Vondy

Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net

Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net I very much agree. I will add that adapting characters, items, spells, and the like from setting material is often faster and easier than creating it from scratch. While I only know one person who runs the "champions universe" everyone I know lifts the elements - characters, ideas, organizations - they like from it for their games. Sometimes whole cloth. Sometimes with the serial numbers filed off. In terms of genre books, the only sections I use are those that include pregenerated plug-and-play elements: packages, super-skills, characters. The other stuff I never even look at. The same pretty much goes for the main rules. I may glance at them once in a blue moon, but the "system" oriented books I use the most are the ones that have pregenerated stuff I can use - powers, grimoire, etc. - be it as is or tweaked. I also agree about meta-plot style supplements for settings (let alone the odious meta-setting mess). I run games using an implied setting, or just certain elements from it. The last thing I want is the line developers pet ideas about plot interfering with the plot my game is following. This is something I liked about Harnworld. It assumed a snapshot of a certain date and fleshed out the world at that point rather than moving forward. Having the toolkit available for tweakers is a critical element of the Hero-way. But beyond those core books, there is no reason the game can't be presented via playable settings.

Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net I know it goes against conventional Hero-think, but I do believe people are looking for Games They Can Play. Having the toolkit ("how to customize") be one product line (6E1, 6E2, APG 1 & 2, etc) and Genres be more plug-and-play in their presentation might be a plus for the Hero as a "game rather than system." It would take a moderate amount of tweaking to make certain mechanics work smoothly in each genre, but Hero as a toolkit was made to be tweaked. Such decisions could be made on a setting to setting level without changing the Core Rules at all, I think. You could just put a short appendix in the back explaining where the variances are and its covered. I love having the toolkit, but I often skip Hero if I think using it will be too much work to get a game up and running.

Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net My thinking is that, in the Internet age, the Rulebook and a FAQ don't have to be the same volume. The "rules clarifications" could be professionally formatted in a printable file (.pdf) that can be downloaded for free.

Re: Persuasion vs Oratory Persuasion and Oratory are the same skill with slightly nuanced applicability. Essentially, Hero made a judgement call on how nuanced the skill list needed to be. You could further subdivide skills, or collapse some of them, based on your approach to design. You could also add or subtract skills. I added "human perception," for instance. The division of background skills, or whether many are necessary when several skills from the official list would cover many things, is also a judgement call. The trend as editions have advanced is to increase granularity (note the schemas for skills like animal handling, gambling, survival, sysop, etc) and add background skills that may be more flavor than effect when one takes the time to read the skill descriptions. This is largely stylistic.

Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net I never regarded the ambiguities in 4E as being so great as to require more than some careful rephrasing and perhaps 20 pages more material.

Re: Interesting discussio on the future of Hero System on rpg.net Hero isn't dead. Its just moving to a paradigm - at least for now - where motivated writers kick-back licensing fees to the parent company to produce new books at a somewhat slower rate. Steve and Darren aren't "gone," just writing for themselves as they see fit. Others can join them. It might even serve to add some interesting variety. As for me, my ideal system would be the 4th edition soft-cover hero rules with some minor tweaks and editing, and a few of the better ideas from 5ER and 6E ported backward into it. Overall, I think such an edition would run 250-270 pages of crunch. But that's not where the system is at and discussions like the one going on at RPG net are interesting in theory, but not very useful in Hero's current situation. More product with substantial new content using 6E as the base is the way forward.

Re: Possible HERO System Supplement Kickstarters From Steve -- What Interests You? Because of my location I am only interested in .pdf products. I am willing to pay $25-30 for a solid .pdf product. I would only consider Cyber Hero if went beyond cybernetics and included a broader "Transhuman Space" styled tech-base. I would put down good money for a solid hard(er) science fiction setting. I make extensive use of Dark Champions and Pulp Hero, but if its just an update I'm not interested. I know there are things that would interest me. Let me ponder it.

Re: Need a name for batlike hero Batlikeman!

Re: Converting inches to mph Its easier to convert it to kph these days. But then, I live in a country that uses metric anyways.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings Amusement. Normally I watch actors from Hollywood butcher everyone else's accents. Not just foreign accents, but even accents from other US regions. But tonight I watched an episode of Spooks and watched a British actor butcher a US accent. It was the most hackneyed, stilted, tight-lipped Chicago I've seen in a good long while. Ha!

Re: The Elves are Dying Out Let us not fail to consider the ramifications of the excessively long tenure of Pope Elrond Borgia.

