Duke Bushido

On this, we are in total agreement. I also do not dispute the relative (I assume; I get the impression that this conversation started because there are at _some_ games out there that mandate such things) lack of such rules and mandates in HERO. I can't even pretend to support the idea of them being "necessary" to the experience of the game. As agreed, I can accept such value _for a given campaign_, but that's as far as I can go.

I am sorry, GB, but I can't consider that. The character isn't mine. I don't get to decide his personality; I don't get to decide how he reacts to what I throw at him, anymore than I get to decide that for other people in real life. I can expect, and I can hope, but it is the player's place, and not mine, to control his heart and his desire. If I want to influence that, I'll throw in a villain with Mind Control. Even then, that's temporary, has defined limits and has a means for the character to break out, because no one wants to be forced to do things against their will, and when the game was written, the idea that the player controlled the character was so well-understood that Mind Control has never not had a way to break free. When I make a character, I decide his personality. If I want him to do something that I find counter to his particular normal, I will list it as a Disadvantage. Even then, there are break-out rolls and circumstances to regain myself. When my players make a character, they decide who his and how he acts. The very idea of a die roll to determine whether or not my character is brave this one time is so counter to everything I ever understood about role playing as to be unthinkable. I am not going to get involved in a whole big discussion about it because that would acknowledge the possibility that I might be persuaded that the idea had merit. Frankly, if I want to play an assigned personality, I wouldn't make my own villains: I'd use those in the published works and follow the letter of the personalities. If I wanted my characters personality to change on the whim of a die roll or the draw of a card, I'd play Mystery Date. We have rolls for deception skills. Even then, the player has a chance to figure it out as play continues. Agitation is a matter of personality: if your character has the unflappable patience of Job, how can I decide "not any more, he doesn't. The dice say this guy ticks you off. Beat his ass! Now! Do it!" "in a role playing game, you will step into the role someone else has designed for you, and live your entire fictional life in the manner they chose for you." Just doesn't sound like anything I've ever read in any rule book, ever. But all of my favorite rules books, and 6e, harp rather regularly about making exactly what you want. Making precisely the character you want to play. Serious points to you, though: I guffawed audibly at "Tray Tor.". Well done! Sorry, Doc; I'm on a phone, and this touch pad crap is killing me.

Doc, I respectfully disagree. Whether someone works out a detailed contract of delivers an elegant, rousing speech to the rabble of the empire, or if my buddy Joe just announces "okay, I go and talk to the king," the politicking and such happen and are affected. "I am going to resist the edict, but not hard enough to fight" has the same impact as a long tirade about the unjustness of it all. I just don't see a connection - rephrase: I don't see how any sort of politics or intrigue or subterfuge requires one kind of a mechanic or another.

I've got to say, politics and intrigue, etc, are world-building a role-playing. I don't even see the connection to game mechanics-- any game, any mechanics-- period. I mean, yes, there are Skills in the game. But unless I've missed something really huge in 6e, the rules have always mentioned "this is the way skills work. This list is a suggestion for commonly-seen skills. Feel free to add any other Skill you want." And that's really only important you think you need some sort of "Save vs Intrigue" action going on.

I will have to keep an eye out for old copies of that. Thanks, Scott! Good(ish) news, folks! When I got up this morning, the computer had finally stopped pinwheeling and appears to be ready for business. Only lost progress on (I think; at four in the morning, I'm not looking really hard) four of the scans. Didn't lose what I had prior to these accursed "last little thing," fortunately, so this setback is not as bad as I had feared. Have a thing tonight, so I won't know more until tomorrow night at the earliest, but still: it's something! You folks have a good day. Duke

Okay, I'll ask: What is the "Slim Goodman Approved" edition?

I understand that. That is not what I asked you.

Currently running a 2e game that's been going on for years, though I have managed to pull in some of the stuff I like from newer editions. Also currently running a 2e game that's going to creep into 4e (FINALLY!) as the players (it's my youth group) become more comfortable with the game. I'm going to level with you: I really, really, _really_ like 4e. I've always played 2e w/upgrades because the nice thing about a truly universal system is.... well, it can do anything. Takes the impetus to update almost completely off the table. But 4e-- the combining..... I've always wanted to run a straight-up 4e game, as I _love_ the thing. Alas, my players never wanted to move up (not completely, anyway, so we crib here and there from newer stuff), citing the "size of the book" (funny looking back from this point of view, isn't it? :lol:). And I have to admit, dropping the one of the ol' 2e books in front of someone and saying "this is the whole game" doesn't scare them the way that anything from 4 and up does.

