JMcL63

Re: Robbers on the Road

 

It seems to me that a lot of the answers to this matter come down to the GM educating the players about what kind of game is being run. I know from personal experience how important it is for players to know this. At the very least, players should know whether or not you're running 'real death'. This might give them the idea that stupidity will result in dire consequences (although, as has many have already said, players being what they are, they might just fight on all the harder!).

 

One way of encouraging players to consider not fighting to the last is for your NPC's to flee and/or surrender just like real people would. If this happens often enough, players might start to realise that slaughtering everyone out of hand is not the best idea, and that surrender in the face of insuperable odds isn't necessarily the worst idea, especially if they have reason to believe that their opponents aren't heartless killers themselves. This is all about consequences really, which is IMO the best way of encouraging players to play their characters as more than just killing machines. Dead robbers can have friends who would seek vengance, or they might have hostages they can use to blackmail the PC's, and so on.

 

If all that fails, then just play the robbers sensibly. Have them attack with surprise, using Brace and Set from cover to improve their to hit chances while being hard to hit themselves. Or have them use teamwork and multiple attacker bonuses sensibly. If you're playing a 'real death' game, killing off a few PC's might start to get through to the players.

 

Finally, in the end, don't forget to talk to your players about what you're trying to do with the game, and to talk over what happens in incidents like this.

Re: End cost on MA

 

Thanks guys! One last question about Talents... are you certain they don't cost End? I mean they are still built like powers after all.

HERO5, p.61, 'The Nature of Talents':

"Talents do not cost END to use."

Re: If AVLD, why not DVLA?

 

I've been reading my way through this thread, and I've seen that the discussion has focussed entirely on the issue of immunity to damage. I have to say that I tend to agree with those who don't like the idea of a special immunity power (howsoever it is defined), and who prefer a practical immunity that can be overcome by a sufficiently powerful attack. I mean, it's one thing to say that a dragon (to use an example common in this thread) is effectively immune to any attack you can normally expect to be thrown at it (by PC's or most NPC's too); it's another to say that this same dragon is immune to absolutely any attack of that kind. That is to say: things that are functionally immune to PC's can still be vulnerable to attacks of that kind from creatures more powerful than themselves (but, at the power levels we are talking about here, this vulnerability is unlikely even to reach the level of being liable to stunning, unless the more powerful creature is much, much more powerful- ie. approaching godlike, in which case the whole matter does indeed boil down to GM's judgement IMO).

 

I'm also in favour of working out such powers in detail because the modifiers (ie. limitations) applied to such attacks are the basis of PC's hopes of undermining these otherwise overwhelming defensive powers.

 

But all of that's just my take on the immunity issue.

 

What I originally thought was most interesting about the DVLA idea was the notion of 'inverting' the AVLD advantage to apply it to defences. I'm still not sure if this is actually viable, but what I liked about the idea in the first place was the notion of finding an appropriate form- for a defensive advantage- of this offensive advantage. This is something that has not been considered in this thread so far.

 

So that's my point here: if you were 'inverting' AVLD to become a similar advantage to apply to defences- but without using it to create an outright immunity- what would you be doing?

Re: End cost on MA

 

IIRC, MA manoeuvres cost no END. You pay END for the STR you use to make the attack, and any bonuses due to MA manoeuvres and/or MA DC cost no END. I think the same will apply to damage-increasing talents, unless the talent description says otherwise.

Re: Analyze Enhancer?

 

I would say No' date=' because the purpose of the skill enhancers seems to be to encourage purchasing Background Skills. Notice that all the skills to which the standard Skill Enhancers apply are the ones that are either 2pts for an 11-, or 3 for a CHA roll, +1 per point. That's my take on it, at least. [/quote']Agreed. And there's nothing I can add to this concise answer.

