Duke's scans

[Brian Stanfield]

15 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

This is the book I was thinking of.  It's actually called "The Armory Volume 1".  Does that look familiar?  I know it had Hero stats in it.

 

It’s not the book. I’m starting to think I imagined the book, and instead have merged several things into one fictional book that never existed. I was sure it was called Western Hero, and I was sure that I had it, but when I went through my books it wasn’t there. I got a copy of Western Hero this summer and discovered that it’s not the book I thought I had. Now I’m just confused!

 

looking back on it all, I think I may have been working from Justice, Inc. and modifying weapons from there. I had heard that you could “make any weapon you want” with Champions, and Fantasy Hero gave some basic rules for it, so I bent it all to fit into Westerns. 

[mallet]

Well in the video game world westerns are alive and well. Red Dead Redemption 2 came out a few weeks ago and made $725 MILLION in sales in its first 3 DAYS! It is probably over a BILLION dollars in sales by now, and definitely will be by the time Christmas is over. 

 

If some table top RPG game company was able to draw in just .05% of those western video game fans to play a table top RPG they would be swimming in cash. 

[Duke Bushido]

Hey Mallet:

 

Absolutely not wanting to get into the whole discussion again, but just to satisfy my curiosity, what was your final ruling on the one-armed character?  (you were the OP, were you not?) 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Okay, _almost_ all original scans of Champions 2e found.  I can't find the original cover scan, only the "corrected" one I posted before (the one without Titan's fingers.  Much nicer, but not exactly "archive quality original" stuff).  I did find the scan of the greyscale cover, and have _halfway_ considered scanning the black-and-white cover my counterfeit came with, just for historical value (there are people counterfeiting this stuff!

 

Can't find the box scans, either.  I guess I should specifically say I have found the scans of the entire 2e book (and converted them to PNG and moved them to a single location), but not the box, Viper's Nest, the map (which was done in pieces, and I don't know that I ever put it together, as I never used the map anyway).

 

I have also found the scan (both sides) of the included comment card and the "1983 catalogue" that were packed in.

 

Got to finish Western HERO before taking on another project, but honestly, I _had_ to stop and find them, just because I was getting worried.  Still haven't found the PDF I made of the "cleaned and corrected" scans, but as long as I've got the scans, I can make another PDF.

 

[EDIT: never mind; I was mis-informed. It's not there.  Oh well.]

Edited November 25, 2018 by Duke Bushido
Correcting erroneous information

[mallet]

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Hey Mallet:

 

Absolutely not wanting to get into the whole discussion again, but just to satisfy my curiosity, what was your final ruling on the one-armed character?  (you were the OP, were you not?) 

 

 

Hey! yes, I was. That was a really great discussion going on in that thread. I didn't end up responding there as it was already getting a bit heated and I didn't want to poke the fire. 

 

I ended up allowing it. I think it is a cool little thing about the character that adds some dimension to him. Also, anything that gets the players more invested and excited for their characters is a good thing. We've already played the first session and everything went great. The player knows that he still has one arm and plays his character that way, we just don't give any negative modifiers on skill checks, attack rolls, etc... but he also doesn't try and use a sword and shield at the same time or anything like that. 

 

Thanks for asking!

[Duke Bushido]

Thanks, Mallet!

 

Very kind of you to share that with us.

 

 

Duke

 

[Brian Stanfield]

1 hour ago, mallet said:

Hey! yes, I was. That was a really great discussion going on in that thread. I didn't end up responding there as it was already getting a bit heated and I didn't want to poke the fire. 

 

I ended up allowing it. I think it is a cool little thing about the character that adds some dimension to him. Also, anything that gets the players more invested and excited for their characters is a good thing. We've already played the first session and everything went great. The player knows that he still has one arm and plays his character that way, we just don't give any negative modifiers on skill checks, attack rolls, etc... but he also doesn't try and use a sword and shield at the same time or anything like that. 

 

Thanks for asking!

 

So, basically, what everyone on both sides of the debate was arguing for, right . . . ?

[Joe Walsh]

Yeah, Western HERO is probably the best sourcebook ever written for HERO System, and possibly the best ever written for any RPG on the subject.

