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Scott Ruggels

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  1. Thanks
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Duke Bushido in A Thread For Random RPG Musings   
    Skip back to Justice Inc or DI for that; update to the current mechanics where there are changes. 
     
    though I also get that something like that, published currently, would be ideal....
     
     
  2. Thanks
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Spence in Hero Games 2022 Update   
    That is a game that was completely false advertising.  They claimed it was a sea going adventure, but the sea part and the ship part was ludicrous.  Pure false flag. 
     
    I haven't opened my Kickstarter book since the crushing disappointment of the lie.
     
    it may be a fantastic Three Musketeers type political intrigue game, but a half dozen pages graced with a half a$$ed list of ship names is not even close to a seafaring swashbuckling RPG.
     
    I hate being scammed.
  3. Haha
    Scott Ruggels reacted to steriaca in The Muerte Files   
    I kinda like the "Kyser Soure" option. Murte is truly dead, but everyone acts like he is alive for reasons.
  4. Like
    Scott Ruggels reacted to tiger in The Muerte Files   
    Here's a sample of a few pages



  5. Like
    Scott Ruggels reacted to HeroGM in Hero Games 2022 Update   
    I saw CNM as "Image". I had no issue making characters though a little one dimensional since normally the Hero powers were really there. Th idea of a universal plug and play system is nice, heck we play Hero - the problem was like the WinModem. More fiddle to get it to work. I remember one big issue with CNM is it had v5 on the front so many thought it was 5th Edition.
     
    Next year (83-23) will be my 40 years of playing Hero, IN July as well.
  6. Haha
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Ninja-Bear in Hero Games 2022 Update   
    I I recall correctly the outrage was 5th Ed was promised and this wasn’t true Champions but a hybrid. I don’t think the Internet would’ve helped it.
  7. Haha
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Spence in Hero Games 2022 Update   
    I seem to remember something about that.  But I can clearly remember among the gamers in my area the big thing was the game was incomplete.
    Physically. 
    You actually could not play.  At all.
    You could not actually make a character.  At all.
    Take Champions Complete.  Cut the binding, remove pages 42 to 129.  Throw them away and rebind what is left. Sell. 
     
    And there you have what happened with Fuzion. 
     
    I can remember several games from board games to RPGs to wargames that were put out in the late 90's that were unplayable because they were simply incomplete. 
     
    For Fuzion we would hear people talking as if they had played the game and we always thought they were lying because we could open the rulebook and there was no actual way to make a character.  
     
    I personally believe that it would have had more of a chance if there had been a way to communicate directly with the publisher in real time.
  8. Like
    Scott Ruggels reacted to steriaca in Hero Games 2022 Update   
    Humm...
     
    I'm wondering if they would allow for making Enimie books again? I have a few ideas in my brain (Here They Be Serpents for a batch of new VIPER Dragon Branch members, etc...)
  9. Like
    Scott Ruggels got a reaction from fdw3773 in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    The Hero System will not survive a 2020's revision. Either that or it won't be The Hero System.

    The problem of 2020s is the lack of patience to the screen addicted audience. The usual response to this is mechanical minimalism, usually accompanied with a more shared narrative control systems.  Putting these in, will break the backwards compatibility of the system, due to differences in the mechanics, and the assumptions. Focusing the next edition to the younger audience means making things more performative, due to the outsized influence of Matt Mercer.

    For many of us, these high Narrative, minimal mechanical systems, aren't "games", they are "shared storytelling" which, again, for some of us are highly unattractive, and bear no relationship to classic Hero. The 6th Edition may be too far into the crunch, but it's still The Hero System, and backwards compatible mostly.  Even a modest push in the "modern" direction, like Champions Now, broke backwards compatibility, especially with it's narrative emphasis, and taking the game off the boards and moving combat into "Theater of The Mind". 
     
