The Monster

Re: Keeping them distant It seems to that the whole question - of keeping someone at a distance with long weapons - breaks down into a couple of distinct facets. 1) All things being equal, the longer weapon should have the first opportunity to strike, at least on intital approach. Of course, this assumes that the spearman is aware of the attacker, ready to act, and so forth - all of which can be easily accounted for by a held action, as well as a "set vs charge" option. If the latter is an abort action, so much the better, though it may be a bit generous to the spearman. 2) The whole idea of keeping someone at bay is *not* a question so much of doing damage as of posing a threat. It isn’t the spear that keeps the guy away; it’s his reluctance to suffer pain and damage, knowing that he’s likely to get hurt (at least) before he can put you down. One of the things that makes berserks so effective is that they aren't stopped by such tirvial concerns, which makes them scary to the typical spearman. What is needed here is not a combat mechanic per se but a role-playing standard. While Hero is more effective than most RPGs with BODY and STUN damage, the fact that you can be knocked down to 2 BODY and still fight without penalties makes it easy for characters to hurl themselves about with abandon. For heroes, that may be properly mythic, but for basic thug and soldiers, it isn’t quite satisfactory. Perhaps a PRE roll or something should be needed before moving into an unfair strike distance (i.e., one where the other guy can hit you but you can’t hit back. This really boils down to a GM/roleplaying issue rather than a cut-and-dried combat rule. 3) If you make special rules for spearmen to make a first strike against an attacker, you really ought to clarify the oprions for the attacker as well. He should have the option of attacking the spear as he comes in, to break it or deflect it. A variant on Disarm or Block might work, but I get queasy when people start piling on special rules, especially in Hero where existing options can and do cover almost all situations.

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome They chose . . . poorly

Re: Keeping them distant I have yet to see a good "at bay" rule, and I've been looking since me and my high-school buds made up some tincan armor and wooden weapons and did some crude, slow sparring with them. Bigges thing I noticed was that, if the target can keep the long pointy stick pointed at you, it just seems like moving to within sword-hack range is a Bad Idea. You'd have to knock it aside (Disarm maneuver?) or trick him somehow (PRE/Sleight of Hand?). That said, I did use a pike formation in an RPG once, and it scared the bejeezus out of the players - they danced around it until the pikemen's boss was squished, so they decided to retire (mercs - go figure). Now, this wasn't Hero (Dragonquest, in fact), but it seems ot me the same sort of thing applies. Basically, what I did was rule that specifically long (i.e., >7 feet) weapons could be used to attack a foe 2 or 3 hexes out, depending on length (the whole idea of adding Range or Reach, right?) - so if you have two or three ranks of pikers, anyone coming in their front will get attacked two or three times before they can even try to bash heads. In Hero, that may mean the pikers spend a lot of time holding actions, but I don't have a problem with that -- or you could allow them to abort to Set vs Charge, lowering their DCV but boosting damage. This doesn't really answer the one-on-one issue, I know, but the rules dicussed above (wit the OCV/DCV reversible penalties) seem like they should work (I admit it's never cropped up in my Hero games so far).

