in prose, it didn't necessarily happen. The reader may assume such things happened, or infer them from hints in the text, but the specifics and extent will always be a matter of subjective reader interpretation. I would find it reasonable to infer that Conan robbed and murdered people for their loot (he was, after all, a pirate and thief), but we have specific examples in text where he did not rape a women when he had the chance, and one case in specific, where a woman basically complains to him that he didn't do so! As such, it would be fair for most readers to infer that rape is not Conan's modus operandi and that he doesn't, generally speaking, mistreat women. Condescend to them, yes! But being a sexist pig does not automatically make one a rapist. The one contrary case we see is in The Frost Giant's Daughter, which occurred when he was but a youth, and is written in a surreal maybe-it-never-happened fever dream motif, meaning it may have all been in his cold-cocked head, or not. We don't know and neither did he! I suppose its possible, but I think its a stretch to just throw that out there as a given when he is otherwise depicted as being a benevolently asinine sexist who looks askance at men who act that way.

This may also be partly the nature of the product and how people shop for it rather than "market share." Board games seem to remain a "browse and talk to employees" at the brick-and-mortar item. Big boxes and lots of parts. RPGs, which are primarily book-driven, seem to have become, primarily, a "buy it online" item. Slide it into a reinforced envelope.

Not a joke. Bourne would likely merit a dedicated task force, or mini-division within the CIA, based on his activities.

I do have it. Very cool. I've been pretty "stripped down" on build ethos of late, but languages... yummy.

Thank you both. I forgot they had been expanded in TUS. I will go look it up!

One of the things I have always loved about Hero is the language chart and associated systems for interrelation, etc. I'm wondering if anyone has done, or is aware of, expanded language tables. The 4e / 5e table is solid for Europe (to be expected) and the Americas, but once you get into Africa and Asia its much more vague. Basically, I'm big on pulp, espionage, and globetrotting adventure and am focusing on "non-traditional" areas of adventure. I can sit down and do a ton of research, but it would be great if someone else had already done it! So, is this something that exists?

She was a gracious and dignified woman with excellent taste in hats, if not an overbearing fondness for oppressively cheerful color palettes. I suspect she will be remembered fondly and that history will be kind to her. Queen Lilibet, OBM.

There are base mechanics in Hero and they are reasonably intuitive. A bell curve roll to determine success is a base mechanic. For skills that is a straight-forward bell-curve roll against a target number. For combat, there is a formula to reach the bell-curve target number. But, its still a bell-curve roll and modifiers affect it accordingly. The same is true of damage and defenses. There are base DC costs and base defense costs and consistent interactions. And modifiers to those (and all powers) follow a consistent formula. The AP/RP math is delightfully straight-forward and easy to use. Is Hero simple? No. Hero is complex. Is Hero linear? No. Hero uses a bell curve. Is Hero closed? No. Hero is an open eco-system. But, for all that, it has clear and consistent "base mechanics." Though, "mechanics" might not be the right word. It has clear and consistent mathematics. I have been saying hero is the DOS prompt of the RPG world rather than a GUI since pre-DOJ boards. This review is like a Windows user saying DOS isn't a core mechanic. DOS is what Windows runs on. Its just hidden way under the hood. In Hero there is no hood. You are staring straight at the engine that makes it go. In fact, I would argue Hero is more consistent than many games that claim to have "core mechanics." Why? Because the math is internally consisted and you have to engineer everything to play. In many other games a lot of rules are hand-waving and the art of what "felt right" to the designers. That's not, in of itself, a "Bad Thing" (TM), but it is far closer to gaming art than gaming science. Not everyone wants to code the game they are going to play. This reviewer is clearly such a person.

I'm not an edition warrior. I run 5e, but have a bunch of 6e and 4e stuff, and mix and match from all three. Hero is my go to system, but my group has been pretty 5e D&D focused. Its only recently that they suddenly perked up and asked about me running Champions again. Everyone is super-stoked.

I run 5e with a less "granular" 4e build aesthetic. I think 5e adds and clarifies a lot to the 4e chassis. It also introduced a cultural mindset of maximalist detail and granularity. But that mindset isn't hard-coded into the rules. Its purely cultural and psychological. Its just one way to build a game and characters. Its the Steve way, and its 100% fine for those who prefer that style of play. But Steve himself would tell you that you don't have to build characters his way. And a lot of the later 5e and 6e books have a different style and sensibility. Hero is super-flexible in all of its incarnations. You can run pretty simple / streamlined 5e game if you go about it with some intentionality.

I'm going back through some old 5e supplements and remember, at some point, seeing color versions of art which was published in black and white. In specific, I'm thinking of the color versions of the Conquerers Killers and Crooks art for Eurostar, Gigaton, Doc D, etc. Are the color versions available to view somewhere?

Well, yes. You build an all or nothing body transfer (or whatever the equivalent convoluted 6e method is) that requires an OAF "ritual slaughter knife" and an OAF "human victim" and Incantations "ritual mumbo-jumbo and campy creep zingers" and define the special effect as "human sacrifice driven life-force transfer" Then you take that body to fuel your necromancy spells. Even better if you are creating undead of some sort and need a Bulky OAF "suitable corpse." After all, you just made one...!

