Roll20 Project: End of Week Update #1

[ccastan]

We were able to get a lot accomplished this week for the Champions Begins GM Book & Adventure. We completed editing of Chapters 1 through 4, and added the content to the Roll20 Adventure that'll be included in the bundle. The work done this week concentrated on editing and proofreading the adventure, and formatting it for Roll20. It's just the copy text and art for now. The maps, characters, and tokens are planned for after the text content for the adventure is complete. 

 

The plan for next week is to complete Chapter 5 by editing and formatting for Roll20 (making sure all the headers are consistent, another proofreading pass and such). Then doing a final edit and proofreading pass of the whole adventure. Additionally, we'll do a final review to particularly look for opportunities to include additional links in the text for easy access to references. For example, clicking on VIPER Agent in the text will open up the Character Sheet for it, or clicking the name of a Skill will open up a window with the description. As a stretch goal for the week, we will start adding the characters and character sheets. We'll start with the pre-generated characters first. That'll be a bit of work considering each pregen has a new character sheet per chapter. 

[ccastan]

Update for Week #3

 

Just wanted to give everyone an update on the progress for the project. Over the last two weeks we've continued to work on the Champions Begins Adventure, Viper's Nest, and have completed editing and uploading all of it. We've also created all the Player Character Pregens and Villains and uploaded them to Roll20 as well. The Pregens are each divided into their respective chapters, and additional information is added and a new character sheet is created for each chapter. Each character is loaded into the HeroSystem6e Roll20 character sheet. Likewise, each villain (21 in total) has their own character sheet.  Additionally, we've added tokens for all the Pregens and Villains. 

 

Over the next week, we will redraw the maps and upload them to the adventure, before doing a final edit and proofreading while adding links to the various handouts. It looks like we will be about a week behind the original schedule, but the adventure and characters went through a substantial editing and proofreading effort which was not part of the original scope of the work. So, all in all, despite the additional effort, we are still progressing well toward the October 1st deadline. 

 

Lastly, as part of the character generation process for roll20 we created the Hero Designer files for the Pregens. These files were not included as part of the PDF version currently available. We'll provide these to Hero Games so that they can add them to the package available through the Hero Store and through Drivethrurpg. 

[Wren]

Hi All,

 

First time posting. So I just came back from a Champions gaming weekend with friends and we also play D&D and we were just speaking about this. We use some of the basic aspects of roll 20 and we use D&D beyond for D&D. Things are becoming more digital all the time and this is a natural evolution for all RPG's let alone Hero system. So big "Thank You"s to all involved...we came to the site to look at some 6th ed books and saw this post so I just wanted to chime in  !!!

 

Cheers,

 

Wren

[ccastan]

Update for Week #5 

 

Hello everyone, 

 

Just another quick update on the work done since the last update. We've gone back and did a final editing and proofread of the adventure, so the text copy for the adventure and the characters (including tokens) is done. The only thing left to complete this part of the project is to complete the maps.

 

As you may have seen, we posted a sample of the map for the Lake Forest Cemetery, and we've continued to work on the other maps of the adventure. To be honest, the delay in producing the maps is due to experimenting with Blender (a 3D modeling software) to see how we could use it to create the maps, and are looking toward using that software to create the maps for Roll20 using it.  The rationale for using Blender is that we can produce a 2D image file that we can upload to Roll20, but also use the same map for 3D tabletops such as Tabletop Simulator. There are also a lot of assets, many of them available for free, to use when doing 3D scenes, and so far we are making good progress in doing the maps. The delay came from the learning curve to learn to use it. 

 

As far as schedule, we are a couple of weeks over the original estimate, but getting a Publisher account with Roll20 to start creating the Compendium has taken longer than expected. Hero Games signed the contract two weeks ago after waiting for a month to get a reply to their application. We still haven't gotten the Publisher account access, so even if we'd been done with the adventure on schedule, we would still be in the same place. The result is that we've gotten a little more time to explore options for the mapping, and to do a more complete edit and proofreading of the adventure.

 

You won't get another update for the following two weeks, as I will be taking an early Summer Vacation and will be out of the country without my laptop (my wife would kill me if I took it and worked while on vacation). 

[ccastan]

Hello everyone, 

 

Between summer vacation and holidays, we haven't posted an update for several weeks, but work continued. 

 

We did finally were able to meet with Roll20 to get the Compendium for Champions Complete going last week. Currently, we are working on updating the Structured-Data Template for the book. This template is basically used to organize the book's content into a format used to create the Compendium in Roll20. We're about 40% done with this process and hope to finalize it by the end of next week. 

 

We've also continued to update the maps for the Viper's Nest Adventure using Blender. To give you a preview of the difference with using Blender, I'm attaching the updated version of the Lake Forest Cemetery. Let me know what you think!

 

As I may have mentioned before, the Viper's Nest adventure text, characters, villains are entered and completed in Roll20. We will finalize the maps in between updating the Compendium. 

 

With the current progress, we've caught up with the timeline, so still looking at a 4Q release. 

[Ndreare]

This is so very cool. I recently came back to Hero after about 5-6 years away and planned on using roll20. Finding out someone is working on it is super awesome and I really look forward to when you work becomes available to consumers. 

[ccastan]

Hello all, 

 

It's been a little over a month since the last update, and wow as of this writing that last update has over 15,000 views. We hope that is a good indication of the excitement for this project and helps to keep more Roll20 projects coming in the near future. 

