verbosity

Re: Tennessee Hero Corp, I'm from Knoxville. Born and raised, I love that town. You're sensitive and quick to judge, eh? Being that we are both people who like to pretend we're superheroes for a hobby, maybe we should be a little more down-to-earth and less judgemental? By the way, your threat to "tell you what we think of your sense of humor" makes us southerners look ignorant. At least I just made the "yankees" (that's the slur you chose, right?) look bad. V -------------------------- CorpCommander wrote: "Leave it to an elitist yankee from Ohio to come up with something offensive like that. Maybe at Origins me an all the other boys from Tennessee can tell you what we think of your sense of humor."

I am a GM almost done writing the outline for a new campaign, but I don't have that perfectly devious and yet lovable bad guy yet. I'm talking about that sort of nemesis who keeps reappearing, both inspiring excitement and tension all at once. You know, the baddie who makes half your players laugh and the other half of them curse? How about sharing your most successful campaign villain and why you think s/he worked so well. Thanks in advance, Verbosity

Re: Just testing interest:Would you would you be interested in this game? I think this approach can work. I think it would work best if you decided to advance and age the characters at about 5 or 10 times the normal rate. Let them grow powerful and yet old quickly, allowing you to play through many generations quickly. Maybe every session would cover about 10 years, with the actual game time being a few days or weeks but the next session picking up 10 years later.

I am GMing a campaign that purposely headed into some very open ended territory. Depending on the actions of the players it could take many vastly different directions. I don't want to bias you, so I'll keep my ideas to myself so far. The plot is that all the problems on earth that we hear about in the news (cancer, acid rain, global warming, loss of fresh water, etc.) are really caused by the release of nuclear radiation from the tests our governments have done and the two bombs in WWII. The govt didn't want to frighten us so they attributed the problems to the causes with which we are familiar and which we felt we could solve. Over the last 50 years, US govt cooked up a secret program to build super people (the PCs) hardy enough to survive a 300 year near-light-speed ride to Seres, the closest planet that might be survivable by the PCs. The characters are currently one light-year from that planet and have been awakened from crio-sleep early by Samantha, the slef-aware ship computer (who has had 300 years to decide her programmers were immoral), and told the classified info that the PCs are really "hosts" for the personalities of 10 world leaders / figures each. The world leaders are planning to have the ship computer implant their cognizances into the offspring of the characters after the PCs procreate, which will kill the characters and the cognizances of their kids. They are now deciding what to do. Their notable powers are: - Time travel up to about 1000 years - Teleporting to a familiar location, no distance restraints, once a month I am watching for them to head back to earth and see what state it is in (I haven't decided yet). I am also watching for them to time travel back to the 1940's and discourage Einstein or the governments with their story. Maybe they will try to make the US govt people pay by time travelling back to punish them for forcing the PC to be "hosts". Or maybe they'll just move on to Seres and see what's there. So what's there? And can you think of any more monkey wrenches to throw in? Any ideas for directions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the creativity, David

Anyone who has played D&D has played with the guy who tried to use his ring of wishes to wish for unlimited wishes. Well, here is a funny twist on that type of thinking. I recall a guy who declared his character couldn't be killed because he had wished for 325 PERMANENT hit points. Oh really? 325? Why not just 1?

I do have empathy for those people. I think HERO is a good system and I'd like to see all kinds of people encouraged to play it, not just people who think like I (you) do. I don't know about that one, I think most people would find it way too hard. As far as Sewer Urchin and his trusty sidekick Gutter Rat, don't forget about their long time friend... Poo Bear

Back in the day, I used to play Gamma World, Traveller, and Star Frontiers. I was also a Champions fan somewhere about 1983-86. I'd like to get back into gaming, particularly Sci-Fi, that being my favorite genre. I've never seen Star Hero, would some of you long time players offer up how Star Hero expands on Fred? Are you satisfied with it? What makes it worth buying? What do you wish were included but is not? Are there good supplements for it? If I try it, is there a campaign or setting that I might look at to get things launched? Thanks in advance.

Well said. I think that's the way to go too. I am sure you are correct, but I think there are better ways to do it. Lastly, a funny idea hit me as I was reading through some of the posts. Being that we're discussing the idea of "X HERO" titles, how about we throw out a top 10 list of the most absurd / cheezy / unusable "X HERO" titles possible? I'll start: - "Sombrero HERO" : Cross that border by dawn, then marry quick or tend the lawn. In this four color adventure, Green is the only color that matters!

