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:

Quote

Skills:
    Page 16, Paragraph 1: Under Transport Skills, change "a car" to "personal automobiles" so it is more in line with the existing Ground Vehicles list.

    In Weapon Familiarity, include the fact that everyone is assumed to have Weapon Familiarity with Clubs (as mentioned in Combat) given that the default ability to drive a car is mentioned under Transport Skills.
    In Other Skills, note the base Running (6") and Swimming (2") rates in their respective entries. Clarify when the increased cost of each kicks in.

 

Vehicle Combat:
    Page 50, Paragraph 1, Sentence 2: Delete this sentence, then add a new one after the sentence on Combat Vehicle Operation: "Characters without Combat Vehicle Operation skill who have the appropriate Transport Skill (including the assumed personal automobile skill) have a Control Roll of 8-."

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):

Quote

Ensure all references to the game's title include the exclamation point for consistency.

p 4, paragraph 1: In the second sentence, change "based on the Package Deals" to "based on Package Deals".

p 4, column 2, paragraph 2: In the first sentence, remove the comma after "primary Characteristics".

p 4, column 2, paragraph 2: In the second sentence, remove the comma after "base value".

p 4, column 2, paragraph 3: In the first sentence, capitalize "Characteristics".

p 6, column 1, paragraph 6: Add a sentence saying, "Any fractional value is dropped when calculating SPD."

p 6, column 1, paragraph 7: Use an example of DEX 16 to better illustrate that fractional SPD values are truncated.

p 8, column 2, paragraph 2: In the second sentence, change "as guideline" to "as a guideline".

p 11, column 1, paragraph 6: In the second sentence, change "inaccessable" to "inaccessible".

p 11, column 2, paragraph 7: Change the first sentence to, "The character knows how to deal with bureaucrats, cut through red tape, and extract information from bureaucracies, as well as who to talk to and how to reach them."

p 13, column 2, paragraph 7: In the second sentence, change "moustache" to "mustache".

p 14, column 1, paragraph 5: In the third sentence, change "underequipped" to "under-equipped".

p 14, column 1, paragraph 6: In the second sentence, change "conditons" to "conditions".

p 16, column 2, paragraph 1: Change both instances of "Weapons Familiarity" to "Weapon Familiarity" so this entry agrees with the rest of the book.

p 19, column 2, paragraph 2: In the third sentence, change "GameMaster" to "Game Master".

p 21, column 2, paragraph 4: Between the second and third sentences, insert the following: "The character may also choose to buy the Area Assignment package if it is appropriate to the character conception."

p 23, column 1, Espionage Package: Change "Weapon Skill" to "Weapon Skill Level".

p 23, column 1, Counterespionage Package: Change "Weapon Skill" to "Weapon Skill Level".

p 23, column 2, Covert Action Package: "Change "Weapon Skill" to "Weapon Skill Level".

p 23, column 2, paragraph 1: Change all instances of "Weapon Skill level" to "Weapon Skill Level".

p 24, column 1, paragraph 9: In the second sentence, change "wirecutters" to "wire cutters".

p 24, column 2, Equipment table: Change "Infra Red" to "Infrared" for both the sight and the flashlight.

p 24, column 2, paragraph 4: In the last sentence, change "a-1" to "a -1".

p 24, column 2, paragraph 8: In the first sentence, change "lowlight" to "low light".

p 24, column 1, paragraph 1: In the first sentence, change "heights, and land" to "heights and land".

p 24, column 1, paragraph 12: In the last sentence, change "additonal" to "additional".

p 27, column 2, paragraph 3: In the third sentence, change "judgement" to "judgment".

p 28, column 1, paragraph 5: In the third sentence, change "judgement" to "judgment".

p 28, column 2, paragraph 10: In all cases, change "Skill Levels" to "Weapon Skill Levels".

p 29, column 1, paragraph 1: In the first sentence, change "Hand to hand" to "hand-to-hand".

