FH VS FH

[AnotherSkip]

Originally posted by Old Man

So I'm supposed to drop thirty bucks on a book and then rewrite parts of it?

 

Actually the options are for you to rewrite parts of the $45 book you intially invested in. FREd.

 

i suppose Steve _could_ have provided a USPD version for campaigns, and may do so in the future. However I can think of several campaign options that would allow Teleport, and deny the classic "mind blast", Mental illusions, etc. Realistically, All campaigns need the old 4th edition guidesheets with the Gms doing the fill in the blanks. Basically Old man, as you well know, Hero's greatest Strength and weakness is no "out of box".

[Old Man]

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

Actually the options are for you to rewrite parts of the $45 book you intially invested in. FREd.

 

Really? What parts? Aside from the broken weapons and encumbrance charts, there's really nothing there I would care to rewrite.

 

I can think of several campaign options that would allow Teleport, and deny the classic "mind blast", Mental illusions, etc.

 

That's no reason not to try and save the GM some work. I would much rather tweak a published Retro SF campaign than have to assemble it from scratch with a lot of vaguely worded advice.

 

Realistically, All campaigns need the old 4th edition guidesheets with the Gms doing the fill in the blanks. Basically Old man, as you well know, Hero's greatest Strength and weakness is no "out of box".

 

I see it as solely a weakness. In particular, I don't see why we can't have it both ways. Star Hero didn't even have the checklists from 4th ed, let alone preworked power-level/feel rules for each section. I understand the writers' fears of, I guess, stifling GM creativity, but SH wound up being a whole bunch of good ideas scattered at random in a sea of fluff.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Old Man

 

That's no reason not to try and save the GM some work. I would much rather tweak a published Retro SF campaign than have to assemble it from scratch with a lot of vaguely worded advice.

 

I see it as solely a weakness. In particular, I don't see why we can't have it both ways. Star Hero didn't even have the checklists from 4th ed, let alone preworked power-level/feel rules for each section. I understand the writers' fears of, I guess, stifling GM creativity, but SH wound up being a whole bunch of good ideas scattered at random in a sea of fluff.

 

Actually, I'm having these issues with HERO these days, too.

 

I found star hero to be chalk full of good ideas, all of which required me to go spend days (or even weeks) building things from the ground up that I didn't want to have to build. I can crunch numbers with the best of them, but I don't enjoy it.

 

I'd rather have a book of stuff I can pick and choose what to tweak from that to build everything from the ground up. I wouldn't even mind a good setting book if it had enough pregenerated materials for me to steal mercilessly from.

 

So far the genre books have been long on ideas and short on substance. I have my own ideas so I don't find them useful. I want concrete guidelines and source material I can pillage to flesh those ideas out with. I can get that out of books o' stuff and setting books. I have yet to figure out what I need a genre book for.

 

The only books I've purchased to date, other than FRED, are The Ultimate Martial Artist, The Ultimate Vehicle, The Bestiary, and Ninja Hero. I'll be taking a look at the Spacer's Tool Kit, the Grimoire, and the setting books.

 

Its one of the reasons I am, for the first time in years, playing something other than HERO (for non-supers and modern action stuff). The genre books have slowed the production schedule for the other books down. I'm waiting and watching, but I'm not a kid anymore, and between a wife, two children, and a job I don't have time to engage the Godly art of building everything in existance from nothing.

[Dr Rotwang!]

I went down to the hardware store yesterday.

 

I was standing there between the slats of wood and the bins fulla nails when the clerk came up to me. "Can I help you, sir?"

 

"Yeah," I said. "You got any rooms that're actually, you know, already built? I want some that I'll like, and I can't build my own because I lack the time."

 

He stared at me for a minute; he blinked, then shuffled his feet.

 

Then he said I should go play RIFTS.

 

So that was some sarcasm, but this next isn't -- you got yourself a HERO toolkit, and that's so you can build whatever you want. If you haven't the time to build...dude, scan the 'net for stuff that's built. It's cheaper, and though it makes DOJ no money, it saves you some work.

 

Lots of HERO stuff out there. You want some links? I bet you already have 'em, but I can share all the same.

[Old Man]

Let me respond to your idiotic strawman with one that's just as idiotic:

 

I went down to the car dealer yesterday.

 

I was standing in the lot when the salesman came up to me and said, "Can I help you, sir?"

