Joe Walsh

I haven't shared this in a while, so here's my current development notes. Note that I do plan to stick with the Espionage! versions of the Language and Martial Arts skills. They are important to the appeal of Hero System 2e to me.
 
 

I really do wish someone would rebuild DI, just the basic "here's how to do it in Hero" template for heroic adventures, then release books covering different time periods so you could apply it to 1930's pulp and detective, 1940's war time, 1950s-60s spy stuff, 1970s kung fu action, 1980s action adventure movies, etc.  Just short books with a quick overview of the world, some adventure seeds, equipment, costs, etc for each era.
 
This is not really in my sweet spot like Western Hero was or I'd give it a go.  Steve Long could pull it off, for example, if he can find the time.

A universal system stays the same system from one genre to the next, a multi-genre system changes as you do so.
Multi-genre is their term, I prefer "core system," but I guess that's a bit more not-universal, since it means a whole new game, not just a new worldbook.
 
Like Hero before the BBB was a core system. Champions, Espionage, Fantasy Hero, etc, were separate games.  BBB on, universal. (Though there's a few arguable variations, like hit locations or not; or skills)

Regarding the firearms list:
 
Consider making it  perhaps a 4-page (_at most_) appendix.  Rather than brea I ing them up by type or size, consider breaking them into 20 or 25-year blocks.  Thus, if I wanted to play a western, I have the appropriate items in one block.  Same with cold-war era espionage or modern guerilla warfare.
 
Meant to quote it, but forgot:
 
Rgarding secret agents without guns:
 
Guns are for your James Bond types.  Sure; they're agents.  However, it is absolutely no secret.
 
I suspect the emphasis on "sont use your gun" was to prevent a covert up from becoming a raid wherein the players cover everyone, steal the diling cabinet and leave in under two minutes.
 
Though there is also the notion that a gunshot or forty might bring unwanted attention, and just how good is your cover when the French version of CSI starts poking about and asking questions?  Like "why do you have a gun?"
 
 

Hero is NOT a Modern, Minimalist, Fiction forward, system. It's a "Universal" system, and that sort of detail would be necessary, especially following the tool box template.

Now rather than sneaky Spy stuff, I tended to run Espionage and D.I. as "modern Mercenary" where it was a Tactical Waregame in a central American Jungle, with Roleplay to give context to the upcoming fights.  As a game, and run at conventions it worked quite well as a Schwazeneggar, or Stallone Movie simulator for entertainment and fun.  You are correct about classic Traveller, and even Mongoose Traveller.3e fits that definition. If guns come out there, most people would put their hands up, as survival was questionable at best if the other guys started shooting. But is that the game you are aiming at?

Yeah the only way we ever played Danger International as action adventure stuff like Terminator vs Miami Vice, that kind of thing.  It would work fine for spies, we just didn't have any interest in hard core espionage.

Ignoring guns for the moment: Package Deals are a big thing. If you have a tight focus - CIA agents, in the case of Espionage, it's easy to fix. But if you have a broader focus, things get weird. You get duplication and potentially double dipping.

Suppose you have a package with characteristic requirements. Suppose your packages include duplicated skills (Weapons Familarity is likely). Suppose your package includes Disadvantages of the same category of those in other ones.

Characters will need to be recalculated because of those.

It's a pain, but can be handled. You just need to handle them.

Take a look at Danger International, pp 55-56 "Special Shells".  (As a side note, I recall being inspired by that and making a selection of different arrowhead types for my Fantasy Hero campaign decades ago.)

Right! Broadly speaking, the gun's a delivery system, the round determines the effect of impact, and the operator and environmental factors determine how effective the delivery is and how close to full potential the damage is.
 
In the 80s, I loved the detail some games brought to bits of firearm combat. I thought Twilight 2000's accuracy system for automatic weapons fire was very cool. I still do, kinda -- I just wouldn't want to use that sort of system any more, even if my players would be interested in it.
 
