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

[Joe Walsh]

Nice post, Duke. When I was more involved in the GURPS 4e community it was pretty common for more experienced players and GMs to identify game balance through point balance as a mirage when newer players voiced concern that 40 points of X was obviously worth less than 40 points of Y and therefore GURPS was broken and unbalanced and no one should ever play it.

 

We'd usually ask them something like, "What if it's a campaign where X will be key but opportunities for Y will be nonexistent?"

 

We'd go on to remind them it's up to us as users of those systems to decide what's right for our specific campaigns and characters. That's why both GURPS and HERO say something like, "Hey, we did our best with this edition, but it's your game so use it how you see fit" and then offer some advice for modifying things based on the designers' views and the underlying assumptions of the game as those designers see them.

 

But as you point out, Steve does say in the 6e2 section on modifying the game that 6e assumes we must use the most expensive valid way of building a given ability. (With similar wording in 5e and 5eR.)

 

22 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Interesringly, such builds were endorsed by the guy who wrote the last couple of rules sets, in spite of also writing that the most expensive option is the correct option.

 

When I originally read that statement of underlying assumption, based on my experiences I chose to understand that from the opposite direction: "The rules for building character abilities are complex, so if you find a way to build an absurdly cheap version of an ability, don't do that."

 

But that's not what it says, as you correctly point out. I'd (perhaps wrongly) assumed that's probably because stating it the way I did would be open to bad-faith interpretation. I prefer not to game with the type of folks who would do something like that, but not everyone can be so picky. So I assumed that was the reason Steve stated it in the way he did.

 

So for me, when 6e1 says that Only in Alternate Identity is commonly used "by characters with some types of shape-shifting or body alteration abilities" I take it at face value (as I have with previous editions that included Only in Heroic ID, each of which mention "form" when describing alternates, not just identity). So for me, under 6e players can still use that Limitation for the purpose of defining how their character with multiple forms works -- as long as it's not abusive for the campaign we've all agreed to play.

 

To me, it comes down to whether the game should expect every HERO System GM to feel comfortable telling their rules-lawyering friend that the obviously abusive but allowed-by-the-letter-of-the-rulebook ability they've created for their character isn't OK. Maybe they should, but I hope the game doesn't demand that from them. People need a chance to grow into the GM role and to develop their own style. So having that bit from Steve about the underlying assumptions of how he built 6e may help them to enjoy the game with their friends rather than having it blown up with bad feelings all around.

 

Maybe Steve put it in there because he fervently believes that there is Only One Right Way to build any given character ability. I honestly don't know him other than by reputation, writing, and the few times we've interacted on here. Is he that kind of person? Or was he trying to help new GMs while assuming old hands would take or leave his advice anyway?

 

[Opal]

2 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

asking for a crunchy, non-narrative TTRPG system 

Hero is very crunchy, but not exactly non-narrative... 

 

Like, Disadvantages, Limitations (and some advantages), even Frameworks, are pretty wrapped up in The Narrative.  Special Effects can be, too.

 

(I suppose that's where "point balance" happens, too, in the story that you tell, in play.)

 

GURPS, OTOH, pretty non-narrative. Things about your character that could drive a narrative or at least your place in it, might be 1-point quirks.

[Scott Ruggels]

This was to avoid systems with meta currency, minimalist rules, and a general  focus on narrative construction. I did not want endless recommendations for Powered by The Apocalypse, Forged in the Dark, Fiasco, or Fate.  Basically the types of games I would rather decline and go home than play.  

[tkdguy]

1 hour ago, Scott Ruggels said:

This was to avoid systems with meta currency, minimalist rules, and a general  focus on narrative construction. I did not want endless recommendations for Powered by The Apocalypse, Forged in the Dark, Fiasco, or Fate.  Basically the types of games I would rather decline and go home than play.  

 

I'm not familiar with those systems aside from hearing about them online. What do you dislike about them?

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, tkdguy said:

 

I'm not familiar with those systems aside from hearing about them online. What do you dislike about them?

 

Can't speak for anyone else but I dislike rules-light systems because they're basically improv with little enforcement of PC balance, internal consistency, or physics.