 

We wanted to give you a bulleted update of the work in progress. As mentioned in a previous post, we're working hard to release this in October 2022, and despite some early delays in getting the account and the compendium started with Roll20 we're optimistic that we will hit that date. Here is a brief status of the scope of the work:

• Champions Begins Player's Book: 100%
• Champions Begins GM's Book (Includes Adventure): 95% (Only remaining items are maps. Currently completed 2 out of 8).
• Champions Complete Compendium: 222 pages out of 413 pages completed (yes, that's 413 individual web pages for the Compendium). That equates to about 54%, but it's really not reflective of the work that's outstanding. A lot of the work already done was more time consuming than the remaining pages, if we were to put a level of effort completion number on it it's more like 70%.
• Champions Complete: The Champions and Villain Characters and Tokens Add-On: 100%

As you can see, we are getting close to the finish line. We're really excited about rolling this out!

 

Lastly, here is another treat. This is the construction site for the Tanghal Towers, the second encounter in the Champions Begins Viper's Nest adventure. Lots of stuff for Bricks to throw around and smash. It's a big file, because it's a big map, so PM me if you want a smaller resolution version.

[1corpus christopher]

I have read your posts, and I am very happy to read of your progress as creators and authors for the Roll20 effort. Champions, particularly the superhero genre, is a game that has given me a device for enjoyment, escape, expression and political/social treatise on numerous occasions over the past 30-plus years.

 

If I may be so bold as to suggest some things you may want to offer for the Roll20 game experience:

 

An adventure or two in Meriquai Falls.

 

Adventure Club modules tweaked or amended to allow those of us who read/played them when they were released back in the day, to play these fine works today with Roll20.

 

Hudson City and its various resources from Dark Champions.

 

Star Hero scenarios.

[ccastan]

On 8/18/2022 at 5:06 PM, Ndreare said:

What is the targeted cost for the consumer on this project?

I thought we answered this in another post, but just in case, the projected cost is $30

On 8/21/2022 at 5:51 AM, 1corpus christopher said:

I have read your posts, and I am very happy to read of your progress as creators and authors for the Roll20 effort. Champions, particularly the superhero genre, is a game that has given me a device for enjoyment, escape, expression and political/social treatise on numerous occasions over the past 30-plus years.

 

If I may be so bold as to suggest some things you may want to offer for the Roll20 game experience:

 

An adventure or two in Meriquai Falls.

 

Adventure Club modules tweaked or amended to allow those of us who read/played them when they were released back in the day, to play these fine works today with Roll20.

 

Hudson City and its various resources from Dark Champions.

 

Star Hero scenarios.

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We are looking forward to the launch and success of this project so that we can offer additional products. 

[john j putnam]

I am so looking forward to this, and am waiting, basically money in hand, for this to drop.   My party went virtual due to the pandemic, and we switched games from our Champions game to 5e D&D due to the dearth of Champions-friendly VTTs, especially for our more technologically less experienced party members.  Definitely looking forward to this.

[jsherwood0]

I'm very excited to see the work you're doing here.  I've already made and committed some improvements to the Hero System 6E character sheet on Roll20 in the past months and am working on a new sheet in which I hope to replicate most of the functionality in the HERO Designer.  If you already have someone working on a new character sheet, please let me know so that I'm not duplicating someone else's work.

[ccastan]

On 9/25/2022 at 12:00 PM, jsherwood0 said:

I'm very excited to see the work you're doing here.  I've already made and committed some improvements to the Hero System 6E character sheet on Roll20 in the past months and am working on a new sheet in which I hope to replicate most of the functionality in the HERO Designer.  If you already have someone working on a new character sheet, please let me know so that I'm not duplicating someone else's work.

jsherwood0 the only work that we've done on the character sheet is a preliminary design. I would like to discuss the changes your making after the roll20 project is launched in October. Feel free to PM me, or I'll reach out to you soon. Thanks!

[ccastan]

We are happy to let everyone know that the Roll20 Project's been submitted to Roll20 for review and approval and we should get a response within a week or two. Once that is done, assuming that we don't have to make any updates, the project will be ready to launch. 

 

The Champions Complete Compendium package will be available for $29.99. Below we've included some additional information about it's content.

Product Information

The Champions Complete Bundle

Includes everything new and experience players need:

• Champions Complete Compendium: The Core Rules for Champions Complete based on the Hero System 6E Rules
• Champions Begins: A set of quick-start rules and to help new players learn the system while playing. It includes a rebooted classic module, Viper's Nest.
• Champions Complete - Heroes and Villains: This Add-on includes the tokens and character sheets for the iconic Champions superhero team, and Villains included in the Champions Complete Core Rule Book.

Compendium

• You can access the Compendium Book content in the in-app compendium, as well as on the Roll20 web compendium.

Champions Begins

This product module includes:

• The Player Book: Introduces players to the Champions Complete system
• The GM Book: Contains the classic reboot of the Viper's Nest Adventure and provides a progressive learn as you play style to get new GMs and players started with Champions Complete.
• Character Sheets and Tokens for 11 Pre-generated Characters. The Character Sheets content for each hero add additional information as new rules are introduced in each chapter.
• 21 Villain Character Sheets and Tokens to challenge your heroes through the Viper's Nest Adventure.
• 8 high quality maps and content tokens including Dynamic Maps for the VIPER Nest