Joe Walsh

I asked someone who does layout work a couple of years ago.  He quoted around $4 a page, assuming we had high DPI scans of the artwork (2400 is best).  I'd expect that figure to be higher now.  

Since some of the other classic games have gotten premium reprints in recent years, I've dreamed of having the option of buying a reprinted 4e Champions BBB hardcover that's not from page scans (other than of the artwork) but from a modern recreation of the original layout -- with all errata integrated.
 
It would require paying someone for data entry, copy editing, and layout, at the least.
 
Last time I knew anything about those costs was in the mid-90s. Does anyone have an idea of what getting such a project ready for printing would cost these days?
 
It would be so great to have the BBB (and ideally all the 2e and 3e games) available again as though they were brand new, not just for those of us who use them regularly, but for people who fondly remember them and any gamers who may prefer the approach of an older edition. It would also possibly raise HERO's profile a bit in the wider gaming community.
 
I can dream, anyway.😁

Sorry, @Ninja-Bear, I didn't write that clearly. I intended that as an acknowledgement of Duke's favored version.
 
I normally run 4e. I used to run it heavily modified by house rules and stuff I imported from other editions, but my current project is to go back to 4e RAW, add rravenwood's extremely helpful compiled errata, then assess anew what I need from the 4e supplements that contain rules (principally Ninja HERO, Fantasy HERO, Western HERO, Almanac 1, Dark Champions, and An Eye for an Eye), and, in light of that, what I really need (not "just in case it comes up" or "but it's cool" like I'm wont to do) from 5e and finally in light of all that what I really, really need from 6e. (Not because I hate 6e or 5e; I just want to only add or change things that are likely to be of great use, and not clutter it up with stuff I think is clever and such like I've done in the past).
 
But if I weren't running 4e? I'd probably be running 3e. The saddle-stitched version (because it lays flat and keeps the rules to a separate booklet vs. the perfect-bound version). 2e was my first, and is of course also saddle stitched, but 3e's layout and typography are so much easier on my aging eyes. (You've been here a long time; I'm embarrassed to say that somehow I never picked up on the fact that you were running 3e. My apologies.)
 
Anyway, before coming up with any house rules, why not look to other editions for clarifications and/or new rules (if you have access to them)? Your example of Leaping is an excellent one. To me, 4e's final Leaping sentence "It is possible to perform a half-distance leap as a half Phase action" is implied by the earlier sentence both 3e and 4e share ("A standing leap is only half as far") so it seems like importing that explicit statement shouldn't cause any problems.
 
Or does that sort of thing cause acrimony in your group?
 

The real idiocy is waiting for an upswing before reimposing mandates. Once you wait for an unmistakable signal in the data, it’s too late. Especially now, given that testing programs in most states have gone away. 
 
It still remains to be seen whether BA.2 XA or BA.2 XE are any more dangerous on a case-by-case basis than ordinary BA.2. They are almost certainly more contagious, however. 

Since some of the other classic games have gotten premium reprints in recent years, I've dreamed of having the option of buying a reprinted 4e Champions BBB hardcover that's not from page scans (other than of the artwork) but from a modern recreation of the original layout -- with all errata integrated.
 
It would require paying someone for data entry, copy editing, and layout, at the least.
 
Last time I knew anything about those costs was in the mid-90s. Does anyone have an idea of what getting such a project ready for printing would cost these days?
 
It would be so great to have the BBB (and ideally all the 2e and 3e games) available again as though they were brand new, not just for those of us who use them regularly, but for people who fondly remember them and any gamers who may prefer the approach of an older edition. It would also possibly raise HERO's profile a bit in the wider gaming community.
 
I can dream, anyway.😁

Huh. I'm enjoying Moon Knight a lot more than I thought I would, myself. Mind you, they may drop the ball for me later in the series like Falcon & Winter Soldier did in some key parts, but the weirdness has been engaging and Steven's recent access to the power is a nice touch. Khonshu's a bit of a jerk, but he was in many comics too. 

This came out on April 1, so it's probably a joke, but if true it's brilliantly creative, and hilariously ironic.
 
