Markdoc

Re: What If? Fertility Control This sort of thing would wreak major changes in every society. As far as costing it goes, I wouldn't bother: it's the default. Everybody gets "conception is voluntary" as a 0 point complication. Those individuals able to force conception could buy a major transform (probably cumulative) the magnitude reflecting how "potent" they were. Or a higher skill roll, if it were skill vs skill to generate conception (though if that were the case, then unwanted pregnancy would be pretty common, and the discussion would be moot). As for social effects, the ability to choose to have children and better life expectancy would almost certainly mean fewer children. It always has here. That means quite a lot of things, by itself. First off, fewer children means fewer people to share wealth among, means a wealthier population in general. Add that to less disease and longer life expectancy, and you could expect to see significant accumulation of wealth - across all spectra of society. I'd expect the ability to support a large family would be a status symbol - so relatively speaking, you might see larger families higher up the economic scale: the reverse of the historical scale in Europe, but exactly what we saw in the Middle East. Secondly, fewer children means that children are likely to be more highly prized: which means in turn that some characteristics of poor societies on our planet - like child labour/exploitation and child abuse would be far rarer. You'd expect fewer street urchins and less street crime. Outcome: societies would generally be more affluent, even before you took the potential effect of widespread magic into account. I'd expect they'd be much more affluent, in total. On the question of war, I honestly doubt it'd have much affect on frequency. With the exception of Volkswanderung episodes like the Germanic peoples in Europe, most wars are not started by population pressures: they're traditionally started over economic and control issues. The first crusades exported lots of soldiers to the Middle East, but back then the amount of forest being cleared for new - fertile - land just barely surpassed the amount of fertile land being allowed to fall fallow and go back to woods. Population pressure wasn't the problem. The problem was lots of younger sons trained and equipped for war with no income and nothing to do. I doubt people are going to be less greedy or controlling, so this sort of problem will continue - but the "excess sons" thing, won't necessarily. However, it does mean that wars would be fought differently: if you don't have an excess mass of very poor people, you're not going to field armies of levies and if people have few excess children I doubt they'd stand for the children they actually depend on for the family's survival being conscripted en masse. It suggests that armies would typically be smaller and better equipped/trained. You wouldn't expect the gross mortality from injury/disease that we saw historically either, so that trends in the same direction. If you joined the army, you'd have a better chance to survive to be a veteran than was historically the case. Outcome: There'll still be wars, but they'd probably look more like modern-day wars, fought by well-supported, well-trained armies - and better equipped, given access to both minor magic and more affluent societies. Not US marines, perhaps, but certainly, say Swiss pikemen or German landsknechts, or Italian condotterie. Urbanisation. It was commented that lower population growth might lead to less urbanisation, but I don't buy it: affluence is one of the major drivers of urbanisation. Populations don't urbanise to save space. They urbanise so that they can trade or provide for their shared defence. In a world with monsters and goblin warbands, I'm guessing that defence - and the ability to field a well-organised militia - would be pretty damn important. As far as trade goes, we've already suggested that populations would be more affluent. What's the point of being affluent in a small village? In years when you have good crops, everybody else in the neighbourhood does too - so your produce is nearly worthless. In years when you have bad crops - everybody else does too, so you end up fighting over half a melon. On the other hand, if you are near a trade hub, you can sell your excess in good years and import in bad. Even more, if you live in or near a city, your ability to sell means that you can afford to buy: it's not just about half a salted goat any more. Larger communities provide more specialised tradesmen, which means better quality goods. Even today, people flood from the countryside into cities in developing countries, because even living at the bottom of the social heap in an urban slum is better than living out in the country. The bucolic rural counties of the developed world are utterly dependant on their network to cities. Outcome: I'd expect this world to be at least as urbanised as our own past, perhaps more so. Rural communities will probably be concentrated along trade routes and on the most fertile land, with extensive areas of wilderness in between. Cities will probably support thriving communities of craftsmen - with the magical ability to send messages - and possibly even goods - at high speed, supporting thriving business communities as well. Think of the renaissance states of Italy or the city-states of the Hanse, just jazzed up a bit. Social change. It astounds me that no-one has discussed what would be the most profound change of all - the upending of the gender balance. In the past, women were seen as a valuable resource - just like, say cattle - because men needed them to make babies, and needed babies to continue the family line and run the family business. Women usually got little or no say in the matter. If they could choose whether or not they had babies ... well. That puts a totally different spin on things. Men would need to negotiate to get babies, and negotiation implies power on both sides. You could always try the "Have babies or I'll sell you to the salt mines!" but what do you think the chances are a guy like that getting a second spouse if he does? With lower population densities, the possibility of forced baby-making really doesn't seem like it'd be viable in anything expect the most draconian of societies. Add to that the fact that one woman in 20 has access to some sort of magical power, and that women could choose - exactly as they do today in the west - to delay childbearing until they were better economically established or to have a fling without getting landed with a baby to support, and I think you'd see much more gender equity than we have seen in any historical societies beyond the hunter-gatherer level. Outcome: Like Lysistrata, but more terminal. I'd expect a great deal more egalitarianism: after all, even a misogynist warlord might revise his ideas about women in the army, when his opponents have access to twice as many wizards and healers as he does - and their population is growing faster besides ... cheers, Mark

