Christopher R Taylor

They don't hate it so much as are disappointed and find it boring, which doesn't sound very promising

I didn't do this with CI but I should have, it is a classic for super tough bricks in early comic books: the Bonk mechanism. Guys like Captain Marvel were literally immune to anything, the worst that would happen is that they'd be all dusty and dirty or knocked over. But if you hit them from behind or with a clever surprise attack you could actually stun them for a little while, long enough for their hilariously outclassed enemies to get away. Buying a vulnerability to surprise attacks can give enemies a chance, if they are clever, while not breaking the concept of the tough guy.

I liked the spell college thing a lot too, and more, I liked the staged levels of "you can't learn this level of power until you get some of the lower powered stuff". For years now I've been trying to work out a way of building a power framework that does just that. It would be ideal for a ton of builds, such as martial arts.

I made a character like that, named Captain Invincible. But that was his power: being kinda dumb but nearly impossible to hurt. He didn't do much damage, but he was just unharmable. You can usually ignore guys like that though, they aren't very fast and don't hit hard. A Flash will blind them, a mind control turns them on their friends, a presence attack can cow them, an NND can stun them, etc, depending on their defenses and build. Dropping a non-flyer off a cliff can take them out of a fight. Giving them someone to rescue preoccupies them. Giving them a really nasty, deadly bad guy to focus on can distract them as well. And yeah, things like Entangle, or just being grabbed by someone around the same strength.

I will echo LoneWolf. When it comes down to actually playing the game, its almost identical through every single edition. Nearly every change to the rules in editions has to do with building characters slightly more clearly and flexibly, not running the game. The mechanics of the game are the same for combat, skill resolution, interaction, experience, etc. That said, 6th is the most recent edition and is getting the most recent support. Its also a bit cleaner in a lot of ways (like using meters instead of "game inches" for distances). I find that Hero handles fantasy better than any other system I have tried (although Chaosium still has the crown for straight Cthulhu games), bar none.

Yeah that was the flip side: you get high enough level and you can jump off a cliff and walk away with a shrug. A few healing potions and bam!

The 1 hp a day thing always drove me nuts, because the description of hit points is that it is mostly "luck, skill, endurance and other factors" and not just physical damage. Why does that take ages to come back, again??

To a certain extent the magic feel of the game goes away in every area the more you play and get used to the mechanics and how it all works. Going into a dungeon after 30 years of playing the game is nowhere near as exciting and mysterious as it was the first time. Its still fun, or we wouldn't do it but its not new, fresh, or compelling as it once was. So its very difficult to keep magic feeling as magical as it might, simply because the more you understand something the less mysterious and mystical it feels.

An easy method of bringing them into the MCU is to have Reed's experiment push them through the dimensions, giving them powers, popping out from the normal world into the MCU. Just use the word "quantum" a lot. X-Men is tougher. They have always kind of felt like they were in an isolated universe to begin with, as themes and events there rarely have any impact on the rest of the marvel universe. They very rarely had any crossovers, unless they were special events.

Its inevitable that new characters are introduced without having been seen before. As is clear reading, I am not talking about that. Obviously in context and from several times repeating it, I'm talking about having characters act in a world as if nothing else exists. No Avengers. No Spider-Man. None of the other characters show up, interact, or appear to even exist in this universe for the Eternals. Just them and their bad guys. Like they are a totally separate universe, in another setting. Although you do have to admit having this huge group of evil guys always there and never seen before is a bit difficult to swallow. That's why I always have had problems with writers dropping characters like Apocalypse and Sinister into the existing continuity "they've always been around and super powerful and active!" Uh huh. One guy like Wolverine? Eh, easy to miss in a whole planet of seven billion people. A huge group of super powerful beings acting in the world but nobody noticed?

I disagree, its about how its presented. If you have magic laid out with all the guts showing, sure, it feels mechanical. But there's zero difference between "Fireball does your level in d6 damage to everything in a 10" radius" and "fireball does 3d6 KA to everything in an 8m radius". Hero suffers from excessive writeups but those only need to show up if the GM wants them to. Players don't need to see the guts unless they build their own powers.

Meh, all Superman needs is enough PD that he doesn't get stunned or take significant damage from even the best possible rolls from mundane weapons, and a ton of stun to soak anything that gets through. I mean if you're throwing around 18d6 attacks, is 75 PD so unreasonable? Or, to put it another way, if you're going to spend 30 points on damage reduction, why not just +30 PD?

