Roter Baron

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Question from one continent away: What happend to Jill Stein's campaign? When I was in the States during the summer she was oracled at 5 to 10 percent maybe. Now I don't hear anything about her anymore (at least in Germany) but for some strange reason about some guy on the right who came from outta nowhere and could be the guy who takes votes from Trump. Is that by any chance the libertarian who didn't knwo who, where or what Aleppo is? So: What happend to Stein? Who is this candidate out from the cold? And who, where or what is Aleppo? ;-)

Kaeto is known as "The Lambada King" - in North Korea. He was the reason it almost came to open warfare between the North and the South when he mistakenly danced into a timemachine and danced into Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. In that timeline the South (C.S.A.) won because Lincoln was taken by the rythm and didn't end the speech. As a further result the North (Korea now - still following me?) became a Lambadacy when he returned and the South (of Korea) a slave-holding society (that is black American expats enslaving Koreans) who cannot stand lambada (responsible for their enslavement in the Confederate States of Canamerixo) and thus was on the verge of declaring an all-out nuclear holocaust on the North AND Canamerixo. Only the triple power of Doctor Who, Doktor Why and Doctor Because-I-say-so could stop this mess and make the world and the timeline whole again. "Sane" is unfortunately still out of the window ...

Johnny Applessed tried to advertise his very own apple juice with the slogans: "The apples for juice grow by Johnny's whim. Apples for my pay. Johnny Appleseed knows." and "Who knows how many seeds where in the apples I used for this juice? - Johnny Appleseed knows." Of course he is now hidding from THE SHADOW's wrath for his sorry plagiarism - as I told him before. Well, next time listen when the Hun is talking, my seedy friend! P.S.: Answer to the last riddle is 98 by the way.

Danke schön! And "odd" and Hadmar von Wieser - fits like a glove.

Once, we told one player: "If your character would not be a player character, he would be dead by now!" - He was playing a necromancer on his way to immortality/ lichedom/ devildom, was one of the family (we were all barbarians) but had turned away from all our common customs and culture and looked down on it all. And he made quite frequently comments that he saw us as expendable barbarian scum fit as sacrifices if the need called for it (but usable in the meantime). We choose to adress it on a meta-game level because we are all in for a good time and not into the "I kill the other character's guy becaus ethat is what my cahracter would do"-routine. But the enjoyment of your game and your own character really suffers if you have to play him always agaisnt his usual inclination. End of story: The player of the necromancer got into contact with the gm and the gm figured something out how to get the necromancer ot of the picture in-game (he was taken to hel in a botched ceremony! - or maybe it really worked and he ia now one of the princes down there) and the player joined the group with a new character - a civilized demon- and with-hunter! And the game continued. But generally speaking: Either forbid a disruptive caharcter from entering the campaign - OR allow him to suffer the consequence. Including waking up and finding a dagger in your breast rom your "beloved" comrades you screwed once too often. There is a reason why most criminals don't live to long or to free.

In our late Champions campaigns we had TONS of characters who had overconfidence - and my group totally agrees that nobody played it correctly till we now see Stefan play it in Savage World of Solomon Kane (Stefan has been one of the two "surviving" members of this group who has belonged to it since 1983, so he did his fair share of "overconfident" supers before): He plays a mean but loyal French fencer (with overcofidence). In yesterday's game the group tried to get to a crannog (an artificial wooden island/ fortress) in the middle of Loch Tay in Scotland to stop an immortal pictish sorceror to overrun Britain with ghosts and spirits when their boat was attacked by an undead, ghostly plesiosaur. So Frenchie jumped onto the back of the beast, stabbed it with his dagger and was thrown into the lake - and he can't even swim! He made it back to the boat (sheer luck with the dice) but bought for the others a round or two which they could use to line up their attacks to kill the giant critter. And when asked if he thought it a very clever idea to jump on the ghost-saur when he could not even swim the character's answer was: "Why, I never meant to jump into the lake, I jumped on the plesiosaur. I wanted to kill the critter, not take a bath. So, swimming had never anything to do with my plan!" THAT is overconfidence well played and worth all the points (and in SW bennies)!

