why the lack of..

[Mithras]

Why the lack of pre-written adventures from Hero games to almost all their titles? Especially Dark Champion, which i was hoping to start a campaign in - since i have quite a lot books from my Hero Fantasy campaign.

 

This really puzzles me, i have seen that Champion do have a lot of adventures while almost all the other products lack adventures.

 

I have been a gamemaster for tons of rpg´s throughout my roleplaying life, and always preferred to write my own adventures... however now i have limited time and would like pre-written adventures and sees that their none.

And i dont feel for gamemastering Champions, since i dont feel comfortable gamemastering superhero genre.

 

any idea why hero games doesnt have pre-written adventures?

[ThothAmon]

Re: why the lack of..

 

They do. You're looking in the wrong place. Try Digital Hero, Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth etc etc...

[Edsel]

Re: why the lack of..

 

Of the Hero Plus adventures, one of them, The Alchemy of Love is a modern-day Dark Champions adventure.

 

If you can find a copy of the old 4th Edition Hudson City Blues it is an excellent mini-campaign. I ran it back in 4th Edition days but it'd be easy to bring up to 5th Edition rules.

 

Shades of Black, though intended for Champions, could easily be powered down a bit for Dark Champions the Animated Series. I am going to tone it down far enough to use it in my street level game, but I'll keep the supernatural elements.

 

Shadows of the City is another 4th Ed. Dark Champions mini-campaign that world work well with DC: TAS.

[ghost-angel]

Re: why the lack of..

 

Also, prewritten adventures don't sell very well, so have been generally avoided.

[Mithras]

Re: why the lack of..

 

thanks for all replies, i will see if i can get hold of some of digital heros and some of the 4:th edition adventures.

 

to ghost-angel, its a pity though... a lot of gm´s would love a few adventures to start out their campaigns.

[OddHat]

Re: why the lack of..

 

With Dark Champions and all other genres, when all else fails, have two guys kick in a door.

[ghost-angel]

Re: why the lack of..

 

thanks for all replies, i will see if i can get hold of some of digital heros and some of the 4:th edition adventures.

 

to ghost-angel, its a pity though... a lot of gm´s would love a few adventures to start out their campaigns.

 

The literally hundreds upon hundreds of Plot Seeds spread through the books should be enough to jump start just about anyone's game really.

 

If you really need some ideas pick up Villany Amok; modify to flavor.

[JmOz]

Re: why the lack of..

 

This thread may be of some help

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24556

 

It only goes to issue 38

[Mithras]

Re: why the lack of..

 

The literally hundreds upon hundreds of Plot Seeds spread through the books should be enough to jump start just about anyone's game really.

 

If you really need some ideas pick up Villany Amok; modify to flavor.

 

I think you misunderstand me, i really dont wanna create any adventures/campaign myself, save a few changes that i may feel upon reading it.

This is not because im uber-lazy, but thanks to the fact that i have very limited time to create something myself. I know how to create adventures and campaign since i have been gamemastering quite a lot roleplaying games for the past 20-ish years.

The fact right now is that my time simply isnt enough to spend on creating the campaign, and i feel that the plot-seeds needs tons and tons of extra time spent upon them since its simply isnt enough.

[Questar]

Re: why the lack of..

 

I think you misunderstand me, i really dont wanna create any adventures/campaign myself, save a few changes that i may feel upon reading it.

This is not because im uber-lazy, but thanks to the fact that i have very limited time to create something myself. I know how to create adventures and campaign since i have been gamemastering quite a lot roleplaying games for the past 20-ish years.

The fact right now is that my time simply isnt enough to spend on creating the campaign, and i feel that the plot-seeds needs tons and tons of extra time spent upon them since its simply isnt enough.

 

 

I'm one of those who always buys the adventures (though I rarely run them the way they are written). I, too, like to have a lot of the grunt work done for me, so I can spend my time on a lot of the other details a GM has to deal with.

 

Plot-seeds don't really help for this, they've very easy to come up with, and I think most GM's have more of these than they can use. But all the work of developing encounters, clues, sequences, etc is time-consuming. It's great to have something to work from, and I wish that adventures were more profitable so that more would be produced. Not the case for HERO, apparently.

