Brian Stanfield

I really haven't tried to give any critical input on Champions Now, other than to note that it doesn't excite or interest me personally. FWIW I did contribute a modest amount to the Champions Now project, again out of loyalty. But I've about reached my limit for investing in Hero System product I don't want in the hope they'll eventually produce something I do want. I've been down that road several times, and almost always been disappointed.

Hopefully, you will get the answer from him. In the meantime, I'm a firm believer of Occam's Razor where the simpler explanation of an occurrence is usually the better. With that in mind, a reasonable explanation would be that he's using 3e rules because that's the one he's most familiar with, so it would be the best for him to adapt from it. Champions 3e was arguably the most complete of the early rules systems while not being too rules heavy (e.g. 5th Edition).

That's a really good point. When I talked to Jason at Origins he was a bit flabbergasted by the fan reaction on the HERO games website. I don't think that the "powers that be" understand how frustrated we have gotten with the apparent stall in the HERO System. Every new thing seems more like a look backwards rather than ahead. Did we really need a Champions Complete? Or even worse, a sub-par Fantasy Hero Complete? They are so aesthetically deficient they couldn't possibly have been designed to be competitive in the brick-and-mortar marketplace. So what exactly are they?

Thanks for the link. I did a precursory look at the rough draft and it's definitely something with a lot of refinement ahead of it across game mechanics (substance) and style (graphics and layout) if it's going to meet its desired intent and not look like something that recycled existing ideas poorly and attempts to pass itself off as something new and better.

As much as Champions Now sounds interesting, I wish this would have been a supplement to Champions Complete/6e rather than a stand alone product.

Which is fair enough, and a worthy effort. But Ron Edwards has chosen to seek funding for it from fans, and Jason has chosen to cast it as supporting the Hero System, i.e. put money into this if you want Hero to continue, even if you don't want the product. They've dipped into that well before, but there's only so much you can expect fans to support out of loyalty alone.

Did he get a t-shirt that read "I went to Newark and all I got was this lousy t-shirt to replace the one that was stolen off of me."
 

This really is the crux of the problem, isn't it? If you've ever read any of the Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries, she simply replaces Santa Barbara with Santa Teresa. Who's going to miss Santa Barbara? But it allows her to still travel to Los Angeles and San Francisco without any sort of discontinuity. What her sleuth never does, however, is visit Santa Barbara! But that's a lot more easily ignored than if I were to replace New York City. I think maybe the "replace Newark" suggestion from Vondy is workable, because who ever goes looking for a better life in Newark? My brother lived there for a while and all he got was robbed!

This really is the crux of the problem, isn't it? If you've ever read any of the Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries, she simply replaces Santa Barbara with Santa Teresa. Who's going to miss Santa Barbara? But it allows her to still travel to Los Angeles and San Francisco without any sort of discontinuity. What her sleuth never does, however, is visit Santa Barbara! But that's a lot more easily ignored than if I were to replace New York City. I think maybe the "replace Newark" suggestion from Vondy is workable, because who ever goes looking for a better life in Newark? My brother lived there for a while and all he got was robbed!

You do know that baseball is more popular in Japan than in the US.

This really is the crux of the problem, isn't it? If you've ever read any of the Sue Grafton alphabet mysteries, she simply replaces Santa Barbara with Santa Teresa. Who's going to miss Santa Barbara? But it allows her to still travel to Los Angeles and San Francisco without any sort of discontinuity. What her sleuth never does, however, is visit Santa Barbara! But that's a lot more easily ignored than if I were to replace New York City. I think maybe the "replace Newark" suggestion from Vondy is workable, because who ever goes looking for a better life in Newark? My brother lived there for a while and all he got was robbed!

The more you tie to real-world history the harder this is. If you focus action on the main city and use everything else as backdrop (or for exotic locale adventures) then it's less of an issue. If your character histories are intertwined with real world events, then you need to spend a lot more time thinking about this.
 
I had a campaign where it became a running gag that not only was the city location unspecified, there was no map of the city (because I was too lazy^H^H^H^Hbusy to create one). 

Definitely focus on the excellent general GMing tips that people are posting. Being a good GM is secondary to system specific stuff.
 
