Doc Democracy

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate It's funny that D20 people would say the same about HERO.

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate Happens so eaqsily doesn't it! I guess D20 is always going to be the main comparator because it is the main system out there that people play. A big difference can be the work you have to put in. With D20 the 'work' is more likely to be fun as you read through descriptive passages on how to do stuff - like Tetsuji's 'That's Impossible' feat example. People get excited about the genre as they read about the cool stuff. In Hero, with just FRED then the work is very much about creating the framework of the genre and players seeing what they can and cant spend. I understand why people think that HERO is a soulless system. I don't agree but it is a perception I understand people coming to. 2D6 RKA, AP, beam, 16 charges (recoverable) is so much more informative but so much less romantic than Plasma rifle.

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate Hero _is_ hard. The very thing that makes Hero an attractive system to those that like it is what makes it a hard system. Nothing in Hero is 'given' to you. You have to make decisions and think, in advance, about what you want everything to do. Now, for a tinkerer, that is heaven itself. You don't want vanilla, or any other pre-prepared flavour, you want to come up with the precise flavour yourself. For other people that simply want to tick of a list of options then it is hassle incarnate. "I only want to be able to throw flames from my hands, for God's sake, why are you asking me all these questions!!!" For the Hero enthusiast it is important to know whether the player _wants_ his flames to cause knockback and BODY. It is important to know whether he wants to be able to focus the flames or to easily spread them to damage lots of people, whether he wants the flames to damage everyone in a line or simply the target in the distance. And does it make you tired?? Lots of different cost considerations there... I think we have to understand that not everyone gets a rush from understanding the mechanics behind the powers. There is also the different mechanical resolutions and characteristic uses. Yes, I know, its not huge but it is something that comes up. CV is characteristic/3 while skills are characteristic/5, combat uses the CV with an 11 while skills use the characteristic/5 with a 9. Dice counting is difficult as it is taking two values from the same set of dice rather than just one. Obviously all of these difficulties are relative and you wouldn't be playing the game if you thought they were unnecessary but each little thing adds up in people's minds, 'specially when they've all heard that the system is hard. If you have problems with prospective players then there are two options as I see it. The first is to identify those people you _know_ are tinkerers and show them the level of detail that they can bring to their character to make them different from everyone elses. The second is to hide enough of the mechanics to make it look no more complex than your average D20 character sheet. The secret of selling something to an audience is to give them what they want. Hero allows you to give people exactly what they want - it _is_ more work than other systems but ultimately more satisfying. If you want to make it look easy then cover up all the nuts and bolts and play the game but don't expect people brought up on checklist style games to think that the elegant (detailed) power construction you've provided them with is easier or better than Flame Projection (hands). Doc

Re: Disadvantage/Limitation: Accidental Discharge

Re: How not to come up with a magic system! It's actually one of the systems that I have never owned or played... You LOVE it, don't you. I always work on the principle that Hero players are the ultimate tinkerers and love thinking of different ways the system might be used... Doc

Re: Help w/a power

Re: Open or hidden dice I think that Dust Raven has written down my opinion before I realised what it was! As a GM my role is to provide the characters with a plot that they can interact with. As the author it is within my purview to decide what elements are essential to the story and thus what elements the characters cannot actually change. It is also my role to identify those places where the characters can change events if they do the right things - some of those places might be decided on actions and some might be dependent on how well those actions are carried out. It is the last places that are open to chance and randomness and probably those places that the dice are necessary. My own personal view is that those random occasions are then enhanced by the players being able to see the dice rolled and understanding that we are all bound by chance at that moment.

Re: Exerience Wish List/Character Creation Question I'm inclined - in the next game that I GM - to institute a zero power growth game where experience will instead be spent in contacts, reputation and knowledge skills. I'm going to try and base it on the Golden Heroes system but I want to encourage my heroes to become part of whatever community they hold most sacrosanct. I will give them more points to begin with and I will allow radical re-writes as part of 'radiation accidents' and any power advancement might come in a step-wise fashion if I decide to move their opponents to a new level then I will facilitate a mass radiation accident where they will all be able to grow in power to meet the new campaign limits. I think it would be interesting as it would direct the growth more to integrating themselves into the social fabric of teh campaign rather than trying to beat things into submission. Doc

Re: How not to come up with a magic system! Oh yeah - you could have a cumulative transform whenever exposed to the leyline energy - no defences if you are using it to power spells etc. Different leylines could have different effects and you could have it as something on the character sheet - Corruption [5] - once the corruption score is 2x the characters BODY then whatever you wish that to do happens. Obviously the corruption score will decrease as time passes thus allowing the character to once again venture close to the leylines and perhaps even tap them. I think that giving all powers a burnout chance if they boost their power using the leylines is a good idea - possibly a side effect for backlash etc. Lots of potential for tactical thinking and colourful magic. Doc

Re: Open or hidden dice I find myself rolling dice constantly just to make sure that the players aren't aware of when I'm actually rolling for a purpose! It means that when I roll a dice and ask them what they are doing they don't immediately go into full red alert (unless they are new to the group). I think they are beginning to realise its when I stop rolling that something is going to happen - as the dice (and the result of them) are visible for all to see....

