Doc Democracy

The answer is about 0.65 seconds. A SPD 6 character running at 40m goes 40m in 2 seconds. So would go 13m. This will vary with running and SPD of each character in working out how far they move in 0.65 seconds....but as Christopher says, we are not doing physics, we are playing a game. I would fudge towards reasonable feats for heroic purposes, possibly giving harder rolls the bigger the stretch being asked by the player.

I think air resistance is not the key rate limiting step here. I think your velocity will reduce slightly over time, the big factor is how quickly gravity slams you into the ground. Essentially, your basic leap gives you 2m up. Gravity immediately begins to drop you toward the ground. Your velocity is likely to stay constant until you hit the ground. I will go work out how long it takes to fall 2m. 🙂

The difference between running and swimming in this case is that to leap up, a runner is changing direction, the swimmer, coming from depth maintains the same direction. Running is 2D movement and swimming is 3D. I would give someone running a boost to their horizontal leap due to the momentum they posses. As far as water goes, I was not talking about the general drag but the "surface tension" issue of leaving the water, it would be that which reduced the momentum. Doc

I am inclined to go all SFX on this and not require additional powers for things that make sense. A motorcycle running up a ramp would also get no ability to leap over a row of buses? Evel Kneivel would have been devastated... Now, how far is a really difficult question because water is a real drag, submarines would not leap far and I do think dolphins do have a leap ability that adds to their velocity. I would be meaner than @unclevlad for that reason, I might give him about 5m.

It is interesting, my group has a lot of passive agents too. I am 100% active and it makes me wonder how much in-game conversation you have compared to player conversation. We are probably 40/60 or lower but it means I drive the game narratively by laying out options and opportunities and then doing in character talk (and sometimes rolls) to provoke action. I find they go along massively, just as readily as they frustrate passively. I almost always have to play a face character to allow me to do that. It is almost impossible when I am GM unless I railroad them but sometimes they even seem to enjoy that. Doc

It was the height of the Silver Age, comics did not, on the whole, take themselves seriously at that time. There were some classic stories during that time that gave rise to stories that were more adult, where the art was actual art and a desire to create things that would merit collecting. It is sad that this drive for quality shrunk the market and priced out multitudes of future comicbook readers. I held out against Baxter versions for years, until it was all I could buy but continuity and crossovers pushed me to buying only back issues and trade paperback collections.

If I am, I am doing an incredibly bad job of saying things!! 🙂 I have read a LOT of Batman and fewer Joker stories. I have read great Joker stories and some awful ones. I think, in the good stories, more than any other member of the rogues gallery, Joker is the antithesis of Batman. It is that direct contrast that often makes the story a good one, the opposite throwing the heroic into sharp relief. I agree with @Christopher R Taylor that writers got into a bit of a bidding war in how far they could take chaotic evil and a lot of that almost glories in the anarchy rather than in the heroics necessary to remedy it. In the Dark Knight film, when Joker left Batman with the dilemma of which of two bombs he would choose to defuse, who he would allow to die, classic Batman would have had a contingency to cut the Gordian knot and prevent both bombs. THAT is why he is a SUPERhero, not one of your run of the mill heroes. The Joker gives the writer free rein to imagine excesses, it is his job however to ensure he gives the Batman a way to rein that it. any sacrifice should be personal. If it came to it, Batman would die and save both people. I hate that they wanted to make drama by having the Hero fail. If I pulled that crap in a fame, my players would string me up and it demonstrates to me, again and again that the big studios fundamentally do not understand superheroes.

