Chris Goodwin

Hero has become a game design system, rather than a game.  It needs one or more games to sell it in the public.  A Champions game with pre-fab powers and abilities, a Fantasy game with pre-fab spells and races, etc.  The Big Tome is the master rules, but a stripped-down version, or even a version with power construction hidden in the background of pre-fab abilities, would be a game designed using those rules.

Chris:
 
I promise I will get back to you on this (I like named powers, too :)) when I'm more in my right mind. 
 
I logged on to spread some appologies for my behavior today; i have a problem this time of year, and I try to plow through instead of just letting it out, and gg
 
Anyway, I promise I will get back to you. 

What this always indicated is that either CON was underpriced, or the figured characteristics it provided were overpriced (or both in some combination).  +10 CON for 20 points gathered +2 REC (4 points), +5 STUN (5 points), +20 END (10 points) and +2 ED (2 points), so 21 points worth of stats before considering resistance to being Stunned and the rare CON roll.  +10 STR for 20 points gathered +2 REC (4 points), +5 STUN (5 points), and +2PED (2 points), so 11 points worth of stats before considering everything else a high STR provides.
 
I recall in the 6e (maybe the SETAC) discussions, the possibility of repricing and keeping Figured Characteristics was discussed.  This would have likely lowered the cost of STUN, REC and END (PD and ED being tied to other defense powers could not reasonably change), rejigged the fomuli so that a 10 STR,, CON, BOD character still had the same starting figureds, repricing the " no figured" limitation to match a 100% sellback, etc.  The question then became why keep Figured at all - just reprice the stats as "no figured" and reprice the figureds to appropriately match.
 
The bigger change, to me, was pricing OCV and DCV.  That highlighted just how underpriced DEX was (or how overpriced combat skill levels were) for what it provided.
 
I think there are still some pricing imbalances.  The stats not fixed are INT and PRE, maybe EGO and perhaps DEX to a lesser extent.  I think the "sum of the parts" cost should be comparable to the whole.  In my view, DEX, INT and PRE could be modeled very similarly, each providing +1 to a wide range of rolls/skills (which should cost 5 points for +1 to all such rolls, scaling down for more limited rolls) and something else - initiative, PRE attacks, Perception - which would make up another 5 points for +5 to the stat (limit for more restrictive application), so 2 points per +1 to the stat.  EGO should be similar, but stay 1 point (half for Ego rolls, half for PRE defense, removed from PRE).
 
 
Prior to 6e, I had to increase DEX to increase OCV and DCV.  How often did we hear about the need for even Bricks to be as agile as Olympic gymnasts, all of whom must also be very potent combatants?
 
 
 
When the price points are such that it is cheaper to buy CON (or STR) than to buy the Figured without the other benefits, the pricing is not balanced.  When a low-DEX concept cannot be competitive in the game because high DEX is the only efficient means of getting CV, there is something wrong.  The game needs to encourage building in concept.  Making some concepts (normal human agility person highly skilled at combat, say) inefficient choices discourages building in concept, or just discourages certain concepts from being built.  Neither is a good result, in my view.
 
I find some comments (not necessarily yours) that seem to move "build in concept" to the extreme of "character classes" [Brick Class gets to buy this; Martial Artist class gets something else; Speedsters get different abilities; Energy Projectors get still others; Mentalist gets something else].
 
 
I'd agree it was the biggest, and most visible and obvious, change.  Decoupling has been going on for a long time and 6e was no exception (removal of things like Growth Momentum, and Stretch Momentum damage, for example).
 
With 20/20 hindsight, what 6e really needed was a sidebar setting out revised prices for STR, DEX, CON, BOD, EGO that added Figured Characteristics back in, together with each stat's "no figured" limitation.  That's what happened to a lot of other rule changes (e.g. the doubling rule for HKAs).
 
[ASIDE:  +30 DEX would then give +6 to all DEX rolls (say 30 points), +30 Initiative (30 points), +3 SPD (30 points), +10 OCV (50 points) and +10 DCV (50 points), so 190 points.  Pricing DEX at 6 points would provide a small "package deal" bonus, and  No Figured becomes a -2 1/4 limitation.  That highlights what a bargain DEX was pre-6e, or possibly that CVs were overpriced (but the latter would require a lot more work on Combat Skill Level pricing).

