Amorkca

The Government's misdeeds
As you can see, the government is kind of the overarching villain of the setting. They are indeed quite villainous, but it's only a limited, secret branch, and for instance cops aren't as anti-rogues as the rest.
 
Since Rafael's apparition, the government created the ASHRRaD, the Agency for Super Human Regulation, Research a Development. While it was initially thought as an organisation aimed at peacefully regulating superhumans and helping superheroes (and some branches, like the ASCF, the Anti Super-Criminality Force, still do just that) it was quickly turned into a corrupt, power-hungry agency.
 
In 2026, the ASHRRaD planned Excalibur's murder and worked with Vanguard to get him into the Guardians as a replacement. In 2034, the faked Thomas Parn's death. In 2038, they tested a theory and unlocking funds by preying on Gauss's weak sanity and pushing her to the limit by kidnapping all her superhero team. The same year, following the Induction Incident, they kickstarted the Constellation Program, aiming at turning Galaxy Rush's flesh, blood, bone marrow and cerebral fluids into a super-soldier serum. They used it to create the Constellation Squad, a super-secret squad of brainwashed super-soldier boosted with the Constellation serum and used to kidnap rogues and assassinate important targets. They are incredibly quick, extremely agile, insanely strong and have elite trainings. They can also regenerate at insane rates.
 
In 2045, the setting present day, the ASHRRaD is still abducting female soldiers with good combat records (female because the Constellation Serum kills XY chromosome individuals by destroying their DNA) to put them in the Constellation Squad. They recently started investigating on a big group of rogues, the one the players are going to meet.

Someone left the Dynatron on "duplicate" again.

Tonight was working on Martial Arts manoeuvres: -


 
 
 
and last minute addition before bedtime .. added detailed information regarding the martial manoeuvre
 

 
Only the person making the martial manoeuvre can see the detailed information.
 

Again, I thought the tone of the post would get across that Agent Jerkface is intended to be a J. Jonah Jameson/Harvey Bullock/FBI guy from Die Hard type character.  He's an arrogant blowhard who is there to be a minor recurring antagonist/comic relief to the PCs.  I thought about suggesting that he ends up getting fired as head of the local PRIMUS division, which pleases the PCs greatly until they find out his new assignment -- liaison to their super team.
 
Something can be aggravating to the PCs, yet hilarious to the players at the same time.  We all have to deal with bureaucracy in the real world, nobody wants to actually play through it in the game.  On the other hand, it can be funny to describe all the frustrations that a character has to go through, offscreen.  You don't want to play it out, but sometimes it's funny to think about a guy in a super suit standing in line at the DMV.  Then he gets to the front and the lady is like "it's time for my break" and walks off.  That could be a good explanation for where a character went when Bob misses a game session.  Humor is a big part of the superhero genre, and knowing what your players think is funny will really help.

Speaking of heroes' relating to the authorities, here's the Campaign Chronicle I mentioned of when the players and characters both mucked up and I, the GM, scrambled to keep up with them. At this time my frined Jeff wrote the chronicle.
 
A word of explanation: This was 4th edition, with characters originally written on 250 points. To fit in all the Powers people wanted for their super-mages, most characters had ctivation Rolls and hefty Side Effects. That doesn't explain all the events that turned the scenario into a train wreck... In this, the police are not happy to see the PCs, but I'm sure you'll agree they had reason.
 
(Warning: This is blow by blow, so very long. I won't be offended if no one reads it.)
------------
LIEBESTOD
 
Yes, it's campaign update time again. As you will see when you read on, we do it to ourselves again -- and I though our *last* adventure was a comedy of errors! Since then, things have been quiet for a bit since our little hoo-doo in Montana last time, so we are catching up with our lives...
 
Ian Malcolm has blown himself out of existance again (or at least to another plane), but we are confident he will eventually reappear. Actually, Corey just couldn't make it at the last second, so we expect Ian to reappear start of next adventure.
 
Victor has been thinking about the bilocational house we mentioned we live in. It has occured to him that many exotic spell components he needs are readily available in Babylon and at a good price given the exchange rate. He decides he will need to head over to our place and shmooze a bit, in hopes of being allowed over to Babylon to do some quick shopping.
 
