Mr. R

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Guards!  Guards!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I am using an OLD Shadow World module as an inspiration.  Image a great basin area dominated by an inland sea (Called the Gefting Sea).  It runs 250 KM east west and 100-150 north south.  It looks like a rectangle with the long side on the bottom.  Now imagine ALL the rivers flow into this basin, except one at the upper left corner.  This is the Kulana River and it flows north to eventually reach the norther jungles.  Aerelios is the city located at that corner area.  So all trade eventually funnels though it.  The city itself is actually on both sides of the river (It is a BIG RIVER as it has to handle ALL the water coming into the Basin), so there is an East Town and a West Town.
Who are the Gatekeepers?
 
 
 
 

History of the City
 
 
 
On this continent the Jungles are north because this is the southern hemisphere.  As such the colder, more ice bound areas are to the south.
 
As for magics, I am steal... err, borrowing it from here:
Traditional Casters
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/MagicSystems/Metier.aspx
 
Totemic Magic
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/MagicSystems/TotemicShamanism.aspx 
 
Runecrafting
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/MagicSystems/runecrafting.aspx
 
Finally Clerical Magic is potion based (Called Clerical Alchemy)
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Content/PackageDeals/BasicPackages/AlchemistMaster.aspx
 
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/shrikeMagicItemsArtificing_Ephemeral.aspx
 
 
Sorry for the info dump!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

So a fix!
 
 
 
Coldar is the chief guard at the gate.  He is very serious about his job and will look at EVERY bag, box, and wagon.  He is hoping to rise up the ranks soon as his wife is pregnant again and he could use the extra money.  Some other guards worry that this could be used to put pressure on him to look the other way, and then fall out if he doesn’t comply!

If Mr. R doesn't mind me adding a bit of clarification based on his past design work on this setting...
 
See the Norse myth about Thor and Loki visiting the giant Utgard-Loki. Or the arch-rakshasa Ravana from Hindu myth. Okay, these are titans who challenge gods; but scale them appropriately, and they can still be models for giants who are as terrifying for their magic and their cunning as for their physical strength.
 
Dean Shomshak
What did Solan Oranmar do before becoming mayor? Presumably he was already a person of some local prominence. Probably a fair bit of money, too, if he can sponsor private expeditions to salvage art treasures from a ruined city.
 
Dean Shomshak
 
 

Guards!  Guards!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Guards!  Guards!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Although the players will be modern, so it might be easier for them to keep track of who does what if you use the modern titles with some waffle about them being translated from whatever language characters are speaking. Depends on their tolerance for learning vocab, I suppose, as there'll be a lot of players that will prefer more authentic titles.
 
It's a good base to work with Mr. R, and I like that you have potential plots seeded into each character. If you wanted somewhere to go next, I'd suggest rivals or obstacles to your mayor and deputy. If you work like this, building off characters you've made previously, I find you can keep better track of how everyone relates to each other, and it gives you more options for games since you have potential NPCs ready to hand when you need an idea for what to introduce next.

Created two new (and related) talents for Fantasy Here which would work for both 5th Edition and 6th Edition, and I am checking to see what others think of it. The following are the talents:
 
Armor Mastery I
Armor (4 PD/4 ED) (12 Active Points); OIF (-1/2), Must be Aware of Attack (-1/2), Restrainable (-1/2), Only Half as Much as Worn Armor (-1/2), Not verse Critical Hit (-1/4), Not verse AE (-1/4))
3 Points
 
Armor Mastery II
Hardened (+1/4) for up to 36 Active Points of Worn Armor (9 Active Points); OIF (-1/2), Must be Aware of Attack (-1/2), Restrainable (-1/2), Not verse Critical Hit (-1/4), Not verse AE (-1/4)
3 Points
 
This talent is for characters who are masters at wearing armor, shifting in such ways where attacks hit the best defended portions of the armor. Each can only be purchased once of course, and Armor Mastery I must be purchased before Armor Mastery II. Attached is a Prefab file for it. Please let me know what you think.
 
Armor Mastery.hdp

Not finalised yet but I wanted to begin thinking about what character sheets might look like (it helps me focus on what needs to go on them)...had to take a snapshot to avoid going over space...
 
