Balabanto

Pinky and the Brain Hulk.... Yes! Pinky. The madder Brain gets, the smarter Brain gets. Yeah, Brain. But where will we find nipple clamps our size?

Yes, I understand that they are optional rules, but the new version, Champions Complete, doesn't list them as optional rules. Optional rules should always be separated out under a section titled "Optional Rules." Most new gamers tend to play the ball where it lies. Whatever's written in the book without a clear heading over it that says "Optional Rules", they use. Plus, I have a secret reason for loathing things like Heroic Action Points and Damage Negation (Especially when more than one PC has damage negation). Hero System Combat takes a long, long time. It doesn't need to take longer.

My experience is that I want the team to do well. Doing something awesome should make you feel like part of the group, not like you took an awesome single action. For me, the best moments aren't when one guy does something amazing that defeats his or her personal archenemy. My best moments are always coordinated attacks and the like when the group does something that takes down a tough bad guy together.

I would argue that if you find something distasteful, that it is already a bad experience. This might boil down to a different question. Why do you play role playing games? I play them to participate in the GM'S vision. That's what gives me the most fun. Narrative control is determined by the actions you take, not by the dice you roll. Far too often, I see people use these to take actions that are genuinely foolish and/or disruptive to group play. They make me think things like "why did I come to the table?" Hero was never meant to be about one guy. It was meant to be about teams and teamwork. Heroic action points encourage grandstanding and take away from group play in favor of individualism.

Solomon Grundy, Girl Genius A Clockwork Orange is the New Black True Detective Meets World

Object Defense Table completed. Three maps left to go. Then I can write the rest of this thing.

The map to the Dark Spire is complete! On to the object defense table! Currently we rest at 240 pages and 116892 words. Once the maps are done, it's on to writing fluff. There are three maps left.

You're confusing knowing the rules and knowing how to use them without being a minmaxing powergamer, with a single specific mechanic. Most often, what I find is that people who use heroic action points frequently don't actually know the rules as well as people who don't. There's usually simple ways to get the same results as long as you keep your wits about you and don't screw up. In games where I have to put up with Heroic Action Points, I never use them for raw combat, damage dealing, etc. If I'm playing a superhero game, that's where I spend them to save innocents, hold up collapsing buildings, and the like. Most often, what I find is that there is no strategy to heroic action points. People alpha strike everything and the right of way goes to whoever didn't get to negatives on phase 12. The problem is you're looking at this backwards, Bigby. People have forgotten that in the superhero genre, usually, unless you're playing a gritty iron age game, that it's okay to lose! It's not about the GM trying to win. The GM just puts a situation in front of the players and throws out a challenge. He then plays the villains according to their intelligence scores and their complications. But if the PC's DO lose, players have to get over the fact that in Champions, most of the time, losing isn't permanent. Heroic action points are typically used by most groups as the most severe form of D+Dism you can possibly imagine. I've never been in a game where they were actually necessary. There were always other solutions that didn't necessarily have the same result, but still solved whatever problem was on the table. That's why I say that they promote bad sportsmanship. People have upped the stakes, as a society, so much over winning that we actively treat losing as super-negative, rather than simply a consequence. Into that culture, somewhere around the development of the Eberron campaign setting, came action points/heroic action points, etc. The GM has to be a good sport, too, Bigby. Or the concept of sportsmanship doesn't function.

Life imitates Art! http://ultraculture.org/blog/2014/06/13/may-ancient-earth-inside-earth-say-harvard-scientists/

Doctor Strange was the foremost surgeon of his day. Even being forced to retire, he would have more than enough money to maintain that home. That being said, I always use real-world cities because it gives me a population density basis to figure out how many superhero teams a city can realistically support. (It's really kind of stupid. I take the total number of baseball, football, and basketball professional sports teams a city has in the real world, and that's how many it is.) But also, that gives just as much grounding as I need to make things fun. It saves me from having to describe things like the George Washington Bridge, the Sears Tower, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. People know what these things look like.

