Scott Ruggels

A little depressing, but yeah, I can see.  Do it as art, not a business. (at least what I am attempting to do.)

I ended up despising those "Low mechanics" systems like  Fudge, Fate, and the rest.  Even with a GM I liked running them, I was supremely unsatisfied.   When Killer Shrike popped up with GNS Theory, My ears perked as I was on rec.arts.frp.advocacy and watched and participated in the philosophical brawl in those old USENET days. As i said before, I came out of war gaming into RPG's, and  haven't left it entirely behind (WW2 Re-enacting leads to Postscriptum, and dabbling in Arma). I came to love role playing, and making up the characters personalities. However, I did not leave my love of tactics and mechanics behind.
For me Hero was/is the perfect system for what I want, because the tactics make sense, within the mechanics, and Role play gave context for the fights.
 
My disagreement above is the Role play snobbery, in that enforcing  personalities to be equal to the players. I do not know about you, but I did not game with theater majors.  Games like FATE prioritize that thinking, often at the expense of plausibility, and the Theater Majors tend to dominate the session. (Now I like role playing with theater majors and actors, but in the circles I gamed it, they were not common, except at conventions, also high crunch systems tended to curb their excesses.) Also those games did not have tactical problems to solve. Solutions tended to be what is seen in movies and TV, rather than reflecting the situation on the ground.
 
The other problem, is that you have to play with the people that brung ya.  The hobby, I will say, does attract it's share of the socially inept. In a number of cases also the handicapped. What I want to see if the game, is not so much great acting, but engagement. If that engagement is because someone who is not  a good fit for a hard Boiled detective, has that as one of his fantasies, then YES I will let him roll what is on the sheet,  even if it's  "I roll my intimidation". Now there may not be any bonuses unless they elaborate, but I am willing to allow a roll to determine the  outcome. But engagement, and not reading, or checking their phone, is what I am after for good players at the table.  Role play can be learned, tactics can be learned, but to learn takes basic engagement. Enforcing a table house rule of only allowing characters who's personality matches the players, sounds limiting, and , well kinda mean. 

Diamond Distribution. Seriously, it messed up the comic industry. 

I have more issues with many con committees. but that's way off topic.

This.  This is, as Lucius has already pointed out, most likely where we _all_ are, to one degree or another. 
 
Now we make mountains out of perceived extremes when the differences are very small: someone mentions something for the sake of discussion, and someone else takes it as an extreme.  Pointing out "here is something important to me" just isn't the same as stating "this is the most important thing there is, period.". In truth, to some degree or other, it's most likely important to all of us (except Comeliness.  Evidently there's a good chunk of us who think good looks can only exist as a problem. I have a joke hypothesis as to why this might be, but this isnt the time or the place) 
 
What I don't understand is why we can't see that we are all not only pretty close to each other, but act as though there is some way to make us all agree on not just the order of importance, but on some unattainable mathematical absolute value of importance for each detail. 
 
It's not going to happen.  We can't even agree on which assigned values of the mathematically-derived game system elements are correct or more important. 
 
We can't even agree on which version of the game is most ideal! 
 
I'm still using a rulebook published almost forty years ago.  Cassandra is using one of the two prior to the current book.  Joe is using the one from the ICE age.   We all have our reasons, and debate, discussion, or outright browbeating isn't going to alter in any way the reasons behind our decision.  Fine: it's nice to know you think I'm a backwards fool or a hipster God or just a little odd or cool or whatever. 
 
But the fact that someone thinks a certain thing a out my decision isn't going to change the facts that lead me to that decision. 
 
And that's where we are here: we are quibbling over what, when this thread is read objectively, seem to be differences more minor than our style of dress.
 
Here's one:
 
In one of my wedding photos, my pocket knife can be clearly seen hanging off of my pocket. 
 
What sort of abject pagan freak does that make me? 
 
It doesn't.  It makes me a guy who has had a pocket knife on him every single day since his grandfather gave him his first one for his eight birthday, and after spending the 50-idd hours before his wedding wide-awake making final preparations didn't notice that life-long habit made him grab his pocket knife on the way out the door. 
 
Now the picture where my tape measure is evident, that might mean something.  Have fun with it. 
 
 
This needs to stop.  I mean like universally, all over the board.  Maybe it's because there has been a special book for martial arts over half the generations of the game.  Maybe it's because MA has always had a special bit tossed in, what with "access to the special maneuvers table" and some firm of supplemental damage and extra not-getting-hittedness; I don't know. 
 
