Doc Democracy

What is often missed is that, if the surface being landed on is sufficiently uneven, jagged or rocky, all that normal damage is converted to killing damage, which truly impacts on those poor normals... Doc

This is going to very by taste. I think there is a cost to the size of the base but everything else is about what the base can provide. I think if you are concerned with detail then it would make sense for there to be some time limits if switching between resources, perhaps a variable time effect that is random to reflect that in a base that size you are not always where you need to be to access the necessary resource. If you are consumed with detail then you would indeed map it out and do the detail. Personally I would have a fixed time delay to access any resource and handwave the rest. Doc

I think a killer player (it is often the player making decisions that might not be what the character, if it had real agency, would make) needs to have on-game incentives to behave. Behaviour like this is often game driven rather than story or character driven and it needs game driven responses. One thing players hate is if the GM picks on them. Obviously the GM can be the biggest bully on the block as all the resources in the world are there to use against what is on the players character sheets and so it would be irresponsible for the GM to use those casually. In this case, I think the world is designed to work against a killer player. I would draw a line under past offences and state the core precepts of the campaign, most especially what the expectations are of superheroes - for example, they are vigilantes that are excused from the normal due process they might otherwise expect because they are heroic but if they deviate from that heroism, then they might expect the due weight of law enforcement to come after them. If it is one of the group doing this, then the others may be tainted or expected not to interfere with law enforcement officers seeking to detain/question/arrest said offender. I think I would also point out that if a player becomes known for being casually cruel, damaging or the killing kind, then villains, who are already breaking the law will focus on that hero in any combat. I know that I would seek to take out the killer before thinking about other heroes that might only knock me out or retrain me. In the face of repeated action of this kind, I think organisations like VIPER would work to set the hero up for a fall. They would do whatever they could to get the hero to use his powers irresponsibly and have the result be the fatality of an innocent bystander, all filmed and delivered to the law as evidence of a crime. So many ways for this to happen. They would look for evidence of people being injured (and healed) to show the casual disregard for pain and suffering. While all this happens to the character, they are aimed specifically at the player. The final thing is to provide a way out. Make sure that the player has an option (at any point in the process) to escape the process. He might be visited by the Dr Strange equivalent to show him the error of his ways and allow him to go back and retrieve the situation (as a one-off deal). Otherwise you might simply entrench the behaviour with the player doubling down in the face of nothing but bad futures. Doc

Would possibly be worth the question, "If I had the money, would you be interested in doing the work?" If the answer to that is yes, then crowdfunding probably becomes an option... I would probably drop $30-40 on a kickstarter of this nature...

Surely it is exactly the kind of thing Kickstarter et al, is designed for. If you have some stuff that can be used to trail and show, all you really need are 1000 people willing to pony up $20...

I think you could take today's personalities and issues and frame them in a pulp sensibility though - like an Earth-2 style story. It would be interesting to pulpify today's politics to explore them in a different way. What would things look like if we were still the same culturally as we were in the 1920's?? I think it might make a better novel than a game - or for the players to visit as outsiders... Doc

I guess you could up the tech of a pulp setting to be more modern but have the mores and attitudes of the 1920's. Pulp included SF and so it would depend on what you mean by a modern time frame.

I think you need first to go to the superhero movies and see what is there. Superman and Batman movies have had great music for setting tone. I would also look to SF, they probably also have the high and low tones you might be looking for. I dont have the necessary knowledge of classical music but there is likely to be a whole suite of pieces that would work. Fanfare for the Common Man works for a street level superhero. Possibly worth listening to a classical station to happen across a few pieces that you can identify. Doc

Though Christopher provides the potential of an idea. What if you summoned a creature whose only job was to grab and re-direct the attacker. I would probably allow a summon on an abort...though it is not strictly a defensive power...

So not something you could abort to? Also not something you could jump ahead with, the way the system works, the move-through will happen in a segment, even if i is a full move. We dont have RAW segmented movement and there are games if not simulationist reasons for that. I think the OP needs something that could be aborted to. Doc

How does TK stop a move through?

