Christopher R Taylor

Its really hard to find a solid formula for Long Term Endurance that's both plausibly accurate  and easy to use.  Any realistic system becomes hopelessly complicated and any simple formula falls apart in too many circumstances.  So its probably best to just hand wave it, and say "you burned up x LTE today" based on events and baggage.

And I really like Long Term Endurance in a game, because it helps create things like diseases and force reasonable behavior.  If you have the flu, you burn through long term END faster.  If you jog with a 50 pound pack full of jewels on your back, you're going to tire out.  It prevents excesses in plausibility, and in many settings, that's a positive.  Because of superior stats, players will be able to do more and be more heroic than the average fellow, but still will face limits.

Honestly, while I do appreciate the idea behind movement being tied to speed, it really probably ought to be separate, so you act on your speed, but move at a set rate separate from your actions, like riding in a vehicle.

I agree, but there are other ways to contribute, as I noted above.  Its a matter of desire and passion and ambition, not ability.  Say you can't create much, have no artistic talent, or writing ability.  You can back kickstarters, you can talk to gamer friends, you can run a game at a CON or at the local stores, you can put up fliers to get people to come learn how to play on your own.  You can find people with talent and help them get their product out.  You can post promoting rather than degrading stuff around the internet about Hero.

Or you can sit at a keyboard and complain on a forum.

You can see this effect with almost all the games, where new editions provoke a spike in sales, which then subside.

 

This is a pretty well-known effect for RPGs.  There's a limited market (lets face it, this isn't a hugely popular hobby even at its peak) and once everyone has bought the books... they don't buy any more.  Hence: D&D putting out a new edition every few years.

 I felt like I wanted this and I got this. Not terrible, by any definition. Just not something that said from the first page "Oh god, I want to play this"

So you wanted Epic1!!!!!!11!!! and got real.

​So why the heck should we care, if their (lack of) actions seem to demonstrate they don't?  And why the heck should we license their products and help drive revenue to them ... if they appear not to care enough to do it for themselves AND if the chances of breaking even are so slim for us due to art/production costs?  Out of the goodness of our hearts???  

 

Hero Games has been under the exact same model since its very beginning.  In fact, the only game system that advertised outside gaming magazines and cons (which Hero does advertise in), was TSR with those Bill Willingham strips on the back of comics and godawful TV advertisements in the early 80s.

Hobbies don't advertise.  Ever seen ad for knitting needles?  Bird watching binoculars?  Chess sets?  When's the last time you saw a banner ad for woodworking?  Not every single business model follows the same pattern.  Youcan't pick one model of business learned in a class in school and figure every single company and industry is like that.  All those questions have already been answered above.  You can sit here and complain about how things aren't falling out of the sky into your lap, or get out and make something happen.  Its your choice.

Its also possible that the armored folk were so much more likely to survive that they didn't lie dead in a heap with the others

Right, the cost is in the production, not the format.  POD costs you nothing to set up and prepare, only to print.  And the beauty of print on demand is that you can just not print anything until you get buyers.  Having them order off your POD site means no up front thousands to print copies.  If you get the publication costs out of the way, then all that's left is if you want inventory to do the fundraising for copies printed off.  If it doesn't work, then you're out some time but still have product to sell.

Druidcraft: Whispering to the spirits of nature, you create one of the following effects within range:

 

• These look like an illusion for most of them, although you could use a cosmetic transform with a narrow variable result (these sort of effects) of a die or two.  The effects are tiny and minor, and making a plant bloom is not anything beyond how it looks, really.

Prestidigitation: This spell is a minor magical trick that novice spellcasters use for practice. You create one of the following magical effects within range:

These all look like minor change environment or images.  Probably a Change Environment with a few effects the character can pick between would be fine.

I love very low end cantrip type effects.  Its this stuff that makes someone seem magical, more than the big blasts and such.  Superheros can throw around lighting but it feels magical to make a plant bloom or shape fire.

Definitely adding at least links to POD would be good

If so, then it isn't just the Hero System that is in trouble, it is the entire industry, because there is no stability in such an environment. 

Well in one sense, all of publishing is in trouble, the way you mean it.  Not just games, all publishing, from newspapers to magazines to books.

In another sense there's never been a better time for games because there's so many options, so much creativity, so many interesting things going on that not only do gamers have tons of fun options, but publishers can do what they never have before.  30 years ago, I couldn't have gotten Hero Games to put my stuff on their catalog and license it, sell it in their own personal store, and reach the entire planet, no matter how hard Rob Bell tried.  20 years ago I could't have even have published what I do now.

