Durzan Malakim

It isn't the fault of the game mechanics.  It's the fault of the game designers for believing that one system can balance heroics without regard to setting.  Some of the cost changes in 6th edition appear to be in response to complaints from people in heroic games.  I think either Killer Shrike or Hugh Neilson mentioned earlier that the cost of old Strength was a bigger problem in heroics than superheroics.  But even in heroics that's only going to apply in certain genres.
 
In a superheroic game, basically everything costs points.  Want to be strong?  Points.  Want to be able to fly?  Points.  Want to have a laser gun?  Points.  And since everything costs points, you can balance between everything.  But in a heroic game, you get free equipment.  Often that equipment negates the value of something you paid points for, or at least makes it less useful.  The mistake of the game designers is in not recognizing that fact.
 
Hero is a "build your own world" system.  Remember that awesome Sylvester Stallone movie, Over the Top, where he plays the arm wrestling truck driver?  Strength is a very important stat in Arm Wrestler Hero.  Strength and TF: 18 Wheeler are basically the only things that matter in that game.  But in Ghostbusters Hero, Strength is never used.  You just need a 10 to lug that equipment around.  Hero can be a universal system, but as soon as you get free equipment, the basic cost structure is thrown out the window.  And there's nothing that can be done about it because the system is marketed as being able to do any genre.  Strength is vitally important for Conan, not so much for Picard.
 
As far as ridiculous guns and ammo, yeah I'm talking about stuff that is available to the players.  As in, Bob the player went to the gun show last week and bought the ammo that he wants his character to use.  And he's prepared to pull out charts of ballistic tests that show why this ammo has three times the muzzle velocity and so he thinks he should get +1/2 D6 damage.

It kind of struck me like a slap in the face why the Fantasy Hero Complete book I was so disappointed with is actually fantastic.
 
My players were all having me assist them with their character building and it wasn't improving over time.  Then I realized what it was.  They had looked over 6E1 and 6E2 and tilted.  It's just too much in-depth detail.
 
I had a couple of my players thumb through Fantasy Hero Complete and said "This is all you really need to get rolling."  There was palpable relief on their faces.
 
Lesson learned - I will get my Wednesday night table to buy this book.

I was with you right up to this point. You are right, if you are talking experienced players and GMs. There are no training wheels though, HERO will allow you to make the most egregious decisions and mistakes. It does not hold your hand and provide a safe path through the wilderness until you know better.
 
For a neophyte, all the complexity is right up in your face from the get go.

With gamers, you can't bring in new customers without people running games.  You can't keep existing customers without people running games.  
 
In order to get customers, you have to get them playing the game.  To get them playing the game you have to have people running games.  
 
You have to have people running games.
 
<deep breath>
 
You have to have people running games.
 

Exactly. It has always been a fine balance between "min-max" and "bad build." Everyone has a different line between the two. I just figure I'd do what I could to encourage "build to concept" over "build efficiency" by doing three things... 1) relax point total controls, 2) set a campaign average standard to judge build effectiveness, and 3) group character building. The main player gets to do the first draft, but the entire play group (GM included) have a say in how the character is finalized. 

IMO, the single worst perpetrator of broken character builds is not any one mechanic (though things like MP use are an indicator of "look closer")... it isn't the mechanics, but the underlying assumption that the player builds "their character" to their own expectations and not as part of the group. The player has a lot of say in their character, but the group has input. Ultimately the more that prep AND actual play are group activities (or at least group input) the better.

"VIPERware: villain tested; Champion approved."

It's hilarious when a mole in a friendly agency relays the hero's opinions back to VIPER R&D.
 

Yes, because he was nearly a century old in the present day, he even did it in a couple of different time periods in the past, as I recall.

I think we are speaking at cross purposes.
 
The premise of this thread is that of the various editions of the Hero System, from 1st to 6th, it is my position that I think 6e offers the "best" version of the game mechanics published to date, and invited others to make their case that 6e does not offer the "best" version of the game mechanics published to date.
 
