GoldenAge

Hello everyone! Hero Games publisher Jason Walters here with an update. But before I being telling you what we are up to at Hero Games this quarter, I thought I would take a moment to share my thoughts on where we are, what we are doing, and where we may go in the future. And, of course, to hear your thoughts as well. Because an RPG publishing company is at its core its fans. With them, it can accomplish a great many things. Without them, it can’t accomplish anything at all.
 
As many of you know Hero Games is owned by a parent company called DOJ Inc, which also owns the small press RPG distributor and promoter Indie Press Revolution (or IPR). While serving as general manager of IPR takes up most of my work time each day, it has also given me a lot of new ways to think about RPG publishing. Among these is the conviction that in the world of RPGs the line between fan, creator, and publisher should remain as blurry as possible. We are all fans and, in playing these games with one another, also creators. And that is really only a few short steps away from becoming designers and publishers as well.
 
If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent a measurable amount of your life using the Hero System to create just the sort of characters you’ve imagined, then shared them with your friends. I remember doing that a lot in my youth and, looking back on it, wasn’t that basically a kind of publishing? (Though admittedly, one with an extremely select audience!) Then years later in the late 90’s I discovered that there was an online community of people doing exactly the same thing, which renewed my interest in locating people to play Champions with once again. This in turn led to an odd and extremely unlikely series of events that involved befriending a nearly seven-foot-tall bouncer at a seedy San Francisco bar, making an entirely new circle of interesting friends, and eventually attending a business meeting with one of the suspects in actual case behind Tom Hank’s 1982 made-for-television film Mazes and Monsters that, eventually, ended in my writing the words you are reading today.
 
So that’s who I am, and probably who you are too: a fan. And it was in that spirit that I launched our DriveThruRPG community content program Hall of Champions a year or two back, which hummed along nicely for a while for a while before quieting down. Now I have a new idea in the same vein. I’m planning on launching a Hero Games Patreon (https://www.patreon.com) account that will serve a platform for new manuscripts to be seen and reviewed by serious fans before moving on to physical and electronic publication and distribution, with the goal moving forward to release a new book or project each quarter. You’ll be able to see and comment upon raw, unedited work before it travels the road to publication, and get an early peek into upcoming products while also contributing to their development. And you’ll get credit in the pages of that work for doing so.
 
My plan is for there to be a single level at $5.00 per month. We’ll release individual 3 to 5 page sections of manuscripts sequentially each week, possibly several manuscripts at a time, entering patron’s suggestions and edits into a spreadsheet for that manuscript as we go. Then, after those patrons have had a good hard look at the content, we’ll integrate the input into the product during the later stages of production.
 
Right now I’ve got several complete or almost complete manuscripts ready to go plus the beginnings of several others. The first is Gaslight by Christopher Hackler, author of Hero System Book of Templates 1 & 2. It’s a setting for competent normals set in London in the 1890’s. Think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Call of Cthulhu, and Sherlock Holmes mashed together with all sorts of period characters like Spring-Heeled Jack, Dracula, and the Invisible Man.
 
The second is Imperial Throne, a Champions organization book about a deadly conspiracy whose goal is to transform the world into villainous parody of classical Chinese heaven. Our friend and fellow fan Michael Satran, author of such works as Imaginary Friends and Foxbat For President, was writing it when he was suddenly and tragically struck down by brain cancer in 2017. It’s 99% complete, and packed with hundreds of pages of characters, locations, and source material.
 
Though it isn’t a Hero Games product, I’m in possession of the final unreleased novel of our recently deceased friend and veteran Hero Games author Scott Bennie. Entitled The Last Orc, it's quite a lovely, classical sort of fantasy novel - the sort of thing we all grew up on, but one seldom sees these days. I’ve touched base with Scott’s family and they would like for it to be released, so we will use the upcoming Patreon account to do that, then most likely pass it on to my own High Rock Press imprint for actual publication.
 
