BigJackBrass

Point totals jumped due to the changes in sixth edition, so this is an "it depends" question. Which edition are you using? 

16 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

I have a shelf full of the 6e books and I couldn't tell you which are the originals that I was able to hunt down, and which are the PODs. They're worth getting. 

That's really helpful. Thank you, Brian. 

I'm not able to print from Western HERO at the moment (Covid-19 lockdown has meant being very frugal with stationery supplies!) but it would astonish me if any random page didn't utterly shame that fourth edition POD copy; the PDF is tremendously well done. 

It's amazing how the drabness of the POD cover immediately lowers expectations for the game. Of all the different Champions editions that's the most eye-catching, vibrant and alive, yet it's been made dull and static. And that's even before the eyestrain-inducing interior. 

Much of the problem here seems to be the source scans, but how do the larger newer books fare as print-on-demand? (i.e. something thicker than the templates book.) At the moment there are a few 6E titles such as the Bestiary I have in PDF but, due to increasing scarcity and price, not in paperback: POD is the only decently priced option, but I'm a little wary of binding and cover quality. 

Thanks for the reviews, Duke. You convinced me to buy the templates book as a PDF and reminded me not to take quality for granted. 

12 hours ago, pawsplay said:

The whole book is written in caffeinated, stream-of-consciousness format

Apparently it's contagious. 

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Oh! 

 

I almost forgot Supergame.

 

 

For years I only knew of Supergame from the ads in Space Gamer magazine, but remarkably Precis Intermedia Games reprinted it a couple of years ago! They also did a "third edition" which is actually an entirely different system. Unfortunately it looks like it's following their typical path of buying an old IP and not following up with the promised supplements. 

17 hours ago, grandmastergm said:

 

What boycott?  Are you talking about him getting disinvited from Origins in 2018?  Or was this something earlier?

I imagine this was due to his actions as part of the "Sad Puppies" fiasco targeting the Hugo Awards in 2014. 

It's also worth nothing that there can be doors within a mission, often big loading dock ones or elevators, as well as ramps to different levels. It can be easy to overlook them until you get the hang of what to watch for. 

9 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Just curious if any of you COH gamers are/were playing Champions Online?

Yes, I played it from fairly early on, took a break for a few years due to a rather disruptive change in my personal situation, then tried it again last year.

It still disappointed me. Everything looked so good, the style and design of almost every part of the game was wonderful, but fights were dull compared to CoH (the interface/mechanism never engaged me) and I got lost in all of the upgrades and things you had to manufacture. Crafting items is something I loathe in any game (it's there in CoH, although it seems more ignorable) but it feels entirely out of place in a supers game. I think I'd rather return to base and hand over the spoils to a resident boffin who would have some new gadget ready for you the next time you dropped by.

Ultimately, the real killer was that I found Champions Online unsatisfying solo; and while I enjoyed the team play it grew increasingly difficult to find a team. I'll probably have another crack at it once I've run around CoH punching muggers for a while.

Here's a blurry snap of Mr Biceps early in his CO days:

Downloaded, logged on, recreated my old character Mr Biceps (seen here with, uh, Farmer Ted in the background)... It was like going back home 🙂 I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the game. Thanks to all who posted , letting me know that it was still possible to play.

I rarely watch any telly these days, but I made an exception for Picard and, overall, I'm glad I did. It has the potential to actually feel hopeful, which has been absent in Trek for far too long.

And it least it doesn't ignore the passing of time.

A note on adding sounds: does anyone actually need sounds in an app like this? It only came to mind as I keep the sound switched off by default when I'm using a computer, whether it's a 'phone/tablet or PC, and it seems as though sounds files would add to the program size quite a bit.

And of course there was this.

Apologies if there's a more appropriate place to put this, but I thought it might be of interest that over at ENworld they're asking for people to nominate their favourite RPG related mobile apps, which you can do through this handy link.

Savage Worlds got a good boost early on with its free "one sheet" adventure format. Lots of short scenarios, playable with very little additional work, and they looked professional. I expect they were very useful for driving traffic to PEG's website too. 

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Wildstrike? 

It was a Champions New Millennium boardgame of superhero combat, packaged as a little ziploc game. Not bad for what it was trying to do. 

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

But as the OP was hunting ideas on changing the notions outsiders have about the game, I'm not going to go too deeply into my opinions there. 

Speaking as a close personal friend of the OP I can say with some confidence that he was just sharing something he found interesting 😊

9 hours ago, Trechriron10 said:

So, for example, waiting to buy a used book on ebay at a discount is probably doing far more immediate harm than the presentation of the game

The only reason I've been stalking eBay for some Hero books is because the ones I want are either out of print or, as with Champions 6th edition, effectively out of print (the only physical option being a black and white print on demand paperback).  Getting any of the books in the UK these days is difficult, one more problem when it comes to expanding the player base. 

PS238 also includes enough rules for play. 

OK, so the original Champions is not precisely the same game that we have in Hero System 6 Edition or Champions Complete, but I still found this to be an interesting counterpoint to the prevailing Internet wisdom that Hero is an impenetrable game only playable by people with degrees in mathematics. 

In the September 1981 issue of The Space Gamer, Aaron Allston reviewed Champions:

In other, only slightly related, news I finally bought a copy of Champions 6th edition this week for the bargain sum of £22 (about $27). Patience and eBay stalking for the win! 

Surely these are not legal to distribute? None of the stuff is public domain, after all.

Something else to consider might be a programme such as Bits & Mortar, where participating publishers provide a free PDF if you but their game at other than an online discounter. Evil Hat are especially generous in this regard, but others are involved. It can save a lot and provide additional convenience, although naturally it's for RPGs rather than boardgames.

Generally the books and games I want to buy aren't easy to find in stores locally (and that includes the area where I work, which is a major city over an hour away by train from where I live), but my first choice is to ask one of the shops if they can be ordered. Quite often they can't, so I then turn to smaller businesses on the internet.

Some of them are actual shops offering mail order, so buying from them is basically supporting someone else's local store; some are internet only but far removed from the likes of Amazon. Often they are people I've met at conventions and got to know through Twitter. Sometimes it works out surprisingly well: last week I ordered what I guessed were second-hand Champions supplements from a shop, but they turned out to be old stock... Shrinkwrapped third edition supplements including the GM screen for less than the original selling price, because the seller wasn't trying to inflate the cost and offer them as collector's items. So I ordered some more.

I don't have much money to spare, but where I spend it does matter to me and in recent years I've tried to move away from automatically seeking the greatest discount. Ultimately, if I can't really afford the price of a hobby purchase then either I save up and buy it in future, or else I don't really need it; but that's a personal choice and I would not suggest that it should be the one everyone makes.

That's helpful, thank you Beast. I've not looked into 6th edition as the thought of starting again after 5th was rather daunting, so I don't know how different the numbers are. I'll do a bit of reading now I know that the cards might work.

These cards are a terrific idea and certainly address one of the key complaints about Hero, the lengthy and involved character gen.

How much would need to be changed to make them work with 5th edition instead of 6th? Would it be worthwhile, or are the numbers simply too different?