What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

[Ragitsu]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

I know that sounds like suicide to some of you' date=' but it is not death, it is evolution.[/quote']

 

Let's not sugarcoat things: it is death.

 

No, even worse, it is capitulation...to the MMORPG crowd (the anithesis of Pencil-and-Paper RPGs).

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

I also will add, and might get some grief for saying this, but Haymaker! being only available to the actual article authors doesn't do much for the community as a whole either. It might be awesome for the authors that gives them a venue to have other authors read their articles/critique their work/cut their teeth on write semi-professionally, but it doesn't help the Hero Community. It's a Walled Garden that the rest of us, who either don't have the talent/time/self-confidence to write have access to.

 

Me personally, I would make all Haymakers (including scanning all the old ones) available as PDF downloads (actually, seeing of HeroGames couldn't host them to save a bit on bandwidth to any single person)

 

No grief (hopefully), just giving one reason why Haymaker! isn't made publicly available. Believe me, it's a Catch-22 that I've wrestled with.

 

Some contributors to the APAzine use it to present ideas that they're either in the process of getting published, or wish to have published, so they can get feedback and make changes prior to publication. If the 'zine was made available to the public, that would pretty much cut that off. After all, why would a publisher pay someone for work that's freely available elsewhere?

 

As coordinator of Haymaker!, personally I'd love to make some of our material available to the public in some form or another. I'm rather proud of the 'zine and would like to show it off to more people. For instance, I've thought about making supplements (which are a slightly different animal than the regular 'zine) publicly available, but would need approval from all contributors to a given supplement -- one of the tenets of Haymaker! is that contributors retain all rights to their own work, and making any of that work publicly available would effectively mean they're giving up the rights to that particular work. If Real Life would calm down a bit, I might be able to pursue that idea, but this is all done in my free time (which lately seems a rather fleeting concept).

 

As to scanning in old ones, I only have three issues that were print-only, which I had initially planned to scan into PDF. But frankly, that project has fallen to a lower priority given the time it would take to scan each 200-300 page document, when considering various other demands on my time.

[Martin2]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

I'm guessing you are referring to the recent VPP thread.

 

If so, I am sorry you got caught in the crossfire.

 

First and foremost I post in this forum with the intent to help. I sometimes lose patience with relatively new posters who get preachy about rules they clearly misunderstand (especially after their position has been refuted multiple times).

I sometimes become 'short and to the point', not with the intent to make it personal but rather to educate where appropriate since Steve Long does not discuss design issues (probably to avoid situations just like this!).

It would be MUCH easier to just ignore posters who have a flawed understanding of the rules but I truly believe that would be a disservice to them as well as the next new HERO player who might search the forum for the same topic in question.

 

Sorry if I have offended anyone's sensibilities.

 

Well at the time I thought my comments were relevant but from another point of view. Obviously as a new GM to Hero I do things differently and have different view points.

 

Buts Lets leave it at that shall we and move on.

[Christopher]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

I thought the point of this thread was to see how we on the board can help advertise the game to those unfamiliar with it to encourage them to spend money on HERO and help the company through its current financial crisis.

 

Not, "what can I get for free".

It is about what is needed for more people to catch on hero. If that means bringing the initial cost down from "Core Books + Genre Book + Other book" to "Basic Book" + "Free Material" it is going to help a lot.

And who best to ask, then new players what they would need (and can't afford to buy an entire book for one or two pieces).

 

Perhaps the three levels can be:

Basic - character or power require only the Basic rules to create/understand.

Core - character or power require the core rulebooks to create/understand.

Advanced - character or power requires advanced rulebooks to create/understand

One thing to keep in midn here, that Basic Rulebook also places restrictions on how to build. In fact Basic and core are in many points incompatible.

For example: The power Frameworks area allone was shortened from 13 Page to 1. It contains the Fixed Multipower (not Fixed Slot in a Multipower, Fixed Multipower), where you can only use a Single Power at once (without regard of AP to Pool Ratio).

Something close to the Core Book Multipower (called Flexible Multipower) is there as GM option with Stop Sign, because it lacks the entire rules descriptions of it...

 

But especially having material comaptible with the BR might be the most successful approach.

I was able and interested enough to make the jump from BR to 6E1+2 without having it seen it in action once, but many other won't have that faith in a system they have no information about.

