DentArthurDent

“____, I chipped a nail” Danny Galieote

https://dannygalieote.com/femme-fatale-series/

That’s a lot more effective, and cheaper, than a death ray.

It also makes everything in Star Hero seem lacking in imagination.

This is awesome!

I have to find a way to put this into a game. Maybe as the owners of a jazz club in Transylvania. 
Or as the bosses for a three part adventure! Two masters of the occult. How massive would their Presence attacks be?

Armor and Concealment

Corsets made of whale bone (actually baleen) would provide resistant defenses. Maybe similar to the Armored Undershirt on page 133.

And skirts made of layers of stiffened wool or starched cotton might be similar to leather armor.

According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, there was a movement toward more practical and comfortable women’s clothing. Even “divided skirts”, essentially trousers, were available.

It would also be easy to hide items in a large skirt, bustle, or petticoat. And it’s pretty easy to go to a CosPlay convention and find a woman wearing a corset with a concealed knife or other item.

Victoria and Albert Museum - Victorian Underwear

https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/corsets-crinolines-and-bustles-fashionable-victorian-underwear
 

I would start with the players.
What parts of the Hero system do you want to showcase to a group of new players?

What parts are easiest to present? (Use these in the first couple of sessions.)

What parts need more depth of familiarity with the Hero system?

What parts are unique to the Hero system? 
What complications are easiest to play? Most difficult?

Once you have established a hierarchy of .. I’ll call them .. “game mechanics”, then you have at least a dozen master GMs on this forum with ways to introduce and coach up favorite powers and skills.

The last step is to weave it all into a consistent story-line. Again, there are a lot of really good story-tellers on this forum. I’ve read their posts.

I’d like to jump in and grab the low hanging fruit:

The first team would probably consist of a flying energy projector, a brick, a stealthy detective, and a master of the mysterious arts.

These seem to be the powers and skills that are easiest for new players to use.

P.S.
Personally, I love the “Ultimate Martial Artist” but I’ve seen so many players trash characters because they couldn’t keep up with the skill levels. So, I would leave this for one of the later sessions. Of course, there is likely someone reading this who has had great success with new players and martial arts.

Horror Hero and WW1 Hero.

BTW, I’m really enjoying Victorian Hero. We’re considering a cross-over with Western Hero as our first mini-campaign.

Neuropathy.

I had a player once keep track of all the wounds his character took, then began role-playing the side effects.
Snake’s limp and lean to the left became a calling card. More than once causing minor thugs to run for the exits.

I’m really enjoying Victorian Hero. I’ve started working on a campaign for a team of Heroic investigators in London. There's just too much good source material not to start in London.

But …

I’m using the electronic version and I feel like I’m missing out, not being able to see the beautiful two-page illustrations.
Is there a format I can use on an iPad that let’s me see two pages side by side?

On 4/3/2024 at 7:01 PM, Gauntlet said:

When running a Fantasy Hero game I always state that all spells must have at least -2 in limitations. I also require that they have the following limitations at all times:

 

Requires a Magic Roll

Side Effects

Incantations and/or Gestures

Unified Power (though I do allow this to maybe only effect the type of magic that is being suppressed or expelled if the character has multiple types of magic that require different Magic Rolls)

 

Other common limitations:

Focus (many times expendable)

Cost MANA (should the power type be one that does not cost END and 0 END Advantage is not allowed)

 

I also do not have Magi use their END for their spells. I give them two additional characteristics: MANA and MANA Recovery. These cost the same as END and REC. In addition, should the Magi be using more MANA than they have, when rolling for STUN Damage, they take BODY as well (like BODY damage for a normal attack).

We did this for a short campaign. It worked really well! 
(It seems really, really odd that we did very similar things. We even called it Manan. Weird.)

We added two things: 

1) Concentration limitations

2) The Skill roll defined how effective it was. Making the roll by 2 or 3 points meant the spell effect went as expected. Making it by more actually increased the effects a bit. (I think we doubled the effects when someone made their roll by 8 points once,) Making the roll by only 1, or exactly, made it less effective. Missing it by 1, made it half effect.

Using extra time and more elaborate gestures and incantations gave a +1 or +2 to the Skill roll. Which made all the extra trappings important and added a bit of suspense. We ended up calling it “Cinematic Magic.”

Nice illustrations. Who’s the artist?

Mine’s in the Cart!

(Discretionary purchases wait for pay day.)

Jedi powers accessed via melodic sounds. Hmmmm

I had a player whose character background was a defensive lineman. (We were in East Tennessee in the early to mid 80s, so Reggie White maaay have been an influence.) He wanted to be able to rush at someone and throw them backwards. Grab and Throw didn’t seem right, so we went with Move by (v/10) and Martial Throw. I’m not sure what we would do with 6e rules.

It depends on the group of players.

I've been in games with players who are only interested in how many dice they get to roll. If picking up a building and throwing it injures people then that was the GMs fault.

I’ve also been in games with players whose greatest satisfaction is putting out a fire or helping a family get enough to eat.

Personally, I prefer the later but it’s also fun to roll twenty-eight dice and count the knockback. 

I ran a Fantasy Hero games years ago. After a couple years of dungeons, and quests, and vanquishing evil, we mixed in some large scale combat between armies.

One single player won a battle - even though they were outnumbered 3 to 1 - by simply healing every injured soldier. 

Sand?!? 
I had no idea.

Thanks Dean, for a great article about a $300 billion (with a B ) a year trafficking crisis.

I wonder if this could limit the artificial islands being created near the Phillipines.

Punters.

American or British. It works either way.

Question everything.

Can you create one character using this method? 
Personally, I have a tough time doing anything other than building up from a few mechanics. Seeing a rough draft would help he a lot.

Achilles

I’ve never used any of the Bundle websites. Can anyone describe some of the pro’s and con’s?

a nice Orrery

Bundle of Holding is offering the “Early Champions” bundle for $14.95. 
 

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2024EarlyChamps

I ran a Multiform character for about a year. When I created it, it seemed overpowered, but it was the only way to realize the character concept. It worked wonderfully. Each form had a distinct personality and motivations (with a specific common goal). But …

It was greatly overpowered. One form was a smooth-talking conman, another was a tracker, then a martial artist, and lastly a killing tank. Being able to switch forms, even requiring a full turn, made it much too easy to fine tune the character to most situations.

I thoroughly enjoyed the role-playing. But the power imbalance became a real problem. 

Palladium Books