HS 6e is mechanically the best version of the rules; dissenting views welcome

[massey]

32 minutes ago, Killer Shrike said:

 

The cost discrepancies were not "small"; in a supers campaign (or other high-points campaign) it was less noticeable due to the noise of more points across the board, but at a heroic level where the free points gained from the nonsensical point recursions of figureds often added up to a non-negligible percentage of starting character points it was particularly problematic.

 

But as stated before, I'm pending figureds discussion to one combined post later

 

 

You are arguing from the assumption that 350 points is the benchmark for starting characters. I'm assuming / inferring that you are coming from a primarily superhero perspective. But the Hero System is not a dedicated superhero game engine. It is multi-genre and multi-power level. At lower point levels the math changes considerably. 

 

 

I've avoided clicking on this thread since I posted earlier.  I've been pretty busy and haven't had time to reply to (what I presume are) some perfectly rational, well-thought out responses to my post.  I want to give everybody the courtesy of thoroughly reading their posts and thinking it over, and I just haven't had the time.  However, I have skimmed a couple of responses, and while I intend to go back and fully answer things (if people took the time to read my long ass post, they deserve a response), I wanted to give a quick response to this portion here.

 

The problem with heroic games is that the concept of "balance" is impossible to achieve from the game design perspective.  That work all falls on the GM.  It's too heavily dependent on equipment and genre to be otherwise.  The most basic example is the fighter gets to carry around a free greataxe, but the wizard is paying points for his spells.  In that game, Strength is very effective.  But what about a Ghostbusters rpg?  Every character is carrying around a free 5D6 Affects Desolid RKA (OIF bulky).  Is Strength really that important to a Ghostbuster?

 

You can't establish anything resembling point balance in a vacuum when you don't even know what the genre will be, let alone what equipment the GM will allow the players to take for free.  It's an exercise in futility.  How much is Spock's extra strength worth when everybody on the crew carries a phaser?  He's probably stronger than Conan the Barbarian, but that strength is less important to our pointy-eared logical friend.  +10 Strength is way way way less valuable than +5 OCV with phaser.

[Killer Shrike]

On 1/30/2019 at 11:50 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah I see Comeliness/Presence as having a similar relationship as Ego/Presence.  They can overlap but have different areas they specialize in.   The proper argument should not be "I can't think of a way to use it" which Bob Greenwade blew to tatters with a 3-page workup on ways to GM comeliness and posted on the discussion page. 

 

Link?

 

On 1/30/2019 at 11:50 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

It should have been "its highly subjective" and difficult to give an objective rating to.

 

Then don't give it a rating (ie a characteristic, in this context), reason from the effect and buy the mechanics appropriate to whatever you subjectively want it to do, on a character by character basis...like everything else in the game system.

 

On 1/30/2019 at 11:50 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Still not enough reason to delete the stat entirely, but enough to say "this optional for your campaign." 

 

As pointed out, as the game explicitly encourages the addition of any characteristic a GM might want for a given campaign, they implicitly DID say that. I agree that a sidebar or example could have called it out for people that prefer things to be explicit. 

 

On 1/30/2019 at 11:50 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Also, an optional "here's how you can do figured characteristics if you prefer" in the back would be good, too.

 

Old schoolers who want to simulate figureds already know what it is and don't need it printed, and new players would have no reason to expect it and no context to comprehend it and arguably benefit from not being inflicted with it. 

 

For many people coming from an older edition it seems to be inconceivable that a player coming into the Hero System for the first time with 6e would find it entirely normal to purchase STR or DEX or CON and not expect any other characteristic to go up for free. The only context in which figured characteristics even have meaning in 6e is when seen thru the observational bias of an older edition player. 

[Killer Shrike]

29 minutes ago, massey said:

The problem with heroic games is that the concept of "balance" is impossible to achieve from the game design perspective.  That work all falls on the GM.  It's too heavily dependent on equipment and genre to be otherwise.  

 

You're telling this to a person who has run so many heroic level campaigns and one off games using the Hero System over three decades, that I would literally have to sit down and laboriously try to remember even most of them. And I know I am not alone in this regard. 

 

I contend that it is possible (common even) to balance the game at a heroic level to the exact same extent that it is possible to balance it at the superheroic level or at the godlike level or at any other level. I know this from long personal experience, not theorycrafting. 

 

It seems to me that you are suggesting something like "the Hero System is only viable at superheroic levels", or "only things that work ok in a superheroic context are valid". Is that a fair summary of your perspective?

 

Also, if you do believe something along those lines, what are your thoughts on GM's and players who do use the Hero System for other levels of play aside from just superheroic? Misguided? Mythical? 

 

Quote

You can't establish anything resembling point balance in a vacuum when you don't even know what the genre will be, let alone what equipment the GM will allow the players to take for free.  It's an exercise in futility.  How much is Spock's extra strength worth when everybody on the crew carries a phaser?  He's probably stronger than Conan the Barbarian, but that strength is less important to our pointy-eared logical friend.  +10 Strength is way way way less valuable than +5 OCV with phaser.

 

Well, if that is your view and if it were true then it would follow that point based systems in general don't work and are futile. Which would beg the question, why do you play one? 

