Edsel

I know that until the 1934 National Firearms Act ownership of fully automatic weapons (like the Tommy gun) was legal for anyone with the cash to buy one. What, if any, firearms regulations were in effect in the 1920s and 30s? Could anyone carry a firearm concealed or openly? What I am wondering is whether or not a character should be required to any sort of Perk to be allowed to carry guns of any sort. Obviously being too overt or too heavily armed is going to draw unwanted attention (in itself a disadvantage) but should I even be concerned about character's needing a perk to carry a gun. What about abroad? The characters will likely travel the world. I imagine that less developed areas of the world (Africa, South American jungles, South Pacific Islands, etc.) there will be little in the way of organized law enforcement so carrying weapons is not a problem and actually advisable. What about western Europe and the other developed countries of the world? What sort of firearms restrictions are common?

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #8: APG Goodies Any optional rules for re-coupling attributes?

Re: A Thread for Random Musings I am very depressed about the impending release of 6th Edition. Finally after all of these years Hero is going to start using color books (Book of the Machine and the 6th previews look great), but at the same time the game I love is being butchered. I keep trying to be positive about it but the more previews I read the more I find myself disliking the new edition. It is almost, but not quite, as bad as the Fusion fiascio in the pre DOJ years. Tweaking of rules here and there might have been OK but many of the things I liked are the ones being cut or changed (figured characteristics, DEX based CV, EGO based ECV, etc). It is very annoying. I keep thinking that I will buy a copy of 6th just so I can look it over and confirm my fears and also to make it easier to convert 6th Edition posts back to 5ER. But I really loath the idea of spending money that will support a game I oppose. I guess buying just the PDF would be more economical. Since I have all of the 5ER books I won't have to waste money on any 6th supplements, I have enough data to run any setting at any time in 5ER. I also worry that the flood of 5ER ideas and posts will rapidly decline and that I will start having little reason to visit the Hero Forums anymore. Perhaps there will be a thread or two covering how to convert between 5ER and 6th so that I can manage the conversion without having to buy more books. I hope that there will still be threads and and discussion between those of us who choose to stick with 5ER. Previous editions have not been nearly so much of a re-work as this version seems to be (except the aformentioned Fusion fiasco). I mourn for the game I have played since my youth. Sorry this has not been a positive post. I just felt I had to vent.

Re: Defying Gravity TV Series Yeah, I am making it a point to watch this one. All I know about it is the few commercial spots that I barely saw. I figure I can go into it with an open mind and hope it turns out to be something good.

Re: Gangbusters! to Pulp Hero By a lucky chance my FLGS had a used copy of the Gangbusters stuff so I picked up the lot dirt cheap. Thanks to everyone for their help though.

Re: Piercing Hmmm... Some observations 1) Extra Damage Classes with martial arts cost 4 points each. 2) Normally in order to add damage to an attack with CSL it requires two (at least 5-point CSLs) to do so. 3) In either case these add a single damage class. 1d6 for a normal attack and about 1 pip for a killing attack. Based on that I would be tempted to allow CSL to add 1-point of piercing to a non-resistant piercing attack, but I might require 2 CSL to all 1-point of resistant piercing.

Has anybody done any work on converting the old TSR "Gangbusters!" materials, particularly the game modules, into Hero System? I have the five original modules but not the Gangbusters! rulebook so it is kind of hard to figure out what all of the stat abbreviations mean.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #4: Deflection, Reflection, And Range I have decided to quit commenting on these previews unless/until I see something that I like. Sadly this one has driven me even further toward the idea that I may stick with 5th Edition. I won't be posting in the preview threads again unless I see something I consider an improvement.

Re: Champions 6th version I'll have to agree with CrosshairCollie there are a lot of us who may be sticking with 5th Edition.

Re: [Campaign] The Last Dominion Nothing wishful about it. I am guessing Last Dominion will be resuming sometime in September.

Re: Justifying Playable SPD SPD could also be justified by the characters situational awareness. He or she could just be so experienced or naturally talented enough that they react smoothly and efficiently in battle. Most people hesitate in combat (hence the natural speed of 2) but some people react instinctively and therefore waste little time. After all it is a Champions game. People with any sort of supernatural ability are not really very realistic. Don't worry about it so much.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games The accent is done like this: anti-materiél I just cut and pasted it from a word processor.

