Wil Hyral

Re: Bag of Rats Help Someone actually wants to mimic the bag o' rats problem? I've been away from the wizards.com forums for too long... Anyhow, it sounds okay, from what I read.

How would I create an ability that reflects the concept below? Character activates power, draining STR from a victim and adding the drained number to his own BODY I can't figure it out on my own.

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept? It is a racist concept, as the human genome doesn't allow for a slider of morality. Basically, there is no "Good-Evil" gene. This is according to Steven Pinker with mentions from Dr. Chomsky. However, cultures do vary in their senses of ethics and morality. There can be inherently evil cultures, who probably don't regard themselves as evil, or who probably regard evil as a beneficial practice.

Re: Combining sources I use articles / papers on medieval ages for that sort of material (castles, heraldic, serfdom, etc.) and I use music to inspire characters and magic media (like items, locations, etc.) It's low-fantasy, so lately it's been Samuel Barber and LotR soundtracks, but it's been working decently. Sadly I have to admit that sorcerers in my world are inspired a lot by Jedi from Star Wars, in that there is a definite pull to sides and each side has their regulations, etc. It's not very original but I find it to be great for story and cinematic effect. They're not just telepaths, but on the other side of that coin, they don't use lightsabers. Just their concepts are sort of borrowed.

Re: The cranky thread I've been threatened by two disaffected Japanese women in the last week, and my job almost exclusively consists of me doing power point projects (or babysitting them) for people who will get credit for it. Also, having a girlfriend has reared its ugly head as I'm pseudo-forced into shelling out $8 to watch the third installment of the Harry Potter series. In a related story, I can't believe how dedicated Maxis is being by withdrawing any hints toward the release of the Sims 2. Wasn't obsoleting $120 worth of my games enough? And these earbud headphones are annoying as hell. I still haven't worked up cojones to submit my art or creative writing for consideration. I'd really like to break into an industry that I'm too afraid of. And then I ended a sentence with a preposition and started one with a conjuctive article. The only class I'm taking this summer starts at 9 AM on Saturdays. It gets out at 5 PM. Just Saturdays. I'm starting to think I'll never ascend to Emperorhood.

Re: Once more in English, please? http://www.sca.org/heraldry/primer/ This should answer your question.

Re: Why must humans rule? In my low-fantasy world, most of the characters do interact solely within the bounds of a Human empire, so they're indefinitely at the top of the social heap. However, by land area, most of my world is ruled by the wild. That means on a few continents, the wilderness is too formidable to settle by humans. Some druids can run the scene there, but whether they're human or not is totally up to player speculation at this point (and I've not commented in either direction). Elves rule very little and dwarves rule a moderate amount. Most of the rulership by numbers is actually done by the Axiom Empire, which employs large units of anthropomorphic ant-people. They are no where near human civilization, and they keep mostly underground. But I do follow the norm for the low-level aspect of the game, which is that humans do indeed rule their lot of the island on which the game is set.

Re: Anti-Magic? Oh awesome, thank you.

So I've noticed a number of D&D vets here (TKD guy is someone with whom I posted on the WotC boards for example), so this shouldn't be a totally new thing. How in Hero do we make anti-magic fields and effects? and for your convenience, I'm gonna link you to a nice page on Heraldic http://www.sca.org/heraldry/primer/index.html Thanks everyone.

Re: Where are the low fantasy worlds? My game is Low-fantasy. So... I guess "Right here," is my answer.

Re: Limitation for Spell Casting with Armor and Helms Have you considered encumbrance? It's working just fine for my group so far. I just mandate that all spells have a "gestures" limitation, so a wizard can't have say, Str +10d6 spell (thus negating any weight armor could ever add to him) without the "gestures" limitation (thus he can walk around armored, and when he enters combat, just cast the str. spell without having to use gestures.) I hope that made sense. Either way, consider it.

Re: What do you call this genre? Revolutionary Fantasy, Colonial fantasy, Imperialist Fantasy, Manifest Destiny Fantasy, Social Revolution Fantasy, Those all sort of tailor to the era of which you speak. My favorite is Colonial Fantasy. I mean "High Fantasy" doesn't mean you're all under the influence while playing, and "Dark Fantasy" doesn't mean the sun is always down, so it's not like you NEED colonies in Colonial fantasy, but it does describe the technology era as per European / Western standards. Edit: Oh holy crap, I didn't even read all of page 2. Frontier Fantasy is so much better. I knew there was some Davy Crockett-esque word I wasn't hitting on, and I think that was it. (I wanted to say Critter fantasy because I was thinking Critterland in Disneyland but now that I reflect, it's Frontierland, with Critter Country. Wow, look how much I type when I drink this school's coffee.)

