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Post by alverant on Jan 23, 2016 18:54:07 GMT -8
I've heard people complain about how the Hero System is complicated but not many have gotten into specific details. I've played the system for over a decade and while I would agree parts of it can be complicated at times if you don't prep for it. But with programs like Hero Maker out there, character creation is easy and you don't have to worry about scary math. (The math was never an issue for me personally.)
What I'm trying to find out is that is there one big thing that Hero does that makes it so complicated that it drives people away or is it a case of a bunch of little difficulties that adds up to one big frustration? In either case is there a way to fix it or is it so inherent in how the system works that you can't do anything.
For me, I think the phases/turn/Speed can cause confusion. It's meant to be a generic game with a focus on superheroes so you have to accommodate characters that move very fast. This leads to an arms race of ever increasing Speed stats and trying to figure out which phases a 7 Speed character goes on vs a 5 Speed character.
To fix this, at least for non-superhero campaigns, I would keep each turn being 12 seconds but each phase being 3 seconds long and capping the Speed stat to 4. Which phases a character acts on would be likewise adjusted.
Another issue I think people have is calculating if an attack is successful. Normally you compare OCV/DCV, 3d6, and 11. I would change this to OCV + 3d6 + modifiers must be greater than DCV + 10 + modifiers. Yes, DCV + 11 would be more accurate but 10 is easier since we have a base-10 number system. You just take the DCV and add "1" out in front. Everything else is just rearranging how things are done since addition is commutative and people are psychologically inclined to higher numbers (it's why THAC0 was revised). This would simulate the target/difficulty number I saw in other systems.
I also think skills need to be reworked but I'm not sure how to fix it or properly explain its problems.
Does anyone else have any other gripes/solutions?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2016 23:48:05 GMT -8
Hero does a bad job of teaching the system. It does a good job as a reference for people who know what they are doing. Hero isn't a hard game to play or understand, what is hard is finding what you need to read out of 1000 pages to get started.
Hero also does a bad job at teaching power balancing. You have to know a lot of information to even be able to build a character, let alone get it to play as intended. A lot of the information needed is supposed to come from the GM as well. This makes it a hard game to grab off a shelf and make a character for (what most gamers do when they get a new game).
The hero system is really the hero toolkit. The pieces of a system are in there, but some assembly is required. This makes the game great, but also more difficult to pick up. GMs have to do work to prepare the game. They can't as easily grab some monsters someone else made, tell the players to come prepared with characters, and run a game. There is a lot more involved.
So is it hard? No. Is it easy? No. It takes work from the GM up front and then collaboration between GM and and player, and of everyone did everything just so, than it will be awesome. If not it may be unwieldy and not worth the effort.
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Post by HourEleven on Jan 25, 2016 8:27:14 GMT -8
From a teaching/learning perspective, it has three big problems:
Intimidation (both by reputation and the size of the tome)
Jargon (you can easily overwhelm a player with "hero speak" of all the terminology that it does a mediocre job presenting).
Option overload (it practically requires GM assistance to convert what the player wants into something that functions the way they imagine - and too many bad GMs are "here's the book, make a character" or "show up with your character" GMs).
The same could be said of Gurps, but Gurps jargon is little less intimidating and it's a little more upfront about telling the GM to limit the options at the front end.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jan 29, 2016 8:32:12 GMT -8
I love the Hero System, always have, ever since the first time I saw it. That said, where people get panicky is character creation. People say it's the math, but I've watched people and it isn't actually the math, it's the sheer magnitude of variability and all the little buttons, switches, and dials that you have to customize every last little thing about every aspect of a character or their abilities. It's daunting to most people. Personally that's actually my favorite thing, but I'm a crazy person, that's been well established.
I agree with what's been said above.
Also for some reason people bow up about the attack rolls. Dunno why, it's actually not harder than an attack roll in anything else, except maybe because things get inverted so you can have higher numbers and still want to roll low.
GURPS obfuscates that by adding active defense (which personally I'm a fan of) but the effect is actually the same.
