TranquiloUno

I thought this was the actual tagline? Like so: https://www.amazon.com/Vampire-masquerade-storytelling-personal-horror/dp/B0006QV6WY I remember this specifically because as a teen I was riding back from a LARP with a friend and his mom and remember saying re:VtM, "It's a game of personal horror!", and friends mom was all, "Well we certainly can't have him playing THAT!", which I thought was a bit odd considering we'd been a couple teens running around in the wood all weekend with strange adults. ;D I don't recall any backstabbing in any of the WoD games I played in. VtM, WtA, MtA, or Hunters Hunted. Conversely I've never seen this personally and have only heard of one player, an odd guy, who was routinely staking other PCs, and I think that was more the player and his character than anything to do with the game and was at least partly driven by munchkin tendencies on the part of the player. He was also part of a VtM game that ran for years and years, pre\post this player, so even in the single instance I've heard of it didn't do anything to the enjoyment\continuation of the game for the rest of folks. Very strange. Never seen this in VtM or WoD generally. Certainly nothing even close to resembling "centers on PvP kills". Like...at all. Interesting to hear your comparative experiences.

I pitched a pretty strong origin story for them all. It was a near future setting that didn't have supers until the accident that creates the PCs (and the opposition). So, again, it wasn't a long campaign, and I think the on the run, new supers, wanted criminals stuff definitely constrained even the parts of the campaign I was wanting to get to, which was, like Gnome BODY (important!) says above, mostly Shadowrun\Ocean's 11 with powers. I was hoping to make it past that to the point they'd start their own super-villain plots but we only got as far as them taking over most of the drug trade in Las Vegas and heisting a single experimental regeneration device (which was partly improvised due to my getting a headshot on a PC during an encounter with some SWAT folks). I expected to keep them at the on the run stage for another session or so. They'd always be wanted criminals (probably) but they'd started to acquire resources but they'd acquired enemies\opposition to go with it (shadow government faction and the mad scientist(s) responsible for the origin story). I would guess fairly strongly. The pitch was the classic, "You're a death row\other prisoner trading time off your sentence for being a test subject" + "mad science experiment goes horribly wrong" (you saw that coming tho, I'm sure). So while they were all convicted criminals in some way there was no requirement they be Hideously Evil or Deeply Villainous. Also it was fairly low powered (rather than the classic attack\defense\movement setup it was more 1-2 of those and maybe 1-2 other minor features) and they all had DF of some kind. So they had less ability to blend in, less ability to solo or go solo (even apart from the Dependency on being in proximity to each other). I think they might have had a Susceptibility to attacking each other too or something just to lay it on extra thick. Don't remember now. AND, crucially, I had a good group of players. So that always makes things easier. I'd guess, based on the players and the characters they created, and without the close-proximity thing that the group would have broken up in to a couple of sub-groups based on character outlook if we'd hit the sandbox phase of things. The Magneto type (who also had super Int) was most likely to evolve in to a classic supervillain. I don't think the others were that ambitious. But they'd have made a good thug squad.

I ran a short one. Went fine. Had a method to keep the party together and at least semi-friendly (all their powers were from the same source and were only 'stable' when all of them were in fairly close proximity). Didn't get deep enough in to it to get to the sandbox type stage. Still in the "on the run" and dealing with various other factors (hunted due to escape from prison, other 'villain' group, FedGov stuff). I liked running it and would run one again.

A little late to this thread. Mine is here: https://sites.google.com/view/amagicsystemforherodescribed/home Or at least a version of it, No Magic System survives contact with the Players, right? ;D Pretty basic. RSR with Side Effects. One of the more interesting bits is that magical conduits (channelers\magic users\casters) are required to take a DF: Magic Conduit which is NOT Concealable from Magesight (which conduits also have to take). So magic users can almost always detect other magic users on sight.

I've been thinking about that too recently while rereading the classics. VtM had, obvs, terrible cover art, but was still striking in it's way. But the interiors were really a sweet and stylistic departure from the TSR style that seemed standard before WoD\WW showed up. Ars Magica is another one where the look, the art, and the system are all nicely congruent. Yes, that's a bit strong to say that any pile of words can be a worthwhile game system. And for sure *if the cover can get you to pick up the book* then I think cover blurbs and intros and all the rest (interior art!) can have a chance to go to work on a potential buyer. But I do think the nice cover art matters in getting folks to take a closer look. Ha! Same. I mean I like Dr. D's appearance and design (not so for Seeker) but I don't particularly care for either character. But they did make me want to buy the book. Same for the Hero System #500 cover from the ICE days. Author made Tal available directly. Great stuff! I've downloaded copies on to multiple computers in fact. Also Skyrealms of Jorune, Underground, Mekton, CP2020 (true, I was going to buy all the cyberpunk things regardless but those Chromebooks sure made it easier), some of the GURPS supps. Heh. As fans we should just Kickstarter a collection of money to reprint FHC\CC or another slim Hero product but with loads of art dripping off every page. ;D

