Non-Superhero Gaming

[Harvester]

I would like to ask, how many of you bought HERO to play some other genre than superhero? How many of you play Star Hero? I have never been interested in superhero gaming and I bought Hero for scifi and fantasy gaming.

[TheEmerged]

Originally posted by Harvester
I would like to ask, how many of you bought HERO to play some other genre than superhero? How many of you play Star Hero? I have never been interested in superhero gaming and I bought Hero for scifi and fantasy gaming.

I actually *bought* HERO, all those years ago, because I wanted to run a post-apocalyptic scenario. It struck me as having the potential to handle the genre-crossing elements the way I wanted to. However, I ended up running a superheroic campaign first "since this is clearly what it was designed for, let's learn the system this way".

The problm with me and Star HERO is my players -- they have radically different tastes in sci-fi. Our Alternity campaign ran well, but the group is highly split on what kind of scifi they'd like to try next.

I've run a *large* number of NCM-default campaigns, in a number of genres. The group is starting to pitch for another Ninja HERO "Street Fighter" campaign...

[Vondy]

I originally bought hero to do supers.

I've aslo done street level supers, martial arts, espionage, cyberhero, and fantasy with it.

I bought Fred to do supers and street level costumed freaks only.

I do most mundane genres with the sillohuette system these days.

It does everything but supers really well and is quick, easy, and is adjustable for reality distortion.

[JohnTaber]

I'm the same as D-Man. Way back when I bought Hero for supers. Since then my favorite campaigns have been largely non-supers. I've run multiple fantasy games set in different areas of Harn, various spy/agent games from a group of private investigators to a cross between Cthulhu/V/X-Files, and Alien Legion type military space stuff. I am working on my first hard core sci-fi campaign now using Star Hero. I hope my players like it... :)

[TheEmerged]

One point of interest -- I bought the 4th Edition Rulebook first, not the BBB "Champions".

[JohnTaber]

Hi TheEmerged: Good point.

Actually when I bought it Hero for the first time it was Champions. In other words, it only supported superheroes...old timer. ;)

[ShelleyCM]

It used to be that I'd use GURPS for my non-supers gaming, but the campaign I'm planning now -- a quasi-historical, quasi-steampunk game -- will be in HERO. :)

-Shelley

[Agent X]

Originally posted by ShelleyCM
It used to be that I'd use GURPS for my non-supers gaming, but the campaign I'm planning now -- a quasi-historical, quasi-steampunk game -- will be in HERO. :)

-Shelley I never could get into GURPS. It's shortcomings were glaringly evident the first time I played. The connection between good stats and characteristics was just too strong for my taste.

[Lord Mhoram]

I ran a 7-8 year fantasy HERO game, played in a 4 year ninja HERO game, and my wife runs translation fantasy games for me (usually the hero is from some cyberpunky world) and has been doing that off and on for 4 or 5 years. I've played in a bug wars game for Star HERO, I ran a sorta SF/Western/Mecha game, and have played in a agents game. Later on the agents got powers, but it wasn't superheroes. Ended up more like scanners or something.

[Harvester]

Nice to hear that not everybody is using HERO only for Champions :). Just ordered a few days ago Star Hero and Terran Empire. I hope they are as good as I have heard them to be :). Anyone played Terran Empire? And is it closer Star Wars than, say, Traveller or Blue Planet?

[Agent X]

Anybody ever run a Space 1889 version of Hero?

[Killer Shrike]

I bought BBB all those many years ago because Im a gamer geek and it looked intriguing. I first ran a supers game, but quickly branched out from there. For some reason the game system struck a chord with me, and it immediately became my game system of choice.

Since then Ive used it over the past 13 years for a lot of different genre's. The single biggest chunk of time would go towards high fantasy, followed by some form of supers, followed by martial arts/espionage.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by TheEmerged
One point of interest -- I bought the 4th Edition Rulebook first, not the BBB "Champions". I switched to that as soon as I stumbled across it. At one point I owned 5 copies; I currently still have 2 of them. :)

[ShelleyCM]

Originally posted by Agent X
Anybody ever run a Space 1889 version of Hero?

Matthew says (over my shoulder) that he's tried it in GURPS, but not in HERO. The tasking system was the pain, says he.

-Shelley

[Harvester]

I like both systems (GURPS and Hero) and I like many other systems too including HarnMaster, Shadowrun, The Riddle of Steel and others. I don't want this discussion to turn Hero vs. GURPS or which system is the best. RPG.net is full of this kind of discussion.

Next I would like to ask which is your favorite genre and why?

