Brian Stanfield

You know, this is really interesting. I can’t remember who brought up the idea a few pages back about the humans being the mongrelized version of the other “pure” races, but this fits well with that idea. Pure bloods are in red and don’t have the same resistance that mongrels do, so the humans ended out eliminating the other species (I can’t use “race” in this context: it makes no sense) through disease and whatnot. Maybe not intentionally, but hey would have been the ones to survive any post-magical pandemics.

No need. I got a notification for this thread anyway. Thanks for the description. I might be interested in trying something like this out if it's a short-term commitment.

I've never done play-by-email before. How does it work?

Ugh! I HATE subscription models! It's a scam. I don't want to keep paying to use the program that I payed for to use.

I had a girlfriend two girlfriends now that I think of it (not at the same time, God help me!) who did layout for newspapers using Quark. I also worked in a print shop and they used Quark. This was all 15 years ago or more, so things have probably changed. I don't hear people talking about it much anymore. Adobe has pretty much got a stranglehold on everyone's computer these days with Acrobat auto-updater taking over every 15 days or so, so I figure it's probably the new standard, whether we actually like it or not.

This is why DOJ can't be saved. There's no way to save them from themselves, no matter how hard we try to drag them into the 21st Century.

I forgot about Quark. Someone else suggested Adobe InDesign. Does anyone have any experience with these, or with layout in general, enough to give a recommendation?

I tried a screenshot, but couldn't find a way to attach a file in the message. It only allowed a url for a file or image, but not an option to upload an image.

Maybe someone can tell me: what is being used to do layout for the HERO System books? Anyone know?

@smoelf and @Shoug I'm right there with you. Consider using HERO System Basic for a gaming group, and get some people together to run a few simple activities. Either use pre-gen characters you build, or have them all take a whack at making simple characters. Then just run them through a battle. No backstory, no reason, just a McGuffin battle so they can all try out the system. Maybe start off first with a Skills adventure (break into the McGuffin-storage), which then leads to the battle in a second adventurelet. Nobody will care that there's no story--everyone will be more interested in kicking the tires on the system and will be happy enough to just run through some stuff. Not even "Session 0," more like "Session alpha." I'd also recommend, if you haven't already, getting HERO Designer. It's immensely helpful for whipping up characters quickly. Or if you are interested in a supers game, try the Character Creation Cards. They allow you to whip up characters in minutes, and then you can go right into playing. My recommendation, though, would be to start with simple heroic-level characters and very simple challenges. The Powers in a supers game can quickly get overwhelming for new players and especially new GMs, though not impossible if you're all ok with just winging it! I think if most of us look back on when we first started gaming, most of us just jumped right in to try stuff out without knowing many rules at all. Just do that. Have fun, don't look for too much accuracy, and just get them used to figuring out when to roll dice, and how many. I'm actually just now GMing my first HERO campaign ever. I have a group of entirely new players, and an entirely new GM (me), but we've met 4 or 5 times now and they have enough fun to keep coming back. I'm doing Pulp HERO in 6e, so the characters are heroic skill-based players. It makes the game so much simpler! I've been letting different characters have the spotlight (time for your detective to detect, time for your fixer to check his mob contact, and your silent film star to unload a ferocious PRE attack on the mook, etc.) and then making sure I take time out with each activity to explain the what and the why of the dice resolution. They all get to watch as well as participate, and then learn as they go. AND it helps reinforce some of the things for me as the GM as well. Just another 2¢ nugget. I hope it helps you get over the first hurdle of trying to get through that first game. Let me know what you think, or how it goes, and what you think would help for the first time players. I have all sorts of pages from the PDFs printed off and laminated for their reference, but I never know what they really need (and neither do they, since they don't know what they don't know . . . know what I mean?).

That's not as easy as I thought it would be. I sent a link to my purchase through the DOJ store. Let me know that you got it.

Heh, I forgot about that project already! I loved working on that book, but when I put it down it completely disappeared from my mind. I just ordered a copy from the store. Thanks for the inadvertent reminder.

