Christopher R Taylor

One of my favorite TV shows of all time, and my favorite currently on is Forged In Fire.  For those who haven't watched this show, its about blacksmiths, making weapons and having them tested by a panel of experts, including historians, martial artists, and expert blacksmiths.  They make knives primarily, but really any non-black powder weapon can show up, from bows to broadswords.
 
Watching that show has taught me a lot about the relative strengths and weaknesses, as well as the things that can go wrong with weapons and how easily they can be ruined.  Its been enlightening for a Fantasy Hero writer to see the differences, sometimes subtle, in weapon designs.  For example, a show involving a claymore had two go up against each other: one was light and flexible, the other strong and heavy.  Each had its strengths in various testing, being better in some situations and worse in others.
 
What kind of stuff have you learned for use in gaming from various sources?
 
PS: Sabers are terrifying weapons.

Just to note.
 
My stand has zero to do with one player who already knows Hero teaching others.  I have never found that to be any harder than any other RPG.
 
I am trying to come up with what I think we need.   A way to allow a group where no one knows anything about Hero can be introduced to it. 
 
 
 
 
 

OK Here are some proposed PCs for the players to pick from when they play the game.
Blurred Lion: cat girl/boy with super speed Dr Nope: Spider-man clone with poison attack instead of webbing Honey Badger: Wolverine/X-23 ripoff Patriot: Captain America ripoff Princess: strong little girl who looks like an anime character Spellbinder: mentalist disguised as a Dr Strange type Street Knight: Batman ripoff Supernova: energy projector Tank: big, strong, and tough; has a big blast that is inaccurate and can only be used once per turn Trooper: Iron Man ripoff Vulcan: Thor variant (with a hammer, but it fixes or makes things, like Fix-it Felix from the Wreck-it Ralph movie) All but Princess are designed to be either male or female, and we'll have to have images for either variant.  I want enough to cover the bases but not so many its ridiculous.  We need to cover all the "I wanna play Superman!" possibilities, plus highlight some cool things Hero can do.  I have ideas for some others but I don't want to get carried away (a shrinker, a shapeshifter, etc).
 
The idea I have in mind is for there to be multiple versions of each character, starting at lower and super simple power (you can punch and run around first chapter, next chapter you get skills, next one you get another power, etc).  Each chapter, more powers and abilities are introduced in roughly equivalent point values, although all the costs etc are behind the scenes. The final epic confrontation is with all powers and abilities, and all the rules in place.
 
What I need from you is input on the names and concepts, suggestions on whether or not a character should be included, things I missed, and input on making the characters feel new, fresh, and engaging to younger players. For example, is Blurred Lines too old a reference?  Do kids know about the Honey Badger now?

The original adventure had Armadillo, Bluejay, Brick, Cheshire Cat, Dragonfly, Green Dragon, Howler, Icicle, and Pulsar.  Rather than be too specifically out of the VIPER books I want villains who are super simple and easy to understand, with really stripped down powers not requiring knowledge of the game to understand (so no multipowers, etc).  This is meant to be a super beginners basic book so we don't want anything that is too complicated.

Repel in this sense would be along the lines of "Find easier prey". If there is no easier prey to be had, it is not an absolute. 
 
I like the change environment idea since it has a mechanic for resistance on a die roll. At -1 to EGO and EGO based rolls, for normal and large insects that are not summoned you would have a mechanism for a summoner to win their ego contest by more than the insect failed theirs and force them in anyway. Probably would be something like:
 
[Repel Wasps] Change Environment: -1 EGO and EGO based rolls, make EGO roll or move out of affected area, -2m Flying; Area of Effect Radius: 8m (+1/2);Only versus Wasps (-1), etc.
 
I think I will limit the effect to only "Animal Intelligence" or "Instinctive Intelligence". Outside of that you would need to go to Mind Control or they could reason around it by holding their breath, etc. Situational modifiers like defending the nest or extreme hunger might provide bonus of 3-5 on the roll.
 
Thanks for the ideas. I think the darkness would have been the second best. It does not have a roll mechanic, but being blinded in an area is a good reason to avoid it. Spiders and Scorpions would be especially difficult to handle with this though, due to special senses. 
 
- E

The original adventure had Armadillo, Bluejay, Brick, Cheshire Cat, Dragonfly, Green Dragon, Howler, Icicle, and Pulsar.  Rather than be too specifically out of the VIPER books I want villains who are super simple and easy to understand, with really stripped down powers not requiring knowledge of the game to understand (so no multipowers, etc).  This is meant to be a super beginners basic book so we don't want anything that is too complicated.

You are welcome to use my generic heroes for it if you wish 

I ran a version of the old Island of Dr. Destroyer ages ago as a one-off at my FLAGS.  I posted a game report.  Here it is:
 
 
 

Stretching and extra limbs with Does Not Cross Intervening Space seems the simplest way to build it.  You could also use "summon animate arm" and build a disembodied arm

Duke Bushido isn't the only one with a standard rant about the creation of light. But, carry on anyways. 😁

Hey, G-d created light at least a day before He created the sun.
 
I don't see why we shouldn't be able to do the same....

Well, the problem is that Hero is incredibly consistent and works well across all sorts of various situations and builds.  You can take a blast and do all these different hosts of things with it and it just works that way without special rules or exceptions.  There are some but they work consistently across the rules (such as the "special attack" rule for autofire).  That's why little quibbling exceptions or rules for single instances on one power like that really annoy me: it breaks the system and requires people to look through the rules carefully to make sure they didn't violate Rule 5, Subsection III, clause A-15.
 
