Scott Ruggels

I have missed these. Thank you. 

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Fair enough, but I do see the argument for them. More than once I've had players do just about everything right, and earn their hard-fought victory, only for a random dice roll to completely screw them if I allowed it.

...and I live for tose bad rolls, because then, what are the players going to do? Adversity breeds character, and all that.

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

IMO it's appropriate for the Universal RPG system to include them as an option for each game group.

Ehhh we didn't see that until 6th Edition, so I suppose that is another sin 6E has to answer for.

Apparently this is one of two game systems that Critical Role is making. The other is a D20 system. 

I just never have been a fan of "metacurrencies", especially ones that modify player die rolls after the fact.  D&D ^e "Luck" also falls into that. As a GM, I do combat rolls open. The only hidden rolls are for things that Players have no idea or observation on what is going on, but rolls are rolls. I just don't think Metacurrencies belong in Hero, in spite of what 6Edition may suggest. Just not a fan.

It's basically a situation where a long term occupier is "gone", taking the lid off of things.  Anyone that workd in Counter Insurgency with the Dragon, is going to know a lot about what will happen when the lid comes off, and where to stand and NOT be hit by debris.

16 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

In most versions of the story Krypton shattered due to internal pressures, its star Rao did not go nova.

There was one version that had Brainiac being a Kryptonian super computer, that hollowed put Krypton for resources, and then left.  Particularly chilling. 

Old Campaign:

Demons summoned by the eastern Emperor, were pathologically selfish and lazy. They summoned a race of horned therapods as middle management.  Being mortal and horny, the spawned several generations that could not be unsummoned by then.  Having a talent for bureaucracy and contract, they avoided becoming slaves, so the demons summoned in a race of small, strong idiots as slaves, that anyone could beat and boss around. Civilization grew, the people mostly prospered. However discontent grew and eventually someone took a swipe at the emperor.  It was successful, so some of the demons returned to their planes.  Others fought amongst each other until civilization was knocked back to subsistence levels.  The idiot slave races rioted, until the middle management organized the people into a militia and chased the little creatures into the Western mountains. Eventually the remaining demons were unsummoned, cancelling out a lot of the magics, leaving a desertified land with scattered small towns and ruined cities near the broad rivers. In the West, lots of little polities, coalescing into nation states with few demihumans if any, except a forest of elves that everyone avoids as they are of the fey, and not to be trusted.   
 

New Campaign:

Currently run as pBP, No-to-Low Magic campaign taking place in a late classical period. The players are artist colleagues with furry tendencies (all women), so the Demi humans are”furries”, specifically Lupines, at the edges of the human empires (Byzantium Analogue, and. Persia Analogue to the east, fractured by some internal rebellion s. ). The are having fun with it and tend to be more bloody minded than expected.  
 

No Tolkien races in sight. 

On 5/12/2023 at 5:25 PM, greypaladin_01 said:

I started in 4th Edition, so this earlier version of Martial Arts is just strange to me.  However for a 4color style game it actually seems to go smoother than the detail of the Ninja Hero style we have with 4th and beyond.

In the late 80s and early 90s, the Hong Kong film renaissance occurred with John Woo, Ringo Lam, Chow Yun Fat, and the like. Both contemporary, as well as period films were produced but with higher budgets than the Sir Run Run Shaw produced films of the 70s. The films would headline the Toronto Film Festival and from there spread to art houses all over North America. These films were a major source of entertainment at Hero Games, and a heavy influence upon Aaron Alston, and his gaming group. Ninja Hero was the product of that era, and his system, playtest Ed by his Dallas TX crew. Slid into main hero by 4th Edition.  

 The "No more dungeons" thing was why I had rules for Parlimentary government , campaigning and voting, and why I was making my own monsters. Homecrew everything, and it worked fine, until the famous screw up.

22 minutes ago, GDShore said:

As Mr. Ruggels says length does matter, in weapon to weapon combat. Probably though not as much as you might think. I watched more than twenty years of combat in the S.C.A. and witnessed many spearmen (21) and of those only 1 was really successful. Most of them fought spear and shield and only one of those was semi successful, (he used a roman legion style shield). The successful spearman used a long spear two handed, bladed at one end with a mace head at the other. The sword and board guys never stood a chance against him, the other spearmen fell like autumn leaves. Weapon length though is important, a lot of adventures occur underground in dungeons and maze's or in buildings, the RPG template D&D has its corridors at 10x10, 10 foot by 10 foot. The hero template has its "HERO" at 2 meters tall, with an arm that is 1/2 to 3/4 meter long, into which a sword is placed into the hand at the end of that arm, a sword that will be at least a meter of steel beyond that hand. Now try a chop with that sword, in a corridor that is 3.25 meter high you are trying to slice a .25 meter hole in the roof. Chops and slashes disappear from the dungeon repertoire and only one fighter is engaged at a time. Unless you shield wall, then you are reduced to Roman tactics, the ginzu with the Gladius. I posit therefore that in the dungeon that the best weapon is the "spear", most likely the Asagai. As early as '83 I made all my dungeon corridors 4 meter x 4 meters, and all rooms with 4 meter ceilings. That means however that pikes, halberds and long spears are completely out as dungeon weapons. By '85 dungeons were a once in 20 to 25 sessions adventure. (bows are nearly as useful in a standard corridor and only slightly more so in my 4x4's) 

Dungeon? I’m Fantasy Hero? What is this of which you speak? This isn’t D&D!!😁. Most of our adventures were outdoors in the weather. 

Length of spear does matter. So accounting for reach is important because it means that I can hit you with my spear while you cannot hit me with your sword. And if we get up in the pikes, you are talking about very long pointy spears. This gets into I can hit you, but you cannot hit me with your horse.  My long running fantasy, hero campaign was in the pike and shot period. Mased infantry was some thing that the player characters just did not want to tangle with, unless they had powerful AOE spells, as long as they were not mages behind the infantry line or in the squares.

4 hours ago, batguy said:

Thanks,which six attributes should i use?

It depends on the style the  game will use and the importance of Combat, or skills, or social conflict, or psychics. generally, you have STR, DEX, AGL< for physical abilities, but to take into account Speedsters like The Flash, you need to have the ability to perform multiple attacks. HERO does this with the "SPD" attribute. Other systems allow you to Buy more attacks. Up to you.  You wil also need Mental attributes, like INT, WILL (or EGO), and WIS, and you might want FOCus. I am of the camp that doesnlt mind 8 or 10 attributes, as long as they have an effect on gamepplay and give options for attacks and Defenses.  In terms of  Defenses, You need Physical Defense, Energy Defense, Psychic Defense, and if these defenses will bounce bullets or not. (And in the relm of the Psychic, can their psychic Defense bounce Darkseid's beams?).   THis design will take a lot of thought, and testing , to figure out what all works together or not.

VR is complicated. As a medium it’s changing and progressing rapidly. The physical activity is increasing with suits and controllers, so that there is a subculture of dancers in VRChat, and the price of no cap suits has dropped to $500. The attraction of VRChat is an active social environment that one does not need to leave the house for. This will become more attractive when progressive cities prohibit private motor vehicles. 
 

I am trying to set up a passive income stream by making full featured VR avatars for VRChat, and other environments. It’s a subject that has become a lot deeper than expected.