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Why run Hero 6th?


UbiquitousRat

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Hi, hello, and welcome!

 

I own Hero System 6th. I am kinda drawn to the system, but fear that (as GM) it's a bucket load of work to run a game. I picture me sitting up to the wee-hours designing NPCs, designing weapons, and basically engineering every minute detail of equipment needed for my game. And then I'd need to persuade my group that it's a) easy to play, and B) worth the effort to learn.

 

My question: Why should we run Hero 6th? What does Hero give me that makes the benefits outweigh the effort?

 

Secondary question: If you persuade me, what can I do to make GMing easy?

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You play Hero System for the customizability of EVERYTHING. Also for things like using Complications instead of Alignment (Codes of Conduct vs alignment).

Things to make your GM life easier:
Hero Designer - Java based Character/Equipment/Vehicle etc generator. Makes building things a thousand times easier.

Hero System Equipment Guide. Includes write ups for pretty much any piece of equipment that you would ever need no matter what the genre.
Hero System Bestiary. Hero's Monster Manual. Includes writeups for animals and monsters.

Genre Dependant things that make your job easier
The Ultimate Vehicle- Pre Generated Vehicles for you HS Games (Don't trip that this is a 5e book, Vehicle gen didn't really change much in 6e).

Hero System Martial Arts: More Martial Arts (every style you have ever heard of and others you have never heard of) and a detailed system for creating  your own Martial Arts maneuvers.

Genre Books:
Champions makes setting up champions campaigns up easier. Contains way more info on the Superheroic Genre than Champions Complete
    Champions Powers: 6e Writeups for powers by special effect. Also makes it much easier for a newbie GM and player to make Supers
    Champions Villains Vol 1-3 Writeups for more Villains than you can ever build yourself (there is also Hero Designer files for this)
    Champions Universe The official Champions Superheroic Universe. Gives details on the Superheroic world of Champions.
 

Star Hero: Genre book Describing how to run SciFi games in Hero.

Fantasy Hero: Genre Book Describing how to run Fantasy Games in Hero

 

This may seem like a lot of books to buy, but I don't know what genre game you want to use Hero to run. There are also resources on the Web that describe how to use Hero to run Star Wars, StarGate, Dungeons and Dragons and many other popular worlds in Hero.

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What gets lost in all the Power building details is that HERO has an extremely flexible Combat Engine that once learned can be used to cover almost any encounter and is very internally consistent.  Once you learn it you will likely have to fight the urge to convert other systems or even movie scenes into "Hero terms".  If your gaming group gets tired of a particular genre you are running you can use HERO to run a different game setting without having to learn a new combat mechanic (this is the promise of other 'Generic' systems like GURPS and EABA as well).

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Thanks, Tasha. That's a great set of useful stuff listed up.

I have 6e, 6e Basic, HSEG, HSB, an old copy of Hero Designer; I also have Star Hero, Fantasy Hero, Champions, and Champions Powers.

 

You play Hero System for the customizability of EVERYTHING. Also for things like using Complications instead of Alignment (Codes of Conduct vs alignment).

 

...I don't know what genre game you want to use Hero to run. There are also resources on the Web that describe how to use Hero to run Star Wars, StarGate, Dungeons and Dragons and many other popular worlds in Hero.

Can you talk more about the advantage of customisability? How does this outweigh the massive effort it seems to require to customise? I need to understand how customising the game is a key advantage over just picking up another game's stuff?

 

Also, I don't understand the advantage of Complications as a replacement for Alignment. Can you elaborate?

 

Finally... My plans? I have an ongoing fantasy campaign, a proposed SF campaign, and a desire to run an urban fantasy conspiracy weird-sh*t campaign. How can Hero make those better?

 

Again - massive thanks for replying and starting to help me out!

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What gets lost in all the Power building details is that HERO has an extremely flexible Combat Engine that once learned can be used to cover almost any encounter and is very internally consistent.  Once you learn it you will likely have to fight the urge to convert other systems or even movie scenes into "Hero terms".  If your gaming group gets tired of a particular genre you are running you can use HERO to run a different game setting without having to learn a new combat mechanic (this is the promise of other 'Generic' systems like GURPS and EABA as well).

Thanks Hyper-man - another two cool points.

