Duke Bushido

Well, crap. I mean "Yay!", but _crap_! Just discovered that Matt Forbeck (writer of the Western HERO genre book) sold that book _twice_. Or maybe just once, since Iron Crown owned HERO as well as Role Master at the time... At any rate, the Western HERO genre book was released for Role Master as "Outlaws." I know this because my brother brought me a copy today. I've only perused it, but the bulk of the art is the same (that could have saved a lot of restoration work, right there!) as are the first four sections. I'm wondering if it might contain also the scenario with the confusion: When we don't know if Adam is the dog, the preacher, or the young man, or who does what and when. If I find out it does, I may have to re-do the PDF and make that correction. Though at first skim, it seems like there's more content in the Role Master book......

And a thank you from me, too, LL! Your kung fu is _strong_!

Not the two loose books, but the boxes, yes. (ignore the terry cloth tablecloth: It's a sound-absorbing table cloth I made from two layers of bath sheets: the wife works nights, and dice-on-wood is not the easiest thing to sleep through. Unexpected bonus: it greatly reduced the concerns over spilled coffee ruining character sheets and game books!). In total, I have at last count 9 boxed sets and six loose rules books: those not pictured are at other locations, either borrowed or just staying there so I don't have to carry them back and forth. Any time I find a boxed set for twenty bucks or under, I pick it up. I'll pick up a loose rules book for up to ten bucks. It might seem extravagant, seeing as how I've got a _beautiful_ scan of that book, but..... The law says I can make one digital copy for every book I own. I made copies of the scan (a total equal to the books I own, and no more: it might sound incredibly anal, but think about guys like Christopher above: he worked his butt off to put his product together. Is it just and right that ten thousand people should get it for free?) to loan out, but stopped doing that when one of my players let me know he found one of my scans on a pirate site. I recalled the scans as best I could, and now only loan out the books. I had thought about making physical back-ups (also legal, but only one per) using my scan as the pattern, but the price of having new ones printed and shipped to me-- well, it's around ten bucks a copy. Easier just to pick them up when I run across them. And Brian: Only two of those boxes still have the original dice, so they're not all complete. Oh: almost forgot! One was a bootleg (box and all!) I picked up as "new in box!" from -- -well, let's say a famous and reputable online vendor of out-of-print game material. I'm not trying to call them out because I think they were suckered, too. It was one of the greyscale covers (easiest to bootleg) and was created from a _beautiful_ scan or a new PDF someone put a lot of work into. At any rate, the give away was that none of the originals were printed in _TONER_! The map was on white stock, and the dice were casino size. The Viper's Nest scenario was on too-high-quality paper, and the catalogue insert was from the wrong year (though it even included the marketing card; nice touch, that. But it wasn't on card stock: it was on regular paper). The vendor was great: I called to tell them they were suckered. They offered my a return UPS slip and a refund, on the spot. I declined, simply because my kids didn't know it was bootleg (I bought it for them, to show them how exciting opening a new game was Yeah, I'm a sap like that....). I told them that I simply wanted to make them aware of the problem (wrong plastic, too: the original wrappers way back when were hard and crunchy and tore so easily you might tear it on accident, like cellophane: this was modern vinyl shrink-wrap). Ten minutes later, I got an e-mail with a gift certificate for the entire purchase and shipping price (which was, I admit, stupidly high-- but it was "never been opened, still in original wrapper," so I bought it (yes: knowing I was going to open it, but I'd likely never have another chance to open a "new" boxed set of Champions with my kids, right?) with a message apologizing for the situation, telling me to return or keep the item as I saw fit. (I kept it).

Yes. And I _think_ there was an Adventurers Club article mentioning it during 3e. Brian is likely referring to 6e "officializing" it by putting it in the rules book. And if you're assigning skill levels or re-assinging them, you're still doing math. It doesn't really solve any problems, except for the theoretical problems of not wanting you players to know the NPCs DCV, and even then, you'd have to have a group of players who don't notice that they hit when they roll eight or higher, but don't hit on seven or lower.... 2e. I stayed with 2e. Yeah, I've cribbed a few things here and there from the later editions, but mostly I play 2e (except for Fantasy HERO, which is straight up 3e).

