Jagged

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

I give no sympathy and no quarter.

Well if you wanted to run the OP off the forum congratulations, well done. Another great post showing what a welcoming place this isn't.

Meanwhile back on page 1 and the OPs second and last post he made a comparison between how D&D split the content between player & DM books. That a player might expect a similar thing with the hero system as the books are split. After all if there isn't value in a single volume why sell it stand alone at all?

While I don't totally agree with his point I do find it reasonable and doesn't deserve your rude response.

Re: The Incredible Shrinking Species

Raymond H. Pymler, "Shrinking Ray", a scientist who discovered shrinking technology and used it to fight crime back in the Silver Age is long retired from the good and bad guy biz...or is he? His ex-wife comes to your character distraught and fearful. Pymler has always been a little odd for all of his good intentions, hot-tempered and resentful of those who take the ability to shrink down lightly as a superpower. She recently had a conversation with him in which he was...ranting about how once he's finished with what his latest project, the world will never be the same and they'll learn to appreciate the value of shrinking. He's apparently blown his entire fortune on whatever he has been building.

 

Your character investigates, and determines that Shrinking Ray has built a satellite and has contracted to have it shot into orbit. When confronted he admits that yes he's built a shrink machine to affect the entire human race, but this is a good thing don't you see? Over about ten years we'll shrink down to about the size of an action figure, with our needs for food and water and our carbon footprint reduced more than ten-fold. The planet's environment will be saved, and the human population will be free to grow considerably before it becomes a problem again.

 

Do you smash Ray's stupid machine?

I can't help but imagine the Star Hero version of this plot, where the heroes arrive on a planet where this has already happened.

Re: Lame or awesome?

All the "talk to animals" stuff reminded me of Krosp I--Emperor of all Cats from Girl Genius. He is an intelligent cat designed to rule over all cat-kind. Which worked except that trying to get cats to work for you is like ... well ... herding cats!

Re: On the Willful Killing and Maiming of NPCs

Let the players play the hero team that is going to be whacked

Late to the discussion (as always) but let me recommend this option.

It has several advantages:

1) It lets your players know how tough their opponents and how high the stakes without putting them at risk.

2) It invests the players in the NPCs. It can be very easy for players to view NPCs are simply plot devices (because in truth thats all they are) but if they walk in their shoes for a while, the characters become a bit more real.

3) It doesn't close off any options. You can still have them dead or rescued or mind controlled or whatever your plot requires.

4) And best of all it gives you maximum player fun for GM work You've had to do the work to plot out this event, might as well get your players involved! It can also be a nice change of pace for your players, particularly if it is going to be a tough campaign.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

Google failed me

Not that there was much difference to be honest. I doubt I'd have noticed if it hadn't been brought up on the forums.

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

Does her origin involve being tragically born without nipples?

Ah! That would be due to the great Nipple Nerf of 04.

I kid you not

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

Snark + ignoring the actual point = not a constructive part of the conversation.

 

EDIT: That response may have been overly harsh. I know you were trying to make a joke, which is fine. But making a joke and ignoring the point made makes the statement seem dismissive at best.

I wasn't trying to make a joke I was agreeing with your point!

Sheesh! I'm out of here. I antagonise people even when I am agreeing with them. Whats the bloody emoticon for that?

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

Good for you. Oh' date=' and maybe you should see an optometrist about those rolling eyes of yours; I'm sure they have some kind of corrective surgery for that these days.[/quote']

 

No call for that. If you don't put an emoticon something that is otherwise innocuous can be read as antagonistic.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

The cover art on Gurps and D20 didn't sway me...

Bad art is worse than no art

Re: A Rogue's Gallery of Haunted Spaceships

Whenever I think of haunted space ships [Exactly how often is that Jagged?] I always think of Space 1999: Dragons Domain. Loved that episode

Re: What Will It Take To Blow Up Pluto?

To illustrate my point: here's the positions of the bodies in the outer Solar System bodies and inner Solar System bodies as they were on October 1. Those are just the few* whose orbits are well-enough determined to make plots like these.

Very cool. These links just stole 20 mins of my lunch time

Re: What Will It Take To Blow Up Pluto?

Political correctness my ass; name them after Greek and Roman gods and heroes the way God intended.

While I have no idea how politically correct your ass is I do believe the Gods objected to us naming lumps of rock after them. Especially after Pluto went through the embarassment of being demoted

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

different people have different needs and no one platform can address them all.