    The Problem also with a 7th Edition, is "Who is going to write it?"  We would need someone to keep the system fun. Fun to read, and fun to play (like 4th Edition).
  10. Like
    Scott Ruggels got a reaction from Norm in Hero Games 2022 Update   
    Personally, I am thinking that the Chimera project is not a wise expenditure of funds, when what Champions, or any of the sub rules need is something "big", that has almost a campaign sized adventure, a spray of adventure seeds, and a stack of written up villains, and monsters, for the adventure. Duke Bushido had something like this with an adventure  in one of the threads here.  What needs to be done is to produce more adventures with villains, and equipment.  We can't assume that all the GMs are Home Brewers like they have in the past. Because it's in the past, it's not in the way GMs do things now.
  11. Thanks
    Scott Ruggels reacted to assault in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    The sad thing is, Dean, that you are one of our few authors who could create a "well-designed" setting. And of course you know how much work and how thankless (and non-financially lucrative!) that is.

    Michael Surbrook has other things to do. Scott Bennie has his horrible health issues. And of course, Aaron Allston is no longer with us.

    I'll acknowledge Christopher Taylor and others who are still in there plugging away. We need more of that. (Looks in mirror, guiltily. Where's my stuff?)

    There's no special sauce that will bring HERO into the big leagues, of course, but something that really grips and inspires people would help.

    The standard Hero fantasy settings are a bit too generic for my tastes. There's a contradiction between providing "what people expect" (Elves and Orcs and Dwarves, Oh My!) and providing something that isn't just yet another version of the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk or Fill-in-the-blank.

    Hmm. I wonder if there isn't something lurking in Aaron Allston's notes on his Mythic Greece game(s). Bronze weapons and chariots are probably a bit specialized - steel and horses are probably a bit more accessible - but an Age of Heroes, city-states, and buttinski deities could be interesting.

    It would need adventures though, and lots of them.

    That's one thing D&D has - the dungeon conceit. It makes no sense, but going down a hole in the ground, killing monsters and taking their stuff is really basic, understandable and fun. I find it a bit dull these days - I'm a bit old for it, probably - but what else is there that has the same appeal? Sitting around pretending to talk to cardboard cutouts doesn't do it either.

    Simplifying character creation isn't too hard once you have a setting, and thus a finite number of options. There's a point at which something like the Champions Character Creation Cards would become possible.
  12. Haha
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Opal in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    Oh, don't get me wrong, D&D was always a bad game - it's saved from being the worst TTRPG of all time by the existence of things like Spawn of Fshawn and FATAL - it's just that, out of that load of fetid dingos' kidneys, its 4th edition was the least fetid.
     
    I'm never dismayed at the range of experiences people report having with RPGs, from treasured experiences playing terrible games like D&D, to hellish experiences playing good ones like Hero. 
    A good enough GM can salvage anything, and a bad enough one (or a single malicious player, or even just a bad day) can ruin anything.
  13. Haha
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Spence in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    LOL
    The gaming world never ceases to amaze me.  One persons treasure is anothers garbage.  For me 4e D&D was easily the worst experience in TTRPG I was ever exposed to since I played my first game in the late 70s. 
     
    And yet for some it is their favored game. 
     
    And the world turns 🤔
  14. Like
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Opal in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    Heh, Hero was so far ahead of its time there's no difference.
     
    Not entirely joking.  Like, 4e D&D was the most flexible, most-nearly-balanced, version of D&D ever, and it did it by dipping it's toes in powers with special effects. 
     
    I suppose it's also worth noting that 5e D&D achieved great success by reaching all the way back to its earlier forms and ditching all the best stuff from 3e & 4e.
  15. Like
    Scott Ruggels got a reaction from Sketchpad in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    The Hero System will not survive a 2020's revision. Either that or it won't be The Hero System.

    The problem of 2020s is the lack of patience to the screen addicted audience. The usual response to this is mechanical minimalism, usually accompanied with a more shared narrative control systems.  Putting these in, will break the backwards compatibility of the system, due to differences in the mechanics, and the assumptions. Focusing the next edition to the younger audience means making things more performative, due to the outsized influence of Matt Mercer.

    For many of us, these high Narrative, minimal mechanical systems, aren't "games", they are "shared storytelling" which, again, for some of us are highly unattractive, and bear no relationship to classic Hero. The 6th Edition may be too far into the crunch, but it's still The Hero System, and backwards compatible mostly.  Even a modest push in the "modern" direction, like Champions Now, broke backwards compatibility, especially with it's narrative emphasis, and taking the game off the boards and moving combat into "Theater of The Mind". 
     
