History question: Marksman's Guardians

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

He already got the rights back for The Great Supervillain Contest and the Conoris Effect, two modules he written. And all his characters from the first three Enimies books and at least two characters from the original Escape From Stronghold (Radar and Sonar).

 

Guess I'll have to avoid any of the bundled Escape from Stronghold characters if I get to rebuilding that one; not a problem.  I had planned to use only recently published ones, anyway.

[steriaca]

2 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Guess I'll have to avoid any of the bundled Escape from Stronghold characters if I get to rebuilding that one; not a problem.  I had planned to use only recently published ones, anyway.

I think you only have to ignore Radar and Sonar.

[Sketchpad]

3 hours ago, steriaca said:

I believe Dennis was the other person, Icons was the system, Kickstarter was the funding, and the Kickstarter campaign a failure.

 

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 Sean Patrick Fannon ran a game three years ago, with his Southern California Regulars.  Ray Greer and I were in town for Albert Deschane's (sic) funeral, and sat in on the game. Sean was NOT running Hero that day, but his new "light" system  "Powers and Paragons" or something like that, though there was a conversion of Hero characters to Sean's much simpler system.  This might be it? 

 

That's the one, Scott. Rumor mill had it that Sean was looking at producing a Guardians book for Prowlers & Paragons, though I'm not 100% if the book is still on the docket. I would love to see a book like this converted over to Hero as well.  

 

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

So, Armadillo, what is your goal?  To nail down the characters for 6e, or produce a history about the beginnings of Champions?  As far as I know, the Guardians were the Playtest group of Heroes, and use of the characters was sporadic after the publication of Champions. I will probably  be going to the "get together" on July 4th Weekend this year, at Steve Petersen's house, with the Heroes, for the 40th Anniversary of the Launch of Champions, and I could ask a few questions. (Unfortunately, there are no conventions in the Bay Area this year, due to California COVID-19 restrictions still in place mostly.)  Other than that, it's up to them if they want to be forthcoming with campaign information or not.

 

Scott, any chance you could mention this thread? Maybe see of anyone else could give some more info? It's really too bad that we don't have a 40th Anniversary book for Champions coming out. The Guardians campaign would've made an awesome landmark for the system.

[Jhamin]

 

1 hour ago, steriaca said:

To many of them it is old news and would be surprised that many of us care about this. Depending on how they feel, it might be either "you shouldn't care, our campaign isn't your campaign" to "if you want to include character x, your free to do so in your private game" to "go make your own legacy characters dam zit."

 

I suspect there is some truth to this.  I have several friends who make a living doing boardgames, and several came from RPG backgrounds.  Folks who create this stuff tend to have a very different view of content than those of us who play.  It is a job and they have nostalgia for it the way you remember a good boss.  Nice, you may have stories, but you don't remember all the details decades later.

As for making this a product, outside of the people on this forum, how many people would care about the stats for the guy on the cover of a book 5 editions and 40 years out of date?  Hero can barely get people to buy 6th.

[armadillo]

 

 

3 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

So, Armadillo, what is your goal?  To nail down the characters for 6e, or produce a history about the beginnings of Champions?  As far as I know, the Guardians were the Playtest group of Heroes, and use of the characters was sporadic after the publication of Champions. I will probably  be going to the "get together" on July 4th Weekend this year, at Steve Petersen's house, with the Heroes, for the 40th Anniversary of the Launch of Champions, and I could ask a few questions. (Unfortunately, there are no conventions in the Bay Area this year, due to California COVID-19 restrictions still in place mostly.)  Other than that, it's up to them if they want to be forthcoming with campaign information or not.

 

Messaged you, Scott. The goal is more about posterity; just a history of the beginnings of Champions but from the angle of reporting on the Guardians as though they actually existed. My approach would be a documentation of the beginnings of Champions and how the Guardians were used to playtest the rules (a fact I learned from you), but I think a fun second angle would be to report on the Guardians in a style that made it seem as though the Guardians were real. I would combine these two facets into one article.

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Nekkidcarpenter said:

Too much activity for an old timer?  Just drop in occasionally to chuck some bombs, need more old blood.  And new blood.  Even True Blood.

 

 

 

Not really too much activity:  too _massive_ a PITA to navigate on a phone (my antique computer doesn't Discord at all), and I seem the be the only person even near my timezone being active with it, or I am the only person who can't dabble on social media all day at work; I don't know which:  I just know that the damned alerts during the working day made my life feel like it was being lived in a pinball machine.

 

Turning the the alerts off stopped the noise, but it didn't help the navigating to what you wanted to read a single bit.

 

I am like most old folks-- I came up on library nets way back when, and graduated to chat rooms, etc-- and when forums starting popping up, I never looked into another chat server.  Discord feels exactly like those old chat servers to me: don't stay in it from minute to minute, and it's whole different language when you get back to it.

 

Is it a bad thing?  Nope; clearly not.  Lots of people doing it.

 

It is just a long, _long_ way from anything that appeals to me. 

 

 Which is too bad: i was rather excited, as I had heard that voice conversation groups were a typical thing on Discord, and I can get behind that.  Messed around with it for three weeks and never found one, so I just dipped.

 

 

[Opal]

22 hours ago, Jhamin said:

5 editions and 40 years out of date?  Hero can barely get people to buy 6th.

Wizards o/t Coast could barely get anyone to buy modern/balanced/accessible 4e D&D, but as soon as they brought back the familiar brokednessity of 80s D&D and recycled the Red Box cover, they had a full scale comeback on their hands and D&D sold faster than ever.

