Greatwyrm said:
Can anybody tell me how Fantasy Hero stacks up against D&D like the Champions vs. Gurps discussion above?
Well, first off the game systems are as different as night and day. D&D allows you to pick a class, or classes, and advance from Geek to God. Hero, on the other hand, lets you simulate anything. There are no class restrictions, only the restrictions imposed by the GM. I have characters in my FH game that have started out as demi-gods. Someone above mentioned that characters start out around 8 th level. That’s fairly close to accurate. I’d say somewhere between 6th and 8th.
D&D combat revolves around Armor Class keeping you from getting hit. FH combat uses armor to subtract from the damage taken when you are hit. In Fh the players must decide what combat maneuvers they are going to do. Instead of just hoping they are missed the players can choose to Block, Disarm, Dodge, Strike, etc. You just don’t run up and swing when your phase comes around. It's possible to be knocked out in FH without ever taking an severe damage. FH can use hit locations (a shot to the head has a good chance of killing you, no matter how powerful you are), and keeps the players "honest".
The flexibility is the main issue. If you want to begin as a swordmaster, you can. You don't have to evolve into a swordmaster. If you want to be a mage that fights with a sword and wears armor, you can. FH is great for simulating characters that you read about in books. I've had players that started the game as demi-gods (ala Heracles), enchanted heroes (ala Achilles), or just simple barbarian warriors that started off as a thief (ala Conan). I once ran a game where fantasy heroes from across the timeline were brought together by Merlin to save the world. Imagine having Lancelot, Conan, Heracles, Cu Chulainn, Raiko and Beowulf all playing in your game.
The magic system is the major issue that the GM needs to make decisions on. The game allows you to simulate any type of magic system that you want. You could do the "Will and the Word" from the Belgariad. You could do the "Elemental Style" of the Wheel of Time. You can simulate "Book and Study" from D&D. You can easily simulate any type of magic that you have ever read in any book. Once the magic system is determined, it’s fairly easy to make spells from there.
Character creation is the most complex issue. In D&D you roll the dice 6 times, decide what class and race you want to be based on the highest characteristic, roll hit points and pick equipment. In FH, you create the character from scratch. Do decide how strong or how agile the character is. You decide what his personality and problems are at the beginning. You decide how hard he is to kill and how good he is in combat. All of these decisions are based off of points that you get to spend.
In FH, the concept is not: “Oh well, the character died. I’ll just roll up another one if 5 minutes”. It can take a long time for you to decide what you want the character to be, so you don’t really think of them as expendable assets. You don’t want to sit down to play your Conan clone, and then stick his head in a dragon’s mouth. In the Hero System games, the characters become more personal because you get to make them the way you want them.
There are currently two game worlds for FH. Broken Kingdoms is a pdf that you can buy from Hero Games. It’s very well fleshed out but not might be to everyone’s tastes. There’s also a more “standard” world called Western Shores in the back of the 4 th edition FH book. It’s a very basic breakdown, but uses traditional D&D style races and such. Personally, I’ve spent most of my FH gaming career playing in either Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, or my homebrew world. It’s fairly easy to use any game world. There are numerous websites that GreyHero, RealmsHero and D&D to Hero spell conversions. So it’s really not that hard to make the switch.
I’m in sort of a rush, so I hope what I typed above makes some sense.