Maybe it's the wild and exciting movies; who knows. 
 
Martial Arts does not mean some secret ancient technique of physical mastery and blending soul and spirit and universe into the art of inhaling up one nostril and down the other. 
 
Martial Arts is a mechanic.  It is one of many, many options that the system offers to the player that can be used to simulate "really good at fighting."  For my money, it's not even the best method of saying that, but it had one Hell of a following.
 
You don't need a mystic master and a secret school and forty years of training.  How can I say that?! 
 
Well there are boxers in their teens down at the local gym that I am pretty sure could kick my butt all up and down US1 if they wanted to.  There are nine year olds at all three of the local MA schools that I suspect could do the same. 
 
Did Viper agents go to ancient Asian fighting schools?  Are the capoeiristas giving lessons after door-smashing-down class?  If course not. 
 
It's quite possible-- likely even, that agent-level villains grew up fighting, and got good at it. 
 
I am not saying anything we don't all already agree to.  We've all said it ourselves at some point or other.  But every single time a discussion about learning it in-game or having it appear in "inappropriate" places comes up, we devolve straight back to Ninja legends and Tibetan monasteries. 
 
Ordinarily amusing, it's downright disgusting when it happens amongst people who all know better.  Is that harsh?  No.  It is not harsh, because when it happens amongst people who know better, it is straight-up evidence that it is being done _solely_ to create or continue a non-productive argument, and that is reprehensible. 
 
For the most part, I have very much enjoyed this conversation; i sincerely have.  But I think I'm going to drop out and go follow the wise sage on the double-barrelled camel for a while. 
 

I ended up despising those "Low mechanics" systems like  Fudge, Fate, and the rest.  Even with a GM I liked running them, I was supremely unsatisfied.   When Killer Shrike popped up with GNS Theory, My ears perked as I was on rec.arts.frp.advocacy and watched and participated in the philosophical brawl in those old USENET days. As i said before, I came out of war gaming into RPG's, and  haven't left it entirely behind (WW2 Re-enacting leads to Postscriptum, and dabbling in Arma). I came to love role playing, and making up the characters personalities. However, I did not leave my love of tactics and mechanics behind.
For me Hero was/is the perfect system for what I want, because the tactics make sense, within the mechanics, and Role play gave context for the fights.
 
My disagreement above is the Role play snobbery, in that enforcing  personalities to be equal to the players. I do not know about you, but I did not game with theater majors.  Games like FATE prioritize that thinking, often at the expense of plausibility, and the Theater Majors tend to dominate the session. (Now I like role playing with theater majors and actors, but in the circles I gamed it, they were not common, except at conventions, also high crunch systems tended to curb their excesses.) Also those games did not have tactical problems to solve. Solutions tended to be what is seen in movies and TV, rather than reflecting the situation on the ground.
 
The other problem, is that you have to play with the people that brung ya.  The hobby, I will say, does attract it's share of the socially inept. In a number of cases also the handicapped. What I want to see if the game, is not so much great acting, but engagement. If that engagement is because someone who is not  a good fit for a hard Boiled detective, has that as one of his fantasies, then YES I will let him roll what is on the sheet,  even if it's  "I roll my intimidation". Now there may not be any bonuses unless they elaborate, but I am willing to allow a roll to determine the  outcome. But engagement, and not reading, or checking their phone, is what I am after for good players at the table.  Role play can be learned, tactics can be learned, but to learn takes basic engagement. Enforcing a table house rule of only allowing characters who's personality matches the players, sounds limiting, and , well kinda mean. 

I ended up despising those "Low mechanics" systems like  Fudge, Fate, and the rest.  Even with a GM I liked running them, I was supremely unsatisfied.   When Killer Shrike popped up with GNS Theory, My ears perked as I was on rec.arts.frp.advocacy and watched and participated in the philosophical brawl in those old USENET days. As i said before, I came out of war gaming into RPG's, and  haven't left it entirely behind (WW2 Re-enacting leads to Postscriptum, and dabbling in Arma). I came to love role playing, and making up the characters personalities. However, I did not leave my love of tactics and mechanics behind.
For me Hero was/is the perfect system for what I want, because the tactics make sense, within the mechanics, and Role play gave context for the fights.
 
