Shoug

At its very root, Hero is a much easier game to tweak than any other, I'd say. But that doesn't mean the book, and I'm refering to the 6e books because those are the only ones I have, aren't lethally confusing. I don't mean that the layout is especially bad or anything like that, there's just way too much fancy bologna going on in Hero system to wrap your brain around as a new player. Things like the Follower perk and multipowers are extremely unintuitive, seemingly creating character points out of thin air; Talents that simply do things outside the otherwise intuitive powers and characteristics systems; Trying to figure out exactly what should be paid for with character points, where does one draw the line between mere possessions and fundamental aspects of one's character, how are we meant to make those distinctions on the fly. ETC. I have been in love with Hero for a few years now, but only distantly. I've never actually played because of running into confusions like this, despite buying several books. Hero demands an enormous amount of gaming wisdom be afforded up front, and if you don't have much experience with actual play, like myself and my brother, it's prohibitively difficult to understand.

At its very root, Hero is a much easier game to tweak than any other, I'd say. But that doesn't mean the book, and I'm refering to the 6e books because those are the only ones I have, aren't lethally confusing. I don't mean that the layout is especially bad or anything like that, there's just way too much fancy bologna going on in Hero system to wrap your brain around as a new player. Things like the Follower perk and multipowers are extremely unintuitive, seemingly creating character points out of thin air; Talents that simply do things outside the otherwise intuitive powers and characteristics systems; Trying to figure out exactly what should be paid for with character points, where does one draw the line between mere possessions and fundamental aspects of one's character, how are we meant to make those distinctions on the fly. ETC. I have been in love with Hero for a few years now, but only distantly. I've never actually played because of running into confusions like this, despite buying several books. Hero demands an enormous amount of gaming wisdom be afforded up front, and if you don't have much experience with actual play, like myself and my brother, it's prohibitively difficult to understand.

At its very root, Hero is a much easier game to tweak than any other, I'd say. But that doesn't mean the book, and I'm refering to the 6e books because those are the only ones I have, aren't lethally confusing. I don't mean that the layout is especially bad or anything like that, there's just way too much fancy bologna going on in Hero system to wrap your brain around as a new player. Things like the Follower perk and multipowers are extremely unintuitive, seemingly creating character points out of thin air; Talents that simply do things outside the otherwise intuitive powers and characteristics systems; Trying to figure out exactly what should be paid for with character points, where does one draw the line between mere possessions and fundamental aspects of one's character, how are we meant to make those distinctions on the fly. ETC. I have been in love with Hero for a few years now, but only distantly. I've never actually played because of running into confusions like this, despite buying several books. Hero demands an enormous amount of gaming wisdom be afforded up front, and if you don't have much experience with actual play, like myself and my brother, it's prohibitively difficult to understand.

The biggest advantage of the subscription model is convenience and comprehensivity. Nobody who values those things (read: the people who are going to be subscribing to these services) is going to copy out materials. These are literally the opposite types of players. It's probably a super great deal for nerds patient enough to hand copy their own materials.
 
 Hero's fatal flaw isn't the perceived learning curve, it's the frontloading of all of the creative work on top of the learning curve. It's not even really a game, it's a game system. A system that lets you (read: requires that you) define all the basic assumptions and parameters of your game before you can even start character creation. You've got to learn the game so you can make the game so you can finally play the game.

The biggest advantage of the subscription model is convenience and comprehensivity. Nobody who values those things (read: the people who are going to be subscribing to these services) is going to copy out materials. These are literally the opposite types of players. It's probably a super great deal for nerds patient enough to hand copy their own materials.
 
 Hero's fatal flaw isn't the perceived learning curve, it's the frontloading of all of the creative work on top of the learning curve. It's not even really a game, it's a game system. A system that lets you (read: requires that you) define all the basic assumptions and parameters of your game before you can even start character creation. You've got to learn the game so you can make the game so you can finally play the game.

This isn't only the job of the GM. Fate Core said it best, "Both players and gamemasters have a secondary job: Make everyone around you look awesome!" It's everybody's responsibility to be looking out for ways to make every player at the table feel like their character has a place in the story.

Agreed wholeheartedly.
 
Thw difference between a player who _will_ is spend a weekend or two hitting that Print Screen button and onw who won't is not in their desire for breadth of access, but comes exclusively from the depth of the burn they suffered.

The biggest advantage of the subscription model is convenience and comprehensivity. Nobody who values those things (read: the people who are going to be subscribing to these services) is going to copy out materials. These are literally the opposite types of players. It's probably a super great deal for nerds patient enough to hand copy their own materials.
 