Yeah the Hole in the Wall Gang would set up fresh horses at regular stages along their getaway route, posses had no chance of catching them.  Plus, in game terms, riding rolls and animal handling rolls can get more out of a horse than just a rider.  Skill and care in how you ride, paths taken, how you interact with the horse, etc can all help.

Well, all that, and a horse can get you there faster, if you don't care about the horse.

Pretty much anything that was put out with the Hero reboot attempt Fuzion, really.

I would say that Savage Dragon was in the era but he wasn't really part of the genre.

Yeah there's a merchant language as well, mostly hand signals and negotiation terms, but it can be used as a "lingua franca" between various cultures and peoples when traveling and in more wild areas as well.  Just trading topics and basic information (1 point max language skill) but enough to get the job done.

Flint is OK if you are shooting at unarmoured targets, but shoot it at a bronze breastplate or even very hard wood, and it goes 'poof'. You can make it sharp (sharper than bronze, in fact), but it's very brittle. And it's light - far lighter than bronze - which reduces penetrating ability against harder armors (and also limits its use in heavier bows). Last of all, it's brittleness means that flint weapons were often one-use only: whereas metal arrowheads can be (and we know, were) scavenged and reused.

True enough, but then not a lot of people actually wore much armor back then.  Armor was very expensive and required materials few people had a lot of around to spare, even leather.  Nothing in that article suggested they found armor (only bits of weapons) which means either the reporter wasn't interested in that aspect, the warriors were wearing armor that didn't last (bone, leather, wood, cloth), or they didn't have any.  Most historical research I've read says that they didn't wear a lot of armor in the pre-bronze and bronze age, unless important people or very wealthy.

On the other hand, some cultures did (Egypt, as MarkDoc notes, Spartans, etc) and they wore a lot.

Many gamers are frustrated authors, designers, artists etc. This is a great opportunity to write, design and draw for an established brand and system. For the odd person it might be the first steps on a writing career like Steve's. This could be viewed as an opportunity rather than potential exploitation.

And that's the nutshell of capitalism that isn't taught or understood: what looks like exploitation is in fact opportunity.  Starting out at the bottom isn't being a loser, its being a level 1 worker, at the beginning of your quest.  You're not being cruelly abused by your boss, you're gaining skills, learning, studying, moving up in "levels" and questing for your ambition.

But even if you don't aspire to being a great game writer or whatever, putting out scenarios and supplements can be pretty cheap and then its just (slow, trickling) profit because it costs you nothing to maintain a pdf copy and POD service indefinitely.  Putting Hero product on the shelf - especially good quality, in demand product - helps the gaming hobby and Hero games in particular tremendously.  If there's 300 products on that virtual shelf, it means easier to get into the game and makes it seem more popular and attractive.

Did I say upsteam that everybody and their brother and the dog was playing D&D? They are, but everybody else and their other brother's dog is trying to put out a new game.

That's the other side of the medal, unfortunately.  That's part of the problem with how easy it is to publish today and it hurts the market.  Everyone is playing their own cobbled up version of a gam instead of the published ones.  And that means people aren't buying product.

But as MarkDoc says... perhaps that's a marketing edge, an opportunity.  All those worldbuilders out there, all those creative writing minds, here's your metastructure to make your own game, without having to build and balance your own rules!

I'm pondering the best way to present that.  Fantasy seems the most popular build-your-own genre, so maybe a Fantasy Hero book giving the skeleton and guts to adapt to your own world, as well as tips using the system and suggestions.  Here's what the stats are, and what they can be understood as or used in your world!  How to use the power building rules to create your magic system!

big swords, big guns, tiny feet, gritted teeth, military style jackets with pouches everywhere

Hero has an excellent licensing system by which you can create content for the game and sell it, they will put it on their catalog and take part of the sales, you get the bulk.  So there's no "do stuff for free and they get the profit" here.  Like I've said before: if you want the game to prosper, what are you doing about it?

Not "post moar on the forum boards!!" What are you doing to make it happen?

I really liked the Mystic Masters structure and bad guys, honestly.  It had a terrific Dr Strange feel to it that works well for comics.

Sorry the AVLD should be AVAD (Attack vs Alternate Defense) in the "advantages" section.  It allows you to use an attack to target other or non-traditional defenses, such as a blast that targets power defense or just requires life support vs breathing to defend against it.  One common form is NND as Ninja-Bear lists above, an AVAD that is all or nothing and does stun only damage, against an non-traditional defense.

Look at Change Environment for smoke that causes haze or reduced perception in an area (Area effect) and lingers once used.  A limitation of "half effect in open areas" would make it more effective in enclosed areas!

