Frenzy. Art by Doug Cenko

The Story behind Blood of Heroes.

All names withheld. Everything contained within is from my personal perspective. All the events detailed within are based on the information I was provided with by the parties involved. Actual events may have been different. This letter is not meant to reflect a negative opinion of any of the parties involved. It only serves to answer questions posed by the customers of Pulsar Games, Inc.

It is the policy of Pulsar Games Inc. to build a relationship with our players and customers. In a rebounding market, only through communication with our players can we provide a quality product and give them what they want. In addition, we strive to keep our customers informed of current events and products. It was with this policy in mind that I wrote this letter.

In 1996 DC comics pulled the rights from Mayfair games to sell their "DC Super Heroes Role Playing Game." Though the game was discontinued, it contained one of the most versatile and adaptable set of game mechanics in the super hero RPG (Role Playing Game) genre. Having built up a catalog of over 300 original characters and campaign settings, the founders of Pulsar Games tossed around the idea of purchasing the Mayfair's exponential game system and re-releasing it with new characters. Since Mayfair had created this system, they still owned the rights to produce it without DC's characters. However, without the significant draw of DC comic book characters Mayfair choose not to release a new super hero role-playing game using the system. In addition the company began to focus on other types of gaming other than role playing. (Editors Note: Elements of the system do still exist in Mayfair's RPG "Underground.")

Seizing this opportunity the founders of Pulsar Games Incorporated approached Mayfair about purchasing the system outright. Reluctant to sell their game mechanics, but open to the idea, Mayfair offered to lease Pulsar Games, Inc. the rights to use their game mechanics. During the next year Pulsar Games, Inc. and Mayfair negotiated a contract for the lease of their "exponential game system." After much correspondence a contract was agreed upon and sent to Pulsar Games.

Pulsar Games reviewed the contract, signed it, and returned it to Mayfair to be signed by their appointed representative. After a few weeks of no response, we called Mayfair about the delay only to learn the company had closed down!!! Unbeknownst to us, Mayfair had been having financial troubles and a secured creditor had foreclosed on the company. The contract sat on the CEO's desk, with my signature on it, waiting to be signed.

We soon discovered that most of Mayfair's staff had been dismissed, including the CEO, and that only a few staff members remained to oversee the facilities. We were then directed to continue our correspondence with a lawyer in Chicago, IL, who presumably worked for the secured creditor that foreclosed on the company. This lawyer was placed in charge of Mayfair games affairs, until the company was sold to its new owner(s). We were instructed by the attorney that the contract could not be signed, until the company was sold, and the new owner approved the contract.

During the time of contract negotiation, Pulsar Games began preparation for the release of their new super hero role-playing game, Blood of Heroes. Anticipating time restrictions on the contract, Pulsar Games put their current project, a new sci-fi game, on hold and began working on Blood of Heroes. When the negotiations stalled, the company staff sat there not knowing what do. Having already shifted production over to Blood of Heroes the company had not yet completed key parts of it's other projects. If the Mayfair negotiations fell through, Pulsar Games would be years behind schedule in our product releases. This, of course, would have been disastrous for a small company such as ourselves.

Fortunately for us, after about four months passed we were informed that Mayfair games was being bought by one of several bidders. In reality, the companies warehousing facilities were purchased by a prominent dice manufacturer, while the companies other holdings were purchased by another game company. Mayfair was now back in business, under new owners, and allowed to continue under their previous name, rather than being incorporated into the purchasing company. (A remarkable recovery in the game industry.)

Evidently the new owners of Mayfair Games Incorporated did not intend to peruse a new role-playing game using their exponential system. As a result, the contract was approved and after years of waiting Pulsar Games finally had the rights to use Mayfair's exponential games system in their new and first role playing game, Blood of Heroes.

