Ron

They are counterparts of their respective universes and, as such, they are similar in relation to powers. Although I prefer Stephen as a character and, therefore, rather prefer to read his stories, I'm pretty sure that Dr. Fate wouldn't find difficult to defeat Dr. Strange hands down. However, unless the new Dr. Fate is really different from his previous incarnations, Stephen is much smarter and could use it as an advantage.

Re: More GURPS... In the early 90s I used GURPS in all my campaigns. Eventually, I found the whole system overrated and gave up using it. I even gave my GURPS collection to my friends that played at that time with me (nobody in my group play GURPS nowadays). Still, I got a lot of fun from the system. In my opinion, the early 3rd edition GURPS books are the best. Since publication of Vehicles and Compendium, GURPS line has became obssessed with pointless details. Still, I would recomend the Basic Set, Psionics, Magic, Voodoo, Horror, Space, and probably a few more. Also, I insist that you can replace the Basic Set with Lite if you're willing to not use the advanced rules. My problems with GURPS are the already mentioned obssession with details and a strong disagreement with the stats modifiers in skills. Also, I don't like the main magical system that takes too much bookkepping (spells are treated as skills that need prerequisites, which means that a compentent wizard need to known dozens of skills to do a more advanced spell) and the fact that magic (several systems), psionics, superpowers, gadgets, etc all use different rules found in different books. Finally, I hate the vehicle/equipment system, which is a simulationist design that emulates real world engineering, and the use of the imperial system (not a problem if you're raised in the US). All that said, I insist that GURPS is a fine system that might be attractive to a lot of people. I still think that HERO do better as a generic system and that it is not difficult to use GURPS supplements if you already have some experience with the system, which can be obtained with GURPS Lite, available as a free download at SJGames. Many of the GURPS supplements are of high quality and cover subjects not covered in any RPG line. Go ahead and download GURPS Lite and give it a try.

You can do well with the lite rules only. However, GURPS, despite its name, is not a general system like HERO but a modular system. Instead of a general set of rules that might be applied to most if not all situations, GURPS has a simple core of rules in which modules of rules can be easily added. As such, GURPS Magic rules are very different from the magic rules in GURPS Voodoo or from the psionics rules in GURPS Psionics. As such, although the lite version is good enough to run adventures with normal people, you'll need the supplements to add diferent "powers". The basic set expands GURPS Lite offering a sample of the Psionics system and a few more spells, but it is still oriented to no-sobrenatural adventures. If you get the Basic set and Compendium I (don't bother with Compendium II), you'll have an almost complete rules set to generate character under GURPS. Again, remmember that GURPS uses exhaustive lists of advantages/disadvantages, skills, spells, psionics, and powers. Although it is suficient to cover a lot of ground, it isn't like HERO where you can customize the rules to create the the exact effect you're looking for.

I agree. There are not many people playing HERO in Rio...

Mr. Negative, you are missing the point in relation to GURPS. Although you can have up to ten stats, most characters can go with only four., whereas in HERO you're locked with ten. As such, GURPS, unlike HERO can function at several levels of complexity, as much as each character needs.

In your system, inborn stats will be much more important than training. Perhaps is my bias, but years of teaching have convinced me that the opposite is closer to reality. I didn't understand what you mean with the problem of "no intermediate skills thing." Perhaps you could elaborate it a little bit.

You're right. But I hope that you also appreciate the beauty in such design. You have four stats as a standard and, when needed, you can add three more and get seven. In this way, many characters can be described with less numbers. One of the reasons HERO has so many stats is Champions focus in superheroes. For people like me who uses HERO much more often in heroic campaigns, some stats such as PD and ED, which are very useful in super games, look superflous.

Many of the perceived problems with GURPS are from the fact that GURPS sells itself as a generic system, which it is not. At least, not in the way that HERO is generic. GURPS is rather a modular system. Need magic? Take GURPS Magic. Different one? Allright, experiment GURPS Voodoo. Theres little effort of making costs standardized along all supplements. I was a great supporter of GURPS in the past and I still think it is a good game. However, as supplements got released, GURPS became increasely difficult to play, due to the lack of standardization and the option for exhaustive listing everything. Compared to HERO, GURPS' advantage/disadvantage lists are huge. Instead of giving guidelines to the GM price specific mental or physical advantages/disadvantages, they tried to list every single one. There was a point that I gave up this insanity. I still think that GURPS do stats better than HERO, which I think has too many. But that's it. I don't see any other compeling advantage of GURPS.

