Brian Stanfield

By way of an explanation, and not an excuse, I’m pretty sure Jason Walters is working on getting a final edit done on a new Champions book, so I’m sure he’s preoccupied with that. Contact him directly, if you haven’t already. I’ve found that just when I’m about to give up, he responds. 

Good luck. 

20 hours ago, Spence said:

 

Not to be a wet blanket, but I own 1st Ed, 2nd Ed, 3rd Ed, 4th Ed, 5th Ed, 5th Ed Revised, 6th Ed, Champions Complete and Fantasy Hero Complete.  For 4th through CC & FHC I own physical version of everything they ever published.  For 4th through CC & FHC I own everything available in PDF.  For 1st through 3rd I own most physical products with some missing items.  For a vast majority of the products I own multiple copies it at least one “collector” version, many still in shrink wrap.

 

I mention this because they have been recycling rules and rule supplements of literally decades while abandoning actual play support back in 5th ed.   

What actual campaign and adventure support is planned for this new line? 

When I buy the 7th version of the Hero system, what plans are there for actual playable support?

I’ve been beating the Hero drum since 1982 and since the late 90’s if feels like no one at Hero actually cared. 

Modern RPG’s are built on three legs.   CharGen – Rule of Play – Adventures/Campaigns.    Like a stool, be missing any one of them and the stool falls over. 

I’ve been buying up 5thEd Rev books, since I prefer that version of the game and the latest ones are effectively dead. 

Am I a bit pessimistic?  Or a lot pessimistic.  Yes.

But without seeing a solid plan for the publication of actual adventures and campaigns, I can’t see coughing up even more money.  Sorry.

Not a wet blanket at all, but perhaps misunderstanding my reason for posting (or not caring). I totally share your pessimism about the product line. I just thought I’d offer up a writing that I know offers some insight into the discussion at hand. Does it solve the problem with HERO System? Not one bit, unless Ron is planning on offering up a bunch of supplemental material next. But it does answer to the debate for the last couple of pages. 

On 7/10/2019 at 9:14 PM, Spence said:

It is during the CharGen session that the players sketch out their preliminary ideas and bounce them off the rest of the players and the GM.  They do not get to walk in with a 27 page manifesto already written and expect everyone else to build around it.   And then they usually have the gall to act wounded or cry that they are not being allowed to play what they want.  When the reality is they just want to be catered to. 

 

Preliminary character?  A super detective martial artist.  A master of the mystical arts? Is there magic in the campaign or not?  Is it a super criminal campaign or is it a mutants versus Genocide campaign.   All of these preliminary items needs out be sketched out before backstories are explored.

 

If the campaign doesn't have magic, you will not be able to have your Heroine be Hunted by Spymistress Tharlis since Skarn the Shaper wouldn't exist.  So showing up with that 27 page manifesto would be pointless. 

 

But it is Champions, so if the players want to include magic.  That is if they ALL do, then it is an easy thing to incorporate as long as the decision happens BEFORE the aforementioned 27 page manifesto       

On 7/11/2019 at 7:17 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

OK, I saw "preliminary characters" as a lot further along than you meant, so that makes more sense.  This is just ensuring that the players understand the campaign background and expectations, though - that is, your character needs to be written to the campaign.

 

Super-powers appearing for the first time?  Then you can't bring a third generation Super carrying on a legacy.  Your SuperMage works great in an Avengers game (very diverse power sets) but not in a "Only origin is Mutant" X-men pastiche.

On 7/12/2019 at 9:47 AM, RDU Neil said:

 

I was referring very specifically to Spence's version of backstory... the player showing up with a preconceived tome they are emotionally attached to and expecting it to be accepted into play by the group. I prefer players to be arriving to the game, and even during play, in an open state of mind to who their character is and how they will play out. Sure, I have a Secret ID, but I didn't work out every detail about why or how... and if during play it turns out this doesn't really fit, or needs to change, or it takes on a different form, based on the way the story is unfolding... ok then, make that shift.

It might just be me, but I tend to approach things in a very sketched out, vague, general direction sort of way. Like, maybe I'm GhostGirl's player and I usually don't go for emotional drama, but during play I find that coming out, and being very natural as I discover who GhostGirl the character is right along with everyone else... and that kind of play is now important to me and I never would have stated that early on.

