assault

Characters like this are unlikely to be particularly literate. This opens up some interesting possibilities. It's likely that the clues to finding the sanctum are to be found in oral, rather than written, traditions. Instead of searching ancient libraries as was done in earlier attempts to find it, the PCs need to ask a bard. Or possibly be the bard, since "entertainer" is on the list. The clues have been there all along, just in stigmatized/ignored places. Popular songs? Nursery rhymes? Epic poems? Only of interest to fools, children and barbarians! But there is still the issue of mostly illiterate people needing to be able to distinguish between one book and another...

I've considered: "The Elves and Trolls annihilated each other, leaving only scattered haunted ruins. Now humans are settling their lands." Vaguely Moorcock/Wild West. Zorandar, from Lands of Mystery. Doesn't have to be about damsels in distress, or railroaded. Needs a magic system but is otherwise ready to go. For "3e" (original) Fantasy Hero anyway. Other versions would need some work. Various other things, but most of them require too much pre-game exposition. I'm trying to find the optimal balance between "it's not D&D" and "here, read the notes for my badly written fantasy novel". One extreme needs more, the other, less exposition. I kind of want: "read these few bullet points, pick one of these packages, adjust to taste" and end up with game-relevant characters in less time than it takes to make a modern D&D character. Then drop them somewhere where they can pick fights and die.

I'm suffering a bit from Fantasy plot failure. Regardless of system, I can't quite get the "this is what you do" part right. By preference, I would set things up so that players can work things up the way they want, but I would like to be able to guide them a little, so it's not D&D. I would like to be able to point them at about a dozen things to do without railroading them. Failure. Also, War Beavers don't apply in the land of War Wombats. I think I need some vestiges of a civilization to loot and provide threats.

The old language doesn't have to be the "common" language. You could easily use one of its more common descendants ("French") or a less closely related one ("Greek") as a common language between the PCs. A trade oriented Lingua Franca would be less useful if the PCs are based in a specific area where most people don't use it.

Having a moment. Can you show us some spells? The kind that you can pick from a list, rather than work out the hard way. In short, the ones you would choose when you are creating your first character in this system.

For 225 points, try something like this: 100 points worth of Characteristics. 26 Dex - 48 points 23 Con - 26 7 ED - 2 6 Spd - 24 100 points of Powers. 50 Strength - 40 points 12 PD/12 ED Armour - 40 10" Flight - 20 25 points of Everything Else (including Pre, Skills). Figured Characteristics at base, aside from the extra ED. Should be able to handle VIPER agents, although vulnerable to Flashes and stuff. It might be worth putting 1/2 End cost on his Str. Include that in the Everything Else.

Poor Warboar! Using the minimum stats meant he was terribly nerfed. Good for an exercise, but not how "real" characters were back then. Even on the same points and avoiding Limitations, it was easy to build a more formidable character. Mind you, the 3e VIPER agents were better equipped than their precursors. They could easily have been more of a problem for my wiseguy builds. That's when I would have started applying Limitations.

Perforce? Of course the monarchy exists, but that does not require any respect for the imbecilic descendants of tyrants and poster children for reactionaries. I personally doubt you have less respect for postmodernism - banality clothed in obscurantism, like a particularly nasty cheap pie - than I do. Im not quite sure where nominalism fits in. You win philosophy reference points for that one. That's OK, I quoted Denis Diderot on the Book of Face this morning.

Since he was Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, this is actually quite legit.

16 Australian PMs, including one caretaker, but not double counting one who served twice. Menzies, Holt, McEwen (caretaker), Gorton, McMahon, Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard, Rudd, Gillard, (Rudd again), Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison, Albanese.

Echidna sparks mystery after damaging hotel room at New South Wales country pub

If they are already playing (modern) D&D, they are already playing a game more complex than Hero. The only issues are the learning curve and any nonsense they've picked up from the net.

