MK Blackout

Well, current recommendation is still to wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.  So while this is not technically a "restriction," I don't want to wear a mask during play, and I do want to follow the recommendation, so I won't return to meet-up play until that recommendation changes.  After it changes, I will be doing a mix of online and face-to-face, but for now, it's still all online.

Enough and Uh-Oh look like Patrick Zircher. 
Mark Williams for Blam I think.

Oh, I thought this was a reference to the GM shackled to game preparations, completely unappreciated by players who consider it appropriate to enslave the GM in this manner.
 
Carry on!

Messaged you, Scott. The goal is more about posterity; just a history of the beginnings of Champions but from the angle of reporting on the Guardians as though they actually existed. My approach would be a documentation of the beginnings of Champions and how the Guardians were used to playtest the rules (a fact I learned from you), but I think a fun second angle would be to report on the Guardians in a style that made it seem as though the Guardians were real. I would combine these two facets into one article.

Its tough to even find characters to rebuild for modern Champions.  If I ran the company that's one thing I would definitely do though, get info and bundle it up: the first Champions campaign.

I had a villain organization called V.  It consisted of five teams of five villains each, all with names that started with V.
 
I started writing a description of them for this post, but as I was doing so, I realized it's actually a pretty cool idea, IMO.  So maybe I'll write them up as a "Hall of Champions" PDF or something instead.  😃

Hi John,
 
Are you still looking for players?

I've played mostly D&D and Pathfinder, but my heart is in Superheroes hahah. so after some research I found this system and it seemed cool so I figured I'd check it out!!

Just finished it this morning on the my morning commute.
 
My only issue is that I can finish them at a faster rate that you are making them
 
Another great show and keep them coming.

I agree with this 100%.

I've played in a few campaigns over the decades where the DM made every session a nail-biting near-death experience.  Over time the players can become fatigued and demoralized as their cherished characters nearly die again and again.
Nihilism can set in or sometimes players will skip a week purely to catch a breather from the action.
 
It's important to let the characters (and their players) catch their breath, feel heroic or simply experience how powerful they've become over the course of a campaign.  It's like a palate cleanser.  It resets the taste buds for the next delicious adventure.
 
When I was taking my Saturday table through War for the Crown I started to sense the players getting a little haggard from having to hide from and escape the city guard again and again.  So when one character went to meet his contact at midnight on a re-supply errand I gave him a little booster.
 
Darran Redbeard - Dwarven explosives expert and military veteran with over a 100 years of experience under his belt - blows his Streetwise roll - badly.
 
A handful of street toughs with rusty gear and patched, misfit armor approach him.
 
Thug 1:  Hey, there, little fella.  That's a nice axe.
Darran:  Yeah?
Thug 1:  Hand it over - along with your coin purse and those metal egg things you got (grenades) and we won't have to cut you.
Darran:  I see...
<More thugs step out of the shadows - It's at least 4 to 1 now>
<Player 2 - Oh, Jesus... ~begins laughing~  They don't know they're trying to mug The Punisher.>
Darran:  Here, take the money.  <holds out his coin purse>
 
First thug eats a round from Darran's exploding punch gauntlet (Think 8 gauge shotgun round expended each time a punch lands).  His bowels perfume the sidewalk - dead instantly.
Next goon runs up and shanks Darran.  Right into his enchanted chain shirt.  Zero damage.
Darran ignores this guy and throws his highest damage explosive into the two guys hanging back and preparing to shoot him with with short bows.
A thunderous retort shakes the alley as they are blown to chunks.
 
Darran:  This is the part where you run.
Shanky runs for his life.  He doesn't make it.
 
And when it was over the player who was concerned his explosives expert wasn't quite as powerful as the other characters on the team was grinning ear to ear.  The stress of hiding from the guards and shadowy assassins was forgotten.
He was John F'ing Wick.  He was Baba Yaga.
 
 

Definitely on the list - we already have a Kirby one recorded but not yet released, and Ditko will get one soon. I'm recording parts 3 and 4 of Marvel's history tomorrow, so the whole bullpen era will get a bit of time in 3 (it took 2 full eps just to get to Fantastic Four #1!) dw 

Many years ago I bought Ptolus and my group really wasn't into it.  The DnD version just didn't strike them as they couldn't do "what they wanted" with the classes, spells and story etc.  My group is really about having the mechanics support the roleplaying they do.  So I started a new campaign and decided Ptolus Fantasy Hero Version would be the meal.  
 
They are so in love with it and have really went crazy with Hero and Ptolus.  One is a rogueish type with decent skills and got his first follower.  He runs atop the rooftops and is a half-elf who only needs to sleep 3 hours a day.  He is super active and came from the Warrens (a slum type district). 
 
The next player chose a Necromancer type player who was using Vampiric Touch (heal by draining body).  He learned later that he was gaining corruption from doing this and decided to find religion.  We created something called the Sisters of Mercy where the third sister was the sister of retribution and justice.  He has been able to heal the corruption by doing good deeds for the church and gives me another plot hook.
 
The last player is a face man who is a gambler who took 25 points of luck.  He likes to flip a coin and decide what to do, great fun.
 