Re: How not to come up with a magic system! Definitely feasible. I think from the background the leylines etc sound like they should charge up the endurance reserves and perhaps even provide aid for those spells the casters already know - thus you would have powerful wizards building their towers on power nodes and when they are home they would be far more powerful than outside their tower. The leylines would be an interesting tactical feature in any map provided to players. Doc

I moved this from the thread concerning plot device. I thought it might be interesting to find out what people do. Now personally I have always rolled the dice in front of my players. I require them to show me their rolls and I show them all of mine. Sometimes this means that the plot is derailed due to a bad roll but I often blame myself for that as I allowed that possibility to exist - that is why we use a randomiser after all. I hate it when the GM 'saves' my character by dishing out puny damage when I know I should be dead or dying. If I did something stupid then my character should die - if I've suffered due to something arbitrary then I expect the GM to come up with something clever to even things up or to give me a break when making my next character. The Hero System is good in that it is very difficult to accidentally kill someone - unless you are looking at supers versus normals and then it comes down to stupidity on behalf of me (for not making it clear they are facing normnals) or players (for not taking the hint) when someone dies. I know some of my friends come from different traditions and so in some games we play with open dice rolls and in others we play with hidden - though I notice that players rolls are _never_ hidden... I was wondering what people did and why. Doc

Re: Help w/a power

Re: Darts I think that the problem here is focussing too much on how the darts actually work in real life - sharp point breaking the skin and delivering the real damage - the poison. An example might be a killing poison delivered by blow gun. I could have the poison be an RKA AVLD - where the defence would be +1 for every point rolled above 3 and combat skill level held by the opponent - so a roll of 14 would give a defence of 11 versus the RKA. That would indicate the fact that the closer I got to 3 the more chance there was that I was able to get a good hit and deliver the poison properly. Plenty of other ways to do it but I'd try and make armour worn by opponents part of the to hit roll rather than competing against the damage....

Re: How would I represent this in HERO Sounds very much like a life support type power. A limited 'Does not need sleep'. Doc

Re: Plot device or by the rules I recognise myself in that! I think Zornwil and Dust Raven hit it on the head for me. If I think that the story demands that something happens then it will happen - as GM I will accept player responses and might even allow them to roll the dice but it _will_ happen. Hopefully their repsonses will elicit them information that will lead them to an eventual answer but it's not necessary.

Re: Alignments

Re: What about the warriors This is another fantasy cliche that you might want to promulgate in your game but I think is unfair on all other archetypes. All fantasy types seemed to have unnatural longevity. Look at Conan. Your example of a 70 year old pro boxer would be just as relevant to 70 year old scientists. Damn few 70 year old scientists produce anything like their best work in their later years. Indeed, like sportsmen, if they haven't achieved something fantastic by the time they are 35-40 it is extremely unlikely they will do so. However, like I said, this IS fantasy and I'd allow all my players to continue spending experience - though require maturity in how they do it and how they present the improvements. Doc

Re: A question about the origin of the term "Ultra" slot The problem with a written down construction like that is that it would invalidate the classic Ultra Boy trap - dropping a mountain on top of him. Under the mountain he is quite safe as his invulnerability keeps him that way but he can't escape as switching to strength would leave him open to being crushed by the mountain.... Not a problem for a comic-book writer but you just _know_ a player would exploit it!! Doc

Re: Teleportation, useable as an attack...

Re: Help Name an Online Superhero Magazine. I've always liked 'Masks'.

Re: What's the best method of introducing HERO System to newbies My approach - and it has worked with 14 year olds - is to let them play the game before they see the system. There are obvious bits of the system they need to know - CV, DEF, STUN, BODY and END if they are going to actually play the game but everything else can quite easily be hidden. The first game I ran with the kids had no killing attacks in it (kept away from two kinds of damage) and didn't differentiate between PD and ED. That way they could concentrate on hitting and keeping track of STUN/BODY and END. As Steve said - I used pre-gens for them all - though I had canvassed them on the kind of character they wanted and sat with them for ten minutes each discussing what they wanted their character to be like. I also made up my own character sheet so that the only detail on it was detail they needed to know. I avoided mechanics based descriptions ie there was no 8D6 AP 0END, Instead it was 'Laser Blast (8D6) - halves opponents defence and doesn't tire you.' It was only when they began to want to make their own character they needed to go into the system details and it was then I'd have appreciated Sidekick! It'll be easier next time with Sidekick as an extra small step in the initiation process. Essentially I made it look as much like D20 as I possibly could. They took to it like ducks to water.

Re: "No Lock Can Hold Me" Power You could look at the possibility of a multipower that has desolid and tunnelling (invisible power effects) as ultras and possibly other twists on the whole escape thing that you need to model. Tunnelling through a door would provide access for all those other people without getting insanely expensive. You could even limit the multipower by requiring a lockpicking/escapology skill roll on any power used.