With valuable time lost Pulsar Games now had to work on a rapid schedule in order to release Blood of Heroes during the GENCON convention of '98. Integrating the new rules and characters, Pulsar Games staff worked overtime to finish the project. Again, luck was with us, and Blood of Heroes will, with any luck, hit the market on August 6th, 1998 at the GENCON game convention.

The Story behind Blood of Heroes, Part 2.

Please forgive this stream-of-consciousness writing, and my melodramatic manner. The saga continues...

I bet you thought the scoop behind Pulsar Games, Inc. acquiring Mayfair's Exponential Game System (MEGS) was over. Well, it's not! There are more stories to tell and new horrors to reveal!

When last we left our intrepid game company, Pulsar Games, they had just experienced a near brush with death. Well, admittedly, that's a bit of an exaggeration (even with the great GENCON flood of '98). What actually happened was Pulsar Games had almost lost out on acquiring MEGS.

Here's where it gets good.

Pulsar Games was working frantically to get the Blood of Heroes out in time for GENCON '98, putting our other projects Project Pulsar on hold. About two weeks before GENCON the book was at out ­incompetent- printer. Happily reproducing by the hundreds. Then we got "the e-mail".

The e-mail was from one of the original creators of the system. To be nice, we'll call him Mr. X. Mr. X informed us that Mayfair could not sell us the rights to use MEGS because HE owned it. You can imagine our dismay, when we heard this ­ especially with the book already at the printers and scheduled for GENCON release in TWO WEEKS. We were panicked. How could this be? How could such a monumental screw up occur?

We informed Mr. X that he had really crappy timing, and the book was already at the printers, and scheduled for GENCON release. After a series of e-mail conversations Mr. X, who I might add was very nice about the whole thing, he said that he did not care if we released our game and wished us well. However, he did have a beef with whomever owned the system. Obviously, if Mr. X. did own the system he was being cheated out of some serious monetary compensation and people were licensing his intellectual property with consent. Mr. X claimed that he would call Mayfair and get to bottom of things. We asked that he keeps us informed, and he agreed.

A cannot tell you what a sigh of relief rushed over the group when we found out the Mr. X was not mad at us, and would not stop us from releasing BLOOD OF HEROES at GENCON. However, we were understandably dismayed about the whole incident.

So Blood of Heroes was released and all was well, right? Well, yes and no. Blood of Heroes WAS successfully released at GENCON '98. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy and supported the company. However, the MEGS story is far from over and I fear it will continue forever.

A few months ago, we were informed of several requests by the MEGS owner's lawyer. (Say that three times fast.) Er, the lawyer representing the owner of MEGS. Ah, that's better. They informed us that they wanted their money. Which is understandable they get a percentage of every BLOOD OF HEROES book sold. Yet we still sell it for $25, despite the fact that's it's over 350 pages and everybody gets apiece. What a deal!!! Sorry, just tooting my own horn. They also informed us that Mayfair did not own the system as we had incorrectly printed in BLOOD OF HEROES!

We were stunned! We also had this sinking feeling, and the phrase "here we go again" kept repeating in my head, but I digress. They told us that the system was owned by Janet Bromely. Honest.

Here we go. Deep breath. This is what we've pieced together. It's all hearsay, and we can't verify any of it. Well, we can, but some things are better left unasked. Evidently when Mayfair was sold, the previous owners realized that the MEGS system was still going to be used. As a result when Mayfair was sliced up and sold to different buyers, the former owners did not sell the rights to the game system with the rest of the company.

Regardless, Pulsar Games still has the rights to produce BLOOD OF HEROES using MEGS.

So with all this said and done, Pulsar Games is still around and our second product, the Sidekick Sourcebook, is ready to go the printers. (Cross your fingers).

Thanks to Mr. X. Where ever you are.

Some of the information detailed within this letter is speculation and opinion. We bode no ill will towards any party involved, including Mayfair, in the continuing fiasco which is Pulsar Games licensing dept. Just to be clear, this whole story occurs before the current owners of Mayfair Games had purchased the company. Theyıre very nice people, you should stop by and say hi! But don't be surprised if no one over there has any idea what you're talking about when you mention this letter.

