Why is it so slow in here?

[Tasha]

You know, I think the logical first setting is simple: Dungeon Hero. That's arguably a subset of the world of D&D, but a beloved one judging by the sales of GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy. And since everyone knows what it is, you don't have to teach the setting, only how to do it in hero. Support is more monsters and modules, though if you do it right you can make it easy to run modules written for other systems anyway (Hero just isn't going to be able to crank out modules the way some companies can).

Perhaps someone should take The Tarakian Age, update it to 6e and rename it Dungeon Hero. Since we are looking for inexpensive things that Hero can do to stimulate Fantasy Sales.

[Narf the Mouse]

You know, I think the logical first setting is simple: Dungeon Hero. That's arguably a subset of the world of D&D, but a beloved one judging by the sales of GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy. And since everyone knows what it is, you don't have to teach the setting, only how to do it in hero. Support is more monsters and modules, though if you do it right you can make it easy to run modules written for other systems anyway (Hero just isn't going to be able to crank out modules the way some companies can).

I've made attempts at this. Expansions (48 pages each?) could bring the builds into different areas (magic item crafting rules, etc.). As-is, that is one thing that gets in the way in HERO - a character creating magic items in-game requires a lot of GM intervention.

 

I suppose that's harmless, but in that case does it even need to be stated? Extradimensional Travel already exists, and can be used to travel to other campaigns if the GM agrees to allow it to be used that way. You can have your superheroes fight Morgoth if you insist, traveling between fantasy worlds is that much more natural.

And when you do, maybe I'll have finished this guy: http://www.herogames.com/forums/index.php?/files/file/39-morgoth/

 

Shameless plug.

[Tasha]

"Shrug" -- Yes.  Unless the worlds all have a connected/linked pre-history in the Fantasy Genre.  That was the thought anyway (See original forum post...).

 

 

 

~ M

Linking all of the Fantasy Genre worlds though History isn't as repugnant as linking those with the other genre books (ie Champions, and Star Hero). In fact you could even have the different genres on the same world but on different Continents. Far enough away that only occasional travellers go from one sub genre world to the other. You could even have wildly different sub genres on the same world by using the "Enshrouded by impenetratable mists" trope that most lost world or lost tribe fantasy uses. Then your low fantasy world could live on the same world as your high fantasy, Asian Fantasy, Celtic Fantasy etc and allow GM's to use the books to make one huge world or just ignore the other sub genre parts of the world as they wish.

[Tasha]

I've made attempts at this. Expansions (48 pages each?) could bring the builds into different areas (magic item crafting rules, etc.). As-is, that is one thing that gets in the way in HERO - a character creating magic items in-game requires a lot of GM intervention.

 

And when you do, maybe I'll have finished this guy: http://www.herogames.com/forums/index.php?/files/file/39-morgoth/

 

Shameless plug.

Just make Magic item creation Expensive and Time Consuming for anything but the most basic of items. ie Scrolls, Wands and Weapons and Armor would be fairly easy, but still a bit expensive. Stuff with lots of different powers become very expensive and extremely time consuming.

[Old Man]

The definition of "unsupported" is subject to debate IMHO. Besides the setting book, and cross-genre books like the HERO System Bestiary, books published for Fifth Edition specifically designed to be used with TA -- either based in the setting, or referring to the setting for examples -- included Monsters, Minions, And Marauders with creatures and races; The Book Of Dragons with even more creatures; Fantasy HERO Battlegrounds containing three full adventures, plus adventure-seed mini-settings and maps; Nobles, Knights, And Necromancers for NPCs; a book of Enchanted Items; and two Fantasy HERO Grimoire(s) of spells.

 

And yet you still can't pick up FH and play a campaign in a few minutes.  The critical piece that's always been missing for FH is the adventures. 

[Narf the Mouse]

Just make Magic item creation Expensive and Time Consuming for anything but the most basic of items. ie Scrolls, Wands and Weapons and Armor would be fairly easy, but still a bit expensive. Stuff with lots of different powers become very expensive and extremely time consuming.

Edit: Response was too snarky, sorry.

 

That is a good overview. How would you expand it into a full system?

[Tasha]

Edit: Response was too snarky, sorry.

 

That is a good overview. How would you expand it into a full system?

