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Post by finarvyn on Aug 6, 2015 12:00:53 GMT
A quarterly zine? I'm totally drawing a blank on this. Has it actually launched yet, or is this a secret plan that we'll be seeing in the near future? Tell me!
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Post by Adminenkainen on Aug 6, 2015 14:50:04 GMT
The Trophy Case ran quarterly from Fall 2010 to Fall 2014 for 17 issues. It included new material for H&H, comic book reviews, conversion notes for running old Marvel Super Heroes modules in H&H, articles on 1940s history, and fanfiction. I had about 8-9 contributors during the course of its run, which made me very happy, though most of it was written by me.
I made two mistakes with TTC -- one, I assumed that my free download numbers were healthy enough that I had a loyal base who would be willing to start paying 50 cents per issue; and, two, I started prominently featuring illustrated fiction about an original superhero of mine, who I had great confidence in, but no one else liked as much as I did. Sales tanked.
TTC was a problem for me in another sense, in that it kept me so busy staying on schedule that it was often taking my time away from my bigger writing projects. When I decided to shut down TTC, it was so I could focus on finishing Supplement V and the 2nd edition of H&H.
But even then I didn't want to get rid of TTC for good, so I made a public appeal to all the fanzine publishers who hang out on your OD&D Discussion Board, Fin, asking if someone would like to merge TTC into one of their fanzines -- similar to how Ares Magazine was once at the back of Dragon Magazine. I'm almost glad that appeal was ignored, because it would have just continued the time crunch problem that made me close it down in the first place.
Maybe, someday, TTC will come back, though...
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Post by finarvyn on Aug 6, 2015 15:27:09 GMT
Interesting, and sorry that this flew totally under my RADAR. I think that folks will download freebies a lot faster than they will pay for content, even at fifty cents per issue. I'm surprised that such a low cost was enough to cause sales to plumet so much.  Are you planning on posting these issues in an archive somewhere? Maybe it's on the "links" thread, I can't recall, but it would be nice to have something here. You could create a thread for each of the 17 issues with a quick description of content, a link (or attached file) and space for discussion. Just thinking out loud... |
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Post by Adminenkainen on Aug 6, 2015 15:57:43 GMT
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Post by order99 on Aug 6, 2015 23:00:33 GMT
I'm sure that I have most, if not all of the Trophy Case issues. The historical notes and Conversion notes were interesting but not critically important to me, but the comic reviews left me tepid (they were clear and comprehensive but my interest lies further afield-liked the Red Skull/War-profiteer trivia though). The fanfiction I could take or leave, with the exception of The Magus-not only was it engaging and fun, but for some reason I could pretty much see the game mechanics behind the story as I went("oh wait-that isn't a grapple with the alien, that's a Wrecking Roll!")  I think that the pure Gold for me in the Trophy Case series was your variant Classes and Races, seemingly evolved in a 'Greyhawk' manner from your original 'Whitebox'-and like the Greyhawk supplement I saw some original bits come slightly unbalanced, and then saw some of the suggested 'fixes' as well (Expanded Fighter options frex). Watching you tinker with things in magazine form gave me some insight into how you were tweaking things in design, which led me in turn to tweak what I wanted with minimum disruption to your mechanics...Alter Ego is much more powerful than it looks, for example, when you mix it with Half-Pint (or its age-agnostic version Sickly)-for a mere few points of Ability Loss in one form you get a ton of goodies, a ton of Other goodies in the other form plus regained Ability, different powers in that form-and each ID gets its own SCMs... (Imagine, if you will, a kindly but scrawny Priest Magic-User, who buys down his Str to boost his Int, picks spells like Read Magic, Protection from Evil and Cure Light Wounds, playing a support non-combatant role and enjoying both actual Plot armor-as long as he doesn't fight- and friendship with the diocese and the police...who turns into his 'Demon' Half-alien form with improved Ability scores, who buys down his Int for Wis, has True Strength, Wrecking, Superhero Powers, is Bullet Resistant and can Leap Higher on cloven hooves, and has two members of a Biker Gang for his SCMs...heh heh heh.) At any rate, I credit Trophy Case for encouraging my soon-to-be Players with Powergaming the rules until I can see where it leaks. I understand completely why you canceled the series though-time is valuable and demands a return on cash/fun/fame etc. Although once you finish H&H 2nd Edition you might consider placing, say, all of your Race/Class variants from TC into a supplement on its own, re-release the Magus stories as a standalone prose comic, maybe encourage the other contributors to do likewise and go from there? Most of the work is already done after all...  949 952 |
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Post by Adminenkainen on Aug 7, 2015 13:26:37 GMT
Yay! FINALLY, someone besides me liked Major Magus!
