BarretWallace

Although my Hero gaming is not what it once was, posts like this are a large part of why I still lurk and occasionally post on these forums.  Disputes happen even in this community, but by and large they stay civil and mutually respectful.  Posters also tend to show far more effort and articulate thinking than the average comment section on FB or a typical online news article.  While there are many well-written posts, for me, this one is a recent stand-out.  Thank you for putting in the time and effort it took to write it!

Although my Hero gaming is not what it once was, posts like this are a large part of why I still lurk and occasionally post on these forums.  Disputes happen even in this community, but by and large they stay civil and mutually respectful.  Posters also tend to show far more effort and articulate thinking than the average comment section on FB or a typical online news article.  While there are many well-written posts, for me, this one is a recent stand-out.  Thank you for putting in the time and effort it took to write it!

Although my Hero gaming is not what it once was, posts like this are a large part of why I still lurk and occasionally post on these forums.  Disputes happen even in this community, but by and large they stay civil and mutually respectful.  Posters also tend to show far more effort and articulate thinking than the average comment section on FB or a typical online news article.  While there are many well-written posts, for me, this one is a recent stand-out.  Thank you for putting in the time and effort it took to write it!

Although my Hero gaming is not what it once was, posts like this are a large part of why I still lurk and occasionally post on these forums.  Disputes happen even in this community, but by and large they stay civil and mutually respectful.  Posters also tend to show far more effort and articulate thinking than the average comment section on FB or a typical online news article.  While there are many well-written posts, for me, this one is a recent stand-out.  Thank you for putting in the time and effort it took to write it!

Although my Hero gaming is not what it once was, posts like this are a large part of why I still lurk and occasionally post on these forums.  Disputes happen even in this community, but by and large they stay civil and mutually respectful.  Posters also tend to show far more effort and articulate thinking than the average comment section on FB or a typical online news article.  While there are many well-written posts, for me, this one is a recent stand-out.  Thank you for putting in the time and effort it took to write it!

Note: I'm responding to this quote first, but don't take the length of the post as I continue on into the weeds personally, Tricksta. I just found myself expanding on a thought that started here.
 
Microstamping isn't really viable. But, let's say it works exactly as advertised. The police recover a spent casing at the scene of a crime. They run it through a database and determine who the last owner was. Does this solve the crime?
 
Another point Stewart makes is that it should be easier for the ATF to trace gun transfers. Which they can already do.  Do gun traces solve crimes? These are essentially the same result as microstamping. I don't know the answer to that, because Google doesn't return any results for searches for crimes solved by ATW traces (and you can't prove a negative). I suspect the number of crimes actually solved by ATF transfer traces is low, because most crimes are committed by people who aren't the original owners. In the case of mass shooters, most of those (I'm guessing) seem to be legally obtained, but ATF traces are a moot point, because the person is usually caught or killed without the need for a trace.
 
But, let's look at this more optimistically and say that microstamping and better ATF tracing of firearms increases the solve rate for homicides by a significant amount. Does that prevent gun violence? I don't think it would. The death penalty isn't a deterrent, so I doubt an increased chance of getting caught would be.
 
So, even with the best rose-colored glasses on, these things that sound like good, "common sense," ideas just aren't going to curtail our murder rate.
 
Which is another lie told by Stewart in that interview, using statistics. Here's a decent, unbiased (as far as I can tell), analysis of gun death data from Pew:
 
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/
 
So, how is Stewart lying about the increased number of murders? He isn't. But he is using the numbers disingenuously to sow fear.*
 
 
So far, so good. The number of gun homicides has clearly gone up. Horrible. We must do something. Stewart says we must reduce the number of guns (probably won't do squat), fund the ATF (agreed), research gun violence (agreed), require microstamping (disagreed), while Fox News says we all need to fund the police better (agreed, but not for their idiot reasons), and all go out and buy a gun (disagreed), because blood is flowing in the streets! Chaos! Calamity! (disagreed, as denoted by the sarcastic exclamation points).
 
OK, so what's the problem? The problem is that the number doesn't have context. Fortunately, the Pew report seems to be pretty clear at providing context:
 
 
OK, we can all breath a sigh of relief. Numbers are up, but it's not quite as bad as the raw numbers show, since our per capita rate is only slightly up.
 
Well, there were still 45,222 gun deaths in 2020, according to CDC data. That's a lot of people dead. This is a picture of a 44,000 people protest in Vienna, and it doesn't even have all the people in it:
 

 
Imagine the United States losing all those people in 2020 from gun deaths. If we could reduce that, we could save a lot of people.
 
