How far to stretch a core system?

[zornwil]

From a comment in another thread, a brief comment surfaced from Hugh that MnM was just "paying lip service" to d20. I wouldn't go that far and to be fair to Hugh I'm taking his comment a bit out of context for the sake of a tangent here.

However, it raised what is to me an interesting question and I know we've had similar discussion but anyway, how far is too far, but moreover, how far SHOULD HERO be stretched for the sake of allowing independent products "approved by DOJ"?

From my own perspective - pretty damn far, actually.

Please note this is very much as an outsider to d20, I last played its antecedent AD&D and similar systems probably some 18 years ago, maybe longer, and only experimented briefly recently with the bastard son of d20, Mutants and Masterminds. But to me the strength of the recent d20 approach has been that it has allowed tremendous leeway for licensed products, and those products can essentially pick and choose what they use uot of the core. I think this is a great idea, because one can learn a core system and then learn various spin-offs with minimal learning BUT still get products that address weaknesses in d20 for particular genres or otherwise add new and interesting ideas.

I suspect that HEROites have a different perspective. Being more crunchy and more staunchy, in my estimation (which to be fair is simply due to being a more niche/smaller crowd and the system being crunchy), I suspect that many HEROites would set a pretty high bar before they'd start saying "That should not be called HERO!" Of course I'm saying "many", not making any claims as to numbers. But I have certainly heard/seen the comment "well, then you're not playing HERO anymore," in response to various rules changes proposals.

Personally, I'd say there are few sacrosanct individual elements. I think the general scaling of the system is fairly important. I think the basics of combat are also pretty important, thiough the SPD chart could be messed with (btw, I love the SPD chart myself) and there could be tweaks to the CV and Attack Roll process, though I think you'd have to have something more or less the same to be "HERO". I think the basic components of Skills/Perks, Chars (whether one includes Derived as such), and Powers/Talents are essential, though all could be reasonably tweaked.

Anyway, to me, I think HERO can/should be a very flexible product for licensing and others' derivations. I think that can only enrich the system, and it can only broaden interest. It also demonstrates that HERO is a toolkit! There should not be an approach that the system is sacred somehow or can't be fairly well deconstructed/reconstructed.

Any thoughts?

[Lord Liaden]

There are, as you point out, a number of d20 system variants out there, but IMO part of the reason for that is that "d20" has never existed as a single unified system. Each one has notable modifications that are geared to the conventions of a particular genre or setting; we have fantasy d20 (D&D and others), superhero d20 (M&M), space-opera d20 (Star Wars), modern adventure d20 (d20 Modern), etc. All of them have basic similarities, but each one has been "tweaked" in very distinctive ways.

HERO OTOH attempts to cover all the genre/setting bases with a single flexible ruleset. In theory the various modular options already contained in it allow you to adjust the game to handle anything, so there should be no pressing reason why you should need to significantly alter it. In fact it might be bad publicity for DoJ to allow a licensed product to depart substantially from what is billed as "the ultimate gamer's toolkit."

That said, most of the best HERO websites that I've seen include a list of house rules for the settings that they present - mostly additions or minor rules changes to cover very specific genre or setting elements. Hero Games has done that sort of thing with their own sourcebooks, so I see no reason why a licensed book couldn't include such a list. As long as it doesn't reproduce any of the core ruleset it wouldn't tread on HG's copyright.

[RDU Neil]

I posted something like this before... but can't remember what thread that was.

Hero has only a few basic concepts that I think are core. Divided into two camps.

Camp One: Character creation

1d6 Basic Effect for 5 points.
Increase or decrease the points as you increase or decrease the base effect.

Basic effects fall into categories of Damage, Defense, Movement, Senses and Transform. Special effects differentiate in game play

Point based character creation... where equal number of points spent means relatively balanced characters. (This is the intent, if not the reality of the system.) The more points in one area, the more effective/powerful that ability is.

Points spent on characteristics. (But I wouldnt' mind seeing a shorter list of them and no figured chars.)

Camp Two: Game play

All d6s used.

Target number or less on 3d6 to succeed in an action.
Plusses or minusses to the target number, depending on ease or difficulty of action.

Listed maneuvers that are generic to all characters. Purchaseable skills that grant further maneuver options. Maneuvers are simply codified "plusses and minuses" for types of actions.