Re: "Fantasy" withoiut Magic

 

My own fantasy world began with the premise of a fantasy world without magic. The inspiration for this was two-fold. One was a very interesting article in the old Spacegamer magazine on this very subject. The other was my decision to start a fantasy world using a homebrew rpg without a magic system (I was going to design the magic system). As my game developed, I soon realised that what I wanted was a world in which there is divine magic (because the gods are real, manifest, and therefore undeniable- something which contradicts my own beliefs, but what the heck, it's a fantasy rpg after all!), but none of the high-powered 'whizz-bang' magic that had become de rigeur thanks to D&D. What I ended up with was a world which was essentially divine, in which magic was the fundamental laws of motion of that divine essence, and in which the magic that did exist wasn't classic sorcery. None of the players who ever visited the world ever complained about that.

 

The homebrew system went by the board, and the game developed under the first edition of Fantasy HERO. I am currently working to revive the game using HERO 5E and the new Fantasy HERO (which make my ideas even more accessible than the original did BTW).

 

On the basis of this experience, I can say that it is quite possible to run a fantasy rpg without magic as it is commonly understood in the genre (and by this I mean what is basically D&D combat magic). All the same, I do think that it is worth considering what is meant by 'magic' in the terms of an rpg. On the one hand there is combat sorcery; and on the other hand there is the power of the divine. Speaking for myself, I think it is easy to imagine a credible fantasy world without the former, but not without the latter. That is to say: I think that it is the undeniably manifest nature of the divine that is more classically definitive of fantasy than magic (or even of any particular kind of magic). I admit that this is my own opinion, and that this is one which might not square with conventional defintions of the genre, but it is the one I work with in my own game.

 

One thing I think that distinguishes this perspective from others is that the world is taken to be truly divine.This means that it is subject to laws that might appear to be similar to those of our own familiar world (and, let's face it- most of reality in any fantasy game will have to conform to our everyday expectations just for the sake of a viable game, otherwise GM's would have to spend too much time simply explaining the mundane for the game to function), but which are actually essentially different. Or, to put it another way: if your magic is really just science (after the fashion of the real world) misunderstood due to some variant on historical backwardness, then what you really have is a scientific (ie. natural) world setting in which magic is a form of superstition.

 

This is perfectly fair enough if that's the kind of game you want to play (and why not?- it's a perfectly reasonable idea); but, when I set up my own fantasy world, I wanted real gods, and the unnatural world that their manifest existence entailed.

 

What I am getting at therefore is the idea that, if you want a fantasy world without magic, then there is no reason why you shouldn't do this. But I would suggest that you have to consider what you mean by this. Do you want a version of, say, real medieval society- in which magic was a force because people believed in it due to superstitions now superceded by science; or do you want a genuinely fantastic world without the post-D&D trappings of 'zap-pow!' combat magic? Or would you prefer something more individual even than that? Either way, there is no better system for making your own personal fantastic visions real than HERO as far as I can tell.

Re: The Authority: Revolution #3

 

So far I'm enjoying the way that this series is playing out the implications of the Authority's decision to take over America. I quite like your idea of the fake time travel trip, although I do have to suggest that the Midnighter of all people would be able to see through this. But I'll certainly remember where I heard it first should this turn out to be correct.

Re: So what did the modding bunny bill actually win???? (Also, new contest news)

 

Erm, any chance of getting HERO product as prizes?

 

PS. This is my 666th post, so I'm hoping to have dark forces on my side on this one!

Re: Fate systems

 

My original Champions GM introduced 'hero points' to our games. Each point could be used once only, to reset the value of any single dice to the desired value. They could be used after the dice were rolled, and you could spend as many as you wanted to get the dice roll you were after. Our characters got 1 hero point per XP. I'm reinstituting these (in the form of limited Luck) as a key new talent for my fantasy campaign, which I'm in the process of reviving.

Re: What should be DROPPED from HERO?

 

Inches.

