Altair

Champions: Tankyo Drift.

...

Thanks, I'll just see myself out. 

 A previous encounter with a hostile, sentient vending machine soured them on vending machines in general.

I love Supers.

I think, again, it comes down to group composition. My S/O spends years detailing her campaign settings, I don't so much. But, if she's in a game I'm running, I know that certain things not being there will break her immersion. Like say, if the economics of a region don't make sense (a problem we bumped into in Monte Cook's Numenera setting most recently), or what local industries will be. Whereas with other people, they adhere more closely to the so-called "rule of cool;" essentially, their ability to willingly suspend their disbelief is positively correlated to how badass/sweet/wicked awesome something is.

How much world do I need? A more useful question for my purposes is "how much world do we need."

/communist lecture  

Any GM I trusted*, I would be more than happy for them to roll perception for me. Any GM that I didn't, I wouldn't. But then again, I'm likely to be leaving that game very soon, if history is any indication.

* - Trust in this case, is exclusively in a gaming context; it has no real bearing on the character of the individual as a human being. 

Pathogen would play it cool; this is what vending machines are like, right? Normal human stuff, which he - being a 100% normal human and not a world-ending alien supervirus currently experiencing existential confusion - is totally comfortable with. 

He/she/it would proceed to be extremely suspicious of any vending machines deviating from this, the established norm. 

Yeah, between Fury Road and anticipation for Fallout 4, I've got Post-Apocalyptica in mind.

I'll look at mutant madness too, thanks!

Fair enough - but West Coast Avengers through Disassembled Hawkeye is portrayed differently than Post-Secret Invasion "Ronin" Hawkeye, who is portrayed differently than Bendis' Hawkeye. All of them are the same Earth 616 Clint Barton.

I am absolutely picking nits here. 

Back on topic.  Hawkeye - in any iteration - shoots the tank with some manner of arrow. Feel bad for the tank.

It's a tool for players to emphasize what's important. If people are in that "no, I want to see what the dice say" moment, then they don't use them. In general, one of the things that recommends Hero IMO, is that it emphasizes the character as more important than the dice roll. D20 - really, any linear randomness system - values the result of a die roll above what the character is good/bad at. 

For something more pulpy, or for old-school groups that really enjoy that "the dice say what they say" style, then you maybe don't use those. Just a style thing. 

Which Hawkeye? West Coast Avengers goofball with the hover-bike, Ultimates (basically Bullseye), New Avengers "Ronin" martial artist, Cinematic spy, or Matt Fraction Hawkguy? Or some other iteration that slipped my mind? Granted, you can do this with Cyclops as well (Love that Racer X Style), I've just seen a lot of variation in the character's power in the hands of different writers.

Having said that, I think you're not incorrect - both are pretty ordinary dudes with gear and training keeping them from getting squashed, who dumped the majority of their points into their primary attack multipowers - and I think the variations depend on what campaign they're in.

They still have Combat Luck in the new edition, right?

Yep! And that's immediately what I thought of. 

Though, help me out here; barring price, there isn't any mechanical difference between the defense bought as Combat Luck, and defense bought the normal way, right? So it's basically defense with an SFX of Luck, yes?

Me & my crew were talking Champions, balance and advancement last night; Cyke and the X-men came up. Beast's player diversifies, Storm's shores up her weaknesses (GM makes a note to give Storm some opportunities to show off her new Martial Arts), and Cyclops? His player just dumps all his xp into his Optic Blasts multipower.

When everybody else is kinda balanced, dropping 12 d6 attacks and such, Cyke can whip out a 7d6 killing attack when he haymakers his optic blasts (rips off his visor). 

Related: how do the X-Men deal with a tank? They get out of the way and let Cyclops pulverize it.

I know I'm a bit of a broken record here (age notwithstanding, "Skipping CD, or "MP3 on repeat" just don't have the same cachet), but I'm really big on the feel of a given system. With video games, you could say that the original Mario Bros. and Portal basically accomplish the same sort of things mechanically - you're given tools to traverse an environment. But the experience of using those tools is very different. 

Hero has immense versatility, but I'm more invested in its specific feel. I forget who pointed it out to me first, but combat has a very "comic panel" feel. I like that; it's different. Obviously, you can model all sorts of characters, but it's the way you model them that's interesting to me. Hero comes with a default flavor, that you can then season to taste. More lethality? Easy enough. Less bookeeping? House rule away. 

