Shoug

23 hours ago, tkdguy said:

 

That works too. The Faerie in the Castle Falkenstein game are a varied lot. Elves in that game are a name for sprites. The closest thing you get to the Tolkien/D&D elves are the Daoine Sidhe, who will take offense at being called elves. Faerie Lords/Ladies would be an acceptable term, though.

This is also a funny coincidence with my setting. "Elf" is just the term for "Man Fae". "Fae" in the setting means "Is a Lens and is a living thing." They are usually animals but with distinctive "Fae" features. An Elf is just a man with distinctive Fae features (long wispy eyebrows, pointed ears, eyes with glowing pupils and no distinct iris/whites, fine/straight hair, etc.) 

In my setting, Dragons are basically the ultimate incarnation of a Demon. A Demon is a kind of spirit that infects mortals and perverts their nature. They're extremely common, and not conscious, intelligent actors either (they don't think or decide things, they are just... spirits, abstractly). If a person happens to become infected with a demon, they'll feel driven to indulge it. The thing is, by indulging a demon, it becomes possible to exercise their power. But the more of a demon's power a person exercises, the more they embody the demon. At the lowest level of embodiment, a person may take on normal physical features that somewhat make sense given the demon they're indulging. Indulging Gluttony would make you fat, Fear would make you gaunt maybe, Wrath would give you a viscous looking furrowed brow, Greed would give you... I don't know, a glint in your eye. Eventually a person crosses over and becomes a Ghoul or Fiend, and if they're powerful enough and can handle the demands the transformation makes on their body, and if they survive, they can become a Dragon.

So Dragons couldn't give a rat's ass if you wear another Dragon's skin. They're way to evil for that.

I wish the videos were longer. And I almost wish that they'd look at more than video evidence, because comic books can be quite detailed in their descriptions and explanations of a character's power. But I appreciate the distinction, it keeps the power levels down at a manageable level. 

5 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

No; no story.  You can google that.  The guy who founded DragonCon and to this day still profits from it rapes children.  Pretty straight-forward.

 

Unfortunately, it's not easy to across the board boycott evil creeps. I mean, a lot of times their wage is payed with taxpayer dollars. Good on you for putting your foot down somewhere, though.

49 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

I, for one, like elves, and I make no bones about it. However, I don't need ten different types of them in my world. Some settings like Middle-earth have an explanation for them, but I mainly see them as cultural differences in most rpg systems.

 

This is funny. I get where you're coming from and, depending on the world we'd be talking about, I would tend to agree with you. But as it so happens, I have inadvertently build my own world in such a way that Elves are so varied that they cannot even be considered a race. "Elf" is a loose category of beings, virtually none of which are similar enough that you'd call them the same "denomination" of Elf. In my setting, an "Elf" is a Lensecrafter who has made himself into a Lens (a Lens is a kind metaphysical object related to the magic system (to massively simplify, they let you "see" magic, and therefore use it)). So Elves aren't born, they're made. And they're more like superheroes than mages, capable of powerful magic, but limited by what type of Lens they are (Lens of Fear, Light, Sky, Form, whatever). I could go on, but one must learn to reign it in when it comes to rambling about one's own fantasy setting on internet forums.

48 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Okay, Vlad (if I may),

 

I've been pondering this since my last post, and I still think -- were it _me_-- I am not advocating a "best build possible" sort of thing-- that I would do it as I suggested earlier, minus the IIF  (unless that "grown in place" thing is something you want to tag as an Inobvious, Inaccessible Focus, but I suppose that depends on how quickly they can drill into your head and get it when you are rendered helpless.    ).

 

I just don't see anything that you're gaining with all the extra points your spending.  From what you've put up so far, it seems like a sci-fi-oriented SFX.

 

As far as not getting the feel of having to ask and get answered, you could apply Extra Time.  As far as someone else telling you versus "you just knowing," I think we're going back to "Combat Luck:"  The _mechanics_ say "Armor."  The _description_ says "just missed me!"  (still, as I stinkin' _hate_ Combat Luck _because_ of the build versus the description, I totally get why you don't want my suggestion.   ).

 

So let's look at it another way:

 

The computer tells Tony Stark "sensors indicate a structural defect near the load-bearing stanchions beyond the cargo door."

But _Ironman_ has Find Weakness.

 

Damn I wish I could explain this better.....

 

At any rate: there aren't really any rules covering how many things you can think in a given amount of time in HERO, nor how many Skills you can know (beyond paying for them, at any rate).  That makes it difficult to see what you are actually gaining by spending points to build and communicate with a computer that, by inference from your "It can't be taken away" comment will always be available and always able to serve....  much like you just bought the Skill or knowledge in a pool with Extra Time (or Time Delay, or whatever) and perhaps "limited by radio access" for those situations where some sort of shielding or interference is in play.

 

Still, I understand the "I just want something different;" really I do.  

 

I tried, but I can't come up with anything that I find more practical.  

Sorry, Dude.  

 

 

I think many talents would be perfect for simulating integration with a computer system. Danger sense, combat sense, absolute range sense, absolute time sense, etc. These are *fantastic* candidates for being skinned as having 24/7 supercomputer integration. Personally, if it were my character, I would like the computer integration to be so seamless that I don't need the Follower mechanics. That would be cooler, to me.

I think I need to see some more examples of building this thing as a follower being advantageous or significantly different then just making the computer an SFX. Like, what are some contexts where your character is doing one thing and the computer is doing another and you need them to be separate? He's been knocked out but the computer is still online, so he's just partially resistant to unconsciousness? What does he want to happen while he's asleep or knocked out? Hack something, acquire some kind information, communicate with teammates?

2 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

My current thinking on it is that those aligned with Law or Chaos are on "team Law" and "team Chaos" so to speak; anyone who is Neutral isn't on either team, regardless of their moral or ethical outlook.  

I think of neutrality between these things as being the most optimal, "divine" state. In fact, I have toyed with a "Big Three" racial system where each race is biased towards a different aspect of chaos and order. Dwarves are cursed with an affinity for order, and so stay holed up in their halls, hold on to even their most ancient of traditions, and hoard treasure. Elves are cursed with an affinity for chaos, and so live by hunting and gathering in the woods, can never settle physically nor spiritually (these elves are obviously not like tolkein elves - instead they are modeled more like Wood Elves from TES). Humans are the most successful and prevalent race, because of their ability to find balance in chaos and order. They can settle down, but also reach out and explore. They hold onto old ideas, but can let them go when they get in the way of progress.

