Storn

Re: Changing HERO - What are the limits?

Re: Hero System design considerations I want magic to be more like ARs Magica. One has rote spells, practiced and polished and are quantified. But magic can also be dangerously made up on-the-fly with the elements that particular mage is skilled with.... I've seen some Hero attempts... one, my friend Ilan toyed with, mages bought free floating Advantages and could combine them with any power under the cap, like 30 pts. So "Sticky" could be applied to any 30 pt power. The tough part is that I know Hero in and out. But not every player at the table does. So the player who wants to play the mage invaribly gets the Variable power pool character and doesn't know the system that well. And one thing that will make me grind my teeth is the looking up CONSTANTLY every action to figure out what to do next. Occasionaly looking something up is fine, we all do it. So for me, Hero magic doesn't seem as well done as even GURPS magic, which is similar, but its web of prerequisites and its cheap buy-in allows me to have really cool mages. Savage Worlds has got spells that are scalable, allowing flexibility that make up for the complete lack of lots of neat spells and spells are expensive to have. I think M&M does a better job of incorporating on-the-fly application of superpowers than Hero does. Hero wants everything spelled out. But the case I always cite is Spiderman is pushed out of an airplane in the Romita Sr. days. He fashions a glider out of his webbing. Clever. I want to reward my players who come up with similar solutions. How do you do that in Hero? Spidy shouldn't have gliding on his character sheet... he would use it all the time. Spidy doesn't, he swings. The Power Skill is an afterthought add-on in 5th ed. Mutant and Masterminds builds the entire system around Hero pts. Spend a Hero pt.... Spidy can web himself a glider. A finite resource is expending during the evening ep and its a one time deal. No fuss, no muss. Again, I'm not knocking Hero. I just think that a lot of Hero is very dated. And that other games have pushed the envelope where as Hero has treaded water. The impact that Feng Shui had on our group was astonding, despite only playng it a few times. The impact Burning Wheel is going to have I think will be similar. Deadlands help pave the way for Neil's Luck rules, which are brilliant and were doing the Hero Pts from M&M before M&M was a blip on the radar. The Good Borrow, Genius Steals.

Re: Hero System design considerations This is just me (and those poor sods call players that I drag in with me, looking over at RDU Neil).... but my point is that Hero 5 was a step in the wrong direction. That I though the 3rd eds were better and oddly, more easy to use during game play... and Danger International has tiny type and terrible layout... so go figure... although FH 3rd Ed is still one of my favorite Hero books ever. It overcomplicated things for the sake to staying "true to its roots". Why Instant Change is gone... I dunno. Why there is no Heal ability... I dunno. Instead, we have twisting the system into pretzels to create those. 3rd Ed Fantasy Hero had Heal and LIght, simply because those are very common spell SFX. And that made sense to me. I would have prefered a streamlining and more elegance of the system. Do we need END for Champions... I don't think so. I very much like RDU Neil's new house rule on it, because it uses the END stat but doesn't require book-keeping... see? Elegant. Do we need a Com stat?, when pretty much every Hero is one of the beautiful people? This is a hold over from 1978 era game concepts. If the looks of the character are a detrement (hideously ugly, or unbearable beauty) this is easily handled in Disadvantages. STR should be 2 pts. ED shouldn't be in most genres... Supers, sure. But Danger International? How many laser beams are there? Do we need powers expressed in inches? Just expressed it in yards/meters and be done with it. When that is truly a hold over from the early wargaming roots of RPGs? Especially in superhero games, where knowing if Flight Gal is doing 45 mph or 300 mph or 3000 mph is really a key thing to know. And I happily play other systems. And I'm not throwing Hero completly out... that is like throwing the baby out with the bath water,... but I am stating that I THINK it can be BETTER. And it can be more genre specific and mechanically tailored towards making it elegant for that genre. Now, the problem with my arguement is that *what* I think is better, might be anathema to the next dice-junkie. I admit that. And I will always choose Fantasy Hero over d20... but I have chosen Savage Worlds over Fantasy Hero. Just as we've chosen Champions over M&M. My group is having fun with Necessary Evil... I don't think it will replace Neil's Champions evar. And I just started a Burning Wheel game last night... which is really an interesting system.