My disagreement above is the Role play snobbery, in that enforcing  personalities to be equal to the players. I do not know about you, but I did not game with theater majors.  Games like FATE prioritize that thinking, often at the expense of plausibility, and the Theater Majors tend to dominate the session. (Now I like role playing with theater majors and actors, but in the circles I gamed it, they were not common, except at conventions, also high crunch systems tended to curb their excesses.) Also those games did not have tactical problems to solve. Solutions tended to be what is seen in movies and TV, rather than reflecting the situation on the ground.
 
The other problem, is that you have to play with the people that brung ya.  The hobby, I will say, does attract it's share of the socially inept. In a number of cases also the handicapped. What I want to see if the game, is not so much great acting, but engagement. If that engagement is because someone who is not  a good fit for a hard Boiled detective, has that as one of his fantasies, then YES I will let him roll what is on the sheet,  even if it's  "I roll my intimidation". Now there may not be any bonuses unless they elaborate, but I am willing to allow a roll to determine the  outcome. But engagement, and not reading, or checking their phone, is what I am after for good players at the table.  Role play can be learned, tactics can be learned, but to learn takes basic engagement. Enforcing a table house rule of only allowing characters who's personality matches the players, sounds limiting, and , well kinda mean. 

Isnt that MHI?

I ended up despising those "Low mechanics" systems like  Fudge, Fate, and the rest.  Even with a GM I liked running them, I was supremely unsatisfied.   When Killer Shrike popped up with GNS Theory, My ears perked as I was on rec.arts.frp.advocacy and watched and participated in the philosophical brawl in those old USENET days. As i said before, I came out of war gaming into RPG's, and  haven't left it entirely behind (WW2 Re-enacting leads to Postscriptum, and dabbling in Arma). I came to love role playing, and making up the characters personalities. However, I did not leave my love of tactics and mechanics behind.
For me Hero was/is the perfect system for what I want, because the tactics make sense, within the mechanics, and Role play gave context for the fights.
 
My disagreement above is the Role play snobbery, in that enforcing  personalities to be equal to the players. I do not know about you, but I did not game with theater majors.  Games like FATE prioritize that thinking, often at the expense of plausibility, and the Theater Majors tend to dominate the session. (Now I like role playing with theater majors and actors, but in the circles I gamed it, they were not common, except at conventions, also high crunch systems tended to curb their excesses.) Also those games did not have tactical problems to solve. Solutions tended to be what is seen in movies and TV, rather than reflecting the situation on the ground.
 
The other problem, is that you have to play with the people that brung ya.  The hobby, I will say, does attract it's share of the socially inept. In a number of cases also the handicapped. What I want to see if the game, is not so much great acting, but engagement. If that engagement is because someone who is not  a good fit for a hard Boiled detective, has that as one of his fantasies, then YES I will let him roll what is on the sheet,  even if it's  "I roll my intimidation". Now there may not be any bonuses unless they elaborate, but I am willing to allow a roll to determine the  outcome. But engagement, and not reading, or checking their phone, is what I am after for good players at the table.  Role play can be learned, tactics can be learned, but to learn takes basic engagement. Enforcing a table house rule of only allowing characters who's personality matches the players, sounds limiting, and , well kinda mean. 

I ended up despising those "Low mechanics" systems like  Fudge, Fate, and the rest.  Even with a GM I liked running them, I was supremely unsatisfied.   When Killer Shrike popped up with GNS Theory, My ears perked as I was on rec.arts.frp.advocacy and watched and participated in the philosophical brawl in those old USENET days. As i said before, I came out of war gaming into RPG's, and  haven't left it entirely behind (WW2 Re-enacting leads to Postscriptum, and dabbling in Arma). I came to love role playing, and making up the characters personalities. However, I did not leave my love of tactics and mechanics behind.
For me Hero was/is the perfect system for what I want, because the tactics make sense, within the mechanics, and Role play gave context for the fights.
 
My disagreement above is the Role play snobbery, in that enforcing  personalities to be equal to the players. I do not know about you, but I did not game with theater majors.  Games like FATE prioritize that thinking, often at the expense of plausibility, and the Theater Majors tend to dominate the session. (Now I like role playing with theater majors and actors, but in the circles I gamed it, they were not common, except at conventions, also high crunch systems tended to curb their excesses.) Also those games did not have tactical problems to solve. Solutions tended to be what is seen in movies and TV, rather than reflecting the situation on the ground.
 
