carmachu

Maybe perhaps most of us don’t have them the time like we did in HS and college to do more heavy writing. A job. Spouse. Kids. Other responsibilities eating up most of the time and we want to enjoy our hobby rather then it being a second job.
 
whichbis why things like pathfinder, 5e, M&M and other games take off because a lot of that work is done. Hell even the OSR community has tons of support.
 
you might not mean to hate, but that attitude is one of the reasons hero sinks. Unwillingness to see what others do right and blame the base

Maybe perhaps most of us don’t have them the time like we did in HS and college to do more heavy writing. A job. Spouse. Kids. Other responsibilities eating up most of the time and we want to enjoy our hobby rather then it being a second job.
 
whichbis why things like pathfinder, 5e, M&M and other games take off because a lot of that work is done. Hell even the OSR community has tons of support.
 
you might not mean to hate, but that attitude is one of the reasons hero sinks. Unwillingness to see what others do right and blame the base

Maybe perhaps most of us don’t have them the time like we did in HS and college to do more heavy writing. A job. Spouse. Kids. Other responsibilities eating up most of the time and we want to enjoy our hobby rather then it being a second job.
 
whichbis why things like pathfinder, 5e, M&M and other games take off because a lot of that work is done. Hell even the OSR community has tons of support.
 
you might not mean to hate, but that attitude is one of the reasons hero sinks. Unwillingness to see what others do right and blame the base

You say you want adventures. Look in the mirror. Are you writing adventures? No. Your complaining that HERO isn't giving you what you need. Why are you not writing any adventures?
 
I don't mean any hate, butbwhen you see the lack of something, some people view problems, others view opportunities. 

I've been arguing this for a while.  Give me something to *do* with all these tools.  I don't need an Advanced Players Guide 3 or the big book of Talents.  I need some adventures.
Battlegrounds was *great*, but it was also published in 2003.
The Island of Doctor Destroyer was republished a few years ago, but its a retread of something from the 80s.
 
Let do some adventures!

First, we need to take the game design kit that is Hero and use it to make actual games that people can play.
 
Then, those games need support.  In the 21st century, Adventures are essential to game sales. The Adventure Path model has  proven itself.
 
To reach the mass market, the game has to reach beyond grognard gamers who will invest the time to build their own game world and design their own scenarios to time-pressured people with family and work responsibilities that limit their leisure time available to devote to the games.

Your friend is correct. Biggest turn off in the 6th edition is it is like a text book. It feels like it sucked all the fun out that say the 4th Ed big blue book had in it. 
 
frankly the game doesn’t need another edition. It really needs SUPPORT. Adventures. Scenarios. Settings. Games like pathfinder have the adventure paths. 5e has adventure campaigns
 
beyond 4th I don’t see much in that same support. I’m restarting a campaign using the BBB because it’s what folks know. But beyond battlegrounds and anarchy there are no senarios to support the game
 
we need more support items to run games. Not a new edition. Each edition is a toolbox. But nothing really to support that toolbox

Your friend is correct. Biggest turn off in the 6th edition is it is like a text book. It feels like it sucked all the fun out that say the 4th Ed big blue book had in it. 
 
frankly the game doesn’t need another edition. It really needs SUPPORT. Adventures. Scenarios. Settings. Games like pathfinder have the adventure paths. 5e has adventure campaigns
 
beyond 4th I don’t see much in that same support. I’m restarting a campaign using the BBB because it’s what folks know. But beyond battlegrounds and anarchy there are no senarios to support the game
 
we need more support items to run games. Not a new edition. Each edition is a toolbox. But nothing really to support that toolbox

Your friend is correct. Biggest turn off in the 6th edition is it is like a text book. It feels like it sucked all the fun out that say the 4th Ed big blue book had in it. 
 
frankly the game doesn’t need another edition. It really needs SUPPORT. Adventures. Scenarios. Settings. Games like pathfinder have the adventure paths. 5e has adventure campaigns
 
beyond 4th I don’t see much in that same support. I’m restarting a campaign using the BBB because it’s what folks know. But beyond battlegrounds and anarchy there are no senarios to support the game
 
we need more support items to run games. Not a new edition. Each edition is a toolbox. But nothing really to support that toolbox

I admit WITCH is pushing it. Again, no anything from 6ed, nor 5ed, only a vague mention on 4ed, AND the only thing is a mention in Super Agents (pre 4ed). Not even an agent writeup. 
 
