Akiva

Re: A Blasphemous Idea for HERO 6th Or how about we make it like a CCG? You buy booster packs of 15 pages from the HERO manual and try to piece together all 600. Trade with your friends and collect them all!

Re: A Blasphemous Idea for HERO 6th Chris is kind of right. Sure, I made it silly with excess hyperbole (wait for it...!) but the truth of the matter is that I personally wouldn't mind a thin core volume and supplemental expansions myself but, well, it would never, ever fly. People would freak the hell out if it were published in such a way. People are already freaking out that 6e is likely to be two volumes just like people freaked out about GURPS 4e going to two volumes (which I still personally think was the right thing to do). In my perfect world, Sidekick would be the core manual and everything else would be in Ultimate volumes. But, also in my perfect world, there'd be no superheroes. Or gnomes.

Re: Is 5er Still On Its First Printing? I have the hardcover but I haven't given it a good sniff yet. I'll have to check that out because Play-doh is one of the world's more pleasant (and nostalgic) scents.

Re: Is 5er Still On Its First Printing? Actually, it just kept on going. It plunged right through the center of the Earth, popped out the other side, fell back in, popped out this side, fell back in, and so forth. It continued this back and forth until it eventually reached gravitational stasis in the core where it now rests, mucking about with the weather patterns that caused such this unusually cold and weird winter. Meanwhile, Al Gore won't stop calling me; he's mad that I made a liar out of him.

Re: Is 5er Still On Its First Printing? Good to know. Thanks for clearing that up and I hope that you use the same printer for 6e. The quality is unsurpassed and, well, have I mentioned how great it smells?

So, I dropped my 5er and now it's damaged. I'm very finicky when it comes to that stuff so I sold it to one of my players at a discount and then marched my fancy tail down to my FLGS and picked up a brand new copy that had been delivered just yesterday. It's clearly never even been opened before, the binding is so tight. And, man, it smells so delicious. Considering that it's a brand new book, I figured that it would be the most recent printing but it says it's the first printing from October 2004. Is this right? Have there been no subsequent printings updated with errata? Is this possible? CANNAE BELIEVE IT.

Re: A Blasphemous Idea for HERO 6th You could always study Barnes & Noble Kabbalah! If it works for Madonna and Aston Kutcher, it can work for you, too!

Re: A Blasphemous Idea for HERO 6th

Re: A Blasphemous Idea for HERO 6th Yeah but only the first five contain the official rules. The rest are just session reports. You act like there's something wrong with that! Sure, it takes a 12-year program of reading a page a day to get through the whole thing but it's worth it.

My phone rings this morning and it's one of my players: he's at the FLGS, staring at the wall of HERO books (and, yes, friends, HERO is well-stocked and well-loved there), completely dumbfounded, wanting to know what books he should get. At home, he already has the 5er and Dark Champions that he bought through Amazon. In his hands presently is the Ultimate Skill and the Character Creation Handbook and he's eying Post-Apocalyptic HERO. He says, 'Is it just me or does nearly ever chapter of that thick rule book have its own thick supplement?' I laugh and say, 'Now do you see why I like this game so much?' He grunts, 'Good Christ, these books are heavy!' Then follows a rather loud noise as he apparently loses his balance and falls into a conveniently placed wall of empty cardboard boxes. The line goes dead; I smile knowingly. This evening, when I cracked open my own copy of the Ultimate Skill, something funny kind of hit me: with the 5th Edition, we have one huge (delicious-smelling) core rule book and a number of Ultimate books to flesh everything out. With 6th Edition, there are going to be two core rule books which has some people quite upset even though the rumor is that the overall page count will be less than the 5th Edition. Suddenly, I looked over the top of the book, slowly, cautiously, just like Roy Neary does when he snaps off the top of his first failed sculpture and realizes the mistake that's been holding him back all this time (accompanied by, of course, the Duck Dodgers noises in the background), and I saw... my set of the Oxford English Dictionary and, near them, a one-volume Oxford Concise. Duck Dodgers shouted, 'That's it! That's the last straw!' At that moment, I've figured out our mistake as well: 6th Edition should be the Oxford English Dictionary of HERO. For each major section, a 400-page Ultimate-style lovefest: Character Creation (which would include Talents and Perks), Skills, Powers (which would be in two 400-page volumes), Combat (also in two volumes), Gamemastering, and Equipment... Imagine it! I said, 'IMAGINE IT, DAMN YOU!' Oh, yeah, plus a 100-page index volume. People in other, more throaty parts of the RPG land would be found lamenting that GURPS 4th Edition came in two volumes whereupon we could rise up, en masse or sometimes alone, perhaps in a mall food court or near a rather decrepit park bench, point menacingly toward them (fingers only), and say in a voice that kind of sounds like Jason Robards but with way too much reverb, 'Are you kidding me? We play HERO 6th Edition. Our rule book comes in nine volumes and is 3,300 pages long!' It would be wonderful. It would be like that scene in that movie that everyone quotes where the one guy says something awesome to the other guy. At HERO 6th Edition gaming tables across the globe, exchanges like this would be occurring with frightening regularity: Player A: 'Oh, hey, you've got the index. Can you tell me where to find the modifier to Seduction if my character has Asperger's Syndrome?' Player B: 'Hold on, let me check... lessee... look in volume 3 on page 1,438.' I've got goosebumps already!!! HOW 'BOUT YOU?!?!?!?! Of course, we would still need a single volume that condenses everything for people just getting into the game. We can't expect people just picking it up to dump all that money on a nine volume RPG core rulebook now, can we? But it would probably have to be, oh, 592 pages long to fit it all in there. Just to be safe, we might have to have an even slimmer book. An introduction to the introduction as it were. So, you could buy the really introductory book, followed by the thicker introductory book, and then you can pick up the core volumes one-by-one as you need them! Hm. Is it just me or is this all starting to sound startlingly familiar?

