Secret Master

Re: Greetings Hero Fandom Assembled! How long has DOJ provided this service? And did the company exist before it moved to buy the Hero Games IP? The logistics division of DOJ is a little less than a year old. DOJ Inc is in a unique position in that one of our principles (me) owns a small complex of warehouses in Nevada. It was originally constructed to house the extensive Hero Games back catalog, but has grown larger over time. Thus warehousing/logistics was a logical business for us to go into. -Jason

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see? Fitz- Thank you for the very educational advice. Ghost Angel - Yes, I will try that before I redo everything in HTML -Jason

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see? Thank you Fitz - that seems like very reasonable advice and is in keeping with what I was thinking of doing. I was considering removing almost all of the artwork except for the cover, maps, and character pictures in any case. The thumbnail link is an excellent suggestion as well. What do you think of the SeaMonkey as an HTML editor? -Jason

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see? Yes. Amazon provides a document called the Amazon DTP Quickstart Guide that is quite helpful, but doesn't get my past the problem that their .azn file translater turns .pdf files into hash. (Unfortunately!) Ok, I see that most of you want a file that looks as good or nearly as good as a standard Hero publication. Since I don't think that I have the skills to produce that from scratch, any suggestions for some software that will translate .pdf files accurately or semi-accurately into HTML? Then I can upload them into the DPT, have them turned into .azn files, then have THAT file turned back into HTML for corrections. If I can find something that does that I think I can produce a reasonable looking product with page numbers close to those of those of the original book. -Jason

Hello Everybody: Darren has given me permission to try to convert some Hero books into the .azn format that the Amazon Kindle Reader uses. Now, I'm not much of a layout guy, but from what I'm seeing so far it will be extremely difficult to create a book in .azn that is going to be anywhere near Andy's standards. Their DTP (Digital Text Platform) turns PDF's into hash, and their prefered file for upload into the platform is HTML. Actually, I'm not certain that it can be done an anything other than plain text with a few pictures here and there. I just downloaded SeaMonkey, but I've never worked with HTML before. Do any of you know if I can actually make something that looks neat, or will it be strictly no frills? For those of you like like to use non-PDF e-books (hint: if you don't like them, no need to comment), what would you like a potential Hero product in .azn, .mobi, or BBeB to look like anyway? Fancy, text only, or something in between? I like to read books in .mobi, but they're just a bookcover followed by text: neat, cross-platform text, but just text none the less. I don't care about graphics or quality of layout in a non-PDF ebook, but maybe that's just me. -Jason Walters

Re: [Review] Enchanted Items Enforcer- Did you also enjoy my description of what pants precisely are? After all, with the preponderance of Utilikilts in gamer culture I was concerned that many of you had forgotten….

Re: Enchanted Items now in the online store Ghost-angel: If you're referring to the missing sentences, it's an annoying printer error. I believe that Andy checked our blue lines and, yep, those sentences were in there when we sent the book to them. #sigh# What can you do?

Re: What would you like to see in Enchanted Items? Ok, let’s see if I’ve got everybody – 1) Fitz, Eosin, and Sketchpad: Will do. Flavor is definitely a priority. I will do my very best to include all sorts of interesting artifacts. Also, Steve is planning on including a section that (I believe) expands upon the Enchanted Items section of Fantasy Hero. Elemental Frying Pan, huh? 2) Curufea: I can promise you sentient items, but I’m not including a lot of cursed items in the book (though I may include prose descriptions of alleged curses). This isn’t because I don’t love cursed items (I do), but because the items are designed with both player and GM alike in mind. Most players aren’t going to want to buy cursed items for their characters…. though if you do, God bless you! 3) Lord Liaden: That is a very interesting comment. I hadn’t planned on including any large, immobile objects, but I think now maybe I will. In any case, I promise to give it some thought. 4) Manic Typist: I’m definitely going to use your suggestion of an enchanted-item-breaking-enchanted-item. More than once: because your idea cries out to be incorporated into a Shield as well. Excellent! 5) Blue Jogger I promise to include something very like the suite of plate mail you mentioned. I will probably make it Unbreakable, rather than self-repairing, however. 6) Bill: Interesting. I will see if I can’t make a few weapons that reveal more powers as they are used. In game terms, what do you propose? Some sort of ¼ Limitation on a Multipower?

