Hotspur

Greyhawk exists in a humanistic universe.  The Old Ones, Deep One's and mildly twisted one's exist within that reference and are evil, because they are bringing human existence to an end.
 
That doesn't mean every universe is so deterministic but it does mean you cannot use "common sense" words like good and evil and expect everyone to be on the same page.

I am an extremist as far as such stuff goes.  I think getting rid of figured characteristics is like getting rid of hereditary peers, a good first step.
 
😁

But gamers are gamblers and they feel where their best chances often lie and that was the problem with the 5th edition killing attack.
 
So, yes, you have only a 20% chance, on any one roll, of matching the STUN.  When the average STUN damage through defences is 7 against an opponent who may have 50 STUN, you do not see that as a great risk.
 
With the killing attack, you have 56% chance of rolling 14+ BODY, which is gives you (in fifth edition) 19% chance of 21+ STUN through defences and a 10% chance of 35+ through defences.  There is more excitement in the killing attack, and 1 in 10 times you have a decent chance of stunning your opponent which allows everyone else to throw pushed attacks at that stunned opponent and take them out the fight.
 
In sixth edition those numbers reduce drastically and the gamblers do not see the same risk/reward ratio.

It's the volatility that made the Stun Lotto powerful.  Let's say we have a 35 DEF opponent in a 12 DC game On average, 12d6 rolls 42 and does 7 STUN past defenses. The rolls won't vary a lot from the average.  A 4d6 KA averages 14 BOD. It will get 0, 0, 0, 7, 21, 35 past defenses for an average of 20.5 past defenses.
 
Let's drop defenses to 25. On average, 12d6 rolls 42 and does 17 STUN past defenses.  A 4d6 KA averages 14 BOD. It will get 0, 0, 3, 17, 31, 45 past defenses for an average of 16 past defenses.  A more comparable result, but I bet that 45 means a 1 in 6 chance of stunning the target (maybe even 2 in 6 from 31).
 
The average before defenses is not as meaningful.
 
6e?  You have a 1 in 3 chance of matching STUN from the normal attack.  KA exists to do BOD.

Dude, as soon as you grab 3d6 and ask for DCV, we'll recognize it. 
 
 
 
 
 

I have a mechanism I came up with that I have never playtested to address the first part: reverse 'pulling a punch'.  Instead of taking a penalty to try to do less damage, you take a penalty when you try to do more damage.
 
So, you take a -1 OCV per 5d6 damage penalty and deal full damage.  If you do not, you take no penalty to OCV and deal half body damage.  SO the default is four color "I don't kill" superhero stuff.
 
But yes, I agree that player mentality is "I built a powerful character to be powerful and I don't want to feel like a wuss."  And it feels like a failure if you take your phase and do nothing.  GMs can really be bad about trying to "win" or at least challenge the party that they fail to carry out one important task for GMs: give them cannon fodder.
 
A lot of computer games and movies etc do this where they give the hero a huge challenge right away, barely able to defeat the enemy.  You have to give the heroes regular yard trash to mop up on to help them feel powerful.  Then the real challenge by contrast feels impressive.  Give them weak, easy to hit bad guys to just mow down and feel triumphant about.  Regularly help them remember how powerful they are compared to just regular folks.  Then you can give them the big guns, but always with at least some trash around to mop up on because that helps them remember their power.

One question that comes up routinely in Hero and other games is the frustration of some players with certain genre tropes, or alternatively the frustration of some GMs with players who will not play to genre.
 
The players are frustrated because their characters are expected to make sub-optimal decisions (when did you last see a Champions Super fire off an attack at less than full power because they aren't sure how well-defended that unknown villain is?), and the GM is frustrated because the game does not feel like the genre.  Peel back the layers and the problem is typically that the PCs are punished for following those tropes.  That first attack, at limited power, bounces off the villain's defenses, and the wasted action puts the heroes at a disadvantage that results in losing the combat.
 
