Scott Ruggels

Mediocrity should have no place, period. What we need is to meet the current market expectations for a quality product. And that means quality COLOR art. no B/W, as , well, you aren't the main demographic of the market any more.

Its always a line; some requests for revisions are reasonable, but some are just nitpicking, pointless, or an overcontrolling editor.  He seems prickly in general, really.  I could not get him to respond on Twitter sadly, because I would have loved for him to do a cover for Champions Begins for old time's sake.
 
I am all for crowdfunding something but it would have to be someone who knows how to do it well, has the time, energy, and drive to do it, and has lots of access to social media.  I know that IPR does crowdfunding sometimes, so its worth considering but it not only is tough and time consuming but you really have to know what you are doing to do one successfully.  I have considered it a couple of times and came to the conclusion each time that it is not for me.  Especially since by the time I'm done with a project I'm pretty well wiped out.

To be fair, I have never had an issue personally with splitting the party, even when I was trying very hard to convince myself I liked D and D.  The flack comes from two sources:  the general community hates it-- it may well be a holdover, but mention doing it with any sort of regularity, or allowing it to happen because one player announces "my character is going to to x place and do y," and you'll get ten condemnations for every curious inquiry.
 
The other source is the players in the group that isn't rolling dice right now.  Not all, to be fair, but there is a particular caliber of player who just assumes that whatever group he is with is the group that is going to get all the action.  Sure; I try to make sure both groups have something to do, and even-- because everyone likes it-- a chance to roll some dice.  But as soon as it is time for the other group to roll a die or two -- "Man, this sucks!  We should be there, too!  Why aren't we doing anything?"  Uhm...  you are.  You just finished doing a thing, and as soon as these guys do their thing, you'll likely have another thing to do.  Alternatively, you could split from your splinter group and wend your way back to this group, but they'll be done by the time you get here, and the guys you left will be doing something, most likely.  "This sucks!  Why did you do this to me?!"
 

 
 
And, as noted, I find it absolutely _mandatory_ in a supers game, lest Mechanon just decide that Crusader is aesthetically unpleasing while fighting some Superman pastiche.
 
 
 
 
 
 
GIven time, I could dig through my AC magazines and find it, but let's just say-- while it is _far_ beyond anything I could do, all the improvements you've made since might be blocking it from your recall. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Nope; just honest.
 
You have quite a talent, and should preen on occasion.   
 
 
Now I can't find the post to quote it, but referencing your comment on the Traveller artist with the hauntingly beautiful artwork---
 
give me a day or two, and I can probably come up with it.  I kept an interview I stumbled across some years ago simply because his artwork was discussed (remember, I have spent my whole life trying to develop two talents that just never happened-- drawing is one of them.)   I loved his art, too, and it _looked_ so simple, so do-able, but damn do you have to have a rare ability to decide what the absolute minimum amount of drawing yields the maximum amount of impact.  And the early days-- when the books were just black and white with a splash of red?  I can't think of anything else that would have made his art look as phenomenal as it did.
 
 
At any rate, I kept the interview because one of the parties was a friend of his, and he commented something akin to this:
 
Yeah; he said all he ever did was get an idea of the type of face he wanted, then he drew the eyes.  He would spend hours on the eyes.  He said once the eyes were done, they told him what the rest of the face would look like, and it took him just a few minutes to draw the rest of the face.  After that, he was just whipping his pencils around and done.  He said the face was the key to everything: if you could read the face, you knew everything you needed to know about the background.
 
I found that to be rather profound, even beyond artwork.
 
 
 
AH!
 
Does Craig Farley sounds right to you?
 

Tekumel's problem was two fold. It had a background, that unfortunately was not Tolkeinesque, and shared more with the Maya, than it did with Northern Europe. The second problem is that it was saddled with a terrible combat system, unless one used the Mass Combat rules.  THe individual Combat system was similar to the first examples of D&D, but was quite lethal, and klunky. It would be a good candidate for a "Single Book" Hero conversion 
 
I have heard the same.  But I do remembher there were several companies that produced Traveller  materials, and there was one group out of Alaska, or their Illustrator was from Alaska, that had just some of the most achingly perfect artwork of any of the Traveller materials. I wish I remembered that Illustrator's name.
 
 
They had two maps. One was a blank, 25mm Hex Map.  The other was a 25mm Hex map with a couple of terrain features printed on it. I think it was two sides of the same sheet of paper, folded into quarters, so it could fit in those  booklets, all of which was wrapped inside a plastic bag.  Advanced Melee / Wizard, was a magazine sized book that came out later, with a bit more background and more information, but not a lot. Like I said, Magazine sized.
 
 
Which Space Opera?  The one by FGU?  Geeze I think there were two books on that, A set of Miniatures Rules, and an RPG sort of background thing?  I was happy with the Third Imperium stuff.  But I played in a Traveller game, that had a Homebrew Background and slightly different tech, run by Paul Gazis.  He published a fair amount of material in the APA The Wild Hunt. 
 
Again, it's a time issue.  The "Modern Gamer" has little time for imagination or prep work, what with jobs and such. One could produce material in little packets, but in the end, there should be a large overall world and a plan to release and support it, with adventures much in the way Paizo has done for Golarion.
 
 
Golden Age: From  Action Comics issue one in 1937, until just after the end of WW2.
 
