Ndreare

All good items - historically, these have not been presented so much as "campaign guidelines and dial settings" as extrapolated from sample characters - typically, characters whose expected usage (expected to go one on one against a single PC; expected to be a tough fight for a team of PCs,; etc.).  I've sometimes questioned whether those "back of 1e|" characters were intended to be reasonable solo villains (tougher than any one PC, but easily taken down by the team), with the expectation that PCs, at least starting PCs, would be more like those "wimpy" Geodesics.
 
As players, we built more towards going one on one against Shrinker, Pulsar, Dragonfly or Green Dragon.

Hey all, I will shed some light on Gemini for people to understand it.
 
Gemini is my passion project that I’ve been picking away at for a few years now.  It started as a Rifts conversion to OpenD6 that I ran for fun a few years ago.  During that playtest, I realized that the ‘Special Abilities’ system in OpenD6 was a little anemic in some regards (and super overpowered in others).  My perspective was mainly influenced by my years of playing Hero.  I liked much of the speed and simplicity of OpenD6, and I knew I wanted to merge the two somehow.
 
That led me down the path to something called Chimera.  Chimera was just something I did for my friends.  At one point, I got some feedback from outside my circle of friends via Reddit, and I threw together a basic website for it to keep interested parties in the know.
 
I built apps for character building and playing the game locally because I’m a software dev, and I could.  COVID hit, and we couldn’t play in person anymore, so I built out Roll20 support via the apps by allowing you to export the characters you build in the apps directly into a Roll20 game via an importer script I wrote.  I also customized the Wild Die API script and created my character sheets for Roll20 for Chimera.
 
As the rules evolved and stabilized, I wanted to see if there was a way to publish the rules.  My main concern was that some critical concepts were burrowed from Hero. Since OpenD6 is OGL and Hero is not, it made sense to approach DoJ first.  Luckily, Jason Walters was receptive to the idea, so we ended up negotiating a deal to bring Chimera to print.  As we worked through the details, it was decided to retire the name Chimera, and instead, we picked Gemini as the name.
 
And here we are.
 
There’s been a Patreon earlier this year, and I have recently resurrected this project.  Some typos and misprints in the reviewed document need to be corrected.  I also just want to remove some rules and streamline things even further. 
 
Recently, I returned to Reddit to the OpenD6 subreddit, which is small but the best source I could find for feedback from that side of Gemini.
 
I’ll offer this community the same access to the apps and Roll20 support that I gave to the OpenD6 community.  I have the book available for consumption and can get you into the Alpha test for the apps (Android and Apple).
 
Have a look at this video for a high-level overview of the app - https://youtu.be/mgf_bst7-qk
 
I have compiled a 4-page document that includes the introductory chapter, which you can view here.
 

I created a video about what it's like to build a power in Gemini.  
 
 
I used Gemini Studio to build the power as it's the easiest way to build.  The app is in alpha right now for Android and iOS.  If you are interested in joining send me a message with your email and target device, and I'll add you to the appropriate alpha.

Off the top of my head:
 
 - With Hit Locations or without?
 
 - What point totals?
 
 - Is equipment purchased with points or cash?
 
 - Knockback or Knockdown?
 
The system's dials have to be set for each game.

Agreed that the intimidating size of the core rules is a significant problem.  Not sure I agree with these interpretations of the cause.  The real problem, to me, is that the publishing and the sales pitch are backwards.
 
There was a fundamental shift from 3e ("Old Testament Hero" - OTH) to 4e (New Testament Hero" - NTH). OTH Hero used a common rules framework to build, write and publish games.  NTH published a common rules framework, with the building and publishing of games coming either next or, worse, never.  This required NTH to be all things to all people - all genres, all playstyles, all power levels.
 
Write and publish a game.  Maybe it's a Standard Supers Bronze Age game.  Perhaps it's a grim and gritty, realism-heavy post-apocalyptic low-power heroic game.  It can be a high-powered Supers Saturday Morning Cartoon game that has no BOD stat because no one ever dies.  But it has to be a GAME - a GM and some players can pick it up, read it and run the game.  Only those mechanics relevant to, and used in, the game are included. That full-blown rules system, complete with dial settings and alternate rules, is used to build the game.  If that game does well, maybe we publish some supplements.  Maybe we publish some variants (here's how you tweak that Supers game to an Iron Age, or a Golden Age, or a Silver Age game.  Or how you power it down to Street Level, or up to Cosmic; let's dial back the gritty realism and toss in bizarre mutations to that Post-Apocalypse game).  Those dial settings and optional rules appropriate to that variant of the original game get added in.
 
You can even publish the whole rule set for anyone wanting to design their own game, or their own variants to a published game, but that's an ancillary product for the tinkerers, not the core book(s) of the line, and the entry point for new players or GMs. Publish a stripped-down Basic version and an Advanced version.
 
