HERO is my system of choice...

[lensman]

This is a difficult poll question beccause it fails to indicate history, just where a player is now.
For me I started out with Hero in '81. I played Champions exclusivly.
Then I had my J.I. / D.I. phase then Fantasy Hero phase then Dark Champions phase. Then Star Hero phase, including Robot Warriors campaign.
Not to mention Autoduellling Champions, and a little Western hero at the odd Cons.

But I live for fantasy Hero currently and do not think I will evr go back to Champions.
Second is Star Hero but no prospects on the Horizon.

Just wanted to know what people use the System for.

slaughterj:
I should have made the option Star Hero / Cyber hero

lemming: my first years or so with Hero I played Champions, had a ball. Though, as I look back, I was heavily into comics then. Great comics are still coming out, but I amn a novel reader. I wonder if that has influenced my genre of choice. Nmely Fantasy Hero.

Ben Seeman: I am wiht you in spirit. I have been lucky enough to have been in two great albeit short Star Hero campaigns, both run or so years ago.Course now the GM's are married and ... think I will stop right there.

Spectrum: I choose not to argue your, "good for the superhero genre" comment for a future topic. Although how, now that Fred is here, HERO is not good for all genre is a mystery to me.

Agent Escafarc: You might be the exception but The poll was for people to indicate what game "environment" they primarily use HERO for. All of us I am sure are equally rabid in our support.

Ghost Archer: I ad comics now and most good stories I read end up with creative or role play of SFX to solve a problem. Thinking outside the box.
example: Flash was racing Zum, and trying to defeat him. (Zum really was a white martian but Flash at the time did not know this.) At one point he did the speed increases force and clobbered Zum at Flash like top speed doing incalcuable damage.

Black Rose: Pax Heroica, brilliant. But a word of caution. I still experiment and dabble in other systems. Nuggets of tasty mechanics and meta-game flavor are out there to add to the gaming firmament that is HERO.

Stray Cat: I know some gruchy curmudgeons tha grumble about Fred, I find it a great Heroic level detailed additiont I was not the target audience so I can overlook the wordiness.

Fitz: I am with you brother. Fantasy Hero is the way. I keep hoping that it will dominate this poll.
And yes, I can not think of any genre that can be done better, then done in Hero. Like all things, it is up to the GM, and let us face facts, GM's are really game designers with HERO.

[slaughterj]

Not an easy question since I've played/run both Champions and FH extensively. Done a touch of Cyber Hero and some Western Hero as well, but not nearly as much as the others.

[lemming]

I think this would of been a good box poll.

While I currently am only in Champions games, playing any of the options would be my choice.

[Ben Seeman]

I voted for Star Hero, since that's the first and only game I've run using HERO... then again, it's also the only game I've eer run. Champions is great to play, but I wouldn't want to run it. :)

[Spectrum]

I find the Hero System good for the superhero genre, one of my friends even said that it was probably the best system to use for superheroes. In fact we tend to refer to as Champions, since the times we used it was for a superhero campaign. Unfortunetly none of my friends is running a Champions game or any game that uses Hero. :(
But becuase of that I've felt compeled to make my first attempt at GMing a superhero game (it's still in the early planning stages right now).

[Agent Escafarc]

How about all of the above and more. I have no desire or free time to run or play any other system. There is only HERO.

[Ghost Archer]

Started with Champions in '81, still with Champions in '03. While I have dabbled in Fantasy Hero, most of my fantasy gaming has been with Rolemaster. I have ventured into Danger International when I want to get into intense RP and very little combat though my Champions game is more and more the non-combat side.

[Black Rose]

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc
How about all of the above and more. I have no desire or free time to run or play any other system. There is only HERO.

-eyes glaze over, arms outstretch, voice drops to a dull monotone- There is only HERO... only HERO... HERO... one of us... one of us... -begins to shamble towards the local WotC store-

Seriously, though, I have to agree with Escafarc - there really is only HERO. GURPS makes great supplements (though SH and FH prodded major bottom IMO), but HERO is easier for me to tweak and mold to what I want it to do. d20 makes a LOT of supplements, but I usually only go to those for flavour and ideas; HERO is at least as expandable as d20, and there is a built-in structure that lets me check the balance of powers, spells, and items. Everything else out there usually makes me think, "Hmmm, now how would I represent that, at an appropriate point cost, in HERO?"

