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1. Hero System 5th Edition Revised

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On their advice I've picked up Savage Worlds (loved it) and Traveller (can't wait to play it). I'm now interested in another system that they talk about frequently - HERO. However there's about a squizillion and one HERO books and I've no idea which one to start with and how many I'd need to make a game. What are other people's impressions of the game?

What does it do well and what does it suck? How many kidneys will I need to donate to get a 'complete' game? What do I need to know about this system but am too dumb to ask? Thank you for your time.

Hero System 5th Edition Revised

EDIT: Awesome replies! Keep it simple. Depending on the edition you want (5th revised or 6th: there are plus and minuses to both, but ultimately the differences are minimal and the 'guts' of the editions remain nearly interchangeable) just get the core book for that edition and go from there. For 5th revised, that means the single core book.

For 6th, the core book is split into two volumes (Vol 1 Characters and Vol 2 Campaigns). The core book is really all you need, as everything (and I do mean EVERYTHING) in Hero in designed to run on or be built with that single set of rules.

It is truly universal in that sense. While other systems (even other generic systems) require you to buy supplements to run a particular style of game, Hero allows you to run any style game you want by using and tweaking the central systems. Don't get me wrong; the supplements are great, especially for options, genre information, flavor, and settings fluff, but they aren't essential.

If you want to test drive the system for a smaller investment, you can always get the Basic Player's Guide (available in both 5th revised, where's it's called and for ). Covers the basis of the Hero System, including character gen and GMing, but doesn't overwhelm new players or GMs with too many options at once. It's a nice preview of the system and cheap as well.

Yeah, Champions Complete is built around focusing the broader Hero System on the superhero genre (which is where Hero got its start in the first place, as Champions first edition back in the early 80's; expanding it into the generic system came later). I haven't checked it out, but my understanding is that it contains the whole Hero system. I imagine a lot of material from the core books would have to be excised for space, but I figure it would be extraneous material that isn't relevant to superheroes anyway. Still, you get the rules, a cool superheroic setting, and I'm sure some adventure ideas/seeds all in one book, so it sounds like a pretty good deal. Has a few premade adventures (for a variety of genres), but most of what could be considered material for adventures (if not outright premade adventures) appear in the supplements for 5th and 6th. This material runs the gamut from simple plot seeds and story hooks to full adventures. However, one of the coolest things about Hero is that the system is so flexible and universal that stories from anywhere are translatable into the system, with the story's original flavor intact.

For example, there are fan-made guides online that give tips on using Hero to simulate any number of comics, movies, TV shows, movies, even other RPGs. Not just these genres, but specific works. Have a favorite D&D module?

Converting that over to a Hero adventure is easy, and you get to pick and choose the elements that you want to use in your game. Have a novel or tv show you think would make a cool game world? Read over Hero, think about that world would be expressed in game terms, and you're golden.

Vol 2 has some good suggestions for GMs trying to make the most out of the system. Right now, I'm planning a 'suburban horror' campaign featuring players as young teenagers who stumble onto a major supernatural evil. The tone in inspired by Stephen King's It, Dan Simmon's Summer of Night, and Robert R. McCammon's Boy's Life. It's a weird set-up (non-powered PCs dealing with real problems in a seemingly average world, except for the sudden appearance of this one MASSIVE supernatural danger), and it's a tricky tone to set.

But I think Hero will let me hit that tone perfectly, and with a minimum of fuss. And the next game, my players can all be alien space pirate mummies, if they want, and not have to learn a whole new system. What are other people's impressions of the game? I like it, to a degree, but it is a huge investment in time and energy. Making characters takes forever, and the realism and brutality of the system mean you'll likely be dying a lot unless your DM is going really easy on you. There are rules for everything you can think of, and it is a roleplayer's dream, if you have the patience for it. What does it do well and what does it suck?

It is very good at depth of rules. You can do anything with the system relatively easily. They did an awesome job at distilling everything you see in every other game system down to a basic 'what is this power really doing?'

Question and making it customizable to what you want your character to be. Its learning curve is insanely steep. You won't be playing the game with tabletop noobs and even a lot of veterans find it hard to get into. After the investment in character creation, you will find that playing a casual or one-off game of Hero isn't going to happen. Also, advanced players will learn very quickly how to work the system and minmax hard.

