Markdoc

Re: No Chart SPD? I'm not a big fan of the speed chart myself (though I like the SPD stat) but what, exactly is the point of this? Having read through the thread twice it appears to replace one fairly rigid system with another. I'm not sure what the advantage would be. cheers, Mark

Re: So ... uhm ... Pulp ... yeah.

Re: Spells as "Weapon Familiarities"

Re: Concept Cars It's a Licorne, a prototype french amphious light tank. Never got further than prototype stage. cheers, Mark

Re: Ironpaw: Modeling and Practical Concerns

Re: Vehicle: Gepanzerter Gehender Träger Läufer Ahh - the Baron has it - I hadn't thought of "runner" as being the short name appended after the description: I should have realised, given usual practice. anyway the artist's name is Ted Terranova (thanks, Mike!) and he also did this amazing image which is too early for Pulp Hero, but just right for Victorian hero just amazing work! cheers, Mark

Re: Ironpaw: Modeling and Practical Concerns Model the knives? They're just attached knives (OIF). You could maybe give an extra DC if you wanted to give the benefit of the doubt in that he might be able to strike harder with them (probably not, IRL) As for living with them - sheesh - in games like T&T or D&D, there are questions which simply are not asked. I suspect the designers never gave it a second thought. Practically, he'd need someone to things for him - change his clothes, wipe his butt, pick his nose, etc. He might be able to do some rudimentary cooking/feeding, hold things between the knives (like a cup) and manipulate some things with his feet of mouth, but he'd be pretty helpless in many situations. cheers, Mark

Re: And off we go! Yep. I basically modelled their personality off various bad-tempered roosters and parrots I have known. Polly wanna finger! cheers, Mark

Re: Vehicle: Gepanzerter Gehender Träger Läufer I'd translate it (very) loosely as "armoured walking (weapons) carrier" but a more literal translation would be "armoured walking/going carrier runner" I don't recall where I got it, but I have seen work (including this picture) before - the guy responsible has some very cool matte paintings of alternate WW2 german installations with wierd tech - I assumed for a video game. Cheers, Mark

Re: Favorite HERO mechanics Lots of things that have aready been mentioned and one thing that hasn't: a (mostly) consistent metasystem. As a player, that makes it possible to build/do things that are not explicitly laid out in the system, because you can build off what does already exist and extrapolate in a logical fashion. As a GM, it makes it easier to *handle* the things which are not explicitly built into characters or the rules. You can do this in any system but adding appropriate amounts of handwavium, but in Hero system the underlying framework makes it easy to make an appropriate response - it also makes it easy to be consistent. cheers, Mark