These days, I think Classic Traveller got it about right. You get hit, you're probably going down, and you're probably out of the fight.
 
Edited to add: That said, when writing up the above bare-bones system for firearm design, I was tempted to separate the weapons from the rounds, and offer stats for standard, hollow point, etc., mix and match as long as the caliber is the same, etc. Still am, kinda, but I'm not sure the extra detail would be worth it. What do you think?

Duke, and Joe, it’s not the variation of damage that identifies the weapon, but the variation of Range mod, stun mod, base accuracy, rate of fire, weight, and date of manufacture.  Also in some cases an unsupported long gun with a long lock time, may trade an OCV bonus for an OCV penalty due to flinch or wobble if it does not go off faster than the operator expects.  

Best firearm system ever, Duke!
 
As an aside, it's so funny that Espionage! is like, "Don't use guns! Secret agents who use guns have already failed and will bring down the wrath of the universe on themselves!"
 
Also Espionage: about half the illustrations are of guns, an entire page is filled with guns stats, there are special combat rules for guns, all other equipment is generic (including vehicles) but each firearm is a specific brand and model (is there even a legit use for a Weatherby Mk V Silhouette in the game?) etc.
 
Also Espionage, also: Throwing is almost always referred to as "throwing grenades" -- and when guns will cause issues with covert operations, you know grenades are gonna be A-OK!
 
(I know -- there's extensive coverage of firearms because Espionage! was intended to be the heroic-level modern version of Hero System, with a secret agent theme so that it's a game first and a toolkit once you've learned it (and only if that's what the purchaser wants it to be), but still, on the surface it's pretty funny.)

Another story I've read has Sherriff Capers attributing the slow response to having only 3 deputies to cover a very large area. Everyone was simply far away at the time. This is plausible, but... Stories also say this was not the first time neighbors complained of Mr Oropeza's gunfire, and police had talked to him before. I suppose that's one for the "Get your own gun for home defense" side. I would prefer a policy of taking guns away from people who use them irresponsibly, just like taking licenses from people who drive irresponsibly.
 
Side note: Gov. Abbott brought up the alleged immigration status of both Mr Oropeza and Mr Garcia's family. Props to Sherriff Capers for saying firmly that this does not matter. Murdering children is murdering children.
 
Dean Shomshak

Gun:  1d6 RKA + (1d6-1d6)
 
Big gun: 2d6 RKA + (1d6-1d6)
 
Shot gun:  pick one of the above, add reduce Pen ans Reduced range.
 
Sawed off shotgun: as above, but remove range and add AOE Cone.
 
Machine gun:
 
Pick Gun or Big gun.  Add Autofire to taste.
 
 
There.  Every possible HERO System gun should be in there somewhere.
 
 

Another YouTube channel, C&Rsenal, has been doing a deep dive into firearms from the US Clvil War, through the end of WW1. In general, there are broad trends. Up to the beginning of The Civil War firearms were muzzle loading, cap lock single shots. Right at the dawn of the war cartridge breech loaders started to appear, but were eschewed by the army, as the necessity of war meant they had to issue the service weapon everywhere. It was bad enough, that the base rifle was used up to the Spanish American war in 1898. They were converted from muzzle loaders, with the Allyn conversion to the Trapdoor Springfield. After the civil war Cartridge firearms superseded cap locks, and to increase rates of fire, tubular magazines, first seen in Henry Rifles, in 1858
and carried up through to the French Lebel rifle in 1888, and we still see them in shotguns today. The lever action and tube magazine were superseded by the bolt action box magazine and packet (stripper) loading.  The afore mentioned lebel was developed in 5 months, to take advantage of the new secret flat shooting smokeless powder. That secret lasted a year. This forced every other military to adopt new rifles. John  Moses Browning became active around then and led the slow transition from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols, the rifles.  Smokeless powder also made machine guns possible.  Hiram maxim’s prototypeswere functioning by 1885, but only functional after 1889 when smokeless became common.  This brings us to The First World War. 
 