Re: Metric HERO- simplifying measurement in the HERO system

 

Why not just change all references to 1" in the rule book to 2 meters' date=' and leave everything else alone?[/quote']That was my first idea, and I'll be doing that as much as possible, but looking through the rules has made me realise that it's not all quite as simple as this.

Re: Robot mentallist

 

Well, without an actual mind of its own, a robot could only attack the mind from without and not within, so using mental attack powers and/or the Based on ECV modifier might not be the right way to go (ie. you're actually attacking the body- the nervous system- and not the mind itself). Of the top of my head, what you're after sounds like it could be an NND with the mind attack as SFX. If you really do want a mental attack (and why not?), then you could buy EGO as a power for this special purpose, or you could give the bot a base EGO OCV of 0 and buy levels to make the attack viable. Hope this helps.

Re: If Champions didn't exist...

 

I've long had another term for this' date=' but "White Wolfism" is as good a phrase as any for pretty much everything that I most dislike in today's roleplaying so as to deserve rep! [/quote']

Care to elaborate?

Well, the thing I have for some time most disliked about White Wolf is their sheer pretentiousness. I mean, I quite like the basic idea of their setting, and I've nothing against their system as such (heck, I've had fun playing their games!), but the whole 'roleplaying is art' line that characterises them (the early editions of their books at least- this might've changed in recent years for all I know) is anathema to me. IMO, the very notion of 'art' is the production of culture for an audience. The very idea that roleplaying is an audience event strikes me as laughable, and, I'm sure, would soon be put in its place by asking a few simple questions of anyone who has been unfortunate enough to have to sit through other people's rolepaying sessions.

Apart from its patent absurdity, one thing I find particularly irritating about this tosh is that is does roleplaying a disservice. First of all, roleplaying is a great innovation in popular culture in its own right, one whose merits have to be judged on their own terms and not by reference to extrinsic notions of cultural quality. Taking on airs and graces by arrogating to roleplaying the status of 'art' obscures this by taking conventional aesthetic benchmarks as an appropriate standard of judgement. I will happily admit that roleplaying exercises the same creative reflexes as do other narrative forms, but that doesn't get round the fact that roleplaying is essentially a private affair, for the entertainment of its participants and not for the sake of an audience.

Moreover, in my experience, proponents of the notion that roleplaying is 'art' have turned out to be the worst of roleplayers. I have found them to be frustrated wannabe actors, and so on, for whom the roleplaying group is a substitute audience instead of a group of fellows engaged in mutual entertainment. I also find that this tendency typical also holds to some version of the idea that 'real roleplaying' and rules of play are mutually exclusive. This utterly contradicts my fundamental outlook that, just like in all games, the rules of rpg's are there to provide a level playing field, and an independent arbitrator to stand in between the conflicting wishes of players.

I'm talking about dice here of course, and I don't think it is accidental that the first manifestion of the 'real roleplaying' curse that I encountered (way back in the early 80's) took the form of essentially diceless superheroing. It was in dealing with the implications of this as we found it back then that me and my gaming buddies came to the view that dice are essential to roleplaying, and that this is as much for the sake of drama as for the sake of, say, combat. I mean, drama is about conflict, which requires opposition. If you never fail in your tasks, you never face opposition, so you have no drama. Which is why so many of the favourite moments I can remember in the lives of my PC's have happened because the dice failed me, and I found my characters in situations that no one present would ever have contrived.

Dice are also important because of what they contribute to one of the key satisfactions of roleplaying- your sense of triumph. I mean, when the villains have been defeated and the day has been saved, how do you want to feel? Would you want to know that you'd taken your licks, but with your quick wits and a measure of fortune, you overcame adversity; or would you rather nurse the guilty secret that everything had actually been pre-scripted and that your GM had rigged everything in advance to satisfy their own notion of how the story should go?

