Opal

The woman known as Little Nell looks like an old fashion doll, with her white hoop dress, long blonde sausage curls and parasol umbrella. Little Nell is a mutant with the ability to shrink herself and any inorganic object she touches. She acts like a southern belle, the bad type who believes she should be treated like a princess and almost everyone is beneath her.
 
In spite of being a southern belle, and white to boot, she holds no real predjust for others in regards to race. Mostly because she sees most everyone beneath her, including fellow mutants and white people. 
 
Because of her powers, she has a small arsenal hidden on her most of the time (a VVP, Object Creation, Extra Dimensional Spaces, along with Shrinking and Transform: Object to Little Object).

So, I apologize if this is obvious nd has already been said repeatedly:
 
Like any other perplexing perennial dysfunction endemic to our hobby, It's all D&D's fault.
 
The vast majority of us come to the hobby through D&D, and it forms our expectations for good or ill.
Tolkienesque Elves are just another annoying part of that.
 
And, if you just can't stand that or anything else about D&D, you probably just walked away from the hobby after a session.

So, I apologize if this is obvious nd has already been said repeatedly:
 
Like any other perplexing perennial dysfunction endemic to our hobby, It's all D&D's fault.
 
The vast majority of us come to the hobby through D&D, and it forms our expectations for good or ill.
Tolkienesque Elves are just another annoying part of that.
 
And, if you just can't stand that or anything else about D&D, you probably just walked away from the hobby after a session.

So, I apologize if this is obvious nd has already been said repeatedly:
 
Like any other perplexing perennial dysfunction endemic to our hobby, It's all D&D's fault.
 
The vast majority of us come to the hobby through D&D, and it forms our expectations for good or ill.
Tolkienesque Elves are just another annoying part of that.
 
And, if you just can't stand that or anything else about D&D, you probably just walked away from the hobby after a session.

So, I apologize if this is obvious nd has already been said repeatedly:
 
Like any other perplexing perennial dysfunction endemic to our hobby, It's all D&D's fault.
 
The vast majority of us come to the hobby through D&D, and it forms our expectations for good or ill.
Tolkienesque Elves are just another annoying part of that.
 
And, if you just can't stand that or anything else about D&D, you probably just walked away from the hobby after a session.

Space COP (Cyborg Over-Person)
 
People say "Mad Scientist," like it's a standard thing, but some are crazier than others.
The lunatic who transformed down-to-earth rocket scientist Yu Tu into a "Bionic Superman" must have been about the craziest. 
 
When he transforms his super-powered alter-ego looks comically like he's just wearing a silver & red rubber suit with a zipper down the back and a helmet with oversize glowing lenses that should be impossible to see through for eyes.  His size also changes to match the threat du jour,  whether that's central-casting humanoid aliens or kilometer-tall kaiju. His protective energy field looks suspiciously like a matte line.  In addition to superstrength, flying into space, and projecting ravenning beams of energy that only ever seem to blow up scenery near the target, his helmet has a universal psychic translator that causes anyone he speaks to to understand him - but as if he were speaking in a bombastic old-timey version of their native language (he hears translated replies as if sung in traditional Chinese opera). 
Ironically, some alien races seem to respect that mode of communications.
 
Yu Tu carefully maintains his secret identity - not out of fear for his loved ones (he has no family and is asexual & aromantic), but simply because the whole thing is just too humiliating.
 

J'hain Ps'mhiss, the Vegan Vindicatrix
 
A shape-shifting alien anthropologist from the Vega system, J'hain was surprised to immediately discover some of her people hiding in plain sight, using their powers to assume outlandish forms instead of blend in with bland humanoid appearances, and openly declaring their origin - even if the humans mispronounced it as Vee-gan.
 
So when Vegan Rising put out a plea for help, she showed... it took longer than you might think for her to realize her mistake, and by then she was in too deep with a band of dangerous fanatics.

Canned tuna, fresh tuna, they are still both fish, and I want beef!

Which is a game of DM Empowerment and Caster Supremacy that, like the card game Munchkin, evokes the feel of TSR D&D.
 
Which turned out to be a good thing, when the 80s finally came back.
 
I hear longtime gamers say things like this and new D&Ders with nothing to compare it to agreeing.
 
I doubt there's any brand new RPgamers here to get a wrong impression, tho....
 
...but in almost any other context it's doing a disservice. 

4e did adopt the more granular skill system collectively by ither hero games at the time. 
 
Earlier martial arts were more like adding to your STR in 50% increments, which was not very granular, at all.
 
The 3-5 pt manuever martial arts were a little bit like having an attack multipower with you STR & DCs as the reserve.  Which is a little whack, sure.

I've committed many over the years.
 
The most recent one was a couple of years ago, running a Pathfinder game, a Paizo AP. It's pretty high level by this point in the game. I modified one of the scenarios from whatever it was to a "hell in the jungle" type situation where the PCs would be hunted through a jungle by a high level, hit and run monster. I was going for a Predator vibe. Being high level Pathfinder it takes a lot of work: going over abilities to make sure I understand them, and then creating scenarios the monster could leverage for greater effect.
 
The PCs take one look at the dense, hot, sweaty jungle and say "We'll fly over that." Because, being high level Pathfinder, everyone had access to flight. Wings, brooms, spells, Baba Yaga's magic mortar. My face must have fallen because the players were all "Oh. Well, we can walk through it, if you like." I said "No, no. This is on me. I'm an idiot."

Buy a Linked Mind Scan that only works through remote sensors. It's fairly inexpensive and perfectly rules compliant.

