Sketchpad

DI is probably my second favorite Hero setting after Champions. I'd always hoped that we would get more support for it back in the day. Alas, that wasn't meant to be, even though, IMHO, there was a TON of potential.

If a new version were to be made, I'd love to see it more as a "Setting/System" book like the original or 4th ed Champions that would be expanded to mini-settings that expands its world into other action-based subgenres. For example: While the main book covers espionage in various forms (Bond/Mr. Robot/Bourne/MI/etc.), a new book might cover Police Procedural stories, bringing in concepts from a variety of television shows and movies (ie: CSI/Criminal Minds/Hill Street Blues/etc.). Further down the line, there could be a book on Military Operations (SEAL Team/Blackhawk Down/etc.), or even Criminal Ops (Leverage/Ocean's 11/etc.).

There are a handful of fanzines out there for other games/properties that you could do a Google search for. If you're looking to do something beyond a blog, that's where I would recommend looking. 

Is the Star Hero in the shop a reprint or the original HC?

So is the HRK in the shop for $5 a physical product? It's the same price for the PDF... @Jason S.Walters can you confirm? If so, I'd be tempted to snag a copy.
 

Wouldn't the "Mages vs. Warrior" discrepancy be solved by introducing "Warrior Talents" to the mix? 

Mage A has Fireball (3d6 RKA, 5" AE Explosion) with a Real Cost of 30 points. They also have WF: Blades and carry a Short Sword.

Warrior B has Rapid Blade (+2d6 Autofire (5)) with a Real Cost of 30 points. They also have WF: Blades and carry a Short Sword. 

Points are the same. Swords were "bought" with coin, with abilities bought with points. Does this make more sense? Kind of having Occupation Tricks to replace "Class Abilities" in a classless system?

I know this has been brought up in the past, but I was thinking a bit about gear and equipment and was wondering how Hero GMs handle player's gaining such things? Do they buy them with points? Resource/Equipment points? Do they spend wealth like gold or credit? Can they just use items they find for free?

While I have used photos for specific campaigns, I prefer using illustrations when I have time to work on them. Many of my supervillains are drawn up in some form or another, and have been used in a variety of games.

I was looking at Green Ronin's Mutants & Masterminds Reprint Extravaganza and More! kickstarter, and it got me thinking about Hero. It seems like so many books are OOP, and it'd be nice to see them back on the shelves, and I thought this might be a great way of bringing them back. Or even looking at revising them slightly...

16 hours ago, steriaca said:

Yep. ULTIMADEM (forgive any misspellings) was even created by a rather low level super (Flag Smasher). And then there is also an all female organization whose name I don't remember. Just because Hydra and AIM get more facetime means nothing.

 

And don't get me going about the Bowling loving organization Sticks And Ball...opps...that's Exele Saga.

By definition Justin Hammer's group and the Power Broker are not officially "organizations" if the leader is destroyed, the "illegal company" is so crippled that it cannot go on. Hydra can survive without the Red Skull or Baron VonStrucker.

 

Heck, even COBRA survives without Cobra Comander...

I would define Hammer and Power Broker's operations as organizations. Heck, Hammer had ties to the Maggia, and both had corporations that had their own minions. 

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

The default way it's written in both source books, particularly the Fifth Edition one, yes, it does. There are options given to play VIPER as more inept and comical, even borderline heroic; but it's given the resources and plans to be as serious and epic a threat as you want it to be.

 

 

Because if you plan to conquer the world, or at least a substantial fraction of it, you need boots on the ground. Almost nowhere in the source material does a villain have the capacity to mass-produce enough loyal supers to enforce their will everywhere they would need to be. The CU follows that trope for the most part.

 

The late great Scott Bennie remarked that one of the complaints he got the most about his VIPER book for 4E, is that it emphasized supervillains too much, and underplayed the agent component. I do share that sentiment to some extent, but IMO Scott overcompensated in the opposite direction for the 5E book, cutting down VIPER's villain roster too far. I blend the two approaches to try to find a happy medium.

