Beowulf

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

How much for half an hour ?

Re: NGD Scenes from a Hat

Are those natural?

Re: DEX vs. CSLs

Tell me about it...I had a player in 250pt game who decided his character was a "barbarian" and put almost all his points into STR, DEX and PD. End result was a STR:70, Dex:32 monster who literally ruled the battlefield over the more balanced other PCs..and kept putting any XP's he got into DEX! I had to skew the power levels of the villians and even eventually force him to tone down the character because it was ruining the game... :-/

 

Rob

Heh, balanced characters work for a reason.

Flash the fool, drain his ego till he is making a roll just to drool, transform his puny 15 body self into a frog and toss him into the atmosphere.

The rest of the team, the one who goes invisible, the flying EB, the power armor guy with power and flash def wipes up the baddies while Super Gimp goes - FLAME - SPLAT- on reentry.

Originally posted by Wanderer

Yawn. How cliche. My PC would likely respond "While you wait for the bleathing masses to stop picking their noses while looking at the latest reality show and notice problems, dissidents get killed and tortured, innocents are slaughtered, the ozone hole widens, and the environement gets ruined for the future generations. If destiny has given me these godlike powers, it's my responsibility to use them as I deem best, to make the world a better place, and I won't skirt my duty. If you don't want to be part of the solution, stand aside, or be part of the problem"

 

Fortunately, all of the group has agreed that no character will be given that kind of Clark Kent boyscoutish personality, so the obnoxious four-color "noninterference" cliche will not raise its head (unless some PC were to stoop to widespread slaughter of innocents or casual killing from the sheer psychological pressure of waging a revolution, but that's another story).

 

All PCs and NPCs of the character group will be of the kind that want to interfere in mankind's problems. Objection rejected.

(bear with me a moment, hear this out)

Do you believe in god? If so you have an excellent paradigm of how one should act if they have godlike power. A moral baseline so to speak from which to judge characters actions. You just need to answer all the classic questions in your own mind about why god lets the world be the way it is (in my opinion answered well by other respondants) and then watch to see how far the characters deviate from the baseline.

If you don't believe in god, then you need to ask this... Will the characters commit suicide when they realise they have killed an innocent?

If not, but they still kill murderers then they are corrupt. If so then you might have a really interesting campaign.

Attributing alll casualities in Vietnam to the US ignores many events and factors, but lets not take this thread into NGD territory.

As for engagement lengths, I have two thoughts on the matter. First is that most guns are not fired at a specific enemy in a general engagement. Hero rules tend to encourage the players to act like an elite unit on a specific mission rather then a unit in a general firefight.

If the players are making precise shots, moving and picking off enemies every phase then you and your players need to reconcieve the battle.

First of all, use covered rules and have someone who sticks their head out without covering fire to break the enemies cover of the hex take a bullet or three.

Once people are keeping their heads down waiting, keeping open hexes covered and quiet manuevering when possible then you will have a good battle situation that you might take out of combat time as each side throws a few rounds at eachother and moves for position.

Second, I would consider go for larger battles, and moving to turn based time keeping rather then segment or phase based. Turn 1, Turn 2 etc. Speed would still give each person a total number of attacks in a turn (2 for speed 2 etc.) and total movement for the turn. At twelve second interv als, five minutes passes much faster. Then drop down to phase based movement for the real intense scenes.

Re: Some great tips

Originally posted by CourtFool

I recently discovered the following site. There are a lot of great role playing tips there including ideas for creating tension and scaring PCs.

 

Roleplaying Tips

 

Here are specific tips:

 

Scaring Players

 

Tension

 

More tension

Thanks for the links and thanks to everyone else for all the tips.

Originally posted by KA.

On the "more XP for stabbing" thing I agree, but the weird thing is, this book is supposed to be an "accurate" account of a murder investigation.

 

I mean, if the defense attorney came up with this sort of stuff as a reason why his client did something, I could buy that (not that it was true, but that they might try to claim it), but this is supposed to be what the detective investigating the murder found in a D&D book.

 

I don't see why they would just make something up, that they would be bound to be "called" on in court. So unless the Police were working with the Defense team, it just doesn't make any sense.

