The HERO system syndrome

[Hyper-Man]

My HERO collection destroyed my bookshelf and killed my dog.

 

 

 

not really....

HM

[Amorkca]

My HERO collection destroyed my bookshelf and killed my dog.

 

 

 

not really....

HM

The bookshelf's ok right??

[TheDarkness]

I've seen pictures of people's bookshelves in the thread about people's hero collections. There's a lot of dogs in great danger!

[Hyper-Man]

The bookshelf's ok right??

 

Yes.  No bookshelves where harmed during the creation of my posts.

 

 

It is looking a little droopy in the middle though.  Probably due to being made of press-board and the high humidity here in Florida.

HM

[Ninja-Bear]

Hero destroyed my.bank account!

[Tasha]

My hero books are on an Oak Bookshelf. As long as one of the big earthquake faults don't let go, my Dog and Cats should be fine. Though my Hero Collection is very extensive and deep

[Scott Ruggels]

I keep mine in a filing cabinet...

[Hugh Neilson]

Endeavoring to dump a steaming pile (of a game) onto the hobby, and doing it really well, is hardly worthy of praise in my book.

The fact that I do not care for a specific gaming style does not mean that someone who creates a game that caters to that gaming style merits criticism for their efforts.

 

I am not a fan of the Lucha Libre genre. That means I don't buy Lucha Libre Hero. Those who are fans of the genre will decide whether it is a good effort or a poor one (given the authors, I suspect it is stellar). How many fans of that genre (or game style) exist will determine how well it sells.

 

The short life of D&D 4e suggests to me that the market for that particular game style was not as large as WOTC envisioned or hoped, not that 4e failed to deliver what it set out to deliver. It has its own passionate fans, who presumably like what it set out to deliver.

[zslane]

The fact that I do not care for a specific gaming style does not mean that someone who creates a game that caters to that gaming style merits criticism for their efforts.

 

There are plenty of reasons why D&D 4e merits scathing criticism; a misguided desire to copy an incongruent game-play model is just the most prominent of them.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I never begrudge people for having fun with what they do (unless it involves causing harm to others).  If you like playing 4th edition, more power to you, have fun.  But that doesn't make it a good game system or an aberration for what they did to D&D in the process.  There's a good reason they rapidly went to 5th and pretend 4th never happened.  Its like Highlander 2.

[Nemblamenchisus]

I do love several different RPG systems, not always because of the quality of the rules, but there are other reasons like nostalgia, nice shiny books with nice art, popularity making it easier to find other players, etc. But Hero is the best ruleset bar none. It's not even a contest. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but if only people could see that in play, once chargen is done, it offers a simple and fast-moving experience. Flexibility of character concept is not the only selling point.

 

So anyway, I've bought sets of Hero Games books several times over and will continue to do so. My most recent thing is collecting all the different 3e genre games. I was kind of surprised how sophisticated the rules and presentation was already by the time of Fantasy Hero (1985), it was already comprehensive only 4 years after the first release of Champions. 

[Ninja-Bear]

I have found that between playing Hero and being on the boards and taking Steve Long's advice to heart about overruling when needed based in game needs, that I'm very confident of tweaking other game systems to suit my needs. Yes true believers there are times due to.various needs that Hero is NOT the best game system. I still enjoy it nonetheless.

[Hugh Neilson]

I never begrudge people for having fun with what they do (unless it involves causing harm to others).  If you like playing 4th edition, more power to you, have fun.  But that doesn't make it a good game system or an aberration for what they did to D&D in the process.  There's a good reason they rapidly went to 5th and pretend 4th never happened.  Its like Highlander 2.

There are gamers who still play 1e because, to them, the changes moving to 2e were Highlander 2. Many others stick to 3e (or 3.5e, or Pathfinder) rather than move to 4e or 5e. Some consider OD&D or BECMI superior to AD&D or anything it evolved into.

 

Just like some Hero players prefer prior editions to the current one.

 

Any one edition may be better or worse for the games I want to play, but I don't believe any can be classified as objectively "better" or "worse". If the players are enjoying the game, then the game is doing something right.

[Hyper-Man]

 

just kidding

 

HM

[zslane]

Any one edition may be better or worse for the games I want to play, but I don't believe any can be classified as objectively "better" or "worse". If the players are enjoying the game, then the game is doing something right.