Re: Musings on Random Musings My wife was so concerned about my health when she saw my pallor she told me "this will stop." Let me explain just how weird that is. She refers to me as "the master of the house." She expects me to be a large and in-charge old school male. We decided over Shabbat that, since I finished the last level of rabbinic ordination, I'm leaving yeshiva-velt. This week she's looking for a retraining program for sysadmin jobs. Why? Because she told me - once she's trained - we're moving to the coast so I can go to Bar Ilan in Ramat Gan. And that, despite the fact that we're religious, she wants to live close to synagogue, but in a mixed or secular neighborhood. I've wanted to do advanced academic degrees in Talmud and epistemology, but I'm the wage earner. Problem. Not for too much longer, I guess. Its weird to me that thirteen years of study and a major achievement ends in starting my studies again. "Blessed above women shall [she] be... blessed shall she be above women in the tent." (Judges 5:24)

Re: A Thread for Random Musings RANT WARNING I am so angry my vision is grainy and my chest hurts. I'm a Torah Jew. I believe in God. I believe in the Torah. And I follow in the path of the sages laid down in the Talmudim and other works. I take these things, along with epistemology, with a dead serious attitude and careful attention to detail. But I am ready to burn the frum world to the ground and walk out smoking a cigar. Frum, for those who don't know, is yiddish for "pious." It is used, arrogantly and incorrectly, in lieu of terms like 'religious' and 'observant.' In fact, it only represents an insular, off-kilter, increasingly ultra-orthodox Ashkenazi perspective. But if the rest of us don't share it we aren't good Jews. This alone wouldn't set me off. Its human nature denuded of pretense in all its gory splendor. Its a given. No, what led me to stand up, roard in fury, and slam my palms into the wall was that it has crippled my work. I wrote an article last night about an Egyptian-American reporter who was brutally sexually assaulted by police during her detention in Cairo. I described it as sexual assault and quoted her description of what happened. It was edited to say she was "assaulted" and suffered "abuse," her quotes were ellipsed to death, and I was put on notice that my article was "immodest." Immodest? Really? What about the Truth? You know, folks, that great word the sages say "is the seal of the Holy One, blessed be He." This woman was sexually assaulted. Her pants were pulled down and her breasts and genitals were gropes until they bruised. Her arm was broken. Even without the details, which could be left out, we have an obligation to call it what it is! Sexual assault. Offended yet? The assault was SEXUAL. What kind of anemic loser is so afraid of the big bad world that the truth must suffer because he can't hack it. And don't get me started on the russian achorwoman who flipped the bird during a story about Obama. I said "she used an obscene gestrure." And guess what.... it was edited to say unacceptable. Appaerently the word obscene is offensive, too. And its not just that. My dauther Bati saw a picture of a dinosaur and tells me that dinousaurs were nonsense and it was a "sippur shtut." (idiocy). Oh, really? I showed her photos of dinousaur bones. She scratched her head and shrugged. "Wait, Abba.. that means they were real." You see, she knows evidence is evidence. She's 9 and one hell of a lot smarter than the ignoramous grown-up who told her this. I mean, come on. Are people this weak minded, weak hearted, and weak spirited that they have to stick their heads in the sand and talk garbage. The God of Israel is not a trickster God running around hiding bones in the dirt to trick you and test your faith! The torah doesn't say how old the universe is and doesn't care. Its utterly irrelevant! Both the fundies and scientists arguing with them are nincompoops. Its not a history book or science manual. Really. My 9 year old got that as soon as I said it. Her brain is fixed. Its not a shocking revelation so get the perdition over it already. Even a semi-literate buffoon can read the first two chapters of Genesis and recognize the deeply allegorical nature of the language. Indeed, two-thousand years ago the sages taught "do not worry about what is above you, do not worry about what is below you, and do not worry about what came before you... only go forward into the Torah and learn." Heaven? Irrelevant. Hell? Irrelevant. The age of the universe? Evolution? Irrelevant. How you live your life and treat people? Extremely relevant. Its a book about the here and now. Its a book about ordering society. Its a book about how we live our lives. Its truth is qualitative - and has to do with making quality people. The age of the universe? Leave that to God and His scientists. Indeed, at one point the sages of the Talmud conceded - in dealing with quantities (ergo, science) - that there were times where the philosophers "seem to understand this better than we do." This is rank heresy to say today, but they - who are greater than those who refuse to hear it - said it outright. I don't see evolution or a billions of years old universe as being a problem for the Torah. They seem like plausible theories. Great. So what? The fact that some anonymous Jew living in the highlands of Samaria around 200 BCE authored a dubious apochrypha trying to create a poorly developed historical timeline back to "creation" because it was in hellenic vogue doesn't suddenly make this weird midrash Seder Olam inviolate TRUTH. Who told him to? What basis did he do so on? How do people handwave the significant epistemological problems with his method? And why does anyone take him seriously? I don't see a commandment to insert shoddy thinking that will create faux crises of faith into the religious world. Fundies (and their scientific foils) HEAR ME. The truth does not involve bad thinking, childlike readings of deep works, or fighting wars with armies of straw men on the plains of contextomy. Figure out the point and stick to it. If not for His sake, for my sake - because you people are making me gray and turning me apoplectic. EXPLETIVE DELETED IDIOTS! And, with that said, what next? Shall we edit Hillary Clinton out of the photo of the cabinet watching the Bin Laden hit because its "immodest?" Perhaps that would shore up our frum credentials at the expense of our journalistic integrity. There was a time - not so long ago - that A7 was news from a nationalist, mainstream religious perspective and wasn't pandering to streimel, langerhosen, buckle-shoe, zaydene bekishe wearing Mullahs who want to impose their extremist views on the rest of us. And when the national religious (since saying Modern Orthodox is appaerently a perjorative now - WTH?) was willing to stand up for what it believed and tell the hareidim no. Guess what folks. My daughters will not be wearing burqas anytime soon. Nor will they be slandering their God by calling him a joker leaving bones in the dirt. Nor will I be working at A7 for more than a year or two more. Its time to put my feelers out and find somewhere else I can write for a living. Somewhere that isn't afraid to call a spade a spade.

