GURPS or HERO?
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The Cardinal
First Post
go for GURPS4e!
Mercule
Adventurer
I'll admit to some pretty extreme bias, here. I've played GURPS a few times and it has been, universally, my worst gaming experience ever. I've read the 3E book and can't put my finger on why I don't like it, but I feel it's a deeply flawed game.
Hero, on the other hand has always provided me lots of fun. The characters are so easy to customize and personalize, even at the lower power levels. As an example, I played in a game with three mages and two fighters. One fighter was attribute dependant and played out totally different than the duelist -- to an even greater extent than, say a D&D rogue and barbarian would feel. And the mages -- wow -- not even remotely similar. Each of use had our own source and it felt like we all belonged on the same world, but it was like having a Psion, a Binder, and an Incarnum mage (don't have that book, but the idea was the same). Even similar spells (two of us had force fields) seemed totally different because of the specific way the spells were built.
Hero definitly has some math to it, but it's not real bad. If you can multiply by 2.25 or divide by 1.75, you're good. Plus, Hero Games has an officially supported character tool, so you've got the option of something like PCGen/ETools/Heroforge. Considering that I'd still be happy to use the version they released for DOS in the early 1990s, if I had to (because it handled everything you could want to try), I've gotta believe you'll have no problems with character creation.
The worst part of Hero is that the rulebook reads like a dictionary -- okay, 4E read like a dictionary, 5E is more like an encyclopedia. It's a great book for referrencing during play, but maybe not the best for learning the whole system. Still, it is understandable, and there are forums on the Hero Games web site where some knowledgible people are plenty happy to help you understand.
As far as not having to roll your own spells, etc. goes, if you pick up the core 5E book and then get the Fantasy Hero PDF, you'll have everything you need, including racial packages, starting packages (classes), spells, monsters, etc. Plus, you can get the Grimoire for more spells, plus a couple of campaign settings, and (IIRC) a bestiary.
Honestly, if I had the time to convert the Dungeon Adventure Paths or some other mega-adventure to Hero, I'd be playing that instead of D&D. Right now, though, the biggest resource I need is adventures.
Hero, on the other hand has always provided me lots of fun. The characters are so easy to customize and personalize, even at the lower power levels. As an example, I played in a game with three mages and two fighters. One fighter was attribute dependant and played out totally different than the duelist -- to an even greater extent than, say a D&D rogue and barbarian would feel. And the mages -- wow -- not even remotely similar. Each of use had our own source and it felt like we all belonged on the same world, but it was like having a Psion, a Binder, and an Incarnum mage (don't have that book, but the idea was the same). Even similar spells (two of us had force fields) seemed totally different because of the specific way the spells were built.
Hero definitly has some math to it, but it's not real bad. If you can multiply by 2.25 or divide by 1.75, you're good. Plus, Hero Games has an officially supported character tool, so you've got the option of something like PCGen/ETools/Heroforge. Considering that I'd still be happy to use the version they released for DOS in the early 1990s, if I had to (because it handled everything you could want to try), I've gotta believe you'll have no problems with character creation.
The worst part of Hero is that the rulebook reads like a dictionary -- okay, 4E read like a dictionary, 5E is more like an encyclopedia. It's a great book for referrencing during play, but maybe not the best for learning the whole system. Still, it is understandable, and there are forums on the Hero Games web site where some knowledgible people are plenty happy to help you understand.
As far as not having to roll your own spells, etc. goes, if you pick up the core 5E book and then get the Fantasy Hero PDF, you'll have everything you need, including racial packages, starting packages (classes), spells, monsters, etc. Plus, you can get the Grimoire for more spells, plus a couple of campaign settings, and (IIRC) a bestiary.
Honestly, if I had the time to convert the Dungeon Adventure Paths or some other mega-adventure to Hero, I'd be playing that instead of D&D. Right now, though, the biggest resource I need is adventures.
