Chris Goodwin

There is a maneuver called Cover which seems to be what you're looking for.  It's on 6e2 p. 85.

There is a maneuver called Cover which seems to be what you're looking for.  It's on 6e2 p. 85.

If you were to combine my "How to Play HERO System" with it...
 
Except "How to Play" is for 6e.  Knowing that they're the peanut butter and chocolate of a HERO System near-free game has me feeling a little uncomfortable about saying that.  Because for $5 you'd have the game.  Which is good if you're buying, but not so much if you're Hero Games.

Interesting timing....
 
I have just recently rerurned to playing with hex flowers.  This dovetails nicely.
 
 

Just the Pocket Boxes, Sir:
 
Car Wars, Truck Stop; Sunday Drivers.
 
All others are apocryphal cash grabs.  
 
 
 
Never!
 
I own it.
 
I understand its historical significance.
 
I love most of Allston's stuff for any game and from any magazine.
 
And it is my belief that Autoduel Champions was one of the worst things to ever come from the hobby.
 
(Yeah; I understand what opinion means and fully expect that no one should heed the unsolicited opinion of another, and likely two-thirds of the solicicted opiniona, either.  I also believe it was a solid execution of an absolutely _horrible_ idea.)
 
 
 
 
As players aged and moved on, and younger and younger people replaced them. I found less and less people who played SFB.  Hell, my local game store stopped carrying it completely about the time Champions entered the ICE Age.  When I asked Fred (the owner) about it, he said he hadn't sold a copy in three or four years, so he cut a deal on his remaining inventory to some guy who was still buying things (mostly minis), and never looked back.
 
Over the years, four moves, and one house fire since then, I dont even have my meager collection of SFB stuff, either.  (Though I always preferred replaceable-via-Xerox pasteboard counters to actual minis)
 
 
 
 
 
I only ever played Starfire solo, and mostly because I enjoyed the "mapping a universe" expansion stuff for it.
 
It did not survive the immediately post-wedding move; haven't seen it in almost thirty years.
 
 
Until I met our friend Chris Goodwin, I was the only person I knew into mechs.  (Do remember I live in rural Georgia).  Thus, while I enjoyed reading articles related to it on the various gaming magazines, I never owned or even played it.  If I had the slightest ability to paint beyond spray cans, I might have collected the minis, but with no such talent, I couldn't even justify the cost of just that. 
 
 
No.  Just no.
 
I am not into historical recreation nor do I enjoy that level of meticulous planning.  SFB was great (and Car Wars still is) because these are more-or-less "you are in the captain's chair, making snap seat-of-the-pants decisions based on a very small handful of options" and usually play out in an hour or so.  That has always been my sweet spot for tactical games.
 
Besides, from what I recall of wargamming conventions. I don't own enough horizontal surfaces to get get into anything from Avalon Hill-- I might not even own enough floor!
 
 
 
The fact that I cannot think of a single tactical game from SPI tells me pretty much what I need to know:  if it didn't catch my interest in the shops (when there still shops), I doubt I would be more interested now.
 
 
 
 
I own Imperium and ... Was it Belt Strike?  Strikers?  Both?  Anyway, I own three GDW Traveller-esque games that saw so much use they exist now as manilla folders of Xeroxes of the original pages; some pages as Xeroxes of earlier Xeroxes.  That is how much use those games saw- we litterally _wore the booklets out_ (and the maps, and the counters, and even the dice look kind of sketchy).
 
And I haven't found another soul in the last twenty years who was interested in taking a stab at them.  For what it's worth, they just don't have an enjoyable solataire aspect the was Starfire did. 
 
 
 
Played them all.  Didn't really enjoy them save for one particular group that made Ogre more fun than it was with other groups, but even then, they eventually scattered to the winds.  Still, though, they weren't really "my thing."
 
The thing is people who don't enjoy tactical games in general tend to think all tactical games are kind of the same.  The reality is that this is like saying all superhero RPGs or sci-fi RPGs are equally interchangeable when they really aren't.  Anyone who has played both Universe and Space Opera or Star Frontiers and Traveller can vouch for that.
 
I have a very limited enjoyment of tactical games myself, but I do have a sweet spot:  simple rules, quick decisions, limited options, playtime of not more (and preferably less) than two hours, and little to no "historical recreation."
 
There just isnt much of that out there anymore, and no reasonably local people who play.
 
 

I own a lot of Aberrant material... never played it, but thought about using the setting with Hero.  Also thought about Wildcards, but Wildcards is so close to "anything goes" that it wouldn't look all that different from a lot of other superhero RPG.  (Modular Man being a good example of how far they stretched the idea of "alien virus gives you super powers".)  So I kind of see Wildcards as being that "narrow focus, but the GM has given you so many 'outs' you don't really need to adhere to the theme too strongly.  Plus you can play aliens."

I think it was Allen Varney who said something like "all the rest of us delve deep into the mine to dredge up a handful of gems, and Aaron just dipped his bucket in the well and it came up full every time."
 