Re: 40K Space Marine Abilities I'd be pretty dubious about allowing things like characteristics to be bought by claiming a second heart as a focus. I'd simply accept that Space Marines are superheroic and buy the stat.s accordingly. This is pretty old, so needs updating to 6E, but here's the base stat.s used in our old 40K Hero game: marines with any experience would be expected to be tougher and to add extra skills (more vehicles, heavy weapons, etc) Equipment is here CHA VAL Cost STR 20 +10 DEX 15 +15 CON 15 +10 BOD 16 +10* INT 10 EGO 11 +2 PRE 20 +10 COM 10 PD 6 +3 ED 4 +1 SPD 3 +5 REC 6 END 30 STUN 32 * Total +66 * bonuses for growth already figured in OCV 5 ± 3 with Marine weapons DCV 5 ± 3 with marine weapons ECV 4 Powers, Skills, Etc. 8 1 level of growth always on (-1 KNB, 200 Kg mass) 7 Acid spit (1 pt RKA, continuous uncontrollable @ 0 END, stopped by washing off), limited range (2”, -1/4), can only be used once per hour (-1) 4 FAM with common melee weapons and Small Arms 9 +3 CSL with standard Marine weapons 15 Martial Arts Multipower (15 point reserve, Commando training) 1 Block +2 OCV, +2 DCV 1 Disarm +2 OCV, +1 DCV 1 Killing Strike 1d6 HKA (2d6 with STR) 1 Martial Strike +3 STR, +1 OCV, + 2DCV (5d6 with STR) 1 Martial Throw, +1 DCV (4d6 with STR) 15 Climbing, Combat driving, Concealment, Stealth, Survival (all 12-) 2 Transport FAM (Land speeders and Bikes) 6 Life support: Immunity to Disease, Vaccuum, High radiation (all act 14-) 2 1 point of regeneration (5 hours extra time, -3) 2 2 PD/ED armour (Black carapace, locations 10-13, -1 1/2) 9 +3 with all PER rolls 84 Powers total Disadvantages +75 10 Watched by Order (8-) More powerful, NCI 20 Defends honour of Order and Emperor (Common, total) 5 Loves to fight (Uncommon, moderate) 20 Reputation (“Angel of Death!”, 14-, extreme) 15 Distinctive features (marine, not easily concealable, causes major reaction) 5 Rival (Other orders of Marines)

Re: Magic systems based on science? This is basically how some types of magic worked in Chivalry and Sorcery and how Sorcery worked in 2E Runequest. I've whipped up a HERO version of it here. cheers, Mark

