The HERO System

[PCD]

Recently, I asked about TriStat and a few folks were nice enough to answer my questions. So, now I am asking about the HERO System.

Its Pros? Cons?

Things to consider? Advantages? Disadvantages?

I am shopping for a "one book", good game system. So, I am asking about the ones I know about.

Thanks.

Pete

 

[barsoomcore]

I've run a Fantasy Hero campaign or two in my time. I like things about it, but frankly, it was pretty tedious to DM.

Maybe they've improved things since those days, but creating magic systems was something you pretty much had to do from scratch and it was a real pain.

I can't think of any real advantages the system possesses over, say, D&D. The disadvantage is that there isn't as much support material -- though converting from D&D material's not impossible. Just, again, a pain.

If I was looking for a "one book" system, I'd pick d20 Modern.

 

[Hatchling Dragon]

I like the system, although I've only ever used it to play Champions, it's Superhero aspect.

Pro: You can actualy get along with only the core book, as the rest of the material is mostly just pre-generated stuff if you want or need it (ie: time saver), be it campain setting or villians. Not much work involved with conversions between genres, they're all based on the exact same system, it's mostly just the window dressing (ie: Special Effects) that have changed. CR is even there in a way, it's simply your total of Character Points, if your points and the enemies are the same then it's a pretty even match. Flexability is the key to the HERO system, a 2d6 HKA (Hand-to-Hand Killing Attack) can be anything from a Light Saber in a Sci-Fi game to a magic sword in Fantasy, and even Claws in a Hero game, it's all the same exact rule with a change of description and 'special effect'.

Cons: As stated, there's some book-keeping involved (charges, ENDurance left, ect.) but every Pencil and Paper game has that, it's what that paper's for after-all Fair warning, this game can be a Rules Lawyer's Happy Hunting Grounds if you don't put any limits on what PC's are allowed to use/do/be, but always remember that anything that they do to you and yours you are free to do back to them.

I like the system over-all because you have to come to the game with a character concept, not just "I'll roll stats and see what it'll lemme be." attitude. It's totaly what you want it to be.

Have no doubt, there's a bit of a learning curve and you have to have more imagination than the standard if you want the most out of the game, but once you've gotten used to keeping track of END and charges and such it can go quite fast and smoothly.

Hatchling Dragon

 

[Felon]

I used to among HERO System's greatest advocates. Now I think I'll never run a HERO System game again.

HERO provides a great deal of utility for superhero games and other high-powered genres. It made a groundbreaking move in realizing that many powers that seem very different actually have the same effect as far as the game was concerned. I think they were also among the first systems (if not the first) to start categorizing Powers by their duration and effect. The idea of layering on advantages and limitations went a long way towards allowing players to create just about any power that you can think of.

HERO's designers also realized that action and adventure games needed to take place outside of reality, and thus didn't fall into the grim-n-gritty trap that other systems that viewed themselves as "D&D alternatives" fell into back in the eighties and early nineties. The level of realism is for a GM to decide. In staying true to that, HERO offers lots of optional rules for making combat more deadly or more colorful, and that's probably another area where it was an innovator.

If all of your players are great at fleshing out their character's concepts--both their strengths and their weaknesses--then HERO's an ideal system. But if you have people that want to generate a character in 5 minutes and jump in and smash and kill things, you have a problem.

As a player, think of playing HERO kind of like playing a CCG, a la Magic or Pokemon. In those games, the strategy has largely to do with how well you put your deck together. In HERO, you had better be the type of person who enjoys pondering over your character sheet to see where you can squeeze that 12 points you need to buy that power that's vital in defining your character.

Like any point-based system, there's a great deal of room for exploiting the sytem and the temptation to build a kitchen-sink character that's effective in any given situation, or worse, an ugly-but-unbeatable combat god. HERO has more than its share of areas where the mechanics are just way off, and the point costs are just too high or too low. For instance, when playing Champions it's not uncommon for every single PC to have Strength scores of 30 or higher, simply because the cost of Strength is too low in respect to all of the benefits it provides. In the eyes of a powergamer, it pays for itself many times over.

Another area full of inequities is the Disadvantage system. In theory, players earn character points in exchange for rounding out their characters with weaknesses. In practice, it can be hard for even someone with a solid design concept to come up with enough reasonable Disads to gain the maximum allowed points--and everyone wants the maximum. One of the odd design elements about this system is that most Disads seem to be of about equal point value, so for instance, a Psychological Limitation that mandates quirky behavior in certain roleplaying situations is worth about as much as a damage Vulnerability that can get your character killed.

And the designers are quite resolute about not making any changes to the broken areas. They're too invested in them, emotionally and intellectually, to accept what needs to be done to give HERO the degree of "powergamer-tolerance" that is needed for GM's to stop giving up on it, as I did.