 

I have an idea for a villain team.  At the top is Singularity, who has bequeathed power to four people who act as his minions and agents in the world.
 
We have:
(name): Electromagnetics.  Electric blasts, Flight, FF.
Mass Driver: Gravity.  Similar to above, but also some TK
Brute: Strongman.  Brick, flight.
(name): Radioactive decay.  So a lot of drains.  And flight.
 
Singularity: good Str, PD ED, flight and a large VPP which allows him to use any power his minions have.
 
I need some names and a few ideas for some powers. Also ideas for plots and such!
(Yes this is cribbed from a VERY old White Wolf Magazine article)

Yes! This is very interesting. You're right in that I would use the HAP as crutches or training wheels at the beginning to make sure everyone feels they have some control and they are having a good time. But once they get into the spirit of the game, I think the training wheels would be removed. Definitely how I would hope it would go.
 
I like the GURPS idea. I'll have to take a closer look at that. Kind of like Cramming but more immediate yet more temporary.

View my comment above about a PC falling behind.  Given your usual roll for damage is 8-10 dice, this means, in the case mentioned, burning at least 6-8 exp.  At 1-2 exp per session, that is four sessions minimum, six on average.  What can I get for 6-8 exp?
 
Two new skills
+1 all combat
A new talent or two
+3" fly at 1/2 end
Yeah..... no thanks.
 
Please get away from this idea of burning exp. for dice rolls.  It looks cool, but in reality it is a death spiral as the PC that uses it is now in a hole compared to the rest of the group.
 
I am going to go heretical here and refer to ADnD.  For the quick benefit now, you get NO Exp. for the next 4-6 sessions.  It matters not the level, you get NO EXP.  Now all you group mates are at least one and maybe two levels higher, with the extra to hit, HP, skills, skill checks, spells, special abilities.  NOPE!

View my comment above about a PC falling behind.  Given your usual roll for damage is 8-10 dice, this means, in the case mentioned, burning at least 6-8 exp.  At 1-2 exp per session, that is four sessions minimum, six on average.  What can I get for 6-8 exp?
 
Two new skills
+1 all combat
A new talent or two
+3" fly at 1/2 end
Yeah..... no thanks.
 
Please get away from this idea of burning exp. for dice rolls.  It looks cool, but in reality it is a death spiral as the PC that uses it is now in a hole compared to the rest of the group.
 
I am going to go heretical here and refer to ADnD.  For the quick benefit now, you get NO Exp. for the next 4-6 sessions.  It matters not the level, you get NO EXP.  Now all you group mates are at least one and maybe two levels higher, with the extra to hit, HP, skills, skill checks, spells, special abilities.  NOPE!

View my comment above about a PC falling behind.  Given your usual roll for damage is 8-10 dice, this means, in the case mentioned, burning at least 6-8 exp.  At 1-2 exp per session, that is four sessions minimum, six on average.  What can I get for 6-8 exp?
 
Two new skills
+1 all combat
A new talent or two
+3" fly at 1/2 end
Yeah..... no thanks.
 
Please get away from this idea of burning exp. for dice rolls.  It looks cool, but in reality it is a death spiral as the PC that uses it is now in a hole compared to the rest of the group.
 
I am going to go heretical here and refer to ADnD.  For the quick benefit now, you get NO Exp. for the next 4-6 sessions.  It matters not the level, you get NO EXP.  Now all you group mates are at least one and maybe two levels higher, with the extra to hit, HP, skills, skill checks, spells, special abilities.  NOPE!

Most games do not really worry too much about forms of government.  When they do they tend just use monarchies because that is what everyone is familiar with.   This is kind of a shame because in a world where magic is real it could have a real impact on how society is organized.  Even the forms of government we are familiar with would be changed.
 
In the real world a theocracy is government by the church.   In a world where deities are able to be contacted and contact their worshipers that would not be the case.  In a world where the deity can be contacted a theocracy would be much different.   In such a world divine right could actually be real.  When the deity the country worships says that this is who they choose to rule the land people are not going to argue.
 
