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Pattern Ghost

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Posts posted by Pattern Ghost

  1. A song of Ice & Fire

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: A song of Ice & Fire

     

    Still waiting. A new book is due out .... soonish. There's two more to come, I think.

     

    cheers, Mark

     

    Thanks.

     

    I think he originally stated plans for four or five books. What's the count up to now? Has he exceeded the original goal or is just slow in getting them out?

  2. Urban Fantasy: Warnings

    in Fantasy Hero

    Posted

    Re: Urban Fantasy: Warnings

     

    Let's not forget Fritz Leiber. Though they could probably be classed as horror, Conjure Wife and Our Lady of Darkness are pretty decent examples of urban fantasy, particularly the latter. Could add The Sinful Ones, too.

  7. Mind Slayer

    in Other Genres

    Posted

    Re: Mind Slayer

     

    I think they got it pretty right this time.

     

    Of course, there were pages of rants about her costume on their boards, but I've stopped reading those for the most part b/c the signal to stupid ratio is pretty high.

  9. Beastboy

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: Beastboy

     

    I like the idea of picking several pre-set forms, as suggested by Bloodstone. Here's my suggested list, based on comic and cartoon appearances:

     

    • Rhino: High defense brick form.
    • Gorilla: Martial brick form. Also useful when he needs stats AND hands.
    • Monkey: Higher agility, climbing ability (clinging with limits requiring hand/foot holds), good for evading while using hands. Used to play "keep away" from villains.
    • Cheetah/Big Cat: Ground movement + offense form. Good for closing the gap to melee.
    • Various Bird forms: Flying, telescopic sight (raptors), good for scouting.
    • Pterodactyl: Flying while hauling a teammate. Not as maneuverable as bird forms.
    • Fly: Scouting, evading security systems.
    • Dog/Bloodhound: Tracking scent. A generic dog form seems to be one of his defaults while just hanging around the base.
    • Aquatic form: He's done whales, sharks, and dolphins. I'd go with shark since it's reasonably sized, fast and has a good offense and defense.

     

    Something like that should give a good list of options, especially if you give the player a little note at the top of each critter write up indicating the strengths of the form.

  11. DoA Characters

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: DoA Characters

     

    We rented DOA once for my brother in law's 360, but didn't get into indepth play, as the inlaws are MMO geeks and not into fighting games.

     

    When I buy my own 360 (next month maybe), I may pick it up, as I do like fighters. I'll report back to ya, if it's not too late.

  12. A campaign for my kids

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: A campaign for my kids

     

    Had you not already ordered the Hero stuff, this is actually a project I'd suggest the old Marvel FASERIp system for. Free nowadays (TSR basically gave the fan sites permission to make the PDFs available), and a very simple system to pick up and play for new players.

     

    Of course, you can build a pretty simplified version of Hero by paring down the optional rules, too.

  14. Your FIRST Super Hero Character

    in Champions

    Posted

    OK, let's hop into the WAY wayback machine and see what our FIRST superhero characters were.

     

    I'm not talking about the first one you played in an RPG, but the first superhero you EVER created. For a lot of us, that'd actually predate the entire RPG hobby. Of course, if your first superhero was actually created for an RPG, go ahead and share.

     

    My first character was:

     

    The Blue Comet!

    Created: c. 1974

    Inspiration: My blue PJ's with a comet on the chest, and static electricity.

    Appearance: Blue body suit (with feet), with a comet on the chest. Built like George Reeves version of Superman.

    Powers: The Blue Comet could fly, and smash through stuff, especially stacked cardboard boxes. He had a personal force field that sparked like blue static electric sparks when hit.

    Equipment: As a member of the Space Patrol, The Blue Comet had a personal space fighter.

    Affiliations: Member of the Space Patrol. Sometimes partner of the Cougar Kid. (My brother's creation.)

     

    He was my first, though later the same year or early the next, saw the creation of the Cobra Kid, later upgraded to King Cobra. More on him later.

  15. A rundown on some material in some books I have been writing.

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: A rundown on some material in some books I have been writing.

