Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

[Agent X]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

My (Luddite) Response: I don't like d20 because it didn't give me anything I didn't already have from 2nd Edition Options or Hero.

 

What I like about Hero: It's great for supers. What I don't like about Hero: It's time consuming when you are the GM.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

What I dislike about d20 isn't levels or classes, although I don't like them much. It's not the escalating HP, although I don't like those much either.

 

It's the playerbase.

 

The majority of d20 (and when I say d20, I really mean D&D3e) players seem to be drawn from the ranks of habitual players of Everquest, Diablo or any of a zillion computer games where role playing is just a cosmetic veneer over a powergaming tank.

 

Kill anything worth exp. loot the dead. salvage anything valuable or useful. It's what the ruleset supports best. Common as dirt.

 

Champions, OTOH, does not support the same behavior because it is assumed that you won't be able to loot viper agents and carry around a pair of railguns. Even if your character could physically manage it, it isn't genre. Ditto with looting foci from the captured villains. Doesn't work that way.

 

I suppose it's possible for there to be characters so destitute that they have to go through the pockets of viper agents for cash, pawning guns from drug runners and selling villain costume bits on ebay to support themselves, but it is far from common.

 

$0.02

[Greatwyrm]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

What I dislike about d20 isn't levels or classes, although I don't like them much. It's not the escalating HP, although I don't like those much either.

 

It's the playerbase.

 

The majority of d20 (and when I say d20, I really mean D&D3e) players seem to be drawn from the ranks of habitual players of Everquest, Diablo or any of a zillion computer games where role playing is just a cosmetic veneer over a powergaming tank.

 

You must go through paint pretty quickly, using a brush that broad.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

What I dislike about d20 isn't levels or classes, although I don't like them much. It's not the escalating HP, although I don't like those much either.

 

It's the playerbase.

 

The majority of d20 (and when I say d20, I really mean D&D3e) players seem to be drawn from the ranks of habitual players of Everquest, Diablo or any of a zillion computer games where role playing is just a cosmetic veneer over a powergaming tank.

 

Kill anything worth exp. loot the dead. salvage anything valuable or useful. It's what the ruleset supports best. Common as dirt.

 

Champions, OTOH, does not support the same behavior because it is assumed that you won't be able to loot viper agents and carry around a pair of railguns. Even if your character could physically manage it, it isn't genre. Ditto with looting foci from the captured villains. Doesn't work that way.

 

I suppose it's possible for there to be characters so destitute that they have to go through the pockets of viper agents for cash, pawning guns from drug runners and selling villain costume bits on ebay to support themselves, but it is far from common.

 

$0.02

It sounds like you are making a commentary on hack&slash vs. supers instead of game systems. Does D20/D&D3.x still give experience for everything killed? If so that part of the argument might hold up in a comparison to a Fantasy Hero game where the GM only rewards good roleplaying, not killing effectiveness.

[Vanguard00]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

What I dislike about d20 isn't levels or classes, although I don't like them much. It's not the escalating HP, although I don't like those much either.

 

It's the playerbase.

 

The majority of d20 (and when I say d20, I really mean D&D3e) players seem to be drawn from the ranks of habitual players of Everquest, Diablo or any of a zillion computer games where role playing is just a cosmetic veneer over a powergaming tank.

 

 

I wouldn't say the "majority" of players. They have their fair share of course, but you get that in any game. You can't tell me that you've never seen the "do it all" superhero in Champions who just wants to beat on bad guys and doesn't give a crap about clues, plots or storylines. They're everywhere. Besides, we're talking about the systems here, not the players.

 

I enjoyed playing D&D. I started back in...um...1980, I think. I really enjoyed playing AD&D (1st & 2nd editions). But as we grew older and matured as RPGers, we modified the rules to fit our style of gaming, which was heavily influenced by Hero System (which I also started playing in 1980). When 3rd edition D&D came out I gave it a shot and decided that the D20 system in general, and D&D 3.0 specifically, wasn't a system I could agree with.

