New Hero Fantasy GM/Player

[NuSoardGraphite]

To a certain point. I think once you get down to gritty heroic settings it can get stretched thin because it scales less well downward than upward. You can balance it around a lower baseline but at that point you are definitely into home brew or GM fiat, which works fine in Hero but also works well in many systems.

 

 

Not really.

 

It may be necessary to activate some optional rules like hit locations, impairing and disabling, stunning and replace knockback with knockdown, but none of these are house rules. And there are lots of good guidelines in the Hero and Fantasy Hero books that will help you fine tune to the genre and power level you want.

 

It then merely requires experience in play and some minor tweakingnakd fine tuning of characteristics and skills to get where you want. Once you get there, its fantastic. It requires no house ruling or going outside the system at all.

 

Of course many GMs, once they get the experience with the system like to house rule a bit to fine tune even further, but that is usually for anvery specific feel or genre convention they are attempting to simulate and not strictly necessary for general fantasy simulation.

 

But the thing to remember here us that Hero is a toolkit, and as such it is flexible enough to be bent, twisted and hammered into the exact shape that you want or a close enough approximation that will work for you.

 

 

I've found it very fine in all settings I've tried, personally.  It just takes some understanding how to make it fit and function in each settings, because there are a lot of "dials" and "switches" you can use to add optional rules, remove others, and alter fine points of the game.

This times 100. The more experience you get with Hero, the more you will be able to fit it to whatever type of game you want. The actual secret to this is getting away from standard superhero gameplay, which is a lot of players "comfort zone" with Hero....so when they try to emulqte other genres, they do so from the perspective of building supers but try to shoehorn those conventions into a heroic fantasy mold and it doesnt work well....then they assume hero isnt good for fantasy. The failing isnt the system, but their approach to it. It merely requires adjusting how one thinks about the system and basic character design and interaction for all the pieces to begin to fall into place.

[eepjr24]

 

 

Not really.

 

It may be necessary to activate some optional rules like hit locations, impairing and disabling, stunning and replace knockback with knockdown, but none of these are house rules. And there are lots of good guidelines in the Hero and Fantasy Hero books that will help you fine tune to the genre and power level you want.

 

It then merely requires experience in play and some minor tweakingnakd fine tuning of characteristics and skills to get where you want. Once you get there, its fantastic. It requires no house ruling or going outside the system at all.

 

Of course many GMs, once they get the experience with the system like to house rule a bit to fine tune even further, but that is usually for anvery specific feel or genre convention they are attempting to simulate and not strictly necessary for general fantasy simulation.

 

But the thing to remember here us that Hero is a toolkit, and as such it is flexible enough to be bent, twisted and hammered into the exact shape that you want or a close enough approximation that will work for you.

Yes, really. Try running something like The Borribles where you have creatures that have "body" that is at a much lower scale than humans (ratio is more like 10 body for a Borrible = <1 body for a human). You either have to completely change the scale of things (scale up body for humans) or home brew how the lower level damages work between Borribles and other creatures on the same scale.

 

- E

[NuSoardGraphite]

Yes, really. Try running something like The Borribles where you have creatures that have "body" that is at a much lower scale than humans (ratio is more like 10 body for a Borrible = <1 body for a human). You either have to completely change the scale of things (scale up body for humans) or home brew how the lower level damages work between Borribles and other creatures on the same scale.

 

- E

If everyone is playing "Borribles" then you just scale everything accordingly. The Borribles become the new standard and are now Body 10 and everything else scales from there.

 

Scale in Hero is not difficult. The default is human scale (as in human normal is Body 10). If the entire campaign is run on a different scale, then everything shifts accordingly.

 

But this is a TOTALLY different subject than a shift in power level. From Supers (most peoples default assumptions with Hero) to Heroic, which some people think Hero cant do because of their default assumptions. Preconcieved notions have to be overcome and a shift in perspective made and everything falls into place.

 

I would also expect that every other game system ever devised with maybe one or two exceptions would have the same or worse difficulty with a change in scale like you suggest. Mainly because so few people run games with diminunative protagonists and it is not figured into the basic equation when the system is designed.

[eepjr24]

If everyone is playing "Borribles" then you just scale everything accordingly. The Borribles become the new standard and are now Body 10 and everything else scales from there.

 

Scale in Hero is not difficult. The default is human scale (as in human normal is Body 10). If the entire campaign is run on a different scale, then everything shifts accordingly.

