Jhamin

18 hours ago, steriaca said:

I would give him a naked Variable Advantages on his Strength which should include Affect Desolification. It may be either Only In Alternative Identity or IIF (Mask), or maybe no limitation at all considering a Luchador never is without his mask, and is rairly out of it.

I thought about this, but a quick reading of The Martial Arts rules for 6E makes this unworkable for someone working off of martial maneuvers.

I'm pretty committed to giving this character a bunch of Luca Libre martial maneuvers and the rules for applying naked advantages require that you need to buy the naked advantage for each maneuver.  Buying it on STR an getting it for all your moves is explicitly forbidden. 

My plan is to buy such an advantage on El Escpectro's "Scissor of Death" signature move.  Maybe a little weird, but it should suffice and makes a bigger deal out of his signature move.

El Espectro defies the rules the same way he defies Aztec mummies!

Thanks.

At the risk of bumping a dead thread, if the base cost can't go above 5 is there any way to add a custom adder or somesuch the way we have custom adders for powers?

I recently ran into this trying to duplicate some of the "Signature" moves from Lucha Libre Hero, which adds a couple effects to a normal maneuver for +2 points.  As is the official writeups from the books differ from what is in the HD packs because none of the maneuvers can go over 5.

It is a fairly obscure thing but I'd like to be able to give a character a 7 point Signature move darnit!

Mechanically you have a couple obvious choices: Drain or Dispel.  Either one will interfere in a given power.

Dispel is all or nothing.  The grenade will either shut down powers or do nothing.  On the other hand it is cheap so you will have lots of dice to roll.

Drain will always work, lowering the active point value of whatever it affects but the down side is that it costs 3x as much for a die of Drain as a die of Dispel.

By default you have to pick something specific to be affected, but If you want it to affect all magic, both powers let you take "expanded effect" to affect multiple things with one attack.  Affecting "all magic", assuming magic is common in your game is a +4(!) advantage... so something that can shut down a PC level wizard is going to be hundreds of active points.  If it only affects active spells or just Evocations or somesuch you can probably get it down to +2.  Still expensive, but maybe doable without going into GM fiat land.

As for the area of effect?  Well, good old AofE is always great, but the way you describe it I would think Explosion would be appropriate.  The target gets the full force and the effect falls off rapidly as you get away from the center of the blast.

I *knew* I recognized El Espectro from somewhere!!  Thanks.  Even better, that El Expectro is the son of the original Golden Age El Expectro so my intention of giving them a 21st century descendent is indeed appropriate.

Now, how to translate him into a full champions Universe incarnation?  Thinking out loud, It looks like in the Champions Universe El Expectro was active in the 50s and 60s which means his power level as written probably is appropriate for the Era.  On the other hand he apparently defeated Stalker, likely by wrestling him, so an inheritor of the title needs the goods to be able to hang with modern heroes.

Lucha Libre is on a lower power level than Supers, but I suspect only because of the budget of the movies it is based on.  A MCU El Espectro for example could likely give Captain America a run for his money... so figuring out how to give the modern one that ability without just making him a 60 STR brick is the challenge.  This is complicated by me needing him to be a teen hero.  So he shouldn't be as strong or as skilled as an adult, but should still plow through thugs.

His Luche Libre writeup makes it clear his Mask is a powerful artifact that gives him godlike power in the lands of the Dead.  In the Earth realm it lets him detect the supernatural.  All the rest of his ability is just pure physical skill and machismo.

I think his inheritor needs to be a skilled Luchador (or what's the point?) but with a Str in the teens (so he can come into his muscles as he grows).  The Detect Supernatural is a given, but should we also let him have fun stuff like Affects Desolid on his Str (to wrestle Spooks) or a characteristics boost in the presence of the divine (to reflect the mask making sure its wearer "keeps up" with foreign gods like Hercules?)  Or do overt things like that take it too far away from El Espectro's origins?

No matter what, he needs to be able to keep up with modern Aztek mummies and Frankensteins.. who likely have better stats in the Champions U than they do in Lucha Libre Hero.

Thoughts?

Stalker's Background in Champions Villains: Vol3 mentions that his decades of killing were temporarily brought to a halt in the 1960s by El Espectro, a Masked Mexican Wrestler and expert monster fighter.

Does El Espectro appear anywhere else?  Do we have any information on him?  I feel like I've seen his name elsewhere in the fiction.