This system will reward playing to the genre tropes, so the player feels like they are winning, rather than losing, when the PCs play to genre tropes.
 
Then we get to nit-picky details.  What can Hero Points be spent for?  This old thread set out many possibilities, most pretty significant (probably more significant than Scott would like to see). They have to be significant enough to merit taking those sub-optimal actions, though. 
 
If they can have a significant impact, it seems like having enough saved up to have a significant impact on Ego or PRE as you describe would mean the character could spend a lot in succession and waltz through an otherwise-impossible scenario. Assuming that's not the goal, maybe they need to be multiplied by some factor to get to their impact on those situations.  The passive use situations also need to be common enough to incent saving Hero Points for that purpose rather than spending them as fast as they are obtained.
 
I would vote against trading them for xp. I dislike the idea of trading off a permanent improvement to my character for a temporary in-game benefit. Balancing the benefits of Hero Points against the value of xp would also be challenging - would you rather have 5 HP or +5 PRE or STR?

I am always wary about point that skew results,especially in a Hero based game, but I think your idea avoids my objections, by stacking with stats as necessary, and having them earned through actions in game that are “Heroic”. So long as they don’t allow dice re-rolls or change outcomes after rolls, I would be fine with them. One could maybe use earned but unspent points as EXP, per session, maybe? 

The way that I read it is that from a central point the character can employ Stretching any number times if he's willing to pay the END for each Stretching instance because Stretching is a Constant Power—in the same way that a character can use Darkness on multiple areas at the same time if he's willing to pay the END for each new and different area of Darkness.
 
So while it may look like the character with 10 m of Stretching is Stretching 20 m when he's extended in two or more different directions, the character's really just using the same Stretching Power multiple times and paying the END (and taking appropriate Actions) for each new and different Stretching instance.
 
Duke Bushido could totally be right, though.

Sounds good. And speaking of one bit you brought up... I am so tired of "Chosen Ones." I prefer my heroes to be fighting the good fight because somebody has to, not because it's their Destiny.
 
I crystallized this view several years ago while watching the Shannara TV series that aired (only one season AFAIK) on MTV. Okay, not a fan of The Sword of Shannara and never felt any reason to read the sequels, but somebody was trying to do Fantasy on TV so I watched it. And I got really irritated by Alanon the druid telling the young hero that it's his Destiny to fight the demon horde and save the world, because he's descended from the last great hero and so is the only person who can activate the power of the Elfstones, yadda yadda yadda.
 
Especially when the material was there for a different approach. Untested Young Hero doesn't want to save the world; he wants to be a doctor, because his mother suffered so much in her final illness. I think the line should have been: "You're probably not the only descendant of Shannara. If I tried, I could probably find a dozen others. But you responded to suffering and grief by wanting to help others. That's special. Other people could use the magic pebbles. You're the one who should use them."
 
Dean Shomshak

If the world has a cultural history of comic book superheroes, if supers appear they're most likely going to adopt whatever paradigm the supers in the comics do.  
 
Costumes, masks, and code names go back hundreds of years if not more.  Masks and code names derive most directly from the pulp stories that predated comic books, and those derived from masked criminals and highwaymen.  The Scarlet Pimpernel, arguably the first masked and costumed hero, was published in 1904; Robin Hood and his compatriots go back hundreds of years or more.  
 
Colorful costumes derive most immediately from professional wrestling, which dates back to the early 20th century in something resembling its current form.  The idea of emblems or devices representing individuals or groups goes all the way back through the jousting knights era back to ancient Egypt.  (History of Heraldry)
 
People conceal their identities when they're afraid their actions, or even their existence, will cause trouble for themselves or their families, and the sudden appearance of supers would seem to be a good reason for those supers to conceal their identities.  Even if they don't actually do anything with their powers, it's likely someone else will either want them to or will want to capture them to experiment on them to find out where their abilities come from.  And there's zero chance that no super ever publicly demonstrates their abilities.  
 