I prefer pulp fantasy, gothic horror, and swords and sorcery to conventional fantasy, which is generally synonymous with "high fantasy" for most people. Though more "cultural," I also find the traditional Robin Hood ballads and Arthurian myths are more my speed than, say, Tolkein and his imitators. I find Moorcock hard to read, but I Lieber, REH, and Aspirin and crew's work.

That's an interesting tidbit. He also said in an interview "None of us (writers) know how big Sanctuary is. Its as big as it needs to be for the story." We used Sanctuary as a home-base during our "desert adventures" phase, but then returned to Lankhmar, which is what I'll focus on if I reboot. The main setting divergence is just that Sanctuary, the Rankan Empire, and some Hyborean cities are on my Newhom.

I unexpectedly received a box from my mother containing the notes and character sheets from my long-running "old school" D&D campaign. This game ran for years, from childhood to young adulthood. I haven't seen this stuff in 20+ years. After the nostalgia wore off I though "I really need to translate this into hero (something I considered doing "way back when") and reboot it yet again. Post One. Real World History. My early D&D campaigns were shared with an eponymous co-GM so that we could both play. We originally used Lankhmar as its base city. We didn’t know much about Newhon. Our only reference was the Newhon Mythos section of Deities & Demigods (1980) and a beat-up copy of Swords and Deviltry. We decided that the Northmen, in addition to Kos, worshipped the Finnish Pantheon, while Bacob and Hecate became Lankmari demigods. That covered religion. We ran a lot of modules. Newhon’s Great Salt Marsh and Sinking Lands were perfect stand-in locations for a lot of the 1st edition modules from “The Known World” and the Hool River / Marshes region of Grayhawk. These modules often featured reptilian or amphibian monsters. We saw far more Bullywugs, Lizard Men, Sauhagin, Troglodytes, and the Yaun-Ti than we did the standard “evil” humanoids. They also seemed to fit better with Newhon’s weird pulpy groove. It didn’t occur to us not to include demi-humans, but with the exception one long-running dwarf and elf, the vast majority of player characters were humans with a smattering of half-elves thrown in. There were an awful lot of fighters, thieves, and fighter-thieves. No one liked playing clerics and, with the exception of a long-running illusionist, we had few mages, and none of those advanced past the mid-level range. Our heroes were very much “freebooting mercenary adventurers” and “loveable rogues.” Most NPC mages were Fire Mages, Snow Witches, Necromancers, or Scribes and Alchemists (Dragon Magazine). So, magically speaking, the traditional D&D wizard acting as “mystic artillery” was not a prominent fixture in our games. We weren’t too far off the S&S mark. Our characters relied far more heavily on potions, scrolls, dusts, powders, and disposable items (e.g., wands). Permanent magic items were rare and often were often cool “utility” items rather than weapons and armor. That was the zeitgeist for magic. When Lanhkmar: City of Adventure (1985) was published we snapped it up. It was much clearer about how Newhon should differ from generic D&D. I had also read Swords Against Death at this point. Over time we derated demi-humans as new PCs and either removed those races or sidelined them to the hinterlands along with the more common “evil huanoids.”. One long-running and nigh-iconic half-elf PC became “some demigod’s bastard.” We also implemented the supplements interesting, if not-quite satisfactory, system for “white” and “black” magic. We then decided to play-through a series of desert-themed modules and homebrew adventures (including a pastiche of Tower of the Elephant). These were set on the far bank of the Eastern Sea. I hadn’t done much reading that would cover that part of Newhon, but I had read Thieves’ World and had Chaosium’s Thieves’ World boxed-set (1981), so we used Sanctuary as our base city with a handwave towards it being on the frontier of the now-decaying Rankan Empire. Hyperborea’s Shadizar and Sukhmet also made appearances. One notable interpolation was that the Scarlet Brotherhood made an appearance as the shadowy hand of fallen Quarmall. The campaign closed with the heroes returning to Lankhmar. The rebooted Lankhmar campaign focused more on character-driven stories and personal drama, which often vibed like a “D&D Telenovela,” but around this time the shift to 2nd edition was taking place and a lot more Lanhkmar materials were being published for D&D. I had also read a lot more thieves world, farfd and gray mouser, and conan stories at this stage. I ran the homebrew stuff (the 1985 book has pages of maps with places to record homebrew notes for locations) while one of my players ran the modules so that I could trot my own characters out every so often. The rebooted game was much truer to the swords and sorcery milieu in general, and Newhon in particular, but we also managed to work in some eldritch and gothic horror elements, which jived really well with Newhon’s “weird.” Beholders, mind-flayers, reanimated flesh golems, necromancers, and the occasional vampire were a thing in this game. Anyhow. That’s the history of my long-term campaign and how it developed (without going into the character's crazy backstories). Next up: What old-school modules were played alongside the homebrew adventures?