I'm aware Hero Games will likely never release any part of the HERO System under any kind of open license, and I'm okay with that.  But, is there any way Hero Games could support the effort by Paizo, Kobold Press, and others, with the ORC?  

Seconded.
 
Forty years of rhis game, and I havent found amything more consistently accurate.
 
 

Looking at likely damage taken and likely damage inflicted still makes sense to me.

I've come to a particular meta-explanation for the relation of magic to science for my own games. Since it seems relevant to this discussion, and in case someone might find it interesting or even useful, I'll briefly transcribe how and why I came to it. There's more involved than what I'm putting down here, but that's not germane enough to this discussion.
 
Most folks here probably know that I'm fond of gaming in the various iterations of the published official Hero Universe time-line, with my own modifications of course.   In those settings it's repeatedly mentioned that magic has the effect of warping physical laws, so that normally impossible events become possible, at least in certain circumstances. That led me to speculate that magic could be fundamentally aligned with Chaos, and opposed to the laws of science which are a manifestation of Order. Scientific laws are dissociated from a person's perception of reality. They exist in and of themselves, objective, unvarying and inviolable. Science studies those laws, and discovers how to direct them to serve our purposes. But magic is a subjective force. It follows no laws except the will and the imagination of the mind of one who uses it, and it bends reality to conform to that imagination and will.
 
However, a while back when I discussed some of these ideas with Dean Shomshak, he pointed out that real-world magic traditions have their own philosophies and laws and techniques needed to utilize magic, which argues against it being wholly within the realm of Chaos. While that's true, I can't help but notice that those laws and techniques are multitudinous across human history and around the globe; and they can differ widely and fundamentally from each other in terms of what magic is and how it works. Moreover, there are numerous beings and creatures in myth and folklore who produce magical effects at will, without any of the trappings typical for mundane spell casters, even in fantasy magic systems.
 
I decided to try to reconcile those paradoxes, by saying that beings and creatures who are fundamentally magical by nature, including the rare "wild talent" magicians, utilize magic instinctively, without conscious thought, the way we all walk or breathe. But the great majority of sapient beings aren't able to access magic that way. They have to approach it intellectually, by imagining a conceptual structure for it that they can comprehend, and symbology, formulas and rituals consistent with that structure, by which they can focus and channel the power of magic. Such a structure is not fundamental to magic, but it is fundamental to and necessary for the creation and casting of spells, enchanted items, and other magical crafts which can be studied and taught.
 
Now, since I know someone will say this means that all magicians are really narrow-minded deluded fools , I'll just respond by pointing out that if magic alters reality, then the magic system from any tradition creates a reality in which these laws are true and necessary for the practice of magic by anyone from one of those traditions. Another point reiterated in the Hero Universe is that with magic, belief that something is real makes it real. (We've all seen plenty of examples of that kind of magical thinking in the real world today, but without actual magic it's much harder to pull off.)

I should admit, it was me being a bit grumpy, and a bit less courteous than I ought to have been.  @Doc Democracy I hope you'll accept my apologies for that.  And I hope in my latter post I was less grumpy about it.  

I am going to embark on thus epic.  I have NO idea how you type all this on a phone....
 
I think that it is not going to work with a vancian style magic which, itself, is written as a technology in the dying earth books, ways of harnessing ancient power with the trappings of magic.
 
So yes, I agree, slots and unreliability don't work.  I would also say there is a lot of ground in between getting effects so defined you can throw a fireball to hit opponents in melee with your friends and not even singe their eyebrows and starting the magic with no idea of the effects you expect or hope for.
 
 
Well, because technology is measurable and semi-dependable.  It is something people, as you say, utilise but rarely are able to explain, nevermind maintain. 
 
Technology works, utilises measurable forces and anyone doing the right things with the right kit get the same results.  If that is what you want in your game, why call it magic, it is technology and might as well be presented as such, no?
 
 
This is indeed a big thing.  No point in looking too hard at the literature because you xan actually find anything and everything to support stuff because, to our understanding, there is no such thing as magic. 😀
 
Technology is learnable and teachable.  If there are, like you say, restrictions on who can learn magic then magic is not universally learnable or teachable. I think that is one of the significant differences.  Only those with talent can do more than dabble (sometimes not even that) and some folk can, fir some unknown reason, become adepts.  Now that might be seen as similar to maths.  some folk find it hard to add up single figures, others solve quadratic equations in their head - we don't really understand how that happens either.
 
 
And yet, in Fantasy literature, they rarely are. Grimoires are often the personal notes of an adept.  Others trying to use them approach with care, like dealing with an unexploded bomb, trying to extract meaning and understanding to create their own grimoire.  Each adept adapting the teachings to their iwn situation.
 
I reckon that is another feature, for me, of magic.  Technology is universal, it works the same way regardless of who applies it.  Magic is personal and individual, and every practitioner begins with a broad understanding but needs to fine-tune the process to accommodate their particular relationship with the magical powers.
 
