Duke Bushido

Thanks, Cancer. You ever wonder why people stopped being in love with Neil DeGrasse Tyson?

And it changed our environment forever.

Chris is correct: the official bound version came out at Origins '81. There were "playtest copies" of a sort-- typed and handwritten conglomerations of notes-- in small circulation before that, as Glenn Thain seemed to be in the habit of letting them get away from him while players rotated in and out of his group. (Thanks for that info, Scott! )

Even then: They took out three hundred of our guys. Oh no! We've only got a billion left! I guess they win....

Thanks, LL. The original written-by-the-creator (allegedly) series featured an empire of billions, wiped out and brought to a screeching halt when a bunch of teddy bears killed a hundred or so of them. Vader was impressive when I was in high school-- mostly the iron lung / James Earl Jones combo, I think. The Emperor, in light of the teddy bear thing, was shown to be about as effective as Voldemort (you know my feelings about a terrifying master villain who can't kill a baby or take out a high school student), suggesting that pathetic villains are part and parcel of Star Wars. I am not being funny: I love you guys, but at some point, you've got to accept that Star Wars was _never_ the art you remember it as.

I am going to need at least four explanations before i can decide if this is funny: Who the guy in the picture is, who the guy tweeting is, who Thrawn is, and just what they heck is being talked about.

There are Godiva stores?

Because their smile muscles are in there butt. Every cat owner knows that.

I don't know if this helps you, but my wife typically goes through two Fire tablets a year. My daughter goes through one a year (not as heavy a user). The "amazon fire os" is, from what I understand, Android with a large chunk of Android ripped out of it (such as Google services-- not the most important (to me, anyway), but one of the first most people notice). Allegedly, it's still fine and stable. Our household experience is "not so much; no." As an old man, I can't say enough for having an honest-to-God keyboard-- so much so that at my last job, I used to carry one of those holographic keyboards in my pocket for when I had to use my phone as a mobile work computer. I can't make up your mind for you, but even if I were to opt for a tablet (I really don't like tablets. Remember netbooks? Those were just _the_ thing for my use: used actual software that I already owned, had actual jacks for peripherals, etc, etc. Tablets killed them dead), it wouldn't be a Fire; it'd be a full-on Android tablet. Given a choice, though, I'm always going to go with a laptop / chromebook: more memory, more processor, and an actual keyboard. Bigger screen is always a plus for watching videos, but again-- that might just be me.

Ah.; the misunderstanding is my fault. I tend to wrongly assume that people typically give as few s@ts about pomp and pageantry as I do. Carry on celebrating a guy who dresses like pretty much the entire country; whatever. 😕

Well hey, on that note: Here's a fun game...

Yeah. I still don't get it. It's cold; he dressed warm. I'm not going to go nuts over some guy with a touch of foresight.

I was born and raised in Circle, Alaska. Mittens are the only reason I still have fingers. Gloves will never be as warm, period. I, too, am at a loss as for why the nation is so fascinated with that photo, either. 😕

You have already stated my suggestion: Activation roll. Call it Knowledge: 14- or whatever, but for anything outside of whatever KS or sciences you may have bought specifically, roll to see if it knows about it. If it does, make a note of that.

I don't want to be "that guy," but I do want it noted: There are a lot of suggestions on what to leave out, what to work up to, etc, I have taught this game to a group of kids, spendibg about 3 sessions (including character generation), all of whom can play without problems or confusion, and I have done none of those things. We started out tracking END, STUN, BODY, figuring range modifiers, assessing skill roll penalties and bonuses, countong damage, figuring DEF (to include Resistan vs non), etc. I didnt leave anything out, and they got it quickly, the same way we did when we learned to play. These kids range from 7th to 10 (11th?) Grade, and frankly, they have had more problems letting go of the "he's an underclassmen so I shouldn't be seen with him" than they had learning to play. I suspect that a lot of the "hard to teach" aspect centers on how sold they are on wanting do learn it in the first place. We have all noted at some point that there is no difficult math ib this game. There is more math than there is with other games, but again: it's not difficult, and it becomes rote in a session or two.

We call those Huddle House, Sir.