Redeemer has been trying to do research on the Cult of the Doomsday Clock and how to find and return Father O’Herlihey's soul. He is also continuing his research on trying to overcome his inability to father an heir to be the next Champion of Light. This is unlikely to prove fruitful, as he is operating on a false assumption: that he is alive and thus capable of fathering children. His research on both fronts is hampered by his inability to readily locate the Library of Babylon, which he can only reach about 1 in 3 times he tries. He will do better at navigating Babylon's shifting streets when he buys up his Area Knowledge.
 
Jezeray has been continuing her research on lycanthropy hoping to find a cure for Andrew's condition, as well as running her little fortune-telling business. She has also been trying to talk Andrew into moving into Wetchley House with her. He hasn't yet agreed to, but is starting to lean that way.
 
The adventure proper opens with Jezeray sleeping over at Andrew's house. She is having a dream about being sucked into a bottle, when she is awakened by Andrew's thrashing. He is also having a nightmare and is talking in his sleep. His aura is flickering between himself and Black Fang, and he is speaking alternatingly in both voices. Black Fang is taunting Andrew, claiming he can satisfy Jezeray better than Andrew can. Andrew is denying it, but in that panicked way that suggests he really believes it. After he wakes up, they just snuggle up togther until they fall asleep again. In the morning she heads back to Wetchley House.
 
Victor comes over later that morning and Jezeray shows him around the house (he especially likes the Garden Floor, where he harvests several semi-rare herbs he can use in his alchemy). She then takes him out on a guided tour of Babylon. He shops for spell components on the way and gathers some dirt from Babylon so he can make his own EDM teleport potions to get here on his own in the future. They also swing by the Library of Babylon.
 
When they get back, they find Redeemer watching a news broadcast on TV. There is a hostage situation not far away in Tacoma's Hilltop area. It seems that Francine Jarovich (and her daughter Amber) is being held hostage by her shotgun toting husband, who has already shot the mailman, and is about ready to kill his "cheatin' wife". Although there is nothing magical about this, Redeemer decides he is going to get involved anyway, and we decide we had better follow.
 
We fly in invisibly, thanks to Redeemer. Just in case, Victor uses a lotion to make his skin malleable, and sculpts himself a temporary new face -- his current body is also hunted by the police. Jezeray is pleased when Redeemer suggests he sees no need for Zontar and that she should stay herself. The house is surrounded by cops who are trying to negotiate with the husand, who is in an upstairs bedroom with the hostages. Hovering outside the broken window, we decide that Victor will cast a Matter Barrier around the wife and daughter while Redeemer simultaneously gives the husband a Mental Illusion of getting shot in the face with a shotgun (poetic justice). It works, sort of... Redeemer's Illusion is real enough to knock the husband out before he can fire, but Victor blows his roll and we end up in a side effect entagle, and plunge out of the sky. The SWAT team runs up and starts beating on us. Luckily, the entangle protects us and we are still invisible. Redeemer teleports us out of the entangle back into the air.
 
Just before we fly off, Jezeray notices that the house is permeated by a malevolent evil aura. We stop to investigate. Redeemer can detect no magic at work in the house, but does notice that one of the cops is viciously beating on the unconsious husband with his truncheon. Redeemer scans him and determines he is being mentally influenced somehow. Other cops pull "officer Smith" off before we have to intervene. We fly to the side and land. Victor blusters his way into the crowd of cops as the man is being wheeled out on a stretcher, claiming to be a doctor. In his white lab coat and safety glasses, he does somewhat look the part, and the cops and paramedics buy it long enough for Victor to do some magical healing. The blue glow around the victim sets them off however, and Victor is pulled away.
Redeemer then walks up in full bishop's regalia -- and the cops all groan. *Him* they recognize. He is firmly told to bugger off, their paranormal interference is not appreciated with the Tacoma Police. He and Victor leave, cloak themselves, and join Jezeray, who has been hanging near the house in her "unnoticeable" state, checking out the aura in more detail. She determines that the house itself seems to be somehow possessed.
 
Back home, Artifex finally pops into Wetchley House to check on us. He is back from the War of Infinity (both sides have declared themselves the winner and fighting has ceased). He finds the house empty except for a terrified dog whose collar identifies him as "Sam". After scanning to make sure it is not a transformed Andrew, he leaves it alone, though Sam snaps at him (like Redeemer, he is disliked by animals, in his case because his Art nature conflicts with their Nature nature - if that makes sense). Terence tells Artifex where we are and what we are up to, so he cloaks himself and comes to join us.
 
