Karmakaze

Re: Ctrl+V

http://www.simonscat.com/thebox.html

Re: The cranky thread

You know the thing I was so glad at being at GenCon instead of dealing with. I'm still dealing with it, and... *headdesk*

Re: power usable once per hour

"Only out of combat" means that you can't do it during combat, not that the charges are recovered the second combat ends.

It's "at least an hour," not "exactly an hour," right? Is there a limit on the time spent between transformations?

Re: Fanfic/short stories/ etc.

Hm. You know, I'm not sure when blogs are activated. You can see some others here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/blog.php

Re: Domino costume

That would also explain why female super heroes wear the costumes they do...to draw the eyes away from the face to their other...ahem attributes.

From the pilot of Lois and Clark:

[Martha and Clark finally pick a good disguise for Clark]

Martha Kent: Well, one thing's for sure. Nobody's going to be looking at your face.

Clark Kent: Mom!

Martha Kent: [laughing] Well they don't call them tights for nothing!

Re: Domino costume

That would also explain why female super heroes wear the costumes they do...to draw the eyes away from the face to their other...ahem attributes.

From the pilot of Lois and Clark:

[Martha and Clark finally pick a good disguise for Clark]

Martha Kent: Well, one thing's for sure. Nobody's going to be looking at your face.

Clark Kent: Mom!

Martha Kent: [laughing] Well they don't call them tights for nothing!

Re: Modular Heroic Design

There was something similar done for superheroes in one of the 5th ed books.

Re: Only Humans Need Apply: Campaigns with Just Humans

It occurs to me that if you're running a campaign that allows magic-users, aren't mages demi-human in their own way? The sort of magic used in fantasy settings doesn't map well to real-world history and can easily generate cultures nothing like what we've actually seen.

Re: Only Humans Need Apply: Campaigns with Just Humans

I don't think there's any problem with human only games. Just because D&D was a Tolkein homage doesn't mean every setting needs to be.

Much harder would be a campaign with no humans in it' date=' because stereotypical elves and dwarves don't really come with much variation. A standard problem with most fantasy campaigns, actually.[/quote']

 

It's the same in most genres. See "All planets have one culture and one climate" as seen in Space Opera.

 

I've seen a fantasy campaign done as all anthropomorphs, which is technically a no human campaign

Re: Percy Jackson and the Olympians

The plot divergences made both my wife (an elementary school librarian) and me indignant because they really didn't seem necessary.

That and some of the changes killed the funny. Part of the tone of the books is the humor of modern interpretations of mythological constructs. I'd particularly liked the bit where

It's the sort of thing that would be fun to carry over into the game world, as in American Gods.

Re: Percy Jackson and the Olympians

The smell is only distinctive to monsters. The "family resemblance" can be a DF. In addition to Anna beth's gray eyes Percy's sea green eyes are commented on more than once' date=' and IIRC Thalia's eyes are sky blue. Don't recall it being mentioned, but I would expect Bianca and Nico to have eyes of such a dark brown they appear black, and Clarisse's to be light brown, amber, like a predatory animal, almost looking as if there were a fire dancing within them. Charles Beckendorf has brown eyes, but not as dark as Bianca and Nico. Silena Beaureguard, can't decide; maybe violet, or hazel, appearing subtly different every time you look into them.

[/quote']

 

I figure that something that is only detectable by a certain group is equivalent to the "detectable with special equipment" level of a Distinctive Feature. Like the "buzz" in Highlander was a distinctive feature, only noticeable by other immortals.

Re: Percy Jackson and the Olympians

I haven't seen the movie, but I expect there will be extensive spoilers from the books. So guess I should use spoiler tags.

The setting stuff starts out mostly the same as the books, but the stuff about monsters is never made explicit, and the plot diverges more and more as the movie goes on.

 

All Half-Blood characters were raised by a single parent, or a bioparent and step-parent. Half-Bloods must take the Complication "Hunted by Monsters." They may take the Physical Complications "Dyslexia" and/or "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)." Heroes should not harm mortals "unless absolutely necessary." This may lead to a Code vs Killing, but it is not obligatory.

I'd go with a Distinctive Feature as well.

One thought on that set of powers:

 

 

How can a physical weapon not affect mortals? If you stab a mortal with a celestiial bronze dagger, don't they still suffer the effects of being stabbed, which are hardly pleasant?

