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grufflehead

HERO Member
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  • Biography
    Despite being introduced to the HERP system about 15 years back, I can count the number of games I've had on the fingers of one hand.... Have subsisted on a diet of D&D, RQ and latterly Earthdawn instead.
  • Occupation
    Government drone

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  1. Hey all Thanks to no home internet and new firewalls at work, it\\\\\\\'s been over a year since I was on the boards. And I\\\\\\\'m only here because I\\\\\\\'m using an anonymous surf client to get through! I feel like Tom Cruise in MI and keep expecting to hear the heavy tread of security guards outside my office before I finish typing! So, before I get dragged away, I\\\\\\\'ve been running a Pulp game for about 8 months or so irregularly - well, actually I started running it for one group every month then when they were about 5 adventures in, started running it for a second group every week. I got twice the mileage from the material and it made for some interesting experiences comparing how the 2 groups tackled things. But I digress. I\\\\\\\'ve finished what is effectively Season 1 with the weekly crowd and the monthly guys have 1 more session til they wrap it up too. Originally I\\\\\\\'d thought this would be it, as there are plenty of other games on the go, I want to run other stuff when I get a chance, and although I\\\\\\\'m flush with players now, about the time I was last posting here my only regular group was about to die and I was gameless for several months til I made some new contacts. I\\\\\\\'ve got a few one shots in mind I could wheel out based on stuff I\\\\\\\'ve bought or quick plots I\\\\\\\'ve come up with. Then on Saturday I stumbled into my local games shop and was sweet talked by the owner into buying one of the stack of HERO games books he couldn\\\\\\\'t get rid of. Thinking \\\\\\\'what the hey\\\\\\\' I picked up the new DEMON book, and reading the first bit over the weekend has suddenly got me thinking that this could go from a Serenity length campaign to a Babylon 5 epic with a bit of work! Anyhoo, off the back of having run the same game twice, I began to think \\\\\\\'hmmm, perhaps I can get similarly high value out of future work\\\\\\\'. And so, would anyone be interested in developing the campaign as a shared resource of sorts? After 20 odd years of gaming, I know what my writing strengths and weaknesses are - I\\\\\\\'m a \\\\\\\'big\\\\\\\' ideas man as far as plots go, I can do good NPCs, but smaller scale plots I struggle with, and cartography isn\\\\\\\'t my strong suit either. I\\\\\\\'ll give you a summary of the background as I wrote it below, and some details of what\\\\\\\'s happened and where I thought it might go. If nothing else, I\\\\\\\'m more than happy to share what I\\\\\\\'ve got (subject to copyright issues for published material) with anyone who is interested. What I\\\\\\\'m hoping is, that someone somewhere would be interested in maybe swapping adventures, suggesting threads and arcs for where the story might go, sharing created resources etc Of course, anyone who runs with it could do it any way they want; I know the sort of tone and power level I am aiming for so would be happy to modify adventures to fit. And so, the game was inspired by the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie. I\\\\\\\'ve seen it about 10 times and can happily watch it ad nauseam. I\\\\\\\'ve also read 1 of the graphic novels, but felt the film was more of the tone I was after. The year is 1936 and the PCs are recruited into the 4th incarnation of the League, ostensibly on the hook that it is the British govt doing the recruiting against the background of rising tensions in Europe. I hoped to be able to drop in actual historical events to the timeline for added \\\\\\\'authenticity\\\\\\\'. In terms of tone, the PCs are major players, and will be able to have an impact on world events. It\\\\\\\'s not particularly \\\\\\\'dark\\\\\\\' (think Indiana Jones 1 and 3) but might become so in future... I gave the players 100 + 100 disads to create so more powerful than standard pulp characters. I \\\\\\\'discouraged\\\\\\\' anything overtly flashy or eye-catching in terms of powers, and in return there is a certain in-game assumption that they are \\\\\\\'known\\\\\\\' figures but not famous in terms of being recognised in the street (so no Public ID). They all got 20 pts and the NCM disad \\\\\\\'free\\\\\\\' unless they really wanted someone out of the ordinary - and with one group I also created KS: Extraordinary People as a mechanism for identifying (and being identified by) other larger than life characters. I encouraged was some form of resistant def - most opted for combat luck which fit the genre very well I thought. Another \\\\\\\'restriction\\\\\\\' was that I discouraged PCs from having any occult or magical KS as part of the arc involves them discovering the presence of occult artifacts and magical creatures. Given the year, the obvious choice for baddies were Nazis, but there were a number of other stock pulp villains - I didn\\\\\\\'t, however, want any Martian rocket ships or dinosaurs as they just didn\\\\\\\'t fit with what I wanted. The main plot is based on an old Dark Conspiracy scenario called the Heart of Darkness, in which the PCs race round the globe finding clues to the location of a \\\\\\\'cursed\\\\\\\' gemstone. It was originally set in the near future, and I also made it part of a larger story involving a number of other gems. As they travel the globe, the PCs stop off at various points and I used modified versions of 4 of the short HERO adventures available in PDF from DriveThru, RPGNow etc. The main villain (who is in reality only a pawn of the greater villain but they don\\\\\\\'t know that...), only appears at the start and as a cinematic interlude at the end. He iss also trying to locate the gems, and has certain occult powers. On reading the DEMON book I saw possibilities for having him be a member of DEMON, or, as suggested in the timeline of that product, a member of Himmler\\\\\\\'s occult investigators opposed to them. What the timeline also made me think was that, although there would be plenty of material for the Pulp setting, the campaign could then be shifted forward in time to become a Silver/Golden Age game, a Dark Champions game, and possibly even a Star HERO game as the \\\\\\\'enemy\\\\\\\' are an organisation who will still be around. Perhaps the characters also \\\\\\\'age\\\\\\\' between settings? More likely it is new PCs linked to the originals in some way. But I havent\\\\\\\' discounted time travel either! Is that of any interest to fellow GMs? Given how I managed to post this message, although I will endeavour to read the board again, there\\\\\\\'s no guarantee I will be able to. So if you do want to pursue it, please post it here and copy to me at grufflehead@yahoo.co.uk.remove.this.bit
  2. Hi all Anyone know of a quick/easy way to produce 'fake' newspaper pages for use as player handouts eg a Word template? I want to use them as a daily update for a pulp game (ie to keep the PCs abreast of 'world' events, and also to drop in clues and leads to ongoing plots). I imagine there's no reason why it wouldn't also work for contemporary games. For anyone running pulp games, I found this site to be quite a good resource for pictures that can be used for NPCs (assuming none of your players are 30s film buffs...). http://www.classicmovies.org/links/imagecollections.htm
  3. Re: Pulp game questions I like the combat luck and EC ideas a lot - very nicely done (as are all the PCs). I also looked at the 'Thrilling True Tales' website which has more good stuff, and the campaign journal is a very good read. I take your point about sticking the dynamite down your shirt, but that's always been one of the things critics level at HERO. I was more concerned with the potential ramifications of a group of Nazi stromtroopers opening up on the PCs with their machineguns, and the possibility that a hero caught in the crossfire might be taking 3 or 4 1D6+1 killing attacks with no armour; the armour with activation is a great way to give the PC a fighting chance in that situation. I think I've got a much better handle on things now, so thanks for the responses.