Okay, here's a good one for you: Q - What's the most outlandish interpretation of the rules that you ever witnessed anyone genuinely try to pull off? Make sure to set up their (your?) "interesting" interpretation of the rules and propose whether or not the proponent actually believed the lunacy they were spouting or were just attempting to BS their way through the situation. Oh yeah, and did it work?

That makes sense. I think your idea is certainly true of anyone who knows enough about RPGs to make an informed decision. With new players though, I don't think descriptions will mean as much because many of the strong aspects of HERO are things new players can not really appreciate until they understand role playing better. In fact, ability to play in any genre, as Fred boasts on its cover, can actually be a turn off to people because they may feel like Fred will be a generic experience, not one tailored to their favorite genre. And to tell you the truth, when I first heard of Star Hero I remember thinking, "If the title is representative of the creativity within the game, no thanks."

Being that HERO has such an intelligent character generation system and such a capable gaming engine, why is it the books themselves have such stale and unenticing names? - The HERO System, 5th Edition - Star Hero - Fantasy Hero Fantasy Hero? Wasn't Traci Lords in that one? It sounds like a porno. Champions and Dark Champions are fine names. Champions original softback book is what lured me in. Fortunately the creaters didn't insist on calling them "Superhero Hero" and "Dark Superhero Hero". As a newcomer, would I have bought "Fantasy Hero" without having first known the gaming engine? Not a chance. I'd have looked right next to it and seen something called "Dungeons and Dragons" and thought, "Wow. That sounds way cooler." I bring it up for this reason. I am collecting a gaming group now. I can probably sell them on Champions, I just won't mention it is really "The HERO System, 5th Edition" as that name just sounds bland. (Advanced D&D sounds so much better than D&D Second Edition, as does Windows 2000 over Windows 4.0) You see, my players are teens and have not role-played before except for a bit of "Lord of The Rings" (cool name). They loved the LOTR pencil and paper RPG it and want to try more pencil and paper RPGs, but as computer users they are used to exciting names like "Armored Core", "Devil May Cry", "Kingdom Hearts", and "Final Fantasy". (Okay, I'd admit Final Fantasy sounds like a prono flick too....) No matter how much I explain to them that "Star Hero" is likely a superior game to "Illuminati", "Disciples of Cthulhu", "Forgotten Futures", "Alternate Earths", "Cyberpunk", or "Battletech", the latter just have more mystery and allure. They sound like the real thing. They may not be superior in reality, but any newbie is going to choose one of those over something called "Star Hero", a name I'd expect to see in the clearance bin. As a former manager of a movie cinema, I am convinced that a good movie title can bring an audience in. In initial market research, a movie studio may test out the same fim with several titles and see to which an audience most responds. With the exception of sequels, the title is critical. And unless HERO is content to let its "sequels" live off of the fans from prior versions, won't it need to make it's products sound like quality products? What if "Star Wars" had been called "Galactic Battle", "Space Alliance", "Luke Versus the Man in Black" or "The Jedi Who Made Out With His Sister"? (Okay, so the last one would kill in Tennessee, but still....) It makes me think of a stereotypical genius trait. Geniuses have a tendency to be brilliant in an uncommon way or in an uncommon area of life, while being wholly clueless in common areas of life that most people freely understand and take for granted. I worked for a guy that owned about 6 businesses and was the most insightful and intellectual person I may have ever met. His frailty was that his mind was so logical that he couldn't keep employees. He treated them far too logically, i.e. - "Why should I thank him for doing that? I pay him to do that." Yet people aren't logical. We need to be treated according to our personalities and emotions. And speaking of emotions, is the name "Star Hero" really going to get someone charged up to spend $30.00 and learn 300 pages of rules?

Thanks for the thoughts, there is a lot of good info there. Feel free to keep it coming if you have more to say. Thanks again, Verbosity

I played Champions as a teen for about 4 years using the original rules. Time travel 15 years forward and meet a retired superhero who longs to make the headlines once more. (I once beat down the Hulk for goodness sake. How soon they forget....) Do I need the 5th Ed. rules? Can I just get the Champions rules? I found the BBB on E-Bay and picked it up a few months efore 5th Ed. came out. Should I stick with that? And finally (ominous organ sound...) I have to ask: Is Champions / Hero the best system to address a somewhat serisous yet light and enjoyable superhero campaign? I'd like to benefit from the experience of seasoned gamers instead of reinventing the death ray. Thanks in advance, Verbosity