Jackie Chan is not overconfidet, even though he did the most outrageous stunts - but only with dilligent preparation and after aquiring the skills to do them. He is confindet in what he does but I have seen a quote of him saying that he would not do bungy-jumping becaus ehe considers it too dangerous (and unnecessary). Buster Keaton centainly had a certain level of overconfidence as had Harry Houdini - both were very very dillignet and capable but considering some of their stunts (like the falling house-front that misses Keaton by maybe an inch) the things they did were quite dangerous. You need some overconfidnece to do that. I think if something is only possible if everything workd exactly as planned and you (almost) never shy away from the task even though the risk is extremely high and harm may be serious or deadly but there is still a certain possibility that you can pull it off - then you are overconfiddent. If you do stuff that only work out if the stars are right and Cthulhu is still napping on - you are either stupid or suicidal or both. Thta wouldbe maybe "On the edge", "Deathwish", "Never considers any risks". If you do it only if you have prepared the ins and outs twice and then made sure that the deck is stacked in your favour - that is just good planning of a person who is confident in his own abilities. No points for that.

Glorantha HERO would be great! But I would not outrule Palladium Fantasy - not anymore, since Mister "My system or bust!" a.k.a Captain TradeMark did a deal and now there is a hugely successful kickstater for Savage Worlds RIFTS. Of course, here we have a setting with a very enthusiastic fan-base coming together with a rules system that is one of the most popular and prolificly published. But since the Pally fantasy system is outdated and sub-par but the world quite interesting and long-standing there might be a chance.

"Heroica" sounds rather silly - there MUST be a better name for a GERO fantasy game. But in general I agree that calling each and every genre-book "This-and-That HERO" wasn't the best idea, even if the aim was to create an easily recognizable brand of games (HERO on the outside, HERO inside). "Danger International", "Justice Inc." breathe way more fun and life than "Modern HERO" or "Pulp HERO" - and Dark Champions is a misnomer for a game that is not vigilante crimefighting. There must be some kind of Champions in it. James Bond is not a "dark champion", "THe Wildgeese" is not a "dark champions" movie. So let's see: Modern - Danger International Pulp - Justice Inc. Superheroes - Champions Fantasy - The Age of Heroes, Heroes & Half-Orcs, Empires of Wonder etc.(depends on the world that is presented) Urban Fantasy - New London Tales Horror - Blood Moon Rising, Under a Blood-Red Moon, Dial "H" for Horror, In the Darkest of Nights SciFi - To the Stars and Beyond And each with the label - Powered by HERO.

Getting back to the question of: How can we get more people playing HERO? Yep, a 7th editioned (more accessible, streamlinge etc. whatever) would be fine but isn't goning to happen. Tasha said something about doing it on our own. Well, more power to you guys ut it certainly ain't me. So, what we have is 6th Edition (which is far away from bad!). Let's support that one! How? Well, one way that made SW very popular and accessble are FREE ADVENTURES READY-TO-PLAY. What the forum needs is a adventures in the Download Section - with a big signe : Adventures - this way"! And free basic rules in pdf (no artwork). That way a potential customer could get the rules and play! I put one of my PULP adventures in the pulp section and I have about three or four that I wrote for contests in Germany (even one a price or two!) that I could easily convert to Fantasy Hero, Horror/ Urban Horror Hero, Champions and Western Hero. I guess you also have stuff like that on your computer somewhere. I think that would help ina substantal way to draw more people to HERO. And each could help and participate.

