Quote from: SilverlionAdvanced MSH isn't all that "breezy and light" to be fair it has a lot of structure--compared to many games of its day it was relatively light, but its got a cement solid foundation.

Semantics!

Umn, actually I have the Basic Set in print, and that's what I was thinking of.  Lay off, man!  Gonna make me look bad in fronna the other nerds!

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Don't get me wrong, I like HERO a lot, too.  I just like to have a wide palette of options availamable to me, y'know?

Availamable.

Uh...anyway, yeah.  I think that my desire to just cut loose and roll is tied to the fact that I obsessed over the art and craft of gamemastering for so long, and now I'm just going, "Okay, great.  Now to actually DO IT."  Which is a lot of what my blog is about, when it's not about getting depressed because I can't find DVDs or dreams about George Pal.  

well as far as options MSH is rich with them there are tons of supplements, boxed sets, adventures, and even an honest to goodness encyclopedia of characters with several yearbook updates. I used to love to just read those Gamers handbooks to the marvel universe...when you look over the body of work that was done for it it's really impressive. I mean they have a supplement for Latveria for gosh sakes! Dr. Doom is like the Iuz of Marveldom.

and no one says that you have to lower your standards as a gamemaster with MSH. It was marketed to look easy to play- but I think they did too good a job of it and made it appear as a "Simple game" a "Kid friendly" game. They didnt go for edgy they went for mass appeal.
but you can take this system and make it as edgy and richly detailed as you want. and still not lose the fact that it's hell on wheels when it comes to combat.

That was the whole reason i'm working on this FASERIP Pulp game. I want to show that MSH can translate into just about any genre and do so effectively.
The system can support a spiderman campaign, a Guardians of the Galaxy campaign, a Killraven campaign and an Asgardian campaign- thats gotta whet your creative GM juices huh?  any doubt- sit down for a few and read through the "Realms of Magic" supplement. Nuff said.

Plus, you get to say " 'Nuff said! " and have it be perfectly sensible in the context of the game!

Body Armor is probably one of the most important powers in the game.  It's pretty much the only effective defense power, barring something exotic and custom made.

The game engine really isn't one for the nimble dodging style of hero, as the evasion mechanics don't really give that type of hero any particular advantage.  Even Spider-Man is going to be hit about half the time when actively dodging.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Semantics!

Umn, actually I have the Basic Set in print, and that's what I was thinking of.  Lay off, man!  Gonna make me look bad in fronna the other nerds!

I'm just saying! It's all good.

and I gave you an adventure to run! Sheesh

And yeah it had support for almost a decade (1984 Basic Set--I think the last thing was published in 1993)

So it HAD to be doing something right.


Gabe: Forcefield works much the same as body armor, Regeneration recovers health--and you know what? Your wrong. The fact is that HEALTH is based on sum of Fighting/Agility/Strength/Endurance shows how:

Its an odd abstraction, but its not the first time TSR used Hit Points to mean something more than raw flesh and bone resistance to injury.

The Health provided by both fighting and agility are essentially buffers to being "critically" injured (hence why a Red Kill result doesn't need to zero out health) to kill your hero.  As abstractions go its odd, but typical for TSR (you can see the same logic used in D&D). Example: A typical Gun does a whopping 6 damage.  Your average hero randomly rolled will tend towards Ex or Rm stats (most of the charts are biased towards those two)--so a handgun isn't even 1/3rd the damage that a single attribute provides in health. 5 Thugs shooting at Spiderman, Using the various rules and his agility that's unlikely--less than 40% chance for average thugs and Spidey Dodging for ONE to hit--now if ALL five hit that's 30 damage, Spidey has a 160 health. That isn't eve 1/5 his health versus five gunshots. The game system IS designed to make normal humans able to be killed (Ty stats) with gunfire, but not that easily.

