Polaris

Re: Traveller Hero, a major announcement I have heard that printfu is very expensive. Perhaps we can try to find an option for providing a cheaper print option for people. William

Re: Traveller Hero, a major announcement Wow, that is what I would call economical! I use a inkjet, and get about 450 pages per ink cartridge. I do want to make it clear that while all of the Traveller Hero products will have a pdf option, many will also be available in print. Just wanted to clarify... William ComStar http://www.comstar-games.com PS: I know that most of us are voting for Hero Games for Fans Choice: Best Publisher. But, please remember that you can put another company as an alternate choice.... and ComStar happens to be nominated too... you know... in case anyone was considering voting for a second company too...

Re: Traveller Hero, a major announcement That must be one big book! 30 dollars worth of ink for us would print 675 pages on average... The sourcebook will certainly be available in both print and pdf (it is being expanded and refined right now). When that is out, the THG ("Traveller Hero Group") will work out a schedule of additional releases and what form that they should be in. William ComStar

Re: Traveller Hero, a major announcement Yes... POD (or Print on Demand) technology has really improved greatly! The vast majority of game books you see on your game store shelf are now printed using this technology. The 'set up' costs of POD is much smaller than set up for a traditional 'off set' print run, but the per book cost is much higher. The Traveller Hero pdf is currently being upgraded and expanded greatly. Some will likely decide to not purchase it since they had gotten the free version earlier. We are hopeful that we will have enough incentives to encourage people to buy it, but it would probably not be wise to do a huge print run on this first book in the line. As I mentioned earlier, all of our share of the profits on the Traveller Sourcebook for the Hero System (TSHS)--definitely need a cooler 'FREd' type name--will go toward supporting TH. Hopefully this will help us be able to put more of the products into print (for those that prefer the 'dead tree' version). William

Re: Traveller Hero, a major announcement

Re: Traveller Hero, a major announcement In addition to materials from the classic Traveller universe (yes, Traveller for the game does include a second 'l'), ComStar continues to publish materials for the 'new era' (a 1248 sourcebook will be coming to print in the very near future, for example). William ComStar

Hi all, Does anyone have an old version of DC that they would be willing to sell? Polaris

Re: USAF studies teleportation

Re: Overwhelming PRE attacks Give a villain the power to reflect the power back at them, usable against PRE (so the PCs surrender to their own overwhelming PRE attack). That would learn them... Polaris

Re: Teen Champion Cover! LOL!! That would be a great cover!! Polaris

Re: Teen Champion Cover! I am really looking forward to getting this book... it reminds me of the first Champions game I played in (it was set in a school setting). I was not fond of the hero on the cover, in particular the hat (Dr. Seus), but the chalkboard writing idea was *great*!! The back cover is a bit cut off, but I gather it says that someone 'looks like grond'... very funny! :) Overall, very good... Polaris

Re: CU Laws Greetings, The US Constitution refers to a class of people when it discusses certain rights, I would say that those rights would be restricted. Look through a copy of the Constitution and note which rights are guaranteed to "the people" as opposed to people or persons. When it specifies 'the' people, it refers to a specific class of people. In the preamble, 'the people' is defined as being those of the US (not aliens, and if they are artificial, then they would not have been born in the US and therefore could also be excluded from this class). The courts could easily consider anyone not fitting into the class of "the people" as not having those rights. Well, that is at least one way to do it... Polaris

Re: Tentative 2006 Schedule Let us hope for such an upswing... I agree with giving thanks that Hero survived and was turned around by DOJ... my post was an expression of regret that SH seems missing (except, as mentioned above, the possibility of Psychic Wars), not of complaint with the decision-making of DOJ that, thus far at least, has done very well. Polaris

Re: Tentative 2006 Schedule I, for one, am bummed that Star Hero was completely shut out (unless I am misunderstanding one or more of the titles). I do respect that DOJ has to make decisions based upon sales, but my understanding was that SH was going to get one supplement per year and then more if sales picked up to justify it. Hopefully there will be some shorter pdf stuff on Star Hero at least.... Polaris

Steve, If a character has the 15 point Filthy Rich perk, what can they actually buy? I know that it is "unlimited income", but would you allow people to buy anything that they would be able to buy in the market (including technology companies to develop technology, military weapons on the black market, etc)? If so, is 15 points a bit cheap for such a *huge* advantage? Thanks for your thoughts... Sincerely, Polaris