If you play with someone like that, they either need to help you figure out how to do it too or you are going to not be friends with them anymore. How many kidneys will I need to donate to get a 'complete' game? Both if you want everything.

About $200 or so to get the basics to run something. You can, technically, make just about anything from the basic rules, but the expansion books make it a lot easier as a reference for themes. Hero system is very much a bucket of legos kind of game, and the other books are templates to build specific things.

You could attempt a lego Empire State Building on your own, but following a manual makes it easier and the quality is probably going to be higher. Personally, I'd get the basic books, and only invest in the other ones as I need them.

You won't need star hero if you want to run a fantasy game. What do I need to know about this system but am too dumb to ask? It is not for the feint of heart.

My first game of Hero, we spent about 8 hours making characters. The rules are absurdly realistic, so one of us died in our first combat (bullet to the head, instant kill), one of us lost limbs and was scarred from head to toe from a dynamite blast (he tried to throw a stick back, but the fuse was too short and it blew up in his face), and I was shot twice and crippled.

If you do a high fantasy setting, it won't be the DnD style of 'I got hit by a fireball and lost some hitpoints,' you are probably going to be dead or severely burned; fire fucks you up. Things around you will probably catch fire too.

A realistic fireball hitting a village is going to be collateral and casualties. If you are easily upset by character deaths, or have an issue having to spend weeks in a hospital after a fight, then pick another game. Best thing I could recommend is to make 3 or 4 characters right off the bat, so you don't waste too much time rolling new ones later. That's an awesome analysis.

One thing I would add is that I think one of the benefits of 6th ed is that, even though it's two books, a lot of very useful material that originally appeared in supplements and splatbooks were moved into the core books; hopefully cuts down on cost and makes the core books even more useful. Also, the system is very good about offering tools to adjust nearly every system feature, like lethality. Furthermore, it gives a good analysis/discussion of how to use those tools, and what making changes to the system means, to help GMs and players create the kind of game they want. Also, 6th ed gives a LOT of good advice to GMs about preventing player minmaxing and gives concrete tools and suggestions to keep it from happening.

Also, my feeling is that Character gen gets much easier after even one run-through. And (again, my feeling) actually playing the game is no tougher than playing supposedly 'simple' systems, like D&D/d20. Monklyn brings some very valid points but I'd like to add some precisions: Making characters takes forever It can. I'm not going to lie: if you give 100% freedom to your players, it's going to take forever and some players might just throw in the towel. However if you limit the options of your players, this is an easier approach. If you do fantasy, for instance, it's easy to settle on a single magic system and stick to it; also, make your players choose from a selection of character templates.

The only ones that will have some homework to do will be magic users for spells but with a well-defined system and guidelines, it's going to be less daunting. Another approach I used in a supers game was to come up with a prelude to the game with pregenerated characters. That way, players could get some familiarity with the system before creating their very own characters, which made the creation a lot easier. You can, technically, make just about anything from the basic rules, but the expansion books make it a lot easier as a reference for themes.

I cannot stress this enough. HERO is the ultimate toolkit to build anything but doing so requires a tremendous amount of work. Wanna create a robotic spoon with an AI and telekinetic powers? But it's a truckload of work so if you're thinking about playing in a particular genre, do yourself a favor and buy the related book. If you do a high fantasy setting, it won't be the DnD style of 'I got hit by a fireball and lost some hitpoints,' you are probably going to be dead or severely burned As the GM, make sure you know what your players expect of your game and world: I'm a fan of gritty, you-don't-get-two-chances settings but maybe that doesn't float your boat. If that's the case, make sure to ignore rules related to fire damage and make most spells either deal, say, nothing but STUN damage OR a very limited amount of killing damage. One of my players had the excellent idea of creating multiple healing spells: one could be used in combat to recover some HP while a second one had a much longer casting time but healed a boatload of HP at the same time: both spells had a similar cost at character creation.