Re: Regenerating teeth While teeth are anatomically distinct structures they don't constitute a limb or extremity in of themselves. Basic regeneration should be sufficient. Even if teeth were technically "limbs," I don't think there is sufficient cause to merit charging extra-points for them. On a mechanical level, you don't pay points for extra-teeth, but do for extra arms, legs, tails, etc. So, inherent in the system is the idea that teeth are not limbs. Additionally, from the perspective of the gaming meta-experience (fancy talk for "fun") I don't see how it serves to improve play - or how it would be relevant as a "balance" issue for the bean counters.

Re: Regenerating teeth Which is so relevant to the point at hand! Grind your axes much?

Re: Fantasy Hero Campaign (ala. Space Opera) I ran a spelljammer campaign where the Vader character was a 15th level anti-paladin Death Knight with an unholy reaver and an undead unicorn for a mount.

Re: DEX for vehicles and HERO System Vehicle Sourcebook I'm well aware its there. In fact, if you go back and look at the pre-6E discussion forum you'll find the alternate strength chart idea was suggested way-back-when. I've had one since before 6E.

Re: Not Role Playing Disadvantages. It has been suggested (really) old threads be locked or archived. This has not been well received. As a result, thread necromancy is a Hero-norm.

Re: Analyze Structure vs KS Architecture Not to go against the grain, but... PS: Demolitions Engineer X-

Re: DEX for vehicles and HERO System Vehicle Sourcebook

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her It most certainly does. If you are going to strictly render the role playing aspect of the game in mechanics you might as well just write a program that plays my character for me so I can go do something else with my time. If I'm at the table its my responsibility to role play. From a strictly systemic bean-counter approach I understand where you are coming from. It makes internal modelling mechanical sense. But from a social and experiential gaming perspective I don't get it at all. The demon queen thing is the perfect example: sure, mechanically you can force a PC to have sex with her. But should you? Maybe for some PCs it would be appropriate. But some it would utterly sunder the character. What's more, demon's seduce - they seek the willing corruption of their pure victims. The fall to lust of the righteous man. Forcing the PC doesn't accomplish that goal. Maybe the player wants to role-play that fall, but maybe they will never want to play the character again if you force the issue. Which brings us full circle: even though you have modeled a mind control form of seduction you will - if you are a mature, respectful, fun-oriented GM - still have to negotiate the seduction with the player. Which raises the question, what good was modelling it at all? One problem I have with "modern" gaming which is theoretically "superior" to old school gaming is the notion every aspect of play has to be modeled and rendered mechanistic. Its great gaming science, but horrible gaming art.

Re: The "Essay"(ESSE/UEH) Project(Warning: mature/controversial content contained her Mechanically, no. However, when you use mind control to force a player's character into bed don't be surprised if you generate some extremely bad blood at the gaming table. Or if the player decides you are one of those sadistic evil game-master's who gets off on "raping" PCs. People get so caught up in mechanics that they forget the social and meta-aspect of gaming.

Re: Conan: The Current Movie in Progress..... On this, I disagree. Not with the fact that virtually no one can play comic-book balloon muscle men. This is very true. But with the fact that Conan is supposed to be a comic book balloon muscle man. In the REH stories, at least, he's described a being packed with lean, pantherish muscle. He's not really supposed to be a so-much-muscle-it-will-slow-you-down steroid quaffing Mr. Universe champion. Mamoa's build was fine, IMO.