Additionally, I have some projects of my own I would like to release using this method. I’ve begun getting chapters of my Star Hero supplement The Melancholy Seas of Space ready. It’s a sort of homage to Nishizaki’s Space Battleship Yamato, informed by simple setting creation elements I’ve taken from Powered By The Apocalypse games. Finally – and probably of the most interest to you – Hero Games legend Steve Long will be contributing material to this project as well, most likely beginning with chapters of The Martial World and Advanced Players Guide III. Though like the titans of old his ways are mysterious, and He Shall Create those books which He Shall Create.
 
If you have a manuscript of your own you would like to submit, contact me at jason@herogames.com and we can talk about it.
 
Now onto other Hero Games matters!
 
1) A lot of people have downloaded our free introductory product Champions Begins since we introduced it earlier this year and made it available on DriveThru, Indie Press Revolution, Itch.io, and our own website. Than you once again to the mysterious “Hero Fans” for their hard work.
 
2) We’ve been making various edits to Thomas Stadley’s IHA: Pride & Prejudice, and are basically ready to publish it. Steve wants to check over the manuscript and make sure the information in it lines up with the Champions Universe; then we’ll take it to press. We have an excellent cover and interior artwork all ready to go.
 
3) Veteran Hero System fan Carlos Castaneda has come to us with a proposal to create a Champions Complete package for Roll20. We’ve already signed a contract and he will be getting to work shortly with a proposed release date of October 2022. He’ll be keeping you updated about his progress here on the forums.
 
4) As many you already already know, Steve and I have already written six chapters of Champions International and he’s working on a seventh. So we should have that ready to go by Q3 2022 as promised. After that we’ll focus on running new material through Patreon before publication, with the exception of the Gemini System project, which is mostly complete down to a final layout.
 
 

Take a look at Mechanon. What you're doing isn't going to go into one .hdc because it's TWO characters.
Try a robotic character that has brought it's AI parts through a focus if need be.

That largely depends on how you want it to function (i.e. how you want to build it).  It can be Access Points, Resource Points, Computer Link, Contact, any of a number of Talents (with the Link as the sfx)...even Vehicle/Base rules can apply.
 
Recommendation: figure out how you want to represent the Computer/AI within the rules of the system (with your GM's aid/input as needed) - that will typically tell you precisely what to do within HD.

How would you build a shotgun that exists in London 1886??? - Steampunk quirkiness is a bonus!
 

No, not assassinate the PC.
 
"The officer in charged is beside himself with this revelation. He immediately leaves the group to meet personally with his leaders in order to sort this new revelation out...INSEC is totally ignorant for now."
 
Assassinate the guy who is going back to report to the government agency.
 
If he's killed before he talks, the situation is over.
 
Even if he's given some kind of broad outline to someone, the mentalist who the PC's are chasing has obviously messed with his mind. 
 
If need be, the PC's themselves can corroborate that the guy wasn't himself and said a number of odd things at the meeting: acting somewhat dissociated with reality. If the guy's dead and hasn't given a full report and the PC's themselves don't think they're responsible for the murder, they don't really have any more motivation to out themselves than they did before.

I agree with Bolo that knowledge of the other timeline's future would be of little practical value now, and acting on it might inadvertently make things worse for this timeline. I don't think that needs to be sweated over. But charges of treason are a very real possibility. But of course the issue is, what would be most fun for your players, that wouldn't mean burning down the whole campaign?
 
Here's how I would go: whoever the interrogating officer's superiors are inform the PCs that they won't take any official action in regards to this revelation. They won't pass it on to their higher ups. The PCs can continue on as they have been. That is, provided the heroes will occasionally perform some special missions "off the books," as it were, for the greater good of course...
 
It isn't necessary at this point to define what those missions may be, or what the true intentions of the superiors are. That can be developed as you and your players move forward. As well as what, if anything, the PCs decide to do about it.

Of course, their future knowledge is only good up to the point they left their original timeline.  Past that, they're just as blind to future events as everyone else.  If they only went back a handful of months, the whole think will quickly become moot. 
 
Plus, things are already starting to differ.  Even if they reveal "future events," such events may not actually come to pass due to them now being in an alternate timeline and their different actions having ripple effects.  All it would really take would be for a handful of their "predicted" occurrences to fall flat, before the powers-that-be decide the whole time travel thing either wasn't true or is true but won't be as useful as they thought. 

