PhilFleischmann

Excuse me.  Did you perhaps mean to say something like "...a lot of the problem is that gamers these days have jobs, and mortgages, and parents getting on in years, and kids ready to go to college?"  
 
Is "laziness" really what you're going with instead?

I think a lot of the problem is whining and laziness - on the part of gamers and potential gamers.  As reflected in some of the posts above.  "I don't want to have to spend a year studying the system in order to begin playing."  Back in pre-4th days, when my regular D&D group decided to try Champions (and we never went back), it took us at most a week or two to learn the system, create our characters, and set up a "module" to begin playing.  Don't give me this "year of study" crap.  "I don't want to have to get a Ph.D. in Hero to play."  It's not brain surgery, folks.  You learned to drive a car, you learned to do your job, you've probably learned to do a lot of things that were never going to lead to anything fun.  If you put the effort in, you'll find that your brain is not full - there's still plenty of room in there.  And you can have a lot of fun.
 
I've encountered this attitude with other games - even board games that are at least an order of magnitude simpler than any RPG.  And I've seen the same attitude with respect to things that have nothing to do with games at all.  Some people have to be dragged, kicking and screaming to try anything new.
 
All that being said, I sadly have no idea how to overcome this problem.  But it might help to at least acknowledge it.  All new things, no matter how good they are, need to be gotten used to.  And some of them need to be learned, and maybe even a little bit of work might be required.  Everything worthwhile in life requires some work.  Do we try to reduce the amount of work required, or do we sell the idea of the work being worth it?

But what's the draw of a system Powered By Hero instead of a system Powered By GURPS, or Powered By Fate, or Powered By Powered By The Apocalypse , or Powered by D20? 
HERO's not the only point-buy fish in the pond, and GURPSers will avidly proclaim their point-buy is better for not-supers.  Every system's going to label itself as "elegant and fun".  Every game's going to proclaim it's "balanced".  Every toolbox is going to vomit half a dozen genres it supports onto the back-page blurb. 
What makes HERO better? 
 
My answer is the powers system.  If that's not put on display, I don't see any reason somebody would pick HERO over GURPS or another competitor. 

I think I suggested this sort of thing a while ago in this thread.  Though i can see the differences, in that I wanted a reprint of 2nd Edition Champions Boxed Set, with dice and a few other items, all in time for the 40th Anniversary of Hero next year., and you seem to be using 6E rules, but presented mostly in that 2nd Edition Boxed set style.  Hell update Viper's Nest and Stronghold, and put those in the box for 6e and that might work.

If I raise the flail over my head and swing it crashing down on the Goblin, it is not going to wrap around his shield if he brings it up to block.
 
I essentially have to "attack" so the ball of the flail passes around the edge of his shield, and the chain brings it curving back inwards to strike the goblin, in order to use the Flail maneuver.

By striking a target normally straight in. The flail maneuver is designed for the flail weapon to avoid a shield by wrapping around it.  So if I use a flail and just strike the goblin with it. No penalty and if the goblin had a medium shield he gets to add his +2 DCV to his normally DCV for defense. If I use the flail maneuver I suffer a -1 OCV to hit but then the goblin if tries to use the shield though doesn’t get to use his +2 DCV shield bonus.

I also find that names like this drive player ability to remember names down to ZERO.  They can play for weeks and not be able to name a single location, deity or NPC when the names are like that.
 
Recently I listened to the Empire of the Summer Moon audio book and the Comanche names were impossible for me to remember.  The rough English translations were real eye-poppers and unforgettable.
 
 

In my experience, this is what players often do when presented with a person or place name that's too long or too hard to pronounce.  And readers of fiction do this too, in their minds when reading.  There's a character named "Frolistheckdilowpiriasnemquod", and because you just want to continue reading the book and get on with the story - and not ruin your immersion - you just move on.  You vaguely remember the sequence of letters for when the character makes his next appearance, but in your mind, he's just "F-man" or "Fred".  And even within the work of fiction itself, other characters may call him by shorter, easier names, like "Froli".
 
Long names are no problem at all, as long as you understand the language they're in.  This is why I often like to use real words or phrases for names - because that is indeed where real names come from.  I have characters in various games named Cobweb, Winecork, Sun and Mars, Moonstaff, et al.  And I have place names in my fantasy world called Bear Head Keep, Pepperrose, Middlemarch, Lion's Port, Madman's Watch, et al.
 
