San Angelo - Your input

[RPMiller]

With all the new hype and interest in the San Angelo line, I wanted to pick your brains and get some feedback. A while ago I ran a poll asking who had heard of San Angelo and who was using it.

What I would like to know is:

[*]For those of you who use it, why?

[*]For those of you that own, but don't play in the world, why?

[*]For those of you that looked at, but decided it wasn't for you, why?

[*]For those of you that haven't seen it, are you going to look into it now, and why?

[*]For those of you that have no interest in looking at it or using it, why?

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Feel free to be as brief or detailed as you want. Again, if you would rather not post publicly, shoot me a private message or email.

 

Thank you for your time!

[Battlestaff]

I use San Angelo the way I use all other supplements: as starting points and ideas that can be incorporated in whole or in part into my own campaign world.

 

I like San Angelo: City of Heroes because the city is well-detailed without being tedious. Also, since most things tie into a specific area or type of area, I can lift ideas I like and place them in my campaign city without having to do a complete re-wrtie. Things were built so they fit within the city, but weren't so tied to the specific setting that they couldn't be used elsewhere.

 

I think I saw someone comment that SA:CoH appeared to be written from the point of view of the average person on the street. I like that idea, since it gives myself and the players an angle that helps us understand how things may be seen by the average public.

 

I liked the enemies book again because the characters were well defined and thought out, without having been tied to any particular idea that couldn't be converted. Each character had his or her own motivation that fit with the character. Some I've used wholesale, while others have been only slightly modified.

 

All in all, I've enjoyed the products. When I first saw them, I thought "Just what we need, another city supplement," but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised.

[RPMiller]

That is really great to hear! You not only understand the setting, but have an insight into what was intended by the designers. Thank you for your input!

[winterhawk]

Count me in as one of the one's that owns but does not play in the setting.

 

I purchased San Angelo at Gen Con soley becasue of the endorsement by Kurt Busiek on the back cover. I am a huge fan of his and his comparison of San Angelo to the flavor of Astro City was good enough for me. And indeed, the sourcebook does have that flavor of the average guy in the street living with superheroes. It is a great setting, the only reason I don't use it is because a few of my players wouldn't 'get it'. My only criticism would be the sample characters. I think to capture the true feeling of Astro City, the sample characters should be more archetypical of comics characters. Everyone who reads AC knows that Samaritan is Superman, Jack-In-The-Box is Spiderman, Crackerjack is Daredevil, etc. The sample characters in SA 1st edition struck me more as archetypical Champions characters, which are already provided in the source material in the form of the Champions (both in 4th and 5th). I don't know if you would run into copyright problems, but I would like to see sample San Angelo characters done in this way.

 

The Enemies supliment, like any villain suppliment, had some great characters and some forgetable ones. Anarchy (Quartz is one of the great bricks IMHO) & Pelegro have made it into my campaigns and Deadweight has become a hated foe. These to me, were the most interesting characters, either due to motivation or powers. The rest were not as interesting.

 

I hope this provides you with some insight as to how a rabid Astro City fan thinks of San Angelo. I think it is an excellent line and look forward to the lastest incarnation.

[Monolith]

I am very much like Winterhawk here. I own all three printed SA books and the Dragon's Gate pdf. I am a huge Astro City fan, but I also understand, just like Winterhawk, that most of my players would not get it either.

 

In my opinion the Justice Foundation were not interesting characters. Power wise they were almost exact duplicated of the Champions in 4E. It just seemed like only the names, races, and genders changed. We had an Australian martial artist, we had a Hispanic martial artist. We had the standard powered armored guy from both groups. Both groups had the standard energy projector with the usual attack, ff, and flight powers. Both had the standard 60 STR, 4 SPD bricks too. A superhero group from a competing world should have some diversity in it. Otherwise there is no reason for me to incorporate them into my game. The JF was just the Champions with the serial numbers filed off, IMO.

 

I also was not that found of SA because it was low-powered. Too many characters had stats below 20, and far too many of them had stats in the 15 range. I like my superhumans to be larger than life, and I never got that feeling from the characters in the SA products. I never felt that a character like Bloodsport would pose much of a threat to one JF member, and Amok, while interesting, would not be much of a match for a team of heroes. Many of the characters were just too weak. I could not tell from the preview, but I'm wondering how much things have changed with SA with the new 350 point limits?

