Chris-M

Re: Online RPG character generator from Champions online? I doubt they'll ever release any form of character builder that includes the costume designer as a separate app, even one for sale. From their point of view, it's all about subscribers to the MMO. They view the costume designer as a value-add for the MMO, and they're not going to risk losing a single subscriber by making it to where you can get that elsewhere. (That was the attitude re: the City of Heroes costume designer when I worked at NCsoft, and I can't imagine Cryptic will think any differently. It's subscribers or die in the MMO business.)

Re: No Horses For You Are you kidding? That's a great link for this thread! Lots of nice suggestions there.

Re: Norse Campaign: Social/Political Structures needed. No socio-political structures per se, but my advice would be to make sure you've read up on things like weregild, the Thing (no, not Ben Grimm, but the yearly council by which even kings could be lawfully deposed), the right of hospitality, the importance of generosity for leaders and gift-giving in general, the role and importance of verse in general and skalds in particular, customs and laws about the granting (and taking) of land (for that matter, just reading up on their ideas about crime and justice are really fascinating). Also, the roles of men and women and how they related were, of course, different from ours in ways that I think are particularly interesting. Speaking of which, also check out the difference in prestige between völva and seiðmaðr. To me, this is the kind of stuff that, if you can find ways to organically work it into your presentation of the setting and roleplaying of the NPCs, will give your campaign a feeling of really being different than your standard faux-Medieval Europe D&D-style fantasy, and I think it will be much more engaging to your players.

Re: No Horses For You I don't think you guys are all that far apart. Saying "it's magic" is fine in some instances, in other instances players will ask quite-natural questions about what kind of magic and why it works that way in one instance and not another. Nobody's saying you have to write up a 200-page tome to explain how things work in your fantasy world, and one can easily explain or handwave these sorts of questions as long as you've given them a little thought. Sometimes what you make up to explain things will create more questions but other times they'll suggest excellent new ideas for adventures or items or monsters or whatever. Again, I don't think this is terribly different than what Gregg is saying. I think what some of the other folks are saying is that if the only explanation for inexplicable things is "it's magic," your players will begin to hear "I don't know; I don't think these things through" instead, and shaking the faith your players have in the setting is seldom a good thing. It's up to each of us as individual GMs to know our players and to give them the consistency and reasonable explanations they require to enjoy the game -- remember, the players are the customers, and the customers are never wrong (except when they build their characters or complain about things in combat ).

Re: Cotu! Wow, Sean -- very cool! I've been wanting to do something like this for years, and recently considered throwing together an Avatar the Last Airbender game based along just this sort of pick-and-play, based-on-HERO model -- but I was just plain scared that I would be biting off more than I could chew. I can't wait to check out what you've done in more detail. I may actually try to run this on an off-night with the 4e D&D group I'm playing in (they're a bunch of points-buy chickens at this point -- these lazy kids, I tell ya!). If I manage to swing that, I'll report back. I would love to see that if you care to post it.

Re: Elemental benders (Avatar) Absolutely. But in HERO, what we're concerned about is the effect being modeled -- and we can model it however we want. By that I mean, if you want your character to be able to pull up a chunk of rock or hard ground and use it as a projectile to hit someone for physical damage, you can simply buy it as an Energy Blast versus PD (basically making it a "Physical Blast" -- this may seem a bit strange, but trust me, we do it all the time ) with a Limitation that you must be near a suitable source of rock or hard ground to use. In other words, the act of "telekinetically" pulling up a hunk of rock and then shooting it at someone is simply collapsed into one game mechanic: your basic Energy Blast (vs. PD, with the Limitation). This is no different than using Energy Blast to build a "Wind Blast" power or a "Lightning Bolt" power or the like. The Energy Blast vs. PD has also been used to model things like whips, a "lightning-fast punch" power, and so forth. It's a completely legit, and simple, way to go. Of course, you absolutely could buy some earth bending Telekinesis and use it to grab up hunks of rock or earth and hurl them at people -- nothing wrong with that. It's a little more clunky to my mind because there are some considerations to using TK that don't apply to Energy Blasts, but your GM may be content to handwave those off anyway (I probably would). I'd recommend considering both approaches carefully, just as a learning exercise if nothing else. BTW, just because it hasn't been mentioned yet, if you've got the disposable income you, or someone in your group, should definitely invest in the UNTIL Superpowers Database (at least the first volume if you can't afford to get both at the moment). Elemental powers are covered in detail, so you'll find lots of good solutions there, and it's also a great way to see how lots and lots of different superpowers can be built quite simply in HERO.