That said, here's some system specific stuff.
Have an "intro to the system" session with just a combat. Use stock characters from one of the books so you don't lose time making characters. This will give everyone a sense of the system and help when it's time to make characters. Be prepared to rewrite and rebalance characters once the game starts. It's very common to have someone come out too powerful or too weak. Players should understand that the goal is to have fun, and unbalanced characters are not fun. Using a DEX chart (all PCs and NPCs listed in DEX order, with a column for each SPD segment) helps a tremendous amount of combat. You can prepare one ahead of time or just write it out as needed. And one last sorta system-specific item: if there's a rules question, sometimes it's better to make a quick ruling during the game and then revisit it afterward. A wrong answer that keeps the game flowing can be better than 30 minutes of hunting for the right rule.

In the four part JLA/Avengers Crossover it was mentioned that the Justice League Earth was slightly larger so there was room for places like Gotham City and Metropolis.  If you made Earth just a little bit large you'll have room for Hudson City, but will lose the need for Leap Years.

As someone who had Fantasy Hero Complete at one point, the finished product was not that impressive, so you're probably correct in the idea that it didn't fare that well in terms of sales. The graphic design and interior art were disappointing to where they were major detractors that resulted in various negative comments being posted about it in game forums. The Fantasy Hero 6th Edition source book had a beautiful design and unique font-styled titled, yet Fantasy Hero Complete had a generic font title with cover art that was confusing (attempt at satire, maybe?) and was a significant step backwards from both 6th and 5th Edition Fantasy Hero source books.
 
A concern I have is the latest Kickstarter project, Champions Now, intended to re-energize 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Editions of Champions, will result in something as graphically regrettable as Fantasy Hero Complete was cover to cover, further reducing the chances of a quality Star Hero Complete being produced later due to lackluster sales.

This is gold for long campaigns.  If the players are reliable then you can, at the time of the pointless death, have the player make a roll.  It is meaningless but it allows you the opportunity to pass a note. Tell the player that they are, by the dice, dead.  They can decide to die right here, ignominiously, and roll up/design another character, or they can use that roll to spot a magical mushroom that heals them, on the agreement that there will be a dramatic moment in this or the next session where they will achieve something huge but die in the achievement.  That moment will be down to the GM but the player can, if they spot an opportunity, suggest a heroic action to the GM, knowing that this will be their last moment in the campaign.
 
Eventually your players will know this is something you do and there will be no need for subterfuge, but this allows a few WOW moments before it becomes a feature of the campaign.
 
Doc

1) Try to get the players to envision what they want their characters to become in the future before you get started. There's several reasons for this but not all players might be looking for the same thing out of the gaming experience. If one person wants every play session to prove himself to be the best hand to hand combatant on the planet, one wants to become a starship captain, one wants to build romantic relationships with NPC's, and two (separately) reveal they want to discover that they are long lost princesses, you might have to put some effort into figuring out how to build a satisfying play experience for each of them. Or talk to them about how they might better manage their expectations of their play experience.
 
Heck, I started off one game where three players, whose characters very obviously could not be related at all to each other, each told me they wanted to discover that they were a long-lost princesses. ?
 
2) Try to keep the character's progression in spending the character points they earn at least somewhere close to the character concept. For example, there's a tendency of some players to buy a defense against whatever they faced last week: if they got hit with a Flash attack then, they want to buy Flash defense now. If they get hit with a Power Drain this week, next week they want to buy Power Defense. That might be okay for some character concepts but not everyone should become immune to everything just because they have some points to spend. If nothing else, it makes it difficult to create a good story: sometimes the bad guys are going to do something that is going to be effective against the characters. The players trying to prevent that by using good tactics is great. The players trying to prevent that by becoming immune to everything is not great.
 
3) Sometimes when giving out character points, you might want to spend it for the character. For example, if they're in a kingdom where they don't know the language for a few months, you might award them a point of familiarity with the language rather than a point for them to spend at random. Or if they're guards for a merchant's caravan and are highly successful, they might get the merchant as a contact. If they've lived in the desert for months, the might become familiar with that environment and how to operate effectively in it. If they spend months in one city or kingdom, they might get an area knowledge for it. By the way, don't present it to the characters as "I was going to give you this point to spend by I decided to spend it for you instead". That might be what happened but present it to them as "as a bonus, you earned fill-in-the-blank". You'll have fewer bad feelings if they feel like they're getting something "in addition" rather than "instead of".
 
4) Players can change their minds about where they envision their characters progression. Be open to the change as long as it's not something stupid like the self-described dumbest swordsman in the world suddenly becoming the most learned scholar in the world without spending any time or effort making the transition.
 
5) Sometimes the dice say the character died. But remember that you are in charge of the game, not the dice. If you want them to survive, they can survive.
 
