Jason S.Walters

Thank you! Jason

Hey everyone. Does anyone have a scan of Champions: The Super Hero Role Playing Game (2nd Edition) pages 37-44? They are missing from the existing files, and DriveThru has brought this to my attention.

- Jason

Hello guys. I was going to wait until the physical copies came in next week, but I went ahead and took the PDF+HDC version live in the website. When the print copies get here I'll take it fully live here on the Hero Games website (and at IPR), and have AC make all of the social media announcements including on the front page of the website. I'll also take it live on DriveThruRPG once I've checked over their proof.

I think I get what you're going for -- other groups like VIPER  and DEMON are more obvious threats, while the IHA appear innocuous but are actually a looming danger.

Actually, it's more that the IHA has its agents dress up like somewhat "overbranded" agents from other organizations to disguise their nature. The book details this.

Institute For Human Advancement is now available from RPGNow.

Greetings everyone! We have a new Champions organization book available, first on Amazon but shortly in the Hero Store, on DriveThruRPG, and at Indie Press Revolution.

BTW if an ARGENT book ever comes up, feel free to use my research via my sig link. I'd be happy to consult further on it, gratis.

I'll keep that in mind. Thank you.

Greetings fellow HERO System fans! I know these updates should happen more often; and I’ll try to improve upon that. But for now, here’s what’s going on with Hero Games and the HERO System at the end of 2022.

1) First of all, if you haven’t joined our Patreon account (https://www.patreon.com/hero_games), please consider doing so. By becoming patron you will not only help fund the creation of of new books, but also gain the ability to review and comment upon unreleased material before it becomes available to the public. Right now we have a little more than fifty patrons; but I envision Hero Games having more like one hundred in 2023. Then we would be really “cooking with gas,” in terms of getting manuscripts turned into books more expediently.

And I really prefer Patreon for Hero Games as a crowdfunding method over Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, or any of the other platforms. Though that is admittedly a personal preference.

2) Have you seen our Champions Complete bundle on Roll20 (https://roll20.net/)? It has everything you need to play Champions with your friends online, including all of the material from Champions Complete and Champions Begins usable in Roll20.

3) Carlos and I got in a proof for Thomas Stadley’s new champions universe organization book Institute For Human Advancement: Pride & Prejudice, and there were some issues. So we’ve made some changes, resubmitted it, and I have a new proof on the way to me right now. If everything checks out, we should have that book available in the Hero Games store, DriveThruRPG, Amazon, Indie Press Revolution, and at a game store near you.

4) With Christopher Hackler’s Gaslight: Horror & Heroism in the Victorian Era having been through the Patreon account, Carlos and I have begin editing and laying it out. We’ll be presenting finished chapters on Patreon before taking it to print early next year.

5) Steven Otte’s Heroes In A Hurry is currently being run through the account. It is in nearly final form, and will go straight to press afterward.

6) Michael Satran’s final work Imperial Throne has been reviewed by fans on the Patreon account, and the response has been quite positive. Carlos and I will begin work on that when we’re done with Gaslight.

7) We will continue to put out chapters from renowned game designer Scott Bennie’s final novel The Last Orc, at which point I’ll copy edit it in preparation for publication sometime in 2023.

8. We’re going to start putting up chapters of Phil Guinchard’s Gemini System soon. It’s a genre-agnostic game heavily influenced by the Hero System and OpenD6; and, like Champions Now, is the sort of experiment we’d like for you to see.

That’s all I can think of here at the end of 2022. As always, if you have a Hero Games manuscript, email me at jason@herogames.com and let me know.

- Jason Walters, Publisher

Actually, most of the 6th Edition (and some of the 5th Edition) books are available in print form through DriveThruRPG and Amazon via print-on-demand. You can find more information about POD books in the forums here. These are by necessity available only in paperback black-and-white. But that's the reality of the economics of the POD method.

Jason Walters, Publisher

Eventually we will make it available print on demand. But, for the moment, it is still very much in print, and you can get copies from both Hero Games Store and Amazon.