Once he arrives he fills us in about the War being over etc., etc. We are amused at his new costume; having gotten over his somber phase, he is now in something resembling an iridesent toga. Getting down to busIness, he and Jezeray both retrocog. the house in their own respective fashions.
 
Jezeray blows her rolls and briefly believes that this is the work of Mephistopheles, but soons figures out that she is wrong. Artifex's retrocognition takes the form of talking to the house. It is a nice if somewhat complaint-prone structure. It certainly does not seem evil itself. It mentions a new resident who moved in three days ago. Under further questioning, it admits the new person isn't flesh and blood. The house also is not certain exactly where the new person is, except somewhere inside.
 
Victor uses his "Reagent Kit" (a magic detect that gets more detailed the more extra time is used, based on alchemical experimentation). After 5 minutes he has determines that the house was occupied 3 days ago by an astral being -- some sort of atavism, and that it gets stronger the more harm it causes. We speculate that if they get stronger by causing pain, then joy and happiness may make them weaker.
Redeemer decides we need to learn more by confronting the creature and decides to enter the house. He decides to set up a poor-man's Mind Link with Jezeray (i.e. Mental Illusions on Jezeray of her hearing in her head whatever Redeemer wants to say to her), so we will be able to track his progress in the house. Victor gives him a potion and tells him to drink it in an emergency, but does not tell him what it is. Artifex decides to go in with Redeemer while Jezeray and Victor remain outside. Incidentally, while we've been invisible, the police have finished all their work at the house for now and have cordoned it off with that yellow "police line -- do not cross" tape. It is now late in the evening.
 
Redeemer and Artifex enter the house. Once they leave the front of the house and the windows that look out on Jezeray and Victor, Line-of-sight for the Mental Illusion is broken (something we didn't think of). Redeemer decides to press on anyway, not realizing that Jezeray does not know. You see, mental powers continue to affect the victim even after being shut down, at least until an EGO roll is made. Hence Jezeray continues to hear a repetion of Redeemer's last thought - "I'm in the living room now, everything is still o.k.".
 
Redeemer and Artifex get to the center of the house, and Redeemer issues a challange to the atavism of the "come and get me" variety. Without waiting for an attack he then chugs the potion Victor gave him, still not knowing what it is! Oh, and what was it, you ask? Well, remember when we speculated that happy emotions would weaken the thing? Yes, in an effort to help that effect, Victor has given Redeemer a Love Potion!!! About the same time Artifex tries to create a merriment-based PRE attack by launching into an impromptue song-and-dance rendition of "Come on get Happy!".
 
Hearing the commotion, Jezeray and Victor rush into the house and start laughing at Artifex. As soon as Redeemer sees Jezeray, however, he falls madly in love with her! He realizes that between his magic and her psychic powers, their child would be the most powerful Champion of Light ever! He instant changes into "continental" garb and starts putting the make on Jezeray. Artifex and Victor whisper to her not to reject him, his pain would then feed the atavism. In fact, with her Mental Awareness, she just then spots a mental effect aimed at Redeemer. She decides that if the atavism is in contact with him, she needs to encourage his love as much as possible. She grits her teeth and throws herself into Redeemer's arms, professing her love for him. Just to add insult to injury, Artifex has produced a camcorder and is filming the whole scene for posterity (and possibly blackmail).
 
The atavism's suggestions to Redeemer are subtle and work at twisting his love into a demented sort of obsession. He teleports her and him into the bedroom and then begins drainign her life force, to make her more like him (even though he doesn't admit he is dead). She is unable to break his undead-strength grab.
 
Artifex and Victor track them down. Victor sees an empty bedroom but Artifex see's through the "nobody here" illusion Redeemer has cast and tells Victor what Redeemer is doing to Jezeray. Redeemer adds the Choking Tentacles to the Life Drain he is using and Jezeray passes out. Artifex cast an illusion on Jezeray of being a decaying corpse, but the illusion also includes (vs. Detect Magic) that the spell is transformative magic rather than an Image spell. Redeemer see's through the visual part of the illusion but not the type-of-magic part and so believes that Artifex has just tried to transform Jezeray into a decaying corpse.
 