I liked the original post simply because it demonstrates good GM practice, make the call in the game with the proviso that you will look it up for future games - not setting a precedent. It is a good thing not to put yourself across as omniscient, but that you are not going to interrupt the game for detailed rules research, and get on with a temporary ruling. It keeps the game flowing and you are not stuck with decisions you made in one session impacting the the subsequent sessions. If the players do not trust you to make this kind of call during the game then there is something wrong in the dynamic. (I have had games where I have forbidden players from looking at the rulebook, unless specifically asked by me, while the game is in play) Doc

I am another for rolling disads during session planning. I like to know ahead that NPCs and villains need to be part of the session. I do roll ad hoc sometimes when the players take the story in a different direction and there may be a chance of hunteds or DNPCs turning up. Doc

Personally I think that I would simply do these as triggered attacks. With the move through you need to make the person miss. You then need to have an attack that is triggered when you make someone miss a move-through. This requires two rolls in combat - the first on whether the move-through hits you (i.e. did you get a portal in the way) and the second on whether you cause the person damage (i.e. did you position the exit well-enough for the target to hit something solid). There is no need to abort to this. You could use the same attack with punches - though the trigger might be more expensive as punches are more common than move-throughs. Doc

Gonna have to bow out of this one. We are simply re-stating our case. Doc

i too mostly agree ? but find it amazing that in a fantasy world, people might be more willing to suspend disbelief for a man throwing fireballs than a one-armed man training himself to function as well as any normal person might with two arms.

There is always an issue with creating something that has a continued existence. Are we talking superheroes, where such a thing is likely to be incidental and relegated to SFX, or heroic where these items would have definite value to others? Doc

So you would require the player to be disadvantaged but give him no payback for that disadvantage? I think I would put the onus on the player to give a reasonable explanation of how he intended to accomplish things given the lack of one arm. I would give him a lot of slack as he should, mechanically, be able to accomplish anything a character with two arms could. Doc

I think that this is a feature of HERO, that there are (increasingly) no black boxes where just because you have one feature means you have to have one or more other features. There are still some areas in the game where these black box package deals exist, growth and shrinking are high on that list. If you want your character to grow and shrink during a game you buy the power that allows you to make that adjustment (but it does mean you are buying into a single vision of what it means to grow). This would not meet the SFX of Bouncing Lad inflating himself to grow big. There will be others too. Many black boxes have been deconstructed so that you can get exactly what you want, but it does mean a lot of explanation on how these things are done and appeals mostly to the geekiest of geeks (that’s us folks! ? ). I have to say that if a player came to me in an urban fantasy game with the floating on the surface of the earth scenario Duke played out above (kudos for that, by the way) I would be content for it to be entirely SFX with no mechanical effect. I think he would need a distinctive feature, though in some contexts, where only those who can ‘see’ would notice his torment, not even necessarily that. I have HERO because it provides me with the freedom to exactly this, to divorce each and every element to suit a particular concept. If the concept does not fit the game, that is a different question, a different conversation. If I am willing to have a one-armed warrior in my game, I am willing to allow that to be no more than a distinctive feature with the odd accommodation for SFX that I would make for anything else. I might be willing to have an ancient martial arts master be able to go toe to toe with the Conan clone because it is in concept and cool. I might allow an eyeless martial artist superhero without the need to take a complication or buy senses because the player does not want the differences mechanically, the alternate senses function just like eyes would if he had them. As long as the player is not looking to game the system, to seek advantage she did not pay for then I see no need to penalise her for complications she was not rewarded for, or to insist she take both complication and reward. Turning down a concept for being incompatible is a valid conversation, accepting a concept and imposing your take on it is, in my opinion, not a valid conversation for any game I would want to play in. Doc

I can’t help with the sheet or GM screen but I did run a HERO game with a bunch of D20 freaks without freaking them out and it was very much about presentation. My first decision was to make everything about the 3D6 rolling more than 10 (after modifiers) for success. Rolling high would always be good. to attack someone roll 3D6, add Offence (I left off combat value), subtract Defence. If the number left was higher than 10, you hit. All skills were presented as a modifier. A skill of 14- Stealth was presented on the character sheet as Stealth +3. To be stealthy, roll 3D6, add skill modifier, subtract situational modifiers. If the number left was higher than 10, you succeed. You need to hide most of the infrastructure. Describe a spell by saying how many dice need to rolled and use words for everything else. Hide most of the stats. i will see if I can find an example character sheet and post it here. Doc PS: I created these sheets using PowerPoint. They are not quite right, I was not using a unified system, you can see I had defence as a difficulty number rather than as a modifier. The idea of keeping it simple and evocative remains though...

