Mr. Nimoy - Saturday: Finale

Mr. Nimoy - Friday: Versatile

Fantasy Hero Complete

So this is the cover of the new "Fantasy Hero Complete"

Following in the footsteps of "Champions Complete" it's a one-stop book for using Hero System to run a fantasy RPG. I love the idea, as Fantasy Hero is a great system, but what is going on with that cover illustration? Is this a shot from a blooper reel? Why is everyone cracking up? It's like a SNL skit gone wrong. What is supposed to be happening here? To contrast, here are some of the prior covers of Fantasy Hero:

First edition is a little static but it looks like a dungeon crawl of the time. Also, that font/logo is a million times better than the one on "complete". Also interesting - first edition was a complete standalone game too.

It looks like there was a kickstarter last year (that I somehow missed) to do this complete version.  I'm disappionted in a  way that the game isn't doing better. It's one of the older "not D&D" fantasy games still around and it's a great system though it does go against the current popular trend of "simpler is better." It's also not an OSR game, so no pocket of resistance there. Players who enjoy more complex rules are probably already playing Pathfinder so there's not a lot of room to recruit new players. I suspect there's just not enough of a critical mass of hero gamers out there to do much more with it right now.

Had a hard time finding a decent cover shot online so that's a scan of my old battered book. Note the Elmore cover - they could afford decent cover art at some point.

In the 80's & 90's though it was a fairly popular game. I played various incarnations of Hero in college quite a bit, mostly Champions but we used it for Fantasy as well. It made a nice alternative if you were tired of 2nd ed. AD&D but didn't necessarily want to go gritty like with Runequest or GURPS. I ran a homebrew campaign of my own in the mid 90's that was well-received and I've always wanted to go back to that someday.

Same here - scanning in the old warhorses. Also an Elmore cover

The second release of Fantasy Hero came out about 1990 and that's the version we played the most. I suspect the 90's were the peal of popularity with Champions 4th edition being regularly supported and even Fantasy Hero had a pair of companion supplements released. Between the 3 books there was a very large number of races and schools of magic available, making it pretty easy to find something you liked or an example that could be used to build your own version of a particular concept.

Just for grins, here's the back cover of the FH Companion II

When Hero 5th edition came out in 2002  it brought another release of FH which was a single huge volume. I never played much with this edition but it did bring a new wrinkle: settings.

Not a terrible cover and it wraps around to the back

Previous editions of FH (and Hero System in general) were strong on mechanics and campaign advice but lacked a published setting to tie things together.  Now with Hero being the ultimate toolkit some might say that it didn't really need a published setting as everyone was going to homebrew or convert their own. Looking back though, I disagree. Based on the past 30+ years of RPG history I think settings are what keep people playing your game. Sure, mechanics are important but mechanics just do not inspire loyalty the way a strong setting does. Look at the Forgotten Relams, Greyhawk, Glorantha, and even Pathfinder's Golarion has a strong following now. Deadlands is another example. Also, licensed settings like Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, and DC change mechanics with every edition but certain groups roll with those changes because they love the setting regardless.

Pretty effective cover

For 5th edition Hero there were 3 published settings:

The Turakian Age - the high fantasy big magic setting

The Valdoran Age - the low fantasy swords and sorcery setting

Not the most inspiring cover - what is this, a Traveller supplement? (I don't own this one)

Tuala Morn  - The Celtic setting

Now all of these were single-volumes with one book and no other real support but it's a big step up from where things were before this. 

Unfortunately this version was up against 3E D&D and the d20 revolution and I believe that tidal wave just rolled over and smothered much of the conversation and interest with Hero. I know it did with my own group, and the few other people I knew who played it in the past pretty much lost interest during this time. That said Fantasy Hero for 5th did also receive a bestiary, a grimoire of spells, and a "Battlegrounds" book with maps ad adventures intended to be dropped into any campaign. This was the most published support FH had ever seen. I think timing, ot the quality of the game, was the biggest issue here. 

With 6th edition Hero there was of course a new Fantasy Hero as well. I know nothing about it other than it exists and probably covers a lot of the same ground as the previous 3 editions. Requiring the buy-in of Hero Basic and Hero Advanced (6th edition finally split Hero System core into two books - two not-small books) plus this game probably damaged it's chances, especially in this era of simpler, faster RPGs. Fantasy Hero complete is a good move in my opinion as making it a one-book game gives it a much better chance to find some traction out there.

