Scott Ruggels

I am not entirely certain I could _read_ in another life else I would have learned about the possibility of reincarnation, and taken steps to prevent it. 
 
Unless, of course, my goal was to do better the second time around, and if I did manage to pull that off, then I am positively _jubilant_ that I can't remember the first go. 
 
Realistically, I think finding the lighter side habitually is just part and parcel of extreme extroversion, which I suffer from quite happily. 
 
 
 
Hail, and well-met, good fellow.   I neither wear a trilby nor confuse them with fedoras, so that's about as cringe as I am able to get; I hope you're not disappointed. 
 
 
 
 
I shouldn't take the trouble, Sir, knowing what I know.  In fact, you can know what I know in just a few short moments:
 
It is neither terribly interesting nor exciting, and most of our discussions here are about a game we both play.   The only pertinent piece of information from that entire list that I would bother to remember is that of all the people on this board, I am the least likely to know anything about comic books or any particular superhero, save the Iron Man and Spiderman movies (all eight of the modern ones, and the ultra-cool made for TV ones from the seventies). 
 
Oh- I also know that the Thor that starred alongside Ferigno's Hulk in the 80s looked considerably less-cool than the one that starred in the Marvel movies. 
 
Oh, and thanks to the Traveller's Tales video games, I can recognize Lego Stan Lee from up to two feet away.  I feel that this counts for something. 
 
 
 
You want embarrassing?  You should see the look my wife gives me when I am scrolling down threads and come across your name.  Much like the inability not to moo at passing cows, I have to revive the 80s jingle from the tou commercials and sing out " Gee Emm Joooeee!" 
 
I have tried fighting it; my wife has tried avoidance therapy on my behalf (whereby she avoids noticing any attempt to get her attention for the next few hours), but thus far, I am completely unable to not do it. 
 
There.  Now we are even. 
 
 
Now I am even with _all_ of you, dammit. 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
Dead on.  I really preferred Miller's meager stuff to DGP's stuff, and from Mega forward, it was pretty much all DGP. For what it's worth, even though I prefer the LBBs and vectored movement, The Traveller Book- also published in a traditional-at-that-tme three-booklets-and-a-map, all inside a box version as the "Beginner's Set-- seems to be a real sweet spot compromise of what I like and what my players like.  That is to say, it has struck perfect compromise, observable by how equal our "generally cool with it but still slightly disappointed" is spread amongst us. 
 
 
 
 
 
OH MY GOD, _SPILL_!  SPILL! 
 
Okay:  my Classic Traveller collection is far from complete, but I have only recently begun to re-collect what I chunked out years ago (that being 2300, Mega, and TNE, all of which I hated, but Fire, Fusion, and Steel was the single greatest accessory ever published for any RPG, ever, period, even though it was a DGP manuscript, and that irritates like an unsanded seam on a butt plug. (I assume.  At least, it sounds like it would irritate.)
 
I completely missed T4, and didn't even hear of T5 until it, too, was out of print.  I have yet to get my hands on either (it kills me that I don't have either of those, but I _do_ have T-20: the version I am least-likely to ever play.  Gurps Traveller was pretty good, and I am delighted that Wiseman undid the assassination, though I have only the core rules (which is all I am interested in from any of the newer versions- it's a matter. Both money and time left on earth; under the circumstances, that makes me happy enough). 
 
I have heard that T4 had problems, but I do not know what they were (yet) and I am dying to hear from anyone involved in any sort of Traveller project!  I don't care if it is a sentence, a PM, or an e-mail, asir; just _spill_! 
 
Oh, I also missed Mongoose Traveller, and from what I hear about it, all I had to do was add "and he died! " (/Nicholas Cage) back in and I would have loved it.  As it stands, I do own a hardback of the Crowded Hours adventures anthology, and three of the four are _amazing_; totally worth the four bucks plus shipping I spent on it.  :). 
 
I guess I could go the GURPS Traveller route: after creating your character, roll a single die.  If it comes up 6, throw the character away and make another one, " but it doesn't have that same 'press your luck' element of danger to it. 
 