 

I think using "Basic" and "Core" to refer to different levels would confuse more than it would help. One might wonder: If it's not basic' date=' how can it be core? Or, if it's core, how is it not basic?[/quote']

I would keep the existing terms. Creating your own, only maeks the entire Stuff more complex to understand and when being new to something the last thing I want or need is "things being hard to understand/confusingly named".

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Someone up thread noted that Basic 6th contains roughly 80% of the rules. I wonder if some of the hesitancy to buy Basic that to get the full rules you have to reinvest a lot of money to get the full rules. So a potential buyer has to answer to himself "Do I want to invest $80 to get a full system I may not like or ever use or go cheap and pay $20 to find out I like a system and pay $80 to get the full system?" Two books I think might generate some income would be a) A book which upgrades 5th to 6th. It would only give the information which was changed from the different editions. You still needed 5th or 5threv to make sense of the rules. Second one would be an upgrade from Basic to complete rules, but this would only be people who have 6th Basic. I don't know how feasible this would be, just thoughts.

[Surgo]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Interesting thread. I've been working on starting a HERO game with my own group of friends (and bought the PDF core books for a buddy as a Christmas present). One common complaint I'm seeing in here is there's no good source of pregenerated stuff (powers, characters, adventures, whatever), or alterations to existing rules. There's stuff like the "how do I build X" threads stretching back to the beginning of time but it's really not easy to index or search a forum.

 

I operate http://www.dnd-wiki.org, which is a big resource for that sort of thing for the Dungeons and Dragons world, though I'm not particularly interested in that game anymore. If there's a critical mass of people interested in contributing I could create that sort of thing for HERO. That sort of gateway resource and easy reference could interest people in the system. Or not, but I'm willing to try it.

[The Main Man]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Oh, looks like the new year brings us intriguing possibilities already...

 

That said, we still have far from a game plan, but if someone is willing to make and run a wiki or other kind of website, it's a foot in the door.

 

Now, as far as there being any kinds of HERO premade resources, there's quite the selection already for sale. I think we could look at each of these releases as possible starting points for the free material - expansions basically. We could categorize material by what they expand on - Super Powers, Gadgets, Magic Spells, Magic Objects, Modern Weapons, Archaic Weapons, Animals, Villains, NPCs, etc.

 

Thoughts?

[Surgo]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

One of the biggest problem I had starting my game was that it was just so difficult to bring all the necessary pre-game rules together, because there was a lot to think about and do. I don't just mean stuff like what I expected the OCV/DCV to look like, but I mean stuff like "what is my magic system going to look like". Having the kind of resource we're discussing now would have helped a lot (and I'd be happy to put up my own magic system interpretation and whatnot there).

 

Again, I have no idea if any of this will bring people to HERO but even if it doesn't it's probably a worthy endeavor.

[Christopher]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Interesting thread. I've been working on starting a HERO game with my own group of friends (and bought the PDF core books for a buddy as a Christmas present). One common complaint I'm seeing in here is there's no good source of pregenerated stuff (powers' date=' characters, adventures, whatever), or alterations to existing rules. There's stuff like the "how do I build X" threads stretching back to the beginning of time but it's really not easy to index or search a forum.[/quote']

There is a lot availible, but distributed over too many books (that each cost a price). To play a fantasy game and have the group attacked by wolfes, you would afaik need:

6E1+6E2

Fantasy Hero

Hero Bestiary

 

This is a lot of money, sunk into just being able to make a first game...

[Surgo]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

I own Fantasy Hero (though not the Bestiary yet), and it is an amazing product, but I don't think it is at all true that you need the book to run such an encounter. It was a great reference for me in creating my fantasy campaign, but my players certainly have no need of it for anything in the campaign. A more convincing issue is that of the bestiary... I can pull stats for a wolf out of my nether regions, but that gets really taxing after a really small amount of time.

 

I think that's the part where having a large wiki-resource would be excellent -- pregenerated things that everyone ends up using (like monsters), and are really time consuming to do over and over again but not a big deal to run off one or two yourself. If everyone can share their one or two, that would be just awesome.

 

If anyone is interested in this idea please PM me -- if I get a critical mass of people I will set up a wiki just like my aforementioned Dungeons and Dragons one.

