Dice [OOC] real hero hours

[Sizniche]

Just to clarify, the "old version" was the ultimate edition, just an earlier version of it. There's a lot more content, but the core mechanics - resolution system, character creation - are unchanged. There are a few minor changes to powers, but any character made in the old version will be largely indistinguishable from one made in the new.

In other news : I've been thinking about the "organized heroics" thing, and here's what I've come up with -

There won't be a single Hero Association responsible for overseeing all superpowered activity. Instead, heroes form teams on their own. Some of these teams might be long-term, and have names, others are short-lived alliances of convenience.

Hero density will be around 10 - 20 per million people or so. Thus large cities like New York or Delhi will have a few dozen superheroes, whereas there might be three or four for the entire state of Wyoming. This is of course only a rough guideline, and heroes aren't necessarily perfectly evenly distributed; like anyone else, the place any given hero decides to live and work is the result of many factors.

Finally, I just wanted to say again that, at least as far as I am able, I will ensure that nothing in this game is mandatory. Your heroes have their own lives. It's up to each of you individually to decide what your hero wants, how they'll go about getting it, and who they'll associate with. You can join or leave teams as you see fit, start your own - even try to start your own global Hero Association, if that's what you want. I don't want you guys to feel like you're on house arrest with each other for the whole game.

are there tiers of heroes? like, maybe some handle petty robbery and muggings in the town they work while others serve a dedicated World Heroes role? Also, are we going to do a test session soon? I remember hearing something like that

 

[Sara Sidereal]

are there tiers of heroes? like, maybe some handle petty robbery and muggings in the town they work while others serve a dedicated World Heroes role? Also, are we going to do a test session soon? I remember hearing something like that

Certainly, there will be all sorts of heroes in the word. However, I'm leaving the maximum power level up in the air for now. I think the strongest heroes will be around the level of the strongest X-men, as opposed to the god-level heroes of DC / Marvel. This is only personal preference, and we can always introduce more powerful characters. The way I see it, it's a lot easier to leave stuff unwritten, than it is to fix a trainwreck.

Somewhat related, there was one more thing I wanted to say in my previous post : No NPC heroes will ever steal a victory from the players, and neither will they bail you out of a failure at the last second. You will never be forced to work with any NPC hero. Player agency > all other concerns.

Also yes, I think we should do a sort of "session zero and one-half", low stakes, low pressure. Can be a prologue to the actual game, or entirely non-canon, whatever we decide.

 

[Sara Sidereal]

Oh yeah one other thing : If you ever think I've made a mistake with the rules, or I've forgotten some detail about your character (I can see invisible things, idiot!) while narrating, you're probably right. Don't ever hesitate to bring stuff like that up in the OOC, and I'll always fix it ASAP.

If I make some ruling that modifies or contradicts a rule, I will say so in this thread, and I'll copy the ruling into the first post of the IC thread.

 

[KingGoblin]

Hm. Ok. So, I am guessing, no legal enforcement powers, unless we actually join the police as officers? Like, we do citizens arrests, and hope the cops can get enough evidence to make them actually stick, because we don't have any real recognized authority as heroes?

That works. Kind of like spider man tying up muggers for the cops. Except, you know, the cops probably can't arrest them, since there isn't any proof that they were mugging anyone, except for a note, or whatever.

 

[Sara Sidereal]

Here's how I think it might plausibly work

- Supers generally tackle the bad guys that are beyond the capability of police
- Street-level supers probably work closely with police, maybe even accompany SWAT teams depending on their power / skill set
- There is always somebody around with a phone looking for the next super-fight to put up on tiktok or whatever. (Competent) cops will take their statement and enter the recordings into evidence
- If a bad guy goes to jail and is released the next day, he likely wasn't doing anything sufficiently dangerous to get any of kind media attention or police interest. Fight a badder guy.

Remember, you guys are standard level, on par with Wolverine, The Flash, Batman, etc. Sure you can stop a mugging (and maybe the guy gets away, or maybe you give him a concussion), but I think people would rather you stop Braniac from turning Metropolis into gray goo and let the cops handle Ocean's Sixteen. Not that I'll tell you no in either case. Any of these scenarios could be fun, it's all about what you guys want to do

 

[Sizniche]

Here's how I think it might plausibly work

- Supers generally tackle the bad guys that are beyond the capability of police
- Street-level supers probably work closely with police, maybe even accompany SWAT teams depending on their power / skill set
- There is always somebody around with a phone looking for the next super-fight to put up on tiktok or whatever. (Competent) cops will take their statement and enter the recordings into evidence
- If a bad guy goes to jail and is released the next day, he likely wasn't doing anything sufficiently dangerous to get any of kind media attention or police interest. Fight a badder guy.

Remember, you guys are standard level, on par with Wolverine, The Flash, Batman, etc. Sure you can stop a mugging (and maybe the guy gets away, or maybe you give him a concussion), but I think people would rather you stop Braniac from turning Metropolis into gray goo and let the cops handle Ocean's Sixteen. Not that I'll tell you no in either case. Any of these scenarios could be fun, it's all about what you guys want to do

Certain incarnations of the Flash are actually worryingly powerful just because of how busted Super-speed would be as a superpower irl, and the fact that many of his incarnations are eventually able to reach lightspeed means he has a traitcap of at least 27d, so maybe not the best example lmao :vP

 

[Sara Sidereal]

Certain incarnations of the Flash are actually worryingly powerful just because of how busted Super-speed would be as a superpower irl, and the fact that many of his incarnations are eventually able to reach lightspeed means he has a traitcap of at least 27d, so maybe not the best example lmao :vP

Ok, you're on par with Flash as written by an author who's been told not to let him outclass Superman

 

[Sizniche]

Ok, you're on par with Flash as written by an author who's been told not to let him outclass Superman

lol sorry, i couldn't help myself

 

[Sara Sidereal]

hehe no worries

 

[Sara Sidereal]

A Anyr
Hey, so I started converting your guys' characters to spreadsheets to ensure I haven't made any math mistakes - started with Zei - and I noticed your hero came out to 122 points instead of 125. Took me a while, but I think I finally found it : pretty sure you added your Intellect rank of 3 when you were summing, but that's already accounted for by your package. If so, congrats! You have 3 more points to spend.