A wizard did it.

Re: Expanding the War Machine

I'm surprised not to see Warbird already mentioned. (presumably someone with more flight-themed abilities).

Re: Only in Hero ID

So' date=' would this constitute "a way to stop me from transforming"? Threaten to reveal his SID?[/quote']

 

I'm going to go with the consensus that that's a function of the Secret ID Complication. Think of it like this - if you were to buy off the Secret ID complication or replace it with Public ID, you'd then also have to rewrite all of the powers that had Only in Alternate Identity on them, even though they would not have changed.

 

I could see a GM allowing this if you're in a game where this is going to come up a lot, but, in general, I'd want the Limitation to take a bit more than that.

Re: Only in Hero ID

I'm not too crazy about that sort of thing. There's nothing about Batman or Daredevil that says they can't kick as much butt outside of their costume, they just tend to (occasionally) hold back in order to preserve their Secret ID -- which they're already getting points for.

 

I can see the purchase of defenses for an armor lined costume, standard Focus stuff, sure. I can even understand the occasional PRE stat difference that some designers give those sort of guys, to reflect that there's increased poise, confidence, and "game face" going on (alongside the fact that Batman's cowl is designed to strike fear, that a known street vigilante might also have Reputation Perks to add to intimidation, or whatever)... but outright OCV, DCV, etc? I don't know if I'd let that fly, at my game table, just for someone changing their pants and putting a mask on.

For most concepts, I'd say the need to not use powers in civilian ID is covered by Secret ID and doesn't justify buying OIHID in addition. I could see doing a character with a psychological makeup where they only have the confidence to perform while masked, and that might count.

Re: Really, Hero Games? Two Rulebooks?

On the other hand, the cost of entry to, say, Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition is in the same neighborhood (the dm's guide, players guide and monster manual run $35 apiece, making the three core D&D rulebooks come out a hair over $100).

You may want to consider starting with the basic rules - they're only $20.

Re: Any good character sheets for use on computer? That track END, STUN, BODY, etc.

Not to hijack your thread, but this annoys the heck out of me. I have a weekly game and the game master uses a lap top, and two of the players keep their characters on their Iphones. Table top gaming is supposed to be about spending time with friends and interacting with them NOT your electronic devices. Admittedly the Iphones are less offensive than the lap top, but it is very hard not feel disconnected from someone who is looking at a computer screen rather than listening to what is going on in the room he is in.

 

In answer to your question. No I don't know of any such a thing. Not that I have looked for one.

I instituted a "no electronic devices" rule in the game I'm running now. Although, really, all I'd actually have to do is unplug the wireless router for a few hours. It seems that the siren song of internet surfing is where the real problem comes in.

I've had a few good sessions as a player where I was able to do sidebar roleplaying via IM rather than having to talk across someone else having a scene. I also type game notes so I can post recaps, which helps keep focus on the game. So it's not the laptops per se that are the issue, necessarily.

I haven't used herocentral.net, but it's designed for letting people run their campaigns online. It might also work as a supplement to an in-person game.

Re: New Gamers

Having said that' date=' do I think that the HERO System is inherently ill-suited to being someone's first RPG? Not at all. And I don't really think Hero Games thinks that either (hence products like the HERO System Basic Rulebook). [/quote']

 

Well...now that you mention it' date=' I've never met anyone whose first RPG was the HERO System (in its Universal incarnations). I'd be willing to hazard that even if there are such people, they were intro'd to the game by an established group.[/quote']

 

Does 4th Edition Champions count? Because that was my first RPG. (I knew about RPGs before then, but I didn't know any of the D&D players in my high school, and my other gamer friends were too far away for me to join their groups. Before college, I did what were known as "BBS Storyboards".) I did have someone walk me through character creation, so there was a semi-established group, I guess. The GM wasn't actually very good, which rapidly lead me to decide that I could do better, and I started running games a few months later.

 

Weirdly, I played Champions, Call of Cthulhu, Ars Magica and Teenagers From Outer Space before I ever played an actual game of D&D (that would have been in the era of AD&D2). It's put me in a weird position as a gamer, because I just don't get D&D. It's the one game system I really struggle with.

Re: Why doesn't 6e use hexes as a unit of measurement?

