Doc Democracy

OK. To use Neil's example. The players want heavier weapons. One of them suggests that the Plan should have included getting a cache of just such hardware on top of the lift. I say that this is eminently possible and for them to be there, they need to roll the Dice Pool (for this example presume there are 4 dice in that pool). The players decide if they want to use the Pool. There is no chance of the cache not being there. By rolling the dice they know there will be a cache. What the players do not know is whether this will leave them with dice in the pool or not. It is very unlikely (but not unfeasible) that they would roll 4 sixes. If they go ahead and roll the dice they might roll 6, 5, 3, 3. That means the Pool is now 3 dice. Next time they want to use the Pool to implement the Plan, they only roll 3 dice. They can keep using the Pool until there are no dice left to use. If they had wanted an EMP device above the lift then I might have said, yes, but only if you lose a dice from the pool if you roll 6s or 5s. In the above example, that would leave them with only 2 dice. I have only used it a couple of times myself and on both occasions it has added an element of tension to the table about decisions, without actually impacting the decision being made - even if they had rolled 4 sixes, the cache would have been there but they would have no Pool for the rest of the adventure...

I think it is a half-way house. The plan is hashed out by the players in a really sketchy way rather than sitting down coming up with a million details that might never be relevant. There are some broad rolls that deliver a number of chits. Those chits can be used to fill in details that become necessary during play (such as "we need heavier weapons, good job I stashed a cache on top of the lift"). Or at least that is the cool aspect that I think I will be stealing from this! 🙂 Again, I like a bit of uncertainty among the players and might use the dice pool idea rather than the chits. If you would have had 12 chits, you get a pool of 12 dice, when you want to take control of the story you throw the pool and remove all the dice that roll 6s. That way the players are never 100% certain of how much resource they might be using to do this next thing. I have used this mostly for timing, when trying to complete a task before a bomb goes off for example, and I have also, when the players are asking for a HUGE thing, said that I would allow it if dice were eliminated on a roll of 5 or 6. It provides even more flexibility and a little bit of drama. Rolling dice for rolling's sake is a bad thing, rolling dice to heighten drama is good. 🙂 Doc

I can see a use for it. Imagine the boss villain with multiple overlapping 50% Damage Reductions, each limited in a way that the team can overcome. The heroes would have to peel away the various defences so that their attacks are not nickel and dimes to ineffectiveness. would be a nice mechanic for that purpose.

You might think about providing items that boost either the application of or resistance to magic. I like to give players things with limited numbers of charges, things that wear out. You can do that in the usual way but I have found using dice pools much more interesting. You have a wand of healing 4D6 with a pool [6]. When you use the wand you do the 4d6 healing then throw the pool. If the player rolled two 6's then the pool would reduce to [4]. The interesting thing about it is that you do not know when the wand will run out. You might throw four 6's in the next roll, you might get to a pool of 1 and then not roll a six in the next 20 uses. That little element of randomness raises the stakes in very interesting ways. I would reduce any charge limitation by +1/2 if you use a pool instead of straight charges and strictly limit the use to odd items otherwise you introduce too much dice rolling. Doc

Lucius has it nailed (IMO). There is very little you actually NEED to get what you want and have the relevant game effects. A doctor diagnoses and does first aid. Being able to do surgery might need a bit more. All of this is based on knowledge and skills and he would be like most other doctors out there. If you want him to be special, not to make mistakes and to be able to do surgery on the spot to make people better then you need to think exactly what it is you want. You could build a special sense that allows him to diagnose at a glance and give MUCH more information than a casual glance or a cursory examination by a medical practitioner might glean. You might be able to heal damage and cure disease (requiring the usual foci of surgery and application of medicines but with MUCH better success rates). You might engender trust in people ("Let me through, I'm a doctor!"). In the same way you might get access to places that would otherwise be closed to you. It all depends of the picture you have in your head about the character...you need to be more explicit if you want us to help you achieve that. Doc

Part of the genius of the Edge of Empire pool is the single pool, the idea that the players know by using the force they make their fate worse, giving the GM. My biggest bugbear with these Hero Point style mechanics is that the GM has access to them. The GM can ALWAYS outspend the players but even small expenditure by the GM causes players to spend just to keep up. I feel less guilty here, there is no competition on use and if I do use a point, I automatically give the players a point. Worse are systems like TORG, HeroQuest and DC Heroes where the points are also used for character development. It is invidious to ask a player to balance character success and character advancement. Almost like the better you do in a scenario, the less you will advance (spending more points than you gain).

1 - Snow White 2 - bard/jester, herald, woodsman, beggar... 3 - I am not sure where your balance concerns come from. If you reckon the magic will overwhelm the heroes, provide them with ways to nullify the magic, story clues which, if they find them mitigate the effects of the magic. Doc

The idea I want to bring in from FFG Edge of Empire is the fate pool. It took the idea of Force Points and evolved it. Essentially the group has a pool of Force points, usually around six for a party of four players. The genius is that the tokens are light on one side, dark on the other. One point can be used in any combat round. If the GM uses it, he turns black to white, improving the fate pool. If a player uses it, a white turns to black, degrading the fate pool. When I ran a game, it was hugely useful. I allowed critical attacks to turn black to white rather than have immediate combat effects and suggested twists that challenged the players but turned black to white. I also constantly tempted them. "Don't roll a dice on this task, turn a white to black and you will sneak up on the guard, I will even give you a bonus to hit. It is amazing how much influence six tokens can have on the attitude of the players at the table! I think this would be perfect for replacing HERO Points in my game. You can also set the tone of the game by opening with six blacks, or six whites rather than an even split... Doc

That is also poor comparison. I think there were one or two months recently where the longer term trend reversed but over the longer term, New York still has more murders (I think there are more murders in London early in the year but far more in New York in the Summer). Here is a ten year comparison (2007 to 2017) which shows the massive improvement there has been in New York. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43628494 Doc

It is the big advantage for fans and bad for the business model that the stuff I picked up in 1982 is usable with the current version of the rules with minor amounts of tinkering. Obviously it has not stopped me buying most everything I come across and then buying the pdfs as well, but for most folk there is no need to update either system or genre books.

