Tywyll

See I was looking at Tank stats last night, with a 20 DEF, it's difficult for your Hulk expy to punch and damage, unless he's bought AP for his Str or something, but doing that will mess him up if strict AP limits are enforce. So yeah, I think to even barely fit the comic model, you need mundane vehicles and buildings to take double damage (and maybe give free AP) to really even touch 4-color expectations. I think this is partially from damage inflation over the editions and the idea that 10 is the average Body, even for mooks.

Oh, well fair enough then! Good luck!

See, I think how much people want to bite at the idea isn't really relavent. Short of making a deal or proposal to DOJ, this option is the only one I can see us releasing as independent fans. We can do something like this through the Hall of Heroes, but frankly we'd need a license for anything else so... this seems like the most realistic plan.

Going back to a Complete game, I have to say, I'm not super into the idea of a game that doesn't include some kind of supernatural powers or at least high tech/cybernetics. Spies, cops, detectives all of that has always left me cold and pulp has no interest to me except the supers of that genre. I never got to play Espionage or the other earlier Hero games so they don't hold the same interest to me. Even if I had, I probably would never have been interested in them because of the above. However, I was looking at a copy of 1st Edition Star Hero that I recently got from ebay and I found it hella complete. Not only did it have all the important rules from hero, character creation, combat, etc. It include space ships, space combat, computers, aliens, several pages of high tech gear, a setting and an adventure, all in 192 pages. It even had a small section of powers, 16 pages I think of trimmed down common physical and mental powers so you could still run aliens and psychics in your setting. Obviously they dumped a lot of powers and a lot of modifiers, but the fact that they crammed that in there certainly made me feel like I could run a game with just that book if I had nothing else. I also liked how it discussed how to run different kinds of sci-fi campaigns if you don't want to use their setting. I was always a fan of Tri-Stats (another 'universal game system') hardbacks Ex-Machina and Dreaming Cities. These were well produced books with the core Tri Stat system and then three different settings each based on those rules, showing you how you could use the rules to make different campaigns. Not entirely sure where I'm going with this, other than to say I think any book should have options for different kinds of games. I'm not sure Action Hero is the right call, honestly, because I can't think of any game that didn't include powers/supernatural elements has ever been a major force in the gaming community. At the very least, I would expect the complete game to include at least some mental powers for psychics (prebuilt is fine), some pregenned zombies and/or alien invaders, and maybe a few spells for an urban fantasy style game (if you want to stick to the modern era).

Pretty much this. And, though I don't like it or agree with it, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. Casual gamers are still gamers, even if I find it incredibly frustrating. We can't just ignore that (probably quite large) portion of gamers because they don't game like we do.

Yikes! I didn't know anything about this guy, what a rabbit hole. Glad to get some perspective on the line. Sorry it didn't work out for DOJ, but I think being tied to a devisive franchise would probably not have been helpful long term.

No, that's not right at all. These are people who have roleplayed numerous systems for years. But they are also adults who with limited time, jobs, and other constraints. Being dismissive of player realities won't help sell the game. As many have said in this thread, throwing a tool kit out for people doesn't really work (or else we wouldn't be having this conversation and HERO would be the RPG leader). Creativity thrives on limitations, check any creative writing course or book on the subject. Analysis Paralysis is a real thing, and it limits the acceptance of this and any other open source systems. We have to take that into account if we are going to attempt to broaden the game's appeal.

I like your ideas! It's funny though, some of it sounds very similar to the decisions that Champions: New Milliniuem and Fuzion went with, especially about simply buying EB with Mods as different variations on how many dice you got per point. It was a heck of a lot simpler though.

While I certainly appreciate HERO for this, I'm not sure how much of a selling point this would be to new players who don't have the experience of being hemmed into a class or game designer choice to compare that new found freedom to. In fact, as has been my experience, even with gamers who have numerous systems under their belts, that level of freedom can be offputting if they aren't willing to really invest in the system. I suppose for every 1 system convert I've created, I've seen 10 or so players who just floundered with that sort of freedom.

Almost every major game these days needs multiple books. Pathfinder, D&D, WoD, HERO. I can't think of any big name releases out now that don't use a multiple book format. Exalted 3rd ed maybe, but that rulebook is like 900 pages, so that ought to have been multiple books! Even FATE has multiple rule books, Dresden Files was released in two books, my list goes on. There are a few one and dones, but they are all indie releases or oldschool games really.

And actually this would be something that could be produced via the license. If your setting/adventure guide had all the character creation templates (ala what's in Champions 5th or 6th but keyed to X genre), all available talents, powers (spell system/psychic system/etc), gear, plus an adventure...and a note saying you need X Complete to play, that would be the closest we could come to making a 'Complete Game' for HERO.