Plus Spidey can get at least two attacks using the primary multi attacks rule--each round he uses one to dodge (making them have the low chance to hit) and the other to punch--which means in a "round" (abstract time) he can KO 1 person each round, In 40 Strength vs Thugs with 28 health, even HOLDING BACK to mere Remarkable 30 he can KO 1 around-- that's not even looking at the options for multi-attacks versus adjacent targets either.



Plus you can perform Evades (completely avoiding melee attacks), Blocks (which give temporary Body Armor based on Strength) among a few dozen other combat maneuvers.

I've seen these arguments before--usually based on flawed readings of the rules, or intentional obstinance to the rules (not you btw)

They're utter bullshit--they take fucking up the numbers and cheating to make come out that way.

Quote from: SilverlionGabe: Forcefield works much the same as body armor, Regeneration recovers health--and you know what? Your wrong. The fact is that HEALTH is based on sum of Fighting/Agility/Strength/Endurance shows how:

Its an odd abstraction, but its not the first time TSR used Hit Points to mean something more than raw flesh and bone resistance to injury.

The Health provided by both fighting and agility are essentially buffers to being "critically" injured (hence why a Red Kill result doesn't need to zero out health) to kill your hero.  As abstractions go its odd, but typical for TSR (you can see the same logic used in D&D). Example: A typical Gun does a whopping 6 damage.  Your average hero randomly rolled will tend towards Ex or Rm stats (most of the charts are biased towards those two)--so a handgun isn't even 1/3rd the damage that a single attribute provides in health.

Forcefield is body armor because it works identically.  I may be misremembering, but I think Forcefield also requires the character to spend his actions keeping it up, and the field can be overloaded forcing a psyche check to avoid being immediately knocked out.

The distinction that Health also includes Agility will not be well received by players after they've made a -6 CS dodge check and got hit by a Unearthly energy attack and got laid out anyway.  They'll appreciate touch powers in the same way.

Also, dodging only makes red results slightly less common. Many of the lower end Marvel characters don't have body armor, get by on agility, and fight large numbers of goons with Kill weapons.  In those situations, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that a goon will hit with his piddly damage weapon on a red result and start incurring endurance loss on the hero.

The game really works better for the powerhouses.  It works great for Thor, Iron Man, Sentinels, Colossus, the Hulk, and general "heavy hitters".  Don't expect a street level game (like Daredevil or Spider Man) to work worth a damn, though.

Quote from: GabrielForcefield is body armor because it works identically.  I may be misremembering, but I think Forcefield also requires the character to spend his actions keeping it up, and the field can be overloaded forcing a psyche check to avoid being immediately knocked out.

Force Fields have two types: Personal and "Area", Personal FF's you take left over damage. Area force fields no one takes the left over damage if overloaded but the creator must make a Psyche feat or be stunned for 1-10 rounds. If the field gets knocked down then you have to put it back up with an action.
But it doesn't cost you during the round if you put it up earlier.

QuoteThe distinction that Health also includes Agility will not be well received by players after they've made a -6 CS dodge check and got hit by a Unearthly energy attack and got laid out anyway.  They'll appreciate touch powers in the same way.


Also, dodging only makes red results slightly less common. Many of the lower end Marvel characters don't have body armor, get by on agility, and fight large numbers of goons with Kill weapons.  In those situations, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that a goon will hit with his piddly damage weapon on a red result and start incurring endurance loss on the hero.

Ok lets examine this--Someone with a significantly high Agility to shoot you say Remarkable will roll a red result 5% of the time. This is without ANY defenses lowering that chance to hit. With a -4 CS (not a full -6) that drops to 3%, while -6 drops it to 1%.  Even Spider-man OCCASIONALLY gets hit with life threatening injuries. But even still. This ignores the fact that most heroes won't lose endurance (have to fail an Endurance feat), and EVEN then you can spend karma to halt that immediately. So If you don't spend karma, and don't dodge, and someone accidentally does hit you with a superlucky shot--yeah, THEN if all those factors are true the game give the PC a tough time. But the fact is--dodging, and karma expense are the players fault. The rest is  bad luck--it does happen in comics too from time to time. (albeit for story purposes) and if thugs are doing unearthly damage (the kind of people who appear in huge numbers and likely to get those lucky breaks. That's the GM's fault for sending too powerful people after the heroes.

