arcady
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Posts posted by arcady
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
I'm going to send this to my group:
There's a couple ways I can handle the 'Fantasy Hero and BESM d20 playtests'.1. I convert the Kalamar PCs over and we try a session. I've been told this is the worst option - you'll quickly find what I didn't convey right or what Hero missed, yet be too used to the characters 'as they ought to be' to see what's new or what gets done better.
2. I make a set of generic fantasy character and run you through a mini adventure. We all know how fast our pace is though, so I'll probably have to make it very small.
3. We do character creation for generic fantasy, and then as per number 2. Expect this playtest to take two sessions.
4. I make a set of characters designed to fit the Fahla setting, and then run a short mini adventure. Now we're 'testing two things', but it will reflect the final flavor more. This test will also take a lot longer to prepare as I have to finish the setting revamp first.
5. We do character for Fahla, then a mini adventure. This is possibly the best 'get it all down' option, but it has the 'will take two sessions' problem, the time to get ready problem, and honestly - you guys get too attached to your characters and would probably end up thinking those playtest characters will work for the regular game...
All in all, if the Kalamar game wraps before the Fahla game is ready - there will be a period where I stop running fantasy for a while. Possibly just doing MnM. I hope to sync them up time wise to be as close as possible, or ideally have Fahla ready to go long before Kalamar wraps up.
But we'll see.
I do plan to prep Fahla for both BESM d20 and Hero. As a whole system, fantasy hero works better. There is one feature of BESM I like more though - I can let a level one character in that system cast a spell way beyond their normal limits, and then punish them for it. I'm still trying to figure out how, in Hero, to have two people come together in a ritual and double (or less of an increase) the power of the spell they cast together, or even a single mage push a lone cast spell beyond their normal limits.
It is an aspect of Fahla that many of the mages in it's history have pushed beyond their normal limits by burning themselves out, sacrificing others, or whatever. If you have Conan OGL - think of what they had there for sacrifice...
If I wrap my mind around a simple way to do that in Hero, it pushes me that much more in that direction.
If I had time, I would run separate games of each.
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
Please...
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
Can we take the argumentative end of this to private messages please?
Nobody needs to make a summation post, nobody needs to make a 'all I was saying post', nobody needs to make an apology post, nobody needs to make a 'what I really meant post', nobody needs to make anything that continues or even tries to conclude it.
Just let it disapear... and if it has to keep going, do it in private messages... please.
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Re: Traps, Tricks, and Treasures - what should go in it
I'd call it 'Ultimate Dungeon', and expand it out to cover everything Hero has to to offer on playing fantasy in the DnD style where traps, tricks, and treasure are a major feature.
When I read those words, I link them in my mind to dungeons.
I'd have info on making dungeons logical -or not-, even a random dungeon generator because while nobody ever uses them seriously they're fun to go through.
A section of making traps, a section on characters making traps, a list of sample traps with most of them built to be feasable and 'realistic to the genre' rather than those silly impossible ones you find in trap collection books for d20.
The treasure chapter would need to focus on treasure from a different aspect than is done in DnD. In Hero it need not be the focus of the character to aquire loot, so the treasure can serve more a plot role instead, and those different needs could be addressed.
Dungeon ecology would need at least a chapter. You'd need to cover the differences in cave systems and built systems like a dwarven complex.
Lastly, I'd want a section on using Hero with a square grid - possible heresy around here - this would help for using all those dungeon kits out there, such as dwarven forge.
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
Sorry to hear the first attempt went so poorly. Guess a few questions (the answers may have been lost when the SNR of the thread got too high for me).-How long has your group been together?
-Do you only play D&D or do you play other genres?
Two players I've known since 97 when I formed a Champions group. Two I've had since early 2003 when I formed a Mutants and Masterminds group.
So those four are all used to and know classless leveless alignmentless roleplay.
A fifth player is on sabbatical for the summer on a sports team of some kind - softball I think.
A sixth player is new, and was supposed to join last month but had to delay till next month.
These two are DnD people only to my knowledge, but I believe the complete newbie might be more adaptable. They do not figure however, in my persuasion attempts. A switch to either BESM d20 or Hero will lose me the softball player - he's DnD only to the core. Howeverone of those two options has to be my choice...
They've all (the active four) said 'we'll go with whatever you think works best for your setting'.
But to me watching them say it that sounds like 'resigned to the situation' rather than 'we'll go with what you choose.'