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ? Ummm .... no. As noted already, that's not possible and I have already stated several times that you need to have time to set your levels. It's more along the lines of: Characters enter combat. CSLs are set to wherever players want them. In a subsequent phase, the first attacker gets close enough to actually try to land a blow - after which, the defender can take his action - which can involve moving levels around. I dunno about you, but in my games, unless somebody is surprised, combat rarely starts with "The guy attacks you and you just have to stand there and take it totally unprepared". PCs (and NPCs for that matter) usually get an inkling that combat is in the offing before attacks start to fly. In last night's game, to take a real-life example, the players entered a room in a disused temple that smell rank: before going in, they drew their weapons, readied shields and adopted a formation protecting the spellcaster and the archer. They would have argued strongly - and rightly too, IMO - if I had refused to let them set their CSLs before moving into what turned out to be a violent situation. Combat starts when PCs enter a combat situation, not necessarily with the first attack. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them? I should point out that I would never run a game set set in the realms - it's just too goofball for me. However, I also realise that our GM really isn't into "realistic world-building" - she's using a prebuilt gameworld and running largely off modules. My point was not that goofball world with unworkable economies are a good idea - I think it's a terrible idea and shows a) laziness and lack of imagination on the part of the writers. I agree that it's a cop-out. However, I can still have fun in such a game setting. Not as much fun as if it were more realistic, or better thought out, but still. And to be fair, I recognise that making workable economies, or even quasi-realistic game settings in a high-magic environment is hard - and the end product might not appeal to a lot of gamers because we can be pretty sure that it wouldn't look much like Ye Olde Medievale Worlde that so many game worlds resemble. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Art Thread And as an aside, though I like Jon Hodgson's work, it always cracked me up that the Paladin was building .... in her armour. It's like it's her skin: it never comes off. Kind of awkward in the shower, I'd think. cheers, Mark

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ?

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them? We play in the Forgotten Realms, and much as I love it, nothing in it makes sense (what do Sandworms eat, exactly given that they live in a place with almost no life?), economics least of all. It has trade routes where there is no trade to be had, magic items which would have huge effects on daily life (but actually have little or none), cities in places where there is nothing to live on, etc. My own character comes from a substantial Monastery of Torm, high in the mountains above a frozen lake. There's no food, no trade to speak of .... what do the hundreds of holy brothers live on? The GM didn't think about it, and I don't press the point. A little further north is the Monastery of the Yellow Rose, which is famous for its blueberry wine (canon). I'm sorry? These guys live on a perpetually snowcapped peak above the glaciers, weeks travel from anywhere .... and they make wine? Enough to export, even? We could go on, but it makes the point, I think. Basically, like most high fantasy games, the point is not the setting itself, which is pure goofball. The point is roam the realms, finding strange and interesting places, slaying their inhabitants and taking their stuff, so that we can roam into even stranger places. The adventure is the thing, not the setting. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy-Less HERO? Yeah, I've played in and run no-magic fantasy (NMF) or almost-no-magic fantasy (ANMF). It's always been a blast. Off the top of my head: Played in: A party of monks sent to investigate murders in a remote monastery in 15th century Spain. A short campaign of about 4 sessions, inspired by the Name of the Rose. It turned out to be ANMF: it was a typical political/murder mystery, except the final bad guy turned out to be a vampire. A party of warriors sent to escort a noble maiden to her intended husband for a political marriage. That involved (interestingly enough) a trip from Hwicce to North Mercia! Also a sort of one-off: it was two sessions if I recall rightly - mostly fighting, a little political intrigue and also ANMF - we met a troll at one point, trying to escape our enemies by fleeing into deserted swamplands. Knights in the first Crusade. This was a longer campaign, running for about a year of regular play. We marched on Jerusalem, took part in the siege and the sack (to the distress of the GM, we behaved like typical crusaders, grabbing as much loot as we could, and almost getting into a fight with Raymond of Toulouse's followers about hanging our banner on the Holy Sepulchure). After the taking of Jerusalem, we got a grant of land in Transjordan that we set about subduing. Lots of fighting, but also heavy on politics and (first time in a game for me) economics. Setting up and running a barony isn't cheap! We actually played sessions based around things like "We need tradesmen if this town is ever going to flourish! Do we try to hire them, or steal them from the infidels?" Totally NMF and an all-round excellent game. I've run: Vikings in Ireland, sort of 10th century-ish. This was bait and switch. The first part of the game (which in total ran for about 6 months) was NMF: viking raiders vs, Irish warriors. After a couple of months the players - inevitably - got in over their heads and died on the battle field. Then for the last part of the game - the PCs' souls are collected by the Valkyries and told they have a task before they can enter Valhalla - they must sneak into Jotunheim and recover a magic cup, something that no-one who has "has the smell of the Æsir on him could do". Despite the mythic theme, this was mostly ANMF: there were giants and giant wolves and bears, but most problems were still solved either by talking, or stabbing, or running away. There were no PC spellcasters, magic weapons, etc. Samurai in Japan, 15th century. This was a long-ish campaign, running about 80 sessions spread out over about 4 years. It was ANMF, despite appearances by an evil wizard, undead, a demon, a Tengu, a magic sword and four (possibly five) ghosts. Plus, at the end, The Dragon. Basically, the fantastic elements popped up every now and then, but in most cases, they were in the background, providing flavour. 90% of the game involved political intrigue, solving mysteries, martial arts and a big ol' war. I think this is my favourite of all the campaigns I have run, and it beats me how people say that a game can't be interesting without more overt fantasy. cheers, Mark