That said, just because you have a world with supers in it, and just because they engage in comic book cosplay, doesn't mean their world is going to end up resembling anything out of the comics, and it doesn't have to mean the world is going to resemble any particular "age".  The Wild Cards series was mentioned; in that world, every petty criminal in New York, wild carder or not, adopts a code name and often a mask.  I don't see why that wouldn't happen in another universe where supers suddenly appear.  
 
Regarding weapons and policing: the history of development of weapons and armor has been a literal arms race.  One side develops a better weapon, the other side tries to develop an even better weapon or better armor.  Repeat.  What would probably happen in the event of supers is that whatever civilian agency is tasked with regulating them will bring as much offensive firepower as necessary.  It's very possible that someone, a person or group in some secret government agency somewhere, will be working on coming up with Batman-style contingencies for every known super.  Tasers, gases, nets, and bigger and bigger bullets as necessary.  Obvious weaknesses; water cannons against fire users, for instance.  If there are supers that can create repeatable high technology items, police and military will try to be first in line.  The overall tech level of the setting will increase as a result.  
 
If supers appear, even if it's only a few, even if it's only one time, the world will very quickly stop looking the same as it does now.  Never mind that the world doesn't look the same now as it did in 1922 or even 1982.  Even mundane technologies change the world; iron, firearms, the printing press, steam power, internal combustion, mass production, railroads, telegraph, telephone, air travel, and the Internet were each major paradigm shifts, and that's ignoring things like improved sanitation, health care, farming methods, and food preservation.  It doesn't take supers to make the world unrecognizable, but you can bet they will.

Note that "alien" can also be thought as "stranger". They don't actually have to be from outer space to be a stranger, only someone from a place isolated from the rest of the world, or merely a place which at that time was relatively unknown to our area (hench various aisan or asian trained heroes...ok more aisan trained guys who blink when someone mentions something which we consider common and say 'what is it?'.)

Yeah I think that DC should just start making movies about interesting stories and stop trying to be Marvel.  Do your own thing, don't require a huge story arc or connected stories, just make character-driven, well-written stories about your heroes.
 
I honestly don't care that much about continuity -- unless the story and the editors try to make it something, then it annoys me when they violate their own continuity.  Its not the consistency of storytelling that bothers me so much as the hypocrisy or inconsistency of the writers.  Either you care about continuity or you do not.  Just pick one and go with it.

Are there any missing classics?
 
The Invaders? I see Cap and Namor, as well as Union Jack and Spitfire.  Which category would the Human Torch fall into?  Alien being?
 
JSA was Hawkman, Flash, Hourman (not sure he's a FlagSuit), Dr. Fate, Green Lantern, Atom, Sandman, Spectre, w/ Superman and Batman honorary members.  They're all in there somehow.
 
We then got Wonder Woman (SuperSoldier flagsuit), Johnny Thunder (mystic artifact?), Dr. Mid-Nite, Starman (poor fit?), Black Canary
 
7 Soldiers of Victory? No real issues with any of Star-Spangled Kid, Vigilante, Crimson Avenger, Green Arrow or Shining Knight.
 
I think I see a few issues, mostly minor.
 
First, some characters were magical, not just bearers of magical artifacts (Zatara and Spectre; arguably Dr. Fate).
 
Second, some (Starman) had pseudoscientific artifacts.
 
Easy fix - we need a "Mystic" and modify the Bearer to "Occult/Mythological/Superscientific Artifact.
 
Second, not all classify neatly.  What makes Green Arrow more gadgeteer than Batman's utility belt and Sandman's Gas Gun?  Is Dr. Mid-Nite a Masked Adventurer or a Gadgeteer?  I'm not sure we actually had many "gadgeteers" in the sense of a character who would whip up new gizmos on the fly so much as that many Masked Adventurers carried gadgets (either a bunch of them, Batman & Green Arrow, or signature gadgets, Sandman, Dr. Mid-Nite).
 