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see? Unfortunately, I'm the type of guy who's enjoyment of a book lives and dies in its presentation. There are certain typefaces I can't tolerate and certain paperback bindings that make me put a book right back on the shelf. Thus, when it comes to any kind of electronic book, be it PDF or otherwise, it needs to look proper and, in the case of HERO books, it needs to look exactly like the printed copy. I think that books in any other layout would ruin page references which is also incredibly important. So, yeah, although I do have interest in the Kindle (and I'm highly amused at their file extension), unless it looks like the books themselves, I won't be interested in any non-PDF versions of them.

Re: Dramatic use of Skills There are ways to add tension to skill rolls although a lot of them don't really mesh with HERO's style. In a game that I was writing, I did this similarly by using a 'bet and hold' system, kind of like Blackjack. A player attempting to do something would be, based on the situation, allowed a number of rolls which would be 3D6 + his skill level. His goal is to exceed a base success number but not exceed a second failure number. Not reaching the base success number means that he isn't yet successful but he still has the ability to succeed. Exceeding the failure number means that not only did he fail but, unless the GM determines otherwise, he can't try again. Players would roll a number of times and then hold that result and hope it was close enough for success. This gives the GM far more leeway in these situations because now he can not only determine how difficult a given task is but can independently determine the margin of failure. In the case of, say, defusing a bomb, he could set the margin of failure extremely close to the margin of success. In the case of a ticking time bomb, each minute that passes narrows that gap and when the success level reaches the failure level, the bomb goes off. In cases where someone who is unskilled should have a far greater chance of succeeding than someone who is less skilled, each successive roll could narrow the success/failure gap. In cases where a full success isn't necessary (such as using social skills to ask someone for information), the closer one gets to the success level, the more information one gets and/or the more accurate that information is. Since the players never know how close they got, they're always guessing. It's pretty flexible and, in the playtests I did, worked extremely well. It definitely added a ton of tension and my players loved it. Of course, in situations where this kind of tension isn't necessary, I would just apply a standard success number within reach of a single skill roll. I only used the tension rules when necessary.

Re: Are Heroic Characteristics Realistic? In retrospect, I should've just let the guy have the build and dealt with it. It's not going to be quite so easy to fully explore the game if I start putting limitations out on it from the very start. On the other hand, that character is now far more well-rounded and interesting; I believe that, in the long run, that player is going to have a better time. Even as we tweaked the build and ditched the 20 STR and 20 DEX, he began to see himself that he had accidentally built a one-dimensional character out of fear that the game would punish him for not being as maxed out as possible. As I wrote before, it's all a matter of perspective. One of my favorite sayings about game design is 'Let the game be a game' which I suppose I can now extrapolate to 'Let the hero be a hero'.