But if you want them to die, don't waste their deaths by having them happen at random times for no meaning. You can secretly "bank" their death scene and save it for a more dramatically appropriate moment. Dying getting bitten by a giant rat on the roadside vs using his last dying effort getting the party past a giant who is guarding the mountain pass by knocking the giant off into the gorge...which of those is more satisfying and memorable to the player? If you play the kind of game that has players die, have the death count for something. If the player enjoys roleplaying, you could even tell him about his impending death before the next session so he can cooperate to make it a memorable experience.
 
 

Most of the suggestions I'd have are going to be general to GMing any game.
Remember everyone is there to have fun and its a game, not a competition between the GM and the players. Remember the rule of cool: if its fun, cool, and entertaining, its probably right, even if not technically according to the rules. Never give exact, specific details until people have completely investigated something or need a hard nudge.  Use ambiguous terms like "seems" and "appears" Never roll the dice in front of the players, that way if you have to you can fudge them and hide results they can't know yet (did that perception roll work?) Go overboard on descriptions and NPC interactions.  Ham it up, don't be afraid of looking stupid.  Be entertaining and broad, like you're on stage. Remember what the players guess, their paranoid fears and predictions are often more creative and better than what you had planned. Take note of NPCs (especially mooks like a Viper agent or a goblin) who stand out and are memorable.  Give them a name and have them return. Use the simple system of combat for non-important mooks: assign them a number of hits, no matter how solid, and have them go down when they reach that number.  1-3 is enough. When non-'Boss' enemies are knocked out or downed, they stay down for the duration, they don't recover and get back up again. Use a combat program such as the very old GSPC or the new and more compatible Hero Combat Manager If you aren't sure on a rule, guess based on common sense and experience with the system, and look it up later Allow players to adjust characters slightly after the first session, a build not be what they had intended or have a hole they didn't plan on. Treat the rules as a guideline to handle specific situations rather than controlling you.  Break or bend them if it makes for a better game. Mix up your scenarios: funny, scary, serious, dramatic, romantic, surprising twist ending, etc.  If you've just run a long series of comedic adventures, do something different, like a mystery. Try to give each player a chance to shine each scenario (if not their character) so they feel they've been a useful part of the game Look at and identify each player's "style" (murder hobo, romantic, puzzle solving, etc) and try to find ways to give them what they are looking for Try to end each session with some tangible goal met and something important accomplished, so it doesn't feel aimless or like they aren't getting anywhere. Try to challenge the player characters as much as you can, without being frustrating or humiliating to the players. Only require a skill or characteristic roll if drama or the difficulty of a situation demands it.  If someone tries to do something very elementary for a skill (like stand on one leg with an acrobatics skill) then they succeed without needing a roll. Overall: read and study Strike Force for how to run a good long term campaign.

You may consider getting Fantasy Hero Complete as a concise version of the rules (including a basic skill-based magic system). It is a much shorter version of the 6e rules (95% compliance at least) and would be easier for new players to digest. It includes a lot of the stuff from Fantasy Hero in terms of character templates, etc., and skills and talents specific to the fantasy genre. 

I agree that Vondy's spell method is straightforward and easy to get started. With each spell being a skill, it seems that you could simply add to the AP as you develop without making it too complicated with spell levels. You may require a quest or off-screen study time and a skill roll to change the spell, or perhaps have someone teach it, but that is easily varied based on your preference. (If you want to really make each spell scalable, you could make each spell a small VPP and vary its AP based on how much of a penalty you want to take on the RSR.)
 
Which brings up the skill roll issue: I think it's beneficial to have the "Requires Skill Roll" to simulate novice, intermediate, and advanced wizards without a spell level system. Generic Skill Levels could be bought to offset the skill penalties, and the more experienced players will have more skill levels. This simulates a novice being less reliable due to the RSR penalties, and how a more experienced wizard can virtually ignore the penalties once he has bought enough skill levels. So you could have a wizard with one big spell and lots of skill levels to make it more reliable, or a variety of spells of varying success based on their AP, or anything in between.
 
Does that all make sense?

There is also an actual play podcast from Drink Spin Run. It might be helpful. It also has a link to a video in the comment section there.

I am working on a new release.  I have completed the following bug and feature updates:
Stunned characters are recovering actual stun which is incorrect (Bug) [#41]
Any attack that is d6 "-1" can not be read in (Bug) [#76]
GM Attack - AoE selection does not allow multi selection of targets (Bug) [#109]
One Hit Wonder was miscalculating (Bug) [#108]
Presence Attack (Feature) [#22]
 
I am working on this feature right now:
Combat Notes (Feature) [#37] - I am implementing this as something simple where you can access this from the main window and attack dialog.  The combat notes will not be saved from combat to combat.
 
