Agemegos

Re: Should END be more? Was 2nd Edition essentially right? I remember very well! I always thought it was a major abuse that I could take a power with such a high END cost that I could never use it at all and then make myself able to use it by attaching a disad.

Re: Character sheet for heroic characters

Re: Getting rid of the {tech} Given that I extemporise a great deal, I never really know in advance what a plot complication is likely to be enough in advance to prep for it. Could I learn to make these up as fast as I could sketch the diagrams?

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? I mentioned this elsewhere, but I'd just like to note it here for easy reference. It'd be great if Pulp HERO included a character sheet designed for the requirements of characters that neither cast spells nor exert powers, but that wield guns and drive cars.

G'day In some genres (pulp, modern/action, western, Victorian, espionage, most SF…) most characters are heroic humans without powers or spells. I'd be pleased if the books intended to support campaigns in those genres (Star HERO, Pulp HERO, Western HERO, Regency HERO, Dark Champions) were to include a character sheet adapted specially for such characters. Regards, Brett

Re: Which of Your House Rules should be System Rules? For some time I have been using a rule of my own devising under which each martial art is a skill enhancer that costs three points and reduces the cost of each manoeuvre in the art by one point. This is simple, quick, and produces the desired effect of encouraging but not forcing characters to stick within their declared martial art.

G'day I'm looking for a good, preferrably compact, character sheet for heroic characters in non-fantasy campaigns. Heroic characters don't need a lot of space for recording powers or spells, but it would be nice to have a well-laid-out hit location / armour table, space for weapons stats, etc. Can anyone recommend something that might suit? Regards, Brett

Re: Getting rid of the {tech} It is an interesting idea, but the idea of generating such trees and accompanying gibberish for all the significant objects in my game universe is pretty daunting. I would really be more interested in attack trees for archetypal character interactions: seduction, influence, persuasion, …. But that is more a subject for General Gaming Discussion.

Re: Cockaigne, the Empire. Feedback please See here, you! Rules knowledge 1, Seriousness 4. Yeah, I'll have to see what I can do. Gritty. And grimy. Nope. The condensed versions actually handed to players will be without nearly all of the detail. Well, Cockaigne is decadent. But the documents you have are a desription of Cockaigne by the Empire. And the Empire isn't decadent. It isn't really all that old, either. I was formed 170 years ago, which is within living memory, given high-tech anagathics.

G'day I'm knocking up some background material for a Con game, and I'd be more than happy for some feedback. The front page is here. I'm particularly keen to get some feedback on the planet description. There will be a briefer version later. The link to it is dead for the time being. Regards, Brett

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? It was a splendid game. I have two copies and still play it every now and again. Unfortunately it isn't as versatile as it could be.

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? The return of the SIZ stat that they used to have in the original HERO System pulp adventure game, Justice, Inc. Exactly so. Just like it was in the original HERO System pulp adventure game, Justice, Inc.. Particularly, I want the game to represent the factors that in reality and genre fiction motivate people and characters to carry some smaller pistols even though they are capable of using larger ones. 'PYSCH LIM: habitually uses .32 pistols', or 'Psych lim: mistakenly thinks a 6.1" Walther PPK is more concealable than a 7.3" Glock 20' would be a reason for a large character to use a small pistol, but it is not the kind of reason I want. And that is exactly what I am saying that I want to see in Pulp HERO. Such information was included in the weapon table in the original HERO System pulp adventure game, Justice, Inc.. The rules were easy to use, took up little space in the rule book, and produced desireable effects. I consider them to have been sorely missed ever since my circle switched over to 3rd Edition. Now, I really don't think that the importance of such rules is confined to pulp adventure gaming. Discreet carries are important in the kind of adventure I use Star HERO and Dark Champions for (SF and modern-setting action-thrillers, mostly). I really think that such rules ought to be in the core rulebook. But they aren't in Fifth Edition, and I'm not about to start agitating for a Sixth Edition just yet. Now, Dark Champions lists PER mods for weapons, which do a pretty good job, though I am a bit surprised by some of the numbers (eg. a Glock 20 is as small as a Walther PPK/S). But I think that the range is too narrow (+0 for a derringer, +1 for any smallish pistol, +2 for a full-sized military sidearam, +3 for monsters like the Desert Eagle or a S&W 29 Silhouette etc.). But on the other hand, Star HERO doesn't list PER mods for weapons. I wouldn't want Pulp HERO to repeat this omission. Anyway, what I am struggling in my usual inarticulate way to say is that I would like to see Pulp HERO include: 1) A 'size' stat for weapons like the ones we used to have in Justice, Inc., ie. with a wider range and finer distinctions than we see in the PER mods in Dark Champions. 2) If I can't have 1, I'd like the weapons table to include DC-style per mods, not omit them as FREd and Star Hero do. 3) Rules for discreet carries such as ankle holsters, small-of-back, belt clip, western-style holsters, and armpit holsters, derringers & throwing daggers up sleeves, etc. These rules might discuss how these carries slow the draw as well as how they conceal the weapon.