Just be flexible and work with the players - or just kill them, if that's your thing.;). I've found the real trick to this system is getting anyone interested enough to play it. I haven't had a good session since college (20 years ago), though I very much would like to. I think one way to get past some of the hurdles here would be to have players engage in a purely descriptive process of character generation, then have a knowledgeable GM put together the sheets. There are so many permutations, and (while more recent rulesets have improved balance in countless ways) there is a happy medium between inefficient and/or boring builds that result from too little knowledge of the rules and degenerate min/max builds that excessively exploit the 'pending GM approval' provisions of various powers and modifiers. On the lighter side, actual game play is nowhere near as arcane as character construction can be.

The main problem here is the Speed chart - action takes place in 12 second 'Turns,' and normally each character can perform their SPD attribute in 'Full Phase Actions' every Turn. The Speed chart simply stipulates which SPD values can take actions on each of the 12 seconds in a Turn. It seems really tricky, and if no one is minding the store then action sequences can get bogged down very quickly. However, if the GM or a designated helper has handy a written list of party members and their SPD scores, a good HERO session easily moves much more quickly through action than a typical D&D 4e session. Organization is crucial to obtaining this result. Also, most approaches to HERO will require a big pile of d6. A basic Champions character could easily have attacks that hit for over 15d6 Normal Damage (concussive or disorienting attacks focused on STUN, as contrasted with Killing Damage that is more focused on BODY.) Throwing a big cup full of dice can actually be part of the charm of the game, but it does mean you don't want to play at a table with only 3d6 on hand.

Despite this and the Speed chart, HERO facilitates a great level of tactical creativity on the part of players without preventing a well-run group from breezing through several fights in a single session. Flexibility is the primary strength of the HERO system. I've only ever actually played it as Champions (comic book superhero genre;) but, with or without relevant supplements, HERO works as space opera, old Western, high fantasy, or even in contemporary settings with little or no supernatural activity. The Skills system and Drawbacks (a.k.a. Disadvantages) work well to facilitate roleplaying.

It is probably the very best system out there for cross-genre gaming as well. (A gunslinger, a knight, and a shapeshifter walk into a bar.) The core rules are not cheap, but if you are interested in developing an original campaign world, then you should be fine with only the core rules. The main thing I would stress is that, by the time an actual gaming session is underway, someone at that table should have cultivated expertise with the rules.

Well-crafted character sheets and a keen sense of 'who gets to go next' can make all the difference between a session with plenty of space for creative storytelling or a session where everyone gets bogged down in game mechanics. I have no doubt it has the most potential for fun of any system I've ever played, but good HERO groups, at least in my area, are painfully rare. I'm in the process of converting my Pathfinder game to HERO System right now, and it's a lot of work to recreate the character's even thematically. The books I would recommend are Hero System 5th Ed. Revised, Ultimate Skill, UNTIL Superpowers Database, and the HERO System Bestiary, and then maybe a genre book if you have a specific genre in mind. The only things that HERO System doesn't do well is immunity-style powers. It's really hard to make a character that is immune to fire, for example, or immune to fear (something I discovered while porting over the party's paladin).

Actually, I still have a lot of love for 5th ed, too. My experience has been that the new 6th edition powers work just fine dropped whole into a 5th ed game, with a minimum of bookkeeping (mostly just keeping track of cosmetic changes, like new names for old abilities).

Before you buy, check out the Hero site. They have a free conversion guide that lists the differences between 5th and 6th that might help ease your mind about the decision whether or not to buy 6th. And I understand about wanting to avoid a literal conversion. Vancian magic is the first thing I dropped from my fantasy games, too. What I liked most about Killer Shrike's Pathfinder conversion is the way he recreated some of the notable/flavorful abilities of the PF classes with Hero powers in fairly simple, easy to identify ways.

In my games, I kept what I liked and chucked the rest. The players who liked their classes' PF mechanics were happy and the magic users were happy to have fun new toys to play with. True, 6th is full of nice changes like that. And even the changes you don't like are easy to ignore. The good news is that all of your old 5ed setting books are still useable, with just a bit of tweaking. Even the 5ed information heavy books (like the Equipment Guide, Ultimate Skill, etc) could be used, but there are 6ed versions for most of those. One set of 6ed books that I enjoy (and that don't have a 5ed analog) are the Advanced Player Guides.

