dsatow

Dundracon 46 will be at the Santa Clara Marriott this year. Games are posted on the website. Mask and vaccination mandate is the same from last year. Some changes: 1) The program book will not have descriptions of the RPGs games offered. This is to slim down the book. Descriptions are still online. 2) I believe they expanded the number of rooms at the hotel but it stilled filled up pretty fast. But you can always try. I have a spreadsheet with the HERO based games you can look at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qL-akWd-8Nwpwdm6T7A8JzYO1ZBij6PCiKzwu68Kflw/edit?usp=sharing There are 12 HERO games being offered at Dundracon.

As unclevlad noted, its less about getting rid of one and merging it so don't think it will affect things much. So lets look at each characteristic's bit of weirdness. Constitution represents health. Somehow, living a healthy lifestyle and doing exercise to bring up your stamina makes you more fire resistant. Personally, I never understood that part. If I jog 30 miles a day and eat healthy and balanced, get good nights sleep and do other cardio, I should be able to not burn when exposed to heat? Also if you are thrashed with in an inch of your life, you can still have the constitution of a horse. Normally when a person is hurt, you try to keep wounds clean and let them recover. But why? In Hero, you, a severely wounded character, have the same health stat as a person with full health. Body represents life force. But in terms of activity, when you are at 100% of your body and when you are at your last Body before dying, you can do the same things. You can run a marathon, climb a mountain, and still take a mountain of STUN (Body loss due to damage doesn't affect maximum Stun). Next, lets look at characters in fiction. Granted, there are some pieces of fiction where the main character is beaten, stabbed, bones broken, and he (its usually a he) fights like there is no tomorrow. He seems not affected at all. (ex: Superman, a lot of classic westerns and heroes from the 40s/50s genres). But you also have characters now where they get messed up and it shows in future fights. You can look at Kyle Reese in Terminator, or a lot of comic book heroes since the Iron age of comics. As they get beaten down, it gets harder for them to do things. Finally, lets look at genre. In superhero games, how often do you take Body from the average attack? Most games I see, people have at least half resistant and ~2 points of defense per damage class average. In heroic level games, you take more Body but even then, its mostly due to killing attacks from weapons. If you use hit locations and disabling effects, the disabling hits are usually worse than what I am describing. All I am describing is a lowered max Recovery, Stun, and End. I'm not describing losing 1d6 of another characteristic like STR, INT, or EGO. It just makes you easier to stun because, well, your body is thrashed. Best of all, you can recover it normally, unlike disabling effects which may be permanent. I see the idea as optional depending on the style of campaign you are running. I see it also as a lighter version compared to disabling rules and something which can be employed in a superhero game.

It is based on GURPS' Quirks disadvantage. To work it in Hero, you buy a 5 point Distinctive Feature: Quirky and list 5 quirks about the character.

So, I was thinking (danger music queues into existence)... When I first learned to play Champions, I thought that the Body and Constitution characteristics were redundant. Why have both? I haven't given it much thought since then, but I was thinking, why not make Constitution do the work of Body too? The idea is if you take Body damage, the damage goes to Con. A negative Con value means you are dead (just like Body). Some possible benefits: As you take more and more Body damage, your Con lowers, showing an effect for the damage you have taken and making it easier for you to be stunned. In heroic level play, the loss of Con could also affect other secondary stats, like Rec, End, and Stun. For those people who really want to brutalize wounded players. Calculating stun for figured statistics (if you use figured statistics), would be simpler. It would just be Str + Con.

Thanks for the feed back. Started a new job and was a bit busy for a while to check on this thread. The idea for this is to create a situation where the user could increase the average damage but not the max damage. For instance, a person who has a gun would be able to shoot and hurt a target better because of their skill and shot placement rather than adding power to the gun/bullet itself. I didn't think about blast, but assume you would use a like amount on the blast. Say a 9d6 Blast with the ability to replace 3d6. It does add a very small amount of complexity, but I think its fairly negligible compared to other parts of the game. It might break certain habits for players if forced on everyone, but like most things in Hero, it only affects the player and/or GM who implements it on one of their characters. And thus the only one it really effects from a game implementation point of view is the user. My initial idea was to use it as an additional die (3d6 + 1d6 where the 1d6 had limitations on it). People adding strength or aiding the killing attack would aid the core base or the additional. Because the +1d6 was an additional die, the advantages had to line up with the original attack. It would not be allowed to be pro-rated by design since it was replacing a die roll unless the die roll being replace was a full die. But I was also thinking that it really is a 4d6 killing attack with a kind of damage cap. So I got torn as to what kind of implementation would be serviceable in game play. For those that would use it, would you roll 4d6 and drop the lowest one or roll 3d6 and decide whether to replace one of the dice with the additional die? Yes, this is functionally the same, but in actual play, people thought processes would be different.

What would you rate the limitation for a 4d6K where you drop the lowest die? Would you only put the limitation on 1d6K (15 active) or on the whole 4d6K (60 active)? Example: You roll 4d6K and get 1,3,4,6. You would drop the lowest die, a 1, and get 13 for the 3,4, and 6. You then determine stun normally.