Thank you to the forums for the ideas about the story.  I used many and they are working for a Demon named Deimos, they haven't put it all together yet.  They have been collecting items for him to make a huge summons and after about 20 sessions are now starting to see the light. 
 
Three of the four in my group have been gaming together for 40 years the other about 20.  I think the combination of this system and our experience have made this one of the best campaigns we have ever played.  We are all dreaming about it and really really roleplaying.  One of the guys really was a min/maxer and that was all he cared about, but now he is really doing some cool things.
 
We are using the hard recovery where they only get recovery of body every two weeks.  It makes the game grittier and they don't charge into many combats.  Also the Prescence mechanic and social combat have been unbelievably well received.  Can't say enough about how much we are loving this game.  We all looked at each other the other night and said, "I wish we had started playing this game years ago"!
 
Thanks again.  If you interested in more I can post more info.  If you looking for a great City to adventure in for Hero, Ptolus is the way!
 

Hey all! Long time no see! Just wanted to drop in and let people know that my new comic book history podcast, Explain This, Comics Guys!! began last week with its very first episode, about the history of the Comics Code Authority and the Code itself. New episodes will drop every other week - we've got six in the can already so we have some margin in case of illness, travel or whatever. You can check it out here:  https://explainthis.podbean.com/  Thanks! dw

While Aarn has the reputation for being the largest city in Ambrethel, for big-city adventure I find the Free City of Tavrosel, in Mhorecia, to hold more interesting potential. Tavrosel is described as "an enormous city, second in size only to Aarn." (The Turakian Age p. 85)  Its government is a semi-democracy with an elected ruling Triumvirate, so there's lots of potential for political intrigue. Tavrosel's excellent port position on the Sea of Mhorec linking most of Mhorecia, and proximity to the Great Pass between Mhorecia and Khoria, make it a major meeting place for the cultures of West and East, giving it a diverse, cosmopolitan populace. It also lies in an area of overlapping interest for several larger powers: Besruhan, Velkara, the Sirrenic Empire, and the Hargeshite Empire of Vashkhor. Tavrosel's diplomats spend much time and energy to deflect those states' acquisitive intentions.

This is slightly off topic, and not addressed at anyone involved in this thread, but reading some of the comments has brought something to mind that I have been thinking about for some time.
 
Also, if the tone seems a bit heated, I apologize in advance, but this is a topic that has been bothering me for a while, again, none of this is addressed to those posting in this thread.
 
Over the many years of my sporadic RPG career, I have done a roughly equal amount of time as a GM and as a Player.
I enjoyed both.
I enjoyed playing because all I had to do was show up with a well-prepared character, or some good ideas if we were creating characters from scratch, and enjoy playing the game.
I enjoyed GM'ing, because it gave me the chance to try my hand at creating an adventure that the players would enjoy, find challenging, and want to continue into a campaign.
 
That is not the only difference.
 
GM'ing is a metric buttload of work.
 
I started out DM'ing AD&D.
You had to create a plot, maps, monsters, treasures, traps, NPC's, atmosphere, background information, interesting things for each character to potentially do (traps and locks for the thief, appropriate stuff for the fighters to fight, people for the cleric to convert or heal, interesting magic stuff for the magic user to find, etc.).
It might take a day of work for each hour the players were going to spend at the table.
 
Champions is a little different, not as much "treasure" but way more NPC's and combat and plot.
 
And I admit that I did enjoy the work I put into creating an adventure, mostly, but it was still work and took up a lot of time, which all of us seem to have less of as the years go by.
 
I also enjoy cooking, and from time to time I invite people over for dinner.
If I invite someone who does not like spicy food, I have no problem accomodating that.
If I invite someone who loves baked beans, I will do my best to work them into the menu.
However, since I am the one buying the ingredients, playing the host, and doing all the work preparing the food, I expect to get a certain amount of apprectiation for going to all the trouble.
After all, there are plenty of restaurants that will cook the food you want, pretty much the way you want it, you just have to pay for it, and the more demanding you are, the more you usually have to pay.
 
There are times when players, and I hope it is mainly players who have never GM'ed, give off a vibe like:
"I want you to go out and buy every possible ingredient for every possible dish.
Clean them, prep them, and have them waiting for my arrival.
When I get there, I expect you to produce exactly the dish I am in the mood for, even though I may not know myself what I want.
You think that you have to right to have some input into what you cook?
How dare you!
You can't bully me into accepting something that you enjoy too, this is all about me!"
 
That example may be a little extreme, but I find the concept that the GM is just another player, with no more right to have the game suit him than anyone else, to be ridiculous.
Maybe everyone else lives in a world that is crowded with GM's begging players to enter their games, but that has never been my experience.
I always felt lucky that someone else was willing to put in all that effort so I didn't have to.
That doesn't mean I would put up with a GM that was rude or abusive, but other than that, I was happy enough to be in a game to cut the GM some slack.
 
