Lemurion

Re: Your PC's might be underpowered if... ...the brick isn't strong enough to pick up a copy of The Ultimate Skill. Not even when he pushes his strength.

Re: Is the Thrilling Places PDF overpriced? I find that HERO books are very well priced and tend to think nothing of picking one up. Even the base rules at about C$60 is a good deal (you get a lot of gaming goodness for the price). The PDFs are priced at about a 25-33% discount where I think a 33-50% discount would probably be more appropriate, but it's not enough to stop me from buying them. Part of it is that there's a part of me that balks at paying over $20 for a PDF. It's just harder to get me to cross that line when I'm buying electrons. (I know it's psychological because it's U$20 and I live in Canada). Anyway, I bought the PDF and like it

Re: Genre Conventions 2: What is Cool? A great genre convention is that "Yesterday's Tomorrow" feel you get with some Pulp adventures. Also Zeppelins. They add to that larger than life feel you get with Pulp. Even the street level stuff in that genre is done in broad strokes. As to the Terry Brooks thing-- I read and liked Sword of Shannara when it first came out and I was in my early to mid-teens. I'm an adult now and can't read his stuff. I've tried several books but they're bad, just like Weis and Hickman. It's not the story, it's not the characters, it's the prose. Tolkien, on the other hand, may have written a story that was very slow and hard for some to read, but he was a good writer. He understood writing and the craft of prose. It makes a difference. Superheroes have a number of different genre conventions-- not least being that a character becomes unrecognizable as soon as they take off their glasses (sort of like librarians who remove their glasses to become the next Helen of Troy). Other conventions are that vigilantes are more effective than law enforcement, and that you can solve all problems by hitting someone. All genres have their quirks, and that's what makes them fun.

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous) A watched pot never boils HERO

Re: Ultimate Skill (STR Min 13) Wusses! Yes a decent HERO library is heavy, that's why every good HERO GM should go out and do what I did. Go get yourself the perfect box to carry your HERO books to the game: the one that comes attached to a full-size pickup. Yep, since I got a full-size pickup to take to the games, carrying my HERO books has become much less of a chore.

Re: CHAMPIONS OF THE NORTY -- What Would You Like To See? I am definitely interested, it would have been nice to see some of the characters updated, though I found the original one had better villains than heroes. Otherwise I would go with settings and plot hooks that demonstrate the difference in culture between the two countries. Little things like the fact that if you see a Canadian with a gun you can almost guarantee they are intending to shoot it (most likely at a range or possibly hunting) as there isn't the casual carry culture of the US up here. Little things like a definition of back bacon might not hurt in a sidebar but that's as far as it should go. Good luck with your eyes.

Re: Random powers? Well, he got the powered armor from Tony Stark and it sounds like he'll be losing it once they finally finish Civil War. So I think it counts as just a plot device.

Re: Is the Thrilling Places PDF overpriced? The page count for the PDF is 154 PP which isn't bad. While I will admit that I do find the Hero Games PDFs a little more pricy than I'd like, I wouldn't call them out of the ballpark by any means. I just bought the PDF and am perfectly happy with it. I'd have liked it to be about two or three dollars cheaper, but I'm not going to quibble. I got a discount on the HC price and got instant gratification as opposed to having to either go down to the local game store (which means heading downtown in rush hour traffic to the one store that does have a good HERO line) or wait for delivery. Works for me.

Re: Thrilling Places! Well, I just picked up the PDF (about 10 minutes ago) and in the brief scan I've had time for it looks good. Depending on finances I may buy a paper copy or perhaps just print it out.

Re: Thrilling Places! I'm just waiting for the credit card to recover from the last 'Con I went to and then Thrilling Places is on the list. My FLGS didn't have it last time I checked or I'd already be the proud possessor.

Re: Genres HERO GAMES may want to avoid (intended to be humorous) Flocons de Mais HERO (it says Cornflakes HERO on the other side of the reversible cape.)