I understand the desire and I might even be interested in a one-shot story. However, to me, that moves the Joker away from that archetypal entity I was talking about and potentially from being as interesting. Like superman being a bad guy. I enjoyed reading the first Injustice series, I powered through the second one and never touched another. Superman is interesting to me because he is an archetype of good. The most powerful being in the universe and he ties his own hands and will rescue kittens as happily as stand up to Darkseid. These stories, if written well can be intriguing and reflect in useful ways on the mainstream archetypal delivery of the character we usually get. It helps define and redefine that archetype because you can see what might be were he not so archetypal. However, I like my clear boundaries. I like my heroes and villains. I like the straightforwardness of it when real life is showing me ever murkier shades of grey. I suppose that is why I am not concerned by the Joker as a villain. He is not real, I do not equate him with people in the real world, he is, in my mind, supposed to be pure evil (something I might find difficult to say about any of my real world villains) and the claims in comic and in commentary about mental illness and everything else is the potential inadequacy of our society to really handle quintessential evil. We look for reasons and patterns and potential redemption. Obviously US culture is significantly different from the UK and EU in this respect as we do not consider the death penalty as compatible with human rights, the most fundamental of those being the right to life. It is not, here in the UK, within the state's gift to, judicially, decide to remove that right. In the US, it would be inconceivable that the Joker would not face the death penalty, even after just one story, so, if he is to be available for future stories, he needs to either not be caught or designated in some way that avoids that judicial process. Getting back to the point, if the Joker became a superhero, who would he be fighting against? What would the competing tropes be? Who would be his nemesis? Or, in other words, what would be the point? The suggestion that Batman created the Joker is almost true. Batman is less intriguing without a rogues gallery and for that gallery to be in rotation is satisfying for readers. It is not Batman that created the Joker, it is the mythic structure of the stories. You could write stories where Batman combatted organised crime and petty criminals and delivered them to the justice system but you might as well write Law and Order. Superheroes do not exist in the real world and to read their stories you need to suspend disbelief not just that a man could fly, but that real world consequences have no place in mythic tales. You might as well ask why Odin never simply killed Loki, it was pretty obvious it was all going to end badly...

If they killed off the Joker, then the comics would have Joker knock-offs filling the space. Batman is an archetype and his stories need opposing archetypes for him to work. If not the Joker then some other character of a similar archetypes who might as well be called the Joker. I don't like comic book continuity, it skews too many things as time goes on and the players neither age, grow or change. If there was no continuity, then there would not be 1000's of Jokercrelated deaths over decades, just the potential victims in this story. I like superhero stories, always have. I don't mind them re-using villains in the same way I don't mind them using the same heroes, I know what I am expecting. The same as when the daleks or cybermen turn up in Dr Who. In a superhero game, I only repeat a villain if the players demand it, otherwise I undermine their successes. The problems with Joker and Batman stem mostly from continuity which demand they explain things and connect them to stories from before. The need for grimdark nonsense drives some of it. As for the neural health thing, there is an argument that anyone who commits a drive is mentally ill. Folk use crazy and mentally ill epithets too easily (in comics AND real life). I take the comic-book diagnosis of Joker's mental illness with the same scepticism as when he us declared medically dead, open to question. To me, he represents an archetype of fear and chaos which manifests in a variety of ways. I enjoy the stories that emerge from putting such an archetype into a place like Gotham and how it's archetype of justice and retribution engages with those results while sticking to a principled refusal to take a life. Doc

Probably a common thing - superhero games are difficult to run and difficult to get players properly bought into because they are different from what people expect. Cinematic mythic stories where the powers are emblems of the archetypes represented - not sure HERO actually captures this aspect of superheroes. I think HERO is best in delivering the Indiana Jones and other pulp larger than life adventures where the supernatural mixes with the mundane.... Doc

I dismiss this response as Duke has never been a massive comics fan anyway - losing a great villain would be of no value to him!! 😄 This is a more literate argument against Joker stories. I think I still disagree - am not sure the Joker is presented as mentally ill - he is, like the heroes, an archetype of chaos. And comic books stories are all about archetypes - something the evil Superman trope fails to accept. This, to me, is a symptom of written comic books rather than anything to do with criminal justice in Gotham. An argument against superhero comics really. I think I would miss them.

Absolutely. However, this is not a line those that run with the "good guys are stupid" line would use. They rationalise that Batman would do more good by killing the Joker. I say writers want the Joker alive for more stories, you say the same, even to the point of resurrecting the Joker. Batman killing the Joker only muddies his status as a hero, it would have no impact on whether he killed again, writers want iconic bad guys.

