gojira Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Ghost Angel suggested in another thread that Ninja Hero would be a suitable starting point for an Anime Hero game. What does the rest of Herodom assembled say? Which parts of Ninja Hero would be best for an Anime game, and which parts would be least appropriate? What sort of Anime tropes would have to be concocted by hand? Why did GA spell "cues" as "queues?" Will we learn answers to these questions? Will GA escape his spell checker's fiendish death-trap? Will I stop spelling anime with a capital letter? Tune in next week to find out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Why did GA spell "cues" as "queues?" I like standing in line apparently. I do that all the time. Annoying. Have Review Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Verily, Ninja Hero rocketh on toast. Go ye hence and purchase it forthwith. We shall abide. Haveth ye Ninja Hero now? Huzzah! Hearken unto the words of the all-knowing Susano, go forth and indulge ye in Anime-esque goodness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Also grab Issue 8 of Digital Hero, which had my condensed anime & Hero article. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenn Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! What is "Anime Hero"? I've seen anime that are sci-fi, that are fantasy, that are wild martial arts, that are super heroes, that are action heroes, that are horror, etc. I believe that anime is really a medium. As such, while there are certain stylistic elements that are pervasive, it isn't a genre unto itself. Therefore, I believe the genre books for actual genre would be most helpful. Since martial arts is a common stylistic element within the medium, picking up the 'Ultimate Martial Artist" might be a help as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! As Steve Long pointed out, "Anime Hero" would be a lot like "Pulp Hero." A guide to the common tropes and conventions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! It's deja' vu all over again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! And of course the two books that SHOULD have been part of the Ninja Hero line but were plased in FH instead, the Asian Beastiary, Vol 1, & vol 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thia Halmades Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! I have a signed copy of Ninja HERO. Which makes mine better than all others. Like, by rule. Although I've criticized it, and Mike has often said he wants to do a 5ER edition, but won't have the funds to do it. However, NH is a solid genre supplement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! And of course the two books that SHOULD have been part of the Ninja Hero line but were plased in FH instead' date=' the Asian Beastiary, Vol 1, & vol 2[/quote'] Yeah, get those to. Not only will you have something like 600 monsters to mess with, you'll get the most disgusting monster ever imagined, as well as the greatest single Hero System SFX ever to be found on a published character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Hiemforth Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Eh, they could've gone in any line really, IMO. Monster books are broadly useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! The Bestiaries should have been part of the main line. Not a genre line. And Anime is a Medium. To cover it as a Gaming Genre would force it into a few well known stereo-types (like BESM end up) or be twice as thick as Fantasy Hero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JmOz Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! The Bestiaries should have been part of the main line. Not a genre line. And Anime is a Medium. To cover it as a Gaming Genre would force it into a few well known stereo-types (like BESM end up) or be twice as thick as Fantasy Hero. Or an entire line of it's own 1000 Anime Hero 1010 Mecha Hero 1020 Magical Girl Hero et... Mike could be hired on and his whole job would be to write things on Woxia and Anime/Manga IT WOULD BE COOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gojira Posted January 30, 2008 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! I like standing in line apparently. I do that all the time. Annoying. Have Review Thanks for the direct link, GA. On a second re-through, it looks like there much more than ninja in Ninja Hero, I'll have to pick it up at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GamePhil Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Thanks for the direct link' date=' GA. On a second re-through, it looks like there much more than ninja in Ninja Hero, I'll have to pick it up at some point. [/quote'] Yeah, there is. I think they kept it Ninja HERO for name recognition rather than because it's all about Ninjas. Of course, the original Ninja Hero wasn't all about ninjas, either, so maybe not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thia Halmades Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Yeah' date=' there is. I think they kept it Ninja HERO for name recognition rather than because it's all about Ninjas. Of course, the original Ninja Hero wasn't all about ninjas, either, so maybe not.[/quote'] I would love to see a combo reprint; Ninja HERO + UMA in one fully flavored text. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorpheousXO Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! I would love to see a combo reprint; Ninja HERO + UMA in one fully flavored text. I do drool all over thee for that one, I'd get it even though I got both books somewhat recently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caris Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Thanks for the direct link' date=' GA. On a second re-through, it looks like there much more than ninja in Ninja Hero, I'll have to pick it up at some point. [/quote'] I don't think that I'm about to saying anything that I haven't said to Susano in PM before, if I have sorry Susano. Personally, I was a little disappointed with Ninja Hero. Not because of the quality of the content, so much as a decision was made to expand it to try and cover a much wider range of material than they had time to properly include. The book was marketed as being for all action adventure focusing on hand to hand combat. Swashbuckling swordsmen to Shaolin monks. I