ghost-angel

A few points; I agree that backbones will always be hardline. It's hard to be the sheer bandwidth of fiberoptic. But individual devices, that's another matter, especially as thin clients are actually back on the rise again. The thing about hardline over wireless is infrastructure. To add nodes to a hardline you need to either run more cable, or add in even more switches (which makes it harder, though not impossible, to control VLANs on a LAN or CAN. But the more connections you add, the more managed switches you end up needing, or people share a link. not always what you want). Adding wireless connections just means adding a new node, assuming you've reached maximum capacity on the current nodes. They don't interfere with each other, for the same reason 1,000 computers don't cross data on a hardline connection. With wireless, too, you can always add media (not entirely sure what this actually references, unless you mean more concurrent connections across the same line). We use a very small range of frequencies as dedicated by the FCC in the US for wireless communication, a society fully geared towards it will probably use a lot more, roaming, frequencies, to find the best fit in a given environment. Portability - wireless means you can go anywhere. And if that wireless uses the Cellular Network (versus the dedicated WiFi frequencies) it roams as you go, not needing to reinitialize a connection every 500 feet. And the other thing about wireless, if the airwaves get full, add more frequencies, some frequencies go further than others too... As for talking across sky scrapers, well, there's always a central hub linking back up to the backbone, the way out of the LAN/CAN to the WAN, that links everything on a given network, a wireless tablet can talk to another wireless tablet a quarter mile away, but yes it does it with the help of a hardline via the access points back to the central router. As always, the answer is never "One or the Other" - it's a combination of the two. Wireless offers a level of portability and mobility that hardline cannot offer. Even standard ethernet degrades at 100 meters. So end clients will likely be wireless, infrastructure will be a combination of hardline trunks, wired access points, and possibly the occasional dedicated wireless frequency. I think the future is going to be an underlying fiberoptic structure connecting a large number of wireless nodes.

That's the one, Unified Power; Aside from being able to apply it to other Frameworks, it also allowed for Powers of varied Active Points to be grouped together (unlike with ECs).

More often than not, the type of Campaign where you see multiple Power Types in a MP like that is Fantasy Magic, where not all the Powers are even going to match the AP Limit, so fitting a multitude of Variable Slots like that is less of an issue, and the MP itself can sit at the AP Limit. The design above is the reason the Elemental Control framework once existed, and has been replaced by the much more open structure of the new 6E Limitation (whose name has currently slipped my mind). This is one way to structure a Character to keep with the AP Cap in place, where the MP Framework is left to Variations On A Theme as traditionally seen (Blast, AoE Blast, Autofire Blast, etc). Even then, most of the time (actually, all the time as I think about it) the GMs were more concerned with the AP Cost of the Powers Themselves vs the AP Cost of the Framework; Especially when you put no Limitations on the Framework, buying it at full points rarely garners you any true advantage over a character who buys them outside the Framework. This is especially true when it comes to the versatile and power VPP, where by RAW the Pool+Control Cost = Active Points, every GM has been more concerned with the Pool and Powers inside it than they have with the RAW Definition of Framework Active Points. This is also why 6E has recommendations based on Damage Class limits as either a replacement for, or addition to, Active Point Limits. As letting a player exceed AP by buying a Blast w/ 0 END but still remain competitive in a fight by keeping the Damage Classes in line with the rest of the group; not having to lose DCs to add non-Damange related Advantages allows for more versatility while not marginalizing a players ability to assist in Combat. Personally, when you use a combination of DC and AP Limits in the design guidelines you end up with less cookie-cutter and generally happier crew. Non-Damage type Powers can follow AP guidelines to prevent certain types of potential game breaking abilities (teleporting an entire city population in one swoop, for instance, can cut the fun of the impending alien invasion of New York City), and DC Limits allow for all combat related powers to remain in a relatively close level of utility to each other while allowing for diversity of builds.

Hero isn't more complex. That's a total myth. What Hero is is more Front Loaded. It has a longer, more in depth, set up than other systems when taken to its generic bones. There is a way to reduce the upfront work of getting a camapign ready, though, and it's rarely been done, and even when it is done, it only goes half way with it. PS238, Monster Hunter International, and Narosia have all give it a good solid go of packaging the rules with a campaign and presenting only the relevant bits. But it still isn't as grab and go as Fate System book might be. It doesn't require a different set of rules for each Campaign World to be presented, but it does require choices be pre-made when including them in a Campaign World, and then leaving out aspects that just do not apply. I think it can be done, and done well, I think the current Hero User Base will mostly balk at the idea though. But then, the current user base for the system spent the last decade proving that if it wasn't branded "Champions" it was going to sell for crap anyway...