I am sure that there is some system in Fantasy Hero (of some edition) that we can subvert to make a decent Item Creation system that talks about money costs.

[Old Man]

1st ed FH had monetary cost as a limitation.  If a spell cost 2 gp worth of something every time you cast it, I think it was a -1.  Shouldn't be too hard to extrapolate that into item creation.  Sort of depends on the value of money in the campaign though.

[Ninja-Bear]

Then your category is so extremely broad that I imagine virtually no one falls into the category. I've never heard of anyone who disliked every one of those. A set Of measure zero is pointless to worry about.

I never said about anyone having to  disliking everything.  I was explaining that premade refered to many different products not limited to modules or genres such as fantasy. (Yes this is on a fantasy board but Hero is a generic system). 

[Markdoc]

One large factor is coherency. D&D has very high coherency. You can take nearly anything in D&D, mix it with nearly anything else in D&D, and everyone will know pretty much what to expect.

 

HERO, on the other hand, can do nearly anything. But when you use it to do one thing, as you almost must to run a game, it becomes distinct from many other things you could do with it. You can make dozens of different low-fantasy games with HERO, and have most of them be incompatible in setting, tone, magic system(s), extra-ordinary abilities, presence or absence of other races, monsters, other dimensions, etc. and etc..

 

You could write a "Fires of Heaven" supplement for "Fires of Heaven". But you would have more trouble (I would guess; I don't have the second) making a "Fires of Heaven" supplement that is compatible with "Terricide", even though they are both "HERO System".

 

Actually, I'd say the exact opposite is true: capturing the tone and style of a  setting is one thing, but one of the beauties of Hero system is that I can look at an NPC/items/power and know pretty much instantly where it will sit in the game and what effects its introduction will have. I routinely take items or NPCs from one setting (say a science fiction setting) change the description and use it directly as is, no problems.

 

In contrast, in D&D, almost everything is an exception: how it works is defined by the description, not by a specific rules mechanism. That makes it possible to take two powers that by themselves are more or less useful and combine them to make "super-smacky". Example: my current PC took a feat that extends his threatened area - and he has a manuever that allows any movement in his threatened area to trigger an attack of opportunity. Either thing is innocuous enough by itself, but the two combined provide what's now popularly called "the zone of death" around my PC. It's almost impossible to pass into or retreat out of, without taking a beating. Add to that the fact that he has two other ways to trigger AoOs, and he becomes literally lethal to get close to. That's just one of many examples: there's literally millions of potential combinations, so understanding how every single one of them interacts with all the others is beyond any human brain.

 

cheers, Mark

[Narf the Mouse]

I am sure that there is some system in Fantasy Hero (of some edition) that we can subvert to make a decent Item Creation system that talks about money costs.

Thread.

[Chris Goodwin]

I suppose that's harmless, but in that case does it even need to be stated? Extradimensional Travel already exists, and can be used to travel to other campaigns if the GM agrees to allow it to be used that way. You can have your superheroes fight Morgoth if you insist, traveling between fantasy worlds is that much more natural.

 

Interesting that you mention this.  D&D has its own interdimensional and interplanar cosmology, whose unspoken assumption is that characters from any campaign world can theoretically and in-universe travel from one game world to another.  Maybe the Hero Universe needs to have a Great Planar Rift and become the Hero Multiverse... I'm not sure if that would make it any more or any less palatable, but my hope is more.  

 

Edited to add:  Maybe each fantasy world includes a blurb regarding Multiversal Accessibility or something like that, which describes how the world connects to published universes.  "Standard" could mean "connects to the Hero Universe via its established multiversal cosmology" and everything else is "Other", or specified by the author or GM

[Vondy]

Interesting that you mention this.  D&D has its own interdimensional and interplanar cosmology, whose unspoken assumption is that characters from any campaign world can theoretically and in-universe travel from one game world to another.  Maybe the Hero Universe needs to have a Great Planar Rift and become the Hero Multiverse... I'm not sure if that would make it any more or any less palatable, but my hope is more.  

