Labrat

Re: Turakian Almanac (non-official) I'm trying to think of a better way to cover the Resources. Also I'm going to eventually put a .gif of the sectional maps in there. What could be made better, Martin?

Re: Turakian Almanac (non-official) Ok, here's the first attempt with little effort to format. This is just the Westerlands Realms and only the bare bones info. Right now I'm more interested in the formatting aspect. It's an .xls file and I didn't take time yet to convert it to any other type of format. You'll have to blow up the text, I wanted to condense it into as few pages as possible. Let me know what you think. Remember, it's not so much context right now, it's format, presentation and searchability that's important. I'm no layout expert. If you have a better idea regarding the presentation of general content, please let me know.

Re: Turakian Almanac (non-official) Duly noted. Hey, here's an idea to kick around. I'm adding a slot for an Earth 'Equivalent' culture for each region. For example, the Mhendarian Palatinate could be more like Great Britain and Szarvasia could be like Germany. This way, if you need pictures of architecture or if you would like to flavor your game environment, you could refer back to the medieval countries of our known world. How does this idea fly?

Hey guys I'm using a system that relies heavily on using expendible foci for spell components. That means that spell casters can only use their spells as many times as they have the appropriate foci. Now, there are: Easy to obtain foci Difficult to obtain foci Very difficult to obtain foci Extremely difficult to obtain foci I am assuming that since the spells are paid for in CP's that there should be a reasonable number of components on a caster's person at the beginning of the game. I also think that the number of components on that person should possibly be more for those foci harder to obtain. Here's my rough proposal: # starting components/spell = 100/AP + N Easy to obtain, N = 0 Difficult to obtain, N = 1 Very difficult to obtain, N = 2 Extremely difficult to obtain, N =3 Thus, for a 50 AP spell, the caster would start the game with 100/50 = 2 'Charges' + N For a 20 AP spell, the caster would start the game with 100/20 = 5 'Charges' + N These numbers are heavily biased for game mechanics. So the player should be able to change charges around, for example, she can trade in two 20 AP components for one 40 AP component, etc. per her preference. The rationale for having more components for harder to get components is this: If you spend them unwisely, you may not be able to spend them when you need them. Casters will be much more frugle with the harder to obtain components. Plus a caster is more likely to stock up on harder to get items to fill his pouches than easier ones to obtain. Of course logic will affect these numbers. A difficult to obtain 'large rock' attached to a 10 AP spell can't be carried around in great quantities... so it's not a hard and fast rule and the special effects of the component will help dictate what is practical. Comments?

Re: Turakian Almanac (non-official) Ah yes, I'm not a big fan of more work. The ET will be pointed to as needed. This is more just a compilation of quick reference lists, not a comprehensive table of contents. For example, if I wanted an idea of a unique beastie to throw at my PCs who happen to be crossing the desert, I could go to the Critter chart and sort by climate -- odds are good I'll find stuff that I hadn't considered before. Or if I needed to set the next leg of my adventure in a realm that wasn't influenced by the High Church, I can sort or search the lists for where that would be. Or if I needed a pre-generated renown glass-blowing contact... well you get the picture. This isn't intended to be anything but a search engine that goes a bit deeper than the ET.

Re: Herophile Fantasy art

Re: Turakian Almanac (non-official) Good on ya, MVC! I thought I was the Last MS Caveman.

Re: Turakian Almanac (non-official) Why soitenly. Hey, QM, help me figure out the best format for this. I started out making the Realms cross-reference in Excel just to have everything side-by-side, but I know I'm going to get egged for it if I leave it that way. Wish I weren't so lazy, then I could probably make a database for this stuff. Thoughts?