Not sure how you'd think that, unless they decided to put them into the MCU on earth as if none of the other previous movies or characters were in it.

Being obviously connected to the larger MCU tapestry does not seem to be a necessary component for success. I see a difference though: GoG was set in outer space so it was necessarily disconnected from the stuff going on with earth. When you put out a big new movie about super powered beings on earth, but then have no connection at all to previous movies set on earth... that's a bit different. Part of what people have really enjoyed about previous MCU films is the interconnectivity, it felt like the same place with interacting characters and movies meshing together.

I think the problem people have with the Eternals fitting in isn't so much tone and style as the fact that it takes place on earth, but has no interaction with any other Marvel characters or history. Its just a separate story with them fighting Bad Guys Who Have Always Been With Us but had no interaction or appearance with the MCU at all, in ways that have nothing to do with any other MCU film, etc. Its like doing a series of stories about the French and Indian wars in the USA then doing a big story about big groups who just happen to be there at the same time but never showed up before and have nothing to do with Indians, Frenchmen, or the British troops. The Guardians of the Galaxy honestly don't fit into the Marvel Cinematic Universe except very tangentially with a few small appearances in the last two Avengers movies. They're almost entirely disconnected when not stitched into the Big Story.

The more points a character has to work with, the more likely they are to buy alternate, special, and unusual attacks. That multipower turns into a page instead of a few abilities, or even a power pool. So defenses become less effective. Would your tank buy an armor piercing punch with 350 points? Probably not unless that's their specific character design. But if you have 600 points to work with, why not buy that AVLD against "dive for cover" attack? And on defenses, why not get that "impenetrable" even though nobody buys penetration?

Healing END in combat can be very useful, if a GM is smart enough to use the 1 END/5 STR rule. And healing stun in combat is pretty darn handy too. Plus if as Ninja Bear notes, you use impairing and disabling rules having a priest to heal that stuff can be very welcome.

If I ever got to run another Champions campaign I would go the opposite route: I would treat every superhero attack as "pulled" by default and require the penalties for a pulled attack on any that is all-out. That is, superheroes by nature automatically use less than their maximum effort on targets unless they put an effort into it and take a reduction to OCV and DCV.

I believe Hero starts to break down above 400 pts /75AP because of how the world and powers are built but if you focus on story, character, role playing, and interaction rather than combat you should do okay. Just keep in mind that players are a lot more clever and direct wit their powers than comic book superheroes are. They'll do the stuff that makes sense and uses their powers consistently rather than what fits the story, so its going to be a bit difficult to give them consistent challenges. That said, I agree with your assessment on high end builds in official publication, its like the writers hit a wall on defenses but are unlimited on attacks. You would not find that the case with player-built characters using that many points.

Yeah her and Starfox are the only ones I can think of in 60 years of Marvel Comics being used outside Kirby's short run with them.

I mean... they have long been kinda part of the marvel universe? But not really, since almost nobody writes anything involving them other than the really unfortunate Starfox. Plus there's a baffling continuity problem where these are supposed to be the origin of the ancient gods and goddesses... except all of them are actually in the marvel universe as well so there's duplicates? Its a very odd choice for the MCU.

The post credit scenes I won't spoil might generate some interest but... The thing is, having characters that are Marvel comic book guys doesn't really make them feel like an MCU film. The fun quality does. Guardians was different but... kind of in a bad way, that has in my opinion tarnished every marvel film since then.

Push felt really long to me and didn't deliver on all that time and effort spent to set things up. I found it pretty disappointing and uneven. Eternals isn't getting great reviews from anyone, basically people are saying "didn't develop any of its too-many characters at all, convoluted, dense (lots of people saying dense and not in a good way), and does not feel like part of the Marvel Universe". I wish Marvel would stop doing this kind of thing, they tried so hard to make Inhumans the next X-Men. They need to stop giving unexperienced new directors major movies just because they tick off a diversity box as well. The formula that works is this: Great, established director Great writing based on excellent character development and stories from comics Solid, talented casting The original Superman, Tim Burton Batman, Iron Man, all the comic book movies that really worked, did this. All the movies that didn't work or sucked, didn't use this formula. As a BBC reviewer puts it:

I originally was leaning to this concept but then realized how much work it would be for the GM to have the abilities written up (or come up with them on the fly), to keep it balanced, and to in part play the priest's class in addition to running the game.

I don't know the Champions Universe as well as some of you might, since when I ran Champions I had my own setting and characters. Are there supervillains in the CU that would be able to create natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes, blizzards, etc?