Talk:Main Page

With the great deal of affection I have for this game, I've decided that, if maintaining the Miraheze site is a procedure that requires DIY elements, I might as well be the one to get things going.

Thus, I am initiating a Discussion page in the hopes that we can start a wheel turning that will become an active procedure of interaction with each other and - possibly - the individuals who submit, and have submitted, storylines and modules for publication in the first place, and also Steve Kenson and Dan Houser, the gentlemen who inspired the game itself and the site we now involve ourselves in sustaining.

In addition to general ongoing dialogues, my hope is that we can begin differentiating forums for specific discussion purposes, including - big hope - the submission of fan-created adventures and/or characters that may end up populating each others' games, and - who knows? - possibly end up seeing publication in a hard-copy work at some point in future developments.

Right now, my first suggestion for differentiated forums would include a "General Discussion" tab, as well as a "Stark City" one where reactions, suggestions, and who-woulda-thunk-it stories can be traded back and forth. Other forums, of course, will inevitably arise out of continued discussion. Other forums possibly arranged around consideration of the other various supplemental works could be a point of division as well.

One thing I would suggest is that, in line with many other gaming sites' policy, we dispense with real-world political discussion; too much opportunity for offense arising over something that has absolute zero to do with ICONS, along with attracting inappropriately aligned personalities and driving away some good ones. Other than that, I'm very much hoping to see as many of the old site's gang reappearing here as possible, and continuing on our goal of seeing this excellent game given over to the public's hands and seeing what commentary we can make, fun stories we can tell, and adventures we can have.

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''Hi Black Talon! I don't know if using the wiki as a forum is that efficient, but if anyone wants to do it, go right ahead. Seems there are actual forums for ICONS out there (someone put up links if you have them) and this wiki certainly functions well as a repository of useful games material and other results of such forums, but again: whatever works!''

''As far as leaving out real-world politics, I don't think that was a problem before, so I hope there will be no need to make a rule now.

Blue Lightning

Thank you for resurrecting ICONS page
I'm working on some Marvel and DC conversions that I hope to upload soon. Hopefully we can get some more activity here to keep this resource viable.

Thanks so much for saving it.

Jaysin1414

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Thanks for contributing!

Blue Lightning

Icons's Key Strengths
First, thank you Black Talon and so many others for keeping this great resource for fans alive. I was 50-50 on Icons when I first bought it some time in 2012 or so, but really embraced and loved the game after Icons: The Assembled Edition came out. The original Icons wikispaces was a great resource for character ideas and conversions for my favorite characters.

Which brings me to the discussion point, which is Icons' key strengths over other games that I previously played, some of which for over 20 years (Champions, DC Heroes, Villains & Vigilantes, Supers, Prowlers & Paragons, Silver Age Sentinels, Heroes Unlimited, Guardians, Invulnerable, etc.).

Strength #1 - Statistics. I really like how the statistics in Icons cover the main things in a character while not overloading the player or GM. Champions (5th Edition and earlier) and DC Heroes were heavily reliant on the DEX characteristic which combined manual coordination and agility together. By contrast, Icons breaks it up into Prowess and Coordination which conceptually makes more sense to me, since there are plenty of regular or superhero characters that have great natural hand-eye coordination for weapons and attacks, but not necessarily be that agile in terms of avoiding harm through dodging or acrobatic maneuvers.

Strength #2 - Rules simplicity. Well, that's a given, isn't it? As a comparison, Hero System 6th Edition now has 600+ pages of rules. Yes, there's Hero Basic that is less than 200, but the core system is over 600 pages. I've been playing Hero System/Champions since the late 1980s and 600+ pages of rules does not seem like the best approach to retain current fans or attract new ones to the game system.

I've ran Icons at multiple game conventions and have had great success in bringing in brand new players who have never role-played before pick up and understand the rules in a few minutes and absolutely love the game system. It was extremely difficult to perform a similar feat with Champions, and even then, the various rules and textbook-like approach was a major turnoff.

Strength #3 - Product Style and Substance. I really admire Dan Houser's art style that is reminiscent of Bruce Timm which sets the tone for the Icons game. It also helps that he's illustrated most, if not all, of the Icons products to establish a high level of quality continuity that is often lacking across the different superhero games I've played. The printing of the hard and soft cover books have been first rate.

Your thoughts? - FDW3773

ICONS' Key Strengths, cont.

FWD3773, Good to see you making the transition over from the M&M boards. Do agree with pretty much everything you've indicated above, but one additional point I'd like to throw in for thought: Stamina calculation. While ICONS owes as much, obviously, to the old Marvel Superheroes game as anything else, one thing I throw the fist of approval up for is not having Fighting/Agility/Strength/Endurance (i.e., the pure physical angle) as the whole of establishing damage capacity; rather, having Strength and an intellectual attribute - Willpower - in combination opens up the diversity possibilities a bit. Sure, easy enough to have your Solomon Grundy-type who's a major mobile physical blockade - he ain't heavy on Willpower, but this can be compensated for with a couple of levels of Invulnerability/Absorption/What-have-you. This also levels the teeter-totter somewhat for heroes who aren't comparatively Strength-heavy (say 3-4 for your Mr. Fantastic to Daredevil types), but can manage to pull themselves along after taking hits that would disable ordinary humans, just because they refuse to quit and keep pushing things.

Have got more to state later, and hoping that we can open up other topics of discussion as well, but again, great to see people active on this resurrected site, and looking forward to more insights and batting the conversation ball back and forth.

Black Talon