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Way back in the day, one of my friends tried converting our group to Fantasy Hero. The one question I asked is what does Hero System bring to the table that was worth switching. As it turns out, after the "sales pitch," it was simply the fact that the characters could die relatively easily. I didn't want my character to die, but the fact that running into an army of goblins or whatnot would likely be a death sentence was much better for me as a player. Our AD&D group had literally just killed something like 20-30 goblins, a few ogres and a couple of trolls. I wanted something more grounded and Hero gave it to me. Moral of the story is that Hero was attractive to me because it wasn't D&D. Just an alternate viewpoint on the Familiar vs Unfamiliar thing.

 

The fact that a game accounted for Knockback was also a truly humorous aside. 

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"so I can get my D&D-only friends to try HERO."

Maybe my problem is I don't have any D&D-only friends, and I personally have hated the ground assumptions since the day I started gaming so I have a strong aversion to simulating D&D without good reason.

 

I've actually run it more than I played, but that's only because I ran an AD&D campaign where the world-saving quest was to change the rules of the universe to a decent system. :D

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I think you will find that the majority of people posting here have been running Hero System games for over a decade. Some of us have been running and playing since the earliest days of the game.
 

I have to agree with Vondy, I am in my late 40's and even though I have more than enough time to build everything I would need to run Fantasy Hero. I really don't want to spend that much of my between Games time doing so. Using the 6e rules I would love to see a fully realized D&D style gaming world, with the equivalent of Feats, Classes and Spells already created and connected to the various Gods, Goddesses, Countries and other Organizations that crop up in such worlds. There is NO need to simulate the leveling mechanic, but perhaps a short section talking about an approach to something like that would be good.

 

I have played Hero with many different GM's but more than one have fallen back on using D&D as the fantasy system of choice due to everything needed being there ready to go. Yes you can run low fantasy with next to no work, but most players don't want to play low fantasy. They want to play the style of fantasy game they know.

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Honestly, when I think of fantasy, my first thought is Skyrim. :)

 

have been itching to work on a low magic, no immediately obvious divine power, very gritty setting. I just don't think too many people would be interested in playing in such a setting. I also don't have enough of the setting ready for play. Mostly my idea is taking the Dark Sun setting, replace the player species with the ones from Elder Scrolls (mostly for easy MapTool tokens) and tune down the magic stuff. Come to think of it, maybe not tune it down so much as alter it a little. Defilers would be more powerful in terms of raw punch but develop an unconcealable Distinctive Feature while Preservers have less power while retaining a more pure aura. Not even sure if that would work. See? Vague concepts. Oh yeah and dump the natural psionics.

 

The single best RPG campaign I've ever played in was Dark Sun FH.  Fantasy Hero handles the setting far better than any d20 variant, and we were able to convert the published campaigns relatively straightforwardly.  Note that though Dark Sun is the definition of gritty, that doesn't mean low point totals--kind of the opposite if you want your characters to survive a while.

 

(The one thing I was never able to adequately represent in FH was the Defiler/Preserver aspect of the magic system.  The closest I got was an END reserve driven by an AOE transfer against plants, but the latter is so expensive it just isn't worth it.)

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Way back in the day, one of my friends tried converting our group to Fantasy Hero. The one question I asked is what does Hero System bring to the table that was worth switching. As it turns out, after the "sales pitch," it was simply the fact that the characters could die relatively easily. I didn't want my character to die, but the fact that running into an army of goblins or whatnot would likely be a death sentence was much better for me as a player. Our AD&D group had literally just killed something like 20-30 goblins, a few ogres and a couple of trolls. I wanted something more grounded and Hero gave it to me. Moral of the story is that Hero was attractive to me because it wasn't D&D. Just an alternate viewpoint on the Familiar vs Unfamiliar thing.

 

I once wrote up a list of why I prefer FH to D&D, but off the top of my head:

 

Combat is dangerous.

Shields matter.

Wizards with swords.

Clerics with swords.

Wizards with armor.

Competitive light fighters.

Non-Vancian magic.

Melee combat rules for maneuvers besides "I hit it."

Hit locations and sectional armor.

Longswords aren't automatically the best weapon.

Stun.

Stunning.

Design your own spells (if you want).

Design your own race (if the GM will let you).

Point based design.

 

I'm probably forgetting some.  Anyway half a session of FH pretty much ruined D&D for me forever.  I can't even roll up a D&D character now without getting deeply annoyed by the limtations inherent in the system.

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Bah, the plant killing thing is just a special effect of using their power. Slap Visible (or whatever the 6E variant is) and call it good. Alternately, Preservers must buy IPE for their powers (which would explain the lesser effectiveness....hmmmnnn).  Might even be a Special Effect of replenishing their magical reserves.  Hmmm. Thanks for the post. Getting some thoughts moving in that direction.

