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On 4/23/2024 at 9:26 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah I am not sure what new younger players really want from a game.  Do they care about the lore or the history?  Do they want to fight the big bad guy or just take out a series of enemies?  My instinct says that gamers want to face down with the big boss.  I guess we could make up our own new big boss guy but I think fighting an active, dangerous AI would appeal to modern gamers as a worthy threat.  Especially given how meh Ultron was handled in the Avengers movie.

I think it depends on the group at hand. My normal gaming group is a mix of older and younger players, and it has a mix of both theories, only not separated by age groupings. In all honesty, if you're setting it in the CU, you should use a Champions villain. Just not one too powerful to begin with.

On 4/24/2024 at 12:09 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

And yeah Steriaca, I fear that the entire idea of table top role playing games is waning, let alone superheroes.  But maybe if we do this well we can generate more interest.

Couldn't disagree more. I see new TTRPGs popping up and more than a few fans excited to give them a shot. The problem in my eyes is that fewer people either a) don't want to run, or b) have moved to less traditional game spaces (such as VTTs). The latter makes it both easy and challenging to find players, as things like time zones, VTT familiarity and support, and having a wide pool cause can make or break some games. 

On 4/24/2024 at 12:44 PM, Stanley Teriaca said:

Well, we can always try. But don't get your hopes up. Be realistic. We are never going to 'save' Hero, only slow down the company's death.

That's a bit pessimistic, isn't it? Maybe instead of slowing the death, 3PP are actually just keeping it afloat. I won't go into my usual tirades of thought on this. They're on the boards.

CON Drain. Lowers the pain threshold, but still causes an effect. The more pain you're under, the more it makes sense that you resistance is lowered. 

20 hours ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

That's the comic book. What teams are they on?

They're kind of junior members and sidekicks to various Justice Society members. 

4 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

The art's nice at least.

Todd Nauck of Young Justice fame. 

22 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Most are themed somewhat, with past ones being about building a kingdom, venturing through a haunted dungeon, or exploring a region of the world. Overall, it's a fun idea. 

 

Do they print the adventures in the guide or do you have to buy them separately?

The Player Guide is just a freebie to set up and support the adventures, which you either buy singularly, or in a collected edition. 

The adventure paths are kind of a neat way of running a campaign. Normally, they start with a free, downloadable player's guide. This gives the basics on the campaign, along with guidelines for heroes/characters, and any important beats needed during character creation. The paths themselves work kind of like chapters in a book. Some give some space to run something between (like a single adventure, or some of their organized play stuff), but each adds a bit to the story. Each adventure within the path advances the heroes along until the end (where the heroes are a fairly high level). Most are themed somewhat, with past ones being about building a kingdom, venturing through a haunted dungeon, or exploring a region of the world. Overall, it's a fun idea. 

I would gladly take a new Cyber Hero or Horror Hero. But I would love to see a new Danger International or an updated Post Apocalypse Hero.

Speaking as a comic book reader, capes and their like are often used to take advantage of a situation. It has happened to Superman, Batman, and countless others. In game terms, I just treat it a bit like a limb when it comes to grabbing it. 

Just curious... is Golden Age Champions (6e) a hardcover or softcover book?

Greetings! I'm looking at starting a Star Hero campaign some time in the future and was wondering how you figure out crew size? Is it just an arbitrary number you pluck out of the ether? Do you try and judge what's right based on the ship size/function? As far as I can tell there are no rules that govern what a ship may need. Thanks in advance.

14 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

First, this will necessarily be a pretty big book, its got to have a lot of stuff in it such as tips for GMing, tips for play, background for the campaign, a setting (even if very brief), all of the adventures, ideas on how to work in complications, personality, backgrounds, etc of characters into the campaign, the mindset of Champions as opposed to other RPGs (no kill and loot), and maybe even a section on how to build characters, since Champions Begins left that out.  All of that jammed in will be over 200 pages.

