pawsplay

Hello everyone! We have a variety of projects going on at Hero Games right now, both for quarter one of 2021 and for the year as a whole. I wanted to let you know about them, get your input, and ask if there is anything you would like to see created by Hero Games in the coming year. Of course, I can’t promise you we will act on those suggestions! Only that we will listen and do what we can, given the limited time and resources that we have. Please feel free to comment.
UPCOMING NEW RELEASES
The following three projects have been turned into us, have been approved, and are in various levels of production right now. (If you have submitted a project to us and don’t see it listed here, don’t be alarmed! We simply haven’t gotten to it yet. These things take time.)
Western Hero: Rough and Ready Roleplaying – This is a joint project between Kestrel Arts and Hero Games. Written by Christopher Taylor and based on work by Matt Forbeck, it’s an exhaustive, rules complete 276 page Hero System 6th Edition book. It has already been through layout, editing, and (due to the subject matter) sensitivity reading, and will be made available physically and electronically through DriveThruRPG, Amazon, Indie Press Revolution, and the Hero Games store. A Hero Designer Character Pack for this product will also be available for sale.
Institute For Human Advancement: Pride & Prejudice – Written by Thomas Stadley, this book is a 50,000 word Champions 6th Edition source book detailing the history, structure, agents, and technology of the infamous Champions Universe villain organization known as the IHA. It is currently being edited by AC, and will be made available physically and electronically through DriveThruRPG and Amazon, and electronically through the Hero Games store. A Hero Designer Character Pack for this product will also be available for sale.
The Hero System Book of Templates II – Written by Christopher Hackler, this is the sequel to Chris’ popular Hero System Book of Templates. I’m editing this book myself right now, and it’s excellent. At 33,000 words it’s even better than the original, and extremely useful to new players. It will be available in electronic and physical form from DriveThruRPG and Amazon, and electronically from the Hero Games store. A Hero Designer Character Pack for this product will also be available for sale.
SECTIONAL BOOKS
Steve Long and I have come up with a new publication concept for releasing Hero System books, and we are going to try applying this concept to a couple of projects this year and see it works out, financially as well as artistically. I’m calling these “sectional books,” as they will be released in sections that stand alone as electronic products, but can be combined in the end and released as a complete print-on-demand book on DriveThru and Amazon. The stand-alone products won’t have any original artwork, but the final book they will be combined into will have an original cover and at least some original interior artwork (though they will be softcover black-and-whites).
Subject matter for these books will be selected in part based on their suitability for the format: meaning, they can be released in sections, then those sections can be combined into a unified, consistent final product (not a magazine or the like). The first two will be written by Steve, and will be Champions International – a collection of chapters about imaginary countries with exist in the Champions Universe – and Martial Enemies, which will detail a wide variety of martial arts characters suitable for Champions, Ninja Hero, Pulp Hero, or any of a number of other genres. He’s already turned in the first section Champions International: Lugendu, which AC is getting ready right now.
If the sectional book projects goes well, Hero Games will launch a Patreon account to support even more work in that vein, plus provide exclusive content to Hero System fans who choose to become backers. (But we’ll have to see how the project goes before I commit to that!)
KICKSTARTER
At this point I don’t have any plans in 2021 a Kickstarter project. I’m willing to hear suggestions if you folks have any. But please keep in mind that the Hero Games KS account is reserved at this time for “big” projects. By this I mean comparatively large, rules-complete works which require no additional books to play. So I mean projects that are like Champions Now or Fantasy Hero Complete, but not Book of the Empress or Champions Villains III. I’m open to the idea of licensed intellectual property projects; though, again, I can’t make any promises. Actually getting licensed IP is an extremely difficult and time-consuming undertaking that I have only succeeded at twice (once here at Hero Games, and once at my own imprint High Rock Press); though behind the scenes I tried one dozen other times over the years unsuccessfully. Success requires either a perfect alignment of circumstances, or large sums of money; and the former is by nature unlikely, the later - nonexistent.
HALL OF CHAMPIONS
So far you fans have contributed forty creations to our Hall of Champions DriveThruRPG community content program! Please continue, feel free to contribute to the creative legacy of Hero Games, and maybe make a few bucks along the way.
-Jason Walters, Publisher

Spiked buckler and short shaft spear.
 
http://cultofathena.com/product.asp?item=CS95FS
 
 

It's hard for me to believe I'm saying this but come this June, our campaign will be 40 years old, along with the 40th Anniversary of the game Champions. It's actually mind-boggling to me, that any campaign could be that long. The campaign is older than my friend's marriage as well as some people in the campaign. I'm planning on buying some plastic award medals that you can put your own emblem inside of and giving them out in June. By the way, this is the same continuous campaign - never stopped or retconned. It's gone through changes over the decades and has seen players & characters come and go, but the core players are still playing some of the same characters that the campaign started with.
 
