DreadDomain

Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting Thank you Eosin. I just e-mailed you. DD

Re: The Last Dominion Campaign Setting Bought it, didn't read it yet, at first sight looks really, really good but what about the maps? I thought the high resolution maps were included in the book. Or did I misunderstand and is there only the four small, half-page maps?

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity?

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity? Let me echo that opinion. Adding damage is probably the current worst offender in the category of "overcomplexity which doesn't bring much". I personally feel Hero is complex enough. I don't feel it is really complex but then again I've been playing it for so long it just naturally make sense to me. I do not agree with Zornwil that GURPSizing = more complexity. GURPS in my opinion is no more complex than Hero. More detailed in certain areas (skills, advantages, disadvantages) but not really more complex. Like Hero, it just needs a few rules simplified for the sake of gamability (like the throwing distance rule for instance). I don't feel GURPS is really complex but then again I've been playing it for so long it just naturally make sense to me.

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Really? In what book did he say that?

Re: Worst comic book superfight ever Coming in very late here but to answer the original question, the worst super-fight ever for me was Wolverine versus Lobo in DC versus Marvel. I blame this whole mess on DC. How they could offer Lobo in a popularity contest against Wolverine is beyond me? It wasn't bad enough that he could not win this contest, they had to pit him against a character nowhere near his power level. Obviously, there was no way to write this fight in a believable way but they even fail to make it entertaining or fun. Bad, bad, bad...

Re: DC's Best Martial Artist My vote : 1. Richard Dragon 2. Lady Shiva 3. Batgirl (current) 4. Deathstroke 5. Batman 6. Kobra 7. Mr. Terrific (current) 8. Bronze Tiger 9. Ra's Al Ghul 10. Bane Again, based on skill. Bane is more of a brawler than a refined martial artist but his abilities are right up there.

Re: Marvel's Best Martial Artists Let's see. Based on martial arts ability only (skills) : 1. Shang Chi 2. Iron Fist 3. Ronin (New Avengers) 4. Captain America 5. Daredevil 6. Black Panther 7. Elektra 8. Batroc 9. Black Widow 10. Wolverine Like I said, I based that on skill levels. I still think Cap would win against any of the first three because of superior strength and stamina.

Re: Calling Frenchmen and Francophiles Personally, I would avoid Maginot (the Maginot line didn't prove too useful after all) and Égalité, Liberté and Fraternité (it just doesn't sound too Brick like). My favorite would be Durandal but Bastille or Bastion seem very good too. Other possibilities include : Percheron (a horse originally from Normandie specifically bred for power) Citadelle (Citadel) Château Fort (Fort means both "keep" and "strong") Assaut (Assault; for a more agressive character) Mortier (which both means "mortar" and designate a type of canon) Le Gaulois (the Gaul) République (for a democracy inclined patriot) Premier Empire (for a nationalism inclined patriot) Révolution (for a socialism inclined patriot) More may come later. Dread

Re: Strength Cost: 1 point or 2 Using the characteristics as is, I also think Strength should be increased at 2 points per level in a Heroic game. I might even do it in a Superheroic game but I would be much more hesitant.