I absolutely love the concepts Chaos and Order, and I absolutely hate DnD alignments. I have never used them, and will never use them. But I don't eliminate ethics from my games. I don't need DnD alignments to have Orcs that are only evil. Evil orcs aren't about cosmic alignment, it's about nature, and empirical observations. All orcs are evil not because they're forced by the cosmos to be that way, but because they *just are.* In the same way that all mountains are tall, and all oceans are deep, all orcs are evil. It's just part of the nature of reality (in a setting with evil orcs that are done well). I'm not even saying orcs *should* be evil. All I'm saying is that there's nothing to be ashamed of in using evil orcs for slaughter in your games. If your orcs are evil and only for slaughter, that's cool to me. If you orcs are the misunderstood savage trope, that's fine by me as well. It's a worldbuilding choice that I appreciate, I don't think it's vapid or shallow or for low-brow pulp fantasy reading plebeians who don't have sophisticated tastes or whatever. I don't think it's for *racists* either. I think it's just for people who have enough imagination to appreciate something as simple as imminent material danger. I also don't think it's any more of an "illogical" worldbuilding choice than any of the other thousands of ultimately arbitrary changes that we make to our worlds so that they differ from Reality Prime. 

In fact, the less I know about why orcs are evil, the eviler and scarier they become for me. Because that would actually make them eviler and scarier to the denizens of the world. I hope I never have to play with somebody who's gonna roll their eyes when they hear a village has been completely razed and nobody knows why.

12 hours ago, Diamond Spear said:

I’ve heard good things about Prey.
 

Natural Selection 2 sounds like an awesome game that I will never play. 😀. I don’t have time like I used to (so steep learning curves suck) and I no longer have the patience to deal with experienced players who think newbies should just go away so they can get back to playing “real” players. 

I totally understand, which is why I posted the disclaimer. I used to balk at these type of games too, games with absurd learning curves, games with toxic communities. Then I found my self sucked into 4 of them over the course of a few years. Quantum Redshift and Windlands, which are both racing games (Windlands is also an exploration game, however) where the beginner can't avoid smashing his face into walls none stop the whole time they're playing, and the master can achieve unbelievable heights of speed and fluidity. In Natural Selection 2, if you don't know the "hidden" movement controls of Skulk, the baseline alien unit, you won't be able to kill even a single marine. On top of that, to be effective strategically and tactically, you have to know the maps inside and out (literally you have to know about the air duct systems which skulks can use to quickly bypass certain parts of the map), and you have to know all the rooms of the map by name. It's a game that simply cannot be played without voice chat. It's absurd.

That being said, it has produced some of the most intense and rewarding gaming experiences that I've ever had. Things like having your back against the wall for an hour before turning everything around and winning the match. Things like calling clutch shots for your team and they actually listen and the stratagem actually works and you're just sitting there feeling like a fucking genius. Great game.

8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

A short list of things with in-game penalties:

 

Accidental change

Berserk

Dependence

DNPC

distinctive features

Hunted

Psychological limitation

Public identity 

Reputation

Rivalry 

Vulnerability

 

 

As I said, a _short_ list. 

 

A short list of things considered to be enforcers of balance with a cost penalty and no in-game penalty:

 

Normal characteristics maxima

 

 

I don't think an in-game penalty is particularly "anti-hero system," having been an integral part of it for forty years, or, put differently: since the very first edition. 

 

It is a tool for creating balance.  It has a limitation every time you use it as opposed to just one time, before the game begins, and then you never worry about it again. 

 

You have literally just listed a bunch of complications, which are only in game penalties, penalties which you can eschew if you don't want those last 50 points, thereby using points instead of taking in game penalties. I never said "In game penalties aren't Hero." I said, "Not being allowed to use points to avoid in game penalties isn't Hero." There are very little "in game penalties" in Hero that you can't get out of with a single downpayment of character points. There are loads of ways you can spend points to just bypass certain game effects, Hero comes with built in hard counters to everything, things like NND, Affects Desolid, Killing Damage, etc. I mean, this philosophy manifests itself all the way to the core of the system. In most games, you are only allowed a very specific amount of action economy. Because action economy is pretty much the best thing to optimize in almost any game, it is usually tightly controlled, one cannot simply get more. In Hero? 10 points per extra phase you want to have. You can just pay for any amount that you want. Now, I understand that it's up to the GM to set the constraints on these things, choose the maxima and stuff, but even the way the maxima rules are written don't stop people from being able to pay points to get what they want. They just have to pay more. If the GM really wants control over the action economy of the game, he has to house-rule hard caps. 

At the ground floor of Hero's design is a philosophy of unlimited freedom to spend character points for the mechanical effects that you want. If you want to spend all your points to have no complications and 1 or 2 abilities which are virtually limitless in their application, you can. It's one of the things I love about the system. You can make a single ability so powerful that it is the whole concept of your character. Imagine the fun that could be had with a character who has nothing but 20 strength of TK, no endurance, increased range, fine control. Imagine if he was always invisible too. You could build that guy on 175 points, play him as a ghost in a low fantasy game. In any other game, this would be impossible or require tremendous house ruling. DnD has no TK that isn't some kind of spectral ghost thing like a hand or servant or some stupid garbage, there's no way to have unlimited invisibility without a magic item that just gives it to you, there's nothing.

8 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Which part?

The part about in game penalties vs cost penalties. The game is set up so that you can make your abilities arbitrarily powerful and all you must do is pay the cost. You can just keep buying more d6 of effect, you can buy NND and just completely ignore defenses, you can buy autofire with penalty skill levels to just attack more times than one at once, you can make it cost no endurance to use, you can make it take almost no time to use. You can just keep piling on bonuses at as long as you've got the character points for them you are allowed to have the power (unless the GM says no, but the books provide no guidance for GMs on what to say no to, they just have to bump into overpowered and powergamed things and make notes about them through pure experience).

These are real suggestions, but I still can't help but balk at, "They will always be able to look closely enough at you to find out that you're really just a 6'2" white guy." I think this is fair, you shouldn't be able to just abandon your identity at no cost. Oh, I turn into a fly. Now, because I look like a fly, literally nobody will ever look twice at me. Nobody will be able to tell that I am a dangerous shapeshifting ninja, and all I had to do was declare that I am a fly. I buy all my normal characteristics with "only in appropriate form" and now I can turn into a fly for free *and* all my characteristics are cheaper, because they only work when I'm a fly. It just doesn't make any sense to me. It only seems logical that there would be some kind of rigorous cost structure to the obfuscation of your identity. Logically speaking, one could look at Distinctive Features as an example of the game acknowledging the importance of your identity, by saying that "Having one which is extra memorable is actually so bad it's worth points."

On 3/27/2020 at 6:12 AM, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

One could house rule that an attack on a trigger is an automatic abort as well, using up your next Phase and so on and so forth. 

 

It doesn't _prevent_ the infinite loop of trigger-counter trigger-counter trigger ad infinitum, but it puts a heavy in-game penalty on doing so.  For what it's worth, I prefer an in-game penalty over a cost penalty _any day_, as an in-game mechanical penalty is effectively forever (or at least until the build changes), whereas a cost penalty need only be overcome once, and then it doesn't exist anymore. 

