Red Panther

I'm coming back to HERO after about a 7 to 10 yr hiatus, so I * want* it to be my go-to. I can't even remember why I took a break from it. I don't think it was a conscious decision, I think I just kinda slowly drifted away as I explored other rpgs. I got pretty heavy into the more narrative style systems for a while there (FATE, Cortex, etc.) as well as Savage Worlds and other "universal/generic" systems. Ultimately though, I found my bookshelves groaning under the weight of all these different books and found myself struggling to learn and memorize all these different systems to do all these different things with and that's what brought me back to Hero. I still enjoy those other games... in theory, anyway. But at the end of the day I just don't have the time or the inclination anymore to master multiple systems. Hero is an excellent "one stop shop" for pretty much anything I could think of. Unfortunately, as with many others, finding people to play is proving challenging. I currently live in Omaha, NE and you might be surprised to hear that there's quite a large "nerdy" community here. We have a couple different cons each year (gaming, anime, etc) and several gaming stores (at least 5 different stores that I know of, with 3 of those having two locations). However, finding people to play anything other than D&D 5e is tough. I mean, there are a handful of people who offer other games from time to time, but 5e is the big draw for some reason. Which is fine, of course. It's nice to see this flood of new people getting into the role playing hobby and I'm sure that, in time, many of them will branch out into other games just as we all did back in the day. I'm going to try running a few demos in the near future once I get my collection built back up. I've been kicking around a couple different ideas that would showcase Hero's strengths in different ways. An X-Files type game where the players are FBI agents contending with conspiracies, weird mutants, psychics, and aliens, etc. A Star Wars game set during the end of the Clone Wars/beginning of the Rebellion era where the players are all Jedi on the run from Imperial Inquisitors. That kind of thing. And for what it's worth, I think the free Champions Begins download is a great start. I think they should release one for Fantasy and Sci-Fi, as well, and include a bunch of "generic" antagonist stats to show how flexible the system is. For example, here's a generic "Imperial storm soldier", for when you need a space fascist shock trooper. Here's a fierce "K'lang-in warrior" for when you need a space zen viking. Things like that. I also think that if they're going to bring Hero back and release a 7th edition, they're going to need to jazz it up a bit to match modern production values. I would include a code on the inside cover similar to what Cortex Prime or Vampire the Masquerade 5e are doing that will get you a free pdf of the game, regardless of where you buy the physical copy from. Maybe have that free pdf be a bundle of sorts that includes a bunch of example templates/powers/antagonists/whatever for different genres to help get people kickstarted. Things like generic orcs, goblins, dragons, eye-tentacle-monster, etc. for fantasty. Space fascists and space vikings and "alphabet starfighters" for sci-fi. Men in black, some freaky mutants and more tentacle monsters for modern day (or 1920s) horror. Stuff like that. I also wonder if maybe a boxed "starter set" might be worthwhile for Hero, since starter sets are kind of a popular thing these days. D&D, Call of Cthulhu, Star Trek, all have them and they seem to be popular. So yeah, Hero is still my go-to. Or at least I want it to be. For me, there's just nothing else out there that has the flexibility and inter-changeability that can match it.