 

"Yeah," I said. "I'd like to buy a car. I'd like it to have four wheels and corner pretty well. And I'd like it to be red. You have anything like that?"

 

"Sure," he said, "hold on right there." He went in the back, and when he came out he was pushing a wheelbarrow full of wrenches, some iron ore, and cans of red paint.

 

So without any sarcasm, what I'm saying is that yes, I have a HERO toolkit, and yes, I can build anything I damn well want with it. But if I haven't got the time to build my campaign from scratch or hunt through all the crap that's out on the web, it would be nice if I could quickly assemble it from some ready-made options. Especiallly if I'm new to GMing Hero and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. This takes nothing away from the universality of Hero and makes it easy for busy, lazy, or new GMs.

 

And let me reiterate that what is out there on the net is mostly crap. Keith Curtis' Savage Earth isn't bad--aside from the furries--but one third-party, online-only campaign setting is a far cry from a published series of campaign options that a GM can pick from a list on his lunch break.

[Lord Liaden]

If the genre books do not suit your needs or desires, I for one have no problem with your not buying them. You should invest your hard-earned dollars in what is going to help you create an enjoyable campaign. Lots of Hero gamers do seem to appreciate the genre books, but I've read comments from quite a few who don't.

 

If what you want is pre-generated material to speed up setting up a campaign, or ready-made setting books, Hero Games is putting that out as fast as it can. I'm sorry if you feel that the genre books are slowing the pace of that output to an unacceptable degree, but Hero also has customers who want that kind of product. In fact these boards have seen numerous requests for toolkit elements, prefabs, settings, adventures, and the occasional kitchen sink. IMHO the company is doing yeoman service in trying to serve all these diverse desires, but that does require some compromises, which traditionally satisfy no party completely.

 

I understand your impatience to wait for Hero to come out with the kind of books you want; hopefully when they do you'll consider returning to the game.

[Yamo]

So without any sarcasm, what I'm saying is that yes, I have a HERO toolkit, and yes, I can build anything I damn well want with it. But if I haven't got the time to build my campaign from scratch or hunt through all the crap that's out on the web, it would be nice if I could quickly assemble it from some ready-made options. Especially if I'm new to GMing Hero and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. This takes nothing away from the universality of Hero and makes it easy for busy, lazy, or new GMs.

 

It sounds to me like there's already a ton of books that fit what you want.

 

Champions Universe (premade superhero setting)

Conquerors, Killers and Crooks (premade superhero villians)

Millenium City (premade campaign city)

UNTIL Superpowers Database (thousands of premade Powers)

Terran Empire (premade sci-fi setting)

Spacer's Toolkit (premade sci-fi gear, vehicles and ships)

Ultimate Martial Artist (premade martial arts styles and Powers)

Ultimate Vehicle (premade vehicles)

 

That's eight products in the last year that aren't genre books. Any one of them meets your criteria of "campaign options that a GM can pick from a list on his lunch break."

 

Coming up in the next few months we have:

 

Champions Battlegrounds (premade superhero adventures)

Fantasy Hero Grimoire (premade fantasy spells)

VIPER sourcebook (a premade villian organization for superhero campaigns)

Monsters, Minions and Marauders (premade fantasy villians)

 

It sounds to me like you're just spoiled. If you really begrudge the rest of HEROdom one or two genre books a year just because they mean that you get ONLY eight or nine books of drag-and-drop stuff that's useful to you, well, that's just weak.

 

Your whining is misplaced for two reasons:

 

a) There's more than one HERO player out there. Many of us love the genre books. If you don't, don't buy them. Which leads neatly to number two...

 

You're already getting plenty of what you want. 2/3 or more of the release schedule is made up of non-genre book products intended to provide premade bits for campaigns. That's a distinct majority of new HERO material and it ought to be enough to please anyone even remotely fair and realistic about this issue.

 

Every book isn't made for you. If it was, DoJ would have exactly one customer.

[Killer Shrike]

{smiles inanely around, confused by all the angry faces}

 

Its sure going to be great killing things in caves together. Right guys? ......Uh....Guys?

 

 

 

 

Seriously though, its all good. Personally, I can see it both ways. I dont NEED Fantasy HERO; I figured out the basic ideas put forward in it over a decade ago. I can do Fantasy with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back.