Jason Walters, Publisher

23 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Yes, thank you. The current PDF is missing pages 100 to 120. If I could get those from you, I could merge them to the existing document.

 

 

If someone can tell me specifically what is missing from the current PDF, I can check my own (not good) PDF.  If it has all the missing material, I will be glad to send it along to Jason, and they can pull out what they need and inject it into their (likely better) extant official PDF.

 

 

Forum member Ruppert has pointed out to  me that the PDF for Champions Presents #1 we have on the website is incomplete. So I need to acquire and scan another physical copy; but, alas, both Noble Knight and Amazon don't seem to have a copy. Do any of you have one? If so, I'm sure we can work something out.

Jason

Wow guys! What a response! Thank you. We'll work on keeping new books coming!

Hello everyone. Thank you for your enthusiasm! We should have the Patreon account up in the next couple of days, with the first two manuscripts in the "chute" being Chris Hackler's Gaslight and Michael Satran's Imperial Throne, which together will take us through August - though we may throw out some extra weekly tidbits as we go along.

I should take a moment to clarify something that's been mentioned by some fans. We won't be relying solely upon patrons to edit the manuscripts; that's not the point of this undertaking. They will all have have regular post-Patreon editing. What I meant more specifically in my post above is that patrons will have an opportunity to collaborate on books by making suggestions and edits, much as they've done with our past crowdfunding projects. These have ranged in the past from very minor suggestions in the comments to people turning in complete manuscript edits to me, depending on their level of enthusiasm for a particular project. I suspect it will be the same with the Patreon account; but nobody is expected to do anything other than enjoy the content.

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.

12 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Ditto.

 

Is that a thing that happened, or was meant to happen?

 

 

Martial World was a thing that was meant to happen back in the day, but never did. Maybe we can change that.

Good to know you guys are enthusiastic about the Patreon idea. I'll pass that along to Steve.

Let me do my best to answer a few questions/comments-

1) There were bunch of books slated for publication back in the day; including, alas, several that were to contain my own work. HERO System Vehicles was one of them, and I would most certainly publish it. If someone (or several someones) wants to send me a manuscript, I'll consider it for publication. I suspect Ninja-Bear is probably right, and it already exists among you in some form. In fact, I could release a pretty good sized book using only the work shadowcat1313 has done already.

2) The Chimera System project is "it's own thing." It's not much like the Fuzion System - or for that matter Champions Now. Nor is an attempt to replace or update the Hero System. It's an interesting project - and we're open to interesting projects. 

Fellow Hero System Fans-


I’d like to take a moment to talk about our plans for Hero Games in 2022. I believe they’re both modest and realistic, in that they can be accomplished on time and using our limited resources. At the same time they are also ambitious, as I intend to release four projects in 2022; one each quarter of the year. They will be the following:


(Quarter One) HERO2023 Champions Begins Created by a group who wish only to be known as “Hero Fans.” This high-quality free electronic product provides everything you need to play your first game of Champions! It’s designed to teach people new to Champions how to play the game, but isn’t a complete presentation of the rules set; it provides you with just enough to play for the first time. The zip file contains a 52 page GM book, a 20 page Player book, a villain book, hero book, paper figurines, and Hero Designer files.


(Quarter Two) HERO2017 IHA: Pride & Prejudice Created by Thomas Stadley. To most people the Institute For Human Advancement is best known for its boring spokespeople who appear on talk shows that only their parents watch. But the Earth’s superheroes know better: the IHA is an insidious, genocidal threat to the planet’s mutants – and anyone else who gets in the way of their plans! Packed with agents, villains, weapons, and equipment, IHA: Pride & Prejudice contains everything you need to introduce the IHA into your campaign.


(Quarter Three) HERO2018 Champions International Created by Steve Long and Jason Walters. There are a variety of imaginary and unusual locations that have been mentioned in Champions Universe books over the years, but have never been fully explored or detailed. Champions International does exactly that, providing an in depth look at locations such as Awad, Lugendu, Larisagrad, and Costa Azul. It also includes some new locations like Transnistria and Prosperidad. Previously released individually in 2021 and 2022, these articles will be further edited and reworked to become chapters in the final version of the book.


