Checkmate

As a player I hate the GMPC. As a GM, knowing how much I hate them as a player I don't use them. An occasional team up with a hero every now and then is fine, but nothing with any regularity. If a niche is missing, I design adventures that don't require that niche. I make sure to use the skill sets the players have to solve the probelms.

The 13% of Muslims who are banned is still a hell of a lot of people.  But I repeat myself.

Not saying you're wrong, but if you have a group, and you let 87 out of every 100 in, you can't say that group is banned. That's not what that word means.

But why background checks from those countries instead of Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan?

Because the US trusts those governments to properly vet their emigrants. They have systems in place that can track things like criminal records. There's also a provision that if more need to be added they will be. Here's a link to a video from an immigrant that explains it much better than I do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36ihkP5ZTzU

Itzu the Evil - 

All of that may be entirely true, and I may even agree with you.  It doesn't change the fact that if you let the vast majority of Muslims in, it's not a ban. And my analogy is entirely apt:

Every serial killer has a mother = the countries selected are predominately Muslim,

You just have to ignore all the non-serial killers with mothers = you just have to ignore the 87% of Muslims that  aren't "banned".

Show me all the non-Muslims impacted by the ban? You're in a situation where the White House chief political strategist (Bannon) has literally made the case that we are entering into an era of religious war between Judeo-Christian Western nations and Islam. And made the case that Western nations needed a radical Christian militant sect. And has established ties to White Nationalism. And is now supplanting the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in security Council briefings.

 

Yeah, I'm going to go with "burden of proof met" on at the least skepticism around this one. It looks terrible.

 

EDIT:http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/donald-trump-team-islam-clash-of-civilizations-214474

 

Link in advance of Bannon statement clarification requests, if any.

Using your logic I could come to the conclusion that having a mother makes you a serial killer. You see every serial killer that ever lived, had a mother. Now to buy into that all you have to do is ignore all the people with mothers who aren't serial killers... or, in other words,  ignore all the VAST majority of Muslims who aren't effected by the "ban" 

Also:

9/11 hijackers: KSA, Egypt, UAE

Tsarnaev brothers: Russia

Omar Mateen: family from Afghanistan

San Bernardino shooter: wife from Pakistan

Number of people from the 7 countries who have committed terror attacks in US: 0.

 

None of the above countries is included in the travel ban. Incidentally, Trump has business ties with most of the countries I mentioned above.

As has already been explained, it has nothing to do with who has attacked the US and has everything to do the background checks from the "sending" country. 

Does it really walk and quack like one? It targets 7 out of 50 Muslim nations. I mean you can call it "Obama's Grand Plan", just because you call it that doesn't make it true, and will probably cause you to lose credibility.

You might want to clarify the statement preceding this. It's open to a very negative interpretation that I'm pretty sure you didn't intend.

I mean if I drive drunk and kill someone, I have to pay for the consequences of that action. If a woman consents to having sex, and gets pregnant, that's the consequence of the choice she made... Does that make it more clear? 

 

 

Instead, opposition to the ban need to focus on the real problems it has: keeping out legal immigrants, only affects countries Trump doesn't have business ties to (strongly suggesting a conflict of interest), has special conditions for Christians (showing a religious bias), wasn't properly vetted and may well be unconstitutional.

So let's look at the actual problems:

Keeping out legal Immigrants: This has been clarified/fixed, green cards and dual citizens are back in

No business ties: If Trump picked the countries, this would hold weight. He didn't. They were countries of concern chosen by the Obama administration. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Obama wanted to institute a travel ban on these countries, but his administration identified them as being concerns. This is important when you consider that people coming into the country get a background check. The country that they come from does that background check and provides that information to the US. That's all we have to go on. The current administration doesn't trust the background checks are being done properly from those countries.

I do agree the religious bias should never have been included. 

A partial Muslim ban is still a Muslim ban.

