Post originally by SteveC at 2005-02-01 10:06:10
Converted from Phorums BB System

Wow. I didn't think I would ever hear a proponent of GURPS attack HERO for being based too much around min-maxing. Ha. Ha ha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Hero, like GURPS gives you tremendous flexibility in creating your characters. You are no more required to make your concept of a min-maxed character in HERO than you are to max out your DEX and take combat reflexes et al. in GURPS.

It's about the type of campaign you're playing in, and the character you want to play. Can you make very effective min-maxed combat monsters in HERO? Yes. You can do this in GURPS or just about any other system for that matter. Both GURPS and HERO are more vulnerable to min-maxing because they give you more FREEDOM to create a character in the way you want. The truth is that ANY game where you can build your own chacter from scratch: BESM, Mutants and Masterminds, you name it...they all have these problems.

As far as the magic systems of HERO, the longest running campaign I played in was 4th edition rules (about two years) where just about everyone had a little magic. Oddly enough the rules worked just fine without power pools, elemental controls and so forth.

The two fifth edition FH games I played in were very similar, but were more open-ended because the point totals for starting characters have gone up in 5th edition. I can't understand where your attitude is coming from: perhaps you've just had some crappy campaigns and players in HERO. I can't see how this would be magically fixed in GURPS, though as it falls prey to the same syndrome.

Ultimately I'd have to say that the only "chumps" in HERO would be those who are so obsessed with making one kind of character that they miss out on the richness and diversity of the whole system.

I want to make it clear: I'm not attacking GURPS or the people who love it, I'm just saying that any problems in HERO with making one-dimensional min-maxed characters can also be found in GURPS. A very wise person once said to me: "in these kinds of games you can be anything you want, why bother being something lame?"

--Steve


Polaris wrote:
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Philipp,

I was asked specifically why HERO was incompatible with Fantasy and I answered as well as I could within a reasonable amount of brevity.

Lord Liaden,

Your comment seems reasonable. I have not in fact seen 5th edition magic, but I have very BAD memories of FH in the fourth edition version and I do have FRED. It seems to me that you can't do much to address the points I made about magic without scrapping the 'generic' framework of HERO and starting over. This is a problem that at least in Fantasy, GURPS doesn't have.

As for stats, the player that DOESN'T min-max in HERO has a name:

CHUMP

Seriously, when the main book tells you to min-max, you have to assume it.

-Polaris