Yes, and in fact I included some into my novel Old Habits!

But its not just for thieves, its called "Gutter" and pretty much all the street level criminals and lower class slum dwelling types (and Ratmen living in the sewers) speak it.  Its a form of slang of the established local language that is designed to sound odd and innocuous but deliver information right in front of ordinary people and law enforcement.

A sample:

   “A rum tover, what?”  I said.  “Me choover’s been atimbrel since I slove the stinkpipe”

   The rats sat down with me and nodded, getting some food out.  It was usually best not to watch too closely what Ratmen ate.  As near as I could figure, they couldn’t get sick, because often what they ate would kill me – or make me wish I was dead.  One of them was eating a beetle as big as a book headfirst with crunching and crackling so obvious I couldn’t completely ignore it. 

   We spoke in Gutter, a sort of street slang and criminal dialect filled with odd phrases and words we all grew up with but ordinary citizens found incomprehensible.  The bravo earlier hadn’t used Gutter; he was probably a mercenary and had to deal with upper classes.  What I’d said to them was this:

   What a day, my stomach has been rumbling since I left the sewer.

 

Champions of War - playing superheroes in time of war, with various war settings and rules for being in military, etc.  BE Captain America.

1. Ignite her hands to let out smoke that obscures sight. (Do you think I'd have to buy something to have it act like normal smoke, like how it can suffocate if you stay in an enclosed space very long?)

 

If you want, you can buy a small AVLD (all or nothing) with it, or buy that as a separate effect to indicate a more dense, choking effect

 

2. Shooting fire blasts from her hands, which in turn create smoke as well, most likely in a trail towards her target.

 

The smoke would be a nice visual special effect, nothing you'd have to buy

4. Transforming into a fire form similar to the Human Torch, which will make her let out smoke just like when having her hands ignited, but much more, plus just give her some more resistances and a general boost to her other powers (partial limiter on those to have extra levels only usable when transformed), plus give access to...

 

Sounds like Only in Hero Form with stats, defenses, etc.  Plus a smoke-based costume.

Other options: the Darkness (super dark smoke) effect - a smoke-based knockback blast, just a huge surge of it to knock people around - smoke to make images with so you can craft it into shapes and designs (Johnny Storm doing the Fantastic Four flare in the air), smoke to tag items and mark them or write with using soot (cosmetic transform), smoke to lift others off the ground (flight usable on others or telekinesis), smoke to block IR vision but not normal (darkness to sight, only vs IR), Smoke as a barrier to block sight (are effect darkness as a ring or "any" or a very weak barrier), etc.

I think maybe the best way to deal with the issue is to not using bleeding damage and disregard killing blows except for when it fits game and story purposes by GM fiat.

 

That's a good basic solution.  Some of those dials in the optional rules are great for controlling combat results.  Want it gritty and rough?  Turn them all up to 11.  Want it more fun and 4-color?  Turn em down!

Now I know for almost all GMs the active cost cap in a campaign is negotiable, based on the power.  And I know that some don't even bother with an AC cap.  But for power frameworks, it seems like you almost have to violate the AC cap to make them give equivalence.

Consider: Campaign has a 60 Active Cost cap.  If you want to have a multipower with the ability to use a 60 active cost power and anything else in it at the same time, that multipower must by definition exceed AC cap.  To explain consider this:

PTS  POWERS AND SKILLS

  90   Fire Powers: Multipower (90 pts)

  6v   Fire Blast: 12d6 blast (vs ED, fire)

  4v   Fire Shield: 20 PD, 20 ED Resistant protection, costs END every phase

  6v   Flight: 24m flight, x2 noncombat, 0 END Cost, no gravity penalty, no turn mode, combat acel/decel

now, this build would allow Fire Girl to use some of her flight and fire shield and blast at the same time, or any of them up to 60 active points.  But the Multipower its self shatters the AC Cap, even though no one power used at a time is more than 60 active points.

And, of course, Power Pools bought with 60 max points have the same effect on cost.

Yes, technically a multipower or a power pool is more powerful than a straight power but keeping them under AC means keeping them below everyone else's max power level in the game.  Sorry Bob, you only get an 8d6 blast in your power pool, while everyone else gets 12d6.

Now I've always allowed people to go above the AC limit in the campaign with frameworks because of this effect, as long as individual powers in the framework weren't over it.  But I'm just curious what others have done or if the rules actually deal with this specifically.

I might put the smoke cloud outside the MP so it doesn't reduce how many Ap you can throw into the Blast, but same idea. 

Yeah as soon as I hit "post" I thought the same thing, Darkness belongs outside the multipower (and it all could be put into a Unified Power envelope).