Vondy

I'm sure they all heard you. That you regard your proposal as logical doesn't mean anyone else considers it appealing. Or workable, for that matter. Someone would have to organize and run the contest, and the participants would have to agree to the conditions and voting methods, and then there would have to be a project manager for a committed working group. So, first up, who is going to do all of that work? And, are we going to have a contest and vote to select the contest-runner? It would be just as easy for someone with a good idea to make a setting proposal and ask "who wants to help?" After all, this is a matter of someone having a vision and the desire to make it so. Odds are, there are only a few such people out there. Also, I'm not sure what a contest would accomplish. After all, the setting would ultimately be a licensed third-party setting rather than an official company sponsored one. At that point, why have a contest at all? Even if we were to do so and someone were to win, there is nothing from stopping the "losers" from forging ahead and publishing as well!

In this case, its about the ability to have a gunslinging colonial cop and their android partner deploy rapidly on the far frontier lone-ranger style. It could just be called a "quickship," I guess. I just chalk space fighters up to "cool" and "fun" rather than "logic" and "science."

A star fighter with a jump drive. Two things hard science fiction fans love to bitch-rant about.

I was building a science fiction character and realized I'd run afoul of this thread. Two words: jump fighter.

In such systems, each spell is an individual 3/2 cost-base skill. The skill roll is modified by the active points of the spell. To avoid breaking the bell-curve, keep spell skill rolls in tune with the rest of the system, and avoid extremely high spell costs for more powerful spells I have traditionally limited the AP penalty to -1 for every 20AP in the spell. Access to powerful spells -- and campaign changers / breakers -- can be handled by restricting in-game access to them and/or setting prerequisite spells that have to be purchased first. Also, while the initial spell cost seems cheap, this can be deceptive. Players tend to want higher skill rolls to ensure success, and a broad character with several spells can sometimes end up spending more than if you just went with a framework. Consider this. A wizard with a 20 INT and 10 spells at 15- will spend 70 active points! 20 spells? 140 active points! The result, therefore, tends to be narrower Mages than one would otherwise expect. This can be mitigated by allowing skill levels with different schools of magic, or all magic. Another tack you can take is only requiring skill rolls in unusual circumstances, which is well within the rules as written, IMO. To quote Darren Watts: "Tarzan doesn't fall when running down tree branches, dammit!" I generally use the "Tarzan Rule" in my games.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler! --Albert Einstein.

I think that would eventually result in so many people with superpowers that you would be confronted with something that didn't look entirely like a traditional superhero setting with a few special snowflakes with powers in an otherwise recognizable contemporary society. It would also force the question, once people with powers became more than a fascinating anomaly, whether traditional economic, social, and political structures would survive or be swept aside. This is little different from dealing with the problem of ubiquitous magic in a fantasy setting. At some point you'll cross the tipping point from superhero setting to pseudo-science-fiction.

I have primarily used skill based systems.

Game of Thrones is really well done, but for some reason, the opening of the second season completely lost me. I just kind of shrugged and said "whatev." Haven't watched since 3/4 of the way through S2E1. My daughters love Harry Potter and harangue me for being ignorant of their Pottage.

I did when I was younger. I don't anymore. I mostly think in a creole of English, Hebrew, and Aramaic.

While I can't normally get into young adult fiction and teen protagonists, I do enjoy Percy Jackson. This is, in part, because I was a mythology geek as a kid. I read Edith Hamilton for the first time when I was 10!. Greek & Norse Myth, and Arthurian & Robin Hood tales, folktales & monster folklore are what formed my "fantasy consciousness." I can't stand Tolkein, and only discovered REH later. But, the other big part of it is that my 11 year old absolutely loves Percy Jackson -- and we are using it for the basis of a game. Her character is a "half-blood"... the daughter of Artemis. And, yes, I know Artemis is traditionally a "virgin" goddesss. Leaving aside debates over interpretation, or the fact that both Hera and Aphrodite (!) renewed their virginity yearly, the franchise already established Athena -- another virgin goddess -- has a daughter.

This is a reasonable compromise, and one I'll likely use in future. I'll probably still apply -1 for 15AP or 20AP instead of per 5AP when a roll is required, however.

I've long had "issues" with the application of linear active point penalties, meaning the usual -1 per 5 AP, to a bell-curve based skill rolls. It introduces a disparity of modifier ranges into the skill system, leads to inflated skill rolls beyond what the system itself proposes, and ultimately breaks the curve. I think, if one is going to use an AP based penalty it should be -1 per 20AP. Most really powerful spells would then have a negative penalty of -4 to -6, which still breaks the normative +4/-4 threshold for penalties and bonuses -- but is close enough to remain reasonable and not lead to dissonant character builds. Even then, if you look at the insanely expensive signature spells for Wizardry in the Grimoire, they don't require a skill roll. Its just listed as N/A. A mage -- especially an arch-mage -- should not need a skill roll greater than what the system itself uses as a default as "perhaps the greatest in history" [20-] to have a reasonable hope of succeeding with their marquee arcana. A character with a skill roll of 14-20 should be considered to possess a rare level of skill, not be definitively hopeless and spitting into the wind when they do what it is they are supposed to do best.

6E1 page 66: Bribery.... "A character with this Interaction Skill knows when to bribe someone, how to approach him, and how much to offer."