Does-- No; seriously-- Why does the big robot have a beard, a turtleneck, and watchcap? Is it cold? Disguised as a longshoreman?

Going offline for a few days to decompress and catch up on actual stuff. I wanted to leave you with this: Darth Tanyan. That is all.

If it rains enough on a flatland, water on the ground can cover hundreds of acres.

I'm currently doing just that (on corona hiatus): playing HERO with a bunch of beginners. As Christougher said, it'a easy to _play_. If you just want to teach them how to play, you cant go wrong. If you want them to learn the entire system and how to use to great things whole cloth or run adventures themselves, Well, thats another thing entirely.

We've got Hopeyaliktit. Seriously: if it was any smaller, all the town limit signs would be in the same post. First time I went through it was in the 80s, back when I was moving houses (actually, every time I have been through it was when I was moving houses. Damn I miss doing that ). It's cute: the "entering" sign is "welcome to." That's it. a few yards later, the "leaving" sign is "Hope ya liked it!" I not only remember that, I _stole_ it!

Good, because I have a minor quibble. I prefer not necessarily old games; I prefer games that say "sure; if you want." I _detest_ games that say "no" or "never" at the same time they say "you can do anything you want." What I really like-- and bear with me here-- is games that are easy to teach, easy to grasp, and can be read completely in one or two sittings. Honestly, the older I get, the more I like that-- the more I _need_ that, given that the closer I get to dead, the less the time remain is actually _mine_. Makes no sense, but there it is. I also like games that have a setting already, even if I chose not to use it. I like games with an adventure or two-- it establishes benchmarks and gives me an idea of how the creators saw the game rules being used. Now the more on that part: Champions gets a pass (at least, Champions when it was an actual game gets a pass) on not having a setting, because everyone I have ever met knows enough about comic books and superheroes to throw something together, so long as there are example characters and an adventure or two to get the hang of the rules. Fantasy could _almost_ get a pass for the same reasons, but you'd need sample races and magic, etc, which is why I think the original Fantasy HERO was solid: it had enough of those things to get you started. In short, I like games you can pick up and play. Savage Worlds is _hardly_ Old School, but you can pick up the "Lite" version and be up and running the next day. Hero hasn't been able to make that claim in _years_. Honestly, I don't even know if D&D can still make that claim, assuming someone who has never played before picks up the latest set of rules and gives it a try. Short version: I don't fault you for thinking I'm an OSR sort of person: the things I like in game were far more common once upon a time than they are today, after all, but the fact is that what I want is a book I can read in one or two sittings and be able to play the game. HERO can't deliver that anymore. If I had to be one-hundred-percent honest, if I hadn't been playing since the first Champions, there's no way in Hell I'd've picked up 5e, certainly not 6e, and so long as we're being honest-- I _might_ have picked up the 4e HSR book, but probably not the Champions BBB version. Why? Because this isn't really a new thing for me: I've had a work life and adult responsibilities -- just like the rest of you-- for a long, long time now, and time to do extra stuff-- like learning a new game-- is so scarce that it is absolutely precious, and I won't squander it. If I want to game with friends, I want to be able to get ready for that game quickly. When I am in mid-game, I want to maximize all of our enjoyment of that time together. That means if I have to stop and look something up, I need a reference I can thumb through quickly and an answer I can get into play in seconds. That's why I still play older editions: I don't have twenty years left, realistically, and I'm not going to waste it cross-referencing an encyclopedia when I'm supposed to be playing a game. You will find me playing (or most likely just reading: HERO has been my system of choice for everything but Traveller, though I do dabble a bit in that, too) new games as well, but they are all going to be in the 100-300 page range. I really prefer less than 200, but that's just me, I suppose. Your ideas are completely valid, and forgive me for shortening them, but I am leaving the premise so as to demonstrate that they are indeed valid. I offer some other reasons: 3) Social pressure. Conventions in the early days; the internet now. The pressure of "you're not doing it right." Perhaps not called that directly, but there is (was?) always that "oh. You do it that way. We don't do it that way." What difference does it make? Sure-- we can make up all kinds of things: "because!" Or "if you want to be in a Con game" which eventually became "if you want to be in an online game" and even "if you want to