Questioning the wiki...6e?

[pbemguy]

Hi folks. I'm one of the curators of the wiki. I'm having the inevitable doubts.

 

I feel like no one is using 6e. My logic for using 6e was that it was the future of Hero Games. But....

 

It was Michael Hopcroft's (a member here) sig file that hammered it home to me:

"6th Edition is for entertainment purposes only."

 

Should I even be building this in 6e? I had been away from the forum here for a couple of years, came back. I originally felt that the future of Hero was rolling back to 5e, and taking Michael Hopcroft's quote literally: treat 6e as a wonderful experiment, but proceed with 5e.

 

Thoughts?

[Christougher]

Funny, because I get the opposite reaction from the quote.

 

It's for *entertainment*.  Enjoy playing with it.

[pbemguy]

31 minutes ago, Christougher said:

Funny, because I get the opposite reaction from the quote.

 

It's for *entertainment*.  Enjoy playing with it.

 

I see your point. And I messaged Hopcroft right after I posted the thread because I did see how he might have meant that. But in the moment when I saw the quote I was feeling frustrated and I (mis?)interpreted it to mean that 6e is a fun thought experiment but isn't meant for actual gaming.

 

Regardless, I'm very close to changing it (the wiki) over to a 5e project. Reasoning: there aren't enough 6e players to justify moving forward in that vein. Am I wrong?

 

The smart decision, it seems to me from the participation levels thus far, is to change it over to 5e and allow for 6e conversions. I have people wanting to post stuff in 5e.

 

I'm not upset*...I imagined this was a possibility. My first instinct upon coming back to the forums--regarding "saving" Champions--was to lobby for a rollback to 5e; perusing the forums made me think that I may have been wrong. This experience is making me return to that original conclusion.

 

I completely understand if this is a sore spot on this forum: how could it not be? But if everyone is finished with the debate and has no further comments, then I'll proceed with an educated guess.

 

*TRANSLATION: I'm upset 😝

[Chris Goodwin]

Surveys here have pretty consistently shown 5e with a lower player base than either 4th or 6th.  My guess is that the people who were dissatisfied with 4e moved to 5e when it came out, and then a number of them moved to 6e, while a number of other new players have joined.  

 

I'd say leave it at 6e.  If people want it in other editions, it's not that hard to translate.

[pbemguy]

I hear ya. But, for whatever reason, the most interest in the wiki seems to be from 5e players. And I see a lot of threads for 5e builds here on the herogames forums. I could be wrong, but perhaps there is something about 5e that lends itself more to the wiki than 4e or 6e?

[Spence]

I don't have a solid answer, but there is a sharp divide between 1st through 5th edition and 6th edition. 

I don't think the polls as written here are really a reliable indicator because you get a lot of "I picked X because Y but I really would have preferred Z".  I play more D&D 5th than anything right now, but it is my least favorite RPG. 

 

I didn't see any navigation tabs, drop-downs or well anything navigation so I don't really know what you are trying to do.  But if it is intended to be something like the Forgotten Realms wiki, once you add something like their "Portals" to organize it a bit you may see some more participation.  Maybe add some templates for things like NPC's, Vehicles, Equipment and so on so things are standardized.  

 

But as for edition, my question is why are you worrying about whether it is in 6th or another version?  The flavor text/descriptive section doesn't care about edition.  Just provide a template for each version and require the files to contain their version in the file name.  Instead of "Mister Wicked" name they file "Mister Wicked [6ed]". 

Then encourage people to just submit stuff.  If I am a 5thR player and I see that the Villain I want is written for 6th, it will encourage me to make a 5thR conversion and post that one. 

Just a thought.

 

 

[archer]

I'm not familiar with 6e. I can wade through Champions Complete and put together a character. But I don't have any innate feel for how that character would stack up against any other character, whether over-powered, under-powered, or just right. And honestly, I don't have much interest in wading through 6e products to try to make those comparisons. I don't have 6e books so I'd have to comb through the forums there then try to figure out whether the character I'm reading is supposed to be over-powered, under-powered, or just right and then guess whether the author succeeded in her attempt.

 

I'd recommend letting people post anything out of any edition, just label it accurately. Once the wiki gets a large amount of content so that it is a useful reference for people to browse through, we could ask for volunteers to update the existing characters to 5e or 6e as appropriate.

 

I would also recommend allowing people to post stubs, reserving a character or organization name until the author has the time to post and flesh out her idea. And requesting that other people not touch a stub until the author completes her work. Maybe date the stub when it is created and let the stub exist for at least 6 months without the author finishing it up or at least making major progress.

 

I've got some ideas that I'd like to write up. But since the wiki started, I've had a kid come down with COVID-19, my wife in and out of the hospital twice, thrown my back out so that it's painful to stand or sit, and we've hit politics season (my personal SuperBowl).

 

I've been lucky to make it to the grocery store, my doctor appointments, the pharmacy, and to get the dishes washed once in a while. I'm not keeping up with the laundry at all. So it's difficult to amp myself up to doing anything creative, even with ideas rolling around in my head.