I do think Fantasy Hero has a chance. With D&D 5th's extremely slow release schedule I think there's a chance to connect with gamers who are tired of Pathfinder, not feeling a lot of love for D&D, and maybe not super-committed to 13th Age or one of the OSR games. FH has the mechanics already. For example, D&D looks at flying PC's and says "oh that's a problem". Fantasy Hero looks at flying PC's and says "Cool - 15 points" and has a system built to handle that kind of thing. It's great strength is that you can break away from the limited concepts of player character races found in most fantasy games combined with the lack of character classes and create any kind of world you want while knowing the mechanical underpinnings of the game will be solid. If you want a world where the Hawkmen from Flash Gordon, Warforged from Eberron,  Frost Giants, the talking animals from Narnia, and the Horta from Star Trek are all playable races then Fantasy Hero is the perfect game for that. Maybe you want six different and mechanically distinct magic systems - FH can do that. Breaking out of these mechanical limitations also tends to free me up at least from a lot of other conventional thinking so I've written up campaigns with FH in mind that were set on a flat earth and a fantasy ringworld. 

For the future, I hope Hero Games can do more. The wishlist:

• I'd like to see, well ... better art. It does matter. Even a "line artist" to help get some attention and make it look like a modern game line would be a big improvement. Look at everything from Pathfinder to D&D 4E to D&D 5E to games like ICONS and Mutants and Masterminds. They tend to have a certain "look" especially when it comes to covers. They came close to this with 5th edition, then gave up.
• I would limit the number of books of rules material but something like a bestiary or expanded race-building options is probably good. Mass combat, kingdom ruling, and expanded magic examples and options would be fine based on past history. I think a lot of this kind of thing would be best handled through PDF support.
• The big one is a setting. A great setting that demonstrates what FH does better than other games. There have to be some out there from long time players. Just as an example, Pathfinder has had adventure paths focusing on epic, mythic power in a war against a demon invasion - Hero could do that. PF has also had one about crossing technology and fantasy - FH could do that easily. I'd look for something beyond those but thinking on at least that level is a start. 

That's probably more than enough on the subject but the Hero System in general, and  Fantasy Hero in particular, is an old flame of mine and it's worth a few more electrons that a lot of games. Hopefully this is the start of a new and better run for the game.

Mr. Nimoy - Thursday: Contrasts

Mr. Nimoy - Wednesday: Black Hats

Mr. Nimoy - Tuesday: Emotions?

First Up - Spock!

Is there really anything more newsworthy in this area of interest than this?

 I'm going to try and have some fun with the many faces of Mr. Nimoy this week.

40K Friday: Building Phase

Well this has gone in a slightly different direction than I intended. I am having "burst focus" where I am actively building one army for a week or two, then going to a different army, then going to a different army. I am making progress, it's just divided between 3 different forces.

There are a lot of those little bags lying around the workbench right now. It started with the Dark Angels and the need for some combi-weapons for my tactical squads. While I was waiting on those bits I worked on the vehicles and made a lot of progress in painting them.

After that I sketched out my desired Blood Angels force and started ordering the parts I would need - a tac squad here, a drop pod there, some Blood Angel bits to convert an existing unaligned tac squad I had laying around. I order them (right-handed infernus pistols? Why yes we do have those...) and now it's going to take a week for them to arrive.

It is a really nice kit though ...

While I'm waiting for those parts I started working on the chaos marines again. I've been playing them lately, so it's easy enough. Then I order some bargain plague marines to finish out that section of my force. They arrive, I sit down to put them all together and get them primed and I realize I don't have enough arms! This happened to me once before and I picked up enough that  I thought I was good - I was not. So, have to wait for the chaos arms to arrive to finish this step.

I go back to working on the Blood Angels and realize that with the new set having 32mm bases instead of the 25mm we've had as the standard for 28 years now I cannot mix and match the old and the new in the same squad - at least not without it looking really stupid. (More info on the base change here.) Looking around online the 32mm bases are fairly high but there are some people offering a collar type thing that will expand a 25mm base to 32mm. Alright. I suppose it's the price of being a little OCD about these things but I am building it as a completely new army right now - why not do it right? I count up all the power armored figures in my coming-together BA army and figure out I need about 40 of these things. Ordered! Now they're on their way - from Spain! So it may take 3 weeks for them to arrive.

Pause.

Oh look - the chaos marine arms are here! Back to building plague marines!

Breaking Bad, Characters, and RPG's

Lady Blacksteel and I finished watching Breaking Bad from beginning to end this week. We skipped it when it was on because we were watching other stuff and because I wasn't that interested in the concept. I was wrong on that count. That was a great show, with some great characters, and a great finale. Landing the dismount is something a lot of shows fail at completely, and those that don't often do a mediocre job at best. Breaking Bad is in my top 3 for finales - not just the episode, but the whole final season was so well done.

While watching it the gamer point of view popped up a couple of times - mainly flashbacks to some similar escapade in a game. That happens a ton with The Walking Dead, mainly flashing back to old Twilight 2000 or Gamma World campaigns. With this show it was less frequent but it was mainly Shadowrun and Traveller that linked in at various points.