 Hero's fatal flaw isn't the perceived learning curve, it's the frontloading of all of the creative work on top of the learning curve. It's not even really a game, it's a game system. A system that lets you (read: requires that you) define all the basic assumptions and parameters of your game before you can even start character creation. You've got to learn the game so you can make the game so you can finally play the game.

The biggest advantage of the subscription model is convenience and comprehensivity. Nobody who values those things (read: the people who are going to be subscribing to these services) is going to copy out materials. These are literally the opposite types of players. It's probably a super great deal for nerds patient enough to hand copy their own materials.
 
 Hero's fatal flaw isn't the perceived learning curve, it's the frontloading of all of the creative work on top of the learning curve. It's not even really a game, it's a game system. A system that lets you (read: requires that you) define all the basic assumptions and parameters of your game before you can even start character creation. You've got to learn the game so you can make the game so you can finally play the game.

Best numbers I could find is that 12-16 million people play D&D regularly. Wizards of the Coast apparently made something like $400million profit last year, but easily 75% of that was from Magic: The Gathering. So D&D maybe accounted for less then $100 Million. 
D&D suffers from the same issue all other RPG's suffer from. Once a group buys the original books, they don't need to spend any more money. Adventures, new sourcebooks, more classes or whatever, are nice, but not necessary. As HERO System fans we are more then aware of this. If you have the 2 main rule books for 6th ed, you never needed to buy another Hero System book again if you didn't want to (and were willing to do all the building yourself). 
 
I know a few D&D groups where only the DM had all 3 core books, and the players only had the Player's guide (and not even all of them had it). If we average each core book at $50, and a table of 5 players and 1 DM, that means WotC made about $350.00 from that group. And maybe nothing more, even years after that group started playing the game. That is a business model that only survives if you keep constantly drawing in new players, and even then every few years you need a "new edition" to get the older player to re-buy the core books. 
 
I am 100% certain the the WotC game plan is to change that business model. They want to go all digital, all subscription based. Charge DM's $10/month for a subscription and players $5/month. Now that group of 6 people I mentioned earlier are going to be spending $35/month to play D&D. So in 10 months they will have paid what the originally spent on the books, and everything after that is more profit for WotC. 
 
Under this model, even if they lost 50% of their player base, so from 14 Million down to 7 million. They would still be making about $40million a month in subscription fees. In 3 months they would be making more then what D&D is currently making in a year. That works out to about $480 million a year. That would more then double WotC's profits in less then a year. And that is even after losing 50% of their players. 
 
And you know what, it would still be an amazing deal for people who played D&D. Subscription would give you access to every book, including all new books that would come out. All setting, all adventures, all monsters, all magic items, everything. The online character builder would allow players to build everything they want that was rule legal. Their VTT would be fantastic for at home and online play. You know they would have the budget to do that. And with all that extra money they could triple their output of new books and material, again all for "free" to subscribers. And they could connect players looking for games from around the world. You could play it on your PC, laptop, ipad/tablet or smartphone. And if you stopped playing D&D for a bit to try another system, you just stop paying for a few months, then re-subscribe when you want to play again. 
 
They would also sell this as being environmentally friendly. No physical books, means no cutting down tress for paper. No international shipping and delivery using gas and oil, no printing with harmful chemicals and glues and dyes. Plus it would save them tons of cash. No need for all those printing and international shipping expenses, especially in these days of supply chain disruption. No need for a whole department in the company that deals with publishing, printing, shipping, storage and delivery. All that money saved on wages. 
 
I'm sure something like this has been the dream of every game company in existence, but only recently has the technology reached the point where it is doable, and only D&D has reached the size and popularity where they could actually make it happen.  
 
The OLG 1.1 license is just the first step on the path to this. All this "noise" of people complaining online about it is, honestly, almost nothing to the size of D&D. I know it sucks for the people making a living off of D&D and OLG, but that is a really small % of people who play D&D. Looking at twitter at the height of #openD&D trending they was 20k tweets. You know a lot of those are the same people tweeting 2 or more times. so lets say 15k individuals. That is less then 0.001% of the people who play D&D regularly. Even if it was 1-2% that is still nothing. It is just all blown way out of size by the echo chamber that is social media. People on social media like to believe they speak for everyone, but they in fact speak for almost no one but themselves. Millions of D&D players around the world could careless about the OLG. They stick to playing their one game, refuse to play any other system, and are happy to do that. It is those people WotC is counting on. When they go all digital subscription base system, also long as they can keep around 50% of those players, then they will still be making more money then they ever dreamed of. 
 

I like completely disunified powers, magic is not science is not mysticism is not chi is not etc.  Science cannot figure out or do magic or vice versa

20 STR is stronger than almost everybody who's ever lived. It's extremely close to the absolute upper limit of human strength. I don't think any ancient person lacking hormone therapy and a modern understanding of nutrition can achieve 20 STR without being an extreme anomaly, standing so far outside the bell curve that they could never get armor without it being specially made for them.
 
