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.

I discovered, contrary to much of what you read online, HERO is very easy to play once you're at the table. After I got my hands on Fantasy Hero Complete, I used the pregens found in the book to stumble my way through a few sessions where a 10 year old had no trouble with gameplay execution. Even at the time I knew that I was ignoring some things just to get the game moving. At that stage, just seeing things such as Active Points in a writeup is distracting. While it may be helpful for connecting that particular thing to the deeper power of HERO, it helped make the GM handwaving feel uncertain, which doesn't boost confidence. In addition, things like Active Points didn't help me keep running that game with HERO. A few sessions in, it was clear that one of the PCs was too powerful in comparison to the others. I sat down to see if I could rebalance everyone but I just didn't grok enough of the system to make it happen. I just rebooted it with HeroQuest 2.

My EGO took a hit when I was first stymied, so I tracked down the different books in the effort to learn HERO. A glossary of TLAs and other game terms would be helpful. When unwinding rules concepts it's tough when you hit another HERO-specific game term when reading about another one, especially for the first (second, third) time. A glossary would alleviate that a bit, I'd think. The index, no matter how good, isn't necessarily helpful here.

From where I'm sitting, I can see a deep ton of HERO material that I can't really use - yet.

As a long time admirer of and on-again off-again student of the HERO system, I'm loving this thread. I'd already attempted to learn Hero when I saw that Fantasy Hero Complete was being released. I bought it with great enthusiasm and dove in. I have to say that it helped but I also had to lean on Champions Complete, the 6th Edition Basic Rulebook (found on FLGS shelf), lots of forum trawling, some delving into the big blue books, and referencing one of the free GM screens. It was super handy for getting a handle on damage classes. Chris Goodwin's How to Play HERO System was an incredible help. My players and I were able to use it as a reference - "Yup, I really do understand this part."

Great questions, guys. I'm using Fantasy Hero Complete as the core for a heroic campaign. I like this a lot. Numbers-wise, this is exactly what I'm looking for. 0-level is more of what I'm looking for out of the gate. The idea is that the PCs will start out feeling vulnerable, where it's easy for the players to imagine themselves in the game. The cap, concept-wise, would be somewhere around Beowulf's retinue. I'm not sure what that would be points-wise. Even if I don't do this for the players, I think I'm going to tinker around with this idea to get my head wrapped around both HERO itself and the campaign concept. Thanks, guys!

I just bought Hero Designer (nice piece of software, by the way) and am starting to model things for a campaign. The idea is to model the hero's journey, where the PCs begin as young adults. Being pretty new to HERO, I'm not sure where you start out points-wise. Some old hand tips would be happily accepted. Thanks!

I'm thinking about a low fantasy sandbox. Hirelings will be in the vein of old school D&D; porters, torch bearers, some extra muscle when needed, etc. I suspect that the full nature of how they play out in the game will likely match my competency in running and other constraints related to Hero itself.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I've run a lot of one-on-one games with a good number of different systems. I do have to re-read my copy of Fantasy Hero Complete, but I was wondering if there are specific game options that I should select to make this sort of game flow better. Things like how to handle mooks, is there an obvious (to Hero experts) shorthand for hirelings, guru ideas for streamlining, things like that.

Hi all, I'm thinking about using Fantasy Hero Complete for a game where it's one GM and one player. Anyone doing or done it? Any tips and tweaks to better suit such a setup?

I'm not sure if I'm part of the existing Hero fan base as I've never played the game. Fantasy Hero Complete has caught my attention because I checked out Champions Complete at my FLGS. Champions Complete looked a heck of a lot more accessible than the big books and I'm hoping the same for FHC.