 

Hero System has never let me down. I won't be one to hack on WotC or D&D, but I'm not a fan, either, for a variety of reasons, most of which I stated earlier.

[Agent X]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

What I dislike about d20 isn't levels or classes, although I don't like them much. It's not the escalating HP, although I don't like those much either.

 

It's the playerbase.

 

The majority of d20 (and when I say d20, I really mean D&D3e) players seem to be drawn from the ranks of habitual players of Everquest, Diablo or any of a zillion computer games where role playing is just a cosmetic veneer over a powergaming tank.

 

Kill anything worth exp. loot the dead. salvage anything valuable or useful. It's what the ruleset supports best. Common as dirt.

 

Champions, OTOH, does not support the same behavior because it is assumed that you won't be able to loot viper agents and carry around a pair of railguns. Even if your character could physically manage it, it isn't genre. Ditto with looting foci from the captured villains. Doesn't work that way.

 

I suppose it's possible for there to be characters so destitute that they have to go through the pockets of viper agents for cash, pawning guns from drug runners and selling villain costume bits on ebay to support themselves, but it is far from common.

 

$0.02

A buddy of mine ran a destitute superhero to great comic effect.

[tesuji]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

.

 

 

It sounds like you are making a commentary on hack&slash vs. supers instead of game systems.

.

That was my thought as well.

 

Some genres... some scifi and some fantasy... treat acquisition of superior items from those you have vanquished as a staple.

 

Other genres... supers... treat it as not normally done.

 

MnM for instance, does not have the DnD "loot the bodies" either, being a superheroic D20 game. Fantasy HERO has looting as normal, depending on the sub-genre i guess.

 

 

 

 

 

Does D20/D&D3.x still give experience for everything killed? If so that part of the argument might hold up in a comparison to a Fantasy Hero game where the GM only rewards good roleplaying, not killing effectiveness.

 

DND 3.x gives Xp for "overcoming the challenge". if the challenge the GM setup the scenario for is "kill the 12 orcs" then you get Xp for killing them. If the challenge was "rescue the princess the 12 orcs kidnapped", you get the same Xp if you do so by killing the orcs or by sneaking around them, buying her away from them, or whaever means you employ... the orcs (or the traps or the riddle) are the challenge between you and the scenario goal... killing is but one option.

 

you get NO experience for looting the body of the fallen... well... unless of course the scenario goal was to loot them for some reason... in which case acquiring that which you were after might well be worth XP.

[Greatwyrm]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

.

DND 3.x gives Xp for "overcoming the challenge".

 

I think this is something many people, including D&Ders, get hung up on. There's no reason you shouldn't get just as much xp for talking your way past the orcs as for bumping them off. In 2e D&D games, I gave bonus xp for non-combat solutions to monster encounters. A holdover from the "Avoiding Unneccessary Violence" award from when I ran Heroes Unlimited by Palladium.

 

(And yes, now that I'm older and wiser, I see the errors of my ways.)

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Here is something silly I came up with a while back. I am not trying to fan the flames, just give everyone something to laugh about (unless you happen to be a baseball fan )

[Fenixcrest]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

I never really worry about whether a game is "hack & slash." It doesn't really matter what the system is... if the players want to kill stuff, then stuff gets killed. But that's okay; good times for all. Of course, I haven't yet been in a situation where only one player wants to kill stuff, thereby pissing off the others, so I probably can't really debate the issue.

 

However, in the defense of D&D: In medieval tymes, when something was trying to eat you, the best solution was probably to kill it with pointies, and sometimes bludgeonies. And maybe magic, if that's your thing.

 

Of course, it all depends on the mindset of the players. When that Ogre tries to crush your paladin... yeah, you might gang up and kill it. Or, that one critical success on your CHA check might just make the Ogre realize that he's been crying on the inside for years, thereby causing him to follow the party around like some kind of gigantic, stupid, axe-wielding-yet-lovable puppy.

