Fuzion

[Nero's Boot]

After seeing the Fuzion rules set mentioned in the back of HERO 5th, I felt intrigued enough to hunt a copy down and buy it. I purchased Fuzion Powered Multigenre Roleplaying Tool for all of 8 dollars, and fell in love with the system.

 

While I still feel that HERO is by far and away the better of the two systems, Fuzion is far less crunchy and, to my mind at least, easier to tinker with. Has anyone had much experience with Fuzion? How does it play, compared to HERO?

 

--and to Mr. Long, I only posted this here because your core rulebook mentions Fuzion as a "child" of HERO NB

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Fuzion

 

I Dive For Cover.

[Agent X]

Re: Fuzion

 

Fuzion YMMV

[Dino]

Re: Fuzion

 

Has anyone had much experience with Fuzion? How does it play' date=' compared to HERO?[/quote']

 

Ah, Fuzion. Everything you hated about Interlock, with just enough Hero to make you wish you were playing that instead.

[Blue]

Re: Fuzion

 

Never got around to playing it.

In fact I only have vague recollections of thinking, "Why waste all this effort on Fuzion when they can be making pure champions products instead?"

[Jhamin]

Re: Fuzion

 

Ok,

 

The basic deal with Fusion: It's not that bad. Some people even like it. This is not a good place to get alot of Fusion-love.

 

You see, there was a 10 year drought of Hero Product that began with the arrival of Fusion and ended with the DOJ releasing Hero 5th.

 

Back in the day Hero games more or less said "We made Hero better. It's so different that it can no longer be Hero, now it's Fusion. We like our new game Fusion better than Hero. It's better in every way." They then stopped making Hero compatable product and expected everyone to convert.

 

Fusion has it's merits. It's not Hero. A large percentage of the Hero community was not impressed.

 

Lots of folk who were around at the time associate Fusion with everything that was bad about the dying days of 4th edition.

[Newbie]

Re: Fuzion

 

After seeing the Fuzion rules set mentioned in the back of HERO 5th' date=' I felt intrigued enough to hunt a copy down and buy it. I purchased [i']Fuzion Powered Multigenre Roleplaying Tool[/i] for all of 8 dollars, and fell in love with the system.

 

While I still feel that HERO is by far and away the better of the two systems, Fuzion is far less crunchy and, to my mind at least, easier to tinker with. Has anyone had much experience with Fuzion? How does it play, compared to HERO?

 

--and to Mr. Long, I only posted this here because your core rulebook mentions Fuzion as a "child" of HERO NB

 

I was introduced to Fuzion "Champions: New Mellenium" before being introduced to HERO. I have not played Fuzion in about 10 years, so I can't remember specifics. I remember when I first bought the HERO 5th Edition book I thought, "Wow, this is a lot like Fuzion" The skills are almost identical. Power constructs are pretty similar (with limitations and adders). In fact, there are a lot of fuzion power constructs out there that could easily be HERO.

 

The main thing I remember about playing Fuzion is that people died more often. STUN damage rolled over into killing more, so you had to really watch yourself with normals (STUN/5 I do believe). Many members of the super team I was on had to go into counseling for killing normals. Guns were LETHAL! Even superheroes with armor had reason to fear the automatic weapons (although there was a "dial" you could set in the rules to alter the rule for guns).

 

I get confused between the two sometimes while I am playing HERO because they are so similar. I have to constantly look at the rulebook to recall the differences.

 

Hope that helps some.

[Southern Cross]

Re: Fuzion

 

I didn't.But then I hated Champions:New Millenium.The main problems I have with the 5th Edition Champions Universe are as follows:too much emphasis on magic and too few high-power heroes,which are some of the same problems the New Millenium universe had.

[Nero's Boot]

Re: Fuzion

 

Y'ouch, didn't realize Fuzion was so hated around here. It's a good system, I like it; but as I do not want to start a flamewar, I'll withdraw from this thread, and hopefully everyone will let the thread die a peaceful, obscure death.

 

--I like both systems, though Fuzion is definitely the "lighter" of the two game engines NB

[lemming]

Re: Fuzion

 

Fuzion wasn't that horrible, but the way it was presented was horrible. The bait and switch approach hardly ever works. Didn't help that they then ran into bad money problems on top of it.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Fuzion

 

Please understand, NB, the antipathy you're experiencing here is not so much about Fuzion the system, but the package that Champions/Hero players were presented with when in debuted in the New Millennium books. Besides the "official" company system changeover, which alienated a lot of hardcore HERO fans, the presentation in the NM books was below what we'd come to expect: the Fuzion system was incomplete compared to what we were used to in HERO, with many of the options left out of the core book (and even the supplements didn't cover everything). Editing and presentation were also rather sloppy IMO.

 

I've noticed quite a lot of development of the system by fans on the Internet. Apparently many of the flaws have been corrected and the options expanded. I know that there's a loyal core group of Fuzion players who have been keeping it alive, much as HERO fans did with our game during the dark days of nil company support.

