Killer Shrike

True story, my father was a country music DJ and MC and I met a lot of the genre icons of the 70's and 80's as I got dragged to a lot of concerts and festivals and hung around back stage while my father worked / MC'd; some of them even came to dinner at our house. One of the ones I met was KR, and I told him that I really liked his music (which was true); he laughed. Later, one of his people came back around and gave me a Kenny Rogers Fan Club box, in which was various curios and a belt buckle that looked like this:
 

 

True story, my father was a country music DJ and MC and I met a lot of the genre icons of the 70's and 80's as I got dragged to a lot of concerts and festivals and hung around back stage while my father worked / MC'd; some of them even came to dinner at our house. One of the ones I met was KR, and I told him that I really liked his music (which was true); he laughed. Later, one of his people came back around and gave me a Kenny Rogers Fan Club box, in which was various curios and a belt buckle that looked like this:
 

 

True story, my father was a country music DJ and MC and I met a lot of the genre icons of the 70's and 80's as I got dragged to a lot of concerts and festivals and hung around back stage while my father worked / MC'd; some of them even came to dinner at our house. One of the ones I met was KR, and I told him that I really liked his music (which was true); he laughed. Later, one of his people came back around and gave me a Kenny Rogers Fan Club box, in which was various curios and a belt buckle that looked like this:
 

 

True story, my father was a country music DJ and MC and I met a lot of the genre icons of the 70's and 80's as I got dragged to a lot of concerts and festivals and hung around back stage while my father worked / MC'd; some of them even came to dinner at our house. One of the ones I met was KR, and I told him that I really liked his music (which was true); he laughed. Later, one of his people came back around and gave me a Kenny Rogers Fan Club box, in which was various curios and a belt buckle that looked like this:
 

 

So, given the givens of the current state of reality, I think it is probably best to postpone face to face sessions until things have returned to normal. If social distancing becomes the new normal for more than a couple weeks I'll look into getting an online virtual table top type of solution going. 
 
In  the meantime, I've been chipping away at adding more meat to the Cortex Plus Heroic port. I did more character writeups , more Ability Trait writeups, and filled in the details on how dice pools are formed, how plot points work, and so on. In days to come I'll be porting over setting content, vignettes, npcs / monsters, and so forth. It might be of interest to some of you, and of course feedback is welcome.  
 
Obviously, I hope all of you & your families are well. Stay healthy and safe!

I'm looking into online gaming alternatives for my D&D game. I've used Fantasy Grounds for D&D, but I don't know how well it will support Hero or Cortex Plus. It may be easier to do the game mechanics portion through talking like we do in a face-to-face game. We certainly all have dice and can roll them and declare our results. We can save video for maps and our lovely faces. This assumes of course everyone has access to the necessary hardware: computer with camera and software. We can always go on hiatus if need be.

Thank you for the updates. I’m working from home right now, and my daughter is out of school through early April. I think we should plan on social distancing being a thing for at least another 2-4 weeks.

So, given the givens of the current state of reality, I think it is probably best to postpone face to face sessions until things have returned to normal. If social distancing becomes the new normal for more than a couple weeks I'll look into getting an online virtual table top type of solution going. 
 
In  the meantime, I've been chipping away at adding more meat to the Cortex Plus Heroic port. I did more character writeups , more Ability Trait writeups, and filled in the details on how dice pools are formed, how plot points work, and so on. In days to come I'll be porting over setting content, vignettes, npcs / monsters, and so forth. It might be of interest to some of you, and of course feedback is welcome.  
 
Obviously, I hope all of you & your families are well. Stay healthy and safe!

