Heroes (1979)

[waysoftheearth]

This one? www.ecwrpg.co.uk/

[Deleted]

Oops! Yeah, that's the one!

[owlorbs]

Great news indeed!

[ralph]

Anyone going to the game next weekend?
I'm sorely tempted...

[Deleted]

It's a bit far from Texas for me to travel but I hope there is a good turnout.

[novocastrian]

Heroes 1.2 is now on sale


I've ordered mine, so a review will follow

[Zenopus]

May 11, 2010 18:03:07 GMT -6 @geordie said:

The bleak landscape of late-70's Britain (strikes, powercuts, social disorder, bombing and the cold war) wasn't ever going to birth a shiny happy RPG.

Before Warhammer, Dragon Warriors and Maelstrom, there was the ironically-titled Heroes, written by Dave Millward (with 18 months playtesting), with art by John Blanche (artist responsible for the UK Holmes D&D cover).

I noticed that Millward has geordie's post up on the Heroes 1.2 website. I'm not very familiar with the game, but I was curious about the artwork. The original had John Blanche artwork on the cover - was there also interior art by him? In the new edition, the original cover art has been replaced - how about the interior art?

[Deleted]

Wow that's expensive. Let's hope a pdf version is released, although I haven't seen a hint of that.

[Deleted]

Mine is ordered! Besides my very own boxed set (courtesy of BHP and co-author Simon Bull), I haven't looked upon a new product with this much anticipation in a long time!

[Falconer]

I would pay $5 for a PDF of the original.

[novocastrian]

Sept 14, 2012 15:39:31 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

I'm not very familiar with the game, but I was curious about the artwork. The original had John Blanche artwork on the cover - was there also interior art by him? In the new edition, the original cover art has been replaced - how about the interior art?

My copy arrived this morning ;D

The original interior art was by an art student called Aiden which David explains, cost him a couple of pints. There is no interor art by John Blanche. Aiden's art is reproduced in the new version, alongside art by J.C.B.Knight. All very atmospheric.

There is a Trampier amount of bearded desperate ne'er-do-wells.

[Zenopus]

Thanks for the info, geordie. I wrote a blog post about the old and new versions, where I quoted some of your posts.

Can you tell us about the setting included in the game, The Ouesterlands? Is it set in the real world or a fictional land?

[novocastrian]

Sept 15, 2012 8:33:12 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

Can you tell us about the setting included in the game, The Ouesterlands? Is it set in the real world or a fictional land?

It's Dark Ages Europe with the names changed - but Millward provides the real world names and you could play a more historical game if you prefer. The map (4 sheets of A3) is of central Europe and the northern Mediterranean, but you can have characters who have ventured from afar - anglo-saxons, celts, arabs, vikings.

It's like a greatest hits package of what you want from the Dark Ages.

[Zenopus]

Thanks, geordie! Sounds interesting.

Weirdly, I just Googled "Ouesterlands" and the second hit (after this thread) was a blog from 2008 setting Portown & Zenopus dungeon in an "Ouesterland of The Five Kingdoms". This might be the result of Googling trying to guess what results I will like best.

tekralh.blogspot.com/2008/08/chapter-one-adventure-begins.html

Looking further it appears that the suggested starting town in Heroes is the port city of Triente.

[novocastrian]

In comparison, the two books-



The original map and one quarter (A3 sized) of the new map. Each hex is 10 miles across.

[Deleted]

I’m afraid that John Blanche only provided the cover artwork. The internal illustrations were provided by Aiden, an art student who was the brother of an acquaintance. The original and more is included in the new and very much expanded edition…

[xerxez]

Although quite late getting around to it, I have written a fairly comprehensive review of the original HEROES system based upon the rules, though I have not yet got to play this awesome game! Please give it a read at my blog if you please. Thanks!

HEROES OVERVIEW

[ritt]

Thanks for sharing this. Sorta embarrassed to admit I'd never heard of this game before. Very, very interesting. Dave sounds like a cool dude.

[arkansan]

Bought the digital copy of this a year or so ago. Sadly I doubt I'll ever find anyone to play it with in person, but I definitely peruse it for ideas from time to time.

[xerxez]

I haven't gotten much response from folks I've tried to recruit, arkansan. But I won't give up!

