BigJackBrass

There's a rather fun Automan documentary on YouTube.

There's Mil Máscaras, of course, but weirdly everyone knows who he is even when he changes masks. He's the master of disguising himself as Mil Máscaras!

So it does! The one bestiary I don't have a physical copy of and I forgot to check the PDF! Many thanks.

Thanks Duke, that certainly follows my own instincts (and it's easier to write up 😁).

I'm currently working on a Lucha Libre HERO character called "El Hombre Peludo" (which hopefully means "The Hairy Man"). In many ways he's a typical crimefighting luchador, but underneath the mask he's actually an orangutan; and nobody ever notices, because of the mask. EL Hombre Peludo is of human intelligence and can talk. Without the mask he looks like an ordinary orangutan, but when he's wearing it everyone treats him as they would any other luchador. I'm working on a Standard Luchador build (so, 5th edition rules, 200 + 50 character points) and taking the Bestiary entries for Gorilla and Chimpanzee, along with the 5th edition build for Dr. Silverback, as starting points for how to deal with the orangutan side of things. Has there ever been a published description of an orangutan in Hero terms? Haven't found one anywhere as yet. Anyway, the tricky part for me is how to treat the fact that everyone thinks he's simply a particularly hairy person when he's masked; and of course it's Lucha Libre HERO so he'll be masked for almost the entire time. I could make the actual mask a super item, altering perceptions so that onlookers see only what they expect to see, or I could simply handwave it as part of the genre: he's a luchador, so in a way he's simply a living embodiment of what the mask represents and nobody sees beyond that, just as a superhero in a domino mask is instantly unrecognisable. I'm not sure if making the mask an actually powerful object in its own right is terribly fair, since all of the abilities inherent in being an orangutan are going to be paid for as normal, it's simply telling the world who he is (and perpetuating a running gag). Any thoughts on this? If someone brought the character to your table and simply argued that because he wears a luchador mask then nobody will spot he's actually a short, fat primate, with orange body hair and exceptionally long arms, would you accept that as being reasonable?

Well, I suppose what I was thinking was a replacement for the stat block, say, that would give you the equivalent of buying a 6E version of the book, without needing to do any conversion yourself. In that respect I suppose I'd be expecting the update to be optimised for 6E. Right now there are lots of titles which I guarantee some potential buyers are skipping over because they use the older rules. It's not clear how easy it is to play a 5E book like Urban Fantasy Hero if you want to use 6E rules; and that in turn raises the question of whether to buy 5E or 6E if the supplement or setting you want hasn't been updated. Picture someone who is interested in Hero looking at what to play: right now they might not only be dealing with character creation and writing an adventure, they may also need to revise the book without any experience using the system. It's an additional chore, but it's also very off putting. Honestly, if you look at the product descriptions in the store they're often ambiguous enough as it is and certainly don't go out of their way to bridge the gulf between editions. Accepting that not every book would be suitable for this sort of treatment, I still think it could be a good way of making a lot of that great older stuff relevant and accessible, sort of a software patch. I don't know if Hero Games would go for it, so thought I'd toss the idea of the for opinions from people who have actually used the system far more than I have.

This may have been discussed before but, since nothing came up when I searched, here's something I've been pondering: At this point I think it's fair to say that we are not going to see 6E versions of, say, Lucha Libre Hero or Dark Champions. The economics clearly aren't in favour. In many cases, though, the parts of the 5E books requiring an update are not the bulk of the volume, so they still work as excellent sourcebooks if you don't mind doing a bit of work on the numbers. With that in mind, what about producing update PDFs for older books specifically to bring them in line with the current edition? There's no rewriting, reformatting and reprinting of the originals involved, simply a downloadable document providing updated stats etc. I can't think of an easier way to make old stock relevant again and to open up earlier material for people who aren't really in a position to rejig everything themselves. Does that sound like a reasonable idea, something worth pursuing?

The table of contents mentions Templates, so does that suggest that this is actually a 6th rather than 5th edition book, despite the cover?

Well, now I'm confused too 😁 I have the Traveller HERO CD-ROM from FFE which includes Traveller HERO Book 1: Adventurers in Charted Space and Traveller HERO Book 2: Adventure in Charted Space. There's no Traveller HERO Sourcebook in that collection. The Traveller HERO Sourcebook listed in the Hero Games store doesn't appear to be either of the two core volumes, or at least not as they were originally presented, and there's too little information provided to work out if it's a revised or combined edition. How very odd!

A degree of luck (their crime spree lasted a couple of years), myth-making and brutality. They loved powerful cars and guns, and took a lot of photographs, giving them a glamorous air in desperate times: the reality was more squalid, unsuccessful, petty and murderous. There's little to suggest that they were particularly skilled or clever. For one thing, they weren't up against difficult targets or efficient, coordinated law enforcement to start with. They killed more than a dozen people to gain trifling sums. Clyde was especially fond of the Browning Automatic Rifle he stole, a seriously powerful firearm which he clearly considered a status symbol, but honestly their main weapons seem to have been desperation and ruthlessness. The truth is they weren't "pulp" in an action/adventure way at all, from their harsh individual lives until their deaths together. I'm not sure I'd want to feature them in a game other than as news from elsewhere.

Point totals jumped due to the changes in sixth edition, so this is an "it depends" question. Which edition are you using?

That's really helpful. Thank you, Brian.

I'm not able to print from Western HERO at the moment (Covid-19 lockdown has meant being very frugal with stationery supplies!) but it would astonish me if any random page didn't utterly shame that fourth edition POD copy; the PDF is tremendously well done. It's amazing how the drabness of the POD cover immediately lowers expectations for the game. Of all the different Champions editions that's the most eye-catching, vibrant and alive, yet it's been made dull and static. And that's even before the eyestrain-inducing interior. Much of the problem here seems to be the source scans, but how do the larger newer books fare as print-on-demand? (i.e. something thicker than the templates book.) At the moment there are a few 6E titles such as the Bestiary I have in PDF but, due to increasing scarcity and price, not in paperback: POD is the only decently priced option, but I'm a little wary of binding and cover quality. Thanks for the reviews, Duke. You convinced me to buy the templates book as a PDF and reminded me not to take quality for granted.

Apparently it's contagious.

For years I only knew of Supergame from the ads in Space Gamer magazine, but remarkably Precis Intermedia Games reprinted it a couple of years ago! They also did a "third edition" which is actually an entirely different system. Unfortunately it looks like it's following their typical path of buying an old IP and not following up with the promised supplements.