I am saying that no one should use them. Roleplaying is supposed to be a social activity. There are good rolls and there are bad rolls. The price of playing the game is that there has to be failure as well as success. I get that games are supposed to be fun and people are supposed to feel effective. I get that. But... The problem with Heroic Action points is that it fills the game with "win" and doesn't carry with it any risk. Heroic Action Points, and what they teach, is poor sportsmanship. Like any game, be it football, basketball, D+D, Champions, or what have you, at the end of the game, you should be able to get up from the table and shake hands with the person on the other side, and say "You played a great game." It isn't that someone has to win and that someone has to lose. It's that if the same person always loses, the social value of the concept of playing a game is devalued. And that's why I don't like Heroic Action Points. It takes away from the concept of actually mastering playing the game.

The command level map is complete. One object defense table left in the dark spire. 3 more maps to go after that.

Boruto sounds way better than Burito! Villain: "I am Burito!" Hero: I'm gonna slather you in guacamole and take you with pinto beans!

The Sword-Wielding Crusader The Blaster Armed Crusader The Starburst Armed Crusader! Captain Azathoth, the Cthuloid Crusader!

The Library Level map, key, and object defense table are complete. These levels are meant to be "stackable." You should be able to arrange Defense Levels, Residential Levels, and Library Levels in whatever order you like in order to "fill up" the Dark Spire in your game. On to the Godprison Level. Where would I be without you guys?

Brokeback Horsefeathers Harold and Kumar Go to the Big Store! (This could actually be interesting) A Day at the Almost Human Races

The Object Defense Table for the Resdiential Levels is completed. On to the Library Levels and the Command Level. The Command Level has another name, which is cooler... Godprison Level. Yeah. The Oligarch can imprison a god. Pretty cool, huh?

1) I believe Champions Complete is designed to be "The Last Edition of the Game." 2) This can be solved by including a section on not overcomplicating character builds. 3) Healing needs to be made more expensive. Levels need to be more expensive and their ability to deal additional damage removed. Heroic Action Points need to be removed from the game. I hate heroic action points with undying passion. They reward incompetence and poor social and combat choices. There shouldn't be a reward for something that the player paid for in chargen and is meant to be a disadvantage. Any time you do that, people will game the system. I've played in games with Heroic Action Points. In order to drive the story, in ANY reasonable fashion, one of two things happens. The villain never shows up until the end of the story because multiple uses of heroic action points defeat him, or every combat devolves into running the heroes out of Heroic Action Points. 4) Agreed 5) Disagree here as well. Mishmashing the characteristics loses the feel of the game. 6) I liked it better when they were disadvantages. Disadvantages is a strong word. It means that these are things that the hero will have to overcome. Complications is a whiny word. It means that things will be "complicated" but generally underwhelming. Heroes have disadvantages. Telenovelas have complications. Disadvantages represent challenges. Complications represent things that arise from surgery. 7) Are you kidding? This is a feature! I really mean this. This actually teaches people how to use math! This is a great thing! 8) Punish is too strong a word. But I think that you and I have very different ideas about what "challenging" means.

The map key for the Dark Spire Residential Levels has been completed. Object Defense Table tomorrow.

Of an object defense table? Object Defense Tables occur in all my products thanks to an edit provided in War of Worldcraft. Basically, every free-standing object that is mentioned in a map location is given a PD, ED, and BODY score. Update: It will either be Tom Rafalski or Bill Keyes, depending on scheduling.

This sounds really interesting.

I don't know. Tom Rafalski is in charge of that. It's my guess that once everything is written, we will kickstart it and discover that as things go along. The good news is, the Defense Level Object Defense Table is complete.

Dance Dance Communist Revolution! Stalin vs. Trotsky under the roof of the Moscow Ballet! Braveheart of Darkness (I don't want to know. I don't even want to imagine what this might look like) Red Dawn Showgirls (This might be a better movie than either of the movies they actually produced, or it might suck so badly that even Ross Perot couldn't imagine the sound.)

The Dark Spire Defense Levels map has been successfully keyed. On to it's object defense table.

This may be our last chance to see some of Aaron Allston's new work, so help these guys out and back this thing. Michael https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/103879051/heroes-the-anthology