 
I love this analogy, but you are almost arguing against your statement that you xannot teach what you do not know, possibly because these things are not binary until you get to the point where you either do it absolutely right or die.
 
Beyond that a whole range of approaches get a number of outcomes that approximate OK, those closest to "correct" go faster/straighter/longer.  I think that feels magical to me but with magic, there is no single correct way, there is probably only one way for any individual but not one that you can reliably teach.
 
 
Yes! The difference though is that while the technology folk are working to a template, knowing where they are making compromises from an ideal and seeking a physical harmony, the magician is "listening to the vapours" hoping to find a place where they properly resonate to deliver the right harmony.  More art than science and influenced by who is doing it.
 
 
I think that it is more likely to be secret from the cgaracter than the reader.  Or they both share a belief of what is true, like the motorcyclists you talked about, they think they know what is true, they believe what they are going to will result in a particular outcome.
 
Thing is, even with technology there are the pioneers who do stuff for the first time,teaching themselves through trial and error.  With technology it is better as, when you find something out, you can show someone else in the firm knowledge they will be able to do it too. With magic, none of that is a given. It is where not only finding a teacher, but the right teacher is important.
 
 
I hear you but you realise you have probably now put more thought into the basics than most people who love reading about it.  You are even getting close to gave written as many words on the matter as a Fantasy writer.
 
Doc

Ultimately, yes.  If the setting points out that that's the in-universe explanation, I've lost interest.  
 
In large part, the same thing turns me off of Spelljammer.  Space in a D&D game?  Sign me up!  Except it's... not.  Not what I'm looking for, really.  
 
It's not so much "yay, science!"  It's that the world has to have the feeling of a world I could live in.  A world where diseases are caused by evil spirits, or planets are surrounded by crystal shells and phlogiston-powered wooden ships fly through the aether, isn't that kind of world.  It feels like something obviously constructed, like an amusement park ride.  
 
I'm not just looking for something I can throw fireballs and hack enemies apart with swords.  I'd like something that I can look at the conditions and draw conclusions from them.  

I found a post on another forum that sums it up for me, enough that I've got it bookmarked. 
 
 
Fun world building elements, emergent setting, things that to me seem like they could happen.  I can anticipate things that might happen and characters that could exist in a world that functions according to familiar natural laws, or at least feels like a place I could visit.  Like an idea I've had in my pocket for a fantasy world: in cities, where construction is largely of wood, and there are people packed in, and there are spells that can easily prevent fires, treat disease, purify water, nonlethally stop thieves, light streetlamps at night, and so forth, cities will pay a premium for casters who can cast those.  Anyone who can do so gets a reduced entry fee into the city, and reduced even more if they take a few volunteer shifts on watch.  This is something that's gameable, that I can hang plot hooks on, that can exist in the background and occasionally come to the notice of PCs even if they're not directly involved.
 
If tides are entirely the whims of Zeboim, then I have no idea what else might be, and just that fact is enough to make me not care.  

So many strongly held opinions about magic!  Although that is pretty normal--in the fantasy fiction discussion groups I frequent, "hard" vs. "soft" magic systems are always a topic of lively discussion. Naturally that would carry over to RPGs.
 
My preferences tend to come down on the "soft" side of the spectrum, i.e. mysterious and poorly understood.  I find that more well defined systems, in fiction, are uninteresting--being fully understandable, they become esoteric.  In some cases this also leads to some strange inconsistencies with the setting.
 
As others have mentioned, mysterious-and-poorly-understood magic is tough to do in any RPG that attempts to be balanced.  Hero manages to at least sort of address the subject with skill rolls, Side Effects, and other disadvantages.  Other systems, like Ars Magica, address it by leaving a certain amount of wiggle room in the effect.  Or in the more lightweight systems, almost not having a system at all.
 
What really sets Hero apart is that its flexibility allows it to cover multiple magic systems.  You can have the wizards of the Fire College go up against the Wild Pool Magicians with the assistance of the Vancian Amnesiacs.  After four decades of fantasy gaming I have yet to see any other system that can really do this.  Usually the best they can do is have you pick spells from a different list.  But the point is that Hero can really do both hard and soft magic, and I'm frankly astonished that no other game system has really tried.
 
Clerical magic is a whole other ballgame, as it directly involves the theology of the setting.  It's hard to be an atheist when priests are slinging flame strikes and blade barriers.  At that point, religion becomes less a matter of faith and more one of devotion and adherence.  It's a weird side effect of D&D video game magic, and to me it smacks of football teams granting magic powers to its craziest fans.  I have toyed with the idea of requiring clerical spells (prayers?) to be bought with Invisible Power Effects, just to make it a teeny bit less obvious to onlookers that The Gods Walk Among Them.  That only works for certain effects, but it does maintain a lot of the mystery.  Arcane magic might benefit from the same.

Well thank you, Sir.  The sentiment is mutual ; I assure you.
 
Well, if the memes are to be believed, youhavw to write it down, and _then_ it is science, but as we are reading books....
 

 
 
 
 
 
Perhaps I should have said more, but I was trying to stay on-target for once. 
 