(SPD Chart is not necessary. I don't use it but I know that every single person on these boards, if they stumbled unknowingly upon our Thursday night game in medius combatus, would recognize it as Champions almost immediately.)

If it has the above... I'd recognize it as Hero. Would it be Champions or Fantasy Hero or whatever? No... but it would be Hero.

YMMV.

[Doc Democracy]

People might be beginning to recognise that this is one of my hobby horses.

I think that HERO, as a toolkit, should be allowed to provide all kinds of frameworks to enhance gameplay. If a particular feature of the game doesn't work for a particular type of game then eliminate it. To me its still HERO.

I would be interested in buying such stuff with the provision that there was a section for HERO geeks that detailed what they'd done to the core system to achieve their particular use of the toolkit. I wouldn't care if that was in the book (expensive) or in a pdf that I could download.

I think that anything that uses the HERO system as the starting point of constructing their particular ruleset could easily come within the extended HERO family.

HERO has provided core rules for effects, characteristics, skills and several contest mechanisms (combat, skills, mental combat to name three - PRE attack to name another). I think there could be a lot more evocative games produced using even fragments of the core system that would be understandable and scalable by owners of the toolkit but would allow more limited gameplay just through the gamebook.

See. My hobby horse...


Doc

[Derek Hiemforth]

I think that HERO, as a toolkit, should be allowed to provide all kinds of frameworks to enhance gameplay. If a particular feature of the game doesn't work for a particular type of game then eliminate it. To me its still HERO.

I would be interested in buying such stuff with the provision that there was a section for HERO geeks that detailed what they'd done to the core system to achieve their particular use of the toolkit. I wouldn't care if that was in the book (expensive) or in a pdf that I could download.

This reflects my thinking exactly. As long as it's still HERO "under the hood," and as long as you make the information available on how you used the toolkit to create what you have, then I'm all good with it.

[Hugh Neilson]

Anyway, to me, I think HERO can/should be a very flexible product for licensing and others' derivations. I think that can only enrich the system, and it can only broaden interest. It also demonstrates that HERO is a toolkit! There should not be an approach that the system is sacred somehow or can't be fairly well deconstructed/reconstructed.

I'd agree with the above - there are core mechanics which make it Hero. Beyond that, a lot of tinkering can be used. Like you' I'm a big fan of the Speed chart, but even the Hero books acknowledge that removing this doesn't make the game "unplayable", though it does open up some issues (eg. "extra time").

I think licensed products "designed using Hero system" is a great approach for Hero to take, even if the game book doesn't take the reader under the hood. The crunchy bits might be ideally provided on a website, maybe Heros' website. For example, a license may allow use of the Hero system, and enough mechanics to make the game playably, but prohibit publishing the actual writeups of various abilities. The book could refer the interested reader to the Hero web site, where you can get all the underlying crunchy goodness in a downloadable pdf.

[Lord Mhoram]

I think I'm on the other end.

Things that are "core HERO" to me.

Costs of frameworks, costs of characteristics, costs of powers.

Pretty much anything should be legal by 5er. If it isn't then it isn't really HERO. The point of the "toolkit" is that you can use what is in the rulebook to create what you want, not that you need to change things.

That doesn't mean to say that the presentation shouldn't be different.
Don't like the speed chart - well in that game, you use actions or rounds or whatnot and after every third action, everyone gets a free recovery. Mechanically the same as everyone being speed 3, so the mechanics are "book legal" but the presentation gets rid of the speed chart.

Bascially to me, as long as you can reverse engeneer the changes to see where they come from, so I could build them with the base rulebook fine. Otherwise it's drifting too far afield.

But I'm something of a purist.

[Sean Waters]

MnM and DnD do not have the same feel at all in my opinion. I can't see anyone playing DnD because they liked MnM and if they did, I dare say they would be disappointed.

I could live with some modification to the core system of Hero, I suppose, but I think that it would be difficult to do as it is all buit pretty much as a piece.

Take, for example, the way MnM treats damage: gone are hit points, in favour of consciousness saving rolls or somesuch. Not a bad system, but not recognisably d20. It can be done as HP are not really woven into the system In fact the MnM way of doing damage might well be a better fit for the d20 system, but that's how they have always done it, so....

I can not realistically see how you would take out STUN from Hero without it having more far reaching effects at virtually every stage of the game.

