casualplayer

Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Please Review: Outsider Looks to me like someone may have just made me an improved version of Istvatha V'Han for 6th edition. Or at least that's what I intend to use Maria Channing for. Very nice work, Naanomi. Evocative. This is a character that could be used in everything from Fantasy HERO to Urban Fantasy HERO, from Pulp to Supers. Surbrook should be asking to display her on his site any minute now.

Re: On the Willful Killing and Maiming of NPCs If you are looking to put the fear into your PCs and make this invasion really seem like a threat, have CK show up on the S-Squad's doorstep mortally wounded but knowing that if he gets to Sentinel that he can save him. Then have Sentinel's powers not work properly. Either have CK die in the S-Squad's arms giving them a nice satisfying vengeance motive when they finally discover who killed the Kid but also putting them on notice that this enemy has a weapon that can't easily be remedied or you can have Sentinel's powers keep the kid just this side of death and later reveal that the only ones with the lasting cure are the aliens themselves, giving a name villain a bargaining chip to escape to return later in the campaign.

Re: Game Master Lament I guess it all depends on what character the players are going to want to play. The minimal prep players should probably play the neophyte "D'Artagnan" or the bonvivant "Porthos" and you can roll with those archetypes with just stats and attitude. "Fast, naive, impatient, falls in love easily, let's play!" Playing an "Athos" or an "Aramis" requires research and a backstory, and should be played by those with a talent and passion for such things. You can't have 4 brooding loners all with screentime-demanding backstories. Somebody has to be willing to throw the wrong punch or pursue the dangerous beauty or make the misstep that leads to glory.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression Maybe something like your basic Rifts cover, since those players have been wandering without a homeland for 40 years. "Come play a game where you can play anything you want plus the system encourages balanced characters." Unless it's a labor of love, someone trying to sell enough to keep the doors open and the lights on is going to gravitate to the most bang for their buck, or the most buck for their time. You can tackle the "labor of love" part by keeping the fanbase stoked and the buck-bang part by keeping the retailers satiated with a steady flow of attention-grabbing, high-turn product. When anyone with retail experience expresses concern you realize that for every one that chimes in 9 others are probably feeling the same way. And you realize that being an asshat to them might just make them use that shelf space for something non-HERO, something involving less rudeness and less effort.

Re: Speeding up combat "Restrict SPDs" is Dead Wrong

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression The best selling books are always going to be books that players need to play. But GMs create and cultivate new players so you have to keep them fed too, with couple thousand selling sourcebooks. Publishing is a juggling act.

Re: And 6e print books start to arrive I think they are shipping them alphabetically according to HERO board log-in id. It's good to be casualplayer.

Re: Speeding up combat "Restrict SPDs" is Dead Wrong The best way to speed up combat is to not bog it down with asking redundant questions. A simple DEX/SPD chart in the hands of the GM instead of a constant call for "whose action is it?" speeds things up immensely. SPD is the number of times per Turn you have to feed your Constant and Continuous powers and the distance between the yummy free post-12 REC, if you wanted to look at SPD slightly differently. Most published characters can go full-bore for about 2 Turns before they are sucking wind from END problems and are best just Dodged then beaten to a pulp. I'll have to see if 6th adds any wrinkles to this strategy, especially the addition of Damage Negation.

Re: And 6e print books start to arrive Some have arrived in Wisconsin.... Mine showed up yesterday. Top notch packing job and I'm guessing probably about 10 minutes per order including labelling. That's ~50 orders a day per warehouse monkey. The Fraims are getting better at illustration, from what I've seen.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression I may be wrong. I got my books today and, while it may have been colored by my radiant glee at cracking the package, my almost-6-year-old saw Hexman on the cover and immediately started striking superhero flex poses. Now he may be genetically predispositioned, like my youngest who loved Star Trek before he had ever seen Star Trek , and he may be influenced by the fact that Daddy sure does seem to be reading books with that logo on it an awful lot and What Daddy Likes still defines cool but the cover got a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger reaction. Anyone seen the teen spirit response?