[armadillo]

3 minutes ago, Opal said:

Wizards o/t Coast could barely get anyone to buy modern/balanced/accessible 4e D&D, but as soon as they brought back the familiar brokednessity of 80s D&D and recycled the Red Box cover, they had a full scale comeback on their hands and D&D sold faster than ever.

 

You said what I wanted to say but you said it first and you said it better.

 

PS: I love your avatar. Just started re-watching Space: 1999 since watching it when it was first broadcast. Still great.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

On 5/21/2021 at 5:14 PM, Duke Bushido said:

I am like most old folks--

I too am like most old folks.  Born in 1964, worked for 25 years in a field I enjoyed till I couldn't compete in the nail-banging business, started doing retail arbitrage, got married in 2008, had my first child in 2009, 2nd in 2012, and 3rd in 2019.

[Ninja-Bear]

On 5/22/2021 at 1:40 PM, Opal said:

Wizards o/t Coast could barely get anyone to buy modern/balanced/accessible 4e D&D, but as soon as they brought back the familiar brokednessity of 80s D&D and recycled the Red Box cover, they had a full scale comeback on their hands and D&D sold faster than ever.

Yeah but if I somewhat recall, when D&D 4th came out, it was similar to C: NM. The diehard said “no this isn’t D&D, it’s a TT versus of a computer game”. 

[Scott Ruggels]

Armadillo! Talked to Bruce and he said to go ahead and send your questions for the article. Message me for my email addresss and I’ll forward the material. Good to go?

[steriaca]

Good old Bruce Harlick. Nice to see he is still living.

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, steriaca said:

Good old Bruce Harlick. Nice to see he is still living.

 

Gotta level with ya: from the picturea ive seen of him, i'd'a thought cigars would"ve done him in by now.  

 

I dont even know if he smoked; ive just never seen a picture of him without one.

 

 

 

[Opal]

19 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Yeah but if I somewhat recall, when D&D 4th came out. The diehard said “no this isn’t D&D, it’s a TT versus of a computer game”. 

"The Edition War" went beyond just that one bit of misinformation, but yes, the point being that D&D strayed from tradition for a bit and did much better when it reached back to it's earlier incarnations. 

 

So, yes, there are gamers out there who can be rdawn in by appeals to tradition/nostalgia/originalism.

 

19 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

when D&D 4th came out, it was similar to C: NM

Fuzion was also analogous to 3e D&D, in that it was an attempt at an open-source RPG, and while it changed the game cosmetically, it left the core balances (and imbalances) - the system-mastery dynamics - very much the same.  It was also in addition to Hero, rather than a replacement for it.

 

4e D&D, though,  was also analogous to Hero 6th, in that both changed significant, long-standing elements of the rules that impacted dynamics especially, in terms of system mastery, and for legal reasons changed around IP & lore.  Of course, D&D had a lot further to go in a single ed than just eliminating a few 'cost breaks,' and Wizards'  'legal reasons' were self-inflicted. 

 

It just seems like D&D fans were a lot more vindictive about it.  Fuzion wasn't really quite Hero, so I kept playing Hero; 6th kinda lost me, but I just stopped paying attention for a while.  3.x & old-school D&Ders went off on 4e like it was an E′phraimite trying to sneak into Gilead without saying "Shibboleth."

 

On 5/22/2021 at 10:43 AM, armadillo said:

PS: I love your avatar. Just started re-watching Space: 1999 since watching it when it was first broadcast. Still great.

Opal was the first Champions! character I got to play long-term, and the single character I played the most, so when I found Red October I used her name, and that just became my handle for Hero discussions.  She was inspired by an image from an 80s video of a strange-looking platinum-haired woman in a mirror-like silver costume that reminded me of the flared-shoulder look of old sci-fi costumes.  I'm not sure what else went into her, but I did decide to give her 'Unearthly Beauty' since she was an alien, and Barbara Bain fit the bill - beautiful, but not an approachable beauty - when I visualized her.   At least, the way 18yo me remembered her from Mission: Impossible re-runs and Space:1999 10 years prior. 

And, yes, I loved Space:1999 and UFO and what other Gerry Anderson shows I got to see as a child - even the supermarionation. 

[Opal]

Oh, I also meant to mention that another thing that's been going on over on the D&D side of the hobby (which is, of course, the lion's, or even the T-rex's, share of the hobby), is the old fogies of the game's early days coming out and sharing their memories.  Like Rob Kuntz, I think it was, was on ENWorld just chatting with people about his relationship with Gygax back when D&D was being developed. 

That seems to energize some fans.

[Scott Ruggels]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Gotta level with ya: from the picturea ive seen of him, i'd'a thought cigars would"ve done him in by now.  

 

I dont even know if he smoked; ive just never seen a picture of him without one.

 

 

 

Cigars are celebratory, but his thing is mixed drinks and cocktails.  Hee likes that lounge environment. 

3 hours ago, steriaca said:

Good old Bruce Harlick. Nice to see he is still living.

Hearty and healthier than I am. Working at his job, and sharing cocktail recipes on social media. 

[steriaca]

3 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 

Hearty and healthier than I am. Working at his job, and sharing cocktail recipes on social media. 

I'm sure he has a recipe for a nice fruity light cocktail called the Foxbat...

[Sketchpad]

2 hours ago, Opal said:

Oh, I also meant to mention that another thing that's been going on over on the D&D side of the hobby (which is, of course, the lion's, or even the T-rex's, share of the hobby), is the old fogies of the game's early days coming out and sharing their memories.  Like Rob Kuntz, I think it was, was on ENWorld just chatting with people about his relationship with Gygax back when D&D was being developed. 

That seems to energize some fans.

 

I completely agree, Opal. I think that's why we see occasional posts on the Hero Boards wondering about The Guardians characters and campaign.