Re: Making Hero 6E More Dangerous (Skyrealms of Jorune Conversion) ? I honestly don't think that you need to adjust the rues at all to have a games with a satisfying level of lethality (well, satisfying to the GM, anyway ) Jorune seems to be one of those low-metal worlds, so combat is likely to involve plenty of swashbuckling, not the clash of heavily-armoured knights. It has martial arts. It has races with STR above human norms. I can see plenty of cases where characters - even low to mid level characters - will be capable of throwing 3d6+ HKAs, which will - on average - drop a healthy man without armour from "Totally Uninjured" to "Down and Bleeding to Death" in one hit. One. Just one. I honestly don't think you need to add lethality. I've run several prolonged campaigns where low armour/low magic was the norm. As a GM, my hardest task was always giving the players a decent challenge without killing all or most of them. Here's how I did it. 1. I hate caps. It limits player choice, and simply ensures everyone will have the cap. So, no hard caps. I do use NCM as a campaign setting (so, no complication points for NCM). That slows the rate of progression to really high levels but but does not prevent it - after years of play, almost everyone of my PCs has one or more attribute over NCM ... but so what? They are (by now) legendary heroes. Do you think that Conan maxed out at at NCM? There's a reason it's called "Normal Characteristic Maximum". 2. I didn't give away kickass magical defences, or allow defences to stack. I do allow Combat luck, but it does not stack with armour - and it's not always reliable. It really helps PCs survive rather than making them tanks. 3. I was hardass about wearing armour. People cannot go round wearing armour like clothes. It's hot, it stinks after a few days, it chafes, it rubs your skin off and it was socially unacceptable almost everywhere that you weren't expecting imminent combat. 4. Hit locations. They make damage less predictable and thus combat less predictable - which means slightly scarier for PCs 5. I didn't bother with bleeding or incapacitation rules until PCs were under 0 BOD - too much book-keeping. 6. Minions. Lots and lots of minions. Typically they are weaker, without martial arts and with lighter weapons, which means that PCs can typically survive 3-4 hits (not laugh them off, just survive) and their chances of hitting are smaller (unless they let themselves get surrounded and swarmed....). It gives the PCs something they can hack their way through and feel like they have been in a fight, without a good chance of instant fatalities. It also means that named NPCs command more respect. In a setting like this, emphasis in combat is on skill - or more accurately CSL - and tactics. People have commented on the importance of going first, and it is important, but it's not "all-important". If you have plenty of appropriate CSLs, letting the other go first and using your CSLs on Block gives you not only an excellent chance of survival, but allows you to attack first next time - before the other can respond. If you put them on DCV, the first attacker's chance of hitting is lessened - and then you go, at which point you can switch them to OCV for a devastating attack. Tactics become important, because it remains true that 1 or 2 hits would typically take a target out of the fight. cheers, Mark

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them?

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them? Yup. In the current game the temples of the dominant religion are a combined hospital, library, telephone exchange, research lab and forensic lab ... if you can pay. Maybe not over the counter, but still, small, poor communities don't have large powerful temples. Priests and Priestesses can and do help society, but in exchange they need a big fancy temple, nice clothes, good food, scribes to write their stuff .... etc. In this game there's no such thing s "divine magic" - magic is magic. Not all (or even most) people in a temple are adepts, and their numbers are limited, so the same limitations apply as do to mages. Basically, why be poor and hungry when you could be wealthy and comfortable? cheers, Mark