I started in Champions 1e (not Hero - Champions - OTH). Duke never left Champions 2e. How many of us Hero Grognards started with 4e or above (NTH; system before game)?  For those who did, how many started in a group that had already learned Hero with an OTH game, and how many started with The NTH System and designed their own game?

I found 5th easier for new players because of book size. For some reason the same rules in both books. But as soon as new players see the book sizes for 6th they get intimidated.
 
After that I started using the 6th Edition Basic (like Sidekick was for 5th). Casual players accept the smaller reference books more easily. 

Android isn't Linux per se.
 
Try Google searches.  I'm not being a jerk here, the answer looks to be Not Simple.  The easiest route appears to be through Android Studio...but that's for programming, which suggests it's well beyond most users.  I see some other paths involving rooting your tablet...but that's even more advanced.  And risky.
 
This looks to be a good start...
https://developer.android.com/build/jdks
 
 
 
Instead of re

I can offer some, for 5E HERO System, from several fan-created websites. I don't think the sites themselves exist any more, but I did save links to archived web pages. And if your game features the supernatural, a number of these may be right up your alley.
 
This one is to a pulp campaign website called "Thrilling True Tales!!!" The top four links will take you to a summary of character backgrounds, and a further link on each of those, to full character sheets. http://web.archive.org/web/20050211112812/http://www.armlesstigerman.com/intro/pulp/cast.html
 
The website for "The Odyssey League" campaign has links to a half-dozen full character sheets and backgrounds: http://web.archive.org/web/20050205200430/http://www.brighthouse.ca/lee/odyssey/pc/pcmain.htm
 
Here are the backgrounds for six more characters converted from/based on White Wolf's old "Adventure!" pulp-era game, with links to each character's sheet: http://web.archive.org/web/20050119000944/http://home.earthlink.net/~ddoepke/amachar.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20050406135052/http://home.earthlink.net/~ddoepke/amanpc.html
 
If all you want are NPC backgrounds with no game stats, each website has links to more of those.

In 2016, I was lead writer for Aaron Allston’s Strike Force. It is one of the highlights of my game writer career. I had hoped to be able to continue work in Aaron's world by developing something I wanted to call "Strike Force Organizations." And now, I can. Note: This product will be dedicated to Aaron (of course), but also Darren Watts, as when I first discussed this, he wanted to develop the section on the Circle.

In the saddlestitched editions, it wwas called "Only in Appropriate Form."  It first appeared in a Doug McD / Steve Petersen  writeup of a Shapeshifter called Changeling in an issue of Different Worlds Magazine.  It qas based on "Only in Hero ID" amd pricing varied from -1/4 to -1/2 depending on how many alternate forms were denied that ability versus how many had it, and how difficult shapechanging was.  If I recall (I have the magazine somewhere, but couldn't find it  in a month if I started looking now), Changeling had Instant Change and the only limitation to his forms were that they had to be animals, so all of his various form-related powers were at -1/4:  changing was super easy, and there are a myriad of animals that share special abilities (flight belongs to over half of all insects and almost every bird and even a select set of mammals).
 
This was how Shape Shift was done back then.  Even when modern SS ahowes up in Champions III, a lot of us stuck with "appropriate form."
 
Okay, I apologize; that didn't add anything to the conversation, but I wanted to chum up and say "wow!  For a hip shot reaction, you nailed it!  Well done!"
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The rules _do_ let you change into a vehicle:
 
You can use Shapeshift, Appropriate Form, Accidental Change, Multiform, or whatever else you can think of.
 
What the rules do _not_ let you do is build a character using the vehicle rules.
 
 

I had a PC with that power.  It had a couple of effects; first, he wasn't very effective other than being impossible to hurt.  It cost so many points to just be impossible to knock out that he didn't have a lot to spare to be combat effective*, but he was super efficient against agents.  It simply did not matter how many of them there were, he'd eventually take them out like Samson with a jawbone.
 
The second thing is that it allowed me to put more dangerous stuff into the fight, where normally PCs would have to be super cautious he'd walk in face first to deal with it, allowing the others to handle other things.
 
The third thing is that it felt like I was contriving things just to give him a threat, like in the comic books when the invulnerable guy keeps running into stuff that he bought a vulnerability to.  He would have been a useful guy for enemies to mind control against the PCs, but one of the other PCs was a mentalist that had a Mental Defense buff he could give others.
 
*although these days with the mountain of points for base superheroes I suspect that would not be the case.

I'm speculating, but I think the "no vehicle form" is a holdout from the "no automaton powers for PCs" rules, although those are now stop signs.  Note that an automaton is either still in combat or dead, where other characters can be knocked out.  What impact will a character who can generally only be defeated by being killed have on your game?  To me, that has to be thought through.  The 45 point Takes no STUN would allow the character to be disabled to the point hat it's basically out of combat, but it's not going to recover a few hours later in the villain's deathtrap.