I'm compiling a cross-reference to help get all of the FH/TA material into a managable, easy-to-reference file and I was planning on doing the following: Part I: The Realms of Ambrethel. Compiling all of the stat info at the beginning of each realm for quick reference. Want to know which realm makes ships? Need to know which kingdoms accept Trolls as citizens? Which areas are considered 'tropical'? This will be the place to find this info. Part II: Creatures Aplenty. This will be a quick refernce guide as to which creatures (and normal animals) from the FHB and MMM can be found where, which ones are hunter-types, how many can be expected, and how rare an encounter should be. Compiled from text and context clues as well as common sense. Part III: Who's Who in Ambrethel. A compilation of the NPC write-ups in the FH/TA books as well as a quick-guide in order to best find such groups as pirates, vampires, great temples, and recluse sorcerers. Since TA can be tedious to weed through for the particulars I thought that I would give it a shot. If this is redundant with existing projects, please let me know. Also if you want to contribute then I would be happy to collaborate. The final product will be posted here, or if Hero will want it, maybe it could be attached to the 'Free Stuff' page. Now the only thing I need to know is if there's interest in such a document.

Re: Fantasy Hero combat slower? There's got to be a way to link hit success and hit location into one roll... it's an idea that I've had floating around my already-too-crowded cranium for many years but I've never really sat down to figure out what that solution may be. Any suggestions? -Maybe a house rule that suggests all shots to be 'called shots' and the ones that can't be called are 'automatically' chest shots or something like that. I'm not sure...

I'm gearing up a Turakian Age campaign that will kick off with some pretty foul dealings of Taal Salira (FH p393) and I've been kind of winging some background info that I put to the board for refinement and commentary. I figure that a power-hungry up-and-coming priestess of the vague 'God of Curses' might be an excellent foil for a new group of heroes. This should be fun. Of course there will ultimately be a link to Kal-Turak in all this, but I don't want to tip anything off in that direction here. Well you can't really start using Taal Salira without some in-depth knowledge about Tharex, God of Curses. There's very little reference material that Steve has provided other than the blurb mentioned in TS's write-up and the blurb mentioned for 'minor High Faith dieties' on p212 of the Turakian Age, so I started assembling the following lore (very sketchy first thoughts just jotted down this morning): "Tharex, God of Curses (TA p212; no other details?) Tortured and kept locked away by Ziandwyrth for long ago tricking him into sharing his madness with him... a son of the god born from chaos' womb, blood and laughter, slaughter at a festival of wine - blamed on the Laughing One. Tharex has a bite mark on his shoulder where Ziandwyrth infected him internally with the curse of internalizing all insanity. Tharax is now the possessor of the teeth of the restless and insane... or the cursed." Is there other mentions of Tharex that I'm missing? Anybody got any good Tharex/Taal Salira bits that they've used? RAM PS: It would be nice if we started a more extensive almanac for 'straight up' TA campaigning, kind of an extension of the more 'official material' for us lazy enough to stick to source material as-is. If you think that this is attractive, let me know and maybe we can start compiling.

Re: Fantasy Hero combat slower? Not only that, but basically you're working mostly with SPD 4 or less (which can be regulated to the 'average' SPD 3 for faster group combats). Case in point: SPD 1 is hardly used SPD 2 is for mostly 'non-combatants' and is not used often SPD 3 is most commonly used, so most of the action tends to be in this phase in my experience, this is where DEX's really come into play for initiative purposes and it's why a lot of combat-based characters opt for Fast Draw SPD 4 is the next commonly used If anything can take a hit in Heroic Level games, it's the REC Phase. If characters aren't allowed to recover, then combat tends to go even faster -- that can be good and bad. YMMV. There's not as many one-on-one battles as in supers, so usually there's more movement tracking but that is also a generality inherent in the HERO way of things. That's my experience anyway.

Will it be tech heavy? Will it have 'write-ups' for even mundane equipment like tents, lanterns and tinderboxes (something I gave up on)? Can we get a rough estimate regarding how much of the book is dedicated to each sub-genre (Fantasy/Modern/Near-Future/Space)? Will non-human/non-earth/extra-dimensional tech be included? (although the alien tech is well covered in the Spacer's Toolkit) Although a separate 'Enchanted Items' book is planned, will there be any in the HSEG? Have these questions already been addressed? (If so, I apologize) I'm excited about it, it will certainly be my next purchase) BTW, can we get a more specific ETA for the Combat Handbook? Thanks! RAM

Re: Fantasy Web Resources Cool, thanks!