Tetsujin28, I think your system might work and, if that's what is needed to make Hero work to you, more power to it! I do agree that Hero shows some age regarding the high number of stats (yes, that's one of the things I like in GURPS) and the fact that skills works somewhat different from powers, but I so used to it that it is not a issue anymore. However, what could be a nice add on is to have a NPC character sheet with few stats to decrease the GM work. Schematic NPC character sheets would do great to mooks and minor vilains, whereas we could use all stats to better portrait the major NPCs.

For your post, it appears that your Globin kingdom is a kind of small one. As such, he will need political support from more powerful states to keep independent. Perhaps, the kingdom could be a vassal state of a larger nation, with some independence of their own -- globins might be considered second class citzens among human nations and thus the big kingdom saw no advantages in incorporating it.

That's sad. The map is very nice and a colour printout would greatly enhance Terran Empire value. I would gladly pay an extra to have it included in the book. Perhaps Hero Games might consider some colour add ons in future releases.

I haven't seen Terran Empire (I have to order HERO books by mail as they aren't being carried in my country at this moment). Is this cool map bundled in the book?

Star Grunt Hero! That will be interesting.

Characters from literature or movies are not created with a point number constraint. As such, for some characters, 150 points may be too much. Still, it might be fun to create them anyway. I still think that a younger version of Conan would be allright with 150 pts, as well as Gandalf.

Asimov's Foundation triology (do yourself a favor and don't read the follow ups written in the 80s and 90s) is pretty much about that. It appears that his editor, John Campbell, was not thrilled with the idea of aliens, so Asimov done a galactic empire spread over all Via Lactea without a single sentient species aside humanity.

I understand. Reading the product description I thought that perhaps it would include some generic material, aside to the to the part tied with the setting.

Who is writing this book? Also, what kind of goodies should I expect to help me in a military Star Hero campaign?

I am sorry but I don't like e-rpgs, I might consider buy it if it ever became availabe in print. Still, the cover appears to be very nice. Could you post an enlarged version? I noticed that Shades of Black is not being listed in the "Our Products" section.

For a brief moment I though that you was refering to a world with women only. It would be hard, but David Brin got as close as possible is his novel Glory Season. Back to your question, I am not comfortable playing with aliens or fantasy races and, as such, I don't think I would be to enjoy a campaign such as this, although the idea is very interesting.

Sounds like the kind of campaign I would be willing to play. Concerning GenreFiend points, you should charge points to any kind of equipment that cannot be easily purchased nowdays. I would also include currently experimental technology or restricted military equipment. In relation to secret identities, villains don't want to be exposed, but they wouldn't be dumb to use some kind of uniform or trademark that would help the authorities to determine their participation in several crimes.

Personally I like Traveller's rules as they are, while HERO is great to create your own campaigns. This is not say that you cannot take something from Traveller. As a matter of fact, most starfaring roleplaying games scenarios have done it. Give a look in this thread to see what people have done about it.

Fortunely, HERO rules doesn't cover size specifics, but rather the capabilities of a vehicle. Size will very dependent of the kind of technology available. Early 20th Century flying machines would include airplanes, rather small but with a reasonable cargo, and zeppelins, very big and a with a relatively small cargo. In classic Star Trek, only very big ships could travel between stars, whereas in Star Wars FTL fighters were common. Do whatever seems reasonable in your setting.

I enjoy playing Sengoku (although the Fuzion implementation is rather weak). However, I would like to play something more Chinese. Is there anything available? Would Ninja Hero be useful in a project like this?

Hey Steve, Could you at least give us a preview of the cover?

Damn it! I hoped that it would generate enough expectative among HERO fans to justify printing it. Still, I sure it will be a very cool supplement.