Christopher

Well, the first question is:
How are Poison, Diseases, Blinding and Paralyzation even build?
Without knowing wich powers to counter, we can not counter them. So this goes more into general Game Design and Campaing rule territory, then simple power build.
 
 
Diseases and Poison:
Damage over Time applied to any number of Powers (from Damage, to Transforms, to Drains) would be away to go.
If you make it NND (fitting Live Support), then a simple "LS; Useable on Others" could be that part of the power.
 
My first instict for Blindness would be a Flash. But that is more for Combat Blindness, not "I can not see for hours"  Blindness wich D&D seems to prefer (that falls more into Transform). But maybe a DoT version of Flash could work here, with the same logic as for Diseases and Poison?
 
Paralyzation:
Entangle is usually the first thing. And boy countering that one is tricky.
But there are other possible ways. Look at the rules for having "0 in any Stat". That would allow Drains to become effective Paralysation tools.
 
The simplest way would be to declare "All Diseases are countered by the Restoration Spell" as a Campaign rule. This may or may not give all those Power Builds a Limitation.

I feel like she is listening to the world and that gives me an idea based on a game: Melodies escape.
 
The Melodie Family had a story similar to the Alan Familiy: One superpower being passed down or appearing across generations.
In their case it is a "harmonic induced hyper flowstate". In laymen terms, they are able capable of peakhuman feats of agility and strenght - but only while listening to music. The partial need for a technological focus was always a bit of an issues for these heroes, but it seemed like technological progress might eliminate it for the current generation.
When it turned out the newest member of the Family was deaf, the family was between distraught (about the disability) and releived (that she would not dos something as dangerous as superheroing). Except the deafness might have been a tradeoff for her other superpower: Electromancy. The ability to manipualte and semse EM fields.
 
Airwave does not need ears to hear music, for she can hear the radio stations directly in her mind. Moreover while "in the flow", she has additional powers like limited flight using a form of magnetic levitation and propulsion.
Most of her time "on patrol" is spend just listening to the peacefull music of the city. But she always is aware of any major indicents that happen because she also listens to the Police Radio. Her main reason to interfere might be annoyance with this "disruption" of the peacefull music, but she is a powerfull Hero none the less.

I agree that this is something that happens, but I didn't detect too much of it in Captain Marvel.  And I was reluctant to see this movie, because of the lead actress' comments.  Her quote was pretty much targeted right at me, saying "hey massey, don't see this film, it's not for you".  My response on things like that is generally "okay, I won't".  But I wanted to be prepared for Endgame.
 
--Carol Danvers was one of my least favorite characters in the comics.  I had no interest in seeing a movie about her.
--I'd never heard of Brie Larson before, so she had no star power appeal for me.  Her comments made me want to see it even less.
--The previews that I saw didn't strike me as interesting either.  Just looked like a generic comic book movie.
--I didn't talk to anybody who had seen it who just loved it.
--I was worried that we'd get a lot of man-hating girl power stuff.
--I was afraid they'd take this character I didn't really like and have her ruin Endgame.
 
For those reasons, my interest level was at an all-time low.  But... Endgame.  So I went to see it anyway.  And fortunately, I think most of my worries were unfounded.  The movie was not too bad, on par with some of the mid-tier Marvel films.  It was roughly the level of a Thor.  It was a Marvel origin film that had too much CGI in the ending.  I saw the twist coming from a million miles away.  Some of the comedy seemed kind of forced.  I'll agree with people who say it felt a lot like a 90s action movie.  I thought there were flashes of Independence Day and Men in Black.  Now, I like 90s action movies, so that's not really a bad thing, but it did feel kinda dated.
 
Overall, I liked it okay.  I didn't feel offended by anything, I wasn't upset by it.  It was just something to watch for two hours, and I hope her role in Endgame is pretty limited.

Your subtlety meter must be stronger than mine.

The conflict in Nigeria appears to be a fight over resources between primarily Christian farmers and primarily Muslim ranchers, with large numbers of deaths on both sides. Religious affiliation is more of a secondary issue, that’s being used selectively by certain sources.
 
 

Robots enable bees and fish to talk to each other

I have a rule:
Never get into a conflict with something that weights more then twice of me.
 
Bisons, cars, Trains - all of those I show a high amount of respect. Because they would feel a colission a lot less then me

Maybe Terry Pratchet was right after all?

