Roter Baron

That is my thinking, too. Being a customer, fan or supporter of something does not make me responsible to make it sell. I am more than happy to buy HERO stuff but I am not running around and advertise it since I am in the hobby to play games and not to market them. Saying that I thus shouw a lack of support and enthusiasm is like telling people who complain about the quality of their lpval baker's bread that they should damn well get of their behinds, volunteer to bake bread for free at the bakery or sell it at a stall on the weekend's farmer's market. Nope, not going to happen. And it has nothing to do with not getting paid - I am not into advertising, promoting and selling. I like to spend my precious free time differently - for instance with paying the games I bought for my hard-earned money wth my friends, not some fellows at the local game store or some convention (where I have to pay to get inside to play with people I don't know). But the problem has always been the problem with the roleplaying "industry": Fans publishing games they like. It is an area in which amateurs (= people who love the field they working in but have to workd in other jobs) prevail. There just isn't enough money in it.

M&M used to be build on the extremely popular D20/ OGL system and published a great amount of simply well designed and illustrated fully four-color books. At the same time Champions offered also quite a lot of 5th Edition black-and-white-books but the illustrations ranged from "okay"to "MEH!" (not counting nice stuff from Storn who I would easily consider an iconic illustrator for Champions - but he also moved to other games as well). Illustrations are a major thing and selling poinz, especially with comic-book games. The new 3rd Edition is also 100% identical with the DC Adventures game, so you have one of the most popular comic backgrounds available. M&M addressed basicaly the same crowd - it was and is quite crunchy, and specifically aimed at adressing the genre, not multi-genre as HERO. - Besides: the electronic character-generating program Hero lab beats Hero Designer in all field every day and twice on Sunday with its arms behind its back and still doing major Knackback! ICONS is quite teh opposite: A quick, easy, roll-your-superhero pick-up game but still well-supported and based on a variation of the FATE system, which seems to be all the rage for the last couple of years. It is nothing like Champions at all and is aimed at casual players or those who like a rules-light approach. BASH, Truth & Justice, With Great Power and Supers all follow a rules-light approach. Savage Worls Supers connects with the SW-engine, a game that is very popular if yo take a look at all the settings that Pinnacle alone offers AND supports - and it boggles the mind if you look at all the third party publishers who use the rules engine. It is also quite rules-light but especially easy for the gm to run. Where does Champions 6th Edition shine? It gives you a really well devised and smoothly running set of rules to create a hero as you imagine him to be. Here only M&M comes close - and dangerously close! So, people could also opt for that game. The Enemies Handbooks are top-notch and give you a background that, in my humble oppion, is almost as good as that of Marvel and DC - and that is quite an accomplishment since (except for some while in the 1980s) Champions could only develop the characters and the world in its sourcebooks and had no comic, movie etc. as story-support. What is missing is: Support and accessability - The Enemies handbooks are hard to get, the Backgroundbook, too and the rules-books the same. All of it could easily set you back 400 bucks for used stuff! - You can't have a popular system like that.

This has already been dealt with: Doctor Manhattan from the Watchmen comics. Result: Electric cars in the 1980s, the USA won Vietnam and the SU considers him a a weapon of mass destruction and wants him to be considered in peace talks. Of course it all depends how many more you got. If you have more than one (say all of the DC or Marvel heroes), then the rest of the world is probably very paranoid - or one big colony/ dominion ruled by the "super"-nation or by supers from that nation. I don't see much fun to play in such a world.

The basic question is: Why have international heroes at all? I am serious about this. The whole genre is so 100% US-American that the point of having heroes or villains from other countries is that they are somehow "un-American". So you have to stereotype. There isn't one, NOT ONE German superhero-comic on the market, and I am pretty sure that besides a parody the French hadn't one either. Same goes for every country in Europe except the UK (Captain Britain and his ilk). There ain't to many Amerivan knights and musketeers either and you are short on Roman legionaires - it is not in your historic background. Superheroes aren't in Europe's cultural heritage either (the British just mimicked their Anglo-Saxon bretheren). All my Champions campaigns have been places in New York City. I couldn't see supers flying through Berlin or Hamburg. So, long story short: Where is the story surplus to habe a German Human Torch or Batman? There is none. He just has a name hard to pronounce to English-speakers (Die Menschliche Fackel) or has a ridiculous ring to German-speakers (Der Fledermausmann - that's so because "bat" translates to "Fledermaus" which means "flying mouse" - not a nome de guerre you are likely to use). So, to make them memorabel and interestingly different use stereotypes that are not no silly. Sometimes it is just a name (Blitz for The Flash - although when I was young he was Der Rote Blitz), sometimes the theme: Einigkeit (Unity) und Recht (Justice)und Freiheit (Freedom) make a fine superheroic, superpatriotic trio, Bundesadler (Federal Eagle) is quite cheese, but Hauptmann Deutschland (Captain Germany) is a no go - sound to militaristic. You should also get the name and spelling right - no Das Wall or Feur! Die Mauer - but East Germany never officially refet to it like that) and Feuer - actually Die Flamme would have been better. Notice: Both are female in grammatical gender, but male in character - Germans don't find that queer. One thing that bores me to death is Nazi villains, especially in today's setting. Been there, done that, and Dr. Jones rode away with my t-shirt.

