Another Star Hero comment / question

[Lord Mhoram]

Steve,

With the announced reduction in the release of Star Hero material (which I am saddened by, but completely understand), I am curious to what kind of SH product are going to be released.
I, personally, would love to see the rest of the setting books before anything else. What I love about the Hero oversetting, as it relates to SH, is that there is 1000 years of continous history. I love a future history.
So if you are taking votes, as it were, I vote for the rest of the campaign settings (especially galactic federation and the years before the Alien Wars) to be on the stack first, so to speak.

[Jhaierr]

I completely agree! I want to see the setting books above all others. I'm really looking forward to Galactic Federation.

[greypaladin_01]

I might be mistaken on this (wouldnt be the first time) but I was under the impression that the Galactic Federation came about during the Galactic Champions timeframe and not under the Star Hero banner. So we should be learning more about it later on this year.

If im wrong on this let me know.

[BobGreenwade]

I was really looking forward to both Scourges Of The Galaxy and Galactic Federation. I agree that, if only one of the three books scheduled for 2004 was to survive, it should be Worlds Of Empire, but I'm really hoping to see the other two before too long, along with the other setting books (especially The Interstellar Age).

SOTG will be important because it will provide SH GMs with foes to throw at their PCs, much how CKC provides villains for Champions PCs.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by greypaladin_01
I might be mistaken on this (wouldnt be the first time) but I was under the impression that the Galactic Federation came about during the Galactic Champions timeframe and not under the Star Hero banner. So we should be learning more about it later on this year.

If im wrong on this let me know.

Galactic Champions follows Galactic Federation. Think of GF as being the Star Trek period of the Hero Universe, where most of the races have come together in a federation for the advancement of all. GC starts up near the middle/end of the GF period, after magic has returned to the universe.

[Killer Shrike]

Seems like kind of a self fulfilling prophecy to me. The line isnt doing as well, so cut support. That pretty much ensures that the line _wont_ do well in the future. I've talked to several new HEROs players that were brought into the fold via interest in Star HERO.

Heres what I think the problem is: when a new player stumbles across the HERO System some try to run it themselves cold turkey, browbeating or otherwise convincing their existing playgroup into trying it out (I fell into this category lo those many years ago), but the majority will look for an existing group to get a feel for how the game is played. Well guess what? Most existing groups still use the HERO System for Champions or some variation of superheroic role playing.

So, the would be StarHERO player doesnt have many options there. Lets say they do hook up with Champs group. Maybe the would be StarHERO player doesnt like supers or the playgroup, or both and the whole experience turns him off to the system. Maybe he discovers he likes supers and keeps playing with the group, putting StarHERO aside in the meantime. How often does the would be StarHERO player grok the system quickly and get their own StarHERO game off the ground? Probably not that often.

I would guestimate that most StarHERO players are either HERO vets or were introduced to the concept by HERO vets.

Publishing fewer books for the line will lead the HERO-savvy that are aware of the reduced support to consider the line effectively dead, and in the long run fewer StarHERO Games will be run resulting in fewer opportunities for potential new players to be introduced to the game.

[JoseG]

So you would prefer that they lose money on products that no one will buy instead of make money on products that people will buy? Logical that is not.

If they had billions of bucks to blow I'm sure they'd puclish every book everyone ever wanted but they need to be able to survive as a company... and making books that DO NOT SELL is not a way of doing that. There are plenty of SH books out right now for any STARHero gamer to use and run a campaign.... I'm sure that if suddenly they stareted to need to do reprints of Star Hero, Terran Empir, Alien Wars and The Spacer Toolkit that they would most certainy start doing more SH books... but why do print more books that no one is going to buy>?

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Publishing fewer books for the line will lead the HERO-savvy that are aware of the reduced support to consider the line effectively dead, and in the long run fewer StarHERO Games will be run resulting in fewer opportunities for potential new players to be introduced to the game.

That is somewhat my thinking as well. I stated in the Star Hero forum that product support was one of the reasons I think a TE or AW campaign cannot last. There is just not enough material available, and too much prep work is required, for the GM to make a viable campaign operate. As I have said before, for any line to be successful it needs at least 6 support product a year to back it up. Gamer's interest will wain when there are only 2-3 products a year. It is just too easy to switch over to better supported game systems.

Six of seven months ago I sent a letter to Darren stating he should look at licensing out the TE universe to another game company who could support the material and keep fans interested. I still think that is a good option for them. I truly believe if you support something with quality material you will bring fans to it.

