RDU Neil

I have no idea what the 'ef that is.

Hah! I meant... "What is as awesome as it was in the '80s!? Nothing!"

What is?

the Kickstarter just broke 19k!

A friend of mine made a similar comment... that the obsession with secrecy and lack of spoilers makes the Marvel movies really bad at truly foreshadowing and building up to one another. Sure, they can position certain McGuffins (infinity stones) as existing, or a character as sitting in the background... but they can't actually lay the ground work for one movie in previous movies. One of the reasons I felt Infinity War failed so badly was that it was missing a movie... an entire movie's worth of Thanos and the Black Circle being bad ass and wreaking destruction and kicking ass... so by the time Avengers 4 came around, you knew who they were and you knew how badass they were... and what the stakes were. They movies are tied together at a superficial level, not at the level of being an intricated, crafted, singular whole. In many cases this is great (in just creating the MCU as a lived in world) but when it came to Infinity War, it leant nothing to the movie, which was fragmented, pointless and highly flawed.

I read one blog post by Ron about how he always loved the Mind Games supplement, because it didn't proscribe good vs. bad, etc., but gave you a set of interesting characters to role play against that was driven by "play" rather than set expected outcomes. He seemed to imply that other 4th Edition supplements DID proscribe these things... which I never found. The Zodiac supplement, the Olympians supplement, Sanctuary, etc. Later, all the Dark Champs/Hudson City stuff, etc. There were so many great characters and settings that could be interpreted in so many ways, and didn't enforce stereotypical play. I never felt 4th Edition every fell into the... taken to the extreme... White Wolf trap, or the era of D&D supplements that had to be played in order, and one adventure had to follow another, etc. I'm just not sure what was found by you and Ron in 4th that made it not work... as all the things I was trying to do with Champs finally came to fruition with 4th Ed.

As for this... uhm... who DIDN'T playa ninja in the '80s? I mean... who doesn't play ninja's now? Ninja's are freakin' awesome. Seriously, one of the characters in my very deadly serious, modern campaign of guns and martial arts and X-files weirdness plays a ninja. A very traditional ninja, with very traditional ninja skills, and a very traditional silenced 9mm pistol.

Chris, I would "like" your post because I appreciate all the detail, but I'm out of "likes" for some reason. So many things you described, like all the different campaigns (OMG we played the hell out of Danger International!) and such from the '80s... but I never had the issues that you described when we translated to 4th. It could come down to differences in expectations. I never tried to spell out huge campaign limits and write down significant house rules, and it wasn't until 4th Edition that we began playing Fantasy Hero in depth. I think that, while there were times where certain applications of powers broke the feel of the game (the use of force field by a mage and a character with wings, both of which were really over-powered), but I never ended up with player push back or frustration on that, as the "table" generally agreed pretty quickly that "whoa... that just isn't right" and we changed things. With supers, we felt the 4th Ed expanded skill list was cool, but not necessary. It wasn't until 5th that I felt the expectation had changed from "General broad skills, and you can get specific if you want" to "Must deconstruct all skills into fifty different knowledge skill specifics for every possible situation" The whole separation of Heroic level vs. Superheroic really worked for us. Over time, there were always questions of "Is this balanced?" but I never felt that it was up to a rule set to proscribe the kind of game to be played, but that Hero let us find our own. Perhaps it was that I always wanted my Champs campaign to actually do away with most comic book tropes (or at least question them) and move more into the "people with powers in a chaotic, dangerous world" type of campaign. On the surface, you had costumes and code names, but wrestling with issues of the law and vigilantism, killing or not, how to use your power to change society, not just beat up bad guys... what were the ramifications for normal in a world of supers, etc. Those things were essential to the game, and I don't think could have been done with Champions as it was originally envisioned, that enforced tropes like secret id's, DNPCs, etc. Ultimately, I always found that rules and systems only went so far, and nothing in the book was ever considered absolute. What happened at the table determined what was right... work it out in play... then capture any change that meant to the rule set. This type of thing lead to dumping END as too much boring math in game, dumping the Speed Chart because it made SPD not just powerful, and the chart resolution clunky, but enforced some players as having more face time in the game than others. Eventually, it is all about the players. I found a good test. Give a prospective player the BBB, have them read through it a bit, and then, "Tell me what you think?" If they say something like, "So it seems like I can play any cool character... like this guy who fights occult crime like the Shadow, but with magical trinkets instead of guns" and I'd feel they have a good chance in the group. If, on the other hand, they say, "So it seems that the character I should play has desolidification and ego attack, affects real world, because then I can attack everyone, but never be touched, right?" Then I take the book back and say, "Effort appreciated, the exit is over there." It was a good test about whether people wanted to role play, or game the system.