Re: Campaign Idea - Suggestions Gratefully Welcome OK, if the good guy behind the scenes is Merlin, and the heroes are Arthur, who are the bad guys? And What are they up to? If you're going to use Arthurian stuff, it may evoke all kinds of things - grail quest, Green Knight, Lancelot/Guenevere, etc. You obviously don't have to use them, but be ready to have your players make assoications and assumptions. One way to use this is to emphasize the theme that Arthur was the one who brought order and unity back to his native land when it was sinking into chaos - Arthurian stuff doesn't really have a Big Bad per se, which I think works to your advantage. Instead you have the Morgana/Mordred motif, which works way too well for a megacorp setting. And even that doesn't dominate the stories until Arthur's end; most of it are fairly episodic stories. So I would go with a deep-background villain, a plotter and schemer, using magic and megacorp power combined (just about every corp in Shadowrun does this anyway; also look to Wolfram & Hart for ideas). Go ahead and make her Morgana revisited, but don't even reveal her existence for at least a couple adventures. Make her a second-level contact, or even patron, of the heroes - she's the one who's behind one of the PCs first important contacts, and she's watching them and using them to keep her underlings & enemies off-balance; when the first contact dies, she steps in (maybe as they approach the sword-drawing scene) and becomes a kind of "Deep Throat" mysterious stranger with way too much knowledge about events and people (including themselves). If they come to rely on her for help, so much the better: betrayal is so much more dramatic then mere assault. Possible scenarios for Morgana? Her stooge (probably a corporate veep of security or something, important and powerful but finally expendable) alerts the heroes to a crime being committed by a rival corp. SImple enough; sets up the relationship. VP Stooge then sends the heroes on a run against his own subsidiary. This can be either a "test" or a setup where the PCs end up facing an assault by a rival corp, which the stooge knew was coming. They can resolve it by combat or diplomacy. VP Stooge gets killed at some point (insists on going along on a run, is assasinated while the heroes are contracted to protect him (since he suspects that Morgana's going to dispose of him?), or is simply gunned down at a meet like in X-Files. Before or at the sword-drawing scene, *Morgana* is the one who explains what's going on, painting it in the worst possible terms - or encouraging the heroes, with the intent of controlling and ultimately stabbing them in the back. Merlin pops up and explains what she really is. Who to believe? Maybe a direct fight between Merlin and Morgana? Maybe this is the first revelation of what *Merlin* really is! (BTW, the sword in the stone was not, IIRC, Excalibur, though you could certainly make it so. Excalibur was given - and returned to - the Lady of the Lake. Somebody had to point that out, just to satisfy the picky ones.) Anyway, there's some more grist for the mill. A lot of the Arthurian legend revolves around loyalty - true, false, misguided, and misunderstood. Fun stuff to play with.

Re: Spy network as a power? Let's see... Clauraudience/retrocognition, extra time, special limitation for "reports by contacts" (in other words, won't work if there are/were no witnesses); maybe based on skill roll Streetwise. If you want to work in the possibility of false rumors, throw in Side Effects. Actually, to represent the likelihood of getting pictures, datafiles, etc., modify the Clairsentience accordingly. I think a Summon effect, as already suggested, to represent the ability to call for help from local agents would be amusing. Again, with skill roll Streetwise or something (or even Area Knowledge!). For a real rules twist, make it an Autofire Summon so that the better he rolls, the more agents he gets hold of! If the network can get hold of equipment, you can make that a Gadget Pool with an Activation/Skill Roll, extra time, etc. Lots of spies or expert trackers among them mind even be defined by a weirdly modified Mind Scan, to reflect the ability to find people -- extra time, activation roll, not usable with mental powers...

Re: Real world Pulp characters Other than "cameo" NPC's (the players have met some of the Nazi top brass -- including a faceoff with Heydrich in my pulp campaign), the closest I've come is my Adventure Hero, where Frankenstien's Monster is one of the PCs (Adventure Hero being my translation of our Adventure campaign into Hero terms, just because it works sooooo much better). Though it has also been established that the mysterious "Mister A" behind my airship-based Archangel campaign is none other than an incognito Doc Savage - not real-life, but amusing.

Re: Advice for new GMs Don't insist on being the ultimate rules expert. It puts too much pressure on you internally, and you miss an opportunity to involve the players (and mabe find someone else who can/will GM!). In my group, generally about half to a third of the group has a copy of the rules, so there are copies for people to refer to. I make a point of asking players to look up rules for what they're doing, sometimes even if I know the answer already. Some of them will do it anyway, and the others will at least be interacting with other players as they check rules for them (better than another side conversation or comic book popping up). Use published material - adventures, bad guys, etc. Don't be afraid to tweak it, to fit your campaign and to keep players on their toes if they've already read it. There's a lot of really good Hero sourcebooks out now. As someone already mentioned, start low-power if your players are willing. I've had the best time running 50 to 75 base point heroes, pulp types without much that could be called "superpowers." Even if it's a supers campaign, don't try to make every villain a major threat by himself: teams of normals with a bit of training and equipment can put a healthy scare into standard superheros (a simple .50-cal machine gun is what, 2.5 RKA AF? And just mention the stats on something like a Stinger missile or chain gun, and watch the supers players check their defenses and cringe). The bad guys don't have to all be Doctor Doom to be challenging. (In fact, I have a rule of thumb that says a group players can take down one of anything. I've seen ancient dragons taken down by a couple of lucky crits, demons hit with just the right stuff to trigger Vulnerability/Susceptibility, and so on that I just don't base adventures on One Big Baddie any more: it's too anticlimactic when they get that lucky shot in and end the fight suddenly.)

