system critiques

[Matt Wilson]

I read an older post where Ron quoted himself from his GNS essay, where he talks about Hero's problem with "soybean trading."

It got me wondering what Ron thinks about the rest of Hero. Then I wondered what all of you think about Hero. And then what all of you think about a whole bunch of "veteran" games.

And then I kept a-thinkin': what about doing reviews of those older games from a Forge perspective. Talk about how D&D or Hero or Rolemaster handle currency, resources, premise, and so on. It'd be like a regular review, but for game designers, not would-be buyers.

It seems like a pretty cool exercise. Many of you may already have done this, either in your head or otherwise. But I'd love to see it here, and contribute to it.

-Matt

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Matt,

Go for it. I'm sure you need no reminding that it's not about what "sucks" or not, or what's the "best universal system ever" and so on, but rather about applying our shared vocabulary and seeing what we all think.

One point, though: whoever's doing this, specify the edition, date, and authorship of the game you're talking about. Champions second edition and fourth edition are two very different animals, especially relative to the existence of the Hero System itself.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Wilson]

Hi Matt,

Go for it. I'm sure you need no reminding that it's not about what "sucks" or not, or what's the "best universal system ever" and so on, but rather about applying our shared vocabulary and seeing what we all think.

Agreed. Folks can be sensitive about their faves.

[Mike Holmes]

So do we respond here, or will there be a new thread?

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

So do we respond here, or will there be a new thread?

Mike

Here is probably good. Sorry, I've just been a little busy, and this seems like I should give it some thought before plunking some text down.

What I imagined was something like this:

GAme Title
Edition?
Year Published

Discuss both fairly and unfairly. The latter would be a look at how it would do if released in 2002 and how it would live up to mainstream and indie expectations. Fairly in terms of how it compared to the market at time of release. Plus comments on what it was influenced by, what games it has since influenced.

Second part would be a regular critique of the game.

I might, for example, talk about how WEG's Star Wars introduced a cool, intuitive system that was fast and fun, but wasn't always as cinematic as I thought Star Wars should be. Whether it was the first of its kind, it was certainly one of the first mainstream games with the "better = more dice" concept. And so on.

[Mike Holmes]

Hero System
Fifth Edition
2002

Well, the fair and unfair assessments will be the same on this one, as it's a relatively recent release. And I make no attempt to hide the fact that I'm a big fan of this system for many reasons. That said, the Fifth edition release is just a cleanup of the fourth edition for the most part.

Anyhow, Ron's reference to Soybean Trading is valid. That is, there is a simgle common currency used in the game for all aspects of character building, and, as a multi-level game, it is subject to a few potential problems. This mostly manifests itself in breakpoints. Which is to say there are definite selections of abilities that have advantages over others in terms of cost effectiveness. Which predictably leads to their selection, and this means less character variation. Or, from a worse perspective, it means that the player is informed not to go with his own ideas of effectiveness, and to adopt the game's meaning even less player input into CharGen.

That all said, the basic vesatility of the system is still intact, and one can make pretty much anything from the rules. There are certain magical formulae in Hero System that speak to the basic mathematical truths about character effectiveness value.

This also means that the player is informed about what is important in play by the associated actual values, however. As per usual, combat abilities are prioritized. To the extent that even long-term sim play is deavalued. Take for instance the cost of being Immortal (in the sense of unaging). In Hero System it costs 3 points. In GURPS which takes an even harder Sim view, the same ability costs 100 points (the point values are approximately equal). This tells you something about the system's priorities right there.

There is a lot of math in this game, which turns me on, but turns a lot of people off. You roll a lot of dice (I love to recall a 42 die impact I had with a factory in one game), which again is a love it or hate it item. Essentially, Hero System is there for people who really like to investigate system and how it can be applied in play. Again, I like this, but others see it as just hindering play.

