Discussion of Hero System's "Health" on rpg.net

[Surrealone]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that from a newcomver's perspective, the 6e page citations made on this forum are likely unhelpful to a newcomer who can't actually buy a hardcopy of the 6e books?

 

I mean, saying "see 6e page such-and-such" ... in a book the person can't actually buy ... is akin to telling the person to look up the meaning of "intangible" in the 1847 Merriam-Webster revision of Noah Webster's Dictionary (copyright 1840).   Sure, copies of those mid-1800's dictionaries are floating around, but good luck getting your hands on a hardcopy of one of them to do the lookup...

 

Surreal

 

P.S. My example is not intended to be a perfect one.  For instance, I know you can likely find a suitable definition for 'intangible' in an in-print dictionary ... or even online.  But that's not the point.  The sheer insanity of directing someone to do lookups in out-of-print material was the point.

​P.S. S. Gamers like their hardcopy for whatever reason, so saying 'buy the PDF' is like telling gamers to replace their dice with random die rollers on their phones; it's just not the same ... and won't get much traction.  The PDF pricing often hurts this argument, too, as PDFs have much less cost associated with them, but the savings are not traditionally passed on to the buyer (instead, the seller pockets a bigger percentage while the buyer, receiving nothing tangible yet paying nearly the cost for the hardcopy ... is left feeling a bit gouged).  This may, in fact, be a facet of why hardcopy is usually preferred among gamers???

[Nolgroth]

You are absolutely correct. 6E1/2 citations are pretty useless to newcomers. The corollary is that many people who own 6E1/2 did not feel the need to buy into either Champions Complete or Fantasy Hero Complete, so they do not have a similar page cite. It is one of the biggest problems with having multiple "sub" editions of a game. There are also some inconsistencies within the rules themselves. They are small, minuscule even, but it does muddy up the Hero system "language" into at least two dialects. Here is an example;

 

Weapons, especially big ones, can knock people down; so can powerful attacks of just about any kind. This is simulated by Knockdown, an optional rule used with the Hit Location Table. Whenever a character takes an Impairing wound, he must retreat 2m and make a DEX Roll. If he fails the roll, he falls down. Whenever he takes a Disabling wound, he’s automatically Knocked Down, and falls back 1m for every 1 BODY rolled on the dice over the character’s starting BODY...

 

With this option, any attack that would cause Knockback simply Knocks Down the target in his current location instead. Impairing or Disabling wounds also result in Knockdown.

 

Both ultimately express the same thing (target ends up prone), but the specifics are different enough so that a person with only one of those resources might be confused. 

[zslane]

Since existing products which cite 6e1/6e2 probably aren't going to be updated to cite Complete instead, the one thing Hero Games should probably take a stand on is having all official rules questions answered only in terms of the Complete rules. There may not be any hope of getting old material "fixed", but the least Hero Games can do is stop perpetuating confusion in the official support forums (I'm looking squarely at you, Mr. Long).

 

Given how easy it would be for Hero Games to make 6e1/6e2 available in B&W softcover format, the fact that they refuse to do so can be taken as a clear indicator that they never will, for whatever reason. Desperate gamers basically have two choices: either pay collector prices (particularly for 6e1) or learn how to DIY via POD services like Lulu.com.

 

Has anyone tried to reach out to Hero Games and lobby them to put 6e1/6e2 up for POD purchase on DriveThruRPG?

[Joe Walsh]

I understand your point, but I do appreciate that Mr. Long makes himself available to answer questions about his work. If only the authors of CC and FHC had a similar forum...

[Christopher R Taylor]

The thing is, Hero won't ever die.  I mean there are still people who play Tunnels & Trolls and Runequest.  Its just a question of having much market share, which is rough right now.  Still, market share plummeted after 4th edition and 5th brought it back quite a bit.

 

I think a series of introductory books and Pathfinder-like campaign modules for Champions would go a long ways to help.  Fantasy Hero, too.

[Joe Walsh]

Yes, indeed. Show them the possibilities. But how does one do that?

 

It is my belief that the most effective, indeed perhaps the only way today to do that is through the lens of a must-play campaign setting.

 

I don't own Monster Hunters, but isn't that along the lines of what you're talking about? Did it do well?