Victor meanwhile finally manages to see through the "nobody here" illusion, but doesn't see through Artifex's illusion on Jezeray - so he sees a decayign corpse and thinks Redeemer has killed Jezeray by sucking all her life out!! Victor cast a hyper-gravity pocket on Jezeray hoping to make Redeemer drop her. When Artifex adds a downward TK pull to it, he does - in fact, she goes right through the floor and partially into the crawlspace below, taking enough damage to ensure she won't wake up soon. The illusion of her being a corpse is dropped now so Victor see's she is really alive and casts a Matter Barrier over her for protection.
 
About now, Redeemer makes an EGO roll to break the atavisms effect on him, but he is still in love with Jezeray and hence is horrified by what he has tried to do to her. The atavism takes a new tack, trying to suggest "Yes, you've hurt her horribly, you don't deserve to live, why don't you just end it all". Redeemer however decides he must have vengeance on Artifex for trying to transform Jezeray into a corpse, but then decides she is still in danger from him and must be saved first. As Redeemer grabs Jezeray the bedsheets suddenly fly off the bed and entangle Artifex (this is the atavism's poltergeist abilities at work). Redeemer tries to teleport him and her out of the house, but the Matter Barrier around Jezeray is hardened, so she is left behind much to Redeemer's surprise. Victor drops the Matter Barrier around Jezeray and feeds her a Healing Potion. It isn't enough to wake her up, but she will recover soon.
 
Redeemer blasts through the bedroom window, move-by grabs Jezeray and begins flying down the hallway toward the front door with her at high speed. Artifex is still tangled up, so Victor casts an Expand Matter at Jezeray (Growth with no mass increase). Sudden;y she is much bigger then the hallway - she and it take considerable damage as they grind to a stop. Redeemer, who somehow kept his grip on her, teleports them outside. Victor and Artifex follow. Having seen Victor heal Jezeray, redeemer decides he is maybe not one of the bad guys and asks him to do it again (she is pretty badly hurt at this point). Victor gives her one Healing Potion, enough that she will recover in awhile. Before Redeemer can resume hostilities with Artifex, Terence suddenly thinks to use a PRE attack via the Mind Link to inform Redeemer he is dead, and make him believe it. As usual, he promptly collapses into a pile of bones from which state he will not recover until he restores his disbelief in his death.
 
We take the opportunity to cure him of the effect of the Love Potion. Also, Jezeray is shrunk back to normal and further healed. Based on what we have seen, Terence recognizes the atavism as a House Haunter: once they possess a house they can affect the material world in certain ways (like making mental suggestions and poltergiest effects), but only within the confines of the house they have occupied. One other problem is that attacking it is not easy -- it is nearly undetectable except by Mental Awarness when it attacks (and even that is only a non-targeting PER roll!) and its location is literally wherever its attention is at any given second, so it moves instantly. Moreover, if we hurt it too much it will just abandon the house and haunt somewhere else later. Once out of the house, it will be purely astral and we will have no good way to fight it.
 
After mush discussion we come up with a plan. Artifex will spell-hack Redeemer's Wall of Solid Darkness into a Wall of Mental Defense, which we will trap the creature within so it cannot flee the battle. Redeemer will then stay outside the battle to keep the wall up. Artifex -- who has no Ego or affects desoid attacks -- will become phantasmal and attack either with spells or with the alchemical rockets and grenades that Victor equips him with. He will also have his STR boosted by a potion in case the critter can attack him physically in his phantasmal state. Jezeray will channel Zontar, who will use his EGO-attack spells against the critter, but will also be boosted by a SPD Aid potion of Victor’s to increase his rate of fire. Victor has 2 rockets that affect desolid he wil use. Once those are gone, he will make himself useful however he can, or will try to make himself a target so the rest of us stay up longer.
 
