5th Edition Renaissance?

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

I would suggest a sample NPC hero team be 3-4 detailed members with another 3-4 left as background for a future book. These example heroes should be useable by new players who are not sure of what they want to create for themselves until they are more comfortable with HERO. Use  a simpler version of V.O.I.C.E of doom, with some being injured, retiring or even going bad. 

 

2 hours ago, steriaca said:

I can agree that NPC heroes shouldn't be more important than whatever the players come up with, BUT players DO need examples to follow. Prehaps the first setting book shouldn't have many NPC heroes, but again, should the players actually feel like they actually are the only force of good in the world? Shouldn't the heroes actually have protental allies?

Ok. So your arguing FOR npc heroes? What if the NPC heroes end up more powerful by the groups who do play by player design?

 

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 

I would have examples, but I would not have them as NPC Heroes, but as player Pregenerateds,  minumum of five maximum of 8, and like Champions Begins, just a name and a set of powers, and a male and female illo of each. Have them in the back of the book, in and index, but refer to them in the text if one needs and example. Leave it up to the GM to choose to use them or not as NPCs.

 

I may not have made myself as clear as I thought, since I feel we're talking past each other but making the same points.   I did not mean that players would be expected or required to use all or any of the pre-generated archetypal heroes I suggested including in the book. They should be examples and potential resources for the players, but not competitors. The players would be assembling their own team, whether they wanted to generate original characters, perhaps inspired by a pregen archetype, or pick any of the pregens themselves as their PC, or a mixture of both. Any pregen not picked doesn't appear in this group's game, unless and until the GM wants to use one.

 

I am arguing for some benevolent NPCs as defaults in Coastal City, but the kind that are built so as to be useful, but not to overshadow the PCs, e.g. a scientist who's skilled but doesn't put on powered armor and punch bad guys; or a mystic who can provide background info, but isn't powerful enough to cast villains into other dimensions; or a street-level detective who knows the underworld and can track down leads, but is outmatched in a fight by true superhumans.

 

The PCs need not be the only force for good in the world, but IMO they should be the strongest force for good in Coastal City. Remember that we're talking about designing a focused setting for starting players, not a whole world. There may be Avengers or Justice League types out there, but they're dealing with global threats. The home town heroes protect the home town. If subsequent adventures start to expand beyond Coastal City, more such NPC heroes can be worked in if desired. At that point the players and GM should have the experience to make sure the PCs aren't playing second fiddle to NPCs.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I have not worked it all the way through yet but the followup idea I have for Champions Begins is "baby's first campaign" with a step by step "how to build a character using Champions Complete", then their first adventure with the new characters that they personally built, a followup session where they tweak their characters slightly after a test drive around the block (Hulk turned gray to green, Beast went from an idiot to a poetry-spouting intellectual, etc), then spend some xps, then a few related adventures following an overarching plot between several apparently unrelated adventures and end with a triumph and a parade through the city or something.   The mayor gives them the old McCallister Building to use as a base, maybe. 

 

Something roughly 100 pages but instead of a "how to walk around in the game and punch things" tutorial a basic step into what its like to play a Champions campaign.

[Spence]

12 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I may not have made myself as clear as I thought, since I feel we're talking past each other but making the same points.   I did not mean that players would be expected or required to use all or any of the pre-generated archetypal heroes I suggested including in the book. They should be examples and potential resources for the players, but not competitors. The players would be assembling their own team, whether they wanted to generate original characters, perhaps inspired by a pregen archetype, or pick any of the pregens themselves as their PC, or a mixture of both. Any pregen not picked doesn't appear in this group's game, unless and until the GM wants to use one.

 

I on the other hand believe that one of the key reasons Hero is dying on the vine is NOT having pre-built PC's designed to compliment a pre-built adventure.

The end design is for everyone to understand the game enough to play it.

 

Heroes actual play rules are simple (to hit, to succeed, to damage, to change, etc.)

