Changing HERO - What are the limits?

[DeadlyUematsu]

After reading the design considerations thread, I am interested in what people think are exactly the limits for changing HERO (before it becomes a better idea of finding another game or making one from scratch)?

[Duke Bushido]

I'm just curious---

why should there be limits? Everyone tailors to some degree; who's to say when I have gone to far to serve the needs of my group?

[Super Squirrel]

I think that if you decide you need a system that doesn't use a point system, you have stepped beyond the edge of Hero Games.

[Trebuchet]

I think that if you decide you need a system that doesn't use a point system, you have stepped beyond the edge of Hero Games.While I think this is a pretty good indicator you've wandered off the Hero reservation, it's probably not the only one. Other likely candidates I can think of offhand might include totally scrapping the Speed Chart for an initiative roll or changing to a percentile system for combat and/or Skills. Dumping/amalgamating several Characteristics seems another probable indicator you've wandered away from core Hero.

[Storn]

While I think this is a pretty good indicator you've wandered off the Hero reservation, it's probably not the only one. Other likely candidates I can think of offhand might include totally scrapping the Speed Chart for an initiative roll or changing to a percentile system for combat and/or Skills. Dumping/amalgamating several Characteristics seems another probable indicator you've wandered away from core Hero.


Here is my break pt. When you can no longer use the character stat blocks as written, it is no longer Hero.

We've done away with the Speed chart and modified End rules. However, those stats are intact, in play and are very much relevant.

Doing away with the speed chart is not wandering off the reservation... because one can easily play Hero if EVERYONE is a 3 speed. Or 10 speed, that is just different point costs.

If Dex is 4 pts or 2 pts, it matters to Chargen... but in play, Dex is stil Dex and still influences the same things.

[Lord Mhoram]

To me, as long as everything that changed can be book legal (but you make it free or have it be a transparent rule) by the core rules.

Dropped the Speed chart, but everyone gets to act 3 or 4 times then gets a recovery.... that is just everyone has a 3 or 4 speed, with the speed chart being invisible.

Have a dice based init - everyone has a +/- dex, init only - variable effect.

As long as the changes could be "reverse engineered" to a legal power of some sort, then that is still HERO to me. Although removing a characterristic or two, and or adding one or two would likely still fall under my umbrella, even though it doesn't fit my above description - I like Storns "if you can read the statblock" idea there.

[atlascott]

I like the distinction between randomly generated versus built characters, and really, I find that building characters is the heart of the HERO system. Other than a random superhero generator found in Champions III (I think), I do not know how you'd do random character gen in HERO (given all the different genres) and still call it Hero.

I think a game is still powered by hero if it uses most of the stats and powers to describe game action. Who cares if some group threw out END, if they are still using CV's and 3d6 to hit? I think throwing out the speed chart per se is advisable--its cumbersome.

I guess I'd say that if a system uses HERO rules, it is powered by HERO, even if it modifies quite a bit to fit genre conventions or players' preferences. HERO is a toolkit, after all. Even a character sheet that bears no resemblance to the HERO stat block is fine, as long as the characters are essentially defined by the HERO system.

[Markdoc]

To me there are three defining points.

The first is if you can simply give another hero player the character sheet and it makes sense to them: that means no really dramatic changes to the basic system

The second is if you can discuss your game without needing lots of extra clarification.

The third is if you can take a character from one game and move him to another GM's game without making major changes.

To take two examples: in my heroic level games I like combat to be chaotic and a little bit scary - so I randomise the SPD chart. That affects the way combat plays out, but it alters nothing on the character sheet: SPD costs the same, and works the same - SPD 4 gets twice as many actions as SPD2 and 2/3 as many as SPD6. It also doesn't affect rules discussions or the relative balance of powers. So a character from my game could move to another FH game without any changes and vice versa.

On the other hand, in a recent thread, Zornwill asked for input on a change to damage reduction and almost everyone reacted really negatively until he explained that he had also altered the way damage and defences interacted. At that point, most people responded that it was hard to say what the effect would be, because it was completely out of their experience. I think at that point you've moved to a game based on Hero system, rather than Hero system, because the changes, while not enormous in themselves are cumulative - no other GM could comment meaningfully on any one of them without knowing about the others. That's also going to change chargen - characters viable in that game would not play at all the same way if shifted to another game and vice versa.

In the same vein, I regard Turakian age as "based on hero system" rather than a hero system game because magic-using characters in that setting are so divergent from the core rules they would need to be completely altered to move to a non-Turakian game. Valdorian age by contrast is a Hero setting, because although there are many setting specific and chargen rules, all of them are compliant to the core rules or pretty close. The sorcery favour rules are a little divergent but can easily be made compliant to core rules without greatly affecting the way the character plays - indeed, I have done exactly that for my own FH game.

cheers, Mark

[ghost-angel]

The break point is when you decide you need to emulate another system to get the feel of the genre you're playing.

Hero is not a System Emulator, it's a Genre Emulator.

I will allow that games involving new players can make concessions to incorporate the familiar with the unfamiliar - but you should never directly emulate another system. If you are, or are trying, then go to that system.

[RDU Neil]

To me there are three defining points.

The first is if you can simply give another hero player the character sheet and it makes sense to them: that means no really dramatic changes to the basic system

The second is if you can discuss your game without needing lots of extra clarification.

The third is if you can take a character from one game and move him to another GM's game without making major changes.

To take two examples: in my heroic level games I like combat to be chaotic and a little bit scary - so I randomise the SPD chart. That affects the way combat plays out, but it alters nothing on the character sheet: SPD costs the same, and works the same - SPD 4 gets twice as many actions as SPD2 and 2/3 as many as SPD6. It also doesn't affect rules discussions or the relative balance of powers. So a character from my game could move to another FH game without any changes and vice versa.

On the other hand, in a recent thread, Zornwill asked for input on a change to damage reduction and almost everyone reacted really negatively until he explained that he had also altered the way damage and defences interacted. At that point, most people responded that it was hard to say what the effect would be, because it was completely out of their experience. I think at that point you've moved to a game based on Hero system, rather than Hero system, because the changes, while not enormous in themselves are cumulative - no other GM could comment meaningfully on any one of them without knowing about the others. That's also going to change chargen - characters viable in that game would not play at all the same way if shifted to another game and vice versa.