Here's the sheet if you want to check for errors : Zei

 

[Sizniche]

i might end up canning my sidekick idea in exchange for the extra 6 hero points and 2 resolve

 

[Sizniche]

yeh im gonna can the sidekick idea for now, sorry for the last minute change

 

[Sara Sidereal]

yeh im gonna can the sidekick idea for now, sorry for the last minute change

That's okay man, I'm only just now verifying the sheets anyway

 

[Sizniche]

on a foreboding note, i have 13 resolve again

though i do have to ask; what are we counting as an "issue" for the purpose of refreshing resolve and certain powers? is it going to be a sort of "we'll know it when we see it" sort of deal?

 

[Sara Sidereal]

on a foreboding note, i have 13 resolve again

though i do have to ask; what are we counting as an "issue" for the purpose of refreshing resolve and certain powers? is it going to be a sort of "we'll know it when we see it" sort of deal?

when maestro runs out of resolve :p

Probably based on resolving major conflicts, averting disasters, and - of course - beating up big baddies

 

[Sara Sidereal]

Sidestep

 

[Sizniche]

when maestro runs out of resolve :p

*spends 13 resolve on every attack*

Probably based on resolving major conflicts, averting disasters, and - of course - beating up big baddies

makes sense, i'll be sure to be sparing with my resolve and stick to my role as the de-facto party rogue :vP

 

[Sara Sidereal]

also I'll probably be pretty liberal with resolve, I want you guys to do cool stuff

 

[KingGoblin]

Here's how I think it might plausibly work

- Supers generally tackle the bad guys that are beyond the capability of police
- Street-level supers probably work closely with police, maybe even accompany SWAT teams depending on their power / skill set
- There is always somebody around with a phone looking for the next super-fight to put up on tiktok or whatever. (Competent) cops will take their statement and enter the recordings into evidence
- If a bad guy goes to jail and is released the next day, he likely wasn't doing anything sufficiently dangerous to get any of kind media attention or police interest. Fight a badder guy.

Remember, you guys are standard level, on par with Wolverine, The Flash, Batman, etc. Sure you can stop a mugging (and maybe the guy gets away, or maybe you give him a concussion), but I think people would rather you stop Braniac from turning Metropolis into gray goo and let the cops handle Ocean's Sixteen. Not that I'll tell you no in either case. Any of these scenarios could be fun, it's all about what you guys want to do

Hm. So, we need to negotiate with the local cops or risk being arrested as vigilantes? Because if there isn't an agreement in place, there's nothing stopping the KKK from setting up a 'team' and arresting whoever they dislike with made up statements?

Also, seems like someone would make a superhero app for the reporting pretty quick. Like tinder, with a local heroes feature, so supers could swipe right on crimes they want to foil.

Or whatever.

 

[Sara Sidereal]

Hm. So, we need to negotiate with the local cops or risk being arrested as vigilantes? Because if there isn't an agreement in place, there's nothing stopping the KKK from setting up a 'team' and arresting whoever they dislike with made up statements?

Also, seems like someone would make a superhero app for the reporting pretty quick. Like tinder, with a local heroes feature, so supers could swipe right on crimes they want to foil.

Or whatever.

They could, if the police had no power to conduct investigations.

 

[KingGoblin]

Sounds grimdark.

 

[Sara Sidereal]

Sounds grimdark.

Luckily, the cops can in fact investigate crimes, so no worries

 

[Sara Sidereal]

the TIDE HUNTRESS

TIDE HUNTRESS's name is always in all-caps, this is canon

 

[Anyr]

A Anyr
Hey, so I started converting your guys' characters to spreadsheets to ensure I haven't made any math mistakes - started with Zei - and I noticed your hero came out to 122 points instead of 125. Took me a while, but I think I finally found it : pretty sure you added your Intellect rank of 3 when you were summing, but that's already accounted for by your package. If so, congrats! You have 3 more points to spend.

Here's the sheet if you want to check for errors : Zei

A welcome development! But you've accidentally uncovered another problem. I didn't understand why you'd listed Zei's health as 8, instead of 10. After some digging, I found the answer. Remember when you said that the two versions have identical character creation? It turns out that that's false. Health is calculated differently between versions. That's a bit worrying. What other fundamental systems differ?

Ah well. I suppose I'll just dump 2 of those extra points into Toughness. That'll bring Zei's health back up to its old total.

 

[Sara Sidereal]

A welcome development! But you've accidentally uncovered another problem. I didn't understand why you'd listed Zei's health as 8, instead of 10. After some digging, I found the answer. Remember when you said that the two versions have identical character creation? It turns out that that's false. Health is calculated differently between versions. That's a bit worrying. What other fundamental systems differ?

Ah well. I suppose I'll just dump 2 of those extra points into Toughness. That'll bring Zei's health back up to its old total.

Biggest of oofs. Did you use the new pdf when making your hero? If so, keep it as is. I'll update the sheet to reflect this.

Man, I really screwed up not checking for updates when making a game for the first time in years, huh