Toadmaster

Re: US Military .45 Pistols I'm sure it doesn't hurt that Ahhhhrnold used one in the Terminator. "Phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range" "I only got what you see Pal"

Re: US Military .45 Pistols

Re: US Military .45 Pistols Actually it was the military experience in the Philipines 1899-1902, there was a problem stopping fanatic tribesmen with the .38 revolver then in use. Of course less well known was that the .30 caliber rifle then in use was also having some problems stopping them as well. As a result the Army wanted a new pistol in the old caliber (.45). Worked great for 70+ years until some rocket scientist decided it was time to invent a new wheel, surprisingly it has only taken 20 years for that to wear off, and actually the .45 was back almost before it left, it was into the 90's before the Beretta was really around in large numbers and many "Special" units had permission to retain weapons in .45 right up to the present so the 9mm never fully replaced the .45 anyway.

Re: Greatest Post-Apoc Film of All Time I'd probably agree that the road warrior is the best of the bunch with Mad Max and Thunderdome trailing 2nd and 3rd. Just for the heck of it though some of the competition (and worth looking for if you like the genre) The actually decent movies (besides the Madmax trio) Omegaman Blade Runner (borderline but I consider it on the verge of PA) 28 Days (zombie flick, but PA aspects) The Stand (supernatural but still PA) The Postman (I know it has issues but I liked it) Waterworld (see above, but a crazed one eyed Dennis Hopper is worth seeing) By Dawns Early Light (HBO movie). The not so good but still fun Hell comes to Frogtown, it has a great spoof / tribute to the planet of the apes in the beginning, lots of cheese but fun. They Live, another goofy Roddy Piper movie with an alien invasion twist. Escape from New York / LA, goofy but alot better than most of the PA movies out there. I never could get into the Ape movies, DEFCON 4 was pretty bad as was Night of the Comet, and those are just the bad ones my mind will let me remember.

Re: Help with SWAT Well for a simple answer, AR15, H&K MP5, various brands of sniper rifle (sorry the PC term is now tactical rifle, snipers are bad ), handguns are typically the same as the PD issues, various 9mm, 40 or .45 handguns. GURPS did a SWAT supplement, if SWAT is going to be a big part of your game it might be worth getting, you could probably find it cheap on ebay since it was only about $15 when it came out.

Re: US Military .45 Pistols Well as a fan of the .45 I'd say this is a move in the right direction. My personal preference (since its unlikely the M1911A1 will be considered) would be for the H&K USP or the SIG P220, both are very nice and feel right in my hand. I've shot Glocks and while I can't say anything bad about them they just didn't "do it" for me. I really like S&Ws and have a 6906 I like alot even though its a 9mm but I've never liked their .45s, like the Glock they don't feel right. I haven't used many of the other weapons listed. The Para-Ordnance probably would have some advantage as it is somewhat based on the M1911A1 and retains the familiar shape. I'm kind of surprised they didn't list Ruger, the P90 is a very nice rugged double action .45, it is a US company with a long history of making very dependable, durable, and best of all fairly inexpensive weapons. The P90 retails for about 1/2 the H&K or SIG pistols, not sure where the prices go in government contracts but SIG lost to Beretta based on unit cost the first time around.