Stretching the core system is fine but I doubt it does much for cross over sales.

[Captain Obvious]

Heretic!

[zornwil]

MnM and DnD do not have the same feel at all in my opinion. I can't see anyone playing DnD because they liked MnM and if they did, I dare say they would be disappointed.

I could live with some modification to the core system of Hero, I suppose, but I think that it would be difficult to do as it is all buit pretty much as a piece.

Take, for example, the way MnM treats damage: gone are hit points, in favour of consciousness saving rolls or somesuch. Not a bad system, but not recognisably d20. It can be done as HP are not really woven into the system In fact the MnM way of doing damage might well be a better fit for the d20 system, but that's how they have always done it, so....

I can not realistically see how you would take out STUN from Hero without it having more far reaching effects at virtually every stage of the game.

Stretching the core system is fine but I doubt it does much for cross over sales.

MnM and d20 or MnM and D&D? Nit, nit, nit...

Seriously, though, to be fair, MnM dioes give a Hit Points option. And I think if you are a hardcore d20 gamer, it's relatively easy to make MnM back into a more orthodox d20 game. Of course, I know very little about d20 so I'm really not one to talk...but that's never stopped me before! (how do you think I have so many posts?)

[zornwil]

I think the Hero System can be stretched pretty far. I think there's quite a bit of room to clean up things and make the game easier to work with. One of the things I'm currently working on are adders. I like the idea of adding adders to a power to make it more versatile. I see adders as sort of a mini elemental control within a power that can add power stunts to a special effect without all the point-crushing currently needed within the system.

I also happen to like the speed chart but I think the time aspects of it need to be removed. I think people get confused by the idea of saying someone can only do so many attacks in 12 seconds. As far as dealing with the extra time limitation I'd just say: 1 turn, 5 turns, 25 turns, 100 turns, and then from that point convert to 1 hour, etc. That way people really don't need to deal with the idea of how many attacks per 12 seconds, they just deal with how many attacks per turn.

I also think it makes more sense for d20 players if you invert the rolls, meaning a higher roll is better rather than worse; but that's just cosmetic.

I also think Hero needs some new core powers. The idea that everything must be built with existing powers is really foolish. Somethings are just easier to deal with if they're their own power. Poison, for example, would be a good power because it's too much of a pain in the butt to try and design them all with NND and KA and Drains and etc. Another good power addition would be Invulnerability. Everyone wants it, everyone likes the idea, why make it impossible. It's a major sticking point for people who don't like the system [and I don't mean that crappy, over-priced version Steve Long wrote for the current DH]. There's room for more powers in Hero. The current list is not the 10 commandments, no matter how much some people seem to worship the system.

I have very mixed feelings about "more core powers". I don't disagree entirely - "poisoning" is one that I can defniitely see as a good candidate at the very least for discussion. And I think it's almost essential to at least do poisoning and a few others as clear "examples" that are given as orthodox "this is the best way we who run HERO know to build this" guidelines.

But the book is already large and in addition I would think you could do a lot with additional powers and such in other books. In the final analysis, to me, so long as the derivative books don't actually contradict the base book, I simply don't care if these things get scattered about. I was never a huge fan, actually, of how HERO pulled together its products into a single core rulebook in 4th Edition, although in retrospect I agree entirely it was the right thing to do ultimately. I just don't mind that there are bits and pieces in other books, as there's just no way at all to do it all in one anyway. The important thing for the core book is to be, well, a core!

[Rick]

I like that hero can be "kitbashed", used and abused. I don't really use the speed chart anymore, I use four, three second phases, and everyones a 4 speed. Your post-12 comes every fourth phase.

When I design my Halo game the Master Chiefs shields will be an entangle that creates a wall with a lot of body, no defence and a standard effect (it's always 20 body). I'll then use several force wall advantages and Lims. to produce the right effect. Not really Hero approved but using the hero system for sure.

In my fantasy game Spells will cost players 1 pt a pop. The points aren't what I use to balnce things in Hero, it's the over arching game design. So spend a point, buy that 360 active point spell; good luck casting it with it's -36 skill roll and 36 end (if you're lucky in both cases).

Suddenly I'm not fitting things I like to play into hero. I'm designing rules and systems to underpin my worlds and games. I'm Making games. I think this is the very soul of hero in it's current incarnation.