 

[C.R.Ryan]

59 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

Can't speak for anyone else but I dislike rules-light systems because they're basically improv with little enforcement of PC balance, internal consistency, or physics.

 

What I like about those systems is that they often have fun rules that can work with lots of systems (due to their loosely goosey nature), and I steal them! 😁 Flashbacks are a really cool idea for Heists, Clocks give my players a way of seeing the narrative process in an entertaining way, and "fate Points" seems to engage my players in individual scenes in interesting ways.

 

As a GM though I still want the concrete nature of Hero System to under pin those things. I have run rules lite hero, it's possible and fun, too. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

It may seem primitive or lacking granularity or something, but, really, it was fine. 

 

Its like using images to look like something or shapeshift to be that something.  I think this is stretching special effects a bit beyond the limit, but it could work, as long as the GM doesn't let you use talons to rake something or have eagle eyes too.

 

Quote

When the BBB came out, it came with a 3.5 inch floppy of Heromakr.exe

 

I just found that disk in some housekeeping recently, I wonder if it even runs on modern machines?

[Alcamtar]

22 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Okay, I am going to make a stab at doing this via phone.

 

...

 

So it is possible that the points only exist to impose a limit on what you can buy at any given moment; it is possible they were never really intended to balance characters with each other, but to ensure that those characters were finite in all things, and thus able to be challenged.

 

Great post, I found myself agreeing with virtually all of it. Impressive to write that on your phone!!

 

I finally came to the same conclusion about points. It is so tempting and fun to just say "you can buy anything you can afford" but it does not work. At all. Points don't balance anything, and serve no purpose except to turn character creation into a mini-game that limits you from just doing "anything you want." Forcing a player to make choices stimulates creativity, and also leaves one hungry for a few more points.

 

[Opal]

59 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

it could work, as long as the GM doesn't let you use talons to rake something or have eagle eyes too

Sure.

 

That's the brilliance at the core of Champions - you don't buy what you do or how you do it, but what you accomplish. 

 

Flying across town, whether eagle form or jet pack or self-TK, is just flight.

 

If some other aspect of to the special effect is something you want - like rending talons or TKing someone else - you buy those things, too, or they're glossed over, ignored or explained away.

 

 

And that was, like, 1981.  Other games were all "should armor deflect or reduce damage? How can multiclassing work better?  Classes or skills? Can I play a Balrog?" And Champions just casually cracked how to do a universal system.

 

[tkdguy]

6 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Can't speak for anyone else but I dislike rules-light systems because they're basically improv with little enforcement of PC balance, internal consistency, or physics.

 

 

I prefer rules-light systems nowadays myself, since I either play solo or run one-shot games. So stuff like OSR games suit my needs.

[Scott Ruggels]

14 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

I just found that disk in some housekeeping recently, I wonder if it even runs on modern machines?

Yes and no. No, in that you need another program to launch it from a Windows 3.1 emulator.  Once you have the emulator, it rung quickly in its 320x240 SVGA glory.  I did this on my old machine and it worked, but I had to print to disk, as the printer drivers bear no resemblance to what modern printers require.  But the program still produces BBB legal characters, and I much prefer the BBB 3 Collumn format for character sheets, if I could get them to print. 

[Scott Ruggels]

19 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

What I like about those systems is that they often have fun rules that can work with lots of systems (due to their loosely goosey nature), and I steal them! 😁 Flashbacks are a really cool idea for Heists, Clocks give my players a way of seeing the narrative process in an entertaining way, and "fate Points" seems to engage my players in individual scenes in interesting ways.

 

As a GM though I still want the concrete nature of Hero System to under pin those things. I have run rules lite hero, it's possible and fun, too. 

Funny, I cannot abide those minimalist rules, at all. For me, vanilla Hero internalizes the character, puts them into an internally self consistent environment, and allows the player to immerse themselves into the problem or scenario. In this situation, the players can immerse themselves into their characters, and use their powers and abilities plus teamwork to solve the problem in the world the GM has presented. The “story “ is what is told after the fact, and follows a dictum often cited by another GM I play with, that, “The dice tell the best stories “.