Well the PA thread got into the various games out there that could be used for a PA HERO game, then it drifted a little and Recon was mentioned which got me thinking about military Hero games. Since it is an area I am fond of and have alot of the games that have been done I thought I'd start something similar for this genre. Recon (RPG Inc) Recon started as a Vietnam RPG, most of it came as little books like Traveller. Recon rule book (1982), small black book. This is the rule book. Recon supplement 1: Sayaret & Track Commander (1983), small black book. Includes rules for middle east based games, primarily the Arab / Isreali wars. Also includes rules for playing a tank crew. Recon Module 1: The Haiphong HALO (1983), newsprint format. Includes rules for playing SOG operations in North Vietnam, includes many methods of infiltration / extraction, a map of a harbor area and deck plans for a frieghter. Recon Module 2: Hearts & minds (1983), small black book. Includes rules for playing Special forces characters in the central highlands of Vietnam. San Succi: (1983?), newsprint format. Scale map of a small city and Road Kill, a vehicle combat system. Recon Mission Directors Screen (1983?), three fold 8 1/2 x 11 gaming screen. Planned (but as far as I know never done) Sweep, Recon supplement: Conventional operations in Vietnam. Up from the ashes, Recon module: Phoenix / Phung Hoang operations against Viet Cong infrastructure. LZ Loon, Recon module: Humorous mercenary module. RECCE, Recon supplement: Rules for playing Rhodesian / South African based games. Death from Above, Recon supplement: Rules for playing helicopter crews. Weapons & Booby traps, Recon supplement: Modern weapons and booby traps from around the world. Revised Recon (Palladium) Palladium bought Recon from RPG Inc and re-wrote much of the game, but the original Recon is still buried in the rules. It also moved the game from Vietnam to a Vietnam "like" setting and also include a number of other hot spots (again thinly veiled approximations of the real world). The game went from the small book to an 8 1/2 x 11" format and added alot more art. Revised Recon (1986) The rule book Advanced Recon (1987) More rules, includes the miniature rules from the original recon which had been removed from the Revised version. Deluxe Revised Recon (1999) Combines Revised recon and Advanced recon into one book. Behind Enemy Lines (FASA) Behind Enemy Lines is a WW2 RPG. Behind Enemy Lines boxed set (3 books), (1982). The rules. British Commandos (1982) The basic rules only include how to make US characters, this book provides rules to make and play British characters. The Guns of Navaronne (1982) A module for Behind Enemy Lines Behind Enemy Lines (The Companions) FASA sold the rights to the game to another company, the rules changed but it is still a World War 2 based RPG. The books now resembled military field guides. Behind Enemy Lines boxed set, (1985). The rules. The British in World war 2 (1986). Rules for making characters from Britain, Canadia, Australia and New Zealand. Delta Force (Task Force Games) This is an RPG of modern combat, primarily anti-terrorism based campaigns. It uses a similar system to FASA's Behind Enemy Lines. Delta Force boxed set (1986) the rules. Terror at sea (1986) a module involving an ocean liner. Desert sun (1987) a module involving a North African nation and nuclear weapons. Delta Force Companion (1987) more rules for delta force. MERC (Fantasy Games Unlimited) This is an RPG involving mercenaries in Africa. MERC boxed set (1981) The rules, also includes supplement 1. Supplement 1: Rhodesia. Rules for playing a Rhodesia based game. Supplement 2: The Congo (as far as I know this was never released). Twilight 2000 (Game Designers Workshop) While best known as a Post Apacalypse game the second edition released a Special operations supplement and Merc 2000 for games set in a world that had gone into many small brush fire wars instead of WW3. These are well suited to running modern military games. Osprey publishing has many books suitable for getting the basic information to run a game set in a particular conflict.

Re: 4th Edition supplements?? I liked Western HERO alot, I thought it was one of the better 4th ed books. Unfortunately I seem to find many with the same taste as rapier and have no interest in a western game Western is a tricky genre, but the book gives it a good try.

Re: post-apocalyptic genre book Ok, now that you mention it I do recall some talk on a Morrow discussion board that might be what you're talking about. There was a member who was working on a home brew game similar to Morrow Project that had Phoenix in the title, I never saw any of the material though so I didn't know there had actually been any work done on it. Dauntless I agree with you on PC, I think most people see the rules, those 1/10 second turns and all the charts and just write the game off as unplayable, personally I didn't find it any harder than GURPS or HERO once everybody got the swing of things. We used Living Steel for the RP rules but the setting was a more traditional PA game, had a blast but it didn't last long, we couldn't get the rest of the group to try it so it so it died off. Years later I got into a Twilight 2000 game that had borrowed heavily from PC, that was alot of fun, not quite PC but much better than the Twilight combat rules. Recon (by RPG Inc) is a decent little game, its funny Paladium didn't really fool with the rules but they did mange to screw it all up by making it more Politically Correct and generic. You can find the originl rules on ebay fairly easily, I was able to collect the whole set of published supplements over a 6 month period for probably less than $100 (probably only $60 but I don't really rememeber since I got them a few years ago), not bad for the rules and 4 or 5 supplements. Since this is starting to drift away from PA I think I'll start another thread.

