KawangaKid

thanks,dude

Awesome!  Thank you everyone,  this is exactly what I was trying to find.   I suspected that the deeper guidelines were result of the more expanded toolkit style.
 
I agree... it feels like HERO would have been better served with something like the Sidekick rules as core, then have Genre Books (Fantasy, Champions, Pulp, Etc) with expanded rules and guidelines for simulating the style and then finally having the APG line being the HUGE books that cover all the deeper Toolkitting.   While it would take more books to have "all" the rules at your fingertips, I think it would be less intimidating and confusing for people that were curious about the system and wanted to try it.
 
@Hugh Neilson  Do you know where those results for that survey were posted.  I am very curious to see what the spread looked like in the earlier editions.
 

There used to be FASERIP to Champions conversions… and I think there are FASERIP stats for the WWII marvel heroes online. I recall a Dragon Magazine supplement about it too.

There used to be FASERIP to Champions conversions… and I think there are FASERIP stats for the WWII marvel heroes online. I recall a Dragon Magazine supplement about it too.

I didn't know (but not surprised) that DC owns THUNDER Agents now.

This continues to be fascinating to see your approach.  Especially pulling in elements from so many sources!

While there is truth to that, as stated by someone who a friend introduced to the Hero System & Champions in the post-2000s, "sure some powers are broken, or can be broken in combo with others -- but it also tells you which powers and advantages and limitations are broken." He was, of course, referring to the magnifying glass and stop sign labels in the rulebooks. Something that I had not considered, as most other rule sets don't highlight these...

While there is truth to that, as stated by someone who a friend introduced to the Hero System & Champions in the post-2000s, "sure some powers are broken, or can be broken in combo with others -- but it also tells you which powers and advantages and limitations are broken." He was, of course, referring to the magnifying glass and stop sign labels in the rulebooks. Something that I had not considered, as most other rule sets don't highlight these...

While there is truth to that, as stated by someone who a friend introduced to the Hero System & Champions in the post-2000s, "sure some powers are broken, or can be broken in combo with others -- but it also tells you which powers and advantages and limitations are broken." He was, of course, referring to the magnifying glass and stop sign labels in the rulebooks. Something that I had not considered, as most other rule sets don't highlight these...

Remade with Tom Hanks as the Man with one Red Shoe. Also good and funny. It sounds like a direct remake, too, from your description.

I love Monuments Men. My favorite war movie. 

Watched MONUMENTS MEN, and enjoyed it.

Now looking at a re-watch of the Batman: Brave & the Bold series.

Ah, I didn't know that. I thought it was more of a static setting (just recently updated) with a really impressive Wold Newton-ish timeline. I really enjoyed the idea of the ubertimeline from dawn of time to far future, with different ages of heroes. I really wish it had found more purchase in the 5th edition.

I also wish that the streamlined version of Champions (Fuzion) had been a bit more polished and accepted.

 
Will share some other items of interest as I get further in my campaign.

01 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/03/champions-one-earth.html [ FIRST POST ]
02 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/05/champions-one-earth-broad-strokes.html [ BROAD STROKES of the CAMPAIGN ]
03 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/05/champions-one-earth-bayport-megacity.html [ SETTING: BAYPORT MEGACITY ]
04 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/05/champions-one-earth-player-characters.html [ CHARACTERS: Part 1 ]
05 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/05/champions-one-earth-player-characters_14.html [ CHARACTERS: Part 2 ]

Well, I'm inspired by having a sort of "generations" approach to these things (the two mini-series by John Byrne covering the Superman & Batman families across generations).

There are generations of these heroes as the older ones retire, get lost in the Phantom Zone, are killed, time travel, and so on. I chalk up the costumes as a legacy that gets passed on, but I am trying to side-step some of the questions until the issue becomes critical to the story. In fact, I've just introduced a Golden Age Superman fighting some monsters that invaded from the Phantom Zone...

There is a Superman, Thor, Batman, Captain America in this current setting, but the costumes are different and they may or may not be the same until the players interact with them. Until that time, they're free to speculate with their own preferences based on their knowledge (or lack thereof) of the comics.
My early attempts at a timeline certainly gave me a headache...

You have my admiration, KK. I have more than enough trouble trying to untangle the confused jumble that either company has made of their own universe. The thought of trying to weave them together into a coherent whole makes me twitch uncontrollably. 

REPOSTING a portion of my Campaign Guidelines:
 
Campaign Hook: Knight Watch Red
The PCs start off as plainclothes super-heroes tasked to investigate incidents (involving locations, individuals, and artifacts) of a potentially multiversal nature. If there's potential danger, they are to secure the location, individuals, and artifacts involved, contain multiversal incidents, and protect sentients and the dominant reality.
 