Ask your doctor if Whandurashaneshir is right for you.

In my experience, this is what players often do when presented with a person or place name that's too long or too hard to pronounce.  And readers of fiction do this too, in their minds when reading.  There's a character named "Frolistheckdilowpiriasnemquod", and because you just want to continue reading the book and get on with the story - and not ruin your immersion - you just move on.  You vaguely remember the sequence of letters for when the character makes his next appearance, but in your mind, he's just "F-man" or "Fred".  And even within the work of fiction itself, other characters may call him by shorter, easier names, like "Froli".
 
Long names are no problem at all, as long as you understand the language they're in.  This is why I often like to use real words or phrases for names - because that is indeed where real names come from.  I have characters in various games named Cobweb, Winecork, Sun and Mars, Moonstaff, et al.  And I have place names in my fantasy world called Bear Head Keep, Pepperrose, Middlemarch, Lion's Port, Madman's Watch, et al.
 
Ask your doctor if Whandurashaneshir is right for you.

@Hugh Neilson - Smashing job!! 
 
I stole yours and updated / modified;
 
 

So this is the other model I suggested earlier, but nobody has really bitten. It seems like, instead of a bunch of different independent games, we could instead keep the same independent settings, and in those books tweak all the dials and levers to offer the templates, gear, powers/spells, power levels, etc., so it's basically a ready-to-play game supplement to the core rules. This may make more sense in the big picture.
 
No matter the approach, however, there's always going to be a problem of narrowing down some items while still needing to remain vague and open about others:
Want all the rules included in one book, and abilities and gear pre-generated? No problem, but what if you want to play a variation of that game and don't have the appropriate gear? Let's say you are playing Action HERO but you'd rather include mad scientists with super psychic powers or something. Well, you're going to have to buy the core rules to modify the game yourself. Want to write a game book that takes all of the variations into account? Well then you're going to have to sacrifice brevity for the sake of being more inclusive. Action HERO may include a section on all the different genre variations, and perhaps even include a resource guide for each variant. The game will be more complete, with no need for any other books, but the game itself will necessarily be a longer book. You may even have to create several different settings for the different versions of the game. If you do more of a setting/campaign book, then you don't need to present the rules since you'll be depending on the core rules to take care of that. Now you have more space to play with, either in terms of different variations on the genre. But you're asking people to buy more than one book, with the possibility that they'll be overwhelmed by the relentlessly wordy core rules presentation. And you still may have to include more than one setting, which makes things more complicated. You could do a different setting/campaign book for each possible variation of the genre, offering each as a supplement to the core rules. Each book would be a complete game based on the core rules, but by itself would be unplayable. It would be like all the GURPS genre books: great resources, but not actually rules in and of themselves. Many problems are solve by this approach, but it still requires the core rules, with can be daunting. I'm trying to find a happy medium, which may not actually exist. But it's fun (for me at least) to consider the approaches in light of what's been done before, and perhaps even more importantly, what hasn't been done before. 

I would suggest rephrasing the "you get what you pay for" part to emphasize fairness.  Something like, "While two different players buy two completely different power sets, they are balanced with each other, having spent equal points."  Obviously, that's not the best way to phrase it either, but something along the lines of "two players build on equal points are equally powerful despite their vast differences in abilities."  That second one is better.  Maybe "even with" instead of "despite their".  Maybe say, "No one ability or set of abilities dominates all the others."  "A character can be very different from the usual archetypes, and still be competitive."

YES!!!!  OMG!  One of the most annoying things you see in *some* fantasy sources - and almost always RPGs, rather than novels or movies.  (My Rep Wand is out of charges for the day.)
 
Yes, I know elves have very long lifespans so they have plenty of time to learn and say each other's names, rather than getting anything useful done.  Maybe elves have an inclination to procrastination even more than humans.  They say each others' full names when they're avoiding doing work.  But it still doesn't make much sense, since they still have to interact with the real world in real time.  An animal you're hunting won't run slower to accommodate your slower action.  The sun is going to set at the same time, regardless of how much work you got done today.  etc.
 