 

It's really not the system that influences the actions of a character; it's the player. And the setting, too. In my current HERO sci-fantasy game, much carnage ensues. Of course, it helps that one character is a criminal in his secret identity, and his best friend (and his best friend's whole family) is a very frustrated vampire. They tend to get into brawls, aside from the fact that an evil politician is paying local street gangs to try and kidnap the criminal guy (Key Von Unseeley) so that his weird self-contained dimensional flux can be utilized for world domination. And as for the vampires, when it's perfectly normal for Reanalt to bring home a freshly removed human jaw and ask his mom to put it in water for him, one can expect to rock the carnage. And it is to that end that I've determined that, in the style of Kill Bill Vol. 1, there are about 2 BODY points in every litre of blood.

 

As I said, the hack-and-slashiness of any game depends wholly on the players. If you want the players to stick to a genre, then negotiate with them before the game ever starts, so that you can come to a compromise. Players with bloodlust will abhor a Golden Age Supers game, and players who just want to dispense wholesome, all-american, Saturday-morning justice will abhor a Horror Fantasy game. The trick is to strike a bargain... Dark Champions, maybe?

 

I dunno. I meandered in there... but I'm pretty sure I got my thoughts across.

[DrFaust]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

As I said' date=' the hack-and-slashiness of any game depends wholly on the players. If you want the players to stick to a genre, then negotiate with them before the game ever starts, so that you can come to a compromise.[/quote']

 

The GM also plays an important role in this equation. I've been in more than one situation where any sort of non-combative action on the PCs' parts failed because the GM had decided that violence was the one and only possible resolution, just because.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Hello again, its been a while since I posted and I've been out of circulation till now. Here is my two cents on the issue. I really don't find either system harder than the other. with Fred it is hard on your personal ability to create. D20 it places the difficulty on your ability to remember where all the "rules are written".

 

Up thread there were several comments on how some gamers like classes (and etc) because they can just grab a concept and go. The a few years back I had some D&D types try FantHero. I "created" several "character classes" and made some "class ability charts" letting them spend 30 points to "customize" the character. The hardest part was "rolling characteristics". The character sheet I gave them was just final stats, with my copy having all the numbers. It turned out to be a great game. They weren't bothered with "details". Later on after a few sessions our theif commented he wished he would level up after failing to pick a lock again.

 

Thief: Damn, I wish I would level up so my lockpick skill would be better.

Me: Well you don't have to wait to level up (read: buy Thief Package Deal Level 2), you can spend some of your experience directly on skills.

Thief: Really?

Me: Yep.

Thief: Cool, I want to do that.

Five minutes later......

Fighter: Hey, if the thief can do it, can I raise my combat skill?

Me: Why yes, yes you can

 

After a few more sessions the players elected to redesign their characters without the "useless" class skills. In the end they were completely converted.

 

Your either ingenious or evil, I'm not sure which.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

It sounds like you are making a commentary on hack&slash vs. supers instead of game systems. Does D20/D&D3.x still give experience for everything killed? If so that part of the argument might hold up in a comparison to a Fantasy Hero game where the GM only rewards good roleplaying' date=' not killing effectiveness.[/quote']

 

Sort of. D&D now gives experience for basically anything in which you overcome a challenge. In the case of other character, yeah, this includes killing them in combat. OTOH, you also could get experience points by taking them prisoner, or by driving them off, or by evading them entirely. Or, for that matter, by negotiating a deal with them and/or deceiving them into doing what you want.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Re: customizability- HERO is most definitely more easily customizable than D&D ( and most d20 variants ). Yeah, you need to get DM permission in either case, but with HERO, you already have all the framework you need for whatever customization you want, thanks to the point system.

 

Re: versatility- the real advantage of HERO isn't it being the best system, its the fact that once you've learned it, you know almost all you need to know the build characters for any genre you want to play. Any genre advice is just "How to use HERO to build this type of character," not "Rules to build. . ."

 

In addition, HERO is more self-consistent than most other systems. Every spell in D&D, for instance, is more less built from whole cloth. No common mechanical grounding between them. With HERO, every spell, or power, or item, or whatnot, is built from the same essential building blocks.

