Strengths of HERO?

[Nero's Boot]

Hello from RPG.net! I post over there as "Nero's Boot" (same as here LOL), and after reading the billionth pro-HERO thread over there, I decided to come over here and check your game out! At this point, I'm sold on the game.

However, I have some questions before I dip into my wallet and buy the core rulebook. So what better place to ask than here, a board frequented by HERO fanatics!

1) Other than the genres mentioned on this site (supers, sci-fi, and fantasy), are there any other genres HERO does well? Would the system handle a mecha-based campaign easily? Could it do spaghetti Westerns? Could it do horror?

2) How intuitive is the HERO system? Is it easy to learn, or will I have to put some effort into absorbing it?

3) How "realistic" would you say HERO is? Is it more Four Colors and high-powered like Aberrant and Exalted, or is it more low-powered and gritty, like Godlike or AFMBE? Or is it capable of scaling between the two extremes?

Thank you for your time in this post. At some point next month, I'll be purchasing the HERO main rulebook, along with a few sourcebooks. I love well-put-together "generic" systems, and am looking forward to this purchase.

--thank you for any answers NB

[schir1964]

1) Other than the genres mentioned on this site (supers, sci-fi, and fantasy), are there any other genres HERO does well? Would the system handle a mecha-based campaign easily? Could it do spaghetti Westerns? Could it do horror?

Well, there are people who run Anime, Birds Of Prey, Battletech, Horror, and Elizabethian campaigns.

Check out www.herocentral.net for actual PBEM/PBP games using hero, many different genre's there.

2) How intuitive is the HERO system? Is it easy to learn, or will I have to put some effort into absorbing it?

Make absolutely no doubt about it. The learning curve is steep for learning all the options/rules for the system. It's extemely flexible, which is it's Bane And Boon!

Fortunately you don't have to learn all the options/rules to play or run the game. You can leave off the complicated stuff to get use to mechanics. Then add on what you need as you get comfortable with it.


3) How "realistic" would you say HERO is? Is it more Four Colors and high-powered like Aberrant and Exalted, or is it more low-powered and gritty, like Godlike or AFMBE? Or is it capable of scaling between the two extremes?

And here we are again. It can do all this... depending on the options you choose to use/add. So it requires you to understand the mechanics and stuff to a certain degree.

Fortunately, this board is full of players/GM's just waiting to give thier opinion/experiences on what they found useful and how to get a certain feel from the game.

All you need to do is ask. (8^D)

- Christopher Mullins

[Liberator]

I post on rpg.net as Liberator..go figure...

Anyway...I've been playing Hero since I was about...16? A long time.

I'll take a shot at your questions:

1. IMHO, this system can handle anything you're willing to put energy into. I believe there used to be a Western Hero game (hint hint..Steve..hello...let's get that back!!!). Giant Mecha robots? Sure, you could do it.

2. At first it may be a little tough to pick up. It's a very detailed system. I believe there are some 'random' tables, but not a lot. For example, if you want to whip up a superhero for a one-shot, you're players should have a good idea of what they want to make, or it could take a while. It's not like the old MSH game, where you grab some dice and just go. Now, once you've played it a few times, it's going to become very intuitive IMO. I find that I can make characters and 'mooks/minions' without having to really crack the books now. But, I've been playing for over 10 years as well.

3. Again, as realistic as you want it to be. The rules are very good (a lot better than in the past) about how to make your game 'low fantasy vs. high fantasy', 'four color vs. gritty' and so on. You can set limits as the GM as to how many points your players can spend on characters.

I'm actually coming back to Hero. I switched my supers campaign to Mutants and Masterminds, but I'm switching my fantasy campaign over to Fantasy Hero. I really like Fantasy Hero, and I'm considering Star Hero as well. And if Western Hero gets put out.....well...I'm all over it.

I think the strength of the system is that it's flexible. You really can do whatever you want with it.

Plus, I think as a company, they are really making some big strides. No offense, but there were some thin/lean years for Hero. The new books and supplements are really high quality stuff. (which is why I'm switching from DnD to FH)

I think you'll like it, and once your players get used to it, they'll enjoy it too.

[Nero's Boot]

Many thanks!