Three of the active players know Hero. One of them seems to like it, enough that he's also taken part in this half off sale. One of them now prefers rules-light such as BESM (and GMs the other - who finds BESM not tactical enough), the third has decided Hero is a complex nightmare with a skill system that makes no sense (she argues that skill levels for example - represent nothing concrete, they're just mechanics and numbers games. I countered by comparing them to DnD feats like Power Attack and Expertise.)
The fourth player has no Hero experience, is is concerned over the usability of his DnD collection. He's the one I tried to get to borrow a copy of Sidekick (and normally I never let one of my books out of my site).
I also know that the player who actually likes Hero has reservations over the nature of magic in my setting - it's dangferous, unpredictable, mysterious, and spiritual. He prefers the predicable, always works, fully known nature of DnD -'sure mysterious is good for fiction, but in a game you want to know what your character can do and do it reliably' is sort of how he phrased it.
So I may have a little work there, even if I use BESM d20 - because the magic system will be defined by the setting.
I've got them to be willing to accept the game, or a test run thereof. Getting them excited about it escapes me... They tend to strike me as 'sticks in the mud' at times - playing the same characters since the game began, and turning down all past offers to switch to new games, even after a month long hiatus or a game stalling into sessions and sessions of nothing. Me on the other hand, I like variety.
I told them recently that I'm just not one of those 'mono-game-ous' gamers...
If something didn't change to spice things up soon, I was going to abandon the character I played in the one game I don't run (DnD, run by the fourth active player who passed on Sidekick) just to get some spice going.Maybe I just get restless, but that's a real issue as well. Using my own setting will at least let me spice it up from session to session to less restriction.
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Imagine you're an everyday joe, and you've got a car that needs minor repair. Maybe you've got to change out a part, rebuilt a door, or whatever. It's old enough to not be computerized - it's all mechanical.
Mechanics is -NOT- an everyman skill.
We all know that anyone could in theory fix that car if they stumble through it in the right manner, perhaps following a manual.
Your chances might not be good at getting it right, it might take months for a job that a little training would cause to take a single afternoon... but it is possible.
Now imagine you're that same average Joe, and you need to get the trust of the guys in your hood - you need to win them over to your side. Anyone can do this, even if some can do it with regularity and others stumble through it.
Now imagine you're 'Missy' from uptown, with your poodle, your pink car, and so on... you're everywoman skill list does not have survival. You and Ken go hiking and get lost.
Should there be a 100% chance that you will die?
We can go on with theoreticals.
It seems to me that every skill should have some remote chance of success... though with some that chance might be lower than even a 3-...
At least, if you can line up your circumstances right, isn't nearly anything possible, if only remotely so?
Yet I'm not finding this in Hero...
Of course, while I've run the system since 1984, I skipped out around 2000 and only in the last week did I pull my copy of 5E off the shelf and start looking inside...
Have I missed something, or have I found something that at least, someone who agreed with my premise would find is missing?
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Re: Seduction an Everyman Skill
Actually the skill does require you to offer companionship and or favors in return.
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Re: Seduction an Everyman Skill
Everyone has the ability to get into the pants of another person...
It's just a matter of how good are you at it?
By the time we're done with our lives, only 4% of Americans have never married...
The numbers who have never had a sexual relationship are probably much lower...
That said, the skill is about making friends and winning favors, not sex, despite the name.
If it was just sex - few women would have it, though those who did would be more common among the younger generation (as patterns of initiating sexual contact are shifting).
But for forming friendships, relationships, contacts, and favors...
Anyone who has lived around other people can do this to some degree.
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
So the arguing aside...
Is the thread lost, or could we look into the issue of getting people interesting in, or at least trying out, the Hero system.
At tonight's session of DnD I managed to go 0 for 1 on this - I had two copies of Sidekick on the table, offered to loan one to the DnD player who has no knowledge of Hero, and got back that he'd prefer to wait until a final decision is made.
Of course, from my point of view, him being informed on what is in the choice helps the decision be made...
-shrug-
Thus why I wanted to try and push a copy of Sidekick off on him.
His major concern seems to boil down to not being able to use his DnD books if we switch over, whereas if I do even BESM d20, he can mostly use them.
Of course since my fantasy world has no Orcs, elves, gnomes, goblins, dwarves, gnolls, hobgoblins, or owlbears, and uses a new magic system... I'm not sure how useful those d20 books will remain once we switch from Kalamar to 'Fahla'.