 
 
 
I have had the reverse experience!  I remember hiw anniyed I was thr first time I walked into a book store and science fiction and fantasy were lumped into the same section!
 
Personally, I blame Star Wars:  hopping into a single-seater and hopping off across the galaxy without so much as gatorade jug in which to pee isn't the sort of life support that says "I will be out for a few hours," is it?
 
Then we have actual wizards in space, doing magic thingies at each other...
 
(Do not worry, Star Wars fans.  I am not going to mention mitochondria--  I mean, midichlorians.  I do not at all like Star Wars, but when that midichlorians thing came out--  well, let's just say that I felt your outrage and your shame.  I wouldn't dream of throwing that at you, even if it was the _only_ reason I didn't like it)
 
So yeah:  that and John Carter; to a lesser extent, DC's Warlord (is that John Carter knock-off still going, or was that just a seventies thing?)-
 
Massive overlap; I get it.  Overlap, but not the same.  Sure: from outside, the difference is as miniscule as dieselpunk and steampunk, but from _inside_, the difference is as massive as dieselpunk and steampunk!
 
Or, you know...  I could just call it a fandom thing.  Whatever works for the reader who has givwn up on both of these and moved on to Teslapunk or Fashionpunk....
 
We _know_-  or at least, out of defference to those who really do not want to see it for flavor reasons, let's say that the argument can be made that a game _must_ have a sort of science in its magic:
 
Who can have magic, and why can they have it?  How do they learn it?  How do they improve it?  Can they teach or share it with others?  (Yes; I get that you will happily share a fireball with any gelatinous cube that happens along, but that is not where I was going...)
 
What determines the strength or effectiveness of the magic?  And so on and so forth.  It is possible entirely to have a magic system with no explanation of what the source of magic is or where it comes from, but those questions and several others must be answered to make the magic useable in the game.  And because there are observable steps and means of progression that characters must know in order to work toward that progression, the argument can be made that, at least in a game, there is actual recordable, repeatable, verifiable science and consistency (unless your effects roll is 2d1000, in which case, expect an average of 1000, but good luck getting consistency!)
 
And we're back!
 
Not That anyone would notice, but apparently it is entirely possible to just nod off for six hours mid-composition, realize you have to be at work in twenty minutes, etc, etc...
 
At any rate, in a game environment, there are still ways to keep magic mysterious and awe-inspiring.  After considerable distillation, they fall into four categories:
 
1) do not explain the source.  No one knows where magic comes from or why it exists.  This is pretty common in games, but by itself it doesnt really 'eliminate' a science-y, studyable, reproducability to the effects themselves.  Variations on this include using, on HERO terms, "variable special effects" where the SFX of the moment are chosen by the GM.  A 6dRKA may be a fireball with one use, and a baby Dragon the next, and a maelstrom of sand and gravel the next.
 
However, it will _always_ be a 6dRKA, and the PC will always in ow how to cast it (Activation roll or/and Burnout can add some suspense or surprise there) and he will always know how to improve it.  There is an inherent understanding- and science-able results- that just cannot be gotten around.
 
2) vary the results.  One moment when a spell is cast, it results in a baby Dragon screaming down the corridor at mach 2 , eyes full of murder and jaws open wide.  The next usage, it creates a bridge of light, swirling with all the colors of a rainbow.  The third usage, everyone in the part loses fifteen pounds.  The fourth usage, two randomly selected characters anywhere within a radius equal to line of sight are teleported onto the deck of a galleon far out at sea.
 
I don't think I have to go too much into the problems involved here, and the strain on both the GM and his relationship with the players, but let's suffice it to say that there will be no magic users in your party, ever.  No one wants any kind of equipment- shelter, weapon, or magical ability- that cannot be consistently relied upon.  No; I take that back.  If you are unfortunate enough to have "that one guy" who, in his own sort of way, derives some of his pleasure from being disruptive or compunding the party's troubles, he will likely want to play spellslingers almost exclusively.  😕
 
other than him, though, no one will want this because, as funny as it might be in less-tess scenarios, no one wants magic they cannot estimate-  magic without a science-like reproduceable, consistent reliability.
 
3)The PCs can't have it.  If the PCs cant have it, they can't really study it, learn about it, etc, etc.  They will never understand it, so it will always be awe-inspiring.  Now I know that I am in the significant minority here, but I have always been okay with this kind of magic in-game.  Only some special class of people or certain individuals or perhaps it takes a whole coven, acting in concert, to wield magic, and whatever that qualifier might be, it is completely off the table for PCs.  While it is an extreme example, think "Conan."  He regularly encounters incredible magic, but (so far as I know) has never been able to wield it himself.
 
The gaming problem here is that, as I said, I am in the minority as a player who is perfectly fine with this.  Most players that I have encountered are like Old Man (who has confessed to prefering magic users with amazing abilities) or even worse: I want to be a godlike figure among men.  Okay, how about when I get to third level....?
 