 

But, on the otherhand, the FH playtest doc had lots of "oh yeahs" and imagination kick starters strewn throughout it. It does have actual game content as well, by the way. Its also great to have to incite interest from players, and give them something to look at for conceptual fodder, and even to help them understand the genre more fully. For many people FRPG is beer and pretzels hack-n-slash and/or video "role-playing" games which are basically just small scale strategy games with FMV or random sound clips.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Yamo

a) There's more than one HERO player out there. Many of us love the genre books. If you don't, don't buy them. Which leads neatly to number two...

 

I'm glad you liked SH. I thought it was pretty good, but it could have been better. A lot better. As the genre book SH should have provided real tools and metarules for campaign creation rather than the mere collection of advice that it is.

 

You're already getting plenty of what you want. 2/3 or more of the release schedule is made up of non-genre book products intended to provide premade bits for campaigns. That's a distinct majority of new HERO material and it ought to be enough to please anyone even remotely fair and realistic about this issue.

 

But I am not talking about those 2/3. I'm not talking about TE, which is a specific campaign setting, and I'm not talking about Spacer's Toolkit, which is just stuff, and I'm really not talking about all the Champions books you mentioned that are utterly irrelevant. I'm specifically talking about SH and why it wasn't as good as it could have been.

 

Every book isn't made for you. If it was, DoJ would have exactly one customer.

 

But what a customer it would be!

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Old Man

I'm glad you liked SH. I thought it was pretty good, but it could have been better. A lot better. As the genre book SH should have provided real tools and metarules for campaign creation rather than the mere collection of advice that it is

Let's see, Star Hero had 40 Package Deals, write-ups for over 100 weapons and other pieces of equipment, write-ups for robots and computers, write-ups for starbases and starships, and write-ups for 45 psionic powers at varying power levels. All of that on top of 100 pages of information as to how you can make whatever type of campaign you want. I can surely see where it did not have enough "real tools" for campaign creation.

 

Genre books are not supposed to have metarules, or my term would be hard-rules. That is what campaign books are for. Genre books are an extention of FREd and offer you additional game information covering a specific genre, but not a specific style of play. Genre books are extended toolkits for FREd which help you to build whatever you want within that genre. Thus there can be no hard-rules that something must work a specific way, because what works in a cyberpunk-style game does not work in a Star Wars-style game.

 

Campaign books offer you a specific style of sub-genre and then give you hard-rules as to how everything must work. Of course campaign books do not help you if they are not the sub-genre that you want to play, but that is just the breaks if you sub-genre is not going to be supported.

[Seenar]

The whole appeal of Storyteller to me was all the rich source material not its gaming system.

[Dr Rotwang!]

Originally posted by Old Man

Let me respond to your idiotic strawman with one that's just as idiotic:

Okay.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Monolith

Genre books are not supposed to have metarules, or my term would be hard-rules. That is what campaign books are for. Genre books are an extention of FREd and offer you additional game information covering a specific genre, but not a specific style of play. Genre books are extended toolkits for FREd which help you to build whatever you want within that genre. Thus there can be no hard-rules that something must work a specific way, because what works in a cyberpunk-style game does not work in a Star Wars-style game.

 

You're completely missing my point on campaign metarules. When I say metarules, I don't mean rules for a specific campaign. I'm talking about rules to determine what rules you put in for the specific campaign that you want. Taking psionics as an example, what I'd want is something like:

 

Pregenerated Psionics Campaign Rules

 

Psionics A: Psi powers are so rare most people don't believe they exist. They are weak, unreliable, and subtle.

Permitted powers: telepathy, mind scan, mind control.

Required limitations: concentrate DCV0, RSR, extra time 1 minute.

Frameworks: none.

AP Limit: 30.

 

Psionics B: Psi powers are fairly common but restricted to a relative minority.

Permitted powers: as A, plus TK, Leaping, Missile Deflection and Mental Defense.

Required limitations: RSR.

Frameworks: EC.

AP Limit: 60.

 

Psionics C: Psi powers are everywhere. Psionic masters are closely attuned to the universe and can do all kinds of freaky stuff.

Permitted powers: as B, plus HKA, RKA, Flight, FF, FW, Density Increase, etc.

Required limitations: none.

Frameworks: MP.

AP Limit: 90.

 

 

Then if all the sections of SH had options like this, I could define my Retro SF campaign in a few lines of text:

 

Point level: 75+75.