Silver Age: from the First Issue The Flash, as Barry Allen(?), though some Mark it from when Timely Comics changed its name to Marvel Comics, this until Spiderman dropped the Comics Code Authority.

 Bronze Age: The Rise of the Direct Market and the first wave of independent Publishers, like Pacific Comics, and Comico,  until  the Publication of The Dark Knight Returns, and The Watchmen.
 
Iron Age: The Publication of The Watchmen, when everything got Dark and gritty, until the end of the 1990's.
 
There have been comics published continuously since the mid 1930's  so these blocks of time are not representative to all comics published. Some companies like Archie, changed very little until quite recently.
 
 
They hated comics?  Or , did they hate the comic stores? If it's the stores I understand that.
 
 
Sounds like they are solid Silver Age fans. This is very much the same sort of reading material that spawned Champions originally.
 
 
Sounds like late Bronze and Iron Age were not to taste.
 
 
Unfortunately, A lot of the current output from The Big Two are marketed to those that exist on Twitter. No one seems to understand that the Twitter Audience is a small and extremely self referential audience, that does not share tastes with the general audience, so the general Audience is dropping their reading habit. The Pandemic should have fostered and environment of more reading, but people were turned off, and dropped the habit of buying American Comics, and have instead moved to reading translated Manga. The Comic industry is currently shrinking and dying, but not quite dead, but only valued as an IP farm by their corporate masters, as they are not bringing in the profits that they used to.

I do not disagree, but for the stuff to sell, it has to stand shoulder to shoulder with WOTC and Paizo on the shelf, with full color art, No more B/W ink line art. THis is why I have pursued digital painting in that vein, so as to be "competitive" in that  sphere, plus use 3D assets to reduce the time to produce such works.
 
 
 
 This could happen with a high enough crowd funding campaign.  The items that are going to cost the most is  the art, and professional level editing, and layout.  Sure it can be released as a PDF, as all modern game publications are, but most Crowd funding patrons would prefer something printed as well.
 
 
 
Agreed.
 
 
Actually, they aren't, if you know where to look. Most of them have an Instagram, and some also have Twitter.  They solicit for commi8ssions a lot of the time as a side business, though the top of the top, are too busy and have shut down their social media, but it's not impossible. THose that have professional representation are also not hard to contact, though it is slower.
 
 
I had to revisit this again, because we need to look at costs, where a cover painting can be around $2- $4,000, and interior illustration, fully painted can be anywhere from $500, and up.   A young Newcomer is an option but unlike being a cantankerous procrastinator, they will often misjudge the time necessary to produce the art, and may get prickly if the project lead requests some changes. Pat Zircher has himself become a bit prickly about revisions in his D.C. work.  So it may just be the artists, but it is something to think about. That newcomer may have to learn to become comfortable with a lot of sketch revisions and color roughs before comitting to the finished piece, which also takes time. But even Pros have their problems, We had Craig Mullins paid for some work that he basically phoned in, and used color shifted and distorted photos found on Google to do the work for the game company I worked for at the time. Step ack and do some research, or if there are those talented newcomers, start perusing the pages of Art Station (www.artstation.com) for some up and coming, but not cheap talent.

I've said this before and I stand behind it; character creation is complex, the actual play of the game is not.  As evidence, look at Champions Complete - the character creation rules are 118 pages, the combat rules are only 18 pages!  Okay, that's not entirely fair, as Actions and some other items are not in the combat section, but still!
 
Tangent:  Mighty Protectors (V&V 3.0) unified a lot of the mechanics and put in a point-based character creation system.  It's a lot less charty, and a lot more like Hero System.
 
 
After thinking about it some more, I think having a stripped down location (Millenium City?  San Angelo?) is a good idea - new player, you like this city?  There's an entire existing book dedicated to it!
 
 
I went back to Champions Complete and looked at the 6E Champions.  Only Kinetic has Powers with more than two Modifiers:  Super-Running (Megascale, Reduced Endurance, Only In Contact With A Surface) and Supersonic Finger-Snap (NND, No Range, Gestures).  Defender doesn't have any Powers without Modifiers, but his whole thing is that he's Iron Man a power armor hero and thus bought through OIF.
 
New thought:  maybe have two character sheets, build and play.  You don't need the points displayed on the playing sheet.  That saves a bunch of space.  When I run convention games, I have character sheets that state what the game effects are (example:  in a Pulp Hero scenario [Nazi Death Zombies of the Congo!, available on *this very website*!] the Great White Hunter character has an elephant rifle.  Player doesn't care about the build (or if he/she does, I have the build sheet available and can share it), player cares about, "Good range.  Hits *really* hard.  Has two shots.  Takes time to reload, so make those two shots count."
 
 
Yes, make it easy.  Champions Skills - Defender looks overly complicated to my eyes.  Sapphire and Kinetic could be simpler.
 
 
Good ideas here!
 
 
The entire purpose of this proposed product is to bring in new players.  Lower the barrier to entry.  How do we craft a product that does this?
 
 
I think "like a very meticulous tax audit" is an invalid criticism (however, it *is* a criticism and does need to be addressed).  I do agree that combat can and does take a long time; my group has had a combat or two where even we (who do enjoy both the system and superhero combat in general) were dragging.  But the actual play - "Okay Diamondback it's your turn." "I jump on the giant ape and punch it!"  "Okay it's the giant tiger's turn.  It swipes at Professor Polar."  The combat system *is* detailed (and IMO, simulates comic book battles very well) and I don't think that can be fundamentally changed without being not-the-Hero-System.  Some folks want less crunch, and Hero System will not appeal to them.  There are, of course, options to make combat more or less crunchy and these options are already discussed in existing books.
 
