Hero System design considerations

[RDU Neil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

To me saying "in this game, you may use hero points - one use per session to perform GM-approved power stunts" is no different to saying "in this game divide the real cost of all powers defined as spells by 3" or "in this game we will use a cap of 12 DC on all attacks"

 

And here I would disagree. In the first sentence you are using straight forward language. In the other two you are using Hero Speak... and what I see with many players is that as soon as you start using jargon and formulas and specialized language... you lose them.

 

Language that is understandable and evocative of what the final play experience will be is crucial. Maybe just to me... but I would argue that using such technical Hero-speak jargon is exactly where Hero breaks down in game play. It is great for conversations like on these boards, which are technical, analytical, deconstructionist discourses. It does nothing to capture magic at the gaming table, though.

 

Oh, and I'm the one dissenter on Storn's comment about how Feng Shui was a massive influence. I hated that game. It was far too over- the-top and lassai-faire for things I did want to be crunchier and more quantifiable (I hate the very concept of mooks... characters for whom the rules are different to make them inferior). As a GM I was always encouraging "description, not game rules" but I found that some need to have the game itself tell them, over and over again... before they grasp it. To that extent, Feng Shui may have opened some eyes because the "rules said it was ok" and not just the GM.

 

There is a natural tendency for many to feel "What the GM says is just his/her opinion... but what the book says is Truth." and this default reaction is also at the heart of a lot of what is being discussed here.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

I can agree with everything you said except this.

 

A good game will describe SFX, the Special Effects should hide the mechanics, that's what they're for. It is, or it SHOULD be, very HERO to not only have SFX but use them liberally in gameplay.

 

 

By this I meant... look at how the game is laid out and presented. Look at the character sheet.

 

Does the sheet simply read "Blood to Fire!" or does it have 1d6 RKA, No Range, Damage Shield and LS: vs Cold?

 

The game is the presentation as much as anything. I'm not saying you can't hide the mechanics. As I stated before, I do so all the time... but that is a learned trait through years of GMing that is barely, if at all, emphasized in the Hero System. If hiding the mechanics is truly a key part of Hero... then there would be all kinds of discussion and examples of how to do this. Versions of character sheets that were not generic, but left no room for the mechanisms to be written down and used language that evokes the feel of the game, rather than a list of building blocks. (I wish Doc Democracy would drop by here and speak to this. His examples of highly extrapolated character sheets for western games and such are a good example.)

 

Again... I'm not saying that Hero doesn't do this... but the amount of space and time dedicated to that element is miniscule, compared to the lists and lists of mechanistic, deterministic, quantifiable structures using Hero-speak.

 

That is why Hero is a system... not a game. I've said this for years and agree with all who've said it here... but to believe that a system is truly invisible and has no effect on how a game actually plays out... that simply isn't something I can accept.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

By this I meant... look at how the game is laid out and presented. Look at the character sheet.

 

Does the sheet simply read "Blood to Fire!" or does it have 1d6 RKA, No Range, Damage Shield and LS: vs Cold?

I suppose our divergence is that I see this as no different from

 

"Fireball" 1D6/Level (10D6 Max), 20' Radius, Verbal/Semantic/Material Components, Reflex Save for 1/2 Dmg

 

so when I look at the sheet I have the Name (SFX) and Mechanics. If you want to completely divorce Mechanics then you'll have to step up a notch on the Game Chart and go to something like Amber where there are no Mechanics to describe a "Blood to Fire" concept and it's all in the description.

[RDU Neil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

I suppose our divergence is that I see this as no different from

 

"Fireball" 1D6/Level (10D6 Max), 20' Radius, Verbal/Semantic/Material Components, Reflex Save for 1/2 Dmg

 

so when I look at the sheet I have the Name (SFX) and Mechanics. If you want to completely divorce Mechanics then you'll have to step up a notch on the Game Chart and go to something like Amber where there are no Mechanics to describe a "Blood to Fire" concept and it's all in the description.

 

I assume you are using a D&D example above? I don't play it... but it is just as mechanistic as Hero... just arbitrary/unsystematic in it's construction.