Thanks for bumping this, GMGM--
 
I never knew this thread existed, or I might have made a more "formal" return to the boards (I tend to come and go as 'real life' demands increase or relax).
 
So here we go:
 
  How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)? I almost wish I used my actual name, like so many others, just so I could reply with "My parents picked it out."
 
I wasn't clever enough to invent a code or thematically-minded enough to do the clever thing and use a favorite character's name, though I really wished I had after seeing so many people doing it!).  My name actually is Duke, like every third bird dog around these parts.  The Bushido part comes from what I'd like to say is a really long story so let's skip it, but the fact is it's not a too-terribly long story, I'm just tired of telling it.   Suffice it to say that owing to a vast number of opinions my friends have held of me, combined with the conversations held while we consoled a (then) recently-divorced and (possibly still) drunken comrade, I got tagged with then name "Bushido."  It came and went, depending on how amusing it was for them to toss it out.  A few years later, we're playing Boot Hill, fairly straight to the genre.  As the campaign concludes, the GM pitches ideas for a new one, stating he'd like to do something a bit more cinematic, over-the-top-- something quirky, but still Western.  I figured this was yet _another_ chance for me to pitch HERO at them (well, it was still Champions then), and they were curious enough to bite this time.
 
So I introduced one group of three to our Champions group of four and pitched the idea to my then-GM (Jim), who loved it.  My Boot Hill compatriots, though, needed convincing.  How would changing systems make the game any different?  "Well," I began, you can just go nuts: you can make _anything_ you want, so long as it's cool with Jim.  You want a different old west?  You could make a samurai gunman!"  to which someone instantly quipped: "Yeah!  And you could call him Duke Bushido!"
 
And that was the end of that.  "Bushido" had occasional comedic properties.  But that one quip....  Well, "Duke Bushido" stuck, and it stuck real good....
So good, that the avatar on my posts was made by a friend some years later.  I no longer have the original large image, but it's something of a merger of a stylized Japanese flag and a sunrise over a western clay desert, with a figure dressed in what appears to be jeans, a buckskin jacket, and a cowboy hat, holding a drawn katana.  That's one of my bikes in the background (I still have that one, actually.  I really like it).  Now you know. Well, enough, anyway.  
 
What was the first tabletop RPG you played? Like so many other people, I started at some point in the mid-seventies.  I can't tell you which was first, though.  I can tell you it was either Traveller or D&D, as we did both pretty heavily.  (The only way to know for certain would be to look up which came out first, but honestly, it doesn't matter to me enough to do it: who cares when a memory was made, so long as you get to keep it?).  We did both back and forth.  Not being a Tolkien guy and _really_ not liking the way D&D worked, I was always happiest with Traveller games.  We tried other games as they caught our eyes and wallets, and fortunately, did not stick with D&D too long after some real variety started to pop up.
 
 
 
What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed? Metamorphosis Alpha.  I had to actually _buy_ it, but I was willing to do _anything_ to give D&D a smaller slot in our rotation.    Terrible game, by the way; I don't get the nostalgia associated with it.  Sure, it was pretty much D&D, mechanics-wise, but at least there wasn't any Tolkien in it.  Tried Gamma World when it came out, but it was straight-up Dungeons and Mutants; couldn't even pretend otherwise.  Stumbled across Daredevils and had a great time running that.  Bought a boxed set of Champions 2e (my GM picked up 1e when it hit the shelves, but the game store never got another one), which my GM devoured and we promptly upgraded.  When he was ready to split GM responsibilities, I became a Champions GM, but even then, I didn't consider myself one: I was just helping Jim, ya know?  I _loved_ the system Champions was using, and it wasn't too long before we were using it for Daredevils and made a stab at Traveller.  
 
