Trechriron10

OH MAN, I just used up my last one to avoid spending money to see the new Hellboy. Shoot.

A Content Creator program on DTRPG would be awesome. I would be all over that.

Fair enough. Getting stuff across either big pond is too expensive. HERO needs color high quality POD. It's tad more expensive but the DTRPG high quality color hardbacks are superb. Spence, I'm hearing you. I agree. How do you feel the HERO basic book does as an entry level introduction? Fantasy HERO complete?

I really believe there should be an order to introducing someone to a system like HERO (or GURPS). Play a one-shot with pre-gens, keep it basic and fast. Invite someone to a regular game. Ask them conceptually what they want to play. Build a character for them. When they are ready to invest XP, you can teach them the building blocks - one thing at a time. Each session, introduce a new combat maneuver or option they haven't used previously. Lend them a set of books, so they can peruse at their own pace. Ask them to skip over stuff they find boring or too complicated to understand. Let the group explain the complicated parts. If they like gameplay, the next campaign work with them as they build a character. I've found that games with more crunch (or potential complexity) just need to be introduced in steps. I'm reading through 6e1 and 2 currently, and yes they can be verbose, but I like all the examples, suggestions and help. A game like HERO needs some consideration when you're building stuff. Without the right guidance you could end up with some characters or settings or adventures that are not fun to play in (too easy, too hard, too fiddly...). So the point here I'm suggesting... Let the books have as much info as they need. It's highly likely that anyone getting into HERO is going to come from a fan showing them the ropes. All across the intertubes you see people requesting to be taught D&D5e. It's a simple game yet people still want the guidance. Newbs are intimidated by everything until you play once. Then (generally, in my experience), the floodgates open and many (if not most) dive in with wild abandon. 🙂 Just get them there. They want to nerd-out with you and most endeavour to learn the system. I wouldn't worry so much about the presentation or the lack of adventures. If you want to help HERO do better, run a game! Encourage participation by a group. Encourage people to buy the books. Sales is one of the best ways to ensure your favorite game will continue to be supported. So, for example, waiting to buy a used book on ebay at a discount is probably doing far more immediate harm than the presentation of the game. I purposefully bought by PDFs and Hardcovers directly from the store. Why? Because they don't have to pay fees to DTRPG. I bought some POD only because they were not available on the store. I paid full price for my products. The return on investment for RPGs is high (if you play them!), so I believe that publishers deserve that cash. I certainly get tons of mileage out of my games... Adventures are generally a bad investment unless you have a strong stable of GMs buying books. They just sell less. I think Paizo's Adventure Paths are a great example of how a company broke this curse. The subscription model was genius for one... Also, they are super focused on a herd of GMs! The players come in and buy a book or two and play. Then a third of them decide to GM. Then you recruit them for organized play. GMs buy all the books and pick up APs they are interested. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. You generally will be able to build a player base but what you need (really) is to build a GM base. I'm currently looking into a digital option to share worlds / adventures online with a subscription model. I think this will be the future of publishing adventures and settings. Not printed product, but resources GMs can use to create adventures easily, print only what they need, organize things in the manner they like best. My hope is that by catering specifically to GMs I can build a nice following of GMs who like what I'm doing; that will make the venture profitable enough to justify the time. None of this works if people don't play the games, create groups and run the games, and most importantly... buy the games (and make new GMs... 🙂 ) Just my two cents...

They are an exclusively D&D 5e group and not super open to new people (old friends, kids, special needs child in the mix). However, If you want to join us up north we could make it a tad easier for you. You could meet me in Renton (opposite of Sea Tac) and we can carpool over to Seattle. I have a guest room, so if you didn't want to travel home on a FRI for whatever reason, you could crash at my place and embark in the AM. 😄 OOC, Are you military? Retiring or is this your final assignment?

The group I want to form would be at Metro Seattle Gamers in Seattle. Not sure about the drive from Marysville, but certainly closer than Ft. Lewis. I'm suggesting jlc3721 look in the southend, because if he's stationed on Ft. Lewis, burning 60 - 75 minutes driving to a game can get old real quick. I have a ton of friends in the Tacoma area and I used to game with them, but the drive sucks.

There are several great game stores down there. The Game Matrix in Lakewood and Gabby's Olympic Cards & Comics in Lacey. I used to live down south, and there are TONS of games. If you want to find something closer by, it shouldn't be hard. I would start a new thread "Looking for HERO 6e in Ft. Lewis / Tacoma / Lakewood / Lacey". Also, Reddit's /r/lfg would be good too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleRPGCarousel/ Still forming the group! I want to rotate games/GMs 8-12 sessions. Several games on the table. Happy to play Hero as one of them! If interested, PM your Reddit username and I'll add you to the group. Looking at Metro Seattle Gamers as the potential location...

