FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

[Curufea]

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[Curufea]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

I should however point out that both 1 and 2 so far aren't usually in the fantasy genre. So modify accordingly.

[CTaylor]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

You can cut a castle down with an axe.

You can read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in a soliloquy during combat and everyone has to wait.

You can literally run past someone with a lower speed without any concern or threat from them.

People teleport around on the map during combat rather than moving smoothly together.

[Curufea]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

You can literally run past someone with a lower speed without any concern or threat from them.

People teleport around on the map during combat rather than moving smoothly together.

 

I was actually thinking of mentioning that myself - it is one of my pet annoyances. Movement should be more simultaneous. If it were possible, I'd like to count all the hexes moved in a turn, and just have characters move one hex at a time (ie breaking down phases by multiplying them with running and smooshing them together).

Turn based has always been a bit too "game" and not enough "simulation" for rpgs.

[Lucius]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

If you get enough people standing in a long enough line, you can pass the Olympic Torch across the continent in a matter of seconds.

 

(Grab, grab, grab, grab, grab, grab, grab, ad infinitum...)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary asks "How does that grab you!?"

[Curufea]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

Really though, we should be looking at Fantasy Hero related memes and ideas.

 

How about-

Weapons without sharp edges don't kill people, only knock them unconscious.

[Fitz]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

Low-SPD mooks spend most of their time frozen like statues while the PCs act.

[CTaylor]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

Fantasy Hero only? OK One level of Growth makes you a killing machine, but 1D6 of punch is nothing special

You can be the mighty dragon slayer but some idiot with a pitchfork can still kill you with a lucky shot.

Magic is either grossly overpowered or just a light show. Wait, that's all Fantasy games. Never seen a system yet that's well balanced.

[McCoy]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

It is easier (fewer points) to be immortal than rich.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

When in real life its really not harder in lunge someone in the head than elsewhere in fantasy HERO you have to be Inigo Montya to succeed.

[Maur]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

I was actually thinking of mentioning that myself - it is one of my pet annoyances. Movement should be more simultaneous. If it were possible, I'd like to count all the hexes moved in a turn, and just have characters move one hex at a time (ie breaking down phases by multiplying them with running and smooshing them together).

Turn based has always been a bit too "game" and not enough "simulation" for rpgs.

 

Which is basically GURPS as each action for all the characters is a one second window. So if it takes 30 seconds to reload a gun, then your character is busy for 30 rounds doing just that.

[Markdoc]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

You can be the mighty dragon slayer but some idiot with a pitchfork can still kill you with a lucky shot.

 

I regard that one as a feature, not a bug!

 

cheers, Mark

[CTaylor]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

Buying the perk to be a king is cheaper than buying the points to cast spells

[Markdoc]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

Buying the perk to be a king is cheaper than buying the points to cast spells

 

Yes, but with spells you can get to be king for free!

 

cheers, Mark

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

These are all completely different from the ones on the other thread. The idea was more of fantasy setting/genre/tropes that D&D seems to assume ought to apply to all FRPGs. The stuff mentioned here so far is mostly just game rules mechanics.

 

The fantasy genre is *huge*. D&D narrowed it down to one particular interpretation - nothing wrong with that interpretation per se, but it ain't necessarily so. Many other RPGs, without even realizing it, adopted many of the same assumptions that D&D made.

[Shadowsoul]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

Earth's pre-history contains era that correspond to every concievable fantasy setting.

 

You can never kill the ultimate evil. You can only put it to sleep for an age or two.

[Kristopher]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

Earth's pre-history contains era that correspond to every concievable fantasy setting.

 

You can never kill the ultimate evil. You can only put it to sleep for an age or two.

 

The first one is something I regard as part of the biggest problem with the overall HERO setting, the attempt to shoehorn all the various settings into one timeline, and the resulting "everything depends on magic, even superpowers and strange/hyper technology" kludge (IMNSHO).

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

It's hard to do this kind of thread because HERO is just a mechanical system that's designed to be capable of doing almost anything. D&D is designed, well, to be D&D.

 

So, HERO is the toolkit, D&D is the 'here's the tools, here's the parts, here's the instructions' furniture kit.

 

And the unified HERO-verse timeline doesn't bother me. Makes me want to run a Turakian Age game then have the characters pop up later in a Supers game.

[Shadowsoul]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

And the unified HERO-verse timeline doesn't bother me. Makes me want to run a Turakian Age game then have the characters pop up later in a Supers game.

 

Hmm. Doctor Who in the Hero Universe?

[CTaylor]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

You can't really do a Fantasy Hero tropes that are assumed thread because... well there's no one setting for Fantasy Hero. D&D was Greyhawk, all the monsters and the modules until later were just flat out Grayhawk stuff. Even when Gygax was out of the loop, even with a new edition of D&D, it still clings to that basic generic setting and feel, the campaign is assumed in the system of classes and spells, it's a pre-generated generic D&D world. So there will be bits and pieces of it that assume things that aren't necessarily so about every fantasy setting.

 

Fantasy Hero is more a box of tools to make any setting. So it doesn't suffer from the same presumptions rather from the lack of ease to jump into.