Re: Two Game Master's I've done several methods of co-GMing over the years. As Cancer mentioned above, our group ran our Feng Shui campaign trading between two GMs. We deliberately did not consult with each other on plot or character or anything, and it soon got so that we would set up cliffhangers for each other to resolve. When one wasn't GMing, the other was playing. The Champions game I'm running now is co-GMed with two of us running at the same time. Basically, I'm the rules expert (though the other's no slouch) and he's the genre expert: he's got a hugongous comix collection. He and I have met a couple times ftf and email to plan the campaign and each adventure, so we know what's going on. The first real co-GMing I did was Shadowrun, which screams for multiple GMs, what with combat, magic and hacking all happening at once, and in first edition, each had its own practically independent set of rules. With each revision, they've streamlined things. We ran almost entirely published adventures, though we had to go over them carefully - most of them were pretty good as far as they wet, but we always found holes or gaps where either the logic didn't quite follow, or we knew our players wouldn't dance to the author's tune. When running, we'd divvy up NPCs, I specialized in magic and the little hacking we actually ran, and he usually focused more on overall plot and action. By the way, each of these examples is a teamup of me and a different co-GM. Our gaming group also runs a big tournament at our local annual convention; it's been Feng Shui for a few years, last year was Savage Worlds, this year we're actually using Hero (yay!). The planning we do (we just take one or two of our regular sessions out for this) is as fun as running or playing: each of us come with various ideas (with some softening up by group email), and over the course of an evening, we've gone places none of us could have got to alone. So I'm a big fan of co-GMing, at least with two people (I've never been in a situation with three or more GMs at the same table). Just the ability to have one guy actually GM while the other plays NPCs, either for interaction or tactics, is a huge relief. Bad guys are *so* much more effective when someone can focus more on what they are doing instead of being a passing thought in the midst of the rush of combat. NPCs are more expressive and varies, not only because two different people are playing different NPCs, but because again the one playing the NPC doesn't have to respond to all the player questions, rules interpretation, etc. And it's a good way to get out of the ruts ou don't even know you're in, both in actual play time and in planning. The other GM can always think of things you overlook and make suggestions to add twists or consistency to what you come up with. It also makes it a lot easier if/when the party gets split. Now, of course there are caveats. I have the advantage of having gamed with these folks (the ones I've co-GMed with and most of the players) for years - the above examples are with people I've been gaming with pretty regularly for 20+ years! (With gaps of a few years for out-of-town jobs, as well as several of those years being just an annual session or two at the local con.) So we already had a good idea of how we operate. We're also all experienced GMs on our own, going back to before 1980 (my Shadowrun partner's first RPG was Empire of the Petal Throne!) So you need to have a handle on the skill of the co-GM, and plan accordingly. I've found that preplanning sessions, preferably ftf, are essential. You can compare plot ideas, NPCs and their plans, and rules tweaks. Even with published adventures, you want to take time to go over it with each other so you have similar interpretations of the material and how it fits your campaign. (Never mind the example of the Feng Shui tradeoff campaign I mentioned above...actually, that leads me to...) You have to trust each other as co-GMs. That means that you assume s/he knows what s/he's doing, so you can in fact let them take over certain things during play. Of course, since you've discussed things ahead of time, you have a good idea what's likely to happen anyway. It means that if they make a rules call or NPC action that doesn't quite fit what you would do, you give the benefit of the doubt and keep your GM-control-freak instincts in check (you know we all have 'em!). Make sure it's a major issue before you stop play and hash it out right then. It means also that you give them free reign to be creative, and that you can expect their support and flexibility for your creativity. And, though it's never happened to me (thank goodness), don't let the players play one of you off the other, either to gain cheats or cause dissension. If they're good players they won't try. Feh. This is going on too long. I just wanted to share my experience and some advice, given that I've done this a lot. It's worked well for me, but I relaize my situation is unusual. Thing is, there's several ways to co-GM, and it takes some conscious effort to pull off, but it can add a lot to the game for both GMs and players.

