Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

[Eosin]

Discussing things in COMPANY Q's about the RPG downturn and ways to meet the future. An idea mentioned was that Hero lacks a Legendary Product, you know along the lines of Temple of Elemental Evil, The World's Largest Dungeon, Masks of Narlytheotep, etc....

 

What do you think Hero could do that would be Legendary?

 

PS - Hero IMO had a legendary product with Dark Champions and Strikeforce but will readily conceed that I could be wrong.

[Beholder]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

Possibly an original setting with *lots* of books to support it(we know that this is impossible due to sales, but it helped me commit myslef to a setting in the past).

 

Example of original material:

--------------------------

-Ghelspad

-Dragonstar

-The world of darkness (white wolf)

-Living steel (very old stuff, very original)

-Matrix (it was original when it came out)

 

Anything original, contrary to Turakian age or Terran empire that are both good but mainstream standard settings.

[yamamura]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I have always thought that in most people's mind Champions is Hero's Legendary product.

 

G

[Agent 13]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I have always thought that in most people's mind Champions is Hero's Legendary product.

I've found that in most people's minds Champions and Hero are interchangable terms.

[Herolover]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I've found that in most people's minds Champions and Hero are interchangable terms.

 

I second this statement. I hate it when I here someone using them that way, because most people here it and think HERO is only good for supers. I try to nicely correct them and show them that HERO is far more than just supers.

[Andrew Cermak]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

 

What do you think Hero could do that would be Legendary?

 

 

5ER is Hero's legendary product.

 

I know people with little interest in Hero who bought it just to have the biggest RPG rulebook ever.

[simplygnome]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I know people with little interest in Hero who bought it just to have the biggest RPG rulebook ever.

 

NO KIDDING. I was walking away from my latest gaming store with FREd (which I brought from home) and 5ER (which I just purchased) and I thought I was nearly about to fall over from the awkwardness....! But, as long as no one recognized them as RPG books, then they made me look very scholastic indeed!

[Shocker]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

As my signature says, I've played Hero in one form or another for a LONG time. Champions was and is a great product. Strikeforce was really nice too. My friends and I delighted to Dark Champions because you could do so much with it. Now I'm buying 5ER next week and putting 5th on the shelf.

 

I work in a game store and I just put out a whole shipment of Hero product. Against the boss's best wishes I snuck the display a bit closer towards the window because I love the system, I think it'll sell well and I want to see it continue.

 

IMHO Hero system covers so much that except for 5ER it'll be tough to come up with a 'signature product' any time soon. You have rules for everything under the sun from fantasy to space to supers, expansion books galore, and everything is pretty tight with regards to rules and so forth. Lots of internal consistency and I like that.

 

I have a couple of ideas that might help with sales and while they wouldn't be signature products might help things along.

 

1) More books about Villians. I don't think you can enough of these really. Some GMs have trouble coming up with new material and these really help.

 

2) More books about other heroes ala Strikeforce or something similar. Chart a team from its creation to as close to the current day as possible. I once played in a Champions campaign that ran more or less continuously for ten years. I find this fascinating and I think others would too.

 

3) The Ultimate Base book just sounds cool. Looking forward to it.

 

4) How about something simple like a book of character pictures for heroes and especially villians? Something as simple as this would have been really nice back in the day and still might help new players and g.m.s get started now. No stats, no data, just pictures.

 

I hope Hero continues to entertain us for a long time to come.

[Phil]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I have a couple of ideas that might help with sales and while they wouldn't be signature products might help things along.

 

1) More books about Villians. I don't think you can enough of these really. Some GMs have trouble coming up with new material and these really help.

 

And I will never buy another one of these again. I lost heart in HERO when every 4th edition supplement was just a long list of character write-ups. From the better (Dark Champions, Kingdom of Champions) where write-ups maybe took up 25% of space, to the dreadful bestiaries which never pretended to be anything else, they were a complete rip-off: a few hours work, bit of desk-top publishing, heypresto - a new supplement.

 

I'd rather see more adventure hooks / mini-adventures. Villains should be tailored to individual groups' power levels and set-up, and can be fudged as necessary. Full write-ups are a waste of paper as well as money!

 

If you want these, search the web. I'm sure there's plenty of write-ups out there you could use as villains if you so chose.

 

4) How about something simple like a book of character pictures for heroes and especially villians? Something as simple as this would have been really nice back in the day and still might help new players and g.m.s get started now. No stats, no data, just pictures.

