Joe Walsh

George Perez’s ‘JLA/Avengers’ Gets New Printing Via Hero Initiative

Our campaign is heavily 4th with a alot of other stuff thrown in but almost no 6th edition. Got some 1st, 2nd, 3rd edition and considerable 5th.  I mean, a couple weeks ago, I ran a game where a villain with martial arts was still in 1st Edition martial arts and it didn't make one bit of difference for the game fun. So, yup, the systems can run together.

Spoiler for those who haven't seen it/them yet:
 

I sure hope the Netflix Marvel stuff ends up on D+ or Hulu or somewhere we can watch it. I'd hate to never be able to watch S1 of Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Luke Cage again.
 
Yesterday we watched Nobody on HBOMax. It's yet another movie in the John Wick subgenre. Unlike many of the imitators, this one was watchable. I like that it's somewhat realistic at the beginning, but I didn't like that as it goes on it gets more ridiculous until you end up with the bad guys' guns' narrative effect being the equivalent of shouting "I'm angry! I'm dangerous! I'm gonna get you!" as the bullets fly all around but never really threaten the hero. Still, there were funny bits throughout, and it was nice to see Christopher Lloyd being a badass.
 

Anyone who enjoys the US version of Ghosts may want to check out the original UK version. It's on HBOMax in the US. We liked both, and hope there are more episodes of both soon.
 
(S1E1 of each series are almost the same, but after that they diverge and mostly go their own ways, as they should, based on the US and UK's different histories.)
 

In France, they call him a Sorcerer With Cheese.

That sounds a lot like what Steve Jackson Games did when they released the Dungeon Fantasy Role-Playing Game. It's "Powered by GURPS" but it's its own thing. No GURPS manuals needed or even encouraged. Just an option if you want it.
 
They ran a Kickstarter for the initial boxed set. It was successful, but not successful enough for them to reprint it after the initial print run. They actually cut their planned initial print run based on expected sales. They offered the PDFs in their company store, but otherwise planned to let it lie dormant.
 
Then a funny thing happened. Demand picked up, a GURPS licensee decided to support it with supplements, SJGames started producing supplements, etc.
 
I'm not saying it was a huge hit, but I think in the long run it's done reasonably well for a mechanically heavy dungeon delving RPG.
 
DFRPG (as it's known) plays to GURPS' strengths (namely, its granularity at the low end, and its melee combat system).
 
At the time, I thought it was an excellent sign that a new Champions boxed set could be even more of a hit, if done right. I still think that could work, with a simplified ruleset and the right supporting supplements. DFRPG consists of 430 pages in 5 books: character creation, game rules, spells, monsters, and an adventure. Champions could have the first two, plus an enemies book, a setting book, and a first adventure. Hopefully keeping the rules stuff as minimal as possible, using most of whatever the page count would be toward enemies, setting, and adventure material.
 
I know; mere pipe dreams. But still, since we're discussing the idea, it looks like a viable concept, even if DOJ's not ready to do that at the moment.
 

I liked both versions, but after awhile the complete idiocy of the British husband becomes grating and annoying.  I like the American version better.

I've watched the first three episodes of Ghosts. Woman and her husband inherit an old family house that is haunted by everyone who died in the vicinity, woman falls down the stairs and has a near-death experience, woman can now see all the ghosts, husband is convinced she's having a psychotic break from reality until she starts telling him things only the ghosts would know. It has potential.

That tends to happen in any discussion of fundamental mechanics, and in any discussion of anything else.  

From what I've seen of the comic books (and once again, on the off chance that anyone doesn't know this: I was never a comic book kid), not at all.  We have constant communication with aliens and technology that lets us step through a shadow and arrive in an alternate dimension, and machines that heal people who should have died long before they got the condition that they are in just before being subjected to the miracle healing machine.  We have miraculous teleportation devices and cloning technology that can turn one tomato plant into a thousand in just moments.
 
