Doc Democracy

Re: The Nightmare of Megascale Teleport I think that this is far more likely to be another power with that SFX...

Re: Why do people post power costs on their character sheets?

Re: Why do people post power costs on their character sheets? Absolutely!

Re: Why do people post power costs on their character sheets? Have a look at the following threads - they all contribute to this topic http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/67556-Cotu! http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/76035-Cost-Free-Character-Sheet http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/78746-Sample-Convention-Character-Sheet http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php/43140-The-Ultimate-Character-Sheet Doc

Re: Why do people post power costs on their character sheets? Ooh! This really pushes my buttons. There is a reasonably good discussion of this stickied at the top of the rules forum. I think that there should be two sets of character sheets. One should be for design and building. This is for out of game use where the player interacts with the referee about the character and ensure that it is game legal and that it does what the player thinks it will. The other should be for gameplay. To me, this sheet should be the GUI between the player and the system. It should encourage the player into the genre being played and help the player become the character and interact as the character with the gameworld. My experience is that the current character sheet is a huge disincentive for new players to the system - all they see are huge amounts of numbers and jargon and nothing about the ability to do anything you want within your game or how cool the character they are looking at actually is. Doc

Re: The Nightmare of Megascale Teleport I think the sauce for the goose. sauce for the gander idea is best. It is obviously a good tactic. It works. Why do other people not do it. When my players began using poison as routine in the fantasy game we played, I told them that their enemies would also be using it as routine. If they decided not to use it then only those enemies who were truly evil would use it. I found that they self-limited that way. If this is such a good tactic then there is going to be some drive for enemies to have someone in their team who can pull the same stunt. If the PC team uses it regularly then so will their opponents. I am not sure how many players want this kind of "I win" tactic used agasinst them, that is worth a discussion. I also have a question about the blind teleport. I presume the player does not know where he is taking the villains when he moves them out. How does he retrieve them? Or are they never retrieved (being all artificial beings)?? Doc

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

Re: Combat examples Would it be a good idea to have a genre specific combat example sticky'ed at the top of each of the genre forums? Doc

Re: Combat examples Rex that is a good idea. If we could agree a hero and a setting, then we could set up a thread purely for the combat - first post an amended blow by blow account and other posts for comment... Doc

Re: The Force

Re: Compeling Complications You should go play a FATE game Christopher. It is an interesting system in some respects and while coming from a very different place from HERO, has some similar principles. I think you have to play it to get a really good understanding of the potential of aspects and FATE points. You would have a better base to suggest HERO ways to simulate it. I remember my friend telling me what the game was about - I didn't really understand it until I had played it...twice. Doc

Re: Compeling Complications If you were going to use HAPs then it would not be so restrictive. Once a FATE point is in a player's pool it can be used for anything, not simply those things related to why it was gained.

Re: Compeling Complications That is Michael's thread also. I think he wanted to separate out the use of compel from the discussion about aspects in general. If you wanted to use compels in Hero, then I think that you would not, as a GM, write in definite bits of the adventure to draw on characters complications but, instead, use them in game. You could award an additional experience point for players who had a compelled complication but that seems heavy handed compared to the FATE games, also, in FATE games the player can avoid the compel by forfeiting a FATE point. In this would the player lose an experience point if they wanted to avoid the complication? I would be inclined to provide players with independent AIDs to their powers for accepting compels on their complications - Superman's player agrees that the reporter being held hostage by Lex Luthor's goons is actually Jimmy Olsen. For that he gains an AID that he can use to bump some aspect of power once in the game somewhere. If he refuses, then he gets an independent drain that the GM can use at some point. All you have to do is decide on the power of the aid or drain... Doc

Re: Transform to add Advantage/Limitation Hmmm. I can see an issue here depending on whether the weapons are equipment or bought through points... If you limit the spell to affecting real world weapons (equipment or powers bought with that limitation) then you should be able to transform the focus as you state. If a weapon was part of my power suite then I think that the spell would have to overcome my BODy for your transform to work... For the Bend Blades, I might go for a killing attack and limit it "Only to reduce effectiveness by 4DC". If the power would break the focus then surely it should be able to damage it slightly.... Doc

Re: Personality Change

Re: Could FATE Aspects Work In HERO? I think the biggest problem here is the ability of all and sundry to access aspects. There is also the setting of tags within environments and on people. From my experience these aspects are mostly used to provide bonuses to skills or to get a re-roll. The whole game is based on the fate point economy. If the GM keeps feeding the players with fate points by tagging their aspects then the players use those points to do cool stuff. I think that the aspects are simply ways to access overall skill levels based on character descriptions and environmental stuff. I don't think that I would do to much with individual with individual write-ups. This would be part of the game setting write-up. You introduce the same fate point economy along the lines of heroic action points. Essentially you then allow people to spend fate points to access one-use skill levels or to gain fate points by agreeing that they would play to one of their aspects despite that being against the best interest of the character. Doc

Re: Denying a character his OIF

Re: Denying a character his OIF

Re: Induce Synesthesia Hmmm. The imposition of synethesia would not, to me, equate to a Flash. Surely you would simply have switched around the senses of the person. It might cause confusion to begin with and thus an element of Flash might be warranted but surely you have not removed the senses just switched round their wiring. I am wondering whether it would then make the user susceptible to flashes they were not susceptible before - for example if you heard light and there was a flash grenade in the vicinity - would you be immune, flashed as normal?? Would your fancy shades with flash defence built in work?? Those are the interesting questions to me.... Doc

Re: Denying a character his OIF

Re: Denying a character his OIF You know - I was waiting but it was not harsh at all. :-) All you say is true but in my experience players find coming up against weaknesses and other complications easier to handle than when you take their stuff off them. It may not be rational but there you go. If Mr Ice is put into the situation where he needs to rescue people from a burning building then he goes for it. Players can be truly heroic in this situation. If Mr Focus, loses his big offensive advantage and in the next session you have still not given him it back then I find words like unfair beginning to get bandied about. However, if, just before I take it away, I talk to him, allow him to set some of the storyline where he can see the story advantages and the potential focus on his character and what might result from it, then it all is much easier. I wasn't saying don't do it, just pointing out that, handled wrongly, it is a much more difficult one to run with than other limitations.... Doc

Re: Denying a character his OIF I would add to what has been said is, talk this over with the player first. Tell him what you intend and why - he got the price break and that has payback at some point. The player may have ideas on what might be nice story-wise and then you are working with him rather than screwing him over.... If he does not like the idea of it, then make the loss a story of how he comes to have something different that gives less strength or is limited in a different way...and change the limitation. Doc

Re: Damage Shield reflex attact 1 hex AofE selective target I would just like to repeat that, if this is to be the case, you need some way for the attack itself to know who is and who is not a friend. This attack is taking place even if the character is unaware of the presence of the potential enemy so you cannot rely on the character to distinguish. That is one of the reasons Christopher made the sense above. Doc

Re: A Thread for Random Videos Haven't seen this on the thread - funny from a Scottish perspective...

Re: Damage Shield reflex attact 1 hex AofE selective target The big trick here is to get the trigger right. You essentially want to attack someone who gets close enough to attack you in melee. However, the trigger is not going to have the discrimination of the character. Johnny Ninja jumps into range and the staff flicks out and gets an attack in first. However Jenny LovelyFace runs in to plant a smacker on the cheek of her hero and the staff flicks out and gets an attack in first. Unless there is some sense associated with the triggered attack then you are limited to a general thing like proximity. There is no way for the staff to know if someone is a friend or foe and once set, it will attack anyone that meets the trigger. Be careful how you use it... :-) Doc