Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

[shadowcat1313]

just finished reading over the PDF, not bad... but once again the starship building section is mediocre at best. hopefully we will get more detail on construction in the upcoming Vehicles book, but its disapointing once again.

 

I know that Steve and I very much disagree on design philosophies sadly. I prefer having more detail than less, and having more design rules.

 

where we differ, at least by whats gone before.

1. using VPPs for sensors and weapons systems, I prefer defining things, MPs are fine, but using veeps gives too much flexibility, unless you want a Star Trek style..

I generally dont.

2. defining how much space a component takes, heres where I always liked how it

was defined in Champions 2, or something akin to that, otherwise you end up with some really silly things, but if thats what you want... thats fine too.

 

clearly defining things also makes it easier for folks moving over from say GURPS or Traveller, in that the record sheets are a lot simpler to read, I have been told by some folks that the MP system for weapons can be especially confusing or just hard to read.

 

maybe its time to just homebrew my own alternative construction system

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

I know Steve doesn't like discussing his design philosophy and never does it on this forum.

 

I have the PDF (about all I have money or room for) and am impressed with what I've seen so far, but I haven't seen the starship design rules yet. So my next comment will be completely uninformed.

 

For what it's worth, I prefer my starships in-game pre-fabbed. I don't want to take the time to model all the complex details of one ship, much less every type of ships in several different fleets. Hand me something that works and I'm happy. The details can come up in-game when the situation calls for it, and here a little handwavium to create dramatic tension does wonders. An example could be a battle situation where the ships slug it out based on their stats, but as far as the players are concerned they need to go from crisis to crisis during a battle, such as when life support is threatened something has to be done to fix it or the crew dies. In any event, I would not want a SFB or even Starfire level of complexity in RPG starship combat.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

I really really wish he actually would discuss it... that and vehicle design philosophy, although I like the vehicle design rules as they are for the most part, but if I had my druthers I would adopt some things that were in Champions 2 that got tossed out.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

See, here's the problem for me. I have very limited time. If I need to design a vehicle, I will use a published one, or rip off one of Shadowcat's awesome designs. I wish that there was a bigger community to discuss design philosophy with people who like designing vehicles in the Hero system, but I can't be a part of it, and neither can most Hero users.

 

Sad Lawnmower Boy is sad.

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

I really really wish he actually would discuss it... that and vehicle design philosophy' date=' although I like the vehicle design rules as they are for the most part, but if I had my druthers I would adopt some things that were in Champions 2 that got tossed out.[/quote']

 

Any detailed set of vehicle construction rules will need to make specific assumptions, which may not apply in a given campaign. (You can't use the same set of vehicle construction rules for both Traveler and Star Trek.) So they get left to the GM.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

if somebody needs something specific I havent written up yet, just ask, I like to try and use at least 2 reference sources for converting real world vehicles, but otherwise I can work up just about anything, for 5th or 6th edition, heck, I still have my 4E books if somebody really wants something that old

 

I really want to see more of a modular system, or at least a better definition of how much space and or power something takes up, Champions 2 had this, but for whatever reason these ideas among other things vanished, and not always for the good.

[Escafarc]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

I like the fact that it's left up to each GM. Because what you think is the right size for a Hyperspace drive is going to be different from what I would use. And even different campaigns would use different sizes, just take the Star Wars Universe(where it would fit in a single man fighter) and the Honerverse where it requires a much larger ship.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

The STar Wars universe is incredibly inconsistent as far as travel time. And time in general: Luke somehow managed to squeeze six months to a year worth of Jedi training into a few weeks in Empire -- if that long (unless of course Force users get the free ability to travel backwards in time). Talk about "speed of plot" pacing....

 

Of course, interstellar travel in most campaigns, no matter what system you use or how complex your ship designs, moves essentially at the speed of plot. You always arrive at your destination just in time for something interesting to happen. You don't want to waste the time of your players on details that don't interest them. Repairs to the ship, unless they are life-or-death emergency repairs, can always be done in off-time between adventures. Most GMs assume that there is enough time between adventures for injured PCs to be back at full strength, which is more tha justifiable unless somehow your plot were to demand otherwise (such as when a PC has an illness or infection that the PCs have to go out on an adventure to find a treatment for).

