arcady

Re: My first Turakian Age character Either strategy has it's merits. If you want to go for game effectiveness then you should lower or raise all primary stats to be 8, 13, or 18 if optimizing for skills. 8, 11, 14, or 17 if optimizing for OCV, DCV, ECV. I'm not convinced your stats are too low. The character is a mage, and all you really need is good PRE, INT, and EGO. If the character is not a major combatant, you can get away with a speed of 2. I would look at some sample mage characters in the books, and see if you find them too high or too low in stats.

Re: My first Turakian Age character Ah... You're right. In that case, take option number 3 on the charm spell... after you divide cost by three that becomes very affordable. It gets rid of that heart ingredient... I have to say, that's the kind of ingredient you put on the "35d6 megascale area effect does body NND and even spanks your momma's heiny spell", not a 'speak with chipmunks and bunny rabbits' spell...

Re: My first Turakian Age character When I read the spells while doing my first reply I noticed they had already been divided by three in the final cost when compared to the grimoire. Population for Aarn doesn't list Orcs or Goblins, and other is only 2%. Non humans are not that common there in fact - elves are only 3%. Dwarves 9, halflings 7, drakines 6, and gnomes 4. You'll probably be known everywhere you go, and your arrival known before you get there. If I were your GM I would allow your race alone to qualify you for distinctive features, and encourage you to get a reputation. If you didn't I would presume you new to the community, and would probably 'award' you with one several times faster than the other PCs. If the group all broke the law or saved somebody - you'd be the first one recognized for it. I need to read the city and see how tolerant it is, to see if you'd become 'everybody's favorite citizen' or subject to 'walking while elvish'.

Re: penalties and bonuses for Seduction skill rolls For me, you don't have to be a great actor, but you do have to be a great gamer. You have to be able to set up the scene, portray your strategy of play, and know just when to say 'and then I work my seductive skills'. Just like I expect the player who's character is a great scientist to be able to tell me that they research this and that (saying what - like "I research the chemicals and the nature of toads"), which clues they look at, who they talk to, that they gather past data together to compare, and then and only then say 'and so work my skills in science to try and draw a conclusion answering my question correctly'. The player need not know the first thing about science to do that. They just have to have good game.

Re: penalties and bonuses for Seduction skill rolls There really isn't a 'base time' to seduction. I've seen people say 'come suck [fill in what you know belongs here]' as the first words out of their mouth on meeting a new person passing in the street, and have it work. The ex-roommate in question had a knack for that sort of thing. I've also seen the slow interplay of time take it's course. That said, successful seduction really seems to happen in the first few glances - the rest of the game is getting both sides to realize it and concede to it. If, like my ex-roomate you can really judge people well, your seduction attempts can take seconds as a matter of routine. Most of us however, take agonizing months of game play to both admit our true feelings and get past our social hangups. You might consider this for the PC: Make a seduction check, and assign as a penalty half the difference in the COM scores of the two characters. - People tend to prefer others on their level even though they desire those who are more attractive. With someone much more attractive people tend to get intimidated and this can make it hard for that attractive person to seduce us. Also assign a penalty equal half the difference in PRE if the lower PRE score is the seducer. That, or have an opposed skill check vs. PRE check. People are willing to seduce shier people, but shier people get intimidated by stronger personalities. The opposed check method introduces the idea that it is easier to seduce a shier person - so it works to give you an effective bonus. Lastly, give a penalty of 1 per five years difference in age, but if the target is emotionally still a minor flip it to a bonus. Age makes a difference, but people who are not emotionally mature are easy to dominate - regarldess of the genders involved. Introduce a bonus of 2 for a target who is inexperienced, but make it a penalty of two if they are 'repressed' and find their sexuality something to be shameful of. Conversely be aware that there are experienced people who find their sexuality shameful and yet still pursue it. If the target has some form of sexual compulsion disorder introduce a bonus of 2 per level of severity of the psych lim, and then stat up the therapist... Conceptually that's what I'd suggest. The mechanics of my ideas might need a little refinement though.