 

If you want to argue from a position of genre tropes undermining the idea of assigning point costs to effects, I'd be more than happy to have that conversation. But at a root level, a person either thinks that a universal system (one applicable to multiple genres and power levels) is a viable concept, or they think that each setting ideally should have its own bespoke rule set tailored to its genre and the types of characters and abilities are allowed within it.

 

If a person does think that a universal system is valid, then there must be some acceptance of the idea that abilities are defined without assumption of setting and all that follows from there.

 

Your comments seem to suggest that you don't find a universal system to be valid, or that you don't think the Hero System is usable as such despite having been developed and marketed and lauded as one for several decades.

[BoloOfEarth]

On 2/1/2019 at 3:57 PM, Killer Shrike said:

The only thing that I can see 6e making harder during character creation would be if you were trying to duplicate a power that had been removed. Otherwise, not so much; it's the same as it ever was but with more control over characteristics, and more options included in the core rules that previously required ownership of a supplement to know about.

 

The added complexity of some powers in 6e does make for more decision-making during power creation.  Not a ton, and definitely not with every power, but there are some.  I'll cite two examples.

 

With 4e / 5e Force Wall you just had to decide defense and length/height.  With Barrier, you add in BODY, thickness (for no particular purpose or benefit that I can see, BTW), and anchoring.  (I don't know if any options for Force Wall were in other supplements, but if you know of any and want to cite them, I'll be happy to take a look at them.)  I'll add that of the two powers, I much prefer Barrier over Force Wall.  But the point is that 6e does add some complexity to that power, especially deciding on the desired balance of defense and BODY.  (Any time I create a power with Barrier, I dither over levels of rPD / rED and BODY far longer than I should.)

 

In 6e Stretching added dimensions (doubling one while halving another, possibly multiple times) to the power -- adding a level of complexity both to the power creation as well as possibly in-play power use that IMO isn't really necessary.

 

Don't get me wrong and think I'm saying that 6e is hopelessly more complex that 5e, or 4e before it.  But these are some instances of more complex powers than in prior versions.

[BoloOfEarth]

1 hour ago, Killer Shrike said:

Link?

 

I'll confess that I've been looking over an hour for a link to Bob Greenwade's (excellent, IMO) info on using Comeliness various ways.  I'm pretty sure I have a printout at home, but can't seem to find it online.  I've looked at his old Angelfire site without success.  If anyone can post a link to his treatise, I'll guarantee a "Like."  If not, and if I can dig up the printout I have, I'll try and type it in here.

[Killer Shrike]

27 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

The added complexity of some powers in 6e does make for more decision-making during power creation.  Not a ton, and definitely not with every power, but there are some.  I'll cite two examples.

 

With 4e / 5e Force Wall you just had to decide defense and length/height.  With Barrier, you add in BODY, thickness (for no particular purpose or benefit that I can see, BTW), and anchoring.  (I don't know if any options for Force Wall were in other supplements, but if you know of any and want to cite them, I'll be happy to take a look at them.)  I'll add that of the two powers, I much prefer Barrier over Force Wall.  But the point is that 6e does add some complexity to that power, especially deciding on the desired balance of defense and BODY.  (Any time I create a power with Barrier, I dither over levels of rPD / rED and BODY far longer than I should.)

 

The issue there was that because counter to the usual separation between sfx and mechanic, Force Wall was a mechanic (some kind of barrier) tied to a specific SFX (force fields) and was defined to model that sfx. To make a power that made some kind of barrier that was not some kind of force effect, one had to either kludge together something with FW to awkwardly tack on the desired behavior, or similarly bend Entangle around to serve as a wall making power, or something even more awkward. 

 

So, FW was copy and pasted from 5e to 6e, and then typed over to remove the assumption of force based sfx and to add the ability to make a physical structure of some sort with thickness, body etc.

 

So, while Barrier has more dials to turn than FW, which is needless if all you want to do is make a force wall just like it was in 5e, it is substantially less complicated than it used to be if you want to make a non-force sfx based wall. 

 

Quote

In 6e Stretching added dimensions (doubling one while halving another, possibly multiple times) to the power -- adding a level of complexity both to the power creation as well as possibly in-play power use that IMO isn't really necessary.

 

Well, I'll admit I've not yet gotten around to making a stretch based character in 6e as it hasn't come up yet. However, I used Stretching a fair amount in previous editions (Commando Rubberbando! and Rook being some notable characters for the possibly imaginary audience of those who recollect my past shenanigans) and I can say that I often bumped into limitations with the power construct that in some cases led me to use TK or Teleport with a "stretching" sfx to work around them. I don't have the rules handy where I am currently, but I'll try to remember to peek at 6e stretching later to see what you refer to...however off the hip I'm pro adding options to it to extend beyond the Mr. Fantastic / Plastic Man purposes its original design conformed to.

 

Quote

Don't get me wrong and think I'm saying that 6e is hopelessly more complex that 5e, or 4e before it.  But these are some instances of more complex powers than in prior versions.

 

Many powers and modifiers gained extra options, allowing them to be applied in more ways, extending their utility to model character concepts.

