Christopher R Taylor

I don't really understand why people love making characters quickly, since once its made all that's left is play. To me, making the character is part of the fun, its like a game in its self. But there are more than a few who do want to get it over with as fast as possible, so I'm working on making that easier for Fantasy Hero at least. The thing about Savage Worlds is that it looks easy, but its also very limited and simple. Its like Hero system 3rd edition; yeah its quick and easy but its also limited, and the GM has to just make up stuff to fit the empty gaps. The system annoys me in that its so abstracted and imprecise, but some people prefer that. After all, D&D still has Armor Class and Hit Points.

I'm not familiar enough with any of those to do any sort of build. I thought about doing a "kid in a mecha suit" build, though.

Well I'm less interested in jobs as such than in trades that can produce useful stuff for adventurers. I mean, anyone can take PS: Haberdasher and make hats in their free time, but the book is about recipes and stats, information and game tips on things that PCs make such as potions, armor, etc.

Its been kind of fun to build these. When I'm done we can hash them over and discuss, I just wanted to get the ball rolling. Each one is gender and ethnicity neutral, you can plug in whatever you want into them. I build them deliberately to be as vague as possible. What I have so far: Ace - Can throw any object, object gains power based on a small multipower of tricks like entangle, blast, etc. Former pitcher. [Hawkeye] Ambassador - Strong flying super polite type with lots of presence skills and tough. [superman] Behemoth - huge and strong and very tough gray person [Hulk] Ironmonger - standard power armor type, has missiles that pop up mecha style, etc. Inventor has permanent link with the wearer of the armor, former military type bodyguard wears it [iron Man] Lightning - super fast running speedster type, pretty generic [Flash] Patriot (alternate name: Veteran) - character has been in every American conflict since the first clash of soldiers vs Native Americans in what would become the USA. Immortal, has a normal blast gun and lots of combat skills and knowledge, regeneration [Captain America] Specter - Spy type with desolidification and invisibility, lots of spy skills [black Widow] Street Knight - armored with some gadgets and detective skills, uses a staff to fight with [batman] Vulcan - god of blacksmithing, etc (has hammer, can create fire, fix things, character becomes Vulcan and is ordinary blacksmith) [Thor] Planned: A Wolverine and a Spider-Man. Not sure what other character types people would really be interested in that can be delivered fairly simply and directly to beginning players. Even some of the designs I did are a little complicated (Ace's different attack options, for example).

Sure, in England there are zillions of security cameras, all over cities everywhere, in ways that aren't true in the USA. The US is catching up, slowly, but its not nearly as ubiquitous.

There are some laws on speech and public violence in non-US nations that might restrict hero activity (and identity laws, proliferation of cameras, etc).

OK I've started work on building characters for the book, making analogues for the base Avengers, some Justice League, and other well-known characters such as Wolverine, Batman, Superman, and so on. By the time this comes out, Dr Strange might be really popular too but I am not going to bother with magic for a starting character. I'm building them as base 300 point characters, then I'm going to work on a 400 point version and figure out blocks of experience gain so characters can pick between them or the GM can assign them as the game becomes more complex and we add in rules with each session.

If you just let the winds blow you (which might be the only option in deep blue) you can end up hundreds of miles off course and in a direction you are unaware of without some magic or a "Dwarven Compass" or something of the sort.

We made hexes DCV 0 once, and it didn't have a major impact but it did make it effectively impossible to miss with AOE attacks, which made them more powerful. Sure, but how often do you miss a 3 DCV anyway? Even if you miss with an AE you usually hit anyway (horseshoes and hand grenades).

You know I try really hard to be patient with politics when they raise their ugly head but seriously? Let it go people. Focus. Everything you take for granted about politics or think is so certain while your opponents are ogres.... half the country thinks the other way. Lets just play a game and talk about it huh? So we don't have to deal with this crap everywhere, every day, in every setting, on every topic 24 hours a day until we snap and go postal? Please?

I guess it depends on what you think results in superpowered beings. If its random mutation, then its going to be more or less evenly spread through the population. If its special events like magical ley lines converging and affecting people suddenly, it could be very unevenly distributed, and could even be limited to only people with a certain kind of hereditary factor. If its caused by technological exposure (radiation!) then its going to be clustered around examples of that technology. If its just humanity "evolving" to a certain point, it might be pressured by external long term forces, such as tyranny, harsh conditions, or even food. I personally went with the 1 per million has some form of powers (be it ever so small) and 1 in 10 million had enough to be significant for hero level power.