[Greywind]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Invest in Hero Designer and save your builds as files.

[torchwolf]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

There are already some fairly extensive sites, some maintained by long-standing Hero Games Forums board members:

 

Susano's site Surbrook's Stuff (5th and 6th Edition): http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/

KillerShrike's site (mainly 5th Edition): http://www.killershrike.com/

Cellular Smoke Signals (5th Edition): http://god-eater.org/rpgs/herosystem.php

(and many others I cannot remember at this moment - for which I do apologize - but I hope they'll list URLs if they read this)

 

There is also at least one Hero System wiki, but I'm uncertain of the extent of these resources.

 

A wiki with a number of pre-built abilities/Talents/Powers might make the system more accessible - like others have noted, my experience is that newcomers to Hero can and do get perplexed by the lack of pre-builds. I'd be happy to contribute, though it seems a good idea to me to avoid working in parallell on the exact same projects, so I'd suggest some coordination, perhaps discussing organizational details with site administrators.

 

Certainly there's lots of stuff in the genre books, and reproducing exactly those builds publicly wouldn't be cool, but there's plenty room for additional material that can be very time- and effort-saving for new Hero players and GMs.

Material should probably be organized by 4th Edition, 5th Edition, 6th Edition Basic/Standard/Advanced (or along some similar lines).

 

How to get the word out? I guess the best way to reach other roleplayers is to simply attend other forums and tell them about available game resources.

[Martin2]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Surgo: Champions Powers appear in the Champions Power book. That is a good book if you are planning to run Champions. It covers a lot of builds for various SFX's. But not so useful if you are playing something else.

 

What also springs to mind is when you buy a scenario you should have all of the main characters in the scenario in their most recent format.

 

I have a number of scenarios where the villains are not in the scenario but are referenced to another book to find their build!

 

Shades of Black - no Black Paladin build and is in another book! The same with other scenarios. Other scenarios could be filled out with totally different villains but Shades of Black is very specific.

 

I am not sure if this is the same for scenarios wrtitten for 6th as I have not bought any yet.

 

Yes it gets more books sold but to the new gamer its another expense.

 

I now have enough books to run the scenario now though.

[Greywind]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

To be fair, I wouldn't consider Shades of Black to be an introductory adventure, either. So the assumption that the person buying would already have CKC was fair.

[assault]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

I'd suggest putting together a few introductory level scenarios/mini-campaign settings, aimed at showing new GMs how to use the Basic rules to put together a game.

 

They would include NPCs, maps, powers, character building advice and so on, and could link to other collections of "stuff".

 

The "basic" rules in HERO are more complete than a whole lot of other games, and would be just fine for this kind of thing.

 

To encourage sales for Hero Games, 6e would be best. I'd also go with default/common style settings - standard, modern-style superheroes for Champions, for example. More obscure settings can be added once the key genres are covered.

 

There's nothing at all wrong with multiple people writing these if they are free downloads anyway. Nobody would be competing, and it would reduce the influence of any particular person's prejudices. New GMs would be able to select what works for them, and ignore what doesn't.

 

I guess these would be like the old Basic D&D "B"-series modules, aimed at helping new GMs to learn the game. That's a bit more complex in Hero, but that only makes shortcuts more useful.

 

Note that these could equally be professional or amateur works. Amateur has its appeal, although hopefully professional works would be better quality.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

There is a lot availible, but distributed over too many books (that each cost a price). To play a fantasy game and have the group attacked by wolfes, you would afaik need:

6E1+6E2

Fantasy Hero

Hero Bestiary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a lot of money, sunk into just being able to make a first game...

 

This was a contention of mine earlier upthread. Technically all you need is the basic rule book. Fantasy Hero can ease somethings and so the Hero bestiary. But there is a free Fantasy sample with spells, one wizard and one knight under freebies with Hero system genre by genre. Might point is that if someone wants to try a sample scenerio, we can help them do it. No doubt that Fantasy book and bestiary are useful books if you get deep into the genre.

[Christopher]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

I'd suggest putting together a few introductory level scenarios/mini-campaign settings, aimed at showing new GMs how to use the Basic rules to put together a game.

 

They would include NPCs, maps, powers, character building advice and so on, and could link to other collections of "stuff".