Just my 2 krupplenicks worth, your mileage may of course vary.
JiB
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Post by Probie Tim on Jan 29, 2016 9:39:05 GMT -8
Well, first off, I should say I've only played in 1 HERO game and I liked it. But for me, it's a question of not understanding, not being able to locate, or not being told the game ramifications of a lot of things.
Like, for instance, there are 18 attributes or something. Aside of a core 4 or 5 of them, I still don't know what some of them are for or how they impact the game. The movement phases are fine and I kind of like them, and the OCV+11-3d6=DCV thing took some getting used to, but once I realized it's almost identical to AD&D 2E's THAC0, it became a breeze.
The biggest issue is building powers, I think. It's said that with HERO you can build anything you want. So for that game mentioned above, I read through HERO Basic and started building my powers. Every time I thought I'd had it right according to the rules and the way I wanted it to work, I was told it was wrong because of some weird condition or rule or something that I'd not seen. And that was just with HERO Basic; I never even cracked the full HERO rules or looked at Fantasy HERO Complete.
I think that for new players it would work a lot better if the GM prepped his or her campaign by providing pre-built power "packages" that fit the game they want to run, and letting the new players pick from that. Because... for a new player? As it sits? Power creation is overwhelming with the sheer number of options and considerations.
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Post by alverant on Mar 20, 2016 16:39:48 GMT -8
Also for some reason people bow up about the attack rolls. Dunno why, it's actually not harder than an attack roll in anything else, except maybe because things get inverted so you can have higher numbers and still want to roll low. I've thought about that since from a psychological perspective people like higher numbers and adding is easier than subtracting. So if I was in charge of making improvements to Hero I would change how combat is rolled to: Attackers OCV + Modifiers + 3d6 > Defenders DCV + Modifers + 10 with ties going to the defender This way it's mathematically the same except you want high rolls instead of low rolls and you do more adding instead of subtracting. It's sort of like how THAC0 got replaced.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2016 0:03:03 GMT -8
The math for that is 11-3d6+OCV=DCV hit. This just isn't that hard. I actually think about it as a number line with 11 as the middle. Each number to the left is positive and each to the right is negative. Either that or just do the absolute value and add it to OCV if less than 11 or subtract if greater.
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Post by ericfromnj on Aug 25, 2016 18:06:24 GMT -8
Savage worlds - taught myself how to play from reading the rules while running a house with two kids.
Hero - tried to do the same thing and just couldn't. GURPS I had more success with in this regard.
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Post by ayslyn on Aug 27, 2016 11:08:35 GMT -8
There is a Sidekick edition of the rules, iirc. HERO isn't hard, no more so than GURPS, it's just involved. It's like Shadowrun. The basic rules are easy. There are just a lot of possible modifiers.
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Post by ayslyn on Aug 31, 2016 20:16:57 GMT -8
HERO is a lot like other broad games like GURPS and Rifts in that you need to sit down as a group and talk about what you all want. Stu's cautionary tale about when he switched his 4e game to HERO is a perfect example. Tappy and Casey, knowing the system the way they did, helped everyone build some fairly crazy characters that Stu wasn't really ready for.
Get together as a group. Decide what power level you're looking at (So you don't end up with a Rifts party of a Dragon, a Glitterboy, a Cyborg, and a Wilderness Scout), and what rules you're going to have in effect.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2016 22:37:27 GMT -8
There IS a learning curve. That said, the hardest thing about Hero is other players who can min/max the system to CRUSH the other players. You need good players who will be generous with their time and talent so all can participate. Also, not metagaming the opponents DCV seems to be an issue with some players. Why are you allowing this to happen? This isn't D&D where you get to go to your own corner and return with a D&D sanctioned character. Your the GM, stop this shit. If someone brings a min maxed character to you, crumple it up and light it on fire. There are a million and one ways to build any concept they have in mind as long as their want a concept that isn't one punch man. No one is saying you can't play green arrow, you just can have a 6d6 RKA AP with 8 PSL's in targeting. Build it with them or for them if you have to. It's your game and the buck stops at you.
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