Scott Ruggels

The Pandemic eliminated the local game stores, save one, maybe, but I haven't been able to get over there.

However I do plan to run "Champions Begins", for one of the Discord Servers I am on, and probably another as I had a request. I will do my best, even though Superheroes aren't my first choice for Hero System. I will report on how it went later.
 

I too.
 
A month ago an idea for a superhero campaign started tickling my imagination. When I started writing things down, just to get the idea out, it was in Hero. I would need a few key non-player characters, with solid definitions of what they thought they were doing, and why. Hero is good for detailed descriptions of a small number of human characters. I would need at least one vehicle, probably three. Hero has solid vehicle rules. I would need at least one base, probably three or four. Hero does bases. I would need one small agency and one big one. Hero does agencies very well. I would need a stack of small gadgets. Hero does gadgets, and what I needed most was already in a supplement. I would need some beasts. That wasn't a problem.
 
I wasn't being forced to break the flow of my imagination. I could keep going till I had an overall, internally consistent picture of how the conflict would arise and how it might play out.
 
From my point of view as a potential gamemaster, what I don't want is to have the key points of a new world swimming into view, and have that interrupted by some thought like this: "and I'll need to define that space ship / submarine, since the player characters will be spending a lot of time in it, but there are no vehicle rules (or there are but they are so bad that I'd rather not use them). Maybe I need to make some house rules for that, or swap in rules from another system."

Another 18, Duke😁

I think Patty Jenkins problem is that she's a good director, but not a good writer. 
 
...then Patty goes and kills her career by going full Karen on her former bosses at DC. Sending Peter Safran the Wikipedia definition of Character Arc in an Email was not the wisest choice.

He won’t be Bond for the same reason he walked away from The Witcher. Ms. Broccoli who inherited the head chair from her late father Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, has said in interviews, the she sees the next Bond, is having to be “more in touch with his emotions “. This is just another way of saying “updated for a modern audience.”  Once again a female executive strikes a blow against Toxic Masculinity in entertainment, when Masculinity, toxic or not is precisely why I watch a Bond film. 
 
Cavill’s removal from the Superman Role was not James Gunn’s decision as much as it was Zaslov’s, due to Cavill’s salary requirements, and Zaslov wanting to slash production budgets and find new, unknown actors to keep costs down. Cavill’s not being Superman is a shame, and the focus on Superman’s early years, looks like yet another retelling of his origins.  I really don’t want to see any other origins retold yet again for legacy characters.  I want to see a story of a Superhero in their prime, performing their heroism, and challenging Villains we haven’t seen before in thee movies,  and maybe using a story from the pages of a comic?

One thing I'm struck by for the characters created or overseen by Steve Long, is that a great many of his supervillains became villains as a result of some traumatic origin that completely changed their personalities. I don't mean in the sense of a personal tragedy that warped them emotionally. I mean something that physically altered the way their brains work. Maybe it's my drama background, but I find the most interesting and compelling characters are those with a through-line to their stories. I want to understand the steps in their lives that led them to become the heroes or villains that they are. That helps a great deal in truthfully playing them, or in the context of gaming, role-playing them.
 
There are many elements of Steve's game writing that I very much admire, but I can't help seeing this aspect of his characterization as rather lazy. I don't know whether this element doesn't interest him, or if he just doesn't think about characters that way. Either one could explain what I consider his most notable non-character, Doctor Destroyer. As presented first in Conquerors, Killers, and Crooks, DD can be summed up as, Power, Intellect, and Arrogance. There really isn't anything more to him, no depth or shadings. I looked forward to Book Of The Destroyer adding some role-playing meat over those megalomaniacal bones, but Albert Zerstoiten's ego and ambition seemed to be fully formed at childhood, like Athena emerging full-grown from the brow of Zeus. BOTD is full of missed opportunities. Zerstoiten's parents each get one scene from when he was a boy, then are never mentioned again. No mention of any romantic involvement over his lifetime. He was the youngest student at university, coming from a poor background, but we're to believe he was never bullied? Serving under the Nazis had no effect on his thinking about humanity? When he discovers the Vale of Javangari, and the natives worship him as a god, his thoughts amount to, "That's how it should be."
 