Two things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMRjnM6j6w
 
Are you familiar with the "Bulwer-Lytton" contest?  "It was a dark and stormy night."  If not, go look it up now, I'll wait.
Back?  Good.  On another website, they held their own version of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, but specifically for fantasy and similar genres.  This is my entry, which won the contest:
 
The night was as black as the scales on a rock dragon of the mountains of Thrûng’gahhrnix, but not one of the albino ones, born with an eerie lack of pigment and bizarre psionic powers, but one of the regular black ones, from the mountains, not the ones from further west, near the shores of the Zwěill’k’bołian Sea, which is still part of the kingdom of Thrûng’gahhrnix, but not the mountainous part, because the rock dragons there tend to be more of a dark gray, rather than true black; and of course, not one of the red ones either, because those come all the way from the haunted steppes of Bŗœđ’ĵæȥ-Ƙųźŵűƀ, five hundred leagues away, which look very different, even though the venerated sage, Gølåȶ of the Free City of Sęôţ’ǧäħ, says that they’re really the same species.
 
No, it's not from Tolkien.  Tolkien's names were excellent.  Even the longer ones were pretty easy to pronounce.  Although it's possible that this practice was started by someone who was trying to imitate Tolkien without really understanding Tolkien's methods.
 
I'm not saying you need to invent six languages to come up with good fantasy names, like Tolkien did.  But it wouldn't hurt to put a little thought into what the names mean in their own languages,  After all, names mean something.  Names are not just made out of random letters and phonemes - they start out as words, with meanings.
 
I remember seeing a shallow attempt at this recently, but I don't remember where.  It might have actually been in The Turakian Age (or maybe The Valdorian Age).  A character with a name something like "Lifo-Mok", and the text explained that his name means "brave explorer of the northern sea and slayer of mighty serpents" or something like that.  Really?  So how do you say "brave explorer of the western sea and tamer of mighty serpents" in the same language?
 
Ans speaking of The Turakian Age, does anyone pronounce "Thûn" any differently from "Thoon" or "Thune"?  Diacritical marks are added to make your fantasy setting look more like an 80's heavy metal band.

I find this sad.  People have become so used to being "hemmed in", that they've forgotten how to be free.  They've been "institutionalized" like Brooks in Shawshank Redemption.  Like the Israelites leaving Egypt, they have to wander in the desert for forty years to shake off the slave mentality.
 
People have been playing role-playing games probably for almost as long as there have been people.  They just didn't have formalized rules until the late 1970's.  Formalized rules are a good thing, so you can have fairness, and don't have to argue about everything ("I got you!"  "No, you missed!").  Unfortunately, formalized rules can also take away the freedom and creativity that you can use when you don't have formalized rules.  So the best situation is a system of formalized rules that preserve the full flexibility of being able to build and do whatever your creativity can come up with.
 
In the case of new role-players who have no interest in reading the rules, and have no desires and goals regarding spending their XP - or how they want their characters to grow - it sounds to me like people who really don't want to play.  Or maybe they just haven't grasped the basic concept of role-playing games.

YES!!!!  OMG!  One of the most annoying things you see in *some* fantasy sources - and almost always RPGs, rather than novels or movies.  (My Rep Wand is out of charges for the day.)
 
Yes, I know elves have very long lifespans so they have plenty of time to learn and say each other's names, rather than getting anything useful done.  Maybe elves have an inclination to procrastination even more than humans.  They say each others' full names when they're avoiding doing work.  But it still doesn't make much sense, since they still have to interact with the real world in real time.  An animal you're hunting won't run slower to accommodate your slower action.  The sun is going to set at the same time, regardless of how much work you got done today.  etc.
 
Two things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMRjnM6j6w
 
Are you familiar with the "Bulwer-Lytton" contest?  "It was a dark and stormy night."  If not, go look it up now, I'll wait.
Back?  Good.  On another website, they held their own version of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, but specifically for fantasy and similar genres.  This is my entry, which won the contest:
 
The night was as black as the scales on a rock dragon of the mountains of Thrûng’gahhrnix, but not one of the albino ones, born with an eerie lack of pigment and bizarre psionic powers, but one of the regular black ones, from the mountains, not the ones from further west, near the shores of the Zwěill’k’bołian Sea, which is still part of the kingdom of Thrûng’gahhrnix, but not the mountainous part, because the rock dragons there tend to be more of a dark gray, rather than true black; and of course, not one of the red ones either, because those come all the way from the haunted steppes of Bŗœđ’ĵæȥ-Ƙųźŵűƀ, five hundred leagues away, which look very different, even though the venerated sage, Gølåȶ of the Free City of Sęôţ’ǧäħ, says that they’re really the same species.
 