the great qurrock race and the joust. OK, another update for the game... Well, there was a certain amount of skullduggery surrounding the quorrock race. The quorrock-breeder's son managed to get inside the lord's manor and sneak a peak at the mounts (he has the makings of a pretty good thief!). Hagrid bought qurrock food with the plan of scattering it to distract the others' mounts and Khastz had an interesting discussion with a man who wanted to pay him off to take a fall in the race. The others spent some time trying to work out who is competing on behalf of the Samadrians. On the day itself, the competitors had to race on foot to the qurrocks, select their mounts and then race through the twisty streets of the town, up the hill to the gate, jump a barrier at the gate, race to the parade ground, collect a flag, swim their mount across teh river, plant the flag, ride to the magical storm apple tree and collect an apple and then ride back to town and present it to the Harvest queen. Phew. Hagrid the merchant's plan went awry more or less imediately - he's slow so the others outpaced him to the mounts. Lamoniak, the lunatic from another world chose the largest and orneriest qurrock he could see - it was faster than most, but also prone to biting and gave him a -1 on his ride rolls since it fought the reins. Khastz picked a flighty quorrock that was prone to starting (also a -1 on his rolls). The Samadrians cheated by using magic to switch their candidate with an expert ride when he slipped off to use the toilet and he picked the best mount. However, Khastz got off to a flying start using acrobatics to spring on his mount and actually led the pack through the streets all the way to the barrier, though the Samadrian and Lamoniak closed teh ga on their faster mounts. The rest all got tangled in a huge qurrock fight being unable to control their excitable mounts at one stage, with spectators running hither and yon to avoid getting pecked or stamped on as the action spilled into a side street. Hagrid was stolidly bringing up the rear - on foot, leading his quorrock, because he couldn't get it to do what he wanted. The three leaders jumped the barrier and headed down to the flags, neck and neck, while the rest of the field had another pile up at the barrier, with riders falling off and injuring themselves all over. Hagrid finally reachedthe barrier after everyone had gone and used it to climb back up on his qurrock, before setting off sedately in pursuit of the rest. At the flags, which were on poles stuck into the ground, Khastz surged ahead by taking the dangerous course of snatching a flag as he went past at the gallop. The Samadrian tried the same, but muffed his STR roll: he failed to pull it out of the ground and went flying off his mount. Lamoniak missed his grab entirely and had to circle back. By now Sir Baharach had broken free of the pack and he took TWO flags at the gallop, throwing one away so whoever needed the last flag would have to dismount to pick it up. At the river, Khastz got his mount swimming but then fell off and had to paddle to shore under his own power. The Samadrian followed him and did the same. Lamoniak who was coming up fast, came unstuck here - his mount baulked and dropped its head at the river's edge and he went sailing over its neck into the river - he spent the next few minutes trying to get it to go into the river, which took him out of the race. Sir Baraharch came up and drove his mount through the river, staying mounted and picking up some distance on the leaders, who had planted their flags on foot then remounted and raced for the tree. Khastz was back in second place, but when they approached the tree, used acrobatics and riding to stand up and spring into the branches: when he had secured his apple he swung down (more acrobatics) landed on his mount and raced for the finish line ahead of the Samadrian, who had dismounted to search for an apple in the grass. Corylon, the local favourite, had had a rough race - despite being a decent rider he had had some rotten luck. Unlike some of the others though, he had never fallen - that's because a local priestess had decided to help him out - by gluing his trousers to his mount with a spell! However when he got to the tree he needed to climb up - he ended cutting the seat out of his trousers with his knife which cost him valuable time In the meantime, Khastz and the Samadrian were riding neck and neck for the finishing line. At the last moment, splashing back through the ford, Khastz fluffed his very last riding roll and went flying off his mount, face down in the dust. Spitting blood, he had to limp over the finish line in second place. The Samadrian waved to the crowd and then rapidly disappeared so he could switch back with Mhyrryn. The players later worked out that a switch must have taken place, but haven't done anything apart from developing a desire to stomp Mhyrryn. The following night was spent in tending wounds from falls, partying and plotting what to do about the Samadrians. The following day, the qurrock-breeder's son and the merchant (having cut a deal) started selling qurrocks together at the morning market, while the others prepared for the joust (actually just a series of mounted combats, fought in an open field, not a formal european-style joust). Khastz maged to get some light armour, but Lamoniak had none. This was interrupted by the discovery in midmorning of a mutilated body of a woman in a patch of long grass outside town. Much confusion and running around and eventually after rituals of protection and atonement, the joust got underway. This was brutal and bloody. Khastz, depite his lack of any combat magic or much in the way of combat skills actually aquitted himself well against Promidor - a trainee armiger or professional warrior - who used combat magic against him. Khastz drew first blood and got in a couple of good hits but then took a lance - at full gallop - in the 13's and went flying off his mount with half a shattered lance sticking out of him. Despite the fact that the lances were blunt (normal, not killing damage) and light (break if more than 6 BOD done) he came close to death before being healed by a priestess. Lamoniak got matched with Sir Baharach, a veteran warrior and the favourite, but managed to dismount him by crashing his mount into Sir Baharach's and then switched from lance to his speciality, the flauberge (a fencing weapon). He got in masses of hits, but unfortunately could make only a little impact on Sir Barahach's mail - he got a good deal of stun through, though, even though he kept hitting the arms. Sir Baharach evened the odds by cutting the legs off Lamoniak's qurrock with his axe. Before he could kill the stunned and fallen Lamoniak, Laughing Loolie - an intinerant priestess, who was outraged by his foul (fowl) behaviour in attacking the qurrock - cast a spell on Sir Baharach, gluing his boots to the ground - so he had to defend against Lamoniak at half DCV. That nearly did for him, although he tore his feet free at the cost of some phases. His armour saved him, though by then he had lost 9 BOD and almost all his STUN. Lamoniak used his martial arts to good effect, twice tripping Sir Barharach up and then going for called shots while he was down. That was what finally ended the battle - while lying down, Sir Baharach got in a second blow, badly cutting Lamoiak's thigh and stunning him, but Lamoniak got in a simultaneous hit, just pushing his opponent into unconsciousness. It was so close and one of the longest fights I've ever had in FH, going 7-8 turns. The crowd loved it: armoured axeman against unarmoured fencer, blood all over both combatants and only finshed when they were both almost on their last breath. Hagrid faced off against Corylon and his lack of speed and lack of riding skill proved decisive - Corylon rode him down with the lance, then switched to sword and as Hagrid struggled to control his mount, rode in behind him and stuck him in the back. Not very chivalrous, but effective enough - the healers dragged Hagrid off like a sack of potatoes. Healed of his wounds, Lamoniak faced off against Mhyrryn in the third round. Alas, the Samadrians cheated again - under cover of a wall of soldiers who blocked the line of sight, one of their mages used a legerdemain spell to lift Lamoniak's flauberge from its sheath. After the first pass, Lamoniak cast away his lance, reached for his blade and - helas! found himself unarmed. Mhyrryn was able to stab him as he tried to use his qurrock as a weapon, thus ending the combat. We fought out the rest of the combats, around these ones, but I won't go into them here: suffice to say there were deeds of glory done, though no-one was killed. Mhyrryn won the joust, by cunning use of his own defensive combat magic plus the Ledgerdemain spell - first unarming another opponent and last of all, popping Corylon's helmet off. Lamoniak did come in third, however. The players knew something was up and managed to catch the mage who was casting Legerdemain (Agrestis) in the act during the last combat - though he was magically disguised, so they could not immediately identify him. They captured the men shielding Agrestis, although the mage himself escaped into the crowd. However when the men were bought before the priestess, Agrestis - doubling back and hiding behind the stands - used his own magic to interfere with the truth spell, so his own identity remains safe - for now. The players suspect him though, due to the unusual agility shown by the "old woman" during her escape: Agrestis's secret ID is as a jester to one of the visiting lords. They have already seen him tumble in his job as jester. Side events - Khastz (with his high COM) has been asked to a ball at the manor by Lord Raus' flirtatious daughter to "explain the finer points of jousting". There's goingto be trouble with her father. Sir Baharach, ashamed by his loss of temper and by his maiming one of Lord Houndsgar's qurrocks has apologised to Lamoniak and invited him to dinner. The batman character has had a run-in on the rooftops with "the grey fox" - an well known thief/adventuress, although no-one knows what she is doing in town. And Castor the priest, is spending more time at the temple trying to wheedle admittance to the local cult so he can learn their secret cult magic. Next adventure - the wrestling contest. cheers, Mark