[Killer Shrike]

Im fond of all the major genres really, but Fantasy is probably my favorite, because its easy to run just about any kind of story in a fantasy context; sadly, its also really easy to make a total hack out of it and many do :(

[Vondy]

Personally, my favorite genre is a *fairly* realistic dark ages (bronze to early iron age) fantasy with a subtle (potent, but not flashy dnd-esque) magic.

I also like hard science anime style mech games, and feng-shui style martial arts and pulp games.

A historical game would be cool to try if I could get players interested.

[The Monster]

I first bought Champions - before it was "Hero System" (yep, I'm another old gaming coot) because another guy was running it. I never actually ran Champions until last year, when I did a street-level pulp game at our local con (Dragonflight).

I ran a Fantasy Hero game for a while in my regular group, but my favorite is the JI pulp game I've been running for over a decade. It started as a repeating con event, but the same people kept showing, so we made it private. We've got a couple Canadians who come down to play, so we still do one or two sessions a year.

Another guy and I are about to start our first true supers game this fall - we're going through character and background creation now (he's a comix buff, I'm the rules guy). It will be quite a new experience, this new power level...

[Tim]

/{grumbling about young pups}/

I started by buying Champs 2e. So I started with supers.
I'm currently running a B5 Hero right now, and am getting ready to play in a FH game. I've also played in pulp.

Tim S.

[Toadmaster]

Originally posted by D-Man
I originally bought hero to do supers.

I do most mundane genres with the sillohuette system these days.

It does everything but supers really well and is quick, easy, and is adjustable for reality distortion.

This may not be the right place but I've been curious about the Sillohuette system but haven't really had the time to sit down and read through it. I've bought some of the "modern d20 products just due to the mass market appeal (finding players) but really prefer non level based games, I've played most of the "classic" RPG's (Chaosium, GDW, etc).

Would you mind explaining the system a little bit and what advantages it has compared to other games? My tastes wander so I'm not looking for a replacement game, just want to know if I should look into it. No need for a long disertation, just a paragraph or so to peak my interest or turn me away to something else, Thanks.

[Toadmaster]

I played Chapions in the early-mid 80's but once Fantasy Hero, Justice Inc and Danger Int'l came out that was the end of my supers gaming except for the very rare occasion.

My preferance is for Post Apacalypse, modern (espionage or military generally), Fantasy, Sci Fi and Horror (actually I'll play almost anything over supers).

I've played in several Aftermath and Twilight 2000 campaigns, a multi-genre dimension hopping campaign, several Call of Cthulhuish games, an Old West campaign, a short Stalking the night fantastic campaign (horror), many Fantasy campaigns including one that was converted from D&D played about a year and converted back to D&D (weird but the GM felt HERO was to slow to move the campaign story along), and a bunchthat I have probably forgotten.

I'm currently working on a WW2 game based around a recon squad June/July 1944 to hopefully use next year at the Dundracon.

[Tamashii2000]

I started out with Champions 1st edition and over the years I think I have ran just about every genre (Supers, Spy's, Science Fiction, Anime more then a few that just....seem to not have a 'classification') expect for Fantasy (Love it, don't get me wrong but for some reason I never was good coming up with good stories for it).

God I have been doing this to long...

[Tempuswolf]

Like others, superhero gaming because when I first bought Champions (blue background soft-bound) that's all there was. Fantasy, super-agency spy, mecha, and classic pulp soon followed as Hero went universal.

[Snarf]

I bought 5th edition and Star Hero specifically for crossover sci-fi superhero type games. After reading about and using Hero awhile, I ditched GURPS and other game systems to use Hero exclusively.

[Nightfly]

After being away from RPGs for over 10yrs, I came back w/a vengeance.

A co-worker / friend of mine suggested I explore the omni-potential of H5, since he learned I previously played D&D.

Since I'm in a position to afford it, I've been droppin about $200+ /month building a monster gaming shelf [making up for lost time].

Simultaneously digesting SW, ST, Buffy, D&D v3, and FREd's many genres has been awesome.

As predicted, I'm building every type of campaign character (all using FREd).

In My gaming world, in the year 2377 (2yrs after ST:Nemesis) a wormhole is discovered linking the New Republic era SW galaxy to ST's current sci-fi-verse. Currently, I'm intending a Klingon to begin Jedi Training.
And an Army of Slayers exists to continue the battle against the vampiric/demonic underworld.

Michael Surbrook's site has a Darth Vader (H5) conversion that handles The Force (w/ FREd) excellently!

FREd ROCKS!!!

[The_Saint]

Some years ago,I bought Hero just to try a Superhero-Campaign and played Rolemaster and Spacemaster for SciFi/Fantasy Campaigns.But meanwhile,I use Star Hero and Fantasy Hero.My favourite genre...well,actually I like every genre,as as long the campaign works and you do have a lot of fun.