But the feel, both in play and in creation modeling - that's some good, unique stuff there. Solid. Goofy - but consistent - internal physics, and most of the complexity is front-loaded. 

I bet we must come off as kooks to some people, with our answer to "What system should I use for..." being an endless refrain of "Hero!" or "GURPS!" or whatever our favorite flavor is. I try to be careful about that and answer with a single-purpose system if it makes sense. But it's just so hard when your toolkit really does do a lot of things better than most!

I tend to answer with an endless refrain of "tell me more about your setting!", which might be just as bad

Having just finished writing a product for both Fate & Savage Worlds, there's a lot of similarities, for sure. But the campaign is likely to be different based on which system it's being rendered in. And I love that.

Not actually related to said product: what kinds of things do y'all look for in a Hero supplement? I haven't read a lot of little adventure or campaign things, looks like a lot of Big Settings (Champions, or newer stuff like The Day After Ragnarok). Is that just a function of the generic nature of the system, or is it that Hero tends to attract people who do very custom things, and therefore have less use for that kind of product?

Just curious

Very cool. 

One of the things that I definitely identify with PA is that "grounded" feel. Even when it makes no gorram sense, yeah? Like Mad Max. Any "Road Warrior" type game completely ignores that fuel is going to be worthless in 6 months; about a year for Diesel. But whatevs, it's science fiction - that's one of the things that you accept as a conceit of the setting. 

But one of the things that Hero does exceptionally well, is granularity; specifics. A gritty PA game feels like a good fit for heroic level play as described. 

Thanks!

Toolkit systems have become much more popular in the second tier of gaming these days. You have the D&D/Pathfinder juggernaut, but what are the big, popular games after that? Savage Worlds. Fate. Apocalypse/Dungeon/Whatever World. Lots of other things too, but those three have massive* followings.

The market has really shifted in support of toolkit systems, which I think is exciting for the future of Hero. I'm a "big toolbox" kind of gamer - when I run or play in a game, I want options. For my Mass Effect game, we looked at a bunch of different systems - Fate, Savage Worlds, a Shadowrun 5 Hack - before deciding on a Fantasy Flight Star Wars hack. One could argue that Star Champions does Mass Effect pretty seamlessly; if I'd known about it, it certainly would have been in consideration for the game.

More tools! Yay tools!

* Relative to the size of the RPG market, and their status as "second tier" systems, of course.

Having a baseline is so, so important. "Cool, 20 strength - what does that even mean?" Context is massive.

Hope it goes well with your wife, BDH!

Equilibrium Hero anyone?

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Reminds me a bit of John WIck's discussion of his Champions games in Play Dirty. Basically, doubling down on the social contract aspect of disadvantages, which I think is more important in Hero than in a lot of other games. In Hero, if it's not disadvantageous, it's not worth points. Explicitly. Ergo, a Focus limitation that doesn't wind up limiting at all isn't worth any point reduction. If it shows up, it's a request from the player that "this thing being a Focus" is to be a part of the game. If that's not going to be fun -- if they don't want The Thing taken away, and everyone's game will be worse if it happens -- then they probably shouldn't take a focus limitation.

If they need the points, then the character should be built on more points. But people taking limitations that spoil the game for them serves no one.

One of the things I dig about Hero is how explicit some of that stuff is. If I have an RKA 2d6 Pile O' Guns - beam limitation, maybe charges for ammo, but no focus? I am now a John Woo Hero, and I will always have a gun. Gets knocked out of my hand? I draw the piece on the small of my back. Lose that one? I grab an uzi from an unconscious henchman. No guns around? I've always got guns around, homie. 

Being able to clearly say "Ms. GM, keep your grubby hands off my gun," vs. "Ms. GM, please put your grubby hands on my gun; I want to see this character struggle without it" in character creation is COMPLETELY RAD. That it is said with CP makes it feel ironclad; solid.

...

Unrelated: Would "John Woo Hero" be Dark Champions, essentially? Where's my gun-fu at?

Ah, that was my HD formatting issue - the recharge isn't supposed to be in the multipower. The idea was to have shields that could be calibrated towards lethal (BOD) or non-lethal (STUN) damage; in actual play, I'd probably make them separate just for the sake of my sanity. Unified, for sure. 

Hero Designer. I balked. That was foolish; it's lovely.