 

You are comparing apples and oranges. D&D is a single-genre game. That it has multiple iterations of fantasy worlds is easy to reconcile. The underlying assumptions and premises are the same. And even then, it turns to "interdimensional" and "multiverse" as opposed to a linear timeline in one universe. Fantasy, super-heroes, and hard-science fiction do not work together in a single coherent universe and timeline. If hero were to propose a "multiverse" or "interdimenasional" setting you could at least hand-wave it. It does not, and you cannot. That said, I've always felt free to ignore the Hero inter-setting timeline and universe proposition entirely. After all, no one has an obligation to pay any attention to it if they don't want to. I do not see it as a bar to enjoying Hero, or its individual settings. Just treat them as stand-alone a proceed apace.

[Chris Goodwin]

You are comparing apples and oranges. D&D is a single-genre game. That it has multiple iterations of fantasy worlds is easy to reconcile. The underlying assumptions and premises are the same. And even then, it turns to "interdimensional" and "multiverse" as opposed to a linear timeline in one universe. Fantasy, super-heroes, and hard-science fiction do not work together in a single coherent universe and timeline. If hero were to propose a "multiverse" or "interdimenasional" setting you could at least hand-wave it. It does not, and you cannot. That said, I've always felt free to ignore the Hero inter-setting timeline and universe proposition entirely. After all, no one has an obligation to pay any attention to it if they don't want to. I do not see it as a bar to enjoying Hero, or its individual settings. Just treat them as stand-alone a proceed apace.

 

Well, we are in the Fantasy Hero forum, and I've been assuming we're talking about Fantasy Hero in this thread.     And that's partly what the Multiversal Accessability bit was intended to address (I don't know if you cross-posted with my edit above...).  

[Vondy]

Well, we are in the Fantasy Hero forum, and I've been assuming we're talking about Fantasy Hero in this thread.     And that's partly what the Multiversal Accessability bit was intended to address (I don't know if you cross-posted with my edit above...).  

 

My understanding was that the original complaint up-thread was a reference to the overarching cross-genre "single setting" document Steve produced when 5E emerged. I could, of course, have misunderstood. As for having all fantasy settings in one universe, or a multiverse, or in neighboring dimensions -- that's neither here nor there. It doesn't bother me one way or another. The latter two would also work (better than the official line, IMO) for cross-genre settings!

[NuSoardGraphite]

Just make Magic item creation Expensive and Time Consuming for anything but the most basic of items. ie Scrolls, Wands and Weapons and Armor would be fairly easy, but still a bit expensive. Stuff with lots of different powers become very expensive and extremely time consuming.

Something like this should be campaign specific.  Meaning Turakian Age should have it's own Item Creation System and Valdorian Age should have a somewhat different Item Creation System.  Customize the system and mechanics to the campaign setting at hand.  This will go a long way to giving any official Hero campaign settings their own unique feel rather than feeling like a generic game world that uses Hero game mechanics.

[Narf the Mouse]

Something like this should be campaign specific.  Meaning Turakian Age should have it's own Item Creation System and Valdorian Age should have a somewhat different Item Creation System.  Customize the system and mechanics to the campaign setting at hand.  This will go a long way to giving any official Hero campaign settings their own unique feel rather than feeling like a generic game world that uses Hero game mechanics.

Cross-post that to the thread?

[PaycheckHero]

OK, since it's kind of on-topic I'll mention something that isn't really at a stage where I'd normally bring it up. I'm rather tempted to do a Hero write-up for Pirates Of Dark Water ("Hero Of Mer"?), which I think is the best boutique setting ever created for an animated cartoon (caveat lector: I'm not into anime, so I'm not aware of what is probably the most extensive pool of contenders for the title--but since I'm not into anime, I don't actually care about being unfair like that). to quote the series bible:

 

Mer is an alien world, an environment unlike any we have ever seen. Everything, at every turn, must surprise and amaze, yet seem so natural to the environment of this water world. The planet is in a constant state of flux, being created and recreated before our eyes. There is an unnaturally natural order to all things on Mer, from people, their technology, all the way to the shifting planet itself.

Amazingly enough, I think they actually achieved that, and it is exactly the sort of thing I think shows off Hero's strengths in customization to a specific world rather than force-fitting all worlds to it. Further, Hero's preference for the epic over the realistic would, I think, make it fit the setting better than something like GURPS.