Re: Black holes as high-tech power sources Black hole technology http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=541

Creative Puns for Educated Minds Creative Puns for Educated Minds The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi. I thought I saw an eye doctor on an Alaskan island, but it turned out to be an optical Aleutian. She was only a whiskey maker, but he loved her still. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class because it was a weapon of math disruption. The butcher backed into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work. No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery. A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering. A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart. Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. A hole has been found in the nudist camp wall. The police are looking into it. Atheism is a non-prophet organization. Two hats were hanging on a hat rack in the hallway. One hat said to the other, 'You stay here; I'll go on a head.' I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me. A sign on the lawn at a drug rehab center said: 'Keep off the Grass..' A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, 'No change yet.' A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion. The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large. The man who survived mustard gas and pepper spray is now a seasoned veteran. A backward poet writes inverse. In democracy it's your vote that counts. In feudalism it's your count that votes. When cannibals ate a missionary, they got a taste of religion. Don't join dangerous cults: Practice safe sects!

Re: Top 5 Favorite 5E Supplements My Top 5 Supplements The Ultimate Skill Dark Champions The Ultimate Martial Artist Predators DEMON

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #1: ACV And AVAD I agree with the sentiment that for now we have only a partial picture of the new rules and we are using guess work to fill in the gaps. Until I have the game in my hands to study I cannot make an honest judgment about 6E. The only thing I can say is that based on what I have hear/read/seen so far, I am expecting 5ER to be the system I stick with. Sort of like when I stuck with AD&D once the new editions of that system, which I didn't like, were released.

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #2: New Combat Maneuvers; Objects As Weapons 1. Blazing Away & Hurry. We rarely if ever use Blazing Away but Hurry is used with amazing frequency. It is a shame to see it move to another book, it should have stayed with the core. Rats. 2. Things like Rapid Fire and Sweep are actually used with much less frequency in our games than Hurry is. I hope that there is a penalty for trying two different sorts of attacks at once. For instance it just makes more sense for two melee attacks in a single phase to be less difficult than trying melee and ranged attacks at the same time. Actually I really don’t care too much for allowing that sort of mixing. I guess that comes from trying to maintain a certain level of verisimilitude in our heroic level games. Leaning against this change. 3. We make custom maneuvers all of the time using the current rules from Ultimate Martial Artist so this does not seem to be that much of a change. Indifferent. 4. Improvised weapons are easier handled, in my experience, on the fly without bothering to resort to finding rules for their use. This sounds like an added complication. No need to mess with the 5ER RAW in this case. 5. In almost all cases I would prefer to simply keep DEF for objects and not bother with it further. In odd circumstances where an unusual item is supposed to be better vs. Energy or Physical attacks I just slap a few points of armor on. I would have preferred to keep DEF. Sadly another preview that leaves me underwhelmed.

Re: Reminiscing About Star Fleet Battles

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Since I prefer figured characteristics I will pretty much continue as I have in the past. Normally you can only sell back one figured characteristic but this can be waved at the GMs option. Normally in my games if you had a good character rational for selling back more than one characteristic I might let it slide. But it is not something that I'd want running wild in my games. In my opinion figured characteristics make for more rational character designs. And Starlight brings up a good point about the reason for the restriction. As it stands the decoupling issue and decoupling of CVs is a deal breaker for me (there are other lesser issues as well) and I will likely stick with 5ER and import what I like from 6E. However, I intend to buy 6E and give it a good look. In fact our group's other GM (Eosin) is likely to convert his campaigns over to 6E so I will even play the new rules. Within a few months of its release I should have a much better idea about my feelings toward the new system. Who knows I may even change my mind.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far Well stated and pretty much in total agreement with my viewpoint. The vast majority of games that I have played in and run are heroic rather than superheroic. As a result it is less common that people mess much with the figured characteristics. Usually SPD is bought up to the next level and if a character is supposed to be tough we might buy up PD and ED a little. STUN, REC, END are almost never touched and remain at their base (figured) levels.

Re: Master List of Limitations Gone??!! Yep, the one Hyper-Man posted was the one I had been using. I have bookmarked it and the one pruttm posted too, just in case. Thanks to both of you. I have already used up my rep for the day but you both just made my list.

Re: Master List of Limitations Gone??!! After my computer crash of several weeks ago I just realized that I no longer have the current url for the Master Lists. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Re: Sixth Edition Showcase #1: ACV And AVAD I realize that, but since one of my biggest dislikes of the 6E changes is decoupling and removal of DEX as the basis for CV (and EGO for ECV)... I will be either recoupling them via house rules or I'll simply carry on with 5ER. In either eventuality (in my particular case) this makes ACV not worth the trouble.

Re: 6E Rules changes confirmed so far I don't see re-coupling to be that easy of an issue. Since the cost of characteristics have changed (due to decoupling) the point balance of characteristics will be thrown off when/if you attempt to recouple under 6E. I guess I could always keep the old point costs for characteristics. However, if I am going to recouple, keep the old point costs, keep COM, and keep CV based on DEX (or EGO for ECV), I am better off just sticking with 5ER and house ruling the few things I like about 6E so far. Fortunately it looks like it will be fairly easy to enter 6E characters into HD to get 5ER compatibility whenever I need to.

