Scott Ruggels

Actually. these are very useful, in how to approach the Example Characters in the book (There are 6... so far), and these give a good direction to take in using them as adventure seeds as well as exemplars of some standard tropes in Fantasy but with a twist. Also making the hook in he first paragraph seems to be important. This is very helpful. Thank you.

Such soap opera. Poor Snowblind, though...

In the "Quotes from the Game" Thread, one of the reported games is a Pathfinder adventure of four "books", called The Mummy's Mask. The adventure is well written. lots, and I mean LOTS of full color (digitally) painted artwork, and the adventure has good flow, and only starts to wobble a bit at the end game, when the characters exceed 12th level, but that is a structural problem common to Pathfinder, but less so for 5e. (No spoilers). The presentation is very slick, the NPCs detailed, monsters organized by challenge level (which is determined by character level, and number of characters in the Party). I am trying to remember anything that was similar, and the only thing I can think of, were the old Espionage modules like Border Crossing, where things progressed based upon success or failure of the last part. I don't think of anything from the Champions line that fit this. In most cases the Champions supplimental material, were mostly Villain books. It would be like if AD&D came out as the Players Handbook, and just kept releasing Monster Manuals every quarter for years. I think something was missed in how Champions back then published things, and since, it's become "tradition" to put out a themed "Enemies" book. I don't see anything wrong with your premise, other than cost. Hiring competent digital artists who can paint a "Heroic figure, deciding on a style (Graphic Novel, or "floppy" style), and then printing hardbound in color, is going to result in a rather expensive product. That aside, it does seem that a lot of folks were, and are still looking for a Cheap starter kit for hero to hand out (for free, or cheap) to skeptical table top friends to get them interested in the system. I think it probably should be Fantasy, because one can do it, without having to acquire any licenses, or spitting profits with Licensee's.

That's a nice package, thank you. That does kind of highlight some of the differences between Humans and Lupines. One of the things we did in old 3e days what that the disadvantagess for Package deals didn't figure into the halving of disad values for similar types, because the acquisition and use of skills and local color were encouraged. That was part of the discount of Package deals, and it made character creation easier (especially for me in the pre-internet days. I am still very much math-tarded.) I think that was a house rule, but if seemed to be a common house rule up and down the San Francisco peninsula, at the time.

Didn't know if this belonged here, or the Champions thread, But apparently that flying skateboard technology is coming a long way: https://zapata.com/air-products/flyboardair Flight footage: https://i.imgur.com/OR5gad7.mp4

I have used the Walther a couple of weekends ago. It's German slickness, and it's nicely balanced. The Ruger Mk II, was the definition of .22 plinker. So I'd choose between those two.

Sort of. Message me for details. But I am poking around Hero stuff, enough that I might pull my Rogues Galleries out and scan my old articles.

