Markdoc

My world is, well, world-sized, with a moon and a couple of planets playing minor roles. That's 3 genuine empires described in detail, 44 assorted kingdoms, republics and wannabe empires described in at least some sort of detail and countless hundreds of tiny little fiefdoms, tribal lands, and howling wildernesses some of which are detailed and some of which are only vaguely described. You can see some of them here: http://www.angelfire.com/ok3/markdoc/gothick_empires/ge_political.htm but the vast bulk of the material is alas in handwritten notes that I will get around to transcribing at some point. Probably. Frankly, that's enough to keep me busy. cheers, Mark

My world is, well, world-sized, with a moon and a couple of planets playing minor roles. That's 3 genuine empires described in detail, 44 assorted kingdoms, republics and wannabe empires described in at least some sort of detail and countless hundreds of tiny little fiefdoms, tribal lands, and howling wildernesses some of which are detailed and some of which are only vaguely described. Frankly, that's enough to keep me busy. cheers, Mark

I like to specify magic systems by culture/group. Just specifying required limitations (although I have those too) seems to be a little bland. So even within one culture, the Temple Sorcerors of the Great God have different spells and spell casting system from their underground, heretic enemies. In general, mages trained at ancient schools get spells without drastic side effects attached, as the bugs have been worked out of the system over time, whereas mages taught under more informal rules may get a hodgepodge of spells, some of which may be extremely dangerous to use... cheers, Mark

I ran a 2+ year, once week campaign with both very little access to healing and mostly light armour. Players got cut up a lot, but we had relatively few deaths. As you obviously intend, most adventures were set up so there was time for healing in between. So it's certainly a viable approach. cheers, Mark

Couldn't agree more. As far as I can work out, the idea that mages are disadvantaged compared to fighters is propagated by people familiar with the rules, but who never run FH games. The flexibility of magic more than compensates. I wanted fighters to be the best at, well, at fighting and so I had to load the mages down with compulsory disadvantages to even the field (extra time, concentration, skill roll, and even mandatory side effects) What that means is the mages get mucho power for their points, so they can toast a whole village from a kilometer away, but if the fighter types get close, they're in big trouble. cheers, Mark

>>For all of you that allow VPPs and MPs for Mages, I have a question. Do you allow warriors to take VPPs or MPs to simulate Martial Manuevers or fantastic fighting abilities?<<< Oh, absolutely. In fact, it was fighters clamouring for multipowers who persuaded me to try them on the game in the first place. Secondly, on the VPP vs Multipower debate, I have both in my games. There is no doubt that the MP gives more bang for the buck and lets you toss out bigger spells. Equally however, my experience has shown prety clearly that VPPs give the mage more flexibility: most of the debate here has focussed on combat. But it's OUT of combat where the VPP shines and a clever adept (my term for VPP-using mages) can spring some nasty surprises on the MP-using mage with a little foresight. VPPs can be a problem if you rely on cunning traps and so on. A smart player with a little time can often come up with a way around them. MPs are more of a problem in combat heavy games, where they promote the "mage as heavy weapons system" approach. If you have balanced approach they both give you problems cheers, Mark

My preferred way to buy TWF (and I'll say up front I realise that TWF historically was both rare and not obviously more effective than OWF, so this is "movie TWF" I am talking about) is to buy an autofire attack. For example: TWF (1 d6 HKA, autofire, requires two hands (-1/4), STR Min (-1/4), OIF weapon of opportunity (-1/2), cannot do more damage than weapon would normally (-1/4). Active cost: 22, real cost 10. This lets an average strength fighter dish out two or more 1 1/2 d6 attacks, equivalent to using two light weapons and they can fight with anything (two handaxes, a long sword and dagger, etc). A massive barbarian could use the same approach to fight with a bastard sword and a battle axe, but he'd have to shell out more points to get the full benefit. if the technique is for a specified pair of weapons (matched scimitars, or rapier and main gauche, etc) then I give an extra -1/4 limitation. I don't go to the full OAF penalty since the characters can carry more than one weapon, get another one from a fallen foe, etc. This approach lets you attack multiple separate foes, attack the same one multiple times, etc. It does not let you attack once and hold a weapon in reserve as a parry: but you can do that by buying a seperate power (for example, a triggered forcewall) to simulate it. Finally since the two weapons are basically just a special effect, I don't bother with ambidexterity. cheers, Mark

