Doc Democracy

3 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Doc I know Savage Worlds has a Bennie system though at the moment I’m sketchy on details. For me with WEG GMing, I never really used character points for the villains. I might have done it once cause I wanted the villain to escape once.

I tried not to as GM as it simply became a bidding war and, as GM, my bank balance was infinite.

But in WEG there was no evolution of the currency to provide points for good gameplay.  You COULD give dark side points for poor play and you COULD not restore Force points if they were used frivolously.  Both those things caused petted lips and tears, especially if it was the third (I think) dark side point which effectively made the PC a villain NPC with no chance of redemption.

It was close to a decent system.  FFG (IMO) made it better.

Doc

On 2/7/2020 at 3:09 PM, Brian Stanfield said:

I like this idea in general. I also realize that it's a nightmare to try to teach to my new players! It makes perfect sense, and I've told them that basically everything they use is built with the Powers in HERO, but I'm pretty sure this stuff would make their heads pop! This is definitely a more advanced, albeit much cleaner, way to look at things

Well, it all comes down to how much of the mechanical system you expose.  Wrap the character cost together and explain their Sword skill.

Master Swordsman: you do 3D6 damage with the sword designed specifically for you.  You can pick up any weapon and add 1D6 damage to that normally listed. You can use any improvised object to deal 1D6+1 damage.

That would be easy for anyone to understand.  You just happen to know how it balances with other abilities and can knowledgeably tweak.  Players do not usually need and almost never want to look inside the black box.  But it is what HERO provides that other systems do not.

BTW, this particular conversation made me want to run a game where damage was a function of skill rather than weapon.  For instance, Bob from the local tavern will usually do 1D6 damage regardless of the weapon he uses.  Girondin of the Blade, will do 2D6 and 3D6-1 if he is using an edged weapon.

An interesting twist to the usual and allows players to pick weapons with an eye to style rather than combat advantage.

Doc

Well, I think you need to start by really setting out the game effects you want to achieve.  The Mirror Image stuff is all SFX.

The SFX is that there is suddenly three of you where once there was one.  That is useful defensively because opponents need to decide which image to hit and the right one constantly changes  It is useful offensively because powers can originate from any of the three points. Yes?

Doc

It is amazing the threads that get us agitated enough to post!  Who knew that HAPs would be one of them.  I woke up to 26 new posts, almost like the old days....

Anyway, my 2 cents. 

As a player, I hate games where I need to burn experience to stay competitive.  In those sorts of games both players and GM can burn points on the same contest.  Hate it.  TORG, WEG star wars, Heroquest (the Glorantha one) and a few others, can't remember if Fate and Savage World's do it.

That is not to say I don't like idea of players having some narrative control of encounters and games.  I played the FFG star wars recently and their force pool idea really worked for my group. 

"You want to sneak across the port to reach the ship you think the maguffin is in?  OK, there are a few patrols, lots of droids and mechanics and one elevated guard post.  You know a few of you are not good at sneaking.  Tell you what, turn one of the white fate points black and we'll say you all make it to the gantry of the ship". 

This scene is a minor one.  If they all make their rolls, the same thing happens, if they don't there is a combat.  Players that like combat will refuse the offer.  Players into the strategy of sneaking through the defences will love the chance to do it without risking it. Or I might get a counteroffer, where a player suggests a different narrative way through the scene.  Not a way to win in big battles, instead an incentive to draw the players into telling a great story and deferring rather than avoiding pain.

I prefer heroic games.  I allowed them to turn dark points white by doing good deeds and acting heroically.  Those dark points in the pool drove that kind of play from players who would normally kill prisoners and annoying NPCs.

It is all about implementation.  Duke?  I have not yet introduced them into any of my HERO games but when I do, I will invite you to come to London to see how it would make a good game great!  🙂

Doc

You've made me smile twice in two minutes Gnome, thank you. 🙂

Doc

A lot of folk obviously use Hero Designer and post files.  That excludes those that have not bought the software.

I tend to design my own sheets for my games (using PowerPoint actually) and convert them to PDF to post to the board.

Doc

Lots of little niggly things.  The big one that annoyed me was the first time I deleted it.  A few months later my friends got me to reinstall.  Without signing into anything it knew who I was etc etc.  So it had not uninstalled.  That is a red line for me...

10 minutes ago, PhilFleischmann said:

And how do we expect them to learn?  By walking into a brick-and-mortar game store, picking up a HERO System book, and reading the first page?  By first buying a HERO System rule book (at a brick-and-mortar store, or online), and only then reading the first page so they can find out what they just bought?  I'd say at least 99.99% of people who have bought a HERO System book, already know what a role-playing game is.

There is also the point that if you do an excellent job of an online blurb that everyone can watch, you might get those interested to pick up HERO first.  Rather than being in a $50 book...

22 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Matt Colville  has a  One page questionnaire that you can fill out at the town level and has you generating a unqiue world. The strength of typical is that collectively we can easily envision a medieval world without a lot of prep.