Secondarily, I inquired as to what is behind a trend I had noticed for people to not just prefer an earlier version of the rules, but to outright disparage, hate on, or make snide remarks about 6e. You responded, which I appreciate, and put forth your viewpoint of the changes made in 6e (which I gathered that you aren't a fan of).
 
You had some other talking points, which I responded to and some of which I agreed with, but among them was an argument that Figured Characteristics were removed with the intent of not granting what you contended was a small number of free points per character with the implication that it was a small percentage of a 350 point character and thus not worth correcting.  I pointed out that the game system is not intended only for 350 point or higher characters; it is intended to be used for lower pointed heroic characters as well and the free points gained by abusing Figureds was not trivial at that point range.
 
You responded with a post that I interpreted as alluding or suggesting that you think that the Hero System doesn't work for heroic level  games (which I disagree with), and asked you to clarify if that is what you meant and pointed out that people, myself included, have run heroic level games with the system successfully. Your response appears to be forwarding the claim that it was I myself, not the game system, that made heroic play work.
 
Well, it seems to me that you are being a bit slippery around where exactly the goalposts of this conversation are, but ok...I'll play along.
 
The same statement works for supers as well. Every superheroic, or high point level game wherein I used the Hero System as the GM, required me to do some amount of work to make the campaign function. I would posit the same is true for you and every other Hero System GM running any kind of Hero System game. Even 350 point superheroes.
 
The same is also true of every other rpg game I've ever run using any game system, universal, generic, or otherwise. Regardless of whether a game uses points, slots, class, level, or other resource allocation schemes at the end of the day they are tools to be wielded by the GM and the players. Game systems are merely collections of tools. Some offer only limited purpose or specialized tools, some are effectively just kits with build-by-picture instructions, some have a small form factor like a toolbox, others are akin to a garage workbench and pegboard set up, and others are more akin to industrial makers spaces. But no matter how grand or how tawdry, they are just tools and require effort to be applied towards the task of running a campaign.
 
That aside, you seem to be wanting to turn this into a more general discussion about point based systems in general, and appear to think that I am of the position that point based systems are intrinsically balanced, or even that perfect balance is attainable. I am not of either position. Perfect balance is unattainable, and just putting character points in your game does not make it magically balanced.
 
However, that does not mean that character points provide no benefit as a balancing mechanic. 
 
Very simple things can be reduced to an either or proposition. Complex things rarely if ever can; instead there is usually some kind of spectrum. At one end is one extreme, and at the other end the other extreme. Somewhere on a spectrum with "character points offer no utility as a game balance mechanism" on one end and "character points are synonymous with perfect game balance, intrinsically" at the other,  is the idea "character points are useful when used to purchase abilities that are costed in an attempt to approximate parity across various kinds of abilities such that an ability that costs x character points is approximately as powerful as a different ability that costs x character points, in the abstract".
 
This middle ground is what the Hero System, and some other universal systems and some non-universal systems, strive for. And to that end the game designers of those games make an effort to ensure that individual abilities are costed taking this goal into account. To the extent that they are successful on a given ability, it is considered to be a good ability, to the extent that they get it wrong on a given ability, that ability will come to be considered as weak or strong. If given the opportunity to patch the game system, the game designers may opt to buff weak (i.e. overcosted and / or underpowered) abilities or nerf  strong (i.e. undercosted and / or overpowered) abilities. This is normal and desirable. Of course sometimes the game designers attempts at a rebalance go too far or not far enough. It is an iterative process, which is probably why games tend to have versions.
 
Note that the idea that x points of y should be approximately equivalent to x points of z, does not mean that in every given context or situation y and z should be equally relevant or reliable or useful. It only means that in a vacuum, in the abstract, they are equivalent. Context is king. In a particular setting, in a particular genre, at a particular power level, some abilities may be irrelevant, unreliable, or useless. This does not necessarily mean those abilities are costed incorrectly; it just means the system's offering of that ability is the same as a tool on your toolshop's pegboard that you don't need for the thing you are currently making. I don't throw away my soldering iron when I'm doing woodworking. I understand that it is a good tool, and a useful one, and I'm glad I have it in my shop; it will get used for some other project where it is applicable (perhaps even necessary).
 
