Should Heroes have a supplement?

[DreadQueen]

Many heroes Heroes dont give a shit beasts are trying to use their nature in a constructive way. They see a monster, it HAS to die. And a Hero is just likely to fight a terror of a beast as he is a weak one

Heroes should be buffed in terms of being good at combat so ones like the water guy can be believable. I dont know why you want them nerfed. You seem to want Hunters, not Heroes

I think this discussion is not progressing, let's reach a middle point?

What I'm saying is that the Heroes that usually appear in a Beast game are the ones I described, the weaker ones with low Integrity, they are the ones that the book itself describes.

But yeah, Heracles-like Heroes exist, true champions who are actually like the Heroes from legends, the book also mentions this and even implies some famous Heroes from older times are still alive and roaming the world. They only provide a single paragraph about Heroes like this, mentioning they have different mechanics through having access to stronger Gifts.

Why does the book spend so little time describing those stronger versions of a Hero? because they don't fit the theme that the book is trying to convey. Think about it, what exactly do you think will happen when you include a Hero like that in your Chronicle? remember that Beasts are supposed to be player-controlled characters! however, a supplement can expand on stronger Heroes, which would be cool, yeah, it would be excellent to have some other end goal for Heroes other than simply retiring or dying, I can see those kind of Heroes working with different stories, different themes.

[Primordial newcomer]

I think this discussion is not progressing, let's reach a middle point?

What I'm saying is that the Heroes that usually appear in a Beast game are the ones I described, the weaker ones with low Integrity, they are the ones that the book itself describes.

But yeah, Heracles-like Heroes exist, true champions who are actually like the Heroes from legends, the book also mentions this and even implies some famous Heroes from older times are still alive and roaming the world. They only provide a single paragraph about Heroes like this, mentioning they have different mechanics through having access to stronger Gifts.

Why does the book spend so little time describing those stronger versions of a Hero? because they don't fit the theme that the book is trying to convey. Think about it, what exactly do you think will happen when you include a Hero like that in your Chronicle? remember that Beasts are supposed to be player-controlled characters! however, a supplement can expand on stronger Heroes, which would be cool, yeah, it would be excellent to have some other end goal for Heroes other than simply retiring or dying, I can see those kind of Heroes working with different stories, different themes.

The stronger heroes still convey them. Throughout history we hear the story from the Hero's side. Hercacles like heroes can be low integrity or high integrity, it does not matter. The issue Heroes have is that they should be able to be more of a direct threat (if that's the kinda Hero the character is). Also, I dont think the corebook mentions different mechanics for them. It only says high integrity heroes arent talked about because they arent that likely to be seen by your average "trying to do good" beast.

I completely agree. Heroes that are epic in their style of hunting currently do not have the mechanics to back it up (anathema or not), but that's an issue that can be solved. To me, it would be a problem if Heroes only worked by having a good reputation with people, not a solution. Different heroes should have different methods to individualize them.

As for including a character like that in my chronicle? Great things. Heroes are to reinforce a narrative. When you have a herculean Hero finally taken down by a beast, what does that do to the astral, what suddenly becomes of epic heroes getting killed.

Again, they still need work, but I think it's a very solvable issue. Hell, I can see a storytellers guide having enough room to give Heroes much needed abilities

[DreadQueen]

What do you mean by "having a good reputation" though?

Every Hero has followers, that's one inherent power they all possess, the ability to infect the dreams of mortals and make them fight for him.

Does that mean they are beloved by everyone? hell no, look at our current situation, such a thing does not exist, we are more polarized than ever, ask a random person on the street what they think of politic X and they'll describe him as the savior of America, ask another one and he'll describe him as populist who does nothing more than spread hate.

Heroes can embody BOTH points of view at the same time, Heroes don't need to, and often don't, agree with each other, and they can use completely opposite movements as a tool to gather supporters.

We live in a world where some people look at Varg Vikerness as a their personal hero just to provide an example, and they have their own reasons for that which aren't necessarily right or wrong, they just look the other way when their personal hero do something they don't agree with.

[Guest]

I don’t like Beast in general, but epic-style Heroes who weren’t totally deconstructed might be kind of cool.

[Primordial newcomer]

What do you mean by "having a good reputation" though?

Every Hero has followers, that's one inherent power they all possess, the ability to infect the dreams of mortals and make them fight for him.

Does that mean they are beloved by everyone? hell no, look at our current situation, such a thing does not exist, we are more polarized than ever, ask a random person on the street what they think of politic X and they'll describe him as the savior of America, ask another one and he'll describe him as populist who does nothing more than spread hate.

