Hero System for Fantasy

[Spence]

Just a few points.  Not everyone here agrees with my take on things, but some have found it helpful when building a game/campaign using HERO.

 

First my premise.

All role playing games share certain common parts that most people will recognize.
1 - Character generation guidelines
2 - Gameplay rules
3 - Threat/Creature/Bestiary collections
4 - Setting Information

 

There is one other part of all role playing games.  What I call the Meta-Rules but also referred to as design notes or core documents.  These are the “rules” that the creator uses to write the “rules”.  
The D&D 5th Players Handbook contains the games Character Generation Guidelines and the Gameplay Rules.  The PHB contains lists and items, but does not tell you why.  You have spell lists but no actual details on why one is 1st or 2nd level.  You can select different traits embodied by “race” or “class” but they do not specify why or how each of the encompassed abilities were built or “balanced”.   In other words they do not reveal the “Met-Rules” used to build and balance everything else.

 

This brings us to HERO.

 

HERO simply gives you the Meta-Rules and says GO!  They also do not give you 1, 2, 3 or 4.

 

But wait you say.  They obviously give you character generation guidelines.

 

Nope.

 

They give you the Meta-Rules that allow you to build/design ANYTHING.  But not any actual character generation guidelines, gameplay rules, threat/creature/bestiary collections or even real playable settings.  They do have many useful books that give you general information and builds such as the Bestiary.  The Bestiary give you one take on a Dragon, but is will it fit in your world?  The Hero source books give you information nbut nothing “tailored” to a specific “game” such as D&D 5th.

 

Handing the players a copy of the Meta-Rules and then assuming everyone will be on the same page never ends well.

The various Fantasy Hero products do NOT contain a “playable” set of fantasy rules for a game.  The majority of the Fantasy Hero versions are well written primers/guides on how to design a set of fantasy “rules”.  The product Fantasy Hero Complete combines the Meta-Rules and fantasy primer/guide in one book.

 

To run a fantasy game using the Hero System you will have to write the character generation guidelines which includes how magic will work.  

You will also need to write the game play rules.  For example the Hero “rulebook” contains MANY options for combat.  Which ones are active and used directly and heavily influences how characters are designed.

 

I would also initially predesign a fixed magic system.  And by fixed I mean a few pre-built options that can simply be selected much like spells.

With your personally designed “Players Guide” then go and design a few demo pregenerated PC’s for the players to test drive.

 

Then let them make their own PC’s using your Players Guide.   

 

Then after they are comfortable with actually playing Hero, introduce them to Hero 5th, or Hero 6th or Fantasy Hero Complete and show them how you did what did.  

At that point they will have enough information to get creative and build cool stuff within you game world.
 

But most RPG players are used to having setting specific Player Guides for everything and just dumping the Hero Meta-Rules on them will create option overload.  

 

And least in my experience it does.

 

But then YMMV as they say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Spence is (as usual) spot on. That was one reason why I suggested Fantasy Hero 4th. It has a sample campaign that you can run out of the book.

[Spence]

5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Spence is (as usual) spot on. That was one reason why I suggested Fantasy Hero 4th. It has a sample campaign that you can run out of the book.

 

Thanks,

 

And the suggestion about the 4th Ed Fantasy Hero is a great one.  The Western Shores sample setting plus the two adventurers are the only full on play out of the box fantasy game I can remember from Hero. 

It would have been fantastic if it had been further supported with adventures, campaigns and such.  They did put out two very good supplements called the Fantasy Hero Companion 1 & 2 which did a great job expanding Magic and adding things like ships and guilds and so on.  Lots of great locations and floorplans which I still use today. 

 

I just usually don't bring up stuff older than 5th because I am one of those gamers that cannot function without a hard copy in hand and 4th ed books are increasingly hard to come by. 

But to be truthful if 4th was easy to get, I'd most likely be playing it. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Well I picked up a used copy of Fantasy 4th for about $20. And for my brother’s game, I did a whole bunch of conversions from 4th to 6th. 

[Duke Bushido]

On 11/13/2021 at 4:14 PM, Spence said:

 

But wait you say.  They obviously give you character generation guidelines.

 

Nope.

 

They give you the Meta-Rules that allow you to build/design ANYTHING.  But not any actual character generation guidelines,

 

First: 

Spence isn't wrong here, per se, but I admit I never realized it until it was pointed out to me on the boards, some years ago.

 

HERO-- well, Champions, anyway, back when we first tried using the rules for something other than superheroes-- _does_ give the "normal person" stats-- or at least, prior to 6th, it did, right on the character sheet as well as in the text of the rules.  Sixth probably does, too, but it's been some time since I read 6e, and I likely won't ever read it again, so I will leave it to someone more familiar with it to correct me if the "normal person" stats aren't given-- probably under NCM or something like that--

 

 

At any rate, we just assumed "well, if this is a normal person, it makes no sense that we should be ten times as Strong, Fast, or whatever.  No; as Spence points out, there were no rules saying that we could or could not.  We just never noticed that because over the years, our groups have always, within themselves, had fairly consistent ideas about what appropriate in-genre limits would be.  We got lucky there. 