The drawbacks of armor need to be in END and social implication. In reality, armor is extremely effective. The END cost is significant, especially in hot weather, but it was not easy to penetrate plate armor. It couldn't be done with normal weapons. At all. There's no amount of striking with an edge that's gonna hurt somebody with armor on. You need more weight, you need hammers, picks, or to grapple them and slip a dagger in between the armor. Even then, it would have to be a sharp dagger pressed hard to penetrate the gambeson, and that's only if there's no chainmail. 
 
The beautiful thing about Hero is that you get to choose how armor works in your campaign. If you want it to be a matter of aesthetics with some mechanical consequences, do that.

I know people here might be desensitized to this specific recommendation, but My Hero Academia is, IMHO, the finest superhero genre fiction in all the Lords' Realms. All Might is the best, most regal, most literally awesome "Superman" archetype ever manifested.

I know people here might be desensitized to this specific recommendation, but My Hero Academia is, IMHO, the finest superhero genre fiction in all the Lords' Realms. All Might is the best, most regal, most literally awesome "Superman" archetype ever manifested.

This is a fair assessment. I mean, I kinda like the way 6e supplemental material is structured from a spiritual standpoint, with categorized resources that remain relatively genre neutral. I think they fit the paradigm of the game well, "Here's a book that covers *all kinds of creatures* that your GM may want to use, here's one that covers all martial arts." 
 
But I think you're completely right. I think Hero is a game that depends on it's players to be confident gamers with solid experience and deep gaming wisdom. The GM has to hold all these complications that can have variable "frequencies" in his mind, and there's all kinds of Pandora's Box mechanics in the game that need to be used with caution and wisdom or they can get incredibly weird. Even Speed, one of the fundamental cool parts of the game, can't be used correctly without having a strong understanding of how disparities therein actually *feel.*
 
I absolutely agree that, *if* relevance with a newer audience is a concern, simplification and content supplements are not the answer. *Stand alone games Powered by The Hero System* are the answer. If you already Grokk Hero System, these games will be transparent, narrowly focused genre supplements. But to the larval acolyte, these games must be opaque, shielding them from the vertigo of peering into the abyssal well of dark power that is the whole, unbridled Hero System. The core 6e volumes should be referenced only within the introductory or conclusory texts of the game book as "The toolkit that will unlock omnipotent homebrewing capabilities," never as a required or even an optional reference manual for actually playing the game. It should stand on it's own two legs, and prove the fun that is possible with the Hero System as a "Game" and not a "System."
 
 

This is a fair assessment. I mean, I kinda like the way 6e supplemental material is structured from a spiritual standpoint, with categorized resources that remain relatively genre neutral. I think they fit the paradigm of the game well, "Here's a book that covers *all kinds of creatures* that your GM may want to use, here's one that covers all martial arts." 
 
But I think you're completely right. I think Hero is a game that depends on it's players to be confident gamers with solid experience and deep gaming wisdom. The GM has to hold all these complications that can have variable "frequencies" in his mind, and there's all kinds of Pandora's Box mechanics in the game that need to be used with caution and wisdom or they can get incredibly weird. Even Speed, one of the fundamental cool parts of the game, can't be used correctly without having a strong understanding of how disparities therein actually *feel.*
 
I absolutely agree that, *if* relevance with a newer audience is a concern, simplification and content supplements are not the answer. *Stand alone games Powered by The Hero System* are the answer. If you already Grokk Hero System, these games will be transparent, narrowly focused genre supplements. But to the larval acolyte, these games must be opaque, shielding them from the vertigo of peering into the abyssal well of dark power that is the whole, unbridled Hero System. The core 6e volumes should be referenced only within the introductory or conclusory texts of the game book as "The toolkit that will unlock omnipotent homebrewing capabilities," never as a required or even an optional reference manual for actually playing the game. It should stand on it's own two legs, and prove the fun that is possible with the Hero System as a "Game" and not a "System."
 
 

If you aren't going to Homebrew everything. The everyone else neds to step up and  make "powered by Hero" types of books. And to "work" properly they need to be put together in an organized fashion for GMs, similar to how 5e D&D does it.  I am an artist, not a writer, much, so I'll have to leave that to others.  But I do believe in this modern age, there needs to be a bit more handholding.