--cool NB

[keithcurtis]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nero's Boot
[B]1) Other than the genres mentioned on this site (supers, sci-fi, and fantasy), are there any other genres HERO does well? Would the system handle a mecha-based campaign easily? Could it do spaghetti Westerns? Could it do horror?

2) How intuitive is the HERO system? Is it easy to learn, or will I have to put some effort into absorbing it?

3) How "realistic" would you say HERO is? Is it more Four Colors and high-powered like Aberrant and Exalted, or is it more low-powered and gritty, like Godlike or AFMBE? Or is it capable of scaling between the two extremes?

1. The HERO system is flexible enough to handle nearly any genre. Some have claimed that it is not as good as a dedicated system. i.e. for Fantasy, use D&D; for Horror, use CoC, and so forth. The big strength is that it though it might not be as perfect a match as a dedicated system, it is only one system. That makes it easier to switch genres and still keep players who hate to learn new systems.

2. The basics of the Hero system are fairly straightforward. The nuances take longer. The best way to learn Hero (or any game system IMO) is to find someone who plays it and learn by doing. Nevertheless, I and many of the oldtimers here learned by reading it. We had to, because there wasn't anybody who was already playing.

3. Hero has enough toggles to scale between Toon-like survivability and CoC lethality. The best thing here is that the Hero core rulebook is a starting point. Not only can you use the built-in toggles, but the Hero structure encourages house rules. It is a system for game designers, IMO. If you don't like a rule, or more importantly, it works against the genre you are modeling, get rid of it or change it. I have never gamed Hero with anyone who didn't have at least a short list of house rules.


Keith "and welcome to the Hero boards, O noble footwear" Curtis

[Dr_Jones]

This would be a good point for someone to suggest you look into the upcoming Sidekick rules book. It is geared towards new players and reducing the learning curve.

The hardest part of the Hero system is the front end work for characters and GMing. But with all the genre books and other source books what was once a drawback is no longer a problem. Now you can select premade characters, or spells or superpowers and tada! you are good to go. Or you can use them as guidelines on how to make your own ideas work and it helps illustrate the flexibilty of the system.

Welcome to the Hero System and the boards!

[Alcamtar]

Originally posted by Nero's Boot
1) Other than the genres mentioned on this site (supers, sci-fi, and fantasy), are there any other genres HERO does well? Would the system handle a mecha-based campaign easily? Could it do spaghetti Westerns? Could it do horror?

Yes. The biggest thing you have to keep in mind is that it is pretty generic and has a lot of options; you need to know the genre well enough to know which options to use, and which not to use. But there is a lot of good advice in the rulebook, and the genre books are superb; Fantasy Hero is the *best* fantasy sourcebook I have ever seen as far as explaining the genre itself. You can also use genre books from other games for ideas; almost anything can be "ripped off" and implemented in Hero easily (although converting stuff can become a fascinating game in itself..)

IMO Hero does certain things REALLY well:

-- Powers. Anything that has superhuman or weird powers of any type is a good candidate for Hero. It's big strength is that it provides mechanics for balancing powers and interactions between powers, without actually defining them, so if you always like to tweak powers (or invent your own) but like a lot of "crunch" (as opposed to just guessing and making up stuff as you go), it's excellent.

-- Detailed combat, especially martial arts. Combat is more oriented toward cinematic 4-color action than ultra realism, but it *feels* right, and you can get as close as most gamers really want to.

-- Keeping characters alive. Hero characters are amazingly durable, although there are options to make them less so. If you want PCs to survive even when they lose a fight, or you want NPCs to survive often, it's very easy to do in Hero.

-- Scalability. You can build anything from an gnome to a star destroyer. I'm not sure it handles the really low end of the scale well (like insects), but it excels at the high end, and characters of different powers can interact easily with each other.

-- Roleplay. Hero has an excellent character disadvantage system with usable game effects, and also has an excellent Presence mechanic. For such a crunchy, wargamey system, it supports roleplay and characterization very well, and the presence and ego mechanics can make for meaningful and detailed social conflict.

These are the things that draw me to the system, and whenever a genre requires two or three of these, Hero is a top candidate for me.

It's not so good for:
-- Fighting hundreds of opponents, like a horde of orcs, unless you greatly streamline combat and/or have some area-effect powers. Also not great for frequent "random encounters." Combat can take some time (though not always) so works better if used in moderation.

