The HERO System

[Agback]

Heh. So the Hulk has an Entangle attack? Lol, I forgot that aspect of playing Champions: buying Powers to represent any super-tactic not expressly outlined in the combat rules.

It is a 'feature' that contributed greatly to my first impression of Champions. A GM at the UNSW RPG Association ran a demo game for which he handed out pre-generated characters. Unfortunately he was one of those GMs who won't let you spit in your captor's eye unless you have paid for a a flash attack and had generated the characters pretty unimaginatively. I drew a martial-artist character called 'Webs' who was based on Spider-Man, and ended up through a failure to communicate fighting against a brick with growth whom the GM had intended as an opponnent for the PC brick. I tried to do several things with my characters webs that made perfect sense in world terms, but which the GM disallowed without any in-world explanation for their failure, on the grounds taht the character did not have a ranged grab, did not have telekinesis, did not have forcewall, etc. The final straw was when he would not permit me to squirt web into an eye the size of a basketball because my character did not have a flash attack. And this, I thought, was both his fault rather than mine and a pretty poor way to go about advertising the advantages of his favourite system.

You can get around this problem, but it involves thinking during character generation of everything you might want to do with your character's powers. And unfortunately it often means that characters with some quite nifty concepts are very expensive, and character designs often opaque.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Geoff Watson]

It is a 'feature' that contributed greatly to my first impression of Champions. A GM at the UNSW RPG Association ran a demo game for which he handed out pre-generated characters. Unfortunately he was one of those GMs who won't let you spit in your captor's eye unless you have paid for a a flash attack and had generated the characters pretty unimaginatively. I drew a martial-artist character called 'Webs' who was based on Spider-Man, and ended up through a failure to communicate fighting against a brick with growth whom the GM had intended as an opponnent for the PC brick. I tried to do several things with my characters webs that made perfect sense in world terms, but which the GM disallowed without any in-world explanation for their failure, on the grounds taht the character did not have a ranged grab, did not have telekinesis, did not have forcewall, etc. The final straw was when he would not permit me to squirt web into an eye the size of a basketball because my character did not have a flash attack. And this, I thought, was both his fault rather than mine and a pretty poor way to go about advertising the advantages of his favourite system.

You can get around this problem, but it involves thinking during character generation of everything you might want to do with your character's powers. And unfortunately it often means that characters with some quite nifty concepts are very expensive, and character designs often opaque.

Regards,


Agback

So you should get all those powers for free?
Too many people try to get 'something for nothing'.

Geoff.

 

[Agback]

So you should get all those powers for free?

Did I say that? No, I said "You can get around this problem, but it involves thinking during character generation of everything you might want to do with your character's powers."

This makes character design difficult and slow, and it also means that one is prone to make oversights (unless one uses variable power pools: I have friends who claim that every character ought to have a VPP). It also means taht players who accept that their characters will be constrained by nonsensical limitations (such as being able to squirt web to swing on, or to entangle and enemy, but not to catch someone who is falling) often end up with characters taht can kick more butt.

Too many people try to get 'something for nothing'.

Indeed. Also, too many Hero System advocates just don't care that what is going on in the game world of a Hero System game doesn't make sense on its own terms. But for some people, including some people who ask for advaice about whether they might like Hero System, this is an important point.

If you are happy with a character who can squirt webs to swing on or to entangle enemies, but who cannot squirt web to catch an innocent bystander who is falling off a building, and who cannot squirt web into an enemy's face, that's fine. Or if you are happy with every character having a list of powers as long as you arm detailing the possible uses of their (for example) webs that is fine too.

However, if you think the fact that the Hero System works this way ought to be concealed from the public in discussions such as this one, I am afraid that you are out of luck. That's not fine by me.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Jhamin]

I tried to do several things with my characters webs that made perfect sense in world terms, but which the GM disallowed without any in-world explanation for their failure, on the grounds taht the character did not have a ranged grab, did not have telekinesis, did not have forcewall, etc. The final straw was when he would not permit me to squirt web into an eye the size of a basketball because my character did not have a flash attack. And this, I thought, was both his fault rather than mine and a pretty poor way to go about advertising the advantages of his favourite system.
Agback

This sounds like a very poor GM all around. My apologies on behalf of Herodom.

