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Post by CRTaylor on Jan 11, 2022 3:47:01 GMT
I hope to get started on this again, December was a very tough month as it always is and I have had to take a lot of time off just recovering and healing up. I'm still conceptually struggling with the best way to handle races, and not getting very far.
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Post by CRTaylor on Jan 28, 2022 6:39:58 GMT
I am still torn on this. Do I include all character creating info? It would bloat the books by about 75-100 pages each. And it would take away from Hero Games' potential earnings in sales of Fantasy Hero Complete. But will it annoy buyers to get Eric the Half-a-Campaign book?
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
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Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Jan 30, 2022 16:46:37 GMT
I am still torn on this. Do I include all character creating info? I am not trying to be funny when I say this, Christopher: I do not understand the question. Would you be indulgent enough to elaborate a bit, please?
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Post by CRTaylor on Jan 30, 2022 17:23:52 GMT
Well I have a choice between publishing only the house rules (like Mana as a new stat), the campaign setting differences in skills etc..
Or the whole shebang of explaining all the stats, skills, talents, etc as a full write up like Champions Complete. The powers build section would go in the Jolrhos Codex (how to make powers, what all of them are, the modifiers, etc).
The first is smaller and probably more readily accepted by Hero Games. The latter makes it cheaper and easier to pick up and run stuff just using the Player's Guide without needing to also get Fantasy Hero Complete.
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Duke
Triple Digit Mad Dog
Affable Moron
Posts: 162
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Post by Duke on Jan 30, 2022 21:30:50 GMT
I guess the first follow up question is "do you have the option / permission to do either of those as you see fit?" If yes, then I see the dilemma. If no, then the answer has been made for you. If yes, then I rather like having everything in one book, particularly considering that FHC is technically out of print and, of course, is FUCKING MASSIVE, and to pile it on top of all the other required reading for the current rules is literally poking your target audience with a spear all the while shouting "go on! Buy it all! Read it all! Otherwise, you can't play it!"-- and of course, I picked up a brand new boxed set of D&D for my daughter as a Christmas gift: Thirty bucks. Thin books. Complete game. Came with dice, a single map, and a miniature. Complete game-- thirty bucks; one day or less to read. HERO is fucking itself so goddamned hard.....
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Post by CRTaylor on Feb 1, 2022 20:23:18 GMT
That is the problem, I see major benefits to both.
And its not like you can run D&D with just an adventure and a couple basic books; you need the campaign too and campaign books never include all the rules. Its just assumed you'll get the Player's Handbook, GM Guide and like 4 monster books (at least one).
Its probably going to come down to whether Jason would let me put the rules in a book or not. He announced a few years ago that they won't be letting people put out full rule reprint campaign books so that's probably not an option.
Hero's basic problem is that it has like 5 versions of the basic rules, effectively. And none of them are clearly available or understood to be the proper one. If you start playing Hero, where do you start? The 2-volume mega tomes? Champions? Champions Complete? Fantasy Hero? Fantasy Hero Complete? Western Hero? There's a serious branding problem here.
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Post by CRTaylor on Nov 20, 2022 2:22:54 GMT
I am struggling a bit with this. Its not that the writing is tough, I have plenty of stuff ready to turn into the book, and I'm most of the way done with the first draft. The problem is that its just a bit depressing and I am having a hard time with motivation. This is the culmination of decades of writing and effort and a dream to get my fantasy campaign out on the shelf, but... I never get to play any more. I don't test this stuff, its all things I came up with on the fly or (mostly) stuff we did when we played Fantasy Hero long ago
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Post by CRTaylor on Dec 3, 2022 20:24:22 GMT
Work is ongoing, I have most of the first draft done for the writing, but there are a lot of steps to work on still like layouts, formatting, art, cover, indices, etc.