I'm not sure that's true.... Certainly people don't buy an RPG *just* for the art but I have also certainly bought any number of RPGs over the years sheerly based on cover and interior art. I think any pile of words can be a functional game system. I don't think people buy RPGs because of the words. I think the book has to spark something in the person. Blue and yellow don't spark nuthin' for me. Dr. D vs Seeker made me want to play that game without ever reading it. I remember loads of Classic Enemies based on their art. I remember buying Champions in 3d based almost solely on the cover art. Since we're a bunch of Hero nerds here I know we all love our system of choice but I don't really think a system has ever sold a game. I think art sells games. Art invokes creativity. Art informs potential buyers\players about all kinds of things about the game without them having to read a proverbial thousand words. Art actually gets potential players to read those thousand or more words of the rules to actually play the game. Shadowrun? Battletech? Bought 'em for the art. Warhammer\40k? Art. In fact Warhammer and it's family are probably the best case for art being the only thing that really matters. IMO. All those terrible Palladium games I used to play? It was the art that did it for sure. Talislanta? Barely remember the system. Loooooove the art and the world and still wanna play that game solely based on the art. Rules are bullshit (to an extent)\no plan survives contact with the enemy. But pretty pictures are always pretty. Art sells product. IMO at least. Gets pricey tho!

Four THOUSAND points!??!?! Four *THOUSAND*?!?! Damn... Build a guy on 400, max, maybe try 300, and use the standard superheroic guidelines to do so. Basically what massey is saying. Four *THOUSAND*!?!??!

Thanks for posting! The last one got sidetracked but I didn't want to complain too much that builds != tactics. I mostly agree with Christopher R Taylor that tactics depend on specifics and so making generalized tactics, particularly for a system as flexible as Hero, is hard to do. I think there might be meta-game considerations as well. Like in-game focusing fire on one enemy at a time seems questionable. Wouldn't you fight the guy you square up with like in every superhero fight in the comics? But meta-game focus fire one one enemy at a time seems quite legit and useful. Do PCs in-game know about Teamwork attacks and if they are totally plinking off the guys armor? Or is that meta-game awareness? Do PCs in-game know about the Speed Chart and how saving phases works? Even to the extent of, "He's faster than us, we'll have to wait and strike at the same time...."? Definitely combo attacks to reduce DCV followed by Haymaker\Extra Time\whatever the thing is are valid particularly in combo with saved phases. Guy1 = entangle, Guy2 = haymaker the 1/2DCV guy before his breakout. I also agree with Christopher R Taylor that a lot of the tactical complexity is probably going to come from the scenario itself. If there are no civilians to rescue or falling Heli-carrier rotors to fix then...no need for tactics to address that. Just smash the enemy. If there's nothing on the battlefield to interact with, or no reason to interact with it, same kinda thing, no need for tactics besides ganging up and picking the right attack\defense. And then of course figuring out the abilities of your enemies in combat (because their abilities will influence your tactics to counter them, right) is a potentially valid tactic, but only if you gain actionable intel from it. If you scan them with your scanners but they don't have any Vulnerabilities or Susceptibilities or anything like that...not much to evolve a tactic to counter. And then the last thing I think is that...tactics might be too successful in some cases and create a GM need\want to nerf them. The Entangle Guy and the Drain vs Strength Guy or whatever. In the last thread this is why I had been asking for specific examples from specific players in specific games rather than generalized Hero tactics. What have players and GMs actually done that is "tactical" exactly? I played in a game where the bad guys often had teleport-back-to-base belts\items. So then countering that by disabling them, breaking them, grabbing them of their belt was a valid tactic. But it wouldn't be universal. Those are some example from play though: Targeting enemies escape route\devices. Focus fire on one target at a time. Getting somebody to half DCV (throw, Flash, Entangle) so the others can hit them with bigger attacks more easily. Particularly if you've got a cheap 1 Hex AoE to go against Speedsters\Martial Artists.