If this is just a non-issue why the change at all? I mean does it matter what scale is used...why change it? Was it broken before? Did people get upset that they could not visualize 2 meters...but can somehow visualize 1 meter?

It's not a matter of visualization, though. It's a matter of simplifying the number of units required by the rules. 5e and previously, you had three interchangeable units, hexes, inches, and meters (1 hex=1 inch=2 meters). Since meters were the only one of those that is also a real-world measurement, that's what stuck. It's not that visualizing in chunks of x meters is necessarily easier than visualizing in chunks of 2x meters, but that it's simpler to work in one unit than converting between three units.

(On a much less important note, it also removes the age old "wait, did you mean scale inches?" question...)

Re: Teen superhumans but no adult ones

Maybe the comic didn't' date=' but being on a timer just because you're special? That sucks.[/quote']

 

The one time I did something like this, it wasn't that having superpowers guaranteed an early death, there just came a point where using the powers put too much wear on the body. (You had mostly teens, because they bounced back better. Kind of the way some gymnastics careers end at 20.) The warning signs were pretty clear, though, so the answer was to just stop using the powers. This had the advantage of giving me a couple of mentor characters with "one last shot" in them. (Part of the heroic arc is losing your mentor, after all.)

Re: With Great Power...

I was in a campaign once where we almost did something of the sort (it ended for unrelated reasons.) My character had started to experiment on herself, and I'd discussed with the GM that she'd slowly go mad with power and once we finished the plotline, I'd come in with a new character. He offered a villain bonus of about 3/4 our total point level.

Re: Presence power framework

Not all of these are Batman appropriate, but there are power builds that can use presence as a special effect.

Take the age-old pulp trope of the young woman hiking up her skirt to summon a taxi - Is it a Summon (with gestures, naturally)? A Contact (nearest taxi driver)? A special effect of an Area Knowledge roll?

You can also build some of the Presence Attack effects as powers, to get a more reliable or granular effect:

Take the ability to create a distraction by being the center of attention - Presence Attack? maybe. Or maybe it's a change environment with a penalty to everyone's PER roll.

Re: What Do You Do with a Dog in a Dungeon?

If you stand just outside the door, your dog will wander around the shop picking things up and may drop them in the doorway. Then you can take them without the shopkeeper attacking you as a thief...

{I can't be the only nethack player here, can I?}

Re: Public ID or Secret ID

If we think about it' date=' how hindering is a Hunted? If no one had one, there wopuld still be adversaries to fight, and I don't see the Hunted coming after the specific PC and taking him out in very many games. [/quote']

 

That's going to depend on your game and your GM. Thinking back to the last two times I took a hunted, my hunted inconvenienced my PC more than the team in general, because the attacks were targeted to my PC's weaknesses. In the second case, I wound up needing a rescue from the rest of the team, which I'd count as hindering. Unless I'd made a specific enemy during gameplay, I don't think the GM would have had a general villain target me that way.

The Jobs Of Yesteryear: Obsolete Occupations

Need an occupation for one of your pulp characters? Here are some ideas.

I'd heard of all the occupations except for Lector (Cigar makers in Florida and New York City would sometimes pool their wages to pay a "lector" to read newspapers or political tracts aloud to them while they worked.)

Also interesting:

Copy Boy In the days of telegraphs and typewriters, newspaper offices ran on paper -- and the "copy boys," or errand runners, who shuttled that paper from desk to desk. Copy boys would tear mimeographed reports from The Associated Press or other wire services from telegraph machines. They would then sort them according to subject (foreign, domestic, city, and so on), and deliver them to the appropriate desks in the newsroom. After a reporter finished typing up a story, he would shout "Copy!" and a copy boy would arrive to shuttle his story to the desk of the next editor in the editorial process.

 

Pinsetter: Before bowling alleys were fully automated, pins that were knocked over would stay that way until a person came to set them back up. "Pingirls" and "pinboys," usually teenagers, would wait in the gutters at the end of the lane for bowlers to throw the ball. They would then clear away the "deadwood," or knocked-over pins, and set the pins back up in their appropriate spots after the bowler's turn was over.

 

Lamplighter: Lamplighters in New York City at the turn of the century were responsible for lighting 200-300 streetlights an hour. They carried long ladders and lanterns or matches to light the gas lamps along their assigned routes.