 
 
 
 
I have hated the three I have read, but I suspect that was because of the hard push to make us choke on the DGP- developed house system GDW was moving toward.  (weirdly, it worked in both Twilight 2000 (though I didn't really like it) and Cadilacs and Dinosaurs (which presented a more polished, more fun-to-use version of it) but it just didn't capture that feeling of simplicity that somehow amplified the 'tiny speck in an endless universe' feeling that Miller's original barebones system brought forward. 
 
And of course, the "Kafers are just the bad guys; that's just how it works" that, because there will never be a better word, is overt permission to be racist.  That did't fly well with me _at all_.  Tell me _whi_ they are, like you do with all the other races, and not _what_ they are. 
 
 
But I think I can still see the topic from here; better head back towards it before I get completely turned around... 
 
 
So many stories...  So many horrible, tragic, _hillarious_ stories.... 
 
 
 
More embarrassment:  fans of Shadow run talk about how awful the first edition was. 
 
It was the only edition I really liked.   even then, though, the fantasy trappings were not exactly to my taste.  If I want your chocolate in my peanut butter, I will arrange an innocent accident at an aerobics class involving two people making weird snack decisions during their workout; that you very much. 
 

 
He absolutely nailed the 80s anesthetic for cyberpunk, I think., and that tends to be the way I like my cyberpunk. 
 
 
Yeah, ditto.  Once you start thinking of it slang of the era, it gets better. 
 
Probably. 
 
One day. 
 
 
 
Really?   You'd think you would have picked up on that "priceless collection of ancient Etruscan snoods" thing a ways back up. 
 
 
 
 
It's be just my luck that my superpower would be "immortality, except for the side effect'
 
 
 
Oh yeah; those helped me develop a comic book feel more than anything else did, I think.  I cribbed so many plot twists and locations from them early on.... 
 
 
 
 
 
It' a just elephants all the way down with you, isn't it? 
 
 

 

 
 
 
Technically, I didn't modify it.  I threw it out completely. 
 
Well no; technically, I didn't do that, either.  I opted not to back port it into my games except for very rare occasions, and decided that Skill Levels-a thing that already existed and already did what skills do- were the way to go. 
 
As an ezample: PS Archery becomes +2 with bows. 
 
KS: Engineering becomes +2 to INT rolls for engineering problems. 
 
Two weapon fighting becomes +4 with off-hand weapon, not to exceed the off-hand penalty. 
 
Area Knowledge becomes +3 to INT rolls about area X. 
 
Skill levels already have costing and mechanics in place for 'everything' to 'large, related groups,' to 'small, closely-related groups' to 'this one thing and no other thing.' 
 
A quick house rule that Skill Leves as Skills can't be allocated to something else-such as CV or extra damage-and it has worked pretty well since 4e came out a few days ago.  Maybe some extensive okay testing will show me why it' s a bad idea. 
 
For Supers and pulp, build straight off the Characteristic roll.  For more 'normal' heroic games, start with 9+ instead of 11+, and for grim, ultra-realistic stuff, start with 7+ Char. 
 
For something screwy, consider averaging 2 or more characteristics and deriving you 'bonus' (the thing after the plus) from that instead of one single characteristic. 
 
It really solves the 'points auck' problem, and retains the option for broad or narrow skills (buy then as 'one single thing, small closely - related group, or large related group, so pricing is' in line' with utility for those to whom that bit matters. 
 
If you are concerned about what else they might spend their 150 points on, the don't give them 150 points.  If you are concerned about what they might spend their XP on, have a talk before hand and say 'look, I am going to try something with this campaign, but it involves reducing awarded XP along the way.  That may or may not change after we have tried it a bit, but for now, we are going to kind of ease into this. 
 
 
Most importantly, if you are concerned about either of those, you should admit that you have been using skills as a points suck all this time, and let go of that. 
 
 
 
 
Thank you, Hugh. 
 
Thank you deeply. 
 
I was beginning to think I had wasted a lot of words not getting my point across:
 
The skills section works as-is if you are a Hero player from way back.  If you are new, and looking for some guidance, you aren't going to find it in the books. 
 
 

His character was called Force. 
 
I am also amazed at how many of you losers don’t buy your powers to Zero END. 😁 power armor FTW! 

While I get all the outpouring of 'you can't do that because you don't know when the phase ends,' if I have the high DEX, I can decide to go last. 
 
If I have a held action and count heads, I can decide to go last-er.
 