Since there's time travel already involved, you could just have an assassin show up out of nowhere to kill the guy who's going to blab.
 
Either have the assassin show up in some surveillance as being one of the party members (who are well-documented as being elsewhere at the time) or some bad guy who the team has locked away and who everyone knows for damned sure was still in prison when the assassination happened.
 
Entire unsolvable mystery wrapped up in a tidy bow. Unless at some point in the future you want to play out the "stop the time traveling assassin" storyline.
 
I've got another idea but it's going to take a while to write and I'm in the middle of cooking at the moment.

First, I suggest adding an NPC scientific expert in choronophysics (or whatever you want to call it) who can strongly advise against just chaining the time traveling supers to desks to pick their brains on all upcoming events.  This can be explained that vastly altering their actions will increase the "shift" to a more radically different timeline, rendering their future knowledge increasingly worthless.  Because the "real world logic" would be to tie them down and pick their minds, which lets face it would be no fun at all for the players... unless you want them to break with the government (which admittedly could be an interesting direction to take things).  So giving them an ally of sorts could help.
 
It's not entirely clear to me from your post - did their time travel take them back before the start of the invasion?  And if so, are they now past the start of the invasion? Past the Microverse part?  It sounds that way to me, but I wanted to be sure. 
 
Does INSEC know to which point in time they traveled back?  I mean, even if they traveled to before the start of the invasion, they could simply claim they didn't go that far back, arguing that they couldn't prevent the deaths.  How could INSEC know they're lying? 

How about this?
 
Empress Fealty's Crown:  Major Transform - Her Little Kings 3d6 (Free into Enslaved, Healed back by Magic or Prolonged separation from the Empress Fealty's Crown [1 year]), Area Of Effect (6m Radius Explosion; +1/4), Difficult To Dispel (x2 Active Points; +1/4), Constant (+1/2), Invisible Power Effects (Invisible to Hearing, Smell, Touch, effects of Power are Inobvious to other characters; +3/4) (82 Active Points); OAF (-1), No Range (-1/2), All Or Nothing (-1/2)
 

I agree with Hermit.  An area of effect (possibly megascale depending on how bad you want this to be), probably invisible, transform (normal person to slave of the crown).  The image of the crown on them is a special effect of the transform, although it might be a distinctive feature if you really care.

The number of dice in the transform would depend on how long you want it to take to enslave everyone.  Technically the Crown doesn't have a speed score so it can't actually ever use the power unless it was on someone's head, but I'd probably handwave that unless you want to really complicate the crown's writup by making it a full character.

Sounds like a Spirit Transformation to me but it's been awhile since I've played with the power 

How can a character simply change its skin color without spending too many points on a purely self affecting, non-combat power?

Something like this would still cost 3 Points, cost 1 END and require 2 ZERO PHASES to activate: Change Hair/Skin Color:  Cosmetic Transform 3d6 (9 Active Points); Limited Power - Self Only, power loses about half of its effectiveness (-1), No Range (-1/2), Gestures - Must shake out hair (-1/4).

Seems a bit much for just changing your color... 
 

Bronze - a alloy of copper and various other metals - has been the main crafting material of humanity for millenia. But in the end it was surplanted by Iron, wich gave way to steel. Now nothing but artifcats remain.
 
The Aegis - a shield - might be such an artifact. Or not. It is unlike any other bronze item in that is supernautrally hard. In fact some have called it "indestructible", but that is not even scratching the surface (literally):
While the metal itself might not be as impressive, it's Passivation layer certainly is. Similar to Aluminium and Silicon, Copper tends to create itself a Anti-Oxydation layer by oxydising. Except the case of the Aegis this layer is harder then even questionite or vibranium (wichever universe you are in).
In fact the passivation layer on the aegis is so hard and so quickly reforming, any atempts to identify what it was made of failed. It is literally to hard and energy abosrbing for any analysis technique ever tried.
 