 

Dont they have these already? I think they're called 'comics'

 

Phil

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I think that the legendary product was Justice Inc.

 

It was different, well produced and really felt right for the genre. If the system details could have been 'hidden' as an option it would have been a fantastic tie in for anyone keen to do League of ExtraOrdinary Gentlemen style games.

[MitchellS]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I think a legendary product needs to be an adventure. It needs to be something you can look back on in play for years to come. I still remember my first trip to the Island of Dr. Destroyer and that Escape from Stronghold when that damn Insectoid nailed me with his big ap killing attack.

 

Because Hero is now multigenre it become much harder to have a legendary product. What a Fantasy Hero player would find legendary a Champions player might find mundane. What might be considered a legendary product is if Hero Games were to put the entire Hero Universe in print, giving detailed information for every era so that you get a detailed idea of the whole that we currently don't have. The Hero Universe is really a vast and expansive thing.

 

If I were to suggest a Champions product I'd like to see some large, multi-part, adventure that takes the players from the castle of Kal-Turak in the Turakian Age to London in the Renaissance Age, to Germany in the Golden Age, to the back alleys of Hudson City, to the swamps of Vibora Bay, to the towers of Millennium City, to the Tyrannon invasion of 2020 and the breaking of magic, all the way to the 31st century and the rebirth of Takofanes. Something like that could be legendary.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I think MitchellS has something here.

 

A legendary adventure where the PCs are taken through the major DoJ setings and characters. A taster of everything that could tempt people to buy into more of the genres but not require anything more than the main rulebook to play.

 

I have an idea of reincarnated souls fighting the same battle through different bodies across millennia. Done properly it _would_ be legendary. It could showcase the system and make people take a look.

 

My biggest concern would be how to retain some measure of continuity between genres and eras - if you decide to play Gurt Gormless, Barbarian in the first part of the scenario what effect does that have on the reincarnation in the time of superheroes?

 

I'd want heavy ties on personalities but probably free reign on skills and powers apart from some kind of signature e.g. Gurt's penchant for a warhammer becoming a Hammer Corp. Battlesuit in the superheroes and a hotshot pilot flying a Hamm'r Starfighter later on.

 

 

Doc

[MitchellS]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I was personally thinking along the lines of your player's Champions characters going on some expansive Takofanes temporal quest which covers every era within the HU. It might be way to complicated to have different characters for each era. I'm too lazy for that.

 

I was just thiking the players could be a part of the defeat of Kal-Turak in the past due to some epic time-spanning quest to gather all the piece of some artifact scattered through time by Kal-Turak's imprisoners. The artifact is needed to defeat Takofanes from accomplishing his modern goal. The GM could play up how Takofanes recognizes the players when he encounters them.

 

It would be interesting to see how players deal with slowly losing some powers during the Alien Wars and Terran Empire time periods but become turbo charged during the Galactic Champions encounter with Takofanes 3000, as well as all the adjustments for all the time periods in-between.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

While I like the multi-genre scenario suggested by mitchells, I only see two ways to accomplish this. The first is DD's idea of different characters in each era, which probably requires pre-fab characters and, if not, significant character custmization. The second is mitchells' "characters adjusted through time" structire, which requires considerable customization for each character.

 

The "legendary products" cited earlier on are all pretty much "plug & play". That was a large part of their appeal - the scenario doesn't change depending on who the characters are, so players would have similar experiences and could compare them with each knowing what the other is talking about.

 

I also don't believe you can set out to write a legendary product - you wriute the best product you can, but it's the gamers who make it legendary. BTW, I don't think the World's Largest Dungeon has stood the test of time to be considered "Legendary".

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

The main problems I see with using a time-travel adventure as Hero's "Legendary Product" are (1) it would likely be seen as just an "advertising sampler" for the rest of Hero's line, and (2) adventures don't tend to sell really well in the first place.

 

Mind you, I'm not saying the project shouldn't be done; with a few more period sourcebooks in place, I'd really love to see it. I think it would be a good thing. I just don't think it would qualify as Legendary.

 

To really be a Legendary Product like those mentioned above, it would have to be a product that, though fitting in well with the rest of the Hero Continuum, can easily be used independent of it, even by those who play other game systems. It would also have to be in a currently-popular genre covered by multiple systems.

