John Desmarais

Re: Sell me the FH line Grimoire: As much as I enjoy writing stuff up, having a large number of pre-gen spells is very handy. I used FMG to "bulk up" my spell system. Each spell in the book is written up with a set of standard variant versions. I found that of the variant version (the Master version) slid very nicely into the magic system I was using for my current game. Instantly, I had dozens dozens and dozens of extra spells to add into my system. Beastiary: My standard source for "normal" animals. Special creatures I may want to create myself, but thing like horse, bear, lion, wolf, etc, etc, etc should be standardized (and thus predictable to the players). MM&M: Harder than HB to justify if your plan is to write-up all of your own monsters, but that hardly makes it worthless. I use it a lot when I'm feeling lazy. Turakian Age: I don't use TA as the setting for my current game (it started before TA was available) and I doubt that I ever will use it as a setting; but it is a well designed world, and serves as a good example and a source of ideas to steal.

Re: Trek Hero PDF available

Re: Trek Hero PDF available Just in case no one has mentioned it in the past few hours - this stuff is just too cool.

Re: Implications of single-aspect magic on game worlds I would probably not refer to it as magic. Instead, I would call the gates a naturally occuring phenomenon that certain people has an ability to control. Once you start calling magic, some players can get into a certain rpg mind-set: If one type of magic exists, so must others. Which at best can be a nuisance, and at worst can constantly side-track your campaign. As for the impact on society, I would think that the biggest change would scale. Expansionist cultures will expand farther, colonial cultures will colonize further from their center, exploratory cultures will explorer farther from home, etc, etc. Also, on the economic front, unless opening gates is hard and the talent is rare, for the most part there will be no "expensive because it's exotic and from far way" type of items. (England will have spices ) No doubt, there will be at least one religion that will claim the gates are a way to heaven, and another that will proclaim them to be doorways to hell.

Re: Setting up a new game (general questions)

Re: Bringing new players to HERO System. Actually, to give a more meaningful answer, my expereince with gamers over the past 20-odd years (Oh my, am I really that old?) is that most gamers are willing to try almost any game system - so long as someone else is willing to GM. The only common exception to this that I have encountered has been a sub-set of the White Wolf WOD gamers who ONLY play WOD games (but the old curmudgeon simply chooses to not consider them to be "true gamers").

Re: Bringing new players to HERO System. Getting gamers to try Hero: that's easy. Finding gamers in North Carolina: that's hard.

Re: A question for those who have purchased turakian age Have you read the Fantasy Hero Grimoire? The TA magic system is decribed (briefly) in it. You will need this book as the TA book does not a large number of spells in it (it has spells that are very tied to the setting, but it release on the FHG for all of the "standard" stuff). I have been using the magic system is a non-TA game, and it's been working out well for me. The party mage has a fairly versatile set of spells without being noticable more powerful than the non-spellcasters. It's vanilla in the same way that Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms is vanilla. It's just that type of setting. Many cultures that are vaguely psuedo-medieval-european in feel. Mid to high magic. Most of your typical fantasy races (with a few non-typical ones thrown in). It's also got a lot of detail and is well written, so if this is the type of setting you, this is a good one to use. The Hero Beastiary is a good one to have as it has lots of "real" animals in it (in addition to the large number of fantasy critters). Even if I write up my own monsters, I like to have a standard source for normal animals. The Ultimate Martial Artists is handy, depending on the type of game you run. Lots of extra options for martial styles (or sword fighting styles). Because of the type of setting it is, experienced fantasy gamers will find a lot of things that are familiar to them (it's very similiar in flavor to what D&D players are used to). Experienced Hero gamers with no fantasy experience will find no special challenges in getting familiar with this setting versus any other.