Superheroic. Hands down.
Even if it was generalized away from those roots, they still show in a lot of rules. The rules are Optimized for Superheroic play first, heroic play second to thrid.
 
The Character creation is certainly too complex to throw the players into the Deep end here. Maybe you could get them to design a Character in OpenLegends and then parse it to Hero? I have been theorizing that it might be a good learning and abstraction tool.
 
However, Pre-Generated can mean a lot of things. It could mean you pick characters from the books. Or that you handcraft the Ideas of the players (if you know them). But it is not nessesarily bad to have throwaway Characters for the first intro games.
 
I would say Combat. Again, the game seems optimized for (Superheroic) combat resolution. Most of the powers have combat oriented uses.
Even powers like Mind Control are balanced on how they interact with Combat System.
The combat is the Systems Strenght.
 
 
Again, I think Combat is Heroes Strenght. And here I want to point you to teh Original intro page of Mindmistress:
Insert other media
Start with a fight against normal, unpowered Criminals. Maybe have all of them fight in paralell. Leave superfights for later until the players got a "feel" for the rules.
 
You do not want to overwhelm them with too many maneuvers. Aborting alone a very problematic thing to get your head around.
As for handouts, this is my old Power Guide I wrote for introduction purposes. It should help equally with Parsing Sheets (without the books) and getting into the basics of Character Creation:
 
 
 
 

Getting 'subversive man-bashing' from those scenes requires an ability to reach that Mr. Fantastic would be proud of IMO.
 
Well, maybe unless that's what you were looking for all along, I suppose.

I feel like she is listening to the world and that gives me an idea based on a game: Melodies escape.
 
The Melodie Family had a story similar to the Alan Familiy: One superpower being passed down or appearing across generations.
In their case it is a "harmonic induced hyper flowstate". In laymen terms, they are able capable of peakhuman feats of agility and strenght - but only while listening to music. The partial need for a technological focus was always a bit of an issues for these heroes, but it seemed like technological progress might eliminate it for the current generation.
When it turned out the newest member of the Family was deaf, the family was between distraught (about the disability) and releived (that she would not dos something as dangerous as superheroing). Except the deafness might have been a tradeoff for her other superpower: Electromancy. The ability to manipualte and semse EM fields.
 
Airwave does not need ears to hear music, for she can hear the radio stations directly in her mind. Moreover while "in the flow", she has additional powers like limited flight using a form of magnetic levitation and propulsion.
Most of her time "on patrol" is spend just listening to the peacefull music of the city. But she always is aware of any major indicents that happen because she also listens to the Police Radio. Her main reason to interfere might be annoyance with this "disruption" of the peacefull music, but she is a powerfull Hero none the less.

Well, the first question is:
How are Poison, Diseases, Blinding and Paralyzation even build?
Without knowing wich powers to counter, we can not counter them. So this goes more into general Game Design and Campaing rule territory, then simple power build.
 
 
Diseases and Poison:
Damage over Time applied to any number of Powers (from Damage, to Transforms, to Drains) would be away to go.
If you make it NND (fitting Live Support), then a simple "LS; Useable on Others" could be that part of the power.
 
My first instict for Blindness would be a Flash. But that is more for Combat Blindness, not "I can not see for hours"  Blindness wich D&D seems to prefer (that falls more into Transform). But maybe a DoT version of Flash could work here, with the same logic as for Diseases and Poison?
 
Paralyzation:
Entangle is usually the first thing. And boy countering that one is tricky.
But there are other possible ways. Look at the rules for having "0 in any Stat". That would allow Drains to become effective Paralysation tools.
 
The simplest way would be to declare "All Diseases are countered by the Restoration Spell" as a Campaign rule. This may or may not give all those Power Builds a Limitation.

That is very true. Questions never go beyond "who is the villain?", "what is the villains plan?" and "where is the villain so I can punch him to stop him?"
And even those questions are usually designed so the Heroes can not fail to solve them.
I mean if the heroes somehow manage to fail all 3 questions, the villain will reveal himself (and his plan) publically in short order. If nothing else, to brag and lament how dull the heroes are
 
His solution is usually to start a rampage and have other superheroes solve the Mystery so they can calm him down with the solution. "Playing to your strenghts" and all that

Sometimes I will inform the illegitimate rodents in my path that I would prefer them to consume excrement and expire.  This is when I forget to eschew obfuscation.
 

