Doc Democracy

1 hour ago, Old Man said:

Ugh.  Take your like.

I did say it was my favourite when I was 18....

On 8/7/2019 at 3:09 PM, Pariah said:

"Where the Hell did I all these damn Indians come from?!"

-George Armstrong Custer, June 1876 (probably)

just because it reminded me of my favourite joke when I went to university...

An eccentric billionaire wanted a mural painted on his library wall so he called an artist.

Describing what he wanted, the billionaire said, "I am a history buff and I would like your interpretation of the last thing that went through Custer's mind before he died. I am going out of town on business for a week and when I return I expect to see it completed."

Upon his return, the billionaire went to the library to examine the finished work. To his surprise, he found a painting of a cow with a halo. Surrounding this were hundreds of Indians in various sexual positions.

Furious, he called the artist in. "What the hell is this?" screamed the billionaire. "Why that's exactly what you asked for" said the artist smugly. "No, I didn't ask for a mural of pornographic filth. I asked for an interpretation of Custer's last thoughts" "

And there you have it" said the artist. "I call it, 'Holy cow, look at all those ****ing  Indians' 
 

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

I want the delay that END Reserve can create by having your rec ping every X time increments

I don't disagree with the ambition, I disagree with making a player pay points for something that limits the character.

Give the base pool for free and pay for enhancements?  Sounds good to me.  Want magic points to recover more slowly?  Then use the normal END system but have REC add to STUN every turn and to END every five minutes.  You get the same delay without the tax and without two separate REC values.

As Duke said, your game, your rules, everything else is just an opinion on the internet.

Doc

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

And again, I don't see it as 'bureaucracy' in the sense that there is little different from requiring a Talent as a gatekeeper for using magic, but get nothing for it other than the ability to then actually buy spells (a number of magic systems I've seen for FH use this model).

You do not see this as bureaucracy but have abolished general END tracking due to the added book-keeping burden and complexity?

I would be more accepting if you gave each spellcaster a base END Battery, which players might choose to invest in.  I am opposed to the buy a magic talent as well that is purely a concept tax...

But the buy in is not simply buying the powers that are available but buying the bureaucracy that goes along with that. 

If you are going to make casters do the whole resource management thing then why not simply reintroduce END for casters rather than the whole END Battery thing?  If you are a caster, unlike other concepts, you are prone to exhausting yourself and need to manage that aspect.  As such you put END back on their character sheet (though you might use a different term such as Mana or Power or something).  That costs nothing and is a default 20.  Casters can buy that up, they recover on PS12 and if they go over their available END then they take STUN.  Is that not simpler (which I presume is still a priority) than making them buy a whole END Battery with a separate REC??

Doc

I find it interesting that you banish END tracking for faster play and then introduce greater complexity for spell-casters.  I understand the drivers but they do run counter to each other.

As such I think that the use of STUN as an END proxy has some value (using a metric you are already tracking rather than adding in a new one) and avoids putting a character tax on wizardry (wizards would need to buy the bureaucracy system you are imposing on them with points that other players are using to be more game effective). 

Doc

....I know it is kind of off-topic for the forum but I thought it was apposite given the nature of a few recent threads...

17 minutes ago, Sean Waters said:

Well I'm glad we all came together on that one.

I am constantly amazed that it takes Duke 3 posts and about 2000 words to leave a thread. 🙂

8 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

Are we in agreement that it's a lot easier to see something 20 m away in broad daylight than it is to see something 2 m away in a "dark night", even though the RAW give both of these a -4 modifier?

I think the difference here is when the GM might ask you to make roll.  Will he ask you to make a roll to read the licence plate on a parked car, during the day.  Probably not, no -4 comes into play. On a dark night?  Probably not.  Not possible.

Will he ask you to make a roll to notice the man, 20m away, tailing you on a street with reasonable traffic.  Yup, and may assign -4 to both the tail and the PER roll.  Same on a dark night when the tail is only 2m away.

These are rules that cannot exist in the absence of intelligent application by a reasonable GM.

Doc

22 minutes ago, Sean Waters said:

Another thing though is that it makes just more sense to me.  Say you have a REALLY good archaeology skill, you'll definitely recognise those rocks are in fact finger bones BUT you would be no more likely (or should be no more likely) to spot the 'rocks' in the first place unless, possibly you are specifically looking for them (which would be a bonus to PER, possibly due to extra time, but no bonus to KS: Archaeology).

You know, I kinda disagree with this.  Recognising signal from noise very much depends on knowledge of detail.  I might completely miss those finger bones because they look no different from the rocks and roots they sit among but the archeaologist's detailed knowledge makes them stand out, almost as if they were under a little spotlight...

