Steve

Bumping for another Christmas.

As we start heading into the Christmas season, I hope my fellow Hero fans will consider helping the less fortunate.

Here are a few charities I am supporting and hope you might give something as well.

WaterAid has been working to transform lives for more than 40 years through the power of clean water.

Imagine being able to go online and purchase three chickens for a family in a developing country. Or lifesaving nutrition for a young child. Or a beehive to families who have been impacted by drought, to help them generate income.

Volunteer to help those around you. There are opportunities everywhere.

A “Lower Decks” campaign would be a lot of fun. Lower stakes but more character exploration and humor.

On 9/14/2021 at 8:48 PM, steriaca said:

If we could basically put this all down in a supplement, would you be intrested in buying it?

Part of my decision on that would depend on the page count and price point. I always like NPCs I can mine for ideas, in general.

I wonder. Do GMs ever have specific agents return after gaining XPs? That 50-point minion of VIPER could slowly grow to become an agent leader or special operative.

9 hours ago, assault said:

I'm intrigued by the low importance people are putting on setting details, and the stress on game mechanical stuff that I would have ignored.

 

Well, creating a character involves assigning your points, so it's pretty helpful to know what is considered too high or too low in abilities.

Ability ranges are always good, especially if there are caps on anything.

10 hours ago, steriaca said:

Apollion is one of the big bad guys of the series. His true motives are unknown. He is extremely powerful and rairly shows up in the flesh. When he does show up, he is a red skinned man.

 

According to the show bible, Apollion is a sort of a mad scientist who developed a method of altering DNA, including himself. Because of this, whenever he does show up he has different powers because of his DNA altering technology.

 

Note: the DNA altering technology is also an excuse to explain having different actors playing certain villains and why some villains have inconstant powers. Even some heroes on the show undergo DNA altering. At least one villain has gone through gender change thanks to the DNA technology. 

I’m reminded of Doctor Who.

Actually, one way to write this would be to take existing CU characters and tweak them into fitting on this show.

Charisma could have an evil female cousin named Night Glamour who was very loosely based on Talisman. Bonus points if the same actress played both roles.

After watching the new Suicide Squad movie, I'm wondering how you could portray their implanted explosive charges in Hero terms. Are they just a GM fiat?

If a hero team got implanted with these to force them to work for a group like VIPER, it would be better to have damage numbers handy, in case one or more members turned out to be resistant enough, so I am curious if anyone has ever made up something like this.

It’s a DF that can’t be hidden but can only be detected by a limited group or special senses. I don’t have my books handy, but I think that is in the 5-10 point range. It’s probably just a noticeable thing, not something that would cause a strong reaction.

interesting idea.

At extreme levels of range, perhaps an archer also needs Telescopic Sight abilities to deal with at least some of their range modifiers? This wouldn’t be an issue with shorter ranges, but would when you get to the outer edge of a bow’s range.

An archer may have a ton of penalty skill levels, but they wouldn’t do much good if they can’t clearly see the target, would they?

Let’s talk about credit, which is a big feature of modern and most likely future societies.

Hero A doesn’t have much money on hand, but they have built an excellent credit rating (800+) and can easily borrow tens of thousands of dollars quickly if needed (loans, leases, platinum credit cards, etc). They can always manage to pay their debts eventually.

I’m wondering if this is just a special effect of the Money Perk, or if it could justify a separate Perk of some kind.

On the other hand, Hero B is always in debt and can never seem to make ends meet. Their credit rating is below 600, so they need co-signers to lease an apartment or buy a car.

This would seem adequately covered by the Poor Complication.

Hero C is quite wealthy (10+ points of Money), but has a poor credit score right now due to problems with drinking that caused several financial reversals. While they still have Money from their Perk, rebuilding their company will need borrowing.

Would this be a Complication of some kind?

2 hours ago, C-Note said:

I chose Rules Enhancements/Variances. Specifically, the missing 6th Edition Vehicles book that was supposed to be written but wasn't.  A glaring hole in 6E that needs to be addressed.