I didn't _dislike_ supers as a genre; I just didn't have a lot of appreciation for it.  I mean, it's easy to be a brave hero when you're bullet-proof, right?  And there were no comic books in my childhood, nor televised cartoons (you'd need to have had a TV, which would have been useless without electricity).  Besides, Sci-Fi was my addiction at that time, and we were all familiar with Traveller, even though we hadn't played it in a couple of years at that point.'  The Traveller HERO failure wasn't the system; by that point, it was just the wrong setting / theme for our group of players (which by then had swollen to nine players, hence Jim needing some relief).  Best of all, though, it proved our theory that Champions was universal!  Found a boxed set of Justice Inc, noticed the HERO Games tag, and immediately thought "They know it, too!"    From that point on, any game I like enough to start an actual campaign in found it's guts replaced with the Champions drive train.
 
And while it's not relevant, I'd like to add, specifically to you Super Hero fans, that I have, in the last few years, developed an appreciation for the genre.  You can blame my kids for that.   They got into super heroes, and I'm into spending time with them.  Supers make more sense, looking at them through the kid's eyes.
What are you currently playing/GMing? Everything is on HERO guts, regardless of genre.  Mostly it's 2e, modified with a few things from 4e, and a ruling or two-- a couple of Power Modifiers, anyway-- from 5e.  I am currently running a Supers game for some kids that I've been referring to as "my youth group."  I also run space opera weekly-- or, _mostly_ weekly, on the far end of ninety miles from here.  Once a month, I play in an occult-themed thriller, but that's about to wind down, freeing me up a bit of time.
 
 
And that's it.  That's the overly-informative basics.
 
 

Hello.
 
Totally new to Hero. I've had a copy of the Danger International boxset scored at a Half Price Books on my shelf for years and just now started to dig into it. Came from primarily d20 gaming, have a healthy collection of GURPS, and am now going down the rabbit hole of Hero.
 
How did you come up with your 'handle' (forum name)?
Its a play on words from a lyric of a song from the Pixies
 
What was the first tabletop RPG you GMed?  
Star Wars d6. Then Top Secret/S.I. (mom was too scared of D&D to allow that satanic crap in our house)
 
What was the first tabletop RPG you Played?  
TSR Marvel
 
What are you currently Playing/GMing?  
In a strongly devoted d20 group playing Pathfinder.
 
When did you start to play Hero?  
I have yet to start. Looking at it as maybe the home system for my family.

Oh man... Danger International is my single favorite Hero System product, and I've been playing since 80-81... whenever first Edition came out. But I didn't know there was a box-set? Really? I just went to RPG Geek to see if there was a listing for it. Do you have a picture you could post of this box set? I'd be fascinated to see it.
 
Welcome to Hero!

8th level spells are done!! Heading for shower! I hope to finish 9th by Friday. I've decided to keep on with the Illusionist spells (since I'm thinking of a source book and it will be easier to do while I'm in the groove instead of starting up again). Sourcebook also means I will want to reformat my layout a bit into 2 columns instead of 1. Won't take very long but it's a bit of a pain in the butt. If I had known I was going to be tinkering with format this much I would have put all the info in a database and done a merge. Oh well. Maybe next time! LOL.

Yes.  A very important one, I think.
 
For Western HERO, as much as I love the 4e sourcebook, there is a sourcebook that outdoes it.  Well, let me rephrase that: it doesn't out-do it; as a sourcebook, Western HERO had everything: background, genre tips, discussion of breakdowns within the genre....  Sample characters, historical figures, stated out and read to use, maps and maps and maps, a full-fledged town, broken down and visited, a second, roughly-explained "ghost town" that could be fleshed out to be any other town you wanted....  a couple of sample scenarios, one of which was multi-session and a _great_ kick-off to a campaign...  In my own opinion, it really was the _best_ 4e genre book ever published.
 
However, there is a book of equal quality, researched and laid out equally-well, that covers things that Western HERO, solely because of its scope, could not: lots of maps-- maps of the whole country at various points in history.  Great heaping helpings of historical data, and day-to-day information on the lives of the people in the early days of expansion westward, from fur trappers (and a nicely-detailed and historically-acurate summarization of the history of fur trading that runs pretty much up to modern times), railway men-- everything handled with equal care, and presented in scrupulous detail, all the while being a wonderful and easy read; it never feels like a textbook and never feels "dry" to read.  And that sourcebook was called The Old West, and it was published for Third Edition GURPS.  If you are going to actually build yourself a massive single tome, complete with densely-packed information that add all the details you can handle about the westward-expansion days of yore, then this book is a _must_ include, to the point that if you asked which _one_ book (other than Western HERO) you should include, I would have only GURPS Old West, 3e, as my suggestion.
 