Re: 4th Edition supplements?? Oh, don't feel bad, just because its the worst HERO supplement ever doesn't mean it is a complete waste of time, I paid full price for mine many years ago and I don't regret it. Its definately worth $5, I just don't think it caught the feel of the Cyber genre very well but it does have some useful info in it.

Re: post-apocalyptic genre book Phoenix Command really wasn't a setting just a combat system and a very basic set of RPG rules. They did release Living Steel which basically used the same combat system but added a high tech future, semi-PA setting for it that included Powered armor fairly promently (Living Steel refered to the powered armor). I'm one of the few people I know of that actually played in a game using the Phoenix Command rules, it was actually quite playable once all the players caught on to the rules, but stay out of the way of the bullets, getting shot was a very bad idea. Phoenix Command and Living Steel have alot of good ideas, the system just scares most people away because it is highly detailed and very lethal.

Re: High Plains Hero

Re: Post-Apocolyptic Hero Setting Wow you left out alot and most of my favorites Aftermath - the game itself didn't include alot of setting material but the later supplements did (Into the Ruins, Sydney, Operation Morphous, City-State, Empire of Karo), nothing spectactualr just the world is wrecked but that is classic PA gaming for me, canibals, anti-techie cults, warlords and the occasional mutant, woo-hoo lock and load . The Morrow Project - seriously wrecked world but the players are about more than just surviving the wastes, they are trained and equipped to rebuild. Had a blast playing this one. Twilight 2000 - This was one of the more succesful PA games, I didn't care for the purely military aspect of the first ed since it was more of a quest for fuel and ammo, but 2nd ed was far more fleshed out and it allowed a broader type of game from just survive to rebuild society. In general PCs are in a place where they can help bring about a return to civilization (decently equipped and trained, also many have some sense of duty to do so by working for Civgov or Milgov) or they can just be about themselves (no overall mission driving them like MP unless thats what they want). FGU cranked out a couple of PA type games besides Aftermath although I never really got into them Freedom Fighters - Soviet invasion of the US, basically Red Dawn the RPG Year of the Phoenix - Kind of Red Dawn meets planet of the Apes but the Soviets play the Apes. Then you have Carwars and the Autoduel setting, this is a really nice semi-civilized world to play in, pretty much anything goes out on the highways but you can always pop into a city when you need a rest (or to activate your Gold Cross clone ) Rogue 417 was a nice setting, pretty much left the tech intact, plus you get zombie-type critters (some slow stupid ones, some quick and clever) and intelligent squirrils to top it off . Tri-tac also had a Soviet invasion Red Dawn like setting but the name escapes me. The Mechanoid Invasion, had some fun playing with this but it uses the palladium system so it wasn't long before we got frustrated with it. Cool setting though. Then there are the movies The Road warrior series (MadMax, The Road Warrior, MM beyond Thunderdome) is probably the best known and it works for me. Nothing says PA to me like high powered cars roaming the wasteland looking for juice. The Omega man is great for ideas, no zombies but crazy, anti-tech albinoes vs Charlston Heston in his bunker style apartment is almost as good. The Postman covers the ever popular warlord angle, whether you like the movie or not it is a great source for ideas. Red Dawn, not as PA as some but I think it still counts. I recently saw this again and was surprised to find it wasn't nearly as cheesy as I thought it would be, pretty decent movie. The living dead movies definately fall into this, I don't know why Zombies don't count as PA, I consider them a staple of the genre. Night of the Comet, Tank Girl, Waterworld, and Defcon 4 all should be watched just for completeness sake, there are plenty of ideas in them. Books Lucifers Hammer, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - comet strikes the earth causing all kinds of trouble, canabal fu, keep out the refugees fu, madman in the power plant fu, great fun all around but no zombies . Footfall, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle - alien invasion PA setting (its been so long I don't recall much more). Damnation Alley - great PA setting, this is one messed up place to live, giant bat creatures, boulders the size of VW's coming from the sky like rain etc. You will notice I didn't include the movie above, there is a reason for that The Earth Abides - this is a great PA story set in the San Fransisco bay area, it covers the immediate aftermath and ends 60 or so years later as a new society is developing. The Stand - with or without the larger supernatural elements this one is very useful for ideas.