 
Lower the barrier to entry for new players.  Get new players in Hero System.  Live Long And Prosper.  I think a book that sets all of the toolkit options to a certain Supers genre and provides a setting and campaign will help do that.
 
Again, character creation is the most complex part of Hero System.  DND - make a first level character.  Okay, I either roll or point-buy my stats (depending on the DM), allot skill points, select feats, spend money on equipment, a bit of background... ready to go!  Level up?  Roll for hit points, allot new skill points,  new Feat (at certain levels), stat increase (at certain levels), maybe a new level-based ability... done!  Hero - I have these XPs, what to spend them on??? It's so open-ended.  For example, in our current Golden Age campaign my Speedster wanted to buy a Power straight out of The Ultimate Speedster - "Cant Hold Me!" - additional Strength only for resisting Grabs and Entangles.  The experienced GM looked at it and said, "Okay, but only +40 STR instead of +50 STR, as that is in line with the campaign power levels."   But how does a novice (to Hero System) GM know that?  Make the campaign power levels explicit.  Discuss them more than is currently done - "8D6 is agent-level, not too concerning to the Heros unless in large groups, 10D6 is under-powered but will do some STUN, 12D6 is average, 15D6 is a powerful attack that will Stun and possibly KO with one hit."  Delve into the math (which 6E1 and 6E2 already do to some extent, and it goes back to early editions - I don't have the books available right now to point out examples.  Talk about averages and standard deviations (although probably not actually using the term 'standard deviations').
 
I'm not saying make it as on-rails as DND progression.  But *make it easy* for the new GM.
 

Tekumel's problem was two fold. It had a background, that unfortunately was not Tolkeinesque, and shared more with the Maya, than it did with Northern Europe. The second problem is that it was saddled with a terrible combat system, unless one used the Mass Combat rules.  THe individual Combat system was similar to the first examples of D&D, but was quite lethal, and klunky. It would be a good candidate for a "Single Book" Hero conversion 
 
I have heard the same.  But I do remembher there were several companies that produced Traveller  materials, and there was one group out of Alaska, or their Illustrator was from Alaska, that had just some of the most achingly perfect artwork of any of the Traveller materials. I wish I remembered that Illustrator's name.
 
 
They had two maps. One was a blank, 25mm Hex Map.  The other was a 25mm Hex map with a couple of terrain features printed on it. I think it was two sides of the same sheet of paper, folded into quarters, so it could fit in those  booklets, all of which was wrapped inside a plastic bag.  Advanced Melee / Wizard, was a magazine sized book that came out later, with a bit more background and more information, but not a lot. Like I said, Magazine sized.
 
 
Which Space Opera?  The one by FGU?  Geeze I think there were two books on that, A set of Miniatures Rules, and an RPG sort of background thing?  I was happy with the Third Imperium stuff.  But I played in a Traveller game, that had a Homebrew Background and slightly different tech, run by Paul Gazis.  He published a fair amount of material in the APA The Wild Hunt. 
 
Again, it's a time issue.  The "Modern Gamer" has little time for imagination or prep work, what with jobs and such. One could produce material in little packets, but in the end, there should be a large overall world and a plan to release and support it, with adventures much in the way Paizo has done for Golarion.
 
 
Golden Age: From  Action Comics issue one in 1937, until just after the end of WW2.
 
Silver Age: from the First Issue The Flash, as Barry Allen(?), though some Mark it from when Timely Comics changed its name to Marvel Comics, this until Spiderman dropped the Comics Code Authority.

 Bronze Age: The Rise of the Direct Market and the first wave of independent Publishers, like Pacific Comics, and Comico,  until  the Publication of The Dark Knight Returns, and The Watchmen.
 
Iron Age: The Publication of The Watchmen, when everything got Dark and gritty, until the end of the 1990's.
 
There have been comics published continuously since the mid 1930's  so these blocks of time are not representative to all comics published. Some companies like Archie, changed very little until quite recently.
 
 
They hated comics?  Or , did they hate the comic stores? If it's the stores I understand that.
 
 
Sounds like they are solid Silver Age fans. This is very much the same sort of reading material that spawned Champions originally.
 
 
Sounds like late Bronze and Iron Age were not to taste.
 
 
Unfortunately, A lot of the current output from The Big Two are marketed to those that exist on Twitter. No one seems to understand that the Twitter Audience is a small and extremely self referential audience, that does not share tastes with the general audience, so the general Audience is dropping their reading habit. The Pandemic should have fostered and environment of more reading, but people were turned off, and dropped the habit of buying American Comics, and have instead moved to reading translated Manga. The Comic industry is currently shrinking and dying, but not quite dead, but only valued as an IP farm by their corporate masters, as they are not bringing in the profits that they used to.

Tekumel's problem was two fold. It had a background, that unfortunately was not Tolkeinesque, and shared more with the Maya, than it did with Northern Europe. The second problem is that it was saddled with a terrible combat system, unless one used the Mass Combat rules.  THe individual Combat system was similar to the first examples of D&D, but was quite lethal, and klunky. It would be a good candidate for a "Single Book" Hero conversion 
 
I have heard the same.  But I do remembher there were several companies that produced Traveller  materials, and there was one group out of Alaska, or their Illustrator was from Alaska, that had just some of the most achingly perfect artwork of any of the Traveller materials. I wish I remembered that Illustrator's name.
 