Thats not how I describe the Hero System to people

Re: Disappointment

Stats that perform functions similar to their HERO counterparts. Non-combat skills' date=' talents and perks. [/quote']

 

As someone that knows the Hero System very well I found myself often wishing that they would avoid Hero System terminology completely. I didn't play beyond Beta so I don't know if its changed (I'm told it hasn't) but whenever you ran across something that sounded Hero-System-y it never behaved the way you might expect. Which created an annoyance that wouldn't have been there if they had called it something else entirely.

 

As for non-combat stuff, being familiar with the developers from CoH and knowing that Emmertt once pronounced that comics are basically all about combat I never expected there to be any non-combat activities To be fair to them that kind of activity is much harder to produce and automate, especially if you want to do it in a way that isn't invalidated by someone with access to Google.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

You seem to be arguing from the assumption that the HERO System is angling for the same player base as D&D, and I don't think that's true at all.

We're not?

Before I was a Hero System player I was a D&Der. How many of us were not, at one point or another, D&Ders?

We need to convert these guys as soon as possible. Its for their own good

PS: The cover to 4th was/is glorious

Re: Disappointment

If you can find an MMO developer with a vision to make the world a better place for Hero System fans everywhere and a corporate sugar daddy with a money tree and endless patience, sure it might be possible to make the game. But making it profitable is something else altogether.

I wouldn't do it as an MMO but thats a different story

Re: City of Heroes - Online Hero Game

Also according to the user agreement CoX can delete accounts that have had no activity for more than two months. So the characters would be deleted anyway. I might as well make a clean break.

My emphasis.

To my knowledge they have yet to delete any. You might come back and find their names have been taken though.

Regarding account safety: you should be able to control your account from the NCSoft account page to prevent any credit card transactions taking place. In fact since I don't play any other NCSoft games I just deleted my card details when I left. Thats all you should need to do to be safe.

Re: STUN multipliers in 6e

"Taking the hero prisoner" is a classic trope of numerous genres' date=' but tends to go over very poorly in the typical game.[/quote']

 

 

Oh I don't know. I've fought on in many a battle knowing I was going to lose, confident in the knowledge that my referee would punish me with something far nastier and more fun than death

Re: 'Hero System' online

Mind Control in City of Heroes works fine. Essentially enemies just join your side. No extra animations needed.

You can even cast it on robots or inanimate machines. Cast it on the Sky Raiders force field generators and they will englobe you instead

Re: Disappointment

Point based systems have a steep learning curve for building stuff.

I think you could resolve this issue by having two levels of character builder, something not unknown in these kind of games. So you could have some basic template characters that you fill out with package deals. Then you have the full system available to those that want the flexibility.

Re: Discussion: Taxonomy and Pathology of Halloween Monsters

In some campaigns, I relied on After Man, a Zoology of the Future and The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution for fauna that seemed familiar but alien.

This made me think of Dresden Codak

Re: Movement Multipowers

I guess here is part of our disagreement. I see the main part of a mulitpower (How I use them in most circumstances) is to make things a "one use at a time" deal.

I always saw the main part of a multipower (and any framework really) as a bonus for good concept. Which is probably why I never saw this as an issue and is something I've done with lots of charcaters

Re: 'Hero System' online

The moment you start charging for admission' date=' people's viewpoints will change. [/quote']

 

Actually I think the problems start when you change something and admit you are doing it for "balance". You will then be hit be a deluge of spreadsheets explaining exactly why UpperThump is overpowered compared to DoubleHack etc etc.

 

The biggest mistake any developer makes IMO is pandering to the hardcore. They are the ones that push the edges of the system (and its the edges where things are most likely to be broken) but are also the ones the eat through the content and leave the quickest. Unfortunately they make the most noise and so often grab all the attention.

 

No, don't panda to the hardcore, give them two black eyes instead!

 

Oh, I'm so funny.

 

*cough*

Re: Scatter-Based Hit Locations

Trying again

I've used a couple of systems like this and they were always unsatisfactory because the second scatter roll just causes a second chance to miss.

If scatter has that effect shouldn't it also make the occasional miss a hit too? Maybe a slightly better approach would be to scatter first and then attempt to hit?

So you:

1) centre the scatter template where you want to hit.

2) roll the random scatter dice to see where your shot would land.

3) roll OCV vs DCV

4) move the shot closer or further away based upon the result.

Re: Discussion: Taxonomy and Pathology of Halloween Monsters

Of course it is also possible that the lunar cycle of the werewolf runs mainly in the female line and affects all of them to a greater or lesser degree...

Not touching that one!