The way some stats work with Aid and Drain are another example of this kind of thing.  Its a kludge fix, not a streamlined rule.

Focus would ngate the need of physical manifestation

Well whether or not that concept made it to 6th edition, its... wrong.  In any campaign I run, that rule doesn't exist.
 
By definition, area effect powers apply equally to all creatures in the area. Drain, Flash, Blast, it doesn't matter.  Just because "this will be hella effective!" doesn't mean you ignore that basic Hero rule.  If you feel too uncomfortable with that, you could treat the AE as a "special" attack like the way autofire works, so it takes an extra +1 advantage but "we're gonna break the rules because some dude in my campaign bought this and I didn't like it" does not wash.

Well whether or not that concept made it to 6th edition, its... wrong.  In any campaign I run, that rule doesn't exist.
 
By definition, area effect powers apply equally to all creatures in the area. Drain, Flash, Blast, it doesn't matter.  Just because "this will be hella effective!" doesn't mean you ignore that basic Hero rule.  If you feel too uncomfortable with that, you could treat the AE as a "special" attack like the way autofire works, so it takes an extra +1 advantage but "we're gonna break the rules because some dude in my campaign bought this and I didn't like it" does not wash.

I don't think it would be justified to say that Granny personally "remembered" the American Civil War. Like many folk from Tennessee, the events of the "War Between the States" -- from a Southern perspective -- were probably part of her cultural background. I'd probably peg her age at late sixties when the show started, given the average life span during that era; and the fact the show ran for eight seasons.
 
The Clampett clan's exceptional vigor was implicitly due to their rugged mountain backwoods heritage and upbringing, compared to "city folk." Rather like how Robert E. Howard distinguished between "barbarian" and "civilized" men.

Jed would be 8-10.  Jethro varies a _lot_ depending on if you're talking about TV black-and-white; TV color, or movie.
 
The early black-and-white, fifteen to twenty, easy.  Color: twelve.  _maybe_ 15.  Movie?  Couldn't tell you.  While I believe that Dietrich Bader did a wonderful job of portraying "generic ignorant hick," I don't think the movie itself really got any of the characters right, and felt more like it was deconstructing and insulting the entire premise more than making an homage to it.  Further, it's hard to see Bader believably being "Jethro strong" just based on the physical differences between Bader and Max Baer.  Max was, in his youth, a damned big man.

Odd.  Its such a staple of fantasy and sci fi to have a Leach or Transfer power that splitting them seems more like dividing chicken noodle soup into ingredients and calling it a simplification.   I do get the desire to break everything into basic building blocks yet some things are better left whole.  Like Time Travel broken into:
 
Time Travel Power
A -Make a Time Door using Time Mastery power.
B- Link Time Door to Open Door power
C-Link to Movement-Walk power
 
If you want carrots or peas in your chicken noodle soup you can use an Advantage and if you don't want noodles then use a Limitation. 😉
Everyone has an idea of what should be the basic power molecule and Steve is the author so ultimately I have to respect his decision.  Yet being the GM I would suppose its totally fine for me to add new basic molecules if I choose.  But I'm not sure if that is necessary or even what is best without trying it so basically I'm just blowing gas at this juncture. 😝

You aren't wrong.  Back in Fourth there was a "Transfer" power that worked the way you describe.  It was removed because it was basically Drain and Aid mushed together and Steve Long felt it was cleaner just to have the two powers each do their thing rather than have a 3rd one to worry about.
 
I miss the simplicity of Transfer, but the new way works fine.

Please be patient, Western Hero is still on its way, its just being edited and cleaned up to make sure its as good as we can make it.  I hoped it could be out before Christmas but it looks like it will be next year.  I hope to have a cover reveal soon.

OK as I get a first draft down to sections of this I'm going to post them as pdfs here for people to look over and comment on.
 
My goals are these:
To create a package that has a book for GMs and a book for Players For each book to be fun, easy to read, and teach the system The scenario is in tutorial format (familiar to gamers) introducing concepts one bloc at a time, until they know enough to play the game without the tutorial I'm using the old Viper's Nest/Microfilm Madness scenario updated for modern times (so, no microfilm) Each chapter has an intro to the rules used in this section, then the episode of the scenario Players will have pre-made PCs to choose from in very familiar and well-loved archetypes with fun and colorful names and costumes Each entire book should be slender and filled with images for all ages The end result is intended as a free product for players to download and use Ideally, eventually, I'd love to see this packaged as a box set with dice, a map, a GM screen, that kind of thing.  
Please be constructive and positive, any nit picking or troublemaking comments will be cheerfully ignored.

Firefist sounds like something from one of the Challenges for Champions or another adventure

OK here's the intro to the GM book, I have some placeholder art I did of Viper agents a while back I'll stick into these, but they are dated (VIPER doesn't look like that any more).  This gives a sense of the basic layout and look I have in mind, and how I tried to bring GMs into the ideas of the game and playing RPGs at all.  The player book I intend to be simpler, less wordy, and more image-y
 
Champions Begins Intro.pdf

Firefist sounds like something from one of the Challenges for Champions or another adventure

Yeah inconsistency destroys drama and suspense.  What's going to happen next?  Who knows??  Can she get out of this?  Maybe, depending on how the writer decides to make things work this time.  There has to be a base level of consistency to control expectations and understanding of the character's limitations and the world they are in. 
 
If Spider-Man can now fly in one scene because that's super cool, suddenly there's no danger of him falling.  Or maybe there will be, just because it would be cooler next time.  The audience has disconnected emotionally from the entire thing at this point.