Bezzeb

Huh, really interesting! But aren't you just talking about a special form of a bog standard Skill V Skill contest? Namely one that's time deferred? I can't say i've had this happen as a GM often, maybe ever... But the way i'd resolve it is by saying to the player who hides something for later searchers: "Okay it's hidden, we'll find out how good of a job you did if someone ever walks past or comes looking for it." I know myself, i would not be interested in writing down numbers for a future search. And if they did hide a USB stick between some bricks where uninvolved pedestrians required a more immediate success/fail test, I'd definitely expect the player record how well they made it by. I'm with you. GM'ing is hard enough, memorizing pre-generated penalty values is an unreasonable ask for a rule-system. 👍

To the OP: I think it's brilliant that you've enumerated a few roll types. It's made a light bulb go off in my head... For a future reprint of 6E I think all of these dice throwing variations should all be enumerated, named, and given little icons to be used used throughout the book so that the commonalities would be clear. This is a serious aspect which throws off new players until they get a deeper feel of the system. New players don't know there is a finite number of rolling mechanisms, and get the feeling it's arbitrary and infinite. I routinely bring new players into hero system with good success. As a GM I'm often pointing out patterns and deeper reasoning to which players respond well. It would be GREAT if these patterns were put at the forefront in future publications. Systematized. Would help expose exactly how consistent and simple the system actually is under the hood. They are not random, each has different mathematical characteristics which were well chosen by the game designers for each situation Now, I didn't see anyone mention that Chracteristics and Skill rolls are already identical. Nobody needs to learn anything new in this example, and using contest rolls with no opponent - for example making a dex roll to avoid slipping and falling on ice, kind of breaks things and leads to less consistency not more. Everyone i'm sure knows but just in case, the Characteristic roll is already beautiful and elegant. The 9+ (CHAR/5) is simply designed to put average vanilla base 10 characters at 11- or less, like a low level skill roll. Spending character points to raise skils or characteristics helps there respective rolls and all of the mechanics stay essentially identical. That said, there are lots of opportunities to add a contest roll into the game to spice things up. I once had a character haggling and turned it into an INT based contest roll, giving them an extra die for some kind of merchant related background profession they had. So I encourage taking any pcvpc or pcvnpc situation which makes sense and making it a contest roll !! But please don't break things by fixing them.

I'm so freaking excited... Are you willing to comment on how the first basic objective will compare with the Roll20 script? For info, we rely on 2 aspects at roll20 in our game group: Combat turn tracker and the Power "attack buttons" which draw from character sheet modifiers. On the latter, for Hero Vets and Newbies alike, it keeps everyone in the flow instead of pausing all the time to do math. The secret to a great Hero System module in my eyes is making OCV/DCV modifiers easy and intuitive for players to manipulate. The guy who designed the Roll20 script and character sheet did a decent job of it. And no joke, the Roll20 script has been VITAL for letting me bring in players who are new to Hero System. As GM i say "Let them play first, learn later." With the roll20 scripts, takes me 5 minutes to teach how to click the modifier option buttons and how to pick an attack on their powers page which I've prepared before hand - then we're gaming. They pick up the math and logic along the way. If your new FoundryVTT module meets or exceeds in this area of making it less daunting for newbies, then we could see some growth in the number Hero System gamers.

Devastating news. My entire Hero System game group is mourning his loss - news spread fast in our chat group. We can only offer more warm condolences to Darren's family.

Just discovered FancyCreb's work on FoundryVTT - paid cash immediately to get my hands on it! Not that FancyCreb sees the money. I'd been avoiding Foundry for years for lack of Hero Support - which locked my group into Roll20. The hero system implementation there is great, but the platform is horrible. Not a single improvement or bug fix to the platform as far as I can tell since 4 years ago when i started using it. Foundry by comparison is SLICK. My first hour in the software was very positive and FancyCreb's work is a GREAT start. How can i contribute? I've been reading the API docs but must admit i face the same obstacle as FancyCreb. Just figuring out where to sink my teeth in is a bit tricky. Made a github feature request before finding this thread. Thought about it a bit more since posting over there, and yeah.. Without making ocv/dcv/dc/rmod/etc modifiers accessible for players to control, and adding a hit locations option, i don't see how I can ask my players to use it yet... But if i can figure out how to be productive and help, i'll do so. We played on Roll20 last night - it was so bad and buggy, so sick of it. Gotta make a viable alternative.