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs

Re: Elemental benders (Avatar)

Re: Elemental benders (Avatar) Well, like I just posted in my reply that I wrote while you were replying , I think Bloodstone is right and you'd be better off avoiding the Requires Skill Roll thing. I was trying to think of a way to make it work so that you do have to keep your martial art trained up, which I like too, but I don't have my Big Black Book handy and I can't think of a way to do it offhand.

Re: Elemental benders (Avatar) Good point. I didn't forget, I just was trying to keep the character build simple. Also, I'm not sure how advanced an earth bender you have to be to do the transmutation trick. Yeah, and I thought about phrasing that as "or within X number of hexes of an appropriate amount of rock/earth" or something along those lines, but I figured I'd just keep things simple and go with a more "standard" earth bender warrior approach as I didn't know how advanced a bender 'Rat wants to build. In my mind, based on what I can recall from the show (I have watched seasons one and two several times each and all of season three a couple times, but not while trying to catalog powers or anything), the progression I would use in terms of power/skill level for earth benders would be: Must be in contact with the ground. Must be in contact with an appropriate amount of earth/rock. Must be within a certain relatively close range of an appropriate amount of earth/rock. Can bend with very little arm/leg motion. Can do the transmute sand etc. into hard rock power stunt. Can bend extremely large amounts of earth/rock. Can bend at extended range. Can bend with no arm/leg motion (can basically just think it). "Size matters not" -- can move mountains. I don't know, what do you think? Yes, you're absolutely right. Good point, I'd scratch that one, too, now. Definitely, but they're like earth bending master ninjas (or jade demons, if you prefer) and I would build them somewhat differently. Speaking of which, one thing I did notice last viewing of season two was that in the scenes where we see them doing their Spider-Man-style wall crawling shtick on a sheer wall, column, or ceiling, the surface is always stone, which I think is clever -- I assume they're using their bending to make their stone gloves and shoes (don't forget those! ) to stick in a "magnetic" fashion to the stone surface they're scurrying up.

Re: Elemental benders (Avatar) I'm going to give you my advice on how I would build an earth bender based on exactly what we see in the television series. If you want to deviate from that to build your superhero, you are of course free to do so -- I just want to be clear about what it is I'm trying to model with my suggestions. Also, bear in mind that a standard earth bender isn't going to be able to do all of the super-cool stuff you see Toph and King Bumi doing in the cartoon -- they are the two most powerful and skilled earth benders in the world at the time of the cartoon. You'll need some time and some XP to get to that level. An Elemental Control is definitely a fine way to go. Read through the section on Elemental Controls a couple times until it starts to make sense to you. If you have specific questions about how they work, come back and ask them here (we love answering questions here!). Let's look at some basics. Being true to the show, all of your bending powers at this point should have a few Limitations applied to them. First, a version of the Gestures limitation that requires the character be free to move his arms and legs. Second, you'll want a limitation that requires that the character be standing on or touching an "appropriate amount" of rock or hard earth. You and your GM will have to make sure you're on the same page about what an "appropriate amount" is, but if you're wanting to do that move where the earth bender stomps the ground, a small boulder shoots up from the ground, and then the bender kicks it and sends it flying into a foe, you're going to need a small boulder-sized chunk of rock and not pebbles. Third, I'd add a "Requires Skill Roll" limitation based on a skill in your martial arts style (which could just be "Earth Bending Style") to make sure that you execute the form properly. As for the powers themselves, I'd start with small collection of basic (and useful) powers: You'll want some offense. To kick or punch a chunk of rock at someone, go with an Energy Blast versus PD (Physical Defense). You could also do something like a small Telekinesis with the Area Affect advantage and an "only for throwing" limitation and a "target must be standing on the ground" limitation. The idea here is that you cause the earth to surge up beneath them and hurl them through the air. For defense you could do a Force Wall with a limitation "only on top of the ground." Force Wall isn't a great personal defense though, so you could do that thing that Toph and Aang do where they wrap themselves up in rock, which I think you could do as Armor that you have to pay Endurance for. Another fun power you could do to create pits and crevasses and such in ground and rock would be a Ranged Killing Attack versus PD, non-sentient rock and earth only. One thing to keep in mind though. In a modern context, you could find yourself in a lot more situations where your powers could be neutralized than in the context of a pre-industrial Asian fantasy setting. For example, on the 45th floor of an office building you're not going to have anything to bend with. You're also going to want to make sure in advance that you and your GM are on the same page about things like concrete and blacktop. Can you bend those? Can you bend you been earth or rock up through them (important to know if you want to be able to bend when you get in a fight in the parking lot outside a mall or something ). Anyway, hope that helps and gives you some simple material to start working with. As always, let us know if you have any other questions.