Psionics: A.

Cybernetics: none.

Robotics: B.

Biotech: none.

Weapon tech: B.

Armor tech: A.

Martial arts: A.

etc.

 

The way SH is set up right now, there is no easy way to do this. I have to go through it, read all the advice, and write up all this stuff myself, which takes a lot of time and effort.

[AnotherSkip]

Old Man that post was the most worthles pile of drivel I have yet to see come out in your posts in quite a while IMNSHO.

 

First off, for the vast majority of Hero you would need a good 20(A-R) pieces to accurately describe just things like psionics. in your ABC example none of those had any of the powers levels i would need to describe most of the campaings I have been in. so fer instance your shorthand example would require a minimum of 21 more paragraphs added to the book(just an incomplete listing of 3 per suggestion).

 

And is not part of the advantage Hero has is that we _don't_ do things like provide lists of SFX's? after all what is the difference between a Fire Ball, an Ice Shard and a Lighting Bolt? Not much except sfx.

 

im free to do whatever I want with my SFX's, sure I should make them all feel different, but many problems came about with games like Shadowrun _because_ rather than admitting that Biotech, Cyberware, and Magic are all different SFX's for the _exact same krap_ they made them not only feel differently but behaved sligthly differently and game balance suffered because munchkins would cherry pick their abilites and run roughshod over everything else.

[Seenar]

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

Old Man that post was the most worthles pile of drivel I have yet to see come out in your posts in quite a while IMNSHO.

 

First off, for the vast majority of Hero you would need a good 20(A-R) pieces to accurately describe just things like psionics. in your ABC example none of those had any of the powers levels i would need to describe most of the campaings I have been in. so fer instance your shorthand example would require a minimum of 21 more paragraphs added to the book(just an incomplete listing of 3 per suggestion).

 

And is not part of the advantage Hero has is that we _don't_ do things like provide lists of SFX's? after all what is the difference between a Fire Ball, an Ice Shard and a Lighting Bolt? Not much except sfx.

 

im free to do whatever I want with my SFX's, sure I should make them all feel different, but many problems came about with games like Shadowrun _because_ rather than admitting that Biotech, Cyberware, and Magic are all different SFX's for the _exact same krap_ they made them not only feel differently but behaved sligthly differently and game balance suffered because munchkins would cherry pick their abilites and run roughshod over everything else.

 

Wow. Are we on the Non-Gaming Boards all of a sudden

 

I think that the Old Man makes a good argument about the sort of steps I would have liked to have seen in Star Hero too. Your basic argument is that "it does not work for you, so why have it". I guess Star Hero was perfect for you and you would make no changes, and Fantasy Hero will be perfect as well with no changes made. If must be nice to have Hero catering to your whims.

 

I think the Old Man (funny I put a "the" there by habit) has every right to state his case for what he would like to see. Just because that may put him in a minority, or not be what Hero is looking to do, does not make his statments "drivel".

 

You should apologize. You don't see Steve on here slamming the Old Man for not thinking Star Hero is perfect, now do you?

[Killer Shrike]

Theres a lot of love in here. You can practically smell it

 

Seriously though, lets dial it down a notch if possible. Everybody has a right to thier own opinion after all. "My right to swing my fist ends where another man's nose begins" and all that.....

[Chris Goodwin]

Old Man -- obviously Star Hero wasn't what you thought it was going to be, or at least it wasn't what you were looking for. Nothing wrong with that. I think that's a different issue from a single "bad - pretty good - excellent" scale. It wasn't "pretty good but could have been better". It was "doesn't meet Old Man's needs".

 

The stuff you're asking for is what Hero would be putting in setting or campaign books rather than genre books. The reason Star Hero doesn't contain lists of psionics power levels, for example, is because that sort of list would have to appear in a specific campaign book.

 

I had a similar problem with the 4th edition supplement "Champions (in?) 3-D". What I wanted was a sort of Star Hero for interdimensional campaigns. What it ended up being was about 5-6 pages on mostly how to generate dimensions and then a huge collection of sample dimensions. Not what I wanted at all, at least at the time; I could come up with a hundred of those. There was some excellent stuff in there, but I wouldn't ever say "It sucked because it wasn't what I wanted."

 

I think that's why people are coming at you, because you're saying "Star Hero could have been a lot better" or, in other words, it sucks because it didn't meet your needs. Most people seem to be saying "It didn't suck, what are you talking about?"

