In reply to DBCowboy (msg # 192):

Nothing right now.   Most of my games die. So I'm reluctant to start a new one.  My Champions game is the only one still going strong.

I guess if I  started a new one. It would either be just like Champions or with "reformEd" villains,  or even non killing villains

Of course,  it would be 5th edition.   I have a tom of 4th edition books that I could use.

In reply to DBCowboy (msg # 192):

You talking to me?</de Niro>

Between continuing depression, and the recent purchase of Civilization VI (it was on sale), I've been fairly unproductive.

Still, I have some ideas; it's just a matter of wrangling them down into a few, coherent options.

And one of the things I did discover is that there is a large pool of players out there, so I can probably afford a more specific proposal than I did last time.

My ADHD addled brain refuses to stay on topic long enough to seriously develop ideas.  Still, it is coalescing on a few discrete premises of interest.  Most of which involve some kind of team theme.

1.  Female Avengers - Higher power, set pieces around the globe, with a multi-part plan the heroes need to stop.  But not sure how hard to lean into feminist/all-female team nature, or how the team got together.

2.  Female Sentai (Sailor Moon/Power Rangers) - I'm a bit more nebulous on where to go here, whether playing it straight, or with twists of varying darkness.  Or just swipe a villain from one and have let the heroes be more free-form.  Though possibly with anime tropes encouraged.

3.  Static Shock - Mass empowerment event in the city, and most of the victims turn to crime.  Doesn't need to be teen heroes.  I'm thinking GM assigned powers with some flexibility to tweak them.  Also not sure how many other superhero/villains should exist in the setting.

4.  It's even less developed, but I keep wanting to do a chess-themed villain team at some point.  Part of it is trying to work out exactly what their scheme and scope is.  Something better than just a villain theme team.

I'll probably eventually take this up on the general rpol Game Proposals, Input, and Advice forum.  But I thought I'd get some feedback from you HERO folks first, on what interests other people and refining the ideas.

In reply to novi (msg # 195):

The all female teams sound cool. I have less familiarity with Sentai than comic book supers so I can't really offer any suggestions on your option 2, but option 1 sounds like it could be epic.

It's super old and might not translate brilliantly, but the old (OLD!) Marvel Faserip system had a method to randomly generate supers. The whole set of tables runs for pages, but you might be able to pull some kind of generator from it. Unless I'm missing an existing option that works more cleanly with Hero for your option 3.

I don't know if you've already looked at it, but DC has Checkmate who are all about calculated moves and grander strategies.

In reply to stealth (msg # 196):

The idea of an all female group is interesting,  but i have never played a female,  and I'm not sure I would want to (sorry)

Static shock was in the DC universe and he even worked with Batman once.  But now until the 2nd (or further) season

I have toyed with a chess based group before.   The king was the brains but needed protection in a fight (like real chess)  the queen had a cosmic VPP, the night rode a horse and all of his attacks were indirect.  The bishop was the mentalist,  the rook was the brick, and the pawns were normal goons.  The king would have parr of the group attacking one area publicly,  while the "real" location was being attacked and then out of there before anyone would know what was going on.

re: quozaxx - Eh, not everyone is comfortable with cross-play.  I'm not going ask anyone to do something they are that uncomfortable doing.

re: randomness - I'm not looking for truly random powers.  IIRC FASERIP correctly, the tables are not balanced, which is not ideal for HERO.  Besides, the superhero gallery from Champions 6E would be a better place to start.

Anybody else have any thoughts?

When i first joined rpol 10 years ago, one of the first games i joined was a freeform game called "Every Girl For Themselves".
It was a superhero game where players were "normal" people who discovered one day that they had a super power.   The main stipulation was that all characters had to be female.
I joined the game with a nerdy, neurotic, ER doctor with  the ability to summon psychic shields, and found it to be very good game for Roleplaying and character development.   All the characters playing woth me were quite three dimensional and thoroughly developed as people, and the players were excellent roleplayers.  The GM asked me soon after to be an assistant gm, which i accepted, and confided in me that his goal with the "female characters only" rule was to weed out bad rolepayers, either guys who refused to roleplay a female character, or guys who only roleplayed female cliches.
The resulting game was one of the best experiences of my life, with rich story telling and well thought out characters and plot lines.


I know a game where everyone plays a female character isn't for everyone, but after such an amazing experience, i highly recommend it
This message was last edited by the player at 10:53, Mon 31 Aug 2020.

Have you tried the Champions character creation cards(CCCC)

https://www.herogames.com/stor...tion-cards-cardszip/

In reply to novi (msg # 198):

I wasn't aware of the superhero gallery, but will definitely give it a look now.
Maybe not the way round this is supposed to work, but thanks for the suggestion!

In reply to stealth (msg # 201):

I have 2 ideas for a new game.   It would be 5th edition

1.  Heroes:  the players are heroes trying to keep the world safe.   It would probably start as individual adventures.

2.  Villains:  the players are Villains (or perceived to be Villains, )  no killing Villains please.   They would have to be willing to work together

Which sounds like more fun?

Either one could be interesting, but a little more detail might be needed.

There's always the issue with a villains game of how much evil the players are expecting to get away with, so a clear boundary is important.

And heroes keeping the world safe is the bread and butter of the genre - what kind of threats, what scale etc needs to be addressed to set expectations.

