BigJackBrass

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?

Yep. 
 
Secret ID. 
 
Don't overthink it. 
 
No one looking at Spideman sees puny Peter Parker.  They see Spideman. 
 
You could mistake Iron Man for a robot if you didn't know better. 
 
It's just part of the Lucha magic.  Buy a Secret ID and do _not_ buy Distinctive Features: orange monkey. 
 
Done.

So many years ago (during 5th edition revised) I got an idea for a campaign.  
 
A few false starts
 
Decided to make it a book (never happened)
 
Started it about a year and a half ago.
 
In the first time in 40 years of gaming, a campaign ended at a natural end...I have NEVER had that happen before in any RPG

The events are in final submission stage! Events are submitted but times not set yet.
 
Teen Champions Friday midday and Saturday am -> create your character and then play. Danger Room!!!! 
Teen Champions Danger Room Danger ->  Sunday midday
 
Rules will be taught and children are welcome to my events.
 
I will post details when final approval is done!

Wow.
 
I accidentally dumped an entire folder into the trash!  
 
Thanks for catching that, gentlemen.
 
 
Current link:
 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Oa-vScs8f9_IXD0Wq-MTF6nHNNVxzCB8
 
 
The Fantasy HERO logo rips should still work, though, if anyone wants those.
 

In general I wouldn't apply penalties to the DEX roll, as that is what I think a DEX roll should be for, reacting quickly to a dangerous situation.
The only times I would impose a penalty to the roll is if they were other factors in play, for example they were doing something else while walking the bridge (like looking at a map or involved in a deep or heated conversation) or other penalties like over encumbered, carrying someone, injured, etc... 

Oh Dear God!
 
REPLIED!  I swear I was typing "replied!"
 
I did _not_ mean that!  I _swear_ to you that this was an honest typo!             
 

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. 

Apparently it's contagious. 

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? 

Okay, 
 
your promised disambiguation:
 
 
The book listed in the store as the Sourcebook is what "Book 1" should have been-- and honestly, probably was.
 
If you have the CD collection from FFE, then you have _almost_ all of it.  While the paper copies (Thanks again, Shadowcat! ) are amazing, I was always bugged by the lack of certain "core Traveller" bits: the career path skill-building (yeah; harder to do with HERO fans, but not impossible), world generation, starship generation, and psionics.  In the final cut, psionics was touched on oh-so-lightly, but the rest just kind of "fell out of the book."
 
If you have the FFE CD collection, then you have no doubt been just as befuddled as I have been by those three mysterious "chunks of books" that don't match any of the other PDFs (or the paper copies, if you're also lucky enough to have those-- and again:  Bless you, Shadowcat!  I will _never_ forget the guy who got me the paper books that combine my two favorite RPGs!     ).    They are finished pages, numbered even, but higher than the 163 page count of either Book 1 or Book 2.
 
 
The Sourcebook available in the HERO store is the book those excerpts came from:  It is Book 1, complete with Shipbuilding, psionics, and world building (which-- I can't remember if that's included int he FFE collection or not, but I'm not recalling it off the top of my head.
 
And no; it's not a 6e book.  6e does not own the word "templates;" it simply uses it so excessively as dilute the meaning.  The "templates" are essentially packages or pre-encouraged build types.  "Six e did away with Packages!  We use templates now, which is a totally new, revolutionary, unlike-packages kind of thing that provides chunks of good and bad things together....."   Eliminating a bonus doesn't really mean it's not a package, no matter which hot and trendy buzzword you want to stick on it.
 
 
At any rate, if you're _serious_ about Traveller, then this is really a must-have book.  It was the first book I really wanted to pony up for to have printed, as it really is a "more complete" version of one of the books I already own in print.
 
 
Why was all this great material cut?
 
I don't know.  Shadowcat _might_ know, but doesn't visit regularly.  I've quit the bulk of the board (and once I'm done with the store, will quit the rest of it, at least for what I hope is an extended period), and I'm here more regularly than Shadowcat.       If I were to take a SWAG at it, I'd go back to a comment Shadwocat made a very long time back, that the licensing agreement meant you couldn't include lore / world building stuff in your conversion product, making it necessary to buy at least one "true traveller" sourcebook to get the actual setting.  This stuff may have been cut for fear of getting too close to some perceived line.  Again, I _don't_ know; I'm just WAGging.
 
