Hiya!
Oh yeah, packages and whatnot...yeah. I know about all that. I guess I didn't explain it right. Hmmm...
Remember when Basic D&D was 're-done' by Mentzer? When it became "BECMI" and not "B/X"? In the Basic Set 1, there was a Players Book and a Dungeon Masters Book. The Players book started off as just that...a book. No rules or what have you other than some very rudimentary concepts. You, the reader, just "started reading" where it says "Start Here". And you read a story. After the basics are laid down dealing with RPG concepts, your Fighter encounters a Snake with 3hp. It tells you what that means, how damage is handled, how hitting it in the first place is decided, etc. Anyway, about 20 pages or so, the reader now knows what "Strength 17" means, what "8 HP's" is, what "Damage 1d6" indicates, what a Fighter is, etc. The player then reads up at his/her leisure about Clerics, Magic-Uers, Elves, etc. The point of that type of intro is to easy someone who has no idea about what they are getting into and make them want to explore more of the game.
HERO is
not a game for "beginners".
I don't expect it to have the same approach as Basic D&D, that's for sure! What I'd like to see is something that "pushes all the Character Points and Costs" math stuff much farther down in the book. So the front part of the book could basically do what Mentzer did; "Here is your PC. Lets say you area a Fighter. You need to be able to fight well and strike your opponents more effectively than other, less combat-oriented characters. Everyone has an OCV and DCV, for "Offensive Combat Value" and "Defensive Combat Value". When you try to strike your opponent, you subtract their DCV from your OCV and that gives you a modifier for whatever skill you are using...lets say a sword. ... ... ...". Then it could go into brief explanations of what skills to use where, how Killing versus Stun damage works, etc.
After that brief intro it could have, basically, the same type of "four core" archtypes of fantasy RPG's: Warrior, Wizard, Priest, Rogue. No points mentioned at all other than in basic passing at the very beginning. (e.g., "
To 'build' your own character the game uses a Character Points concept where various abilities cost points, and drawbacks give points. But don't worry about that now. That's for later when you feel ready to start tweaking or creating your own fantasy spells, races, classes, towers, dungeons, etc!" ). After ALL that is said and done, the player "gets it" and has some idea of how the system works and what 'flow' they can expect.
TL;DR = "It'd be nice to be shown pre-built everything without even mentioning points until the Players and DM want to start creating/modifying their own stuff".
Wow. Totally derailed this thread, didn't I? ...sorry...
HERO is just one of those systems I've always WANTED to love and get into...but I just find it so frustratingly, well, "spread-sheet oriented". Like the game puts a focus on the POINTS and not on what those points represent for playing a RPG. I hear HERO gamers talking about their games, and most of the time it's all about how many points they spent on X, Y or Z, what drawbacks they took, what boosts/advantages/perks/whatevertheyrecalled, etc...and not about what their actual character is like in the game. Like getting a computer to tell you what it sees when looking at the Mona Lisa; it's going to tell you all the technical stuff that makes up the painting, but it's not going to tell you "It makes me sad".
