Brian Stanfield

Now if I can only remember this a year from now!

I have done a few module conversions on my website from AD&D (and Warhammer Quest) into Fantasy Hero.  They are kind of rough but playable quick converts.  I have done the following:
 
N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God
N2: The Forest Oracle
N4: Treasure Hunt
U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh
U2: Danger at Dunwater
U3: The Final Enemy
G1: Steading of the Hill Giant Chief 
G2: Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl
B2: Keep on the Borderland
I3: Pharaoh
A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity
 
I have work started on A2, I4, and G3, to continue and finish those series, but are there any other modules people would really like to see?  Hint: I don't care to rebuild any of the S series.
 
 
 

Ron and I had a video conversation via Discord over the weekend.  We talked a little about Endurance; that portion is here.  (I promise, in real life I do more than just go "yeah, yeah", and it was early Sunday for me so my resting grump face was in full force.)

Are you going to be running this at any Cons in the near future?

So, at the Indie games booth at Origins, there was a big sign for Champions Now, and they had a list of current games you can kickstart, but they didn't have a lot of explanation for it. 
 
Personally, if there really is a Nar set of rules for doing Champions, I'm interested just to see how he resolves the extremely "simulationist" build structure of Champions with a rule set that actually encourage director/actor stance, moves, and other constructs of modern indie gaming. 
 
I'm also confused about how he can seem to enjoy the old Champs math and structure of building a character, min maxing points at x3 breaks, etc. which always seemed to undermine actual story in my experience, as people were more worried about "did I get enough power for my points" rather than, "did I create an engaging character who can add to the narrative."
 
Ron Edwards has always struck me as dichotomous in his projected design/game interpretation aesthetics.

Having read the playtest document, this is what this Kickstarter is. It's not about rules or settings.  It's about how to PLAY.
 
Chris.
 

Just FYI if you haven't done them before... Indie Games on Demand (IGOD) is great because you can pre-reg, but you don't have to. You show up with generics and you'll get a game. (They hold three gaming periods a day 9am, 2pm, 8pm, every day, and only twice, the big times , Friday at 2pm and Saturday at 2pm did they fill up and have to turn a few people away. By pre-regging, I was just guaranteed a slot in a game over those who only brought generics, but 99% of those folks got in anyway.)  Get there 15 minutes before hand. Get a "boarding pass" (a card with a letter on it), they randomize the letter drawings. Your letter gets called, you go up with others of that group and choose a game that hasn't been filled yet out of 12-15 different games being offered. The Catpocalypse, Storm King and Iron Edda were all "I dunno... let's try it" situations, and they were a hoot. So you don't always know what you are in for, but if you are open to new gaming experiences and enjoy the cooperative storytelling (in general) branch of RPGs over heavy crunch system RPGs, you'll have a good time.
 
Try it out, next time.

Just online after returning. Played five really fun games...
 
Playtest of Catpocalypse... a PbtA homebrew where we played a gang of cats after a plague has wiped out most humans, and we had to save the Golden Girls from a gang of wasteland raiders. I'm not saying we saw the game headed in that direction, but when we drove off in our war-machine, commandeered by one of our compatriots, a robot cat called M.I.T. 10 (or Mitten) with Blanche flirting with a handsome raider who joined our side, and the them song "Thank you for being a friend..." started to play, the table was literally rofling so hard our faces hurt from laughing hours later.
 
Dogs In the Vineyard... one of the definitive "indie" games, finally got to play it, and our posse of misfit Dogs managed to redeem our Order and the town of Whitestone from the Sin of pride. (Really want to figure a way to use something like their conflict resolution system with Hero for non-combat/social conflicts).
 
Praxis: King of Storms... a GMless game where you choose the roll of a fallen godling, (Godborn, Titanborn or Gorgon) and I was the Prince of the Dead, at war with fellow gorgon Kyron, the Iron Spider, betrayed by a Godborn, confronted by King of the Titanborn, , dealing with Calypsa, Ocean titanwitch... and we managed to obliterate several struggling human kingdoms, flooded much of the earth, ascended the war to heaven, etc.  A truly epic scale game that is really more organized story telling, with minimal dice rolling.
 