Re: Suggested Point Caps Hey, do it! cheers, Mark

Re: Sick of Wolverine Embarassing moment #271. The GM asks for characters for his new game which is going to be a bit less 4-colour than the previous campaigns The 4 players - without any consultation or post modernist irony - duly submit 4 characters whose major powers were slashy claws and regeneration*. We called them the "slasher team"... Cheers, Mark *Hey, at least I had a gadgeteer/detective thing, going on the side:o

Re: Magic of the Realm: Regency Spells Here's a suggestion - a magic table, with a map and little manniquins for important people. The archmage makes a manniquin for each person the king requests. Thereafter, the manniquins move about the map reflecting the actual location of the person. 20d6 Mindscan, usbale by one other (125 active), only to detect location of specific persons (-1), OAF, immovable, fragile (-1 1/2), only within the borders of the map (-1/4). 33 real points Note that the map could extend outside the borders of the kingdom, so a rival warlord mustering an army on the border would show up. If you want the user to be able to interrogate the manniquins ie: "What are you doing right now?" you could drop some telepathy onto it, which would also allow the user to send commands through it. cheers, Mark

Re: Divide by 3? Don't recall the name offhand (although I'm seeing him this weekend, so I could ask I guess) but it's a quasi D and D style level system. cheers, Mark

