Simple one. This has bugged me for awhile. If your KA is 3d6, 9 dcs. How do you split that? Just curious. I did a search and it didn't bring up a previous thread. Sorry if this is redundant. 

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

6 hours ago, Khymeria said:

That is a totally sweet look, and to be honest, I hand in plain documents with a few notes on my thinking of layout. I'm not sure if it is done as an export, but I can ask and see how it was done. Glad you liked the book, it was a lot of fun researching and writing. I will get back to you.

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.

1 hour ago, Opal said:

Seems like everyone in Star Wars had universal translator... And everyone in Star Trek literally did (IAF: communicator badge thingies).

 

And you could always buy off the Activation Roll...

 

 

... that's another thing, why can't I buy off the roll for my skill? Pay 5 pts instead of 3 and just keep the corners on my cheap dice longer?

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. 

4 hours ago, GM Joe said:

 

I hesitate to say it, but would something like an EC for skills fix a lot of the cost issue?

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.

47 minutes ago, Sketchpad said:

In a note similar to what GM Joe said, the skill system many of you are looking for kind of exists in the Mutants & Masterminds, Third Edition system. The Expertise skill there is a catch all that allows characters to include a profession, specialized knowledge, or a catch-all for a skill that everything else doesn't cover. In the example of the PS: Policeman skill above, you'd use the Expertise: Policeman in basically the same way. 

 

Personally, I enjoy the more inflated skill system that Hero has had since 4th ed. I realize I may be in the minority in this thread, but the skill list has been something that's helped me define characters better. What's the skill differences between Reed Richards, Hank Pym, Tony Stark, and Bruce Banner? Depending on the system, not much. Using a more broad skill list, they'd all have science/scientist. In Hero, however, it's more specific and leans into the individual skills better. SS: Quantum Physics, SS: Physics, SS: Engineering, SS: Robotics, etc. For me, it works better. 

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.

2 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I never really "got" this logical train.  Every time I bought a new edition, I saw it as new suggestions on how to play.  I guess my approach to the game was never to know/master/follow the rules but to play the game. 

 

As such each new edition was additional possibility, not an increasingly heavy blanket on my creativity.

 

I have never talked about whether I play 2nd edition, or 4th edition or 6th edition, simply that I play Champions. 

 

As a player I would comply with all the rules of the table (I would tell the GM I intended to be book legal but they would need to check because I make so many assumptions in my head) and be content to adjust my character as the GM wanted.

 

Ultimately I will play my powers not the game mechanics.  If the GM focusses too heavily on the mechanics (of whatever edition) then we might not be a great match.

 

Doc

I'm with you, here.

24 minutes ago, BNakagawa said:

Coming up with loopholes and abusive tweaks may have seemed pretty clever at the time, but frankly these days it's mostly a way to make yourself unwelcome at most tables. GMing Champions is enough work as it is, and having to audit every damn line on THAT GUY's character sheet is getting close to camel's back territory.

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.

50 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

D&D is awesome.

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. 

11 hours ago, Cygnia said:

‘The World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game’? These Publishers Are Leading the Pivot Away From D&D

My bit of smugness is:

D&D hasn't been the best RPG since it was the only RPG.

30 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think Champions has everything it needs in place it just needs more adventures and promotion.

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. 

59 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

Can't speak for anyone else but I dislike rules-light systems because they're basically improv with little enforcement of PC balance, internal consistency, or physics.

 

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. 

42 minutes ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

You don't need Megascale. You only need to teleport to a Fixed Location (1 mm over the surface you are about to hit), Triggered by the impending impact.

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. 

On 2/6/2023 at 7:04 AM, LoneWolf said:

There is also the optional rule that allows you to use your leap to reduce the damage from a fall.  It requires a held action and allows you to subtract your vertical combat leap from the velocity of the fall.  You also get your normal defenses from the damage of a fall.  From what I remember of the movie the vampires were able to make leaps of a decent height.  

 

I would not have any problems allowing a character to use his leap to negate part of the velocity of a fall using his defenses to absorb the remaining damage and allow a breakfall roll to stand as a zero-phase action with the special effect of them simply not falling down to begin with.  

 

Leaping normally costs 1 for 2M, but your upward leap is half.  The book gives the limitation upward only as a -1 limitation.  Adding in only for falling damage as an additional -1 limitation seems reasonable. That would make it 19 points to be able to ignore a terminal velocity fall.   
 

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.

23 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

My friend Dean ran a Savage Worlds Star Wars game, and he had a dark/light side system for their hero point equivalent (force points in his game, nobody was a force user, though).  When someone used a point for dark side, the bad guys got one.

Interesting. That could be fun in duels.