Iron Edda Accelerated... a new Fate system game, Vikings during Ragnarok, using seer's magic, shieldbearers and those "bonebonded" with the skeletons of dead frost and fire giants against the Dwarves of Svartalfheim who have raised up out of the earth with mechanistic monsters and Destroyer mechs... it is basically apocalyptic mechwar... where we inadvertently wiped out all the Dwarves and all humanity by reviving Ymir and all the dead giants of ages past.  (Whoops.)
 
An East Texas University adventures (Savage Worlds)... Buffy style adventures of college students in East Texas fighting occult threats while trying to pass their midterms. This was a murder mystery of a ten year old girl from 1958, whose ghost came to us begging for help. Lots of occult investigating and hilarity ensued.
 
Good times all around. 
 
 

Another disadvantage to consider (if you are rebuilding growth, heck even if you aren’t) is that a giant characters PER should start getting negative modifiers the bigger they get. 
 
If you are 60’ tall you aren’t going to be able to notice the same details of events happening at ground level as a 6’ tall character. You aren’t going to be able to read newspapers or iPad displays, or make out slight motions. You probably won’t hear normal sounds as well, not just from distance, but from scale. 
 
The easiest way way to represent this might just be using the range modifiers for Perception checks, with the range being how far away the ground is from the giant characters eyes/ears. 
 
So a 60’ character is at minimum “60’ away” (19m)  for all perception checks they need to make. So they would be at -4. 
 
Should be worth at least a few extra disadvantage points or complications. 

Again... if this had been stated in the movie, or alluded to, or addressed in some way.
 
My issue isn't that fans can come up with all kinds of explanations that might make sense, but that the movie itself fails to address clear implications of what was stated in the movie. Especially when it comes to the central tenant of the film.
 
They've clearly stated that this was like an episode of TV, where you are expected to have watched all the other movies, so we don't have to build in motivation and character development to the characters you've already seen... they just "show up" and you go with it because... you saw all the other movies. That means these characters are just set pieces, because Story is about character and development... so that means Thanos is the only real character in this movie. Everyone and everything moves around him, his motivations, actions, dramatic arc, etc.
 
So now, all critical attention needs to fall on that dramatic arc... so you better damn well make it compelling, believable and engaging. You can't leave major holes to assumptions. Any drama comes not from what Thanos is doing, but why... and how does it dramatically change throughout the arc. That is Story... because otherwise you simply have a string of scenes. In this case, they really failed in two major areas. First, his stated motivation is highly flawed, and it was never called out... by either a "That makes no sense! You must just be insane!" or "I have become death, savior of the universe... and will take the role of Life Culler!" or whatever. Second, his supposed emotional arc with Gamora, where they completely failed to convince that he had any true emotion or love for her... so that he pays a dramatic price. We only have his word that he cared, and a few tears, in the face of decades of emotional torture and galactic slaughter was supposed to make us empathize and connect with him? Worst of all, the universe as defined, agreed that his horrific behavior constituted "love", otherwise it wouldn't have coughed up the soul gem for him. If the MCU is the kind of place where the cosmic fundamentals believe the most misogynistic form of male control and manipulation of women, up to the point of sacrificing the woman for the man's gain, is "love"... well then I'm pretty sure I hope the entire universe gets wiped out, not just half of it... because that isn't a place that I care to have exist... even in fiction.
 
I'm really surprised that there aren't more negative reactions among the fandom that the main takeaway from Infinity War is that the MCU, at a fundamental, structural, cosmically conscious level is abhorrently and violently sexist.

Yay Marvel!

Is there a transcript? 
 
The over-reliance on PODcasts and videos is the primary reason my gaming related spending has plummeted to a fraction of what it was.  I have very little free time and I'd rather actually play then waste hours grinding through audio/video on the off chance someone might accidentally answer a question.
 
I can read/skim the transcript of an hour long cast in minutes.  But 1, 2 or 3 HOURS of someone talking says: Go away I don't want your money.
 
A concise written description is how you sell something to employed adults.
 
It's not just this KS.  It is the overall laziness that has overtaken the gaming industry at large.  If I watched/listened all of the monthly 'cast/videos that now pass for company updates I would never be able to actually game again.
 

