What's your favorite edition of Hero System/Champions?

[incrdbil]

6th edition, without hesitation. I cannot fathom sticking with an earlier edition. It's an improvement in every way.

[Joe Walsh]

I started with 2nd edition, which was a huge revelation to me at the time in terms of game design. Loved it to pieces.

 

3rd edition was a nice improvement, and HERO System really started to come into its own with the other HERO System games released at the time.

 

4th was wonderful. It brought everything together under one set of covers.

 

5th was OK. It fixed some things, and had some nicely crafted supplements.

 

5eR was too much of a good thing. To this day I still haven't read through the whole thing, cover-to-cover.

 

Same for 6e, only more so. But they're beautiful books!

 

Champs Complete is fine, and was a sorely needed return to marketplace viability in terms of rulebook size.

 

But 4e will always be my sweet spot, and the one I return to (albeit with some good ideas from 5e).

 

(I'd back a Kickstarter for a bugfixed BBB -- or even HERO System Rulesbook -- in a heartbeat.)

 

[tkdguy]

4th and 5th for me.

[IndianaJoe3]

I think that 6th has my favorite mechanics, but I have a lot of nostalgic love for the BBB and general support that 4e had.

[Lord Liaden]

16 hours ago, GM Joe said:

(I'd back a Kickstarter for a bugfixed BBB -- or even HERO System Rulesbook -- in a heartbeat.)

 

 

Would errata for it help?

BBB ERRATA1.TXT

BBB Errata2.txt

[Joe Walsh]

25 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Would errata for it help?

BBB ERRATA1.TXT

BBB Errata2.txt

 

Errata is essential (especially rravenwood's excellent compilation), but it would be even nicer to have a 4e rulebook that was properly copyedited, had a comprehensive index, had internal page number references instead of "See {topic}," and included the two or three rule changes from 5e that seem to have near-universal appeal to 4e gamers.

[lemming]

I'm happy with 6e.   I certainly played more 1-3e than any of the other editions, but I've run a few 6e games at cons and it plays 90% the same.

I liked the tone of the writing thru 4th edition, but 5 & 6 were way more accurate.

[Duke Bushido]

On August 28, 2018 at 4:51 AM, Doc Democracy said:

 

 

There is a lot of love for 4th edition, and I think that is probably because it was created with an emphasis on the genre rather than the rules, 5th and 6th focussed on the mechanics over the genre and the rulebooks reflect that.

 

 

You know, Doc; you may well be on to something there, on the whole.  I have to say, though, that the turn-off for me was the combination of focus not so much on mechanics as on minutiae, and combat as "the only reason to play this game."  Not in so many words, but look at the focus on combat over pretty much anything else, at least in 5 and re-5.  That, and the overwhelming feeling that the whole goal was to make the GM superfluous.  (or at least so tied up in flipping pages that he couldn't participate in any meaningful way )  Couldn't finish 6e.

 

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 I note most of those who prefer earlier editions port in the things that they like from later editions.

 

[2]

I also think that while many call later editions bloated, these very forums demonstrate a desire for more detail on how things work - that indicates that the drift to textbook like rulebooks was a response to what the fan base seemed to want.  I appreciate all of the detail when I am getting into debates here on the forums, it explains the detail of how the power is intended to work.

 

To be fair (and, being even more fair, I can't speak for any play group but the ones I am in or where in at the relevant times of these events and decisions), importing things from later editions was something we did more as a courtesy to new players who were familiar with the newer editions.  Consider the time between 2e and 4e.  (I got my copy of 3e about two weeks before BBB landed in my local FLIBs-- I missed it originally, and the owner happened to find one and picked it up for me.  I miss that place.)

 

The fact is that _long_ before there were formalized rules covering whatever wasn't in the book we were using, we already had well-tested and forged house rules that covered it.  By the time we picked up the new stuff, we found for the most part we were either happier with our house rules (to this _day_ we don't use any published vehicle rules: we use a character sheet.) or our house rules were so close in line with the brand new "official" rules that it only took a tweak, maybe two (usually pricing) to make them identical.  Considering we were that close, we would usually just convert to the new rule.

