Chris Goodwin

Yeah. 
 
No pressure. 
 
Looks like my home repairs are going to get rained out this weekend.  I hope to get back to work on it during my "break." 

Seems to me Chris is comparing items at CharGen and items found during play, and suggesting that they should be treated consistently, such that the character who begins play with a 100 point magic item and the character who has discovered a 100 point magic item in play should both have the same number of points to spend on their other, non-magic item, abilities, while a third character who neither started with nor found a magic item should have 100 points more than the first two to invest in other, non-magic item abilities.
 
Did I summarize that accurately, Chris?

I think it’s all a matter of people being on the same page.  Bob and Ricky and Sarah all need to know and understand what the rules are before they make their characters.  As long as they understand, no problem.

Except the system is "you may lose them at any point no matter what, but you never lose points."  In other words, you may lose your Wand of Doom through damage, theft or misadventure, but maybe you gain a contact or some land, or something else in its place.  And, if you lose an item you discovered, the GM can also make sure you have something else available to make up for the loss of character points represented by that item.  You discovered armor of arrow deflection, great!  It got melted by a dragon's breath, not so great -- but the dragon has a shield of flash attacks in his horde.

People in this thread make good points.  I'm leaning quite a bit more neutrally toward the idea.  I'd probably still count any magic items toward the character's total when I'm working out total capabilities -- in that sense they're part of the character's points.  But I don't necessarily see the need to charge points, as in requiring the character to allocate saved XP to an item.  I'd make it a GM-decided option at the beginning of the campaign, for sure.  

Then you and I see eye-to-eye, now.  Thanks for our discussion. It allowed me to see a different perspective and forced me to (more) carefully think things through, not unlike Bohr's discussions with Einstein. That's always a good thing!
 
Lee

It isn't fair, which is why I wouldn't allow you to start the game with a magic sword (or anything else). Then every magic item obtained would either be found/purchased for currency (no CP cost) or created (CP cost). It's part of the GM's job (IMO) to try and be as fair as they can while telling a good story. Now, if you had stated you wanted a magic sword and it sounded really cool, I'd try to construct an adventure (or side adventure) where you could "find" one. That way, you and Bob are on a level playing field.
 
BTW, if the sword Bob found was a finely crafted but mundane sword that was "worth" 20 points, how would that be any more fair if he didn't spend CP for it. To be fair, you'd have to charge Bob CP for the mundane sword and open the can of worms of when to charge and when not to as well as the case that Bob purchased the same sword from a blacksmith paying both currency and CP. Then it's not fair going the other way.
 
You would eventually get your points back through EXP. No, you wouldn't be able to get those 20 points back by giving up the sword and use them to get the new item.You wouldn't need to because the new item that is found doesn't cost CP.
 
You've illustrated quite well why I wouldn't let the character start the game with a magic sword anyway. As GM, I'd help you find it along the way (if it was interesting for the story).
 
I'm not familiar with D&D 5th edition (I've not played D&D since 1st edition) so I can't speak to attunement. But, if it is a powerful item that Bob got from the villain, I'd fully expect the villain to try and claim it back. If it had the ability to let the villain spy on Bob, so be it. It sounds like a great story arc for the campaign. I honestly don't see a problem, but, again I'm not familiar with D&D 5e attunement.
 
Cool! We have some common ground! 😉 I just find it arbitrary to charge sometimes and not charge other times. I suppose one might devise a way to make it non-arbitrary, like if it is more than X AP or RP you have to pay CP but if below you don't. But that would still be arbitrary since the "X" is decided upon by GM fiat. It also limits the ability of the GM to have "finely crafted", "masterpiece" or "heirloom" items that, while mundane, are significantly better than other mundane items. They'd need to charge CP for them and you're back to charging CP for some mundane items and not others. Although in this case it's not as arbitrary. I'm not sure I'd like that as either a player or GM. 
 
Ah, that wasn't clear, at least to me, from your original post. This seems much more fair to me than it originally did, especially the part about letting them "finance" their purchase of the sword over time. Just don't charge interest!  I also like the idea of Bob being able to use more abilities of the sword as he spends points to "pay it off". I could get behind that idea.
 
Lee

With the Fantasy HERO campaigns I've been running we haven't incorporated any type of costs associated with loot / treasure / magic items.
 
