Dark Champions Character Pack now in Online Store

[Ben Seeman]

All the characters, skills and equipment for Dark Champions is now available in Hero Designer format in the Online Store for only $7.99!

Enjoy!

[Blue]

If only it would let me buy it!

Seems the online store is giving me heck this morning. After transmitting the required payment information, the progress bar stalled just short of halfway. After ten minutes I finally closed the browser because it was going nowhere. No e-mail confrimation for download showed up after another fifteen so I decided it hadn't gone through, went back to the site and it stalls now when I click on the "check out" button.

Just seems to be compnetco. I'll try again later.

[wylodmayer]

"Does not include guns or guns accessories"????

What the f*** am I paying 7.99 for?

No thanks. That's like offering the Conquerers, Killers and Crooks pack with a disclaimer that says "does not include any actual characters."

[GamePhil]

Characters, Super-Skills, general equipment, and all of the Packages.

Not trying to talk anyone into it, just answering the question, "What am I paying $7.99 for?"

[cndblank]

Well no guns in the Dark Champions Character Pack is a major turn off.

It is like having Fantasy Hero with no weapons or magic.

However they really need to do Heroic Equipment in a more user friendly format.

I really don't need to see the set of rifle limitations repeated again and again.

Better would be a simple one line with the damage, the OCV and RMOD, the Str Min, the magazine size, and the price.

Something you could stack together on a character sheet and form a weapons chart for the character.

I don't understand why they don't have some fans do them for some free product.

[cndblank]

I can understand the point about all the work need to list all the firearms in to the Dark Champions Character Pack.

But what are we supposed to arm our PCs and NPCs with? Typing in each weapon will get old fast. Plus we have already been spoiled with how fast Hero Designer creates a Character or NPC.

The other problem is that we really only need what the weapon DOES and NOT how it is bought.

My thoughts on fixing this is create a Hero Designer Weapons Pack for Heroic Campaigns.

But instead of listing how each weapon is bought in HD, create a custom power with the weapon name in the name field and then cut and paste the information from the weapon chart in to the display. It would be fast and very useful.

It would look like this:

Atchisson Assault: 12 +0 +0 2½d6 1d6 20 13 +6 140/31 5.20 2H, AF5, LR(50”)
Colt M1911/M1911A1 .45 ACP +1 +0 2d6-1 1d6 7 9 +2 39/10 1.10

That way the GM can look at the sheet and figure out what the weapon his NPC is using does. Players would also find this useful for listing their weapons. And while it isn’t pretty, most Hero players would have no problem reading it.

Better would be removing the some of the unnecessary info. Perhaps with a column list and a little formatting.


Weapon O/R Dam StX Rd SM P
Atchisson Assault: +0/+0 2½d6 1d6 20 13 +6 2H, AF5, LR(50”)
Colt M1911: +1/+0 2d6-1 1d6 7 9 +2

Listing the Real Cost (Perhaps in the Base Cost of the Custom Powers) would be REALLY good for those using Resource points.

To make it really useful for Heroic Campaigns adding the price (at least a rough one) and the mass to the equipment section of the Custom Power.

For the Atchisson Assault the equipment info that would be:
Base Cost 31
Mass 5.2
Price 4000

Most GM’s do not have access to the weapons in electronic format (there are advantages to be a playtester), so they can’t just cut and paste everything in to their PC and NPC. They have to enter the weapons stats by hand. And in a Gun happy game like Dark Champions that is going to take a lot of time. Plus why should each GM have to invent the wheel when they could get it straight from the Source?

Either format would be a lot faster than creating each weapon in HD and more useful besides. I know I’d slap down eight or nine dollar for a Hero Designer Pack like this.

What do you guys think?

[wylodmayer]

Characters, Super-Skills, general equipment, and all of the Packages.

Not trying to talk anyone into it, just answering the question, "What am I paying $7.99 for?"

But, and this is the important bit, GUNS ARE IMPORTANT TO DARK CHAMPIONS.

I defy anyone to explain to me how they aren't important to creating Dark Champions characters; even if not all Dark Champions characters wield guns, it's pretty durned hard to get through even a small party of DC characters without running into at least ONE who does use a gun. And if we take the more recent stance that Dark Champions encompasses such things as crime dramas, spy games, etc, then the ratio of gun wielders to non-gun wielders jumps even higher.

I agree with cndblank - it would be like having Fantasy Hero without magic. It's just freakin' ridiculous. In fact, I would stipulate that the widespread use of guns by the protagonists is one of the major "cosmetic" distinguishing features that marks Dark Champions from other genres. Besides, if the guns aren't important, then explain to me why so much space and text in the Dark Champions book were devoted to rules concerning them?

Of all the things in the DC book, it is the guns that required the most space for explanation and rules constructions; it is the guns that have the most intricate power builds... which means that it would be the guns that would be most useful to have in Hero Designer!! Whoever made the f**king genius decision to leave the guns out of the Dark Champions pack for Hero Designer would have probably come up with the idea to publish Playboy without any pictures of women.

J***s C****t. I am used to a high standard of content from Hero. This is a bizarre and frankly inexcusable oversight. I am not only not going to buy the Dark Champions character pack until it includes the guns, but I will discourage others from doing so as well; I will also boycott any further Hero Designer pack purchases and discourage my friends likewise.

[Vanguard]

Ok, first off you're being majorly rude.