So if you split "bearer of artifact" and "Mystic/Occultist" and eliminated Gadgeteer (merged into masked adventurer), you'd still have six.
 
 
 

Many years ago now... meaning before 6e happened, I did an analysis of Golden Age characters. This involved reading all the Golden Age comics I could lay my hands on.

The main conclusion I drew was that most Golden Age characters were incredibly cookie cutter, and that the key difference wasn't their skills or characteristics, but their powers.

So the differences between Batman, Sandman, Green Arrow and Green Lantern were those between the Utility Belt, the Gas Gun (and mask), a bow and fancy arrows, and an Awesome Magic Ring. Otherwise, they were pretty much interchangeable.

Better yet, in their first adventures, the differences between those weren't all that significant in point terms.

Ultimately, I built them all from one single template. I called it "Generico". I even had disadvantages based on this generic character.

It was surprising to me how well this worked. Yes, Superman and the Flash didn't look much like Generico once I had finished with them, but it was still a useful starting point.

The only major character I couldn't work out was the Spectre - but he was a notable outlier even back then.

You're always getting 3d6, so I would only put a limitation on the 4th die of effect: 3d6 Killing Attack, plus 1d6 KA, Only adds damage if roll is higher than lowest face of other dice, Damage added is only equal to difference between this die and lowest face.
 
Someone could probably work out the probabilities, but -2 or more seems reasonable.
 
 
Doug
Ah the joys of typing on a kindle (-_-)

Some armors and weapons are just standalone Powers. Other armors and weapons are better modeled as Elemental Controls or Multipowers. Many armors and weapons are combinations of both. For example, a character may have a rifle that can fire different rounds, and this is a good candidate for a Multipower because the rifle can only be fired in one mode at a time. Armor could provide a suite of abilities like Blast, Darkness, and Flight, and because these are Powers that the player wants to use simultaneously an Elemental Control (EC) is a good fit. However, if the rifle is just a Ranged Killing Attack or if the armor only provides resistant defense then there's generally no need for a Framework like a Multipower or an EC. And if the rifle has an artificial intelligence that warns the character of impending danger, then that's probably a separate Power, outside the rifle's Multipower. Likewise, the GM may rule that (for whatever reason) it's not thematic for the armor with the EC that has in Blast, Darkness, and Flight to also have in that EC the Power Mind Scan and mandate that if you want that Power it must be bought outside the EC.
 
The Limitation Linked is a special case mechanically that makes it so that the character can use the Linked Power only when he's using another Power. This Limitation shouldn't be at the forefront of this discussion; it's not particularly common.
 
 
Although a Power may not be in a Framework, a Power can still take the Focus Limitation, and that Focus can be shared with a Framework and other Powers. For example, a player may've bought his character's armor as an Obvious Inaccessible Focus (OIF) and applied that Limitation to the character's EC then bought separately—outside of the EC—the enhanced sense Spatial Awareness also with the OIF Limitation. Both the EC and the Spatial Awareness can come from the same OIF, the armor. Powers don't need to all be in the same Framework to share the same Focus.
 
 
Ask the GM before putting Powers that don't cost Endurance (END) in a Framework. (There are other restrictions, but Powers in a Framework must cost END is a pretty reasonable guideline.) Also confirm with the GM that EC: Armor is a reasonable special effect for an Elemental Control. (Traditionally, Elemental Controls are for special effects that are bloody obvious in their thematic connection, like EC: Fire Powers, EC: Light Powers, or EC: Psionic Powers. Your GM might totally be okay with EC: Armor, but I'd ask a player to be more specific, like EC: Magic Armor or even EC: Paladin's Gleaming Armor Of Holy Righteousness or something so we'd both have a better idea of what kind of theme we were using.)
 
By the way, you're not necessarily doing it wrong or anything, but 2 Character Points for an EC is a bit strange. Have you looked at sample characters with ECs?
 