Re: Hero System design considerations I agree with you Sean. Cyberpunk cybernetics should never cost character pts. Cyberpunk is all about the haves and have nots. A cyberpunk game should charge astronomical amounts of money for cybernetics... and GMs should really watch how money is acquired. But not experience pts... which is a blatant disconnect (example: I'm a down on my luck Street-Ronin, but I can afford to get a 5 million yen upgrade just because I had a couple of adventures last week?) This means tossing out the Wealth perk for example, which changes the game from the core rule. Not that Cybernetics wouldn't have Hero mechanics "under the hood". A Cyberarm is +5 STR, +3/3 Armor and is OIF. It is still very much the same system... but how it is applied to the canvas is different. But it is a fundemantal difference. I don't like Fantasy Hero magic, I have never come up with a way to have it go Wild (unless an 18 is rolled, but that happens very rarely). Side Effects are not situational, but are spelled out (sry, bad pun) during creation 90% of the time. Magic in Hero has this cut & dried, same outcome over and over again. Feels like superpowers to me. I have the same problem with D&D btw. But at least 3rd Ed FH had a Heal ability... no more shoehorning Aid or Regen. I still think that Danger International's approach to small arms is FAR superior to either 4th or 5th Ed. Autofire is handled extremely elegantly (useful when in close, worthless at med. range or beyond). D.I.'s gun rules are a bit more involved than 4th edition... but that is the lifeblood of the genre... modern day adventures with NO powers. I think that folks are not stupid. I had no problem switching from 3rd ed Fantasy Hero to Champions to Danger International at will. If I liked something in one book and wanted to take it to another genre... just plug in and play. It was no biggie. But the 3rd Ed's felt different from one another... and to me, that was a good thing. Feel is a big part of how I approach gaming. Last word: Strength is too cheap for any genre except Champions... and maybe even then. I don't want to start that debate up again, but from my POV it makes an argument that Strength is a stat that has vast consequences in Fantasy games, and therefore should be expensive... and less so in a Danger International game, where it makes ya bit tougher, but bullets are flying and a wondernine will take down the strongest man if he isn't armored. Strength's impact is not as deep in a D.I. game.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Here is W.L.'s speedster character. And Death Tribble's Silver Swallow.

Re: I Speak to Dead People I did it with Geist as Universal Translator, Only w/ dead people. Allowing me to understand them despite ancient languages or dialects. This also gave the GM control over the situation as he was the one who introduced spirits. I rarely "summoned" them. It was more of a disad than anything... cutting short many a pleasant time.

Re: How important is heroism in your campaign? Is it? It was in context of: "If we put away Dr. Destroyer, he will find a way... or Stormshadow (who is a major unstoppable badass in RDU) will find a way to... spring him. And then we have to face this threat all over again. And now he has a grudge against me/us.". Was it heroic? Or just the stakes are SO high. It was truly a despicable act that my PC did, I didn't even ahve the courage of my convictions and slit his throat. We stripped him of his armor and I invisiblely, teleknetically, stopped his heart. Only three CHARACTERS in RDU know that Dr. Destroyer did NOT die of "natural causes". Yet, it has driven story for years, that event. I wouldn't change it one iota because of the drama and the storylines it has colored. And is my PC unheroic? For that one act, perhaps. But it is muddied by the countless lives he has saved and is now in the forefront of saving again, this time, trying to save the entire solar system. And like I said, he sleeps at night just fine. But was it good roleplaying? You betchya. Listen, I'm all about heroic characters. But heroics to me are not about 4 color. That is heroism without risk or consequence. That doesn't have much interest to me. I like having powerful characters who show restraint and thought. When it comes to take the kid gloves off... oh, they are off.... but I really like to avoid combat, lethal or non-lethal, as often as I can.... creating a bit of a quandry for my GM as I try to seek out political solutions often and its tough to just have a good brawl.

Re: How important is heroism in your campaign? I'm gonna cut against the grain. I do not like the Silver or Golden Age sense of morality. Nor do I like the Authority, which is the poster child for the Iron Age. That killing is just silly and overwrought to make it satire. Yup, Authority is not fan-boy angst... it is simply satire. But if a villain is threatening my team-mates, innocents (entire cities, as happened), or in the middle of a superpowered firefight.... MOST of my PCs will drop said villain with all due extreme vengence at my disposal. I have a couple with Code vs. Killing... one is ex-Viper assassin and just can't bear it anymore. In my mind, 12d6 normal attack is a LETHAL attack. It will hospitilize a 2 PD (or ED) normal. However, it is downright irresponsible to let villains use lethal force and to treat them with kid gloves. Certainly there is protocol involved... I don't use my ALVD killing attack on the Cat Burgler who has never used violence in his crimes. Or on a gangster with a pistol when I know my force field is going to bounce his bullets. But when 100s and 1000s are at stake... you better your bottom dollar I will fight mean, dirty and get the job done. Despite that, my main PC of some 14 years, has killed maybe 10 foes. In hundreds of battles, using critical hit rules, he's killed 10. Once in cold blood, oh... but the circumstances!!!! And he and I can sleep at night. Oh, by the way, that PC's favorite quote is "Can we talk about it?"... not exactly the first to pull the trigger. He has made hard, hard choices (choosing exile to save the gov't, turning his back on godhood, turning down Mentalla, and never letting Dr. Destoyer terrorize ever again.)... I think that is pretty heroic.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. The one with the smiley face button? Serenity.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Thanks DT!! I really appreciate your help. Like DT said, been a bit swamped. Okay, here are two. I've got a bunch more to do. If you have been waiting for yours, I apologize. Right now, I only have 1 publisher's project on my desk... a cover... in between working on that, I will be cranking on commissions. 1 publisher project is actually pretty light for me. Probably be doing pencil work at TrinityCon this weekend. If you are in the area, drop in.