 

 

This seems to go against the whole concept of the Hero System. In Hero, you can put together almost any mechanical effect that you want to. A "fireball" could be a wide variety of things, it all depends on who's building it and for what purpose do they want a fireball. If you want a super awesome fireball with AoE, DoT, no endurance cost, etc. all you must do is get it passed by the GM and then Hero just lets you build it. 

Prey is one of the best science fiction shooters I've ever played. It's single player and story driven.

Mordhau is basically a Medeival FPS. It's a first person melee fighting system and it's incredibly fun, but with a steep learning curve and a high skill ceiling. 

 

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Warthunder (free to play). for WW2 Ships Planes and Tanks all in the same environment sometimes.

I tend to play Team based shooters like Arma III, Post Scriptium< and Hell Let Loose', YMMV

If you like team shooters, I have to suggest my all time favorite one: Natural Selection 2. It's an asymmetrical team shooter built with the skeleton of an RTS. The map is riddled with resource nodes and base locations, just like your basic RTS like Starcraft, and teams wrestle for control of the map. It's a massive bout of minmaxing: You want to minimize your opponent's information, control of tactical positions, and resource income, all whilst maximizing your own. Then it has fairly tradition RTS tech trees, but the difference is that you actually get to play with the tech that your team researches as one of the units. You see, 1 player on either team has stepped into the Command Chair. They get a top down overlook on the map, and their vision is limited to what can be seen by their units, most of which are controlled by actual players.
 

The Marine team plays much like counter strike. Tradition shooter controls, you start with an assault rifle and tech into things like shotguns (which offer the best burst damage but are difficult to hit with), flamethrowers (which disable structures and are easy to aim), and eventually massive railgun wielding exosuits. The other team, the *aliens*, are almost entirely melee. They have extreme mobility options and can deal massive amounts of damage at close range.

It's really hard to get the whole concept across in a single post, I highly recommend giving it a try. It's by far my favorite game in existence, I consider it a masterpiece. 

Disclaimer: NS2 is also a brutally difficult game with one of the steepest learning curves and highest skill caps I've ever seen in any game before. The community is very active, but it's a lot of diehard fans who haven't stopped playing since 2013, and they can be so extremely skilled that new players have virtually 0 chance of ever killing them. They can also at times be quit toxic, because they have settled into their smaller end-of-life community for the game, and so frequently expect excellence. If they say "concede, people" probably concede (at least early on before you've got a sense of the game and can see the hail marry plays that might be possible, then play to the bitter end all you want).
 

8 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

So if a horde of orcs rescues a group of starving children, that's an evil act because it was performed by them?  Or is it that they're unable to rescue the group of starving children in the first place?  

 

It seems to me then that either orcs are "team evil" and the only reason they're evil is that they're not on "team good",  and that everything they do is evil by definition, or that they can't choose to do anything but evil acts, which to me puts them in the same category as living tools.  Could be both, as well.  In the first case (team evil vs. team good) I don't really want to play in that game, because "team good" ends up doing things like slaughtering orc babies, because orcs are on the wrong team evil.  In the second, slaughtering them is about like slaughtering termites, or destroying robots.  I find playing in this game about as interesting as I do destroying a termite's nest (i.e. not really).  

 

 

If a horde of orcs rescued a group of starving children, they would do it in a way that you would look at it and say, "That was an evil act." For example, rescue them to plump them for consumption, or to break their minds to make them into slaves and inexpensive soldiers.

The only reasons they do evil are the same reasons that normal people do evil! Calling them "team evil" is like calling a hurricane on "team evil" and the unsuspecting villagers "team good." Yes, they are only evil, but that doesn't mean humans aren't evil either. Everything about the world is the same, except there is a type of person who only does evil, and they are in fact identifiable from the outside. They're orcs! It is in fact racism, but it is *founded on the legitimate premise that, in the alternative nature of our fantasy reality, it is possible for an entire species of sentient beings to be evil by nature.* 

And it can be very interesting to slaughter them. I don't understand why everything you slaughter must for some reason have had enough freedom of destiny that they're rampant, wanton disregard for goodness could be described as "evil." What about a horde of rampaging boars about to completely level a village? Is it not interesting to stave off imminent destruction? I couldn't imagine a more interesting Man vs. Environment situation than Man vs. *Environment as Man*. You can't do anything about a hurricane, but orcs? Orcs have societies, organized forces, machinations and stratagems. A wildfire burns whatever's nearest to it, but orcs can burn whole nations at once. Orcs can visit a variety of evils, ranging from enslavement to destruction to demoralization to cruelty, all with pinpoint precision. *And, unlike the earthquake, they can be fought.* A natural disaster that you can fight with swords and spells, I just don't see how that is somehow too pedestrian and low brow for tabletop miniature gaming.

17 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

I do too. 

 

If they can't choose to be good or evil, then how can they be considered evil?  They might be unfortunate, they might be destructive, they might need to be destroyed for the good of the realm, but they are effectively living tools.  If we find termites eating our house we destroy them without mercy, but we don't consider them evil per se.  They might have been placed there by your neighbor who wants to destroy your house, but that still doesn't make them evil.  It makes your neighbor evil, though.  

I suppose before I get into this, we have to look at the definition of evil, which is a hairy subject. You're view of things is sophisticated, and reflects the ideas written about in Sam Harris's book, Free Will. The position is that, because the actions of the Orcs are a consequence of their nature over which they have no control (not unlike the cruelty of cats), they cannot be considered evil. Now, whether or not you've read the book or not, it's worth mentioning that I'm using a definition of evil which Sam Harris posits in Free Will as a kind of shift in the semantics of the word so that it doesn't produce any paradox's when looked at through an advanced neurological lens. The idea is that "evil" is a kind of act, and that evil is only possible if one does evil acts. There are no evil thoughts or evil intentions, only thoughts and intentions which produce evil acts. 

So, yes, Orcs are a kin to a natural force of destruction. One does not consider the hurricane to be an act of evil, but they do consider it to be an act of God. Now I'm not saying that orcs should be considered an act of God, but the ability to make the comparison at all hints at the kind of spiritual relationship that the denizens of our world might have with Orcs. Orcs *represent* evil on a kind of metaphysical level, which reflects itself in their nature. Orcs *do* evil. This doesn't mean that they don't need plausible motivations for their actions, but the things they end up doing are evil. They're motivations can come from love, honor, glory, greed, gluttony, whatever; The key is that they pursue these things in an evil way, and can't be convinced to do otherwise. They're not like lions, which kill to eat and think of nothing else.  

On 4/5/2020 at 11:13 AM, Chris Goodwin said:

All right, what is evil?  

 

By which I mean, is it a moral judgement, or a cosmic alignment?

