Markdoc

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero Yep, I considered cards and rejected them for primarily this reason: one of the things I wanted to do was speed combat up, not slow it down by adding extra probabilities to ponder. That's the kind of thing that I actually enjoy as part of a board game, but I wanted to reduce the amount of metagaming and player "pre-planning" of combat moves (and by that I mean metagame planning the phase sequence of sweeps, haymakers and CSL placement to maximise advantage of the SPD chart, not sensible pre-planning of how and where to fight). I guess the attitude I wanted to inculate was: "I'm faster than him: if I can block his attack I should be able to run away and he won't be able to catch me." rather than: "If I block on phase 4, I act again in phase 6, letting me move 6 inches before he gets an action in 8, so even if he does a moveby to reach me, I can call forward a dodge from 9, so there's no way he can get a better than 8- chance to hit and he doesn't moveby I can take a recovery on 9 and then move again on 12. But wait! If I move on 9 and take an extra recovery on 12, that'd be safer and I can still call forward a dodge ... no, that's wrong - maybe it'd be better if I dodge and half move on 4, and then...." cheers, Mark

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

Re: High power magic (Brainstorming welcome and requested) Who's Valdemar? Cheers, Mark

Re: Thoughts on Early Modern Magic Yeah, good point. It's actually something I've been meaning to do for ages - but have been putting off. The whole site needs an updating really, but I have been concentrating on the site for my FH game. I almost dread running Big Brother over it for fear of how many dead links I'll turn up Cheers, Mark

Re: Bricks Get Hosed, Or Not Agree. Bricks overall do pretty well, and damn near the nastiest thing in the entire game is a "quick brick" (the Wonder Woman, Superman, Captain Marvel et al. archetype). Even before this ruling, I was pretty leery of allowing 0 END powers into frameworks (to be specific, in ECs), simply because it gives you a big price break without the mitigation of having to choose among the powers that a MP or VPP inflicts: you get to run the whole thing at once. As a GM, I'm very hard on ECs for that reason - I'd never allow for example, "Brick powers" as an EC, or "magic powers" - I insist on a tighter definition. I'd be OK with (for example) "Werewolf powers" because there's a general gamer consensus on what those are, and you either take the package or nothing. cheers, Mark

Re: Is it Dex or is it Speed? I've played in a game where the GM did this, and even though he was a pretty good GM (and it was a good game, apart from that thing with the grenade... ) the experience was such as to make me decide to never, ever, ever, do it again. Basically it strips a vast amount of tactics out of combat and leads to a huge number of knock-on complications. cheers, Mark

Re: High power magic (Brainstorming welcome and requested) In Dymeria (the biggest empire in the current game) they have colleges of battle magic, where mages are trained to be basically living artillery. They work in teams of 20 (a "battle" - the basic Dymerian unit), usually two adepts and 18 apprentices of various capabilities. In battle, one mage concentrates on offensive spells while the other holds an action or manipulates defensive magics. The apprentices assist with either Aid spells to pump the Adept's spells up or support their casting, or cast minor defensive magics to deflect arrows, telekinese charging warriors away, etc. This lets the adepts focus on big, flashy killing spells, teleporting their elite warriors on top of enemy spell casters or into the middle of pike blocks or similar tricks , turning the ground to mud, etc. I'm not sure protecting the troops alone would be enough to retain traditional tactics. In my game, telekinesing a really big chunk of something and then hitting any infantry silly enough to gather en mass with it is a favourite - even if they are protected with antimagic, that won't stop a perfectly non-magical 20 ton rock. Likewise, it wouldn't stop you moving your own troops about the battlefield by magic, or using images or invisibility: there's a lot you can do without directly interacting with the enemy soldiers. However, if you wanted the traditional feel alluded to above, you could have a system of magic where mages could dampen out each other's spells within a certain radius (perhaps up to the active points of their own largest spell, or something similar): perhaps as a perk, or alternatively as a limitation on magic*. That might make an interesting system: a more powerful mage would be all but immune to lower level magic - but would be reduced in power, making himself vulnerable to attack. It'd give a fantasy world with a very different feel. cheers, Mark *actually, now that I think about it, a system very much like this was in force in Tim Powers's book The Drawing of the Dark: the world's two most powerful wizards are present at the siege of Vienna, but neither can do anything while the other is there. However, they don't dare leave because the other one could instantly win the battle if his power was not held in check. As a result, they sit and watch while the siege is fought by conventional means.