>>>>The problem with just making it BOECV is that it doesn't model the way your ability to affect other people decreases the more magic points you spend...<<<< Yep, it's a good point, and one I pondered for while. It's a bit hard to model since almost all HERO powers have graduated effects and work against a defence. So 6d6 might total one character but not even stun another. In contrast, Runequest spells that require you to overcome someone's POW usually either take full effect or do nothing at all. In the end I decided to mostly ignore it but suggest one option. You can use levels to increase the effect of powers (in this case spells), and I suggested that if you want more flexibility you can buy levels (which cost POW to use) to increase your offensive potential. Otherwise, you can just buy and cast bigger spells, in an attempt to get through your victim's defences. cheers, Mark

Yep, I'd weigh in against giving any breaks on the VPP costs. I have had VPP-using mages in my game, and their flexibility makes them lethal, with a little effort on the player's part. As for a defensive and offensive power at once, how about invisibility and an ordinary, old, non-magic longbow? In truth, it has never been a problem, since it is pretty easy to crank one or two good spells out of a 20 point VPP. As already pointed out, there is never a shortage of players who want to play mages, unless you craft the magic system to inhibit this. The idea that fighters and rogues are more cost effective because they get "free stuff" alas, exists entirely in the heads of people who do not GM very much FH. After 20+ years of doing exactly that, my first thought for a new game is "how do we keep the mages under control?" cheers, Mark

My problem with martial arts has never been the CV bonuses. In general, the guy who just buys a bunch of levels (especially 3 point levels with a tight group like "swords") often overpowers them in CV totals. My problem has been that as Geoff pointed out, martial arts are more effective, the less you know, which seems a bit silly. To counter that (and also indulge my liking for epic swordfights), I've put togther a martial arts system based on "vanilla" hero system rules, which does not suffer that failing and in addition, makes it much easier to GM "unusual but classic bits"* The URL is: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/martialarts.html *As an example, I wanted a villian who could match the martial arts trained sword-wielding hero, without being a combat monster. So I bought him martial arts including a dispel against a certain, rival school of martial arts (that used by the player, of course). That let him reduce the rival martial artist's effectiveness enormously To stand a decent chance of defeating him, the player had to travel to a distant master and learn a NEW technique that would be unaffected. cheers, Mark

I've used the rival party gambit a lot in my game. It does several things - as pointed out, it gives the players some competition. If done well, they might dislike the other guys, but not to the point of attacking them, although I have had rival parties that are both not-so-friendly rivals and some the players would love to slay if they could do it without getting in trouble. It adds some flavour to the game. Often it seems like the players are the only real people in a world populated by cardboard cutouts. Having a few recurring characters in the same line of work adds depth. It allows you to throw them into the game when your players need a hand. It gives you a tool to make the players hurry up when you want them to race after something But one gambit I have used, which I absolutely love - ya just can't do it too often, alas - is to set up a rival party the players hate and put them in the same area. Usually it's a race to the treasure thing, and then force them to collaborate to survive. cheers, Mark

I've essentially abolished the POW vs POW roll, since in Runequest spells always hit - but then you often have to make the POW vs POW roll for them to take effect. In Hero system, there is no "always hit" power, so since POW = EGO, and physical spells take BOECV, you have to roll an ego attack, which is essentially a ECV vs ECV roll. Works out the same and avoids an extra roll and extra rules. As for the effect of POW on stealth skills, I simply ignored it: it only modifies your base skill and in most cases makes difference of only a few percent. Not worth bothering about. Though I do recall Kagar - my troll PC with high POW - having a starting stealth skill of -10 percent! And yeah, I'll post the link when I'm done: but no conversion notes for ducks. cheers, Mark