Now then, on two other notes, related to your post:
 
Is the fan-made Cyberpunk something for distribution (as in, is it something I can find on the author's website or something?  Because I'm interested!) and can I use your cover art for my own personal reprinting of Western HERO?  I envy you.  I have considered doing something like this for _years_ with 2e Champions-- to include notable characters from various play groups over the years, etc and with Western HERO, from the time years ago I thought I might write a supplement for it (I posted on that some time back.  During my research, I stumbled across GURPS Old West 3e, and realized I could _never_ do the job as well as the authors of that book had already done), but never could find the time to actually do it.
 
Actually, can I use the cover for your Cyber HERO as well?  
 
 
(Seriously, Man: those are _beautiful!_)
 

 
 

Excellent points, Scott!
 
I can find easy support for this in the "death" of cyberpunk related to the demise of the 80s.  Yes: Cyberpunk is around today.  Much like the Westerns of today, Cyberpunk is _not_ what it was.  And honestly, I don't think we can ever get that feeling back: a _huge_ part of cyberpunk was the absolute reality of the futility of struggle, since no one got anywhere that he wasn't more or less born into, and that human life had lost a lot of what made it somehow significant: life was cheap, death was easy, and there was no future for anyone.  
 
That wasn't the only theme, of course: the wild and crazy over-the-top integration of technology-- not the way we think of it today, now that we are living in that "dark future," but what we expected it to be.
 
So where did those themes originate?  They came from the culture, or course.  Us old farts remember the fallout of the Cuban Missile Crisis; we remember the cold war _vividly_, and we remember the wild fashions, the ridiculous subcultures, and the obsession with absolutely _nothing_ substantial: we wanted pretty things, fun things, and brightly-colored things.  We didn't want _anything_ that might lead to speculation about our future; we didn't want anything that depended on hope.
 
Why?  Because every single one of us _knew_, no matter how deep down we kept it hidden, that the missiles were coming.  Every day.  Every hour.  Every minute.  Every super-sonic rumble in the sky.  Was this it?  Is that them?  The news was filled with nothing but the power struggle of super-powered nations, each so afraid of looking like they might be backing down that they kept escalating.  Troop movements and war games dominated headlines, as did skirmishes between the proxies of "us" and "them."  And behind it all was the very real threat of unleashing the world-ending man made Hell.  The threats were being made, the ultimatums, and no one wanted to be caught being the second country to jump over every single line in the sand.  Every sixth-grade student _knew_ where the bombs would land land first, where the retaliations where coming from, and just how far away from a major target they were living.  We knew intimately the foolishness of bomb shelters, and the half-life of strontium 90.
 
It has an effect on you.  Not just the "Hey, let's have fun while it lasts" culture that developed, but that unshakeable _certainty_ that you would live to see fire in the skies, but not your own children.
 
That feeling: that unshakeable doom, brought on through no fault of your own-- out of your hands, and out of your power to prevent no matter how loudly you screamed, how fast your heart raced, or how deep the blisters from the heat of the outraged tears on your cheeks.  Your leaders were deaf to your sobs, and too busy preparing to kill each other, it seemed, to realize that they weren't killing each other: they were only killing you and almost four billion people like you: four billion helpless, voiceless, powerless puppets, soon to live forever as shadows on whatever bits of wall happened to survive.
 
_That_ was the _feeling_ behind cyberpunk.  The look?  Chrome and glitz and pink-and-black tiger striped trench coats?  Mirrored sunglasses inside a poorly-lit nightclub?  That was us in the real world, too: LOOK!  LOOK AT ME!  I AM REAL!  I AM _ALIVE_, DAMN IT, AND SOMEONE IS GOING TO _KNOW_ IT!  Even if it was-- you know-- other people caught in the same desperate act, looking for any kind of validation, even from a total stranger.
 