Heh. I didn’t have anything quite that grandiose in mind.
 

I was planning to start small, like a 10-20 page adventure, some themed NPCs (like a ninja clan or Hudson City PD officers) or a mini-setting book.

1 minute ago, Tjack said:

   I get where you’re coming from, but Steve didn’t specify about only using Champions as a base.  My suggestions were for a more general “what might sell best” situation. 
  If he were only interested in writing for Hero Games material I would have agreed with you.

 I have ideas for several genres: Dark Champions, Star Hero, Urban Fantasy Hero and Ninja Hero. While I do have some ideas for Champions, these other genres call more loudly to me.

Thanks to all who have replied so far.

I've been considering trying my hand at writing game supplement materials for publication, but I'm not sure what would be most helpful/wanted to people so decided to try a poll here to get a sense of public opinion from my fellow Hero fans.

Feel free to explain your reasons for choosing one of the items.

Thanks!

On 8/6/2021 at 8:27 AM, pawsplay said:

About five acres of good farmland will support one person, so for a 10,000 person city (like early medieval London) you would need at least 78 square miles of farmland. Assuming less good farmland and twice the population, you would need at least 300 square miles.

Yeah, five acres is the minimum assuming good land, adequate rainfall and a long growing season.
 

It seems desert regions tend to rely on being on trade routes and people in colder climates hunted meat animals or fished to supplement their food supplies, since farming seasons were pretty short.

As towns grow, farmland will get chopped up for housing and businesses, which could cause food shortages if the frontier is not creating new farmland quickly enough to support the growing population.

You also have to factor in losses from raiding or war. Orcs and goblins love stealing stuff.

The Magnificent Seven helped a bunch of farmers, so PCs could be hired for this too!

Challengers of the Unknown would make a good basis for a more Silver Age feel, since it started in the 1950s.

Maybe something like Johnny Quest mixed with shrinking-based superpowers.

Thank you, LL. I will have to look through Microman’s write-up.

I’m currently plotting out a campaign involving a research facility and superhero team based around shrinking and the Microverse, kind of like a version of the Fantastic Four mixed with Ant-Man.

One option I’m considering is that an accident with quantum energies gave the members of the team their powers, and all of them would also have shrinking as a common powerset too.

Another option would be for science types with special suits using a type of Pym Particle compound that gives them shrinking ability and the ability to enter the Microverse and explore the worlds there, so more like Adam Strange mixed with the Atom.

In the CU, shrinking seems to be a very under-used powerset theme and would make for a fun campaign background.

What’s interesting is that the only science-based superhuman I could find who studies Size Change Physics was Dr. Destroyer.

The CU doesn’t seem to have an analog of Marvel’s Hank Pym.

I’ve recently been working on putting together a superhero campaign based on the Shrinking powerset and was wondering if any groups or individuals in the CU study shrinking or the Microverse.

Other than Shrinker, are there any characters who have an “Enter The Microverse” sort of ability?

It's been a while since I worked with the Shrinking power. I'm using build 20210301.

I bought Shrinking on a character with the Normal Mass Advantage, but it is still showing the KB modifier instead of it going away.

I just saw “Jungle Cruise” last night, and it hits the right pulp spots.

38 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Your memory is better than mine.   All I remember is that Duplicate Girl *used to be* Triplicate Girl..........  Oops....

 

I like weird combos of impossible, supra-normal abilities and basic biology/physics...like mass conservation.  The melanin split just follows;  everyone's skin, hair, and eyes are a combo of those 3 types.  I just thought of a side effect on the recombination...figure the DNA happens to change at the genes responsible for melanin production.  Well maybe they don't *quite* recombine the same every time....   

 

 

You could get even weirder and have the trio not be the same apparent age, kind of like the Norns. One is a young maiden in her late teens or early twenties, another is a mature woman in her thirties or early forties, and one is around fifty or sixty in appearance but still spry.

As I recall, Triad/Triplicate Girl of the LSH has different colored eyes on each of them.