bigdamnhero

Re: LASD Superheros (ideas needed) Thanks for the rep, all. And thanks for the explanation of rep. I wasn't entirely clear on the concept myself either. A few years back, I actually had my own consulting business, doing law enforcement and military consulting for writers. Didn't make a red cent at it, but it was all worth while because...I got REP out of it! bigdamnhero "Life. Don't talk to me about life."

Re: LASD Superheros (ideas needed) One of the most frustrating things about law enforcement to me was the gap between what you KNOW and what you can PROVE. It doesn't matter what you know unless you can prove it in court. This is a slightly different spin on Wolfjack's suggestion: what do the PCs do when they "know" that the villain is guilty, but they can't prove it? What happens if they overstep themselves, gather evidence illegally, and thereby become the reason the villain gets off? Or they act on what they "know" but it turns out they were wrong? (BTW, unlike in movies & TV, the most common disciplinary action is NOT "give me your badge and gun," but is a couple days or weeks "on the bricks," ie - suspension without pay.) Something cop movies/TV almost never show is the demands of juggling more than one case. This could be a fairly radical departure from most RPG campaigns, and only you can say if it would work with your players. But try giving your players multiple cases that overlap, so they have to decide which case to prioritize. (OTOH, that's starting to sound too much like RL!) Speaking of which, in big departments there's normally not a lot of overlap between patrol offers who do the responding and detectives who do the investigating. But you can probably fudge that because the PCs are a special case. Let's see... how about a PC gets sued for excessive force after using a killing attack rather than a normal attack? If you really want to mess with your players, run the standard "cop falls in love with the victim/witness/suspect" subplot - and the relationship causes all their testimony to be thrown out of court. "Deputy Eclipse, isn't it true that you have a sexual relationship with the suspect?" "Well yes, but..." "Your Honor I move to dimiss..." How do the other, non-superpowered cops feel about the PCs getting all the glory with their flashy powers while they (the regular cops) get shot at? Don't forget that the Sherriff is an elected official who may have little or no actual law enforcement experience and may have his/her own political agenda. Are your PCs' real identities known? Presumably at least the department knows? Then there's a very real risk that villains will seek to retaliate against the PCs DNPCs, something every cop dreads. That's all off the top of my head. If you're interested, I used to have a short summary of the rules of evidence, probable cause, warrants, and so forth written in non-legaleese. I'll see if I can dig it up if you want? bigdamnhero "Failed TV shows don't usually get made into major studio pictures...We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty." - Joss Whedon "Serenity" premieres Sep 30th.

Re: Traveller Hero is ready for Download Oh well, I *was* planning on getting some sleep tonight. Now I expect to be reading all night! bigdamnhero "..."

Re: Goth Henchmen?

Re: Characters of "Substance" Seems like I've heard that idea before... Sorry, couldn't resist. bigdamnhero "Saw that coming."

Re: Help a brother out. What kind of old money? British or New England => hyphenated last names like Something-Smythe. German => always Von Something or Von de Something. French => something ending in -eaux or -les or -ies. bigdamnhero "No, *this* must be what going crazy feels like."

Need a little brainstorming help, if you please. I'm putting together a scenario that includes a number of supervillain henchmen/chumps/minions. Some are just normals in stupid costumes, but others actually have a few limited powers - low level stuff, maybe they can give the cops a fight but they're only going to be an annoyance to supers unless there are a whole lot of them. Anyway, one of the villain's henchmen are goths, and I'm trying to decide what sort of powers they should have. For example, the Killer Klowns have joy buzzers, laughing gas, etc; the pirate minions have 1-shot pistols and cutlasses; the evil mines (is that redundant?) can draw force walls; that sort of thing. But I'm drawing a total blank on the goths. Apart from lurk sullenly in shadows, I mean Probably goes without saying, but this a tongue-firmly-in-cheek sort of adventure. Thanks in advance, bigdamnhero "They tell you never to strike a man with a closed fist, but it is on occasion hillarious."

Re: A more realistic feel for SH AmadanNaBriona - I like the Resources Perk! I'll soon be implementing something similar. I've seen similar "abstract" money systems in other games, `tho I've never run one that way. They usually have worked just fine, at least from a player perspective. You can also make it so that saving up "x" money favors raises your income a level. bigdamnhero Remember: it's not plagarism if you say "Thank You."

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO? OutSTANDing!! I love it. (I'd rep you, if I had any rep.)

Re: TravellerHERO PDF in the works Can't wait!! bigdamnherowhohasbeenlurkinginthisthreadforawhile

Re: A more realistic feel for SH In the last SH campaign I was in, we more-or-less used the 5ed income rules; no one was rich, but a couple people were poor cuz it was that kind of campaign. Kept general track of how much they made vs. how much they spent, but didn't get too wrapped around the axle about it. Made for a little more bookkeeping, but was a necessary evil due to the nature of the campaign. We tried to do most of the "accounting" by email in between sessions, so it didn't eat up much game time. The campaign before that (I was a player in this one) the PCs were on a nearly-unlimited expense account, so we could afford more-or-less anything within reason. But the campaign was structured such that gear was less important. In the current campaign that I'm working on, the PCs are sorta lost in space (more Red Dwarf than Jupitor 2), so money is irrelevant. Don't know if that helps... bigdamnhero "I'll be in my bunk."

