Scott Ruggels

I still think a robust and easy to use Hero implementation on Roll20 would do wonders for resurrecting the Herosystem.

Actually an Enemies book is the wrong, current, primary approach. At first the NPCs and enemies should be tied to a specific adventure as an illustration on HOW such characters tend to be used in one’s game. Separate Enemies books come later. As to “The Champions Universe”, due to rights and copyright issues between Champions and the City of Heroes situation, we may have to start from nearly scratch. No history besides some vague mention, and no re-use of old material. Because it’s Champions, most of the old material would remain compatible, but in terms of publishing for a new audience, I would suggest something new, and vaguely MCU flavored as that now is the primary mental image of superheroes, today. We would probably still need VIPER, and PRIMUS, or even new analogues, but pretty much everything else would have to be fresh. As to writing adventures, I would suggest either setting them in real cities, or pick one city like San Angelo, or San Angelo itself If Mark is willing as a basis. So do we follow the Paizo Adventure path formula of serial publications following a single plot (like the MCU’s whole Thanos Plot), or do we publish a couple/three adventures per book? Probably the former would work best. Collaborative projects often turn turn out like college group projects, where one person does most of the work, and the rest coast (especially for unpaid work), so it would be necessary to set up a structure of editors for dealing with this. If if we do follow the Paizo method, it can’t look half-assed or cheaply produced. Making PDFs would be cheaper though, but produced with an eye towards possible color POD or actual printing at some point.

Adventures, duh. XD Seriously thought, Maps, adventures plot seeds, and a way to provide adventures in a regular and timely fashion, and each adventure book of say, three adventures contains a new villain or team, but NO NEW RULES.

Oh, when Doug started Running his Costa Diego campaigns at Conventions, we found out that it was a perfect system for running 80's action movies with Mercenaries , automatic weapons and exploding trucks. Later Sean Fannon ran a Buddy Cop/ Action Movie campaign at conventions, and I would do my perrenial Convention run against my monster therapods .

I started early, with Espionage, and it's adventures, but also I was n the original Fantasy Hero Playtest, that was done with some variant 2nd Ed rules, but when the book came out for 3rd Ed, a lot of the costs and limitations changed, but it was still easy, this was late 1983? when I was at San jose State, at the same time L. Douglas Garrett was, and that's how I got the invite.

<---Paid pro right here, and yes I can do that Digital Painting style. and yes, I can volunteer a couple of pieces, BUT I would rather be paid, please.

I have somewhere, a joke comic I did with some other folks back in the 90's, and art jam/ Art war, where another artists dropped a Nuke on me in his Cartoon, and I came out of it with a Jack Kirby oprigin, surrounded by a field of those little dots. I had too much fun with that. Another heavy influence of mine in the 90's was Alex Toth, who did all those hanna barbera Super Hero cartoons in the 60's 70's and 80's.

I am somewhat the opposisite in that I played and GM's very low powered games that were either "modern Military" (1980's Mercenary action), or my fairly low powered Fantasy Hero game. Looking over the numbers from Kevin Dockery's books and his Formulas, they work for standard hero, but if you wanted to be absolutely accurate for Guns, just add a die for all Firearm RKA's and take the stun mod back by one, or to one if it's low caliber. That being said having most swords being STR Min 11, and doing around 2 D6 HKA, and the same with firearms, means that to differentiate the weapons, use accessories to add modifiers (things like scopes, or AVLD Magic swords, or some such) Niow I eenjoy watching Anime, but I don't particularly like playing with it, as I don't like a large amount of plot stylization in my games. I am a supreme gun Nut with a closet full of WW1 and WW2 long arms, but the thing about them is, is that it's not the firearm, but the person using it. A character with a lot of familiarities and PSLs is going to do better than sokmeone with just base stats and a single class familiarity. ( I like things a bit more "realistic" and Hero works for that if you manage things properly. It's part of the reason I am going back to Espionage and Danger International, for the Solar System campaign, as character creation and basic rules are only a few pages, and don't really touch much on powers.)

I can do Superheroes, but mostly either Jack Kirby, or 90's over inked. Moving into Digital painting these days and superheroes look kind of "pasted in" for that sort of work. Going back to0 Pen & Ink would not be too hard. Still mostly doing War historical, and Fantasy these days, though.

<----<< Did someone say Art?