Ah, yeah, Gather up all the traits it should have, and decide what the best solution might be; It could simply be a Computer manifested as the Sword.

Personality is mostly SFX, but the Sword can affect itself, like prevent the wielder from attacking, and only that kind of thing, I'd probably add "Side Effect: Sword has a personality, and can occasionally prevent itself from Attacking." Quick, easy, and the talking back part is really In Game Special Effects.

This paragraph makes no sense at all since 1) The Complete books ARE sixth edition Hero System 2) Why would new players even care that there used to be derived stats & point totals are higher than previous editions? All new players know is that DEX, OCV, DCV, and SPD are 4 Characteristics defining 4 different aspects of their characters. Both the 6E PDFs and the Complete Books have the same rules for those 4 Characteristics, to new players it's a wash. So yeah - they were done to make things easier for new players, especially since at the time they were done, 6E was still very much in print, since, you know, that was the edition that introduced the change. "Here new player, in this game you can decide how nimble you are, how good you are with hitting things, how good you are at dodging them, and how many times you go in a Combat Turn" - yeah, we totally did that to make things hard for people.

The rule for Line Of Sight is "If you can target the character, you have Line Of Sight" - it's that simple. You can't hold up a piece of paper and block LOS. You can run around the corner and block LOS. Think of it as a gun, I can point the gun at you, I can target you, I will shoot at you. But if you literally run out of targeting sight, shooting you has no effect. But, since Hero allows for Targeting with things other than Sight Group, if I can still Hear You, and still Target You via that Hearing then running around a corner is not going to help you much, getting out of visual range is pointless in this case. So as long as a Dive For Cover gets you out of the way of the Mentalists Targeting Sense, you're good. Otherwise, your tiny meat brain is toast. Rename "Line Of Sight" to "Line Of Targeting" and it hopefully becomes clear what will and won't save you from Mr. Mind Control forcing you to go make him a sandwich.

It's slightly different from old school Class Based systems, which were direct paths (If you choose Fighter, the rest is predetermined). Decision Trees have choices, but they're limited based on what you already have. Hero's Defense Maneuver isn't a Decision Tree, it's a direct line, 1-2-3-4. A decision Tree would look more like: Choose 1, 2, 3, or 4. If you choose 1 your next choice can be: 2, 3, 4 (horizontal choice) or A-B (vertical choice based on choosing 1). If you choose B your third choice can be 2, 3, 4 (the first line is almost always avaiable), A (based on choosing 1 and still available) and B1 or B2 (based on choosing B ). If you had chosen 2 to start you don't have access to A or B on choice 2, but C and D (plus 1, 3, and 4). If you draw it out it will look similar to a family tree, you can follow a line down, but you can't skip across it at any point without going back to the top and choosing options that get you down a second branch. No, decision trees definitely didn't start in Video Gaming, they are a direct descendant of class-based systems though. Which is why we have a cross pollination of terminology between RPGs and Video Games. The thing about RPGs, even bad ones, is that the decision trees tend to be a lot wider, far more flexible, and the point allocation you're allowed to use to get more aspects is completely Player/Group controlled. In video games, the progression is locked down hard. Versus something like Hero where if you want to get Lockpicking you don't need to have chosen anything else, you just need to

That's it. Couldn't remember off the top of my head the exact wording. Thanks.

Yeah, it's important to remember Line Of Sight means with Any Targeting Sense, not just Sight Group...

Under the Powers Tab, right above where the Powers list is, there's a couple of Drop Down Menus, one of which is Power Pool, click there & select.

Yep. Assuming they can justify knowing it's a Mental Attack coming... But mechanically, totally legal.

A Decision Tree is when you start with one Thing, and that drives the Next Choices directly. There's no free form choice, normally you can go across, or directly down, but you can't skip around in choices, there's a path and path is determined by each choice made along the way. The perfect example of Decision Tree Based Creation is the Edge Of The Empire Star Wars RPG. What abilities you get is directly determined by what abilities you already have. Done right it appears to be natural progression, most of the time it's just going down the garden path. In video gaming, there are a lot of examples to pull from, Diablo 2 had a Decision Tree (they literally called it the Skill Tree); The character advancement in Torchlight and Borderlands (especially Borderlands) are Decision Trees as well, one choice opens up some options, closes or defers others.

You aren't off the mark. During the days of 5E when DOJ was on a seemingly meteoric rise they produced over 20 books in one year. It slowly dropped off, to a low point of, IIRC 7 books. That's several months with nothing hitting shelves. Personally, I think Steve tried to take on too much writing it all (or mostly all) himself, as even as prolific as he is, it's going to burn out the idea factory to just keep churning.

