MrAgdesh

This is a really good point.
 
There is an inherent problem with Hero that in order to make it a great game you first have to have played it - extensively - and learned where the abuse lies. For you, as your view of abuse might be very different to the next guy's. Unless you are really initially hooked on the game system you will probably abandon it in favour of less intense systems that you don't need to know inside out before you can even run them. 
 
I've known groups that tried it, declared "Speed is Broken!" and then went off to play something else rather than fix Speed. I know this because I bought all of one guy's books as spares.
 
I've seen some threads that say Hero's fault is that whilst it has plenty of sourcebooks it doesn't really have any scenarios to help you  get into the game and 'hit the floor running'.
 
The problem here is that even if there were a scenario written, it would most likely still need redesign by the GM to fit into his own particular game view. It's not like D&D where if you buy an "adventure for character levels X-Y" you know pretty much you'll get what you purchased. With Hero there is a lot more open to interpretation and that would be the case even if you specify "An adventure for Fantasy Hero for Standard Heroic characters". Using Turakian Age for example, if I were ever to run it, I'd have to redesign all of the Renowned of Ambrethel, as they are far too tough for my tastes.
 
Now, most GMs say that they all tweak purchased adventures - to some degree -  to fit what they want, but I'm talking major re-writes with Hero.

Yep. I mean it’s not rocket science to figure out that in a system rounding to the nearest 5, primary CHAs of 13 and 18 were very efficient. it’s just that until that was written down - in the actual book (Champions II?) - it didn’t really happen. The tips kind of emphasised that you were a chump not to take them. 
 
the suggestion above that you can burn STUN as END is far more a useful oft forgotten kind of tip without being all power-gamey. 

STR varies by genre.  In Champions, where you might actually hit someone with a fist, STR tended to be in multiples of 5.  In FH, where what matters is the STR Min of your weapon, STR ended in 3 or 8 because (from 4e onward) STR Mins tended to also end in 3 or 8 and that extra point of figured characteristics was actually worth something.

That is the tough road to walk, to try to avoid them being cheap and rules-shaving, while still being useful to players.  I think just about every long-term player uses most of Goodman's tips without realizing it.

I seem to remember that my 14 year old self thought that Goodman’s School of Cost Effectiveness was pretty cool at the time. 
 
My 55 year old self is just annoyed at how the min-maxing abuse advice negatively affected campaigns. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Re: HERO System Vehicles
 
They are at the same time too detailed and not detailed enough.
 
The level of detail is unnecessary if all you're building is the superhero team's jump jet.
 
The level of detail is insufficient if you're running a game based around vehicles, such as a Car Wars Hero game. If I was running a Car Wars Hero game, I'd want objects (weapons, gadgets, etc.) to have weight and money cost at the very minimum.
 
Finally, the vehicle rules don't really model vehicles all that well. The 3rd edition vehicle rules are far superior: vehicles move in segments (as they should) rather than Phases, and they have stats for Acceleration, Deceleration, and Maximum Range.

remember when people run out of END they can still burn STUN to power their abilities

I agree, the system matters less than the players and GM.  A good system makes things better, and a worse system makes things less fun, but you can still have a blast.  You can have a fun Tunnels & Trolls campaign, or a memorable Top Secret game.  You can play RuneQuest or AD&D, or Universe and have fun.
 
But the system makes things better.  Bad mechanics annoy and grate at me even when I am enjoying a game.

VtM, and the World of Darkness in general, appealed to a milieu of edgy Emo/Goth types.

When that milieu faded, so did it.

Riding fads is lucrative, but risky.

Like the webcomic Penny Arcade pointed out, D&D is a culture, not a brand. WOTC was already making money hand over fist thanks to MTG and D&D, but that wasn’t good enough. Oh no. The suits at the top (who aren’t gamers by the accounts I’ve read) wanted to have more money flowing into their coffers and boost their share price and annual bonuses.
 
Paizo: Come play with us! We support the gaming culture and want to keep going with what’s been working. Buy books from us and the other creators you like and keep on playing.
 