These don't really seem like "tactics" to me. They are code words for certain generalized moves. Which could be used tactically. But most of them can just be called what they are. Like, "They are using a gas attack!", or, conversely, "I'm going to use my gas attack now, you guys!". Might be useful (and I think Allston did this) if your GM is very cagey about in-game dialog or something. Like if I'm saying, "Hey, Speedster! Ripoff! RIPOFF!!!", and pointing madly at an enemy with a focus...can't I just say, "Hey, Speedster, get that gadget!"? Is the target likely to be surprised by the first one, "Sure, they were pointing at me and saying "Ripoff!" but how was I to know he meant grab the thingie and runwith it"??? I'd say, "Having a speedster\teleporter grab a focus and then run\port away with it so they can't get it back during the battle", is a valid tactic. But having a bunch of code words is not, to me, "tactics".

I was noticing this too. It *seems* to me like Aid would be the way do it. But only because doing it as Char UBO is so cheap!

Mental Defense seems pretty straight forward but I usually have trouble even rationalizing wtf "Power Defense" is doing in a broad and general sense such that I can justify a character having it or not. I agree with Gnome BODY (important!) that it's highly GM\game dependent. I can't really estimate commonality in a universal sense but I would guess Flash > Mental > Power with the Life Supports more relegated to character concept than being defensive abilities. But that's a guess. Flash Def is pretty easy to rationalize and some concepts even kinda encourage it (if you've got special goggles...maybe throw some Flash Def on it?) and Mental attacks are common enough in Supers games and easy enough to rationalize ("My guy has great strength of will!\Is half-alien\Can focus his chi\really almost anything") that it'll pop up. Drain\Transfer\Transform effects seem least common, generally, so the defense are less common as well. That's my speculation!

+4 OCV (only when opponent is dodging) ;D There's a Dodge roll?

Ugh. Terrible. This is why (among other reasons) Punisher should live in Marvel MAX and everybody else should...not. Sure and I can totally understand that but also as even a casual comic reader you gotta know that's never gonna happen. Worf Effect, different writers, etc, etc. Not sure why Batroc got to give Captain America such a hard time in Winter Soldier. He's just a normal. And yet....it was a nice little fight. And I'm pretty sure it goes about the same in the comics. I figure, again, No-Prize style, that if a GM, er, I mean a writer, is going to throw a threat at a PC, or other fictional character, that the threat will be...you know, a threat. I don't think there's a strong need to preface that with a lot of exposition about how\why it's possible. But, all that said, I totally understand your complaints both regarding martial arts giving you superpowers (I wish!) and also inconsistency between writers, eras, and so on.

I certainly agree with you from a realism perspective. But I also suspect this perspective is based on and biased by actually knowing some martial arts. Something like the gunkata from Equilibrium seems...kinda dumb given what I know of shooting. Same for martial arts. Comic book martial arts aren't really supposed to be IRL martial arts IMO. They're just another Special Effect. Just like I don't think there is a real martial art that'll let me turn my hands "like unto a thing of iron" but it's ok that Iron Fist can do that. To me at least. If an Aikido Granny gets to manhandle The Hulk with aikido well...yes that sounds dumb, and if it was a RPG I'd give the GM some serious stinkeye for this railroady bullshit, but since it's a comic book...totally fine.

