Quote from: John Morrow;579399I'm very much a Develop-In-Play person and thus consider a character that is well-developed in play a pretty substantial investment in time.

I read dDMw's post as referring to succession of new characters, which is why I brought up DaS versus DiP.

Quote from: John Morrow;579399I once played a D&D game where I went through a lot of characters and I got pretty detached from caring about the game or my characters as a result.  So I see that as a legitimate concern.

Great, so you experienced the extreme end of the spectrum - you have my condolences.

Do you believe this experience is representative of roleplaying games generally? Is it representative of the majority of the campaigns you played?

Do you think games should be designed to prevent crapsack referees from being crapsacks? Is that even possible?

Quote from: David Johansen;579405In Hero you're looking at a pistol doing 2d6 Killing against a Body of 10.  Which is the highest survival margine of the three.

Um, no.  I thought these numbers sounded fishy, so I looked them up and they haven't changed from Danger International to 6th edition.  A 9mm pistol does 1d6+1 Killing.  To get to 2d6K you have to be packing a .44 Magnum.

IOW, it's actually impossible to kill a normal non-heroic person with a single shot to the chest with a 9mm pistol.

Quote from: daniel_ream;579421IOW, it's actually impossible to kill a normal non-heroic person with a single shot to the chest with a 9mm pistol.

This is true, however the weapon listings for HERO should be considered suggestions- the GM is free to build them however he wishes for his own campaign. For an example I offer my own example on how to build firearms for HERO (from a previous thread on this site).

Due to the customization built into HERO, saying HERO is this or that is to automatically be mistaken.

For my own preference, I like to treat NPCs and PCs the same way.  If people are going to die without medical care of some kind, it's usually fine to assume most of the bad guys 'bleed out'.  If they don't, most of them are going to retire or cease to matter in most situations.  If they do have a reason to keep coming back (ie, major NPC), then I'm all for treating them like the PCs.  

The villain is more meaningful if he comes back to haunt the PCs and he's sporting major scars that he can blame them for.  But rarely would a mook matter for this treatment.  

If a GM makes a rule that keeps people alive apply only to PCs and major NPCs, that doesn't bother me TOO much.  Not my preference, but I understand that it does make things easier.

Quote from: gleichman;579426This is true, however the weapon listings for HERO should be considered suggestions- the GM is free to build them however he wishes for his own campaign.

Seriously, gleichman?  The Oberoni fallacy?  From you?

Quote from: daniel_ream;579450Seriously, gleichman?  The Oberoni fallacy?  From you?

It's not a fallacy, it's actually what HERO is designed to do. It's a toolkit for the construction of whatever world you wish. The actual values are all your own to decide upon (as long as you follow the contruction rules of course).

We had that very discussion back in the day with the original designers when we were one of their playtest groups.

Quote from: gleichman;579462It's not a fallacy, it's actually what HERO is designed to do. It's a toolkit for the construction of whatever world you wish. The actual values are all your own to decide upon (as long as you follow the contruction rules of course).

We had that very discussion back in the day with the original designers when we were one of their playtest groups.

So it's like GURPs?

Quote from: MGuy;579498So it's like GURPs?

I'm not certain about GURPS, but my impression was that it was a toolkit for characters and not for gear and other objects. For example it has very defined rules for converting real world items like vehicle and weapons that would result in them being identical from setting to setting.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;579420I read dDMw's post as referring to succession of new characters, which is why I brought up DaS versus DiP.

Great, so you experienced the extreme end of the spectrum - you have my condolences.

Do you believe this experience is representative of roleplaying games generally? Is it representative of the majority of the campaigns you played?

Do you think games should be designed to prevent crapsack referees from being crapsacks? Is that even possible?

I don't think that it is, without seriously limiting what the options for the flow of the game are.  If the DM has his hands tied so tightly that he can't be a crapsack, you might as well be playing Lone Wolf.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;579440For my own preference, I like to treat NPCs and PCs the same way.  If people are going to die without medical care of some kind, it's usually fine to assume most of the bad guys 'bleed out'.  If they don't, most of them are going to retire or cease to matter in most situations.  If they do have a reason to keep coming back (ie, major NPC), then I'm all for treating them like the PCs.  

The villain is more meaningful if he comes back to haunt the PCs and he's sporting major scars that he can blame them for.  But rarely would a mook matter for this treatment.  

If a GM makes a rule that keeps people alive apply only to PCs and major NPCs, that doesn't bother me TOO much.  Not my preference, but I understand that it does make things easier.

I've had a couple of Mooks that were turned into recurring villans (or contacts, depending) based on having not quite died at the hands of the PC's.  I've also seen a lot of nomad corpses strewn across the highways, so fair enough.  But I certainly wouldn't discount the Mook value, and I usually try to jot a note or two down after a combat about what the wounded are going to have happen.

Quote from: MGuy;579498So it's like GURPs?

Not exactly... GURPS has all its equipment pre-determined and balanced within the game or setting; the characters are point-bought, but things like equipment and vehicles and such are pre-determined. Hero gives you the capability to create just about anything you can imagine using the 'Powers' combined with Advantages and Disadvantages.  So at it's core, a Colt M1911 is a Ranged Killing Attack with Obvious Accessible Focus and Limited Ammunition (7).  There might be other modifiers that you can decide to use (Gleichman has an extensive method that he uses which combines real-world values and makes the weapons as accurate as possible to each other)