I will be putting together a new group to meet in the Renton East Highlands area soon. I'm looking at GMing some Savage Worlds. Open to playing other systems. I'll PM you my contact info. Not sure if the Doctor found a group yet... I decided that Hero was a little more crunch than I want to deal with so I'm focusing on SWADE for now.

Whenever I read a thread like this, I feel like there should be a poll afterwards. You know, with all 8 suggested approaches and then get a pulse of which one HERO fans like the best.

I cannot recount the last time I fired up my HERO brain and counted body... since the 5er days... Father, it's been 15 years since my last HERO session... Tonight I introduced my regular Sunday group to HERO 6e! We are starting with the Fantasy Complete for a handful of sessions (using the pre-gens and adventure/setting from FHC). After a few sessions we will create new characters and adventure for a few more sessions! Eventually, we are shifting to a sci-fi setting of my own creation for (what I intend/hope) will be a long-term campaign. I wanted us to get familiar before we jumped right in. I was touching up the characters to give them some equipment using Hero Designer, and I wanted the Elf Bard to have some Elven Chainmail. I grabbed the regular chain in the prefabs, changed the weight from 'full mass' to 'half mass' and viola! Magic armor. In a couple clicks. I like the Half-Elf Warrior Mage build! That is an ugly contender. I picked out my favorite 8 characters that I want to use for some convention games this year. I decided the Lizard-Folk Shaman knows how to turn into a giant snake (of several varieties) or a velociraptor (as a revered animal of his clan! - yes, he has a skull from one...). I just copied out the pages from the Bestiary for quick reference. This group didn't pick the shaman... . They went with Human Barbarian, Elf Bard, Sprite Druid, the Half-Elf Warrior-Mage, and I tossed in the Human archer as an NPC. I'm a little rusty... but it was fun and I'm certain this group will pick it up fast. I missed the speed chart. Seriously, I love how speed works. I also missed all the cool maneuvers and the in-play flexibility. One of the crew was looking through the book and exclaimed "you can use another character as a weapon"! I think he's sold. A couple of the GURPS people are still on the fence, but I'll win 'em over. .

Thanks C-Note, that did the trick!

I'll give that a shot.

When I open my copy of HERO system skills in PDF in Adobe Reader, I'm getting an error; Cannot find or create the font "WPMultinationalARoman". Some characters may not display or print correctly. Can this font be embedded or replaced? Thanks,

I am very interested in starting a new group around the HERO system. I'm interested in 6e. I have also GM'ed for 35+ years, so rotating duties would be superb! I live in Renton (East Highlands). Do you have a preference for location? I'm allergic to cats, so my options tend to be limited. I have a nice little area on my 2nd floor, but it can get warm in the summer. I would prefer a SAT game day, and I usually like to have more than 4 hours (maybe 6?). I have recently been playing some GURPS 4e, but I'm burned out on it. I like crunch, just want it in different areas. :-D I played and GM'ed a bunch of 5ER back in the day, but my HERO-fu has atrophied a tad. I have a pile of 6e books on digits, all the software, and a handful of print books. So, I am ramping back up quickly...

It's almost fast enough these days to be done outpatient. In a Drivethru... :-D Here are some pics of the POD softcovers that just arrived! The quality is superb, well put together, nice paper, crisp print. I think this is a superb option for publishers looking to keep a catalog available forever! https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_lJhbSwBglnU3dlTW01QlY2c0k?usp=sharing

I had to make a side-trek to the hospital for some heart surgery, but my books should be waiting for me when I get home tomorrow.

How about this, tell us what kind of monsters you might want to populate in your dungeon, and then we can post our templates here for you to use! I'm currently polishing up my chops on HERO 6e, so I would love the chance to get my hands dirty. :-D P.S. I'm not a complete newb, I played and GM'ed the heck out of 5th edition revised (the previous version) - also I've been reading through the 6e set and I have HERO Designer, so the stuff I post shouldn't be "all broken and new" :-P

Agreed! This is wonderful. I prefer to use the "subtract roll to determine DCV hit" method, but this is a very accessible summary.