Borrowing from SlyFlourish's Six Truths approach to fantasy rpg campaigns, and applying it to my own (just enough for my players to jump onboard without having to read pages and pages of background), I came up with the following for my super-heroic campaign:
The world of Knight Watch Red has a single timeline from WWII to the present involving different ages of super-heroes (from Marvel & DC). Super-heroes and super-villains tend to age normally from their first appearances, and have seen multi-generational legacies across heroic ages. Nations, corporations, and organizations recognize the threats of metahumanity based on battles of super-heroes and super-villains across history. Nations, corporations, and organizations also recognize the value of metahumanity in conflicts against attempts to conquer or destroy the Earth. Organizations like the Justice Society and Checkmate evolved from fighting crime to monitoring, regulating, and cultivating the super-human societies of Earth. Recent anomalous incidents suggest that multiversal incursions are weakening the fabric of reality, and must be contained to safeguard the timeline. The combination of these Six Truths helped me establish a familiar combined universe, yet one that was also different from the ones in the current comics -- where some heroic and villainous mantles are already on their second or third generations, while others are eternally frozen in time and still hold on to their places despite their aging compatriots. It also allowed me to briefly expound on new elements of a status quo that place Earth in a universe with aliens, but have somehow placed it in a semi-static status quo that does not have an incredibly fertile mutant population with Omega-level threats around each corner, that does not have yet another alien race invading this week / month / year, that does not have hyper-advanced technology in the hands of common folk. But more on this in another post.
 
Of course, I added a Seventh Truth to this set, which was related to the creation of the characters themselves:
 
7. Each PC must be a legacy character. Whether they are related by blood to another hero or villain in the DC or Marvel universe, or they are inspired by one of them, or they have inherited artifacts, knowledge, abilities through various means, they must be tied to an existing character in these universes.
 
The reasons for this last one were: (a) to provide me with a handle on the types of adventures that these created characters would like to engage in; and (b) to allow me to quickly and easily grasp the backstories of these characters -- including whatever time-/science-/space-bending implications their histories and powers might have. It reduced the need for long (and potentially contentious) discussions about histories, NPCs, powers, abilities, enemies and allies through broadstrokes mentions of key figures in the DC/Marvel setting (filtered through the rough timeline and current status quo in my head). Oddly enough, it also curtailed a tendency for my Champions players to come up with the wildest character concepts executed in the most-game breaking way possible -- by giving them a chance to go through favorite character concepts and legacies and an opportunity to put their own stamp on this legacy character.

The Muerte Files will be the deal of the day at DrivethruRPG tomorrow.

Well, I finally have been able to start (and consistently run) my Champions campaign set in a combined Marvel & DC universe.
 
It's a superheroic campaign where DC & Marvel Universes have merged, and I'm busy coming up with rationale, pruning, and GM's fiat that justifies why the power levels are low, and why the multiple threats to Earth, The Universe, and Everything haven't emerged and haven't driven the populace insane.
 
I'll post in the future about how I've been trying to translate all this "Session Zero" stuff for super-heroic campaigns into my own setting and universe -- and how I'm actually taking some of the adventures from other RPGs (super-heroic and non-superheroic) and translating them into my campaign's adventures. I did a lot of writing and thinking about the campaign, because I really wanted to get the types of adventures and the type of campaign clear in my head, before I started. But I also had to avoid the trap of over-prepping for the campaign, because I wanted to leave space for the characters my players build to carve out their own stories and backstories in the universe.
 
Am also relearning building characters in HERO, and have been negotiating with my players which of our preferred versions of the rules to use, and it's mostly 5th Edition HERO with some carry-over rules from 4th. So, we shall see!

I've been blogging about it here. Will share some other items of interest as I get further in my campaign.
01 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/03/champions-one-earth.html [ FIRST POST ]
02 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/05/champions-one-earth-broad-strokes.html [ BROAD STROKES of the CAMPAIGN ]
03 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/05/champions-one-earth-bayport-megacity.html [ SETTING: BAYPORT MEGACITY ]
04 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/05/champions-one-earth-player-characters.html [ CHARACTERS: Part 1 ]
05 - https://armchairgamer.blogspot.com/2023/05/champions-one-earth-player-characters_14.html [ CHARACTERS: Part 2 ]
 

Dean Day, you're a man(?) after my own heart. I love rich diverse world settings with lots of history, many interesting places to go and people to see. I probably don't need to mention this, but just in case: Your players likely won't need or want so much detail right away, so don't feel like you need to nail everything down at the start. As your players earn more Experience and their characters grow more powerful and prominent, they'll start to expand their adventuring horizons and interact more with the super scene in the wider world, so you can introduce elements that are appropriate in a piecemeal fashion. One great advantage in patterning your campaign after Marvel and DC comics is that the setting is the modern world, just with supers and a few other tweaks. So you don't need to explain how most things work to your players.
 
