The HERO System

[d4]

In supers - END is vital. Sometimes the only way to beat someone is to outlast them. I had a character who was based around his END usage...

see, that was always the weird thing for me with HERO. i can't think of very many (well, any right now off the top of my head) superheroes or supervillains from comics who get tired out from using their powers.

i've never seen Cyclops say, "Darn, i can't fire any more optic blasts. i'm worn out." i've never seen Superman get tired from flying around too much.

Endurance as its used in HERO/Champions just doesn't model the genre IMO.

how many fights in comic books end not because the hero KOs the bad guy, but because the bad guy gets tired first? yet, as you said, that happens much more frequently in Champions.

for the few characters who do use such a construction (as the one you created), it could easily be a limitation applied to that particular character's powers. there's no reason to have to track Endurance for every character just because a small handful of characters use it as a defining trait.

I want to compare the fact that Hero actually puts PD, ED, Stun and Body on your character sheet while D20 uses pretty much all the same stats but calls them Fire Resistance, Electricity Resistance, Acid Resistance, Cold Resistance, Sonic Resistance, Damage Reduction, Standard Damage, and Non-Lethal Damage.

same argument here. i prefer the way d20 does it. if it isn't central to your character concept, why have it on your character sheet?

since not many characters have, for example, Acid Resistance, it makes more sense to have that be a special ability that is only listed if you have it, instead of having it be on every character's sheet.

i agree with mmadsen about PD and ED. it's simpler to have a generic "Toughness" stat, and then modify that with advantages or limitations if you want to have your physical toughness different than your energy toughness. no need to make everyone define them separately just because a few characters need the detail.

 

[Victim]

I like the idea of Electro being immune to electricity but not to plasma bolts. Do we need Electricity Defense and Plasma Defense on every character sheet? Cold Defense and Sonic Defense? Fire Defense and Acid Defense?

A flexible system can handle plenty of nuances without inflexibly requiring stats for all of them.

Put a flaw on your ED.

 

[mmadsen]

Hero is one of those games that inspires passion, one way or another.

True -- but not everyone must either hate or love Hero as a whole. Some of us recognize both the genius of Hero and the flaws of Hero.

People who hate it see it as a pile of stats that can choke a horse masqurading as a streamlined system.

People who love it (such as myself) see it as a game based on consistant rules that are flexible enough to create the game I want without resorting to "just making it up" the way rules lite systems do or being forced into a class/level straightjacket.

And wouldn't it be great if we could have a consistent, flexible system without the pile of stats that can choke a horse?

Hero is a game that people hate enough to go on long rants about when the suject is mentioned, yet when it went out of print for 10 years it's devoted fanbase still played voraciously and kept an active internet presence. How many other games can say that? (Ok, maybe RuneQuest)

The goal -- or at least my goal -- is not to curse Hero or to praise it, but to recognize what works well and what could be streamlined.

 

[mmadsen]

Put a flaw on your ED.

Or put a limitation on your Toughness.

 

[PCD]

Lots of info, thanks folks.

I think I am going to buy HERO 5th Ed and join the ranks of the thoughtful!

 

[buzz]

And wouldn't it be great if we could have a consistent, flexible system without the pile of stats that can choke a horse?

That's just it. I don't think that there's any consensus that HERO chokes horses. HERO ain't perfect, but stating things like this as fact is a bit presumptuous.

 

[buzz]

You have to track END, STUN, BODY, etc. for each and every NPC...

Each and every? Not really. You can wing HERO like anything else.

 

[mmadsen]

That's just it. I don't think that there's any consensus that HERO chokes horses. HERO ain't perfect, but stating things like this as fact is a bit presumptuous.

I was directly quoting Jhamin's tongue-in-cheek characterization of the con side's argument.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I am on the hero system is great side of the argument. Now I freely admit I have a few house rules to streamline the game since I got its too slow in combat complaints from new players. But these things be easy to do, and the system always seemed very intuitive and elegent to me.

Now then for supers games I think it falls down a bit sometimes for some people. Overall it totally rocks but when emulating specific characters frequently the brand name super RPGs do better because there is a green lantern power in the DC rpg its called force manipulaiton.

Hero being an effect based game sometimes you have to shoe horn in some powers to get what you want. Sure it still works but being a show horned in effect it wont have the same feel to many except for true hero nuts like me. Someone mentioned superspeedsters like the flash, me I'd happy with megascaled movement, flight only almong surfaces to simulate running along water, an area effect attack to simulate running aorund beating everyone down in the blink of an eye, and tranforms for simulate rapid building/dismantaling. For me it works beautifully and I visualuize the powers just like the flash powers in the comics, for others it doesn't seem like a unified superspeed ability but some separate add on powers.

 

[Driddle]

I don't feel like dressing this up in a bunch of pseudo-intellectual mumbo-jumbo logic constructs, pros vs. cons, that would drag out for days.
To the point:

I like Hero and Champion A LOT, and I always have. It's way cool.
So every time I read a message here putting down MY game system, my self-defensive emotions get tweaked.
Anyone who can't appreciate the Hero System is a poo-poo head. So there.