 
They had two maps. One was a blank, 25mm Hex Map.  The other was a 25mm Hex map with a couple of terrain features printed on it. I think it was two sides of the same sheet of paper, folded into quarters, so it could fit in those  booklets, all of which was wrapped inside a plastic bag.  Advanced Melee / Wizard, was a magazine sized book that came out later, with a bit more background and more information, but not a lot. Like I said, Magazine sized.
 
 
Which Space Opera?  The one by FGU?  Geeze I think there were two books on that, A set of Miniatures Rules, and an RPG sort of background thing?  I was happy with the Third Imperium stuff.  But I played in a Traveller game, that had a Homebrew Background and slightly different tech, run by Paul Gazis.  He published a fair amount of material in the APA The Wild Hunt. 
 
Again, it's a time issue.  The "Modern Gamer" has little time for imagination or prep work, what with jobs and such. One could produce material in little packets, but in the end, there should be a large overall world and a plan to release and support it, with adventures much in the way Paizo has done for Golarion.
 
 
Golden Age: From  Action Comics issue one in 1937, until just after the end of WW2.
 
Silver Age: from the First Issue The Flash, as Barry Allen(?), though some Mark it from when Timely Comics changed its name to Marvel Comics, this until Spiderman dropped the Comics Code Authority.

 Bronze Age: The Rise of the Direct Market and the first wave of independent Publishers, like Pacific Comics, and Comico,  until  the Publication of The Dark Knight Returns, and The Watchmen.
 
Iron Age: The Publication of The Watchmen, when everything got Dark and gritty, until the end of the 1990's.
 
There have been comics published continuously since the mid 1930's  so these blocks of time are not representative to all comics published. Some companies like Archie, changed very little until quite recently.
 
 
They hated comics?  Or , did they hate the comic stores? If it's the stores I understand that.
 
 
Sounds like they are solid Silver Age fans. This is very much the same sort of reading material that spawned Champions originally.
 
 
Sounds like late Bronze and Iron Age were not to taste.
 
 
Unfortunately, A lot of the current output from The Big Two are marketed to those that exist on Twitter. No one seems to understand that the Twitter Audience is a small and extremely self referential audience, that does not share tastes with the general audience, so the general Audience is dropping their reading habit. The Pandemic should have fostered and environment of more reading, but people were turned off, and dropped the habit of buying American Comics, and have instead moved to reading translated Manga. The Comic industry is currently shrinking and dying, but not quite dead, but only valued as an IP farm by their corporate masters, as they are not bringing in the profits that they used to.

Just to set a counterexample: I maintain a subscription to Paizo's Pathfinder adventure path because it's just so damn useful to anyone running Pathfinder games, and outside of that the last $100 I spent on gaming related stuff was all toward buying Superhero RPG adventures.  Green Ronin publishing has a dozen or so 20 page adventures and I've bought all of them.  Fainting Goat games has several big collections of mini-adventures, which I have also bought a ton of.
I basically either create Hero Stats for the characters that appear or I substitute a Champions Universe equivalent. 
 
Settings I got.  Genres I got.  Even Villains I got.  Stuff to do with them is the eternal need.
The Champions Universe is vast and pretty well detailed.  I don't need more, and rebooting a new universe is great and all but so what?  There are a zillion of them and a new unified theory for where super powers come from doesn't help anyone actually play.
 
I play every week, and I homebrew a ton, but man it's nice to just have an adventure to slot in.  I just ran a Mutants & Masterminds adventure where an evil plant guy starts using energy drinks to turn local college athletes into berserkers, changed it to Highschool for my Ravenswood PCs & substituted Thorn for the M&M guy & away I went.  I can come up with my own adventure, I do all the time, but the money this one cost me was well worth the price when work ran long & I didn't get time to do it all myself.
 
It would be *amazing* to have some official Hero games adventures.  I've mined out the classic ones.  I bought Red Cobra (which is tonally all over the place & comes of as contemptuous of it's own story but maybe can be salvaged), I've looked at the revamp of the Isle of Dr Destroyer but I own the old one and was never convinced it was worth buying again (the old one is way too grim for my playstyle anyway).  My group played the heck out of everything that came out for 5e (Sharper than a Serpent's tooth, Battlegrounds & so on)
 
If Hero Games put out a series of adventures that actually took place in the Champions Universe that would be 100x more useful to me than a book about what is going on in Australia or a deep dive into Until's space station.

Okay, so let's look at some rough history.
 
Paizo began, publishing Adventures for D&D 3.5.  But decided to go off on their own, and use the D20 license to publish their own system, we now know as Pathfinder. The product was a very Publishing adventures was supposed to be a losing proposition, but they made enough money to put out a magazine.  These magazines would put out Adventures that were linked to the Next issue of the magazine, and after a year, they would publish the adventures in a hardbacked book for $50, and start the next year's adventures in the magazine.   This has resulted in a very lush game world (Golarion) for Pathfinder, and a lot of material.  I do not know how well Second Edition is working out for them, but I would assume that since the stats in both editions are similar, if not the same, then the current published material should work. 
 