p 30, column 1, paragraph 4: In all instances, change "Burst fire" to "Burst Fire".

p 30, column 1, paragraph 10: In the last sentence, change "NPCS" to "NPCs".

p 30, column 2, paragraph 2: In the first sentence, change "takes a negative modifier on OCV." to "he takes a negative modifier on his OCV."

p 30, column 2, paragraph 2: In the second sentence, change "a covered target would" to "a covered target would get".

p 30, column 2, paragraph 6: In the first sentence, change "modifers" to "modifiers".

p 32, column 1, paragraph 4: In the second sentence, change "by which the held person makes his roll" to "by which the attacker makes his roll".

p 32, column 2, Melee Weapons Chart: Change the many instances of "1O6" to "1D6" and "206" to "2D6".

p 33, column 2, paragraph 5: In the last sentence, change the degree symbol into an apostrophe in "GM doesn't want to bother with it."

p 35, column 1, paragraph 6: In the last sentence, remove the comma after "damage" and add it after "penetration".

?p 35, column 2, paragraph 9: In the second sentence, change "corner to his left" to "corner to his right".

?p 35, column 2, paragraph 9: In the third sentence, change "corner to his right" to "corner to his left".

p 36, column 1, paragraph 4: In the second sentence, change "energy to target" to "energy to the target".

p 37, column 2, paragraph 7: In the last sentence on the page, change "will will" to "will".

p 39, column 1, paragraph 1: In the second sentence, change "is a one" to "is one".

p 40, column 2, paragraph 8: In the first sentence, change "gunbattle" to "gun battle".

p 41, column 2, paragraph 2: In the first sentence, change "whenever" to "Whenever".

p 41, column 1, paragraph 3: In the first sentence, change "attemopt" to "attempt".

p 41, column 1, paragraph 3: In the third sentence, change "wil" to "will".

p 41, column 2, paragraph 3: After the semicolon, change "in such case" to "in such cases"

p 42, column 1, paragraph 2: In the first sentence, replace "judgement" with "judgment".

p 42, column 1, paragraph 9: In the first sentence, change "BODY X" to "BODYx".

p 42, column 2, paragraph 2: In the last sentence, change "Con" to "CON".

p 42, column 2, paragraph 5: In the first sentence, replace "judgement" with "judgment".

p 42, column 2, paragraph 5: In the last sentence, change "Con" to "CON".

p 42, column 2, paragraph 7: In the first sentence, replace "judgement" with "judgment".

p 42, column 2, paragraph 5: In the last sentence on the page, change "Con" to "CON".

p 44, column 2, paragraph 4: In the first sentence, change "physicial" to "physical".

p 44, column 2, paragraph 10: In the first sentence, change "Percepion Roll" to "Perception Roll".

p 45, column 1, paragraph 3: In the second sentence, change "auomatically" to "automatically".

p 46, column 1, paragraph 5: In the secon sentence, change "he subtracts 1 from other's Perception Rolls" to "he subtracts 1 from the other's Perception Rolls"

p 47, column 1, paragraph 3: In the second sentence, change "smaller than object" to "smaller than the object".

p 49, column 2, paragraph 2: Add a period at the end of the final sentence.

p 49, column 1, paragraph 6: In the first sentence, change "1 hexside to turn" to "1 hexside per turn".

p 50, column 2, paragraph 2: In the second sentence, change "obsticle" to "obstacle".

p 51, column 1, paragraph 3: Prepend the second sentence with the word "When" so that it reads, "When a car side swipes something..."

p 52, column 1, paragraph 4: In the first sentence, change "fetures" to "features".

p 53, first paragraph, last sentence: change "character's" to "characters'"

p 53, column 2, paragraph 3: In the next-to-last sentence, replace "judgement" with "judgment".