 

[barsoomcore]

As a player, think of playing HERO kind of like playing a CCG, a la Magic or Pokemon. In those games, the strategy has largely to do with how well you put your deck together. In HERO, you had better be the type of person who enjoys pondering over your character sheet to see where you can squeeze that 12 points you need to buy that power that's vital in defining your character.

That's BRILLIANT. Very well said.

With the corollary that it then becomes the DM's job to build half-a-dozen decks (at least) every game session. It can get tiring.

 

[JohnTaber]

Hero Pros and Cons

Hi Pete: I have been playing Hero for a very long time. I'll try to answer your questions at a very high level. You can get very involved and detailed thread on the Hero message board which is extremely active.

First some very quick background. I have run Hero for just about every genre. I have run multiple Fantasy Hero campaigns, several Champs campaigns, horror, science fiction, and even a time travel campaign. I'll warn you that Hero is my favorite game system. Part of the reason is my familiarity with it. Keep reading.

First the good stuff...

* Hero is extremely flexible. Not only can you build every genre under the sun with the same set of rules there is often more than one way to purchase the same effect. Hero is a point based system that use a concept called a "special effect" to make the system general and flexible as all get out. For example, there is a power called Energy Blast. It can be used to represent Cyclops eye beams, a fireball spell, or an alien laser pistol. VERY powerful. This is extremely powerful for fantasy genre magic systems. You can actually craft a complete magic system in Hero that differs from every other Fantasy Hero game.

* Point based character creation is cool. This allows each player to create the character they want but keep all characters at relatively the same starting power level. There are no class buckets at all. If you want a mage who can lift his horse you could do that...well...if you had the points. Some of the points are gained from disadvantages. This concept is VERY cool. It allows each character to have individual hangups and such. Maybe they are hunted by a scorned lover and have an intense hatred of orcs. The system easily handles it.

Now some bad things...

* The system is hard to learn initially. Often this can make it feel unapproachable. Hero is trying to help by releasing products like SideKick which are scaled back versions of the full 380 page rulebook. I personally don't feel they scaled it back enough but this is a matter of opinion. If you want to try it find a Hero GM and play a couple of sessions. See what you think.

* Hero is difficult to GM as it requires lots of work initially. This is the back edge of the flexibility sword. For Fantasy Hero, a GM would have to establish a magic system, work on campaign guidelines, create monsters, etc. Granted there are support books but as everything is so customized sometimes they are not as helpful as you might think.

Some general thoughts...

In some ways Hero is kinda like Home Depot or Home Club. Once you learn the rules you can walk in and pick raw materials off the shelf to build the effect you want. It may take some time to build that house from the raw materials but it is certainly possible. The trick is that you have to know the tools but once you learn them you can build anything!

I consider D20 more like buying from a boutique store. You can pull the fantasy module of the shelf and start right away...but it may not be easy to build a science fiction game unless you also buy the module for that genre.

Hope this helps.

 

[Felon]

That's BRILLIANT. Very well said.

With the corollary that it then becomes the DM's job to build half-a-dozen decks (at least) every game session. It can get tiring.

True. I suspect that wound up being an inadvertant but effective marketing strength of HERO, in that the GM was pretty much forced to go buy supplements that provided bad-guy stat blocks.

Btw, I had another analogy prepared that compared HERO to socialism, in that it's a pie-in-the sky system with a lot of appealing qualities, but in practice it ulitmately falls apart due to an unrealistic expectation of self-regulatory behavior on the part of everyone involved. Then I decided I didn't want to get all political.

 

[Thimble the Squit]

I have HERO and wish I didn't. This system ranks amongst the very few RPG purchases I regret. Along with this, I count RIFTS and a few really cheaply produced fanboy games that I thought might deserve a bit of attention. I also bought Synnabar because I couldn't believe it was as bad as everyone said. Yes. It is. Trust me.

Over and over again, HERO extols its own virtues of simplicity and clarity -- and then proceeds to delve into the most heinously complicated, poorly constructed, over-blown jargonese that I have ever seen in any roleplaying rulebook ever. I am an advocate of the Campaign for Plain English and, if I ever wanted to show how NOT to write clearly and concisely, I would uphold HERO as a shining example.

OK. Maybe the 5th Edition book is better (I have a 4th ed. copy) but I cannot see how; not if it's by the same authors. I cannot understand the game at all, so I cannot judge the game based on its rules -- and I cannot understand the game because these guys do not know how to write.

As far as I can tell, the rules are overly complicated, such that, in play, the GM will perforce be endlessly referring back to the tables in the book. Of course, to validate this criticism would require actually playing it. Which I simply cannot be bothered to try and do.

Sorry to all you HERO fans out there. This is all just my opinion. I'll rant about RIFTS next, if you like.