 

Personally, I recommend Shades of Black as an extremely well-written adventure on every level. A lot of great color, as well as nice sequencing of events, good props, and terrific detail. Maybe not a Dark Champions adventure, I don't know. It has an occult, supernatural background and uses supervillains that probably wouldn't work well in some Dark Champions campains. But you might be able to substitute other characters.

 

"Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth" is also very well done, with a lot of detail, good variety of types of encounters and a lot of the work done for the GM. I could see it being rewritten by a GM for a Dark Champions campaign without a great deal of work.

 

The Champions Battleground book, IMO, is much weaker. Some of the adventures are fairly well-crafted, but several leave a lot of work for the GM to complete before they can be run. I don't think anything in there would work well for Dark Champions anyway.

 

IMO, the short PDF adventures available for download are not much use for an experienced gamemaster. The ones I downloaded (for a pulp Campaign) were so simple that I could have knocked out something like that in a few hours work. These are intended, I think, for a very quick and dirty evening of play with a GM that is just starting out.

[RDU Neil]

Re: why the lack of..

 

With Dark Champions and all other genres' date=' when all else fails, have two guys kick in a door.[/quote']

 

Dashiell Hammet or Raymond Chandler... can't remember which.

[Spence]

Re: why the lack of..

 

I'm one of those who always buys the adventures (though I rarely run them the way they are written). I, too, like to have a lot of the grunt work done for me, so I can spend my time on a lot of the other details a GM has to deal with.

 

Plot-seeds don't really help for this, they've very easy to come up with, and I think most GM's have more of these than they can use. But all the work of developing encounters, clues, sequences, etc is time-consuming.

 

Yep, that is why my gaming came to a complete and grinding halt for a while. I simply didn't have time to create everything. Plot seeds are great to get the mind working, but are worthless if you don't have the 3-6 hours of time to construct all of the details.

 

It's great to have something to work from' date=' and I wish that adventures were more profitable so that more would be produced. Not the case for HERO, apparently. [/quote']

 

This is a very old issue. When last discussed the bottom line was the time/cost to develope complete stand alone adventures didn't generate enough return to be cost effective. Maybe someday when fanbase expands it will reach a point where it will. I think the HeroPlus line was a way to gauge the trend.

 

 

 

Personally, I recommend Shades of Black as an extremely well-written adventure on every level. A lot of great color, as well as nice sequencing of events, good props, and terrific detail. Maybe not a Dark Champions adventure, I don't know. It has an occult, supernatural background and uses supervillains that probably wouldn't work well in some Dark Champions campains. But you might be able to substitute other characters.

 

"Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth" is also very well done, with a lot of detail, good variety of types of encounters and a lot of the work done for the GM. I could see it being rewritten by a GM for a Dark Champions campaign without a great deal of work.

 

The Champions Battleground book, IMO, is much weaker. Some of the adventures are fairly well-crafted, but several leave a lot of work for the GM to complete before they can be run. I don't think anything in there would work well for Dark Champions anyway.

 

I have to agree on all points. But I don't believe CB was ever meant to be a complete stand-alone in the sense it assumes the players to be part of an ongoing campaign. If I were to drop it into a an existing game, there would be very little tweeking I wouldn't already have to do because I would have all of my "regular" villians and plot line to draw from and would need to fold them in anyway. But if I was going to run it cold, you are correct in it needing work.

 

IMO' date=' the short PDF adventures available for download are not much use for an experienced gamemaster. The ones I downloaded (for a pulp Campaign) were so simple that I could have knocked out something like that in a few hours work. These are intended, I think, for a very quick and dirty evening of play with a GM that is just starting out. [/quote']

 

Yes and No. Not all of the HeroPlus items are adventures. They also have a some organizations and a vehicle source book. The Dragon Mandarin, The Raven and the Midnight Brigade, Captain Battle and the Science Police and Four Fiendsare character write-ups groups. The Pulp Vehicle Sourcebook speaks for itself. Strange Magics, Vol I: Voodoo is a way to handle Voodoo in Hero. Inner-Earth is a mini campaign book.