I've decided I need an NPC legacy hero to show up as a contrast to a descendent of the Black Mask in my Ravenswood games & a descendent of El Espectro might fit the bill (assuming he is at all an appropriate character for what I'm thinking).  "Son of" characters are an honored tradition in Lucha Libre anyway which makes a legacy NPC seem especially appropriate.

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

The FF are easy to drop in. Just make it an origin story or give a summary of their origin as a recent occurrence.

 

The X-Men are tougher. The MCU couldn't even use the word "mutant" until this deal was worked out. And as Christopher R Taylor said, several, actually most of their main villains have histories that date back to WW II or earlier. Plus it's going to be harder to sell the "Mutant Hysteria" in a world that's had 2 alien invasions. One of which wiped out half of mankind for five years. The Post-Snap world really needs to be fleshed out more to show how people are dealing with the upheavals. 

I'm increasingly dreading the "Multiverse" stuff that keeps popping up in the MCU discussions.   I worry that the powers that be at Marvel are eyeing all these new characters but are starting to feel constrained by the continuity they built up.

I'm a bit worried that it will be an excuse to mix and match whatever they want without worrying about strict continuity.  Like preserving Magneto's Concentration Camp background while explaining where he was during the last 20+ MCU films by just saying that timelines are messed up after the Disney+ Loki show or What If? and the upcoming Doctor Strange movie are going to let them mix and match alternate universes freely. 

So all the MCU stuff still happened, but now the Fantastic Four have also been living in the Baxter Building in NYC for the last 10 years.

The pros and cons of strict Continuity are an old topic in Comic Fandom.. but the MCU has gone pretty hard with a strong continuity & I kinda hate to see them eject it.  (All the stuff from the previous Spiderman movies rumored to be appearing in the new Marvel Spiderman movie is not making me feel better about this theory)

I think we are going down the wrong path by trying to stat out the sensors mechanically in a Trek-inspired game.

Nobody every says "good thing we are in a Galaxy Class ship with it's A-72B style Lateral Sensor".  Data makes a Sensor Systems roll and reports his results.

I would buy the sensors as a bonus to Sensor Systems rolls and call it good.  Better sensors would have better bonuses and fancy tricks like hiding above a Planet's Magnetic field are Tactics vs Sensor Systems or Piloting vs Sensor Systems rolloffs.

Our last couple Ravenswood Academy sessions involved the Valentines day dance with relationship drama and a PCs date using magic to become the most awesome guy there (which not everyone has forgiven him for), a partycrasher from another "nontraditional" school passing out on the dance floor, Lifeline assuring the School Nurse (and the PCs) that the passed out rival school student wasn't physically injured but has some psychic issues (he wrote a referral) and the PCs launching a raid on a Viper lair after the PCs, Black Mask's daughter, and a superintelligent Professor at the school were able to figure out where Viper was keeping a PCs kidnapped father.

Next Session: Why was the PCs dad kidnapped anyway?  And will PRIMUS figure out it was the PCs who plowed that Anaconda Tank into the Convenience Mart while escaping of the Viper Lair?

My group games weekly.  It is a major de-stressor for us all and we all feel bad if we go a couple weeks without getting together.

When the Covid restrictions started we moved online.  There were some growing pains and we switched providers a couple times looking for a good one but we settled in & kept our weekly games more or less on schedule.

Since we all got vaccinated and our local government is OK with vaxxed people meeting we have been back to in-person.

25 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

First I've heard of this theory, sounds like Rowling's retcons of her Harry Potter stories.

Straczynski has been fairly open about this for at least 15 years, so if it is a retcon it's an old one.  The makeup from the pilot movie sort of supports the idea that this was a plan at one point

She got a lot more feminine in the series.

As much as was made of "the plan" (The idea of a series long story, before that was cool) being more or less intact as the show went on JMS has said over the years that while the plot more or less happened as planned thematically, lots of arcs changed as actors came and went or as other actors really made roles their own. 

Example: The 1st season time-travel episode had a visibly older main character appear, then when the series got to the "other side" of that time travel story it was revealed that the character had artificially aged because of all the timey-whimey going on.  JMS has said that had the actor stayed with the show the "other side" story would have taken decades later in the timeline and he would have gotten that age the old fashioned way.  Rather than bouncing back and forth in time they would have gone back and accelerated the station forward in time and stayed there.  They weren't going back to help in the last war, they were going forward to help in the *next* one!  That would have *completely* changed that character's fate, but JMS says that was the original plan.  Maybe he is making it up, but that hasn't been his MO or his personality.