Re: Suggested Point Caps Actually I do - and have for many years - allow players in FH to buy "powers as skills" - what are now "fighting tricks" but what I have found is that most players will buy one or at most two, which become their "signature attack" or special shtick. So Susano's ninja character had "climb anything" as her special power, while several fighters have had an unranged selective area effect attack defined as swinging their spear by one end or a flurry of blows. Brok Bloodspear had his "mighty Salmon Leap", while another character had his "unhittable dodge" and another had a type of combat luck (called toughness, unlike combat luck you always take the first point of damage, but it always works: the character gains a movie-hero style wound which bleeds and is - in theory - serious, but which doesn't incapacitate them). Many of these maneuvers cost 10-20 points, which is a significant chunk even from a 200 point character - especially since a character who built up from 100 or so points is likely to have accreted a lot of languages and ancilliary skills. cheers, Mark

Re: Daily Art Findings Aww, I was just teasing cheers, Mark

Re: Divide by 3? A bit generous? Heavens - I can't recall ever having seen such an outrageous munchkinism in Hero system. Since many (most) spells already have a fair number of limitations on them this makes powerful spells extremely cheap. It'd need a lot of GM's oversight to keep this under control - the only Turakian age game I know has already imploded under the effect of this magic system (a mage who could shapeshift: somebody or other's spell of the monstrous form, IIRC) - the GM is picking the game up again with new characters and a new magic system drawn from KS's site. cheers, Mark

Re: Spells as "Weapon Familiarities" I've never tried this system, except for a brief playtest way way back in the day, but I'd be a bit perturbed about balance. Even if you limit the active points severely so that the highest points available to spells are no greater than a two handed sword or an arbalest (which rules out a lot of spells) I find it hard to see why anyone would play a non-spellcaster. As it stands, WF gives you access to HKA and RKA with a couple of fairly minor limitations/advantages. Most players spend at most 5 points on WF - many only 2 or 3. For example: Fighter - WF:common melee weapons - 2 points, he chooses a longsword and shield, so gets 1 1/2d6 w. STR Mage: SF: Forceblade. 1 pt. No STR min, so he does 2 +1 d6 HKA and still gets to use a shield SF: Wizard's armour. 1 pt. 8 PD/ED forcefield. In a straight-up fight, mano a mano, the mage is going to clean the fighter's clock. Plus he can buy flight and invisibility for the cost of +1 OCV with a longsword... cheers, Mark

Re: Herophile Fantasy art Also, there's a difference between rendered art - like this image of our current group doing some dungeon-bashing (since the last picture, my character has acquired some armour - and some pants!) which is by definition from scratch and the handcrafted work from people like Fitz and Storn. Design sense and an understanding of proportion and colour transfers between the two, but not much else. cheers, Mark

Re: Make them Pay! To back up what KS said, like him, I started my first FH game using precisely the "superhero model" we are discussing here for equipment - you pay for what you keep. Like him, I (and my fellow GMs) found it introduced continuous annoying anomalies and we eventually all dropped it. Now... having said that, there ARE exceptions. Characters who choose to START with signature items pay for them. That's part of their shtick, and I have no problems with it, any more than I would with the idea that a character who buys wealth - and I have one in the current game - starts with lots of money and the toys that money can buy. A character who chooses to create a magic item in-game also pays points. This kind of thing is where magic items come from, no? But players do not pay for things they ordinarily could acquire, anymore than a swordsmith has to spend a month adventuring before he get enough points to make another sword for sale. So there are no problems with asking players to pay points for their own special items if you want to run a high fantasy/wild anime style game: and as pointed out in such a setting mundane items are usually largely irrelevant, so there's no real benefit to paying for them. There ARE reasons why the superhero tropes don't convert well to FH. These are: 1. Episodicity. Superhero games tend to operate around a base: Millenium city, Gotham, whatever. Trips to exotic locales occur, sure - but air travel, superpowers etc usually mean that a return to base takes a few days/hours at most - it's usually not even played out. It's not illogical for stuff acquired in one evening's play to be discarded between adventures. In contrast, many fantasy games - even those where there is a base of some sort - usually involve extended trips away, whether that's dungeon-crawling or carrying the Porpentine to the Isle of Thorns. In this setting "picking up the guard's sword and using it until we get home" could easily cover months of play. Likewise, in adventures where travel itself - getting from A to B - is a big part of the adventure then mundane equipment can (even should) play a major role. 2. Development. While it does happen in comics and even in superhero games, the "Pin the puny develops into Pinnanimus the Great over the course of his many adventures" trope is not common. Superman started as a really strong guy who could bounce bullets and that's where he is today (having admittedly gained and lost powers along the way, his concept "world's strongest brick" remains largely unaltered). In contrast, it's probably the commonest fantasy trope in both literature and fantasy gaming. A focus on equipment - and paying for it - detracts from character development. A signature item is one thing - paying points for a host of common items (swords, shields, armour, etc) is quite another. 3. Character types. In superheroes there is a clear distinction between "supers" and normals with gear. The superhero tropes are designed to reflect this. Such a distinction does not generally exist in fantasy games: ALL characters are, to some extent, equipment users. Some will rely on it more than others - but then, that's what the focus limitation is for. 4. Available powers. Supers games are usually set in some variant of the real world - so players can get access to a wide variety of powers via free equipment (flight, instantaneous global communication, enhanced senses and a wide variety of combat toys - NND gas attacks, flame-based killing attacks, area effect or explosive attacks, autofire attacks, etc, etc). It makes sense to limit access to these in a superhero setting - or for that matter in a modern day adventure setting, because they can have a really dramatic effect on character effectiveness. In DC games, for example, I advocate an equipment pool - and tolerate the odd quirkyness that pops up - because the alternative to not tracking equipment is much more extreme. Also DC games tend to be more episodic, like supers games and equipment plays a MORE important role than in most other genres. In FH, however, the available powers are largely limited to a little extra movement, HA, HKA/RKA and armour - and not a lot of any of those. Having an equipment pool or something similar makes little to no sense under those conditions and offers little or no benefit to the game - but still generates annoying quirks. cheers, Mark