 
The weapon probably is a Multipower and probably an Obvious Accessible Focus (OAF), with each Multipower slot representing a different clip of ammunition. (If you apply no Limitations to the time it takes you to switch slots, you can just say you're really fast at changing clips if that's your jam.) I'd recommend buying the scope separately, outside of the Multipower. Buy an enhanced sense (and maybe some Skill Levels if allowed) with the OAF Limitation and define that focus as the scope that's attached to the weapon. You'll probably want to put further Limitations on that scope to reduce its cost (and subsequent functionality) because normally enhanced senses work all the time. You're probably not imagining your character walking around with his rifle at eye level all the time so that—just in case!—he can see in the dark all the time, for instance.
 
 
There's nothing wrong with armored guy with a gun as a concept. The Punisher approves.

What about...leave killing damage is it is, where 1d6 is 15 points.  Do a fixed stun multiplier, or perhaps a VERY narrow one.  The bigger change is that the STUN is only reduced by resistant defenses, NOT by normal defenses.
 
When this game to mind, I started thinking the stun mult might be a flat 2.  Then 3d6 killing would be 10 BODY, 20 STUN average.  
 
If you want some variation, then roll a d6:  1-2, 1.5x STUN;  3-4, 2x STUN;  5-6, 2.5x STUN.  Or perhaps 1.5x STUN is 1 only, 2.5x STUN is 6 only, everything else is a 2.  
 
This is just off the top of my head right now.  Even with 2.5x STUN, the max STUN on a 9 DC attack is 45, but that's very unlikely.  Conversely, tho, a decent amount of STUN will get through much of the time.  It feels like it helps both damage negation and damage reduction, as long as they're resistant, because now the cost comparison is much more strongly tied to resistant defenses rather than normal defenses.

I'd personally do it with a Susceptibility (or Physical Complication). 
 
Putting a Limitation on the power gives me bad vibes, as it's really only limiting the last few points. If a 10d6 Blast is used at 9d6, there's no downside.  It's only the last 1d6 that's truly limited.
 
That having been said, if you know the player will be pushing the power regularly, then a limitation is fine; at that point the effect clearly is putting a downside on the use of the power as a whole.
 
 
Doug
9d6 Blast plus +1d6 Blast, Self Owie (-2)

This is going to be a long one. 
 
A Roleplaying Game to me, consists of three elements: Good players, good roleplay, and a good game. We will not discuss the element of good players, because that is highly subjective and completely based on local conditions.
 
Roleplay
 
So let’s talk about role-play then. Of the GM’s I have played with, very few were good at encouraging “immersive”, or “deep” roleplay. Very few of us are professional, or even good actors. Save Matt Mercer‘s group of Hollywood professionals, that have set crushingly high expectations for gaming groups since Critical Roll started, most of us muddle through by setting up a framework for a personality in our heads and that framework is as elastic or rigid as our imagination can create.  Allowances should be made in this department for the various levels of comfort, as well as skill of the participants, as was said before, we aren’t professionals. 
 
In the case of the immersive roleplay, much thought was given to constructing that personality and making that framework as solid in one’s mind as they could, using one’s observations of other people, movies, and literature, to be able to respond to the external outputs the game in an internally consistent fashion. This was far beyond the “funny voice” level, and would produce a sensation of sitting in the back seat of one’s skull, watching the game while the character took the wheel. It’s rare, but when it happens, it was deeply satisfying. I have heard that the writers of novels often experience this sort of thing, where the character takes over the writing.  Of the GM’s that I have played with, Carl Rigney was one of the few that actively encouraged this. There were a couple of others, but I have also run across GM’s who discouraged this, or have had players in the games that were deeply uncomfortable, so allowances had to be made. I however still would approach constructing character personality frameworks in the same way, but with less detail, and some distance in those situations. But I still consider roleplay to be very important. 
 