Meh. A hero who can't be threatened would be dull AF. A hero that can only be threatened by "realistic" threats (in a comic book?!) would be dull AF too. Shifting *comic book* hero abilities and capabilities are extremely par for the course IMO. I mean...Captain American can probably beat up Spidey and he doesn't even have a brown belt in Judo. ;D And Spidey can't dodge a heavy spinning disc?! Unrealistic! Spidey should just auto-win because one time somebody said he was fast enough to see bullets coming! Part of the point of comic book martial arts is...the comic book thing. Ways to give folks extraordinary abilities that might not "make sense" here in reality but work just fine as a "Special Effect Based" rules system. The special effect is just the "It's JUDO!" parts. Same as "proportional strength and speed of a spider" = Dex 36\Str 40 or where ever you like to set it. Not that I thought you were being Super Serious Business or anything, but...c'mon. Karate Kid, Shang-Chi, Iron Fist, Judomaster, Batman, Deathstroke (dude can hit The Flash), Captain America, and so on. Plenty of examples of just "normal" martial artists throwing down with supers in the source material. Even if it's not "realistic". You know what I find unrealistic though is all those armored supers like Iron Man that never get splattered all over the insides of their fancy suits during high-speed impacts. I know, I know, "initial dampeners". Unrealistic! Armor suit guys should all be forced to take Susceptibility to Sudden Stops and such! I'm more in the Marvel No-Prize camp: Spidey (particularly in The Enforcers days) wasn't a very experienced combatant and definitely wasn't trained. I think he gets bonus points for "The White Belt" effect (where the white belt does something so...weird that black belts get caught by it) because he's effectively untrained but using his speed and strength and flexibility to do stuff that shouldn't work at all. That said I've seen smaller martial arts guys beat larger, stronger, faster, younger folks by virtue of being better than them. I think that's partly what we're wanting to model here. Judo and such can work quite well against larger\stronger untrained folks because of all that usual stuff (leverage, timing, the other person not knowing wtf is happening). So Fancy Dan can indeed fight Spidey (back in the 250pt days) by using his superior training against a talented but untrained and inexperienced teenager. Particularly when you factor in the multi-attacker\team-up bonuses and potential entangles from the lasso and all of that with his friends around. Of course it's more likely that comics written in the 60s weren't exactly making any attempt at all in anyway to model a "reality" that would be self-consistent and remain consistent for 20-30+ years in to the future, eh? Anyway, like I said, I don't think you were super serious but...within the fictional world of comic books this all makes perfect sense to me from both a dramatic sense and a play-balance sense. And more so than the comics being able to portray this consistently (nothing is consistent in comics) I'd think our beloved Hero system is the thing that is burdened with having to be consistent. And I feel certain any of us can build a 200pt Very, Very Skilled Normal that can at least challenge a 250-300pt Spidey. Particularly if he's got his other 200pt Very, Very Skilled Normals along for the ride. Bunch of Speed 3s can still mess up a Speed 6s day. Viper Agents. Agents in general. Fancy Dan and Ox and Montana.

So....GURPS, then? 🤣 /I kid, I kid.....

It's my opinion that rulebook\sourcebook art is the secret sauce\silver bullet of RPGs. To the point I think they might matter more than the rules.

How many dizzying effects are there going to be in the game? I'd think the cost would be proportional to the value in game. Unless there are going to be specific dizzy-creating effects in the game I'd think it would be cheap. But if the Keystone Kops all use Dizzy Blasters and are going to show often then it might be more. I'd use Detect: Balance - Sense (5pts) or Environmental Movement (Absolute Balance is 4pts) or even just +X (Only to counter dizziness penalties) which would probably be...4-6pts, eh? Or Safe Environment - Dizzyness for 4-6pts. Using Damage Negation seems problematic because to become immune to dizziness you'd need to apply the Absolute Effect Rule (right?) and then decide how much Damage Negation would be needed to counter any and all dizziness causing powers. Just seems more complicated. But surely it would depend on expected occurrence of dizziness in the game.

This seems like the biggest dichotomy between "new" and "old" gamers. We like crunch and wanted to learn it. System mastery and rules exploits were more like points of pride. And the sheer joy of not being tied to a class\level or a clan or an OCC or whatever the heck else they liked to call them was huge. New folks seem to be more of a, "rules get in the way", sort of bent, in addition to the narrative focus. I feel more like Scott Ruggels, I think, the rules exist to give the various tactical (and other) scenarios structure and you're engaging (as players and as characters) with the scenario. It's not that fighting\combat was the point of the game but more so that it wasn't looked at as a distraction from the "real" game (ie, the story). That's my probably my bias talking though. Back on topic: Pregens are the main thing for teaching. I think. Just a nice clean and balanced example for folks to look at and start to decipher. With the hope being that once they realize you can adjust, like, ALLLLLL of those bits on your sheet they'll get the Hero bug and want to dive right in. It certainly seems fine to me. Every game needs a core mechanic (probably) and 3d roll low is one, so...good enough. Yes, mostly I feel the unlimited flexibility\build your own stuff gets presented up front as being good and valuable. And...it is. But I think it's a distraction from learning the game part of the game and until you learn the game part of the game the character building stuff kinda exists in a vacuum. What's Power Defense? Do I want it? Do I need it? Should I have it for this game? Is this attack "good"? Is it "too powerful"? All of that stuff is, I think, hard to grok for new folks because it's...well, Hero. Good\bad\powerful are all relative. But you can't really teach folks by saying, "it could be" and "it depends on the game\setting\scenario" over and over. Pregens that are working balanced examples get around most of that. Which is why I suspect essentially every single thread I've seen about introducing folks to Hero suggests that, eh? Mostly I just mean I think players have a certain limited amount of attention span to give stuff and if most of that attention span is taken up by looking at an insanely overwhelming character creation\powers section until they give up then it'll be hard to get them to reenage on the system aspects. Of course this is all generally speaking and IMO and all of that. Gamers are still gamers and do still like learning games and rules and playing them. It's just funny to me that chargen (the point-build system mechanics) is the heart of Hero but when teaching folks the system I think it should be strongly deemphasized to prevent brainlock. Pregens. 3d roll under. Many default tactical options that aren't just the player trying to connive the GM in to giving them a situational bonus Probably Stun\Bod and Normal\Killing. I'd say I'm in the Speed Chart = Hero camp as well. Those all seem core Hero to me and are the elements that can be well separated from the chargen stuff. And I think ghost-angel's point about Special Effects and Mechanics being separate is also true but I don't think it's....particularly playable as an aspect of the system. Like it's very central to Hero but also not really something you can teach as part of the system without getting a bit lost. Maybe he's got examples and I'm missing something there tho.