I commented on that. As I said... if you stay in a "roughly human range" (say small child to hill giant at 20 feet or so) the system is very elegant with the Body/Defense spread. I acknowledge that. It is when you get into serious shrinking and growth that the scaling breaks down. Again, this is part of what I've found with Hero over the decades... the closer to "human" you are, the better the system simulates it. The farther you get in terms of baseline human, the more you really have to shrug and ignore the "but what if..." moments. Bigger/smaller... what is my effect on things at another scale. If I run so fast, why am I not burning up? How can I breathe? If I shrink down far enough, will my lungs work? This is why I feel that if you really want to emulate super-stuff, it is not about getting more and more detailed and deconstructed, but going back to a more hand-wavey, just go-with-it kind of thing. As for the elegane of Body, it breaks down when it tries to parse the difference between "Body is what must be defeated to KILL a thing... vs Body is what must be defesated to DESTROY a thing" A bullet can effectively kill, without doing much destruction to a body at all. Bigger attacks should actually destroy MORE of the human body, thus doing WAY more "Body damage" on a exponential level. Dying to small hole from a rifle shot vs. "Ludicrous gibs!" exploding in red mist? Body damage in general isn't good at simulating which is which.

yes to all of this almost... though I know it is my own biases that I balk at the "ennobling" of the famed "blue collar worker" who has never really shown a noble streak, but only short sighted self-interest, easily swayed, and highly racist. "Yay Unions... give me more money! Yay Democrats supporting unions... I've got my own moneyed interest now! Boo Unions... why is this black guy in my union? Boo Democrats who support policies that help other people not just me. Yay Trump!"

Interesting... as I loved 4th Edition for its internal consistency... allowing for much less problems at the table and in character construction... though I'd loved 1-3 leading up to it. It just seemed the logical, over-arching concepts finally clicked into place with 4th. I hated where it went in 5th... never ever used the Fuzion stuff... and really only like 6th for the removal of figured characteristics. My perfect Hero system (barring some massively new narrative stuff I've never seen before from Ron in the new stuff) is 4th Ed with non-figured characteristics. Would be interested in your exact problems with 4th that you didn't have earlier?

My "why's were posted on the front, in response to the News article this week about backing. Essentially, I'm interested in seeing how modern game design (emphasis on play and narrative) can be applied to Champions through someone like Ron, who was/is at the forefront of such thought and design. I've made a lot of changes to my use of Hero over the years, mainly downplaying anything overtly mechanical and gamist, and layering in narrative mechanics like bennies/story chits/director stance things on top of what I like about the system. I like Hero for the 3d6 roll and task resolution functionality. I like the skills, skill levels, combat maneuvers, martial arts... because they make for very detailed and nuanced fight scenes that are dramatic/cinematic and descriptive. I like "reason from effect" to a point. I like the Characteristics, especially now that they are not "figured" I dislike the point buy system as it has evolved. It has become a programming language appealing to folks who "run the math" and try to "program the perfect character" and has no emphasis on actual play. It has developed an over-engineered philosophy of deconstructing everything into so many subcategories for skills abilities that are just the player demonstrating their research or personal knowledge (Let me list the 49 things a lawyer actually knows... vs. Lawyer 13-) that it has become pedantic. Hero ultimately became much better at 'Heroic level' games than Supers, where it started, because deconstructing and systematizing superheroes just serves to point out all the silly, stupid inconsistencies in most superhero concepts and stories. I'm hoping for some really cutting edge concepts in non-traditional Hero mechanics... example: where Endurance is a matter of constant, incremental adding and subtracting now, I'm hoping for mechanics actually about the in play dramatic effects of "going all out" and exhausting your character, etc.

My issues with Growth/Shrinking is that it implies and tries to simulate size/mass/etc. for characters... but Hero doesn't have size/mass/etc. for attacks, and that is very relevant. A bullet is a small thing moving very fast, and has a certain effect on a adult human sized target with certain size/mass/etc. If that bullet hits a small child (1/4 the size and mass of the adult) that bullet tends to do a LOT more damage to it because relative size/mass is different. If a bullet hits an Ant-Man type character, that relative size/mass is hugely different, and that bullet should do excessively more damage. A bullet hitting a 60 ft. tall character should do almost nothing, as its size/mass ratio is vastly reduced. Now, you could take a rough stab at this with higher/lower Body on the target. Child has less body than Adult... but there is not enough granular range in Body for this to work, and Shrinking doesn't reduce the Body of a character... and Growth doesn't really add enough body, etc. Essentially, Hero has no way of mechanically representing "scale" effectively. Everything is built assuming adult human scale, with damages and defenses flexing around that purely on a linear more or less fashion. At what point has a shrinking character gone so small their blast attack is negligible? At what point is a Growth character so large that an average "size" attack is negligible? In Hero terms, these aren't even questions. Champions as designed nearly 40 years ago, did not expect hard analysis, but just 'go with the comic book convention' and built the power to reflect that convention. Hero System, evolved over decades of actually asking these hard questions, has failed to adequately address them, because it is REALLY, REALLY HARD to do so in a balanced way. Vastly different scales on the same battlefield are going to be wildly incompatible in any "realistic" application, and you don't want that in a game... but Hero isn't a game any more, it is a game building system... so perhaps it is time to actually address scale. Like at what point is a Growth character's punch an Area Effect? Why doesn't an Area Effect attack do more damage, since it is hitting all of the target's body, not just one spot (i.e., why explosives are way more lethal than bullets)? Game balance is the answer... but that leads to all kinds of "But then..." kind of things. Even if you want to simulate classic comics concepts (Colossal Boy, Giant Man, etc.) it was always inconsistently done in the comics in ways Hero doesn't let you. Giant Man gets big, and they you have several panels of him taking all the blasts and shots, but he ignores them. We don't see him saying, "This will only last a couple of seconds, because all these little blasts will actually nickel and dime my stun away, and I'll be unconscious or dead!"... no, you see him completely ignoring the effects of "small attacks" because he is "big". But the increased PD/ED etc. to ignore those small attacks (dozens of them, so high rolls and max damage would occur a lot) would mean he was now tougher than the Hulk in many cases. There is just too much "illogic" in comics, for a logical system like Hero to effectively simulate them. With Growth and Shrinking, we've either just stayed away from them, or limited them to relative human scale (a couple levels only, either side). I've yet to see any ideas that actually make the size/mass changing work well.

