Thia Halmades

For many people he is the single greatest guitarist of his generation, and in some of those lists, of all time. I applaud your stunning ability at understatement, Hermit. I’m... grateful? That my own rock icon, the late Freddie Mercury, after whom I pattern my own singing, is already gone. Otherwise 2020 would kill him out of spite and I can’t take much more.

I was just about to post this. Thanks, 2020.

I apologize, I’m with Spence on this; I can’t focus on the rewards because, in effect, I’m three rooms away back at the white board going “Nah, this isn’t right” and you’re trying to talk to marketing about how people should be rewarded for a system that I’m not ready to let out of the room, much less move onto reward design. I gave you my best answer based on what you’re saying, and I think Hugh said something similar, but beyond that I won’t be much help here.

I mean. I am CHArming and Impressive. It’s my 2nd highest stat. So I’ll play the face, but I’m not very nice. Heroic, but not nice, so then am I being punished because my play style, while amazing, isn’t in line with this sort of Arthurian/Chivalric vibe? I played paladins my whole career. I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints; the sinners have much more fun. So where’s the reward for dancing on that edge? You know? Chaotic Good?

Note: the following explanation is for those unfamiliar with 5th: Huh. This is an effect that’s unique to 5e, because of the way it handles action economy. In HERO you have two half phases, one half phase is commonly used to move, the other is used to act. Alternatively, you can open with an attack, but I believe that taking an attack action ends the turn. Broadly speaking, HERO doesn’t “take away” things, it just adds challenges to completing them. 5th, however, has each action as a sub-type; Movement, Action, and commonly Bonus Action (particularly for Rogues). The thing is, in HERO terms, you would get to act normally under this effect (triggered actions not withstanding, but those are uncommon). I think the translation would be to restrict the user to “Only simple actions.” Single attacks, simple spells, etc. Anything that would require a full phase, concentration, etc., are off the table. So you can brace, but not set, and you could fire, but not take multiple shots, or use an ability like “long draw” that gave you an advantage, etc. With that defined, then it comes down to Mind Control. Yeah, I know. Mind Control. But that’s what we would use to specifically restrict how someone behaves. I think it’s a touch ... odd? But not inherently illegal or kludgey. You pop in a CON check/saving throw modified by the AP of the effect and go from there.

...c’mon. You can do better. Edit that.

Oh, oh. Got it. The drugs are completely normal except they are part of a unique trial that’s being given to soldiers through the VA. This thing goes all the way... TO THE TOP!! The two abnormal ones will only work when both are taken, one is a primer and one is an activator — the order they’re taken is irrelevant, and the timing is irrelevant, it can be active for up to 3 months (because science). When BOTH hit the system, it turns people into... what? What’s the actual effect of having both of these things in your system at once?

However, hidden in every bottle, are two tablets of a new designer drug, which you wouldn’t know just by looking; only after exposing them to black light do the highlighted drugs pop. While this may seem exceptionally complex and obtuse, it’s at the height of the war on drugs. It’s critical that the odds of them being caught mid-shipment are minimized and that they can pass muster by all except the most dedicated investigator. They want to use standard routes then get them into the hands of local pharmacists with whom they have their network. From pharmacist to street pharmacist.

That’s exactly what I came away with, but was desperately trying to veer away from it. And yet. Here we are.