Good idea! I'll add quirks and distinguishing traits to the generator.

I know this is fairly old, but since I am learning Python (most for beefing up my resume) over Perl, I try to use the new language in stupid ways for gaming. So in that spirit, I created a random NPC generator. It creates a person in the United States around the age of 19 (14-24). Most of the values are totally random. What I am curious about, is would you add anything to the list of items? Example output below. Name: Cotton, Vanessa (Daisy) Last Updated: 5/8/2022 ================================================================================ Sex: Female Age: 21 Born: Sep 4, 2000 Zodiac sign: Virgo Chinese Zodiac: Dragon Blood type personality: (A-) Creative, clever, cooperative, stubborn, uptight Birthplace: San Francisco, California ================================================================================ Physical Description -------------------- Height: 5'8" (1.73 m) Weight: 273.6 lbs (124.1 kg) Handed: Right Hair: Dark Brown/Black, Short (dyed) Eye Color: Brown Corrective Lenses: Yes - Nearsighted Bloodtype: A- ================================================================================ Education --------- Religion: Agnostic High School: John D. Rockefeller High School - 2.0 grade average Showed a talent in being artistic Was raised with athletics in mind. Currently a Student ================================================================================ Relationships ------------- Both parents alive 3 siblings brother(age = 19) brother(age = 13) sister(age = 14) Never married. ================================================================================ Personality Characteristics --------------------------- Extroversion -> Overwhelmingly Extroverted Openness -> Strongly Traditional/Conservative Conscientiousness -> Significantly Spontaneous/Impulsive Emotional Stability -> Slightly Sensitive/Tense Agreeableness -> Moderately Unselfish/Sympathetic ================================================================================ Hobbies/Pastimes ---------------- Home improvement Team Sports (playing) Hockey Following professional team sports Basketball Bicycling Team Sports (playing) Baseball

I was just reading Evil Inc., and I was wondering if your heroes have henchmen. Supervillains have henchmen along with agents. I have seen superheroes with agents but not henchmen. Maybe the sidekick fills the roll, but in truth, you usually only see one sidekick per hero while a supervillain can have dozens of henchmen. Does your superhero group have henchmen style heroes? More powerful by far than an agent, yet works for the hero?

When I was running Pathfinder from an Adventure path, I would get the map image and blow it up to 1" scale. I would then print it out at Kinkos/FedEx. Secret areas I would print out separately at the same scale and then with paint, I would edit out the hidden area. When the players encountered the area, I would just tape the area in.

Wow, I leave for a couple of weeks to deal with a reorg and CEO quitting at work and the thread seems to triple in size. The change in the die roll is about many things. To me, its about not letting a good game stagnate. Improving the game to cater to new players is good. That's why I post threads and polls and see about how people react to the idea. I have put several ideas up here that after it was talked about, I shot down in my head. Others I would keep. That's probably the best thing about these boards. Its a sounding board about what you might want to do with your campaign.

Not all potential players are moderately good at basic math and people have an easier time adding and multiplying than subtraction and division. Ex: 12.42+15.36 but change the sign and people slow down 12.42-15.36 Personally, I don't have an issue with either, but if I presented this to my wife, I can just about hear the gears in her head grind away and smoke start coming out of ears.

I'd add a few curious people to the town too. The dunken sot, who claims people aren't what they appear. "Pure evil demons they be." He's a little loud and obnoxious but doesn't break any major rules other than drinking too much and bathing too little. A little goblin peddler offering substandard goods at substandard prices. Things like 50' of rope made up of 3-5 sections tied together of various makes and quality. Or the mace at half price because its just a lump of metal at the end of a relative straight stick. The waterskin which holds 3/4 what it normally holds because its been patched up badly. They have tried to chase him away but he's fairly agile and at least smart enough to argue that he deserves just as much a chance as anyone else. He keeps coming back because people keep buying stuff from him and the stuff works at least a few times before breaking. Harry's Souvenir Shop: The first of its kind! Originally a toy maker, Harry Mudd thinks he's got a bright idea for making money. He sells little porcelain tower trinkets. Amulets with the image of the tower. Dolls of the Mighty Morphin Wizard (a cloth, stuffed doll you can pull inside out to make into a stuffed dragon - slow seller because of the lack of little girls in town). Sherriff Brawn Action figures (also a slow seller but it stokes the ego of the Sherriff which is always good for business). Toy swords and wands. Maps of the Tower (almost totally useless and kind of cartoony, like a map of the stars). Books on the history of the wizard. Etc. His most recent product Grammarspire Mud, which he says the women use keep looking young and beautiful by applying it to their skin. The townsfolk do buy the mud (as a distraction, which they start calling Harry's Mudd.

Thanks, I understand that. But none the less, I'd figure I'd ask. To be honest, I think if the game changed slightly to make the 3d6 rolls add to some value, a lot more people wouldn't find it as hard.

I do something similar Because by straight math, the mechanics work the same. I thought about that, and in the end the probabilities are the same but rolling OCV +3d6 basically makes rolling low on the 3d6 worse than rolling high. I figured people might not like that. But if you think people would more like that, I would be willing to see it that way.