Lucius

I like the idea so well I just might steal it. Lucius Alexander Smuggling it out in a palindromedary's saddle bag

That's the first step. Until you know what kind of power you want to create, you can't do anything. In Hero we "reason from effect," that is, decide what we want an ability to do, and only THEN figure out how to make that happen in game terms. For instance I want to create an ability for a character named John Lee Pettimore III (Yes, if you know the song Copperhead Road, the character is based on that song.) He's in a game of Monster Hunter International, a game using the Hero rules that I can only recommend if the guy running it agrees to make some adjustments to either the monsters or the character's starting points, or if you don't mind your characters getting regularly chewed up in Total Party Kills. My friend, who's been running this character complains "These monsters can one shot us, but we can't one shot them." And he has a point. I want to make an ability that keeps a character from being taken out in one shot by overwhelming damage. I'm going to call it "Too Ornery to Die!" Somehow, by luck or stubborn refusal to quit or some other factor, the keeps going after attacks that would have taken down a lesser man. The vampire tosses him aside before he's fully drained. The monster underestimates him and swats him aside contemptuously with less than full strength. The giant spider's bite fails to inject a full dose of venom. You can think of it as the power to be the hero of a story and not just a victim. Now, once you know what you want, you can look at the list of Powers (and sometimes Talents, Skills, or even Characteristics) to find something that has the kind of effect you want. A common example used when people describe Hero System is to point out that there is no "fireball" or "lightning bolt" Power. If you want a character to attack with fireballs, you might chose the Power called "Energy Blast" which does damage at range, apply the Power Modifiers that make it work like a fireball (such as making it an explosion over an area) and call it "Fireball." One thing that can confuse people is that the NAME of a Power doesn't have to matter in terms of how it works in the game world. For example, there is a Power called Darkness. You can use it to do what it sounds like, create field of darkness that light does not penetrate and in which, or through which, you therefore cannot see. You could ALSO define it as "vs Radio" and create an area in which you are jamming all radio and radar transmission. It's no longer dark, but the Power used is still "Darkness." There are a lot of Powers that defend against damage, but the one I want to use for this effect is called Desolidification. As you have hopefully guessed, this DOES NOT mean that John Lee Pettimore III is going to resist damage by turning into smoke or something; it just means he's going to be unharmed. This costs 40 points - a lot, but there's a way to make it cheaper. After choosing a Power, you can apply "Power Modifiers." There are Adders, which add to the cost and make a Power more effective in some way. There are Advantages, which multiply the cost and can make it considerably more effective; for example if I want John Lee Pettimore III to be able to protect someone else with this ability to survive the unsurvivable, I could use the Advantage "Usable By Others." I won't, because that doesn't really make sense for this ability. And finally there are Limitations, which divide the cost and make it in some way less effective. I plan to apply several of those. I start with the Limitation "Cannot Pass Solid Objects" since our redneck gun loving anti-hero here isn't going through a wall without putting a hole in it. This has a Limitation value of -1/2 (Limitations are annotated with a minus sign and Advantages with a plus sign, to keep us from confusing one with the other.) I add "Only to Protect Against Damage that would bring to Negative BOD, or Negative STUN, or otherwise incapacitate." (in other words, "one shots") for -1. Side Effects is a Limitation that says something bad will happen, or might happen, when a Power is used; I take Minor Side Effects because it will often make sense for the character to take SOME damage even though the way the Power works it's supposed to stop all of it. Side Effects is worth -1/2. I take No Conscious Control for -2, because the character can't just decide to use this ability; we're going to trust the guy running the game to let it come into play when needed. And finally, I will limit the character to three miraculous escapes a day; that's the Charges Limitation, and for 3 Charges it's -1 1/4. That's a total Limitation value of -5 1/4. If you have the Hero Designer program it does the math for you but if you want to do it yourself it works like this: ACTIVE POINTS equals Base Cost of Power plus (Base Cost of Power Times Advantages.) In this case, I had no Advantages so Active Points is 40, same as the Powers basic cost. REAL COST (the price you pay in Character Points) equals ACTIVE POINTS over (one plus total Limitation value) In this case 40 / (1+5.25) = 6 (round it off, rounding down if it's at something point five.) And that's as much math as you would likely be expected to do, and it's all "front loaded" in the character creation process. And even that is not necessarily mandatory; at first John Lee Pettimore III had NO Powers, and was all built on Characteristics, Skills, and Talents. It's the Powers that get complicated. Now tell us what kind of power YOU want to build, and you'll probably get several suggestions from different people on how to build it. And they may even all be right, there is often no one "right" way to construct a power in Hero. Lucius Alexander Just as there is no one, single, ideal palindromedary tagline

Yes, it was radical to present women as playMATES rather than playTHINGS - as sexual and social equals desiring sexual fulfillment and entitled to it. To present sex as a source of mutually beneficial pleasure rather than something men need to be ashamed of because it's a base and sinful compulsion inflicted upon reluctant women. And you are right that these are still radical ideas in need of attention, discussion, and even advocacy. The role of Playboy in the sexual revolution, and the nature of that revolution, like the civil rights movement, as a still ongoing struggle, could easily be the basis of its own thread. But I don't see this particular move on Playboy's part as "a win for the anti-sex advocates." If anything, it looks to me more like an acknowledgment that the front lines of the revolution have moved on. Lucius Alexander I'm not even going to try to explain to the palindromedary what we're talking about.

It is. It's easy and I'm sure fun to paint the woman as a villain and boo and hiss at her for suing her nephew, but the villain in the piece is the insurance company that offered one dollar towards her medical bills because they knew they could use an 8 year old boy for a legal human shield. Lucius Alexander And have you ever tried to insure a palindromedary?

