Christopher R Taylor

Generally speaking as a GM I require something subtle or sneaky to be purchased that way: An Inobvious focus, or Inobvious/Invisible power effects. However, it is reasonable that if you are first introduced to something not clearly an Area Effect attack, you won't know what it will be until you see it go off. For example, Gegolas the Elf has different arrows, and while the gray ones do normal damage, the green ones are poisoned and the red ones are explosive. How will you know until you see Geg fire off one of the red ones? On the Other Hand, the Old Soldier pulls out a pineapple grenade and everyone knows that it will go boom in all directions. Everybody knows that the dragon's breath is a huge area of some kind, but that druid's acorn that blows up might catch someone by surprise, the first time. This is where special effect plays a bigger role than might initially seem obvious. Its like how The Living Ember can light a candle with his flames, but Chill Dame cannot with her frost beam.

Yeah stuff tends to go on cycles, I think its premature to say Hero is dead. Its alive as long as players keep playing and content keeps coming out. Games that were "dead" have had revivals recently and are more popular. I suspect that role playing games will see a resurgence at some point. Who on earth could have predicted that board games would be hot again?

Syzygy does look good for an intermediate villain, easily tough enough to take on a team (especially if well played) and it even comes with built-in henchmen. Not super fond of the costume, might have to adjust that slightly. Building the scenario around it trying to build a device to help it reconstruct its memories while misleading the players to think its Mechanon is a nice twist. And yeah Steriaca, I fear that the entire idea of table top role playing games is waning, let alone superheroes. But maybe if we do this well we can generate more interest.

Stun doesn't really mean pain, it means consciousness. A gas that knocks you out takes stun away just like a fist. Pain can cause unconsciousness, but so does sleep.

Yeah I am not sure what new younger players really want from a game. Do they care about the lore or the history? Do they want to fight the big bad guy or just take out a series of enemies? My instinct says that gamers want to face down with the big boss. I guess we could make up our own new big boss guy but I think fighting an active, dangerous AI would appeal to modern gamers as a worthy threat. Especially given how meh Ultron was handled in the Avengers movie.

It really does depend on what you are trying to simulate. If its just something that makes people hurt then it might just be a mental illusion. If they hurt if they try to do something, its probably Change Environment. If it hurts so bad the target cannot even move or act, its probably entangle. In one of the Advanced Player Guides, they suggest an option where you can give people limitations using Change Environment, that might work

Upon reconsideration, maybe Mechanon has never been around before and this is the AI's first, stumbling attempts to form its self into a body? That feels more interesting and satisfying for a new first campaign than dropping them PCs into a 40-year campaign history where Mechanon is old hat.

OK here is what I culled from the various adventures in magazines etc that I own, the ones I thought would work well updated to 6th: THE MECHANON GAMBIT Pulsar attempts to steal an uncompleted extra body for Mechanon. Mechanon’s body is in an assembly lab located under one of the runways of a municipal airport. Pulsar causes a diversion to give his henchmen time to uncover the lab and grab the body. Pulsar has equipment to cover the whole airport with thick fog as cover. But, other villains have heard about the body and are coming to get it, too. WHAT ROUGH BEAST An old Genocide base called Omega Compound was a research center, but has been abandoned and forgotten. Dr Magnus MacBeth was researching radiation and mutations, hoping to find a final solution to eliminate mutants. Experimenting on live animals, they were close to a solution when things went horribly wrong. A hideously mutated beast received an excessive dose of radiation after being given the catalyst and broke free, slaughtering everything in the base. Then, the computers sealed the base trapping the creatures within. A small UNTIL Task Force located the base and then the beast found them RAID ON BLACKGULCH The villain Phosgene hates the US military and is determined to steal and destroy chemical weapons stores. The environment of the battles is dangerous and unstable A MATTER OF THE HEART The PCs are tracking down an organ meant to be transplanted into a very ill child. A blizzard and search complicates matters as Genocide also is after the heart. INVASION OF THE GWEENIES Goofball aliens invade to turn the earth into an amusement park. The heroes must figure out a way to defeat them and stop the resettlement of all humans, and chase the Gweenies off UNEARTHED MECHANA A series of mysterious thefts has plagued the city, and while at least one of the PCs is being interviewed on national TV, deadly toys on the set begin to attack the panel and audience. The FBI suggests that these toys appear to be the work of the supervillain Black Harlequin. Tracking down the factory, a worse threat arises to face the PCs, a powerful servant of Mechanon named Mechana is activated in the assembly chamber. VANISHED! DEMON has misplaced one of their teleport pads, and wants it back or destroyed. In the lab where the pad is being stored and studied, people keep disappearing. A demon is concealed in a clock and comes out at night to attack and capture people. A SERPENT IN OUR MIDST VIPER has come up with a virus designed to hypnotise and take control of a subject. This is an add-on to other scenarios, a twist that shows up to complicate matters. MONSTER An object taken into the trophy room or lab of a base activates, creating a monster that attacks them in their own base. Also another possible add-on to another scenario SOFT TARGETS A criminal robbed an armored car for millions, and hid it where an orphanage was later built while he was in Stronghold. His cell mate is a radical anti-government type that learned of the money, got out, and now is both after the cash and out to Make A Statement. DEATHTRAP An add-on to other scenarios, in which each PC is placed in a death trap that they have to defeat or escape. YOUR HOROSCOPE FOR: SCORPIO: Giant scorpions terrorize the city, but who is the all-American couple that keeps turning up along with them? AND THERE WAS BLOOD EVERYWHERE!: A giant blur on the satellite photo of Africa leads to unthinkable horrors for your Champions team. TSUNAMI: This Champions adventure sets your heroes against a group of villains planning to destroy the city in a gigantic wave. MURDER ON MONSTER ISLAND : Giant monsters of the world have been shipped off to Monster Island, under the supervision of Bureau 17. But something has gone wrong... Now, some of these are obviously better as drop-ins in between adventures or add-ons to an existing adventure to complicate matters. But my vague concept for now is that Mechanon has been severely damaged in a fight (superheroes, Dr Destroyer, whatever) and is trying to rebuild its mind and chassis. So its seeking parts, allies, and locations while also running fragments of schemes it came up with, but not very well done or connected because of its damage.

