Scott Ruggels

Sir Magnus would be a wreck, especially if they toured his past. and might jump into the grave at the end and save everyone the trouble. Upon waking in the morning, he would be even more surly and bitter.
 
THunderbird (THe last Active Champions character I played), He would be puzzled at the visits, as he keeps Christmas Merry, especially for his wife, but he would go along with it, suspiciously.
 
Captain Leonidas "Leo" VanDyne (recent Traveller Character).  He would vaguely remember the story, but the visitations to him would seem like a psychic test, and he would not resist, but try to see who Really is behind this Psychic "show".
 

Do you want werefish?  Because that's how you get werefish....
 
 

Why was I expecting that to be resolved with fruit pies?
 

There are trade-offs to everything since there are only so many hours in a day.
 
If you're a highly-skilled magician, you need to know ancient languages and have a ton of knowledge skills. If you want to be the guy who actually makes magic items, you're going to need crafting skills and maybe metallurgy skills. And that's in addition to years spent in magical apprenticeship and actually practicing your magic.
 
You aren't going to be practicing your Running. Or building up your Endurance. Or even learning how to properly defend yourself on a physical level. If you ever go adventuring, half of the magical goodies you find aren't going to do you much good because you can't wield a magic sword or shuffle around in magic armor.
 
It's entirely possible that by the time a person learns enough magic to be any good at it that he isn't a young man anymore.
 
And that he's had to pour every cent he's ever made into buying materials, spellbooks, and tomes and for all purposes is practically penniless. The reason all those wizards hang out in abandoned towers and forgotten dungeons is that they can't afford to pay rent anywhere. Magic is a money pit. And no one would be willing to rent to him even if by some miracle he could afford it. 
 
And once a wizard finds a place to live, how is he supposed to leave it? His tomes are old and brittle. His spellbooks are fragile. His materials are bulky. Even if he pares down everything to an absolute minimum for travel, someone is going to come along and steal everything he leaves behind...there's always some other wizard who is willing to pay for old tomes, spellbooks, and spell-casting materials.
 
Barbarians aren't flashy but what they have is simple, effective, and versatile. Barbarians have their enemies to be sure. But if you rent a room to one, you aren't going to have to worry about burglars at all hours of the night trying to steal his valuables. And he isn't going to accidentally blow it up or let loose the demons of Hell. Try saying the same thing about a wizard!

We stopped watching The Patient (Hulu) and The Rings of Power (Amazon Prime) half way through each series. They just weren't holding our interest, and we weren't looking forward to the next episode of either. For us, they were more like the stuff we used to watch back in the bad old days before we had so many great choices. No reason to keep watching something that's not keeping our interest, these days.

I was thinking based on the title it was based on such mistakes in super names as The Golden Shower, and other names which 'seemed ok at the time, but...'.

I tended to have 2-3 holidays that I paid attention to. But I could not be bothered to track the calendar.  The festival were the ruler’s birthday, the harvest festival, and a midwinter.   But the party tended to be out in the woods when the festivals hit. 

None of which matter when the characters in the film treat all of the ultra serious events in the movie like a joke. It's even worse in Love and Thunder. I'm all for humor in these films, but it should be balanced based on the plot. And if the makers of Ragnarök really liked comics...we would have actually gotten The Grandmaster instead of Jeff Goldblum in makeup. UGH!

...and the artists!
 
(

Amd apparently I,lost it.
 
I just wasted 2 hours ryping a reply that apparently,just vanished because I had to set the phone down for a minute.
 
 
This sucks.

Oh , you are one of those that think math is fun.  I see. 
 
In all seriousness, I ran a Fantasy Hero campaign for nearly 20 years, and equipment handling became detailed. I  ROTC on the 1980s and WW2 re-enacting in the 90s an no matter the nation, combat and sustainment gear was between 70 and 120 lbs. so for most normal people, that was their hiking carry limit.  Generally, what wasn’t weapons or armor was sustainment equipment (camping gear).  I just carried that through to FH.  So this kept encumbrance reasonable. Anyone wearing heavy plate had animals to carry the sustainment gear, and sometimes servants to set it up. But often a long cloak, was all one had for sleeping rough.  

If you paid points for something you could reasonably expect to retain it or get it back with a little effort.  If you bought it, you had to account for it, but it could be taken or lost permanently due to circumstance. A lot depended on the skills and attitude of the party. 
 

But by that same logic, the longbow has most of those issues.
 
It has no Activation but has to roll to hit. There are no Side Effects or Skill Roll but you need the weapon proficiency. And if someone takes your bow or grabs your hand then you're not going to be shooting, are you? The rest is just universal utility. No one knows you're a spellcaster until after you start blasting, that bow is visible from a good distance.

And if you (which it seems you are) set up a campaign like that then there is no problem.  However if you run a game out of Fantasy Hero 4th ed- Western Shores  then the problem is there. The campaign has in its guideline thar all spell colleges take a -1 total in common limitation. Going by memory a solid 90 percent of the colleges have OAF, gestures and incantations, Side Effects and most importantly Requires Skill Roll. So the Fire Bolt is (I think) 2D6 RKA. So the spellcaster to cast a Fire Bolt has roll to Activate the spell (and you really want to not miss the roll) then roll to hit. If someone takes his Focus, he’s done. Someone gags and or grabs a hand, he’s done.  So now the spellcaster is spending at least twice the amount of points to be just as comparable as the archer. Naturally the spellcaster can buy WF: Bows but when points start to get thin and those points can go to a better roll where would you spend them? I’m just pointing out that campaign design does affect character choices.
 
Btw, my ninja are clapping their hands and catching sword blades!