 

But that doesn't make it any more complex to build a specific character in the abstract; if anything for each character who wants an effect that is now covered or referred to that previously was not, it is arguably easier to make that character as there are no contortions or convolutions to go thru to define that effect.

 

For characters that want only things that already existed in 5e, there is no added difficulty. For instance, if I go to a restaurant knowing I'm going to order my usual thing, and notice that they've added 5 new dishes to the menu, it does not in any notable way complicate the ordering of my usual thing. If I decide to peruse the new offerings and happen to find one of them appealing, and order that instead, then that was my choice. I could have opted to ignore the new options or to appraise them and decide to stick with what I know, but that would be my choice and not a flaw of the menu or whomever added the new items to it.

 

Leaving characters who want something that was previously available in 5e that has been removed from 6e as the characters that are in the lurch and will have to get creative to work around or pick some other equivalent ability.

[Ninja-Bear]

Hugh benchmarks do help me. I use them as a starting point. Then I adjust from there.

[Ninja-Bear]

Interesting side note, last night while on the Internet, I looked to see what is new with Savage Worlds. They are coming out with a third edition. When looking at the changes, one of them is that they are removing their characteristic of Charisma and just putting the effects in Edges and Hinderences as appropriate. Just food for thought.

[massey]

2 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

 

You're telling this to a person who has run so many heroic level campaigns and one off games using the Hero System over three decades, that I would literally have to sit down and laboriously try to remember even most of them. And I know I am not alone in this regard. 

 

I contend that it is possible (common even) to balance the game at a heroic level to the exact same extent that it is possible to balance it at the superheroic level or at the godlike level or at any other level. I know this from long personal experience, not theorycrafting. 

 

 

Great!  Then you understand that the person who balanced the system... was you.  You had to do the work, deciding what to give away for free, and what to charge points for.  You've spent time on the Fantasy boards discussing whether to charge points for spells or not.  You've created game worlds and campaigns and carefully constructed a balanced game.

 

But you are the one who did the work, ensuring that the Hero System would be balanced for your players.  The point system didn't do that.

 

Quote

It seems to me that you are suggesting something like "the Hero System is only viable at superheroic levels", or "only things that work ok in a superheroic context are valid". Is that a fair summary of your perspective?

 

Also, if you do believe something along those lines, what are your thoughts on GM's and players who do use the Hero System for other levels of play aside from just superheroic? Misguided? Mythical? 

 

 

Well, if that is your view and if it were true then it would follow that point based systems in general don't work and are futile. Which would beg the question, why do you play one? 

 

If you want to argue from a position of genre tropes undermining the idea of assigning point costs to effects, I'd be more than happy to have that conversation. But at a root level, a person either thinks that a universal system (one applicable to multiple genres and power levels) is a viable concept, or they think that each setting ideally should have its own bespoke rule set tailored to its genre and the types of characters and abilities are allowed within it.

 

If a person does think that a universal system is valid, then there must be some acceptance of the idea that abilities are defined without assumption of setting and all that follows from there.

 

Your comments seem to suggest that you don't find a universal system to be valid, or that you don't think the Hero System is usable as such despite having been developed and marketed and lauded as one for several decades.

 

The last statement is essentially correct.  While you can certainly use it for heroic levels, the balance of the point system really falls apart.  Now, a carefully crafted campaign can minimize that problems, but as I said above, at that point it's the GM who is doing the balancing, not the system itself.

 

[Killer Shrike]

2 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Interesting side note, last night while on the Internet, I looked to see what is new with Savage Worlds. They are coming out with a third edition. When looking at the changes, one of them is that they are removing their characteristic of Charisma and just putting the effects in Edges and Hinderences as appropriate. Just food for thought.

 

Ya. It's fairly common in modern game design to abstract away from quantifying appearance. 

[Ninja-Bear]

I agree with Bolo that the shifting of dimensions with Stretching gave me pause. Quite possibly cause I’m using CC and the words are stringent. However it’s not end of the world.

[TranquiloUno]

3 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

For many people coming from an older edition it seems to be inconceivable that a player coming into the Hero System for the first time with 6e would find it entirely normal to purchase STR or DEX or CON and not expect any other characteristic to go up for free. The only context in which figured characteristics even have meaning in 6e is when seen thru the observational bias of an older edition player. 

 

Specific to this point alone: Most other games (GURPS and D&D certainly) do increase other stuff with stats tho, rite? 

 

If I spend my stat bumps on my prime req in 5th edition D&D I'm doing so specifically because it will increase my to-hit (OCV), AC (DCV), HP (Body), spells allowed\prepared, Initiative, and so on. Not all at once of course, but the nature of stat bumps in that system is that they do produce secondary benefits. I don't increase my Dex just to be a better Rogue\thief, I increase it to be a better rogue, better at fighting, and better at all relevant skills, AND to go faster in combat.

 

Same for GURPS, right? I boost my Dex and allll my Dex skills go up. I boost my Str and I hit harder, get more HP, and increase my "encumbrance" stat. 

 

I think the linkage between stats and "other stats that aren't called stats but are still actually stats" is honestly fairly fundamental to a lot of or even most RPGs.

