Scott Ruggels

Eh.
 
Realistically. I could have written that in a 2e-style two or three paragraph blurb.  It just happens that I really, enjoy writing reactions. Hyperbole. And dialogue, so I indulged myself.
 
It dedinitelt wasnt work, and,it certsonly wasnt hard.  The idea popped up fully formed; I just have to decide how much od it is worth writing down:
 
Pete the lab aasitant was helping Professor Astounding-  the man who was granted incredible engineering prowess by exposure to the mysterious Zeta Rays of a meteor secured ar a  secret research facility.  Pete had been wearinf rhe headphone portion of the Professor's discaeded psychic amplifier while working away on the control circuuts  of the Professir' new Time Window device.  A burst of Zeta Rays passed through Peteand rhe Professor and through the open Time Window and into the ancient past, for a moment linking Pete via the irradiated psychic device to Arthur Pendragin, whose spiritual essence was pulled,into the future and into Pete's body while Pete was senr in the other direction, and is now the king of the medieval brittons.
 
Five sentences?
 
 
I get it: you dont like it.  You dont like the shared origin thing.  I get it: I dont like it either; I went on at great length as to why I dont like it.
 
When you are a kid, eating greens is hard.  Makinf your bed is hard.
 
When you are older, being wrong is hard; not falling in love with the first girl who is nice to you is hard.
 
You get older still, and not telling off the,boss is hard.  Selling your first car is hard.
 
A bit more age, and gerrinf in dights is hard.  Lying is hard.  Eating greens is way easier; not mistaking decency for love is easy; parting with a clunker is easy-
 
They were always easy.  What made them hard is that you really didnt want to do it from the get-go.
 
And that's fine when we are talking an origin event ir shared origins.  It's your game; dont use thibgs you dont like.  Everyone here knows you write, and everyone here is one-hundred percent confident that, if you wanted to, you could tie any origin or powerset to a unifying event or a shared origin and make it work.
 
We have all seen that there are parts of the game  that confuse some people: New players in particular.  Don't make it scarier or more challenging for them by using "it is hard" when the only hold up is "I don't want to." 
 
I don't want to, either: I am with LL and his "gonzo" power sources.  (Though I admit: the one abive about 'an event" that created all the supers at once and the single dimensional traveller...   That would have rocked if it came to pass that the traveller breaching the barrier is what caused the event.  Deciding he was just delusional seems like kind of a cop out to ensure the setting is more importsnt than drama).
 
Either way you do it, have fun.
 
 
 
 

I really don’t know, but a campaign from release to 2003 was off those first edition rules. I missed most of the advancement in FH. 

As A complete aside, and totally for  Duke, here's a Transform from 1st Edition Fantasy Hero (The one with the triple Jointed Wizard in the illustrations)
 


 
 
Enjoy!

Mars probe discovers possibly frozen water 1 -3 meters below Martian Grand Canyon
https://blog.physics-astronomy.com/2022/11/scientists-discover-giant-reservoir-of.html
 

As A complete aside, and totally for  Duke, here's a Transform from 1st Edition Fantasy Hero (The one with the triple Jointed Wizard in the illustrations)
 


 
 
Enjoy!

This leads to some interesting Disadvantges as well:  intellectual Limitation: Terrible Scientist.  -6 to all science rolls.
 

 
Not real sure why I like that, actually.
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

4e?  

To be fair, this was an act of self defense after WOTC, suddenly infected with corporate greed vampirism, stabbed Paizo in the back. 
 
 
 
2011-2014, during the D&D 4e debacle.
 
Looking at this chart it's kind of interesting how World of Darkness just fell off a cliff.

VtM, and the World of Darkness in general, appealed to a milieu of edgy Emo/Goth types.

When that milieu faded, so did it.

Riding fads is lucrative, but risky.

I have to say, thst zI admire the novels Duke has been writing with his phone these past few day.  Breathtaking…

I have to say, thst zI admire the novels Duke has been writing with his phone these past few day.  Breathtaking…

A true Herophile game-stats everything.

1.). You will have to write an extensive campaign document. 
 
2.) In this document, you need to provide examples of the comics or fiction you are basing your new “comics Universe” on. 
 
3.)To back this up, you need to set down a historical timeline ( usually starting from the 1930s), and provide notable heroic and villainous examples   This set the flavor, the tone, and player expectations within the campaign. This also sets the “tech level” of the campaign if it is slightly behind (the 1980s) or slightly ahead (Milenium City). 
 
4.) Once defined, then you have to set down the red line laws of character creation. Point totals, as well as “thou shalt nots” need to be clearly defined. So no character with supernatural origins is permitted.  No character can be from beyond Earth’s atmosphere (yet).  Or no character can be a furry.  You have to be clear on what your universe allows and doesn’t. 
 
5.) You may have to build a couple of example heroes (as well as your stable of villains) as examples for the players. You will have to be a hard ass about it and some of your players may walk. But if most buy in on it, then you should have a solid game. 
 