Ha! But I was more of a cast of characters GM. I ran a very political fantasy game with murky morality and a lot of travelogue. I had a few Medium Bad Evil Guys, But negotiating was possible depending on how they were approached. Powerful Wizards were politically connected, and Dragons had become nobles in exchange for military services. This was not a campaign for swashbucklers. XD. I do do have a monster that might be useful, and I ran them against players in convention one shots. I will see what I can dig up. Post it here, or would this need it’s own thread?

I never ran Champions all that much, as my comics choices wandered away from superheroes, toward the independent comics after 1983. So I don’t have any villains of that stripe any more. However Fantasy Hero was my jam thanks to being in the.Original Fantasy Hero playtest. I am willing to contribute fanzine articles, and some of my rediscovered campaign notes if that would help.

I finally got all my books unpacked and shelved. Here is JUST the HERO shelf of 3 shelves of assorted random RPGs I picked up or worked on. and here are all the games, many I had illustrations in:

Woooooow that’s a blast from the past. We had First and second edition. That was a while ago. I may chip in a few bucks. I’ll have to check.

Hmmm EB, targets ECV?

AOE 1 or 2 Hex radius, Single target, only when target is dodging or diving for cover?

...all that 90's hatching.... and a short deadline.... madness.

Or the Difference between Jessica Jones, and Hellcat in the final Season of Jessica Jones. Both use Similar methods, but one shows restraint now, and the other is confident in their own judgement.

There is no Scientific Advancement in the Star Wars universe, because Star Wars is a purely emotional story. There is no place for rational curiosity there. The main theme of the story is about controlling one’s emotions to accentuate the positive; to create a better life for you and those around you. Notice that any application nor mathematics to Star Wars causes the whole thing to collapse into implausibility.

Yak Bos mutus Yellow baboon Papio cynocephalus Yellow mongoose Cynictis penicillata Yellow-bellied marmot Marmota flaviventris Yellow-billed hornbill Tockus flavirostris Yellow-billed stork Mycteria ibis Yellow-brown sungazer Cordylus giganteus Yellow-crowned night heron Nyctanassa violacea Yellow-headed caracara Milvago chimachima Yellow-necked spurfowl Francolinus leucoscepus Yellow-rumped siskin Carduelis uropygialis Yellow-throated sandgrouse

My former local in Los Angeles, was well run but stocked mostly CCGs of the popular variety (Yugi-Oh, and Magic), Nice German made board games, and some puzzles, their RPG section reminded me of a line from The Blues Brothers. Paraphrased, it was, “ We have both kinds of RPGs, Pathfinder AND D&D!” Nothing else was available the Shop was on Wilshire, a half block from Wilton Pl. The staff was helpful and friendly, the table rates were $2.00 a person at the tables, and they had around 10 tables. There clientele was mostly middle schoolers, with a few high schoolers, but adults were rare. Talking with them about numbers, they felt fairly secure in their space, and had been there for a number of years. Not every table was Magic, so there was available space. The sad thing, was that no one there had ever heard of Hero. They also had no used game section. The place was super clean. On a a long drive last Tuesday, I mentioned we discussed gaming, and I mentioned this thread, specifically about the clientele in other shops, where it split out as either pre- family youngsters, and post family grey beards returning to the Hobby. He remark, that he and his friends had never stopped gaming, but also never bought anything after4th edition Hero, because they had all the books all ready. He, and his group would be demographically invisible and useless to retailers. About the only place they appear in public is at the two large gaming conventions in the San Francisco Bay Area. So there really isn’t much of a chance to interface with the younger generation, really ... Unless a VTT solution can be implemented nicely.

I could see forcible colonization being a reason. But hard large projects need teams. They may execute incorrigables ( those who want to see civilization burn), but most crimes are just based on low impulse control, and selfish desires, or competing with government legal monopolies. I don’t see a lot of productive work coming from such a fractious lot, unless whole families are sent to give the prisoners some incentive to sort their living situation out. This is sounding more like something , an unnamed country in Asia would conceptually do.

Often it comes up. IF they make a Tactics roll, I listen to that character's plan, and if necessary, write him notes, or take them into the kitchen (private GM ausience) and give them information that will allow the pan to be better. I will also use it to determine what a master villains next move would be, if there has been insufficient evidence gathered to predict that move in other areas.

Dark Champions suppliments were some of my first cover art, right after i did stuff for a Teenagers From Outer Space cover Hudson City Blues. Cover art, by me) (found it while putting my Vast hero collection up on the shelf.

Today on this day, 38 years ago, George, Steve, and Ray met to form hero Games.