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Maybe my problem is I don't have any D&D-only friends, and I personally have hated the ground assumptions since the day I started gaming so I have a strong aversion to simulating D&D without good reason.

 

 

90% of the FH games I've played were D&D modules converted on the fly, purely because no one had time to write or run a freestyle campaign from a clean sheet of paper.  There were a couple of Shadow World modules too.

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Bah, the plant killing thing is just a special effect of using their power. Slap Visible (or whatever the 6E variant is) and call it good. Alternately, Preservers must buy IPE for their powers (which would explain the lesser effectiveness....hmmmnnn).  Might even be a Special Effect of replenishing their magical reserves.  Hmmm. Thanks for the post. Getting some thoughts moving in that direction.

 

In theory, Defilers should be able to replenish their reserves faster because they're willing to kill the plants to do it.  That would give them a clear advantage.  IPE is a pretty good workaround; I hadn't thought of that.

 

The other thing, of course, is that there's no actual difference between a Preserver and a Defiler aside from the psych lim.  A Preserver might well kill a bunch of plants in the vicinity in an extreme situation, though he'd feel awfully guilty about it afterwards.

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In theory, Defilers should be able to replenish their reserves faster because they're willing to kill the plants to do it.  That would give them a clear advantage.  IPE is a pretty good workaround; I hadn't thought of that.

 

The other thing, of course, is that there's no actual difference between a Preserver and a Defiler aside from the psych lim.  A Preserver might well kill a bunch of plants in the vicinity in an extreme situation, though he'd feel awfully guilty about it afterwards.

 

While not a literally direct translation, maybe using plants allows them to shed some of the cost. I'm thinking 1/2 End (+1/4 advantage). Either that, or IPE (inobvious to Sight Sense Group) (+1/4 advantage). Make spellcasting have a mandatory (+1/2) Variable Advantage. Pick One: Half-End and your power is obvious to everybody or an inobvious power that costs more END. It fits the intended spirit of the setting I think.

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for the Newer Defilers I would put all of their magic in an End Reserve that has a fairly low recovery rate. Then give them Transfer Body to End in 5e and Drain linked to Healing? end in 6e that would allow the PC the choice of whether to kill plants or recharge normally. Perhaps even a extra recovery with a body drain side effect (or a small RKA) to turn personal health into End.

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Currently, I 'm having a game set up with my brother that is part old school DnD, part Fantasy Hero 4th (their default magic) and part what ever we decide.  To wit, the dwarves look and feel like DnD dwarves.  And actually we scarfed up the urgosh (an axe with a spear point on the handle) from DnD 3e for the dwarven cleric. I'm converting the infamous Keep on the Borderlands for the classic dungeon crawl that he and I enjoy. I also wrote up the kobold, heh heh heh.  I've been writing up some vanician spells because I think they work well for Elves personally.  My brother went out and bought hero system sidekick to have a set of rules and is looking for Fantasy hero 5th ed. (The group I play with doesnt use 6th ed.)  Oh and for combat, we're using the very basic rules because (as of now) my brother likes to keep the rules as simple as possible.  Bottom line, we're both having a blast!

 

P.S. I thing that I think Hero Games needs to really push about their games is that even with premade stuff, you can customize it fairly easy and to YOUR taste.

 

P.P.S. I do think that there is some snobbery on these boards that if you use premade whether from hero games and/or other sources, then you are somehow not a real GM.

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I am starting to think that the old toolkit approach to selling Hero might be wearing thin. That gamers today don't have the time or motivation to spend a ton of time using a game system to create low level things like spells and abilities. Perhaps the GURPS approach of having everything written up for a genre is the best way to go. The nice twist is that with Hero we can show people how to modify stuff to fit their tastes. Something that no other game system does really well.

That means that when Hero releases books they should be looking at marketing a game world more than just a whole Genre book. That does mean setting clear power levels and having PC examples and NPC examples that fit within that Powerlevel. It also means that stuff like Spells, Special Abilities, Equipment etc should be written up and 'ready to go".

QFT. GURPS breathed a lot of life into itself with the Dungeon Fantasy series of PDFs. D20 based games like Pathfinder are the most popular because they support system tinkerers and those with a busy life that need stuff 'ready to run'. It would be great if the HERO system had its own series of PDFs that showed how it could simulate D&D as described by Tasha. Those wanting to experiment further can then build off the basics in any direction they so wished. Another useful thing would be to come up with a reduced stat blocks for NPCs and monsters to show GMs they do not need to detail everything.

 

One of the problems I see for converters from D&D is the relative cheapness of primary characteristics, which leaves them wondering what they should spend their points on if they are not wizards or heavy magic item users.

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I am starting to think that the old toolkit approach to selling Hero might be wearing thin. That gamers today don't have the time or motivation to spend a ton of time using a game system to create low level things like spells and abilities. Perhaps the GURPS approach of having everything written up for a genre is the best way to go. The nice twist is that with Hero we can show people how to modify stuff to fit their tastes. Something that no other game system does really well.