 

If evil is a cosmic alignment, then those who are on "team Evil" are evil by definition, which means those who are on "team Good" are good by definition, right?  (I call that "sports jersey alignment", by the way.  Our guys are Good because they are our guys, and their guys are Evil because they are their guys.)  

 

They can be both, of course... but that means team Good has to be morally good, and team Evil has to be morally evil.  (Can someone who finds themselves on team Evil do good things?  Or is it always considered evil because they are on team Evil?  In other words, do they score Evil points for saving children?)

 

I don't find sports jersey alignment to be interesting.  I don't want to play in games that include cosmic alignment, because one thing they are not, is people who do things for reasons that people do them.  that 

 

If orcs are created to be evil... either they're on team Evil and have no choice in the matter, or they're created to do evil things... and have no choice in the matter.  Robots, in other words.  I don't find that interesting either.  (If I designed a horde of killer robots, and sent them out to destroy orphanages and slaughter villages... are they the ones that are evil, or is it me?)  

 

Lest anyone think I'm being coy, "the cosmic battle of good vs. evil" has been done to death.  I don't find anything interesting about it.  

 

What isn't interesting about pure evil? Don't you realize that pure evil is actually real? Did you know that there are people who traffic children children and animals as sex slaves? Did you know that there are people who make their living by selling videos of them brutally torturing and raping children and animals? Did you know that there are people who pay tens of thousands of dollars for those videos? Not only does evil exist, but elementally pure ultimate evil exists, in real life. It doesn't have to be a matter of "cosmic alignment", it can just be a matter of character. So that's not the problem.

The problem apparently is that ultimate evil is uninteresting. Now, obviously one could simply say, "That is just my taste." and the discussion would be over, but that's not what we're here for. Why isn't ultimate evil interesting? Morality is often talked about with the terms "black," "white," and "grey." G.R.R.Martin is often described as writing stories with morally grey characters and situations, and it is this grey-ness that makes his writing so excellent. But the truth is, the who spectrum is always present. In the best stories, its a kaleidoscope of shades of grey, ranging all the way from black to white. You've got good characters with small skeletons in their closet, even more righteous characters with even more skeletons in their closet, and you've got bad characters with some redeeming qualities (but not enough), and you've got bad characters with absolutely no redeeming qualities. Pure evil is interesting. The almost biblical death of Ned Stark, one of the few truly Good men, the demented villainy of Joffrey Lannister and Ramsey Bolton, and the tumultuous Theon Greyjoy, they paint a more vibrant picture than a story awash with lukewarm "grey-ness."

I don't see why the role of pure evil couldn't be filled by a whole type of creature. In my setting it's ghouls and dragons, but in some, it's orcs. An orc is like The Grinch: Maybe if you made a movie about him, he might be redeemable. But the thing is, the grinch is a children's cartoon, his big crime is ruining christmas by being a sourpuss. In our games, a being of overwhelming evil might cook a whole village alive over ten dozen bonfires and eat them for dinner. Or they might chase prisoners with barbed lashes as a kind of idle entertainment. They're sadistic, cruel, and powerful. They have no reason to give and credence to the wants and desires of the victims of their barbarism because it's usually impossible to resist them. 

This is a scary concept. If you'd stop balking at "black and white" morality and immerse yourself in the concept and use your imagination, it can be viscerally effective. Imagine the tension and fear of a village with an Orc problem. Imagine the terror your character might have walking through the gore of an orcish dining hall. I just can't see that as anything but appealing from a worldbuilding perspective. On the other hand, you've got Orcs who are basically just stand ins of for some nameless vaguely primitive tribe like Mongols or Native Americans or something. That honestly sounds more racist then "All they do is evil. Why? I don't know, they can."

Let's say that I'm willing to run very abstract, high concept fantasy games where the players are basically free to build whatever they want, vetted only for internal consistency and party cohesion. What horrible pitfalls am I gonna walk into if I decide to completely remove characteristic maxima? Remember, I'm fine with extremely outlandish concepts, so that isn't gonna be a worry for me. Say we're using 175 points. Can character points alone balance things? Like, if a player could buy any amount of SPD, CV, STR, and P/ED that he wants, how would the arms race unfold? What if somebody were to buy an accidentally relatively low DCV and PD, such that he's extremely vulnerable to attacks? Would they feel impotent and fragile and hate life, or would they enjoy (provided I properly GMed things) all the cool stuff they're doing with the points they didn't spend on SPD, CV, STR, and P/ED? What if somebody bought an extremely large RKA? Admittedly, I would have an easier time pressuring them on their character concept with that one, but say they figured something cool out that would let them buy an absurdly large RKA? Let's say 6d6, and almost everything else he spends on OCV. How would this feel in game?

Why do we use so many maxima? Shouldn't the point costs of things create an economy which produces rational and balanced charcters?

1. Fantasy. All they provide is fantasy. I feel like the "Anything that could be done with Elves could just as easily be done with Humans," argument is shallow and vapid. It is called "Fantasy", it's about Fantasy. The same stories you tell with knights and wizards could be told with cops and computer programmers, it's all "just a coat of paint." That's a huge portion of what is fun in the first place. The reason people like fantasy settings for games isn't because of the unique stories and characters that can exist in the setting, because stories and characters are pretty much all the same and are always interesting when executed correctly. It is the coat of paint which makes it so magical. It's not just man vs man, it's viscous orcs vs magical elves. It's not "merely" a coat of paint.

2. I prefer 2 to 3 different races. I generally play in a setting where things like orcs and halflings and elves are all just humans with unique morphologies. In my setting, humans vary as much as dogs. That's why they're called "races" and not "species". "Half breeds" in my setting are a fundamentally racist concept, not unlike the term "mulatto." If you want to play a halfling, that would just be a really really short person. If you want to play like a giant or and orc or something, you're just a really really big ugly person. I reserve the terms "Elf" and "Dwarf" for extreme concepts. Like, and Elf in my setting happens not to be unlike a superhero, capable of superhero-tier magical abilities. And the Dwarves are what they eat: Rock.

3. Races that amount to some kind of cliche stereotype, and players who play to that type utterly unfalteringly. Yes, I get it, you're a dwarf, you like to drink and party and say crass things with a scottish accent, I get it.

4. There is no amount that is too many or too few. It depends entirely on taste, and the type of atmosphere you're trying to achieve in your setting. Star wars has arbitrarily many races, and it creates this "melting pot" sense that the universe is too small for these races to do anything but get along normally, so the streets are beautifully colored with freakishness at every level, and it's a cool atmosphere. On the other hand, SoIaF has no specially different races at all, and it has a comfortable atmosphere of historicity that juxtaposes beautifully with the magical elements of the setting. There's no wrong answer.

