Christopher R Taylor

I run into so few GURPS players, in real life, online, and at conventions that I suspect its sales are largely due to an incredibly dedicated core that buys everything that comes out, and GURPS puts a lot of stuff out. So less broad and more deep support.

There's actually a back story to that involving ownership of the coke recipe and corporate trickery as well. In hero terms though, yeah: don't mess up the basic product, just make the break in point easier.

"Is everyone having fun" is the most important key to any game, role playing or not. Play balance is only significant when it impacts peoples' enjoyment: this isn't PVP, so how well people match up is really not that significant.

I agree with the X-Men approach as a good profile; most of them have powers separate from their background and usually names that are different as well (Thunderbird being an exception, and possibly Banshee). DC has been less good at this, with The Knight and Beefeater as UK heroes, for example. But I agree with Massey, some stereotype or well-known types are welcome. Having The Minuteman or American Eagle for the USA is fun, or a viking from Norway could be. Nothing that makes eyes roll, but stuff that gives a little grin and a chuckle or a knowing nod.

I think some countries need better heroes (and villains) more than others. England actually does okay, for example, but Saudi Arabia not so much.

Meh, more like everyone likes their cell phone small so it doesn't take up room! They'll always be small! Until someone comes up with a way to get phones to do more cool stuff like show movies. Then they get bigger. Then tablets come out, and they got bigger. Right now people are looking for easy, fast, and simple - in all of life, not just games. Nobody wants to read anything longer than a few lines, shaped by text and quick distractions. For example, how many of you read sureshot's entire post all at once? Or were put off by that "wall of text" and looked away? Don't be ashamed, almost everyone is like that. Presentation makes a huge difference. The D&D rules are every bit as complicated as Hero. If you try to build a character in Savage Worlds, it takes math and learning the rules to build the character. If they put lots of explanation on how each ability and skill worked with examples, suddenly its not a pamphlet any longer; its a big book with lots of text. So a low impact "welcome to hero" book needs to be super simple presentation with lots of cool images and quick bursts of text that gets people started easily and they will get more interested I mean, D&D is simple! Then you talk to the guy that knows the full contents of 3 huge books full of data, numbers, and combinations off the top of his head.

Yeah, make an interesting character that works well and is creative and ignore potential "eek offense!" hyper sensitive jackwagons.

Although the art is great and some concepts were interesting in European Enemies, it is frankly packed with bad stereotypes and heroes only someone who doesn't live in these nations would have come up with. Its like someone outside the USA going "Eagle man! Captain Indian!" So what kind of international heroes can we come up with that are good international types? Heroes that don't necessarily have to reflect national character but seem right for the setting? I love the idea of Peregrine for a French hero, for some reason that just appeals to my sense of the nation and a flying battlesuit just works. But Einherjar for a Norwegian guy, a huge axe wielding warrior might be a bit too on the nose.

Yes sir, Cap.

I enjoyed when I played DDO, its "dungeons" felt much more like dungeons should, instead of artificial and clearly computer game-oriented arenas. But its a game you really cannot play long without friends and its not easy to get a group.

I liked the Mythbusters episode where they showed how quickly you go through a magazine (about 3 seconds with a variety of guns) in full auto.

Wick was kind of beat up and tired by that point, and really distracted too, but he only demonstrates shooting off handed once so maybe he's not really all that ambidextrous yeah. Might come up more in film 2.

No, I was just thinking that if someone has a dagger with weird magical effects on it, that would better simulate varieties of attacks a rogue might wield.

Ever since I read those excellent GMing articles in Champions III, I've tried to put fights in interesting places or have something odd or unusual happen to mix them up. its not just a fight, its a fight on top of a runaway train! This isn't just a tavern brawl, the tavern is slowly tipping off stilts over a cliff! Sure, you're fighting Nazi supervillains in Dunkirk to help with the evacuation, but a sinkhole collapses and an awakening dragon emerges! (long story, that one). Adding just some other element can turn a usual fight against agents into a suddenly interesting one.

Yeah, technically it should have variable special effect, except this was specifically built for an HKA attack from surprise (a blade) for a rogue. Its a D&D backstab attack, not some mythical "I get to hit harder because I bought the feat" attack.

Even Catwoman made money, kinda. Such a horrible film.

Honestly, there have been so many MMOG projects that would have been better off cut before release I'm fine with that happening, I'm just disappointed that a more up to date and better-built EQ was one of them. So much potential and such a great setting, its too bad they couldn't do the job.

Yeah, that's why my build is more specific: they have to be unaware for it to do extra damage, not merely from behind. Someone with Defense Maneuver IV would not suffer the extra damage

Sure but all that is a problem with munchkins, not selling off MCV

Possibly, but as munchkin goes, 9 points isn't exactly breaking anything.

Right, I'm fine if you don't want that in your game. Its your game, you can say no and you don't even have to explain why. And players can decline to play by the same standards, if they wish although this would be an awful petty reason to do so. But claiming that your definition of OMCV and Ego is rules and the way the game works is just not accurate.

I'm misunderstanding nothing. Mechanics were made to represent special effect from the outset You have that backward. You build the mechanic and pick a special effect to represent it. That's why there's 100 ways to build anything in Hero. When someone asks "how do I build a taser in Hero" you don't get "look up taser!" you get "energy blast, or NND, or AVAD vs power defense, or drain, or transform to stunned target, or..." there are many ways to represent any concept. You are insisting that OMCV must only and always without exception represent one special effect. That's not how Hero works. You have the mechanic to simulate how the character interacts with the game at the rules level, and the concept and special effects that simulate how and why it works at a roleplaying and idea level.

There's no need to rewrite the game system to appeal to those players. All that's needed is to treat the game rules as the background and present built settings and information for players and GM's to jump into. Look, D&D has a meta system they use to build their stuff. That was explicit in d20 and how they had all those other games come out built around it like Pathfinder and Mutants & Marauders. The d20 system was the background, those products were the settings. The same thing could be done with Hero quite easily. I'm trying to do just that with a Fantasy setting. We're working on an intro for a Champions setting just like that.

EverQuest Next development killed. According to the lead developer "Unfortunately, as we put together the pieces, we found that it wasn't fun." So... better than finishing and releasing it like ESO but still, too bad.

You're misunderstanding how the Hero System works. You are attributing special effect to mechanic.