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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fuindordm" data-source="post: 3581071" data-attributes="member: 5435">I never played GURPS, so I can't offer much advice there. After years of running a fantasy campaign in HERO, however, I can offer some perspective.The system is great, and makes it easy to do whatever you as a DM feel like. It also gives total freedom to the players to make their PCs. However, this comes with a price: just because everything is possible in the rules, doesn't mean that everything should be possible in the game. The GM of a HERO campaign has to rule with an iron fist, vetoing ideas that don't fit the style. Otherwise you end up with a hodgepodge of wierdness.The system has a definite superheroic bias. While it runs well on the low-level D&D scale, you still find that resource management has slipped out of the game. The PCs will never get tired, never run out of spells, etc unless you implement new rules to make sure this happens. (One common example, which also appears in some of the sourcebooks is to give magic its own "endurance pool" that recovers more slowly than regular endurance.)  By the end of my campaign, I had introduced my own simplified endurance rule for tracking fatigue due to both combat and spellcasting, so that the warrior-types didn't outstrip the spellcasters.Finally, the rules assume that the PCs opponents will be similar in power to the PCs. It doesn't exactly break when the PCs fight mooks or find themselves up against the Big Bad... but the effect of a power differential on combat can be pretty extreme (leading to TPKs if you're not careful, and letting the PCs defeat a horde of lesser opponents without a scratch). I eventually started rolling combat on 2d10 instead of 3d6, so that mooks had a higher chance of hitting even when their attack value was significantly lower than the PC's defense value.For fantasy campaigns, you'll want to consider heavy restrictions on certain powers: I suggest doubling the cost of "force field" type magic so that spellcasters aren't invulnerable (there's actually a precedent for this in the rules describing the power), and *heavily* restricting healing magic. It is also very important to remember that all powers are VISIBLE by default, even "psychic" ones like telekenisis and mental illusions. If you give psions subtle powers for free, they'll walk all over everyone.I never felt like HERO had rules bloat in the way that D&D does, and I loved running it. After a few years I felt myself drawn back to D&D for what it does well: reducing the PCs' resources on all encounters, niche protection, and player comfort.  This thread has gotten me all nostalgic for running it again, though.</blockquote>

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