If DOOM does it then well its DOOM, you aren't going to always dodge everything and if he hits--he then locks you in a trap and gloats...

But nothing in the rules causes your issue--that is all player and GM choices.
(Freck even an Unearthly blast won't take out Spidey--or Daredevil with one hit)
If you use the rules as written (multi attacks, dodges, evades, karma, initiative) you can do lower powered people just fine. I had a friend run an "action movie" hero game--guns were dangerous to our mere human stats (I think Ex was the highest anyone had) and only one PC died--by grabbing a bomb and running for it with the bomb..

Low powered, martial arts--with no supernatural stats, and all the rules being used--worked fine.


And we aren't even counting the -1cs for firing a weapon beyond one area (if that's the case). the -3cs for Agility attacks when in Melee or firing at night which stacks on another -1cs which is when Daredevil and Moon Knight (two examples of the types of hero you mention) mostly appear--and so on and so forth.

So at night -1cs, Daredevil is punching while you shoot, -3cs, he is dodging and with that agility gets a mere average -4cs, PLUS your a thug with at best Good Agility--so your firing at Shift 0 and a red feat is only a roll of 100 (and of course this is presuming its not raining, or other factors.

Quote from: The Evil DMwell as far as options MSH is rich with them there are tons of supplements, boxed sets, adventures, and even an honest to goodness encyclopedia of characters with several yearbook updates.

Pssssh.  Yeah, man, I dig that stuff too.  In fact, when I saw that the above-mentioned site has all of that stuff available for download...I, uh, I downloaded it!  In fact I'm downloading some more.  Yay, free legal .pdfs!

Quoteand no one says that you have to lower your standards as a gamemaster with MSH.

Agreed!  Not even I.  Maybe you misunderstood me at first: it's not that I think of MSH as being 'lesser' or 'lower' etc -- maybe just...I dunno, less concerned with futzing about and more encouraging of Sunday Punches and the like.  

What I was trying to say is that, for so long, I worried about being a good GM, and now I'm tired of that worry -- I just want to run some games and have some fun and kick some ass.  Like I just finished my training montage, right, Survivor song and everything, with the shots of the sweaty brow and the stacks of books and so on, and now it's time to go to the bad guy's hideout and uncork my righteous dice-rolling fury.

QuoteIt was marketed to look easy to play- but I think they did too good a job of it and made it appear as a "Simple game" a "Kid friendly" game. They didnt go for edgy they went for mass appeal.but you can take this system and make it as edgy and richly detailed as you want. and still not lose the fact that it's hell on wheels when it comes to combat.

I think it is easy to play, which is a boon to it as far as I'm concerned.  I can definitely see its potential for depth.  

QuoteThat was the whole reason i'm working on this FASERIP Pulp game. I want to show that MSH can translate into just about any genre and do so effectively.
The system can support a spiderman campaign, a Guardians of the Galaxy campaign, a Killraven campaign and an Asgardian campaign- thats gotta whet your creative GM juices huh?  any doubt- sit down for a few and read through the "Realms of Magic" supplement. Nuff said.

You don't hafta convince me -- I thought the same stuff back in high school, and I bet you did too.  I wanna see what you come up with, because it's a good idea and it deserves success.

Quote from: TonyLBPlus, you get to say " 'Nuff said! " and have it be perfectly sensible in the context of the game!

Excelsior!

QuoteEven Spider-Man is going to be hit about half the time when actively dodging.

How so? All he needs is agreen result to completely avoid all attacks from someone. Any higher than that and he avoids the attacks and also gets a bonus on his next attacks. The dodging rules for missile attacks aren't as nice, but a -4 CS shift for most people is going to convert into a miss (or at least just a hit instead of astun or slam). blocking (for strong but slow people) grants free body armor equal to your strength.