The art's nice at least.

I'd have liked it better without the Madonna song

I figure it this way A player book would have the breakdown on how to build a character in Hero, using a few prebuilds as examples, info on role playing a superhero as opposed to a marauding adventurer that kills and loots, keeping the tone and feel of the comic book origins consistent (although these days, what does that even mean?), how to create a character story and background that fits the game and builds a character, etc. The GM Book would be the adventure breakdowns and tips on running superheroic games, maintaining tone, enforcing genre, encouraging role playing as superheroes, etc. There would be the full story arc, drop-in short adventures that could be used for a variety of character stories (DNPCs, hunteds, etc), and the way to mix in other adventures in between so its not just the main story, if the GM so desires. Then we need a character book with the NPCs necessary to fill in between the main adventures and to act as a supporting cast (the butler, or whatever). Most of the NPCs would be either detailed in the adventures or pointed to in the villain books. Individual adventures built up and sold separately would be pretty easy to do, shouldn't be more than 25 pages per. Put out like 10 or 15 of them and you have a nice solid support base for Champions as well as ones to draw from for runs like this. But they aren't Adventure Paths they should be like, Limited Series or something comics-related.

A cast of thousands

maybe link a STN suppress as well

I liked that show, even though it had basically the same plot every time. The mystery of what happened to the world was interesting to me and I was curious what his maid really was.

I like that layout, the campaign book would have GM tips and suggestions, and the player book would have lots of tips on how to play Champions and be a superhero in a game as opposed to an "adventurer"

Well it comes down to how you write up the rules and the system. Anything that covers giant monkeys would necessarily cover giant robots and just plain giant people. The rules necessarily cross over to different concepts and platforms that are similar, and it would be simple to add those in, and silly not to. What makes a game that runs Godzilla also runs Big O. So you show how to do that in the same book, to make it as broad an appeal as possible and cover what else is reasonable.

Yeah the project already expects that the GM will have bought Champions Complete, which isn't too much to expect (I mean you want to run the game) but as I see it, we're faced with two choices: 1) print the adventures all in the Rising product in whatever format (such as a separate Adventures booklet), which pumps up the page count and cost of the entire project. But its more convenient for the GM to have it all at once. 2) print the adventures separately as individual products, maybe $4.99 each, and increase expense and trouble. But its also sales of adventures separately as individual products even if someone doesn't pick up Champions Rises. I think a D&D type product can get away with this better because its such a bigger and more well known property, and people are willing to lay out the money to get what they want. But maybe that carries through to other games as well. Would you be willing to pay, say, 75 bucks to get Champions Complete, Champions Rises, and like 8 adventures? What is the limit, especially in this economy? I am inclined toward option 2 for several reasons, but I don't honestly know what is wisest and the best approach for the business.

Most are themed somewhat, with past ones being about building a kingdom, venturing through a haunted dungeon, or exploring a region of the world. Overall, it's a fun idea. Do they print the adventures in the guide or do you have to buy them separately?

Me either, its just nasty. But its a variant on the "get the bad guys who are 100 feet tall" genre

You could even mix in stuff like Attack on Titan, with gigantic human monsters.

I was hoping someone who has played Pathfinder could fill in the blanks. Maybe I should get one and see what its laid out like and how they built it.

Well the same rules that cover giant monsters will necessarily cover any gigantic thing like a robot, so they easily could cover all of that and more.

Yeah I'd probably give a corset 1-3 rPD, probably 2-4 rED. They won't stop an axe, but they will blunt or drive way a knife. Women's clothing had lots of layers and folds and room so you could conceal quite a bit under it. Because of all the straps and garters and other devices, there's plenty of opportunities to put a small pistol or two hidden away and definitely knives. In many ways, women had a distinct advantage as an adventurer: bad guys will hesitate to harm one, they're protected by society so they can get away with crying for help then running away as their accosters are dealt with by others, they have better opportunities to hide things away, and are unlikely to be searched, and if they seem like a lady can go nearly anywhere with men going out of their way to assist. On the other hand, socially they were very restricted: they often weren't allowed to drive when cars came around, they couldn't hold their own bank account or own property, etc. But of course, if you run a semi-mystical steam punk setting, who's to say that sufferage etc didn't come a few decades earlier? After all the most powerful person in the world was the Queen of England.

I guess ideally that kind of source book would tell how to do both -- and fold robot hero into it.

Well its a very successful system so I would like to take as many ideas that worked for them and make them work for us. Plus, playing into expectations of players is valuable, it makes them more comfortable with what you present.