C.R.Ryan

Noticed something Van Helsing and Tarzan share stats. I'm supposing that's a mistake.

You did a great job. Thanks for looking into that.

Got it, it's great. Any chance that there's an export template in the style of those character sheets in the back? Edit: I use the publishable .RTF export template but I edit out a lot of the superfluous info like costs and adders. Those sheets are clean, I like them a lot.

Just curious if anyone else here is using Talespire as a VTT? Just curious. It's a rule agnostic 3D VTT that I have been loving since 2020. I can't remember if I have already posted this question here. If I Have I will understand if the Mod delete this.

Well they have 3PO for most languages other wise the common languages seems to be common (I call the Galactic Trade Tongue, in my game) and Hutt. Wookie and Binary is a bit rarer. I've had a lot of fun with my recent group and the Jawa PC. Jawas have sort of a pigeon trade language they speak to non-Jawas. The occasional translation problem (especially when the Jawa player drops an 18, not on the language skill just him panicking after blowing a skill check badly, he is prone to that in this game) is always hilarious.

@GM Joe I don't really track what skills have been used in the past. We are an old group, I've been playing for 35 years and two of the members have been with me for 30 of those years. A lot of trust. Which of course means I can under design a bit and me and the players can work things out in game. Would definitely need a bit more tooling to realize to people outside my group. I think I drew more inspiration from the old Skills in Shadowrun where you might buy Firearms, and then specialize in rifles or something. I think it hues close to 5e backgrounds though. I hadn't really thought of that, some design space to think about. Thanks.

As much as I can enjoy a 5e D&D game, I do begin chaffing against the system eventually. Then someone busts out Gestalt or some other variant, and I am willing cause it's their game, but let's just play something else that does what we want out of the box. As much as I like a steal mechanics from Narrative games I usually find the games as a whole less satisfying than a more robust rules environment. At least in Hero, I know what I'm ignoring.

There is something to be said for granularity in certain campaigns. The ability to have skills granularity on a slider is I think more useful then a whole sale change. I do think in general though I do tend toward the broader skill motif. Navigation just lets you navigate, Survival lets you survive unless your are WAY afield of your home terrain. Unless it's baked into the game that various characters all have different science background the SCIENCE!!! PC get SCIENCE!!! This is why I think in spite of our current RAW feeling more restrictive to some people, I'm happy with it, cause I like most of what Steve has done and if I don't like something, f*#& it, I'll do it myself.

I don't know. Sometimes I deal with it by simply having broader skills. I'm not the biggest fan of Science Skills, when every other profession just has KS and PS. In pulpy or superhero games I often just give the scientist "PS: and KS: SCIENCE!!!", or "SS: SCIENCE!!!" I only concern myself with more granular Sciences if multiple characters are scientists and need their own expertise. I literally uses skill enhancers too. In an earlier post I described the "Skill Sets" (Spacer, Smuggler, Doctor, Bounty Hunter, Jedi, ect) I use in Star Wars, 10, 15, 20 point professions that give a PC access to a broad scope of skills based on the situation they're in. Any time during the game when they think their PC should have a skill under a Set they have they can ask to use that skill and I decide if it's appropriate and at what level (8-, 11-, full skill). They can also specialize in skills that are clearly in the skill set (Spacer: Combat Piloting) by paying 2 (+1). In that case they actually write the skill down (full skill roll+1) and we never need to have the dramatic justification of them using the skill. Also for years I've been giving characters like 10pts in background skills for free (not including their native language). In a lot of games this gives a PC a profession, and a little bit of Knowledge to fill out their back story with out costing the a skill level or cooler skill (I like that Shadowing is separate from Stealth now they can have both for example). So I think if someone of someone has an EC idea for Skills then probably I'm into it. I like hero as a gaming code, that we can create systems and interfaces over. The game is running underneath giving any of these these systems a bit of sense and consistency. Sorry if I'm beginning to repeat myself. I love talking through this stuff. It reenforces my understanding of the game and the way I build. This really is my favorite system.

I actually like the system the skills work on. Unfortunately for certain campaigns I do find the costs to really flesh out a character a bit exorbitant. So I create other cost structure to lay over what I think is a nicely robust skill system that can be as broad or granular as you like, in terms of the actual skills themselves. I do really like how the skills play in game, though. I'm one of those guys too who tries not to make PCs roll for everything either. Especially when the fail case doesn't effect the game at all.

