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Wow. I had no idea just how much the hobby had contracted/regressed while I was away. Thanks for the link.

So as I understand it, Champions Complete contains within it the core Hero System rules combined with superhero genre material like the Champions rulebooks of old. I'm curious how the system rules in CC compare to the rules in Hero System Basic. Both sound like streamlined versions of the "full" rules found in 6E1/6E2, but how do they differ? As a side question, are Fantasy Hero Complete and Star Hero Complete intended, conceptually anyway, to be like Champions Complete in structure, at least insofar as they contain the system rules in addition to genre material? If so, is it just me or does this sound very familiar (i.e., Champions, Fantasy Hero, and Star Hero from the 3rd edition era)? In order to get the genre treatments, you end up with multiple copies of the same system rules, yes? I can only conclude that Hero Games has discovered that the majority of its customers only play one genre and so only ever buy one rulebook. Is that the case nowadays? And if so, is this perhaps a marketplace refutation of the value of universal, genre-spanning rules systems?

If this is true, I will definitely need to pick it up! I'm surprised the two core volumes never made it to POD (in softcover form, of course). I guess CC replaced 6E1/6E2 as the official ruleset before the latter could make it to POD. Bummer. #lostOpportunity

Common sense suggests, to me anyway, that it is perfectly legal, because, well, why not? What would be the basis for objecting to it? It doesn't seem to violate any of the costing formulas, or even approach a point of ambiguity. Or does it and I'm just missing something subtle here?

As I recall, for the first four editions of the game (and, what, 20 years of use?), the Multipower Reserve was a data value that was noted separately from its active and real costs, and never changed due to advantages or limitations. The reserve was the "space" available to slots (i.e., the sum of all active points in use during a Phase could not exceed the reserve value), while calculating the reserve's active and real costs was merely the means of determining the cost in CPs to put it on the character sheet (and serve as possible warning that campaign AP limits are being approached/breached, if there are any). If this changed somewhere along the way, I'd be curious to learn why.

Ah, okay, great! Is it accurate to say, though, that in 30 years there have been exactly six JI/PH products published by Hero Games? I remember being at a "What's New at Hero Games" panel at GenCon one year in the early 90s where Steve Peterson asked the assembled gamers how many of them like the idea of more Pulp genre material for the game. Nearly everyone's hand went up, at which point Steve said that he almost invariably got that sort of response wherever he went (convention-wise), and yet the sales figures for Pulp genre products were notoriously abysmal. There seems to be a puzzling disconnect between the love for the genre and an interest in spending money on it, which leads to an unfortunate paucity of official product. And now that our esteemed Mr. Allston is no longer with us, I don't know where to turn (I know there's a bunch of Pulp genre support material in pdf form around here, but does it stand up to the quality level of Allston's work?)

So what are the pulp game products that have been published by Hero Games over the years? Justice Inc. + Lands of Mystery + Trail of the Gold Spike Pulp Hero + Thrilling Places + Thrilling Adventures (this never saw physical printed form, right?) What am I missing?

Agreed on all counts. Hide the complexity until either a player wants to know about it, or it becomes necessary for resolving some important action. Eventually, players will either want to dig deeper and learn the nuts and bolts, or they won't. In a campaign/group not consumed by power gamers and min/maxers, there's no reason I can think of why the more casual players can't continue to have boatloads of fun without ever looking behind the complexity curtain.

Well, I think situations like yours are very instructive and worth examining in any case. Good luck with the new FH campaign!

Okay, yeah, I own both of those books. But neither of those is what Star Hero 6e refers to as "Hero System Vehicles", right? What exactly is Star Hero 6e referring to?

I don't have MHI, but isn't it like every other Hero game book ever published in that it explains that a normal human, with 0 points allocated to characteristics has a 10 in the core stats, and that 20 is the normal characteristic maxima? And at 0, most characteristics are essentially non-functional. Which means normal humans have a range of 0-20, with the "realistic" range being 3-18 (and in 30 years of playing this system, I've never been convinced that is coincidence...if nothing else it gives D&Ders familiar ground to stand upon when getting their feet wet in Hero).

Ah, thank you for the info! I noticed that books like Star Hero 6e make reference to something called "Hero System Vehicles". Did such a thing ever get written and published?

I was very fortunate. My first experience with Champions was back in 1983 when I had the good fortune to play with a group of absolutely stellar gamers from Flying Buffalo Games in Tempe, AZ. They were, for the most part, adults who had graduated from the hack and slash D&D mentality and on to the more mature heroics of Champions (to say nothing of their devotion to genre authenticity). The GMs there were so good at running Champions, that one learned the game's "best practices" simply by osmosis (it should also be noted that 2nd ed Champions had the advantage of being unencumbered by the hundreds of pages of "options" the system has today). It was that experience that I brought with me when I started my own campaigns several years later in another town. By and large, I never try to drag casual players into a Champions/Hero System game. The system does not really reward those not willing to dig into it and learn it seriously. There are umpteen other RPGs for casual gamers; this system doesn't need to be one of them, IMO. This definitely limits opportunities to play the game, but it also minimizes frustration and maintains one's sanity as well. I can usually tell straight off the bat whether or not a prospective player is right for the group: if they are intimidated by the basic mathmatics required to build a character, then they aren't likely to be a good fit. If the concept of "active cost" is not intuitive (once explained), then they should probably go back to D&D/Pathfinder where the moving parts of the game engine are rarely so exposed. But if they see the elegant interplay between Advantages and Limitations, and grasp the notion that one raises active cost, while the other lowers real cost, then I know I'm dealing someone who won't be stymied with every other rule/mechanic in the game. As for the unhittable Kobold, one must be prepared to exploit the myriad other ways to hit and hinder a target: AoE (dust thrown in the face could be ruled an ad-hoc AoE Flash attack if necessary), multiple attackers, attacks that target the mind, Presence Attacks, etc. You gotta get creative. And if necessary, put tighter limits on base DCV and combat skill levels. As for reasonable campaign limits, I'm pretty sure every version of the core rules and every genre book I've ever read has sections devoted to the subject.

Second Hand Lions is full of pulpy adventure in its flashback sequences. League of Extraordinary Gentlemen The RDJ Sherlock Holmes films maybe? Captain America: The First Avenger Spectre (1977 tv movie)...very pulpy even though it doesn't take place in the pulp era

Hello everyone! I've been going through the painfully expensive process of catching up on 6e and acquiring all the core books in physical book form that I can find. So far I've met with success with everything except the 6e HS Grimoire. Was this ever released in physical book form? Or was it only a PDF release? (I'm also curious about the HS Skills book, but I think I already know the answer to that one...)