As I’m in the process of writing Enchanted Items, I thought now might be prudent time to give you fine folks a brief description of what the contents of the book will look like. It will (naturally) begin with a section written by Steve on the creation and use of enchanted items, as well as their potential game-balance effects on a Fantasy Hero campaign. Thirteen chapters and numerous subchapters will follow the introduction. With any luck, we will cover every major type of Enchanted Item, plus quite a few minor ones. The main chapters are: 1. Amulets 2. Armor 3. Bracers and Bracelets 4. Clothing 5. Jewelry 6. Potions 7. Rings 8. Shields 9. Staffs 10. Wands and Rods 11. Swords 12. Other Weapons 13. Miscellaneous Items These are further broken up into subchapters. For example, in the Jewelry chapter you will find the following: 1. Brooches 2. Buttons and Clasps 3. Crowns and Tiaras 4. Earrings 5. Gemstones 6. Headbands, Fillets, and Ribbons 7. Necklaces 8. Torques These are further divided into additional subsections based on the item’s purpose. These are: Offensive Defensive Sensory Movement Miscellaneous Unique Items (artifacts) Now, as most of you have undoubtedly already noticed, many of the thirteen primary chapters could easily be placed other chapters as subchapters. For example, Amulets, Bracers, Bracelets, and Rings are all obviously Jewelry, Swords are obviously Weapons, and so forth. Steve and I have made this decision based on two factors: the number of entries in the section, and its relative importance to the Fantasy genre. For example, there are going to be 50 entries in the Rings chapter -- and the importance of the enchanted ring to Fantasy can hardly be overemphasized -- so Rings get their own chapter. With all that said, what would you like to see in Enchanted Items? Or, to be a bit more precise, what incredibly cool idea do you have that I can -- with your explicit permission I might add -- steal and put in Enchanted Items? Nothing obvious, of course: I can conceptualize and write up Rings of Protection and Potions of Healing with the best of you. I want crazy stuff that no sane gamer would normally think of, or things that you have built out of the HERO System that couldn’t be created using any of our competitor’s systems. In short, what ideas for Enchanted Items do you have that simply need to be in this book? Jason W.

Pulp Hero Fan Types - Thrilling Places is in the warehouse and is being processed. Tina and I will be shipping it out to distributors, stores, and individual customers this afternoon

Re: Review of You Gotta Have Character The Bandit got removed at the request of his widow. As far as King Vitamin Cereal goes: mom wasn't always a dentist, Lethosos!

Re: HP Lovecraft movies Let's not forget the 300-pound-gorilla of Lovecraft adaptations. I've loved this film since I was a teenager.

