Mostlyjoe

Or actually. A Fantasy Hero Complete, and a Fantasy Hero Companion. A tight set of 2 that expand and gives examples. Grimore, Beastiary, etc stuff beyond the core Fantasy hero with build examples and prebuilt stuff. Fantasy Hero Complete - Core rules, genre aids. Fantasy Hero Companion - Build examples, races, spells, etc,

What I'd love to see in a Fantasy Hero book (or better line of books) for 6E is: A complete guide that opens with some talk about heroic tier play, that changes from Champion style game and why. Then the Complete series of concise rules, however I'd love linked (indexes ) when you hit some powers that point you at later sections in the book for advanced magic, class, race options. So say you show off Aid, after explaining the power, have a line of (See the spell "Healing Prayer on Page XX for example). When covering skills include some talk about different racial everyman packages, maybe showcase regional skills for desert clans, kingdoms, etc. All the good basic Fantasy perspective on the Complete core material. Then the good stuff. One of the issues I have with the Grimore book is I want to see more talk about magic systems and how they tied to a setting. Examples on stuff like prayer, odd costs for spells, etc. Slow vs Fast magic and what it does to a setting. I also would love race building to cover more about races as cultures and how you can flavor up characters with things like family and racial biases. Lastly, Kingdom Building options. How can a HERO system character act as the ACKS style adventure to king gameplay. Leading armies, having minions/hirelings. Sure, cover the classic dungeon crawl as a style of Fantasy, but I really want some talk covering more of Game of Thones, weirder stuff like Dark Sun style settings, planar adventures, Dark Sun Rising (if you read the book), etc. And then tones of example monsters and characters. I'd actually love a series of Fantasy Hero Complete books. Like a core hardback and then 2-3 soft cover supporting manuals. I'd kickstart a whole set! $100+ for a set of 3 books, etc. Like a revised series of Beastiary, Grimore, Kingdom Building books. I'd be in heaven.

Nowadays, I'm happy with Champions Complete as my physical core and I'm collecting the supplimens, Fantasy Hero, Star Hero on pdf. However I would LOVE to get a Fantasy Hero Complete book for easy reference. Maybe a POD copy of Grimore.

Re: HERO System Grimoire Was I seeing things or did the print version show on the order page and now it's gone?

Re: Dungeon World (working title) As a RPG.net regular I remember that old thread but I've actually got another going with more current info. No, I'm doing work in the more HERO system specific number space.

I'm in the early brainstorming stages of a Fantasy HERO based Urban Fantasy game. I'm trying to hash out some details about characters/magic items/and world management. Here is the setting pitch: 10 years ago a great seal was opened and all the hidden places on our world opened up. Dark corners opened into hellish pits, abandoned buildings became golbin markets, and the grand Labyrinth opened betneath us. The Labyrinth in a nutshell is a vast underworld of interconnected dimensonal layers that seem towards the "Golden Realm". (That's us btw: We're the prize at the end. The lost civilization of wonders. Or so the few refugees that have exited have told us.) The world went nuts for a few years. But eventually we found out the Laybrith was passive, it's just there touching our world in the dark corners, and lost allys. Didn't take long for some venture capitalists to rub two pennies together before expedition teams looking for profit started going below. They brought back artifacts, "magic" (jury is still out what this stuff is...), and other things that have become very valuable to those willing to go deep. It's the 10th year since the maze below opened up, and your a pro hired to go deep looking for riches. You're going deep! PC's are a mix of ex-military, hired professional experts, big game hunters, thrill seakers, dumb shmucks, and refugee guides all plumbing the depths of the Labyrinth for their patrons. I'm currently debating the best starting point value for this crew. I'm going to allow for limited magic, action movie powers (ala Pulp Hero), and a good handful of military gear. General focus of the game will be exploration and discovery with some cool monster fights, dealing with the 'locals'. Basically, magical StarGate. Thoughts? Suggestions for starting points? I'll throw more as I hash out ideas here.

Re: Running a Dark Golden Age? I agree that the 1917 to 1927 era is great to play in, but that's the focus of the previous generation. The key to this game would be Golden Age characters as the 'new kids' learning from the pros that fought during that previous era. Now I can see a character as someone who was in their prime during that era as the 'mentor' character or the old vet coming back to duke it out. In a way this is a flipping the Golden Agers are the pros to the Silver Agers plots in comics. I'm going back a generation.