At least today, as a step towards writing the setting, I identified the major 'themes', which I plan to post to some kind of development journal soon...
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Just picked up a new book today...
Actually picked up several, but you all already know about Star Hero, and so on.
Almost got the Mystic World book too, but I'm already busting my budget.
Anyway, I haven't barely had a chance to open the cover yet, but the cover -is- really nice. Same artist as the first one, as you all know. I want this person doing more work for the books I buy.
Several new school of magic, I plan to start reading them tonight. Song magic appealed to me off the bat, but the others look handy as well.
I'll have more to say soon, but I've got a session to run in 30 minutes.
I plan to kill off all their DnD characters so I have yet one more excuse to convert over. Well, not literally, but they'll be facing a tough one tonight.
Hope to get to reading that book soon...
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
Besides' date=' he said specifically that the rate of levelling his scenario provided was precisely what he intended.[/quote']Your argument seems to depend on reading just one part of one post in the entire discussion with a certain slant.You're reading something into it, that I don't think is there in the larger debate. Or perhaps you're not giving the poster the same 'benefit of the doubt' that I am trying to give. Posting can often be unclear and hard to make a point with - so unless somebody hits one of my 'trigger points' (and we all have them [fn*]) I try to give slack and read with better intention than the words themselves convey, rather than worse intention.
And DnD does not provide anyway to guage chalenges that are not related to combat, traps, or other non roleplay aspects of dungeon crawling. Perhaps I need to expand my wording a bit there...
It lacks anything on judging CRs. It provide a list of CRs for critters and traps - if you don't have a critter or trap, you've got no CR, and thus no XP.
It's also not at all clear on what actions done to a critter give you it's CR. Would helping a level 10 rogue through childbirth give you a CR 10 reward? Have you thus 'overcome the challenge of her?' In this moment, the way that challenges is not made more difficult by her level, but by the situation...
Assuming that the characters did advance at an ideal pace in the mentioned game... but not assuming that this is somehow bad GMing with suspicious motives...
That still ties any skill development to combat development - which might completely fail to match the story events and the needs of the game. If the GM does invent somereward for uncovering the secret of gunpowder after months of research and political scheming to keep your assistants and bed down with that wench who runs the taven across from your boarding house...
Why should any of that make you better able to kill somebody or avoid being killed?
Converesly, why does killing Orcs make you better at understanding crop rotation or the heraldry of kings?
Not only is the XP system thus flawed by the means I was discussing, but accepting your presumptions (save for the one that this GM has negative motives against his players) I still come back finding flaw with it.
And finally... the stepped nature of it. Months of nothing, then suddenly you're an expert on the fruit bats of lower Mandovia and can hold two swords with expert grace... all thanks to one last dead kobold, or having a fire trap blow off your mustache.
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The above all said... DnD is a playable game, but it is not the perfect game for everyone, and not what everyone desires to play, or this board would not be here.
So...
Given that...
The thread's intention, is to find ways to get people to try out Hero.
Any takers on that... Or any more discussion for that?
[fn*]: A good way to spot one of my trigger points: If I say something very harsh, or seem to misspell a lot of words, or have way too much emotion in my post... then I disapear for a few days or more from that thread... That disapearing is me realizing that even if I really want to discuss the issue, posting is just going to cause a fight with somebody, or drag it out if it's already started. This thread isn't that, but that's how it seems to go when threads go that way for me...
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
So if i get this straight' date=' you deliberately stalled the expected rate of advancement (by not awarding xp or awarding less XP or not scripting challenges that earn xp or whatever means) for the non-combat challenges your mystery plot adventure would be producing. this served your goal of restricting/slowing the tactical gains of the party, to fit with your overall plan for how they should have to resolve the challenges.[/quote']I think you're reading an ulterior motive into things when the situation lacks one.
DnD gives no advice on what to do when the game involves no combat. It's all well and good to sit there apart from the situation and claim they had plenty of challenges and should have leveled anyway...
But you don't know that, and frankly, they might not know it either.
The game gives no advice on the situation. It's very hard to guage when to give XP when there isn't an Orc standing around somewhere with a sign over his head saying 'CRx'. What is the CR of a debate over crop rotation? What is the CR for proposing to the alderman's daughter? What is the CR for putting up a barn? What is the CR for getting your issue put through at Court with the nobles? What is the CR for being midwife to a peasant woman when caught in a storm on a country road?
If they went for months with just roleplay - hang'n it with the locals in the village - it could easily be very difficult for anyone to know what events where the challenges.