According to the CDC, there were 3,358,814 deaths in the US in 2020. I don't think I can find a picture of that many people in one place.
 
The percentage of people who died that died from firearms:  45,222/3,358,814 = 0.013463, so about 1.35%.
 
Now, saving some of those 45k+ lives is a good thing. But you aren't very likely to get shot just walking down the street or engaging in normal daily activities like going to school, going to the movies, going shopping, etc. You might, but it's unlikely.
 
How's our overall death rate looking? Surely we're dropping like flies, right?
 
Here's a sortable ranking of death rates from World Bank. The numbers are from 2020 and per 1000 population. The whole list is rather long, but here are some highlights:
 
Bulgaria is the winner with 18
Ukraine is 3rd with 15.9
Russia is 7th with 14.6
 
OK, that was just to show the higher end of things and the Ukraine/Russia pairing. Not to pick on them, but to give a baseline. Let's look at some countries who have it "good," or at least should: Canada, Sweden and Japan. Just pulled those out of a hat b/c they're frequently mentioned as pretty decent, civilized places.
 
Canada in 84th place at 8.1
Sweden in 50th place at 9.5
Japan in 29th place at 11.1
 
OK, I thought those numbers were going to be better, especially Japan.
 
How about the US?
 
USA in 38th place at 10.3
 
What does this mean? Means we're not quite as horrible as some people would have us think, but we're also not as awesome as others would have us think. We can do better, but we could do much worse.
 
And why did I zoom out to deaths in general vs. gun deaths? Partly for the obvious perspective. We could reduce gun deaths to 0 and it wouldn't move our death rate dial by very much at all. The panic is disproportionate to the threat. This does not mean we do nothing, it means, as the Hitchiker's Guide reminds us:

So, my first point in all of this is we can, and should, approach the problem rationally.
 
My second point is that just as "national death rate" is too broad in scope, so is "gun violence" or even "homicide rate."
 
I'll reiterate my basic stance on the issue again: We need to solve root causes. We need to interpret the data not for the sake of drumming up fear for our proposed solution (including that of "do nothing" that some hold), but for a study of the causes of violence and homicide. At the end of the day, acting like guns alone can cause or prevent homicides is not productive. Neither position is true.

And that's why both Stewart and his interviewees annoy me.
 
How much has been spent by either side on root cause analysis and removing the root causes? I'm betting it's a low number.
 
My point is this: We are not a society of Mutant Biker Cowboy Barbarians.
 
We're a Confederacy of Dunces ruled by an Idiocracy.
 
 
 
 
*Note: That sounds nefarious. I don't think Stewart is nefarious. I think he cares deeply and is simply engaging in his own fears and spreading them around due to not looking at the subject dispassionately.

If I were to "fix" Hero somehow, I'd lower the entry barrier, or "energy of activation" as we call it in the chemistry world.  Get me a starter set, something like Call of Cthulhu's "Alone Against [X]" series.  Present me with a character and guide me through a short story.  Help me learn the rules by fleshing them out bit by bit, pointing out what skill to roll to resolve the encounter, etc.  Maybe have a few of these as ways to introduce Hero games in different genres.  Have a list of skills, powers, and equipment with their point costs, and dive into the underlying math later.  Maybe it's an age thing these days, but asking me to digest a massive chunk of game mechanics just to start play will result in a hard pass.  D&D is a mechanical mess, but I can throw together a character in less than an hour with minimal guidance, and be slaying orcs soon thereafter.  Hero is an excellent multi-drawer tool chest I can use to build anything, but to do that before I even start play is a turn-off.
 
It's a shame, really.  Had I devoted more time to finding and maintaining a Hero group, I would not need to learn a whole new system to play a whole new game; I'd just have to tweak the system I already know to fit that game.  I do still enjoy these forums because of the...interesting individuals here, plus the generally respectful tone of discussions we tend to have.
 
And dammit Old Man, now I can't get the image of that flying paladin out of my head.

That is the theory behind Champions Begins, and hopefully a chapter 2 that introduces a short campaign and how to build characters.  I think Hero is not terribly hard to learn and play, its just intimidating to open the book the way its presented.  And let's be honest, young people of today are not the young people of 1980.  They're every bit as smart, creative, and able, they're just raised on quick, easy rewards and entertainment.  They aren't raised to read and study and learn, they aren't as willing to try harder stuff, and they aren't open to books and paper when they have so many video games and streaming and phone content just dumped all over them their entire youth.  So its a bit of an uphill battle for EVERY game system.

