Rover

Re: But I want to play Champions

Hi,

In answer to original thread:

I'm more of a FH & cyberpunk fan myself but I know what you mean.

I've allways prefered the HERO system, bar perhaps RQ & then only for Gloranth.

I'm in London, UK. If anyone wants a game I'll run it. But I expect people to return the favour... still waiting:/

One of the reasons I rarely game in RPG anymore, outside of conventions.

Rover.

Re: [Compilation] "to Fantasy HERO Conversions & Adaptations"

Hi Guys,

I'm particullarly interested in running a dark sun game using Fantasy Hero rules if possible.

So I'm very appreciative of the A,D&D rules conversions

If anyone reading this thread knows of any other conversions pertaining to Dark Sun please leave a post on this thread.

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Kill the PCs?

Hi All,

Narrative?

Too much can drain the life right out of a game. Which after all is supposed to be a communal activity.

I try(not allways successfully ) to encourage gamers to help me develop the direction of the game and therefore the plot and effectively the narrative .

Gamist?

Let the players do what they want and then whack the characters when they get out of line. They're never going to learn if we nanny them.

Finally the point that caused me to post in this thread-

I noticed that a few people in this thread had made such statements as they tried never to kill the player's characters.

Miller's DD series. Can you remember the furor when he killed Elektra?

What impression did the death of Rorsarch in 'Who Watch's th Watchmen?'

I don't hold back when a player has put his character in jeopardy. But if the role playing was excellent I try to build some pathos around the character's death.

Whoops, gotta go!

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Horror Hero rant

Hi All,

I've allways found horror games, ie; COC & it's like, to be an excellent wake-up call to players who were used to 'immortal'- chararcters*.

Many enjoyed the change of pace and as a temp game it was an excellent way of prepeparing gamers for a tougher game, IE: one where thier characters could die!

*characters the GM couldn't bring himself to kill

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Gamma Girl pics

Hi Chimpera,

Forget the T&A comments.

The drawing is fine.

Your colour rendering needs work.

But I've been there and the only way it's going to improve is keep practicing.

You practice and you'll get faster and more accuarte.

Go for it.

Good luck.

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Gamma Girl pics

Hi Chimpara,

Cool artwork!

As Scifi_Toughguy sez: "I like it! She looks... real!"

And if Havana don't like it?

Don't worry. Do some more artwork. I'm sure you have an appreciative audience here.

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Russian Superheroes - Ideas and Comment Needed for 'Russian Dawn' game openings

Hi All,

WhammeWhammwe's idea's has merit.

One interesting (to me) idea I had was someone with fire powers. Think about it. In a land of biting cold and harsh winters, fire is a comfort... something that you would readily associate with a protector/hero.

 

Don't know what a good name would be though. Probably something with classical/bibilical allusions.

 

Or something about burning emotions and fervour.

But I think there are areas in Russia where one would find intense heat; vocanic heat!

The Kamchatka peninsular has a long history of vocanic activity, geysers, mud springs, etc...

Check out the link below,

Link:http://www.spacedaily.com/news/volcano-05a.html

Regards,

Rover.

Re: My Martial Arts characters

Hi All,

Brilliant thread!

Could never get enough information on martial arts.

Despite being a martial arts practioner myself whenever I was running a game there would allways be one player who would come up with some obscure point of reference in order to develop a 'martial-arts' style.

I will be searching this forum for related threads but if anyone knows of any other online resources on this subject please leave a link or open a new thread.

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Pulp Hero Cometh

Hi All,

Hi Super Squirrel,

Last night we rented Sky Captain and the World of Tommorrow. I just sort of realized' date=' how much I love the pulp genre. [/quote']

 

You may want to check out Michael Moorcock's 'The Warlord of the Air'.

 

 

Regards,

 

Rover.

Re: Is monster hunting horror?

Hi All,

In answer to Toadmaster's question; only if the monster catches and eats the player's family, and their friends, and thier pets, and the people that owe them money and finally the players

No, really.