I would say it's about the same (obviously it'll depend on the system and the group and the game) and that they come up fairly frequently. As happens in other games as well. This is mostly due (IMO of course) to the "action" skills being mostly Dex based. Since PCs tend to spend a fair amount of time: Sneaking, Hiding, Acrobatically leaping about, avoiding falling in to pits, fast drawing, picking locks, and so on those skills tend to have an outsized effect in the game because they come up more and because they usually involve PC danger\death. Again, obviously this varies from game to game, player to player, system to system, and blah blah blah. But that's my general observation of RPGs over time. Sneaking is common and almost always "Dex"-based (whatever they call the stat) and usually\often hitting is Dex based as well. Certainly in GURPS, WW, Palladium (not point buy, but...), D&D some others it's a powerful stat. Hard to say generally but it's about the only remaining usage for Dex in 6th that isn't Dex rolls. Generally going first (or at least having the option to) is good in most games though. Depending on what kind of Hero you are playing it could matter more or less. If you're playing a higher lethality\lower armor type game (WW2, 'Nam, etc) then going first and hitting first, to provoke Stuns, can be very valuable. In a mixed archetype classical Superhero game it might matter less.

I mean...Character Creation (without Powers) is about 60 pages (5th revised). Skills as a part of that are about 7. Powers and Advantages\Limitation\Frameworks is 200ish. And Combat is just under 100 pages. Not saying the skill system isn't well plotted, or that social interaction mechanics suck, or any of that stuff but...that's a LOT of pages spent on combat versus everything except powers.

Detect: Balance - Sense, 5pts! Probably more like 3 though since Perfect Pitch, Absolute Time Sense, Bump of Direction, and so on are 3pts.

It's an interesting question and kinda what I was wondering about in the Sell me on Hero thread. Because how much we need (and still keeping it Hero) is kinda about that, right? Defining characteristics of Hero for me would be things like: Endless point-buy options based on the various Powers and....maybe hex-based combats with a lot of standard combat options? 3d roll low doesn't seem super Hero-y to me. Or particularly important to the system (I know other folks do not agree with this). Point-based builds don't seem super Hero-y to me. In that there are plenty of other systems doing that. Flexible character creation often seems like a red herring to me. In theory it's infinitely flexible but in practice, in actual games, it generally isn't, and often isn't relevant even then. If we're playing Fantasy Hero and I wanna play a guy with a sword\Aragorn\generic warrior dude then I'm probs just gonna buy some very standard stuff and not try to talk the GM in to letting me have a Cosmic VPP (Only for Sword Tricks) and creating my own specialized intricate martial maneuvers or whatever. So, particularly in terms of just teaching the mechanics of task and combat resolution, it would come down to Core Mechanic (3d roll low, not unique to Hero but the basis of learning the game and doing stuff in it) and probably all the default combat options (except I don't think those are particularly worth teaching right off the bat because new folks won't have a frame to relate the OCV\DCV stuff to). Stun\Bod and Normal\Killing are pretty distinctly Hero as well. And often quite confusing for new folks. Probably worth time spending time on during teaching sessions but considering you can do away with Stun in Fantasy Hero maybe it's not the most Hero of Hero bits to include right off. I mean why does damage need to be so crunchy, right? Can't we just PLAY already? I dunno, it's hard to answer because for me the crunch is a part of the appeal but also the crunch is what makes it hard and intimidating to new folks. The more crunch gets peeled off the more it's Hero Lite or something.

What aspects of Transient Maneuvering Factor are cryptic to you? ;D

I mean "need" seems like a strong term but the general reason is: Cost efficiency (in some cases). Like Cassandra's example. I have a player in my game with a MF in a MP currently for exactly those reasons. He has other powers besides MF and can't use them while he's using MF so....MF in an MP.