 

Still, there's nothing to stop you from using that same extrapolation (in fact, you kind of have to    ) as the only real "guideline" given.

 

 

 

On 11/13/2021 at 4:14 PM, Spence said:

 

gameplay rules, threat/creature/bestiary collections or even real playable settings.  They do have many useful books that give you general information and builds such as the Bestiary.  The Bestiary give you one take on a Dragon, but is will it fit in your world?  The Hero source books give you information nbut nothing “tailored” to a specific “game” such as D&D 5th.

 

Correct again, but most of the points people are making about what's missing from Fantasy HERO (and yes: the 4e book was overall a high watermark for HERO Games publications) I will counter by suggesting moving to a more complete version of Fantasy HERO:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Spence said:

 

Thanks,

 

And the suggestion about the 4th Ed Fantasy Hero is a great one.  The Western Shores sample setting plus the two adventurers are the only full on play out of the box fantasy game I can remember from Hero. 

It would have been fantastic if it had been further supported with adventures, campaigns and such.  They did put out two very good supplements called the Fantasy Hero Companion 1 & 2 which did a great job expanding Magic and adding things like ships and guilds and so on.  Lots of great locations and floorplans which I still use today. 

 

 

Don't forget the Broken Kingdoms supplement.  That was pretty sweet, though it was a "Hero Plus" product, meaning it never saw print outside of those folks who actually printed their own.  (For the record, Storn no longer has the original artwork (I asked), so the odds of printing up your own with a high-quality cover featuring the original image is right out.      ).

 

 

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Well I picked up a used copy of Fantasy 4th for about $20. And for my brother’s game, I did a whole bunch of conversions from 4th to 6th. 

 

 

The great thing about HERO (thus far) is that all you really need to play are the final numbers: in _any_ edition, STR: 15 is STR: 15; OCV: 3 is OCV: 3.  4d6 RKA is 4d6 RKA.  Very little work is required to grandfather or grandson something from one edition to another; the bulk of the "work" is tweaking values for advantages and limitations on power builds, none of which is one-hundred percent necessary if the GM decides the final numbers don't break his game.

 

And for what it's worth, a 4e Fantasy HERO _can_ be picked up for as little as 8 bucks, if you're patient and don't care about the condition.  They don't come along often, but "reader copy" and "play copy" conditions do show up on the market semi-regularly.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

1st edition Fantasy Hero did the best at making the rules feel fantastic and magical then had a very down to earth barely-fantasy setting and scenario in it.

 

Quote

They did put out two very good supplements called the Fantasy Hero Companion 1 & 2 which did a great job expanding Magic and adding things like ships and guilds and so on.  Lots of great locations and floorplans which I still use today. 

 

They also put out Fantasy Hero Battlegrounds which was a book of several short unconnected scenarios, and they were pretty solid.

[HeroGM]

I've told people for years that "d20" gave everything on a silver platter so you didn't have to think, that were mechanics behind the scenes. While in prison I told that to one Pathfinder fanatic and he scoffed until he got ahold of the combat/magic books and learned the rules for it.

[Christopher R Taylor]

AD&D was pretty much handwaving but by 3.0 it was much more systematic and designed more carefully, just behind the scenes, as you say.

[Spence]

5 hours ago, HeroGM said:

I've told people for years that "d20" gave everything on a silver platter so you didn't have to think, that were mechanics behind the scenes. While in prison I told that to one Pathfinder fanatic and he scoffed until he got ahold of the combat/magic books and learned the rules for it.

 

9 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

AD&D was pretty much handwaving but by 3.0 it was much more systematic and designed more carefully, just behind the scenes, as you say.

 

The Meta-Rules....

[Ninja-Bear]

On a tangent, does any one know how Fantasy Hero first rules dealt with ghosts? I was looking up Hero 3rd and under Desolid you can’t attack anyone with any thing while Desolid. I was going to write up Freon from Batman Beyond in 3rd and well without a house rule she isn’t viable as depicted. She has a gaseous body, which I figure would be Desolid except she can attack people. So I’m assuming that Fantasy Hero has ghosts and ghosts typically have some sort of attack or TK power so…..now I am curious. I imagine that FH just changed the rule.

