Derek Hiemforth

The same day I received my hardcopy book in the mail. 😆

I agree, there’s some Murphy’s law kind of thing that says the longer a sit-com goes on the more the characters turn into caricatures of themselves.  Look at Al Bundy in the first episode of Married with Children versus the last.
   Most shows are more subtle but the law still holds.

I’ve been thinking, Milburn Drysdale may have gotten a bad rap. He took the Clampetts money and make investments for them that multiplied their fortunes many times over.  Buying the movie studio for example. There was an episode where a group of wealthy investors were following Jed around for financial advice never believing Milburn when he said HE made all the investments.  Jed would say something about “good stock in Texas” referring to cattle and they’d run off to buy oil futures. 
   Maybe the old man got lucky, but he did run one of the biggest banks in Beverly Hills before the Clampetts ever struck oil.

Pirates for me out of that lot. I started doing some 7th Sea conversion stuff awhile back. Its a great setting but the mechanics are too Theatre of the Mind for me.
 
Other than that, I'm currently only interested in Westerns and Modern horror (a Stranger Things/Kids on Bikes game being a lighter approach to the latter).

These are people who have managed to survive to adulthood in an environment that is actively trying to kill them in at least a thousand different ways.  I'd give them the familiarities with the full skills.

Geez, that's practically a Chuck Norris story... 😲

Midkemia Press did a handful of them back in the 80s.
 
They're still available in PDF through the above link.
 
I particularly suggest looking at Towns of the Outlands, which is free!

My favorite kind of "silly" adventure (which will come as no surprise to anyone who's heard of my Challenge of the Superfriends games or read Digital Hero #11) is the very earnest, cartoonishly-flavored game.  The only things about the adventures themselves that seem very silly are the villains' goals (which are typically ridiculously grandiose, like stealing the moon or something).  The characters in-world take it all quite seriously.
 
And that's the gag.  The characters are very earnest and sincere, but the players are laughing at the absurdity of it all. Playing it straight is much more fun, in my experience, than actually trying to be silly.   

CC’s version seems more streamlined though at the end of the day which I like.
Btw Derek Hiemforth, great job on CC!

I agree, honestly.  Just keep the rule that Gliding move = ½ Flight move across the board. Then, if you want to make a character who can Glide faster than that, they can buy some extra Flight "only to glide."  To me, that feels more in keeping with the core concept of You Get What You Pay For.
 
EDIT: In fairness, though, I will say that I'm sure the way it currently works is just due to the fact that two Powers were being folded into one, and doing it this way kept their costs and functions (mostly) unchanged.

My favorite kind of "silly" adventure (which will come as no surprise to anyone who's heard of my Challenge of the Superfriends games or read Digital Hero #11) is the very earnest, cartoonishly-flavored game.  The only things about the adventures themselves that seem very silly are the villains' goals (which are typically ridiculously grandiose, like stealing the moon or something).  The characters in-world take it all quite seriously.
 
And that's the gag.  The characters are very earnest and sincere, but the players are laughing at the absurdity of it all. Playing it straight is much more fun, in my experience, than actually trying to be silly.   

My favorite kind of "silly" adventure (which will come as no surprise to anyone who's heard of my Challenge of the Superfriends games or read Digital Hero #11) is the very earnest, cartoonishly-flavored game.  The only things about the adventures themselves that seem very silly are the villains' goals (which are typically ridiculously grandiose, like stealing the moon or something).  The characters in-world take it all quite seriously.
 
And that's the gag.  The characters are very earnest and sincere, but the players are laughing at the absurdity of it all. Playing it straight is much more fun, in my experience, than actually trying to be silly.   

This was one of Aaron Allston's better bits of advice in Strike Force: vary your adventures.  Mix up types of adventures: a long series with a few short ones, a serious one with some goofy ones, etc.  Some genres have so much flexibility you can really go nuts with varieties of adventures.  Champions, you can literally do anything and Fantasy is extremely broad as well.  A lot of it depends on the players because some will like that more than others, but it can be a nice break.

My favorite kind of "silly" adventure (which will come as no surprise to anyone who's heard of my Challenge of the Superfriends games or read Digital Hero #11) is the very earnest, cartoonishly-flavored game.  The only things about the adventures themselves that seem very silly are the villains' goals (which are typically ridiculously grandiose, like stealing the moon or something).  The characters in-world take it all quite seriously.
 
And that's the gag.  The characters are very earnest and sincere, but the players are laughing at the absurdity of it all. Playing it straight is much more fun, in my experience, than actually trying to be silly.   

I agree, honestly.  Just keep the rule that Gliding move = ½ Flight move across the board. Then, if you want to make a character who can Glide faster than that, they can buy some extra Flight "only to glide."  To me, that feels more in keeping with the core concept of You Get What You Pay For.
 
EDIT: In fairness, though, I will say that I'm sure the way it currently works is just due to the fact that two Powers were being folded into one, and doing it this way kept their costs and functions (mostly) unchanged.