Having set everything up and chugged our potions in advance, we reenter the house. Once inside, Artifex casts a spell that causes a miasma of despair within the room we are in. This lures the atavism out, which tries to suggest to Artifex that he should just end it all as he is a worthless loser, but since he expects it and isn't despairing the way it thinks he is, it has no effect. Artifex makes his PER roll and takes a shot at the atavism, bit misses. Victor shoots where Artifex did but also misses. Zontar, who is using his Cerulean Spray (1 hex area EGO-attack) hits. Since he is currently boosted to SPD 6, he goes next and hits again. Artifex hits it with a rocket when it tries to mentally attack him again, and Zontar maybe hits; we aren't sure. Victor misses again.
 
Out of rockets, he instead pulls out a different rocket while cackling out loud about how this will easily blow it away. It buys it, and tries to attack him next phase by throwing a TV at him with its poltergeist powers. Zontar, however, had been holding his higher DEX and remembers what they told him about it: "It literally is wherever its attention is at any given moment". He realizes that if it is moving the TV, then that's where its attention is! Just as it throws it, Zontar hurls a more powerful but non-area effect Cerulean Spear at the TV set; it hits and the atavism is dispersed, though its essence is still contained in the Mental Defense bubble.
 
In theory, at least, the atavism could reassemble itself and wake up eventually. Dispersing it more would help, but we don't know how much would be required to ensure it never recovered. Jezeray knows that ghosts can eat any atavism they can choke down their throats, so tries to call in her ghost friends to feast on the leftover essence -- it won't taste good, but it is "nutritious" to ghosts so they would probably eat it if she asked. However, when she starts scanning for her ghost friends, she can only find about half of them; the others are not to be found. Moreover, while many fixed location ghosts are also missing, most of the missing are of the rarer free roaming variety. Jezeray instead lures in a number of small atavism (which also eat other atavisms) to chow down. What little is left we disperse as best we can, and are satisfied the House Haunter won't ever be back.
 
Artifex scans the city for magic that might be affecting the local ghosts and homes in on a signature. When we find it, it is a bowl sitting on the ground behind some shrubs beside a building. Written around the rim is "Able was I ere I saw Elba" and the inside of the bowl has a maze pattern. The center of the bowl is a hole. When we pick the bowl up we discover that the hole attaches to a bottle buried under the ground. This is a ghost trap -- the bowl acts as a lure to draw the ghost in; once over the hole, it is sucked into the bottle, which is a variation on a Solomon's Bottle. This trap in fact has already captured a ghost. Jezeray contacts the mind of a panicked woman inside. She free's the ghost with the intent of then questioning her, but the panicked ghost just flies off screaming in terror. Artifex scans and finds at least a dozen more such traps within the city.
 
This is where we called it a night. Next session will obviously begin with our investigation of the ghost traps and an attempt to track down who is capturing ghosts and why. Ironically, Dean tells us that this problem is what we were supposed to really be dealing with this session - the House Haunter was only supposed to draw us in to discovering the absence of ghosts. Our comedy of errors made that into the entire adventure however. Perhaps even more ironically, his original plot called for the Imp of the Perverse to show up and mess with our attempts to deal with the House Haunter. He threw that idea out about the time Redeemer chugged the Love Potion -- who needs the Imp of the Perverse to mess us up, we do it to ourselves quite nicely...
-------------------
Dean Shomshak

I enjoyed the entire series from Mithgar. He blatantly states the the Iron Tower is an homage to Lord of the Rings. But I liked how, if you read the entire Mithgar series of books, how things come around at the end that were setup in earlier books.

The copy of the handout on this thread was updated.  I will be updating the one through the club probably by the end of the week.

I've tried this, and some players just don't want to face off against their friends. 
 
(Though it did work great when a PC was temporarily replaced by a mimic.  I asked the player to run the mimic and said he could drop subtle clues so long as they weren't too numerous or blatant.  The other players didn't catch any of the clues, and the looks on their faces when he finally turned on them was priceless, even moreso when he pointed out all the clues he had dropped.)

A character in my just-completed Champions campaign has Retrocognition and can talk to spirits of dead people.  The players used both of these a *lot* to get the straight poop on what was going on.  When I noticed they were basically 100% trusting (and utterly relying upon) the visions or what the ghosts said, I occasionally threw a monkey wrench in there.  My favorite was when a DEMON Morbane figured out she could see what happened in the past, so he taunted her before casting a spell (Darkness to Retrocog Clairsentience) that ended her vision before she could see what he actually did.  He also created a spell that made her see what was going on in an alternate dimension, so one of her visions contained incorrect info.  Man, did she hate him! 
 
