ghost-angel

The Upside:
 
Cops, Crews, And Cabals is a collection of eleven organizations for use with the Champions Universe, or any Superhero setting. Some of the groups can even be used in other genres with little change. All of the organizations introduced are designed to be either smaller adversaries for the Heroes to take on - the kind of evil organization they can actually shut down completely unlike world spanning ones. Or background groups to help the Characters and add more to the campaign as a whole.
 
Chapter One - Angelstone Laboratories. This company is a small technology development group and think tank. They focus on small Defense contracts as well as working to develop technologies to capture Supervillains or otherwise help the Superheroes and other groups (like UNTIL or PRIMUS) with reports and briefings of goings on in the Superhuman World. The company is a private group that serves best as a side line assistant to the Heroes, whenever they get the Latest Threat Report of Dr. Destroyer you can use this group as the origin of that element for example.
 
Chapter Two - Bastion Alpha Security. In a world of Supervillains you can never have enough security. This company provides low level enhanced guards and agents for protection. One the outside this groups appears to have a process to enhance human capability to help them better compete with Supervillains, indeed a group of these agents could take down your average Super. However, this organization has a sinister aspect to it that makes it more mercenary than helpful.
 
Chapter Three - Executive Control Solutions. Another private security company, this one is founded by former UNTIL Agents, and operates under the premise than normal people with advanced technology is all the protection you need. Unlike Bastion Alpha this group relies on technology instead of enhancement. A much less sinister security company, this group presents a friendly face to the Heroes.
 
Chapter Four - The Exoplanetary Society. This is a diverse group of people who are concerned about aliens on planet Earth. Some are curious, some are watching for alien threats, and some think all aliens are harmful. This group can be used in several interesting ways, aside from some background color for the game they can be sinister (part of a conspiracy), innocent and well meaning, or a large collection of crackpots. Of all the groups this one has the potential to interact with the Heroes on several levels at once.
 
Chapter Five - Grand Cienelago Island. This is a vacation resort for Superheroes, and like the identities of many Superheroes is a Secret. It's hard to work in scenarios with this place involving Supervillains, but can provide plenty of interaction with many Superheroes and Super Groups in your campaign, especially if you feature a good number of them. It can be used to roleplay some down time, forge connections and create friendly rivalries.
 
Chapter Six - Millennium City Police Department, Special Unit Omega. This is a special unit within a special unit (MARS - Metahuman Activity Response Squad). This team of eight people are who is called when no one else on the police force can take down the Supervillain. They are good as a team on the police force to work with the heroes, or compete with them in a friendly (or not so friendly) rivalry. Like ECS from Chapter Three they are normal humans with advanced technology.
 
Chapter Seven - Sickbay. Even Superheroes get hurt, and going to the hospital raises all kinds of issues from filing police reports, trying not to expose your secret identity, and being mobbed by fans while trying to staunch the bleeding. Sickbay is an under the table, no questions asked medical help group for Superheroes. They don't want to know your identity, won't ask questions, just patch you up and send you back onto the streets. A good group to introduce to a game where healing isn't readily available and you don't want to deal with the issues of an actual hospital.
 
Chapter Eight - Trans-City Construction. Not all Super powered people have powers suitable to crime fighting, or the disposition for it. Some have low level superpowers, and the construction industry is a good place for many of those abilities. Trans-City Construction is a company run by a Metahuman capable of changing matter from one kind to another, and employs many other superhumans with low level but still useful abilities, such as Strength or Telekinesis. This is another group you can slide into the background of the campaign, notably as the company that repairs all the buildings after a super-fight.
 
All of the above groups are, more or less, friendly groups. Or at least appear to be on the good side. Each one describes the history of the group, the organizations setup and operations, and provides some ideas on how to use them. For some that means both as friends and adversaries. Each one also comes with some suggestions on how to run a campaign as members of that group, which can be a nice change to a Supergame, even if only for a session or two.
 
Chapter Nine - GMs Vault. This starts the other part of the book, the sinister organizations. The GMs Vault itself provides information on secrets and other possible dark sides to organizations in the first eight chapters. It also provides plot seeds for each of the groups to get them more involved in the campaign.
 
Chapter Ten - ICON. This is a consortium of would be world-ruling villains. The group, like so many others of their kind, want to take over the world for their own gain. But this group isn't as big or world spanning, yet. If you want to introduce a large group, but one small enough a group of Heroes has hope of completely shutting down, this is a good group to go with. They're also a good group to use against lower-powered Superheroes.
 