A sampling: 
 

For the longest time I only had the pack that came with the 4th Edition DM screen.  But those were SO helpful with my champions games... I used them for years.   Once HeroClix started to appear I transitioned over to a mix of Cardboard and Clix for use at the table.   Since then I found the full Modern Heroes pack but I have not cut them apart yet.   Sadly my Table gaming days are in decline for a long while now, most of what i do being online with things like discord chat.  But still have very found memories of these figures.

Also:
 
Consider keeping the old outdated list and just adding the new stuff to the list.  Also consider coming through the Armory or even 4e Western HERO for older or more exotic weapons.  If your goal is a 2e HERO System, then genre emulation ahould be easy, and a formatted weapons chart could hold what?  Sixty or more weapons on a single page, right?
 
 

The Biggest changes since the first release of Espionage, in firearms, is the adoption of Special Operators accessories to the Military as a whole. The Discussion of the transition from the M-16 A2, which was top of the line when Espionage came out, to the M-4 carbine, with optics in 2007 is illuminating.
 
Since, the .45 disappeared, came back, then disappeared again.  Optics have been added to pistols, and all firearms have had Picatinny rails, and accessories like tunable infrared lasers, likes, Magazine carriers, and two and three point slings. The Callibers are mostly the same, as old, but the delivery is faster, and more accurate than it was in the 80s.

Looking at the Ukraine war, the modernization of the Kalashnikov platform has been uneven,with the AK-74, and AK-102 having just about the same performance, and anything later the power is degraded.

If you are foinf into Sanctuary, you mighr consider a "heroic" version od it for maybe spy or vigilante campaigns, and of course a country club version for Pulp.
 
They are talking about a John Wick 4.  Might as well lean into that popularity a bit.
 
 

That's one of my fantasy replacements for political debates: 10 hour congressional hearings. All the rules of an under-oath hearing, panel of congresspeople chosen by the opposition.
 
Hillary Clinton pulled it off, all potential Presidents should have to.
 
(My others are poker night and blue book essay. Poker night is just the game, with a President table and Vice President table, bringing in third party candidates. Blue book has the candidates sitting quietly in a classroom with university blue books, answering essay questions. Halfway through they swap books and rebut. They can bring a cheat sheet, but the contents of the cheat sheet are published along with the essay responses)

Furthermore Ms. Zephyr wasn't just censured, she was banned from the statehouse completely.  It's not surprising--we've all seen the "uppity minorities better learn their place" response to discrimination complaints before.  It's a standard part of the conservative playbook.
 
But we know who the real snowflakes are now.

The Red States Experimenting With Authoritarianism
 

I don’t see why not GM Joe.

Is it OK to talk about heroic-level 3e Hero System here as well?
 
I just wanted to say that I'd completely forgotten that in 2e and 3e heroic-level games the value of Disadvantages are initially 1/2 as much as their equivalents from Superheroic (rounded in favor of the character, naturally), and then the value of multiple similar Disadvantages declines twice as fast. That's quite a difference from 4e+, and I like it.
 

Infinite Frontiers collapsed with the firing of Dan Didio. I think there have been ten reboots. There was the original Crisis, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, 52. Convergence, Flashpoint, Rebirth, Doomsday Clock, and two more I think revolving around the Dark Metal stuff going on with its villianous Batman.
 
Infinite Frontiers was the tail end of 5G where all the main heroes like Clark Kent/Superman were replaced by their kids. There was supposed to be a timeline and everything. Dan Didio got fired before that happened.
 
Geoff Johns is writing a time travel thing where new characters are being introduced as displaced characters like jay Garrick's daughter, Judy.
 
DC Comics right now is full of fan fiction writers made good so no one knows what the actual continuity right now is except for individual stories, and it's come out I think in Wonder Woman that Shazam has just killed Zeus and made Hera his replacement as the Queen of the Sky.
CES