I grew up with a lot of COC games so I'm quite used to killing and getting killed, figuratively speaking

If you're running a game where the players are settled into thier characters the best way to introduce this idea is while thier characters are out of town(Buffy went to Vegas, right? What, like she was going to fight evil in Sin City? In that outfit? Whooo, that outfit! Whoops! Sorry, I digress ) and introduce some new characters while failing to inform them your going to massacare them.

You may find the players will stop taking thier character's immortality for granted and appreciate the game more with the spice of danger actually existing in the same game world.

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Modern Bows and Accessories?

Hi All,

I apologise if I'm missing something, but are there not rules fro bows in Fantasy Hero?

I assume said rules are compatable with Dark Champions.

I would like to hear from anyone who knows different as I was intending to use those rules for my own games.

However, MacBean, you may wish to check out this thread-

Link:http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15541

Regards.

Rover.

Hi All,

I sort of started this thread in the Campaigns thread so I hope you'll be patient if the grammar and context of the qoutes are off a bit.

hI aLL,

 

 

nEWBIE HERE

 

I've run and played tabletop RPG for years now and have allways been a fan of games that had a noir feel.

 

So I'm hoping that I can chill with some like-minded spirits here.

 

 

In discussing the running of 'dark' games like Dark Champions does anyone here feel that the villians used in a tabltop game sets the tone for the campaign and even genre?

 

I don't know if this subject is quite on the nail for this thread. I'll be happy to open a new thread on the subject if anyone objects to this post on this thread.

 

 

Regards,

 

Rover.

Welcome to the boards. While this might be grist for new thread, I'll just post my basic answer.

 

 

The villain is EVERYTHING... in a book, movie, RPG... whatever... the antagonist defines the tone and feel and theme of the story as much or even more than the protagonist.

 

In supers... if Joker is a madcap who ties Gordon to a big penny, that is vastly different than if Joker is firebombing a busload of cubscouts. You have two wholly different stories based on the villain interpretation.

 

In movies... take Die Hard as an example. Hanz Gruber is an all time great movie villain, because while murderous and despicable, his ruthless, brilliant scheming personality sets the tone and makes him so much more than just "some guy who kills people." Compare him to the villain from Die Hard 2. Who you might ask? EXACTLY. The lame "killer commando" bastard from that movie was no Hans Gruber, and eminently forgettable.

 

Holmes is nothing without his Moriarty.

 

Superman is nothing without his Lex Luthor.

 

In Dark Champions... tone is everything. A muderous psychopath that must be stopped is a very different adventure than stopping the gang of professional jewel theives.

 

Good point.

Welcome to the boards. While this might be grist for new thread, I'll just post my basic answer.

 

 

The villain is EVERYTHING... in a book, movie, RPG... whatever... the antagonist defines the tone and feel and theme of the story as much or even more than the protagonist.

 

In supers... if Joker is a madcap who ties Gordon to a big penny, that is vastly different than if Joker is firebombing a busload of cubscouts. You have two wholly different stories based on the villain interpretation.

 

In movies... take Die Hard as an example. Hanz Gruber is an all time great movie villain, because while murderous and despicable, his ruthless, brilliant scheming personality sets the tone and makes him so much more than just "some guy who kills people." Compare him to the villain from Die Hard 2. Who you might ask? EXACTLY. The lame "killer commando" bastard from that movie was no Hans Gruber, and eminently forgettable.

 

Holmes is nothing without his Moriarty.

 

Superman is nothing without his Lex Luthor.

 

In Dark Champions... tone is everything. A muderous psychopath that must be stopped is a very different adventure than stopping the gang of professional jewel theives.

 

Good point.

Welcome Rover!

 

Probably a good subject for a brand new thread, but I don't have much to add beyond what RDU Neil said on the subject. I guess I would add that villains are a great way to reshape a campaign that needs fixing - changing the villain mix as discussed above changes the tone, so it can be a relatively easy way to remodel, though you do need to do something about any villains that are current and not in the vein you want.