I'm really kind of curios if this is the stuff that makes it into a reboot.

10 hours ago, Bazza said:

As someone who has never watched B5, how much of a big deal, if any deal, really, was made that the leading couple was interracial? 
 

Or, was it just accepted that the actor & actress were the best for their roles and by point of comparison, they had different melanin levels within their skin/eyes/hair/etc. 

It wasn't front and center in-universe, but it is important to remember that the couple was interracial in the sci-fi sense of the word.  Her people were from another planet & sci-fi stuff caused her to become sort of a mixed human/alien but both actors were Caucasian.  

Now we get to how forward thinking the creator wants to be in his re-imagination: His original concept for these two characters was that one would be human and the other alien but both would start out identifying as MALE.  The Sci-Fi stuff that was always intended to make the alien into a half alien/half human was also going to change their gender.  As the plan was that the character would be female for a majority of the series they wanted to cast a woman to play the role and digitally alter their voice during the seasons they were going to be male.  (They were going to have a bunch of Alien makeup anyway so the appearance part was going to be handled there)  Apparently they just couldn't make it non-cringy with mid-nineties era technology on a TV budget.

So if he is re-imagining the series, do they go back to plan A?

*that* is the kind of stuff that could make a "reimagining" worth watching.

... I'm skeptical but hopeful.

JMS is famous for walking rather than compromising his creative vision for things and B5 was his baby.  If he actually has creative control I'm very curious about what can be.  The fact that this will be a re-imagining rather than a reboot or a retread is encouraging.  It came out after the fact that his original ideas had to bend and shift with the reality of things out of his control (like Michael O'Hare's mental health issues).  I wonder if this will be his chance to tell the original story he envisioned?  Or some other story he dismissed as unfilmable in the 90s? 

We never did see where Crusade was going to go.

13 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

We don't actually know who created those "cultural icons", though.  And they predate the birth of Adam Smith, whose works formed the basis for modern capitalism, including "ownership" concepts.  How does the theory that "the creators should just freely give back the fruits of their talents to society" make sense when placed against medical doctors and professional athletes getting paid for their contributions to society?  Why should ownership of wealth be perpetual?  Should land be returned to the general public when the owner dies?  Should it be limited to passing down to only one generation, then return to societal (presumably government) ownership?

Ideas are valuable.  I think it's fair that the creator should profit from their creations, but that after their death that IP wealth should be given over to society.  Being able to collect payment on intellectual property you didn't create but own the rights too does you some good but does nothing for anyone else.  Right now anyone can put on a production of Hamlet without asking permission and I don't think we would be better off if Sony got 5%. The fact that King Arthur and the works of Shakespeare predate modern concepts of ownership is most of the reason we even have a public domain.

In the same way I am all for Kirby and Lee, and maybe even their immediate descendants from getting paid for a Captain America movie, but both men have now passed on.  As the laws currently work in 100 years Disney will still be getting a % of every Captain America thing and no one else will be able to play in that sandbox without giving them money. If someone creates something that outlives them by decades I believe that work has crept into our common culture and we as a society need to detach it from owners who did nothing to create it but somehow still own it.

As for land?  I believe that an inheritance tax is a public good which works against ossifying an elite that gradually accumulate everything.

My take on this is that if a creators makes something that is profitable, they should be able to profit from it but that at some point something crosses over from being a "product" to being "culture" and I don't think someone should be able to own culture.

If we could keep copyright forever, then someone would own King Arthur, Gilgamesh, and the Pied Piper.  I don't think that it would be good for us as a society if we had to pay someone a nickel every time we referred to a Shakespeare character by name.  It is *good* that western civilization has a core group of characters that we all can use.

If you accept that Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse, well, he has been dead for 50+ years.  How long do the people who took over his corporation need to profit from his legacy?  At what point do they need to profit from their own work?  Should Mickey still be owned by a corporation in 2200?  2300?  By that logic there is not "common culture", just the various slices of a pie owned by various people.  Should Bach's descendant's still get royalties because they happened to have a famous ancestor?

At some point, for common culture to keep working, Mickey Mouse, Superman, Captain America, and the Ghostbusters need to become public domain.  Opinions vary as to when that should be, but ownership can't be perpetual.