Not that I'm trying to suck up to Dean because it's his topic , but his character creations almost always have a story behind them, and origins with some sort of emotional impact in the classic comic-book sense. You can follow why they've come to think and act the way that they do. For my part I find that sort of character more interesting and compelling than "Brain-Damage-Man."

I never cared that much about going deeply into the villains of the story.  If I were to write a book, sure, but just running a game: here's the bad guy, some notes on personality and behavior, lets go.  Certainly none of my players ever cared.

The rural soap opera that is Tales of Selversgard continues. This year has been dry and hot, with plenty of grain production and solid hunting. Killane Shellsdotter has taken up the Mayorship, and has pushed fairly hard for the farming aspects of the community. As a result, several new ploughs and seeding wagons have been purchased for communal use. A couple of the woodcutters have sworn blind that they saw a couple of ants the size of horses during one cutting expedition. However, they admit they were quite drunk at the time, and the Druids have found nothing to confirm it.
 
Skave OoC: Just slightly over 4 grand in the GP pool. Being the town's Jesse Pinkman has its perks, I guess.
 
Gonno’s romantic partner, the runaway former sex-worker Galiante, retrains as a different kind of professional. That doesn't stop Gonno's rival from making various snide remarks. Hopefully this won’t escalate -  ignoring a person who has made it their goal in life to bully you does not work, in his experience. They just escalate until you've finally reached an important threshold and decide it will solve a lot of problems if you just hold their head underwater until they drown.
 
Skave OoC: Also, “something something the Oread's ability to become Rock Hard on Demand something something lewd joke” that promptly gets Skave bonked.
 

 
Skave: Hey, Big Bro, should I spend most of my money on this nifty hat that's supposed to make me smarter, or save up a bit more? 
Arram: …. He’s spending enough money to retire on, on a new hat.
Gonno OoC: Well, I can’t say that Skave has displayed much aptitude for sensible decisions since we’ve known him. 
Skave: Hey, it will make a nice heirloom for my descendants. 
 
It’s the Harvest Moon festival! The big orange moon on the horizon would be aptly described as pumpkin-like, if we had pumpkins on this continent. All the food that won’t last the winter gets set up on long tables, and the beer flows in jolly abundance. The cargo rafts are back from Magnimar, and bring with them Skave’s new hat and some documents that will help Arram translate that map he found. Apparently it’s grammatically terrible, in an obscure language, and deliberately obfuscatory. But now he knows where the map starts from. Gonno notes that the schoolteacher is more interested in the documents than the festival, taps him on the shoulder, and hands him a large beer. The festival kicks up a few notches after the kids go to bed.
 
GM: No doubt in coming weeks there will be a small rash of people going to the shrine-
Arram: To get their small rashes cured?
GM: Well, that too, but more quick handfastings, before other things start to show.
 
The village has accepted the Ratfolk (now numbering twelve) because they recognise them as very hardworking people, albeit furry. Skave is showing off his new hat when he hears harsh words coming from behind one of the buildings - certainly not in keeping with the mood of the party. It’s Gonno’s rival, saying some extremely nasty stuff about Galiante. And a bunch of other stuff, but at least Skave passes on the important information to Gonno. Gonno sighs, makes a small personal prayer for patience, and hands the Ysoki a plate of food.
 
Arram OoC: It’s nice to see (Gonno’s player) on the receiving end of information coming through the Scooter Filter for once, because Skave left out a LOT of information there.
 
Skave: Are you sure you don’t want to deal with this? I can brew you up some Black Lotus Extract.
Gonno: *looks shocked and gives a firm headshake of NO, and hands the ratman a mug of beer to go with the food* 
 
Galiante is certainly enjoying the party - her first ever Harvest Moon Festival - and dances up a storm. The Mayor concludes the festivities with a short speech, everybody toasts him loudly with the remaining beer, the priestess calls down the blessings of the gods on Selversgard, and eventually everybody staggers off to bed.
 