 

Second, there is a real need to have at least a stab at helping people build characters.  I'm fine with using fully built characters from the Champions Begins premade ones, but players will want to make their own hero at some point.  And that would necessarily include tips on what kind of characters to make or to avoid, etc.  This could be done as a separate interim book (maybe another freebie) which could follow up on Champions Begins by showing how to make a few of the prebuilt CB characters using the rules in Champions Complete.

 

Third, this would be a much more ambitious book requiring a more ambitious approach.  I'm fine with coloring and reusing old art from previous products but it would be nice to have new, hot art to put in the book as well.  And I'd like to have a really clean, high quality, exciting looking Character Sheet to use as well, something that pops and is evocative of comic books.

 

Fourth, we need adventures.  Thankfully there are a lot of them already printed and available for use in old magazines, adventure books like Champions Presents, and so on that can be mined to assemble a storyline.  And we'd need some drop-in adventures for GMs to use for special occasions such as for when a hunted shows up or a DNPC is needed to activate.  Character story kind of stuff.

 

Speaking of Character Story we'll need to identify and help the GM to use specific hero archetypes that show up: the loner, the crusader, the family man, etc.  Tropes and patterns from existing comic books and movies -- not the characters as their powers and abilities, but their personalities, tendencies, interests, etc.  Armed with those, a set of generic Character Story adventures could be created to target those and show GMs how to work that into a game.

 

Fifth I am sure you all can think of other things that we'll need, such as a setting, villains, time period, etc.

 

Champions Begins took several years to hash out and complete, so this is no hurry but it would be nice to have some discussion about it.

On the second point: Maybe something like the Player Guides that Pathfinder makes for their adventure paths? Offer advice specifically for this series, while also giving guidelines, etc. 

On the third point: I would recommend kickstarting/crowd sourcing so art and design can be paid for. Plenty of companies do such a thing just to fluff their art budget.

As far as setting, it might be easier to revisit older books, like Millennium City, to give you the setting you would like. Or you could create a generic city that has just enough info to feed into the adventures, but enough open so groups can flavor and reskin it. Really, using the CU as the backdrop may provide you with some of the story backbeats. 

I kind of enjoy the Critical Role take on Resurrections. At it's base, it's a ritual spell that requires those casting to "sacrifice" a few things to appease the gods. Maybe it's a feather, or a nice jacket, or even some coin. A variety of rolls are made based on the offerings by each participant (who also each offer something). If successful, the being is brought back. If the rolls aren't great, maybe they're brought back with a problem, or maybe a pact is made. If failed, the soul is laid to rest and cannot be resurrected in this manner again. 

The Those Detectors thread got me thinking about mutants and their like. Has anyone created a template for "mutants" or some other human subspecies? Do mutants have common abilities in your campaign? 

48 minutes ago, steph said:

Question for GMs. If I take as an example from vol 1 on page 35, in the heroic category (very powerful) it is written that the CV on average is 5-9. How do you handle that, if the players have CSL and martial arts. Despite the CSL, the material arts CV must still not exceed 9? How do you keep the fight balanced?

Thank you in advance

 

Steph

I always found averaging out the PCs CV and Defenses helps to keep a game balanced. If I know a group of six players have heroes with an average CV 6 and Defenses 15, I have a  rough idea to give an opponent a similar CV (or higher if I want to challenge the PCs), and an appropriate damage roll (like a 5d6 vs. Def 15, or higher for a challenging encounter). 

As far as keeping the CV in line with the examples, I find them more like guidelines. I might bump it a bit higher as the PCs gain more Experience, or allow for specific Levels. Things like Martial Arts tend to balance themselves at times. Gaining a +X OCV sometimes has a -Y DCV. So while it might easier to hit a foe, it also leaves the hero open to another attack. 