Chapter Eleven - Motlee's Crew. This is a group of thieves, each with a single, but useful, superpower they use to commit burglaries. Like their more powerful counterparts GRAB, they're in it simply for the money and not a fight. This group of sneak thieves is good for a short mystery burglary, or another good group for low-level supers to face.
 
Chapter Twelve - Villainy Unlimited. Even Supervillains need a support structure. From legal council, medical help, setting up trust funds with their ill-gotten gains, or even costume design. This is not a group the Players face, in fact there are no villains here, possible criminals yes, but no one to fight. This is simply a group you can use to give some plausible reasons for your Villains to acquire things or get things done. You can expand the group if needed, or not. The Players can try and use them to trace back to a Supervillain as well if you need them too.
 
The Appendix provides character sheets for the Security Guards from Chapters Two and Three, and the guard robots for use in Chapter Five.
 
The groups presented here are not designed to be world-beaters or high-powered adversaries. They are decidedly low level and fairly simple to use and face. A few good uses come to mind, first is to show that the Heroes can permanently stop a group of people, medium sized groups like ICON don't have the ability to have large numbers of members captured and suffer no setbacks (like VIPER could).
 
Beyond that, you can port some of these organizations to other genres. Sickbay and the two Security Companies, and ICON could all fit right into a Cyberpunk Campaign with almost no changes at all. Angelstone Laboratories could be a technology think tank company for any modern setting campaign, and if you remove the low-level powers Motlee's Crew becomes another group of well organized thieves. A little bit of work can take almost any of these groups out of the Superhero setting and into any number of modern settings, or even futuristic ones, easily.
 
The Downside:
 
No one groups gets any great detail, eleven groups in a relatively short book means a lot of information is skipped over. Some of the NPCs introduced have Character Sheets, and some don't. A little more consistency in that regards would have been nice. ICON especially could have used a little more in fleshing out how it operated.
 
The Otherside:
 
For a collection of low-powered, background and support groups this does an excellent job. Too often campaigns focus on the big organizations and forget the smaller ones or the middles ground. This provides a whole selection of names, organizations and technologies you can introduce to a campaign to add depth and flavor. Even for non-Hero Gamers and those not playing Superheroic Campaigns there is something in this book you can use to add more to a game.

The Upside:
 
Terran Empire is a setting book for the Star Hero line from Hero Games. It covers a classic Space Opera setting: space ships, galactic empires, lots of aliens, futuristic tech and psionics for those who want it.
 
Chapter One - History. The setting book starts with a history of the Terran Empire, which covers three hundred years. It starts with a period of near anarchy after the Xenovore Wars and continues to a period just after the final collapse of the Empire at the hands of rebels. Giving such a long time frame means that not every aspect of the Empire's history can be gone into. By focusing on only a few major events you can insert players into any time frame easily. Also covering such a long span of time allows you to start a campaign under different campaign styles.
 
A game set at the beginning will put exploration and unification as the key aspects. A game set during any one of the wars makes a good setting for a Space Military campaign. One during the height of the Empire as mankind goes really far out in exploration, can focus on trade. Toward the end can focus on rebels putting an end to tyranny, or the military trying to keep the crumbling empire together. Political, Espionage and Pirate games can be played at any time during the Empires reign.
 
Given such a long history, with only the most important of details revealed, the first chapter provides enough to choose a backdrop to set your Terran Empire campaign against.
 
Chapter Two - Peoples Of The Milkyway. Aliens, lots of them. Humans and aliens of the Terran Empire are detailed first, four human subspecies and four alien species are detailed. Each entry starts with the dominant species and then describes one or more aliens who are either subjugated or part of an empire with the main alien of each section. Even the side bars have short descriptions of aliens so you get as many as they could fit in. Over forty species are given some form of description. Most are given a full write-up of culture, home world, politics and appearance with a Package Deal for system info. The aliens in the sidebars simply have descriptions, a note on a major aspect and a Package Deal. There are a few who are given just a paragraph description. There is a wide spread of alien types, from strait humanoid, to those based on other species types (such as aliens evolved from birds, fish, or reptiles). There are a few that are completely alien such as a silicon based alien, and a parasite alien able to take control of a host species.
 
There is also a wide range of political, religious and social beliefs. With a good cross section of aliens and aliens mind sets you won't have much trouble making each species seem very different from each other.
 