Re: Character Sheet Layout I like this idea immensely. I suppose that you could take this concept a bit further for a group willing to do so and totally 'black box' the PC sheet allowing only the GM access to it (even the player might be willing to part from the mechanical end). That way the PC isn't thinking, 'OK my DEX is 23 and I have two CSLs in my attack so if I use a 'Sweep' Maneuver I'd get...', but instead is thinking "Should I try to take this foe out in a straight on strike even though I don't yet know his defesnive capabilities?" Or something to that effect. Yes, I like this idea immensely. Good one.

Re: Alternate Turn Modes (WARNING: Math/Physics Intensive) Why not just switch on an in-house rule where Running needs to apply a turn-mode? Then the Running/Flight cost paradigm could still be justified as this: Flight = 2D Movement + Height Movement Advantage + Extra Knockback Disadvantage Running = 2D Movement Would this be easier than tracking more math and charts?

Re: Fantasy Web Resources Great work Curufea! I have a few that I found (and didn't see in this thread): Art and Visuals: http://www.artmotive.com/rpg-art.html http://www.selinafenech.com/rpgart.html http://www.pen-paper.net/artshop.ph...emyJarvisRPGArt http://www.alanpollack.com/pollackrpgart.htm Random Society Generator: http://foreverworld.com/tools/society_generator.html Any way to make this thread sticky? Any way to compile the links at the top categorically? Any chance of me being quiet and going away? (being quiet and going away now...)

PBEM Magazine Homepage: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/pbem_magazine.html Art and Visuals: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/ag http://www.artmotive.com/rpg-art.html http://www.selinafenech.com/rpgart.html http://www.pen-paper.net/artshop.php?op=showsection&sectionid=JeremyJarvisRPGArt http://www.alanpollack.com/pollackrpgart.htm Random Village Generator: http://foreverworld.com/tools/society_generator.html I'm trying to find a few good lists for small pictures to use for more visual PBeM experience... please post 'em if you find 'em! (Please respect the proper copyrights...) Edit: D'oh! I guess I should have put these in Curufea's Resource Hub. I'll cut and paste the ones that I can't find there already. Sorry 'bout that. END THREAD

Re: Wasteland Hero, 10 Years After Thanks for the props guys... And excellent job AlHazred on hooking us up with that freebie PH! Aw man, I wanted to expand my horizons into Fantasy Hero and Star Hero before I went back to fix Wasteland Hero. You guys are making it hard to ignore. There's so much to change and update. The first thing would be the Enviroment section. Whoo. I just poured ideas out without too much thinking wrt starvation/dehydration and radiation. It's been playtested and it is a bit klunky, but then again I knew what I meant when I wrote it (I think some of the Radiation guidelines were extracted from that .txt version of Star Hero that used to be on the Red October BBS). I put most of my work into the actual 'world' and that came out ok, but that could be expanded too. I kind of still like the simplicity of having two professional archtypes (Towners and Wanderers) but that would probably need expanding too. What did you guys like/dislike about WH? Any comments would help... Drat, now I'm getting pumped about updating it. I'll have to lose that Word-based HTML format though for the web-site. Ick.

Re: Wasteland Hero, 10 Years After Aye, it is I, me Lord. Second manifestation as 'Labrat', aka Chiral Man on ye olde Hero Boards. The nickname sort of expired on me. But now I'm back full swing in Heroville. The links work??? I tried and tried this afternoon and got 404'ed out the door. Well, that's good news. Too bad the last "Update" was in 1998! Ha ha. Thanks for pointing that out, LL. I wonder if any of my 'Plot Seeds' would be applicable to the d20 GW, I haven't been into GW since 3rd Edition. Very cool, thanks again.

Re: Wasteland Hero, 10 Years After Awesome link! Thanks, and I totally agree that there is a gaping void in the Hero Universe that needs to be answered with a not-too-distant-future-gone-wrong type of setting. If Mad Max 4 ever makes it out then there may be a surge of interest... but meanwhile Post-Apoc HERO could be used to ride the wave of popularity that the newer zombie flicks are enjoying! Zombie movies are a great application of post-apocalyptic literature that gets neglected when speaking of the genre. But again I ramble...

