Ken Winland

Howdy, In the 1970s, the Avengers were co-opted by the US Government by something like the 'National Security Council'. A lot of there files were taken (as well as some trophies), they had to follow rules, and had to have a US Intel liason who kept abreast of the activities of the team, etc. The Avengers were also limited to something like 7 members, although they added "active" and "reserve" status to circumvent this later on. The Avengers had no legal or enforcement powers, but the US government did offer some support and international protection. It came with a LOT of strings. Cheers, Ken

Howdy, The new comic from Mike Cary (GREAT author) is like this in some respects. 'Suicide Risk' follows a police officer who is looking into the origins of meta-humans, most of whom become villains when they get their powers. And then HE gets powers.... Cheers, Ken

Howdy, How do you handle a character picking up and using weapons? A player grabbing the gun of a fallen police officer, the laser rifle from a downed VIPER agent, a kitchen knife, etc. Do you make them pay points from the weapons if they use them more than once? Do you stop them somehow from using them? I can see an agent or weapon-based character buying a pool or attacks based on finding or picking up weapons, but what about the off-the-cuff use of a recovered weapon by a character? Cheers, Ken

Howdy, I am new to 6th (although I used to play 1st and 2nd edition 30+ years ago). For the "Link to Martial Arts" that you discussed in the other post (-1/4 mod, as the linked power had more active points) - do you have to roll to hit again with the linked power, or will the Martial Art attack cover the hit by both the MA attack and the linked power? Thanks again! Ken

Howdy, The discussed CV4 sounds *great*! Here's hoping it eventually sees the light of day! I talked to one of the HG biggies at GenCon at the Indy booth, and he indicated that the future books would be more like Monster Hunters, i.e. done-in-one genre books. Too bad - I would *love* to see more Champions support. Cheers, Ken

Howdy, I started Champions with 1st edition back in '81/'82, but was burnt out of it by 3rd edition -- it became a war of "who spent their points better" and devolved more into a situation of mechanics fighting mechanics, as opposed to roleplaying and flavour. We tried Villains & Vigilantes, which is amusing for a game now and then. I also ran Gurps Supers for a while, which was so-so. For a while in the 90s my fallback was Chaosium's Superworld, which I love but only handles the gritty (read: low) end of superheroics really well. I *loved* Silver Age Sentinels, and still do - a GREAT system with a perfect balance of complexity, detail, and playability. M&M did nothing for my group - none of us are fans of d20. THAT all said, I feel myself being sucked back into Champions with 6E. This edition is a powerful tool and seems to have more options and is a little better with abuses. With the software to aid in character creation, it is really a strong platform for the genre. Cheers, Ken

Howdy! Are there any differences in the mechanics of the Hero system between the Hero System "phone books" and Champions Complete? I know that lots of examples were (obviously) left out, but were any of the mechanics of the system changed (subtly or not)? Thanks! Ken