Brian Stanfield

These were bundled with Champions Complete, so only for paying customers. I have them too and didn't realize it until the other day. I don't know why they didn't include all of these things for FHC, although a Fantasy Hero in 2 Pages document was included, as well as sample monsters, etc. But why not all these other documents too? Especially the combat example. It just feels like, even with new products, they are on autopilot with their decisions. There needs to be some new blood with new ideas.

I don't get this at all. You can heal up to the maximum, but the halving effect is still in effect? Wouldn't that be only half the maximum?

Out of curiosity, what are the SETAC discussions?

I think perhaps that your original post was misinterpreted as being an ernest attempt at presenting a healing potion. I took it to be an over-the-top, humorous example, although it was a little lost in the context of the longer post. This makes it much clearer what you intended, and thank you. This is exactly an example of what I'm looking for: the powers can be "hidden" yet still be intuitively understood for future application. In all honesty, I was thinking of actually using spells from the HS Grimoire by their given names, but without all the build information. So to address Cantriped's concern, although a beginner might not actually be learning the powers, if they're directed to the Grimoire they can look those spells up and learn about how to actually build things with the powers. But this should be a next-level concern for a beginning player. If the over-simplified beginning stuff is still consistent with the more advanced, official RAW, then they won't have to re-learn terminology, etc. They'd apply their intuitive first use of spells to their study of how power builds work. Thank you Contrived for making this point in this and other posts. It really is important, as you point out, to not convolute things with "baby terminology" that then has to be re-learned in the larger rulebooks. I can't find the other threads right now, but they are bring up good points!

*Edited: accidental duplicate post

Can you point me to that thread?

If you're interested in giving some more insight into what a newbie isn't seeing in the rules at first glance, here's another thread I started: http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94641-problems-with-fantasy-hero-complete-and-newbies/ We're discussing what someone who is new to the Hero System might need more help with.

Yes. In fact, Fantasy Hero Complete keeps reminding the reader that many of the rules are optional and are not necessary to play the game right away. But in the midst of all that, in the middle of the character creation "chapter," is 100 freaking pages of powers and modifiers! Way too much information overload for a casual reader. And that's who I'm looking to hook with this document: the casual gamer who is looking for something different. There's no need to write yet another book for Hero gamers who already know the rules. This is about translating those rules for new folks who aren't invested in them yet. Handing them 100 pages of powers to wade through before they can even create a character is not really all that friendly (at least in my view).

Nice. Your last point is exactly what I'm trying to suggest. I don't hate the powers, and I'm not trying to completely gut the powers in Hero. They just don't need to be the centerpiece for a beginner because they are intimidating at best and impenetrable for a newbie at worst. This shouldn't be a substitute for a fully tooled Fantasy Hero game, it's just a little taste to pique a new player's interest. It doesn't need to be complete, or even thoroughly explained in detail. It only needs to be tasty enough to make them want to learn all the rest for themselves.

So, just in case you're interested, we have a larger conversation going on over here: http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94641-problems-with-fantasy-hero-complete-and-newbies/ I'm looking for some insight from new players just like yourself and what you find difficult to understand as a beginner, and how the rules can be translated better for you.

I like the starting blind and working your way out approach! That would take away many of the presuppositions anyone would naturally bring to a game. If you start in a tavern it would already entail all sorts of assumptions about who's there, who's fighting whom in the inevitable brawl, and why, etc. If you say "you wake up in a pit and you see three passages before you. What do you want to do?" it makes them deal with the immediacy of how the game plays.

Although I see your point, I see it just the opposite. Your one-line description of lightning bolt scared the hell out of my buddy who was trying to learn powers-as-spells. Your second example is what he was looking for. At no point am I suggesting arbitrary levels, reserves, or anything like that. But if the second example is explained in such a way that a player can play with spells for a few weeks, then when he goes to the HS Grimoire to look it up it wouldn't be such a shock. When he then learns what the spell is built on, he'd be able to see how the powers and modifiers work together. This is all, of course, hypothetical. All I'm saying is that the other way of doing it is simply not working for some people I know. I don't have a lot of time to work with them through all the details, so I'm just looking for a baby-step to get them over the hump and wanting to learn more for themselves. As they say in the academic world, I'm trying to encourage self-directed learners with a very few easy steps to begin.