The other problem, is that you have to play with the people that brung ya.  The hobby, I will say, does attract it's share of the socially inept. In a number of cases also the handicapped. What I want to see if the game, is not so much great acting, but engagement. If that engagement is because someone who is not  a good fit for a hard Boiled detective, has that as one of his fantasies, then YES I will let him roll what is on the sheet,  even if it's  "I roll my intimidation". Now there may not be any bonuses unless they elaborate, but I am willing to allow a roll to determine the  outcome. But engagement, and not reading, or checking their phone, is what I am after for good players at the table.  Role play can be learned, tactics can be learned, but to learn takes basic engagement. Enforcing a table house rule of only allowing characters who's personality matches the players, sounds limiting, and , well kinda mean. 

And as bad as the 2nd Edition Failure Magic Failure table was, the 4th Edition is even worse. Someone had preordered the books ahead of time and they finally got delivered last session.
 
 
Minor Chaos Manifestation (lowest table)
The 2nd Edition was some cosmetic stuff. The worst effets would spoil your parties food (anything in 10 yards) or reduce your magic atribute for a few minutes.
 
4th Edition Minor Manifestation Table instead has effects like this
- If any person within 1 mile gives birth within the next year, the child will be a mutant (wich in Warhammer is slightly less healthy then being a deformed birth in Sparta)
- Any plants within Magic x 100 yards dies, this includes crops
"Well, that table explains while rural villagers hate mages!"
 
 
Major Chaos Manifestation (the Medium Table)
 
In 2nd Edition had this as magic feedback:
You take 1d10 wounds, no thoughness or armor reduction applies.
 
The 4th Edittion equivalent is this:
You and every ally with 10 yards take 1d10 wounds, no thoughness or armor reduction applies. If there is no ally in range, the backlash is focussed on you and your head explodes.
 
"The mages credo: Never cast alone!"
"Well, that does explain why mages keep taking apprentices."
"Come with me Harry!" "But I am Tom." "Look, I am not going to learn every new Apprentices name. If you survive a week, I might make the effort!"
"I always call my aprentices Rod. Lightning Rod!"

Kevin Smith and Superman Versus the Giant Spider

Comedy itself is a lost genre, these days. 

My Hero!  And they would be legal in California! For 6 months!

Maybe so!
 
Then again, Iron Man is totally metal, and Frodo is fairly square.

Wow, loving this thread. Pardon, I feel like all the good comments have been made. 
 
I have thought of running a super game with GRAB as sort of a Franchise with a Robin Hood/Leverage sort of feel just to see if my players would like it. They've been more in a fantasy mood lately, possibly for reasons mentioned above about 'protecting the status quo' trap Superheroes often fall into. Which is on me as a Game Master, I know.

Here is what you actually wrote I have added some bolding for emphasis):
 
 
If they are  not even allowed to make the Presence Attack, then their success is dictated exclusively by your satisfaction with their role playing, as they will not be permitted to engage in any dice rolling.
 
 
The elimination of the dice roll again results in success dictated exclusively by your satisfaction with their role playing. 
 
Our 8 PRE, no social skills character gets to success because his player gave a "role playing performance" you liked - no die roll, so the lack of any character abilities had no impact.  Meanwhile, you did not like the role playing of the player whose character has a 50 PRE, so that player does not get to use the character's abilities in which points were invested.
 
Reviewing your comments above, it feels like you are ignoring (or, more likely, forgetting) the details of what you wrote.  Perhaps you would care to elaborate on what you actually meant.

If Netflixs knows what I am watching at any particular moment, and tracks my current watched series over multiple devices, then they know down to the last digit, what viewership is, and what the viewer habits are. the Netflix app reports back to Netflix. 

I'd love to see an effective/efficient way to play Hero/Champions online … with minimal work to make it happen on the part of the GM or players.  For context, MapTool is excellent if your GM builds Hero-centric macros and takes the (fairly sizeable amount of) time to do good maps and such for the story,  but there's a lot of up-front work on the GM's end to do so -- certainly more than there would be for a Hero-specific tool.  Roll20 has a following, too, but, again, it's something that someone's got to bang (with a fairly sizeable maul) into shape for use with Hero/Champions.
 
The ability to drop a .HDC file into place for an online game to upload a character to it, as well as produce/use  maps quickly as well track rolls for hits, skill checks, etc … while tracking SPD, DEX, stun effects, DMG, etc during a combat … -without- the GM having to work his tail off to make it happen or bang some non-Hero tool into usefulness with Hero  might breathe new life into Hero due to more people playing via such a tool.
 
This, of course, wasn't listed in the poll … and adding it after the fact wouldn't exactly be fair to such a listing since people have already voted.  Hence why I note I, here.

