Tom's Hero Games Blog

Reading the bulletin boards at rpg.net makes me very sad. They talk about the Hero System as if the math in it is very hard. People, the most complicated math (dividing by fractions) I learned in 3rd grade. Some point to the "logarithmic" scale of the Strength Chart, for example, and say, "See! MATHS IS HARD!"

First of all, doubling Lifting for every +5 Strength is "hard?" And since the Strength Chart is there to eliminate that problem (it has ...

This question has come up on the Hero boards on occasion: "What is the area of a hex in sq ft?"

The answer could actually be simple, except for one thing: there seems to be a disagreement about what is meant by a 2m hex. Some argue that (case a) the hex is measured from one corner to the exact opposite corner (through the "center" of the hex). Another argument (case b--and this is the position I hold) is that a 2m hex means that if I'm standing in the center of ...

One thing that has always bothered me about That Other Game is the amount of bookkeeping necessary to equip your character properly. Who cares that I got 10 gp, 8 sp, and 1 cp? If I want that, I'll play WoW, thank you very much. For my taste, TOG is too figurative.

With a pen-and-paper RPG, most of the time we don't have the luxury of a computer to keep track of how much money we have. Plus, I've always had a problem keep straight how many silver pieces are in a gold piece, and ...