Some games have Advantages and Disadvantages or Edges and Flaws or Qualities or some other way to add interesting traits to a character. Some of those games have a "dying" or "terminally ill" choice among those downside options. I always wondered how that would play out - Breaking Bad gives us a great example of what that would look like with Walt. Addiction is another fairly common option in such systems and Jesse deals with that through much of the show as well. Both are central to the premise of the show, and both have their ups and downs, but we don't have to feature them in every episode - just often enough to keep it in view.

Another thing I see looking back on the show: It illustrates the difference between a character with a bunch of pre-game written background vs. a character who is almost totally developed in play. Consider this:

• Walter White starts out with a regular job, a family, a definite area of expertise, a past event that involved a falling out with some fellow science types and possibly a failed romance, and in the first episode finds out that he has cancer.
• Jesse Pinkman enters episode 1 as basically "just a guy" with no defined skillset, no real job, no close family, no notes about his past. At most I'd say he starts with a low level of  streetwise skill and some kind of high charisma. Everything significant to his character happens during the show - we have no real Jesse flashbacks and there is nothing notable about him at the beginning. 

This is so extreme it almost feels like Walt is a character created for an entirely different campaign than what actually happens. His chemistry skills could be damned useful in the Walking Dead or a cop or superhero show. His complete lack of streetwise, lockpick, hacking, or combat ability seems to make him a liability in a show or campaign about criminal activity - but he is not. 

One other thing I noticed is that the show really only revolves around 2 main characters - they would likely be the two PC's, and everyone else is an NPC - some great NPC's. Mike, Saul, Hank, Gus - there are some very memorable characters there. To me it serves as a reminder that quality can trump quantity even at this level. You don't need a cast of thousands with different voices or mannerisms for every town your player characters visit. You just need a few that stand out.

Putting it into practice:  Sure, Breaking Bad was a cool show and all, but it doesn't seem to have much that translates to a D&D game does it? Ah, but it does! What if "adventuring" as portrayed in most D&D type games was outlawed? Maybe it's for a good reason - last time we barely managed to push those monsters back underground and we don't want anyone down there stirring them up again Maybe it's a religious thing - the local temple of Kelemvor/Morr/The Emperor teaches that disturbing tombs is wrong, or the main religion forbids disturbing old places of worship, especially of the evil gods that seem to have so many lost shrines in D&D worlds. Maybe it's an economic thing - the local merchants know there's gold buried in those holes and don;t want someone else getting without them. Maybe it's political - we have a peace treaty with the elves as long as none of their old ruins are disturbed, but if the ruins are disrupted the elves will kill everyone here.

Suddenly the "trip back to town" becomes a much more significant part of the adventure than it typically is because it must be kept secret. In fact, one session might be typical dungeon delving then the next is getting into town and stashing/fencing the loot without being discovered. 

Character example: Whit the Alchemist had a lot of skill when he was young but circumstances conspired to keep him in the dull job of making love potions and herbal remedies for the local townsfolk. One day he finds out he has a terrible wasting disease but can't afford the magical cure to get rid of it. Desperate for some options, he remembers the legends of the old tombs in the hills being filled to the brim with gold and decides that might be a way out.  He can't tell his family because they're all loyal followers of the local religion that forbids disturbing the resting places of the dead, and his brother by marriage happens to be part of the church hierarchy. Add in the local kid who has managed to develop some woodcraft despite his laziness who also has a need for some gold and things could take a very familiar path. How do they get in and out of the tombs without being seen? How do they disperse the gold and loot from the tombs once they're in and out? How do they recruit help for the bigger tasks? What happens when even after acquiring enough funds they realize they enjoy the lifestyle? 

It doesn't have to be an exact mimic of the show but there are a lot of elements there that could change things up in any game, even an otherwise traditional D&D game. It works really well in a superhero game too, and Shadowrun and Traveller of course. Themes could include:

• A normal average person slowly drawn into a life of unapproved activity through desperate circumstances
• What will a man do to provide for his family when pushed to his limits?
• Family vs. work
• Maintaining normal relationships and appearances in a very abnormal life
• Secrets, lies, and useful truths
• What is the real self and what is just a persona?

That last one especially fits the show and can be carried over into other games. I'd say Walter White/Heisenberg is the best opposite of Bruce Wayne/Batman I've ever seen. Both are forced into a different kind of life by fate but that's where it ends:

• One is wealthy, one is just barely getting by
• One is young when fate intervenes, one is older
• One loses their family right off and tries to gain one over time, one begins with a family and slowly loses it over time
• One chooses to fight crime, one chooses to become a criminal
• One is driven by justice, one is driven by greed

About the only other similarity between them is that both have a hard time pulling out of their secret life, even when it would be the prudent thing to do. They're also both smarter than most of the people around them and both develop a sort of heir/sidekick as well. 