 

Yes, Hero handles combat well... does it handle non-combat scenes well too? And can I improvise combat scenes easily? My worry is that I need to super-prep combat scenes, which may limit my options to combatants I have time to design.

 

Yes, Hero is generic and can allow me to run any genre without learning new rules. Big plus... as long as prepping the new game doesn't take as long, or longer, than reading a new game book. My impression is that Hero needs a lot of up-front prep and doesn't handle improvised stuff well. Is my impression correct or false?

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Improvised stuff in Heroic Level settings (non-superhero) is quite easy once you learn base-line human stats. it becomes quite easy to create NPC's by describing just the few abilities they have that make them stand out.  Full combat ready character sheets are usually only needed for the combat set pieces you plan out.  The best thing I can recommend is to just try to make a few characters and maybe check out some fan created stuff (killershrike.com is a great resource as well as http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/archive.html).

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Thanks Hyper-man - another two cool points.

 

Yes, Hero handles combat well... does it handle non-combat scenes well too? And can I improvise combat scenes easily? My worry is that I need to super-prep combat scenes, which may limit my options to combatants I have time to design.

 

Yes, Hero is generic and can allow me to run any genre without learning new rules. Big plus... as long as prepping the new game doesn't take as long, or longer, than reading a new game book. My impression is that Hero needs a lot of up-front prep and doesn't handle improvised stuff well. Is my impression correct or false?

No, you don't need to hyper-prepare combat scenes.  You just need to know a few things about the enemies your PC's are going to be going up against, especially in the context of typical Fantasy and Sci-Fi gaming.  

 

You need to know:

Combat Value:  How skilled is the enemy at basic combat?

 

Primary characteristics: How strong, tough, quick and smart are they?

 

Speed: For combat this is one of the most important stats...how often can you act during a turn.

 

Damage: what kind of attacks does the enemy have and how much damage do they do?

 

Defense: How hard is the enemy to damage.

 

That's pretty much all you need to run a combat.  You may need to know how much movement they have in case  a chase ensues,or your players like to use lots of movement in combat.  Once you familiarize yourself with HERO, it doesn't take much preparation at all to run basic combats.  In fact, you'll pretty much be able to pull these stats out of your butt at any given moment based on how challenging you want the battle to be for your PC's.

 

As far as general game prep is concerned, just like any other RPG, there can be a lot.  As far as campaigns are concerned, Fantasy is pretty well covered.  Several campaign settings exist (Turakian Age, Valdorian Age, Atlantean Age, Tuala Morn, Broken Kingdoms) there's the Hero System Beastiary, Monsters, Minions and Marauders (for 5th edition but it works for 6th), Hero System Grimoire for spells, the Equipment Guide for weapons and basic equipment etc.

 

For Sci-fi, there's less stuff available, but there is Terran Empire and Terracide campaign settings and Equipment books.  Unique Creatures and Alien beings you are going to have to design yourself.  There is also a planetary book for Terran Empire (great for planet-hopping games) and The Ultimate Vehicle to help you design ships.

 

So as long as you stick with Hero's pregen settings, much of the intensive prep has been done for you (designing weapons, equipment, creatures etc).  The level of detail you put into your prep for each individual game session is up to you.  However, if you want to design your own campaign settings, there is a ton of work to do.  For a Fantasy game, there's coming up with the important NPC's for the setting.  Unique creatures.  Magical Items.  Magic System (probably the most intensive part) individual spells, in addition to the actual setting details itself.

 

If you are just starting out with Hero, I would recommend using the Turakian Age campaign setting for a basic Fantasy campaign first.  Get the monster books, equipment book, Grimmoire and Magic Items book and that should pretty much cover you.  Run some game sessions in that setting for a while and if you enjoy running HERO, then take a stab at converting other favored settings to HERO, or creating your own.  You want to nail the system down before you start a massive design process.

 

Once you master HERO, the design process can become rather addictive, as you'll notice here if you decide to stick around for a while.

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If you have an older version of Hero Designer, be sure to pick up the Upgrade. Once you do this you will get all upgrades ex major ones for free.