Since those numbers are all provided in more advanced form in other texts, for more advanced users, I think that Massey's point is that you don't need to give all those details that won't be used by a first-time Hero gamer. It's not for the purpose of creating a new game, or gutting the rules of Hero, but rather to simplify what is presented, with as few distractions as possible. The active points and such aren't really needed to purchase a sword for a character. All they need to know is that it does such-and-such damage. The rules for building weapons aren't needed at first, but of course a citation would be provided in FHC for those who want, and are ready, to learn more about this stuff. At which point they can look for the full build in Fantasy Hero Complete. This is in no way a pronouncement that the Hero system is too complex for it's own good and needs to be saved from itself. Sorta. Beginners just aren't getting the rules as they are presented, so I suggested that maybe we should simplify how they are presented for first-timers. I think sometimes Hero gamers do in fact need to be saved from themselves because we are so used to seeing the whole system, and are used to seeing things in ways that new folks just can't see. My suggestion was that a presentation that is as simple as possible would be the best for beginners. Think of it this way: I teach an aikido class to people of all ability levels. I have to scale what I teach to 1) their experience level, 2) their ability level, and 3) their ability to comprehend what I'm teaching. I can't just throw them into a class without teaching them proper footwork, how to roll, fall down safely, etc. What I definitely, without a doubt, cannot do is treat the class as an advanced seminar on all the different applications of an array of advanced techniques. I'd lose them before they ever got the chance to want to learn more. Once they're ready I can work through those things with whomever is ready. Beginners aren't ready yet. So what I'm talking about here, as a document, is that first night's "free class" to give new students the first inklings of what a class will be like. A beginner's document for Fantasy Hero, in the way I'm thinking, would be like that first class. It is excruciating for an experienced person, but a necessary first step for a total beginner.

You don't need to. As Massey pointed out, I think that's a blind spot we all share as experienced HERO players. All that's needed for a fireball spell is to say "it does 6d6 normal damage, takes 1/2 phase to cast, with incantations and gestures, requires a power skill roll, and costs x amount of points." It could be summed up in a few lines of text, and presented ready to play. Perhaps at the end of the magic section you could give citations for the magic systems offered in other books, and nod to the powers that are used to build spells, but ultimately a first-time player doesn't care or even need to know that it's based on a Blast at 30 AP with such and such advantages and limitations. That's for the not-basic version of the game (Fantasy Hero Complete) that this is an introduction to. Once they learn how the spells work along with other aspects of game play they'll be ready and willing to learn the intricacies of how to build spells and more with the toolbox provided in the full books.

I agree. Massey has pretty much described exactly what I was thinking of. It's the FLGS and conventions that I'm thinking about here, as you point out, in addition to my poor friend who is having a hard time wrapping his head around it. I have several gaming groups I show up to, and it would be great to be able to hand them this stuff and get them up and running with pre-gem characters, which they're used to doing.

Yup, this is pretty much what I'm talking about, and it comes in at 65 pages. It seems like it should be doable with only a little bit of work. Maybe find some art, or get permission to use Hero's art and charts and things. Why haven't you written this yet? Are you going to make me do it since I started this thread?!

I ran out of likes for the day, so I'll just respond. Let us know what you come up with. I'm not going to re-write the rules any time soon, so for now simplified settings will be a good inroad for the game. WoC has that basic box for D&D which also serves the same purpose as what their Basic box set used to do. They have the money to pull it off, and I realize something like that is not really possible. I'm thinking a longer .pdf would be doable, though.

My suggestion is similar, in the sense that the document I have in mind would reference Fantasy Hero Complete for a more, well, uh, "complete" explanation of how the powers work. As I said before, genuinely new players don't need to know how the sausage is made to have fun eating it on their first visit.

I should have clarified: the powers in a fantasy setting would be replaced by a list of spells. This is only, of course, for new players to get up and running in a single evening, not a long-term change to the rules. It's only a suggestion to help alleviate the brick wall that the powers section often presents for newbies to smash into. Just a thought.