 

But this is a TOTALLY different subject than a shift in power level. From Supers (most peoples default assumptions with Hero) to Heroic, which some people think Hero cant do because of their default assumptions. Preconcieved notions have to be overcome and a shift in perspective made and everything falls into place.

And you are then into GM Fiat or House rules. Like I said, It scales upward fine, downward to a certain point well and less so after. I know from other topics you don't agree here and that is fine. I don't need for use to agree. Just for others to realize that there are a variety of opinions on the issue.

 

FYI, Borribles exist in the human world and interact with them in various ways, so you can't just switch to 10 body for Borribles without significant shift upward in human and other objects bodies. The impacts are wide ranging, not a simple hand wave if you want to have mechanics that work broadly and well the way they do in Hero System normally. Can it be done? Yes. Is it trivial or even easy? No.

 

- E

[NuSoardGraphite]

And you are then into GM Fiat or House rules. Like I said, It scales upward fine, downward to a certain point well and less so after. I know from other topics you don't agree here and that is fine. I don't need for use to agree. Just for others to realize that there are a variety of opinions on the issue.

I may have misunderstood your meaning when you mentioned scale, mistaking you for meaning power level and not scale of size. Every other game system on the market that I am familiar with would have similar or worse problems when scaling down like that.

 

FYI, Borribles exist in the human world and interact with them in various ways, so you can't just switch to 10 body for Borribles without significant shift upward in human and other objects bodies. The impacts are wide ranging, not a simple hand wave if you want to have mechanics that work broadly and well the way they do in Hero System normally. Can it be done? Yes. Is it trivial or even easy? No.

 

- E

You would treat humans the same way you would treat larger and tougher opponents such as dragons and giants when humans are the normal scale.

 

They have more Body, more defense, more strength, but are much easier to hit. None of this is house ruling, just shifting the scale. None of this is outside the system at all. You can simply assign human scale and larger things Damage Reduction or Damage Negation to represent the difficulty of a fairy sized creature has in trying to damage them. A house rule? Yes, but one that fits entirely within the confines of the toolkit given to us.

 

Stop thinking of Hero in the same way that you think of other RPGs. It is not that. If you cant stop thinking of it in that way, your ability tonuse Hero will always be limited. Once you understand the toolkit approach (there is no such thing as a wrong way to do things in Hero....do what you need to get to the game you want) then an entire universe of possibilities are opened to you.

 

In fact, if a mechanic is present in the books, I dont ever think of it as a house rule if I find a new way of using that mechanic. The nature of Hero not only allows for it, but encourages it.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Dont feel like i'm picking on you. I have this same conversation every year with Hero veterans. Its just a different perspective on the system. I picked up on it years ago before the authors even started calling the system a "toolkit" and I used to get a lot of hate for my approach to the system.

 

After the 5th edition came out and the game began being presented as a highly malleable "toolkit" many others began seeing what I saw in the system long ago. It requires a shift in perspectives on how one views the role of the system in an RPG that is similar to the shift one is needed to understand Player Agency in the Fate RPG.

 

But dont mind me. When someone says "Hero cant do this well" I will inevitably come around and argue with them about it. But it seems you picked up on this dynamic.

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK fine, if you want to play a game where you're a squirrel, Hero probably isn't your best choice.  Ya got me.  Have fun playing squirrels, I guess.

[bigbywolfe]

That is like complaining that D&D wasn't work well to play Redwall with mice and rats or Savage Worlds doesn't "scale well" when trying to play A Bug's Life. Obviously you have to change the scale so that your default creature is the norm.

 

No system besides narrative-heavy abstract story games like Fate will "scale down" the way you claim you want. Any system with ANY amount of crunch or granularity will not scale down to playing insects or rodents, you have to change the scale.

 

This is completely different than saying Hero is only good for Superheroes and doesn't "scale down" well. It scales down just fine to virtually any setting that has humans as the default characters.

[Pegasus40218]

This times 100. The more experience you get with Hero, the more you will be able to fit it to whatever type of game you want. The actual secret to this is getting away from standard superhero gameplay, which is a lot of players "comfort zone" with Hero....so when they try to emulqte other genres, they do so from the perspective of building supers but try to shoehorn those conventions into a heroic fantasy mold and it doesnt work well....then they assume hero isnt good for fantasy. The failing isnt the system, but their approach to it. It merely requires adjusting how one thinks about the system and basic character design and interaction for all the pieces to begin to fall into place.

