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

How about overall skill levels?

 

Add in a few limitations for flavour - you might want to require a moment's concentration or make them cost END, or have a limited number of charges, or whatever.

 

How does that work then?

 

Well, with overall skill levels you are better at pretty much everything you turn your hand to, and that includes pushing your abilities*.

 

So, overall skill levels allow you to be a bit stronger, better in combat and all. Sounds about what you are looking for

 

*You could even have a special pushing house rule - roll EGO to be able to push by up to 10 points, at a cost of 10 END-(the amount you made the roll by). So Jedi Masters with their huge Ego rolls and substantial Force Skill levels can more routinely push without worrying about END quite so much.

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

Well, you could define what "Force Tricks" can do. "+1 OCV", "+3 inches Running", etc. Aid is great when you want the results to vary each time, when you want a set effect each time, it is usually simpler to just buy the bonus straight out.

 

Are you planning on having the players pay points for the minor Force powers?

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

Depends on what you want to do with the "old folks"... When I was thinking about this for my own campaign ideas I was thinking 100 years or so and using the "when I was a kid' date=' my grand pappy always said...." kinda stuff.[/quote']

 

Yeah. Hmm. Grandpappy's uncle stuff sounds good maybe....would let me extend things.

 

I agree about having things that are not picked over... Not sure how to do that without playing during the fall (5-10 years) or using radiation as the threat. You might be able to use animals of some kind or sink things under water... (We haven't discussed flooding things 200-500 ft. which is also a popular way to change or lock out terrain.) Bioterrorism during the fall might do it. People died in droves and now there is a taboo about the place... Etc.

 

Hrmmm... Not sure what your thought is on robots and automated defenses... Sounds like your "Accident" happens in a relatively modern time but you could push a bit into sci-fi and build an automated police force in NYC. Let the players figure out that the city's broadcast power has finally failed and all the sentries are shutting down. That might explain why looters didn't in the past but can now. Getting that much tech might destroy other plans that you had though.

 

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.

 

And I am amused that you mention Gamma World. That was exactly what got me thinking about it roughly 6 months ago.

 

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:

Just looking for ideas or obvious logic loops. Again, I am wanting mutations, so please don't tell me how it ain't possible - I know that already.

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

I think you'd see a lot of places going back to medieval ways. Strong leaders would have to emerge to keep the populace from destroying itself and I think a feudal system would lend to that.

 

The rarity of guns and ammunition would make swords and crossbows popular again as well. A forge full of hot coals can hone metal into sharp weapons, you don't really need gas for that.

 

Humanity would most likely be looking at alternative energy sources. Even after a nuclear war, many places would be looking to nuclear power as a possibility. There's also wind, solar, and hydroelectric power to be harnessed which may comfortably support small populations.

 

It's an intriguing idea, and horrifyingly realistic (except the mutant stuff). Good luck.

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

Food can be fished from the oceans' date=' rivers, and Great Lakes, and I do believe that kelp is edible.[/quote']

 

Hmm...there's an idea. Have one of the towns be near the bay/ocean... It would give it an easily tradeable item and the basis for its economy.

 

Which reminds me. I'm also thinking of having there be a monetary system amongst the town, based on "Iron Wheels," which would be little irom/aluminum disks shaped like wagon wheels. Five "spokes" can be inserted into the wheels or pulled out, creating the base currency and change. So, for example, an item could be "Five wheels, two spokes" or some such. Also, wheels could be made out of different metals, like gold or silver, I suppose.

 

My reason for this is that, outside of the Towns, the metal itself is still a tradeable items as metal, since most other metal will be scrap. Pure weights of various metals would be valuable, no? And easy to carry, if a bit on the heavy side. This might lead to a "currency item by weight" economy in the Towns, i.e., if you wnat to buy a gun, you have to equal it's weight in Wheels and Spokes, because oft he metal used in its design. Make sense?

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

Dunno how seriously you want to mirror the current world... If you're hand-waving the similarities' date=' ignore this next bit but if not then you might want to get some maps of the areas you're using... Nuke Power Plants are dangerous in a lot of ways... Either they melted down or they have the potential to do so still, etc. Determine what happened to the military bases near you... What other local features were targets for foreign attack?[/quote']

 

That's exactly where I'm headed next. Little computer problem at home has limited my access but I was going to check on actual sites of such things. I want to keep the area small.