 

Another example from fiction is Blake's 7, where different ships used entirely different assumptions about even the laws of physics. The PC group had acquired access to technology several orders of magnitude ahead of the rest of the campaign, that only they had access to. They couldn't comprehend their ships, much less fix them.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Ah, Blake's 7. Best. Death Scene. Ever.

[death tribble]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Vila did not need to die !

 

SOB !

 

Just saying.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

I'm all for more detail in the vehicle design rules, as long as that detail doesn't lock us into only 1 way of designing them. I personally don't believe that we need rules for volume and mass but I understand why those who do want them. I have developed my own design philosophies regarding vehicles/starships in HERO and have no desire to revise them due to changes in vehicle construction. One of the reasons I never got into Terran Empire was because the starships designs in that setting are very, very different from the way I would design them (that and I had already worked on my own campaign setting for so long)

[mallet]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

See, I'm the opposite. Less detail. Less detail.

The vehicle write ups in 5th edition were horrible, in my opinion. In fact they went against the whole "Cinematic realism" (that the HERO rules generally try and maintain) by getting way too detailed. I full page write up, in small print, with no picture, to describe a spaceship? Hell no. Just give me a simple sheet, like something for a robot or AI and that's fine. The game is about the characters (PC's and NPC's). Characters should be detailed. The stuff they use and ride around in should be simple and there only to help move the story forward. I have player look at starship sheets for HERO and not want to play Starhero. They figure that anything that puts that much detail and effort into designing won't be fun to play. And they are right. HERO is an RPG game. A game about characters. If people want a military vehicle simulation those rules should be an optional extra, or they should play a different game, because unless you are running some super detailed simulation you do not need that level of detail for a ship or car or boat. It just slows down the time spent on what the game is really about, the characters.

[Ranxerox]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Hero is a toolbox, and it tries to be a well stocked one at that. Perhaps it should have said in bold letters at the beginning of the spaceship chapter, "If you do not plan to have ship to ship combat in your game, skip this chapter!" As someone who also isn't crazy about Hero vehicles I'm not being completely facetious. However, since it says at the front of the book that all Hero rules are optional, I can understand why they would not feel it was necessary to do so at the start of individual chapters.

 

I have seen pretty elaborate vehicle write-ups on this board which leads me to believe that some Hero gamers enjoy doing them. Even if Hero is primarily an RPG rather a vehicle combat game, I don't think that Steve Long and company can be faulted for including detailed vehicle creation rules. After all some players like them.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Ran makes a good point. As at toolkit system Hero is flexible enough to accommodate both viewpoints.

 

The question becomes what you need to do to adapt Hero into the sort of game you want. If you want the choose-the-modules system you have to build the modules first. OR you can apply handwavium to some of the other details and only include in the build those elements that are important to space combat the way you see it. Other things you model based on game needs; for example, do you always need to know the number of beds there are in a free trader's sickbay? Is the cost of a load of fuel more important than its volume?

[Beast]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

I'd go with design and map out using MongTraveler (using both the core and High Gaurd and which ever FX that suited my fancy)

then build that vehicle using Hero

[RexMundi]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Hmm.... Attack Vector: Tactical, Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, High Guard, Hmm, got some Leviathan and Interceptor sitting on the shelf with the Star Fleet Battles and Battle Fleet Gothic, Bab5 A Call to Arms, and the Starblazers mini game......

 

I think I can cobble together some Ship Combat if I have to.....

 

~Rex

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

See, I'm the opposite. Less detail. Less detail.

The vehicle write ups in 5th edition were horrible, in my opinion. In fact they went against the whole "Cinematic realism" (that the HERO rules generally try and maintain) by getting way too detailed. I full page write up, in small print, with no picture, to describe a spaceship? Hell no. Just give me a simple sheet, like something for a robot or AI and that's fine. The game is about the characters (PC's and NPC's). Characters should be detailed. The stuff they use and ride around in should be simple and there only to help move the story forward. I have player look at starship sheets for HERO and not want to play Starhero. They figure that anything that puts that much detail and effort into designing won't be fun to play. And they are right. HERO is an RPG game. A game about characters. If people want a military vehicle simulation those rules should be an optional extra, or they should play a different game, because unless you are running some super detailed simulation you do not need that level of detail for a ship or car or boat. It just slows down the time spent on what the game is really about, the characters.

