Strike Force Kickstarter Aims to Revive Classic Superhero Setting

StewShearerOld

Geekdad News Writer
Jan 5, 2013
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Strike Force Kickstarter Aims to Revive Classic Superhero Setting

[kickstarter=2000633882/aaron-allstons-strike-force]
High Rock Publishing is trying to raise 20,000 dollars to release a new version of the RPG classic Strike Force.

Originally released in 1988, Aaron Allston's Strike Force was an extensive guide aimed at giving dungeon masters the tools they needed to run a role-playing campaign grounded in the genre of comic book superheroes. Calling it a hit would be an understatement. Well-loved by gamers all over the world, Strike Force became one of tabletop role-playing's essential classics. Sadly, the intervening years have seen the book become rarer and harder to find. It's a sad fact that the folks at High Rock Publishing hope to rectify.

Earlier this week, High Rock launched a Kickstarter campaign aimed at funding a new, updated edition of the superhero role-playing classic. The new edition will "build on [the] success" of the original with new writing, new artwork and "advice from superhero RPG guru Steve Kenson." The campaign is asking for 20,000 dollars to fund "the costs for artwork, graphic design, promotional materials, and assorted miscellaneous fees." High Rock plans to release the book primarily as a digital PDF with "a limited print run." Backers can contribute 50 dollars to land one of the physical copies.

As of the publication of this news story, Strike Force has 25 days left in its campaign and is just a few hundred dollars shy of reaching its goal. That being the case, we feel pretty safe in pegging this one as a success just waiting to happen. Check it out for yourself and maybe chip in a few dollars if you're feeling generous.
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Source: Kickstarter


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Zontar

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Feb 18, 2013
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Ah strike Force, when I see your name I can never tell which of the dozens upon dozens of teams of fictional characters owned by different companies you are. For a moment I thought this may be another one of Marvel's attempts to make big money off a team no one's heard about until I saw the "Kickstarter" part of the title.
 

J.McMillen

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Sep 11, 2008
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This wasn't a classic superhero RPG. It was a source book for Champions. So I'm pretty sure you're going to need that hefty tome to be able to use this.
 

Deacon Cole

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J.McMillen said:
This wasn't a classic superhero RPG. It was a source book for Champions. So I'm pretty sure you're going to need that hefty tome to be able to use this.
Would have been nice if the original article addressed this point. Is it a Hero system sourcebook, of have they written a new set of rules for it to make it it's own game?
 

JCAll

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Silentpony said:
I wonder if they're going to spend all their development money on blackjack and hookers...
They're doing research by having the hookers dress like superheroes.
 

Mortuorum

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J.McMillen said:
This wasn't a classic superhero RPG. It was a source book for Champions. So I'm pretty sure you're going to need that hefty tome to be able to use this.
Correct. And it looks like this is only going to be a campaign book, not a complete RPG with its own standalone rules. According to the Kickstarter page, it will have stats for Hero/Champions, ICONS and Savage Worlds, but I infer that Hero will be the "lead" system. Expect the writeups for other systems to require quite a lot of fiddling or errata to be playable.

Related, I had no idea that Aaron Allston had passed. I never had a chance to meet him, but he was a prolific writer who had a tremendous and undeniable impact on tabletop RPGs. Sad news.
 

ArcaneGamer

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Zontar said:
Ah strike Force, when I see your name I can never tell which of the dozens upon dozens of teams of fictional characters owned by different companies you are. For a moment I thought this may be another one of Marvel's attempts to make big money off a team no one's heard about until I saw the "Kickstarter" part of the title.
Who else wants a new Freedom Force game? I kind of do.
 

GamerForLife

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Feb 8, 2016
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J.McMillen said:
This wasn't a classic superhero RPG. It was a source book for Champions. So I'm pretty sure you're going to need that hefty tome to be able to use this.
Most of the Strike Force content was completely system agnostic. You didn't need Champions (or Hero System now) in order to use that content. Since Aaron's game was a Champions game, the character sheets presented were in that format. For the new book, I'll just quote from the Kickstarter campaign itself:
Aaron Allston's Strike Force presents the characters and villains of the setting in the Hero System, but we also have packages available to present these heroes and enemies in other rulesets such as Mutants and Masterminds, ICONS, and Savage Worlds.
So you don't need Hero System/Champions to take advantage of all of the advice on running a long-time super hero campaign.
 

Deacon Cole

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"Well-loved by gamers all over the world"

I never heard of it before. But then, I wasn't into Champions all that much, so I wouldn't have given anything associated with it a second glance.