Markdoc

Re: Sign of the Times? (Sequel to UK Student Nationals post)

Re: Skill Trees (A New Framework?) One thing that I do to encourage people to take certain skill sets is allow them to buy "Professional skill enhancers". They work exactly like the current skill enhancers. They cost 3 points and give you a 1 point cost break on each relevant skill. It encourages people to buy coherent skill sets and as GM, I control what skill sets (and thus enhancers) are available in any given game. Works well, nice and simple and uses a mechanism already in place. Also, as a GM, I prefer to encourage my players in certain directions rather than force them to go certain directions. cheers, Mark

Re: An observation on two systems The "hero system is hard to GM" thing goes away after a while - unlike many other game systems because while there are a lot of core rules in Hero, they are generally consistent - and they are not being continually added to. So once you've learned the rules, that's pretty much it. I find very often these days that I don't crack open the rules book at all during a gaming session, even when we have intense combats. Last session, for example, we had a combined chase and sword and magic fight taking place in a "town" made up of the hulks of old ships. We had swordfights on swinging rope bridges, on narrow walkways, a sword fight through a window as well as more conventional combats, PCs climbing walls and leaping from roof top to roof top (and then down on top of their opponents), players barricading a door with furniture to stop the bad guys battering it down. We had PCs and NPCs attacking with swords, magical spells, martial arts, furniture, beer jugs, grabs, move-throughs, witty repartee and a proposal of marriage. We had characters with power frameworks, and characters without. In total, 6 PCs and 20+ NPCs were all involved in that one fight. It took less than 2 hours to play through the whole combat, I don't recall any GM cheats or rule bending and I didn't touch the rulebook. And that's not at all unusual for my games*. It just requires a wee bit of practice, but once you've got it down, I find it flows very easily. Cheers, Mark *there are people on the boards who've played in my games before, so you can ask them . But it's not that unusual for me to run combats that involve 20-30 or sometimes more NPCs - or to have two or more major combats within a single session.

Re: Creating a Shield

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Re: Repeated Attempts This is exactly what I do - with the exception of combat rolls, where you can keep rolling as long as you have the opportunity. That means that if the "heroes" have a goon tied up and are taking a day or two using telepathy on him, eventually they are going to get a maximum or near maximum roll. In that case, I may whack Dr. Mindream with some LTE loss, but I usually handwave the 216 dice rolls and just say "OK, it takes an hour but eventually you extract the information that Foxbat is gaining access through a dimensional portal hidden in the ice-cream freezer." A similar - but unrelated - bug for me is the case where you ask the players to make a roll - for example a PER roll - and 7 of them fail it, but the 8th rolls a "3" or something. It adds a degree of additional arbitrariness I could do without. I often "bundle" rolls and ask for a roll for the party (often at a small bonus) - rather than a whole mass of rolls. cheers, Mark

Re: Characteristics in an EC Like most posters here I'd allow it .... rarely. In general, I'm pretty restrictive about what goes into an EC - it has to be a tightly defined power set. So I would (and in fact have) allowed "Werewolf powers" because, illogical as they seem, they are a set that has been well-hallowed by fiction and are limited in what can be included - either you buy the full set, or none of them: and they come with some severe limitations (the whole moon thing). That set did, IIRC include extra STR and DEX. However, I'd be pretty damn iffy about "Cyborg powers" and something like "alien powers" or "magical powers" is right out. In one game, we actually had a character suggested (it was rejected) who was a straight superman clone, with pretty much everything (super SPD, Super STR, Super INT, Super rPD) in an EC, based on the idea that just like a certain DC character, under specific circumstances, he was just a regular joe in his underwear. My comment was that I wanted an EC too, with the special effect that it contained "superpowers". cheers, Mark

Re: Druidic Magic 3.5 Conversion to HERO I would if I could, but I can't, so I didn't cheers, Mark

Re: To Have a Campaign Map or not? What I tend to do is draw a detailed map for my own use, and provide either a log (I've always called it a "rutter") of the kind von D-Man suggests or a map drawn from the perspective of the drawing culture (or person). It's almost always inaccurate, sometimes bizarrely so, sometimes not too bad, occasionally precisely accurate. It's worth looking at medieval maps to get some ideas: they had some pretty weird ideas of maps - the world shaped like cross, for example. I have, in the past, handed out a map in which the empire was drawn as a circle, with the emperors palace in the centre (in "real life" it's on the easternmost side) and the major provinces drawn as the outer quadrants of the circle with major highways as spokes. Numbers indicated days travel. To our eyes it looks totally off the wall, but once you work out how to use it, it's actually perfectly reasonable. It doesn't show you where things are in space, but where they are in relationship to each other - and in a form which is easily memorized. But as a general rule of thumb, my player maps show the area where the map was drawn in reasonable detail getting sparser as you go out. How "accurate" the map is depends on the navigational expertise of the culture that produced it. I had an amusing moment in my FH game a while ago, when I gave the players a new map. Their old map was relatively accurate - but it only showed the principality they lived in plus its nearest neighbors. They suddenly realized that their game world, where they have been adventuring in the last couple of years is actually far bigger than they thought and that their "big principality" where all their adventures so far have taken place is actually one relatively small island in a very large archipelago. The fun thing is that later I'll get to do this to them again - at some point they may well work out that the "very large archipelago" is actually a modest cluster of islands in the bottom left hand corner of the world map. I find it actually adds to the sense of wonder and suspension of belief as the players gradually realize that no, actually they aren't the centre of the world, and that there are many strange and wonderful things out there to explore. cheers, Mark

