Scott Ruggels

Forced to make a choice, I would give up pancakes. 
 
And replace them with waffles. 

I wouldn't mind seeing someone do a John Sable Freelance or Grimjack series.
 

I think a book like that is really in the wrong direction. Obviously some people like what the official Champions Universe is doing which is fine. I think vehicles 6th has a bigger draw (and use) than NOTW.

My comment was that format, not necessarily updating the adventures themselves. And with Hero's current state I doubt we'll see what a lot of 4th offered us in the format it did.  To me.anything needs to be self contained, not saying "well you brought this, now go on a treasure hunt for a book we haven't published in 20+ years".

I believe that the followup to Champions Begins should be a bone stock basic Champions adventure campaign.  Simple base, simple NPCs, simple adventure arc with lots of ideas and options to customize.  Like "Dr Destroyer has an island somewhere, he's building up power to attack the world and the PCs slowly uncover the plot as they do other adventures along the way"  6-10 adventures with a bunch of adventure prompts for things like "love interest in peril" and "secret identity might be discovered".  You know, the Superhero classics.
 
Again, like Western Hero, if you're introducing people to the genre and the game, you don't need to remake the mold, just give people a chance to play the comic books and movies themselves.  You can get wild and creative after that.

Personally, I am thinking that the Chimera project is not a wise expenditure of funds, when what Champions, or any of the sub rules need is something "big", that has almost a campaign sized adventure, a spray of adventure seeds, and a stack of written up villains, and monsters, for the adventure. Duke Bushido had something like this with an adventure  in one of the threads here.  What needs to be done is to produce more adventures with villains, and equipment.  We can't assume that all the GMs are Home Brewers like they have in the past. Because it's in the past, it's not in the way GMs do things now.

Personally, I am thinking that the Chimera project is not a wise expenditure of funds, when what Champions, or any of the sub rules need is something "big", that has almost a campaign sized adventure, a spray of adventure seeds, and a stack of written up villains, and monsters, for the adventure. Duke Bushido had something like this with an adventure  in one of the threads here.  What needs to be done is to produce more adventures with villains, and equipment.  We can't assume that all the GMs are Home Brewers like they have in the past. Because it's in the past, it's not in the way GMs do things now.

Personally, I am thinking that the Chimera project is not a wise expenditure of funds, when what Champions, or any of the sub rules need is something "big", that has almost a campaign sized adventure, a spray of adventure seeds, and a stack of written up villains, and monsters, for the adventure. Duke Bushido had something like this with an adventure  in one of the threads here.  What needs to be done is to produce more adventures with villains, and equipment.  We can't assume that all the GMs are Home Brewers like they have in the past. Because it's in the past, it's not in the way GMs do things now.

Personally, I am thinking that the Chimera project is not a wise expenditure of funds, when what Champions, or any of the sub rules need is something "big", that has almost a campaign sized adventure, a spray of adventure seeds, and a stack of written up villains, and monsters, for the adventure. Duke Bushido had something like this with an adventure  in one of the threads here.  What needs to be done is to produce more adventures with villains, and equipment.  We can't assume that all the GMs are Home Brewers like they have in the past. Because it's in the past, it's not in the way GMs do things now.

Personally, I am thinking that the Chimera project is not a wise expenditure of funds, when what Champions, or any of the sub rules need is something "big", that has almost a campaign sized adventure, a spray of adventure seeds, and a stack of written up villains, and monsters, for the adventure. Duke Bushido had something like this with an adventure  in one of the threads here.  What needs to be done is to produce more adventures with villains, and equipment.  We can't assume that all the GMs are Home Brewers like they have in the past. Because it's in the past, it's not in the way GMs do things now.

Oddly, in my FH games, there followed a progression of competent, danger worthy professionals, into minor nobility with a lot of useful contacts. Rarely would I permit less than competent characters, as there were a lot of dangerous consequences out there in the world. Magic could be powerful, but trade offs limited its uses, so one never saw Isekai sorts of progression in power. We never got to Fantasy Champions, even more so, the recent no magic game, progression was by recruiting friends and Allie’s into you character’s conflict. I suppose it kind of parallels the Danger International character progression in that the characters become more skilled and teamwork becomes smoother over time, but it’s the favors and contacts that make their jobs easier over time. It’s a pretty anti- D&D way of running fantasy. 