Now it has become evident, that the quality of computers has increased in capability since the early 2000s, pushing more work and productivity onto the rank and file worker, and sucking up vast amounts of time at home with ever more capable games.  So Marc W. Miller's  lament, that people don't have time for imagination seems apt.  IF we remember, both Traveller, and Hero were conceived as generic systems for running what ever you wanted to, but in Traveller's case, the player base became dependent upon published material, either modules, or magazine articles. Like Paizo, some of those magazine articles became collected into books.  Today you can see the fruits of that productivity in https://travellermap.com/, where the planets from  all the published Traveller material can be accessed on a single large, scalable, continuous map of all the Traveller sectors and subsectors.
 
Hero had a magazine for a while, but it went defunct with one of the sales, and did not continue.  Very little of that material was collected into separate books and adventures, but I also9 think Hero was a bit too early in the cycle to change the assumption that it was a system for home brew.  However there are a lot of questions on the Hero Discord about the original Champions Superhero group, and Millenium City, that there is interest in the published materials.  What was once true, that Adventures do not sell, is no longer the case, and that I would suggest something like the Paizo model be taken up, but in PDF form.  Adventures published in chucks, and then gathered at the end of a scheduled time period into a whole.  People don't have3 the time to Homebrew any more, and those that do, could help out by writing it down and publishing a PDF through Hero.  Somethi9ng like Champions Begins is a great start, but there should be a money making product for the company that helps the Novices along, after CB.  These are just my suggestions, but I would like to hear other ideas.
 

Brother Scott, I don't even know who the _Defenders'_ Defenders are, and until I drifted back to this board, I thought the Fantastic Four was Roger Corman's attempt to break into modern sarcasm-based comedy via superhero deconstruction.
 
The only thing I know about the Avengers is that it was a series of three superhero movies that didn't really trip any switches for me outside of "ooh--!  Pretty special effects!"  (Seriously: the CGI effects were amazing), and they served to reinforce something I have said for years that no one really wants to hear:  The only way to make martial artists and "skilled normals" a relevant part of a genuine super-powered team is to make sure that the party is split pretty much all the time, which is the antithesis of a good RPG session, at least when it becomes a habit.
 
 
 
 
I have always felt that meta plot lines were more the domain of scenarios, adventures, and the campaigns that contain them, and should not be hardwired into the setting---
 
 
However---
 
I also think this is a completely different conversation, so I won't muddy things up with more exposition on that.   
 
 
 
 
 
Agreed.
 
 
 
That's a huge loss, not just to gaming, but to style in general.  I had no idea.
 
 
 
There's that Ruggels guy; his stuff has come a _long_ way since doing that illustration for --- was the the Black Queen?  The Queen of Hearts?  The character's name escapes me at the moment, but the picture is fresh in my head: the Harley Quinn before there was a Harley Quinn-- the one who tried to infiltrate the Card Shark's organization and went full-on nuts.  Oh-- and those asteroid pictures in... Was it Space Gamer?  JTAS?  It was Traveller-related; I recall that.  
 
Anyway, his stuff is pretty damned good, I think. 
 
 
 
 
 

Yes, but that does not preclude the introduction of new material, and new villains. The background has more than one city. If The Champions are like the Avengers, then who is their X-Men? Their Defenders?, Their Fantastic Four? (The only DC I read was their War and humor comics, and the Teen Titans, so I don’t have many references for their product).
 
However, right there you have a way of indicating power level and flavor, by putting what ever team on the cover.  With a Defenders analogue on the cover, you would have street level villains, organized crime, and the occasional low level strangeness. 
 
With the X-Men on the cover, you had threats by large organizations, behind the scenes government intrigues, villains of a higher threat level individually, and the occasional cosmic threat (plus a lot of soap opera, and a mass of NPCs).
 
With the Avengers or Fantastic Four on the cover, you get the cosmic threats, the Alien Invasion of the year, and adventures off world or off in other dimensions. 
 
What this would require is shuffling Heroes and villains around into the proper cities and power levels and flavors, and build the meta plots from there. 
 
On an aesthetic subject, we cannot settle with the art. Unfortunately, Albert Deschanes has passed on, and Patric Zircher has gone full pro, but we need artists than can draw characters who can act as well as fight, realistic backgrounds, and consistent NPC likenesses. With the decline of the direct market, some comic artists have become available for somewhat reasonable prices, and it never hurts to inquire about rates. 
 
On the whole, I think it’s doable, with some thought and planning. But to succeed one has to take a systematic approach to keep the teams, cities and adventures organized (even by cover dress) so that the customer can find the right flavor and power level for their players. 
 
 

Well crap.
 
We're stuck with it.
 

 

Honestly I don't much like the Champions Universe setting either, and think that the approach of moving time forward from a fixed date and making so many significant changes doesn't blend well with a comic book genre but.... its a pre-set easy to use world for champions that has decades of development and tons of support and info.  So its dumb not to use and it can be turned into something pretty striking.  As Liaden notes, its very well developed and detailed.  And almost all the adventures plug into it very easily. 
 
So we have a setting, and we have adventures, we just need to update, repackage them, and string them into a campaign for GMs to just drop players into.  A few campaigns like that and we might see some real momentum. Its just a matter of doing it, but I'm not gonna put off my fantasy setting any longer to push more Champions stuff, even if it pays better.  Once I get the setting and a few more adventures out, it will be all ready for people.
 
Because I think Fantasy Hero deserves some love and attention as well.

