Brian Stanfield

I edited the post above yours with the HTML< which will give you an idea of what it looks like. The sheet looks fine except for the background information going over long, but that works. give it a go.

This is precisely how I do it with a villain called "Fade."  He and UltraViolent both received their powers at the same time during the same "radiation accident." Both of them are invisible.  Fade's "invisible," however, is that people just flat don't remember him.  He's there.  They'll bump into him, talk to him, interact with him-- the minute they're not looking directly at him, they totally forget he exists:  they think that _maybe_ they saw / talked to someone, but couldn't begin to describe him.  They couldn't pick him out of a lineup of two.
 
Been using him off-and-on as an assassin and / or bodyguard type since....   I don't remember.  Before 1990, I remember that, because we had a New Year's game going into 90 where they finally managed to catch him.  They hung a sign on his neck so they'd remember who he was.  
 
Turns out that his powers make him extremely hard to keep imprisoned, though.  All he needs is access to an open door without his shackles on.
 
 
You don't really need the Telepathy:
 
If you were "regular invisible," you'd have no features to remember or to describe.  You are just using that part of the Invisible power structure.  You can call the fact that you are actually looking right at a guy that you don't know the "fringe effect" if it makes you feel better.   Honestly, it's one of the most elegant builds I've ever done, and have been repeatedly surprised at how disturbingly effective it can be.  
 
 

Heromakr.exe, that came on a 3.5 Floppy that came with the BBB< which I worked on. I do miss that program.

I don't see a problem, I just thought it was interesting and wanted to start a conversation about it.

Wow! I love this idea. Next time I run a fantasy campaign, I very well might steal this idea! (Nothing publishable, though, so your IP for your novel is still safe!  )

Consider Talislanta, my friend.     At least, consider the rule books and source books over the decades as source material to gut and toss onto Fantasy HERO running gear.   (as an aside, if things should align that you might ever hear me say it aloud, most of the folks I play it with-- myself included, tend to pronounce it "Talislantia."  That extra "i" is important to _any_ southerner who has ever been to Atlanta:  let's just get that 'atlanta' part right out of the name.  There ain't no way I'm devoting this much recreation to that God-awful place.     )  Avoid the d20 version.  It's....   it's less enjoyable.
 
 
The most remarkable part of Talislanta-- for me, anyway-- was the overwhelming number of races (to the point that I wondered just how there might have been _room_ for all of them).  Best part of Talislanta?  For all those races?  No elves.  None.  I recall the original rules bragging about that right on the cover, and newer editions marking the covers with "Still no elves!"  so I can't be the only one bearing irritation for Tolkien's race of Mary Sues.    Now bear in mind that in Talislanta, the biggest differences between races are narrative and cultural.  The only real difference mechanics-wise seems to be which characteristic you get to put your "+2" in.
 
 
 
I did something similar many years ago:  there were humans-- in fact, it was my hope that Humans would be the most popular choice for PCs, but----
 
Briefly:  there were six known sapient races (and eight more waiting to be discovered-- possibly-- during the course of the campaign.  It wasn't important that they be discovered, so it depended entirely on player activity as to whether they were or not.  The players had no idea there were more races, as I didn't want to influence their choices). All races were reptilian, or insectoid.  In fact, all _life_ was reptilian, or Insectoid.  _All_ of it.  There was _wide_ range within those two categories ('reptile' could include tortoise-like through bird-like through amphibian-like, for example, but again: those were the choices.  (Gonna level with you:  I have a tendency in Fantasy to consider player suggestions on one or two interesting new races.  I have don't always allow it, but I have, and I will always _consider_ it.  All life is reptilian or insectoid?  Well, clearly elves ain't happening.  ) Not only this, but humans were unique because they were the _only_ warm-blooded life every known.  (I _seriously_ didn't want half-human half-half Karak's running around: it'd be like a six-armed Kratos.   )
 
Humans were a shock when discovered as primitive savages used as slaves and food by an insectoid race discovered during the first age of travel.  Discovered by the highly religiously-driven and incredibly arrogant (think of Whitey and his "burden" or "duty" to the "lesser peoples:"  there was nothing but good in their intentions, and nothing but wrong in the assumptions behind them) that had led the First Age of Exploration.  They saved these new creatures-- during their explorations, they saves a few thousand of them, and brought them back to their lands and spread them about their own communities to "civilize" them.    
 
