Selling Fantasy Hero

[NuSoardGraphite]

Why?  I'm curious as to why this would be the only way.

Because outside of D&D and it's derivatives, a games setting is generally it's primary appeal and the setting is usually why people play the game.

 

Lets look at the 4th edition of HERO as an example.

 

Most of the player were champions players, who were invested in the champions universe. it wasnt until the release of the 5th edition that Hero's universal legacy was fully recognized and it broke away from the immediate association with Champions.

 

And ultimately any other approach to appeal to a wider audience always comes back to changing the system in some fairly significant ways and for me that is inconceivable.

 

Now i sound like The Sicillian.

[Old Man]

I think the -easiest- way to pick up new players would be to license a popular setting or property and put out a specific book for that setting. Hero lends itself to the higher-powered campaigns, so 300/Clash of the Titans, or Last Airbender, or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, to name a few.

 

Of course this would not be the cheapest way.

[Ndreare]

I do not think licensing is what is needed. The two most popular settings are two of the cheesiest most two dimensional settings there are. Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder both both are successful in large part to presentations.

 

 

 

People look at a D&D book and they see eye candy. They see a cool power or name and all they have to do is answer a couple multiple choice questions to get their character, even the default power level is assumed start at level one and a group of four player character can take on a challenge rating 1 encounter.

 

In Hero you have to want to think and put work into it, to create a challenge a gam master has to be aware of dozens of interplays between defenses, offences and utility. People can play Hero, but they have to put a lot more work into it from both a player and game master perspective. Hero does not offer good eye candy and the books read more like text books than RPG books. Even the two Complete books that are out now are still 80% Hero System text book and 20% discussion on stuff.

 

Players want fluff and eye candy to get them interested in a setting. Once they are interested they will begin thinking about the meta gaming options. But Hero’s presentation is the Metagame, so any motivation has to come from somewhere else.

 

How many people do you see work out conversion from other systems (especially D&D and Pathfinder)? Almost everyone who plays Hero does.

 

Even Fantasy Hero Complete falls short of this because the sample characters in the back of the book run from 125 points (maybe the same as 1st level in D&D) to 275 points (15th level?).

 

 

 

How many times do we see post or questions about balancing characters or encounters? Flat out the nature of Hero is work load heavy IMHO it is inarguable. Monster Hunter International is a great example of this. The game mechanics alone for the team members are 1-1/2 pages long. The core of the setting is presented from page 1-73 and gets a player interested, then a large section on characters which are all presented in the maximum numbers heavy format for Hero were even something as basic as strength has a minimum of 4 values (actual value, cost, roll and dice of damage). Then the player gets to magic (because gamers love magic) and a spell will have 2 paragraphs one for flavor and one for game mechanics code for the rules implemented by the spell.

 

As a long time player I love this because I never have to look up a rule for a power. It is all laid out clearly on the character sheet rite there. But for a new person it is like a technical manual. Compare this to a Savage World write up or a D&D monster block and you find Hero has literally 10 times as many numbers and as much math than Savage Worlds and three times as much as D&D in its presentation. This is why in my “In Service to The Throne” scenarios I used numbers lite presentations for the game master. It makes it all so much less overwhelming.

 

 

 

Test this yourself, write down the stats for a Rapier sword in D&D, the immediately bellow it write down the stats for a Rapier sword in Hero. Which one is 1 line and which one is a paragraph?

[Christopher R Taylor]

The problem with focusing on setting is that all the setting-based games are built around the setting.  That is, they made the setting, then made rules for that setting.  Hero is more generic: you can put it into any setting.  So the setting will be less integrated and critical to the game.

 

Savage Worlds is a successful system growing in popularity despite being generic and without any real setting (although it started in weird west).  What sells it is quick simplicity with flexibility - not as flexible as Hero, and not nearly as simple as its perceived but it seems more so than Hero to new players.  And that's primarily the fault of presentation.  Hero tends to dump everything on new players at once, Savage Worlds says "learn how to roll dice in two ways and away we go!  Wheee!!!!"

 

 

 

Test this yourself, write down the stats for a Rapier sword in D&D, the immediately bellow it write down the stats for a Rapier sword in Hero. Which one is 1 line and which one is a paragraph? 

 

They're roughly the same, unless you insist on doing the mechanical build of the sword.  And that's the point I've been trying to make here over and over.  We don't need the mechanical build of the sword.  Consider it like Talents.  All a talent needs is "what does it do" and a quick summary.  The builds are in the back of the book, where they belong.  If a character gets a new sword, he doesn't need OAF and Real Weapon and all the rest.  All he needs is damage, weight, that kind of thing - exactly what D&D provides.  The GM can keep track of all the rest.