I reckon the statistics are more likely to vary widely when the population size is relatively low. The bigger the city, the more stable the statistics are likely to be. As with all statistics you are always better with a bigger sample size over a longer period...

It is not like he depends on facts and figures in any case - you can understand why UK politicians might complain about him calling London's murder rate failure... https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/16/murder-graph-shows-london-killings-compare-us-cities-9971033/

The idea I think is that once you have your group in HERO then it is easier to switch genres because you will not have to overcome the “system inertia” of the group. 🙂 Doc

I have never played Fantasy HERO where it felt like I was playing D&D. I run D&D to get a certain vibe (possibly purely nostalgia) but I enjoy that and never get that same feel running Fantasy HERO. That said, if I had a very specific campaign I wanted to run, I would be happier capturing that using HERO than D&D. I reckon that Al Quadim and Dark Sun would have rocked using HERO but (for me) the D&D ruleset overwhelmed the different character of those campaigns. Doc

My friend freaked at his kids for this, did not understand it. His son asked him if he enjoyed watching football (the soccer kind) which of course he does. “Never see you out playing it though dad....”. Burn.

What are you doing here Hugh, I know Duke cheered the simplicity of this but I am a bit lost. Is this a multipower? If so you are missing the limitation on the reserve that gets the cost down from 90 to 60. Am I missing something obvious?

Only “pretty friendly”?? I am devastated!! 🙂

I find the number of points to be less of an issue than the power level you want the players to be at. It is worth thinking hard about the split between skills and powers and where you want the players to be as far as each level of villain. If you do want to use published stuff then I am with assault. 🙂

My big sell for HERO is internal consistency. D&D is full of black boxes and special cases. HERO is completely transparent and provides you with all the tools to tweak characters, monsters and spells. You can do it in D&D but the risk of introducing imbalances in the system are massive.

I query a lot of things on my players sheets, what they are spending, why they are spending it, what they hope to accomplish from that. My question to the player would be why he was wanting to spend points raising a characteristic that gave him absolutely no utility in game. From the answer to that I might suggest a number of things. He could write whatever number he wanted on the character sheet with 0 points next to it on the understanding that he had not bought the ability to deliver accurate mental attacks, simply the right to write it on his sheet. If it was a colour issue - he has the most potent venom known to man - just no way to deliver it (and it degrades the instant it leaves his body) then we can talk background colour, and reputation and possibly a number of other things. If he really wanted to waste the points, despite my advice I would let him and I "might" put some effort into making it but, after the conversation I would be making no promises unless it sounded so much fun that I could not possibly ignore it.

I castigate my son for constantly seeking to create false dichotomies, seeking to place me on the horns of a dilemma. I do not consider it to be true that there are only two choices. If this were true the game would never have come up with the adage that “if a limitation does not limit the character then it is worth no points”. There is an acceptance that book values are not always true for each and every character. Buying back characteristics is a form of disadvantage/complication. As my player, you come to me with a straightforward brick. Your powerset is completely physical, pretty much like Colossus in the X-Men. You have bought back OMCV to 1. I ask you to tell me how it limits the character, I do not, as GM, intend to provide maguffins that require OMCV to utilise. Tell me how it is worth the same as selling back your INT to 4, or your EGO, or even your DMCV. Doc

I think Loki can manage a charm to allow Dozer to understand Thor long enough for a drinking contest. I like the premise because Loki is in the background, out of sight and probably out of the notice of the players. 🙂 Lots of your winging it can be Loki causing mischief. If Dozer is going to be beaten too easily, he might whisper in Dozer’s ear about Mjolnir’s abilities. If he is wiping the floor with the heroes then telling him he can throw the hammer provides him with a chance to intercept and abscond while the players gratefully mop up Dozer. Doc

I dont know if you have played Deadlands but its fear mechanic was quite cool for a campaign. Your average zombie is not a hugely terrifying foe. If you meet him in a zone where the fear factor is high, then you will find him a much more fearsome foe, abilities higher, more difficult to put down and he hits harder. It may also take Guts to just stand and face him. You reduce the fear factor in an area by defeating the major foe in that zone and then go telling tales about how he was defeated. As the fear factor reduces you are able to penetrate further into the campaign and defeat enemies that would otherwise be too difficult until you finally meet the ultimate source of all the fear in the zone. It is a pretty cool way to prevent the players from piling straight in and trying for the big guy right off. You can talk about the big guy, give details about him and yet the players know, unless they reduce the fear factor, he is out of their league. Seems to me a ready made mechanic for something like The Dearthwood.

This is good advice, where possible keep the mechanics simple. I would say that you buy a compound power 6D6 area effect+8D6 area effect (11 or less activation, max of 10 targets). Anyone in the area rolls 3D6, on 11 or less they face 14D6 damage, otherwise they face 6D6 damage. Only ten people can be affected by the higher damage. The 11 or less reflects the chance of being hit be the random secondary explosions. Doc

next scenario will have a nature based villain. The first encounter the players will have is with his Weeds. These creatures are set to guard a place. When someone arrives, tendrils sprout from the ground and discharge a warrior from each. My idea is that these warriors are simply the physical manifestation of a continuous, indirect attack. The Weeds are actually underground and, lime a weed, you do not get rid of the stalks until you dig out the root. Would you consider this an unfair challenge? They will not see the weeds unless they look for them....