(Quarter Four) HERO2024 The Chimera System Created by Philip J. Guinchard. The Chimera System is a hybrid of the Hero and OpenD6 systems in which elements from both have been combined together by the author to create a unique, new game system. Like the recently published Champions Now, it’s a joint undertaking by ourselves and a creator to publish a variation of the Hero System fans will find interesting and useful.


Additionally, if things go well with Champions International, Steve and I are considering creating a Patreon account to fund the creation of the HERO System Advanced Player’s Guide III, Champions Martial World, and other projects starting in 2023. But we’ll see how this year goes before we commit to a long-term project like that!


If you have a manuscript you would like to submit to Hero Games, contact me at jason@herogames.com with a one to three paragraph description of your work. If it sounds like something we would be interested in, you can then send me the full manuscript for review. And, of course, feel free to post any comments or questions on this thread.

- Jason Walters, Publisher

My guess (and I hint a little at this in Champions International: Transnistria) is that they are suffering from a bit of Nostalgiya. (If I say that, does it make it cannon?)

Oh, and they still want to take over Europe, even in comic-book-slowed middle age. But most megalomaniacs want to take over Europe. It's just that they have superpowers.

Thank you all for your responses. There are some interesting suggestions on this thread, and I will think about them. (Not being deliberately vague here; just avoiding a "laundry list" of responses for the moment.) I'm going to give a Patreon account serious consideration in Quarter Two 2021 after seeing how Champions International goes, both financially and artistically. Several of you had very good suggestions about how a Patreon account might work; I will remember those. 

Steve Long and I had a long discussion at GenCon some years back about High Rock Press doing a stand-alone Danger International book focusing on the "super" part of the super spy genre. Both that and Star Hero Complete are very reasonable recommendations for using the Hero Games Kickstarter account. But as I've just launched a fledgling program to produce and release regular content for Hero Games (as opposed to publishing a product every year or two), I want to see how that goes before I make any promises.

Jason Walters, Publisher

Hello everyone! We have a variety of projects going on at Hero Games right now, both for quarter one of 2021 and for the year as a whole. I wanted to let you know about them, get your input, and ask if there is anything you would like to see created by Hero Games in the coming year. Of course, I can’t promise you we will act on those suggestions! Only that we will listen and do what we can, given the limited time and resources that we have. Please feel free to comment.

UPCOMING NEW RELEASES

The following three projects have been turned into us, have been approved, and are in various levels of production right now. (If you have submitted a project to us and don’t see it listed here, don’t be alarmed! We simply haven’t gotten to it yet. These things take time.)

Western Hero: Rough and Ready Roleplaying – This is a joint project between Kestrel Arts and Hero Games. Written by Christopher Taylor and based on work by Matt Forbeck, it’s an exhaustive, rules complete 276 page Hero System 6^th Edition book. It has already been through layout, editing, and (due to the subject matter) sensitivity reading, and will be made available physically and electronically through DriveThruRPG, Amazon, Indie Press Revolution, and the Hero Games store. A Hero Designer Character Pack for this product will also be available for sale.

Institute For Human Advancement: Pride & Prejudice – Written by Thomas Stadley, this book is a 50,000 word Champions 6^th Edition source book detailing the history, structure, agents, and technology of the infamous Champions Universe villain organization known as the IHA. It is currently being edited by AC, and will be made available physically and electronically through DriveThruRPG and Amazon, and electronically through the Hero Games store. A Hero Designer Character Pack for this product will also be available for sale.

The Hero System Book of Templates II – Written by Christopher Hackler, this is the sequel to Chris’ popular Hero System Book of Templates. I’m editing this book myself right now, and it’s excellent. At 33,000 words it’s even better than the original, and extremely useful to new players. It will be available in electronic and physical form from DriveThruRPG and Amazon, and electronically from the Hero Games store. A Hero Designer Character Pack for this product will also be available for sale.

