Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6958648" data-attributes="member: 4937">I would say that in and of itself, a long character generation process is not a big problem as it doesn't interfere with play and is just a sunk cost.&nbsp; It renders the game less accessible to new players, but it doesn't impact play much.The real problem I have with HERO is that the GM must be absolutely fully comfortable with winging and improvising almost everything, because any burden you put on a player, impacts a GM twenty-fold.&nbsp; If deciding how to do something is a lengthy process, it takes the GM 20 times longer because the GM has a much larger and ongoing preparation burden.&nbsp; The massive amount of preparation time in HERO limits the sort of preparation a GM can do, and Celebrim's Second Law of RPGs is that how you prepare to play a game and how you think about playing the game is as important as the rules.&nbsp;&nbsp; HERO's massive preparation burden forces the sort of game you can play much more severely than rules light systems do simply by making it all but impossible to do certain styles of preparation.&nbsp; Time saving in a system like HERO is just about everything from a GM's perspective.&nbsp; Compare with 1e AD&amp;D were the crunch presents almost no burden to the GM for the presumed style of play, or a more crunchy system like 3e D&amp;D where many GMs became frustrated with feeling that they couldn't treat monster generation with the granularity provided for and seemingly expected by the rules.&nbsp; Both 4e and 5e have tended to back away from that expectation that the rest of the world is as granular as the PCs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 6958648, member: 4937"] I would say that in and of itself, a long character generation process is not a big problem as it doesn't interfere with play and is just a sunk cost. It renders the game less accessible to new players, but it doesn't impact play much. The real problem I have with HERO is that the GM must be absolutely fully comfortable with winging and improvising almost everything, because any burden you put on a player, impacts a GM twenty-fold. If deciding how to do something is a lengthy process, it takes the GM 20 times longer because the GM has a much larger and ongoing preparation burden. The massive amount of preparation time in HERO limits the sort of preparation a GM can do, and Celebrim's Second Law of RPGs is that how you prepare to play a game and how you think about playing the game is as important as the rules. HERO's massive preparation burden forces the sort of game you can play much more severely than rules light systems do simply by making it all but impossible to do certain styles of preparation. Time saving in a system like HERO is just about everything from a GM's perspective. Compare with 1e AD&D were the crunch presents almost no burden to the GM for the presumed style of play, or a more crunchy system like 3e D&D where many GMs became frustrated with feeling that they couldn't treat monster generation with the granularity provided for and seemingly expected by the rules. Both 4e and 5e have tended to back away from that expectation that the rest of the world is as granular as the PCs. [/QUOTE]

Verification