Re: Alternate Swords, cuz Katanas are overdone! I'm going to second the sheer coolness of the Katar and put in a few suggestions of my own. A personal favorite is the so-called Bastard Sword which should be more properly termed a hand and a half with a bastard blade. Hand and a half because it can be used one or two-handed, and the term bastard blade refers to the fact its used for both cut and thrust rather than being a pure chopping or thrusting weapon like a cutlass or rapier. Another is the spatha which was a late Roman/Barbarian era single edged broadsword originally used by cavalry. Also the claymore both in the original "great claymore" two-handed version and the smaller, later basket-hilted broadsword version. One Medieval sword was the estoc which was a precursor to the rapier, a long and rigid sword with a point but no edge, used against people in armor.

Re: Help Me Pick A Book I have to say that Space 1889 is awesome, and well worth having.

Re: CHAMPIONS UNIVERSE II - What Do You Want To See? I think they would rather have done it that way too, but they may not have been able to. One problem is that they don't own the rights to all the characters in previous editions. If they don't own the rights, they can't use the character and won't get into a sticky situation by even using the name as a casualty earlier and then having to say that "Oh, no that's not Seeker, the Australian Ninja, that's someone completely different who they showed dying in the Battle of Detroit on the 4E BBB cover." Plus there are characters such as CLOWN that Steve's doing the "make it never happened" thing to. He doesn't like them-- doesn't want them in the game at all and so is exercising his prerogative and leaving them out. I don't know why I'm worrying about what will be in it, I'm buying the book anyway

Re: Steam Power in Fantasy I tend to use steam in my Fantasy games. Generally when I have dwarves they have steam powered tech for things like pumps and elevators and ventilation systems. It works for me.

Re: Zombie Nazis in the Desert! Zombies and Nazis and rep, Oh My! Better than Lions and Tigers and Bears any day I heartily approve.

Re: Woot! Go with Hudson City first if you can. That book's better than Thia says it is and then some. Predators is good but I found Hudson City better.

Re: World War II era: Dark Champions or Pulp Hero? Pulp is often more about action and less about consequence. In DC there's more of a chance that choices made will have a visible cost that comes back to haunt the characters. Once an issue is resolved in a "Pulp" setting it's generally over and done with and never comes back. Doc Savage had one recurring villain (John Sunlight) in 181 adventures. I find that both sets of source material work very well together and the game's been a lot of fun. Remember it's all grist for your mill. Use them both (and Champions if you want) to make your game.

Re: So you need a spaceship for your pulp games? Whew! For a moment I was scared when you said spaceship because everyone knows what a Pulp Hero needs is a rocketship. Repped.

Re: World War II era: Dark Champions or Pulp Hero? My current game (Hudson City 1938: The Vigilance Society of America) is set roughly in that period, though perhaps earlier than you're aiming. It is a supers game with a feel that's a cross between Pulp Hero and Champions using a Dark Champions setting. I would think you could do Golden Age Dark Champions as most of the very early superheroes had no qualms about killing (Batman carried a gun when he first appeared). My own game doesn' t quite follow that but then again I preferred the more DC:TAS feel of 4E Dark Champions to the feel of 5E Dark Champions. (On the other hand I don't think DC:TAS did that good a job with it.) I would say you can certainly do it-- just take the time to internalize the feel you want and then cherry-pick charracters and settings to match.

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero Joe Chill, not Jack Napier, Joe Chill. Sorry but that one bugs me. I agree with the rest of the post though

Re: Fourth Versus Fith DC?

Re: Lost world of the Warlord I also believe that no one but Robert E. Howard ever wrote a Conan story. Anything else is obviously either a delusion or some piece of trash about another character with the same name.

Re: Lost world of the Warlord I was just implying that the followups on his books once he left were such that they don't really count as the same character.

Re: Lost world of the Warlord I don't know what they're talking about. Warlord was an old Grell title like Starslayer. I heard rumors that both continued after he left but never found any proof.