 

I don't think it is a game killer either.  I have softened to take a player-centric approach to the game and things that make the game "easier" for players that use the rules is good for me.

This is a good tip, the kind of thing Goodman would have brought up
 
 
But that would be fun

This is part of the action fuzziness in HERO.  For example, all your movement takes place in your phase.  If you are SPD 4, and decide on segment 3 to do your full move, 30m, then that all happens in segment 3, it does not stretch out until segment 5.  If you hold your action until segment 5, you get the full benefit of 30m movement.
 
If you can hold to the last fraction of a second to travel 30m, why not also get the full benefit of the recovery (as long as you have not used END or been harmed during that time)?
 
Doc

Weekday afternoons, home from school.  Turning on KTVU to watch Starblazers. This was my introduction to Anime.  

Manga has lost one of its giants with the death of Space Opera legend Leiji Matsumoto. His best-known creations are the legendary space pirate/rebel Captain Harlock, the pioneering Space Battleship Yamato (one of the first anime series to be released in the US, under the title Star Blazers) and the proto-transhumanist fantasy Galaxy Express 999.  He also created the music video series Interstellar 5555  for Techno masters Daft Punk.
 
He was known for his distinctive art style with languid lines contrasting with detailed and realistic technology, his controversial relationship with war (to this day his film The Cockpit is banned in much of the world), and his powerful mix of space and seeming-anachronisms like space cruisers modeled on WWII battleships (which always held a fascination for him) and spacefaring railway trains. His legacy, as I mentioned, is complex, yet there is astonishing beauty in much of his work.

Thank you.  I could not come up with a more descriptive term than "lock out," at the time.  I like the analogy you have created there, so long as everyone is clear that it is not derision. Well done. 
 
 
 
 
I do.  I gave a rough example of how up above. 
 
I figure if they are good enough to fake martial arts, they are good enough to fake skills, too. 
 
 
This is also why I was so tickled at the idea of taking "terrible scientist: - r to all science-based INT rolls"  it would actually work at my table, but I think we can all see the immediate abuses of allowing such a disadvantage. 
 
 
 
Have you guys never wondered why of all the people on this forum, I am the guy who doesnt post character write-ups? 
 
 

 
 

I like to say adding to a skill list "creates incompetence." Your 1st ed character with Detective Work was a competent Detective.  Then the game adds Deduction, well, you're no Sherlock anymore but you can still be Sam Spade.  Then Criminology, Conversation, and Shadowing are added - and what can your Detective even do?
 
And that reminds me that Hero already has Skill Levels, and why couldn't we just use those?
 
 

Ahh the Late Steve Goodman. He was a regular at Hero games and was famous for rules hacks. He played more Fantasy Hero than Champions, but he was a member of The Guardians. Very chill guy and a font of information. I’ll raise a shot glass of Glenlivet in his memory. 

Silly  man, Duke only plays 2nd Edition, Hero. 

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.
 
 

The importance of art and art direction in RPG books, especially setting books.  DiTerlizzi's sketches lent an ethereal and alien quality to a setting that needed to feel ethereal and alien.  Brom's art likewise set the tone for Dark Sun.

My instinct is to agree with you but in game terms, what difference do those things make to those characters?  In the comics they are geniuses and all fill the same space in stories. 
 
It feels to me like the science skills are almost equivalent to the special effects that we give to powers, they don't cost extra but they give small context-specific bonuses or penalties.
 
I think they are most useful at deciding which PC might be the one who notices the important information or makes a conceptual link in the adventure.
 
Also, while there is indeed a difference between superhero and heroic genres, I still think we should be looking at ways to use skills to flesh out the characters rather than bleed them of points.
 
Doc

Silly  man, Duke only plays 2nd Edition, Hero. 

Ah!  But we are talking held phases, not aborted ones.
 
The character has waited to see what is happening and whether they need to react to a situation but they didn't and so they recovered their breath a bit...
 
Sounds reasonable to me...

I did play champions, but I mostly GM heroic level games, and this usually had me ignoring powers, but paying close attention to stats and point totals. I saw it as my job as GM to present problems for the players to solve. Granularity of skills in later editions looked like inflation and a legalistic point sink. 

Agreed, but the Goodman School of Cost Effectiveness wasn't about reason so much as finding mechanics that could be lightly abused. 
 
Lightly. 
 