 

It has some typical 4e-era editing errors, but the material itself is rock solid.

 

[Duke Bushido]

Actually, Joe--

 

it had the _biggest_ 4e editing error ever:

 

It had four pages printed completely out of order.  Not reverse order or anything with logical progression, but just pulled out and shuffled.  

 

Archival original or not, I _did_ fix that.  I just couldn't justify _not_ fixing it.

 

But hey-- if you ever see a print one for sale, now you'll know if it's a bootleg or not.  

 

[Brian Stanfield]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Actually, Joe--

 

it had the _biggest_ 4e editing error ever:

 

It had four pages printed completely out of order.  Not reverse order or anything with logical progression, but just pulled out and shuffled.  

 

Archival original or not, I _did_ fix that.  I just couldn't justify _not_ fixing it.

 

But hey-- if you ever see a print one for sale, now you'll know if it's a bootleg or not.  

 

 

 

Which pages?

[Duke Bushido]

In original print order:

 

171, 173, 172, 174, 175.

 

You know, seeing it written down it doesn't seem to terrible: 173 is out of place.

 

Reading it, though--  yech! 

 

 

[Joe Walsh]

Two pages swapped is bad, but it's not European Enemies bad.  

[Duke Bushido]

No; it's not. 

 

The guy who wrote Western HERO put actual effort into it.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Thinking about taking a little break and maybe scanning an Adventurers Club or two. 

 

Haven't decided.  Just not looking forward to the ordeal of breaking apart another glue bound book right now.

[Scott Ruggels]

9 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Thinking a out taking a little break and maybe scanning an Adventurers Club or two. 

 

Haven't decided.  Just not looking forward to the ordeal of breaking apart another glue bound book right now.

 

Two words:  "Band Saw".

[Duke Bushido]

Heard those words before, from Brian. 

 

Doesn't get me any closer to having access to one.

[Chris Goodwin]

I took a couple of my books to Office Depot to get it done.  I think it's something like 75 cents per cut; they did a really good job on them.  It was worth it to me.  (Of course, I didn't have the time to put into scanning and cleanup that you do, so my scans were pretty terrible.)

[Duke Bushido]

If you've still got the originals, send them on and I'll see what I can do (one at a time, of course.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

11 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Thinking a out taking a little break and maybe scanning an Adventurers Club or two. 

 

 

 

Dude!

 I should have _started_ with Adventurers Club!

 

Uninterrupted, You can scan a whole book in a single sitting!

 

I wish I could tell you I had a complete set of AC to work through, but I only own about four of them.  Hopefully I'm not the only guy willing to get what he's got to Jason.  Being as how I will likely never be able to track them all down (or afford them), it would still be nice to be able to buy a few PDFs, just to read. 

 

Funny story:

 

There are no funny stories.  For some reason, that is how everyone in the English-speaking world introduces a random personal fact about which no other human being will ever really care.

 

Second funny story (which is quite similar to the first, at least in the broader sense of the term):

 

This is the first AC I ever bought.  Bought it new (man, nearly thirty years later it was some kind of difficult getting the price tag off for the cover scan (which, at 209 mb, I was _not_ going to attach.  I'd like to get to bed _before_ I have to get up.  I find that's the best order to make the next day flow smoothly)!).  Also amusingly enough is that one of the randomly selected (seriously: i just close my eyes and click, figuring it prevents me from selecting an especially nice scan and deceiving someone)  is the very letters page that made sure I would not buy another AC-- at least not until nearly twenty years later.   Took me a _while_ to appreciate 4e.

 

oh yeah-- 

 

just the raw scans; not cleaned up yet:

 

 

 

[Scott Ruggels]

Oh man.... Adventurer's Club. Oh how I loved that Magazine back in the day.  Looking forward to seeing these scanned and PDF-ed. 

[Duke Bushido]

Okay, back in action.

 

I know: I've been on the board a bit, here and there, and I've certainly been to work, but I've not done any work on the scans: I've had the flu for almost a week, and I have to tell you, it wiped me out with regard to energy to do anything more than shiver once I got home, and it got way worse after sunset.