4)  magic blows everything else out of the water.  This creates your awe-inspiring, cannot-really-comprehend, magic-is-the-shiz-nit sense of wonder.  Entire mountain ranges have been destroyed and others created purely as collateral effects of duel magics.  Villages thrive in the desert because a kindly but reclusive wizard brought forth a river in an ocean of sand and sun-scarred stone.  A scryong spell gains access to the innermost thoughts of an enemy across the sea, and his ships can be sunk a thousand miles away with but a malicious thiught and a whispered word.  Or, to put it more colloquially, "my character is a badass wizard."
 
Variants on this include clerical blessings and "letting god do the dirty work."
 
Hopefully, I don't have to go too far into this one to point out the game balance issues.  I mean, I think we all all remember every edition of DnD where the only defense against a spell slinger was to kill them off before they got past 4th level.
 
What works in books-  unknowable, capricious, fickle, awe-inspiring, powerful-beyond-comprehension magic--  just doesn't work well in a game (unless you have tables full of guys like me: "that's fine; I didn't want it anyway").   Of it is accessible at all, there _must_ be either a way to measure, summon, wield, and improve it, or take the results totally out of the Player's control (which is going to result in a lot of "didn't want it anyway").  In other words, there _must_ be a science to it.  It may not be fully explained (we sont know where it comes from or why it works), but it must be,understandable in game terms, which ultimately results in it beinf understood in-game, at least to a point.
 
Science! 
 
 
 
That is well and good.  See number 2, itemized above, because that is the only gameable method by which this may be achieved.  Unfortunately, it is not a lot of fun.  At least, not for long.  Except for that one guy...
 
 
And now we can get into why it doesn't _really_ work in fiction, either, but not today.  I have been pecking at this phone long enough.
 
Let'a just summarize with "someone learned how to do it: how to summon it; how to control it; how to get the effects he wants- possibly even how to teach it.  So it might be mysterious and unknowable to the reader, but the character is reading spell books to learn from other people who not only learned to do it, but how to break it down in such a way as to both reproduce it and record it, and possibly teach it.  Or maybe he is the first guy to come up with this spell, and he is writing it down to either teach it, re-learn it at a future point, oraybe play with variations at some point in the future.  Or maybe....
 
"Once we have the Moon Stone, Princess...  Once we have the Moon Stone, and the stars are aligned, then the world will bow before you...."
 
Sounds like someone understands this stuff _way_ more than the author wants you to think is possible.  (Personally, I have always thought that it is either because the author isnt good at "it just is," or because he is counting on your willingness not to notice that there seems to be some science-like methodology at work here, or because he has figured out that "it just is" is crap for,building tension when whatever it just is also happens to consistently benefit the wielder.  But note that the disclaimer "Personally" indicates a poorly (ie, not even remotely)-researched opinion babsed on absolutely nothing beyond all-too-fallible human intuition.  And why are there only two intuitions?  Women's intuition and human intuition.  Why do women (typically also human) get to double-dip?  Why do men have to share?
 
Anyway, there is a lot more there supporting the idea that wondrous, unexplainable, unscience-able magic doesnt _really_ exist in fiction, either, but that really is a different discussion, and best sone by someone more versed in the genre than I am.
 
So, moving on....
 
 
 
 
 
Yes!  Even though I do not particularly care for magic (at least, not still-extant, non-deity-derived magic, though I am oddly okay with certain types of "nature magic"), I absolutely _love_ some of the superstitions and even religions that can be found in many works of fantasy.  No complaints there!
 
 
 
See, I sont even mind the plague demon thing, if that is actually how disease works, or if it isn't, but it is the popular superstition.
 
But I _do_ want to know which is which.  It is probably quite opposite of your own take, but it helps me enjoy the story if I understand the story, or at least what it is actually story lore and setting, etc.
 
 
 
 
 
Funny.  I had no idea that I was dead.  Or maybe I am not, and this just happens to work on a certain subset of the living, too. 
 
 
 
 
 
It doesnt have to be technology, but if a character in a story is using it, then either it _is_ predictable within certain acceptable tolerances, or the wielder is straight-up insane without any concern for what happens to any portion of the universe as a result of informing it, even if that change is slow painful immolation and that portion is confined entirely to him:
 
You can predict this sword.  Only one in ten times will a guy take it from,you and smack you with it.
 
You can predict this gun.  Only one in fifty of these have ever exploded in the user's face.
 
You cannot predict this magic!  It might create a tidal wave to destroy your enemies.  It might create a great chasm that swallows your allies.  It might so nothing but dree Prometheus and put you in his place.  It might just kill you for the heck of it and do nothing.  It might make your enemy king od the universe.
 
Eh.  I'm good with all of that. Let 'er rip!
 
It might be worse.
 
I said "let 'er rip!"
 
So...  Either reasonably predictable, or complete insanity.  Nothing else,is really justifiable.
 