 

I use the small adventures as quick one-ups if I need something fill in the gap. I actually used "Fangs Of The Scarlet Serpent" to springboard my Pulp game with very little need for re-write.

 

By the by, they are the only e-doc line I have actually bought the entire line of.

[Questar]

Re: why the lack of..

 

 

This is a very old issue. When last discussed the bottom line was the time/cost to develope complete stand alone adventures didn't generate enough return to be cost effective. Maybe someday when fanbase expands it will reach a point where it will. I think the HeroPlus line was a way to gauge the trend..

 

Yeah, I recall reading something about it a good while back. It makes sense, I suppose, that a lot of people wouldn't want to spend money on a book that is a one-shot deal, but I always bought them. As far as the fanbase expanding, though, my sense is that this is unlikely. I admit total ignorance of HERO's financial situation, but the impression I pick up from reading various RPG forums is that the entire industry is shrinking. And I get the idea that HERO basically survives due to a hard-core group of fans who have been around for a long time. My impression is that most of its base came to the game years ago, and that the new version is just not drawing in many new players. Maybe that's inaccurate, I'm just stating a general sense I've picked up from anecdotal evidence. Could be totally wrong.

[Spence]

Re: why the lack of..

 

Yeah' date=' I recall reading something about it a good while back. It makes sense, I suppose, that a lot of people wouldn't want to spend money on a book that is a one-shot deal, but I always bought them.[/quote']

 

I only remember because I was the one asking that question not too long ago. I always liked buying adventures, even the one I'd would probably never run. For me they were the best aids to to building a game there was.

 

 

As far as the fanbase expanding' date=' though, my sense is that this is unlikely. I admit total ignorance of HERO's financial situation, but the impression I pick up from reading various RPG forums is that the entire industry is shrinking. And I get the idea that HERO basically survives due to a hard-core group of fans who have been around for a long time. My impression is that most of its base came to the game years ago, and that the new version is just not drawing in many new players. Maybe that's inaccurate, I'm just stating a general sense I've picked up from anecdotal evidence. Could be totally wrong. [/quote']

 

This is something I don't think you can really quantify. To me it seems that things are on par with any RPG. When I go anywhere to game these days I find that while there are a lot of people who "play" the big labels D20/White Wolf/Palladium, the majority of which never actually buy anything. The D&D crowd will always be larger. Because of time, label awareness and (and this is not a bad thing) the fact that the clueless can be up and running from scratch with all premade stuff. While the game has aquired depth, it can still be played as a shallow hack and slash. Games like Hero cannot. Even a hack and slash takes a bit of time and work. I think Hero is expanding right along. But the model is different. The very thing that makes Hero great also slows down it's sales. Take the core rule book. The difference between 5th and 5th revised is very narrow rule wise. I have been using the same rules for years and have no real problem with anything brought in from other books. Take D&D 3.0 then 3.5 then 3.5 part 2 and now they will be popping out 4.0. Each "upgrade" pretty much eliminates the use of the prior book, to the extent that DM's "rule" on which official books are allowed. But with Hero each addition is added crunchy goodness, but does not invalidate any of the old books.

 

I have just started a campaign with Pulp Hero at my FLGS. The players are already hooked (though they may be unaware of it ) and I am sure that they will be converts soon.

[Alverant]

Re: why the lack of..

 

With Dark Champions and all other genres' date=' when all else fails, have two guys kick in a door.[/quote']

 

A friend told me that "all good stories end in a gay biker bar".

[Remjin]

Re: why the lack of..

 

Sometimes, I wish I wrote adventures in a readable format so that I could at least share them... but since I generally write them extremely free-form more as a series of varying notes, pictures, dialogue bits, clues and foreshadowing in series of events and ghastly branching timelines of possibilities... they're utterly useless except to me. Published or not, at least the feedback would be neat to have.

 

Hero as a whole does not appeal to today's gamers as much. Nowadays, it seems people appreciate much more free-form gaming or pre-specified gaming. I recently heard the rulebook called a phonebook, and that seemed to scare off quite a few people.

 

Usually its playing it that gets people involved... not reading it, as it hurts people to do so, it seems.