For simple targets, I tend not to worry too much. So the guard at the gate doesn't have a complex set of psychological limitations (or often even a name). But he does have STUN, END, REC etc all worked out. I work stuff out in detail, because that way I know it. I like to treat my players fairly: if they try something unexpected I can respond appropriately. If they try to dispel a spell, I know precisely how much they need, instead of just trying to guess. If they try approaches to NPCs other than straight out assault, I have a good idea how to play it and smart player can often exploit things they learn to give them an edge in game play. Likewise, I don't need to know how many shoemakers there are in Tabriz, but I do need to know where it is, how many people live there, where the roads and temples are, etc etc. You could say that's a lot of work, but I LIKE this stuff... cheers, Mark

Hmmmm. I have almost finished a Runequest (2nd Ed.) to Hero system conversion, which I'll be plugging up on the website in the course of the next month or so. All the conversion notes are done, all the spirit and divine spells are done, and I'm about half way through sorcery spells. Just haven't had time for that last push.... The base of the method has been simply to say that EGO = POW. I required most attack spells to take BOECV, which fits the RQ way: you don't take distance penalties on your befuddle spell, for example! And almost all spells take the limitation "requires POW" which means as you cast your spells, your POW/EGO goes down, making you more vulnerable to magical attacks, spirit combat etc. Worked well in playtesting....

>>>First off is the Glib Skips Spiffy Skill Solution: you take the Skill Enhnacer concept and just like it says in FREd you customise it so that a Barbarian buys the Barbarian Skill Enhnacer and all the skills inside the Skill list get the cost break for being a barbarian!!!!! <<<< What he said. I absolutely hated package deals so I've been using professional skill enhancers for a decade or so, with nary a problem. I wouldn't give a "barbarian" professional skill enhancer, since that's too ill-defined to me, but the way I go about it is up on my website under house rules (which, methinks, is due for an update). cheers, Mark

Don't forget that the Avatars will have powers "beyond the ken of normal men", which changes the balance somewhat. I ran a game where all the players were immortals and the power level was 200-250 points (or course, 150 points was a HERO) so even the non-combat-oriented characters could usually take care of guardsman or two. Still with one or two exceptions the characters were not combat monsters. Indeed, the Devil got killed when someone ran a spear through his chest (OK, so being immortal, he woke up somewhere else in a bad mood, but still, his mortal shell was dead). His forte was emotional control and deceit, not hand to hand combat. Likewise, Death faced opponents with greater hand to hand prowess than he had, but that didn't matter when he could think about their hearts stopping and they did. For your game I would suggest starting the average joe type NPCs on low points and see how it plays out. You can always throw more powerful NPCs into the mix later. Also, starting that way will hopefully make the players think more like superheroes (where do they fit in the big theme?) than fantasy characters (kill all the strangers you meet, loot their bodies). cheers, Mark

700 years? Possible, I suppose. I ran a mortality analysis using figures from Ethiopia, and came up with a MTD (mean time to death) of about 250 years. For example, in the absence of antibiotics, even small injuries can often be fatal. Magic substitutes for antibiotics in this case. In both cases they are effective, and not too rare, but you cannot be sure they will always be to hand. I used Ethiopia since it has the kind of patchy distribution of resources I imagine in a fantasy world: in other words, rich people can always have access to antibiotics/healing magic, people in the middle can normally get it it they really have to and the vast masses have little or no access. There are some interesting side effects of this to consider. Just to take one, death in childbirth is still a possibilty, so women with access to immortality magic migt be a little leery of accidental pregnancy. In the same vein, the whole idea of respect/attachment to the family/clan becomes a bit strained if you don't have to rely on it for ersatz immortality via your descendants but instead have to compete with them for the comfy seat... cheers,Mark