 

Same with the time between 4th and 5th (or, for us, 2nd and 5th): by the time it came around, we already had rules to cover the new material.  We had been using "Upscaled" for years before there was an official "Megascale," for example, and "Fatigue" (in grimmer heroic campaigns) long before there was an LTE.  So yeah, when we'd get a new player or two who cut his teeth on the newer stuff, if it was close enough to what we were doing, we'd make the switch, at least on those things that were very similar.  Honestly, it was more to make a new (and desirable) player feel welcome than it was of any need.

 

No-- I don't pretend to be all psychic or trendy or cutting edge or anything like that: we loved the game; we played a lot, and at some point, we wanted to do something for which there were at that time no "official" rules.  I'm one-hundred-percent certain that every single long-time player on this board did the same with his group or groups.

 

My sincerest apologies: I do not mean at all for that to sound like a rant, but looking at that block of text, I realize that it may well come off that way.  I am sorry, and I do not mean it to.  I simply felt it important to say that there are many of us who didn't take from the new stuff because for one reason or another it was simply convenient, not because it was needed.

 

 

2)  I will cede your point one-hundred percent, but I would like to offer a counter:

 

What percentage of how-should-this-work type questions are asked simply to hear a few other opinions, and get the creative juices flowing, or simple validation as opposed to specifically wanting printed-and-bound book answers?  Certainly not all, but there must be a few.  

 

(See?  Much less verbose that time! )

 

 

On August 29, 2018 at 2:47 PM, zslane said:

I agree that the presentation of the system in the 6e Complete books is a vast improvement over the inscrutable reference tomes that are 6e1/6e2. However, it'll never become my go-to edition because there are simply too many low-level system changes I don't get on with. It "fixed" (or eliminated) too many things I never considered broken, and I don't like having to retrain my brain for little or no practical benefit.

 

Ditto for me, on all counts.  Thanks for putting into words what I could not.

 

 

On September 1, 2018 at 4:48 PM, GM Joe said:

 

Quote

5th was OK. It fixed some things, and had some nicely crafted supplements.

 

I wasn't crazy about 5e, but I have to say this:  

 

Steve and Co pumped out some of the absolute _best_ sourcebooks and genre books I have seen from any game company, ever.  I wish I could have afforded them when they were coming out (man that guy can write fast!), because they are hard to find now.

 

I just had to add that; credit where it's due and all that.

 

 

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Same for 6e, only more so. But they're beautiful books!

 

We'll just have to agree on "6e was too much of a thing" and call it good. This is _only_ the opinion of one single person, a person who totally understands the difference between opinion and fact, and who has no interest in changing anyone's mind away from something that they like, but from what I could get through of 6e (which was most of book 1, and that's it), it doesn't even feel like Champions / HERO to me.  It's not the focus-on-mechanics argument that Doc made above (though that is a good argument), it's more along zslane's comment of "fixing and eliminating things that weren't broken" and adding so many goofy modifiers and ways to use them that the cost column might as well just say "pay what you want."   That, and the elimination of Transfer reminds me of a really, really old discussion from when when I was on this board time-before-last where I commented that if you really wanted to, you could boil the whole thing down to two powers: "Affect Universe" and "Resist Universe."  You can do it, but it's not Champions.

 

 

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Champs Complete is fine, and was a sorely needed return to marketplace viability in terms of rulebook size.

 

That's why I picked it up, honestly: a complete Champions book.  Looks good, and honestly, it was time for another on in the line up: been a long time since the BBB, and frankly, I like the thinner book and the paper binding as it even "feels" more like a Champions book.  Compare 1e, 2e, 3e, and CC and it just seems more like an honest progression.  Well, that and I owe Derrick H a debt I can't repay: he introduced me to Red October, Sysabend, and the HERO boards in general.  I don't like 6e at all, but CC is more like what I want in a Champions book.

 

 

 

Quote

 

 

(I'd back a Kickstarter for a bugfixed BBB -- or even HERO System Rulesbook -- in a heartbeat.)

 

 

 

You and me both, Brother.

 

 

 

Duke

 

[EDITED for a verb tense issue that was really bugging me]

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

I wasn't crazy about 5e, but I have to say this:  

 

Steve and Co pumped out some of the absolute _best_ sourcebooks and genre books I have seen from any game company, ever.  I wish I could have afforded them when they were coming out (man that guy can write fast!), because they are hard to find now.