QuotePlus, you get to say " 'Nuff said! " and have it be perfectly sensible in the context of the game!

I'll be giving out a No Prize per session to the group's MVP or LVP (haven't decided which yet).

QuoteThe distinction that Health also includes Agility will not be well received by players after they've made a -6 CS dodge check and got hit by a Unearthly energy attack and got laid out anyway. They'll appreciate touch powers in the same way.

Why are your characters with low stats (less than 100 health) fighting people with Unearthly energy attacks? Sounds like you've set Black Knight up against The Silver Surfer and then got upset when he lost.

Quote from: James McMurrayHow so? All he needs is agreen result to completely avoid all attacks from someone. Any higher than that and he avoids the attacks and also gets a bonus on his next attacks. The dodging rules for missile attacks aren't as nice, but a -4 CS shift for most people is going to convert into a miss (or at least just a hit instead of astun or slam). blocking (for strong but slow people) grants free body armor equal to your strength.

Evade is only useful against melee attacks, only against a SINGLE opponent, and is done on the Fighting column.  A white result indicates an automatic hit of at least green intensity.  (In other words, all attackers which would have missed will hit with a green result).  Spider Man's Fighting is Remarkable, which is no slouch, but that's still a 35% chance of screwing up.  Also, Evade is one of the most abused rules in the game along with the multiple action rules.

Block is also only useful against melee type attacks.  It is specifically not useful against energy or shooting attacks.

That -4CS on a dodge isn't that great when we're talking about multiple opponents.

Karma can offset some things, but not to the extent Silverlion is implying above.  Karma is always in short supply for the lower power level characters who have a bitch of a time earning it and burn through it instantly.

How is evade the most abused rule in the game? Can they somehow use it to do something that wasn't intended? It happens fairly frequently in comic books that a character will duck and dodge an opponent while looking for a weak spot. I guess I just don't see how it's abuse to use a rule to do exactly what it was designed to do. Can you elaborate?

-4 CS on a dodge is better than nothing. Unless the power level is really high, -4 CS is going to convert a lot of hits into misses, and slams, stuns, and kills into lesser effects (often just damage). I don't know about you, but I'd much rather take 40 damage then take 40 damage and be slammed, stunned, etc.

If you're facing multiple opponents, you may be better off trying something else, that's true. But then again, not every rule is going to be optimal in every occassion. Luring seems like one of the better options at that point, to get one of them to hit another. Of course, what I'd actually do would depend on the character and what types of enemies I was squared off against at the time.

Using evade is not abusing the rules. It's using the tools given. some of the examples given seem to be the extreme.

Any system will break if you really want to break it. The bottom line for me is that MSH is fun. I dont go into all the areas that could be exploited or fail in some way when put under a microscope.

There's an old hollywood tale that goes -A reporter on the set of Stagecoach asked director John Ford why the indians didn't just shoot the horses and stop the coach.  
John Ford replied "Well they could son, but then we wouldn't have much of a movie would we?"

Thats how I start to feel when the debates on this rule and that rule get to the point where the game stops being a game.

Quote from: The Evil DMThe bottom line for me is that MSH is fun.

I never argued that it wasn't.  

Quote from: The Evil DMI dont go into all the areas that could be exploited or fail in some way when put under a microscope.

The initial poster asked if there were any major problems he should look out for.  I'm sorry that pointing some trouble areas out is such a damn sin.

Quote from: GabrielThe initial poster asked if there were any major problems he should look out for.  I'm sorry that pointing some trouble areas out is such a damn sin.

It wouldn't be if you weren't basically wrong about how the rules worked.

 Fixed armor vs Fixed defense is a real issue--when two people have the same ranks/rank no's for an attack vs a defense. You the attacker can't breach the defending persons armor/forcefield --that's a real problem that comes up, and takes a house rule to mitigate.