I think something important to bare in mind, even a 'straight jacket' like class and race game like D&D has been allowing custimization for years. Every since 2nd edition, they've allowed tweaks and choices that meaningfully impact that kind of characters you play (kits), and of course this ballooned in 3.X and continued in 4th and 5th. Players may not be able to build anything they want, but there are so many options, it's not difficult to build something approximating the image they have in their minds eye. Also by presenting cool bits to chop and change around, it gives players options that 'next time I want to play an X, Y, or Z'. I think Killer Shrike's online Hero campaign is actually an excellent example of this...he's created so many magic systems and character types in his Urban Fantasy game, that if I bought it as a book I would be drooling at the opportunity to play all the different builds. I don't know why, but for me at least, this is more engaging than knowing ahead of time I could just make anything I want. And I'd say I'm not alone in this, based on the success of games that do just this. 
 
I only mention this because a lot of people who seem to be talking about the surperiority of HERO over D&D and it's ilk seem to forget or be unaware that they long since moved away from 1E's 'every fighter is the same except for their magic items' model. Note, I'm not saying this about you Hugh, just your first comment reminded me that the needle has shifted a loooong way since 1E, even if the 'build it yourself' mechanic isn't present. 
 
So a PbHS approach could work by presenting new and fun options, pre-created for players to pick from, but let's not pretend that the competition is still treading the same ground it did 40 years ago. 

I hope your daughter gets better soon. Let us know if our next game can be at one of our houses. I live in Mira Mesa so could host a game on the march 21st if needed. Let me now what location preferences you have.

Ed,
 
I wish your family good health. See you in a couple of weeks.

Scything and I unexpectedly can't be there tomorrow; my daughter came home from school today not feeling well and just started puking all over the place. It may or may not be contagious, but no reason to risk it. 
 
Sorry for the late notice, I was psyched to wrap up the arc, but that's how it goes when you are a parent.
 

It depends entirely on the setting of the campaign and the tone that I am going for. In a "realistic", lower pointed setting I do tend to use fringe benefits of this variety...particularly in a "modern" setting modeling something similar to "the real world". In a less realistic setting (such as supers) I don't because most of the time if I'm doing that sort of fantastical set up the focus is not on mundane things and too much granularity just pours grit into the gears.
 
However, most importantly, if I do require characters to pay CP for things I try my best to make it matter in-game. I actively do not like "concept tax" abilities and avoid them when possible and try to make them matter at least once over the course of the campaign to pay for themselves.
 
If, at the end of a campaign, I look over the player characters' sheets and see points spent that they never got to apply in some way over the course of the campaign, then something sub-optimal occurred -- either the player didn't incorporate such abilities into their portrayal of the character and make it matter or I as the GM didn't provide opportunities to make them matter, or a little bit of both.
 
If such things also happen to be perks (or whatever) that I made players take out of some pro forma obligation then it is even worse.
 
So, I make a conscious effort to make points spent on abilities matter commensurately to their cost and if I feel like that isn't going to happen, I'm not adverse to making adjustments to the pricing of certain things to discount them or to offer some other compensatory offset elsewhere on the character. I'll grant perks and similar things as story awards. I'll restructure contacts that aren't working out. I'll bundle fluff skills into some form that is costed based on benefit. Etc. I tune things as the campaign progresses in an active attempt to reach / maintain an equitable equilibrium.

It depends entirely on the setting of the campaign and the tone that I am going for. In a "realistic", lower pointed setting I do tend to use fringe benefits of this variety...particularly in a "modern" setting modeling something similar to "the real world". In a less realistic setting (such as supers) I don't because most of the time if I'm doing that sort of fantastical set up the focus is not on mundane things and too much granularity just pours grit into the gears.
 
However, most importantly, if I do require characters to pay CP for things I try my best to make it matter in-game. I actively do not like "concept tax" abilities and avoid them when possible and try to make them matter at least once over the course of the campaign to pay for themselves.
 
If, at the end of a campaign, I look over the player characters' sheets and see points spent that they never got to apply in some way over the course of the campaign, then something sub-optimal occurred -- either the player didn't incorporate such abilities into their portrayal of the character and make it matter or I as the GM didn't provide opportunities to make them matter, or a little bit of both.
 