 

I just had to add that; credit where it's due and all that.

 

 

Now that you've articulated that point, I have to acknowledge that could be a major factor in why I prefer Fifth Edition. It heralded a surge of diverse, quality content the likes of which this game had never seen before. After our long starvation post-4E, it felt like arriving at the Promised Land. And being so easy to use all the Fourth Edition stuff with, IMHO the Fifth era represented a Golden Age of Hero gaming,

[Duke Bushido]

Indeed it did!

 

Regardless of any opinion I may have on 5e and on, I will never, _ever_ say a bad thing about the support material that was being put out.

 

On that subject, if it doesn't result in too big a digression, why is the new guy / are the new guys trying so hard sweep the hugeness of HERO under the rug and go the fake indie route?

 

(Seriously; I've been away a few years.  I have no idea what's up with that.  Can anyone help me out?)

[archer]

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

On that subject, if it doesn't result in too big a digression, why is the new guy / are the new guys trying so hard sweep the hugeness of HERO under the rug and go the fake indie route?

 

(Seriously; I've been away a few years.  I have no idea what's up with that.  Can anyone help me out?) 

 

Yeah, help me out on that subject too.

[Lord Liaden]

I'm not sure if I understand what you mean by "fake indie route," so please clarify if I'm wrong... but if you mean, having various authors create their own Hero System content under license, not connected to any settings or rule/genre books Hero Games has published previously -- I think it's primarily a matter of economics. The company doesn't have the budget or personnel to publish in-house any more, so they farm the system out to folks to follow their own interests. I expect that if that interest built on anything done by Hero Games previously, Jason Walters would be open to that, as with Darren Watts's recent Golden Age Champions.

[Lucius]

 

What's a fake indie route?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary hears fay kin de rout and looks around for fleeing faeries

[RDU Neil]

On ‎9‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 10:07 AM, GM Joe said:

 

Errata is essential (especially rravenwood's excellent compilation), but it would be even nicer to have a 4e rulebook that was properly copyedited, had a comprehensive index, had internal page number references instead of "See {topic}," and included the two or three rule changes from 5e that seem to have near-universal appeal to 4e gamers.

 

What 5th rules changes are you referring to?

 

Personally, the only thing I really like from post-4th is non-figured characteristics from 6th. What was in 5th you liked?

[Joe Walsh]

1 hour ago, RDU Neil said:

 

What 5th rules changes are you referring to?

 

Personally, the only thing I really like from post-4th is non-figured characteristics from 6th. What was in 5th you liked?

 

I was referring to Megascale and Change Environment, as mentioned upthread by LouisGoncey.

[RDU Neil]

2 hours ago, GM Joe said:

 

I was referring to Megascale and Change Environment, as mentioned upthread by LouisGoncey.

 

Ok, so more edge case stuff. I don't think Megascale has ever been used in years of playing in our group, an Change Environment only occasionally... but yeah, I could see that. I was thinking about more about changes to the core mechanics, like non-figured characteristics. Makes sense. 

[Joe Walsh]

20 minutes ago, RDU Neil said:

 

Ok, so more edge case stuff. I don't think Megascale has ever been used in years of playing in our group, an Change Environment only occasionally... but yeah, I could see that. I was thinking about more about changes to the core mechanics, like non-figured characteristics. Makes sense. 

 

Yeah, nothing huge.

 

The HA cost is another minor bit that's mentioned as being "obviously broken" in 4e. There are probably others.

 

Personally, I haven't really needed to do much with 4e to make it work for my groups over the years.  I've done rule comparisons, and objectively I can see that a later rule for this or that is an improvement, and I can see that it's nice to have the additional combat maneuvers in the core book, and so on, but in practice I can't recall anything being a big deal aside from the STUN lottery, which I house-ruled early on.

 

Even so, it's nice to have the 5e+ tried-and-true rule changes to draw from if something ever did become an issue in one of my campaigns.

