Brian Stanfield

That link and the production schedule link are both dead, hence my curiosity and slight concern about these projects. I'm ready to throw them my money, but no news!

It turns out I actually have this .pdf! Can you get me those character sheets? Thanks for this lead!

From what I understand, San Angelo is a west coast setting as well. It's 4th edition and so is now available as a .pdf. Does anyone have any experience with this setting?

You wouldn't even have to do all of them. That would be quite a list. Remember, this is just enough for a beginning character, so some samples of each variety would be good enough so they could see how they are built. This would be a good lead-in to playing with the larger ruleset themselves and making their own spells. As for the supers, the powers are what they're building in the first place. So maybe spell cards could be made as well, where the base power with a few options is listed, and then the advantages/limitations cards would modify the base card. The possibilities are vast. Trying to keep the card count down would be the next major problem.

That's great! This is more like what I'm looking for! Thank you for this! I may have been unclear in my first post. I'm not necessarily looking for 6e adventures, just anything from any edition. When I played 1e we just made stuff up and didn't worry about it too much. I never got any of the other books except for a couple of the Villains books for 1e. I'd like something a little more organized now, but it doesn't have to be a complete campaign or setting. Which brings me to a secondary question: what is a good setting to be looking at for later on down the line? Millennium City? San Angelo? Any suggestions here?

Good point. I meant to ask for published material that is already available.

This is an embarrassingly remedial question, but I haven't done Champions in 30 years, since 1E. I've been doing Fantasy Hero for years, and have 6e and Fantasy Hero Complete as well, so I'm up to date on the rules. I've also got Champions Complete, as well as many of the 6e .pdfs (I came along too late to get the physical books). So, what I'm wondering about is this: I want to do a first-time Champions game with some friends who've never done HERO System. What are some good beginner adventures/scenarios to use for such a thing? I'm not looking for depth, yet, just a good first experience to get them hooked. Any suggestions?

Well, if you ever feel the need to unburden yourself of some of those triplicates, please let me know! I've been using .pdfs and would love some actual bound copies for the table.

I think for a quick build for basic characters you'd just use the spells as if they were super-powers. Just pay for the cost, but with all the extra limitations for foci, skill roll, etc., to reduce the cost.

I've been thinking about a starter box myself for quite a while. It doesn't have to be much. Fantasy Hero Complete offers .pdfs of pre-gens, a setting, a world, monsters, and maps in about 85 pages of stuff. Broken into a couple of booklets, plus a "lite" ruleset which we discussed in depth here (http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94641-problems-with-fantasy-hero-complete-and-newbies/), it seems like it already has the components to work. The packaging and presentation is the problem. It's time for some new art, a nifty box cover, and a reason for your flgs to devote shelf space to it. The Hero System books at my local shop are hidden behind a bunch of other stuff because they are rather drab and amateurish and not very nice to look at. They are in the "flyover" space in the shop that everyone ignores on their way from cool new stuff in the front to the other cool stuff in the back. Hero needs a way to get located in more desirable real estate in a game shop. If it looks like they're just republishing what they've already done, which is already over 15 years old, then there's no point in getting the "new" stuff that will only eat up shelf space. Many shops are starting to drop Pathfinder from their brick-and-mortar stores because the books take up a whole lot of space, and most people are getting the .pdfs instead. Hero is heading that way because it is obviously a lot more cost effective. It needs to come up with a way to recapture a little bit of that shelf space and avoid being resigned to an online-only presence. One thing we've got going for us is an active forum network. I think it could be promoted and utilized with a beginner box set. Got questions? Ask the experts! Steve Long answering questions virtually every day is a magnificent bonus! Anyway, it's all a dream. Money is the obvious problem. But I think if someone actually put these things together into a nice presentation for DOJ, perhaps they would approve a Kickstarter for it. If they don't have to front the money or do any of the work, it just might work. Maybe . . . .

Don't get me wrong: I'm totally with you on this. I started playing Fantasy Hero precisely because there is no class system. The templates offered are only broad strokes to get the imagination going. Whatever it takes to get people to engage the character building process, even in a simplified way, seems like a good thing. At some point they'll realize that building a warrior who can cast spells is, in the end, really no different than building a wizard who can wield a sword. But as we discussed in this thread (http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94641-problems-with-fantasy-hero-complete-and-newbies/), sometimes there is a paradox of choice. The goal, at least in terms of character building cards from what I can see, is to provide a very quick, if cliche, way to create characters. If it starts with "classes" and builds outward, so be it. If it starts with skill sets instead, I'm ok with that approach too. The important thing is that it's fascinating to consider what it may look like in practice. That would make for a great convention play-test, wouldn't it?

Trick question: the winner was El Diablo! https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3670443/fan-steps-in-to-separate-flash-gordons-sam-j-jones-and-the-incredible-hulk-lou-ferrigno-during-blazing-row-at-londons-comic-con/ Buddhism vs. Daoism?

Eggcellent question! Scrambled, like this forum. Hulk vs. Flash Gordon?