Re: What's the most useless supplement you'd actually like to see? The problem with something like this is that the moment I figure out I'd like to see an idea I manage to also have an argument ready for why it is not useless. As a result, I'm still drawing a blank for what I would list here.

Re: Sell me the FH line Take Champions, make it have simpler character creation and faster play - you get Fantasy Hero. If you own Fantasy Hero, whether or not you buy the other books is a matter of whether or not your use of Fantasy Hero is such that they become useful. The setting book is only useful if you want to use that setting, or you like buying setting books as a deconstruction tool. The monster book is useful if you want more monsters than the bestiary. The grimoire is useful if you want a volume of premade spells. This is handy even if you use a VPP style of magic, as it gives players a pool to quickly pick from during play. The battles book if you want to see three small scenerios to get an idea on how to set up your own scenerios as well as some sample locations for a similar purpose.

Re: My first Turakian Age character It might be easier if you organized it by package deals. I suppose you have a plan for coming up with Dragon hearts? I know that in the DnD game I run - if it had been in Fantasy Hero after 1 year of play the player with this speak with animal spell would never have managed to come up with the needed ingredients to cast... It's an odd ingredient, likely to kill the PC trying to gather it, for what most people would consider a 'cantrip' spell. On the disadvantages: Do you expect the Orc / Goblin thing to hinder the character in play? Psych Curiousity is one of those things that's always bugged me. For most people, it just means "PC" - as all PCs play out with this one. If I were your GM there'd be a good chance that by session three I'd be having you remove it. What would cause me to not do so would be seeing the character act in a manner 'above and beyond' normal RPG-PC behavoir. The Oath of Loyalty and the Social Responsibility cover the same ground, so in play what makes them end up different? I'd want a list of situations that were -llikely to occur- where one governed your actions and the other did not. I'd want that list to be half of one, and half the other. If it's common, I'd want to see you get it into the game at least once a session. Uncommon - every other session. Very common - every scene you're in. I tend to put the burden of making it come up in the player's hands. So even if you're not seeing Orcs and Goblins all that often, you should be constantly spouting off racist language - blame them for crime, unwed mothers, poverty, bad crops, accuse their mages of spoiling the weather, ask the innkeep to ensure none of them ever slept in the bedding you get, or drank from the cup you use, suspect rude people openly of having orc blood, call them 'orc-lovers' if they disagree with you... etc... You've got it strong, so you should be beyond just talk. Maybe you carry a rope to lynch orc-lovers with.

Re: Selling people on Hero system when they're already inclined against it...? I looked at that, and I noticed it starts out on phase 12, but never says why, and in the first action it says 'wants to hit a hex' but never says what that is. In other words, it uses Hero jargon, and I would have to preface any email I sent them telling them to look with a lot of definitions. I'm pondering collecting their DnD characters (they leveled last Wednesday anyway, so I have an excuse), converting them, and then running the regular DnD game for a session using Hero. That, or I take in ideas, make a cast of characters, and run perhaps one of the scenerios out of Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds - perhaps the Inn. The third option is that I sit them down for character creation. This shows the real power of Hero, but the complexity without any dead orcs also risks scarring them off. I'd prefer bringing this group over to Hero above recruiting, as they're a good batch of players I've had for a while now - they're mostly the players in my Mutants and Masterminds game with the exception of two. I've got them for two games I run, and one I play in run by one of the DnD 'why bother' people [who's experience with Hero is limited to horror stories told as gamer humor by the Hero players in the group... Oops -yeah, I am now going to be working to counter my own medicine]. I think my other two Hero players could go either way - I could get them behind me with not too much trouble. My other ex-Hero player is the most adamant against it, and will take more work than the DnD people. She's said she never wants to deal with -that system- again, and when I said Fantasy plays out different, asks if it 'still suffered from too many VPPs' which made me wonder who she played it with before - previous editions of Fantasy Hero from what I recall avoided the VPP.

Re: Storn's Fantasy Art, Comics and Doodles My impression is no, and I'm a big fan of MnM. It has become my system of choice for supers, but I don't find it scales down well below the base PL. Even by PL8 I find it starts to lack, and the problem gets severe by PL5 - I think it was a mustake to set the Nocturnals book so low.