Agreed. I was simply thinking that instead of making a separate "attack skill" entry, to simply pre-add the 11 to whatever the character's OCV is, and calling that total "OCV." Then it's a matter of "Your OCV minus his DCV. Now assign skill levels." Or some order of that.

Like a shadow.....

Actually, GA (and others) could this problem not be simplified by teaching that the "base OCV" is 11? Now you buy some more OCV, add it to 11. Write that down where it says OCV. Just wondering.

If you're doing a swarm, the advantages "Indirect" and Area of Effect (even a small one)" are going to be your best friends ever. The Limitaiton: Reduced Penetration can help simulate a lot of "swarm of things"-type attacks as well. Easiest thing I've found (and if you're not shopping for advice , well just skip all this. ) is to _not_ focus on "what does the book say about swarms?!" Hell, remember the book is written by the guy who wrote entire other books on a single simplistic archetypes (the Ultimate Brick, the Ultimate Metamorph, etc, etc,). The book has a _lot_ to say, and on _everything_. Focus first specifically on what you want the power to do: what is the absolute end-purpose of this power? Then go backwards-- you're still not thinking about swarms of things, okay? Go backwards. What Advantages or Limitations do you want the power to have? Not because it's a swarm of things! Ignore that! What Advantages and Limitaitons do you want the power to have because _that_ is the power you envision? Does it have reduced Penetration? No? Fine. But keep in mind that a large attack with a couple of Reduced Penetrations is faster and easier to handle than a small attack with an Autofire, particularly if you're just starting out with the system. Just sayin'.... Sweet! I want him to have an 20d6 Energy Blast: PD with double reduced penetration. It's pretty close to having 4d6 on auto fire, but with only one attack roll and less fiddly adjustments for each roll. No; it's not the same, but the tradeoff is it's a lot faster to manage during play. I want him to have 30" of Flight as well. I want him to have an entangle. By now you should have-- or very nearly have-- the powers you want this character to command. _NOW_ you can figure out how you want to do it with bugs. The Reduced Pen Blast is a swarm of hornets. Hey, you know what? Maybe I can squeeze an AOE: one Hex in there to simulate how easy it is for someone else to get tangled up in it by coming too close! Yes indeedy! Okay, he flies by commanding an even larger swarm of winged thingies to carry him aloft, and his entangle is --well more hornets. They surround an opponent, but they don't actually attack him unless he moves. Hmm... I should find a way to make Breakout dependent on a CON roll instead of an STR roll. And they're hornets-- little short stingers. Maybe add in something about how it doesn't work against rigid defenses? See? The special effect came _last_. This is what the book calls "reasoning from effect:" You can not clearly build it until you know what it does, because until you know exactly _what_ it does, you have no idea how to start building it. Once you get to the point where you're tailoring your SFX, you can tweak the power modifiers for flavor then, but not before. With a little practice, you'll be pulling characters out of the air in no time.

You might try the wayback machine to search the old board. There was a lot of stuff like that out there once. Though it sounds-- if I understand your "does not do math for you" requirement, like you're wanting pretty much a simple spreadsheet.

You've sort of hit upon one of the reasons I don't usually buy NPC books.

When I need a map in a hurry, I run to any of the "print your own graph paper" sites, select "hex" and 1=1", then print out six or twelve sheets, tape them together, and draw the scene. Mind you, that's usually a "when I'm in a hurry" or "when I'm recreating a map from another (and almost always smaller) source" kind of thing, but it works well enough to keep doing it when I need to. Duke

Sorry, GB(i); Still having some phone weirds after my last update.. Moving along: I'm going to get booed for this, I suspect, but I have _never_ been able to view that as a valid reason to endorse the backwards to-hit roll. Unless your entire group is some kind of thick, it isn't going to take too many hits and misses for them to have a pretty clear notion as to just what their opponent's DCV actually _is_-- at least, as clear as they would have the other way (no solid way to account for Levels, after all). I mean, if they are only math savvy enough to do "eleven plus one other number," then they have more than enough knowledge to figure out the rest....

