Vorvodoss

Hey all. I know there are some websites out there with guidelines regarding character concept. I'd love a list of questions I could hand my players so they can think of their characters. Does anyone know of a website/resource that fits this description? Thanks.

Thanks. That does it for me.

It really depends on what kind of NPC I'm looking at using. If its a simple quick battle NPC that won't matter in the long run, I usually decide what he can do (one or two attacks), what order he'll most likely use them in, and how many hits it takes to kill him. I usually do this on the fly because these kind of battles aren't usually going to kill the heroes. Now, if its a major villian/boss, I create him or her exactly the way I would create any PC (concept, etc.) and create background for him. Since I don't really get to create PCs (especiallly after the players start spending xp) this gives me the oppurtunity to develop character of my own...one of the reasons I became a GM in the first place. Oh, and I use HD2...that makes it all that much easier.

On p.30 (FREd) there's a table of all the skill discussed in FREd. There's a column that says Base/+1 Cost. What does the +1 Cost mean? Usually, the base is 3 while the +1 Cost is 2 points. Could someone explain this to me? Thanks! (*note: the reason I didn't want to ask Steve this is because you guys can probably help me out and Steve doesn't need anything else on his plate)

You have a good point here. CSLs were one of the hardest things for me to grasp and explain to my players so I could agree that getting rid of them would simplify things. However, I would also venture to state that without things like CSLs there becomes less of a reason to use HERO at all.

This wouldn't make things that much easier. The challenge when learning HERO combat is the roll system and the flow of combat (the issue this thread orginally addressed). Bonuses and penalties are easy to pick up because virtually every system out there has them in some form or another.

Yeah, you got it pretty much right, except... Look carefully...this is actually THAC0. The concept behind d20 is that everything goes up. It's all based on bonuses. It's a very subtle difference but it has impacted the gaming community. To further explain, in d20 you roll your die and add a single bonus to it (figured once). If there ARE any penalties, the DM handles it and it only affects the target difficulty number. It's pretty rare for a player to have to worry about it (unless a spell is cast, there shouldn't be a reason the bonuses should change). In HERO, things can (and I've noticed often do) change a lot. This is the charm and power of the system. My players are getting used to it but they are still getting the hang of rolling dice and knowing what they were trying to roll. I tell them the DCV of their opponent but that actually widens the gap. I HAVE noticed that if I simply ask them to tell me what they hit (a la the optional roll system of 11+OCV-3d6) they have a much easier time...but this is even closer to THAC0. When d20 came out...they wanted an escape from THAC0 and its tendency for unrealistic constraints. HERO doesn't seem to have those constraints because the CV ranges aren't fixed and can be affected by a lot of different things. OK...that was a whole lot of what was in my head and I'm not sure if I even made my point. Let me know if I didn't and I'll try to explain my thought process better. *edit: I saw this after I posted: This is THAC0 almost exactly the way it is run in 2e D&D.

I was specifically talking about how combat works. In other words, if d20 and HERO are that alike, why couldn't a simple "roll die, add bonuses, check against armor class" work? Now, before I get flamed I want to clarify that I like the HERO way of combat now that I'm getting used to it. I just wanted someone to explain how combat in HERO is like combat in d20 (besides things like half-move, etc.).

This is great advice all the way around. The problem I faced at the beginning of this game is that two of the three players in this group hate battlemats (I'm really kind of ambivalent with enough of a slight preference towards not using them that I don't care...HA! dismantle THAT...hehe) while one really likes them. Well, it became simple majority rule. I so do the same thing! In fact, I'll admit I haven't really bothered with my NPCs' hp (or BODY and STUN in HERO) for quite a while. When it's a big boss or something of the like, I'll have a detailed battle block but I've usually already decided if I'm going to let a PC die and how many. I don't decided which PC will die, just how many. I hate it when the whole group dies because I've made an NPC just too hard. I fudge all the time. I really never got comfortable rolling dice in the open and my players have never really minded because I have a habit of fudging in their favor.

Hey Steve. I can't think of the page right now and I don't have the book in front of me but I was having a hard time figuring out what the "notes" in the Martial Arts blocks (in FREd) mean. For example, say for martial throw it might say "Grab, Abort, Str +10". What exactly does this mean? Does this mean that you have to Grab first while aborting an action and that it give you a Str +10? Or does it mean it can be used the same time you would use an Abort, etc.? I'm just trying to figure this one out. Thanks!