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation? Actually you can see that by simply graphing population figures - WW2 amounts to a minimal blip: a minor pause (far less than a quarter of one generation) in the upwards march of population. I work with population analyses a lot in my work - it's a commonly acknowledged truth that war does not - and has never - done anything significant to reduce population. Had WW2 never happened, it's likely that the population of Europe today would be more or less the same as it is now. We can actually quantify it. Here's a nifty graph that makes exactly my point: it compares the population density of Ireland and Europe. You can see two things. First, that the effect of WW2 on European population density was utterly negligible - it neither affected the overall population nor the rate of growth significantly. In contrast, the potato famine had a drastic effect on Ireland's population density. Famine and disease: that's what creates population changes. War is a pretty poor relation in that arena. You can look at it another way: about 40 million people died in Europe during WW2 - out of a population of about 560 million. That's substantial - about 7% - but at Europe's growth rate back then (roughly 5% in 1946: falling to 2-3% per year thereafter) that represents the loss of ... 2-3 years growth. That's it. Essentially Europe replaced its lost population in 2 years and kept growing at a faster than prewar rate thereafter. Many population biologists have made the argument that WW" actually increased the population of Europe - and with good reason - for a generation after the war, population growth was significantly higher than in the generation before the war (though of course that might have happened anyway, it still argues against a war-driven decrease in population). Cheers, Mark

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation?

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation?

Re: Star Wars: Technological Stagnation?

Re: Hmmm. More on Special Effects

Re: Hmmm. More on Special Effects No, I did not. I specifically said "affects the target" so that non combat uses could be covered. Obviously, if the character couldn't normally see the psionically-invisible character, he's not affected Sure, the continuous Advantage, to be specific. Ah ... this is a simple build.

Re: Hmmm. More on Special Effects

Re: Fantasy Economies: How closely should we examine them? I think magic tricks should definitely figure in: but you also need to think about how you want to apply them. Magic-users generally require both a decent amount of XP to be terribly useful and also - if they are being terribly useful - are going to require decent feeding, housing, pay, etc. So it's unlikely that a pack of goat-herders will have powerful mage or that a wizard will spend his time making sure the local peasants get good crops: his time is almost certainly worth more than 4 cartloads of potatoes. If it does happen in game, that even modest villages will have a goodwife or hedge wizard who can mess with the weather, cure ills and mend wounds, then by definition that GM has decided that his game is a high magic one, where pretty much everything will be affected by magic. Not a bad thing, just a different kind of game. I'd expect that to have a major effect on economics (and more than economics): such a world wouldn't resemble medieval Europe much, if at all. And the logical consequences extend in all directions: any mage powerful enough to mend a dagger wound is theoretically powerful enough to stop aging or conjure his food out of the air ... or send a message across the country faster than the fastest physical message system. In my current game, for example, I deliberately limited magic so that it can be powerful - but it's hard to use in combat and hard to make long-lasting magics. So mages co-exist alongside armies of soldiers, and trade carries on much as it would in a medieval world - with some exceptions. For example, the Lord of the Thorn, has a magic map that shows all ships in his domain. He has little trouble with pirates or smugglers ... cheers, Mark

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it... And the movie is every bit as cheerful except for a very slight hint that things might take a turn for the better right at the end. cheers, Mark

Re: Hmmm. More on Special Effects Continuous powers need a common way to turn them off, for obvious reasons. In this particular build, the power turns off instantly after use, since its primary use is intended to be as a defence, not as an actual drain. So the power does not continually affect the target. You're right though, I could have worded it better, since the use of the word "character" could have meant attacker. Here's an example to make it plain (I hope). Mentalist uses mind control on the character, who has the "suppression" defence. Standard suppress (using standard effect) - mindcontrol loses loses 3 active points per d6 of defence. The power remains reduced, until the "turn off" condition is met (which means that if the mentalist attacks again before the turn off condition is met, his mindcontrol is now reduced by 6 points/d6). The build I indicated (using standard effect) - mindcontrol loses loses 3 active points per d6 of defence. The defence (unlike a standard drain) turns off immediately post attack, even though it is continuous (which means that if the mentalist attacks again, his mindcontrol gets reduced by just 3 points). You could define a "way to turn the power off" - but since it turns off immediately by itself, but in this case, it's a pretty pointless exercise. There might be some instances where defining "how to turn the power off" might somehow be important, but I have to admit, I can't think of any.