It’s no particular secret that Tom Rafalski is a clever guy. If it were a secret before the release of his last product - Rescue at Karadonna - it certainly isn’t now. Yet cleverness is a trait that, while often praised in politicians, is seldom rewarded in poets; and Tom has chosen a particularly hard row to hoe (as my grandfather would say). He’s an author-artist-editor-layout meister with an ambitious business model that may yet prove to be ahead of its time. You see, Tom has been carefully reading this board in search of your complaints… not that one has to search particularly hard. After some negotiating with Those Who Must Be Obeyed, he has embarked on a one-man crusade to create adventures for Hero’s less popular (though often critically acclaimed) settings. While Steve Long & Co. may be able to produce text at a rate somewhat greater than the total creative output of every monastery in medieval Europe, they (ok, disclaimer: we) can’t get to everything. Which is where Tom comes in. In his last product Tom took a crack at Allen Thomas’ criminally underutilized Alien Wars with a bloody space marine adventure that would have brought a tear to old R. Heinlein’s psychotic left eye. This time he is taking a swing at Allen’s tribute to all things Conan, Grey Mouser, and Cugel by making an adventure for The Valdorian Age. While I don’t want to go into too much detail lest I ruin the fun of the product, Chasing A Golden Buck is an enjoyable romp through the thief-saturated city of Elweir. Its light-hearted yet cynical tone reminds me in particular of Fritz Leiber’s short story Lean Times In Lankhmar; and even thinking about THAT story gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling in the place where they say my heart is. Much like a good Leiber story, the plot is based around a series of celestial manipulations, double entendre, misdirection, and outright lies. It also has a mildly moral message, as Tom playfully sports with organized religion in a manner that is doubtful to antagonize anyone. On a more brass tacks level, Chasing A Golden Buck is a “hook” adventure designed to kick off a campaign set in The Valdorian Age. Tom includes five rather entertaining sample PCs, some NPCs, and two basic but perfectly serviceable maps. Actually, it’s one map from two perspectives - one for the players and one for the GM – a feature that I find to be particularly clever. The text of the actual adventure is about five pages long, and Tom does a good job of giving you all the facts with just enough Valdorian “feel” to not make it overly distracting. My only real gripe with Chasing a Golden Buck is that there are a couple of typos. Then again, there are RPG companies with five or more employees that can’t seem to fix basic typos, so I guess we should cut Tom some slack. I can think of several reasons for buying this product. The first is that some of you asked for it. If you ever griped publicly about Hero’s lack of support for The Valdorian Age, time to open up that virtual wallet and spend some money (it should be for sale here shortly). The second is that you won’t spend a lot of money. Tom’s products are notoriously inexpensive. You probably spent more on lunch today than you’ll spend on Chasing a Golden Buck and enjoyed the lunch a lot less. Finally, it would take a smart GM less than a half-hour to port this module into D20 and use it as part of a Lankhmar, City of Adventure game. Or better yet buy brand spanking new a copy of The Valdorian Age to go along with your module and port Lankhmar, City of Adventure into the Hero System. You’re friends will know that you’re a scholar and a gentleman if you do.