Heroes can embody BOTH points of view at the same time, Heroes don't need to, and often don't, agree with each other, and they can use completely opposite movements as a tool to gather supporters.

We live in a world where some people look at Varg Vikerness as a their personal hero just to provide an example, and they have their own reasons for that which aren't necessarily right or wrong, they just look the other way when their personal hero do something they don't agree with.

I'm saying what you said. You said Heroes should all be those who use their reputation with the people to their advantage and fight with only underhanded tactics. I'm saying they shouldn't be limited to only doing that

[Guest]

By “deconstructed,” I mean in Beast the trope is subverted. They’re turned into villains, but pretty much one-dimensional villains.

I’m sorry. When I first flipped through my friend’s copy of Beast I really wasn’t into it, and then when I learned it was written by a sexual predator I was like “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like this game!” Fruit of the poisonous tree...

That being said, I actually really did like the part about Beast in the Egyptian section of Dark Eras 2 and I realized maybe the game concept wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. One of the things I liked about the Egyptian era is that it gave the Heroes more depth, made them not so much straight up villains.

Thanks.

[DreadQueen]

By “deconstructed,” I mean in Beast the trope is subverted. They’re turned into villains, but pretty much one-dimensional villains.

I’m sorry. When I first flipped through my friend’s copy of Beast I really wasn’t into it, and then when I learned it was written by a sexual predator I was like “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like this game!” Fruit of the poisonous tree...

That being said, I actually really did like the part about Beast in the Egyptian section of Dark Eras 2 and I realized maybe the game concept wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. One of the things I liked about the Egyptian era is that it gave the Heroes more depth, made them not so much straight up villains.

Thanks.

You are not alone, Beast was kind of forgotten (including by me) but many people are talking about it again because of the Egypt part of Dark Eras 2.

Props to whoever wrote that part, seriously, if there is ever a Beast 1.5 I want that person to be involved.

I used to hate how villainous Heroes are presented in the Corebook because at the end of the day Beasts are evil, and the Heroes are the only ones that fight against them, everybody else seems to love Beasts, but after reading about Oracles and finally understanding how Heroes should have been when they weren't twisted I could finally understand why the modern Heroes aren't that heroic.

The book could have used that contrast when it was initially designed, they should have showed us how there is, indeed, a correct way to fight monsters.

[Teatime]

Penelope Although he was a developer, saying that McFarland wrote Beast is misleading. The nature of his failure is somewhat different, as told by the writers on the project. There was a thread that collected quotes from some of them, and allowed others to finally get things off their chests, starting here: Link

[Guest]

DreadQueen thanks. I totally agree.

Teatime thank you. I’m gonna read this.

[GibberingEloquence]

I am unsure of how useful this is for the purposes explained in the original post, but I figured there was no harm in mentioning I have written rules for Playable Heroes.

[Dataweaver]

I'm saying what you said. You said Heroes should all be those who use their reputation with the people to their advantage and fight with only underhanded tactics. I'm saying they shouldn't be limited to only doing that

While it's not a great fix as it relies a bit too much on a different gameline, it's worth noting that Heroes are basically wanton murderers, which puts them firmly in the same territory as Hunter's Slashers. One way to “power up” a Hero would be to turn him into a Ripper or Scourge as well.

[Satchel]

everybody else seems to love Beasts

Literally the only textual element that remotely suggests this is the same part of Thicker Than Water that everybody in 2015 kept aggressively misreading because the words "good impression" were used, which only referred to the Social Maneuvering system's "you can make an extended effort to convince someone to do something for you on the basis of trust," was always conditional on not doing anything to wreck that baseline impression, and only ever gave you about the same benefit as being well-dressed (and then only for monsters of a more inhuman stripe; for the most humanlike monsters the sole benefit was that you weren't inherently starting from a hostile position).

Beasts are people that can interact with monsters who don't know them in a neutral setting slightly better than a complete stranger who hadn't done anything to garner mistrust could. They do not have an innate Good PR Power.

[Guest]

DreadQueen I especially like the third paragraph of your post.

Satchel okay. Maybe I was confusing what people were saying about Beast with what was actually in the text.

[ArcaneArts]

While it's not a great fix as it relies a bit too much on a different gameline, it's worth noting that Heroes are basically wanton murderers, which puts them firmly in the same territory as Hunter's Slashers. One way to “power up” a Hero would be to turn him into a Ripper or Scourge as well.

Eh, there's more thematic ways to improve Heroes.

[Dataweaver]

Like I said, it's not a great fix.