Yet when Captain America's secret ID needs to run to Europe, he gets his passport and climbs on a plane like every single person on the planet.  He might travel all the way to Ethiopia, which, in spite of our incredible technology, still suffers from drought and famine, and rather than turning the Sahara into a verdant jungle paradise, we let villains hide their secret missile bases there.
 
 
So from what I've seen of comics, there is an absolute status quo of "right here; right now" that is not only where the setting _is_, but that must be maintained and returned to between every adventure.
 
 
You can run your world differently-- I know I do-- but staying true to the comics?  Superheroes deal with Supervillains while serial killers still stalk college girls.
 
 

That sounds a lot like what Steve Jackson Games did when they released the Dungeon Fantasy Role-Playing Game. It's "Powered by GURPS" but it's its own thing. No GURPS manuals needed or even encouraged. Just an option if you want it.
 
They ran a Kickstarter for the initial boxed set. It was successful, but not successful enough for them to reprint it after the initial print run. They actually cut their planned initial print run based on expected sales. They offered the PDFs in their company store, but otherwise planned to let it lie dormant.
 
Then a funny thing happened. Demand picked up, a GURPS licensee decided to support it with supplements, SJGames started producing supplements, etc.
 
I'm not saying it was a huge hit, but I think in the long run it's done reasonably well for a mechanically heavy dungeon delving RPG.
 
DFRPG (as it's known) plays to GURPS' strengths (namely, its granularity at the low end, and its melee combat system).
 
At the time, I thought it was an excellent sign that a new Champions boxed set could be even more of a hit, if done right. I still think that could work, with a simplified ruleset and the right supporting supplements. DFRPG consists of 430 pages in 5 books: character creation, game rules, spells, monsters, and an adventure. Champions could have the first two, plus an enemies book, a setting book, and a first adventure. Hopefully keeping the rules stuff as minimal as possible, using most of whatever the page count would be toward enemies, setting, and adventure material.
 
I know; mere pipe dreams. But still, since we're discussing the idea, it looks like a viable concept, even if DOJ's not ready to do that at the moment.
 

Boba Fett had some...uhhh...issues.  I though the overall storyline and plot was good, but the some of the dialogue was shoddy and the action was crap (if I have to watch those ugly speeder bikes racing down the street at a sleep-inducing 5 mph during what is supposed to be a thrilling action sequence i may have a stroke) except for ep 5 and some of 7.  Out of all the new characters, the best acting and dialogue came from Jennifer Beals, frankly.  Fennec and Boba had zero charisma or personality.
 
Episode 5 was easily the best which is incredibly problematic given that it was a Mandalorian bonus episode.  I did enjoy the Tusken flashbacks - they were solid.

I sure hope the Netflix Marvel stuff ends up on D+ or Hulu or somewhere we can watch it. I'd hate to never be able to watch S1 of Jessica Jones, Daredevil, and Luke Cage again.
 
Yesterday we watched Nobody on HBOMax. It's yet another movie in the John Wick subgenre. Unlike many of the imitators, this one was watchable. I like that it's somewhat realistic at the beginning, but I didn't like that as it goes on it gets more ridiculous until you end up with the bad guys' guns' narrative effect being the equivalent of shouting "I'm angry! I'm dangerous! I'm gonna get you!" as the bullets fly all around but never really threaten the hero. Still, there were funny bits throughout, and it was nice to see Christopher Lloyd being a badass.
 

Season 1 is VERY, VERY good. Maybe the best Marvel villain portrayal throughout all the MCU movies and TV.
 
Slowly drops in quality thru seasons 2 and 3.  3 is just ok IMO.

I was doing some searching on the internet and somehow I came across these two items that I never knew existed.
It's probably old news to some of you (since it is technically old news).
But I found the information quite interesting.
The first link is an article articulating highlights/lowlights of the history of the Hero System.
The second link is a thread dedicated to discussing the Hero 4th Edition (BBB).
 
The Age Of Hero
 
Hero Lets Read The Big Blue Book
 

Thanks, Joe!
 
In my downward spiral toward sleep, I had forgotten PS238.
 
I will have to edit that back into the list above immediately!
 