And-- and I can't stress this enough-- they are a bit easier on the budget-conscious GM. If you and your group like the HERO system and decide you're in it for the long haul (welcome aboard! ), then go nuts and get all the big books, too. In the meantime, there are plenty enough is the small doses Amorkca recommends to keep you busy for as long as you want to be. Duke

It would have been better to define "unreasonable," I think.

Not forgotten, I promise. Though I don't know if it will still hold water using the more modern editions. I'm not entirely sure how much water it held then, to be honest. But yes: at the moment, it will be the third project in line (second after Western HERO), right after AC 1

Yes; the lowering of the "the sound the alarm" threshold was ostensibly "to give more tools to the Dea and Homeland Security.". Funny, though, how my tax guy was also aware of it. For what it's worth, I used to move houses. I could stay out for up to six weeks at a time on a job. Considering the number "incidentals" that come up, unique to every job, and having to pay men who likely didn't have a local bank branch two states away from home, well-- I carried large amounts of cash on these trips. Renting a welding crew isn't cheap, and I don't have time for an out of (didnt; sorry) town check to clear. Without derailing this thread any further, suffice it to say that the bank alert never bothered me until South Carolina started seizing cash simply because it existed. Even then, not too worried (turn down SC work was an option, but that was easily a full quarter of where my jobs came from (it's why I MO Ed there to start with). The combination of siezure and reduced "look over here" threshold, though: it was a bit unnerving.

Ha! Actually, I'm currently hunting some things I promised Todd Bannister m(since I have some downtime) and then I've got to read Basic. Though I think KS undermined his own argument on the validity of his 1"= 2m to 1"= 1m rebuttal. Granted, that wasn't something that bothered me, but as he pointed out, scale is something we change on the fly as we are playing. Given that, changing the rule was neither good nor bad so much as it was- well, I'll say "fruitless," because, while that's not the most accurate descriptor, I don't want the insulting connotations of "pointless." Crap! Not over here! And not till I've read basic,dadgum it!

Edited, because a PM seemed less disruptive to the thread. Duke

That wonderful for you, Christopher. Does tha coexist with warrantless siezure of any assets deemed appropriatable without proof of crime in your area? Because it feels an awful lot different when it does.

Posting from the phone today. I should have just gone ahead and compiled the PDF and sent it out for proofing, but _nooooo_ Had to make those last few swipes.... I have managed to luck up the computer. Easy enough given that it has a series of issues already. Hope to get it worked out soon, but it puts an indefinate link in the plan... I am sorry for yet another delay, but I _swear_ to you,we are _close_. Very very close.

Must be the same one they stick in these accursed i-Macs, then. Sometime's posting things from the wife's computer feels like a test of sanity....

Of course he's got a great attitude. He's got us.

This is the disgusting and horrifying reason I left Carolina many years ago. Shortly after this named to be used as a tool in the "war against drugs" and it escalated to include taking cars, houses, and whatever cash they could find, I bugged out. I ran a cash-heavy truck-based business at the time, and when the crew and I were headed home after two or three weeks in the field, we did _not_ look like high-end citizens. We were ragged, filthy, and tired. I had nightmares about getting pulled over and losing a month's worth of payroll for eight men and a sizable bit of operating capital to get us to the next job. Then, just a few years later, the government decided that any "large" cash transaction had to be reported by banks, making it just flat dangerous to do business at all. I quite the business all together (and thus had to make several truck and equipment payments out of a _much_ smaller income until I finally got it all sold) simply because, what with the example of South Carolina, I figured at some point I'd walk in to the bank with "too much cash" and there'd be a federal agent in charge of just taking it. Not a joke. It's some seriously terrifying and absolutely sketchy crap. Consider that I used to move houses. I left SC-- where the permits, rights, and licenses are fairly easy to acquire-- and moved the whole shebang to Georgia, where those same processes are like pulling teeth from a grizzly bear, just because I didn't feel safe operating a completely legal enterprise. Duke