 

Well, a good pizza would be considered a piss poor Big Mac. By way of analogy, if the first two editions of AD&D were a Big Macs, then the third edition was a veggie burger, and the fourth edition was a pizza. In terms of carrying on the decades-long hamburger tradition, the 4th edition is a really rotten representative (i.e., it is a really bad burger). Making a pizza and marketing it as a Big Mac may please pizza fans who don't care what it is called as long as it tastes good, but it will most definitely disappoint consumers who want and expect a burger.

[Hugh Neilson]

This presumes that the differences between 4e and other editions are reasonably analogized to the differences between a pizza and a burger, but the changes between other editions were not.

 

The differences between OD&D, BECMI, AD&D 1e and AD&D 2e were, in my view, pretty minor. That said, I played AD&D, and did not play BECMI, and I know a number of other gamers who did the same, many of whom were quite critical of the other options. Back in the 1e day, I remember a player noting the worst thing that could happen to a real gamer was being invited to a game of D&D to find it was D&D, not AD&D.

 

To me, 3e was a brand-new game, not a continuation of the old model. Ditto 4e and 5e.

 

So, applying your analogy, perhaps it would be more appropriately stated that:

 

- we had a Big Mac and a Quarter Pounder in OD&D/BECMI and AD&D 1e and 2e;

 

- we got a Pizza with 3e, extra cheese with 3.5e and some different toppings with Pathfinder;

 

- 4e brought us a Burrito (I'm not really a Mexican food fan);

 

- 5e delivered Fried Chicken.

 

I'm not sure what that makes every other game out there, though.

 

Hero is an all you can eat buffet, I guess. Other multi-genre game systems would similarly be buffets with different items on the menu.

 

[Why am I suddenly hungry?]

[Burrito Boy]

- 4e brought us a Burrito (I'm not really a Mexican food fan)

So I'm the edition everybody hates. Not cool, dude.

 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have something in my eye.

 

 

[Joe Walsh]

Hero's more of a fully-stocked commercial kitchen. GURPS is the mile-long buffet.

 

As far as D&D, OD&D with all supplements leads pretty much straight into AD&D without a bump. But the three original books are a different thing: a very simple game, even simpler than BECMI if you get past the presentation. So I'd split it differently, with the original OD&D three little books on the one side with the Basic Sets, and then OD&D with supplements on the side of AD&D.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I thought 3rd edition was a great work at taking AD&D into the new century, it was cleverly done while still feeling like D&D.  4th, not so much.  I know little to nothing about 5th.

[Lucius]

It is a testament to the ubiquity of D&D that people are discussing and comparing editions of it here.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary laments that it is inescapable.

[Hugh Neilson]

So I'm the edition everybody hates. Not cool, dude.

Lots of people like Mexican (and I like some Mexican, at least sometimes). None of the editions, I believe, are to everyone's taste., and all appealed to a pretty large number. Most games would be thrilled to get sales close to 4e D&D! 

 

As far as D&D, OD&D with all supplements leads pretty much straight into AD&D without a bump. But the three original books are a different thing: a very simple game, even simpler than BECMI if you get past the presentation. So I'd split it differently, with the original OD&D three little books on the one side with the Basic Sets, and then OD&D with supplements on the side of AD&D.

Not sure I'd agree where the line is drawn, but that's really the crux of the issue - everyone will draw those lines differently. Supplements muddy the waters further.

 

I didn't see a huge change from 1e to 2e, but as I think on it, 2e moved the Bard to a standard character class, radically changed the Cleric, introduced specialist Wizards, IIRC removed the Monk and the Assassin, changed the Thief (did he become a Rogue? I think that was 3e, but not certain) to make his skills customizable and altered several staple spells (Magic Missile being the easy one to point to). Enough change that, to some, it was a new game, but I think it was the most "evolutionary" rather than "revolutionary" change.

 

AD&D severed Race from Class, a big change from OD&D and BECMI.

 

I contrast the AD&D editions with Hero, where each edition varies the system, rather than creating a brand-new system. In my view, reverse compatibility was probably overly emphasized in 6e. We decouple DEX, OCV and DCV, but the example characters don't really show this off. Instead, they match the traditional "even the clumsiest Brick has the DEX of an Olympic gymnast, if not more" model, and OCV generally equals DCV, so that those old published characters can be used without modification.