 

What I'm saying... if you wrote it as "Fireball: 10d6 EB, Exp, 3 Ch, Costs END" is that Hero does not expect you to hide the mechanics... it, instead, expects every player to be so conversant in Hero-speak... have such a dept of knowledge of the game that they intuitive see "Fireball" from a formula.

 

Think about it this way. Show me an equation of the eliptical orbit of Saturn about the sun... and all I see is a bunch of numbers on a page. Show it to an astronomer or mathematician, and they see the vastness of the heavens, the curvature of space-time and the glory of the stars themselves.

 

They see it because they have spent years becoming conversant with that language to the point where it has inherent meaning... doesn't need to be translated to create meaning. Hero isn't quite as difficult as non-linear equations, but certainly has it's own, very steep, long learning curve.

 

That is, back to the point about magic... is that such equations don't do a lot to evoke a magical feel. Especially once you understand them. It is a bit of a paradox. Say you find some arcane carvings on a wall. You don't know what they mean, though you might have some hints, and you find them evocative and powerful because they are a mystery... and the wild man who carved them, who knows what they mean... he is magical and powerful. Then you spend a great deal of time learning the symbols and coming to understand what they mean, how they relate to each other, what they symbolize... and that evocative resonance is gone. You may have gained insight and some power through understanding... but it is no longer magic... it is knowledge. Comfortable, predictable, effective... but certainly not magical.

 

What I'm saying here (and poorly) is that you can't divorce the players experience of the system from the play/story experience. It is likely that a player, seeing that obscue scrawl of 10d6, Exp, Cost END, 3 Ch... finds it bizarre and evocative... especially when it turns out that such is the means to fry every goblin in the room with a wave of their hand! Actually beginning to understand how that was accomplished... how the system enabled the goblin frying with points vs. defenses with a measured area, etc., can lead to a more confortable, predictable and effective gaming experience... but I would argue that it is a less magical one.

 

(Whereas that understanding of the mechanics actually helps to support action/adventure, guns and swords and often superpower experiences quite well. Hence the paradox.)

[ghost-angel]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

Ah Ok. I get what you're after. Might as well be the Holy Grail of Gaming there though. What you describe it inherent in any system that has to come back to the Game Effect on any quantifiable level.

 

To do otherwise would require a level of player beyond tha caliber of the average gamer. They exist, and there are many of them numerically and few of them statistically. IMO at least.

[Lucius]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

For my own Medieval japanese game, I introduced invented Karma points, which were gained or lost by appropriate behaviour. They could not be used - only accumulated - until you died. Then every positive karma point added 5 experience points to your next character. This was to encourage players - especially samurai, which was most of them - to desire a worthy death.

.....

But I don't necessarily think they belong in the basic rules-set. Karma points worked for my Japanese game, but I wouldn't want them in my current fantasy game - they're essentially setting-specific meta-rules.

And that's what we have GMs for!

 

cheers, Mark

 

 

Many Many years ago, I played, briefly, in a game called "Bushido" which was translated from the Japanese.

 

They also had karma points, and they did the same thing - having more karma points meant your next incarnation was better. As I recall, though, if you got up to 50 karma points the game recommended starting over "unless you really want a living Buddha in the game."

 

As for the rest of this thread, a lot of good points made all around, but I honestly can't think of much I can say that isn't already being said.

 

I've heard from people elsewhere that Hero has a greater tendency than other games to have the players end up saying "Now I'll hit him with my 10d6 energy blast" rather than "Now, Ogre, feel the power of my stellar photonic blasts!"

 

I think part of the reason we - or maybe I should just say I - don't "hide the plumbing" more is a desire to let the players be creative, and you CAN'T create anything if you don't see how the system works. But perhaps that is a false perception. I have certainly had a player ask "Can I do this with this spell?" (A spell I deliberately designed to have both variable advantage and variable effects, to make it flexible) without knowing how to describe what she wanted in game terms. I knew that what she wanted was well within her capabilities, and told her what rolls to make (magick roll, attack roll to get the area of effect targetted, damage roll.)