Alignment is a wishy washy way of describing a character's personality and heroic tendencies. Using Complications and specifically psychological Limitations. I can describe the character's overall beliefs and tendencies better. ie A Champions Character can have a Code Vs Killing (won't kill) or could be Protective of Innocents (won't allow spectators to be harmed), A character could also be Curious, Overconfident, or have an out and out code of honor
ie:
Code of Chivalry: The code of the medieval knight. Honor in Battle (meaning no attacks on an unaware foe, not using missile weapons, and treating a vanquished foe mercifully), Expect Obedience From Those Below His Station and Provide Obedience To Those Above, Protect The Weak And The Defenseless, and Honesty In All Things.

Policeman's Code: This is the code that most police forces are supposed to operate under. Must Defend Public Safety, Must Protect The Innocent, Will Only Reply With Equal Force In Combat (meaning, if the opponent isn't using lethal force, neither will the person with this code), Follow the law in all things.

And many others that you can conceive of. Also there's some great resources for this kind of stuff
http://www.cellularsmoke.net/rpgs/ml_psychological1.php 
This is where I copied the codes of Honor from.

Also you can have Social Limitations for things like "Halfling, is assumed to be a thief" "Half Orc" or any kind of character that there's some sort of Prejudice against this also covers other things like Secret Identities for superheroic games

 

re: Customizability. I am not bound by any "Class" or even what a Racial Write-up exists. So I could play a Rogue that knows some spells or a Warrior that can hide and can be as good as a rogue socially. If I want my Dwarf to be Darkvision-blind I can.

Also Hitting and Damage just feel better than just about every other game. In Hero you Hit someone. Then Apply Damage vs their armor. Damage does Body damage (which is what kills you) and Stun damage that knocks you out. Also if you take a huge hit you can be temporarily knocked for a loop (AKA Being Stunned). Which makes the character lose a phase and makes them vulnerable increasing their chances to be hit by the opposition. Also the Phased combat is a very nice thing.

Combat Maneuvers are built into the game and don't feel like the added on system like in 3.x D&D and Pathfinder. Also there's not 8 different states of pseudo damage like Pathfinder (ie no Shaken, Sickened blah blah, that makes you look the damned states up each time they come up). In Hero if you are held (aka Grabbed) you either roll damage vs damage or Skill roll vs Skill roll to break out. When you are Mind controlled or are seeing Mental illusions you roll your Ego vs the Illusion's breakout. It's all the same system. Very consistent.

Anyone can do something frightening or cool and impress the opposition though Presence Attacks.

The other posters are correct about building opposition. you don't have to write up all of the minutae. When you get good at the system you won't even need to write up the Mooks (Trash Mobs, aka Cannon fodder). The Rule books have pre genned characters labeled as Normal, Elite etc. You just add genre appropriate armor and weapons and you have things your players can fight against.

The only thing that Hero doesn't do well is Absolute effects. There's no 100% immunity defenses here, or always hits attacks. You can approximate such effects, but they are as expensive as they really should be.

Non combat scenes are easy to run. Hero has a nice collection of Non Combat skills. They have a good variety of Interactions skills too.

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Thanks, guys - there's a butt-load of useful stuff there. I am shifting towards giving Hero another go... but...

 

Right now, I am hearing a lot of, "When you are familiar with Hero, then..." - which makes me nervous.

I also get the feeling that I have a chicken and egg situation to resolve: to play the setting I want to play (say, my own or a major conversion design) I need to know what makes Hero tick; to learn what makes Hero tick, I need to play an pretty generic setting of someone else's design.

 

As GM of a group, I don't think my players will give it a shot for something generic. Learning a new system is a big deal for the group. (Although, thankfully, we are NOT a d20 / D&D group). That said, until I feel confident and happy with the design stuff in Hero, I won't be able to produce something whizzy.

 

Questions:

- Has anyone done a Hero Glorantha conversion? I could jive to that idea.

- Does anyone offer an online Roll20 Hero game I could learn from?

- Could I run a modern conspiracy weird game easily? Perhaps I could add Magick and more wild things as we go?

 

Thoughts welcome.

 

And again - many thanks to those posting replies! Muchly appreciated!

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On the Glorantha Conversion:  I'm not sure what Glorantha is to be honest; I have found really, really crazy things converted over to HERO so it isn't beyond the realm of possibility.  If it has not been converted, it might make for a good project to learn to tinker with the system.  This type of conversion / planning can also help simplify things while running; at it's core, HERO is all about doing whatever you want, but that can be problematic as well.  The more prep-work you do, in general, the smoother things run once you get to playing, and the less stuff you have to figure out on the fly.

