Vondy

Not a joke. Bourne would likely merit a dedicated task force, or mini-division within the CIA, based on his activities.

If the US were to join, based on UN funding patterns, I you would see a fairly consistent US presence in UNTIL's top echelon. It wouldn't necessarily be every Secretary-Marshall or Field-Marshall, but having one of those positions be filled by a US citizen would probably be common. You would also have at least one US citizen on the board of directors at all times, and the the US, Canada, and Mexico would probably have some sort of agreement on how the North American regional commander ends up being appointed. Don't underestimate soft-power and influence. Trade dollars, non-UNTIL defense spending, and non-UNTIL contributions to the UN as a whole means the US would be well represented, and have negotiating power, even if its not always in the big chair. I don't think it stretches credulity that the US would join UNTIL even if its not always in the top-dogs chair. After all, once US dollars are flowing, one of the biggest sticks is that those dollars will stop flowing. Treaties are voluntary. Nations have a right to leave. People minding budgets will be conscious of that.

If the US were to join, based on UN funding patterns, I you would see a fairly consistent US presence in UNTIL's top echelon. It wouldn't necessarily be every Secretary-Marshall or Field-Marshall, but having one of those positions be filled by a US citizen would probably be common. You would also have at least one US citizen on the board of directors at all times, and the the US, Canada, and Mexico would probably have some sort of agreement on how the North American regional commander ends up being appointed. Don't underestimate soft-power and influence. Trade dollars, non-UNTIL defense spending, and non-UNTIL contributions to the UN as a whole means the US would be well represented, and have negotiating power, even if its not always in the big chair. I don't think it stretches credulity that the US would join UNTIL even if its not always in the top-dogs chair. After all, once US dollars are flowing, one of the biggest sticks is that those dollars will stop flowing. Treaties are voluntary. Nations have a right to leave. People minding budgets will be conscious of that.

UNTIL: Defenders of Freedom indicates that they prefer to appoint commanders who will be well-received by the host country, which often means a citizen of that nation. Its not universally true, but its definitely "best practices."

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 run 5e with a less "granular" 4e build aesthetic.
I think 5e adds and clarifies a lot to the 4e chassis. 
It also introduced a cultural mindset of maximalist detail and granularity.
But that mindset isn't hard-coded into the rules. Its purely cultural and psychological.
Its just one way to build a game and characters.
Its the Steve way, and its 100% fine for those who prefer that style of play.
But Steve himself would tell you that you don't have to build characters his way.
And a lot of the later 5e and 6e books have a different style and sensibility.
Hero is super-flexible in all of its incarnations.
You can run pretty simple / streamlined 5e game if you go about it with some intentionality.
 

I run 5e with a less "granular" 4e build aesthetic.
I think 5e adds and clarifies a lot to the 4e chassis. 
It also introduced a cultural mindset of maximalist detail and granularity.
But that mindset isn't hard-coded into the rules. Its purely cultural and psychological.
Its just one way to build a game and characters.
Its the Steve way, and its 100% fine for those who prefer that style of play.
But Steve himself would tell you that you don't have to build characters his way.
And a lot of the later 5e and 6e books have a different style and sensibility.
Hero is super-flexible in all of its incarnations.
You can run pretty simple / streamlined 5e game if you go about it with some intentionality.
 

The expanded language tables from The Ultimate Skill ought to suffice.

True! However, Conan doesn't belong in a Champions campaign. And, Champions morals and mores don't belong in Hyboria.
 
Different genres and settings have different operable moral baselines and mores. The play groups should be comfortable with those, of course.
 
Not every genre is for every group, or even for every reader. It boils down to different strokes for different folks.   
 
This isn't super-redeeming, but he also gives the victims of his piracy and armed robbery the chance to surrender and comply without violence, too. He'd rather not murder you for your loot... (facepalm!).

Which Wendy "Elfquest" Pini was only too happy to bring to life for us. (Marginally NSFW)
 
 

I like both characters, but I somewhat prefer the one with a "Y."
 
More clothes and a fouler mouth.
 
In fact, the one female character I played, who became one of my unexpected mainstays, had the tagline "Red Sonja with Clothes!"
 
Still, chainmail bikini! Its got its own cachet!