[Lord Liaden]

But you know... all of the above raises one question for me: If we want to adjust the presentation of HERO so that it looks and feels more like D&D or Pathfinder, what significant reason would there be for someone to play HERO instead of D&D or Pathfinder? Those games have large existing fan bases who like what they have to offer and the way it works. AFAICT someone would only move to HERO if they want a different experience, and they aren't going to recognize that HERO is different if the fact is hidden from them. I don't think "easier and more accessible" is a magic key, because gamers already have access to easy and accessible options.

[Ndreare]

or it doesn't have to look or feel like Pathfinder or DND. When it has to do is look or feel attractive. Once you have something that's attractive enough for people to want to play it they will be able to see the system for what it is and then they will desire to keep playing it.

[Diamond Spear]

I do not think licensing is what is needed. The two most popular settings are two of the cheesiest most two dimensional settings there are. Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder both both are successful in large part to presentations.

People look at a D&D book and they see eye candy. They see a cool power or name and all they have to do is answer a couple multiple choice questions to get their character, even the default power level is assumed start at level one and a group of four player character can take on a challenge rating 1 encounter.

In Hero you have to want to think and put work into it, to create a challenge a gam master has to be aware of dozens of interplays between defenses, offences and utility. People can play Hero, but they have to put a lot more work into it from both a player and game master perspective. Hero does not offer good eye candy and the books read more like text books than RPG books. Even the two Complete books that are out now are still 80% Hero System text book and 20% discussion on stuff.

Players want fluff and eye candy to get them interested in a setting. Once they are interested they will begin thinking about the meta gaming options. But Hero’s presentation is the Metagame, so any motivation has to come from somewhere else.

How many people do you see work out conversion from other systems (especially D&D and Pathfinder)? Almost everyone who plays Hero does.

Even Fantasy Hero Complete falls short of this because the sample characters in the back of the book run from 125 points (maybe the same as 1st level in D&D) to 275 points (15th level?).

How many times do we see post or questions about balancing characters or encounters? Flat out the nature of Hero is work load heavy IMHO it is inarguable. Monster Hunter International is a great example of this. The game mechanics alone for the team members are 1-1/2 pages long. The core of the setting is presented from page 1-73 and gets a player interested, then a large section on characters which are all presented in the maximum numbers heavy format for Hero were even something as basic as strength has a minimum of 4 values (actual value, cost, roll and dice of damage). Then the player gets to magic (because gamers love magic) and a spell will have 2 paragraphs one for flavor and one for game mechanics code for the rules implemented by the spell.

As a long time player I love this because I never have to look up a rule for a power. It is all laid out clearly on the character sheet rite there. But for a new person it is like a technical manual. Compare this to a Savage World write up or a D&D monster block and you find Hero has literally 10 times as many numbers and as much math than Savage Worlds and three times as much as D&D in its presentation. This is why in my “In Service to The Throne” scenarios I used numbers lite presentations for the game master. It makes it all so much less overwhelming.

Test this yourself, write down the stats for a Rapier sword in D&D, the immediately bellow it write down the stats for a Rapier sword in Hero. Which one is 1 line and which one is a paragraph?

HERO Rapier: 1D6 Killing Attack, Armor Piercing (real weapon, OAF, STR Min 8)

 

Hardly a paragraph.

[Ndreare]

HERO Rapier: 1D6 Killing Attack, Armor Piercing (real weapon, OAF, STR Min 8)

Hardly a paragraph.

Even your format is number light, which is what Christopher is advocating and I am supporting. How that very same object is presented in a book needs to be attractive and simple. Currently these swords are presented in the equipment guides as.

 

 

 

8: Rapier: 1d6 HKA, AP x1 +1/4, Reduced end-0 -1/2, Real -1/4, OAF -1 Str Min 8 -1/4; 19Active points

 

Or in some cases

 

8: Rapier: 1d6 Hand to Hand Killing Attack, Armor Piercing +1/4, Reduced Endurance -0 -1/2, Real Weapon -1/4, Obvious Accessible Focus -1, Strength Minimum 8 -1/4; 19Active points

 

These swords can also have a +1 to OCV taking up just as much space or even worse a reach modifier for a chain or pole weapon.

 

 

 

 

 

What a player wants to see and can see if Hero is presented in a ready to play method like the talents is.

 

 

 

Rapier 1d6 Killing +1 to hit

 

 

 

 

 

As an example here is a cut and paste from Hero System 6th Edition Equipment Guide page 22

 

Urumi: The urumi, or spring-sword, is a flexible sword from India; it’s also known as a velayudaya. It consists of a hilt with 1-4 blades of metal (sharpened on both edges) projecting from it. The blades are thin and flexible, allowing them to be whipped through the air and into an enemy. When not in use the urumi can be carried around the waist like a belt.