Chapter Three - Powers And Pawns. Chapter three gives details on a specific period of the Empire as a default setting. By picking a small period the book is able to provide details on several aspects. The default setting is just before the Empire slides into decline, during a period where its power has peaked but hasn't become completely corrupt. This is a good focus as it provides a wide range of campaign types including military, espionage, trade, diplomacy, and virtually any other Space Opera concept you can think of.
 
Starting with the Imperial Court and those around during the reign of Marissa III, and the eleven ministries she uses to govern the Empire. Most of them get a short description here, a few are gone into in much greater detail later in the chapter. The Senate is described next, with a group of important Senators. After that some of the ministries that PCs are most likely to have encounters with are given space: Justice Ministry (Imperial courts), Imperial Security Police (Imperial police), Mind Police, Security Service (or Secret Service), The Military (and the three branches, Navy, Marines and Army), Exploration Service, Diplomatic Corps and Intelligence Command.
 
The next section covers planets. Starting with the star system of the Terran Empire and then each of the seven other major powers. The Ackalian Empire, Conjoined Civilizations Republic, Mon'Dabi Federation, Perseid Empire, Thorgon Hegemony, Varanyi Empire, and Velarian Confederation. You should have enough strange and unique worlds in both friendly and hostile territory for any game.
 
Chapter Four - Galactic Society. This is divided into four main sections, covering the major aspects of what makes most any society go. The first is Travel And Communication. Travel covers not just moving from planet to planet but within a star system and from planet to space and back. It comes with suggested prices as well for moving things and people around as well as some interesting ideas on modes of transportation. One of the ideas I took away based on travel and how people get around is that a star system in the Terran Empire is analogous to a city (and surrounding area) in a modern society. Especially when you couple it with the Communication section. While the setting makes it possible to talk over long distances (hundreds of lightyears), it's not instant or fast. This focuses the average citizen into their own part of the Empire and their particular problems. This kind of setting setup allows you to have vastly different worlds within the Empire.
 
Trade And The Economy covers various trade goods, how they get around, what the costs are and similar important items. It also covers big business and some of the major corporations in the Empire. One of the interesting touches that it leaves in the hands of the Group is exchange rates. Being a space opera setting it normally forgoes such detail in favor of fast action, but if the game focuses on Trade such a thing could be an important aspect of the game. There's also a short section on automatons and robots and how they operate within society.
 
Religion And Philosophy covers nine major fictitional religions that have appeared in the far future. A few of them stem from humanity, but most of the ones covered are alien religions and philosophical beliefs. Noting that there are as many religions as species (if not dozens per species), it only covers the very large ones that have spread through the galaxy. This is a nice addition to the setting and can go a long way to making the backdrop of a Terran Empire game that much more real.
 
The last section is The Underworld. Fist is a note on major crimes: piracy, smuggling, quarantine violations, treason and slavery. There are also several organized crime syndicates that we get some information on, but nothing very detailed.
 
Chapter Five - Character Creation. The first part is Package Deals, guidelines for building various professions of the Terran Empire. They include Imperial and Government (six packages), Law Enforcement and Intelligence (six packages), Military (nineteen packages), and Civilian broken down into criminal (six packages), spacer (four packages), and other (six packages). These professions cover pretty much anything you can think of as a major character archetype in a space opera setting.
 
Next is Game Elements, covering the various aspects of the Hero System and how they're used in the setting. The Skills section gets most of the focus. With notes on buying very alien Alien Languages, and how Transport and Weapon Familiarities are handled in the setting.
 
The next sections are Psionics and Body Modifications (cyber and bioware). Both cover how they are treated in the system legally and socially. As well as information on how each are purchased mechanically in the setting.
 
Chapter Six - Equipment And Technology. Starting with General Tech Issues this chapter covers the settings measurement of technological level, ATRI (Available Technical Resources Index). Going over what each level provides, in a general sense, and disparate levels between industries (Ackalian military tech is ahead of their biotech for instance).
 
After that the chapter gets into equipment itself, with lots of write-ups and descriptions. Starting with every bodies favorite gaming tool: weapons. Then going onto defensive equipment, computers and electronics, and miscellaneous equipment. The last part is a price list for equipment in the current period. Both human and alien equipment is presented for a wide range of stuff for your players to interact with.
 
Chapter Seven - Starships. What's a space opera game without star ships? It's not space opera, that's what. The Starships chapter takes up most of it's space by going over various systems that make up a ship. Propulsion, weapons, defenses, sensors, and other assorted systems. It gives both Human and Alien information for various attributes. This allows the GM to custom build starships easily to fit various ATRI levels, or their own whim. It also allows the game to vary the ships a bit. After all, the setting says there are hundreds of companies building thousands of ship models, so the kit-bash approach suits the setting well from a mechanical point of view. The chapter also provides write-ups for major military vessels of both the Terran Empire and Alien powers.
 
