thormagni
Explorer
So, I believe I have mentioned this before, but I am a former huge fan of the Hero System and Champions, Hero's super-hero roleplaying game. I went up to Indy and Greenwood yesterday, looking to spend the last of my Christmas present money. The Game Preserve was having a big, blowout, clearance sale on Hero stuff and it turns out the regional manager is also a former Hero fan, so he let me have really great deals on the stuff if I would just take it off of his hands.
I picked up: the vehicle sourcebook, the Ultimate Brick (for playing super-strong characters,) Ninja Hero (for martial arts campaigns,) the Spacer's Toolkit (with a bunch of sci-fi equipment.) and Reality Storm (a crossover adventure and conversion guide between Silver Age Sentinels and Champions.)
Hero is a paradox for me, really. It is a great system, a real milestone in game design. But in today's fast, fast game play world and with a trend to loose rules, Hero is a very slow, precise and calculated game design.
On the one hand it is a really comprehensive system that covers everything from normal humans to superheroes to gods pretty seamlessly. It was, I believe, the first and the most comprehensive generic role-playing system. At the same time, it gives the appearance of being mind-numbingly complex. To cover all that ground, the powers and skills list is really extensive and all-encompassing. And instead of the six basic stats of D20 (or the three for Silver Age Sentinels/Big Eyes Small Mouth) Hero has eight basic stats and six secondary ones. Then there are all the abbreviations. Lord, are there a lot of abbreviations.
Which turns character sheets into densely packed code. And in every game I ever ran, combat was exceedingly slow.
The Fifth Edition rules were one of the most impressive, but dry, sets of rules I have ever seen or imagined. It has 360 solid pages, with plenty of examples and descriptions and detail. But it also has 360 pages without a hint of attitude or flavor or setting. It is the ultimate generic game system in that it can do anything and it is completely flavorless. Now, they have a revised edition of the fifth edition that adds another 200 pages including a tutorial on how to apply the Hero system in various genres. It has to be close to 600 pages. They have come out with a book called Sidekick, that is a distilled version of the rules that is less intimidating, which was a huge step, I think.
I don't know where I am going with this, except that I simultaneously miss playing Hero and would dread trying to teach the system to someone who had never played it before. I mean, at least Silver Age Sentinels D20 was familiar in some ways to everyone. This is just, well, completely different.
I dunno. If you guys ever want to try it, let me know and I will get back up to speed on it. It would be easy enough to use it for a martial arts game some time.
I picked up: the vehicle sourcebook, the Ultimate Brick (for playing super-strong characters,) Ninja Hero (for martial arts campaigns,) the Spacer's Toolkit (with a bunch of sci-fi equipment.) and Reality Storm (a crossover adventure and conversion guide between Silver Age Sentinels and Champions.)
Hero is a paradox for me, really. It is a great system, a real milestone in game design. But in today's fast, fast game play world and with a trend to loose rules, Hero is a very slow, precise and calculated game design.
On the one hand it is a really comprehensive system that covers everything from normal humans to superheroes to gods pretty seamlessly. It was, I believe, the first and the most comprehensive generic role-playing system. At the same time, it gives the appearance of being mind-numbingly complex. To cover all that ground, the powers and skills list is really extensive and all-encompassing. And instead of the six basic stats of D20 (or the three for Silver Age Sentinels/Big Eyes Small Mouth) Hero has eight basic stats and six secondary ones. Then there are all the abbreviations. Lord, are there a lot of abbreviations.
Which turns character sheets into densely packed code. And in every game I ever ran, combat was exceedingly slow.
The Fifth Edition rules were one of the most impressive, but dry, sets of rules I have ever seen or imagined. It has 360 solid pages, with plenty of examples and descriptions and detail. But it also has 360 pages without a hint of attitude or flavor or setting. It is the ultimate generic game system in that it can do anything and it is completely flavorless. Now, they have a revised edition of the fifth edition that adds another 200 pages including a tutorial on how to apply the Hero system in various genres. It has to be close to 600 pages. They have come out with a book called Sidekick, that is a distilled version of the rules that is less intimidating, which was a huge step, I think.
I don't know where I am going with this, except that I simultaneously miss playing Hero and would dread trying to teach the system to someone who had never played it before. I mean, at least Silver Age Sentinels D20 was familiar in some ways to everyone. This is just, well, completely different.
I dunno. If you guys ever want to try it, let me know and I will get back up to speed on it. It would be easy enough to use it for a martial arts game some time.
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