 

Heroes point build system is simple (it's just basic math)

 

Heroes design philosophy is so different and arcane to the average person it is extremely difficult to grok by players of other TTRPGs and virtually impossible to grok by Video RPG gamers.  Even here we constantly see players, even some veterans, asking how to build something and they start off by naming a listed "power" that sounds close as the base.  Instead of explaining in plain language (no Hero build speak) what they want to achieve. 

 

Yes, in the end every player will want to make completely custom PC's.

But before they can do that they need to have some idea of just what a STR of X means in the context of the setting they are playing.  Of just what 6d6 damage means in the context of the setting they are playing.

 

And that context changes GM to GM.  If we set the standards as a beginning game for 400 point Heroes and I built a campaign/setting and you built a campaign/setting for the same.  I might have high powered version where 8d6 is average for damage, while you might go a path where 6d6 is average.  Or 10d6.  The point is that "acceptable" and "average" in the Hero System are ever sliding goalposts. 

 

You can't actually learn a game if the parameters keep changing. 

 

Hero needs a fixed reference basic setting.

It should have a intro mini-campaign using pre-generated PC's so that the new player and GM can gain an initial understanding of the game while standing on firm ground, before they get kicked into the quicksand.

 

Just from the beginning the rule book requires the new player to make decisions they have no understanding of.

 

Normals

• Standard
• Skilled
• Competent

Herioc

• Standard
• Powerful
• Very Powerful

Superheroic

• Low-Powered
• Standard
• High-Powered
• Very High-Powered
• Cosmically Powerful

Yes, they all have point values, but what do those values actually mean?  In the gut?  In actual play?

 

If the campaign makes a decision and picks one.  And then builds everything to that decision including pre-generated Heroes, the new players and GM will have a defined starting point to learn the system.   And once they complete to intro campaign they now have a reference point for later use when they go their own way.  

 

Don't get me wrong, the books do a great job in trying to explain things, but like most it doesn't sink in until you actually do it.  

 

I teach technicians and engineers about on-aircraft systems all the time, both upgrades to existing systems and newly deployed systems.  We build in "classroom" time where we go over things in detail.  But for the vast majority of people the lights really don't come on completely until we go to an aircraft and fire up the system and they see things real time.  Suddenly it becomes easy. 

 

The Hero System (any edition) is an open ended one that sits on a fluid foundation.  Unfortunately you can't play open ended on fluid. 

Decisions have to add limits and set a solid foundation. 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Yep.

 

 

I dont think,about it much these days, but our own early 1e and 2e characters were benchmarked off of the villains included at the end od the book:

 

"We want to be able to kick these guys' butts!" which was followed immediately by "and we need some cooler villains!," all of whom were also benchmarked off the guys in the back of the book.

 

The whole "no quouting stat blocks in your Hall of Heroes works- I get it: Steve stayed up late writing those books, and the company wants to sell them, but-  it is kind of working against what a curious potential GM really needs to get a game going.

 

Sure:  I assume you can create your own baddies and out them in your book (note that I have not checked), but that kind of works against our stated goal of attempting to build a slow burn of interest in the wider published products.

 

I wonder if we can appeal to Jason to possibly allow the full inclusion of "legacy" characters such as those in 1 and 2e, so long as they remained _that_ version of themselves before earning 40 years of experience?  Something- anything!- that could be used to bait a hook, you know?

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

 

Quote

I wonder if we can appeal to Jason to possibly allow the full inclusion of "legacy" characters such as those in 1 and 2e, so long as they remained _that_ version of themselves before earning 40 years of experience?  Something- anything!- that could be used to bait a hook, you know?

 

Honestly if I had Elon Musk money I would try to pitch and build an entire campaign setting based around 1st and 2nd edition, using 6th edition rules, and build the world up slowly over time the way it developed in the produced books rather than starting with what, frankly, is a nasty mess of a tortured and miserable world in Champions Universe as it stands right now.  But that's like my dream of buying James Bond and rebooting it a a period historical piece straight out of the books.

[SCUBA Hero]

19 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I would recommend minimizing NPC heroes in Coastal City, including any example hero team. The PCs should be the new cadre of heroes becoming the city's chief defenders. Rather than a default official team, write up a set of heroes that players can not only use as examples, but can play themselves right away if they don't want to deal with chargen. Perhaps one of each of the character archetypes described in Champions (ten or eleven, depending on whether you include "Patriot" as one of them), which players can pick and mix-and-match as they choose, alongside any player-created heroes.