 

HEROCentral has several ongoing campaigns, which may or may not use Roll20 or similar tools.  Obsidian Portal is another site frequently used by HERO gamers.  If I don't get a response from a few of my players soon, I may have a spot open in my Steampunk HERO game on HEROCentral.  Player Finder section of the forums usually has a new game pop up here and there.

 

You can run just about anything with HERO that you feel like running; whether it is ideal for that particular genre is a matter of opinion and heavily related to the GM's understanding of the system and the genre.  

 

As to the original question?  "Because you can."  :D

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Here are some tricks that I have developed over the years for running Hero Combat.  If you are running a 'sandbox' style game then you do have to do more preparation because you have to build up a 'bag of encounters/places' ahead of time.  But that would be true for any game system.

  • Heroic level games - which should work for most Fantasy, Space, and Modern type game where the characters are basically highly skilled humans.
    • Have a set of generic bad guys I can whip out whenever I need them.  Using Hero Designer & many of the expansion packs available this is an easy process.
    • For instance in a fantasy campaign I will have varying kinds of bandits - easy to kill, kind of tough, and good for one on one or two on one fights with PCs.
    • I would do the same for varying kinds of monsters.
    • You can do the same thing for a space or modern game as well
  • Superhero games
    • I can't help you as much here because I run very episodic Superhero games so there is a villain/event/encounter per adventure.  It isn't a sandbox at all.
    • But if I were to do that there is even more material for this because there are the three Champions Villains books, plus organization books as well.
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Thanks, Tasha. That's a great set of useful stuff listed up.

I have 6e, 6e Basic, HSEG, HSB, an old copy of Hero Designer; I also have Star Hero, Fantasy Hero, Champions, and Champions Powers.

 

 

Can you talk more about the advantage of customisability? How does this outweigh the massive effort it seems to require to customise? I need to understand how customising the game is a key advantage over just picking up another game's stuff?

 

Also, I don't understand the advantage of Complications as a replacement for Alignment. Can you elaborate?

 

Finally... My plans? I have an ongoing fantasy campaign, a proposed SF campaign, and a desire to run an urban fantasy conspiracy weird-sh*t campaign. How can Hero make those better?

 

Again - massive thanks for replying and starting to help me out!

 

Throughout the editions, and especially with 6e, one of the design goals for the HERO System has been the system doesn't tell you no; that's left to the GM.  It may be that a given construct is too powerful, or that it unbalances the game in some way, but as a GM you never have to tell a player "You can't do that because the system doesn't allow it."

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More useful stuff and comments - thanks, guys!

 

Glorantha is a fantasy setting - www.glorantha.com

To quote the site: "Glorantha was first discovered by Greg Stafford in 1966. Over nearly five decades it has been explored by fans across the world through board games, role-playing games, computer games, books, and at conventions."

A quick Google hasn't revealed anything, so a I suspect it's a "no" for an already-out-there conversion.

 

I think that what I might need is a kind of intro game to run through the system. I will ponder...

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More useful stuff and comments - thanks, guys!

 

Glorantha is a fantasy setting - www.glorantha.com

To quote the site: "Glorantha was first discovered by Greg Stafford in 1966. Over nearly five decades it has been explored by fans across the world through board games, role-playing games, computer games, books, and at conventions."

A quick Google hasn't revealed anything, so a I suspect it's a "no" for an already-out-there conversion.

 

I think that what I might need is a kind of intro game to run through the system. I will ponder...

 

I'll ping you if I end up with a spot, if a Steampunk-y Fantasy setting would be of interest.  

 

I'm not the greatest GM in the world, but I know the system "well enough" to get someone acquainted with the basics.

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I might be in a good position to answer this. I did have the old Champions book, but must admit that I barely skimmed it. Then, after some trial and error with GURPS, I decided to pick up HERO 6E mainly because I wanted to fiddle with the basics, if need be.

But there I was: No experience running the system, but familiar with the general style (generic, point-based, semi-realistic). No player had any experience with it, often not even with similar systems and some weren't too keen on reading lots of rules background in a foreign language.

But it worked surprisingly well. We've had a few new players since then and everyone was integrated quickly. I would say that I had fewer problems than with D&D 3E. It's just easier to get an answer when they say "I want to do that" (either right now in combat or as a general ability/power).

