arcady

Re: Campaign: Lomyrian Relic Hunters in Fahla Not as fun as I might have hoped. It bogged down a lot in side events and dragging plot lines. I tend to throw in all sorts of deviations, and I will go with and follow through any line my players mention, and often vice versa as well - so that if I mention some random NPC in passing the PCs jump down her and she becomes a central element of a new story line. Likewise, if the players ask me 1 question about an NPC, 20 answers comes in, and all of them get explored. So what should have taken 3 sessions ended up taking about 6 months. I'm not so good as a GM with drawing straight lines... They keep coming out crooked.

Re: Campaign: Lomyrian Relic Hunters in Fahla It came to an end in August when I started graduate school. The adventure I was posting here concluded, and the witch they had to fight at the top/bottom of the tower in the second adventure became their ally in a race to prevent a faction of dragons from using the recovered map to trigger a ritual that would tear the world apart by blending their reality with the one they found in the tower. The tower reality, it turned out, was a world reversed in time. They lived backwards from the normal reality, meaning that they were going through what was once for the normal reality to era of the ancients. This tied into a number of other strange myths in the world about shadow people... In the end, the witch, after revealing herself as a church inquisitor, assisting the PCs, put an end to the efforts of the dragons - or so it would appear. But it was a little sloppy of an ending as it was rushed, while the lead up to it was dragged out longer than it should have been. Presently I am off from gaming, and if I return it will likely be with a new fantasy world, or a canned setting - as my ideas for fantasy are shaped by very different norms from most gamers.

Re: Superhero Images Here's "Bleed" in the middle of a super battle: Fullsize image: http://www.deviantart.com/view/24666408/ Or: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1080731&Start=1&Artist=arcady&ByArtist=Yes

Re: Vanor: races Seems to me that if you're going to make new races that are very different from the norms for the names you've given them - you should just give your list its own names and mythos seperate from what people will asume of races like 'elves', 'dwarves', and so on.

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien?

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien?

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules I made a round of edits, and can easily make more. On the other hand... The only reason I 'started' the plot hooks thread was when I found this, it looked like it wasn't really going anywhere but a lot of talk, and when it got interesting I thought I'd try and kick start it down to the chase. As a late comer though, maybe I'm out of line in that. I can easily delete plots thread and let somebody else start one when you're all ready to. It's not like I have any intention of 'running it' - I just wanted to see it actually start. I'm off for the night, it's 3am here. I'll probably look in some time tomorrow and see what's happened since, and based on that either edit it to what it needs, or delete it and let someone else start it when the time is right.

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules The idea is to shoot for a norm for greatest utility by the largest number of people, and then by being in the norm, people outside of that norm will know how to change to fit their special needs. The published settings weren't required. Rather they were listed as the 'only allowed settings - otherwise be generic'. Again to go for norms. If you set it somewhere, set it in the places most likely to be owned by this crowd. Otherwise, don't set it somewhere specific. Turakian compatable is the same thing as what killer shrike calls 'high fantasy' (a term I find misleading - but I seem to be in the minority on that here). I proposed for 150 because that is where likely 90% of FH games start, and people can adjust easily up from there. That seemed to allow for appeal to the largest number. That said, if we're posting them in a thread here, they likely won't have the level of details to even need to list how many points they are for. My thought at least, was 'what rules would make for adventure idea that would be usable by almost anyone with the least amount of work on average?' Sure, the guidelines in fact would not even work for my own setting, but my setting is off the fringes of the norms for gamers. If I wrote plot hooks for my setting, I'd be the only one who'd be able to make use of them, and anyone else would have a -lot- of work to do to make them compatable with their settings. By contrast I could take any 'DnD module' and work it to my setting easily - because I know DnD and I know my setting. I'm working with two knowns there. Likewise 'Turakian' - which is basically 'DnD style in FH, but with more substance'. Any adventure actually suited to Turakian could be adopted by anyone who knew the conventions of 'typical gamer fantasy' over to whatever else they knew well. ****** Good call on identifying which published source is referenced when one is used. That might also be a good way to avoid issues with infringing on copyright - if you have a character with a given spell or item for example, rather than typing its rules just type 'fireball with option 3 - Grimoire page X'. That does have an issue for people who don't have that book, but it is better than risking getting 'shut down' for copyright issues. And we all know how to build our own versions of a fireball if we lack the grimoire. A more unusual spell name though might require some further theming, perhaps like: necromantic spells (x on page y, x1 on page y1, x2 on page y2, etc, 'custom spell' - statblock) - people lacking the book could then build their own necromantic spells. ****** The block you've set up seems more or less ideal I'd propose every adventure being with a short block listing its basic needs: If a specific location is given, perhaps a location type should be given as well. For example, you might say 'Elweir / major trade city-state - thieve's quarter' So a sample plot hook might look like:

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien?