In a recent adventure involving Shadow Destroyer, one of his underlings was transformed to look like someone else (whom he was holding captive), and then ordered the underling to commit suicide.  The PC heroine was baffled when she couldn't summon that person's spirit (since the person wasn't actually dead yet).
 
(Note:  I didn't do this sort of thing often, just mainly when that Morbane was involved, or that one case with Shadow Destroyer.)

Some film & TV writers don't seem to get it (my personal pet peeve is the need some superhero show writers seem to feel to do an episode arc or sequel based around preventing a hero from using the abilities that make them super--very aggravating!), but some writers do get it. I would argue that the Marvel movies by and large generally get this right, offering heroes that are relateable but also allowing them to cut loose with their powers and focusing on threats that remain challenging and require the heroes to be super to overcome. Some of the DCUA cartoons do this too. Most recently, Young Justice is to me a pretty good template for team based supers campaign.

I know this is going to sound odd, and I'll try to get something more explanatory up tomorrow night (too late tonight), but I would like to offer something that has served me _wonderfully_ over the years:
 
If the players, by accident or by intent, offer up a better plot, better twist, or better behind-the-scenes activities than you had planned-- and _especially_ of they are surprised (in a positive, excited sort of way) that either they have "figured it out" or that you "really managed to pull that off without us knowing!", then _by all means_ abandon what you had planned and run with it.  Even if you worked two weeks on your idea, and you actually like it a bit better, if the players are stoked by something they _think_ you're doing, then do that thing.  Always.  Excited players are happy players, and have solid, positive memories of their time at your table.  Plus, since they really think that they-- either as themselves of as their characters-- were invested enough and clever enough to figure it all out---  well that just increases their willingness to invest themselves in the game.
 
Steamroller them into what you had planned, and-- while it may be an even bigger success-- you are risking two things:  their disappointment at being wrong (and perhaps being wrong "yet again") and the possibility that what you had in mind ends up having less appeal to them.
 
 
Hell, I've built my entire setting that way, over the years.  I've got two players left from our original "'82 Crew" that have been adventuring in Campaign City (on the shores of Lake Campaign) since Day One, and while there are, _today_, maps, institutions, cultures, backstories, people and personalities and venerable old traditions-- even those two players from way back when have no idea just how much of this place they built themselves.  The best part of that is that they _like it_ here.  
 
The same can (just "can;" it's not a regular thing) happen with your plots and stories as well.

(No quotes Beast? Well, we will assume you answered in character anyways.)
 
Lady Heart looked Maggie Ravenwood up and down. "You don't have a supername? Let me think...prehaps Mock would do. What do you think?"

Bonnie Curtis enters, hands Michelle a note, and says, "Internal mail."
 
Michelle says, "Thanks, Bonnie."
 
Bonnie says, "You're welcome," and exits.
 
Michelle opens it, reads it, and says, "Joanna, who has her first responder certification, will be landing in less than three minutes.  Also, Bonnie, who will stay at headquarters, has been assigned to the team."

"Mock for me implies comedy/heckiling"
"I'm more the grace of a cat running,leaping and climbing and able to slip in and out like a ghost"
"I like that so I'll go by the nome` degere` Ghost Cat"
"thank you Lady Heart for getting me thinking on a code name"
"I had figured our teachers would have assessed our powers and skills and then named us"

Hi, I'm Maggie Ravenwood 1/2 human(genentic construct) ,1/2 machine(nanites)
I'm a shape shifting brick
 

Monica says, "I'm Arachne.  I've trained in ninjutsu for many years.  The bracelets let me create energy duplicates of martial arts weapons.  An amulet lets me change into my costume.  The costume itself is lightly armored and the gloves and soles of my boots let me climb walls.  Thanks to the costume, I can also see clearly at night."

If you’re in eastern Michigan, how did you happen to choose Boston as your campaign location?  My old campaign was set there but we were all from there so it made things easy....kind of.
  During a combat in the downtown streets a player needed hydrogen peroxide to make an explosive and when I as the GM said “Well where are you gonna get that?” She smiled and told me exactly where the pharmacy was....she blew a perfectly good 10 ft. Death Drone all to hell.