[zslane]

Well, unless Greg Elkins plans to produce these new products, I don't think they will ever exist. I sort of get the impression that fans of the system still think Hero Games is a publisher with concrete plans for the future of the game. Apart from encouraging third party writers, I see nothing resembling a plan. Hero Games isn't publishing anything themselves anymore as far as I can tell. Consequently the "health" of the Hero System is entirely dependent on its fans now, not its owner.

[zslane]

I don't own Monster Hunters, but isn't that along the lines of what you're talking about? Did it do well?

MHI is the right idea. But I don't get any sense of it being talked about much anywhere but here, which means it didn't do much to expand the system to very many gamers outside of the Hero faithful.

 

It's a bit like the movie business in that you never quite know what will really connect with the public and produce a hit. MHI may be a decent product, but it hasn't exactly been lightning in a bottle, which means I think we need to look elsewhere for the breakout campaign setting that could catapult the Hero System into a new golden age of success.

[Joe Walsh]

I wonder what the licensing terms are like for doing a Hero System campaign product that doesn't use Champions IP.

[phoenix240]

MHI is the right idea. But I don't get any sense of it being talked about much anywhere but here, which means it didn't do much to expand the system to very many gamers outside of the Hero faithful.

 

It's a bit like the movie business in that you never quite know what will really connect with the public and produce a hit. MHI may be a decent product, but it hasn't exactly been lightning in a bottle, which means I think we need to look elsewhere for the breakout campaign setting that could catapult the Hero System into a new golden age of success.

 

One problem with MHI is there is now some sociopolitical controversy attached related to it so in many venues that makes people avoid talking about. That came up in the other thread too. 

[Joe Walsh]

Hmm. Well, some of the upcoming third-party releases sound like they have potential to be along the lines of what zslane is talking about:

http://www.herogames.com/index.html/_/hero-system-news/2016-third-party-hero-system-release-schedule-r110

 

Particularly:

    •    Journey to the Center of the Earth! - High Rock Press, 2016 Q2 Kickstarter
    •    [Name-To-Be-Announced Science Fiction Setting] - Beautifulharmony Multimedia, Q3
    •    Extinction Event Campaign Guide - Mad Ferret, 2016 Q3 Kickstarter
    •    [Name-To-Be-Announced Espionage Campaign] - Beautifulharmony Multimedia, 2016 Q4
    •    Tomb Of The Shadow King (Adventure for Fantasy Hero)
    •    Dead Orc Pass, a City Campaign Book for Fantasy Hero
 

[zslane]

It's hard to tell what to expect from these products. I am not familiar with Beautifulharmony Multimedia. Do they have a track record of putting out rich campaign settings with lots of follow-on support?

 

Remember, I am thinking along the lines of the World of Darkness when it comes to a campaign setting with lots of attached follow-on products (and product lines) that continuously feed fresh content into the hands of players on a regular basis. Their success all began with a single (initial) game focused on one particular aspect of that world (vampires) and then expanded that world with every book that came out. City books, Clan books. Adventure books. And so on.

 

I think if we continue to think in terms of the limited scale of product (and branding) we see now, we'll never see any meaningful growth in the Hero System corner of the RPG marketplace. You might say, "But the hobby can't support expanded production of the scale you're talking about anymore," and if so then I'm not sure why anyone asks about the health of the Hero System. They really should be asking about the health of the hobby as a whole, because to me it looks like it is pretty much on life support, with the only brands keeping it alive for the most part being D&D and Pathfinder. I'm not seeing much on the horizon that is going to change that.

[Tasha]

Actually I think it was touted for that exact purpose. It was marketed as the ultimate gamers' toolkit. Your comparison to an operating system is falls short though. It is an OS (combat and resolution rules) and a scripting language (character & campaign creation) all wrapped up into one package. You are right that it is both the core strength of Hero System but also the biggest trade-off. In a world where our smartphones have relatively complex games, not to mention the console and PC games out there, tabletop RPGs have a lot of competition. Add to that a society wide sense of impatience and demand for instant gratification and it isn't a stretch to see why Hero isn't doing so well. Tabletop gaming has always been a niche market. Hero is a very small niche within that niche market.