Give us a link and I will rep both your posts!  🙂

Doc

I think there is definitely a place for narrative mechanics in the game but I find the implementation of the Hero Dice a bit insipid.

I want something that draws out the feel of the game played and that will vary genre by genre and even within genres.  If you do something like Hero Points you want it to encourage "good" player behaviour and reward genre appropriate action over optimum tactics.

Ideally, the system should add to dramatic tension rather than steal it away with certainties.

We almost need a splat book to talk about the potential uses for hero points in a variety of games and genres.

Doc

3 hours ago, Lucius said:

I don't know about anyone else, but in my experience, the average person has literally no clue whatever about role playing games.

The average person watches more online video than they have read books.

I am not saying do not explain what RPGs are or how such things work.  I said save the precious book real estate for long term useful stuff that everyone who buys the book will read/consult multiple times rather than a section that RPG newbies might read once.

Have the text online, have a couple of good videos showing the game being run, characters being built and combat being run.

I would have no more than one side talking about RPGs in general, probably much less.  Everything in THIS game should be about THIS game.

Doc

I liked the use of summon and Transform.  If you can live with the need to "mark" an item before you can summon it to you, then you do indeed provide a way to manage the process.  The wizard would need access to be able to mark it for summoning, which puts a lot of items out of reach and you could limit the summon to only a fixed number of things so that the wizard does not just eventually mark everything.  🙂

1 hour ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I disagree.  You can get a lot of useful information from them.  Not about what role-playing is, of course, but about what the designer's philosophies are.  For example, I learned that from PARANOIA's non-example of play. 

You disagree that it is a waste of paper or that the same (or enhanced text) with video would be much more useful?

4 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

And the whole "What is role-playing?  What is a role-playing game?" thing should not be part of the rule book/PDF at all, but should be available for free download/viewing on the website of EVERY RPG publisher. (And no, it doesn't have to be the exact same one for each.)

I absolutely agree.  It is now a waste of paper and ink.  A box at the start with a link to internet text and a video of people playing the game would be MUCH more valuable.

I'm with Neil.  I reckon Champions Complete would not need the full HERO rules.  First it would need DOJ to decide what their default is.  If it is Vibora Bay, fantastic, we have a measure to scale things to.  We could decide that Vibora Bay was of a particular level and focussed more on Powers than skills and provide a very cut down list of skills and a full list of powers.  We would also give very strong build advice, advice that is absolutely context driven for a particular style of play.  We could easily put in villains and a sample adventure or two because we would know precisely the kind of heroes that would be built in this game.

I reckon all of that is possible in a reasonably slim volume.  I would have a short annex at the back (or available for download) to say what decisions had been made to make this game using the full 6E rules and encourage those who want to to change anything or everything in the game (after they have played it as written) to do so using the full 6E rules.

I also think that this game would then have to be called something like Vibora Bay Champions rather than Champions Complete so that there would be room for other titles, like Age of the Machine Champions.

Doc

On 2/8/2020 at 8:42 PM, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

I'm forty-two feet in the air right now, so I can't really get to my books, but I'm not certain that--by the old rules-- you traded nine (or four) shots for a +4 (or +2).  As I recall, you got a +4 in exchange for _using_ all ten (or +2 for five), but you still got the. "extra" hits for each 2 you rolled below your target number (or above it, for you roll-high heathens. .)  

Obviously I HAD to go and look.  Duke is, of course, right about this.  The big interesting thing that I dont remember using is the complexity of reduced END with Autofire.

If you have a 50 AP power (5 END) firing 10 shots, you spend 50 END for a burst.  In those days you reduced END by half until you got 1 END and the next level made it 0 END.

that 5 END power would need three levels of Reduced END to get to 0.  5 to 2 to 1 to 0. 

If you autofired that attack it would not be 0 END, it would be 50 to 25 to 12 to 6 END. 

So a power that was 0 END for a single shot would cost you 6 END for autofire, unless you bought an extra 3 levels of Reduced END.  I kind of like that....

9 hours ago, SteveZilla said:

It doesn't have to be "stored securely", as it is a small item the character has with her - small, but very important.  Should it be removed from her (pick pocket, combat grab, whatever), she becomes virtually powerless.

For the purposes of her other powers it is *treated* as a OAF, but it itself has no powers in it.  I was thinking of a triggered power (a spell) to retrieve a wand stolen from me, so I wouldn't be rendered helpless for the rest of the combat - or until returning to town/base.  The 'focus' can still be grabbed and broken, and just grabbing it would still prevent her from casting until she retrieved it - so still an OAF in my mind.

I think this is the very definition of a restrainable power.  You indicate that the wand appears in your hand when you shout the retrieval word.  So, someone might remove the wand from you (restraining your use that phase) but would have to find a way of preventing you shouting the retrieval word to restrain your use for a longer period.  At any time you become able to retrieve the wand, you have access to your powers again.  I dont think you need to give yourself a summoning power that, by the sounds of it, is extraneous to your other powers, and stretch the rules of that power to make it work how you want.  Instead all you need to do is decide on how the power might be restrained and come to an agreement with your GM what that is worth.