 

The main things I liked about SA were the people and places mentioned in the book. I liked the idea that you could feel some things from the normal’s perspective. SA was a great read, and brought of many pleasant Astro City feelings, but I would never use it for a campaign world. There is just not enough bang for my buck.

 

I’m hoping that SA will take off. I would really like to purchase some new books for the world just to supplement my current Champions game. But I will be honest with you, I will not buy Dragon’s Gate, or the new SA:CoH, or probably not even the new Enemies book, unless it has over 50% new villains in it. It’s not because I do not want to see GRG succeed, but I just have no interest in buying the same material over and over and over. But the minute SA comes out with something completely brand new I will buy it right up.

[RPMiller]

Winterhawk and Monolith, thanks for the great candid input! A couple quick comments:

Power wise and character wise, I have many ideas that I am toying with and Mark and I have many discussions ahead.

The real emphasis of SA has been and will continue to be "the real world". Mark and Pat originally set out to make a more realistic setting based on the characters being part of a bigger picture and they did that perfectly in my opinion. For the next edition I am going to maintain that same feel, but I'm also going to add more flavor. I personally wouldn't buy a book that was just updated stats either so don't expect that. Both Mark and I have said many times on these boards, the SA Boards, and mailing lists that we won't do that to our customers. There will be a lot of the same content though for continuity, but I am aging the city and people six years so there will be many surprises in store as well.

For now, you can anticipate that the 2nd edition books will have similarities to the first edition books, but the thing to bare in mind is that it will not only be updated and added to, but it will also be the basis for the rest of the line as the new books come out.

Again thanks for contributing and you can expect me to be talking with everyone as I continue moving forward so keep up the communication!

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: San Angelo - Your input

 

For those of you who use it, why? : I like the whole feel of San Angelo : CIty of HEROes . Anyone who liked Astro City will understand , especially with the current story line .

 

For those of you that own, but don't play in the world, why? : It's an incrediblely valuable resouce for fleshing out my own campaign in Vancouver .

 

For those of you that looked at, but decided it wasn't for you, why? : n/a

For those of you that haven't seen it, are you going to look into it now, and why? : n/a

For those of you that have no interest in looking at it or using it, why? : n/a

 

Feel free to be as brief or detailed as you want. : Check out my posts on the Gold Rush Games - San Angelo : City of HEROes forums .

 

The real emphasis of SA has been and will continue to be "the real world". : Good ! , but add info for varying power levels .

 

Mark and Pat originally set out to make a more realistic setting based on the characters being part of a bigger picture and they did that perfectly in my opinion. : I agree

 

For the next edition I am going to maintain that same feel, but I'm also going to add more flavor. I personally wouldn't buy a book that was just updated stats either so don't expect that. Both Mark and I have said many times on these boards, the SA Boards, and mailing lists that we won't do that to our customers. : I'm not so keen on this point . What I would like to see is a SA:CoH Universe sourcebook with Update versions of all the Supers and PART .

 

There will be a lot of the same content though for continuity, but I am aging the city and people six years so there will be many surprises in store as well. : See above

 

For now, you can anticipate that the 2nd edition books will have similarities to the first edition books, but the thing to bare in mind is that it will not only be updated and added to, but it will also be the basis for the rest of the line as the new books come out. : On the comeback trail , keep swinging .

 

[Castaigne]

I owned SA:CoH and plan to get the 2nd edition.

 

I don’t use San Angelo as a setting for the sole reason that I like to use real-world cities for supers games.

 

I do use San Angelo as a sourcebook for NPCs, organizations, and quasi-fictional locations. I've found the normal or low-powered super Normals Unbound type characters particularly useful, as well as the featured supers. When The Dragon's Gate comes out I'll use the characters and locales to populate Chinatowns in the cities of my current campaigns.

[Ghost who Walks]

I heard about the books when they first came out, but wasn't able to get them until last year (I could never find them in any game store). I didn't order them online, having had bad experiences with that in the past.