GM: The next morning dawns brightly - far too brightly for some of you. 
Skave: What’s on fire this time?
GM: Your head.
 
Arram is one of the few townsfolk who isn’t hungover, because he didn’t overindulge.
 
Arram: I mostly refrain from being smug.
 
We meet outside Marrisa’s shop, because she usually puts on a light, bland breakfast the morning after the festival. She knows her customers. Skave can certainly brew hangover cures, but they only last an hour.  Arram tells us about his treasure map discovery (or TreZZooR MaP), and most of us won’t be busy for the next few days. At least we don’t have to desecrate any corpses, since we already have the map and don’t need to cast the Create Treasure Map spell. Admittedly, Shev won’t be coming along - he’s off tracking something strange in the woods and missed the festival.
 
Skave: I feel the most independent I’ve ever felt in my life!
Arram: You’ll note Shev didn’t go on this trip until he had a dozen other rats to act as minders.
 
True, the path the map indicates is steep, and rather overgrown. As an added bonus, the blackberry bushes will all be ripe at this time of year, so detours will not be onerous. 
 
Arram: Good idea for a day trip - berrypicking and treasure.
 
Progress is swift - well before nightfall we reach a valley absolutely filled with ripe blackberry bushes. Even if there’s no treasure at the end of this we’ve found something the village will appreciate. Admittedly, we’ll have to contest it with whatever is snuffling around. 
 
Arram: So either pigs… or bears. 
Gonno OoC: At least owlbears aren’t equipped to snuffle.
 
We back off a bit and Gonno bangs some pots together. A ten-foot tall bear rears up.
 
Miya: When we tell the village about this we’ll have to include a warning : May Contain Bear.
GM: At least one bear. 
 
Still, there’s plenty of succulent berries to go around - the bear and the party move further apart, eat our fill, fill every container we can, and press on. Unfortunately, while there may have been a bridge previously, it’s collapsed. Gonno fells a tree across the chasm - his other professional skill is lumberjack after all, even if most of the year he's working with the end product. We do lose the trail towards evening, but at least we can look forward to a meal of berries, bread, and cheese - we feast like kings!
 
Fortunately, the Oread is alert enough to perceive the wolf-sized thing crawling towards the sleeping Miya. Gonno lobs a rock at what turns out to be a Giant Tick. Unfortunately even small ticks are difficult to discourage. Fortunately Gonno has the Evasion skill now and immediately dives for cover when he sees Skave pull out a firebomb. 
 
Gonno OoC: It’s like I get these premonitions whenever Skave is about to throw an area-effect weapon. 
 
The next day we reach a large bare patch on top of one of the larger hills - the treasure should be around here somewhere. And if it isn’t, the surrounding forest looks like it will be good for mushrooms. Digging swiftly reveals a brick ceiling, which explains why no trees are growing up here - although whoever built a brick dome and then buried it is a good question. It’s soft clay brick, which doesn’t tell us much, other than whoever built it didn’t know the climate is too wet for that kind of brick to last long. 
 
We set Skave to work removing the bricks. He’s the lightest of us, and even if the dome collapses he’s got 15ft of rope tied around his waist. Unfortunately, the chamber is only 10ft deep, so he hits the ground quite hard and then the rest of the bricks fall on him. We fish him out and examine the domed chamber and spiral staircase within. Shave prepares a healing infusion, but intends to save it for later in case he gets hurt again. 
 
GM: I remind you of the good advice that hit points belong in people, not in jars.
 
Whoever made these stairs was small, each step a third of the size that would suit a normal human. It might have been the same people that set the noose trap that grabs Gonno by the ankle and swings him out into open space. Or it might have been the distinctly spiderish humanoids that creep out of a mass of webbing and hiss at us. 
 