 

If it doesn't meet your needs, then sorry, them's the breaks. It's not going to meet everyone's needs. But that's no reason to get pissy about it.

[Dr Rotwang!]

So...Old Man...no offense intent here, but -- how long'd it take you to write that up? Maybe you have more time than you think, or at least needn't invest as much as you'd fear.

 

In my case, I'm lazy and easily distracted. So if I can throw together stuff, surely you can, too.

 

And c'mon, let's face it -- I ain't that smart.

[Polaris]

Old Man,

 

I agree with much of what you are saying. I, as a newer Hero GM, would like to see more material that I can easily drop into a story. I can take the world and develop it very well, but any building blocks can be helfpul.

 

Others (often more experienced GMs) have an easier time with rather vague advice on "this is how to RP fantasy/superheroes/science finction", etc.

 

I appreciate your voicing desire for publication of more solid materials (which, i believe hero puts out with their villain book, USPD, Spacers Toolkit, TE, etc, but could do more with the genre books to give solid foundation to playing that genre with more concrete examples).

 

I believe that Steve and Co are aware that many of the people on here tend to be more experienced Hero players. That materials that appeal to newer players is a good thing (not to say that you are new, since I have no idea how long you have been playing Hero).

 

The main thing you hae said that I would take exception to is the idea that most of the stuff on the web is crap. I have not seen the majority, but I have found some very impressive stuff. Some sites even have tools that help (the GM Mastery site has a tool for subplots that have sparked some interesting ideas for the Innkeeper or some other NPC that may not have had quite so much of a role in the story before).

 

Polaris

[Polaris]

Lord Liadan

 

Well put...:)

 

Polaris

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Dr Rotwang!

So...Old Man...no offense intent here, but -- how long'd it take you to write that up?

 

That took me about fifteen minutes, but like AnotherSkip politely pointed out, each example is hardly enough to be really useful as a drop in, and it would take more than three of them to provide anything like adequate drop-in choice for a campaign. On top of that I've been playing Champs since 2nd ed and FH since 1st, so I'm a vet. A GM new to the system wouldn't have the faintest idea how to set up AP limits and power frameworks and limitations to get the feel that he wants.

 

Furthermore I gain nothing from writing that sort of thing myself unless I have the time to develop and play dozens of SH campaigns myself. I don't. That's why it would have been really cool for Steve to do it, because he's pretty good and he can type at SPD 12.

 

I know a lot of folks object to the whole idea of artificially limiting Hero, but I really don't see how what I'm suggesting would do that in any way. The underlying system is still there for anyone to use. Providing these optional drop-in campaign blocks would have the additional benefit of lowering the entry barrier for new Hero GMs, as well as helping out the lazy ones.

[Yamo]

A GM new to the system wouldn't have the faintest idea how to set up AP limits and power frameworks and limitations to get the feel that he wants.

 

Hmm. I had never played HERO before the 5th Edition and I haven't had any trouble setting AP limits and such.

 

Maybe you should give people more credit?

[Dr Rotwang!]

I have to agree with Yamo. I've been a gamer since 1988 (okay, 31 Dec 1987), and have had spotty experience with HERO 4th and 5th until about a year ago or so. I, for myself, haven't had so much trouble putting things together as one might think, considering how...uh...well, I'm not right in the head.

 

But one thing I am, is I'm a perfectionist. When I put my mind and hands to something, any execution that is not better than what I conceived is just...not...RIGHT.

 

Except when it comes to gaming. "Close enough for jazz" does the trick.

 

So...I understand what it's like to not have the time to get exactly what you want, so I can side with you on that, Old Man.

[rayoman]

I had nothing important to say so I deleted what I had said in the first place. :-)

[AnotherSkip]

Well..... erm..... I Apologise for being a tad bit too acidic in my remarks.

 

And to answer an unspoken assumption I think that yes SH could have been 'better",

_but_

Old Man's suggstion might do well for an independant PDF, Digital hero article, or addendum to the simplifying HERO rules. Not as something that would have neccesitated pulling out three or four races, a series of psionics examples and a half dozen other things in order to suggest a very limited version of some 4th ed campaign design rules....

 

 

 

 

 

 

besides anyone who puts "Insolent Fool!" as their iconic statement -should- expect some amount of insolence!!!!!