If I were to "fix" Hero somehow, I'd lower the entry barrier, or "energy of activation" as we call it in the chemistry world.  Get me a starter set, something like Call of Cthulhu's "Alone Against [X]" series.  Present me with a character and guide me through a short story.  Help me learn the rules by fleshing them out bit by bit, pointing out what skill to roll to resolve the encounter, etc.  Maybe have a few of these as ways to introduce Hero games in different genres.  Have a list of skills, powers, and equipment with their point costs, and dive into the underlying math later.  Maybe it's an age thing these days, but asking me to digest a massive chunk of game mechanics just to start play will result in a hard pass.  D&D is a mechanical mess, but I can throw together a character in less than an hour with minimal guidance, and be slaying orcs soon thereafter.  Hero is an excellent multi-drawer tool chest I can use to build anything, but to do that before I even start play is a turn-off.
 
It's a shame, really.  Had I devoted more time to finding and maintaining a Hero group, I would not need to learn a whole new system to play a whole new game; I'd just have to tweak the system I already know to fit that game.  I do still enjoy these forums because of the...interesting individuals here, plus the generally respectful tone of discussions we tend to have.
 
And dammit Old Man, now I can't get the image of that flying paladin out of my head.

If I were to "fix" Hero somehow, I'd lower the entry barrier, or "energy of activation" as we call it in the chemistry world.  Get me a starter set, something like Call of Cthulhu's "Alone Against [X]" series.  Present me with a character and guide me through a short story.  Help me learn the rules by fleshing them out bit by bit, pointing out what skill to roll to resolve the encounter, etc.  Maybe have a few of these as ways to introduce Hero games in different genres.  Have a list of skills, powers, and equipment with their point costs, and dive into the underlying math later.  Maybe it's an age thing these days, but asking me to digest a massive chunk of game mechanics just to start play will result in a hard pass.  D&D is a mechanical mess, but I can throw together a character in less than an hour with minimal guidance, and be slaying orcs soon thereafter.  Hero is an excellent multi-drawer tool chest I can use to build anything, but to do that before I even start play is a turn-off.
 
It's a shame, really.  Had I devoted more time to finding and maintaining a Hero group, I would not need to learn a whole new system to play a whole new game; I'd just have to tweak the system I already know to fit that game.  I do still enjoy these forums because of the...interesting individuals here, plus the generally respectful tone of discussions we tend to have.
 
And dammit Old Man, now I can't get the image of that flying paladin out of my head.

If I were to "fix" Hero somehow, I'd lower the entry barrier, or "energy of activation" as we call it in the chemistry world.  Get me a starter set, something like Call of Cthulhu's "Alone Against [X]" series.  Present me with a character and guide me through a short story.  Help me learn the rules by fleshing them out bit by bit, pointing out what skill to roll to resolve the encounter, etc.  Maybe have a few of these as ways to introduce Hero games in different genres.  Have a list of skills, powers, and equipment with their point costs, and dive into the underlying math later.  Maybe it's an age thing these days, but asking me to digest a massive chunk of game mechanics just to start play will result in a hard pass.  D&D is a mechanical mess, but I can throw together a character in less than an hour with minimal guidance, and be slaying orcs soon thereafter.  Hero is an excellent multi-drawer tool chest I can use to build anything, but to do that before I even start play is a turn-off.
 
It's a shame, really.  Had I devoted more time to finding and maintaining a Hero group, I would not need to learn a whole new system to play a whole new game; I'd just have to tweak the system I already know to fit that game.  I do still enjoy these forums because of the...interesting individuals here, plus the generally respectful tone of discussions we tend to have.
 
And dammit Old Man, now I can't get the image of that flying paladin out of my head.

I understood most of that.  I think.
 
While Peterson FH will always be my favorite TTRPG, I feel as though 4e was the sweet spot for Hero, if only for timing reasons.  4e got rid of most of the really clunky mechanics (i.e. END Batteries) combined with good overall system balance and excellent production values.  And the nineties were a great time for Hero, while TSR fumbled AD&D and before to the invention of CCGs, and ICE even supported the system for a bit, publishing the closest thing to official Fantasy Hero adventures that we ever got.  By the time 5e rolled around, CCGs and CRPGs and MMORPGs had shortened attention spans everywhere, and short attention spans are not suited to 5e.
 
And you're right about the preload for 6e; the most glaring example is Star Hero, which has pregenerated stats for almost nothing in a genre that is practically defined by its gadgetry. 

Dude, you want to talk about watching something grow out of control?
 