Completely disagree. A ban is when you say "none of this group of people can come in" letting in 87% of the "banned" group is not a ban on that group. The 13% that are banned aren't banned because of their religion, so no it isn't any kind of Muslim ban, partial or otherwise, and saying it is is using misinformation to spread hate and fear. The ban is for countries that the US doesn't trust to do proper background checks

 

 

1. Trump's ban went after legals. People who'd been vetted and had green cards. That's not the same as deporting Illegals. That's rounding up Foreigners.

It's not "rounding up" it's not letting them in. I do agree though, the order was hastily done, but the green card and dual citizenship has been cleared up. I was actually referring to before the election though, how up in arms people were when Trump said he was going to deport 2-3 million illegals.

 

 

2. Clinton's sex scandals and Trumps sex scandals aren't different. They both show signs of men of power treating women like objects. Clinton's cigar antics however were - as far as we know, consensual where as Trump bragged about sexual assault. Both have been accused of the latter and both are poor examples of humanity. Trump is looking to further the GOP backed initiative of telling women how to reproduce so that's something more than Clinton ever did to women. 

One bragged, used words, one actually did it. I would say the latter is much, much worse, why wasn't there women's marches about it what Clinton did? And please don't say it was "consensual". Clinton used his position of power to humiliate and sexually assault at least one woman.

And my personal feelings are once a woman makes the consensual choice to have sex, she should have to suffer the consequences of that choice, just like everyone else who makes a mistake, but let's not go down that road.

 

 

3. so both sides do the same thing, and? Is it only wrong with the other side does it? Because the same people angry now for the Lefts actions were doing the same on the right an this isn't even an argument. It's just noting that the ability so say the exact opposite thing you did when the tables were turned is a political tactic long used by both sides

I agree, but I guess my point is, how do you justify demonizing one side for doing what you do?

 

 

4. Yates was doing her job. She was following the constitution. Clinton was doing her job she was a defense attorney. Yates's job is not to do what the President Demands. Which is what Senator Sessions questioned her about during her confirmation hearings in 2015. She was asked if she could do her job despite pressure from the President (At that time the other team) to do otherwise.

After doing a little more research, I may agree with you on this. I don't think she was "following the constitution", as everything I've read so far the E.O. was legal. My initial thoughts were the AG was required to enforce legal orders, after further research, it looks like I was mistaken, so I withdraw number 4. Thanks

I try to be non-tribal. I do lean more to the right on a lot of things, but am very capable of pointing out the flaws in Republican party, and am not offended if anyone say, calls Donald Trump a petulant child who is unfit for office.

Right now though, I'm having a very difficult time seeing things from the Democrat/Liberal side of things. I find myself becoming more and more tribal as time goes on. It feels like Democrats aren't attacking the polices as much as the man, that no matter what he says, they're going to protest it. If he cured cancer, they'd protest that he put doctors out of work.  Some examples of the sheer hypocrisy that I'm talking about:

1. Trump is a racist because he wants to deport 2-3 million illegals. Obama deported more illegals than every president from 1900-2008 combined, wouldn't that suggest he's more racist?

2. Trump is a sexist. Do you remember Bill Clinton? He stuck a cigar in a woman's lady bits in front of his friends just to show how powerful he was. Democrats were defending him then, and calling Trump sexist now?

3. Republicans "rule" through spreading fear. If you have ever called the Travel Ban a "Muslim Ban" you have spread misinformation to create hate and fear.

4. Republicans were saying Hillary was evil because when she was a lawyer, she defended a child molester. Democrats came back with the fact that she didn't want to do it, but she had to because it was her job and did it despite her moral objections. Now Democrats are treating Yates as a hero because she didn't do her job because she had moral issues with it. So are you a hero for doing your job or for not doing it? You can't have it both ways.

I've tried to discuss these things in more politically oriented forums, but people on the other side just ignore them. They'll say "Muslim ban" and when you point out that 87% of the Muslim community can enter the US exactly as before, they ignore that inconvenient fact and continue to call it a Muslim ban. 

I really would like to discuss this and I want to feel less tribal again. I want to see the other side of this argument, so if anyone could provide counter points that deal with the facts, I would so appreciate that discussion.