Re: Sailing, Sailing... As long as this thread is actually going to be able sailing in fantasy... I had a situation in my last game where I got stuck for an answer as to how regular trade would happen in a region when winds blew in a predictable pattern. The issue was 'once they get over there, how do they get back' and the geography was two penninsulas jutting out of the southern end of a continent just north of the equator. See this map: http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/fahla/images/Western_Kingdoms.png And the question was people going between Lomyr and Veshasi when the wind comes down from the northwest blowing southeast and then moves west along the equator. I began to wonder if I had logical wind patterns, and if so or if not, how people could move between these two kingdoms by sea quickly. In the above map, the bottom of the image is the equator. Global map used at the time: http://home.pacbell.net/arcady0/fahla/images/New_Fahla.gif

Re: Sailing, Sailing... Moved my threadjack here: http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36996 Into the rules forum where it was more appropriate and more polite to the person who started this thread.

Re: Vehicle combat and regular weapons? That works great perhaps for a very large vehicle with modern weapons used on it. But does the same analogy carry over to a knife thrown at a Cog or Junk - which is only a few hexes wide and maybe 20 or so long (give or take). Obviously the throwing knife shouldn't be blowing out full hexes, but neither should a ballista or longbow (and in Fantasy Hero, longbows often do more damage than ballista when you account for the character using them - that was at least true in the game I ran when it came to the two skilled archers on each side). When firing these personal weapons, it seems the best thing to do might be to just call out 'thud! your knife/bolt/arrow sticks in a wall' when they miss a person scaled target. Of course some personal weapons will hurt the ship, such as 'molitov cocktails', but that will happen in the ensuing rounds as a fire starts. It gets less clear when the mages start casting fire balls and lightning bolts.

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules Kicked off a plot hooks thread: http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=846716 I'm 90% sure the rules I put in it are not the ones everyone wants... but I had to put something. So now, here, somebody tell me what I should have put there so I can edit it.

Delete This

Are there special rules anywhere for naval or other forms of vehicle combat that would address the issue below? Last session of my fantasy hero campaign involved a large naval battle in which we discovered you can destroy enemy vessels with regular bows, crossbows, ballista, and even thrown knives... We used the 'Junk' (vehicle sourcebook) on one side, and a 'Carrack' on the other. They had very low def scores, and fairly low body, and there didn't seem to be any rules about needing 'vehicular weapons' in either 5er, ultimate vehicle, nor the other vehicles book. By the time the two vessels were in boarding range, they were both at negative multiple of their body core, and merely subsisting of 'floating wood' kept up by magic... And I began to think 'if I ever run another vehicle combat, it's going to need some major rules tweaking first'...

Re: Robert E Howard or J.R.R. Tolkien? C.S. Lewis and Brother's Grimm. Who, I would argue, have more influence on modern fantasy than either Howard of Tolkien. H & T influenced gamer fantasy, along with Leiber, Vance, and Moorcock; but none of these authors seem to have had much impact in literary fantasy outside of that fantasy written by gamers... So, I would say I prefer the Grimms and Lewis, as well as Leiber.

Re: Valdorian Age Player Primer How big of a scope do you plan? Something for just the area you plan to run in but split into detail (the hoods of Elweir?) or something more regional, global, or...?

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules Just post to the board? That's another reason for keeping things from being too complex. If the rule became 'must fit within one post'...

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules I've actually been working up ideas for a thread on 'adventures suited for use in Turakian or Valdorian'. My thought was to insist that at least 2/3rds of the adventures be usable in one of those two settings, with the following basic objectives: a poster's first and second adventures must be set in Turakian Age or Valdorian Age. If first Adventure was Valdorian, second must be Turakian (but reverse is not true). Thereafter, 2/3rds of a posters adventures must be either 'set in' or 'usable' in either Turakian or Valdorian. build for 4 150 point PCs. assume at least one magical profficient PC unless Valdorian. assume at least half the PCs have a viable option for ranged combat. self contained. build for play in one to three sessions of 4-5 hours in length. build presuming only published rules and options 'common to fantasy hero'. Adventures set in a published setting must assume the world as published at the start of the adventure. The goal in the above is to build up a list of adventures primarily for the 'hero' settings - the most likely to be commonly known among us - and then let GMs modify them from there if their own setting is very different. The focus favors Turakian on the assumption that it is more like the style of fantasy most likely to be used by us (and this is an assumption, which if false would mean the guidelines might need correcting).