Well, there _is_ a third thing, but it makes for both lousy gaming and lousy story telling:  as we cannot ever know or understand magic, and it does exist (which is difficult to prove if it exists as some inmate-able, unscience-able force), then we exist entirely at its whim, and there is nothing we can do about it, which doesn't really do anything except turn "magic" into "corporate money" and we leave fantasy completely to retuen to our dystopian reality.  It doesnt make good entertaibment because it is precisely what we are trying to entertain ourselves away from for a few hours.
 
 
 
 
 
Agreed on all counts.  I only add that it is difficult to tell _any_ story where magic truly is unknowable, unquantifiable, and still able to be wielded.
 
 
 
See?  I can totally,get into alchemical magic, though before anyone protests, I am already well-aware that all "alchemical magic" boils down to is a new set of eules dor chemistry, with a sometimes-ezisting restriction on who knows how to what, and without delving too deeply into the actual chemical makeup differences between "the femur of an ogre slain at midnight" and any other femur, inckydinf that of an ogre who died at two-ish on Wednesday, of old age.
 
But alchemy givws us healing potions and potions of fireball and strange liquids that transmute lead to gold, if onky for a while, and for me, the new (and real-world wrong) rules for chemistry is enough to be "magic."
 
 
 
If That is "Mage: the Ascension," I will defer to your knowledge.  I kind if got White Wolf burnout in the 90s, about the time I was reading my twenty-somethingth Vampire book.  I still havent been abke to make myself look back.  😕
 
 
 
I cannot attempt to answer for Chris (and given that it is two in the afternoon here (I mentioned I am at work, right?  I am buildinf the post on my not-long-or-frequent-enough-for-having-to-deal-with-the-public breaks), he has probably already answered for himself, but I _can_ offer some insight that might help:
 
He and I have remarkably similar preferences for magic- that is to say, that it is consistent enough to be manageable, even if I only certain special people can manage it at all.
 
Outside of the subject, a lot of us have been here for years, and accordingly percieve an intimacy that may not be reciprocated, or perhaps simply isn't recognized.  Thus, we might fire off less-formalized or less-complete thoughts when in a hurry or as a quick toss-out, expecting more comprehension or understanding of context than might actually happen.
 
 
I have done it quite often, amd on one occasion inadvertently. Really torqued off someone I _thought- I was sharing a humourous reference with (still sorry about that, LL- sincerely sorry).  I have worjed much harder to avoid that ever since (and you folks have endure _even longer_ posts because of it.
 
 
 
I feel I have to point rhis out, bwcause I dont believe Chris is the sort od person to _start_ an argument; I expect it was some sort of shorthand summation of his opinion that he thiught would be better-received.
 
I only offer this because it was Chris Goodwin- a relative stranger a couole of thousand mukes away from me- who told me "I live you, Man.  Men don't express that enough.  We as aren't allowes to.  But it is okay to love your friends, and if you love people, you should let them know, because they might need to hear it once in a while."
 
That lead to more tangential research on my part that forced me to realize that imthis is specifically a "white man" problem, as none of my non-white cowrkers or friends have the slightest problem with hugging each other or staying "love, you Dude."  (This peobabky explains a lot more history than I want to think about, and this clearly isnt the place for that (though for what it is worth, since this discovery, Hammerhead has not gone a single day without hearing it from me).
 
Anyway, for that reason and many others, if I ever think Chris is being anything but courteous, I always assume I missed somw important context.
 
And now You know all that.  I have got to find a way to work _sleep_ into my schedule more than every other night...
 
 
 
 
 
Okay, I dont know what i did wrong, but I wiped what I was trying to quote.
 
Still:  thank you, LL.  I have a feeling you get what I am trying to say.
 
Magic should be amazing, but it needs to be reliable and xonaiatent as well.
 
 

The world has seen exactly two "abnormally talented" individuals in the past, but not quite super-human.  They have been gone (killed in wartime) for a couple of generations at this point, and really only exist as historical clues for the characters to either discover or miss as they see fit.
 
I have only run this past two players thus far, as it is in-progress.  Both seem interested.
 
We will be doing "tiered" power structures, which is to say that there will be three options for how many starting points /disads you want (we play 2e: Disadplications bite hard because to get higher points, you take more of them.
 
The setting lore for the three levels (again, to be discovered by players) is essentially: one abducted ancestor is level1.   Level 1 is primarily increased characteristics, though a minor power may occur.
 
One abductee ancestor _on each side_ (ie, one in the lineage or each parent) is level 2.  This is primarily powers, but no characterisitcs will  exceed maxims.
 
One actual "talented" individual as a parent (it is possible to have a power or trait and never actually know it: very few modern people ever have to _really push_ their strength, or run from certain death, etc) and one adbductee or talented person in the lineage from the other parent yields level 3, which is traditional "super hero" mix of both powers and characteristics.
 
Powers (and certain characteristics may; havent decided yet) have some sort of "control roll;" this will weigh heavier on level 3 characters, obviously.  This is an enforced power limitation that can be bought off with experience, etc. as can any other such limitations.
 
The characters will, in the initial session, be being "helped" individulally by various organizations, as they have found themselves with these abilities and very poor control.
 