I did misunderstand you and I agree but I would also point out that there are some players who, no matter what, just want to roll dice and there are others who barely remember the dice are there. The same division exists between people who can play with figs and those who just don't like them. Neither side is better but it's always a learning experience for the GM with a new group. Caris, I'm not going to quote chunks of your post because I'm tired and there's a lot I'd like to comment on but can do so in a general sense. Based on just what I've posted about my game, I completely agree with you and you have some great points. However...and a big one at that...I forgot to point out something major. You see, that was really the first major combat action in the scene. I try to balance. For the most part, I will establish the feel as quick as I can then fade to the more standard speed of a combat. Usually, I resolve actions quickly to keep the pace up. There are those moments when I can work in the description. You made a comment about the GM telling you what the PC thinks. I really should clarify. When the players know the world and the parameters they are playing in I don't ever really tell them what they think. If they ask what an appropriate response might be, I hand it to them. But when they are playing in a new world/genre I've created I tell them the proper reactions their archtype(sp?) would have so they help me create the right milieu. My players know this because they've been playing eagerly in my games for years now. I'm an average GM but a decent storyteller so they know they are going to get an interactive novel more than a strategy game. So yes, you probably wouldn't like my game style that much but I'm pretty sure you would like the story. Hey, has anyone ever put together an IRC HERO game? If we could find the right tools/add-ins/dice bots I would be willing to run some games and would love to play in them to learn the system more.

Sounds like a pretty involved system, Caris. Let me know if it works out for you. ^.^ Personally, I just use a piece of paper as scratch and quickly write everyone's name, DEX and SPD on it. As each person takes an action, I put a check by their name. There's more to it than that but it's a simple system and I'm sure most people use variations on it; it's probably not important to go into detail here.

I've had this happen as well...in fact, it's one of the reasons I became a GM and stopped enjoying the player-side experience. The trick for me, when conveying the surroundings and mood I'm trying to create, is to constantly remind the players what they're dealing with. With the above example in mind, I would do something like this: PC1 says he attacks and rolls a successful hit. I describe the scene like so: "You strike your opponent in the chest for "x amount of damage" but he kicks at you which causes you to move to the side. Your foot slips and you feel the emptiness beneath you like a palpable presence, eager to claim you. Wind whips by you and you remember that there is no second place if you lose this fight." The NPC may never have actually attacked. I included the missed kick for flavor so I could justify having the PC loose his footing. I make sure not to penalize the PC if he decides to ignore the lost footing because there was no roll that said he did indeed deserve a penalty, etc. However, I also throw the lost footing challenge to him that he can use if he wants, making the game a little more dynamic and constantly in flux--a greater challenge for the player and more fun for all.

Yes, but if you remove the mat, you wind up forcing the players to do that. Btw, things as far as distances and such do NOT have to be thrown to the side. I design my combat encounters for the characters so they each have a little something to do. If PC1 attacks the enemy that I had intended for PC2, I can easily switch them and no one is the wiser. It requires a little more work on the GM's side to keep things straight but I find that when I have a mat I feel more constricted. This is, of course, simply personal preference. The two biggest differences between the systems are also the ones that make it a new process almost entirely. I agree that there are similarities. However, CV works a lot like THAC0 which has never been a system I've loved due to its inherent restrictions. HERO battles that by making it ever-changing (some may disagree with me). The other difference is the approach to combat time. In d20, all combatants are operating in turn (Initiative) in the span of six seconds. In HERO, as we know, there are twice as many seconds and for me it seems as if there are 12 little rounds to keep track of. However, there are times when there is no one moving that round so I have to remember to skip them. These two differences make combat hugely different.

How so?

Not at all. Wargaming wasn't even entering my mind. The main reason I switched to the HERO system for my game was that I wanted to run a more scifi based aspect of gaming as well as fantasy. HERO allows for more accurate and individualized character creation. If I could somehow hybrid the d20 version of combat with the HERO system, I would, but it would take me too long to hybrid the two to allow for armor class and the like. Therefore, I'll just get better at running HERO combat. ^.^

We should, I think, define what we all think of as roleplaying. Some people I've met look at roleplaying the same way Final Fantasy et. al. look at roleplaying: as a series of strategic battles and events. Others of us see roleplaying as playacting through dramatic situations. Neither way is better or worse than the other but they each have there own impact on certain elements of roleplaying (speed of combat, character creation, and use of miniatures). I'm not suggesting that anyone who has posted so far plays one way or the other. My games focus more on the interaction between characters in a dramatic sense and don't often resort to combat in the traditional sense (most combat is unique and difficult to miniaturize). So, do you agree that the WAY we roleplay impacts the tools we use?

I don't want anyone to think that I was judging anyone's use of figs. In fact, they work for most people nowadays but I have always found them somewhat distracting and useless IMO. If you have found a way to make them work for you in your game, I admire you. So please don't think I'm "rejecting" ALL use of figs.