 

Insofar as GURPS doing okay, I have my own theories about that. Hero basically put all of its eggs into the Champions basket. GURPS pursued multiple genres with much more fervor than Hero did. As a consequence, Hero and Champions are essentially the same thing in most of the general gaming publics' minds. Steve Jackson has published some very good GURPS supplements that span a wide breadth of the gaming spectrum. Just a thought and no real way to prove it one way or the other. Could be that more stores carry GURPS or it has a better reputation in the gaming community at large. Maybe there are enough resources being brought in to have some sort of advertising budget over at RPGNow or DriverThruRPG.

 

Now, as in all previous threads on this matter that I've participated in, we can all start dropping our suggestions. Would they help? Damned if I know. I do know that I'd like to see Hero System and Hero Games succeed. It just seems kind of hard when it's on life support.

 

 IMHO Hero is a RPG construction set. Some Genres can be played with less work on the GM's part (ie Supers). Other genres take a lot of work (ie any thing with a set Magic System). Most old timer Hero GM's are used to allowing players to build spells and abilities using pretty vague guidelines. This worked for folk that grew up playing games like OD&D, AD&D and other early RPGs that required a ton of house rules to be actually playable.

 

Current players and GM's don't have that kind of time anymore or patience. So the huge amount of work it takes to set up a Hero System campaign becomes an insurmountable or at least a very daunting task. I would love to see Campaign books for Hero that include pregenerated everything. leaving players to buy powers from the defined menus that are included in the book. GM's that were interested in customizing stuff could find the fiddly writeups in a downloadable extra. Currently everything is over complicted. Even Heroic settings have lists of weapons and abilities that are spelled out in unneeded minutiae. One thing we have been missing is KISS(Keep it simple stupid), we have been engulfed in fiddly rules ie adding strength to AP weapons. I know that it's more "correct" to require 7 str per DC to increase damage, but you add unneeded complexity that gains very little IMHO. There are too many things like that (ie Growth in 6e, Regeneration and many others).

[Tasha]

One problem with MHI is there is now some sociopolitical controversy attached related to it so in many venues that makes people avoid talking about. That came up in the other thread too. 

 

MHI has a take on Urban Fantasy that is unique, and that makes it less useful to me. Also, the Author's political views are repugnant to me. It was the MHI RPG kickstarter that introduced me to his blog, and I won't support the hatred I have seen there. I don't mind that he has conservative views as I have supported other conservative authors. His views are just too out there for me. So I don't buy his books anymore. I did support the MHI KS with a decent pledge, but never again. I honestly wish we could have an Urban Fantasy Board that includes MHI discussion, and not a MHI Board that leaves many UF Discussions feeling like they don't have a home.

[Tasha]

Since existing products which cite 6e1/6e2 probably aren't going to be updated to cite Complete instead, the one thing Hero Games should probably take a stand on is having all official rules questions answered only in terms of the Complete rules. There may not be any hope of getting old material "fixed", but the least Hero Games can do is stop perpetuating confusion in the official support forums (I'm looking squarely at you, Mr. Long).

 

Given how easy it would be for Hero Games to make 6e1/6e2 available in B&W softcover format, the fact that they refuse to do so can be taken as a clear indicator that they never will, for whatever reason. Desperate gamers basically have two choices: either pay collector prices (particularly for 6e1) or learn how to DIY via POD services like Lulu.com.

 

Has anyone tried to reach out to Hero Games and lobby them to put 6e1/6e2 up for POD purchase on DriveThruRPG?

 

I don't think it's reasonable to make Steve Long answer questions about a product he didn't author. 

 

I would love to see them set up POD for all of the out of print 6e supplements and rules. Though with 6e1's page count being fairly high there may be issues with perfect binding (ie glue softcover binding)

[phoenix240]

MHI has a take on Urban Fantasy that is unique, and that makes it less useful to me. Also, the Author's political views are repugnant to me. It was the MHI RPG kickstarter that introduced me to his blog, and I won't support the hatred I have seen there. I don't mind that he has conservative views as I have supported other conservative authors. His views are just too out there for me. So I don't buy his books anymore. I did support the MHI KS with a decent pledge, but never again. I honestly wish we could have an Urban Fantasy Board that includes MHI discussion, and not a MHI Board that leaves many UF Discussions feeling like they don't have a home.

 

 

 And your feelings are echoed by allot of folks. The MHI author's part in the whole "Sad Puppies" thing also did not help. 

[zslane]

I don't think it's reasonable to make Steve Long answer questions about a product he didn't author. 