How did I come up with my 'handle'? I am German, I have red hair, and I'm a commie. What was the fisrt RPG ypu played? Guess what - D&D Red Box of course! What was the first RPG you GM'd? D&D Red Box again. I introduced roleplaying games to my friends in school. What are you curently playing? My group alternates when it comes to gming/ playing. So, at the moment I gm Solomon Kane (SW) and Mutant City Blues and have just finished a 5 year long Labyrint Lord campaign. We still have a D&D 5th edition campaign and a Warhammer 2nd Edition campaign running and another AD&D 2nd Editon on a longer hiatus. P.S.: This was my 1,000th post.

Interesting idea. But sounds solid to me.

I disagree. System matters and if a system actively supports or even "demands" a highly tactically or very detailed approach to combat, then it is fair to say that combat can take longer than in other systems. Yes, you can play HERO without the options: Don't allow levels (especially with 6th Edition yu can buy your OCV and DCV straight as a Characteristic), don't use hit locations, Stunned, Impaired, Disabled rules, ignore END and - hell! - do away with STUN! It is still HERO and it still works (more or less). But that is like playing classical D&D without Magic-Users and Clerics becaus ethe spells are too complicated. But I do agree that D&D 3.0/3.5 of PF suffer the same problem when you start to reach about level 6+ AND it is harder to remember what certain spells do or don't do. The streamlined approach of Hero are a definite plus here. And I am not saying that any us (especially NOT me!) is ruining anything. I just said: Combat (in FH and Champions, not so much in modern settings with lots of high-powered guns and comparable low resistand defenses) can take a long while.

And he continued: "...but as long as you please Den Roten Baron, all is fine!" PROST!

Champions Complete was a step in the right direction.

With one player in my group (a good friend of mine) playing Champions sometimes feels like a game of chess - counting hexes, recounting them, looking at the area of effect etc. But I am guilty, too: Sometimes takes a while to figure out my OCV and DCV with all them levels juggled around, manouvers to consider, DCV-bonuses for the Shield and malusses for encumbrance (that was FH). Another player gets quite confounded with damage taken: Body damage MINUS resistant PD modified by hit location, STUN damage MINUS (Armor PLUS PD); then compare with CON for STUNNED effect and BODY for Impiared/ Disabled etc. Come on, people: The game IS complicated sometimes!

I dunno. maybe we think and rethink plans too much and too long ... Problem with Champions fights generally was the lenghth but even more the misfurtune if someone got knocked out (epspecially -11 STUN) very early in the fight. 20 years ago we gamed on Saturdays starting at 2 or 3 pm and keeping at it till 1 am or so. Them it wasn't a huge thing to sit back and read a comic-book for half an hour or so. But today it is Sundays from 3 or 4 pm to about 8 pm. Sitting around for one hour can really kill the evening. Our main complains with SW is thst the damage system is highly erratic with its exploding dice. Even I as the gm cannot really say if a amage roll of - say 12 is inconvenient (hard hit, you're Shaken) or if you already down for one or two Wounds. And a Wound is HUGE in SW - nothing like a few BODY down becaus eit implies a minus on everything you do. It gets even more complicated regarding the outcome becaus ethe players can use bennies to shrug the damage off by rolling their Vogor die hwich might mean that a terrifying-now-your-mush-damage of 30 might deal 6 Wounds - or none if you rae lucky. Likewise. two rolls of 12 might mean that you are dead. Clear, a heroic character taking 12 unlucky Body to the head is also quite dead, but I as a GM know it. In SW, it is more an educated guess.

The HERO System has never been more player-accessable and successful than with Champions 4th edition and especially the HERO System Rulesbook. Champions was basically nothing more than the rulesbook plus a superhero sourcebook plus one great introductory adventure plus some villains to get you started. The rulesbook had 218 pages, ALL the rules and was maybe alittle light on ordinary creatures. But then you had the sourcebooks: Ninja Hero, Western Hero, Fantasy Hero, Horror Hero, Cyber Hero (okay, that sucked!) and the GREAT Dark Champions series - still the best in Iron Age Supers Gaming! That was the version that my group played almost exclusively (except for a little Red Box D&D) in the 90s. Then came 5th edition. Presentation was not up to standards of the industry and the stuff - Fantasy, Champions, Space - felt lackluster and a little "been there, don't that", with the exception of the long awaited Pulp Hero and maybe Dark Champions, though including Espionage in it did nothing to me. And Fnatasy Hero was really supported with interesting settings for the fisrt time (though we all still love Western Shores - a World Book on that is really missing!). Illustrations in some of the books ranged from okay to WTF!, especially when compared with other companies. 6th Edition seems like only Champions (yes, there is Star Hero, Fantasy Hero and Monster Hunters) and - to be frank - the published adventures do nothing for me. The Enemy Books are TOP NOTCH and really at least at the same level as other products - I would say as good as DC Aaventures (M&M version). I think that is a major accomplishment for a superhero-game that is not based on any kind of comic-book world! What I would like to see is more stuff like Monster Hunters: Settings that run on the HERO engine (and included that engine!), so that you can exploit one strength of the Hero System: One rules-engine for all settings. The problem still is, and that is the reason why I believe that HERO can never comptete with other setting unrelated/ universal games, is that you have to really think and put a lot of effort into ypur character BEFORE you start the game. Sure, you could just explain the rules and hand out pre-fabs, but where is the sense in that if one of the strenghts of the system is supposed to be: Create whatever character YOU want? My group really likes Savage Worlds. One of my hard-core Herophiles said the other day: "I'd really like to play HERO again, but this (SW) is really good. I can created my character like I want him to be and it doesn't take an hour to do so!" and before you start with: "Hey, I can make a character in 15 min!" - Yes, we play since 1988. We can do that, too. But not a character that is original and LIKE I WANT HIM TO BE. And frankly, I do not have the time to run HERO anymore. One of our last fights in FH against some orcs took the whole evening (4 players, some orcs). I like fighting ors. But not if that is all I do that evening. With Labyrinth Lord or SW we can clear a whole dungeon a night, with FH we call it a night after room 3! My solution for HERO - none. Or make it way easier to handle (yes, less detail and different rules). My solution for me and my group - no HERO. But I can't do M&M either. And SW is not very suitable for supers gaming. ICONS is ho-hum. Too bad for me and my group - no supers-roleplaying for a long while now.