 

Narrative systems, to me, artificialize the environment, and move a players observations from within the environment, to outside the environment. Narrative tools externalizevthe scenario, and change the priorities from solving a problem, to constructing a satisfying story, which often use tools like metacurrency to blunt the challenges of the scenario as presented originally by the GM. Now the use of metacurrency would be agreed to by all participants at the table, but for me it destroys the immersive feel of the environment, and changes the nature of the roleplay from the player responding immersively to their environment, to an improvisational performer. External factors become paramount, such as pacing, and how entertaining of a story the current plot is, and often how many tropes are name checked. The game becomes one step closer towards a board game. Rather than escapism, it becomes mere entertainment. 
 

There is a third leg of the aspects of a tabletop game, which is gamism. This is where a player plays with the rules and mechanics for their own goals, either efficiency, or to solve the scenario purely by mechanical means.  This can also be disruptive to immersion, and everything else at the table, unless the GM is firm in their rulings, but in Champions, a lot of that impulse is directed to character efficiency, and clever power construction, which is much less disruptive.  
 

Champions started back in 1981 as a superhero battle simulator, and many of us who started back then still prefer it that way. It can be layer in other ways, but we all have our preferences. This is why mentally I stick with Hero.  Recent modern games have mostly been about minimalism, tightly focused on a specific genre, or even more focused on a specific scenario (a heist). To me these are board games with some RP elements so as to foster collaborative storytelling. Fine if you like it, but definitely not my thing.  I came into this hobby from wargaming, and as such my fun is solving the problem as my character in an internally consistent environment, and trusting the dice to deliver plausible randomness.  
 

Brought to you by:

The iPhone 8

 

Insomnia

 

and perusing Reddit/rpg

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

28 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

External factors pedometer paramount, such as pacing, and how entertaining of a story the current plot is, and often how many tropes are name checked. The game becomes one step closer towards a board game.

 

I have read it and read it and still cannot work out what word "pedometer" was supposed to be....

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

There is a third leg of the aspects of a tabletop game, which is gamism. This is where a player plays with the rules and mechanics for their own goals, either efficiency, or to solve the scenario purely by mechanical means. 

 

I found myself doing this all the time with Savage Worlds.  It felt too much like a game all the time, without any immersion.

[Joe Walsh]

I've often wondered how much the narrative gaming trend has been driven by selfish/cruel/etc GMs causing players to look for some way to curtail the power of the GM so as never to experience that again.

 

[Scott Ruggels]

5 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

I have read it and read it and still cannot work out what word "pedometer" was supposed to be....

Fixed.  "become”.  Autocorrect is my bane. 

[Scott Ruggels]

3 hours ago, GM Joe said:

I've often wondered how much the narrative gaming trend has been driven by selfish/cruel/etc GMs causing players to look for some way to curtail the power of the GM so as never to experience that again.

 

 

 From what I remember, yes it was a player centric movement, but it wasn't so much about Cruel GM's as it was a reaction against Cruel Dice, and the ubiquity of dice based resolutions. The first system I remember coming out was Amber Diceless. It seems to be a reaction against bad due rolls ruining their character's star moment.  IT was also against the disposability of characters in early D&D in low levels.  (Uncharitably, is was a reaction from whiney actor types that didn't get or like the mechanics, which led to minimalism).

[BNakagawa]

I always assumed it was because some people found it easier to suck up to the game master than to learn a game system.

[C.R.Ryan]

A lot of people want less variance in their games. Less emphasis on dice can do this. One of the things that keeps me from wanting to run one of the narrative games is that there isn't much in the way of a solid bases to make rules decisions. I like system gives me a wide variety of tools to cover most situations and I can go from there, instead of the narrative take of, "meh just make it work". It gives the players a concrete sense of what to expect. 

 

Fate's vague power system makes my eyes roll when I can just build the power in Hero and it does what I want with wiggle room for creative uses of the power. That said, even after 35 years of gaming, I'm not above learning new tricks and using cool ideas from other games, they have some really good ideas in them. Certainly not for everybody, but they're fun (for a lot of players) and with a solid foundation like hero to fall back on, they kind of sing. 

