What makes a complete game "complete"?

[Sketchpad]

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

As Brian notes above, I doubt many of us learned Hero at or after 4e.  If anyone wants to chime in and tell me they learned it later, please do.

 

We learned playing a Game Powered by Hero, not using the Hero system to design our own game.

 

I think there are plenty of people who have learned using 4e, 5e or even 6e. Many of my players in the 90s were 4e players and only 4e players. They didn't know of the game's existence before they started playing. The same could be said about my current group. However, that said, players were also exposed to the game as part of a setting I designed. So some powers were off limits, and house rules were explained throughout the game as needed. So, in some ways, it ran much like the "Powered by" philosophy. 

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Hero is not a game - it is a system with which games can be designed.  It needs the game(s) it is supposed to be supporting - for some reason, we forgot to publish any since some time in the 4e days.  4th Edition Fantasy Hero was a game.  Somewhere between then and 5e, Hero/DoJ stopped making games.

 

I agree with this to extent as well. 4e Champions had some semblance of a setting within it. Sure, you needed Champions Universe and other books to enhance that setting if you didn't want to put a bunch of work in, but there was some Champions in the  Champions book. And I believe Champions: New Millennium was also an attempt to make such a game with setting built in. If a 7th ed of Hero ever occurred, I believe that going back to that design philosophy may work. 

 

49 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

I suspect the Hall of Champions is one way to try to alleviate this. Plenty of applications there. But I suspect it's more of a gold mine for us experienced players, and isn't of much use to people just picking up the game. I may be wrong. 

 

It could be. But I believe that there needs to be less restrictions on a product to allow for House Rules and making a game using the Hero System. 

[Hugh Neilson]

18 minutes ago, Sketchpad said:

I think there are plenty of people who have learned using 4e, 5e or even 6e. Many of my players in the 90s were 4e players and only 4e players. They didn't know of the game's existence before they started playing. The same could be said about my current group. However, that said, players were also exposed to the game as part of a setting I designed. So some powers were off limits, and house rules were explained throughout the game as needed. So, in some ways, it ran much like the "Powered by" philosophy.

 

It sounds like they learned from you,  not from the rulebooks.  Which rule set did you initially learn the game from, so that you could pass it along to them?

[DreadDomain]

On ‎3‎/‎1‎/‎2020 at 12:55 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

Duke, one aspect of Brian's plan which I really like is that it is not a "modified version" of the rules.  It presents only those rules required to run the game, so it does not need a lot of Powers/Advantages/Limitations mechanics, just how the ones used to make things in the game work.  A gun can simply be described as a 2d6-1 Killing Attack, with clips of 8 bullets and an optional sight which adds +1 OCV and reduces range penalties by 2.  None of the costing is needed.  Assuming we don't pay CP for weapons, no point costs are needed at all.

 

Maybe we have an ability like "Double Tap" - the character can fire two shots from any handgun as a single attack action, at a single target.  If the attack roll hits, both shots strike the target.  X CP. 

 

The reader does not need to know that is a Naked Advantage 2 shot Autofire usable on any pistol, 0 END, and +2 OCV only to offset the -2 autofire penalty when firing two shots.  They only need to know that the character spending those CP can shoot 2 bullets at once from a handgun.

 

I don't like presenting an abbreviated and renamed version of the Powers section.  That will make it more challenging for these gamers to transition to the full Hero system should they wish to do so.

 

To me, these "powered by Hero" games are a lot like the pre-4e "each game is separate", but eliminates the "source code is just a little different for each one" issue which 4e resolved.  However, they also remove the source code, so the players just play the game, with no need to design it.

 

I have been casually reading in the background and I think this is the crux of it. Brian stated previously that he didn't want to trigger an edition war but without going down that path, it is important to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the past and present editions. Skimming over a lot of detail, I (as in, in my opinion only) would summarise it like this.