Re: Why are there no Fantasy Hero adventures / Modules The notion of the racism in DnD is really quite simple and I think can be shown to be intentional, albeit the intent is with the sources that inspired DnD more than DnD itself. Sources Gygax is on record as not wanting to include in DnD but having done so only to satisfy his initial players. It stems in the notion of 'racialism' as expressed by W.E.B. DuBois: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racialism The conflicts in DnD set forth the premise that racialism is true. Races are set out through stat differences as being unequal, and through alignment as being different in the soul. None of that is inherent to the fantasy genre, and is in fact quite rare in the literature. So one has to wonder why it is in DnD and why gamers are so adamant about sticking to it. For that, look to its source, it frankly, comes from Tolkien and the pulp era writers (within and without fantasy) - many of whom used their literature as tools of propaganda to advocate racist policies in their homelands, nationalist issues based on ethnicity, or even extremes such as ethnic-based eugenics. Those who did not use their literature as tools of propaganda were still reflective of the norms of their peers and their era in propagating these norms consciously or unconsciously. Only a few authors of the age rejected those norms (and I've heard claims that Conan's first author was such, but we can find later people who took up the Conan mantle to have slipped into racialism - especially and strikingly odd given the lateness of its entry, Marvel comics). There is no need for any of this in fantasy - and the majority of modern fantasy literature is lacking racialism in its themes even when it has other races and ethnicities. Gygax did not want Tolkien's influence in DnD - he didn't, or so he's said on several occaisions over on enworld - want the elves, dwarves, orcs, et all in the game. I do not know however if the alignment system was desired by him, but I suspect so as Elric was a major influence he did desire, and that has a law-chaos conflict as a major theme. The above in itself might not be enough to really lay a charge against DnD, but it does get much, much, worse. If you go back and read the literature and statements used to describe blacks and native ameriicans in the USA over the past few centuries you will find it matches almost -exactly- with the description given to Orcs. It is almost uncanny in how exact the match is. dirty savage people who plunder and pillage without reason rape and impregnate -our- women, mistreat their own women live in the wild jungles and badlands are nomadic and tribal and cannot ever be civilized or educated Cannot properly care for the land and only spoil it are inheriently stupid although strong and brutal are hairy and have ugly sloping features reminescent of apes are dark in color and soul prone to wanton substance abuse and wild ravaging dances worship dark forces (voodoo or evil spirits). fashion crude weapons - and in 3e DnD Orc dress and weapons even took on the 'feathered look' of 'indian savages'. cannot be trusted to keep their word. They defile the dead (cannibalism / scalping - in the American context scalping and the taking of dead enemy genitalia and fingers were actually US cavalry and 'mountain man' practices and not native practices, despite folklore). etc... Other races could draw parallels to 'the yellow scare' of Chinese... Crafty, smart, deviant, sexually perverse, steeped in arcane lore and ancient mysteries, beautiful and mysteriously powerful women, etc... The line from a 'china-man' to a drow is thinner than the orc connection, but it can be drawn. There is also a note on color and morality. All good elves are light, and bad elves are dark. That works with most other races as well. Again, none of this is inherent to the fantasy genre or needed in any way within fantasy gaming, but it persists in DnD. Very telling is the notion that this is 'just escapism'. The reply to which is simple 'what does it say about someone who wishes to escape into a picture of simplified racially driven morality?' There are a few exceptions, but they are just that - exceptions.

Re: Valdorian Age Game: Campaign Suggestions Needed Do the players have copies of the book? Or just you? If they have copies you can probably work up an idea after you get their concepts, and beforehand you don't need much more than 'make me a pack of shady characters who might be in Elweir in mid winter and probably either know each other or have an unusual number of coincidences in common.' If they don't have the book, you'll need a plot first, and one with some setting feeders. If you're really stuck you could always open the book three seperate times to randomly picked pages. First page your finger lands on something to do with what seems to be the plot or launches into it. Second page your finger lands on a red herring. Third page is either where things go if the red herring gets followed, or is the real secret behind the plot. That of course, then has to be filtered down so that even if it comes up with an entry on the other side of the world, you interpret it to something local - like the foreign traveler the PCs meet, or whatever. You could also pull this kind of trick with a Conan anthology - piece in elements from the first three plots you land on. The same thing works with the 'show me a random story' option at Elfwood - but that of course requires a lot more reinterpretation to get it back to Valdorian themes.