Worked as badly as you expect when "civilize" means "be like us" instead of "here's how to clean yourself, build shelter, make tools, find water, now you guys have fun with creating your way of life."   As they became "civilized," they were clearly second (and third) classed, moved out en-masse over the end of the Second Age, with the Third age (setting for the game) finding a great many traditional relationships still in place (human children attend Amphii schools, for example), a number of "human" settlements and small cities scattered about the two Amphii-majority continents, and even two human strongholds growing in the ruins of the Lands of  Coldpain  (literally the Amphii word for temperatures approaching or dropping below freezing).
 
Problematically, the whole thing kind of fell apart (after quite probably my greatest amount of work and lore- and world-building _ever_: spent nearly five months putting it all together, back when I was young and time wasn't a luxury: it was just there for the taking!) because out of eight players, six wanted to make Legolas clones.  :-/
 
So they spent a few sessions trying to wedge various reptiles and insects into elves (I had taken great pains to make sure... well, "No friggin' elves!", so that didn't work.  Strangely, during all the work-up, I would include them into what they wanted to see, what they would like, and constant reminders that "no elves."   Everyone was _fine_ with it during the build process.  Then characters come in and--- "oh, he's from a hidden land the Amphii haven't discovered yet; he was blown here when his ship was lost in a storm.  He's from a land full of elves."  Or "the other races can't tell humans from elves; they are all warm-blooded with hair.  There are _lots_ of elves mixed in with the humans!" (who have, somehow, retained every trapping of Rivendell culture throughout their long period of ignorant barbarism and cattlehood.....) and on and on....
 
Anyway:
 
Yay, lots of races!  Use great care when allowing half-races.  Not from a genetic purity POV, but because their existence generally comes from players figuring out who to "double my racial bonuses" (something I am glad to say is harder to justify in HERO!) and because it can weaken certain cultural topes you may have gone to a great deal of effort to build.
 
On a final note: I _do_ prefer a smaller number of player races than do a lot of other fantasy players, but I do like a selection.  Interestingly, a lot of people I know who don't like having more than three, or two, or even "just the humans," have _no_ problem with thirty-thousand alien races in sci-fi.  :-/   The justification seems to be "well they aren't just tripping over each other!  They're on different planets, light years away!  It makes sense if you travel far enough, you'd run into another race!"
 
My thoughts on that are "step out of your house and walk to Africa.  Walk from Spain to Pattaya City.  Row a boat from Australia to Antarctica."
 
There's room.  In a wide-open world, there is _room_.  There is room for all these different tribes of men on the earth we inhabit now.  Suppose half (or more!) of these cultures were in fact intelligent species that weren't men?  
 
I am not saying you _must_ have multiple races.  I _like_ it, but don't _need_ it.  I'm just saying that there is room for each one to have had his native lands and nations, etc.

I've got this idea for a fantasy game (or novel, I suppose) in which all the classic fantasy "races" exist: elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs, giants, minotaurs, etc. Everything but humans. They're all the creations of a long-gone Ancient civilization. They were created at slaves, cannon fodder, "monsters" for hunts (the Ancients liked the most dangerous game), and playthings. Except humans. Because they're like breeds of dogs--unless you carefully police their bloodlines, they quickly degenerate into mongrels, i.e., humans. Given that the Ancients vanished long ago, there are a LOT of humans. They are, in fact, the majority of the humanoid population. All the other races exist as well, but mostly in their own lands, where they've carefully controlled their breeding for all these centuries. Sometimes they practice "exposure" of infants who aren't X enough. Sometimes they simply expel (or otherwise ostracize) someone who doesn't meet their standards. A lot of "elves" and "dwarves" wandering the world outside their own enclaves aren't *really* elves and dwarves, at least according to their own kind (though these individuals wi'l probably never admit it, and might even fight you for saying it). If you're sufficiently "off" from the ideal, you're a half-elf or half-orc or whatever. And even more reviled.
 
