arcady

In the old version of Drak Champions this guy was simply 'out of control' on 895 points in a book that suggested either 150 or 250 point characters. Maybe I'm poking a sacred cow with a hot stick when I say this, but I know from personal experience that that character prevented a number of people in my area from choosing to adopt Dark Champions 'back in the day.' He was just way over done, way too much for the genre we were supposed to be buying into. What I'm wondering is if he'll turn out that way again, when Hudson City comes out, or if he'll be more fitting in scale for the icon of the genre - what I personally feel would suggest he be built on the suggested PC points as an example of an 'ideal' starting character. Though I could deal with an old pro for the setting as well, there are limits of reason... Am I alone here, or did others find him to be too much back in that day? Do others desire to see a cap put on him this time around?

Re: Location of Hudson City Freedom City, MnM's setting, is also in NJ. Kenson took a piece of the map there where two rivers met but without major settlements and plopped the city down.

Re: Hero Games Maps - What do YOU want to see? I know it will never happen but here's what I want: 1: Overlay a second square grid. An example of this can be found with the way Steve Jackson games did their cardboard tiles - making them both hex and square. 2: Make any interior scene work well with Dwarven Forge in terms of the layout. Dwarven Forge sets are pretty throurough, but do follow a few limits on curves and wall placement. Herophiles have an obsession with hexes so I doubt they would even be willing to do a dual system, but if the above two were met it would make using some of the tools out there for miniatures play a lot easier.

Re: Hero Needs Reviewers!! Fantasy Hero Grimoire II review -finally- went live: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10597.phtml As did Dark Champions over at rpg.net: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10626.phtml (yeah I emailed them in at the same time as I posted this, so they can get put on the reviews list when that email gets processed.) I'm out of reviews for now, need to find something else to review. I feel like I need to review a d20 book just so I don't look like a Hero-phile with a whole stash of Hero reviews, but I can't think of any d20 books I want to review right now. On the other hand, there are still some Hero books that I might 'go after' - it's a great way to motivate oneself to read a book in your 'reading queue.'

Re: blowing out damage... oy! some minor designer q's Deadly blow is a copy of DnD's sneak attack. And the circumstances needed to use it are kind of similar, only it is more flexible. You get +1d6 to a skilling attack, and must define circumstances under which it can be used. The highest cost version of it lets you add that damage to any hand to hand attack weapon or ranged weapon under any circumstance. It counts as base damage, so there is no limit to how much of it you can get... The Talent is listed with an exclaimation point, but that's not all that much of a warning.

Re: Dark Champions review posted My review is now live over at rpg.net: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10626.phtml 'bout time too.

Re: Polishing The HERO System

Re: Restarting FH after 10+ years:getting my grove back What are some specific questions you have? It's a little unclear up there. In the other thread that this was a subtopic of I gave my solution to the magic and END issue. It didn't come from seeing that issue but rather from my handle on magic in my fiction, it just happens to be a way to adress it. Beyond that though, I'm not sure what you are looking for.

Re: godless fantasy

Re: godless fantasy Well... You've been trying to turn this into a religious debate several times actually, with a number of highlery slanderous and false statements about pagans and polytheists. It's highly debatable as to that Israel note - considering that Jews don't seem to read the original text that way... And... Magic has ALWAYS been the domain of the polytheistic pagan religions of the world in history. If you don't want to turn it into a religious debate, stop slandering other faiths. This thread makes a great candidate for being closed before it becomes a flame war. Unfortunately that would mean closing it before people had a chance to counter some of your vulgarities... But it might be for the best. It is quite possible to address the topic of magic in a game setting without divine powers, but I think it needs a new thread without such a plethoria of hate speach at the outset.

Re: godless fantasy All real world occult is associated with religion and spirituality on one level or another. In effect, in the real world, there is only divine magic and no 'arcane' as DnD calls it. Even the claim of the hermetic mage - these people are working on rituals developed by Catholic circles by adopted methods used among the Pagans, Jews, and the Persians. Hermetics are divine occultists, just a little more arogant about it than others by claiming that they are lords over the divine rather than agents of it. So, it makes more sense to remove arcane and give all magic some spiritual link. It does not however, need to be at all like the DnD method of being handed directly by divine forces - in fact that method is further from realism than DnD's arcane tricks.

Re: blowing out damage... oy! some minor designer q's Runescience: Endurance and magic wise I did this: (details here, along with the full system.)

Re: Trix are for kids and Points are for Players You started with one point -about people making posts to change the rules- moved to a second -about the use of points to manage player PC design- and then moved on to a third -about the need to track points for npcs. I think that's left us wondering how or what to address. I'll work with the third topic only. A good number of the NPCs in my game have no writeup whatsoever. I only do one if I think they'll need it, and then I often leave sections blank. In the end they should balance out to something, so I have that in mind when I do partial writeups, but not the details.

Re: Cultures chart - what key things should I include? Well I added entries for exports, imports, economy, and religion. Being overviews of the cultures these will never get that detailed, and I'm still filling in values for exports and imports.

Re: blowing out damage... oy! some minor designer q's Players don't tend to see things in the same overall picture that a GM does. A lot of them will just think "kewl! I can have that!" and not see, even if it is pointed out to them, how it will ruin the larger game.

Re: Help with campaing fleshing! It always matters. Consistancy allows for a solid story that can hold together and keep people from being jarred out. It allows you to get into the story, the characters, and the world and really feel them as a part of you. Without consistancy at some point it breaks down, and when you hit that point the story fails or at best feels shallow and 'faked'.

