No Cyber Hero/Mecha Hero/Anime Hero?

[splooger]

Why have these genres been neglected so long?

[Thia Halmades]

Because they were primarily big in the 90s, and Iron Kingdoms is doing the project I conceived some time ago and actually wrote a campaign around, amusingly, they published around the time I started thinking of it. I've been told my ideas are very similar.

Point being, Cyberpunk 2020 and MechWarrior were bigger in the 90s, and HERO generally goes with the voting populace on the next Big Book. I'm praying for this as the next one -- I kept hoping Cyberpunk would win this year, but alas and alack.

[StGrimblefig]

Along these lines . . . Hey Susano, when is that 5th Ed update to Kazei 5 going to be ready?

[ghost-angel]

Cyber Hero has been on the last few Gen Con Release Polls, so it at least is on the board to be published sometime.

Anime Hero isn't a genre, it's a style. And I believe Steve has stated he currently doesn't have the time or inclination to study up on it enough for a book release.

[Greg]

Anime Hero isn't a genre, it's a style. And I believe Steve has stated he currently doesn't have the time or inclination to study up on it enough for a book release.

I think the same could be said for pulp, but I'd have to say that anime is currently far more popular than pulp and has been since Robotech came to the US in the mid 80s. Obviously Steve isn't the right person to write the book since he's not interested, but that shouldn't keep him from getting it made all the same.

[Hugh Neilson]

I think the same could be said for pulp, but I'd have to say that anime is currently far more popular than pulp and has been since Robotech came to the US in the mid 80s. Obviously Steve isn't the right person to write the book since he's not interested, but that shouldn't keep him from getting it made all the same.

Yes and no. If no one at Hero has the interest and knowledge to write it, that means they have to pay a freelancer to do it. If Steve or Darren writes a book and it has less than stellar sales, they're out the opportunity cost - whatever else Steve or Darren could have done with that time. If they pay a freelancer to do the work, and it flops, they're also out the costs paid to that freelancer (plus the opportunity cost of what Steve could have done instead of working with and editing the work of the freelancer).

Now, if a freelancer were prepared to work for a low up front payment plus a royalty on each book sold, that might make the picture a little different, but I'm not sure how many professional writers (and I'm sure Steve doesn't want to invest the editing time required to use an amateur) are prepared to work on spec.

[Rapier]

CyberHero is not that much different than DC or Champions, as is.

The genre book, itself, may provide some examples and lists of Cyberware but there shouldn't be much problem in creating them yourself.

I'm very much looking forward to CyberHero, but I'm running a bit of an amalgam campaign right now that has a few bits of CyberHeroy Goodness in it.

Heck, you can pick up your handy copy of ShadowRun and convert the Cyberware in it fairly easily. There is SO much material out there (and dirt cheap) that it should be pretty easy to convert a supplement from another system.

Heck (I seem to be saying that a lot lately), I imagine that there are a few of us (including me) that would be willing to lend a hand!

[ghost-angel]

I think the same could be said for pulp, but I'd have to say that anime is currently far more popular than pulp and has been since Robotech came to the US in the mid 80s. Obviously Steve isn't the right person to write the book since he's not interested, but that shouldn't keep him from getting it made all the same.

Yes, but Pulp can also be tied to a specific time period and style trappings, making both a Genre and a Style.

Anime has no such thing, it's all over the board. There's Horror Anime, Mecha Anime, Dating Anime, Fantasy Anime, Sci-Fi Anime, just to name a few . . . and Anime Hero book would have to cover so much ground it would either be unfeasibly large or would require someone have the appropriate Main Genre Book with Anime Hero merely being guidelines to adapt the Anime Trappings.

And most of the difference in Anime is the Cultural Differences. I see a lot of US Anime viewers just flat out miss all kinds of sub-plots, in-jokes or story elements for lack of an understand of Japanse Culture.

I personally think "Anime Hero" would be a complete disaster and waste of Steve and Darren's time. And I like anime.

[Steve Long]

First off, as several people have pointed out, Cyber Hero (CH) has been on our "what should the big book be this year?" poll for the past two or three years. Since 2002, it's also been listed in various places as a genre book we'd like to do. We just haven't gotten to it yet.

As for an "Anime Hero" book, while in general I think ghost-angel is correct about it being a style more than a genre, and so diverse a style that it can't even be considered a genre the way Pulp is, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of some sort of book at some point. However, I'm in no way qualified to write it, and neither is anyone else here. Since I don't think the sales would justify paying an outside author *plus* my time (and suffering ) to become sufficiently conversant with anime to properly edit the book, it remains a very low priority. Same for a "Mecha Hero" sort of book, though that's much more likely at some point since it's a much more discrete topic.

[yamamura]

I have often thought that doing an Anime HERO is a lot like doing Hollywood HERO. It is not even a style in my book but a medium a lot like film. So it does cover a large range of topics and tropes. While there is a lot of anime that uses some standard tropes the better ones avoids these in favor of a good story. I think far more interesting would be a book about Japan covering culture, laws and general society. Then within this book sections on Anime, J-Horror, Yakuza and others. As for historical Japan, I see no reason to recreate the wheel as long as Gold Rush's Sengoku exists.

[Thia Halmades]

I do think that it would be interesting to see (and I know I've pestered the ever living crap out of Steve about this) a completely revised and updated Robot Warriors with new 5th Ed. Rev. specific rules adapting it into the current rules. Despite this going directly against the current "universal" flow, as optional rules I think they're genre appropriate.

Further, I think stuffing an "Anime Giant Robots" section in there would be great, but generally I agree with GA in that Anime is just too bloody big a topic. From Akira to Zone of Enders and everything in between.

I couldn't conceive of an "Anime HERO" any more than I could "Video Game HERO" or "Movie HERO."