Not always, but sometimes. 

Doc

27 minutes ago, redsash said:

Hero models that reasonably well with complementary skill rolls.

 

In your example with the vacuum, there are two things going on: the sensing and the diagnosing. As a GM I might not want you to roll both because it slows things down (and would give you a premature hint that there is a Mechanics issue), but I might give you a +2 to your PER roll or give you more information if you make the raw INT-based roll.

 

i.e. the same roll gives you "The vacuum is straining, sounds like it might be blocked" vs "the vacuum is making a funny noise"

Sean's case might be more clearly modeled with a penalty to the PER roll unless the complementary skill existed.  In his wife's case she is more likely to fail the PER roll because she lacks the awareness that it means something, not that she doesn't hear it.  A single roll should mean, if she fails, that she is not aware that she needs to do anything.  She might say to Sean later "I did notice it was making a funny noise"...

Doc

I think you are wrong.  HERO does have a social system, it is simply hugely narrative as compared to the immense detail applied to the rest of the system.  There is huge potential in the interplay between complications, social skills and INT, PRE, EGO.  It just cuts across the grain of the rest of the system.

As for the correlation, it only matters if you are applying the numbers to states that should not correlate. We don't complain that STUN and BODY have the exact same correlation.

As for things in a game not being fixed by a fancy dice mechanic, well I think this is exactly how games designers approach these issues. 🙂

Doc

A change is as good as a rest. 🙂

You will be the third bunch of yokels with pitchforks this week!  😁

I was so determined not to wade back into this....

...but I cannot resist getting on my old hobby horse.  The reason we have so much problem agreeing on this in game terms is because we cannot agree in real life.

As far as HERO goes, I think we would be in a better place without characteristics, they smear across skills and powers and are the source of our problems.

We say intelligence and, depending on context, we mean sharpness of mind, perspicacity, understanding, knowledge or a range of other things. 

Personally I would get rid of characteristics from the system.

There.  Said it.  Am going to retreat to watching again. 😄

Doc

Now Siouxsie IS a favourite of my wife's.  🙂

I am generally a pretty stable kind of guy.  I had never really had any real emotional crises in my life that the music I listened to really provided support or encouragement.  Music for me was more about sharing who I was as a person.  Until I realised my life had changed.  I was no longer one of the young ones, no longer thinking about growing a career, had almost finished raising a son, had a decent salary and was coming close to owning my home outright and my marriage was comfortable but no longer an exciting adventure.  I think I was on the verge of being depressed as I suddenly realised my ideas for the future were all about things that were behind me, I had no personal ambitions for the future and my job was not likely to provide more advancement in responsibility or salary.

I think I was on the verge of depression.  That WAS a new experience but not a welcome one and not something I was equipped to deal with.

I found myself listening to Misplaced Childhood, the whole album repeatedly, and feeling better on the other side.  It slowly dawned on me that I was, for the first time, engaging with that album as relating to my life rather than just as a bit of music.  I realised that it was telling me that my childhood self, that happy forward-looking person, was still there IF I wanted to look for it.  That there was no reason I was locked into the future that my past self hoped and planned for.  That it was still possible to look forward, to have new hopes and ambitions and to approach the world with the same childlike (rather than childish) outlook that I used to have.

I am feeling much better now.  I still get emotional listening to the album, it means an awful lot more to me now, as a 54 year old man than it did to the 20 year old student who excitedly bought it months before going to see the band in concert.  I do not think I could possibly pick one track over any of the others.

Doc

PS: The irony is that my wife actively hates the album so I need to play it when I am alone in the car... 🙂

Hmm.  It is difficult because you need to affect ranged and hth, normal and killing as well as physical and energy.

My first thought was refection with a naked vsfx blast to add but that really only does ranged blast.

Ultimately, I would be inclined to buy a triggered attack with vsfx and limit it to on 2x the dice of the attack that triggers it.

Doc

I like the idea of having a way to build in tasks taking longer for less skilled people, and to make it effectively impossible for those who lack the relevant skills.

Now, I don't think it works as written, I don't think it effectively achieves the things that make me like it.

Our current system, roll 3D6, is pretty much binary in pass/fail and provides no threshold for expert knowledge.  The social combat elements (persuasion, intimidation, etc) make that even more unsatisfying.  I think Sean's idea could provide us with something more satisfying.