I've been thinking about a weird little hybrid. Part Pulp Hero (since why it's here), Part Golden Age Comicbooks, and Part Dark Champions style game. I could have put this sucker on any 3 of these boards but I think the Pulp post WWI setting is key. The idea is to take desidably Golden Age characters and thrust them into an ongoing cold war the Pulp era heroes have been fighting since the beginning of WWI. Basically the spy game taken to a super-science and mysticism extreme. Germany's true power after the war with the rise of the Nazi party is super-scientists that grew vengful at the fall of the old empire. Basically Victorian Era rivialries carried forward into the new century. The Golden Age heroes find themselves playing a PR game against mutant monsters, ubermench, weird neo-mystisim and attrition is murderous (save for the PCs who are a bit more durable). I want to play up the slow end of the Pulp era and the more public War between the various super factions. The Pulp Heroes are changing and dying off. But a possible new generation of agents and Super G-Men are about to be born. Etc. (Keying up for the 2nd Golden Age of Superscience: Post WWII heading into the 60-70's Super Spy age.) Thoughts? Suggestions?

Re: Champions Well, I picked up my copy at Sci-Fi City after MegaCon. Wow. Love the full color work!

Re: Game Master Lament I'm with G-A on this one. Coming up with a very nice period game was good work. But demanding that the players take time out of their lives (besides what they're already commiting to the game) to do homework for the game...a bit much. Now, if you dedicated the 1st session of said game to a beer & pretzels movie night to get everyone warmed up to the game. There you go.

Re: The Golden Apple Brand X - Would be seriously curious how everyone found out he had the data. It most likely is a setup by one of his old foes. He'd consider blasting the intel onto the web and letting them sort it out...but in hindsight would turn it over to to the government agent and then call in help for the resulting storm to follow. Red Moutain - Would bury it in the ground somewhere dry and cool. Then he would go find Hammer and beat the ever loving crud out of him. Red don't like people threating him.

Re: The Envelope Brand X - Since he has a public ID would just put on his street clothing and go retrieve the package after reconing the area. He'd also call in back up. Red Moutain - Would shrug, put in a bright Hawaiian shirt and walk in there with out a care in the world. The first person who tries to attack him is going to get a molten hot fist to the face. Business as usual.

Re: My Name Is Morty Brand X - Arrests Morty since he commited another crime. "Morty old buddy, I don't mind you making amends. But how about you first pay your debt to society, eh? Shouldn't be too long, especially if you admit everything to the Police." Red Moutain - Tags along. Morty a 'nice guy' and Red likes nice guys. If Morty goes back to his bad ways he'll tuck him under his shoulder and carry him off to the Police.

You've been out in the reaches of space for quite some time. The shipboard A.I. has been a constant companion. A lovely, charming, friendly companion who keeps you from dealing with the isolation and the bordom. Only, he/she's been extra special nice of late. Very flirty, very perky whenever you have to deal with them. It's nice, but a little unsettling. Then one night after a quiet conversation about vintage movies you've been watching...they admit their feelings for you! Now, it hasn't hampered their work ethic, after all they're were programed to be professional, but it could comprimise the current mission. And A.I. while granted some basic citizen rights are still considered 2nd class 'people' compared to living humans. What do you do? Do you spend a little extra time connected to the ships computer, indulge in a VR relationship, or try and push away from your digital pharmour because of work. It's not directed at any one character, more a general WWYCD based on a typical space game. Like a good complication, etc, for in game.

You've been called in by the goverment (or mysterious patrons depending on your 'theme') to join a new Supergroup that just got put together. (this is a temp arrangement.) It's mostly made up of rookies with a few B-listers all without any real training on how to work as a team. They're making the classic rookie mistakes, but with a few added twists... There seems to be a love quadrangle going on, some of the B-listers are down on their luck ex supercriminals taking the 'be on the team or go to jail' offer. The rest are so new to their powers they can barely control them. You don't have the option of disbanding the team. (Your patron invested too much effort into making it.) The bad guys have caught wind the team has issues and are nosing around looking for some easy 'kills'. What Would Your Character Do?