Re: Why play Fantasy Hero over other fantasy games? I've been playing D&D since I was seven, which is just over 14 years now. So I'm going to answer in the sense of "Vs. D&D," mostly. It depends which type of D&D player you are. If you're a diehard anti-wotc, pro-2nd edition "Classic Elitist" D&D player, Fantasy Hero may not be what you want because it doesn't adhere to sacred cows like Only Human Paladins, etc. unless you actually go through and write up a list with all those cows. It's plausible; nothing in Hero prevents you from saying "these abilities are paladin abilities and only a human can be a paladin." But it does require liberal exercise of control over your fantasy world. If you're a newbie 3rd-edition colored books of D&D player, this system is better because it actually involves facing rules, and attacks of opportunity are still possible to express, but they're much LESS confusing. The real advantage here is you don't have to worry about babysitting balanced stats since D&D3e awards the characters based on their level of balanced power. (Basically if you are too powerful for your level and you don't have an LA on your experience intake, you're abusing the system each time you gain experience.) In other words, one needn't babysit power levels in the HERO system; they're all accounted for. It's fundamentally the same as Champions: points are points, etc. Equipment doesn't cost character points (unless your GM is playing superheroics.. kind of strange for a Fantasy game but not totally alien.) But it's better in general because it requires less fine-tuning and guess-work on the rules. It does require tuning, but the tuning is usually obvious and relative. A Level 1 Fighter/Mage would be a human with CSLs in maybe longsword, a few martial manuevers, and a couple spells. Limitations on the spells would be like "gestures, incantations, obvious expendable focus, spell," and maybe a few others. Otherwise, they'd function really closely to powers.

Re: Steve, you dirty boy! I'm a Japanese Major, but please do note that it doesn't make me the end-all authority of Japanese as a language. Hentai comes from the word "hen," which in Japanese means, "strange." Its meaning evolved into more of our word, "perverted," which actually does at its core mean a misconduct of growth. (A perverted nation is a nation that has grown either outside its bounds or into unpredictable and unsanitary new bounds, by either land volume or population most likely.) Hentai acquired a modern meaning in the seventies or sixties, I can't remember which, but the modern meaning is more akin to our modern version of "perverted," except Japanese doesn't (naturally) cater to the difference between nouns or adverbs, so it could also mean, "perverted thing." Essentially, it means porn, and to be more inclusive, it means animated pornography. Dirty pool indeed, but Hentai has a synonym of the word "Ecchi," which is the Japanese way of saying the english letter, "h." They do this as code; sort of a slang way to say "Hentai." Coincidence that both Hentai and Hero start with the same letter? I think not!

Re: Limits on CSL's? General consensus? My first return is, "no," but I definitely see the need to regulate the phenomenon. I've seen two stalwart suggestions here, and I'll point them out, but not their owners because I'm lazy. One: to rid them of their weapons. Just do it. It's realistic - if a tall guy comes at me with a knife, I'm not running. His legs are longer, and I don't want to get stabbed in the back any more than I want to in the front. Nunno, I'm gonna go for the disarm. It happens, and it's realistic. Two: require other skill levels with which to accompany the higher levels of WF CSF. I liked how that makes a sort of continuity, or a more realistic basis of knowledge and application. The second one is of course the more liberal, more taxing of the two. I'm a traditional practitioner of the first one. Mages (and later wizards) have often turned entirely useless after I compromised their spellbooks in the 14 years of D&D I've played.

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Storn, even if I did think you were picking on me, I'd be flattered But no, I don't think you're picking on me. I know my style isn't strictly anime because I used to draw that way, and I know the difference. But it's always had the anime quality to it, even before I watched anime. It's what I call "The Disney Syndrome," meaning my pencils are most appropriate for comic books instead of pinups. I wish I brought more today, but I forgot.

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Storn's commented on my stuff at the WotC boards too I'm trying to abstain from "anime" styling. But it's a work-in-development, and I do mostly comic book art.

Re: Fantasy Art Thread Let's see if I can get a couple pieces up here... I have a really limited site at Deviantart, but I do a ton more drawing and sketching that doesn't show up there. These two are sorta recent, but were done on my computer and don't really reflect any of my background drawing "skills" (I distaste drawing backgrounds). Hope someone likes these. Great thread idea too