BvBPL

Re: Question: Can you take Cost END Only to Active after taking No END Persistent? I don’t see why not. Edit: Errr… wait a minute. Are you taking No END & Cost Only END to Activate? That’s specifically not allowed w/o GM permission (v1, pg 334). Not that there’s really a point to taking COEtA if you already have No END and Persistent. What would you gain from adding COEtA to a No END / Persistent power? By the way, v1, pg 334 also has the best power EVER on it: THROWING BADGER!

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Chris: “Is Roundtree, I mean Black-.” Bruce: “Yes, Chris, Richard Roundtree is black.” (Guy named Blacktree is our antagonist, but Chris got a little tongue-tied requiring Bruce to confirm Shaft’s ethnicity.)

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... "I just sodomized a giant robot with a parking meter."

Okay, so HERO’s flagship game is based on comic books, so presumably many folks here have some passing familiarity with comic books. This makes it (and Barbelith) the perfect place to ask: How would you create and run an RPG setting similar to the comic book works of Grant Morrison? Is it conceivable within the RPG framework? If you could put together such a setting, would players even want to play it? And just to set the ground rules, I’m not talking about the relatively down to Earth runs Morrison had on New X-Men, All-Star Superman, 52, and the like. I’m talking about the weird stuff. Doom Patrol, Filth, and, of course, The Invisibles. For those unfamiliar with Morrison’s weird work you may be able to get the gist of it by imagining the Black Lodge storyline from Twin Peaks on acid and with kung fu.

Re: Order of the Stick Oh, I know someone did. You can probably track down the translation in the OotS forums. I think the TPB of the work also has the translation.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? I am? That’s news to me. I don’t see a lot of value in assigning uniform point values to all legends. For one, it closes up design space by limiting the range of points that can be assigned to any given character. By the same token, there’s the threat of making all the characters only useful at specific points in the PCs career. Let’s say, for example, that you set up a rivalry between Gawain and the party, which they resolve, and then start to look for the next rivalry in Lancelot. Well, by all rights Lancelot should be head and shoulders over Gawain, but if they’re built on the same points then you’ll have to modify Lancelot a fair bit to make him a believable step up over Gawain. It is also make-work because the author needs to figure out where all the unused points that are left over go to for lesser characters. I mean, Sir Kay is less competent than King Arthur in every way that really counts, so once you’ve developed Arthur and established his level of proficiency you’d go to Kay and set him up to be largely less competent. Having set up Kay as noticeably weaker than Arthur in key areas, you’ll have a whole bunch of “extra” points for Kay that need to be spent to make the point values uniform. So these points get tossed at a whole bunch of miscellany and suddenly Kay can speak Swedish, or something, simply because he had points that needed to be burnt off. Some characters are simply more competent then others and the way to document this mechanically is through a difference in total points.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? I think there is a place for legends that are not combat monkeys.

Re: Order of the Stick Belkar and Roy’s gear taken from them between 734 & 736. It is off screen so we don’t know exactly what happened to it. It seems plenty possible that Elan asked his dad for the gear as a favor at some point with the intent to give it back to Roy and Belkar. It’s also possible that Elan and Haley snagged it when they broke into the prison. This might have been explained, but didn’t see a need to go through 50 comics looking for one line about that. Actually, I did look it up. Roy asked Haley to grab it gear in #773. So there you go. As for Belkar’s line in 809, I’d say the ambiguity just adds more funny to the panel. I want more Giant Strengthed Mr. Scruffy.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Order of the Stick #809: Panel six is freaking awesome. Bonus points for Belkar responding to Roy but facing the raven. Also, the return of General Tarquin, whose personality is totally right for Elan and Nale’s dad.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? Frankly a list of gods with their HERO stats is not a compelling product for me. I already have a copy of Legend and Lore and, better still, Bullfinch’s, and I do not need a phone book of deity stats without the rules support to run them in a setting. Legendary HERO is much more compelling both because the principles would be more relatable.

Re: Heroes for pay A great incentive for a “hero” / villain team up: new villain on the scene is wanted by PRIMUS so a new superhero goes out and captures him for the bounty. During transport to jail, another villain, actually the “hero” in disguise, busts the first villain out. Now the “hero”’s villainous ID has a bounty, so the first villain disguises himself as a hero and brings in the new villain for a bounty, who is then rescued by the first villain… lather, rinse, repeat.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? Characters with firm belief in their deities rarely falter. To reflect this, a talent that allows characters with strong beliefs to act ahead of those with similar Dex during a single segment. It could be called faith-based initiative.

Re: MYTHIC HERO: What Do *You* Want To See? If you think that’s interesting, read The Divine Horsemen by Maya Deren. It goes into how voodoo practitioners use Catholic saints as focuses of worship for voodoo loa. For example, the statue of one saint is used as a focus of worship for the loa of snakes because the saint’s portrayal typically has the saint crushing a serpent under foot.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Grip: "I'll grab the helmet and jerk it off." You can't make this stuff up.