-- Games with a high mortality rate; characters take too long to make to throw them away and start again.

-- Significant throwaway NPCs. Again, it takes too much effort to make them up; the GM can of course improvise minor NPCs that don't need a detailed writeup.

-- Munchkin players. While it will allow good players to really stretch their wings, if you have abusive players, Hero will probably only make them worse.

These would make me think twice about using Hero.

2) How intuitive is the HERO system? Is it easy to learn, or will I have to put some effort into absorbing it?

It takes some effort, and there's a learning curve. The good part is once you have mastered a subset of the rules (I'd say about 20-25%), the curve plateaus abruptly and you can play just about anything; the rest is "mastering" the details, options, and nuances of the system which will occur naturally as you play. Hero is based on foundational meta-rules (like 1d6 per 5 active points) and once you get used to these, everything sort of "clicks" together and it becomes extremely easy to remember and build upon.

3) How "realistic" would you say HERO is? Is it more Four Colors and high-powered like Aberrant and Exalted, or is it more low-powered and gritty, like Godlike or AFMBE? Or is it capable of scaling between the two extremes?

By default it is four-color cinematic (somewhere between "Hollywood realism" and "comic book realism"), but options are provided to greatly increase the grittiness. Hero relies heavily on the GM to set the tone, but is very responsive to GM tweaking, so really it will be what you make it. Given that cinematic play and powers are primary strengths, I suspect most people choose Hero because of them and most campaigns are more cinematic than gritty. The grittier Hero campaigns are usually by GMs who already use Hero for cinematic play, love it, and know it like the back of their hand, so there is no reason to play something else. If I were only interested in gritty play, I don't think I'd choose Hero in the first place; but if I wanted to do both with a single system, Hero would definitely be a top contender.

Mike

[TheEmerged]

RE: HERO's learning curve. The way I usually explain it is this. d20 has a very easy initial learning curve, that gets very steep very quickly because of all the 'exceptions'. HERO has a very steep initial curve -- but once you have it down, it's a cinch. Harder to learn but easier to master, if you will.

HERO's greatest strength. "Flexibility" is the easy answer, but that's looking at an effect instead of a cause. HERO is, hands down, the most internally consistent system out there. I personally argue its less of a game system than a game system creation tool. As a result, it stands up to rule tinkering FAR better than other systems -- and can be used across genres much better as a result.

Best example I can give is this. I have run over a dozen Fantasy HERO campaigns. I have used 5 different magic systems -- all completely within the structure of HERO, yet using seperate mechanics. Yet in 4 of those 5 systems (and the 5th was my fault not HERO's) I was able to keep magic-user characters and fighter-type characters in relative balance.

GURPS, by comparison, is "generic" in name only. The martial art rules use one system, the psionic another, magic another, sci-fi alien races another, and super powers another still. They may have the same core, but because of differences in the system a 150-pt martial artist and a 150-pt psionic are going to be on completely different levels of power.

Scaling. HERO can be both four-colored high power and gritty low-power. It is true that it is *more* suited for the "moderate power superheroic or cinematic" genres -- but that's because of some granularity issues at the low end. It's also true that in campaigns with a very narrow scope characters tend to look a lot alike -- but that's because you're playing against HERO's strength when you do that.

It boils down to how many optional rules you want to work with. The main rules are heavily cinematic -- becoming "realistic" (quote marks used for a reason) adds layers of complexity to the system. I've found that the key to being a good GM in HERO often depends on balancing the amount of realism without bogging combat down.

[Toadmaster]

And if you have questions as to whether or not HERO can really do all this a trip to ebay should allow you to find the numerous 3rd and 4th edition supplements to fill in the gaps between StarHERO, Champions, FantasyHERO and NinjaHERO.

Dark Champions and Danger International covered the modern action / espionage genres.

Justice Inc covered the Pulp genre

WesternHERO took care of the old west

CyberHERO did the Shadowrun / Cyberpunk genre

Robot Warriors and Robot Gladiators did the Mecha thing

The 5th edition has made some changes but these older books still have value to help you run a game in the genre until DOJ puts out 5th edition versions (and so far the quality of all the DoJ products has blown away the older versions which were pretty good to great already).