 

In a market with tons of stuff available to an increasingly small population, and with video games fulfilling what a lot of roll-players really wanted, who knows where the future is... Hero Games are extremely "crunchy" compared to some, the fluff is up to the players... in a world where world books are popular.

 

Who knows, but I'm a Hero disciple to stay. I always liked it, and that's all there is to it.

[oroborous]

Re: why the lack of..

 

Plenty of GMs on the DC forum are posting campaign logs. If you don't have time to come up with something on your own, you can always borrow. I can't speak for the others, but I wouldn't mind.

 

Here are a few to choose from. I'd just ask the other GMs for permission first.:

 

Knightshift

by Matt Frisbee

 

The World of Dark Champions. Parts 1, 1.5 and 2 by Robert Harrison and RJM Hughes

 

The World of Dark Champions, Part 4 by myself, Joe Hughson (BTW part III was never posted on these forums, but a few Word files do exist)

 

Weekend Warriors and Omega Team by Edsel

 

Secret Worlds I and Secret Worlds II by RDU Neil

[Starwolf]

Re: why the lack of..

 

IMO' date=' the short PDF adventures available for download are not much use for an experienced gamemaster. The ones I downloaded (for a pulp Campaign) were so simple that I could have knocked out something like that in a few hours work. These are intended, I think, for a very quick and dirty evening of play with a GM that is just starting out.[/quote']

 

Which was the point at the outset Steve said that these were intended to be quickies that he could whip out in a few hours with minimal effort, sorrt of a way to get some of his ideas out the door in the litte gaps between major projects or when h simply needed a short respit from whatever he was engaged in heavily. I look at these as sort of expanded plot seeds. Great to build on or use as a quick one shot. Thats also why they are so inexpensive.

[Starwolf]

Re: why the lack of..

 

One great one but very old IF you can find it is Here There Be Tigers. It was a military dark champions adventure where the players are a group of ex-military that is recruited to go back to Vietnam and rescue POWs. Move the location to Iraq and have them be a Merc or SPEC OP team assigned to rescue hostages from terrorists. There were also some old ESPIONAGE adventures for earlier versions of Hero that are very DC centric.

 

If you decide to go this route Noble Knight Games(an online vendor) specializes in collecting and selling old game stuff, that is where I got my copy of Here There Be Tigers.

[Questar]

Re: why the lack of..

 

Which was the point at the outset Steve said that these were intended to be quickies that he could whip out in a few hours with minimal effort' date=' sorrt of a way to get some of his ideas out the door in the litte gaps between major projects or when h simply needed a short respit from whatever he was engaged in heavily. I look at these as sort of expanded plot seeds. Great to build on or use as a quick one shot. Thats also why they are so inexpensive. [/quote']

 

 

Yeah, that's the point I was trying to make, that anyone looking for adventures should not expect these particular adventures to be on a par with other published adventures. "Minimal effort" I think is the hallmark of the ones I downloaded. I'm not trying to be critical, just to compare and contrast.

 

I have not seen any of the DH adventures. I assume that they also are simpler, a quick 0ne-shot for a newbie GM like the pulp PDF's. Or are they more complex?

[Lockdown]

Re: why the lack of..

 

well... with the hudson city sourcebook ( my main insperation for D.C since i run a campaign there) its hard to really need anything else... there are sooooooo many plot seeds in it its incredible. But... every good gm gets plot seeds from other sources not printed...

 

me.. i watched THE SHIELD ( all 5 seasons) and came up with a good plot line using corrupt cops against my "vigilantees" , they just havent seen it comming yet. And the election in hudson city.... OOO YEAH its a good plotline that they dont realize that is gonna hit them in the chums!!!

 

hehe maybe the NEW mayor will pass some ordance against vigilantees and all "costumed heros" hehhehe....

[Armitage]

Re: why the lack of..

 

to ghost-angel, its a pity though... a lot of gm´s would love a few adventures to start out their campaigns.

 

And that's the problem.

A sourcebook is useful to players and GMs, so everyone buys a copy.

An adventure is useful to GMs, cutting the market by 80% (assuming a GM and 4 players in a typical group).