 
I think we should stress "_could_ work well."
 
DC Heroes (and to a lesser extent, Batman, both by Mayfair, if I recall) were wildly successful, and certain editions of DC Heroes are still sought after today.  
 
TSR's Marvel Superheroes caught fire immediately solely because of the licensed properties, but even a revision couldn't save it for long-term popularity. 
 
 
You are correct, of course: there was precious little in any of these games with regard to building a campaign or a world.  I did note, however, that these games were all at least as 'complete' as the first two editions of Champions (and possibly the third edition: the "Campaign Book" in 3e was a single extended adventure with little in it not related to the scenarios it contained).  When we all bought those books, we may have wished for more, but we never doubted that they were completely playable as-is.   I don't know who said it, but some years ago I stumbled across a Traveller blog discussing a similar topic that is quite dear to me: the growth of Traveller-- what it has become versus what Mark Miller conceived and prefers, and what the fans demanded it become.  I won't bore anyone with more details about an entirely different game, but the blogger offered a quote that summed up the entire thing quite nicely:  "The standards have changed.  People don't have the time, or perhaps the desire, to imagine anymore."
 
Certainly, some genres _need_ more setting info than do others.  Science Fiction is something of an example of this: whereas supers are 'right here; right now,' and we are all as familiar with the here and now as we are likely to ever be, supers needs very little outside of an example of a normal person and a couple of supers so that players and GMs may scale their earliest builds, Sci-Fi is playing in a world yet-to-come.  Are there millions of planets?  Hundreds?  Two?  Do we move amongst the stars quickly, or in generational ships?  What's the upper limit of technology-- communications, weapons, defenses, terraforming.  What is the government like at the place the game starts?  Different people will want different amounts of this, just as some people will need or want none of it.
 
Fantasy, though-- in Fantasy, you are playing in a land that never, ever was (unless you consider Arthurian to be fantasy more than >ahem< "historical" or "period."  (I suppose that depends on where you stand on Merlin and 'strange women in lakes handing out swords'   .)  That takes a bit more: which fantasy standards are you using, for one.  Are there races other than human?  It goes on and on.  Still, as a genre, it is perhaps the most explored in fiction (right after Adam Sandler movies, I think), and I expect that anyone interested in picking up a book such as FHC will already have some wonderful ideas of his own from which to draw, and a glut of outside inspiration he has already consumed.  Because of this, with the admission that there should have been-- just like with Champions-- a couple of "normal people" and a couple of powerful adventurers and a few pre-made spells would have helped new players to scale their first few characters until they settled on the level they preferred.  Even at that, though, I find, compared to the original Champions books that we did not doubt were complete games, that FHC was just as complete as Champions was.  The original FHC was just as complete as well: swap out "magic" for "powers" and they were nearly the same book, reskinned and renaming several major elements (the SFX / mechanics separation demonstrated in real life!     )
 
"The standards have changed...", I think.  There are lots and lots of potential reasons why, but ultimately, people demand more of a game than they ever did before.  To be fair, they _always_ demanded more.  That's why D and D currently has more books that I have a hope of reading before I die even if I were to stop here mid-sentence and start reading.  It's why Traveller expanded beyond a generic system for space adventures of any kind and into the Third Imperium and beyond (man, that beyond was a mistake, but again: just my opinion. Or, more succinctly: MegaTraveller sssstttaaaaaannnnkkkkk!!!!      ). 
 
 
 
 
Agreed, but I will need a bit of help (no; I am not teasing you: while I did enjoy CNM, and played it for three or four years before moving back to 2e, I honestly don't remember the answer to this question):  was that campaign part of the initial rules book, or did you have to buy the two additional books?  I remember needing those books to get more of the rules (which at the time I thought was a marketing blunder of epic proportions, particularly when even after having them all, we still had to crib stuff from BGC to make it fluid), and I have stated above that I really liked the Bay City setting (so much so that even today, Bay City is part of my universe, situated forty-four miles west of Campaign City, on the shores of Lake Campaign.  ).  To date, it remains the _only_ published setting book I have ever used.
 