 

Specifically I think the classical RPG model is that, "Your base attributes, unrelated entirely to skills, fundamentally do matter". More Dex means something, because Dex means something, and increasing that thing effects other things (AC, to-hit, OCV, Dex rolls, base thief skills, etc, etc) because that's how Dex is defined in the system. 

 

A theoretical Hero newb coming from an exclusive 5e D&D background may well wonder why they would bother increasing Dex if they don't get any AC or ranged to-hit benefits. Or think it's strange that boosting Con won't also boost HP\Body. If I'm more dexterous why aren't I more agile at avoiding attacks? If I'm "tougher" why didn't I get tougher to kill in fights? 

 

Potentially. Easy to explain that it doesn't work that way.

But conceptually, in most RPGs, I think stats do have more of an effect than just on the stat itself. Right? 

 

Honestly seems weird we only have "Dex" when we could easily have say: Manual Dexterity\Fine Manipulation and Agility\Gross Motor Kinesthetics or something.

Why should my character being a graceful dancer mean I can pick locks better? Or why should my being a surgeon\concert pianist mean I act sooner in combat or am able to sneak around in the shadows more effectively? 

Kinda the same idea as, "Why should my elite level gymnast be good at base attacks\fighting just because he's phenomenally physically coordinated and fast?"

 

Point being: I think a lot of other games kinda do have secondary\figured characteristics based on single primary stats. And I think that occurs because a primary conceit in most games is the idea that base attributes matter and effect other things and often are the only real important things (like in Hero where stats matter more for their base stat roll than do the skills that apply to that base roll). 

 

Obvs 6e separated much of this out to some extent. Which is fine. But sometimes it seems counter-intuitive to me that Dex (which FHC says represents, "agility and reaction time" and 5e adds, "it also represents accuracy") which represents reaction time doesn't influence my Speed, which is...kinda also reaction time? And it doesn't impact my combat value even tho it represents agility? 

 

Meanwhile boosting my Int does improve my secondary ability to perceive and notice stuff. Because Int includes, "perceptiveness". But...should it? 

Does a high IQ mean you notice fine details? Even if a high Dex doesn't mean you're more accurate (but are more "agile")? Why does improving my memory and reasoning mean I am more likely to spot tracks in the mud? 

Or Strength even. If I improve my squat why does my ability to pound a heavy bag go up?

Surely damage and weight lifted aren't really related most of the time.

 

Surely Per should be it's own stat and Dex should decompose in to Dexterity and Agility, right? 

 

And now 7e can be the mechanically best edition of Hero because we've further decomposed and atomized our stats and now we can finally have that supergenius that isn't also Sherlock Holmes and the brilliant ballet dancer that isn't good with her hands!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

1 hour ago, massey said:

 

Great!  Then you understand that the person who balanced the system... was you.  You had to do the work, deciding what to give away for free, and what to charge points for.  You've spent time on the Fantasy boards discussing whether to charge points for spells or not.  You've created game worlds and campaigns and carefully constructed a balanced game.

 

But you are the one who did the work, ensuring that the Hero System would be balanced for your players.  The point system didn't do that.

 

I think we are speaking at cross purposes.

 

The premise of this thread is that of the various editions of the Hero System, from 1st to 6th, it is my position that I think 6e offers the "best" version of the game mechanics published to date, and invited others to make their case that 6e does not offer the "best" version of the game mechanics published to date.

 

Secondarily, I inquired as to what is behind a trend I had noticed for people to not just prefer an earlier version of the rules, but to outright disparage, hate on, or make snide remarks about 6e. You responded, which I appreciate, and put forth your viewpoint of the changes made in 6e (which I gathered that you aren't a fan of).

 

You had some other talking points, which I responded to and some of which I agreed with, but among them was an argument that Figured Characteristics were removed with the intent of not granting what you contended was a small number of free points per character with the implication that it was a small percentage of a 350 point character and thus not worth correcting.  I pointed out that the game system is not intended only for 350 point or higher characters; it is intended to be used for lower pointed heroic characters as well and the free points gained by abusing Figureds was not trivial at that point range.

 

You responded with a post that I interpreted as alluding or suggesting that you think that the Hero System doesn't work for heroic level  games (which I disagree with), and asked you to clarify if that is what you meant and pointed out that people, myself included, have run heroic level games with the system successfully. Your response appears to be forwarding the claim that it was I myself, not the game system, that made heroic play work.

 

Well, it seems to me that you are being a bit slippery around where exactly the goalposts of this conversation are, but ok...I'll play along.

 

The same statement works for supers as well. Every superheroic, or high point level game wherein I used the Hero System as the GM, required me to do some amount of work to make the campaign function. I would posit the same is true for you and every other Hero System GM running any kind of Hero System game. Even 350 point superheroes.

 

The same is also true of every other rpg game I've ever run using any game system, universal, generic, or otherwise. Regardless of whether a game uses points, slots, class, level, or other resource allocation schemes at the end of the day they are tools to be wielded by the GM and the players. Game systems are merely collections of tools. Some offer only limited purpose or specialized tools, some are effectively just kits with build-by-picture instructions, some have a small form factor like a toolbox, others are akin to a garage workbench and pegboard set up, and others are more akin to industrial makers spaces. But no matter how grand or how tawdry, they are just tools and require effort to be applied towards the task of running a campaign.