Ettercaps: LEEEEAVE! Our home, not yours!
Arram: We can do that. But first we need to retrieve our friend - do you have a ladder by any chance?
Ettercap: Meat! You leave, he stays.
Arram: Fair enough. *casts Burning Hands*
Miya: ‘We do not agree to your terms’
 
Perhaps predictably, Ettercaps have quite a venomous bite, and Gonno isn’t contributing much to the fight when he’s hanging by an ankle 20ft off the ground. True, the others deal with the creatures (fatally) but Arram is left barely alive and badly delirious.
 
Gonno OoC: Perhaps if we’d offered them some berries…
GM: Obligate carnivores.
Gonno OoC: Yeah, I was afraid of that.
 
The only other exit down here is behind the Ettercaps nest - there’s light back there too. We do find a magical spear stuck in the ettercaps latest meal, though. Being magical didn’t do the pig any good, but it didn’t stop the previous owner losing his spear either.
 
Miya: ‘What happened to the several-thousand-GP-worth of magical weapon?’ ‘It got stuck in a pig’.
 
We also find a symbol on the wall that matches one on the map - the wall seems to have a cavity behind it. It’s possible it’s a bricked up doorway. Miya drills a hole, and Gonno uses his Darkvision to discover a figure on the far side staring back at him. It’s a suit of armour. 
 
Gonno: *recoils in surprise* Someone back there…… Not moving…. Not moving AT ALL
Skave: So safe to knock the wall down?
Miya: May as well.
Arram: Bear in mind that we got this information from Gonno.
Miya: Sooo… a brusque report and not very informative?
Gonno OoC: A series of exciting telegrams. 
 
The room on the other side seems to have been set up for a halfling, and the armour and weapons are masterworked quality. There’s also a chest, but this one doesn’t try and eat us. It might well be trapped, but that doesn't stop Gonno turning it upside down and prying out the nails. It has quite a lot of silver and gem-quality citrine inside. It looks like one Lorcus, a notorious bandit from some 300 years ago, had this set up as a lair before some of the early Hellknights hunted him down. The Hellknights were quite smug about it, apparently, since the Arodenites had sent a paladin after him too and he was never seen again. The armour belonged to the paladin. Since there’s no church of Aroden anymore, it’s going to be quite difficult to get the armour back to anybody it should go to. Nearly impossible to find out if the halfling paladin had any family, either, unless there’s some surviving records at the ruined monastery. 
 
Gonno OoC: I suppose you can always just put in your museum of local history.
Miya: Sorry, not exhibit - a ‘reliquary’. 
 
Back to town with our treasure, and more importantly the location of Blackberry Valley.
 
One of the female Ysoki expresses an interest in co-habiting with Skave.
 
Skave: … …
Gonno’s player: ‘Big Brother, what do I do???’
Skave’s player: Pretty much. I really should determine Skave’s sexuality at some point.
Gonno’s player: Doesn’t matter - you still have your duty to the Warren. 
 
One of the town families has started complaining about Arram - they’re upset that his curriculum is mostly secular. So now he has an enemy too. 
 
Gonno player: No doubt whatever my rival was actually saying will come back to bite me later.
Arram’s player: Probably not - he was badmouthing you to one of the town guards, and the guard said ‘Dude, we like him better than you, so f*** off.’
 

I think Patty Jenkins problem is that she's a good director, but not a good writer. 
 
...then Patty goes and kills her career by going full Karen on her former bosses at DC. Sending Peter Safran the Wikipedia definition of Character Arc in an Email was not the wisest choice.

As most of this conversation demonstrates, you don't have problems until you start trying to add granularity.
 
I dont remember precisely- I _think_ it was made core rules in 4e, but the inclusion of PS, KS, BS, and Familiarity is when the HERO skills system just fell completely apart.
 
Because the guidance is so poor (and necessarily so, as the idea was to make any possible thing a measurable skill of some sort or other) that there isn't going to be a universal consensus- ever- which just leads to a hot mess regarding "the correct way." 
 
I participated here because advice was asked for; not because I believe I have the One True Way to do skills HERO style. 
 
