kjamma4

I am currently in a semi-monthly pulp campaign run by a GM that has two separate player groups in the same world. Yesterday, we had a big game where the players from both groups played at the same time. We were in Ethiopia trying to get Haile Selassie safely out of the country. While trying to do so, we were strafed by an Italian aircraft. My Gadgeteer fired his Engine Stopping Ray and another player shot at the plane with a Thompson. I used some HERO Action Points and hit, stopping the engine cold. The other player also hit, doing further damage to the plane. Crash/Burn follows. Great teamwork! [We also had a sub-mission to gather intelligence on troop strength. When we captured two Italian soldiers, one of the characters who didn't speak Italian told a character who could, "Ask them how big their unit is?" That immediately made the "Funny Things Said During The Game" list.]

Re: Casual Survey: Age of players and Hero's utility vs. other games I'm 42 and GenCon will mark my first anniversary playing HERO. Have played multiple RPGs (D&D, AD&D, D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, Torg, Rifts, Mutant Chronicles, Deadlands, Delta Green, godlike, Chill, etc) and multiple war/boardgames since about 1980. In the past year, I have pretty much migrated over to HERO. We have played Star HERO, Fantasy HERO, Champions, and a once-every-other-week Pulp HERO campaign. I like the fact that we now can use one ruleset to play multiple genres. As far as age goes, my ten year old and fourteen year old are participants in the Pulp campaign and I don't think HERO was any harder for them to pick up than D&D 3.5 was. In my experience, almost any game is easier to learn by playing than by just getting the rules and reading. For any game to prosper, current players have to introduce the game to newer players. I can guarantee that if I did not play in a game at a convention, I never would have picked HERO up.

Re: Size & DCV: A Big Problem Honest officer, the barn was moving when I ran into it. Hic.

Re: What bizarre rules issues have you encountered? Okay Mister GM, it's two dimensional. Where does it say that it has to be a horizontal area of effect? Make it vertical splitting the villain in half. He jumps STRAIGHT up and is still in the area of effect. [Actually, at that point you should have argued that it was four dimensional and that it actually existed prior to him jumping off the ground !]

Re: C25 deposit The only flaw in your analogy is that you do not have a history of doing anything remotely related to what you are promising. Also, your examples are inherently unbelievable. Neither of those can be said about the printing of the C25 book.

Re: C25 deposit Do I have to supply the crayons?

Re: C25 deposit Where do I send in my $50 for an original piece of artwork?

Re: How good can your game be without supermonkeys? No worries... http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniature/detail.php?qsID=1017&qsSeries=Gangs%20of%20MC-1# http://eurekamin.com.au/index.php?cPath=87_126_687&sort=3a http://eurekamin.com.au/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=fezzed And what about Baboom?

Re: Rolling High

Re: Nickelback "Saving Me" Power - SPOILER!!! And in the video, it's not entirely clear if saving someone rids you of the power/curse.

Re: The Top 100 Things I’d Do If I Joined a Sci-Fi Special Ops Team 62a. If there is a sudden illness with any member of my team and a new member is added at the last minute, I will shoot them before anyone else can react. 95a. I will shoot any cat encountered during the mission. 101. I will never show any members of the mission pictures of my fiancée/wife/kids who I can’t wait to get back to after the mission is over. 102. I will never discuss with anyone the length of my enlistment and brag how “short†I am. 103. I will never discuss with anyone the fact that this is my last mission before retirement. 104. I will kill every new life form I encounter. A dead life form is just as valuable to the scientist back home as a life one is. 105. I will kill every one I encounter in suspended animation. They won’t feel it anyway. 106. I will nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Re: Nickelback "Saving Me" Power - SPOILER!!! Good idea. It might be standard with the player/character to just note when someone is in the "red." [As a side note, I'd consider this as much a curse as a blessing. Imagine knowing the time a loved one had left and every thing you did might change that number. You'd spend your entire day fiddling with things to increase the number (and of course missing out on doing things to enjoy the time you had with them). Shudder.]

How would you model the “power†in the Nickelback video of their song, “Saving Me?†S P O I L E R S P O I L E R A guy is saved from being hit by a bus and he suddenly can see numbers floating above the heads of everyone on the street (and also the numbers of an unborn child still in the womb). The numbers represent the number of seconds left in that person’s life. He cannot see any numbers above his own head. He sees a woman with rapidly decreasing numbers and saves her (presumably “adding†to her numbers) and then the woman has the power as well.