Horror on the Orient Express - Lausanne - Nocturne Pt.1
 
Jan 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Enjoy The Sights Of Switzerland, Which Include Mountains, Lakes, & Horrible Murder
 
The investigators have reached Lausanne, where a taxidermist is selling a scroll written by a madman, and is trying to raise the price he'll get by inviting anybody that might be interested in something written on living human skin with white-hot needles. He will regret this decision.
 
The taxidermist in question is one Edgar Wellington, who had written to the Loriens in Poissy, inquiring about the Sedefkar Simulacrum. This naturally makes him a person of considerable interest to the investigators, even if Switzerland isn’t one of the places Professor Smith believes the Simulacrum was scattered to. Wellington and his brother moved to Lausanne after the War, and Wellington is happy to sell the scroll. He acquired it from a French soldier by the name of Raoul Malon during the war, and it apparently discusses the Simulacrum, although he claims he hasn’t translated much of it. He wants 250 pounds - quite the profit over the pack of cigarettes he originally paid. Unfortunately, he’s also offered the scroll to the Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes. 
 
The Duke seems charming enough, but it’s likely he has more funds available if things escalate to a bidding war. Edgar certainly seems eager to encourage one - perhaps he needs the funds to help his mute brother William, who suffered devastating head injuries in the War. 
 
Edgar suggests the Duke show Huxley and Florence around Lausanne until they can all meet at the Black Cat Café in the evening, and arrange a blind auction - for one thing he has to retrieve the scroll from his bank, before anybody can even have a look at it. 
 
So it’s probably just as well that Alex was still nursing their hangover from all the Dreamlands wine the night before, and missed this meeting at the taxidermy shot - because Huxley is paranoid enough to have Alex stake out the shop, from a café across the road. And while the Duke is showing Huxley and Flo the sights, Edgar is seen hurrying down to the nearby stationers shop, and returning with something the size and shape of a scroll case. 
 
Huxley: The b****** is going to try and sell us a forgery.
 
Or at the very least use the party to help defraud the Duke. 
 
Florence: We were supposed to be sightseeing most of today.
Huxley: Then Huxley got distracted by books. 
 
That evening, at the Black Cat, they set Alex up in a corner to keep an eye on the meeting just in case anything happens. More strong coffee would probably be a bad idea, especially after the hangover and stake-out while hungover that morning.
 
GM: You’re practically vibrating as it is.
Alex: I’d better switch back to alcohol then.
 
But the Duke and Edgar Wellington don’t arrive - instead, one Maximillian von Wurtheim, best described as a poster boy for the SS, comes to the café, making apologies for the other two and inviting himself to the table. While Max flirts outrageously with Florence and regales them with the endless story about his family fortune, late father’s will, Max’s evil twin, etc, Huxley quietly sends Alex around to keep an eye on the Wellington’s shop. Huxley manages to escape the melodrama himself, later, and heads around to join Alex. It’s probably just as well they did, because the shop is dark, and silent, and the door ajar.
 
Alex and the lieutenant sidle into the pitch dark shop,  knocking over stuffed wildlife as they try to find the light switch.
 
Alex: Just light a match!
Huxley: I’m a non-smoker, sorry.
Alex: When we get out of this you’re taking it up.
 
Back at the Black Cat Maximillian is still talking - sure, his outrageous claims might make an interesting novel at some point, but he’s. Still. Going. 
 
Florence OoC: I’m keeping my expression polite as I imagine the ways I’m going to make the Lt. pay for this. 
Huxley OoC: I’ll bring you a nice stuffed animal from the Wellington’s shop.
Florence OoC: I like cats. If you can’t get fresh-made store-bought is fine. 
 
Eventually Flo reaches her limits.
 
Florence: I'm taking my handbag to the restroom and see if I can climb out the window. 
 
Alas, she won’t fit, and she is forced to return to the table. 
 
GM: He continues his story.
Alex: He probably hasn’t stopped.
 
But enduring this is probably preferable to what the other two find upstairs in the Wellington’s flat - William brutally stabbed and partly flayed, and Edgar killed with a massive morphine overdose in his bed. Huxley’s medical experience rouses William briefly,  just long enough to let the veteran point at a painting of a Merganser for some reason, while Alex runs across to the café to summon help.
 
William might survive, if the doctors at the local hospital are very good. The police take statements, particularly the statement that Alex and Huxley had come to the shop to see why Edgar never arrived for his meeting. They apparently suspect it might be a murder-suicide - or, as Alex overhears - ANOTHER suicide. 
 
Alex also hopes that all this doesn’t get written up in a newspaper her father actually reads.
 
Florence is not happy when the others get back to the hotel.
 
Florence: I had to listen to him talk for hours - and then HE STIFFED ME WITH THE BILL.
 
Of course Alex and Huxley are looking pretty frazzled too - the latter still has blood all over him.
 
Alex: It’s alright, it’s not his.
 
Blood isn’t the only thing he acquired however - while Alex was out getting help he also grabbed Edgar’s diary, a drug bottle of something called ‘Dream Lausanne’, and a scroll case containing what is indeed a fake scroll. 
 
Huxley: How am I going to smuggle the scroll case out of here?
GM: Just shove it down your pants and pretend violent death gives you a massive hard-on. 
 
According to the diary, Edgar has severe PTSD and a crippling morphine habit after the war, and needed to sell the scroll to provide for his brother. But it appears the Duke provided the books, morphine, and ‘the dream drug’, which contributed to Edgar’s downward spiral. The drug apparently takes Edgar to a version of Lausanne ‘from olden times’, and to which Edgar could actually take physical objects, and leave them there. He’s left the real scroll there.
 
