Mencelus

Re: So, what don't you like about HERO 5th? Things is, I never played earlier versions, so I can't hate feel anything about them, yeah? Just wondering what folks felt. No game is perfect - I got started because I saw some interesting holes in Savage Worlds this weekend when we played. Nothing that'll make me stop the game, mind you, but it'd be nice to know what folks thought since, with a touch of luck, I'll get my group to give HERO a try in a few months, maybe over the summer, since I'll be a little freer.

Inspiried by a similar thread about GURPS over on the GURPS boards - What burns you about HERO? I know we've a new edition coming but that's some time away and many people (like me) are thinking of running HERO for the first time and are curious about the pitfalls and so on with it. While I've played before, I've never actually run it, though I've thought on it several times, and I waffle back to HERO now and then, and think new thoughts. I'm also not in the land of extra cash so the chance of me getting the new edition when it comes out is not high. So, I'm "stuck" with 5th for at least the next two years or so. So, yeah, what's not to like? What churns your butter? I'll start. I dislike measuring ranges in inches. I know I can convert, blah blah, but I hate it anyway. I run Savage Worlds now and it does the same thing and I hate it there too. You?

Re: Star Wars Hero - General "The Force" power Then it looks like I'm back to the Aid thing. I like this mechanically better than a small VPP (remember, I'm still new to actually USING HERO). When I get more experienced, maybe I'll push the players to use it. Or, let me do this another way - mechanically, how would this VPP look? Let's say we keep it small - 20 points max (so they can do things like buy a few inches of Leap, an extra bit if strength, etc). Would someone write that up so I can get an idea of how it looks? Thanks all.

Re: Star Wars Hero - General "The Force" power Oh, I like this very much! Yes, overall skill levels with the EGO pushing rule you just gave. Very nice. Now, I'm a bit of a noob to HERO (not to gaming, just HERO), but what do you mean by Overall skill level? IS there a special entry for this somewhere in HERO (I've got the 5th edition revised). It sounds like just what I wanted though...

Re: Star Wars Hero - General "The Force" power Basically. But they won't know that since I'll be making characters this first time around. My plan is to create the various powers, with this main one as a given, and then let them mix and match the others within a certain point range. With points left over, we'll determine skills, stats, and maybe bump up (or lower) the strength of their powers.

For the last few months my group and I have been playing Star Wars using Dogs in the Vineyard. Great system, since traits are very fluid and all, but after a few sessions we've found some holes in it for our style of play (not truck-drive-though holes, but big enough to annoy). In any case, we've been bantering over a system change and I thought, hmm, HERO... Now, I'd like to give them the same sort of "freedom to do little Force tricks" that we had with DitV before, while also letting them define the big ticket powers, like telekenisis. Here's my idea - the players can "call on the Force" to do self-only physical activities, things like run faster, be a bit stronger, increase their chance to hit (say, by increasing their dex or something). Things like that. I want the PCs to have this ability, so I thought about using Aid with the variable advantage. Or Luck? Let each dice equal an "upped stat" for a scene? Thoughts? (for the others powers, they'd be standard HERO system way).

Re: HERO Greek Mythical times - ideas and sources? Thanks much guys - I"ll take a look see later, though I'll have to do some footwork now as time is a touch of a crunch (I'll be doing the game in three weeks, so...) Anyway, hoping to hear more. Anyone run something like demi-gods/heroes running around fighting stuff? (in am ythic sort of way - no Tolkein fantasy here my friends!).

I posted this over on the GURPS forum as well, but there is a chance I will do this game in HERO instead, so... I'm thinking of a game where the PCs are larger than life heroes, right up there with Perseus and Achilles.They'll be regeants of the the boy-king of Corinth, charged with protecting his person and raising him into manhood. I'm planning this as a one-shot, with the possibility to become a campaign if everyone likes it enough. So, I'm looking for advice on the game - cool rules to use to emulate Greek fighting styles, resources, etc. I've only got the main HERO 5ER.

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero Lads and Ladies, my thanks. Got some good ideas here and input enough to keep my engineer player happy, I think. Also enough the dramatist and the tactician to keep going. Two weeks before the game now and I just got character concepts in (I'll be making the PCs since this is the group's first time with HERO). It's a short series, maybe three or four sessions, all told, just enough to fill the summer months with some fun. Anyway, thanks all. And other ideas, shoot.

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero Thanks for the link. I'll check it out when not at work. Giving me some good things to think over all. The weight/money thing was just off the top of my head, not really thought over deeply. Mostly, I wanted a limited form of "currency" at work, and bartering for stuff and services as well. I live in Hungary now and quite a bit of barter goes on (even in some established stores at times!). As for the gasoline - to be honest, I had sort of assumed that people would have used it up in those last years before the burnout, or that governments would have started hoarding it before then (causing riots and whatnot I'm sure) so that by the time the war hits there wouldn't be many cars on the roads anyway (save for government uses and public transportation, perhaps elites who have connections, etc). All of which hastens the collapse of civilization (can you imagine the number of people who wouldn't be able to get to work regularly?). Thanks all again for the ideas. Still mining...