Re: increasing bow damage with OCV levels?

Re: B-movie inspiration Dude, that's not a B movie. That's a C movie. Possibly even a D movie. "In a far-off kingdom there was good king who was plagued with a terribly fake beard ....." cheers, Mark

Re: Are Heroic Characteristics Realistic?

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right? Of course - but even in this example, the person is assuming someone else's legitimacy. He couldn't just turn up and say - "Hi, I'm Pugachev, an' I'm gonna be your Emperor" - even though he had a huge army of Cossacks and won almost every battle. When it turned out that maybe he wasn't actually Peter III, his supporters started to melt away or change sides. They might have stuck with him after the defeat at Tsaritsyn if they really had believed his claims - as it was, they were prepared to accept his being the supposedly murdered Tsar as long as the going was good. But he still needed some cover of legitimacy The same applied most places. It didn't matter if your claim was a really good one, but you had to have some basis for a claim. Likewise, even if you had a good claim, if you couldn't enforce it (or you didn't have allies who could) it didn't matter. In 1066, everyone remembers the three claimants who had armies (Harold, Harald and William) but everyone forgets the fourth claimant - Edgar Etheling, the dead king's closest relative. He had an excellent claim - his father Edward the Exile had been in direct line to the throne before his sudden and mysterious death. But he was only a kid and had no powerful lords in his following. Harold had no prior form, so he based his claim on a deathbed anointing by Edward. This was considered a bit unlikely by many, so Harold was forced to agree to an adjudication by the witan (council of elders) along with the other three contenders. His winning was not a forgone conclusion: he had marriage ties to many of the witan and was generally popular because of his military victories, but he also had many enemies - especially in the church. This shows that even the man with the largest army in England and close ties to the court couldn't just claim the kingship: he needed some sort of legal cover. cheers, Mark

Re: What gives the "rightful" king the right? Right. He had two claims via Edward (in addition to the promise, he was also Edward's first cousin once removed). He also - at least apparently - got Harold to swear to accept his claim when he was held prisoner by William. it was the claimed breaking of this oath that helped William secure papal blessing (and a papal banner) for his attempt to reclaim his rightful throne. Even Harald Hardraada didn't just turn up and say "Ooh, nice country, I'll take it" - he ALSO had a legitimate claim to the throne. He had succeeded Magnus as King of Norway - and to settle the war in Denmark, in a treaty around 1039, Harthacanute had promised the throne of England to Magnus if he died without an heir. Edward took the English throne when he died, but the Norwegians refused to recognize his claim, because there was some doubt over whether he had been formally appointed heir. By this period, it had already became the rule that you needed some form of legitimacy to have much chance of ascending the throne. cheers, Mark

Re: B-movie inspiration Given that it's going to be WETA designing and animating him, I'm not too worried. I'm expecting lots of spiky, burny goodness. As long as they don't let Fran have too free a hand with the script, all should be well. cheers, Mark

Re: Rail gun damage? I was wondering if anyone had posted that. It's a cool video: though it highlights the problems we were talking about upthread - you can see the "gun" self-destructing in a spectacular fashion as the projectile comes out. cheers, Mark