IOW, Hero System is a love it or leave it system. There are few who are half-hearted about it. But I say this is a good thing. No system can please everyone. A system that pleases a significant group as much as Hero does, is a well designed system indeed, IMO.

To address the specifics of Hero Fifth, there are actually not too many changes. There are, however, many more examples, and lots of clarifications. And the changes that have been made are all well considered, and, like our community here, take advantage of the good ideas that have been submitted by the peanut gallery over the years.

IOW, its definitely better, and still one of my favorite systems, if only for the theory it represents. I cannot emphasize enough that designers should all learn this game in detail, if for no other reason than to see the power of the underlying design.

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

Know what? Now I think they should be separate threads, as I'd like to build on your review of Hero, and if that happens with multiple reviews, it'll get messy.

Here's some other things I'd be interested in with this kind of review:

So what kind of game is Hero? Gamist? Narrativist? Which styles of play does it support best? My xp is with an older edition, which marketed itself on the cover as "universal," and I think for its day it did a pretty good job of it.

Also, it's been around since what? Early 80s? I think it brought in a bunch of great ideas to the industry, though my knowledge of games pre-1985 or so is a little limited. Compare it to Chaosium's BRP, or D&D or Traveller. You could be anything you wanted. None of the classic "life sucks so you have to take what you roll" of games at that time.

[Mike Holmes]

Know what? Now I think they should be separate threads, as I'd like to build on your review of Hero, and if that happens with multiple reviews, it'll get messy.

Then start one.

So what kind of game is Hero? Gamist? Narrativist? Which styles of play does it support best? My xp is with an older edition, which marketed itself on the cover as "universal," and I think for its day it did a pretty good job of it.

These things are highly subjective, and I usually stay away from them unless there is a specific reason to discuss them. That said, Hero is the prototypical Gamist/Simulationist hybrid, a bit more heavily Gamist slanted than many (really just more combat slanted).

Not at all Universal (no game is), and, in fact, very specifically focused on the style of play that it engenders. I'll go to the mat on that assertion.

Also, it's been around since what? Early 80s? I think it brought in a bunch of great ideas to the industry, though my knowledge of games pre-1985 or so is a little limited. Compare it to Chaosium's BRP, or D&D or Traveller. You could be anything you wanted. None of the classic "life sucks so you have to take what you roll" of games at that time.

Well, that's all old news. Few systems these days have random generation, or many of the things that Hero revolutionized. So, yes it was influential. But by today's standards it's not anything special. It can be argued that GURPS even improves on Hero, and I think that certainly a system like Tri-Stat has to be considered as a potential challenger.

That said, I think that few games have actually transcended Hero in terms of what it's good at even to date. They've mostly just decided that Hero's niche was not a style they wanted to engender. For example, I'd say that for what it wants to do, Over the Edge is a much better system than Hero (I'd not play Al Amarja with Hero System). So I can only recommend Hero System to the system-first junkies like myself.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Ouch. Looks like it's time for my history-of-Hero discussion again.

The sequence goes like this, in my view of How Things Happened.

1) Metagaming put out a pair of small compatible duelling games called The Fantasy Trip: Melee and The Fantasy Trip: Wizard. These rules were very quickly expanded into a fantasy RPG called The Fantasy Trip: In the Labyrinth. This was back in the late 70s, which explains the "trip" diction.

2) Hero Games put out a superheroes RPG called Champions (about four supers games had been produced by that point, through 1978-81). It shared a number of features with The Fantasy Trip, notably the 3d6 resolution roll and the concept of "points" with which characters were constructed. It added the fascinating notion of "negative points" with disadvantages.

3) Champions evolved rapidly through three editions and two supplements, becoming arguably one of the most popular RPGs for many years (this dovetailed with a high point in superhero comics fandom as well). At this phase, I consider Champions to have been one of RPG history's Great Incoherent Games - it could be Drifted in very distinctive directions, by emphasizing and ignoring modular portions of the design.

