Joe Walsh

I feel so dumb lol I still don't get it. 😂 Maybe a picture will help me. Here's a person trying to shoot around a corner to his left. When using his left hand on the trigger, he seems much better protected. Or is he doing something wrong? (It's from this article for anyone interested: https://www.recoilweb.com/how-to-use-cover-lessons-from-the-special-operations-community-150133.html )

Other than the left/right corner issue above, all of the noted typos and such have been fixed and a copy has been saved. In a separate copy of that file, I made the following additional changes for consistency:

The accuracy pass is done! 🎉 (No guarantees that it's a perfect verbatim copy, of course, but the text-only copy of Espionage! is in pretty good shape now.) Now to make a copy of the file so we have an unedited edition, and then make the obvious typo corrections and such which I've noted below (and any others I notice): My goal with this pass is to make no substantial changes. I just want to correct obviously wrong things like typos and such. So, do the questionable-to-me items from page 35 qualify? I'm not sure. What do you think? This is repeated verbatim in all subsequent 3e games, which makes me think it's right. But to me it gets the left/right corners backwards. Or am I thinking about it wrong?

Poverty, By America, written by Matthew Desmond. I was skeptical about this one going in since it seemed like one of those books that doesn't really dive into the root causes and doesn't offer any real solutions. But a relative was very enthusiastic about the book, so I decided to listen to it on my commute. I was pleasantly surprised! The book makes it clear that how much poverty a wealthy country has is a political choice. It goes into some detail about the choices we've made that have led us to our current situation of growing poverty and homeless encampments, inescapable debt, etc., the array of different choices we have available to us, and their likely outcomes. There were a lot of interesting nuggets in the book. The only criticism I have is that the audiobook's narrator sometimes says a word or two in a sentence much quieter than the rest, so listening in a noisy environment like a car is sometimes challenging. Other than that, though, I give this one a strong recommendation to anyone interested in the topic.

I agree, 50 points + disads is good for characteristics + skills alone... ...so would it be a good approach to offer Wild Talents from JI and the Magic system from FH as separate options that each included a note as to how many base points should be added if the option is included? +25 for each, or +15 for Wild Talents, +25 for Magic, or whatever makes sense as the base-line case. I'm sorry about that, Chris. Wow, thank you! That's a huge help. Good idea! Hopefully it won't be necessary, though. Oooh, that sounds good! Let's normalize RPGs fitting in one saddle-stitched book again.

Looking back, the way disadvantages start at half their values from Champions struck me as surprising given that heroic hero system also decreases the value of additional similar disadvantages twice as quickly as Champions. The net result is that you're likely to end up with 1/3 or even approaching 1/4 the total value of Disadvantages as you would in Champions. Certainly the maximum is half the total value, and you'll only achieve that if in both cases you only choose dissimilar disadvantages. Which jibes with Champions' 100 points vs. Espionage's 50 points -- half. OK, fine. So a few months later Justice Inc comes along and in it characters start with 75 points, or 3/4 the points of Champions (probably so they can buy psychic powers and Weird Talents more easily). But they still have to deal with that same ceiling of 1/2 the Disadvantages value. Should it have been a ceiling closer to 3/4? Or does it not matter in practice? It's just something I want to put some thought into so I can understand it fully. Maybe I'm missing something. Certainly I don't recall major complaints about this issue back in the 80s. But, there it is, so I want to understand it. If you've worked through this already, please share!

I haven't shared this in a while, so here's my current development notes. Note that I do plan to stick with the Espionage! versions of the Language and Martial Arts skills. They are important to the appeal of Hero System 2e to me.

Huh. I always think of pre-BBB Hero as a "house system" but core system sounds better. I need to get with the times.

