obatron

Re: I'm considering Hero... That's a great idea. One of the best GURPS games I ran was when I told the players I would design their character for them from the background story they had to write. I got some great stories, and they got some well designed characters...

Re: I'm considering Hero... Doh! Broke my own rule and didn't look to official sources first. Must be getting lazy in my old age. I actually thought it was all pretty straight forward, I just got to the powers section and thought, largest section of the book, looked some a lot of rules to have memorize, and so forth. After reading/skimming it, and poking around here, I think it might be all right. If I'm correct, I'll do most of the work in the Powers section defining the spell systems, magic items, etc. The players will just shopping cart the work. Most of the rules of maxium effect, etc are either "common sense" or defined when you make the spell.

Re: I'm considering Hero... Wow, thread has certainly changed... I just got to the Powers section of Hero and am wondering if outside of Sidekick if there's a power primer somewhere or a cheat sheet. I just imagine my players looking at that section and saying, "Umm, I think I'll just play a barbarian." There seems to be a lot of things they are going to have to remember...or not, maybe in the fantasy setting a lot gets stripped away. Are there other quick cheat sheets or things (like quick reference cards, or the GURPS combat cards, etc.) that I should also consider looking into Thanks,

Re: I'm considering Hero... Out of curiosity, if I were to buy Hero Designer, which add ons would be essential for fantasy?

Re: I'm considering Hero... ...again pardons if this seems disjointed, even more sleep lost due to prank call last night informing me my mother died, which kept me up for hours out of sheer anger over the &!#*. Some might question my sensibilities in asking my questions here, since obviously the answers would be slanted. However, I wanted to hear the positive response rather than the negative. I believe GURPS and Hero are not that far apart in style, just the way they do it. I know the basic negatives of a point based system... Coming from GURPS, I'm aware of the amount of work needed to create the NPCs, monsters/animals, etc. I suspect Hero of being in the same ball park. However, doing a different magic system in GURPS required more work; The official magic system is more integrated into the system. GURPS also suffers from the unconcious foe if the combat is done correctly (which is not an easy task, and makes it much longer...but that's another debate that raged over there recently.) I don't have a problem with this as my players are often upset if they've done and killed their foe before they get to play (they love getting info...) After reading the discussion above, I've formed the opinion that GURPS and Fantasy are very close in the amount of work, the concepts, and so forth. It does seem that Hero is more toolkit like and could be easier to customize a magic system into, etc. This may be different with GURPS 4th edition, I don't know yet. In many ways, I asked here because I wanted to see if the online community was supportive of what I wanted in the game. Given that both GURPS and Hero do not foster the game aids that D20 does, asking fellow players online is the second best game aid a GM can have (and often times, the best.) I broke out my books and started going through the big book. So far, it all seems rather straight forward. It's similar enough (outside of powers) to GURPS that I think it should be fairly easy to pick up. Combat and magic are my biggest concerns, and your pointers on magic already have me thinking...

Re: I'm considering Hero... First off, thanks for all the replies! I'll check out the websites and search through the forums a little more. Regarding my question of GM resources, now that I think about it, I don't think even I know. I realize I have some sort of illusion that there is some magical game tool out there that will make me think, how did I ever GM without something like this to help me prepare. It could also be part of the whole cost thing as well. I don't want to buy copies of GURPS Characters for everyone, I don't want to GM D20, and Sidekick just seems like such a big savings for me. I think my quandry comes from the general impression that the GURPS community is more Sci-Fi, Modern, and realistic historical and to some extent disdain fantasy. I know this may not be fair, and mean no disrepect to GURPS fans, it's just the feeling I've been getting lately. While my players aren't really hack and slashers (although they like a good fight), I'm just trying to see if Fantasy Hero would be a better system to support more High Fantasy, Traditional Fantasy, etc. Sorry, I realize that I'm seeming extremely vague or foggy...I'm blaming it on lack of sleep...it's way to hot here.

Re: I'm considering Hero... Wow, that's a lot of repsonse in a very short time! Many thanks! I should have mentioned, I've already bought all the Fantasy Hero line, including the first 5th edition and the new one and Sidekick. I have an adictive personality. So for me, it's more of being at the edge, should I fall off on the Hero side or the GURPS side as the system of choice... This might be a bit lazy on my part, especially since I've not read the material yet. Can you tell me 1. Are there many GM online resources? Especially things that can help me creating my setting and such. Can you point me to a couple. 2. I'm looking for a magic system that centers around a making a Mage's eyes light up when finding books. You know, when they see the library and they push everyone out of the way rushing forward "These must be MINE!" Is that part of any of the published settings? How hard would it be to make? Has it been done? 3. From reading these boards, it sounds like you build most items the same way you do a character. If true, does the character designer help in this respect as well? I haven't bought it yet...nor the equipment guide...I'm itching too though...sigh. I'll have more questions shortly I'm sure.

First, pardon's if this is trollish or whatnot, the length of my post, and if this is an old discussion I should have searched for more... Being an avid collector of all things RPG, I have a collection of all systems (Hero, GURPS, WFRP 1 & 2, Hackmaster, AD&D 2, AD&D 1, D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, OD&D, various D20 variants, Decipher LoTR, Burning Wheel, Riddle of Steel, and a few others I can't remember.) I'll play almost anything, although I generally make a better GM than I do a player...don't know why, just do. Most of the systems I've done as one offs, or short 'breaks' for something different. GURPS has been my staple... I started out GM'ing AD&D 1st edition, then switched to GURPS 3rd edition a number of years ago. I have a very large GURPS 3 collection, despite the fact that we almost always play fantasy (we did a little GURPS Space, and GURPS Old West, but they were short breaks.) With the release of GURPS 4th, I bought all the books, but find myself in a quandry...do I convert to GURPS 4th, or is it time to try a new system... I recently tried Castles and Crusades, an old school D20 varient and came away from it remembering why I switched to GURPS. What I didn't like about GURPS was: * Spell system * The length of time combat took, "...you see three Ogres...4 hours later, well, that's enough for this session, see ya next week." * Lack of players * I have to supply all the books for any system other than D&D 3.0 we play (I make the most money.) Now, the latter two are not likely to change unless I switch to D20, and I'm not sure I want to go through that. I heard good things about True20, and Fantasy Hero has intrigued me (not so much the latest setting though), though it seems a bit daunting to learn. The question I have is, before I take the plunge with GURPS 4th, should I consider Fantasy Hero, and why, or even why not for that matter? Others? Your input will help, I've feel like I've been going in circles reviewing all my options. It's left me frozen for the past few months.

Re: Advice needed: Which conversions are okay to post? In general, copyright lasts for the life of the author + 70 years. For a brief review and links: http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20020612.html

Re: HERO system observations and beefs I think you meant Cumberland Games ? Unless of course you didn't, in which case, I had no idea about him being part of Columbia Games and apologize.