5.  Nothing at all, really. Dwarves and Elves interact with magic fundamentally differently, but that's it.

9 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

Here is part one of a two part article about, essentially, racism in depictions of orcs, and how signifiers often used to describe them (savage, primitive, warlike, and so on) are the same ones used by colonialist cultures to describe non-whites.  (TLDR: In Tolkien's case, specifically Asians.)

 

I'm not comfortable with things like "orcs represent evil", or any "evil" races (goblins, kobolds, etc.) whose purpose it is for PCs to go out and slaughter.  Especially in contrast with the "enlightened" (and, unexaminedly white) elves.  I would like for all of them to be depicted as people, suitable for use as player characters, or dropped entirely.

I suppose this view makes sense from the perspective of trying to distance one's self from racism, but, as somebody who grew up with playable "not all bad" orcs, "evil only" orcs have been a breath of fresh air to me. I just prefer races that are actually species, or fundamentally different in nature to humans. Roid monsters dipped in green paint isn't as interesting to me as some kind of degenerate, filthy villain which only resembles a man. They're green because they're ugly, they rape and maraud because they're evil, they're so vile that being exposed to the same air that they breath exposes you to disease. To me, this is evocative, and because I have no relationship to colonial perspectives on non-whites, it doesn't feel like whistle blowing to me. To me, it's just interesting worldbuilding.

 

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

5) In my experience, they boil down to stereotypes or visual aids.  I hate that. 

Might I ask, why? What's wrong with a visual aid? Why not let your brick character manifest himself as something more than "Above average strength and fighting ability human." What's there to hate? As long as you understand that it's just a coat of paint, why does that have to be too little? It seems like it's the perfect solution to your problem. If you don't like when races aren't roleplayed well enough (so you don't want to see them in your games at all), then why would you be upset with a style of storytelling that doesn't require that they be roleplayed differently at all? It eliminates the discordance, as far as I can tell. Sure, he's green and has tusks, whatever? He just wants to imagine his guy as being green and having tusks, because he's a big tough orc, it seems like a perfectly harmless and altogether beneficial bit of slack to give, especially if you don't like poorly roleplayed races. I just don't understand.

On 10/15/2015 at 9:11 AM, Casanova Frankenstein said:

 

• How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?

 

Just a joke based on the movie "Mystery Men"

 

• What was the first tabletop RPG you played?

 

D&D back in Junior High... maybe 1990?

 

• What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed?

 

The first game I ever GMed was a verbal-only storytelling game (no dice or paper) in a fantasy setting that my best friend and I called "Megaventure" when we were in the fifth or sixth grade. I DMed D&D 3.5 in Iraq during OIF 3 and have had semi-regular groups for D&D since then with a friend who's also a veteran and his kids and their friends (mid 20's, most of them).

 

• What are you currently playing/GMing?

 

I'm home brewing a Fantasy Hero setting which I'm at least currently thinking of "Hero Legends" With a home brew framework for granting powers depending on the individuals' "Legendary Accomplishments". Basically in this world public opinion has for the last ten or so years had the power to change reality. If you were Xerxes the great in my world, you'd be granted additional power from... well, the universe. If your actions have enough impact on reality, reality grants you magical power. I'm working on "Legendary Exp" as a second framework on top of standard exp which is only for the advancement of "Legendary Levels" which grant increasingly large fixed AP cap powers at a rate determined by a table that I'll admit isn''t yet complete.

 

Now this is one interesting guy. Can you say more about "Megaventure"? Me and my brother did something very similar, but to us it wasn't a game. It was just "play". It was pretending.

EDIT: Forgot to admire that game concept you just mentioned. It's very similar to a magic system I once dabbled with (but couldn't figure out how to build: I should give it a shot now that I know Hero). In the system, a "magic" was any one of the Patterns of thought that causes magic. Basically, various specific configurations of consciousness have very specific metaphysical consequences. So, the way I set it up was that, "Cantrips" were any Pattern which could be accessed instantaneously at any time under almost any conditions, like Telekinesis, which requires years of training to become proficient in, but is merely a way of thinking that lets you move things by thought alone. 

Anyway, more advanced magic required more advanced Patterns, such as ones which could only be achieved while experiencing a specific taste (potions), engaging in some specific musical experience, dancing some specific dance, yadayada. The most advanced patterns were Gods and Nephilim. Nephilim are those that are chosen by a people. It is caused by a population scale Pattern, requiring cooperation from many people for extended periods of time. People like super-athletes, shaman/priests/The Pope, high profile criminals, etc. These people become empowered in some way proportionate and reflective of the specific type of attention they receive. Gods are basically these Patterns which protect you against demons (which are spirits that infect you and are bad). They demand highly specific thought patterns related to sacrifice, worship, and general religiosity, and can empower you so much that you are able to conquer demons (thereby transforming them into a kind of supernatural Virtue spirit, and turning you into a Paladin). 

22 hours ago, smoelf said:

 

Yes, I'm right there with you. I'm one of those people who fell in love with the idea of HERO years ago, but have had a hard time converting that into practice. This obviously has a number of reasons, but it certainly does not help that I know not a single person who already knows HERO (which means that I'll likely have to GM), that I am a very inexperienced GM, and that I have not had a regular gaming group for a long time. Sitting down with 6E on your own without previous exposure to the system is quite the task. I'm beginning to think that one reason for that is that 6E was written for people who already knew HERO System, and just needed a presentation of the new ruleset. There are certain assumptions about how the system plays in practice that differs from a few of the other well known system, which are not very well described and the information is scattered in many various places. This gives a learner the impression that, yes, they do actually need to read back to back in order to be sure that they catch all those small, essential paragraphs that explicate the assumptions. I can give examples, but perhaps that would be better served for another thread, to reduce the derailing.

 

This means that my usual pattern have been to take the PDF's out a few times a year to ponder and wonder the amazing possibiities that HERO gives me, which D&D or Pathfinder does not, and then putting them aside, being stuck in that endless loop of not being able to put a gaming group together without having a proper grasp of the system to GM, but not really acquiring a proper grasp of the system because of a lack of context for learning and understanding how it plays out. 

 

Finally, I recently reached out to my old GM and asked if he was interested in scraping a few people together if I ran a one-shot/mini-adventure this summer. He was quite hooked (due to a lack of gaming), and I think I'll be able to put something together, but it has truly been a bite-sized endeavour. Time, energy, and obligations are naturally also obstacles for the process. I don't think it has to take as long as it did for me, but the problems in the system presentation and system-support certainly did not help.

We are definitely close kin in this matter. My story is almost identical to yours. I seriously suggest getting a physical copy of the books. I've got 6e1 and 2 and Basic. Basic is really excellent, and after reading that a little bit, everything clicked for me. The game is actually quite elegant.

On 3/20/2020 at 10:07 PM, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Ah!  Yes; I see.  Thank you for the clarification.

 

I apologize in advance for what you have just cut the straps on.  ;)*

 

 

Loaded question, Sir, but I suspect you already knew that.