I have gmed Conan D20 till 14th level, a LL campaign that started at 1st level and ended at 15th, a D20 Modern campaign that lasted till the Sc reached 12th level and played D&D in the 17th to 20th level range. So, I would say that I am quite experienced with high level adventures. Still By-the-Book-PF kills me! I once tried (for an adventure that I wanted to write for a possible publication) to build the biggest and baddest Red Dragon that the system has. I gave up after one hour of crunching the crunch and statting the stats. And the critter wasn't even close to be finished. I could have done that with HERO in that time easily - espeacilly with a Monster Handbook handy that basically gives me quite imposing dragons that I just have to make more imposing and dangerous. PF has a lot of crunch and rules and extra rules. But it's all pre-made. That seems to be the advantage.

What I like about 6th Edition is that it did away with figured characteristics, Now it is possible to build Stoneman the Wall with Dex 6 (being four tons of wieght and having 6 inch broad fingers really kills your fine manipulation and agility) but with an OCV of 12 and DCV of 4 (nobody misses him but his oversized hands seldom miss either). In 5th and 4th edition a reallyy molasses slow brick has Dex 14 - or the equivalent of a quite good gymnast.

Some brought up the BBB-approach and Tasha mentioned getting Instant Change back. I think that is the approach that HERO should take. And more so. Back in the days I thought of GURPS as inferior to HERO when it came to Build-IT-Yourself because HERO is (or at least seems to strive towards) a rules engine that you can us etobuild any effect in multiple ways. You look at the "effect" the power has and then look up the pwer that describes the effect best regarding the rules. I still think that HERO can do the best. BUT: No many people really want to do that. And even more really don't want to have to do that to play the game. So WHAT if some powers or talenst do not cost enough or too much? Building a flashlight in HERO for The Dark Detective is basically a nightmare - and then: Why not just get OIF NIghtvision goggles (with UV- und IR-Vision) and be done with it? Sure, it's not a flashlight and it won't light up the area like Change Enviroment, but it's less of a headache and cost not END. Instead just add a "Gadgets" department and put there "Flashlight - 1 point" and be done with it! "Combat Reflexes" gives +5 to DEX to act first. "Increased Comabt Reflexes" is +10 DEX to act first. Like Tasha and someone else said - more finished parts, less tinkering. And the real key to success is: Good gaming material! And that is what HERO is lacking. I really hav eto admit it, but the last Champions adventures for 6th edition were less than inspiring (just my opinion) and adventures for all other genres basically non-existent. MHI was the only exception and the short campaign a good start but not material that would anyone really tell their friends about "that cool campaign". If you ask me for my HERO favourites I would say: 1. Dark Champions 4th Edition + Justice,not Law + Muderrers' Row + Underworld Enemies + Hudson City Blues - KICKASS Vigilante gaming! Shadows of the City was also very good, if a little to "super" for my taste but still very good if you like more punch in your Dark Champions setting 2. Western HERO 4th Edition - some glaring mistakes in the stas of some creatures non-withstanding (scorpion!) a very good approach to the genre and a very nice adventure 2. Fantasy Hero 4th Edition - great essays, great background, all you need 3. Pulp HERO 5th Edition + Thrilling HERO Adventures + Masterminds & Madmen - best is Thrilling Adventures. Pulp HERO is the best supplement for 5th edition AND includes all its shortfalls: WAY too long, giving you several mouthful of well-researched information - and not much you can use to readily use. M&M has nice ideas but mostly sub-par illistrations. Still good stuff. 4. Champions Villains Volume I-III for 6th Edition - BEAUTIFULL! Best Enemies Books EVER! 5. Clasical Enemies for 4th Edition - basically the same as 4 -but shorter and most approachable and useful.