I think that is fine, unlike defending an attack, this is denying a movement power. I think I might go for Change Environment if it was a power that could be used in game. If it is something in a scenario, I might give a player a roll to notice a material difference and simply rule it not versus clinging (though would have heavy SFX rationale and some clinging, depending on SFX might work).

I would be happy to consider Healing as doing BODY, it just happens to be adding rather than subtracting. 😁

It has been mentioned a few times, some folk wanting to use the dice rolled to count BODY as if a normal attack, some content to use the BODY healed for knock back purposes. I think for simplicity purposes, you roll the dice, find out how much BODY people will be healed or will be used to determine knock back. Personally, I think that if you create a wave of healing energy, then it will heal and knock back regardless of whether there are people to heal or people to knock back in the affected area. The big takeaway is that it is pretty much a GM call on how they want their game to run. Doc

There is no doubt, in these days of multitudes of game systems that it is easier to get a system better suited to the intended game but the problem is often those dammed player preferences. sometimes you need to put the effort in and compromise on the system. 🙂 I reckon I would be OK with providing cantrips to players with the SFX of powders and potions. I think sorcerors should be mainly NPCs and, in their lair, might be able to almost free cast within a specific school of magic. Outside their lair, they may have one or two pre-prepared spells, at least one of which would be to escape a bad situation. You never WANT to deal with a sorcerer, it should be seen as almost suicidal, unless you have learned a weakness, or you simply intend to steal from them, not to confront. for a PC sorcerer, I would be looking at extending casting times, probably into multiple minutes and hours. I would be looking for the player to be mortgaging their soul for power, like the bad guys do, creating the weaknesses that random adventurers ight discover and exploit. A powerful sorcerer should be like an over-extended private equity firm where one bad investment might start a failure cascade. There will be rituals to keep up, debts to be maintained, objects to be found and places to be visited or the PC will have to repay in ways he never wanted to consider when getting the power to summon that huge earth Elemental... Doc

My definition is that the optimiser is looking for things to be more fun for everyone, including the GM. The power gamer is willing to sacrifice everyone else's fun to maximise their own. Doc

I reckon I could buy into a human fighter game. I think you would need to consider how you provide for the things D&D tends to expect from an adventuring party, not least healing. I reckon with specialisms in various areas, it would be an interesting game because the players would need to make themselves distinctive. A scout, a medic, an archer, a scholar, a scavenger, a heavy weapons specialist, or any other style. I actually think it could be fun. Doc

Happy Christmas all.

Yeah. I get that, it is my draw to the game too. However, you adapt to the folk you play with. They do design their own characters, they just don't engage with the detail of the system. They describe what they want, then I crunch some numbers, then talk through how things would work in-game, then adjust if necessary. The only difference between you and them would be that I wouldn't need to crunch as many numbers, we would go straight to discussing how things would work in-game. Doc The big draw for me for this over your standard game would be that the spells would be underpinned by the system. If the builds were available online, I could start there and tweak to my heart's content, while less geeky folk could simply choose from the standard menu.

Guarantee that if I did not hide it we would not be playing HERO. The first few times half the group spent forever pouring over the sheet, taking ages. There is no inherent desire to gain any mastery of the details, even while being content to play a game I offer. My group rotates GMs and systems and we have been gaming together for about 25 years. If the desire was there, it would have been evident by now

I was talking U2...

I am for balkanisation on North America, the Western territories becoming their own, third colony nation, independent of both USA and CSA. That provides a lot more opportunities for trade, conflict and politics.

I think my take is due to playing with people who are not "HERO players". I am probably very sensitive about things looking complicated, and I keep builds focussed. I can already hear my player asking why there is a blast in there and the unspoken frustration that HERO is too complicated, it "needs" this. Personally, I can appreciate the double power, I can understand the desire there might be to stick closer to the rules as written. I can even appreciate the fact that the double power keeps things below AP limits and makes magic rolls easier. I still know my players would be happier with the advantages Heal. Would make more sense to them. Of course, in many cases I hide ALL the build data on the character sheets I hand out, with either of these would be showing the dice to roll, the modifier to any roll and potentially END cost. Doc

Look after yourself Duke. As Bono said about the US health system, "the rich stay healthy, the sick stay poor". 😞 Doc