 

A few lessons I've learned:

  • Powers are the hard stuff. Which means that starting with a Heroic game is much easier, and if you do so, either doing some prep work or picking a magic system out of Fantasy Hero will be worth it.
  • Hero Designer is great. For most players I did some "guided" character creation, where I mainly asked them what they want to be good at, what they know, their wepons of choice etc. and just entered that in there. Sometimes they didn't even know what the values where all about before we started playing. Of course if you do it that way, make it possible for them to change things after the first one or two sessions.
  • Humanoid opponents are really, really easy. You don't need full-fledged characters, you just need the basic combat values. If you want to make it harder, give em one or two martial arts maneuvers, or just add another dude. For my steampunk fantasy campaign, I ran lots of encounters fully by the seat of my pants. It's more about the choices you make in combat with them that gives them their own style, not what you prep for them. At least until you reach a  certain power level.
  • Having the combat maneuvers (both the basic ones and martial arts, if you got em) on the character sheet is a huuuge timesaver. As is the speed chart and the distance modifier table (and hit locations, if you use them). The default PDF export of Hero Designer is pretty swell.
  • Two rules subsystems that you better read twice: Aborting actions, and how normal/killing damage is applied.
  • Points aren't mainly there for balance. That means you don't really have to sweat it for opponents. Just pay attention to their combat levels, maximum damage and the total number of enemies. Whether they've got a few tricks more up their sleeves doesn't really matter.

I thought I'll run into all kinds of confusion. Roll-under skills vs. combat resolution. Counting killing damage. Tracking Endurance.

 

Worked out fine in the end. I've run a pretty monster-heavy game recently, but no problem with the bestiary and some quick modifiers on post-its. Right now, my main issue is that I skipped a bit on the magic prep work. I thought I give the PCs some free run on this ("you don't have to be limited by D&D tropes anymore, yay!"), but not everyone wants to design their own magic system, spells etc.

So I would say that investing in some campaign prep is very useful. Either done by just picking and choosing the right pre-made stuff (Fantasy Hero, Grimoire etc.), or sitting down and doing it on your own. Session prep was easy enough for me. Still spend more time on the real background stuff than on the stats.

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does it handle non-combat scenes well too?

Well, yes, though I'm not sure what you mean by "handle." In *any* system I often unconsciously drop out of the system in pure role-playing situations (which by the way is in a sense part of the rules--it's explicitly stated that you *never* use mechanics when they're getting in the way), and in those cases all systems are the same. But when I don't do that, what I mostly want from the system is a skill or attribute test, and certainly Hero does that just fine. The only thing it isn't set to do out of the box is FATE-style metagaming ("I want to discover an aspect in this scene"). I suspect it would work very well to just let people spend heroic action points to add things to a scene, however, so if you know both hero and that bit of fate well I think you can have it if you want it.

 

And can I improvise combat scenes easily? My worry is that I need to super-prep combat scenes, which may limit my options to combatants I have time to design.

Here is a dirty little secret: most of us just wing certain encounters, either because they weren't important encounters, because it's a fight with a bunch of generic redshirts, or because the players did something unexpected and we're off the rails. We just don't let the players know that. I believe somewhere the book even suggests something a lot of us do: for hordes of cannon fodder, you needn't bother even tracking hits (stun and body) or end--just say that 1 or 2 good hits will take them out. I have a tendency to say that if your stun total impresses me they're either unconscious or, if they're stronger, stunned. Otherwise, it might take a couple of solid hits. That's roughly what the full system would do anyway, and it *vastly* speeds up combat, trust me. With practice you can do the same thing with tougher opponents that you didn't think the players would encounter and didn't write up.

 

Small digression: if you are adept with the system is perfectly possible to let people build their characters during play. Anytime they want to use an ability whose value hasn't yet been established, let them spend leftover points to set the value or buy the power then and there, then continue. This works pretty well with new players and children. This is actually relevant to the topic at hand: you can do the same with any NPC, not just redshirts, including complex and non-trivial ones. It's just harder to do on the fly and demands more of you. You definitely don't compute points costs, though, just the minimum to move ahead--dice of effect, skill roll, or whatever it is you need right then.

