Is Hero still your "go-to" rpg system?

[DentArthurDent]

I haven’t found a way to replicate the effects of meeting Cthulhu-esque creatures using the Hero system. The closest we came was using disadvantages. Our GM at the time did a masterful job of building and paying off and acquiring disadvantages during our game. But it’s not something I could even explain, much less implement myself. 
 

However, as I get older (much, much older) I don’t think ‘sanity’ is the right term to use. Even though I love the feel and atmosphere of Call of Cthulhu, it completely misses the mark on mental illness. I think ‘hope’ and ‘hopelessness’ are a bit better at describing the changes in a character’s behavior. Along with changes in what a character can see or hear, whether real or not.

[David Blue]

On 8/22/2022 at 9:52 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

I still “think” in Hero, and have ideas for science fiction and modern campaigns in my head.

I too.

 

A month ago an idea for a superhero campaign started tickling my imagination. When I started writing things down, just to get the idea out, it was in Hero. I would need a few key non-player characters, with solid definitions of what they thought they were doing, and why. Hero is good for detailed descriptions of a small number of human characters. I would need at least one vehicle, probably three. Hero has solid vehicle rules. I would need at least one base, probably three or four. Hero does bases. I would need one small agency and one big one. Hero does agencies very well. I would need a stack of small gadgets. Hero does gadgets, and what I needed most was already in a supplement. I would need some beasts. That wasn't a problem.

 

I wasn't being forced to break the flow of my imagination. I could keep going till I had an overall, internally consistent picture of how the conflict would arise and how it might play out.

 

From my point of view as a potential gamemaster, what I don't want is to have the key points of a new world swimming into view, and have that interrupted by some thought like this: "and I'll need to define that space ship / submarine, since the player characters will be spending a lot of time in it, but there are no vehicle rules (or there are but they are so bad that I'd rather not use them). Maybe I need to make some house rules for that, or swap in rules from another system."

[Chris Goodwin]

It is for me. 

 

Tomorrow I'm running my first Star Wars Hero session, taking place about a month after the destruction of the second Death Star.  This will be session zero with potentially a combat scene also.  Hopefully it goes well. 

[C.R.Ryan]

As a GM yes. I've been running Hero since the 90s in some incarnation or another. I will be a player in any game and have enjoyed a myriad of systems. For GMing though, make mine Hero.

 

I'm running a Star Wars Game with Hero right now and Talespire (Roll20 for Space combat).

[C.R.Ryan]

On 12/17/2022 at 10:26 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

That’s great! However I sometime see other rule sets and they’ll have a rule or two that can’t be replicated too easily. Ever come across such a thing?

I rarely try to convert rules. I'll steal cool rules. I use "Hero Points" in my game. Fate was a system that was way too loosy goosy for me, but I loved that players could interact with a scene by spending Fate. I allow my players to do this now. 

[Alcamtar]

OSR has been my go-to for a solid decade now. Hero was in regular cycle up until 2009, and I ran an on/off game for a short while in 2015 but these days it is mostly a nostalgic memory, though I still collect books on occasion and sometimes think about how to build this or that.

 

That said, with Hasbro going cancelling the OGL I'm shopping for new game systems. Two days ago I sat down and read some Hero books for the first time in a while. Time will tell where I end up. Maybe I'll try to 5E demo for some newbies and see how it goes.

[Ninja-Bear]

On 1/8/2023 at 4:41 AM, C.R.Ryan said:

I rarely try to convert rules. I'll steal cool rules. I use "Hero Points" in my game. Fate was a system that was way too loosy goosy for me, but I loved that players could interact with a scene by spending Fate. I allow my players to do this now. 

I really have to learn to embrace the “convert the feel and not the mechanics”. 

[C.R.Ryan]

7 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I really have to learn to embrace the “convert the feel and not the mechanics”. 

Yeah, converting the setting and capturing the flavor using the hero system is the challenge. Took me some time to realize, and shake that habit. 

[Opal]

Of course you can convert even the mechanics...