 

So let me answer it as objectively as I can:

 

_mmmmMaybe_....

 

See, the thing is, I-- I, you, Doc, Hugh, LL-- anyone who knows the system, really-- can _easily_ paint you a thousand-and-two pictures  of a game broken by T-form on self.  Hell, we can all paint you a picture of how Energy Blast can break the game!  All you have to do is....  take the controls off of it.   Combine NND and Does BODY.  Make it exempt to damage caps.  Put a freakin' AOE and an auto-reset Trigger and even a couple of Autofires on there for good measure.  That's break the _hell_ out of a game right there.

 

And that's it.  That's the whole thing.  We don't use "T-form (self)" because we don't want to impose limits on T-form.  Ironically, we do it all the time.  Even know, T-form is broken into three district classes (you know: to make it _cheaper_ for a lot of things that are actually _more_ useful than a dead guy, which is still going to cost you 15 /die as a Killing Attack.)

 

But for some reason, when we see T-form (self), we don't see those limits.  We don't see the GM saying "I want a list of what you can and can't T-form into before game time" or "fine, but no more than X AP in your new form" or _any_ sort of ruling or guidance.  What we see is "holy crap!  he can turn himself into anything; have any power; touch any cap--!  We can't allow that!"

 

So do I think it's possible to have T-form (self) and it _not_ break the game?  Sure.  Of course I do.

 

Do I think T-form (self) is just automatically going to break the game?

 

No more than "Power Pool."  Seriously.  Power Pool can do exactly what T-form (self) can do:  it can give you any power, any ability, touch any limit or cap....

 

If you take the controls off.  I don't know any GMs who don't limit pool size right off the bat, and most of them demand some sort of thematic thread running through whatever gets pulled out of the pool.  T-form can do it cheaper (if you wait long enough); Power Pools can do it faster (zero phase change?  No problem.    )

 

Put some heavy borders on T-form (self), and you've got a different sort of Power Pool, and not much else.  So for my money, T-form self is no more broken or dangerous than an unregulated Pool or really, an unregulated anything else.

 

 

 

Why'd you go and do that?  

 

The only problem with Shapeshift is that it's not valid because it makes you pay for a special effect.  Well that, and you don't actually shift shape: you just convince everyone else that you did.

 

You asked for it, my friend.  Please forgive me for doing it this way, but I actually have a "standardize rant" on this subject that I just save and re-paste as needed.  I really didn't want to do that to you, but it's stupidly late here, and I've got to go to work in the morning.  I hope you can forgive this, or at least excuse it long enough for me to have time to think up an all-new rant on this topic.  

 

Enjoy:

 

 

First and foremost, I have no idea what edition of HERO / Champions anyone started with.  Most of the membership seems to have started with 3e, but there are few that started with 2e, and a few less (like me) who started with 1e.

 

The problem I have with the new "official shape shift" is twofold:

 

1) there was already something in place that worked extremely well.

 

2) it's not necessary.  You're quantifying and then paying for the quantification of what amounts to a special effect.  I have no idea why this isn't anathema to more people.

 

 

So to get a summary that might start a conversation, let me offer this:

 

Only in Heroic ID. 

 

This is a Power Limitation that I _know_ has been around since 2e, and may have appeared in 1e as well (I really don't remember; I haven't played 1e since I got my first 2e book).  It wasn't in the main book, but was a found in a write-up -- I can't recall if it was a sample of "how to" or an actual character in a supplement; Chris Goodwin could help you with that, if you're interested.  Guy has a mind for details like Hugh does for math. 

 

Anyway, only in HERO ID rather readily becomes "Only in X ID."  pair it with something like Instant Change, and poof!  Shapeshifter.   Seriously.   Had a character way back when who wanted to emulate some comic book guy (I'm not much up on comics; I love Champions, but never got into comics.  Accordingly, my take on superheroes may be a bit skewed.   ) who had the power to turn into various animals but they all had to be green or grey or-- anyway, they were all the wrong color.

 

So how did we do that?  How did we do that in any edition prior to 5e?  

 

Well there was multiform in 4e.  I can't remember where that came from, either.  I want to say it was an old Adventurers Club article, but I could well be wrong.  It could have been Champions III for all I remember-- sorry; when I get tired, my memory gets terrible.  I actually know this answer, and just can't think of it right now.  Not that it's terribly important, of course: the final answer is that Multiform became "officialized" in 4e.

 

Ironically, we didn't really need _that_, either, as it's pretty much Shape shift all over again:  

 

I have a guy who turns into different things!

 

Cool!  A shapeshifter!

 

No; he doesn't shape shift.  He just turns into different things.

 

So he turns into multiple forms?

 

Right.

 

And each form has a different shape?

 

Well sure!

 

Shape shifter.

 

No!  You're not listening to me...!

 

 

 

You see how that goes?   

 

 

Between you and me, I can't help but think that Multiform was implemented to make shape shifting somehow "cheaper," but it bit them in the backside, as it limits the number of shapes into which you can shift.  Perversely, it lets you make a limited number of forms that are extremely powerful, which you may or may not be able to pull off "old school."  You can _certainly_ do it cheaper than new-fangled Shape Shift!

 

 

So...   absolutely no one before 4e made a shape shifter, ever.

 

 

Well that's a damned lie, and I can prove it, because I had several players make shape-shifters even before there was a _third_ edition, let alone a fourth.  Plastic Man is a character I am passingly familiar with, and in the mid-eighties, he had a Saturday morning cartoon, and clones just _kept_ popping up in my games for a while. And of course, person-to-an-arkload-of-animals never really went away completely.

 

 

How where we doing it?   Well that's pretty simple, really:  Only in X ID became "Only in appropriate ID."  Call it "only in Hero ID," if you want, because when he was shifting shapes, well that wasn't as Joey Bagadonuts; that was as the hero!

 

 

 

Let's back up a bit and examine something:

 

When you're building a character, what does it cost to be a normal human male?  Wait--- "Nothing?"  Are you _sure_ about that?  Woah-- seriously?  It really costs _nothing_?  You can just say "okay, my guy's a normal human male, about six-foot two (so Batman can still feel tall), two-hundred sixty pounds, thirty-two years of age, brown hair, green eyes-- you can just _be_ all that, and it costs _nothing_?!  Dude, that is _cool_.  I mean, that's just an awesome game right there!

 

No; wait-- can't fool me!  I've got it now-- what's it cost to be a normal human _female_?   WHAT?!  "Nothing" _AGAIN_?!  No; something can't be right here.  You can be a man or a woman and neither one costs _anything_?

 

Oh!  It's because I said "normal," right?   So what would it cost to be like, a cyborg or something, with like mechanical legs and an electric heart?  Dude, you are LYING to me!  It can't possibly be _NOTHING_!