[BobGreenwade]

Jose pretty much has it right on IMO. As much as I'd like to see strong SH support for at least the mimimum tools, I'd rather DOJ put more of their efforts into money-makers than into "empire building." I do hope they keep up enough SH support that it doesn't become a de facto "dead" line -- after all, one never knows when these things will suddenly take off -- but blitzing the market with a line of books that just aren't selling would be foolishness.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by JoseG
So you would prefer that they lose money on products that no one will buy instead of make money on products that people will buy? Logical that is not.

One other bit of schedule-changing news, this one not so good. Overall, we haven't been happy with the sales of the books in the Star Hero line. While SH itself has done pretty well, and the SH supplements have strong sales in comparison with many industry products, the SH books are uniformly our worst sellers. We can't afford to have a big chunk of our production lagging behind that way, so we're scaling back our plans for SH. We're going to shift down from about three books a year for SH to probably no more than one. This year, for example, we'll probably keep Worlds Of Empire in the schedule, but replace the other two planned books with something else (we'll decide exactly what at the appropriate time). If the sales situation changes in the future (no pun intended!), we'll definitely revise this plan, since we have lots of cool SH books in mind. But we can't ignore economic realities.

Underlining mine.

According to HERO Games, the SH products are selling, and apparantly sell well compared to industry standards. They just arent selling as well as other HERO Games products (which presumably must then be selling at higher than industry standards).

So its not a case of producing products that "no one will buy". It's a case of producing products that will turn a modest profit rather than an impresive profit in the long sighted interests of expanding the player base and strengthining the position of the HERO System as a truly universal game system.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by JoseG
I'm sure that if suddenly they stareted to need to do reprints of Star Hero, Terran Empir, Alien Wars and The Spacer Toolkit that they would most certainy start doing more SH books... but why do print more books that no one is going to buy>?

The problem is that DOJ is trying to paint with too broad of a brush. Pick a sub-genre and support it. Don't just give us one book for 3 different sub-genres. Gamers need information and support material, not 3-4 different campaign worlds to game in. Trying to publish too many campaign worlds for D&D is one of the things that brought TSR down. We do not need 4 Star Hero campaign worlds. We need one well supported, and then once it is popular look at producing more sub-genre books.

This is the same for Fantasy Hero, IMO. DOJ does not need 3 FH worlds either. They need one well-supported world to keep fans interested in it.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by BobGreenwade
Jose pretty much has it right on IMO. As much as I'd like to see strong SH support for at least the mimimum tools, I'd rather DOJ put more of their efforts into money-makers than into "empire building." I do hope they keep up enough SH support that it doesn't become a de facto "dead" line -- after all, one never knows when these things will suddenly take off -- but blitzing the market with a line of books that just aren't selling would be foolishness.

I do not think one product a year is support; especially when the one product will probably be a new campaign world rather than support material for an already existing world.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Another factor I think shouldn't be overlooked is the relative lack of sci-fi in the mass media in the time since Star Hero was released. With LotR, along with Spider-Man, Daredevil, etc. rewriting records in the theaters, there is more buzz in the air for fantasy and supers than there is for sci-fi. There have been few sci-fi blockbusters in recent years, and those that have come out have been widely regarded as weak.

I think the Star Hero line will pick up in popularity at some point when the climate gets "hot" for sci-fi again.

[Killer Shrike]

Here's a random factoid: Ive bought every single Star HERO supplement released, and Ive given every one of them to a friend as a gift. I dont even look at them beyond a quick flip thru. Why? Because a) I have no interest in running Sci Fi games b) I want to support the company c) my friend is a Star Wars/Star Trek geek that is also a cheap bastard who doesnt buy anything unless he's got a gun to his head, and d) buying the supplements and then giving them to my friend allows me to support the company without occupying dwindling shelf space.

So, Im not a good target audience for Star HERO. Im sure that if I had a SciFi interest and ran a Star HERO oriented game, by players would suddenly get interested in Star HERO and likely run out and get at least a couple of the supplements themselves. So maybe its partially my fault that though many Champions supplements, main rulebooks and Hero Designer liscences have been bought by my play group, no copies of Star HERO books have been to the best of my knowledge.

But my comfort level with SciFi is sufficiently low that, unlike most other genres, I would not contemplate running StarHERO without a lot more material to back me up than currently exists. As the ever-astute Monolith points out, the Star HERO support thus far has been pretty broad, which is a great way to catch a wider target audience, but a poor way to garner a stable fan base. The larger the holes in the net, the more fish are going to fall out.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Derek Hiemforth
I think the Star Hero line will pick up in popularity at some point when the climate gets "hot" for sci-fi again.

Rifts, Star Wars, Star Trek, and Babylon 5 are all still very big scifi sellers which are always in the top 20. Granted 3 of those a licensed products but I think it does show that there is some interest in scifi gaming material.