What games should Hero Lab support?

[MPHopcroft]

A few more you might not have been thinking of (which should, at the very least, give the independent tinkerers ideas):

1. Far Future Enterprises is getting ready to release the 5th edition of the pioneering SF RPG Traveller. You ca tell us old-time roleplayers because we had graveyards full of Traveller PCs who died during the process of being rolled up. I think this would be a fun one.

2. If you were to talk with Kenzer & Company, they have the Kingdom of Kalamar setting of d20 setting-specific material that can be used to extend the d20 environment. And they also have Hackmaster, a satirically-presented old-school dungeon-crawling RPG (basically this is the game the Knights of the Dinner Table have been playing all these years) and the new western game Hard Eight.

3. Have you talked with R. Talsorian? Cyberpunk 3rd Edition might be an interesting dataset to do, and so would Mekton Zeta 9especally if you include the mecha-building system).

4. And, to add to the chorus -- d20 Modern.

 

[rob]

At 09:55 PM 4/7/2007, you wrote:

1. Far Future Enterprises is getting ready to release the 5th edition of the pioneering SF RPG Traveller. You ca tell us old-time roleplayers because we had graveyards full of Traveller PCs who died during the process of being rolled up. I think this would be a fun one.

The game that wouldn't die. :-> I remember Traveller from my early days of gaming - 30 years ago. I'm one of those old-timers myself. :-> Do you know if FFE is going to be attending the GAMA Tradeshow later this month? If so, we can talk to them there.

2. If you were to talk with Kenzer & Company, they have the Kingdom of Kalamar setting of d20 setting-specific material that can be used to extend the d20 environment. And they also have Hackmaster, a satirically-presented old-school dungeon-crawling RPG (basically this is the game the Knights of the Dinner Table have been playing all these years) and the new western game Hard Eight.

The Kalamar stuff makes a lot of sense. We'll see about talking to them at the tradeshow later this month. I'm not sure what sort of fit would be appropriate for Hackmaster, since it's one of the few RPGs I've never even looked at. So I'll have to investigate. For Aces & Eights, it's not even out yet, so I don't know anything about the game. We should be able to get a peak at the tradeshow.

3. Have you talked with R. Talsorian? Cyberpunk 3rd Edition might be an interesting dataset to do, and so would Mekton Zeta 9especally if you include the mecha-building system).

Much of our gaming group were huge fans of 2nd Edition Cyberpunk, and we had a 5+ year campaign that we ran. However, the 3rd Edition went in a completely different direction from what we loved about the game, so we haven't pursued it much. It's one of those games that we'll be looking at closely once we get a critical mass of games into place this summer. Mekton is predominantly the same basic system, so it would make sense to do both at the same time.

4. And, to add to the chorus -- d20 Modern.

Yep. That ones definitely of importance to us.

 

[kuni_tetsu]

Given what is going on at Wizkids/Fanpro with regard to Shadowrun, I know it will take some time, but I would still love to see SR3 and SR4 get a treatment :lol:

 

[rob]

At 03:42 PM 5/1/2007, you wrote:

Given what is going on at Wizkids/Fanpro with regard to Shadowrun, I know it will take some time, but I would still love to see SR3 and SR4 get a treatment

Everything regarding SR is current in a holding pattern. We have obtained a verbal green light from all the necessary folks, including the folks at WizKids. But formal details can't be dealt with until the dust settles after the current IMR deal. So I doubt we'll have anything released in 2007. :-(

 

[MPHopcroft]

Scion, the new WW game about Gods and their kids that may or may not be part of the WoD (but, like Exalted, uses similar rules) would certainly be a neat thing to do as part of the WoD package. In fact, I wonder if the license could be extended to the Storyteller system in general, with official support for in-print games and out-of-print titles being user mods.

Were you in touch with Craft Games at all for any word on support for Spycraft 2.0?

 

[rob]

At 10:07 PM 5/8/2007, you wrote:

Scion, the new WW game about Gods and their kids that may or may not be part of the WoD (but, like Exalted, uses similar rules) would certainly be a neat thing to do as part of the WoD package. In fact, I wonder if the license could be extended to the Storyteller system in general, with official support for in-print games and out-of-print titles being user mods.

We've discussed adding support for games like Exalted and Scion with WW. They have been receptive to the idea thus far, but nothing is for sure. We first need to get the WoD files completed and released, then we can discuss the other systems with them in further detail.

Were you in touch with Craft Games at all for any word on support for Spycraft 2.0?

The folks from Crafty Games definitely want us to support the new Spycraft release. However, they have made substantive changes throughout the system, so the work involved to fully implement Spycraft support is similarly substantial. We need to figure out a solution regarding Spycraft wherein we don't have to do all the work in-house, since we could likely add support for multiple other game systems in the time it would take to fully support Spycraft. The Crafty folks are patiently waiting on us to get back to them about this, but the current thinking is to get the Authoring Kit completed and then enlist outside assistance for Spycraft.

 

[Mark_A_Siefert]

1. Far Future Enterprises is getting ready to release the 5th edition of the pioneering SF RPG Traveller. You ca tell us old-time roleplayers because we had graveyards full of Traveller PCs who died during the process of being rolled up. I think this would be a fun one.

1. Seconded, and I'd like to see Hero Lab be able to accommodate Traveller D20 and 2320 AD from QLI which adds a prior history system to the D20 rules.