• 6th Edition (HERO 6E volume 1 and 2) is the best toolkit published by HERO Games so far. Not only does it provide all you need to build your own game but it also provide tons of toolkitting advices;
• 3rd Edition (and before) is when the best games were published. Champions, Justice Inc, Danger International, Fantasy HERO were all using the same system but only the part of the system that related to their own agenda and alos expressed and presented in a way that made sense to their own paradigm (eg. equipments and vehicles not expressed and powers or characters)
• 4th Edition was the successful attempt to streamline the system but it also set a subtle trend that I would not recognise for many years after its inception. See 5th below.
• 5th and 5Er is really when the trend set in by 4th steamrolled full steam; Hero Games stopped producing games (there was a few exceptions) and fully focused on the toolkit or instruction manuals on how to use the toolkit to create our own games.

I believe what Brian is aiming at is to use the 6E toolkit to create/publish games like it was in the good old days. A Danfer International game? No need to express equipment as powers or vehicles as characters. They have games stats and a $ value (or even a Resource Point value) and that is it. Want the game to include a broad range of talents? No need to express them with base effect, advanatage (+¾) and limitations (-½). You only need a game effect description and a cost in cp.

 

But that is just the way I see it.  

[ScottishFox]

On 2/28/2020 at 1:21 PM, PhilFleischmann said:

Back in pre-4th days, when my regular D&D group decided to try Champions (and we never went back), it took us at most a week or two to learn the system, create our characters, and set up a "module" to begin playing.

 

I remember those days in the 80s and 90s and part of what made that possible were the rule books being a tiny fraction of the current 6e monstrosities.

 

My first champions boxed set had a softcover rule book (2e I believe).  It was easily digested in an internet-free, cell-phone free weekend.

 

I've read through the 6e rules and honestly I can't possibly expect normal human beings to read through this.  It's just too much.

 

PS:  I run the 6e rules (mostly) for my Saturday game, but I do ALL of the work.  The players tell me what they want and if they can remember how to do attack rolls, skill checks and their combat maneuvers I'm pretty happy.

4th edition was my favorite edition, but it was the upper limit of crunch, imo.

[Brian Stanfield]

5 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

I've read through the 6e rules and honestly I can't possibly expect normal human beings to read through this.  It's just too much.

 

PS:  I run the 6e rules (mostly) for my Saturday game, but I do ALL of the work.  The players tell me what they want and if they can remember how to do attack rolls, skill checks and their combat maneuvers I'm pretty happy.

Yes! This fits with my experience of things, and whether or not that’s a universal problem, it pretty much sums up what I see as the “problem” in this thread.

[Hugh Neilson]

9 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

I remember those days in the 80s and 90s and part of what made that possible were the rule books being a tiny fraction of the current 6e monstrosities.

 

Remove "6e" and note "21st Century" in its place and the statement is equally true.  By far the biggest rule set was AD&D, and the Players' Handbook (which was really all the player needed) weighed in at, IIRC, 128 pages.  Including a lot of spells you did not need to read because your character could not cast them.

 

The DMs Guide was bigger, but it contained a lot of info not necessary to run the game (and I will note the Light spell cast in a target's eyes began the "corner case rulings" we have grown to see in every game today).

 

Every other game looked much like the Champions 1e book or 2e box.

 

Now, it seems like every game needs at least a 280 page tome, although I think some of the Indies are pushing back on that.

[Hugh Neilson]

9 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

 

• 6th Edition (HERO 6E volume 1 and 2) is the best toolkit published by HERO Games so far. Not only does it provide all you need to build your own game but it also provide tons of toolkitting advices;
• 3rd Edition (and before) is when the best games were published. Champions, Justice Inc, Danger International, Fantasy HERO were all using the same system but only the part of the system that related to their own agenda and alos expressed and presented in a way that made sense to their own paradigm (eg. equipments and vehicles not expressed and powers or characters)
• 4th Edition was the successful attempt to streamline the system but it also set a subtle trend that I would not recognise for many years after its inception. See 5th below.
• 5th and 5Er is really when the trend set in by 4th steamrolled full steam; Hero Games stopped producing games (there was a few exceptions) and fully focused on the toolkit or instruction manuals on how to use the toolkit to create our own games.

But that is just the way I see it.  

 

I also see it, and I think you nailed it.  4e saw the "complete system".  It also saw some games using it, at least early on, but by 5e it was all Toolkit, no Game.

