David Blue

My gaming group converted everything into the Hero system.
We would play the original rules for two or three sessions, get frustrated at the lack of rules, and convert it.
We played spies, cowboys, pulp, Cthulhu, pirates, Klingons, Star Trek, Star Wars, Middle Earth, Twilight 2000, … using Hero rules.
 

I'm coming back to HERO after about a 7 to 10 yr hiatus, so I * want* it to be my go-to. I can't even remember why I took a break from it. I don't think it was a conscious decision, I think I just kinda slowly drifted away as I explored other rpgs. I got pretty heavy into the more narrative style systems for a while there (FATE, Cortex, etc.) as well as Savage Worlds and other "universal/generic" systems. Ultimately though, I found my bookshelves groaning under the weight of all these different books and found myself struggling to learn and memorize all these different systems to do all these different things with and that's what brought me back to Hero. I still enjoy those other games... in theory, anyway. But at the end of the day I just don't have the time or the inclination anymore to master multiple systems. Hero is an excellent "one stop shop" for pretty much anything I could think of. 
 
Unfortunately, as with many others, finding people to play is proving challenging. I currently live in Omaha, NE and you might be surprised to hear that there's quite a large "nerdy" community here. We have a couple different cons each year (gaming, anime, etc) and several gaming stores (at least 5 different stores that I know of, with 3 of those having two locations). However, finding people to play anything other than D&D 5e is tough. I mean, there are a handful of people who offer other games from time to time, but 5e is the big draw for some reason. Which is fine, of course. It's nice to see this flood of new people getting into the role playing hobby and I'm sure that, in time, many of them will branch out into other games just as we all did back in the day. 
 
I'm going to try running a few demos in the near future once I get my collection built back up. I've been kicking around a couple different ideas that would showcase Hero's strengths in different ways. An X-Files type game where the players are FBI agents contending with conspiracies, weird mutants, psychics, and aliens, etc. A Star Wars game set during the end of the Clone Wars/beginning of the Rebellion era where the players are all Jedi on the run from Imperial Inquisitors. That kind of thing. 
 
And for what it's worth, I think the free Champions Begins download is a great start. I think they should release one for Fantasy and Sci-Fi, as well, and include a bunch of "generic" antagonist stats to show how flexible the system is. For example, here's a generic "Imperial storm soldier", for when you need a space fascist shock trooper. Here's a fierce "K'lang-in warrior" for when you need a space zen viking. Things like that. 
 
I also think that if they're going to bring Hero back and release a 7th edition, they're going to need to jazz it up a bit to match modern production values. I would include a code on the inside cover similar to what Cortex Prime or Vampire the Masquerade 5e are doing that will get you a free pdf of the game, regardless of where you buy the physical copy from. Maybe have that free pdf be a bundle of sorts that includes a bunch of example templates/powers/antagonists/whatever for different genres to help get people kickstarted. Things like generic orcs, goblins, dragons, eye-tentacle-monster, etc. for fantasty. Space fascists and space vikings and "alphabet starfighters" for sci-fi. Men in black, some freaky mutants and more tentacle monsters for modern day (or 1920s) horror. Stuff like that. 
 
I also wonder if maybe a boxed "starter set" might be worthwhile for Hero, since starter sets are kind of a popular thing these days. D&D, Call of Cthulhu, Star Trek, all have them and they seem to be popular. 
 
So yeah, Hero is still my go-to. Or at least I want it to be. For me, there's just nothing else out there that has the flexibility and inter-changeability that can match it. 

I really liked FASERIP.  Not as much as Hero of course, but it did a good job of capturing the comic book feel, and the advanced rules improved granularity a lot.  Its biggest problem was a lack of underlying rules framework--the same problem most game systems have, where you eventually wind up with a looong list of powers/spells/feats/class abilities and no way to handle interactions between them, or deal with the resulting loopholes.
 
Oh, and character creation.  Character creation in FASERIP was really... random.  It screams for a point buy system, and there are some homebrew point systems floating around cyberspace for exactly that reason.  I swear Gambit was created using FASERIP random character generation, he is exactly the type of powers hodgepodge you can expect.
 
MSH was also extraordinarily well supported in its day.  I have a big stack of slightly-damaged MSH books that I always meant to convert to Hero but obviously never did.  (The local Waldenbooks (remember those?) put their MSH stuff in a rotating rack near a wall, so it was always falling out and getting chewed up.  A friend of mine who worked there let me help her dispose of the unsalable merch...)
 
FASERIP is also one of the very few game systems I know of that scales well from skilled-normal to cosmic, Hero and BECMI D&D being the other two.  I still wouldn't use FASERIP for fantasy though, and regardless it seems to have an even smaller player base than Hero.

I only tried FASERIP once, and that was just character creation. I didn't like the process. I ended up with an Average Joe with an alternate identity. The alternate identity also turned out to be an Average Joe for the most part, except with Aunt May level strength. I was hoping to make some kind of swordsman, but the rolls weren't with me.
 
One of my friends got the roll for a sword with a special ability; I admit to being jealous about that. He was just goofing off, so he decided the sword's special ability was that it could stick to the wall.
 
 

Traitors! Traitors! 😁
 
I think the big problem is basically that’s hero as it is, is unattractive to the young group especially those that have no experience with off-line, tabletop, wargames. Even board games are a rare experience for the screen generations. I don’t mind playing Hero with only grognards , though. 

Typically yes. Hero presents a language for detailed character design and once you have the hang of it, learning a new language every time you want to design a new character seems like a lot of wasted effort.
 
On the other hand, the number of people that have fluency in said language are diminishing...

I still “think” in Hero, and have ideas for science fiction and modern campaigns in my head.  I intensely dislike minimalist systems, and I leave the table rather than playing them. 
 
The problem I have with Hero is not having any players close by.  Online, the player base skews younger, and anyone born after 1991 is going to have an aversion to crunchy mechanics, as for them, the computer handles the crunch. The dark times of when MTG sucked all the money out of the TTRPG industry broke the habit. 
 
So I do GM, but these days it’s Cyberpunk Red maybe Traveller (Mongoose), but there is only tepid interest in doing anything Hero. As a player, it’s 5e D&D, as that seems to be the only thing other people GM.  At least my Sunday DM homebrew the politics. 
 
But I am still thinking in Hero.