Oddly, in my FH games, there followed a progression of competent, danger worthy professionals, into minor nobility with a lot of useful contacts. Rarely would I permit less than competent characters, as there were a lot of dangerous consequences out there in the world. Magic could be powerful, but trade offs limited its uses, so one never saw Isekai sorts of progression in power. We never got to Fantasy Champions, even more so, the recent no magic game, progression was by recruiting friends and Allie’s into you character’s conflict. I suppose it kind of parallels the Danger International character progression in that the characters become more skilled and teamwork becomes smoother over time, but it’s the favors and contacts that make their jobs easier over time. It’s a pretty anti- D&D way of running fantasy. 

Nice to see IHA finally getting some love. Just a note for Tomas Stadley: try to minimize true mutants as willing IHA agents or rulership. There are various ways to have supervillains who agree with their outlook. Cyborgs, tech wielders, martial artist, power suits, the infamous Minutemen robots...no need for mutants.

Oddly, in my FH games, there followed a progression of competent, danger worthy professionals, into minor nobility with a lot of useful contacts. Rarely would I permit less than competent characters, as there were a lot of dangerous consequences out there in the world. Magic could be powerful, but trade offs limited its uses, so one never saw Isekai sorts of progression in power. We never got to Fantasy Champions, even more so, the recent no magic game, progression was by recruiting friends and Allie’s into you character’s conflict. I suppose it kind of parallels the Danger International character progression in that the characters become more skilled and teamwork becomes smoother over time, but it’s the favors and contacts that make their jobs easier over time. It’s a pretty anti- D&D way of running fantasy. 

Regarding top-down tokens and transparent borders:
 
I cannot remember who it was, but many years ago, on this forum, some absolute genius mentioned having made minis / tokens using Shrinky Dinks.
 
I sobt know if they still exist (I really thought that was a seventies thing), what sort of plastic it was, or what sort of inks paint them, but it might be worth checking out.
 
 

All of my games are like this.
 
All of them.  I have never run a "short" campaign.  My players all _like_ starting at the bottom and growing the character-- even when we are doing supers.  They like starting out as 1965 Spiderman and ending up as Not-Evil Thanos.  And since they like that, that's what we play.  Fantasy games run the same way.  Our Sci-Fi games usually end up with players laying the foundations of empires by the time we wrap up, and cyberpunk games usually end with the PCs toppling some of the mightiest corporations on the planet, staring from their humble characters stealing from street vendors just to stop their stomachs from rumbling.
 
I don't want to be seen as kidding here, but for most of our gaming lives, we kinda thought that this was the _point_ of a campaign:  the creation and growth of the characters.  because of this, that's how we did it.  We like it.
 
And now that I am thinking about it, that's probably one of the reasons I detest urban fantasy fiction overall: the characters are _not allowed_ to grow to any level that would draw the world's attention to the existence of this hidden magical world living amongst them. 
 
 

This is something I have never understood.  They are fantasy RPG's so everything has to be whimpy. 
 
One of the reasons I stopped playing a lot D&D, C&C, etc. was the built in nerf factor that IMO plagues the fantasy roleplaying TTRPG. 
I have read many books as well manga and watched anime where the fantasy hero was actually bad a$$ed.  Being hurled through stone walls, betting cratered into the ground complete with newly made hole.  
 
Fantasy player:  errrr wizards can't use warrior weapons!  
Fantasy reader: Gandalf??
 
Sure, if you want to recreate everything that the traditional FRPG's did wrong, you are there.
But if you want to actually use a system like hero to build a great fantasy game with HEROES!  Than why the devotion to nerf?
 
There are some great anime with epic characters wielding combinations of weapons and magic.  From augmenting their personal abilities to casters invoking massive spells.  
There are a lot Isekai shows that center around players in games and they show how different types of casters and warriors can work together in a "party".
 
I just don't get the whole need to intentionally destroy a game just to reflect earlier disappointments. 

Just like Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man: No Way Home is fan service raised to the level of art. The character interactions and story arcs, the callbacks and Easter eggs, are used so smartly to enhance the overall story, rather than just for nostalgia appeal. The payoff is joyous for the people who know and love and have followed the various iterations of Spider-Man in comics and movies over the decades, but the film is still a fine story for people without that depth of familiarity. It stands on its own as a quality movie.

So this would be a situation of a Nobel laureate researcher with a 27 INT score, but with just a normal human perception, (PER 10), versus the nervous Belgian Malinoise at his feet with an INT of 5-6, but a PER of 25, and can tell the difference between the neighbor kids stealing apples from his back yard, from the armed adults trying to get into the house to steal the research notes. I could see the separation of the two. 
 