I haven't run champions in a LONG time, but my favorite setting was Champions:The New Millennium. Didn't care for the system, but the background I thought was awesome. 

So you finish those 4,000 pages yet? It's been two days.

Strike Force is a lot about nostalgia for me. I haven't found anyone who plays heroes for more than 3 sessions in decades (literally), let alone Champions.

In my experience thus far -  a newbie trying to teach and learn from other newbies - it's more to keep track of on the low end, and maybe even a little less on the high end? I haven't seen the high end yet. Still! A tanky fighter in D&D needs to:

• Remember their BaB & STR bonuses
• Modifiers from flanking
• How power attack works
• How attacks of opportunity work, and track how many they use per round
• And then track their HP.

Having recently taught a total newbie Pathfinder, it's less intuitive than a lot of gamers remember it being - primarily because its internal logic doesn't make a ton of sense. 

 

(Now, I adore Pathfinder, even if I want a break from it. Me & PF? Nuthin' but hugs. But we're gonna see other people for a while.)

 

Anyway. That same type of character, a Brick in Champions? Gotta remember:

• their OCV & DCV
• PD/ED
• Track END, BOD & STUN as appropriate
• Roll BOD, STUN and knockback when they attack.

Is that a lot? Yes. They are both a lot. But I feel like HERO has had fewer "But that just doesn't make any sense" moments, at least for me. Having said that? Yesh. Mathy. No good way around that, and it's never going to be Feng Shui. 

 

I am very curious what our second attempt looks like.

I'm not sure those lists are fair. Bonuses from flanking aren't character specific. In Hero, they'd have to keep track of facing. Power Attack, while it may be character specific, it's a maneuver. In Hero, they'd have to remember penalties from a Haymaker, plus any skill levels they may have, plus any martial maneuvers that may be applicable.

Maybe I used a bad example, let me try it this way: In Pathfinder you have a number you need to hit the bad guy. You hit that number you roll your damage dice, add damage modifiers and that's what you do. In Hero, you have a number, you hit it, he may block you, you may not get through his defenses, he may dive for cover, etc. If you do hit him you roll your damage dice, count body, roll STUN Multiplier, apply defenses. It's a much more complex system and takes a lot longer to get through.

The other advantage to Pathfinder is that you start simple. At first level you don't have a lot of options and things mucking up the work. As you get more familiar you gradually get more options. In Hero you're in the deep end from the start. 

I don't want to make this sound like I'm complaining, Hero is my favorite system, and Pathfinder my second favorite, but combat in Hero can be a LONG affair.

I think HERO should encourage players - especially in Champions - to think about and write down what they expect the experienced version of their character to look like. It doesn't have to be written in stone like a level based system but it's useful stuff for the player and GM to reference later when the topic of spending XP comes up.  It's the most freeform part of the system.  Putting some structure around it up-front is much easier than after the fact.

 

HM

This thread has taken me a few hours to read in between distractions, and there's a lot I wanted to comment on, but then realized I'd probably never get around to it. I decided to do random quotes and comments and hope I get to everything I wanted to say.

I'm not a huge fan of this. I would like players to have in their head where they want their characters to go with XP, I wouldn't want mechanics written down. Something I learned a long time ago, if you give players 500 points and tell them to build characters, those same characters would look vastly different than if the players built on 400 points and got 100 XP over the course of time and adventures. In the former you'll see 14d6 and high defenses and they'd most likely be in a higher "power category".  In the latter you'll see more Contact: Police Chief, an increase in the Computer Programming skill, their flight may get better, and they'll get different defenses, all based on things that gave them issues, or they wished they had over previous adventures. Some characters may have started out as say a Martial Artist, but gradually shifted to a gadgeteer to fill that niche the party needed. I much rather the XP over time versions of characters.

I wish I could remember who, but someone posted a Wiki-like article called House Rules for Champions Mush. What an incredible document. It is incredibly long, and probably a little intimidating to newbies, but tell anyone new to just start with the charts. That alone will give them a jumping off point.

