Brian Stanfield

This is actually something I've considered doing before, but more like an entire party of teenagers setting out on their own, etc. etc. The things that held me back are similar to what you're concerns are. I'll offer a few of the ideas I had to maybe help you out. Take 'em or leave 'em as you wish! The Medieval world had a robust apprenticing system in trades and whatnot. Parents gave up their children willingly in order to learn a trade and become productive adults (squire, apprentice for a trade, shopkeeper's assistant/trainee, etc.) Keep in mind that adulthood began at a much younger age, so it's not so strange for a teenager to be out on his own. In fantasy, this may amount to a child who shows promise being sent to apprentice with a wizard. If you have another wizard in your party, perhaps he'd like to take on the mentoring role. So the parents have sent the child off willingly to learn. If there's no mentor, maybe they've sent the child with the party with the promise to make sure he gets to [name of school redacted to protect the innocent] in order to learn properly. Maybe the parents are too poor to support the child and have to send him off with someone else who can afford to care for the child while also training the child. Maybe the child is a runaway who managed to glom onto the party, and now they can't get rid of him. Most importantly, it's going to require you to sit down at Session 0 with your players and see who and how all these things will interact. Things to consider and discuss with your players: The child should have Complications galore built into the character: distinctive feature (young person, easily identified and hard to conceal), reduced Characteristics based on one of the templates offered, a tendency to throw tantrums or act irrationally because of youth, defies authority, is always trying to "prove himself" to the adults, and the list goes on. Complications are where you can try to encourage some of the character's role playing. Spells will most likely have limited power that can grow rapidly over time. Perhaps your player will have limited versions of spells that can improve with use. Most likely the spells will also have a reduced activation roll, or have side effects, that can eventually be bought off with XP as he grows. Maybe the youngster will gain XP at a faster rate than the other players for a while as he learns and grows more dramatically than the adults. "Hey, I didn't know I could make a fire spell explode like that! Cool!" and then add a new spell to his list. The other players should most definitely step up and take Complications to account for a youth in their party. Maybe not all of them, but someone should take on the role of the mentor or protector, perhaps another player actually hates kids and take a Complication to pick on him that comes up every once in a while, and so on. The more you can get the characters to overlap with their Complications, the more likely the role playing will be reinforced in the group. So much good material can come from this! So much good material can come from this. As you suggest, Ragitsu, have a conversation and let the group decide how these parts will interact. The more you can get the characters to overlap with their Complications, the less you'll have to "hand wave" the problems away, and the more you can hopefully encourage some good role playing material. I was once in a one-shot at a convention, and one of the characters was a teenage girl super. The player who took her played that to the hilt! She was on her phone all the time, and was so ironic all the time, and started half her comments with "OMG . . ." and stuff like that. The role playing was amazing, and was only barely built into the character as a suggestion. If you can get your group to buy into the concept, it could be a ton of fun! Hope this helps.

So, how does one go about making one's own? I think I read something briefly about a Unity something or other and 3d renditions . . . or something like that. Is that what we're talking about here? If so, is it something I can learn?

What is your Discord handle? You can message me if you don't want to make it public. In general, I'd like to ask a few questions about other mods so I can find some figures for a Pulp HERO campaign I'm running. Lots of good scenery is available, but I'm not finding any figures yet. Maybe you can lead me in the right direction.

I’d be totally lost without those tutorials. I’ve also watched every Kimiko one from TTS, and read the entire knowledge base. I think one of the biggest problems I’m having is getting used to where everything is in both Steam and TTS. It’s not always intuitive to me, but I’m finding that a lot lately with web apps. I want to love it, but I’m not quite there yet. My biggest hurdle right now is finding appropriate figures for a pulp campaign. Creating them is way beyond me.

I’ll tell you what. I’ve been meaning to fiddle with an export template anyway, just for the experience. Which file do you like the best, the Heimforth or the Compressed? I’ll see if I can modify it for you. By the way, I checked both the export formats you like, and didn't have a problem with the missing/out of order stats that you have. Maybe you have a corrupted file and should re-download the updated files? In either case, I can mix the two together, sort of, to fit your needs.

You know, Scott, it's really not all that hard to modify an existing file. Take one of the ones that are almost what you want and then open it up in a text editor and rearrange the lines to meet your needs and see how it looks. If you need to add a line like STR, just see how the others are done copy the same text with the proper tag in the place where you want it. The HERO Designer documentation lists all the tags if you need. If it doesn't work out, just delete it. It's not all that hard, and I say that as a guy who still hasn't figured out how Tabletop Simulator works yet! Fiddle and see what you come up with.

Interesting point. BattleTech was a second edition in 1984, so I went and looked at the original which was also 1984. Note the game’s creators: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Battledroids Also note, this is the first actual case I’ve seen where George Lucas defended his rights to “droid” in the marketplace. I’ve heard of those battles, but I never realized this game was one of them.

can you repost it with a different title. “Conflict” instead of “combat”?

Quick question for my group: can two players use the same computer in the TTS mod at the same time? Or do they each need a separate TTS interface in order to play separate characters. Or, conversely, can one person play two different characters?

This is exactly why I backed the project. After talking to Ron Edwards for a while, I realized the project really wasn't for me, BUT I also realized that he's got a lot of really cool ideas that I want to draw from. I haven't read any of the recent releases of the game after the first one or two drafts because I want to wait and see the whole thing with virgin eyes.

Sorta off topic, but not quite (this way I don't have to start a new thread), my buddy and I were talking about the old Battletech game by Fast last night. I pulled the box out to look up the release date (1985) and discovered, to my amazement, that pages 30-34 of the technical information came from HERO System in 1984. Any idea where that material specifically came from?