[rravenwood]

Original FH allowed monsters to be built using a "Monster Ability" called Noncorporeal for 50 Character Points.  This is essentially Desolid, but allows for the Noncorporeal being to be affected by spells or magic items and also to affect the regular corporeal world through spells; Noncorporeal also eliminated the creature's base Running, forcing the purchase of Levitate or Haste for movement.  The later Spell Book supplement presented a different version of Noncorporeal as a spell effect (not only purchasable by monsters) that hews a bit closer to standard Desolid.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

On a tangent, does any one know how Fantasy Hero first rules dealt with ghosts? I was looking up Hero 3rd and under Desolid you can’t attack anyone with any thing while Desolid.

 

Undead are hella expensive in Hero because of all the automaton powers and their affect on defenses.  Plus the life support, so you can't choke a zombie out.  Adding desolid on top of that is even more expensive, because they have to buy "affects physical world" on every attack.  Then the invisibility on top of that for ghosts, because they only show up when they want to.  It gets spendy.

[Spence]

6 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

On a tangent, does any one know how Fantasy Hero first rules dealt with ghosts?

I don't think ghosts were really covered that much.  Horror Hero however did a lot on spirits/ghosts.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Spence said:

I don't think ghosts were really covered that much.  Horror Hero however did a lot on spirits/ghosts.

Horror however is 4th and they changed how Desolid worked. Again just curious.

[Spence]

2 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Horror however is 4th and they changed how Desolid worked. Again just curious.

It all tends to run together on me.....

[Christopher R Taylor]

I built ghosts so that they are permanently and inherently desolidified and invisible, and then they have an END reserve that powers a multipower of go bump in the night and scary stuff.  They can project images, mind control, telekinesis, teleport, etc but only when their ectoplasm builds up enough.  Its a big but slowly recovering END Reserve so they can do some really impressive, spectacular stuff but only for a little while.  The multipower is affects solid, which ramps up the cost and limits the power of each slot from being too large.

 

But the more they scare and the more they effect people, the more that reserve is healed, so they can go indefinitely if they are scary enough.  None of their powers are too high powered, but they are very difficult to find or harm because of their nature.  And things like day light, holy areas etc all weaken them and force them into hiding.

 

An important trick to remember when building stuff like this is to buy physical comps and vulnerabilities to holy and necromantic attacks so its not unreasonably expensive to affect them with appropriate special effects.

[Spence]

3 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

An important trick to remember when building stuff like this is to buy physical comps and vulnerabilities to holy and necromantic attacks so its not unreasonably expensive to affect them with appropriate special effects.

 

So basically, figure out it's actual role in game and build accordingly

[Chris Goodwin]

11 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

On a tangent, does any one know how Fantasy Hero first rules dealt with ghosts? I was looking up Hero 3rd and under Desolid you can’t attack anyone with any thing while Desolid. I was going to write up Freon from Batman Beyond in 3rd and well without a house rule she isn’t viable as depicted. She has a gaseous body, which I figure would be Desolid except she can attack people. So I’m assuming that Fantasy Hero has ghosts and ghosts typically have some sort of attack or TK power so…..now I am curious. I imagine that FH just changed the rule.

 

Justice Inc. had some interesting, and slightly different, rules for ghosts.  

 

But there's no reason you couldn't use Affects Solids from later editions, with 3rd edition.  If you're the GM, then you have GM permission.  If not, then you can request GM permission.  

[Ninja-Bear]

5 hours ago, Spence said:

 

So basically, figure out it's actual role in game and build accordingly

I realized that that was why Dark Angel paid off her Desolid to affect her victims. It makes sense now.

3 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

Justice Inc. had some interesting, and slightly different, rules for ghosts.  

 

But there's no reason you couldn't use Affects Solids from later editions, with 3rd edition.  If you're the GM, then you have GM permission.  If not, then you can request GM permission.  

Well naturally Chris but that wasn’t why I asked the question. It’s more of intellectual curiosity. 

[Chris Goodwin]

On 11/17/2021 at 8:12 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

Well naturally Chris but that wasn’t why I asked the question. It’s more of intellectual curiosity. 

 

How about Shrinking, pretty tiny, plus Invisibility, plus Light Illusions, displaced off the character.  They're not actually desolid, but for all intents and purposes they are, and can still attack solids.

[Ninja-Bear]

12 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

How about Shrinking, pretty tiny, plus Invisibility, plus Light Illusions, displaced off the character.  They're not actually desolid, but for all intents and purposes they are, and can still attack solids.

I was thinking High Armor always on and physical limitation. She would also have Desolid only for moving through things.

I can see me running 3rd Ed Champions. I know though I would have to house rule and or import a few things to work the way I think it should.

[Chris Goodwin]

9 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

l can see me running 3rd Ed Champions. I know though I would have to house rule and or import a few things to work the way I think it should.

 

I'd just import what you need.  Treat whatever new edition as like "Oh, power X costs Y points now, and ww can use Advantage Z" instead of "They changed all of the rules so we now have to use all of the new rules and none of the old ones."  

 

I keep saying, edition differences are an illusion.  Use the rules you like, the costs you like, etc.