- If he didn't want you to do all the stuff Spider Man does, he shouldn't have given you an agile guy named "Webs". When he did, you started comparing what Spiderman can do with what Webs can do when you evaluated the game.

- If he did intend that you play a Spider Man Analogue, then this sounds like he gave you a really awful version of the character to play. He should have bought you the ability to perform all the Web Tricks Spidey uses every issue.

- It also sounds like he didn't even know the rules very well. If he disallowed something because you "Didn't have Forcewall", then although I am just making an educated guess it sounds like your GM hadn't fully read the Entangle power.



All in all, your point about buying different powers to simulate various effects is well taken. It does tend to complicate some writeups & increase the expense of some characters.
It is also something that most Hero gamers see as a strength rather than a weakness. To use Spiderman as an example, lots of characters have the ability to swing from a line (Daredevil, Batman & co., Moonknight, Tarzan, the Musketeers, etc) but Spiderman's webs go way beyond that. He can do a whole host of things besides swing on them. Some systems give swinglines all that stuff to begin with, then give you a break if you can't do them all. Hero chooses to break every power down to a very basic level and let you add things as you go.
This is an approach that frustrates many, but is seen by most Hero fans as a level of control over character creation lacking in most other RPGs.




BTW:
5th edition also includes a skill that allows you to use your powers in ways that make sense but only come up once in a blue moon by just rolling the dice. You don't have to buy every possible permutation if you only expect to do one or two things on a regular basis.
I suspect the Hulk bought a superstrength Entangle because he seems to do that every other issue & having the power is more reliable than making rolls.

 

[MulhorandSage]

However, if you think the fact that the Hero System works this way ought to be concealed from the public in discussions such as this one, I am afraid that you are out of luck. That's not fine by me.

Fifth Edition added a Power skill which allows for greater flexibility in using one's powers to perform stunts that aren't on the sheet for many of the purposes you've described. It's worked quite well in my game.

Scott Bennie

 

[Eosin the Red]

I also don't see any real difference between 4E and 5E ----- but I have heard the comments of "dang, this is sooooo much better" enough times that I have to wonder that it might just be that some of us played it so much during 4E that we did not notice the improved user friendliness?

 

[Felon]

I suspect the Hulk bought a superstrength Entangle because he seems to do that every other issue & having the power is more reliable than making rolls.

Rolls? What rolls? If there's a lamppost around after Hulk knocks a bad guy out, he yanks it out of the ground and twists it around him a couple of times. Either rolling for that or paying points for it is a tad silly. That's like having to buy an Area Affect Physical Blast OIF before your brick can hurl it at someone....with the exception that I mentioned, that throwing a car is a tactic outlined in the manual, whereas bending a lamppost isn't an official use for super-strength, so it's just gotta be a power. That was one element of Hero I never did warm up to.

I also don't see any real difference between 4E and 5E ----- but I have heard the comments of "dang, this is sooooo much better" enough times that I have to wonder that it might just be that some of us played it so much during 4E that we did not notice the improved user friendliness?

The only real change I can put my finger on is better formatting in power descriptions. Like in the Hulk example, each power starts with the actual name of the power in bold. In the old days, the description would start with a bunch of abbreviated jargon ("15d6 EB AE 5"r AVLD AP NRP Act. 14< 8 ch.") and maybe somewhere along the way you'd get the name of the power in quotes or parantheses somewhere. Or there'd be nothing, and you'd have to read the character's flavor text and start drawing your own connections.

 

[buzz]

That's like having to buy an Area Affect Physical Blast OIF before your brick can hurl it at someone....with the exception that I mentioned, that throwing a car is a tactic outlined in the manual, whereas bending a lamppost isn't an official use for super-strength, so it's just gotta be a power. That was one element of Hero I never did warm up to.