And we all know how tht turned out in OOTS #32:

Excerpted from a short-in-count, long-in-words email exchange between me and someone else:
 
Them: Thank you for this reply. How do you write such detailed and articulate emails so quickly?? ....
 
Me: The "articulate emails" thing is actually a curse.  Almost twenty years ago I told a colleague: "Someday someone will send me an email asking if I know how to write a short email, and my reply will be 3000 words long and boil down to 'No'."

5E's figured Characteristics make this a lot harder, but it is still doable.
 
6E1 47 has this to say on "Toolkitting Characteristics" and I thought it might be helpfull:
"Because they’re fundamental to every single character, Characteristics are one of the most important parts of the HERO System, and your campaign. Changing them is one of the best ways to create a certain “feel” for your campaign, or to enforce the way you see your campaign working... but also one of the easiest ways to create unintended consequences, so tread carefully.
There are three basic changes you can make to the Characteristics. The first is to add one or more Characteristics to the lineup. This is an easy way to show players what’s particularly important or useful in your campaign, or to foreshadow what sort of perils they’re likely to face in their adventures. Some examples:
- In In a “Psychic Wars” campaign focused on factions of mentalists using their powers to compete for influence in the shadows of normal society, Mental Defense is so common, and so important, that the GM makes it a Characteristic (Base Value of 2, cost 1 Character Point per +1 point).
- In In a Fantasy Hero campaign featuring powerful wizards and a magic system that defines magic as drawing primarily on the caster’s personal energy but also ambient arcane power, the GM requires all spellcasters to have a Mana (MANA) Characteristic (Base Value 20, costs 1 Character Point per +10 Mana). Mana functions like END, but only for spells. However, characters only Recover MANA like they do BODY, on a per-month basis — so a
wizard can cast a particularly powerful spell, but then he’ll be a long time “recuperating” before he can do it again. On the other hand, areas with “high levels” of ambient magical energy make spellcasting easier and less stressful.
- In In a Horror Hero campaign, characters have a Sanity (SAN) Characteristic (Base Value of 20, costs 1 Character Point per +2 points). Sort of like STUN and physical attacks, characters lose SAN when exposed to or “attacked” by horrific or stressful situations and beings.
Second, the GM can remove Characteristics that he doesn’t want to use. For example, removing END is discussed elsewhere in this chapter. In a campaign with no Mental Powers at all, OMCV and DMCV aren’t needed, so you could remove them and save space on your character sheets. (See Dormant Abilities, 6E1 46.)
Lastly, the GM could change the cost of a Characteristic to make it easier or harder for characters to afford. For example, in a game where the GM wants characters to be less “durable,” he could increase the cost of BODY. However, changing the cost of a Characteristic can affect Adjustment Powers, combat, and many other aspects of the game, so proceed cautiously."
 
And of course there is my favourite example for changing cost: Swimming and Flight would propably trade places and cost in a Underwater Campaign.
 
I know a variant of a classical western Elements with 6 Elements:
Earth/Air
Fire/Water
Ice/Humus (Life/Plantlife)
 
As I once made a Character on this basis, I had a bunch of Data/Ideas gathered on it. Attribute associations were hard, as not every Attribute mapped to Hero. So I mostly focussed on Skills (inlcuding Arts) as well as Personality Attributes. As for mapping it to only 4 Elements: Ice is usually a part/form of Water. While Humus has elements from water (life) and earth (fertile soil)
 
"Ice:
Attributes: Cold (P)
Sec. Attributes: Darkness, Intelligence, Purity, emotional cold, detachment, mercilessness, timeless stasis
Color: Violet or White
Stone: Quartz, mountain crystal; Onyx?
Counter: Humus
Elements for Spell/Rituals: Meditating Naked, Icediving, sitting on a ice floe floating on the ocean
Skills: Tatic, Deduction
Arts: Writing, Icesculpting
Good side: Intelligence; Needed Balance/Border for all other Elements; unaffected by emotions
Other side: Emotional Distance; aloofness
Uses: Protection. Iceconstructs, Dispel/End of all energy. Darkness. Stopping Time? Durability? Eternal youth and beauty?
Physics: Nihilus Energy (counters all energy and even mater), lack of energy.
 