I've been letting my Hero collection gather dust for the past few years. Last Monday I bought fantasy Hero - 5 days now - in order to take the genre and setting building ideas. But in the process the Hero bug has begun to bite again, as I realize most of the things that I did not like in Champions are not major issues in Fantasy Hero and other genres. Now I still own the previous two editions of Fantasy Hero, which I bought the day they came out in both cases. The problem, is that while I have two Hero fans among my players, I also have one ex-Hero player who rejects its conventions even more than I have, and two 'if it ain't DnD or d20, why should I bother?' players. Players who've seen the size of the core Hero book, heard how slow champions plays out, and seen the complexity of building powers or spells to do what sounds so simple - like page 145's draining cuffs or page 175's potion of giant strength or even the long pike on page 141. Face it, Hero is intimidating. The book is so big that the first reaction non Hero players have when they see it on my library shelf is usually some expletive, followed by some comment about having to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table to touch it. With the three examples above, they all read easy to those of us who know Hero system well, but to an outsider they scream 'overcomplex'. So I face an uphill battle. I know Hero can do an amazing job with fantasy, and I want to show them this. But I do not want to come across strong. If I 'rub it in their faces' I will only turn them off more. I've met many players since moving away from the Hero circle who told me tales like 'I thought about trying it, but then I met some of the people who play it'. Not that Hero players are bad people - but they have a rep for coming across as fanatics. My players have all heard my stories of running a 12 hour real time combat (5pcs v 5npcs all at 250 Champions 3rded pts), or of an average Champions combat taking 3 to 4 hours. The two people in my group who are still amicable to Hero are players from my last Champions game - they were there and like me know it was not inexperience as like me they all started with Hero in the early to mid 80s. My ex-Hero player has her own similar stories from a seperate gaming community. Into that, I have to convince them that trying Fantasy Hero would not bog us down at the same level, that it might even play as fast as DnD. I have to find the features that might show it off as a better choice than DnD. I have to find a way to get them to 'learn a new RPG'. My present strategy is to get in a one shot game. I've managed to get that on the table, so I will have a 5 hour window in which to get up that hill. I've also started pushing, as of today, "Sidekick" - hoping I can get one of them to buy it before the damaged 50% off copies run out. In that short time slot, and in the discussion I have with them between now and then, I have to find ways to get the Hero bug to bite enough of them to away group opinion over. Trying to counter the negative assumptions listed above won't work, as they all come from the personal experience of members of this group (whether or not other people on this board have faced them). At best, I will be able to claim they are issues Champions has but other genres lack - such a claim will then require me 'proving it', which I'll have to do in a hostile platform where at least one person will probably be subconsciously working to see it fail, and several will come in jaded before the first die roll hits the table. Thoughts?

Where can I find the monetary costs (silver pieces/money) of sectional armor? I've been searching through my book, but coming up blank.

Re: What is Evil? The frustrating thing for me is that I find that GMs like to think about this sort of thing, but players -at least the ones I always get- just seem to want to adventure. I prefer a moral system no more defined than that we know in the real world. You cannot really prove the existance of good, evil, nor their lack. Individual groups will have their own ways of judging things, and will put outsiders on a lesser moral level than themselves. Whether or not that is true remains an open question regardless of how sure those individual actors may be of themselves. This is important for me in shaping the world and the story, but my players often never to look under the hood, let alone even pause to see what model car they're in.

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept? People who've seen my posts in past years know I feel very much that 'evil races' are an inheritantly racist concept. Some time back I took a look at typical gaming fantasy and found in it strong parallels to the American West. Orcs are often described in the same way American Indians were often described. - dirty brutal warlike savages that kill for no reason, lack intelligence or grace, cannot be tamed, worship dark forces, and 'savage' women. Today we don't think of them way, but that -is- the language once used for them. Similar lines can be drawn out in other areas - right down to the idea of large tracts of unsettled wilderness. When I first saw that, back in the late 80s, I tried to make a setting that flipped it and showed it from the Orc POV, but with the humans, elves, and so on still thinking the same way they did in 'gamer fantasy'. Today I avoid making any race inherritantly good or evil. The noble savage is as much of a racist stereotype as the savage savage - and I don't need either in my fiction to make it complete.

