Steve

Personally, I'm fine with the concept appearing in my games, but I've always preferred the "grab-bag" approach of diverse origins, like from mainstream comics. Although even in those universes, writers at various times have suggested that mental factors influence the type of physical abilities a super may attain from a particular stimulus.
 
Given your preference in setting, I would suggest you look up Scott Bennie's campaign world book, Gestalt: The Hero Within, for 5E Champions. In that world superhumans are actual embodiments of archetypal qualities generated from the collective unconsciousness of all humanity. It's a quality product, which should go without saying for anything written by Scott.

That happened in my Avant Guard campaign a time or two. Like, the Big Bad villain Tiamat teamed up with the heroes to stop Biggest Bad villain Doctor Thane from destroying the universe. (It's the only way to test the theory! No, I don't have any place to go afterward, but I should survive several seconds afterward, and I'll know!)
 
When the Big Bad bio-villain Helix threatened to release his latest Kaiju on an American city if he wasn't paid one BILLION dollars, cells of the criminal/terrorist/subversive agency CROWN joined heroes and law enforcement in scouring cities for Helix's secret base. After all, it might have been a city where they had interests. One cell did find one of Helix's old labs... and released a dormant swarm of genetically engineered plague-bearing wasps. Avant Guard member Anunit (daughter of Tiamat, btw) was able to cure the synth-plague, and she extended her efforts to the CROWN soldiers. That got the teama squad of CROWN soldiers and billains as backup when they found Helix's base, to deal with the lesser bio-horrors while the heroes face the master villain himself and the beast that was called only IT!
 
In the earlier Seattle Sentinels campaigns, the villain Blitz and the hero Bluejay flirted back and forth for a few years before Bluejay took the initiative to become lovers. It was not entirely a strategic move to get his help escaping from a villain base... Subsequently Blitz created a second costumed identity as the super-merc Javelin. He sold the idea to his masters as a way to infiltrate and gather intel on superheroes, but it also enabled several trysts (and shared adventures) with Bluejay. The truth came out eventually, seemingly ending the relationship, but later the Supermage playtest heroes rescued /blitz from Hell. He finally resolved his conflicts by turning in his former criminal masters, proposing to Bluejay, and becoming a freelance hero
 
There was also a love triangle between the Supermage hero Jezeray, the werewolf Black Fang, and Black Fang's human identity. That seemed resolved happily at the end of the first Supermage playtest campaign with the werewolf and human personalities merging to become a hero. Then I destroyed it in the second playtest campaign (for Ultimate Mystic). Black Fang ended up still a hero, but with someone other than Jezeray. The whole soap opera was revealed as machinations by cosmic entities to create an operative able to hunt and destroy time-traveling agents of the late Archimago, and they didn't care about the feelings of the people involved.
 
Dean Shomshak

I could see it as a lesser effect level than LS: poisons and chemicals as it is a more limited ability. Maybe a point or two less?

I could see it as a lesser effect level than LS: poisons and chemicals as it is a more limited ability. Maybe a point or two less?

In the beginning a GM had an idea, then the players arrived:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=945841874214564&set=a.123889509743142
 
Laugh, you know you want to.
 
Oh BTW, if this is in the wrong area I'm sorry.

OK I have started to convert old adventures printed in previous magazines etc.  They just need a bit of updating to modern tech and culture, a bit of converting to 6th edition, some bits of added info, and illustrations.  They don't take long to do, the art will be the slow part, but the conversions are pretty simple.  I plan on releasing these as "Champions Classics" for cheap if it all works out.  We get a few dozen of these things out on the internet and no GM has an excuse for not having anything to run!

Hey all,
 
I'm working with Heroic Publishing on a revision and update to TPP Champion Organizations #2 - League of Champions. I will update and correct errors in the original material, and add new members, and new art. This title will be available for Print-On-Demand through DriveThruRPG. There will be other collaborations in the future as well.

This actually reminds me of the Zombie Survival Guide where the best defense against the walking dead was tight clothes and short hair.  That way the Zombie can't grab you.

I started late to the http://udio.com party, but I've been having a blast making all kinds of music.
 
It looks like making an original campaign soundtrack is now within easy reach.

Patrick Troughton faced a daunting task, having to replace William Hartnell not just in the lead role, but as same character, only radically different. It was an unprecedented concept for television, and if he and the writers hadn't stuck the landing, Doctor Who would have ended then and there. Fortunately for all Whovians contemporary and not yet born, they did.