 
 
It does not fall apart in my experience. In 4e and 5e, the main issue I encountered was the effect of figured characteristics on the design of heroic level characters. They had a strong tendency to coalesce into a relatively small number of viable characteristic distributions.
 
In 4e cost minimums were a bit of a problem from time to time. That was reduced in prevalence somewhere along the way, reducing that sticking point. There were still some powers with an effective minimum buy in or alternately that just couldn't get to a useful level on low points, but 6e did good work in reducing that minor sticking point as well.
 
The rest of the system worked fine, in fact, better than fine. The robustness of the combat system and the skill model, and the martial arts system, and perks, and talents alone provide a great foundation for heroic level play unto themselves. The power system continued to have some issues at low power level that traced directly back to superhero origins for the most part, and work in this area to remove such unnecessary points of friction was useful and paid off. I would recommend you consider putting together a heroic campaign using 6e and see what you think. You might be surprised. 
 
 
As I alluded to upscreen, this is as true of supers as it is of anything else. The Hero System, whether you play 4e, 5e, or 6e explicitly acknowledges that the game opts towards openness and expects the GM to ride herd to balance their own campaigns using the Hero System. If you crack open 4e and flip to the back you'll find this spelled out in clear language. Standard superheroes are not exempted from that, if anything standard supers are notable examples of close GM oversight and rulings being required.

Oh, I agree that NPC groups stealing tech from each other is part of the superhero genre. A crate of VIPER blasters getting stolen by street criminals and used by them does make for a good story. The last Spider-Man film had this as a plot point with what the Vulture was doing.
 
Being "on-brand" is an interesting way to look at it. From a meta POV, a PC is a fictional character in a comic book, possibly also a toy line. The things they paid points for are considered to be part of their brand. Branding sells toys and comics. In some superhero worlds, the superhero teams even get royalties from comics and toys based on them, which is used to fund their activities.
 
I could just imagine the poor marketing guy/gal who has to call up Superteam X and complain that since one of their superheroes is now using looted VIPER tech, it's tanking sales.

It may not feel right for PCs to loot NPCs toys, but there's nothing preventing one NPC group from looting the wonderful toys from another NPC group. Isn't VIPER always trying to get PRIMUS tech? Aren't Dr. Destroyer's and Mechanon's creations the envy of others? Ideally, the PCs feel they have the powers and resources to be heroic without having to loot the opposition, but there are stories to be told about keeping wondrous toys out of the wrong hands.
 
I think the temporarily use wondrous toys you didn't pay points for is fine as long as PCs routinely encounter their side-effects or limitations. Does the press start calling a hero a VIPER agent because he's always got one of their toys? Does that Mechanon-built power rifle hack your base computer? Do the heroes really not have any Psychological Limitations about staying on-brand or being heroic?

It may not feel right for PCs to loot NPCs toys, but there's nothing preventing one NPC group from looting the wonderful toys from another NPC group. Isn't VIPER always trying to get PRIMUS tech? Aren't Dr. Destroyer's and Mechanon's creations the envy of others? Ideally, the PCs feel they have the powers and resources to be heroic without having to loot the opposition, but there are stories to be told about keeping wondrous toys out of the wrong hands.
 
I think the temporarily use wondrous toys you didn't pay points for is fine as long as PCs routinely encounter their side-effects or limitations. Does the press start calling a hero a VIPER agent because he's always got one of their toys? Does that Mechanon-built power rifle hack your base computer? Do the heroes really not have any Psychological Limitations about staying on-brand or being heroic?

I could see a newly awakened Malvan wanting to tour the lost empire to remind themselves of earlier days. Or perhaps they would want to see for themselves these strange Terrans who bear traces of the Elder Worm and yet ended their curse. 

Pish pash posh.  We worry too much about balance. 
 
1. Hero is not a balanced game, much as we would like it to be.  Two characters built on the same points are not equally effective: what determines how effective they are is the game they are run in.  If the game is very dungeon and combat oriented then the subtle diplomat is going to be useless, or nearly so.
 
2. In pretty much every other game, equipment is free or, at least, only costed by in-game currency and in-game availability.  This does not tip the game over because it is not just PCs who have access to all this loot.
 