At $25, I've gotten more enjoyment out of it than plenty of video games I've paid more for. Lovely, lovely bit of software.

So, this is incredibly relevant to my interests. Love the setting, love the game, running something (not in Hero) in it for 2 years and counting now. My thoughts are actually pretty simple: I'd have a reserve pool of BODY & STUN that represented the kinetic barrier. 

Not sure if the shield recharge power (healing goes to the multipower) is legit or not, but it seems like a thing. 

Anyway! Lots of ways to do this, but this gives that same kind of feel, which in the video game is basically a health bar atop your actual health. Since Hero distinguishes between BODY and STUN, I figured that the shields could calibrate for different types of resistance, and you could alter the pools to reflect how you had your shields set up. Having those stats in a multipower is potentially problematic - I don't know if this has come up for anybody. 

/2 cp

Thank you, Scott, for your answer.

 

So a reprint is not in the cards, it seems Is there any talk and/or rumor about Hero 7th Ed.?

 

I looked at Fantasy Hero Complete and Champions Complete but i am wondering how can this be the full rules if the page count is so much smaller (especially as i hope that some of that page count is also reserved for the genre part of the book)? I mean Vol I and II had a combined page count of over 700 vs. 240 pages in FHC or CC.

How can it be complete, but so much smaller?

Examples.

Text examples take up mad word count, and Hero 6E (and 5E, if I recall) have multiple examples for pretty much everything. Pare those down, and you're pretty solid. As to whether or not that makes things easier or worse, well, people will give you different answers. I never really got into Hero 5E, it didn't really click for me at any point.

People complain that it was like a textbook. Well, I read textbooks for fun, and I wasn't getting anything out of it. Others swear by it! /shrug

Still, Champions Complete really did it for me. I have a bunch of other .pdfs now (somebody in my group decided that I should really have 6E 1 & 2), and sometimes I'll look things up if in those if they're not clear. Certainly, 6E has a wealth of information - the little table on campaign power levels and characteristic maxima was pure gold - but all told, I usually still just use Champions Complete (or Fantasy Hero Complete in .pdf) when I'm using the book.

I will say that 6E1 is much more user-friendly than 5E was, at least to my eyes; Fred Hicks is a Layout Monster; It is known. But it was CC that taught me to love Hero.

+1. So many Hulks, ranging from Doc Green "I refuse to speak in the third person" to Ultimate "HULK SMASH FREDDY PRINZE JUNIOR!" 

The 6E martial arts Rage Meter sounds like a good bet - admittedly, I haven't looked at it myself - but if you need to quantify the amount of rage goin' on, that might save you inventing a new mechanic.

Awesome. 

I wouldn't cry if some links showed up. I also understand if you wanna keep that stuff off of the internet

Yeah, It's tricky to make heads or tails of the character sheet copypaste, sorry. Is the character for a particular game? 200 character points, I'm guessing? Some context would be useful in helping out. Which book/edition are you using?

Anyway, to take a stab at some questions:

• I'm not sure what your END is from the above, but a 25 STR attack will set you back 2 END, which is very little. Also, END is cheap, so getting more shouldn't be an issue
• On the character sheet, there's that little section in the lower left called "Attacks & Maneuvers:" that's got your basic combat options there. A basic "punch," would be Strike, which just does your STR damage, nothing fancy. And that's how you punch!
  • Or kick
  • Or headbutt
  • Anything, really - Hero provides rules for what happens, but the how is usually left undefined by the system
• To take your damage up from 5d6 to 8d6, you'd want some kind of a Hand-To-Hand attack, which is a power. 3d6 is 12 points by itself, but if you were to add the limitation Obvious Inaccessible Focus (often abbreviated to OIF) - which would be something like a knife, or some other weapon that could ostensibly be taken away - then you could get the cost down to 7 points. 

For anything else, it'd be nice to see the character sheet in a readable format, to know what book you're using to build the character, and what the game they're in is going to be like.

I enjoyed the history lesson. 

Once upon a time I was a budding music critic; during this time I developed an overwhelming desire to drown my readers in context. To this day, when I read a music or video game review, my immediate thought is "ok, what other things do they like?" Same thing with game design. 

So, reading you talk about the impact that Ninja Hero had on you, what you liked about it and why, was really informative. Frankly, I wish every RPG line developer would do a little essay about games that were influential to them, and how that effects what they see their game line as being about/for/good at. 

Anyway. I enjoyed muchly!