I haven't actually looked at a Playboy in decades. So my views could be out of date. But there has always been this idea of "I only read it for the articles" being a joke. I always figured anyone who thought that was a joke was someone who never ever actually looked at the magazine. There WAS no other reason I could see to read it except for the articles and fiction. You could have taken the nudity and sexual matter out and 90% of the magazine would still be there and it would still have been a world class magazine. If I wanted sexy pictures, I looked at Cosmopolitan or at one of the men's magazines that really specialized in that sort of thing - which playboy didn't. So my reaction to the news they're dropping nudes is - who's going to miss 'em? I suspect they long ago passed the point at which having nudity was driving away more readers than it was drawing in. All they did was draw attention away from everything else the magazine had to offer. Lucius Alexander I doubt anyone reads my posts just looking for the palindromedary tagline either

So who's playing a superhero game? Lucius Alexander Playing a palindromedary game

Hm.....perhaps a long term Drain STUN with Limitation "Victim still aware." Lucius Alexander Still aware of a palindromedary

Mechanically speaking, what is the distinction between paralyzed, and unconscious? Lucius Alexander Asking an unresponsive palindromedary

I've actually never seen the famous spirit rules. Lucius Alexander Nor has the palindromedary

That's one useful item that enables the accomplishment of a task that would otherwise be impossible or more difficult. Has anyone so much as attempted to show exactly how the principal's actions led to the deaths of these students? Lucius Alexander I mean, if I die in a traffic accident tomorrow is someone going to blame the palindromedary?

What's wrong with Change Environment? Lucius Alexander The palindromedary asks wire we taking this trip?

I think "Only to Activate" means just to turn on the Power, and then once active, assuming the Power includes more than one shape, the character can freely change shapes. "Only to Change Shape" means the every time the character changes form, it costs END. Lucius Alexander Only to Change Shape to Palindromedary

Well I'll say that I've been lurking and reading threads and what I see does make me very reluctant to post anything. Or anything outside of the Hero-related threads and maybe a few others like the "Create a Character" thread. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary and I can probably find better things to do

Good news for a change http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/ark-survival-game-review "I base-jumped into a pack of carnivores and got rescued by my daughter, who was riding a velociraptor." Lucius Alexander House of the Palindromedary

Rather than Transform, you might consider a Killing Attack and linked Triggered Summon Lucius Alexander Linked Triggered palindromedary tagline

We had fun with my Turakian Age game today, but the part I really want to share is about Xanthrax again. The party was being attacked by, among other things, Trolls riding on mastodons. After the riders had been forcibly dismounted from one of the mastodons, it grabbed up Xanthrax by the legs and was dangling him upside down. Xanthrax STILL managed to hit the beast in the head with his pickax so hard it lost consciousness. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary says mastodons are fun, and I musth use them again sometime.

If one does choose to use Spiritual Transform, I suggest the target number be, not BOD or EGO but some set fraction of the character's Total Points, including XP and Complications. If "spirit" means anything, wouldn't it mean "everything the character is?" Lucius Alexander Transform to palindromedary

Or else Extradimensional Movement, to a universe where the person made different choices and therefore has a different karma. Lucius Alexander Putting a palindromedary bumper sticker on my karma.

Even better idea - abolish Characteristic Maxima. Lucius Alexander Maximizing palindromedaries

I've been hanging out there some the last few days.....and starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn't make a habit of it. edit; to clarify, I'm saying the "atmosphere" so to speak is less relaxing and welcoming there than it is here. Also, they need to fire the scriptwriter. RPG net keeps not responding due to a long running script, Lucius Alexander The palindromedary and I have been in nicer places. Here for example.

I "poached" a magic system off it too. That was 20 years ago and I doubt I could find the notes, but here's the gist: For every type of spellcaster you wants in your game, do NOT write up spells. Select a standard list of Limitations that they get for every spell, and figure out what those Limitations add up to: Some would come to -1, some to -1 1/2, some -2, on up to maybe -4. Some "schools" may have more than one possible value due to distinctions between the Limitations on Instant or Constant spells, etc. Then write up a "universal" spell list of base Powers plus Advantages and perhaps some Limitations a given spell would always have regardless of who's casting it. For each spell, list what the Real Cost would be for a given Limitation value. This way you only have to write up each spell once, but you can quickly determine what it costs for any given wizard and how it works for them. Now I'm tempted to try to implement such a system in Hero Designer, and I think I see how too... Lucius Alexander The palindromdary asks if I didn't mean "I think I see how to, too?"

A useful item that enables the accomplishment of a task that would otherwise be impossible or more difficult? Lucius Alexander Taking a palindromedary to a hardware store

It's a judgment call to say where the line is between "benefit you get from special effects" and "this should definitely cost points." It might be reasonable to handwave this with "ok, that should work" but that's a call to be made by whoever is running the game. Obviously a lot of people think it needs to be defined as a Power. Lucius Alexander The confused palindromedary asks if an invisible palindromedary in the middle of an Area Effect Blast is immune to the damage by virtue of being invisible.....

Now THAT'S public art I can support! Lucius Alexander The palindromedary doubts that and claims the giants are the ones doing the supporting.

This column http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2013/02/gaming-while-female/ References this study http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/WaiYenTang/20130208/186335/Reactions_to_a_womans_voice_in_an_FPS_game.php Which looks like good evidence that in online gaming, gamers presenting as women are about three times as likely to garner negative verbal reactions than gamers presenting as men or presenting ambiguously. The study controlled for skill level; if I'm reading this right, highly skilled women can still expect to get thrice the insults a similarly skilled man will get. edit: they also distinguished "directed negative comments" from "queries" so presumably "What's your number/email/approximate geographic location/etc" are not included in with threats and insults. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary has a Y chromosome and a Y-not? chromosome.