I am looking into these bugs and try to get them fixed:
HKA is not calculated correctly with STR (Bug) [#48]
Character who aborted got 'stuck' (Bug) [#100]

I am looking at doing a few of these for the next release.
GM Attack - A list of potential attackers to pick from with their stats (Feature) [#25] - Not sure on what the workflow for this would be and so it might be pushed to a later release while I think thru the workflow.
Fumbles (Feature) [#27] & Critical Hits (Feature) [#26] - These go together.  This is mostly for the NPCs and it would be a preference that the GM can set before or during a combat session.  This will probably show up as a message within the attack dialog after the NPC attack dice roll.  With Critical hits the damage will be calculated and applied like any other attack.  The fumbles will need to be handled by the GM (good place for a combat note ?)
 
Opinions/concerns about what is on this list.  I am not looking for feedback on additional features within this thread.  Post those in a different thread.
 
Thank you.

One idea that comes up frequently in other threads is that you may want to hide as much of the game jargon as possible. It also helps to have a stock set of spells to start with.
 
For instance, have a "session 0" where everyone gets together and organizes their party, and decides what their characters will be. You can start working with them on the character generation, perhaps let them do much of the work themselves. Do the finishing work for each of their characters, do all the number crunching for them, etc., before then next session.
 
Then you can create two character sheets: one with all the detailed builds and all the minutiae that may be confusing to them, and one that is as simple as possible, with very basic descriptions for the things that need explanation (fireball, 8d6 blast). They can use the simple sheets for beginning play, and then use the detailed sheet to see how things like a fireball spell are actually built (with all the advantages & limitations, active points and real cost, etc.). 

First, this assumes you are slapping "requires skill roll" onto a power. Second, it assumes you are buying spells as powers to begin with. It may be customary or recommended or orthodox to build spells as powers, but you don't have to do so. Instead, you can just implement a skill based magic system. No faking required. You don't need anyone's permission to do so. But, if fear of interpretation and deviation without designer sanction makes this seem far to taboo to bear, I shall also quote the rules:
 
"The GM could set up the magic system so that characters don’t pay Character Points for spells; they get them “for free” after buying certain Skills and/or Perks."
 
George Takei voice: "Oh My!" That's in the Advanced Player's Guide on page 190, by the way. Many of us have been doing it this way long before Steve got around to codifying it. There are write-ups for skill based magic on the boards. You can also find one on at Killer Shrike's website. I always do skill based magic and its really easy to do.
 
Example: I jot down "Fireball: Blast 6d6, Explosion, End [6]" but the player buys: Fireball 14- (7 Points).
 
I've found this simpler, faster, and easier to manage insofar as the following guidelines are observed:
Spells must be researched, found, or learned from a master. Spells must be purchased individually. E.g., No "Fire Magic 14-" Spells are not characteristic based. You pay 3 points for an 11- roll and 2 points for each +1. Think really hard before allowing skill levels that affect more than one spell. Have a set of common modifiers for spell rolls. I've found up to +/-4 works well. I hear you cry: "But what about really powerful spells?" 
 
You can include prerequisites for learning the spell. These could be specific spells, a certain number of spells from the same school, or a relevant background skill at a specific level. Another tack is to jack up the limitations in your write up. Make it time-consuming, expensive, and/or exhausting to cast. Require helpers. Or make the getting the focus ("material component") a quest in of itself. Who said knowing a spell meant it was convenient to cast? Balance issues solved. 
 
Maybe I'm just an old dinosaur who came up in the era of rulings over rules, but one of the things I love about Hero is that their are multiple correct ways of accomplishing the same thing in the rules. Another thing I love about it is that for all of Steve's legalese, you aren't locked into his personal design philosophy. It may be the default, but its not the exclusive "One True Hero Way."
 
Its like magic for a skilled GM. ?
 

6e1, 391
 
 
So you could "fake it" by taking a 15- for -1/4 on each power and then have them required to buy a skill called "Magic" or whatever you like for how ever many points you like. Not exactly what you were talking about I don't think, but you can do it in RAW that way. You could even switch between the two, have them start out with Cantrips that are on the unmodified roll (because they have done it so many times it is rote) and other things have a -1 per 20 AP for familiar spells, -1 per 10 for less familiar, etc. They all could use the same number, just the limitation value would vary.
 
- E