Memo Circulated To Florida Teachers Lays Out Clever Sabotage Of 'Don't Say Gay' Law
 
Below is the purported full text of the memo to teachers in Palm Beach County, a template for a letter individual teachers can fill and send to their students' parents. The memo was circulated on Twitter by the group, "Moms for Liberty," apparently in the hopes of raising outrage against it. The trend of comments seems pretty opposite.
 

 
 
The Twitter account of "Moms for Liberty" where this appeared is here. If this was a gag, they got trolled really hard.

waiting to hear how many are available, but the price will for 15.00 for one book, or 25.00 for both, not sure on shipping costs yet, I suggested USPS Flat Rate envelopes, which 2 books fit nicely in
 
 

once I know how many copies are to be had, I will post something further on this
Polaris will be handling the sales etc on this batch
 

I got some interesting news tonight, there are still some of the printed TH basic books in existance
I will not be dealing with them this time around though, William Andersen at Com-Star will handle these
 
 
 
 
 

Hello everyone! Hero Games publisher Jason Walters here with an update. But before I being telling you what we are up to at Hero Games this quarter, I thought I would take a moment to share my thoughts on where we are, what we are doing, and where we may go in the future. And, of course, to hear your thoughts as well. Because an RPG publishing company is at its core its fans. With them, it can accomplish a great many things. Without them, it can’t accomplish anything at all.
 
As many of you know Hero Games is owned by a parent company called DOJ Inc, which also owns the small press RPG distributor and promoter Indie Press Revolution (or IPR). While serving as general manager of IPR takes up most of my work time each day, it has also given me a lot of new ways to think about RPG publishing. Among these is the conviction that in the world of RPGs the line between fan, creator, and publisher should remain as blurry as possible. We are all fans and, in playing these games with one another, also creators. And that is really only a few short steps away from becoming designers and publishers as well.
 
If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent a measurable amount of your life using the Hero System to create just the sort of characters you’ve imagined, then shared them with your friends. I remember doing that a lot in my youth and, looking back on it, wasn’t that basically a kind of publishing? (Though admittedly, one with an extremely select audience!) Then years later in the late 90’s I discovered that there was an online community of people doing exactly the same thing, which renewed my interest in locating people to play Champions with once again. This in turn led to an odd and extremely unlikely series of events that involved befriending a nearly seven-foot-tall bouncer at a seedy San Francisco bar, making an entirely new circle of interesting friends, and eventually attending a business meeting with one of the suspects in actual case behind Tom Hank’s 1982 made-for-television film Mazes and Monsters that, eventually, ended in my writing the words you are reading today.
 
So that’s who I am, and probably who you are too: a fan. And it was in that spirit that I launched our DriveThruRPG community content program Hall of Champions a year or two back, which hummed along nicely for a while for a while before quieting down. Now I have a new idea in the same vein. I’m planning on launching a Hero Games Patreon (https://www.patreon.com) account that will serve a platform for new manuscripts to be seen and reviewed by serious fans before moving on to physical and electronic publication and distribution, with the goal moving forward to release a new book or project each quarter. You’ll be able to see and comment upon raw, unedited work before it travels the road to publication, and get an early peek into upcoming products while also contributing to their development. And you’ll get credit in the pages of that work for doing so.
 
My plan is for there to be a single level at $5.00 per month. We’ll release individual 3 to 5 page sections of manuscripts sequentially each week, possibly several manuscripts at a time, entering patron’s suggestions and edits into a spreadsheet for that manuscript as we go. Then, after those patrons have had a good hard look at the content, we’ll integrate the input into the product during the later stages of production.
 
Right now I’ve got several complete or almost complete manuscripts ready to go plus the beginnings of several others. The first is Gaslight by Christopher Hackler, author of Hero System Book of Templates 1 & 2. It’s a setting for competent normals set in London in the 1890’s. Think League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Call of Cthulhu, and Sherlock Holmes mashed together with all sorts of period characters like Spring-Heeled Jack, Dracula, and the Invisible Man.
 
The second is Imperial Throne, a Champions organization book about a deadly conspiracy whose goal is to transform the world into villainous parody of classical Chinese heaven. Our friend and fellow fan Michael Satran, author of such works as Imaginary Friends and Foxbat For President, was writing it when he was suddenly and tragically struck down by brain cancer in 2017. It’s 99% complete, and packed with hundreds of pages of characters, locations, and source material.
 
