Eisenmann

Oh, geez. I browsed the store and didn't see it. Thanks, Rails!

Hello, I was wondering if Heroes in a Hurry was available as a PDF, sans print. Thanks!

Turtles all the way down?

I'm exploring Hero because I want to run a campaign where the characters will change over time, where the players will have a lot of options for crafting their character. I've played (and hacked) a lot of Fate. It's fun and it's easy to make it fit a concept. But, for me, a few problems have appeared when using it. I'm often running 1 on 1 games and it doesn't work that well, with the generally expected flow of Fate points via compels and tagging. Also, if the player doesn't embrace the rule of kewl then the game can become difficult for the GM to keep pushing forward. Also, the skill pyramid can feel constraining over time. It's really not that difficult to push a small set of powerful skills to the top of the pyramid. Not that removed from here is that characters tend to change over time, rather than grow. Another aspect (see what I did there?) is very particular to me, I'm a bit burned out on Fate. I love it, but y'know. I've played a lot of OSR games, where fantasy can be played at the drop of a hat, but for the idea in my head, I don't want to start the PCs out as rangers, wizards, fighters, and thieves. Certainly I can have them all start out as 0-level classless characters, but a PC at the 'normal' level in Hero is more durable, considering the nature of the damage system. I'm looking for enough flexibility to create the magic system for my setting idea that's more game than hand-wave. I'm just not there yet, even though I've been a member since 2006, when I first bought Hero Sidekick.

From what I've gathered from following the Kickstarter, it's going to be a boxed set of everything that you need to play the game, from the very beginning to advanced - kind of a BECM analog. One key distinction, I think, is that it's billed as being powered by Gurps. They're streamlining by reducing user facing computation at the game system/building block level.

I'm currently playing in a Gurps fantasy game that started out in an OSR system. The switch happened not because of limited character builds but because we wanted to try Gurps and its skill system, getting away from the periodic attack roll. Character development was a consideration but it wasn't a primary motivating factor. I've been exploring Hero for the flexibility. I already have ideas for my full blown campaign but I'm just not there yet. One of the comments that I heard from the players when creating characters was that they wished that they could see what starting characters should look like, where the points should be spent.

Exhibit A for my position upstream: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847271320/dungeon-fantasy-roleplaying-game-powered-by-gurps

By shifting points around OCV and skills, I mean at the character modeling stage. I'm that far back on the curve! If you want more people to play Hero then they have to have a familiar reference point that will translate into deeper usage of the system. Getting your head around the works is enough work. Edit: The sheer flexibility of Hero makes it difficult to know what one of the more traditional types even looks like on paper, without the wisdom garnered from experience playing the game.

There's no way that I could build out powers with Hero Designer. My current project is about running the hero's journey where the PCs start out as skilled normals, so the software was nice for shifting points around the various character aspects, that is skills vs OCV, etc. That actually helped get us to the table. Even then it took a lot of book referencing and rule section unwinding.

I'm far more interested in seeing familiar character types. That way it's easier for me to get oriented and help my players to do the same. I actually have a test scenario that we run through, when trying out a new system. I bought Hero Designer as part of a last ditch bid to learn the builder aspect of Hero. And It's excellent. I was just about ready to move on. Though still not up to speed on powers and what-not, I at least can have some confidence in the characters that I build with it.

If we're talking about a Red Boxy Fantasy Hero here, the GM's job should be as commensurately simplified as that of the players. And perhaps Expert provides the peek into the depths of the game. Just a comment from the newb peanut gallery, who's still following along.

The stones are color coded to the highlighted fields on the character sheet - red for Body and yellow for Stun. Being an impromptu hack it didn't remedy as much as it could have. We still had to remember the stun threshold. Your idea for cards as a visual base is a good one. Then the numbers would be right in context. I want to note that, in my game, characters have relatively low body and stun. Heck, the PCs are skilled normals and most of their world isn't that potent, making the use of stones as a running gauge of reserve pretty easy.

I've been using colored glass aquarium stones for tracking those bits. Even though each stone represents 1 point of value it's made game play a lot easier, especially as compared to working out what's spent/recovered and then writing it down it down. The flow of points as stones has helped reinforce the flow of the game. Remember-and-catalog is pretty disruptive for new players who are also trying to figure out what to do in-game when it's their turn. As far as cards go, an interim step could be a PDF that can be printed and cut out versus a full print run. I'm a big fan of cards as artifacts in other game systems too, such as GURPS, Mouse Guard, etc.

It's not a complaint that people disagree on some aspects per se. It's that the game system becomes more opaque by it, especially in the context of this thread's topic. The disagreement may have been categorized as HERO-esque inside baseball stuff but it looks fundamental from a new guy's perspective.

I think we've now hit on the real problem for newbs.