[steriaca]

Let the people write in whatever edition they feel comfortably in. Then encourage them to upgrade or downgrade the character as they see fit, when they see fit. They still play with the BBB? Then there you go.

[Hugh Neilson]

I don't think the Forum is the best indicator, given most posters were Hero fans first and Forum users afterwards.  It will have a lot greater percentage population familiar with older editions.

 

The difference between any two Hero editions is minimal compared to the shifts between 1/2e, 3e, 4e and 5e D&D.  IMO, at the 3e planning stage, the D&D designers decided to change "edition" to "new game iteration".  Even the most substantive changes in Hero are minor tweaks by comparison.

[steriaca]

Just posted Lady Heart up. She needs the proper image and the copyright message up. But I am terrible at such things.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I don't know much about the Wiki, actually. I'm just hoping against hope Surbrook's Stuff gets a new server or something similar emerges -- curated databases of created material for Hero including media adaptations.

 

I've already mentioned this to the pbemguy, but a little context on my signature quote that started this whole mess: before 6e came out, there was a thread about possible ad taglines for the new edition. Hence the quote, which was inspired by the ignored message at the end of all Oregon Lottery commercials of the time. 6e was not even out yet at the time, and was obviously a major topic of discussion -- most of which has since been lost. Many of the tweaks -- especially the elimination of Figured Characteristics and of the Comliness (COM) attribute -- were controversial, and while it was never at the point of an "edition war" there were people who continued to play 5e. I don't get to play any edition as much as I would like.

 

Now all six editions plus the two Complete editions are readily available online, and Hero just launched a Community Content program. Some would say the current creative state of the RPG field has passed crunchy systems like Hero by, but there is still a thirst for superhero-genre roleplaying and few games have ever done that genre better than Hero.

[Greywind]

I'm tinkering with some of my characters in regards to 6th. I may toss some at the wiki when I'm satisfied with them. Main issue would be imaging them.

[Killer Shrike]

When I'm being paid to do something, I deliver what the customer wants. Otherwise I do what I want, for my own reasons and enjoyment...if other people like what I've done and find value in it, that's a happy coincidence. 

 

So, my advice to you is to do what you enjoy doing. 

 

 

As it happens, I hosted a FantasyHero wiki for a handful of years and ultimately shuttered it despite the platform having accumulated a fair amount of content. The main reason was, while a few people did put up some content, the majority of the material came from me and at a certain point it stopped making sense to me to continue to host a platform for collaboration when almost no one was actually using it to collaborate. Hopefully you'll have a better experience. 

[steriaca]

57 minutes ago, Killer Shrike said:

When I'm being paid to do something, I deliver what the customer wants. Otherwise I do what I want, for my own reasons and enjoyment...if other people like what I've done and find value in it, that's a happy coincidence. 

 

So, my advice to you is to do what you enjoy doing. 

Same advice from me. If you enjoy what is coming in, then screw de rules, I've got green hair.

57 minutes ago, Killer Shrike said:

As it happens, I hosted a FantasyHero wiki for a handful of years and ultimately shuttered it despite the platform having accumulated a fair amount of content. The main reason was, while a few people did put up some content, the majority of the material came from me and at a certain point it stopped making sense to me to continue to host a platform for collaboration when almost no one was actually using it to collaborate. Hopefully you'll have a better experience. 

I believe this wiki will eventually boil down to what you experienced, except most of the material will come from me.

[Spence]

1 hour ago, Killer Shrike said:

I hosted a FantasyHero wiki for a handful of years

 

And it was an excellent wiki. 

[pbemguy]

I think part of the problem may be my explaining what the wiki is, and what it is not.

I will explain below.

 

On 8/26/2020 at 7:18 PM, Spence said:

But as for edition, my question is why are you worrying about whether it is in 6th or another version?  The flavor text/descriptive section doesn't care about edition.  Just provide a template for each version and require the files to contain their version in the file name.  Instead of "Mister Wicked" name they file "Mister Wicked [6ed]".

 

 

This is absolutely the answer, in my opinion. Yes! Effective immediately, post in ANY edition, and indicate which edition it is.

 

The wiki is mostly just a place to post a whole bunch of characters. That's 99% it. I just saw a lot of people posting great characters on this forum and thought that, if only it were cataloged, people who have never played Champions could see just how amazing it is. It will draw new people in to the system, I'm certain. Which will bring in more players, more money for the property, leading to higher-quality publications. And, most importantly, it will be super-easy to host a tabletop game because everyone will be playing it!

 

As it stands, it's a big hassle to try to wrangle a bunch of characters together by doing searches on the forum. Wouldn't it be nice if all of that stuff was put together, like in Enemies or the Handbook of the Marvel Universe? (Answer: Yes!)

 

So, post a character here, on this thread, or post it on the wiki. To post on the wiki, just click on "Add new page" and paste your character. I can patch it into the right place afterwards--I'll see it.