So this is why I take a dim view of “genre emulation”. Most of you that discuss Champions are enamored of the Silver Age of Comics. The silver edge got its flavor due to the restrictions of the comics code authority. The code of the hero was just an in world justification for the restrictions imposed by the Comics Code. In the previous Golden Age, the influence of the pulps were still omnipresent, with Justice dealt from the barrel of a .45. As goes The Shadow, so went Batman. The exception was Superman. His writers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, understood that having a powerful character like that killing his enemies, would look unacceptably oppressive. So Superman was kinder in his actions than the rest of the superheroes of the Golden Age. That was a reflection of his personality, not the genre. Comics themselves are a medium not a genre. There used to be many genres in comics, such as westerns, war, horror, comedy, romance, as well as superheroes. The comics code was blanketed over all of them. The attitude at the time was that comics were for juveniles, and should not include things outside of what would build good moral character. Horror comics withered and after the early 70’s vanished. The other genres in comics faded away as well, leaving just superheroes for the most part. At that time I was reading mostly wore comics, such as G. I. Combat, Weird War, and Sergeant Fury reprints, and most of them were entertaining in the same way Combat! Or Rat Patrol were, sanitized for television. I didn’t read a lot of superheroes consistently, but would pick up the occasional Spiderman, or Fantastic Four. By then I had started reading my parents paperbacks, and enjoying pulpy Alistair McLean novels.
 
But what the Code did was to blunt Batman’s vengeance, and turned him from a two gun vigilante, to a gun control advocate. He’s still the most popular  comic book character even today, and is single handedly keeping DC comics afloat, but the change the code brought to him is also still with us. The Code also changed other heroes, or eliminated some (especially those that took injections or pills to activate their powers). Code also applied to the villains as their threats became more abstracted, or goofy. The edges had been filed off. There was no spice any more. 
 
Now I talked about, in another thread, how Stan Lee felt so strongly about a story about drug abuse in an issue of Spiderman that he ran it without the approval of the Comics Code Authority, and the logo did not appear on the cover. That did not kill the comics code. The comics code faded for another reason and that was the direct market. Once dedicated comic book stores appeared insufficient numbers to support a market, other publishers appeared. These are the days of Pacific Comics, Comico, First, Eclipse, and others, that produced books of near equal quality to those of the big two, often with the same artists, who given a chance to flex their muscles, produced very pulp flavored stories. The Big two continued to produce their work in the same fashion, but also took advantage of the direct market, when DC took a chance on a couple of projects that ended the silver age: The Dark Knight Returns, and The Watchmen. 

As I said before, comics is a medium, and these changes in comics not only gave rise to other publishers, but also other genres returned to the shelves. Image Comics appeared as the result of disagreements between Artists and Marvel comics. Gritty violent, and Sexy, comics returned to how they were before the code. This coincided with when a lot of found and played Champions. It’s how our local games went from sort of Silver Age to what came after. 
 
So, I put out this history lesson to illustrate comics are a medium, and a so is a game system. I am of the opinion that genre emulation is the responsibility of the GM, and not the game system per se. A game narrowly tailored to emulate Chris Claremont X-Men, or Marv Wolfman Teen Titans, would be kind of limited outside of those narrow definitions. I personally chafe at comics code limitations imposed on my characters and it is one of the reasons why I walked away from comic book style games and return to fantasy or 80s movie action. Putting outside limitations, through the Meta of the game, above the game world and environment presented, makes building that personality framework a lot more difficult due to its impact on suspension of disbelief. Cops shoot to kill, homeowners shoot to kill and my super cannot? If there is a good inworld, plausible, reason I can go with that. But there are other Meta reasons that will make things difficult to remain in character, and cause some to tune out. The Prime Directive in Star Trek is supposed to limit the actions of the Federation, but even with that in place, Kirk still did what he thought was correct, and Picard deferred to it more. This shows a difference in personality. Now, in current year Universal Systems, and Toolkits don’t seem to be popular with the new gamers. So I agree with producing limited versions of Hero to cover specific genres, but having mandatory, specific,  disads, or complications above what the world offers is 
I feel, to limiting. Leave that to the GM to negotiate with the players. Genre conventions I believe should be more suggestions and ideas, rather than hard rules.
 