I was very active in Champs fandom and international correspondence; going over the old apa-zines is fascinating now to see GNS-based disagreement storm through the pages. I think it is fair to say that all of Champions, as represented by the third edition and the two second-edition supplements, was never played by anyone I've ever met or corresponded with.

4) Until this point, Champions was the main event and the company Hero Games was there to make Champions "go," but in the mid-80s, this switched: the Hero System was presented (essentially Champions) and Champions was to be one of many different "genre" applications. A new core Hero System game was released and various applications like Super Agents and Fantasy Hero as well.

4') Metagaming was long gone, but its primary author, Steve Jackson, began a new company called Steve Jackson Games and published GURPS (this was 1985). It was billed as a kind of successor to The Fantasy Trip, but it was clearly highly influenced by Champions (which Jackson acknowledged), now including the "negative point" thing and several Champs-type mathematical elements like ratios.

5) In 1989, Hero Games was a very different animal than it had been ten years before, with a huge stable of freelancers, an active editorial hand in the person of Rob Bell (not one of the original developers), and ... surprise! an acquisition by Iron Crown Enterprises, which was eating a lot of other companies about that time.

So when the fourth edition of Champions was released, I think it's not surprising that it was radically changed: it strongly resembled, philosphically, GURPS, in being hard-core Simulationist, with many of the Gamist and Narrativist Driftable elements of the earlier editions scrubbed right out. I could go into a whole ton of system-examples but will not.

6) By the late 1990s, the brief reign of Iron Crown as the king of RPG companies was long over, and all the Hero line had languished and got all mixed up in ownership issues and so forth (all the reasons why I say, "Self-publish"). Yet another wrinkle was thrown into the mix by the release of Champions: Millenium, which was based very firmly on a whole new breed of superhero comics (Jim Lee, most especially) and mixed elements of the Hero System with those of Interlock/Fuzion (R. Talsorian).
This can be seen as something of a detour, because now, the latest, the 5th edition Hero System (and the accompanying Champions book) is basically a greatly improved, very clear "clean-up," as it were, of the 4th edition. Or more accurately, it represents a similar commitment to consistent Simulationist-System design.

IN CONCLUSION
In my view, three things make it hard to talk about the Hero System: (a) the do-si-do of TFT, Champions, and GURPS influencing one another's creation and/or revisions; (b) the switch from a game-emphasis to a system-emphasis at Hero as a company, as well as the multiple layers of ownership-hassles and editorial policies that kept changing through the history of the game; and (c) the changes in the actual content of playing a Hero game through the 1980s, which is to say, Champions in 1983 simply was not the same thing as Champions in 1989.

Whew. Had to get all that said. Hope it helped.

I probably messed up some aspect of something, or maybe I don't have some necessary information. All corrections and so forth are welcome.

Best,
Ron

[Matt Wilson]

So what kind of game is Hero? Gamist? Narrativist? Which styles of play does it support best? My xp is with an older edition, which marketed itself on the cover as "universal," and I think for its day it did a pretty good job of it.

These things are highly subjective, and I usually stay away from them unless there is a specific reason to discuss them. That said, Hero is the prototypical Gamist/Simulationist hybrid, a bit more heavily Gamist slanted than many (really just more combat slanted).

Discussing those areas was my whole point, though. Maybe it's the lit background, but I was thinking a little less to "review" and a little more deconstruction. Why is HERO the way it is, , what did it bring to the gaming arena, what did it later influence, and how has it evolved. Ron's covered some of that pretty well in the post above.

Not at all Universal (no game is), and, in fact, very specifically focused on the style of play that it engenders. I'll go to the mat on that assertion.

I don't have the newest version of Hero, but the copy I have at my desk says this on the back cover: "The HERO System is a truly universal role-playing system." Whether the designers think so now is another issue entirely. In 1990, the designers of this game were pretty secure in their belief that "With the HERO System, one game is all you'll ever need."