 

+7 DCV OIF:PlatemaiI 

 

EGO Drain (slowed rec, improved by psychoanalysis), AE, triggered: first sight f/ w/in the area.  Special effect: "mythos sanity loss"

[Steve]

I’m only running two games now: Traveller (which has an official conversion) and Delta Green (which is basically a Dark Champions type of game hunting monsters). I’ve been using the Hero engine for all my games for the past many years.

 

I enjoy using the Third Imperium with Hero and wish I’d started earlier, given how rich the setting is. I bought everything for Traveller Hero when it first came out but never used it then. Of course, what makes it easier is highly limiting psionics. No PC has a whiff of psionics, and I only recently introduced an NPC with psionics to start gradually introducing it to my campaign.

 

One of my PCs referred to said psionic as their new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.

[Scott Ruggels]

I kinda want to run Traveller Hero now. There are some supplements I nee3d from Old Traveller, for what I plan to do, but I don't remember what company or 3rd Party publisher put them out. 

[BNakagawa]

For high fantasy, I'd go with Pathfinder1. Otherwise, HERO system.

[Ternaugh]

1 minute ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I kinda want to run Traveller Hero now. There are some supplements I nee3d from Old Traveller, for what I plan to do, but I don't remember what company or 3rd Party publisher put them out. 

 

I'd recommend going to Marc Miller's site and picking up a few of the CDs with PDFs of the various game books. Non-GDW stuff (except for Digest Group Publications material*) is on the Apocrypha disks. 

 

https://www.farfuture.net/

 

Hard copies are harder to source, but Noble Knight Games is where I've found some stuff I was missing in the past.

 

https://www.nobleknight.com/

 

*DGP's current rights holder doesn't seem to want to release any material, so it's pretty much lost unless you find an original printing. With the exception of the Traveller Digest magazine, most of it was for MegaTraveller.  

[Scott Ruggels]

4 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

For high fantasy, I'd go with Pathfinder1. Otherwise, HERO system.

 

I'd be fine with that. Played some Pathfinder 1 a while ago, and had fun, even with their background.

4 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

 

I'd recommend going to Marc Miller's site and picking up a few of the CDs with PDFs of the various game books. Non-GDW stuff (except for Digest Group Publications material*) is on the Apocrypha disks. 

 

https://www.farfuture.net/

 

Hard copies are harder to source, but Noble Knight Games is where I've found some stuff I was missing in the past.

 

https://www.nobleknight.com/

 

*DGP's current rights holder doesn't seem to want to release any material, so it's pretty much lost unless you find an original printing. With the exception of the Traveller Digest magazine, most of it was for MegaTraveller.  

 

 

Thank you very much.  It would be Classic Era, but probably on the edge of the imperium, in some independent area. But I would have to see what sort of game the players wanted to do. 

 

(Knowing my situation, they would probably want fantasy hero...)

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

I kinda want to run Traveller Hero now. There are some supplements I nee3d from Old Traveller, for what I plan to do, but I don't remember what company or 3rd Party publisher put them out. 

 

 

I might be able to help you there, Sir.

 

Except for a few favorite 3rd party pieces, I have been slowly paring down my,Traveller collection: havent had anyone want to play more an a one shot or a three-session arc in over twenty years, and I don't need all the bits and pieces ever published for nostalgia.  I dont have a lot of CT I haven"t winnowes through already,  ut there arw a xouple of pieces.

 

Shoot me a PM and let me,know what you arw looking for.

 

 

[Steve]

Mongoose has some wonderful reference materials to add to any collection. I’ve been enjoying their books quite a lot once I started diving back into Traveller.

 

Far Future Enterpises, mentioned earlier in this thread, is a wonderful resource for any Traveller fan, old or new. They’ve got almost all of the old stuff from the early days, GURPS Traveller and even Traveller Hero. It’s all digitized, but I far prefer bringing my laptop to a game session than lugging a bunch of books around.

 

They also ran a special when I bought from them, buy three discs and get a fourth one free.

[Scott Ruggels]

5 hours ago, Steve said:

Mongoose has some wonderful reference materials to add to any collection. I’ve been enjoying their books quite a lot once I started diving back into Traveller.

 

Far Future Enterpises, mentioned earlier in this thread, is a wonderful resource for any Traveller fan, old or new. They’ve got almost all of the old stuff from the early days, GURPS Traveller and even Traveller Hero. It’s all digitized, but I far prefer bringing my laptop to a game session than lugging a bunch of books around.