I may have been a bit generous in my assessment, but there are maybe ten pages of adventures along with some adventure seeds with each chapter. They aren't super-detailed, but I think you could get at least one night out of each one. What they could use, in light of what was suggested earlier, is some advice on how to expand them into campaigns, etc., and show how things are built and whatnot. Anyway, each of those chapters, if they were expanded and developed, could make great individual "how to" guides along with their own adventures or possibly campaigns. They at least offer a model to work from that seems pretty doable.

You know, there is a book that sorta does this. Champions in 3-D is a dimension-jumping resource book, and shows the versatility and strength of the HERO System by offering a brief chapter on each of several different dimensions. Each chapter gives an overview, gives the rationale for how the dimension works, and offers some specific builds for that dimension, followed by some adventures. This could work very well in the Hall of Champions. Make each chapter a separate document. In each document, offer some guidelines for that particular scenario, set the parameters for the characters, offer some advice, show some builds, and then offer a series of adventures to put that scenario into action. Simple enough! This would be a most excellent model for "beginning adventures," and really should be the emphasis of the Hall of Champions. More settings? Meh. More villains? What for? New adventures? Now you're talkin'! Advice on how to set up those adventures, wrapped right into the adventures themselves? Holy cow, take my money, please! Unfortunately, we're the ones who are expected to do this legwork. I think maybe some creative folks need to start shaping this new model and promoting it to the point that DOJ can no longer ignore how imperative it is for the survival of HERO System.

This always makes me think of that scene in Ghostbusters when they're scanning Rick Moranis, and on the video screen it shows his aura as one of Zuhl's demon dogs instead.

Way to break immersion . . . we all know that the Queblar was that weird newspaper in Harry Potter . . .

Hi pbemguy! Welcome. I'll put a pitch in for a discussion I started recently about "Complete" games. Lots of history and things packed in there, and it'll take you a while to grind through it, but I think you'll get a good feel for many of the issues that we all feel passionately about. Whatever you do, though, don't start a "which edition is better" war! Please, for the love of God! You'll just have to do your own research on those debates. People have pretty firm ideas on their favorite editions (2e through 6e), and people aren't likely to change their opinions. But I can guarantee, without feeling too patronizing about it, that DOJ will never, ever, rewind the ruleset to anything pre-6th, and there probably won't be a 7e either. They are fully invested in 6th now, and the new "Complete" books are derived from 6th. There is just as much support for 5th as there is for 6th at this point (in other words, very little except for lively forums). Nobody really judges about which edition you prefer. Just go with what makes you happy. Just don't expect DOJ to reboot anything at this point. Ron Edwards's Champions Now project is his own return to 2e/3e days, but he's rewritten the rules so much that it's not the same game anymore. It's now Ron's own spin on Champions. And it is not the DOJ version of the game. It's his own project. He wasn't selected to do it as a resuscitation of the game; he approached DOJ about doing his own thing, and they let him run with it. Don't get me wrong, I talked with him for a good while about the project, and even did a video with him. But it just can't be a replacement for the "Complete" books. It shouldn't be considered a new standard. It's just a thought experiment more than anything, perhaps a fun one. I like his ideas about character creation and setting development. But he's created his own game. I'm not even really sure why DOJ is promoting it, since it's pretty unlike their own version of Champions, and seems to be at cross purposes to their own success. And it certainly is not "Champions Basic" except in the most vague way. It's not an introduction to Champions because it is its own game. He's changed the names of too many things, changed the rules, and changed too many assumptions about things to even be considered related to the current Champions. And we definitely don't want him in charge of an "Advanced" project, because he doesn't believe enough in the existing rules, and much of the existing DOJ intellectual property, to do it justice. We don't need an Advanced version of Champions. It already exists! As for "Basic" projects, there are already plenty of threads for you to read about that as well. Here's another one I started a long time ago, which actually led to someone doing a Fantasy HERO Primer document you can get in the downloads section. There are many others as well. Anyway, short story long, Ron's not the guy to lead a reboot of HERO System. Everyone agrees with you about the artwork. That's one of the biggest problems with the books being produced. That's another one of those recurring themes that you'll find in the forums, so I won't rehash it. Yup: we need better artwork for a comics-based game system! So, to get to your original proposition: how do we save HERO System? We don't. We can't save an organization that's not very interested in saving itself. It's probably best described as being in a holding pattern, at best, right now. The economy has rebounded, so that's not an excuse anymore. But what has happened is that the RPG industry has totally changed around DOJ while they've been in a holding pattern. Anyway, don't let me kill your desire to explore this issue. That's just my 2¢ for now. You have decades of experience and knowledge to draw from here. Enjoy!