 

The great thing about the vehicles design rules as they stand right now is that it has the best of both worlds: You can design bare-bones vehicles with just enough stats and detail to get by, or you can get as detailed as you need for the game you want to run (If I were to run a mecha game or a sci-fi game filled with space dogfights and shipbattles I would put a ridiculous amount of detail into the ship writeups)

 

I also took umbrage with some of the writeups in The Ultimate Vehicle, but IMO they weren't necessarily written up with too much detail, but I felt that a lot of the equipment and capabilities of the vehicles could have been done in a much less complicated manner. I was highly disappointed in the ship writeups in Terran Empire because I felt it took the worst parts of the writeups in TUV and took them to the extreme in the wrong direction, making them far more complicated than they needed to be and making the ships (IMO) practically unplayable. (unless you want hours-long starship combats that is) Of course this didn't really matter much to me as I have said before, I developed my own vehicle design philosophy back in the 4th edition days and I feel that it stands up quite well even into the 6th.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

My last Star HERO campaign, I wrote up the ships mostly just to have an explanation to the players on how various things worked, etc. I did not plan on having much ship to ship combat (or at least none they had much control over, not being pilots or gunners themselves, really), but knew that they might want to use shipboard systems for something, and for me to have some idea of travel times and FTL and such.

 

HERO vehicle combat works well enough, particularly if you do keep it relatively simple, or that is my experience so far. But it seems the mechanics are there to make it complex if you want, and still very functional if you know what you are doing with it. I won't claim much proficiency beyond 'having a good idea of what I want to do' - I've never had much chance to use the vehicles I've built in the campaigns I've run more than a handful of times, due to 'real life' interfering with the campaign

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

High Guard/Trillion Credit Squadron, Brilliant Lances, Commanders Edition Star Fleet Battles, Starmada, Victory By Any Means, Full thrust, Space Opera, RL Leviathan and Interceptor, B5 ACTA, yeah... between Rex and I we have most of them covered

[Old Man]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Hmm.... Attack Vector: Tactical, Saganami Island Tactical Simulator, High Guard, Hmm, got some Leviathan and Interceptor sitting on the shelf with the Star Fleet Battles and Battle Fleet Gothic, Bab5 A Call to Arms, and the Starblazers mini game......

 

What, no Silent Death? Amateur.

[Old Man]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Anyway, to veer back on topic--does Star Hero go into any detail about character actions during ship-to-ship combat? I feel as though this is an area that's been glossed over in so many games. There'll be character combat, and ship-to-ship, but the part about roleplaying characters during ship-to-ship often seems like it's reduced to a skill roll here and there. Ideally PCs should be able to have a significant and ongoing impact on ship-to-ship, a hell of a lot more than "extraordinary crew" used to have in SFB.

[RexMundi]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

High Guard/Trillion Credit Squadron' date=' Brilliant Lances, Commanders Edition Star Fleet Battles, Starmada, Victory By Any Means, Full thrust, Space Opera, RL Leviathan and Interceptor, B5 ACTA, yeah... between Rex and I we have most of them covered[/quote']

 

Holy Gravity Wells! We got Space Con lined up and ready to go between us, heh!

 

~Rex.....says not to forget MECHA!, Mekton Zeta, Jovian Chronicles, and Silent Death of course.......Oh....and BERSERKER! We're Gold!

[RexMundi]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

What' date=' no Silent Death? Amateur. [/quote'] It's on TOP of the bookshelf. Couldn't see it from where I was sitting.

 

~Rex.....is a Professional Amateur! Adds Living Steel and Phoenix Command in to handle the fast and the furious ship boarding action.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Hey! Where's Starfire?

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: Star Hero 6th Edition: my first take

 

Hey! Where's Starfire?

 

In the basement somewhere.