Christopher R Taylor

Eventually, sadly its gonna take years, I plan on releasing a player and GM 2-book fantasy hero rules set for my campaign setting that I hope will have stripped down and simplified rules for the players to make stepping into the game easier. The plan is to make a "Powered by Hero" setting presented as if it is a game on its own, and people can get the real Fantasy Hero book to get the full version of all the rules. Because I agree, we can definitely use an easy intro version of the game for new players. While its definitely true what Cantriped says: I think a tutorial intro to the game would be a big help. We're talking about doing that with Champions, and I plan on doing it for Fantasy Hero. It probably will end up actually being a reskin inspired by Keep on the Borderlands, to be honest. One part is already out (Two Kings Keep) but that's not the intro. The more I think about it the more I like this super simplified, spoon-fed way of getting players into the hobby, because we're not the same culture we were in the late 70s when D&D hit. We have to adapt to the customers, not demand they adapt to us.

I tend to treat all non-exotic skills as everyman skills. No, you can't try contortionist, but you can try engineer or stealth.

Best to just pretend the prequels were dumb kid movies that have little to do with the actual Star Wars story. The jury is still out on the next three films, but I was a bit underwhelmed with the first. The director needs to understand these are 40's serials updated to modern tech and sensibilities, and treat them as such.

That was my theory, mock avengers and justice league with a few others choices from other genres. For example, I put in a Magical Girl, because for most gamers that's a familiar type. I went with more than six because that way there's more choices and its not really much more trouble.

Yeah magic doesn't have to mean "we don't know how it works" (basically the Asgard explanation) but rather arcane manipulation of reality through extrascientific means. Like the Ancient One points out in Dr Strange: the world consists of much more than what you can measure and understand with science, doctor.

I want to rebuild the characters stripped down and much simpler though. I like the concepts but they need to be really basic rather than the more complicated build I gave them. Some I may drop because they can't really be any more simple.

Yeah I'd love to put out a box set with some hero dice, a doubled-sided street/inside buildings map, a copy of Champions Complete, a campaign book, and the Champions 101 starter book in it. Maybe a set of Cardboard heroes. But that costs money to set up and create I don't have, so it would have to be some fairly major kickstarter to get going.

If you bought it as Resistant Protection, I'd make sure to buy it with the "protects carried items" adder, and treat that as a "you can't touch me" special effect.

Doesn't matter what the other power is, as long as the darkness has the same radius of effect (or, special effect) so it matches the globe..

The difference between PD and Speed is that the former is passive and the latter is active. That is, PD just is, it doesn't do anything, it reacts to impact by protecting you; its just there. Speed is you taking actions so you can take many or few actions, up to the maximum speed you have, as you wish. Strength is active, stun is passive (you can't voluntarily make yourself easier to knock out). Other stats are a bit harder to puzzle out; is Intelligence active or passive? Even if you try to be less perceptive you still will notice things, but you can actively attempt to remember things. Recovery is the same stat all the time: you can't choose to recover with a lesser stat, but you can choose to not recover by taking actions.

Darkness vs sight, centered on the character, with personal immunity. Same radius as the protective sphere.

I think as a GM you can rule that if you attach the AE to the character it moves with them; after all damage shields don't require any sort of special maneuver to move with the character, and there are several other examples in the rules of an area power moving with the character by default.

Barrier for the first part would work, its a physical structure that would prevent touching them. As for the second, put blocks sight on barrier with personal immunity or just penetrative sight (or adjacent, just outside the barrier).