I have not decided on the organizations, though clearly, with perhaps one exception, the goal is to control the  character and to to recreate the abilities.  I am leaning heavily- if I have enough players commit- to having _one_ organization genuinely interested in helping the character because he needs help, and then of course, the things to learn are too good to pass up.
 
Level three, having the most disadplications already, will have hanging over them that a small amount of their character points will not be spent by them, but by me, at inopportune times (I am thinking 10 to fifteen points for a 300 pt character, but I will get that sussed out as I go).
 
During the game, EP will be rewarded more-or-less "by the book," meaning that characters of higher starter power level will likely earn experience a bit slower-- that whole "more powerful / less powerful" thing.  I am okay with this, as it gives tier 1 and tier 2 characters a bit of lead to 'catch up,' so to speak.  
 
Again, I am not entirely sure how it will shake out in the final form, but that is the preliminary.  I am thinking of mandatory Hunters-  the "helpful organizations" from which they have escaped (save the altruistic one, if I decide do include it.  The idea is that, should the players not figure it out within... Say, four sessions or so-  then rhe altruistic organization dumps the character they are helping, having seen a pattern of talented people popping up and "disappearing."  (I may throw in a government angle, but I am always leery of such a thing: realistically, PCs do not have a snowball's chance against a national government determined to capture and hold them or otherwise "solve" the problem).  So if the PCs havent figured it out, the one group will info dump somethinf to the effect of "you have to go!  You can't stay here!  It is too dangerous for _all_ of us!  You were never here; you don't know us; we don't know you, but listen: you are not alone!  There are other like you!  There are othera like you, amd we have reason to bekieve that you are _all_ in danger.  Find them.  Find the others; you are stronger together!  Stay hidden, but stay together!"
 
Or something like that.  As a sort of "proof of the pudding (and to add a layer of mystery), when they do meet up and befin to work together, I am thinking of just dumping five character points onto them each time they pick up a new someone as part of their team.
 
Then there will be a three or four sessions of "on the run" (and the altruistic organization will be a closed door to them at this point; they won't find a trace of it anywhere) and from their, I would like to work in a couple of complete arcs of actual superhero / secret identity / colorful costumes stuff, with honest to goodness super villains (whose powers have the same source, of course).  I _may_ let one or two of the villains have ties to one or more od the organizations the PCs were being "helped" by (and probably will, if the players want to chase those threads).
 
Hopefully at least _one_ of the characters will have discussed "my nutty grandmother who is in an,institution because she believes she was abducted by aliens, which should trigger  a cascade of "alien abduction?  Wierd!  Me, too!", as I intend to present framework histories (not complete backstories, but "interesting details about your life," (they should not suspect anything, as I have done rhis before- not regularly, but as a means to pushing them toward bexoming a cohesive team-- you all fought in the same war on the same,front-- that sort of thing, and just to keep them grounded, I have always thrown in an offbeat detail or two "just for fun.")
 
And just about the time they are really adapting to this superhero thing-- remember they are the first od their kind; this world will not even have them as fiction, if I can work that in without giving away anything)-
 
About the time they get used to it, there is an en masse attempt to take them down, durinf which time they will winnow down the strength of the secret agencies and perhaps even rhe military---
 
And the aliens will return.
 
And that is where I am stumped.  Why?  Why are the aliens back?  I would like do avoid the bulk of rhe tropes, obviously, but that leaves me nothing but "hey, we accidentally vreated auper beings, but son't worry!  We would like to set that right," and frankly, I dont like that.  I suspect the reason that the teopes have become tropes ("we are here to harvest our bioweapons;" "we need to run some more tests;" "why jave you not,taken over this world?  You were programmed to do so!" etc have all become,tropes is because they work reasonably well as-is.  Still, I would like do,come,up with something just a bit,off the beaten path, but still ominous to,crescendo,what I see as,a,three-year campaign.
 
 

I am actually preparing one now.
 
All supers are the children or grandchildren of alien abductees.
 
As there has been no "alien contact" as of yet, ....
 
 
 

The Champions universe, like Marvel and DC and the Forgotten Realms, is a kitchen sink of ideas... super science, mutants, magic, aliens, beings from alternate dimensions, you name it, it's all in there.
 
Have you ever run or played in a campaign setting where the source of superpowers was limited to a single source?  All mutants, all from an alien virus (Wildcards), all super-science (super soldiers, cyborgs), all psychic manifestations, etc?  (Scott Bennie's Gestalt setting always fascinated me.)
 
My wife ran one of my favorite campaigns with an all-cyborgs theme.... there were no innate superpowers, only cyborgs and robots.  I find the constraints really satisfying, as the world and story having a solid thematic basis really helps things hold together.  You can have really great adventures in a kitchen sink, but I feel the constraints make it easier to achieve when everyone is on-board with the idea.

(I hope that came across as courteously as I intended.  I _like_ Doc D, and don't want anyine thinking I am being flippant here.)

