Glupii

Re: Early Firearms I know this is a long lost post and likely nobody is interested in this but I was stationed in Berlin GE. during the occupation and during this time we were told during our indoctrination for the Berlin Brigade that while the Politzei (sp?) were not allowed to carry any cartridge charged weapon (aka gunpowder weapons) that they should not be underestimated because their air guns were extreamly lethal. No idea how much fact there is in what we were told but there you go.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group... Not a quote but a character name of a player who ran in my group. Name: Demorol Darvocet Race: High Elf

Re: Looking for stats on Civil War era Artillery pieces OK I will try to look for posts by you and see if I can narrow that down. I would be very interested to see what you have. Thanks! This is great.

Is there any place in any of the books that talks about stats for mid 1800's era smooth bore and rifled cannon stats? I have not be fortunate enough to locate this in any of the books. I see a few promising threads that MIGHT contain something like this but I do not have time at the moment to look though 100+ pages in many of these threads to find any mention of them and am hoping someone can recall a specific thread to narrow down my search. We are trying to figure out what some good stats would be for this weapon: http://civilwarwiki.net/wiki/1.5_inch_Hughes_Breechloading_Cannon

Re: What "Pulp" have you read lately ? Two words: Red Panda

Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game) replied to in email

Re: How long to learn or improve a skill, spells, etc? This seems only fair to me since as you are using the skill, you are also building up the characteristic that it is based on. And they are small enough that they do not add up quick unless you spend an overwhelmingly large section of gameplay using all of one skill type, for example, constantly rolling knowledge skills and sciences, etc. And to me, if a person is doing that, it is the essence of Role play and I gladly concede awards for that.

Re: Fairytale Hero Hmmm, I have never considered this as an option and doubt it would work for my players. They are far too methodical and everything would have to have an explanation and make sense which is NOT a hallmark of fairytales. But an interesting genre just the same.

Re: How long to learn or improve a skill, spells, etc?

Re: Handling Scrounging in Post-Apocalypse HERO (or any PA game) I can speak to the effectiveness of Tancred's programs. I have worked on a few as well both with him and on my own. They help. I would love to see your tables and see what it would take to automate them. I am particularly interested in that the next Hero game I run for our group will likely be a PA, gritty, PA Game (somewhere between Gen 0-2) and could see a real use for it in that. I would gladly help automate for you in exchange for your lists so that I co not have to reinvent the wheel to do this.