[Celtic Cowboy]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Re: customizability- HERO is most definitely more easily customizable than D&D ( and most d20 variants ). Yeah, you need to get DM permission in either case, but with HERO, you already have all the framework you need for whatever customization you want, thanks to the point system.

 

Re: versatility- the real advantage of HERO isn't it being the best system, its the fact that once you've learned it, you know almost all you need to know the build characters for any genre you want to play. Any genre advice is just "How to use HERO to build this type of character," not "Rules to build. . ."

 

In addition, HERO is more self-consistent than most other systems. Every spell in D&D, for instance, is more less built from whole cloth. No common mechanical grounding between them. With HERO, every spell, or power, or item, or whatnot, is built from the same essential building blocks.

 

In some ways these strengths of HERO are also it's weakness for new players. I've seen players who are used to having a set of options to choose from get a mind blank when asked to create a character in HERO. All they can easily think of is the stuff that's been done to death and the open options of the system are somewhat overwhelming.

[nexus]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Re: customizability- HERO is most definitely more easily customizable than D&D ( and most d20 variants ). Yeah, you need to get DM permission in either case, but with HERO, you already have all the framework you need for whatever customization you want, thanks to the point system.

 

Re: versatility- the real advantage of HERO isn't it being the best system, its the fact that once you've learned it, you know almost all you need to know the build characters for any genre you want to play. Any genre advice is just "How to use HERO to build this type of character," not "Rules to build. . ."

 

In addition, HERO is more self-consistent than most other systems. Every spell in D&D, for instance, is more less built from whole cloth. No common mechanical grounding between them. With HERO, every spell, or power, or item, or whatnot, is built from the same essential building blocks.

 

tsueji will be here any moment now...

[Metaphysician]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

tsueji will be here any moment now...

 

Heh.

[AnotherSkip]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

For those of you who get stumped or have players who get stumped I heartily suggest you have them build a group with all of the archtypes included. the fighter, thief, cleric and Wizard plus their favorite options.

Challenge them to make them different from each other, then have them pick their favorite.

The other suggestion is a random background generator.

 

Or have them come up with a story then build the character around that story.

[Spence]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Your either ingenious or evil' date=' I'm not sure which.[/quote']

 

Why thank you. Thank you very much

[Agent X]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Why thank you. Thank you very much

I think you are an evil genius.

[tesuji]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

if you believe all these to be truths, then HERo is the game for you.

 

others, who do not believe these to be truths, look for other alternatives.

 

 

 

Re: customizability- HERO is most definitely more easily customizable than D&D ( and most d20 variants ). Yeah, you need to get DM permission in either case, but with HERO, you already have all the framework you need for whatever customization you want, thanks to the point system.

IMX, this frameowrk is not more valuable or more useful... its little more than extra math before the judgement stage.

Re: versatility- the real advantage of HERO isn't it being the best system, its the fact that once you've learned it, you know almost all you need to know the build characters for any genre you want to play. Any genre advice is just "How to use HERO to build this type of character," not "Rules to build. . ."

IMX, when genre advice was as little impactful as you say, the result was a game where the genre was "supers in some other setting". genre flavor typically has, if it is done to significant level, more impact than that... or it is fundamentally absent.

 

I much prefer GENREic games, where the rule fundamentally and significantly are geared directly to genre and flavor, as opposed to GENERIC games where the genre is made to fit the system.

 

 

In addition, HERO is more self-consistent than most other systems. Every spell in D&D, for instance, is more less built from whole cloth. No common mechanical grounding between them. With HERO, every spell, or power, or item, or whatnot, is built from the same essential building blocks.

 

Built from the same blocks... will indeed produce consistency... but not necessarily accuracy. A consistently wrong game is IMX worse than an accurate game.

 

but, these are based on my experiences... yours may well vary.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

I much prefer GENREic games, where the rule fundamentally and significantly are geared directly to genre and flavor, as opposed to GENERIC games where the genre is made to fit the system.

 

but, these are based on my experiences... yours may well vary.