The next morning they make full statements to the police and change hotels, to avoid Maximillian and the Duke just in case.  That’s probably just as well for Maximillian because if Florence ever sees him again she’s going to stab him with knitting needles. Unfortunately the new hotel is full to the ceiling with Turkish diplomats, which doesn’t do their paranoia any good. Nor does the news item blaming Lausanne’s massively inflated suicide rate on the psychological effects of the war. At least spending the rest of the day and night here and getting the hell out of Switzerland on the next Orient Express gives them a chance to experiment with the Dream Drug.
 
Huxley: This is balderdash! Magic potions, and, and, and - as a medical professional I cannot recommend this. 
Florence: I’m more interested in who will keep an eye on us if we all go together.
Alex: I like the phrasing there - ‘all go together’
 
Alex and Florence opt to take the drug, which Huxley identifies as a combination of at least three different herbal narcotics and god knows what else, while he monitors their vital signs and hopes they don’t choke on their own dissolving livers or something. Florence makes the good point that if a magical drug is supposed to take you to Dream Lausanne, it might be unwise to take the stuff if you’re hurtling across the landscape in a high speed train.  They decide to take as many weapons as they can hold onto, just in case. That includes Huxley’s sword-cane.
 
Huxley: An elegant weapon from a more civilised age.
Florence: The pointy end goes in the bad guy.
 
At the last moment Huxley adds the scroll case and fake scroll to the pile - as he points out, the case might be useful if they find the real thing. The two women dissolve the drug in some whiskey, throw back the shot glasses, and instantly fall into a deep sleep. They find themselves in a blasted landscape, with a freestanding door. Beyond the door is a medieval version of the Wellington’s shop - with the doors smashed in, cathedral bells tolling, and the sound of a great many people moving outside…

I like spicy settings.  Partially because (like Duke Bushido) I read them for entertainment, and also because I'm always looking for ideas to rip off use in other games, and because I like having a lot of details already spelled out.
 
Hey, I ran a Harn campaign for my gaming group, which was well received.  (Classic moment:  the party had picked up a cat [that was supposed to be a throw-away encounter] and kind of made it their mascot, calling it 'Shadow', so I ran with it.  The cat was injured in an encounter, and the PCs had to travel hard and fast to another place to warn the inhabitants of danger.  So I told the group, "Okay, but if you ride that hard, I'll need to make rolls for the cat - and if there's a failed roll, Shadow dies."  Player immediately drops out of character, points a finger at me and says, "Don't you DARE kill Shadow!!").
 
Given the opportunity, I'd like to run a Harn Hero campaign.  Don't know if it will ever happen, but if it does the story arc will include elements from canon that have enough ambiguity/mystery that I can build my own creation in the existing world.  And Harn is an *incredibly* detailed world.  And I can fall back on canon if (when!) needed.

Regarding the "blandness" of Elweir, as well as the aforementioned Aarn, I can't help but contrast them with my preferred city setting from the Turakian Age world of Ambrethel, the Free City of Tavrosel. Described as an "enormous" city per the standards of the era, Tavrosel is a great center of trade, at a location where the "Western" cultures of Mhorecia and the Westerlands mingle with the "Eastern" culture of Khoria, giving it a cosmopolitan diversity and sophistication. Long a conquered land, the Tavroselans finally rebelled and over decades of war forced their oppressors to recognize their independence, leaving them a tradition of respecting fighting men and hiring mercenaries to defend the city. Tavrosel lies within the spheres of influence of several larger powers, and not only invests in strong military and magical defenses, but extensive diplomatic efforts to maintain its freedom.
 
Having experimented with various forms of government over the centuries, Tavrosel "today" is a semi-democracy ruled by a Triumvirate elected by three social groups: one Triumvir from the nobles, one from the guilds and merchants, and the third from all other citizens. The Triumvirs often conflict and sometimes scheme against each other, but the city's large bureaucracy keeps it functioning in spite of that.
 
There isn't much more detail than that given about Tavrosel, which leaves me much room to develop it as I wish; but just what I related above gives me a stronger sense of the style and atmosphere of the place, and of how its people think and live, than all the pages devoted to Elweir.

Okay, so let's look at some rough history.
 
Paizo began, publishing Adventures for D&D 3.5.  But decided to go off on their own, and use the D20 license to publish their own system, we now know as Pathfinder. The product was a very Publishing adventures was supposed to be a losing proposition, but they made enough money to put out a magazine.  These magazines would put out Adventures that were linked to the Next issue of the magazine, and after a year, they would publish the adventures in a hardbacked book for $50, and start the next year's adventures in the magazine.   This has resulted in a very lush game world (Golarion) for Pathfinder, and a lot of material.  I do not know how well Second Edition is working out for them, but I would assume that since the stats in both editions are similar, if not the same, then the current published material should work. 
 
Now it has become evident, that the quality of computers has increased in capability since the early 2000s, pushing more work and productivity onto the rank and file worker, and sucking up vast amounts of time at home with ever more capable games.  So Marc W. Miller's  lament, that people don't have time for imagination seems apt.  IF we remember, both Traveller, and Hero were conceived as generic systems for running what ever you wanted to, but in Traveller's case, the player base became dependent upon published material, either modules, or magazine articles. Like Paizo, some of those magazine articles became collected into books.  Today you can see the fruits of that productivity in https://travellermap.com/, where the planets from  all the published Traveller material can be accessed on a single large, scalable, continuous map of all the Traveller sectors and subsectors.
 