 

We can have both - a complete toolkit to build any game you want, and any number of games constructed using that tookit, without the mechanics on full display.

[Tywyll]

On 2/29/2020 at 9:58 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

I think that there is a lot of scope between old 1e D&D classes lacking any real customization and the full "design it yourself from the ground up" system design model.  I will also note that most threads discussing builds and games encourage the GM to set limits, such that players do not have that "complete freedom" you describe.

 

And I think there are a lot of gamers who may wish to have much or all of the design work done for them, but would still value the ability to pick and choose their characters' abilities, at creation and as they advance, the balance Hero provides and the system under which a Hero game runs.  That can be demonstrated by a game Powered by Hero, such as Brian envisions.

 

Some of those gamers might even value, or come to value, the ability to customize abilities to a greater extent with a mechanical basis behind that customization, or even to create their own game from whole cloth.  They may find Action Hero their gateway into that broader Hero universe.  Other may be quite content to play in Brian's sandbox, and await the next things he adds in an Action Hero supplement.

 

I think something important to bare in mind, even a 'straight jacket' like class and race game like D&D has been allowing custimization for years. Every since 2nd edition, they've allowed tweaks and choices that meaningfully impact that kind of characters you play (kits), and of course this ballooned in 3.X and continued in 4th and 5th. Players may not be able to build anything they want, but there are so many options, it's not difficult to build something approximating the image they have in their minds eye. Also by presenting cool bits to chop and change around, it gives players options that 'next time I want to play an X, Y, or Z'. I think Killer Shrike's online Hero campaign is actually an excellent example of this...he's created so many magic systems and character types in his Urban Fantasy game, that if I bought it as a book I would be drooling at the opportunity to play all the different builds. I don't know why, but for me at least, this is more engaging than knowing ahead of time I could just make anything I want. And I'd say I'm not alone in this, based on the success of games that do just this. 

 

I only mention this because a lot of people who seem to be talking about the surperiority of HERO over D&D and it's ilk seem to forget or be unaware that they long since moved away from 1E's 'every fighter is the same except for their magic items' model. Note, I'm not saying this about you Hugh, just your first comment reminded me that the needle has shifted a loooong way since 1E, even if the 'build it yourself' mechanic isn't present. 

 

So a PbHS approach could work by presenting new and fun options, pre-created for players to pick from, but let's not pretend that the competition is still treading the same ground it did 40 years ago. 

[Doc Democracy]

27 minutes ago, Tywyll said:

I think something important to bare in mind, even a 'straight jacket' like class and race game like D&D has been allowing custimization for years.

 

It is one thing to "allow" customisation (not sure how they could stop me once I had the rulebooks bought!) and another to facilitate it.

 

Yup, D&D has books you can buy with other pre-prepared stuff in it. 

 

What if I wanted a magic missile that did 1D6 damage?  or 1d4+2 damage?  What level would the spell be?  It is not truly customisable as there are far too many black boxes.  Even though I could customise it, it was purely eyeballing based on experience.  HERO provides a truly customisable experience as the black boxes have mostly been removed.  Most systems have their own black boxes that limit the ability of the GM to really customise options and there One Book Games that we are talking about would introduce their own black boxes.  What would make them different is that the engine within which they were designed is open source and replicable.  Indeed, there should also be a design sheet somewhere online that laid out the detail of those black boxes (even if the majority of people never looked or even wanted to look inside).

 

I would have regular reminders in such books to players and GMs that all the features of the game could be modified using the HERO Toolkit if they wanted to change their game to better suit their group.

 

Doc

 

 

[Brian Stanfield]

18 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

I would have regular reminders in such books to players and GMs that all the features of the game could be modified using the HERO Toolkit if they wanted to change their game to better suit their group.

This is a big part of what I want to include. Not lots of explanation, but simple references that point to where the reader can find more detailed information. I'm even thinking that an appendix could be a good thing at the end of the book for anyone who is interested, showing some of the different builds in their entirety, and then pointing them to the rest of the toolbox to fiddle with it on their own. "Here's how I built this gun, here's how I built this vehicle, here's how I built this ability, but you can do these things for yourself if you're so inclined." The ultimate teaser.

