Lemurion

Re: Alignment Issues Nope, tattooed on the forehead in letters of fire. Isn't it that way in all of those games?

Re: adding a random factor to the game To me the whole idea shows a fundamental disconnect from HERO. I played games with that sort of character restrictions back in the late seventies and early eighties. Others have already gone over the math aspects, as well as the fact that because it runs counter to established HERO design philosophy it will actively repel most HERO gamers. If it works for you, great. But I know I wouldn't want to go anywhere near it.

Re: Mind Titan I liked him, had forgotten about that character. I think he was one of the better ones from 4E.

Re: Hudson City Blues After taking a quick look at my copy I would say you could do it with super-cops but it's more aimed at viglantes than police characters. If it's cheap enough go for it.

Re: Druss I liked the characters, though it's been a while since I read any Gemmell. Druss is definitely my favorite of his characters, and I think you did a very good job. Nice work and I look forwards to reading more. repped.

Re: Characteristic power NCM The Characteristic power is how you build Ultra Boy. Basically it's for when you want to give a character limited or conditional Characteristics. Something like a super-strength setting on a powered suit's multipower, or an only in hero ID characteristic boost. The rest of the time buy them normally

Re: Flyboys: WWI pilots, dogfights, and zepplins!!! I'm interested-- would prefer something about the Black Widow Flight but this will do

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero It's not so much that it's a big difference as that it's a real difference, especially with the Champions/Super-hero genre. I mean I could pretty much drop a 3E character into a game right now and it would work. Sure the points wouldn't balance and a few things have changed but even a 3E character is essentially playable under 5E. However that wasn't the thrust of my argument. What I'm getting at is that a 5E starting super-hero needs more points than a 4E starting super-hero did because of the difference in what's being modeled in the two systems. 5E is not only a more granular system than 4E was, but it's designed in such a way as to make it possible to apply the same level of granularity across more genres than in 4E. Many comic characters have both skills and powers, however in 4E Champions it was difficult to model both effectively on a starting character. You could either work on skills or powers but not both, so many Champions characters settled for a much less granular approach to skills than was common in the other genres. 5E is designed to even and balance this out, to play supers with the same level of character and skill granularity as the other genres. 4E was still more of a holdover from the previous editions where supers used a lesser skill-set. Quantum for example, had only two skills, Paramedic and PS: Doctor, both at 12-. The newer versions of the Champions have more skills than the earlier editions, and those skills reflect the greater granularity of the system. The points are there because in 5E, especially supers, the player is expected to do more things with their points and so they have more points. That's ignoring the fact that 4E was still marketed as a game, not a gamer's toolkit. Just because the play is very similar doesn't mean the two editions are the same thing.

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero I still have both versions of 4E, the BBB and the standalone HERO System. My point was that the "Big Book" in 4E was the BBB which included Champions while the "Big Book" in 5E is the direct descendant of the 4E HERO System Rulesbook, not the 4E BBB.

Re: "Point inflation" in Hero There are a few things that come to mind when people talk about "point inflation" from 4E to 5E, and the one that I find a number of them fail to get is that 5E is not the same game as 4E. It's not even really a game at all. It's a system to build a game while 4E was a game using a universal system. That's one reason why it was a good idea to make the big book rules only and divorce it from the Champions setting. So we have more points to build a 5E character than we did to build a 4E character. It makes sense once we realize we are not building the same thing. Yes, the two editions are similar, and characters from one can easily be converted to the other, but conversions are necessary. One thing I find interesting is that this so-called "point inflation" really only happened in supers, not in the other genres. We still see the 75+75 heroic characters that were common in 4E. What this tells me is that a large focus of 5E may well have been to bring super-heroes back into the mainstream HERO System rules set. It gives them the points to have the skills of a normal person as well as their powers. In previous editions, supers were overall simpler characters than their heroic brethren; they don't have to be simpler any more. Yes there was a point increase for 5E, but it wasn't really inflation so much as balancing.