 

NPC heroes should be the type who would make useful contacts or support, but not powerful enough to overshadow the PCs when it comes to significant threats, e.g. scientist, mystic, detective, etc.

 

Exactly!  Either the PCs are the city's first hero team, or the previous team nobly sacrificed themselves stopping some horrible threat, or were disgraced and disbanded and left, or had some internal disagreement and disbanded or left.

 

Ready to use heroes will be a good draw (I think) as well as giving concrete power level examples.

[Spence]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Yep.

 

 

I dont think,about it much these days, but our own early 1e and 2e characters were benchmarked off of the villains included at the end od the book:

 

"We want to be able to kick these guys' butts!" which was followed immediately by "and we need some cooler villains!," all of whom were also benchmarked off the guys in the back of the book.

 

The whole "no quouting stat blocks in your Hall of Heroes works- I get it: Steve stayed up late writing those books, and the company wants to sell them, but-  it is kind of working against what a curious potential GM really needs to get a game going.

 

Sure:  I assume you can create your own baddies and out them in your book (note that I have not checked), but that kind of works against our stated goal of attempting to build a slow burn of interest in the wider published products.

 

I wonder if we can appeal to Jason to possibly allow the full inclusion of "legacy" characters such as those in 1 and 2e, so long as they remained _that_ version of themselves before earning 40 years of experience?  Something- anything!- that could be used to bait a hook, you know?

 

 

 

Well the end reality is a yes/no choice.

As they are, the Hero books that contain setting or NPC/Creature information are just disjointed blocks of data or, as in the case of the "universe" books, extremely high level overviews.  None are "playable".  Now I 100% agree that other games also have identical product.  The major difference is that other systems actually have playable campaigns and allow you to use material from their core books, but not all of it.  D&D allows creative commons to use monster stat blocks from the monster manual but not the full descriptive text.  The limited material hasn't stopped people buying the MM because the use of stat blocks does not give all the information, it simply makes it convenient when running the scenario.

 

To really make people want to buy the various Hero books (villains, bestiary, city books, etc) they need a reason to need them.  With no Champions Superhero Campaign to run, why do I need Champions'verse villains? 

 

That is why my project is a self-contained Fantasy Hero starter campaign that is a small slice of the world that, hopefully, will be easy to slide into other campaigns.  Or be a starting point that can be easily moves away from as the players and GM discover their own style.   The point of the starter campaign to either be just a starting place to learn the game and be forgotten or as a launch point to expand from if they like the setting concept.

 

The negative side is that it won't "plug into" any of the existing company books.   

 

[SCUBA Hero]

New idea:  The scenario and campaign hook should have to do with either why the previous super-team is no longer around (fallout from whatever incident caused that), or a new threat (or possibly a threat that's been around for a while, but is only now being discovered).  Gets the players into the setting and campaign, hopefully keeps them interested.

 

"Old Hero Team met their untimely demise at the hands of ###insert threat###.  It's up to us to pick up their mantle."

 

"The ###insert threat### is a menace to Campaign City.  It's up to us to stop it."

[Spence]

3 minutes ago, SCUBA Hero said:

New idea:  The scenario and campaign hook should have to do with either why the previous super-team is no longer around (fallout from whatever incident caused that), or a new threat (or possibly a threat that's been around for a while, but is only now being discovered).  Gets the players into the setting and campaign, hopefully keeps them interested.

 

"Old Hero Team met their untimely demise at the hands of ###insert threat###.  It's up to us to pick up their mantle."

 

"The ###insert threat### is a menace to Campaign City.  It's up to us to stop it."

 

And old one but a good one. 

I've played in a few one shots as well as a campaign that kicked off when the existing super team "went missing". 

 

Another idea is to amplify an existing item into a full fledged campaign. 

My favorite Hero published adventure is Shades of Black.  It is also one that I have never been able to play or run.  The problem is that the characters and content are tied to much to the PC's being familiar with previous events and simply "investigating" them doesn't feel right.    In other words Shade of Black is a fantastic climax or a Chapter Four (or Five) of a campaign. 

