Recent content by Thomas Shey

That's the problem though. The players aren't a single unit most of the time. Maybe on of them wants to play a tortle. Maybe one wants to play a dragonborn. Maybe two want to play other things a GM might not want, but aren't going to push on the issue because they're used to being shut down...

Ah, wasn't aware there were other than the 13th Age versions. Its an odd book in a number of ways.

I think at least some of the answer to this question turns on whether you consider (in traditional games) the power dynamic in the two symmetrical. I've expressed my opinion on that enough times I don't feel a need to belabor it.

The only issue I'd suggest is that Cortex really, really wants to compress scope more than those games do. Whether that's significant is in the eye of the beholder, of course.

I think it worked better with Chill because it had multiple degrees of success, so you could regulate not just whether they got information, but how much. As a default, Hero only had success/failure; Chill had five cases (even the optional rules for Hero only gave four, and I think the extra...

I think there are real problems with binary yes-or-no creating dead ends in trad games. There are other solutions to that than the Gumshoe approach; I personally prefer the approach they did in Chill 3e where a skill roll always gets you some information, just of varied amounts (and mixed with...

Is that specific to the approach Brindlewood Bay? I'm curious because it seems an odd statement for investigative games in-general.

What I'd phrase it as is Hero is no worse than most trad games for investigation--but that's very much damning with faint praise.

Proper management of the phase chart is a bit of an art, even with proper tools.

Well, part of that is the price of Hero going full generic-system at one point. I think Robot Warriors back in the day did as or more credible a job than any of the crunch-oriented mecha games. Including sometimes doing it and discovering what you've done just doesn't work the way you hope it...

Its a vicious cycle though; people who see it at one end tend to do it at the other, and I'm not convinced the power dynamic is symmetrical.

There's also me who plays/runs games, but also has a limited playtime, and well, lifespan but still like reading interesting games (sometimes things I'd never run, sometimes ones I would but may well never have time).

Its an intrinsic benefit/risk with BRP derivatives.

For what its worth (and I acknowledge your caveat at the end there), while I think Hero does only work for some kinds of tone, the Fringeworthy and fantasy games I ran with it didn't feel superhero-ish.

I was talking primarily about combat, and, well, I've seen other games that turned on that kind of dynamic (the old DC Heroes game could uncharitably be described as both sides hosing hero points at each other until someone ran out, with the dice rolls adding a little unpredictability to how...