In fact, the only ones more reviled than half-breeds are complete mongrels--i.e., humans. Yes, they're the largest population, and they're not as strong as dwarves (on average), or as graceful as elves (on average), and so forth. But they're tough and overall pretty successful as a race, and they breed like rabbits. And with no regard for lineage--well, except the sad few who occasionally try to claim there's a Human standard, but even most other humans are like, "Dude--give it up. We're all mongrels. Embrace it."
 
Which handily explains why the various other races (or sub-races, if you like) all have fairly specific descriptions. If they don't meet that standard, they're not really that race. And why humans come in all shapes and sizes and colors (hair, eyes, skin). And why, of course, every race is convinced that *they* are the pinnacle of humanoid forms, and everyone else is inferior. Good enough for a traveling/adventuring companion, maybe, but you wouldn't want your sister to marry one. Especially those humans.

This is not a digression, precisely, but a revisitation to previous comments on this thread about multiple intelligent races being off-putting.
 
I used to balk a bit at that, too.  Not _much_, mind you, as I just took it as something of a story enabler.  But the more of the recent stuff I read regarding Neanderthals, Cro-magnons, and Homo sapiens points out a couple of things that seem relevant to the this entire "multiple races" line of thought:
 
at one point, we had that very thing going on right here where we live: three different sapient races.  Who knows what other less-spread-out people we might find here and there as research continues?  The most modern research indicates that the overlap period was far, far longer than we have previously believed it to be.  Just because we personally came along thousands of years after it does not at all negate the fact that not only is it possible, it was _the_ model on the one planet that we are reasonably certain _does_ contain life.
 
This also goes to the half-thing part of the conversation as well:  While I _still_ have issues with half this-and-thats (mostly because every single time I see it, it's less about "I have an idea for an interesting character" and more about "I've figured out how to cherry pick these two templates for all the best stuff of both worlds, now let's just assume that the gnome was my father and the hill giant was my mother, or this gets just a little weird....."
 
They _did_ interbreed and produce half this-and-thats.  According to some of the current sales-driving results of do-it-yourself DNA research, it's possible to find Neanderthal or Cromagnon in the modern Homo sapiens.   This suggests that inbreeding was at least passingly successful.
 
 
So....
 
The key here is to control the number of "intelligent" races in your game, if you're looking to control the number of half-things your players are tempted to create.  Alternatively, give them _very_ different types:  one is mammalian, one is reptilian, one is -- well, you get the idea.
 
Nope.  Not going anywhere with this; just some things I finally had time to mention that I believe to be relevant to certain parts of the discussion.
 

When there's something more than the aforementioned esoterica, yes.  For the minor stuff, it's just stated in the thread that spawned it...and, I suppose the recent PDF thing, but I suspect that's been non-functional for the past few updates at least.

Depends on what version you're running.  There haven't been too many noticeable changes over the past 6 months or so...mainly relatively esoteric tweaks to some pretty specific rules cases.

You'll be the first cover, Scott.

Circling  back to the "complete game", I know one comic/game store ordered Champions based on the crossover potential of comics and games, not realizing the buyers would not have a game they could play in that big, beautiful book.  After watching that, and the Villains books, sit on the shelf month after month, they never stocked another Hero product.

This is more a complaint for fantasy artwork, and video games, but: Giant weapons for human-sized fighters. Seven-foot swords. Hundred-pound hammers. Axes as broad as a car door. All of the insecurity-overcompensating, penis-substituting, power-fantasizing behemoth bodkins that even Conan couldn't swing in a fight.