Hero had a magazine for a while, but it went defunct with one of the sales, and did not continue.  Very little of that material was collected into separate books and adventures, but I also9 think Hero was a bit too early in the cycle to change the assumption that it was a system for home brew.  However there are a lot of questions on the Hero Discord about the original Champions Superhero group, and Millenium City, that there is interest in the published materials.  What was once true, that Adventures do not sell, is no longer the case, and that I would suggest something like the Paizo model be taken up, but in PDF form.  Adventures published in chucks, and then gathered at the end of a scheduled time period into a whole.  People don't have3 the time to Homebrew any more, and those that do, could help out by writing it down and publishing a PDF through Hero.  Somethi9ng like Champions Begins is a great start, but there should be a money making product for the company that helps the Novices along, after CB.  These are just my suggestions, but I would like to hear other ideas.
 

Okay, so let's look at some rough history.
 
Paizo began, publishing Adventures for D&D 3.5.  But decided to go off on their own, and use the D20 license to publish their own system, we now know as Pathfinder. The product was a very Publishing adventures was supposed to be a losing proposition, but they made enough money to put out a magazine.  These magazines would put out Adventures that were linked to the Next issue of the magazine, and after a year, they would publish the adventures in a hardbacked book for $50, and start the next year's adventures in the magazine.   This has resulted in a very lush game world (Golarion) for Pathfinder, and a lot of material.  I do not know how well Second Edition is working out for them, but I would assume that since the stats in both editions are similar, if not the same, then the current published material should work. 
 
Now it has become evident, that the quality of computers has increased in capability since the early 2000s, pushing more work and productivity onto the rank and file worker, and sucking up vast amounts of time at home with ever more capable games.  So Marc W. Miller's  lament, that people don't have time for imagination seems apt.  IF we remember, both Traveller, and Hero were conceived as generic systems for running what ever you wanted to, but in Traveller's case, the player base became dependent upon published material, either modules, or magazine articles. Like Paizo, some of those magazine articles became collected into books.  Today you can see the fruits of that productivity in https://travellermap.com/, where the planets from  all the published Traveller material can be accessed on a single large, scalable, continuous map of all the Traveller sectors and subsectors.
 
Hero had a magazine for a while, but it went defunct with one of the sales, and did not continue.  Very little of that material was collected into separate books and adventures, but I also9 think Hero was a bit too early in the cycle to change the assumption that it was a system for home brew.  However there are a lot of questions on the Hero Discord about the original Champions Superhero group, and Millenium City, that there is interest in the published materials.  What was once true, that Adventures do not sell, is no longer the case, and that I would suggest something like the Paizo model be taken up, but in PDF form.  Adventures published in chucks, and then gathered at the end of a scheduled time period into a whole.  People don't have3 the time to Homebrew any more, and those that do, could help out by writing it down and publishing a PDF through Hero.  Somethi9ng like Champions Begins is a great start, but there should be a money making product for the company that helps the Novices along, after CB.  These are just my suggestions, but I would like to hear other ideas.
 

You will need dice larger than they can fit in their mouths. 
 

Canned tuna, fresh tuna, they are still both fish, and I want beef!

Answer the Call got 46 mill before there was a pandemic. Afterlife got 44 mill with a pandemic and the movie being delayed two years maybe. ATC opened in a summer slot with no competition. Afterlife opened in Nov right before Encanto and the Matrix Resurrections both of which are looking at taking the wind out of its sails. In a week, Afterlife has made almost as much money in five days as Answer the Call did in two weeks.
 
In my opinion, Paul Feige caused the failure of his movie. He should have said nothing. All he did was stir up people who might have given him a chance into saying we don't need your movie. And the movie sucked. (The boy said the actresses were trying to be too wacky which hurt the movie because they weren't funny). I have to agree with his assessment.
 
Critics liked Answer the Call but they don't like Afterlife. GB fans hated Answer the Call and liked Afterlife. That's all that matters.
CES   
 
     

Range Video.

I think at worst a base should be treated exactly as a power a PC purchases which isn't apparently very useful. (Example: Transform skin color to Caucasian, only works on humans who are already Caucasian.) 
 
1) It isn't the GM's job to make the base useful in any way. Instead it is the player's job to make it useful if it is going to be useful. If the player can't figure out a way to make it useful, he'll spend his points differently on the next character.
 
2) It also definitely isn't the GM's job to treat the base as if it were a disadvantage that the PC took on his character sheet but had to pay points for instead of getting additional points for.
 
Now if the PC took disadvantages on the base, fine, those disadvantages exist. But having a base doesn't cause disadvantages to spontaneously appear out of nowhere if the PC isn't doing anything to create a disadvantage or purchase a disadvantage. 
 
 

My Character grew tentacles, and the Speedster grew a third eye.
(Kidding)
 
Oh we emptied it out, redid the walls and conduit,  moved a relative into the house on the topside and added our own electronics.  One of the players was an IT professional (Silicon Valley in the 1990's, go fig), so we were never hacked. and rarely had intruders, but the base was basically for lab work, and communications with members of the group on patrol, so they could get back up quickly.  Different teams had differnt priorities for their bases.