Great game last night!!! We were playing in our twice-monthly Pulp HERO game. We were aboard the R500, our dirigible base and were in the midst of a fight with two Russian saboteurs who had tried to blow up the ship, in retaliation of us damaging their dirigible. The Russians were wearing IR goggles and were dropping tear gas down on us from the superstructure of the dirigible. Jimmy Wu, our resident martial artist, managed to climb up the superstructure and sneak up on one of the saboteurs. He fires a shot at the Russian who is holding onto a ladder with one hand while shooting at the rest of the group down below with a pistol. Wu hits. Player rolls location, gets the hand. Rolls to see which hand. Gets the one holding onto the ladder. The saboteur rolls to see if he holds on. He doesn’t and falls down, stunning himself. Wu jumps down after him. Naturally, he makes his breakfall roll. On his next phase, Wu uses a martial kick on the downed saboteur. Rolls three ones. Our GM uses a critical hit system on natural threes. Wu rolls well getting a result of maximum damage (he has an 8D attack so he is doing 16 BODY and 48 STUN!!) but he still needs to roll for location. One member of our group yells “Three, four, or five†but we really don’t want a head shot since we want to get the IR goggles off this guy. My son and I yell out “Thirteen.†Player rolls – a six, a four, and a three. Vitals (one-and-a-half BODY) for a total of 24 BODY!!! Wu breaks the saboteur's spine and kills him instantly. [The saboteurs’ plan was to rig our dirigible to burn and then escape, radioing their crew to pick them up. The Wraith, our Mystery Man, had managed to stun the other saboteur with a nerve pinch so we captured him. We shaved him bald, put him in a dress, and then left him and the dead saboteur at their pick up sight after we radioed their captain. I have a feeling he’ll be sending more men after us.] Gotta love this game!!!!!

[steve Long Answer} The per-hex OCV penalty for using Rapid Autofire to shoot at two or more groups of multiple targets applies per group of targets; the penalty for one group does not carry over to or add with the penalty for another group. For example, if a character uses Rapid Autofire to fire two three-shot attacks over three hexes each, he suffers the basic -2 OCV for using Rapid Fire, then on each attack individually a -3 OCV penalty for covering three hexes, for a total of -5 OCV on each attack. The -3 penalty for the first three-hex burst does not carry over to the second (or vice-versa) to make it a -8 OCV attack. [/steve Long Answer] 1) I'm guessing by your example that you are firing at six individual opponents. You do one multiple-target autofire at opponents A, B, & C. Then you do another multiple-target autofire at opponents D, E, & F. Your penalty is -2 OCV for the rapid fire (since you did two autofires) and a further -3 for each group (since you fired on three hexes each.) According to your answer, if the second group was opponents D, E, F, & G, would the the first attack be a total of -5 and the second -6? 2) Now, suppose you have opponents A, B, & C in three continuous hexes. In the example in the book, you shoot three times at A, three times at B, and three times at C (which is three single-opponent autofires) for a penalty of -4 each. Since it is a rapid fire sequence, any miss means that you do not hit the next opponent. Could you choose to shoot at A, B, & C once each and then do that sequence twice more (presumably, you would be at a -7 OCV (-3 for the multiple-opponent autofire across three hexes and -4 for the three sets of autofire)? 3) If you did do the sequence as described in #2, would you have to hit A, B, & C for the second and third sequences to take place or would one miss in the sequence eliminate and chances in the following sequences?

Re: Rapid Autofire Well, my question was not so much what the maneuver or skill represents but the rules mechanic. Under the skill Rapid Autofire, it states "He suffers Rapid Fire's cumulative -2 OCV penalty for each burst of Autofire fired after the first, in addition to any standard Autofire penalties." The example given for Rapid Autofire only has Rapid Fire's cumulative -2 OCV penalty. Where are the standard Autofire penalties? If there are no additional Autofire penalties to Rapid Autofire, the skill should be a subset of Rapid Fire rather than a subset of Autofire.

Under the "Rapid Autofire" skill, it says that you suffer Rapid Fire’s cumulative –2 OCV penalty for each burst of Autofire fired after the first, in addition to the standard Autofire penalties. In the sidebar example (5ER p. 51), it has Magnum firing three ninjas shooting each with a three-round burst. The example states that he suffers a –4 OCV penalty. I understand the –4 OCV penalty as being Rapid Fire’s cumulative –2 OCV penalty for the three targets but why isn’t there the standard Autofire penalty (which should be –3 OCV for the three hexes under the assumption that the ninjas are in their own hexes and the hexes are not separated by empty hexes?) Shouldn’t the total penalty be –7 OCV?

Re: Explosions Do you just roll the damage and roll for stun? [We are playing a Star HERO game and have unarmored locations and armored locations. Further, the armored locations have different values and activation rolls.]