    The Problem also with a 7th Edition, is "Who is going to write it?"  We would need someone to keep the system fun. Fun to read, and fun to play (like 4th Edition).
  16. Haha
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Old Man in Barbarians   
    I have three books covering the history of central Asia that are almost indistinguishable from fantasy novels.  There's two millennia of dynasties, war, intrigue, trade, and religion that in U.S. popular culture gets watered down to "Mongols and Genghis Khan". 
  17. Thanks
    Scott Ruggels reacted to HeroGM in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    I would love to see a Silver and Iron age set for Champions - on the ground of Strike Force where it shows the genre and how to adapt Hero to it (and not the other way around).
     
    Several things I'd enjoy seeing even if it broke some things into multiple books.
  18. Haha
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Duke Bushido in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    I'm on the other end of all that.
     
    I'd just like to see one of the older editions re-published with a note that says "okay; our bad.  That was a bit much.  Sorry about that."   
     
    Clean up a couple of inconsistencies, and some stuff for mapping and tracking large-scale combats, in case that's your thing (it's not mine, but my players are about 50/50 on it, and I admit that it lets you simulate a lot of things like naval battles, etc).
     
     
     
    Now up-front, I'm going to say that I am so tired of this conversation (we're at a point where it rolls around every eight to ten weeks, it seems) that I'm not going to go into any defense or detail to the following statement:
     
     
    My biggest reason for my lack of interest in the "fixes" offered by the last two editions is that I have yet to find anything that proves to me there was something that was actually broken.
     
    "Points value" and "but he gets X or Y without A and I can't if I B" don't specify there is a problem with the system.  Because one thing has an advantage over another doesn't mean that the game is broken or that it is not "perfectly universal."  "Everything should cost the same when it effects the same" or whatever the arguments are that now all Characteristics cost the same--
     
    it's all nonsense.  There is absolutely no amount of STR that perfectly equates to a given amount of SPD; there is no amount of DEX that can substitute for 22" of teleport; no FLT is equivalent to X Mind Control---
     
    Yes; there are numbers involved, and costs involved, and that's that.  The fact that they can be made to cost the same or to cost different does not imply that any of them should, or that they are more or less "fair" or "equal" at given cost points.  It's a fantasy pipe dream that these different things have a point of equivalence somewhere, and everyone was so taken with the math itself that the actual _need_ was never considered.
     
    Just like the cost of STR / cost of HTH attack debate.  There.  We have it "perfectly even" now, somehow, I guess.  Until someone buys STR with two limitations on it.  Uh-oh!  He's getting his damage cheaper!  Back to the revision board!
     
    It's---
     
    no.  I really have lost interest in even continuing the conversation.  It's too late to stop the ever-expending rules in their quest for a fictitious perfection, but I would really like to just scrap the whole thing and back up to when it was still fast, light, and fun.
     
    Good night.
  19. Thanks
    Scott Ruggels got a reaction from Setherak in Iron Age Detroit - Champions Universe   
    These should help. 
    https://www.liquisearch.com/music_of_detroit/hardcore/1980s_-_1990s
     
    https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/michigan/articles/from-motown-to-8-mile-the-music-of-detroit-michigan/
     
    https://glass.hfcc.edu/2016/03-06/evolution-electronic-music-detroit
     
    And my mistake, Prince was from Minneapolis. 
  20. Thanks
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Christopher R Taylor in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    This is key.  I know that adventures don't sell quite as well; About 1 "Taming Tascora" module has sold for every 10 Western Hero books.  I get that.  But without the support stuff like characters and adventures and campaign settings you don't have a game.  GMs need something they can PLAY immediately, not just the setting and the rules.  There's been 2-3 Champions adventures put out on Drive Thru and they are great stuff, but only one official adventure from Hero Games.  We need more: like ten times that many more.  We need to flood the store with adventures so people have lots of options and stuff to DO with Hero games.
     