< singing >
 
Stop in the name of love!
Before I break your face!
 
Stop in the name of love!
Before I break your face!
 
Think it over....
 
< /singing >
 

Yes!! My group did that too!
.
.
.
Actually, I apparently still have about 50 1st/2nd ed character sheets printed off, waiting to be used. Hmmm....

"Don't sabotage the game" is a implied rule in all RPG's. Or at least I asumed it was.
 
I can not fight or cast magic to save my life. And those times I played "myself as a Character" just had me playing a terrible Character. That leaves very few Characters I could convincingly roleplay.
Your rule is nice for your specific group, but not for a RPG in general.
 
As I said on the last page:
We can warn you that you are handling a loaded gun. We can not prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot anyway.

This is actually an issue exacerbated in Hero.  For my character to grow, I may have to buy down, or buy off, certain complications (he has learned his limits, and become less overconfident).  So he gets less xp to direct to "power creep" and falls behind his peers, unless I as GM allow him to exchange, rather than buy off, complications.
 
But his "character concept" included overconfidence, so the GM expects he will be locked in that mold forever.  Maybe his concept was that he's a geeky scientist who developed powered armor, or a former surgeon who was trained in the Dark Arts of Magick.  Clearly, spending points on martial arts is completely out of character concept.  And yet...
 
Tony Stark knows martial arts now - he was trained by Captain America.
 
Dr. Strange has also demonstrated martial arts training.
 
In neither case did we see them training in martial arts in the comics.  It just came out of nowhere - completely out of their core character concept.
 
Wolverine's fluency in Japanese came as a complete surprise to the X-Men.  Should that XP spend have been rejected?
 
Often, the issue is not that the player is violating character concept, but that he is violating the GM's vision of what his character concept is, or should be.  It's the player's character - their vision for the character should always govern.
 
 
100% this
 
 
To the "solve every puzzle", this is a GM issue.  Telepathy and Retrocognition are not appropriate abilities for a "solve the mystery" focused game.  If you don't want the ability in the game, don't allow it.  But if you allow a huge INT, or a huge PRE/interaction skill, the player is not unreasonable to expect that point expenditure to have in-game benefits, just like the player who spent all his points on combat abilities expects to have a character who is good at combat.
 
More to your second comment later.
 
 
This, again, 100%.  Let's focus on 2 players. 
 
Bob is a social wallflower and painfully shy.  He's also a martial arts expert (he has three black belts in different arts), a gymnast one cut below Olympic level and a sharpshooter.  His character is a combination James Bond and Casanova, with huge points spent on PRE and social skills.
 
Fred's hand/eye coordination has seen him banned from having an open beverage container on the gaming table, and he is morbidly obese.  He needs two rest stops to climb the 15 stairs from the basement, wheezing all the way.  He's very well-spoken and articulate.  His character spent most of his points on combat abilities and physical skills.
 
So, when we "role play", Bob does not get the use of his points, since he cannot role play a persuasive, seductive con man.  Fred gets all the benefits of the points he spent (no one asks him to role play that Kirk shoulder roll past the guard, leaping to his feet to land a crushing blow against the enemy leader behind him, then firing off his blaster to hit the door control 50 meters away, preventing the arrival of reinforcements.  Plus, he role plays interaction so well he gets GM assigned "role playing" bonuses that let his 5 PRE, no social skills combat monster be better at social interaction than Bob's character.
 
So, is that fair?  I suggest it is not.  Why can't Bob role play his 3 CV character in a manner commensurate with his own personal skills, just like Fred can? 
 
Is it good role playing?  I say thee Nay!  Fred is a terrible role player - he built a character lacking any social skills, but that's  not how he is playing the character.
 
Fred gets to use the points he spent on combat, and gets to avoid the consequences of spending no points on social skills. Bob does not get to use the points he spent on social skills, and must accept the consequences of spending no points on combat skills.
 
In other words, only certain types of players, and certain types of characters, are allowed to be successful in the game.

Oh yes, the Vic Dal Chele silhouettes! I ran off a mountain of those character sheets simply to have practice of doing the colors. We found out early that you had to photocopy your “edits” ( at the time done with Pilot Razor Points and White Out) because the Prismacolor or Staedtler markers wouldn’t color over the White Out. Even those with minimal artistic skill, joined in at the table, wth a pile of colorful markers and a few comic books for “reference”’designing heroes and villains for fun and future use. Good times... good times