We are using the hit location rules. Do you still use those for explosions from grenades? For multiple enemies hit, do you roll for each or just once and apply to all?

Re: Campaigns that don't use Disadvantages??? [tesuji said: I have known several very serious HERO playin' guys who adamantly argued that disads were not supposed to be balanced but supposed to be "less hurtful" than the points they provided were worth. Their argument was that it was an understood "good trade off" and not an "even trade" because every hero character maxes disads, published and non, rather than say bringing in a 300 pt total character in a 200+disads up to 150 game.] Odd that it is the PLAYERS arguing that rather than the GMs. [tesuji said: but that doesn't mean players don't try to find the best dodge.] Agreed. I guess it is incumbent upon the GM (and the other players for that matter) to straighten those players out. **As an aside, I had a player in the TORG game I was running play a cyber-demon. He wanted to get some information from a bum so he tortured the bum, killed him, and then ate him. At the end of the session, I refused to award him possibilities which are basically rewards that let you reroll/add to dice roll. He complained that what he did was in character for a cyber-demon. My counter was that he was playing a HEROIC cyber-demon and what he did was in no way was heroic. Also, there were mechanics in game for denizens of the cyber cosm to alternately overpower weaker folk. I considered all player characters to have this "disadvantage" and expected them to adhere to it. FWIW, I did give the guy a few chances to consider his actions aforehand.**

Re: Campaigns that don't use Disadvantages??? I don't think I would let someone get away with the "what's good to take for not getting me in trouble" ploy. [i think we are both saying that is not a real disadvantage, that is manipulation of the system.] I don't know if that is specific only to HERO, but I can see where HERO's point system could cause some players to do so. I don't see the disadvantages as a way of causing pain just for the sake of causing pain, I see it as a way of making the character more realistic (which can be done if the character experiences pain). If you operate under the assumption that the points given for disadvantages are balanced when compared against the advantages you get for the points, then there really should be no problem. It should be a trade off and the character that takes 25 points in disadvantages (and spends the points on advantages) should be as balanced as the character that takes 75 points in disadvantages and gets the corresponding points in advantages. If you allow a character 25 points in disadvantages because his power won't work on the fifth Tuesday of the month in a leap year from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, you better make sure that this occurs in your game. One, because the character benefitted from the points and two, because the player should expect "pain" from getting the benefit. That is one of the purposes of the disadvantage. If they only got benefits from the points, they wouldn't be called disadvantages.

CorPse made a post in this thread: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=42014 wishing for the book, The Ultimate Disad[vantage]. In that thread, he asked the question, "How many campaigns don't use Disads?" Well, since I've only been in one campaign of HERO (and only since late last year), my experience with that is a bit limited. However, I have roleplayed for quite some time and I have never experienced a campaign that DIDN'T use disadvantages (assuming, of course, that the game itself had a mechanism for disadvantages.) I, as the GM of a game, feel bound to work something into the game to take into account the disadvantage of the characters. One, because it makes for interesting roleplaying and two, because if the character is getting the benefit of extra points "payed" for by the disadvantage, he/she is going to suffer some drawbacks as well. As a player, I feel the same way. Generally speaking, the disadvantages allow me to "get into" the character and roleplay, rather than just roll-play. In the game of TORG, you receive cards which generally allowed you some benefit to your skills/abilities. However, there were also cards that set you up for possible disadvantages, such as a love interest or a nemesis. You would receive possibilities (which were basically rerolls to spend in the game). It was at the GM's discretion as to whether he/she could work something into the game in regards to the cards but I always did, for the reasons enumerated above. I really think that a GM is doing a disservice, both to himself and to his players, by not fully incorporating disadvantages into the campaign.

Re: Fantasy HERO users who us HD! Fixed the link or fixed the fact you're a dumbass? :)

Re: Was watching Superman TAS and wondered about Mxyzptlk IIRC, Superman used the ray to send beings into the Phantom Zone on Mxy at the same time Mxy was going back to the Fifth Dimension, thereby ripping him apart and killing Mxy. Since Superman broke his vow to never kill, he exposed himself to Gold Kryptonite and lost all his powers and lived out his life as a human with Lois Lane. I believe that issue also contained one of my all time favorite comic book scenes - Mxy made many of Superman's enemies attack him and The Kryptonite Man was walking through the Fortress of Solitude about to kill Supes. Krypto leaps out and goes for KM's throat. KM is getting his @$$ whipped all the time saying, "You stupid dog. Don't you realize I'm killing you?" Krypto kills KM and dies for his effort, saving Superman. Good story.

Re: Time Wars by Simon Hawke