 

[Thimble the Squit]

It would also help if we knew what kind of genre you're wanting to play. If it's multigenre stuff you're after (like HERO), then I'd probably recommend GURPS, although that's not all that "one book"-ish, when you consider all the world books you can get for it... Don't worry, though, the basic rules cover most bases.

As for felon's criticism above GURPS can be quite complicated too, and is also a point-buy system, like HERO. I think it's much easier to approach, however, and certainly laid-out better. If there are options for basic or advanced play, these are dealt with in separate sidebars or different chapters. Character generation may still be based on purchasing advantages and disadvantages but the actual statistics are much, much easier than HERO to "wing". There are far fewer formulae for derived attributes and you'll probably not need to look stuff up in the book more than two or three times per session. (This is except when you're using the optional hit location / critical damage charts, 'cos I can never remember any of that kind of stuff.)

If it's a purely fantasy system you want, I'd opt for RuneQuest III (if you can find it anywhere -- check out eBay maybe), Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Earthdawn or Ars Magica. All of these games have several sourcebooks but you really need only the main rulebooks for each. I'd also suggest checking out the extremely wierd (and also extremely rare) Tales of Gargentihr. It's nice. But it's wierd.

Then again, if you want modern day, go d20 Modern, like barsoomcore suggests. For sci-fi, how about either of the RPG spin-offs for Star Wars? I didn't like Traveller: The New Era all that much (compared to its various other incarnations), but it did come in a single book.

So: a bit of a clearer idea of what you're after would probably help...

 

[Dragonblade]

HERO is my favorite system outside of d20. It has some strengths and some weaknesses.

Strengths:

1) You can craft a campaign to be EXACTLY the way you want. For example, you can make your own magic system for a fantasy game. You can completely define the feel of your campaign setting. Whether you like high magic or low magic, or something in between, you can build it exactly to your specifications. You can make your game cinematic or gritty. You can have high powered PCs, or low powered ones. Its all up to you and the game runs perfectly smooth at any power level.

2) Its all in one book. Technically everything you need to play HERO forever is in the main 5th edition hardcover rulebook. 5th edition is also much better written than the 4th edition rulebook. I also strongly recommend buying Sidekick. Sidekick is a slimmed down HERO system rulebook that you can buy for only 10 dollars! Its a great way to introduce yourself to the system if you are leary of paying 40 for the main book and you aren't sure you will like the game. Sidekick is also great to have extra copies of at the game table. Its cheap enough that all your players can easily afford their own copy.

3) Its multi-genre friendly. You can play Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Space Opera, Super Heroes, you name it. All with the same rules and even the same characters if you wanted! Its easy to do cross-genre games such as Palladium's RIFTS with the HERO rules.

Weaknesses

1) Learning curve. HERO can be quite complex for some people. There is a lot of math and calculation of points, etc. If you like to tweak with systems and characters, then this system is for you. If you want a system that just blends into the background and allows you to start playing right away, then HERO is not for you. Although, the more experience you are with it, the more it does blend into the background.

2) DM setup time. HERO requires a large initial investment from the GM or DM before you can play. If you are a tinkerer and want to completely design your campaign world down to the smallest bit of flora and fauna then HERO is for you. If you don't want to custom design your own campaign setting, and want to be able to use a number of premade settings, or be able to easily port over existing settings using other rules with a minimum of fuss, then HERO may not be for you. Although, HERO is powerful enough that if you spend the time and you know what you are doing, you can emulate any other setting from books, movies, or other RPG companies pretty much exactly as originally portrayed.

3) Combat can be slow. HERO combat be quite slow and complex. Especially the first several times you play. It speeds up once you have played several times and start to remember all the different numbers and different types of combat actions you can take. Just be sure to have a hex map, a calculater, and the entire combat section of your book bookmarked whenever a fight breaks out.

Neutral

1) HERO games makes a lot of great supplements that prestat out a lot things you will run into when playing. If you don't mind buying some extra books, you will save A LOT of setup time. In fact, their genre books are packed full of great advice even if you aren't going to use HERO rules for your game. The drawback is of course, that buying a lot of extra books is necessary to save yourself a lot of setup time. You can buy books with prestatted vehicles, monsters, superpowers, spells, gadgets, and even a couple campaign settings.

2) HERO combat is both tactical and cinematic. To me this is an advantage. I love tactical combat. I love planning my character's every move in a battle. I also love combat that can be cinematic. For example, in a superhero game its just awesome when some big bad Hulk-like villain picks up a car, swings it at you and sends you flying back through three brick walls!! HERO not only handles these sorts of maneuvers with a high level or rules detail, but also with a very cool cinematic feel.

The drawback is combat can be slow. Especially if the group is inexperienced or there are a large number of combatants.