Kingbeast's Lair

I love Chad Underkoffler’s “What Was Cool At” RPG convention videos…here is the latest one.

During the Hero seminar Steve, Darren, and Jason also briefly touched on what some of their 3rd party partners will be doing. Here are some highlights.

d3 will continue to have products. They had two of their Fantasy Hero books at the Hero booth for the first time in print and they looked GREAT. 🙂

Atomic Overmind will be continuing with the 6e version of Day After Ragnarok. One cool new project involves exploring the insides of the midgard serpent.

The final announcement was my favorite. Hero will be working with Arc Dream to produce 6e versions of several of their products. The first will be…drum roll please…Kerberos Club in 6e! Talk about awesome pie with awesome sauce! 😀

I attended DunDraCon for a few hours on Saturday morning. After having several nice conversations with friends I went to the What’s New With Hero seminar. Here are the results with some of my editorial comments. 🙂 (I copied this from the Hero Games discussion forum. Thanks for posting it Gary. 😉 )

2010 Release

• Champions out now – Beautiful book. Looks to be a winner.
• Hero System Martial Arts – They had a demo copy at the booth. Looks great. Several expanded sections on MA powers that looks neat.
• HS Powers (CO MMO Powers will be done later) April – Meh.
• Champions Universe May – Not interested.
• Bestiary – Definite buy. 300+ monsters updated to 6th ed. The 5th ed Bestiary is one of my most commonly used books.
• 3 Volume Champs (Master, teams, solo) villains GenCon ish – Eh. Hard cover and full color (HCFC).
• Fantasy Hero (GenCon) Full color hardbound – Definite buy. It will be nice to see Steve’s 6th ed treatment of FH. HCFC.
• HSEG – Will probably buy it but it is not an exciting book per se. 🙂
• Fantasy Hero Grimoire – Maybe.
• Champions Beyond (CU in outer space) including Malvens – Lot of folks at the con seemed excited about this one but I am in the who cares camp.

Re: Hero Dice. Maybe dice at some point. Darren would like to have them by GenCon, but doesn’t have high hopes that it’ll work out in time. Hopefully by the end of the year. Oh, and they’ll be blue dice with yellow numbers.

2011 Planned Releases

• HERO System Vehicles: If you need to get from Point A to Point B, the best way is a car, plane, or other vehicle ? and if you’re a hero, sometimes a tank, time machine, or hoverjet! The HERO System Vehicle Guide is your complete guide to vehicles in the HERO System, including advanced and expanded rules for creating and using them and hundreds of example vehicles of all types from every campaign, genre, and time period. It’s an essential resource for any HERO System gamer!
  Author: Steven S. Long
  Tentative Release Date: Early 2011
  – I’ll buy it. I hope the rewrite is good. 🙂
• The Martial World: The Champions Universe is full of superheroic martial arts action, and The Martial World tells you all about it! Within its pages you’ll read about the secrets of the fabled Yengtao Temple, discover what the insidious Dr. Yin Wu is up to, learn everything you ever wanted to know about the deadly Cult of the Red Banner, and maybe even find out how your character can compete in the legendary Tournament of the Dragon!
  Author: Steven S. Long
  Tentative Release Date: Early 2011
  – I’ll pass on this one.
• The HERO System Advanced Player’s Guide II: HERO System fans have enjoyed our Advanced Player’s Guide so much that it’s time for a sequel! APG2 features even more rules expansions, additions, options, and variants for the HERO System, including rules for ?social combat,? mental combat, and more!
  Author: Steven S. Long
  Tentative Release Date: Early 2011
  – Might get this one…not sure. The social combat stuff might be fun.
• Millennium City: The heart of the Champions Universe is Millennium City, a glittering, high-tech ?City of the Future? built where Detroit once stood. This supplement is your complete guide to Millennium City, with information on its people, neighborhoods, politics, law enforcement, crime, and much more!
  Authors: Steven S. Long, Darren Watts
  Tentative Release Date: Mid-2011 (GenCon release)
  – Pass.
• Mythic Hero: The gods and monsters of legend come to life in Mythic Hero! This HERO System supplement reviews numerous bodies of myth from around the world, ranging from the familiar (such as Greek and Norse) to the unusual (like Aztec, Slavic, and Yoruban). It features character sheets for gods, heroes, and their adversaries, HERO System writeups for special spells and enchanted items unique to each culture, and more!
  Author: Steven S. Long
  Tentative Release Date: Mid-2011
  – Probably pass but Steve seemed into this one so it will probably rock. 🙂
• Star Hero: Adventure among the stars with Star Hero, a genre book that shows you how to create characters, campaigns, and technology for the Science Fiction genre! You can explore alien worlds, fight off space pirates, pilot a starship in outer space battles or trading missions, and even travel through time ? if it’s a part of Science Fiction, you’ll find it in Star Hero.
  Author: Steven S. Long
  Tentative Release Date: Mid-2011 (GenCon release)
  – Probably will buy. Star Hero could use some rework IMHO.
• The Book Of The Empress: In the Champions Universe, one of the greatest threats to humanity’s freedom is the extradimensional conqueror Istvatha V’han, Empress of a Billion Dimensions. The Book Of The Empress is your complete guide to this deadly master villain. In addition to discussing her history, powers, personality, and goals, it provides detailed information about her immense military resources ? soldiers, weapons, vehicles, and more from a million planes of reality. It also tells you about her far-flung domain, with descriptions of some of the most important (or weirdest!) dimensions in her empire.
  Author: Steven S. Long
  Tentative Release Date: Late 2011
  – Again not too exciting for me.
• Cyber Hero: In Cyberpunk Science Fiction, the world of the near future is an often grim place where corporations have more power than governments, crime and corruption rule the streets, and people augment their bodies with ?cyberware? and ?bioware? so they can move faster, attack more powerfully, and control machines with mental commands. Cyber Hero is your guide to this fascinating subgenre, including character Templates, rules for cyberware and the net, and several mini-settings to get you started.
  Author: Steven S. Long
  Tentative Release Date: Late 2011
  – I’ll get it. I want to see the takes on netrunning.
• Time Travel Hero: Take a journey through the centuries with Time Travel Hero! This subgenre book for Star Hero discusses the nature of time from a scientific and dramatic standpoint, how to run time travel campaigns, and more. It also includes ?mini-genre books? covering important periods in time such as the Wild West, the Victorian Age, and the era of swashbucklers and pirates.
  Author: Steven S. Long
  Tentative Release Date: Late 2011
  – To me this was the standout announcement of the seminar. If you want to highlight how fantastic your universal system is at handling different genres what better way to do it…a time travel book. I also ran a time travel Danger International campaign off and on for several years so I have an interest in the campaign style.

Hero goodness. 😀