If your poverty stricken skirmisher happens upon a masterwork breastplate then he gets an armor upgrade.
 
If your power hungry fire witch finds the Staff of the Four Elements (variable special effect on X active points of powers) then they have a shiny new stick.
 
What I've maintained separately for those campaigns is a Combat Effectiveness spreadsheet and you have to stay within the campaign caps regardless of your capabilities come by way of gear, levels, powers/spells or stats.
We bump the cap 5 pts intermittently through the course of a campaign.  If the gear your found while adventuring moved you above the cap then when the cap is raised you have less room to work with and possibly none at all.
 
In the last campaign our Witcher character found the equivalent of +4 Plate.  He was reluctant to use it at first due to the dex/end/movement penalties, but rapidly grew to enjoy the nigh-invulnerability of 12rPD/12rED.
But that armor also bumped him 5-6 points on the combat effectiveness spreadsheet so the next time the characters were allowed to upgrade their combat capabilities he had only a single point to work with.
 
This can have the effect of making magic items a strange alloy of currency and character points - but it worked well for us and didn't remove the "treasure" pillar of classic D&D style games.

That's definitely an area Hero handles well that other fantasy games, for example, do not.  In D&D you get all those swords and wands and such but there's no overall concept of power level or what its doing to balance in game play.  Its important as a GM to have a good handle on just how powerful your characters are getting beyond a gut feeling, and checking out what people have in terms of loot and items can go a long ways toward quantifying that.

People in this thread make good points.  I'm leaning quite a bit more neutrally toward the idea.  I'd probably still count any magic items toward the character's total when I'm working out total capabilities -- in that sense they're part of the character's points.  But I don't necessarily see the need to charge points, as in requiring the character to allocate saved XP to an item.  I'd make it a GM-decided option at the beginning of the campaign, for sure.  

I'm pretty sure I understand what you meant; I'm just trying to poke holes in your logic.     
 
If I paid 20 points to start the game with a magic sword, and Bob found a 20-point magic sword, how is that fair?  Is there any way I can somehow, eventually, get my points back while keeping my sword?  What if I find a magic sword, or other magic item, that also costs 20 points... can I give up my original sword to get those points back, while being allowed to keep the new item?  
 
What if the villain did pay points for it?  Actually, that started out as a rhetorical question... but what if?  What if paying points represents attunement a la D&D 5th edition.  Meaning, what if Bob walks out with a 20-point magic sword that's attuned to his enemy?  Certainly at some point the enemy might claim it back... but what if the enemy is using that as a way to spy on Bob?  
 
 
Presumably, the items for which points are charged are qualitatively better somehow than normal equipment.  If it's barely better than a normal sword, I'm not sure I'd charge points for it.  
 
 
Time for me to explain my logic.     I certainly wouldn't say "Bob, you found a magic sword, suddenly you owe me 20 points. Muahahaha!"  If Bob finds a magic sword, even uses it, but chooses not to pay the points for it... his ability to keep it is based entirely on the GM's discretion.  He's got it until, at least, the end of the session.  
 
If a character wants to claim an item, and keep it around, in much the same way as a D&D character would claim an item, then yes, I'd charge points for it.  If they don't want to take a 20 point hit for it, or don't have the 20 points right now, that's fair.  And we'd discuss it.  If they have the XP and just don't want to spend it on the sword... they don't have to, but then we're back in GM discretion territory.  If they were saving the XP for something else, but really want the sword... again, we'd discuss it.  Perhaps Bob can make a "down payment" of a few points (25%?  5 points on a 20-point sword, how does that sound?), and pay 1-2 points per XP award until it's paid off.  Maybe Bob doesn't learn the full functionality of the sword right away; maybe there are powers he has to learn about, and maybe he doesn't get access to those powers until he's paid for them.  (This is actually not uncommon in source material!)
 
To me, paying the points for it represents something similar to D&D 5e's attunement.  You're claiming the item somehow.  Adding it to your character sheet in whatever way that assures that it will stay around.  Gaining full access to its powers.  

For those new to the board, here is my most unpopular opinion ever:
 
 
 
 
I have absolutely _no problem_ with this.
 
Yep.   I made the mistake of saying that out loud during early debates on "Independent" way back when, and it proved to be the most evil possible thing a person could utter in this particular fandom.  
 
Worse yet:  We've been doing it since the 80s.
 