 

Without trucking, food production is going to be a serious problem for any metropolis. Where in the NYC area are you going to find enough land to produce food for 12,000 people (I don't know the area, just didn't think that there was much available *farmable* land). A quick web search suggests that the best farming methods we've got can feed about 10 people per acre (sustainably). Without some serious experience/training you're probably looking at 2-4x that... So 12,000 people is 1,200 to 5,000 acres of land being farmed. (Central Park is 843 acres total but some of that is the lakes, etc. Manhattan itself is about 14,000 acres but not much of it would be farmable even in 40 years unless there was serious change.) I *don't* know if those areas are based on the availability of advanced tools like a John Deere. Might have to scale up a lot more for archaic tools.

 

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.

 

To be honest, I expect that most large cities would die out completely because we're better at being violent than managing in emergencies... Guns will be more common than anyone who knows how to farm for miles around NYC. People who start starving are going to come looking for food with guns and those are not typically going to be the enlightened people who think about keeping the farmers alive to make more food.

 

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.

 

What are you doing for the guns? Are we talking cartridges or hand loads? Even with the right tools, the variance in the loads is going to cause much more severe in range penalties. Are you producing better explosives than black powder? Are they relying on stockpiled ammo from 40 years ago?

 

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).

 

This is just questions about the intial setting. I have been toying with the idea of setting up a PA Hero setting of my own but I have enough other stuff going on that I have not crunched any numbers... Just got some high level ideas. PM me if you'd like to chat in more detail about actual campaign ideas and evolution beyond initial setting.

 

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.

Or some such.

I am creating a PA Hero game soon, to be run next month and I have created a history for it. Please tell me where you see any holes. Please note that I am going for a setting that allows mutant powers without making them overpowering or such. See for yourself:

The world ended 40 years ago. At that time, there was a heavy dependence on oil. This miraculous material could be made into objects, it was fuel for vehicles, it helped machines run - the slippery stuff was the glue that held modern society together. Then it started to run out.

Who knows who threw the first punch? Some say it was the Americans, ever oil hungry, or the Chinese, just as hungry and less kind. North Korea, with its small nuclear arsenal? The European Union, locked near several sources of oil but none all its own. In any case, someone attacked, others answered, and World War Finis has begun.

The first strikes were small, bent on capturing oil and strategic targets. Then it moved toward resource grabbing: water became important as did gas and coal for electrical plants. Nukes were dropped here and there and the satellite network was crippled.

The following ecological damage, coupled with the loss of energy production ended the modern era as it was known. Transportation ground to a halt. Large scale agriculture and animal raising shut down as food supplies, machine parts, and fuel became scarce. Most people in the world, unaccustomed to hunting and foraging for food, doing small scall farming, died in droves or became savage survivors in a failing world.

Containment systems that once held various industrial and chemical wastes were neglected, and these noxious substances, coupled with the nuclear winter, created a new worry for humanity - mutants. Born from parents exposed to these toxic wastes, mutant humans and animals entered the world, exhibiting strange powers and strange disabilities from their conditions.

It's been 40 years. The major cities of the world were blasted into slag by nuclear strikes or collapsed upon themselves when the gas and water stopped flowing. Small communities survived, only to be ravaged by disease, berift of the help of modern medicine. Ironically, it would be the more "primitive" peoples of the world that would rise up to claim it, using the techniques of their ancestors to survive as they always have.

That is the world you are it. The PCs are part of a small federation, called The Three Towns, that sits around the once great New York City. This alliance has access to some higher technology - there is intermittant power production, there are a some guns and rifles, a few motorized vehicles (though horses are the norm). There are even a few doctors and one university for the 12000 inhabitants of The Three Towns.

There are those in the alliance that call for expansion. Some want simply to strike out to see what's left of humanity, hoping that the nuclear radiation has subsided enough for exploration. Others have already begun scavaging, searching the burnt wasteleands or overgrown forests for old signs of civilization. This is the world you live in, and where you must find a role.