Re: High Plains Hero Anyone else playing a western hero campaign? I've been in one, had fun but unfortunately the GM was primarily a Champions player which caused the demise of the game, Champions genre conventions don't translate into westerns well. The end came when the bad guys set up the classic High noon meet you in the street gun fight, but were actually setting up an ambush. We had a pretty good idea that was coming from prior encounters, but when we made plans to counter the ambush the GM got angry and accused us of using non-game knowledge and refused to let us set up one PC on a roof top with a rifle (a rather common staple of the western genre), as a result the PC's were all gunned down like dogs when gunmen opened up from roof tops on either side of the street. Really was a pathetic end to what had been a rather fun game. Unfortunately that experience soured many on the genre. If so, is it more cinematic, or realistic? I prefer something in the middle, no gunning down a dozen baddies with 6 shots but on the other hand I don't really want pure realism either, PCs dying from infections after that fight is not that fun. Movies like Silvarado, The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Professionals, Wyatt Earp, or Tombstone, are good examples of what I'd like to play in. Do you allow gun-fu? Depends on what you mean by gun fu? In limited examples yes, I think it is part of the genre. So shooting off a hangmans noose or shooting a coin in mid air sure I would consider that, but where it starts to fringe on swashbuckling moves no. Are characters heroic, or higher in starting points? I think the 50+50 or 75+75 is about right I'd like to see some discussion on the merits of either. I just like the very competent but not superhuman level of playing, sorry its not deeper han that. Do you think it is 'in genre' to make called headshots in the Western genre? Called shots are only appropriate in limited situations, shooting a hand to take a prisoner in alive would be one, head shots have their place but I wouldn't encourage regular use of them. Where do you limit combat skill or penalty skill levels, or do you? 4-6 levels seems about right, a little higher might be appropriate for specific character types though.

Re: post-apocalyptic genre book IIRC the Phoenix project was sort of Morrow's IAD, basically it was teams used for hunting down rogue Morrow teams. There was also a game from FGU Year of the Phoenix, I don't recall the specifics but I believe it involved some kind of time displacement (time warp, cryo-sleep etc).

Re: New Skills Idea I never understand these posts, why should lots of skills be cheap? If the game doesn't do much with skills then really generic skills like Stan suggests should be adequate, if the skills actually get used in the game then they should be paid for. If you are buying lots of skills at high levels it would probably be cheaper to buy skill levels for a group of skills instead of buying each skill to a high level.

Re: New Advantage: Painful Personally I think that is a much better write up for incapacitating someone with pain, I don't know how "official" it is (without going to flip through the book) but most of the groups I've played with tend to relate Ego to force of will and pain tolerance, so basing the attack of ECV makes alot of sense to me and it doesn't involve a hint of fudging or house ruling. As far as targeting the attack physically just add the lim requires skill roll then base the roll off the normal attack roll, that gets the atack in the area, the ECV determines if the target is stopped by the pain.

Re: New Advantage: Painful Nobody has looked at stun mod? +1/4, I realize that is for Killing attacks but I would think it would be a place to start looking for cost comparison. Personally I think Painful is just sfx, build the attack to do lots of stun vs body (buy alot of stun only damage), or buy a killing attack with extra stun modifiers and stun only, or even an attack does no lasting stun or body (the attack can stun you but does not reduce your stun pips, so its all or nothing). I see little reason to create a new advantage as nearly all attacks using EB, HTH or KA would be painful.

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity?