You've got a solid point: drop in a ship you can already get a map for-- a relatively well-known ship if you think you want the extra clues for your players; that is definitely a huge work-saver. I just wanted to clarify: I am the guy who thought it would be a fun twist. I even vaguely dreamed of turning it around in a grand, twenty-year plan (you know when you're young and thin the same group will game together, twice a week at least, forever and ever, Amen?) that saw the fantasy earth slowly give way, through various "magical" and geological machinations, to the rise of the dinosaurs, then the ice-age, through which the various mammal-type endured best... On through to two or three historical-set games, then a modern campaign or two, then a couple of sci-fi that took us further and further into the stars.... Then a big opera that took things back to that one specific trade colony... Yeah. I knew it couldn't happen, but man was it a glorious vision! It was my players at the time (and likely the bulk of them now) that didn't want the chocolate in their peanut butter. Me? I don't even like too much Fantasy in my Fantasy. I prefer low fantasy (when I do fantasy) or a more occult-type magic. My favorite fantasy games I've ever been involved in were a pulp/voodoo thing and an occult/Western thing, both of which featured what I referred to (for lack of a better term) "shamanistic magic," when there was magic at all. Duke

Did a sci-fi game back in 88 that ran a year and a half, 3 sessions a week (man I miss being young). It culminated with the PCs crashing a trade colony (massive hollow asteroid, generation ship, artificial world--one of those things that puts hundreds of sentient species in one place, some people come and go; some put down roots and raise great-grandkids-- you get the idea) into primordial planet. There actually was a reason for this (not a _great_ one, mind you, and far to long an explanation to go into on a phone) but it's the direction the players chose, partly as "ultimate solution," partly as "well the campaign has climaxed and pretty much resolved, and this are is more about finding a new direction anyway," partly "we've nearly died fifty times doing something stupid; let's chose to die as heroes instead," and a healthy dose of good old burn out. We took a hiatus for about 6 months, falling back to a weekly session of board games, poker, and combat Uno while we brainstormed ideas for the next game. First decision was that Jim and I would run it (so you know: another long campaign where I wouldn't get to play a character. Yay! Ugh....) Next decision was it would be Fantasy (not my favorite, but so long as it was Champions-based and had no Tolkien, I was willing). Jim and I got to work desiging, and eventually the game went on. At about the three year mark, the PCs make an astounding discovery while on a search-and-rescue in some mountain caves, and the rest of that year they continued to investigate and learn. Short version: They had come across the remains of the trade colony, heaved closer to the surface throu some earthquake ten thousand years ago. All monsters, beasties, Fantasy Races, etc, were in fact the descendants of those that life-boated before the crash, or found some other miracle of survival. I thought it would be little more than a fun anecdote. They were, to borrow a phrase, "super pissed." I didn't bother enlightening them as to the specific nature of the various "magic items and artifacts" floating about the game world, even if those they had already come across (some of which they were actually using). I thought it would be kinda neat, and I presented it in such a way as to make pretty much irrelevant fluff to the game we were playing. I also changed my plans for the after-the-campaign story (gets a bit hotter and more humid every year, and there are more and more varied dragons the last few years. Cursed things may end up inheriting these lands if it doesn't cool off....) Turns out Fantasy folks don't want science in their magic, even if it's completely ignorable. That the kind of thing you were looking for?

"Those idiot typesetters! Opal! The word was 'OPAL!' Morons!" --- C.S. Lewis

Oh, most definitely. The model in my head is along the lines of inverse levels: Get a three "6" result on luck? Get a 1D of Unluck. Get 1D of Luck? well, I guess "inverse" explained that all ready. Just a thought; I'l have to think it through. But definitely amusing, every time: in keeping with the genre.

I posted in the hot thread right now that my copy of 6e Basic today. I posted over here to promise all of you that I will _not_ start reading it until I've got the scanning project back on track. Currently, I'm folding everything into a proofing PDF for the proofreaders, and _hope_ to get that out to you both no later than mid-week. It will not have the corrected / repaired cover yet, because... well, guess what I'm going to be working on while you guys are looking for glaring issues? Thanks for putting up with all the delays, etc. (for the record, the font for Western HERO (the only way to repair those charts with the alternating shade bands was to literally rebuild them from scratch. Otherwise they just printed awful, and the ink from the stippling and the letters had lost a lot of clarity over the years, so.... Rebuild from scratch in a couple of cases. Problem is now I'm tempted to rebuild _all_ of them etc, etc, etc, and it will never get done like that, so just _stop_ right here and move on) thirty five bucks! For a twenty-odd-year-old font! It's ridiculous!) Back to work. Well, no work tonight. Have to take my daughter to her "girls night out."