OK, I can only answer this in terms of the Australian federal system. States and Territories each have their own quirks. Also, I will use the Australian terminology of preferential voting - essentially ranked choice or instant run-off voting. This will be long. First of all, Australia has a different party system to the US. Parties pick their candidates through their own internal processes. There are no primaries. As a result, there is only one candidate per party in lower house elections (House of Representatives - name stolen from the US, of course). This reduces the number of candidates. 5-8 is fairly typical. That's usually the major parties, a couple of "minor" parties that have a real chance of getting people elected somewhere, if only in the Senate, a couple of minor parties with no chance, and an Independent or three. At times, some states have used "optional preferential" systems, where you can vote for as many candidates as you like and still have your vote counted. So a major party supporter might only vote 1 for the candidate of their own party. A minor party supporter might vote 1 for their candidate, and then 2,3... for other unobjectionable candidates, finally ending with the major party they hate the least. Some people might allocate preferences for all candidates, if only for the pleasure of putting the most obnoxious candidate last. Most of the time though, including in federal elections, you have to allocate a preference for each candidate. That means, for example, you have to list each candidate from, say, 1 to 8. That's no big deal. In theory you could have 20 candidates, but in practice you don't. So far, so good. Now we get to the Senate... I'm going to skip the Territories (Australian Capital Territory (Canberra) and the Northern Territory (where Bazza lives)) and focus on the 6 States. Each State has 12 Senators. Usually half are up for election each time. (There are times when all 12 are - but this is exceptional.) Senate elections use a mix of proportional and preferential voting. Typically, that results in the election of three candidates each from the "left" and the "right". It's rare these days for any party to have a majority in the Senate - getting legislation through involves negotiation and accepting amendments. Because of the proportional element, it's easier for minor parties and independents to get elected to the Senate. Using the "typical" 3-3 split I mentioned above, that often means that the major parties will get two candidates up each, with the remaining seats going to minors or independents on the left or right. That relative ease of election means that a lot of candidates run for the Senate. Ballot papers can be up to two metres/yards long! Most of these candidates are complete unknowns with no chance, single issue candidates and so on. This is also where parties run multiple candidates. Typically these are listed in columns on the ballot paper, in an order chosen by the party. A candidate at the top of the list usually has a better chance of being elected than one at the bottom, although upsets are possible. With (say) 132 candidates, most of whom you've never heard of, listing them from 1 to 132 is a chore, and fairly meaningless when you have no basis for ordering them. At that point, there is the option of voting "above the line" or "below the line". "Below the line" voting is fairly rare in practice. Basically, you chose a minimum of 12 candidates in the order in which you prefer them, and your vote is valid. Yes, you can vote for all 132 candidates this way. Or you can vote for a party candidate that's at the bottom of the list, and so on. "Above the line" works on the fact that the candidates are listed in columns. Even the independents. (There's an "ungrouped" column or two for people who aren't running alongside anyone else.) When you vote above the line you are allocating preferences between different columns. I think you have to choose at least six such groups. In that case, the order of candidates in each column matters - your vote goes initially to the first candidate. If they get elected, surplus votes go to the second candidate and so on. The maths here gets weird, and I'm not going to go into the details of quotas and such. It takes a lot longer to count Senate votes than House of Reps ones, but you can usually guesstimate the results on election night with reasonable accuracy. Well that's all as clear as mud, but yes, there are ways to deal with huge numbers of candidates without brain bleed or resorting to two rounds of voting. And "third/fourth/fifth parties" have a reasonable chance of getting elected where they have genuine support.

I just wrote something about Elves and their origins as Satyrs. And the origin of Satyrs, which is a little bit vulgar, but involves Pan. Good fun for about ten minutes. That's pretty much my attention span. As for talent: I can't write an entire paragraph of prose without the sentences starting to stab each other.

The odd thing about the Alaskan system is that it involves two rounds. That's an artifact of the US primary system and the parties not being parties in the usual sense. A pure ranked choice system only needs one round.

Busted!

Curiously, Australian native bees are less likely to kill you than bees elsewhere. We also have Introduced species, but so far not the Africanised types that attacked this guy. The quarantine service is very careful about them coming in.

I didn't realize it was preferential "ranked choice"/"ïnstant runoff" voting. Watching the Palin supporters cry "fraud!" is worth the entry price by itself. Poor darlings. EDIT: although after reading how the new Alaskan voting system works, it's... very American. Take something that works, and break it so it doesn't.

2nd/3rd is neither here nor there. The difference is mainly in layout quality. If you want to have a maximum of 75 points of Disads, use a 150 point base. That will give you 225 point characters - the recommended total for 2nd. Otherwise carry on with whatever edition you want. The character build guidelines for 2e and 3e were identical except for the extra 25 points worth of "whatever". The two statements were intended as a starting point for an interaction between the GM and the players. This won't happen if you use pregens, but you could still use them for a minimalist setting.