Two volumes (both slim-ish paperbacks, so both are pretty affordable) all about system options and hacks. They cover everything; it's like putting Hero's customization into overdrive. Even though the core books give you all you need to do anything in Hero, the APGs essentially let you REBUILD the Hero system, from the ground up if you choose. Change how skills work, how combat works, damage, character points, everything. Now, they are absolutely not essential at all, but they are really interesting reading. HERO System is for cinematic what GURPS is for realistic - a highly detailed, modular system. It does very well with players that have read 300 issues of Spider-Man and know exactly every single thing he can do with webs, or can come up with something just as complex on the fly.

(Like GURPS, most powers are gained during character creation.) Character generation takes ages, and combat takes ages. Most powers can be adjusted strategically or in conjunction with maneuvers. While this lends itself to creativity in a pinch, it does require, again, that players are well aware of what their characters can do. And oh, brother, the powergaming. A cap on damage dice and active points per power is pretty much mandatory, otherwise someone -will- spend 450 points to buy a 10d6 Ranged Killing Attack and murder everything in sight repeatedly. Everyone except the mentalist -will- buy DEX at 20, there is no known defense against this. One problem I've had when GMing was that, if the sides are not well-balanced, one side may be unable to fight back but can't be quite defeated or quite able to run away, dragging the fight on for way longer than needed.

'You did absolutely crap at this fight, the robbers run away' Nope, one of the heroes has superspeed and off he goes and it's two more hours of chase. This is with the aforementioned caps rule - do away with caps and you have everyone just dying instead. There is a lot of math in character creation. Only game I played that people used calculators while making characters. We mostly played Champions with the system.

As others have said, a player that knows the system can make a serious power game character. Worse I ever saw was at DunDraCon. Got into a game with some dude that wrote some of the Heroes system stuff, thought that was pretty cool, till he busted out his character. He used the vehicle rules to make a powered suit that was just outrageous.

And the guy gming allowed it. My buddy and I just left the game at that point. It's not for people that are new to rpgs, that's for sure. Listen to thenewno6 and what he's saying, but here's what you have to know. This game system has so much fucking crunch, you will break your goddamn teeth. You need whole equations to do one attribute. You will have to check back into your algebra notebooks to remember how to do some of the shit needed to do one of the 'simple' parts.

So I recommend, download the Hero Lab. It's a nice program that will let you create a character.

Also, be aware that in this point buy system you can break things real quick. If a player wants to sacrifice a lot of shit, and you don't have any boundaries or restrictions, a player could make Deadpool. Also, be doubly aware that HERO can get deadly real quick.

If you throw in guns, be real attentive to the shit that goes down, cause one guy who rolls dice like a boss can fuck your shit up. I've played HERO since 2nd Edition back in the 80s. That said, it is a complex system, and can be difficult for beginners to get into without a coach or experienced players. It is incredibly flexible, fun and allows you to run anything. I think it does everything well. Some people have talked about it's lethality, but honestly it's the most cinematic game I've ever played, except maybe Feng Shui. You can add or remove rules to increase or decrease lethality at a whim.

We've got a few house rules we use to make the game more fun (critical hits) and so on. I recommend it wholeheartedly.:).

Contents. Product Types Publishers and gamers classify HERO System products into a few types of books:. Rulebook: Provides some version of the HERO System rules engine.

Rules Supplement: Provides new or optional rules (for the game system as a whole, or a particular setting), but not the core rules engine itself. Genre Book: Covers creating and running games in a particular genre using the HERO System. Subgenre Book: Like a Genre Book, but focusing on a narrower segment of the full genre.

Campaign Setting: Describes a fictional world and/or provides parameters for a campaign. Setting Expansion: Offers more detail on an existing Campaign Setting, such as detailing a single city or country within a larger fictional world. Creature Book: Describes general monsters, animals, or similar classes of characters. For example, it might include 'demons' or 'vampires,' but not a specific demon or vampire. Enemies Book: Details specific adversaries for use in adventures (villains & villain teams, individually named monsters and antagonists, etc.).

Characters Book: Contains specific characters (like an Enemies Book), but not necessarily adversaries (allies, supporting characters, etc.). Organization Book: Details the structure and workings of one or more organizations (companies, agencies, criminal empires, and so on). Adventure Book: Outlines one or more pre-prepared adventure scenarios. Powers Book: Offers pre-defined powers, spells, or the like. Equipment Book: Details pre-defined gear of one or more kinds. Playing Aid: Game-assistance material such as.