 

HKA 1d6 (plus STR), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (22 Active Points); OAF (-1), STR Minimum (12; -½), Real Weapon (-¼) (total cost: 8 points) plus Reach +1m (1 Active Point; total

 

cost 1 point) plus Autofire (4 shots; +½) for sword (8 Active Points); OAF (-1), Real Weapon (-¼), Requires A DEX Roll

 

 

 

 

 

In the end there is nothing wrong with the game mechanics and once you get a player playing it they soon find they love it. But the presentation is the most unattractive.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'd add in the strength minimum, weight, and some minor bits like size and BOD/PD/ED but that's still no more complex than D&D's presentation.

[Diamond Spear]

Even your format is number light, which is what Christopher is advocating and I am supporting. How that very same object is presented in a book needs to be attractive and simple. Currently these swords are presented in the equipment guides as.

8: Rapier: 1d6 HKA, AP x1 +1/4, Reduced end-0 -1/2, Real -1/4, OAF -1 Str Min 8 -1/4; 19Active points

Or in some cases

8: Rapier: 1d6 Hand to Hand Killing Attack, Armor Piercing +1/4, Reduced Endurance -0 -1/2, Real Weapon -1/4, Obvious Accessible Focus -1, Strength Minimum 8 -1/4; 19Active points

These swords can also have a +1 to OCV taking up just as much space or even worse a reach modifier for a chain or pole weapon.

What a player wants to see and can see if Hero is presented in a ready to play method like the talents is.

Rapier 1d6 Killing +1 to hit

As an example here is a cut and paste from Hero System 6th Edition Equipment Guide page 22

Urumi: The urumi, or spring-sword, is a flexible sword from India; it’s also known as a velayudaya. It consists of a hilt with 1-4 blades of metal (sharpened on both edges) projecting from it. The blades are thin and flexible, allowing them to be whipped through the air and into an enemy. When not in use the urumi can be carried around the waist like a belt.

HKA 1d6 (plus STR), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½) (22 Active Points); OAF (-1), STR Minimum (12; -½), Real Weapon (-¼) (total cost: 8 points) plus Reach +1m (1 Active Point; total

cost 1 point) plus Autofire (4 shots; +½) for sword (8 Active Points); OAF (-1), Real Weapon (-¼), Requires A DEX Roll

In the end there is nothing wrong with the game mechanics and once you get a player playing it they soon find they love it. But the presentation is the most unattractive.

I do see your point and agree that a cleaner presentation is desirable.

[Ndreare]

Not sure if I am basing a dead house at this point. But I just thought a great example of this is the book that brought us into Hero.

Fantasy Hero 2nd edition and Champions 4th edition. Both had the vast majority of their write ups for characters take up half or less of a page.

The meat of the mechanics are identical and it captured our minds.

[Diamond Spear]

Not sure if I am basing a dead house at this point. But I just thought a great example of this is the book that brought us into Hero.

Fantasy Hero 2nd edition and Champions 4th edition. Both had the vast majority of their write ups for characters take up half or less of a page.

The meat of the mechanics are identical and it captured our minds.

How exactly does one "base" a dead "house"? I'd love to see the write up on that.

 

On a more serious note perhaps several of us could get together and work up some "cleaner" introductory material.

[Ndreare]

Lol, Thank you "beating a dead horse."

Lazy + Android = wrong words.

[Diamond Spear]

Thoughts on the second half of my post?

[NuSoardGraphite]

HERO Rapier: 1D6 Killing Attack, Armor Piercing (real weapon, OAF, STR Min 8)

Hardly a paragraph.

More like:

 

Rapier:

 

+1 OCV: dmg 1d6k: STRmin-8: STNX+0: notes: Armor Piercing.

 

I like to write them up as they would appear on a weapons table. most roleplayers understand this approach.

[Diamond Spear]

Yup that works well.

[zslane]

When talking about the success of Savage Worlds, I think it is worth pointing out that it began as a new set of mechanics for Deadlands. I suspect that more Savage Worlds Deluxe books get sold to players who are fascinated by the Deadlands setting(s), than for any other reason.

 

To my mind, the system's ongoing success is a tribute to the wealth of settings available, not primarily the mechanics. I doubt very many players read a brief summary of the game system and thought, gee I'd love to play with that system! I do, however, believe that lots of people read the brief summaries of settings like 50 Fathoms, Deadlands Noir, Weird Wars, Hell on Earth, and East Texas University and thought, wow I'd sure like to play in those worlds! The fact that learning the Savage Worlds game system was the intellectual price of admission was, I'm sure, entirely besides the point.

