Discourse on Fantasy Hero

[Old Man]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

I've got no problems with accepting ideas, but that's not the problem, I've got a jillion ideas. I merely lack the will to execute them. It's burnout, or malaise or something.

I just have to do other stuff for a while.

 

What you should do, then, is go out and kill a few people on the street, and then put the resulting XP into EGO.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

So I guess that Fantasy hero is just a label for a kind of play enabled by the HERO system' date=' as opposed to a specific division thereof.[/quote']

Not exactly. Try it this way: if you're using the Hero System to play superheroes, we call that game Champions. If you're using Hero to play sci-fi, we call it Star Hero. If you're using it to play Fantasy, we call it Fantasy Hero. Same basic rules, but with different options to better enable the "feel" of the specific genre.

 

The term Fantasy Hero also refers to the line of fantasy supplements DOJ publishes. Theoretically, you could play Fantasy Hero just using the core rules, without ever owning any of the Fantasy Hero books. But the FH books will make your job a gazillion times easier.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

That's pretty much what he said, but a lot of other folks did too, so I think the case is solved.

 

By the way, BDH... the attribution for the quote in your sig is incorrect. That line was actually said by WKRP's ad agent, Herb Tarlek (played by Frank Bonner).

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

By the way' date=' BDH... the attribution for the quote in your sig is incorrect. That line was actually said by WKRP's ad agent, Herb Tarlek (played by Frank Bonner).[/quote']

Sorry, no points for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZByndN_ffyw

 

Edit: Hadn't seen that episode in probably 15 years, but can still quote Les' commentary nearly verbatim.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Now thats funny. WKRP was good times.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

OOOOH NOOOOO!!

 

I've actually been pwned in a trivia-related incident!!

 

Will I ever live down the shame?!?

 

Oh, how the mighty have fallen!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's almost like watching Conan of Cimmeria getting his butt kicked by a street punk!

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

It's almost like watching Conan of Cimmeria getting his butt kicked by a street punk!

 

Are you calling BDH a punk? Sounds like fightin words to me....

[keithcurtis]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

To further derail, I saw a blurb last night for Conan the Barbarian that went like:

 

"Conan, an Ex-Pitfighter recovers his father's sword from a Snake King with the help of a wizard, a Mongol and a queen."

 

Keith "Wrong on so many levels" Curtis

[Susano]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

To further derail, I saw a blurb last night for Conan the Barbarian that went like:

 

"Conan, an Ex-Pitfighter recovers his father's sword from a Snake King with the help of a wizard, a Mongol and a queen."

 

Keith "Wrong on so many levels" Curtis

 

Words fail me.

[Lightning91]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

I haven't seen anything get derailed this badly, since the last time I watched Harrison Ford in The Fugitive!

[L. Marcus]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

. . . So, how about the weather?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

To further derail, I saw a blurb last night for Conan the Barbarian that went like:

 

"Conan, an Ex-Pitfighter recovers his father's sword from a Snake King with the help of a wizard, a Mongol and a queen."

 

Keith "Wrong on so many levels" Curtis

 

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Are you calling BDH a punk? Sounds like fightin words to me....

When it comes to trivia, I'm a total lightweight. But I knew that one.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

~snicker~

 

I'm shuttin' up before I get myself in more trouble!

[Old Man]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Words fail me.

 

Words failed that copywriter too, apparently.

 

Or the other way around.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Somewhere, there was a critical failure. I'm certain of it.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Somewhere' date=' there was a critical failure. I'm certain of it.[/quote']

 

Yes, it occured between the ears of the person who wrote that description.

[arcady]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

In most other Fantasy RPGs' date=' the setting, the scope of what is and is not possible, how magic works, what kind of abilities characters can have, etc are all defined by the designers of that game.[/quote']This is the better way to look at it.

 

Not, how if Fantasy Hero different from other forms of Hero, but;

'why choose Fantasy Hero over some other fantasy RPG, such as DnD?'

 

The answer to that lies largely in customizability on both ends.

 

On the back end - setting up the game and setting, the GM has the ability to define a magic system and a list of species, magical devices, and so on, all within the structure of the ruleset and without any need for 'house rule guesses at balance'.

 

On the front end, players have the ability to nearly completely control every aspect of their characters and character development. There are no frames they have to fit into. There might be templates to guide them, but these don't include long lists of the path they must follow through their character lifecycle and the things they can never master... The structure of a character is in the hands of the player.

 

During play, well, the game system is very tactical - you know the benefits from seeing it in Champions. In Fantasy Hero it runs even smoother as the things that might slow down a game of Hero are less present, and at lower values, or more in common (such as speed - the greatest factor in slowing Champions is when you have very different speed scores across multiple characters - but in Fantasy Hero most of the characters will have the same score - be it 3, 4, or whatever... most of them will act at similar times making tracking much smoother).

 

Often, Fantasy Hero can do another game better than that game does itself. Sit down and think of the "feel" of Dungeons and Dragons. Make a 10 item list of the things in that feel that are cool.

 

Chances are, Fantasy Hero does at least 7 of those things better. It might even do all 10 if your list looks anything like mine. For me, when I bought Turakian Age, one of the official Fantasy Hero settings - my biggest impression was "This is DnD done better than DnD does it."

 

Do the same test with GURPS Fantasy, and it is even easier to see...

 

Much of the time, Fantasy Hero can simulate another game's feel better because where that game has negative baggage, Fantasy Hero won't.