The Viper bit was humor, LL.  Honestly, Viper's credibility is based solely on the campaign you're running. I agree on what you're saying about the agents bit, particularly from Scott's perspective. But as far as the mass-production of superhuman villains loyal to a cause, it depends on how your campaign runs. Could someone run a game where these 20 supervillains actually work loyally to Viper? Sure. Can they also run them as being former experiments on the loose? Of course. It all depends on how you define things. 

On 11/5/2022 at 6:42 AM, Lord Liaden said:

That's a valid interpretation, except it happened so often in the old Champs books, it severely strained VIPER's credibility. At least the current official setting spreads the potential creators of rogue supervillains around to multiple agencies and masterminds, so no one of them looks completely incompetent.

Viper has credibility?! It's pretty "comic-booky" to have an agency create a bunch of bad guys (and some good guys) irresponsibly. Look at Captain America back in the '80s, or anyone who's been hurt in Gotham. In many ways it depends on how you view Viper, and if you're using other agencies in the world. I mean, Hydra and AIM both have created messes in the Marvel Universe, right?

On 11/5/2022 at 12:16 PM, steriaca said:

Yes, VIPER being responsible for 75% of all supervillains in the campaign is rather stupid. If they could create supervillains at will, why have normal agents? Instead, I would like to think of VIPER as opportunist minded guys. They didn't create Powerhouse. The accident did. They were there to simply persuade him to work for VIPER. They are always on the lookout for young mutants with power problems (Power Crusher for example), bad seed types who just want an easy pay day, mercenary types who feel the need to have a permanent backing group, etc.

Why have normal agents? Because many of the powered beings they're making just don't work in the long run. Sure, maybe a small percentile does, but most would have their own motivations, be it survival, greed, or ULTIMATE POWER!!! Great examples include villains created by Justin Hammer, Power Broker, and many, many others. 

On the subject of Viper creating and using villains, I always used the created villains as former experiments gone awry. Sure Viper made them, but now they're loose on the city/world, hunted by the authorities, Viper, and your heroes. Some have chosen to go back to the organization that made them, while others rage against their former masters and battle them as much as they do heroes. 

21 hours ago, fdw3773 said:

The main house rule I used was that players rolled two dice instead of one and I took the higher of the two to determine success or failure and did the same for villains. My own internal rule was the villains I created did not have Determination points.

 

The few games that I've ran, I've used Fate Dice, since Icons is partially built from the Fate System as well as the old MSH. 

I'm a little surprised that the HC options aren't available at DTRPG. I know a handful of other companies that offer HC and SC books.

Not sure if it qualifies, but I really enjoyed Alternity back in the '90s and would've loved to see where it could've gone. The Dark*Matter setting especially shines out so much that they made it for d20 Modern. The original creators tried to bring it back a few years back, but it just wasn't the same.

I also really dig Mutant Year Zero from Free League. While not quite Gamma World, I dig some of the ideas, and love the cards for it. 

Typically, I make a trade language an Everyman Skill, and allow players to take a complication when they don't want to have it. Otherwise, it's a table with variations on language.

On 10/1/2022 at 7:44 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

I always viewed enemies like Galactus as being not written up enemies but challenges to find the right way to beat them.  As in, this isn't a supervillain that you punch but a puzzle you solve (we need the ultimate nullifier).

This brings up an interesting game dilemma. Say you're running Galactus as a "Force of Nature" kind of character. No stats really, as he shouldn't be able to be beaten up easily. However, during a game, a player comes to you with an idea akin to the Dr. Strange solution. How to run that as part of the puzzle since it worked in the comics? What do you tell the player?

Shield 

Ranged Punch/Whip

Spider-Walk (both on ground and walls)

Propeller-like Swimming or Flight

Enhanced Strength (extra tension from strands)

Rolling Ball of Hair

Slingshot Gliding

Hairline Slice

Deflection/Extra DCV

I wonder if making the morph effect using Multiform would be easier? You could have the hero mode, which could be built with all the cool moves and such, and the normal mode which would have the focus. 

On 9/14/2022 at 12:21 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

As I noted in another thread, a visit to the friendly local game shop revealed that RPGs and accessories are tucked off into a corner -- D&D included -- and the rest of the store is board and card games.  Its just not a booming market sector any longer, its not popular as a passtime.  