 

One place you practice this is another dirty little secret: most of us occasionally cheat behind the GM screen anyway, often in the party's favor. I'm especially likely to do this when a redshirt rolls some absolutely lucky roll that is likely to one-shot a PC and change the course of a fight--redshirts don't always get to be that lucky if I don't want them to be. If Darth Vader rolls max damage to the head, well, he's vader. If a stormtrooper does, I'm likely to ignore it because in many situations it isn't dramatic--stormtroopers don't get to roll max damage to the head on Luke when he's about to Save The World. I'm also likely to do this if I realize that the NPC I wrote up is tougher or weaker than I intended; to play fair, I'm a lot more likely to give it to them if the NPC is too weak, but if the NPC is too strong then I might well nerf it in play back to the level I'd intended. It depends a lot on what the consequences of not doing it would be. If losing would be interesting, maybe stick to the rules and change next week's adventure to an escape or something. If it would be boring or unheroic, maybe dial back to what you originally intended.

 

I guess what I'm getting at is that in practice, we tend to do stuff like that in any system behind the scenes where the players can't see it. You can learn to do it in hero as well, and don't let the main part of the text fool you. Hero gives you the tools to do everything pre-planned--but they also tell you not to let the rules get in the way of having fun.

 

Big plus... as long as prepping the new game doesn't take as long, or longer, than reading a new game book. My impression is that Hero needs a lot of up-front prep and doesn't handle improvised stuff well. Is my impression correct or false?

I would say that it improvises fine, but asks for a lot of knowledge to do it seamlessly. Maybe more than other games. But I have a game in a really simple system that I'm thinking of converting to Hero simply because I know precisely what Hero means, and so I find it easier to improvise in Hero than the simple system. That isn't to say the simple system is bad, but rather than I know Hero better.

 

Also, it isn't as easy as saying 'easier/harder'. Sometimes improvisation in Hero works better than in most systems because you don't have to make up as much stuff. Which is harder: (1) "OK, that improvised spell you want to cast is kind of like this other level 3 spell, so the cost would be similar...except you have an increased area of effect, and based on these other spells I'm going to say that bumps it up maybe one level...but on the other hand, yours costs more endurance, so maybe it's not that bad...." or (2) "OK, you want to improvise this spell, sounds like an RKA with so much area effect...looks like the extra active points add enough end cost that I don't have to add Increased End Cost...OK, I'm not going to compute the final point cost, just say it has gestures and incantations like your other spells and roll on your magic skill." I find that the latter is actually nicer because I don't have to randomly look for analogous spells in the spell list, I just use a power-building system that I'm familiar with. It's also more consistent, so you have fewer "but last time you said it was only level 4, why are you making it level 5 now" or "yeah, but this other spell resembles it just as much as the one you used and that would make the spell cheaper" complaints.

 

That, BTW, is an actual example I came across when I wrote up an (unfinished) conversion from Ars Magica to Hero. AM has a great magic system, but I actually liked the Hero version better precisely because AM has no underlying power building system and so improvised magic has to be costed out by analogy with the existing spell list. It's actually easier, and to me less frustrating, to build a power directly (keeping in mind that I often don't need to finish the build, just figure out the active points and applicable rules) than to do it by ad hoc comparison and analogy.

 

Right now, I am hearing a lot of, "When you are familiar with Hero, then..." - which makes me nervous.

I also get the feeling that I have a chicken and egg situation to resolve: to play the setting I want to play (say, my own or a major conversion design) I need to know what makes Hero tick; to learn what makes Hero tick, I need to play an pretty generic setting of someone else's design.

I'd say that's partly true, unfortunately. Hero has an underlying logic and it's harder to make the system work well until you are comfortable with it. The game is much better learned by playing than purely by reading the book--in fact, the book is easier to read after you've played (for one thing, then you know which parts are critical and which you can ignore until later--the book is organized more as a reference and less as a tutorial.

 

- Has anyone done a Hero Glorantha conversion? I could jive to that idea.

 

Yes, here is one.  At a glance it appears to be well done, but unfortunately I don't own Runequest so I can't really say much. It appears to be faithful enough to Runequest to play with the hero rules a bit. There's nothing wrong with that, but for learning purposes it would probably be better to use a simpler conversion that has fewer Runequest-specific tweaks. Also, the author's magic conversions use frameworks (VPPs and Multipowers), and that's fine except for the fact that they add some complexity you might not want the first time.