Tasha is right: SW is good because the Settings and Worlds are interesting and "ready to play", not book that tell you: "Here is Fantasy HERO - a great toolkit for ALL KINDS of fantasy campaigns. Now read it - and build it on your own!" That's like looking were a place to live and be shown an place, the material, tool and a plan to build your onw house. Nice, if you hav ethe time and the know-how and the will to do excatly that. In the end you have your onw custom build house. Most people would just rent a flat and be happy! One think I half disagree with Tasha is to simply transfer the "one rulebook" approach of SW to HERO. At least in Germany they sell the SW-rulebook in English (Explorer Edition) for €9,95. The German edition goes for the same price, the so called "Gentleman's Edition is a hardcover, German edition of the rules that included many, many old rules option that aren't in the Explorer's Edition any more and sells for € 19.95. At prices like it doesn't even make sense to shoplift them! So, you have a ruleset that you can get for less than 10 €uros (or less than 20 if you really want it all), which include one fantasy-adventure (or five adventures of different genres) ready to plan. Plus you have dozens of Adventures free for download! That should entice gamers to buy the book who are just interested to see what SW is all about. Now add one supplement with a originla world AND a campaign that is also ready-to-play and the NEXT YEAR of gaming is down. all for less than 50 €uros! Since HERO has to compete with universal systems like that the price of the basic rulebook is very important,

I think that is absolutely a viable approach to gaming - system matters IMO and different games play differeently and have a different feel to the game. But, like D&D 4th Edition, at some point you are really playing someting else and not a variant of the old game - it's someting new and else then. Does NOT mean it shouldn't be done - for the reason to adapt better to thegenre for instance. Speaking of which: I am not sure that Law & Order HERO would be a good game if it stayed HERO - who needs STUN in a courtroom or weapon familarities? What you need is a system to win a case (if you play a lawyer) and keep it interesting for the players. I don'T see a lot of "heroic" potential in that for a rules-system like HERO (or GURPS, SW, Runequest, D&D, D20 etc).

Hmmm, I actually think you are correct. Waiting for Law & Justice HERO (please including a nice looking Charactersheet!).

Absolutely no ridicule taken - especially since that IS the weak line in my argument. BUT: Maybe it is just a marketing question but if that is the case then it even blurrs my vision of the game - even after decades of active gaming! "Toolkit" - well, yes and no: I agree that there are rules that you can or should do without according to the genre. For instance I think that all traditional four color superhero camapigns should not use hit locations because they are too deadly (12D6 EB to your face and you are almost instant toast). But you could use them in gritty street level campaigns. Bleeding, Impairing/ disabling etc is basically a matter or taste but let's go for extremes: STUN? Can you play without taking it out of the box? - Well kinda, sorta. But then CON is also like a dump-stat. BODY? You could dump it and let CON do the job. Skills? I guess you could just roll under your attribut. Okay, the game is pretty flexible. But at least for me it stops being HERO at some point and is becoming Action! System something else - basically a cut-away, crippled rump of the game. Certain systems have to include certain rules. Take D&D: no AD&D 2nd without the THAC0, Magic Missile (1D4+1) and Swords +1, no D&D 3.5 without feats, roll high and Magic Missile (1D4+1). But Fourth Edition spawned Pathfinder and other games (espeiciall all the OSR games like Osric, LL, S&W etc) because a lot of (if not most) fans didn't think that Fourth Edition was still D&D. It wasn't necessarily a bad game, it was simply misnomed. Same with HERO. If you cut it down too much it ends being HERO. I always understood the "toolkit"-aproach as: Build it yourself, use the rules according to the genre, learn the rules just once. But a lot of the options - at least in my mind - ARE what makes HERO HERO. Can't take the Magic Missile out of D&D. P.S.: Can say I agree with you on SW feeling the same in every genre - simply because i have gmed only Solomon Kane so far. From that I CAN say that it is fast, fun, furious (as advertised). Could I use HERO? - Sure. But why bother when the game runs as smoothly as it does. But I will see as soon as I finished SK and start something new - maybe WW1, WW Rome, Tour of Darkness or even Pulp or (unlikely but maybe) Supers.