SECTIONAL BOOKS

Steve Long and I have come up with a new publication concept for releasing Hero System books, and we are going to try applying this concept to a couple of projects this year and see it works out, financially as well as artistically. I’m calling these “sectional books,” as they will be released in sections that stand alone as electronic products, but can be combined in the end and released as a complete print-on-demand book on DriveThru and Amazon. The stand-alone products won’t have any original artwork, but the final book they will be combined into will have an original cover and at least some original interior artwork (though they will be softcover black-and-whites).

Subject matter for these books will be selected in part based on their suitability for the format: meaning, they can be released in sections, then those sections can be combined into a unified, consistent final product (not a magazine or the like). The first two will be written by Steve, and will be Champions International – a collection of chapters about imaginary countries with exist in the Champions Universe – and Martial Enemies, which will detail a wide variety of martial arts characters suitable for Champions, Ninja Hero, Pulp Hero, or any of a number of other genres. He’s already turned in the first section Champions International: Lugendu, which AC is getting ready right now.

If the sectional book projects goes well, Hero Games will launch a Patreon account to support even more work in that vein, plus provide exclusive content to Hero System fans who choose to become backers. (But we’ll have to see how the project goes before I commit to that!)

KICKSTARTER

At this point I don’t have any plans in 2021 a Kickstarter project. I’m willing to hear suggestions if you folks have any. But please keep in mind that the Hero Games KS account is reserved at this time for “big” projects. By this I mean comparatively large, rules-complete works which require no additional books to play. So I mean projects that are like Champions Now or Fantasy Hero Complete, but not Book of the Empress or Champions Villains III. I’m open to the idea of licensed intellectual property projects; though, again, I can’t make any promises. Actually getting licensed IP is an extremely difficult and time-consuming undertaking that I have only succeeded at twice (once here at Hero Games, and once at my own imprint High Rock Press); though behind the scenes I tried one dozen other times over the years unsuccessfully. Success requires either a perfect alignment of circumstances, or large sums of money; and the former is by nature unlikely, the later - nonexistent.

HALL OF CHAMPIONS

So far you fans have contributed forty creations to our Hall of Champions DriveThruRPG community content program! Please continue, feel free to contribute to the creative legacy of Hero Games, and maybe make a few bucks along the way.

-Jason Walters, Publisher

The first two chapters of Wilson Zorn's Breakdown are available on the High Rock Press Blog for you to read and comment upon. You can link HERE.

Jason Walters

Hello everyone. Over at High Rock Press we will be releasing two new projects, detailed in a blog posting you can access here. The first is a new roleplaying game called Breakdown by Wilson Zorn, author of the ENnie-nominated RPG At The Hands of an Angry God. (It was nominated for Best Rules opposite D&D 5E. So we didn't, you know, win.) We will be releasing it chapter-by-chapter in the blog so gamers can comment on it before we begin a Kickstarter project to create a quality version on both physical and electronic form. The second project is a Descended From The Queen storytelling card game created by myself, inspired by the work of Alex Roberts, and published by Evil Hat Productions. It's called Symposium, and simulates the experience of being a guest at the fictional dinner party Plato outlined in his famous work of the same name. I'd like to make my crude (alas very, very crude) version of the deck available to you to look at and, if you're willing, play so that I can get your input. You can download it HERE. After I get some feedback, High Rock Press will launch another Kickstarter project to fund a quality deck in both electronic and physical form.  

Again, I'm looking for feedback in the comments section the High Rock Press website if you're willing to contribute. All in the interests of creating the best products possible when the time comes to launch the Kickstarter projects and then publish. I know you're all busy and there's a lot of completed gaming material to consume. And this isn't Hero System material. So we appreciate any time you can spare to comment.

Jason Walters, Publisher

Thank you guys! These were all really good suggestions. I'll think about them and see what I can manage, practically speaking. Jason