Hey Bigdamnhero, I just wanted to say thanks for writing up this movement example!! I see nobody else replied, but i think that's very cool, and will definitely give it a shot when our Star Hero campaign gets to space combat. Standard Hero vehicle combat is okay for ground and air vehicles, but i really was not looking forward to trying to use it in space. I'm a firm believer in inertia and the vacuum of space. Without air under ones wings or asphalt under ones tires, things are be different. It really annoys me when some sci-fi shows depict space battles as airplane dogfights and i was dreading our space fights looking like that. So all hail Babylon 5, BSG and The Expanse for showing us how amazing some realism can be. The movement system you've described looks like the perfect cure, and separating ones movement vector from their heading and using angles seems brilliant... If you play again soon, would be sweet to see a short video depicting a few turns of space dogfight combat. Thanks again and all the best!

Yeah, good point, duuhhrr.. I wasn't thinking it through fully. So then buying a skill to 14- would instead be buying roll bonuses. Got it. Needing to translate the printed material in one's brain constantly hurts my brain a bit... But i concede that it is 6 of one .5 dozen of the other. Last lingering question though.. Does roll-high still give the same degree of intuition? I'm not sure and am admittedly biased... But it seems that adjusting the goal might give a better and more "always on" intuitive sense. We play with two small 3d6 charts on the outside "Player surface" of my GM screen which i made with excel, so they can see the likelihood of an outcome (one bell curve to hit a specific number, and one sum curve showing cumulative odds to roll under). I explain it as putting the player in control, and think it's important for them to have some intuition that "Oh, my range modifiers do this, and if i make a placed shot it does this, it's a slow monster so DCV is probably manageable, chart says i'll still have an x% chance, so i'll go for it." I explain that when players do this math, it simulates how as a pro marksman intuitively can be thinking "It's a tough shot, but I can do it!" or "it's an insane shot, i will probably miss...". If they decide what to do accordingly, i think it makes them more capable and in control, and most importantly less likely to do things they didn't really understand or wouldn't have done if they had known their odds. So, if your players have that finesse with the roll high inversion, then i'd fully condone it. I've never tried, but i'm suspecting it probably works fine once the brain flip-flops. Deffo not gonna change my group to roll high though. Their brains (and mine!) would explode, and for whatever reason, i love the standard way. And I came here to just point out that it's not too hard to teach the standard roll under method. In the end, to each their own. My 2 cents has been paid in full.

I have 2 cents for this thread, as I also have a new game group (old friends, new to hero system) which i'm starting a Star Hero campaign with. They naturally asked about the roll low thing, but I cleared them up and made them pretty happy in maybe 5 minutes by explaining: A: Think Golf. This isn't some alien concept, par is like your success goal, which means LOW. Just this one point got me 90% there with my group. B: GM applied modifiers are a big part of hero system, and if you want them to be intuitive, one simply must use a roll low mechanic. B.1: It's quite elegant for me to tell a player they have an advantage for some reason so "+1 to your roll". Plus one is good right?? Yes it is! B.2: Or the inverse, they are trying to do something really difficult, so i say "Go for it at -3". They know minus is bad and might have second thoughts. --> Inverting the test roll mechanic borks this up. C: Final point i teach on this topic: 3d6 tests are all about finding a statistical probability range for the player that fits a situation in a fair way, roll under golf rules apply so that bonuses and penalties make sense. Doing damage, well that depends on the attack you hit with. Grab as many dice as your attack allows and go for it, may you always roll high! Unless you're pulling a punch or holding back strength. (laugh) So the whole group quickly got it, was on board, and they today think it's a really elegant system, which it is. Hero system needs some expert hand holding to get past the learning curve, but i'm pretty confident i could get anyone to fall in love with the roll-under system if i sat down and talked it through with them. Biggest risk is they might go play other systems and start to realize how dumb those non-hero game mechanics are. (LOL) I know i find it painful to play other systems, though i do regularly as a player... (I don't have the intestinal fortitude to GM other systems...) One of my players said it best. "Wow, Hero System is like the GM on the Critical Roll videos saying 'How do you want to do this', but all the time!! I don't have to wait until I roll a 20!" Couldn't have said it better.