Re: How to: Pointing Out The Flaw We've got a character like this in our group, The Link (as in "you're the weakest link!"), though the player drives me crazy because she never uses her powers to anywhere near best effect. She's got FW usable by others, which covers directly hurting someone; She's also got Analyze skill, to give her an idea about what their tactics and powers are; She's got Tactics skill as well, so she can tell what the bad guys are about to do. (She also has an EGO Drain and an EGO-based SPD drain to represent her cutting insult abilities, but that's not directly relevant.) I think that setup covers most of what you're talking about. You can also throw in some kind of limited Clairvoyance/Danger Sense/Missile Deflection to really predict the opponent's moves, and maybe even an odd Discriminating N-Ray vision to allow for in-depth analysis of structural aspects.

Re: Western / Steampunk Hero Idea Bouncing: "Bone Falls" Don't forget the natives! As of 1860, there were still a lot of very active and powerful Indian tribes out West (Big Horn wasn't until the mid-1870's, Custer being a US Civil War cavalry officer). In a situation as active and multi-faceted as yours, plus a little just plain history fiddling, some of them could easily have become more organized than they historically were - some set up as client states, some spontaneously rising in defense (and finding allies among the rival states), even some in envious imitations of the power and civilization of the white states. Given the strong tendency toward independence, places like Texas, California and Utah might pursue true national identity, and regard themselves as being separate from any confederation based on the Eastern Seaboard. Some areas might even be a (perhaps uneasy) mix of Indian and White settlements, allowing for intrigue of all kinds. Mexico lurks to the south, if you want it to. Without a US to back it up, Texas and California might be more tempting. For that matter, Britain (via Canada) and even Russia (via Alaska and down the Pacific coast) could get involved in some clandestine stuff. I'm sure you've checked out Deadlands. It's set post-Civil War, but a lot of the ideas they use there could easily jump to your campaign.

Re: Weapons as Perks It does seem kind of odd, making people pay points for mundane weapons. If they can't just pick up a sword from the guard they just KOd, it seems like it would eliminate some standard fantasy bits. I'd suggest that normal weapons be free, but you could make it so that *anyone* can invest their points in their equipment, to make it better - so that warriors who have a personal favorite sword can spend points to make it +1 OCV, or AP, or whatever. Make sure they have a good in-character reason for it, and keep an eye on campaign limits. The idea being that their spirit or something flows into the item. That way, it can be such that, in fact, the sword of their grandfather, who slew a hundred orcs at the Battle of the Western Approaches, actually *is* a better blade because of its former wielder. Now, even this idea can get ugly, since you have to remember that important NPCs will be doing this also, and build accordingly. One way to limit proliferation is to require any "magic" weapon be built from the ground up - if you want a magic sword, you have to pay for the HKA, not just grab a sword and pump two or three points into it for a +1 CV. Given that OAF by itself cuts the price in half, a vehicle-style 1:5 cost is not necessary (now, if they want to have a spirit bound into an item as a Follower, that's a different story).

Re: A pulp picture...the USS Manhattan Well, my first reaction was "gah - that would never work!" - I know too much about airships... But, being pulp, to heck with that! The deck would probably be connected to the hulls with flexible joints, to allow for air currents and handling restrictions. The most likely employment of a ship like this is as a high-altitude base - it's a flying aircraft carrier, and just like the wet variety, does *not* want to get into the fray itself (though the possibility of a missile-carrying version for bombardment presents itself - a flying Aegis cruiser, perhaps?). The real advantages of a vessel like this is its speed and range: it can fly over land (of course), and given airship speeds were in the highway-plus range, they could reach and cover areas much faster than wet ships. It may not be able to carry as much spare parts and fuel as a big wet carrier, but its ability to quickly return to base could atone for that. (Such large amounts of heavy lifting might require a set of maintenance blimps to follow it around for load/unload duty). Put a radar on it and it would be unbeatable for scouting. A touch of pulp science to make it stealthy... An emergency launch of planes might be simply to start the engine and push them over the edge! The pilots could then dive to speed, then pull out. Risky, but kewl enough as flavor text. Ah, well, a cool idea indeed .I just had to ruminate over some of the implications..