Re: Does anyone here play Cyberpunk HERO? I just finished a long-running cyberpunk-ish campaign. Near future, some high tech by today's standards, but fairly low-tech by most CP standards. None of the PCs had any cyberware (available, but too many disads), `tho some bad guys did. The campaign was a blast, and only ended because I moved out of state. I used a mis-mash of stuff from 4th Ed Cyber Hero and Horror Hero. In particular, the stress & shock rules from Horror Hero worked well to reinforce the "imminent feeling of doom" as ghost-angel so apty put it. My one mistake was allowing one of the PCs to take "arms dealer license" as a perk - it fit his background, but made the PCs a bit better armed than I would've prefered. One bit of GM-ing advice I can give is to watch your setting. The mood you want for CP (or Horror) games is very different from Champions or most other genres. A brightly-lit kitchen with kids in the next room watching cartoons makes it hard to keep everyone "in the gloom" so to speak. Mood lighting, mood music, etc. bigdamnhero "I can't keep track of her when she's *not* incorporealy possessing a spaceship."

Re: Compound Power or HtH Attack?

Re: Timing of Hit Location/ Armor Application

Re: Timing of Hit Location/ Armor Application Sorry, I meant Stun, not Body. And thanks for the explanation; I get it now. I'm still not sure I *like* it, but that's my problem. OK, let's talk crazy. I've done this: use normal dice for killing attacks, but apply defenses as per killing attack. Particularly for demos & con games, it makes for one less thing to teach and simplifies things considerably. The results are so similar that it kinda begs the question why we need two different types of dice in the first place... bigdamnhero Well, my days of not taking you serious are certainly coming to a middle.

Re: Compound Power or HtH Attack? Unless FRED has changed it (?) I believe you're correct. There's also a write-up on the same page of an HKA Damage Shield. I'd say it's a pretty clever effect. bigdamnhero "This is the kind of conversation that can only end in a gunshot."

Re: Spider-Man: Elementalist?

Re: Timing of Hit Location/ Armor Application With you so far; that's how I've always played it... ...but now you've lost me. What's the point of treating Normal Body differently from Killing Body? Seems unnecessarily complicated to me. bigdamnhero "Seasoned? That’s a hell of a thing to say to a man!"

Re: A more realistic feel for SH Jumping back in late... Wow, well put! I look forward to reading the rest of the document! bigdamnhero "Just once I'd like to fight an alien menace that wasn't invulnerable to our weapons."

Re: Help on mechanics for 1st ever HERO session I've used most all of these at one time or another. I think you're fine. You may also want to watch how many advantages & limitations you allow on spells. Things like autofire, AVLD, requires skill roll, and the like are great tools but they can slow down combat significantly when you're new. Once you've got "the basics" down, you can go back and allow retrofits. Have a blast! bigdamnhero "Is this the human value you call friendship?" "Don't give that Star Trek crap; it's too early in the morning."

Re: Why should I play HERO? Always good to welcome someone new. (i.e. - Newer than me!) A hearty "me too" to comments already posted. Hero has ruined all other game systems for me. Any time I see a cool setting book or module from another game system all I think of is how hard it would be to convert it to Hero. Fortunately, the answer is usually "not very hard." However, I feel one small word of caution might be in order. Running a Hero campaign can be fairly time-intensive, especially when you're first starting out. Part of this is just due to the depth and complexity of the system, particularly in character creation. The other thing is that while there are some excellent setting books for Hero, there aren't a lot of pre-generated adventures available. For me personally, creating my own adventures is at least half the fun of playing, so that's fine. But if you're more inclined to run pre-made modules, it could be a problem for you. bigdamnhero "Why do we have technology in the first place? So we can sit on our butts and drive. Those guys with the rucksacks on their backs? They're setting us back 50 years with every step."

Re: A more realistic feel for SH I've played SH mostly at 75+50 or therebouts, and personally haven't felt it to be too over-the-top. But the players were all encouraged to spend more points than usual on non-combat skills, so combat skills tended to be lower than typical. Besdies, most characteristics really only have meaning in comparison to other characters. In other words, who cares what our DEX scores are, as long as I'm faster than you. The STR table is an exception to this, of course.

Re: Stat Increase = Skill Increase? To quote from The Big Book: "There are very few, if any, rules you can't change in the Hero System...you should play the game the way you want to." (5Ed, pg 348) Or as my old jazz teacher used to put it: "There are no right or wrong notes; only good and bad choices." bigdamnhero "Consult the Book of Armaments!" "Armaments, Chapter 5, verse 12..."

Re: Stat Increase = Skill Increase?

Re: Stat Increase = Skill Increase? My $0.02. (and probably worth about that; it's late...) I always interpreted "base roll" to mean "your roll before you add skill levels" not "your roll when you first create the character." Just like your base CV is before you add CSLs. I myself am completely on the opposite end of the spectrum from Intrigue. (Not saying I'm right and you're wrong, of course.) I use a house rule that skill rolls are based on 8+(char/3) instead of 9+(char/5), and have done so since 3rd Edition. While the flamethrowers are warming up, let me hasten to add that this is for *heroic* games with normal characteristic maxima -- I wouldn't use it for supers. But it makes no sense to me that someone with a 20 STR can lift four times what someone with a 10 STR can lift, but only gets a +2 on STR-based skills. Or that Jennifer Aniston's 20 PRE (presumably) only gives her a +2 on her seduction roll. And if you think 8+(char/3) is dumb, you'll really hate this one: I allow everyman skills and 1-point familiarity skills to roll the appropriate characteristic roll, but at -3 (standard non-proficiency penalty). Helps ease the gap between 8- and full skill proficiency. Does this make characteristics too powerful? Maybe. But the people I play with aren't the types to abuse it. I'm not recommending this for everyone, but it seems to have worked well for us. Oh, and to those who say a 13- (84%) is adequate for most skill checks, I would answer that it's fine for *average* checks. For an extremely difficult check -- hacking into a highly secure computer, or a medic roll on someone at -10 Body -- that 13- becomes an 8- (26%). Sorry for the long ramble, bigdamnhero "It's like I always say: you can get more with a kind word and a 2x4 than you can with just a kind word."