My recommendation is to use the 5E Champions Universe as the foundation for your campaign, and not just because I'm a fan of the setting (similarly to you, I own almost everything ever published for Champions). This is a world which already has much of what you ask for: long rich history with a detailed timeline, not only extending backward millions of years in prehistory, but if desired, a thousand years into the future; large diverse supers population spread over the whole world; a universe and Multiverse that's well defined and documented, to travel out to or bring elements in from. It's also broad and flexible enough to slot in elements from other game worlds, so you can incorporate materials from the other games you own without much difficulty. The book entitled, appropriately enough, Champions Universe, gives you the broadest overview and foundation for nearly all those elements.
 
If you own the Champions genre book, that addresses many of the concerns you raise about supers demographics and distribution, campaign style and tone, power levels, and advice and guidelines for just about every issue related to running a supers campaign. I would strongly recommend looking over that, then coming back to these forums for more advice if you still have questions.
 
I know you aren't interested in Sixth Edition for play purposes, but certain books in that line are concentrated sources of setting "lore," which you can use when you want to broaden your game's horizon, e.g. Champions Beyond for the space/cosmic side of the CU, and Book Of The Empress for a deep dive into the Champs Multiverse. If you did want to use any characters in those books, conversion to 5E isn't hard, and there are guidelines available to facilitate the process.
 
Finally, I'd like to refer you to a couple of documents addressing specific priorities you mentioned. First is a free file downloadable from this website, Hero in 2 Pages. Created by Bill Keyes, Narf T. Mouse, and Steven S. Long, this PDF summarizes all the rule mechanics players need to run their characters in a game, on only two pages. It makes an excellent handout to newcomers to Hero System. You can build their initial characters for them at the start of play until they get used to the system, then let them explore chargen possibilities for themselves. This version of the document is written with Sixth Edition in mind, but the basic mechanics haven't changed between editions, so it will still work fine.
 
Since you also mention an interest in time-travel adventures, here is where you can download a file created by Steve Long in the early days of 5E Hero Sysem, The Hero Universe. You may not be aware of it, but all the different world settings published for 5E by Hero Games authors -- fantasy, pulp, modern day, sci-fi future -- are all part of a single universe and timeline. This document lays out the broad parameters of that timeline, as well as the universal constants and variables that the universe operates under. A few given details changed as the concept of the setting evolved over time, but it will still give you a good sense of what this universe is about and what you might want to modify.
 
I hope that was helpful, but you're welcome to ask for more. I know you'll get more good advice from other posters to this thread.

Hi guys,
I have been running and playing in rpgs a long time, since i was eleven! I am in my early fifties now and champions was one of my first games I played long term through my school years along with Runequest and D&D.
I look back to that childhood campaign with much affection, such early scenarios as Viper's Nest remain very much in my consciousness. I played all the way through 4th edition and then came back to the game during 5th edition for a while.
 
My current group however (of about 10 years now) where always much more into fantasy and science fiction games than supers, as none of them were comic readers. However over the last ten years this has slowly changed as the Marvel cinematic universe and to a lesser extent the DC tv series have slowly got them interested in a campaign. We a couple of years ago played Sentinel comics for a bit but that stumbled long term due to not really having a robust experience system (my group loves experience systems if its a long term campaign).
 
We are currently playing Warhammer fantasy 4th edition and will probably play that for another year, but I would really love to finally play a long term supers campaign using the hero system so I can finally make use of all the supers rpg material I own. 
I have a lot....
Champions material from 2nd to 4th edition
Nearly the whole run of 5th edition
Nearly everything mutants and masterminds has published
a smattering of villains & vigilantes
Lots of Icons material
silver age sentinels
sentinels comics rpg
and other bits and pieces from other games like heroes unlimited.
 
What I want to do is make the most of this material i have in my home and finally make use of it! I would like your help in making all this material into one overall kick arse supers setting for my players to play in long term.
I also have many other games of different genres that I would like to add bits from, games that comes to mind is Conspiracy X and Call of Cthulhu. what I would  like to do with this thread is work out  a way how to incorporate elements from all this material and jettison what does not work.
 