What's interesting to me looking at this 10-year old game, is its marketing strategy: create precisely the character you want. No dice are involved. "Stop playing some first-level loser." Emphasis on covering different kinds of combat.

[Mike Holmes]

Discussing those areas was my whole point, though. Maybe it's the lit background, but I was thinking a little less to "review" and a little more deconstruction. Why is HERO the way it is, , what did it bring to the gaming arena, what did it later influence, and how has it evolved. Ron's covered some of that pretty well in the post above.

Then why didn't you say so? ;-)

The problem is that I really don't like deconstruction. I'm an existentialist, and see personal construction of meaning as paramount. I can tell you what I think about the game in terms of intent, etc, but that won't change how it actually plays. Which is the only important thing to me. What do you hope to find through such analysis?

I don't have the newest version of Hero, but the copy I have at my desk says this on the back cover: "The HERO System is a truly universal role-playing system." Whether the designers think so now is another issue entirely. In 1990, the designers of this game were pretty secure in their belief that "With the HERO System, one game is all you'll ever need."

What's interesting to me looking at this 10-year old game, is its marketing strategy: create precisely the character you want. No dice are involved. "Stop playing some first-level loser." Emphasis on covering different kinds of combat.

It's just silly. First, this is just advertising. "It's not your father's Oldsmobile"?? Of course it's your father's Oldsmobile, otherwise why mention it? Is the game Universal because they claim it is? No, in fact it is so limited that they have to advertise how Universal it is so that this does not weaken it's sales.

The whole thing is just absurd. "Emphasis on covering different kinds of combat"??? That indicates that the game is focused on combat. Which means that it obviously is not Universal enough to cover well the other possibilities in RPGS. In fact Combat is such a small part of what can happen in RPGS that what we have here is actually a quite focused game. Sure you can make any character, as long as you enumerate him in terms of his combat ability. What good is that in a game of international business? Which Hero would suck at portraying.

No, any game that claims that it is "Universal" is simply trying to redefine what can be done in an RPG to include just what it supports. Simple advertising. Hero Fifth has very little support for Narrativist play, for instance. How can it be Universal when it ignores one entire division of play? It's just silly.

I'm sure the back of the game does say it's Universal. But just like every other game back, I've never read it. The rules are inside the book.

I should point out here that we use the term Universal as described by GURPS in defining it's title. That is, that the game can be employed effectively for any sort of play (this defintion is supported in this case by that other tag line about how Hero is the only system one will ever need). As opposed to generic (which Ron calls generalist) which means that the rules can represent anything in any setting. Very different concept. Hero is very Generalist, and does it just about as well as any other system that tries to maintain a level of complexity.

Mike

[Matt Wilson]

The problem is that I really don't like deconstruction. I'm an existentialist, and see personal construction of meaning as paramount. I can tell you what I think about the game in terms of intent, etc, but that won't change how it actually plays. Which is the only important thing to me. What do you hope to find through such analysis?

I confess that my approach isn't "pure" deconstruction, as I think that with a marketed product that undergoes revisions, authorial intent has some relevance, most importantly in terms of how it differs from what the text actually is. But I also like a bit of historical analysis as well.

And again, I'm not eager to define specific criteria for analysis. I think agonistic discourse is a dinosaur, so if you don't get any value from my approach, try something else if you want. I'm more interested in what others get out of a look at older games than whether they think my analysis is bunk.

It's just silly. First, this is just advertising. "It's not your father's Oldsmobile"?? Of course it's your father's Oldsmobile, otherwise why mention it? Is the game Universal because they claim it is? No, in fact it is so limited that they have to advertise how Universal it is so that this does not weaken it's sales.

Careful now. That's part of my livelihood, so I don't think it's silly. Instead, I'd say that this points out how game designers 10 years ago really didn't have a deep understanding of the games they created. They call it "Universal." Did that mean what GURPS means? Or does it mean generalist? My assumption the whole time as been the former.