Still, there is stuff in there that relates to all kind of of pieces of the Traveller universe, and it is nice to see this stuff in HERO form.  _However_, as I said, there isn't much in _any_ of this stuff that will allow a new Traveller player to really glean the published universe of any era: you _will_ need some actual Traveller material for that if you don't actually know it already; totally unnecessary if you're just completely uninterested in someone else's sandbox, of course.
 
Your mileage and opinions may vary or differ, but to me, even if you have the FFE collection, it's totally worth having if you're serious about doing Traveller HERO-style.  It's worth it even if you have the FFE collection (which is great, but also a disjointed mess of things you really don't need or want, but still....), since there is at least one section (I think it was world building, but I don't recall specifically) that wasn't in that collection either.  
 
Please note that in Traveller terms, "world building" isn't a campaign-related or setting-related term; it's the systems with which you create new planets, ecosystems, star systems, etc-- actually populating the stars with places to find or to adventure.
 
 
The one thing that never did come to pass-- probably because of the almost-total incompatibility between the two systems-- that I would _love_ to have seen was a HERO-ized version of FFS (even though that was for TNE).
 
But to get back to the original question:
 
Sourcebook is a meatier, more in-depth and feature-filled version of Book 1; it is the Book 1 that Book 1 should have been.  If you have to choose between the two versions, Sourcebook is the Book 1 that you will kick yourself for not getting.  If you're like me, you'll get them both, just because-- because _Traveller HERO_, Dude!  I _can't_ not support that!  
 
 
 
Duke
 

The Traveller Hero Source book contains conversion data on the Traveller setting. It not only does the Hero standard genre explanations and then an intro to the Traveller universe, but also provides conversions of everything from race templates to equipment.
 
It also has a Traveller to Hero conversion notes chapter. 
 
I attached a word doc with a fast copy of the table of contents which should give you a solid view of all the information packed into this 305 page source book.  If you want to play in the Traveller setting without doing all the conversions yourself, this is the book. 
 
 
Traveller Hero Sourcebook Table Of Contents.docx

I kept getting ads in my social media feed for a role-playing game called Amazing Tales, advertised as a game for kids four years or older and their parents. So yesterday I went over to Drive Through RPG and bought the PDF version for $6.
 
It looks like a lot of fun. The basic idea is this: Choose a setting--a magical kingdom, a starship, a pirate ship on the high seas, whatever. Have your kid(s) make a character by choosing a name and describing what the character looks like. Then have the kid determine four things the character can do well--sailing a ship, finding hidden things, swordfighting, whatever. There is no skills list in the game; the skills are whatever the kid says the character can do well. Have the kid put these four things in order--best, second best, third best, and fourth best. This order determines the die roll for each.
 
And that's it. The character is done! From there, its just cooperative storytelling, with the parent guiding the action with frequent doses of "And what do you do next?" 
 
The actual rules take up one page. The rest of the document is suggestions, story seeds, and lots of cool pictures.
 
I can't wait to play this with my kids!

About to start a superhero RPG as a player and one of the other guys in the group used to play CoH with me, so we were getting nostalgic via email.  I finally broke down and did the download and signed up, thinking "I'll just go in, play with the costume designer, make a hero for my upcoming game, and that's it."  And 3 hours and many levels later I logged off.
 
I forgot what an incredible time sink this game is.  I will have to use it sparingly.  
 
 

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. 

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. 

My husband and I recently started looking into the Champion's 6e game but one thing I can't seem to find both in the book or outside of it is a series of sort of...generic bad guy mooks. Not super heroes or villians, there's plenty of examples of those but like...generic gangster number 1 of 10 you can easily toss at your heroes so they can chew through them on the way to the big bads. Does anyone have any advice or a resource they use to generate these? With enough time I'm sure we could stat up some basic guys using the various non heroic power levels but that seems like a lot of work to go through for some basic fodder, any suggestions?

One item that might be fun that I am completely stealing from Pathfinder:  Greensight.
 
Basically, X-ray vision only to see through plants.  Allows the ranger to navigate clearly and spot prey & enemies trying to hide behind trees or in dense foliage.

In certain settings, dragons are capable of shapeshifting into humans or, more generally, humanoid forms.

In case anyone is curious , the Robot Warriors PDF was a new layout by Ben Seeman after DOJ bought Hero Games.  The only parts of it that are direct scans are the character and robot sheets, and the two sample pages of hex paper.  It does not, however, include a front or back cover.  
 