 

As for your question, though, I'm afraid I have no firsthand experience with Fuzion. I didn't take to the system when it was first introduced, seeing no advantage to changing from 4E HERO - that did everything I wanted from a generic system. Mind you, I discovered that 5E does things I didn't realize I wanted.

[Agent X]

Re: Fuzion

 

Fuzion just couldn't define the character well enough for me to continue playing it. If I wanted to simplify my supers game I would go with MEGS.

[The Hyborian]

Re: Fuzion

 

Fuzion wasn't so much a bad game system as a marketing disaster. I never actually played it, I do remember reading the rules years ago (was is downlaodable? I have vague memories of getting it off the internet somehow.) If neither Interlock nor Hero had existed it might have develeoped a following, but being the bastard offspring of two game systems it didn't please the fan base of either game much, and had trouble gaining any momentum. The Hero purists felt like "their" game had been taken from them and replaced with something else, the Interlock fans just wanted to play cyberpunk, and other gamers who wanted a "universal" system probably went off to try GURPS. It just never found its niche.

[JmOz]

Re: Fuzion

 

I still wish that Hero Games would give Fuzion and C:NM a little more respect (Include a area for discussing them on the boards, keep the .pdf's for sale...).

 

Not because I especialy liked Fuzion, or C:NM, but I have always felt that the fans of the system got put into a similar postion as we were before DOJ arived, and felt like a little bit of a bone would be appropriate...

[Greatwyrm]

Re: Fuzion

 

Ok, I liked Fuzion. I ran a lot of Cyberpunk and it was basically the same system, but better. I liked that, especially since R. Talsorian is only now beginning work in earnest on Cyberpunk 3e.

 

Also, it was the Fuzion version of the fantasy game Shards of the Stone that got me interested in HERO in the first place.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Fuzion

 

It's kind of funny how this topic resurfaces every few months. That alone tells me that the HERO Community has at least a little to thank Fuzion for. Comments like Greatwyrm's have been made before. A lot of new fanbase has walked the Fuzion road and ended at the HERO destination.

 

As far as Fuzion itself goes, I'm consistently torn between HERO and Fuzion for which game system to develop stuff in. I like both systems a great deal and it always boils down to which does more. Fuzion is so much easier to use (IMO) than HERO, but HERO has more crunchiness. In fact, I like the basic mechanic in Fuzion so much, that I usually dispense with Power Points and just use Option Points to buy HERO crafted powers. For point balance, I also change the Hits score to more accurately reflect the BODY characteristic from HERO. Now all I need is a more detailed combat system for Fuzion. That is the one area that HERO does better. There are pages and pages of combat options in HERO and less in Fuzion.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Fuzion

 

the antipathy you're experiencing here is not so much about Fuzion the system' date=' but the package that Champions/Hero players were presented with when in debuted in the [i']New Millennium[/i] books. Besides the "official" company system changeover, which alienated a lot of hardcore HERO fans,

 

 

And this actually goes a little further back than for some. Back before Fuzion and the hookup with R Tal, Steve Peterson was on the HERO mailing list asking about what the fans wanted to see, going so far as questionaires about what the fans wanted. Then when people were starting to get hyped about a possible 5th ed manuscript (that SP went as far as to say he wanted Steve Long to write, IIRC) The whole fuzion thing hit - and many of the hardcore fans felt betrayed by a percieved Bait and Switch (tell us what you want for HERO 5... but here is Fuzion instead). Created a _lot_ of bad feeling. Then HERO refusing to do print books of HERO material saving that for Fuzion.... I think that may be one of the lingering "Don't like PDFs" attitudes that seem to go along with HERO fans - whereas many other game fans have embraced PDFs.

 

As Hyborian mentioned - Marketing Disaster.

[Mortuorum`]

Re: Fuzion

 

Fuzion just couldn't define the character well enough for me to continue playing it. If I wanted to simplify my supers game I would go with MEGS.

 

For those not familiar with the term, MEGS = Marvel's Exponential Gaming System; it's the system used in the old DC-Heroes RPG and the currently-in-publication Blood of Heroes RPG.

 

It's a relatively simple system to play in, but the game scale is much coarser than Hero's.

[Fenixcrest]

Re: Fuzion

 

My only problem with Fuzion is that I found the system breaks down at a certain level, like right around powerful supers. Galactic Champions, unless you really police combat stats, becomes nigh impossible. Does anybody remember the Fuzion DBZ game? Gah.

 

Combat where attacks and evasions are done using opposed skill rolls become roughly futile at a certain point.

 

However, I could see myself using Fuzion for a heroic-level sci-fi or fantasy setting... except that's what I use HERO for now XD;;

 

But yeah. Fuzion: okay system until you break the supers barrier.

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: Fuzion

 

For those not familiar with the term, MEGS = Marvel's Exponential Gaming System; it's the system used in the old DC-Heroes RPG and the currently-in-publication Blood of Heroes RPG.