Re: Teen supers ideas A couple general questions/ideas: Who's backing the school? It could be nice and straightforward. like PS238, run by good guys, eve if they have to run interference occasionally from nosey bureaucrats (BTW, you *must* read PS238; the ideas and potentials are very rich). On the other hand, it could be heavily infiltrated or even a front. One way to do it might be Buffy's school in BTVS season one (or was it two?), where someone in power (the mayor in BTVS, could be the principal or vice-principal) is arranging some horrific event to augment his/her personal power. The school could be a VIPER/DEMON screening group, to select those with potential for real power so they can be recruited or destroyed as necessary (could tie into the murder plot described earlier, where some agent got carried away - or acted on orders - when he ran into a student who just wouldn't turn). Such a school would generate keen interest among any power structure that learned of it, not all of them bad. A group like UNTIL would certainly be watching closely - whether or not they were offically allowed on campus (potential real-world analogy to the controversies about allowing US military recruiters into high schools) - so the secret surveillance setup the PCs discover might actually be "good" guys spying on the school. These groups, good and bad, would be prompted by rivalry or direct conflict to interfere with each other, which has potential for deadly or comic double-dealings and identity confusion. Staff might also be sucked into this game, filing reports (or refusing to and dealing with the pressures and threats) on certain students (or other staff). Hm - fire drills could be amusing at a super-school. Real emergencies (fire, crash, chemical spill, etc.), at the school or near enough that they could help, could call for the use of powers, and if they're supposed to be secret -there might not be a serious threat to the PCs, but could provoke some thought about how to be a discreet hero instead of a four-color one. How about a Columbine-type event? Have the PCs involved at any point you like: they can meet a couple kids who don't fit in, get teased and bullied a lot (maybe their "powers" aren't particularly exciting or combat-worthy), and have taken to wearing trenchcoats and fantasizing about violence (young Punishers in the making? or serious crazies?). They can discover the detailed plans and gun/bomb labs. Or they could have no clue until people are screaming and gunshots are ripping through the library. Maybe, if you have a dark, brooding PC, s/he might get recruited by the plotters as a potential participant or specialist adviser. Career Day at a super-school...the possibilities are endless. Especially if some of the "careers" creat unfortunate interactions (on purpose or accidentally) and wind up causing a major menace or dimensional warp of some kind. Sports. If they're secret supers, how do they deal with it? If they're not, who do they play against? And not just the games themselves, but the pep rallies, cheerleader politics, and so forth can add flavor. Less popular than sports, interscholastic contests of all kinds (spelling bees, math/science contests, art shows, chess club, etc.) can create social tensions. That should get things rolling - not bad for off the top of my balding head...

Re: How do you Keep from having your Mind Read?

Re: Pulp archtypes. Mad scientists aren't just evil - though good scientists aren't usually rederred to as "mad!" Two types of pulp-hero brains: Dr. Zarkov(sp?) from Flash Gordon Evie(?) from The Mummy (I just love her line "I...am a Librarian!") In other words, techies and walking reference books.

Re: Pulp Reading Philip Jose Farmer's biographies of Doc Savage and Tarzan (can't recall the titles off-the-cuff) I found good reading and added a bit of inspiration to my campaign. After reading these, my wife and I realized that the "mystery man" who'd been backing the heroes all these years must have been Doc Savage himself! The revelation was as thrilling to the other players as it was to me! What I enjoyed is Farmer's ability to pull in so many pulp-style heroes - from the Scarlet Pimpernel on up - into a loosely related bloodline, drawing inferences from descriptions and attitudes among them.