 

That aside, you seem to be wanting to turn this into a more general discussion about point based systems in general, and appear to think that I am of the position that point based systems are intrinsically balanced, or even that perfect balance is attainable. I am not of either position. Perfect balance is unattainable, and just putting character points in your game does not make it magically balanced.

 

However, that does not mean that character points provide no benefit as a balancing mechanic. 

 

Very simple things can be reduced to an either or proposition. Complex things rarely if ever can; instead there is usually some kind of spectrum. At one end is one extreme, and at the other end the other extreme. Somewhere on a spectrum with "character points offer no utility as a game balance mechanism" on one end and "character points are synonymous with perfect game balance, intrinsically" at the other,  is the idea "character points are useful when used to purchase abilities that are costed in an attempt to approximate parity across various kinds of abilities such that an ability that costs x character points is approximately as powerful as a different ability that costs x character points, in the abstract".

 

This middle ground is what the Hero System, and some other universal systems and some non-universal systems, strive for. And to that end the game designers of those games make an effort to ensure that individual abilities are costed taking this goal into account. To the extent that they are successful on a given ability, it is considered to be a good ability, to the extent that they get it wrong on a given ability, that ability will come to be considered as weak or strong. If given the opportunity to patch the game system, the game designers may opt to buff weak (i.e. overcosted and / or underpowered) abilities or nerf  strong (i.e. undercosted and / or overpowered) abilities. This is normal and desirable. Of course sometimes the game designers attempts at a rebalance go too far or not far enough. It is an iterative process, which is probably why games tend to have versions.

 

Note that the idea that x points of y should be approximately equivalent to x points of z, does not mean that in every given context or situation y and z should be equally relevant or reliable or useful. It only means that in a vacuum, in the abstract, they are equivalent. Context is king. In a particular setting, in a particular genre, at a particular power level, some abilities may be irrelevant, unreliable, or useless. This does not necessarily mean those abilities are costed incorrectly; it just means the system's offering of that ability is the same as a tool on your toolshop's pegboard that you don't need for the thing you are currently making. I don't throw away my soldering iron when I'm doing woodworking. I understand that it is a good tool, and a useful one, and I'm glad I have it in my shop; it will get used for some other project where it is applicable (perhaps even necessary).

 

 

Quote

 

The last statement is essentially correct.  While you can certainly use it for heroic levels, the balance of the point system really falls apart. 

 

It does not fall apart in my experience. In 4e and 5e, the main issue I encountered was the effect of figured characteristics on the design of heroic level characters. They had a strong tendency to coalesce into a relatively small number of viable characteristic distributions.

 

In 4e cost minimums were a bit of a problem from time to time. That was reduced in prevalence somewhere along the way, reducing that sticking point. There were still some powers with an effective minimum buy in or alternately that just couldn't get to a useful level on low points, but 6e did good work in reducing that minor sticking point as well.

 

The rest of the system worked fine, in fact, better than fine. The robustness of the combat system and the skill model, and the martial arts system, and perks, and talents alone provide a great foundation for heroic level play unto themselves. The power system continued to have some issues at low power level that traced directly back to superhero origins for the most part, and work in this area to remove such unnecessary points of friction was useful and paid off. I would recommend you consider putting together a heroic campaign using 6e and see what you think. You might be surprised. 

 

Quote

Now, a carefully crafted campaign can minimize that problems, but as I said above, at that point it's the GM who is doing the balancing, not the system itself.

 

 

As I alluded to upscreen, this is as true of supers as it is of anything else. The Hero System, whether you play 4e, 5e, or 6e explicitly acknowledges that the game opts towards openness and expects the GM to ride herd to balance their own campaigns using the Hero System. If you crack open 4e and flip to the back you'll find this spelled out in clear language. Standard superheroes are not exempted from that, if anything standard supers are notable examples of close GM oversight and rulings being required.

[Ninja-Bear]

Hugh I agree they missed an opportunity to showcase the decoupling of figureds. I thought my examples were showing that! 

[Ninja-Bear]

And another side point about SW 3rd (they’re calling SWADE), is that they used forum posts and Facebook account to gather Player 

input for the changes to be made. Of course the final decision is the Line developer(s ?). So to me, that is more of by committee than even 6th.

[Killer Shrike]

 

Quote

A theoretical Hero newb coming from an exclusive 5e D&D background may well wonder why they would bother increasing Dex if they don't get any AC or ranged to-hit benefits. Or think it's strange that boosting Con won't also boost HP\Body. If I'm more dexterous why aren't I more agile at avoiding attacks? If I'm "tougher" why didn't I get tougher to kill in fights? 

 

Well, you're assuming the background of the player. They could be coming from any game at all, or no game. 

 

Even if coming from D&D (I'm not familiar with 5e, but historically speaking) a character can't just buy hit points or AC. They have to get them from base stats and leveling, plus any gear they can buy or plunder. Coming to the Hero System, that's not true. A character can directly buy resistance to death and unconsciousness and getting hit and whatever. Yay! If you gathered the 5 people who have introduced the most other people from D&D et al to the Hero System, it is possible I'd be among them. So, I've been over that particular stretch of ground often enough.