p 56, column 1, paragraph 1: In the first sentence, change "Occasionally, mission will" to "Occasionally, a mission will"

p 56, column 2, paragraph 6: in the third sentence, change "the character be training" to "the character to train"

p 57, column 1, paragraph 4: In the final sentence, change "Citywise" to "City Knowledge"

p 57, column 1, paragraph 5: In the second sentence, change "Citywise" to "City Knowledge"

p 57, column 2, paragraph 4: change "actions that may can generate" to "actions that may generate"

p 58, column 2, paragraph 4: Change "all hell wil" to "all hell will" in the second sentence.

p 60, column 1, paragraph 3: In the fourth sentence, change "shoot at them!" to "shoot at their characters!"

p 60, column 1, paragraph 5: In the first sentence, change both instances of "players" to "characters".

p 60, column 1, paragraph 5: In the first sentence, change "use for it later on" to "use for them later on".

p 60, column 1, paragraph 6: In the first sentence, change "players" to "characters".

p 60, column 1, paragraph 9: In the last sentence, change "open up on them" to "open up on their characters".

p 60, column 2, last paragraph: Change "The GM rolls 3D6 = 9 for Raoul, he makes his roll and hears John." to "The GM rolls 3D6 = 9 for Raoul; he makes his roll and hears John." Also change "Jim" to "John" later in the paragraph.

p 61, column 1, paragraph 12: Change "Stun Mutiple" to "Stun Multiple"

p 61, column 2, paragraph 5: Change "ony" to "only"

p 62, column 2, paragraph 2: Change "figured charastics" to "figured characteristics"

p 63, column 2: Under "Player" change "CHAMPIONS" to "ESPIONAGE!"

 

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?

Quote

A character performing a Snap Shot takes a -1 OCV, and he gets his full DCV plus a concealment modifier. 
A right-handed character firing around a corner to his left will be exposed head and shoulders only, and thus get a +4 DCV. 
The same character firing around a corner to his right would have to expose more of his body, and would only get +2 DCV for being half concealed (see the Hit Location Charts).

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.

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Remember that JI had Powers (after a fashion) and a more extensive / expensive selection of skills; it was a 3e product.

 

Personally, I though upping starting points was less than ideal:  everyone is effectively straight 12s to 15s, 3 Speed.  The difference between characters is skills (the on-paper, problem-solving, tactical differences, I mean:  who is good at what.

 

Dump an extra 25 pts on mere mortals, and you lose some specializarions as everyone can afford to overlap.

I agree, 50 points + disads is good for characteristics + skills alone...

15 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

The group that Christopher Taylor and I were part of back then came to a consensus that 75 points wasn't enough to start with, so pretty much all of our games went with 100.  IIRC we kept Disadvantage values and diminishing returns as written in the heroic level games, and further if we were combining anything and the games had slightly different rules then the version in the game we were using took precedence. 

...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.

15 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Joe, this is making me want to do more work on my "Hero System Third Edition" I've got in my Google Drive.  Not that I need to be distracted from my Star Wars Hero game or the D&D game I've taken on. .

I'm sorry about that, Chris.

13 hours ago, rravenwood said:

I should have been doing something else 😅 but I went ahead and added the firearms from Justice Inc.  I put them on a new sheet, and while I double-checked the entries, you should probably take a pass over them yourself just to make sure no typos/OCR errors crept in.  There is one entry which is inconsistent but which I kept as-is from the book: the Nambu Type 11 (pg 62) lists OCV as "+2/1", and while that's probably supposed to be "+2/+1" like some of the other weapons, I didn't want to assume that it wasn't supposed to be "+2/-1".  I also left space for "Made In" info for the shotguns, although the book doesn't provide that.

 

Hope that's helpful!

Firearms for Hero System 2e - JI ADDED.xlsx 17.32 kB · 0 downloads

Wow, thank you! That's a huge help.

8 hours ago, assault said:

New variant options like repriced Disadvantages could go into Espionage II without causing too much angst. Just mark the whole thing Optional and you're good.

Good idea! Hopefully it won't be necessary, though.

8 hours ago, assault said:

Of course my hidden agenda is to leech off all this work to build a shorter "my version" of Fantasy Hero.