What can a character built as a vehicle do that a normal character cannot?   I am not talking about how the character is built, but rather what they cannot actually do.  Other than the fact they don’t take stun or use END I don’t think there is anything a character built as a vehicle can do that a normal character cannot.  So, the real question is do you want to allow a character to be able to not worry about stun and END.  
 
The other thing to keep in mind is that a vehicle is normally not a sentient being.  In order to make a self-aware vehicle you purchase an AI using the computer rules.  This means in addition to the vehicle the character also needs to include the cost of the computer in the multiform.  This also means you have to buy each and every skill the base character has that the vehicle can use. 
 
If you are ok with the character ignoring STUN and END you should require that both forms have this ability.  That means the robot form needs to purchase automation powers and add 0 END to all his powers.  This is going to increase the cost of the character by at least 45 points and make it significantly more powerful.  
 
Next thing to consider is what the car can do that the robot cannot?  Do they have similar STR and movement capabilities?  Is there DEX and SPD radically different?  The robot is already 12’ tall so is probably about the same size.  Looking up the size of sports cars in the book I am seeing they have 800kg of mass, which is the same as a character with the first level of growth.   Both the sports car and a character with growth have a 25 STR.  I am not really seeing a lot the car can do the robot cannot except maybe having a higher movement.
 
I am not sure that a multiform is really the best way to go for this concept.  Multiform is used for when a character has two radically different forms that has different skills and abilities. If each form has a lot of different abilities that only that form can use a multiform is going to be the best way to build it.  But if both forms share most of the abilities shapeshift may be a better way to go.  You can put a limitation on the powers that only one form has only in <insert form>, which is probably going to be a -1/2.  This would allow you to purchase some extra movement for the car form, or a weapon for the robot form.  
 
If two forms do have radically different abilities a multiform is appropriate. You still don’t need to use vehicle rules to do so.  I think in the end using them is going to actually be more expensive and complicated.  Using the vehicle rules you are going to need to write up the robot, the car, and the AI for the car.  
 
I know you want to have a general rule for this, but that might not be the best idea.  The strength of the Hero System is its flexibility and the ability to build exactly the character you want.  Imposing set ways of doing basic idea usually ends up restricting the players ability to have the character they want.  Some general guidelines are fine, but strict requirement on how to build a character is not keeping with the spirt of the Hero System.
 

I wouldn't charge any extra then. This is simply a question of if you'll allow the Multiform in question. If he doesn't get the vehicle discount just rule on whether he can or can't be an Automaton in the alternate form.

I swear this has come up before.  And the consensus (such as it were) was just over rule the rule and allow vehicles into the multi-form. 

It is certainly valid to do so, if it isn't a problem for the GM.  However, the vehicle rules are for building what is essentially a piece of equipment.  In this case, the player is building a character, for whole "being a vehicle" is a special effect of having whatever set of abilities he posses as a vehicle; he is not just a piece of equipment.
 
Similarly, I think, an,argument for Shape Shift of even Transform: self.  I wont make them, of course, since I genuinely despise what has become of both of those powers.
 
But as Ninja-Bear points out: any rule can be ignored if the results are agreeable to everyone involved.
 

Clearly, we need Foxbat!

At this time Champions Online continues to tick along with little development and almost no new content aside from costume pieces and the like. However, from reports on the game's website, it continues to pay for itself under those conditions, so Gearbox, the company which now owns Cryptic Studios, can't be feeling any pressure to sell. Moreover, with the low player base compared to many other MMORPGs, it's unlikely that another company will look at it as a desirable acquisition, regardless of who owns it.
 
Also, look at the state of Hero Games today. The company is barely managing to publish any TTRPG products. It's hard to imagine them getting the capital together for this scale of purchase for the foreseeable future.
 
I realize I'm coming across as a massive downer, but I just can't see a way forward to what you're asking for.
 

You could also go with Extra Limbs and Stretching with IPE on both and Does Not Cross Intervening Space on the latter. This gets into OCV issues rather quickly though. You'll need levels.

The Skill vs. Skill part sounds like Change Environment.  Negating natural healing could be as simple as a REC Drain.  Power Defense can work against Aid and Healing if the character wants it to... so Power Defense, Usable As Attack, controlled by the grantor, would do just that.

I would love to see a feature to save and name/rename the random characters. 

Hi Ndreare,
 
Yes, the sheet I maintain is the Hero-themed one on Roll20 (HeroSystem6eHeroic), which I recently updated to handle 17 powers. The API script for importing HeroDesigner characters is in the API one-click install menu. You will need the HeroDesigner export definition file, which can be found here: 
 

Is there an export format for Roll20 available. I just purchased the Champions bundle on Roll20 and I'm just curious.

Will there be a Q1 2023 update? It would be nice to see them more often than annually.

@Jason S.WaltersAny chance we might see color HC of the 6th ed books at DTRPG/Amazon/Hero Shop in 2023? I'd love to get a few copies of books like Fantasy Hero or Star Hero, but would rather have a copy closer to the original.