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?

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.

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.

The plan appeared to be OGL 1.1, then ditching their print business to save costs like warehousing, followed by a transition to the VTT and micro transactions to get the cash flowing.
 
Things didn’t go as planned. I heard they are down something like 30% in sales over the past year or two.
 
Now Warhammer seems to be following the siren song of self-destruction, but that is another story.

As much as I enjoy creating characters and technically adding them to the Champions universe (I did a couple for Champions Begins), I think it serves the game system better to use existing bad guys that can be plugged into the game.  That helps plug into the existing lore etc for the universe.  But... then we have reprint issues, is it okay to reprint what's in a book?  Or do we necro a villain group like I had to for Island of Dr Destroyer?

Change Environment - will roll required to use STR?

A cast of thousands

Loved the shop in the background at 1:25:  Liefeld's Just Feet.

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.

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.

maybe link a STN suppress as well

Even simpler, an Entangle as a Damage Shield that only works when used as an attack. You can add Cumulative to it to reflect the idea that it seems to be harder to escape after the initial entanglement.

I guess we can include that in the Cast book also. Note: the Cast book contains stats for anyone who would be used all adventure. Temporary character stats would be in the adventure they appear in.
 
So, how many of them will be original characters, and how many will be from VV 2 and VV 3?
 
If we need a fake mastermind my vote is for Mastadon (a rework on European Enimies Mammoth, done more for comedy than anything else...not that he is directly funny).
 
He also can work as a red herring, to make players think he is the big mastermind, then when he is captured the plan actually continues...

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.

And that pretty much is the same for all versions of Hero. Technically, as long as you are not worried about point values and worths, you can have a character made from 1st edition play in a 6th edition game.

I would gladly take a new Cyber Hero or Horror Hero. But I would love to see a new Danger International or an updated Post Apocalypse Hero.

One introductory scenario I wanted to use for Champions Begins, but ended up setting aside, was suggested by a member of the boards here whose name eludes me.  I apologize, again for having a poor memory.   It was an apartment fire, with the Heroes getting involved and meeting up by fighting the fire, saving people, etc.  I had it worked up partly, with there being various things happening in the apartments, such as a drug deal, an off the books daycare, and several elderly people who could not get out on their own.  At least one hero could easily be living in the apartment, someone might work nearby, etc.  Its a good way for a wide variety of things to take place, lots of heroism to be done, and danger while being contained and a simple event.
 
I think that would work well for a starter.  I like the idea of the bank robbery but its tough to come up with a fresh, engaging way to present a robbery that hasn't been done so much already.  I recently read a Donald Westlake book in which the main characters rob a bank by literally hauling it away: it was a bank in a trailer, while the real bank was being built.  This was the 70s so that kind of thing would happen.  They hooked the trailer up to a semi, sealed the night guards in, cut all the lines, and drove it away.  That has promise as a concept at least: what if the bad guys literally rob the bank -- the entire building?

So, a few years ago, we got together and worked on a project that eventually became Champions Begins.  This has been a very successful and well-regarded product for Hero, and as it is free, its helping a lot of people learn how to play the game.  I am particularly proud how everyone came together with suggestions, tips, ideas, editing, art, etc.
 
Well I want to do that again, but this time we're taking it a step up.  The next project will be Baby's First Campaign for Champions, a premade adventure story starting with the group gathering and ending with a big fight to stop the main bad guy.  In between will be several chained adventures and several drop-in ones, to make up a full campaign arc.  Think of it kind of as an "Adventure Path" for Champions.
 
The principle behind this is to help GMs know how to run an actual campaign and provide players with an intro to the game. I have seen many people ask how on earth to even run a game with superheroes? Almost none of the usual patterns of a D&D game seem to fit: the unclear pattern of advancement, the lack of treasure, the lack of dungeons, the modern setting, etc.  Someone (sorry I cannot recall whom) suggested the name Champions Rises for this product and I like it.
 
Here are my main concerns.  
 
First, this will necessarily be a pretty big book, its got to have a lot of stuff in it such as tips for GMing, tips for play, background for the campaign, a setting (even if very brief), all of the adventures, ideas on how to work in complications, personality, backgrounds, etc of characters into the campaign, the mindset of Champions as opposed to other RPGs (no kill and loot), and maybe even a section on how to build characters, since Champions Begins left that out.  All of that jammed in will be over 200 pages.
 
Second, there is a real need to have at least a stab at helping people build characters.  I'm fine with using fully built characters from the Champions Begins premade ones, but players will want to make their own hero at some point.  And that would necessarily include tips on what kind of characters to make or to avoid, etc.  This could be done as a separate interim book (maybe another freebie) which could follow up on Champions Begins by showing how to make a few of the prebuilt CB characters using the rules in Champions Complete.
 
Third, this would be a much more ambitious book requiring a more ambitious approach.  I'm fine with coloring and reusing old art from previous products but it would be nice to have new, hot art to put in the book as well.  And I'd like to have a really clean, high quality, exciting looking Character Sheet to use as well, something that pops and is evocative of comic books.
 
Fourth, we need adventures.  Thankfully there are a lot of them already printed and available for use in old magazines, adventure books like Champions Presents, and so on that can be mined to assemble a storyline.  And we'd need some drop-in adventures for GMs to use for special occasions such as for when a hunted shows up or a DNPC is needed to activate.  Character story kind of stuff.
 
Speaking of Character Story we'll need to identify and help the GM to use specific hero archetypes that show up: the loner, the crusader, the family man, etc.  Tropes and patterns from existing comic books and movies -- not the characters as their powers and abilities, but their personalities, tendencies, interests, etc.  Armed with those, a set of generic Character Story adventures could be created to target those and show GMs how to work that into a game.
 
Fifth I am sure you all can think of other things that we'll need, such as a setting, villains, time period, etc.
 
Champions Begins took several years to hash out and complete, so this is no hurry but it would be nice to have some discussion about it.

Armor and Concealment
 
Corsets made of whale bone (actually baleen) would provide resistant defenses. Maybe similar to the Armored Undershirt on page 133.
And skirts made of layers of stiffened wool or starched cotton might be similar to leather armor.
 
According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, there was a movement toward more practical and comfortable women’s clothing. Even “divided skirts”, essentially trousers, were available.
 
It would also be easy to hide items in a large skirt, bustle, or petticoat. And it’s pretty easy to go to a CosPlay convention and find a woman wearing a corset with a concealed knife or other item.
 
Victoria and Albert Museum - Victorian Underwear
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/corsets-crinolines-and-bustles-fashionable-victorian-underwear
 
 

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.

I do like the Mechanon option, and I was looking at Unearthed Mechana as one of the adventures to use already.  It would be different than Dr Destroyer,  and maybe give the players something that feels both familiar and slightly fresh instead of yet another big tough guy who wants to rule the world.

Fantasy Hero has some mass combat rules that are worth looking over.  I have used them a couple of times but my players didn't really enjoy it.

I figure that kind of thing goes under special effect.  Grond does a grab maneuver, and gets something: On The Mighty Sampson, he grabs hair.  On Cape Girl he grabs cape.  If you really wanted to you could build the character with like a -1 DCV vs grab maneuvers (hero form only for Cape Girl).

I figure that kind of thing goes under special effect.  Grond does a grab maneuver, and gets something: On The Mighty Sampson, he grabs hair.  On Cape Girl he grabs cape.  If you really wanted to you could build the character with like a -1 DCV vs grab maneuvers (hero form only for Cape Girl).