Also...

2. Savage Words: Featuring all it's various sourcebooks and settings.

3. Silhouette System: Namely Jovian Chronicles, Heavy Gear, and Gear Krieg.

Later,
Mark A. Siefert

 

[faramir1968]

First, I must say, this is a first-rate product. Simple, easy to use, clean. Very well done, I recommend it to all my friends.

Second, I see comments for D20Modern. Excellent. My personal request would be for T20 Traveller. I know the demand is probably not there, but hey, I figure its not that far from D20Modern so why not ask?

Thanks again for a great product.

 

[MPHopcroft]

I would like to see some support for some of the other OGL-based games that have their own variant rules. Some examples of these would be Arcana Evolved, Iron Heroes, McWod (the upcoming Monte Cook's World of Darkness from White Wolf), and the various OGL games from Mongoose (like Conan, Starship troopers, WARS, Babylon 5, Steampunk, Horror, Western, etc.).

Perhaps you could persuaude Green Ronin to let you do true20/Blue Rose.

The Runequest data package set could easily recieve optional expansions for the Glorantha, Lankhmar and various third-party settings and rulesets.

Although it would be more for database than for doing math and calculations, a Prose Descriptve Qualities dataset would be useful for players of games like Zorceror of Zo, Truth & Justice, and Questers of the Middle Realms.

Finally, I think that you might consider for Gencon 2008 releasing a speicloa 1.5 edition that includes ALL the datasets at a bundle price -- as well as providing a similar bundle price for which existing users can do complete upgrades. It would be an expensive purchase, but very handy for people who play lots of different games.

 

[rob]

At 12:15 PM 6/15/2007, you wrote:

Perhaps you could persuaude Green Ronin to let you do true20/Blue Rose.

They have already said "yes" to True20. We'll be doing it after we get M&M done.

The Runequest data package set could easily recieve optional expansions for the Glorantha, Lankhmar and various third-party settings and rulesets.

That's definitely the plan.

Finally, I think that you might consider for Gencon 2008 releasing a speicloa 1.5 edition that includes ALL the datasets at a bundle price -- as well as providing a similar bundle price for which existing users can do complete upgrades. It would be an expensive purchase, but very handy for people who play lots of different games.

Interesting idea. We'll put that on the list of things to consider for 2008.

 

[MPHopcroft]

Were Chaosium not so bitter about RuneQuest at Mongoose, I would suggest talking with them about their upcoming BRP corebook as well as the current edition of Call of Cthulhu. Unfortunately from that perspective, their desire for the heads of Mongoose Publishing on poles is likely to get in the way of negotiations (they have said they consider MRQ enough like BRP that their copyrights were infringed when Mongoose opened the content without coming to them first).

 

[pazuzu]

I would really like to see a dataset for Rolemaster. If you are unable to make and sell a version for Rolemaster, is it possible to have an editor that will be relatively easy to use by non-computer programers so that we can make a Rolemaster dataset by ourselves for our own use?

 

[MPHopcroft]

I would really like to see a dataset for Rolemaster. If you are unable to make and sell a version for Rolemaster, is it possible to have an editor that will be relatively easy to use by non-computer programers so that we can make a Rolemaster dataset by ourselves for our own use?

Perhaps at the same time one could work on HARP (high Adventure Role-Playing), ICE's "Rolematser lite" game which is somewhat more rational in terms of character creation.

The big problem with Rolemaster isthat it's BIG; it has many, many books released for even the current edtion. And the 2nd edition and standard Set? Oy, that's a lot of material even there (most of which si compatible enough with the current edition to fit in easily).

In addition, we have the current iteration of SpaceMaster, which poses its own unique problems.

 

[Culhwch]

I know the Hero System has (had?) their own character creation software, but I'd like to see a data set for that system.

 

[MPHopcroft]

I know the Hero System has (had?) their own character creation software, but I'd like to see a data set for that system.

Has. Hero Designer is in its third edition, has a thriving community and a beautiful leve of support from Hero Games, and is going very, very strong. Expansions to HD seem to be one of the more significant products sold at hero's online store.

 

[rob]

> I would really like to see a dataset for Rolemaster. If you are unable to
> make and sell a version for Rolemaster, is it possible to have an editor
> that will be relatively easy to use by non-computer programers so that we
> can make a Rolemaster dataset by ourselves for our own use?

We'll be releasing an editor to allow custom dataset creation for game
systems by users at some point in the future. However, given what I've
seen of Rolemaster, creating data files for Rolemaster will NOT be easy.
That game is incredibly complex, which is why the data files will be
similarly complex.

If there is enough demand to justify the work to do Rolemaster data files,
we'll probably work out a license and add them at some point. At the
moment, we're focusing our efforts on some of the most popular RPGs, but
your vote for Rolemaster has definitely been noted.

 

[MPHopcroft]

I'm afraid I'm sort of out of the loop on what's popular. It's so bad that I don't even know if anything significant came out at Origins this weekend, nor am I at all clear on what's due out at GenCon this year.

Except, sadly, what isn't -- me. I can't go.

 

[halfhand]

a rolemaster dataset would be nice, because the only reason i don't play it anymore is because i'm too lazy to do all the math

 

[dartnet]

Any chance that you will support the Hollow Earth Expedition RPG?

 

[FifthWanderer]

Spirit of the Century, please. That and M&M are the two games 'on my plate' right now.