Chris Goodwin

Thank you, Dean. I didn't mean to imply that Tolkien's work was so simplistic, though I can see how I may have done so. I've been in a number of "why this particular fantasy element bugs me so much" type discussions, where my taste in fantasy doesn't seem to match that of the majority. So far the disconnects I've tended to have were related to "standard" fantasy protagonist races (elves, dwarves, and so on) and (less commonly) to hard vs. soft magic systems. I can only attribute that to the fact that my first, foundational fantasy works were de Camp and Pratt's Incompleat Enchanter (Harold Shea), Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos, Robert Heinlein's Magic, Inc., Robert Asprin's Myth Adventures series, the Xanth and Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony, and the Dancing Gods series by Jack Chalker. None of these were really swords and sorcery or epic high fantasy, with the possible exception of the Dancing Gods series (and that being satire). This was maybe a bit of a problem when I started playing D&D, because I lacked some of the context I think most D&D players brought to the game, and I think that also strongly colored what I think of as fantasy. Maybe instead of swords and sorcery, what I got was nerds and sorcery? Smart people learning hard magic systems and solving problems using them cleverly. (My first SF was Asimov, which has the "smart people learning stuff and using it cleverly" parts in common with my fantasy library.) I've bounced hard off of almost all of the "appendix N canon" stories I've read (with the possible exception of Three Hearts and Three Lions, which I quite enjoyed but which was not foundational for me), to the point that a "standard extruded fantasy product" work really does nothing at all for me.

Or maybe we're tired of the same old story, told over and over and over and over and over again. Armies of Good vs. Armies of Evil? Yawn. I started seeing how overdone those were by the time I was about thirteen years old. We even already know the basic plot and the ending: once upon a time there was a golden age, until the Armies of Evil arose. Soon, a mighty band of Good Heroes came together, and eventually, despite how Evil the Armies of Evil were, the Good Heroes triumphed. The end. I feel compelled to point out that I didn't come to fantasy via Tolkien, and every time I have ever tried to read his books I have failed to complete the series, which I'm beginning to realize is because I don't really care about the basic plot, played straight.

Additionally: if adult kobolds don't have a choice, then they can't be evil. Again, they can be horribly destructive or an existential threat, but without free will they cannot be evil. Attempting to define them thus is engaging in the "sports team morality" I mentioned.

I disagree, completely. Evil requires a choice made under free will. Facehuggers are depicted as mindless killing machines; by definition they can't be evil. Let me emphasize this part: they are depicted as extremely dangerous to the point of being an existential threat to humanity, and so killing them is a matter of self defense. But they aren't evil. Kobold babies, on the other hand, presumably are completely dependent on their parents and incapable of doing anything at all much less anything evil. I have to confess I haven't seen much in the way of depictions of kobold babies, but I think that was the assumption of the initial question posed to Gygax. Any framework in which the wholesale slaughter of kobold babies can be labeled "lawful good" is not, in any way, shape, or form, about good vs. evil. It's about choosing the right label to put on your armor. Or, to make my point a different way and more directly: if "team good" allows the slaughter of kobold babies, then it is not good by any stretch of the imagination. It is effectively a sports team, nothing more.

There was a D&D adventure called the Temple of Elemental Evil. It could be that's where it originally derives from. It also sounds a bit like the cosmic Law and Chaos from Moorcock and others. Which makes it a bit like "sports jersey morality". Team White Hat vs. Team Black Hat. Especially if, as Gygax once said, it's ok for lawful good paladins to slaughter kobold babies.

A race of monsters that eat human flesh, as in obligate homovores? Not evil. Dangerous, perhaps, unless they can be convinced to eat ethically sourced human meat from fresh corpses from natural causes. If not... then we would need to eradicate them for our own good. We would have the advantage in that they couldn't afford to eat us. And all of the above makes for a better story than unexamined "acceptable slaughter targets".

Did 100% of them make that choice? I can't imagine 100% of anyone in that much pain would choose to be evil. And that's not even the slightest bit interesting to me. Now, if half of them made the choice to be evil, and the other half make the choice to be good, and fight against the half that have chosen evil... that is interesting to me. Saying that the corruption and pain of their existence has driven 100% of them to choose evil... is almost the same as saying they were created to be evil. How is it a choice? If Watson is telling us they weren't created to be evil but they all chose it, Doyle is telling us they were created to be evil.

I disagree almost with the premise of the thread, from a philosophical standpoint. I don't think it's possible to create a race to be evil, because evil requires a conscious choice made with free will. Acts are evil; we generally only consider a person evil if they know the things they do are evil but they refuse to stop doing them. What's an evil act? Those are defined almost universally, by every culture on Earth. Murder, kidnapping, rape, lying in court in order to harm someone else. Killing in self defense is not evil, nor is killing the enemy in war, but acts of war against civilians are evil. Speaking of war, here's a point: almost every culture, probably throughout human history, has, when war is imminent, attempted through propaganda to define the enemy as evil. They're evil because they're against us, even though their people are very nearly the same as ours. Farmers, peasants, laborers, craftspeople, the religious... their people want a steady job, a roof over their heads, three meals a day for themselves and their families. That's what our people want, too. A man-eating lion can't be evil. It can be "broken", as lions almost never eat humans. Even if the lion chooses to eat man over other meat, it can't be evil by definition, because it's not sapient. Note: that doesn't mean it's not dangerous, or that it shouldn't be destroyed; it's just that lions are not creatures of conscious morality. You can't create a race to be evil. You can create a race to be violent, destructive, pestilent, dangerous, but if you do that it's you who are evil, not the beings you created. Just the same as if you'd created a killbot swarm or a deadly virus. Without free will, they're robots, they're an extension of their creator's will, but they're not evil. They can't be.