 

I've been running (more correctly, trying to run) HERO for a couple of years.  My biggest problem hasn't been the suitability of the game system for running fantasy.  My biggest problem has been understanding and maintaining game balance, in part because my players don't seem to understand or want to maintain game balance.  Other game systems used with my group -- such as Pathfinder and D&D -- have the game balance mechanisms built in.  If, in your D&D games, the players focus was all about combinations of feats to maximize DPS (damage per second), then you're likely to run into similar issues with HERO, but you - as the GM - have to be able to recognize and impose the limits necessary to keep the game in balance.  If your players are more focused on story rather than maximizing power, you may not have this problem...but many D&D players don't have a self-limiting mentality, so you have to watch out for characters who can't be hit, or whose defenses make them virtually immune to damage.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I've been running (more correctly, trying to run) HERO for a couple of years. My biggest problem hasn't been the suitability of the game system for running fantasy. My biggest problem has been understanding and maintaining game balance, in part because my players don't seem to understand or want to maintain game balance. Other game systems used with my group -- such as Pathfinder and D&D -- have the game balance mechanisms built in. If, in your D&D games, the players focus was all about combinations of feats to maximize DPS (damage per second), then you're likely to run into similar issues with HERO, but you - as the GM - have to be able to recognize and impose the limits necessary to keep the game in balance. If your players are more focused on story rather than maximizing power, you may not have this problem...but many D&D players don't have a self-limiting mentality, so you have to watch out for characters who can't be hit, or whose defenses make them virtually immune to damage.

Game balance is the bane of all new Hero GMs and is tough to pin down till you get experience with the system. But you will get there eventually.

 

My suggestion when it comes to Fantasy Hero and other Heroic level games, is treat it like D&D. This means your players shouldnt be designing their weapons from their own pool of points. Use the default weapons, armor etc out of the Fantasy Hero books. Players spend points on their characters characteristics, skills and Talents/powers (spells or magical gifts etc)but with a strict active point AND limitation cap at least at the start of the game. And all special Talents and magical powers must follow the characters theme or background (no special abilities just cause) and be approved by the GM. If you must, limit the starting points to 50+50. (I use 75+75) extra points arent needed specifically because characters arent paying points for weapons and armor. It has worked for me for quite a long time. If you havent tried running in that fashion, I suggest giving it atest run to see if you like it.

[bigdamnhero]

bigdamnhero you have been great!!! You have been really clear, much more clear than the handbook (Steve Long, please forgive me!!)... This is a important step forward for my setting.

 

Please don't misunderstand me, Hero System is great but my feeling is that the system is great for the superheroes campaign but less effective if applied to other settings... 

Glad I could help!

 

Personally I think Hero works great for most non-supers settings; my first Hero game was fantasy, and I played exclusively heroic-level for more than a decade. The thing is that if you run Hero with all options turned on, all the "valves" wide open and all the "dials" maxed out, well that's really only appropriate for supers where everything is supposed to be over the top. With fantasy or other heroic genres, you just have to be a little more careful about reining things in, turning this off, throttling that down to 1/2, etc. Unfortunately you would not be the first person to point out that the current rules don't always do a great job of showing new GMs how/where/when to do that.

 

This is completely different than saying Hero is only good for Superheroes and doesn't "scale down" well. It scales down just fine to virtually any setting that has humans as the default characters.

Agreed. Can't say I've ever done Squirrel Hero before, so can't comment there. But I've run a fair number of Normal People games, and the only change I've had to make is lowering the Max Lifts on the Strength table, as that's the only thing that is benchmarked to anything in the real world. Everything else is only meaningful in comparison to other characters in the campaign, so an 18 DEX is exactly as fast as you want to say it is, no more, no less.

[eepjr24]

Agreed. Can't say I've ever done Squirrel Hero before, so can't comment there. But I've run a fair number of Normal People games, and the only change I've had to make is lowering the Max Lifts on the Strength table, as that's the only thing that is benchmarked to anything in the real world. Everything else is only meaningful in comparison to other characters in the campaign, so an 18 DEX is exactly as fast as you want to say it is, no more, no less.

Other things that are tied to the real world are BODY, PD and ED (6e2 171), Movement speed, Vehicle sizes, Base Sizes, and Area of Effect sizes off the top of my head. While all of these can be dealt with in some way, shape or form with house rules, rescaling the granularity of measure for mass/density or length, etc. they are not handled well with existing RAW or optional rules. 

