BlackSword

Re: Star Wars licence news...

Only if those guys, are 8. I unfortunently, and surrounded by StarWars fanatics the likes of not even the Movie Fanboys comes close to. Be very careful, only to call the 1st Clone Wars cartoon cool. Mention the second, and you have a better chance of surviving a Catgirl attack at an Anime' con.

 

~Rex

I originally had a lukewarm response to the current Clone Wars cartoon, but began watching the recent season. Its pretty good, and some of the characters are well written and designed. Cad Bane is a much 'cooler' bounty hunter than Boba Fett ever was.

Re: Star Wars licence news...

That would surprise me. But what other RPG company has money on the scale of WOTC?

My first impression was that Lucasfilm wouldn't care and would not produce an in-house RPG, but looking at the "Essential Guides...of the Star Wars Universe," those are pretty well written and good quality for a niche market. I could see a person trying to use those books as leverage to write an RPG.

If you have Saturated your market there is no NEED to reprint the books. You think HERO players don't like upgrading to New Editions, try being ground Zero in the Star Wars fanbase, when West End died and it hoped to WOTC, then WOTC decided to go SAGA with it. They've pretty much sold, ALL they are going to sell, and have untapped markets for material they already own the rights to, so it's a lose lose situation if they expend more money on the product. It's all Been Written. Everyone that WANTS a copy of it, Has one so to go into a reprint cycle, is just wasting money.

 

~Rex

I think the bigger issue with market saturation is that an RPG publisher is no longer the sole publisher of reference material for the Star Wars universe. Looking at the Ultimate Guide to Aliens in the Star Wars Universe, it is much better than WotC's alien species guide, the only thing the Ultimate guide doesn't have is the game rules for each species, but since its cheaper I can just spend some time guessing at stats for each species. Ditto for droids, ships, history, etc.

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

So it's not beyond our comprehension.

What isn't beyond our comprehension? For the 3 trillion number you posited it would require nearly the population of the US living inside of Connecticut copy and pasted across the entire world? So I could have said it better, but I think you got the gist, numerically it is feasible, it is however that population density sustained across and entire planet is at the edge of comprehension.

Re: Are single climate/habitat worlds really possible?

OK, so 45 billion is do-able.

 

But... is a worldwide city only 45 billion people?

 

Earth's land area is 58 million square miles. We'll use the the population density of Singapore to be conservative (~18200 per square mile). That's 1,055,600,000,000 people. One trillion. Right?

 

So you've be looking at the no-margin just-in-time delivery of offworld food arriving on almost 4700 "tankers" per day, right?

 

 

Now take one of the very dense real-life cities as an example for density, and you'd have more like three trillion people, and about 14000 "tankers".

Each tanker would provide for an area of ~4200 sq mi, an area slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut. But in that same area there will be 217 million people, which means they can probably find a few people capable of unloading and delivering the food from the tanker. It does go beyond what we can comprehend, and I imagine the bigger issue is dealing with waste and providing clean water for such a population.

Re: What Are You Listening To Right Now?

Two idiots who have never had an independent thought repeating what Talk Radio told them say about Obama (and the Democratic Party).

I hate cubicles.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

Besides keeping up with a few regular TV series, and watching the NFL playoffs, I started rewatching Farscape from the beginning. Currently most of the way through Season 2.

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished?

See also "Touching the Void" by Joe Simpson and "Into Thin Air" by John Krakauer' date=' either of which will make you give up your dreams of becoming a mountain climber.[/quote']

I read "Into Thin Air" a year or two ago. It didn't drive away any dream to be a mountain climber, but it did remove a lot of the mystery and allure of Everest. Spending that much money to have an increased chance of becoming a permanent fixture on the mountain or maimed from frostbite didn't really appeal to me. It did put into perspective some of the climbs in the US. Even the most difficult climbs I went on in the Cascades were just a day trip up to Base Camp on Everest.

Re: What Fantasy/Sci-Fi book have you just finished? Please rate it...

I know' date=' I know everyone loves it but me, I've absolutely hated the series since book 4 which, coincidentally is the last time something meaningful actually happened... well except the whole cleansing thing, but it's what 4 books now and still nobody knows that happened except the guy who did it. The problem is my O.C.D. won't let me start a series and not finish it. Some times it's a good thing (Sword of Truth) sometimes it makes me regret being born (Wheel of Time).[/quote']

If it makes you feel any better I gave up on the series around Book 6 or 7, but by Book 4 I realized it was headed downhill fast. I finished Sword of Truth to see how it finished and it convinced me that I should not do the same for Wheel of Time. While I enjoyed most of the Sword of Truth novels, the last 2 were especially tedious and had some of the worst and most heavy handed dialogue this side of Ayn Rand.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

It was a bit strange to come back to work after a week off. The vacation did seem to speed by. There was a lot I wanted to get done that I kept putting off, and some stuff that I did get done. Also pulled out some miniatures and paints and got back into painting. Nearly finished four figures. Just need to complete the details (which traditionally I have been bad at doing the finishing touches). Now I have to get back into the swing of being at work and well, doing work.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

I love blustery people. Just overheard a conversation at work. The phrase, "I'm going to sue..." was used at least half a dozen times, "The first thing I'm going to do..." followed by a threat of a Pyrrhic victory, was promised multiple times, followed by lots of other empty grandstanding, misunderstanding of banking, zoning laws, and HOAs. Is it time for winter break yet?

Re: If you Had to Pick, ONE (already) Setting, to Run in, What is it?

I would go with Farscape, followed by Star Wars.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

Would there be a place for something like a short game built by HERO - Champions or Justice Inc that would give a subset of the rules that would allow you to play in a particular genre that comes with a starter adventure. A taster for people to get them playing something before they see the value in being able to do other things with the full ruleset.