     

    I think the biggest hurdle to getting this published is the size. It's a twofold dilemma. On the one hand, if you're publishing a physical book, you must look at the size of comparable products already in print. That will determine the length of your project, because of packaging concerns and print concerns. Proposing projects too far outside the norm can be a futile effort.

     

    On the other hand, you have PDFs as the second option. Size works against you here, as well, because most people are unwilling to read large amounts of text off the screen.

     

    Have you ever read The 10% Solution by Ken Rand?

     

    It's an excellent little book on self editing. It might help you when it comes to trimming down the final page count of the books, which is really the biggest hurdle I see to getting your project published. It won't take all the pain out of the larger part of trimming down the work, but will help when it comes down to final edit time.

  20. What Have You Watched Recently?

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

     

    Just finished Season 2 of The 4400. Getting interesting. Too bad they canceled it.

     

    Just watched In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale with Jason Statham and a cast of well-known but not overly talented actors, directed by Uwe Boll. Overall, not terrible on props, costumes, sets. HORRIBLE dialog. Really bad acting except for Statham, who did the best he could with his bad lines. I don't know if I'd put this one all on the direction or on the script, but any director with half a brain wouldn't have shot that script, so it's a toss up. I can't say it's the worst fantasy movie I've seen, though.

     

    Also watched 27 Dresses. I likes Katherine Heigl. Not terrible, not great.

     

    You can kind of tell we get two at a time, one pick for me, one for my wife. :)

  22. Decoupling Movement from Speed or Segement moviement

    in HERO System Discussion

    Posted

    Re: Decoupling Movement from Speed or Segement moviement

     

    I think this has come up in the past, but I'd be at a loss to figure out what key words to search for since the forum search doesn't like three letter words. =(

     

    The biggest problem to me in divorcing the two concepts is that Hero is very much a turn-based game (not "Turn," I'm talking about taking turns to go, not game terms breaking down units of time), and in any turn-based game, each player typically has a list of things they can do on their turn. In some games, they can do things on the other player's turn as well.

     

    If you wanted to divorce movement and SPD, you'd basically be saying that movement is something it doesn't have to be your turn (phase) to do. In the case of Hero, you would also have to consider if it's something you want done on nobody's turn (segments between phases), which is probably the only way to do it with the variable SPD of characters. (That's assuming you want to keep SPD, and simply disconnect it from Movement.)

     

    So, the first step would be to calculate the character's maximum movement per Segment.

     

    Next, you would simply allow charcters to use their movement at any time during combat time, including off segments. But that sounds horribly broken to me. I think if the combatants are mainly melee, it would create some crazily long combats as people reposition (act) on phases that nobody can attack or use powers (every other act). That's a pretty huge change in the combat rules.

     

    Now, it's less of a problem if you toss out the SPD chart altogether for combat and read the SPD chart as "Attacks/Actions per turn" like other, more abstract, games. Of course, that also has a pretty large impact on a lot of game rules too.

  24. A Classic/Full Metal Alchemist Combine

    in Champions

    Posted

    Re: A Classic/Full Metal Alchemist Combine

     

    Ok here is what I have so far for the Alchemy VPP. Anything in red means I am a bit unsure about whether or not I need it or am doing it correctly:

     

    Active Points subject to change

     

    100 Alchemetic Reactions Arsenal (VPP)

    Can be changed as a 1/2 phase action (+1/2)

    Charges (50 though I may drop it down to 30) (+1/2)

    Charges can only be recovered in an Alchemy Laboratory (-1/4)

    OAF (Surrounding Objects) (-1)

    Only for Alchemy Spells (-1/2)

     

    Total Control Cost: 36

     

    How does it look?

     

     

     

    Oh ok hehe

     

    I think OAF (Surrounding Objects) looks a lot like what's been written up as OIF (Objects of Opportunity) in the past. I think the idea is that you can't really take away something that's going to be picked up on the fly and used up.

  25. What Are You Listening To Right Now?

    in Non-Gaming Discussion

    Posted

    Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

     

    Duffy, Rockferry.

     

    New Welsh lass with a nice voice and sound. (Kind of jazz/soul thing. I'm not a music critic, so I just identify things by "like", "not like", "Mariah sCarey", "rap". It's usually a pretty accurate scale, though not good at identifying anything but rap, really.)

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