Re: Changing what is normal Your bones and muscles are what gives you PD. It ain't resistant. OK, bullets sometimes bounce off skulls (although the one that hit mine sure didn't) but they sometimes bounce off muscle too. So arms should also have resistant PD? I think not. That bounce off skull thing just reflects a crap BOD roll - it's not like you are getting away unscathed, regardless. That's why shooting someone in the chest is generally more effective than whacking them with a baseball bat - even though the total energy transferred is probably not that different. cheers, Mark

Re: Make them Pay! It doesn't really apply to a supers game purely because that's a genre thing, just like wearing your underwear outside your costume. It might make good sense for Superman to carry a radio - or at least a mobile phone - but he doesn't. He relies on his powers. To even the playing field, someone who relies on gadgets also pays for them: those gadgets ARE his powers - even if they are conventional items like a pair of .45s. It doesn't make great sense, but then neither does the fact that Clark Kent can hide his identity from close friends with a pair of fake eyeglasses. Suspension of disbelief allows it. But in other settings you don't (usually) have that same "genre" thang - and without it, suspension of disbelief takes a much bigger hit. However, as you pointed out, *sometimes* it makes sense. In my last long FH campaign, I used a medieval asian background with a kung fu + chambara flavour. In that sort of setting, characters often have a shtick that is sort of superheroic and "gear" is less important. Toshiro Mifune doesn't spend all his time waddling about in armour, for example, no matter how many swordfights he gets into. But then he never seems to hampered by that lack. The way I handled that was not by keeping track of item costs, but simply by gasp! not giving away treasure or magic items. If the players wanted to pick up mundane items and they had the cash, they could. To get even further away from the standard FH theme I kept only a very loose thumb on cash flow. Players had some money, lots of money or no money, depending on circumstances, but I never required players to keep track of how many bu they were toting - so soon they stopped caring too. At that point balance is handled nicely - everybody has access to the same stuff and it was the characters themselves and their "shtick" that counted. So again, keeping track of the cost of mundane items was avoided - and would have added precisely nothing useful if I had bothered.

Re: Suggested Point Caps I like to start around 100: sometimes a bit lower, sometimes a bit higher. That gives "stands out in a crowd" or "highly skilled" but not "master thief" or "legendary warrior". I have had player characters up to about 400 points, though, after a few years' play. I don't do points caps. I design spells and magic systems for my own games and let players do what seems reasonable within those limits. A lot of what defines what points levels are appropriate depends on how you handle skills. If a character has a background as a blacksmith, then PS:blacksmith is good enough for me - I don't require PS: Small business owner, KS: grades of charcoal, KS:Blacksmith tools, etc. If you like to see characters with 10 or 12 skills outside of combat skills, then you need to give more points. cheers, Mark

Re: Daily Art Findings Ah ha - another Sitesucker devotee, huh? cheers, Mark