http://www.herogames.com/home.htm

Out of three full-time employees they have, they are letting two go. And those are the two that do all the writing. I hope that this will turn out to be just a restructuring and not the end of Hero Games. There are lots of good RPG companies out there that don’t have any full-time employees. So I hope they can keep it going.

I’ve been keeping tabs on Hero Games ever since middle school when me and two of my classmates played Champions. It was a great system for the long, drawn out combats that you see in comic books. Later they tried to turn it into a genre-neutral game system, and I think that is where they really failed. The system just never really could handle low power heroes. Low power superheroes were okay, but not regular people. And the long, drawn out combats just don’t feel right in a non-super setting.

They gave it the old college try though. It seems like they were trying to follow the GURPS business model, by writing genre books for Fantasy, Space, Horror, Martial Arts, Pulp, Post Apocalypse, and many others. Some of these books, especially the ones written by Steve Long, are great books despite the system; just for the great background material.

They recently put out a 6th edition, which probably could have saved them. I guess it didn’t. My guess is that they didn’t simplify enough, and the old system is just a dinosaur in the current RPG market, like GURPS or Rifts.

I always thought that Savage Worlds did a great job of simplifying the old Hero System to speed up combat, character creation, and conflict resolution. And they did it without getting rid of the classic point-buy, class-less, level-less system that I love so much. I guess I’ll have to commit to Savage Worlds now.

I saw that twice in the last month Hero Games put large bundles of their 5th edition books on sale for cheap through Loot.com. I’m kinda sorry I didn’t buy them when I had the chance.

I got a chance to do some role-playing this weekend. Specifically, the Basic Fantasy Role-playing game. The website says this about it: “The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a rules-light game system based loosely on the d20 SRD v3.5, heavily rewritten with inspiration from early RPG game systems. It is suitable for those who are fans of “old-school” game mechanics. Basic Fantasy RPG is simple enough for children in perhaps second or third grade to play, yet still has enough depth for adults as well.”

I can tell you that it plays alot like the original incarnations of D&D, except it uses ascending armor class, does not use alignment, and separates race and class. If you have played any of the D&D versions prior to 3.0, everything will be very familiar. In fact, the DM of my game ran us through a quick version of the old TSR module X3: the Curse of Xanathon. The characters failed in our quest to liberate the Duke from whatever was responsible for his madness, but the players succeeded at having a good time.

I would recommend the Basic Fantasy Role-playing Game to anyone who remembers the good old days of the beginning of the hobby or wants to know what all the fuss is about.

The cost is good too: FREE!

This is a tactical miniatures game put out by Mongoose Publishing. The minis look good! Here’s what they have to say about the new game:

“A Call to Arms: Star Fleet is the game of space combat in the universe of Star Trek. Throughout humanity’s space-age history, the Federation has come under pressure from many enemies. Now you can play out these confrontations on the tabletop with entire fleets drawn from the Federation, Klingon Empire, Romulan Empire or any one of the many other fleets that range across the galaxy.

From skirmishes involving lone destroyers to the clashing of large fleets against their bitterest rivals, A Call to Arms: Star Fleet is your ticket to exciting battles that take place in the depth of space.”

It looks like Call to Arms is their generic star battle miniature rules which have been statted out for the Star Trek universe. Looks like it is worth checking out.