In the same vein, I regard Turakian age as "based on hero system" rather than a hero system game because magic-using characters in that setting are so divergent from the core rules they would need to be completely altered to move to a non-Turakian game. Valdorian age by contrast is a Hero setting, because although there are many setting specific and chargen rules, all of them are compliant to the core rules or pretty close. The sorcery favour rules are a little divergent but can easily be made compliant to core rules without greatly affecting the way the character plays - indeed, I have done exactly that for my own FH game.

cheers, Mark

While I get where you are coming from... there is something to be said for the fact that "Based on Hero" is definitively different than "a Hero game." This is highly subjective as to where that line is.

In your SPD example... while my game still has a SPD stat that is bought and paid for the same way... I have tossed the SPD chart and the interpretation of that SPD stat is different in game play. I can have 10 SPD characters that don't totally dominate a 6 SPD character... if you were to take those sheets to a game playing strictly "by the book" those two players would have very different game experiences.

The concept of a 100% transferable character is a pipe dream. So much of how the stats on a page play out in a game is based on tiny, often unconscious intepretations, perceptions, group dynamics, etc. There is no way to say "This character will work just as well in any Hero game."

Granted a Valdorian Age spellcaster needs a lot less "exception explanation" than a Turakian Age spellcaster... but likely it will need some. It is all just a sliding scale of modifications. Two people may agree that one build is "farther from the core" than another... but you'll likely never get two to agree at which point one build crossed the line of "Based on Hero but not Hero."

[RDU Neil]

The break point is when you decide you need to emulate another system to get the feel of the genre you're playing.

Hero is not a System Emulator, it's a Genre Emulator.

I will allow that games involving new players can make concessions to incorporate the familiar with the unfamiliar - but you should never directly emulate another system. If you are, or are trying, then go to that system.

This is a good point. I would add, it is one thing to say, "I want to simulate an attack that never misses" and another to say, "I want to build Magic Missile." It is often hard to determine which side of that line emulation might fall.

[ghost-angel]

This is a good point. I would add, it is one thing to say, "I want to simulate an attack that never misses" and another to say, "I want to build Magic Missile." It is often hard to determine which side of that line emulation might fall.
Here's where I put the line:
Need to convery the spells from DnD to Hero so the players (who have only played DnD) can move from one system to the other? Go for it.

Need to rebuild the Spell Level based on Character Level structure? Go back to DnD.

[Markdoc]

While I get where you are coming from... there is something to be said for the fact that "Based on Hero" is definitively different than "a Hero game." This is highly subjective as to where that line is.

In your SPD example... while my game still has a SPD stat that is bought and paid for the same way... I have tossed the SPD chart and the interpretation of that SPD stat is different in game play. I can have 10 SPD characters that don't totally dominate a 6 SPD character... if you were to take those sheets to a game playing strictly "by the book" those two players would have very different game experiences.

That's true - but (for argument's sake if nothing else) I would suggest that that's true of any game, even a highly defined one like D&D - as you noted, shifting a character to a new game always leads to some changes since so much is based on shared group experience.

I would draw a line (though a slightly fuzzy one) between characters who would have a different game experience, and those that simply cannot translate without being changed.

To stick with SPD as an example, your game and mine both have different SPD rules from the core rules, but they both have a SPD stat which costs the same and I presume they both allow the higher SPD character to act more frequently - or something similar. But I played in a game (actually, with Karl, the same GM who earlier had run Ars for us, who I mentioned before) where we had no SPD stat. It turned out to be a frightful idea and we dumped it after a short campaign but those characters could not have been translated to a standard game without significantly changing them (ie: either giving them 20-40 extra points or carving back their other powers/skills/characteristics by the same amount).

It's still a grey area, of course, because people will disagree on what's "unplayable" but it works for me as a rule of thumb - and not just for Hero but for any rule system.

cheers, Mark

[Super Squirrel]

I don't think dropping the SPD chart breaks it.

You could do a Shadowrun type deal where you roll SPD d6 and add DEX. If the highest person has a 36, they go at 36, 26, 16, and 6 giving them four actions. The player that rolls a 27 goes at 27, 17, and 7 getting a total of three actions. Drops the SPD chart and doesn't "kill" the system IMO.

[Chris Goodwin]

I would say the stuff that has made it through every edition and every game Hero has produced is at least part of Hero's identity, if not essential. The 14 core stats. Skills. Disadvantages, especially the frequency/power paradigm of building them. Base points plus disadvantages. 11+OCV-DCV. Combat maneuvers. Normal damage vs. Killing damage. Physical vs. Energy. Phases. Post-12 recovery. Half-move and attack. I'm sure there are others.

[Phil]

Personally, I'm going to disagree with pretty much everyone. Because HERO, as described on the cover of the very book itself, is a toolkit. That means, to my mind, anything built with that toolkit is still fundamentally HERO system. Even if it doesn't use all of the tools in the kit, even if the end result couldn't be plugged into someone elses end result and still work. To my mind, HERO is a big long list of rules, and you pick the ones you want and build a game.

I'm working up a fantasy game. I've changed most point costs. I've changed the stats. I've changed the char/5 rolls. I've added an awful lot of skills. But all of this has been done using the design principles of HERO. Combat is still fundamentally 3d6, CV and DCV, but you probably wont recognise how it looks because I've completely changed the front end. I've also changed the back-end, because I want a damage system based on Hit roll not a bucket of dice. But the game mechanics underneath it all still chug and churn in pretty much the way that FRED describes, and the end result will still be a range of STUN and BOD damage from x to y, just with a flatter probability curve.

To me, the distinction between 'HERO' and 'Based on HERO' is no distinction at all, because the game as written us explicitly meant for tinkering, tweaking, adding and subtracting. The real distinction comes in something like SAS, which is 'Influenced by HERO' - then you're getting into the realms of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes and dodgy movie remakes of 70s TV series!

[Doc Democracy]

I'm with Phil. To me Hero is almost a design philosophy and I can use the bits and pieces provided to me in the toolkit to make the game that I want.

Now, it is obviously much better for transferability if somewhere there is a character sheet with numbers on it that could be taken to another HERO GM and say "Can I play this character" and he could discuss what would and would not be allowable in his game but (in my mind) not necessarily.

I think that Phil's system would need some explanation to HERO GMs but that they would recognise things as HERO based rather than a new game. They would be able to see the origins of the game and they would very quickly adapt and be able to 'play the game' rather than get bogged down with how the system worked (because they already 'know' it).

I think it would be nearly impossible to come to a core set of details because you'll always find someone that has changed one element of that core set in their game and still feel that they are playing HERO.


Doc

[Sean Waters]

I agree with everyone.