If I were to design a commercial product in hero, I'd do this; sell the setting and only give the player the rules they NEEDED to know, to play the game. No stat block of endless advs. and Lims. just descriptions in plain english how things work in the game world. Then in the end of the book or perhaps in a small panthlet I'd give the Hero gamers out there the run down on how I did things, including the full write ups.

Ofcourse I'd include a blurb about buying the Fred revised, and how with that the GM could learn how to change factors in the game he or she didn't like, and design their own worlds.

[Phil]

I can not realistically see how you would take out STUN from Hero without it having more far reaching effects at virtually every stage of the game.

Well, Doc Democracy knows I'm in agreement with him, as we discussed it over dinner last week. What we might not agree on it was, to us, is 'core' and what is not

Here's a classic. To "The Artist Currently Known But For How Much Longer As RealLemming", STUN is integral. For me, it isnt. You could lose STUN entirely, and have all damaged handled by BOD. You could keep STUN damage, but only for the purposes of comparing to CON for stunning. You could get rid of the traditional damage system altogether and introduce a wound levels. You could even get rid of the entire combat system, and have everything determined by variations on Transform. The point is, you retain the internal balancing mechanisms that underpin HERO - so you know the relative value of a characteristic, you know the benefit of not affecting Figured Chars, you know the general principles of Limitations. If you take those things into account, anything is possible, and HERO becomes the genuine tool kit it is capable of being.

After all, take 90% of the tools out of a tool kit, and it doesnt stop being a toolkit!

[zornwil]

I like that hero can be "kitbashed", used and abused. I don't really use the speed chart anymore, I use four, three second phases, and everyones a 4 speed. Your post-12 comes every fourth phase.

When I design my Halo game the Master Chiefs shields will be an entangle that creates a wall with a lot of body, no defence and a standard effect (it's always 20 body). I'll then use several force wall advantages and Lims. to produce the right effect. Not really Hero approved but using the hero system for sure.

In my fantasy game Spells will cost players 1 pt a pop. The points aren't what I use to balnce things in Hero, it's the over arching game design. So spend a point, buy that 360 active point spell; good luck casting it with it's -36 skill roll and 36 end (if you're lucky in both cases).

Suddenly I'm not fitting things I like to play into hero. I'm designing rules and systems to underpin my worlds and games. I'm Making games. I think this is the very soul of hero in it's current incarnation.

If I were to design a commercial product in hero, I'd do this; sell the setting and only give the player the rules they NEEDED to know, to play the game. No stat block of endless advs. and Lims. just descriptions in plain english how things work in the game world. Then in the end of the book or perhaps in a small panthlet I'd give the Hero gamers out there the run down on how I did things, including the full write ups.

Ofcourse I'd include a blurb about buying the Fred revised, and how with that the GM could learn how to change factors in the game he or she didn't like, and design their own worlds.

Rick, I think your post is quite good (and have repped it), and I was just reflecting that while to a large degree something like d20 can also be somewhat easily modified, there are aspects of d20 where one suddenly stumbles - primarily, the part I know, is how removing levelling and castes (at least for the "standard" fantasy d20) starts to denigrate game balance.

Whereas I think, to your point, you can almost throw anything out of HERO and fit something in and still have a pretty good shot at the whole system working well - and if you do as you state, working it to a very specific scenario or genre, then you can definitely do that as the game balance is easier to control in more specific situations with HERO with (IMHO) relatively few rules being "necessary".

[zornwil]

In my opinion 5Er is overly-large because Steve Long has a wordy writing style. Maybe this was because he was a freelancer for so many years and was paid by the word. Whatever the reason the difference between 5E and Sidekick is amazing, and yet almost everything is easily conveyed within the 128 pages rather than the 600. I believe you could easily cut out 250-300 pages of 5Er and add in 50 pages of new material, powers, rules, etc. and have a better book, IMO.

I do somewhat agree. However, even removing "wordiness", 5ER is quite large, and a lot of isn't so much the wordiness as the level of nuance. And it's a level of nuance I believe should often be shuttled to compendiums, DH, and other books.

In fact, here's an interesting thought - is 5ER "too" complete? Does it actually discourage sales of other products? Hmmm, I'm going to post that in the Company thread, as that's a tangent to this thread. Anyone interested in this topic please go there!