If such things also happen to be perks (or whatever) that I made players take out of some pro forma obligation then it is even worse.
 
So, I make a conscious effort to make points spent on abilities matter commensurately to their cost and if I feel like that isn't going to happen, I'm not adverse to making adjustments to the pricing of certain things to discount them or to offer some other compensatory offset elsewhere on the character. I'll grant perks and similar things as story awards. I'll restructure contacts that aren't working out. I'll bundle fluff skills into some form that is costed based on benefit. Etc. I tune things as the campaign progresses in an active attempt to reach / maintain an equitable equilibrium.

Background: In my current Fantasy campaign, most artisans in the city of Thalassene belong to guilds: the cobbler’s guild, the silk-weaver’s guild, the papermaker and printer’s guild, and so on. (There are also guilds for professions such as doctors, lawyers and bankers.)
 
But some crafts are too small to have guilds. There just aren’t enough artisans to make it worthwhile. These are locally called “oddmongers.” And just as most of the big-time jewelers cluster around Gold Court and most undertakers are on Coffin Street, the oddmongers have a neighborhood of their own called, naturally, Oddmonger. This is where the PCs are based, so I’m developing the neighborhood more than the rest of the city.
 
I have thought of many different oddmongers, but I could use more. Suggest away! Explain why a craft wouldn’t employ many practitioners, and why it wouldn’t be folded into some larger group of artisans. To illustrate, here’s what I already have:
 
Parasol-Makers. Some lace, some cloth, some painted paper. A couple factories as well as freelance artisans, but I’s enough of a specialty/luxury item that the whole industry fits easily on one short street.
 
Fanmakers. Likewise, and on the same street as the parasol-makers. Paper or cloth fans may be painted, so the business involves limners as well as artisans to glue the material to the frame of wood or ivory ribs. Lots of people own fans, but it doesn't take a lot of people to make them.
 
Artificial Flower Makers. Paper, silk and one fellow who works in glass. The craft began with religion: flowers as a common offering at household shrines to show piety, but the cost mounts up for fresh flowers every few days. So, buy realistic fakes. (Though it eventually became something of an art form in its own right.)
 
Wax Fruit Maker. A newly invented craft, for similar purposes as artificial flowers: Look like you can afford fresh fruit all the time, when you actually can’t.
 
Featherworkers. Anything from little ornaments to shimmering feather cloaks. A foreign craft introduced by Furanian refugees.
 
Picture-Scroll Printers. A sort of long comic book in scroll form. Outside the printer’s guild because halflings invented it and still dominate the craft. (Inspired by RL art form from old Japan, btw.)
 
Sugar-Spinner. A gnome who is both a master alchemist and master tinker invented cotton candy. No one else has yet duplicated his two-story machine, which requires several strapping laborers to turn the cranks, pump the bellows and stoke the furnace. The confectioner’s guild would like to have him, but he insists that selling cotton candy is only to fund his further experiments to his ultimate goal: edible candy clothing! It’s genius, I tell you! Genius!
 
Tattoo Artists. Complex, detailed body art, not the basic ink of a soldier, sailor or thug.
 
Music-Box Maker. Another luxury item, too tinkery for the musical instrument makers, and too musical for the tinkers.
 
Bonsai. Some gods are traditionally worshiped at sacred trees rather than temples. How to do this in a built-up city? Own a miniature, portable sacred tree.
 
Toy Soldier Maker. More detailed than usual for the pewtersmiths; comparable to jewelers. But  they are not jewelers.
 
Lens Grinders. You can buy spyglasses or spectacles, but these precision items cost a lot.
 
Denturists. Another precision craft, and costly enough that the market remains small.
 
Paper Appliqué. Another foreign craft, recently introduced: patterns or pictures of colored cut paper applied to a wooden surface and coated with lacquer or varnish. Not quite a poor man’s enamel work, but not quite as expensive.
 