So many times we had players have a character built or written out a certain way, but into play, that isn't working the way they thought it was, or that aspect of the character is just not applicable to the story, or it turns out not be fun... so things get changed. Just as the GM should be open to what stories they are going to structure based on what their players express interest in, players should be open to being malleable to what comes out in actual play, rather than be married to a pre-conceived idea.

So I’m just going to throw this out there: Ron Edwards’s new Champions Now project goes into great depth on character creation, development, as well as setting development so that they can all integrate and also grow together. I’ve read the rough text, but he’s added a lot more. I even did a character creation session with him in he early development phase. The book should be coming out soon, and will be announced on this site for sure. You may want to take a look at it just for another thoughtful way to bring all these themes from the last few days together. 

On 7/14/2019 at 11:05 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

There are some 3rd edition books like Danger International and Western Hero I think should be redone for 6th.  Yes, Dark Champions kind of covers DI, but DI was specifically about spies and mercenaries with a specific flair of James Bond kind of approach, and I think its a niche that is still unfilled.

A couple 0f years ago High Rock Press had posted that it was planning a new edition of Danger International, but nothing has come of it so far. I was really looking forward to it.  

@Duke Bushido and a couple of us worked on remastering Western HERO, and I’m expecting the HERO Store to be releasing it any time now. Any ideas when, Duke?

2 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

Without a very short meta discussion instead the whole thing degenerates, as players fail to communicate because their characters fail to communicate. No way no how is that good for play.

17 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Sure.  There is an onus on each player to bring a character to the table who can play within the group - whose positives outweigh his negatives - outside of a game where the PCs specifically are forced to work together.  If you are NOT OK with your character  being treated like an anti-social asshole, make a character who does not behave like an anti-social asshole.  

It’s funny you guys bring this up, because I had a friend create a noire-type anti-social asshole character for a globe-trotting Pulp HERO group. He kept trying to say, in character (not as the player), “I’m antisocial and I don’t really like people,” or “I don’t really care or need anyone else.” They were all a bit over the top and a bit too obvious. Everyone rolled with it in game, but I felt compelled to pull him to the side afterwards and remind him that his character is in a group in the game, and he should think of a really good reason why he’d even be in a group, and why that group would even want him in it in the first place. A little conflict could actually be fun, but it had to make sense. If that didn’t fit his character, I suggested he save that character for another time and rethink a different character for this particular in-game group. 

I don't want to force my players to do things they don’t want, but I think it’s only fair that they at least have some kind of reason for playing with the group of characters. As players, they’re all cool with each other. It’s just that this particular character conception needed some tweaking. 

On 7/2/2019 at 8:50 AM, Duke Bushido said:

(on a related note:  have you ever noticed that the same people who _insist_ that all fifty years is canon _refuse_ to let the character be ninety years old?  I hate cannon.  I detest canon.  Canon geeks have done more to ruin my enjoyment of serialized fiction than any author ever could have.  No personal insult meant to _anyone_ by that; it's just a vent that thirty years overdue. )

Duke, you may find Ron Edwards’s new Champions Now book (coming out soon?) to be right up your alley. He has an entire blog devoted to anti-canonical thinking, especially when it comes to game worlds in Champions. Check it out when it’s released. 

23 minutes ago, RDU Neil said:

Without that... without pathos... none of it matters.

Understood. Upthread I was really just responding to your confessed simulationist tendencies. But I’m totally with you on this. Storytelling is the point, otherwise we’d be playing tabletop war games. 

13 hours ago, Spence said:

What a four hour con slot is not for is developing a long term personality for a character.  

If only you had been there to save us! I had a couple of sessions, two years running at Origins, where the GM's goal really was character development of characters he'd been using for 20 years. What we did became part of the running story that he had spent an hour relaying to us before we played. Maybe it was only low grade character development, but it was really, really not fun! So when I say "no character development, combat only" in the description, I'm dead serious. Although you bring up a good point: my claim really should have been "no role playing, combat only." Regardless, my experience has run the gamut, not always for the best.