[Hugh Neilson]

34 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

It is one thing to "allow" customisation (not sure how they could stop me once I had the rulebooks bought!) and another to facilitate it.

 

Yup, D&D has books you can buy with other pre-prepared stuff in it. 

 

What if I wanted a magic missile that did 1D6 damage?  or 1d4+2 damage?

 

What if I want a Killing Attack that does 2d8 + 7 BOD, or a 2d6 HKA that gets +1 DC/8 STR and has a 1d12 STUN Multiple?  There is a difference between customization and changing base mechanics.  Maybe I like d% to hit rolls, opposed by d% defense rolls.

 

I do agree that Hero's "open source design code" is unique, and very powerful for those who want to modify the system and design their own items.  Comparing the design of a D&D spell vs a Hero spell is a great example (I suspect WOTC has some internal design parameters, but nowhere near as robust as Hero System - just knowing the value of not needing gestures or incantations is a huge difference).

[Chris Goodwin]

16 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

It sounds like they learned from you,  not from the rulebooks.  Which rule set did you initially learn the game from, so that you could pass it along to them?

 

In my own case:  it was 3rd edition Champions.  A friend of mine had been a Champions player for a while, and while he wasn't advocating for it hard core he definitely made it known.  I'd previously picked up Autoduel Champions for the Car Wars parts, and enough of what I saw in it made enough sense that I thought there might be something worth checking out.  I picked up the core rulebook and started reading.  Asked my friend a few clarifying questions here and there, then made my first two characters on my own.  I later played a lot with my friend, and also got hooked up with a later group who had settled on Champions and the other Hero games as their system of choice.  

[Doc Democracy]

28 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

What if I want a Killing Attack that does 2d8 + 7 BOD, or a 2d6 HKA that gets +1 DC/8 STR and has a 1d12 STUN Multiple?  There is a difference between customization and changing base mechanics.  Maybe I like d% to hit rolls, opposed by d% defense rolls.

 

It is true, you can ask for all kinds of things.  HERO has its own limitations. the difference is that with HERO those limitations are all out there to be seen.

 

Doc

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

What if I want a Killing Attack that does 2d8 + 7 BOD,

 

I can't help but feel you, Sir, if you really wanted that, would find some odd combination of Standard Effects and a few other things to get there. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I do agree that Hero's "open source design code" is unique, and very powerful for those who want to modify the system and design their own items.  Comparing the design of a D&D spell vs a Hero spell is a great example (I suspect WOTC has some internal design parameters,

 

I'm betting it's just some sort of "round Robin" math thing, adapted from their card strategem. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

but nowhere near as robust as Hero System - just knowing the value of not needing gestures or incantations is a huge difference).

 

 

Yep.   

[Tywyll]

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

It is one thing to "allow" customisation (not sure how they could stop me once I had the rulebooks bought!) and another to facilitate it.

 

Yup, D&D has books you can buy with other pre-prepared stuff in it. 

 

What if I wanted a magic missile that did 1D6 damage?  or 1d4+2 damage?  What level would the spell be?  It is not truly customisable as there are far too many black boxes.  Even though I could customise it, it was purely eyeballing based on experience.  HERO provides a truly customisable experience as the black boxes have mostly been removed.  Most systems have their own black boxes that limit the ability of the GM to really customise options and there One Book Games that we are talking about would introduce their own black boxes.  What would make them different is that the engine within which they were designed is open source and replicable.  Indeed, there should also be a design sheet somewhere online that laid out the detail of those black boxes (even if the majority of people never looked or even wanted to look inside).

 

I would have regular reminders in such books to players and GMs that all the features of the game could be modified using the HERO Toolkit if they wanted to change their game to better suit their group.

 

Doc

 

 

 

First off, people have been adding stuff to D&D since day 1. New monsters, new magic items, new classes, new spells...even without a design mechanic. The entire OSR is built on reclaiming the DIY ethos, though frankly I think it's erroneous to imagine it ever went away. Yes, the new models of the system are more internally consistent, meaning some attempts at DIY will fall on their face, or just be too complicated to attempt. But you just have to look at the d20 era sourcebook bloat to know that even without a build system people still build new things. So no, that's not really the point.