 

What are the top things about DnD many people do not like? Chances are most of the items you put into that list are not present in Fantasy Hero. And some of those things probably also get in the way of getting across the very feel DnD tries to get across - at least for a good number of people. Many people who play DnD just get used to 'putting up with' the things in this list in order to gain access to the things in the other list.

 

The same analysis holds for many other Fantasy Games.

 

At least in my opinion.

 

So... that's how Fantasy Hero is different for me. It does everybody else better at the very things everybody else claims are special about them.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

This is the better way to look at it.

 

Not, how if Fantasy Hero different from other forms of Hero, but;

'why choose Fantasy Hero over some other fantasy RPG, such as DnD?'

Except that the OP has never played D&D or any other fantasy RPG. As I understood it, we was asking how FH compared to the Champions game he had played. So good answer, but wrong question maybe.

[arcady]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Except that the OP has never played D&D or any other fantasy RPG. As I understood it' date=' we was asking how FH compared to the Champions game he had played. So good answer, but wrong question maybe.[/quote']

Which is why I chose to ignore that, as it even says in the part you quoted.

 

The question, in my opinion, was simply not the right way to look at the value of Fantasy Hero.

[atlascott]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

There are meta-features of Fantasy Gaming which MOST players expect.

 

Alot of these meta-features are based on experience with D&D.

 

Which, in turn, was based upon alot of sword and sorcery fantasy, most notably The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

 

We HERO-philes are tinkerers, so we want our own special, tweaked world, with non-standard histories, magic systems, etc.

 

But alot of RPG'ers want a classic, black and white, good and evil world where magic works as they have come to know from books, and yes, D&D.

 

None of the magic systems that have been hacked together to fit into HERO system rules work very well, and I have tried about 3. and read virtually all of them.

 

Magic is either so hobbled that no one wants it, or it is so powerful that it borders on unbalancing.

 

Rules that were designed to mimic superheroic combat do not translate well to sword and sorcery, unless you tweak them, and tweak them, and tweak them.

 

And even then, smart players make their PC's nigh invincible with skill levels in short order. "Ok, with my DEX, and the combat maneuver and my skills levels, my OCV is 12. Do I hit the DCV 5 orc?" Not too much fun. And if you make the orc DCV 10, then the wizard and theif have zero point zero 3 percent change of ever hitting the orc.

 

Character progress is more linear than with 3rd Ed D&D, though.

 

And actually running a FH game is a real assignment.

 

You have to make an awful lot of decisions without knowing ahead of time how they are going to play out or affect game balance.

 

Ever try to tell a player who built his character with points that you are changing the magic system mid-campaign? Doesn't work too well.

 

I hate to say it, but using the HERO system for Fantasy is losing its lustre for me.

 

I find myself doing way too much work to make the rules fit into the game world properly. And almost every novel situation or challenge forces me to rethink my old campaign/game rule decisions.

 

I really had none of these problems for superheroic or modern, though, and the HERO system is still my favorite system.

 

My main point is that unless you want to make preparing, planning, and running a FH game at least a legitimate part-time job, you are going to be missing things.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Atlasscott, while your experiences sound less than rosy, there are many of us with experiences that sharply differ.

 

As much as I hate to say it, it may be possible that you are making it harder than it has to be.

[kiahoga]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Altascott now you say that GMing fantasy hero takes more prep that say champions and i find that an interesting thing for Hero System even fantasy hero is inheritly balanced for everything is derived from strength. Now the magic system your using is the hardest thing you have to do , but once done everything else is simple really.

 

Also I don't know about other GM's but when prepping a game I don't set anything in stone till i know what my players a bringing to the table then i finish up my preparation.

[Markdoc]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

Atlasscott, while your experiences sound less than rosy, there are many of us with experiences that sharply differ.

 

As much as I hate to say it, it may be possible that you are making it harder than it has to be.

 

Agreed. I've been using Hero for Fantasy for longer than there's been a Fantasy Hero and haven't had this problem - ever.

 

Setup does take more work - especially with regard to magic - since you are not pulling it straight out of a book. It is quite possible to make a balanced magic system (easier than in d20, actually looking at seething horrors like the Mystic Theurge) - I have one in my current game.

 

The issue of balance, in my experience, comes up when someone comes up with a reallly cool idea which they translate to the game (and this happens in any system, not just in Hero) or when people do violence to the system ("I want mages to have lots of spells, so I'm going to divide all real costs by 3" - followed by "Waaa! The system is unbalanced!").

 

My set up for next week's game consisted of one evening's work - sketch up a map of a village and a palace, brief personality sketches of local personalities (no Stat.s) and stats and backstory for a bunch of generic NPCs fighter/guards (no time taken - I just reused the standard ones) and two major NPCs - a mage and an assassin type. All in all, it took me maybe 30 minutes to an hour longer than if I was doing it for a D20 game (to be fair, even for D20, I tend to weak the characters a bit so as not get a generic "level X whatever").

 

cheers, Mark

 

cheers, Mark

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Discourse on Fantasy Hero

 

I find that d20 takes much longer than the HERO System to make NPCs because to make a legal character you have to start at level 1 and walk them up their levels one at a time, exploring all their feat (and possibly spell) options, adding up their hit dice, applying stat bonuses, messing around with skill ranks math, picking out magic items, etc etc etc.

 

In the HERO System you don't have to do that, because character design is more holistic. The design process isnt substantially different for a character with 150 points than it is for a character with 500 points.