Obviously.

On the one hand, you've bought the game, you do what you like with it, you are still playing a version of Hero.

OTOH, if you do customise your game a lot it is going to be difficult to discuss problems and solutions with (say) the posters to this board - they won't have your game experience.

Why I would like to see is some more toolkitting built into the rules. It is there a bit. Pleanty of combat options: let's open that up a little. Why not have an OFFICIAL alternative to the speed chart, some dicussion or even suggestions for alternative pricing strategies and so on.

*sigh* Because, Sean, the book would then run to a little over 2000 pages...

Yeah, but APART from that....

[Doc Democracy]

Why I would like to see is some more toolkitting built into the rules. It is there a bit. Pleanty of combat options: let's open that up a little. Why not have an OFFICIAL alternative to the speed chart, some dicussion or even suggestions for alternative pricing strategies and so on.

*sigh* Because, Sean, the book would then run to a little over 2000 pages...

Yeah, but APART from that....


I think that toolkitting is an advanced part of a HERO gamers experience and, as such, have no problems with such a thing being part of the Ultimate line.

The Ultimate Toolkit - now that's a book I'd pre-order and buy one or two copies of...


Doc

[Sean Waters]

I think that toolkitting is an advanced part of a HERO gamers experience and, as such, have no problems with such a thing being part of the Ultimate line.

The Ultimate Toolkit - now that's a book I'd pre-order and buy one or two copies of...


Doc


Now that is an idea and a half.

Storming.

[Phil]

Damn fine idea. We've got the toolkit, now it's about time Steve published an instruction manual! I'd buy one of those as well, but I'd rather it didn't have the same instructions repeated eight times over in different languages...

[ghost-angel]

Damn fine idea. We've got the toolkit, now it's about time Steve published an instruction manual! I'd buy one of those as well, but I'd rather it didn't have the same instructions repeated eight times over in different languages...
Some of them upside down, forcing you to close the book turn it over flip it around and read it again in Spanish.

[RDU Neil]

Damn fine idea. We've got the toolkit, now it's about time Steve published an instruction manual! I'd buy one of those as well, but I'd rather it didn't have the same instructions repeated eight times over in different languages...

Actually, in a serious note, this begs the question:

Is Hero 5th supposed to be the Toolkit or the Instruction Manual? I think this may be part of the confusion, since we are talking about metaphorical tools, not real ones. As written, the current material is not clear... it tries to do both... and it is hard to understand the intent. From a documentation side, we see this in corporate communication. There is a difference between a User Manual and a Training Guide, but people expect them to be the same, or to accomplish both, which makes for confusing, muddled documentation. Hero... understandably for what it is, mixes the tool with the instructions and interpretation (from these boards and such) so that it can be very difficult to tell what is a basic "tool" and what is rule/instruction on how to use that tool.

[Dust Raven]

Personally, I'm going to disagree with pretty much everyone. Because HERO, as described on the cover of the very book itself, is a toolkit. That means, to my mind, anything built with that toolkit is still fundamentally HERO system. Even if it doesn't use all of the tools in the kit, even if the end result couldn't be plugged into someone elses end result and still work. To my mind, HERO is a big long list of rules, and you pick the ones you want and build a game.

I'm not with Phil on this one (sorry Phil).

The movie Starship Troopers was 'based on' a book of the same name, but as anyone who's watched/read both will tell you, one is not the other. The same goes for a game system. You might be able to say it's based on certain rules, but if you aren't actually using those rules, all they are is "based on" them.

I typically draw the line like this: If you are using more house rules than core rules, you are playing a different game and incorperating some Hero System into it. It doesn't really matter what Hero rules you are using, just that if you are using more rules that aren't Hero, you no longer playing Hero.

[Doc Democracy]

I'm not with Phil on this one (sorry Phil).

Don't apologise to him - it only makes him feel the need to be more argumentative! :)


The movie Starship Troopers was 'based on' a book of the same name, but as anyone who's watched/read both will tell you, one is not the other. The same goes for a game system. You might be able to say it's based on certain rules, but if you aren't actually using those rules, all they are is "based on" them.

I typically go for feel. The Starship Troopers film was nothing like the book in terms of plot but I thought it had the right feel. I felt like I was watching something from the same universe as the when I was reading the book. My knowledge of the book made it easy for me to follow the film.

In the game I expect the same. When playing Hero I have certain expectations about gameplay. If I find them in a game 'based on' Hero then to me I am still playing Hero. If I am continually brought up short by 'Ah. Well that doesn't work like this in my game' then I don't feel as if I'm playing Hero. It is a subjective standard and will change from one person's expectations to anothers.

All of this is subjective though. Interesting as it is to read.


Doc

[Killer Shrike]

The essense of HERO to me is the idea that abilities beyond the norm should be charged for, abilities should be scalable and extendible where possible, each character gets a finite amount of points with which to buy those abilities, and both the ceiling and floor of what is buyable are determined by the GM based upon the setting they are trying to model.

Quite a lot can be sheltered under that umbrella and still be essentially HERO System, or at least HERO System inspired to me.

Im much more concerned that someone who is going off the reservation realizes that they are doing so and further WHY they are doing so, than the fact that they are doing so.

My pet peeve is when people don't understand what the system can do for them as is, and so go off kitbashing some clumsy and unnecessary construct, claiming all the while that the system doesnt do whatever it is they are trying to accomplish. On the otherhand if someone says "I understand that this can be done in X fashion, BUT feel that it improperly models the feel Im going for and so Im handling it in Y fashion", Ive got absolutely no issue with that.

[Mentor]

While I am generally of the toolkit opinion, there are still limits of definition and whether that is the only question. If I take a hero character to Killer Shrike's or Doc Democracy or Dust Raven and propose it for their game with the PC write up and explanation and they look at me like , "Where did that write up come from?" then I have likely created something other than a Hero character.

On the other hand, I may present a character sheet that is simple, elegant and completely book legal and even falling within the power limitations set by the GMs afore mentioned,and they can and should reject it immediately if there is no possibility of integrating the PC into their campaign because of balance orpersonality or power fit.

Being official Hero, even within my relatively loose definition, does not equal being appropriate to a campaign.

[Sean Waters]

I suspect most Hero built characters would run in most Hero type games no matter how much the rules had changed (got rid of the speed chart and use something else? Fine, so long as you still use speed in some form). Might affect the EFFECTIVENESS of the charcacters but they would still be playable.

OTOH character BUILD changes (like re-costing strength or removing INTELLIGENCE from the character build) WOULD make it almost impossible to carry across between games.