Re: How long to learn or improve a skill, spells, etc? We have toyed around with ideas similar to this in the past and have always opted to not use them because of the effect it had on playability and the primary focus of a Hero game (or any rpg game for that matter), as Steve Long has quoted so many times, the story. We assume that skill raises come from the use of the skills during play. New skills/spells have to be justified but largely are accepted. One thing we HAVE started doing is keeping track of specific areas of use and awarding XP's accordingly. It adds a little overhead to the GM but he wrote a little program to ease this burden. The program works like this, Each night, the GM awards our XP or at least a portion of our XP into the program, then records our uses of certain things. Character A did some melee combat and some missile weapon combat so each of those gets a use, he also used his conversation and other presence based skills to gain information so that may get one or two uses. Finally he was stealthy in sneaking around the mansion gathering clues, so dex based skills gained a use. Melee Combat Skills: 1 Ranged Combat Skills: 1 Presence Based Skills: 2 Dex Based Skills: 1 Total uses: 5. Since he was awarded 1 point, this is split up among these uses accordingly so the program adds to previous totals: Melee Combat Skills: .2 Ranged Combat Skills: .2 Presence Based Skills: .4 Dex Based Skills: .2 So when a player has a full point in one of those areas, he is award that point to be spent on skills in those areas. So if when these are added to his previous totals he ends up with a full point in Presence based skills, he can use it to either up his presence or one of his presence based skills. The GM has final say on if a skill qualifies for it or not. (Note, I have no idea if these are the actual categories he uses, I am just summarizing) On occasion he also awards us general points that can be spent on anything. But we have found this really helps us focus out characters and we have enjoyed it. Is it for everyone? probably not. But it works for us and we have fun with it and after all, isn't that the point? Forcing story changes (allowing for lengthy downtime so the characters can train) bleeding resources (Forcing them to pay for training), all of these things we tried and found they simply added nothing to the game and ins some cases took away from it.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy I would also like to add that Killer Shrike is my Hero of HERO. If I had the time to run all the campaigns spawned in my head from reading his ideas, oy.... how many lifetimes would I spend playing? Not such a bad existence really.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy I agree 110% that the only way to go with new players is to limit their options. But finding and balancing those limits adds more to the GM again. And as I have said, when I am trying to put together a game, usually (not always but often) I am pushed for time. If I go into a game unprepared, especially with the caliber of some of the players I have in my game, it is not as much fun for me as I am constantly worrying about messing up the game balance by winging it. (Have done that too many times in the past three decades) So I have three factors: 1. Need for a lot of prep 2. Pressure brought on by lack of time due to other life situations 3. Two systems, one that has tons of ready made details, easy to modify, and the other almost completely devoid of pre-made modules and whose system is so wide open I have to also work harder to maintain balance. Put those three together and simply put, D20 wins for me hands down every time. And before anyone thinks otherwise, I LOVE the HERO system. I think it is AWESOME. If I had more time to work on it and/or there were more resources available for me to utilize, I am sure I would migrate to the system for fantasy. But for now I keep it in my bag of tools for non fantasy games only. One last thing, I think it would work to limit the kid's choices and options when introducing them to Hero...to a point. But they are just too inquisitive and would want to go off in directions counter to those limits every time. With D20 I have the built in excuse "Those are the rules" Plus the one factor I had not mentioned is that when we play I have gotten my wife to play too and she is NOT a long time gamer, and is VERY new to ANY role playing. So keeping to what she knows and has learned has its benefits.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy Wow, where to begin. Well one thing that I think makes the D20 system a little easier is the built in balance system. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But it is pretty good. And unless I have REALLY crafty players (and I have a few that will really skew the game balance if not kept under control) the ability to create an encounter that is pretty well balanced for the group is not hard at all. Yes, alot of it, I am sure, has to do with the overwhelming amount of pre-done adventures and books available. I can almost always find something to start with when modifying it to fit my campaign. If I was fabulously wealthy and had plenty of time to just do nothing but work on my game world and adventures, etc. I suppose I might gravitate more toward the realism and the great game flow of Hero even for my Fantasy games. But I have a family and a job and yada yada yada, same thing likely every other gm deals with. And so easy makes it possible to run games when I might not be able to if I had to invest more time into it for every game. Then there is the constant balancing act you have to do with such a wide open system. The one game I ran, I used a few ideas from Killer Shrike (who in my opinion is THE master at Hero and whose game I would gladly give my next meal for the opportunity to play in) and it went well. But only because the one person really playing the magic system was Tancred who not only understood the balances well but is also one of our other GM's and therefore was very reasonable when it came to applying limits to some powers that threatened to throw the game balance out the window. I am looking to try my hand at another in the future because I would like to model the world of the Dagger Fall series, Tamriel for a campaign and the magic system would have to be custom fit for that. Thus I would use Hero for it. As for the ease for new players, I think part of it is that when trying to comprehend a new game, having limits sometimes HELPS to make it a little easier. In D20, the player knows what their character's abilities and limits are pretty quick because it is built into the class. And when facing another member fo their class, they have SOME idea of what to expect. Hero is SO wide open when it comes to choices that for a new player it can be very frustrating not being able to do everything you want to do because you have to balance those points. In D20, you roll dice, and they are what they are. You may decide what stats go where and MAYBE if the GM allows, you can make some small modifications. But mostly the dice make the decisions for you. In Hero you have to think about and decide each and every thing. And for a new player, the task of deciding..."Hmmmm is a 13 str. good enough, or should I cut down my con from 15 to 14 so I can up my str by two points?" ... is ALOT to consider. They do not grasp what the numbers mean and therefore are less connected o their characters. Now I will grant you, some of my newer players are new to roleplaying games all together! And that is even tougher as they have several learning curves they are trying to climb at once. I thought of a perfect example for my point after making this post. My sons are 8 and 11. I have played Hero Quest with them for a few years before introducing them to D20. They took to it far better because they now had the concept in their head of rolling dice, comparing the result to what your character's stats said they could do, and applying the result. They also understood that their character may be better or worse at things than the other characters and it takes a good mix of talents to make a good party. (Something VERY important to learn when you have 2 very competitive brothers!) So when they got to the point where the Heroquest system was too limiting (Why CAN'T I just peak in the door or listen at the door instead of just flinging it open?) did I consider them ready for a more advanced system. D20 was a good next step. Had I tried to introduce them right to Hero, they would have been too frustrated because they would read each skill, each power, each talent, and want their characters to do them all. With D20, they didn't have as many choices once they decided what kind of character they wanted to play. It was far easier for them to grasp. I hope I made some sense here. I apologize for not checking in for a while to answer this question in a more timely fashion.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy Not sure if anyone will read this or not but I feel like our group, having been meeting with the same core members, weekly for about 25+ years (sorry about letting the age out of the bag, there Tancred!) and having played around with many systems (All flavors of D&D, Champions, then Hero, Traveler, Modern D20, and so many more from the early days I can't remember them all) I felt I might have some insite someone, somewhere might have interest in. Like many groups, most of our games base around D20 now. We play 3.5 and while I would love to move my group into Pathfinder, convincing them to purchase all new books is just not going to happen. The current version gives us a fun game and there is just no compelling reason for them to want something different. (Coincidentally, that is the same argument we have had for moving to Hero 6) The factors that keep us playing D20 for our fantasy games, from what I can tell are all based around simplicity and comfort level. We know the system pretty well now, it is easy to run, it is easy to scale to the character levels (Something that none of us have ever managed as easily in Hero) and there are plenty of resources from 3rd party for new ideas to keep things fresh. Also sometimes I like the ability to not have to define everything within the rules and just say "It's Magic". However we also run Hero games. One of our chief GM's (Again looking at Tancred) is exclusively a Hero guy when it comes to running and we love the system. I have tried my hand at running a Fantasy Hero game and while I found the flexibility fun, the amount of work on my part became daunting. And my original attempt at letting the game balance itself, I did find that there were times when we needed to make rules for limiting certain powers as they really became overpowering. Interestingly enough, I had just as many issues when trying to modify D20 to genre's other than fantasy (aka Modern D20, and Gamma world for a PA Game). And what it came down to in my mind was that for fantasy games, the simplicity and familiar feel held sway. But for any other genre (We have been playing one PA game and loving it and I am jonesing to run another with a different feel to it more along the lines of Fallout) it seems the flexibility of the Hero system fits very well. One other thing I would note is that we have introduced new players to the RPG world over our time and getting them up and running in D20 is FAR easier than getting them to understand Hero. I do not think the obstacles to Hero are insurmountable, but it is a lot more daunting looking at them from a new person's viewpoint than from our more experienced viewpoints. I am not saying D20 is easier than Hero, I am saying that our experience is that it was easier getting them to understand D20 than Hero. It may be due to our own comfort level with D20, it maybe that D20 was geared at beginning players more, it may just be the wider exposure the D&D systems have had over the years.