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.

Quote

HERO System 2e Development Notes

 

Espionage 1.0:
Text document containing the complete text of the original game.

 

Espionage 1.01:
Fix all punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors in the document.

 

Espionage 1.02:
Make fixes for consistency and accuracy as follows:

 

Skills:
    Add Conversation and Persuasion to the Anyone skills.

    In the Languages skill, alter the list of more difficult languages to be: Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean. Multiple sources (including Rosetta Stone) support this change for accuracy.

    Page 16, Paragraph 1: Under Transport Skills, change "a car" to "personal automobiles" so it is more in line with the existing Ground Vehicles list.

    In Weapon Familiarity, include the fact that everyone is assumed to have Weapons Familiarity with Clubs (as mentioned in Combat) given that the default ability to drive a car is mentioned under Transport Skills.
    
    In Other Skills, note the base Running (6") and Swimming (2") rates in their respective entries.

Combat:
    Page 36, Paragraph 4, Sentence 1: Change the sentence to read, "This includes bullets with high-density penetrator cores jacketed by copper or a copper alloy."
        Also add hollow point vs. standard rounds?

Vehicle Combat:
    Page 50, Paragraph 1, Sentence 2: Delete this sentence, then add a new one after the sentence on Combat Vehicle Operation: "Characters without Combat Vehicle Operation who have the appropriate Transport Skill have a Control Roll of 8-."
    
Espionage II (new supplement) subjects:
    New "Combat" Skill: Brawling (from Justice Inc/Fantasy Hero/DI).
    
    New "Other" Skills: Contacts, Favors, Perks (from DI/Star Hero).
    
    New Package Deals: Detective (from AC #1); Forensic Scientist; Private Investigator (from AC #3, but assume they work for an agency or law firm to preserve the "agent" theme); Investigative Reporter (that works for a newspaper, again to stick with the agent theme). Cross-check required characteristics and skills with web searches for the occupations and with what's in other games that have templates (BRP, etc.). Break each category out into its own chapter, like the CIA chapter in Espionage! but with the associated templates also included.
    
    How to create package deals (drawn from Star Hero, which has a cleaner explanation than DI).
    
    Abstract vehicle chase & dogfight rules from Danger International.
    
    How to import Disadvantages from Champions, Champions II, Champions III (halve the points, rounding in up in favor of the character)
    
    Conventional Healing & Minor Wounds rules from FH 4e (p 93) or Western Hero (p 49)
    
    Using different starting character point values (mainly 25 or 75, but also lower or higher values). NB: Was the original halving of Disadvantage values due to the halving of starting character points from 100 in Champions to 50 in Espionage?  If so, should they have been adjusted to reflect the higher starting values of JI, FH, DI, etc.? Would raising the starting points and adding new categories of things to spend points on like those games did best be served by using 75% of the Champions points for disadvantages work better?
    
    Expand on the Dependent NPC categories (Competent, Normal, and Incompetent), how to create such characters, templates for them, etc.
    
    Firearm lists to supplement the early-80s list included with Espionage!:
        WWII Era List from The Golden Age of Champions? It lists specific name-brand Revolvers, Auto Pistols, SMGs, Machineguns, Shotguns and has the same data as used by Espioniage!
            
        Interwar Era list from Justice Inc? It lists specific name-brand revolvers, auto pistols, SMGs, military rifles and carbines, big game rifles, automatic rifles and light machine guns, heavy machine guns, and shotgus with the same data as used by Espionage! A few go back to the post-Civil War era.
        
        Post-Civil War era from Western Hero? 4e Western Hero lists generic weapons that would have been available in the post-Civil War era, while 6e Western Hero lists specific weapons that would have been available in the post-Civil War era, but there is a scale difference to deal with.
        
        For a circa 2020 list of weapons, what could be used as a source that would be easy to translate into Hero 2e terms?

 

11 hours ago, Opal said:

A universal system stays the same system from one genre to the next, a multi-genre system changes as you do so.