The issue of miniatures, etc. was decided for me when I used to run CoC. I'd often have people confused with what the miniatures represented and what was actually happening. I can give you guys an example why I'm not a big fan of Figs. During this most recent game, two of the PCs were trying to rescue the third PC (who didn't know the first two were trying to help him, no less). PC3 was in the back of a flying police car some three hundred feet above the ground while the other two were in an automated cab. Both vehicles were a mere three feet apart and PC1 decided to leap into the police car to attack the fakey police. One of the police get tossed and it was up to PC2 to stomp down on his fingers sending him plummeting to his doom. Then, PC2 tried to help PC3 who attacked PC2 thinking he was a bad guy. They begin to scuffle. PC1, meanwhile, has slammed the second fake police man into a forcefield separating the front seat from the back, cooking the faux cop to a crisp. He grabs the cop's gun and points it at PC3. "We're trying to help you escape this mess, you idiot...not into the cab." Combat over. As you can see, Figs would have greatly complicated things. Also, they wouldn't have conveyed the feeling of being three hundred feet in the air while this was happening OR being is such tight quarters. The only thing that went bad in this combat was in the beginning when the PCs declared they were attacking and I wasn't sure who really went first (being that I didn't start them on Phase 12 like I should have). Hope you enjoyed the situation. I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.

That helps a great deal. Where in FREd does it talk about starting combat on Phase 12. That's the major thing I wasn't doing. I was always starting combat on Phase 1 and then working through until someone had an action. I think starting on Phase 12 will be the biggest improvement on my game. Any more suggestions? I do NOT use miniatures. Do you guys really suggest using them? I'm not a big fan because it makes game more like a boardgame than an RPG. I'm a fan of situations like this: "You're facing three guards and they're advancing." Player1: "I attack the closest guard to me." Player2: "Is there a rock I can hide behind?" (I hadn't said they WASN'T a rock and I can see what the player wants to do is more important than whether or not I had rocks planned): "Sure. You can reach it this round but can't attack." Player3: "I'm gonna take care of the two guards Player1 can't reach." This situation doesn't care about distances in the strictest sense and is how I ran games and played games before miniatures becamse widespread. It allows my players to do the things they WANT to do rather than the things the rules dicate they can do.

This post is slightly premature because I don't have the time to post in as great of detail as I'd like. I ran my first HERO game last Sunday. It went ok (I was more focused on the system than the story but my players didn't seem to notice). I do have a number of things I need to work on and clarify and I'll be doing that between now and the next game. One thing I really wanted to ask concerns combat initiation. In d20 or various other systems, I'm used to telling everyone to "roll initiative" which lets me know exactly when people are going. I like the HERO turn/segment/phase system but I had a real hard time getting combat flowing. I really wasn't sure, for example, if someone who started running on his Phase 8 was able to make it to his target by his Phase 12. So, can y'all chime in and tell me how you (or your GMs) handle the beginning stages of combat and the flow of combat once it's started? I'd love some pointers to help me intiate and run combat more smoothly. Thanks!

I'm gonna review the rules on the page you cited but here's my point as far as gming goes. You get a bonus for strength (say, a STR 17 would get a 2d6 bonus to damage with HA's). You hit your opponent using all your STR bonus, spending your END (1, I believe). In the same Phase, you are forced to resist being pushed off a cliff. You can use your casual STR (a no-cost, 0-Phase action) but you could no longer call upon extra STR (represented by your END cost and bonus) to do so, having already spent your STR on your HA. Other circumstances come to mind but this one makes my point ok. I have to go out to dinner but will review the rule and get back you guys on my thoughts. Thanks for taking notice of my question and helping me understand it from all angles. Thanks bunches!

Ah, but you hit on something here. If you, say, Leap as per the ability using your STR to do so, you spend END to accomplish the feat. But then, when you swing your axe or throw a punch, you shouldn't get the extra damage based on STR. You say here that you can the use your Casual STR. That means that you have already spent your END to take advantage of your STR and cannot do it again, thereby negating the need or option to spend more END to tap into your "extra" STR.

Ok, but what if you made two attacks during the phase (a la two-weapon fighting, etc.) and you want your strength bonus to apply to both? Do you pay the END cost for each?

Hey all, I've kind of asked this question before but it's the one I'm still kind of confused on and can't find in the book. OK...STR has an END cost listed for it. I just want to verify that this cost applies to actually using the STR bonus to HA, HKA, and Melee weapons (especially for FH). If the player chooses NOT to use his STR bonus to damage, he may do so and not spend the END. Is this about right?