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bigdamnhero

HERO Member
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Everything posted by bigdamnhero

  1. Re: How much XP do you give and why? Wow, I feel stingy. Hope none of *my* players read this thread. I hand out XP at the end of the scenario/mission/whatever, but it probably averages out to around 2 per session. (This is for a heroic campaign, where I prefer the rate of increase to be less steep. For supers, I'd probably be more generous.) I do consider how many sessions the scenario took, `tho I try not to reward the players for taking three sessions to do something they should've been able to resolve in one. If a scenario goes longer than 4 or 5 sessions, I may hand out some XPs in mid-scenario. As a related question: do you put any sort of restrictions/conditions on what players spend their XP on? Since I'm usually awarding XP in batches of 5-10 at a time, I use the following guidelines to try and encourage my players to spread their points around a bit: - Can't raise any characteristic by more than one per award - Can't buy more than +1 to any one skill (to include combat skills) per award - Can't increase any one power by more than one die per award (doesn't generally apply to buying new powers) These are just guidelines; I'll make exceptions when a player can make a good argument for it. I don't require players to have used a skill in a scenario in order to improve at it -- I've known refs who do that -- but if a PC used a particular skill a lot (or very well), I might encourage the player to throw a couple points that way. bigdamnhero "See how I'm not hitting him? I think I've grown."
  2. I'm looking for some different, interesting ways to use change environment to cause minor but amusing combat effects, beyond the standard slick-floor and pea-soup-fog. What are some clever tricks you have used or seen used? I'm really more interested in humor value than serious combat effects. bigdamnhero "Smoke me a kipper, Skipper - I'll be back for breakfast!"
  3. Re: Best example of role-playing a disadvantage One of the players in my post-modern Cthulu-esque campaign played an engineer with "Curiosity" and "Engineer Tunnel Vision," meaning that whenever he was engrossed in any kind of problem he tended to ignore what was going on around him. So he would occasionally wander off in the middle of fights to check out some cool piece of alien technology or whatever. Of course, the *player* is an engineer who suffers from the same maladies, so it wasn't exactly a stretch role-playing-wise. bigdamnhero "He thinks we're either a threat, food, or a mate. He's either going to kill us, eat us, or hump us."
  4. Re: Appropriate challenges: how many points? When I was new to Hero, I would sometimes calculate villain point totals counting only their combat skills/powers to get a rough idea of how tough they would be. Nowdays, I mostly just wing it. Of course, I usually play heroic games where there's generally a narrower range of attacks and defenses. With henchmen, I have been known to fudge on the numbers available. Say I planned on there being 5 minions with 5 more reinforcing -- depending on how the players handle the first 5, I can easily raise or drop the number of reinforcements. Or give them better or worse weapons. Once, when I was putting together a Champions game for a con and was nervous about the balance, I went so far as to create a spreadsheet calculating average and max damage from villain attacks compared to hero defenses and vice versa. It was more than a little tedious, but it gave me a good estimate of how many shots various characters could likely take before going down, as well as guestimating the "lucky shot" effect. Not something you'll want to do every week, unless you just really don't have a life. bigdamnhero "...and that's when I shot him, your honor."
  5. Re: Introducing player to the HERO System Amen. Make it about the characters, not about the character sheets. bigdamnhero "Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."
  6. Re: Getting the word out? Excellent! I figured I couldn't be the only one on the front range thinking along those lines. Let me know where & when and if I can be of any help. In defense of my d20-playing friends, most of them don't seem particularly enamored of the system itself. It's more "There are a lot of cool games for d20 and everybody already knows the rules." That's why I'm thinking if we show them cool games, fun things they can't do in d20, they might give it a shot.