A lot of us started with 1e.  I stopped with 2e (still play; I just didn't go in for newer rules sets) and back-ported a few things from 4e (not many), Champs 2 and Champs 3, and of course, I also back-ported the _must have_ "Create' from the original Fantasy HERO (as easy as back-porting and up-porting are in HERO, absolutely no edition has attempted to touch Create.  I cannot believe that forty years later we are still putzing around with trying to beat Transform into doing the job of Create on staff of using the thing that actually does that- that actually creates, and it has been hanging right there in front of us, with a large label,that says "use this to create!").
 
The majority of 6e players say 6e plays the same (unless,you want to create something)- and I don't doubt that it does- but it seems to quadruple the preload, especially if you are new to the game.
 
 

Yeah, I started in 4E, and the transition to 5E had a very short learning curve.  It was more bloated perhaps, like some things were codified that 4E had left nebulous.  The jump from 5E to 6E was a lot more drastic.  That didn't last terribly long before Hero Central (the post-college avenue for all my Hero System gaming) sadly died.  Maybe if I'd given it more time*, 6E would have grown on me more.
 
*This is predicated, of course, on finding a table (physical or virtual) to play the game with in the first place.

There have been quite a few low-priced game bundles put out recently, including an excellent one of Hero 6E books.  Even for a Hero veteran like myself, the mechanics-heavy front end is a deterrent.  I'm still tempted to buy the 6E bundle just because you can use it to build literally any game.  It's just been so long since I've been part of a group that I don't know how effectively I can dust off those old cobwebs anymore.
 
Strangely enough, I do still laugh at my first-ever Hero game, where I got to roll the dice that literally blew the head off my first character.

Yeah, I started in 4E, and the transition to 5E had a very short learning curve.  It was more bloated perhaps, like some things were codified that 4E had left nebulous.  The jump from 5E to 6E was a lot more drastic.  That didn't last terribly long before Hero Central (the post-college avenue for all my Hero System gaming) sadly died.  Maybe if I'd given it more time*, 6E would have grown on me more.
 
*This is predicated, of course, on finding a table (physical or virtual) to play the game with in the first place.

There have been quite a few low-priced game bundles put out recently, including an excellent one of Hero 6E books.  Even for a Hero veteran like myself, the mechanics-heavy front end is a deterrent.  I'm still tempted to buy the 6E bundle just because you can use it to build literally any game.  It's just been so long since I've been part of a group that I don't know how effectively I can dust off those old cobwebs anymore.
 
Strangely enough, I do still laugh at my first-ever Hero game, where I got to roll the dice that literally blew the head off my first character.

Since first edition Fantasy Hero and the First large Package Deals. I have often wondered if the system was looking at Disads/Complications all wrong. I DO hate how Lowering Stats, buying off Running, Senses etc are treated as "free disads" ie they lower the cost of your character, but Disads were something that added points to the character. Mathmatically they seem to do the same thing, but it gets weird when you have a package deal with sells off stats and other things, but also comes with Disads. The sell off items are only limited by what you want to sell off. Disads are limited by Campaign limits. This is the ONLY reason that I have any problem with Disads.
 
I am all for games that give incentives for Players to take weaknesses for their characters. In my huge experience, Players don't want to take ANY thing that will weaken their character. So if you don't give them an incentive to do so, they won't. I agree that in Previous editions of Hero (pre 6e) Players were asked to buy way too many Disadvantages. I do like that in 6e the number of Complications asked for is MUCH lower (Probably a bit too low, YMMV). I know that asking for 50-75 pts of Disads for a 400-500pt PC isn't that much to ask for. The Reason that the PC gets those extra points is because they are adding something to the campaign. They are helping me to write adventures for them. They are telling me who the important NPC's are for them (Villain, DNPC, and NPC alike). They are even asking me for adventures that challenge their PC's morals (ie adventures that trip their Psych Limits) and their Physical Challenges (ie Very heavy, blind etc). These are all things that I may not have thought about myself or even if I did they probably wouldn't take that form.
 
The Roleplay DNA podcast Talks about disads and Hero points/Bennies and how they find them to be an invaluable aid to their Roleplaying and Worldbuilding as a whole.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-002-yippee-ki-yay/id515837046?i=124790863&mt=2
or here
http://p5productions.com/roleplaydna/2012/05/01/episode-002-yippee-ki-yay-2/

Dungeons & Dragons has walked back its huge OGL mistake, but the damage is already done

https://www.patreon.com/posts/article-is-ogl-77927662

Didn’t Hero start that with the Core Books? You kig them around? 😁

A corporate apology? I'd rather be struck across the face with a trout: such a gesture is honest, at least.

I've pulled muscles sneezing -- one day, it'll happen when I roll dice.