 

I have found that I vary tones pretty dramatically in my game and the villains are there to prove it. There was Kingpin, modelled of course after the Marvel version, but a somewhat more bloodthirsty killer, more of a psychopath mixed with control freak. He had one of the PC's mothers killed (the PC wanted drama...) brutally. More recently the PCs have had to deal with the Martians...and although I didn't consciously build them this way, one way to think about them is they are like that race in ST:TNG that was incredibly imitative, brilliantly so, but almost retarded in terms of anything beyond pure imitation. These Martians are almost blithering idiots with some high degree of power but mostly they're just laughable. Currently they've been used in a sort of proxy war between the PCs and the mastermind evil mage Herr Kietersling, said to be Odin of mythology but if not at least certainly a powerful man of mystery.

These are the qoutes from the Campaign thread. But I would be interested to hear if anyone else has any view son this subject.

Once upon a time... I was running a S&S game(in A,D&D whaich I later, run in Fantasy Hero) in which the players while appreciating the unique world & campaign I had written were busy doing what they allways do.

Thieves were... thieving,

Priests were politicking,

Wizards were ducking, rule-lawyering & glomming,

And Fighters were Thieve-bashing.

It was OK but it was also pretty predictable. Hardly worth writing an original world and campaign for.

I spent a lot of time catering for individual needs as oppossed to addressing the needs of the party.

Then I introuced the party to one of the Villains. Well, I should say 'The Villain' because taht is what he became.

Origionally the villain was to be the guy behind the scenes. He was a famed adventurer, a diplomat for his church & state politician. He had status, which meant he couldn't be mowed own in broad daylight.

The villain's name came up once or twice and then increasingly so as the players made stalked him(He did have his fingers in a few pies) and the met the villain at a function (no-mans-land) where he let the party know of his awareness of thier movements and politely suggested thier health would benefit from avoiding his affairs.

From then on the players seemed to gell as group. It didn't matter if they rousting a nest of goblins for easy cash. 'What was the movements of the villain?' 'Did he know what they were doing?' 'Could they bribe the authorities to ignore an assault on this diplomat?'

Players of, so called, good alignend characters considered the morality of assasination for the first time.

I believe the villain can make the campaign.

I'm not so cock-sure that I think I know everything. So I would like to hear arguments for, or against, this idea.

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Dark Champions Campaigns

Hi All,

Off the subject of Villains for a minute...

Some years back I was playing in a few contemporary distopian SF/Horror games amd was so impressed with them that I tried to write some of my own.

During playtesting I found that simplicity in design suited the players best.

Insomuch as I limited the number of witnesses,the complexity of politics wihtin the plot and depth of the character of the NPCs.

I can't say it was easy. After one has put some energy into creating what one thinks is a brilliant piece of entertainment, it's a little galling to realise that it is far too complex and that one was being a bit of prima-donna.

So I ended up severly pruning my game and of the players that stayed(Brits tend not to complain but drop the product ) declared they enjoyed the new version.

The 'pruned bits' went into a notebook to used at a later date and I have held true to the primary rule of gaming since: make it fun.

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Dark Champions Campaigns

Hi All,

Thanks for the feedback

Since there's interest in the subject I will open this subject in a new thread.

Regards,

Rover.

Re: Dark Champions Campaigns

hI aLL,

nEWBIE HERE

I've run and played tabletop RPG for years now and have allways been a fan of games that had a noir feel.

So I'm hoping that I chill with some like-minded spirits here.

In discussing the running of 'dark' games like Dark Champions does anyone here feel that the villians used in a tabltop game sets the tone for the campaign and even genre?

I don't know if this subject is quite on the nail for this thread. I'll be happy to open a new thread on the subject if anyone objects to this post on this thread.

Regards,

Rover.