I think that what @RDU Neil suggested about "The Plan" would make for a perfect one shot at a convention. Start with the backdrop, describe the scene, let them do the "montage" version of setting everything up, and then get right to the combat (if that's indeed what you're looking for). It also works perfectly for one shot simulations. How would a samurai stand against a Medieval knight? Let's set it up! James Bond vs. Jason Bourne? Do it! This is one of the reasons I was drawn to HERO in the first place back in the '80s. As everyone started to figure out the "universal" nature of the rules, and more games came out to flesh out the "system" with more games (Justice Inc., Danger International, Fantasy HERO, etc. ), the possibilities became limitless. Perfect for "roll playing" simulations.

3 hours ago, Spence said:

 

Things like this always puzzled me.  A one shot con game run in a 4 hour game slot is not going to have character development.  Are there really people that expect otherwise?

It depends on the game. Some games are nothing but character development and role playing. I should have said “combat, not nuanced role playing” instead. But in all honesty I’ve been in some really horrible game sessions where we spent the first hour learning about the characters’ histories, and then were railroaded through some “role playing” in order to get to some fight scenes leading up to the big climactic confrontation. Totally bogus. My point was simply to cut through to the fight. Forget all the other fake role playing, and get to what the session was obviously designed for: the final combat. 

18 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

I'm not so sure I'd have the same luck at a convention doing something so generic, but if the players were in the right kind of groove...

I think more people ought to put in their convention description: “This is about combat, not character development.” It would help people know what to expect, and then you could get right down to the dice rolling. 

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I would so very much love to put out a boxed set of Jolrhos Campaign books (scenario, hero dice, character sheets, player's book, GM's book, map) but it costs real money to set that up for very uncertain sales

I’ll add that to my to-do list when I take over the world. 

Luckily, they put a huge sticker right on the cover so you couldn't miss it! 

Jason Walters is bogged down on final revisions for a book that's set for release soon, so he may not have checked his email this week. But he always gets to it and fixes the issue. You may have to send a second email to remind him though. 

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

And while we're at it:

 

Chalk me up for missing boxes: nothing like a little box for organization.  And of course, making for thinner rules books, as "rules" and "theme" could be split into two books.  you could toss in a couple of folders for NPCs, villains, what-have-you...   And a map!  It was so much easier to provide maps when you had a box-- or even a saddle-stiched rules book (the way Autoduel Champions did it).  But this is getting me nowhere, so....

 

 

When I take over the world, my first plan is to buy DOJ and start producing boxes of the different HERO games again! And lots of adventures.

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Agreed.  Bugs me to find a listing of "softcover" and find out it's a POD.  Honestly, it bugs me that PODs are black and white, somehow almost (_almost_ is still a lot in this case) as much as it rankled me the 5e PDFs were coverless and black and white.  Us poor people like the pretty colors, too, ya know....

The thing that irks me is that it is listed as "hardcover," and only after the order shipped did I discover that it's probably going to be paper. I'd rather just purchase it from DriveThruRPG so HERO at least gets some of the revenue.

10 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Oh: almost forgot!  One was a bootleg (box and all!) I picked up as "new in box!" from -- -well, let's say a famous and reputable online vendor of out-of-print game material.  I'm not trying to call them out because I think they were suckered, too.  It was one of the greyscale covers (easiest to bootleg) and was created from a _beautiful_ scan or a new PDF someone put a lot of work into.  At any rate, the give away was that none of the originals were printed in _TONER_!     The map was on white stock, and the dice were casino size.      The Viper's Nest scenario was on too-high-quality paper, and the catalogue insert was from the wrong year (though it even included the marketing card; nice touch, that. But it wasn't on card stock: it was on regular paper).

5 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Well I seem to have two sets of Justice Inc in boxes . One unopened, the other used and abused. Yeah I miss boxes as well.

 

Uh oh. I have a shrink-wrapped box of Justice Inc., and now I'm wondering if it's legit. But I'm not going to open it to find out! But in all honesty, I only bought it because it was paired with Aaron Allston's Lands of Mystery, which I had been trying to get but was impossible to find. That book was going for around $90 at the time (I think) if I could find one. This particular pairing showed up for much, much less, and I got both! eBay is such a funny place.