I agree, the introductory adventure needs to be really straight forward and step by step like a tutorial in a video game. Reveal parts of the rules and elements of the game as well as the setting and genre with that one, on rails. Then you can have the campaign book be a different sort of adventure for the GM to use once the players know the system and have cleared the intro. In fact, I can see the various stages and groups of the KOTB style champions city adventure like this Group 1: Street gang, they have a fortress type of structure built up and cops can't get in to deal with them. A couple low level powered types in their midst Group 2: Rival street gang, but they use the city's old abandoned subway tunnels and sewers to move and hide in, almost a dungeon crawl with traps, and even some monsters because one of the gangsters can summon things Group 3: The next step up, organized crime family that runs the gangs. They have an elite squad of super types as well as lower level soldiers with bulletproof suits and specialty weapons. Their cover is a strip club and the attached business that runs internet websites and hookers. Group 4: The first villain group, maybe the bird-themed bad guys from steriaca's rookie enemy thread (Rook, Crow, Raven, Magpie and Jackdaw) who are low level thief types working the city. They have a base in a ship on the docks Group 5: One big awful bad guy living in the city's main park. Something terrible that was woken up and must be dealt with Group 6: VIPER's local branch, what's left after the intro adventure if Viper's Nest is used, otherwise their startup for the city including some nasty villain types. Located beneath a nightclub, which is a hot club called... The Viper Room Group 7: The big boss man who coordinates and runs all this stuff, controlling crime in the city. He has lots of minions and more than one villain team. He's in a high rise tower I dunno, just something off the top of my head. You'd want to highlight different interesting parts of the city like the museum, zoo, governmental offices, airport, etc

I always built my speedsters with a triggered dive for cover teleport (they just can see it coming better) and a lot of DCV. Good luck ever hitting them.

I like the idea of it being more like the KOTB, though. Viper's Nest as a 101 intro to Champions adventure works, but I think a city setting with various hot points for the PCs to clear ala caves of chaos and a final guy to finish the sequence off appeals to me greatly.

So Inherent is the category we're thinking of, thanks Its clear to me that you cannot alter or shut off powers like physical defense, its just part of your existence as a physical being.

It was rewarding to see them take magic seriously as a real thing in the Marvel Universe, despite basically saying it doesn't exist in the previous movies. They're mostly very odd martial arts and some dimensional shifting, but at least they are willing to propose there's more to the universe than Tony Stark is willing to admit to.

I really like the idea of lesser powered bad guys, they don't all need 400+ points. There should be variety in the cast of enemies, not just world beaters and people the PCs have a tough time fighting. Plus, it gives people like me who prefer lower powered games someone to use as foes for low powered characters.

I don't recall Luke ever using force choke, just minor levitation and some leaping. His force powers were pretty weak, especially compared to later demonstrations of the power. But he clearly was more capable than everyone else around him, even flying a ship and shoot a blaster because the force just makes you better at everything you do, particularly if you let it "flow through you" (activate skill levels, whatever, probably RSR ego roll or Force Power skill). As for blaster one shot kills, that was just cinematic, like wearing armor that does nothing and never missing. Its just part of the action serial genre Lucas was filming, in my opinion. even if the blasters are meant to be instant death, I doubt any GM would hand out instakill guns that never run out or miss.

I can't imagine a way someone could do so, at least not unless the specifically bought extra PD they could shut off.

The only reason I build the spell for my Fantasy Codex was so that people would have a plausible example of how it could be done if the issue came up. But were I to have an NPC do it, I'd just have it happen as a plot device and not bother with the rules or details.

So back to my original point, buying all the powers that the Flash displays in the comic books would have very different consequences in a game than they do in a comic book because there's no writer forcing events and stupidity on him to limit his power for plot reasons. If you bought the Flash to represent how he's depicted in the comics, that would be a different thing; you'd have to give him activation rolls on several defensive abilities, etc. But the question as I understand it from the original post is how do you build the Flash, not how do you model his depiction.

So you are saying that PD has built into its structure not just 0 END Cost, Persistent, and Constant, but Always On as well?

One would surmise that in combat and while watching someone swinging at him with a fist, he is. There's no defending how they write the Flash or any other speedster in terms of logic or reason, it only happens because otherwise the Flash would face no challenge and dominate every comic. And Superman is shown regularly to be nearly as fast, so...