Gary Miles

I bought my copy of Lands of Mystery directly from Aaron online back in the late '90's. He was nice enough to autograph it.

I love everything he wrote for Hero, as well as his novels.

Damn...

I'm on rpg.net all of the time, enworld sometimes, sf-rpg forums, therpgsite (all as "nightwind1").

/Another example of "Counter-Intuitive Rules" is Strength vs Strength checks. My player was playing a Telekinetic and was using TK to try to lift Black Diamond and prevent her from moving with 40 TK STR. He got pissy when I told him to roll 8d6 and count the BODY pips, when Black Diamond got to roll 12d6. Needless to say she wasn't pinned, which made him even more pissy.

Why would he get pissy? His TK is not as strong as Black Diamond's Strength. That's simple "physics" (so-to-speak). Nothing counter-intuitive about it.

It would be like him thinking that a character with 40 Strength should do more damage than a person with 60 Strength.

This one is "Not Available" anymore.  The " Bundle: HERO System 6th Edition: Character Creation [damaged cover] (Book + downloadable PDF)" is though.  "Sigh"...while I don't mind buying "damaged" goods, I would prefer to know exactly how badly damaged it is (I have thousands of books, and most of my books are still in very good condition, even though I use them a lot...)

 

On another note, I did some checking and the prices for "Character Creation" is out there ($170+ at Amazon).  Jeeeshhhh...a low monthly car payment for one book?  Nah, I'll pass...unless it's of Historical significance that is.

 

 

~ M

On most of the Hero "damaged" books, it takes a long time of close scrutiny to find the "damage". I've seen books in much worse condition sitting brand-new on FLGS shelves.

Some fundamental correction regarding "Dyson Sphere": Never at any point has Freeman Dyson proposed a Spherical Body around a Star.

The Dyson Sphere was a development of the Star Trek TNG Authors.

 

Um, no. The Dyson sphere idea (a fully-enclosed sphere) was around YEARS before TNG.

A speedster versus a villain with a Held Action:

Speedster (Blue Streak) is DEX 30, SPD 8, 37" Running. Blue Streak zips past the villain, who is about the half-way point of Blue Streak's Full Move.. We do a DEX roll-off, because of the villain's Held Action. Blue Streak makes his roll by a lot more than the villain. He attacks with his Passing Strike martial maneuver,scores a hit and rolls damage. He continues on (it is a Passing Strike, after all), coming to a stop 15" from the villain.

Since the villain had a held action, would you say he still gets to roll a H-t-H Attack versus Blue Streak as Blue Streak passes by? Or should he not get a chance because Blue Streak did his attack while moving, and is now clear-the-heck away from the villain?

My friend playing the villain is a power-gamer extraordinaire, and he says the villain should get to roll a H-t-H Attack. I say that since Blue Streak uses the Passing Strike, which ends up out of H-t-H range, the villain gets no roll.

This sort of situation has come up in past games often enough. This is a fairly typical speedster scenario.

 

 

Did your power-gamer friend provide a reason why he thinks this?

So, we've been playing Hero System for about thirty years, but something came up during tonight's game that we hadn't really thought of during those years.

A speedster versus a villain with a Held Action:

Speedster (Blue Streak) is DEX 30, SPD 8, 37" Running. Blue Streak zips past the villain, who is about the half-way point of Blue Streak's Full Move.. We do a DEX roll-off, because of the villain's Held Action. Blue Streak makes his roll by a lot more than the villain. He attacks with his Passing Strike martial maneuver,scores a hit and rolls damage. He continues on (it is a Passing Strike, after all), coming to a stop 15" from the villain.

Since the villain had a held action, would you say he still gets to roll a H-t-H Attack versus Blue Streak as Blue Streak passes by? Or should he not get a chance because Blue Streak did his attack while moving, and is now clear-the-heck away from the villain?

My friend playing the villain is a power-gamer extraordinaire, and he says the villain should get to roll a H-t-H Attack. I say that since Blue Streak uses the Passing Strike, which ends up out of H-t-H range, the villain gets no roll.

What say you, Herophiles?