It doesn't matter that the BBC is responsible for it. The BBC has screwed up the Doctor, because they're now more interested in pushing "the message," in doing socio-political commentary as their main focus, than in telling fun and thought-provoking sci-fi adventures like the previous six decades of Doctor Who. The current Doctor is black and gay, which is a big part of the show now, because they think that's what sells. The previous incarnation of the character was a woman and lesbian, because they think that's what sells. The producers want to be different, but their idea of different disrespects the essence of the series responsible for its success.
 
It's a common logical disconnect that I see in a lot of contemporary entertainment. Producers want the built-in fan base that comes from an established property, but they also want to tell a different kind of story with different kinds of characters than what drew that fan base, which drives them away. Then they blame the fans for not recognizing how great what they're doing really is.

Yeah, this is not news. Disney already screwed it up in the latest specials they put out, and the new Doctor is driving off even more of the fans.

Yeah, this is not news. Disney already screwed it up in the latest specials they put out, and the new Doctor is driving off even more of the fans.

CGoodwin recently asked me about the referee binder I'm using for our Champions game.  I don't remember where I stole this idea from, and I can't find the blog post anymore.  It was certainly 2017 or so.
 
I've got a three ring binder, with section dividers.  Here's the outline
 
I. Referee's section.
  A. The PCs.  My copy
  B. The Game World. : My Referee information about the game world.  A list of all Persons, Places, and Things we've added to the world.  The players get a (redacted) copy in their section.
  C. The Adventures
    1. The current adventure
    2. The archive of previous adventures
  D. Plots.  Future adventures and plans
  E. Tool Box : Things like my list of NPC names, so I don't have to come up with them at the table.  I intend to add the key sheets from UNE (The Universal NPC Emulator) and Mythic GM Emulator here as well, since I find them useful at the table.
 
II The Player section.
  A. Campaign setting hand out.
    1. For character creation : Includes the Campaign worksheet from the champions BBB.
    2. For use during play : newspapers, etc.
  B. Lore Sheets.  Single page-single subject handouts
  C. Other handouts.  The Base, our Hoverjet, etc,
 
I have a second binder that is JUST for NPCs.  It's a 3" binder.  I use Hero Designer to write up my NPCs, and I print them out and keep them in plastic page protectors.  That makes the NPC section big enough I had to pull it out of the first binder.  We play in person, and I find I want to have the printed character sheets for the villains out on the table.  I know I should be able to run the NPCs off the top of my head, but I'm not there yet.  
 
So, there we have it.  It's the setup I've been using to run a Champions! 6th edition game with.  I have other games I use this binder setup with, and it works for me.  I figure it might be useful for some new referee out there to see what others are using.  Do you other Refs have something similar?  

Just thinking about it, for some applications, a pain attack could be modelled as both STUN suppression and/or vulnerability (2x STUN) to successful attack on a particular hit location.  Both of these things would increase the chances of being knocked out or stunned. 
 
You can imagine that if you are already in pain that subsequent attacks might be more likely to take you out, you are less resilient.  Or, because you have an agonising pain (due to twisted or broken bones for example) and someone hits you in the same place that you might balck out for a short period due to the pain, or simply fall unconcious.
 
It does not deliver behaviour changes - players generally play their characters as far more indifferent to pain than would likely be the case.  To deliver behaviour changes, such as being worried about sticking your head back above the parapet, you need mechanics (like the PRE roll in Danger International).
 
Doc

@Steve wants to simulate items that cause pain but appear to do no actual damage. I don't know his motivations, because each of the examples he provides has a different purpose.
 
 
The Dune Agony Box is a test of self-control. Maybe that's more like a Ego test or an opposed test of resisting Interrogation. The Star Trek Agonizer is a punishment and perhaps a type of transform where you become someone who obeys rather than face the pain. The Harry Potter Cruciatus Curse is a straight up attack meant to incapacitate your foe. An endurance drain would probably make more sense as an attack than as a test of will or a punishment.

Maybe they are all a type of primate?

The goal is the same as what it's always been: to inflict pain without causing damage. Draining END is just one of many possibilities to model this. At the end of the day, this is a question that doesn't need a definitive answer unless and until the GM needs a game mechanic for it. To be honest I thought that the NND martial maneuvers were the traditional HERO system answer for pain-based attacks. An NND attack reduces someone to zero stun, which prevents them from acting until they recover. An endurance drain can reduce someone to zero endurance, which prevents the target from acting when those actions cost endurance. The target can still spend stun as endurance to push through the pain, which to me is an elegant solution.

Yeah, a pretty stock trope is that using one's powers requires concentration, and what pain can do is make it hard to concentrate through the pain.  That's the motivation.
 