[Chris Goodwin]

And ultimately any other approach to appeal to a wider audience always comes back to changing the system in some fairly significant ways and for me that is inconceivable.

 

I completely disagree.  I think the worst that would have to happen would be to hide most of the complexity under a "front end".  Leave the full writeups for the back of the book so that, when they're ready, GMs and players can dig into them.  But nothing has to change about the system itself.  

[Eisenmann]

I'm completely new to Hero. When I opened up the core books to run a fantasy game I was completely overwhelmed. So, I went to Fantasy Hero 6th. It's a fantastic book and gets the gears turning in anticipation, but it's still doesn't provide tight enough constraints to comfortably dig in and start building. My hope is that Fantasy Hero Complete cranks things down a little bit, letting me jump in and go.

Savage Worlds was mentioned upstream. I've run a good bit, jumping from setting to setting - almost all of them my own, though bits from published settings to get pulled in from time to time. It's just so easy to get started with Savage Worlds. Hopefully Complete is Hero's analog of the Explorer Edition.

[Christopher R Taylor]

My approach with the Player's Handbook for my campaign is going to be to present players with a simplified easy approach to character creation and simple info on templates, races, skills, etc, and the GM gets the full info in their book.  The idea being you can hand someone the player book to make a character easy, and the GM has the info to know how its put together and why.

[Diamond Spear]

I'm completely new to Hero. When I opened up the core books to run a fantasy game I was completely overwhelmed. So, I went to Fantasy Hero 6th. It's a fantastic book and gets the gears turning in anticipation, but it's still doesn't provide tight enough constraints to comfortably dig in and start building. My hope is that Fantasy Hero Complete cranks things down a little bit, letting me jump in and go.

 

 

The most important thing to keep in mind about HERO is that all the work (or at least the vast majority of it) is front-loaded. The second most important thing to remember, or maybe even 1A is that "Just because you CAN stat something out in HERO doesn't mean you SHOULD". My favorite example of this is when I tried to stat out the sisters from Charmed; I was basing them on 150 points and having the devil's own time stating out Piper's Time Stop power. After an hour on the phone with a friend I hit on a brilliant solution: I wrote out a description of the power based on what it's shown doing in the show including its effects, its limits, who/what was immune to it and gave it a cost of 75 points. All this without creating a stat block for it because I realized two things: 1)Even in HERO it was impossible to exactly recreate and 2) There was no need to. Half the character's point budget was a reasonable cost for the game. Problem solved.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Savage Worlds was mentioned upstream. I've run a good bit, jumping from setting to setting - almost all of them my own, though bits from published settings to get pulled in from time to time. It's just so easy to get started with Savage Worlds. Hopefully Complete is Hero's analog of the Explorer Edition.

 

 

Yeah, that's basically what we're discussing here.  Not simplifying the game but giving it an easy jump-on point for new players, and it wouldn't be that tough to pull off.  I think the system needs a lot of support to make it easier for GMs to run a campaign and an easy hop on point for players.

[Steve]

We could call it something like "EZ Hero" but that title is already taken.

[zslane]

The system itself remains "the Hero System," and should be labelled as such in the books. The new books (product lines really) in question would be called things like Dark Nova Overdrive and Empires of the Dragon Kings and Guardians of Justice. I don't think there is any need to call out the fact that the game system has a streamlined, Read & Play format with a special label. Doing so would just confuse potential new customers who might worry they wouldn't be getting/playing the "real" Hero System.

[NuSoardGraphite]

The most important thing to keep in mind about HERO is that all the work (or at least the vast majority of it) is front-loaded. The second most important thing to remember, or maybe even 1A is that "Just because you CAN stat something out in HERO doesn't mean you SHOULD". My favorite example of this is when I tried to stat out the sisters from Charmed; I was basing them on 150 points and having the devil's own time stating out Piper's Time Stop power. After an hour on the phone with a friend I hit on a brilliant solution: I wrote out a description of the power based on what it's shown doing in the show including its effects, its limits, who/what was immune to it and gave it a cost of 75 points. All this without creating a stat block for it because I realized two things: 1)Even in HERO it was impossible to exactly recreate and 2) There was no need to. Half the character's point budget was a reasonable cost for the game. Problem solved.

I took this approach often in the 4th edition days. the old champions grognards didnt want to hear it.

 

I do think this is the way to go. it's the way i've run a lot of my games over the years. the players just need to know how much damage, how much defense, how much movement and how much endurance it costs. Anything else is superfluous. especially in the context of a heroic level game where the majority of technology one interacts with isn't paid for with points.