Re: Thoughts on Early Modern Magic

Re: Soldiers marching. Yeah, Harold made good use of a small elite group of mounted huscarls, but he tried the trick one time too many. His forced march from Stamford bridge to London impressed his contemporaries - he covered 200 miles in only 7 days, for an average speed of nearly 30 miles a day (though he did have the advantages of both being in friendly country and having an excellent road network). But even so, to do that he had to leave most of the northern fyrd behind: they were still trickling into his camp when the battle of Hastings started a week later and thousands probably never arrived. The loss of the fyrd archers in particular is though to have weakened the English army - we know there were many of them at Stamford bridge from the thousands of arrowheads dug up and Harald Hardraada was reputedly killed by an archer: but there is little mention of them at Hastings, where the norman archers seemed to have enjoyed an undisputed field. Even Harold's huscarls who made the trip with him and who were probably pretty much all mounted, were probably exhausted, at any rate, he paused several days in London, before setting out again, allowing William time to consolidate his position. It was an impressive effort and if William had landed a week later, history might have been very different, but there is a limit to how fast you can go, and Harold's marches, while impressive, fall into the 20-30 miles a day range already outlined. cheers, Mark

Re: Regeneration/Healing My approach has been threefold (and I must admit, a bit of rules exploiting, which seems justified given the cost involved in simulating this archetype ) First, regeneration (for the BOD): You don't actually need a lot: as pointed out, it doesn't help you that much in combat. And even a small amount will usually let you heal up totally between fights. Second, Healing (for the STUN) - make it persistant and self-only. This is the power that gets you back up and into the fight after the brick has just punched you through two walls. Third, stun-only Damage reduction. Damage reduction is not usually a great buy, but in this case, it greatly amplifies the usefulness of your healing (that's the exploit part ) Partner that with moderate defenses and you have a character that most people can hurt, but who is extremely hard to take down and keep down. cheers, Mark

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero I have. In my games, I randomise the speed chart so that a SPD 4 player will still get 25% more actions than the SPD 3's - but he can't tell exactly when he will get them, making "reacting on the fly, when an opportunity presents" the order of the day. I like the system, as do almost all of my players, but I admit it jars some of the ultra-tactical types or very old-school players. cheers, Mark

Re: High power magic (Brainstorming welcome and requested) Our own experience with battles in a high magic setting has shown that the mass of soldiery is merely there to soak up a few spells: it's like the first day of the Somme (and in such a setting, you bet the regular soldiery starts digging trenches and bunkers, for a little cover as soon as they realise a battle is looming, adding to the similarity). And unless charmed or otherwise coerced, they'd know that, so their morale is pretty shot even before the battle starts Being an armoured knight on a mighty steed is not much better than being a peasant with a pointy stick when one guy on the opposing side can sling big area effect 8d6 RKAs. As a result I redesigned the armies of the major powers so that they have a cutting edge of high-powered warriors and mages, kitted out with potent antimagic protection, weapons of mass destruction or both, with a small number of cannon fodder simply to stopp them being over-run. Battles become games of "Kill the majors" and the first side to lose their heavy hitters either surrenders or is wiped out to the last man, woman and wombat. The common soldiery is relegated to carrying stuff, building stuff and garrison duty: being called up for battlefield support only when absolutely necessary. cheers, Mark

Re: Thoughts on Early Modern Magic A couple of things that might be useful: My "magical systems" stuff is here: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/Grimoire/the_ultimate_grimoire.htm and off that page, is a quasi-medieval/renaissance magic system inspired by books like "The Dragon Waiting" and medieval superstition. http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/Grimoire/magic_systems.htm#Medieval%20Magic The idea is to make magic difficult and very, very, dangerous to cast and totally unsuitable for casting in combat. However, in such a setting magic is very powerful because mages are rare, so players are not going to face magic or countermagic very often. The idea was to design a magic system that could plausibly (not realistically, but plausibly) exist in a world similar to our own medieval past. I'm using a variant of this system in my current game, where I want swordswingers to dominate combat, but Magic to still play an important role, and so far, a year or so in, that seems to be working pretty well. cheers, Mark

Re: Taira Clan Reborn Also I ran a Hero campaign set in Japan about that time - with very little difficulty, you could alter the adventures to insert your heir as the focus for the PCs efforts. Or, if you have the adventures already plotted out, the setting notes and NPcs may still be useful. Linky: http://www.geocities.com/markdoc.geo/Gaming_stuff/Sengoku/sengoku_front_page.html cheers, Mark

Re: Fighting Techniques of the Middle Ages: anyone read this? If it's the Bennett book, I used to have a copy. It doesn't have much to do with medieval fighting techniques, but it's an OK book and a decent introduction to medieval warfare. cheers, Mark.