GENCON' 98

Pulsar Games has successfully returned from GENCON... but just barely.

Our first problem was with our hotel rooms. Being, my normal paranoid self, I decided to call the hotel and verify our rooms. I knew something was wrong by the distinctive "ugt oh" of the reservations operator. I was informed that since I made reservations for two rooms, for the same days, their computer assumed it was a duplication and erased one reservation. The hotel was of course fully booked up. However, to their credit, they were able to immediately find us another room in the hotel. This was to be but the first in a long series of events which did not bode well for Pulsar Games.

During the month before GENCON we encountered NUMEROUS problems. Initially, they were minor problems like, Next Day Air envelopes arriving two days late. Then the more serious problems with the printer became apparent. Slow response time, lack of inter-departmental coordination, and little cooperation all hampered our progress. When we finally straighten everything out, the printer informed us the deadline had been moved to "sometime after August 8th". It looked like we would not receive the book until after GENCON. This of course was totally unacceptable. The printer was made well aware of our August 6th deadline before we even signed the first price quote. The printer not only refused to move the date back, but would not give us a hard deadline for the books arrival. It was only after the printer was contacted by our legal staff threatening them with a law suit that they became somewhat more cooperative. In order to receive the book before our printer charged us an additional 20% for overtime and shipping. Left with little choice we were forced to pay, or GENCON and the books debut would be a disaster.

After packing up and leaving for GENCON we didn't get 15 miles out of Indianapolis before someone a few miles ahead of us, wrecked, burst into flames, and exploded all over the highway. I'm not making this up. Yes, I know cars are only supposed to explode in the movies. Well this basically brought I-65 to a screeching halt. Since the accident, had just occurred it was apparent that the EMS vehicles would not be showing up any time soon. Rather than sit in stopped traffic, I decided to cross the median and head south. (Thank god for trucks). I then took "Bob's ole' dirt road" to bypass the stopped stretch of I-65. Unfortunately, there was not a single road between Indianapolis, and Milwaukee, WI which did not have road construction.

Upon arriving at the new convention center, we asked convention staff which loading dock we needed to use. After receiving three different sets of directions from three different people, we decided to proceed to a loading dock (any loading dock would do) and ask someone there. The man at the loading dock informed us that we would have to drive out of town, take a number at a "dispatch center" and return to the dock when our number was called. Well, image our surprise at this statement since NO ONE ELSE WAS EVEN AT THE DOCK. So we followed this mans directions only to get lost. Very frustrated at this point, we called the office of the company staffing GENCON. They informed us that we were on the wrong side of town, and that we would have to contact their staff directly at GENCON (thank god for cellular phones). We called their makeshift office at GENCON who informed us to come back to the loading dock. Upon arriving at the loading dock, a new employee informed us that the loading dock was only wide enough for vehicles to go one direction. We responded "that's fine, we only want to go up." Then man responded that we would have to once again to this mythical dispatch center and "take a number." It made perfect sense, I mean we wouldn't want to deny this huge line of non-existent people their rightful access to the loading dock. Frustrated with the current state of affairs we once again called the convention staff who informed us that he would allow us to go proceed up the dock. Returning to the dock, we were informed that the dock manager had not received the message and we were not permitted to access the loading dock.

Is this getting tedious for you? Imagine how it was for us?

Apparently, the dock manager took pity on us and gave us a MAP to the dispatch area. Wow, what a novel concept. We went to this mysterious dispatch center, which in reality was a parking lot outside of town. There in a small trailer sat a nice lady, who gave us a number. She then promptly called the loading dock to find out if they had room for us. She was informed that they had plenty of room and that no one was there... imagine that. We then merrily took our little numbers and proceeded to the loading dock.

