Doc Democracy

Re: Question on Elemental Controls

Re: Question on Elemental Controls

Re: Variation on Game Mechanics: Dice Pool The other thing you might do to avoid the swap low damage dice for high to to hit dice and vice versa is to switch the to hit formula so that you need to roll over a number rather than under to hit, making high dice valuable all the time...that makes the pool less valuable... Doc

Re: Horror for Superheroes.

Re: Horror for Superheroes. I think the horror genre is almost the antithesis of the superhero one. In my opinion the central facet of horror stories is the removal of control from the player. There is something going on, something awful, and they can't do anything about it. Of course for a good game there has to be something to do but on the face of it there is not. In a superhero world the heroes have powers that allow them to overcome such things so it is more difficult to put such players (coherently within the framework of a story) in a control free environment. I'm not a fan of the horror genre but one of my most successful games came with a haunted house scenario when I introduced the Black Enchantress to my campaign (a much more powerful version who got de-powered in the course of the scenario). Essentially I introduced a house where the players knew that there was something powerful in the basement. The players explored the house looking for clues and I slowly closed off their options to leave (despite them blasting stuff and kicking in doors they always found another room or the first room they had come into. Eventually they decided just to leave (through the door? what door? The window? What window?) and the only route open to them was towards the red light emanating from the basement. It was kind of a railroad scenario based on Mental Illusions so powerful that I just didn't bother rolling dice. There was one moment that they could have escaped - when the martial artist used his Chi powers to protect his mind and found the true extent of destruction they had caused - the lack of the horror accoutrements I had been describing and an open door. He switched it back off to see whether everything was still there and found he could not switch the defence back on (powerful Mind Control stopped that!). It took all the actual control away from the players, they were in an isolated environment with a powerful enemy they didn't want to fight straight up and they slowly had all their options stripped away from them. Being a superhero story however they did manage to defeat the viallin with a straight up fight (obviously!). Doc

Re: Intelligent Computer Virus

Re: Long Distance Gaming You might want to take a look at this thread. Doc

Re: Intelligent Computer Virus I think Treb has the rights of it - excellent advice deserves rep - and you shouldn't worry too much about the mechanics of people turning into thralls unless this is going to be a long running story and the mechanics are going to be central to it. I would be inclined to do the Summon for all of the Thralls (the transform would convert the target into a pod from which the Thrall would emerge). Obviously the Transform power of Thralls summons a lesser Thrall and the transform power of the lesser Thrall summons a minor Thrall. Thus a target would be transformed into a pod which would be necessary for a Thrall to be summoned. It keeps everything quite simple. The size of the Transform depends on how quickly you want the virus to take effect. You could have a continuous uncotrollable attack that begins working on the victim and slowly shows their skin becoming tougher and less flexible until they are just a swollen pod. That triggers the Summon, that was used in a multiattack with the transform, and the pod splits to reveal a Thrall of one form or another. Cool concept - may have to rep you too.... Doc

Re: Choking The Life Out Of Someone I think because of the ruling that hit location penalties stay the same? That more than overwhlems a normal OCV...

Re: Quick Question This is a classic case of for a two slot multipower. If attacking multiple people then he should use his area effect and if attacking a single person multiple times then switch to the autofire. If he wanted to attack two people multiple times then I might allow him to use his area effect with rapid attack (I think that's right) same power fired twice up to an agreed maximum (for the number of tentacles). Doc

Re: Another SPD thread Anything that makes combat more fun has to be a good thing!

Re: Another SPD thread

Re: Another SPD thread So, if someone with a long weapon wanted to gain some distance or someone with a short weapon wanted to close, how did you adjudicate that? I was thinking of introducing a close/separate manoeuvre. This would be a manoeuvre that allowed you to control the distance at which you fight. The manoeuvre would be in lieu of attacking but the successful combatant would dictate the fight distance until someone else changed it. I might do this with changes in SPD rather than DEX but good idea. Doc

Re: Another SPD thread And most welcome. Thank you. Doc

Re: Another SPD thread Interesting idea. So of everyone was base SPD 3, then someone meeting the DEX and STR minima could attack 6 times a round rather than just 3 times as they'd be able to use the rapid attack each phase. I might use that in a more limited form - allowing one, two or three 'free' rapid attacks depending on characteristics etc. Thanks Doc

Re: Another SPD thread

Re: Another SPD thread Well, I wanted the look and feel of the Glorantha I liked playing in. In that system they used a strike rank system. Each weapon had a strike rank that was added to the base strike rank of the character (defined through DEX and SIZ). That meant that some characters could pick up a small (low SR) weapon and attack twice or even three times in a round while others would only be able to attack once (poor DEX and low SIZ). Missile weapons had no SIZ SR and with only DEX to consider often went three times in a round for a character who could only attack once in melee. It worked in the game and I wanted a similar look and feel (even if it does mean I'll do a lot of base work trying to balance things out). Initiative just doesn't cut it - but thank you for the first attempt to stop me doing the work! Doc

Different this time though (I hope). I'm not talking about getting rid of the SPD chart or doing other funky stuff with it. Instead I'm talking about changing the way it is used in the game. I've been wrestling with how I want to use Hero to play in Glorantha. I am currently thinking about combat and how weapons seem pretty much the same in most systems and don't provide much extra colour until you get to the fancy magical ones. I was thinking of making the heroes base 3 SPD for just about everything in the system (we can work movement and everything else based on that). In combat however I was thinking of giving weapons particular combat speeds. So a broad sword - the base weapon would be SPD 3, a dagger would be SPD 4 a short bow would be SPD 6 etc etc. (These are notional values - I haven't set anything in stone yet - I thought I'd run the idea through here first) I was thinking that I could give each weapon STR and DEX minimums. For each minimum that you don't have the combat speed of the weapon decreases. If you have enough extra DEX then you can increase the combat speed of the weapon (removing any need to mess around with the price of DEX). I was also thinking that armour would need a STR minimum else your base combat speed would be reduced as well. I thought of this on the way into work this morning on the tube. I'm hoping that people will be able to tell me why this is a terrible idea so that I don't have to go to all the work of designing the armoury for Glorantha... Doc

Re: Advantagous sfx I'd have repped him but I'm out for the day - will have to wait and join the list...

Re: Advantagous sfx And as long as you understand you are wrong then me and Sean will be happy.

Re: Advantagous sfx Exactly - powers limit or remove the ability to perform cambat manouevres not SFX, powers. Those points you spent on the powers are allowing you to get an advantage the SFX that you didn't spend points on should not be as effective as the powers... Doc

Re: What would you use to demo, HERO? I'd start heroic (Pulp preferably) and move to supers - the change is then a matter of "Wow - so many points" rather than "We only get HOW many?" Doc

Re: Advantagous sfx Zen Zornwil.

Re: Advantagous sfx

Re: Advantagous sfx I thought that I'd quote the part of the original mail that started Sean off (on this topic anyway) Now to me that reads like an absolute that is granted to some SFX that trumps the grabber and other people with the same power that have different SFX. As I say - I think Sean has a legitimate grievance. He hasn't announced that all SFX advantages be abolished (alongside their disadvantages). He has also said that he likes the wiggle room that SFX can give to a GM looking to apply a small advantage or penalty to a player. However, as read, the SFX here completely negate another players advantage - they allow the user of that SFX to escape grabs for free (very useful if you don't have to worry about one of the main combat manouevres. If it had said that some SFX provide extra dice to escaping a grab then I don't think that Sean would be so concerned - that'd be obvious.... Doc