Balabanto

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Unbreakable Showgirls Stand By the Midnight Meat Train The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai: Across the Hairspray Dimension

Re: Mental Parasite Just watch The Last Airbender, and then build M. Night Shamalyan.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Universal Soldier: The Last Boy Scout Troop The Devil Wears Iron Man

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Gorillas in The Hood The Manchurian Clerks Super Size My Virtuosity

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares The Year of Living Johnny Dangerously Jennifer's Shaft The Sound of Lizard Music My Big Fat Get Him to the Greek Wedding The Big Lebowski Bowls for Columbine

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse? The "ashen" comment about the Evil Tree Throne God? Ouch.

Re: Guess the inspiration behind this superteam! That's Paul Bunyan. Paul Bunion just has feet that hurt.

Well, it took less than two weeks. A Hero Only version of Unkindness is now available at Blackwyrm and RPGnow as a PDF. Printed copies may take a little longer, but the PDF is only 4 dollars. Wise people who are Gencon goers may notice the cover bears a certain resemblance to the cover mockups for Rod Currie's Super Squad America. We completely did that on purpose. Buy it. At 3.95, you can't go wrong. http://www.blackwyrm.com

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Hamlet, Prince of Thieves--Kevin Costner mangles another classic. Basic Instinct of Doctor Doolittle Brokeback Matrix

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Scott Pilgrim Likes Water For Chocolate Terminator: Salvation Army Atlas Shrugged on Sesame Street Robin Hood: Men in Black Tights Ghostbusters On The Waterfront The Glass Menagerie of Scooby Doo

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Jung Frankenstein-In which famous psychiatrists are reanimated by a descendant of the Baron. Complicated inner monologues ensue. Cats and Dog Day Afternoon Mary Poppins Behind The Green Door Sesame Streets of Fire Ziggy Stardust and The Spider-Man From Mars (With J. Jonah Jameson on Backup Vocals)

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Walt Disney Presents Sean Connery and Mickey in "The Russia Mouse" Trainspotting at the Whistle Stop Cafe

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Dancing with the Star Wars The Forty Year Old Breakfast at Tiffany's Bill and Ted's Excellent Escape From New York The Eternal Birdcage of the Spotless Mind Ballistic: Mega-Shark vs. Giant Octopus Planet of the 101 Dalmations Seven: Snow White and the Dwarfs

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Nightmare on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams Dirty Dancing on the Glitter Dome Alfred Hitchcock Presents Vertigo in Toyland Doctor Who and Wall Street American Tiki Idol

Re: What's different about YOUR Champions Unvierse? I don't use the CU at all. Originally, I did, but then I hit time with a hammer to remove almost everything. (It's not Champions without Foxbat.) There were huge logistical problems with the way the world was developing that directly countered the actions of my player characters. That made them angry, so I went to obscene lengths to correct it. The origin of super powers proved another bugaboo. My origin of superpowers, and humanity in general can be found in the background of Abraxas, in Digital Hero #27. I don't like that magic and technology are pretty much the same at their core, it gives players in a concept driven game access to the ultimate excuse of "It's Magic, !@#$! you!" So now, what was once a CU Derivative is it's own thing. Do I have to reboot a lot? Sure. Is it better than it was? You bet! It's still not Champions of any sort without Foxbat though. He stays, if I can figure out a way to do it. If not, he'll go, too. You'll see a sourcebook eventually, gods willing, with what it always should have looked like. The CU was originally kind of grafted on. I never should have listened to that one irascable player. It caused more problems than it was worth.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares So you want Rabbits, do you? Harvey: The Destruction of Jared Syn The Whole Nine Yards of Watership Down

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Conan the King of Queens Hill Street Blue Thunder Eat Man, Drink Happy Feet Sex and The Toy Story Phantom of A Night at the Opera

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Saturday Night Fever of the Leapus Return to Brokeback Witch Mountain

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares Groddzilla: DC Comics turns their Mind Controlling Ape into a giant, rampaging reptile monster. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter's Big Gay Dance Party: ????? No, really, there is a play called Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party. Song of Solomon Grundy: A poor black family in the south adopts a dimwitted swamp monster.

Re: Guess the inspiration behind this superteam! That's correct. Look for them in a future adventure product written by yours truly.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated I submit to you that the same thing can be done by paying for a good copy editor.

Re: Guess the inspiration behind this superteam! Here's Mine: The Invincible Five Lariat: This man possesses telekinetic control over rope. He is a merciless assassin who enjoys watching his victims die by hanging. The Cuckoo: The ultimate mimic, the Cuckoo steals the powers of others while gaining them for her own. The Muscleman: One of the world's strongest men, he loves to lift, throw and crush things. Tornado: A deadly weather controller with the power of wind, Tornado can barely be touched as his namesake swirls around him. The Mindbaby: The team's leader, an ominous eight month old talking mentalist in a small, flying chair. Ba-ba be darned!

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated That's not, in my opinion, a positive statement on the nature of game design. The original designers knew how crunchy the system was. Therefore, they created funny and/or entertaining examples to make understanding them fun. It worked.

Re: The Hero System is bland and over complicated Yes. The original writers of the game mastered this. Examples were fun to read. "Norse Storm Hammer God" was funny. "Doc Ravage, Man of Tin" was funny. But the problem isn't just the lack of entertaining material between the covers, it's also the intimidating size of the rulebooks and the cover art. The first thing out of one of my longtime gamers mouths was "My god! It looks like an auto repair manual." Now, this could have been forgiven if it didn't READ like an auto-repair manual, but, according to them, it does. I've been running and reading Hero so long that the book is more of a "Are we wrong? Let's look this up" bit, but that won't change the opinion of my players. The technical constructions of words are excessively dense when simple, direct language or a bulleted list of do's and don'ts would have suffiiced. There are run-on sentences all over the place. Simply breaking these up would have made the book easier to read. My players are VERY happy that I purchased this for them as part of the social contract between myself and them that makes them Dave's playtesters, because this edition, they certainly wouldn't have purchased on their own. What made all the editions up through 4th more readable was that they were funny and fun to read. This edition may serve the same purpose as the previous ones, but it's not as fun to read as 4th edition or editions earlier than that.