 

So there is a specific boutique setting that is an excellent example of what I'm talking about. Imagine for the sake of argument trying to make "Hero of Mer" as a HG commercial product. For starters, though it's not that relevant to this thread, what is the business side? I don't know who owns the RPG rights now (there was an RPG worldbook published, part of which is on that site), but someone does. Are they even available? Would the cost be even vaguely reachable? And for that matter, now that the cartoon hasn't been on the air for 20 years, would there even be a market? Would I get sued even for just doing a fan conversion (probably not, given that no one has sued the site linked above for putting out part of the RPG, the series bible, and so on.

 

More relevant to the thread, consider the boutique aspects. I think the very things that make it spectacular as a boutique setting would make it a terrible default setting; someone whose ideas about fantasy are shaped by D&D are hardly even going to be able to come up with a character concept. It has no elves, no orcs--none of the expected (i.e. D&D) fantasy races and monsters. It has no wizards per se, only IIRC ecomancers (think: druids) and people using a kind of black magic based on the Dark Water referenced in the title. For that matter, no priests, again the ecomancers are the closest thing (being, again, basically druids); if you want to be a spellcaster, you can be an ecomancer or you can be a horrible minion of the Dark Dweller. On the other hand, there is absolutely no discrimination against spellcasters who can fight (c.f. Tula, who is an excellent martial artist as well as the party's ecomancer). (Really this just means that like almost everything ever except D&D and its derivatives there are no classes.) It has fighters, but armor is little used in the warm, marine climate--the same logic that makes chainmail bikinis practical in D&D seems to apply to all characters male or female, who tend to fight in light warm-weather clothing. There are certainly major artifacts (the story revolves around them), but there don't seem to be the endless supply of +1/+2/+... "ordinary" magic weapons expected in D&D. For that matter, the cartoon doesn't portray anything like the zero-to-hero assumption that partly drives the proliferation of magic items; Ren and Tula are both supposedly 17 years old and both are excellent fighters at no disadvantage in the first episode. And finally there is a whole weird kind of biological technology that would leave room for a peculiar kind of mechanical/biological gadgeteer (we don't see an example in the series, but *someone* invents the gadgets they use).

 

My point: it's a world aimed like a laser at telling one particular kind of story, and it's absolutely perfect for it. The perfection comes at the price of not being a good setting for telling other kinds of stories (it would suck for anything Tolkienesque, for example). That is both it's biggest strength (as a boutique system) and it's biggest weakness (if you wanted to use it as a default setting).

 

Now, the claim I made is that hero shows its strengths in letting you customize to a boutique setting like Mer (the world in PoDW) without leaving you to do it all ad-hoc. So I'd rather see really well done conversions to settings like this one than hang the whole thing on a single generic setting (though perhaps that's necessary). So how would this get marketed? It would be illogical and prohibitively expensive to put the rules in each worldbook, but perhaps as a core book plus worldbooks, with more than one good adventure per worldbook so you really do only need the core plus one other book to get started. If we had GURPS' level of funding and market savvy you could try to make the worldbooks useful for non-hero people, but we probably don't have the vaguest possibility of achieving that.

 

OK, I'm done rambling stream-of-consciousness now.

[PaycheckHero]

Perhaps someone should take The Tarakian Age, update it to 6e and rename it Dungeon Hero. Since we are looking for inexpensive things that Hero can do to stimulate Fantasy Sales.

Perhaps I misunderstand GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy, as I've not seen it, but to me "Dungeon Hero" would specifically not be tied to the Turakian age or any other overarching pattern. I was thinking of it as being similar to old D&D, and probably to what the retro-revival D&D-ish things are doing. You don't have to talk much about above ground, and certainly not Kal-Turak and all that jazz, as underground is where the action is. The setting above ground is a place to stock-up for the next crawl, so the books just tell you what items are available and how much they cost, and otherwise leave it to be whatever the GM says it is. I imagine Dungeon Hero would have monsters, items, treasure, and perhaps make explicit how to do zero-to-hero in Hero rather than the normal experience progression. Probably even (sigh--it hurts me inexpressibly to say this) templates for optional classes and levels. Obviously a simple magic system with (more pain) enumerated, explicit spells, maybe even wizards with vancian magic and sorcerers with something else.