And that's why I hate this real roleplaying tosh with a passion shared only by the collectible marketing format (the single greatest blight on the gaming industry today IMO). Because it's rubbish; because it obscures the real merits of roleplaying and the contributions of the various elements of an rpg (the dice especially) make to those; and because it can actively get in the way of the full enjoyment of the pleasures of roleplaying by all concerned. White Wolf are only relevant to my feelings on this matter insofar as they are a successful games company strongly identified with this cod philosophy. And that's it really.

Re: What to do...

 

You could generate some random supervillains using the tables in Champions. That's about the all I can think of that you can do that is useful out of those without the basic rules, though I don't have all off those supplements myself. Or you could just settle down in a comfy chair and spend the festive season reading them all!

Re: If AVLD, why not DVLA?

 

I've been doing some monster conversions from AD&D/D&D3e, and one of the clunkiest power constructions I'm forced into revolve around those critters that are immune to something - whether it be fire, swords, magic, or whatever. My options seem to be either to go with Desolid (only vs. blah) which I don't like conceptually and because you then have to fudge things like knockback and pay a lot more for all the critter's own attack powers, or to buy masses of Armour (only vs. blah) plus masses of Resistant Damage reduction (also only vs. blah) separately vs PD and ED.

 

The attack power modifiers NND and AVLD are perfectly good for building attacks that are irresistable except in certain circumstances, but there's no equivalent modifier for defences. I find this odd, since before the dawn of time (Hero System-wise) there's been a principle stated that for any attack there is a (cheaper) defence. Why not turn the attack modifiers around and have similiar mods that can be applied to defences?

I think that this is a very interesting idea. It is a logical extension of the existing structure of power modifiers, which is good. And it points towards a workable solution of a significant unresolved design issue in HERO, which is better. I'm not saying that I already believe it to be a final answer, but I think that it is a really interesting idea, and well worth pursuing even if its final form isn't quite was Fitz has in mind (but for the reasons Fitz puts forward all the same). I hope to have more to say when I've had more time to reflect. Rep to Fitz in the meantime!

Re: If Champions didn't exist...

 

"White Wolfism"

I've long had another term for this, but "White Wolfism" is as good a phrase as any for pretty much everything that I most dislike in today's roleplaying so as to deserve rep!

Re: If Champions didn't exist...

 

...someone would've had to have invented it.

Re: A Difficult Power

 

Ordinarily' date=' I would agree with you. The only reason I would take the step of making it an actual power is because it happens so often, and it happens at range. If the old bodies wore out slower -- once a month, say -- and if the transfer from an old body to a new one required that they both be in proximity, then I'd just hand-wave it as a special effect.[/quote']You might well be right, in which case as a GM, I'd probably want to rejig the definition of the corpse thing to make it a simple SFX. Maybe replacing the corpse daily is excessive. There're lots of other things you could do, but with a concept like this, I feel that the main thing would be to simplify the execution to leave the whole corpse thing as an SFX. YMMV.

Re: A Difficult Power

 

I'd just handwave this as a special effect. After all, a new body every day is going to be as much a problem as a boon. Sometimes an old man, sometimes a child. The commonality should be that the body is always clearly dead to anyone who makes an INT roll or has mystic senses.

 

As for identification, perhaps a special ring with an encrypted ID chip that the character picks up from its hiding place before he goes to HQ...

This is a wacky concept and no mistake! Trebuchet has hit the nail on the head when it comes to approaching it IMO. I don't think there is any point in modelling the daily corpse thing as a power per se, this is the SFX of all the other powers of the character. Beyond this, what are we dealing with? It seems that the concept breaks down into the following elements:

1. The character is a disembodied spirit who can only affect the material world by occupying a corpse.
    
   
2. Being occupied by the spirit accelerates the corpse's decay so that fresh corpses are needed regularly.
    
   

Multiform is the power that comes to my mind here. There could be a basic spirit form. This would have to have desolid on everything, meaning that its powers would be expensive. Most of them would be unable to affect the solid world, though I'd suggest that some powers should be able to do this, because sure as eggs are eggs, sooner or later this character will end up in their desolid form because there are no suitable corpses handy to possess. The possessed form would be the other multiform. There could even be several possessed multiforms, representing different stages of decay if the spirit must possess the same corpse for an extended period.