Re: More Fantasy Art Stuff Must spread rep, etc... Cheers, Mark

Re: Natoxia, Home-Brewed Game - Need expert advice (Long) If you change the cost of FF you need to consider all defence - because otherwise people will just take spells that give them armour, or resistant PD... You have stumbled across the MOST important secret to successfully running a FH game: you need to have a careful handle on magic. In D&D, magic was restricted by reducing the caster's combat potential (HP, BAB) and casting potential (access to spells, number of spells per day and access by level). FH only really has an equivalent to the last one (access by points) built-in. The GM has to suply the rest of the checks and balances. My suggestion is to think very carefully about the place of mages in your game and then build accordingly. If you expect all characters use magic, then it's not such an issue - points cost will balance to a large extent. If you want mages to be on a equal footing with the other (non-magic-using) members of the party, you need to restrict magic to a significant extent - you've already noted that a 30 PD forcefield makes a mage all but immune to conventional weaponry - and under the Turakian magic system, that spell - with a few standard mage limitations like gestures and incantation to start - is going to cost 3 or 4 points. Even if you disallow such obvious fromageomancy, there are plenty of obvious dealbreakers - the "Wizard's Shield" spell from the Grimoire costs a few points and grants the wizard better protection than the finest armour. Give him that spell, a good stat line, a few CSLs an ordinary two-handed sword, plus "Spell of Titantic Might" from the Grimoire and you have a magically enhanced warrior, who'll tear a squad of normal warriors limb from limb : and I chose spells with a low casting penalty, so he doesn't need to spend a lot on his casting roll. Now I wouldn't want to rule that concept right out - the mystically enhanced warrior: a paladin, an pseudo celtic Warped one or similar - is a fine concept (I have both kinds in my game). But there needs to be some limit. If he can cast effective combat spells at will - plus fly and turn invisible - the other party members are going to start feeling like henchmen. If, on the other hand, he can do all that stuff for a limited number of phases, then he becomes a powerful asset to the party - but not the solution to every problem. KS covers these design considerations in detail on his site (you do have it bookmarked, right? ). I do the same on my site here: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/Grimoire/designing_magical_worlds.htm If you want to lay out some idea of where you want mages to be in the grand scheme of things and how you want them to behave in-game, we can probably offer some suggestions. cheers, Mark

Re: Capaign Theme: The Chase My current game is a chase campaign. It started out with some bad guys trying dirty deeds in their home town, and the PCs have so far chased them - around town, then across their home kingdom then to another kingdom, and are currently at the edge of their map of the known world peering hesitantly off the edge... One of the things this game was designed to do was take the chracters through some changes. They started out as nobodies and then became local heroes. At one point they even became recognised by the authorities and could count on assistance a lot of the time. Now they are following their foes into the foes' own territory. They're becoming unsure who they can trust or what their enemies are actually trying to do. Soon - I hope - I'm going to get some of the players questioning what they are trying to do. The other thing the game was designed to do was move the characters right out of their starting area: show them a bit of the world. That's worked fine: they started off with a map - then they recently got a better one and realised that the area they've spent the last 2 years adventuring is is actually that little island in the middle there and that this whole chase business is going to take longer than expected... cheers, Mark

Re: Natoxia, Home-Brewed Game - Need expert advice (Long)

Re: Change the focus from KO to Killing Yeah, in my game, the problem has always been keeping people alive, not making them dead. What I do is: 1. In-game restrictions. Doesn't matter how important you think you are, there are many places you cannot go wearing armour or weapon larger than a small knife for peeling fruit. Sometimes tho' you can take your sword. That applies to the bad guys too. If all the actors in a fight are wearing clothes and doing 1-4d6 HKA, it's gonna get messy. 2. Allow fairly free character build. I don't allow deadly blow (see #3) but if Murata the enigmatic has 18 STR, a few combat levels, martial arts and a naginata, he should be able to dish out 4d6 HKA. Even with plate armour, that's gonna hurt. 3. Free stuff and points don't stack. That's why deadly blow is out, but it's virtually the only case of allowing an attack to stack with free gear. Outlawing stacking (as part of the "real equipment" limitation) means in fantasy setting you no longer have to deal with DEF much above 8 except in the case of relatively potent magic: DEF is cheap, but it still cuts into whatever else the mage can do. Often DEF more likely averages 3-6. Even a 2d6 HKA becomes relatively lethal in that context. 4. People don't magically stop bleeding when the spotlight moves off them. Anyone below 0 BOD will likely die in a minute or two unless they have a healer handy. This becomes even more crucial if magical healing is rare. 5. Hit locations. Nuff' said. cheers, Mark

Re: Accorlands Blackiron

Re: Return of the blimp/zepellin Usually, I agree with you, but in this case, I have to comment. At any rate, airlines are starting to work out that disruptive children on flights hurt their business and do something about it. Continental recently threw a mother and her child off a flight from Atlanta to Oklahoma because of the child's disruptive behaviour, while AirTran dumped a family in Florida because their daughter threw a tantrum on the plane and refused to get in her seat. When the family went public to try and shame AirTran, the airline got over 14,000 emails - overwhelmingly in support of AirTran. Now that sort of thing is no fun for anybody - maybe the airlines could have handled those situations without dumping the passengers: I wasn't there so I don't really know. On the other hand, delaying a flight for a disruptive child might mean that dozens of people miss their onward flights - so just maybe the decision to kick the troublemaker out was the right one. In my experience - and I'm writing this from Geneva airport, if you get my drift - most people are happy to extend courtesy to families traveling with children. I've given up my seat to allow people with kids more room, I've helped them maneuver their strollers and baggage, I've patiently waited for them to get their stuff on or off the plane. Families with kids get priority boarding, and extra attention while on the flight - and that's fair enough. But expecting a little courtesy in return is not unreasonable. Cheers, Mark