So, I'd venture to suggest that changes to the rules of Hero make little difference to whether a game is Hero, but changes to the character building rules would.

Now I know some genres (FH for instance) do this anyway, re-costing spells or whatever. To me that makes the characters non-transferable, which makes for problems. Of course re-costing is less of a problem than (say) completely removing characteristics, but it still means we a re playing, in effect, different games.

[Killer Shrike]

Transferability of characters is only important if you are doing a cross genre style game, like Rifts, or where characters can skip between dimensions of differing genres like my old Cross Time Continuum campaign.


I mean how often do you take a Turakian Age character into a Champions Universe campaign or Terran Empire campaign?

Not often Im betting.


The only real importance in the vast majority of scenarios is that characters are built consistently within the CONTEXT of the SETTING they are being used in. As an example using published settings, a character designed to use Valdorian Age rules for Skill Maxima and Magic System is not intended to be ported into a Turakian Age as is, and vice versa. The character creation rules for the two Settings have some different expectations and assumptions and they are not 100% compatible in all cases.

Does that mean that one or the other or both are not "HERO"?


Of course not. They are both HERO. Ability to port a particular character from setting to setting is something a GM can accomplish within their own games if they want, but it's not a design requirement of the HERO System itself. The System has a lot of flexibility in both character design and rules resolution, and trying to crystalize them so that only one implementation is correct is not only not HERO, it is the antithesis of HERO.

[Killer Shrike]

And by the way, anyone coming into my campaign with an existing character and expecting to play them as is without any changes to background or build are in for a rude awakening.

I don't care what game system, HERO or not, all characters coming into my games are subjected to rigorous review and will be tweaked to suit.

If you don't like it you can either make a new character abiding by the same design process all the other PC's went thru, or hit the road.

[Sean Waters]

And by the way, anyone coming into my campaign with an existing character and expecting to play them as is without any changes to background or build are in for a rude awakening.

I don't care what game system, HERO or not, all characters coming into my games are subjected to rigorous review and will be tweaked to suit.

If you don't like it you can either make a new character abiding by the same design process all the other PC's went thru, or hit the road.

OK

[Mentor]

And by the way, anyone coming into my campaign with an existing character and expecting to play them as is without any changes to background or build are in for a rude awakening.

I don't care what game system, HERO or not, all characters coming into my games are subjected to rigorous review and will be tweaked to suit.

If you don't like it you can either make a new character abiding by the same design process all the other PC's went thru, or hit the road.
Precisely my point. Individual campaigns are so unique that legal Hero construction legality alone is no assurance of acceptability.

[Sean Waters]

Well, OK, I'm not suggesting any of my characters should play in any of your games. What I am suggesting is that if I posted a character anyone familiar with Hero should be able to look at the character sheet and understand it in the context of a Hero character.

If the sheet starts off:

STR
DEX
CON
INT
EGO
COM

and pretty much stops there, I'd say you are probably not playing Hero any more, you are playing something else.....

To me many of the actual rules are largely secondary to the character generation process. It is that that largely makes Hero unique. Change that by more than a few points and you are sailing out of Hero waters.

Now I'll be round next Tuesday to play and you don't even get to see the character DURING the game let alone review it beforehand....

[Killer Shrike]

Well, HERO Stats have this thing called a "DEFAULT VALUE", so if for some reason someone posted a character excluding certain attributes, assume they are defaulted if you want to use them in your game.

If they've added some characteristics, then just find out what they are for and decide if you can ignore them or want to proxy them if for some reason you wanted to use them for your game.

It really isnt that big of a deal. As you say many of the elements of rules resolution are decoupled or abstracted away from character design.

[ghost-angel]

And by the way, anyone coming into my campaign with an existing character and expecting to play them as is without any changes to background or build are in for a rude awakening.

I don't care what game system, HERO or not, all characters coming into my games are subjected to rigorous review and will be tweaked to suit.

If you don't like it you can either make a new character abiding by the same design process all the other PC's went thru, or hit the road.
You just became one of my hero's, I wish all GMs thought like that.

[Hugh Neilson]

I mean how often do you take a Turakian Age character into a Champions Universe campaign or Terran Empire campaign?

And if you are doing so, you simply triple the cost of his spells to get a comparable character. Not too tough.

Characters moving between games in the same genre may not play well if the ground rules don't line up (eg. move a 12 DC attacker from a game with a 12 DC damage cap into a game where the average is 16 DC, and his role is completely changed).

[TheRavenIs]

I have played Hero from the time it started out as Champion's. I can't see anything that drops the stat's as they are, adds new ones, modifies old ones, as Hero.
I think that 'house rules' are good and I use them, but I DO NOT!!, drop the way a C is made or how the system is designed to do. I play Hero because that it is the way is designed.
I make heroes that I couldn't make in another game system. I could do a C that was a SuperHero in d20, but it would have a different feel to it. The C's wouldn't be the way I wanted. I've played Marvel and DC, and even the heroes from the Rift system. All of them can be fun and have been, but I always come back to Hero.
I like that given the points you can make any hero from comics, any character from any movie, any setting. That's why to me Hero is not a toolkit but a system that unlike d20, doesn't require you to own alot of books to do a C. All you need is the main book and a good mind, and good friends to help you do them.
I tried the Fuzion version of Hero and didn't like it. To me it wasn't the Hero system that I knew, it wasn't, plus it had ways of doing things that to me made it a bad remake of a great movie.
I think that Hero to be Hero, needs to stay as close to what it is now. I could see changes in how things are done, calculation of everything from CV, DCV, ECV, and skills. BUT even if you do that it has to still have the basic overall feel.
What I mean about 'feel' is that Hero allows just what a GN needs to do the game, no matter the type of game you wanted to play.

[Phil]

And by the way, anyone coming into my campaign with an existing character and expecting to play them as is without any changes to background or build are in for a rude awakening.

I don't care what game system, HERO or not, all characters coming into my games are subjected to rigorous review and will be tweaked to suit.

If you don't like it you can either make a new character abiding by the same design process all the other PC's went thru, or hit the road.
That was going to be my comment exactly. I never have and never will allow any player to just wander up with a character. Virtually every game has its house rules after all. HERO is even more significant, because of variable limitations where value is entirely down to GM discretion. It strikes me that there is only a marginal difference between "Not usable in strong magnetic fields, -1/2 in Sci-Fi game, -0 in Fantasy game" and "In this game STR costs 2 points per point because it's increased utility" and "In this game PRE and EGO into a single characteristic because it's genre convention that strong-willed and charisma go hand-in-hand".