    In putting out my Jolrhos Fantasy Hero setting I've been trying to space out one adventure in between each big book, to build up a body of things a GM can do.  We need more of that.  I mean... until I put out the Lost Castle there were absolute no adventures put out for Fantasy Hero since fourth edition, and even then only one book of adventures.   That's ridiculous for a game company.
  21. Like
    Scott Ruggels got a reaction from zslane in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    The Hero System will not survive a 2020's revision. Either that or it won't be The Hero System.

    The problem of 2020s is the lack of patience to the screen addicted audience. The usual response to this is mechanical minimalism, usually accompanied with a more shared narrative control systems.  Putting these in, will break the backwards compatibility of the system, due to differences in the mechanics, and the assumptions. Focusing the next edition to the younger audience means making things more performative, due to the outsized influence of Matt Mercer.

    For many of us, these high Narrative, minimal mechanical systems, aren't "games", they are "shared storytelling" which, again, for some of us are highly unattractive, and bear no relationship to classic Hero. The 6th Edition may be too far into the crunch, but it's still The Hero System, and backwards compatible mostly.  Even a modest push in the "modern" direction, like Champions Now, broke backwards compatibility, especially with it's narrative emphasis, and taking the game off the boards and moving combat into "Theater of The Mind". 
     
    The Problem also with a 7th Edition, is "Who is going to write it?"  We would need someone to keep the system fun. Fun to read, and fun to play (like 4th Edition).
  22. Like
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Christopher R Taylor in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    Yeah I think the tone is key, and I think that's why, say  Aaron Allston's Strike Force took off well (fun to read, fascinating, informative) and other more recent stuff is less popular: its too dry, too GM-centric, and too focused on data rather than play.  You can make "killing attacks do 2d6 damage" dry and mechanical or informative and fun.  I've written a bunch of stuff and lately I realized that you gotta be player-centric, because EVERYONE plays, but only a few GM.  Its not that you don't need info for the GM, but you gotta reach the players where they are.
     
    Plus 7th edition is a big argument over mechanics and rules and build stuff, and that often ends up being pretty contentious.
  23. Like
    Scott Ruggels got a reaction from Duke Bushido in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    The Hero System will not survive a 2020's revision. Either that or it won't be The Hero System.

    The problem of 2020s is the lack of patience to the screen addicted audience. The usual response to this is mechanical minimalism, usually accompanied with a more shared narrative control systems.  Putting these in, will break the backwards compatibility of the system, due to differences in the mechanics, and the assumptions. Focusing the next edition to the younger audience means making things more performative, due to the outsized influence of Matt Mercer.

    For many of us, these high Narrative, minimal mechanical systems, aren't "games", they are "shared storytelling" which, again, for some of us are highly unattractive, and bear no relationship to classic Hero. The 6th Edition may be too far into the crunch, but it's still The Hero System, and backwards compatible mostly.  Even a modest push in the "modern" direction, like Champions Now, broke backwards compatibility, especially with it's narrative emphasis, and taking the game off the boards and moving combat into "Theater of The Mind". 
     
    The Problem also with a 7th Edition, is "Who is going to write it?"  We would need someone to keep the system fun. Fun to read, and fun to play (like 4th Edition).
  24. Thanks
    Scott Ruggels reacted to Opal in 5th Edition Renaissance?   
    And, you could "sell back" all your figured from CON for a 1 point gain, so get all the points you wanted, limited only by shame (without breaking campaign limits like STR would). In the first ed.
     
    After that, you couldn't "sell back" more than one figured stat, so the bug was fixed.
     
    Figured stats became just another cost break, like Power Frameworks, and on basically the same scale.  
     
    Honestly, they served a purpose. Having 60 points in several powers is just nothing like as OP as having 90 points in one.  They're discounts for being rounded out a bit rather than diving down the hyper-specialization rabbithole, a real problem in build systems that you rarely are addressed.
  25. Haha
    Scott Ruggels reacted to BoloOfEarth in Have you ever at a Con...   
    I played BYOB (Bring Your Own Brick) run by Dave Mattingly at GenCon a number of years ago.  We were told to bring 2 characters, and he would choose which one you played.  Was great fun.  But I couldn't vote here, because my character didn't get rejected or nicknamed.  And None doesn't work as a valid option.
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