It's funny; the expanded fighter options article wasn't me, but Walt Jilson. I wasn't a big fan and have never used it myself. Do you plan to?
Interestingly, none of my players have ever expressed an interest in playing an alter ego hero. It's gone un-playtested, at my table, to this day!
Re-releasing all of the material from TTC in a new format? Interesting. It seems I'll never be done with H&H; there's just too many projects left for me to keep working on!
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Post by order99 on Aug 8, 2015 18:23:16 GMT
Yay! FINALLY, someone besides me liked Major Magus! It's funny; the expanded fighter options article wasn't me, but Walt Jilson. I wasn't a big fan and have never used it myself. Do you plan to? Interestingly, none of my players have ever expressed an interest in playing an alter ego hero. It's gone un-playtested, at my table, to this day! Re-releasing all of the material from TTC in a new format? Interesting. It seems I'll never be done with H&H; there's just too many projects left for me to keep working on! Re: Major Magus-what's not to like?  As far as Walt Jilson's article goes-I commented in the Yahoo Group (albeit haphazardly to the point of incoherence-the format confuses me) that Human as a Race holds its own against the other Races as long as we are confined to the Classes in Book One-as soon as we get into the Advanced Classes in the Supplements and Trophy Case, some of the Class Abilities overshadow or replace the Human abilities (especially the Mystery Man Class). My as-yet-unplaytested solution is to take 1) The two listed Abilities for Human 2) The new Abilities listed in Jilson's article and 3) A few of my own, and make a Master list of them. Humans outnumber Androids, visiting Aliens, Mermen etc because they are the Versatile Race-so Human PCs pick two Abilities from the list, and one more if they are Fighters...the Abilities are pretty low-key compared to leaping over skyscrapers, outrunning Model T's, Wrecking at range etc, so it should balance well in Theory (again, not Playtested...). I do feel that Alter Egos have at least the potential for some unbalancing-two sets of different Abilities/Powers at will, two different sets of Hit Points (with some healing during transition), and the fact it is likely that the Alter Egos can make a case for having two separate sets of SCMs (as each Alter moves in different circles) means i'll be watching any Alter PCs carefully...the good news is that both the Editor and the PC have to agree on the transformation Mcguffin, and that I can demand Saves vs Plot if things get too out of hand... As far as new Formats-it's only a suggestion. I suppose at this point it would probably be best if those fans that wanted to just use a PDF cracker on their already-purchased TCs and do it themselves...or be stubborn like me and use a laser printer, scissors, paste and a binder, Heh heh heh... 1116 |
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Post by Adminenkainen on Aug 8, 2015 21:32:55 GMT
Order, you're right that the Mysteryman class takes some of the benefits of being human and makes them class-based instead. So, in the next edition, I'm planning on having humans start out with a free Supporting Cast Member as their benefit.
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Post by order99 on Aug 9, 2015 15:51:33 GMT
Order, you're right that the Mysteryman class takes some of the benefits of being human and makes them class-based instead. So, in the next edition, I'm planning on having humans start out with a free Supporting Cast Member as their benefit. I could definitely see that working-although if I use it in my upcoming game i'm going to have to deal with Loophole Artists trying to max out their SCMs with Alter Ego- i'll just have to rule that Alter Egos must split their SCM's between their identities-after all, they aren't around as often as 'normal' people, right? Yeah, still think Alter Ego can be a Combo Platter...but it's so versatile and thematic! I'll just have to watch that power carefully...  562 |
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