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How complete is the book?


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I'm a newbie to the Hero system, haven't bought other books than Dark Champions years ago, but I'm planning to get into the game seriously. Monster Hunter International seems like a good starting point, but how complete is it in terms of rules and character options and such? Is it really a stand-alone book for a new GM to pick up for example?

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Monster Hunter International contains the same version of the rules as the HERO System Basic Rulebook plus copious setting information on running a monster hunting game set in the universe of the books of the same name.

 

If you want access to a few more options and copious example builds you should see the links to the full 2 book set listed here: 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/store/category/2-hero-system-6th-edition/

 

Champions Complete contains a condensed version of the full 6e1 and 6e2 books minus all the copious examples and maybe 1% of the rules AND info to run a game in the Superhero genre (an all in one product similar in that regard to MHI)

 

The forthcoming Fantasy Hero Complete (currently in Kickstarter @104% of goal with just a few days to go) will likely follow this same basic outline of Champions Complete except for the Fantasy genre.

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I'm a newbie to the Hero system, haven't bought other books than Dark Champions years ago, but I'm planning to get into the game seriously. Monster Hunter International seems like a good starting point, but how complete is it in terms of rules and character options and such? Is it really a stand-alone book for a new GM to pick up for example?

 MHI refers to some skills and powers in its NPC and monster write ups that aren't described in the basic Hero System rules included in the book (Teamwork, Restant Advantage, etc.).

 

I love MHI, and use if alot, but somone new to Hero System might find some references in it that they need to ask about here on this site, or buy the two main core rule books Volume I and Volume II of the Hero System 6th edition in PDF to refer to.

 

Here's a thread that goes into detail:

 

That said, again, I love the book, and believe it has everything you need to run a great campaign and introduce players to Hero System.

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The link above pretty much covers all the issues.  Long story short, IMO, the MHIEH was a quick and dirty job.

 

Technically yes, you can play the game with just the one book, but if you look through the posts on this forum you'll see a lot of "clarification" questions from myself and others that should be seen as an indication that it's not as easy as their marketing would like us to believe.

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  • 2 months later...

Actually, what I see is that Steve Long did not vet that the mechanics he used in the character write-ups were restricted to the "Basic Hero" rules provided in MHI. That a reader does not take the time to read the Skill Level rules, or the Enhanced Senses rules, and then fails to recognize them in the write-ups, I can see as being a "reader issue". But the array of build elements used in various write-ups which are not included in the Basic Hero/MHI rules themselves is a problem with the design and writing of the book.

 

The write-ups should have been vetted to ensure they used only the subset of full 6e rules which were presented in the MHI book. On discovering that, say, "does not bleed" was not in the MHI rules, the decision whether to remove this from the write-ups or add automaton powers (or some subset thereof) to the rules presented should have been made. If I had to guess, I suspect Steve Long had plenty of write-ups from his own games which he put into the book, but neither he nor anyone else vetted them to ensure they were covered by the less complete rules presented in MHI.

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I guess you could call that a poor editing job more than poor writing. Yes, you could blame Mr. Long alone for making such a mistake, but others must have read through it later. It used to be that Hero sent out manuscripts to playtesters to read and find mistakes.

 

Other Kickstarted RPG books provide playtest manuscripts to backers before going to press, and this should have gone that route. If it had, someone in the crowd very likely would have noticed missing rules for items in writeups and the manuscript could have been corrected before it became an embarrassment.

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Not having any insights to the process makes it hard to assess where the blame lies, but I agree this is more an editing error than a writing error.  Who made the decision on how much or little editing would be incorporated into the process (and the budget) is something we won't ever know.

 

This is, I suspect, exacerbated by the fact this is a licensed product - it will have a much greater proportion of buyers unfamiliar with Hero than most of Hero's publications, so items not in the book are highlighted.  A Hero buyer might not even notice the items aren't in the rules, and is much less confused by common Hero acronyms.  Not being familiar with the source material, I'd be much more likely to question inconsistencies because something salient about a MHI character didn't get mentioned in discussing that character, but is reflected in their writeup, or some such.

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Champions Complete Missing Powers

Mental Defense



Basic HERO Missing Powers

Absorption

Cannot Be Stunned

Damage Negation

Damage Reduction

Deflection

Duplication

Endurance Reserve

No Hit Locations

Reflection

Shape Shift

Summon

Takes No STUN



Monster Hunter International Missing Powers

Absorption

Cannot Be Stunned

Damage Reduction

Deflection

Density Increase

Does Not Bleed

Duplication

Endurance Reserve

Growth

Reflection

Shape Shift

Shrinking

Takes no STUN

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Champions Complete was a new approach, I think.  It was not "strip out the more complex/less used build elements" model of Basic/Sidekick, but an effort to strip out all excess verbosity - examples, complex interactions, corner cases - a lot of the stuff most games historically leave for GM judgment calls, or FAQ discussions - but retain all of the rules themselves.  I'm hopeful that Fantasy Hero Complete will have basically the same rules, with any modifications to that section being to make the examples and other discussion Fantasy-flavour instead of Supers-themed.

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The '80s approach predated any generic rules system. I found CC a relatively new approach in presenting the complete ("generic system") rules in a tighter package. Unlike the 4th and later edition efforts, it was not a stripped down version with a subset of the full rules. Unlike 3e and prior editions, it was not "the Hero rules you need for this genre, with some added, others removed and a few varied".

 

It was an attempt to bring the length of the rules under control, without compromising the scope of the rules, by removing verbiage, reducing examples and corner case rulings and, overall, tightening up the writing. The MHI issue would not have happened under that model, as all the powers from 6e would have been in the rules in some form.

 

"Game in one book" is definitely back to the '80's, but were there a lot of other companies publishing separate products for "the rules with no game" and "the game with no rules"? It seems like a lot more were "a new game based on this existing game, so you need the existing rules set to play", but the existing game was playable with one book (or one box with multiple books which didn't add up to near the page count of a game book today).

 

Certainly an "everything old is new again" vibe, though. 240 pages seems like it would have held 2e Champions, Champions II and Champions III, which would have been Champions Complete as well.

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