 

I'd love to see someone give SoB the full campaign treatment.  D&D5th's Ghosts of Saltmarsh is an example of the type of product.  They took several existing adventures, added as needed to get a 1st level thru 11th.  Added some campaign content and made it a campaign.  The events leading up to SoB could make a great campaign with SoB being the grand finale.  The "setting" part could flesh out the locations and towns in the campaign as well as add guidance on playing detectives and performing investigations.

 

A real Campaign. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Worth considering in all this is a sort of forgotten 5th edition product called Dark Champions: The Animated Series, that showed how to build a non-punisher style street level campaign both with and without powers, including the settting, bad guys, etc.  And it uses Hudson City which is pretty well fleshed out and built for ready use.

[Duke Bushido]

Dumb but potentially,marketable idea:

 

Tie the scenarios from Adventurers club-  all of them were pretty straight forward- into a single plotline and go from there.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I don't think that's dumb at all. I plan on doing exactly that very thing: going through the magazines, updating the adventures, and figuring out which fit together well into a campaign form and stitching several groups together into specific types of classic campaign runs for Champions.  They're just sitting there waiting to be used, and I say we use the work of all these creators over the years (yes, even Gilt Complex).

[Lord Liaden]

Assuming the rights to them are the company's.

[SCUBA Hero]

Mark Rand is doing the setting, but not the non-setting stuff.  Any takers (or potential suggestions) for the non-setting writing?

[Spence]

8 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Worth considering in all this is a sort of forgotten 5th edition product called Dark Champions: The Animated Series, that showed how to build a non-punisher style street level campaign both with and without powers, including the settting, bad guys, etc.  And it uses Hudson City which is pretty well fleshed out and built for ready use.

 

IMO opinion HC is the best RPG modern city ever written including the city map you can get separately at the Hero shop.

 

A gritty street level supers campaign set in HC or a non-gritty street level supers campaign set in HC would be great. 

 

4 hours ago, SCUBA Hero said:

Mark Rand is doing the setting, but not the non-setting stuff.  Any takers (or potential suggestions) for the non-setting writing?

 

?

[carmachu]

On 2/21/2022 at 8:06 PM, SCUBA Hero said:

I've said this before and I stand behind it; character creation is complex, the actual play of the game is not

 This is 100% true. Prepping for a new game it’s taking me forever to get everything built. But game play will be easy once done

[SCUBA Hero]

I've been trying to figure out how much a Kickstarter would need to raise to fund this.  Previous successful Kickstarters (total / goal):

 

HERO Games

Champions Now $24,610 / $20,000

FHC $20,125 / $15,000

MHI $80,681 / $45,000

CV3 $16,331 / $14,000

Book of the Empress $15,660 / $10,000

 

High Rock Press

Strike Force $40,601 / $20,000

Character Creation Cards $5,380 / $2,500

Golden Age Champions $23,091 / $20,000

 

So maybe $15,000?

[SCUBA Hero]

19 hours ago, Spence said:

?

 

Power levels / attacks / defenses.

Discussion of combat, including some (light) analysis of attack dice vs. defenses (i.e., 7 defense will stop 2d6 half the time).

Discussion on how to play, GM tips, player tips.

 

All the stuff that isn't actually setting, example characters, and the adventure / campaign.

[Mark Rand]

I'm not sure if this is setting or not, but I came up with these NPC characters in a few minutes.

 

Thomas Avery is an occult expert and retired mystic whose power has waned and needs a cane to walk.  He can provide background info and serves as a contact with the Trismegistus Council.  He shares his house with his housekeeper, Marie, and several cats.      

 

Paul Bergman, Ph.D., is a middle-aged oceanographer and the head of the UC Coastal City Oceanic Institute.

 

Tanya Morrow, Ph.D., is an astronomer and the head of UC Coastal City’s Coastal City Observatory.

 

Sandra Verdeschi, Ph.D., is an astronomer and the head of UC Coastal City’s Wells Planetarium.

