(no subject)

[Jeff Kesselman]

At 06:17 PM 6/22/97 GMT, J Lambert wrote:
>The Gurps basic system is also a good model of general rules with no
>thematic assumptions.  I don't care much for it, but its a good
>model that makes no assumptions outside of basic interactions.  It
>has very nice plug-and-play extensions (tm).  
>
>I have never given Hero a look.  

Okay, some quick info to give you a jump here 9and for anyoen else
inetrested in these things)...

GUROPS and Hero atytempt teh same thing from opposite sides. GURPS attempts
genericity by having a virtually non-existant coire system abnd makign all
the details per-world special cases.

HERO on the other hand defines a meta-system where everything you want to
do in any world can be built using well-defined meta-peices. It is wholly
inclusive (and for thsi reason never made them as much money as GURPS did
for Jackson where you have to buy a new rulebook for every genre.)

There are a set of "standard" games built upon thsi general base to give
the judge a leg up or, for less ambitious jduges, to run as is.  They are
Champions (Super Hero), Fantasy Hero (Fantasy), Horror Hero (obvious),
Space hero (now out of print i believe), Western Hero (Cowboys), and
Espionage (modern spies, also otu of print I think.)

Hero has been decribed fairly as all of these things:
"The BEST multi genre system ever created."
"Fun with numbers"
"The game only a programmer could love."

In an attempt to simplify and deal with #2 and #3, which both relate to the
mathematical and logical; complexity of the system (although any on this
list aught to be able to handle it without blinking) as well as broaden
their world products, Hero games has joined with R TAlisorian to create a
new system called "Fuzion", that simplifies Hero some and adds some
concepts from Talisorian's Interlock (mostly the backgroudn generatio
nstuff, which Hero never had.)

The new Fuzion products are beign released by R Talisorian in stages, as
Fuzion is designed to be run at 3 distinct levels of compelxity, and for
characters to be easily convertabvle between all 3 levels.  Teh currently
out products are:
Bubble Gum Crisis RPG: Uses Fusion at the medium level.
Champions:The New Millenium: Uses the compelte system, BUT they have held
pwoer creation off for a seperate book (the real meta-level), til then they
say to use the old Hero Rules with a simple price conversion.

Hero System is a classic and IMO still by FAR rthe best truely generic RP
system ever created.

Fuzion is an attempt to make it more accessible really, and make up for
some weaknesses in character background stuff.

Both are worth looking at.

NOTE: For those doing commercial projects-- Steve Peterson at hero games is
hoping to make soem money off of licensing Fuzion as a rules base for
games, so hes not going to be real happy if you use his system without
askign him (even though game rules are not really protectable under
copyrigth law).
Steve ahs always beena nice, reasonable guy. I would recommend contacting
him in such cases and Im sure something reasonable can be worked out.

>> 
>> I'd say you played pen and paper with very uninventive people.  I defy you
>> to describe to me something on a  MUD I could not run as an adventure just
>> about ANY FRP system I chose.
>
>I find these last statements to be presumptuous.  I've been on the list 

Well thats fair. I found YOUR hand waving dismissal of Pen and Paper RPGs
as presumptous.  We sow what we reap ,as a rule.

Jeff Kesselman