On 9/14/2022 at 1:08 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

@Sketchpad, I remember when Fifth came out and I went to the local comic/game store and they were surprised that someone was interested in it. They had big chunk of the line at the on the shelves. I got the impression though that they were disappointed in the line cause I was the only one who bought any thing. It could be that it wasn’t big up in that area too. 

Yeah, I don't think it's because of a declining market, to be honest. With three dedicated game stores and a comic shop in town, there's enough RPG stuff floating around. The latter of those shops was the last to carry any Hero products (back in the 4th ed days), with the other three just not knowing what the system is. I work in marketing in my Secret ID (15pts) and I just don't see the game marketed in ways that would attract new people. Back in the day, having products like game magazines helped with ad space and such. These days, there are less and less such products, and advertising has moved to a digital format: videos, social media ads, floating ads on websites, and "influencer" endorsement. I've gone over what I believe the game needs in a few other threads, so I won't repeat them here. But the game needs something. And it needs to have a reason to be on the shelf at stores to gain new blood. 

2 hours ago, Vondy said:

 

This may also be partly the nature of the product and how people shop for it rather than "market share."

Board games seem to remain a "browse and talk to employees" at the brick-and-mortar item. Big boxes and lots of parts.

RPGs, which are primarily book-driven, seem to have become, primarily, a "buy it online" item. Slide it into a reinforced envelope.

I agree to an extent. The "browse and talk" method still exists in the stores I've gone to, and something I often engage in when at a new brick-n-mortar store. 

On 9/5/2022 at 3:16 AM, DreadDomain said:

Sadly, the answer has to be no. I only came to realize it a few months ago while answering "What are the Top 10 Tabletop Roleplaying Games of All Time (that you have personally played)?" on RPG.net. I instinctively started asking myself who would rank first, HERO or GURPS but when I went through the though process, the real question was if it would even finish second (it did) or would it slip to third.

 

No doubt I still love HERO but nowadays, if I want to play fantasy, modern action, supernatural horror, post-apocalypse, science-fiction, etc, I will probably consider one, two or half a dozen games before HERO. In the past many years, it was my go-to only when it comes to super but If I was to start a game now, I am not even sure I would choose it.

 

It also pains me to say that the last book published by HERO that I enjoyed and found "professionally" done was Golden Age Champions, must have been 5 years ago now.

 

If DOJ doesn't pick up their game, or sell the property to someone who will do the system justice, I am afraid the next time I answer a similar question in a few years, it may slip to third or maybe not even make the top 3.  

I'm not far from DD here. I've always been a big HERO fan, particularly Champions, but the game needs... something. I've gone over what I think it needs in at least three or four threads, so I'm not going to go into that. But the big thing that it needs is some publicity and some kind of "It Factor" that makes people want to carry it in stores. I remember back in the day when Champions was in almost every game and comic shop that I went to. Now, shops that remember it think it's dead, and new stores have no idea what it is (and are less likely to run demos based on that). 

These days, I mainly play some Mutants & Masterminds, AGE, and 2d20... but I always long for running HERO again someday. 

There was the DC Adventures book that was powered by Mutants & Masterminds 3e that came out back in 2010 (wow... has it been that long?!). From what I've seen the books sell a bit pricey, but they're pretty decent IMHO. It'd also be a great starting point for conversion. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Adventures

Viper's Nest was always a favorite of mine. 

I always just made a new Disad/Complication called "Quirk" which are 1 pt each and allowed 5 of them. 

On 8/2/2022 at 8:03 AM, fdw3773 said:

 

 

 

Proof that format matters. Nice job, @fdw3773. 

3 hours ago, fdw3773 said:

Also, yesterday (8/2) my friend reviewed and quickly understood the character layout and was open to playing Hero System down the road since it didn't seem confusing like the previous material presented in the rule book (e.g. all of the confusing acronyms). 😀

Excellent news. I hope your friend enjoys their new voyage into Hero.

If you want someone to know everything, what about taking "Universal Knowledge" as a variant from Universal Translator?