 

But you missed my point entirely, which was that a player coming into the Hero System in 6e lacking prior knowledge of earlier editions and the fact that those earlier editions had something called "Figured Characteristics" would  not somehow, Creskin-like, intuit that such a thing should exist and more specifically the particular (mathematically bad) set of calculations that drove them.

 

Thus, while in the minds of people with a prior experience with the Hero System, there is a construct labeled "Figured Characteristics" plus whatever that means to them regarding how it worked and whether they like it or not, that is not the case for a player new to 6e and thus it would not occur to such a person that there was such a thing or that it had been removed. The idea of it has no meaning outside of the people who already know about it. That's the whole point.

 

Instead, such a player looking at what the rulebook "Characteristics" section actually tells them, would likely figure out that the things called "Defense" described as reducing the damage taken from a certain kind of attack might be good to buy up a bit. Similarly, all the other characteristics.

 

The "figureds helped players not make gimped characters" line of argument has never made sense to me, because it pretends a) that the book doesn't tell players what each characteristic does and why a character might consider buying each characteristic, and b) that having read the blurbs for each characteristic (or even just seen their names and guessing the general idea of what each is for) new players are somehow too dumb to figure out what they want for their characters. And even if a player does come along and make a 6 SPD character with 10 DEX or something like that, so what? Best case scenario, they might enjoy playing an impetuously quick but clumsy character, worst case maybe they'll learn something and grow in understanding of the game that will benefit them as they make more characters in the future. 

 

However, while I'm more than happy to have a general game design conversation (I love game design conversations), that's not really what I want to talk about in this thread. I think you may have read more into my comment than I meant. If you want to email me or start up a general discussion thread on game design, I'd participate in a conversation about it in general, but I don't want to sidetrack this thread.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Killer Shrike
I had started to get sucked into a game design discussion, which I don't want to do in this context...

[Scott Ruggels]

I may be re-iterating my position from another post, but as a math phobic, math-tarded,’sensitive artist type, who has been on the IRS’s shit list for

decades due to my innumeracy, 6e comes across, much as the my IRS troubles did,

with exacting costs, finer granularity of skills with a commensurate  increase one has to cover the skill bases, and every crosses T and dotted eye accounted for.  I realized I only used 4e as a reference while continuing to build from the original Fantasy Hero rules for my huge, map-centric, politics drenched Fantasy Hero Campaign. 

 

I think Spence has the right of it when he said that the show early  editions of Hero were, sloppier, but the writing was more fun, then. Pictures! More pictures are good! What I read of 6e, which admittedly was not much, it came across as intimidating, dry, toast. In the Store Centric  model thread, I went on at length about how important full color printing is for this modern game audience. I know we won’t get that from the current books, but color PDFs are free and some aspiring writing tee could make a fun “Powered by Hero” game with better presentation. 

 

 

 

 

[Killer Shrike]

2 hours ago, massey said:

2 hours ago, massey said:

Your comments seem to suggest that you don't find a universal system to be valid, or that you don't think the Hero System is usable as such despite having been developed and marketed and lauded as one for several decades.

The last statement is essentially correct.  While you can certainly use it for heroic levels, the balance of the point system really falls apart.  Now, a carefully crafted campaign can minimize that problems, but as I said above, at that point it's the GM who is doing the balancing, not the system itself.

 

 

As an aside, I'm curious about two things? 

1. What edition of the Hero System do you use (you may have said, but if so I missed it)
2. If you don't think the Hero System is a successful universal system (which is how it positions itself post-3e), why do you use it at all? What does it do for you that a dedicated non-universal game system wouldn't do better?

[Killer Shrike]

11 minutes ago, Scott Ruggels said:

 

snip "I'm mathematically challenged"

 

I realized I only used 4e as a reference while continuing to build from the original Fantasy Hero rules for my huge, map-centric, politics drenched Fantasy Hero Campaign. 

 

That does sound like an interesting campaign. Is there more info posted somewhere?

 

Quote

I think Spence has the right of it when he said that the show early  editions of Hero were, sloppier, but the writing was more fun, then. Pictures! More pictures are good! What I read of 6e, which admittedly was not much, it came across as intimidating, dry, toast. In the Store Centric  model thread, I went on at length about how important full color printing is for this modern game audience. I know we won’t get that from the current books, but color PDFs are free and some aspiring writing tee could make a fun “Powered by Hero” game with better presentation. 

 

I'm not anti-making it look pretty. I stated in various threads and reviews back in the day that DoJ should take art and design more to heart, as did others. I don't think it was just some oversight on the importance of good art for shelf appeal. Presumably they did as much as they could afford to given the givens. On that point, 6e is full color and has full color art in it, as do some of the 6e era books, but people don't seem to give it any credit for that.

 

But, as I indicated earlier, I forward no assertion regarding the presentation of 6e, only its mechanics.

[Scott Ruggels]

33 minutes ago, Killer Shrike said:

 

That does sound like an interesting campaign. Is there more info posted somewhere?