 

Regardless, people like new options. They buy books with new options. Sure it's great from a player's perspective that they they don't have to buy new books to build their own stuff, but frankly as a business model goes, those books sell better than any others...even better than adventures. 

 

A DIY GM is going to DIY no matter what system they run. Hero MAY appeal to them by providing them the tools to do it, but the overhead may not make it worthwhile. 

 

If ActionHero came out, I would love to see it supported by new setting books/campaigns/adventure paths filled with prefabbed talents/spells/power systems/etc.  Kind of like what All Flesh Must be Eaten did with all it's source books. And each of those not only added new rules and character options, they also came with 2-3 adventures or even campaigns in them, doing double duty as a PC and GM book.  

[Doc Democracy]

I think the Hall of Champions would be energised with a slew of One Book Games for which folk could build things for, better to have a slew of micro-transactions than a sluggish flow of larger ones. 

 

I was not disagreeing with you.  Even if HERO does well wit this, it is not going to compete with the 800lb gorilla in the market.  I want to see more players.  I want to see many more new faces on these boards coming to talk about how to do things.  I want to be able to go to conventions and see people excited about running (and playing) the newest HERO game.

 

I dream of comic book writers looking for an opportunity to write HERO adventures.  🙂 What sort of game would Alan Moore be able to write for us?

[zslane]

1 hour ago, Tywyll said:

First off, people have been adding stuff to D&D since day 1.

 

Quite true. However, I question the play-balance of most of it. The traditional advice given (for instance, by the DMG) for creating new spells and deciding what level they should be is an unhelpful, "Pick an existing spell that is similar to it and base the level on that." It takes an extraordinary degree of experience with D&D, and more than a small amount of good game design instincts, to add new spells, classes, monsters, and magic items in a way that delivers consistently credible play balance. Especially since your new thing won't have the benefit months of play testing by multiple testing groups before use in your campaign. Most players don't like being guinea pigs for this stuff, especially as they discover just how poorly balanced most of it ends up being.

 

While a point-based system like HERO isn't perfect, the mechanism for building things is transparent enough that if you think something isn't quite right, you at least know where to look for the fix. Moreover, if you ever have to justify the point cost of something, you can easily "show your work" and demonstrate precisely why the cost is the way it is. The areas where judgment calls are applied (e.g., Limited Power Limitations) helps focus the lens of debate where it belongs. Naturally, since HERO is a toolkit system, none of this is terribly eye-opening.

 

However, what surprises me, I guess, is the degree to which non-toolkit systems are regarded as expandable (in a reliable, play-balanced manner) just because players have been doing it for decades. In my experience, players have been doing it poorly for decades, mostly because the system in question (D&D usually) is terrible at providing a truly systematic framework to assist in this. Even in the modern era of 5e D&D, it is well established that its CR system is horribly broken past the 7th-10th level power tier.

[Sketchpad]

23 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

It sounds like they learned from you,  not from the rulebooks.  Which rule set did you initially learn the game from, so that you could pass it along to them?

 

I learned the game on 2nd, but really played mostly 3rd and 4th. That said, yes, I did teach them how to play Champions 4th ed. I used the BBB and many of them bought their own copy. I ran two groups simultaneously using the 4th ed rules. Not once did I step backwards while running the game beyond converting a character from pre-4th to 4th.  

 

[Hugh Neilson]

5 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

I can't help but feel you, Sir, if you really wanted that, would find some odd combination of Standard Effects and a few other things to get there. 

 

well...

 

somewhere in my bookshelves is a Hero Games newsletter from long, long ago - I think I have three, maybe four, and would be delighted if someone posted these old gems...

 

containing...

 

Hero prices for "those odd-shaped dice".  But they just assumed the highest number meant 2 BOD and the 1 meant 0, all others were 1.  IIRC, 1d100 cost 72 points for a Blast - not bad for an average of 50.5 instead of 42, and I guess I could put "no knockback" on it to shave some points off :)

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

well...

 

somewhere in my bookshelves is a Hero Games newsletter from long, long ago - I think I have three, maybe four, and would be delighted if someone posted these old gems...

 

containing...

