Champions Rises

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

And yeah Steriaca, I fear that the entire idea of table top role playing games is waning, let alone superheroes.  But maybe if we do this well we can generate more interest.

 

1 hour ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

Well, we can always try. But don't get your hopes up. Be realistic. We are never going to 'save' Hero, only slow down the company's death.

 

D&D has experienced quite the resurgence in recent years. Granted, the upsurge in interest is mostly confined to that game, but it does offer a gateway to expand new gamers' horizons.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah stuff tends to go on cycles, I think its premature to say Hero is dead.  Its alive as long as players keep playing and content keeps coming out.  Games that were "dead" have had revivals recently and are more popular.  I suspect that role playing games will see a resurgence at some point.  Who on earth could have predicted that board games would be hot again?

[Stanley Teriaca]

45 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah stuff tends to go on cycles, I think its premature to say Hero is dead.  Its alive as long as players keep playing and content keeps coming out.  Games that were "dead" have had revivals recently and are more popular.  I suspect that role playing games will see a resurgence at some point.  Who on earth could have predicted that board games would be hot again?

Well, they say never say never...

[Sketchpad]

On 4/23/2024 at 9:26 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah I am not sure what new younger players really want from a game.  Do they care about the lore or the history?  Do they want to fight the big bad guy or just take out a series of enemies?  My instinct says that gamers want to face down with the big boss.  I guess we could make up our own new big boss guy but I think fighting an active, dangerous AI would appeal to modern gamers as a worthy threat.  Especially given how meh Ultron was handled in the Avengers movie.

 

I think it depends on the group at hand. My normal gaming group is a mix of older and younger players, and it has a mix of both theories, only not separated by age groupings. In all honesty, if you're setting it in the CU, you should use a Champions villain. Just not one too powerful to begin with.

 

On 4/24/2024 at 12:09 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

And yeah Steriaca, I fear that the entire idea of table top role playing games is waning, let alone superheroes.  But maybe if we do this well we can generate more interest.

 

Couldn't disagree more. I see new TTRPGs popping up and more than a few fans excited to give them a shot. The problem in my eyes is that fewer people either a) don't want to run, or b) have moved to less traditional game spaces (such as VTTs). The latter makes it both easy and challenging to find players, as things like time zones, VTT familiarity and support, and having a wide pool cause can make or break some games. 

 

On 4/24/2024 at 12:44 PM, Stanley Teriaca said:

Well, we can always try. But don't get your hopes up. Be realistic. We are never going to 'save' Hero, only slow down the company's death.

 

That's a bit pessimistic, isn't it? Maybe instead of slowing the death, 3PP are actually just keeping it afloat. I won't go into my usual tirades of thought on this. They're on the boards.

[Stanley Teriaca]

3 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

That's a bit pessimistic, isn't it? Maybe instead of slowing the death, 3PP are actually just keeping it afloat. I won't go into my usual tirades of thought on this. They're on the boards.

Of course I'm feeling down right now. But it is nobodies business. I do wish people would accept Champions, but if they wouldn't accept the game to survive 5ed, what makes us think 6ed would do better?

 

I guess I'm letting my depression about my physical limitations get to me sometimes.

Edited April 26 by Stanley Teriaca

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well it is clear that Hero is not in a great place right now.  In your local friendly neighborhood gaming shop, is there a single Hero Games product on the shelf?  I mean, there's probably no Cyperpunk or Call of Cthulhu stuff up either, but you get the point.  But this kind of project is exactly meant to address that.  Champions Begins is, according to Jason, doing really well, its being downloaded a lot.  That's a start: get people to learn the system.  Champions Rises is meant to take that to the next level, by adding more content and showing how to make a campaign work in Hero.  That can only help with sales and visibility for the brand.

 

Further, if we do this right it shows how to do a pathfinder-style campaign series for Champions, proven very popular with people.  And finally, it puts more adventures on the market, which while never huge sellers is important for a game system and in my opinion long a weakness for Hero in general over its history: a lack of adventures.

 

All of that can only help the game out and grow its awareness with players.

[Stanley Teriaca]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Well it is clear that Hero is not in a great place right now.  In your local friendly neighborhood gaming shop, is there a single Hero Games product on the shelf?  I mean, there's probably no Cyperpunk or Call of Cthulhu stuff up either, but you get the point.  But this kind of project is exactly meant to address that.  Champions Begins is, according to Jason, doing really well, its being downloaded a lot.  That's a start: get people to learn the system.  Champions Rises is meant to take that to the next level, by adding more content and showing how to make a campaign work in Hero.  That can only help with sales and visibility for the brand.

I'm glad to hear that. Maybe it helps that it is free.

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Further, if we do this right it shows how to do a pathfinder-style campaign series for Champions, proven very popular with people.  And finally, it puts more adventures on the market, which while never huge sellers is important for a game system and in my opinion long a weakness for Hero in general over its history: a lack of adventures.

Yes, that has always been a problem. I do miss the time when you can count at least two products every 30 days, with at least one of them an adventure.

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

All of that can only help the game out and grow its awareness with players.

We can only hope. But if it isn't free, will it turn people away?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Maybe the first thing to do is to start converting the old adventures into 6th edition and getting them on the shelf.  I'll burn a couple off and see what it takes and how big they are.  My guess is that they aren't worth more than 5 bucks and maybe less as a pdf.  The Mechanon Gambit doesn't look like it would be much longer than 15 pages.

[Stanley Teriaca]

19 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Maybe the first thing to do is to start converting the old adventures into 6th edition and getting them on the shelf.  I'll burn a couple off and see what it takes and how big they are.  My guess is that they aren't worth more than 5 bucks and maybe less as a pdf.  The Mechanon Gambit doesn't look like it would be much longer than 15 pages.

Well, it doesn't hurt to try.

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK I have discovered that I can do simple adventure rewrites with the little time and energy I have right now, which feels good to get working again.  I'm going to go through and rewrite these into little products on DriveThru and Hero Games store, through my Kestrel Arts brand and get them out for use with a larger product later.  They go pretty fast, although the art will take a while.  I'm going to experiment some with AI to see if I can get it to barf out simple covers for me.

 

I am toying with the idea of putting them all in the same category of "Champions Classics" as adventures from the past that are being put out again for play.  These are all pretty short, simple adventures but they give something quick and easy for GMs to just drop into a campaign.

Edited yesterday at 02:00 AM by Christopher R Taylor