 

I already have my own campaign, which is going well. So I fit in the not-use category. However, I do pull ideas/characters out of the sourcebook, and it did give me many new ideas. I was actually disappointed in Millenium City...it wasn't nearly as good as San Angelo, IMHO.

 

The Enemies of San Angelo is one of the better enemy books, in recent memory (I have them all going, back to Enemies 1). The villains all give good ideas of how to use them, none of them are "generic". I liked how many of them were built around a tight group of powers, that were well defined.

 

Two reasons my campaign is not in San Angelo

1) I spent around 3 years of real time coming up with a reason to move the characters to NYC.

2) Many of my players have lived in Southern California, including myself. I prefer to run campaigns in distant places, to help maintain the illusion.

 

As I said in another post, if I ever restart my campaign, it will be in San Angelo.

 

My only advice to you regarding development might be to adopt a "generational feel". Put in characters from different generations (The mentalist on the Justice Squadron was interesting because of that). Tie them into the background history and city, its the strong point.

 

Since San Angelo is written from the street level, there should be couple of powerful NPCheroes running around. The reamians of a Avengers/JLA team that broke up?

 

A villain with an earthquake inducing power could be fun...

[RPMiller]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks

Many of my players have lived in Southern California, including myself. I prefer to run campaigns in distant places, to help maintain the illusion.

A villain with an earthquake inducing power could be fun...

Very interesting. Where do you think SA is located in CA, or put another way, where do you put SA?

[Vondy]

I own SA and SA:DG, but don't run my game in them. I like the "realistic power levels" and detail, but frankly, it just doesn't feel right. I don't know how to explain that, exactly, so its not very helpful. It was a bit too "comic booky" for the types of stories I run.

 

My players are used to some very gritty and grim storylines, and tend to have very "realistic" assumptions - despite the existance of super-powers. I think its best summed up this way: I run an iron age game (without the constant bloodletting), whereas SA seems to be a bronze age style game with a few silver age style (if not power level) characters and assumptions.

 

Nevertheless, I find SA useful in the sense that its assumptions (stat wise and such) are closer to the game I run so its quick to convert the characters and other material I want for use. I also found the characters to be alive and a part of their world, which is a selling point (IMHO).

 

I'm not a big fan of "fake cities," which is extremely comic booky, but there's no way around that in your trade.

 

All in all I think its a good product line, but I view it the same way I view most Champions products -- something I can probably steal ideas and characters from.

[Ghost who Walks]

Originally posted by RPMiller

Very interesting. Where do you think SA is located in CA, or put another way, where do you put SA?

 

Page 11, San Angelo: City of Heroes. It says its in the Central Valley, which didn't make much sense to me at the time. Most of the Spanish settlements in California were coastal.

 

If it was relocated, Texas or New Mexico would probably be the most logical. Not sure about Texas...an urban metropolis doesn't exactly fit my image/stereotype of the state (apologies to any Texans out there). New Mexico might be interesting, a long histroy of Spanish settlement (back to the 1600's, much older than California), High Tech industries (Los Alamos), and of course Indians for the mystical stuff.

 

If in California, I think it would be around Bakersfield. That fits most of the desciptions in the text. If its placed further north, Russian fur traders used to come into San Francisco Bay.

[Sketchpad]

Personally, I've never been able to paruse a copy of SA:CoH ... and thus is the reason why I've never purchased it. I like to preview books before I snag them, and by preview, I mean looking through them and looking to see how applicable it is for my campaign I have seen the Denizens book and found it interesting to see the non-powered types fleshed out ... but once again, I haven't picked it up due to lack of owning the SA:CoH book. Will I get it? Well, if my FLGS gets a copy or if I happened to see one on a shelf I may ... but if not, I'm just not sure. Is GRG going to do an open playtest of the book? Or do you need a group of playtesters? If so, I'd love to be able to take a look at the book and see what's planned ...

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks

Page 11, San Angelo: City of Heroes. It says its in the Central Valley, which didn't make much sense to me at the time. Most of the Spanish settlements in California were coastal.

 

If it was relocated, Texas or New Mexico would probably be the most logical. Not sure about Texas...an urban metropolis doesn't exactly fit my image/stereotype of the state (apologies to any Texans out there). New Mexico might be interesting, a long histroy of Spanish settlement (back to the 1600's, much older than California), High Tech industries (Los Alamos), and of course Indians for the mystical stuff.