The same passivation layer also makes any atempt at putting markings on it impossible wich resulted in it being entirely blank. Even if it was possible, any atempt would entirely block out the passivation effect on the treated surface making it (potentially) incredibly vulnerable to attack.
Without any cultural markings, natural wear and other telltales it is entirely unclear who made the aegis, when it is was made or even how long ago it was made.
It could be anywhere between 1 years or as old as the universe.
 
The Scarlet Shield is a burglar that first appeared about 1 year ago, brandishing the Aegis. He temporarily lost it (wich resulted in the thorough analysis featured above), but quickly retrieved it. It is unclear from where he has the shield. However since he appears to be mostly a glory hound it seems unlikely he made it himself. His crimes seem more concerned with gathering (media) attention, then actuall accumulation of wealth.
While he is not exactly know for violent burglary, he still has a bronze rapier (made of a more conventional but stell extremely durable bronze alloy), is an expert swordsmans and athlethe and will happily engage any Superhero who dare stop him in a fight. If the heroes even get there, as he tends to stay just below the attention of any bigtimer, while also picking targets that garner enough media attention.
As such he has avoided capture and (except for that time he lost his shield) even leaving much of any traces for now.
 
Many a Superhuman crafter (both hero and villain) and Historian would love to get thier hands on the shield, to crack the "Aegis Conundrum" and maybe replicate the metal for whatever plans they have. But all they can do is live with the realisation that it rests in the hands of a common burglar, who might not even appreciate what a unique item it is and is only a villain for the attention.
 
Note: As one might guess, the Aegis is heavily based on Captain Americas Might Shield. Except it is Bronze Alloy, not a Vibranium/Steel alloy.

That would almost have to be a double barrel boxlock (semiauto) break open shotgun.  However, the Winchester 1887 lever action repeating shotgun came out in ...1887; it wouldn't be too hard for a PC to get hold of a "prototype" a year early.  Either of these would be 10- or 12-gauge.

There were also shotguns that had a revolving cylinder, but they were uncommon.

Well British arms makers had perfected the breech-loading shotgun by 1860, so any breech loader would be quite reliable.  If you're looking for something more stylish, there is the concept of the "best gun," which was essentially _any_ British double-barreled shotgun of high build quality, from any high-end manufacturer.  As, by the end of the 1860s, any British double-barreled shotgun was as good reliability-wise as any other, high-end makers pushed the envelop of aesthetics with exotic woods, inlays, metal work, engraving, etc; these firearms were known collectively as "best guns."
 
I think one of the most beautiful examples of a best gun is the Robertson side-by-side:
 

 
 
Now that particular gun is from around the 1890s, as denoted by the single trigger.  However, I noted you said "steampunk," so I have to ask you if you are looking for off-the-shelf guns or "guns that could have been," in which case I have no problem with the idea that your made inventor reached forward thirty years or so and invented the selector switch, or even the selective ejector and ran with it.
 
As Indiana Joe mentions, there were revolving shotguns.  These were sales failures, as they were only practical with rifle rests or bipods.  I don't know how familiar you are with firearms, but let me just run this past you:
 
A revolver is necessarily not a sealed mechanism: the cylinder has to rotate, after all.  The result is that there is a considerable amount of super-heated gases from the powder explosion that are expelled between the cylinder and the barrel of the weapon.  Raise your hands into what Jake Johansen once called "the international shotgun gesture" and notice how they are placed.  For most people, your dominant hand will be forward on the stock, fingers around the mechanism.  Your other hand will be further forward, under the rear of the barrel, so as to steady and help aim.  It's also _just_ forward of where that revolving cylinder was located, meaning that the forearm, wrist, and the hand itself-- depending on your stature, physical strength, and shooting style-- were in the "blast zone" for that gaseous discharge.  Not at _all_ a pleasant experience.  Though again, Steampunk.  If it's something one of your characters invented, then perhaps they have found a way to deal with that problem.
 
Realistically, save in terms of materials used and the capacity of the weapon, shotguns have changed very, very little from their inception, with the LCKD belt-fed shotgun being perhaps the most notable exception (don't look for one outside South Africa, and I don't think you're going to find them there anymore, either.  They weren't as trouble-free as they were meant to be, and-- well, let's face it:  there's really only one use for a short-range high-dispersal weapon with a belt feed.  The term "fish in a barrel" comes to mind, and the idea that there was a government with these things was...  unsettling....  Let's just call it "crowd control" and let it go.
 