 

[archer]

1 hour ago, RDU Neil said:

 

Ok, so more edge case stuff. I don't think Megascale has ever been used in years of playing in our group, an Change Environment only occasionally... but yeah, I could see that. I was thinking about more about changes to the core mechanics, like non-figured characteristics. Makes sense. 

 

There's an unwritten rule that superheroes always arrive in the nick of time no matter how slowly they travel. The only problem with that theory is that some GM's don't always follow the unwritten rule.

 

(My post originally said "superherpes" rather than "superheroes". Sorry for any confusion.)

[Duke Bushido]

6 hours ago, Lucius said:

 

What's a fake indie route?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary hears fay kin de rout and looks around for fleeing faeries

I'm not at a proper keyboard, so this may be details-light. 

 

In this instance, I mean "having the feel of without actually being."  things being published almost exclusively by leasing or lending the rights to third-party concerns while in-house stuff, even limited-run re-issues, seem to stopped or nearly so. 

 

Loss of interest?  Loss of budget?  Loss of market? 

 

What happened to the mighty force driving the game when I left? 

 

[archer]

16 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

I'm not at a proper keyboard, so this may be details-light. 

 

In this instance, I mean "having the feel of without actually being."  things being published almost exclusively by leasing or lending the rights to third-party concerns while in-house stuff, even limited-run re-issues, seem to stopped or nearly so. 

 

Loss of interest?  Loss of budget?  Loss of market? 

 

What happened to the mighty force driving the game when I left? 

 

 

I was taken aback when I returned a couple of months ago and found a "kickstarter" section in the forums.

[zslane]

The tabletop RPG "industry" has become somewhat bisected: in one camp you have a few big companies that have the resources to publish official products on a regular basis, and then you have everyone else, companies that have contracted to the size of small boutique shops, often run by only one or two people. Hero Games is in that latter camp. The brand is owned by someone who lacks the resources to do anything with it as a publisher, relegating it to something that is strictly licensed (to others).

 

Part of the problem is that despite the popularity of superhero movies, superhero RPGs aren't a "hot item" the way fantasy RPGs are (and always have been). And without a surge in popularity as an RPG genre, the Hero System will always struggle to get noticed, especially in the absence of substantial marketing to propel it into the public's consciousness.

[archer]

18 minutes ago, zslane said:

The tabletop RPG "industry" has become somewhat bisected: in one camp you have a few big companies that have the resources to publish official products on a regular basis, and then you have everyone else, companies that have contracted to the size of small boutique shops, often run by only one or two people. Hero Games is in that latter camp. The brand is owned by someone who lacks the resources to do anything with it as a publisher, relegating it to something that is strictly licensed (to others).

 

Part of the problem is that despite the popularity of superhero movies, superhero RPGs aren't a "hot item" the way fantasy RPGs are (and always have been). And without a surge in popularity as an RPG genre, the Hero System will always struggle to get noticed, especially in the absence of substantial marketing to propel it into the public's consciousness.

 

Do you need some kind of special permission or authorization to do a kickstarter using the HERO system?

[Doc Shadow]

8 hours ago, RDU Neil said:

Personally, the only thing I really like from post-4th is non-figured characteristics from 6th. What was in 5th you liked?

 

That's the thing I hate most. Figured characteristics worked perfectly well for me for 35+ years, I see no reason to change.

[Doc Democracy]

37 minutes ago, Doc Shadow said:

 

That's the thing I hate most. Figured characteristics worked perfectly well for me for 35+ years, I see no reason to change.

 

Actually, while I thought it would be something I disliked, I went with it.  When the 4th edition stuff was released as a big pdf bundle, my friend was enthused to run a 4th edition game.  I actually found figured characteristics a bit of a pain as they forced certain design decisions on me as it would be stupid not to have some STR.  I find that I actually appreciate the freedom to buy DEX without buying SPD, and to buy CON without buying ED, REC, END and STUN.

 

 

Doc

[dsatow]

42 minutes ago, Doc Shadow said:

 

That's the thing I hate most. Figured characteristics worked perfectly well for me for 35+ years, I see no reason to change.

 

I wanted to hate the removal of figured stats, but after using it for a while, I can't say I do.  It not that much of a bother to make it the same value as figured and it can lead to a few new configurations which weren't available before without giving the GM a headache.