To say Video Games are a great gateway is fair, they're of a similar bent in entertainment... Which means what you want is less RPGs that look like Video Games and more of how they're different from video games; which means not cookie-cutter, not decision tree based... I'd argue the last thing anyone should do is try and emulate them with RPGs, especially not because they sell more.

All these mediums both compete and compliment each other. Comics, Movies, Television, PnP RPG, Video Games, Books, Sewing, Scrap Booking, Records Collecting.... Anything that takes up your time and money is a competitor, if you want to get down to it. My primary hobby is music, I spend way more hours cataloging, listening to, and researching music, than I do any other activity except maybe SysAdmin (i.e. The Day Job). Well, probably on par with that. But I still mark out time to play a video game, or read an RPG, or twice weekly play RPGs. It's both competition and not competition... We like to think everything is a binary This Vs That kind of thing "Well, if he isn't playing Video Games he's probably playing Table Top RPGs..." which is the thought process behind them being direct competitors somehow. Which is untrue. There could be a thousand activities they chose over any one other activity. So it's an unfair comparison from the start, it's apples and oranges and pears and raspberries and blueberries and kiwis and pineapples ...

Yeah, that. In a nutshell. RPGs aren't video games, they fail miserably when they think the Gamer Market = RPG Market. It's very old-think. People in the 80s & 90s who played RPGs were probably also the kinds of people that were involved in online culture, and video gaming culture beyond casual play. As each segment became more prominent, and more interlaced, more and more people got involved and online and into video games. The Ven-Diagram of RPG+VideoGame started to overlap less and less. Or possibly just mixing up demographics. After all the largest chunk of video gamers fill the 18-35 demographic. But then, the largest chunk of almost any media market is the 18-35 demographic. Either way, you don't want to capture the video gamer market, you want to capture the people who feel limited by the video games themselves; The last thing any RPG should want to do (as the aforementioned D&D4) is try and emulate them.

I think it's possible to do both, GURPS is the closest thing to an actual Hero Analog and they have maintained some market share with such a construct. Though, personally I'd be less interested in trying to keep the old user base; 1st, every iteration loses some as they decide not to upgrade (more so when they look at a change into a newer version and hate it outright...) 2nd, we're dying off. Literally. 3rd, it's not 30 years ago anymore, there is a market out there to capture, and like it was in our youth, that market is not (just) the older generation. I think if you can answer questions 1 and 2 above with a yes, then question 3 is moot. If new blood exceeds old blood, then the old blood no longer becomes the market to cater to. That's trick though, I guess... The How of it.

Well, yes, obviously. Nothing you just said has anything to do with the statement you just quoted. It mostly just restates it in different verbiage.

Also, on the mechanical side, what's being affected? Powers bought by Characters? Equipment that is never paid for? Are things changing Mechanically, or are Special Effects simply changing? For the most part, in your average Fantasy game, making better weapons is simply a better Weaponsmithing Skill Roll, possibly coupled with other skills if you want (like SS: Metallurgy).

And that's as clear an explanation as I think we can make it. Well said.

Yes, but that wasn't in question. The question being answered was "How is it 2 actions?"

I completely disagree with everything you just said, massey. So I'll just skip past it. Something exactly like this, yes. To get into detail: Fantasy Hero Complete included Knockback rules with a "In some Superheroic Fantasy Campaigns"... remove that entirely. It doesn't apply to probably 90% of Fantasy games out there. For things like Atlantean Age (to which is does apply) you have a "Included Optional & Advanced Rules" section in that Setting Book. I'm not sure if we're too far removed, but our Complete Books don't go far enough down the path to create Pure Genre Books, they're still trying to be The Genreless Rules, Now With Extra Genre! - Given the general explosion of the Fate System, and the adaptions of the D20 System it seems feasible you could generate both a very Genre Focused set of Rules & A very unfocused Generic Rules as a Roll Your Own kind of thing. And I really do mean Genre Focused; As Example: bleeding rules really aren't in Genre for Superheroic gameplay (especially as Superheroic gameplay trends towards a glossier Silver Age, and even when it doesn't, the blood is SFX). Knockdown shouldn't even be mentioned, the default is Knockback to simulate Genre. That kind of thing.

If you have a CSL specifically with a Maneuver they are applied at the time the Maneuver is used (I would assume that any CSL the applies to one, and only one, Action is always going to be pre-allocated to that Action regardless); If you have CSLs with a group of Maneuvers and need to reallocate them from OCV to DCV, you can perform the 0 Phase Action to adjust them around, which is the gist of the "it's technically two different aspects of the rules, used more or less simultaneously. Hence: Two Actions. One to Adjust, One to Perform Maneuver."