The system is being 'converted over' from my fiction into BESM, BESM d20, and hopefully FH - which I just picked up two days ago. I seek a model were magic works around four gender-typed elements. You're born with the talent or not. If you train it up you learn spells, if you go 'wild' your magic is different every time. Even a trained mage though, can learn a new spell simply by observing it being cast (but not if it was cast by a wild mage). Magic would have prohibitively high END costs, to the point that many young mages would burn out their stun or body casting. Mages can pool energy to fuel spells, and can use this to push beyond their normal limits. Mages can also drain their own apprentices dry to fuel magic - even killing them at whim. Magic gets out of control easily. A spell never really fails to cast - a failed casting just gives something different (side effects limitation mandatory for all spells). I'm modelling it up for BESM, BESM d20, and thought I'd see if I could do it for Hero as well. part two Mages go 'active' in youth - so if you don't show talent by adolensce you never will. Most human mages go active around 8-12. If not trained, they'll go wild if they live. Most mages die before reaching a safe point of understanding with their magic. It can and usually does consume them, often horridly - such as being ripped limb from limb by elemental forces, demons, or whatever. Elements are: Fire and Air - male Earth and Water - female Mages could somewhat stack their power. So with one mage you might have the ability to put out 40 active points, another mage comes along and builds you up by another 5, 10, 15, or some other value I have not yet started to consider. In the BESM version, additional mages gave a bonus to the skill roll, and there is no limit to the power of a spell cast - the powerful you cast, the more draining, with additional mages you could share the energy cost. The skill roll was based on the power of the spell, much like a skill roll in Hero does. A lot of mages working together have the potential to be vastly powerful. A lone mage is going to be a lot less so. While they could call upon amazing power, it could easily kill them. Mages should regularly go into burning out their own stun and body. I could perhaps do this by setting the VPP low, and encouraging unlimited pushing. The BESM version is here: http://www.iguardians.net/boards/showthread.php?t=2241 Taught mages would probably use a VPP as well - new spells are learned with ease, though not mastered initially. Single observation will let you try to cast it, but with difficulty. After some time you will gane control of the 'new method of shaping the energies'. I looked at the 'arts arcane' and 'the gift' systems in the book and liked how they lowered the costs. I've got another thread going asking if anyone has tried them and found them wanting or not.

Re: Thoughts on FH Magic Systems: The Gift and Arts Arcane Maybe I should talk about my own system in a seperate thread? Leave this one to ask about the two systems in the book.

Both of these two systems, that appear in the FH book, give significant discounts on the costs of magic. I've just picked up a copy of FH under this edition, and it's pretty different in look than the old game. For those who've been around the block with it, any opinions of these two systems? I seek to model where magic works around four gender-typed elements. You're born with the talent or not. If you train it up you learn predictable spells, if you go 'wild' you're magic is different every time. Even a trained mage though, can learn a new spell simply by observing it being cast (but not if it was cast by a wild mage). Magic would have prohibitively high END costs, to the point that many young mages would burn out their stun or body casting. Mages can pool energy to fuel spells, and can use this to push beyond their normal limits. Mages can also drain their own apprentices dry to fuel magic - even killing them at whim. Magic gets out of control easily. A spell never really fails to cast - a failed casting just gives something different. I'm modelling it up for BESM, BESM d20, and thought I'd see if I could do it for Hero as well. In thinking on how I would do this, the two mentioned systems from the book looked closest, and I figured the community here is bound to have experience in their merits and flaws by now.

Technically speaking, this is http://news://rec.games.frp.super-heroes It's also this forum at webRPG: http://forums.rpghost.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=72 Hero discussion often dominates the newsgroup, and the WebRPG forum is little used, most of the people there just stick to the V&V forum.