I'm running a Ravenswood Academy Teen Champions game every other week.  Am I the only one who is playing?

Lets see.... According to my notes I've run the following arcs since the Covid Lockdown started:

*When a social media spat between on of the PC's (normal) highschool buddies and the Insta Influencer "supervillians" Mr. Finsta and THE GOAT went viral they drew the attention of the Kanrok the Aquisitioner and were kidnapped to the Malvan Moon arena where they fought in the "immature league".  Things were looking dire for the PCs when ZPARTKUS worked out that one pc was Mechanon's "Son" and felt he owed it to the boss to spring them.

*When the PCs got home they discovered that they had been replaced by robotic duplicates & had to reclaim their lives.  The fallout proved especially difficult for the PC who is an amnesiac spirit using the body of a former mean-girl queen bee (arranged by Dr. Tennebre) and had spent the whole school year carving out a new place for herself in the school.  It turned out the Malvan robot used a scan of her organic brain instead of her spirit when assuming her life, which lead to a lot of fallout with her new friends as it looked to most of the school like she had reverted to her "pre-coma" personality.

*(Stolen from a published Mutants & Mastermind's adventure) A dilettante radical who is an animal-rights protester this week worked out that her Grandfather had been a superhero in the 70s and arranged with a group of henchmen for hire to steal a reality-altering gem from the mothballed super-base trophy room & then used it's power to try to turn Zoo Animals into her "Army of Liberation".  The PCs got the gem back and reverted most of her victims but kept the super-intelligent Hedge Hog "test subject" they rescued from her & got him added to the Ravenswood Faculty.  (Headmistress Timmons knows Professor Quill will be important to later events)

*The Great Supervillian Contest: Junior League (Ongoing) the heroes have been nominated as valid targets for the Jr. class supervillians and get called out or outright jumped by the participating villians looking to score points in the contest.  The PCs had to deal with Mista Finsta & THE GOAT, Chess Club, and AlphaGeek Prime before being jumped by the Rapturians (a group of teenagers being trained as An Chi Assassins by Raptor, a longtime homebrew villain).  They talked the Rapturians down from their unmotivated attacks & convinced them to go to a movie.  They then had to save them when Raptor declared open season on the students who befriended the PCs.  (This one isn't over, but the PCs are ignoring the rest of the contest until it pulls them back in)

*Things came to a head when the PCs and several other Nontraditional Students were invited to a New Years party thrown by one of the riches trust-fund kinds at Ravenswood, only to discover the whole thing had been arranged by Kyle Ward, youngest daughter of Black Mask X who decided that their presence should prevent any funny business against the host by Generation V, the rival Nontraditional Students from the Von Drotte Academy and Viper's Dragon Branch trainees.  The PCs and their Metahuman friends prevented anything untoward from happening, and kept their secret identities intact, but were incredibly upset with Kyle for not treating them openly.  She responded that she handled the situation as she saw best and that "amatures" like them had no business second guessing her.  (Kyle is the younger sister of Black Mask XI's current teen sidekick and is more than a bit upset that her mother (Black Mask X) and godmother (Black Mask XI) have chosen her brother over her to continue the legacy.  Stunts like this are *exactly* why they don't trust her and her mom is hoping she learns some humility at Ravenswood)

1 hour ago, Spence said:

Depends on the show and year.

Smallville

Dawson's Creek

many CW shows.

Buffy

I'm weirdly into Teen drama shows.  The one I'm enjoying at the moment is "Never Have I Ever", the story of a Hindu Indian girl going to highschool in California.  Narrated by John McEnroe as himself, who keeps comparing her high school drama to his rather colorful professional tennis career.  It weirdly captures the drama of teen age life.

19 hours ago, AlgaeNymph said:

Oo!  Someone remembers Ms. Crone!  🤩
 

Obviously one of my favorites; I like smart kids who have it all together.  🙃

I figure if you are going to play Champions half the fun is setting it in the Champions Universe!

This is a sort of "Sequel" game to an old Champions Campaign that ran for over 25 years.  All my current players played in that game and actually interacted with the "by the book" version of Ravenswood so in this game I advanced the Timeline for the new characters to keep it contemporary. 