 

Other than that, the author appears to know both RQ and Hero well enough to do a good job. If you want more comments you'll have to find someone who knows RQ better.

 

- Does anyone offer an online Roll20 Hero game I could learn from?

Roll20 doesn't appear to be that popular with Hero people, perhaps because the rumor is that out of the box it doesn't support hero that well. OTOH there is a champions game going on there for sure, so it can be done. I am contemplating doing a playtest of a Monster Hunter game there, and since I'm used to just playing with pencil and paper I might not care if it doesn't have any system specific support.

 

- Could I run a modern conspiracy weird game easily? Perhaps I could add Magick and more wild things as we go?

Most of the complexity is in the power system, so games centered on normal humans with skills will always be easier for your first game. Similarly, heroic games are easier than superheroic games since you don't need to pay for equipment, which means in practice you don't necessarily even need to cost them out at all (the complaint that "I have to build everything in Hero" is untrue except for supers, where the characters are so stylized that you need to charge for ordinary things in order to get the players to play their characters like superheroes and not carry all kinds of stuff that is useful and logical but not genre). Western, spy, that sort of genre would work well.

 

Magic is a big can of worms unless you use a system someone has already written up, because there are just so many ways to do it. You might not have too much trouble if you lift a system off of something like Killer Shrike's web page though. For example, if you already have a spell list so you don't have to build them all with the power system, a skill-based system can be fairly easy to work with. You still have to know what the powers *do* when a player casts them, though.

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Hero Designer is great. For most players I did some "guided" character creation, where I mainly asked them what they want to be good at, what they know, their wepons of choice etc. and just entered that in there. Sometimes they didn't even know what the values where all about before we started playing. Of course if you do it that way, make it possible for them to change things after the first one or two sessions.

I find it normal to build someone's first character for them to their description, HD or not. That's how we did it in 4e with pencil and paper too. Why would they spend a lot of time learning a system that they don't know if they like? The GM has to make the investment of time up front, but it's a good idea to not make the players do it.

Humanoid opponents are really, really easy. You don't need full-fledged characters, you just need the basic combat values.

Yep. If you're really pressed for time (that happened as students all the time) you'll find that (1) the players don't see the fine details of the NPCs unless they're important ones, so a small number of redshirts can be used over and over without the players even noticing, and (2) normal humans are easy to improvise on the fly. You can make up those basic combat values on the fly.

 

I'm not saying that's the best way to do it, just that it's done, it works, and it beats having to cancel the game because you had a final two days earlier (then) or your kids had too many activities the previous week (now).

 

If you want to make it harder, give em one or two martial arts maneuvers, or just add another dude

Yeah. They won't notice a lot of detail on redshirts, but they will notice one, maybe two distinctive features. You can use a standard mook character sheet, but give one of them a couple of combat levels, a maneuver or two, or a special weapon on the fly without creating another sheet. Or bump their speed up by one, that tends to get the PCs attention.

 

Points aren't mainly there for balance. That means you don't really have to sweat it for opponents.

Yeah, I can't figure out why people worry about point total for NPCs (maybe because a lot of published Hero characters are built to a specific campaign point total even though it's meaningless). Just let 'em do what you want 'em to do. In fact, this can occasionally be amusing if you de-optimize the stats relative to the breakpoints. This has less effect in 6e, but in previous editions you could shock a lot of players with an NPC with a dex of, say, 16 or 19 (since no PC would ever waste points like that, the NPC would always get the initiative on PCs with the same base CV). Just because the PCs are optimized doesn't mean those other stats don't exist.

 

Right now, my main issue is that I skipped a bit on the magic prep work. I thought I give the PCs some free run on this ("you don't have to be limited by D&D tropes anymore, yay!"), but not everyone wants to design their own magic system, spells etc.

Yeah. In addition to FH, Killer Shrike's web pages have some very nice worked out magic systems covering some methods that FH doesn't (or doesn't do the same way). It looks to me like some are completely worked out and ready to just plug in.

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Wow, PaycheckHero, there's a lot to process there. Thanks!

mhd's vote of confidence is appreciated and useful too - I'm grateful.

You're welcome. MHD's advice is very good, and has the advantage of being closer to your situation (I learned the system fairly well before I tried to GM).

 

It's clear I need to try something simple. Heroic game, perhaps modern genre or simple fantasy.