China-Doll Makers. This requires specialized forms of multiple crafts: porcelain-workers to make the heads and other body parts, some tinkering to put them together, and seamstresses to make the miniature clothing. Hm. There might be enough artisans to form a Toymaker's Guild, but presently they're scattered: People who make wooden toys, for instance, in the woodworker's guild.
 
Mask Makers. Several possible crafts (cloth, leather, wood, etc.), possibly in combination. For costume parties, some religious festivals, or the big Autocrat’s Ascension Day parade down in Mactown.
 
Vellum Maker. Papyrus and true paper have largely supplanted parchment and vellum, but the lone business in town that still makes writing material from animal skins stubbornly resists absorption into the guild.
 
Pearl Carver. Making stuff from nacre. Not quite a jeweler, and there’s a foreign aspect as many techniques and designs are copied from the merfolk.
 
Alchemists have a small guild, but there is no magic guild.
 
Dean Shomshak
 

I won't be available this Saturday due to family obligations. Sorry about this.
 
I'm fine with either Lawrence or Vaughn running my character in my absence, if either is willing.

Developed a new vignette for Here There Be Monsters, The Tears of Tierrasola
 
Set in the scenic suburb Tierrasola, the initial kick off is a sudden infestation of Revenants. The player characters will be  an experienced Hunter, and a high school kid who is more than he appears swept up in the action.
 

I'm available to game on the 8th! Just sounding off here. 😁

Did  the second session of the Tierrasola adventure yesterday...Drew and Joey tracked the source of the revenant outbreak to the Tierrasola Memorial Hills cemetary up in the hills bordering the suburb, eventually finding the Black Wizard Antonio Aguilar in a many hundred year old marble crypt from the days of Spanish rule, using a powerful artifact in an attempt to resurrect long dead ancestors, powerful Black Wizards of centuries ago, in an attempt to return his diminished family to power in occult circles.
 

 
In the innermost chamber, protected by a lethally dangerous mystical circle that was proof against mundane intervention, Antonio had been chanting away for nearly an hour struggling to bring back the souls of his long dead predecessors; the necromantic emanations of the artifact radiating outward caused the less long-dead corpses in the graveyard to rise as revenants as a side effect. 
 
When the PC's arrived in the chamber, Antonio ignored them, confident that his magical dome would be sufficient to keep them out, and indeed Drew's bullets were unable to penetrate the warding circle...literally disintegrating upon contact. But the superhumanly durable Joey experimented by sticking a pinky into the barrier for a second, and while it did singe his skin his healing factor immediately erased the damage.
 
In a moment of heroism, Joey leaped thru the barrier. His clothes, hair, and carried items were evaporated and his skin was singed much like a bad sunburn, but he healed it almost immediately. Inside the circle with Antonio and the two bundles of bone the Black Wizard was attempting to resurrect, Joey tried punching Antonio several times to disrupt his casting, but Antonio continued to ignore him and chant, demonstrating personal magical protection from harm. Finally Joey shoved Antonio as hard as he could, and managed to push him out of the circle, breaking the spell and bringing down the protective dome. Though the players didn't yet know it, all the remaining revenants dropped inert at this moment, no longer animated by the necromantic energy of the necklace.
 
Drew, who had maneuvered around to get a clear line of fire, immediately snapped off a head shot that should have killed just about anything, but the bullet failed to penetrate the Black Wizards head, blocked by his mystical protection. The whiplash and impact still seemed to get his attention, and Antonio responded with a cone of black tendrils that blinded Drew for a while. Meanwhile Athyric Surges zapped out, punishing Joey with powerful mystical shocks. 
 