 

It's a relatively simple system to play in, but the game scale is much coarser than Hero's.

 

Mayfair's Exponential Gaming System, not Marvel's.

[Edsel]

Re: Fuzion

 

Bubblegum Crisis was/is one of my favorite anime titles. It annoys me to no end that the only genre books ever produced for it were Fuzion. It is darn near impossible to convert anything from Fuzion into Hero. There is wonderful background material in the BGC books but attempts to convert the characters and equipment into Hero have been a great frustration to me.

 

NOTE: This is the old, original, Bubblegum Crisis stuff. AFAIK nobody has done anything with the BGC 2040 stuff. If anybody does know where there are Hero write-ups for BGC or BGC 2040... Where is it?

[Legendsmiths]

Re: Fuzion

 

A lot of what I thought was good about Fuzion went into Action!. While SPACR (Supernatural Powers and Creation Rules) isn't out yet, San Angelo 1.5 has supers written up. I prefer a little more detail, but I think if you like Fuzion you will find a better set of rules with the same feel and more support in the Action! System, which is also OGL.

 

I might also recommend Savage Worlds. While the mechanics are completely different from Fuzion, it is a fast an furious game and I think captures the essence of a light system much better.

 

I played a fair amount of Fuzion - supers and fantasy. I though it was on the right track but became frustrated with the way stats scaled. It worked, and was okay, but ultimately I feel there are systems out there that are just as light, more flexible, and more consistent. I also thought the presentation of the Fuzion materials for Champions was pretty good, but felt it lacked a level of detail I wanted from years of Champions play. It was Champions-Light and that's not what I wanted. Streamlining sure, but reduced functionality no.

 

It was also "open" before other systems were. In 1998 (when it was introduced) you could freely download it and use it. I remember Shaintar (Sean Patrick Fannon) pumping the system heavily - but it never seemed to take hold. I'm not sure what systems Sean took that through - I think there may even have been a stint of d20 - but it too is now fully Savaged (ftp://members.aol.com/seanpatfan/Family/ShaintarMockup.jpg). Origins looks like the release date (http://www.actionstudios.com/). I suppose you could take that as testimony of some kind - an author (Hero author no less) that created a published setting for Fuzion ultimately chose Savage Worlds (which is licensed) instead of Action! (which is OGL) to deliver his product. I have to agree with his choice and while I was never terribly excited for Shaintar before, I think it will finally deliver what Savage Worlds really needs to attract fantasy gamers - and that is a solid setting.

 

Okay, I suppose that's not really a "quick reply" but, well, whatever.

 

Go Sean!

[SeanPatFan]

Re: Fuzion

 

I appreciate Shane contacting me and letting me know about the discussion here. Though I am not deeply involved in Hero System anymore, I will always maintain a strong fondness for it, and I am very grateful that Steve, Darrin, and their fine folks are doing such an amazing job of keeping it all alive and well.

 

Having said that, here are my reasons for not going with the other systems mentioned:

 

Fuzion: I think the circumstances speak for themselves.

 

Action!: It was simply going to take too much extra work to get magic and powers to work the way I wanted, and frankly I was burned out on anything even like Fuzion at the stage where I considered it. I do have a great deal of respect for Mark, though, and hope it continues to grow for him.

 

D20: I simply could not design for the bloody thing! I asked for industry experts to help me, even, and no one could give me a reasonable description of how things balanced or were designed. That's when Shane Hensley stepped up to the plate and sent me a set of books for -

 

Savage Worlds: Amazingly flexible and exceptionally easy to design for. It does not have the "power" of Hero System (I doubt anything ever will), but it comes closest, in my mind, to being a "lite" system that does a lot of Hero fan might hope for if they wanted something a little less crunchy to play with for certain genres.

 

Now, as to why I did not pursue doing it in Hero System...

 

At one point, I seriously considered it. However, at the time, Steve was pretty focused on keeping all HS development in-house and close to the vest. I respect that - he got his favorite "toy," and he wanted to keep it in his sandbox for a while.

 

Now that it appears others are able to explore publishing with Hero rules, I may have to revisit the idea once I get some Savaged Shaintar stuff out the door...

[Chuk]

Re: Fuzion

 

I ran a Fuzion game online for a couple-few years during the Dead Times of Hero. I used Jason Dour's Heroic Abilities plug in, and the game was a cross-genre kind of thing (equivalent to a Heroic level Hero game). It worked okay, but now that 5th edition is here, I feel no need for it.

 

(The Shaintar stuff was really cool, though -- too bad it's gone to a new system.)

[Mortuorum`]

Re: Fuzion

 

Mayfair's Exponential Gaming System' date=' not Marvel's.[/quote']

D'oh!

 

That'll teach me to not post and sniff glue at the same time.

 

That's the one. Mayfair also used a modified version of the MEGS system for their game, Underground.