Another thing that could happen is the some people may be able to draw power from the land itself.   The idea of the rightful king being chosen by the land instead of the people could actually work.  The land may even grant the king and to a lesser extent the nobility powers that commoners do not have.  That would fit with the Celtic myths of the king being linked to the land.
 
There could be a lot of other forms of government in a fantasy world that do not exist in our world.   

Given how few xp you get in Hero and that they directly apply to permanent character upgrades there's no situation I can imagine in which it would be worth it to me to sacrifice an experience point for one roll in a game session.

I remember reading about a game that used this and it was found that the PC who decided to burn his XP like that was slowly falling behind the rest of the team.  As he had no XP to improve, he had to burn more XP to just keep up, which hindered his advancement further.  
 
I would recommend the suggestions above IF you want to keep the the idea of XP as luck points.
 
As an alternative though you could just use Luck and modify it.  Roll your luck and that is how many points you can use to modify your rolls.  

I just had an idea for warriors!  D&D had the Book of Nine Swords.  Different styles that gave you almost magical abilities with your weapons.  There were Stances, Strikes, Boosts, Blocks, Counters.  Blocks are already in FH.  A Counter is what it seems, a counterstrike when someone attacks.  It is the strikes, boosts, and stances that almost go over the top.   Some I remember:
 
Fire Wurm- a full move that leaves a trail of fire behind you! (FH 2d6 RKA only along run path + Extra Running)
Fire Sword - for the rest of the melee, your blade is on fire and deals extra damage (FH +1d6 RKA, no range linked to HKA)
Healing Stance- you regen 1d6 hp per round of combat (FH Heal 1d6 At post 12 recovery)
Healing Strike - Hit an opponent, heal yourself (FH 2d6 Heal linked to HKA)
Diamond Strike - do a touch attack, hit for full damage (FH hit opponent and disregard any armour-PD-ED.  So it turns your attack to a NND does Body)
 
 
 
 

As I've written elsewhere on these forums, Hero's Turakian Age is the fantasy setting I go back to the most often, and the one I've tinkered with the most. TA was deliberately written to resemble D&D in many ways, so that gamers accustomed to its conventions would find that familiarity (although there are a number of distinctive elements). That includes the "demihumans." In the books about TA there are hints and even a few explicit statements regarding cultural differences between different groups of the same demihuman race in various parts of the game world. The approach I took is to increase the "footprint" of demihumans in the setting, making them more widespread and impactful in some cases; elaborating on the spectrum of their interactions with Men and other races; and making their cultural variations more explicit. Game-stat wise there isn't a lot that's different from the default "Heroized" version of D&D, but their attitudes and motivations are more diverse and distinctive.
 
I won't inflict all my thoughts on the subject here. People who are interested can look up the forum thread linked in my signature, on which I blather on about it at some length.   But I will touch on Halflings, since Ninja-Bear mentioned them and they probably were more subject to my process above than the other demihumans, so make a good illustration. In some places they're pretty much the standard D&D Halflings, but certainly not in all.
 
Per the official history of TA, Halflings were once more widespread, but after Men arrived in their lands the Halflings were gradually, often violently, forced out of the best regions and toward the less-desirable fringes of civilization. Most of them now live in lands ruled by Men. Some Halflings have accepted this reality and get along reasonably well with the "Big Folk," but others still harbor distrust, resentment and even hatred toward them.
 
In TA there's one nominally independent Halfling land (which I moved to a location that suited my purpose better). I built up more of how they live and govern themselves when they aren't under another people's thumb. I added a history of Halflings having come there to escape that thumb, so the attitude of distrust and resentment toward Big Folk is much more prevalent among them. But they're also tributary to a neighboring, more powerful state. In some years it's difficult for the Halflings to gather all the annual tribute, which I figure would be a good motivation for one of them to go adventuring, to try to acquire treasure to help their people.
 
One of those fringe areas I mentioned is noted in the TA source book as being quite rugged, and having been settled by tough, independent-minded, outdoorsy people. That includes a large number of Halflings, who refer to themselves as "Mountain Halflings." I made it more explicit that they're more outgoing and assertive than their kind are elsewhere. The sort of people who are more likely to take to an adventurer's lifestyle, and less likely to take guff from larger folk.
 