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero There are some good ideas here. Hmm again. I like the automated defenses part, though it makes me wonder why would the inhabitants protected by those systems wouldn't just stay put (of course, could just say they ran out of food, or computer failures led the defense systems to kill them). I don't particulary want the PCs to have access to lots of tech, except as the MacGuffin used to drive a particular story. The players are still discussing what they want their characters to be as a group, so we'll see where the focus goes. Yeah, loved that game. I can remember back in the summer of my last year of high school (1992) running a campaign based around the adventure they had in the original book from TSR, something about taking a treaty message or such from one nation to another in the American continent (and the other nation was led by a mutant bear or some such ). At the time, I was really into the American Civil War, so I said that the other nation was the enemy, and the PCs government wanted to negotiate an alliance with that nation against a third slave-holding nation, and the PCs would be the ambassadors. Since the trip would be dangerous, the PCs were a crack military unit, led by a human captain, with 3 mutants and two sentinet animal mutants. And, to make it complete in my teenage brain, I said that the unifroms for the PCs were just like the Civil War uniforms, braid, epulets, and all! They wore blue and the slave-holders wore gray. They carried rifle-muskets and used swords in hand to hand fighting. Ah, the wild imagination of youth. The fun part was we argued about how such an army would function with mutants in it and how the old style tactics, because of mutants, were better than modern warfare and all!

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero Thanks one and all for the comments. Especially on metallergy and what not. Will think on it. And as far as mutation goes, let me point back to the last sentence of my initial post: So, like I said, I want mutations. All other things being somewhat realistic, I'm letting mutations slide because I liked Gamma World when I was a kid dammit! It's good and fun. My main idea is to have mutations be low-key, stuff that could come from the body "logically." (And this is in quotes folks, so pay attention please and realize that I KNOW it isn't logical, but for play reasons...). For example, someone could have wall-crawling powers (due to sticky secretions from the palms) but could not toss fire bolts around (where does the energy come from?). Again, being able to see in the infrared spectrum is fine (eye rod structure is different) but shooting lasers from the eyes is right out. As for age, well, hmm. I liked the number 40, but maybe 60 or so is better. I basically want a few grandparents around who know something. Without most modern medicine, clean water and the like, I had figured 40 years later was the max I could go (that would let people be 50 or 60, a stretch maybe, but this is a game after all). However, I'm not wedded to the idea of having old fogies around. But I did want ruined cities that weren't picked to death yet. My only rationale would be lingering nuclear fallout keeping people away from the "prime" spots. Thoughts on the above?

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero Yeah, I plan on going medieval basically, with a flash of high tech here and there. The players said they wanted a sort of Mad-Max feel when we discussed it. The alternative energy source thing is a bit harder, since the infrastructure to support it will no longer be availiable (unless it was already in place). Hydroelectric plants, for example, are easy to run, but a ***** to maintain - can you imagine trying to effect repairs on the damn without the benefit of cranes, wenches, and weilding tools? This would go, but less so, for coal-fired or gas electricity plants. Hmm... Oh,a dn the mutants - yeah, people wanted them. I figure that I'll make it w rule that if a PC has mutant powers, they must either take an appropriate Side Effect limitation on the power, or a general physical disadvantage. For example, a guy with the power to climb sheer surfaces can either have the side effect "skin peels off painfully after use" or the disadvantage "sticky/slimy hands." Something like that.

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero New York State has rather a lot of farmland. As you mention though, around NYC would be tough. Frankly, I haven't checked yet how close a settlement could be to a nuclear wasteland, but I'm guessing that it'll be far enough away that I can rationalize the Three Towns being somewhere where farmland is, while bing within spitting distance of NYC. This is pretty close to what I wrote in brief in the history I posted (see above). We're thinking the same stuff here. I only put the population at 12000 assuming the Three Towns won't necessarily be close together, but close enough to support each other in, say, a day or two of forced marching/riding. Yeah, I want them, but I think they'll be handcrafted, or at best, low scale manufacturing. I'm still thinking about this. There will be caches of weapons I imagine, and bullets for them, but past that, I don't know yet. Some smart people, even if they don't know how to make gunpowder, might eb able to read about it in some books or something like that. A few people will know (making them very valuable). I may indeed be PMing you. This is just the initial idea. I'll wait for my guys to post their own thoughts and I'll tweak this a bit more based on what they want. Thanks for the ideas and thoughts though. This is the stuff I was looking for.