“The man who never in his mind and thoughts travel'd to heaven is no artist.” I’ve always been a huge fan of the visionary author William Blake. Almost all of the other Romantic Poets had some sort of rock star trip going on. Lord Byron was the Great Lover, Coleridge the Drug Addict, Hogg the Pervert, and the rather fortuitously named Wordsworth got a regular paycheck from the Queen. Yet it is Blake, whose work was far too eclectic to be accepted by a publisher in his own day, which may very well serve as a model for authors in the 21st Century. Why is that? Simple. Blake did everything himself. He hallucinated up his own poems, drew his own illustrations, and then carved the whole she-bang onto a massive wooden block that he later coated with copper (Blake was a printer by trade). Then he mounted the carving into a specially constructed roller press, inked it, and pulled a massive lever with all of his irritable nutty might. Presto – a single page! Carve up a few dozen of these blocks and you can make yourself an entire book’s worth of pages. Still, this wasn’t time consuming or labor intensive enough for Blake. He hand colored his books’ illustrations, bound them himself, and then hauled them to a London market stall in a wheelbarrow, where he sold them for prices so low that he practically starved his own family. I’m pretty sure that Old Blake would have sold his soul for an old Celeron 800 with a single-speed CD burner and a first generation inkjet printer. But that’s beside the point. Every time a guy like Thomas Rafalski cries out "Down with Urizen! I will not reason and compare: my business is to create!“ and hangs up his own shingle in defiance of the world, a little oothoon gets her wings. Tom’s a Blake man: he writes his own material, creates his own artwork, does his own layout, and handles his own distribution. Rescue at Karadonna is his first effort; or, more accurately, the first effort of his company BeautifulHarmony Multimedia. A 25-page adventure set in the futuristic-military world of Alien Wars, it includes the adventure, 12 space marine character sheets, and five maps. The plot is simple: a unit of 12 marines gets dropped onto the surface of planet Karadonna as part of a rescue mission. As is usually the case when space marines get dropped somewhere, things go terribly wrong almost immediately. Before I precede any further I should offer a bit of a disclaimer. Tom’s a friend of mine. Along with Gary Denny and another fellow, I helped playtest this module at GenCon SoCal 2005. Both the author and myself belong to that tiny sub-cult of Hero System fans who believe that Allen Thomas’ Alien Wars is the greatest thing since God made little green apples. With that said, if you’ve ever longed to explore the Hero System through the lens of a Doom/Halo/Starship Trooper adventure, Rescue at Karadonna is the module for you. It has a few minor problems, but these are more than compensated for by its many fine qualities. Tom’s writing style is clear and concise. He has an excellent idea of what prospective GMs and players like to see in an adventure of this type. The action is almost nonstop, but both the PCs and NPCs have just enough personality to add to the module’s enjoyment without slowing it down. Tom does a good job of including everything the GM needs. R at K’s five maps are plain but functional Campaign Cartographer productions. It’s character sheets contain all of the information a player needs, including a useful equipment list with corresponding Alien Wars page numbers. Everything is laid out in a nice, neat manner similar to the one used by Hero Games layout-meister Andy Mathews. There are only two flaws that I can find with R at K. The first is so minor that it almost qualifies as a pet peeve – namely, typos. R at K has a couple of annoying little typos. Then again, so does almost every game product on the market today, so what the hell. My second complaint is that the adventure ends rather abruptly after the final, climatic battle. On one level this is fine, as the climactic final battle is the main reason for the adventure in the first place, but R at K would benefit from a more detailed finale. While Tom includes two single-paragraph possible conclusions/plot-hooks, more information would have been nice. In conclusion, Rescue at Karadonna is a well written, fun, and professionally produced adventure for the Star Hero/Alien Wars setting. It will provide you and your friends with an evening or two of Duke Nukemesque enjoyment. When you consider its low purchase price ($4.00 download or $4.50 hardcopy), that’s a lot of gaming entertainment for your money.

Re: WWYCD: Valdorian Age Vitaman! Although his powers are derived from the awesome might of nutrition (as embodied by the myriad pills in his special utility belt), this Golden Age superhero’s healthy diet and regimen of vigorous exercise should leave him well equipped for the rigors of a barbarian lifestyle. Maybe he can help the inhabitants of the Valdorian Age improve their vitamin and mineral intake while he is there.... Caveman Cortez As San Francisco’s premier wrestling detective Caveman’s powers of... well, wrestling, work just as well in the Valdorian Age as in the late 1930's. He needs no science but the “sweet science” to get the job done. Hellbilly De-Lux With his bloodstream riddled with nanotechnology and his liver rotted by corn ‘squeezings, the Hellbilly’s damage-into-STR and PRE powers aren’t going to work very well in an age of even weak magic. On the other hand, since distilling works the same in any age he at least has a valuable skill that he can market. Bulletproof As Brookline’s Golden Age defender is basically a bouncer with a “futuristic” Kevlar body stocking, he won’t mourn the loss of his superpowers. He doesn’t have any. Give him a suit of plate male -- a shiny, shiny suit. That will make him happy.

Re: Thanks to Keith Curtis... I'm with these guys Keith. Thank you for turning my scribbles into bonafide maps!

Re: What the heck is a Migdalar? In a word: nasty, brutish, psionic, and short. Well, not actually short.... and some of them are more brutish than others. If you wish to experience this race at their least pleasant please purchase the upcoming HERO publication Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds which includes (amongst other things) a Migdalar scenario. Writing it was... upsetting. I promise you that reading it will be too.

What Andy Said! We writers may have shaped the clay of CB, but it was our artists who breathed life into this creation. Thanks guys!