[SCUBA Hero]

Looks like setting to me! 👍

[steriaca]

13 hours ago, Mark Rand said:

I'm not sure if this is setting or not, but I came up with these NPC characters in a few minutes.

 

Thomas Avery is an occult expert and retired mystic whose power has waned and needs a cane to walk.  He can provide background info and serves as a contact with the Trismegistus Council.  He shares his house with his housekeeper, Marie, and several cats.    

Sounds like a contact for Robert Trueheart/Lady Heart. 

 

13 hours ago, Mark Rand said:

Paul Bergman, Ph.D., is a middle-aged oceanographer and the head of the UC Coastal City Oceanic Institute.

Protental contact for any aquatic hero.

 

13 hours ago, Mark Rand said:

Tanya Morrow, Ph.D., is an astronomer and the head of UC Coastal City’s Coastal City Observatory.

Contact for near space patrol heroes. 

 

13 hours ago, Mark Rand said:

Sandra Verdeschi, Ph.D., is an astronomer and the head of UC Coastal City’s Wells Planetarium.

 

Another contact for the space born super.

 

We are lacking contacts for science and business based supers. My spellcheck wants to display SuperS as the above (too much typing about Sailor Moon I guess).

[steriaca]

SCUBA dear, can you send me via PM the guidelines for your character creation for the book. I definitely want Rob to be a good supporter super. I imagine hir using hir's powers for healing and rescue.

[Mark Rand]

Yasko Nighigawa is the Wells Planetarium’s technical manager.

 

I forgot to mention that the Wells Planetarium staffers wear navy blue cloth flight suits as uniforms.

 

R/V Laurel Clark (T-AGOR-30) is a Thomas G. Thompson-class oceanographic research ship owned by the Office of Naval Research, operated by the University of California Coastal City Oceanic Institute, the host vessel of the DSV Judith Resnik, an Alvin-class deep submergence vehicle, and crewed mostly by naval reservists who are considered on active duty and wear the shipboard working uniform coverall.

 

Commander Jason Whitehead is her commanding officer.

 

Commander Eileen Bogan, M.D., is her surgeon (medical officer).

 

Cora Paterson, a civilian, is chief pilot, and mechanic, of the DSV Judith Resnik.   She decides what music to play during the descent and likes The Nutcracker Suite.

 

University of California Coastal City is based on the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University and has a number of off-campus locations.  Some of the staffers of the university’s Center for Teaching and Learning, including Rick Sterling, their courier, and Barbara Gray, the classroom engineer who does classroom technical inspections and repairs, wear royal blue cloth flight suits.

 

Hayes, California, the location of the NASA telemetry station, is 20-miles east of Coastal City.  A mostly rural community, it’s airport is Hayes Airport, a general aviation facility.  Joanna Hawke, a former navy fighter pilot, commercial pilot, certified flight instructor, airframe and powerplant mechanic, and the airport manager, runs Hawke Aviation, Inc., the airport’s only fixed base operator.

 

The area has two other airports, Coastal City International (based on Pittsburgh International Airport) and Munhall Airport (based on Allegheny County Airport).  The local medevac helicopter is based there.  Melody Walters, BSN., RN., a Certified Flight Registered Nurse, and pilot Andrea Stewart are one of the teams based there.

[Scott Ruggels]

Alpheus Norton, Community Organizer.  Former Gang member and drug dealer, who did a long stretch in Prison, and found God.   Works in the community with a city program to get kids to leave gangs. His knowledge of the streets and individuals of note. would be a big help to Player characters that do not have any street skills, and would get an idea of the movers and shakers among the gangs.  He also has an uncanny area Knowledge of some very sketchy areas of the city. Associated with the New Day A.M.E. Church, and it's Reverend Charles Paul Ward. In exchange for asked for favors, He will in turn, ask appropriate heroes to come out and talk to the kids.

[Mark Rand]

The city I use might be Pittsburgh, my home town.  There's no oceanic institute or lighthouse, but there's an observatory with three telescopes, one of which is open to the public, a science center that's open to the public, and many bridges, a number of which are in poor shape.  A few of those are slated for repairs.