I realize the thread has moved on greatly since the first post, but...Hero System combats are very long in comparison to a Pathfinder or D&D game. There's more to keep track of (HP versus STUN, BODY, END) things are usually harder to kill because of all the defensive options. Killing attacks take two dice rolls (either Stun Multiplier or Hit Location), then you have to subtract defenses from damage, it's a lot and takes a long time. Not saying it's bad, but it will never be as "math free" as a Pathfinder or D&D.

The picture of Sagittarius is missing, was wondering if you still had it. She was always one of my favorites.

On another note, this thread is awesome. All your work is much appreciated.

If you like the body of magic idea, you could add stretching, growth, shrinking, desolidification, density increase, etc. One of the things I've always liked is sort of a Tactile Telekinetic, like Superboy used to be. People think you're a brick, you what you're really doing is putting up a "micro" force field, and you're actually levitating heavy objects, but you can't project your magic anymore, so you have to touch it to levitate it. While it looks like you're punching the bad guy, you're really releasing a magical blast on contact.

If your need were REALLY dire, you could project your energy, but it would cost you BODY to do it... Hmm if you don't want that idea maybe I'll use it

I would probably continue to call it Dork Champions. After Vampire: the Masquerade ushered in the era of "dark roleplaying", the backlash turned to calling it "dork roleplaying," and for good reason I think.

Wow has nerd persecution been going on so long now that we feel the need to persecute nerds who aren't nerdy like us?

Re: Martial Arts Question(s) - is it really this simple?

The other thing you can do (at least in 5th ed) is buy manuvers and lets say you define them as karate. Your manuvers are:

Martial Strike

Block

Offensive Strike

You can then buy KS: Kung Fu, and any manuvers that are in both Karate and Kung Fu, can be defined as either Art.

For example, since Martial Strike appears in both Karate and Kung Fu maneuver list, the first time you use it in a fight, you define it as a Karate reverse punch. The second time you use the same manuver, you can define it as a Kung Fu snap kick.

Re: 6th edition

In other words - "Sure, i'ts messed up and not balanced, but I don't care because I'll make it work out somehow in play."

 

No system is perfect, but making the system more balanced in the first place can only help the guy who's trying to balance it during run time. I still don't get why anyone would complain about that.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

the palindromedary should get 100 more points than anyone else, and if you don't agree, you're penalizing it! Help, my palindromedary is being oppressed!

Who said anything about 6th being more balanced? Just because it might have gotten closer with one archetype doesn't mean we're all going to bow down and sing praises to it.

I think his question was answered in the first few posts. Before all of the 6e hatred entered the thread and set off a terse discussion

Wow melodramatic much? A couple of people comparing 5th to 6th hardly qualifies as hatred, especially when most of those same people talked about the good things in 6th.

Re: One for the purists

The other thing to remember is that Hero is supposed to simulate Action/Adventure genre. We've all seen the movies where the hero falls off a 5 story building limps for a few steps and then is fine, all because caving in the roof of the van he hit broke his fall. If I were to play a more gritty realistic game, I might make falling more deadly, but under normal circumstances, I think it works all right, if not real world accurate.

Re: Human Library

He has UT as well. The languages are learned and he can speak them at will' date=' the UT is to help him grok others based on what he knows.[/quote']

Gah you're right, I forgot it's not a talent anymore and I missed it in the powers section.

 

Just out of curiosity, how do you (and by "you" I mean anyone reading this) feel about the Ultimate Skill's ideas of other Universal Skill modifiers, for example Universal Scientist? I go back and forth with it. I think I'd allow it in a supers game if only one person wanted to be the scientist (normally if I have more than one who wants to go the science route I make one take the physical sciences like Physics, Metallurgy, while the other gets life sciences like Biology, or Zoology). I would probably also limit their combat effectiveness since they'd be so overwhelming in the non-combat side of things.

Re: Human Library

When reading the initial post I was thinking of something like Kid Flash (Bart) who read and remembers an entire library, but he's not always sure how best to use that knowledge. To stay away from the "Face Man" skills you could play as someone who knows the psychology, but doesn't gronk how to apply it to real people. To use a D&D-ism High INT low WIS.