The Free City of Aarn is the largest city in the world of TA, and is noted as having a particularly sizable Halfling minority. This appears to be the biggest concentration of "urban" Halflings in the world, and makes a fine origin for characters with that background. I decided that Aarnese Halfings have integrated well into Men's society, and found niches in which they thrive. For example, they dominate the Bakers and Brewers guilds.   They're also major players in Aarn's Thieves Guilds, where their small size and natural stealthiness is frequently a great advantage. I decided that the mysterious "Lord Ebon" who leads the city's largest thieves guild is actually a Halfling who conceals his true nature from all but his most trusted underlings, so as to project a more intimidating image.
 
Another historical detail I invented is, when Men started driving the Halflings out of their ancestral lands, one group of them fled into the far North away from the Big Folk (an area the writer of TA left deliberately open for GMs to develop), where they evolved a lifestyle and culture reminiscent of the Inuit of Canada and the Sami of Finland. However, with the rise of Kal-Turak in the North (the setting's "Dark Lord"), those Halflings have been pushed ever farther toward the margins of habitable lands. Some of them might become desperate enough to head south looking for a better life, for help defending their people from Kal-Turak, or for a new home for their people.
 
By the way, I gave the Halflings of various areas distinct names that they call themselves identifying their homelands, besides just "Halfling" (which is clearly what Men chose to call them). I did the same for the other demihumans. After all, Americans don't call themselves "Humans from America." But most of those names would require explanation of the changes I made to the setting to understand their context, which isn't necessary to this discussion.

And I suppose it might be nice to include the large-scale city map? (Though shrunk to low-res JPG to conserve attachment space.)
 

Dean Shomshak

Somebody had asked me about why I built the Challenge the Unnatural (turning the undead) Talent in Gaslight: Horror and Heroism in the Victorian Era as potent as I did, and the reason was it had to be smashingly successful in that setting, 100 pt. Competent Normals as the baseline. If the vicar holds out his holy symbol and fail to hold the vampire back, everyone in the room is likely dead. There was not much room for wiggle there. In a Fantasy game you usually have a bit more pop to the PCs, but decently powerful undead will likely shred characters in that genre quickly as well.  I dig that destroy rule for just cleaning things up when the gods favor. 

First off.  If any of my players are reading this thread.  STOP.
 
I am afraid that I have done very little conversion work.  Our D&D 5E group became disillusioned with all the shenanigans going on with the publishers and community.  We then reverted back to AD&D 2E with an all new campaign, but that only lasted a few sessions before some of the younger members in our group made it know that they really didn't like the system that much.  So now we transitioned over to Hero System.  At first people attempted to replicate their 1st level D&D characters in Hero which is possible but you end up with some really wonky builds.  After that first attempt I encouraged the players to just keep their background and history and rebuild the characters using the published Hero System sources.  This has worked much better.  The elves used the elf template from Fantasy Hero, the Gnome and Halfling did the same (6-players, 2 elves, 1 gnome, 1 halfling, 2 humans).
 
Since it is new to most of the group, I started them off in the Village of Hommlet.  In AD&D they made one foray to the moathouse (where one got eaten by a big lizard) and then retreated to regroup.  We transitioned the campaign to Hero system.  Four of the characters kept the same character idea that they had.  One player changed.  And the deceased character was a new build as well.  I have pretty much just gotten the equivlent critters from the Hero System Bestiary where possible and just made a quick build for the few I did not have (Bugbear and Gnoll).  I have even used the Hero System Ghouls even though they lack the paralytic power of the AD&D versions.
 
So basically I convert as little as I can get away with.  And since most of the group was not familiar with Greyhawk, they do not necessiarly come across as typical Greyhawk characters.  One guy is running a character based on Bell from a certain popular anime.  And then the Complications that players have put on their characters have given me all sorts of material I can use as, well Complications.  I am trying to bring those complications to life using Greyhawk background where possible.  And at least one character is familar with the background and so is essentially running a former Scarlet Brotherhood monk who is being hunted by them as a traitor.  

Another organization.
 
Module "From Beneath the Waves"  That group of villains with an underwater theme.  There was a whole villain team and a group of agents.   And considering that earth is Mostly covered by water!