[dugfromthearth]

[1) Other than the genres mentioned on this site (supers, sci-fi, and fantasy), are there any other genres HERO does well? Would the system handle a mecha-based campaign easily? Could it do spaghetti Westerns? Could it do horror?]

Hero works well for horror because it has a Presence system. Characters can scare or otherwise influence others. So if you want a terrifying mummy you don't need to invent mechanics, just give it a high presence and it can scare people. There are additional rules for HERO horror as well, for long term sanity loss and such.

Can any system do spaghetti westerns well? The big problem with those is that a gunfight resolves everything, everyone knows it, so players just have the gunfight. But what HERO has is character limitations. HERO could do The Quick And The Dead fairly well. Characters can have codes vs. kiling, honorable, law-abiding, or other limitations that prevent the player from simply gunning down their opponent at the first opportunity. A hallmark of HERO is that characters must roleplay, they have limitations that force roleplaying upon them.

[2) How intuitive is the HERO system? Is it easy to learn, or will I have to put some effort into absorbing it?]

HERO is fairly easy, but it has concepts other games lack which can make it more complicated. You can have HERO be about as complicated as you like (not RoleMaster complicated, but close). In general the more powerful your characters are the more complicated the game is.

The most complicated thing is character creation. With superheroes this is fairly complicated (although you can make very simple but effective characters). With fantasy characters who do not use magic this can be very simple. If you use source books, even magic or super powers are simple.

[3) How "realistic" would you say HERO is? Is it more Four Colors and high-powered like Aberrant and Exalted, or is it more low-powered and gritty, like Godlike or AFMBE? Or is it capable of scaling between the two extremes?]

HERO has one element of realism that most games seem to lack - STUN. Stun and body are two different things. Running out of stun knocks you out, running out of body kills you. It is very common for characters to be knocked out having taken little or no body damage.

In HERO if you are having a fistfight in a bar and someone pulls a knife it suddenly changes everything. With fists (or other "normal" attacks such as clubs you seldom do body to someone. Knives, guns (and other "killing" attacks) usually do body, they kill people.

Now even if you use killing attacks, HERO usually is not as lethal as other game systems. But there is a simple recommended fix if you want to use it - you just double the amount of body damage done.

[zornwil]

I would only like to add 2 things to what has been stated so far.

First, re genres, it depends a lot on how much you want the system to do "for" you, or, perhaps better phrased, how much flavor you want the system to impart. Deadlands does a tremendous job of imparting flavor to its "weird West" genre; HERO could never do that (IMHO of course). However, using HERO you could easily do a weird West game without learning any new rules, just tinkering with what options you want to use and how you might want to tweak a few things. Similarly, I always have felt (and haven't read enough of Fantasy HERO yet to really say if I might change this feeling) that HERO allows for ultimate flexibility with traditional magic but because it is generic doesn't leave magic with enough flavor of its own. Still, I'd much rather use HERO's methods of handling that than other systems, because with HERO I can easily use magic in Fantasy or Super-hero or other roleplaying portably. But I don't much care for fantasy play, so I'm not a great judge. There are a lot of Fantasy HERO people here, as Liberator represents, so obviously HERO is useful in that field - and any other genre. Just depends on your flavor needs.

Second, I do have to take strong exception to Alcamtar's one point (with all due respect, Alcamtar), that it's too hard to make disposable major NPCs. Or at least let me qualify the exception I make; it's hard to amke disposable major NPCs AT FIRST. Once you get familiar, my feeling is it's quite simple. I often make up villains seen only once a few hours before a game and don't fret all that much, other than just thinking up the concept, which wouldn't take any more or less time in any other system. Once I know what I want, it doesn't take long at all. Of course I don't finesse it all the way, I get the numbers pretty much right and leave it there, after all, I'm the GM and I know what the character is like and I don't need to worry/fret over every little character point.