Palladium has a crappy system that was last changed 1993 or so. And even then they (few) guys I knew back then who liked Rifts basically ignored most of the system. I have actualy heard that Siembieda also houserules his games (if he is still gaming that is - considering the troubles he had to go through keeping his little boat afloat). The Palladium system started out as a "better AD&D 1st Edition" with a new world, new character classes (that kept increasing on number and power), new races (wanna play a kobold, troll or wolfen?), evil (or at least supremacist) elfs, different magic systems etc. - so it was quite innovative without rocking the boat. I started playing supers with Heroes Unlimited 1st Edition - never have supers been more limited than in this "unlimited" supers game! So I switched to Champions - WOW! Knockback rules, powers that you could build yourself, disadvantages to get more points - that was really UNLIMITED! Even creating and re-writing/ re-designing your character to make it more point effective became a "game" of its own ("Goodman says - don't waste them points! - And don't give them to Foxbat!", good design was kind of a sport in my group ("Sure, I can build that 12EB, A.P., area effect 1hex- power with 9 points - and save 4!"). We had good times. But - we also had TIME for these shenenigans. And all was new. Today, I don't see myself spending hours designing and redesigning a character. Back to Palladium, HERO and hope: I was pleasently surprised to see Monster Hunters as a HERO game. May be the first license the system ever used. Champions (the characters) was licensed to a MMORP gaming company (I think because they didn't get the DC-license) - and that shows how strong the Champions background is. But there are no other licenses - no Conan, James Bond, Star Wars etc. - and there is nothing like Rifts. There is no other setting that really makes the game unique like Deadlands, Lost Realms, All for One, Glorantha, The Old World. Palladium is more or less down and ignored by the whole of the gaming community but these guys hold the fort, have a guy who is breaking his ass to keep his business running (from what I can tell) - heck, the fans even throw money at the company to keep it running! HERO has this forum. Better than nothing - I like the community. But the last publications were mostly fan-produced. Nothing wrong with that. And Steve Long wrote more than his worth and then some for 5th edition. The game was never so well supported when it finally went under the radar. It seems people like simpler games - ICONS seems quite popular for superhero adventuring. Even M&M (which eclipsed CHAMPIONS in popularity) is too complicated for most gamers. When I was 16 to 18 simple did not float my boat. I wanted detail and flexibility. Today I want to have a decent system, roll dice and make merry with my friends.

Took me years to even notice that as a German I not only have to the (different) "th"-sounds right but that you Anglo-Saxons also messed up the "v" and the "w". A "w" is a "w" and a "v" is a "f" ( Vogel, viel) or sometimes a "w" (Viktor) - there is no "v"-sound in the German language. But iv I speak nov I get it vright!

I support the idea! But I would not include a Mecha setting (how popular is Mecha BTW still?) and Dark Champions definitely needs a new name. "Dark Champions" is The Punisher for me or other vigilante crimefighters and describes that genre very well. But espionage, military or modern crime-fighting/ detective adventurers aren't neccessarily "dark" (or any darker than a fantasy character). I would opt for HERO Now! or Modern HERO. Pulp I do like - sci-fi pulp might be not what we are looking for since it is a sub-genre of a not very popular genre. I think Pulp Hero would do best if you had a Pulp HERO basic book and a Jet Justice Sourcebook (and other sourcebooks supporting further sub-genres like Pulp Crimefighting, Pulp Globetrotting, Pulp Horror etc.). Fantasy HERO should be linked to one world. And that world needs to be something special because if I want D&D-fantasy I am going to play - guess what - D&D. Can't beat it on its own turf - so don't try. Same with Star HERO - give it a setting that you can support and that is different from other sci-fi settings. Since there aren't that many sci-fi games out that are popular in the long run I find this one a hard nut to crack. The Title Against the Death Dragon is pure genius! It's catchy, sounds cool and one really wants to start playing THAT GAME! And that is excatly the point - make people want to PLAY THAT GAME! I don't think that White Wolf's Word of darkness was so damn popular because people feell in love with the rules engine - they liked it because the loved the setting - and the rules supported the setting! So, we have to find setting that are well supported by HERO rules. I think steriaca just found one! BTW: I would include the setting specific rules with the Setting books. Yes, that means that you get the rules twice (if e littel different) if you buy Against the Death Dragon and HERO Now! but if you just want modern day death dragon arse-kicking you don't have to buy the basic rulebook, too. I would call the rulebook to include all the rules the HERO Encyclopedia. The powers book should go extra because you really only need it if you wnat to do stuff on your own. But with 7th edition - you don't! You buy Lightsleep and it costs 3 points and the power-description tells you what it does. You don't get the (how did we construct it"- block any more. If you want that take a look at the Powers Book!