 

IOW, retro-gaming Hero-style. Perhaps that's now how GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy really works, I'm just going off of snippets I've heard and my memories of early D&D gaming.

[Old Man]

 

 

Now, the claim I made is that hero shows its strengths in letting you customize to a boutique setting like Mer (the world in PoDW) without leaving you to do it all ad-hoc. So I'd rather see really well done conversions to settings like this one than hang the whole thing on a single generic setting (though perhaps that's necessary). So how would this get marketed? It would be illogical and prohibitively expensive to put the rules in each worldbook, but perhaps as a core book plus worldbooks, with more than one good adventure per worldbook so you really do only need the core plus one other book to get started. If we had GURPS' level of funding and market savvy you could try to make the worldbooks useful for non-hero people, but we probably don't have the vaguest possibility of achieving that.

 

I see what you're saying, but there has to be at least a common starting point for new players in the main book.  It doesn't have to be a fully fleshed out setting--frankly I think it's more important for there to be a playable adventure in the rulebook than a setting.  But at the same time that adventure ought to be droppable into many different campaigns as well, so players can start there and continue in a variety of campaigns.  That means that the sub-setting the scenario is in would have to be relatively generic, including templates for the usual fantasy races and a prebuilt spell list.

[Nadrakas]

Ok...so, based on previous, IMO I think, for the most part, we're pretty much In the "Same Book."  Maybe not all On the same "Sheet of Music," but In the "Same Book."  So, I'd like to ask some questions about how each of you would do things.

 

Feel Free to Answer or Not...this could be Time Consuming.  Thanks, in advance, to all of those who do answer.

 

(I won't assume anything about any of the answers here...for example, assuming that the Genre will be Fantasy Hero only...)
 

 

If you were going to put out an Original Game World, to help attract Players to the Hero System, then...

1. In One Sentence state what makes Your world Exciting and Unique.


2. What Genre(s) would it be? (Hero 6eV2, Page 213 to 263; Champions Complete Pages 221 to 222)?
 

Are there any differences in the Recommended "Ground Rules" (Hero 6eV2, Page 264; Champions Complete, Page 222)?

3. What Tone would it have?  (Ref: Hero 6eV2, Pages 268 to 269; Champions Complete, Pages 184 to 185 -- except for Seriousness...not in CC -- I'll leave it here anyway: ignore if you don't have CC...):
a. Morality?

b. Realism?

c. Outlook?

d. Seriousness?


4. Briefly describe the Archetypes available (Races, Mutants, Transhumans, Whatever makes the world "Unique & Exciting"...):


5. Is the Campaign an "Epic Power" setting, "High Power" setting, "Medium Power" setting, "Low Power" setting, "No Power setting, a "Mix Power" Setting or Something Else entirely?
 

If "Power" exists, briefly describe how the "Power" system works:

6. Briefly describe the World Itself:


7. Briefly describe the People(s) and their Culture(s):
 

 

8. Anything Else You would like to Elaborate on?

 

 

9. Now, give a more in-depth Description of the World:

 

 

This is, for the moment, a relatively "quick exercise."  Any serious production would require lots of work at every stage, and a descent marketing campaign.

 

Anyway, thanks again to everyone for answering.

 

 

Note: Hero 6e and Champions Complete References included in the event that people only have one or the other book.

 

Peace.

 

 

~ Nadrakas

 

 

P.S.:  If we can get anything off the ground, I am offering my time, services, computer/softeware to put stuff together.  It doesn't have to be a complete world (Unless we're willing to try this early on...) -- it could be Adventures, Monster Books, Power/Magic Books, a "How to Play Hero Guide" or anything else.  Something simple would be best at first.  I want to grow and expand Hero!

[NuSoardGraphite]

Introductory adventure scenarios are definitely handy for new gm's who are short on materials to work with, or who need a bit of hand-holding to get started, but what i think is far more important is a concise and interesting game setting rife with adventure seeds and potential campaign material.  there's a reason why game worlds like RIFTS and Exalted have remained popular throughout their existence.  it is because these game worlds came packed with adventure posibilities.  simply reading the text of the books gives gm's enough adventure ideas to fill a year or more worth of gaming.  and with the release of every new worldbook or campaign expansion, these posibilities are expanded manifold.