Re: Western Hero - just got a free copy

I'm at the UAE's second minicon. Just finished running what I believe may be Arabia's first game of Car Wars. Busy proselytising Hero System - and have just been given (given!) A copy of Western Hero by a chap who's never used it (or played Hero).

 

Boy, am I happy. This is a true classic.

And written by one of the creators of "Deadlands", Matt Forbeck.

Re: Costumes

Do a search on Youtube for "Tim Gunn" and "Superhero Costumes" and you should be able to find a series of interviews from Comicon with Gunn where he's commenting on various superhero costumes. It's actually an interesting series of interviews.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

One of my "house rules" is actually a holdover of a RAW- when a person is Flashed, we still use number of Phases rather than number of Segments.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

What Greywind stated. It is also helpful for new players learning the HERO system (when Stun, Stun Drain, and Stunned come into play).

I would think it would be more helpful for new players to learn the actual terminology of the game.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

Because an effective hit that exceeds CON is stunned.

Re: Pre Attacks

Would they have not shot at him otherwise? What was the downside?

If the PRE Attack had been successful, then depending on the level of success, they they would have probably lost a 1/2-Phase, followed the hero's orders, or run away with brown shorts.

Re: Pre Attacks

4. No downside: you can do a PRE attack whenever you want and at no time cost, and no downside if you blow it. That means that you might as well use it whenever you can, in case you get that lucky roll, which is, frankly, tiresome.

There can be downsides to blown PRE Attacks.

I had a guy once throw an 8d PRE Attack.

He rolled five 1's and three 2's.

The Agents just laughed at him and shot him.

Re: HAP: How to use them

Heroic Action Points were introduced in 5th Ed, with "Pulp Hero".

Re: Anyone thought about a post-apocalyptic cross genra setting - let's call it "Drif

Actually, converting Rifts to Hero (for personal use, not to publish) doesn't violate any kind of trademarks or copyrights anyway.

Simbeida just lives in a fantasy world farther from real life than Rifts.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

Heck, if you go back through the archives, you'll see that most supposedly-F LGS's thought HERO Games was out of business when DOJ was at it's peak.

Re: Interesting article about Sexism in Geek Communities

I don't know much about Dawkins' date=' although based on that article I certainly couldn't dispute you. Got any other links about that guy?[/quote']

 

Don't have a specific link handy, but the bastard is a raging evangelist for atheism as bad or worse than the religious people he rants and raves about.

Re: The One, True Son of Krypton

Really, because Doc Savage has had the term Superman show up here and there, and seems to fit the mold.

 

~Rex ... Doc even had a Fortress of Solitude First....

And he was CLARK Savage, Jr.

The Man of Bronze.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

Yeah. Austin was the perfect inker for Byrne. That was back when Claremont was a strong writer.

Dan Green wasn't a bad inker for Byrne, either. (On Marvel Team-up). But Austin was FANTASTIC.

Re: The Good and Bad about Marvel and DC

How did George screw her up? He's the one that originally tried straightening out the character's origin issues with Who Is Donna Troy?

 

Sadly, Byrne got in there somewhere and we ended up with Who Is Donna Troy This Time?

Ah, yes...

John "Let's get rid of everything great George Perez did with Wonder Woman" Byrne.

Y'know, there was a time when I actually liked John Byrne. Then I figured out, it was actually Chris Claremont and Terry Austin I REALLY liked about Claremont, Byrne and Austin.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

If you're pulling this out of something to make a point' date=' unless it happens in a campaign it's a non-issue. I don't recall Binder being murderous.[/quote']

 

Plus, IIRC, Binder doesn't HAVE a Killing Attack slot in his weapon. So, technically- by the rules- he CAN'T kill someone with his weapon.

 

Sure, I suppose he could Entangle someone, and then push them in front of a bus or something, but...

Re: Attractiveness - Comeliness Vs. Striking Appearance

I have a villain that used to suffer increased STUN when he got hit by a woman. "I can't believe the skirt hit me!" Ended up going through counseling because of it.

Bulldozer, from "Classic Enemies" was like that.

Re: Why Your Heroes Shouldn't Kill

But the Pyramids weren't built by slave labor