When this is done I want to look over my previous books and rebuild them as a 1.5 edition, mostly the same but better looking and fix erratta etc. I did something with the Codex that ended up looking very sharp with parchment-looking pages, and I want all the books to be consistently like that. Plus, I want to change the cover for the Field Guide, as it looks really desolate and not what I was hoping for.
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Post by CRTaylor on Dec 6, 2022 18:57:57 GMT
Because of the tragic loss of my brother Joel, everything is on hold for now, but I will return to work when I can. He loved my writing and was my biggest supporter, he wanted to see what I came out with next and was always so proud of me. I can't see his reactions and get his encouragement and morale boosting any more but I can write for him, in his memory.
That means I will be going back to writing fiction as well as gaming books, because he loved my books so much and knew what I had planned. I wanted him to see the plan unfold, so now I have to do it out of respect for him and to honor his memory.
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Post by CRTaylor on Feb 21, 2023 0:42:46 GMT
Starting to get more work done on the Jolrhos Player Guide. I'm doing rewriting trying really hard to make it player friendly and easier to read than the usual rule set. Several people praised Western Hero and Champions Begins for their informal tone, so I am trying to work that in here as well. Also I have some concepts that I have to work on pretty hard to get to work properly such as "Master Skills" that are basically a broad set of skills under a single umbrella so that you get, say, Acrobatics, Breakfall, and Climbing under one skill, then can use skill levels to boost one or two portion of that.
The work is going slowly because I have so much other stuff I have to do but its steady. I hope to have this finished in Spring, but the art might delay that to Summer some time.
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Post by CRTaylor on Apr 17, 2023 2:22:12 GMT
One of the things I have wanted to do for a couple decades with Fantasy Hero is to bring Wisdom into the game somehow. I miss it as a stat even though I haven't played D&D since the mid 80s. Its a very important concept for life, brings a bunch of story options and character possibilities. For a while I tried to think of a way to make it a stat with a roll: make your Wisdom roll! But that didn't really work out because I didn't want to go that far in changing the base rules.
So I think I've come up with something that works. Not only does it work Wisdom into the game, but it actually works as compensation for players when something goes wrong. It works like this:
WISDOM
Every time a character experiences something really bad, like a heartbreak or serious traumatic injury, or fails in a quest, loses a lot of money or something like that... they gain a wisdom point. Now, this cannot be a deliberate screwup, just to get a point, and it has to be more than a complication activating, it really has to suck. Say a player chooses to go left down a maze hallway and that leads to days of wandering around lost. Wisdom point. Or you fail to save the princess. Wisdom point.
The Wisdom points turn into a roll, sort of a hidden stat the GM has and controls. 1 point gives an 8- roll, 2 gives a 10-, 3 gives an 11- and then on one point at a time. The character is, through hardship, challenge, and experience, gaining wisdom.
The next time the character makes a really stupid choice, proposes something foolish, attempts to do something only a bonehead would do -- genuinely, not trolling the group -- the GM makes a Wisdom roll. If it succeeds the GM can inform the character that this seems really foolish to them. What they do with this information is up to the player, of course. But their wisdom tells them "eh, this isn't a good idea." If their psychological complication compels them to do something really unwise, well that's worth a HAP but that's another discussion.
Also Wisdom Rolls can be used for world events, for interactions with locations and items. This sword gains 1 DC for each wisdom point a character has! This font will heal you if you are wise enough to use it properly!
I like this mechanic a lot, and I think it will add a lot to a game if well played. To the best of my knowledge its not in any other game, but maybe I'm just reinventing the wheel.
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Post by CRTaylor on Nov 17, 2023 18:29:03 GMT
This has been a very, very difficult year, and I do not have any realistic estimate when this book will be done. I apologize, but I have never been very strong or healthy and right now almost everything I have is being directed toward caring for my elderly mother and just surviving. I get a bit of art done once in a while, but its very slow. Maybe some time next year I can get the Player's Guide finished. This is deeply frustrating to me, but there's only so much that can get done at a time.
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