Tyrant

Re: Sentient Weapons Fantastic! Thanks guys.

Can anyone tell me if there are guidelines for creating sentient weapons in the Fanatsy Hero rulebook? I'm thinking here of course of Stormbringer-esque artifacts. I'm trying to convert a French RPG by the name of Bloodlust to Hero in which all the PC's have said sentient weapons (actually gods or demons in weapon form). The idea being that the weapons want to experience sensation on the mortal plane and choose bearers they think are worthy of them. The flip side of course is that the weapons have desires and agendas of their own, and there's often a battle of wills between them and their bearer. I figure Hero would be ideal to translate the concept to, as I can benchmark the weapons to, say, 100 active points, and as the PC's earn XP, so do the weapons, which in turn become more powerful as they reveal more and more of their powers...

Re: Music To Raise The Dead Lacuna Coil has some good ones. In particular "Our Truth" and "Swamped" both have a moody tone that work well for a necromantic feel. And of course, Hillary Duff's new single; "With Love"...

Re: Music To Raise The Dead (FH version) Several tunes from Lacuna Coil, particularly their version of "enjoy the silence". Also, african tribal drums might be good for that.

Re: Fantasy Zero "Did the other players understand HERO system at the time? How long did the game run? And finally: did you ever obtain the riches part of the equation?" All the other players knew and loved the HERO system and were introducing me to it. The game lasted several months while I was in CEGEP (a level of schooling in my province between high school and university). And sadly, no. We never got to the riches part, but the game I intend to run will hopefully get to that point. "Do you need players for that game!!! i am from montreal stef" I`ll be PMing you soon Stef. I`m being torn between running this and running a dark fantasy/swords and sorcery style game at the moment. Plus I need to figure out what my schedule at work will be shortly.

Re: Fantasy Zero Yes! Exactly that sort of thing! I love "The Black Thing" btw. Wish I had thought of something similar back then. Ah well, it was my first ever experience with the Hero system. I ended up playing a runaway stableboy.

I've been toying with the idea of running a similar game to the one that got me hooked on the Hero system oh so many years ago. We called it Fantasy Zero because all the PC's were built with 0 base points and up to 50 points of disads. Man what a fun game that was. You've never had as exciting a game session as when it takes four player characters all their combined might to take down a single skeleton... Our mage could cast a single spell, a small flame produced from his finger tip. I was the only person in the group who had TF: horses, so I wouldn't immediately fall off. And our "fighter" had no CSL's. Rather, he has WF swords and had the only actual weapon in the group. A short sword he kept wrapped in a blanket. I'm toying running a real "rags to riches" campaign, starting with Fantasy Zero characters and, hopefully, ending with them as lords of the realm. On a side note, I've been considering using the Greyhawk setting with Hero. Anybody know how well it translates? To be honest, I'm not that familiar with it myself, but I happen to have gotten my hands on a four part map of the setting and I'm dying to use it... If only I had more TIME!!!! Sorry, nostalgic rant over.

Re: Brain-in-a-Jar & Stretch Psi powers! A Brain-in-a-Jar might have psi powers that the PC's may not even suspect. What a surprise they'll get when they've made they're way into the villains secret base and found the vile Jar, only to have one of them be mind controlled by the Brain to attack his companions. Or it might just start to throw a variety knick nacks and doodads using it's telekinesis (sp?) to annoy the PC's...

Re: The price of power... One thing I've been toying with is having all sorcerers built with Drain that affects BODY and can somehow transfer the points drained to the sorcerer as END. But I'm not sure how to implement it. I keep thinking that Drain might be linked to another power, but I can't quite work it out... Any suggestions?

Re: Fast combat? Ignoring STUN when it comes to mooks is one of the options I've decided on to speed up combat. As far as optional rules go, I'm likely to use only the hit locations, but only when a placed shot is being used. I'm going to completely ignore bleeding, knockdown, knockback...heck, I may even ignore recovery too. Keep it an "after the fight" sort of thing. I know for darn sure I'm ignoring END costs. The SPD chart is a good idea and one I'll likely implement. The one thing I don't know though, and this, only because I've never used it in the Hero system before, is whether I'll allow Martial Arts. I have a feeling that it would slow combat down to a crawl, which is unfortunate, because I'm kinda jonesing to run a Ninja Hero game too... Anyone have feedback on how a MA heavy game plays?