Before getting started here, let's remember that I have _never_, not once, pretended to enjoy dramatic fantasy, and have always been pretty open that the reason is "I don't like magic."
 
Yes; I have totally also always voiced the idea that "DnD magic feels more like the magic of most fantasy fiction than does any HERO System magic."
 
However, the two are _not_ contradictory: fantasy magic typically has no rhyme or reason.  DnD magic suits that well.
 
Just as a quick recap:
 
Always open about not liking fantasy.
Always open about preferring that magic make sense and follow certain patterns, even if those patterns are completely arbitrary.
Always open about not liking magic in general (though I will take magic over elves any day of the week, but I am pretty open about that, too).
 
Extremely open that my first love, RPG-wise, will always be Classic Traveller, which is rumored to be quietly a-magical.
 
When FRED landed and we were all discussing Steve'a merger of all the various genres into one continuum and our various opinions in it, I remember being the only one whose biggest complaint was "what is thia2 magic nonsense?  Why do superheroes and science fiction and distant aliens have to be tied to some kind of "ebb and flow of magic in the universe"?!  (Frankly, I _still_ find that offensive, but hey; since I don't use it, I can let it go).  I remember being told that it wasnt a big deal and I remember being told it was a silly complaint in light of [insert next guy's personal opinion of the all-in-one timeline].
 
I have made no secret that in fantasy, I will almost always play a human, usually some sort of fighter (and always not a wizard), but as I can be periodically be talked into playing a dwarf i9r variant humanoid of non-magical origin, it is probably better to say "I don't play magical races," but it really,is a foregone conclusion after being completely open about prefering all-human parties.  That actually bleeds into my sci-fi, too.  I don't force it, mind you, but it is by far my preference.
 
I could go on, but since I already have, let me just say in short that I am tripping over my jaw upon realizing that, even after all these years of complete openness about all of this, "Duke isn't really into magic" comes as a surprise to _anyone_, particulalry you, Doc. 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
I don't really see how the two notions- "not liking magic" and "putting technology in with the magic" are connected.
 
I mean, I have seen it, obviously, and in general I don't really care for it, probably because of the magic.  However, as I have said, it is in dramatic settings that "magic is mysterious and does what it does (like gain exactly one die of effect each time I get that crazy 'does anyone else feel like they have leveled up?" sensation after taking down a band of forest brigands or some such) without rules or regulations, etc, etc.
 
Outside of dramatic settings?  Yeah; I am fine with it.  It lends itself to anything that doesnt take itself seriously because without a sensibke framework behind it, it is sifficult for me to take it seriously.  I make it a point every few years to reread DeChancie's Skyway trilogy (at least the first two books) as well as Turtledove's Case of the Toxic Spell Dump.  Magic abounds in that book, and that book is _awesome_!
 
 
 
 
 
Every game from every company has rules that regulate magic, in particular breaking it into dice and how to increase those dice and what counteracts, weakens, or increases those dice. It's pretty much a science already.  I think it might be _explanation_ that you don't like, and my friend, I am cool with that.  Play what _you_ like; read what _you_ like (though if you have any love for puns and nowadays-incredibly-dated-pop-culture-references, I highly encourage you to give Toxic Spell Dump a read). 
 
 
 
 
I don't play Glorantha for the same reason I dont play much of any fantasy:
 
Magic doesn't trip my  trigger as presented in most games and books and movies.  HERO, by its nature, offers a "magic system" I _do_ like, probably because it is an honest-to-Pete _system_.  Even then, given a choice between "game with magic" and "gake without," it's a pretty rare day for me to pick "with."
 
 
 
 
I had a few sacred cows like that early on, when I was trying to figure out how to make HERO magic feel like "magical magic," until a friend pointed out that all observation is science.
 
In this case, if you cast Fireball and you reliably get a fireball...  
 
Or your fireball gets more of X tied to definite triggers like charms, scrolls, or "levelling up," it is already a science; it lacks only explanation of where the fire comes from.
 

 
Anyway, it is getting late, and I would like to go through a xoh2ole more 4e books before turning in.
 
 
Good night, folks!
 
 

I was unaware of this about Glorantha... and, while I haven't had a whole lot of interest in it over the years it's been around, now I have zero. 

While you are not wrong, Doc-- magic should have a certain "it just is, without explanation" type nature to _feel_ like magic (and this has been a long-standing gripe for me with regards of making "magic" in the HERO System-  it's essentially super Powers with time delay and maybe a little bloodletting-
 
I actually (personally) prefer the HERO approach to magic because it is _magic_ that I have never found appealing in a dramatic setting.  It is the reason I generally do not care for fantasy, even as reading material.
 
Even as a kid, magicians and such had no appeal for me.  😕
 
when I include "magic" in my fantasy, I want it to follow structured principles, like any other science.
 
 

I play both, but in Hero I tend to play spellslingers simply because I (usually) get to write up the spells.  I love axes, but telekinesis is way more versatile than an axe.

I, for one, would be sad to see social justice removed from D&D products. I happen to think social justice is a good thing.