caersidi

Please excuse if I should post this elsewhere--I haven't been on the forum for years... I didn't notice this in the sixth edition errata, but there's a pernicious error that crept into the language chart somewhere around Justice, Inc. (!), namely, there should be a thin green box with square corners surrounding the top two boxes in the second column (i.e., the "Danish/Norwegian/Swedish" bubble with the "German/Yiddish/Afrikaans/etc." bubble. The missing box would represent the Germanic family of languages. I thin the very first version of the language chart (Espionage?) was correct, and they've been missing that box ever since. I remember talking to David Ladyman (who developed that chart IIRC) and he said he had noticed the same error. Sorry if this has already been brought up. Caersidi

It's a matter of genre In Champions, I think you could make the argument that COM is largely unnecessary and could be handled through other means. As has been pointed out, looks in comic books tend to pile up at the extremes--most heroes are gorgeous and many villains hideous (except the femmes fatales, who are evilly gorgeous). In other genres, however, COM comes into its own. Having GM'ed and played mostly heroic campaigns, the effects of COM can be crucial in espionage and interaction based activites. A lot of this is role-played rather than handled by mechanics, but it's still helpful to have the number for comparison purposes.

The World Atlas of Revolutions, by Andrew Wheatcroft, 1983, Simon and Schuster. Apparently now outof print but widely available at libraries. For the "Pulp Age", has maps and background articles on such places as Arabia, Russia, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Spain, India and China. I found it invaluable when our JI party went to Turkey in 1922.

Infinite Powers This discussion reminds me of a Justice Incorporated NPC in a campaign years ago. As the GM, I wanted somebody who simply could not be damaged (it was actually part of a deal with Death --one of those "I long to die but I can't" things). Anyway, I know I could have simply used GM fiat to declare the character invulnerable, but I ended up adding another level to Damage Reduction: 100%, at double the cost of 75%. He took this for PD and ED Resistant. Of course, I wouldn't let a PC buy it, but it worked in context.

Justice Inc. Ah, the memories. I ran a JI campaign for years and still believe it to be one of the best products Hero ever put out. Two more sources I found helpful: The New Nile Empire sourcebook from TORG (a land of pulp heroes and weird science) and the Atlas of World Revolutions, which has some great maps and background on events of the twenties and thirties. Users of JI will also remember that the "weird talents" such as hypnosis, aura reading, etc. were considerably cheaper than they would be if built using standard Hero rules today, and yet the price seemed totally appropriate given the power levels of the genre. It raises interesting questions on the point scale of relatively low-level campaigns.