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Post by CRTaylor on Sept 26, 2020 20:37:16 GMT
Stuff is starting to show up in Dropbox indicating that work is being done on Western Hero to prep it for printing so I hope next month they might release.
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Post by CRTaylor on Oct 7, 2020 23:24:35 GMT
When Western Hero hits the shelf, I'm going to release an adventure module along with it about taming a wild west town where the bad guys have taken over. Its also a potential campaign base town for the PCs to live in and work out of.
If I had a staff and lots of time and energy, I'd love to do a series of campaign releases: a US Cavalry campaign, an Apache resistance campaign, an Oregon Trail campaign, etc. There are lots of possibilities.
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Post by Chris Goodwin on Oct 8, 2020 17:22:18 GMT
I discovered that reskinning Gangbusters RPG or general Prohibition era stories can work pretty well for westerns. From a thing I posted at RPG.net...
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Post by Chris Goodwin on Oct 8, 2020 17:55:57 GMT
Cowboys are farmhands. What do healthy young men who've been working the farm all week want to do on Friday and Saturday nights with their pockets full of their week's pay? Head into town and party.
Who else is in that same town? "Traveling salesmen" (card sharps). The fine young ladies at Miss Hettie's "boarding house". Saloons, where all of the above meet with dancin', drinkin', and playin' cards. Occasionally bandit gangs on the run from the marshals or the "pinks". Everyone has a firearm (even Miss Hettie's girls and the preacher!).
Lots and lots of tension.
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Oct 8, 2020 20:01:01 GMT
I've got a conversion thing I've been pecking away at, inflating it, adding depth, etc. off and on as time and the mood come together. Chris G has seen it, I believe.
I'll have to see if I can track down the author of the original scenario. If nothing else, I might get permission to release it as freebie or something.
Very spaghetti western in flavor, at least that was my initial read, and the feel I am building for. The original was extremely sparse, and laid out on less than two pages.
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Post by CRTaylor on Oct 8, 2020 21:35:39 GMT
I have a suspicion, not based on any market research or study, that western gaming has a bigger audience than has been tapped into and people want materials for it.
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Oct 8, 2020 23:48:46 GMT
The fact that Boot Hill was both terrible and popular suggests that you might be right. Here's a thought, since I can't see why you shouldn't be able to: The first couple of editions of Boot Hill featured.... >ahem< "recreations" of famous historical shootouts such as the OK Corral. I've gotta be honest, though: I don't know why the OK Corral always makes the cut, when the capture of William Bonney was a freakin' _legendary_ shootout (the buildings that were preserved and still stand today are filled with bullet holes. According to the tour guide, very, very few buildings didn't catch lead), but you almost never hear about it.... Anyway, it shouldn't be too much trouble to pick a handful of famous shoot-outs, map them up, and drop in the right characters and equipment as a quick-start sort of PDF "Intro to Western HERO" sort of thing.... Just sayin.....
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Post by Chris Goodwin on Oct 9, 2020 0:23:13 GMT
Sort of the Western equivalent to "You all meet in an inn..."
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Oct 9, 2020 19:49:04 GMT
I discovered that reskinning Gangbusters RPG or general Prohibition era stories can work pretty well for westerns. Well, the phone doesn't have the punctuation keys to properly quote that, but I found that amusing, as I have found the same to be true, and I have also found that western stories ideal for reskinni g into sci-fi stories. Christopher: You have to do a write-up for Sammy Davis, Jr, too. To this day he was the fastest gun in Hollywood, and if the reports are to be believed, on Hell of a good shot.
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Post by CRTaylor on Oct 10, 2020 16:57:00 GMT
You can reskin western stories into fantasy very easily as well, at least the plots. The final battles are a bit different
For 4th edition, they Hero put out a couple of "Battlegrounds" books which were just collections of adventures. I expected them to be locations and battle maps with a few scenario ideas and data of stuff like cover, breaking stuff for walls etc. Seems like that would be a pretty easy thing to do these days. If there's sufficient interest in WH I might look into something like that, including a few historical locations.
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Oct 12, 2020 3:36:27 GMT
I think it's a great idea, if no one else does.
I mean-- you're re-working the old Champions adventures for a reason, right?
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Post by CRTaylor on Dec 18, 2020 17:10:47 GMT
Sadly Western Hero is going to be delayed more, probably until next year. I have made a decision that I'd rather it come out later than let some frustrating editing not get done. It was a tough call but I remember well being willing to put up with delays to get a better product from other people in the past and decided to take that risk here.
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Post by CRTaylor on Jan 15, 2021 19:43:54 GMT
OK The final cover is done and editing is finished, should see this hit the shelves by next month at the latest. When I get word that it is coming out, I'll finish off the "Taming of Tascora" adventure and release it around the same time. I have other ideas for adventures but we'll have to see how well this sells and how much interest is out there before committing to building the cavalry campaign or the Oregon Trail adventure, much less the Boom Town or Ranching campaign books.
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Post by CRTaylor on Apr 16, 2021 0:01:10 GMT
This has been selling quite well, which is very encouraging and rewarding. When I started rewriting it in 2019, I wasn't really intending to do it for sale at first, just for practice in getting used to writing up a set of rules as I had intended to do with my Fantasy Hero player's book. Jason since announced they weren't going to let people republish the rules for that kind of project any longer, so I had to change directions but it started to gel in my mind that Hero might actually want to publish WH if it didn't cost them anything to get it rewritten.
Now that its selling well I hope that it can become established enough for there to be Western Hero forums some day, its by far my best selling work, even though its not technically a Kestrel Arts product.
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Post by alcamtar on May 19, 2021 0:50:55 GMT
I was excited to see a western game that wasn't Deadlands. Don't know if I'll ever get the opportunity to do it but I've always wanted to run a western game. I backed the Deadlands Kickstarter for Savage Worlds but it's just so *weird*; I grew up in the west and watching westerns, but Deadlands feels nothing like the west I know. Western Hero is very classic and down to earth, that seems like an untapped niche right now. Or at least it was! :-)
I also have an idea that Western hero could be used to create sort of a "Deadlands light"... By which I mean combining Western hero and Horror hero, and bring ing the champions power system into the game, but dropping all the weird Deadlands universe stuff and going for a much more subtle tone. You know the occasional ghost, Indian legend, that sort of thing.
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