I also noticed you spent 13 points on Languages, for 10 points you can just get Universal Translator, 7 points if you add the limitation "Only Known Earth Languages".

Re: 6th edition

I don't know about that...maybe something good can come of it. I eventually got at least, I think, a tiny glimmer of understanding of what COM meant to some people.

 

Maybe I can come to understand this, too.

I'll start by saying I understand the "other" side of the argument. I get it, it's valid, I just don't agree. Hopefully that will stave off any flame wars.

The argument is sort of like this: To me concept trumps all. Hammer out your concept and we'll work it from there. If your concept is a trained normal human, like Batman, then you don't get a 32 DEX, you get a 20ish DEX and skill levels. In 5th ed a 32 DEX is cheaper than a 20 DEX and skill levels. My response is "so what" your concept is normal human you get normal human stats.

The counter argument is that if the player changes his concept to bitten by radioactive spider, he can now have a 32 DEX and get the same effect for cheaper.

A lot of people feel that points should be balanced. Everyone should get the same effect for the same cost. My philosophy is to balance game play. Balancing game play is a much more abstract thing and wholly dependent on the GM. An example of what I'm talking about is if you had Spider-Dude and Training Dude in your game, there would be Power Take Away Man where Spider-Dude is now down to a 10 DEX because his abilities were powers not training. Or one day Spider Dude would wake up with a spider leg for an arm and have to keep his secret ID with that.

There are just examples off the top of my head to hopefully help illustrate why it isn't important to me if points are balanced. What it really boils down to in my eyes, is who cares how it's built, as long as it works the way the player wants it to?

Re: 6th edition

What you are describing here seems to be more a problem of players min-maxing than decoupling characteristics. " It's more cost effective to buy DEX so I'll buy that". What about their character conception?

Dude you're relatively new here, so take it from a guy who's been on your side, step away from this argument, nothing good can come from it.

Re: 6th edition

Actually Mental paralysis is nearly the same value (Alternate combat Value +1/4 OMCV vs DMCV' date=' Works against Ego not Str +1/4, Cannot be escaped by TP +1/4)[/quote']

 

I think your calculations are a bit off. In 5th ed BOECV alone is a +1 add Cannot Escape TP for +1/4 and Versus EGO not STR requires GM approval, and doubt you'd get it past a GM for less than +1/2

 

Dunno why ice should make my dex lower,

So you've never wondered why they don't do gymnastics on a hockey rink instead of non-skid mats?

 

OCV and DCV, but with Dex costing less and OCV and DCV costing 5 per point, I think your drain will turn out nearly as good. Though you should have probably used Change Environment and not Drain.

in 5th 9 points (tops, depending on where your DEX is, 6 points may do it) drops your OCV, DCV, and reduces your DEX order by 3. To do the same thing in 6th takes 16 points. As far as Change Environment vs Drain, don't get hung up on the example, focus on the point.

 

That's the another thing that really bugged me, (the first being turning some seemingly random game mechanic to a real world measurement for no logical reason), the decision to call it 400 points including 50 points in complications. That's just needlessly confusing and makes no real sense. You're really given 400 points, you're given 350 and have to "earn" the other 50, so why not just say it that way?

 

@everyone, I really can't believe that I got drawn into another of these arguments about 6e.

This statement sort of bugged me. You come in here looking for a fight and are now trying to act surprised you found one. I say this, because you never even looked at what the OP wanted, you immediately went after posts from people that preferred the 5th ed. Sorta makes it look like that was your agenda the whole time.

Re: 6th edition

At first, I was furious about the changes from 3E to 4E. I was so angry I gave away the first BBB hardcover I bought. Later, I calmed down.

 

I ended up buying a total of three 4E BBB's -- two hardcovers then the Champions 4E softcover.

The only thing I really remember being upset about was how expensive Telekinesis got. I lliked how it became more versitle, but I didn't want to pay more for it.