Re: What if END was "Super!" When was the last time someone mentioned using 'STN' for both Stun and END purposes? The more winded you get, the easier you go down... It's-a half-a baked-a idea! (my Italian is a bit rough) I always thought that would work well, make sense, simplify and keep power gamers in check...

Sheesh, I was just looking through the 'Links' section and saw my old 'Wasteland Hero' link is still there from back in the 'Bruce' days. That material officially turns 10 years old this year! Yay! I just checked and I think that 'geocities' finally stopped supporting the link. It makes me genuinely sad. It was fun to put together and I still have the core docs on a 5 1/4" floppy somewhere around here... (j/k, I upgraded to a 3 1/2"). Too bad the 'old' Hero started to crash and burn just as I was gearing up to send the first 'official' draft to Harlick. I might have been on the second edition by now... I had a few good runs with the rules. Truth be told there's a lot of compiled material in there (I hope I gave all credit where credit is due, can't quite remember...). I've got absolutely nothing on Keith who started Savage Earth around the same time I guess (is that right KC?) - and he's still running strong I guess! Good on ya Keith! Good memories. I survived Fuzion-ating it anyway, so that's gotta be worth something! What's the latest on an official Post-Apoc genre book for Hero? Personally I think it would fit in well as a Cyber-Hero sub-sub-genre. Not quite 'Star Hero', and my version isn't much like Keith's 'Fantasy Hero'-like world. (Never was a big fan of anthromorphic animals - don't hurt me - but at least that gave us distinctive differences which avoided redundancy). I would definitely take a different approach if I did it over again, although I did depart from the original Gamma World Hero ("Gamma Hero" was ultimately used by Heirax) that it started out as, I turned it into my own creation the deeper I went, until 'voila' Wasteland Hero was born. Anyway, enough maudlin blabbering. Just another old guy reminiscing about the old days. Hope y'all had fun with it if you used it. Sorry about never getting the 'Altered Life Forms' up there! Maybe I'll back her up and try her again sometime if the interest is there and I'm not infringing on legal holds. If you are interested, one of the Wasteland Hero runs is still up at yahoogroups.com (Wasteland_Hero@yahoogroups.com). Like I said, it was a heck of a run. Gonna go brood some more now, Ron

Re: PS: Component Design I've taken to using the unmodified Turakian Age approach, good, bad or indifferent. So basically Magic Powers are based on a RP/3 cost structure and there's generally a Magic Skill Roll requirement involved. Different colleges require separate purchase of the proper (Power) Magic Skill, Elementalism, Wizardry, Druidry, etc... to use a Spell from a given college you have to have the appropriate Power Skill associated with it. This is why skill modifiers may work as you proposed, Black Rose, and that is also why knowledge of how to make the spell components may at least be at a FAM level provided that the proper craftwork/artisan skills are also known. An additional point that I wanted to add now that I'm thinking of it is this, if you were really a wizard-type who happened to be a good artisan with, say, woodcarving, would it be practical to assume that you would prefer spells that had a wood-art type of component? Not for nothing, but I think that I would. I'm just throwing that out there as a 'hmm' point. Granted maybe not a lot of spells use components that require finely crafted woodwork, but it may help sometimes. All this being said, these limited circumstances may very well justify a 'PS: Wood-based Component Craftsman' skill purchase with minimal chance of abuse or game-play imbalance. Just throwing some thoughts out there. Oh, and good point on the proper use of the Inventor/Spell Research roll, BR. I think that this may have more to say on the PS: Component Engineer than any seeings how the egg (component) must be there for the chicken (spell) to manifest in the first place... another 'hmm' point well received.

Re: Random Musing about PC Concepts Meh... it isn't really about 'forcing' it upon players as much as it is intended to be an experiment to see how well players would do with using a pre-generated background hook that's vague enough to allow for creative tinkering. If they don't like it then they can chuck it. I wouldn't want it to be a heavy-handed attempt to 'please the GM's needs', it would be an exercise in providing a more realistic starting place in the world the GM will spring the PCs out of. There's no intention of being a dictator about it. I'm still on the fence though.