No, it's not from Tolkien.  Tolkien's names were excellent.  Even the longer ones were pretty easy to pronounce.  Although it's possible that this practice was started by someone who was trying to imitate Tolkien without really understanding Tolkien's methods.
 
I'm not saying you need to invent six languages to come up with good fantasy names, like Tolkien did.  But it wouldn't hurt to put a little thought into what the names mean in their own languages,  After all, names mean something.  Names are not just made out of random letters and phonemes - they start out as words, with meanings.
 
I remember seeing a shallow attempt at this recently, but I don't remember where.  It might have actually been in The Turakian Age (or maybe The Valdorian Age).  A character with a name something like "Lifo-Mok", and the text explained that his name means "brave explorer of the northern sea and slayer of mighty serpents" or something like that.  Really?  So how do you say "brave explorer of the western sea and tamer of mighty serpents" in the same language?
 
Ans speaking of The Turakian Age, does anyone pronounce "Thûn" any differently from "Thoon" or "Thune"?  Diacritical marks are added to make your fantasy setting look more like an 80's heavy metal band.

Fair enough.
 
Then the main concern is what zslane brings up:  Are they indeed gradually learning the game system?  If so, then I guess all is well.
 
Maybe it's my own vestigial remnant of the D&D "box" that I still want my character to get better, more skilled, more powerful, over time.  I want those experience points!  And I want to spend them sooner or later, to gradually improve my abilities, or maybe to buy new ones.
 
OTOH, I think that's also part of my desire to play a hero - something very much not in the D&D box.  I want to be one of the good guys - not just to say it and be recognized for it, but to actually do as much good and heroic work in the fictitious world I'm playing in.  And the more powerful I am, the more good I can do.  I want to rid the world of evil and create my own line of hair care potions.  I want to eventually defeat Kal-Turak/Doctor Destroyer/etc.  And I can't do that as a starting-level character.  I don't just want to be, as some here have put it, a "murder hobo".

YES!!!!  OMG!  One of the most annoying things you see in *some* fantasy sources - and almost always RPGs, rather than novels or movies.  (My Rep Wand is out of charges for the day.)
 
Yes, I know elves have very long lifespans so they have plenty of time to learn and say each other's names, rather than getting anything useful done.  Maybe elves have an inclination to procrastination even more than humans.  They say each others' full names when they're avoiding doing work.  But it still doesn't make much sense, since they still have to interact with the real world in real time.  An animal you're hunting won't run slower to accommodate your slower action.  The sun is going to set at the same time, regardless of how much work you got done today.  etc.
 
Two things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYMRjnM6j6w
 
Are you familiar with the "Bulwer-Lytton" contest?  "It was a dark and stormy night."  If not, go look it up now, I'll wait.
Back?  Good.  On another website, they held their own version of the Bulwer-Lytton contest, but specifically for fantasy and similar genres.  This is my entry, which won the contest:
 
The night was as black as the scales on a rock dragon of the mountains of Thrûng’gahhrnix, but not one of the albino ones, born with an eerie lack of pigment and bizarre psionic powers, but one of the regular black ones, from the mountains, not the ones from further west, near the shores of the Zwěill’k’bołian Sea, which is still part of the kingdom of Thrûng’gahhrnix, but not the mountainous part, because the rock dragons there tend to be more of a dark gray, rather than true black; and of course, not one of the red ones either, because those come all the way from the haunted steppes of Bŗœđ’ĵæȥ-Ƙųźŵűƀ, five hundred leagues away, which look very different, even though the venerated sage, Gølåȶ of the Free City of Sęôţ’ǧäħ, says that they’re really the same species.
 
No, it's not from Tolkien.  Tolkien's names were excellent.  Even the longer ones were pretty easy to pronounce.  Although it's possible that this practice was started by someone who was trying to imitate Tolkien without really understanding Tolkien's methods.
 
I'm not saying you need to invent six languages to come up with good fantasy names, like Tolkien did.  But it wouldn't hurt to put a little thought into what the names mean in their own languages,  After all, names mean something.  Names are not just made out of random letters and phonemes - they start out as words, with meanings.
 