[casualplayer]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

How about the preponderance of burly mages because STR is so cheap?

 

What's wrong with all my stats ending in 3, 5 or 8? The wizened sage Goodman advised me so.

[Remjin]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

I actually take a stat of 14 pretty often for dexterity. =) Bare minimum for CV 5.

 

In any case, we seem to be on mechanics, so I haven't much to say as I'm not really that great into the technicalities of the rules... as far as the tropes of genre, I've always found the D&D model to be hyper-boring since it plays like a video game. If I wanted that... I'd play a video game. Then all my "magic item slots" would have graphical representations and I could actually watch my experience points ding me to a new level with a light show. One of the reasons I like the Swords and Sorcery genre is because it depends much less on magic and big FX budgets and more on story and characters. On the other hand, I like many things in the high fantasy genres, yet too many of those genres overuse what they have available to the point of being boring.

 

One flaming mystical blade? Pretty cool, very unique, and nice... a party with a portable hole full of loot and magical items? Wow, this stupid flaming blade sucks... hand me the Dragon-Waster 3000 +5/+23 vs Dragons/+12 vs Fire Elementals/+52 vs GM so I can use my Holy Smite attack I learned from my mentor, whom I killed for mouthing off to me... cuz I'm holy like that.

 

Oops, sorry, slipped into a rant for a second there...

 

Like someone said, many games for many folks, kind of hard to nail one down unless you actually name one of the published settings, I suppose.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

I actually take a stat of 14 pretty often for dexterity. =) Bare minimum for CV 5.

 

In any case, we seem to be on mechanics, so I haven't much to say as I'm not really that great into the technicalities of the rules... as far as the tropes of genre, I've always found the D&D model to be hyper-boring since it plays like a video game. If I wanted that... I'd play a video game. Then all my "magic item slots" would have graphical representations and I could actually watch my experience points ding me to a new level with a light show. One of the reasons I like the Swords and Sorcery genre is because it depends much less on magic and big FX budgets and more on story and characters. On the other hand, I like many things in the high fantasy genres, yet too many of those genres overuse what they have available to the point of being boring.

 

One flaming mystical blade? Pretty cool, very unique, and nice... a party with a portable hole full of loot and magical items? Wow, this stupid flaming blade sucks... hand me the Dragon-Waster 3000 +5/+23 vs Dragons/+12 vs Fire Elementals/+52 vs GM so I can use my Holy Smite attack I learned from my mentor, whom I killed for mouthing off to me... cuz I'm holy like that.

 

Oops, sorry, slipped into a rant for a second there...

 

Like someone said, many games for many folks, kind of hard to nail one down unless you actually name one of the published settings, I suppose.

 

To a degree, however, it's logical. In a world where magic exists, can be studied and behaves predictably ('make this gesture, say this word, and something will explode'), magic replaces science, so inaccessible magic items make about as much sense as the real world having inaccessible toasters. Magic should have effects on sociological development, including communications, agriculture, and, indeed, warfare and weaponry.

[tancred]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

To a degree' date=' however, it's logical. In a world where magic exists, can be studied and behaves predictably ('make this gesture, say this word, and something will explode'), magic replaces science, so inaccessible magic items make about as much sense as the real world having inaccessible toasters. Magic should have effects on sociological development, including communications, agriculture, and, indeed, warfare and weaponry.[/quote']

 

Pretty much my sentiments.

I've always thought that, if magic is as predictable as you describe, it would essentially replace technology.

(For a REALLY cool take on this, read Hell's Gate by David Weber and Linda Evans. No spoilers, but they explore this very concept.)

 

I've created any number of "mundane" magic items in my games over the years, things with no use in combat but that logically (to my mind at least) would get created because magic makes them possible.

 

The two examples that stand out are a magic "icebox" and a flameless stove.

The implications are large. Remember what refrigeration did by making it so easy to store food.

And imagine being able to cook under conditions where an open flame simply isn't practical (aboard ship in a storm, for example).

[Remjin]

Re: FRPG Ideas from Hero that ain't necessarily so

 

To a degree' date=' however, it's logical. In a world where magic exists, can be studied and behaves predictably ('make this gesture, say this word, and something will explode'), magic replaces science, so inaccessible magic items make about as much sense as the real world having inaccessible toasters. Magic should have effects on sociological development, including communications, agriculture, and, indeed, warfare and weaponry.[/quote']

 

I don't deny its logic, I deny its general entertainment value for me. I know lots and lots of people who love it, so I can't really argue with it. =) The magic replacing science idea is an interesting way to see it, though, and is certainly worth some thinking about in general... but in following that line, when magic replaces science and is predictable and no longer mysterious... isn't it just science? Isn't part of the definition of magic its mystery and improbability? It kind of loses its luster to me that way...

 

I like the idea of magic as a mystery and as awe-inspiring... scaring the yokels, terrifying those in the know, and always impressive. The rarity makes it more fantastic to me, whereas being festooned with it... well, its the whole "too much of a good thing" type of feeling I suppose.

 

Again, this is preference on my part, and certainly not fact for everyone... heck, I'm probably in the minority.