 

 

  Hide contents

Hero prices for "those odd-shaped dice".  But they just assumed the highest number meant 2 BOD and the 1 meant 0, all others were 1.  IIRC, 1d100 cost 72 points for a Blast - not bad for an average of 50.5 instead of 42, and I guess I could put "no knockback" on it to shave some points off

 

 

 

Uhm....

 

Please, Suh...  

 

Can I have summoa?

 

 

 

 

 

[Tywyll]

12 hours ago, zslane said:

 

Quite true. However, I question the play-balance of most of it. The traditional advice given (for instance, by the DMG) for creating new spells and deciding what level they should be is an unhelpful, "Pick an existing spell that is similar to it and base the level on that." It takes an extraordinary degree of experience with D&D, and more than a small amount of good game design instincts, to add new spells, classes, monsters, and magic items in a way that delivers consistently credible play balance. Especially since your new thing won't have the benefit months of play testing by multiple testing groups before use in your campaign. Most players don't like being guinea pigs for this stuff, especially as they discover just how poorly balanced most of it ends up being.

 

While a point-based system like HERO isn't perfect, the mechanism for building things is transparent enough that if you think something isn't quite right, you at least know where to look for the fix. Moreover, if you ever have to justify the point cost of something, you can easily "show your work" and demonstrate precisely why the cost is the way it is. The areas where judgment calls are applied (e.g., Limited Power Limitations) helps focus the lens of debate where it belongs. Naturally, since HERO is a toolkit system, none of this is terribly eye-opening.

 

However, what surprises me, I guess, is the degree to which non-toolkit systems are regarded as expandable (in a reliable, play-balanced manner) just because players have been doing it for decades. In my experience, players have been doing it poorly for decades, mostly because the system in question (D&D usually) is terrible at providing a truly systematic framework to assist in this. Even in the modern era of 5e D&D, it is well established that its CR system is horribly broken past the 7th-10th level power tier.

 

Just because Hero has systimised it's costs, doesn't mean its immune to play balance issues. And some of it's 'balanced' constructs can be wildly destabalizing to a game, hence all the ! and Stop Signs. Let's not pretend that HERO is perfectly balanced. It isn't. It works within it's assumptions of what is and what should be...but ultimately those are just assumptions, made by a writer instead of a GM or supplement designer. You can just as easily build a broken legal construct in it as you can in any other system and the only thing stopping a monstrocity from seeing play is the GM and their system knowledge. 

 

I think we just need to point at its inability to satisfactorily create Light and light based effects as a flaw in the idea that its math is somehow immune to balance issues (yes, I know you never said that specifically, but the implication that have a point value attached to something somehow makes it better isn't far off from intimating it). Also the fact that many builds are, due to point cost, effectively NPC only (or only in huge CP games which is something not often run), where as similar constructs might actually be usable by players in other games.

 

And as to this, "Most players don't like being guinea pigs for this stuff, especially as they discover just how poorly balanced most of it ends up being.", you'll need to show  your work. That certainly not been my experience. And the fact that tons of gamers routinely lap up Pathfinder and 5E's playtest and beta material would seem to point out the opposite. 

[Tywyll]

So, I'm still not sold on Action HERO! as a genre because while I appreciate the lack of needing to establish a world, I still can't point to any really successful games set in the modern era that completely lacked any supernatural element.

 

That said, I was looking at some books yesterday and found some interesting data. The Basic 6E rule book is about 95 pages, once you dump the power section. Urban Fantasy HERO, which is both a genre source book and a campaign(s...seriously it includes 3 whole settings with their own races and magic rules) guide and comes with an adventure comes in at a little over 200 pages. I think you could look at the Urban Fantasy model and, like them, include 2 or 3 campaign settings in the book (maybe even one with precreated powers) and an adventure in a 200 page book.

 

This would a) teach the rules in an easy format while also b) showing off the flexibility by showing different settings. As long as you stuck to modern based one, the world detail could be minimal. You could have a) generic action  setting (though honestly I don't know what this would even look like...what is a generic 80's movie setting?) b) a zombie/alien invastion setting and c) a hiddern monster setting (kind of like monster hunter international/MiB/Xfiles) possibly with some psychic rules or a smattering of spells. All of that for around 200 pages.