After all, doubling the cost of STR is just a +1 Variable Limitation because the style of game means that STR is twice as effective as it might otherwise be, while the PRE/EGO example is just applying a -1 Limitation to each for reduced utility and dropping in a -0 Linked limitation. HERO is actively designed for just this sort of thing. It's not tinkering, it's good GMing!

A classic example of why HERO is a tool kit. A classic example of why characters aren't and shouldn't be transferable. A classic example of how what may appear not to be HERO in fact *is*: book legal, justifiable and all, but perhaps not presented in a way where you can see the inner workings. Which for many players in my experience is not a bad thing!

[Phil]

Precisely my point. Individual campaigns are so unique that legal Hero construction legality alone is no assurance of acceptability.
All of which reminds me of a rather heated thread recently around this very point!

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=842286&postcount=1

[Doc Democracy]

I think that Hero to be Hero, needs to stay as close to what it is now. I could see changes in how things are done, calculation of everything from CV, DCV, ECV, and skills. BUT even if you do that it has to still have the basic overall feel.

To me that is the problem. When I play a sci-fi game I want the feel to be the fell I want for that game - I don't want it to feel like Hero in gameplay I want it to feel like my campaign.

I like the Hero system because it allows me to change the feel dependent upon which campaign I decide to run for my players.

I am currently designing a Gloranthe Hero game for my group. When I play that with them I want a Gloranthan feel to the game, not a Hero one. When I later decide to do Star Wars, or Babylon 5 then I want those feels - I don't want a Hero carryover between those games.

Now. I use Hero for them all because there will be basic assumptions about gameplay that carry over between the games that should help people get up to speed in playing but that should have nothing to do with the feel of the game except that it should remove mechanics from the equation and allow people to interact with my campaign.

In my view it is like a good soccer referee. If he's really good then you barely realise that he's on the pitch. If he's bad then you notice the referee as much as you notice the players playing the game.


Doc

[Phil]

In my view it is like a good soccer referee. If he's really good then you barely realise that he's on the pitch. If he's bad then you notice the referee as much as you notice the players playing the game.
Doc

Bah! Don't pander to them! It's football, man, football. A game where you kick a ball repeatedly with your foot, rather than pick it up and run around with it, which is surely Handball. Or Carryball. Or perhaps Majorimpactfollowedbyphysicaltraumaball.

[Doc Democracy]

Bah! Don't pander to them! It's football, man, football. A game where you kick a ball repeatedly with your foot, rather than pick it up and run around with it, which is surely Handball. Or Carryball. Or perhaps Majorimpactfollowedbyphysicaltraumaball.

I understand the point Phil but I was aiming for a broad understanding rather than trying to emphasise cultural differences! :)

[TheRavenIs]

I like the Hero system because it allows me to change the feel dependent upon which campaign I decide to run for my players.

I am currently designing a Gloranthe Hero game for my group. When I play that with them I want a Gloranthan feel to the game, not a Hero one. When I later decide to do Star Wars, or Babylon 5 then I want those feels - I don't want a Hero carryover between those games.

Now. I use Hero for them all because there will be basic assumptions about gameplay that carry over between the games that should help people get up to speed in playing but that should have nothing to do with the feel of the game except that it should remove mechanics from the equation and allow people to interact with my campaign.

Doc

Doc, I didn't explain the meaning of feel as well as I should. I was hoping to say what you said, that Hero being used as the means to make the game what ever you wanted it to be. The feel I ment was the basic way you do things, the way the rules are basically the same from game to game so it's easy for the player to play, as well as GM to GM.

[Phil]

Doc, I didn't explain the meaning of feel as well as I should. I was hoping to say what you said, that Hero being used as the means to make the game what ever you wanted it to be. The feel I ment was the basic way you do things, the way the rules are basically the same from game to game so it's easy for the player to play, as well as GM to GM.

I think that's actually quite a different thing to what you originally said. Here's a high-level list of the changes in my fantasy game:

all chars cost the same, 2 points per point
added Agility
removed Ego
added Perception
rename Intelligence to Lore
removed figured characteristics except for Stun which is Bod+Con/2+Pre/2
removed ED, renamed PD 'Toughness'
removed REC and END
Skills arent 9+Char/5, they're Skill-level+Char/3+Char/3+Char3 over target number (could be 3 different chars, could be just 1. A la Rolemaster)
added huge number of skills under broad skill categories. Skill categories cost 3 points per 'level', skills cost 1 point per level. No skill levels in a Skill Category gives -3 to all attempts to use that skill.
No OCV, instead have Melee Combat, Unarmed Combat and Ranged Combat Skill Categories, with subskills for broad weapon groups. Costs are 5 point for Skill categories, 3 points for skills (i.e. same as for CSLs)
No DCV, instead Combat Defence skill category with Ranged and Melee defence, at 5 and 3 points cost again.
STR doesnt add to weapon damage. Instead it adds to chance to hit, damage is then Base+ amount determined by degree of success

Looks very different to HERO doesnt it? But actually it isnt. All I've done is changed a few numbers, added a few more skills, removed characteristics that have no bearing to the game and changed the superficial appearance of things. But, as you say, the rules of my game will be "basically the same" - infact, more than that, they'll be the HERO rules to the letter. I'll be using HERO perception modifiers (scaled to the fact that skills are now effectively Char/1 not Char/5), I'll be using all the combat rules, I'm using Speed (though not the Spd chart as such, seems a bit pointless when SPD is either 2,3,4 or 5), I'm using hit locations, I'm using environmental damage. I'm even using Presence attacks. All of the interactions in the system will be exactly as HERO, but the numbers are on a different scale, Skills are more important than Chars, and you're rolling over not under.

Under your new definition, my game is definitely Hero, because the rules are "basically the same". Under your old definition, my game is as unHERO as its possible to be!

[Killer Shrike]

Got a web site for that campaign Phil?

[Doc Democracy]

Got a web site for that campaign Phil?

Right now its hot air and a spreadsheet! :)

He's frantically trying to put the campaign together before we want him to run a game for us...

Looks interesting though - we're all itching to play in early Middle Earth.


Doc

[Phil]

Right now its hot air and a spreadsheet! :)

And a little notebook. You don't know about the little notebook ;)

[Doc Democracy]

And a little notebook. You don't know about the little notebook ;)


Get back to work man - if you don't have time to lunch until next Friday you definitely dont have time to be on these boards!