The Game
 
 Champions was described as the Super roleplaying game. I still think the game aspect is very important, at least to me. I discovered Champions at a wargaming convention (Origins) in 1981 when it was released. I was an avid Tabletop gamer, and after games of General Quarters, and Mustangs & Messerschmitts, I was told by a friend to go check out this game about Superheroes. The rest we all know. What made subsequent games of Champions so compelling was how elegant the system was. It was a tactical, small unit wargame for superheroes! A normal wargame is a rather (supposedly) a rational, and analytical affair, with the occasional bruised ego causing tempers to flair. Roleplay gives context and stakes to the conflict, adding a usually safe emotional element to it. That is what made  Champions and most other Roleplaying games that came after so compelling.  The challenge of a good tactical puzzle for me, with the emotional turmoil for my character is irresistible. It was addicting, and why I eschewed other Roleplaying games ( unless I was paid: see Cyberpunk), until I moved to L. A. and involuntarily dropped the hobby for a while.
 
The problem I have with most modern RPG systems, is that many of them have minimalist rules, and push combat into theater of the mind, and I have a big problem with that. I used to be involved in MUD’s, MUCK, and MUSHs. Some of them expressly had no native combat system. In those, conflicts had to be resolved through group consensus. Fights were posted has elaborately written poses, and the target either agreed with the pose, or nulled it with an equal or greater elaborate pose as written. It was a realm where the rule of cool, or most forceful ego won. It was deeply unsatisfying, especially in a realm where most people thought the spotlight was on them. It led to a lot of conflict and scenarios would detonate due to arguments. Probably due to my war gaming background, anything that wins due to the rule of cool, is going to piss me off.
 
Less of a problem, but still a large problem, is that combats in theater of the mind situations, can be subject to a large Assumption clash. If two of us are imagining a conflict in a vaguely defined environment then differences between how we imagine that environment will cause problems or lead to dissatisfaction.
 
Even differences in life experiences will lead to problems. “They” have no experience with firearms and their assumptions are based on movies and television. I, however, have a massive gun collection, and have trained as armed security for an armored car company, so arguments will arise. Conversely, if “They” who is a HEMA enthusiast, versus me, who waved a foam sword at friends once or twice, will also lead to assumption clash, unless I automatically defer to them. This is why reasonably detailed tactical rules, to me are so important to reduce assumption clash as long as things are not too abstracted. It’s the level of abstraction, that modern rule systems favor, that caused me problems, when they ignore ranges, cover, concealment, distances one can run over time, Reasonable CEP for ranged weapons over whatever ranges, visibility, lighting conditions, melee weapons, melee skills of each opponent, etc. This is why , tactically I am finding Cyberpunk Red lacking, when compared to Cyberpunk 2020, where I had a hand in researching, testing, and tuning the combat and hit location rules for. When I thought that WW2 rules were a bit lacking, I spent the money to acquire the Uniforms and weapons of WW2 participants, and headed out into the woods with like minded participants to figure out how it looked and how it felt. I was not in shape enough to take full advantage, but I got a good idea of what it was like and how it felt to be in the field, and how the weapons worked, of various types, and various periods, from WW1 to the present. My experience kind of back handed the rule of cool. It also precluded the assumptions of a few game designers, and left me unsatisfied with most modern, and “collaborative storytelling” systems. It denied me plausible, believable , escapism. 
 
Another "dislike" are Narrative control system outside of dice. Action Point, Hero Points, ect.. This pulls me out of immersion, and often  is reflected by a "rule of Cool situation.  It changes the scenery, or the universe and bends it towards the player, which I find objectionable as the environment is the universe the characters inhabit, and using an authorial meta to change it, just feels wrong.
 