The colossal over-sized weapons, chromed and wrapped in glowing tubes?  That was what we wanted: we wanted power.  We wanted something massive that we could cradle in our arms and our souls and know that when the bad things came, we could destroy them.  We wanted the power to control our destinies, to defend ourselves, to MAKE PEOPLE SEE US and _FORCE_ them to admit that we had voices, and we were prepared to force them to listen to us.
 
The drugs?   Didn't see a lot of characters addicted to stims.  Sure, lots of them were used for combat reasons, game reasons-- but the characters with addictions, what did they want?  Depressants, as many and as strong as possible.  Dull the senses, block out the world, slip through time peacefully, and in the space of a thought: forget this world, block it out.  Skate to the end, and it won't matter anymore.  You can get through it without suffering, if you let it slip right through your mind....
 
The tech?  Think of the era: we were _all_ of us, in some ways, suffering from techno-shock, or what we used to call "future shock."  For the first time in human history, technology was becoming outdated before it even became affordable.  Sure, we're used to it now.  But then-- then, we were so close to all the eras before us, those years when Dad was still driving Grampa's old truck, because why not?  When those things that worked for your great-grandmother and your grandmother and your mother-- the things she had taught you-- were being replaced.  Faster, more disposable.  More modern.  There were people (not many, mind you, but we were made aware of it daily) walking around with plastic hearts.  There were regular news reports of how smaller and newer computers were going to let amputees walk, and it was all just around the corner.  There were cameras _hundreds_ of miles over our head that could read the book we were holding.  Print media was still the best way to get news, and the news had begun to outrun it.  Stories were left unfinished, and every single place you went someone was talking about something you'd never heard of.  Credit cards were becoming more and more used for daily convenience rather than emergency purchases-- technology had just overnight sprung out of the ground and surrounded us.  It replaced the plants we admired and the air that we breathed.
 
How did we see it going?  Mechanical limbs.  Mechanical organs.  Hover cars.  That's what we being pitched, and more than ever, it really seemed right around the corner.  But hey-- if you can make a mechanical arm, then how hard is it to make a _stronger_ mechanical arm?  Or faster legs?  Or better eyes?  And we had already seen just how all-pervasive and suddenly "normal" technology was becoming.  If you could get a better eye, would you?  Stronger legs?  How about a reinforced skull?  Or the brain!  Computers were still scary: while they were large and cumbersome, they kept telling us how they would replace us at every job, outthink us at every thought.  How do we normalize that?  
 
We internalize it: we make it part of us.  We compete with it, and we create a world where it can't beat us because we joined it.  Chipped brains, neurological interfaces!  It was all there; it was all right around the next block!  Granted, this is because, at that time, the "staggering-majority-that-was-almost-all-of-us" - sized majority had absolutely no idea (then) how any of this worked.  We were using things every day-- were suddenly expected to; in some cases, we flatly _had_ to!-- that we had not even a hint of understanding as to how it worked.  It was some sort of magic, and those-who-should-know kept telling us how much more was on the very cusp of happening.
 
And how do humans deal with their fears?  Some through rational thought, though that's not as successful as they pretend.  As I've noted elsewhere, it had been my dream to one day be a psychiatrist, but it was not to be.  As I continued futile studies over the years, I learned something really disappointing:  psychiatry and it's step children psychology and sociology cure _nothing_.  They simply teach you how to repress.  How to "act normal."  If you can act normal, there's nothing wrong with you that isn't wrong with anyone else.  Remember, the important part is being able to act unaffected, and _state_ that you are unaffected.  You just have to learn to not show your fears, and most of all, to not bother the rest of the world with them.  So while it helps a lot of people figure out how to continue being a part of society, it doesn't do much to help you really understand anything.
 