Sorry:  without extraneous distraction:  was the campaign contained in the original book?  I genuinely don't remember with any degree of certainty.  I know there were a couple of villains in there (did anyone _ever_ figure out just where Grond's extra arms actually attached to his body?    ), which again: an example of a normal character (which, in Hero, sort of defaults to the blank character sheet-- or rather, it _did_.  6e took that way from us, too, since a blank sheet is now straight zeroes), a powerful character, and a relatively "normal adventurer or adversary" are, at least to me, very important.  I don't need many, but one of each helps establish a scale.
 
 
I would like to step back and make an observation.  I prefer, out of courtesy, to ask "if you will permit," but as this board is a 'say your thing and run' format, I will instead ask that you bear in mind that I mean no derision and, as is well-documented all over this board-- I _do not_ sarcasm:
 
I am detecting a common sentiment in many of your replies.  For clarification, so that we can better understand each other's position, I would like to ask "do you feel that a fleshed-out world or setting is important to qualify a game as 'complete?'  If you do not feel a fleshed-out world is necessary to make a complete game, please disregard the follow up question.  If you do find it critical, what level of detail do you prefer, what is acceptable, and what is your 'absolute lowest acceptable' threshold to meet the requirements?
 
Secondly, do you feel a pre-packaged adventure is necessary to make a game complete?  If so, do you require or prefer a full-on multi-arc campaign, a multi-session story arc (presumably start to finish, but not necessarily), a meaty scenario, or a handful of "seeds?"  Feel free to prefer more than one; this is an exercise in understanding your preferences on the subject. 
 
In the interest of sharing positions, I will happily answer the questions for myself:
 
I _prefer_ a small amount of setting, at least in fantasy and in what I will call "niche" genres such as cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, or urban fantasy.  I do not call them 'niche' to deride them, but because they are subsets of larger genres with a lot of leeway in definition, and so I would prefer to have some sort of hint as to how to build for the themes presented.  In all likelihood, we will wander into our own groove within three or four adventures anyway.
 
I don't need information on government or nobility or such unless one of the prime themes of the game is staying right here, where we are, forever.  If crime and punishment is different from the norms, give me a paragraph on that.    Other than that, give me one or two examples of "normals," "typical adventurer class characters / foes," and "powerful, end-of-campaign" level adversaries.  I can fill in from there, while tailoring for the group at hand.  I only need to know about currency and exchange rates if things cost money, in which case a short list of things and prices is quite helpful.  Thinking about it, I am probably going to make up exchange rates on the fly rather than stop and math up regional lists, so just a list of things and prices.   
 
A sample or two of player races (again: a normal, a PC-level character, and a powerful one, though the powerful one is not as important as a normal and a PC-level one) and some suggestions on who and what the race is, in case someone wants to play one or I need to use one as an NPC.  Even then: I don't need this if the race is a well-known stereotype (elves!  Elves _everywhere_!  And Scottish Dwarves!  When and where and why did that happen?!   )
 
Adventures is a bit....   well, that varies from genre to genre.  Fantasy and Sci-Fi have tropes, but given the niches and ranges of power levels even with the genre, a two short scenarios covering two radically different situations or one meaty scenario covering both seems ideal, but....  well, I just admited that I owned Viper's Nest for twenty years or so before I ever actually read it--- which opens another can of worms:
 
I hated it.  I mean I really did not like it.  My first thought was "a dungeon crawl?!  In spandex?"  Sure, it was a bit more than that, but the main goal seemed to be going through the Nest and clearing it, etc.
 
I do like a short list of ideas ("seeds," as the cool kids call them), but here is the thing about all of this:
 
I am almost certainly not going to use them.  No; I don't mean that in any negative way.  I like to _see_ them, and sometimes to read them, simply because it gives some clue as to what the author(s) saw as typical interaction with the world in their mind.  They give hints toward motivations, society, and even locations sometimes, and power levels (any adventure that suggests a handful of PCs take out an entire battalion gives you a really good idea of what PCs should be capable of, right?), but I don't typically run them, ever.
 