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? Umm. Do you dislike my user name for some reason?

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? Indeed it would not. Exactly such rules existed in Justice, Inc.. the original HERO System pulp adventure game.

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Medieval Wages Curufea: I have been reading Christopher Dyer's Making a Living in the Middle Ages. I am finding it rather dull on the whole, but I did come across the price of a slave in 9th-century England. This was apparently typically about one pound. For a slave to have a price of only about one year's wages is reminiscent of Classical Greece rather than of the Antebellum South of the USA. And it suggests that slaves were either just about free for the rounding up or else were not very remunerative. The fact that slavery petered out (slaves were converted to serfs, or sometimes freed outright) in England in the 10th to 11th centuries suggests the latter. Wide-spread records of slaves owning land and goods suggest reinforce the conclusion, and suggest that slaves were not very remunerative to their owners because their owners had only limited real power to sequester their production. The English currency was not significantly debased from Saxon times to the High Middle Ages (though the excellent standard that the Saxons maintained by frequent re-mintings was not maintained), but the value of silver sensibly declined as the product of siler mines accumulated silver faster than population grew. This 20s of 850 would be equivalent no more than about 25s in teh 'epoch of 1200' prices I gave earlier.

Re: Pulp Film Recommendations City Heat with Burt Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, and Madelaine Kahn. I never could understand why that film bombed. I think perhaps the audiences were not prepared to see the number one and number two box office attractions of the time lampooning the types they were cast in.

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Re: Welcome To The New PULP HERO Forum! I got into HERO System through Justice, Inc., so you can bet I'm very pleased. Rep to you, Mr. Long.

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? By the way, I am suddenly reminded that it is an outrage that anyone on these boards should have more rep than Steve Long. I've done my bit for today. I suggest that on the occasion of Pulp HERO being adumbrated it behoves anyone else who loves pulp adventuring to make a similar gesture of appreciation and esteem. We don't get to vote with our wallets until the book comes out.

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? I'd like to add that one of the things I used to love about Justice, Inc was the rules for weapon size and carry affecting concealment. I said before that I wanted them back, and you said to remind you when you were doing Pulp HERO. You're doing Pulp HERO, so I'm reminding you.

Re: PULP HERO -- What Do *You* Want To See? As always, technology is very important to genre, and the four aspects of technology that impinge most on the progress of RPG adventures are personal weapons, personal armour, transportation, and communications. I'm sure you will cover weapons and armour as always. I'd just like to suggest that it might be worth half a page or even a page to explain to the folk of this age of jet planes and cell phones how different the world was in the '20s and '30s, and how different adventures where when: * cars, and especially fast cars, were rare, so 'most everyone travelled by scheduled transport; * telephones were rare and fixed, so people were usually out of touch, especially if they were doing anything out of the way; * low telephonic fidelity made it easy to impersonate someone on the phone, and a wide reliance on leaving messages at home or the office, or on sending cables or telegrams made it very easy to forge a message; * telephone and telegraph cables could easily be cut and spliced to cut off a house or outpost, or to send a false signal; * Morse code was in wide use for long-distance radio and telegraph signals.