[Hugh Neilson]

13 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

 

I learned the game on 2nd, but really played mostly 3rd and 4th. That said, yes, I did teach them how to play Champions 4th ed. I used the BBB and many of them bought their own copy. I ran two groups simultaneously using the 4th ed rules. Not once did I step backwards while running the game beyond converting a character from pre-4th to 4th.  

 

 

To me, the key here is that they did not have to read the written rules, and interpret them on their own, to play the game.  That is "learning from the rules".  Playing in a game using the rules, with guidance from existing players who already know the rules, and reading the rules in that context, is not "learning from the rules".

 

To me, 1e through 3e (the "One Book/Box Game Era") had games you could learn from the rules. 

 

5e and 6e do not - you need to read and understand the rules in order to build a playable game using those rules.  There is no game provided.

 

4e is in an odd middle ground.  There were still games published (Fantasy Hero is a good example; the BBB was as much "Champions" as "Hero System").  I think you could learn the game from the 4e rules, but that may be nostalgia talking - I and my group already knew the game from prior editions, so we did not have to learn the game from 4e.  So I cannot precisely place the time when "learn the game from the rules" was a practical short-term objective.  I would say that was possible in 4e, but not in 5e.

 

And, as I think on it, I think learning to play Champions from the BBB would have been at least AS practical as learning to play D&D from the 2e or 3e rule books, which would have been the 4e Hero contemporaries.  Both grew - Hero into the Hero System Tomes to build your own game, and D&D into Splatbook City.  But D&D maintained the "you can start with these core rules and add on" model.  Hero put all the add-on rules in one place, and stripped out all of the "Game" from that place.

[zslane]

7 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Just because Hero has systimised it's costs, doesn't mean its immune to play balance issues.

 

Agreed. Which is why I said it wasn't perfect. However, I still stand by my conviction that the HERO System is far easier to balance than non-point-based systems where very little is exposed for deeper examination.

 

Moreover, I trust the work of game designers and playtest groups over the tampering of GMs. Given the amount of heated arguments I've witnessed time and time again between players and GMs over house rules and other GM-induced tweaks and changes to the game (usually D&D), I am forced to conclude that players don't typically enjoy being guinea pigs to untested GM experimentation. It's mostly a trust issue; players tend to trust the rulebook (and by extension, the game designer(s)) rather than the GM, at least when it comes to the rules and game mechanics.

[Sketchpad]

11 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

To me, the key here is that they did not have to read the written rules, and interpret them on their own, to play the game.  That is "learning from the rules".  Playing in a game using the rules, with guidance from existing players who already know the rules, and reading the rules in that context, is not "learning from the rules".

 

To me, 1e through 3e (the "One Book/Box Game Era") had games you could learn from the rules. 

 

5e and 6e do not - you need to read and understand the rules in order to build a playable game using those rules.  There is no game provided.

 

4e is in an odd middle ground.  There were still games published (Fantasy Hero is a good example; the BBB was as much "Champions" as "Hero System").  I think you could learn the game from the 4e rules, but that may be nostalgia talking - I and my group already knew the game from prior editions, so we did not have to learn the game from 4e.  So I cannot precisely place the time when "learn the game from the rules" was a practical short-term objective.  I would say that was possible in 4e, but not in 5e.

 

And, as I think on it, I think learning to play Champions from the BBB would have been at least AS practical as learning to play D&D from the 2e or 3e rule books, which would have been the 4e Hero contemporaries.  Both grew - Hero into the Hero System Tomes to build your own game, and D&D into Splatbook City.  But D&D maintained the "you can start with these core rules and add on" model.  Hero put all the add-on rules in one place, and stripped out all of the "Game" from that place.

 

But they did read the 4th ed rules. Hence why they bought their own books to read and use. For me, 4th ed was my favorite version of Champions/Hero. It did what I wanted it to. 5th ed inflated things a bit, and 6th ed attempted to streamline 5th ed in some ways. There were options in the 1-3 ed versions I enjoyed, particularly the Mastermind rules, but I preferred the 4th ed rules. Agree or disagree as you will, but it's unlikely to change my opinion.