 

Some of the campaign’s materials were printed in Aaron Allston’s Rogues Gallery, specifically, the big bad’s henchmen, The Jaggiri. Most of this was pre internet, but when I get a hold of the Zines, in my storage. I will scan what I can. I don’t have rights to anyone else’s but man, the level of writing was inspiring, and the cameraderie the gatherings in Milwaukee over thick, Chicago style pizza, just letting Aaron tell stories was just enchanting. 

 

33 minutes ago, Killer Shrike said:

 

 

I'm not anti-making it look pretty. I stated in various threads and reviews back in the day that DoJ should take art and design more to heart, as did others. I don't think it was just some oversight on the importance of good art for shelf appeal. Presumably they did as much as they could afford to given the givens. On that point, 6e is full color and has full color art in it, as do some of the 6e era books, but people don't seem to give it any credit for that.

 

But, as I indicated earlier, I forward no assertion regarding the presentation of 6e, only its mechanics.

Well prettying it up has such a low barrier to Entry, now, that dentists from Wisconsin are putting up work on Imgur, gaming of these lovely, properly formatted pages that look straight out of the 5e Monster Manual.  Having a similar, or different work is just the right colllection of templates and picked pieces of art ( with all rights and responsibilities. 

 

Bit yeah maybe jazz jazz up the writing, but birthing Solar System Campaign will probably be in 4th Edition, simplicity of familiarity, and having people build 4th ed characters with figured characteristics so they can see more clearly, the difference of what they can do, and what they would do. (An old trick I learned from LDG was to build “Danger Worthy” characters, so one didn’t be a fragile egg, or dead weight to the other characters. I would insist they did so. )

[Hugh Neilson]

3 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

But you missed my point entirely which was, a player coming into the Hero System in 6e without prior knowledge of earlier editions and the fact that those earlier editions had something called "Figured Characteristics" would somehow, Creskin-like, intuit that such a thing should exist and more specifically according to a particular (mathematically bad) set of calculations.

 

On this same line of reasoning, pre-6e, how much did players coming from D&D struggle over STR having no impact on chances to hit in melee combat, or armor not increasing DCV while Shields did?  Hero is different from D&D.  It will therefore have some learning required by players who know D&D, but  not Hero, rules.  Hero did not set out to be Pathfinder (take the D&D mechanics and tweak them a little), but a separate system. 

[Killer Shrike]

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

On this same line of reasoning, pre-6e, how much did players coming from D&D struggle over STR having no impact on chances to hit in melee combat, or armor not increasing DCV while Shields did?  Hero is different from D&D.  It will therefore have some learning required by players who know D&D, but  not Hero, rules.  Hero did not set out to be Pathfinder (take the D&D mechanics and tweak them a little), but a separate system. 

 

Exactly. People bring whatever assumptions they may have with them when they come to the Hero System from other systems...and also from other editions of the Hero System itself.

 

Personally I find it best to engage with a game system new to me based upon what it is, rather than what I expect it to be based upon past experience with other game systems or previous editions. I may or may not like it, but I try to give it a fair shake on its own merits.

[Killer Shrike]

On 1/31/2019 at 3:27 PM, Sean Waters said:

I think that 6e probably is the best Hero has so far achieved, mechanically, but, at the same time, I don’t think that Hero is as good as it could be – and I’m not just talking tweaks.

 

Agreed. There is still room for further refactoring, but given the givens I think it unlikely to happen officially. 

 

Quote

Things like the way that grappling works, to the complete lack of a mechanic to address ignoring opponents in combat and acting as if they were not there. 

 

Personally I think grappling is a little clunky but works ok (using the extended Martial Arts rules for Grab and ?, etc).

 

I don't want to see a zone of control or attack of opportunity type of mechanism added to the system, I prefer utilizing held actions or custom abilities for that sort of thing.

 

Quote

I’m also not a fan of balance as a justification for a rule.  I’d rather we have a realistic rule (for a given value of ‘realistic) and a sidebar on how to mitigate the harsh.

 

Same. I don't like training wheels or arbitrary "just because" rules (such as why can't CE be used for positive effects; why not?)

 

Quote

I also don’t think that you can entirely divorce substance from style.  “Technically a great game!” is never going to sell, and I want Hero to sell, so lots of new content comes out. 

 

I'm a big believer that the sales problems the Hero System has traditionally had stems largely from the fact that they tend to not make products for PLAYERS to buy...their product appeals almost overwhelmingly to a very specific kind of GM. They also tend to favor "perennials" such as core books and genre source books. I'm a hardcore fan but I'm only going to buy one copy of Fantasy Hero per edition and even then maybe just the pdf if the content is mostly a c&p plus edition tweakage. 

 

Quote

 I have a much longer list of gripes here, which I will not rehearse in full, but it starts with the constant repetition of the phrase ‘unless the GM decides otherwise’, or something similar, followed by the fact that Book 1 was Character Creation.  Can we say “Barrier to entry”?  I have suggestions.  I imagine you can imagine.

 

This is my opinion, but I think a lot of it comes down to posture.

 

Lets say you and I and a few other posters are DoJ, the era is 5er, and we've just gotten an influx of cash from a video game related windfall. We decide to use that money to publish a new edition of the system. Around this time, our primary competition for our main money making line of products is a d20 based supers game that puts out relatively slim full color books, usually hardbacks. 