On DnD boards you'll see long flame wars over the idea that commoners level. A lot of people, a lot of people who write DnD product even, see it that commoners never face challenges - they don't kill Orcs...
The game never says what aspects of daily life qualify.
Most of the people who do level their commoners simply say that 'life gives XP and doesn't need a challenge'. Rather than find the challenge, they sidestep the issue - your commoner gets x*age*level XP per year, or something like that...
It is a flaw of the system' that the XP system breaks down in times like this. You can award for challenges, but you need guidance. The lack of that guidance is where it breaks down. DnD actively encourages only one style of play, and GMs or players who seek another find themselves lost. If they've got the talent for house ruling, they'll be able to find their own guidance.
But many of us feel uncomfortable there, or lack that talent, or lack the energy to 'work it all out'. When there's another choice that does give an XP system that works for this issue - it just makes it easier to toss the first one out.
Under Hero's XP system, they can gain skills or abilities gradually and smoothly - not in sudden steps. I would not restrict their combat abilities in the given situation, but if they wasted their XP there they'd have to deal with the results of never learning the skills that actually came up in play.
Hero's XP system also works on a more session per session roleplay and goals method. It's much easier to work with regardless of what style of play comes about at the table.
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Re: Stunning the target without damaging it
So how would you build a power that kept someone stunned?
Mind Control based on CON?
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Re: Modern Hero? Cyber/Transhuman Hero? should they publish these?
I was under the impression that Dark Champions was a 'street supers' genre book.
It seemed pretty different back when from Danger International.
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Re: Do you always use character points to buy weapons & armor?
Good to know! Why do the weapons & armor have real point costs? Isn't that for purposes of character point cost?Somewhere out there you can find the point cost of a toaster oven....
...
Hero just likes to overdo itself sometimes...
That said, if you're playing Champions and the other guy picks up a Guisarme and thwacks you with it... I suppose it helps to know the cost if it becomes a regular event.
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Would there be a point to books on these genres?
Or is it just something 'we can work up on our own'?
I know I'd buy them. Heck, I'd write them.
A lot of people thought the first version of Cyber Hero was pretty bad. I remember the talk. But then, a lot of people said the same thing about Star Hero back in the day, and look where it's come now...
Done right, would these be good ideas for books?
Certainly WotC proved there's a place for modern genre books, even if it's not their best seller (from what I hear from the completely uninformed rumor mill
).What would these book be about?
Am I the only one who wants them? I know there's another thread on converting GURPS' Transhuman Space over to Hero, but what if instead we/they looked back to the genre fiction, and wrote it the Hero way?
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Re: Doing traps
The Ultimate Dungeon does sound like a good name for a Fantasy Hero expansion on running dungeon crawls in the 'DnD gamer style'.
So what goes in the book?
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
Found a similar thread:
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
Catching up cause I just realized the thread got to page 3 without me seeing it for some reason...
I myself found out about Hero by getting dragged into it back in 1984.
I showed up, like everybody else, for the DnD game, and the GM announced he was going to run Champions (2E - 3E had come out days earlier and only one of them owned it, not the GM).
I think it had to do with a critical player being absent, but I'm not sure.
Needless to say after floundering around trying to figure out both what a super hero was and how I could make a character without knowing my class or alignment... I was hooked. That week I made my first trip to a comic book shop, and I bought Champions 3E. Two weeks later I ran my first game - a complete disaster, but it didn't stop me...
BTW: I knew comics, but all I'd read before that was Conan.
You can convert people. Maybe not everybody, but you can convert people. It does have to be done right though.
I'd never manage to get my players off of MnM over to Champions, and I have no desire to. But I do plan to put them on either BESM d20 or Fantasy Hero for the fantasy game I run.
As they play MnM, they know classess, alignmentless, and level-less... just not for fantasy save for some of them.
Making it go smoothly, and getting them to desire the switch... that's the challenge. They know about this thread btw... I sent them the URL early Monday right after my big post on page 2.
To tetsuji's comments about adopting a magic system into d20 - I've tried and failed before. BESM d20 is the best option for this I've seen however, and I suspect I can do it there.
To the comment that characters in systems without psych disads are often richer - I agree. I see a lot of people choose psych lims for the points rather than the nature of a character. Disads like 'Curious' or 'Heroic' or other items that in many games are nothing more than 'PC'.
