rravenwood

11 hours ago, GM Joe said:

13 hours ago, Tech said:

If Espionage had rules for using polyhedral dice with HERO system, it most likely came from an Adventurer's Club newsletter, as shown below for you.

 

Wow, I'd forgotten about that newsletter! Such an interesting take on the idea.

 

Do you happen to know when that issue of the newsletter came out?

It's from Hero Games' Newsletter vol 1 no 2, which doesn't contain a publication date, but by taking clues from things mentioned within, can roughly be placed to late 1983 or early 1984.  (It mentions Gencon '83 in the past tense, and asks readers hold off on mailing in "orders for Champions III till June first.")

8 hours ago, L. Marcus said:

stealthy Zeppelins

Is that a cover band who begins their set with James Taylor only to suddenly detour into "Kashmir"?

Sweep was introduced in the original Fantasy Hero, as one of the 3-point Weapon Maneuvers characters could purchase.  In 4E Champions / HSR it became one of the optional combat maneuvers.

Regarding the flexibility of combat maneuvers in past editions:

While acknowledging that it wasn't placed in the most helpful place in the 2nd edition rulebook, I do have to point out that even back then the Combat Maneuvers were intended to be more encompassing than their names might otherwise suggest: see "Special Effects" on page 47, the last 4 paragraphs.  I won't present the full 4 paragraphs here, but sizeable excerpts which seem most relevant to the current discussion:

Quote

"Combat in CHAMPIONS has also been fully explained in game terms. But no system, however complex, can include every possible combination of punch, kick, and ray blast. The combat maneuvers have names simply to represent the general form of an attack. The fictitious execution of an attack should not be constrained by the names of the maneuvers."

Quote

"Many different maneuvers fit under the styles of attack maneuvers listed. Snap kicks and elbow smashes are maneuvers that are not listed because they fit the same general game modifiers as a punch"

Quote

"Other maneuvers can have flexible effects also. A haymaker can be a double handed smash, a kick, or a full uppercut."

Quote

"Martial Throws can be as simple as a foot, thrust in the way of a running character."

(The last quoted example could be interpreted such that referees might allow use of the Martial Throw maneuver even to those who didn't purchase MA, but I'll just leave that as-is without further comment or speculation...)

As a side note, 1E didn't include the "Special Effects" section, but the description of Energy Blast contains a reference to that missing section ("see section on Special Effects"), so it seems that it was at least intended to be included there.  (And yes, intention and execution are two different things )

3E relocated this material into the Combat chapter, in a subsection titled "Combat Special Effects" (p.74), and the equivalent in 4E Champions can be found on page 157.

Love that album, but had no idea until now that he made a German version!

7 hours ago, GM Joe said:

The Kickstarter campaign page has a decent explanation, but the tl;dr is that the three-book version is the more recent and theoretically less errata-prone edition. I have the three-book version, but since I don't play T5 I haven't really looked into the errata issues.

The last edition (5.10, if I recall correctly) appears to still be generating a lot of errata.  Unfortunately, as well, no one seems to have taken over on the validating and compiling of reported T5 errata since Don McKinney passed away.

20 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I completely missed T4, and didn't even hear of T5 until it, too, was out of print.  I have yet to get my hands on either

I picked up PDFs of T5 when they had a Bundle of Holding deal a while ago.  I can't say I've actually read through it all, but between reading some, doing a lot of browsing through, and then taking the ever-growing and not-uncommonly astounding errata reports on the CotI forums into consideration, I'm left with the impression that T5 is a bit of a hot mess.  I suspect it's probably best as a source of ideas for tinkerers and house rulings.

Yup, Combat Skill Levels in 6E still allow them to be allocated to increase damage as well as OCV/DCV.

6 hours ago, DShomshak said:

For instance, as you drive up I-5 you might catch a glimpse of Gospodor's Monument Park (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospodor_Monument_Park).

I know that this wasn't directed at me, but regardless: thank you!  I've driven past this many times over the years and never knew what it was.

Saw Avatar: The Way of Water today.  I enjoyed it, but felt that it should have pushed into new directions more than it did and not engage in as much apparent "we need to include this because the original had it too" as it did.  Don't get me wrong, there are many other sequels which are far more guilty of that sort of thing than this one, but it was noticeable enough to me.  Hopefully the subsequent films in the series really kick off into entirely new and different story dimensions.