And unimaginably impossible follow-up:
 
It's never _been_ a problem.  Not once.  It doesn't happen a _lot_, or even particularly _often_, but it does happen.   I've even let players burn an EP or two to make outrageous changes to die rolls at critical moments.  Again, not often, but sometimes it's just there.
 
And it has never been a problem.  Not once.
 
Believe it or not, this actually started under my first Champions GM with that old "Powers for Champions!" article in Dungeon Magazine-- the one with Bouncing, etc?  The "Extra Life" power: buy it and permanently lose 2 EP, but here's the great thing it does....."
 
The thing, I think, was timing.  When we were first exposed to the idea, there was no internet.  There was no "let me bounce this off a couple hundred complete strangers I will never actually sit down and play a game with due to geographic distances, etc.  What they have to say is crucial to how we play our game."   There was just our little group of six, and Hell-- the tradeoff seemed _more_ than fair:  get out of Dead free card?  Lose two EP?  Two EP that I'll likely replace in the next session?  Sign me up!  Maybe it's because none of us were studying to be accountants or software gurus or what-have-you: we didn't _need_ a balance sheet that perfectly tracked where all our earnings went.  And seriously, it wasn't like that four-point pea shooter was going to break us anyway.  We could drop four more EP on another one, if we wanted, or we could drop two hundred Federated on one in the next port we stopped at.  Either way.
 
Maybe it's because we _never_ spent EP the minute we earned it.  We were all (and still are) "terrible" about banking it until we're ready to do something with it.
 
So it's "meta."  So what?   As LL said in the current "which edition" thread, it fits a sweet spot for us personally.
 
 
I didn't mean to ramble on so much about it-- particularly knowing how unpopular it is.  But every now and again, I just feel it needs to be said.   Same book; different book; only one book:  doesn't matter.  None of us are playing the exact same game, and likely we never will.
 

To me, the question is what points mean in the game.  You buy equipment  with cash?  Then it is mundane gear.  You lose your sword over the side of the ship as you sail out of port?  Then you have no sword.  You spend six months at sea, never landing in a port where you can buy a sword, your opponents have no swords, and your friends will not give you a sword?  Then you have no sword.
 
You spent points to buy an OAF Sword?  Then that sword probably falls on the deck, not over the side when disarmed.  If it does fall overboard, there is likely a sword in the hold somewhere, or we shortly afterwards encounter a merchant ship and you can replace your sword, or perhaps you character knows how to forge a sword, or even possesses the mystical ability to create a sword from thin air (but it takes hours - you didn't buy it OIF!).
 
Paying points makes it part of the character.
 
The GM can certainly say "you cannot pay points for a sword - they are mundane gear, subject to being lost".  The GM can set plenty of campaign rules.
 
As to Independent, it can work if the group is happy with it, or not.  Note that when Bob the Fighter finds a 20 point Independent sword, he does not have to pay 20 points to keep it - whoever originally paid that 20 points is down 20 points.  Bob pays 20 points for an Independent magic sword?  Great - he has pretty much guaranteed he will lose that sword eventually as that is what Independent means.
 
Bob pays 100 character points for Independent magic armor, shield, bow and arrow and a sword?  OK, we likely now have a problem.  Bob is way more powerful than the rest of the PCs (with all those -2 limitations).  Then he loses the items - that is what Independent means, remember?  Now he is a weak sister comic relief character to the rest of the group.  So Bob retires and Fred the Fighter, a new character with a big pile of Independent magic items shows up.  Or Bob's player whines until he gets his items back, possibly whining for the rest of the campaign.
 
Note that D&D has also been through this.  1e/2e, you get what you find - suck it up, buttercup.  But if Bob gets all the cool gear, the other players get ticked off that their characters never get anything useful.  Balance it out, GM.  Assuming the GM balances it out, both D&D and Hero with lots of Independent found items plays fine.
 
3e, you buy your magic gear (with cash, but you have wealth by level guidelines to tell you about where the PCs should be).  OK, now we have a pool of points to buy gear (like resource points, recalling that D&D tells players what each pool of points must be spent on - you don't get to take +2 Intelligence by giving back skill points, or to hit bonuses, or wealth - your CP for stats is separate from your CP for skils, your CP for saving throws, spells, combat maneuvers, animal buddies, etc. etc. etc.).  Our Hero characters can similarly have access to X points worth of gear.  Lose it and you can replace it, or get something new, but the overall points in gear stays the same.
 
