bluesguy

I have used Meetup groups and the Pen & Paper Games site to find people. As for finding women to play in my group, yes I have the ultimate - my wife. In addition to that we have had our daughter play and along the way 4 other women play in the group. Our daughter is off to college. One woman we asked to stop playing with us. Two women left due to having other things they wanted to do after about a year or so of gaming. And the 4th one is still gaming with us. IMO: The women whom I have gamed with tend to enjoy role playing more than the combat in a game. As a GM I have worked to make sure they get that. Also I try to turn common tropes on their ear. The female PCs have rescued the male PCs a lot more often than the other way around. There has only been one case where I as the GM set it up that way. Otherwise it has been the men who have ended up getting their PCs captured.. LOL

Someone want to scope out the power for Dr. Manhattan for me. Those are the super powers I want right now. If I can't have that then... Mind Scan - Capable of finding someone anywhere in the world and then be able to use my other mental powers on them Mind Control Telepathy Mental Illusions Transform to perform permanent 'mental surgery' (mind control) LS: 200 to 500 years of life Full Regeneration

You have not been rude at all... Thank you for joining in.

North Star Heroes: We live in MN and the campaign takes place in the Twin Cities so it seems appropriate.

An update is in order. Well here is what is setup so far on the website for my Dawn of the Third Age of Man campaign. Star Systems are loaded Planets associated with star systems loaded Galactic map and quadrant maps are created and loaded. The Galactic Map has links to the quadrant maps but I haven't added all the links from the quadrant maps to the specific star systems yet. Major and Minor Governments All the technical problems for setting up the site are solved. Now it is a matter of adding content and then I will be ready to run.

I will only run Hero games. I have taught many people how to play. Right now my gaming group is playing 5e D&D because the GM didn't feel comfortable running a Fantasy game using Hero. He did run a Hero Fantasy game with us and it was fun but he struggled with getting opposition vs. players right. He loves playing Hero.

Thank you for posting and telling us a bit about yourselves!

You are absolutely correct! Thank you.

"Which one is right?" is the question that gets asked the most often on the Hero forum about how to model a power or effect. You have to think about what kind of campaign you want to have. If I were running a campaign where most people didn't wear armor (light leather) or had one level of combat luck (3 rPD/rED) and most of the fighters were using things like sabers and rapiers, then a 3d6 killing attack with an area of effect of say 8 meters would be very deadly. An average damage roll would be ~11 points of Body and 22 Stun. A lot of characters would be down half their body and probably be Stunned as well. The 2nd 3d6 killing attack w/ area effect would kill them or put them so far down that someone would just walk around and slit their throats. If I were running a campaign where most people are wearing chain mail or better or had a lot of combat luck (6 rPD/rED), and the fighters were using things like long swords, maces, and two handed swords with the potential of doing 3d6 killing attacks then a 3d6 killing attack w/ an 8 m radius area of effect spell isn't nearly as deadly. Here are some resources to look at: KillerShrike's site has a wealth of information concerning converting from Pathfinder/D&D to Hero. His work is all associated with 5th edition Hero (which is easy to translate into 6th edition) Valdorian Age Rising Power on the Frontier is my old campaign. I used the Hero product Valdorian Age as a starting point and built from there. If you go to the link there is a bunch of information about how I set up the game mechanics for that particular campaign. VA is a very low magic world. Nyonia is my current campaign and is a world created from scratch. This is a much more magical world. Hope that helps

Effects from Damage: Stunned: This is when the amount of Stun damage, after applying the appropriate defenses is greater that or equal to the target's constitution. In non-gaming terms think of a boxing match where the boxer takes a good hit and is standing there dazed but has not hit the mat yet. This video has 5x where Floyd Mayweather was stunned during a boxing match. The first example IMO is exactly what I think of in terms of Hero. Knocked Out: This is when the amount of Stun the character drops below zero. Normally being knocked out takes a long time in a fight. A good movie example of this is from They Live, watch the video and notice at 4:11 the character on the ground is basically knocked out (just barely). Also notice he got at least two or three recoveries and then got back up and kept fighting. Bleeding to Death: When a character's body is below zero they start to bleed to death. The final sword fight in Rob Roy is a good example of a character being slowly stuck to death. Each of these effects can happen from both normal and killing attacks.

Something else to think about has to do with how lethal do you want combat to be in your games. If you want it to be lethal then everything should be a killing attack and resistant defenses should be limited to 3 or 4 resistant PD/ED. You can also use the hit location rules. If you want the combat to much more cinematic (less lethal) then you can either make most attacks normal attacks (guns, bows, knives, swords, etc) and a fair amount of resistant defenses. Or you can make resistant defenses more available 5 to 8 resistant PD/ED. And don't use hit locations.