 

That is why I was wondering if anyone had heard of a module like this, or one that could have been twisted into this, by someone who didn't understand what they were reading.

 

I still remember when parents used to look at the Demons and Devils in the Monster Manual and think you were supposed to worship them or something.

 

KA.

To my knowledge no such module existed. If it was published it certianly did not have an XP bonus linked to the number of stabbings.

Now if you wanna say DnD is evil... Hey I am right there with you. Everything after AD&D was down hill.

Fond memories aside, TSR and Wizards ruined a fun game

(was that off topic? )

Thanks for the ideas.

At this point, roughly speaking, the characters will be compelled or driven to their first scenario by the main enemy, and tricked into freeing her. As they work their way through the haunted house and dispell the lesser gurdians, their destinies will awaken.

They will get various appropiate powers with appropiate limitations (no concious control etc) and as they gain experience they can spend no more then half of it to buy off the limitations and add advantages or additional powers all linked to the same special effet.

That solves the problem of competitive archtypes, slows down power progression and forces them to keep some focus on their human aspects.

Now, I need some suggestions for scenarios.

So far I have (not necessarially in this order):

Haunted house

Ghost train/ship

Alien/demonic abductions

Zombie hords

Killer virus

Vampire

Werewolf

Evil cult

Occult investegator releases Horror from beyond

Apocolypse baby

Not all of those will make the cut. Any other suggestions?

I can set the mood, and have players that will go along with it. I have a great conspiracy that will suck the hero's right into the middle and will drive them from one horrific encounter to another with little rest outside their trips to the psychactrist. What I don't have is the basic character professions and a way to progress them into real metaphysical contenderds.

I mean, I can do that without loosing the feel of the game, I just don't know the power level and professions to start with.

See my thread titled Horror Campaign if you want to respond.

Ok, there is a chance I will be GMing a horror campaign in the next few months.

The campaign will center around an evil god who is trying to be reborn. She will guide the heros from one encounter to another in the form of a spirit protector. Somtimes pitting them against enemies she wants eliminated, or guiding them into various horrific encounters with the supernatural and un-natural to build them up for an especially difficult elimination.

First game will be the characters driven to investigate a haunted house they will be locked in for the night (with the evil one 'helping' them settle the restless spirits and find a way to survive the lurking horror.

From there it will range from encounters with aliens that go bump in the night to zombies to ghost ships to demons. I plan on drawing a lot from twilight zone and x-files.

Now the real question I have is about power levels. If the characters are too powerful they won't experience the tension and fear, but at the same time I want them to be a force to be reconed with.

So far, I plan on starting them out as a collection of normal type people. A dusty professor type who will eventually wield magic as he studeis the arcane as he runs acroos it...

But what other normal professions would translate well to a supernatural campaign?

I have also thought of killing one of the characters in the first game, and doing so in a bad enough manner they spend the rest of the game as a wraith, but that would seem to screw up game balance.

Some type of a medical doctor would be good, but how would they keep up with the professor?

Suggestions?

Some thoughts that come to mind:

partial entangle as they swarm over you

eb, reduced penetration, autofire

Darkness

Sense penalties

KA, delayed effect (disease)

Pre attack

Or write up one of the little buggers and run combat with them as 300 seperate zombie hamsters

Well, would could skip right to Fred++, or shorten it to F+.

Or it could be The Book Which Followed Fred, or TBWFF... pronounced "twiff"

I need sleep.

Oh, and I build the gun itself as a 1 or 2 damage class club (since that is all it is without the ammo, and I do the bayonette seperatly) and apply the modifiers and limitations from there.

I always keep the ammo and the gun seperate.

Ammo type determines the damage, AP, and occasional range or accuracy modifier.

Gun type determiens what kinds of ammo, clip size, rate of fire, range and accuracy.

Doing it that way keeps multiple ammunition types simple, and keeps the Punisher/Soldior types happy because they can have fun picking just the right weapon system for a situation.

Player: Toss me another HE grenade! It's not going down! I pop the clip and slam in the .500 grain depleted uranium rounds.

GM: Ok, but remember those bullets have activation and side effects, and if the gun blows up in your hands...

Originally posted by Bengal

I've been wrestling with this idea as well, and it seems like it can be simulated with extra limb, stretching, and perhaps some sort of attack (KA if you like) with the appropriate lims.

It damages, traps and then moves the target toward the attacker.

I would go with EB/Killing attack, linked entangle and movement usable against others limited to only while target is entangled.

Originally posted by BobGreenwade

Just buy it up to the maximum damage the character can do with STR/MA, and apply a -1/4 Limitation Must Be Performed With STR Or Martial Arts Maneuvers.

Thanks! I knew it would be simple.

Originally posted by BobGreenwade

Check the fourth entry here.

Pretty good stuff. Does anyone have a suggestion to modify the TELEPORTATION BOXING so that the attack would be based on STR/MA?

Hmmm, if I were building based on the special effect, I would do the "Where did YOU come from" game mechanic a bit differently, but yea, that would be the effect.

The shimmering, flash of light or whatever happens when the guy goes from invisible to visible would not happen, they would just blink in or out of sight.

Heh, no need, turns out the people I wanted to introduce to Hero have at least some experience with it.

Still though, a conversion would be nice.

Re: The importance of limits

Originally posted by CorpCommander

Hero is an unlimited system, in that you can devise characters using any power at any level, limited only by the points you are given. Suggestions for limitations are given for lower level games, but the GM is free to ignore them.

 

Having run a campaign for 9 months I've come to see the wisdom in that. The problem you have to face is that if one character has a really powerful attack, for example, such as 4d6 Killing then in order to make the combat sensible the GM has to send reasonably tough creatures against the party with high enough DEF/BODY etc. The problem comes when the rest of the party isn't so inclined with the ability to cause as much damage. You end up with opponents that either A) can only be effected by one party member or opponents that one party member can off in one phase.

 

I am sure others have come across this dilema as well. What say you?

Any time a power is unbalancing, the character is somehow out of balance.

A character with a 4d6 KA would quickly become the first casuality in fights as the bad guys go after the biggest threat.

His character probably has some gaps because of all the points spent on the KA that would, when compounded by the disadvantages make him a much softer target then the other player characters.

A character with 12 speed would quickly find his character frustrating to play because of weak attacks and non existant defenses.

In the hands of a experienced GM I think most unbalanced characters quickly see the folly of their ways.

Wow, it sure is bright out here away from the NGD discussion boards...

anywho...

Does anyone have any conversion resources for Warhammer 40K to FRED? Gonna try to introduce a group of war gamers to RPGs but I don't know Warhammer well enough to do the conversion myself.

Thanks in advance to any who can assist.

I'm going to borrow this for a campaign idea. I think it would translate well to a dark champions type setting.

Originally posted by Spectrum

Q: What was he name of that Foxbat comic when he became a spy?

 

A: He had the smoke, but he forgot the mirrors.

q: Why was Roy eaten by a tiger?

a: Pizza, Halley Berry and twinkies

Re: Re: Answers & Questions

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

Question: Name three things that shoot feathered shafts.

 

Answer: The square root of pi.

Q: What is 1.7724538509055 squared, or the average number of customers per year that I enjoy dealing with.

(getting better at this math stuff)

A: 423lb of grade A beef.

Originally posted by PerennialRook

Ouch... 4d6 unluck... aren't I glad I made another character.

 

Yes, I was the player who held the captive prone to be killed. My bad.

 

In my defence this was my first time ever playing with the HERO system. First session, first encounter, first character.

 

Now that I actually have FRED I understand what actually happened. I was wrong. From what I had understood, CvK meant that I would not kill someone. I also didn't yet understand pulling a punch, and ended up killing several other gang members on accident.

 

Suffice to say, my new character doesn't have a CvK.

 

-Preston

I never liked CvK, but then I always preferred Dark Champions, sci-fi or modern gritty settings over classic comic style.

My first character was a DnD paladin I converted. He wound up with the GM putting a casual killer and Reputation on him... In the characters defense he only killed those who he detected as evil.