Christopher R Taylor Posted September 30, 2014 Report Share Posted September 30, 2014 The Hero system, being one of the first - and the best - generic gaming systems out there is incredibly flexible and can run just about anything very well. What kind of campaigns and settings have you used it for? Here's what I've done or played in over the decades: Vietnam War Fantasy of various types Superhero settings (High powered, low powered, school for mutants, vigilantes, and much more) Pulp era adventures Wild West Sci Fi (space opera) Post Apocalyptic The Viper sourcebook (4th ed) idea of superbeings running the world and the PCs rebelling by finding an old Viper base. Only one session, sadly Miami Vice Terminator Supernatural Western Robin Hood setting Japanese Fantasy variant These are campaigns I want to run: 1) Continue my Golden Age Champions campaign, now on hold, at least up to Pearl Harbor.2) Pirates! Based on the antics of Captain Morgan and set in that time period, still not sure how to handle the PCs and what their rank would be.3) Super cops, police with low level superpowers who join the force and eventually others learn about their powers and a super-cop branch is established and built up around them4) Colonial Defense Marines. Sci Fi game where PCs are grunts in low end military force to protect colonists on strange worlds.5) Continue rebellion using Viper gear 6) Villains game where the PCs play viper agents and work their way up through the system to run their own Nest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Goodwin Posted September 30, 2014 Report Share Posted September 30, 2014 Many of these were back in the GAS days. Four color superheroes Somewhat deadlier superheroes Wild Cards Teen superheroes Many Fantasy Hero games Fantasy Hero game based on FGU's Bushido Fantasy Hero game based on Robert Asprin's Myth series with a distinct Star Wars flavor Several different translations of Battletech to Hero Generic giant robots (Robot Warriors) Old West Paranoid/gonzo conspiracy a la Illuminati Modern military action adventure Translation of WW's Vampire (that itself started as a modern day with magic game a la GURPS Technomancer) Space opera Pro wrestling Something odd we called "Death Wish", essentially 10 point characters, no powers or disads, dropped on a map and forced to fight to the last man. Weird dimension hopping uhhh...weirdness Ninja Hero (I was one of the Hiro Brothers) I missed out on the Ghostbusters game, but wanted to do one myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted September 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2014 I forgot the Death Wish games, I was in one of those. They were sadly tilted toward favorite players, though, whenever a judgment call came up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmachu Posted September 30, 2014 Report Share Posted September 30, 2014 I will in the near future, use hero to run Torg the possibility wars. Various invading cosms and hero can do it all from fantasy, to pulp to tech to all sorts of fun. Core earth with choose its champions and make them superpowered to fight back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesguy Posted September 30, 2014 Report Share Posted September 30, 2014 Played in or run... Silver Age themed (but not time period) Super heroes games Fantasy - various campaign worlds mostly homegrown Star Trek themed Mission Impossible styled spy campaign And when I have needed to flatten a map pilling all the Hero Game books on top of the map that worked well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sketchpad Posted October 1, 2014 Report Share Posted October 1, 2014 • Superheroes (in the CU) • Superheroes (in my own universe) • Spies/Espionage • Super-Spies (in CU) • ESPionage • Traditional Fantasy • Star Hero (in my own universe) • Robot Warriors (anime-ish) • Robot Warriors (Transformers-ish) • Western Hero (alas only one session) • Justice Inc./Pulp Hero • Fighting Tourneys (w/ Ninja Hero/HS Martial Arts) • Horror Hero (only one session, though others have been plotted out) I'm sure there have been a few others... I know I had thought about doing a TMNT-like game in Hero as well... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattingly Posted October 1, 2014 Report Share Posted October 1, 2014 Muppets Toy Story toys Roger Rabbit era classic cartoons (Warner Brothers and Disney) Sci-fi and fantasy movies (Terminator, Highlander, Shrek, etc.) RPG company cliches (Magic User, Brick, Werewolf) Company mascots (Cap'n Crunch, Mrs. Butterworth's, Mr. Clean, etc.) Post-apocalpyse talking apes (like PotA with sorcery) Giant monsters on Nightmare Island Giant statues (Sphinx, Statue of Liberty, Easter island head, etc.) The Scooby Doo gang GI Joe ...and a variety of superhero, sci-fi, modern, and pulp campaigns over the years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted October 1, 2014 Report Share Posted October 1, 2014 Space Opera (originally a Star Frontiers homage that morphed into a homebrew) Fantasy (original homebrew setting ) Fantasy (epic, vaguely Norse meets Spawn-verse homebrew setting) Fantasy (low-powered, homebrew setting based roughly on the concept of a New World discovered in the 7th Sea universe with heavy Lovecraftian elements) Pulp (an off-shoot of the Space Opera campaign wherein the characters were forced to explore their character's ancestors' lives in an altered reality or perhaps a mass hallucination) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marrethiel Posted October 4, 2014 Report Share Posted October 4, 2014 Fantasy and Champions Also, the 5th ed book and a dictionary was used to prop up my (then) infants bed so that it was on an angle. Which means of course that 5e was best as a reflux cure I joked with my wife that he was resting on knowledge and gaming, so that he would hopefully absorb both by osmosis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted October 7, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2014 So many options for the hero system, different games and settings. The only one I've tried that didn't work for me was Horror Hero; Call of Cthulhu seems to work best for that kind of setting for me at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