I just bash together rules systems from hero as I like. For instance in my 6th Ed star wars game to kinda imitate the way star wars characters have vague skill set defined more by drama then we'll defined skill trees I just have each player spend 10, 15, or 20 pts on one or two "professions" or skill sets that covers the skills they could have. Examples A Doctor is 10 pts, a Spacer is 15 pts, and Jedi is 20 pts, based on how broad I think the profession will be. I usually allow 2 skill sets. From there the character can use any skill that seems appropriate at the time for their character. This cover everything besides skill levels most skills are obvious some take a brief back and forth and then if I agree with the player I decide if it's an 8-, 11-, or a full skill with levels. There are some other granularity here but that less important right now. I have a player wanting to use sixth but wants to use ECs again, and I showed him how to fake it in Hero Designer even though I don't miss Elemental Controla. "Balance" doesn't mean much to me. The points give me a rough idea of how Powerful something will be, and that's all. I stopped capping active points in champions games at the tale end of 4th edition because I didn't like how samey everything always felt. I use a variety of magic systems that go way off the rails in terms of what players are actually "paying for". But the powers (spells/abilities) beneath those systems are built out of the various 6th edition tools. I enjoy using Hero as a means of building fun systems that lay over the underlying game rules. Especially since I don't run much champions anymore. I'd still probably run that mostly RAW. I have never felt terribly compelled to "buy everything" in any addition out side of champions, and even then only the core ideas of the character needed to be ironed out. I love for players to use powers creatively, I will get players to buy powers they clearly are trying to emulate but the one or two times, yeah use your swing line to tie people up, neat. If you want for that to be actually effective in a fight let's buy an entangle for you. I also still call Complications Disads, and the PCs have inches on their sheets not meters. Those feel sort of arbitrary to me. I feel less inhibited by hero's RAW then many others systems, which may be counter intuitive, but I think it's just decades of playing it through multiple editions. PS crap now I'm writing essays on the topic.

I'm with you, here.

I tend to doost of the writing of characters in my games. I love building and writing up characters, so it's all pretty collaborative. Some of my most experienced players come to me with starts and I tend to finish. Also I love to build system on Hero, I use variations on the skill system and a full Jedi Arts/Force Powers system built with hero. So sometimes I have to have a heavy hand I. Character creation since it's new(ish). Years with my group though really helps this feel less laborious for me me. I even help other GMs on our group since it can feel encumbering for them. They just decide if they like my writeup or if they'd like to go a different direction. All that to say, luckily my group has decades since shed the urge to take advantage of rules and loop holes.

I have played in a 5e campaign a few years back. We had a blast. Most games can be great if you like the players around the table with you.

My bit of smugness is: D&D hasn't been the best RPG since it was the only RPG.

I really think an intro campaign of Champions (Champions One is this type of thing I believe) and one for a Hero game would be great. Even a Champaign version built more like a non-universal system, where powers and ability exist and are described and costed. Teach people how to play, and then say, "hey, if you like this, we can show you how to do this and so much more!"

Pretty sure I voted in that Reddit thread.

A lot of people want less variance in their games. Less emphasis on dice can do this. One of the things that keeps me from wanting to run one of the narrative games is that there isn't much in the way of a solid bases to make rules decisions. I like system gives me a wide variety of tools to cover most situations and I can go from there, instead of the narrative take of, "meh just make it work". It gives the players a concrete sense of what to expect. Fate's vague power system makes my eyes roll when I can just build the power in Hero and it does what I want with wiggle room for creative uses of the power. That said, even after 35 years of gaming, I'm not above learning new tricks and using cool ideas from other games, they have some really good ideas in them. Certainly not for everybody, but they're fun (for a lot of players) and with a solid foundation like hero to fall back on, they kind of sing.

What I like about those systems is that they often have fun rules that can work with lots of systems (due to their loosely goosey nature), and I steal them! 😁 Flashbacks are a really cool idea for Heists, Clocks give my players a way of seeing the narrative process in an entertaining way, and "fate Points" seems to engage my players in individual scenes in interesting ways. As a GM though I still want the concrete nature of Hero System to under pin those things. I have run rules lite hero, it's possible and fun, too.

Eh, like I said, I think the Leaping would be more my speed these days.

You'd just have to limit it passing through the intervening area. Also that was just an aside about that specific case of jumping from extreme heights (Ize Zume from (from L5R). You could could do it with leaping too (infact 15 years later, it's probably best this way). Whatever feels best for the GM. Really shouldn't have brought it up, the OPs quest just reminded me of the Ise Zumi.

This is how I'd go about it. Depending on the character you wouldn't even need to buy that much extra leaping. For Ize Zumi in L5R who jump off of mountains I'd do like a mega scale teleport with no velocity, heavily limited for that specific event.

6th edition is very much my go system right now, after nearly 20 years of it being 5th edition. My only issues with 6th are some of the nomenclature changes (Disads to complications for instance) and changing from inches and hexes to meters. Otherwise I like a game that tells me the rules and then gets out of my way. Much as I liked 5th edition. I thought that the change in figured characteristics would bother me, but damn do I prefer the current system. I started with fourth and really enjoy the direction the game has moved in since. As a GM it's my only system. My players love running other stuff and I enjoy playing those games, especially stealing rules from those game, like Fate Points, Flashbacks, and Clocks.

Interesting. That could be fun in duels.

My hero/Force points. I use them in all of my Heroic Level games. - Usually you get 1 for every 20 character/experience point your PC has spent. In Star Wars those strong in the force get 1/10 CP & EP spent. - standard they are one time use +1 over all level. Yes they can blow them on all on one roll. But that's usually the least interesting option. In my Star Wars game for example they do a lot of things at big negative modifiers to their skill rolls. Force points often let them smooth that out -I give them some back for especially heroic actions, a little bit of lul in game time and at the beginning of a new story arch you are maxed out. Those are the boring details. Other things to do. -use them to change a scene slightly for your advantage. Usually between 2-4. - Deeper than the last spend them for a flash back like in Bladeone s in the Dark, when appropriate narratively. 5 and more. -fix a failed rolls, for 5. Reading through your guys' I may add some options. I liked the free recovery from being stunned.