[Starbeard]

Just saw this thread. I've had a good condition copy of Heroes for a few years. I absolutely love it. It's definitely got some quirky late 70s wargaming rules in there, but I'm into that sort of thing so it's never been a bother for me.

I've played a few skirmishes with it, and every couple of years I'll solo a handful of characters to try out the campaign systems. But finding people to play in person has been difficult.

I did dip heavily into Heroes for a play-by-post campaign not too long ago. I ran it in the style of the old play-by-mail games (you know, where all of the players are essentially playing one-on-one with a 'phantom DM'). I used the 1983 Warhammer box set for characters, magic and combat, bits from Tony Bath's books and Martin Hackett's Fantasy Wargaming for the army-level stuff, and Heroes for the campaign structure. I also rethemed the setting to ancient desert kingdoms with eldritch magic. Right now that game's on hiatus until I have more free time, and can restructure the whole format into something that isn't quite as sanity-depleting for me as it turned out to be.

I would love to see a Heroes forum game, though. It seems like the sort of thing that could even be done in real time, with players orders processed over the course of a week, with posts back and forth if the player's input is actually needed. A bit like a Diplomacy game, really.

[arkansan]

May 25, 2017 5:41:55 GMT -6 Starbeard said:

Just saw this thread. I've had a good condition copy of Heroes for a few years. I absolutely love it. It's definitely got some quirky late 70s wargaming rules in there, but I'm into that sort of thing so it's never been a bother for me.

I've played a few skirmishes with it, and every couple of years I'll solo a handful of characters to try out the campaign systems. But finding people to play in person has been difficult.

I did dip heavily into Heroes for a play-by-post campaign not too long ago. I ran it in the style of the old play-by-mail games (you know, where all of the players are essentially playing one-on-one with a 'phantom DM'). I used the 1983 Warhammer box set for characters, magic and combat, bits from Tony Bath's books and Martin Hackett's Fantasy Wargaming for the army-level stuff, and Heroes for the campaign structure. I also rethemed the setting to ancient desert kingdoms with eldritch magic. Right now that game's on hiatus until I have more free time, and can restructure the whole format into something that isn't quite as sanity-depleting for me as it turned out to be.

I would love to see a Heroes forum game, though. It seems like the sort of thing that could even be done in real time, with players orders processed over the course of a week, with posts back and forth if the player's input is actually needed. A bit like a Diplomacy game, really.

I believe I was a part of that play by post, over at the Unseen Servant Forum?

Something about the styling of Heroes make me think it would lend itself well to a Forum game. I seem to recall somewhere in the book it recommending that players give a list of their actions for a given week of game time and the GM resolving it in one go with player input as needed. I think that play style would lend itself well to the play by post format.

[Starbeard]

Yes you were! It was a good game at the start, but it suffered from administrative burnout after a bit. Two players I could handle without much planning, five was stretching it, and when I had seven or so it just became too much. Now that I've learnt those lessons I'd like to start it up again someday and structure the game in a way that does away with a lot of the administrative headache. I'd also choose something other than Original Warhammer for the skirmish rules. It's a great system for abstract combats that are simple and deadly, but it just involves too many dice rolls over and over again. Chainmail would be ideal, except it doesn't really allow the same nuances in ability scores, so it would take more tinkering to figure out how to translate the rules for training stats and skills in Heroes. I still have to think about that one.

Heroes does presume a format where players write down their weekly orders on a piece of paper and hand them in to the referee. I think it's presumed either that the referee will take each player aside separately to go over the results of the week, or that all of the players will act like a PC party and have more or less the same orders, so that the results are figured for the whole group. I'll have to check, but I also believe there's a statement in there about it being ideal for playing by mail because of the way orders are given.

The only thing that would bog down in forum play is playing out skirmishes round by round, but I think in general it's a fairly simple transition to playing it as a forum game.

[Greyharp]

Sad news, it seems Dave Millward passed away last month: theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=563677

[Deleted]

In correspondence Dave Millward was a gentleman and a scholar, sad news indeed.

[Starbeard]

I actually had no idea of his credentials or other activities. Looking at what I think might be his photo, it's entirely possible I've chatted with him near a table at a miniatures show. He will be missed either way, his Heroes ruleset was a bit of an eye opener for me. I shall raise a toast this evening.

[rsdean]

…and we were just discussing the rules this week on the Discord, in the context of fantasy Traveller.