Re: Shadows Angelus III Campaign Logs Campaign Log – Shadows Angelus, Session Four Real date: 27 June 2009 Game date: 18-24 April 2112 On the morning of April 18th the 9th Squad is given their next case by Captain Alexander. Over the past month there have been a series of disappearances and murders in the Beta Sector that, due to their unusual nature, are believed to be entity related. Normally simple serial kidnappings and murders would be handled by the APD, but in this case each victim was drained of blood by unknown means. Thus far there have been five incidents involving; a volunteer fireman, a local food bank operator, a teacher, a street missionary, and most recently a local APD officer. The APD has been unable to correlate the crimes to any single suspect or gang activity and with the murder of one of their own they have finally gotten desperate enough to ask for aid from XSWAT. In fact murder of APD Officer Nicholas Lamakowski occurred last night and the crime scene is currently active. The 9th Squad is told to head for the crime scene immediately before the APD cleans up the any evidence. They’re APD contact on the scene will be Lt. Ray Marlow. At the crime scene the 9th Squad introduces themselves and treats the APD officers as politely as possible since they realize the local police are likely to be resentful of their taking over the case. The fact that the victim is an APD officer only makes the situation more delicate. Fortunately Officer Rachel O’Shea does most of the talking and her manor puts the APD as much as ease as can be hoped for. The body of Officer Lamakowski is in a metal storage shed in the modest backyard of a residence. The occupants of the home have already talked to the APD and claim not to have seen and heard anything. The corpse is surrounded by a pool of blood and the bare footprint of child is evident by the door of the shed. Shilo and Rachel enter the shed to study the crime scene since they are the two most adept in the fields of criminology and forensic medicine. The body has been drained of blood, though a lot of it was spilled as well, but there are no obvious wounds on the body. It is as if the body was drained of blood through the pours or other orifices. Mirko also enters the shed in an effort to detect any magical traces. A quick study of the dimensions and shape of the footprint leads the team to believe that it was left by a young girl no more than ten years of age. Meanwhile Sergeant Thomas remains outside talking with Lt. Marlow and some of the other APD officers to gather as much background information on the crimes as he can. Officer Thanatos studies the surrounding yard seeing if he can sense any traces of an entity’s passing. The officers inside the shed become aware that a section of the wall of the shed has started to bleed! It is not much, only a few small rivulets, but it is certainly blood. Officer Mokushi gathers a few drops in a specimen bottle for later analysis. As the group watches the area of the wall that bleeds seems to shift slowly first it is a section of the north wall, it moves to the east wall and finally to the south wall. With a little investigation they discover that the area of bleeding wall corresponds to where Rhonin is outside and close to the wall. Rachel has Rhonin come inside the shed and upon his entry all of the interior walls begin to bleed. This is a matter of concern for Rachel and an embarrassment for Rhonin. Mirko creates a magical circle inside the shed and surrounding body so he can carry out a ceremonial spell allowing him to contact the spirit of the Officer Lamakowski. He manages to contact the spirit but is able to glean little more information that what they already suspect. Officer Lamakowski thought he was aiding a young, homeless-looking child in her effort to hide from attackers but once within the shed the child turned out to be something horribly different. As a courtesy Mirko offers to pass on any last messages that the dead man has for his family and then accompanies Lt. Marlow to inform the family of the deceased. After the initial investigation the remaining members of the 9th Squad spread out to canvass the neighborhood. Among the things they will be asking about are any homeless or unescorted little girls that have been seen in the area lately. Ultimately it is Rachel who finds out that a homeless girl had been seen following around the owner of a local food bank (one of the previous victims). Mirko decides to call his Grandma Lilly, fishing for suggestions about what sort of entity they might be dealing with. The rest of the group brainstorms in an effort to deduce what they can about the MO of the entity. They know that each victim was a morally upstanding male in his thirties. The interval between attacks has been six days in each case. Plotting out the crimes on a map they realize that the five crime scenes are perfectly aligned to be the points of a pentagram (five-pointed star). A residential area that is slated for renovation, and therefore currently unoccupied, lies in the center. The squad members all feel that the center (the residential block) is the most likely hiding spot for the entity, but they decide that the other crime scenes should be checked out first to see if any additional information can be gained. The squad splits up to re-examine the previous crime scenes since they feel that there will be little danger. Inspecting the other crime scenes the squad members note that in each case the victim was slain while in an area that provided cover. Apparently the entity chooses to carry out the murders when it believes it is concealed from the eyes of witnesses. It is noted that the presence of Rhonin makes the walls bleed at the crime scenes he visits, which causes more concern for Rachel. They get a break of sorts when Sergeant Thomas, Officer Thanatos and Officer O’Shea visit the crime scene at which the missionary’s body was found. The street preacher was found in a dumpster in an ally