Doc Democracy

Re: Bringing new players to HERO System.

Re: New Guy Name Can't believe no-one suggested Soul Man! Doc

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things?

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things? Oh! He saw my characteristics and raised skills. Do I see, call or fold? Yeah - I can see something like that but it would take a major re-write of the rules or a lot of work from the GM. And that is the kind of hook that people looking at Hero don't feel. They think superheroes and want to think about the cool powers that they'd have. Instead they are presented with screeds and screeds of detail like 3D6 RKA AP, no range, 0 END etc etc Takes the romance out of using a Plasma blowtorch in a ruck in space... Doc

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things? I think Hugh is right. It's one of the things that's always bothered me when designing characters and something I've always tried to address when playing Champions.

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things?

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things? My concern is that people add things to characteristics because they are there rather than for any other reason - they don't want to miss out. Would the system be more streamlined if people only bought stuff as the character demanded? Not sure if that's as clear written down as it is in my head! It is crystal in there.... Doc

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things? As I said before though, if everyone has them to the same, or similar enough fashion, do they have to be on the character sheet? My aim in life is to have a character sheet that someone new to the game could pick up and use effectively without an integral knowledge of the game. I suppose it doesn't require no characteristics but I was thinking that removing another set of things to think about it makes the system as a whole easier to digest. If I ever come up with such a character sheet then I shall be sure to post it!

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things? Personally?? Only the interesting things... Doc

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things? I guess I have never migrated characters from one GM to another. I've never been in the position to as I've always run the games and so such considerations are not important to me. Seems to me though that most groups have house rules that they use and it'd be no more difficult negotiating published house rules than it would home-grown ones. Doc

Re: Do characteristics break the Hero way of doing things?

I was just reading the thread by Acid Crash on using EGO instead of STR to calculate REC and was taken by the title of the thread. We are all aware that the basic construction of powers often throws people new to Hero as powers are based on effect rather than on the name of the power. If the effect of the power is to damage something then you want to look at energy blast or killing attack regardless of the special effects. If the effect is to restrict someone's movement then you use entangle. This is one of the base 'rules' of the system. Looking at the characteristic system I'm not sure that this is more of a hangover from old systems (starting with D&D) than a true representation of the Hero System at work. Strength - what is it. Well often the first clause in any argument of what strength would contribute to is "someone who is strong is often..." Complete opposite to the way that anything else is designed in the system. So I thought about it. In all the characteristics the system looks at the characteristic and what is does before assigning game effects. I think that a true representation of the system would be to make all the effects of characteristics into powers and to get rid of the characteristics. Easier said than done though! The presence of characteristics is something that causes huge arguments and probably contributes more to skew in the system than anything else. As you can probably tell by now - I haven't got some system all thought out in my head - I'm writing as I think - but getting rid of characteristics would be a fantastic opportunity to streamline the system. There could be a generic contest formula - regardless of whether you were using skills or combat that could be influenced by the proper powers. There would be no more concerns about whether strength should be 1 point per point or more than that or what characteristics influenced others. Maybe I should go and think more about this? Doc (brainstorming after his first coffee)

Re: Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations? Hmmm. Interesting as the discussion has been to read I'm not sure you are arguing about a wide application power (that was once a skill) that is not conducive to detailed applications - kind of like affect desolid. Perhaps you want to allow people to buy find weakness only if they define the special effects in advance (and also buy lack of weakness only with a special effect). Personally I don't like to use them together except when I change the rules of the Find Weakness. When I use Find Weakness with hit locations I rule that each successful application of Find Weakness allows the attacker to modify the to hit roll be 1. To me that means that the Find Weakness allows the attacker to better apply the effects of any hits that he scores - vitals rather than leg etc etc. Doc

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept? Now if I _knew_ you were going to read what I wrote I might have cleared up a few more of those 'tricky' problems...