3. The attempts to bring balance to the rules are about as successful as the attempts to bring balance to The Force, and we all know where that leads: Jar-Jar Binks.  As an example I was reading about killing attacks, while I prepare a rant, and saw this gem (1E242):  Increased STUN multiplier (+¼): This Power Advantage increases the STUN Multiplier of a Killing Attack. Characters can purchase it multiple times, with no limit to how many times they can buy it, but must have the GM’s permission to buy it more than once for any particular attack.  Sheesh.
 
4. What stops the pointy hatted Wizard buying a bow and using his magic to enhance his ability?  Nothing, but all the NPCs can do the same thing.  What stops the heavily built Barbarian buying a sword then using skill to enhance his ability?  Nothing either, but no one is getting upset about that, are they?  Another example from also 1E242:  Swordmaster’s Skill: HKA +1d6 (adds to any sword-based HKA), reduced endurance (0 END; +½) (22 active points); only with swords (-½), requires a DEX roll (-½). total cost: 11 points.  Whilst I do not think that is a very good example build, it does illustrate the point.  Badly, but it illustrates it.
 
5. RAW Hero makes you pay for bases.  I, well, I don't even know where to start.  I've never used that whole section.  You tell me the last time a band of adventurers took over an abandoned keep then failed to improve their fighting ability for 6 months to pay for it.  24th of Never, I believe.
 
6. We've had the discussion elsewhere about why swords should be Character Point free and spells are not.  Well, why shouldn't spells be CP free too?  Sure, you don't want every angry mage running round with an 200 point Apocalypse Spell just because they got invited to Neverland as a child and had to spend the hush money somehow, but in any sensibly constructed game-world there will be restrictions on supply, or you could hybrid it: everyday swords and spells are cash only; all the special stuff, you have to splash out for.  Just like in Neverland.
 
My advice to GMs is to fix it in the mix i.e. pitch the game so that it is challenging to these particular PCs and also not be afraid to tell a player 'I don't care if it is technically rules legal, no you can't, because I said so.'  If a player makes a sad face, well, you'll just have to find a way to live with yourself.  Hopefully, however, they will accept that it is wrong to ruin the game for everyone else just so they can go on a mad ego trip.  Obviously being on a mad ego trip is the GM's job.
 
Happy Goram Valentine's Day.

I'm actually impressed that I noticed no one saying, "MUST PAY POINTS FOR EVERYTHING! THAT IS HERO!" which was an attitude I used to run into all the time in the past. It seems others have come around to recognizing that things have moved on from a design perspective.
 
As for many of the concepts, ideas brought up:
 
1. Equipment paid for with points is better than free equipment.  Short answer, I totally agree. Long answer, the dramatics of a game and storytelling often make it difficult to highlight these differences. I find HERO games to be dramatic action games, not grinding resource management games like D&D and such. I'd rather the game not be spent cataloging how many bullets and extra clips you drag around on your mule Pepe from adventure to adventure. Essentially, the GM decisions and game time spent to "penalize" the free equipment (or even Focus powers vs. non-focus powers) is tedious and unfun... so what I'd rather do is find a way to BENEFIT those that DO pay points.
 
2. This leads to similar comments that I saw Doc and Christopher make... that if I paid points for my stuff, I expect certain benefits. I have always felt this way, because I've argued that "Points Spent" are Player Director Stance/Player Control in a game. The more points you pay for something, the more control the player has to say how, when and where it works. The more limitations (to the point of it being free equipment) the more control is ceded to the GM. Now, in the past, the mentality was "Pay points, and any limitation degrades that ability".   I like to switch that thought process to "start with things being free... and the more points you spend, the more effective and accessible your stuff is" So... a free pistol is one thing. A pistol paid for with points but with a focus is better for the PLAYER. And a power that has no limitations is totally in player control." Simply thinking this way enables a lot. If Doc's character gets imprisoned and gets his "Points with focus" bow and arrows taken away. When he breaks out, Doc as the player doesn't look to the GM to say he found the bow... DOC says "I find the bow and arrows tucked under the guard's bunk" because he paid points to have that level of director stance.
 