I do also laugh while torturing people, but I am infamous here as an almost intolerable fun guy and extremely frolicsome so that probably does not count. I mean "One swallow does not make it summer" as the proverb goes, right?

The helmet looks like a mixture of the old Wehrmacht Stahlhelm Typ M 40 and and the East German Stahlhelm M 56. Thus, a very German protective headgear. And an evildoer will have a hard time hitting the officer - laughing will certainly interfere with his aim. Pure German Genius!

Since I found out - at least that is what I have read so far - is Narosia - Sea of Tears a rpg based on teh HERO System. Has anyone any experience with it? I sthe setting any good? The comments I hace read so far are quite in favour of the world, the rules, basically everything. So, what do you say, fellow Herophiles?

Plan on getting my €uros, too, good sir!

Plan on getting my €uros, too, good sir!

My definition of "most epic" seems to differ quite a bit ... It does not qualify for even "slightly funny". Just an old woman with no teeth in her mouth making a fool out of herself (or showing her true self).

Okay, now I get it. Perfect! An opportunity well used.

Yeah, got it. Know the song, too. I just do not find it particularly noteworthy or ... naughty. Nothing to blush about. (Do you "blush about" something?)

I don't get that joke. The meaning of "double entendre" is "Zweideutigkeit" - "two-meaningdom" would be the Anglo-Saxon word I just made up to get away from the Romantic bastardization of your formerly Germanic tongue. Big deal. A German one would be "Ich bin gut zu Vögeln" or "Ich bin gut zu vögeln". By changing the "V" into a "v" the sentences changes from "I am nice to birds" into "I am a nice f.....". A former girlfriend of mine liked to say that. But she lied: She wasn't particular nice to birds at all!

As I (and Popeye) always say: "I yam what I yam an’ tha’s all I yam!“ BTW: What makes it so fantastic to be a "geek"? Especailly if everybody and his dog is "geeky"? Doesn't that make the un-geeky the real geeks? And why isn't that a fantastic goal to achieve? _ "I am totally normal." - "Wow! What a geek you are!" NUTS! The world is NUTS!

It is called "Western civilization 21st century style". In former, less enlightened time they would just have said "Watch out when you run - and now stop crying. Maybe mommy buys you an ice-cream." Or the other mother would have shouted and hit the other mother (mama-bear-all-out-wresting). Or they would just have gone home. Now, since you are not supposed to attack anyone and talking doesn't get you anywhere (especially since an honest apology is not considered "enough" any more) you call the police. All the time! Sue everybody! At least they stopped beating each other. Seems to be the same in the States as in Germany: There is no "right" or "wrong" in bringing-up a child any more, manners are in constant flux and "Your milage may vary but I am right and it is MY WAY (and there is the highway)!" And so you need the police as an arbitrater for all and everything. Even childplay. That's what's really sad about it. And the even sadder thing. I think it will get worse.

Well, in my old school one 5th grader was handcuffed by police-officers. Before that had to be restained by TWO (male) teachers becuase he was punching and kicking and spitting left and right while he was shouting profanities at everybody, even the female officer after being handcuffed. There was something "wrong" with his medicamentation. He got halfway to his senses as soon as he was handcuffed and qhite helpless and saw that cussing at the police (and even begging) got him nowhere. I would just like to know - not judging the case in Kentucky - how anyone would like to handle that problem without restaining the kid. You are of course enot supposed to hit the child, but as a teacher, human being and citizen I am also not supposed to stand there and gett spit on, kicked and insulted and just say "There, there! Now be a good boy, pretty please." Some kids are some kind of work and while I am not advocating calling the police to treat unruly pupils, it all looks so easy from the outside.

(how do I delete stuff? - shhhhesh!)