Um.. Okay.. m My deepest apologies for stepping on toes as it was not my intent

I started early with D&D in the winter break of 1976-77 when D&D came in a box of three little books. The Jr High chess club and math resource center adopted table top gaming with gusto. Back then there were few if any movies to crib from. The main influences were paperbacks, and we read mountains of stuff. E. Gary Gygax’s Appendix N was a fair approximation of our reading tastes at the time. D&D was an amazing release of our imaginations. I would doodle and daydream through class waiting for the next weekends game. However the folks were interested in new systems to early RPG’s like Metamorphosis Alpha, Tekumel, and the original Traveler. We were hungry for novelty, and that initialrsh we had with D&D. Later, in high school, I joined the historical war gaming club and its follow on the RPG club. It was there we tried other systems like Bushido, and the Fantasy Trip (Advanced Melee /Wizard) We moved away from D&D because we thought the system was limiting. Between my Sophomore and Junior year a few friends and I sat down a game table at Pacific Origins to a new superhero game, Champions! We were hooked and pretty much dropped the rest. Most of us were all avid Marvel.comics readers at that time, and Champions was a good fit. (Though I was also an avid collector of underground or independent comics). In literary interests, I could not finish Tolkien. I just could not plow through that dense and archaic language, having honed my reading on the crime thrillers that my parents would leave on their nightstands. Most initial Fantasy in the 80’s were a mostly Tolkien rip offs, or Conan reprints, but the influence of RPGs spread out into the bookstores with Midkemia and The Sword of Shanara. When I hit college my reading moved away from fantasy decisively, as the whole scene at the time had devolved into “Poor little witch girl in the Woods conquers Evil empire”, or “Wimpy Celtic Princess Adventures”. I would read a book a day on the bus ride to and from Foothill College, buying a new book on the ride home and finishing it before class. I moved into hard SF. I only returned to Fantasy as a game genre when all my former gaming group settled down or moved away. I was invited into the original Fantasy Hero playtest, as the “house Artist” for the 18 player campaign. L. Douglas Garrett is a master storyteller, and game master. With the successful completion of the playtest, his group continued, covering many of the genres that 3e and 4e HERO Covered (except Superheroes and Star Hero). This continued until Doug moved to Japan in 1997. After that, tabletop gaming evaporated. I was still reading a lot but it was mostly nonfiction history and current events. And my spare time was eaten up by work. I got more involved with video games, both making and playing. It was good money until it wasn’t. I moved to Los Angeles in 2005 chasing a job, but was a hermit by 2007. It was only in the past 3 years, getting invited to a Pathfinder game on Roll20.net, by a friend from Second Life. From then on, it’s weekend games, rolling dice again. Walking into to it again, Pathfinder and D&D5e were easy to learn and connect with. The rules start simple, everything was colorful. And the assumptions were easy and shared. This is probably why games default to fantasy, specifically D&D

Oh, this brings back some memories. Heya Scott! Long time no see!

Having The Wizard of Oz, every year, on Network Television for a couple of decades, didn’t hurt its influence.

Took a look, and I will have to take a deeper look after I get back after this weekend. Thank you!

Oh, he likes tuna. He’s part cat.

Holy crap! Black Paladin! Serious heavyweight!

it would be dangerous to reach in past all the explosives, firearms and climbing spikes, so, yeah it’s rarely used and in the bottom of the bag, next to a half eaten roll of Tums, and the tiny sunglasses repair kit.

Well the difference was Wolverine had a sense of humor. Felix 9’wasnstrictly businesses.

From the article's Conclusion: Simply put, for players and game masters alike it’s super-accessible. You can set aside a lot of concerns for how stuff challenges the players and instead just focus on building the challenges, and you get a lot of freedom from not trying to obey the laws of reality or science.

Sure! glad to look at things. The ease of formatting and length for Pathfinder, and 5e is because of a very strict 1 page format, though sometimes it has supplemental information elsewhere in the book. The problem I have is that the formatting of Hero stuff was all over the place in the 4e days, other than the two column text, and the package boxes.

Actually, you bring up good points, though a lot of this generic feel of game products is because they also want to avoid Campaign specificity, to make things more utilitarian for broader audience interest. I may have restated what you said, but it's also a concern for the business side of things. Actually, you bring up good points, especially when looking at things in a nature vs. nurture frame of reference. I am taking this approach as to making the stats and powers package the baseline for the race, and sub races, and dropping basic , and specific cultural packages depending on where they are from. I just need to know how much or how little text do I drop in for the package descriptions.

Well, yes The whole "University Steam Tunnels" incident, and the 700 Club tirades, which forced a change in content within the second edition Dungeons and Dragons rules (Good ol' AD&D). Sure, that was a thing, but it's all part of the geek hierarchy, where literature and books are seen above mere "Funny books", and comic fans haven't been media darlings like authors are. So it may be two things. one Fantasy was here first, and two, Fantasy is more higher brow, than comics. Maybe?