 

Another thing I would suggest is that the actual powers aren't tied to the multiforms. What I mean by this is that the corpse possessed doesn't actually determine the character's powers, all the possession does is make the spirit's powers usable in the material world. There are several other issues I can think of that need to be addressed to get this concept to work, but that's enough to be going on with.

Re: Social "Combat' and "Duels"

 

The race against time is a good example. At the outset' date=' we have two months, and we get a roll, say, every week. After three weeks, it's clear the task isn't progressing fast enough. So now maybe we need to take some risks. Can we change the spell somehow? Perhaps more limitations on the spell itself would shorten the research time in our hypothetical model, so we risk adding mnore limits. Maybe we have a "maneuvewr" where the skill roll is penalized in exchange for faster progress (eg. -2 to the roll gtets you double the progress if you succeed; maybe it also sets you back if you fail). But presently, this crucial, "succeed or fail" task is represented as "Two months pass. Make your roll."[/quote']Just been rereading this thread, and I think that Hugh Neilson captures an essential feature of the general idea, of dramatic task resolution, that hadn't been mentioned already. Namely that it would create the tensions of deciding on appropriate shortcuts if the task starts not going as planned. These would be risky and might result in the task as a whole being prematurely botched, but if the alternative was to simply run out of time, what else could you do? To reiterate, you just can't do this with a single skill roll.

Re: WWYC Want for Christmas?

 

Katana

Christmas?! WTF are you on about?

 

Spectra

I guess Spectra would wish she was back at home with her friends, instead of stuck somewhere where she doesn't even know if Christmas still exists.

Re: Metric HERO

 

I've been doing inches to metres or yards calculations for so long I don't even notice I'm doing them. Having said that when I GM or play I talk in metres anyway.

 

"The punk is ten metres away so -2ocv for range" kinda thing.

This is something I was half-aware of when I started work on metric HERO, and which this thread has already made crystal clear to me- existing players are familiar enough with the inches interpolated between game and reality that the factor of 2 isn't a huge issue to them. I wonder if players who have tried designing large vehicles (eg. spaceships) feel quite so sanguine about this (it was designing stuff for my bughunting SF setting when I first found the inches becoming seriously onerous). I'm in favour of making this change to the game because I think it's more logical, and that it will introduce an easy simplification to the rules that will make HERO more palatable to new players. I think that these virtues should impress themselves on old hands who gave metric HERO a try.

 

Speeding up combat I have just noticed is a collective responsibility, the GM and the group of players have a 50-50 split air time so I feel each have equal responsibility. The GM must enforce this of course...

Agreed. I've long made a point of paying attention to combat so that my characters were ready to go when their phase came up, and the importance of this was impressed on me from the other side of the fence when I last GM'ed HERO. Of all the things that contributed most to the slowness of combat provoking the frustration I endured, my players' lack of preparation for their next go was the worst. I had to take them through their CV calculation step-by-step pretty much every time. Players have to be responsible for solving these problems themselves, because no one can learn the system for them, but the GM should be helping too, by providing simplified starter combat rules, and leaving the detailed stuff for the players to pick up as they go. This is what I will be doing in the future, I can assure you!

Re: Metric HERO

 

And out of the corner of myminds eye i see JMcl circing my upcoming Champions game with a whole bunch of rules variants, not sure i like the idea of being your Guinee Pig!

 

Only Joking, Well our collective game will be kicking off soon and I'm sure JMcL will let you know how the effect worked in practice. Right now however, Metric Hexes aren't a big concern of mine, speeding up combat is, working within a restricted timeframe ie an evening's worth of play one combat can easily eat up a lot more than its fair share of time.