just off of a main street. Rhonin’s presence causes the usual blood to seep from the walls of the trash receptacle. Of more interest is a security camera for a pawn shop that Rachel notices at the end of the alley and across the street. They go over the digital recordings of this camera and, after a few hours work, manage to find a recording of the missionary. The victim is seen late at night running in to the field of view. He abruptly stops upon arriving at the intersection with the ally and seems to be talking downward to a shorter person who is not visible. He then seems to panic, stoop to pickup an unseen burden and then run down the alley to the dumpster. He then sets down his imaginary burden, opens the lid, assists an unseen small person into the dumpster, jumps in himself and closes the lid. He never emerges and was presumably slain shortly thereafter. - - - The next morning (April 19th), the squad heads out to search the deserted residential area to search for the possible lair of the entity. Knowing that a spinner would draw attention the squad decides to walk into the area and search it house by house if needed. They wear their uniforms since the area is deserted and stealth rather than anonymity is their goal. The search for the entity here bears little fruit. The sensitive members of the squad reach a consensus that this is indeed the home of an entity but that it isn’t home right now. Unfortunately the squad does draw the attention of a street gang (calling themselves the Street Demons) who consider this deserted area to be their turf. The gang does not take kindly to the coppers snooping around in their territory and a confrontation takes place. After a few threats fail to cow the XSWAT squad the street gang attacks. The five XSWAT officers are out-numbered at least four to one by gun wielding, but unarmored and unskilled attackers. Several of the squad members carry weapons other than Masers so they are able to fight back without much fear of violating regulations. Fortunately only a few of the, mostly teenage, punks are injured before Mirko ends the fight with a single spell. Calling forth a column of fire and levitating in the midst of the firestorm Mirko’s voice seems to echo throughout the empty buildings like some fire deity that has been aroused. “Foolish younglings! You are naught to us but fodder for the body bags. I despise the paperwork your deaths would bring. Force me to unleash my arcane might at your peril. Surrender or prepare for the afterlife.” The spell boosted PRE attack has its desired effect. Those who can run… Those who can’t cower in fear… The squad holds the captured thugs for the APD to pickup. No one is killed or seriously injured. The squad now realizes that if they are to end the spree of this entity their best bet is to set a trap. They know when the next attack will likely take place. The mystical and occult knowledge of the squad has led them to believe they know the approximate location that the next attack will occur as well. They even have suitable bait since Sergeant Thomas is about the right profile (male, age, morally correct). The squad spends the next four days waiting for the day of the next attack. - - - Late on the night of April 24th, the trap is set. Sergeant Thomas wears plain clothes though underneath his generic rain slicker he has a pair of Maser pistols concealed. He loiters around a bus stop on an empty street corner. The rest of the 9th Squad is hidden inside a closed up store where they have a clear view of their sergeant. As the hour nears midnight things start to happen. JT sees a small girl running up to him as Maser fire strikes the ground around her. The shooting seems to be coming from the direction of his hidden companions. The girl cries out to him, “Help me mister the bad men are after me.” JT realizes that this is what he has been waiting for and that in all likelihood he is the only one seeing the girl or the incoming maser shots, but he plays along to keep from blowing the operation. JT scoops up the girl and starts to run across the street to an alleyway, all the while hoping that the remainder of the squad will be on his heels and ready to act once the creature reveals itself. The rest of the squad sees JT suddenly react to a phantom and then he seemingly picks up someone who isn’t there and runs across the street and down the alleyway. The other squad members pour out of the closed shop in pursuit. It is apparent to Rhonin that something is there that he can’t see. At the same time Rachel is sure that a point of evil is clearly here and in close proximity to Sergeant Thomas. The chase leads them to a rear entrance of a small local grocer. When they open the door they see JT with a small girl standing on the ground beside him. The girl looks at the group entering and stares directly at Rhonin and says in a coldly serious voice, “how thoughtful you brought some more to share.” Mirko hesitates for fear that this could be an innocent girl possessed by some foul entity and his first action is to cast a spell to discern just for certain what they are up against. Soon there is no doubt that despite the appearance this is an entity. The battle rages in the close confines of the back room of the grocer. By the time it is ended Rhonin is pale from blood loss for when the girl grasped him a ghastly amount of blood simply oozed from his skin. Rachel is worse off since the girl’s fingers at one point grew into long thin spears and several pierced her armor and all. Rachel will be in the hospital for some time. The entity is slain but to show for it there is merely the small horribly abused looking corpse of an eight year old girl. It is very unsettling but Mirko assures them it is not really a human, it was something akin to a homunculus. Later examination in the XSWAT labs will reveal a simple lump of flesh that was devoid of internal organs and indeed was something that could not possibly have been alive except through supernatural means.