The whole thing is just absurd. "Emphasis on covering different kinds of combat"??? That indicates that the game is focused on combat. Which means that it obviously is not Universal enough to cover well the other possibilities in RPGS. In fact Combat is such a small part of what can happen in RPGS that what we have here is actually a quite focused game. Sure you can make any character, as long as you enumerate him in terms of his combat ability. What good is that in a game of international business? Which Hero would suck at portraying.

Doesn't look like we're disagreeing at all. :-) The point was that back then, the creators figured that HERO would be good for any kind of game. Yet the fact that it emphasizes "combat" points out what's changed in the community in terms of valuable game content. There was the assumption that a detailed combat system would appeal to pretty much any gamer, who wanted to run any kind of game. The understanding of just what kind of game can be played has changed since then.

No, any game that claims that it is "Universal" is simply trying to redefine what can be done in an RPG to include just what it supports. Simple advertising. Hero Fifth has very little support for Narrativist play, for instance. How can it be Universal when it ignores one entire division of play? It's just silly.

It might be silly, but that claim on the back cover is still a part of the game. What's missing from my perspective, if anyone wants to jump in, is how books like this were published at the time. Was there an editor at the publishing company who wrote up the "jacket text"? If the game designers wrote it, then it's a pretty good example of how author awareness of game content has improved.

I'm sure the back of the game does say it's Universal. But just like every other game back, I've never read it. The rules are inside the book.

I should point out here that we use the term Universal as described by GURPS in defining it's title. That is, that the game can be employed effectively for any sort of play (this defintion is supported in this case by that other tag line about how Hero is the only system one will ever need). As opposed to generic (which Ron calls generalist) which means that the rules can represent anything in any setting. Very different concept. Hero is very Generalist, and does it just about as well as any other system that tries to maintain a level of complexity.

A couple thoughts as to the above:  Plenty of people do read the back of the book, and they read the description of the game on the Web site. If the info on the back is misleading, then that's worth looking at. How many people bought HERO 4 thinking, "cool, it's universal. I can do anything." And how many of the same people were disappointed?

As for the definitions, that was my understanding as well.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Mike, are you just growly this morning? Some of your preferences are being stated very much as categorical assertions.

I'd like to speak up as one of the role-players of the mid-80s who seized upon GURPS, at least, as the never-need-another role-playing game, largely based on its advertising. I probably would have done the same with Hero, if I'd encountered the Hero System in its later "central" form instead of Champions-and-only-Champions, earlier.

That's not any kind of conclusion, as it's one person's experience, but it's data, anyway.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

My point is that, since people's desires can change, then claiming that a game is Universal is missing the idea that someone who buys the game might come up with something the system can't do. It also presupposes that the author knows what all gamers want. Which is ludicrous.

Is it an exaggeration? Obviously, and being sentient creatures, we can try and see what the advertiser is implying; in this case that the design is such that it should cover a wide variety of playing styles because of it's versatility. But even that's hubris. What they should have said if they wanted to be accurate is someting like "Model any gaming situation with internal consistency!"

Whether the designers believed their claim or not is immaterial. The claim is wrong. Have people been dissapointed with Hero because it didn't live up to it's billing? Yes, very much so, I assume; lots of people who've played think its amongst the worst game ever made, and I can only assume that they would disagree with the "Universal" appellation. This is why in a "review" of such a game I would ignore what it said in the advertising, and urge others to do the same.

As for the back cover being part of the game, there are only claims there, no rules. I would go so far as to say that text inside the game that makes claims as to what the game can do is not part of the rules. It may be "part of the game" in some sense, but it has no bearing on play. I only care about the rules. I don't even care about art or fiction, that's all just advertising as well, IMO. All I give a damn about is how well the rules work once we start playing. And claims about what the game will do have no impact on that. Nada.

Mike