[RDU Neil]

Phil's example is something I think would be really cool... and I would never fight over "is it Hero or just inspired by Hero"... but too my mind, it would be "Utilizing Hero concepts" and not really Hero...

... and this is because of the "feel" element. I believe Hero does have a unique feel to it, and to Docs point, I don't always want that feel in my games. Most of the time, yes, but fantasy is one where the "magic system" elements have never worked... unless they become quite a bit divorced from Hero.

I do think we need to recognize that something like "dropping ED and changing PD to Toughness" is no small thing. Analytically, in a deconstructionist way, sure... no big deal... but that is NOT the game... the game is in play... where tossing about "How tough are you" is VERY VERY VERY different than asking, "What is your PD?"

To say that "Toughness is like PD" is not the same thing as saying, "Toughness is PD" because in this case, it is not, since it works vs. Energy as well (assuming). It is a new system, for a new game... based on Hero... and may or may not be easier to learn for a Hero expert. I would rather the game be presented on it's own merits, rather than try to be sold to me as "a Hero game." I would come with too many ingrained expectations with a "Hero" label on it, that an "Early Middle Earth game" with a point build character system... ok then, I'm up for that!

I would have to say that "feel" really is the key point, and to be able to "feel" differently about a play experience requires new language, new thought processes, new decision making methods... and therefore becomes "not Hero for me.

But this is a good thing. I really like "Hero" and the way it feels for many games (Supers, guns & grit, martial arts, swashbuckling, etc.) and will use it with only a set of house rulles for that. Other things, where I think you need to build "based on Hero, but all new" is just fine as well... but it has crossed a line for me... a line I'm not sure I've crossed until I play the game and it "feels" different than Hero.

[Killer Shrike]

Categorically disagree w/ RDU's last post.

I think it really seems to come down to mindsets. Mechanics can look at a Malibu and a Grand Am and understand that they're really the same basic car underneath all the cosmetics. Some other people are more surface oriented and think they're two different cars.

[schir1964]

...Mechanics can look at a Malibu and a Grand Am and understand that they're really the same basic car underneath all the cosmetics. Some other people are more surface oriented and think they're two different cars.
Except that if one is built with a A-Frame and has a 6-Cyllinder engine and the other is built with a C-Frame and has a 4-Cyllinder engine, then you'll get varying agreement/disagreement between mechanics as to whether they are the same basic thing underneath.

Analogies prove nothing. They are only a different way to express ones opinion. (8^D)

Which isn't a bad thing either.

Just My Humble Opinion

- Christopher Mullins

[Killer Shrike]

Except that if one is built with a A-Frame and has a 6-Cyllinder engine and the other is built with a C-Frame and has a 4-Cyllinder engine, then you'll get varying agreement/disagreement between mechanics as to whether they are the same basic thing underneath. Just configurations on a basic framework. Superheroic vs Heroic, options vs no options, house rules vs no house rules.




Analogies prove nothing. They are only a different way to express ones opinion. (8^D)
Nothing proves anything when dealing with matters of opinion; that doesnt stop analogies as being an effective means of stating an opinion clearly.

[Dust Raven]

And by the way, anyone coming into my campaign with an existing character and expecting to play them as is without any changes to background or build are in for a rude awakening.

I don't care what game system, HERO or not, all characters coming into my games are subjected to rigorous review and will be tweaked to suit.

If you don't like it you can either make a new character abiding by the same design process all the other PC's went thru, or hit the road.

That's fair.

Of course, the line between bringing a Fantasy Hero character (regardless of setting and house rules) and a D&D character to your game is far from a fine line.

Also, drawing my own line where I do, I find all the Fantasy Hero setting fall on the Hero System side of it. Yes, there are some funky changes, but only a few, and those few apply only within a very narrow scope.

[Dust Raven]

To me that is the problem. When I play a sci-fi game I want the feel to be the fell I want for that game - I don't want it to feel like Hero in gameplay I want it to feel like my campaign.

I like the Hero system because it allows me to change the feel dependent upon which campaign I decide to run for my players.

I like this about the system as well, but I feel it's more of a GM talent than anything to do with the rules. When I want a campaign to have a certain "feel" to it, it's my job, not the rules, to accomplish it. I've run mainly Champions, but I've run Dark Champions recently and it takes some work to make the exposed mechanics (rolling dice) feel different. For example, in a Champions game, I want an attack roll to feel like a superheroic feat, something majestic, powerful and epic. In a Dark Champions game, I want an attack roll to feel like a gritty necessity, something desperate or calculated. In either case, it's just rolling 3 dice, but I want that roll to feel different in each campaign. The rules can't do that.

[Killer Shrike]

I like this about the system as well, but I feel it's more of a GM talent than anything to do with the rules. When I want a campaign to have a certain "feel" to it, it's my job, not the rules, to accomplish it. I've run mainly Champions, but I've run Dark Champions recently and it takes some work to make the exposed mechanics (rolling dice) feel different. For example, in a Champions game, I want an attack roll to feel like a superheroic feat, something majestic, powerful and epic. In a Dark Champions game, I want an attack roll to feel like a gritty necessity, something desperate or calculated. In either case, it's just rolling 3 dice, but I want that roll to feel different in each campaign. The rules can't do that.
This is accomplished by both the GM and the rules working in tandem, IMO. The more fragile the characters in a relative sense the more dangerous failure and the more significance each die roll takes on. However, using that basic dynamic as part of the tapestry of a story is the GM's responsibility. Mismatches in either direction lead to failure to acheive the intended effect.

For instance, if the options and powerlevel in place ensure that characters are pretty durable and advantaged, but the GM is trying for a dark noirish feel there is going to be friction. Vice versa, if the characters are frail but the GM is trying for a over the top cinematic feel, there is going to be friction. And so on.

Again, it comes down to the skill of the craftsman and the quality of the raw materials they are working with -- its not the tools fault if the craftsman is unskilled and / or the raw materials are insufficient to the task at hand.

[ghost-angel]

You know what I find interesting is that our views on Hero come from different angles here...

My first experience with Hero was with a Fantasy Hero game, the Spells were all required to be in a Multipower Pool, not a divide/3 costing like is normal now. To me Hero was a Fantasy Game first, and I got a good feel of Fantasy not so much from the system but from the game we were running.

When we switched to a CP Game it flowed nicely into that for me, Heroic game to Heroic game. It wasn't until my first Champions Game that I had to rethink what Hero was exactly because the Genre and Feel were radically different from my perspectives.