 

 

All right, how about an _alien_?!  Yeah; I want to be a blue-and-red-skinned alien with like a big shark fin on my head and webbed hands and my eyes on like snake stalks and four arms.  How much does _that_ cost?  Wha-- this is BULL, Man!  That can't be free!  Well how about if I wanted to be a robot?  That, too?!   A mannequin possessed by the tormented soul of a Victorian orphan child killed in a ritual satanic sacrifice?  A multi-dimensional hyper-intelligent barracuda?  How about the _car_ Barracuda?  Hemi-cuda?

 

Dude, how is all that free?!  It doesn't make sense!   Wait?  What's this about "just being?"  So...  'what I am' is just the special effects of 'being'?   That's pretty deep, man...

 

Oh!  How about if I want to be like, really short, like dwarf tall?!  Free?!  

 

Well okay, but in what _way_ am I a female alien cyborg?  No, I mean, like, do I just _look_ like one; do I just _sound_ like one; do I just _feel_ like one; do I---?

 

I "just am?"  So there's no way that someone is going to look at me or put me under a magnifying glass or examine my nostril leavings and go "Oh, wait!  It's just a guy in female alien cyborg suit---- WAIT!  What if I wanted to be a _black guy?_!  That's got to cost, right?   Are you _kidding_ me?!  So I can just _say_ that I am something, and I _am_ that thing?!

 

 

All right.  I think that horse is as dead as it's going to get. 

 

Now let's look at that in the context of powers:  If I have -- forgive me if you started with 6e; I don't use much 6e terminology as I didn't start with and don't really use it-- Energy Blast.

 

If I say "It's fire from my hands," then it's fire from my hands, period.  No other player will question it; no GM will question it.  It _is_ fire, period.

 

If I say "it's fire from a flame thrower," the exact same thing happens:  it just _is_, and it is because I said it is.  If I say it's gun or a taser or a lightning bolt, that's what it _is_, period, and no sense-- not even the special ones-- is going to determine that it is anything else, because that's the special effect I have chosen.

 

 

Now let's say that I have a gun that shoots poison-- liquid poison, directly into someone's eyes?  I build it as a Linked attack: it does damage, and it has a Flash Attack, and possibly even a Transform: sighted to blind-- all rolled into one.  No one will for a moment doubt that that gun is real, because that gun _is_ real.  It's the special effect for that attack:  I whip out my "what the hell kind of sick twisted person invented something like this?!" gun and I start doing evil things to every person I can see.  It's valid, because it's the real special effect for my power.

 

 

Now suppose my character is an alien snake man who "just do" this thing:  maybe he's got little ducts in his teeth and he just spits a venom that does damage, contains a flash and does Transform: sighted to blind.  Who doubts that he-- my character, the alien snake man-- is a real alien snake man?  No matter what "sense group" I probe with, the result is always going to be "alien snake man who isn't a cyborg or a guy dressed up like an alien snake man," right?

 

 

Now suppose I have that _identical_ power, but my special effect is that I turn into a spitting cobra to do it?

 

 

Suddenly there's a problem?  Suddenly I _look_ like a spitting cobra, but I smell / feel / taste / sound like a six-foot-two two-hundred-forty pound normal human _camoflagued_ as a spitting cobra?

 

What the heck, Man?

 

It's ridiculous.  You are not only being required to pay for a special effect, you are being required to pay _multiple times_ for a special effect: you want to appeal to all eleven possible HERO System senses, right?   _all_ of them!  Not just sight, but infrared sight, too!  It would suck to _look_ like a snake, only to show up in IR scans as a rather large guy in his late thirties.....

 

So how did we handle shape shift before "the rules finally allowed it?"

 

Just like that:  it was the special effect for your powers, period.  We could get creative:  if we wanted to "lock out" certain things and "lock in" certain things, "Only in appropriate form." You know:  Only in Heroic ID.   Animal guy (I swear, I _think_ he called himself "Animan," so that we wouldn't realize he was ripping off "Manimal" from the then-popular TV show) had a laundry list of powers, all bought with the limitation "only in appropriate form."  Seriously:  a list of powers and bonuses to his Characteristics, all with that limitation.  If he wanted to fly, he turned into something that could fly.  If he wanted to fly and have excellent perception, he turned into something like that-- a hawk or something: Flight and +4 PER (sight) and telescopic sight (x100), but he had to be a winged raptor of some variety.

 

If he wanted to be strong, he could turn into an ox.  If he wanted to be strong and have a manipulable appendage-- Gorilla!  Or an elephant...  Bonus!  As an elephant, he could use that +4 PER (Hearing) he has listed for "only in appropriate form".   He could be a cow, a dinosaur, a mule-- whatever he wanted, so long as it was appropriate to the power or powers he was wanting to use at that time.  More PD and Shrinking?  Tortoise!  (no bonus to his movement, though).   Ultimate move-through?  Cheetah, launching itself into the air and becoming a buffalo!

 

 

All that with a handful of powers.  Strangely, cheaper-- way cheaper-- than just having four or five multi forms, and _better_, too, because he had _unlimited_ forms!  UN-STINKIN'-LIMITED!  

 

 

And he _was_ those things, because "just being" those things was his special effect, and there was no "versus this off-the-wall sensory concoction reveals that you're an old Brittish sketch comic in a dress and bad wig" nonsense that the current pile that Shape Shift is.

 

Suppose we had that, back in the old 250-point superhero days (which I still play, incidentally)?  By the time you bought _all_ of your shape shifts and a metric boatload of modifiers to use against your opponent's PER, -- well, you actually _couldn't_, because getting it nearly fool-proof would cost you more points than you actually had at your disposal, and there'd be nothing left to actually buy _useful, functioning_ powers with!

 

Note that, and note it well:  No matter _how_ much you spend on your Shape Shift under the 5e / 6e rules, you will never actually _be_ the thing.  You will always look / smell / taste / feel / sound like the thing, but never actually _be_ the thing.  There are many, many board members who will tell you that "it's the same," but it is _not_ the same, at least not if you are playing by the rules, _because_ ---

 

if anyone examining you rolls a natural 3, you're still a female alien cyborg trying to pass yourself off as a designer coffee table.  Amusingly enough, though, by the rules, they will _never_ disprove that you're a female alien cyborg, even if you're actually a middle-aged fat guy string around a table with his friends and some dice, and they will never disprove that because that was the special effect that you chose for "just existing" in the game world.

 

 

Shape shift is _nothing_, and I mean _nothing_ but a special effect for something else.  At no point in my gaming career (started mid-seventies, with the rest of us old fat guys) have I, in _any_ game system or any character conception, seen "Shape Shift" be the means to its own end: it was _always_ an enabling device for something else, _always_.   And what do we call enabling devices for skills and powers in the HERO System?

 

 

Special Effects.  They are completely _real_ in game terms, and they are completely _free_.