If you wanted to be literal about it, autoduellists are a landless warrior class. Knights of a low-rent sort, who have to eke out a living as professional jousters, mercenaries or bandits. Obviously, over time, such riffraff will either become part of a ruling elite, be crushed or some mixture of both. But there could be a period of a few years before that in which a game could be set... The question is what kind of situation would give rise to this? It wouldn't have to be particularly plausible. War, plague and magic could all contribute. During the Hundred Years' War, there were plenty of Free Companies wandering about creating havoc at various points. That could be a possible influence. The Anarchy in England during the conflict between Stephen and Matilda could be another. But in both cases, regional elites remained in place, and tended to use the chaos in their own interests. The Irish Fenian Cycle could be another influence, with warrior bands existing outside the "normal" social structures to a degree. Such groups existed outside Ireland as well at various points. Arthurian myths could work too.

The other day I reread Autoduel Champions. The most obvious thing was that building characters for it was quick and easy. Part of it was that the setting was well defined and what characters did was also straightforward. It wasn't a case of "you can play anything". Instead it was a case of "you can play any of these options that fit into the setting". The result was a decent range of choices that didn't require you to sit around fiddling with the system. So that's what I want. I need a setting where what PCs do is simple and obvious. But going down a damp and smelly hole in the ground isn't the default... And now I am drawing a blank.

I reread Autoduel Champions the other day. Apparently you could build a Hero System character in a matter of minutes back then. I kind of want to design a Hero campaign where you can do that now. That would solve all my problems - but it's a lot of work.

Robin was noted as learning Judo from Batman, but Comic Book martial arts simulates what GA heroes do perfectly adequately and is simpler than huge lists of maneuvers.

I was trying to avoid house rules like the Physical Complication. Also, most villains who were combat capable at all were mirror images of the heroes in terms of power level. Taking on the Joker with a 6 DC attack doesn't seem like a good idea. My other assumption was that it was Champions, not Pulp Hero. Characters are built according to superheroic standards, even though some of them are at the bottom end of that.

I mentioned that I think that Golden Age characters were very Cookie Cutter. Here are some of what I think are their common attributes. All of them are two-fisted adventurers. The only exceptions are people like Rex Tyler (Hourman), who is useless outside his Hour of Power. This means that they can have non-combat powers, or none at all, and still be effective. Air Wave is an example. Being able to make a phone call from anywhere is not a combat power – but he can still clean up a roomful of thugs. There are degrees of effectiveness. Some blaster types placed less emphasis on fisticuffs, but were still ready to get stuck in. Others were basically brawlers with neat powers – Alan Scott (Green Lantern) is an example. Mystics were typically brawlers too. (Zatara, etc.) These probably fall into the “less emphasis” category in most cases. There are cases of characters with little justification for their combat skill. Many of these are women (Phantom Lady) or kids (most sidekicks other than Robin), but it also applies to many adult males. It seems that being a Red Blooded American (or the equivalent) was enough. Combat styles, even for trained fighters, were largely based on Boxing, Wrestling or simple Brawling. Judomaster was a Silver Age character, despite his stories being set during WW2. This provides a basis for characteristic sets. Characters, without considering powers, grade from Teenage Sidekick to Heavyweight Champion of the World. Or, in other words, Robin to Wildcat. (Star-Spangled Kid to Stripesy, if you prefer.) All of these are viable player characters. All should have Martial Arts (Comic Book style is appropriate), probably with a couple of additional Damage Classes. This allows the lower end characters to throw, say, 8 DC Offensive Strikes – probably the minimum necessary to be relevant. There’s no great difference in other characteristics, once superpowers are ignored. “Normal” superheroic characteristic levels are fine. Skill sets aren’t all that different either. Give them some basic detective stuff, and some specific things to make them Scientists, Mystics, Great Detectives and so on, and you are good. Batman was both a scientist and detective, and wasn’t unique in this, so you need to allow for that. On the other hand, even Batman’s “detective work” was pretty basic when you get down to what he actually did. Starting skill sets don’t need to be overly complex. Disadvantages/Complications can be tricky, but there are a lot of characters that can be “Secret Identity, Psych Limitation (usually some kind of Heroic Code), a Hunted, a DNPC (often a Romantic Interest, but not always) and not much else”. The frequency at which they occur would depend on the number of PCs in the group. (Higher for small groups, lower for large ones.) I'm not sure that Super Patriot is even worth points - it's pretty much the default. Codes versus Killing tended to be flexible, especially in war zones. "Heroic Code" can cover them both. Ultimately, the main difference between characters lies in their powers/equipment/whatever. (This includes characteristics beyond those I described above.) This will still be a large chunk of points that needs to be allocated, but is a less complex task than starting from scratch.