Just Joe

DC Speed With all of the incredible super-skills and discussion of cinematic drama in DC, I was surprised to see that speed 5 characters are considered rare and speed 6's seem not to be discussed at all (see p. 60 and sample characters). Even as a GM who tends to prefer comparatively low-powered and realistic games, my main objection to high speeds is their effect on movement rate per turn. If I were running a 200 point cinematic or street-level supers game, I'd set the speed NCM at 6 and advise PC's to have speeds of no lower than 4. I might even do this in a 150 point game of the right style. It seems to me that Batman, Captain America, and almost any character played by Steven Segal or Jean Claude Van Damme, for example, should have speeds of 5 or higher.

DC Body There are two characteristics which I believe should be higher in many DC campaigns than the example characters and discussions in the characters suggest: BODY and SPEED. Body can be handled more easily. I suggest that players and GM's simply build PC's (and maybe some special NPC's) with high body. DC pages 188-9 discuss possible rule changes to make NPC's easier to kill compared to PC's. Why not just buy high body for most PC's, who "may get beaten, battered, bruised, and even crippled, but . . . don't die"? (p. 188). 15-20 body should not be rare for characters whose STR, DEX, and CON are in that range. But almost every member of Libra, for example, has BODY as the lowest or tied-for-lowest of his first four characteristics. The only exception still has two of his first three characteristics lower than his body. Building typical thugs in this way (e.g., with just 8 BODY even when their other CHARS are 10-13) can help solve the problems discussed on pp. 188-9. But PC's should have BODY more in line with their other physical characteristics. The tendency to build characters, monsters, and vehicles with what I would consider to be too little body pervades Hero products, and I intend to discuss this in a subsequent thread on the Hero System board, but I found it particularly striking in DC in light of pp. 188-9.

I've only read bits and pieces of DC so far, but so far I'm impressed. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on compliments, however, because I don't think that doing so is very productive. As I proceed with my criticisms, I hope that all readers, and especially Steve, will understand that I respect and admire the book, it's author, and the company, and that my criticisms are intended to be constructive. There is one compliment I will state specifically, however (or perhaps it's more of a thanks). I very much appreciate the way that DC gave suggestions for comparitively realistic gaming. I would not expect or even want most Hero products to be written specifically for those comparitively few of us who prefer more realistic games, but it was nice to have portions written with us in mind.

Re: Hero System is Just Alright With Me If there's a system out there I'd prefer, I haven't seen it, and I'm satisfied enough to have stopped looking. Still, there are dozens of things with which I'm disatisfied. For some of these, I use house rules. For others, I would do so but the inconvenience of using rules not in the rulebook which might raise unanticipated problems seems to outweigh my in-principle preference for them. For still others, I have yet to find a solution I like. An example of the last is that I don't like the way higher speed entails faster movement per turn, but I don't like the consequences of buying down the movement of higher speed characters either. Incidentally, if I can find the time, in the coming days I intend to start a number of threads raising objections and/or suggesting changes. Many of these entered (or re-entered) my mind after reading bits of DC, but some of them have more general application. I stumbled upon this thread while searching for threads that might have already raised some of the issues I intend to raise.

Re: godless fantasy Apologies to all for staying off-topic, but this is where I happened to stumble across Trebuchet, so . . . That might be clear from context not provided here, but the statement in isolation looks to me like it is meant to apply to those who genuinely believe they are doing others a service by pointing out an injustice. In some cases, they might need to be told that their misfortunes are due to an injustice (e.g., disease caused by pollutants) or might need to be told that there is legal recource to address that injustice. And though there are undoubtedly many who exploit the unfortunate (you can add unscrupulous televangelists and other preachers, for example), I'm sure there are also many lawyers, activists, and preachers who act at least partially out of altruistic motives.

Re: godless fantasy [Off Topic]: Actually, many (though certainly not all) who are not well off ARE the victims of injustice, and in TR's time, many of those injustices were horrendous, and were decidedly NOT correctable by hard work.

Re: godless fantasy There are many, many ways of handling these issues, depending on your views about the nature of the gods, their power, and their motivations. For example, maybe the gods don't want everyone to worship them; they might be happy with a small number of devoted worshippers. Maybe they don't care about 'mana pool' purity, or maybe they have their own personal mana pools which cannot be corrupted. The gods might believe (correctly or incorrectly) that their followers will never see themselves as slaves. Note that their followers need not be primarily motivated by power, and even if they are, those followers (a) might not have the aptitude to acquire magical power without divine influence or ( might not be able to acquire particular powers (e.g., healing) without divine influence. Or maybe the gods, as powerful as they are, can't influence our world except through their priests (or it is very difficult for them to do so, or they are reluctant to do so for some other reason). Maybe they ARE trying to wipe out non-priestly magic, but their power (or that which can be projected into this world) is not (yet?) sufficient to succeed. Or maybe the gods are too busy warring against one another (in two or more factions) to expend much energy on non-priestly magic-users. Those are just a few of many possibilities . . .