As for the separation of DEX and REA, I do not.  Hero already does this if you want to be faster than your indicated DEX, with “ Lighting Reflexes”, often called “Quikfraw”, from its origins in Western Hero. Having less reaction time than your indicated DEX just means to drop your speed.  The old village watch maker may have a DEX of 20, but a SPD of 1, so people get frustrated walking beside him.  Hope this helps.  

Scion of Anubis (Dr. Fate), Unkillable Man (Solomon Grundy) ,The Metallic Wonders (Metal Men), Time traveling Celebrity (Booster Gold), just off the top of my head, though Dr. Fate might be too many points. 

Scion of Anubis (Dr. Fate), Unkillable Man (Solomon Grundy) ,The Metallic Wonders (Metal Men), Time traveling Celebrity (Booster Gold), just off the top of my head, though Dr. Fate might be too many points. 

Sure, but -- no offense intended -- that's still a pretty basic approach. Let me give you an example of the "Earth College," from the Fourth Edition Fantasy Hero genre book.
 
    Earth, though the most solidly physical of the four elements (earth, fire, air, and water), is perhaps the least glamorous of the Elemental Colleges.
   Stoicism is emphasized. Spell casting gestures are choppy or simple static poses. The concentration required makes the wizard an easier target in combat. On the other hand, Earth magic offers the resistance of earth and rock to the caster, making available some of the best defenses found in any college.
   Spells are primarily physical, manipulating the element earth that exists in all solids. However, the caster must have a solid connection with the Mother Earth to work his magic. Spells will work on the top floor of a building or in a moving wagon, but not on a ship, not while flying, not while riding a living creature, etc...
 
Relevant to your specific example, there's this variation on an Entangle spell, "Mud Trap."
 
  The caster summons mud from the ground to stream over his opponent and harden into sticky tendrils. The mud does not completely cover the target, allowing the target to be struck without breaking the hardened mud.
 
An even better illustration of specifics is the use of Telekinesis to model an "Earthquake" spell.
 
    This spell creates an earthquake with a 2" radius around the target hex. Once cast the spell may be maintained by paying END, without further Skill or targeting rolls.
   People in the area of the earthquake must resist a STR 15 by bracing or grabbing hold of something, or be thrown to the ground. Inanimate objects will be knocked over. If the floor is rigid (like stone) it will crack, causing bad footing even after the quake. Unless people in the target area can resist the quake with their casual STR, they will have a -3 penalty to every roll they make requiring coordination or concentration.
   Note that the caster is not personally immune.
 
Of course earth-related magic is a pretty straightforward example. When you get into more esoteric magic colleges, like Time or Emotions, the constructs become more innovative. One of my personal favorites is a Dispel Magic variant from the College of Demonology: The caster summons a small anti-magic demon, which he then hurls at the target. When the demon hits it explodes in a small, stinking green cloud which dispels magic. If the caster fails his roll the demon goes off in his hand, dispelling magic on himself.
 

I've always been struck by the difference in the write-ups for published spells in Hero Games fantasy books for Fourth Edition versus Fifth/Sixth Edition. I know many folks dislike how in the former the spells are grouped into "spell colleges," but each college feels unique and colorful to me. All the spells in a college are linked with SFX, but although the mechanics of certain spells are nearly identical college to college, the way they're described feels so different. Each college discusses the philosophy behind it, details how a magician moves and speaks while casting spells, the fine details of the material components, what each spell looks and sounds and feels like, why the side effects of a miscast spell are the way they are, how small changes in circumstances would interact with the SFX, and so on. The spells have a flavor, almost a personality, all their own.
 
The 5E+ spells (grouped in "arcana," essentially another label for "college") are so much drier. They concentrate on game mechanics, and to their credit offer more variations of spells for greater power, speed, ease of use, etc.; but the SFX, although present, are laid on pretty thinly, and philosophy is almost nonexistent. The situational nature of the SFX are also mostly left to the imagination of the GM/player.
 
IMHO the 4E spells are a fine example of how to make Hero mechanics fully unique from one example to another. I always try to add more of that flavor to every spell, weapon, superpower that I write.

Really?
 
Because GRRM seems to be making a fortune on apparently random character deaths.  All the cool kids are doing it.
 

 

Got word: Champions Begins is greenlit for a 1st quarter 2022 release!  I'll get more info to you as I learn more.