My understanding was that the original complaint up-thread was a reference to the overarching cross-genre "single setting" document Steve produced when 5E emerged. I could, of course, have misunderstood. As for having all fantasy settings in one universe, or a multiverse, or in neighboring dimensions -- that's neither here nor there. It doesn't bother me one way or another. The latter two would also work (better than the official line, IMO) for cross-genre settings!

You are comparing apples and oranges. D&D is a single-genre game. That it has multiple iterations of fantasy worlds is easy to reconcile. The underlying assumptions and premises are the same. And even then, it turns to "interdimensional" and "multiverse" as opposed to a linear timeline in one universe. Fantasy, super-heroes, and hard-science fiction do not work together in a single coherent universe and timeline. If hero were to propose a "multiverse" or "interdimenasional" setting you could at least hand-wave it. It does not, and you cannot. That said, I've always felt free to ignore the Hero inter-setting timeline and universe proposition entirely. After all, no one has an obligation to pay any attention to it if they don't want to. I do not see it as a bar to enjoying Hero, or its individual settings. Just treat them as stand-alone a proceed apace.

I don't think any of heroes fantasy settings have been unoriginal. The issue, in my opinion, is twofold -- marketing and continued support. Both require deeper pockets than DOJ had at hand. One of the challenges Hero faces is that it is competing with games that are single-genre, often single-setting, and use a tailored rules set. Who really has the cash on hand to market and support multiple settings for multiple genres? Hero's setting focus has always been its old fashioned bread and butter: supers. And even that wasn't supported and marketed as fully as it could have been because of the genre books and other settings being produced. This is in no way a criticism of DOJ. It is, for a small company, an essentially impossible task.

Most of those make me thing "80's Cop Show," which, if you like white suits with boat shoes and pastel t-shirts is a subset of Dark Champions, I guess. I'm a child of the 80's. All of those songs have an extant set of associations that I just can't get past. None of them say "Dark Avenger of the Night" to me. I mean, Man in Motion and Self Control, really?

Many terror organizations have "plain clothes" operations cells and intelligence groups, political wings with financiers, and armed uniform militia's. Viper could easily be presented as a fanatical snake cult who use terror to advance their obscuritan agenda and crime to pay for it. Most of their organization would be "plain clothes" and the guys in green suits would only be used when they wanted to send a message / cause panic / or make a point. I'm sure, in addition to some very powerful people in the first world on the "council of thirty" they could bully or buy their way into control of some remote third world regions wherein their could safety set up training, stockpiles, research and development, and the like. There may also be some world governments that consider them useful in the game of global strategy and play quid pro quo with Viper. So, my answer is "both." Primarily covert, but understanding that losers in green pajamas are useful for media purposes.

I have never had anyone complain about it and never found that, when the bell curve is taken into account, that it created unbalanced or unexpected results. Its not just an "idea." Its something that has been used in play for over a decade. Its been play-tested to death.

Just to throw gas on the fire, I've always adjudicated grabs, escapes, reversals, shoves, roots, and push-pull strength contests as opposed characteristics rolls w. ties going to the defender. You just treat additional DCs or +5 strength increments as +1 to the strength roll.

For some reason, while I love 80's music, most of these things don't say "dark champions" to me.

My players have 20 years of Hero experience and several of them have used it to run their own games. Hero for Dummies isn't applicable, and does not change their bizarre fascination with "old school" vis-a-vis fantasy. Nor do they care about the trivial low vs. high debate that flare up now and again.

Whether or not a solo game will work has very little to do with the system chosen and almost everything to do with personalities, story-telling ability, and characterization. As for the "crunchiness," it depends how much he wants to spend. If he just buys the two core rule-books, it might be overwhelming. But, if he buys books with lots of pre-gen packages, super-skills and talents, powers, and spells... its not really as big a deal.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm not 20 and single and gaming all the time anymore. I'm 41, married, have two daughters I do stuff with, a real job, non-gaming friends, and I also like to game. I don't have the time I once did to sit down and build a gazillion packages, write up extensive spells and super-skills and talents, and then fine-tune the rules options on top of generating world background in order to game. Nor do I have the inclination I once did to spend my time on those things. I'm much more story and character centric in my approach to gaming. I want a good world to make those things sing in, and don't mind editing existing materials, but whole-cloth world creation? I just don't have the time -- let alone doing the mechanical work to support it! I tend to leverage pulp hero, dark champions, powers, the grimoire, etc heavily when creating characters and thinking about games because they speed things along. I also, when running games, tend to go for "supported concepts." So, for instance, I'm more likely to run a "commando hero" or "super-agents" or "hudson city knights" or "urban fantasy" style game because its thematically focused *and* doesn't require huge amounts of work due to extant materials I can plunder. But, with Hero, its still a question of hotch-potching it together. As for simulating D&D or Pathfinder, I think a setting that captured that flair and provided robust support -- both class and prestige class packages, feats expressed as talents and super-skills, tons of pre-gen spells tailored for the setting, glossy monster books, and advice about free form advancement would be a good start. The core demographic for our hobby is getting older, but they are also becoming parents of potential future gamers -- my 11 year old loves gaming! -- and can serve to educate and introduce the 20 something crowd to the system. A big question for that, however, is: do they have the [expletive deleted] time?