Demo Question

[Bill]

Which of the 34 character types described in the core book do you think would be most important to include in a demo? Would it be better to focus a pregenerated group in one or two power categories?

[drewkitty ~..~]

The Mutant or to say those with superpowers. they should be at least a quarter of the pre-gens. Maybe up to three quarters of the pre-gens.

I would have an alien, a magic user, a psionic char, and one of the special training. Maybe a hardware and/or a robotics char(s).

[Bill]

Why the emphasis on mutants? Several other power categories grant characters super abilities.

[Glistam]

I focus on Mutants and Experiments. It keeps things simple while also emphasizing the super hero/super power aspect of the game.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Because in superhero games people's first thoughts are on the super-powered heros.

[RockJock]

I agree with the consensus, go with a majority of Mutants/Experiments.

I would stay away from most of the training/hardware types because of bookkeeping, same goes for psychics, cyborgs and robots/PA. I might trough in an Ancient Master, or Ancient Weapons Master to show different classes/power types. Most of the magic classes are fairly straight forward as well.

If you are going pre-gen are you going for a pre built team? A brick, blaster, melee specialist and so on?

[Bill]

I intend to have all of the traditional roles available.

[Regularguy]

If you're only using one category, I'd go with Experiment.

Like the other folks said, powers are presumably the big draw; a group of supers with one stage magician could work -- but a whole team of stage magicians, not so much. And one alien can be cool and interesting -- but if the story is four aliens living among us, then that kind of is the story, y'know? Same thing with, like, four robots, or four ancient masters.

But an Experiment -- that can be all over the place, right? Just going from Table E to Table F already gives you a lot of built-in stuff to work with: one super can be the well-connected veteran who left the military on good terms, such that both he and his contacts still ask each other for the occasional favor; another can be the secret-identity adventurer who didn't manifest powers until long after that criminal syndicate exposed him to those microbes; another can be the covert operative employed at a high salary by the secret crime-fighting organization he loyally works for; and another can be the mysterious amnesiac with no knowledge of his past. (Maybe he was the mad scientist who experimented on himself! Who knows? NOBODY knows!)

At that, you get other things to factor in: if you just want a great set of powers, we can pretty much do that -- but if you want a guy who has to physically transform into a 'super' form to use them, that's on the menu as well -- and if you want someone who now has an inhuman metabolism, or strange features, other possibilities abound likewise.

(I'm not sure whether you're counting the Supersoldier option as separate from the Experiment category -- but if you are, then factor that in, too.)

[Bill]

I think some of you may be underestimating the flexibility of other power categories. As an experiment, I used the Magic category to write up a leader (magic weapon user), a blaster (enchanted item user with three minor powers), a wizard, and a brick (bestowed powers with two major abilities). Tied together with an Egyptian mythology theme, they make a pretty decent team by themselves.

I'm going to have a closer look at the Robot category next.

[Regularguy]

I think some of you may be underestimating the flexibility of other power categories. As an experiment, I used the Magic category to write up a leader (magic weapon user), a blaster (enchanted item user with three minor powers), a wizard, and a brick (bestowed powers with two major abilities).

Didn't realize that's what you'd meant; I would have figured that, say, an all-wizard team would (a) count as one category and also (b) be a little vanilla; or an all-Enchanted-Object team, likewise -- but, yes, granted, if "the Magic category" means those four separate types, then, sure, that "category" has tons of flexibility.

[RockJock]

I think the magic category could easily cover all the roles. That being said, I wouldn't bring in PPE book keeping and spell lists for a starter game. I also like the experiment/mutant as a demo because they tend to be fairly straight forward, yet can be used in interesting ways. Just my 2 cents. You can definitely
make it works with the magic classes.

[Glistam]

Which of the 34 character types described in the core book do you think would be most important to include in a demo? Would it be better to focus a pregenerated group in one or two power categories?

So I guess a good question here, now that I've seen some of the responses, is "What is the purpose of this Demo, and with what sort of gamers do you intend to run it?"

In a Demo game where Heroes Unlimited is just the vehicle to tell a cool superhero one-shot story, then characters which focus on the super powers would be the route I take. From a simplistic standpoint, that tends to be the Mutant and Experiment categories, but can also include any of the power categories which bestow super powers in some way.

Only if the Demo involves people familiar with the Palladium system would I consider including characters who use I.S.P. and P.P.E. based abilities. Since there's so many more options and bookkeeping involved with those characters, I probably wouldn't bring them into a game with Palladium novices.

On the flip side, if the purpose of the Demo is to showcase what Heroes Unlimited can do, then in that case I would certainly consider many of the other categories. Despite the "no conversions" policy in this case I would probably consider making a series of characters deliberately "inspired" by characters from comics and/or movies. This way the players could already have a frame of reference for what the hero should be able to do, and this would in turn allow the Palladium system to show off how it manages to do that.

Familiarity with Palladium as a system is still a factor for consideration here, too, though. To make a super-suit character I might consider using the Super Invention category to do so if the players I expected had little or no familiarity, while those familiar I would give a full Robot category Exoskeleton write-up to. A Magic Item character who receives super powers has a lot less bookkeeping to do than a Magic Item character who receives spells. Etcetera.

The last two Heroes Unlimited Demo's I did were both with people who were relatively familiar with the Palladium system. The first used a team of Five Mutants, Two Experiments, and One Magic Weapon character. The second game I ran was more complex, with a Magic Weapon character, a Psychic, a Mystic Study, a Mutant, an Experiment, a Nightbane, and a Nightbane Sorcerer. In both cases the intention of the Demo was to tell a story, and the pre-gen characters I created were designed to facilitate that.

[Bill]

My goal with a demo is always to show off as much of what the game can do as possible while adequately covering the core mechanics (combat and skill resolution). With a game as broad as Heroes Unlimited, I can't possibly cover every possible option and variant. Even so, I will do my best to not focus too narrowly.

[Sureshot]

Physical Training. Easy to use imo.