Chapter Eight - Terran Empire Campaigns. This is a rather short chapter, but has two important parts. The first is guidelines for setting up a Terran Empire campaign. It discusses setting up the game, and "powers" such as Psionics and body modifications and what levels you want to allow into a game - too much Body Modification and it can turn into a Cyber Hero game, too many weird Psionics and you're approaching a Champions game.
 
The second half is the GM's Vault. This contains references to things from the rest of the book, going into the Real Story behind some events, providing the truth on various rumors and in case you need one a write-up for Empress Marissa III, the reigning monarch during the default period.
 
The Downside:
 
Not much stands out as being a downside to the book. One thing I feel compelled to point out simply because seeing it irritates me a great deal. Under trade prices are listed as a random die roll times a number of credits. I'd prefer to see a range of numbers, the random die roll makes it feel like I'm reading a bad adventure from the 1980s. Especially since most of the trade section is written in price ranges or suggestions, to insert the sudden "roll here" element seems distracting.
 
The Otherside:
 
The first half of the book is mostly bereft of system information making it easy to pull just the setting out and use it with your system of choice.
 
The setting itself is engaging, and by providing a long history with various elements to each period of the Empire you get a wide array of options for setting up a space opera game. While most of the details in the book cover just a small period there are suggestions throughout on how various aspects were different in other periods. Terran Empire does more than an excellent job of providing a solid space opera setting to game in.

I would love to this would have been the case; but during the lifespan of DOJ as custodians of Hero, any book that didn't say "Champions" on the front generally sold very very poorly. The buying public made it clear: non-superhero Hero stuff was not going to sell.
 
Which is part of why I will never again support a book with the words "Champions" on it. Other failed to support my favorite genre, I won't support theirs.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings
 
I just learned about, and consequently Lost, The Game.
 
thnx Alice.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER
 
yep.

Re: Longest Running Thread EVER
 
Bob Dobbs is proud of your Slack.

Characteristic generally fall under AP Guidelines (STR for instance, as it directly effects Damage Classes, generally falls into this category).
 
There is nothing that explicitly states Characteristics fall under Active Point Guidelines, as there are usually a separate set of Characteristic Guidelines that are laid out with any other guidelines.
 
A best practice is set the following three Guidelines for a campaign:
Characteristic Ranges (included defense ranges, and CV ranges after all bonuses are accounted for)
Active Points
Damage Classes
 
not all Advantages are damage related, which is where separating DCs and APs comes in handy; a game may set Active Points at 80 but Damage Classes at only 12.

I'd like to start by stating how completely weird it is for suits to have belly buttons, and it verges on creepy when you realize it's just the women's suits.
 
Omni; She was just a normal teenager in the year 2243, well until her powers manifested. And what a doozy that set of powers was. She could channel past lives into new physical bodies. Each past life a superhero in their own right. Sometimes the change was weird, like Andrew, the telepath, could only be channeled as his 10 year old self. She gets flashes of their lives when she shifts, past heroic deeds, successes and failures. These flashes have given her experience far beyond her years in the continuing battle against Mechanon...

I'd like to start by stating how completely weird it is for suits to have belly buttons, and it verges on creepy when you realize it's just the women's suits.
 
Omni; She was just a normal teenager in the year 2243, well until her powers manifested. And what a doozy that set of powers was. She could channel past lives into new physical bodies. Each past life a superhero in their own right. Sometimes the change was weird, like Andrew, the telepath, could only be channeled as his 10 year old self. She gets flashes of their lives when she shifts, past heroic deeds, successes and failures. These flashes have given her experience far beyond her years in the continuing battle against Mechanon...

I'd like to start by stating how completely weird it is for suits to have belly buttons, and it verges on creepy when you realize it's just the women's suits.
 
Omni; She was just a normal teenager in the year 2243, well until her powers manifested. And what a doozy that set of powers was. She could channel past lives into new physical bodies. Each past life a superhero in their own right. Sometimes the change was weird, like Andrew, the telepath, could only be channeled as his 10 year old self. She gets flashes of their lives when she shifts, past heroic deeds, successes and failures. These flashes have given her experience far beyond her years in the continuing battle against Mechanon...

TreChriron's HERO 6e Deluxe Character Sheet.
 