 

The "basic" rules in HERO are more complete than a whole lot of other games, and would be just fine for this kind of thing.

This might be the best approach.

 

There's nothing at all wrong with multiple people writing these if they are free downloads anyway. Nobody would be competing, and it would reduce the influence of any particular person's prejudices. New GMs would be able to select what works for them, and ignore what doesn't.

 

I guess these would be like the old Basic D&D "B"-series modules, aimed at helping new GMs to learn the game. That's a bit more complex in Hero, but that only makes shortcuts more useful.

 

Note that these could equally be professional or amateur works. Amateur has its appeal, although hopefully professional works would be better quality.

Having dozens of variants for the same being (maybe differently named), only makes stuff inaccessible. It is indeed very important to have one controlling instance and only a few versions of the same writeup.

 

This was a contention of mine earlier upthread. Technically all you need is the basic rule book. Fantasy Hero can ease somethings and so the Hero bestiary. But there is a free Fantasy sample with spells' date=' one wizard and one knight under freebies with Hero system genre by genre. Might point is that if someone wants to try a sample scenerio, we can help them do it. No doubt that Fantasy book and bestiary are useful books if you get deep into the genre.[/quote']

Then what are the stats for a wolf that is not inbalanced? Remember, we are talking about a new GM that has no experience building animals or even charcters for the game, propably not even a firm grip on the rules and no Hero Designer.

Things look a lot easier once you have all this and experience, but for a new GM this might be a insurmountable obstacle.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

This might be the best approach.

 

Then what are the stats for a wolf that is not inbalanced? Remember, we are talking about a new GM that has no experience building animals or even charcters for the game, propably not even a firm grip on the rules and no Hero Designer.

Things look a lot easier once you have all this and experience, but for a new GM this might be a insurmountable obstacle.

 

I see your point, but from long experience with people with more experience with the system, I heard (and said) a couple of times "wow, I didn't think that was that powerful!" So balance came slip up on the best of people. Oh ad another point, and something that I fight with myself alot is though, you can be so concerend about trying to get everything right, that you get frustrated and give up without even trying. I in my experience, what I usually worry about is so remote of a possibility, that it never comes up, and I spent way too much time worrying about it.

 

That said, for the new GM, I would recommend this: what is the the power level you want to play at. Again by using the Hero Sytem Genre by Genre we can look at that and say, okay Darien the Bold as a base 5 CV and +2 hth csl and martial manuevers. Belakar has a base of also has base of 5 CV. Typically, a good game tries to keep the combat level at 3 pt spread-so I would put the wolf at Dex 16, SPD 3 and +1 H-t-H (or should that be mouth to throat?) CSL. Give the wolf 13 str, 12 con, 5pd, perhaps 1 pt of res. pd tracking sense (smell), and +3 PER roll, 1D6 hka (Bite/claws), and if you want skills, shadowing, tactics, and survuival. And to start the scenerio, use perhaps only three wolves at first. If they get slaughtered to easily, you can throw more of the pack on.

 

On a side note Chistopher-since you have 6th basic is there any examples in the book and any weapon lists?

[Christopher]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

On a side note Chistopher-since you have 6th basic is there any examples in the book and any weapon lists?

Yes, there is an equipment list similar to that in 6E2, but of course with little explnanations (it's 3 pages, mostly tables).

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Christopher forgot to ask but is there any racial template in the basic book too?

[Christopher]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Christopher forgot to ask but is there any racial template in the basic book too?

Nope, only the size templates.

 

There are also example Cyberware, Spells, Psionic Powers, Enchanted Fantasy Items and Superpowers (about 5 each).

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Thanks Christopher, cause I'm curious about 6th basic. I'd hate to point to something if the poster can't access it. But I'm all about trying to help them where there at. This is why I really like the idea of if doing a free thing, build upon the stuff already in the freebie links. (unless of course, we're told no, or there is a chance that they might revoke it.) And I hope no one takes this that I don't like the other books. I have a bunch of supplements from several editions. But (for me) I keep thinking that each book will produce a wonderful game, whereas they don't, that's my job, they just help me to do it. Or in other words (and this is also real life for me), I can have a nice set of tools, but I'm still no mechanic (and barely a handyman).

