Susano

That's not surprising. AA's game group must feel some pretty strong emotions about it.

 

Michael, may I ask what's struck you the most about this project? I mean, the sort of thing that makes you think, "this is why it's really something special."

The sheer scale, I think. The amount of detail Aaron put into things and how much he solicited player feedback and input.

the phoss boss is still around?

I honestly have no idea. Strike Force may have ended before Aaron died (or may have been on another extended hiatus). As far as I know, Denis Loubet is not playing Phosphene at the moment, although he's mentioned playing in something Jeff Dee is running (a fantasy game I think). I'm fairly certain no one decided to try and run Strike Force game after Aaron died.

260 sessions? Wow!

Strike Force ran for (at least) 23 years.

We only have to wait a few more months.

 

I hope they publicize it well before it goes live. Kickstarters fail when they don't get enough press and enthusiastic support from their creators. They have to sell it from Day One and keep selling it hard to the very last day.

Everyone can help by talking this up on social media. Also, if anyone knows off or has contacts with a gaming podcast, tell them about this and have them get in touch with me.

For the record, Part I is done. It clocks in at around 49,000-50,000 words. We are now developing the GM's advice section, while I get the fun task of creating the various 6E character sheets for an assortment of heroes, NPCs, and villains. With luck, much like the original Strike Force, you'll get the starting and most current version of several heroes (such as Phosphene, who was there at the start and was still going strong 260 session later).

High Rock Press? Why the name change?

BlackWyrm is no longer in the publishing business.

Bump (in the Night)

I have heard from Jason on this subject. Basically, he's waiting until the BlackWyrm site becomes the High Rock Press site, and then he will start on new book production/

Just a quick update -- i was at around 20k words, but Ross and I realized I was overwriting the campaign synopsis. So 8k words were trimmed and I've now added about 1500 more. So, we're at around 13-14k words.

Watch it, Liaden might be working undercover for Game Supplement Vice!

 

On a more serious note, is there a possibility of an in memoriam page for Mr. Allston?  It appears that with so much material space will be at a premium, but of course his contributions to Hero and role-playing in general are unsurpassed. 

The entire book is this (IMO). Also, there will be testimonials from the industry, and I do a short profile of his work.

When you're done, just tell me where to send my money.

You can send it to me. I prefer 10s and 20s, non-sequential serial numbers. Just start sending it over, I'll tell you when to stop.

So, I've written the Introduction and working my way through the section on the Campaign itself. I'm at 11-12,000 words, and have covered such topics as how Aaron ran his games, blue-booking, his Chronicles, themes, tones, and other such game elements. Right now I'm trying to condense his timeline down into something that's concise but also provides a good idea as to what went on during the game. 

+2 OCV versus Russians, definitely.

+2 OCV versus anyone he really doesn't like (or killed his dog, take your pick).

Now that we've statted out John Wick, we also need to stat out:

 

- Neo (One version)

- Jack Traven

- Johnny Utah

- Johnny Mnemonic

- Jonathan Harker

- John Constantine

I have Sam (http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptationsmovie/ronin/sam.html) and Vincent (http://surbrook.devermore.net/adaptationsmovie/asstd_movie/vincent.html).

It really is happening, isn't it?

Yup. 

To be a little more specific, the Introduction gives my thoughts on the project, talks about Aaron himself, and then discusses Strike Force and its impact on gaming.

The Campaign section gives as basic introduction to the campaign, discusses the methods Aaron used to run it (taken from Aaron's own notes on the subject), then examines the themes and tone of the campaign, and will wrap up with a breakdown of major campaign events.

Interspersed between these sections we hope to have testimonials written by various gaming notables.

I am about 7000+ words in. I've written the Introduction and am developing the section on the Campaign (such as how Aaron ran it and what Strike Force was like).

How much of the text will be Mr. Allston's work? Will it be a total re-write from his notes or will there be sections taken whole from his writings?

Honestly? Depends. I've already placed a block of his own text into the Introduction, for example. But I suspect other material may be condensed and/or paraphrased. The documents I have to work from total a word and page counter far larger than what we have.

Just curious, do we have a rough idea as to when the Strike Force kickstarter will, well, kick off?

 

(Just received my copy of Larger than Life and am very pleased!)

Kickstarter? No.

LTL? Sweet! Thank you every much.

So, the first 1,000+ words have been written. I'm working on the introduction and will then go into various campaign elements.

*Bump* (I'm aware of Strike Force commitments but bump anyway)

Book is done (well, it needs editing). But production is in Jason's hand/ He switching BlackWyrm over to High Rock Press, but I'm pretty sure he hasn't forgotten about the book.

Just wondering is there any notes or impressions on how he dealt with player expectations? Did he change rules to better reflect how they felt the game should play?

There's a section on campaign that he wrote for a planned Strike Force book that might cover this. I'll need to look it over.

That is too bad; would have been a great opportunity from Allston's perspective about the problems, opportunities, and benefits of building characters over time with experience.

I'm not sure if this was something he was going to address anyway. The files I've seen do talk about GMing, but much of the PC development was up to the players. I have an email where a player returns to play after spending 5 years away and he rebuilt his PC on his own, based on the new rules (4E and Aaron's house rules). Aaron didn't (AFAIK) ask for (or require) any changes.

 

update the original to 6th then

 

That is basically what we are doing, but also expanding it to show the evolution of his world over 25 years or so.

FWIW I have zero interest in another edition of core Hero System for the foreseeable future. IMHO the rules have been refined to hell and back by this point. I wouldn't expect any new edition to add substantial content or address glaring issues, just to reflect the preferences of the author/editor. And we all modify the rules for our own games according to our preferences anyway.

 

6E reprints would probably be desireable to a number of people, but aside from that I would rather see new things created using those rules.

Some of my ideas were to simplify conflict resolution (everything would be roll 3d6 and add) and to integrate HAP fully into the system. So, mostly fine tuning.

Maybe in an online supplement, a PDF or something?  With a few notes if they exist of Allston's thoughts on character development and spending xps

This is a matter of time, energy, cost, and having the files showing the various power levels. Which, as far as I know, we don't have. What I have access too are the Strike Force character sheets in the original book, and piles of Hero Creator files showing various characters as of 1994 or so.

Interesting to see character advancement in stages. 250, 300, 350, 400, etc...

I am fairly sure we won't have the room. What I want to do is follow the original book's approach. Which was 1st appearance and then the latest we can find (both updated for 6E).