How does Dispel (or Drain, Suppress, etc.) work against Multiform? Is it possible to force someone who is in an alternate form back into their true form? And if so, how to figure the cost? I ask because the alternate form doesn't have the Multiform power, so it isn't really "active" in the normal sense. Also, in my particular case, the hero has a Side Effect which makes him ill when the Multiform "wears off" (he takes a pill to change). If he's forced back into the true form, will this invoke that effect?

Re: Wild West Hero Two thoughts spring to my mind just now: One: There has got to be a good reason the town leaders don't want a railroad. As alread mentioned, it means revenue - tax and serivces, employment, etc. - and possibility of making connections for ambitious folks. Some possibilities spring to mind: -- they're on the payola of a rival road, not necessarily one which plans to build there, but just wants to block the other(s) -- Religious reasons. Not necessarily (but can be) an evil cult, may be as simple as insulating the town from outside vices (gambling, prostitutes, etc.) This could also do interesting things with the role of sheriff... -- Personal reasons. One or more of the town elite have some vendetta against the incoming road manager (what did he do to deserve it?), and just cant' stand to see him profit by anything. -- Business reasons. Some may see it as a threat to their (overpriced monopoly) business; the railroad would bring in competition. -- Sabotage. Perhaps a rival town (an old feud over which ought to be the county seat? which has rights to a spring?) is trying to convince the railroad to go through their town instead, and is willing to subvert and sabotage the PCs' town to do it. Two (and unrelated to One): remember it's a dangerous environment. I wager there could be some interesting scenes built around trying to survive in the desert (heat, snakes, coyotes, etc.), mountains (cold, bears, coyotes, etc.), or jsut about anywhere - chances of getting lost, Indian attack, paranoid prospectors, coyotes, and so forth. (One hook to put this stuff into motion might be to give the PCs a connection to the railroad survey party. looking for the best route through the area - could be a PC is the surveyor, or could be recruited as guards or guides.) One of my fond GM memories was an (unplanned) session where the PCs were trapped in the mountains in a snowstorm, and ended up eating their horses to survive (and some expensive horses they were, too!).

Re: Running a low-power adventure I don't just assign PCs (or anyone else) SPD 3 - it's just that I tell everyone they'll be at a serious disadvantage if they don't. They pay for it just like everyone else. If someone really wants to be SPD 2 - say, they're playing an old professor type, or someone with some kind of injury/disability - I'll let them, but it only takes one or two fights for a player to twig onto the fact that everyone else gets to do half again as much as he is. The reason I point them toward SPD 3 is that it gives the PCs a clear advantage against ordinary thugs (SPD 2), provides an easy way to put trained guards on a more equal footing (SPD 3, though without the full skill set most PCs are going to have), and the Bruce Lee wannabees (and their evil equivalents) can go to SPD 4, be really kewl, and not have to break past "human normal" stats. Then when the monster/alien/robot suddenly appears and acts on segment 2, the players react appropriately: with fear and hastily-applied firepower. As long as I'm at it, I have never felt the need to fiddle with granularity or skill rolls. I think they work just fine; the functional difference between, say INT 14 and INT 16 should be pretty small, IMO not enough to warrant an extra dd to hardly anything. The difference would be expressed not in standard die rolls, but in roleplaying and interpretation. The skill rolls between those two might be the same, but it can be brought out that the INT 16 guy generally wins at chess, or gets better (slightly better) grades, that kind of thing. Arm-wrestling between STR 18 and STR 19: the die rolls may be the same, but if they arm-wrestle as a pastime, the STR 19 will be said to win a little more often. Ties in stats (i.e. DEX intitiative) I resolve either by just having them tie, or by having each roll a d6 and simple highest wins (and if the dice match it's still a tie). If I ran a group full of real Hero gamers, I might be more tempted to fiddle with char costs, and so forth, but I haven't found it necessary (don't get me wrong - I've got a great group of gamers, just that most of them aren't as into Hero as me). The system has worked for me just fine, and in the cases where PCs have similar stats, they often have distinct skills, and if not, they will have distinct personalities.