Edit to add:  I found a PDF version of the robot sheet that I remade and uploaded here.  

Duke, watching that first video with your "helpers" is like watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000! I was laughing out loud for the better part of thirty minutes! Thanks for the review(s), and for reminding us what we should be expecting when we pay money for a product.
 
Big Jack, I have many of the POD books for 6e because I was out of gaming for several decades and missed getting all the books in their original form. I am very impressed with the quality of the books I got (the Equipment Guide, Skills, Grimoire, and all sorts of others). They don't suffer from the same problem as the new 4e book. They're clear and crisp and the paper quality is good and durable. The cover colors may vary a little bit, but I'm not sure the original books were even exactly the same anyway. In short, I have a shelf full of the 6e books and I couldn't tell you which are the originals that I was able to hunt down, and which are the PODs. They're worth getting. 
 
I'm really embarrassed by the 4e POD release. Duke covers it pretty much in each of his videos. I "helped" (much like the "helpers" in the first video) to clean up the Western HERO book with Duke, although he did all the work. He did such an amazing job, I can't figure out why they'd release such a piece of garbage at the 4e Champions book when Duke has offered to volunteer his time and work for them to have a clean copy of a much superior quality. It doesn't really bode well for how decisions are being made for the HERO System (a common complaint I make and won't rehash here). 
 
The 6e1 and 6e2 rulebooks were released as POD a couple of years ago, and then promptly disappeared from DTRPG because the interior text was having problems with the greyscale and whatnot. They had to re-work them to get them right, and then re-released them a while back. I was tempted to get copies of each of those books for reference copies at the game table, but after what I've seen from Duke's review here, I'm not a little bit wary of what those books look like! Essentially, they've lost sales (to my) for several of several copies of their POD books because of how amazingly bad the 4e book is! 
 
I'd think, in all good conscience, they'd have to pull that POD and rework it because as it stands now, it's horrible. It looks like something I would have done with my first MS Paint program back in 1993 on my first homemade computer! Amateurish reprints of old titles have their place I guess, but not when they look so horrible that a nostalgic collector can't even enjoy the cover, let alone read the text inside. Really, PDFs are how we can "collect" titles these days. POD from a PDF shouldn't be that complicated, but somehow they've found a way to screw it up. Computers are much more sophisticated these days, guys, and the tools they offer for producing good books are widely available to people. Expectations are much higher these days, as they should be. As with many other things, DOJ needs to wake up to the 21st Century with their business model. 
 
*Ok, quarantine-induced rant over*
 
Thanks @Duke Bushido!
 

At lower levels (we are now 4th) they have seemed incredibly tough - to the point where the fighting types (including two paladins and two fighters) seem to pale by comparison. This particular player has played more 5E than us and says that "later on, after about 6th, I am outclassed by fighters of a similar level". This just seems like shoddy design to us. To design a broken killing machine early doors only to have it fade out if and when the party survive to mid levels?
 
We would undoubtedly be dead on more than one occasion if it were not for the Bear/Spider WildShapes. and not from any strategic play, just from damage dealing and soaking. 

If this helps you, thank LL.  He reminded me I still like you people, even when I need to get the hell away from you for a while.  Review of two products; the first one bleeds into the next two. 
 
 
Hope it helps
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Coincidentally enough, I had- after the western hero book- plans to do Adventurers Club, then Horror HERO (which is done, but I can't vouch for the quality: I submitted it, but someone else did the work on that one) and then the BBB (as I currently have 2 that are pretty much a collection of loose pages already). 
 
Jason cautioned me away from Adventurers Club, saying there was "something I should keep my eye out for," but I apparently misunderstood and put out the wrong eye or something.... 
 
As for the rest-- well someone did Horror HERO, and I just never found the enthusiasm to do the BBB, as by that point there was a scan for sale of both BBB and 4e HSR, so..... 
 
Looking at what I bought, _really_ wish I had found the time....   Seriously: the third video will show you what you can do with a high-rez scan l, if you want it bad enough, and print any page from the Western HERO PDF.   Oh-  anyone who bought that, shoot me an e-mail or a PM and I'll get you the covers.  I have no idea why Jason hasn't swapped in the covers on that PDF in the store.  And if you are not happy with the fi AL resolution on the contents themselves, I've still got the 1200 dpi originals.  Warning: they are fecking HUGE! 
 
 

Apparently it's contagious.