Where the disconnect lies isn’t in your idea; “Mentor” is a well established trope, Galahad was I believe the most loyal of all the Knights of the Round, etc. It’s that you’re taking something that is broadly embedded in the “who” of a person, and making a mechanic around it, and calling it a “what.” Who is Jean-Luc Picard? (You can wiki it). WHAT is Jean-Luc Picard? He’s a Starfleet Officer, specializing in Sciences, and helms what was at the time, the pride of the fleet, and its flagship, the NCC-1701-D, “Enterprise.” So if I’m building Picard, I’m going to be focusing on the what, and will lay some details and ground work for how I role play him as part of “who” he is. I am considered an exceptionally loyal person; I cost 1 less point when people put me on their character sheets as a high level contact (I cost the same as any other acquaintance) but I’m SO LOYAL that I’ll cover part of your cost to keep me around. It’s WHO I am. WHAT I am is a 6’4” hyper minded video gaming bad ass with specialization in gaming, cooking, tech, and mortgage banking. I have a lot of CHA based skills and I use them liberally. So you’re making this sort of big deal around the mechanics of “who” someone is, and it just doesn’t jive with me. I think the idea, on the whole, is interesting, but there’s also the part of my brain that says “these things come from role playing.” Which of course leads us to one of Thia’s Rules: “It’s not enough to dislike it, you have to offer a solution of some kind or shut up about it.” My solution is this: Keep your general concept, but instead of shoehorning it into how people are playing, leave it to them to “trigger” those events and bonuses. For every 3 role-playing actions that mark someone as, say, generous — they get a token they can cash in for the benefit “Pay it Forward;” the character’s generosity has, in some way, returned to them. It could be a temporary ally (see; Summon for a series of fights), free lodging “You saved my boy from a week of slavery, your money is no good here.” And so on. And in case you think that’s the “kind” hero as you describe it, it isn’t. Generosity with money isn’t always a kindness; it can be a matter of expediency, it can just be how that character solves problems. Take Kage, my Rogue/Warlock. Kage solves his problems, more often than not, with gold. Because of this, Kage has “walking around money.” And he’s always on the edge of being broke, but — after he’s done threatening, interrogating, and otherwise making your life difficult, he always says words to the effect of “Wow, that was stressful but very enlightening. Take this gold, get yourself a hot meal. Thank you so much for your time.” Watching NPCs react to that doesn’t get old. He promised an enemy combatant they wouldn’t be dead and he’d buy them breakfast. They aren’t dead; they got knocked out and left on a rooftop — with their bow — and a gold piece. Kage is true to his word. What you have is the start of a framework for rewarding specific kinds of heroic actions, and I would bend it toward doing that, which gives people plenty of latitude and keeps options open, instead of closing them off.

I never understood why people got so hung up on the whole STUN/BODY “he’s not dead?!” ...thing. Monsters die when they hit 0 BODY. That’s just a thing that happens. Only major NPCs get the same benefits of PCs in terms of not being gacked at 0 BODY. It isn’t 15 napping goblins, it’s 15 very dead goblins, including at least one decapitation.

Sound effects, for example, a specific tap pattern on the underside of your desk/table to indicate that head crabs are coming, then pause. Give it a random number of turns, then a perception check as one is literally flying through the air. For their face. Remember: Fear is purely the unknown. The less they know, the more unfamiliar a situation with the right queues, the more they’ll start to freak out. Horror, however, is what happens when you wish you could back to not knowing. You have plenty of great contributions here already, I wanted to point out what else is possible just through sound and information control. Baby has been up all night, I am super tired now.

...wat? Who’re you? I must have missed something. Glad it helped!

Unbeknownst to the players, the assassin is still lurking in the rafters of the church, clad in black body armor with twin katanas on her back. She moves with Olympic level agility, capable of clinging and swinging in near silence. She killed the deacon, but she has her reasons — that tip he gave the players wasn’t exactly out of the goodness of his heart. As she evaluates the situation, the screech of tires and the yammering of voices shouting orders come from outside, and bullets start blasting holes of light through the front doors along with the chatter of uzi and AK fire.

I mean, you can build everything yourself regardless, but for me? 6th. I came in with 5th. I loved 5th. 6th is bigger, broader, messier in some ways if for no other reason than its scope, but it’s possibly the most refined of all the editions, and hands down my favorite. That said, if you like 4, do 4. If you have 5th & 6th and there’s a rule that you want to import, you know, do that. Contemplating further, Persona would not be capable to its level of refinement outside of 5th or 6th. I twisted a lot of rules into new shapes but the ground work for those changes meant that things remained sufficiently balanced.