The only Marvel-licensed game to have any meaningful success was the original FASERIP system, and that was mostly because TTRPGs were on the rise at that time and finding an audience no matter what. But no Marvel- or DC-based RPG has ever really done that well, and certainly not since superhero movies have become all the rage.
 
I think we've discussed this elsewhere, and the most likely reasons for the disconnect between the popularity of the genre in entertainment media and the (lack of) popularity in the RPG space have been examined thoroughly enough that it doesn't really need to be repeated here. Needless to say, history has shown us that licensing Marvel or DC will not bear fruit.

How about taping the popularity of the Avengers and have a Champions book with photorealistic art, including an Avengers inspired group on the cover?

I love your list of countermeasures! You should run with this as a game! Maybe if you write it up as a "setting," you could put it up in the Hall of Champions.

Of course, (at the peril of bringing up edition wars) the characteristics are going to be the primary problem here. Perhaps dual-listing characteristics, or perhaps an appendix in the back for whichever edition you aren't covering in the primary text. Actually, I think that may be the best approach: a sidebar pointing the reader to the pre-6e characteristics. In the actual game itself you're going to be breaking down the skills and powers to what fit in the game anyway, so you don't have to worry about what translates perfectly between editions. Just pick what you want, leave the rest out, and then point to the appendix for alternatives. 

Of course, (at the peril of bringing up edition wars) the characteristics are going to be the primary problem here. Perhaps dual-listing characteristics, or perhaps an appendix in the back for whichever edition you aren't covering in the primary text. Actually, I think that may be the best approach: a sidebar pointing the reader to the pre-6e characteristics. In the actual game itself you're going to be breaking down the skills and powers to what fit in the game anyway, so you don't have to worry about what translates perfectly between editions. Just pick what you want, leave the rest out, and then point to the appendix for alternatives. 

Thank you!  Maybe I will.  I'm trying to make it as editionless as possible.  
 
 

Hello, Beast! 
 
I had hoped to be at a keyboard when I had time to post this, but evidently I'm not going to get a weekday shorter than 14 hours this year, so.... 
 
In fairness, Basic is just as out of Print as is MHI, though there are still a few sellers with license for a few PoDs out there. 
 
And Basic has no more "currently on print" support than does MHI.  Theoretically, the source material for MHI is still in print on the form of the adventure books that inspired the game in the first place, though, which is more than Basic can claim.  (Don't get me wro g: I am not bashing Basic; in my own opinion, it is far superior to the two Big Books in nearly every way.   I just wish it had been called Sidekick, just because 5e did that with the "lite" edition of the rules as well.) 
 
 
But your comment about the GM having to make a few easy decisions:
 
Based on some of the Co versations o. These boards, it seems that those decisions aren't especially easy for a lot of folks, and I am betting that they are even more challenging for those not too terribly familiar with the HERO System- they are not up against just learning a new system, but they have no real grasp of what the results of their decisions could be.  I have no hesitation in proclaiming that more than a handful of us experienced GMs have been surprised and unhappy with the actual results of things we tried coming from an experienced background. 
 
Making matters worse, Basic really doesn't offer much counsel on doing this beyond telling you it's okay to try. 
 
 
Again, not something new players are going to fully understand just off what's in Basic.  Certainly they will muddle through if they are determined, but it's not the same as having made an informed decision. 
 
 
It's wieed: its an even mix of urban fantasy and action adventure.  You's think I would like the MHI books, but they kind of turn me off...    
 
 
 
You're right, of course, but that was easy for you because you k ow what you're doing and what you're talking about. 
 
It's not unthinkable that a new GM would end up buying Monsters, marauders and whatever the Hell the other thing was because he isn't experienced or comfortable enough to yet to build it on his own.
 
He might decide he needs a bestiary, too.  At this point, he has spent at least as much as shelling out for MHI, still has to dial in the rules he likes and doesn't like for his game, has _none_ of the flavor or background or setting data from MHI--  in short, he has some rules and some support material, but he still has to build a game out of all of it. 
 