I remember seeing a shallow attempt at this recently, but I don't remember where.  It might have actually been in The Turakian Age (or maybe The Valdorian Age).  A character with a name something like "Lifo-Mok", and the text explained that his name means "brave explorer of the northern sea and slayer of mighty serpents" or something like that.  Really?  So how do you say "brave explorer of the western sea and tamer of mighty serpents" in the same language?
 
Ans speaking of The Turakian Age, does anyone pronounce "Thûn" any differently from "Thoon" or "Thune"?  Diacritical marks are added to make your fantasy setting look more like an 80's heavy metal band.

In 40+ years of gaming, not once has my suspension of disbelief been spoiled because I thought, "There's not enough attention to poop."
 
Just sayin'.
 
Dean Shomshak

Hello Herodom,
 
I’ve been fooling around with some martial artists. The one I’m working one uses a Two Section Staff or Staff Flail (iirc).  So when I was designing him, I remembered that Dantasy Hero has the flail maneuver whereas the HSMA doesn’t-which seems odd. So here is the break down of Fail maneuver as presented in Fantasy Hero 4th ed.
 
Optional maneuver: Flail cost 0 points
-1 OCV allows you to negate Shield Bonus (upto 3 DCV).
 
I broke this down to as this Flail maneuver
Strike Basis 
-1 OCV = -1 pt
Requires Object/Condition= -2
So far so good, now the tricky part because there is nothing in HSMA (or previous editions)to negate the shield bonus.
So I’m going to Allow +3 OCV to negate Shield bonus = 3 points
 
Total cost 0 points.
 
Now from here I can create custom a martial flail maneuver at cost.
 

A lot of us have been suggesting this approach for years now. It's not rocket surgery, it's just common sense.
 
 
Okay, but are they actually learning the ins and outs of the HERO System with their learn-as-they-go approach? I've observed that there is a pretty high correlation between players who aren't interested enough to invest non-game time on the game (not even to read up on the rules) and those who never come to really understand the game system.

I forget who first said that Hero (as opposed to a game powered by Hero) has its complexity front-loaded into character creation, so it is the first thing the player sees.  They can build an ineffective fighter or wizard in D&D, but the system makes it harder to do so, and provides easy, generic starting character "templates".  RESULT:  Hero appears more complex.

Phil I looked at Ranged Martial Arts and they give OCV for Range Penalties only 1 pt per OCV. So I went with that configuration. 

IIRC, it also prevents you from doing Multiple Power Attacks with it.  That is, you can't cast multiple spells at the same time.

I think I have only ever once come close to something that was 'immersion breaking' to the point of taking me out of the game. We were playing in my GM's world, where he had designed a few different religions. One was modelled after the medieval Catholic Church while another was basically a powerful sorcerer-god and ruled his nation of worshippers as king. I played a D&D barbarian and had decided to play into a kind of zealot with a long term goal of uniting the religious leaders of the former religion to bring order to the world - and perhaps eventually invade the neigbooring heathen nations. At least, so was my thought. But the premise of it was quickly snuffed out, when my barbarian (IC) expressed his view that this sorcerer-god was not really a god, but simply a pretender. A reasonable conclusion for a religious zealot. But at that point our GM just basically said (OOC to me as a player) "No. He really is a god."
 
We never got far enough in the campaign for me to really discuss it with our GM. I'm sure he would have accepted my reasoning (he's a reasonable guy), if we had had the time, so this is not just about being told no. Where the immersion breaks is where the concept of 'a theology' is simply removed from the world building and replaced with metaphysical realities that are identifiable with their dogmas. Working with historical theology is a big part of what I do, and seeing how dogma and theology evolve and develop over time, it has become impossible (or at least very difficult) for me to accept the idea that the dogma(s) of a religion should be identified with the metaphysical reality of 'the god(s)'. This is also why I'd rather build my own world before playing in a D&D-based world again, such as Forgotten Realms; which I had previously LOVED.
 
I suppose another part of it is also the interaction itself, where an IC-development is met with an OOC response of "No, you can't do that." That in itself can really take you out of a game. Sometimes it's probably needed, if there is disagreement on the premises of the game, but I think it works better if those are solved either IC or after the game - unless they are of major importance. 

I sucked majorly, but that's what the GM wanted to run and at the time there were no other GMs. But even that didn't stop most of us from quitting his game and deciding it was better not to play at all then play in his games.