Re: Why I prefer HERO System over Pathfinder/OGL/D&D for fantasy Not sure if anyone will read this or not but I feel like our group, having been meeting with the same core members, weekly for about 25+ years (sorry about letting the age out of the bag, there Tancred!) and having played around with many systems (All flavors of D&D, Champions, then Hero, Traveler, Modern D20, and so many more from the early days I can't remember them all) I felt I might have some insite someone, somewhere might have interest in. Like many groups, most of our games base around D20 now. We play 3.5 and while I would love to move my group into Pathfinder, convincing them to purchase all new books is just not going to happen. The current version gives us a fun game and there is just no compelling reason for them to want something different. (Coincidentally, that is the same argument we have had for moving to Hero 6) The factors that keep us playing D20 for our fantasy games, from what I can tell are all based around simplicity and comfort level. We know the system pretty well now, it is easy to run, it is easy to scale to the character levels (Something that none of us have ever managed as easily in Hero) and there are plenty of resources from 3rd party for new ideas to keep things fresh. Also sometimes I like the ability to not have to define everything within the rules and just say "It's Magic". However we also run Hero games. One of our chief GM's (Again looking at Tancred) is exclusively a Hero guy when it comes to running and we love the system. I have tried my hand at running a Fantasy Hero game and while I found the flexibility fun, the amount of work on my part became daunting. And my original attempt at letting the game balance itself, I did find that there were times when we needed to make rules for limiting certain powers as they really became overpowering. Interestingly enough, I had just as many issues when trying to modify D20 to genre's other than fantasy (aka Modern D20, and Gamma world for a PA Game). And what it came down to in my mind was that for fantasy games, the simplicity and familiar feel held sway. But for any other genre (We have been playing one PA game and loving it and I am jonesing to run another with a different feel to it more along the lines of Fallout) it seems the flexibility of the Hero system fits very well. One other thing I would note is that we have introduced new players to the RPG world over our time and getting them up and running in D20 is FAR easier than getting them to understand Hero. I do not think the obstacles to Hero are insurmountable, but it is a lot more daunting looking at them from a new person's viewpoint than from our more experienced viewpoints. I am not saying D20 is easier than Hero, I am saying that our experience is that it was easier getting them to understand D20 than Hero. It may be due to our own comfort level with D20, it maybe that D20 was geared at beginning players more, it may just be the wider exposure the D&D systems have had over the years.