He could buy MHI and not just run a game, but get some pretty nice color artwork, too. 
 
Again: either approach is valid, but I know which I'd prefer as a new-to-HERO GM, and definitely as a player. 
 
And of course, all that material that works with Basic- well, it works with MHI, too. 

I love your list of countermeasures! You should run with this as a game! Maybe if you write it up as a "setting," you could put it up in the Hall of Champions.

I've wanted to see this one for years.  I've got some notes in various places for it in fact.  
 

A licensed IP doesn't matter (we have all seen licensed IP games tanks and fail over the years, heck word on the street is that FFG is cancelling all of their Star Wars RPG line. And if you can't make Star Wars profitable as an RPG then licensing popular IP isn't a major factor).
 
Second, never, ever, start an expensive project without at least some marketing money set aside. This happens a lot in all forms of business and entertainment as is a tragic mistake. People spend all their money on making the product as good as possible and then can't sell it because no one knows it exists. It would be like opening a super fancy restaurant but telling no one about it and hoping people walking by and then word of mouth spreads quickly enough that you don't go bankrupt in a month or two, yet this happens all the time with restaurants, and comics and games and movies, etc... Always, always, always set some percentage of your budget aside for advertising and marketing before you even begin the project. You have $10,000 to make something? Set aside at least $3000 for marketing and advertising and create the project for $7000. A good quality project that people know about and sells is better (from a business point of view) then an amazing project that no one ever hears about. 
 
As for "what is popular", that is a bit harder. Everything is popular to some segment of the population. It is finding something that is popular with a big enough segment of the population to make you a profit, that is also not being well served in the current market place. And if it is being well served in the present marketplace (looking at you fantasy games and D&D) then you need to provide a unique enough take on the subject to steal away some of that market share. 
 
As for what I imagine/believe are good possible topics/setting for a new game/setting they would be maybe:
 
A near future Psionic Wars game where players have special psionic abilities and are being hunted or part of a big conspiracy and international corporations and governments, secret groups, etc... Powers are fixed but can grow in set strength as the players get experience. Guns and non-psionic characters can still be a threat. The powers help, but don't solve all the problems. Just make it cool and interesting with lots of plot hooks and organizations and secrets and you have a setting that is somewhat unique, has cool abilities and lots of character options, far reaching stakes, and can be tailored to however the GM wants the game to go (low powered in one city/state or world-spanning Jason Bourne/Seal Team 6 with special powers). 
 
Or I also think the time is right for another "Twilight:2000" style game. A "just right after event-Post-Apocalypse", rebuilding/gaining power and control, fighting to save humanity. Depending on the "event" there could be a horror/cthulhu twist, or alien tech twist, or just keep it grounded and real. 
 
Getting really ambitious, I think if someone can find a way to tap into a game/setting that involves (in-game) social media and status/fame as part of the in-game mechanics could be on to something. Again, maybe near future, close to dystopian setting, where characters take part in potentially lethal games and contests before a viewing audience to make money and become famous and get out of the slums (think along the lines of Running Man, or those commercials in the original Robocop movie, or some episodes of Black Mirror). Making spectacular kills or doing something incredible gains to fame and followers which can be used to influence events in the game (get popular enough and the showrunners might take it easy on you once and awhile to keep you in "the game", etc...). Add in a bigger scope and events happening on and off the game shows and such, throw in some conspiracies, make some of the games/contests the characters take part in happen in the "real world"(like the original Running Man novel) or in remote locations (a'la Lost or Survivor, but more Lord of the Flies). Pre-made adventures could be different "shows" the characters have to appear on (Like dumped on an island and hunted by genetically created monsters, while fighting other contestants. Whichever team makes it to the helicopter and escapes wins the game (and fame and money). Without following Running Man (or Hunger Games) too much could also lead to players starting a revolt or uprising to take back their lives. Social Media is big, and a game that can make use of it, in-game, can easily find a way to make use of it IRL and would springboard some free advertising and marketing. 
 