To quote the above, “Would it work? Yes.” Would I do it? No, never. I think you would be better served by holding onto their characters, and waiting to see how each person starts to play with their “50 points,” then as their personalities become clear, hand them the pre-generated character that fits best. Alternatively, draft up a series of cards (similarly to what you might see in Descent, Gloomhaven, or the like) and when it comes time to “level,” offer them one of two or three cards, if this is Dark Champions, you can have the hacker, thief, street samurai, etc. (depending on the era) they pick a card and the other two go back into the class stack. This would be using a fairly stripped down, fast and loose implementation of the rules, but it would be fun and if you have enough cards drafted out with various powers, both from the supplements and from your own head, you could end up with some surprising and entertaining builds.

...why, what else are they doing with their time? That’s called “going to work,” and for most people, 10 years is when they started to get to the point of consistent recognition. They may not want to put in that time, but there are very few prodigies, and even they hit a limit where they need someone to provide new information.

I’ve read through it, but what I see is kind of a mess. The reason for the D&D archetypes — your “four core” and their subclasses — is because they’re drawn from history, or the story gestalt, or the collective subconscious, and then sufficiently romanticized to have a look and feel, then mechanically built to reinforce that. HERO, of course, unless you build those class packages everyone can kind of do their own thing within the boundaries of the campaign. First, campaign limits, good idea. ALWAYS a good idea. But. Your idea, on the whole, isn’t resonating with me. I’m not seeing a proper build/link/benefit chain. To Hugh’s point, these benefits are comparatively minor in the grander scheme of things, and moreover, they are highly proscriptive and in some cases vague. What constitutes a worthy enemy? Is it always one? Can 20 lesser dudes constitute a worthy foe? To your ‘pure’ concept, if we go back to the literature, the common point of purity, from a story telling perspective, is to tarnish it and then gain something less abstract and more concrete. There are examples of characters who start pure and that’s their “thing,” but they are few, far between, and not nearly as memorable as, say, The Red Cross Knight, or the Iliad, etc. ANYWAY. My literature major aside. Now that I’ve said that, I’m left to my primary issue: what I see here doesn’t work for me; I would love to give you what you’re asking for, but I’m not seeing a fully fleshed out idea. So you want to go off from the standard subclasses; Fighter > Paladin/Ranger, Rogue > Assassin/Burglar, etc. Before you can do that, you have to define where these things fit in your world, and why they fit and give them more “teeth” than what you’ve got here. I don’t mean to be a downer or harsh, but it’s kind of like a writer’s circle; if you’re looking for feedback, then my feedback is “this needs a lot of work before I can comment further.”

*flips through channels, sighs heavily.* Your powers grow weak, @Old Man.

@Scott Ruggels Yes, that is clearer. I agree in principle, that if two people are using the exact same spell, they should absolutely get the same results. I think, for me, I saw the loop as being more about the higher power overall, rather than the specifics of, say, “Summon Monster III.” But I understand that for you, Summon isn’t your jam, and I respect that.

Why stop there? Why not stage an entire photo-op? https://mashable.com/article/donald-trump-working-walter-reed-photos/

I’ve said it, I’ll say it again, “always set limits.” You can also set your ceiling/basement for a given skill or effect. For me, Persona was the first time I did this so specifically and aggressively, including capping added Damage Levels. It created a give/take mechanic, because they could certainly buy everything up to the max with base levels, but they lose flexibility. They can commit them all to flex levels, but that consumes a mess of points, so they ended up having this sort of default where they capped themselves at 6 OCV/6 DCV and used the rest. The exception to the rule were any modifiers of buffs, equipped Persona, etc. — this was purely (and intentionally) the purchased skill level cap.

I apologize. I’ve read through this reply but my interpretation has it as self-contradictory. GMs can build Galactus, but special powers is too much like D&D? To me, Summon is about calling temporary allies, and this sets the mechanical limit. You could certainly bake in a “command refresh,” upon recasting, but other than saying you don’t like it, which I acknowledge, I’m not following a specific objection.

Don’t you mean Masque of the Red Death?

Something something history, something something repeat it: