Law Dog

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Evil Magic Zoot is correct. Also, the point you have tried to state above is actually a 20th/21st century fallacy about 16th century views. These were not homogenous-thinking, primative screwheads. No matter what movies or television shows you've been watching, they were actually thinking individuals walking the Earth at that time. Most people in Europe, then, like now, didn't believe in magick per se.

Re: Re: Magic in a Champions game? This is the one that the GM has to watch in a Champions game, but in a Fantasy Hero game it's a must that the GM not allow it. I had a bad experience in a FH game many years back where the casters became what amounted to superbeings while the non-casters were basically reduced to worthless.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Evil Magic No flames, only a statement of fact. Again, I state, you are siting public misconception. Do you have some sort of reputable source for your analysis or not? What you are citing now is modern myth and revisionist history. In no academic circle will you find that such an argument is held anymore. You go on to state a definitive goal of "a certain religion" which you can neither prove or validate. In fact, certain arms of the early church came to the defense of accused witches which were being tried by the courts in countries such as The Netherlands and Denmark, when the people were being accused of things such as ruining crops via magicks. Fact - the widespread persecution for witchcraft never happened. The events that actually happened were not notorious because they were typical of the times, but because they were exceptional. Same reason why folks will mention Jack the Ripper when talking about serial killing, when Jack's body count was amatuerish compaired to modern day monsters like Pedro Alonso Lopez or Lucas & Toole.

Re: Re: Re: Evil Magic Actually, I did some of my post-graduate studies at Oxford, which if I remember correctly is in Europe. An uniformed opinion is just his side of worthless. And again, you are just rambling off publically held misconception.

Re: Evil Magic Your argument is fairly uninformed and biased and shows a poor understanding of the actual events that were taking place. You might want to try to take an actual history or religion class or at least read a book or two on the subject before prattling off pop cultural myths. The thing I try to stress in my students is not to fall into the groupthink trap that most humans seem to. Get educated and informed before embarassing yourself citing nonsense.

Magic is one of those things that makes me take pause in a supers game. On one hand, I've got no problem with characters like Captain Marvel where his powers seem to be standard super type, but have a magic base. On the other hand, I get a bit tetchy when somebody want to play a caster who is basically just one big VPP. I really don't mind characters like Doctor Strange or Zatanna because they both seem to fit within the genre. But I've found that some folks aren't creative enough or genre familiar enough to design such a character and play within the conventions of the way magic usually works in a superhero universe.

My old friend Chris would say even one is too many. We were playing back in the 80's with 275 point characters. He made an energy projector called Spectrum with a seven slot MP (One for each color). Everything was based around 60 active points and he could rattle the character off to you on demand, including XP spent, perfectly every time. Used to give the GM fits, which is okay since he was a pretty crappy GM.

Ah, C'mon, Supreme. You know The Patriot was 100% accurate. Col. Martin was a fine example of Cherokee taught ninja commandoes that earned this country it's freedom. Man, if they had only got Seagal to play him, everything would have been perfect. Martin to Tavington: I once knew a Frenchman (mumble) (mumble) They both (incomprehensible) wrong. Now die!

Amen. This is one of the rules I don't follow simply because I don't find the logic behind it to be sound. It's like telling somebody they can't buy an OAF jetpack because if they use it to fly up where you can't get to them, then you can't capitalize on the fact it's OAF. Not to mention, there are so many ways that supers can circumvent invisibility in the first place and detect it's source, I don't find it to be an issue.

Break out your Fred Wertham instead. Much more entertaining implications.

And conversely, there is a lot of fun in having a way to prevent the character from reverting to normal, also. Especially if the powered form looks obviously not normal. This can be as potentially damaging to a secret id as the other way around. And accidental change is also another good way to cause these types of risks. This is actually a pretty balanced trade off if the GM is really in control of the game. Limitations and Disadvantages require the GM to actually use them, otherwise they really are just free points.

To quote Eddie Murphy in the Distinguished Gentleman "Dick is good! Dick is good!" OMG, now I get it. This is some sort of double entandre." Heh, the reason this posting is so ground breaking, Blue, is that Dick used to get caught by the profanity filter thinking it was a phallic reference instead of a name.

Re: Nice Idea Heh. It's definitely a generational thing. My gaming group is full of mid-30's. We had one new kid who is either 19 or 20. During the pre-game silliness that sometimes occurs, we were ripping on this and that. I was teasing the kid that I was going to wait until his character, Covert, wasn't looking and then I was going to knock him out and strip him of all his cybernatic parts. He retorted that he'd just make Covert 2. So, I shot back, "Ah, Covert 2, the Electric Bugaloo". Everybody had a nice chuckle, except for Covert's poor player who sat there confused. Definitely generational and I am subject to fits of laughter everytime I see some of these kids these days breakdancing. It was incredibly ridiculous in the 80's and more so now. Could this new fad mean that DC will see fit to bring about a new breakdancing super? Vibe II: Electric Bugaboo?

Re: Newbie Question No, we are definitely not offended by this because most of us acknowledge that it is one of the weak points of Hero at the lower end of the game. You are going to find certain stat numbers are so efficient that PCs are going to gravitate towards them. The other big sticking point you might notice once you start playing is that if you are not careful, the magic system starts playing like superpowers. It can quickly get lopsided when you have a few agent level characters (warriors/rogues) and then a few normals with devestating powers (mages/clerics). Since you are running low fantasy though, I imagine that you will keep a tight reign on what spells the PCs have access to, so that they don't become lightning projecting damage hoses. What do I personally do to correct these problems? Well, I don't use Hero for these genres because I feel that their are other systems out there that emulate the genre much better. Some folks are going to swear by Hero for any genre, but I personally, although I do love the system, feel it's more of a "right tool for the right job" type of problem. Note - GURPS has just the opposite problem. It seems to work real well for lower level games, but ultimately tanks when it comes to Supers.

I concur with #3. Just remember that every Green Lantern so far has been somewhat of a dullard when using the ring. Although the ring can at least in theory do anything (especially Kyle's ring), the wielder always seems to use it badly. Ice once used Guy's ring to cure Professor Ivo(at least I think it was him) from the curse that was turning him into a living immortal statue and when Kyle had all the central battery power and went by the moniker of Ion, he was bending time and space to his will and then used the power to reincarnate the Guardians. When you get down to it, it's one powerful tool.

So would you say that your campaign has the feel of the Thundarr the Barbarian reversion to magic and savagery genre?

Keep in mind that this isn't totally without logic. Even in the 80's, before we learned the massively bad side effects, that anabolic steroids looked very attractive. It's the difference between construtive and destructive. From a social perprective, if steroids (or Miraclo) had no bad effects, they would actually provide a benefit without a being destructive. Even in most cases, illicit narcotics will not be destructive to most people who are casual users (I know there are some people gritting their teeth over this, but it is a fact), but the people it does crash, crash hard. Society has of course determined that the price is too great, so nobody whould use these drugs, even the people who could use them responsibly. I'm not going to say that this policy is good or bad, but it does merit some reflection. If somebody could come up with a Miraclo or a "smart" drug that was proven to have absolutely no negative side effect, you can bet, I wouldn't mind taking it.

Allston's Champions because it's full of campaign goodness. TUV is nice, but not necessary. Champions is also just a good read.

Now, of course, if this was a Golden Age campaign, the drugs wouldn't be addictive or have any side effects. Hourman used to pop Miraclo without worry, but of course, whith the modern age overlay they are putting on these old stories, now come to find out the stuff was messing with Rex Tyler pretty bad.

Amen. Hero is a wonderful system for what it is. It's about as close to universal as it gets, even more than GURPS. But, there are a few systems that work better for specific genres. Sometimes it is the game mechanics that assist the genre. Hero has two main sticking points. The low level (normals) game can be plagued with a feeling of sameness. The characters all seem to pretty much be way too close to each other statwise. This is partially because the mechanics of the system dictate certain stats work best at the breakpoints like 13/18 for Int and 11/14/17/20 for Dex. It also partially a side effect of having a system with such a wide spread of stats for the supers game (when you're going to have to accomidate Str 75 or Dex 38) that it tends to jam the lower end stats closer together. If you want an excellent, blow-by-blow superhero combat simulation, then there is no other choice than Hero. This level of detail though seems to detract from the free flowing, high intensity pace of comic book battles. The lack of some sort of karma-like system (Okay, you can use one of the luck options, but I've found that one kind of grainy) slaps you in the face with the iron gauntlet of harsh reality instead of the pure wild lucky break common in the medium we're attempting to simulate. I still love Hero, but there are some games for which it isn't the right choice.

Re: Re: Dorkiest Hero/Villian And that is somehow worse than Dazzler? A superpowered Disco singer, created in a time when disco was just about dead.

No, but a lot of conjecture on some of the fan sites. There are a few unaired episodes that we may wind up seeing when FOX is through showing us crap like Joe Jackass.

It will be with us for the better part of this century.

He became a buddy and a D.A. only after reforming. Gotta love that.

I can attest to that. I have issues 1 and 3. Some of his cheesy rogues gallery included Tinyman, Elasticman, the Bat (who became The Ray later) and Atom Jaw.