Multi-genre is their term, I prefer "core system," but I guess that's a bit more not-universal, since it means a whole new game, not just a new worldbook.

 

Like Hero before the BBB was a core system. Champions, Espionage, Fantasy Hero, etc, were separate games.  BBB on, universal. (Though there's a few arguable variations, like hit locations or not; or skills)

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

14 hours ago, rravenwood said:

Take a look at Danger International, pp 55-56 "Special Shells".  (As a side note, I recall being inspired by that and making a selection of different arrowhead types for my Fantasy Hero campaign decades ago.)

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?

13 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Regarding the firearms list:

 

Consider making it  perhaps a 4-page (_at most_) appendix.  Rather than brea I ing them up by type or size, consider breaking them into 20 or 25-year blocks.  Thus, if I wanted to play a western, I have the appropriate items in one block.  Same with cold-war era espionage or modern guerilla warfare.

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.

13 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Meant to quote it, but forgot:

 

Rgarding secret agents without guns:

 

Guns are for your James Bond types.  Sure; they're agents.  However, it is absolutely no secret.

 

I suspect the emphasis on "sont use your gun" was to prevent a covert up from becoming a raid wherein the players cover everyone, steal the diling cabinet and leave in under two minutes.

 

Though there is also the notion that a gunshot or forty might bring unwanted attention, and just how good is your cover when the French version of CSI starts poking about and asking questions?  Like "why do you have a gun?"

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.

10 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Now rather than sneaky Spy stuff, I tended to run Espionage and D.I. as "modern Mercenary" where it was a Tactical Waregame in a central American Jungle, with Roleplay to give context to the upcoming fights.  As a game, and run at conventions it worked quite well as a Schwazeneggar, or Stallone Movie simulator for entertainment and fun.  You are correct about classic Traveller, and even Mongoose Traveller.3e fits that definition. If guns come out there, most people would put their hands up, as survival was questionable at best if the other guys started shooting. But is that the game you are aiming at?

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).

10 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah the only way we ever played Danger International as action adventure stuff like Terminator vs Miami Vice, that kind of thing.  It would work fine for spies, we just didn't have any interest in hard core espionage.

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.)

5 hours ago, assault said:

Ignoring guns for the moment: Package Deals are a big thing. If you have a tight focus - CIA agents, in the case of Espionage, it's easy to fix. But if you have a broader focus, things get weird. You get duplication and potentially double dipping.

Suppose you have a package with characteristic requirements. Suppose your packages include duplicated skills (Weapons Familarity is likely). Suppose your package includes Disadvantages of the same category of those in other ones.

Characters will need to be recalculated because of those.

It's a pain, but can be handled. You just need to handle them.

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?

54 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Duke, and Joe, it’s not the variation of damage that identifies the weapon, but the variation of Range mod, stun mod, base accuracy, rate of fire, weight, and date of manufacture.  Also in some cases an unsupported long gun with a long lock time, may trade an OCV bonus for an OCV penalty due to flinch or wobble if it does not go off faster than the operator expects.  

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?

48 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Gun:  1d6 RKA + (1d6-1d6)

 

Big gun: 2d6 RKA + (1d6-1d6)

 

Shot gun:  pick one of the above, add reduce Pen ans Reduced range.

 

Sawed off shotgun: as above, but remove range and add AOE Cone.

 

Machine gun:

 

Pick Gun or Big gun.  Add Autofire to taste.

 

There.  Every possible HERO System gun should be in there somewhere.