Re: Radical Approach To Skills this is pretty much my house rule mechanic for Savage Worlds. There is their Knowledge skill and is very abstract. Your PC's Knowledge is what is appropriate for THAT character. If your PC was a lumberjack from the Sword Coast, then rolling for City knowledge: Waterdeep is probably going to be at a minus. I like that. But several players felt a little adrift. They wanted some background skills on their sheet so they had a more concrete sense of the character's background. A reminder of sorts, more than anything. So my house rule was this: You have EQUAL dice ranks to your Knowledge in background skills for FREE. So a d4 Knowledge could have 4 d4 Specific Knowledges... or 2 d6 Specifics. Or one d10! background Specific. If the d4 Knowledge was raised to d6, then 2 add'l ranks could applied or even new background Specifics added. This worked really well, SW is a game where every single point/rank is extremely important... and folks were able to flesh out their characters nicely by having a d4 or d6 General Knowledge. And it was sorta sign of character maturity... a streetwise rogue could have 4-6 background skills as well as the academic, societal elite mage... and be very different from each other. It never hurt game balance once as far as I could tell. In fact, it promoted some character driven solutions and plot "ownership". By putting background "History of Medical Theory" down on the sheet by the Elven surgeon... it said to me that was important to the player. That he wanted me, the GM, to know that. It is interesting to me how much roleplaying of being a "elven doctor" in a frontier situation came up.... and rarely where the dice rolled. He often threw/capitilized on the social weight of being a doctor into political wrangling. But we both crafted situations that prompted that background being called upon. I also like Squirrel's approach because it is simple. I like simple. Even in Metacreator or designer, one can just list 6 skills at 11- for 0 pts if one's INT is 18. Want more background skills? (my PC just graduated pre-med), buy up INT. I would love to see INTs of 30s... why the heck not? Divorce it from I.Q. understanding of problem solving. As for Perception going up... maybe that should be divorced... but now we are deeply changing the game. INT then becomes more of your EDUCATION score. And Education can be either school of hard knocks (I have INT of 15, and I have Hotwire car, Know Nightclubs that deal, NYC, NYC Subway system, Brooklyn Mob at 11-) or a more traditional-thought of academic lifepath. (I have INT of 15, Mathematics, Physics, Columbia University, NYC, Professors of Note)

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. I decided to combine my digital watercolor look for the background and keep to the more comic-booky coloring for the figure busting the frame of reference.

Re: Duke (art and characters) uh. yes. My girlfriend is an interior designer. Her best friend is an interior designer who designs kitchens. I better be able to draw a kitchen!!!! But seriously, what I don't understand is how freakin' easy perspective is, especially for something nice and mechanical like kitchens. Time consuming? yes, very... but hard? It is simple stuff. Hell, I mastered perspective waaaaay before I was a professional illustrator. In fact, it was about the only thing I had mastered when I became an illustrator.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. The digital one is for a t-shirt for Flashing Swords, a most excellent short story/serial Sword and Sorcery website. I read everything on this site and I was thrilled to get a chance to do the t-shirt for the fund raising. I should explain that Flashing Swords is the e-zine part of Sword and Sorcery site. http://www.swordandsorcery.org/ The oil one is just for my own dang self. Based on a character out of a friend's shortstory, which was in turn, visually based on some FH drawings that I had done... convuluted? You bet.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Hey, I think you knocked it outta the park with Red Stars and that was a LOT of players at the table. You are a GM in my book.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Alan Scott was actually submitted to me with the commission request, a version done by the incomparable A. Ross. So, the similarity is totally intentional. Me too, it is a trick that I've used a couple of times to indicate 'cosmic' in a sorta visual shorthand... Death Tribble's really powerful asian woman comes to mind, as well as RDU's very own Locke. I thought it fit with the concept of Cosmic alien sorceror supremo that Aegis is... although he is supposed to be blond and look human, no sense of the alien heritage from the visual. I think RDU Neil and Greymankle (two GMs in our group) will be thrilled. And fighting over who gets to use the visuals first. . They loves the espionage, special forces stuff they's do. Of course I would accept a commission doing that. Doing characters with pouches, guns and uniforms... gee... I never do that (re: sarcasm). But seriously, doing an entire outfit sounds really cool. Especially "advanced research projects" and depicting positions that we don't get to see very often... and making them similar but unified in theme. Sounds like fun.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Thanks Templar for sharing the stats! Here is Aegis, cosmic superhero with a Golden age touch.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. I didn't post it, because I wasn't sure when you were going to use it in game to show the table... I wanted to keep it a surprise for them. Then after the weekend, I simply forgot. A couple of fantasy pics. I don't know why, even though I'm known more for my supers in the industry, I love doing the fantasy illustration stuff. The second is the underpainting... but I thought others might get a kick out of seeing the foudnation underneath the painting... the actual oil painting is going to take some time to do and to dry. And the magical energies near her hand are so intricate in my head, I just know it is easier to paint the wall and then paint on top of that, instead of trying to paint around a complicated magic circle. The first one up is digital over pencil.