Ok... I did that... but if I don't get that second book, you own me one, Chris!

Yeah... was reading this here... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/26/democrats-primaries-upset-joe-crowley-alexandria-osacio-cortez?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+USA+-+Collections+2017&utm_term=279391&subid=24646434&CMP=GT_US_collection And I don't see why this is a bad thing. It is exactly what the Democrats need. Assuming the staid leadership realizes it. She may not be a Dem party member, but as Crowley did, the Dems should back her fully. As Old Man said, the Dems have become Republicans (while the Republicans have become extremists in many cases) and that is the problem. The whole country has swung so far to the right, that Hillary is considered a liberal. (She was a Goldwater Girl for christsakes!) I mean, I voted for her as the best candidate for the job at the time, but I really don't like the mainstream Democratic ties to Wall Street and the like. I'm much more of a Democratic Socialist in leaning, but not a Bernie-Bro ideologue. The fact that Bernie is considered "radical" is just another indication of how far the Center has swung right.

I literally just watched the dial spin to take the pledge over 18,000... so we are really close. I'm also posting here, as I've messaged and posted on Kickstarter as well... I was looking to up my pledge by 30 bucks to get an extra copy of the book... but I can't figure out how to actually do that. There is no "Add 30 dollars to existing pledge" option as far as I can tell, though a message there says you can do it. Thoughts? What am I missing?

Well, if Captain America stands for U.S. values (real or purported) at whatever point in history we are... then they got it right with "Hail Hydra!" in this era.

I obviously don't know Feige's mind, but I think there is a difference between what he wants to do, and what Marvel/Disney will eventually do. Feige has created something no one thought was possible on so many levels. He has made second rate Marvel superheroes household names and billion dollar franchises. He has created a comic universe that is compelling to both fan and non-fan alike, doing this with 20-30 movies, with the majority being good... a few being great... and only a couple of stinkers. That is amazing. He has nothing else to prove, and he can (if he wishes) stay true to his particular vision of the Marvel Universe. He doesn't HAVE to worry about long term, whether the MCU is a thing after he is done with Phase 4. He's done everything. He can let the ranchises go to someone else, leave with his good name in tact, going down as the ultimate fanboy living the dream... and let Disney and whoever else comes afterward worry about reboots and recasting, etc. Disney/Marvel probably wants those things, but if I were Feige, I certainly wouldn't. Unless he has somehow failed to come out of his tenure as MCU chief with Infinite Money, he can walk away as soon as it starts to look ugly, and beast begins eating itself. Or maybe he likes that stuff... and he'll do it. I don't know. I just know I wouldn't touch that, if I was in Feige's shoes.

Apparently SOME of us did! ?

The good Captain represents the "everyman" and woman, no matter nationality, as long as they fight for freedom and justice for all!

Buy you'll never really know.

I don't fall into that category. I never really liked the original at all... too cheesy. I loved the cast of the new one. It had plenty of heart and actual pathos and grim violence, and the heroism we saw came from a real place, not generic TV hack writing. It was flawed in many ways, but infinitely better than the original.

I thought BSG (reboot) did a really cool job of the "muffled sounds" approach... instead of complete silence, they made the guns and explosions and rocket sounds heavily muffled, like you were just receiving the concussion waves through a hull... then would put things at full volume when they cut to inside a cockpit of a Viper that was firing, etc. While not completely "accurate" it conveyed artfully exactly what was needed. That and their space fighter physics was, if not fully realistic... way MORE realistic.

I will go try to find that book... thanks! (I'm old, but not 1920's old.) Edit... ok I think I found it. Both 1957 and 1989 editions available From the 1930's I guess.

'Effing Canadian optimism! ?