 

At this point through long years of hard work, we've managed to put out a huge amount of very thorough books across a wide variety of genres and subgenres as well as a pretty comprehensive line of "ultimate" niche books and core rules. We arguably now own the "crunchy heavy weight universal game system" perch, having surpassed the traditional rival for that slot just by sheer volume and tenacity if nothing else. However a recurring criticism of our product line is that it has a tendency towards a dry no-nonsense business like writing style and a lack of visual flair. For some product lines this is less of a detriment than others, but for the very visual supers genre and its demographic of visually oriented people who prefer to read things in picture form, it is a very jarring mismatch.

 

Going into this next edition, it is very important to us that we have full color hardbacks with art that will hopefully resonate with the highly visual superhero rpg fans; we have a leg up here because for superhero content at least we can use art assets developed for the same video game we got the cash from in the first place. 

 

So, what we'll do is, double down on what has been working for us so far...big chunky books even more chock full examples, rulings, options, and so on, than before, PLUS in color and with color interior art. The book will be thicker, but no big deal, we can print the design time rules in one volume and the run time rules in another volume. This may even be beneficial as some players who otherwise might not buy the book and just use their GM's copy might decide to buy the character creation volume.

 

The people who like us for our chunkiness will be even more happy. The people who are put off by stern black and white walls of text will find the pretty color pages more inviting. Seems foolproof, what could go wrong?

 

____

 

Ok, now lets groundhog day that, knowing what we now know with the benefit of hindsight.

 

Maybe instead we kick off the 6e era by releasing Champions Universe Complete, Turakian Age Complete, Alien Wars Complete etc, up front. They are relatively concise books by Hero standards, maybe an inch and a half across the spine. They each contain the necessary setting information for immediate play, with a playable version of the rules with the proper "presets" of options selected, plus enough content in the form of templates, gear lists, etc, to immediately start play with, and an abbreviated character creation via 8 to 12 partially customize-able templates.

 

For the product lines that take off in this format, print splat books in all the usual ways that game companies tend to do, plus an adventure here and there. Someone always says "but adventures don't sell well", to which I say "loss leader". GM's running the one copy of an adventure the group owns tends to lead to supplementary purchases of other stuff, an engaged player base which draws more players, and of course maybe even the one copy of the adventure the group buys to run after this one is done.

 

I imagine I don't have to explain what this would look like, because nearly every other game markets themselves in that way.

 

But that's not Hero! rings out the cry. Worry not, true believers! The text-only version of the full system is available as an SRD online, for free. How do we monetize that? Well, there's the Limited Edition Full Color Hardback 2 Volume Core Set, for starters. What does that look like? Well, it looks exactly like the 2 volume set we got. What's different about it? Consumer perception. 

 

The casual set, both current and hopefully newly attracted, are happy with the various buy and go setting + micro rules books. The hardcore set is happy because they have the massive 6e tomes of thoroughness, ownership of which proves their leetness.

 

Of course no one knows how it all might have gone down, and we don't know the inner workings of DoJ or what challenges they had to overcome to accomplish what they did. I assume the challenges were harrowing, and I'm personally deeply impressed by what they achieved during both the 5e and 6e eras. It's staggering in scale. It is also true that the rpg industry and the print industry were (and are) going through a brutal period of being disrupted by emerging technologies and changes in interests towards other media.  But I think it is possible that a different approach that was more sensitive to the marketplace and player base would have had a better outcome in the long run. 

 

I imagine that you imagine that I imagine that we are imagining along the same imaginary lines.

[Toxxus]

9 hours ago, Killer Shrike said:

I don't want to see a zone of control or attack of opportunity type of mechanism added to the system, I prefer utilizing held actions or custom abilities for that sort of thing.

 

I struggled with this for a bit and ended up using a variation of the Guarding rule.

 

In my Fantasy Hero campaign I allow the players to Abort to make this attack though the person provoking does not suffer 1/2 DCV unless the character had Held an action.

I also allow characters with Held actions to move to intercept an opponent trying to bypass them.

 

Melee stickiness is a difficult thing in all turn-based games, but I find the idea that you can walk right pass defenders unopposed feels wrong.  The front line needs some way to actually maintain a front line other than fighting in narrow corridors.

[Doc Democracy]

The problem with guarding is that you are dealing with players who make tactical judgements on paper that they would never make in real life.  They judge that taking a hit in getting past is something they can live with whereas a real person might want to avoid a bit of sharp metal penetrating their skin.

 

I wonder whether the rule should be that if a zone is guarded the seeking to pass by the defender is possible.  The defender can make a roll to hit at 1/2 DCV and, if they hit make their damage roll.  The person seeking to get past must then make a PRE or EGO roll modified by the BODY rolled in the attack to see if they actually do it.  If they do not, they do not pass and lose the rest of their action, if they do they can choose to take the damage and pass the defender or avoid the damage and fail to get past.

 

It kind of means that it is the character deciding whether getting past is worth the damage rather than the player.  Less brave characters will fail to do this, even if they are wearing enough armour (they are scared), brave characters with plenty of armour will choose to go through as the literature shows - the brave hero smashes through the defensive line, allowing his shield and armour to take the strain to get within reach of the big bad.

 

Doc