From where I sit HERO System got the Heroic genre types down in one for me, it was perfect and it does Supers really well - once I figured out the genre tropes (I'm not a comic book fan, the closest I come is Love & Rockets).

I think it all comes from how the Game is presented - I don't have the issue with Magic in Hero that RDU Neil expresses for instance - and less about how the System is presented.

[Killer Shrike]

You know what I find interesting is that our views on Hero come from different angles here...

My first experience with Hero was with a Fantasy Hero game, the Spells were all required to be in a Multipower Pool, not a divide/3 costing like is normal now. To me Hero was a Fantasy Game first, and I got a good feel of Fantasy not so much from the system but from the game we were running.

When we switched to a CP Game it flowed nicely into that for me, Heroic game to Heroic game. It wasn't until my first Champions Game that I had to rethink what Hero was exactly because the Genre and Feel were radically different from my perspectives.

From where I sit HERO System got the Heroic genre types down in one for me, it was perfect and it does Supers really well - once I figured out the genre tropes (I'm not a comic book fan, the closest I come is Love & Rockets).

I think it all comes from how the Game is presented - I don't have the issue with Magic in Hero that RDU Neil expresses for instance - and less about how the System is presented.Exactly. Its all in how the GM uses the tools to make the game they want. It is the GM's job to "skin" the framework of the system to look & feel the way they want it to and their skill at doing so is the prime determinate of how successful the game will be at acheiving their goal.

[Sean Waters]

Whilst it may be difficult to credit, I don't change the rules at all in my games most of the time; the exceptions almost always being with the way in which damage is applied, which I'm not sure ANY game has ever got quite to my liking.

Mind you I think I change the FEEL quite effectively - I tend to create characters for most of my players as they are not into the point juggling and so on, and I customise the character sheets. Basically I have the full character sheet and, depending on the player and genre, they may have anything from a full breakdown on a point for point basis, or a broad description of what the character can do with no numbers to be seen.

Some people like it better that way.

Mind you, whatever THEY think they are playing, I'm playing Hero. Some people just aren't into mechanical systems, and I try to cater for them: I have players who don't even like rolling dice (I use a pre-rolled crib sheet for such situations), and some who know a lot more about the game than me, but like I say, if you CAN make the mechanics invisible, that is cool. I don't think there is ANYTHING in Hero that is so spiky that it has to stick through the skin of the game.

Not sure what question I'm answering here, I might just be babbling, but there you go.

[Mentor]

Bah! Don't pander to them! It's football, man, football. A game where you kick a ball repeatedly with your foot, rather than pick it up and run around with it, which is surely Handball. Or Carryball. Or perhaps Majorimpactfollowedbyphysicaltraumaball.
Dang. When the man is right he's right. Hmm, let's see, MIFBPTB. Need something with more vowels to create a nifty new name, but...Oops, derail.

[RDU Neil]

Very tired today from watching Majorimpactfollowedbyphysicaltraumaball late last night. :ugly: :D


I can't wait for the new theme song.

"Are you ready for some Majorimpactfollowedbyphysicaltraumaball!?!?!? It's a Monday night bloodfest!" :eek:

I think the N-MIFBPTB-L is going to have some serious marketing issues.

I would like to see this played at the superhero level, though. That would be seriously sweet.

[Mentor]

Exactly. Its all in how the GM uses the tools to make the game they want. It is the GM's job to "skin" the framework of the system to look & feel the way they want it to and their skill at doing so is the prime determinate of how successful the game will be at acheiving their goal.
The term "skin" definitely appeals to my sense of GM (and player) individuality or uniqueness for individual campaigns. Ideally, the rules system should sort of fade into the background as the role playing and setting determine pace and action.

[zornwil]

To me there are three defining points.

The first is if you can simply give another hero player the character sheet and it makes sense to them: that means no really dramatic changes to the basic system

The second is if you can discuss your game without needing lots of extra clarification.

The third is if you can take a character from one game and move him to another GM's game without making major changes.

To take two examples: in my heroic level games I like combat to be chaotic and a little bit scary - so I randomise the SPD chart. That affects the way combat plays out, but it alters nothing on the character sheet: SPD costs the same, and works the same - SPD 4 gets twice as many actions as SPD2 and 2/3 as many as SPD6. It also doesn't affect rules discussions or the relative balance of powers. So a character from my game could move to another FH game without any changes and vice versa.

On the other hand, in a recent thread, Zornwill asked for input on a change to damage reduction and almost everyone reacted really negatively until he explained that he had also altered the way damage and defences interacted. At that point, most people responded that it was hard to say what the effect would be, because it was completely out of their experience. I think at that point you've moved to a game based on Hero system, rather than Hero system, because the changes, while not enormous in themselves are cumulative - no other GM could comment meaningfully on any one of them without knowing about the others. That's also going to change chargen - characters viable in that game would not play at all the same way if shifted to another game and vice versa.

In the same vein, I regard Turakian age as "based on hero system" rather than a hero system game because magic-using characters in that setting are so divergent from the core rules they would need to be completely altered to move to a non-Turakian game. Valdorian age by contrast is a Hero setting, because although there are many setting specific and chargen rules, all of them are compliant to the core rules or pretty close. The sorcery favour rules are a little divergent but can easily be made compliant to core rules without greatly affecting the way the character plays - indeed, I have done exactly that for my own FH game.

cheers, Mark
I think I would agree with this in general. I would qualify if a bit differently - there's a point at which you're playing the HERO "game", to the extent it exists, and there's another point at which you're playing the HERO "system" or "toolkit", then there's a point at which you've even "broken" that.

Lots of quotes, because all these things are ill-defined by their very nature.

To me, the HERO game can be said to be following the "this is the way" of the rulebook in a manner in which you have nothing significant added, such as no new characteristics and no new mechanics, although you might have some new powers, I'd say, that obey the metarules to the extent that can be seen to be clear. And you've taken nothing away that "breaks" the game, for example, you can ignore SPD because even in a game with SPD it's possible for all characters to have the same value. Of course, one could even debunk the notion that a HERO game in and of itself exists due to what's required to run a campaign, but I'll set that aside for the sake of this discussion.