I also feel that most of the participants were like-minded: participating because "this is how I do it" offers an example of how it could be done as opposed to "the correct way to do it."  I believe that because there has never been enough guidance to support any One True Way.
 
The closest you are likely to come is to pick and choose feom what you have read here, or come up with something entirely different _that works for you and your players_, and just respectfully disagree with everyone else, the way the rest of us do.
 

 
 
 
 

Transport familiarity, cars. One can go from home to work using a car, without crashing or getting a ticket. Will have to make rolls in stress situations like inclement weather. Professional Skill commercial driver. Drives 100 to 300 miles a day or even mor. Drives more than one type of vehicle in the course of the job. Has to make rolls to either squeeze a large trailer through a small space, avoiding road hazards or potential accident situations that instantly make themselves known in front of the vehicle at speed, and navigating around blocked routes to keep to the schedule. Combat driving, the  Character has taken the State Department Diplomatic Transport course, spent a couple of years competing on dirt tracks across the South, or drove Technicals in a conflict zone successfully.  Must make. a roll when actively targeted by bullets, another vehicle, or trying to break off pursuit, or pushing the limits of the vehicle on the ragged edge of physics and engineering.
 
Even with these options, the GM has to figure for time and attention.  Multiple rolls slow things down a lot. The vehicle rules in Hero are not my favorite, especially after 4th edition, as they got complex, even more so with the addition of turn.  Other skill rolls are about information, mostly, and a GM should be ready either the information, graduated by quality, depending on the player’s die roll. They should also be prepared to shut down begging for countless complimentary skill rolls. 
 
As they currently exist, the Hero List of skills already is categorized, as illustrated above. Anything further becomes rock collecting. 
 
Mechanically, I am gravitating towards how old Traveller, and Mongoose Traveller handle things where skills are a stat roll modifier to a stat roll depending on the situation.  Skill + Education skill to remember a fact one was taught. Skill + Intelligence to apply that skill, Skill + Social to impress people at parties with bits of knowledge or experience. Most GMs will allow only one roll, but will allow other players to roll complementary rolls if they are declared to be helping ( or hindering if they blow the roll), and time taken in the task, will also improve odds of success.  It’s a simple and mechanically fast and clean system.  Multiple stacking rolls just slow things down and lead to arguments. 
 
 

He won’t be Bond for the same reason he walked away from The Witcher. Ms. Broccoli who inherited the head chair from her late father Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, has said in interviews, the she sees the next Bond, is having to be “more in touch with his emotions “. This is just another way of saying “updated for a modern audience.”  Once again a female executive strikes a blow against Toxic Masculinity in entertainment, when Masculinity, toxic or not is precisely why I watch a Bond film. 
 
Cavill’s removal from the Superman Role was not James Gunn’s decision as much as it was Zaslov’s, due to Cavill’s salary requirements, and Zaslov wanting to slash production budgets and find new, unknown actors to keep costs down. Cavill’s not being Superman is a shame, and the focus on Superman’s early years, looks like yet another retelling of his origins.  I really don’t want to see any other origins retold yet again for legacy characters.  I want to see a story of a Superhero in their prime, performing their heroism, and challenging Villains we haven’t seen before in thee movies,  and maybe using a story from the pages of a comic?

Traitors! Traitors! 😁
 
I think the big problem is basically that’s hero as it is, is unattractive to the young group especially those that have no experience with off-line, tabletop, wargames. Even board games are a rare experience for the screen generations. I don’t mind playing Hero with only grognards , though. 

I still “think” in Hero, and have ideas for science fiction and modern campaigns in my head.  I intensely dislike minimalist systems, and I leave the table rather than playing them. 
 
The problem I have with Hero is not having any players close by.  Online, the player base skews younger, and anyone born after 1991 is going to have an aversion to crunchy mechanics, as for them, the computer handles the crunch. The dark times of when MTG sucked all the money out of the TTRPG industry broke the habit. 
 
So I do GM, but these days it’s Cyberpunk Red maybe Traveller (Mongoose), but there is only tepid interest in doing anything Hero. As a player, it’s 5e D&D, as that seems to be the only thing other people GM.  At least my Sunday DM homebrew the politics. 
 