Re: The price of power... Hmmm, not bad. not bad at all. Thanks guys. I've got some food for thought...

After some time away from the Hero system, I'm slowly easing my way back into it. First with Dark Champions, and soon, with Fantasy Hero. Now, I'm toying with running a swords and socery style game in a setting inspired by Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer novels, written by James Silke or the Kane the Swordsman novels by Karl Edward Wagner. In either case, magic tends to be harsh, primal and costly. Often requiring bloodletting and suffering as a price to draw on said arcane power. I'm trying to figure out a way to translate that in Hero system terms. Any suggestions would be helpful. I figure magic will require an increased END cost for spells, along with a skill roll and backlash if it fails. Probably requiring the concentrate limitation as well. But none of these things brings the flavour of "pain in return for power" that I'm going for. Can anyone think of a way to perhaps convey the power gained by ritual sacrifice? I know a long time time ago it was simply considered an expendable focus, but somehow, that doesn't really capture what I'm after either. Maybe if there's a way to take BODY from someone and turn that into END to fuel the spells? Anyway, normally, in a setting like this, magic would just be for flavour anyway and I wouldn't need to come up with the rules for it. But there's a good chance one of my players will want to play a sorcerer, and since it's going to be a dark game anyway, I don't have a problem with letting him do it. But I need to get the groundwork for how magic is going to work down pat first. If any of you have flipped through the Conan RPG from Mongoose publishing, you have an idea of what I'm going for. But since I've begun to rekindle my love affair with HERO, I just don't want to use the D20 system. Thanks.

Re: Fast combat? I don`t recall which edition of CP 2020 I ran years ago, but the system left me cold. It WAS fast, I`ll give it that. But I prefer the point build character creation system of Hero to the `class`system of the CP game I recall.

Re: Fast combat? Thanks guys, these are all excellent suggestions. Vassoom's highlights of the suggestions in the book have convinced me that the Hero system can in fact handle what I'm looking for, provided I tweak the rules of the game to fit the campaign I want to run. Thankfully, tweaking the rules to fit a campaign is something I recall Hero was always good at. Right, off to the game store to pick up Dark Champions, Ultimate Martial Artist and the 5th Rev book...

Man, it's been an age since the last time I was on this board. Anyway, I'm toying with the idea of running a Dark Champions game. But the last time I picked up the Hero System was a looooong time ago. I don't know how significant the changes are to 5th Rev. What I'm looking for is a fast resolution system for combat. Now again, it's been some time since I ran the Hero System, but I seem to recall that the basics were pretty quick, but the options for combat quickly bogged things down. My question to the community is, is combat faster now in the new edition? Or are there suggestions you can make to keep combat from getting bogged down? I know hero isn't a "rules light" system. But If it can handle combat quickly and keep things cinematic, with car chases, two guns blazing firefights, and furious martial arts action, all without slowing to a crawl, then I think I'm ready for the plunge again. But I would appreciate some honest feedback. If combat is slow going, regardless of how great the game may be, I'd appreciate being told. Thanks.

Re: Back to the fold Thanks guys. Food for thought...

Well, I've been away from the Hero system for about a year now, but after seeing both "Mr & Mrs Smith" and "Batman: the Begining", I've been seriously thinking about starting up a modern day action/adventure game featuring lots of gun toting mercenaries, car chases, ninja clans, helicopters shooting up the side of buildings and government cyborg assassins gone rogue. Needless to say, I'm thinking that Dark Champions is probably the way to go. But here's the thing, I have a fairly large group of players (8 to 12), most of whom are not at all familiar with the Hero system. The most important thing for me is make sure combat is fast and furious. Since I haven't seen the rules in DC or Ninja Hero (or should that be the Ultimate Martial Artist?) I figured I'd just ask the people who have played the game on a regular basis if you thought that this was the way to go. I've heard that the Hero System can get pretty slow when it comes to combat. In my experience, that wasn't really the case, but at the time I only had four players and we were playing fantasy. Now, I've been told there are a lot of ways to speed up combat and that most of the combat issues were for super powered, high point cost combats anyway. Not so much an issue in this game. Lastly, how well do the martial arts, cinematic wuxia style in particular, mesh with DC. Do they slow combat down? I'd love to include them in the game provided they don't bog down the flow. Thanks.