I believe they used this with The A-Team.

I remember trying to write a character creation program in BASIC on my Commodore 64.  ☺️

Ask this guy, he knows: 
 

I want Hero to make a fully realized fully built out Fantasy World. Including Spells, Fighting styles, History, Full color maps, Hero System rules. Everything but power building rules. Everything that a GM needs to run games in that fantasy world. It could be a Rulebook and a Gazetteer style book (ie Pathfinder Core and Inner Sea World Guide). I would also like to see the same thing done to Superheroes. the idea would be for the writeup to be minimal nothing extra and to keep things very simple. Self contained would be the watchword. GM's wanting more customization would be pointed at Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete. Writeups of all equipment, spells etc with all of the costs in them would be available using Bits & Mortar service.

Also something that crosses Savage Worlds Plot point campaigns with Paizo's Adventure path. ie Something that has a strong plotline, but also has some side adventures/quests for variety. Because adventures actually drives sales of other books. GM's need adventures and campaigns. Making it easy for the GM to run will generate sales of the books because they will want to run the game.

I would also love to see more Champions Miniatures. Perhaps WizKids can do some HeroClix of the Champions Universe characters.

 

Sorry to necro this thread but happened to bump into it. Recently managed to get my hands on quite a few Champions sourcebooks (notably Champions Universe, Beyond, the 3 Villains, Book of the Destroyer, Book of the Empress, Mystic World and a few more) and I've been loving them. Really cool setting (that I first bumped into in Champions Online). 
 
What books were planned for the setting? And where can one find the mentioned publication schedules?

I fully intend to share it when done. I'll hopefully write it up as a proper little document with sample opponents, equipment and abilities.
 
A setting that has a character named "Orkimedes" who is a genius ork, or where the Imperium of Man has actually codified in their strategic documents how many lives one day's loss of production is worth for a particular Hive World city (it's one million lives per day, if you're wondering), deserves a good rule system!

Sumptuary laws would certainly give your players some much needed law-breaking time. I find most players need a to spend a little time flaunting the laws of whatever fantasy society you've built. This is an easy, no-serious-outcomes law for them to break. You can have a slightly secret black market dealing in pretty clothes and good food. The characters get to discover it, interact with the slightly shady npc's, and generally feel like they're real edgy.

I don't think anyone can afford GW's miniature prices any more. I think they're classed as a commodity now and people just trade in Futures on them.
 
If Bitcoin fails when the world's economy collapses, we'll survive by returning to gold, silver and Games Workshop character models.

I'll add another random thought or two: 
Modern air traffic has routes regulated at different elevations to avoid mid-air mishaps. You may consider having low altitude "local" traffic, and mid-altitude personal flight devices (or any other sort of flight like wings, for that matter), and higher altitude international and trade routes.  You may consider air ports outside of the city limits to cut down on the traffic, or you may have certain air traffic control towers where air travelers are required to check in. Again, at different altitudes to minimize traffic bottlenecks. You may also consider having air ships dock at specific towers, to be offloaded and "parked" elsewhere by some sort of aviation enforcement agency. Air travel could check in at the city, and then have valets or some such folks place the vehicles in dedicated and protected port facilities. I'd think this would have to include pegasūs and dragons, etc., as well, since who wants a dragon hitched outside of the local tavern (see drunkonduty's observation about arson).  That's all I've got on my mind for now. This is a great idea! I like the possibilities!

Sharn: City of Towers (a supplement for 3.5 D&D you might be able to find online) explicitly discusses the issue of ATC because the city sits in a magical field that enhances flight magic, making it exceptionally common there (and also allowing the city to be built-up until its towers rose thousands of feet in the air). Eberron (the setting it comes from) has airships, many of which dock in Sharn.
It goes into lots of little details, like that wizards are paid a reward for casting Feather Fall on a someone falling.
There is also a world-building guide written by Gary Gygax that goes into the legal systems of a magical medieval society.

Could It Work? SHOULD It Work???