  4. Re: Master list of clever stuff Fantastic! That's the sort of thing I was after. Following up on a couple of points in the thread, what sort of thing is in the UNTIL superpowers book (and the upcoming sequel), and has anyone had any hints as to what the Ultimate Skill will contain? If Steve is going to group talents/perks etc into that book, then I think that should fit my requirements nicely (even if it means waiting for a while).
  5. Re: Master list of clever stuff Sorry, old chap. Don't know why I assumed that was common knowledge, I guess I just did.... And it should have been 'master list of limitations' NOT 'disadvantages'. Here you go: http://www.globalguardians.com/masterlists/masterlistindex.php
  6. Having found the most splendid 'Master List of Disadvantages' on the web, I wondered if there was an equivalent (either a personal webpage or even a published product) which collated all of the various talents, knacks, perks, clever use of powers and other useful little tricks that have been scattered through various products over time?
  7. Re: Pulp game questions Thanks for those replies, particularly Prometheus - I'd seen the link you posted as part of another thread and visited the pages already. Most of the questions that were floating round before I even started writing were answered there, which made life a heap easier! The example PCs were great, and I particularly like the Action Points idea and will definitely use something similar. Maybe that's the solution to the damage problem - if a PC is about to take a burst of machine-gun fire they can spend an AP and say they tripped and fell just as the burst of .45 shells was about to hit them. Otherwise, apart from maybe giving the PCs a few more points, I can see that as a template for my own game.
  8. Hi all I thought after lurking for a couple of months or so, I'd better take the plunge and make that first post. Apologies to everyone if this has been covered elsewhere and I've missed it; I've been trying to search for all the Pulp related threads to check but may not have gone back far enough. Our (sadly ever-shrinking) group has a rotating GM policy and I'm up after the next change. Despite having been a fan of HERO for many moons I've never got anything more than a couple of one-shots off the ground, so I decided that rather pick up the Earthdawn game I ran last time up, I'm going to give them something else to chew on. I should also add at this point that I'm still using 4th Ed rules, should that alter any comments you might have. The inspiration for the game came from the LXG movie, so Pulp-ish was the best description I could give the players off the top of my head. I'm going to set it in the mid-late 30s, with the PCs being recruited to the nth incarnation of the League. Using that time period should let me steal from Indiana Jones and other published material for scenario ideas. Anyway, while I've got a fair amount of material and ideas, there are a few things I'm not just quite set on, so I thought I'd pitch them out for comments. Firstly, heroic or superheroic? I was going with heroic, but there are a couple of the suggested rules in 4th ed that I'm not sure about, and if I try to explain it to the players in terms of the movie, I'm sure to get questions about how 4 of the characters in it have powers and 3 don't. Should I allow PCs to have points for taking NCM for example? How are other people doing it? Secondly, I was planning on restricting availability of some powers on the rather subjective criterion that I didn't think they fit the genre - but then neither I nor to the best of my knowledge any of the players are real Pulp buffs so is that being unfair (and does that impact on the heroic/superheroic distinction)? For example, I can see someone buying flight through a gadget (eg a rocketpack) but not because they can just fly; and I was also going to enforce a minimum level of power limitation so the power would also have to be unreliable/dangerous/limited use or somesuch. Is that too restrictive (given, for example Ms Harker's abilities in the movie)? If I come up with an arbitrary list of restricted powers and someone desperately wants to play a character with one of those I'd 'banned', is it worth restricting any in the first place? And thirdly, one that came to me yesterday and is possibly the most crucial to the success or otherwise of the game: how to handle damage/healing etc? Without getting into a long debate about controlled-uncontrolled fiction (ie what you can get away with in a bok or film where the writer simply directs the action as desired vs a game where the players have an awkard habit of not playing ball with the plot or rolling 3 or 18 at the wrong time!), there are going to be a lot of situations where the opposition are spraying the PCs with automatic weapons fire, so how to deal with that sort of situation? Give the PCs a mystery 20 pts of uncontrolled, always on missile deflection (as I can't really see much in the way of armour)? Say all wounds heal automatically at the end of an 'act' so they are fresh for the next adventure? Anybody dealt with this issue? Thanks for reading and I look forward to some insights from people with a bit more field experience of the system....
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