I think you're still playing the HERO system/toolkit if your applying the fundamental mechanics. Naturally, a much greyer line exists as to where this leaves off and moves into not even playing the system. But I think that Phil's changes, at least in vast majority, as well as mine (less than his, but not for the damage/defenses issue) fit the HERO toolkit because the concepts of points assignment/rationalization, general damage methods, general offense methods, general characteristic interactions (even if some new ones exist and some aren't there or are recosted), and such all work. Conceptually, a HERO player can sit down and doesn't get lost. One might be surprised by some things, but reasoning them out doesn't take too much. My primary failure that Markdoc notes is that I hadn't qualified how damage works in my game exactly before proposing the DR change. For the most part, even without playing in my games, it isn't that hard to mathematically analyze the results of both changes, and conceptually the changes aren't great here. It was a badly introduced topic. (And on top of that, apparently at least a couple folk already allow DR to detract prior to defenses and it works fine in their games, anyway, though the different is that it's consistent instead of an elective advantage) And many of my "changes" are simply hold-overs, or adaptations of such, from earlier editions.

From what I've seen, even people who claim to run the HERO game "as is" really don't. They have listed unstated house rules when rules discussions have come up on the boards or have their few (or many) explicit, stated tweaks. Very often, these changes are quite minor and their games are close enough to the packaged game aspect of HERO that it's truly the game being used, to the extent it can be said to be a game. But I think it's fairly frequent that the variations are significant enough that a quite significant number, perhaps even roughly half, of "HERO games' are really "built using HERO" from the toolkit approach and tend to surprise people with their differences, even if those differences are usually entirely palatable and don't require any serious, extensive learning.

[archermoo]

You just became one of my hero's, I wish all GMs thought like that.

You mean they aren't?

I can't think off the top of my head of any time that I've ever tried to play a character made for one campaign in a different one. I've gotten the basic chargen rules for the new campaign and re-created several characters for the new game, but I don't think I've ever just tried to play an existing character in a new campaign. One shot con-games being the exception, and I generally prefer playing a provided character in those.

While I would certainly let someone submit an existing character from a different campaign to one of mine, I'd look at it just like any other character being submitted. And require changes as necessary.

[ghost-angel]

You mean they aren't?

I can't think off the top of my head of any time that I've ever tried to play a character made for one campaign in a different one. I've gotten the basic chargen rules for the new campaign and re-created several characters for the new game, but I don't think I've ever just tried to play an existing character in a new campaign. One shot con-games being the exception, and I generally prefer playing a provided character in those.

While I would certainly let someone submit an existing character from a different campaign to one of mine, I'd look at it just like any other character being submitted. And require changes as necessary.
I've met several GMs who insist that he has to be "universally acceptable" and refuse to fix even things they find broken under the flag of "I don't want some other GM or Gamer to look at my characters and go 'Oh, that's not right.' "

[zornwil]

I've met several GMs who insist that he has to be "universally acceptable" and refuse to fix even things they find broken under the flag of "I don't want some other GM or Gamer to look at my characters and go 'Oh, that's not right.' "
I detest that viewpoint.

PS - guess I should say more than just post that...I find it is a cop-out in that it is a GM's role to, with his players, develop a game which caters to their desried play experience in cooperation with whatever the system provides. Note I do say "in cooperation with," as I acknowledge the importance of plumbing the depths of a system's guidance/nudging in play experience, but that also needs to suit the individual group, and groups each have their own prejudices. On top of that, the whole argument of interoperability among games is ludicrous, aside from tournaments (which, for RPGs, I find a rather icky concept, personally, anyway), as it's not merely a matter of book-correctness but how the characters interact and what is efficient, what is unused, what the standards of behavior are and how that influences power sets, and so on.

[archermoo]

I've met several GMs who insist that he has to be "universally acceptable" and refuse to fix even things they find broken under the flag of "I don't want some other GM or Gamer to look at my characters and go 'Oh, that's not right.' "

Ick. I guess I should just remain happy that I've never run into that attitude before.

Characters need to fit into the world. Something that is perfectly reasonable in one game could be totally outragous in another. Heck I've played games in which being a Mutant was a disad, and I've played in games that it was a perk you had to pay for. Characters going from one to the other would have to be tweaked at a minimum, and probably greatly reworked. Not requiring changes that are warranted just because you want to be able to do the same to someone else is lame.

[ghost-angel]

Just tacking on a note to say that the reason these boards rock is 'cuz we're all pretty much on the same page here regarding how a System and how a Game should interact and work.

(and I never played more than a session with the afformentioed "by the book" GMs - they also tend to suck eggs in enjoyment provision factor of the game as well)

[Lemurion]

I think what makes a game Hero is the same thing that sets it apart from other games: How it handles characters and their abilities.

First let's look at characters: Hero is the game that introduced Disads, possibly one of the most important things imaginable for RPGs. They provide the flaws in a character, giving us the ability to move from wish-fullfilment to role-playing. Take away the idea of Disads, and you move out of Hero, away from where a character is defined by what they will not do as much as what they cannot do.

The second is their abilities: Hero reasons from effect to cause, not from cause to effect. Fiery breath and lightning bolts are both energy blasts, or alternatively RKAs. They are handled the same way, and defined by the same rules. Make them fundamentally different because one is fire and the other is lightning, with special cases for each (rather than modifiers to reflect the individual SFX) and you have left the pale of Hero.

There, my 2 cents (Canadian.) :)

[Trebuchet]

I've met several GMs who insist that he has to be "universally acceptable" and refuse to fix even things they find broken under the flag of "I don't want some other GM or Gamer to look at my characters and go 'Oh, that's not right.' "I find that kind of restriction absolutely mind-blowing. :ugly:

Nothing is going to be "100% Universal" from campaign to campaign; even an unremarkable 50 STR/23 DEX brick in a Champions campaign might exceed campaign limits in some games. Requiring PCs to be fully transferable to other campaigns merely amounts to an extremely restrictive set of caps. It's been my experience that the most interesting (and fun!) characters often push the edges of the envelope. If you get too restrictive, you cut off otherwise interesting characters. And that's less fun for both players and GMs.

[CBikle]

I find that kind of restriction absolutely mind-blowing. :ugly:

Nothing is going to be "100% Universal" from campaign to campaign; even an unremarkable 50 STR/23 DEX brick in a Champions campaign might exceed campaign limits in some games. Requiring PCs to be fully transferable to other campaigns merely amounts to an extremely restrictive set of caps. It's been my experience that the most interesting (and fun!) characters often push the edges of the envelope. If you get too restrictive, you cut off otherwise interesting characters. And that's less fun for both players and GMs.

See, that wouldn't bother me as much.

Ghost Walker's GM sounds like he started clamping down after a few too many
characters with "unorthodox" designs.