Though it isn’t a Hero Games product, I’m in possession of the final unreleased novel of our recently deceased friend and veteran Hero Games author Scott Bennie. Entitled The Last Orc, it's quite a lovely, classical sort of fantasy novel - the sort of thing we all grew up on, but one seldom sees these days. I’ve touched base with Scott’s family and they would like for it to be released, so we will use the upcoming Patreon account to do that, then most likely pass it on to my own High Rock Press imprint for actual publication.
 
Additionally, I have some projects of my own I would like to release using this method. I’ve begun getting chapters of my Star Hero supplement The Melancholy Seas of Space ready. It’s a sort of homage to Nishizaki’s Space Battleship Yamato, informed by simple setting creation elements I’ve taken from Powered By The Apocalypse games. Finally – and probably of the most interest to you – Hero Games legend Steve Long will be contributing material to this project as well, most likely beginning with chapters of The Martial World and Advanced Players Guide III. Though like the titans of old his ways are mysterious, and He Shall Create those books which He Shall Create.
 
If you have a manuscript of your own you would like to submit, contact me at jason@herogames.com and we can talk about it.
 
Now onto other Hero Games matters!
 
1) A lot of people have downloaded our free introductory product Champions Begins since we introduced it earlier this year and made it available on DriveThru, Indie Press Revolution, Itch.io, and our own website. Than you once again to the mysterious “Hero Fans” for their hard work.
 
2) We’ve been making various edits to Thomas Stadley’s IHA: Pride & Prejudice, and are basically ready to publish it. Steve wants to check over the manuscript and make sure the information in it lines up with the Champions Universe; then we’ll take it to press. We have an excellent cover and interior artwork all ready to go.
 
3) Veteran Hero System fan Carlos Castaneda has come to us with a proposal to create a Champions Complete package for Roll20. We’ve already signed a contract and he will be getting to work shortly with a proposed release date of October 2022. He’ll be keeping you updated about his progress here on the forums.
 
4) As many you already already know, Steve and I have already written six chapters of Champions International and he’s working on a seventh. So we should have that ready to go by Q3 2022 as promised. After that we’ll focus on running new material through Patreon before publication, with the exception of the Gemini System project, which is mostly complete down to a final layout.
 
 

I think of this song every time I see that thread on elves. Please make it stop.
 

I'm kind of rolling the dice with risk statistics. I have a family event to attend in Las Vegas this October, so unless a variant surge gets really bad in my neck of the woods I'm going to postpone getting the second booster until early September to maximize my protection while I'll be surrounded by the most people from all over.

There was a point in time when I was writing the thing that I got feedback that (1) we were including material that licensing would not allow and (2) Comstar would prefer 2 smaller books (hence book 1 and book 2) instead of 1 big book.  So that's why big chunks of stuff went bye-bye for what became books 1 and 2. I haven't seen the single version contents, but I assume it was one such version before the change, or a version after I gave Comstar all my InDesign files.

"Woke" isn't right wing

I'm not sure why I missed it the first time around - probably something to do with grad school and having kids and all that - but I finally watched Big Hero 6 the other night. It was quite good.

The first episode of Moon Knight shows promise.

Just got back from finally seeing No Way Home at the movies. It was most excellent.

Good news!  According to his Twitter, which I don't have a link for right this second, he's gone into remission!
 
Edit to add:  https://mobile.twitter.com/nyrath/status/1509944269796171782
 

I still consider Classic Enemies the gold standard for Enemies books. Scott took characters, most of whose brief initial descriptions didn't go much beyond, "Embittered, he turned to a life of crime," and made them, well, characters.
 
Rest in peace, Mr. Bennie.
 
DEan Shomshak

Mutants and Masterminds seems to have been the market leading superhero RPG for a fair while.
 
While it is a highly modified D20 system, those are still its roots 

The first episode of Moon Knight shows promise.

The first episode of Moon Knight shows promise.

Moon Knight is the show I've been looking forward to the most, since they first announced the lineup several years ago!
 

That was the great thing about the 4e BBB: you could run the game with just that book. Some of us did that for many many sessions. The BBB had not only the rules, but how to run a superhero RPG, a multipart adventure, a goodly number of hero and villain pregens, and a good amount of info on Viper.