Spence

But far less camp. I think more like the 1950's Superman serials, police relations'wise.

This! This is where the long term epic Champs game came from. The archenemy was never pre-planned, they developed from one of the recurring villains in the game. Plus, law enforcement are glad to see the heroes arrive. When I think superHEROES, this is what comes to mind.

Can you give any idea of general needs for the pre-gens? Any guidelines, complications, or power/skill restrictions?

I have an intro mini-campaign i am in the process of trying to make publishable for Hall of Heroes (maybe). I had stopped due to misunderstanding HoH requirements. It is a serial robbery campaign featuring GRAB and it is built using the 5thEd version from Conquerors, Killers, & Crooks. I've pretty much completed it in Spence lingo but will need to run it through a formal playtest. I have run variations of this since 3rd ed off the top of my head. But a version for public use requires an organized and coherent writeup. Which you know far better than I do. The hardest thing for me is player pre-gens.

Tops going fast, but my beard is coming in just fine

I am definitely not an artist but I can put together character write-ups. Like steriaca ask, what general concepts do you need and where are they. Helps with fleshing out backgrounds.

Outcast friends? But fair enough. I've taken that stance on more than one show myself.

May have been slightly early. It was the just the standard "new girl/guy trying to fit into new school" drivel in comics featuring a teen hero. A nod quickly passed. Like has been said, the show actually turned out to be decent with a good possibility it will be good. Of course it is very possible that they only teased a good show and it will quickly go down the drain. But I am hopeful...

Ah.... I always thought she displayed a discerning level of good taste in supers. I thought it was a reference to something specific about Stargirl.

?

In the end, Hero has a lot of moving parts and options. One thing I have done that was successful in introducing new players to a RPG (not just Hero) is to do a "practice" intro using their second character concept. I explain that with all Hero's options it can take a try or two (or more ) to actually get the effect you want. Making a practice character and then playing an encounter or two will help them actually build the PC they really want. Hero is one of those games that is truly easy once you grok it, but is also a "chicken or the egg" type of game where you can't really understand how the build rules work in building a character until you play an encounter which you can't really do until you build a character A run through demonstrating how the powers work in play really helps.

Same here

A criminal gang pulling jobs such as GRAB (Black Diamond, Bluejay, Cheshire Cat, Hummingbird version) in the Champions Universe. Criminals and super-fights not grim dark and blood splatter. Recurring villains....

I read through and mostly ignored the dice values listed since that is pretty much up to the GM and their personal decision on point caps. By saying 12d6 you ensure that new PC's will have 12d6 attacks. If you said 10d6, they would build to 10d6. I do have a couple small comments. You said: This might imply that Energy Blast always affects ED. EB can be designated to affect either PD or ED. Also there is not mention that the game power names (Darkness, Energy Blast, etc,) are simply a way to identify the game mechanic effects. While Darkness can be bought for the obvious effect of making an area dark, it can also be used to create an area where one can see easily but has no sound. You might want to include a paragraph explaining how to determine a potential ability/power's end game effect and special effects and then look at which game mechanic/powers actually achieve the concept. Consider the Flash (or any speedster), in the comics we see him run past a line of thugs, punching each one in a flurry of super-speed punches. Trying to buy up the PC's speed to the point they can punch out 10 or 12 henchmen is far too expensive. So what are we really doing here? Flash is punching each thug as he runs past at super-speed. As an example: Super-Speed Punches: 3d6 EB (vs PD) Area Affect (line), only in hexes Flash moves thru in this phase, selective target. Lets say Flash has 20 inches of Run. I move Flash 10 inches through the bank, ensuring I move adjacent to as many robbers as I can. Then at the end of my move I attack with Super-Speed Punches and do 3d6 to every mook I had moved past, yes because it is selective target you will have to make a separate attack roll for each mook, but Flash isn't sloppy. Rules requirements are met. move half and then an attack ending my phase. Narrative description of my turn: Flash unleashes and torrent of super punches as he zips past the bank robbers. Somewhere in your paper I would try to convey this concept. If you don;t then you will miss out on some truly creative Heroes and mostly see straight power buy blasters and smashers. Just a thought triggered by my own failures to get the concept across to new players

Well, it is possible they have realized the downside of a "shared universe" and will leave this one separate. Maybe not likely, but it is possible....

Looking toward post-panic. My FLGS closed its doors 3 weeks before C19 hit, so I have found myself without a gaming location. I do have a small group of friends that I game with on an irregular basis, though it looks like we will have the opportunity to game a lot more in the future. They were owners of the FLGS and as seems to be the case with game shop owners, their free time to game goes down drastically . Normally I have been running games with a horror content using Chaosiums Call of Cthulhu or Pelgranes GUMSHOE. A while back I got Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for D&D 5th Edition and have put together a game for after the panic with some friends. Hero: my rules preference is 4th, 5thR and then a distant 6th. I have far more resources for 5thR (extra books etc) than the other editions. D&D: I prefer 5th Ed or even AD&D but just cannot play D&D 3 point whatever (Pathfinder) or D&D 4th. Worse than GURPs in rulebook tonnage. Call of Cthulhu: I prefer CoC 7th Ed using Down Darker Trails, Pulp Cthulhu. I can play or run it, but I do not prefer Purest Mode. I have Achtung! Cthulhu (CoC 7th) and am looking forward to Dark Ages Cthulhu (under whatever title they pick). GUMSHOE: Fear Itself, Nights Black Agents, Fall of Delta Green and period modes are favorites. Looking forward to Swords of the Serpentine when it releases. 2d20: A newer system that is actually a lot of fun. The base rule system has been adjusted meet the needs across a wide selection of settings. Rather than trying to be a "general one size fits all" rule system, the core rules are modified to fit the setting and really handles action well. I own and have run 2d20 Conan and 2d20 Star Trek Adventures. I also have 2d20 John Carter of Mars. I have not been able to run it because it is very setting specific and really needs the players to understand the game world and it is far too much to ask someone to read a 190 page book . This post is mostly looking to see if there are any Hero types in my area open to a game or two, just chatting or maybe a pint after the panic ends.