WOTC: We aren’t making enough money off this game system and want to charge everyone at every game table a monthly fee to play with our new VTT and access our digital libraries. If you don’t have a DM, we’ll even provide an AI to act as one. Oh, we’re also going to kill the OGL that brought us to the top of the TTRPG world and gave D20 mechanics about 85% of the TTRPG market because it isn’t bringing _us_ enough of the money being spent on gaming out there. All your dollars belong to us.
 
WOTC caused themselves a self-inflicted wound by deeply angering the RPG fandom and Paizo skillfully stabbed them in the face while they were down.
 
Well played, Paizo. Well played.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but what state is Hero Games in right now?  
 
It's hard to argue that WotC did anything but benefit immensely from the OGL.  It did so in two eras: the D&D 3.0/3.5 era and the D&D 5e era.  In the D&D 4e era it tanked; in the D&D 4e era it had the onerous "Game System License" which, among other things, said that if you published anything under the GSL you could never, ever publish anything under the OGL.  
 
Look what happened to D&D 4e.  
 
Someone is inevitably going to say something about D&D 4e's rules.  I'm going to call that a red herring right now.  Every new edition of every game will have someone saying something about its rules.  People were saying how bad D&D 3's rules were when it first came out.  People were saying how bad D&D 5's rules were when it first came out.  (People were saying how bad Champions 4e's rules were when it came out!)  

4e died on the vine because it wasn't able to attract 3pp support, and WotC wouldn't or couldn't provide it with the level of support on its own that an entire ecosystem sprung up to provide for 3e.  Now WotC are repeating the mistake with D&D 6e.  Doing the same thing, expecting a different result?  
 
Anyone remember "T$R" and "They Sue Regularly"?  At least two companies went under directly as a result of TSR suing them over providing third party support for AD&D 1e.  I believe I've recently read that Game Designers Workshop went under not as a result of being sued, but as a result of the potential that they might be sued, over Gary Gygax's Dangerous Journeys game.  (When one is sued, and one has to provide discovery, one has to pay staff to go through one's documents...)  
 
I've seen -- not here, that I can recall, but definitely elsewhere -- the idea that "lol u can just re-rite theyre roolz in youre own wurdz lol" and -- really?  Has anyone ever tried that?  I have.  It sucks.  Never going to again, until the next time.  Yes, copyright law allows you to do that -- but it doesn't say that the litigious large corporation can't sue you anyway for doing it, or for any other reason they want, and bankrupt you anyway.  "They Sue Regularly", remember?  

The thing about the OGL (did I post this here?  I can't remember if I did, and I've been talking about this in more than one place...) is that it was a promise of a "safe harbor": that they wouldn't sue you over things they couldn't sue you over, in exchange for doing this, that, and the other thing.  Respecting rights to certain things, voluntarily choosing not to exercise rights that you might otherwise be permitted to...  That right there is, honestly, what built WotC into the billion dollar corporation it is now.  
 
Sure, corporations are not your friend.  They can pretend all they want, and it's not people's fault for believing them.  It's not people's fault for believing them.  
 
It's not people's fault for believing them.
People liked D&D, and a lot of people build up an identity around things they like.  There's nothing wrong with that; we all do it.  Our house is a Honda household; others are Toyota households, or Ford households, or Chevy households.  I'm a Champions and Hero player from 1985.  
 
Regardless of the motivations, WotC did something that really upset a lot of people.  They took away that safe harbor.  (Honestly, I'm kinda pissed over that, because I wrote some OGL stuff, and "published" it in forum posts here and there and occasionally on my Google drive.  Nothing to do with any WotC intellectual property directly, but I'm not sure of its status now.)
 
It might not actually be legal for them to have done so, in fact, but until and unless that's tested in court any given person's opinions on that depends on what lawyer they're listening to.  
 
Anyway, WotC will either succeed or fail, and the ORC license coalition will either succeed or fail, and the world will go on turning...