 

They also ran a special when I bought from them, buy three discs and get a fourth one free.

When I get some spare folding green I am heading there.

[Duke Bushido]

Hey, Chris: how did your Star Wars go?

 

I am only asking becayse I mentioned you were doing that to the youth group today.  The response?

 

"You can play Lego Star Wars with Champions?!"

 

 

 

[Khymeria]

Hero is my go to when I run something, especially supers. My GM style is to teach, that’s why I wrote Book of Templates I and II. I’m a firm believer once you unlock the Hero System with a bit of guidance and intellectual investment into character generation, playing the game is no harder than a d20 system. It is actually easier in some aspects. Every spell uses a formula in Hero System and not a different set of text with varied interpretations. Playing a cleric in D&D for example is daunting for a new player, here learn every spell, all work different. The bias against complexity is a little disingenuous. When I play, I play the system is excited for. 

[Khymeria]

On 1/14/2023 at 3:47 PM, BNakagawa said:

For high fantasy, I'd go with Pathfinder1. Otherwise, HERO system.

Right now I am playtesting some Fantasy Hero to scale more toward high fantasy and capture a more “fantastic” feel while keeping the lethality and variation of combat. I’m running my 3rd adventure now, and it seems to work well. I took the concepts I presented in Gaslight: Horror and Heroics in The Victorian Era for spicing up a Competent Normals game and cranked the juice. I have a few hundred pages of settings designed for it as well. I love Pathfinder though, it does what it does well, I’ve played and ran it a bunch, no hate.  

[BNakagawa]

41 minutes ago, Khymeria said:

Right now I am playtesting some Fantasy Hero to scale more toward high fantasy and capture a more “fantastic” feel while keeping the lethality and variation of combat. I’m running my 3rd adventure now, and it seems to work well. I took the concepts I presented in Gaslight: Horror and Heroics in The Victorian Era for spicing up a Competent Normals game and cranked the juice. I have a few hundred pages of settings designed for it as well. I love Pathfinder though, it does what it does well, I’ve played and ran it a bunch, no hate.  

Coming up with the amount of material that Pathfinder has on offer in the Hero System is a daunting task and I don't have anywhere near that much time on my hands. The Hero System fantasy material already published isn't designed to work together in combinations as well as Paizo's PF stuff.

[Duke Bushido]

Well, you could change the book titles slightly:

 

The Atlantean Continent... The Valdoran Continent.....  The Tuala Morn Continent....  

 

And so on and so forth.

 

Works just as well as DnD having a five hundred inter-fertile sentient races and seven thousand  character classes for adventurers, I think.   Maybe even better.

 

 

[steriaca]

I believe we have a setting just ripe for great fantasy stories. Faerie. And it is extremely underdeveloped.

 

We know that the seelie and unseelie court exist in Faerie. And The Shadow Queen has an entire queendom there. Should there be other threats like the Blood Red King, master of unlife? The Thing Under The Mountain which causes earthquakes when it is angry? The High Ork King? Valgod the Conqueror?

 

(Note: the above names are mostly what I pull out of my arsh. Your mileage may vary.)

[Christopher R Taylor]

I also think that Bronze Age adventures are underserved in fantasy gaming.  Yes, there's the Conan stuff, but while it has some of the elements, its a bit too high fantasy and magic is capable of incredible things -- evil, with a huge cost, but incredible.  Reducing magic to real superstition (yes, you really will get bad luck from walking under a ladder) and secret knowledge and putting everyone in low tech settings has a huge potential, I think

[Old Man]

Never understood the obsession with settings over adventures.  It's much harder to sit down and play a setting.  I'd love to play in a Faerie campaign but as long as the RPG player base is so skewed toward D&D video game high fantasy, video game high fantasy is the setting that needs Hero support.  Hero hardly needs the sheer mass of content that Pathfinder has, but it does need more mass than it currently has.

 

Of course my opinion is colored by having to spend years converting AD&D modules to Hero.  It was, and is, annoying as hell.  It was especially annoying when converting out of settings like Dark Sun which were far better suited to Hero than D&D.