[net.games.frp] Hero Game System

jagardner@watmath.UUCP (jagardner) (02/27/85)

[One for the eater, two for the show...]

Several people have asked me for a thumbnail sketch of the Hero Game System.
This system was first invented for Champions, a superhero role-playing game,
and has since been adapted for modern adventuring (in Espionage!, retitled
Danger International) and the world of the pulps (in Justice Inc.).
The reason this is pertinent to net.games.frp is that Hero Games will soon
be introducing a new fantasy role-playing game, with the tentative title
Fantastic Hero.

The only type of dice used in the system are six-siders.  This means that
you don't have to go to a gaming store to buy dice -- you can find D6 all
over the place.

Since the thing that started this whole discussion was the way D&D uses
hit points, I'll start the description with how combat works in the system.
Characters have the usual characteristics of STR, DEX, CON, etc.  The
equivalent of hit points are:

END - the amount of endurance you have; strenuous effort (e.g. combat)
spends END.

STUN - how far away you are from becoming unconscious...go below 0 STUN
and you're knocked out.

BODY - how much damage your body has taken...below 0 BODY, you are dying
(though possibly still conscious).  Medical rolls can halt the dying
process.  Once you get to the negative of your original BODY score, you're
dead.  For examples, normals have 10 BODY, so they start dying at 0 and
truly die at -10.

Normal attacks (punching, blunt instruments) do STUN damage plus limited
BODY (about 1 BODY per D6 of STUN).  Killing attacks (sharp objects, really
nasty weapons) do more BODY damage and STUN damage is a multiple of the
BODY done.  Stun only attacks (mental blasts, gas) do only STUN.

Every character has a Combat Rating based on DEX and weapon skill.  Your
Defensive rating can be different than your offensive one for a variety
reasons.  For examples, giants have a low defense rating (they're easy
to hit) but a high offense rating (they have big fists).  To decide
whether you hit an opponent, you essentially roll the dice under the
number (Your Offense minus His Defense plus a constant which makes it
a 50-50 chance to hit someone whose rating is the same as yours).

If an attack hits, the attacker rolls damage.  The defender reduces damage
based the amount of protection he had.  To contrast between D&D and the Hero
System, people with armour in D&D are difficult to hit, but if you do hit
them they take full damage.  In the Hero system, armour makes no difference
to whether you get hit, but it reduces the damage when it comes.

The outcome of this is simple: people who have good armour defenses tend
to stay standing a lot longer and they don't take much BODY damage.  In
fact, the Hero game system is much less bloody than D&D, since unconsciousness
and stunning is more common than death.  (This is true to the original
superhero roots of the system.)

Combat is played out in a basic turn consisting of 12 segments (supposed
to represent a second per segment).  Each character has a Speed characteristic
that indicates how many times he or she can move in the space of a turn.
For example, a character with SPD 3 could move three times in a turn, in
segments 4, 8, and 12.  This lets you have characters and beasties that
are very fast or very slow.  For example, a martial arts character would
tend to move at speeds like 6 or 7, while a knight in heavy armour would
have a maximum speed of about 4.  Speeds of 8 or above are inhumanly fast.

Character generation is one of the unique features of the game.  Players
start with a base character with normal characteristics and buy skills and
powers and enhanced characteristics with "power points".  This lets you
tailor a character to your tastes -- you can have a character who is
competent in a lot of areas, or one who is REALLY good at one class of
things, and not particularly skilled at anything else.  For example, if
you buy up your DEX to gross heights, you get gross combat ratings which
means you can hit anything and avoid being hit as well.  On the other
hand, the more you spend on DEX, the less you have to spend on strength,
so you may be connecting a lot with your attacks, but you may not be
strong enough to penetrate someone else's armour.  You have to decide
what suits your playing style best.

Power points can also be used to buy powers like Energy Blasts, Blinding
Flashes, Telekinesis, and so on.  The more points you pay on a particular
power, the more damage you do with that power (and the more END it costs
to use that power).  To customize your character, you define "special
effects" that distinguish your power.  For example, if you were a Fire
Wizard (whatever that is), you might define your Energy Blast to be a
fireball.  If you are an Ice Demon, you might pay the same points for an
Energy Blast but define it to be a freezing gust of wind.  The power
classes are general enough to cover practically anything you can imagine,
and the special effects give each power physical meaning.

Because you can buy anything with power points, you can make any sort of
character you want, e.g. a magic-using thief.  At the same time, there are
ways of buying related powers at a discount that make specialization
attractive.  For example, if you can convince your GM that a group of
powers are physically related, you can buy the powers for less points
than normal (sort of a half-off special).  For example, suppose a wizard
wants to specialize in control of winds.  The wizard can argue that this
gives him flight (winds lift him into the air), an energy blast (wind
blast), telekinesis (puffs of wind toss things around at a distance),
and so on.  Linking powers together in this way gives cheap package
deals, and tends to perpetuate the "character class" situation.  However,
you always have the option of buying things "a la carte".

When you are buying your character with power points, some of the points
you spend are free, while others must be paid for with Disadvantages.
In my opinion, Disadvantages are what really make the difference between
the Hero System and D&D, since they invariably force you to make the
character real.  Disadvantages are personality traits or "skeletons in
the closet" that make life hard for your character.  For example, your
character may have psychological quirks: compulsive liar, code against
killing, afraid of water, etc.  You may have physical disadvantages
(blind, slightly lame, fat).  You may be Hunted by a person or group
who have it in for you.  You may be vulnerable to attacks that wouldn't
hurt anyone else (in the same way that paladins can be "turned" by evil
clerics).