Looking for input! I want to make sure it's somewhat usable before I make a form fill version.
 
------ From the Description ----
This is a 3 page character sheet I whipped up for HERO 6th Edition. Here is a summary of the pages;
 
Profile - characteristics, movement, senses, points, perks and talents and finally complications. All skills and powers / equipment. Combat profile - vitals tracking, to-hit chart, defenses, combat values, references and maneuvers.  
Design goals;
 
I wanted a sheet that was more "newb" friendly. So I tried to include the full names of characteristics with abbreviations. I also wanted it to be easier on ink, hence the various watermarks.
I also like my personal info at the top of the first sheet. I feel this approach makes it easier to use.
 
During social or interpersonal scenes, you can have sheet 1 and sheet 2 face up. During combat, you can have sheets 2 and 3 face up.  
This allows for 2 sheets face up side-by-side depending on the focus of the "scene".
 

It's a Plot Point; Build the Lions (or if you're going for the other series the various ships), build Voltron, use Vehicle Rules, hand wave the combining as Cool Stuff That Happens; Give the players different roles in Voltron like you would any Starship style combat.

I would define Character Development is the change in the characters story over several role playing sessions; while small shifts in development happen in single sessions full Character Development Arcs play out over the long term.
 
Role Play just being in character. I expect that at a con-game. Otherwise it's just rollplay and while I can play monopoly, it's boring.

I wouldn't worry about what the GM can do; a good and fair GM won't just fiat their way around interesting things.
 
Creating a localized wind field to deflect incoming missile attacks is a really cool idea and effect.

Change Environment; There's a 3 point "-1 Range Modifier, or some other Combat Penalty"; So if the GM agrees a "-1 OCV" or "+1 DCV Of Hex" is an appropriate use of this CE Adder, I recommend that. It's clean and does what you want it to.

It's a Plot Point; Build the Lions (or if you're going for the other series the various ships), build Voltron, use Vehicle Rules, hand wave the combining as Cool Stuff That Happens; Give the players different roles in Voltron like you would any Starship style combat.

It is 1 Point of Normal Damage (Body + Stun) that is triggered when a Target is in the CE Area Of Effect, they take the point when they first enter the area, and every time the Character who activated/controls the Change Environment has their Phase come up.

I agree with those saying VPP; it's what it was designed for.
 
With a little bit of customization to how/when powers can be "switched out"; as the default assumes you have every power imaginable and that switching is for individual powers that are 'active' in the Pool. An additional "can only choose from the list in the book" on the Framework itself at, perhaps -1/2, would restrict the player to a given Suite of Powers at a time. Then the standard limitations of how often an individual Power can be brought into the active Pool based on how you see any given Book being used (is switching out powers as simple as turning the page? probably as a 0 Phase Action, or does the character have to find the right page, and quickly read it's instructions (1/2 to Full Phase) actions...

Having built several characters with MP (and one VPP) that was designed to be nothing but Naked Advantages on a base Power, it works just fine in play without any real problems. I found it no more ripe for abuse than anything else in the system.

I like CE a lot for this as I've been thinking it over.
 
One alternative idea that came to mind was a one-way mobile Barrier with the limitations that it only stops AoE attacks and if the attacker makes an attack roll at -X then the barrier fails to stop the attack.  Possibly more mechanically correct, but I think a CE with some GM generosity does the trick.
 
And in this case - I'm the GM. 

Change Environment affects an area, not a Target; but technically yes, the Attacking Character would have to be In The CE Area to be affected; As a GM I would easily be inclined to say this affects things coming into the Area Affected (like missile attacks) as it does characters acting in the area itself.

Change Environment; There's a 3 point "-1 Range Modifier, or some other Combat Penalty"; So if the GM agrees a "-1 OCV" or "+1 DCV Of Hex" is an appropriate use of this CE Adder, I recommend that. It's clean and does what you want it to.

Change Environment affects an area, not a Target; but technically yes, the Attacking Character would have to be In The CE Area to be affected; As a GM I would easily be inclined to say this affects things coming into the Area Affected (like missile attacks) as it does characters acting in the area itself.

I wouldn't worry about what the GM can do; a good and fair GM won't just fiat their way around interesting things.
 
Creating a localized wind field to deflect incoming missile attacks is a really cool idea and effect.

If the important part is you can't use the Power for an hour after it's used then just add a Custom Limitation "Can only be used for 5 Minutes, then Cannot be used for 1 Hour after That Period" -1 or 1 1/2, whatever the GM feels is appropriate. It's really that simple.