Having got into the meat of #ChampionsNow it's made some interesting choices in chargen. Firstly, there's a nice freeform triangle to help you plan out your Personality, Powers and Problems before you go anywhere near the numbers. Good idea and portable for any supers RPG 1/

In terms of chargen, Situations (Disadvantages in vanilla Hero) come first, not powers. I'm surprised they're much like classic Hero. The free-wheeling philosophy seems to clash with the trad "occurs on an 11-" Hero mechanic, although it's a mix as some (eg Hunted) drop it

2/

A mere 30 powers (Hero 6th has 64) hides a few compound powers (e.g Flight covers Swimming, Leaping, Swinging, Gliding). This is a great starting point for a stripped back and simplified Hero System Lite and actually makes me slightly crave such a product (this aint it)

3/

Crunchy detail isn't the point of Champions Now, but it goes back to the old maths where a level or two of Growth or Density Increase is more efficient than buying certain characteristics. This isn't a hard fix but I guess it's not the point in this character-first philosophy

4/

And speaking of crunchy detail, it still uses the same old maths: advantages increase the cost by a multiple, limitations reduce it, but looser than modern Hero and fewer of them. Also the usual power frameworks to save points by tying powers thematically together

5/

One odd crunchy choice stands out: Expanded Scope. This is Megascale in Hero5/6, letting you use certain powers over a huge area without breaking the game at a character level. Here it's only for Movement or Senses (good) but can only operate at one scale

6/

So if you want to be able to fly rapidly across continental USA (regional +1/4 advantage) and in deep space (+1 advantage) you have to buy the Flight power TWICE. That's just weird and feels entirely against the games strong fiction-first philosophy

7/

Especially as its explicitly divorced from tactical-level movement anyway, so the ability to fly to Mars has zero bearing on your ability to fight crime in downtown Detroit. Feels like it should be a 5 point one-off not an advantage at all

8/

In short, it's lighter than modern Hero, but not as light as it perhaps could have been. But this should certainly get @HEROGAMESTweets thinking about what a true Hero Lite could look like and maybe consider a dip into that space #WishfulThinking

/End (for now!)