But I am still thinking in Hero. 

Studios have gone absolutely nuts with budgets for movies lately, and they have to crank it back a bit.  Yes, once in a while you'll get a monster hit but you cannot rely on that and overspend on a film.  If you have to make HALF A BILLION DOLLARS to break even, you have real budget problems.  Trim it back, and aim lower.

He won’t be Bond for the same reason he walked away from The Witcher. Ms. Broccoli who inherited the head chair from her late father Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, has said in interviews, the she sees the next Bond, is having to be “more in touch with his emotions “. This is just another way of saying “updated for a modern audience.”  Once again a female executive strikes a blow against Toxic Masculinity in entertainment, when Masculinity, toxic or not is precisely why I watch a Bond film. 
 
Cavill’s removal from the Superman Role was not James Gunn’s decision as much as it was Zaslov’s, due to Cavill’s salary requirements, and Zaslov wanting to slash production budgets and find new, unknown actors to keep costs down. Cavill’s not being Superman is a shame, and the focus on Superman’s early years, looks like yet another retelling of his origins.  I really don’t want to see any other origins retold yet again for legacy characters.  I want to see a story of a Superhero in their prime, performing their heroism, and challenging Villains we haven’t seen before in thee movies,  and maybe using a story from the pages of a comic?

Well if that isn’t a reason to rob old tombs!

Ewww.  Nooooo.

Ewww.  Nooooo.

I think CLOWN was a fundamentally bad idea. One prankster villain, okay, it's a classic type. A whole team? With enough points lavished on them to make them quite likely to win confrontations, at least in the old 250-character point days? No, I don't think so.
 
My old Seattle Sentinels had a few prankster villains, but I used them sparingly. (They also picked on other villains, which allowed the players a little schadenfreude.)  The Fellowship of Fear was a whole team designed as comic relief, but part of the joke was that they took themselves utterly seriously and did not realize how ridiculous and inept they were. UNICoRN, a fill-in campaign of low-power heroes, was often farcical with villains such as Commander Coleoptera (and his Arthrozoid Army) in the adventure, "They Cloned Quisling's Brain!" but everybody knew that going in. And the Keystone Konjurors campaigns were meant to be serious; the slapstick was the fault of the players making characters with Activation Rolls and big Side Effects.
 
Anyway, when people are done with other discussions I'll move on to the next stage of the analysis. But don't feel pressured; I'm enjoying this, too.
 
Dean Shomshak

Sir, there are religions, philosophies, and entire sciences that are founded on words  less true than these.
 
Simply for saying it out loud, you should be able to look behind shadows.  For understanding it as true, you should be able to pull the strings on the venitian blinds of the cosmos, and cast away all semblance of darkness (until nine-thirty PM or so; I like it dark when I sleep).

Ewww.  Nooooo.

Why thank you, Sir (presumed.  Apologies if I have made a mistake.  If it makes it easier to accept, I peomise you I will continue to make them.  Mistakes, I mean.  Points are a matter of random chance  ans the law of large numbers applied to word count.       )
 
It is very kind of you to say.
 
 
 
 
No, Sir (see above); I was not so fortunate.  I was born and raised in Circle, Alaska, descendant of Irish horse thieves who fled to Maine to avoid prosecution, whose grandchildren then fled to Alaska to avoid taxation. 
 
I left the farm (we grew cabbage, potatoes, and rocks, in equal  portion) in '79 or so, and swore to myself that I would _never_ eat another biscuit so long as I live.  I was 19 or 20 then; I am 62 today.  Thus far, I have kept that promise.
 
I ended,up in Georgia a year or two later, and upon noticing that it qas possible to ride a motorcycle year 'round here (provided you had coats from Alaska), I have remained here ever since.
 
I can only tell you about the coast and the rural areas , however.  I do not go to Atlanta for the same reason I rarely go to Florida: I do not like to leave the south.
 

 
 
 

Duke rolled a 18 on his posting skill. 😁