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression Let's try this again, because I think people are taking the criticism personally. I want to help HERO get better market penetration or even plumb new markets; I want more HERO gamers to game with! I want to see a thousand new forum members who join Nov 2009 and a constant trickle or even a flood from then on. To achieve that, you have to appeal outside your sphere so you market. You fire up some preachers and you send them out into the unconverted to proselytize. But if all you are doing is poaching someone else's flock when their attention is diverted, don't be surprised when they do the same to you when you blink or falter. The only path to long-term properity is to breed or cultivate new members of the congregation while retaining as many of your current members as you can. Also a picture is worth a thousand words and the cover is the first picture people see. Say what you will about New Millenium but the cover screamed "I can emulate 90's Image/Marvel/DC comics!" and people probably bought it just for that reason. That poor, misguided turd of a game. The Big Blue Book similarly had cover art by Mr. Comics, George Perez, and even more importantly IMO had the genre mash up on the back cover that showed in a glance "HERO can emulate anything," which led to sales and natural cross promotion. "Here we have the trades for Crisis on Infinite Earths, History of the DC Universe, Avengers: The Korvac Saga and did you know there is a game that lets you pretend to be any of these characters or even make your own hero? You'll take all of them? Mastercard or Visa?" Personally, I like the cover but it could say "casualplayer, you suck we hate u" across the front and I still would have bought a copy. I don't want 6th to have a cover that appeals to the HERO gamers of the present; we're a captive audience. I want a cover that will tempt and inspire the players of the future.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression I don't disagree in the slightest with your views here but do you believe the cover to 6th conveys this to a stranger and at what distance?

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression This is why focus testing is an art and a science and can help and hinder you in making good decisions. Asking those who are already sold "Will you buy this?" gives you garbage data. Asking those who really don't care about covers "Do you like this cover?" gives you garbage data. Asking people who don't shop in brick & mortar stores "Would this tempt you to buy if you saw it in a store?" gives you garbage data. Those of you with copies of 6th, show it to someone unfamiliar with RPGs and someone vaguely familiar with RPGs and someone who plays RPGs but is ambivalent or even hostile toward HERO and let us know what the reaction is. Because if the new edition doesn't draw new eyes, new passion and new money then we are Gliding to the bottom but the direction isn't in doubt.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression You're missing the point that the OP is trying to make. He's a HEROphile and the cover to 6th could be venom-crusted thorns and he would just wear thick gloves while devouring the contents cover to cover over and over. Personally I feel the same way and I'm guessing you feel similarly. But the OP is a store owner and he has to be able to market this book to the newbie and the cover does not help make the sale. It doesn't encourage a pick-up, flip-thru and a take-home. The cover to 6th is elegant and restrained. The source material that HERO System is intended to emulate is rarely either.

Re: Still Sleeping I would hamper observers' ability to perceive that you are awake, probably with Images.

Re: CHAMPIONS 6E -- What Do *You* Want To See? The best way to show the era of the default 23 DEX is dead is to take the 39 pts that used to be budgetted for supers-minimum DEX and spend them more wisely, and by wisely I mean in a way that lets you whup on those still playing by old rules that don't apply any longer. DEX is only for enhancing DEX-related skills and determining who goes first now. If those two things don't really matter to your character concept you may want to consider a DEX in the low to mid-teens. Slightly faster than a VIPER Agent should suffice for most.

Re: Modeling "powering up" in 6th ed. What are the transition conditions and can you be forced into or out of each stage? That would help to know what would work best to model this.

Re: The Boys I read the comic and it seems like The Boys all have enhanced strength up to about Spider-Man level I'm guessing. They aren't bulletproof or at least not proof against the kinds of bullets that are being tossed around in the book. Bullets seemed to do a pretty good job on the G-Men and The Boys got their heads down out of the way of that hail of fire. While they are pretty tough or they would have been seriously harmed in some of the fights they've been in, I don't think it extends to armor plating levels. Each member seems to have a little flavor adding to their enhanced strength and resilience. Frenchie seems to have some enhanced senses, the Female some vicious speed, Mother's Milk is a people person and Butcher is lethal and ruthless about knowing where to place his blows. Little Hughie gets to be the sympathetic character.

Re: Another view of Damage Negation (6e) I see Negation as a meta-tandem. You are effectively mandating the incoming damage roll at Standard Effect levels (1 BODY & 3.5 STUN/die) and buying dedicated defense enough to soak it up. If you want to keep the Negation levels secret from your players, "strip 7's" from the damage rolls. Mentally subtract 1-6, 2-5, 3-4 pairs per 2 -DCs of Negation.

Re: 6E1 & 6E2 help It can be daunting because most RPGs are Monogram Snap-tite models and HERO is virtually build-from-scratch, although imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. There are no bad questions and, with a brand new edition, you'll see questions coming from all quarters.

Re: Inherent: SFX, any? The problem is not so much Inherent as Adjustment Powers, which are highly SFXed up. Plus the Adjustment Power defense, Power Defense , is pure SFX because it's almost impossible to come up with a justification for it other than "I don't want people messing with my Stats." Everytime you have dueling SFXs, the GM has to make a call that is going to upset someone. Makes for bad, arbitrary gaming. Inherent is power insurance; the player wants the serenity that comes from knowing the GM can't mess with that aspect of his character. The advantage probably should be called "Immutable" and should probably just be a gentleman's agreement between player and GM that "Please don't mess with this."

Re: CHAMPIONS 6E -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: All Books In Warehouse: APG, Both 6th Ed