In my campaign, mutant detectors use a form of genetic detection that can not only identify the mutant gene, but can identify likely powers due to genetic tags. If a mutant has been cataloged, it's likely that they can be identified by the tags detected. While generally illegal in the current game, there are still rogue factions that use them to find/hunt mutants for their own ends. No recognized law enforcement uses such devices, nor do they use nullifiers outside of dampeners for superhuman criminals. 

In response to mutant detectors, a gene scrambler was developed by some mutant scientists to counter the detector. These devices often look like a pin or ring, and emit a frequency that scrambles detectors. While distributed on the black market, scramblers have since become used in espionage agencies to hide their mutant agents in potentially hostile missions. 

Classic Enemies is my personal favorite. It kind of felt like a "trade paperback" of the old Enemies books with some added details.

Interested, but was hoping for a preview.

Weird that it's not in the store. It is on DrivethruRPG...

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/257014/Enemies-III-3rd-Edition

SHADOW Over Scotland is a 3rd ed book IIRC.

I've used a few basic ideas throughout various games, but I try to alter them a bit so they don't appear to be a carbon copy.

11 hours ago, Asperion said:

Players like having characters that possess great power. However, the greater power one has means that they need more powerful opponents. It quickly gets to the point where normal people are unable to properly deal with those characters. What happens when criminals gain abilities, technology, or something else that is more than normal law enforcement can deal with? Most established groups like Avengers, JLA, etc deal mostly with more powerful threats and government agencies are meant to deal with characters at that level. This leaves the street level characters with little to no backup that is properly qualified. How is this addressed in your campaign, if at all? 

I was just starting a campaign that was kind of dealing with this. Most large cities have a taskforce dedicated to supervillains, whether at the street level or more. This specialized unit often employ a few superhumans to help offset the their odds a bit. In the campaign I've been working on, the city has been a bit overpowered by villains and gangs. So they sponsor a hero team that works exclusively with the police to help protect the city. Local police powers, access to the police database, and a crash course on law enforcement are the basics that everyone gets, and they answer to a special liaison officer that answers to the police commissioner. What kind of threats do they handle? Pretty much anything the city may throw at them. From villains akin to Spider-Man's rogues, to juiced up gangs, to Kingpins and gang wars, to the occasional Magneto attack. 

I agree that, in most cases, setting a street level tone would be my normal go-to for such a game. But I'm trying something different to see how it evolves. 

16 hours ago, rjcurrie said:

You could also use a Custom Complication and set the cost to 0. 

Yup. Mentioned that in my original post, but was looking for other options.

7 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

Exactly my thought. Spidey's rogues gallery is exceptional. Biggest difference between the Spider's villains and the Bat's is that most of the former's enemies are actual superhumans, while the latter's are mostly normal human psychopaths with some gimmick. I'm not sure how long Batman would last if he had the likes of Kraven, Rhino, and Sandman regularly coming after him. OTOH Green Goblin, Mysterio, or Kingpin would make splendid Bat-villains, while Clayface, Mr. Freeze, or Man-Bat would work great against the Webhead. And of course they both essentially share a female cat-themed frenemy.

I'm sure Bats would do just fine against Spidey's foes, but it also depends on who's writing him. 

Early Spider-Man is definitely a teen hero IMHO, and a great example of progression from teen to regular hero over the years. In fact, when I had players complain about the 250pt heroes of yester-Champions, Spidey was my usual example of why they only had 250pts. 

As for his rogue's gallery, I've always been a fan. You get legendary bad guys like Green Goblin or Doctor Octopus, and then you get chumps like Grizzly or Kangaroo. Easily one of the best groups of villains in comics (and tied with Batman and Flash in my mind).

Excellent. Thanks for the help! 

Howdy Dan... is there a way to make certain Complications cost 0 points? In the game I'm gearing up to run, Template/Package Complications don't add to the matching amount needed, and I'm trying to put that into HD. I know I could use Custom Complication, but is there another way? Thanks in advance.