Thank you for joining us. Excellent questions. Here is how I explain normal damage vs. killing damage to my players when they are learning hero. Explanation without gaming mechanics: Normal damage is the damage a fist or a stick or rock would do to you if it hit you someone on your body. Your skin and bones and flesh will provide you with some protection. A normal person (someone who is not trained to fight and isn't a weight lifter) can throw a punch and a normal person can usually take a punch. A lucky punch (say to the head or kidneys) might kill a person but it is pretty rare. Killing damage is the damage of someone taking a knife and trying to cut you or stab you with it. Your skin, bones, and flesh just are that protective against a knife (even more so from a bullet). Explanation with gaming mechanics: A normal person in Hero has 10 Strength and will roll 2d6 normal damage with their fist. An average roll with 2d6 Normal Damage is going to result in 7 Stun and 2 Body. A normal person has 2 Physical Defense. So the Body damage will not get thru their physical defense, but 5 Stun will get thru. A few hits like that might result in someone being knocked out. Instead lets assume maximum damage with a punch to the vitals (kidney shot). 2d6 means 12 Stun and 4 Body. Someone hit in the vitals (see page 184 FHC) with a normal attack means 1.5X Stun before defenses and 2X Body after defenses. That means our normal opponent with 2 Physical Defense just took 16 Stun (at least Stunned and maybe knocked out) and 4 Body. Now if we look at the same situation with a dagger that does 1d6 killing damage (and for the moment we will ignore if Strength gives any bonuses). The average roll for Body will be 3 Body and if we are using hit locations to calculate Stun then most likely the hit location will be the chest so that would result in 9 Stun. Because our normal person isn't wearing any resistant clothing/armor (t-shirt and jeans), their 2 Physical Defense will not protect the character. They will take 9 Stun and 3 Body directly. If they were wearing a leather jacket and it gave 1 resistant physical defense then they would only take 6 Stun (2 PD + 1 resistant PD) and 2 Body (1 resistant PD applies). Again if the person was hit in their kidneys wearing for maximum damage just a t-shirt and jeans then the damage would be 24 Stun and 12 Body (Stun = 4xBody; and 2x Body after defenses) because they have no defense. Basically dead. Wearing the leather jacket would change things to 21 Stun and 10 Body. They would be stunned, knocked out but not dead.

Welcome to Hero. Skills If a character has a skill they can use that skill. So say I have a character with a 15 Intelligence and he also has Computer Programming and Security Systems as skills, which are both INT based skills. His skill roll for either will be 12-. During an adventure my character needs to write a program to hack into a defense computer network. The GM says, well this is going to be hard so it is a -3 to your rolls. That means I need to roll 9 or less to succeed. The character decides to take some extra time, lets say the normal time to hack a system would be 20 minutes. I am going to take at least 1 hour to write the code, that would get a +1 modifier. Also lets say the character has the latest greatest laptop + software designed for hacking systems and the GM has already stated that because of that the character gets an extra +3. So now the roll is a 13-. If I succeed in both rolls then I have successfully hacked into the system without being detected. Stats should reflect what the character is really able to do. There is a tendency to mini-max on characteristics. In Hero, rounding at .5 favors the player. So a INT between 13 to 17 will result in a 12- skill roll associated with INT based skills. And an INT of 18 to 22 would result in a 13- roll. I fall into the trap myself and so do most of the people I have played with. As long as everyone is doing it at the table (including NPCs) it doesn't really impact the game that much.

Excellent observations on TA. One of the advantages as well is that there are a number of excellent agnostic (or easily made agnostic) Fantasy city products that can be bought and then used to provide the GM with more detail. Or the GM can use a tool like Cityographer to create a village, town and city (and populate it as well). For example see http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?test_epoch=0&filters=100_2122_0_0_0

Welcome to all the new posters of this thread!

Thank you for posting. @E Nymton - I think you will find Hero is a different kind of forum.

Time for a bump

Very sad. My wife and her sisters saw Star Wars when it came out and they were so impressed that Princess Leia participated in her own rescue, fired a blaster, helped fly the MF during the getaway from the Death Star and was immediately recognized as the leader of the Rebellion when they got to the rebel base. All very ground breaking back in the 70's.

I thought I would post an update - it has been six months since I started this thread. I found in the Wayback Archive a B5 Hero setting with a bunch of useful information. At this point I have collected about 50% of the data about systems and their planets. I have also found a way to 'host' the data on a website so it is dynamic and can be updated by myself or the players as needed. This last point was important for me because I want the players to bring their phones/tablets to the game so they can look up the information a website (i.e. more of a sci-fi feel). For anyone who wants to know I am using Joomla and Fabrik. When the data is all loaded up then I will have the background setup. Then it will be time to set up the initial campaign. This is where I will solicit input from my players. Things like - do you want your characters to have a common background? Do you some of you know each other an others don't? What kind of characters would you like to play? One thing that will be happening is an epic story line. But I will 'riff off of what' the players feed me. That way the stories all hold together in some way.

In my son's game I player a warrior priest (kind of like a Paladin). He can heal. He has a number of spells which help him and his companions in battle. He is my favorite character to play because his personality is so fun (IMO). On missions he is all business. Get in and get the job done. When not on a mission he is all about having a good time. Laying back. Enjoying song, women, mead, and sleep.

No I don't allow people to improvise spells at the table with their VPPs. VPP does not have to be used that way. A VPP can have a set of effects assigned to it. In my campaign world magic is based on where you are from (race, ethnicity, region). Each of those groups has their own kind of magic. Mages can't learn a second kind of magic. Also there is another distinction. Some mages have a natural talent (i.e. Hero custom talent) that gives them access to greater power and versatility. Archmages can have a VPP. Also, anyone can learn magic but they can never be as versatile as an Archmage, although they may be as powerful with some specific spells. For more info look at my Nyonian campaign site.

They are very good. And can be a lot of fun to run.

Everything you would need is right here - KillerShrike has a complete set of documents on how to create a Vancain magic system (i.e. D&D). I think you will want to look at his Gestalt Casting Magic System.

A true hero.

Well if we are going there then how about Black Knight vs. King Arthur And fighting a very dangerous monster....