 

Something else I've used to make magick more unpredictable - a limitation -1/4 called "capricious." It means just that - the magick is unpredictable. If the Game Operations Director wants to, they can change the description a little bit each time it manifests - sometimes even being a good thing, but on balance inconveniencing. Maybe a lot of work for the G.O.D. - but if "mysterious and unquantifiable" is the feel you want, that's exactly the work you'll want to be doing.

 

Someone else (so sorry, I forget your name) who has been criticizing Hero, also remarked "D&D is just as mechanistic, just more arbitrary and unsystematic."

 

In that case, I would venture to say you don't really have a problem with Hero specifically - you have a problem with ANY system that has what the people on this board call "crunchy bits." And that's fine, if that's what you want. Much as I like Hero, I don't think I'd want it to be the only option for roleplaying games.

 

An ironic thought just struck me. Here I find people saying Hero is bad for simulating magick - and I remember, way back with Champions II, seeing the Gadgeteering rules, saying "Finally, a system flexible and nuanced enough to do magick right." Part of what really drew me into the Hero System (before it was called that) was thinking how well I could do magick with it.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary points out that I've run on much longer than I planned...

[RDU Neil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

Someone else (so sorry, I forget your name) who has been criticizing Hero, also remarked "D&D is just as mechanistic, just more arbitrary and unsystematic."

 

Not criticizing... critiquing. There is a big difference, but easy enough to miscontstrue.

[Markdoc]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

This is hard to explain... and it is totally subjective... which is the point I'm trying to make. Hero can do many things... IF you are extremely adept at making intutive leaps within the rules... and IF your personal play style of quantifiable' date=' mechanistic construction (and I do think Hero self-selects for this play style) can still generate a magical feel for you, great. But it doesn't for me. It works for supers (for the most part.) It works for gun fights and sword fights and fist fights. It works for things that extrapolate from the real world quite well. (Quantifiable scalings of real world stuff.) When it gets into things that are decidedly not so real world quantifiable... belief, emotion, dream, perception, nature, elemental, etc. Hero just doesn't really stand up unless you go to great lengths to hide the mechanics, and hiding the mechanics is very "unHero" like.[/quote']

 

I guess I have to agree it's subjective. I like, no more than that, I LOVE having the base mechanisms available to me, because it lets me quantify what is possible. But I always present the outcome in terms of special effects and my players - even the herophiles - have always responded in kind. So in the last game I ran in the US I had a character who had a variety of powers built as hand to hand attacks. But I don't ever recall him saying "I'll use my area effect HKA" but "I spring into the midst of the ashigaru and whirl my spear in the rice straw-reaping attack".

 

I have run one game where the players did not have sheets, and I ran the mechanistic side of things - but in truth that was not greatly more atmospheric than games where the players had the details on the sheets.

 

I am (I guess) also pretty good at going from mechanism to effect or vice versa - your creeping vines instantly appeared to me as area effect (anyshape) entangle. Entangles are solid, so you can presumably climb on them - though you'd need a climbing roll.

 

As for mages and the heuristic tradition, I actually used that in the "no character sheets" game, and it worked really well for generating atmosphere - but I'll be able to tell you better about it in a few weeks because that's what I am using as the second magic system in the current FH game.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

Many Many years ago, I played, briefly, in a game called "Bushido" which was translated from the Japanese.

 

They also had karma points, and they did the same thing - having more karma points meant your next incarnation was better. As I recall, though, if you got up to 50 karma points the game recommended starting over "unless you really want a living Buddha in the game."

 

Actually, that's probably where I got it from, then. I don't remember that specific mechanic, but we played quite a lot of Bushido in '81 and '82, so it's probably been lurking down in the woodcelllar of memory ever since.

 

cheers, Mark

[Lucius]

Hero System design considerations

 

Not criticizing... critiquing. There is a big difference' date=' but easy enough to miscontstrue.[/quote']

Point taken.