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:

Quote

Revolver capacity:
Compact: 5 rounds
Mid-Size: 6 rounds
Full-Size: 8 rounds

 

Semi-automatic pistol capacity:
Compact: 6+1 rounds
Mid-Size: 10+1 rounds
Full-Size: 15+1 rounds

 

Compact handguns have barrel lengths 2"-3", SIZE 0, and get RNG MOD -1/1"
Mid-Size handguns have barrel lengths 3"-4", SIZE 3, and get RNG MOD -1/2"
Full-Size handguns have barrel lengths 4"-5", SIZE 5, and get RNG MOD -1/3"

 

Standard caliber handguns yield 1D6+1 damage with STR MOD 0 and STR MIN 8.
Small caliber handguns grant EITHER next-higher capacity OR -2 to SIZE, but yield 1D6-1 damage with STR MOD -1 and STR MIN 5.
Large caliber handguns EITHER next-lower capacity OR +2 to SIZE, but yield 1 1/2D6 damage with STR MOD +1 and STR MIN 10.

 

Magnum adds +1 DC and +2 STR MIN.

 

Revolvers add +2 to STR MIN and +1 to SIZE.

 

Primitive firearms get -3 or more to OCV.
Pre-WWI firearms get -2 to OCV.
Pre-2000 firearms get -1 to OCV.

 

Otherwise, quality of design and manufacturing determines whether a gun is -1 OCV, +0 OCV, or +1 OCV as compared to its peers.

 

Semi-automatic pistols can be fitted with a variety of accessories such as silencers, scopes, and sights.

 

Properly maintained revolvers do not jam. Improperly maintained revolvers jam on a 17.

Properly maintained semi-automatic pistols jam on a 17. Improperly maintained semi-automatic pistols jam on a 16 or 17. (As per the normal rules).

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

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

The Biggest changes since the first release of Espionage, in firearms, is the adoption of Special Operators accessories to the Military as a whole. The Discussion of the transition from the M-16 A2, which was top of the line when Espionage came out, to the M-4 carbine, with optics in 2007 is illuminating.

 

Since, the .45 disappeared, came back, then disappeared again.  Optics have been added to pistols, and all firearms have had Picatinny rails, and accessories like tunable infrared lasers, likes, Magazine carriers, and two and three point slings. The Callibers are mostly the same, as old, but the delivery is faster, and more accurate than it was in the 80s.

Looking at the Ukraine war, the modernization of the Kalashnikov platform has been uneven,with the AK-74, and AK-102 having just about the same performance, and anything later the power is degraded.

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.

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Also:

 

Consider keeping the old outdated list and just adding the new stuff to the list.  Also consider coming through the Armory or even 4e Western HERO for older or more exotic weapons.  If your goal is a 2e HERO System, then genre emulation ahould be easy, and a formatted weapons chart could hold what?  Sixty or more weapons on a single page, right?

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.

13 hours ago, Cygnia said:

The Red States Experimenting With Authoritarianism

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.

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Sorry, Joe; I missed this question when it first went up.

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.

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

It is meant to explain that, like our lost friend the submarine guy, I know too much about the hands-on of the subject to _ever_ find a good gameable representation of it.

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.

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Dinally I looked up the licence classes in my state, asked the pkayers to pick one, and they could drive that vehicle or under with that one skill.  Pay a point to handle a trailer, and one more to deive a stick (these are more modern add-ons to our real-world heroic stuff) and called it good.

That sounds like a good way to house rule it!

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

You will end up with that accursed Language Chart everyone is so in love with, but for wheeled engines.

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!

41 minutes ago, rravenwood said:

Yeah, actually HGN vol 1 no 1 mentions the availability of some dinged-up stock including copies of Espionage!, so it was definitely after the release of that game.

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

Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream by Alissa Quart

This book is about the myth of the self-made person, how pervasive it is in American culture, where it came from, what we've done to ourselves by making it a core tenet of our civilization, and what we should be doing instead.

It was quite an interesting read. I knew the idea of 'pulling oneself up by ones bootstraps' was an idea that gained popularity a couple hundred years ago, but I didn't know its origin as a ludicrous idea that was used for satiric effect, then subverted into its current meaning where we've somehow taken this absurd idea and come to believe it's real. I also didn't know Little House on the Prairie books were one of the means through which this lie was spread.

The book is a bit uneven, with some chapters having less of substance to them than others, and some arguments being weaker than others, but overall it was well worth the time and money.