I'll try and think of other ideas.
 
(I will say as an aside that an issue that has always existed with Super Hero games (as far as I've experienced and I've been playing them on and off since Marvel FASERIP first came out)  is that the vast number of different powers and power levels makes any pre-made/sold adventures almost useless. Things that work in comic books and movies don't work in RPGS unless the GM has complete control over the characters the players use or builds adventures specifically for the characters created. Just imagine Avengers: Infinity War if it was an RPG where players had made any character they wanted. You would only need one powerful telepath and the adventure would be over as soon as Thanos reached Wakanda, as Thanos was defenseless against mental attacks. Manta, a medium powered telepath was almost able to stop Thanos on her own. A powerful telepath like Professor X or jean grey could have stopped him in his tracks. or a teleporter like Nightcrawler could have taken the gauntlet off of him in a second. Creating adventures in a super hero setting have to cover so many possible powers and abilities (see the future, see the past, mind control, reading minds, clairvoyance, teleportation, disoldification, and on and on), that basically every villain has to be almost immune to everything and end up being all the same, and every plot ends up being the same for the most part (i'm talking about pre-made adventures here. Custom adventures made by the GM can be great, but the GM knows his players and their powers going in. A pre-made adventure can account for all of that.)

Hugh:
 
In short summation:
 
If you can grasp w actions per reaction phase, I don't think half-phases into phases is going to throw you.  In my own teaching experience, half phases and zero phases into phases and segments and turns is a recurring  stumbling block.   Never had anyone not grasp OCV+11-DCV, though I seem to be unique in that, but I have new players trip over the speed chart with some regularity. 
 
Conversely, if the as-printed chart and terms cause problems, simplifying the terms may help.  Shoetwr than that: an easy-to-understand game that would generate sales for the company "HERO Games.". I am _reasonably sure that at this point, they'd sell greeting cards if it helped them stay afloat; I'd rather it be something game related and compatible with Hero, but one-hundred-percent built on direct excerpts from the books that aren't selling?  Nope; not interested. 
 

I'm not sold that the goal was, or should be, significant differences between our Powered by Hero game and the Hero rules.  This is doubly so with Brian's stated goal to get them interested enough in the source code to buy the Hero System.
 
 
This makes sense to me, as it only pares away some of the Teleport rules, but does not change them.  Making movement "per turn divided by SPD" means a major disconnect when our Action Hero group buys the 2 volumes of source code.
 
 
Sure.  Because it is a staple of horror movies that the solution to a ghost is a bigger gun.  I have an even easier answer for Action Hero - it does not need Desolid at all.
 
Let me suggest what was actually stupid.  The stupid GM reading the character sheet, seeing the description Immune to Fire with the desolid build, stupidly not discussing that build with the player, but rather letting him pay the points for a build the GM considered  not to achieve the desired result, then even more stupidly building an adversary specifically to override the player's concept. 
 
NOTE:  I am charitably assuming stupidity here.  It could be that the GM is not stupid, but is instead deliberately setting out to show the player who the boss is, and you don't get to rely on your character concept working as planned, or me telling you I am going to override your concept, in advance.  That's a different type of stupid most commonly described with reference to the end result of the digestive system.
 
Worse, the player is likely to blame the failure to obtain "the character he imagined" as a failing of the Hero System, not an incompetent or adversarial GM.
 
To a lot of the other elements, I think we can easily remove AP, Penetrating, Hardened, etc.  Not so gung ho about merging PD and ED.  Removal of martial arts?  No issue.  Making them "something else"?  Less enthusiastic.
 
That's not to say we could not redesign elements for our "Powered by Hero Game", but that it's not a great idea if the goal is to draw them into the big overall system.  If we are making that kind of major change, it also needs a sidebar or similar to tell experienced Hero gamers we're deviating from the standard.  One of the biggest Champions competitors did a great job modifying the whole d20 damage system, so massive changes can work.  But recognize that they are massive changes which will create compatability issues with the Hero System overall.