Re: Strength Cost: 1 point or 2

Re: Introducing player to the HERO System

Re: What we like about HERO Not that I do it conciously but generally I judge a RPG according to three main factors : Completedness/Adaptability Consistency Realism of genre Completedness/Adaptability : Like it is discussed in another thread, completedness is in my opinion a huge asset. If the rules cover it all in one single book, that's great. In order to do that, a RPG *has* to be a toolkit otherwise it would be impossible to cram everything in a book. I couldn't imagine a book including a complete super power list, a complete spell list, complete gear lists from different epoch, etc... Good examples of the Completedness approach are Hero, Gurps and to lesser degrees Tri-Stat and Action!. Hero is in my opinion the most complete game on the market. Gurps 4 comes close but falls definitely short on the powers aspect. Hero is still the king of the hill in this aspect mainly because of its yet unmatched construction system. A game could be incomplete (not covering everything you could come up with every genre) but be so adaptable that you can easily tweak it to make it work. While the "complete" games are generally rule heavy, the "adaptable" games are generally narrativist. The best examp,e I can think of is HeroQuest by Issaries. This game was created for Glorantha but it screams "try me with anything you want". Games like Rolemaster or d20 are just not flexible/intuitive enough to easily adapt to everything. The key word here is *easily*. Sure I can take d20 and play in a super game but I will have basically to create rules are the basics to make it work. Look at M&M. It is a good super game loosely based on d20 but you can barely recognize d20 behind it. Consistency : There is not much I hate more in a game that inconsistency of the rules. I like it when very simple concepts are applied along the rules to keep the system solidly rooted. An example of this is the famous +5 active points doubles the effect. While quite simple, it helps making the game works at any level. In Hero, any kind of effect is handled the same way may it be Flashes, Drains, Physical Damage, Mental Attacks. You roll a number of dice according to your effect, you substract the defense if any, you tally up against a resisting stat (Body, Ego, etc...). A game like HeroQuest is very consistent in its resolution system as well. Gurps is mainly consistent but sometime the resolution works like in Hero, sometime you have to figure out the outcome using a contest of skills/stats. This kind of dual system doesn't help keeping balance along the power levels of play. Realism of genre : What I call "Realism of genre" is the ability of a game to reproduce the specific feel of a genre. Some games are very effective in a very specific niche but are not very good at anything else. D&D and Warhammer come to mind. Obviously, the wider the range of a game, the better. While it is very difficult to cover it all, if not impossible, some games have a very wide repertoire. Some people believe Hero is very poor in the low, gritty end (to which I disagree) and excellent in the medium to high power range (to which I agree) but nevertheless, I cannot see a game with a wider range than Hero. For example, Gurps is excellent in the low to medium range of power but generally becomes much predictable in the high range. That is understandable because Gurps was built with "realism" in mind. In contrast, Hero was built with "effect" in mind. Where am I going with that? Well, I mostly like broad concepts in games not specific little things. I love Hero because it scores very well in all three aspects described above and because I don't think another game succeeds better than Hero on all three account. In short, I love Hero because it is the most complete game around, built consistently all around and capable of reproducing the genre of a very broad category of style. In contrast, what I do not like in games are often the little things. I don't like that Gurps has only 4 stats. I don't like how throwing distances are calculated in Gurps, etc... There is honestly not much I don't like about Hero. I would prefer better balanced and better defined primary chracteristics. I mean what the heck is Comeliness all about? Why noy replace it by a fourth, useful mental stats? I don't like how the throwing distance is calculated in Hero (hmmm is there a trend there?). Or, to be more precise, I don't like that throwing distances, as claculated in the rulebooks are losing fast any sense of realism once we get in the high end of Strength. I mean, I understand why it is done like this but I just cannot bring myselk to like it. At least there is the realistic throwing rules in The Ultimate Brick. While I like the Bleeding or the Endurance and the LTE rules, I find them a little bit to tenuous to bookeep. I like pretty much everything else but speaking of little things, I really, really love the speed chart and the languages chart. I admire the power system (well ok, it is not such a *little* thing). I love the freedom players have to design there characters. I love the stun concept, I love that there is not automatism in Hero (you know, like in Gurps every warrior type have Combat Reflexes). On the whole though, what I really love about Hero are the broad concepts. Make no mistake, I do love Gurps has well but Hero is still on top from my point of view.

Re: How do you track END?

Re: Haalkitaine Hackers in Shadow World Duh! There it is... It was one of my settings

Re: Haalkitaine Hackers in Shadow World You don't have any signature that I can see... Maybe it is one of my settings..

Re: Haalkitaine Hackers in Shadow World ... but looking at the map of the eastern hemisphere of Kulthea, it doesn't seem to make sense. 3000 miles nortwest of Palia there is already Kelestia. There is no room there (or in the sea between Palia and Kelestia to put the 3000 miles stretch of the Western Shores.

Re: Haalkitaine Hackers in Shadow World You got me intrigued so I already had the book in my hands

Re: Haalkitaine Hackers in Shadow World

Re: Women! Impose? No, no, of course not. Wouldn't it be like trying to fix what is not broken though? I mean don't get me wrong, I can understand and empathize with your position. If the rule gets changed someday, "he" can't be used in a generic way anymore and the swapping is the correct form, I won't mind and I will adapt. I just feel an author is making the right decision using the proper grammatical form and in the mean time, generic "he" is still the form.

Re: Women! Actually, it goes back to two months ago. Like I said, Catwoman, Wonder Woman, Black Cat or the Gen 13 characters are not the objects of my desires... My God! Maybe I am a robot!!

Re: Women! Euh!?... Please do... (Damn, I am gonna have to look at this book to see what turns Hex on... )

Re: Women! You sick puppy!

Re: Women!

Re: Women!