Hmm... Much to ponder...

Yes, those are good choices. Swords & Sorcery tends to make spellcasters mostly NPCs due to the horrible consequences of using magic (I think Howard was borrowing some of that from his friend Lovecraft), and non-magical S&S characters are easy to build and work with. The truth is in an S&S game I might not even write up an NPC magician's magic and just use two simple meta-rules (1) magic is mysterious , unpredictable, and dangerous, so he can do whatever seems appropriate and can't do anything that doesn't seem like Howard would have allowed it, and (2) if the barbarian tries to hit the mage before he gets his magic off, the barbarian always wins). In a Conan-like game you really can't go wrong with having the NPCs burst into the wizard's lair to find him incanting behind a wall of minions while dark, opaque mist starts swirling around within a summoning circle, with a note to yourself that the summoning will be complete at the end of a turn unless they can stop it. You really don't need magic rules at all, because either they stop the summoning (usually with horrible consequences for the caster, whose demon-derived powers have brutal side-effects) or they have a monster to fight using the normal rules.

 

Modern is also good unless you find the equipment getting you down, but if you have enough equipment lists that won't matter much. Modern equipment can exercise quite a few different powers, but in a canned format that doesn't require you to know them by heart.

 

One additional issue though is optional combat rules. Hero is rigged by default to knock characters out well before killing them, which is the opposite of D&D and many other systems. It works just fine as-is for fantasy but gives a different feel, and some don't like it (I think it's really a matter of how your world works). And many people want "gritty realism" (by which they mean they don't really want so much realism as a particular kind of unreality that includes lethality). To get those in hero, you use some combat options (hit locations, maybe critical hits, whatever) that can increase the complexity of play slightly--the simple rules are the ones that work for supers, pulp, and other larger-than-life, relatively non-lethal combat. So you might find some kind of two-fisted pulp action game (I'm aware some historical pulp was bloody, but I think you know the kind I mean) works well as a first game, as pulp characters are very hard to kill and the default (superhero-ish) rules work great as-is. Just think about what would happen if a PC is defeated. If the answer is he'd surely wake up suspended over a tank of hungry sharks while the villain gloats and powers up his city-destroying death ray, then you've got a prime candidate for using the simplest version of combat (and normal damage attacks).

 

I'd also suggest maybe swashbuckling, as long as you don't mind using the martial arts rules. They do add some complexity, but it's manageable and otherwise it's another genre with normal humans with skills, not powers.

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I would put it this way: Hero's complexity is front-loaded at design time, but actual play is fairly simple. Once the characters are made and the power-levels are tweaked just-so (which is where the learning curve really is for new GMs), you are on calm seas with clear skies and a strong wind to drive your sails.

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One short comment on PaycheckHero's "GM cheating" comment: Even if GM's sometimes are able to save the poor characters lives from unfortunate deaths or other unopportune events, this will happen more often than in some other games. On the outside it might be all superheros, but once you get down to killing damage, well, it's fairly deadly. Introduce hit locations and some savvy combatants, and it'll get even worse.

 

This will be less a shock for people who tended to play RuneQuest, GURPS, Traveller or even old-school D&D campaigns, but for some players it'll be one of the more deadly and unpredictable experiences. So if that looks like table flipping just waiting to happen, maybe introducing some "A** Saver Points" might be better. (and/or generous uses of Combat Luck and the like)

 

And notice that this is even more true for us poor GMs. If you've seen "The Gamers" you know the scene: There you are, your evil overlord gloating and making his speech -- and whoops, Weapon Master arrow to the forehead.

 

Being prepared for this is good. I'm not the biggest fan of lots of magical/lucky protection for the baddies -- what's good when the players have it, just begets groans when it's coming from the other side of the screen. For me it works best when I have more options open, a more "sandbox" style of gaming. Don't be too dependent on one NPC. On the other hand, I'm not a big fan of cheating illusionism like "Well, he wasn't the true boss anyway". At least when it's applied post facto.

 

I was playing like that anyways, so I could easily cope with this. Otherwise, my first HERO campaign would've really gotten me mad. ;)

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The "he was not the real boss" is a common trop for fantasy and super heroes. Terry Goodkind, Terry Brooks, J.R.R. Tolkien and many others have written books, only to have an alluded to cbackground character come to the fore as a villian. And those are fantasy greats.

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