And I found a bunch of HERO stuff yesterday that has been out of print for a long time, all new, and all hardcover, so I ordered new copies only to discover in one of the reviews that they were actually paper copies of PODs someone was inserting into the market. I canceled the 6e1/6e2 books, since I already have them, but went ahead and got the 6e Champions since I was going to get a POD anyway. But it seems awfully shady for Amazon to list something as hardcover and find out it's a black-and-white reprint. 

8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

Yes.  And I _think_ there was an Adventurers Club article mentioning it during 3e.  Brian is likely referring to 6e "officializing" it by putting it in the rules book.  And if you're assigning skill levels or re-assinging them, you're still doing math.  It doesn't really solve any problems, except for the theoretical problems of not wanting you players to know the NPCs DCV, and even then, you'd have to have a group of players who don't notice that they hit when they roll eight or higher, but don't hit on seven or lower....

 

 

 

2e.  I stayed with 2e.

 

Yeah, I've cribbed a few things here and there from the later editions, but mostly I play 2e (except for Fantasy HERO, which is straight up 3e).

Are those all boxed sets?! Wow!

1 hour ago, grandmastergm said:

 

I did see his costume and the PC cereal boxes.  They were amazing!  I was playing Call of Cthulu: Sorrows in Tsavo, which was an adaptation of the Ghost and the Darkness (the killer lions of Kenya) but with a CoC twist.

What a great idea! I was thinking of using something like that in my Pulp HERO campaign. 

29 minutes ago, tombrown803 said:

 

 

Maybe Johnny Cash really is the Shadow?

Somehow I'm going to have to fit that into my Pulp HERO campaign.

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

Like a shadow.....  

 

I was thinking more like Johnny Cash. . .

17 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Thanks, guys. 

 

So I guess I have been strangely lucky. 

 

About time for it, I suppose.

 

 

The issue came up from actual play experiences I've had, both in my own group and at Origins a few weeks ago. The old method of calculating the roll works great, and I'm sure it's the method you use: 11 + your OCV - their DCV = the roll you need. It makes sense. My offense minus their defense. Cool, got it.

The problems I've seen come from the way 6e has reworded the formula. I guess they decided that players shouldn't know the DCV of their opponent (which makes sense), so they reworded it this way: 11 + your OCV - your roll = the DCV you can hit. It's the same formula, worked on both sides to isolate the DCV, and every experienced player can understand why this may be a good way to look at it. But it's so oddly presented for someone whose never encountered the rules before! As if they were intentionally writing the weirdest rule possible, to make as little sense as possible. Every other way of describing it in this thread makes more sense, even the roll over versions, than what is presented as the proper method in the 6e rules. 

So, the real luck for you, Duke, is that you chose to stay with the 3e rules. And I know that's not luck. 

11 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

What a minute-- It wasn't just that asteroid picture in -- was it a Traveller supplement?-- that I've seen your name.  Your work was in the revised 5e rulebook, too, wasn't it?   Seems like I saw "Ruggles" in there somewhere.....

I said the same thing in another thread the other day. I was randomly looking in a book I haven’t touched in 30 years, and there his name was in one of my favorite pictures back in the day. He’s everywhere, man!

6 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Yeah, Copyright, it’s why I can’t share scans from Rogues Gallery (except my own stuff) to this or other audiences n

True enough, except that we already completely edited Western HERO without any problems or resistance. I think the Adventurers' Club rejection must be coming from a place other than copyright problems. Just a guess, and not a very educated one at that!

20 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

And as I've stated in other threads, I personally know that my role playing preferences can be at odds with each other. I prefer more and more Nar style, system light experiences... while at the same time, desiring the intricate, simulationist crunch of a HERO martial arts fight or gun battle. These two things do not line up very well, but I want them both. I've just learned not to get frustrated (usually) if it doesn't work out all the time.

I've toyed with the idea of getting my simulations fix by running single-session, single-scene simulations, such as a single gun battle, with pre-gen characters. No story needed, just set the scene with "shoot the bad guys," and then go. You could do something different every time, and you get your simulationist fix without having to worry about all the other requirements for a more narrative game.