Re: Blogs and PodCasts Rock, As the host of Meanwhile...The Super Gaming Podcast, I wanna say hiya. As fas as I know no one else has 'yet' done a HEROcentric Podcast. Steve and crew do interviews here and there, but it's not a very crowded field. The whole reason why I did my cast was there wasn't anything else out there at the time.

Re: Hero System Good Idea/Bad Idea... Sorry, but I disagree with the Bad Idea.

Re: Tokusatsu HERO...building a setting. I'm still cooking on this one. It's on the backburner but I am still thinking about it.

Re: 6E Needs A Name SHReD appeals to me in consideration. But I usually call it HERO6.

Re: Pulp Fantasy Thanks for the feedback folks. I'm still looking for a hook, but once I have one I'll post the idea.

I'm sure some of you have looked at D&D's Eberron. It's a pulpy setting you run D&D character through. But what happens with you invert the ratio a little bit and build a fantasy setting that Pulp characters can run around in. Less, Figther/Mage/Theif/Healer vs Pulp universe...more Dr. Frostbrand, The Mysterio Magister, Ulgan the King of Thieves vs Lord Farthington Necromonger and his Undead Assassins. What Fantasy tropes would migrate well into a Pulp feel, and what Pulp elements could be bent to Fantasy designs?

Re: Magical Engineer Commandos In almost every session we have 2+ players with VPP/multipower Batman style utility belts. Be it a Mages cantrips, pulp based adventures kit, or actual utlity belt (Champsions on up to SpaceHero) And dont' get me started on the number of playes who get Flying (Levitation) modded as a grapling launcher/zip line combo.

Re: What's the craziest thing your Supers have ever done? Okay. Sorry that look longer than I thought I'll start out with a story from my Aberrant days: The PC's were a local city defense group licenced to defend LA and the surrounding area. One of their members was a low INT brick who went by the name "Tank". (Not the most creative soul, no, but he had neon orange camo patterned forcefields among other 'glitches'.) Right, the PC's have been working hard to build up trust with the locals when "Tank" goes on live TV during a press conference, delcares his memmbership with the Terragen (think super terrorist group), renames himself "Ace" and then proceeds to jump through the roof of the TV studio...much to the horror of the rest of the PC's who promptly lost their jobs. Later in the game the PC's are trying to make a go of things as independant operators when a Proteus strike squad goes after "Ace" for his various semi-terrorist actions up to this point. They catch most the team in a favoite bar they frequent in Hong Kong and snipe (with a high powered railgun) Ace when his force field was down... ...it didn't kill him but brought him within 1 of KOed. (Head slammed to the counter he was drinking at, bullet wegged into his left temple.) He gets up, starts regening the damage, pops his forcefield and runs UP the side of a building to the sniper. He discovers 2 snipers there and growls. Picking one sniper up, he proceds to 'muffle' said snipers own railgun with his rectum (yes the character is basically impaled on his own gun), whips around as the other guy is running away and opens up full auto with said 'muffled' gun on the other guy. The group was stunned. All the other players didn't know what to say. And keep in mind this character to to recently was the lovable "Tank" who had a whole line of toys dedicated to him. (Though in hindsight it was the attitude of the player.) Another thing that came up from this game: We had a time/space manipulator character in the group. He was a quiet sniper back-up character who was great at Recon and intel and generally was all support to the rest of the PCs. We had been playing for a few months and he hadn't been spending his EXP, at all! We discover this around the time the Player Guide for Aberrant comes out and I OK him adding 'mastering' qualities to some of his (at the time) useful but not over powered abiltites. Opps. Turns out this is like taking an Area Effect EB and adding a few levels of Megascale to it. Ya, it was that bad. We had a middle to low powered PC suddenly become a GOD. In his first fight I had him 'power up' in a cool scene and then watched him: * Cut buildings out to 2 miles out nearly in half from the shockwave of his blasts. * Blow away 12 or so NPCs from a roof (knocking them 50 or so stories to their deaths) with his lower powered non-leathal blast. Knockback is a bitch. * Timefreeze an office complex for something like 3 or so years. Ya. It was a mess.

Re: Screenshots How do you re-take the comicbook pic?