In my gameworld, flying ships come in two types. The first is just magically levitated ships (or castles, which are pretty much the same, but made of stone and much larger). These can either be independant items (in which case they are ususally made by a whole cabal of wizards, since they require a fairish amount of experience to build) or simply the focus for a fly spell. In either case, damage will not normally have that much effect until the flying vehicle is destroyed at which it falls out of the sky - figuring what happens tothe passengers at that point is pretty easy.... The benefits of a flying castle are pretty easy to work out, but at the same time, you don't want to put it too close to the front line where someone could get at it with a big dispel. In my game the major world powers have multiple flying castles and a few wizards have orbital castles (cuts down on trouble with those pesky adventurers, and my dear, the view!!) Flying ships are used by major merchant houses - faster, safer and much more prestigious than going land or seaborne. The second are what are called dragonships, because they are filled with a magical gas called Dragonbreath (because of what happens if you stick a flame into it...) These have the advantage that you don't need a mage to make them fly (although a minor weather mage is usually part of the crew, so you can steer them). You blow up a big bag of doped silk and he mage casts the Dragonbreath spell (transform air to hydrogen) - and awaaaay you go. These are mostly used as scouting/trading vessels due to their well known vulnerability. In one game the players had to find and kill an airborne highway man who had tamed a dragon. He used to extort tolls from dragonships, by threatening to blow flame on their flightbags. In another game the players had to come to grips with the infamous airpirate Captain Blood. And in another the players had to rescue a precious cargo from a crashed dragonship in the mountains before the competition got to it... In other words, the sky's the limit! cheers, Mark

And remember: "if you can't see a glimpse of underwear, it isn't a REAL magical girl transformation!" from MegaTokyo, I think.... cheers, Mark

The effect of immortality was one of the first things I thought about when designing my game. It changes everything. Just imagine if Leonardo da Vinci was still around today, or Thomas Jefferson. Or Genghis Khan... The more sophisticated societies in my game have adapted in different ways to take account of the fact that the normal rules of inheritance are not going to apply when Dad doesn't kick off until his great-grandchildren are having babies. Also immortality does not equal immunity, so thousand year-old leaders are rare, but not unknown. Best advice? Tread carefully around someone who has managed to survive 1000 years in a largely hostile world. On the other hand, 1 1000 year old person might be revered as a god, but if you have many people getting up in the hundreds of years old range then what you probbaly get instead is "institutions" Of course in less sophisticated societies making it past 70 is grounds for congratulation, let alone 1000. And last of all, remember that immortality is a 5 point power and thus easily dispelled..... cheers, Mark

Storn is right: the idea of medieval Europe as a closed, primitive society is outdated - the kind of things these days relegated to "popular nonfiction" by writers not prepared to do much research. Not that it matters: most Fantasy worlds don't have that much to do with real life. How the misbehaving noble gets treated, depends on where he is. In my game world, I worked on the principle that people with power like to accumulate more power, so peasant revolts are pretty unlikely: a mass of peasants armed with hedge magic, and improvised weapons are not going to go far against one champion in magic armour with a sword that can slice iron like butter, riding an enchanted steed of bronze that can breathe fire... Perhaps they can find a romantic champion to aid their cause - player characters often do that sort of thing. Still, in my game, a misbehaving noble in Saharn is likely to get a visit from the Nightguard of the Temple of the Great God and end up being unpleasantly dismembered (or charged with Heresy, which essentially means the same thing). At the other end of the scale, Keshite nobles can and do indulge in every sort of vice imaginable (and they have people whose job is to think these things up!) and no-one will interfere. It's all in the context. If magic is easily acquired, then the social scale might be quite flexible. If it requires decades of expensive study, then it could be even more inflexible than real life. Cheers, Mark