 

I dont want to high jack JMcL's thread so if theres a link somebody can direct me too i'll look at that more closely.

 

Cheers

Well, I hadn't actually thought about running this particular rules variant in the G3 Champions game, but now that you mention it knuckles, there are players new to HERO in the G3 group aren't there? They would be exactly the sort of players whose opinions I would value as to whether or not metric HERO does in fact make the system less imposing overall.

 

And yes, metric HERO isn't really a concern to many players at the moment, it's just something I'd like to see in HERO6, so I guess this thread constitutes the beginning of my efforts in that direction! And I will be getting some ideas about speeding up combat to you asap, so we can decide on our methods for this together.

Re: Balancing Magic

 

Despite having sources like Slayers to look at' date=' I'm leaning toward a system wherin even mages realize that the best way to hurt something in combat is to walk over and whack it with a sharp piece of metal, but magic is useful out of combat, for the things that can't be done any other way.

That's the kind of system I'm looking for too. I picked up the idea about having a fantasy campaign without magic from an old Spacegamer magazine many years ago. This soon mutated into a world with low level church/religious magic but no sorcery (ie. no D&D-style combat magic). HERO turned out to be the ideal system for making this happen. I think that thinking about how magic works in your setting, considering its various non-combat effects and developing the skills and packages to handle these and how people get hold of these powers; that this is a good way to proceed if you want to keep magic under control in your games. If you present your players with a system that tells them how to create magic users you will get much better results than if you just give them the powers list with a few prescribed power modifiers.

Your remark about weapons highlights another useful way of limiting magical power if you do want classic combat magic- relate the powers to real weapons. I mean a 2d6 HKA is hefty real weapon, so 8 DC in an attack spell would represent a pretty powerful spell.

 

I'll definitely make sure all magic costs END to use, and I guess that mandatory Extra Time limitations would both reduce its combat usefulness and make it more affordable.

Zeropoint

Extra time is a pretty basic limitation for non-combat magic IMO; why make the effort to marshal your magical forces second-by-second if the situation doesn't demand it after all? And in system terms, the turn is the basic unit of non-combat time, so I'd suggest that non-combat magic should take at least a turn or a minute minimum.

Re: Balancing Magic

 

The key to controlling magic in HERO (just like anything else) is to make it cost. The cost can be to buy or to cast. There is another kind of cost- the social cost. What I mean by this is that magic- however it is defined in the particular setting- is a part of the social structure, and there will be social implications that come with magical power. This is hard to reflect if your magic system is just a list of powers with appropriate modifiers. You need to follow Fantasy HERO's tips on creating a proper magic system.

 

In my fantasy world for example, which I am currently working on reviving, the only kind of magic is divine magic, which is controlled by the various religions. Also, because of the divine nature of reality in this world, magic is a vital force in social life, so that the kinds of spells available will be determined by the role of religion in society; eg. priests blessing land to get the crops to grow. This leads logically to a magic system based on prayer and ritual, for which church membership (ie. buying package deals) is a prerequisite. And, given the nature of the rank perk, the idea of the different magical powers being level-based follows equally logically. Already then you can see that the power of magic in my setting is restricted by the social purpose of magic, and by the social cost to the character (expressed in the need to buy packages) of gaining magical power.

 

Tying your magic system into your background works when you are designing your magical powers as well as your magic system. Classically, fantasy magic users are masters of arcane lore. Isn't it only since the advent of D&D that they became mobile artillery and combat medics? So design spell preparation and casting rules that take time, and make good use of background skills as complementaries to the required dice rolls. This has the effect of making powerful magic more expensive to acquire and more difficult to use.

 

Apart from this, the best advice I can give you is to use Fantasy HERO as your manual when you are designing your magic systems. It's the best treatment of magic in general for roleplaying purposes I have ever read. What I've been doing is just working through the chapter section by section, answering any questions posed by each section and making notes in my workbook. It's proving to be very productive. Hope this helps.