The upcoming Ultimate Brick will probably address stuff like this. I also think that the extent to which HERO requires a construct such as above for a brick is somewhat dependent on the GM.

The only real change I can put my finger on is better formatting in power descriptions.

There are more changes than just this in 5E. The biggest, IMO, is that the books tend to written much clearer and provide a lot more general assistance.

 

[elbandit]

Power Skill

I tried to do several things with my characters webs that made perfect sense in world terms, but which the GM disallowed without any in-world explanation for their failure, on the grounds taht the character did not have a ranged grab, did not have telekinesis, did not have forcewall, etc. The final straw was when he would not permit me to squirt web into an eye the size of a basketball because my character did not have a flash attack. And this, I thought, was both his fault rather than mine and a pretty poor way to go about advertising the advantages of his favourite system.

Sounds more like the GM did not fully think out Webs creation or even utilize the Power Skill rules which allows you to do such tricks, though on a low level.

 

[mudpyr8]

I think plenty of people have weighed in and shared their thoughtful opinions. I have a few points to add.

1. Hero is the Gamers' Toolkit. Says so on the book. There is a whole section devoted to the discussion of altering the rules to fit the genre. I think many people overlook that. Hero's flexibility allows you to do anything. Unfortunately, Hero's flexibility requires you to do everything.

Is this good or bad? Depends on your point of view. Many Hero players enjoy building their characters and playing the game. Other players just want to sit down and pick abilities from a list. For the latter, there are many wonderful books (UNTIL SuperPowers Database, Hero Bestiary, Vehicle Sourcebook, Minions, Monsters, and Marauders, Grimoire, and so on). However, those books still present one person's view on how such lists should be created and as such may no jive with an individual player's preconceived notion about what is cool.

None-the-less, Hero still allows you to use that list as a framework and to change any of those items to better fit your campaign. This is a good thing, but impossible without a core set of rules and guidelines about effect creation. In d20 terms, how do you design a balanced 7th level spell? You don't, you make it up based on your subjective judgement about whether or not that is the correct power level. Is this to say Hero is perfectly balanced? Absolutely not. The ability to teleport would destroy most feudal societies, especially if it is easy to do, so the GM has to decide whether or not that is appropriate.

Just because you can make an effect doesn't mean you should.

2. Presentation. I agree that many Hero resources are presented in a "crunchy" manner. This doesn't mean there isn't good source material there, and many of the campaign sourcebooks are excellent.

I will share one thing that I and my company are doing to address some of this. This year we will be publishing a licensed Fantasy Hero setting. The goal is to create a fantasy campaign and present it in the format that is acceptable to the players that want to focus on the story surrounding an ability or trait, and less on how it was built. Will the crunchy bits still be there? Absolutley, but in a fashion so as not to distract the reader. We believe this will do a lot to provide a different model for how Hero is presented and played, regardless of whether the specifics of the setting engage you.

Hero is heroic, which makes it ideal for fantasy game. Dealing with hordes of bad guys without getting turned into guacomole is something Hero does very well. And it does it while still allowing a degree of control concerning combat that most systems do not allow.

GURPS is an excellent fit as well, and perhaps 4e will address some of the cinematic limiations of that system. Until then, I think only d20 accomodates that cinematic combat, unfortunately at the expense of player control of the combat. Don't get me wrong, I like d20 a lot, but I enjoy my Hero combats so much more than I ever did my d20 ones.

Please take a look at www.narosia.com and see what we're doing. We'll be at Origins and GenCon, running 2 sessions at each, so if you have the opportunity stop on by.

I will also second a comment made by a previous poster. The online hero community at herogames.com is one of the warmest and friendliest I have seen on line. Everyone is willing to offer a constructive opinion about how things run in Hero. The master of the game as it were, Steve Long, even has his own forum where you can post questions directly to him. I have never seen a question go unanswered for longer than a day, and most of mine were answered in under 4 hours. Better support from a game company is hard to find.

Thank you.