Action-Heroes is the culmination of years of work in developing this system. I was running it at conventions in the Before Times, and I incorporated the feedback that I received into what has become the final text.
When I started up my game development Patreon during the early days of the pandemic, I started reworking the text into a game that I wanted to play (really, not making me all that much different from the many other game designers out there). I have posted some new material that I am developing for future releases for Action-Heroes as well.
In my background as a gamer, I have leaned heavily on "generic" games that can be used to realize a multitude of settings and character types, and this carried through into Action-Heroes. I took the lessons that I learned during years of running games like GURPS, Champions/Hero System, Heroes Unlimited, and the big gold book of Basic Roleplaying and combined them with evolving game design ideas and made them into something that I could run without things breaking down at the table.
I like simple games. Action-Heroes doesn't have a lot of moving parts to it. The most complicated part of character creation are Abilities, which are the building blocks of any sort of powers or special abilities that a character might have. There is a limited number of skills and attributes, and all of the mechanics of the game use 3d6 plus modifiers versus a target number for all forms of resolution.
There are no classes. You build the character that you want, and that fits into the world that the group is going to explore during play. There is advice on how the GM and the players can work together to center the story of the game around the player characters. An Action-Heroes game is about the players having their characters do big, cool things.
Everything that you need is in a single book. One of the reasons for making a game simple is so that you can get as much as possible into one book. There will be expansions of rules, books of creatures, and even setting material coming for Action-Heroes in the future, but everything that a group needs for play is in the book.
While the ashcan edition is a complete game, it is not the full text of the final game. There will be appendixes in the final book that feature an alternate system for magic in the game, guidance for collaborative world building for your game's settings, and some worked examples on using the Abilities system for making special abilities for your character. Action-Heroes is a robust game that comes in a small package, and the release of this ashcan is only the first step in rolling out this brand new role-playing game.
You can sign up for the game's mailing list at the Outland Entertainment website. This will keep you posted on new developments and releases, as well as notifying you when the game's Kickstarter is going to start. You can also see previews of some of the interior art at that page.
Would you like to talk about Action-Heroes with me on your blog or podcast? Drop me a line via the contact box at the top left of the screen, or use the Twitter link at the bottom of the post to contact me there.