Re: Is there any originality left in comics? An arguement can be made that Astro City is SO wonderful because it is NO WAY ORIGINAL!!!! Astro City really depends on one knowing the comic book tropes... Superman re-imagining? check. Batman as a religious vampire re-imagining? check. And the list goes on. Now. Are the elements of Astro City combined in a way that someone really hasn't done before? Perhaps. I see a lot of Wild Cards in Astro City.. but that is jumping media (novel - comic book). But for the most part, Busiek has always had a great knack of revisiting ideas and characters and dredging up solid ideas about how to do them in new ways. Planetary is probably the greatest rip-off artist in comics at the moment. Original?!!?1?! No Way In The Slightest is Planetary original! It steals blatantly from literature and pulps of 1880s to 1940s and combines it with 21st century cynicism. It isn't trying to be original. Dracula? Doc Savage thinly disguised? Monster Island straight from Toho? C'mon folks, that ain't original... It is an homage. Btw, I really like Planetary & Astro City. This is not a rant against it. Now, Promethia, love it or hate it, has some pretty original stuff COMBINING in it. Take centuries of mysticism and REALLY explore it, combined it with the Wonder Woman archtype, stick it in a world that Spider Jeruselum would feel right at home. NOne of the elements by themselves is all that original. Combined together.... it is pretty interesting stuff in that I've never read anything quite like it. I loved Clan Destine, btw, huge Alan Davis fan. I thought Leave It To Chance was clever, combining horror and sorcery with a Tin Tin like protagonist and aimed at, but not talked down to, audience of young adults. Last night I read a graphic novel by David Brin, "The Life-eaters". Combining 3rd Reich, Aesir and an alternate WWII storyline that was very, very well done. And freakishly disturbing. Is it original? I'm not sure. It certainly can be lumped in with Hellboy, who touches upon some of the same ideas....but it definitely vibrates at a different frequency than Hellboy... But bottom line, I think originality is over-rated. It is "craft" that can take same ol' tired tropes and breath new life.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. A Native American superhero

Re: Duke (art and characters)

Re: Duke (art and characters) Duke, I got some hopefullly constructive criticism and advice to lay down on you. 1. You tend to draw your heads a bit large and your hands a bit small. A hand, from the heel to the fingertip (outstretched) will cover the face from chin to eyebrow ridge. And if that hand is closer to the camera than the face, one has to adjust for that too, it will be slightly bigger. 2. coloring with a mouse is an exercise in insanity. Ask (BEG!) for a Wacom tablet for xmas. Or there are other cheaper ones on the market too. You do not need the largest size. Mine is 8.25x6.5... not huge and it works just fine. Works great in fact, I don't want a larger one even if I could have afforded at the time. 3. When working in photoshop, I use a duplicate layer set to "multiply". This is especially nice if I'm working over pencil, but is still nice when working over inks... because the lines will not be erased at all... if I want to change the color of a line or erase it, I work on a third, top layer set to "normal". The pristine layer is useful for when I make mistakes and need to select a selection quickly. I think you've got real chops. Your coloring especially avoids a lot of the short cuts and repitition I see in a lot of other's digital coloring. There is a depth, a chewiness to your color that I quite like.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. As with so much of my work, I just sorta have a half vague notion... like: "I'm a god, I've got SO much power, I can keep these floaty bits around me without strain". And I thought it looked cool. Really, it just simply comes down to that. I just make stuff up for a living. I let the poor players come up with justifications of why, how and how many pts do I have to spend NOW?!?!? to meet the look.

Re: Storn's Art & Characters thread. Another super/god/avatar type. Always mucho fun to do!