rravenwood

Ha!
 
We have that in common, Amigo!
 
 
 

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?"
 
 

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.)

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.)

No mention of Anakin on the last rung of the scale? An opportunity wasted.

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84

Keep in mind that Normal Characteristic Maxima are not a hard and fast limit, merely a boundary beyond which Characteristics cost more. A GM is also not obligated to apply them to his heroic-level characters. When you look at Conan or Tarzan or Doc Savage, they clearly exceed what even well-trained athletes are capable of. Because they're heroes.
 
For comparison purposes, note that in the Champions genre book for superhero gaming, it suggests limits above NCM for human characters, beyond which they should be considered "superhuman," and have some setting-appropriate justification for how they became so exceptional. For example, that book sets the upper limit for humanly-possible STR, DEX, CON, and BODY at 30, SPD at 7, and INT, EGO, and PRE at 50.
 
In a fantasy game there can be plenty of justifications for a character to have Characteristics beyond the Maxima: barbarian or feral upbringing, enchantment or enchanted items, nonhuman or divine blood, training in esoteric disciplines, exposure to mind-expanding secret knowledge, etc.

Seven Kings Must Die, on Netflix.  A two hour movie conclusion to the five season run of The Last Kingdom, based on the Saxon Stories historical novels by Bernard Cornwell.  Like the TV series, this film had a bad case of highlight-reel-of-the-books, but it was still a well-made and satisfying conclusion to Uhtred's story arc.  I got into this series at first because I'll watch anything with a swordfight in it, but I stayed for the themes of identity, family, and religion.  Worth watching if you don't have time to read all 13 novels.

Flash Gordon: This adaptation from 1980 has become something of a cult classic. I had originally seen it in the theater during the original run, but it's taken me some time for it to actually become movie I'll regularly watch. This Arrow Video edition is a 4K release sourced from the original negatives and approved by the film's director, and the HDR makes the vivid colors pop in a way that they haven't since that first viewing on 70mm film in the theater. It has a 5.1 DTS-HD sound mix, which has a good balance between music, dialog, and special effects. (4K UHD Blu-Ray)

Yeah, actually HGN vol 1 no 1 mentions the availability of some dinged-up stock including copies of Espionage!, so it was definitely after the release of that game.

It's from Hero Games' Newsletter vol 1 no 2, which doesn't contain a publication date, but by taking clues from things mentioned within, can roughly be placed to late 1983 or early 1984.  (It mentions Gencon '83 in the past tense, and asks readers hold off on mailing in "orders for Champions III till June first.")

Just taking a moment to celebrate that my Tables pass is complete up to page 48. Just 20 pages to go!
(And then I can go back and start double-checking that what's in my text file matches what's in the book exactly...)

Thank you all for your support. I will conclude this life story with a not-so-cranky epilogue. 
 
One of my father's greatest frustrations was losing the ability to paint. I'm sure that's why he took to CAD so readily, being one of the first in the department to adopt its use for theater. When he could paint, though, he did a number of things besides his theater renderings (many of which are framed in the Windsor house). 

Stepmother asked if I would like to take anything home and these are the two I chose. These two pieces are from his earlier days though I'm not sure of the exact years.
 
 

You're right -- Who knows at this point what was going on with specific rules changes during 2e and 3e?
 
We know up until Justice Inc, the game design and development as expressed in the core rulebooks was by MacDonald and Peterson, with MacDonald taking lead on design and development, Peterson taking lead on writing, but both doing some of each. So we can be pretty sure who was making decisions about rules and how they were expressed up through Espionage!
 
But then we add Allston and Stackpole once we get to the very next game released (Justice Inc). It credits MacDonald and Peterson as well, and although it clearly uses their Espionage! rules as its basis, we don't know which of the four authors proposed each of the changes in that volume, which of them really thought deeply about each one before agreeing, etc.
 
Still, in this specific instance, we have two games in a row (Espionage! and Justice Inc) with exactly the same wording for exactly the same set of Combat Maneuvers. Both refer to 'tripping' being covered by the existing Combat Maneuvers. But none of the Combat Maneuver descriptions mention tripping. So we're left to wonder how they were using those maneuvers and which one they felt covered tripping.
 
But I'm guessing in whatever discussions they had, Peterson was less convinced, given that he added a specific Trip maneuver for FH 1e. And then when the reins were handed back to someone else, that went away, so I'm guessing it either didn't work out as expected or the change didn't convince the other principals of its necessity. But it's just a guess since that's about all we can do at this point.
 
 
 
Interesting! Especially since Espionage's only Throw maneuver is Martial Throw. It would make sense if that's what they were referring to. I wish MacDonald and Peterson had been a bit more rigorous about things like that, but oh well! It's only interesting to us Hero grognards, who increasingly resemble medieval monks poring over ancient manuscripts.
 

The memorial service was yesterday.

Progress as of today:
 
- Full text dumped from the official PDF to a text file.
- Full text (less tables, images, etc.) has been given one pass to fix the many, many OCR errors ("L" substituted for "1" and vice-versa, bits of text moved around randomly on pages with tables or images, random spaces and garbage characters inserted or substituted, etc.).
- All the tables from the first 26 pages of the original book have been recreated in semicolon-delimited format so they can be turned into tables as desired (most word processors can go from this format to tables with a couple of mouse clicks).
- Made a few random notes for later, such as that the final paragraph under the Languages skill should list Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and Korean as the more difficult-to-learn languages (per multiple sources, including Rosetta Stone).
- I'm sort of dreading recreating the table on page 34, but I did choose this task after all!
 
Lots to go, but that's where I am on this right now. My free time is limited, but I'm hoping to make more progress next week.

As mentioned in this thread, I decided to try going back to the earliest non-Champions HERO System game, Espionage!, and work from there to find something that will work for how my group uses HERO System and which is easier for newbies to learn.
 
To avoid derailing that Champions 3e thread, I'll post updates here for those interested.
 
I'm just at the start of the process, but here's a basic overview of my plan so far:
Get Espionage! into a usable text format, with a stopover at the complete text which I plan to send to Jason in case he ever has a use for it. Remove the flavor text, CIA info, and such that's specific to the spy genre, leaving behind a more generic RPG. (Espionage was clearly meant to be a generic modern heroic RPG that defaults to espionage, so that won't be too hard.) Determine what (if anything) needs to be added from contemporary HERO publications. Determine what (if anything) needs to be added from 3e publications. Determine what (if anything) needs to be added from later HERO publications. Integrate everything, editing and/or rewriting as needed. Add any illustrations that may be needed (grenade scatter diagram, etc.) Playtest.  
My goal is to end up with a complete but minimalist RPG along the lines of Classic Traveller, B/X D&D, etc. I'll share my journey here for those interested.
 
(For those not interested, I'm sorry for cluttering up the board. This seemed the best place to put this.)
 

One of the victims in Louisville yesterday was one of Lady P's old co-workers.

He's gone. 

I got a call at 6 am, one that I've been waiting for the past few years.
Dad's in the hospital on life support.
I need to go to Canada ASAP.