I would love to see them set up POD for all of the out of print 6e supplements and rules. Though with 6e1's page count being fairly high there may be issues with perfect binding (ie glue softcover binding)

There is a disconnect then. As I understand it, the official system is the Complete rules set. Gamers have expressed frustration with the notion that the official support forum answers questions citing a version of the rules that are no longer available, supported, or considered current. Either the question answerer needs to become up to date with the state of the system, the forums need to find someone who is, or the company needs to take a different stand as to what constitutes the official current version. Keeping the existing state of affairs perpetuates a state of needless confusion that isn't doing the system any favors when it comes to attracting newcomers.

 

As for a softcover version of 6e1, I have already proven it to be completely free of "issues"; I'm not sure what the value is in perpetuating that myth.

[Altair]

In introducing Hero to a group of people who hadn't played it before, I got a decent view (albeit in a small sample) of people's introduction to the game. Frankly, if not for my rampant enthusiasm - made all the more notable, given how far outside my normal preferences Hero is - I doubt it would have caught on. Complexity is not, in its own right, value-added, and Hero is plenty complex.

 

Again, not dealing with people who were new to the hobby, unintelligent or uneducated. But the question with a new system is always going to be one of investment vs. reward. 

 

It's not that Hero is particularly difficult from a mathematical perspective. It's not conceptually complex beyond most traditional games, there's no paradigm shift needed to play (frankly making its conceptual difficulty much lower than games like Fate, Apocalypse World or Dogs in the Vineyard, which really require a different mental approach to be worth it). It's not that Hero asks you to do any one thing that's particularly daunting.

 

It's that Hero involves a lot of investment. A lot. Now, what you get for that investment is a richly detailed, highly granular, simulation-focused system. If you subscribe at all to the GNS typology, it's worth noting that there aren't very many systems out that really support a simulationist agenda. Hero offers robust support, while retaining plenty of interesting choices and challenges for a gamist agenda to feel satisfied. Even the narrative-focused folks can at least find plenty of support for interesting and dramatic scenes in the character options, as Ron Edwards talked about on his blog a ways back. Limitations are a great way to communicate a narrative agenda to the GM, and put different things on or off the table.

 

That's a lot! That's a lot of good stuff.

 

But it's not what everybody wants. Many people don't care that much about granular representation in their systems, they're more interested in other things. And if someone is primarily interested in a gamist or narrativist play style, what Hero offers is available in other systems for a lot less time investment. 

 

I generally endeavor to be catholic in my gaming consumption, and despite having a strong narrative focus as a default, I get a lot of value out of Hero, because of its granularity. It does things that other systems don't do. And sometimes that's exactly what I want. To be honest, I'm not sure that Hero's strengths are communicated that well to potential customers. How to do so is a tricky question, but as the least simulationist member of my local group, it's odd that I was the one to latch on to Hero. My S/O, the single most simulation-focused, granularity-preferring gamer that I've ever met, is still a bit wary of Hero, as she associates it with the supers genre, which is a non-starter for her. 

 

**TL:DR** Hero's very good at granular detail, and not shabby at other things too. But it does take a pretty big time investment to really get value out of it, and not everybody's that into granularity. Also, it hasn't always done the best job of communicating to potential players why it's awesome and worth the trouble; specifically, if you like detail, but not supers, you might pass on Hero. And that'd be a shame.

[Joe Walsh]

Hero's very good at granular detail, and not shabby at other things too. But it does take a pretty big time investment to really get value out of it, and not everybody's that into granularity. Also, it hasn't always done the best job of communicating to potential players why it's awesome and worth the trouble; specifically, if you like detail, but not supers, you might pass on Hero. And that'd be a shame.

 

Yeah, the barriers to entry are pretty high for HERO. And it's not alone in that. The other old-line generic RPGs have the same problem. There are some variations between them: GURPS has a free, small-but-workable version of the rules (GURPS Lite) to help ease the transition, along with a great guide to GMing GURPS. BRP has an excellent and free quickstart edition as well as numerous specific implementations of the game engine over the years in various genres. On the other hand, HERO has use of a well-known and marketable property in the Champions brand. Still, none of them have what the currently successful generic RPGs (FATE, Savage Worlds) have: less baggage, a much smaller and much cheaper ruleset, and plenty of ready-to-run campaigns available.