[Doc Democracy]

I am not a huge fan of the more heavily narrative systems but I do get frustrated by the 40 year-old game skeleton of the HERO System.   There are things to learn from what has happened in the gaming world in those decades.

 

In Spectaculars there are environmental elements that need to be addressed.  powers work narratively some if the time and not in others - for example, SpiderGuy can (narratively) swing down and gum up all the CCTV with his webshooters but looking to hinder BigBadMonster needs (more gamist) engagement with the mechanics.  There were disconnects in the system for me but I hit a more heavily superheroic "feel" to the game more often than I do playing Champions.

 

HERO has focused so heavily in balancing the power system in character creation, it has neglected making those powers feel more superheroic during play.  I have ideas and trying to put them into words, and when they are good enough, I will share them.

 

Doc

[Joe Walsh]

19 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 

 From what I remember, yes it was a player centric movement, but it wasn't so much about Cruel GM's as it was a reaction against Cruel Dice, and the ubiquity of dice based resolutions. The first system I remember coming out was Amber Diceless. It seems to be a reaction against bad due rolls ruining their character's star moment.  IT was also against the disposability of characters in early D&D in low levels.  (Uncharitably, is was a reaction from whiney actor types that didn't get or like the mechanics, which led to minimalism).

 

Wow, Amber Diceless! I'd completely forgotten about that. Never having read Zelazny's series, it wasn't something I was interested in from a setting point of view. But I remember when that came out and the reaction to it on Usenet.

 

But yeah, there's always been that tension in RPGs between its wargaming roots and what it became. Point buy solves some of that issue, but a bad roll can still lose you a character you care about...or just make them look ridiculous. I can see exploring narrative stuff for that. It does take skill and experience as a GM to avoid undesirable situations like that.

 

12 hours ago, C.R.Ryan said:

A lot of people want less variance in their games. Less emphasis on dice can do this. One of the things that keeps me from wanting to run one of the narrative games is that there isn't much in the way of a solid bases to make rules decisions. I like system gives me a wide variety of tools to cover most situations and I can go from there, instead of the narrative take of, "meh just make it work". It gives the players a concrete sense of what to expect. 

 

Fate's vague power system makes my eyes roll when I can just build the power in Hero and it does what I want with wiggle room for creative uses of the power. That said, even after 35 years of gaming, I'm not above learning new tricks and using cool ideas from other games, they have some really good ideas in them. Certainly not for everybody, but they're fun (for a lot of players) and with a solid foundation like hero to fall back on, they kind of sing. 

 

Same. I admire some of the narrative game designs and quite a few of the minimalist game designs like TinyD6 and Lasers & Feelings, but the closest I really get to narrative play is with the hybrids like Cortex. I bounced right off of Fate despite having prior experience with Fudge. But as you say, we can and should try to learn from those game designs and not keep our games frozen in . . . amber.

 

5 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I am not a huge fan of the more heavily narrative systems but I do get frustrated by the 40 year-old game skeleton of the HERO System.   There are things to learn from what has happened in the gaming world in those decades.

 

In Spectaculars there are environmental elements that need to be addressed.  powers work narratively some if the time and not in others - for example, SpiderGuy can (narratively) swing down and gum up all the CCTV with his webshooters but looking to hinder BigBadMonster needs (more gamist) engagement with the mechanics.  There were disconnects in the system for me but I hit a more heavily superheroic "feel" to the game more often than I do playing Champions.

 

HERO has focused so heavily in balancing the power system in character creation, it has neglected making those powers feel more superheroic during play.  I have ideas and trying to put them into words, and when they are good enough, I will share them.

 

Doc

 

You're so right that the supers RPG world has produced a lot of innovative stuff over the years.  Nothing to rival HERO in its own bailiwick, IMO, but plenty to learn from and enjoy on its own terms. I love the way Supers! lets players use any character ability for anything as long as it's plausible (and within limits -- you can't use your laser eyes to blast the baddies and then in the same round use them to disintigrate a car the baddies threw at you). Any ability can be used to attack or defend, depending on the circumstances and player creativity. HERO supports that via the Power roll now (and used to support it via letting characters do innovative things occasionally with their powers w/o paying as long as it made sense), but it's built right into the fabric of Supers! which makes it a really fun part of the game.

