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Post by Luckstrider on Nov 20, 2013 4:32:05 GMT -8
what hero product would you suggest first?
I don't think I will be able to get into hero soon but I was interested in your opinions.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 20, 2013 14:01:31 GMT -8
what hero product would you suggest first? I don't think I will be able to get into hero soon but I was interested in your opinions. If this is your first book, you need the rules, which means at the moment you have two main options. Champions Complete has all the rules (~160 pages) plus the specifics of how to use them in the superhero genre (~70 pages). (This is really two books in one: the rules portion is not super-hero specific and would be the same for fantasy or any other genre, so this works for *any* genre--you just don't have a specific sourcebook for the other genres.) This is the right option for most people, especially if you don't need a pile of pre-written villains, monsters, or what-have-you (if you need a lot of source material, you will need at least one more book anyway). If you have a deep love of both fighting monsters and putting a lot of ordinance downrange (and really, who doesn't?), you could get Monster Hunter International instead. The MHI book has a subset of the rules (~140 pages, but not as tightly written as Champions Complete so it has more than 20 pages of stuff cut out) useful for that specific setting (it's complete for its setting, it just doesn't have stuff that you'd need for other genres but not for MHI) plus a source book for the MHI setting (~160 pages) blessed by the author for accuracy (and thus supposed to be canonical and useful to fans of the series that don't game). If you want to play MHI immediately, this is obviously the better choice--you have the setting, NPCs from the books, and a pile of monsters ready to go (pro tip: if you buy the book from Hero Games you can get the PDF as well for no additional charge, and with them will come a freebie: a PDF with yet more "official" monsters). Plus, it's a fun setting (unless you're some kind of warped tree-hugging metrosexual who doesn't have the normal, universal human desire to slay the undead with automatic weapons fire)! But of course you won't have all the rules (example: the duplication power isn't in MHI because it's a rather complex power that hasn't shown up in any of the MHI novels), so if MHI isn't your biggest interest to begin with you want CC instead. Hopefully that helps.
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Post by jazzisblues on Nov 21, 2013 13:22:38 GMT -8
Much as I am a fan of MHI (and I am) I would suggest Champions Complete as the starting point because it is the rules in their most elemental form.
I know it gets a lot of crap but it is really simple to run. The complexity in Hero is in character creation and even that is nothing more than 4th grade math. Hells if I can do it anybody can do it.
JiB
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2013 14:48:34 GMT -8
I don't have an opinion of how the presentation of the rules compare since I have the two-volume presentation and only got the CC pdf in the recent bundle deal. However, a few scans suggested that the presentation is reminiscent of the 4e Big Blue Book (I think this was an explicit goal), which probably means it is the most beginner-friendly presentation since the BBB. I hope so, anyway. I expect to get a print copy at some point so I don't need a mule to carry the original 6e books.
That said, I rather like the MHI book for what it is (though I'm not crazy about the art style). I need to play or run it now.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 21, 2013 14:51:07 GMT -8
The complexity in Hero is in character creation and even that is nothing more than 4th grade math. Having a fourth grader, I can attest that this is literally true. The basic problem is that most people didn't actually learn their grade-school arithmetic very well. I guess I should try to teach Eric hero character creation just to make a point. :-) At his age, it's just good homework practice, and would probably teach him a fair bit about what the arithmetic means.
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Post by jazzisblues on Nov 22, 2013 7:09:30 GMT -8
I like math, but I find that math makes more sense to most people if they can see what it actually does. One of the best classes I had in college was, "Applied Calculus" which took conceptual calculus and demonstrated its use in the real world to solve real world problems. I've often thought if I had my life to do over that a career in Applied Mathematics might just be fun. Most people who think math is hard think so because they actually don't speak the language. If you don't speak the language, anything is going to be hard. The reason I mention this is that the same is true of rpgs, if one doesn't speak the language of rpgs in general or of the game at hand in specific it's going to be harder to wrap one's head around the game.
To elaborate on this point for a moment. Fate CORE is a very non-mathematical game, but to play the game one has to have a certain level of understanding of concepts of the game (one must speak the language) in order for the things that are going on to make any sense. I'm still rather fuzzy on what constitutes a "certain level of understanding," but I'm working on it.
Cheers,
JiB
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Post by stork on Nov 22, 2013 16:27:53 GMT -8
I think this illustrates the point very well.
I'm pretty sure this is what we sound like to people who don't speak "Gaming"
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