Re: Turakian: Indusharan and women - typo / errata? Tibet had one woman to a group of related husbands in the more rural (by their standards) parts. It was a situation where brothers would share a wife, and I forget if it was from poverty or female survival issues or some third factor - info is probably online. In many cultures lineage is traced in a more logical method than the west uses - through the mother. A woman always knows who her children are after all. But the Indusharans allow men to have multiple wives also, so another form of lineage complication would arise. That said, Hebrews in the ancient world had multiple wives, and that is a culture that still traces lineage in the sensible way - matrilenially. So if we've got any jewish scholars on board here, they might be able to answer how this worked 'in the old days of a few thousand years ago'. I'd call the queen an exception, save that when combined with the multiple husbands, the casual fashions, and the lack of mention outside of page 170 for any negative status for women, it made me wonder. Perhaps a counter to my concern, I couldn't find anything for the other kingdoms in the list either in their entries, however unlike the Indusharans the other entries had nothing indicating any empowering roles for women either - so it could counter my concern, or it could back it by having the exceptions that none of the others do. -shrug- While I can easily fit in a woman Queen in a male dominated society in my mind, it is a little harder when the women are just property, and harder when they can have harems of men. The unusual fashions of the women hint at more liberty for them, but could possibly go either way. On those exceptions, I'm not sure how to visualize this culture anymore.

Re: Turakian: Indusharan and women - typo / errata? The note with the woman who took charge of a kingdom was just that - she did it of her own volition through a declaration that she would be the regent of the former King's unborn child within her womb. When it was revealed that she was in fact not pregnant, while there may have been scandal, her rulership was not challenged, and she simply declared that she was now Queen. The date for that was set to xx96, and the CY is suppossedly 00, so she's been ruler for 5 years in peace. She's just an example that the Indusharans might not be as sexist as 170 claims. 170 mentions the Indusharans as sexist, but within the text of the Indusharan culture and the Indusharan kingdoms, nothing ever repeats that, and there are in fact a number of counter examples. That makes me wonder if some other culture was supposed to be typed on page 170 where the word Indusharan shows up (twice, in single word references each time within a larger list), or if several sections within the culture and the kingdoms need to instead be put into some kind of 'context'. This might perhaps even be a question for Steve Long... ? In short: Do the Indusharans appear on the list by mistake, belonging instead in one of the other lists on that page? Or; Should the notes in the Indusharan culture and kingdoms be instead filtered through an understanding of which list they appeared in on page 170 (namely, the 'repressive list')? If the answer is the second option, at that point we have a community discussion over how to best do that filtering - discussing just what results.

I've found two references to women in the Indusharan culture that seeem to be in conflict with each other.... Turakians Age, page 130, second paragraph under the 'Society' heading notes: "Like the other Indusharan realms, the Halroans follow the Indusharan interpretation of the High Church, which a few Ardunans regard as blasphemous or scandalous. Among other things, their faith allows a man to have up to six wives, depending on his shattri ([see text box on caste system]) and ability to support them. A woman of independant means may, likewise, have up to six husbands if she chooses." Compare the part in bold to page 170, the section on women, second column: "In Khoria, Thun, Indushara, Vuran, and Talarshand, women are essentially regarded as property. Daughter belong to their fathers until marriage, and thereafter to their husbands. A woman generally cannot own anything other than personal property ... and has virtually no legal rights. A woman cannot travel without the accompaniment of a man (usually a relative) ... Women who defy the laws or customs usually find themselves scorned and shunned (at best), whipped, or even stoned to death." etc... Of course, other than the travel restriction and the whipped or stoned to death, this second quote is identical to women in the USA and UK before the 1920s. However, either way, the two passages seem on the face of them to be in conflict. How should we read this? Is one of them a typo, do they mesh in some way we should try to explain, or is there some other interpretation for this? I should note that one of the three Indusharan kingdoms is ruled by a woman who siezed the throne when her husband died and has not, as yet, been deposed. Nothing in the races section hints either way on this, although Indusharan women dress in a manner more revealing than most. Nothing in the nations other than what I quoted seemed to hint at it either way. On the other hand, I may have missed something, having found this at 1:30 am last night right before going to bed... Thoughts?

Re: Original Fantasy Hero The new edition would be very worth it. Spell design and other elements are a lot more flexible. That said, the game -is- larger and more complex. If you can find it, a good entry into the current edition would be Sidekick - a ten dollar shortened version that is still fuller than the original fantasy hero. If after a while you decide you really like Fantasy Hero, I would recommend taking a path into 5e - either through sidekick or the main revised book. You might even want to get the new Fantasy Hero book -before- you get fifth edition rules. The advice in it will be useful for any edition of hero, and the various ways to use this or that power or ability will often be either backwards compatable or back engineerable. You probably won't be able to find errata for the old rules online, but if you ask specific questions such as your phase 12 question many people here have the knowledge to be able to answer.