In reply to stealth (msg # 203):

They would be standard supers. (200 + 150 disadvantages)

In the villain game. I would have potential players include motivation. What they do when not stealing  and probably more.

re: quozaxx:  Well, I see you've already started the hero game.  But I would say, as future advice if nothing else, that more detail would be good.  Some sort of premise or details that help us figure out what the game is going to be and what kind of characters would fit.  Like I did back up in msg #195.  Instead of "Heroes" I said "Female Avengers."  And right there, you've already got a sense of the scope and tone of the game, as well as what kind of characters would be appropriate.  Or the "Static Shock" game.  I may not have said much, but you already know that no mutants or mystics, and that all of you will be rookie superheroes.

Food for thought.

---

re: Beastttt:  Er, formatting error/insufficient elaboration.  I'm good on random, or at least gm-assigned, powers.  What I really meant was:

---

Anyone else have any interest in, ideas about, questions, or suggestions for the 4 game premises that I mentioned in msg #195?

I'd be running Hero 6th, except with skill level/CSL costs from 5th.

In reply to novi (msg # 205):

I will be using 4th edition books for story ideas.  4th edition could mean anything from 1rst to 5th.  They had a lot of supplements back then and I want to use them.  I do not want killing vigilantes but most other comic book inspired heroes work.

In reply to novi (msg # 205):

I'd have to brush up on my 6th ed, but I'd be interested in playing in the Female Avengers game if there was space.

To get more specific about that one if I could, would it actually be Marvel universe or was that just an example of the style?

That is to say, would there be a Toni Stark or Steph Rogers around?

In reply to stealth (msg # 207):

As with all editions of HERO, the differences are largely certain powers being revised and prices being re-balanced.  I suppose 6th also has the issue of figured characteristics being gone and COM turning into a talent.

And I was using Avengers as a style; I'd most likely run it in the Champions Universe.

And to answer a further question, I'd go with a mixed timeline - some things do have a fixed date and time has ensued, while other characters run on relative time.

But back to stealth's question, the universe doesn't currently include Stark Industries or Captain America.  But that would be subject to character and team creation. ;)

In reply to novi (msg # 208):

Cool, although I'm less familiar with Champions than Marvel, I'd happily read up.

If you get sufficient other interest, give me a nudge!

Hmm...I have a 6th Edition character written up at 400 pts, although thanks to Internet piracy I have access to 5th and 4th as well, and could probably reverse engineer it down.

The only issue is that the character looks and feels so much like a high-tech Dark Champions character, that I had to add "Protective of Innocents" at a 20 pt strength to make it clear that this is not, in fact, a 90's villain protagonist anti-hero - a by-product of my own success. Also, he doesn't have Casual Killer, so one assumes this means he would have the 0 pt Limitation "Reluctance to Kill".

On the other hand, he makes a great straight man to bounce things off of, simply because of how serious I envision him being no matter what is going on around him.

"I'm Batman."

One of the issues I'm running into as I meander towards running a game is, I can admit, is something of a self-imposed problem.  I kinda want all of the PCs to be tied into the overarching plot of the game, beyond just the generic "we're PCs, and we fight what the GM puts in front of us."  But I want to allow more than one avenue for that, instead of just saying something like, "you're all escapees from VIPER experiments," or, "everyone must take Hunted: Crowns of Krim."  And I'm not quite sure how to go about that.  Also, I start chasing my own tail - I should have the overarching plot developed before I start the game, but I can't fully develop it until I know what my PCs are and how to tie them in.

Yes, I'm a lit(film) major with a yearning for tight plots.

Anyone have any experience threading that needle?  Or advice on what I'm overthinking the most?

Part of it is that while that sort of thing can be hashed out in game, I'd like to avoid excessive hash.  I'd like a- hmm, call it a walking start, a bit of momentum to keep the game from getting stuck in set up and dying early.

We would have to account for players dropping in/out of the game, whatever the nature of a game made. Generally one-third of all players will drop a game the moment it actually begins and obligations begin to form, for reasons from the petty to the understandable. That might be the greatest challenge of running a game on RPOL.

That sounds like a dilemma I'd want my GM to have - speaking as a player.

Thinking as a GM, a solution that occurs to me (always more than one, others' mileage may vary, etc) is one that might sting your Lit Major sensibilities.

If you have an overarching plot (it sounds like you're working on that) leave some villains unnamed so a player with Hunted: Doctor Terrible (placeholder name) can attach them to your Evil Organisation^tm as a reason to be involved.

If you can have the room in your planned narrative, then an NPC hero that a PC knows can provide information on the Evil Organisation^tm and lead that character in.

Basically, consider where you can leave openings in your tightly woven plot to hook PC backstories or contacts in without disruption.

And I know you won't need reminding, but while we're talking about a tight plot prepared in advance I feel like I have to say it:

No plot survives contact with the PCs. Chopping and changing your narrative on the spot just has to happen sometimes.

Hero Magazine, Digital Hero, Adventures Club, Haymaker and even Champions 1-2-3E all in the current Bundle of Holding. (they snuck in the 5e book too...somehow)

Smorgasbord of old Hero all rolled up together


https://www.bundleofholding.com/presents/HeroMagazines

In reply to DBCowboy (msg # 214):

Dragon clans is not ready for applications yet.  Please be patient.

In reply to quozaxx (msg # 215):

Dragon clans is now open for applications

In reply to quozaxx (msg # 216):

I've Come to realize that I do not have time to devote to Dragon clans at this time.  So I have deleted the game for now