It used to be the only thing that I couldn't say about HERO was that it was easy for people to learn. But with the Sidekick in playtest, soon we'll have that fixed as well!

-bows- Ladies and gentlemen (and the rest of you, you know who you are), I give you the dawn of the age of Pax Heroica!!!

[Stray Cat]

I've played HERO since 93 I think. Agent X, when did you introduce me to the system? I have only played Champions with it. I've enjoyed 4th edition. And 5th adds a lot of nifty goodies too. We're currently in between, playing what someone in the group affectionately dubbed 4.5. We take waht we like from 5th and slide it in to 4th. As we become more familiar with 5th, we'll be there completely. However, the house rules will be more, not less.

Cat

[Fitz]

I voted for Fantasy Hero, because that's our main game right now. Star Hero would be next on the list, but what I really needed was an option for "Every golly-gosh-darned genre under the sun".

I was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force when D&D3e came out and went back to D&D for a while, but in the end I abandoned it for the same basic reason I left it in the first place -- too mannered and restrictive (though infinitely better now than it ever was before). I play games in other systems from time to time; in fact I've just started in a WHFRP game which promises to be fun, but given my druthers I wouldn't bother with any other system than Hero.

[Ndreare]

I have to say fantasy gamming in general has always been my favorite to GM. As a player I would rather be in a Champions game but as a GM it has always been my week spot. (I get quickly over wehlmed by players who have every modern conviniance.)

[badger3k]

Originally posted by Ghost Archer
Started with Champions in '81, still with Champions in '03. While I have dabbled in Fantasy Hero, most of my fantasy gaming has been with Rolemaster.

Ditto for me, although I've been running a 3/3.5e campaign for a while now. Used Traveller mostly for sci fi, although I did run a few spacemaster games. Hopefully my Star Hero book will come in tomorrow so I can give that a shot.

[lensman]

...

[Enforcer84]

Play mostly Champions

Fantasy Hero variants are the next most common

[lensman]

Originally posted by Enforcer84
Play mostly Champions

Fantasy Hero variants are the next most common

I do not know how representative the voters are for HERO general population, but I was hoping that FH would be the strongest showing.

[Dust Raven]

I've been playing Champions since aroung '93ish or so when Farkling introduced it to me at a convention. I've loved it ever since. I've drifted into Star/Cyber Hero, Ninja Hero and a very brief trip to Fantasy Hero and I still like Champions the best. Ninja Hero is a close second though.

[zornwil]

I agree this would be best as a multi-choice poll. As it stands, I put Champions as that's really been the only thing I've GMed over a very long period, it's been almost 2 decades since I've GMed Western, Fantasy, or such.

But as a "system of choice", I'm not sure how to address that entirely. I am quite sure I'd use it for any sci-fi, modern, or near-modern setting and be entirely satisfied, not really looking at other systems seriously.

However, I was really impressed with Deadlands for the very particular horror Western game, especially as its dynamics have such a bizarre luck element buit-in (but it works, for this sort of thing), and I might use it for any sort of horror setting if I were going to run one.

If I were doing a Fantasy setting, I'd probably do a mish-mash of "d20" (actually I'd probably go back and get the old AD&D editions c. 1980) and ideas from HERO. That or I might do a total overlay on HERO, using HERO's rules really as an underlying toolkit and adding a superstructure. I don't really like fantasy magic in HERO's rules, in fact I find HERO an odd system for magic, it just doesn't "feel" right. I bought Fantasy Hero recently to catch up and have it as a reference, and it does a good job of what I'd call HEROizing magic, but I still don't like the feel of HERO for fantasy. Similarly, I'm not sure I'm even all that sold on HERO's combat model for fantasy.

I'm not fond of traditional fantasy and haven't run anything remotely like it in a long time, although now that I think about it I wouldn't mind running a newer fantasy game, reading some Dunsany to pad but primarily basing it on Lovecraft's dreamworlds work which I only recently read.

Of course the group I'm in would probably appreciate it if I'd just get back to the regular games that have been disrupted by everyone's summer activities.