The elves in my campaign follow the pattern of Masuo people. They are matriarchal and matrilocal, and practice "walking marriage," though its really walking romance, because not all Masuo romantic relationships are specifically closed (though many are). Masuo women who come of age are often given room with exterior doors on the outer part of the clan-house. The Masuo traditionally honor their fathers on their birthdays, and it is considered unseemly for a woman not to be able to identify her children's fathers, but uncles were are primary male caregivers and figures in a child's life. Masuo men, historically, were hunters, warriors, and merchants, but women had a much more prominent role in trades, farming, land-administration, financial management, etc. For my game I made a few tweaks. My elves are somewhat egalitarianism in terms of 1) female elves more freely pursuing traditionally "male" roles and 2) stolen from an African matriarchal tribe, the local "elf-lord," which presumes a more charismatic style of "kingship," is always a son, or sometimes nephew, of most powerful local clan's matriarch. So, technically, they have a king, but his role is fairly strictly limited to being the magistrate and war-leader. The succession, however, happens when his mother (or aunt) dies! Most of the internal political tension of the elves in my campaign happens between women jockeying for clan leadership, and then clans jockeying the becomes the "first clan" of whatever settlement.

I'm not an edition warrior.
 
I run 5e, but have a bunch of 6e and 4e stuff, and mix and match from all three. 
 
Hero is my go to system, but my group has been pretty 5e D&D focused.
 
Its only recently that they suddenly perked up and asked about me running Champions again.
 
Everyone is super-stoked.

I run 5e with a less "granular" 4e build aesthetic.
I think 5e adds and clarifies a lot to the 4e chassis. 
It also introduced a cultural mindset of maximalist detail and granularity.
But that mindset isn't hard-coded into the rules. Its purely cultural and psychological.
Its just one way to build a game and characters.
Its the Steve way, and its 100% fine for those who prefer that style of play.
But Steve himself would tell you that you don't have to build characters his way.
And a lot of the later 5e and 6e books have a different style and sensibility.
Hero is super-flexible in all of its incarnations.
You can run pretty simple / streamlined 5e game if you go about it with some intentionality.
 

I run 5e with a less "granular" 4e build aesthetic.
I think 5e adds and clarifies a lot to the 4e chassis. 
It also introduced a cultural mindset of maximalist detail and granularity.
But that mindset isn't hard-coded into the rules. Its purely cultural and psychological.
Its just one way to build a game and characters.
Its the Steve way, and its 100% fine for those who prefer that style of play.
But Steve himself would tell you that you don't have to build characters his way.
And a lot of the later 5e and 6e books have a different style and sensibility.
Hero is super-flexible in all of its incarnations.
You can run pretty simple / streamlined 5e game if you go about it with some intentionality.
 

There are base mechanics in Hero and they are reasonably intuitive.
A bell curve roll to determine success is a base mechanic.
For skills that is a straight-forward bell-curve roll against a target number.
For combat, there is a formula to reach the bell-curve target number.
But, its still a bell-curve roll and modifiers affect it accordingly.
The same is true of damage and defenses.
There are base DC costs and base defense costs and consistent interactions.
And modifiers to those (and all powers) follow a consistent formula.
The AP/RP math is delightfully straight-forward and easy to use.
 
Is Hero simple? No. Hero is complex. 
Is Hero linear? No. Hero uses a bell curve.
Is Hero closed? No. Hero is an open eco-system.
 
But, for all that, it has clear and consistent "base mechanics."
Though, "mechanics" might not be the right word. It has clear and consistent mathematics.
I have been saying hero is the DOS prompt of the RPG world rather than a GUI since pre-DOJ boards.
This review is like a Windows user saying DOS isn't a core mechanic.
DOS is what Windows runs on. Its just hidden way under the hood.
In Hero there is no hood. You are staring straight at the engine that makes it go.
 
In fact, I would argue Hero is more consistent than many games that claim to have "core mechanics."
Why? Because the math is internally consisted and you have to engineer everything to play.
In many other games a lot of rules are hand-waving and the art of what "felt right" to the designers.
That's not, in of itself, a "Bad Thing" (TM), but it is far closer to gaming art than gaming science.
Not everyone wants to code the game they are going to play.
This reviewer is clearly such a person.

I'm not an edition warrior.
 
I run 5e, but have a bunch of 6e and 4e stuff, and mix and match from all three. 
 