 

I am NOT a Hero hater. It is my favorite system, by far, and has been since the early 90's. But when people say it handles anything without house rules, I just don't see it. I have run into things it handles poorly, though they are few and far between. For the most part, it handles things that other systems struggle with as well, like "The Net" in CyberPunk games. But I said my piece, everyone is going to make up their own minds and decide whether any of this is relevant for themselves in any case. =)

 

- E

[bigdamnhero]

Other things that are tied to the real world are BODY, PD and ED (6e2 171), Movement speed, Vehicle sizes, Base Sizes, and Area of Effect sizes off the top of my head.

OK, fair points. I've never found those to be a problem in my games, but it sounds like Your Mileage Has Varied.

 

While all of these can be dealt with in some way, shape or form with house rules, rescaling the granularity of measure for mass/density or length, etc...

My point exactly. I think we're basically saying the same thing; I just consider rescaling Hero to be so trivial it barely qualifies as a house rule.

 

...they are not handled well with existing RAW or optional rules.

Skimming through 6e2 Chapter 10, Changing The System, it looks like rescaling down to smaller-size games is one thing they don't specifically address. I see only one solution: Borrible Hero. I look forward to backing your Kickstarter!

[eepjr24]

Skimming through 6e2 Chapter 10, Changing The System, it looks like rescaling down to smaller-size games is one thing they don't specifically address. I see only one solution: Borrible Hero. I look forward to backing your Kickstarter!

 

I think I shall dub it Hero Nonpariel. It will cover the worlds of minute heros who co-exist with creatures (humans and otherwise) from 12 to 1,000 times their size. It will rely heavily on section 10 to toolkit sizes, speeds and other equivalencies in the human world. 

 

- E

[Ninja-Bear]

What is a Borrible?

[eepjr24]

What is a Borrible?

A creature in a set of young adult novels from the late 70's that addressed class warfare and inequality in a way that children can relate with. Pretty grim stuff for the times, set in London, though a rather gritty, rough and tumble version that represented how the underclass saw the world.

 

- E

[eepjr24]

I probably should have picked the Lilliputians, it is a better known example. But you could just as easily use Beverly Cleary's mouse Ralph or the Secret of Nimh or Fantastic Voyage.... the list goes on.

 

- E

[bigdamnhero]

What is a Borrible?

Yeah, I had to Google it...

[eepjr24]

Adding a few more references for anyone else who hits the thread:

 

A World Unseen

The Borrowers

Honey I shrunk the kids

Horton Hears a Who

Nor Iron Bars

The Rescuers

Schild's Ladder

 

Thematically, it would be probably most common in super hero land with the trope of the "shrink ray", although there are certainly methods in science fiction and fantasy to name a couple.

 

- E

[bigdamnhero]

The Ultimate Metamorph section on "the Microverse" discusses some of this, but it doesn't go into a lot of detail.

[eepjr24]

The Ultimate Metamorph section on "the Microverse" discusses some of this, but it doesn't go into a lot of detail.

Ah, 5th edition only, don't own that one. Have a lot before 5 and a lot after, did not do much in 5e.

[iena]

Dears,

I'm very happy of this warm participation to this discussion... The forum is so...Alive and kicking!!!!

Coming back to my initial speech... I said that the Hero System seems, in my humble opinion, not so suitable for heroic setting... well, I should have chosen some more appropriate words to make me understand. Virtually with the Hero System it's possible to create and manage any kind of setting but sometime this is not so immediate... Reading the "fantasy Hero Complete" I was a bit surprised of finding a lot of interesting option to manage the magic system and wizards and so few examples and options for the other type of characters... Why my "double blade multipower" seemed so original and nothing similar can be found in the handbook... Well, imho, the answer is that the creation of such kind of multipower is really complicated if you want to keep it a bit flexible... And in fact the best suggestion was to use a naked advantage applied to a multipower and bla bla bla... obtaining at the end something very borderline with the official rules... In D&D, if my warrior knows a maneuver... I can use it with every weapon I'm familiar with... and full stop... but the draw back is that very often the d&d system is not so balanced as Hero System is... It's always matter of finding the right compromise between complexity of the system and fun during the session. For the moment I'm doing all the work with my party... I listen to my party (what kind of characters they want, what the characters are able to do etc etc) and I try to translate everything in terms of rules... They only get the final product.... without any calculation in the between... 

As usual, sorry for my poor english.

[Wardsman]

Th8s is easy to mitigate. As a part of your spell system, say mages cannot wear metal armor and also cast spells. Thus you will have mages relying on light armors but also stacking magic defenses with them which wont be too overwhelming.