There's a concept in almost all Massively Multiplayer Online Games (that claim to be Role Playing) - trade skills which players use to build things for their characters to use or sell. Putting aside their utility or quality in these games, I like the concept for real RPGs. As part of the Jolrhos Field Guide, I'm putting details for how you can make your own stuff, using trades. So instead of being a blacksmith and just using it to fix your armor, you can gather parts and make your own. Instead of just buying scrolls or handwaving them, you can learn how to make and scribe your own. So far I have blacksmithing, tailoring, leatherworking, spell research, herbalism, poisoner, bowyer (fletcher, etc) all prepared. Other options could include potter, provisioner (cook), woodworking, engineering (simple mechanical things, seigeworks, etc), brewing, jewelry, animal trainer, and alchemy. What sorts of trades would you be interested in or think would be useful in a game? Stuff you wish you could do or think would be interesting to do in a fantasy role playing setting. This would be the kind of things you might do off camera or between adventures to make money, better yourself, help your fellow characters, and so on. If you think its all just a stupid idea, well move on and post somewhere else

Its never made sense to me that a hex has a larger DCV than a prone, unconscious human.

I agree, the only barrier to Hero play is building a character where its easy to freeze up from having too many options. but if you give people pre-built simplified characters and then help them build their own when they are interested, no problemo. The actual game play is super easy and doesn't require any lookups for even a slightly experienced GM. Its just selling that and focusing on that simplicity is going to take an effort and some marketing to get it to happen. That, and pre-made settings so people can just hop right in.

Well, OMCV would help target a mental-based spell (Mental blast, etc) so it could show up in a fantasy campaign. But yeah the majority of heroic level games I've run had no mental powers in them at all like the cop show, or the mercenaries or the sci fi game (although there were psionic aliens that never showed up).

That was Iron Man's first origin, actually: Vietnam

I like the concept of the saving throw as representing magic resistance or spells that, with willpower or personal ability, be reduced or ignored. Its an interesting mechanic to add to the mix. I don't like it being your only option, but its a neat additional option.

Just taking the physical complication then making the frequency low enough to represent how often its a limitation. Rarely would be my guess.

I think the idea of taking an established character and re-imagining them in another culture or setting (or time) is very intriguing. Writers have done that with Superman and Batman, for example, and its usually quite interesting.

There is a type of player that isn't a munchkin but always comes up with the most powerful build, most effective use of abilities, etc. These people are beautiful when it comes to playtesting design and new content. They'll find the exploit, the plot hole, the gap, the way to use that item you didn't consider. Kind of a pain in a game, but wonderful in the right setting. This isn't necessarily someone who's selfish and antisocial, or a jerk. This is the kind of person who just loves to find the most efficient way to do everything and take advantage of that. Not for personal gain but because it comes naturally to them and they enjoy the efficiency for its own sake.

A way of building it is a modification on AVAD: requires a roll. You can have it either negate the effect (for a larger modifier on the spell) or to half the effect (for a smaller modifier)

Some call the later silver age the "atomic age" which makes more sense to me. It splits off the post-code goofy years from the Marvel years. Personally I prefer the Bronze age myself. It seems the ideal blend between more realistic, harder subjects and the lighter, happier previous years. Then things got too gritty and grim and not fun at all.

Marvel broke the Silver Age mold, and changed everything. Its a bit misleading to include that new wave of stuff into the Silver Age, although people do.

They also were banned from doing stories about vampires, showing authority figures being harmed, etc. So a lot of stories were just flat off the table, which made them much more lame and restricted options for writers. There still was some good stuff done but most of it got pretty awful.

That all sounds kinda more like Silver Age. Silver age was even more silly and juvenile. The main bad guys were either wild nonsensical things, monsters, or communists. Anti-communism was a huge theme. Lots of sidekick kids and funny animals. Stories were almost entirely self-contained without any reference or logic to other stories. Nobody killed, ever, and nobody ever was seriously hurt. Bad guys could be gigantically powerful but defeated through trickery. People used their powers in simple, cartoonish ways.