That's what I'm thinking as well. I'm just looking at quick character generation. It could then be transferred onto a character sheet in a very simplified form without all the build information. As for Fantasy Hero, I think this could perhaps work in even more interesting ways. Each racial or cultural card could have career/class paths to choose from, commonly used weapons, equipment, and skills, etc. as suggestions. Or it could work the other way around: a "melee fighter" card could have suggestions to build from, a "ranged fighter," rogue, wizard, etc. They could all point to other cards with sets of skills to compliment the "classes" without watering down the options too much. A more interesting approach would be to build without the classes, but start with a skill set and build from there. In Fantasy Hero this would suggest the openness of the system, but still give some direction to the selection process if the skills are presented in a way that pairs them with other skills commonly taken together. For example, the lock picking skill could suggest a constellation of related skills on the same card, hinting at (but not overtly pushing) the character archetype of a thief. Maybe a card for each skill with similar information. Spells could simply be pre-made for the time being, with options on how to vary them, with the more technical build information on the back of the cards. Just some thoughts. I'm just curious to see how they will actually be produced. They were scheduled for Q2 this year: I'm still waiting for the Kickstarter announcement, and hoping!

I was thinking about cards that layered. I can't quite visualize it yet for this situation, but I'd love it if it could work. What I was thinking was something a little more basic. Let's assume that the goal here is for quickly creating characters without a lot of thought or time spent. Probably for beginners too, who aren't going to be worried about min/maxing every single detail since they won't be familiar with all the minutiae anyway. So keep it simple. There will be a basic card for each power, with the basic information you suggest: damage, END, adders, and cost. Below the basics would be a list of suggested power levels with their costs and stats: pick one. Perhaps on the back of the card would be some common builds with advantages/limitations, etc. Not too much, just enough to give a few suggestions in a very basic way. Each advantage and limitation would have cards as well, with their explanations, adders, etc., and cost modifiers. Maybe some suggested combinations on the back of each one as well. There could be a separate chart giving a grid of costs and advantages. There is something like this on 6e1, p. 362. Add all the advantages for a power, refer to the chart, then add all the limitations and refer to the chart, bingo! Quick and easy for power builds. Give some ground rules on the point levels, some suggestions on how many powers (perhaps 3 attacks, 1 defense, and 1 utility), then add perks, talents, and complications, and you've got a character. Not as elegant as layered cards (which I love!), but it gets the job done.

It seems like you could use something like the Superhero Gallery from Champions 6e pretty easily for Fantasy Hero. Even more so with race/class/skills/weapon familiarities. I could even see these become template cards with lists of options to choose from with secondary cards or something like that.

​I totally agree with this. I'm coming at this from the Fantasy Hero side of things, but the same principles apply (perhaps even more so). There are several campaign setting available for FH, and a new one provided for FHC. But I'm not really sold on any of these settings because they are a LOT of background information, which feels like a constraint, without all of the campaigns and scenarios that feel like a way to merge into the settings. If there were more actual campaign/adventure books to go with the settings, I'd be a lot more into them. As it stands now, I use some of the third-party adventures by folks like Christopher R. Taylor (Kestrel Arts), who offer some basic insight of how they might be merged with settings, without completely constraining their use to those settings. This is ideal for me, and I think a good idea for any sort of beginning campaigns in any genre. Champions Universe is a great resource, with a rich history, but some simple beginning adventures with a minimal amount of required background knowledge seems like a really, REALLY, good idea. As has been mentioned repeatedly, at this point it will have to be the third-party folks who make this happen.

Wait a minute, "Paper Stanfield" for all characters and villains?! How'd I suddenly get sucked into all of this?! I'm pretty sure you don't want the success of your product to depend on paper likenesses of me. Oh, what the heck . . . I'm game! Why not?

Any word on this production schedule? All traces of it no longer exist on the interwebs, from what I can find!

Ah, yes, thanks for that. The link to High Rock Press's page is dead, however, and this is more what I'm concerned with. Not only is there no news, the old announcement is nowhere to be found anymore. Does this have anything to say about the production schedule?

High Rock Press (I think) posted an upcoming production schedule a while back that announced character creation cards for Champions. That page is gone, and the news posted on this site is gone too. Does anyone have any idea if that project is still a go?

Have you thought of converting this to 6E?

This was kicking around the back of my mind too, although I think I'd push what you're saying a little more: DEX penalties would be based on how much STR one has over the minimum required, so again, the penalty is not the weapon itself but the person using it. So an ogre with a two-handed sword is strong enough to actually use it like a short sword, etc. Maybe this is what you already had in mind, but I thought I'd clarify. I like the idea of PSLs and quick draw and other things people have brought up as skills rather than weapon penalties.

Oh, sure, that makes perfect sense. I don't know why I didn't come up with that myself.

This is interesting. It's sorta what I was getting at with the DEX rules, but may be too simple for what I'm looking at. It is, however, a start, and is better than what I've got so far! This is good too. I'm thinking, though, rather than give a +1 or more for different weapons, it might be more efficient to give -1 or more for bigger weapons. The reason I say this is because if you're adding bonuses, where do you begin? Start with the biggest, longest, most awkward weapon you can think of and then work up from there? What happens when you get to short weapons versus empty hand? I think that maybe if it's in reverse, beginning with a fist or a dagger at -0 and then work down from there, you have an unlimited number of possibilities as you get longer, more awkward, etc., without any limit. I didn't know about the hurry maneuver. Is that an Advanced Player's Guide addition, or am I just dense? I like it as a starting point. So, maybe I should expand the rapid fire rule to include the type of weapon used and penalties for longer more unwieldy weapons? Hurrying would be a good start, and then subtractions to DEX for weapon unwieldiness regarding who attacks first, and also OCV subtractions based on the same considerations.