This has become a standard approach for a lot of the so-called “indie” or “rules lite” games out there, and it has a lot of merits. In my mind, I keep coming back to the “powered by HERO” notion. If DOJ wants to remain relevant, I think they are going to have to at least consider dipping their toes into this market with a similar approach to the PbtA games, or Fate, or whatever. And then hit the convention scene with an assortment of game sessions that would truly teach the system.

Me too! I looked it up and only found an entry on BoardGame Geek. NobleKnight couldn’t even scrounge up a copy to overcharge me for! Seems interesting, and I’d love to see it.

Hey all. I’m participating, but I haven’t written anything yet. I’ve been fighting a virus while also going through chemotherapy (last round—hooray!), while continuing to teach 5 classes online, so my energy hasn’t been the best. I should be able to get caught up this weekend and be a better team member. Quick question: I don’t know all the roleplaying terminology for this sort of thing, stuff like [irl] when I’m writing. Anybody have a glossary of terms so I can figure out what’s “in game” and what’s “in real life,” and stuff like that?

Ahah! That’s where that idea came from. I was discussing this the other day, but couldn’t remember the source. I like this idea more and more, and it fits really well with a long-time conversation my buddy and I have been having about this.

True enough. I've never gotten into an argument about it with anyone, but I don't see how "race" is really defensible, especially if "It's always been done that way." This is a wall I'm not going to bang my head against, but it's becoming more blatantly ugly each time I turn to look at it again.

I don't know about a specific "combat game" (is there one that I don't know about?), but the Champions: New Millennium RPG was something like 200 pages, but with a whole lot of fluff material like a comic book introduction, lots of mocked up newspaper articles about the world and stuff like that. The most striking feature (to me at least, at this particular moment) is that page 1 very explicitly sets all the dials for the game setting, and explains which options are and aren't used. It's very clear and visual, and incredibly relevant to what we've been discussing here in this thread.

3) My pet peeve is not the "races" themselves, but the fact that they're even called races at all! Race is not genetic, but games treat them as such. It's a leftover assumption from older games like D&D, and just won't go away! What I can't stand is that "races" seem to smuggle in all kinds of horrible and antiquated notions about genetics that just aren't true. "Species" I can get behind, and that would be scientifically defensible. Sustaining some sort of vestigial eugenic notion like "race" is just loathsome, especially when the humans are considered the "standard normal" race. I'm not pointing my finger at anyone on this thread, so please don't be offended. I'm just saying "Shame" on D&D and other games that depend on this sort of racism. Ok, I'll come down from my soapbox and go back into quarantine.

Got it. It makes sense, except that picture books expect a younger audience and HERO System, as a game, is probably way beyond that attention span. Be that as it may, I totally grok your point. When I first learned D&D (first Basic, then Expert, then Advanced), I remember vividly the pictures even to this day. When I pop open old game books, I immediately see the pictures that I remember seeing as if it's the first time again. Something about the art always drew me in and locked me in sync with the text. That alone is such an important part of gaming, and it should be respected more as a useful tool. I love the full-color layout of the 6e rulebooks, and especially the 6e Fantasy HERO. But the problem with all those books is that the art appears as random clip-art rather than as images that are integral to reading and understanding the rules. This was a missed opportunity. I'd have to say, the New Millenium books at least got this point, and did a good job of integrating everything into a single reinforced experience. I don't like the rules, but that's a different issue. I'm tired of DOJ rebooting or re-releasing stuff with no effort to update it. New art, new sketches, new anything would help immensely. There is so much competition out there right now, and they're getting left behind. I mean, Kids On Bikes is as simple as it gets, with only a smattering of artwork, but it's so incredibly effective that the book is irresistible. And their array of supplemental adventure books have great comic-themed covers that draw the eye. All the PBTA games are popular as well, and Fate games, and the list goes on. Champions Now is another example of this trend: unfortunately Ron isn't doing HERO System any favors by re-writing the rules in his own image. Compare any of those to Champions Complete or Fantasy HERO Complete, and I'm pretty sure an unbiased audience will never even pick up the HERO books. Agh! I said I wouldn't go down the artwork rabbit hole in this thread, but it's become the elephant in the room, hasn't it? I like that Hall of Champions makes the stock DOJ artwork available for writers to use. It seems like this would be a good opportunity to use this as a sort of guerrilla movement to adapt and reorganize their own art in more thoughtful ways to drive home the point that thoughtful presentation matters. Ok, so I think it's impossible to condense a HERO book to 24 pages of text (even the 1e photocopies that everyone shared). 48 of text is pushing it. I think 96 pages (it doesn't really need to be multiples of 12 . . .) total is more doable for a "one book game" "powered by the HERO System," with artwork integrated into and around the text, some good plates before each chapter, etc. Hell, I know a lot of college artists who do computer design all the time, and who'd love to buy into a project like this for a modest compensation. That's just me, but this really can't be that hard! Can it?

Why the 24-page limit? Is there a standard I’m not aware of? Or is that comic book length?

They also want it all to be easy to learn, short while still being detailed, and free to download. Simple, really.

So no Normal Characteristic Maxima?

It seems to me that the edition used will make a difference on the points expended. I'm a full-blown 6e guy, but I get the feeling you're a 4e fan, correct? Is it better to use those rules?

I'm really interested in hearing how TTS works with he HERO Mod. Keep us posted! I'm still trying to get my head around everything there--I feel like an angry ape with a stick when I try to figure out how to use it! Advice and suggestions would be a great help.

What kind of characters are you looking for? Super-spies, mercenaries, private eyes? I know nothing about Top Secret so I can't get a feel for what's expected.