Spence

You are not wrong. My area had several good FLGS's and and they have fallen like dominoes. As for the other part, I have backed several books through Kickstarter including some graphic novels. I also pass thru a local comic store that carries a far greater range of products besides the standard Marvel/DC comic. I know that my handful of purchases and KS's will not carry the industry, but I really have no incentive to buy more. I really can't take yet another grim grim dark splatterfest. I am not saying that there can't be events and storylines that have dark and/or grim settings, but sheesh why are all the main characters some version of jack the ripper "done gone good" duh.... Does anyone even understand the definition of the word Hero? If no one is buying the current comic lines, perhaps it is because people don't like the stories? Grimm grimm dark dark stopped selling, try something not grimm grimm dark dark.

I don't intend to either. I just don't enjoy the extent of the changes. But to be fair 5th also made some change that makes you think they did it just to fiddle with the game. Like Secret ID, in 5th they changed it from the Disadvantage called Secret ID at 15 points to the Disadvantage called Social Limitation and then added a sidebar to tell you that the Social Limitation called Secret ID cost 15 points. So they had to add a sidebar and a additional index entry just to tell you where to find Secret ID. All in all an exercise of the pointless, multiple entries to clean up what could have easily been left as a separate entry. Zero net gain. 5th just moved the game a few lanes over. 6th on the other hand made significant changes in the core structure that in the end just never felt right to me. Too long with 1st thru 4th edition I guess. I only lean toward 5thR because I can actually lay my hands on physical rulebooks and supplements for it. If I had or could get 4th edition books, I wouldn't look back.

OMG you made me snort my soda through my nose. That is also the type of rule changes that are why I don't play 6th. Thanks Duke, Great post!

Don't get me wrong, I do buy the occasional graphic novel because the art and story catch my eye. But a graphic novel, a manga and a comic may share what appears to be the same media, but they are miles apart in content. There are some great graphic novel that are set in the grim dark, and I have enjoyed them immensely. But for me the comic was about superHEROES. It's is easy in a story to be a scumbag when compared to being a hero. Even easier to be a villain. Personal risk? Just walk away. Every title in the Marvel or DC stable started somewhere and it is really sad to realize that the current crop of "writers" have thrown in the towel and admitted they don't have the skill or talent to compete with the writers from the 50/60/70's. But I shouldn't be surprised considering the US film and TV industry has been mostly calling it in the last couple decades. Really good shows are almost extinct. At least graphic artists (the people that can actually create pictures) are still engaged and producing some cool stuff. I can't draw myself out of a wet paper bag, but I can get lost on a site like Deviant Art or Pinterest. Some great stuff there. I can only think that it is because so many people have no personal moral standing and have completely lost understanding of ethical behavior. Everyday I see people doing things that are so fundamentally wrong and yet no one seems to care. Stealing is apparently only wrong if you get caught. But I'm rambling off topic. I just get bummed with the current state of comics, film and TV.

Well, the only alternative would be be creative and write original storylines using original heroes.

For me I don't think people are really seeing PRE as intended. PRE is always being thought of as a positive. Charisma is not only good and a persons Bearing can have a can be imposing in a horrific way. Superman can have a high PRE, but so can Cthulhu. Overall I think this is another symptom of the "I'll take a hero power/ability aand try to bend it into something else" rather than "what do I want my character do?" And then finding a build to simulate the concept in the rules. Being so ordinary that people literally don't notice you is more like a limited form of invisibility than a aspect of a characteristic. Just my opinion, YMMV.

I pretty much gave up on comic decades ago. I try a few now and again, but if anything they got worse. As for indies and crowd funded, I haven't really found much there either. The one's I've seen have either continued the grim dark dark everybody's a "insert issue/addiction of choice" or they are charging forward with their social issue of choice. No one can just write about superheroes. I'm pretty sure the genre is dead.

Caught up on the K-Drama Search. It is an ongoing series and I find myself waiting on the subtitles to catch up.

I've been recording it and am a couple episodes behind. I was impressed that it was trying to avoid the CW teen angst trap, an then realized it wasn't a CW show. I should have realized it was canceled, after all I was enjoying it....

Too bad there isn't a mic drop emoji

It doesn't offend me at all. It's a game and anyway you want to play it is cool, especially if you enjoy it. I was just commenting on what I thought was the subject and what to me didn't seem to be a good example. I try to comment on my opinions of how I see the rules. I may correct someone on what I am attempting to say about my opinion, but I will never tell someone how they can or cannot play their own game.

But that is not really a multiform example because all you would be doing is having two identical character sheets except naming one Clark and one Superman. Superman was always a single form play acting that they were a weak normal guy. Multiform is there to allow a person to build different forms with completely different abilities. Superman is just a powerful being that conceals their abilities via a costume and low level disguise which doesn't work because Sup's is a great actor, but because people simply don't believe a milksop could be anything more. A better example is Banner/Hulk. Banner may be intelligent and clear thinking, but Hulk isn't. He has the mental development of a small child with hugely overdeveloped physical abilities. If you want Banner's intellect to remain when he Hulk's out, you'd have to buy the skills and mental stats on each character sheet. I doubt a cashier would let Hulk make a withdrawal from Banners account. Every time I've used multiform I usually prefer for my PC to retain all his knowledge, skills and memories. So I usually copy his mental stats, skills and other resources onto each forms character sheet. Then I bought each forms unique abilities.