Thanks! That'd slipped my mind yesterday. It's in Espionage!, too, of course. I even have a note to update the first sentence's description of AP bullets to something like, "This includes bullets with high-density penetrator cores jacketed by copper or a copper alloy." rather than the existing sentence that's (quite naturally) stuck in the early 80s. A hollow-point category could be added these days, of course. I'm not sure about doing that, but it's on my list for consideration. How would you address that issue -- or would you feel a need to address it? That would be ideal! I'd love it if there was time for that. At the least I'd like to include the 100% compatible JI list, as well as Wild West and Near Future lists if at all possible. I'm still hoping someone who is more enthusiastic about this aspect will pitch in, but I assume that like me most just don't have the time. Exactly! Espionage expresses concerns for all those scenarios, and the combat example even includes some gunplay that leads to disaster. The book points out that firing a gun in a foreign country is a bad idea, leaving dead bodies behind is even worse, and doing any of that while engaging in espionage should be avoided if at all possible. It counsels using brains instead of firing bullets, pointing out that most people if held at gunpoint are going to want to avoid being killed and will cooperate as much as they can. Plus, if you get a reputation among enemy agents as a killer, they'll be more likely to take you out if given the opportunity. There's lots of advice like that in the book, and I absolutely love it because that's how I've been running espionage scenarios for the last 20+ years. It tickles me that I finally caught up to where HERO was in 1983. Not at all. I was just saying that if someone's looking for realism like I used to in the 80s, I believe the Traveller approach is going to be more in line with reality than a lot of the other approaches we've seen over the decades. Of course Hero's explicitly more aligned with reality as portrayed in popular fiction, so we don't need to worry about adhering to the brutal realities of real-world combat. Personally as a GM I frequently use doses of pseudo-realism to make things less lethal (like making sure even the cannon fodder enemies have some sense of self-preservation and do respond to fear, pain, and shock; and encouraging players to track wounds individually and heal them individually, so that a character with paramedic/first aid/healer/etc. skill can do a lot of repair to smaller wounds after combat). Isn't Danger International just great for that? Of the similar games like MSPE and the like, it really hits a sweet spot and includes so much great info. L. Douglas Garrett did a great job of massaging the core HERO System 3e ruleset into a fantastic and complete RPG for a good variety of scenarios. But I also like the Espionage! method of saying "Here's this game that's made for espionage role-play, but if you'd like to you can use it for any modern role-playing scenario you care to name" because this method gives more of a hand-up to beginning GMs. Unfortunately the tighter the focus, the more restricted the appeal (and did anyone really think that cover art would help sell it? Oh well, that's another subject ). (To be clear, I've no ambition to recreate DI (or late-3e/4e/5e/6e Hero System, for that matter). Other people could do a better job at that, for sure. I just want a game that's in line with 2e sensibilities, but which has been edited and laid out better than the original, that's had its potential explored a bit more, and that's easier to read and use than the existing Espionage! game and its scanned PDFs of daisy-wheel-printed pages.) You're exactly right, and it's something I've been wrestling with a bit. At the moment I'm thinking the best thing to do would be to include only agency-based character types, with a chapter on each that's similar to the CIA chapter included in Espionage: a chapter on police, one on private investigators (who work for a large agency or law firm), one on investigative reporters, etc. Keep the core game support restricted to characters that report to a specific authority and who can engage with the brownie points system, keeping things the same across the board, just with a different focus. I'd include a broader array of character types (and therefore lean more on the GM like we do with the toolkit versions of Hero System). But, who knows? It's still early days. How would you approach it?

Right! Broadly speaking, the gun's a delivery system, the round determines the effect of impact, and the operator and environmental factors determine how effective the delivery is and how close to full potential the damage is. In the 80s, I loved the detail some games brought to bits of firearm combat. I thought Twilight 2000's accuracy system for automatic weapons fire was very cool. I still do, kinda -- I just wouldn't want to use that sort of system any more, even if my players would be interested in it. These days, I think Classic Traveller got it about right. You get hit, you're probably going down, and you're probably out of the fight. Edited to add: That said, when writing up the above bare-bones system for firearm design, I was tempted to separate the weapons from the rounds, and offer stats for standard, hollow point, etc., mix and match as long as the caliber is the same, etc. Still am, kinda, but I'm not sure the extra detail would be worth it. What do you think?

Best firearm system ever, Duke! As an aside, it's so funny that Espionage! is like, "Don't use guns! Secret agents who use guns have already failed and will bring down the wrath of the universe on themselves!" Also Espionage: about half the illustrations are of guns, an entire page is filled with guns stats, there are special combat rules for guns, all other equipment is generic (including vehicles) but each firearm is a specific brand and model (is there even a legit use for a Weatherby Mk V Silhouette in the game?) etc. Also Espionage, also: Throwing is almost always referred to as "throwing grenades" -- and when guns will cause issues with covert operations, you know grenades are gonna be A-OK! (I know -- there's extensive coverage of firearms because Espionage! was intended to be the heroic-level modern version of Hero System, with a secret agent theme so that it's a game first and a toolkit once you've learned it (and only if that's what the purchaser wants it to be), but still, on the surface it's pretty funny.)

Thinking about this a bit more... Any list of firearms is going to be instantly out of date in the real world, and any generic RPG could be set in any arbitrary place or time, so to me there's a good argument for keeping the firearms generic and letting brands and models be set dressing. So with that in mind, here's my first stab at a way to approach generic handgun design abstractly but with enough detail to cover the broad use cases: From there it can be scaled up to long guns with greater RNG MOD, higher capacity, automatic/burst fire, higher damage classes, etc. I don't have any plans to change the way Espionage! approaches shotguns. Thoughts?