3 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

There's no expiration date stamped on the book...

1000x this!

Best wishes for him and his family - here's hoping for a swift and full recovery!

So does 3 Carlos = 1 giraffe?

Just now, Cygnia said:

Or to a giraffe?

Just now, rravenwood said:

So does 3 Carlos = 1 giraffe?

jinx!

Hope you feel better soon!

7 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

A Charlie Brown Christmas: Classic that laments the commercialization of Christmas*, with one of the best jazz scores ever.

[emphasis mine] Oh yeah - it's just not Christmas to me without listening to Vince and the gang!

On a different note, we finished watching 1899 last night, and now I can fully second Scott's earlier recommendation of this.  It does take it's time to get started, but I think it's worth it.

7 hours ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

If the caption was "Thanksgiving Food Shopping" then this would be my family to a T!

17 hours ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

The smaller burgers need to have even smaller burgers and so on, so it's burgers all the way down!

On 11/28/2022 at 6:40 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

1899 on Netflix.  A woman doctor is a passenger on a German liner bound for New York, when the ship intercepts a message purportedly sent from another liner from the same company that’s been missing for four months.  The passengers are displeased with the detour.   Aboard the floating derelict, they find only one passenger, a 12 year old boy. Or is he the only passenger.   
 

A slow burn creeping dread sort of mystery that really feels like how a Calll of Cthulhu game should feel.  Soft recommendation as it’s creeeeeepy, and a lot folks here seem to be sensitive souls.   

(I really don't think my comments spoil anything at all, but I've hidden most of the below just to be on the safe side...)

My wife and I have so far watched the first two episodes of this, and...

My condolences for your loss.

5 hours ago, Juxtapozbliss said:

“Champions is different primarily because it’s such a wide-ranging genre that virtually anything is possible — so the full HERO System character creation rules almost always apply, and apply in just about any way you care to use them. (Additionally, both the HERO System 5 th Edition, Revised rulebook and other parts of this chapter provide plenty of suggested powers and abilities for superhumans.) So, this section is a fairly short one, containing just a few additional suggestions on various game elements that are particularly common to, or stereotypical of, the superhero genre.”

Based off that quote, it appears that you purchased the Champions genre book for 5th edition by Aaron Allston (your quote appears on page 63), which explains how to create a superhero game using the Hero System rules, but does not include those rules.  You'll need to purchase the Hero System 5th edition Revised rulebook to get the actual game rules.

55 minutes ago, Juxtapozbliss said:

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Champions Powers has examples of builds, Book of Templates has examples of full built characters like Superman with the numbers filed off.

 

I looked those up...they say 6th edition. How will that effect playing 5th edition? Will I need to convert something?

I believe the 5th edition equivalent of Champions Powers is called the UNTIL Superpowers Database, and I think there are 2 volumes of that.  Book of Templates is relatively new and I don't believe there was an equivalent for 5th edition (although I could be wrong).

The Watcher (Netflix): Started out promisingly, but my empathy/sympathy for the protagonist couple dropped sharply after the first few episodes, since by their own actions (and apparent lack of impulse control) they just made things worse for themselves.  Although I read that this was planned as a one-and-done, it seems like a second season has been greenlit, but I'll give that a pass.

Yeah, politics can have that effect

Fingers crossed - hoping all turns out well, Pariah!

10 hours ago, death tribble said:

Extra hour in bed.

Definitely a cause for cheer!

10 hours ago, death tribble said:

The clocks went back.

I'll say no more, as it would need to go into the "cranky" thread

Unless you have a group of players who are interested in the possibilities of being mutually unintelligible, establishing a common language is probably advisable.  Even with a common tongue in place, though, a language chart can still be devised - not everyone in the world will necessarily speak the "common" language (or perhaps at least not to a high degree of fluency), and characters who invest in other languages can be given opportunities to use them in the form of NPCs who aren't proficient in "common", or who use a different language to try and maintain some privacy of communication within their group ("<hrz'ark fo karr>" "My colleague admires your devotion to the cause..." "Psst... actually, he said he thinks you are a weak-willed fool!"), etc.