Questions about different HERO editions

[litlfrog]

Hi folks, first time poster. Here's the situation: I've been playing in a Champions game for a relatively short time. (Almost a year, but meeting less than once a month.) The GM uses an old edition of the book that I think I remember from the early 90s--would this be 3rd edition? I've noticed many of the cool-looking supplements for 5th edition in the game store. When I asked why he had never updated, the GM said that for 4th edition, the old rules had been merged with those of another system and he didn't like the changes. Could people tell me a) how accurate this statement is, how significant the differences are between 3rd and 5th, and c) how easy/difficult it would be to convert characters? Thanks for your time.

[schir1964]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

Hi folks' date=' first time poster. Here's the situation: I've been playing in a Champions game for a relatively short time. (Almost a year, but meeting less than once a month.) The GM uses an old edition of the book that I think I remember from the early 90s--would this be 3rd edition? I've noticed many of the cool-looking supplements for 5th edition in the game store. When I asked why he had never updated, the GM said that for 4th edition, the old rules had been merged with those of another system and he didn't like the changes. Could people tell me a) how accurate this statement is, how significant the differences are between 3rd and 5th, and c) how easy/difficult it would be to convert characters? Thanks for your time.[/quote']

I think he was referring to Fuzion, where they tried to combine the Hero Rules with another game system called Interlock or something like that. It still has a following, but that effort was dropped when DOJ purchased Herogames and created the 5th Edition.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[KA.]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

After 4th Edition, instead of creating a 5th Edition of The Hero System, the owners at that time (Cybergames) released Fuzion, which was, indeed a mixture of Hero and another system.

Most of the Hero faithful hated it, and many felt betrayed because they thought what they were going to get was a new edition of Hero, not this new hybrid system.

 

Hero System 5th Edition, which is what is in the stores now, is the actual 5th edition of the Hero System. It was produced by the current (and future) owners, DOJ Inc.

 

So tell your GM that what is on the shelves now is the "real" Hero System, not Fuzion.

 

KA.

 

Edit: I knew someone would beat me to it.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

If you have trouble convincing him buy the Sidekick PDF for $7 and let him read it for himself - he'll see 5TH is HERO and not the hybrid (shouldn't that word be censored??) system he's thinking of.

 

And there was a 4TH Ed... the one he's thinking of came out around '96ish and died a horrible death soon after (thankfully).

[Vondy]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

4th edition didn't take anything from other game systems. It did, however, serve as the first attempt to unify the disparate rules that existed in its published products. During 3rd edition the game spread out over several genres and had come up with disparate ways of doing things - mechanically disparate ways in many cases. What 4th edition did was streamline these disparate elements and put them in one system/book. It was, essentially, the first attempt to make hero universal. Personally, I think they did an excellent job. It certainly had some soft points and needed some polish in terms of explanation, but they accomplished their essential task in spades. 5th edition has refined the product (mostly for the good). I think the assertion that your GM was referring to FUZION and not 4th edition is likely.

[Steve Long]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

After 4th Edition, instead of creating a 5th Edition of The Hero System, the owners at that time (Cybergames) released Fuzion, which was, indeed a mixture of Hero and another system.

 

While I can certainly find lots of things to say about Cybergames, blaming Fuzion on 'em isn't one of them. It was released by Hero Games itself, in conjuction with R. Talsorian Games, before the sale to Cybergames. C:TNM, which I think was the first Fuzion book from Hero, was released in 1997, and the sale to Cybergames was around 1999 (I think).

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

After 4th Edition, instead of creating a 5th Edition of The Hero System, the owners at that time (Cybergames) released Fuzion, which was, indeed a mixture of Hero and another system.

 

Yeah. As Steve mentioned you can't blame Cybergames. You need to blame Steve Peterson and Mike Pondsmith. If anyone needs to blamed.

 

As I understand what happened, after the split with ICE happened, Hero was goint to go with R Tal for the same kind of deal, and while Steve and Mike worked out the deal, they realized that the systems could be merged, and built Fuzion. Champs New Millenium came out, as well as a couple of R Tal Fuzion games. R Tal then went "part time" which slowed down thier own production to a crawl, much less anything for HERO. Then Cybergames bought them.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

If you or your GM would like to see a summary of the changes from Fourth Edition HERO to Fifth, this webpage will bring you up to speed:

 

http://theemerged.blogspot.com/HERO425.htm

 

There have been a very few large changes, and a bunch of smaller ones, but mostly the difference lies in greater clarification, more options, more examples, and overall better organization. The two editions are still about 90% compatible with each other.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

Hi folks' date=' first time poster. Here's the situation: I've been playing in a Champions game for a relatively short time. (Almost a year, but meeting less than once a month.) The GM uses an old edition of the book that I think I remember from the early 90s--would this be 3rd edition? I've noticed many of the cool-looking supplements for 5th edition in the game store. When I asked why he had never updated, the GM said that for 4th edition, the old rules had been merged with those of another system and he didn't like the changes. Could people tell me a) how accurate this statement is, how significant the differences are between 3rd and 5th, and c) how easy/difficult it would be to convert characters? Thanks for your time.[/quote']

 

 

Hello liltfrog. Welcome.