Re: Murderous intent I like most of what KA has to say, but would like to add one point by way of agreement and one by way of disagreement. The former is that in addition to the reasons KA gives why most criminals don't casually murder, there is the fact that most do not have it in their hearts. Sure, there are plenty of exceptions, but by and large, most criminals don't want to kill people. Even many of those who do kill do so only once in a blind rage, perhaps drunk or otherwise intoxicated. Even murder in cold blood can be done reluctantly, because the murderer feels he has no choice. None of this is intended to excuse murder in any way; it's just meant to point out that even very bad people tend not to want to kill people, even if they think they can get away with it. On the other hand (and in disagreement with KA), I don't think a world with superpowers would have to be terribly corrupt or inefficient for there to be some very nasty murderous supervillains who are not quickly caught. I'd say that all you need is for the superpowers to be powerful enough that normals can do little against supers. From there, you just have to imagine the effects of power on ordinary human nature. Power corrupts, but you don't need all that much corruption. Imagine a world with some very nasty villains, a number of less nasty ones, some greedy non-heroes or marginal heroes who spend most of their time seeking publicity and endorsement contracts, some heroes who are too proud or too suspicious to cooperate well with others, a few rare "heroes" who are secretly corrupt or become so, and a few genuine full-blown heroes. I don't think I've relied on an excessively pessimistic view of human nature, but I do think I've painted a world where the results of high-powered superpowers could be pretty ugly . . .

Re: Should this be called Dark Champions? Ditto on everything Greatwyrm said (except for the autobiographical parts).

Re: Should this be called Dark Champions? I just found out what DC was about tonight after stumbling upon the information on another thread. I will almost certainly buy it now. I had minimal interest in it when I thought it was about supers, as the name certainly suggests. I am disappointed to have missed out on the chance to say what I wanted to see in the book because I thought it was going to be something entirely different.

Re: Where are the low fantasy worlds? For many years, I ran nothing but FH. I would regard most of what I ran (especially since the late 90's) as low fantasy. Some would regard all of it as such. Recently, I have been trying my hand at a 1930's pulpish/horrorish game. As with my FH campaigns, even where there is genuine supernatural, I lean toward comparatively low-powered and realistic games.

Re: Super Monster-Hunters Need Your Help! I have some relevant experience but am far from an authority on the subject. My initial reactions: 1. Heroic 2. 250 points sounds high, especially if you allow multipowers and/or VPP's. I'd suggest 150 or 200. 3. I'd probably allow multipowers, especially if you're doing the design work. I'd be reluctant to allow VPP's, but might allow them if switching points happened slowly (between sessions at least, maybe between adventures) and were restricted so that not all PC's could do the exact same things. You would probably want to have a few standard allocations of the points pre-designed. 4. Think about how important/useful you want guns to be. If the answer is "not very", design your monsters and villains accordingly and design the PC's to have abilities more useful than guns against most of those opponents. 5. As for the supernatural remaining secret, this can be hard to do in a plausible way. But your shadowy government agency is helpful in this regard. It gives the PC's an extra reason to keep a low profile, and its agents can lean on, mislead, and destroy film and video of journalists. Good luck. Sounds fun!

Re: Non-combatant campaigns? Well done, Blue, though I'm left uncertain whether you're making a point or just being entertaining. I think you're mock-example suggests that a game of this sort could be hard to do and certainly shouldn't be too game-mechanics-heavy, but others might draw different conclusions.

Re: Limits on CSL's? General consensus? Though I think several of the suggestions above are helpful (especially the simpler ones, such as the one proposed by Keith Curtis), often the best solution to such problems is GM discretion. You don't (or shouldn't) need a specific rule to prohibit 15 2 pt CSL's or anything else that seems inappropriate for your game. Simply tell the player that it would be unbalancing or unfun or unrealistic (whichever of these applies) or just that it would not work well in your game. That having been said, I do usually give CV guidelines and the like for my campaigns, but these are less important to me than my own subjective judgment. BTW, I'm not sure if you meant to suggest that 2 pt CSL's are useless in defense, but in case you were -- they're great for blocks.

Re: Non-combatant campaigns? I think this kind of game could be fun, and I doubt the system you use matters much. HERO has some basic skills and stats that are relevent (e.g., conversation, persuasion, PRE, maybe EGO and COM) and a few more fine-grained additional skills and game mechanics could help. But mainly it's a matter of role-playing and GM judgment (which has its good side and its bad side). Note that in some settings (e.g., Spanish Inquisition, Stalin's Soviet Union) individual combat prowess might have little significance while social and political intrigue can easily have fatal consequences. And, incidentally, that kind of game would have more appeal to me (as might the police procedural) -- where the PC's cannot be sure of safety from physical violence but will be unwise to employ it themselves except in the most desperate circumstances, and where words and their consequences are the primary threats.