 

 

 

Honestly, today-- I mean right up through 6e, if I didn't already have a thirty-year "only in appropriate form" habit, I'd do it with Power Pool  and be done with it.  The only draw back to that approach is that there wouldn't be a laundry list of "pre-boughts" already written out on the C-sheet.  Sure, I could request them, but I'm not likely to change at this point.

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, and nothing.  It's a matter of perspective:  Oh!  T-form can give you powers you don't have!"

 

So can Power Pool, and no one bats an eye.

 

It's all about where you put your controls.

 

Good night, All.

 

Than what is the cost of the power to effortlessly obscure your identity and/or commandeer another one? You're saying Mystique's power is all just the special effect of her "being."? Just because her nature is that she changes her appearance into anything she desires, it should be free because it's just special effects?

On 3/21/2020 at 11:38 AM, Spence said:

I’ve almost given up trying to explain my thoughts over the years.  It is almost as if I speak a different language.

 

I don’t understand the constant referral to the need to change the rules as they are written.  5^th Ed, 6^th Ed, Basic Rulebook (both rulesets), Fantasy Complete and Champions Complete.  They are all fine as written.  The rules are fine.

 

I say again.

 

THE RULES ARE FINE.

 

The problem is not the rules themselves. 

The problem is that understanding how the rules actually work in play is not straight forward.  They are easy, once they click.  For some people that is not an issue, they get it just from reading the book.  Some people get it from reading a super battle walk through.  Some people get it from a detailed description of a power build. 

But the majority don’t. 

 

The issue is not another rewrite of the rules. 

 

The issue is the need to add the missing chapter.

 

A short pre-generated micro-campaign with pre-generated PC’s, equipment, adversaries and so on.  Initially presented with NO POINT BUILD TOTALS VISIBLE.  Just the in-play stats. 

 

The idea is for the new to hero players to read through the playing rules, NOT THE BUILD RULES, and then play.

 

I’ll expand using Fantasy Complete, mostly because I can crib off of D&D and everyone will get my meaning.

Reorganize the rulebooks, not by rewriting, but by reordering.  Or at least to limited editing to make the flow work.  Basically move “Core Concepts And Game Basics” (page 7-10) and “Character Creation” (page 16-152)(not pages 153 & 154) behind “Combat” page 187. 

 

The book order would change from:

·        Table of Contents

·        Introduction

·        Core Concepts

·        Core Concepts and Game Basics

·        Character Creation

o   Results and Recognition

o   Heroic Action Points

o   Experience Points

o   Movement

·        Characters and the World

·        Combat

·        Equipment

·        Swords and Sorcery — Fantasy Roleplaying

·        Appendix 1: Playing Other Genres

·        Appendix 2: Summary & Reference Tables

·        Index

To a the new order of:

       ·        Table of Contents

·        Introduction

·        Core Concepts

·        Core Concepts and Game Basics

o   Results and Recognition

o   Heroic Action Points

o   Experience Points

o   Movement

·        Characters and the World

·        Combat

·        Micro-Campaign

·        Character Creation

·        Equipment

·        Swords and Sorcery — Fantasy Roleplaying

·        Appendix 1: Playing Other Genres

·        Appendix 2: Summary & Reference Tables

·        Appendix 3: Micro Campaign Build sheets.

·        Index

 

All of the chunking dice actual playing rules would be presented first and just before the “micro-campaign”.  While all the “how we build characters and stuff” would fallow on the heels of the “micro-campaign”. The micro-campaign would have all of the setting, creatures, equipment and pregen characters plus prebuilt advancement abilities to allow the PC’s to advance on a loose equivalent of first through third “level”.   All presented as end items with NO BUILD POINTS DISPLAYED.  An added appendix would have all that for when the new players become curious. 

 

The idea is:

·        New players buy book.

·        They read the “rules”.

·        They PLAY the micro-campaign.

·        They then read the Build Rules and Campaign Build advice.

·        They then go on the either expand the micro-campaign or build their own unique world now that they actually can see how thing work in play.

 

In my opinion this is why Hero is fading fast. It placed the cart before the horse and is too proud to admit everyone is driving cars. 

Anyway, my 2 cents.

Again......

I couldn't agree more with this. I recently got physical copies of the sixth edition books and, after like 2 years of distant admiration and occasional futile glances at the PDF on my phone, the game finally clicked. At least, the general philosophy of the whole character point system and the very basics of combat started to make sense. I still haven't played nor do I have really any idea how I should actually use this system at the table. It doesn't help that I'm a relatively inexperienced GM when it comes to systems which require preparation, I've been playing Fate and FU all these years, and not very often.

Though, seeing as the core books already lack this "Missing Chapter," I think the next best option would be to release a kind of starter kit. I don't mean anything that would have parts or anything similar to Hero Basic, I mean... I'm talking about a magazine, on the thicker side. A magazine containing these micro-adventures with prebuilt characters and stuff. The magazine would contain 3, maybe 4, unique genre studies: Champions, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and maybe something spicy like Weird West or Psionic Zombie Apocalypse. You can copy the character sheets out of the book, but the expectation would really be that you safely tear out the pages you need to use: things like character sheets, maps, and maybe some other stuff.

On the one hand, it can be called a kind of stand alone short tales style adventure book made for use with Hero System, but on the other hand, it can be called a collection of educational adventures best used with Hero Basic. I'd buy one the moment I found out such a thing existed. I might not even necessarily run the adventures, just read them and get a feel for what an adventure is supposed to look like, what a character is supposed to look like, what the range of Combat Values ends up looking like, what the range of SPDs is supposed to look like, etc. I would use it like a rosetta stone just to get a basic ballpark of how I am going to put together my game.

I really wish such a thing existed.

10 hours ago, zslane said:

I avoided trying to GM Champions in the first several years that I played because doing it--and more importantly, doing it well--is incredibly challenging and requires a mastery of the rules that I simply didn't have. It also requires one to juggle lots of balls all at once; it is hard enough to play a single superhero effectively (in combat) as a player. It is incredibly difficult to do so with an entire team of supervillains all by oneself as GM. And my philosophy is that if I can't GM well, then I'm not going to GM at all.

 

I might suggest you let someone else be GM for a while, and reserve GMing duties for when you've got a lot more experience with the system under your belt.

This tactic reads like a lunatic fantasy from my perspective. It's the same fallacious in the same way as "You need at least 5 year of industry experience to get any jobs in the industry." 

The only way I can possibly play Hero at all is to learn it and GM it for my friends. It's taken me years of shallow bites into Hero System before I could even comprehend it well enough to say that I understand the basic premises of the system. I am now gearing up to play it with m friends, and I can see all the pitfalls before I even walk into them. I wish I could just tag along in some group somewhere and learn how they handle damage maximums or CVs or SPD.