 

LA

p

[zornwil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

Funny, I was just going to write elsewhere and then didn't about the misconception of "universal" game systems. Each game system orients towards a particular play experience, however broad or however narrow. In some cases it's so broad it appears non-imposing, such as HERO, but the imposition is not non-existent. HERO does demand a rationalization process, a quantification, and it generally isn't fond of absolutes. Where absolutes occur, they scale poorly, relative to the rest of the system, in very high and very low points games. Game system prejudices attract certain players. A long-time d20 player who really prefers that system probably does so for reasons as valid as many of us long-time HERO players. GURPS takes rationalization in some areas further than HERO and in other areas less, making the "real-world" stuff extremely specific and granular but making the fantastic stuff more "lumpy", as it were, assigning specific interactions to the likes of Psionics and Magic, even if they are rewritable.

 

And as a result, these so-called universal games have strengths and weaknesses for certain types of experiences. Long-time players of the systems learn to adapt them well. Sometimes, whether informal or formal, extensive house rules arise in order to deal with adaptations, an indication that the system, while not "bad", isn't entirely adequate, and perhaps, depending on the degree, even inadequate intrinsically but "easily" (in the eye of the beholder) fixable.

 

Regardless, a separate issue is how the system deals with genres. HERO has extended the toolkit approach even into the genres, a change in direction from 4th era - but, to my way of thinking, the only real change, as I believe 4th was already the creation of the single system and the genre books were "simply" tweaks to specific experiences, as far as I recall. 4th was transitional, though, as 3rd was the strongest of these approaches, with the core rules only implied by each genre book, whereas 4th spelt them out.

 

To me, the direction is ultimately interesting and valuable but insufficient for the genres and for players who want specific games. I don't mind it at all, but I would like to see more specific games "built using HERO" which may not closely resemble HERO. HERO does not want this - it wants games published under any such banner to be very specifically using the core system. That's fine, and from one perspective could be the best. But I think it does deprive a lot of characterization from more specific versions of HERO. And to a degree, this confuses the issue of whether it is a toolkit or a system, i.e., whether it is really there to build something else or really there as a singular usable unit. In reality, it functions halfway inbetween the two, too, and to my mind decreasingly well in its current iteration. But it's a balancing act, and I don't pretend to know which is commercially or popularly better. Personally, though, I'd like to see a return to days of old or a much broader publication of very specific games from/with HERO that take the toolkit approach to its logical conclusion with very different ways of playing, and encouraging, rather than discouraging, any orthodoxy at the game level but enforcing an orthodoxy at the construction/rationalization level. By which I mean that the methodology should be emphasized in the toolkit approach, not the specifics. By trying to do so much in specifics, the game is losing a bit of its punch by short-changing itself on its extremely strong mechanical basis. This mechanical basis is the heart of the game, and I personally think that it is being misunderstood when compared to "more contemporary" games. The reality is, HERO has a highly coherent internal basis which is its value, and while it is an older basis, it is not invalidated by newer approaches. But newer approaches CAN be infused into the games one can build based on the mechanics that exist and are in the majority of cases 20 years old.

[Gadodel]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

I guess I try not to overthink things too much.

 

I ask myself three questions:

 

Is it feasible?

Is it fair?

Is it fun?

 

The Hero System answers all three questions quite well, particularily because of the toolkit sensibilities it has.

 

I can create any sort of game that also answers all three questions quite well, particularily because those very sensibilities are only limited by own creativity.

[Phil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

The System says you have a 10D6 Energy Blast, The Game says you are a powerful lightning mage.

This is a minor point, but I personally find a lot of the terminology is still too Supers specific for a generic game. I do hope that 6th edition will finally get rid of EB, Forcefield, Forcewall and their kin.

 

I never thought HERO could be used for fantasy. It didnt feel right for me. But I put a lot of work into it and created a game which is very much "based on HERO", which at first glance you would probably never think *was* HERO. I'm a convert! With a bit of effort, you can use the toolkit to create whatever you want, with a degree of confidence that it's a balanced game with tried and tested game mechanics powering it. Some of my changes have required playtesting, for sure, but that's the same as any house rule. In a couple of cases I've even got back to how vanilla HERO says it should be done, the shame of it!