HERO System Genres Players typically refer to various story genres by the name of the HERO System genre book most prominently or most recently associated with it as follows:.: Comic-book style superheroes. This is the genre most closely associated with the HERO System, and was also the title of the first HERO System game in 1981. Many players call the game system itself by the name 'Champions,' or consider that name interchangeable with the term 'HERO System.'

. Fantasy Hero: Fantasy adventure typically featuring wizards, swordsmen, kings, quests, dragons, prophecies, and so on. Star Hero: Science-Fiction and other futuristic settings. Pulp Hero: Action-Adventure in the style of the 1920s-1930s pulp adventure magazines (flying aces, daring archaeologists, Nazis, masked men, gangsters, mad scientists, and so on). Dark Champions: Modern-day Action Adventure such as non-superpowered vigilantes, military or law enforcement, international espionage, etc. Horror Hero: Stories played for fright, usually featuring normal people facing (or fleeing) supernatural evil or other Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Ninja Hero: Martial Arts adventure in the vein of wuxia cinema and similar tales.

Cyber Hero: Near-future (often dystopian) stories typically spotlighting the convergence of humanity and technology. Post-Apocalyptic Hero: Adventure in worlds after the fall of an earlier civilization. Western Hero: Sixguns and sheriffs in the American Wild West.: Anime-style Mecha adventure.

The Widening Gyre: Steampunk adventure. ^ Primarily for Superworld RPG. Also for Car Wars. ^ Also for Rolemaster RPG. First product by this name. Boxed; cover art by Mark Williams featuring a caped super with an eyebeam, fighting a super with an energy punch.

64 pages stapled. Second product by this name. Boxed; cover art by Mark Williams (same as the 1st Edition cover); 80 pages stapled. Third product by this name.

Boxed, with a 96 page stapled rulebook and a separate 40 page campaign book. Cover art by Mike Witherby and Mark Williams, featuring a trio of supers above a cityscape. Fourth product by this name. 144 page paperback that included the contents of both the rulebook and the campaign book from the boxed version, and featured the same Mike Witherby and Mark Williams cover art.

Fifth product by this name. 345 page hardcover (stock number 400), with cover art by George Perez, featuring Doctor Destroyer blasting a sword-wielding Seeker with his left hand, while preparing to crush Seeker with a section of wall he holds in his right. This was the first HERO System rulebook to present the rules separately from the genre material; both are in the book, but in different sections. Sixth product by this name. 345 page softcover (stock number 450), with a few errata fixes and the same George Perez cover art described above. Eighth product by this name.

214 page softcover, with cover art by Storn Cook featuring Defender, Witchcraft, and Sapphire in a city scene by night. This was the first book by this name to be a superhero genre book only, and not include the HERO System rules. Ninth product by this name. 299 page hardcover, with cover art by Paul Pelletier featuring Defender blasting a green-skinned behemoth (Grond?) as Ironclad and Sapphire look on. Genre book only; no HERO System rules. Tenth product predominantly named 'Champions.'

240 page softcover, with cover art by Sam R. Kennedy, featuring a fire-blasting female super and an air-blasting male super battling in a water scene. A return to inclusion of the HERO System ruleset and the superhero genre material in a single product. Seventh product predominantly named 'Champions.'

An updated 384 page hardcover version of the 1989 Champions book (and featuring the same cover art), but with new interior graphics & layout, rules fixes, and including HeroMaker software and manual. Sometimes considered a '4.2 Edition' of the HERO System rules. Also contains Fuzion rules. The 1st Edition of this book, and other books in the New Millennium line, do not qualify as HERO System books, because they contained no HERO System write-ups. ^ The printed version is as part of the Thrilling Hero Adventures compilation.

Originally published for 5th Edition HERO, but made 6th Edition-compatible through release of a freely downloadable conversion document. ^ Multi-system book including material many game systems, including the HERO System. ^ Primarily for the Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes RPG. This product consists of the mutant powers from Post-Apocalyptic Hero converted to the 6th Edition rules. Also for Silver Age Sentinels & Mutants & Masterminds RPGs. Also for Silver Age Sentinels RPG. ^ with HERO System conversions by Kevin Walsh See also.

External links.