But yes, if you are going to do WITCH, it would have to be "wing it maximum", since all we know about the organization is "all woman criminal organization".
 
My take is a focus on genetics (plague to destroy all men, create clones as a slave race and to reproduce in their perfect world), with prehaps some political arm and mystical research...maybe. I actually like having the group as a hi-tech organization as opposed to being truly mystical based. Just because the group names themselves after "evil women sorcerers", they shouldn't actually be that.
 
The group probably isn't quite big (it is definitely smaller than VIPER or DEMON). Honestly, even among man hating females, how many would be both militant about it AND agree to the master plan of genetic death to all men? Prehaps blame the problems of the world on men yes, but replace by force might be easier.

So I'm going to add a bit if my 2 cents from a different perspective. Played champions 20 years ago, but moved back to D&D once the group Broke up. I'm pausing D&D because I'm a but bored with it and having like its direction and what products the put out. I've had a Champions campaign idea for years so now I felt was time to jump back in for something different. So I started building characters and villains I needed.
 
Hero/champions is not user friendly to novices. Its been slow going building what I need. Spencers quote above is just a symptom. Not just no examples of characters, but adventures, creatures and Villians. Traps or mooks.  When I played D&D its easy to get some monsters, basic adventure, a village or dungeon and go. No so with champions
 
Sure I had the ability to dig out some other books to make comparisons or power examples and other things. But I have those resources. I couldn't imagine someone grabbing a 6th, 5th, or 4th edition book and just going forth. Not without some resources to help them.

So I'm going to add a bit if my 2 cents from a different perspective. Played champions 20 years ago, but moved back to D&D once the group Broke up. I'm pausing D&D because I'm a but bored with it and having like its direction and what products the put out. I've had a Champions campaign idea for years so now I felt was time to jump back in for something different. So I started building characters and villains I needed.
 
Hero/champions is not user friendly to novices. Its been slow going building what I need. Spencers quote above is just a symptom. Not just no examples of characters, but adventures, creatures and Villians. Traps or mooks.  When I played D&D its easy to get some monsters, basic adventure, a village or dungeon and go. No so with champions
 
Sure I had the ability to dig out some other books to make comparisons or power examples and other things. But I have those resources. I couldn't imagine someone grabbing a 6th, 5th, or 4th edition book and just going forth. Not without some resources to help them.

I on the other hand believe that one of the key reasons Hero is dying on the vine is NOT having pre-built PC's designed to compliment a pre-built adventure.
The end design is for everyone to understand the game enough to play it.
 
Heroes actual play rules are simple (to hit, to succeed, to damage, to change, etc.)
 
Heroes point build system is simple (it's just basic math)
 
Heroes design philosophy is so different and arcane to the average person it is extremely difficult to grok by players of other TTRPGs and virtually impossible to grok by Video RPG gamers.  Even here we constantly see players, even some veterans, asking how to build something and they start off by naming a listed "power" that sounds close as the base.  Instead of explaining in plain language (no Hero build speak) what they want to achieve. 
 
Yes, in the end every player will want to make completely custom PC's.
But before they can do that they need to have some idea of just what a STR of X means in the context of the setting they are playing.  Of just what 6d6 damage means in the context of the setting they are playing.
 
And that context changes GM to GM.  If we set the standards as a beginning game for 400 point Heroes and I built a campaign/setting and you built a campaign/setting for the same.  I might have high powered version where 8d6 is average for damage, while you might go a path where 6d6 is average.  Or 10d6.  The point is that "acceptable" and "average" in the Hero System are ever sliding goalposts. 
 
You can't actually learn a game if the parameters keep changing. 
 
Hero needs a fixed reference basic setting.
It should have a intro mini-campaign using pre-generated PC's so that the new player and GM can gain an initial understanding of the game while standing on firm ground, before they get kicked into the quicksand.
 
Just from the beginning the rule book requires the new player to make decisions they have no understanding of.
 
Normals
Standard Skilled Competent Herioc
Standard Powerful Very Powerful Superheroic
Low-Powered Standard High-Powered Very High-Powered Cosmically Powerful Yes, they all have point values, but what do those values actually mean?  In the gut?  In actual play?
 