 

(have attached CharGen spreadsheet for my game so you can take a look - sure doesnt look very Hero system, does it )

[Dust Raven]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

I do hope that 6th edition will finally get rid of EB' date=' Forcefield, Forcewall and their kin.[/quote']

 

Out of curiosity, what would replace them? Or how would you have them renamed if it's just the terms you don't like? If it's just the terms, there is very little else to call them and still be accurate without sounding foolish, politically correct ad nausium, or so generic and boring the terminology means nothing.

[Phil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

Out of curiosity' date=' what would replace them? Or how would you have them renamed if it's just the terms you don't like? If it's just the terms, there is very little else to call them and still be accurate without sounding foolish, politically correct [i']ad nausium[/i], or so generic and boring the terminology means nothing.

 

EB=Ranged attack

 

Forcefield is just Armour, but with END cost.

 

Forcewall I'm not so sure about, and not so fussed about

[zornwil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

This is a minor point, but I personally find a lot of the terminology is still too Supers specific for a generic game. I do hope that 6th edition will finally get rid of EB, Forcefield, Forcewall and their kin.

 

I agree. But I think also from a marketing level it's hard to distance HERO too much from supers, since it's also their strength.

[zornwil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

EB=Ranged attack

 

Forcefield is just Armour, but with END cost.

 

Forcewall I'm not so sure about, and not so fussed about

I think Energy Blast should just be "Blast" or better yet "Basic Ranged Attack".

 

I'd call Force Field and Armor "Personal Defense" and explain each variant under that.

 

I'd call Force Wall "Barrier" and I'd try to straighten out the Entangle/FW distinction, which is vexing.

[Force]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

All I have to say is read the sig folks.

 

Read the sig...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

If you want to rename the powers so it "sounds" more generic...

 

Attack Power 1.

Attack Power 2.

Attack Power 3.

 

Adjustment Power 1.

Adjustment Power 2.

Adjustment Power 3.

 

Movement Power 1.

Movement Power 2.

Movement Power 3.

 

Defense Power 1.

Defense Power 2.

Defense Power 3.

 

....

 

 

I always find it amazing how STUCK people get on a simple name. The name and terminology exist only so we know what we're both talking about. When you go to BUILD ignore the name, look only at What It Does. Not what it's called.

[Phil]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

I always find it amazing how STUCK people get on a simple name. The name and terminology exist only so we know what we're both talking about. When you go to BUILD ignore the name' date=' look only at What It Does. Not what it's called.[/quote']

 

It's fine for us experienced users, but names are not irrelevant. The create mental associations and images. They are labels and have a marketing value the same as anything. It can impact on whether ot not people take to a game, because it can affect the ease with which they make the mental associations which are essential to a roleplaying experience. I think the over-'superisation' of terminology doesnt aid the games' claim to being generic, because a generic game should have generic terminology.

 

It's also a lack of consistency. You have Hand Attack, Hand Killing Attack, Ranged Killing Attack and.... Energy Blast?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

I can see the point.. and maybe I just think differently than most people but I never had that problem.. Like I've said - I started with Fantasy Hero and Cyber Hero and despite the name "Energy Blast" I never thought "Oh, that's a super hero term"

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

Names shouldn't matter, but I'm pretty sure they do. I mean, even people names: they are just labels but you can't really help the associated with people you liked (or didn't) as a child, movie stars, book characters, whatever: they conjure an image.

 

I wouldn't go as far as Generic 1,2,3,4,5....but I would consider re-naming some of the powers that have, over the years, began to form something of a gulf between what they can do and how they are described by name.

 

Mind you, that way lies only madness: even calling them 'Powers' conjures an image for some...

[Kristopher]

Re: Hero System design considerations

 

Personally, I think that renaming powers is a waste of time and will do more to confuse established players than it will to attract new players.

 

I think that the continuous push to keep folding Powers together and rebuilding what used to be seperate Powers using advantages and limitations mainly leads to longer, more complicated character sheets.