Eberronknight

If you're truly putting the sole savior on D&D with Paizo/Pathfinder, keep in mind it was more than rules and concepts. The art and design of the products really elevated the style and look of their books, making them some of the best looking games on the market. I don't know if they're the sole savior in this case, but they did stand out. Something to think about for Hall of Heroes. 

I blame 4e for that.

For everyone pointing out that D&D has the fattest slice of the money pie, let's remember that when the big slump was going on, D&D suffered, too.
 
And D&D was not saved by D&D (because I don't know who all owned it between TSR and Wizards); it was saved by Piazzo with their Pathfinder products.  I don't know how much money they lost at first, pumping out actual physical product and putting in >gasp< regular book stores as well as hobby shops, etc-- but I recall a fairly long period when if you saw folks playing D&D, they were playing Pathfinder.
 
What has happened with this Hall of Heroes thing is that everyone on earth has the chance to do the same thing for HERO:  make something interesting, and figure out how to get it seen.
 
Honestly, if we could get a whole bunch of housewives to condemn it on national television, we'd have it made.
 
 

I popped out to a nearby village games club last night to say hello and see what was going on. There were three tables of D&D players in the local bowls club (a small venue).
They guys have a 3 hour timeslot - 18:30 - 21:30 so get straight into it. I arrived at 18:45. By this time two new players had rolled up their characters and were, more or less, good to go.
 
Hero needs this. Somehow.
 
I'll be interested to see contributions to Hall of Champions, just to see what everybody considers normal or reasonable builds/levels of power. I've always thought that the NPCs in supplements were way too overpowered (*) - certainly for my style of play,  so if I want to use them, I have to tone them down. Which equals more work, less play.
 
 
(*) exception being Mike Surbrook's stuff.

Hmmm...
So much wrong with this. 
Basically, if you don't have a lot of free time or don't already have experience in TTRPG then get out of my sandbox.
Yes, experienced GM's can pick up Hero and literally build anything because they have a frame of reference. 
But a game company in 2019 doesn't survive on the tiny margin of "experienced in TTRPG GM's". 
A successful TTRPG company makes new players into experienced GM's by paving the way.
This philosophy is exactly why Hero has plummeted from the #1 Supers RPG and one of the most well known universal RPG's to virtual extinction.   
But to be truthful, I a not really up to forum wars and such so I'll just bow out here.  Once the Hall of Champions opens for business I will see if I can turn my concept into reality.  Once that happens we'll find out if I am either a genius or just another idiot tripping over their own feet. 

I've found myself in the rather odd position of becoming "lore master" to the Champions Online player community.   Although I almost never play the MMO any more, in visiting the several forums devoted to it I've gotten in the habit of answering players' questions about the setting's background and history, both the Champions part and the larger past and future of the official Hero Universe (because that happens to be a hobby of mine). It's gotten to the point where players actually seek me out for info. In the course of answering I always specify which books I draw on for information and which contain more on the inquired-after subject. I've read responses indicating that's turned into a moderate number of book sales, and in at least a few cases trying out the tabletop game. I don't have any hard numbers, though.

Trying to do my part introducing new players to HERO.  Running on Roll20:  Cthulhu HERO (Pulp), Hyborian HERO (Fantasy), Traveller HERO (Star Hero), Cyber HERO (Kazei 5), and Post-Apocalypse HERO (Using Danger International). Only 3 marathon sessions per year, but 3>0!

Given that reality, I give Jason props for looking for inexpensive but innovative ways to build momentum for the Hero brand: Hall of Champions, Champions Now, Character Creation Cards, PDFing older materials... he definitely hasn't been sitting on his hands.

the easiest way to do this is to create modern day pulp characters or danger international characters, I feel. Asking someone to build a full on super-hero may be a bit too much.
 
In a way, this is similar to DCC which tends to start off people with 0-level characters, making character creation even easier than the classic roll 3d6 x 6 times approach and choose a class.
 
Another approach: a campaign with a random power roll-up for low powered characters, then slowly award points to build up their characters. 

It is, very much easier
 
But we are not talking about the same aspect of the game.
 
Everytime the "easy" question comes up discussion swerves into chargen or disagreements about being "easy" in play.
 
But that is not where the major damage comes from.  The primary failure is game/world/adventure generation.
 
Popular RPG (D&D, CoC, etc):
1 Players buy new game.
2 Players decide who will GM and when to start.
3 SHORT intro chapter give everyone enough information to understand the game premise.
4 Players build PCs using prebuilt abilities, equipment, spells and such balanced for the game.
5 GM selects one of dozens of prebuilt adventures or quickly assembles one using prebuilt creature/threats.
6 Game begins, this routinely happens within the same week.
 
HERO
 
1 Players buy game
2 Players decide who will GM
3 GM designs/stats practically everything from how magic works to creatures (weeks of work)
4 GM explains how all the stuff he designed works.
5 Players then design PCs based on 3&4
6 GM then adjusts adventures to account for PCs custom builds.
7 Game begins weeks to months later
 
The problem is that brand new HERO purchasers rarely get past HERO step 3.
By the time the GM gets enough material designed to actually play they usually discover the rest of the players are 6 weeks into the D&D game they started while waiting.
 
HERO  is a very easy game to run, and runs no slower than any other including D&D.  If a HERO game runs slow it is usually caused by player indecision.
 
The upcoming Content program should help new players be able to overcome this by allowing access to prebuilt adventures and content that can actually be played at the table. But it won't solve everything.
Once material is available, we will need to start running these prepackaged adventures in the public.  As in at your FLGS and Cons.
 
There needs to be interest generated that will motivate stores to look for the books and stock them.  Enough demand that will either draw the books into general distribution or prompt the FLGS to open another account for a single product.
 
Something to move HERO out of the boutique mode and back into popular gaming.