The disads of Hero are both a strong and weak point of the system - 'which' being a matter of how you use them, and there is some burden on the GM for this - if no more than to correct for former GMs doing it differently...
I value the desires and goals of players as well, but I gotta say, if your players are putting in time and effort outside of the game session then I envy you.
I have to bribe mine with bonus XP to get things like journals, and I rarely have any idea where they want the game to go. I work on a continual 'one step from burnout, find inspiration to fall back a step before next week' system...
I'm continually holding the clock at 11:59, working to keep midnight away - though in game there's good roleplay, I do lead more than follow.
On the other hand, I'm the one with the worst schedule in the group - and I run 2 of the 3 games and host the majority of the time. Most of the cancelations are my fault, and often come at sudden notice... I've considered that maybe that makes me unfit to be the GM, but there's no real replacement so instead I struggle to stablize my schedule...
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
because skill points only come at pre-determined points in the game (when you level), and because the characters weren't leveling, it took months (real time and game time) before anyone was able to speak to the locals.It was a very frustrating experience, and as soon as the adventure ended, we switched over to HERO.
If your group has a frustrating experience like that, it might be easy to bring it up as an incentive to try a new system -- "Look where DnD falls down; maybe a different system would be smoother here?"
I'm feeling this actually in the DnD game I play in. After months of play we're only level 2, and it feels like we're going nowhere because DnD is not set up to handle the style of play we've all chosen to adopt. Unfortunately that group is even more 'hardcore' on 'if not DnD, what?' than my own. I just sent the GM of that game an email linking to this thread... so I'll probably get stuck explaining this post...
I know he'd be happier running a point based game... but he doesn't know it. Yet.
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
Well perhaps I should say to all of you some of why Hero has been occuring to me as a good choice...
And if I can convince you guys I ought to use Hero, then I have grounds to consider it further, and see if it would work with my players.
DnD has a very limited magic system - I like most of d20, and I can play it just fine, but my idea of fantasy is influenced by a different set of fiction authors (*see below), and the fact that I used to be an occultist and came -this- close to joining an order that's been around for a wee bit over a century before my path in life changed...
My core concept on magic has been to build an elemental based system. It's described here:
http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19507
http://www.iguardians.net/boards/showthread.php?t=2241
It needs to be a lot more freeform than DnD's system, a lot less predictable, and somewhat dangerous to use. I try to work my ideas into DnD's magic system, I started my fantasy world as an attempt to make a DnD compatable world - but it fails every time - I just can't wrap my creativity into that shape of a box. When I run DnD, I have to use a published setting, because I can't make one that works in it's norms.
It's being shaped out of the work in my fiction:
http://www.fictionpress.com/read.php?storyid=1644229
(that being 'chapter zero' of an upcoming novella)
Also hosted here:
http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/859942
Where reviewers have given 4.5 out of 5 stars.
I'm remaking my fantasy setting:
http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/fahla/
And plan to stat it out for three systems: Hero, BESM, and BESM d20.
Each of those has appeal to me for different reasons. I can reasonable make the magic system I desire in all three.
Hero appeals above the others for it's lack of levels, classes, and alignments.
None of my players like alignments. They all multiclass like crazy. A new guy joined last week (one of the two Hero players - he was part of my last Champions group in 97) and the joke at him was over him being single classed so far at level 4.
Levels bother me because over time they -force- the tone of the game to change, even if the story is not going in that direction. What makes for a fun adventure for a group of level 1 d20 characters is not going to be a good choice when they're level 20, nor even when they're level 5.
Hero scales up, but it does it very slowly and often the adventure that worked at the start of the game will still be playable two years into the game. What governs it then is story elements, and not point totals.
Gradual progression. Let's face it, leveling bothers me - you're there at A one day, then Z the next. I want the alphabet in between. I like that in Hero you change slowly over time, getting better at things in a gradual smooth progression.
In the old days, I could lambast the turn a minute nature of AD&D, and the lack of tactical combat in that system, but this element has been fixed in d20. It also becomes my biggest -problem- with a switch to Hero - will Fantasy Hero play slower? I've told them I don't think it will, that the things that make Champions slow are not there in Fantasy Hero. I hope I'm right...
Creative control is the big reason for all three of my system options - you have full design control of the characters with point based systems that allow you to put together the characters and creatures you desire. BESM and BESM d20 have simpler engines than Hero, but they are not as well thought out. BESM d20 has the tactical nature - but it also has the levels. BESM is very simple and freeform, but it lacks tactical variety. The player who just joined my game has been running a BESM fantasy game for the last year (one of my other players is in it, but I am not.) and the comment I keep hearing from him and that player is that they've been disapointed with how lacking in tactical play the system is.