Ms. Crone's 5E writeup mentioned that she knew she would be Headmistress and I knew there was going to be a lot of time shennanigans in my PC's future so why not stick to the Canon & reap the rewards?   (everyone keeps going on about to teenagers about how they are choosing their future, so I'm having several different futures show up with opinions.  I like that Headmistress Timmons has insight into what will be but comes by it differently than "conventional" time travelers.  It makes her a great Mentor figure in that she can help but can't solve the problems directly.)

As the old PCs had met the students statted out in Teen Champions and they have now graduated I also had to repopulate the school with "nontraditional" students of my own making.  But that is half the fun!

5 minutes ago, Spence said:

Ravenswood is a elite Academy for Cities/Regions best, brightest and wealthiest students....... who know nothing about the supers among them.  

The super-powered also attend the academy and have "special" classes.

 

Yep teen aged heroes having to maintain secret identities while in training......

I'm pretty much running this exact thing in my game.  The PCs all got Secret ID for no points, it's a campaign limit and they are graded on how well they keep the secret.  (Headmistress Timmons has knowledge of the future and heads off serious infractions)

Their classmates are the children of the rich, famous, and powerful.. and the PCs have to keep their stuff on the DL.  It is a great source of adventures.  

I've been running a Ravenswood game for several years now.  

The way I've been dealing with it is by:

- Getting the kids off campus (Dates, Movies, visiting parks, Music Shows)

- Having adventures come to them (hunteds who know where they live, ex-students with an axe to grind, shennanigans in the science labs & library)

- School Events (Rival Schools, Secret ID drama at the Spring Formal, Field Trips)

- Family (One PC's father is hunted by Viper, another is the son of a Supervillain, several NPCs are the children of Heros)

I've found that you have to get out of the "Mayor calls the PCs on the Red Batphone" type of adventures with teenagers.  I lean into the drama of highschool.  Not only do you want to get the right date for Prom, but she is being wooed by a "nontraditional" student from Von Drotte Academy (aka a mutant from Viper's school for budding supervillains).
We have a whole ongoing plot about the future version of one PC's first girlfriend who keeps attacking the PCs to prevent them from doing all the evil she says they do in the future.
 

Also: One PC paid points for a fake ID that lets them use Rideshare services to get around town.  It won't help them get to a superfight, but it lets them get to interesting locations.

On 9/6/2021 at 3:14 PM, Derek Hiemforth said:

To Save The World definitely features in Champions Battlegrounds.  In my "Fatal Attractions" scenario, the superhero-themed amusement park that Black Harlequin threatens is based on To Save The World and its characters.  BH is obsessed with the show, which is what drives his plot.  It also includes some additional information on various characters from the show.

In my game world the amusement park was shut down after all the murders Black Harlequin committed on opening day.  The show took a ratings hit when the guys who ran the biggest fan forum were killed by a detonating rollercoaster and thus the fan community was unable to unite in their time of grief.

My PCs saved lives, but were fairly traumatized by the whole thing.....

Foxbat swore vengeance on BH because some things just aren't cool.

As has been said a lot of this is in user profiles, but it's fun so here we go:

 

Why your username?
-It was my attempt to be cool the first time I logged into a dial-up BBS & I've kept it ever since.

Why your avatar or if no avatar why not
- It's the Logo for UNTIL, the SHIELD of the Champions universe.  I like being hero themed on the Hero boards.  "Until peace prevails!"

What area do you live in?
-The northern Suburbs of Minneapolis

What's your profession?
-I'm in IT on the Server and Cloud side

Are you Windows, MAC or Linux?
-Windows mostly.  (Cue Roy from the IT Crowd exclaiming he is NOT a window washer)

Are there TV shows and/or movies you like to binge watch?
- I go through phases but have a soft spot for the classic Space Operas, Original & Next Gen Trek, Babylon 5, Blakes 7.

What drew you to the Hero System?
-I like superheroes and I like point building systems

Which edition did you start with?

- I came in with 4th edition.

What have you used the game for?
-I've played a *lot* of supers & had fairly successful Pulp and Luce Libre games.

What point system have you ran or played in?
-I played some GURPS back in the day but Hero is my bag.

Do you still play or GM the Hero System
-I GM weekly

Our there other games you play
-I actively GM Hero and Pathfinder 2e, although I never go more than a few years without running Changeling.

On an A to F scale how do you rate the system overall
- It is a B for me but mostly because I've been doing it for more than 25 years.  If I had to start now I'm afraid I'd bounce off of it.

Followup question: If you rate the system below B- why are are still playing or using it?