 
Now if you mean "how would it be built with HERO mechanics...   Then you're bumping up against one of my personal depression triggers: the fact that HERO-- born of a super-hero system-- has almost no granularity at the "realistic" end of the spectrum (as it was from it's inception meant to model the completely fantastic), and in truth, it is impossible to model the nuances of the difference between one gun and another of the same type using the system.  All guns end up with a depressing amount of sameness using HERO.  If you doubt that, then pick up a copy of Kevin Dockery's "The Armory" (available as a PDF scan of the second printing of the paper book in the HERO store on this site.  I believe it's listed under the 1e banner, though it was released during and more closely follows the 2e rules.   Hundreds of weapons; six possible builds.  
 
However, I suggest at the very _least_ "The Armory" (either printing is fine; only the cover art is different) for anyone wanting to run a "real world" game with HERO; I also suggest "Guns! Guns! Guns!" (commonly called 3G3) and "More Guns: Weapons for all Tech Levels for 3g3," both by Greg Porter and released during the 4e of HERO.  Unfortunately, I don't know that "More Guns" was ever available in PDF.   There is also "Edge of the Sword vol 1: Compendium of Modern Firearms," also by Dockery and also released during the HERO system 4e era.  I _know_ that it's no longer available on PDF, as Dockery states as much on his website (the digital files were lost), but it it still available directly from him or other sources (new and used) on the web.
 
Note that there has been no official HERO product that provides lists of weapons and data, unless you want to just strip that information out of all the published HERO stuff and compile it (which I am suddenly interested in doing....    ) and that of the four books I recommended to you, none are "official" HERO products.  However, all give HERO stats for the weapons (as well as stats for other popular-at-the-time games), and are a no-brainer for fitting in to your campaign.
 
 
I hope something here helps.
 
 
Duke
 

How about this?
 
Killing Attack - Ranged 2 1/2d6, +1 Increased STUN Multiplier (+1/4), Autofire (10 shots; +1); OAF (-1), Requires A Roll (14- roll; Jammed; -1/4), Real Weapon (-1/4), 100 Charges (+3/4)

here's one:
 

Loki.pdf

Here are a few characters created with modified art (not my original art). They're from my Epic City game. A long time ago I had a huge thread about Epic City. I'm sure it's archived somewhere, but I have no idea how to reach it. 
 
AMP

Bastion

Corona

The Badger

Freon


If you want to see more, let me know.


Oops, looks like I posted some of these already here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/134-superhero-images/?p=2490834
Sorry

In retrospect I think our politics would have been better had Nixon gone to prison and all of his misdeeds fully exposed to public scrutiny. It might have had a stronger deterrent effect upon subsequent administrations(including this one).  It annoys me to no end that the media treats impeachment as the end of the disciplinary process for presidents.  News flash: if a president commits "high crimes and misdemeanors", there's a very strong chance that some of those high crimes are also serious felonies.  It's not only "okay" for presidents, once removed or out of office, to be prosecuted, it's okay for them to be incarcerated too.  It sends the message that no one is above the law in our country.  

Is it wrong of me but I just wanted to adapt some lyrics.
When you gonna stop some crime, Corona ?

Here are a few characters created with modified art (not my original art). They're from my Epic City game. A long time ago I had a huge thread about Epic City. I'm sure it's archived somewhere, but I have no idea how to reach it. 
 
AMP

Bastion

Corona

The Badger

Freon


If you want to see more, let me know.


Oops, looks like I posted some of these already here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/134-superhero-images/?p=2490834
Sorry

Here are a few characters created with modified art (not my original art). They're from my Epic City game. A long time ago I had a huge thread about Epic City. I'm sure it's archived somewhere, but I have no idea how to reach it. 
 
AMP

Bastion

Corona

The Badger

Freon


If you want to see more, let me know.


Oops, looks like I posted some of these already here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/134-superhero-images/?p=2490834
Sorry