My old powered atmored suit? Just one, the suit. How many time without it? Occasionally, but he was a talented normal with a speed point or two and a lot of skills and tens of tens of experience points, so out of his suit, he was an experienced character, who could improvise well. Felix 9 from Allies was another one of my player characters. He used s lot of cheap Foci, and had no particular attatchment to them, as he could always get more. Without foci, hell, naked he was fearsome, and as one of his early versions, was he had a focus pool limited to “what was at hand”, and/or what he could reasonably requisition from the government for the completion of his mission. He could request, but it was ultimately under GM control. Later rewrites just handwavef his foci.

The Gilt Complex was a very early Adventurer's Club scenario, where there was a team of< I think four villains, some of them related, who all wore white costumes, and all their names were "Gold" themed. They were fairly effective as a team, but.... and here is the kicker, They had NO RESISTANT DEFENSE< Also their stats , other than the brick's strength, and their dex and speeds, they all had Normal characteristics. The last thirs of the article was about dealing with the consequences of the dead villains. I actually played this scenario, unknowin, thinking that the theft in a Cold Depository was kind of trite. Well another player's character was the one that actually killed one of them with an Ice Blast. When the GM announced that the female energy projector from the group dropped like a sack of potatoes, He cheered, and then the GM said, she's not moving, and there is a growing pool of blood around her. My eyebrows went up at that one, but the ice elemental player, broke character and started complaining to the GM. It looked like he was going to quit, as the character did have a CVK (As usual mine didn't but that particular character would go after the bricks and heaviest defense characters ). The two of them took the conversation to another room, for several minutes and there was a bit of shouting (We were all in high school at the time, so maturity wasn't all there, yet), and then it got quiet. The two of them exited the room, and the GM sat down, and the ice elemental sat down, stone faced. We resumed play, and the villain team came apart once they saw their comrade down, and lost all coordination and did blind fury attacks, which against my character did little (A Famous Powered Armored suit), but cause our team to have to jump around to avoid them. The Ice elemental wasn't doing anything, except staring at the body, while the rest of us covered for him to make sure the villains' would not exact revenge. Eventually the situation was resolved, and the villains were downed due to broken limbs and other body damage, but not dead. At that point, the Ice elemental looked wildly around, noticing the fight had ended, and the character screamed and jetted away. And that was the last we saw of that character. The player came back with a new character, but his sense of trust with that GM was more than a little dented and he often found other things to do, on the days when we played. He was a good role player, though. I understood where the player was coming from, as it was kind of a dirty trick to put in paper tigers into a group where the caliber of villains was pretty consistent. I think the GM may have ran "The Gilt Complex", to trick >me< into doing something stupid, but as I remember, in the scenario, there were a few innocents around, and I held back, as my attacks were pretty lethal, and the building ended up not being in great shape. After that, though, the GM never did anything like that again. I do belive the article generated some controversy at the time. (Aerly to mid 1980's)

So then, it's easier to set up, because of a much larger amount of commonly shared assumptions and understood tropes? sounds reasonable

So, I am steadily working through the art pieces on my Multi-system race book. art is going very smoothly (I will have something to show in the other thread, soon,) Well I went through some of the written material, and while the writing of my collaborators is very good. Looking back at my own, well, after a year away from looking at it, my is it awful. Why use 5 words when 20 will do, seemed to have been my guiding principle back then. I winced reading it. So, knowing that this board is full of some very strong opinions, I decided to ask here. What Fantasy Race materials for HERO, or any other system, do you feel were well written? How much, or how little background, should be provided? Of HERO "Fantasy Race Package Deals, Which ones do you think work well? Which one's do you think worked poorly? What I am looking for are good examples of Clarity, or Brevity, or evocative writing wit in the limited formats. Generally, this is going to end up as an art portfolio piece, but I also wanted to share something that has been a lot of fun for our group of players. Any recommendations?

Jaguar, Better mass, and better hunting instincts. Cheetahs are too light and too specialized, Geese versus Donkeys.