assault

I've been thinking about letting/encouraging PCs to be the major monsters in the campaign. "People" like the Dragon, or the Undead Lord. Naturally, I need a set of monster types to pick from. A dozen or so would be ideal. They should be smart/dangerous enough to travel around and do things - not just lurk in a cave. So, aside from the two I listed, what others would be suitable. I suppose an Orc would be suitable, if they were capable of leading a horde of their fellows. A Troll, or Ogre? They would need to be fairly clever examples of the kind, and have an agenda. Human villains are obvious - but not really what I am looking for here. I suppose I could reduce the number of true "monsters" if half of the threats are actually "people". I'd still like at least half a dozen monster options though. Maybe I am asking the wrong question. Maybe it should be: if you were playing a monster, what would you want to play?

Unfortunately it's best to build your world out from your player characters, which you don't have yet. Their Hunteds, DNPCs and so on are the next most important characters. The Hunteds, in particular, should drive a lot of the action - they're not just wandering monsters, or people who just show up in a situation that's really about someone else.

The colonization in this case is obviously based on the early North American frontier. There's no if, but or maybe about it. A whole bunch of Howard's Conan stories were basically stories from other genres worked over lightly - pirates, Crusaders, colonial adventures of various sorts (Africa, the northwest frontier of British India...). It's remarkable that he didn't manage to write Conan the Cowboy.

The Pictish Wilderness stories are of course early American frontier stories with the serial numbers filed off, and a bit of magic added. The roles of "good" and "evil" are determined by this. The genre is based on the viewpoint of the colonizers, not the colonized, although exceptions are possible (and doubtless exist). Strangely enough, this actually sits a little awkwardly with the character of Conan himself - who was noted as having been part of the Cimmerian "horde" that sacked Venarium. In that case, he fought against the settlers, not for them. Then there's all the blather about barbarism being the natural state of mankind etc. The reality is that Conan's allegiances were situational.

There's a joke that every machine is a smoke machine if you use it wrong enough. We could add that every fantasy is Sword and Sorcery, if you do it wrong enough. (Also, I added another post to the thread LL linked to, inspired by this one. I had forgotten how recent that one was.)

I missed this one. "The settlers". How American! Or Australian, in my case. The ancient feud between Picts and Cimmerians, and Conan being on the Aquilonian payroll, justifies him seeing the Picts as the enemy. Of course you can always spin those points different ways, where the Picts are the good guys - as Howard himself did in other stories.

I have a sneaking suspicion that our reaction would be rather common. It would require some serious GM manipulation to expect another result. Unless there has been a cultural shift amongst younger players, which is possible. But even one older school player would "fix" this. Cultural influences in fantasy could have an impact on what players would do. People who grew up with Conan and Elric, not to mention Kurosawa films like Yojimbo (inspired by Dashiell Hammett), may react differently to people who didn't. And Conan and Elric were definitely Bad Guys. Karl Edward Wagner's Kane is another example.

Yeah, me too. Probably involving a lot of playing off the factions against each other. If the plan doesn't work out, riding out of a burning town with saddlebags full of loot would be an option too.

None of these are Champions Now stats.

I'm a terrible fan of shared origins. It works nicely. (The following isn't for Dean) Just try this: Grond, Gremlin, Gargoyle and.. your character! And another villain, related to your hero. Or the Blood. Your hero, and a villain tied to them. Etc.

This is where I am currently at: Assault Location of Home: The Village Father: Thomas Wayne Mother: Martha Wayne Son Daughter: Betty Kane, aka Bat-Girl Family Pet: Ace the Bat-Hound Grandfather/mother Three unsorted kin (cousins, in-laws, other grandparents. etc) Two options: Neighbour - John Grayson, Neighbour - Mary Grayson I really should reconsider the Daughter and Pet picks - I'm sure I could do better, but the theme is starting to emerge nicely...

Option 1: Neighbour - John Grayson Option 2: Neighbour - Mary Grayson

Pet: Ace the Bat-Hound Daughter: Betty Kane - Bat-Girl

Father: Thomas Wayne Mother: Martha Wayne

Bond is a commando in a suit. He should look like he has been repeatedly punched in the face. Daniel Craig or Sean Connery, not Roger Moore or Timothy Dalton, in other words.

Location: The Village.

Since I have nothing better to do: Start with Hero. Ditch all characteristics except Str, Dex, Con, Int, Ego, Pre, Body, OCV and DMCV. Body functions as Hit Points. OCV becomes a combined characteristic/level based to hit bonus. DMCV becomes the basis for a saving throw system, along with Characteristic rolls. Armour modifies to hit rolls. Magic Users start with three spells, picked from a preprepared list, plus Read Magic, which is actually probably a skill. Only one spell can be cast per day. Enforce this through a VPP structure? Clerics start with the Turn Undead talent, plus a VPP that allows them to pick, say, 1-3 spells per day from a preprepared list. They can pick any first level spells. Rogues (Thieves) get a bunch of skills, plus a "Backstab" talent. Fighters get whatever. Balance all these to a common point total. It doesn't have to be a round number, although that would be nice. At subsequent levels, characters get packages of equal point cost, depending on their class. There would be some correlation between their Hero-style experience points and what they get. You could ditch levels entirely of course, but I'm trying to make it as D&D like as possible. Hide the crunchy bits behind premade stuff as much as possible, but allow access to the crunch for home brewer GMs. Spend a couple of years refining this... PVP is of course a possibility. The notion that PCs are obliged to collaborate was a late addition to RPGs, although recommended for traditional style play.

The interesting question here is "what stops people from playing Hero?" Aside from D&D's massive cultural and distribution footprint... Of course, any change to Hero would have to preserve the existing support base - the kind of people who post here - because losing us in an attempt to find new customers is pretty much doomed to fail. But at the same time we can't be a fetter on Hero's growth. A lot of the problem is that Hero was a product of an earlier time in the RPG industry. Even then it was economically marginal, and in the space between "business" and "hobby".

By the way, the reason why I am a bit weird about this stuff is that I reread Autoduel Champions fairly recently and decided that that would be how I wanted character creation to be.

I just need to sort out the magic. Enough to allow a player to create a wizard with about 20 points worth of spells.

This is kind of disturbing, but right. 3rd edition Fantasy Hero is the only version of Hero I have on my phone. I'm thinking that 50 point characters might be the way to go. (That's plus Disads, of course.) Everybody dies, naturally. Clark Ashton Smith, mostly.

I'd start by clarifying the question. For example, what is "an original version of the Justice Society of America"? What is original about it? In what sense is it the JSA?

I can't see anyone betting on Australia.

Apparently Australia can advance if they get a draw against Denmark. I wouldn't bet on that, but in any case: Go the Danes! That said, the main reason Australian soccer is so rubbish is that the big money supports Rugby League and the Australian Football League (AFL). The result is that soccer fans are stigmatised as (how to phrase it?) "people from non-English speaking backgrounds" and thugs. That's a big plus for soccer in my view. But still, AFL would be a terrific game for Americans (fast and high scoring), although unlike American football it doesn't stop for ad breaks, which means that it could never get the necessary money behind it.

Also: "I just cured Indel, and he falls down a pit? ***** him. I'm taking my loot and going home!"