Re: Has HERO achieved maximum desirable complexity? I think HERO is almost perfect as is but a complete rewrite could offer some advantage, there are a few places where the supers part of the game shows through (cheap STR is one, SPD is another), as a result as the system has moved towards a generic system rules have been added to de-superfy some of the game. This could reduce some of the complexity and streamline it but also runs the risk of creating a completely new game (fusion anyone ). On the other hand I do think there are some aspects of the game that could use more complexity, or at least need more than we currently have. Vehicles really need help, I can not imagine having any fun using HERO for a vehicle heavy game (carwars, WW1 aces, starship combat etc), a single slow moving vehicle like a tank sort of works but a running car chase would not be much fun and I would probably end up using the rules out of another game. More rules for playing at low point levels (50+50 and lower) would probably help too, a low level campaign can be done but it is more work than it should be and the characters tend to blur together since their isn't alot of room for differances. But for the most part I think it does what it is intended to do well and I can't see to many areas where THE RULES need to be more complex, more emphasis on how things are built and the effect of different builds has would solve alot of issues I see on the boards though, I'm not sure if you would consider that more complexity or not?

Re: How to have long combats Armor, defensive manuevers (block, dodge etc) and use skill levels for dcv. Most players and even GM's just think offense, but if you were really fighting wouldn't you spend a little more effort making sure you didn't get whacked and only take those full on attacks when you knew you had the advantage? I wouldn't want to gamble on 50/50 or worse odds of getting part of me hacked off. If you watch boxers or martial arts compititions, look how much of the fight is probing attacks (csl's in defense) and defensive moves, until they get that opening they are watching for then they really let go, if it staggers the opponent they keep at it if not back on defense and more dancing around. We had a GM who fought the NPC's like this, after awhile we caught on and followed the same idea, combats got much longer.

Re: Playing with SPD and time All of the comments so far have their merit, I disagree with some but understand where you are coming from. Most aspects of a game can be proven faulty depending on how you interpret what the rules mean. I agree to a point HERO is cinematic but not so much as many claim it is, while it may be a cop movie its a good one where people have to reload once in awhile, not Police Academy As far as talking in combat, all the groups I've been in are pretty strict about how much you can say in a phase, no giving the Gettysberg address in 6 seconds or less. The speed thing is just a disconnect for me that is slightly annoying, since all are equally slow it really isn't much of a problem so long as you don't dwell on it, but it has popped up occasionally over the years (like try driving your car at 60 miles an hour on a windy road and only turn every 6 seconds ). I've thought of possible solutions but never really did anything about it (I mean we are all aware it is a game and there are some things you give up for playability), the recent spat of speed questions and the possibility of corrupting a new group of players just put it back in my brain. I think if it comes up as an issue I will give the 3+ (Dex/10) a shot, if it doesn't I'll probably just leave it alone although I do like that idea alot.

Re: Older HERO rules in 5E games Apples and oranges, a single well aimed shot is more accurate, the three round burst is actually based on the idea of inaccuracy, the three rounds will each have a slightly different flight path making a larger area to make up for aiming errors, think of it kind of like a shotgun. If you have the budget for training it is more effective to teach your people to shoot well, if not then you get them shotguns and autoweapons. Some confusion also results because machineguns are designed to provide a differant kind of fire than a rifle or smg with 3 round burst, machineguns use auto fire to fill an area with bullets either to attack many targets quickly or to make an area intolerable to the enemy (suppresive fire), 3 round burst is intended to improve the chance of a hit. I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

Re: Playing with SPD and time Here's the problem when comparing to reality, it is a standard drill in firearms training to fire 3 sets of aimed double taps in 2 seconds (6 shots in 2 seconds, you are expected to keep all the shots in the black). As several of the players I'm hoping to convert to HERO are police officers and gun nuts in real life they may take issue with this. Mr. Negative, I like your solution, it is the easiest and still gets the result I want and if I wanted to use a character from my game in another it would simply be a matter of 20 points to adjust. Thanks

Re: Older HERO rules in 5E games The old 3rd ed gun combat rules were better, grenade attacks were 2 parts an explosion and fragmentation, not just a KA with explosion. Shotguns were several small attacks (4x 1d6+1) that changed with range. AF as already mentioned I remember liking the vehicle rules in DI better than 4th ed or the current rules, and as I recall Champions Autoduel had a very good vehicle rules (I lost my copy many years ago). I am seriously thinking about borrowing many of the vehicle movement rules from carwars and working them into HERO if I ever run a vehicle heavy game.