If you ever played Robot Warriors back in the day, then playing it in 6th edition is almost exactly the same, and in the case of Range Modifiers vs. ground scale is actually easier. There's probably at least as many resources for mecha using standard HERO System vehicle rules as using Robot Warriors. I prefer RW myself. Give me a few days and I'll pull up the mech designs I used in the game I ran.

I'm fairly certain that neither 5e nor 5er have any such rule. If there were such a rule, it would be in The Ultimate Speedster. I haven't pored through that book to find one yet.

In what way is Defender limited by NCM that Armadillo isn't?

I would make it EDM: time travel to an indeterminate time in the future. With Must Cross Intervening Space/Time.

Do they give you the long white beard when you graduate from wizard school or do you have to buy it separately? Asking for a friend.

Even in Fantasy Hero back in the day, you had to have 18 DEX and 18 CON (for the Figureds), and 4 SPD (because everyone else was 4 SPD), it seemed. Someone years ago, I can't remember where or when, said "SPD equals fun". I'm not sure I agree, fully, but they had at least somewhat of a point. (Also, why do we expect wizards to be rickety old grandpas with long beards? Why can't wizards be in at least reasonably decent shape, especially if they're spending their own END for spells? And we know that people who don't maintain a healthy lifestyle into the years that more and more of us are starting to see don't live as long.)

For me it's Robot Warriors. I hadn't actually played Robot Warriors from 1988 until lockdown was easing. So 2021? I ran it with 6th edition for characters and combat and Robot Warriors mecha design rules. And it was every bit as fun and played 99% identical to how it played in 1988. What were we talking about again?

Breaking down everything into abstractions is a good idea... in the abstract. But we're people, who don't think about these kinds of things in the abstract. We're playing a game in which our "playing pieces" are intended to represent people. We're not playing a physics engine or a biology simulator. I'm fond of saying "good enough is good enough", and I think that what we've got in 6e is good enough. The mix of stats and the breakdowns and all. If we keep breaking everything into pieces parts, you could have a character who can lift 12.5 tons but can't damage a normal person by punching them, but I can't imagine a person (which is, again, what our playing pieces are supposed to be) who can do that. It's nice to keep some concrete representation.

Not a false memory. That's how it works. Same rule, backwards statement. I believe though that in the Completes, they were changed from that to GM's option-ish?

I'd probably go with Speed Zone (EDM) then, and buy Transdimensional on the STR, which would -- strictly by mechanics -- have the desired effect. Whether it would fall into a given points budget is another story.

And the ones that are hit take the full damage/effect of the power.

This isn't how any other power with AOE works, though. If you have a 10d6 Blast with AOE, every target in the area takes 10d6.

I had a GM once who, after our characters were fully built, gave us an extra 10 free points that had to be spent on "useless" KS's and similar background Skills. You could tweak the amounts. It's easier to give than take away, and it's easier to say "You get 175 points plus 10 points worth of free background skills" than it is to say "You get 185 points but you must spend 10 of them on background skills".

The Skill vs. Skill part sounds like Change Environment. Negating natural healing could be as simple as a REC Drain. Power Defense can work against Aid and Healing if the character wants it to... so Power Defense, Usable As Attack, controlled by the grantor, would do just that.

The question I ask is, why would you maintain it if you're not going to use it? I can actually think of why you might: if you have Limitations on activating it. Otherwise, Costs END To Maintain falls under "A Limitation that doesn't limit isn't worth points." I'm mulling over my answer still.

The Limitation "Costs END To Maintain" can't be applied to Telekinesis, as Telekinesis is a Constant Power that already costs END every Phase it is used. Further, Telekinesis 0 STR has a lift capacity of 0.0 in 6th edition, and thus Telekinesis can't be "maintained" at 0 STR, nor bought with 0 STR. Edit: On further consideration: there's nothing in the rules prohibiting applying Costs END To Maintain to Telekinesis as a Limitation. Keep in mind that it's a Zero Phase Action to activate Telekinesis, and also that a Limitation that doesn't limit the Power isn't worth points. The GM should apply common sense, and should also take into account, for instance, if there are any Limitations such as Extra Time involved in activating the power. It should also be noted that having points in a Multipower slot isn't the same thing as maintaining the Power(s) in the slot as active.

If I recall correctly, and Hugh can correct me if I'm wrong or if his memory is better than mine, the reason for the removal of EC wasn't anything to do with point costs; instead, EC's generated rather a lot of rules questions. Steve saw utility in reducing the complexity of this construct in particular.