Post by Sci-Fi on Nov 11, 2014 23:11:31 GMT
A topic on Facebook by Brian Scott McCann kicked this off in my head. Well I've been thinking about it off and on for ages but his thread today brought it back to the forefront.
In Heroes Unlimited and other of the 'early' palladium games you tended to have a hero of some sort, you built him up with his powers and such, then you rolled on an 'education table' you could end up a high school drop out, all the way to 4 years of college or military service. Random and what not.
Even then though your skills were not really dedicated to what you rolled, unless you rolled cop or military. It just stipulated "X Number of skill programs and secondary skills" I can't tell you how many people seemed to go to college to learn how to be a thief or fight, using those rules. They were bland and ineffective and very much seem like an after thought, after you've spent so much time working up your hero. Yoru char could get 'select 3 skill programs' and choose thief. Professional driver, and science. What college degree is that? Now 'common sense' would advise against that, but when the skills are needed many people would do so, so their hero could be 'heroic' or what not in the game.
So for years I've been thinking about how to better the education tables from HU.
Dead Reign came out and it has a few OCCs if you didn't end up in one of those kinda special trained OCCs there was the average citizen sort of OCC. Where in you got skills from your profession/lifestyle. This was good for showing everyday sort of people caught up in the zombie rise. I think this goes well for games like HU too.
Sure you can be someone like a super soldier. Who should have a super soldier OCC, who would have OCC skills, OCC related skills and a few secondary skills. But an average guy on the street would default back to the OCC with your profession giving you skills and what not.
Now this would necessitate an overhaul of the HU system. We'd need to create some OCC's for the game. The "Ordinary People" OCC can be lifted from Dead Reign. They have 42 occupations there (Some are a bit gray area things like "Athlectics: Amateur competitor" but still, 42 of them cover a pretty wide swath. If there's an occupation you want that's not there, you can surely use the 42 there to get an idea of what you'd get.
OCC's Needed.
1: Soldier. There is a Soldier class in Dead Regin. It comes with a "Choose your own MOS specialty" break down. Now it won't tansfer over word for word. But the basic idea is there and could be converted for HU and other games.
2: "Super Hero". There needs to be an OCC for characters who became heroes and have trained at it for a while (At least enough to be concidered first level heroes). You'd get the basic hero package, and use your OCC related, and secondary skills to customize. Not every hero has full out trained to be such. For those you'd use the "Ordinary People" OCC, and add on the Mutant or Experiment, or what have you class. But some very much are trained, and didn't go to college to be an accountant and suddenly is working as a super hero. This OCC would account for those that have gone for 'Formal' training as well. The students of the Xavier Academy, or Avengers Academy. Those super heroes trained by Shield, that sort of thing. Even if you're not playing in the marvel universe, your superhero universe might have these sorts of things where some heroes are formally trained to BE heroes.
3: Superspy/Operative: These would be for those trained, well, as superspies and operatives. Now some people are going to go "Hey Sci-fi. There's an entire BOOK called Ninja's and superspies" Well yes, but it's 1) Older than dirt and 2) Rather restrictive, in that it's just baseline humans and deals heavily with that "Choose X amount of skill programs" and what not. I'm looking for the "Superspy/Operative" OCC. Where in you could use it with the different classes. Hawkeye is a Operative that would also be a bow Master. Black Widow would be A superspy/operative as per her training. This again would be an OCC that could be added to the classes. You could have an alien Superspy, or a mutant superspy etc. For the record. No I do not consider the Operative out of HU2 to be up to this task. It needs to be a formalized OOC that can be combined with classes if need be.
4: Hardware: the Hardware category is more or less an OOC already. It gets special skill selections and what have you. I'd formalize that and let it also be an overly. Look at Spiderman. Sure he's an 'experiment' as he was bitten by the radioactive spider and all, but he's SURELY also from the Hardware category. he built his webshooters, developed the web formula, and on top of that has built many different iterations of Iron man like spidy armor with different powers. He was also able to hack Ironman's tech at some points. So if we make Hardware an OOC, you can ascribe it to different types of hero. It doesn't mean you HAVE to be a mutant, or an experiment if you choose hardware. You could always just be a human, but it would give the option of having characters like Spiderman, or alien characters that would also be hardware.
Now these are a few of the OCCs that I think would need to be made to work with the broader 'classes' of Superheroes. This way you could have... an Alien Soldier... or an Alien Superspy, or an Alien Hardware specialist, or an Alien trained in the superhero arts. OR... a HUMAN soldier, or Human trained in the applications of his super powers (Maybe from being an experiment, or imbued, or what have you) Or a human superspy like black widow, or hardware.
What other OOC's do you guys think would be needed in this sort of revamp? Remember the OOC's themselves wont typically give superpowers. You get those from your class. They will give OCC abilities though, so the Superspy for example will get a goodly number of superspy stuff from the OCC. Give examples of char's from comics or movies that would fall into the OCC's that you would think would be needed that's not covered by the "Ordinary people w/mundane profession", "Soldier" "Super hero" "Superspy/Operative" "Hardware".