  7. I moved to Denver recently, and have been looking for Hero gamers. (Mighty thin, but I'm not writing to whine about that.) What has surprised me is how many gamers, when I mention Hero, say something along the lines of: "Oh yeah, Champions! Fantasy Hero! Those were great games!" Note the use of the past tense. This is not a dig at DOJ, who I'm sure are doing the best they can with what is probably a fairly meagre advertising budget. It just worries me how many people seem genuinely surprised to learn that Hero is still around and people still play it. For my part, I just ran a Star Hero game at BenCon here last weekend. Only drew 4 players, which I attribute to 1) BenCon is a fairly small convention, 2) I'm new to the area, so I don't have much name recognition, and 3) this is serious d20 country. Of the four, only one player had ever played Hero before, but everyone had a blast and I think I picked up a couple converts. I'm hopefully going to run another game or two at Tacticon in the fall. My plan is to run a "Firefly" game, figuring to attract a few fans of the show even if they've never heard of me or the system. (The con is two weeks before the Serenity premiere!) So, anyone have other suggestions what we as fans can/should be doing to promote our game? Yes, I'm in the Legion of Heroes. What else? (BTW, thanks to Tina for the prize support!) BigDamnHero A Mile High
  8. Re: [Humour]SciFi TV Quotes British sci-fi series, late 70 to early eighties. The effects are, of course, exactly what you'd expect from late-70s BBC, but some of the writing was pretty decent. Don't think it's out of DVD yet, but a good independant video store might have it on VHS. Worth a look, if you like that sort of thing. (I do.) Trivia note: As I recall, Blakes 7's creator, Terry Nation, held the record for writing the most consecutive episodes of a TV series until Joe Straczynski beat him with Babylon 5. BigDamnHero
  9. Re: STUN/BODY reach 0 Ah, I was *hoping* someone else had already thought of this! Speaking for myself, I'd be interested in seeing what you put together - thanks. Yeah, I figured it would be mostly CSLs/SLs and Char buy-ups. I agree that the metamagic feats are probably too hard without a specific magic system in mind. Cheers, BigDamnHero
  10. Re: [Humour]SciFi TV Quotes Oh, almost forgot... Franklin: This is the kind of conversation that can only end in a gunshot.
  11. Re: [Humour]SciFi TV Quotes A few personal faves that haven't already been mentioned: Firefly - Mal: Looks like we got here just in the nick of time. What does that make us? Zoe: Big Damn Heroes, Sir! Mal: Ain't we just. Saffron: All you gotta do to be a rich woman, hon, is...get over it. Zoe: All right. [decks Saffron] I'm in. Mal: Mercy is the mark of a great man. [stabs Atherton] Guess I'm just a good man. [stabs him again] Well, I'm okay. Wash/Steggy: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! Mal: They tell you never to strike a man with a closed fist, but it is on occasion hillarious. Simon: I can't keep track of her when she's *not* incorporealy possessing a spaceship. Inara: What, you didn't see it coming? Mal: Well, my days of not taking you serious are certainly coming to a middle. Red Dwarf - Cat: This sounds like a twelve change-of-underwear trip. Lister: One swift knee in the happy sacks and it'll go down like anyone else. Cat: I've never been this near to a woman before. It makes me want to do something. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is I want to do a lot of it! Lister: There's no such thing as Silicon Heaven. Kryten: Then where do all the calculators go? Caligula: Rasputin, bring in the bucket of soapy frogs and remove his trousers. "Ace" Rimmer: Smoke me a kipper, Skipper, I'll be back for breakfast! Lister: He thinks we're either a threat, food, or a mate. He's gonna either kill us, eat us, or hump us. B5 - Londo: Okay, we made a mistake. I'm sorry. Here, open my wrist. Garibaldi: Centauri don't have major arteries in their wrist. Londo: Of course we don't. What do you think, I'm stupid? Ivanova: Why does my mouth always taste like old carpet in the morning? Computer: Unknown. Checking medical logs. Londo: Vir, there is a terrible truth: As one accumulates power, one loses friends. One only has those who wish to use you, and those you wish to use. And yet, in all of this, you have somehow managed to walk through the corridors of power and not be touched. I can only assume you have not been paying attention. And still, the hideous truth is, you are the closest thing I have to a friend. I'm as shocked and dismayed by this as you are, but there it is. I need a friend, Vir, and I need a patriot, and you are both. Will you help me, please?" G'Kar: And they made a very satisfying thump when they hit the floor. Sheridan: So you believe all this? Sinclair: I believe it. Marcus: If Entil'Zha believes it, I believe it. Ivanova: I'll be in the car. Zathras: Zathras is used to being beast of burden to other people's needs. Very sad life. Probably have very sad death, but at least there is symmetry. Dr Who - UNIT soldier: Just once I'd like to fight an alien menace that wasn't invulnerable to our weapons. Doctor: If people see you are unarmed, they'll never hurt you...nine times out of ten. Trek TNG - Worf: Good tea. Nice house. And of course, the one that comes up in almost every game session, regardless of genre, where anyone has psionics, persuation, bluffing, whatever: "These aren't the droids you're looking for."
  12. Here's a question that came up in a recent heroic game: what happens when multiple NPCs grab a PC (or vice-versa)? I can't find an "official" answer in the books (unless it's in 5er?) so I've been using the following house rule: Each grabber rolls his full strength (assuming they all make their attack rolls); the grabbee then rolls seperately against each grabber to break free, but subtracts 1d6 from his STR for each additional grabber. (Similar to the DCV penalty for multiple attackers.) That seems to give a strong grabee a good chance to break free from 2 average grabbers, but not make it a gimmee. Is anyone else doing something similar/different? Scott Field New-to-the-list, not-new-to-the-game
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