Re: How Long to Learn Hero System? I would be inclined to agree with people that say that the Hero system is not as complicated as it is made out to be by some, but if you try to learn the whole thing by reading thru the whole book it will be more difficult than it needs to be. Depending upon how you learn, I would suggest one of the following that helps me: 1. I was taught Fuzion by friends of mine with the game Champions: New Millenium. Fuzion was a very easy system to learn (it took me about an hour or two to feel fairly comfortable with the game). After learning Fuzion, and getting some experience with it, I learned Champions fairly quickly. Note, I am not an incredibly smart person or a mathematician, so the speed I learned Champions by using Fuzion is a bridge is probably fairly typical to what people could do with this approach. 2. Go thru making a character, and then do an arena combat with him/her. I was kinda struggling with D&D 3E when it came out (realize that I had never played any edition of D&D, or any other system with classes or levels). After some of the smart gamers in my group had grown frustrating trying to teach me d20 (as I would start to grasp a concept, they would start explaining other ways of doing something, or the rare exceptions to a given rule), I had about given up on learning the system. Then a member of our gaming group (ironically, the one that most people in the group do not consider to be as smart) told me that he could teach me the game in an afternoon. I agreed to give it a try. He came over, and we went thru and made a fairly simple character. He then had me go thru a number of 'arena fights'. Then he had me build a bit more complicated (higher level) of a character, and did some arena fights with that character. By the time I was ready to make a third character, he told me to try it on my own, and that he would make a character to fight my character in the arena. Of course, he won the fight... but, in a simple afternoon I learned the basics of the game. Either of these approaches can help you get past the original learning curve on the game, then you will learn more by just playing more and learning as you play. Don't worry about knowing the system inside and out (your players will likely come up with actions/plans that weren't covered specifically in the game)--other than Steve Long, it is doubtful anyone has that much of a mastery of the game. Just get an understanding of the basics, then use the flavor of the system to make your best guess on the things you don't know (as someone said earlier, there is plenty of opportunity to rule-check later). I hope this helps... Polaris

Re: How Long to Learn Hero System? So... when will "Teach Yourself the Hero System" be available? Is this going to be a free stuff give away, or will it be part of a product? Polaris

Re: Miniatures and mapping Hiya, I use paper superhero miniatures I bought at RPGNow. The map I use is a hex map (just a standard vinyl one I got at a game store) with one inch hexes. Polaris

Re: Has anyone played in a game like this... Wow... apparently a number of people had this "unique" idea... LOL! My next question is: How do you regulate character creation? Some of the players wanted to give themselves things that they really do not have (although they think they do). Polaris

Re: Has anyone played in a game like this... CrossHairCollie, Oh my gosh! I think I know your friend... LOL! We have someone EXACTLY like that. As George Carlin would probably ask: Why do we keep him??? LOL! Polaris

Re: I made the GM cry.... Mhoram, That is a very clever solution... I love it when players come up with things like that. Polaris

Hiya, A friend of mine had an idea a short time ago about us making ourselves in Hero, and then going on an adventure. It would either be a 'horror' story, or possibly the country is invaded (like the movie "Red Dawn"). The game never got going. Has anyone tried to play themself in a game, and if so, how did it work out? Polaris

Hiya, When people request 'write ups' on the characters, what do GMs want to know about a player's character? I do not know if that question is very clear... basically, what (other than the character sheet) is helpful to know about a PC to help you develop storylines for that character?" I would think: Background, how they got their powers (in case they may have gotten the powers in a way that may spawn a debt to a corporation or a government agency), their allies, their enemies, their personal info (gender, race, age, etc). Can anyone think of anything else? Polaris

Re: Dark Champions in Champs Universe? We had a superhero team called the Crusaders based in Denver, CO. The PCs were very high powered characters meant to take on EuroStar or other very high powered global threats. Where, the PCs decided that "their town" was going to be clean of crime. They held a news conference to announce that "All criminals are hereby put on notice that they are to leave Denver, and the surrounding areas immediately. Any criminals that decide to stay would be brought to justice by the Crusaders", or something to that effect (basically, leave or go to jail...). Well, some criminals stayed, and were promptly dealt with by the Crusaders. The team spent a couple of weeks going through and rooting out criminals, doing intensive patrols of the city, etc. Things were getting cleaned up, and everything seemed to going well.... This was put on the 'back burner' for a short time, as the PCs turned their attention to bigger global and national issues. A short time later, the citizens of Denver decided that they did not really need to properly finance their police department (crime was not a major concern to them, seeing as that bona fide superheroes were protecting their city). The police department became more and more of a hollow force. Then... the Crusaders were needed elsewhere for an extended period of time (long story, but they were sent to Khazakstan). Now, the city of Denver was a prime relocation city for the worse of the criminal element. If my group plays DC, I plan on having them be in a city that some "good meaning" superheroes once decided to clean up... a city that, therefore, did not think it had much need for police protection. Polaris

Hiya, I was thinking of a fun summer game to run with friends and was thinking about a "Reality TV" type game. I am compiling a list of elements of what would go into such a game, and am hoping some of you may have some ideas. A few things that I have so far: 1. Competitions: These competitions would be for leader of the group (like "head of household" on Big Brother), and for luxuries and immunities from elimination. 2. For 'elimination' (I am going to let each player have three characters to play, and the one with the most characters at the end of the game 'wins'), I was thinking of either having there be a competition where the one with the lowest score at the end is eliminated (I think think this is how it is done on Amazing Race). Another thought is to have them 'voted off the island'. I am not sure... Any thoughts?? Polaris