However, I would advise strongly if you're going to write up a lot of characters, buy Hero Designer or MetaCreator (with the latter you need the 5th edition template that can be downloaded from this site). If you are only going to use a chargen software for HERO, Hero Designer is almost certainly your better bet. The 5th edition template for MC has had a few issues implementing rules and it does have one rounding issue the author doesn't want to change (however, most people who use the program prefer it the way it is in MC, myself included) - however, I wouldn't let that be an inhibiting factor by itself as these rules glitches are ALWAYS fixed, other than this rounding one, shortly after discovery. However, now that MetaCreator has a d20 template in beta (or perhaps it's ready, I don't recal), and there are other tempaltes for it, if you want a software to suit all your needs you might prefer MC.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by Liberator
I post on rpg.net as Liberator..go figure...

Anyway...I've been playing Hero since I was about...16? A long time.

I'll take a shot at your questions:

1. IMHO, this system can handle anything you're willing to put energy into. I believe there used to be a Western Hero game (hint hint..Steve..hello...let's get that back!!!). Giant Mecha robots? Sure, you could do it.

2. At first it may be a little tough to pick up. It's a very detailed system. I believe there are some 'random' tables, but not a lot. For example, if you want to whip up a superhero for a one-shot, you're players should have a good idea of what they want to make, or it could take a while. It's not like the old MSH game, where you grab some dice and just go. Now, once you've played it a few times, it's going to become very intuitive IMO. I find that I can make characters and 'mooks/minions' without having to really crack the books now. But, I've been playing for over 10 years as well.

3. Again, as realistic as you want it to be. The rules are very good (a lot better than in the past) about how to make your game 'low fantasy vs. high fantasy', 'four color vs. gritty' and so on. You can set limits as the GM as to how many points your players can spend on characters.

I'm actually coming back to Hero. I switched my supers campaign to Mutants and Masterminds, but I'm switching my fantasy campaign over to Fantasy Hero. I really like Fantasy Hero, and I'm considering Star Hero as well. And if Western Hero gets put out.....well...I'm all over it.

I think the strength of the system is that it's flexible. You really can do whatever you want with it.

Plus, I think as a company, they are really making some big strides. No offense, but there were some thin/lean years for Hero. The new books and supplements are really high quality stuff. (which is why I'm switching from DnD to FH)

I think you'll like it, and once your players get used to it, they'll enjoy it too.

Liberator, why did you switch to M&M, and how did you find oyur experience? What (if anything) did you alter in M&M to suit your tastes? I apologize if you answered this before, you're welcome to just point me to a thread or tell me to search.

I'm asking because I'm toying a bit with M&M and have run one game in it so far, need to make some tweaks (not just rules, although I am doing that, but also just in terms of how I build and play characters in it), and am always interested in the experiences of a HERO-to-M&M player/GM.

[schir1964]

Zornwil, now you had go and mention my template now didn't you. (8^D)

Ummm, I'm not aware of any rounding issue. Please email me about it to refresh my memory. Or you might want to check out the latest update (2.0.2), since you may find that whatever you rounding issue you might have seen may have already been resolved. Thanks.

- Christopher Mullins

[zornwil]

Originally posted by schir1964
Zornwil, now you had go and mention my template now didn't you. (8^D)

Ummm, I'm not aware of any rounding issue. Please email me about it to refresh my memory. Or you might want to check out the latest update (2.0.2), since you may find that whatever you rounding issue you might have seen may have already been resolved. Thanks.

- Christopher Mullins

Oh, sorry, this started with the whole issue of Leaping (which actually Steve ruled the way MC did it so HD was changed) but also anytime you have separate contributors to a characteristics (such as STR or MD) with limitations and advantages, one application resolves as follows:

3.5 + 3.5 = 7 (rounding only at the end of the process)

another one rounds as:

3.5 + 3.5 = 8 (rounding the 3.5 first)

I believe MC added then rounded, while HD, in keeping with some text from 5th, rounds each step of the way, but I'm not quite sure. I'll try to remember to drag this out of my emails, you and I exchange a correspondence on this, and I'm sure it's actually here on the boards as well probably in the whole rounding-of-leaping "debate". In any event, I remember that the MC crowd (being relatively conservative on system changes as far as I can see, probably related to the longer usage of our software than many) preferred it whatever way it was in MC and the difference was so trivial you decided to leave it alone.

Sorry, I'll be more specific later on this, and I'll check it out as you mentioned once I can be sure of the precise details.

[schir1964]

Ahhh... now I remember. And yes, you're right. It's too trivial to even bother with. (8^D)

- Christopher Mullins