Re: Hattori Hanzo Steel I would be reluctant to add more OCV or DC than +1 each, at least not without placing some kind of limitation on them along the lines of "additional OCV and DCV combined may not exceed wielder's applicable skill levels." My reason is that I doubt the best sword in the world is that much better than a pretty good one unless it is in extremely expert hands (as it was in the movie). I would, however, strongly consider making the weapon armor piercing. This would be effective for destroying other weapons (and for cutting through armor, which fine Japanese swords are said to have done in the feudal era).

I have two kinds of questions about tunnelling. Both relate to the filling in adder in some way. 1. In principle, I can think of three ways a tunnelling power could be set up, and I believe that the rules should allow for all three: a. tunnel cannot be filled in, b. tunnel fills in, c. character chooses when using the power whether or not to fill in. Without the filling in adder, the power is of type a. With the adder, I believe it is of type b. Is there a way to buy type c? Or, if I am mistaken about the adder, then is there a way to buy type b? 2. If a tunnel is not filled in, then someone can follow behind the tunneller. If the tunnel is being filled in, can someone follow immediately behind before it is filled in? "The Spell of Easy Passage" on p. 55 of FHG seems to say they can, but I found nothing in the main rule book that said so. Thanks.

My two cents I think you could run a very interesting game without powers, and powers would run the risk of messing up the game. IF I were to insert powers into a game like this, I would make them subtle and/or require fairly elaborate rituals that take time and materials. I would make powers based on divine or diabolical/demonic influences. If you take this route, do not fall into the trap of thinking that devout priests must have powers. Even if, for example, Roman Catholicism is entirely correct, even the Pope has few if any supernatural powers that living mortals can verify (e.g., we can't tell whether or not absolution and excommunication really work). If powers are rare and not directly linked to religious position, then it can be difficult to tell whether someone's visions are sent by God or by the/a devil. Just my two cents.

Thanks! Thanks to all for your helpful replies. Because of those replies, I will try to pick up Champions Battlegrounds at my FLGS this week. Thanks also to MisterVimes for some nice maps that were easily accessible despite my subpar hardware, software, computer savvy, and internet connection. I hope to check out some of the other recommended sources at another time. Thanks again.

As a GM, there is no resource I desire more than good maps. Those in many Harnworld products (by Columbia Games) are excellent, but I would love to get my hands on others. I'm particularly interested in relatively realistic settings in which FH combat might take place: a castle or keep, a bridge or ford, maybe an inn. Detail is a plus, as is ease of convertability to a HERO-scaled hexmap. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

Did I miss the discussion of this product? Who bought it and what did you think? I have not played Champions in ages, but might buy CB to use the maps for some form of modern HERO game. I was not particularly impressed with the maps in the Hero System Resource Kit and do not want to shell out the dough for this product if it is not worth it. I care about the size, quantity, and quality of the maps and of the supporting information that does not pertain to a particular adventure of scenario (e.g., defenses and armor of doors shown, maybe suggested number and type of employees in a business). A secondary question: does anyone have recommendations of other (HERO or other) sources for good maps of an appropriate scale for HERO combat (not a whole city, for example)?

According to your answer, the character can use his 3-point CSL's in blades to add to his DCV even when he is performing a manuever (dodge) that does not directly use a blade. Does he at least have to be holding a blade? If so, would it be sufficient to have a knife in his off-hand? For example, could a right-handed character use these CSL's to add to his DCV against a HTH attack while firing a gun (point blank) with his right hand and holding a knife in his left?

I would be glad to hear Steve's answer (among others') to this question, but I have not posted it on the Rules Questions Board because I think it is more a matter of context and judgment than strict rules-interpretation: How should one handle a "sucker punch"? I am envisioning a case in which two characters are talking, possibly about to shake hands, when one suddenly punches the other. The most obvious possible answers are surpised-out-of-combat, surprised-in-combat, and surprise manuever. Presumably how wary the target is affects the answer. In at least some such cases, a PER roll seems in order, but how would one handle this? The target does not seem to need merely to see the attack, but to see it in time to react. How much time he needs to react seems to be affected by DEX, but in the system DEX does not seem to come into play (if he has a held action or can abort, then any DEX will do; if not, then it seems that no DEX can be high enough).

Bruno has two 3-point CSL's with blades. He is using a sword in HTH combat against a club-wielding enemy. If Bruno dodges, can he use these two CSL's to add to his DCV (for a total of +5 DCV, including the +3 for dodge)? Why or Why not?

Atlas of World Revolutions? Please tell me more about the Atlas of World Revolutions. Who published it? Do you know if it's in print? Is it specifically an RPG resource or is it a "regular" book?