First off: Thanks to everyone who contributed their personal scans and even a couple of actual books to work from. The books are already in the mail to be returned (and insured for more than enough to replace them, just in case; and I can't thank the both of you enough!). Those of you who contributed your personal scans: I will continue working on the Adventurers Club for my own personal use, but only those books for which I now have paper copies. I have deleted all digital forms of any Adventurers Club issues that I do not currently own in print (i've been tracking them down for this project and have about 1/3 of them at this point) as copyright law does not entitle me to anything more than "backups" of what I own in print. I will start with the issues for which various forum members contributed their personal scans (and of course, that I own books for). As I rework the scans, if you would like copies of the re-worked versions, let me know via PM (so I have an easy-to-find reference of who and what), and when they are done (as you can see, it might be a while), I will happily shoot them to you. I am sorry that I cannot do the others, but as I've said numerous times: I am totally against piracy: people put a lot of work into their products for whatever reward they sought-- pay, satisfaction, whatever-- and they aren't getting either from illegally-distributed copies. I can't in good faith support my own beliefs while simultaneously violating them, thus the deletion I mentioned earlier. Of course, it totally bears mentioning that should a Bundle of Holding appear on the horizon containing "archival-quality" hi-res scans, I will cease working on this project at all and snap that up instead. Scott Ruggles: I'm not knocking copyright. Yes; there is _no doubt_ I would love to see your Rogues Gallery work (and honestly, Rogues Gallery, _period!_ ), but not so badly as to deprive someone of their right to decide who gets to to see their work and who doesn't. What a minute-- It wasn't just that asteroid picture in -- was it a Traveller supplement?-- that I've seen your name. Your work was in the revised 5e rulebook, too, wasn't it? Seems like I saw "Ruggles" in there somewhere.....

I am afraid I was not given specific details beyond "watch for an upcoming bundle of holding."

Skill Pips. dvIf the theme of an adventure runs along with one of the character's skills, or if it's a skill he uses successfully two or three times in a given session, toss out a "pip" or two. Decide before hand how many "pips" earn a +1 to his Skill. Sure, he could buy them with EP, but this is just a little something extra, and it's a reward specifically for particular things he did. Personally, I rather enjoy it when characters rely on their Skills to learn things as opposed to "I grab the scarcest looking one and start threatening to beat on him some more." I also do reputations-- above and beyond what's on the character sheet: something that someone might have caught on a cell phone and uploaded to youTube, and now you've got a reputation as a swell guy who hung around to help Mrs. Oldperson re-hang the front door that was damaged by stray fire. _or_ that you were a loose cannon and randomly shot some old lady's door out.

Thanks, guys. So I guess I have been strangely lucky. About time for it, I suppose.

No: I'm not quitinh; I'm having phone issues. Sorry about that, Chris. To the question: Let me preface this with this: This is a serious question, based on my own experience. I don't want anyone to think I'm being funny here. That said: Are you folks out there really running in to people who can't wrap their heads around the to-hit mechanic? I admit that three of my groups have been play g for years (though I don't recall any of them having had any questions about it), but my newest group- the youth group--are essentially _children_ what with the eldest two being fourteen, but none of them have so much as batted an eye at "OCV minus DCV. Add eleven, and roll that or less. It's like any other skill check, except the targets have individual personal modifiers." Given the amount of discussion this subject has been given (how hard it is to grasp this mechanic) versus my own experience with teaching it, I really am wondering if I've been the luckiest man alive or if we're just refusing to give D&D players credit for basic comprehension abilities. So seriously: has teaching this mechanic proven to exceptionally difficult for you guys, or are we discussing potentials? Thanks for any answers to my curiosity. Duke

Based on the e-mail I received this morning, Western HERO is now in Jason's hands. I confirmed that Jason and his group are in fact the current copyright holders for the Adventurers Club, but I am afraid that I was _not_ given permission to continue on with that project. :(. I will likely do it for myself, just to have, but I am afraid I will not be able to make it available for distribution in the foreseeable future. Sorry, Toxxus. Duke

Agh! Missed it by half! Caught the song (the syllabi rhythm was a dead giveaway) ; failed the memory check. Thanks CC!

Re-read it in Devo..

I really shouldn't laugh, but it just kept giving.... And I think "spoilered for really bad taste" would have been appropriate.

You know I'm keeping that, right?

Man. I swear I can hear a very low-volume car speaker playing Huey Lewis.....

Yep. I've picked up every one so far, even if I wasn't interested in that particular game, just to support the "one thin book" model.