Alcamtar
Jun 11th, '08, 01:53 PM
My only real request: please simplify the game.
I started with first edition FH ('85) and then moved on to 4th edition. I remember telling people the thing I liked best about Hero was that it had a small concise metasystem from which everything else was built. The core game was simple enough to commit to memory, and pretty much everything else I needed as a GM I could make up on the fly, off the top of my head.
I can't say that any more. In fact nowadays I tell people I like Hero, but it's a pretty heavy game and I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I think long and hard, and consider all my options, before committing to a Hero game now. These days I usually play Hero for a session or two at a time, for the novelty and/or nostalgia of it, before I get tired of the effort and encumbrance and want to switch to something else.
To a degree, this is because I am no longer a college student with endless hours to devote to it; I have a family and lots of things competing for time and energy. That's my problem, and maybe I'm out of sync with the Hero core audience.
But it is also true the 5E is much "heavier" than previous editions. It has become so loaded down with clarifications, exceptions, and explanations that it is hard to keep track of it all. I am reluctant to make any GM rulings for fear that I might contradict something I missed in the book, or one of the official errata/FAQ rulings. It is hard to even find things I need, to say nothing of memorizing the rules. Things like Talents that used to be simple are now fully statted out powers, and there are a more of them. Powers have a bewildering array of options and modifiers, and everything is precisely defined down to the gnats eyebrow. The melee weapons list used to have a symmetry that made it easy to remember; now everything is unique and you have to refer to the table. These are just examples; none of them is bad in itself, but combined they are like straws on the proverbial dromedary's back.
Additionally, the game balance has shifted. Characters of a given point total from 4E or earlier eras are just plain underpowered compared with 5E characters. It's not raw power, it's that you can now do things and combine things in new ways. Again not necessarily bad, but as a longtime fan, it is a subtle incompatibility with the game I fell in love with.
I have only one real complaint about the current rules: the "5 pt principle" principle seems to be gradually eroding, especially the idea that every 5 pts. is double the effect. This impacts both balance and simplicity. One advantage Hero always had over GURPS was that Hero was logarithmic, while GURPS was linear. Now GURPS is becoming logarithmic, while HERO is becoming more linear.
I still like Hero, and I like 5E, or I wouldn't be here. In general I like the changes and additions. But I felt that 4E as "perfect" in terms of complexity and weight. I would like to see the current rules (or an improved version of them) slimmed and edited down to something analogous to the 4E core rulebook.
Something to consider: Hero has always been the go-to game for truly flexible and universal rules; simplicity and playability were the accepted tradeoffs. Plus 5E didn't look so cumbersome compared to GURPS and 3.X D&D. That is changing. Streamlined and playable games are in vogue, and they continue incorporating ideas from Hero. One might ask: "what is good enough, and what is overkill?"
Anyway that's my perspective.
I started with first edition FH ('85) and then moved on to 4th edition. I remember telling people the thing I liked best about Hero was that it had a small concise metasystem from which everything else was built. The core game was simple enough to commit to memory, and pretty much everything else I needed as a GM I could make up on the fly, off the top of my head.
I can't say that any more. In fact nowadays I tell people I like Hero, but it's a pretty heavy game and I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I think long and hard, and consider all my options, before committing to a Hero game now. These days I usually play Hero for a session or two at a time, for the novelty and/or nostalgia of it, before I get tired of the effort and encumbrance and want to switch to something else.
To a degree, this is because I am no longer a college student with endless hours to devote to it; I have a family and lots of things competing for time and energy. That's my problem, and maybe I'm out of sync with the Hero core audience.
But it is also true the 5E is much "heavier" than previous editions. It has become so loaded down with clarifications, exceptions, and explanations that it is hard to keep track of it all. I am reluctant to make any GM rulings for fear that I might contradict something I missed in the book, or one of the official errata/FAQ rulings. It is hard to even find things I need, to say nothing of memorizing the rules. Things like Talents that used to be simple are now fully statted out powers, and there are a more of them. Powers have a bewildering array of options and modifiers, and everything is precisely defined down to the gnats eyebrow. The melee weapons list used to have a symmetry that made it easy to remember; now everything is unique and you have to refer to the table. These are just examples; none of them is bad in itself, but combined they are like straws on the proverbial dromedary's back.
Additionally, the game balance has shifted. Characters of a given point total from 4E or earlier eras are just plain underpowered compared with 5E characters. It's not raw power, it's that you can now do things and combine things in new ways. Again not necessarily bad, but as a longtime fan, it is a subtle incompatibility with the game I fell in love with.
I have only one real complaint about the current rules: the "5 pt principle" principle seems to be gradually eroding, especially the idea that every 5 pts. is double the effect. This impacts both balance and simplicity. One advantage Hero always had over GURPS was that Hero was logarithmic, while GURPS was linear. Now GURPS is becoming logarithmic, while HERO is becoming more linear.
I still like Hero, and I like 5E, or I wouldn't be here. In general I like the changes and additions. But I felt that 4E as "perfect" in terms of complexity and weight. I would like to see the current rules (or an improved version of them) slimmed and edited down to something analogous to the 4E core rulebook.
Something to consider: Hero has always been the go-to game for truly flexible and universal rules; simplicity and playability were the accepted tradeoffs. Plus 5E didn't look so cumbersome compared to GURPS and 3.X D&D. That is changing. Streamlined and playable games are in vogue, and they continue incorporating ideas from Hero. One might ask: "what is good enough, and what is overkill?"
Anyway that's my perspective.