 

And thats the problem with the hero settings we've had thus far aside from the Champions setting.  they've produced the turakian age setting, but just the one book.  this singular book is inadequate to convey all of the potential adventure seeds that would exist within the setting as a whole.  they need to produce TA expansion books that delivers a detailed account of the individual regions and major political players in the setting.  while books like monsters, minions and marauders, book of dragons, and magic items went a long way toward giving gm's and players more information to work with, those supplements didnt go as far as providing adventure ideas as a detailed settings book would have.

 

Going forward, i believe that hero games would be better served by sticking to a single campaign setting for each of the main genres (supers, sci-fi and fantasy) and concentrate more on fully fleshing out said settings rather than diversifying the types of settings found in the lineup. (Thats not to say i dont think they shouldnt produce books for other genres such as pulp, or steampunk, or cyberpunk or urban fantasy...they absolutely should.  i simply think the bulk of their efforts should be concentrated in the three main genres with releasing lesser popular genres as time and money allowed)

[Nadrakas]

Introductory adventure scenarios are definitely handy for new gm's who are short on materials to work with, or who need a bit of hand-holding to get started, but what i think is far more important is a concise and interesting game setting rife with adventure seeds and potential campaign material.  there's a reason why game worlds like RIFTS and Exalted have remained popular throughout their existence.  it is because these game worlds came packed with adventure posibilities.  simply reading the text of the books gives gm's enough adventure ideas to fill a year or more worth of gaming.  and with the release of every new worldbook or campaign expansion, these posibilities are expanded manifold.

 

And thats the problem with the hero settings we've had thus far aside from the Champions setting.  they've produced the turakian age setting, but just the one book.  this singular book is inadequate to convey all of the potential adventure seeds that would exist within the setting as a whole.  they need to produce TA expansion books that delivers a detailed account of the individual regions and major political players in the setting.  while books like monsters, minions and marauders, book of dragons, and magic items went a long way toward giving gm's and players more information to work with, those supplements didnt go as far as providing adventure ideas as a detailed settings book would have.

 

Going forward, i believe that hero games would be better served by sticking to a single campaign setting for each of the main genres (supers, sci-fi and fantasy) and concentrate more on fully fleshing out said settings rather than diversifying the types of settings found in the lineup. (Thats not to say i dont think they shouldnt produce books for other genres such as pulp, or steampunk, or cyberpunk or urban fantasy...they absolutely should.  i simply think the bulk of their efforts should be concentrated in the three main genres with releasing lesser popular genres as time and money allowed)

Agreed.

 

I think you have a very valid point about concentrating on and expanding each Campaign Setting for each Genre.  Setting books that expand the different settings, while at the same time providing further adventure ideas, are extremely helpful to GMs.  That is one thing I found helpful in Exalted (and RIFTs...) -- the Splat books for Exalted provided plenty of adventure ideas, though at times information was hidden in weird places (ie: Stuff about Sidereals in the Lunar Splats...but that's WW for you).

 

But barring an expansion of the Core Hero Lines...what do we as the Fan Base do?  (Beyond supporting the company with purchases & being Hero Ambassadors, of course).

 

 

~ Nadrakas

[bluesguy]

I just wrapped up running a very successful campaign using the Valdorian Age (you can check it out).  The setting did I what I wanted to do.  I seriously considered running another campaign in the same setting but in a different time frame.  The setting provides that nice 'boutique' flavor IMO.  It is a low magic world with an interesting magic system - which I tossed because I didn't want to deal with the bookkeeping.  There are a unique set of gods and morality is very gray.

[bluesguy]

Ok...so, based on previous, IMO I think, for the most part, we're pretty much In the "Same Book."  Maybe not all On the same "Sheet of Music," but In the "Same Book."  So, I'd like to ask some questions about how each of you would do things.

....

 

 

P.S.:  If we can get anything off the ground, I am offering my time, services, computer/softeware to put stuff together.  It doesn't have to be a complete world (Unless we're willing to try this early on...) -- it could be Adventures, Monster Books, Power/Magic Books, a "How to Play Hero Guide" or anything else.  Something simple would be best at first.  I want to grow and expand Hero!

 

Can I make a suggestion that a new thread be started based on the template you just posted?  It would help tighten up the discussion IMO.