I’m always fiddling with new layouts in my mind, and can never come up with a good plan that is significantly different than how it’s already been done. I like that you’re at least trying to rearrange things in a meaningful way. I’ve toyed with the idea of putting the roleplaying chapter up front (the cliché “what is roleplaying” discussion). But this only makes the most sense if you explain the game world up front as well. So that means a discussion of the setting, and roleplaying in that setting. For Action HERO! that would be a look at action films, the real world they represent, and what it means to roleplaying a character in that world. Simple enough, but I don’t want to do too much hypothetical stuff up front, so I’ll sum it up in a handful of pages. For whatever reason, HERO System has always saved a discussion of the world for last (or nearly last), as if the world is an afterthought. This is a big mistake, in my mind, because the best games on the market right now (I’m not talking D&D here, either—think Kids on Bikes or something popular these days) present a very vivid game world first, and thereby give you a desire to want to play the game in that particular world. Follow that with a discussion of core concepts for the game, a quick look at the character sheet maybe, and a discussion of how these things work together to make a game. Maybe the concept of character creation could be introduced here as well, but without all the definitions yet. For instance, explain the Characteristics, Complications, Skills, etc., only briefly, with references to later chapters where the lists and definitions are given. I’ve even considered doing these as a series of Appendices (Appendix 1: Skills, Appendix 2: Complications, Appendix 3: Equipment, etc.). I’m not sold on that idea, but it’s a way of avoiding all the definitions up front. They could just as easily be presented as chapters in the charged section, but let’s not just assume it has to be done that way simply because it’s always been done that way. I actually hate the layout now, and think it is one of the reasons for a lack of success these days (I think we all agree that artwork is another, but let’s not go there now). Hell, now that I think of it, most lists involve character creation anyway, so why not just save charges for its own Appendix, with each list included for each step, with definitions in another Appendix. I don’t know, but something different. So now I’ve introduced the world in which the game is being played, what the key elements are for gameplay, and what they look like on a character sheet. Now it’s time to show how they interact: gaming in a contentious world! Skill checks, Presence attacks, combat, using equipment, giving and taking damage, etc. Give examples of each thing as we go, of course, with references to the more detailed rules. Now you know how all the parents fit together. Want to try playing right away? Go to Appendix Last for pregen characters and some beginning adventures, tailored for an escort through first time play (here’s where you all meet in a Skills challenge adventure, then you have your first battle in the next adventure, or whatever). Personally I think this should be saved as an Appendix because I don’t want learning the game to depend on playing the adventures before learning the rest of the rules. But in our modern wiki-based world, I don’t think Appendices are a deal breaker at all. If they help isolate lists and definitions, they actually seem to be an advantage. I don’t know, I’m just spitballing here. This is all a bit like reorganizing the garage. It’s best just to take everything out of the space, and then re-examine everything and the different ways all the items relate to each other. Hell, I can imagine this as an entirely electronic wiki where everything is linked to everything else that is relevant, and the parts get learned by following one’s own curiosity (the best way to learn anything, really). Of course, I’m the kind of person who keeps falling down the Wikipedia rabbit hole with 20 pages open at the same time because they keep opening up new nests of ideas. I suppose a game wiki would be a nice reference tool, but probably not an ideal way to learn a game. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but it’s a fun exercise. How different can we make the presentation, creating a different synergy without losing anything of value in the process.