I am not saying that the players are just there to act out the GM's play so he can sit back and watch it.
But as much as the word "railroad" has been maligned in the RPG world, it is a great way to get a group of people to the same place at the same time!
Perhaps the concept of "carpool" is more appropriate.
Everyone is trying to get to the same basic place, at around the same time.
If one of the group wants to stop off to pick up some drycleaning, or drop something in the mailbox, that is fine too, as long as everyone gets where they are going in time.
But, if people are saying that if the guy who owns the car, buys the gas, and does all the driving, likes to stop off for a doughnut every morning, he doesn't have that right unless all the passengers want one too, that sounds like B.S. to me.
 
After all, if someone just wants to come up with a story where their character, and all the faceless drones that follow it around, does exactly what he wants in a world made to accomodate him, they can do that.
They call it writing a story.
But to expect someone else to spend their time writing one for you, that exactly matches your desires, with little to no input from them, seems a little selfish.
 
For one thing, if the GM is not the guiding the plot, who is?
 
I always see comments about "the players", but if you think about it, would all the players want exactly the same thing?
I mean obviously, if you start out with a bank being robbed, and one player wants to kill off the robbers by beheading them with her power sword, and one player wants to use his negotiation skills to talk the robbers out of a life of crime, and one player wants to go to the library across the street and research the history of the Federal Reserve, and the final player wants to have their character strike up a romance with one of the "rough-edged but dangerously attractive" bank robbers, you can't pursue all of those threads at the same moment, especially since the bank robbery is only being staged as a distraction while Viper is stealing the McGuffin across town and the players probably need to figure that out, if not now, at least soon.
 
So, do you stop for a vote after each turn so see which direction the players want to jump?
 
I believe that the problem is often not "The Players are not able to have Their characters do the things They want to."
but instead,
"I am not able to have My character do exactly what I want to, (and have all the other players and the rest of the game world go along with me)!"
 
I have never seen someone suggest that the players should take some sort of vote, or express their opinions on which direction the game should go, it always seems to be assumed that if that power-mad GM would just get out of the way of the person who is talking, everyone else could follow them to the promised land.
 
After all, if you are going to only please one person at the table, it might as well be the person who does all the work, not the person who does nothing but complain about the work that has been done, without actually contributing anything that would also make the other players happy.
 
For some reason, many players seem to think that if the game was just run the way they want it to be, every thing would be great.
 
And that's fine, if someone thinks they can do a better job than the GM, they should give it a try.
 
Do the work.
Spend the time.
Come up with the kind of plot you like.
Guide the game in the direction you see fit . . .
 
Oh, but wait, isn't that railroading?  
😁
 
ka.

Well, online is everything these days and superheroes are as much about the visuals as anything else.
 
I think I agree with the idea about the setting.  I think you need to begin with building an audience.  Start streaming a group actually playing the game, find a group people will watch that is actively playing and give it some marketing and begin to spin off stuff from that.  
 
I would love love to see Darren Watts running Golden Age online with a group of players.  If you get enough traction you sell the campaign material, the city, the villains, the organisations.  You sell seats at the table.  Everything.
 
It has to begin with people seeing other people playing a game and enjoying it.  That in itself, if it is done well, generates cash but it builds a potential market for everything else.  
 
Doc

I have not played Hero System since 4e. I bought the 5e and 6e basic books out of nostalgia, but never had a chance to play. Well, my kids are finally asking me about them (my kids are in their 20s btw) and i decided to show them how to use the flexibility of Hero System to make any character you can imagine. I figured the easiest way to do this was download from DriveThruRPG and print the Champions Character Creation Cards, and then use them to "make" their favorite characters from the comics, using the standard 400 point superheroic builds. We are having a good time doing this, and it may even lead to getting them to play something other than D&D5e.
 
So, in the interest of sharing. here is what we made together so far. Please feel free to share your own builds, ideas, and opinions.
 
Luke Cage (Netflix Version): Tough! + Mistrusted + Nearly Invulnerable (100) + HTH Brick Tricks (50) + Self-Healer (50) + Super Strong (25) + Detective (25)
Iron Man: Smart! + Love Interest + Powered Armor (100) + Scientist (50)+ Well Connected & Persuasive (25) + Knowledgeable (25) + Money & Cars (25) + Flash Defense (25
Captain America: Fast! + True Blue Hero + Returning Throwing Weapons (50) + Comic Book Ninja (50) + Resistant (50) + Master of Combat (25) + Strong & Tough (25) + Tough Guy Fisticuffs (25) -- This is only 375 - leaves Cap with 25 points to buy the defenses in his shield
Harley Quinn: Dexterous! + Mistrusted + Comic Book Ninja (50) + Themed Weaponry HTH Solid & Ranged (50) + Mentally Tough (25) + Knowledgeable (25) + Strong & Tough (25) + Lucky Bugger (25)  -- The mentally tough reflects her unstable mind and how difficult it is for mentalists to deal with
Black Panther: Fast! + Answerable + Comic Book Ninja (50) + Resistant (50) + Base & Vehicles (50) + Strong & Tough (25) + Money & Cars (25) + Well Connected & Persuasive (25) + Combat Claws (25)
 
That's all we have done so far, maybe more later today

Thanks for the links!