Re: No Horses For You

Re: No Horses For You Please tell me that at some point you ran up against some bad guys and had the wizard un-polymorph them. (Hmm...how many d6 of extra Presence Attack would you give for that?)

Re: No Horses For You Good point, Curufea. That actually reminds me: I've always liked Moorcock's idea about the Melnibonean dragons sleeping for decades or centuries (whatever it was) after being awakened and used in battle, and I think that's an idea that could be applied to other exotic mounts/war-beasts in different ways.

Re: No Horses For You When I was in college we weren't allowed to cite any encyclopedia as a source, not because the information was assumed to be false but because we were required to research our own source material and corroborate important claims with at least three independent sources. I don't really feel that's the level of intellectual rigor required of message board discussions. There has been a lot of sensational stuff written about political vandalism and personal/biographical character assassination on Wikipedia, but I'm not too concerned about net hooligans posting false information about horses in the Middle Ages. I would certainly go do my own research if I were going to write an authoritative work on destriers or something, but I think in most instances it's a more credible source than not knowing anything or what some person I don't know personally says about something. And I figure if it says something wildly and nakedly untrue, someone who knows more about it than I do won't be able to resist pointing this fact out with some enthusiasm, discussion will ensue, more credible sources will be cited, and we will all be made wise. All of this and more will be covered in my upcoming -- and highly authoritative and historically accurate -- book, The Lazy Intellectual. [Please note, the presence of any actual intellectual content will be purely coincidental. ] Anyway, getting back to the horse/no-horse thing, I think a spell that turns horses into savage, man-eating beasts, cast by an evil cleric on an adventuring party at an inopportune moment, would be a really mean (but fun) trick.

Re: No Horses For You

Re: No Horses For You In my never-ending (if intermittent) quest to be helpful, here are a couple of interesting links on the medieval horse issue, which I highly recommend for anyone who does use horses in a faux-medieval fantasy setting. Very interesting stuff. Destriers and Horses in the Middle Ages.

Re: We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs

Re: Learning from the mistakes of others

Re: Theron's Bay City Mash-Up Sounds like a great campaign springboard to me, and I like your approach. I have to say that I, too, have given up running classic four-color supers unless my whole group are true fans of those kinds of superhero comics. So he steals music, consumes mass quantities of pron, and accuses other people of being "Nazis" when they disagree with him? (And is he hunted by the RIAA? And how do you build "Logic Resistance?" )

Over in the "We Loves Us Some Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs" thread, we've been talking about, among other things, how some GMs, wanting to make their fantasy worlds less stereotypical, will use original non-human races or put non-standard spins on the classic non-human races. Something else you'll see when a GM or worldbuilder tries to go for a more original, exotic game setting is the replacement of horses as the standard steed of record with something else -- big lizards, flightless birds, giant cats or dogs -- you name it. Personally, this has always been a huge pet peeve of mine -- quit goofing around and just give us our horses already! But then I realized that in the "Avatar: The Last Air Bender" TV series, there are no horses and a variety of other creatures serving as steeds, and it didn't bother me one bit. I guess because "Avatar" features a nicely-designed original Asian Fantasy setting that is already different enough from your standard faux-Medieval Europe fantasy setting that it wasn't jarring. Also, "Avatar" features normal animals that are all, or mostly, hybrids of our real-world animals -- poodle monkeys, badger moles, etc., so the lack of horses and the presence of other unusual steed options seems to fit right in. (As an interesting side note, there's one reference by Sokka to just plain "horses," although we never seen one -- we do, however, meet one regular, ol' bear -- which freaks the main characters out.) Anyway, what are some examples of non-horse steeds that have been the norm in fantasy campaigns you've played in? Which ones did you like and which ones did you not like?

Re: Book Recommendation Dude, ain't nothin' wrong with that. Inter-Library Loan is an incredibly under-utilized and awesome service. If there's something I really want to read and it's out of print and/or not cheap and easily available for purchase, ILL, here I come! You'd be amazed how much great stuff is available via ILL, and they generally get it to you quicker than you'd think.

Re: What's the Simplest Way To Do This? Why so? The Multiform build I can see, but I don't see why a big multipower would be better than a specifically limited VPP. I'm genuinely curious if I'm missing something -- I'm not trying to challenge your opinion or anything like that.

Re: A DC Animated-style HeroMachine

Re: What's the Simplest Way To Do This? Thanks, man. For gaming, I wish I was, too. I'm building an original hybrid Fantasy Hero campaign that I plan to start running in September, and I am desperate for players at the moment. Thanks to OwlCon, I know a lot more good gamers in Houston than I do North Austin/Round Rock.