Re: Dark Champions: The Animated Series I have just read over DC:TAS for the first time and I have to say I like the whole concept of a very cut and dried campaign where I, as a gm, do not have to worry about some things an dlet the story tell itself, where I do not have to worry about all the realism of how folks will perceive a character because...well, they are Heroes. I have players that I do not worry about taking advantage of that. And I think it could be fun playing. But the review states the lack of resources for such a campaign but gives no examples either. Can someone recommend some resources to someone who is really unsure exactly what all the TAS style is? The only thing I am seeing so far is something like the new Capt. America movie. (I was even thinking of setting this campaign in post WW2 like around 1949 due to its influence) I would appreciate anyone's thoughts on this.

Re: Starfall - A Gamma HERO campaign Fed, what you and Zac tried to do was awesome and I would have loved seeing this unfold though it take ten years. I hope you do not mind but I am going to try and take this and run with it with my own group. So if you have anything else to add, that may help I would greatly appreciate it and will work to keep your story alive. I will send you a PM with my email address. I have wanted to run a PA game for some time now (which is how I originally found Starfall, looking up here for ideas). I had a wonderful time and wish things had worked out. Thanks for the work and fun.

Re: Starfall - A Gamma HERO campaign Got it. Thanks!

Re: Starfall - A Gamma HERO campaign Heh I will take that as a no. Oh well, I will satisfy myself just reading.

Re: Game In Progress I have been thrilled reading the story so far and am looking to run something similar for my local group. Reading it gave me a fantastic idea for a character but I am betting that at this point it is too late to get into the game? Also I have no expereince with the whole Hero Central and would have a learning curve there. It might take me a few days to do that and put together the character. My question is, would my drawbacks (lateness and inexpereince) be undesirable enough to keep me from playing? I will completely understand if that is the case and will just continue reading along as things happen and completely enjoying the story. However, if not, I would very much like to join such a fantastic group of role plyers as this game seems to have both running and playing in it.

Re: A Dummy's Guide to the Turakian Age Please forgive me if this question has been asked before and I have just not found it. But are there any plans to make some of the more detailed maps in the TA book available in a larger color version like the one the esteemed Mr. Curtis did for the over all world? I would pay for these gladly.

Just a note to let folk know in case anyone might be interested. I got an extra MMM for my birthday and am selling one on ebay. (everyone I know to give it to already owns one) If anyone is interested, the link is HERE Thank You. And now back to our regularly scheduled mayhem.

Re: D&D Spellbooks as Bases Thanks to Killer Shrike, I have finally made the conversion from "the system not to be named" to Fantasy hero and I think kept as much of the feel of the magic system as was appropriate while maintaining the parts that make the hero system so much more superior. Seekers (Sorcerers) have internal endurance batteries that cost more to upgrade and can only be done by spending points. BUT these endurance batteries regen over time dependent on activity. (I think I said 5 points per minute of total rest down to 1 point per ten minutes of physical activity with varying grades in between) However Mystics (Wizards) have external batteries that only regen 1/day. The first one they have to pay points for in points and they can always create more in the same manner. They cost less due to the focus. But in addition to that they have the ability to gather other batteries from other sources (defeating an enemy mystic comes to mind) and can use them as well free of charge since they are treasure. The other difference I have between them is that Seekers have a set number of spells bought normally (no constructs like Multipower) but with their cost divided by 3. This keeps the spells they have static and fewer in number. To contrast this, Mystics have a setup based on a VPP so that they can have more spells at their disposal but only some of them are "known" at any given time. With study, they can swap spells out for any other spell they have in their book. It took alot of hit and miss and I tried out some of the systems KS suggested and while they were good, they didn't quite fit what we were trying to do. However he was FANTASTIC in helping me figure it all out. I have never met met anyone with more grasp of how the numbers of the hero system work. I would advise talking to him about any idea you have before implementing it. He will tell you right off where the weak spots are going to be.

I am trying to convert the old Dracolich from the D&D game. Has anyone ever done one of these or has one been published that I missed?