So, thresholds.  I think there is real potential in being able to label tasks as mundane, skilled and specialist.  To test whether a character knows enough to even undertake the task might require enough BODY on the first roll.  You then need enough effect to finish the task (represented by STUN).  Not enough effect?  Then you need to work longer (more rolls).  I like the option this opens for a simple (low threshold) but fiddly task which could be represented by a defence against the STUN damage (though I think you should do a minimum of 1STUN per dice). 

That also opens up real potential for social combat where your persuasion roll provides "damage" in the STUN and temporary defence for the next roll in the BODY.

The more I think about it, the more I think that, for a skill-heavy game, this would provide real mechanical heft.

Sean, I think there is a foundation for a submission to the Hall of Champions here.

Doc

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Why would Active Sight illuminate the area?  Active Sonar lets the bat sense things using hearing, and things with appropriate hearing senses detect the bat.  It does not allow anyone else the ability to detect what the bat perceives with its active sonar.

Anyone with passive sonar would have an area "illuminated" by someone using active sonar.  I would say that, similarly, anyone with passive sight would have the area illuminated by someone using active sight. 🙂

28 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Thanks for that! 

 

As long as I've been playing, and in as many groups and with dozens of people in and out over the decades, I don't think that has ever occurred to any of us. 

 

Neat! 

 

At need, you could simply shout and use your sonar to see where the sound waves bounce.  It would be a bit "noisy" as the sound would not be clean and pure but it would work as long as the sound could be maintained....like using a flickery candle rather than a decent electric light.

Doc

34 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

I'm inclined to just go with my original instinct: a custom Power.  Maybe 1-5 points for the ability to create light on demand as a Power (spell, etc.), which can be built through a Focus if desired, but a light source of some kind (torch, flashlight, etc.) is usually free, points-wise.  And if you already have light-based Powers, using them like a flashlight is as free as a character with flame powers using them to light a candle.  (Analogously, a character with sonic powers can act as a "sonar flashlight" for Sonar, infrared likewise with IR light, and so on.)

You know.  After all the discussion I am just about convinced of the use of images.  The images provide a pool of light.  I think that the image could be bought restrainable - if you get in the way of the beam of light you prevent it reaching the area intended.  What I also think is necessary is that all the concern folk have about fading edges and ruined night vision and snipers should be folded into the SFX of the power.  The SFX are separate from the game effect. 

So.  Images get you the defined effect in a defined area.  Everything else is a GM judgement call based on the impact of the SFX.  You reckon that the pool of light gives a reduced effect close to that pool?  Fine, small improvement to PER rolls.  A sniper several hundred feet away and out of the defined area of effect?  well the SFX of pool of light make anyone within the effect fully visible to people a distance away, just like a real lantern would.

I am actually totally sold on images for the very first time.  Would just like everyone to know that an argument on the internet has actually changed an opinion!!!

Doc

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

There is also the fact that Images doesn't cause further penalties for those in the illuminated area looking out into the darkness.  It should

The first sentence is correct, the second is not. 😛

I think you would be loading too great a burden onto that power and, in many heroic adventure games, it would inappropriate.

If you want more realistic reactions to light and darkness then they should be built into the game you are playing.  This allows GMs to set the level of detail to suit the game being played.

So, your core HERO game says that a dark night penalises PER rolls with -4.  A moonlit night possibly only -2.

If you decide to, you can add modifiers to that.  That may be the base for everyone running about without light sources.  You could provide an additional -2 for characters whose night vision has been compromised by a light source.  You could provide a +2 versus targets carrying a light source. 

Or any level of detail you want but it should exist as a table in environmental rules rather than bulking out the images power for a niche use.

Doc

2 hours ago, Spence said:

 

I can simply hand wave the reversion to "normal" form upon being knocked out since it doesn't feel right as a limitation, or maybe it does.  I'll need to consider. 

There could be a limitation on the reserve that it drops to zero when the character is KO'ed.  He reverts because the reserve is zero.

I would also limit the multiform such that it can only be activated when the reserve is full.  That enforces a real downtime.

Doc

2 hours ago, dsatow said:

I believe the official rule from HERO games is that the world is a construct of the GM.  How the GM arbitrates the world is how the world functions.  So we should not argue whether the official rules should do something or not in every world.  Just on the merits of the house rule that's being suggested.  After all, the GM can make a game in a teletubby world where light is intelligent and that in order to see in the darkness, one needs to make an Presence attack or a Persuasion roll for any area to be visible or to affect how many modifiers to your perception rolls exists.

I think this is central to understanding HERO as a GM.  It is incomprehensible that anyone would want to downvote it. 😞

I immediately wanted to put my players in just such a situation, it actually demonstrates the power of the system.

Doc