Re: blowing out damage... oy! some minor designer q's You can get a weapons prefab here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20489&highlight=FHweapons2.hdp That has all the weapons from Fantasy Hero and they should work by the rules.

Re: Help with campaing fleshing! It should conform save for where it does not. Start with a presumption for a world, and then logically work that presumption through and see how it changes it from a world without that presumption.

Re: Why are there never any Fantasy Hero games at the Cons? Division or multiplication will come into play anytime you use an adjustment power and thus have points come into play. Costs will need to be recalculated. Even more so with VPPs and the Use Power skill if you take the advice from USPD.

Re: Cultures chart - what key things should I include? Model is my general theme for a region, people is the physical look of the humans there. So for the theme I am using inspiration from that part of the world in shaping the culture, and for the people they would look most like people of that part of our world. On religion, I don't have any plan to ever say who or what the 'real' pantheon is. I'll be looking at religion from the point of view of the people. When you have an absolute 'this is them' pantheon it will affect all the cultures of the world - as they all have the same set of divine beings backing them they will have a certain consistant theme in their cultures (which I do not desire) and will be able to resolve many religious conflicts - either they will be limited to different branches of the same faith (Like Catholics and Mormons) or if the divine agents actually answer people they will be uniform throughout the world. In such a model religion is no longer at all related to faith...

Re: Cultures chart - what key things should I include? Magic is on a separate page: http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/fahla/magic_Hero.html And asked for advice on it in this thread about a month ago. It's consistant in how it works across the globe, though who has the best access to it varies (Arashan for example, has the most powerful mages, but they give a lot to get that). That said, how mages structure their societies varies, so I'll need to cover that. For tech, I've put in the note on metals, communication, medicine, and transportation. What other tech divisions are needed? I looked at Star Hero earlier to see if it had anything I could use - more ways to classify technology, but I cam eup empty at the time. Language I'll be adding in more detailed looks at the region, as they all speak completely disconnected languages - these being 'the lead cultures' of their regions. I won't need language until I zoom in on one of them and have to think about how it relates to its neighbors. Religion is still forming in my head, as I've only recently decided to go away from the idea of one unified pantheon for the world. I originally made a world named Fahla that was designed to fit my ideas into d20 - so I needed the one pantheon to explain why clerics work. You can't have more than one pantheon that created the world and have them all exist... Now I'm writing fiction, and letting the gaming needs fit my fiction. So I no longer have those needs, there is no concept of a 'cleric' in this world, religion can vary with human nature. But I've not yet figured out the details on that beyond a few ideas for Lomyr. Lomyr is polytheistic and only a few generations out from a scism in the church that fractured the nations on it's continent much like the reformation did Europe. So there is an inquisition, and Lomyr fell on the side of the traditional church rather than the rebels. I haven't figured out the details of that scism yet though. I'm waiting for it to come up in the novella I'm writing... As for religion on a grand scale, I'll see if I can come up with something over the weekend. I sent my players this today: At this point, I'd like to know what people want to know about these cultures. That will help me know what I need to write for them... Do you need mating rituals, thieves guilds, winter fashions, weapon and fighting styles, or what? And am hoping their replies along with this forum's replies tell me what to develop next.

Re: Help with campaing fleshing! The Turakian option is good for the simple fact that you can use assorted published material as is with no real work (though some of it is way too powerful). I went for a very different approach: http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/fahla/magic_Hero.html Because making a magic system that would fit my fiction was a key reason for choosing Fantasy Hero over something like d20. I usually prefer more sexual origins in the mythology. Frankly, most mythos in human history have a lot of birthing and a lot of sex in them - which makes a lot of intuitive sense. That said, in Fahla, now that I'm breaking free of d20 constraints I no longer feel any need for a unified truth to the origins of the world and a single pantheon - so I plan to make a number of different mythologies sprinkled throughout the world.

Re: Superhero Images Two versions of 'Input'. Dual guns and single guns. Input is a living computer able to tap into the mass subconscious and the electronic net. She has noble goals, but her own ethics on how to achieve them. Input works off of being able to manipulate probabilities in the world around her, as well as possessing super human deductive skills that let her look at a scene and see its past and probable future. http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/MnM/MyPCs/Input.pdf (MnM stats)

Re: Superhero Images Here are some 'NPC' images from my current game. You get the Team costume without a model wearing it, and 'Eagle' a guy who was supposed to be the 'mysterious sidekick' of their patron, hanging around all the time and making odd comments, but he's never quite worked well in play. I can never figure his angle or give him good dialogue. Finally Yin, an NPC who takes any energy sent at her, absorbs, reshapes, and sends it back out - usually somehow reversed. She had a counter, Yang, but his game stats have never satisfied me so the two wait in the wings until I can get him right. She showed up once in the game as a mercenary hireling of the main villain. An image for Yang is in one of my archives somewhere, and maybe I'll track it down in a bit. Finally, a woman who was supposed to be on my list of cardboard figures, but got cut for space. I will probably put her in place of the one that doesn't print well.

Re: Superhero Images Spryte - My Champions character from 87 till about the end of my Champions days. I could never get her to work just right in that system. Here's an attempt at her in MnM. Sylvia is a woman who shrinks down and turns the mass of her body into powerful energy. Based on a quick read of 'The Wasp' in the days before I'd read any comic books. Recently renamed 'Spryte' in her super ID - the name I'd had all those years never seemed to fit. This one shows what you can do with 'Poser' without any post work or complex lighting - it's a very basic image. http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/MnM/MyPCs/Sylvia.htm (MnM stats)