 

But I'm sure you all know how the flu works.    Thought I'd get a little bit of stuff done today, but today was spent mostly dealing with wife and kids (who seem to have caught the flu, somehow. ) and doing a full brake job on the Leviathan, affectionately known as Big Ugly.  That pretty well wiped out my first "good" day.  I feel great, but I really haven't gotten back up to full energy yet, no matter what my brain thinks.

 

Tomorrow-- and likely most weekend days from here on-- will be filled with Holiday-related stuff-- some of it possibly even pleasant.  That leaves me pretty much the weeknights that my wife is working and I get in with a little bit of time.  The nature of my job means that the later the sun comes up, the later I get home in the evening.  But I promise you all that I will do all I can to make up for lost time, and it is my _hope_ to get this to Jason in time for him (I hope) to slip it into the store just in time for a yuletide download, if you happen to be looking for that odd gift for yourself.  With so much time lost to my own flu, and looking forward to so much time playing nurse to the entire family (though, to be fair, they all took excellent care of me, so it just seems proper. Plus, you know: they _are_ the people that I care about more than you lot of random strangers.

 

 

On 11/26/2018 at 11:52 PM, Scott Ruggels said:

Oh man.... Adventurer's Club. Oh how I loved that Magazine back in the day.  Looking forward to seeing these scanned and PDF-ed. 

 

 

Thank you, Scott.  I'm lookong forward to reading them, as I can acquire them, building up the "official" selection of non-bootleg PDF material myself, even if it's only useful to five people in the known universe.

 

 

(EDIT: Long and unnecessary defense for not having any clue what _The Gilt Complex_ is removed for unnecessary antagonism, excessive disclosure of personal information, and for the obvious accusatory confusion it seems to have caused. 

 

_Mea culpa_, my friends.  I hope you can forgive me.) 

Edited December 2, 2018 by Duke Bushido
I misplaced my filters. I fixed this as soon as I found them.

[Scott Ruggels]

Um.. Okay..  m

 

My deepest apologies for stepping on toes as it was not my intent 

[Duke Bushido]

Nothing to appologize for, Scott.  You've been nothing but an exemplary human being in the brief period of time I have....  Well, it's not acuurate to say "known," under the circumstances of a semi-anonymous internet discussion board.  Let's go with "in any conversation I have seen you involved in."

 

Seriously. 

 

You're a great guy.  I suspect you couldnt be otherwise if you really wanted to be. 

 

I, Sir, appologize to you for the poor structure that led to that misunderstanding.  

[Duke Bushido]

Well folks it looks like the next 4e book is going to be Cyber HERO.  I wanted to do Horror next, as I have been told there aren't even bootlegs of it, but my donor copy seems to have been borrowed or something.  Scanning won't begin immediately as I have to finish the tweaking on Western and the tweaking on 2e Champions, but book disassembly will begin shortly after I scan the covers.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

All righty then....

 

We are back on....

 

well, there's no particular "Schedule," in as much as that implies a time component, but we are ...  back in order, such as it were.  That is to say that my Horror HEROs have shown back up (one borrowed by a player who forgot to mention it, the other borrowed by my daughter, who also forgot to mention it.

 

Unfortunately, this is the best cover I have.  Not a real issue, as it's fixable, but still---  that's just more time to sink into one project before moving on to another.

 

In scan-related news, I've managed to snag a couple more affordable copies of the Adventurer's Club.  As with the one above, scanning on those will be worked in during "breaks" on the planned material.

 

Quick question, though, as the work is piling up _way_ higher than I have time to do:

 

Show of hands, those who think we need archival-quality cleaning and straightening on Adventurer's Club, and those who would rather I just scanned them and passed them on to Jason as-is?

 

To be fair, that doesn't mean i won't re-do them in the best quality I can manage somewhere down the road, it just means it's going to be _way_ down the road.  Well, it's already _way_ down the road, I suppose.  

 

So let me rephrase:  Who would rather I dumped them on Jason as they get scanned, and who would rather I waited until I got them the best I know how?

 

 

 

And, if it will load, the first scan of Horror HERO for your enjoyment:

 

Nope.  Seems like it won't upload.

 

Too big, I suppose.

 

Ah, well.  

 

I'll get something up when I get in to the pages of it; I promise.  For now, I've got to get back on Western HERO.  Only half done so far.