[Ninja-Bear]

I still say that one feature of Hero games that is vastly underpromoted is its flexibilty in the sense that you can a) create your own world run a premade world or c) take a premade world and change it to how YOU see fit.

[Surrealone]

I don't think it's reasonable to make Steve Long answer questions about a product he didn't author. 

 

It is equally unreasonable for answers to be provided with citations to hardcopy material that one cannot readily buy, especially when (as previously noted in this thread), gamers have a demonstrated propensity to stick to books and paper.

 

 

 

There is a disconnect then. As I understand it, the official system is the Complete rules set. Gamers have expressed frustration with the notion that the official support forum answers questions citing a version of the rules that are no longer available, supported, or considered current. Either the question answerer needs to become up to date with the state of the system, the forums need to find someone who is, or the company needs to take a different stand as to what constitutes the official current version. Keeping the existing state of affairs perpetuates a state of needless confusion that isn't doing the system any favors when it comes to attracting newcomers.

 

I could not have said this any better -- and I agree 100% with it.

[Joe Walsh]

I agree that it would be nice if the authors of the Complete rulebooks were here to answer customer questions. But, I don't see why Steve Long's support of customers of the version of the rules he wrote is a bad thing, or why he should provide support for a version of the rules he didn't write. I don't think it's necessary or helpful to use Steve's generosity against him.

[Surrealone]

I agree that it would be nice if the authors of the Complete rulebooks were here to answer customer questions. But, I don't see why Steve Long's support of customers of the version of the rules he wrote is a bad thing, or why he should provide support for a version of the rules he didn't write. I don't think it's necessary or helpful to use Steve's generosity against him.

 

Have you tried to buy a hardcopy of 6e1 and/or 6e2, lately?  You can't from the online store, let alone in a gaming shop.  Thus, Steve is answering questions pertaining to books (i.e. hardcopy 6e 1/2) that people can't buy. 

 

Lack of books, alone, makes it hard for newcomers to pick up the game.  If they buy Champions Complete (which -is- a hardcopy book available in the online store), the difficulty is compounded by online answers to rules questions having notations that are unusable ... since the notations reference unavailable books.

 

​Surreal

 

​P.S. Yes, I know the PDF's are there. As previously noted in this thread, though, gamers tend to like their hardcopy, paper, and the like. After all, it's darn tough to hand someone a PDF during a game with the page open to a page the recipient is to read.  I'm pretty sure the authors would prefer the PDF's not be sent to people who didn't buy them.  Worse, you can't copy/paste relevant sections for fair use from secured PDF's if my 5er PDF is indicative of how others are locked down.

[Joe Walsh]

I hear what you're saying. But what I'm saying is that it doesn't matter whether people can currently buy 6e1/6e2. People did buy them in the past. Steve is willing to answer those people's questions. That is a good thing.

 

And it's an entirely different question than whether Hero Games should provide some sort of Q&A for Champions Complete and/or Fantasy Hero Complete.

 

As to it being confusing, I would expect people to be able to handle differentiating versions these days. If I go to a Samsung support forum, I have no problem with there being discussion of the Galaxy S7 even though I have an S6 (or vice versa). People encounter stuff like that all the time now.

[Anaximander]

What I want in a game is something that would allow multiple genres without having to invest in multiple systems, and I think Hero does that.  That being said, the market for RPGs in general is weak right now.  They are a niche luxury, and with our current economic issues, people are cutting back on luxuries.  In addition, there are a lot of luxury entertainments to choose from.  Hero represents one niche within the overall RPG niche that DnD has the cat's meow of.  That means in order for Hero to remain viable it has to make hard choices.  The cost of printing of books and the artwork probably represent a substantial bulk of the expenses in marketing a game.  Correct me if I am wrong.  Going PDF is an excellent way around it, but it has its problems.  It is possible for players to share a hard copy book by passing it around without violating any laws and rights, but if I want to loan my PDF copy of a book, I would have to send them a copy and, being an honest and honorable person, hope they are honest and honorable enough to buy their own copy if they are interested.

 

As far as GURPS, I used to be invested in it and wish I hadn't gotten rid of all of my books as they were so well researched that they are often useful to gamers of other games and even non-gamers who are simply interested in the subject.  Perhaps, Hero could package their genre books in a way that would be useful to other games and to hobbyists as well.