The human mind learns best when it plays.  We, in general, find that things aren't so scary when we are convinced we are familiar with them, and that we understand them (even if we really have no clue).  Look what we've done to all the classic monsters that haunted us as children.  Dracula was a terror to us all, alone in our dark rooms, Halloween fast approaching.   Look what we've done to him.  Anne Rice did more to take the teeth out of that tiger than anyone before, and as others followed, they became less scary.  Today they are just ridiculous iridescent fairies that are irresistibly drawn to emo chicks.  Then we tore down werewolves (having grown up in a mountain forrest, I really enjoyed werewolf stories as a kid: the monster that lived right were I did!   ) and Disney themselves now have a TV show about zombies.  Disney!  Zombies!  Zombies used to be the most terrifying thing _ever_!  Ten guys versus ten zombies.  Then it's nine guys versus eleven zombies.  Then eight to twelve....
 
That's right: to force ourselves to get a handle on something truly horrifying, we play.  We tell stories; we write books.
 
Now as long as everything I've said so far actually is to read, it must _all_ be held in mind when considering the initial works of cyberpunk.  It was that secret fear of imminent death, that need to be noticed, that urgent longing for a way to take control of our lives back into our own hands, combined with the futility of our, as we believed, forsaken futures and the cutting-edge world we had been trained to believe was just around the corner--
 
that was the look and feel of early cyberpunk. It's gone now, and I don't think it will ever really come back, any more than pulp or the western, at least not as we know them.  Sure, cyberpunk is still around: I think Gibson tosses something out every now and again, even today.  Or maybe he doesn't; I don't know, because I never got into Gibson, because he came later-- he came on what, for sanity's sake, I have to call the "right end of the cold war."  But for getting that hardcore feel of what we once knew the genre to be, he was too late.  The futility, the fear, the desperate needs-- they were going away.  All that was really left was the technology, and hey-- that's still fun to play with.  But I can't bring myself to call it "cyberpunk" any more than I call Django a "western."  The feeling is gone.  The world has changed again.
 
Sure: that initial wave was one _Hell_ of a ride, and it must have been great breeding stock, because look at the children it birthed:  Shadowrun-type stuff (which I guess is sort of cyber urban fantasy?)  urban fantasy, high-tech industrial espionage thrillers, steampunk -- all sorts of things I'm not going to go into because frankly, my friend, I'm done typing.
 

 
 
But yes: i believe I can _totally_ see your point about how society affected the western just as much as the western affected it.
 
 
oh-- and in the words of Old Man: to pay the thread tax: these are all important things to consider if you're going to attempt creating a cyberpunk setting.
 
 
 
 

That post was one hell of a ride, my friend! Keep it coming! And thank you for expressing so very well the things that made us who we were as children of the Cold War.

The 8 Active Points are the difference between the power as purchased with x3 END (50 / 3 = 17 points) and without it (50 / 2 = 25 points).  A "Naked Limitation" if you will...

I feel ya.I run 6th these days (I always run the "current" version as its the one my players can easily go buy for themselves if inclined) but I'll gladly play whatever version someone want to run.  (Although, I've been strongly contemplating doing a one-shot with some of my old gamer friends using 3rd edition, just for the nostalgia.  The recent Bundle of Holding renewed my interest in 3rd.)

I had very much the same trajectory as you, starting out with AD&D in 1980 and then discovering Champions in 1982. However, Champions revealed to me how tired I was of the fantasy genre as a whole--not just as an RPG genre but also as a literary one as well--and so I only ever reluctantly played fantasy RPGs after 1982, usually because it was the only genre being played by the group I joined at any given time. The superhero genre remains my favorite RPG genre of all, probably with science fiction right behind, mostly because I've had so little opportunity to play sci-fi RPGs and so  it is sort of an itch that never really got scratched. But to this day I still feel that if I never play or read the fantasy genre again I'd be just fine with that (I approach the prospect of someday bingeing Game of Thrones with a mixture of ambivalence, curiosity, and mild indifference, especially having read the first book many years ago and thinking it was merely okay).

So much has already been said that I can't really add anything more, other than my own experience. I won't try to make accurate generalizations about each genre, but I will just give my own personal experience of each in the hopes that it may help distinguish between the two.
 