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept? This is one of those arguments that seem on the outside to be rational but really aren't at all. The main point revolves around whether morality is absolute or relative. In our reality it is relative. An evil action from one perspective may not be evil from another. In this reality any such concept as evil race is racist. In fantasy realities - where magic works and Gods break your windows if you dis them - morality is often absolute. Those born into a race that follows an evil God will be evil - if the children are raised among good god-fearing folks then that child will revert to type. It can do nothing else - though it may rail and agonise over it. In this kind of reality the concept is not racist - it is a reflection of everyday knowledge. Absolute morality as a concept makes stories easier - no worries about whether killing is correct or not - your target is evil and deserves to die. In our games it is difficult to keep moral relativism out of it and, if we are in any way educated, situations are more interesting if you can introduce even mild shades of grey. So. There is no yes/no answer to the title question. It depends! Doc

Re: Dramatic Hooks? Hmm. I think you could do lots using disadvantages as well. The X2 STUN and x2 BODY stuff could be quite important if they applied to attacks against you in fights where your Hooks did not apply.... Doc

Re: What the heck is BODY anyways? In my games I always explained it as life force. How strongly your soul is attached to your physical body. I also used it to make high BODY characters more difficult to keep down - so recovery intervals below zero were based on multiples of BODY rather than multiples of 10. Doc

Re: Power duration As an alternative - and the one that often causes groans - is transform. What about adding one or two psych disads for slavishly loyal etc etc with the condition that if the transform isn't broken some other way it will disappear in two weeks (reasonably common condition there). By putting psych disads there is some leeway for characters trying to resist their new psyche (with EGO rolls etc) and it should test the roleplaying muscles of any players so caught. Just an alternative thought... Doc

Re: When Heroes become Villians I've been running a club for kids for a few years now and their immediate instincts are to the darker side of actions. It's understandable - they are 12-15 year old boys and their thoughts run amok. I wince when watching their games trying to remember those long ago years when I was their age - wondering whether my friends were any less bloodthirsty! Anyway - its been a long time but they have responded to in-game prompts. they know that I prefer a heroic style of game and they understand that heroic actions garner not only preferntial treatment but avoid the full weight of the law coming down upon them. When they suggest doing something reprehensible I repeat the action to them in the form of a question and almost invariably they now change their actions. When they don't they know that the game world they play in will not tolerate their action and their characters will suffer - but sometimes they want that kind of session for a while. Doc

Re: That is Entertainment …… Yeah - there is a lot made of bards being rogues with a lute but I think that the true focus of the bard is his cultural role as newsbringer - tale rememberer - and lore master (not the magicla kind of lore but everything else). I think bards are the people that are the ties that bind an ancient community. They are the ones that teach the histories of the nation and so are the ones that control the political feelings. I can see why they would be valued and distrusted by rulers. I think that the view of bards has been skewed by D&D despite their efforts to correct it. I love the idea of a bard but it is difficult to make it work in a D&D game unless the campaign is based around a bard and the other party members travelling with him adventuring as they go.

Re: A Modern League of Extroardinary Gentlemen Good call! I'd ignored our optically challenged magic user.... ...but no Steve Austin? EDIT: You gotta have a techno somewhere - even if it is macguyver!!

Re: Campaigns that you miss... I miss the first PBeM that I ever did. It was called Omega Justice and had a huge cast. There were some fantastic characters in the line-up and everyone seemed to be on the ball. The game fell over when the GM decided he'd had enough (a hugely reasonable decision after running a few of my own!). Deejay - who collated a huge number of Hero based write ups - played in the campaign and several of the characters are listed on his site (now hosted by Shelley). http://www.mactyre.net/scm/deejay/champs/teams/omega_justice.html Doc

Re: A Modern League of Extroardinary Gentlemen

Re: A Modern League of Extroardinary Gentlemen Hmmm. Part of the fun of the league was that the people in it were actually extraordinary. I suppose you would have to give the above actual powers - Crowley would be able to use magic - Tesla would control electricity - possibly to the extent of electric touch though in a lower key game simply influencing its flow through circuits. I think Roosevelt/Clemens/Kipling/Lawrence kind of duplicate each other - boys own heroes perhaps but nothing that you could really tag on as extraordinary. I think one of them would be necessary but all four would be overblown. So. Who else?? I think, in the vein of the originals you have to look at modern literature for your extraordinary characters. You could replace the Roosevelt etc with James Bond - an obvious modern literary character to do that. You would add Steve Austin (or if you want to be derivative Jake 2.0) and possibly Knight Rider or Airwolf though I think I'd prefer Macguyver in that role. I'm struggling to think of a few more without straying into sci-fi stuff... Doc

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate