Scott Ruggels

Well for "Heroic" level, it should work. It is not a bad idea, and I think it could be workable. Though, I still think figured characteristics have their uses for new gamers. It did, and Aaron Allston's Rogues Gallery would occasionally publish adventures. I had a fairly complete selection of that APA, but I have not uncovered all of them from storage.. No and until recently was operating under the obsolete idea that Adventures did not sell. But looking at other company's products illustrates that it is no longer the case. The difficulty of writing Adventure Path games for Hero characters is the incremental and often uneven progression of characters, Unless , such in the case of Pre-gens, they are up0dated for the next Chapter, or Book. Other than that, having the Pathfinder "three track" approach* would make for a less railroad approach to module writing. This is not a bad idea. Though you could do something similar, such as including a book of Templates, or a pared down subset of templates Both "The House of Ideas", and the "Distinguished Competition", to illustrate the expected "power levels" of the heroes. Toss in Hudson City, as the campaign city, mostly because of the maps and decent background? The Toolkit approach is an artifact of the lack of an internet when games were still in books. Having it arounds is a good idea, especially for the module writers, but the general Public would dry up and blow away in the wind when looking at those books too long. *The Three Track Approach has a few set pieces, but different sub-quests based upon if the team/party approaches with Stealth, Diplomacy, or firepower, and as such each track may have different locations and NPCs to interact with. No approach is inherently bad, but the outcomes might produce different results. It does make the writing a bit more difficult, but produces quite memorable, and often replay-able adventures.

Sounds good. Very interested in hearing about how this works out.

That is precisely "it". Separate things back out into separate games (but keep the base mechanics nearly identical). Using figured characteristics keeps things in the same bands of capabilities within the "game", and keeping the amount of points down so as not to aggravate math anxiety, or necessitate the need and use of Hero Designer. Before budget necessities had Hero adopt the square (perfect) bound spines for game books, they were saddle bound and came in a book with accessory materials, and a set of tiny blue dice. I am not sure books are the way to go in the current market, but if so, having the rules and two adventures, and a paper map, inside might be the way to go. Like this? 3rd was well supported back then: The problems I see that are an anathema to young gamers is the tool kit approach, the amount of reading, and the lack of Adventures. have to keep things simple, even pencil and paper simple. So, low page counts and Adventure Path style adventures.

In my experience, if you were polite and slow moving around Aslan there was little problem, as they wanted to sell you stuff as much as you wanted to buy it. just be respectful, to all of them, and let the kids gnaw on you a little, and everything is fine.

Watched "The Terminal List" on Amazon, starring Chris Pratt. it illustrates why I like Anton Fuqua as a director and film maker. Quite a tense series. Good source material for Dark Champions.

Anything as a follow on would be a horrible, if not fatal move for Hero. IF you have a game where you need a separate piece of paid software to create a character, it would be classed as a failure in most other contexts. This is why I am advocating stepping back to 3rd, and a limited 3rd at that. taking into account limited attention spans, limited time, stepping back towards Hero's original simplicity, and having the book as a game and NOT a toolkit seems to be the direction that should be taken. Re-label 6th edition as "advanced Hero" and the 3rd, as just "Herosystem" if you need to, but keep the toolkit and the decoupled characteristics away from the new users, and include just the genre appropriate information within the book. In a post above, Jhamin advocated for 6e, but said "Introduced" to the new players. That is all find for his friends and acquaintances, but what it is NOT fine for are those people finding the system for the first time, and passing it over as too crunchy or complex. The "new" books need to be written for people that have not played before. The game is no longer an industry leader, like it was in the late 80s and early 90s. Editorially, it needs to be aimed at a new audience, who can pick this up and run it from scratch without outside help or advocacy, and the existence of Hero Designer rules out any use of 6th edition for this task. Thin rule books, with an informative, conversational style, and 4 adventures, should be the model.

It's becoming apparent in this thread that what would work is a 3rd. Edition Hero book with modern layout and formatting. Even while Duke has had success with 2nd edition with his youth group, a "powered by Hero" type game with 3rd edition rules (Low complexity, low page count), and a simultaneous release of a minimum of two adventure books (magazines ala Adventure paths?), seems to be the Optimal path. Anything after 3rd edition is pushing the page count too high. Leave the toolbox approach to the core rules that already exist, and incluse only what the genre requires. What sorts of games? Well Champions of course as it's the most active. Fantasy could work. Modern Action would work. It basically become a "Streaming Television game". What else might work, if one remembers that we can have no licenses, and no large page counts? Try to think about what would sell to people that game on line and don't have a lot of time for prep, rather than your "favorite" genre. Also how wide or narrow does one go for the genre? No tool box, but a little flexibility might be nice.

Not everyone can write well. Fewer can draw well. Noticing a problem is valuable, but not everyone can create a solution.

It might be taking advantage, but I know several Russian digital painters, classically trained, looking for work. Maybe, maybe not. But there are non hacks out there. Just need to look at a lot of stuff and compare rates. Art Station, Deviant Art, Polycount, there are plenty of places to look.

The amateurs using the templates? No, there is no profit. The Kickstarters , however, seem to be. https://www.hipstersanddragons.com/best-dnd-kickstarters-5e/ An unfortunately named website, but the data there is up to date. Another item I have noticed that there is a small but growing OSR community, and they are reprinting old tabletop wargame rules for miniatures that Pauli Kidd on YouTube has been showcasing. There is definitely interest out there, but for Champions, I think taking a modest approach, with adventures, and slim rules would be better.

Here are some examples: Third Party 5e Books: Pathfinder Homebrew using various template files stat block Even for the amateur Pathfinder and 5e Homebrew, it adheres to the publisher's style guide for font, page layouts and style of artwork (Digital paintings). This is why I am saying that "New Champions Material", cannot be Black and white, or Line and tint illustrations. The Illustration need tobe full paint, for the most part, and look like frames from a DC or MCU Movie. Comic art that looks like the 80's and 90's in a book not from the 80's and 90's will look amateurish and cheap.

Oh, there will be grilling. Looking forward to a flame cooked triple cheese burger and some fresh potato salad, and a tall glass of iced tea with no sugar.

The weather today is gorgeous but very dry. So no private fireworks are permitted, but then It’s California. Going to do a bit of shopping. I do miss the opportunity to engage in pyromania, but on balance, a lovely day.

Just finished watching the First Season of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix. My mother and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Very well written.

Here is some added detail from my old 3rd through 4th edition campaign: Northern Magical Support, the Package would have been on top of one or two military packages. Midlands Mages. Magic skill roll, was just to kick the spell off. It was a magic talent, there were no subtractions from the power of the skill. a blown roll was a misfire. there were no side effects. The spell just did not go off. Below is a segment about Magic as it was in the Jaggiri Culture. This is what I mean about Cultural flavor of magic. Hope this helps illustrate what I meant.

Confetti rule?

Exactly so. Without that, it's basically The Fantasy Trip, or that FASA WW2 game, which name escapes me. What has become evident to me, away from this board, and mostly on the HERO Discord, is that people still want to play, primarily superheroes in the system. Other genres are discussed, but the LFG notices are all about Champions games. SO it's pretty clear that the main audience whether I like it or not, is Superheroes.

The costs is around $3000 for a painted, full color cover image, to start. A "Name" artist can charge much higher. full color interior images start at around $400 per quarter page, these days, and you can see how the costs increase with the page count. Then you need people, fluent in Indesign, or other page layout, and handling the prepress, for color bleeds so you can hyave that printed color from the spine to the outside margins, top to bottom. Not cheap.

Shows you wat 7 years of testing and engineering will get you, From a barely functional Pistol, to a smooth, pleasant to shoot pistol.

Man, I miss discussions like this.

I never capped damage or points. I was miserly about rewarding experience. Spell advantages and limitations were cultural, and often mutually exclusive.

I think that I may try a one shot for second or Third edition Champions to see if anyone wants to try out Superheroes. At least try and get their feet wet with the Hero System.

Back in the days of USENET, before BBS's and Forums, there was a group called REC.GAMES.FRP.ADVOCACY, where the Philosophy of Tabletop RPGs was discussed. There were two factions that would argue incessantly: The Simulationists, and the Dramatists. I was firmly in the Simulationist camp. That factionalizing was originally caused by the publication of Amber Diceless. Of course no minds were changed, but it helped refine and sharpen our arguments. My position still has not changed. I ran a lot of Con games as well, but this is why I always emphasized "The Team". If that situation happened to someone in one of my Games and the BBEG took them out, the next person on the team would be expected to step up. Casualties In my experience add to the tension of the game. But to each their own> Running Cyberpunk, or D&D 5e, if I get a TPK, well that's life. It's not something that happens a lot in Hero (Even in Fantasy Hero), so next session the Character wakes up in a barred wagon. "Start planning your escape". To each their own, and welcome!

I do not disagree. You found a group where that works. I think my high school group read mostly different comics (We liked X-Men, but didn't read Teen Titans until later, but we had a slew of independents we read) We started like The Avengers, and ended up more like an Image Comic of some sort? Also Agreed. Even if the editor was different, it had still a lot of input from the original Hero Games folks. and it kept that breezy style. I still like it as my favorite edition, but I can do Fred if need be. Danger International, and Justice Inc. I think were high points of Hero writing. It might be worth getting the PDFs when they are on sale just to read, though I find staring at a screen for long periods, a little painful. YMMV. There's the rub. Good Layout and good art are expensive. really expensive, and it's not something that Hero games as is can afford. Again, I suggest some sort of crowd funding, though for my target, I'd look at layouts like some of the Pathfinder, or the Third Party 5e books, like Age of Antiquity. IMO. The problem with Champions Complete was how it was organized. They wanted to keep it short, but it's a bit haphazard. No disagreement here. Genre supplements should have a similar cover dress as the Genre they support. The Blue & Yellow, while subdued, and in keeping with the main rulebook, Kind of make it hard to find and pull off the shelf when needed. Pathfinder certainly had some damn pretty books.

That… works (?).