You can always mix the two.
 
Which way is "right"?  Which way is the group enjoying - that is the ultimate definition of "right" in a game.  Even if the group enjoys a chaotic, pvp game of trying to get more power over the other PCs with no attempt to keep PC power levels balanced, or they account for every character ability in CP religiously.

The chest based scenes I use are not incompatible with one world, they can function side by side.
 
Both the hero tools I have built and one world are complex. I suspect when we get near to the end I will end up having to access your table setup and work out how to merge.
 
 

Aiming for first beta release at end of October. 
 
Features are: -
Hex distance calculator (distance & height) (100% complete) Dice Roller with target numbers and modifiers (100% complete) 100+ 3D Superhero figures available from other Workshop mods (100% complete) Table Layout for Gameplay (GM & Players) (95% complete - playable as is) JSON Combat record (simple & detailed) import from Hero Designer (JSON Exported written and tested) TTS (75% complete - 2-3 days more work) Storing Monsters/NPC's in card decks for quick loading (75% complete - 2-3 days more work) Interoperability between tools (75% complete - not playable - 3-4 days more work) Drag and Drop loading of Hero Game stats into Models (25% complete - Dependant on JSON Combat Record - 2-3 days work) GM automated Turn Control with Phases / Speed etc (5% complete  - Dependant on JSON Combat Record and Drag / Drop loading - No timing yet) My current target is to release beta without GM Turn control and complete before first published version
 

This needs more visibility!  Jason, how can we help?

Hero Games will be launching a fan-driven community content program on DriveThruRPG in about a month, similar to Dungeon Masters Guild and Storytellers Vault. It’s going to be called Hall of Champions, and it will allow you to publish your own work on DriveThru for profit under the banner of being a Hero Games product. (Though solely for commercial purposes on DriveThruRPG.) You’ll be allowed to publish using any version of the Hero System you like from 1st to 6th, including Champions Now. You will also be allowed to use both intellectual property that belongs to Hero Games, as well as the Champions Universe, which belongs to Cryptic Studios. The program will supply artwork and templates to work from to make the entire process as easy as possible.
 
To being with, what I’m looking for are some initial fan contributions from you guys so that we have a certain number of products ready to go at launch. I’ve already received commitments from two of our third party publishers, but could use a bunch more from fans. There are (of course) significant rules governing the community content program, which I will share with you should you contact me. If you have work you would like to contribute, it needs only be in PDF form and have a JPEG cover image available. (This can simply be a copy of the front page.)
 
Thank you as always for playing the Hero System, and I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Jason Walters, Publisher
jason@herogames.com

Ditto. 
 
 

There's not really a lot of difference between the 5th and 6th edition Fantasy Hero genre books.  If you have the 5th edition genre book, you can use it with Fantasy Hero Complete; the main drawback is that the game mechanics in it are meant for 5th.  But if you've played 5th and 6th both, then you probably can work out the translations where necessary.   Alternately, if you've played lots of 5e FH and it works for you and it's comfortable, why switch?  
 
My own favorite edition for Fantasy Hero is first edition, the standalone version released way back when.    But 6th has been growing on me in a lot of ways.  

4th edition is still my favorite, but Hero Designer works for 5th and 6th so I just bit the bullet and learned 6th edition.
 
Overall it's working out pretty well, but the 6th edition HERO system rule books are player-crushingly thick.  None of my players are willing to choke through 600+ pages of material.

Favorite Edition?   The playtest rules! Man, Magic was cheap. This was contemporaneous with Espionage, so people had huge numbers of combat levels. Mostly, it was the GM, L. Douglas Garrett. 

I've been reading 1St Edition recently...it's pretty wild! 

There's not really a lot of difference between the 5th and 6th edition Fantasy Hero genre books.  If you have the 5th edition genre book, you can use it with Fantasy Hero Complete; the main drawback is that the game mechanics in it are meant for 5th.  But if you've played 5th and 6th both, then you probably can work out the translations where necessary.   Alternately, if you've played lots of 5e FH and it works for you and it's comfortable, why switch?  
 
My own favorite edition for Fantasy Hero is first edition, the standalone version released way back when.    But 6th has been growing on me in a lot of ways.