Category:Hero System

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The Hero System, is a Super Hero focused roleplaying game made by Hero Games. It started as Champions roleplaying game (And yes it's related to the MMO as well) It has loads of numbers and expansion books. It is a game system known for its flexibility and customization options, and over the top level of detail, and fine tuned balancing that "inspired" GURPS. The release of GURPS being the main reason for the release of HERO System 4th edition as it's own standalone product, which was largely used only for Super Hero Games.

The basic premise behind the system is that you create your character and customize all of his abilities using points that you get both at creation and as your character progresses. There are assloads of you then build your character by taking effects and modifiers, adders, and other such to create and customize your powers and advantages. It uses the d6 exclusively, generally pressuring you to roll over your relevant ability score to succeed in a given task. This can be augmented in difficulty by increasing or decreasing the target numbers. A roll of a 3 or 4 is a critical success, while an 18 is always a critical failure. You might be thinking, "that sounds a lot like GURPS" and it is, but it's also a lot more open to character options and is typically a lot more balanced. It even has 3d6 roll down for most skill checks. Using Yellow Warning signs and Red Stop signs even on effects and the like that could very likely break the game.

Hero System much like GURPS, has a largely simulationist bent results in it being regarded as excessively complicated by many gamers. To the point that the company had to put out a character builder (that they still charge money for) just for most people to be able to make a single character. Side program is in Java, and is likely to end up no longer working in the near future with resent updates to Java removing a lot of frame work features and other things. This said actual play unlike GURPS is typically a light easier once you get past this massive barrier, and it has gotten slightly better in the later editions, but its inherent complexity still puts it levels behind Dungeons and Dragons in terms of ease of play.

Much of the complexity in Hero System, like it is with GURPS, is front-loaded: character creation tends to take longer because of the staggering amount of detailed options. Forget just rolling a character like you would in D&D, you need to set aside a session to build one. That's the price you pay to evade Linear Build Quadratic EXP.

Now your likely asking, "why ain't no one ever mentioned this to me?" Well that's two fold, unlike GURPS Hero Games never really got too much settings or major publicity like GURPS did. As well, the dark history of Hero System is that the games and the company are written by an actual lawyer, legit having been written by a rules lawyer. Much like how a Lawyer Mind set killed off AD&D, and TSR, the same has slowed and largely killed off adoption of the system, leaving it a forgotten relic. Said author has went out of their way to curb fan sites, roll20 support, and much more. After all lawyers are trained to stomp out fun in the name of Copyright.

There is another notable thing however that came out of this all, and that's when the team partnered up with R. Talsorian Game's Mike Pondsmith, and made Fuzion. A very interesting and notable system that is only really remembered for the bad botched release of Cyberpunk 3.0, the Dragon Ball Z RPG, and a few other things. The Fuzion system being a simplified version of the Hero System, with a weird Rosetta stone like deal where you could convert 3d6 roll under, d10's, and d20 rolls for the system to whatever you liked. Sadly it never took off, likely because no one liked Cyberpunk 3.0, which is no longer even canon to said setting.