 

I also think that it should not concentrate on being an enemies book, an adventure book, or anything else specific, but provide a good amount of everything.

 

One possibility would be to take Harcorp Towers, on which (if I'm understanding correctly) Steve is currently doing "spare time" work, and turn it into a fully mapped-out building in a single book. Provide plenty of "normal" NPCs, including lawyers, jewelers, ISPs, and various others. Some of the NPCs could also be criminals of various sorts, from simple pilferers to would-be masterminds and possibly even a supervillain wannabe. The building could include a regional office for a couple of Federal law enforcement agencies (I'm thinking FBI, Marshals, and DEA as likely candidates). With everything mapped out and detailed from the rooftop helipad to the utility basement, there could be plenty of plot hooks, both explicit and implied, for scenarios in not just Dark Champions (including as many subgenres as possible), but also Champions and other modern-day and near-future games.

[MitchellS]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

Harcorp Towers isn't a bad idea, though I don't really care if it's usable by people for other game systems or not. There's a similar product over on the M&M forum called "Black Rose Alley" which details a mile long stretch of a dead-end road in much the same way. Both products are generic enough to be used in any gaming environment.

 

I personally don't have any problem with Hero Games publishing more generic material, though it wouldn't hurt to have a page or two giving indication of how you can best use the product in the CU or DCU. The Hero System's roots are in generic product and seeing more of that wouldn't hurt.

 

Just on a personal note I wouldn't mind seeing you, Bob, look into possibly publishing some licensed Hero material in pdf form. I have always enjoyed your writing style all the way back to your Haymaker days. I know these probably wouldn't be gigantic moneymakers but the level of return you might be happy with is not what Hero Games was happy with. Just some food for thought. The Hero community could really use some Superlink-like publishers, IMO.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

I personally don't have any problem with Hero Games publishing more generic material' date=' though it wouldn't hurt to have a page or two giving indication of how you can best use the product in the CU or DCU. The Hero System's roots are in generic product and seeing more of that wouldn't hurt. [/quote'] Actually I'd rather see it written specifically to the DCU, with notes on using in the CU and all of the links within the product separable from either universe or transferable to a homegrown one.

Just on a personal note I wouldn't mind seeing you, Bob, look into possibly publishing some licensed Hero material in pdf form. I have always enjoyed your writing style all the way back to your Haymaker days. I know these probably wouldn't be gigantic moneymakers but the level of return you might be happy with is not what Hero Games was happy with. Just some food for thought. The Hero community could really use some Superlink-like publishers, IMO.

I'd already have done a couple by now, but for two obstacles: adequate technology, and artwork. I now have the means to create a reliable PDF file, but my computer is still too slow and too crowded to make a full-fledged book out of it; and my artistic ability basically sucks, and I don't know anyone nearby who does that kind of art. I'd call on others in the board community here for help on the latter problem, but I'll need to resolve the former one first.

[MitchellS]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

Actually I'd rather see it written specifically to the DCU' date=' with notes on using in the CU and all of the links within the product separable from either universe or transferable to a homegrown one.I'd already have done a couple by now, but for two obstacles: adequate technology, and artwork. I now have the means to create a reliable PDF file, but my computer is still too slow and too crowded to make a full-fledged book out of it; and my artistic ability basically sucks, and I don't know anyone nearby who does that kind of art. I'd call on others in the board community here for help on the latter problem, but I'll need to resolve the former one first.[/quote']

Well I disagree with you on the DCU part but only because I don't believe DCU will be that popular of a line overall [though with the plea to buy more books I do think Hudson City will sell more copies].

 

As far as artwork there are several freelancers who do some very fine and affordable work. Many of them might be willing to work on a royalty basis. I was very impressed with Tom Miskey's work from DH 8.

 

If you're needing to clear some space on your computer's hard drive I'd suggest a flash drive. You can generally pick up a 128 mb flash drive for about $12.00. A bought a dozen new ones on eBay a couple of months ago.

[zornwil]

Re: Ideas for a Hero Games Legendary Product

 

5ER is Hero's legendary product.

 

I know people with little interest in Hero who bought it just to have the biggest RPG rulebook ever.

I second this. The problem is it's more of a GM geek legendary product than a general player one. I think a solid legendary product has to be something with some eye candy appeal to gamers in general. As to what HERO could do in this regard...dunno. I'm not a fan of the other types of other companies' legendary products (mostly settings) spoken of in this thread.