So...
I want to consider Fantasy Hero because it seems the best way to address:
- The magic system of my fiction, brought into an RPG.
- The scaling by story and not by game progression.
- Gradual Progression over levels.
- The design control of characters.
- The way my players seem to have trouble fitting into the classes.
- Our group distaste for alignments - we may desire a more thourough exploration of personality.
- Our need to a game engine that allows tactical play without sacrificing any of the other concerns.
I think that's the list as it stands in my head.
Authors I read:
Barbara Hambly, Tanya Huff, Maggie Furey, Louis Cooper, Robert Jordan, Mercades Lackey, Jo Clayton, and looking through my collection - it seems mostly women authors. Tolkien never cut it for me -though I did read him he was not to my tastes, and I've rarely been able to finish any DnD fiction book I tried to read.
- The magic system of my fiction, brought into an RPG.
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Re: penalties and bonuses for Seduction skill rolls
If you've got 'good game' I'll give you a circumstance bonus when you make the skill check...
But you will be making the skill check, no matter how well you roleplay it.
And if you hand me a PRE 8 character and then play him like a pimp-daddy, you're going to see me rewriting your character until I find a way to afford the PRE 18 you've been playing at my table.
So you might as well save yourself the trouble and spend the points for it on day one.
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Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...?
Such a strategy would mean I would first have to cancel the DnD game and thus boot out my regular players who've been loyal to my table since early 2003, in favor of two that while I've known since 97, only one of them has been regular since the current group formed, and the other just rejoined with me last Wednesday.
I'd rather not split my group, and rather not go through the process of weeding out the local drug users again to get a new group [and in forming my current group, I had to dump two people over issues of drugs, and two for hostile attitudes - recruiting is a pain, and it's easier to game with friends and people you know - you just have to persuade them over to desired systems]...
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Re: My first Turakian Age character
At Dex 13 the character is not selling speed down, it is 2. The character is thus buying it up to 3.
3 is what you want if you're in the middle of all the action all the time. non 'fighters' only need a 2. At 4, you're the fantasy hero version of a speedster.
If something didn't change to spice things up soon, I was going to abandon the character I played in the one game I don't run (DnD, run by the fourth active player who passed on Sidekick) just to get some spice going.
).
Should all skills be everyman to some degree?
in HERO System Discussion
Posted
Re: Should all skills be everyman to some degree?
Yeah see that's where I'm at.
No matter how 'mall girl' you are... you will always have some remote chance of managing to survive in the wilderness...
At this point, the 8- of familiarity is indeed too high, and I agree it's not an everyman skill.
But Missy just might figure out how make shelter, she just might gather the right berries, she just might find a way to stay fed and warm and even make her way out.
The chance that she gets out healthy should not be zero.
The fact that 217 out of 218 people randomly put in front of a computer and told to make it do something will fail does not mean that person 218 will also always fail...
The chance might even be lower than that, but by taking her time, looking at the little book on the desk, or trying things over and over and discarding the failures without pulling out her hair... Missy just might make her first program without knowing what she was doing, or even being familiar with the process.
If she takes the right steps, she just might give herself a skill check modifier high enough to get her chance up to 3-. and then her player just might roll that 3.
She probably won't roll that 3, but she might, and she ought to be able to.
Maybe the odds are a million to one that if she were tossed onto a scene and told to diffuse the bomb, there would disaster, but there's still that one out there - that oddball random possibility that she will accidentally do it right.
By the book though, these are not everyman skills, and so Missy does not even get a skill check nor even an opportunity to shape circumstance to her benifit. She can take all the time she wants, be as careful as possible, but by the book she has zero chance of ever finding shelter or food, zero chance of ever getting that program to work, and zero chance of difussing that bomb.
I'm coming off of games like GURPS and d20 - where while there are a few 'trained only skills' that suffer this same problem, most of the system allows for a die roll - but at a stiff penalty for the untrained.
It seems as if Hero needs this. Looks like somebody on page one of the thread mentioned an option in the FAQ. I need to find out where this FAQ is...
No chance is infintately less than 'almost no chance'. By the book, Missy doesn't even get to make a skill roll, not even one with a penatly of 223. Failure is simply scripted in no matter how she tries to help herself out.