Has anyone tried Astral?

Absolutely. Though I am surprised that when they gutted so much to make 6th Ed have everything function separate they didn't jump on removing all the flavor text and just calling it Power Effect 1, Power Effect 2 and so on. That actually fits the 6th Ed vibe. PS I play 5th or 4th ed and even though I have the 6th ed hardcopies it just never felt right for me.

For me I have copies/scans of a lot of out of print that I simply cannot find. But I also make it a point to always buy a copy if it is out there to be had. I prefer physical copies and have far too many RPG related books on my shelf. I refuse to take a "home scanned" copy of a book that is being actively published that I can buy legally. If the book is no longer in print I will look for it on the secondary market. If I have exhausted all other possibilities I will take what I can find, and if it comes back into publication I'll pick up a copy. I guess I look at it as balancing the scales.

Yep, been there or at least similar. I actually took a couple year off from the boards. I came back because there are some people I enjoy having discussions with and I had discovered the ignore function. 8 ignores and my entire experience has returned to great But I have noticed that Hero builds have changed in peoples minds. The power names were always just tags for a game effect because you had to name them something. But it has drifted from "determine SFX and end effect that you want to achieve and then use the best game mechanic to build it" to "The power is named X and by golly gee gumbo that is all it can do!!!". Kind of a reverse where effects and intent is added after picking a mechanic rather than the other way. And a lot of posters have become pretty vicious about being the one and only truth. For me, I just browse these days and make an occasional comment when something catches my eye. I do miss the old boards sometimes.

US measurement. Feet, Yards, MPH, etc.

My bad. I completely misunderstood where you were going. When I saw the words "Weird West" and "Steampunk" my brain went down a completely different road

That would be a great book, but the existing "Western" isn't just movies that took place somewhere out in the western USA, they were a specific style and type of movie. Add all the other stuff in and you no longer have Western Hero. Instead you have a book about anything that can be loosely tied to the old US West between 1790 something and 1920 something. Nothing wrong with that, but if the name Western Hero is placed on a book that is not "Western Hero" then it needs to be advertised clearly and LOUDLY to the point of being obnoxious that the book is not really what the title implies.

Well it has been a long while. It was basically a % roll under system for skills, but held onto poly die for damage and stuff. My TS rulebook is 1980 and TSsi is 87. IIRC the differences between editions wasn't as much change as it was cleaning up presentation and rules. If you plan to play Top Secret skip to the SI version I was pretty stoked when I heard of Top Secret New World Order, and then I got a copy. They went to a "die step" system like savage worlds with an Action Point system that reminded me of Feng Shui 2. I never got past the first read through. We found that the James Bond 007 RPG was too clunky for us in play, but the adventures they put out were fantastic, espectially for the 80's. Maps, handouts and pictures for most everything. They had a module for several of the movies plus more, their Locations source book included color pictures of the various places (casinos, restaurants, hotels, trains etc.) to augment the maps and illustrations which I still use to today. To be honest though, I'd mine the setting and story info and use another rule system. Both games are 80's games and you can tell the heavy wargame influence.

Another great episode.

@LoneWolf Excellent point and one that is sometimes overlooked.

I have copies of Top Secret but the game we played was Top Secret SI. It has been years and I don't remember the rules very well except it had hit locations. We played it a lot for a while but that fell off as people transferred and fewer and fewer of the replacement players understood the the setting. Few of them had even watched any Bond, or any spy movies for that matter. It got to be too much of a hassle and we went back to D&D and other games. Both versions of the game are great for source material. Though I'd just use the Espionage rules and ignore try to "convert" rule and equipment, there is more than enough already existing in Hero. Much of the organization and npc material can use already built Hero material with the old flavor text pasted in. Another great resource is the old James Bond 007 rpg by Victory Games in the 80s.

While I can come nowhere near death tribble in the consumption of movies and TV, I did watch some K-Drama. Kill it – veterinarian by day, assassin otherwise. Series Cold Eyes – a police special investigation/surveillance team that identifies and locates criminals. Movie Search – Korean military on the South/North Korea DMZ are pulled into a deadly situation that is not what they expect. Series The shows are pretty good and I would recommend them.

I haven't noticed much of a change which is probably pretty normal considering how little I look these days. I may need to check into them again. As for the movies, I believe you are spot on. I have watched the villain movies and enjoyed them. I just don't agree with the label. They have pretty much eliminated a customers ability to locate movies, books and so one that they might want to see/read by destroying their descriptors/tags. these days you cannot search for a superhero book and actually get any. You'll get hundreds of villains and vigilantes But if you manage to actually find one that contains heroes, you can be sure that it will rapidly devolve into a broken grade school romance. The movies are what they are. Not enough of them for you not to be able to locate them by name. But it is irritating when movies like Brightburn (sp?) keep coming up for keyword "superhero".