I believe both PS238 and Lucha Libre have the rules included in the book so that with only a single book someone could start playing that setting. No idea how well either did in sales, so I don't know if there is a market for it.

Re: HERO SYSTEM MARTIAL ARTS -- What Do *You* Want To See?

Some rules, or suggestions for how to use the current rules for a type of showdown mechanic which could cover anything from Japanese iajistu and two master's drawing against each other, to a high noon quickdraw showdown. I know there is the obvious, segment 12, who has the highest dex, they win, but that seems a bit dull. Legend of 5 Rings and several of the western games have rules for such a showdown and it would be nice to see that style adapted into Hero.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

I must concur with these ideas. I do want to say that I'm trying to present this statement as constructive criticism, not a gripe. Hero System is good. I'd like it to be fantastic.

 

And yes, I'm aware that the Basic Rulebook is available and quite short. I just think the main rule books could be a bit shorter as well. Would save Hero Games some printin' and shipin' costs, if nothing else.

Pretty much mirrors my opinion. At some point excessive text no longer helps clarify the issue, but further muddies the water.

Re: And 6e print books start to arrive

Mine arrived on Saturday, looked nice, no external damage, but an indentation in the first chapter of the first book, hardly noticeable. The layout looks nice, but have some mixed first impressions about the rest of the book. Won't really get a chance to read through it for another few weeks.

Re: And 6e print books start to arrive

Not even sure what I am waiting for anymore.

Re: Game Master Lament

Thanks for all the commets I will post a more detail response as today is very busy.

 

• I was ask by a player to run a Musketeer game
  
• I asked the group if this was alright as it was going to be historical and to my surprise got a postive response
  
• my first announcement came out 6 weeks in advance
  
• I ask a player who had a copy of the 1973 Three Musketeer movie to do a moive night and we did
  
• the core group have been playing Hero together since the begining and I have the gray to prove it and we are friends
  
• Start dafe is January and as we have 8 rotating Gm's we get a month. The group plays 2 days a week with a different GM and genere.
  
• and I did get inthused and plan a game to make the Hero world envious
  
• and since we are friends I am crying to strangers
  

 

thanks for the comments and keep them coming and I will be posting My Musketeer game on the Fantasy Hero boards.

 

Lord Ghee

Actually with that I can understand a bit better why there was pushback, especially if you called 'homework.' First two nights a week are busy with gaming, and if every GM starts asking for homework, even if its just a movie, that would be an additional 16 hours a month going to gaming. For people with families I can understand the reluctance to starting that precedence.

I tend to agree with some of the previous posts, make the first game session a character building session. Watch the movie, talk about the genre and how you as GM envision the game, make sure everyone is on the same page or find a compromise of styles, build complementary characters as a group. Discussing what you want from the game may be another big concern, some may be seeing your homework assignment as, "this is how the game is going to be played period," and be pushing back.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

... What's so super about it?

The cape.

Re: A Storeowner's First Impression

If the staff at an FLGS doesn't have any idea what Hero is or why there are two books or what it does or why it is different...they deserve to be run out of business.

 

I'm certainly hope that I am misunderstanding and no one is actually implying that it is, somehow, DOJ's fault that an FLGS was ignorant about Hero.

I am not going to blame DoJ, but also not ready to put blame on the FLGS owners either. Being on the forums during all the development and discussion about 6E makes everything about the release seem obvious to the casual observer, assuming the casual observer has spent countless hours arguing over COM. I don't expect a storeowner to spend that much time on every company in existence. A quick look at the Hero Games home page today, and the only mention of 6E is 6E Champions. If you go to "What is Hero System," the page for "About Hero Games" has no mention of 6E, and "Hero System Basics" mentions it half way down the page, though it does explicitly say that it is two volumes.

Re: And 6e print books start to arrive

waiting...

Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

I watched the first 6 or so episodes of House. The first one was brilliant' date=' being a double-length episode that reminds me very much of [i']One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest[/i]. Some great stuff there, with House discovering that he's not able to buck the system with impunity and that he needs to work with people, not treat people as things to toy with.

 

The later episodes aren't as brilliant, although the one with James Earl Jones as an African dictator is excellent as it sets up an even with long term consequences (

Chase changes the test results in order to murder said dictator

).

As in previous seasons, the medical mystery (IMO) takes a back seat to the interplay between the doctors.

 

I also watched the first disk of the Blade of the Immortal anime. I found it only so-so. The character designs are mostly spot-on... but they seem to be cramming a lot of events together (by using information from far later in the manga series) while the fight sequences really look awful once you've seen Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo. I don't think I'll get any more DVDs... but will continue to pick up the manga collections (I think I'm up to volume 20 or so...).

Weird, are you my brother from another mother? I watched Blade of the Immortal the previous weekend (same impression, a manga about whipping ass and the animated fights were lame). Also caught up on House.

Re: Order of the Stick

The Christopher Walken

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reference

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wasgreat.

Re: A Thread for Random Musings

I went to Hooters to get away from the many distractions at home and get some work done.

Here's to Hooters free Wi-Fi.

Re: Musings on Random Musings

It's not necessary; it's an overt act of social aggression by a particular group.

 

I don't use the word quoted in the original post, and I never will, except in discussions of attempts at social control by small groups.

I use womyn on occasion. Primarily when I am being satirical about political correctness.

Re: Star-Trek-Gate-Wars 5

On the plus side, if you use your bomb as a bomb, you don't lose your gun.

 

If you use your gun as a bomb, you no longer have a gun.

And an MP7 can't be set to 'stun.'