[The Main Man]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

Hm... Thinking out loud (in text form):

 

Which rule book(s) a player will need to understand a character/power build;

 

Possibly use the guidelines laid out within the books, or maybe just assume either Standard Heroic or Standard Superheroic for all characters;

 

Organize characters, powers, equipment, etc by genre;

 

All submissions can be rated or perhaps even reviewed by users;

 

Campaign settings ought not to be strictly HERO-based - it could attract others who use different systems but plants the seeds for them to try HERO;

 

All sections reproduce nothing officially for sale from Hero Games;

 

All sections, where appropriate, promote related HERO products;

 

Every month, noobs and vets alike are invited to create something within a specific category;

 

Every year, noobs and vets alike are invited to create their own mini-campaign setting, preferably pies that leave a lot of room for interested GMs to expand upon as they see fit, but also...;

 

Noobs and vets alike are all invited to submit adventures and characters for submitted campaign settings;

 

Submitted campaign settings, if they accrue enough material, could become sections into themselves;

 

That's all I got tonight. Have at them.

[assault]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

The 3e Champions "Campaign Book" was about 40 pages long. Roughly 8 pages were character sheets, and about 13 were sample characters. I very rarely looked at it, because I had been playing since 1e, but it seems to me that it has a lot of what new GMs and players need in a nice concise place.

[torchwolf]

Re: What Can We Do To Serve HERO?

 

For purposes of reference when posting things intended specifically for BR or 6E1+6E2, these are the differences I could find:

Some subtle differences arising from the simplified versions of some rules have caused some discussion here recently.

 

As I have both the full set, the APG and the BR, I can see it can cause some misunderstandings between GMs with the full 6E rules and players with the BR, I thought it might be useful to post these differences.

As this is just a list, and no additional info on the rules, I hope posting this will just make it easier for GMs and players, and not doing anything contrary to the interests of Hero Games or DOJ.

 

 

For starters, BR lists only Standard Heroic and Standard Superheroic Guidelines.

 

BR lists what it does not contain, as follows:

 

Skills: Analyze, Autofire, Cramming, Defense Maneuver, Penalty Skill Levels, Rapid Attack, Teamwork, Two-Weapon Fighting. [bR 24 sidebar]

 

Perks: Access, Anonymity, Computer Link, Deep Cover, Favor, Positive Reputation, Vehicles & Bases. [bR 32 sidebar]

 

Talents: Absolute Range Sense, Animal Friendship, Combat Luck, Deadly Blow, Lightning Reflexes, Off-Hand Defense, Simulate Death, Weaponmaster. [bR 32 sidebar]

 

Powers: Absorption, Damage Negation, Damage Reduction, Deflection, Duplication, Endurance Reserve, Reflection, Shape Shift, Summon; all Automaton Powers. [bR 40 sidebar]

Healing uses Simplified Healing rules only.

 

Advantages: Cumulative, Damage Over Time, Delayed Effect, Difficult To Dispel, Does BODY, Does Knockback, Double Knockback, Hole In The Middle, Invisible Power Effects, MegaScale, Penetrating, Sticky, Time Limit, Transdimensional, Trigger, Usable On Others, Variable Advantage, Variable Special Effects. [bR 63 sidebar]

 

Limitations: Inaccurate, Lockout, No Conscious Control, Physical Manifestation, Reduced Penetration, Requires Multiple Users, Restrainable, Variable Limitations. [bR 68 sidebar]

 

Standard Combat Maneuvers: Grab By, Multiple Attack, Shove, Throw, Trip. [bR 98 sidebar]

 

Optional Combat Maneuvers: Club Weapon, Choke, Cover, Dive For Cover, Hipshot, Pulling A Punch, Roll With A Punch, Snap Shot, Strafe, Suppression Fire. [bR 98 sidebar]

 

Equipment: Automatons, Computers, Bases. [bR 116 sidebar]

 

 

In the BR, Variable Power Pools are excluded, and Flexible Slots in a Multipower have a Stop Sign.

 

All Complications are present in the BR.

 

Of the sample Characters, Defender is built differently in BR than he is in Champions 6E.

 

 

These are the major differences I can find, going by what is listed, but there are slight differences throughout (like the MP rule on Variable slots).