If the campaign makes a decision and picks one.  And then builds everything to that decision including pre-generated Heroes, the new players and GM will have a defined starting point to learn the system.   And once they complete to intro campaign they now have a reference point for later use when they go their own way.  
 
Don't get me wrong, the books do a great job in trying to explain things, but like most it doesn't sink in until you actually do it.  
 
I teach technicians and engineers about on-aircraft systems all the time, both upgrades to existing systems and newly deployed systems.  We build in "classroom" time where we go over things in detail.  But for the vast majority of people the lights really don't come on completely until we go to an aircraft and fire up the system and they see things real time.  Suddenly it becomes easy. 
 
The Hero System (any edition) is an open ended one that sits on a fluid foundation.  Unfortunately you can't play open ended on fluid. 
Decisions have to add limits and set a solid foundation. 
 
 

So I'm going to add a bit if my 2 cents from a different perspective. Played champions 20 years ago, but moved back to D&D once the group Broke up. I'm pausing D&D because I'm a but bored with it and having like its direction and what products the put out. I've had a Champions campaign idea for years so now I felt was time to jump back in for something different. So I started building characters and villains I needed.
 
Hero/champions is not user friendly to novices. Its been slow going building what I need. Spencers quote above is just a symptom. Not just no examples of characters, but adventures, creatures and Villians. Traps or mooks.  When I played D&D its easy to get some monsters, basic adventure, a village or dungeon and go. No so with champions
 
Sure I had the ability to dig out some other books to make comparisons or power examples and other things. But I have those resources. I couldn't imagine someone grabbing a 6th, 5th, or 4th edition book and just going forth. Not without some resources to help them.

Ever since I started playing Champions back with 2e, I and everyone I knew looked to the Enemies books to serve as creative examples of how to use the powers, modifiers, and frameworks. In my view this was far better than a reference tome full of examples (or examples crammed in the margins of the main rulebook) because villains--as well as NPC heroes/teams, organizations with super agents, etc.--provided much-needed context for the presented power builds. Too often when players and GMs see Sample Powers presented without context, they tend to treat them like pre-designed D&D spells that they use, unchanged, as though ordering from a menu.

You are asking a lot of heavy lifting from supplements and adventures. And where are these going to come from?
 
the BBB read like fun, 6th reads like a textbook. And I’m not trying to start edition war, 6th cleans up a few things( other things cleaned up I don’t care for)

I would say that this is accurate, as at the time Champions was  a large percentage of the games being run at Gencon through the 90's. It was ubiquitous at the time. BBBs were in tall stacks at the Hero booth that sold out over those weekends, and there was "The Hero Auxiliary", running the organized convention games at Gencon.  Those were the days.

4th was the fun edition. The BBB was slot of fun, we played the heck out of it. for years and years til life got in the way.
 
Collected 5th and 6th. But when we go back its going back, it will be 4th with 5th and 6th rules mixed in. 6th might have cleaned up slot of rules, but it feels dry and lacks the fun factor 4th had.

4th was the fun edition. The BBB was slot of fun, we played the heck out of it. for years and years til life got in the way.
 
Collected 5th and 6th. But when we go back its going back, it will be 4th with 5th and 6th rules mixed in. 6th might have cleaned up slot of rules, but it feels dry and lacks the fun factor 4th had.

4th was the fun edition. The BBB was slot of fun, we played the heck out of it. for years and years til life got in the way.
 
Collected 5th and 6th. But when we go back its going back, it will be 4th with 5th and 6th rules mixed in. 6th might have cleaned up slot of rules, but it feels dry and lacks the fun factor 4th had.

4th was the fun edition. The BBB was slot of fun, we played the heck out of it. for years and years til life got in the way.
 
Collected 5th and 6th. But when we go back its going back, it will be 4th with 5th and 6th rules mixed in. 6th might have cleaned up slot of rules, but it feels dry and lacks the fun factor 4th had.

Looking towards the future I'm sure there will be an update book at some point. Already have a new villain group in mind and others I'm mulling over. I'll keep you informed.

I would have loved to see reboot of the Zodiac Conspiracy. That has a lot of potential, but the villains need reworking plus so more plot points

Yeah. I've been reading a lot of older products and while they are still interesting, all the information is just so dated. Eurostar's goals really need an update. It was great 20 or 30 years ago, but doesn't make a lot of sense today

Taurus and the zodiacs. Love that group.