The Disadvantages force you to develop a personality and background for
your character.  The more disadvantages you have, the more power points
you get and the more powers and skills you can buy.  On the other hand,
you will also find it harder and harder to get by in life and adventure.

Characters grow through experience points.  Experience points are power
points that you can use to buy or improve skills, powers, and characteristics.
You can also use experience points to buy off disadvantages -- for example,
if you're sick and tired of being hunted mercilessly by the Serpent Cult,
you can pay experience points to get them off your back.  (It's up to
the GM to decide how to do this -- maybe you'll manage to wipe out the
cult once and for all in some grand adventure, maybe you'll manage to
buy their peace by going on a quest for them, maybe they'll just decide
you aren't worth the trouble.  When you use your experience points to
do something dramatic like buy a brand new power or buy off a disadvantage,
the GM should invent some related adventure to explain this change.)

Experience points are given out at the GM's discretion for good role-playing,
for winning against great odds, and so on.  They tend to be given out
sparingly, which means that your characters progress fairly slowly.
Experience points can be saved up to buy something big or can be spent
immediately.  New characters tend to use their points quickly to buy
things necessary for survival.  Older characters reach a comfortable
stage and begin saving for big investments.

Speculations on Fantastic Hero: I stress that this game isn't out yet,
but I can make a few guesses about what form it will take.

I suspect that there will be new set-ups for discount packages based
on things like character race.  These packages will allow you to get
a set of powers and skills at a reduced rate if you take a set of
Disadvantages along with them.  For example, an elf would get increased
DEX, Infra-red vision, and so on at a discount; in compensation, however,
he would take disadvantages like "Does not like dwarves", "Unusual Looks",
"Hunted by Drow", etc.  Elves might also get a ceiling on Strength and
BODY.  (Note: there is no true ceiling on how high someone's characteristics
can get, unlike the 18/00 ceiling in D&D.  Past a point, however,
characteristics become more costly to buy and more costly to use.
This point depends on the age of the character.  For example, a 60-year-old
human can buy INT at cheap rates quite a bit past the limit for younger
people; however, STR and CON are very expensive to buy up.)

Also, I think the new game will contain a large collection of stats for
various creatures and NPC characters from the fantasy setting.  This will
be valuable for ANY Hero-based game.  For example, a werewolf fits nicely
into a superhero game as well as a fantasy campaign.

All in all, I think the Hero Game system is a very workable system.  I
like the ability to make my own characters -- it gives me the chance to
come up with interesting power combinations and interesting personalities.
The point system gives a very quick way to check for character balance
when drawing up villains and monsters.  For example, a party of three
200 point characters should be "sort of" equal to a 600 point monster,
and will get trouble from a band of 12 50-point bandits.  This is not an
exact rule of thumb by any means, and that's part of the charm of the
system.  My current Champions group consists of three 300-point characters,
but a good set of 200-point characters can give them a run for their money
if the players don't work together.

The system has two important weaknesses.  First, there is simply no
comparison to TSR's quantity and quality of modules.  I have been GMing
Champions for almost two years and have had to make up almost all of my
scenarios.  Not an entirely bad thing, because it means that my players
always have situations that are tailor-made for them.  On the other hand,
there are many times that I would like something pre-fab to fall back on.
Champions has about six modules out now, and three books of supervillains
as source material.  Danger International has two available scenarios that
I know of.  Justice Inc. only has one.  This problem is alleviated by the
fact that other companies are now providing Hero Games stats in modules
for other systems, so these modules can be adapted.

The second weakness is also one of the game's glories.  The combat system
makes melee combat fun and challenging.  At the same time, it takes up a
large amount of time in the playing session.  When any significant combat
starts, you can be almost certain that you are going to spend an hour or
more in the fight.  This can pick up an otherwise ho-hum session, but it
can also halt the momentum of a session that is driving towards a particular
goal.  It is not hack and slay fighting -- as I pointed out before, people
are knocked out more than they are killed, if they are fighting in fairly
even circumstances -- but the fighting is lengthy.

(Note: fighting takes the longest in Champions because superheroes and
villains are built to take a lot of punishment.  Fight time is less in
Justice Inc. and Danger International, since there is a very low limit
on the number of times an unprotected normal can take a burst of machine
gun fire and remain standing, even if his name is James Bond.)

I hope this description has piqued curiosities enough for you to investigate
Fantastic Hero when it comes out.  (I hope it doesn't turn out to be a
turkey!)  If you have any further questions about the system, send mail
to me and I will try to answer.  (I love being a Champions guru.)

			Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo

ee163acp@sdcc13.UUCP (DARIN JOHNSON) (03/01/85)

  Another major advantage of that (I assume) hero will have is its
compatability with Justice Inc. and Champions.  This may seem trivial,
but if characters get stuck in a time-warp, it saves a lot of time
converting.  Also, Champions may find themselves on a strange planet or
dimension similar to Hero's.  (it is nice to bring an evil super-fiend
over to do battle with Indiana Jones et al)

  Also, the END ability solves the problem of figuring out why magic
users can only cast a limited number of spells.

   Darin Johnson