Here's a spreadsheet with the firearms data from Espionage! If someone would like to add the data from Justice Inc (pp 61-62), and update the Espionage! entries to include the "First Made" year, that would be a big help. Firearms for Hero System 2e.xlsx

Thanks, Scott! Interesting video. I don't really pay attention to the military side much any more, so that was new to me. Hard to believe how much has changed even in the civilian world since I started shooting in the late 70s. Sure, there are 50+ on the existing page in Espionage!, so adding a few more pages should give adequate coverage from the Civil War to now. Justice Inc and Golden Age of Champions have plenty of firearms to choose from for the first half of the 20th century, so that's a blessing. Star Hero gives us some future weapons. The two problematic eras, to me, are Civil War through 1900 and circa 2020. For Civil War through 1900, Western Hero 4e lists a good number of firearms, but the listings lack brands and models, a Size attribute, and use the 4e+ RMod instead of the 2e/3e-style. But in theory it shouldn't be too hard to pick out an iconic version of each listed firearm type and caliber and unilaterally assign the stats to that particular firearm. Alternatively the more specific Western Hero 6e list could be drawn from. It lists specific brands and models. Otherwise it's like the 4e list in terms of what it contains, but of course the scale change will be an additional complication. That still leaves the current era uncovered. Is there an easy source of Hero stats for that? I can resort to Guns! Guns! Guns!, but I'd really rather not.

Looking down the road, any suggestions on what to do with that outdated list of firearms on page 34? I enjoy target shooting, and I've owned Shooter's Bibles for decades, but I'm not qualified to pick out an iconic selection of current weapons from around the world and then identify their differences so they can be accurately reflected in the stats. For RPGs I normally just use an unbranded list of categories of weapons (a few revolver calibers, a holdout pistol, a few calibers of auto pistols, etc.) and then make some simple variations if they are needed for some reason in the game (a slightly less accurate X, a slightly more damaging Y, etc.). If a player wants some specific brand and model, I'm willing to work with them to come up with stats, but honestly I haven't had any player who wanted that since the early 90s.

I was planning on making my next laptop a Framework laptop when they only had 13-inchers, because they're designed to be end-user repairable and upgradeable. But this 16" one has me salivating even more! Imagine being able to replace the GPU in a laptop at-will.

It's really ugly. When the people of MO voted to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, the legislature refused to abide by the lawfully passed ballot initiative. https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996611586/missouri-will-not-expand-medicaid-despite-voters-wishes-governor-says That kind of stuff happens because the gerrymandered super-majority legislatures know they can ignore the people's will with impunity. If voters waver, they just have to crank up the fear a little higher.

Well that's just Smurfy.

Is it OK to talk about heroic-level 3e Hero System here as well? I just wanted to say that I'd completely forgotten that in 2e and 3e heroic-level games the value of Disadvantages are initially 1/2 as much as their equivalents from Superheroic (rounded in favor of the character, naturally), and then the value of multiple similar Disadvantages declines twice as fast. That's quite a difference from 4e+, and I like it.

Time is a butcher and just like every day the blade is gonna fall and we're helpless I don't mean to bum you out but I just gotta say Truth is anything I agree with Don't believe what I say anymore Hang around... I just wanna go home It pays to not know anything at all (But your secret's safe with me) CHORUS: I am the Idiot Child Gonna pick a brand new fight tonight We all got problems of our own Isn't that so... Isn't that so? Heart is a fugitive Always on the run It's gonna cost somebody to catch it Wait 'til your daddy gets home Promise me you'll wait til you're not alone What will you sacrifice to hold it Don't believe what I say anymore Hang around - I just wanna go home It pays to not know anything at all (But your secret's safe with me) CHORUS: I am the Idiot Child Gonna pick a brand new fight tonight We all got problems of our own Isn't that so... Isn't that so? Lookin' out the window It's not like I remember it But it was sweet of you to wake me I don't mean to kick myself Don't wanna cry I just need someone to believe in me CHORUS: I am the Idiot Child Gonna pick a brand new fight tonight We all got problems of our own Isn't that so... Isn't that so?

Project update: - I've completed the tables pass - My very kind wife is doing the "Make sure it's accurate to the original" pass. I'm not gonna lie, this step's going to take a while because it's very tedious. - While she's doing that, I'm working on getting Merchants of Terror into text format.

Wow. That's really despicable.

No problem! I think we all know your current computer situation, and of course you're not obligated to respond to anything...but thank you for coming back to this. Oh, man, that's so true! The more you know, the harder it is to enjoy gameable (or watchable) levels of it in entertainment. When they make computers into magic boxes I just have to let it go. I can't imagine what watching TV must be like for most doctors, cops, and lawyers. That sounds like a good way to house rule it! And then we could add the GURPS defaults system (or maybe a good old fashioned skill web) and have a fun time. Thank goodness we have the Espionage! approach to the Languages skill. That works for me, but then I'm not a linguist!

Wow! I have never seen any other issue of HGN than vol 1 no 2. I'm so jealous.