While it is true that "desirability" and cost are not quite equivalent items, they do play off each other. My players would agree that SPD6 is highly desirable, but only one player ever bought it, in any of my games. SPD4, which is more easily attainable, was also thought desirable, but at the end of a 2+ year campaign I still had two SPD3 characters. DEX 20 is also highly desirable - but again, relatively rare (it requires 30 points - a hefty investment for a 150 point chrcater) But STR.... well, as pointed out, everybody buys it. You can max it out for only 6% of your starting points Saying "the GM must decide" is a wretched cop-out. It is easy for players to pick an archetype that permits them to buy a big STR and any GM who arbitrarily decides that no, the mighty fighter must buy 15 STR, because the party already has a STR 18 character, deserves the pointed pencil in the eyeball they'll surely get. If the GM attempts to enforce characteristics via character concept, you'll end up with similar character concepts, further limiting variety.... Having said that, some changes need to be made: TK stays as it is, since it is essentially STR usable at range, with the (only attack, -1) limitation HA goes to 5 points per d6. Density increase and growth (Hmmm. It's never been a problem in my games, though I should check them - but I'm currently in Africa, far away from my roleplaying stuff) Martial arts seem to be OK. They can be fiendishly cost effective in heroic games (primarily those annoying twerps who buy just two or three maneuvers), but changing the cost of STR only makes them more marginally more effective relative to STR. This is primarily because, with big weapons, the big STR guy maxes out his damage at a higher level than the Martial arts guy, so that tends to balance out. In my games, both the "big bruiser" and the "martial artist" were equally effective, with different strengths and weaknesses. Big STR guy tended to dish out more damage and have a similar OCV, since he could pick up a few cheap 2 point levels to offset the martial bonuses, and he could tote around a big shield and heavy armour to compensate for lowered DCV. Martial artist guy had access to more cool maneuvers and usually had a better DCV. Of course, he did better where heavy armour could not be used. As a bonus, increasing the cost of STR meant there were fewer 20 STR martial artists.... So it works OK: and this is not theory - I've been using the 2 point cost for FH games for more than a decade now, without any problems at all. cheers, Mark

In answer to the question "how useful...?" The answer is "very". But I would not bother with "travels to oriental lands". Design the martial arts you want for for different cultures and just drop them. Many (not all) cultures in my fantasy world have martial arts and many secret societies or warrior brotherhoods have their own "special" martial arts that must never be taught to outsiders, etc etc. As for the idea that all societies have martial arts, I tend to differentiate martial arts and just fighting. In the first instance, a martial art (at least to me) suggests some kind of continuity, with proper training techniques, so that techniques can be refined and developed. Otherwise, every generation of students makes exactly the same mistakes. For example, few people sneer at the prowess of the Roman army, but they had little formal weapons training and therefore (to me, at least) no military martial art. But the Romans DID have formalised schools of weapon training for gladiators, which both used written instruction and also recruited old survivors to pass on what they had learned: to me, that's a martial art, complete with style limitation. cheers, Mark

>>>>Okay, pretend that I'm convinced( I nearly am anyway) and that I want to raise the cost of Strength to two ponits in my upcoming fantasy campaign. What other knock-on effects will there be? Are there any? Will this one change affect the cost of other powers or skills?<<< Well the obvious one is that HA should move up to 5 points per d6, but that's really about it. I have never changed - nor noticed the need for changing - anything else. I use the following structure: STR costs 2 points per. STR (no figured CHA) gives you a -1/2 limitation but leaves things like lifting, STR vs STR roll, jumping, etc, intact. STR (only for specific attack) gets you a -1 limitation and functions just like HA, which, funnily enough, costs 5 points. cheers, Mark

>>>How can this be applied to smaller-scale fantasy combat? Remember that the archer can strike first and that arrows, especially from longbows or composit bows, hit hard. There's no way to make arrow-proof armor in the long run<<<< Well, sorta. Remember that the armour worn at Agincourt was transitional plate: a mixture of solid plates and chain mail. The idea that arrows will slice through solid steel comes from watching Legolas in action too many times :-) When the MHS people tried using a an accurate reconstruction of a longbow (from the Mary Rose) to put holes in an accurate reconstruction of a breastplate and helmet, they found it extremely difficult (damn near impossible, actually) at anything over point blank range. Indeed, while the longbow was deadly to mounted foes, once the emphasis changed to armoured foot (as, for example, in the English Wars of the Roses), archers rapidly found themselves unable to survive without protection. There's a reason the Burgundian handgunners were regarded as battle-winners in the latter stages of those wars.... cheers, Mark