The first day of the convention arrived, and there were no books to be seen. Needless to say, we were not surprised. We called the printer to find out they had not received our check and refused to send the books. In addition, we had only 2 hours to wire them money, or do a credit card order (extra 4% charge) if we wished to receive the books by Friday. Well, after some extensive checking with Federal Express, I found out that the printer did indeed have the check. In fact, they were in possession of it since 10 am that morning. *SIGH* They immediately shipped the books. We never received an apology.

That night, the town of Brookfield, where our hotel was located received 10 to 12 inches of rain. By the time we got back to the hotel there was 3 feet of water in the parking lot. Again, I am not exaggerating. Cars were literally submerged. To keep their already water filled cars from being further damaged people left the headlights of the cars on... underwater. This was the only way we could see the submerged cars in the parking lot. The staff was forced to make a B-line for the front door of the hotel. We maneuvered around cars and deep water, driving over parking blocks and landscaping. (Again, thank god for trucks). Inside the hotel was, of course, without electricity. Emergency generators powered the lights, but other electric devices were not available. In addition, the hotel was fairly modern and the stairway was for emergency access only. As a result, there was only one set of stairs inside the hotel and they were on the far side of the hotel from our rooms.

The lack of power in the hotel made it impossible for the Pulsar staff to use the vast amount of computer equipment we lugged across three states. We were unable to make flyers, posters, buttons or any other advertising materials. So we spent our time watch the submerged headlights in the parking lot, dim, and flicker out. Unsure of whether the truck load of Blood of Heroes books would be able to make it to the hotel it was an uneasy night.

On a side note, our webmaster was not pleased when he was informed that there would be no shuttle to pick him up from the airport. When the taxi driver saw the hotel he refused to enter the water filled car lot. Our webmaster was forced to walk, knee deep in water, with all his bags to get to the hotel. Needless to say, he was not a happy camper.

The actual convention went fairly well, with sales of the book increasing each day. Once the convention was over, we were informed that you could get you number for the loading dock up to two hours in advance. Once you receive your number we would have to sit at the dispatch yard for two hours waiting for our number to be called. Rather than sitting around for two hours, after the convention we grabbed everything we could carry and ran it out the curb where the trucks were waiting.

Once we finally got moving, it was right back into traffic, where it took us 4 hours to go 150 miles... and we were only half way home!

Through it all... it was worth it. Thanks to everyone who supported Pulsar Games at GENCON!

GENCON '98, Part 2.

While at GENCON '98 Pulsar Games, Inc. held a number of contests and give-aways!

Pulsar Games, Inc. gave out over 800 free dice!

Pulsar Games, Inc. held a contest where the first person to roll doubles won 200 free dice! Ironically, the FIRST person who tried rolled double eightıs, winning all 200 dice!!! He was a stunned as we were. To all those who grabbed free dice, we later found out they like to roll doubles all the time!

Pulsar Games, Inc. gave out over 200 free promotional buttons with pictures of Anarchy Man, Power, Black Bird, and Dehumanizer. The artists held a contest (with their pride at stake) to see which buttons went out of stock the fastest. The winner was Ray Hedman's Dehumanizer, followed by Kevin Buckley's Hard-Ware, then Gary Clower's Power, and finally Todd Coe's Anarchy Man buttons were the last to go. We all found this terribly ironic since Anarchy Man is our most popular character to date.

Pulsar Games, Inc. artists signed buttons, books and free covers!

We handed out free copies of the Blood of Heroes cover art as a promotional give away for GENCON.

Kenneth B. Keller won a free Blood of Heroes book, #1 of 1000, signed by the authors and artists, for guessing the correct number of dice in our container! He justs needs to call us to claim it, cause he never stopped back by our booth!!!

Pulsar Games ran some great demo's of our Blood of Heroes game at the convention. If you would like to demos for us at other conventions, let us know!!!

If you liked the posters we hung at our booth, ask our art director about ordering prints!

Despite the troubles of getting to and from GENCON it was worth it. We enjoyed talking with the gamers and other manufactures, and hoped you enjoyed talking with us.