I thought Exterminators was the collective term for a group of Daleks........

Oh, don't get me wrong, D&D was always a bad game - it's saved from being the worst TTRPG of all time by the existence of things like Spawn of Fshawn and FATAL - it's just that, out of that load of fetid dingos' kidneys, its 4th edition was the least fetid.
 
I'm never dismayed at the range of experiences people report having with RPGs, from treasured experiences playing terrible games like D&D, to hellish experiences playing good ones like Hero. 
A good enough GM can salvage anything, and a bad enough one (or a single malicious player, or even just a bad day) can ruin anything.

Oh, don't get me wrong, D&D was always a bad game - it's saved from being the worst TTRPG of all time by the existence of things like Spawn of Fshawn and FATAL - it's just that, out of that load of fetid dingos' kidneys, its 4th edition was the least fetid.
 
I'm never dismayed at the range of experiences people report having with RPGs, from treasured experiences playing terrible games like D&D, to hellish experiences playing good ones like Hero. 
A good enough GM can salvage anything, and a bad enough one (or a single malicious player, or even just a bad day) can ruin anything.

Ever since I started playing Champions back with 2e, I and everyone I knew looked to the Enemies books to serve as creative examples of how to use the powers, modifiers, and frameworks. In my view this was far better than a reference tome full of examples (or examples crammed in the margins of the main rulebook) because villains--as well as NPC heroes/teams, organizations with super agents, etc.--provided much-needed context for the presented power builds. Too often when players and GMs see Sample Powers presented without context, they tend to treat them like pre-designed D&D spells that they use, unchanged, as though ordering from a menu.

Oh, don't get me wrong, D&D was always a bad game - it's saved from being the worst TTRPG of all time by the existence of things like Spawn of Fshawn and FATAL - it's just that, out of that load of fetid dingos' kidneys, its 4th edition was the least fetid.
 
I'm never dismayed at the range of experiences people report having with RPGs, from treasured experiences playing terrible games like D&D, to hellish experiences playing good ones like Hero. 
A good enough GM can salvage anything, and a bad enough one (or a single malicious player, or even just a bad day) can ruin anything.

Ki Lyme was a petite, green-clad martial artist with the ability to cause mildly debilitating illness in her opponents (or any one she touched). 
 
In her new diminutive size her martial arts are useless (except when other 'Mites' get too annoying), but her host is more or less continually victimized by her mysterious disease-like power, which proved difficult to diagnose, or even confirm that the symptoms are real.

Heh, Hero was so far ahead of its time there's no difference.
 
Not entirely joking.  Like, 4e D&D was the most flexible, most-nearly-balanced, version of D&D ever, and it did it by dipping it's toes in powers with special effects. 
 
I suppose it's also worth noting that 5e D&D achieved great success by reaching all the way back to its earlier forms and ditching all the best stuff from 3e & 4e.

Oh, don't get me wrong, D&D was always a bad game - it's saved from being the worst TTRPG of all time by the existence of things like Spawn of Fshawn and FATAL - it's just that, out of that load of fetid dingos' kidneys, its 4th edition was the least fetid.
 
I'm never dismayed at the range of experiences people report having with RPGs, from treasured experiences playing terrible games like D&D, to hellish experiences playing good ones like Hero. 
A good enough GM can salvage anything, and a bad enough one (or a single malicious player, or even just a bad day) can ruin anything.

Ki Lyme was a petite, green-clad martial artist with the ability to cause mildly debilitating illness in her opponents (or any one she touched). 
 
In her new diminutive size her martial arts are useless (except when other 'Mites' get too annoying), but her host is more or less continually victimized by her mysterious disease-like power, which proved difficult to diagnose, or even confirm that the symptoms are real.

Heh, Hero was so far ahead of its time there's no difference.
 
Not entirely joking.  Like, 4e D&D was the most flexible, most-nearly-balanced, version of D&D ever, and it did it by dipping it's toes in powers with special effects. 
 
I suppose it's also worth noting that 5e D&D achieved great success by reaching all the way back to its earlier forms and ditching all the best stuff from 3e & 4e.

And, you could "sell back" all your figured from CON for a 1 point gain, so get all the points you wanted, limited only by shame (without breaking campaign limits like STR would). In the first ed.
 
After that, you couldn't "sell back" more than one figured stat, so the bug was fixed.
 
Figured stats became just another cost break, like Power Frameworks, and on basically the same scale.  
 
Honestly, they served a purpose. Having 60 points in several powers is just nothing like as OP as having 90 points in one.  They're discounts for being rounded out a bit rather than diving down the hyper-specialization rabbithole, a real problem in build systems that you rarely are addressed.

And, you could "sell back" all your figured from CON for a 1 point gain, so get all the points you wanted, limited only by shame (without breaking campaign limits like STR would). In the first ed.
 
After that, you couldn't "sell back" more than one figured stat, so the bug was fixed.
 
Figured stats became just another cost break, like Power Frameworks, and on basically the same scale.  
 
Honestly, they served a purpose. Having 60 points in several powers is just nothing like as OP as having 90 points in one.  They're discounts for being rounded out a bit rather than diving down the hyper-specialization rabbithole, a real problem in build systems that you rarely are addressed.

4e did adopt the more granular skill system collectively by ither hero games at the time. 
 
Earlier martial arts were more like adding to your STR in 50% increments, which was not very granular, at all.
 
The 3-5 pt manuever martial arts were a little bit like having an attack multipower with you STR & DCs as the reserve.  Which is a little whack, sure.