Scott Ruggels

India lands on the moon successfully!
https://www.space.com/india-chandrayaan-3-moon-landing-success

India lands on the moon successfully!
https://www.space.com/india-chandrayaan-3-moon-landing-success

India lands on the moon successfully!
https://www.space.com/india-chandrayaan-3-moon-landing-success

Traveller had a  slightly more detailed  tech level system, with several categories. (This also shows why people used to run Westerns using Traveller rules). their speculation on the future might be a little off, as the first iteration of this was in 1977, but it has been massaged a little in subsequent editions. This is the framework most of the older gamers remember, and what Star Hero borrowed from.
 
https://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Tech_Level_Comparison_Chart

It's these sorts of discussions that chase me back to want to use 2nd or 3rd edition rules. Much less to read.

Try this:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/24002078/
 
 
In general, a "Heroic" level game will be "samey" by definition. The non-spell casting heroes will have about the same strength and dex,  and the castes will be around the same Int and dex, and speeds will be 3.  Hero ha always lacked granularity around the low end. Differentiation, then tends to be skills, knowledges and Disads.  For monsters, and High Fantasy heroes, it's the powers that lend the differentiation. in "Hig Fantasy" the differentiation is through powers bestowed upon the heroes and the monsters. Giving the Erquigdlit tracking scent, a bite, and low light gight
 

It's these sorts of discussions that chase me back to want to use 2nd or 3rd edition rules. Much less to read.

It's these sorts of discussions that chase me back to want to use 2nd or 3rd edition rules. Much less to read.

Breaking down everything into abstractions is a good idea... in the abstract. 
 
But we're people, who don't think about these kinds of things in the abstract.  We're playing a game in which our "playing pieces" are intended to represent people. 
 
We're not playing a physics engine or a biology simulator.  I'm fond of saying "good enough is good enough", and I think that what we've got in 6e is good enough.  The mix of stats and the breakdowns and all. 
 
If we keep breaking everything into pieces parts, you could have a character who can lift 12.5 tons but can't damage a normal person by punching them, but I can't imagine a person (which is, again, what our playing pieces are supposed to be) who can do that. 
 
It's nice to keep some concrete representation.

I'll sum up my feelings and bow out also.
 
There is merit in Doc and Hugh's ideas. More system balance is a good thing.
 
But I feel they are diving too deep into the mechanics and losing the passion. They're writing for The Advanced GM Guide while I'm working on the Player Handbook.

This isn't about gameplay so much as it is about marketing.
 
HERO is a Supers game at heart and has always been linked most strongly to Champions in the gaming world. So, when we look at first impressions, newbies will want their PC to "Be as strong as the Hulk", or "As nimble as Spider-Man", or "An engineer as good as Tony Stark". And what will your system show them? Not a tangible value but a bonus to a roll. It takes 6th edition and makes it dryer and wordier and you'll still have to use Characteristics to describe the roll type. All you're really doing is eliminating high base skills because you'll have to buy the bonuses for each or at a higher rate for a group so no Figured Skills.
 
Your system does make system costs more balanced, but it lacks emotion in character creation. The RPG industry has been going for 40+ years and I've never seen a product with no Characteristics. And all of those games use those Characteristics to (Wait for it...) give modifiers to rolls. They just make it easier to visualize a character concept and certainly to individualize one. 
 
HERO's problem isn't in how fun the gameplay is, it's how complicated character creation is perceived to be.  As a halfway measure you could just change the costs of Skills. Make them cost 2 points for a base 11 or less and 4 points for a base of 9+Char/5. You can only add All Combat/Noncombat and Overall levels to the 2 point Skills but can buy up the 4 point Skills at +1 per 2 points.

Almost bought one of those in the 80s, but looking at the demolition ranch folks they found problems that were not spoken of back then like the less than sterling accuracy, and the number of dud rounds. Still it was quite cool to see that they are indeed lethal.  

I did a bit of stuff with the Golden Age about 15-20 years ago.
 
Golden Age superheroes were very cookie cutter. After noticing this, I created a template that included the common features of most Golden Age heroes, allowing me to really churn out the write-ups.

If I get around to it, I will post it here. It's on my old computer, so I can't just grab it. In any case, it was based on 250 point 5e characters, and would take a bit of modification for 6e and another point total.

Briefly though, I went with 20 Str, 20 Dex, 20 Con and 5 Spd as the baseline. About 100 points of characteristics, 125 of powers and 25 points of skills. Modify from there. Fairly low powered, but everyone was more or less the same. Naturally, these were starting versions of the characters.