In Heroes Unlimited and other of the 'early' palladium games you tended to have a hero of some sort, you built him up with his powers and such, then you rolled on an 'education table' you could end up a high school drop out, all the way to 4 years of college or military service. Random and what not.
Even then though your skills were not really dedicated to what you rolled, unless you rolled cop or military. It just stipulated "X Number of skill programs and secondary skills" I can't tell you how many people seemed to go to college to learn how to be a thief or fight, using those rules. They were bland and ineffective and very much seem like an after thought, after you've spent so much time working up your hero. Yoru char could get 'select 3 skill programs' and choose thief. Professional driver, and science. What college degree is that? Now 'common sense' would advise against that, but when the skills are needed many people would do so, so their hero could be 'heroic' or what not in the game.
So for years I've been thinking about how to better the education tables from HU.
Dead Reign came out and it has a few OCCs if you didn't end up in one of those kinda special trained OCCs there was the average citizen sort of OCC. Where in you got skills from your profession/lifestyle. This was good for showing everyday sort of people caught up in the zombie rise. I think this goes well for games like HU too.
Sure you can be someone like a super soldier. Who should have a super soldier OCC, who would have OCC skills, OCC related skills and a few secondary skills. But an average guy on the street would default back to the OCC with your profession giving you skills and what not.
Now this would necessitate an overhaul of the HU system. We'd need to create some OCC's for the game. The "Ordinary People" OCC can be lifted from Dead Reign. They have 42 occupations there (Some are a bit gray area things like "Athlectics: Amateur competitor" but still, 42 of them cover a pretty wide swath. If there's an occupation you want that's not there, you can surely use the 42 there to get an idea of what you'd get.
OCC's Needed.
1: Soldier. There is a Soldier class in Dead Regin. It comes with a "Choose your own MOS specialty" break down. Now it won't tansfer over word for word. But the basic idea is there and could be converted for HU and other games.
2: "Super Hero". There needs to be an OCC for characters who became heroes and have trained at it for a while (At least enough to be concidered first level heroes). You'd get the basic hero package, and use your OCC related, and secondary skills to customize. Not every hero has full out trained to be such. For those you'd use the "Ordinary People" OCC, and add on the Mutant or Experiment, or what have you class. But some very much are trained, and didn't go to college to be an accountant and suddenly is working as a super hero. This OCC would account for those that have gone for 'Formal' training as well. The students of the Xavier Academy, or Avengers Academy. Those super heroes trained by Shield, that sort of thing. Even if you're not playing in the marvel universe, your superhero universe might have these sorts of things where some heroes are formally trained to BE heroes.
3: Superspy/Operative: These would be for those trained, well, as superspies and operatives. Now some people are going to go "Hey Sci-fi. There's an entire BOOK called Ninja's and superspies" Well yes, but it's 1) Older than dirt and 2) Rather restrictive, in that it's just baseline humans and deals heavily with that "Choose X amount of skill programs" and what not. I'm looking for the "Superspy/Operative" OCC. Where in you could use it with the different classes. Hawkeye is a Operative that would also be a bow Master. Black Widow would be A superspy/operative as per her training. This again would be an OCC that could be added to the classes. You could have an alien Superspy, or a mutant superspy etc. For the record. No I do not consider the Operative out of HU2 to be up to this task. It needs to be a formalized OOC that can be combined with classes if need be.
4: Hardware: the Hardware category is more or less an OOC already. It gets special skill selections and what have you. I'd formalize that and let it also be an overly. Look at Spiderman. Sure he's an 'experiment' as he was bitten by the radioactive spider and all, but he's SURELY also from the Hardware category. he built his webshooters, developed the web formula, and on top of that has built many different iterations of Iron man like spidy armor with different powers. He was also able to hack Ironman's tech at some points. So if we make Hardware an OOC, you can ascribe it to different types of hero. It doesn't mean you HAVE to be a mutant, or an experiment if you choose hardware. You could always just be a human, but it would give the option of having characters like Spiderman, or alien characters that would also be hardware.
Now these are a few of the OCCs that I think would need to be made to work with the broader 'classes' of Superheroes. This way you could have... an Alien Soldier... or an Alien Superspy, or an Alien Hardware specialist, or an Alien trained in the superhero arts. OR... a HUMAN soldier, or Human trained in the applications of his super powers (Maybe from being an experiment, or imbued, or what have you) Or a human superspy like black widow, or hardware.
What other OOC's do you guys think would be needed in this sort of revamp? Remember the OOC's themselves wont typically give superpowers. You get those from your class. They will give OCC abilities though, so the Superspy for example will get a goodly number of superspy stuff from the OCC. Give examples of char's from comics or movies that would fall into the OCC's that you would think would be needed that's not covered by the "Ordinary people w/mundane profession", "Soldier" "Super hero" "Superspy/Operative" "Hardware".