Re: Is HERO an ideal or even an adequate game for those new to RPGs? Should it be? I've used it as an introductory system and it works very well. One of the great advantages is that it's a consistent system, whenever someone wants to do something it's "roll three dice, you want to roll low." It's one basic mechanic for everything. Combat may involve different calculations, but for the player it's the same as anything else, rolling low on 3d6. Damage is different but at the same time it's simple. Total minus defenses. Give someone a character and they can play quickly. Once they have a little exposure then you can get them to build a character. Even that's not hard once you know what you're doing and package deals make it easier. It may be difficult to learn solo, but it's one of the easiest games to learn for a newcomer who is joining an experienced group.

Re: A Universe to call my own Repped. I like the timeline. Some very interesting ideas there.

Re: Recent Lost World novels Hmmmm, I'd suggest the late Lin Carter's "Eric of Zanthodon" series if you can find it. It was a deliberate homage to the old lost world books and published in the late 70's and early 80's. Also the Farmer edited version of J.H. Rosny's "Ironcastle" and Farmer's Hadon of Ancient Opar.

Re: Empire Club map. That sounds like a lot of fun. But then I'm a sucker for the Pulp Supers combination. My current game's set in Hudson City in 1938 and it's showing the beginning of superheroes. So far we've had a lot of fun with it.

Re: What power sets do you like, but never play? I don't have a lot of trek-style humanoid aliens (I have other ones but not the bumpy foreheads) in any of my games, but that's purely a matter of taste. Having said that, I'm much more likely to disallow things because they don't fit my game, than to disallow them because they're unrealistic. I'm playing a Pulp Supers game-- realism isn't the question. It's genre and tone that matter.

Re: Rarity of Magic? Well if you go back to the source, the old D&D rogues had scroll use abilities at higher levels. So they could do spell-casting. We won't even talk about the original Bard. I think a big part of it is that in those days they were literally creating the genre from scratch. I don't think they did a perfect job, but what they did create was more than good enough to create the hobby. You have to give them that. It had never been done before. They did it. Every game system since then has their example (and those that followed) to draw on. They had nothing. Sure the ideas may seem clunky now, but they were a logical and workable transition from what had gone before. Wargames.

Re: Real-world artifact suitable for gaming All I can say is that the Voynich Manuscript would work very well in a pulp game, and that's what matters.

Re: Detect weakest defense location I would use Find Weakness. The whole idea behind it is that you find the weakest point in someone/something's defenses and attack that.

Re: New gaming group I would precede either of those with a quick fight scenario--- something like Grond attacks Campaign City. It would get the players into the game and then you could start a real adventure. I don't tend to run the pre-written adventures so I can't say which would be easier. (My players like to go in odd directions so I mostly develop enemies and motivations and let things grow as they will. I need more background stuff than adventures.)

Re: What power sets do you like, but never play? Any character-- I haven't played one for years. I like the flying bricks and also stealth/presence characters. However I don't play much at all as I'm the only HERO GM in the group.

Re: Hmmm...okay, how about a Bosnian Pyramid? I don't care. It looks like a pyramid, it's in the Balkans-- that's more than enough for any Pulp GM. This could be the secret underground headquarters of the Nine Unknown. There are hundreds of plot seeds just waiting to happen. Could the reason most of academia is denigrating it be because there are secrets there we don't want to know?

Re: Comic Book Physics Exactly, it's your world, you're the one who sets the genre conventions.

Re: Tri-system experiment

Re: Underwater Pyramids. Those are the stormtroopers that the Zeppelins carry

Re: Challenge: "Pope" as a Package Deal I wouldn't give the Pope a package deal. The way I see it, you only use package deals when you need to create a number of similar characters such as gangsters, orcs, thugs, or two metre tall Imperial Battle Hamsters. Popes are somewhat on the rare side. In fact I'd really wonder why any non time-travel campaign would bring a group into contact with more than one pope. I'd build the Pope as a unique character rather than making up a package deal I may only use once.