What are the more popular roleplaying systems?

[The_Gneech]

Is Hero actually "popular" or just "fondly remembered?" It was my favorite once upon a time, and still would be if I could find more people who actually liked to use it.

-The Gneech

 

[bolen]

How is hero different from GURPS?

 

[Mortaneus]

How is hero different from GURPS?

I can go through a GURPS combat with 10 combatants in about 15 minutes.

Hero? Probably at LEAST an hour.


I can't wait for Mutants & Masterminds....Champions style point based character gen, d20 combat speed....

 

[Tiefling]

People who prefer d20 Star Wars to d6 Star Wars should be kept away from children.

There's far too many bad influences on children already.

Agreed.

 

[mhensley]

I am not interested in Hackmaster for three reasons:
1) I don't want to play 1st/2nd edition any more.
2) A game that starts as a joke is going to have to do something major to convince me to take it seriously.
3) The way they did their monster book series. How much would I have to spend to get all of them? Over one hundred dollars?

1) Its 4th edition.
2) Like any game, it is as serious as you want it to be.
3) You can easily use your 1st or 2nd edition monster manual. And all of your old modules, sourcebooks, rulebooks, etc. are still usable with little or no changes.

 

[Black Omega]

Is Hero actually "popular" or just "fondly remembered?" It was my favorite once upon a time, and still would be if I could find more people who actually liked to use it.

For a long time it was fondly remembered. Now that Hero Games were bought out by DOJ and finally released 5th ed and books supporting it, sales have been great. The Champions 5th ed book was selling out at Gencon as fast as they got it. Hero won't challenge DnD for #1 anytime soon, but it's selling well.

GURPS and HERO have alot in common, not surprising, Hero is mentioned as an inspiration in the main GURPS book, or it was previously at least. GURPS is a little more detailed and more 'realistic'. HERO is more cinematic and very well suited to superhero style play.

From Mortaneus: I can go through a GURPS combat with 10 combatants in about 15 minutes. Hero? Probably at LEAST an hour.

In my one try at a GURPS Fantasy Campaign the combat was slightly faster than HERO, mostly because it was much easier to die in GURPS than in d20 or HERO. But I don't really like HERO for speed. The combats have quite a few options the PC's can try, quite a few tactics. The price of this flexibility is it's not extremely fast. Even so, the only 'all night' combats I've run have been in d20.

 

[Psion]

How is hero different from GURPS?

GURPS pretends to be a universal system. It's really best left towards realistic/gritty settings.

Hero is (a universal system). Or at least as close as it gets. You can do just about anything in Hero; the metamechanics lets you express nearly any effect you want.

P.S. Complaints about the "slowness" of Hero are vastly overblown IME. What, did all of you who make this complaint play 500 point heroes with 8 speed the first time you played the game and base your impressions of hero on that?

 

[gamecat]

Shadowrun was my first rpg... fond memories...

 

[Furn_Darkside]

1) Its 4th edition.

I would quit d&d.

2) Like any game, it is as serious as you want it to be.

Oh, really? What is the name of their newest supplement?
Spellslinger's Guide to Wurld Domination?

It still seems to be a joke to me.

You can easily use your 1st or 2nd edition monster manual. And all of your old modules, sourcebooks, rulebooks, etc. are still usable with little or no changes.

You quote me, but you don't read.

I do not want to play 1st or 2nd edition.

Even if I wanted to play equivilant of toon d20, being able to use my 1st/2nd edition books does not excuse their ridiculous monster book scam.

But, hey, I know people thing I am a sucker for buying a lot of the products I buy. So, to each their own.

FD

 

[Tiefling]

Easy, Furn.

I certainly understand that you wouldn't want to play 1e/2e again. My D&D career started with 3e, so it all seems new to me, and useful for a "classic" approach to D&D, i.e. conforming completely to archetypes, mostly doing hack and slash, etc. That's not normally how I like to play, but it's fun, I think, to sometimes play that way for its own sake.

I see what you mean about the Hacklopedia being expensive, but I think it's unfair to call it a scam. As far as I know you get a pretty average money-to-monster ratio for such a supplement because that the entire collection has many more monsters than the 1e or 2e Monster Manual. Perhaps, though, it would have been a good idea to also publish a single MM-sized book containing only the old classics.