Derek Hiemforth

Re: How do you feel about House Rules? Yeah, I didn't really think it started with the original group. I've never played with Bruce or George or Steve P. or Ray as GM, but I've also played with Randy and with Glenn Thain, and I don't remember either of them using "CON-Stunned" (and I probably would remember if they had, because it bugs me. ) I wonder if it could have started with the CalTech groups (David Berge, Andrew Robinson, etc.) or with Aaron Allston's groups... Just trying to think of groups that would have been influential in the early days (because I know it was already widespread by the time I started playing in 1987).

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

Re: How do you feel about House Rules? When I asked whether anyone knew where "CON-Stunned" came from, I didn't mean I don't understand what people mean by it, or that I can't guess why someone might coin the term. I meant does anyone know literally where it came from. Like, did the players in the original Guardians campaign use it, and therefore it spread as the game spread, etc.?

Re: VPP Active Points The RAW don't have active point limits hard-coded, so they have no effect on what constitutes conforming to the limits, and there is no "right" answer to the question. It's up to the GM how/whether to apply any active point caps or other such limits.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules? Rules As Written. It has nothing to do with 6E specifically; it's a generally-used acronym in the RPG community.

Re: How do you feel about House Rules?

Re: Images vs. Detect: who wins?

Re: How do you feel about House Rules? Though my position on house rules has been different in the past, I've come around to the position that they're good for encouraging particular play styles, setting tone, character decisions, and so on. Where I don't care for them much anymore is the idea that they're "fixing" something that's supposedly "broken" in the rules. Partially because I don't really think the rules-as-written are broken for my games (so I think they're "fixing" a problem that I probably don't see as a problem). And partially because most house rules of that type that I see, actually seem more "broken" to me than the rules-as-written that they're replacing (so even to the extent that there might be a problem, I find most of the proposed fixes worse...). Just my .02.

Re: Champions Complete. This is more like it! Thanks for the kind words, Sammael. Glad to hear you're enjoying the book!

Re: Going First This.

Re: Penalty Skill Levels vs. Growth I'd say you're correct. It's not a penalty on the character with Growth, and therefore not subject to being offset with PSLs. If a character wants to prevent it from being easier for opponents to hit him while he's Grown, I'd say he needs to buy something like DCV Linked to Growth (assuming the idea isn't that he's more evasive all the time, but just that he doesn't get less evasive when Grown).

Re: Bows, Brace, and DCV Or I suppose another option is just to ignore the "your DCV can only be halved once" bit, and allow it to continue reducing to 1/4 DCV, 1/8 DCV, and so on...

Re: Bows, Brace, and DCV Actually, I like that wording better. Though honestly, I haven't found this issue (stacking of DCV halving) to be a problem needing a solution in my own games. I personally just use the R.A.W. in this area.

Re: Bows, Brace, and DCV Your interpretation of the rules as written is correct. Strictly speaking, there is no downside to just Bracing whenever you use a bow (unless the GM allows defensive firing as discussed in FH/HSEG). If that bothers a group, possible reasonable GM rulings might be that Bracing with a bow takes a 1/2 Phase (so you couldn't nock an arrow, Brace, and fire all in the same Phase), that you can't Brace with a bow unless you begin a Phase with an arrow already nocked, or even that Brace simply has no effect with bows. In fact, a good general "house rule" (again, assuming you feel you need one) might be that you can't voluntarily do more than one thing at a time that halves your DCV. So for example, you couldn't Brace and Multiple Attack, or Multiple Attack with a bow as one of the attacks, and so on.

Re: Rare Vs. Uncommon AVAD Defense *shrug* NND's in the Champions Universe where the defense is "Force Field" are all (that I have found) valued at +1. Reverse-engineering, that works out to Rare.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete Indeed. So if the lack of symmetry and progression between the "lesser" normals and the Competent Normal bothers you, feel free to make it 28, or 30, or whatever you like.

Re: Rare Vs. Uncommon AVAD Defense The costs that published Champions Universe characters typically use (for NNDs where the defense is "force field"), suggest that it's going from Very Common to Rare. NND for such effects in the CU is virtually always +1, which would work out to AVAD, Very Common-to-Rare, All-or-Nothing.

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete It's not technically an error, in that the value in CC is the intended value, and it's the same value that was in 6E1. However, the Competent Normal in 5E had 25 STUN, and you could certainly use that value instead if you wish (or any other value, for that matter; they are only "examples," after all. )

Re: Spinning Pulp Racism Into Something Productive Back when the TV series All In The Family was on the air, folks would ask how they could get away with having a character as unapologetically racist (sexist, homophobic, etc.) as Archie Bunker. The folks involved (Norman Lear, Carroll O'Connor, Rob Reiner, etc.) said the keys were: 1. Archie's bigotries were never portrayed as correct (i.e., while Archie might sometimes be in the right on other issues, his bigotries were never justified). 2. Archie was never completely defined by his bigotries (i.e., he also had good qualities, which -- while they didn't necessarily "make up" for the bigotries and leave him a character the audience rooted for -- were still a part of his character). I think you could take largely the same approach with racism (and other -isms) in a pulp game, provided you have mature players who are willing to do so. I think characters (even player characters) can reflect the beliefs of the era without becoming insulting, as long as the beliefs themselves are never shown to be right (from the perspective of the "audience" or "reader"), and as long as the characters (with the exception of villainous embodiments of the attitudes) have other, more redeeming, qualities.

Re: Grabbing With TK opinions wanted I just realized I was having a brain freeze in this thread. I should have noted that the standard maneuver penalties (-1 OCV, -2 DCV) apply when making the Attack Roll with a Grab via TK, but a Grab with TK does not reduce the attacker's DCV after a successful Grab. See CC page 89 or 6E1 page 295.

Re: Grabbing With TK opinions wanted According to the rules as written, the GM is correct. Maneuver CV penalties apply when using TK. I don't have a strong opinion about whether it should be handled differently in some particular campaign. It might seem more "logical" for the attacker with TK to suffer less DCV penalty (or none at all) than an attacker using STR would. But I would probably stick with having the penalties apply, for the same reason that Desolid characters can't affect solid with Mental Powers or Sense-Affecting Powers, even though solid characters can affect Desolid characters with them: simple game balance.

Re: Champions Complete Yup, what bobrunnicles said.

Re: Pre Attacks

Re: [New Product] Champions Complete Excellent! Welcome back! I hope so! That's certainly what I was shooting for.