This, right here. I've been introducing a new group of players to Fantasy HERO for the last several months and so far it's...not going well. Despite the toolkit awesomeness and ability to build anything kind of approach, the players just stare blankly at me when its time to spend XP and the wide open nature leaves them cold. They want me to provide a clear dump of 'things that exist I can buy' and then not think about it. I have done this, making PDFs for them of talents and super skills and even that is a bit of information overload. They can't really envision how the stat block equates to a cool in fiction ability (I mean, I can, but most of them can't). Now, a lot of that is on them...they won't read the rules, none of them have bought a book, nothing. But I don't think my experience is unique. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that a limited selection of possibilities would have been more helpful had I gone with that initially...but, hind sight and all that.

Exactly. I don't want something that adds to combat length. I also want buildings and vehicles to get ripped apart with the regularity that they do in comics and films, but can't often happen in a normal game with 50-60 AP ceiling.

Like Haymaker, I don't see Move Through (or move by) as limited to tackling. Move Through seems perfect for representing a Charge attack, especially with a spear or similar weapon. I don't see why weapons are less effective. Why do they (almost always) suffer an additional CV penalty and DC penalty. Don't look at someone with max human str, look at someone with the minimum needed to wield the weapons. A soldier with a 12 STR and a medium spear suffers an additional -2 OCV and -2 DC when charging which is...weird? Using the same example above, his Move through would get him back up to the normal spear damage, but he's less likely to hit. There is little reason to bother with the maneuver at the point. It actually encourages performing Move X's with smaller weapons, not larger ones. Which again, seems really weird.

It's not really that you might lose your weapon, that might have been a bad example on my part. But you suffer real penalties for failing to meet the Str Min of a weapon, and if you perform this maneuver your str drops by half, meaing you suddenly can't use your weapon very well, possibly at a big negative on top of the Move X maneuver penalties. Meanwhile if I charge and punch someone I get full STR + maneuver damage.

So I guess I always had the 4th ed rules stuck in my head but I just noticed that in 5th and 6th if you do either Move X maneuvers with a weapon your STR is halved for CV modifier based on STR min. Anyone have any idea why that is? It seems like the perfect maneuver for a spear charge or lance attack, so it seems really odd you suddenly can't use your weapon?

Is this information from when you purchased the program and downloaded, and is therefor in your 'Manage my orders'? If so I have no access to that information as all those details got wiped when the website was converted over. None of my pdfs, programs, or other purchases are attached to my account anymore. If it's somewhere else, I can't see it in the store or in the documentation. I've just carried the files from one machine to the next.

Yeah, that's not the problem. Not only do I have full access I've given every user group full access, still not working.

That was my suggestion. That is also what I was suggesting. That's what I was thinking.

Whether I divide their defences by 2 or multiply the damage players roll by 2, the results ought to be the same. That's what I was getting at. I see no functional difference between what you were suggesting and what I was suggesting.

How would that be any different?

I'm toying around with a campaign loosely based on the Worm webnovel with a dash of Aberrant. One of the elements of those settings is that metas are far more powerful than both mortals and most of their surroundings. I want supers to be able to vaporize cars and tanks without too much thought, yet still have a traditional punch 'em up with regular supers. One of the ways to do that would be to just up CP values, but then it would be hard to use the wealth of precreated villains and supers already in print. So I was considering that as a campaign ground rule, non-metas take double effect/damage from meta based attacks. Meta attacks are armor piercing versus normal materials and body armor. Weapons and non-meta mundane attacks will have reduced penetration. Natural elements will not be impacted by this rule, so a fire will burn a meta as much as a mundane person. Some super tech will not be subject to these restrictions and any tech based character will by default be considered a 'tinker' whose meta trait allows the creation of unique super-tech. Yes, this prevents mundane concepts from being viable, but the campaign would be about metas and their powers and their impact on the world, so I don't really care about that. What other problems might these ground rules create?

Personally I would love to play but...being in Scotland and having a family and job and all that, i can't commit to that much time (dying though I am to try out TTS). If anyone was running a PbP game though, I'd be down for that because that would fit in my schedule.

It's difficult to decide, even within the same genre sometimes. Sometimes I want epic fantasy heroes who can solo a dragon. Other times I want gritty fantasy vietnam with hirelings dying in droves. Sometimes I want these things in the same campaign, which is a bit problematic. In leveling systems you can get it (low levels its fantasy vietnam, mid to high levels you are fantasy super heroes). Other systems not so much.

Mostly because Clairsentience has no ability to target an unknown location. I suppose combining a detect with it might work. It's just frustrating that it becomes such a high AP construct for a power that is so situationally unusable. I'm the GM. I'm always the GM with my group. No one else in my group knows or loves HERO like I do, sadly.