Nemblamenchisus

I've seen many examples over the years of businesses and IP holders pulling products or making them unavailable for reasons I can't understand. Remember a decade or so ago the app "Flappy Birds" went viral? The maker pulled it when it was bringing in $100k PER DAY because of personal reasons. Even though he was not wealthy and this was probably life-changing money for him and his family. Then there was Gary Gygax's widow simply not wishing to let certain products be published or republished even when it was all set to go with the business partner that Gary had chosen. And then there are certain decisions by DoJ/Hero Games which I won't get into. It's all a mystery. But owner of stuff can do what they want with their property.

Thanks Steve, Jason, and Darren. The fun continues...

I like names that have a story or seem to require one. Non-obvious names, like Piccadilly Circus or Elephant and Castle, locations in London that have visitors wondering what the story is. So, in this case, something that is non-nautical. What about the name of an old god that is no longer worshipped, or is even reviled and hated, but the name lingers on. In the same way that days of the week kept pagan names even under Christianity.

Kinda proud to say I have no idea what the D&D-specific conceptions of "sorcerer", "warlock" and even "druid" may be...warlocks have pacts with an entity? Druids shapeshift into beasts? (there's a recent concept, nothing to do with druidism in my mind) Anyway, Hero can obviously do them all, and better 🙂

How much income has Hero Games left on the table by not having previews or even page counts listed in the store? As an ecommerce professional, I would say that the conversion rate of more casual browsers (those not knowing exactly what they want, and not part of the hardcore community) is probably reduced by 90% due to these factors. It's difficult to understand, frankly.

Concept was excellent, writing and crunch was good. Design, layout and marketing was terrible. Hats off to Christopher Hackler for writing it, but Hero Games (what's left of it) is not even trying anymore in 2020.

An interesting fact is that while D&D5e is perhaps the most successful edition of D&D ever, it hasn't brought popularity to a long tail of secondary RPG systems in its wake. Leaving Hero aside, there has been NO superhero game in the last decade which has capitalised on the popularity of superhero movies. (The Marvel RPG of a few years ago was not all that successful). I find that quite remarkable - in a world where comic book movies and characters are mainstream, and where I can buy Dungeons and Dragons again in toystores in my mid-size town for the first time since the 80s, I can't reach out to the shelf next to D&D and find any superhero RPG. Since that is the case, it's hard to argue it's an anomaly the Hero isn't being played in force these days. Even Mutants and Masterminds has had its day - it was much more popular 10 years ago. Weird, but there it is.

I for one would love to see more of your fantasy setting material. All of those ideas sound good - especially your take on sword and sorcery, and low fantasy. It doesn't have to be a doorstopper like Turakian Age. Perhaps an ongoing series of short PDFs which could eventually be collected into a book?

Did I just read aright. You're enraged at the people of of the Middle Ages, because they were all cowards? I've heard everything now.

I wouldn't say "wrong" it's just that the universe was edged into the "PoD" fork of reality by this forum's collective consciousness.

I do love several different RPG systems, not always because of the quality of the rules, but there are other reasons like nostalgia, nice shiny books with nice art, popularity making it easier to find other players, etc. But Hero is the best ruleset bar none. It's not even a contest. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but if only people could see that in play, once chargen is done, it offers a simple and fast-moving experience. Flexibility of character concept is not the only selling point. So anyway, I've bought sets of Hero Games books several times over and will continue to do so. My most recent thing is collecting all the different 3e genre games. I was kind of surprised how sophisticated the rules and presentation was already by the time of Fantasy Hero (1985), it was already comprehensive only 4 years after the first release of Champions.

I've played a lot of both systems, but when I look at RM these days I just think how much easier it is just to do things in Hero. So many exception-based rules in RM and so much needless complication. Take a look at Construct Companion or Fire and Ice which drill down into niches and it all seems like pointless complication. Building a construct (automaton) is child's play in Hero. And the magical realms of power in RM have poor differentiation while in Hero they can easily be given their own unique feel.

I don't know much about pulps. I remember seeing pulp magazines - small digest sized publications with color artwork covers, with western or true crime themes - on newsstands as late as the 1990s or even early 2000s. These seemed to be the real old-school thing, not hipster revivals. Does anyone know what I mean and are any still around?

I'm so envious. I've built up and sold off several collections through the years, and now have a lot of pdfs and a small number of hard copy books. And even though I have all I need, practically speaking, I still go weak at the knees when I see a bookshelf full of Hero and other RPG books. It's definitely irrational.

I'm just going to chip in by saying that actually, Hero isn't doing too badly. It's in print. It still has a dedicated base, and name recognition outside that base. How many systems from the classic era of RPGs are really doing much better? The competition from newer systems is astronomical. Hero isn't one of the top handful of systems, like it was perhaps in the past, but now there are 100x the number of games on the market. We all have ideas on what could be done to make it more successful, but I'm pretty happy with what we've got, and I'm still having success running games and introducing new players.

Any tips or examples for how to use Spell Law on the fly in Hero?

Tight lips eh enforcer? Maybe a little forehead vein poppin' action... :-D Yeah this forum is a bit like that.

More importantly, when will we get lower strength maxima for females baked into the Hero rules?

That was a good find. As I've stated before, I'm not a big fan of the Complete books for those new to the Hero System. I think it would be difficult for most to tease out how it all works in actuality, due to the lack of examples in those books. The big books are excellent for that, although they have their own issue of being overly verbose. Still, with a bit of persistence and using the forums as a resource, you'll be able to get where you want to go with either presentation of the rules. For fantasy gaming, having the two core books plus FH6e (not Complete) is a mind-boggling cornucopia. Pretty much the only three books you'd ever need.

Having just read Steve's guest post and the long "comment" I feel like I have just attended a master class or seminar on Hero...

Nice implementation of Rolemaster magic. I've thought of doing something similar, even starting to recreate some of the Spell Law lists in Hero. However, that would be a huge project to complete.

That's true in some ways, but for a newcomer to learn the game with no-one to guide him, I think Basic is better. The whole structure of the game is clearly laid out. For example the extended combat example and the sidebars are very helpful for newbies, the kind of things lacking in Complete which is a dense compendium.

Nice purchase! Hope you get a lot of value from them. My copies are certainly prized. Yes, they're big, a lot of that is due to the thick page stock which I've never seen in any other RPG books. Seems like Hero Games would have pocketed some money if they'd had them available as PoD...you might not have gone to eBay, right? Hmmm...

Couple of counterpoints to that...the two big books are still for sale in PDF. Steve Long still gives official rulings on them in this forum. And I'm not sure how you know whether more people prefer the Complete series (I don't). Even if your gaming group and your buddies on this forum have that opinion, that's not necessarily the best rubric. Bring back the big books! No, actually it's understandable that they were too expensive to reprint and the game remains accessible through Complete. So that's fair enough. But as a newcomer, I would prefer to learn through Basic Rules then use the Big Books. Coming completely fresh through Complete would be tougher - there just aren't enough examples and explanations in my opinion. Basic teaches the game very well.

It's also true that the best fantasy books to read are not necessarily the most inspirational for the gaming table, and vice versa. Some terrible dreck contains gameable material, often because it may as well be a write-up of a D&D campaign...