 

If in California, I think it would be around Bakersfield. That fits most of the desciptions in the text. If its placed further north, Russian fur traders used to come into San Francisco Bay.

Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio

[Storn]

Not only am I user of San Angelo, I bought the company... no, not really, but I did work on it!!!

 

San Angelo has been used twice in my vicinity. One was a campaign that I ran in San Angelo for a brief time. I set San Angelo near the mexican border in Arizona. The lake was created by the Event mentioned and a superman clone had dug a canal in 48 from the lake to the Baja gulf, allowing it to become a seaport.

 

That campaign didn't last long, but it was entirely in SA. I really like SA.

 

The 2nd use was by Neil in the RDU campaign. Since that long running campaign is made up of many smaller campaigns and tends to be international in scope... SA has been used, but not as the center of any particular campaign (although there was a brief try). But various PCs have gone there and even one supernatural, psychic force seems to be having some subplot ramifications now, even though the PCs are in the Carribean on Sanctuary.

 

I like the fact that SA leaves room for the GM's additions and extrapolations... the fact that the top 5 lists often has a space for an important PC or NPC to fufill that role. That is one of my favorite things.

 

The only thing I don't care about, because it is too specific is the San Francisco analog, with history of gold rushes and such... just too close to San Fran for my tastes. But others might love that...so it is such a small critique.

[RPMiller]

Originally posted by D-Man

I own SA and SA:DG, but don't run my game in them. I like the "realistic power levels" and detail, but frankly, it just doesn't feel right. I don't know how to explain that, exactly, so its not very helpful. It was a bit too "comic booky" for the types of stories I run.

 

My players are used to some very gritty and grim storylines, and tend to have very "realistic" assumptions - despite the existance of super-powers. I think its best summed up this way: I run an iron age game (without the constant bloodletting), whereas SA seems to be a bronze age style game with a few silver age style (if not power level) characters and assumptions.

It is very interesting how people's perceptions and interpretations work. The games that I have ran with SA have been closer to realistic games than 4-color games. I see SA as very realistic with only a slight bend toward comic books.

However, one of its main selling points is that it can easily be bent to allow any genre you want with the exception of fantasy, but even that could be down if you throw out all the modern stuff and drop its size.

In any event, thanks D-Man great comments. I will keep them in mind going forward.

[RPMiller]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks

Page 11, San Angelo: City of Heroes. It says its in the Central Valley, which didn't make much sense to me at the time. Most of the Spanish settlements in California were coastal.

 

If it was relocated, Texas or New Mexico would probably be the most logical. Not sure about Texas...an urban metropolis doesn't exactly fit my image/stereotype of the state (apologies to any Texans out there). New Mexico might be interesting, a long histroy of Spanish settlement (back to the 1600's, much older than California), High Tech industries (Los Alamos), and of course Indians for the mystical stuff.

 

If in California, I think it would be around Bakersfield. That fits most of the desciptions in the text. If its placed further north, Russian fur traders used to come into San Francisco Bay.

Very interesting.

[RPMiller]

Originally posted by Sketchpad

Will I get it? Well, if my FLGS gets a copy or if I happened to see one on a shelf I may ... but if not, I'm just not sure. Is GRG going to do an open playtest of the book? Or do you need a group of playtesters? If so, I'd love to be able to take a look at the book and see what's planned ...

There are several things that you can do. You can easily ask your FLGS to order a copy. You can visit any of the cons that come to town, historically there is at least one SA game being run. You can get the first edition book for around $10 from the Gold Rush Games wesite while supplies last. This is a valid point as the second edition will be advancing the material several years, and you may want to get a bigger history of recent events. Also, we will most likely be releasing a Preview PDF for the book, very similar to what we just did for Dragon's Gate. Finally, stay tuned to these boards. I will be discussing things as I go forward, and asking questions.

[RPMiller]

Originally posted by Storn

The only thing I don't care about, because it is too specific is the San Francisco analog, with history of gold rushes and such... just too close to San Fran for my tastes. But others might love that...so it is such a small critique.