- As I was close to the line on this: I think the "universal" nature of the game works, but requires a good set of examples and we do NOT have enough.  I want to see 3-4 really solid genres that have actual Sample Characters, Settings, and Lists of Enemies.  Way too many of Hero's "Genre Books" are a mile wide and an inch deep, forcing you to do all the work.  I had a great time running Pulp because I had several books supporting it.  My Players loved Luce Libre but it ran out of gas too quickly and I didn't have time to become an expert in the genre myself.

What are some house-rules, if any, you use in the past?
-I have two carryovers from older editions.  1) I limit how much Str can add to killing damage.  Best you can do is double the dice you bought and 2) Damage Shield is a straight Advantage instead of requiring a bunch of other stuff first as is currently the rule.

If you could put together a 7th edition what are some things you add, omit and/or change?
-I wouldn't want a 7th edition unless there was likely to be a lot of support for it.  Given Hero's current output I'd prefer to get content for 6th.

4 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

I think it's doable that way but not given how 6E approaches powers.  Summon is Instant, Costs END;  Duplication is Persistent, no END.  Summon is a Standard power;  Duplication is a Special power.  There are implications there that need resolution, particularly the Instant vs. Persistent angle.

That is exactly my point.  These two powers are related but different in a lot of their details, however those details aren't actually helping us use them to simulate what is actually going on in the fiction we are trying to simulate.  

If it took multiple advantages & disadvantages to use blast to simulate Cyclops' eye beam or Flight to simulate Superman's power... then those powers might have a problem. 

I think Summon works fine when you want to call up a Demon and Duplication is fine for Triplicate Girl but when Monkey King wants to call up a dozen of himself to fight and if they get killed can just call up a dozen more then the current rules structure makes that overly complex.... because we end up using a bunch of mods to force one power to work like another.

It is messy, it is expensive, and it is more about system stuff (persistant/nonpersistant, standard power/special power) than about anything the characters are actually doing.

17 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Because the writers don't care about quantitative aspects, they're only working the narrative ones.  This runs afoul of a fundamental premise in how Duplication's evaluated...duplicates are not intended to be throwaway.  It makes for easier narrative, tho, to ignore this, and hand-wave.  These really are better modeled as Summons...but then you run afoul of the tropes tied to it, like number of tasks and willingness to cooperate. 

 

Throwaway duplicates are really, really common in various Genre's of fiction that feel like they should be right up Hero's alley.  They are arguably more common that persistent duplicates.  If the duplication power doesn't handle them well I think that's a problem.

I have long had a belief that Summon and duplication should either be merged into one power with modifiers to better simulate a wizard summoning a demon vs triple-body-boy's powers or Duplication needs an overhaul that allow Ultron to keep making more bodies to copy his mind into without losing character points every time Thor kills one (as he can just make more)

Sure, narrative need and game logic aren't always in sync, but if Hero doesn't simulate heroic fiction what are we even doing here?

The biggest problem I have with Duplication vs Summon is the way the two overlap, specifically "Disposable Duplicates" are crazy expensive and you have to do a lot of gyrations for them to work despite being relatively common in fiction.

By "Disposable Duplicates" I am referring to duplicates that in theory are just as powerful duplicates of the original but in practice are treated like mooks that the opponents plow through like they were nothing.  These are normally more or less identical to the original which makes them feel like duplicates but the original isn't actually harmed when they are killed and can just keep making more of them.  The fact that they are easily plowed through by the opposition and can die without anyone feeling bad about it makes it seem like a summon with lower def/stun/body than the original.  They sort of exist in this no man's land between Duplication and Summon.

Examples:

- Ultron's army in Avengers: Age of Ultron 

- the various Clone Jutsu from Naruto

- The Monkey King in some tellings of his story

So they sorta work like Summons rather than duplicates, but the fact they don't come from somewhere else, are totally loyal (they usually think of themselves as the same as the original), and are more or less identical to the original makes them feel like they should be duplicates.  The way to actually buy these characters "the hero way" is via Summon, usually with lots of loyalty advantages piled on.  Duplication just doesn't work the way these characters do in the fiction.

I'm a Hero gamer of many years and I am all about Special effect, but it bothers me that when someone makes a list of fictional characters that duplicate themselves Hero would tell you to buy about half of them with a summon & a ton of modifiers instead of using the Duplication power.  At minimum I feel like that is a failure in naming.