Special Effects in Action

I have a deep and abiding fondness for the HERO system.  It’s mathematically complex and not always elegant, but its core idea is one of the best ideas in roleplaying games, in my opinion.

That idea is this:  In HERO, you pay character points for the game-mechanical effect your character can achieve.  You then decide what form that mechanical effect takes within the game world.  The HERO rulebooks call this the “special effect”.

For instance, you might buy ten dice of Energy Blast for 50 character points.  You decide that this represents your hero’s ability to shoot lightning from his hands.  Your friend’s character’s 50-point Energy Blast might represent a thrown ball of fire.  Another character’s represents a Thor-style thrown hammer attack.  (Despite the name, Energy Blast doesn’t have to be energy.  It can be physical for no extra cost.)  Another is a bolt of raw force.  Another is a bad luck power, representing damage the target “does to himself” through some misfortune.

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I’m back.

The Gencon trip went well.  No particular problems with the flights, and I was able to read a novel and a half.  I would like to recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch, to anybody interested in running an urban game; it’s part Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, part Ocean’s Eleven, with nods to Oliver Twist.  Its protagonist is a thief who specializes in con artistry, running elaborate schemes against the nobility of the city… which is something of a fantastic interpretation of Venice, built upon the ruins of a now-vanished technologically- or magically-advanced civilization.

The setting and concept alone make it worth reading for a game master; it’s full of ideas to be plucked and adapted.  But the plot’s also neatly woven together, and the characters shine.  It’s also a first novel, which makes it quite impressive.

But back to the convention.  I’m not planning to go into depth on my own activities there.  I spent a fair amount of time playing games — two superhero sessions using the HERO rules, three D&D sessions.  I attended a seminar or two, including the one about RPG blogging.  I hung out with old friends (one of the HERO sessions was theirs, in fact) and met some new people (Chatty lives up to his moniker).  I wandered the dealers’ room, demoed some games, bought a couple of new books; pulp’s caught my fancy lately, so I picked up Pulp Hero, the HERO system’s genre book, and the d20 Forbidden Kingdoms codex.  The latter was $2.  You can get some great deals on Sunday, sometimes.  I bought an Urban Fantasy worldbook as well, and a copy of Primetime Adventures, which had been recommended to me.  I talked to a number of people about game design.  I got to be surprised and flattered by how many people knew my name.

So, you know.  Good times.  I was a little disappointed to see that Looney Labs apparently didn’t have a booth this year.  Makes me feel a bit silly about that last post.  They deserve the plug, though, all the same.

Those D&D games were perhaps the biggest surprise.  I’d initially signed up for one RPGA game, just to check out the launch of the Living Forgotten Realms meta-campaign.  I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting much from it.  More a four-hour tactical wargame session than anything else.  After all, I’d be playing with a bunch of strangers, with more or less random characters, all of it run by a GM I’d never met before.

I was about half right.  There was a lot of emphasis on the tactical aspect.  But there was more roleplay than I’d expected.  It wasn’t just the introductions; as we moved through the adventure, my somewhat pompous human wizard, Reynardine, got to bounce off a fair number of other personalities.  Whether exchanging both insights and barbed remarks with his fellow wizard Bete Noir, or cursing the impulsiveness of the warlord Kiera as she interrupted his explanation of his plan for the third time by charging ahead, I found plenty of opportunities to explore more of my character (who had been rather hastily created on-site using a borrowed Player’s Handbook, since I’d left my books at home somehow).

It was enough fun that I dropped by for two more, using generic tickets.  Surprisingly, I got into both.  (Maybe not so surprisingly for the second — it was scheduled for Sunday at 8 AM, a time when many con-goers are near-comatose.)

There was still more combat and less roleplaying than I’d have liked, and obviously each session stood alone.  With different party members in each adventure, there was no real time to build a dynamic to play off, or to develop interpersonal relationships at more than a surface level.  It’s not the same as a real, continuing campaign.

But it’s a better substitute than I’d expected.  It was fun to play along.  Perhaps I’ll even look for some RPGA games locally.

In the meantime, I have a couple of new ideas to write about in the near future.