This is exactly how I want to make some "introductory" products. Fantastic idea. The powers/spells are listed with a point cost, how they work, and END cost. Then you put the full builds in an appendix. Races, "Classes", Cultures could all be handled the same way. A little obfuscation of the full toolkit would go a long ways to lessening any fears about playing it. After all, the full system seems better to be sold to "builders" anyways. Once people get used to playing, they will want to dig in and create custom spells and powers at some point, and we have the toolkit that supports it. Best of both worlds IMHO.

And then you were ALL WRONG and they POD'd them anyways!! WOOOT! I win!! Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!! OK. I'll calm down now.

I have my first batch coming in about 1 - 2 weeks. I'll post some shots and thoughts when they come in.

Actually (sorry to nit-pick) but that wasn't really the goal of Troupe Style Play or how it works. TSP was about forming a cadre of supporting characters outside everyones' Magus who worked within the chantry. A Magus can have long periods of downtime for research or item creation, so instead of long periods of dead time you pick one Magus as the focus of an adventure, and the other players pick up one the supporting troupe characters (called Companions in Ars Magica). The idea was to build a guild house and run campaigns over a long-term in-game-time as the house develops. It keeps everyone involved vs. splitting up the party each week as you focused on the one Magus who needed or wanted to head out into the big wild world. Also, I've never seen any focus on "troupe-style" play in any WoD games like Ars Magica. I've played and owned several iterations of Storyteller/Storytelling games from the first Vampire to the most recent CoD. In this context a "troupe" is just a group of characters like you find in most RPGs. TSP was not super popular even among AM players and I never read its inclusion in any WoD games. On the subject at hand: I think GMPCs are "bad form" and can detract from the PCs, which in my opinion are the focus of the game. PCs don't like it when the GMPC saves the day and detracts from their participation. If the GMPC is the only person that can get them through something, the game quickly becomes a GM showcase where the PCs are observers. This is horribly boring! Teaching does not need to include a GMPC. You can teach by lending advice and reminding players of the rules. In the beginning you will be "cheating" - kind of. Likely offering help and suggestions you would not offer normally. Make this clear upfront! "Normally I wouldn't suggest this, but since we're learning...". It builds good will and sets expectations that the players will be stepping up as non-beginners sometime in the future. You can also include a sage-type in various forms to lend important information to the PCs when they get stuck or appear to be missing something obvious, perhaps even something experienced players would pick up right away. So, in a sci-fi game with new players I might toss in the helpful robot that floats about and offers advice and info from time to time. Sure, the players could start leaning heavy on the little robot but you can discourage that in game. When the abuse becomes excessive, you can have the little guy power down to rest, or ask the PCs to stand-by while they make a long query... You might even suggest that the little robot is there so you can offer advice in-game and that pressing the little robot too hard earns you an XP penalty. :-D NPCs are vital to a successful game, but in my experience they should NOT replace PCs. Hiring a wizard to research the location of a magical component can expedite the adventure. Hiring the wizard to fetch the magical component is boring. There are few bad behaviors or intentions that drive GMPC use (IMHO). First is the GM that gets bored not playing in the PC group. The 2nd is the GM who thinks their players are dumb, missing important plot point or clues so they have to fill in the blanks, and finally the GM who is worried about missing capabilities. 1) I'm bored. Excellent. This is actually easy to fix. Increase the action in the game. Have more NPCs to interact with. Open up your adventure so it's not so A-B-C, so the players can wander into unexpected territory, thereby challenging you as a GM! Keep things moving. If you're bored being the GM I can only guess how bored the players must feel... 2) My players are dumb. No, actually they are not. They might have different expectations from a game, or not be as invested in the drama as you are, or don't have the life experience to pick up what you're laying down, but believing you're smarter than others is arrogant and self-defeating. Many GMs think they have an intricate plot that turns out so obscure or subtle that there might as well have been no plot. If you are running your adventure and you think to yourself "man this is genius, they will never figure out what is going on!" - you are doing it wrong. Bring it down a notch Albert. A GM's job is to make a great game for the players. You have to be a fan of the players, their characters, and the amazing outcome of everyone's choices. Obscurity or academic density is likely not as fun to the players as it might be to you. 3) What about the healer? Yeah, what about them? Did anyone choose to play one? Why not? Are they players maybe saying something to you about the game they expect? Toss in some extra healing potions. Make it clear what churches have paramedics for hire. The crack team of modern spies obviously has quick extraction options a quick radio hail away, yes? If the group decided that healing is boring and don't want to play the healing bot, then make adventures that don't focus on healing bots (or require them). You don't need a GMPC to hedge your bets for the PC group. You should instead focus on running a game the PCs want to play AND fits the characters chosen. Of course, all this is IMHO, YMMV and my two cents...