The spell caster is not using equipment, whereas the archer is.  I may well be mistaken (and apologize appropriately if I am), but I had thought we were discussing charging for equipment.  In you example, the archer- at my table- would have paid _zero_ points to chuck arrows into the citizenry.
 
However, he still has the peoblems associated with using equipment: he can target one person, suffers for lack of skill, equioment needs maintenance, can break, can be taken away, has finite ammunition, requires both hands-- if it is a longbow, he likely takes a penalty for setting, penalties for attempting to fire and stay behind cover and all those other things,
 
The wizard who bought the ability to his magic missile suffers no real chance of not being able to use it whenever he wishes, is never going to lose it- best of all, after taking a recovery or two, the archers arrows are not automatically replenished.  The wizard takes a breather and lobs a few more bolts of damage, etc.
 
Looked at from the other end, you are charging the archer two points to get screwed in relative ability.
 
 
 
I suppose this all boils down to the level of realism you are looking for in your Martial Arts game.  From my perspective, this makes complete sense: weapons were invented for a pretty solid reason: they give considerable advantage over the guy who isn't using one.
 
Weapons still exist to this day for that very same reason.  Weapons have continued to evolve because we want advantage over the guy who has last year's weapon.  Revisit the thoughts in the Star HERO thread about swords in sci-fi.  Even today, long before star-spanning human empires and FTL travel, we have stopped carrying swords.  Why?  Because as a whole, we have learned that brandishing a sword is a good way to get shot- once upon a time, by an arrow, and then by a lead pellet, then a shaped lead projectile from much further away, then depletes uranium, then large hypersonic steel or tungsten rods-
 
The barefoot monk- while fun to play in a game heavy with barefoot monks, has realistically little chance against a flamethrower, or a knife taped to the end of a stick.
 
 
Now as far as the more popular and inlmpressively unrealistic martial arts games, I really can't discuss those knowledgeably: they have zero appeal to me, as the source material has zero appeal to me.  I am more along the lines of the old Ginsu commercials:
 
"In Japan, the foot can split wood.  But it can't cut a watermelon!"
 
I tend to think it is also a poor choice for stopping a sword, too, and functionally hillarious for stopping a bullet.
 
In all honesty- while your points make me wish I could still acces this site through my computer so I couos use a proper screen and keyboard to discuss them, I have to call attentionntion to fact that you are making my point that "balance via character points" is absolutely nothing less than a deeply-held mythology with a devout religious core that refuses to accept that.
 
 

Rumor,is they arent allowing OGL or fan-created stuff for DnD1, meaning that if you want to contribute or create something for publishing, you will still have to write it for 5e.
 
As for card games- and do keep in mind that this is entirely a personal opinion: given the toll they have taken on the RPG hobby and the changes they have caused in gaming stores and tables lost to card games, I dont care if all card games dry up and blow away.
 
 

Because many Hero Acolytes fetishize the point system, mostly as GMs, especially if they have come from Champions. Especially Recent editions.

Oh , you are one of those that think math is fun.  I see. 
 
In all seriousness, I ran a Fantasy Hero campaign for nearly 20 years, and equipment handling became detailed. I  ROTC on the 1980s and WW2 re-enacting in the 90s an no matter the nation, combat and sustainment gear was between 70 and 120 lbs. so for most normal people, that was their hiking carry limit.  Generally, what wasn’t weapons or armor was sustainment equipment (camping gear).  I just carried that through to FH.  So this kept encumbrance reasonable. Anyone wearing heavy plate had animals to carry the sustainment gear, and sometimes servants to set it up. But often a long cloak, was all one had for sleeping rough.  

If you paid points for something you could reasonably expect to retain it or get it back with a little effort.  If you bought it, you had to account for it, but it could be taken or lost permanently due to circumstance. A lot depended on the skills and attitude of the party. 
 

Because many Hero Acolytes fetishize the point system, mostly as GMs, especially if they have come from Champions. Especially Recent editions.

"Helped trim."
 
What an odd way to say "saved lives by casually tossing into the trash while no one was looking."
 
 

We had Beef Wellington instead of turkey this year. I bought a nice Pinot Noir to pair it with. Fighting off food coma right now. Gotta make room for the Baked Alaska dessert.

And now, more real Space News! with Scott Manley!
 
 
 

And That sums up exactly why I dont do points for equipment.  For all fantasy games outside of HERO, it isn't possible to "just know" that you get to keep your favorite doodad.  In practice, I have found this knowledge to be disruptive to suspension of disbelief:
 
If I jam my +2 OCV magic sword into the bridgework where the logs are broken, the caravan can cross over safely, because it can't be broken, or I wouldn't have it,  and that isnt fair, because I paid points for it.
 
There are more extreme examples from my own experience, but two thumbs, touch screen, etc.
 
If I am playing DnD and have an heirloom item and I break it or lose it, well...  That's that.  It is a bit offensive to me that HERO fans demand otherwise, but only because I spent points on it-  points that I am not going to require them to spend on it anyway.  Points that they did not get to spend on Characteristics, Skills, Talents, etc, because they had the misfortune of playing under someone who really, truly believes that points are the be-all end-all of game balance.
 
Now let's remember who I am:  I am the guy who thinks that points are nothing but a limit switch that keeps new characters from starting out with everything (like the threat of death in Traveller character generation does: eventually, you are too satisfied with what you have to keep rolling) and a means by which character progression can be somewhat controlled.
 
I am also the guy who still allows "extra life" from that old Dragon article, because I cannot accept that "points gone forever" is somehow unfair: in order to believe that, I would have to accept that all points spent have equal value and equal utility, which would require rejecting forty-odd years of evidence to the contrary.
 
All that is part of my decision-making process, which ultimately leads me to "heroic level characters don't pay points for equipment, period."