Systems matter. Waht is the point of playing a particular system and then strip it off all the things that define its main features - like you said in your post: HERO stripped down to FATE-level plays extremely fast and everybody had a blast. I had a blast playing hide-and-seek when I was a kid and we didn't even have a rulesbook back then! A lot of people boast that Call of Cthulhu (6th edition) has great combat rules because they never fight - and if they do the Big Baddy kills them anyway. And not finding a vital clue was no problem becaus ehand-waving solved that easily. Yes, any rules system may be great if you leave out the parts that aren't. Coming back to HERO: Keeping track of END, STUN, BODY, when to act on the Speed-chart, hit-locations etc.was something that made me a HERO-player originally. BUT it is quite a lot more than you have to cope with than in other systems. Yes, even using STUN is optional. But I guess using dice is then optional too - why not just narrate combat by looking at the stats and deciding what is "coolest" or "blastest" for the adventure. I am not here (why would or should I - I am on the board for more than a decade) to tell you to change systems, that HERO is crap or any such thing. BUT: HERO is front-loaded and combat (especially CHAMPIONS) takes a lot of time (many options with high-powered characters) and heroic combat can quickly become complicated because of ALL THE OPTIONS. Period. And if basically the world tells you that they shun the system because the systems seems too complicated and that is based on their experience then it just might be that - from their perspective - there is something that makes HERO less approachable than three trillion splat-books for PF! So, what is it? - Lots of other systems give you the options in a piece-meal fashion: Here is your 1st level fighter, that is what he can do. Next stop: 2nd level - more options. HERO: Here are two books thet make King James' Bible look like an easy read. And here are ALL THE OPTIONS. Take what you like! - People don't know what to take and are simply overwhelmed. Yes, that has been addresses by Champions Complete and by Fantasy HERO Complete but still: Take a look at 4th Edition FH. Okay, no rules, BUT "Character Classes", a world, two adventures, spells. All you need. 4th Edition HERO was HERO's most popular time (5th edition had more books though) becaus eit was the most approachable rulesset YET. Take a look at 3rd Edition: Even though the rules were not unified yet, Danger International, Justice Inc. and Fantasy Hero were full rules with adventures, background etc. that could be played using less than 200 pages. Whatt HERO needs is to cut down and hand the people "less for more" - GURPS is going down that road with its new kickstarter for Dungeon Fantasy. And (like someone else said before): Stick to a setting and develop it, e.g. for Fantasy. One of TSR's downfalls (apart from the desaster with fiction) was that they didn't listen to the market and published a great many settings that could not sustain themselves. I think HERO as a system does the same mistake.

Personal life is difficult to integrate into Champions, simply because it usually spotlights one PC and leaves almost everybody else out in the shadows - and then it is usually Secret ID stuff, so the character cannot or must not 'shine' with his special powers, e.g. a fight bewteen Captain Nuclear and his spouse/ girlfriend about him being out all night fighting crime instead of spending more time with her and the kids can't be solved by his 14D6 Nuclear Blast. Yes, that's why we call it roleplaying but the other players have nothing to do for what - 10 to 20 minutes? And maybe they also want to have some "private life issues" to roleplay - then, with 4 people you kill 40 minute to 1,5 hours for basically 1-on-1 roleplaying (out of your typical 4 hour session). Hey, I always thought superheroes fight villains, do good and prevent catastropes and don't do stuff that any ordinary bloke has to deal with! With other campaigns and genres it's a little easier because you usually don't have to deal with different identities of the characters and nobody thinks twice if Magus the Magician does a little sorcery at his step-daughters wedding.

