Duke Bushido

Hello, HERO people! I have had some spine problems today, making it impossible to sit down or stand up more than just a few minutes, and the constant up-and-down of the humidity with the rain trying and failing to come together isn't helping. At any rate, I have gotten #13 done, though it took about four times as long as it should have. I'd like to say that it was "the last of the easy ones," but at one-hundred-plus pages, it wasn't particularly light-weight, either. At any rate, the magazine was reformatted after this one, and I can not lay a complete leaf upon my scanner (I really miss the Super Scanner.... ). That means the rest will go a bit slower, as even de-bound, I will only be able to scan one page at a time. I have no intention of cutting the leaves (I intend to put the books back together when this is all done), so there's going to be a minute or two of flipping, folding, and turning with each page. And of course, alignment will have to be one page at a time instead of two. Stil, things are looking pretty good. With one-through-thirteen done, _and_ #26 done, we _can_ say that one-half of the books are scanned! Yay! The rest will be slower, I'm afraid, but will be approached with the same level of tenacity that got this much done. Then-- onto a flash drive and on to Jason!

Several hours of tedium and boredom, followed by fifteen seconds of unbridled terror. https://i.imgur.com/P9IPImt.mp4

Sorry, Gentlemen. I cannot add any more rep today.... (and possibly for sixty days: I don't know. On the plus side, apparently it doesn't take too terribly long to get a comment through moderation.

I don't know how long it takes things to get through moderation, so forgive if we've moved on when it makes it through. That apology said: Absolutely nothing stops you from muttering "Iggitty Aggity"-whatever-else-you-want. It's a perfectly valid tactic for protecting the spell caster, and one my players have used every now and again. Not often, but enough to cover the caster for something really important, usually.

This is the screwiest thing I have ever seen: There are things with this software that are squirrelly as hell for a non-savvy consumer. Let's justify them! Good Grief, Man. Justifying a problem -- or perhaps a _potential_ problem-- Does _NOT_ make it one single iota less of a problem: Honey! Come home quickly! The house is on fire! Oh, that's no big deal. When we rebuild, we can select a different color. There are boards missing from the rickety rope bridge! Yes! We find the hopping across the spaces provides a bit of exercise and excitement for the consumer. It's a _feature_! This is silly. I mean, I _understand_ that no one likes to admit that there are problems, no matter how small they may or may not be, with something they like. Branding them as not problems, however, doesn't make them go away. At best, it shines light into interesting and scary places.

I understand that. On the other side of the coin, I wouldn't want them to buy it thinking that weren't going to have be more computer savvy than the think the will have to be (like Spence and myself, and who knows who else), or that things will be like what they are used to working with: print buttons that say "print," or that they will have everything they need like export formats or simple tools for making or customizing them, either. I would strongly encourage them to read through the help forum _before_ they buy it-- deeply into it, so they get an idea what Simon's like on an off day, given that he may well be having one when they need a bit of help, and see the number of times "write a script" or "track this down" or "no; it won't do that" is the answer. Pretending these things are not true doesn't do them any favors, either.

Egad-- I'll have to ask you to forgive the F-bomb. I quite literally type faster than I speak. When I get incensed, things end up in there that I am thinking, but don't actually mean to put into print. I'm generally better at catching the worst offenders. Again, I do quite sincerely apologize for that. You weren't swearing; I hadn't meant to. As to the rest: Yes; I would prefer to feel insulted, given the offered option is to have a dialogue about something that I have been quite clear on having no interest in using, even if the only reason is that I _like_ doing it by hand. As my engineer buddy at work says: "it's a part of my process, and I enjoy my process. If you don't like my process, then use your own."

Drug dealer! It's _perfect_! plenty of money, plenty of Disadplications baked in, plenty of leads on things in the street, and set your own hours!

Hey! Didn't' you just say that the bad ones could most benefit from an update? Seriously, though-- I don't really care for that one. It's really much more heavy on tabletop wargaming than I care for in an RPG, with a serious military bent to it that-- while I don't mind it in most other things-- just doesn't jibe well with supers _for me_. Though you _could_ take "Escape from Stronghold" and rework it to include an escape from Stronghold. Or any actual adventure at all, really. It was really nothing more than "here's this super-prison idea we had, and some random thoughts how you could maybe use it in your campaign, if you want." I realize that this was the early days of RPGs, but at this point, there were even third party publishers who could put together actual adventures.

"Let's just pretend it's Tourette's, okay?" My buttons are large

Ah, yes. The famous "anti-neener sword kata...." We meet again....

Going to be fair: There was nothing inherently wrong with Target: Hero. I thought it was pretty good. However it wasn't one of my favorites. It relied too much on GM skill: the GM was expected to be able to work this lengthy backstory and build up into his campaign. If he didn't have at least a weekly group, it was going to take a long time, during which other plots would tend to present themselves. Alternatively, the GM could do an info dump and retcon it in, but doing a "story so far" dump to the players robs them of the mystery and even some of the chance to play detective _unless it handled carefully_. Not all groups have time for the long road, and not all GMs have the skill for the shortcut. As examples, when Jim ran us through it, it was _great_! Years later, I tried to run a group though it. Unlike Jim, I hadn't had the module for six months before running it (when Jim left, he gave me all his stuff. I took over "our" group as GM, but I also had a second, less regular group at that point). I also didn't have a group that played twice a week to include weekend marathons. I couldn't just work the story in the way he had, and I opted to shortcut it. The first time was awful. I'll spare you the details; suffice it to say that it turned into "well since we know everything, let's just go find the guy and get him." Four or five years later, I did the same thing with a different group. I had a lot more practice then, and spent three sessions brining key characters (a Batmunch wannabe and a boyscout-type with a police contact) up to speed with different bits of knowledge, then having two hits (well, one hit and one attempt) in-session, whereupon the two "in the know" characters announce something along the lines of "this is just like that case I'm working on...." and the game went onward from there. That time around it went a lot like I had hoped it would the first time. The difference was, I believe, GM experience. That's my only complaint with Target: Hero; if you don't have a very regular, ver involved group, you'd better have an extremely seasoned GM with a light touch, and while the module suggests you can run it either way (long game or just do an info dump), there isn't any solid advice in there for just how to handle either one (how do you keep something else from becoming the focus of the players' attentions if you're playing the long game, for example?) Man. That was longer than in thought it would be.

I don't know if it helps, but once upon a time, Hero Mchine had some sort of liscence you could buy to use their stuff in your commercial product. You may want to see if that's still an option.

That version probably would have helped the original story, too. Well done.

Yep. Like I said, there were some things and some stuff, but the adventure itself was a disappointment. Unless you're into Dark Champions Captain Planet Horror, of course.