Ndreare Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 so I decided to sit down and read fantasy hero complete and I noticed that hero action points are presented as a standard rule. Has anyone else noticed this or did I miss something? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Baker Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 No, you didn't miss anything. 6E specifies HAP as "optional." Starting with Champions Complete (CC 130) they are just presented as part of character development. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 Nothing is mandatory in Hero, every book makes that clear. Hero Action Points are optional because all rules are optional. They're just presented as a standard part of the base rules package now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuSoardGraphite Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 Nothing is mandatory in Hero, every book makes that clear. Hero Action Points are optional because all rules are optional. They're just presented as a standard part of the base rules package now. This. But there is a movement in the RPG fandom that wants to adhere to RAW no matter what. Its disturbing to me, but whatever floats peoples boats. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 Yeah that's long been with us. I remember in Dragon Magazine E. Gary Gygax writing that if you didn't play AD&D exactly by the rules, you weren't playing AD&D at all. He wrote several articles on it, it was like a pre-internet fight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Netzilla Posted July 14, 2015 Report Share Posted July 14, 2015 Which is funny when you consider that one of the 'rules as written' was that GMs could change the rules however they wanted. He didn't adopt his 'one true AD&D' stance until 3rd party companies started releasing compatible materials. Still the whole RAW thing seems to come in cycles. I recall it being pretty big in the early aughts (among other times) as well. It seems the pendulum swings between free-form ad-hoc play to RAW and back again every few years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
assault Posted July 15, 2015 Report Share Posted July 15, 2015 The one true AD&D thing was there from the beginning of AD&D - in the DMG, IIRC. It was supposedly what separated it from "D&D" in general, which was, by then, supposedly a maze of different house rules and third party products. That was before my time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted July 16, 2015 Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 This. But there is a movement in the RPG fandom that wants to adhere to RAW no matter what. Its disturbing to me, but whatever floats peoples boats. Just for the record, I bought down my psy lim: Obeys Raw and can't rewrite preexisting characters from 20 pts. to 15 pts. : ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted July 16, 2015 Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 I've been using HAP in my tabletop and convention games. Players like them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 16, 2015 Report Share Posted July 16, 2015 If it makes the game more fun and doesn't violate the genre: its good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 If it makes the game more fun and doesn't violate the genre: its good. Are there variations to genre where it would be inappropriate? Such as, for example, a game so gritty that living and dying by your die rolls is to be expected? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 Are there variations to genre where it would be inappropriate? Such as, for example, a game so gritty that living and dying by your die rolls is to be expected? Possibly. Certain Dark Champions, Post-Apoc Hero, or Fatnasy Hero games, for example,. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greywind Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 If you're going to make it up as you go along, what's the point in rolling dice in the first place? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 If you're going to make it up as you go along, what's the point in rolling dice in the first place? HAP are not a case of making it up as you go along. In my expereince, players us their HAP when they really want to succeed at a task or during critical moments when they want to do extra damage to a foe. I also see them not spend them becasue they want to wait "just in case". To me, it adds an extra layer of player invovlement, where they can affect the story in a postivie way, which is a good thing, since the story is about them and their actions. It allows for more heroic stunts and the ability to pull of critical, just in-the-nick-of-time, type actions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 I think Graywind gets it, he's just a curmudgeon shaking his cane. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lawnmower Boy Posted July 17, 2015 Report Share Posted July 17, 2015 I think Graywind gets it, he's just a curmudgeon shaking his cane. Pfft. You call that a curmudgeon? You kids have never even seen a real curmudgeon. Why, in my days, a curmudgeon was something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ndreare Posted July 18, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2015 We have used a Luck/Fate mechanic ever since our group fell in love with it in Fuzion. It just amazed me they decided to make it the standard assumption. The majority of Hero players I have met outside of my group have been much more into the gritty, let the roll decide side of things. How do these changes happen without us catching on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spence Posted July 18, 2015 Report Share Posted July 18, 2015 We have used a Luck/Fate mechanic ever since our group fell in love with it in Fuzion. It just amazed me they decided to make it the standard assumption. The majority of Hero players I have met outside of my group have been much more into the gritty, let the roll decide side of things. How do these changes happen without us catching on? For me the addition almost slid by without noticing. I had already adopted a version of Bennies (the Savage Worlds version of Hero Action Points) and to be frank, mine are much more versatile that HAP's as written. I actually use them in not just Hero, but in my D&D 5th Ed game too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vondy Posted July 30, 2015 Report Share Posted July 30, 2015 Yeah that's long been with us. I remember in Dragon Magazine E. Gary Gygax writing that if you didn't play AD&D exactly by the rules, you weren't playing AD&D at all. He wrote several articles on it, it was like a pre-internet fight. Which is funny as AD&D was a somewhat contradictory amalgam of house-rules from assorted designers' tables writ large. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted July 30, 2015 Report Share Posted July 30, 2015 Count me in with the "I love luck altering mechanics" crowd. They are always a welcome included option, no matter the game system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altair Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 It's a tool for players to emphasize what's important. If people are in that "no, I want to see what the dice say" moment, then they don't use them. In general, one of the things that recommends Hero IMO, is that it emphasizes the character as more important than the dice roll. D20 - really, any linear randomness system - values the result of a die roll above what the character is good/bad at. For something more pulpy, or for old-school groups that really enjoy that "the dice say what they say" style, then you maybe don't use those. Just a style thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ragitsu Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 By the way, the GM rolling for your character's Perception check isn't cheating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted July 31, 2015 Report Share Posted July 31, 2015 I do that a lot, even when I don't need to. Players can't always know what their characters learned or not. Knowing you failed the roll tells you as much as making it sometimes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altair Posted August 4, 2015 Report Share Posted August 4, 2015 Any GM I trusted*, I would be more than happy for them to roll perception for me. Any GM that I didn't, I wouldn't. But then again, I'm likely to be leaving that game very soon, if history is any indication. * - Trust in this case, is exclusively in a gaming context; it has no real bearing on the character of the individual as a human being. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vondy Posted August 8, 2015 Report Share Posted August 8, 2015 Honestly, if a player made a point out of my making a blind roll and said they didn't trust me as a game master I would invite them to leave the game forthwith. I don't game with drama-queens or paranoids. I give people a chance. Life is too short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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