culhwch Posted October 8, 2014 Report Share Posted October 8, 2014 Not many: - Supers - Fantasy - A short-lived X-Files play-by-email game. I have ideas for many others, but no players interested alas.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdamnhero Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 Hero Campaigns I've run: Fantasy, assorted Superheroes, 4-color Superheroes, gritty Supervillains (Necessary Evil setting) Time travel (based on Roger Zelazny's Roadmarks) Urban Fantasy-Monster Hunting (pre-MHI) Sci-Fi, space opera (unfortunately short-lived) Hero one-shots/demos/convention games I've run: Superheroes, 4-color Superheroes, Marvel Cinematic Universe Superhero kids (PS238) Superhero grand melee (all combat, multiple characters per player) Fantasy, low Fantasy, high Fantasy, epic/divine (1000 point PCs (and no that's not a typo!)) Fantasy, Barsoom (ie John Carter of Mars) Fantasy, offbeat ninja-pirate mashup Sci-fi, pulp space opera Sci-fi, military action Sci-fi, western (ie Firefly before they released the RPG) Post-apocalypse, high-power Post-apocalypse, low-power Pulp Urban Fantasy Urban Fantasy-Monster Hunting, non-MHI Urban Fantasy-Monster Hunting, MHI Cross-genre pop-culture hero mashup Whew! What campaigns would I like to run someday? At present I have a cyberpunk/superhero mashup rattling around in my brain. I'd like to take my Divine-level fantasy game and expand it to campaign length. Someday I'd love to try the Revelations 1001 setting from Post-Apoc Hero. And one of these days I'll get to scratch my Grand Space Opera Babylon-5-meets-Farscape-via-Blake's-Seven itch! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdamnhero Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 The only one I've tried that didn't work for me was Horror Hero; Call of Cthulhu seems to work best for that kind of setting for me at least. We had trouble with Horror Hero too, tho I think that was more that my GMing style isn't well-suited to horror. (After 2 sessions it morphed into "We Need Bigger Guns" monster hunting, and everyone was much happier!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 I never ran a Horror Hero game but have the book. It seems to me as a genre you really need the players fully on board with it to make it work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted October 9, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 We used to do arena fights, everyone made a character just to fight in the arena and battled it out. Different kinds of builds for that setting, since its all survival and combat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbywolfe Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 I never ran a Horror Hero game but have the book. It seems to me as a genre you really need the players fully on board with it to make it work.That's true with any horror game regardless of the system. If the players aren't fully on board with CoC it's just that dumb game where you go crazy and the GM kills you all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted October 9, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 That's true with any horror game regardless of the system. If the players aren't fully on board with CoC it's just that dumb game where you go crazy and the GM kills you all the time. Not that there's anything wrong with that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roter Baron Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 So far I gmed or played in: 1) Superheroes (regular four-color Champions, street-level supers, Golden Age, anti-heroic Dark Champions) 2) Fantasy Hero (regular fantasy stuff (one in the Western Shores, one in the Palladium RPG setting, one in the Kingdoms of Kalamar), low-powered, low-magic stuff in the Grand-Duchy of Karameikos, and one Stormbringer conversion) 3) Star Wars 4) Western Hero 5) Pulp Hero 6) Victorian Hero (we called it HERO 1880) 7) Space Gothic Hero (a conversion of the German dark sci-fi Space Gothic Game - think Aliens meets Dystopian Future meets Space Crusaders with some mutants thrown in) 8) Cyber Hero (only one adventure - not my cup of tea) Seems like not much, but we really played a lot of Champions and Pulp back in the days and after that Fantasy mostly. The systemn works best with Champions and Pulp IMHO. Space Gothic and Star Wars were the worst - EBs and even RKAs are simply not deadly enough for the setting. You regularly end up witha lot of unconscious stormtroopers with one heck of an headache - not very genre-like. Western and the Victorian setting were okay, too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigbywolfe Posted October 9, 2014 Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 Not that there's anything wrong with that True. I just meant that most of the issues with "horror Hero" apply to any other horror game if the group isn't invested in that type of game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted October 9, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 9, 2014 I wanna play in a lot of these campaigns heh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluesguy Posted October 10, 2014 Report Share Posted October 10, 2014 I wanna play in a lot of these campaigns heh Me too... To bad you don't live here in the Twin Cities you could game with us. Actually that goes for all the regular posters here on the forum. I would love to play in your games and have you play in mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted October 10, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 10, 2014 Yeah I could use some more players in my group. As we've gotten older several of the standbys have moved on or gotten too busy with life and kids to have time for the hobby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdamnhero Posted October 11, 2014 Report Share Posted October 11, 2014 Yeah I could use some more players in my group. Try out a local game convention; by definition everyone there has at least some time for the hobby, and there are always people looking to join a new group. And you get to play a few one-shots with them first to get a sense of if they'd be a good fit, both socially and in terms of style of play. Almost everyone in my current group I met that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted October 11, 2014 Report Share Posted October 11, 2014 True. I just meant that most of the issues with "horror Hero" apply to any other horror game if the group isn't invested in that type of game. I want I meant was with Hero system by default most people don't think that their character are going to be seriously harmed/die whereas other games this is already figured into the games premises. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher R Taylor Posted October 11, 2014 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2014 Yeah you can make Hero very lethal and dangerous for characters, but somehow the rules don't lend themselves well to hopeless fear and that sense that you're overmatched and in danger of your life at all times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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