Yes, I have a couple of copies of it. I like it a lot, and the Complete books are derived from it from what I understand. When I first got back into HERO System after a few decades off, I used the Basic Rulebook to help me get up to speed on the new edition, and then moved up to the two main core rulebooks. I'd recommend it to any GM, especially new ones. But again, it's more detailed than I'm looking for in a beginner document for players (I think the Basic Rulebook is perfect for beginning GMs). I have in mind something even shorter, and genre-specific in order to cut out a lot of the unnecessary stuff. The powers take up 44 pages, and I'm thinking that removing that, and trimming away could get things down to a very manageable size. Maybe 50 pages? I read GURPS Lite in half an hour and felt like I had a good grasp of things. This is more like what I'm trying to develop.

Phydaux, I never realized that there was such a document for "the other game." I downloaded it and looked at it, and in about half an hour I learned the game enough that I feel like I could make a character and run a battle in maybe a couple of hours, or in an evening for sure. THIS is the sort of "Hero for Dummies" document I'm talking about. I would do it a bit differently, but this is exactly what I've been looking for. Fantasy Hero Complete is a must for a GM to run a full campaign, but this 32-page document gave me everything I needed to know about the game, an enough to feel like I could play it for a little bit, with the understanding that I'd be growing into a larger, more complex system. As I wrote in a different post, Hero needs to show that it can be scaled down for beginners just as much as it can be scaled up for advanced play. I mean, if you cut out the powers and modifiers section from FHC, you lose 100 pages and have a roughly 150 book. Imagine boiling the 150 pages down even more, just to the essentials needed for players (not GMs) to be ready to play. So, I'm curious what newbies think about this idea? What is a good page count for a handout document or possibly a small booklet?

If you look in the downloads section, there are a couple of different GM screens that have most of the essential tables and things you'd need. There are a few things missing, but you can make those up yourself. I tried building my own GM screen with all the tables that I wanted, and it was just waaaaay too long. There are a lot of important tables, and I'm not sure how useful it would be to put them all together since it would be such a long list of things. I use the GM screen and then have the books handy to look up the occasional other things. Here's a list of all their products through 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hero_System_Products *Edit: it just occurred to me you may have meant all of the tables for character creation. If that's the case, yes, I agree! They could all be put together in a few pages. The last Appendix in Fantasy Hero Complete has a lot of these tables, but it's also missing some things.

Agreed. I think what I'm looking at is something that is written for new players, not new GMs. I think the Complete books are pretty much essential for GMs, but it seems like there could be something much simpler for new players who have a more experienced GM to help them. I don't think Hero is the kind of game that someone can learn to GM in a weekend, at least not effectively. I guess a lot of things could be cut out or simplified for the GM, but then you start to lose the feel of Hero. From the player's point of view, however, much less background of the system is needed.

Wow, I never noticed that there's no glossary! That would be a really useful document. To be fair, there is an overview of all the game mechanics in the first few pages of Fantasy Hero Complete which serves as a de facto glossary, but you have to know where to look to find explanations. So yes, an alphabetical glossary would be really useful. Preferably one that's not a stripped down version of the longer game definitions, but rather a more plain-language explanation that gives a feel for the game terminology. There are also the free downloads of Hero in 2 pages, and sample combat, and things like that. Champions Complete gave even more supplementary documents that help explain things. It seems like these could all be put into one larger document with a glossary.

The presentation part of this is what I'm getting at. I'm interested in creating something that's completely scalable with the already existing products. My buddy's eyes glazed over when he hit the powers section. In all honesty, this is the section I'd cut out of an introductory document first. If you have a spell list for beginners, you don't really need to show how they are built. Save that for moving into FHC for more details. That saves nearly 100 pages of text that a newbie doesn't really need to know! 100 pages that made my buddy put the book down and want to quit. So no, I don't want to kill what makes Hero unique and completely flexible, but i want something that is scalable. Once the basics are learned, then you can learn the toolbox and play around with it. Fantasy Hero Complete is far from plug-and-play, judging from my friend's experience with it. It is a useful summary of all the rules for a GM and for intermediate players who want to understand more of the toolbox. A beginner's guide should be playable in an evening. Phydaux brings this up, which I'll address in a separate post. But it think it's important to show that Hero can be scaled down as much as it can be scaled up. This is an aspect of its flexibility that ought to be shown as well.