Hero is my go to system, but my group has been pretty 5e D&D focused.
 
Its only recently that they suddenly perked up and asked about me running Champions again.
 
Everyone is super-stoked.

There are base mechanics in Hero and they are reasonably intuitive.
A bell curve roll to determine success is a base mechanic.
For skills that is a straight-forward bell-curve roll against a target number.
For combat, there is a formula to reach the bell-curve target number.
But, its still a bell-curve roll and modifiers affect it accordingly.
The same is true of damage and defenses.
There are base DC costs and base defense costs and consistent interactions.
And modifiers to those (and all powers) follow a consistent formula.
The AP/RP math is delightfully straight-forward and easy to use.
 
Is Hero simple? No. Hero is complex. 
Is Hero linear? No. Hero uses a bell curve.
Is Hero closed? No. Hero is an open eco-system.
 
But, for all that, it has clear and consistent "base mechanics."
Though, "mechanics" might not be the right word. It has clear and consistent mathematics.
I have been saying hero is the DOS prompt of the RPG world rather than a GUI since pre-DOJ boards.
This review is like a Windows user saying DOS isn't a core mechanic.
DOS is what Windows runs on. Its just hidden way under the hood.
In Hero there is no hood. You are staring straight at the engine that makes it go.
 
In fact, I would argue Hero is more consistent than many games that claim to have "core mechanics."
Why? Because the math is internally consisted and you have to engineer everything to play.
In many other games a lot of rules are hand-waving and the art of what "felt right" to the designers.
That's not, in of itself, a "Bad Thing" (TM), but it is far closer to gaming art than gaming science.
Not everyone wants to code the game they are going to play.
This reviewer is clearly such a person.

I'm not an edition warrior.
 
I run 5e, but have a bunch of 6e and 4e stuff, and mix and match from all three. 
 
Hero is my go to system, but my group has been pretty 5e D&D focused.
 
Its only recently that they suddenly perked up and asked about me running Champions again.
 
Everyone is super-stoked.

I'm not an edition warrior.
 
I run 5e, but have a bunch of 6e and 4e stuff, and mix and match from all three. 
 
Hero is my go to system, but my group has been pretty 5e D&D focused.
 
Its only recently that they suddenly perked up and asked about me running Champions again.
 
Everyone is super-stoked.

I'm not an edition warrior.
 
I run 5e, but have a bunch of 6e and 4e stuff, and mix and match from all three. 
 
Hero is my go to system, but my group has been pretty 5e D&D focused.
 
Its only recently that they suddenly perked up and asked about me running Champions again.
 
Everyone is super-stoked.

I'm not an edition warrior.
 
I run 5e, but have a bunch of 6e and 4e stuff, and mix and match from all three. 
 
Hero is my go to system, but my group has been pretty 5e D&D focused.
 
Its only recently that they suddenly perked up and asked about me running Champions again.
 
Everyone is super-stoked.

I run 5e with a less "granular" 4e build aesthetic.
I think 5e adds and clarifies a lot to the 4e chassis. 
It also introduced a cultural mindset of maximalist detail and granularity.
But that mindset isn't hard-coded into the rules. Its purely cultural and psychological.
Its just one way to build a game and characters.
Its the Steve way, and its 100% fine for those who prefer that style of play.
But Steve himself would tell you that you don't have to build characters his way.
And a lot of the later 5e and 6e books have a different style and sensibility.
Hero is super-flexible in all of its incarnations.
You can run pretty simple / streamlined 5e game if you go about it with some intentionality.
 

My long-term gaming group has been playing online with discord video-calls. We used to play all kinds of genres and systems, including Hero, but for the past 18 months all they've wanted to play is varying iterations of D&D 5e. It has some interesting ideas, but I really don't like the way it plays. The more options the devs introduce the more restrictive and bland it feels. When the cool races and classes from individual editions and settings all get lumped into core they lose their distinctiveness and it just becomes nonsensical kitchen-sink fantasy. Loss of focus means loss of vision.

I have a weird non-issue in that whenever I go to the Hero store I am often confronted with the option of PDF or hardcopy + PDF. I know the PDF is essentially a free add-on and I don't have to download it, but I always want to ask "could I just have the hard-copy ala carte, please?" Electronic copies are like carbs. As I get older, I find I don't want or need as many. 😈