Great find!  I take issue with one part of his analysis though: in his timeline he marks the release of the WotC "corporate apology".  That was no apology, that was a stack of of obvious lies with a generous helping of contempt for their own customers.

Well, when I was 14, I picked up Moldvay’s Red book and pretty much taught myself how to play. I didn’t have a gaming group then and was the only person I knew that was interested in it. 

Yup and that’s also true of Hero. Ideally there should be a way to be able to objectively able to compare games. I do know that D&D is easier to pick up if you all start at first level and you limit what is available. You can start the game and level as things progress. There is less analysis paralysis. The same with Hero if people would embrace for new players and GMs a “first level” and then introduce options would be the best. I find now, especially older, that on paper some of those options aren’t worth adding for my group. And that is another key point about Hero that seems to be lost in the shuffle. Your group. If hit locations work for you great use them. But if they don’t then don’t use them or tell other groups that they must be used if doing normals. 

Much of what is in them is defined. A D&D Fireball spell does what it says on the tin. Hero just gives me Blast or RKA then adds in various AoE modifiers, maybe Reduced Endurance and says; "Have at it".
 
The fact that a gaming table could all theoretically have Fire Mages with suites of spells all substantially different to one another is awesome, but off-putting to players who want to just pick up and play. At least, it is to many gamers I know.
 

That Magesight seems really expensive.
 
Also, "viable" is relative.  The ICE Robin Hood book statted Robin Hood himself at less than 100 points in 4e FH.  I've played campaigns with 50 point PCs, it works but it feels weird for the entire party to have to gang up on a single goblin.

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.

WotC has finally deigned to post a statement on the OGL self-own.
 
Tl;dr: Lies. 
 
"We always meant to get community input, it's just a draft": No, you sent that out to third parties for signatures, that's why it got leaked.
 
"Stealing other people's work never crossed our minds": And yet you wrote it into 1.1.
 
"We just wanted to prevent hateful content": This was hardly even touched on in 1.1.
 
Community reaction has been unsurprisingly negative.

Yes but you meed to know how to yes the tools. I’ m not bashing Hero but everytime some one points out the flaws of (especially) D&D and say Hero is better never really look at the issue and see if Hero really is easier or does Hero just have the issue but from another angle or a different set? Like Ild man upthread was saying how much easier is it to build a character you want than searching multi classes and feats. Probably depending on what you want. If Hero is so easy why are there so many How do I? Question are on this site? 

This is a really good point.
 
There is an inherent problem with Hero that in order to make it a great game you first have to have played it - extensively - and learned where the abuse lies. For you, as your view of abuse might be very different to the next guy's. Unless you are really initially hooked on the game system you will probably abandon it in favour of less intense systems that you don't need to know inside out before you can even run them. 
 
I've known groups that tried it, declared "Speed is Broken!" and then went off to play something else rather than fix Speed. I know this because I bought all of one guy's books as spares.
 
I've seen some threads that say Hero's fault is that whilst it has plenty of sourcebooks it doesn't really have any scenarios to help you  get into the game and 'hit the floor running'.
 
The problem here is that even if there were a scenario written, it would most likely still need redesign by the GM to fit into his own particular game view. It's not like D&D where if you buy an "adventure for character levels X-Y" you know pretty much you'll get what you purchased. With Hero there is a lot more open to interpretation and that would be the case even if you specify "An adventure for Fantasy Hero for Standard Heroic characters". Using Turakian Age for example, if I were ever to run it, I'd have to redesign all of the Renowned of Ambrethel, as they are far too tough for my tastes.
 
Now, most GMs say that they all tweak purchased adventures - to some degree -  to fit what they want, but I'm talking major re-writes with Hero.

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 thought this was kinda funny too:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/NonOGLFantasy

One thing though, this will be interesting. If the OGL does what people say it will, then how much push back will One D&D face? Will it make One D&D flop? Does D&D have enough fan loyalists to make it still marketable? Or will enough of the base be soured by this big business and turn away? hasboro may have over estimated gamers loyalty to the brand. All I can say is “time will tell”.