Second, when the character pack first came out, Steve told us why the guns weren't included. It had something to do with the fact that the people that are getting paid to do the HD prefabs aren't getting paid a lot, not nearly enough for them to sit down and enter ALL the weapons, ammo types, etc.

If you're SO fired up about having them in there. Log your happy arse onto the computer and input them in yourself and then send them to Steve and get paid for them.

Now, was I a bit disappointed that the guns weren't included, yes. Did I still by the Character Pack, yes. Why? Because it's still worth the $7.99 for all the other stuff in there. Think about it, you've got ALL the prefabs for the various packages in there. All the info for all the Super Skills, etc. It's worth it. If they had included the guns it would've been more then the 7.99 and then you'd've been whining and complaining about the fact that it was so expensive.

I, frankly, don't see why you're making such a big deal and such a fuss about. Not including the guns in the character pack doesn't do anything to diminish the quality of the products Hero puts out. The HD Prefabs are there just as a "bene" for those of us that have the program. And, if you'll look, you'll probably find out that the people that are producing the packs AREN'T Hero employees. (well, not really). Theyr'e doing Steve and the rest of herodom a favor and saving us lots of time. They do get paid for it but not gobs and gobs of money. I don't think I have to go into the trickle down effect.

Also, you've got to look at it from yet another point of view. If they DID include the guns, then that right there is a good porting of the book, as you have stated and as such, they'd probably have to charge about what they were charging for CCC since once you got the pack you wouldn't really need the book.

[Steve Long]

Also, you've got to look at it from yet another point of view. If they DID include the guns, then that right there is a good porting of the book, as you have stated and as such, they'd probably have to charge about what they were charging for CCC since once you got the pack you wouldn't really need the book.

Exactly. Even if I were willing to ask GamePhil or whoever to do the work, the guns are too major a part of the value of the book. We'd have to increase the cost of the DCCP to $34.99 if the guns were included. Otherwise the Character Pack would be too attractive a purchase as compared to the book -- and ultimately we stay in business because we sell books, not Character Packs.

[Enforcer84]

So, is there any chance of a "weapons" pack for the various Weapons that have been left out? That would be worth the 30.00 charge to have the Swords, Guns, etc. in one pack...

[Steve Long]

I'll give that some thought, but if we did it I'm not sure what we'd set the price at. $30 would certainly be a minimum.

[cndblank]

I agree, there is no reason to be rude about it.

I would love a Heroic GEAR book. Some thing with various weapons, melee weapons, armor, and gear in a one liner Equipment/Weapon Chart format with price, mass, and real points.

I could even see spending $30 on it.

I don't know about a pack that was just the various weapons written up in the Powers section. I would want something I and my players would find readable when we are looking at the character sheets.

And I'm speaking from experience. I wrote up a Fading Suns Hero conversion. Had all the Occult, weapons and armor bought as powers so I could do complete HD character sheets for them.

My players hated the layout and the fact that each character sheet was several pages long. They wanted a clean and simple equipment list without all the standard weapon and armor limitations repeated again and again.

However having a prefab with all the gear I need in a compact readable format would be worth a lot when I'm finishing up the opposition the night before the game.

[Steve Long]

I would love a Heroic GEAR book. Some thing with various weapons, melee weapons, armor, and gear in a one liner Equipment/Weapon Chart format with price, mass, and real points.

Hmmm. That's certainly worth considering, though at this stage it would mostly be reprinted material from other books, and I'm not sure how attractive that sort of product would be to the average potential consumer. But I'll give it some thought.

[cndblank]

Just to be clear, I meant a Hero Designer Pack rather than a book (I thought I had changed that part of the post! ).

Something compact and readable for the Hero Designer GM to quickly outfit new PCs and NPCs with Gear in Hero Designer Character Sheets and Combat Records.

And using a cut and paste from the various weapon/armor charts would mean it could be put together in a reasonable time frame.

Thanks!

[wylodmayer]

First of all, if I offended anyone, I apologize.

However, let me be clear that I still do not see the point in releasing a Dark Champions HD pack without the guns. Even if it cost much more to buy with the guns, I would have rather paid more - and waited longer - to get it with the stuff I need. Once again, I have to come back to the point that the guns are important to the genre. If they weren't, Steve et al would not have spent so much space on them in the book. And they are also complex; just the sort of thing we need HD packs for. I'm not trying to diss the other stuff in the Dark Champions pack; however, there is simply no way around the fact that leaving the guns out means the omission of a major chunk of the game data included in the Dark Champions book. This is unprecedented in previous HD pack releases, and I definitely don't want to see it become a trend.

As for doing it myself, I would have thought it would be obvious that the whole reason that I am upset that the guns weren't included was that I don't *want* to type in the data myself... I'm perfectly *capable* of it, I'm just more than willing to pay for the convenience of not doing so. I mean, that's really the whole philosophy behind the HD packs anyway, isn't it? The classic money-for-time trade-off. I have the former, I have less of the latter; ergo, it makes sense, for me at any rate, to be willing to trade from one to the other.

I don't want anyone to come to the mistaken belief that I don't like Steve or Hero or the Hero Designer guys. But neither do I want anyone to come to the mistaken belief that I have no problem with the Dark Champions pack for HD. It's not rude; it's business. I think the product is deficient, and I won't buy it. I will encourage other people not to buy it. That's the way business works. It's the only way that people outside the company's structure have of influencing internal corporate decisions. Businesses listen with their balance sheets. Nothing personal.