So I've recently started up a new Pulp Hero game - 1938 set in and among the South Pacific islands (think Tales of the Gold Monkey) and saw this headline Floating island the size of New Jersey discovered in South Pacific, which immediately grabbed my attention.  Read through the article and was a bit disappointed, but it got me looking for more information on floating islands.  Found lots of info on small floating islands in rivers and lakes that are basically small islands  composed of vegetation growing on a buoyant mat of plant roots or other organic detritus - still not as cool as what I wanted.  Finally came across this article - http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/floating-islands-seen-sea-myth-and-reality-part-2-001931 - which was closer to what I was hoping for (although the reality still didn't live up to my fantasy).
 
Anyway, the end result was our heroes found themselves chasing an Army Air Corps colonel who had stolen a piece of new military tech to deliver into Nazi hands on a floating island covered in unrecognizable vegetation and giant crabs.  The chase ended when the captain of the German sub caught sight of them on the coast and fired a torpedo at them.  Our heroes managed to run away intake to escape the blast radius, but the torpedo sunk the island.
 
 

Thanks Brian.
 
I am proud of how it turned out. Making a game that beginners could understand was very much the idea you instilled in me with your thread last year. Making character generation simple was my number one aim for the document.The other stuff really just grew out of it. I found that I needed spells for sorcerers. Then I needed to explain how those worked. Then I needed to explain basics of combat. Etc., etc.
 
It's not a complete game. But it's complete enough for new players to grab and play. And if they want more I do keep directing them to Fantasy Hero Complete. One thing I kept comparing it to was the old DnD Basic set from forever ago. That was a complete game in... what was it about 120 pages, including monsters and GM advice? Not much anyway. I wanted the same.

In all reality, all the weapons are built from the powers, so I could have each character build his or her own weapon(s) through the powers, and then give them the "real weapon" disadvantage. On a weapon-by-weapon basis, this would be the best possible solution. That way you could define your own weapon's damage type and the ways in which it could be used. This could be a lot of fun!
 
However, I love charts! My own personal preference. When I look at a weapons chart such as in FH6e, I look at the variation and wonder if there is a way to give them even more variation. This is again a personal preference. HERO System is designed to accommodate personal preference, and maybe it's important to re-emphasize that each GM will build his own game differently. There is no one "official" way to do Fantasy Hero. I'm simply exploring some more ways to look at it.
 
As far as realism goes in the game, I'm exploring some more ways to analyze the interaction between weapons and armor. I would point out, as far as realism goes, a weapon familiarity with all melee weapons is fairly ludicrous in terms of "realism." One can't, in the real world, be an expert of all weapons available. I'm more inclined to limit martial arts styles to single weapons to represent this. If you want to use a second weapon with a martial arts style, then you would have to pay for it. As far as the "you get what you pay for" concept goes, it seems fairly abusive to pay a few points that then encompass all possible weapons in a group. Again, this is just my own preference, and my ground rules would reflect this in my own campaign.
 
That being said, LoneWolf, I agree with your observation about a sword being versatile and a sword master having many options at hand. I'm not trying to limit that, and I don't want to take away the versatility of the weapon. This is of course discussed in FH6e, but I want to go beyond that discussion. In those terms, stabbing with a sword is not the same as piercing. It is still considered slashing, and so isn't limited to any sort of maneuver. Regardless, Fantasy Hero isn't so granular that it isolates each maneuver, paired with a weapon type, versus armor. I'm not trying to isolate individual maneuvers, which seems pretty tedious. A haymaker with a sword could be many different things. 
 
A battle axe is given as an example in the book. It's primary use is to chop (slash, in their definition). Perhaps the axe has a spike on the opposite side of the blade. The spike may be considered piercing damage, but it isn't the primary mode of damage. Perhaps it gets a penalty for being more awkward because it's the backside of the weapon. There are other ways to account for this, and I'm curious about how it could be done. Someone trained in the use of a battle axe would understand its basic principles. But if used in a non-standard way, with different kinds of damage, I'm inclined to consider it a different kind of weapon familiarity. I would consider adding a 1 point familiarity to that single weapon type to make its application more versatile, much like Doc suggests. If there is a martial art style with the weapon, I'd require another maneuver in the style to account for a non-standard way of using it.
 
Now, what does this do to things like a bash with the butt-end of a sword? Or prodding with the tip of the sword? How about slapping with the flat of the blade? I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet, hence this post. More ideas would be welcome.