We all have slightly different ideas and reasons for gaming, and it is fine that we pursue them. But in talking about Hero and Champions, without the Speed Chart, hex grid, and separated special effects from damage, it’s not Champions. It still needs that wargame framework underneath the roleplay to keep it solid. 5e and the resurgent war hammer have shown that maps and minis are still quite popular. 
 
Strict Genre emulation and embracing modern minimalism, I think would be a mistake to impose on Hero. Genre presented as a book is one thing but I think the big error of Champions Now was imposing one GMs house rules and genre enforcement onto the entire  rule book was why it missed the mark, at least for me. Taking a route like “Powered by Hero” but hiding the mechanics more is probably the correct path.  
 
I rambled, but at least I didn’t rant… much. 
 

I am not sure you can compress Hero, unless one does start walking back through the editions. You are correct about Champions Now, as a near miss. For me, it felt off and felt oddly constrained, in a way Champions 2e and 3e didn’t. Those two made possibilities seem not only endless, but attainable with a pencil and a character sheet.  Champions Now seemed to have constraints, and a bit of the “one true way”-ism that removed a lot of those feelings of possibility. 
 
I could suggest, you go back to an edition of Champions that is close to your page count, and just adjust the calculations to suit? Then rewrite and reorganize from there?  

I've been looking at building a compressed Hero based game on and off for a couple of years. It's very hard to cut down the crunch without creating a hopelessly crippled version of the run time game.
 
That's with a "here are your character options, pick one" approach to character generation.

Partly, though, it's because I have been looking at the fantasy genre. Superheroes, with the simpler set of optional combat rules, might work better - but of course it's harder to set a satisfactory range of character options.
 
A lot of my problem is that I have set myself an impossible target in terms of page count - I want it to be readable by someone with a very short attention span.

The funny thing is that the Fuzion spinoff, Wildstrike!, has the kind of page count I am looking for. But mechanically that's a bit further than I am willing to go.

I'll mention Champions Now as a near-miss in terms of being a "to the point" version of Champions. It has a lot of the "how to play superheroes" in it, but buried it in lots of superfluous prose, and accompanied it with examples that makes it seem like a game of tedious play of low-powered anti-heroes. Mechanically, it handles 60s Marvel, and DC series like the Doom Patrol, perfectly. But you would have to have seen the playtest drafts to appreciate that. So a game perfectly suited to Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four looks like a game of "roleplaying" business meetings...

I'm currently looking at a game that isn't directly Hero based, but which is designed for drunk people to read, and which has art, poetry or both on every second page, and a one page summary of the rules at the back.

Honestly, I would not. I have zero interest in a new iteration of Hero System. 
 
I think there are things that could be better, but I would really really rather there not be a new edition put out for a while at least.  My reasons are entirely selfish: I'd have to re-write everything I've put out so far to fit the new edition

You did notice what I actually said? 
They wanted a hammer "like" Thor's and they wanted it to return to hand after being thrown and not be able to be taken away.
So I don't know why you would bring up that Thor's hammer could be taken.  We are not talking about Thor's hammer.  We are talking about a similar hammer that cannot be taken. 
Not trying to be antagonistic. 
Just confused...

First thing I thought was, yeah, this could get to be horrible for someone with a low SPD...we've all had terrible stretches of rolls.  So adding 1 sounds good but...what does that do?  So I wrote some quick test code.
First number is the nominal SPD.  The second number is the effective SPD...how many times per turn, using this method, the character would act.  These are chopped to 2 places.  
 
1: 2.97
2: 3.62
3: 4.32
4: 5.06
5: 5.86
6: 6.67
7: 7.5
8: 8.38
9: 9.26
10: 10.15
11: 11.07
12: 12.0
 
So this benefits LOW speeds more than high speeds.  Granted, the higher speeds get an edge, but it's damped for SPDs we'd commonly expect.  Note in particular SPD 2 vs. SPD 5, or 3 vs. 6.  Just something to note, if you're thinking of using this approach.