It is extremely interesting where everyone thinks SA is. I am not going to dispel the mystery since everyone seems to have different impressions and we honestly like that and don't want to restrict its location. However, I will tell you that San Fran is not nearly as similar to it as another city in CA.

[JohnOSpencer]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks

Page 11, San Angelo: City of Heroes. It says its in the Central Valley, which didn't make much sense to me at the time. Most of the Spanish settlements in California were coastal.

 

If it was relocated, Texas or New Mexico would probably be the most logical. Not sure about Texas...an urban metropolis doesn't exactly fit my image/stereotype of the state (apologies to any Texans out there). New Mexico might be interesting, a long histroy of Spanish settlement (back to the 1600's, much older than California), High Tech industries (Los Alamos), and of course Indians for the mystical stuff.

 

If in California, I think it would be around Bakersfield. That fits most of the desciptions in the text. If its placed further north, Russian fur traders used to come into San Francisco Bay.

 

Funnily enough, that's where I put San Angelo. Right around Bakersfield, about halfway between LA and San Fran.

 

I use San Angelo because it has a more Four-color feel than MC. I also found some of the high tech improvements in MC would hamper my games.

 

John Spencer

[Vondy]

I assumed San Angelo was an amalgam of LA and SF. I'm with Storn. The history definately gives it an SF flavor.

[Sketchpad]

Originally posted by RPMiller

There are several things that you can do. You can easily ask your FLGS to order a copy. You can visit any of the cons that come to town, historically there is at least one SA game being run. You can get the first edition book for around $10 from the Gold Rush Games wesite while supplies last. This is a valid point as the second edition will be advancing the material several years, and you may want to get a bigger history of recent events. Also, we will most likely be releasing a Preview PDF for the book, very similar to what we just did for Dragon's Gate. Finally, stay tuned to these boards. I will be discussing things as I go forward, and asking questions.

There are a few problems with that unfortunatly ... my FLGS will "special" order things for customers, but those customers are required to purchase them. Few cons come here anymore ... though I try to hit GC when I can (so far only attending one ). I looked at the DG preview and it looks neat ... but I'm still not 100% on snatching it up yet. Maybe if I run across it sometime ...

[RPMiller]

Originally posted by D-Man

I assumed San Angelo was an amalgam of LA and SF. I'm with Storn. The history definately gives it an SF flavor.

Again, very interesting. Out of curiousity how much do folks know about SF's history? Where do folks think gold was discovered, and what city grew because of it? Given the rest of SA's history, what do folks think is similar to SF and LA? This is very fascinating!

 

Well, back to the subject at hand... keep those comments about coming that relate to my initial questions. Thanks!

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: San Angelo - Your input

 

Originally posted by RPMiller

With all the new hype and interest in the San Angelo line, I wanted to pick your brains and get some feedback. A while ago I ran a poll asking who had heard of San Angelo and who was using it.

What I would like to know is:

[*]For those of you who use it, why?

 

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Feel free to be as brief or detailed as you want. Again, if you would rather not post publicly, shoot me a private message or email.

 

Thank you for your time!

 

Well first let me quote myself from the San Angelo product page over at Gold Rush:

"It far surpassed my expectations. It is quite possibly the best campaign setting I've ever read - for any system."

 

That still holds true. I didn't come into San Angelo from Astro City, in fact it went the other way- I found astro city because everyone kept saying that SA was like it (thanks for that guys).

 

It is a well developed setting and I really like the feel and mood. I have run a short san angelo game, and in my current champs world San Angelo is one of the primary cities in the world for PCs to wander around it (along with Millenium City, Freedom City and Hudson).

It is the center of my university group (I have 4 groups I rotate through).

 

I also really like the fact that there are multiple game systems involved, to exapnd the customer base and the possible creative input into the world because of more people reading and tossing ideas around.

[RPMiller]

Re: Re: San Angelo - Your input

 

Originally posted by Lord Mhoram

I also really like the fact that there are multiple game systems involved, to exapnd the customer base and the possible creative input into the world because of more people reading and tossing ideas around.

So then would you say that you are a proponent of the multiple system stats that we are considering putting in all the books?

 

How many others would consider this a major selling point?