Humus:
Attributes: Life (especially Plants), Growth, youth, high age;
Sec. Attributes: Vitality, sedateness, coziness, (pratical) creativity, endurance, assertiveness, faith and hope, courage to face life, Knowledge of transience (willingness to start anew on failure)
Color: green, brown; plant colors
Stone: agate
Counter: Ice
Elements for Spell/Rituals: wickerwork, Flowers, Living plants
Skills: Botany, Biology, Genetics, Survival (Wilderness)
Arts: Cooking, Especially painting, Gardening
Good side: Life is good and must be protected. Friendly, pratical, helpfull, paternalistic, trustingly
Other side: Pure reaslism, Indifference for human problems. No Justice, compassion, friendships.
Uses: Healing, Food, Precognition, Plant Manipulation
Physics: Mixup of everything else but Ice
 
Stone:
Attributes: Heavyness, Inertia
Sec. Attributes: quiescency/calmness, sloth, sedateness, steadiness, stability, lasting, unshakeable, reliable, planing
Color: pure black, silver sheen
Stone: Onyx?, Granite?
Counter: Air
Elements for Spell/Rituals: Handwork, Climbing up mountains or down caves, Mosaiks, Menhirs, Long Meditation
Skills: Geology, Mechanic, Architecture/Analyze Buildings, Weaponsmith
Art: Every stonecraft (inlcuding gems), handicrafts
Good side: Durabiltiy, Planning, Dependability, Long Memory, Resistance to Emotions
Other side: Lazyness (Sloth), unadaptable, stubborness, perfectionism,
Uses: Protection, inmoveability, constructs, heavyness
Physics: All elemental Binding Forces (Gravity, Weak, EM, Strong)
 

Air:
Attributes: Movement, Lightness
Sec. Attributes: Emotion, Passion, Desire, Excitment, Restlessness, wealth of ideas, Joy of life, happiness, freethinking, recklessness, carelessness, phantasy, dreaming, never-resting, deceptive rhetoric, sense illusions, fleeting, incomprehensible, Freedom
Color:
Stone: Lapislazuli
Counter: Stone
Elements for Spell/Rituals: Dancing, Feathers, Incense, bracing Storms,
Skills: Persuasion, Conversation, Mimikri, Disguise, Acting, Ventriloquism
Art: Singing, wind instruments, Dancing, Poetry, Storytelling
Good side: Passion, wealth of ideas, Joy of Life
Other side: Restless, reckless, deceptive, incomprehensible, mocking, Trickster
Effects: Higher speed and Inventiveness, but also: Lack of Concentration. Impulsiveness. Maybe even Lust
Uses: Movement, speed, Illusion (especially sound based), Mimkri, Ventriloquism, Prediction?
Physics: Movement.
 
Fire
Attributes: Warmth (destructive, deadly and life giving)
Sec. Attributes: Light, Heartiness, comfort, affection, Emotional, quarrelsomeness, joy of action, valor, honesty, truthfulness, Dangerous, aggressive, Strenght, Energy, Activity, Protection, Awareness about it's own dangers
Color: red, orange
Stone: Fire opals
Counter: water
Elements for Spell/Rituals:
Skills: Chemistry (Part), Persuasion
Art: none; Inabiltiy to create anything lasting?
Good side: Strong personality, Valor, Honesty, Thruthfullness
Other side: quarrelsome, believe in superiority, overactive
Effect: Truthfull, direct, strenght of character, impulsive, Protection; but also Overconfidence, Wrath, lack of patience
Uses: attack, battle
Physics: All Energy
 
Water:
Attributes: Change
Sec. Attributes: permanent Change, depth, unfathomable, many things at once, self-contradicting
Color: bluegreen
Stone: Aquamarin
Counter: Fire
Elements for Spell/Rituals: Meditation, Dancing, Choreography, seafood, gemstones and shells, meshes, conversation to tune in on it,
Skills: any Knowledge aquired on Travels?
Art: Instrumental Music, especially Wind/water Instruments, Poetry
Good side: Soothing, comfy, calm, adapting
Other side: Melancholia, Poision, wild, overpowering, extreme emotions
Effect: Strenght and Endurance; but also Melancholia, unpredictability
Uses: Personal attack and defense
Physics: Chemical Binding Force"

At least that will make it easy to spot the tourists:
 

She  should be in character. In the comics, she's a fighter pilot who moved to Air Force Intelligence and  did covert ops and security. Then she got super powers(and is in the top echelon of the power scale) and now she works for the government. I can't think of a way for her character not to come across as arrogant especially as a woman who fought her way to near the top of a mainly men's club.