Hero Games 2022 Update

[assault]

If you look at Champions of the North (both versions - Scott only wrote one) and Kingdom of Champions, there's more to them than just a list of NPCs.

That's what would make "Champions of the USA" funny. Not just the stereotypical characters. Also, the latter could be less than funny once you get past the white characters.

That's actually why my attempts at drafting out "Champions Down Under" have shipwrecked. There's no way I could write something that includes fails like Walkabout.

At best I could do a non-canonical version, but I'm currently more interested in Fantasy - and that's got its own traps.

It's sad, because instead of a whole book like CotN, something like a chapter from Champions International would be fairly easy to write. But I'm not touching the canonical stuff.

[mattingly]

7 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

You don't need a foreign perspective to come up with cliche American heroes -- Americans have done just fine on their own. Take Marvel Comics:

 

Red Wolf's standalone series from a few years back was wonderful.

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

8 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

You don't need a foreign perspective to come up with cliche American heroes -- Americans have done just fine on their own. Take Marvel Comics:

 

And let's not forget DC Comics:

 

 

And this is why I given up up on bothering as to why I name characters. You seem to set a trap LL. Most characters have a name based on their powers but if you do that then someone comes along and says “cliche!”.  Bah!

[Lord Liaden]

This goes well beyond names, NB. Look at the Rangers: two of them wear Stetsons, two of them are packing six-shooters. One is on a horse. The Native American isn't wearing a shirt.

 

The Force of July not only have a flag-suit, but a Statue of Liberty knock-off and a pseudo-Pilgrim costume. And why is the duplicator called Silent Majority? As I recall his original write-up, it's because he's "taciturn." Really reaching.

 

To quote SHIELD Agent Ward, "Someone really wanted our name to spell out SHIELD."

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, mattingly said:

 

Red Wolf's standalone series from a few years back was wonderful.

 

 

Not being familiar with it, I'll take your word for that. There's nothing wrong conceptually with a superhero of a particular ethnicity based on that people's spiritual traditions, if those traditions are represented with knowledge and respect. But if they're just catering to a white audience's superficial preconceptions, then it's just a superpowered version of Chief Knockahoma.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think a good look at the other "Champions of the..." products shows what can be done, and done well with a national setting of any kind.  And its okay to have one or two silly/stereotyped characters (I mean, from some people's perspective Captain America is one... and he would be considered one, if created today).  You just create the rest to be interesting characters somewhat related to the nation, but mostly just independent of their setting.  Look at Kingdom of Champions, you have a mix of Beefeater and Shamrock kind of characters, and the rest could be from anywhere, but happen to be in the UK.

[steriaca]

I still want Champions of the Rising Sun for my Superheroes Of Japan fix. Also needs lots of stuff like Business Universe stuff (you realize an average office worker works about 10 hours a day, six days a week?), Home Universe (mothers control the household finances), and School Universe (Monday to Saturday school days, only one month off for summer vacation, school uniforms), and Social Universe (conformity because the island system is prone to natural disasters).

[Ninja-Bear]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Not being familiar with it, I'll take your word for that. There's nothing wrong conceptually with a superhero of a particular ethnicity based on that people's spiritual traditions, if those traditions are represented with knowledge and respect. But if they're just catering to a white audience's superficial preconceptions, then it's just a superpowered version of Chief Knockahoma.

Well I guess when the Indian Reservations out in New York State take down their Knockahoma advertising, you might have a point. Also, why is just catering to White people? Have you done a survey? 

[SCUBA Hero]

Whatever happened to the "USA 50" thing?

[assault]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

This goes well beyond names, NB. Look at the Rangers: two of them wear Stetsons,

 

And one of these has wind powers. It seems he has personal immunity, so his hat doesn't get blown off.

[Jhamin]

On 4/19/2022 at 2:30 PM, steriaca said:

I still want Champions of the Rising Sun for my Superheroes Of Japan fix.

 

When my heroes ended up in Japan I ended up having them meet Zen Squad from the old 4e Allies book.  I'm actually a power rangers fan so the part where they are all employees of a big company that somehow work at an orphanage & fight evil in color coded suits was right up my alley.

[Lord Liaden]

While I was still actively GM-ing, I would routinely mingle elements from 4E and 5E Champions. There's more material in those editions than I will ever need.

[Foxiekins]

I didn't use New Millenium...  I was able to track down and consolidate, except for one thing...  The game had two different spend currencies for different things that were completely isolated from each other...  No conversion back and forth as I recall...  That would have been fine, but the game specified how many points of one type characters were built with, but that information didn't exist for the other type of point...  I couldn't even get a suggested amount from anyone...  Replies were always "How much the GM decides on..."