I noticed a commercial for a CW show called DC's Stargirl and recorded it. I record a lot of shows that tend to swirl the toilet these days. I watched it last night. I had to check the calendar to see if it was really 2020 and then see if I was awake and overcome suspicions I was in a coma or something. A CW Supers show that wasn't grim grim dark dark keeping time by bashing me in the forehead with its AGENDA!! 2x4. It has been a long time since I can remember reading a comic with Stargirl and I was pleasantly surprised. It's been over twenty years since they stopped making comics so I had to refresh myself on the character, but I think this TV attempt shows promise. As long as the idiots at the studio don't decide to "update" the story to be "relevant and edgy", or as I know it "crap all over the story in order to promote a personal agenda". I added this show to my DVR, hopefully the first episode indicates what the entire series will be like.

I re-watched some of the WW2 Comedy Dramas. The Wackiest Ship In The Army - 1961 Jack Lemon. Great little gem taking place in the south pacific in WW2. Operation Petticoat - 1959 Cary Grant and Tony Curtis. A WW2 Submarine comedy And some older WW2 Dramas. Midway - 1976 A truly all star cast of the 70's. Too many to list here. In Harm's Way - 1965 Another show with a great cast that includes John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Patricia Neal, Tom Tryon, Paula Prentiss, Burgess Meredith and many many more. Civil war movies based on the novels, even though Gettysburg was written and made first, Gods and Generals takes place before Gettysburg. Gods and Generals (Extended Director's Cut) - 2003 based on the historical novel Gods and Generals by Jeffery Sharra Gettysburg: Extended Edition -1993 based on the historical novel The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara The Last Starfighter - 1984. Still one of my favorite scifi-lite movies. The Titans Season 1 - the new DC network show on video. I'm up to Episode 5 and as a stand-alone series it is not bad. But they are only make very cursory nods to the actual characters. The Teen Titans were one of the few DC titles I enjoyed back when they were still publishing comics, 80's/90's. I havn't been able to take the new messes so I can't comment on them. But all the characters except Robin have been seriously destroyed/nerfed. Beastboy is not a bad casting, but he has been turned into a one trick pony with only one animal form and a painfully slow transformation. Ravin is also not a bad casting, but this version of the character has had none of the training or knowledge she had before coming to earth. Instead she is a teen raised in Detroit with zero knowledge or training. Starfire is played by a talented actress who is completely miscast. This Starfire has also been completely transformed from well trained Tamaranian warrior princess to a character with total amnesia that literally is dressed like the very bad stereotype of a 1970's street hooker. Now the show is well written and acted, but it is more like they completely wrote a new super's series and then the studio told them to go back and make the main characters the Teen Titans. If you had never heard of the Teen Titans then you probably wouldn't notice. But if you actually liked them, it makes the show difficult to watch.

Well, I'm not in the actual conversation and am just reading through. And while I can see each poster determinedly entrenched and defending their positions, they are talking past each other and using setting preference to establish the MP rules as good or broken. Maybe it is my perception that is missing it. But that is what I see. But I will leave the thread because I don't have anything constructive to add

I've been following this thread and I have to say, you're not discussing the rules or balance. You are discussing setting/genre convention preferences as if they were rules. This with a heavy dose of D&D class restrictions. I have seen MP's used by warrior types with the slots being special swordsmanship maneuvers making them every bit as effective as a mage. At least in close combat. The real issue here is if you are going to limit warriors to be semi-"realistic", then you have to do the same (somehow) with the magical types. It is not that MP's inherently unbalance anything. It is imposed restrictions on one type of character has nerf'd them when compared to the other. If the intention is to restrict non-magicals to real world (or near real world) levels, then magical builds will either not exist or they will be overpowering. MP's are a normal and easy way to build spells. MP's are also a great way to build combat abilities for warriors. Artificially limiting one use does not mean the other use is suddenly broken.

Now this is a memorable quote....

IMO, for what it is worth, just putting out an "update" file will not gain too much traction. I have seen this before, where the update is just a document/file with updated stats, but requirement the use of the original book. I've bought a few of these myself, and after the first few days of having to have two books open simultaneously just t read it, I just shelved it or played the original rules. But taking the original book and replacing all of the 5th Ed annotation/write-ups with 6th Ed would be a very daunting task. Not just the conversions, but editing the original book to contain the new information, if you can even get original book layout files. About the only place I have seen "update files" see any real acceptance/use is for adventures which are relatively short and usually exist as a separate GM/Handout section in the original product. Just an opinion of course, but maybe something to consider.

This is something that could be great for 6th Ed players. For the smaller items, to update a book like Hudson City from 5th to 6th would be a daunting task.

Ditto

Here are the ToC's for 1 & 2 Traveller Hero Book One ToC.docx Traveller Hero. Book Two ToC.docx