3. This has worked really well in games where, albeit supers, equipment is still very effective. Think street level, martial arts, cyborg-mercenary, etc. types who use guns and swords and such. Characters are super, but goons with guns are a threat, and guns and hth combat are key to combat. What players tended toward was that they "paid points" for their main weapon, while leaving back-up weapons and basic equipment free. The street ninja had a sword and smoke grenades he paid points for (with foci) but his back-up .357 mangum, mag-flashlight and plastic cuffs were free equipment. Why pay points for things that technically could be "Free" well, the player wanted those thigns to act like powers. No worry that the sword might break if it struck high defenses, no looking to the GM to determine if he had it available, no losing it randomly while acrobating around explosions, etc. The grenades work like a power, not just an environmental effect, he has them when he wants them (barring dramatic loss) etc.
 
4. This has scaled up to high-end supers, where the majority of abilities/powers are paid for, but a lot of the equipment and base materials are not. The players know that those things are ephemeral and can get wiped out whenever the GM wants, because they are free. (It is a running joke to see who's radio/throat mic survives the longest once mega-blasts start getting thrown around.) Ultimately though, what we've started to change is the mentality that "spending points" is something to be min-maxed and avoided, but it is the BENEFIT of being a player character. Spending points is the player getting to define what is cool about the character, what they get to define and direct in the game, etc.

At the conclusion of the final story arc of my Champions campaign before it went on hiatus for a while, the PC team traveled to Malva in order to try and win the freedom of Terran superhumans taken there for the gladiatorial games. They succeeded in their efforts, managing to defeat the Phazor's previously-undefeated champion, Firewing. (In my campaign, Firewing never came to Earth and was still a gladiator at this time, so this was his very first meeting with Terrans.)
 
Towards the end of the story arc, the mage of the team discovered the ancient curse that was laid on the Malvans by the Elder Worm. While normally lacking the power to undo such a thing by himself, special circumstances boosted his spell and the curse was lifted.
 
Malva is now awakened. So, now what?
 
Since it took thousands of years for the Malvans to gradually slip into their hedonistic state, my thinking is that it could take them quite a while to fully rouse from it. For now, only a few individuals are beginning to awaken.
 
How might an awakened Malva affect the galaxy?

As the title says, I think 6e is the best version of the rules published. However, I see grumbling and shade thrown on it here and there by various posters on these hallowed forums. Now, as it happens, I am aware of the broad strokes of the most common gripes people voice, but in the interests of collation and collegial discourse, I invite people to forward their personal arguments as to why they do not feel that 6e is the best version of the rules. Please keep it polite and in the spirit of reasonable discussion, and if it comes to it, friendly disagreement.

This is a campaign idea I've been thinking about recently to use with my current gaming group someday.
 
Second Chances is a boarding house set up to assist supervillains in their efforts at reintegrating back into society after they've served out their sentences in Stronghold, maybe for those who've gotten released early for good behavior or after serving on the Champions Universe's version of the Suicide Squad. It's a government-sponsored halfway house dealing in supervillains. It might even make for a decent convention game background.
 
My thought was to use it as the basis for a PC team, putting together former supervillains into a ragtag group of anti-heroes that actually can do some good together. Think Guardians of the Galaxy, only made up of parolees. It could also work for a Dark Champions: The Animated Series sort of setting.
 
One of the things that the government would do is provide new secret IDs for each parolee in their efforts at rehabilitation, so they would all have the Social Complications: Criminal Record and Secret ID, maybe at a reduced level for the Secret ID, since it is one known to the government. Watched by PRIMUS (or another group that deal with supercriminals) would also seem to make sense.
 
What sort of supervillains might work from the current CU as parolees? Shrinker and Foxbat might make for a couple of interesting fellow parolees, but who else?

I feel ya.I run 6th these days (I always run the "current" version as its the one my players can easily go buy for themselves if inclined) but I'll gladly play whatever version someone want to run.  (Although, I've been strongly contemplating doing a one-shot with some of my old gamer friends using 3rd edition, just for the nostalgia.  The recent Bundle of Holding renewed my interest in 3rd.)

I was reading through the 6th edition Champions book when this little gem popped out on page 143:
 
 
The high DCV martial artist is great up until his or her personal DCV doesn't matter. A GM can also easily fix DCV escalation by applying defense campaign limits. The campaigns I'm in tie the DCV max to your speed. The higher your speed, the more avoidance-defense you can have. The lower your speed, the more soak-defense you can have. Those who want to play both fast and invulnerable have to compromise on both.

After giving this some thought, I'd have to say that I think you may be surprised at just how many Westerns have been released since 2000. Hundreds. We haven't heard of many of them, of course, but there were lots of B Westerns back in the day too. Even tv series, such as Deadwood, Westworld, even Longmire, have been immensely popular. There were many that were highly received, such as The Revanent, which was nominated for best picture and won best actor, as well as No Country for Old Men, True Grit, and Hell or High Water. I was actually quite surprised at how many Westerns I've seen that were produced since 2000, most of them quite good and popular. There is still a strong longing in the American consciousness for those better and simpler days which never actually existed, but which we wish had. And there are plenty in production right now, suggesting there is a great desire for these films as well. Check out IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/search/title?release_date=2000-01-01,2018-12-31&amp;genres=western&amp;sort=release_date,desc. Heck, Robert Duvall pretty much rebuilt his career doing Westerns in the past 20 years. 
 
As for Pulp, a lot of those Westerns cross over with Pulp themes of good vs. evil, law vs. crime, and all those themes, as well as high adventure. For whatever reason, Jackie Chan went through a series of high adventure Westerns (Shanghai Noon, its sequal, and Around the World in 80 Days) that are perfect examples of Pulp adventure. Walker, Texas Ranger is a perfect series of bare knuckled (or booted?) crime fighting adventure---Hell, I once saw Walker stare down a bear and win! Django Unchained is Pulp for sure, and the Lone Ranger, and for whatever ungodly reason they re-made The Magnificent Seven because there was, apparently, a demand for such a thing (it's more Western than Pulp, but still . . . ). 
 
For non-Western Pulp, I could only come up with a couple of ideas, although they also cross over with Fantasy, but they still count. The Golden Compass has globetrotting adventure written all over it, and was a popular series of books as well. The Librarians series on tv is also Pulpy, although the tendency these days is to mix Pulp with Urban Fantasy, so I won't argue these too much. Journey to the Center of the Earth definitely fits the bill, as does Jumanji and King Kong. We can debate whether they should have been remade, but the fact of the matter is that they were box office smashes, which means there is a demand for these sorts of movies.
 
The point is, I think there's still a lot of demand for Westerns, for sure, and Pulp, if only in spirit, even with the millennials. So don't despair, my friend! All is not lost!

For me it has always been about "ease of use".
 
As a GM (and as a player) there is simply so much more easy to use source material for fantasy than there is for supers. This has become more true over time (or rather as I get less and less free time). I also use Maptool (a virtual table top application) to game and although it isn't a necessity, it does make me want to build all the maps before I start a session. Which frequently leads to the problem that even with neophyte Super Heroes they usually have the ability to travel large distances and go places you haven't considered. *sigh*
 
If I want a tavern, blacksmith, alchemist's lair or virtually any fantasy environment I can think of, chances are you can google a high quality map for it. Attempting the same for a modern environment turns up far fewer results. All of which eats into my most limited resource: "Time".
 

Hero does have a bias towards the defender, but there are a lot of ways to adjust the system to any desired level of danger. I've mentioned it before on these forums, but I wrote up some coverage of what I called "Lethality Options" a long time ago and they are still relevant.
 
http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/shrikeLethalityOptions.aspx

I like any edition of Champions I actually get to play. To me the differences between editions are like the differences between sports cars. Yes, an Alpha Romeo T33/2 Stradale Prototipo 1967 is different than a Tesla Model S, but either one is a radically different experience to driving the D&D minivan.
 
Champions third edition was my introduction to super heroic gaming, and I have fond memories of it, but the people I play with run sixth edition/Complete. It's still a sports car even if the user manual is really, really long, and I'm not always sure how to refill the continuing fuel charge.