I've always been a GM who runs very low-powered, realistic, and gritty campaigns. HERO, in many obvious ways, is designed toward more cinematic styles. Although I know that I will never, ever graduate to running Superheroes (yuck!), I do hope that HERO will help me break out of my instinctive urge to pretty much oppress the characters as much as possible. Right now, a 20 STR sounds ridiculous to the point of being offensive but that probably has more to do with me than with the system. When I think of a 20 STR, I see one of those guys who are so muscle-bound that they can't put their arms down or achieve any kind of meaningful erection. It's all a matter of perception, really. Also, as for putting my foot down when it comes to things in-game, I have no problems doing that but I like to provide reasons other than 'Because I said so'. It took awhile for me to convince my players that Characteristics of 20 were really too much, at least for this campaign, but I did. If I had simply said, 'Nope,' I doubt I would've gotten anything other than disgruntled players. Also, it's something I don't like to do until I am more familiar and comfortable with the system. It's the same reason why I avoid optional rules until the core system has been given a full workout (although I do intend to immediately add things such as Hit Locations and Krispy Kremes).

Re: Increasing Skills vs. Skill Levels

Re: Are Heroic Characteristics Realistic? pawsplay, maybe I'm misunderstanding something in the rules. My player had turned in an initial build with DEX and STR of 20. The portion of the e-mail I wrote back to him explaining a better way to build the character he wanted follows: Am I off? Sure, a 20 STR gets you more than what I provided with what I wrote above but his concern was primarily damage, PD, SPD, and STUN.

Re: Are Heroic Characteristics Realistic? I like these suggestions mainly because I was already thinking along similar lines and it's better for everyone when you support whatever I think. I do worry about 25+25, though. My players have had difficulty getting as many skills as they want in their initial character build. That one player's issue was obvious: he dumped most of his points into his Characteristics. But, overall, they've kind of complained that they felt that they didn't have enough points to make their characters as well rounded with skills as they'd like. For example, they really like the idea of taking complimentary KSs for almost all of the skills which are primary for their character concepts (e.g., the hacker takes Computer Programming as well as KS: Computers). I fear that if I throw 25+25 (or even 50+50) at them, they'll just take me out back and shoot me. On the other hand, I was thinking about setting spending limits for Characteristics. Not sure what that limit would be quite yet but some delimiter that would prevent them from burning so many CPs that they have hardly any left for skills or, say, in a Fantasy HERO game, powers/spells. At any rate, I understand what HERO's doing with Characteristics even with regards to Normal Characteristic Maxima and for some Heroic campaigns, 20 STR characters running around throwing refrigerators at each other might make sense. I also agree that it's a player problem rather than a system problem if they always want to drop most of their CPs into Characteristics. On the other hand, I don't like simply saying, 'No,' when the rules clearly say, 'Yes,' and this is mainly because it tends to create an adversarial relationship between the GM and players especially when they don't know the system as well as the GM does; to them, it looks like the GM is arbitrarily trying to 'curb their fun', as it were. However, that one player has submitted a new character build (gotta love HERO Designer) along with an e-mail explaining that he was beginning to see why it wasn't good to sacrifice skills to pump up Characteristics. It was starting to dawn on him how one-dimensional his character build was: it was all combat and nothing else. So, in a sense, the issue is sort of resolving itself. I still sometimes want to strangle HERO but not nearly as much as before.

Re: Increasing Skills vs. Skill Levels I understand what you're getting at but it still doesn't explain the discrepancy between directly increasing a Skill Roll at 2:1 or buying a 2-point Skill Level which grants +1 to one Skill or Characteristic Roll? Do you mean to tell me that a 2-point Skill Level isn't the same and is not tied to one specific skill? Can it then be applied to any one task from any skill? How does it make sense that a character has the ability to, in one phase, give a +1 to Stealth and then later shift that +1 to, say, Cramming?