 

One of the nice things about Hero is that the basic underlying structure has not changed at all over the years. I think that if you bought a book today from the 5th edition line and you were familiar with the 3rd edition you'd have very little problem using it straight off the bat. Hero is still recognisably the system it was when the first edition was published, unlike many games I could mention. I guess they got it pretty much right first time.

 

There are a couple of renamed or additional powers now, but that probably won't cause you too much of a problem. There are a few rule changes, but you can get by with 3rd edtition.

 

I think that the END rules are different now (1 point per 10 character points in the power), haymakers are not 1.5x STR but STR +4d6 and...well that's probably enough to play, to be honest.

 

If you can afford it buy 5ER. Despite many of my rants on various threads it is an excellent product and Hero is the most flexible and coherent system on the market today. If the price tag is a little daunting for a once a month meet, try SideKick, as has been mentioned, or just buy one of the other books, and let it suck you in

[KA.]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

While I can certainly find lots of things to say about Cybergames' date=' blaming Fuzion on 'em isn't one of them. It was released by Hero Games itself, in conjuction with R. Talsorian Games, before the sale to Cybergames. C:TNM, which I think was the first Fuzion book from Hero, was released in 1997, and the sale to Cybergames was around 1999 (I think).[/quote']

 

Whoops, sorry about that.

I started way back with the first boxed set, but I missed out on both 4th Ed. and Fuzion.

Since rediscovering Hero a few years ago, I have attempted to go back and buy everything that I am missing.

The only 'Fuzion' book I own is "Champions:New Millenium", and when I looked up at the Hero shelf in my computer room, I saw that it was published by Cybergames.

Which caused my to conclude Fuzion = Cybergames.

 

Sorry to have cast that particular stone.

 

KA.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

Whoops, sorry about that.

I started way back with the first boxed set, but I missed out on both 4th Ed. and Fuzion.

Since rediscovering Hero a few years ago, I have attempted to go back and buy everything that I am missing.

The only 'Fuzion' book I own is "Champions:New Millenium", and when I looked up at the Hero shelf in my computer room, I saw that it was published by Cybergames.

Which caused my to conclude Fuzion = Cybergames.

 

Sorry to have cast that particular stone.

 

KA.

That's most likely the C:TNM 2nd Ed. you're looking at which was published by Cybergames/Hero Games in 2000.

 

I don't have the Fuzion Champions 1st Ed but I did pull out my Bubble Gum Crisis Fuzion book - it was published by R Talsorian in 1996. There is no Hero Games mentioned in the BGC resource book so it may have been amongst the first forray into Fuzion published, but it's not a Hero Games product, just an R Talsorian one.

[John Desmarais]

Re: Questions about different HERO editions

 

Hi folks' date=' first time poster. Here's the situation: I've been playing in a Champions game for a relatively short time. (Almost a year, but meeting less than once a month.) The GM uses an old edition of the book that I think I remember from the early 90s--would this be 3rd edition? I've noticed many of the cool-looking supplements for 5th edition in the game store. When I asked why he had never updated, the GM said that for 4th edition, the old rules had been merged with those of another system and he didn't like the changes. Could people tell me a) how accurate this statement is, how significant the differences are between 3rd and 5th, and c) how easy/difficult it would be to convert characters? Thanks for your time.[/quote']

 

It is sounding as if he is confusing 4th edition Hero and Fuzion. 4th edition was just Hero. It was first released in teh form of the Big Blue Book (which was called Champions) and later as a smaller softbound book that was just the Hero System. Fuzion, which sounds like what he is referring to, came much later, and was sort of a blending of Hero and Interlock.

 

There were some pretty significant changes from 3rd edition to 4th. 4th edition was basically the "unifying" edition. Turning it into a single system instead of Champions, Fantasy Hero, Justice Inc, Star Hero, Danger International, etc, etc - each of which was based on the same system but slightly different in execution.

 

The changes from 4th to 5th edition, by comparision, were pretty mild. A lot of clean up in language, tweaking of powers and costs, a few new powers and modifiers, but nothing really huge.