Re: Not Again! I have most of the html stuff (I'm missing a few of the images, but I have all of the text/html). John D

Re: marvel conversions All of the write-ups on this site are personal interpretations. You really can not expect to be able to compare a write up of Thor done by one person (Sam Bell) with a write-up of the Hulk done by another (Chad Riley) and draw any type of linear consistency. If you compare Sam Bells' Thor with his other write-ups, you'll find a reasonable level of consistency among them. The same is true for the write-ups done by Chad Riley. But comparing Sam's Thor to Chad's Hulk is going to be a bit like comparing characters in your Champions game to characters in mine - without taking into consideration the GM stated power level of the campaigns. Personally, I find anyone's interpretation of published character's of interest - even if I don't always agree with the power levels given - just to see how different folks interpret the same source.

Re: Paging Dany St-Pierre I am not in a position to get Dany to reactivate the (having never even met said individual) but I do have an archive of most of what was one the site that I could make available to anyone who's looking for it. (Being a long time Pulp adventure fan, I've used much of this stuff in my own games).

Re: Space: 1889, HERO-style! I ran an 1889 game for while using Hero. Had much fun with it, but I'd never be able to find any of the game mechanic notes - they were sparse to being with (I found GDW's rules easy to convert to Hero on the fly) and I've moved three times since then.

Re: magic roll The magic skill roll is completely separate from any attack rool that might be required. If the spell is an attack (like Mind Control) than you would have to make the magic skill roll for the spell to work, and an (ECV based) attack roll to hit. John D.

Re: Only in Hero ID It is potentially appropriate for both of them. Some folks might also do the Shazam-type as a multform. I think buying all of his powers with the "only in hero form" lim is a little bit simpler, but I would allow either way. John D

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept? The "evil race" concept is really racist, but it is cliche'd. In some games this cliche' work, in others it doesn't. If you want a very "black and white with no shades of grey" view of good and evil in your campaign, than having a intrinsically evil race works well. As for "real Earth" stuff, when I run pulp games Germans and Japanese are always mostly evil - because this was true in the literary works that I am basing my games on. In modern day adventures I have no such thing as an "evil race" - instead I lean towards evil organizations and governments. John D

Re: New to HERO and looking for advice on some issues... I frequently use INT as the next level of tie-breaker for determining initiative (with two characters moving on the same phase with the same Dex I will allow the character with teh higer Int to move first). John D.

Re: Advice for a Pulp Hero campaign? Typically, for pulp games I use 50 point or 75 point base plus 50 points in disads (I don't like a lot of disads for pulp heroes). Normal characterisic Max assumed. No points spent for equipment that could by normal purchased in the time perid - points are spent for unique "signature" devices. Standard attacks top out around 9 damage classes. Resistant defense is virtually unheard of and low when available (guns and knives are dangerous things and should scary). Any and all powers (and talents with stop signs) must be approved by the GM (and it's gonna take a whole lot of justification to get the approval). John D

Re: SF Novels for Star Hero? The Humanx Commonwealth novels by Alan Dean Foster. I've used this as a setting for several Star Hero campaigns over the years. John D

Re: What the heck is BODY anyways? One of the supplements for 3rd Edition Champions (I can't remember if it was Champions II or Champions III) suggested this as an optional rule to make Body a more meaningful stat. John D.

Re: What the heck is BODY anyways?

Re: Movement benchmarks

Re: my new Starhero campaign PDF files created with a Digitial Rights Management scheme involved. Your Adobe Acrobat reader must be "activated" as an eBook reader and a key for the PDF in question must be present to view the file - which becomes a minor nuisance if you want the PDF on a different computer. It just adds an extra layer of inconvienence that I would rather not deal with. I'm not overly keen on eBooks anyway, particularly if what I really wanted was an actual printed book. John D.

Re: Ncm:15

Re: my new Starhero campaign Secure PDFs - bleah!

Re: my new Starhero campaign Cool. I have been painstakingly saerching for and aquiring as many of the old Space Opera books as I can find with eye towards doing the same thing (who would have thought that things like this would be so hard to find 20 years later). John D.