 

That means that when Hero releases books they should be looking at marketing a game world more than just a whole Genre book. That does mean setting clear power levels and having PC examples and NPC examples that fit within that Powerlevel. It also means that stuff like Spells, Special Abilities, Equipment etc should be written up and 'ready to go". Yes all of us grognards will complain about how we have to buy the rules AGAIN, but this is about gaining new players. Perhaps even going as far as to organizing a RPGA kind of group with published adventures that new and experienced GM's can run at their local FLGS and conventions.

 

I do think that simulating D&D/Pathfinder is the way to go to gain new players. Show them that Hero can handle the kind of play that D&D does and can do more esp with character customization.

While I, and especially my wife, like to toolkit things & build our own powers/spells/equipment/characters/monsters/etc (You should have seen some of the Awesome spells she came up for d20 Epic years ago), I think you're very much on the money.

 

A lot of Gamers today (and even of Yesterday) want a well written, preset world that they can use without a lot of work beyond adventuring in (and "official" adventures help too).  Everything has to be in Black & White (like you said...Spells, SAs, Equipment, along w/NPCs, Monsters, Calendars, etc too).  Not that it's a bad thing, mind you, but just a difference from when I started (I'm olde...) and there wasn't really much beyond the rule books to work with.  Then again, when I was younger I could spend a lot of time on Gaming and Gaming related stuff.  Nowadays...not so much.  Don't know if that's true of other people, but I suspect so...possibly even today's newer gamers.  Not enough time...too much to do.

 

Simulating other RPGs like D&D/Pathfinder -- and other RPGs -- can attract players as long as the Rules don't get in the way of the Feel of the original setting.  I've seen some Great ports...and I've seen some Horrible one's that make me want to crawl under a rock and hide. :shock:

 

Peace.

 

 

~ M

 

P.S.: Did I mention that my Wife is the actual Brains of the Outfit?

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Currently, I 'm having a game set up with my brother that is part old school DnD, part Fantasy Hero 4th (their default magic) and part what ever we decide.  To wit, the dwarves look and feel like DnD dwarves.  And actually we scarfed up the urgosh (an axe with a spear point on the handle) from DnD 3e for the dwarven cleric. I'm converting the infamous Keep on the Borderlands for the classic dungeon crawl that he and I enjoy. I also wrote up the kobold, heh heh heh.  I've been writing up some vanician spells because I think they work well for Elves personally.  My brother went out and bought hero system sidekick to have a set of rules and is looking for Fantasy hero 5th ed. (The group I play with doesnt use 6th ed.)  Oh and for combat, we're using the very basic rules because (as of now) my brother likes to keep the rules as simple as possible.  Bottom line, we're both having a blast!

 

P.S. I thing that I think Hero Games needs to really push about their games is that even with premade stuff, you can customize it fairly easy and to YOUR taste.

 

P.P.S. I do think that there is some snobbery on these boards that if you use premade whether from hero games and/or other sources, then you are somehow not a real GM.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the snobs. The whole point of playing a game is to have fun, and if a published setting or material allows you to do that, then play on.

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People have been doing it at least since the beginning of the current incarnation of the Hero Games boards. I think the subtext is, "so I can get my D&D-only friends to try HERO." The theory is that a familiar magic system with familiar races and archetypes can help with that.

Does anyone remember Talislanta?  I always thought the tag line "No Elves" was great.

 

 

~ Nadrakas

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The single best RPG campaign I've ever played in was Dark Sun FH.  Fantasy Hero handles the setting far better than any d20 variant, and we were able to convert the published campaigns relatively straightforwardly.  Note that though Dark Sun is the definition of gritty, that doesn't mean low point totals--kind of the opposite if you want your characters to survive a while.

 

(The one thing I was never able to adequately represent in FH was the Defiler/Preserver aspect of the magic system.  The closest I got was an END reserve driven by an AOE transfer against plants, but the latter is so expensive it just isn't worth it.)

I've always thought that Dark Sun would be better in FH.  I would be interesting to see the rules.

 

A for the magic aspect of the Defilers/Preservers, would the Side Effect Limitation work?

  • Side Effect (Minor) -1/4 (Occurs Automatically x2, Affects the environment near the character): Final Limitation = -0
  • Side Effect (Major): -1/2 (Occurs Automatically x2, Affects the environment near the character): Final Limitation = -1/2
  • Side Effect (Extreme): -1 (Occurs Automatically x2, Affects the environment near the character): Final Limitation = -1 1/2

 

Perhaps the Side Effect is a Drain (Body) with a Delayed Return Rate (1 Century would be +4 advantage, but it probably should be much longer..) feeding into the END Reserve?  Hmmm...not "cheap", but...