discuss it on the chat boards"---- all of that pressure to "make sure you are doing it "right." When the rule is unclear, who is to say what's "right?" What happens when "well, we played it this way for years, but the new version says "NO!" in very clear letters. Guess we'd better do it that way. If that rule removes some of the fun you were having-- sure "you can remove any rule you don't like," but judging from the comments and replies on this board and at game stores over the years, I seem to be the only one who does more than give lip service to that: people will drag rules out of auxiliary paraphernalia to make sure they are giving "the official response." APG II-- so I bought a thousand pages of rules, but since there was still some other book with more rules in it, if I'm using the rules I have to do x, I'm wrong because someone came along and added some more rules. Nice. I wasn't kidding some time back when I said I'd owned Champs III for nearly a decade before I used anything out of it: the rules we were already using were quite sufficient for anything we wanted to do up until that point. Ultimately, it was just a lark: Hey, you know-- it might be fun to use Transform for _something_. We made a "turn to frog" spell for a Champions-Based fantasy game. (Didn't have Fantasy HERO-- hadn't even heard of it at the point in time.) Sorry; that's not quite accurate. We _re-made_ a "turn to toad" spell. Up until that point, our "turn to toad" spell was pretty much just a "kill-it" power-- either Energy Blast or RKA; I don't know that we didn't have some version of each, honestly. _Probably_ EB just because of pricing, but that's not really important now. We counted damage; when it was dead, it was a frog. How did T-form work in Champs III? It was Killing Attack. It wasn't called that, but you counted damage. When it was dead, it was a toad. How did the new rules help with that? That's a Major Transform: Guy into Toad. Oh, and it's permanent, so we have to buy up some time scales here to be "effectively permanent." Reasonably common something or others...... It didn't add anything originally, and it just added cost later on. It was easier to change the spell component to "dead guy" so we could just keep paying RKA or EB pricing to get something that wasn't one bit more special than a dead guy. "Oh! But a frog could be useful for--!" Bull. Okay, if you just have to watch a dog salivate uncontrollably for twenty minutes, nothing does that like tossing him a toad, but really-- have you ever had any adventure-- or ever planned or even _conceived_ of an adventure where the key to the puzzle was a quart-and-a-half of dog drool? No; of course not. Dead guy equals toad or dead guy equals anything else as useful-- as _for real_, _in-an-actual-game_ useful; not "oh but potentially--" There's another problem there that leads to rules bloat: "Oh but potentially--" _Potentially_, Godzilla is completely terrified of toads, and we could save an entire nation with this spell. _Potentially_, dog drool is C'Thulu's only weakness. People worried about completely out-there possibilities get to these social gatherings and start asking about them, and even if they hear a thousand "who care?!" answers, there is that subtle "I want to play it right!" pressure. Now, if you and your friends are having fun, you're playing it right, aren't you? Playing it the way that some other guy you will never see again-- is that more right? Okay... I am _not_ going to swear.... I am not going to swear.... But I really want to-- not at you, or at _any_ person, of course, but at memories of this: The endless "shapeshift" discussion. "But there were never rules for that before Champs III !" Bull. I'm not getting into it again-- seriously. I will not respond to anything shapeshift related in this thread; I am holding it as an example, and not an invitation to resolve that debate. So we get more rules for it in 5e, and what was the bulk of the response to that? "Too pricey! Too complicated! Too weird!" and to a lesser extend "why am I not the thing? I look, sound, feel, smell, and taste like the thing, but when am I actually the thing?" Lots and lots more rules and words; no solution. Sorry; I haven't been numbering-- I got carried away. Number L ) Reading comprehension. Elemental Control is a great example of that. Used as presented in the earliest editions, it's at most a -1/2 Limitation, but the screaming was what a total giveaway it was. There is half a sentence in 2e that is quite possibly the most overlooked bit of rule in the history of this game: there is not just an Active Point minimum price, but a Real Point minimum price, too. That's right: if you built your EC for 40 AP slots, you had to have 40 AP of powers in each slot. All after the first cost 20 RP. If you wanted to skate buy and slip in something that _wasn't_ 40AP, you had to pay 20 RP anyway. Instant Change? Twenty points, please. What a bargain! As with Shapeshift, I am not inviting discussion on this, but offering it as an example. You have a Limitation "only in X ID" which folds out quite nicely for use