Doc

On 2/8/2020 at 7:28 PM, SteveZilla said:

Can you designate a Fixed Location as a small object?  Not buying it as a Focus, because of Fantasy Hero game with money.  It's an object in it's own right.

This has been an interesting thread as much because it demonstrated that I am still prone to not stripping things back to basics.

Can I ask if I have the in game concept right?  You want an item, that is normally stored securely to be instantly available to you whenever you want?

You don't say if it is a weapon, but if it was, would someone, after you had summoned the item, be able to prevent you using it?  Could someone interfere with your ability to use the item?

These are the questions I would put to one of my players. 

In essence, I would buy the power I want use.  It might be described as an item but it is not something that will ever be stolen from me or that I could be prevented from accessing or using.  Everything is simply SFX of using the power I bought.

If I could be prevented from using it, then restrainable is an option.  If I could be prevented from drawing it to me at need then some minor limited power limitation or restrainable depending on how easy/prevalent it is to do so.

I think you achieve everything without buying a secondary power....

Doc

On 2/5/2020 at 6:12 PM, ScottishFox said:

If I point a machine gun at you and hold the trigger down I expect my chance to hit you at least once to be higher than if I fired a single bullet.

And that is the balance between reality and game value.

With autofire, as is, you get the same chance to hit with at least one shot and chances to hit with multiple shots, no additional bureaucracy unless you do qualify for multiple hits. To me that is a game design decision rather than a modelling one.

It would be a trivial amount of points to buy levels with autofire on a single target.

You could decide to use the old rule, give up all your chances to get multiple hits by going full autofire simply for a better chance of one hit.  As GM, I never found providing +4 for loosing ten bullets (charges) unbalancing and would be fine if a player asked me for that.  +2 for five (maybe) anything for fewer shots (not at all).

Doc

6 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Mostly because Clairsentience has no ability to target an unknown location

You are not targeting an unknown location.  You are searching for a fixed floating location (your target-and how you change that is a matter for another discussion) but your perception of him is limited to what the mirror nearest him can see.

4 hours ago, Tywyll said:

It's difficult to decide, even within the same genre sometimes.

 

Sometimes I want epic fantasy heroes who can solo a dragon. Other times I want gritty fantasy vietnam with hirelings dying in droves. Sometimes I want these things in the same campaign, which is a bit problematic. In leveling systems you can get it (low levels its fantasy vietnam, mid to high levels you are fantasy super heroes). Other systems not so much. 

It is quite possible in HERO if you build it into your game.  You decide what damage works where and CV alterations based on categories of foes.

Against "mooks", I want my heroes to wade through, against "Names" to find it tougher and be more dangerous.  You can build this into the mooks, giving them conditional CV and susceptibility against attacks by PCs.

7 hours ago, Tech said:

 

Or maybe the idea of decoupling Str damage from Str isn't the best idea.

I think if HERO was being designed today, no history, no legacy issues, there would be no characteristics like STR, CON, INT, EGO, PRE, DEX.  They are a hangover from how it was done.  They are black boxes that skew costs in powers and skills.

It would be easy to have a table that showed a relationship between lifting power and combat damage and jumping for guiding players on what to buy without making those abilities inherently linked.

Doc

I can see what stimulated this poll though.  We talk about tone and genre and verisimilitude.  When we argue about rules there is often a drive for a "realistic" output.

I think it is why we have a toolkit rather than a ruleset.  There is an expectation that the GM will pick the tools to be used in a game.  As such our rules should be capable of achieving "realistic" outcomes but their primary purpose should be providing our gamer souls with a "fair" outcome.

As such, like a few folk above, my response to the poll is all of the above.  Our toolkit therefore needs to facilitate games where falling off a high building results in nothing more than comedy inconvenience to games where you can die from a single knife wound bleeding you out.

Let's take that insight to our rule conversations....

🙂

Doc

1 hour ago, dmjalund said:

how do you determine how many people are looking in a mirror in a particular area at any given time?

Well, you make a decision like Duke talked about above on how common mirrors are (including mirrored surfaces).  The GM is being invited to make a call here.  You might decide that a -1 limitation on your power means maybe an 11 or less chance someone you are interested in is looking at a mirror at that moment.  Each 1 you fail by steps up the time you would have to wait for a definitive answer.

Those numbers are off the top of my head but they provide a mechanic for a GM.  Works best with a secret roll, the user of the power gets a no response but would not know how long the wait might be.  At -1 it is likely, under normal circumstances, that someone will look in a mirrored surface pretty often.

Doc

I think Sean is suggesting getting rid of resistant defence?  Because all defences now work against killing attacks.  Resistant might be an advantage to defences that restore its value on BODY back up to half.  Kind of like what AP and hardened used to do.

Doc