 

Peace.

 

 

~ M

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Simulating other RPGs like D&D/Pathfinder -- and other RPGs -- can attract players as long as the Rules don't get in the way of the Feel of the original setting.  I've seen some Great ports...and I've seen some Horrible one's that make me want to crawl under a rock and hide. :shock:

Most conversions I've seen tend towards simulating the "phenotype" of the other game. Which can be useful, as it might make it easier what to pick when creating and advancing a character, but quite often doesn't result in a gameplay that's close enough to the other game.

 

Sometimes this is intentional, sometimes it's GMs missing the point.

 

Reading this thread I'm happy that I'm not fighting nostalgia too much, as most players in my group didn't start with D&D (it wasn't the seemingly mandatory first game in Germany anyway). Their previous games vary and the flux in the group and intersection with other groups (or even associatons) isn't strong enough to influence the choices. So the big difference to me is that practically any other game is mostly prefab, and my players are fighting a bit with all the choices they have.

 

Which is why I intend to make a lot of prefab fighting styles, "feats" etc. for my HERO group during our holiday hiatus.

 

(Also, after some experience, I might change a few dials and gears in the combat options and rules. Just hope I can get that to work without requiring too many pencil annotations on their Hero Designer character sheets)

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P.P.S. I do think that there is some snobbery on these boards that if you use premade whether from hero games and/or other sources, then you are somehow not a real GM.

That has nothing to do with hero. I have seen that opinion (replacing your value-laden language with something descriptive) most places I've gamed. The few times I did play with people who ran premade adventures, it was pretty lackluster, and I came to dread it. The exceptions were Paranoia modules, which were generally exceptional and better than anything I saw done from scratch for Paranoia (perhaps partly because Paranoia depends more on a particular style of wit and comedy, and comedy is a difficult skill). It would have been interesting to see, say, fantasy modules done that beautifully. That probably means that I didn't play with people who did it right and doesn't prove it can't be done right, but (1) the opinion has nothing to do with hero and everything to do with out hobby, and (2) correct or not, depending on their background people may have good reasons for that opinion. I would imagine there are people who played good modules and bad scratch-built adventures who have reason for holding the opposite opinion.

 

It can be discussed rationally, however. The major advantage of a module is that hopefully the designer is an exceptional GM (which brings up the problem that no one wants to admit he might be a better GM than they are), and he has time to test and re-write. On the other hand, the inherent disadvantage of modules is that role-playing is more about character than plot, and if the players built their own characters then a module can't be tailored to give them their spots in the sun as one built for them can. (This wouldn't apply to games with premade characters, obviously, and it may be that a good module has an advantage over a scratchbuilt adventure in that case because of the ability to test, and rewrite.)

 

What is interesting about that is that D&D is in a sense designed to minimize the effect, and in that sense D&D is well suited to being a commercial product. The limited class-based system and the custom of creating balanced parties means that the module designer knows more about the PCs than he would in a free-form game and can more easily give them their spots in the sun. The level progression system makes it easier to pin down not just the overall power level of the party but a good idea of what their specific abilities are. If you run FH that way, perhaps it makes modules easier. The way we ran FH was that people built their concept the way it would be done in a book, and if they were one leprechaun, one centaur, an out-of-work actor, and a half-triton, well, that's a good story too as long as the GM is willing and able to write stories *for those characters*.

 

IOW, custom and playstyle has a lot to do with how well a module can work. In D&D, the rules enforce customs that help the module designer. In Hero, it is custom only, and modules will inherently work less well for groups with a play style that more resembles literature and less the customs of D&D.

 

Which comes down to taste. I try to avoid using D&D tropes. Others intentionally use them, and still others use them without being aware of it. I suspect you'd find that attitudes toward modules are pretty well correlated with the degree to which GMs playstyles match or do not match the tropes of D&D.

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Regarding Modules/Adventure Supplements

 

I've never met one that I would/could not tweak to my campaign. I've seen a few that are downright terrible and a few that are absolutely brilliant. Most fall somewhere in the spectrum between. They all share the common and positive benefit of being a springboard for story ideas. Hell, the Dark Sun discussion that I keep participating in comes directly from the concept of taking a published setting and tweaking it to Hero. Modules are much less difficult to work with. 

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If you can create and run a good story from scratch, you can convert a module.  Most of the issue with modules is getting the power level right for your characters, and just because you're using a module doesn't make it any harder than gauging power levels in a scratch-built game.  GMing takes a fair amount of eyeballing either way.

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I am definitely anticipating a new Fantasy Hero Complete product (hopefully), but mainly I just haven't had time to do any campaigns. I'm mainly a lurker. I always have one on the back burner of my mind, though. My first roleplaying experience was fantasy (albeit a Fantasy Champions sort of campaign), so I always want to go back to it.

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