 

How I solved it in my game is I have the Armor encumbrance penalty also affect spell casting rolls. This makes it so mages will run around in the lightest armor they can. My last Fantasy Hero game, the party mage only wore heavy robes (rdef 1) until she got some enchanted robes that provided 5 defense for her. With her Shield spell (10pd, 10ed Force Field) she had a 15 res def, but by that point, it was late in the game and the enemies they faced were quite a bit more powerful so she needed it.

I let mages wear metal but they must deal with the nasty encumbrance penalties.

[eepjr24]

Dears,

I'm very happy of this warm participation to this discussion... The forum is so...Alive and kicking!!!!

Coming back to my initial speech... I said that the Hero System seems, in my humble opinion, not so suitable for heroic setting... well, I should have chosen some more appropriate words to make me understand. Virtually with the Hero System it's possible to create and manage any kind of setting but sometime this is not so immediate... Reading the "fantasy Hero Complete" I was a bit surprised of finding a lot of interesting option to manage the magic system and wizards and so few examples and options for the other type of characters... Why my "double blade multipower" seemed so original and nothing similar can be found in the handbook... Well, imho, the answer is that the creation of such kind of multipower is really complicated if you want to keep it a bit flexible... And in fact the best suggestion was to use a naked advantage applied to a multipower and bla bla bla... obtaining at the end something very borderline with the official rules... In D&D, if my warrior knows a maneuver... I can use it with every weapon I'm familiar with... and full stop... but the draw back is that very often the d&d system is not so balanced as Hero System is... It's always matter of finding the right compromise between complexity of the system and fun during the session. For the moment I'm doing all the work with my party... I listen to my party (what kind of characters they want, what the characters are able to do etc etc) and I try to translate everything in terms of rules... They only get the final product.... without any calculation in the between... 

As usual, sorry for my poor english.

Your English is much better than me in any other language. =)

 

The concern you raise here is not uncommon and not limited to Heroic level or Fantasy Hero. Much of the work with a gaming toolkit is in establishing how your campaign or world works. There are other "setting" books like Narosia that can help further with this, but in the end the decisions are the GM's.

 

- E

[Pegasus40218]

Game balance is the bane of all new Hero GMs and is tough to pin down till you get experience with the system. But you will get there eventually.

 

My suggestion when it comes to Fantasy Hero and other Heroic level games, is treat it like D&D. This means your players shouldnt be designing their weapons from their own pool of points. Use the default weapons, armor etc out of the Fantasy Hero books. Players spend points on their characters characteristics, skills and Talents/powers (spells or magical gifts etc)but with a strict active point AND limitation cap at least at the start of the game. And all special Talents and magical powers must follow the characters theme or background (no special abilities just cause) and be approved by the GM. If you must, limit the starting points to 50+50. (I use 75+75) extra points arent needed specifically because characters arent paying points for weapons and armor. It has worked for me for quite a long time. If you havent tried running in that fashion, I suggest giving it atest run to see if you like it.

 

Yeah...My first few attempts have been using the "Standard Heroic" point guidelines (125 + 50) specified in 6E1 and normal characteristic maxima, etc.  Maybe it's too many points...maybe the player builds have been too powerful, or powerful in ways that aren't necessarily immediately apparent (unless you know what to look for).  For example, my players tend to focus (almost exclusively) on combat capabilities.  As a result, if I set a CV range of 3 to 7 to start, I'm going to wind up with 6 characters with base OCVs of 7 and DCVs of 7 (my original understanding of what that cap meant)...Then they'll start adding in the skill levels and martial maneuvers.  What I end up with is a party of characters using the Defensive Strike maneuver (+1 OCV, +3 DCV) almost exclusively, along with 2 2-point CSLs (+1 OCV) giving them an effective OCV and DCV of 10...and trying to use "stock" critters out of the Bestiary such as Orcs or Ogres (OCV 4, DCV 4) means that the players will only miss on an 18 (1/216), and their opponents will only hit on a 3, 4, or 5 (10/216) -- so it becomes significantly more difficult to create challenging combat encounters without having to do a lot of "customization" of the creatures.

 

Now, over time, I suspect that most GMs will develop some quick and easy templates that they can apply to "stock" critters to toughen them up a bit and keep things interesting.  A starting GM probably won't have done this -- the expectation being that stock critters from the book should be sufficiently challenging for "new" characters.

 

So, in my experience, truly understanding the "effectiveness" caps and ​everything that can contribute to them is critical for someone just starting to run the game.