 
 
You will never hear me disagree with this, even though on this board, it tends to be a very unpopular opinion. I am not going to scold you for saying it, because I say it _a lot_;  I simply want to warn you that you will end up having to defend this almost every time you say it out loud.  (Believe me; I've been there _a lot_.    )
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I have to concur.  This has been a rather pleasant way to enjoy a cup of coffee the last couple of days.   I see Hugh has replied while I was typing.  I am quite anxious to hear his thoughts on this.
 
have fun, Tasha!
 
 

IMHO this is the best part of any Hero System game. The default power levels are not for total neophyte characters. They are generally competent. Which is something I bring to as many games as possible.

I guess you are talking 4e-5er point limits? We always played with 350 pt characters (yes back in 4e days), Throwing DC12 for most things. In 6e I like 450-500 pt characters with DC 12 attacks.

For new players I would probably start with ~400 pt characters with CV based in Characteristics (No skill levels), all powers without Limitations, no advantages. Keep the characters VERY simple. IMHO it seems like Champions Begins did a GREAT Job of creating characters for Newbie players. Also, with characters getting complexity added after certain thresholds. I wish we had this years ago.

I bought Champions New Millennium (1e) and both the supplements to it. Back in the day you could also DL the Fuzion rules for free from R.Tal's website. I should also have a Fan created PDF of the whole Champions powerset Fuzion style. I also own Hero Creator which included the Fuzion template.

They had flaws, they had figured characteristics that didn't work well with the base system. IMHO it would have been better if it used the 6e style of buying secondary characteristics. It was easy to run, and my mostly newbie (to Hero or Fuzion) players got it really quickly.

I have the CNM that stripped all Fuzion out of the book. I ran CNM using Hero 5-6. It was nice to have a game city that was on the west coast. Written by people who live here in the bay area. CNM is a big loveletter to the SF Bay Area. Unfortunately, it's very outdated now.
Nah, you need the original CNM, Alliances, and Bay city. to get a full set of the rules. CNM also included truncated Mekton rules for creating vehicles. It also included Life Path for Champions which was VERY useful.

As sourcebooks they were IMHO the most accessible set of game world books that has ever been created for any Champions Edition. Characters(Villains) that I thought were boring in Champions 1-4 were interesting in CNM.

I hate to say this, because obviously it can't be true, but maybe they are trying to target a younger audience and not old fogies. How anyone could think we are fogies, I have no idea.

Meanwhile, on Boba Fett, the narrative wanders the Star Wars universe, slowly transforming itself into mush.
 
Is Episode 7 going to be a musical titled, "We don't talk about Boba"?
 
 

So, without going on a long, tiresome philosophical rant, I'd agree with LL and others that selfishness is the Essence of Evil, whether for fantasy or any other genre.
 
"At best, you are a means to my ends. At worst, you are a stench in my God's nostrils that I must eradicate."
 
The egotism can sometimes be collective. Evil people can appear selfless, but only because their "I" is my tribe, my country, my cult of my god, etc.
 
There is also probably some self-serving lie to justify that egotism. Likely, several. I suppose one could postulate villains or whole "evil" races that honestly say, "Um, yeah, we hate everybody else and want to kill them and take their stuff, it's just how we roll." But I find it rather dull. I'd rather give heroes the satisfaction of knowing they have struck a blow for truth or some other selfless cause, not just, "We kill them because they try to kill us."
 
Dean Shomshak

Well, that begs the question of, what makes the organization evil?  For my part, I find it hard to believe that any cause which we would define as "evil" would be capable of inspiring such unselfish devotion, and not play on the qualities I defined on my previous post.
 
Let's take Nazism. I'm willing to concede that there can be Nazis who believe firmly in that philosophy, and would be willing to put themselves in harm's way to preserve and promote it. But what they're devoted to is repression of the majority by a minority which exists only due to an accident of birth, to the point of resorting to violence and even murder in support of that cause; and which targets specific groups for particular oppression and vilification.