Anyway I just wanted to share some of these thoughts and I'll see what I can do with them over time myself.

The Non-Pathfinder Update

It's funny in a way - there was a time when I was known for "changing games" more often than my players liked. From what I see online it happens to a lot of DMs.  Despite running multiple campaigns for at least a year or more the side games rotated with some frequency. That has died off in the last ten years or so for two reasons. One - I've had less time to run that side game alongside a regular ongoing main campaign. Two - I've embraced the concept of the limited campaign, a game with a specific end goal or stopping point. Once that fixed point is reached that run is over and it's time to do something new. It was a pretty strange concept for someone who grew up when the highest form of RPG was the never-ending campaign set in a single world but after decades of seeing that model fail, both as a player and a DM, I have come around on it. I ran 3rd edition almost continuously since it came out until 2010 or so then switched over to 4th edition as the main game for a few years after that. Then Pathfinder somehow became our main game about a year ago and it's been rolling ever since.

However, even with Pathfinder humming along, I have a wandering eye when it comes to games. Having a stable base makes it easier to justify experimenting with other games. Maybe it's just an intro session - make characters and run one adventure. Maybe it's a game we know and like and running one adventure is all we need. Maybe it's a fixed length campaign - 3 sessions, 6 sessions, 12 sessions. In my experience it's tough to keep everyone's attention when we have multiple open-ended campaigns running simultaneously so the "limited" campaign helps everyone focus, including me. Plus if I know this one has a definite end point, I can start thinking about what I want to do when it's finished, which helps with the old gamer ADD.

Now we have the Necessary Evil campaign up and running with an intro session and the first big session done. I have an outline of where I see it going and the players are on board and having a good time. One of these days I'll start posting some session summaries but for now "it's going well" will have to do. It's a continuation of a game we put on pause in 2010 and I have the same players using the same characters they were playing then regardless of the setting adjustment. Heck, they all made up their characters in CoH anyway so we would all have a visual reference so we've come full circle.

The re-opening of the Savage Worlds door with this one reminded me to take a look around and start catching up with Savage Worlds which had been kind of quiet in my mind since Weird Wars Rome in 2013. Between this and the Apprentices' interest in Deadlands I started picking up a few items, like The Flood and The Last Sons which are the two published campaigns for Deadlands Reloaded. I also backed the Kickstarter for the third. Having read through The Flood there are a few weaker points but it's my favorite part of the setting (Wild West + Undead + Kung Fu + Ironclads) so I'll definitely run it at some point. I've only skimmed Last Sons at this point so no strong opinions there. I also jumped back into the Hell on Earth Reloaded bandwagon with both the Companion and the Worm's Turn campaign book. I'm also filling in a few of the older Savage Worlds campaign books as I come across them because I like almost all of them enough to use them. I can see SW becoming a pretty consistent companion game to our ongoing D&D/Pathfinder campaigns.

Besides these I've also been working on some other limited campaigns to keep the old wandering game-eye happy. Having the Apprentices around and interested means I can run some smaller games that I like whenever we have the time:

• I've gone back through my M&M notes and carved out a 12 session M&M Freedom City campaign that would be a lot of fun. Plus I have notes for a "second season" of a similar length if it goes over well.
• I had an itch to run some Marvel Super Heroes a while back and picked out the time-traveling trilogy as something to run for the boys. It's just a fun system and the idea of fighting Nazis, Dinosaurs, Cowboys, and invaders form the future is a pretty great one for supers.
• I'm going back through my notes on the Marvel Reboot campaign and I'd like to at least run this one to its conclusion. I know the boys will be on board with it if I do, it's mainly a matter of re-reading the MHR rules to be ready to run the thing. Soon.
• I did start them on the Emerald City adventure series for M&M 3E a while back. If I can get Red back down here for a bit it's probably worth doing again. The hardest part besides the rules rust was trying to give it a DC flavor as they wanted to play a game set in the DC Universe for a change. I'm going to have some more reading to do or maybe we just give the old DC Heroes game a try for a few sessions.
• It's been a long time since I've run anything ICONS and that just doesn't seem right. I need to pull out one of the many adventures I picked up for it and just run the thing one night.

So there's a fairly long list of options/want-to games where I actually have material to run. It leaves out the lower priority stuff like FATE, Feng Shui, Godlike, and introducing them to Champions. Also, exploring the lower cost end of the pool at DTRPG - there is some interesting stuff there. Heck I found a Numenera adventure there that has me contemplating taking a run at that game in the near future. Later this year we have Feng Shui 2E and Spirit of '77 coming along too.

So many options. It's a great time to be an RPG player.