Joey wound up for a haymaker, and with a little bit of luck (Drew's Extreme Luck applied to his roll), clocked Antonio with a staggering slam. After that, the Black Wizard was on his back foot, forced to buy time. He tried to erect another barrier, but Joey grabbed and threw him (aided again by Drew's luck) away from it. Antonio responded with life draining energies, stealing some of Joey's essence to heal himself which bought more time. But Drew's vision returned, and he started to harass Antonio with a series of lucky shots with his pistol. Finally Joey body slammed the Black Wizard to the ground and locked in a grab. As Drew prepared to deliver a coup de grace, Antonio surrendered, offering to make a deal with Section M in return for clemency. 
 
Drew duct tape gagged, and blindfolded the Black Wizard, and took away his artifact. Joey, still naked, took Antonio's clothes as they were about the same size, and then they zip tied him for good measure.
 
About twenty minutes later the established Hunter Garrett showed up with his Hunter team to handle cleanup, Antonio was handed off, and after some blah blah blah, the PC's went their separate ways.
 
All in all it was a really good session, about 70% action 30% roleplaying, and fun was had by all.

Sure.
 
All of the NPCs in Nobles Knights And Necromancers are explicitly drawn from the races, cultures, and locations of Ambrethel. Many of them are elaborations on specific people mentioned in Turakian Age. The adventures in Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds are all set in identified locales within Ambrethel. The creatures in Monsters Minions and Marauders and Book Of Dragons often include background for representative individuals of their kind, linked to a particular location and/or group within the Turakian setting. The two Fantasy Hero Grimoire(s) detail the spells that make up the "arcana" of classes of magic identified in TA.
 
All of these things are "generic" in that they'd easily fit into almost any "D&D-esque" fantasy game setting; but they all refer to the Turakian Age world as their default.

I don't disagree with you, in terms of building up locations in the world. But DoJ did make an effort to support TA, with supplementary books tying directly into that setting, such as Monsters Minions And Marauders (bestiary), Fantasy Hero Grimoire I & II (spells), Nobles Knights And Necromancers (NPCs), Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds (adventures), Book Of Dragons (dragons and other really big monsters), and Enchanted Items (um, that).
 
Ultimately it was sales that determined the fate of the Turakian Age. Generally speaking, Hero fantasy material just didn't sell as well as Champions. At one point Steve actually put Aarn, City Of Adventure on the publication schedule, and expressed eagerness to write it; but it ended up being pulled due to the performance of the whole line.

One thing not included with the TA source book itself is the sort of detailed index one came to expect of all Fifth Edition Hero books. This one provides only a broad subject index. However, Steve Long created a separate, exhaustive combined index and glossary for the setting, the Encyclopaedia Turakiana, as a free downloadable PDF, available on the Hero Games website: https://www.herogames.com/files/file/206-encyclopaedia-turakiana/
 
That file was first hosted on a much earlier version of the Hero website, along with several other free downloads related to the Turakian Age. Among them was a summary/classification of the dominant Turakian Age gods; and a calendar for the Westerlands, a major region of the world of Ambrethel. You'll find links to those at the bottom of this archived webpage: https://web.archive.org/web/20060209130204/http://herogames.com/FreeStuff/freedocs.htm
 
Continuing the parade of freebies , if anyone would like to get an advance look at what Ambrethel, the Turakian Age world, looks like, you can download maps in various sizes, color and B&W, from the first couple of links on yet another archived webpage:  https://web.archive.org/web/20060209130319/http://herogames.com/FreeStuff/wallpapers.htm
 
However, the current website also hosts free collected scans of the detailed maps from inside the TA source book, which you can download from here: https://www.herogames.com/files/category/9-maps/

 

There is a Minuteman Robot write up in the 5th edition Champions Universe book / pdf, page 145.
 

 
 

I like this campaign story line and want to see it where it goes. While I'm fully engaged and committed to its progression, I do admit that my long-term memory failed me for some of the story details. Perhaps I've grown spoiled by your story recaps, but this is a case where a summary might help reorient us. Also you can utter the words RTFM, which are always fun to say. 

I like this campaign so far and hope to see everyone in February 8.