as shapeshift, but that part wasn't comprehended. Thus, a lot of folks perceived that there were no rules for Shapeshifting. The fact that the guy who wrote the latest for-real-this-is-shapeshift rules actually wrote those rules demonstrates that this is _not_ an intelligence problem, either: the man's a lawyer. Despite the popular jokes, you can't get through the education for that if you're a dummy, right? So there's a creativity problem on the part of some folks as well. No; strike that-- it's not a _problem_; it's just a fact: some people are more creative or more able to read parallels into what they are reading. It's neither good nor bad; it just _is_. Those folks need specifics: they have to be told "Yes," in spite of the fact that nothing there said "no." That may go back to your point on confidence, but I maintain that there is a deeper level there: lower creative talents. I also maintain that the fact that 5e was huge, 5er was bigger (mostly more examples, but still: bigger), and 6e-- well, you know what that is.... I maintain that this is proof that increasing the number of rules and the number of words is _not_ going to resolve this problem. It certainly doesn't lend to GM confidence when the occurrence of "no" and "must" and "only" goes up and up and up. "Must use Images to model a flashlight." Clearly, we had no flashlights before we had Images. I am not alone in having always used Change Environment for that. It would still work for that except that CE now specifically says "can't." (I will go to my grave ignoring that, but I don't encourage anyone else to do anything they aren't comfortable with. Seriously: you do you.) Additional rules pull away from that, too: you can't do you, because it's not allowed. Unless you want to ignore some rules-- and you pretty much have to, because there are a hell of a lot of them these days. We all _say_ "you do you" and "the rules say ignore or change rules at your whim," but show of hands: How many people got just a bit rankled when I said I will never use Images to make a flashlight? See? That's the social pressure that you should play the way I do. I really, _really_ love discussing things with you-- you're a _great_ sport, you don't take things personally (and they certainly aren't intended that way, ever), you have some really interesting takes on things-- I could discuss things with you for hours had I the time. But you know what? I am _never_ going to play a game with you. That's not personal, either: that's _physical_. You don't live near me; the only convention that's near me I boycott because I am not giving my money to a pedophile, and my work schedule means that if I travel ten hours from here, I will have exactly enough time to turn around and head back in order to make it to work, and even that twenty-hour block of "me time" is only every fourth week. Physical Limitation: Can't ever game with Ninja-Bear. Frequent, not too terribly impactful. 10 pts? 15? Given that this is a fact, why do I _care_ if you're playing the game the way I do? (for what it's worth, I don't. I care that you are having a good time when you play, period.) I don't use the Martial (hah-- I had typoed "Marital Arts!" ) Arts rules either. What's really strange to me is the people who take the effort to tell me "but that's wrong! You can't use Skill Levels and just call it Martial Arts!" Two things there: 1) Yes; I can. I know I can; I've seen me do it. 2) people like that are a huge part of why more and more rules sell: people to whom the _letter_ of the law is far, _far_ more important than the spirit of it. At the risk of being (genuinely) unintentionally offensive, I really believe it's people like that who _write_ them to begin with: That nagging "there's a corner case potentiality here; I better make sure people are handling it the way I would." There will always be corner cases; there will always be outliers; there will always be those things that _someone_ wants to try but the rules are vague or even non-existent on. At some point, you either have to create a perfect replica of all the laws of physics (_all_ of them; known and unknown) and let that model the result, or decide that "enough is enough; they can deal with it if it ever actually comes up." Given how little has ever actually come up that can't be dealt with in the rules I use, I am just far more content without every power description containing a list of how it interacts with all other powers, and just how each Advantage works with that power. Actually, I'm quite content way, _way_ below that level. It's got nothing to do with being Old School; it has to do with the rare number of times the rules I use couldn't handle the situation, and how little time I have to invest in reading doctoral theses on nineteen potential corner cases.

I do not say this to belittle your contribution; I swear I do not. I am reasonably certain that was the joke: comparing the "value" of being an instagram, and casting it in a negative light. If thats not the joke, then I cackled like a madman over nothing.

That's the Peterson write-up; yes. Thank you.