One more random question RE: disguising oneself through Transform/Shapeshift/Multiform: isn’t it assumed that Powers by default are visible when they are used? The source of all Powers is presumed to be detectable unless an Advantage is taken. I’m too lazy to look he rules up right now, but are they only perceivable while the change happens, or the entire time the Power is . . . I guess “empowered”? Like, would the floppity sparrow have a little penumbral glow around it? I apologize ahead of time for the perhaps obvious question.

I confess, the guy who did it is an inveterate game-breaker on purpose. He does these things exactly because they break the rules. That’s his MO. The GM didn’t even bother trying to adjudicate anything since it was a one-shot, and I don’t know the rules at all anyway, so it was probably all illegal as hell. I think the GM just washed his hands of that encounter and moved onto the next scene rather than limit the questionable tactics.

Yes, one of the biggest problems I've always had with the books, even the older 3e games, was the layout order! The problem is exacerbated when the character creation stuff is spread over different chapters. For example, the standard charges stuff always leads the book, but then the templates and setting details are always somewhere near the back of the book. So new players picking up Fantasy HERO Complete have no idea as they start reading that there is anything like "character classes," equipment, and the other stuff they're used to finding up front in a D&D book. There are many ways to skin a cat, but the HERO layout has always seemed backwards to me. I like your arrangement. I also like your micro-campaign idea. Aaron Allston put a "choose your own adventure" type of game example in the Campaign Book for Justice Inc. It's admittedly very brief, but not too far off what every game should offer. It's a guided tour through the game mechanics, not simply an example of combat. He guides you through some choices, and they lead to different resolutions (skills, combat, etc.). A more developed version of this to lead new players and GMs would be a most excellent idea. I'm in total agreement here. As I've said before, I'm not interested in rewriting the rules. But I think they need a serious overhaul in how they're presented. It was easy and efficient when the books were virtually pamphlets compared to what we have now. But that same format was used as the books ballooned in size with each edition. They really needed to be reorganized at some point, although one major problem is that the 6e1/6e2 rules, for example, would make a mini-campaign virtually impossible because they are universal, so no assumptions are made about anything that could be played. The problems with being universal is that, while anything can be made with the rules, nothing has been decided on for how to demonstrate the rules. I think DOJ could really benefit from a remodeling of how they present their games. This should also include an online presence, like through the Tabletop Simulator mod that @Brennall has been working on. That's of course way beyond this particular thread, but it's time to come into the 21st Century! So many games now can be played in one night. There's no reason a game "Powered by HERO" can't live up to modern expectations, if it's laid out correctly.

That's exactly it.

Hi Brennall. I went to the Download page and tried to download the new version fo the JsonExporter.hde file, but it shows 3 files to download. It only had one file last time I downloaded it, so I'm wondering which one is the current version? They aren't distinguished from each other except by size (two of which are identical).

Well, at the very least, there are still nearly 2,000 sets of MHI dice available in the store!

So this was a game breaking element last time I played Pathfinder (the first and last time, actually). A buddy had a character who could transform at will with no time delay. So when we were on a ship that got boarded by pirates, he turned into an eagle and flew as far up as he could, then dove back toward the ship and transformed into a mammoth at the last second, cannon-balling his way through the pirate ship, sinking it, and then simply transforming into a shark until he could get all the drowning pirates, and then transform back to himself to re-board our ship. This took him a couple of turns, and nothing more, and he pretty much single-handedly ended that encounter. It seems like your example could lead to something like this, which makes me a bit uneasy. Don't get me wrong: I'm pretty much convinced by your overall argument. I love it in fact. But there ought to be some limitations on the instant change part of shapeshifting. Of course, those are campaign limitations that the GM ought to define anyway. But I'm not very experienced in these sorts of builds, so I'm not too sure how "unbalancing" it might be in HERO. It most definitely was, however, in Pathfinder.