Some of you may be happy to know that we've had two HERO sessions so far. Some of you may be amused to know that those two sessions have been nothing but character creation; we've yet to throw a Skill Roll. Some of you may nod knowingly when I tell you that this isn't a problem: we've enjoyed sitting around, hacking character builds, discussing rules, and so forth. My guess is that this is typical for HERO neophytes and that enjoying the system without actually playing the system is probably a good sign. Plus, at the table this past session, one of my players ordered the 5er, Dark Champions, and the Ultimate Skill. That'll ease wear-and-tear on my copies at least (my 5er has already taken a nasty spill and earned a crumpled corner in the bargain). One of my players, fresh from years slogging through MMORPGs, has taken an approach toward his character which is probably indicative of the illness that non-stop MMO playing will do to a person. His first character build had his STR, DEX, and CON maxed at 20. He'd have put them higher if the Normal Character Maxima didn't kick in. At first, I didn't think anything of it until I read what it means to have a 20 STR. From my understanding, you'd be stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger at the height of his Mr. Universe days. That's frickin' huge. You can carry nearly 900 pounds a few,m staggering steps. Strong like woah, right? That, to me, seems way too strong for a realistic heroic campaign. After doing some calculations, to me, anything above 13-14 in some Characteristics starts straining credibility. My question is: as the rules are written, for a Heroic campaign, it's perfectly acceptable for a character to have a STR of 20 which means he, if I'm understanding this right, can pick up and throw a refrigerator 4 meters or around 13'. This, to me, does not sound right at all. I mean, sure, maybe someone with a 20 STR can do those things but in a realistic campaign, that just seems highly excessive. One obvious fix is to move the Normal Character Maxima to 14 or 15, something which has been discussed here many times before. Another idea is to scale it so that the costs double at, say, 15 then double again at 20, and so forth. How do other people handle campaigns which are more realistic than they are Heroic? Luckily, the only reason why my player wanted those high stats was because of how they effected Figured Characteristics (and, no, this is not meant to be that discussion). I was able to show him how he could get most of those Figured Characteristics by spending CPs directly on them rather than by pumping up his Characteristics to ridiculous levels. Not only did he get everything he wanted but he ended up saving quite a bit on CPs which he then used to buy up a bunch of skills, which I liked. Personally, in a future edition, I wouldn't mind seeing HERO divided into Realistic, Heroic, and Superheroic levels.

HELLO. Okay, I know we touched on this briefly before but I want to be absolutely sure. I'm fairly certain that it's just a matter of inexact language but this 'issue' has been bugging me since I first read it. The 5er pg. 42 reads: 'Improving the Skill Roll for standard Characteristic-Based Skills by +1 costs 2 Character Points.' I assume that this is the mechanic by which HERO allows characters to get better at skills. Fine. I'm down with that. But, in the following paragraph, it claims: 'Characters can also improve Skill Rolls by purchasing Skill Levels. Every Skill Level adds +1 to the base roll of the Skills it applies to.' The bold is mine. To me, it implies that purchasing Skill Levels is an alternate way of raising one's Skill Roll. But, if you saunter or sashay (your choice) over to pg. 70, you see that a 2-point Skill Level is identical to just spending 2 CPs for +1 as pg. 42 claims. Is it the same thing? If so, then why the dual language? Furthermore, HERO claims that you can only use a Skill Level for one task at a time. I assume that this mainly applies to the Skill Levels which can apply to many skills but it doesn't actually say this. But, let's say you have purchased a 2-point Skill Level in Skill X which gives you a +1. Suddenly, you find yourself simultaneously doing two different things with Skill X. Does that 2-point Skill Level you have in Skill X mean you can only apply it to one of those two different simultaneous tasks? The rules for adding a +1 to your Skill Roll from pg. 42 doesn't mention anything about being able to use that +1 on only one task at a time. Thus, why would you ever want to buy a +1 Skill Level for a skill? As I've written, it's probably just a matter of ambiguous language and I'm probably making a much larger deal out of it than I should but for some reason I just can't get over it. It keeps me awake at night. Breakfast eggs refuse to scramble. For some reason, music refuses to play any faster than 108 beats per minute. Diapers come pre-filled. And so forth. This is serious business here.

Re: Speculation on the Hero Games 2009 schedule I'd definitely like to see Cyber Hero considering that's the genre I'm running presently.

Re: NO everyman skills I like this, as well. It's very Rolemaster-y which appeals to the part of me that really likes Rolemaster.

Re: Is the Hero the Ultimate System?

Re: Is the Hero the Ultimate System? Now that's not very nice. Not very nice at all.

Re: Is the Hero the Ultimate System? HERO will never be the ultimate system until they take out all that rubbish about superheroes.