We always played Hero on the heroic level with hit locations and armor. So, let's see what you have to do to do commute damage: 1) Calculate your OCV after allocating Combat Levels and modifiy according to maneuvers (and no - you can't always "precalculated" it since if you want to have the advantage of flexibility then by all means you have Combat levels and you shift them) 2) Add 11, the roll 2d6 and deduct the result. 3) Reduce your END. 4) You hit! Roll for hit location 5) Roll damage 6) a) Deduct armor from Killing attack Body-damage, then modify by location; multiply damage by STUN-multiplier and deduct resistant Defenses and PD (or ED) Deduct Armor from Body damag of a normal attack, then multiply; deduct PD/ED+ Armor from Stun-damage, THEN multiply. 7) See if opponent is Stunned 8) See if opponent suffers Knockdown 9) See if Opponent is Impared of Disabled - if so: determine the results after opponent made/ failed Con-Rolls. And the damage taking side also has do to quite a few things: Deducting STUN and BODY for starters. This is quite more laborous and complicated than simly deducting hit points and watching the ZERO HP-line (Pathfinder) or rolling dice for hitting, rolling dice for damage and maybe rolling dice for soaking wounds (Savage Worlds). So, 9 steps for a quite ordinary attack in HERO, two to three (or maybe four) steps in other systems. and kid yourself not: I and most of my group can do that without a sweat (still takes time) but we do have players (none of them dummies, one with a M.A. in Biology) who simply cannot get the whole "procedure" in their heads. And - no - I don not want a "less combat focussed" game. I want heroic action and lots of it! I think it is not good advertisement and a strange way to endores a system by saying: "Hey, if you make combat scary enough, then your players will not wan to fight so much - see: Combat does not take that long after all!" - Yes, after you took it out of the game or limited it enough it does not take that much time ideeed ... I have played HERO/ Champions since 1988 and it was my group's obsession for about 10 years in the 90s and still very popular till the middle of the first decade of this century. But ever more less so. We don't have the time to play 8 to 10 hours (or the stamina - getting old here) and I still remember time swhen one PC in Champions was knocked to - 13 in segment 3 of a turn an dthat players was out of the game for about a freaking hour! No biggie then - grab a comic-book and you stll have 7 hours of gaming. Nowadays that would kill 1/4 to 1/3 of gaming time! And at the end of the session you prevented one bankrobbery and got a clue where to look for Captain Evil's lair. Great. HERO is GREAT for detail, making the characer you want and for flexibility. I also like the iconic characters of the Champions World like Dr. Destroyer, Buldozer, VIPER, DEMON, Mechanon, Black Pladin and all the others (like them even more than the original comic-book villains they are based on). But for fast gaming? - Come on! That is not the selling point.

The argument of the PF-splatbook craze (or the D20/ 3.0/3.5 splatbook craze) is IMO a valid one. If you can handle THAT you surely can handle HERO. But, unfortunately, it is also the exact same reason why my group hasn't played PF or HERO for some years. HERO is a great system and plays quite naturally once you have grasped the rules. I can stil create characters almost out of my head and come up with the excact costs for advantages and disadvantages (well, hand me a calculator, will ya, for the excat numbers) as far as 5th edition goes. But I don't have or don't want to spend the time. Right now Savage Worlds is my cup of tea as a gm. Preparation time is almost nonexistant with the Plot Point campaigns. Yes, combat can run quite quickly if you play heroic level HERO, best if it is no armor (liek Pulp) and if you don't use hit locations. But then: Why do I use a system that is stripped off all the details that make it different from all the other games? It rather use something else then. And if you use the options a simple combat encounter with a bunch of orcs can take an hour or two. At the end the orcs are dead and you can continue with the adventure. Same thing takes 10-20 minutes using SW or D&D (any version of the game). And since I don't play 8+ hours but maybe 4 hours per session that time is time I would rather spend adventuring. Maybe just to kill more orcs.