The way I run a Champions campaign is:
I almost always set it in an actual real-world city, because I don't want to have to come up with maps, decide what's where, etc.  (Caveat:  I haven't yet tried to run in San Angelo, which looks to be a pretty completely laid-out city designed for a Champions campaign.)  I also really, really like using Google Maps satellite view, both for setting up the combat maps with fun details, as well as to let the players get a view of what everything looks like.  As to secret IDs, I don't follow reality too strictly, or it would make it practically impossible for the heroes to maintain one.  (Though one can make a case that there are enough unsolved bank robberies and other crimes, many of which involve the robber not wearing a mask of some sort, to make keeping a secret ID feasible.)  Sometimes, you have to roll with the genre conventions. Regarding civilian / super dichotomy, I try to include stuff related to the person's secret ID as well as the super side.  To this end, I've given 5 extra points at character creation if the player provides me 5 family / friends / acquaintance NPCs (important note:  these are not to be used as DNPCs, just people to add to the campaign world).  The players will find ways to use their characters' powers / abilities to help people around them, whether in costume or not.  Over time, PCs often start interacting with other PCs' friends / family / etc. in very fun ways.  As far as I'm concerned, the players have a responsibility to find a way for their characters to participate in the adventure.  They should know their skills / powers and find ways to use them in a given adventure.  As GM, I try to provide plot hooks and usefulness for each of the PCs, but they have to pick up the ball and run with it.  If someone doesn't want to, well, he can sit on the sidelines all he wants.  More recently, I've tried to have an overarching plot, in addition to a (often unrelated) plot for a given night's adventure.  (I call this the Veronica Mars model, though I'm sure it's been used elsewhere prior to that show.)  I'll run the adventure plot itself, usually with something happening (maybe something major, though usually something minor) to move the overarching plot along. To illustrate the above:
My current campaign is set in Boston.  In one adventure, a new supervillain group (the A-Team, a for-hire group of villains whose names all start with the letter "A") was hired to pull a series of crimes to make the Boston supers (Just Cause) look bad.  They did this by leaving clues (released later to the media) as to their next crime, which would seem fairly obvious after the fact.  After three separate encounters (where I showed the players aerial view maps of the locations), we had the big fight.  It was then that I pointed out to the players that in each case, three streets came together to look like an "A".  (The look on their faces was priceless.)  In another case, rooftop features took on great tactical value, both for the villains as well as for the heroes. Secret IDs work both ways.  (Supervillains can have them too.)  My players are willing to accept that they may not be able to use hacked traffic cameras and other security cameras to figure out who's hiding behind Dr. Nefarioius's mask (to borrow assault's example), since that also means that VIPER can't do the same to figure out exactly who the heroes are.  I mean, they still have to make an effort to maintain the secret identity, but as long as they're making a fair effort, it will work out okay for them (after the requisite amount of dramatic tension, of course). In past campaigns, several female PCs (in secret ID) had a spa day with the NPC friend of another PC.  When one PC heroine was dating a PRIMUS agent, several other PCs (in secret ID) went along with her to hear his garage band play.  When you give one player the spotlight, you'd be surprised how the others want to contribute too, whether with background suggestions or directly joining in.  It can be a lot of fun to see how things morph over time. Last Sunday's adventure involved the PCs setting up a trap for the Empress of a Billion Dimensions, with said trap to be sprung on a world she already controls, sending her to a world they had to visit to set up something to keep her from escaping.  Of the 7 heroes, the scientist (Pops), gadgeteer (Maker), and engineer / mage (Malarkey) had skills useful for setting up the MacGuffin to trap her on another world.  The detective (Shadow Boxer) had a counterpart (Shadow Man) on the controlled world who could help draw away some of the Empress' forces.  The mentalist (Circe) used her mental powers to cover the actions of Pops, Maker, and Malarkey.  The necromancer (Nexus) used a summoned spirit to scout out where they needed to go.  And the brick (Honey Badger) used his incredible sense of smell to figure out guard patrol routes.  There were other plot hooks and possibilities as well, some of which they didn't take advantage of.  But the point is, there was enough to involve everybody. The Empress's plan to draw super-forces away from the campaign world and soften it up with Cthulhu-esque menaces before her planned invasion has been this campaign's overarching plot.  The heroes uncovered how she drew many superheroes off-world (using modified blasters and other energy weapons given to groups like VIPER, Genocide, etc.) in one adventure where they needed to "borrow" some equipment from one of the missing hero teams.  They discovered her connection to the Cthulhu menaces while investigating a supervillainess team (the Valkyries).  They discovered how she was keeping the missing heroes from returning to their world in a different adventure.  Each was a step along the way to (hopefully) resolving that campaign-wide plot.

