borbetomagnus

@Ninja-BearModern game with Silver Age mentalities is the way to go. I love 1963 too, and there were plans for an Annual to end the limited-run series, but I always heard that 1963 didn't sell well enough for the final book to be produced. It'd be great if Image would collect all of the issues, including the unpublished Annual and perhaps some additional unpublished material, into a collected edition. I'm sure that it would sell better today. I think the satire would be appreciated now. The 1963 letters column penned by Alan Moore was hilarious! Image also published the Silver Age Kirby homage series G0DLAND by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli. I enjoyed it too.

Electric violins are cool. I once had the pleasure of watching a high school string orchestra performance lead by Mark Wood, the inventor of the solid body electric violin and co-founder of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and it was incredible!

@Ninja-Bear The images of the unpainted Old Glory miniatures are just OK. They could just be bad photos, slightly out of focus. The painted ones are pretty good. IME, a good paint job on a mediocre miniature can make it look fantastic. I prefer metal miniatures over the inexpensive plastic ones that are being produced these days. I've painted a few of the WizKids unpainted plastic miniatures being produced for D&D and Pathfinder and had good results from from brush. I'm not the greatest painter, and there are some features on the WizKids miniatures, such as noses or brows that are not fully rendered in the plastic miniatures, but with a little patience and a few good brushes you can do wonders. I'll probably pick up some of the Old Glory superhero miniatures and see how they look in real life. I noticed that they have two sizes -- a larger than the typical 25-28mm size -- they are 33mm. Wow! That's pretty cool. I also noticed that they have some in 15mm size. I may pick up a few of those to use with the larger ones to represent mini-supers like Marvel's Ant Man.

Aces & Eights does have some neat ideas, and while I've not actually played it, I would expect that a combat with greater than two participants would take a very long time to run at the (virtual) tabletop. I think I'll stick with Western Hero instead.

I can't find any links to the Marvel Heroclix unpainted Deep Cuts miniatures, but I did see some at a FLGS and they look pretty cool. I don't care about the Heroclix part or the accompanying stats cards for each character, but they could be fun to paint and use in Champions games.

Does anyone know of any lines of superhero miniature figures produced currently or in the past? I've love to get more 25-28mm figures to paint.

My approach with miniatures is to not go into a tactical boardgame, but to use them to represent facing, proximity and distance, and surrounding terrain and features (buildings, vehicles, trees, etc.) appropriate to the scene. As for figures that I've used: Marvel Hero Squad, though these are larger than typical 25-30mm figures. Silver Age Sentinels official figures from some years ago. Paper printout cardboard heroes from Autoduel Champions.

This is totally awesome, @Christopher R Taylor !! I've always loved the Western Hero genre book and still reference my copy of the 4th edition version.

I enjoy painting miniatures, mostly Glorantha figures, but I also have a few superhero miniatures. But... I've never used them in any superhero RPGs. I'm interested in how you've used miniatures with Champions games. Have they worked well or did their use in-game impede or interrupt the shared theater of the mind feeling of the gaming group?

I would imagine that probably Champions Complete since it includes a more extensive treatment of Powers than Fantasy Hero Complete. I would think that the various powers of the Exalted would be modeled in the HERO Power build during character creation. It would also accommodate the cinematic or four-color theme of Exalted better than Fantasy HERO Complete in my opinion.

I have a huge collection of GURPS 3rd edition books too and I'd definitely use them to convert to Champions Complete. No problem for when I run a Star Hero campaign. For the current game that is kicking off the GM wouldn't go that route. He's stuck on GURPS and only played HERO in a short swords and sorcery fantasy campaign using the Valdorian Age setting book.

@Chris Goodwin Thanks for pointing me to an early edition that is complete in itself. The one thing that I like about 6E is the change to non-Figured Characteristics. But, I can live with it for a complete book. Unfortunately, for this specific GURPS sci-fi campaign the GM is stuck on using GURPS because he has many GURPS worldbooks to draw from (Ultra-Tech, Psionics, Aliens, etc.), so proposing HERO System will be for naught. Now, when I eventually run a sci-fi RPG I can use HERO and will look at Star Hero 3E. The players will be inclined to play since the single book is not cost prohibited.

@tkdguy I enjoy all the links and videos in this thread. My gaming group is starting a space opera campaign and these are informative.

The thing that immediately comes to mind when I think about spacefaring Star HERO campaigns is a space race, and specifically for a vast interplanetary society, a race that extends across the vastness of space. Fans view it through VR headsets or some other tech. Or perhaps it's a race along the outer surface of a ringworld. When I think about these types of racing sports involving vehicles that we're familiar with and placing that into the setting of a galactic-spanning society, I think the vastness they're accustomed to is an inherent feature that they take for granted. Much like gravity generators on spaceships are fundamental as the electrical grid is to us. What are your thoughts and reactions?

1) I'm not aware of links to forum threads that compare the various Star HERO editions. 2) I can only refer to Star HERO 6E, and cite specific Powers that are appropriate to Transhumanist sci-fi. Note: Transhumanism isn't explicitly discussed in Star HERO 6E, but Cyberpunk is discussed. Here are a few page references from Star HERO 6E that discuss "transhumanist" topics without stating the term: Cyberpunk genre: pp 16 - 18 Transform power: pp 82 Alien Species chapter, specifically, Creating Alien Species, Super Intellects and uplifted animals: pp 150 Computers as Characters: pp 193 Biotechnology: pp 197 - 198 Nanotechnology: pp 199