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. What a fantastic book. Starts in the far future with a terraforming project which goes wrong when human society breaks down. Picks up centuries later when a generation ship leaves Earth heading for that planet where the terraforming has progressed in a manner unforeseen and the scientist in charge has been in deep sleep in a satellite round the planet as her technology decays waiting for a signal from the planet that will now never come. Great book, great story and fantastic ending when I thought there was no way it could be ended satisfactorily. Don't read it if you have a spider phobia... Doc

You know, there is a lot of talk about the things that the character would not be able to do so well. All of that following the line that he is disabled (he only has one arm). In pure game terms, the character is not disabled - there is nothing in the rules that indicate a disability (like a physical limitation would). I think that the player and GM will sit down and think about things in advance. I do not think that the character should be specifically disadvantaged in doing things. I would say that issues, like using a two handed sword, are things the player needs to think about. I would say that trying to use a two handed sword one handed does have penalties unless you have the necessary strength. But for those places where there are disadvantages there should also be advantages, such as not being able to be handcuffed etc brought to attention. There would be advantages in people underestimating him, believing the lack of an arm would make him less able in many ways. I would not restrict most skills like I would if the Physical limitation was made and I would not poke fun at the character - indeed there should be an element of praise for doing things that most people use two hands/arms for. People in-game should find it extraordinary what the character is able to do (that is what the DF does - it draws attention to him, even when he is doing mundane things - folk will not forget the one-armed man). I find it slightly amazing that people that have been playing this game for so long might find it difficult to separate special effects from game effects... Doc

That head of state position is also dodgy as to whether those nations will retain a British Monarch in that role when the present incumbent dies. I have read of a number of countries who would not seek to cause any distress to a lady who has held the role for such a long time are considering their position when she dies and either Charles or William take the 'reigns'. Did you see what I did there?? ? Doc

Well, I realise I have come back to this late, but I have been busy the last week and not really on the boards much and while I thought about just letting it go, that tongue stuck out emoji really got to me... ? As you might imagine (from the Avatar), I would rather the reigning Monarch was not that of Scotland. However, since the unification of the Crowns with James I (V of Scotland), the Monarch in the UK has been a British rather than an English, Scottish or Irish Monarch (Wales was conquered by Edward I and never unified by Treaty). Ireland was rudely separated from the Nation and the Crown in 1922 so any chance of being an Irish Monarch rests with the six counties in the North which have never really be a nation state. I actually work in the British House of Commons in Westminster, not, to the chagrin of many English nationalists, part of an English Parliament but of a British one. There are indeed devolved institutions but all of their authority derive from Westminster and may be unilaterally removed by Westminster (political ramifications might dictate against it but it is absolutely possible). The Overseas Territories are not officially part of the United Kingdom but, as their title suggests, are Overseas Territories (an evolution from their previous title of protectorates...). As such, I stand by my assertion that Elizabeth is a British monarch (even if she should be Elizabeth I (II of England) rather than Elizabeth II). Her position, especially with regard to the Commonwealth, is a complex one. You are correct that her true title is the monarch of the United Kingdom but the common usage is British Monarchy. She is Head of the Commonwealth but that is not an inherited position and it may be interesting to see what the commonwealth does when the current Monarch dies. I hold true to my avatar - Doc Democracy.... ? Doc

Ah, I am with Duke here. If he wants the colour of a one-armed man without the drawbacks, then he has learned to compensate. HERO is indeed a game where you get what you pay for and do not lose what you are not paid for. If there is no physical complication taken, and it is a cool idea, then I am for running with it and leaving it to the player to narrate how he gets around this kind of thing. It is Fantasy Hero, a two handed weapon he may have a tailored pulley system that works instead of his missing arm, or the sword has been modified or something, or he simply doesn't use them. Leave that to the player, tell him that you are willing to accept any rationalisation that does not feel ridiculous. It is the player's schtick, I like to allow that kind of thing as it shows the player has already begun to identify with the character and pushing back could lead to them having less investment in the character and the game. Doc