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
Psion said:
Sure. My point was that doing so is pretty much required if you don't want to design your own magic system, character kits, creatures and items from scratch, whereas GURPS is largely set up to do fantasy out of the box -- much as HERO is set up to do superheroes out of the box. Each system has a compeltely different, primary focus, by default.
Again, it's the difference bewteen implied settings -- the GURPS core books are chock full of things related to fantasy (e.g., a complete magic system, fantasy bestiary, etc) while the HERO core book has almost none of that and, instead, devotes its pages to superheroic- related content presented in the context of comic books (e.g., super powers).
Fedifensor
Explorer
This has been implied in the thread, but not specifically stated, so I'll state it.
HERO has a LOT more setup time required than GURPS. That is its primary flaw. I've dropped plans to run HERO in the past because I knew I wouldn't have enough free time to do the prep work for the campaign. In fact, that's the main reason that our current home campaign is D&D.
However, once the characters are created and the GM has finished the prep work for the game session, the actual game runs pretty smoothly. Since your powers and such are already built and listed on the character sheet, there's very little referring back to books in the middle of a game. Their character generator is even set up to print out the combat maneuvers that you may want to use (Block, Disarm, Grab, etc) onto the character sheet.
The Speed Chart in HERO (again, something you'll already have listed on your character sheet) is distinct from a lot of other gaming systems. Most gaming systems have the "you take a turn, I take a turn" mechanic. HERO assigns you a number of actions per 12-second combat turn based on your speed. So you can make a fast-acting character that doesn't do a lot of damage and folds pretty easily (if you can hit him) or a slow, pondering character who doesn't act very often but can take a lot of abuse and hit pretty hard. I consider it one of the big selling points of the system, especially if you are interested in playing Heroes (with a capital H) or Superheroes.
HERO has a LOT more setup time required than GURPS. That is its primary flaw. I've dropped plans to run HERO in the past because I knew I wouldn't have enough free time to do the prep work for the campaign. In fact, that's the main reason that our current home campaign is D&D.
However, once the characters are created and the GM has finished the prep work for the game session, the actual game runs pretty smoothly. Since your powers and such are already built and listed on the character sheet, there's very little referring back to books in the middle of a game. Their character generator is even set up to print out the combat maneuvers that you may want to use (Block, Disarm, Grab, etc) onto the character sheet.
The Speed Chart in HERO (again, something you'll already have listed on your character sheet) is distinct from a lot of other gaming systems. Most gaming systems have the "you take a turn, I take a turn" mechanic. HERO assigns you a number of actions per 12-second combat turn based on your speed. So you can make a fast-acting character that doesn't do a lot of damage and folds pretty easily (if you can hit him) or a slow, pondering character who doesn't act very often but can take a lot of abuse and hit pretty hard. I consider it one of the big selling points of the system, especially if you are interested in playing Heroes (with a capital H) or Superheroes.
DungeonMaester
First Post
I am not impressed with GURPS thus far, but I have only positive things to say about HERO and Palladium in general.
---Rusty
---Rusty
Teflon Billy
Explorer
DungeonMaester said:
I had heard you were out there, I just never thought that I'd meet you!
Choranzanus
Explorer
QFTMercule said:
I played GURPS 3e for some time and when I made an assesment of my experience with the system I had to come to conclusion that the system never exactly works as expected. In fact now, the only rules that I think are good is the character creation which, incidentally, is mostly stolen from HERO...
Also, changing rules that you don't like is more difficult with GURPS, which I think is a major problem.
Role playing elements come from cool adventure ideas and interested players actively participating, not from the game system. I played with Champions for a long time and they were some of the funnest adventures of my gaming career, but it wasn't the system. One thing I found frustrating is when I was learning the system, I (of course) wasn't very economical with my points. Once I learned the system, I felt I could work it pretty dang well getting exactly what I wanted out of it, but it took a couple of years of weekly play to get there. With GURPS, it didn't seem like it had the same editor throughout the supplements so things seemed strangely imbalanced at times but you get out of it what you put into it. Hero, you must invest a bit of time to get anything out of it, but it's more satisfying too.
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