My first love was fantasy and D&D because they were pretty much the only gaming genre available to me back then. What I loved about it was learning that entirely new worlds existed with their own rules and assumptions, and I got to dive in and learn about them. What really excited me was the maps of strange and unknown places, and the feeling that if I traveled from one city to another, I could spontaneously leave the road and go cross-country in any direction and go exploring. Really, dungeon crawls and all of that are really about exploring something new, and the sense of wonder and surprise that comes from it.
 
My second love was comic books, and Champions. Superheroes represented different personality archetypes to me, and it was fun trying on different characters in my imagination and asking myself, "What would I do if I was virtually invulnerable and had claws?" and stuff like that. Superman never appealed to me because he seemed too polished and predetermined: he was fighting for truth, justice, and the American way and there was no other explanation needed. I was into the comics where there were actual personality conflicts and power-driven conflicts. They allowed me to learn about myself, and the game allowed me to create new versions of myself and imagine how I might behave in the world if I had these sorts of abilities. 
 
In short, D&D, and fantasy in general, allowed me to explore new worlds, conquer different problems, and get cool treasure. Champions allowed me to investigate different parts of myself and imagine how I might react in similar comic book situations. Fantasy was more external and comics were more internal for me.
 
And then Fantasy Hero brought both together for me, and that's all she wrote. I was hooked because I could do both: open-ended vast exploration, and deep-dive internal investigation. I came across Champions and Fantasy Hero a couple of years after they were released, but I had already given up on D&D because they were working on a 2nd edition. I had already given TSR all of my allowance for several years, and they were trying to talk me into giving them even more, and I was pissed! (It was my first experience of a new edition transition). I still loved fantasy, but hated what was happening with D&D. So I devoted all my time and energy to doing things in the HERO System: Justice, Inc., Danger International, my own Western spinoff, and more fantasy and comics stuff. I realized that they all brought both sides of what I loved about gaming. 
 
I suspect a lot of people, like me, loved the fantasy tropes in gaming but got sick of D&D and so turned to, or created, other versions of fantasy games. D&D dissatisfaction seems to have driven much of the market in the late '80s and the '90s. Perhaps people are still trying to find the "perfect system" for fantasy these days, as evidenced by how many games there are out there, many of which are now "indie" in approach. "Indie" is another way of saying they're tired of being constrained by D&D and Pathfinder. They have the feel and wonder of fantasy, but I don't think any of them have captured the right game mechanics that HERO System provides. The one thing that probably holds Fantasy Hero back is that it doesn't have a standard setting that everyone agrees upon. But that is why I love it so much: I can wander off the map and create my own stuff. I think the people now who are looking for alternatives have the desire for a game without an "official" setting, but they have an aversion to "crunchy" game systems, and HERO just has an unfortunate reputation.
 
Anyway, that doesn't really explain why fantasy tends to be more predominant in gaming, but it may lend a bit of insight based on what I got out of fantasy versus comics.

I've got the beginnings of a 3rd edition template for Hero Designer...
 
Creating a template to use the 3rd edition costs for Powers, Skills, and Disadvantages is the easy part.  
 
Regarding the differences in Reduced END Cost... It's theoretically possible to generate a 3rd edition legal Champions character using HD.  Doing so requires a little bit of hand-massaging of the character file.  When buying levels of Reduced END Cost on a Power, you need to do two things: in HD, manually add a cost multiplier to the Power, equal to 1 + 0.25 per level of reduced END, and then edit the character's XML file (after backing it up, of course) to manually set the Power's APPEREND attribute (HDDocs p. 45) in XML.  
 
You'd similarly (manually) apply cost multipliers to Enhanced Senses and Disadvantages, based on how many of them your character has.  
 
It's only partially complete, and I may have to start it over again.  If anyone is interested in seeing it... it may be a week or so before I can dig it up.  I wouldn't mind help with it, also. 

This is pretty much my assessment so far, too. CNow is what got me thinking about 3rd Ed again, though, so that's a good thing. And I'm well aware that the finished product in such cases often bears little to no resemblance to the beta version.

Thank you Lucius.  I almost jumped on Doc's post.  Lucius is correct. 
 
I kind of prefer the first-gen Disadvantages rules, myself.  No effective max unless the GM says so; in the games I played in, total points were given as a range (usually 200-225 or 225-250).  Diminishing returns means you get to decide whether those last few points worth of power are worth taking a whole additional Disadvantage, for half or one-quarter points.  