Hi guys! From the main page: as most of you already know, Hero Games will be launching a fan-driven community content program on DriveThruRPG in about two weeks, similar to Dungeon Masters Guild and Storytellers Vault. And at this point an amazing *fifty* of you have contacted me about contributing work to it!  I was surprised and overwhelmed by the positive response, which I thank you all for. 
 
However, to launch the program in a couple of weeks I need many of you who have expressed interest to turn in your work in advance. So if you're working on something, have contacted me, and are nearly ready: please don't hesitate any longer. Send it to me!
 
- Jason Walters, Publisher   

I think that my response here is, of course you will get the value of the points back but we are going to have to talk about how that happens.
 
There are no more items like Stormbringer in my campaign world, so that is not going to happen.  If you want a similarly unique item we will need to think about what it is and how it might end up in your possession...that will not be immediate and you will be missing a chunk of ability until it is.
 
I agree, doing a stupid thing deserves punishment.
 
I have often given players the ability to travel back in time when they do something stupid.  So after he threw Stormbringer in the volcano, I might say, you have accurately imagined the likely outcome, you still want to throw it in?  Gives them a second chance.
 
Doc

It's worse.
 
It is like Danger Sense (which rightfully comes with a stop sign) and adds +5 to your initiative rolls which would be lightning reflexes in HERO.
 
I had this at my Sunday table which is currently running D&D 5e.  The party's ranger/rogue has Alert, but the party is walking right into a giant ooze monster that is invisible until it moves.
 
He not only has Alert, but wins the initiative roll.  So he gets a full turn to act, but simultaneously cannot see a threat.  We haggled for a bit and he settled on holding his turn until the threat revealed itself.

Fantasy Hero Complete in fact includes, electronically at least, 18 sample PCs (in PDF, RTF, and HDC formats!), a starter adventure (the Val of Stalla), 24 monsters, the Kingdom of Grishun setting, and five maps (kingdom, city, town, countryside, and dungeon).  So we pretty much have the Fantasy Hero starter set!  The only thing it doesn't include is the dice.  $20 for book + PDF, $10 for PDF only; both of those include the adventure, setting, PCs, monsters, etc.
 
We pretty much have the Fantasy Hero starter set! 

"I'm an anime style magical girl, not a D&D wizard...or whatever. I can fly in this form." She proves it by levetating up into the air for a short moment. "My 'magic missles' are all heart theamed, and don't automatically hit. I can tangle people up in energy ribbons which originally were from a heart. I can produce a glowing heart which blinds people temporarily. And i can't suround people with force fields or such."
 
"And as it was explained to me, the universe thinks of this form as being too lovely to harm. Oh, and normal people are more likely to give up without fighting when I speak." (OOC: PRE Attack bonus especially for such type of PRE Attack).

I don't know what book you're using (other than 6th ed), but if you're not using it now, I'd strongly suggest picking up HERO System Basic.  It puts things in much smaller bites, and in so doing, a lot of stuff is actually _easier_ to digest.  Then flip to your bigger books if-- and _only_ if!-- you still aren't clear on something.
 
It will make character creation simpler, too, if only because you aren't so overwhelmed with the monolithic entries for -- well, for pretty much everything-- that the big books offer.
 
Just a thought, but I really believe it will help.

So simulating a specific work. Check.
 
I don't do that much. I have done the Middle Earth thing as a Fantasy HERO game. In this case I didn't do a lot of world building.  Famously Tolkien had done most of that. I did write up a few monsters but most of the basic bad guys were already covered by the HERO bestiary.  It worked pretty well. We set the game in the First Age and the heroes had a fair bit of leeway regards changing canon. In fact I wouldn't have complained if they'd gotten their hands on a silmaril, saved Fingon in the Dagor Bragollach, or some other canon-breaking thing.