So, comments folks? Feelings? Mind you, I posted this to my players and they will be commenting on this as well on our regular board here: http://forum.rpg.hu/index.php?showtopic=6215&st=0

Just looking for ideas or obvious logic loops. Again, I am wanting mutations, so please don't tell me how it ain't possible - I know that already. Tell me where this sounds weird.

Thanks all.

Re: How does Mass Combat work in FH?

Hmm...some things to chew over. Looks like, then, the combat rules are heavily based on the basic combat of HERO, just making it a group instead of an individual. Do I have it?

For those that have used these rules, does this level of abstraction work for it? I mean, are there any breakpoints of silliness (like a squad of 10 being unable to engage a single knight or some such). Anything like that? Thanks.

Proabably I'll end up buying it anyway - I hear it's a good read. But I just wondered what the mass combat rules are like.

I understand that this is the only Hero product with Mass Combat rules, and I am considering it since I may have a campaign that requires it soon. So, I just wondered, before I shell out the cash:

1. How does the Mass combat work? I'm not saying break copyright, but as much as you can, tell me the nuts and bolts.

2. Can it be ported into other genres/eras other than medieval fantasy, like science-fiction or, say, WWII?

Thanks much all - and as you can tell by the post count, I am a new guy to Hero. Just grokked the system and loving it.

Re: Being creepy and Bodyguard skills

Weird...mechanics wise, I'd go for the presence attack, or a BOEgo attack, or some such.

IRL, I actually knew a guy somewhat like this. Milder case than what you're talking about but, shortly after I hired him (much to my chagrin ), the guy started working and the secretaries were perpetually annoyed by him. Little things he did. They mentioned, in no particular order: "He looks at me strangely," "Why does he always walk here like that ," or, my personal favorite, "I don't know if he fits here?" "Why?" I ask, and she says, "Don't know...just doesn't seem our company's type." From then on they actively joked about him or tried to find things he was doing wrong. Things other employees would do were barely mentioned, whereas EVERYTHING he did was mercilessily scrutinized.

He ended up fired a few months later but that that was for different reasons. I should add that this guy had troubles with the cops in the three months I knew him TWICE (and in both cases he as exonerated of all charges or accusations, most of which seemed to come about because, he, ah, seemed "suspicious" to the authorities). At the time, I wanted to say everyone was being racist (he's Black, and so am I), but then I thought, This doesn't happen to me or my other workers who are Black, and, yeah, THEY talk about him too...

So, keep the ideas coming. I'd like to see a model for this myself and use it in a game maybe.

Re: Hooray for Newbies! why are you suddenly here?

Have no fear all, I'll be asking plenty once I get around to designing some stuff. In fact, I imagine most questions revolve around designing stuff (characters, equipment, elongnated candies, etc).

Anyway, I'm glad to see the positive responses to my post already. A friendly crowd is what I need most, really, especially as I plan to intro HERO to my group in a few months (after we finish up our current campaign and a few planned one-shots with other stuff we're playing).

As for Risus...I've herd good things. I'll check the link and dive in. Always looking for a new system to play with (is why I'm hppy to have my 5ER!).

Ciao all, and will be asking you silly things soon.

Re: Hooray for Newbies! why are you suddenly here?

I'm here because Sidekick led me here. After getting 5ER in the mail a few days ago, I am pumped and happy to be a Hero fan. I am generally a fan of rules-lite, cinematic games, but Hero pulled me in. With Sidekick, I saw the elegance of the system, and understoof why people were such fans of it. Now I read here to grasp the intricacies of my new chosen subject. I am in the process of selling my GURPS rule books (though not the supplements; damn finest in the galaxy).

So, here I am, a newbie. Be gentle with us. Be kind to us. We are new fans, not dumb ones. On RPGnet there were a few folks who felt the need to let me know I wasn't as smart as them because I found HERO difficult when I read the old 5E, but then was able to get things with Sidekick. I hope, nay, I pray, that we newbies will not be so chided here on HERO's own boards.

Let me also say that I'm glad there are lots of people putting their creations and stuff on the boards - good for a newbie like me to see.