Champions - The Assassin's Directory

How Not to Write a Champions Book

This project has been doomed from the get-go. First, it was delayed by Cliff Christiansen, as he was having troubles on it. Next, he brought in James Andrysik to help. That didn't accomplish anything, so they brought me into the project.

It was originally going to be one sourcebook, then Hero Games told us to split it into two - Murderer's Row and Assassin's Directory. We completed the first part of the project, getting mixed reviews on it - some hating it, some loving it. However, that part was supposed to be done by December 21st. Only one out of the three authors made that deadline (yup, it was me), and it took until January 15th to finish completely. In the interim, Steven Long joined in to add more characters to the mix.

Due to the size of the manuscript, a lot of the book was cut out. Three key characters - Taxidermist, Slasher, and especially the Boxer agents of Ying were cut, ruining at least 12 or more character writeups.

Meanwhile, the authors worked on Assassin's Directory, which was supposedly almost done. The book was completed in mid March and sent into Hero Games. It took Hero Games until July, the scheduled release of the book, to send it back to the authors for a rewrite.

All throughout this time, tempers were getting short between the authors. Finally, Cliff Christiansen withdrew from any editorial input on the project due to time considerations, letting David West and James Andrysik rewrite his characters for publication.

As of we last left the authors, they were still working on the project. That was until GenCon 1996. At that point, James was able to get Hero to officially cancel the book.

The Assassin's Directory will probably never come to light. HOWEVER, my material on the different natures of assassins has seen print and has gotten some pretty nice reviews. I will point out this information was panned by some at Hero Games as being too obtuse for the general populace...

...but it works great for those who play Shadowrun!

Go to http://www.tssproductions.com and download Shadowrun Supplemental #7. My article on assassins is in that online magazine. Adam Jury is the one who created TSS, and is now the webmaster for the new Shadowrun website. Check them both out!