Look at the example major transforms on 6E1 304.
--impose a limitation (up to -1)
--CV penalties
--giving a Complication...unluck.
 
Several of these would work pretty well with Partial Transform.  A suggested, nasty complication is Requires 11- roll, that's -1.  There's lesser levels for Partial Transform.  
 
Here, the pain's just the SFX, the goal is to just make it HARD to do something.  And it's not cheap, as Partial Transform makes it 15 points per die.

EDIT:  oh, and note the key is concentration disruption.  Pain's not the only way to do that.  In Drew Hayes' Super Powereds series, the tech kid incorporates an itching attack into his weapon.  Massive itching might be a better way to disrupt concentration;  people are used to fighting through pain, but man, SEVERE itching?  An attack I often like is to swap the defenses on a Flash attack from Flash Def to Ego Def...a flash bang targeting the sensory centers of the brain directly.  That could be done here...instead of shutting down, overload. 
 
 

The plan appeared to be OGL 1.1, then ditching their print business to save costs like warehousing, followed by a transition to the VTT and micro transactions to get the cash flowing.
 
Things didn’t go as planned. I heard they are down something like 30% in sales over the past year or two.
 
Now Warhammer seems to be following the siren song of self-destruction, but that is another story.

I like the idea of it affecting the Concentration Limitation or adding a roll to an existing ability to use it.
 
I suppose it could also act as a bonus to the Interrogation skill. I think the Cruciatus Curse from Harry Potter got used that way in the books, but I can’t remember for sure.

I figure it this way
 
A player book would have the breakdown on how to build a character in Hero, using a few prebuilds as examples, info on role playing a superhero as opposed to a marauding adventurer that kills and loots, keeping the tone and feel of the comic book origins consistent (although these days, what does that even mean?), how to create a character story and background that fits the game and builds a character, etc.
 
The GM Book would be the adventure breakdowns and tips on running superheroic games, maintaining tone, enforcing genre, encouraging role playing as superheroes, etc.  There would be the full story arc, drop-in short adventures that could be used for a variety of character stories (DNPCs, hunteds, etc), and the way to mix in other adventures in between so its not just the main story, if the GM so desires.
 
Then we need a character book with the NPCs necessary to fill in between the main adventures and to act as a supporting cast (the butler, or whatever).  Most of the NPCs would be either detailed in the adventures or pointed to in the villain books.
 
Individual adventures built up and sold separately would be pretty easy to do, shouldn't be more than 25 pages per.  Put out like 10 or 15 of them and you have a nice solid support base for Champions as well as ones to draw from for runs like this.  But they aren't Adventure Paths they should be like, Limited Series or something comics-related.

Well it comes down to how you write up the rules and the system.  Anything that covers giant monkeys would necessarily cover giant robots and just plain giant people.  The rules necessarily cross over to different concepts and platforms that are similar, and it would be simple to add those in, and silly not to.  What makes a game that runs Godzilla also runs Big O.  So you show how to do that in the same book, to make it as broad an appeal as possible and cover what else is reasonable.

If all of my suggestions above were to be included in similar capacities, the book would pretty much become Tokusatsu Hero. Tokusatsu is the technique-cum-genre encompassing live action movies/series featuring kaiju, mecha and Japan's unique brand of superheroes. All three can overlap in a given tokusatsu show. Outside of Japan, tokusatsu's super robots (as opposed to real robots) and superheroes have much less prominence than kaiju, which have experienced a modest rise in popularity in recent years. There's probably a decent amount of interest in "realistic" mechs, too. Given that this is the case, I would suggest:
1) Writing a good deal of material for kaiju, a moderate amount for realistic mechs (since this could be a book of its own) and maybe throw in a small segment for super robots and tokusatsu superheroes.
2) Designing the setting for kaiju-centric campaigns while including suggestions for modifying this setting to accommodate the inclusion of the other stuff, to varying degrees and combinations.
Super robots and tokusatsu heroes could probably be excluded entirely without losing much, if any, potential interest. Most HS players would probably prefer to use Champions-style supers anyway and already have enough material to transplant. Still, there's the chance that a not-insignificant portion of HS players are fond of super robots like Voltron and Transformers and/or flashy heroes like the Power Rangers, so the inclusion of such material might get some appreciation. In a small capacity, it certainly wouldn't hurt either.

Even simpler, an Entangle as a Damage Shield that only works when used as an attack. You can add Cumulative to it to reflect the idea that it seems to be harder to escape after the initial entanglement.