My fantasy hero campaign that I ran started with a document. One that was added on to over time ( and added to my contributions to the gaming ‘zines in the days before the internet. )
 
As to common technologies, say that in the 1960s, a genius at the head of a construction equipment company built the first tank with legs. DARPA, and then DOD funding gave birth to a Pre-Cambrian level of mechanical diversity on the theoretical battlefield, spurring The Soviets to respond in kind. The legged vehicles did not resemble Japanese mechs at all but instead looked more like armored insects or animal forms. The original genius, seeing projections of the Nuclear Battlefield decided to miniaturize some of his technology to make powered armor suits. The brush wars of the late 60s and early 70s might look different, but the outcomes might be the same generally to keep player assumptions tidy and on the same page. Aircraft and Aerospace would respond to these building larger and more capable transport aircraft, up to Thunderbird 2 dimensions, if not full blended lifting bodies. The military research then folds back to construction and the civil sector. Surplus tanks, by US law would have the weapons removed, but cheap chassis, often sold for scrap would be available. The “micro fusion “ power plants from the latest vehicles my find its way into other uses. Large aircraft would be available as large mobile bases.  Construction equipment would be the sources for spare parts, and chassis for a player’s new idea. It may be less comic book and more 90s toy show on flavor, but that is just this example. 
 
Just set your limiting points, and let’s your ( and your player’s) creativity spin like a spiderweb through the implications. 
 
 

I have to say, thst zI admire the novels Duke has been writing with his phone these past few day.  Breathtaking…

I have to say, thst zI admire the novels Duke has been writing with his phone these past few day.  Breathtaking…

The problems going on with WOTC right now are due to decisions made by their upper management, which _is_ a who’s who of soulless corporate shills hired from Microsoft and other such companies, where the bottom line and stock valuations are the be all and end all of their existence. One of them admitted she doesn’t even play D&D and seems to view it like a video game franchise. In contrast, the creative types working for the company were hired from third-party creators and are aghast at what is going on now, and they are the sources of leaks being revealed to the public.
 
One important thing to remember about the OGL is that it was a brilliant bit of viral marketing. You mentioned that the OGL stagnated gaming. This is true. Why come up with a new system when you could use d20 mechanics? So their share of the TTRPG industry went from around 50% in 2000 to around 85% today, and helped earn WOTC a BILLION DOLLARS in revenues per their public reports. They earned Hasbro MORE revenues and net earnings then their toy lines did.
 
The consideration WOTC earned from enacting the OGL was gaining them an army of third-party publishers and the legions of rabid fans of those companies acting as their advertisers and proselytizers for the d20 system and helping people play the game using those mechanics. These creators took a chance and invested their own money to publish their works, print and online, each of which contributed to ever growing numbers of D&D core books sold. Sales of the core books were driven through the roof by this. Rather than paying for the uncertainty of advertising, they instead gave third-party publishers some crumbs of the pie without spending a dime of their own money.
 
Now that its grown so large thanks to those independent efforts, they want the whole pie, and they have an army of lawyers ready to do their bidding in court to see that they get it.
 
Will they win? Maybe. But it seems like it will be a Pyrrhic victory that fractures the gaming community into a myriad of competing d20-like systems, and other mechanics selling what books they can in the margins.
 
The d20 OGL changed expectations of how a company publishing game mechanics can operate these past two decades. Those that don’t follow this model are in danger of being marginalized and left on the ash heap of gaming history. Gaming culture works on a principle of proselytizing by fans, and that is a big part of what enabled D&D to be where it is now, the most well-known TTRPG in the world.
 
I do what I can to support Hero, buying books and using the mechanics in the games I run, as I’m sure other fans of the system do, but it seems to be a losing battle in the face of what the d20 OGL culture has wrought.

@Duke Bushido, I believe the movie is called Monster Squad.
 
Professor Dungeon Master has an interesting take on the OGL mess. Hasboro is doing this so that the new OGL is a poison pill. Hasboro wants to be the sole creator of D&D and this maximize its ownership and money from it. 

Maximize your profit by making a better product, not by trying to implement a unilateral and questionably legal change to the rules.
 
 

Also, you have to remember that WOTC/Hasbro is trying to revoke an established OGL that was originally written by people who were employed by WOTC at the time of its drafting.
 
And it's not as if they haven't benefitted from the current OGL. It's just that they see an income stream that is not as profitable as a typical corporate project and want to increase that profit without realizing that it is an atypical business model and customer base. Accountants can only give you purely financial advice, they needed marketing people in touch with the market and a legal team that wouldn't default to "steamroll the little guys if they won't cooperate" to have navigated these PR rapids.

And thus we see the Tyranny of the "Rule of Cool".

So, the short long pig?

Roll20, Deadlands and Numenera RPG makers join Pathfinder studio’s open game licence as D&D OGL rival gathers momentum

2d6 is the most damage I would see from a racquetball. Maybe less if it's being thrown instead of being struck with a racket. There's no way it would do any more damage than a punch.