How do you feel about Hero overall?

[nexus]

These questions are generalities. Your opinions doesn't have to fit exactly. This is anonymous poll. I am curious about the numbers, not about anyone's idenity.

1. Its the best! I can't think of another role playing system I like better!
2. Its good, better than most but some other games do something better
3. Its adequate. Hero has flaws but generally more ups and downs.
4. Its poor, I play it out of habit and inertia but I'm looking for something else
5. I do not like it or play it. I feel I have found something better.
6. Other

[RDU Neil]

I voted the best... despite the fact that I pick nits with the system. Doesn't mean it doesn't do it better than anything else.

But "Better" is subjective.

I have a major jones for "balance" in a system. It doesn't have to be perfect (Hero hardly is) but it should provide a context... a core axiom for judging balance, and work to keep MOST rules within a balance context.

Once balance is set (even imperfectly) THAT is what allows me to take my mind off of the mechanics, and focus on the Game Rules and Play Experience. I don't have to crunch numbers and details once the game begins, because I can wing it "within the balance framework" and just let story happen.

Probably why I complain about things like certain Limitation values or Hand Attack or whatever... is because when I'm forced out of play experience to explore the mechanics, I'm not having fun anymore. No other game allows me to avoid "mechanics" as much as Hero... which is the paradox, because it is such a mechanics heavy game. I don't have to worry about arbitrary details, when I can fall back on 1d6 = 5 AP and then make up the rest on the fly.

The beauty of Hero... in some ways approaching the "game physics" I think many of us crave... is that it is NOT physics, and you will be frustrated when it breaks down.

Also... it is really hard to compare Hero to anything else except maybe GURPS... because Hero is a System... not a Game. Other major names (D&D, WoD) are games first. They might attempt to distill a "system" out of it (d20 example) but that is not what D&D is.

Do other GAMES do things that Hero system can't. Sure... but that's ok. Those Games might be better than Turakian Age or whatever... but they can't compete with the Hero System as a whole. (Well, they can, in terms of sales... just not at a quality system level.)

[ghost-angel]

I've yet to find something in HERO that I can't do. unlike every other system I've ever played. From creation to game and character concept.

[Vorsch]

Is that "cant do without bending the rules completely out of shape".

How about kill a normal person with a pistol in one shot (1d6rka)

Or build rogue

Or dead man

[Lord Mhoram]

I've been playing HERO for about 20 years, and I've read through or did a quick play of many of the games and systems that have come out since. I still play HERO. I've never found another game or system that does what I want a game to do any better than HERO.

so put me down for:
1. Its the best! I can't think of another role playing system I like better!

[Captain Obvious]

I think you're going to get a highly skewed poll here.

Signed, a fanboy

[Just Joe]

I regard 1. and 2. both as true statements. I rounded in Hero's favor and voted 1.

[The Horror]

Uhm. Interesting. I didn't vote, but here is what I think:

I like HERO. It is just such a tight and well thought out system, that I can't help but appreciate the beauty of it all. During play it isn't too bad either.

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to put in effort designing racial templates and what not. The settings so far published for HERO don't appeal to me at all (though the genre books are absolutely fantastic).

My games of choice include things like Talislanta, Cthulhu, Pendragon and Godlike. All of those games (and the others) have mechanics that are perfectly suited for their settings. There is no need for adjustments or conversions. So in the end I just don't end up playing HERO for anything other than superheroes, and its been a while since I've done that.

So really for me HERO as a system is there as a safety margin. If there is a world I really really want to play in, then I know I can do it with HERO. In all cases however, I have to weight up the effort vs time available. For example, I'd love to play RIFTS with a different system, but I simply don't have the time to do all the conversions over to HERO. Thus it goes unplayed. I use the genre books all the time for my other games, its just the system itself that seems to get no use for me.


The Horror

[ghost-angel]

Is that "cant do without bending the rules completely out of shape".

How about kill a normal person with a pistol in one shot (1d6rka)

Or build rogue

Or dead man

That's any concept, idea, thought, genre, meta-genre, cross over, power I've ever thought up I can do with HERO, without needing extra rules, changed rules or bending the rules.

I never claimed simplicity. You can build Rogue .. it's just not cheap, not mechanically easy or perfect. But you can do it.

I'm not familiar with dead man.

Killing a normal with a pistol in one shot: To the head, they have no rDEF, the dmg is doubled, you can put them to -2BDY, use bleeding rules. Of course .... it's kind of a stupid question to be honest

I did mean concept wise as far as the game was concerned... sorry I didn't clarify, but whatever. You can't kill a person with one shot from a pistol in a lot of games, and a lot of times in real life either...

[Vondy]

I've modded it until its almost unrecognizable, but even out of the box, I like it pretty well.

[zornwil]

I regard 1. and 2. both as true statements. I rounded in Hero's favor and voted 1.

I did the opposite and rounded "down", only because I thought that Nexus' qualification "some other games do something better" had more implied weight in steering than "can't think of another role playing system I like better". However, it was a tough call. I do like HERO system better than any other game in general, but for certain unique settings and certain mechanics there are other systems I like better in certain respects. Deadlands is a prime example to me, the setting and the rules mesh very, very well, and HERO just can't do it, although one could modify it to do so...but not without direct inspiration from Deadlands, i.e., I don't think you'd get much inspiration from the HERO toolkit (then again, it's not a flavor-oriented system per se, which is okay).

Personally, I'd probably have rated HERO one step higher in this poll if it were more explicitly a toolkit and more clearly crafted to create other systems out of it. Then I'd probably feel that it would be so strong that in effect other systems would be blown away since it would be so easy to do them and do them very often better but with the same flavor. Right now I think we're just a tad too far from that scenario.

But like I said, I really do like HERO in general the best. I don't GM any other systems, aside from tinkering with MnM just a little a while back.

[Bucky]

I like Hero. I've been playing off and on for over a year now, and I like it, alot. I don't like rolling low. Sorry, its a culture thing, I grew up when a 20 was a crit, so its hard to get my mind around rolling low to hit. And when I first got into gaming, all the weird shaped dice just kind of, I don't know, intrigued me for some weird reason. Its a culture thing, and I realize that.

Its a damn good system, and I too have not found anything I can't do yet. I love being able to design a character from scratch, like a wizzard with a .45. I really like the more modern setting than D&D, and have purchased all the Star Hero stuff that is currently out, because Traveller is my other favorite game setting. The plethora of settings, and the use of 'real world' magick systems and cosmologies in Hero is a big plus.

The mechanics, well, except the whole rolling low thing, which I already said is a cultural issue, I can't complain about. It works, does come across as mostly realistic, and does lead to some really nice cinematic stuff that makes the game enjoyable.

[CourtFool]

Why did you make this anonymous? I want to know who voted for anything other than 'Its the best! I can't think of another role playing system I like better!' so I can send my black death ninja robots to their house.

[Hugh Neilson]

Like some others, I waffle between 1 and 2. While I voted 1 (it IS my favourite system), some systems designed to do one thing, and one thing only, can accomplish it in a more streamlined fashion than Hero might.

[For interest, does Horror Hero's older edition deal well with Sanity? I always thought Chaoisium's Call of Cthulhu handled that well.]

[Hugh Neilson]

Whoever voted "5", how about telling us your system of choice (the "something better")?