Re: The Cost of STR & Other Characteristics: An open discussion Well, all I can say is that I'm genuinely sorry. I hesitated to write it, but asked because there are lots of people on the boards who'd like to play but don't have a group and I know that actually running something can change your perspective compared to just doing the math. I wanted to get a better feel for your perspective, is all. Actually, my point - stated explicitly, several times was that there were multiple ways she could win. Grab and haymaker (technically speaking once grabbed, you can't haymaker - see my earlier link to the FAQ - so she can do it to him, but he can't return the favour once grabbed), grab and slam, movethrough, use of environmental features. Haymaker lets him damage her - but only at significant levels of risk. In short, his options are greatly reduced compared to hers. SNIP IF all he does is use his actions dodging. I've already mentioned that fleeing is probably his best option. If he does that, he reduces that 6% chance to nothing: he can't outpace her, but she can't catch him. But that sounds like concession to me. I've snipped out the big chunk on movement - I agree that in most circumstances, a fight between these two opponents is going to end up in the sky. That helps EM a bit - but not much. Agreed. Let's say he blocks (that's an attack action ending his phase). He has initiative next phase. But what does it get him? He can shoot her - doing no significant damage and likely remaining in half move range even if he hits - and having attacked, he cannot then block again. If he misses, she's right in his face. All it does is delay the phase when she finally lands a solid one. Frankly, he'd be better off fleeing. Sure - as I noted, I was assuming he'd get plenty of chances to shoot. Sigh. I can't believe we are doing this again. Yes, if he spreads, he improves his chance of hitting and the odds are very good he'll do knockdown or even a little knockback. I hate to sound like the Midnighter, but I've already fought this combat a million times in my head. I know how it ends. Still, let's do the math once again. Spreading to 6 dice means he does 0 stun, so the number of times he hits is irrelevant: he's not going to hurt her and she's not going to run out of END. All we need to worry about then is movement. On average (spreading to 6d6) he'll send her back 2-3" when he hits, meaning that on phases where he hits her he'll gain 2-3" of distance on her (assuming he always moves back a half move and she has to spend a halfmove re-orienting). On phases where he misses (slightly more than 1 phase in 3) she'll gain 10" on him. In other words, even using your own math here, on average she'll move 4-5" closer to him in total every 3 phases. Basically she'll close the last 20" between them in a couple of turns - losing no STUN and no END in the process. He has to consistently roll way over the odds to blast her away from him. He might gain a few phases, but he's doing no damage and she's burning less END than she recovers. Whether he spreads the dice doing less KNB more frequently, or more KNB, less frequently, the maths is remorseless: She will close to HTH range in a few phases. And he cannot avoid it, just by shooting her. At that point, all the stuff you wrote below this, about moving out of her movement range is irrelevant. He doesn't get any "free moves" so unless he turns and flees, the best he can realistically hope for at that point is to move (half move plus KNB) away, barring an incredibly lucky series of rolls on his part. And even if he is incredibly lucky, all that does is give him a chance to try haymakering her without getting splattered in return. Since that's highly unlikely to stun her, and can't take her out of the fight, it doesn't help him much - and he's taking a huge risk. Since haymaker takes an extra segment she can either half move and dodge or full move towards him: either way the odds are very good that if she wins the next DEX-off - he's going to be wearing a movethrough while at -5 DCV, which will hurt him a lot more than a haymaker will hurt her. He can of course abort to dodge, but then she's right on top of him again and we are back to square 1. And even though the chances of her are succeeding are small, unless he can come up with some way to hurt her or he flees, eventually she's gonna tag him if they are in hand to hand. With these characters, there really isn't anyway to mold the numbers in his favour. Basically all we end up with is that if he fights intelligently, he can delay - for a while - the time until she really gets to hurt him. If that's your point, I agree entirely. Your other points about using environmental weapons of opportunity are well-thought out, but as a GM (and in common with pretty much all the GMs I have played with) I rule that environmental objects cannot do more damage than BOD plus DEF, and they generally have penalties for use (no matter how strong you are, a bus is not designed to be swung like a a baseball bat) so I'd actually say that most things you can find lying around are less of a danger to EM than PW is. EM has such high defences than unless she can find a tank or something similar to hit him with, she's unlikely to be able to hurt him very much with such things - unless he drops his FF, which is a very risky action for him anyway unless she's far, far away. The greater environmental risk for him is non-attack actions like being drowned in a fountain, trapped under a pile of semitrailers, etc. cheers. Mark

Re: Discussion on costs of Characteristics No. That's a substantial degree of variation right there, from "very weak" to "very strong". It gives a hugely different feel to having most PCs pegged at the "very strong" end of the scale.