 

I'll have to check out Spectaculars when I get a chance. I don't recall running into that one before.

[Doc Democracy]

4 hours ago, GM Joe said:

I'll have to check out Spectaculars when I get a chance. I don't recall running into that one before.

 

It is worth checking out and spectacularly set up to run straight out of the box.

 

You can get the player characters, campaign and first scenario done in a reasonable evening's gaming.

 

https://scratchpadpublishing.com/spectaculars

[Hugh Neilson]

14 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

In Spectaculars there are environmental elements that need to be addressed.  powers work narratively some if the time and not in others - for example, SpiderGuy can (narratively) swing down and gum up all the CCTV with his webshooters but looking to hinder BigBadMonster needs (more gamist) engagement with the mechanics.  There were disconnects in the system for me but I hit a more heavily superheroic "feel" to the game more often than I do playing Champions.

 

 In fairness, this is as much a GM issue as a system issue.  "No, Tarzan does not need to roll a climbing skill check to safely shimmy down the drainpipe to the street below" or "roll in case it is an 18" is a GM's decision.

 

One can decide that ElectroMan can, indeed, boost a car battery, or one can require a Power Skill Roll to convert a Blast into an Aid: Battery END.

 

One can require a roll (at your 8- skill) for mundane use of a Familiariity, or accept that, since the character can work in the field, that 8- roll is good enough to perform routine tasks under low-stress conditions.

 

A "game powered by Hero" would do well to include some in-play examples (e.g. "The GM rules that this is a reasonable use of SpiderGuy's webshooters and does not require the player to roll for success of this action"). Part of the problem is that 5e and 6e have moved Hero from "a game" - where benchmarks for these elements could be set - to "a system" where those are more benchmarks for the GM to choose to build into the game under consideration.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

In fairness, this is as much a GM issue as a system issue.  "No, Tarzan does not need to roll a climbing skill check to safely shimmy down the drainpipe to the street below" or "roll in case it is an 18" is a GM's decision.

 

Yeah that's what I was going to say.  I had this happen to me with 6th, I started to check the book for everything instead of just going with my gut and what I knew of the system after decades of play.  With special effects and logic, there's a LOT more flexibility in Hero than I think a lot of GMs and players understand.  You already CAN web up the cameras to block them off (entangle opaque to sight).  You already CAN use your sword to cut a car in half when Grond throws it at you, as a form of block.

[Sketchpad]

On 2/13/2023 at 10:07 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

Duke, did I sign up for a graduate class in my sleep?  

 

Can I borrow your notes? I was late for Professor Bushido's class and missed almost the whole thing.

 

On 2/13/2023 at 10:07 AM, Scott Ruggels said:

I did an experiment of Friday on Reddit that I may post, but asking for a crunchy, non-narrative TTRPG system gave interesting results.but the most recommended system was GURPS, followed by Pathfinder 2, and Savage Worlds.   Hero was 4th or 5th. 

 

I did something similar on Facebook, but was a "Which superhero game do you play" poll. Champions came out on top, followed by V&V and M&M. I was a bit surprised. 

 

On 9/13/2022 at 8:12 PM, Sketchpad said:

I'm not far from DD here. I've always been a big HERO fan, particularly Champions, but the game needs... something. I've gone over what I think it needs in at least three or four threads, so I'm not going to go into that. But the big thing that it needs is some publicity and some kind of "It Factor" that makes people want to carry it in stores. I remember back in the day when Champions was in almost every game and comic shop that I went to. Now, shops that remember it think it's dead, and new stores have no idea what it is (and are less likely to run demos based on that). 

 

These days, I mainly play some Mutants & Masterminds, AGE, and 2d20... but I always long for running HERO again someday. 

 

I'm changing my above answer. One of my goals over the next few years is to play/run more Hero... Champions in particular. I have two campaigns that I'm going to start working on, and a slew of characters to convert. But I'm going to run it, and maybe make Hero my "go-to" system once again.