Re: Westeros This is why I'm anxious to see what Steve does for mass combat rules in Fantasy Hero. For a setting like Westeros, it's almost a must have. I've recently purchased a copy of Pendragon, from Green Knight publishing, specifically with the idea of running a Westeros game in mind. The rules for mass combat are what convinced me to plunk down my cash and pick it up.

Steve, I know that you've mentioned that you'll include mass combat rules, and for that I'm incredibly grateful, but please oh please don't treat it as an afterthought. Please give it the attention it deserves. Mass combat offers a great deal of potential for any fantasy game, but very few publishers ever bother with it. HERO is idealy suited to handle the issue and I would love to see it done right for once. And although I doubt you'll have the room for this in the FH book, perhaps in some future supplement you could give some rules or guidlines for actually raising an army, or perhaps even ruling a kingdom. It seems to me like these would go very well with a mass combat rules set. And speaking of future books, earlier in the thread you mentioned something about "Battlegrounds". Could you please give us some idea of what that is? Thanks. Tyrant

Hmmm, that's a pretty good point. Actually, I kind of like the idea of running a gritty setting like Westeros without magic. That way, when magic does play a part, it has that much more impact. What I think will really fit in nicely with the setting, are the mass combat combat rules that Steve mentioned would be included in Fantasy HERO. I don't know about the rest of you, but one of the MAJOR beefs I have with most fantasy games on the market today, is the utter lack of effort in comming up with playable mass combat rules. And considering how often a fantasy setting is affected by war, I find that fact all the more annoying. It grates on my nerves that such an obvious dramatic tool gets treated, if at all, like an afterthought. I've often wanted to run a "from rags to riches" game, in which my players carve out a kingdom or empire for themselves. But because running a war is so hard in most games, we usually either have to skim over the details, which really sucks, or we have to fudge a bunch of rules that only barely work. I hate it! But if Fantasy HERO gives me the tools I need to run mass battles in a proper way, and maybe some suggestions for managing armies, I'll be an instant convert. Tyrant

I keep thinking that HERO would be ideal to run a game set in Westeros. Now granted, the books aren't finished yet and we don't know everything there is about the world, but I think there's enough that I could run a game set in the seven kingdoms. Magic would be the only hard thing to figure out. But I guess how one handles the issue depends on what time peroid the game is set. But if I were to run it, I would most likely require a high level of "increased time" and certainly "concentraton".

You know, another question comes to mind. I wonder if I should run the game with heroic level Pc's, ie: 100 pts, or should I run it as a superheroic game? Which comes closer to the HK "feel"? I'm tempted to say heroic level Pc's, same as in Dark Champions, which I feel captures the HK style pretty well. But, this being the HERO system, I well aware that there's more than one way to approach the subject matter. Any thoughts? Tyrant

Same here! I was on the G RR Martin website earlier. He's still working on the fourth book. Now again, if the series keeps up the level of quality we've come to expect, I don't mind the wait. But there's still 2 more books after this. I just hope he doesn't punk out and decide that he's had enough before the series is finished. That would p*** me off to no end...

Man, I am Soooo looking forward to running a game in that setting. The map is easy to get, there doesn't seem to be too much magic to give one a headache, and the Hero system is idealy suited for this low magic fantasy style. Anyone else thought about running a game in George R R Martin's setting? Tyrant

Actually, here'a question; How hard is it to represent ship overhauls using the Hero System? See, in most of the Sci-Fi games I run, my players LOVE to start out with a broken down clunker merchant ship, and steadily build it up and refit it with better and more expensive stuff as they get the money. Now, being relatively new to the Hero system, I'm still trying to figure out starship construction (and desperately looking forward to TUV), but I was wondering what your takes on the issue might be. Tyrant