So along with saying it's been 40 years, I also want to say that it is the Champions game that is so durable and flexible that made this happen. My hat off to you, Hero Games and more specifically, to Champions.

If you already have the 6e books, Fantasy Hero is going to be more instructive. FHC is a cool book and would make a nice gift to a player or someone curious about the system.

Bolster?

Interesting. I always thought of "Rally" as a morale action and would therefore have used Aid EGO (for overcoming detrimental morale effects or increasing morale going into a bad situation), but END is a good choice, too. I wonder what I could call the EGO version to differentiate them? Maybe Inspire, Encourage or Urge?

I would probably avoid flat bonuses or anything that could be accomplished with Teamwork or team attacks. For RSR: Tactics, I would be thinking more along the lines of:
- Rally: Aid END
- Distract: Drain DCV
- Outmaneuver: Change Environment
- One Move Ahead: Telepathy, surface thoughts only, receive only
 
For playability reasons, I would avoid actions that cause him to simply stand around and grant bonuses.

Although I have radically shifted in my overall views, my personal roots are in libtertarianism. One thing I have learned is that the division between Democrats and Republicans at least creates some space in the middle to make a case for strong free speech. I am about as free speech as you can get.
But I have grown towards a more encompassing view of incitement. "I kind of like Nazis," is free speech. Having a parade with swastikas in a racially diverse city is a threat.

This debate is not new.  
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/first-amendment-center/topics/freedom-of-speech-2/personal-public-expression-overview/fighting-words/
 
But it's rather nuanced:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/fighting_words
 
Your example of a parade with swastikas is flirting on the border, IIRC.  Some such have been turned down for permits, others have I believe received them.  It'll also have to be decided by the courts whether more clearly violent expressions in social media *outside* the event in question, becomes a factor.
 
Also, the standards against which these decisions are made, are not fixed.  The social climate should be a factor.  Our culture takes umbrage now for much less insult, and reacts more strongly.  So what constitutes "tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" is also dynamic.  Individual reaction versus mob reaction is another factor.

The Republicans are right: It is a very dangerous precedent
 
 
Edit: Misspelled President.

It was antifa.  The left organized a false flag assault on the Capitol to disrupt the election that they already won.  This is some real sixth dimensional chess, let me tell you.
 
/s

A couple of years ago there were virus on this page but it seems safe now. 
Very useful for me as I dont know much about guns. 
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page
Want to know what kind of cool gun someone used in that movie that time? This place got it.

http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Main_Page

My joke about the Bourne films is that there is a very secretive, federal level Department of Jason Bourne.  Because there are all these bureaucrats and technical staff and so on, whose sole purpose seems entirely to be keeping track of Jason Bourne.  

Sad Puppies was not hilarious, it was reprehensible, and the furor certainly took away from the time of energy of people on all sides of the issue.

Who puts these out? I'm wondering because I want to suggest a name change. SIDS stands for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and it's a real mood killer every time I see that pop up in the feed.

Weapon Master is actually just CSLs with a limitation.

Well literally it just means from another place. NYC is exotic to someone from Beaumont, Texas.
 
Ah yes, the Tiffany Problem.

Well literally it just means from another place. NYC is exotic to someone from Beaumont, Texas.
 
Ah yes, the Tiffany Problem.

Well literally it just means from another place. NYC is exotic to someone from Beaumont, Texas.
 
Ah yes, the Tiffany Problem.

In Range (the sibling channel to Forgotten Weapons) has a mix of modern and historical firearms. There's also The Firearm Blog and its Youtube channel, TFB TV. Task & Purpose might also be useful.
 
 
 

Btw my wife is in Labor and Delivery field and kids getting named like Ur Majesty is not an urban myth. 

I'm pretty terrible at coming up with names for characters. 
 
An idle thought I've had:  in most baby name books, you can find translations of names.  My own first, middle, and last names mean "bearer of the anointed one", "little rock",  "good wine".   Each of those could be translated into some appropriately fantasy sounding pseudo-language, and then you'd have names in that language as well as words for them.  
 
As for Bob the Fighter... Bob being short for Robert, which according to Wikipedia...
 
 
You could do worse than to grab the Old High German or Norse versions and make them your own.  Hrother Eberht, warrior.  Hroth for short.  

I was almost going to recommend Ian "Gun Jesus" McCollum's YouTube channel Forgotten Weapons ... but it deals with weapons and accoutrements that are mostly not cutting edge but historical, and by definition not popular.
 
It's entertaining, though.