 

Oh, dear.  Where to begin?
 
- If your group outnumbers the opposition, you can effectively boost everyone's DCV by 3 by having everyone hold actions and dodge, only attacking once all the adversaries have gone.
- You can do the same thing if your SPD is higher than your opponent's.
- Don't forget you can block with that large shield too.
- In heroic level games that use hit locations and/or crits, Flash, Darkness, grabs, and Entangles are excellent ways to set up opponents for a haymaker by a teammate.
- And if you're playing with hit locations, wear a helmet.
- For spells, pile on as many Limitations as you can get away with until you can get the real cost below some number that ends in .49 so it rounds down. 
- Noncombat spells especially benefit from Limitations.  So what if your 1d6 Cumulative Transform takes a full minute to cast?  It'll still get you through a castle wall in less than an hour.
- Technically there's no reason Side Effects can't be a beneficial effect.  If your GM won't let you use Healing, there's always Drain vs. COM or Flash vs. Taste.
- Or you can outsource the Side Effect with Area Effect Hole In The Middle.
- Seriously though, don't be afraid of Side Effect; even Drain vs. STUN or EB aren't that bad.  And you're going to use the saved points to buy up your Magic skill to 17-anyway.
- Want total immunity to melee attacks?  Flight is cheap.
- Certain Powers are extremely useful even at low active points.  Flight, Telekinesis, Stretching, Teleport, certain Senses, Flash, Entangle.
- Conversely, conventional attacks are kind of not worth it for spellcasters.  Why spend points on a killing attack when sharp sticks exist?  But do invest in an AOE attack to deal with swarms.
- Entangle is generally underrated.  Immobilize an adversary without killing him (on the rare occasions that's necessary).  Build barriers.  Drop opponents to DCV 0 if only for a phase. 
- Summoning (and Duplication) are expensive but fun, in the sense that they give you additional (and expendable) PCs to play.
- Mundanes should remember to exploit all the options available to them.  Trip that ogre!  Disarm the villain with the hellblade!  Do a move through if you're crossing the map anyway!
- Buy a skill up to some ridiculous level and point out to the GM that (for instance) you spent more points on Stealth than it would have cost to buy Invisibility.
 
If I remember any more I'll post them.

Yeah - the granularity of the skill system is something I have mostly body-swerved.  I liked the simple PS: policeman from the earliest editions.  I dont mind being more specific for some things as long as they make the character stand out but it is impossible to buy all the things that make a scientist a scientist in any kind of detail.  I think it might be cool to have lots of charts like the language chart that shows that 5 points in Medicine give 4 points in pharmacology, 3 in a variety of biological sciences, 2 in social work and 1 in a bunch of related stuff.  🙂

I always felt that the simplistic skills system in Hero was good for superheroic campaigns but needed to be fleshed out for heroic. 
 
 
To this day I don't understand why, out of all the frameworks, EC was the one to get axed.  It's the perfect power framework for fantasy spellcasting, and far less abusable than either multipower ultra slots or VPPs.
 
 
 
In this case everyone is wrong; the player should have bought extra limbs and stretching. 
 
(Seriously though stretching is one of my favorite underrated powers.)

That is my only main complaint about skills in Hero: they cost too much.  Does it really matter if you buy 74 skills?  Is it going to break the game if you have even all the skills in the list?  Is it really worth 3 points to operate radar?   Is it really worth spending 17 points on Survival so you can live in the desert AND the ocean AND the forest?  Should Stealth and Shadowing and Concealment really cost you 9 points for a base roll in each?  The current system basically discourages skill-based characters and gives characters like Dr Destroyer a 1700 point character sheet that looks like a CVS receipt.
 
Villians in particular don't need to buy hordes of skills, just hand wave them: he's good with science, that'll do.
 
Back when Elemental Controls were a thing, I used to routinely buy a skill EC for skill-based characters, to bring down the cost and make them competitive against other similar point value characters.  Was it technically legal?  No, but it worked.  None of these characters were broken or unplayable, proving that skills cost too much.

Ahh the Late Steve Goodman. He was a regular at Hero games and was famous for rules hacks. He played more Fantasy Hero than Champions, but he was a member of The Guardians. Very chill guy and a font of information. I’ll raise a shot glass of Glenlivet in his memory.