Almost bought one of those in the 80s, but looking at the demolition ranch folks they found problems that were not spoken of back then like the less than sterling accuracy, and the number of dud rounds. Still it was quite cool to see that they are indeed lethal.  

I’ll let people know about the sphere when Ibgo to Vegas late September. 

If I recall the newer editions correctly, one cannot add to one's focus STR damage beyond the point of doubling the damage dice.

That was pretty cool for an animation that I am pretty sure qas rendered with a Sega Genesis.   
 
 
as cool as it was, though, I suspect our long-standing history as land animals has a lot to do with underrepresentation.  Even a space habit, we think "well, at least it be quick" when we consider catastrophic failure.
 
swimming to exhaustion and drowning awake....   That's a lot harder to get behind, I am afraid....
 
 

From my notes in the current Sunday D&D Campaign
Once past the bridge we hid from another RoboT-Rex. That's the second we have seen. that plus the orcs with the fused weapon arms, and the glowing mouths, mean there is an Alhoun  turning the entire city of Esme into his private hunting preserve. (The comment was, "A supervillain in his building phase).
 

What I did, was require spellcasters to buy an END Reserve, renamed "Mana Pool." You can put whatever Limitations you like on the RECovery of that END Reserve; including only refilling once a day. I ALSO put the "Requires a Roll" on the END Reserve and NOT on the spells; this has the effect of still requiring a roll to cast the spell (because you can't cast the spell without spending END, and it has to come from that Reserve) but the roll is not so cripplingly penalized because it's hard to spend enough Active Points of END to invoke the penalty. (no penalty at up to 25 END.) When the spellcaster is out of Mana, they have to stop casting until they replenish it (however you define as a way to replenish - rest, prayer, study, doing good deeds, sacrificing small animals, whateve
 
Here's an idea if you want to up the stakes.  Proceed with the mana pool, and have a magic skill roll to tap the mana pool.  However if they blow the roll, the END cost comes off the caster's end not the Mana Pool.  Recovery is as normal, for both the caster, and the manna pool.  Zero manna in the mana pool, but it does allow the caster in dire circumstances to whip off a few spells before they fall down. (and get captured by the baddies for their nefarious purposes)

23 becoming Default DEX is also possibly the fault of the "Joy of DEX" - another Goodman's School of Cost Effectiveness pointers in Champions II.

I think that's an underappreciated argument.  The absolute SPD and CV matter much less than the relative SPD and CV.  SPD/CV inflation starts with the baseline.  When it's too high, it forces everything else up...and it's even worse, because there's less *relative* difference between 4 and 6, than there is between 2 and 4.  The highly agile, quick types tend to need a 7, not a 6.
 
Another point here might be making +1 to all DEX rolls cheaper...so you can define the Olympic-caliber gymnast with a 13 DEX for initiative purposes, but +1, possibly even +2, to all DEX skills.  Maybe that's not needed, but it'd help cases like that, or for the master thief as we've mentioned.  
 
Last point for now...figured characteristics probably played a major NEGATIVE role in this process.  Because it was so much cheaper and easier to buy the brick's DEX up, and let the CVs come along for the ride.  5E doesn't even have a mechanism to raise CV directly.  That creates a pretty strong assumption that you're expected to go with it.  That slow super's 3 CV isn't good enough...and looks even worse on paper.  Flip side...if you define OCV and DCV as characteristics in their own right, where the baseline value is tied to the DEX, as it is with SPD...well, suddenly the grossly disproportionate, broken cost of DEX becomes explicit and glaring.

I’m going to politely disagree. Yes, Pre-6th has the figured formulas however 6th has more characteristics to he aware of. Leap for example is now separate one and I’ve forgotten more than once to buy up. The Powers themselves have more options which is fine for a more finely tuned character however more options are still more options. Btw, I’m still  salty about TK needing permeable to affect liquids.

Figured is better, precisely because of the cookie cutter effect. It makes sure that the characters are within the guidelines, and not too far apart from each other.  The other problem I have, is that in fifth, and before the point system was economic, and in sixth, its more like taxes.  I prefer the looser accounting and bargain hunting from the earlier editions. In Fantasy Hero the Package deals made character creation a lot quicker, where one would just copy down a stack of package deals, and add a few items outside the deals for flavor. Character creation demands  software to create the charactersm now, It is nigh unto impossible if you have poor math skills like me.