In my setting, Dragons are basically the ultimate incarnation of a Demon. A Demon is a kind of spirit that infects mortals and perverts their nature. They're extremely common, and not conscious, intelligent actors either (they don't think or decide things, they are just... spirits, abstractly). If a person happens to become infected with a demon, they'll feel driven to indulge it. The thing is, by indulging a demon, it becomes possible to exercise their power. But the more of a demon's power a person exercises, the more they embody the demon. At the lowest level of embodiment, a person may take on normal physical features that somewhat make sense given the demon they're indulging. Indulging Gluttony would make you fat, Fear would make you gaunt maybe, Wrath would give you a viscous looking furrowed brow, Greed would give you... I don't know, a glint in your eye. Eventually a person crosses over and becomes a Ghoul or Fiend, and if they're powerful enough and can handle the demands the transformation makes on their body, and if they survive, they can become a Dragon.

So Dragons couldn't give a rat's ass if you wear another Dragon's skin. They're way to evil for that.

I honestly didn't mean to come across in any negative way.  The premise was given in the initial post.  We can expand it to a general discussion of magic, but let's keep in mind that we're not doing the original poster any favors by ignoring the givens.  
 
You are right in that there's nothing in the rules that says magic requires Gestures and Incantations, but that was one of the givens in the initial post.  
 
More generally, we are in the Fantasy Hero forum, and we're discussing magic, which frequently does have ways for an attacker to shut down a caster that don't involve an active Dispel or similar, which can include hacking off the caster's arms with a honking great sword, because they can't perform Gestures without them.  

From the original post...
 
 
(Boldface mine.)  For a spell with Gestures and/or Incantations, a successful hit in combat against the caster doesn't necessarily disrupt the spell.  If an attacker wanted to disrupt the spell, I've already mentioned in the thread how they might do so, with various targeted attacks.  There are other Limitations that do allow a successful hit to disrupt a spell; specifically, Concentration lists how, and provides a way a caster might avoid it.  
 
There's an optional-but-recommended Limitation noted in a couple of Fantasy Hero books, without a lot of supporting documentation... the Limitation is called Spell (-1/2) and it basically rolls a number of Limitations into it, the specifics usually being up to the GM.  This Limitation could include the condition that a spell being cast can be disrupted by an incoming attack that does some threshold of STUN and/or BODY to the caster.  
 
 
Gestures and Incantations were specified as given in the original post in the thread.  Regardless of whatever other hypothetical or potential conditions a given magic system or spell might include or require, we are in fact starting from Gestures and Incantations as a requirement, per the OP.  I'd like to suggest any discusssion of whether or not a given magic system might or might not require them be tabled, for that reason.  

I'm sorry, but he does have evidence. He's not being pedantic or mean, he actually has evidence that the OP is asking an answerable question about RAW. I run into this all the time as a fresh Hero player. Inconsistent answers to what I think are straightforward rules questions. It's as though the game does not have rules at times. Besides, as far as I can tell, uninteruptability is as close to a houserule as is possible achievable in Hero. Everything in the game has built in special counters, "hard counters" in video game lingo. Any power can be Dispelled, and conversely any character can have Power Defenses to protect them from that. There's Normal Damage and Killing Damage, Normal Defense and Resistant Defenses. There's Penetrating and there's Hardened. Everything absolute like Desolidification and NND requires an SFX be specified that just defeats it. It's basic comic book protocol that things escalate in this way, that Superman has a special weakness to kryptonite, or that for one episode there is something that can resist Cyclopse's beam. And while we're not necessarily talking about superhero games, this etiquette is woven into the *actual rules of the game, the ones written in the book I bought, the ones I'm reading and trying to use.* 
 
So questions like, "how does interrupting a power using gestures and incantations work", questions that *do have answers*, should be answered first correctly, and then with the caveat, "If this isn't how you'd like it to work, feel free to take off Gestures and/or Incantations and just RP those things as SFX. This way it will take a timely Dispel to counter a spell, and not just any held attack action." I agree with Gnome-body here, this isn't a question of how things could be, it's a question of how the rules work as written.
 
I don't know why everybody assumes that people using the most flexible and toolkit-y system ever created are probably using house rules too. I have a deep love of systems and rules and the games they produce, Hero is more of a homebrew creation system then a game, it makes no sense that I would bend the rules when they're already so fluid. If I'm just making things up, I'm gonna play an easier game to do that in, like Fate or The Fantasy Trip, games with fewer interconnected systems that I have to worry about.

Eh, Gandalf is explicitly described as being a wizard, of which only 3 remain. Cosmologically speaking, wizards are incredibly unique, demi-angelic superbeings.

It's worth mentioning that many classless systems actually do have classes in the form of specialization. They're classless only in name, encouraging you to find your class organically over time rather than choose at the start.

It's worth mentioning that many classless systems actually do have classes in the form of specialization. They're classless only in name, encouraging you to find your class organically over time rather than choose at the start.