Re: Running a low-power adventure I prefer to run low-power games - pulp mostly. Here's my thoughts: As already stated, Normal Char Max absolutely. It may seem harsh, but that's what being normal is about. Set and hold the skill max for the campaign. As time goes on, I'll allow people to buy skills higher, but the rule remains 17-18 is always a failure, 16 is at least a partial failure. I don't know if that's canon or my house rule, but it makes people remember they're mortal. If people buy higher skill levels, it lets them overcome more penalties, but there's always that chance... Highly recommend (i.e., practically require) that everyone be the same SPD, probably 3. It's easier to run for everyone, and it makes the few SPD 4 characters more impressive; plus, the SPD 2 NPCS and really noncombatant PCs suffer greatly. In general, it becomes a game of small differences. To me, one of the strengths of Hero which is not matched by most any other system is the ease with which it adapts to any power level. At normal level, a character which is just a few points higher can be a marked threat - STR 20 becomes impressive, and STR 30 is really scary. Only a couple of points of armor (Combat Luck, everyone?) can end up bouncing a lot of attacks which would otherwise slaughter: a recent session I ran, a character with Combat Luck plus 1 point of natural armor managed to stand up against a thug with a Tommy gun who let him have a full blast at close range. With Tommies doing 1d6+1 RKA, 4 points is enough to make most hits tickle. An inch or two of Running can make a surprising difference. And so on. Use Hit Location rules. It's the key to making guns deadly without pumping up their damage (too much work for the GM to evaluate and publish), without making them automatic death. 1d6 RKA may not seem like much, but if it hits you in the head or vitals, suddenly there's a decent chance it will put you into negative BODY - gosh, kinda like a pistol round in the real world: not necessarily deadly, but potent enough to make you really think twice before not just hiding from it. In general, I find running a low power level lets me use real-world guidelines and analogies and situations without worrying too much about things being too easy for the players. So it's easier to use ideas from films and such without working too hard. Plus, it makes the spending of xps a little more fun, I think. Three or four points can make a nice difference at that level.

Re: riddle me this, "Mind Control on Computers"

Re: Adventure! Inspiration Points in Pulp HERO In our new Champions campaign, we're using "possibilities" and the card deck from TORG (basically the same as the Masterbook, or so I've heard). The cards generally give bonuses of +1-3, well within Hero ranges; everyone draws one after segments 6 and 12, and we even came up with uses for their intiative and "approved actions" sections of the cards. It's highly experimental, but I think it gives players a feeling that they aren't ruled by die rolls - so many games have such devices nowadays. It's not the same as Inspiration, but can be used for some of the same flavor. In our Adventure campaign, we rarely use I-points for dramatic editing. I dunno if it's just not our style, or we have a flexible enough GM that we all jump in anyway.

Re: Pulp Hero Forum My JI campaign has been running (with 1-3 sessions per real-life year) for about 15 years now. I'd love to have a place to compare notes, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing a new Pulp Hero book...(wipe the drool off the keyboard, dude)... I don't know that Doc Savage types are necessarily a bunch more points than Indiana Jones types (OK, Doc Savage himself is obviously up there, but I'm thinking of Monk, Ham, and so forth: a party of Doc Savages ain't my idea of pulp, just retro Dark Champions). It's more in what is allowed. In my JI campaign, the PCs are all Heroic level, and only one or two of them have anything superhuman about them (the Indian mystic, who's a fairly new character, has some powers based on the original JI book). The others are just very good at what they do. In fact, it's getting to the point where they're running out of reasonable places to put xps and still stay in character. The weird science, magic, and so forth is almost all in the hands of bad guys. The good guys get an "advanced" airship and some crew, and from there it's their wits and fists (and Tommy guns). A side note on movies: Secondhand Lions is a great film on what your PCs might be like when they get to retirement age. No particularly new gaming ideas (the backstory is fairly typical pulp) but the characterization is great.

Re: Duplication as attack Hmmmm... scenario where bad guys can duplicate heroes....hmmm (retires to hidden sanctuary, stroking its chin)

Re: Duplication as attack After reviewing comments and cranking it thru Designer, I think that yeah, it is abusive. It's also too expensive for my power level. One of those ideas which I get periodically, trying too hard to be clever and original. Instead, he's got a highly modified EB. Thanks all!