I dislike "gliding only" equating to "gliding faster".  CC appears to remove the GM discretion present in 6e, which I support.  I'd prefer that the system remove the doubled Gide speed (likely meaning  a larger limitation for "only to glide") and provide a limitation for "cannot glide" (probably -1/4).

Unless I misunderstand what you're saying, this is already how Flight works.  For example, from CC page 69:
 
"Any character with Flight can also Glide as follows..."
 
And the Gliding Limitation says: "Allows a character to Glide at their full Combat Movement meters of Flight instead of only half, but restricts the power’s use to Gliding only."

I am hoping that you are correct, and that my experiences are just that: mine. And that I don't always find that bias in my future.
 
 
I have, but like I said, I am glad to hear that is my limited experience. Though I have seen several gadgeteers who could change their gadgets as fast as a mage can change their spells. Changing their gadgets with a Skill Roll in a phase. But Personally, I like creating/playing what you would call a magical gadgeteer. For example, rather than casting a simple Clairvoyance Spell, I like to have that pre-magiced sliver of mirror with a god's symbol on it for which I have to pray to that god (OAF Fragile + Incantation) and hope that he hears and responds (requires a roll) which sometimes fails (adds to the story), but still sometimes gives the GM a headache, because I just discovered the bad guy's lair and plans, and communicate that to the rest of the team 😆

The key to the map and the description of the traps is found in the Pulp Hero book, Thrilling Places, Ninja-Bear.

(added emphasis mine)
 
In your examples, the mage is also using "gadgets;" they're just gadgets with magical SFX instead of technological. I agree with LL that I don't necessarily buy the premise that GMs generally don't like Power Frameworks; I think it depends on the GM, and maybe even more so on the player using the Power Framework and the speed and ease with which the VPP can changed.
 
However, in my experience, when I have seen what you describe, it's typically because a gadget-based VPP is a bit easier for the GM to plan around, often because it takes at least a bit of time to change. The VPPs that give some GMs heartburn are the ones that can be whatever whenever, as LL notes. Those tend to magic spells, not gadgets. I've never encountered a GM who would frown on a VPP of a wizard's magic items, but be fine with a VPP of technological gadgets, for example.

Of course, if you already have a MP (as with the original example in the thread), then you can also just buy additional MP slots, some of which have more base movement but no Adders or Advantages, some of which have some Adders but not others, some of which have various Advantages, etc. as needed. Which slot you use is just a matter of what you're trying to accomplish at the time.

I haven't seen anyone mention this (my apologies if I missed it), but the key here is not to change the Power... it's to change the character's SPD.
 
As CC page 137 notes, "In non-combat situations, everyone is assumed to act at SPD 2 at all times, unless the circumstances require them to use their full SPDs." (You can also voluntarily lower your SPD to 2 if desired.) When simply flying long-distance, you're normally going to be acting at SPD 2, not SPD 4.  So the END cost doesn't need to get down to 3 to be sustainable... it only needs to get down to 6.
 
Just let off the gas a bit, fly with a base of 15m instead of 20m, and you're there:
Flight 15m [15]
Position Shift and 8x NCM (+15 CP]
Combat Acc/Dec, NTM, and NGP (+1 Adv.)
= 60 Active Points = 6 END
 
You can fly at this speed indefinitely (about 45 MPH)...
 

I haven't seen anyone mention this (my apologies if I missed it), but the key here is not to change the Power... it's to change the character's SPD.
 
As CC page 137 notes, "In non-combat situations, everyone is assumed to act at SPD 2 at all times, unless the circumstances require them to use their full SPDs." (You can also voluntarily lower your SPD to 2 if desired.) When simply flying long-distance, you're normally going to be acting at SPD 2, not SPD 4.  So the END cost doesn't need to get down to 3 to be sustainable... it only needs to get down to 6.
 
Just let off the gas a bit, fly with a base of 15m instead of 20m, and you're there:
Flight 15m [15]
Position Shift and 8x NCM (+15 CP]
Combat Acc/Dec, NTM, and NGP (+1 Adv.)
= 60 Active Points = 6 END
 
You can fly at this speed indefinitely (about 45 MPH)...
 

I haven't seen anyone mention this (my apologies if I missed it), but the key here is not to change the Power... it's to change the character's SPD.
 
As CC page 137 notes, "In non-combat situations, everyone is assumed to act at SPD 2 at all times, unless the circumstances require them to use their full SPDs." (You can also voluntarily lower your SPD to 2 if desired.) When simply flying long-distance, you're normally going to be acting at SPD 2, not SPD 4.  So the END cost doesn't need to get down to 3 to be sustainable... it only needs to get down to 6.
 
Just let off the gas a bit, fly with a base of 15m instead of 20m, and you're there:
Flight 15m [15]
Position Shift and 8x NCM (+15 CP]
Combat Acc/Dec, NTM, and NGP (+1 Adv.)
= 60 Active Points = 6 END
 
You can fly at this speed indefinitely (about 45 MPH)...