Here are my aims with this campaign and this thread. 
 
1. Set up a campaign for long term supers play, with enough depth and breath to keep my players entertained and wanting more.
2. Relearn the game. I am choosing 5th edition revised as that was my most recent version and one I am at least semi comfortable with. I dont want to learn 6th, I have it but I am firmly in the camp of figured characteristics basing of primary ones, maybe its because I played 2nd edition onwards but It was always a part of the game i loved. I know the arguments about going to 6t, but its not going to happen so no point trying to persuade me on this thread. I dont want it descending into edition wars, though I would love advice on builds as i relearn 5th.
3. I want to keep builds pretty lean and simple much more 3rd and 4th edition style builds rather than 5th and 6th builds. Partly for me as relearn the game but mainly for my players who have never played hero and I dont want to scare off straight away with huge complicated sheets, they are all system mastery guys, so I will let them redesign as they go as they learn.
4. Use all the bloody material I have. This is maybe the most important point for this thread where I need help. I DO want to use most of the material but i obviously realize that much of it will be not needed and redundant and choices will be have to be made. I am looking for your long experience about good and bad setting elements in champions history and how to incorporate other settings into the material.
5. My players are most comfortable or rather have most knowledge in the mainstream DC/Marvel universes, so i want my setting to hit all those beats first up, but I also want to make it a bit darker with elements of horror, conspiracy, science fiction and even fantasy gaming material into the mix, but at it core I want them to feel they understand the setting and its meta rules of superheroes.
6. Help me with hero designer,  i have bought it but mot used it yet. I also have Realm Works but not sure how useful that will be for a supers campaign,  so am looking for help and advice on how to record and keep straight all the info and characters, places organisations I will be using to make sure the campaign is as easy to run long term as possible. How do I use hero designer to do this? are there other sites or programs out there that would be super useful.
7. Time travel being a strong aspect of the campaign. As I am going to use all this great setting material I want the players to come across it, I have a feeling that time travel should incorporate into the campaign somehow so not all these supers I am putting into the campaign are active now maybe a more even spread of characters over the last 60 years and a big WW2 campaign bolt on and Victorian bolt on so I can use all that great era material and then give me a chance to build up some great heroic legacies into the present day.
 
Sorry for the long start to the thread, but  I have a year or so to prepare and I want to make it the best campaign I have ever run and if i get it right the last one as well. I humbly request everyone to give me as much help and advice as possible in a detailed way on setting elements, groups, places, individuals, things, builds to make it hit all those goals I am after.
 
Dean

It's a long shot -- but that tuft of hair, plus short height and shape of head BEHIND Hercule Poirot screams Tintin to me.

A systems designer I went to school with lamented about change. They implemented a new system for a company and while trying to teach the employees the new system often ran into "I have to get back to doing my job", not understanding what they were being taught was their job.

For technology (software), there's also the cost of successfully migrating to a new system. Enterprise-class systems are often customized to a business' particular needs and competitive advantages (so they're not QUITE the same as everyone else), and that migration doesn't always succeed. Failed new systems mean companies extend the life of an old system, and department heads are loathe to spearhead ANOTHER costly attempt until it's necessary, or a few years have passed.

For example, a friend of mine from the Philippines worked for quite a number of years in the U.S. handling the payroll system of a certain Silicon Valley company because it was all done in FoxPro, at at time when relational databases were already standard...

For technology (software), there's also the cost of successfully migrating to a new system. Enterprise-class systems are often customized to a business' particular needs and competitive advantages (so they're not QUITE the same as everyone else), and that migration doesn't always succeed. Failed new systems mean companies extend the life of an old system, and department heads are loathe to spearhead ANOTHER costly attempt until it's necessary, or a few years have passed.

For example, a friend of mine from the Philippines worked for quite a number of years in the U.S. handling the payroll system of a certain Silicon Valley company because it was all done in FoxPro, at at time when relational databases were already standard...

Another poster expressed interest in seeing the plans for Wetchley House, the base acquired by the PCs in my first playtest campaign for Ultimate Supermage. Fortunately, I still have them as files, so you don't have to look at scans from my crappy scanner. Well, except for the picture of the house.
 
This was a 4th ed campaign, so the plans are hex-mapped.
 
The house isn't big. I don't remember the exact book from which I adapted the plans, but there are scads of books out there such as Victorian House Plans, Classic House Plans, etc. Then I traced and spliced together bits of drawings of those houses, with a little freehanding to fill in the gaps, and made an illustration. I'll start with that:

Dean Shomshak