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

Re: High power magic (Brainstorming welcome and requested) Another possibility is a kingdom-wide teleport with a large number of fixed locations (which are of course all in the King's castles), so that he can walk from one end of the kingdom to the other simply by going from room to room. So it's raining in the library in the palace in Cartnia province? Take your book down the hall and walk into the yellow gallery where the windows look out on the sunny seaside of Doorn. The Dymerian emperor in my game actually has this - the Palace of 10,000 Rooms - but it's a closely guarded secret and requires passwords (Trigger) to access the more secure palaces: use the wrong trigger on the wrong door and you end up in prison (if you are lucky) or in low orbit, if unlucky. cheers, Mark

Re: Typical NPC

Re: Soldiers marching. No idea - the article is looking at oxygen and glucose requirements to maintain that pace and concludes, based on the measurements of legionary bodies (and comparing it to modern high-performance athletes) that the pace set was just below the threshold of lactic acid accumulation - which would have let them maintain that pace for sustained periods of time without damaging their muscles. They also say: Knowing the Romans, they probably established it by finding out at what speed troops died or collapsed from marching and then setting it a litle lower than that. cheers,Mark

Re: Humans are "Special"

Re: Humans are "Special" Been done - "So Bright the Vision" by Simak I loved that book. cheers, Mark

Re: Persuasion Restrainable? Heck, why stop there - you can also get it on all your movement, any other attacks as well as your other skills. And how about DEX? I could live with having a zero DEX while asleep.

Re: Soldiers marching. Oops. Sorry about that - since the server verifies admission automatically (and I often am logged into the network even from home) when I click a link, I often go straight to the page without seeing a log-in. I posted the link mostly as a joke, since the bulk of the article is about the metabolic requirements required to meet roman marching standards and it goes into far more detail than I suspect anyone here would want. However there is one relevant bit: In short, a legionary was expected to do a bit less than 3 mph in full kit on a standard march and a bit over that if they were in hurry: about the same as modern light infantry. cheers, Mark

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds? Not entirely correct. Hoplite means "one who bears a hoplon" and over time it came to mean heavy infantry fighting with spears in close order - even those who did NOT bear hoplons (like the hoplites of some of the cities of hellenistic asia minor). Hoplites were essentially heavy infantry, which means in turn, middle class to upper middle class. However it does not (and as far as we can tell, did not) automatically carry a political meaning. Hippes - "Horsemen" - were definately not hoplites, but (being even wealthier) carried even more poltical heft. At the bottom end of the scale, poorer citizens who *were* politically enfranchised fought as light infantry (Peltasts, also named after the shield they bore). The spartans had hoplites - but not all hoplites were spartiates, and not all spartiates (actually, not even most) were politically enfranchised. Same for the soldiers of the asian littoral. They worked for tyrants, for pay and were specifically identified as "hoplites" by their contemporaries: but had no voting privileges. So you could have a vote without being a hoplite and be a hoplite without having a vote. The two terms are distinct today and were understood as such even back then (the Athenians under Solon went so far as to systematise this into 4 classes of voters/citizens: pentakosiomedimnoi, hippeis, zeugitai and thetes, based on wealth and with different privileges). To put it into the terms they used, most hoplites would have been zeugitai and most zeugitai would have been hoplites, but the two terms were not interchangable. Yeah, but you also rob the word of much meaning. "Hoplites" refers to a specific kind of heavy infantry spearmen (Hoplites, for example, did not primarily fight in phalanx: one of the innovations that changed warfare in the era). The best solution, I think would be to use the word as it was originally meant: "Heavy infantry armed and fighting predominantly in the peloponesian style". cheers, Mark

Re: Democratic Republics in Fantasy Worlds?