A lot of original pulp stories in the "mystery men heroes" mold were pretty dark and violent.  Effectively, Dark Champions in the 1920's.  The "two-fisted heroes" of Justice Inc. and Pulp Hero are essentially 1-2 (the happier end) on the campaign ground rules scales for morality, realism, outlook, etc., but you could as easily apply those to a modern setting.  The A-Team, for instance, is more or less modern pulp, as is Big Trouble in Little China.  (See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_Heroes; I'm not sure how "modern" it is, considering it was published in 1975, but it's definitely outside of the original "pulp" period.) 
 
If you look at the Shadow, Doc Savage, early Batman (effectively a pulp mystery man), the Lone Ranger... those guys carried guns, they'd kill in self defense, sometimes they'd outright murder their foes.  4-5 on the above mentioned scales.  (In fact, there was one "pulp hero" who would essentially mind-edit his foes to remove their criminal tendencies and create new personalities for them -- I can't remember which one offhand but it was one of the big names.  I can't find anything in either the Shadow or Doc Savage that indicates it was one of them, but I'm sure someone here will know which one.) 
 
Edited, to pay the thread tax.  I'd like to see a good fantasy world with a twist; not related to the "Hero Universe"; not something that's "generic fantasy" as run through the filter of D&D.  I'd like to see a good urban fantasy magic school, as someone mentioned above, with decent worldbuilding behind it.  

Thank you Lucius.  I almost jumped on Doc's post.  Lucius is correct. 
 
I kind of prefer the first-gen Disadvantages rules, myself.  No effective max unless the GM says so; in the games I played in, total points were given as a range (usually 200-225 or 225-250).  Diminishing returns means you get to decide whether those last few points worth of power are worth taking a whole additional Disadvantage, for half or one-quarter points.  

The current system is exactly what it was before. You still get a certain number of points "free" and then "up to" a certain number of additional points for taking Disadvantages/Complications. If you don't take those "Matching Complications" you do not actually get the points for them.
 
The system is just presented with far less clarity, for example, giving the impression that it's mandatory to take the maximum allowed number of Complication points. But if you read carefully, that is not actually mandatory.
 
I like the 6th edition, but in some ways it could have been written better
 
Lucius Alexander
 
Taking the max Complications is like a palindromedary in a Lucius Alexander tagline: No actual rule requires it but it's a safe bet to happen anyway.
 

In that case, I would think about dropping his STR by 20-30 points, and investing some of those points into Martial Arts.  60 STR is like Hulk, Thor, Colossus level, or at least what Champions considers to be.  100 tons lift.

Oh this one is juicy. 
 
 
I've already edited the AD&D duration language into Hero, but here is a spell that does nothing except buy up some Time Limit advantage. So instead of getting silly with Transforms and trying to figure out an AP average for spells so that I can correctly pay off an advantage and repurchase it at a new level or some silliness...I'm just going to grab a custom power for 40 AP and give it no description or anything. Just have it be a point sink to hang some modifiers on. I did this once before. There was one spell that (IIRC was some kind of trap a wizard would set on a spellbook or something) didn't have a predefined effect buy would allow the caster to determine what they wanted from a long list. Ideally I would have created a VPP with all that nonsense. Instead I created a custom power that represented 40 AP worth of spell effects. It's tempting (because Hero is so crunchy) to want to build everything out (eg the old 'how do you build a flashlight' argument), but it's unnecessary. I'm not building torches out of points. I'm just saying here is a 2pt item and it is a torch and it extends light (just like a Change Environment) for 40m. End of story.

The AD&D 1e illusionist is a whole different beast from later editions' "school of illusion" specialized wizards.  

More!
 
Immediately!
 
Remember.....
 
remember how much more fun you had, back in those simpler times.....
 
Early editions for the win!
 
 

The first new character I created was one that I originally created and played under 5th Ed (I think...maybe it was 6th? It's been too long.). Her name is Morningstar, and she's a flying character with a mace.
 
I actually have a picture for her!