 

Yeah. I come from just the oppostie corner. My 8 year long FH game was a transworld fantasy with characters from weak powered superheroes, the old west, cyberpunk, modern spy, Pulp, Starwars styled space opera, hard sf miliatary feel and natives. The inherent GENERICness of HERO made that work. I could just tell everyone keep the defences under 20/10r and keep the damage under 3d6 Kill, and let it go.

 

I've played ninja hero that ended up in a pulp styled lost world with dinosaurs and old greeks, translational fantasy with only one PC who was a modern guy, a SF game with Mecha, dinos, and lasers where the PCs were a bar band, A-team style dogooders.

The Strength of HERO is in that kind of style.

 

And I'm older, and don't have as much time to learn the complete ins and outs of new systems as I did before, so I stick with HERO for single Genre games. I can understand others who do not.

[tesuji]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Yeah. I come from just the oppostie corner. My 8 year long FH game was a transworld fantasy with characters from weak powered superheroes, the old west, cyberpunk, modern spy, Pulp, Starwars styled space opera, hard sf miliatary feel and natives. The inherent GENERICness of HERO made that work. I could just tell everyone keep the defences under 20/10r and keep the damage under 3d6 Kill, and let it go.

 

I've played ninja hero that ended up in a pulp styled lost world with dinosaurs and old greeks, translational fantasy with only one PC who was a modern guy, a SF game with Mecha, dinos, and lasers where the PCs were a bar band, A-team style dogooders.

The Strength of HERO is in that kind of style.

 

empahsis mine.

 

We agree completely on this!

[zornwil]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

Maybe the name of this thread should be changed from "Hero is Hard" to "D20 is too easy". Combat resolution based on 'Hit points' derived from level advancement takes all player control of character combat interaction away. A level based character with say 50 hit points in a game where a starting character may begin with 10-15 is tougher because he is supposed to be avoiding the brunt of damage from any attack that hits him. In a sense hit points are the most complicated form of damage reduction ever devised.

 

 

The rules are not even consistent. A 50 hit point fighter could be 'assassinated' in his sleep with only a dagger to the throat but the hit points of most monsters are described in the rules as being an almost exact match of the BODY score from HERO. Do I need to bring up Armor Class vs. Combat Value? If hit points represent a character's skill in avoiding extreme damage why can't the character sometimes avoid ALL the damage from an HTH attack without declaring a special maneuver? It does not make any sense!

Consistency is where I think d20-type systems get harder in play, and consistency is where you see much of the harshest critiques of rules WITHIN the HERO community. It's a basic and all-important element to a "toolkit" game and d20 doesn't have enough of that mindset. With d20 to-hit rolls can be influenced by all sorts of skills and variables, at least insofar as I could tell from M&M and SAS' d20 rules. HERO has a lot of this, too, but much of it is in "one place", so to speak, with combat "to hit" influenced directly by CV skill levels or maneuvers and not so much else. I'm not suggesting this makes HERO "better", but for those so prejudiced regarding consistency it makes a difference.

 

And as stated, I'm not pretendnig HERO is 100% consistent, not at all. That has been the source of some of the greatest HERO debates.

[Rene]

Re: Ye Old "Hero is Hard" Debate

 

IMX, when genre advice was as little impactful as you say, the result was a game where the genre was "supers in some other setting". genre flavor typically has, if it is done to significant level, more impact than that... or it is fundamentally absent.

 

I always thought HERO was a game only for GMs who have a very clear mental image of the genre and game they want to run, and don't mind having a lot of work. Because it's up to you to select and build everything to make it "fit". If you don't have a clear enough mental image, you probably will end up with a "supers in some other setting" thing.

 

When I first met HERO, I thought it was too much trouble, much better to play D&D if I wanted fantasy, for instance. Then I grew older, and read more and more fantasy literature, and saw D&D wasn't doing it for me anymore, because it was too different from what I read. Then I turned to HERO and saw that, though it wasn't by no means effortless, in HERO I could do the worlds and characters I read about.