 

That's probably a marketing weakness compared to the more common model of "now we rewrite all of our supplements to accord with the new rules system - you don't have 6e Mechanon until we publish him".

[Joe Walsh]

 

AD&D severed Race from Class, a big change from OD&D and BECMI.

 

Race-as-class came in with B/X D&D in 1981.  OD&D had separate race and class, handling it with restrictions like AD&D.  

 

Without the supplements, OD&D was really a different game -- all classes and all monsters had d6 hit dice. All weapons did d6 damage. The default combat system was the one in Chainmail, which uses D6's for "to hit" rolls, so it wasn't even a d20 system!

 

OD&D was changed radically by with the release of the Greyhawk supplement. That's where you find most of the stuff familiar from AD&D.

 

(Now that they're available cheaply in PDF format, I heartily recommend anyone interested in the history of RPGs get Chainmail, OD&D, and the supplements from DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. I didn't come to the hobby until B/X had been released, so I never bothered getting OD&D when it was in the bargain bin at Kay Bee Toys in the mid-80s, more's the pity. But I did grab the PDFs, and very much enjoyed reading them.)

 

 

I contrast the AD&D editions with Hero, where each edition varies the system, rather than creating a brand-new system. In my view, reverse compatibility was probably overly emphasized in 6e. We decouple DEX, OCV and DCV, but the example characters don't really show this off. Instead, they match the traditional "even the clumsiest Brick has the DEX of an Olympic gymnast, if not more" model, and OCV generally equals DCV, so that those old published characters can be used without modification.

 

That's probably a marketing weakness compared to the more common model of "now we rewrite all of our supplements to accord with the new rules system - you don't have 6e Mechanon until we publish him".

 

I don't know whether it was good or bad, but it certainly was different! Very few games have maintained so much compatibility between editions.

[Scott Ruggels]

Took a trip to a local Comic Book store (Meltdown Comics on Sunset Blvd, west of La Brea. in West Hollywood). On a Sunday, they had two Gamin tables going on the floor. One was a system I did not recognize with 6 players, and the larger table with 8 players was playing 5e D&D.  I will ask what the rental on a table there is, and what the waiting list is like, but I found it interesting that 5th Edition is becoming very popular on Roll20.net as well. something about the rules, they did right as even players in my current games have good things to say, and run 5e. Something about the streamlining of the rules that now makes Pathfinder look complex and disorganized.

 

However i the last couple of years as I have gotten back into gaming. I am recovering the urge to run again. For me it has to be hero, because even though it's been almost 20 years since I have run a game, I still "think" in Hero (mostly 4th Ed, though I think I bought a big black book when it came out). For hero though, I think presentation is the key. In another thread, an effort of making a  light "Players handbook" version of Fantasy Hero. It doesn't replace Fantasy hero Complete, but serves as a system introduction and a "Quick start" pamphlet for players new to the system and introduces them to the stats, and how combat works, and in the appendix, there is equipment, a few spells and a short discussion on how points work, and every footnote refe4rs to FHC,  I think presentation is the key.

The Thread:  http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94641-problems-with-fantasy-hero-complete-and-newbies/page-24 

 The PDF  written by Xotl:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/eye2cr3axykrf06/Fantasy%20Hero%20Primer.pdf?dl=0 

I hope this is found as useful.

[Durzan Malakim]

Which complication best describes you?

 

I prefer the HERO System [Psychological Complication]: Situation Is (Common Intensity Is Moderate) 10

If it ain't HERO System, it's crap! [Psychological Complication]: Situation Is (Common Intensity Is Strong) 15

I am one with the HERO System, the HERO System is with me... [Psychological Complication]: Situation Is (Common Intensity Is Total) 20

 

I only have a 10-point complication myself but that might be because of skills:

 

11- KS: D&D Editions 2

11- KS: GURPS editions 2

11- KS: HERO System 6th ed 2

8-   KS: HERO System editions 1

8-   KS: ICONS 1

11- Conversation 3

11- Deduction 3

11- Persuasion 3

[zslane]

MIne is probably the 15 point version.