found the section on Wuxia to be the strongest. As the material moved farther from that base things get weaker with purely western tropes like the Muskateers being the weakest. Anime being fairly close to Wuxia, and another area that Susano is well versed in is still very strong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susano Posted January 30, 2008 Report Share Posted January 30, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! I don't think that I'm about to saying anything that I haven't said to Susano in PM before, if I have sorry Susano. Personally, I was a little disappointed with Ninja Hero. Not because of the quality of the content, so much as a decision was made to expand it to try and cover a much wider range of material than they had time to properly include. The book was marketed as being for all action adventure focusing on hand to hand combat. Swashbuckling swordsmen to Shaolin monks. I found the section on Wuxia to be the strongest. As the material moved farther from that base things get weaker with purely western tropes like the Muskateers being the weakest. Anime being fairly close to Wuxia, and another area that Susano is well versed in is still very strong. Hind-sight is always 20/20. There's a lot I could do to make the book better, especially now that I have things like DC and PH to use as examples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caris Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Hind-sight is always 20/20. There's a lot I could do to make the book better' date=' especially now that I have things like DC and PH to use as examples.[/quote'] Don't be going there. It is a very good book. I know that we've talked in PM about how I felt about the marketing side and how it did the book a disservice. I just generally have a thing that the tendancy to try and make the genre books too broad actually hurt those books, and that was a problem they had with most of the first couple of genre books that they released, and Ninja Hero was one of the ones that sufferred the least from the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Funny.. the broadness of the Genre books is why I like them so much. They show how open any given genre can be to ideas and variation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caris Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! Funny.. the broadness of the Genre books is why I like them so much. They show how open any given genre can be to ideas and variation. It is a matter of personal taste and preferrence. Star Hero and Fantasy Hero were the worse for me. They tried to cover so many vastly different topics that they couldn't get very in depth on too many specific topics (which considering the size of Fantasy Hero is saying something). As broad overviews they were OK, but that isn't what I need. Then there are the marketing issues. For example the back cover text of Fantasy Hero implies that book gives a lot of useful information for running urban fantasy, that Fantasy Hero will cover the genre. I did not come out of reading the book like it was very helpful for any of the urban fantasy games I was in. I really do think this was mainly an issue with how "new" things were back then. DOJ was reintroducing the Hero line and was trying to not have things be too limited in usefulness in other ways. By releasing Star Hero, they could attract Space Opera fans, Hard SF fans, Military SF fans, etc., where a book only useful for Space Opera would not appeal to people only interested in other types of science fiction, and might even alienate them. (Ha! Get it? I made a funny. ) Now we have seen, and expect to see more of in the future, more "sub genre" books like Teen Champions and the upcoming Uraban Fantasy Hero, because there is a market for that greater deapth of examination. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spence Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! The Bestiaries should have been part of the main line. Not a genre line. Yup And Anime is a Medium. To cover it as a Gaming Genre would force it into a few well known stereo-types (like BESM end up) or be twice as thick as Fantasy Hero. And this would be a problem? I don't see any downside here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thia Halmades Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! I'm with Caris; I think Fantasy HERO and Star HERO are two of the greatest books ever written, but they are in fact, at times, much too broad. Not that I honestly think I could do the entirety of FH justice; let's be clear. The book is two fist-loads of awesome, with your fists covered in awesomesauce, while lit ON FIRE because things that are ON FIRE are AWESOME. YES. So no, I couldn't improve it, except to trim out the bits that aren't really pushing "traditional fantasy" and tightening the scope and thereby tightening the writing. But that would be me. Star HERO, same thing. It's that I could handle that genre better (at least not without a f---load of time on my hands and a lot more research) but much more "wow... they found TWO kitchen sinks and threw in BOTH of them. Dag." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 31, 2008 Report Share Posted January 31, 2008 Re: Tell me about Ninja Hero! To me, the Genre Books should be very broad, but lacking depth. Setting Books should take a very specific look at a Subgenre and provide a solid example of how to implement the Genre Tropes in Actuality. Star Hero has "And here's some things that go into Space Opera. . ." and then Terran Empire comes along and goes "And here's how to MAKE a Space Opera Setting in Total. . ." Because to me, and I'm more into genre-simulation than some, if you're going to Run or Play in a Genre you go find Source Material and don't rely on a Genre Book for more than a basic overview of ideas. I want breadth, but moderate depth, from a Genre Book specifically because there are so many SubGenre and twists on it that narrowing it down would be akin to saying "And this is how it's done. That's it. Bye." which defies the Toolkit Approach. It should go "and here are ideas, common elements, some tropes, a few suggestions, go build" unlike more Game Systems which say "and this is how it's done. Go play." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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