Hero System Basic Rulebook

At 138 pages, the Hero System Basic Rulebook is more of a superhero roleplaying game than most dedicated superhero games. This is a low-cost introduction to the full-blast Hero System, and the differences are described in a paragraph in the book below:

BR differs from the full HERO System rules in just one major respect: the amount of details, options, alternatives, and minor/special rules available. The core mechanics of the two systems — how you make an Attack Roll or a Skill Roll, how characters take damage, and so forth — are identical. But where the HERO System might include ten paragraphs and four special Power Modifiers to explain a particular Power and provide ways for gamers to customize it, BR probably only has a couple of paragraphs. It leaves out a lot of the detail and options of the full HERO System. The intent is to pare the HERO System down to its most necessary rules — that way you can easily learn them before diving into the more complex, but much richer, rules of the full system.

A good example is the Change Environment power, a 3/4 column of rules in the Basic Rulebook; the full rules are 4 pages for many unique situations. I could run a superhero campaign with the Basic Rules and never need the complete rules. As it is, the basic rules are more complete and powerful than many full superhero games.

One thing I love about the Hero System is that conversions are stupidly simple. Instead of converting, you design the item as a power source. All weapons and items are created as powers. Do we want a laser pistol?

RKA 2d6 (30 points), AP (+1/4); 37 active points; OAF (-1), No Knockback (-1/4), 20 charges (2 clips max) (+1/2). Total: 21 points.

And any superpower can be designed into an item. So you can have flash grenades, ESP helmets, luck potions, tangle guns, holographic illusion projectors, mind control rings, powered attack claws, and anything the power system can do can be designed straight into an item. I am calculating the points; you don't need to go through that for "found items" that you pick up; this is just a convenience if someone wants to use that laser pistol in a character design and also to know the relative power level of the device compared to others.

This makes games like Gamma World or Fallout in Hero System infinitely more fun since the devices of the ancients can go way beyond what they have in the books, and they can have all sorts of strange and wild effects that nobody expects - along with side effects that can be designed as limitations. And your mutations are also essentially superpowers.

It is all one power system, go to town designing.

And if you always wanted to, you could just say an item "is what it is" without designing it.

In this sense, it is a better design framework than GURPS since everything in the world is designed using the same system. In GURPS, you will have characters on one system and other items on another; nothing is unified and straightforward. Here? It is easy. The entire system will be unlocked once you learn how to design a power.

The Basic Rulebook is capable of running many games and conversions. There is also a great PWYW introduction to the system here. Also, for those who complain about all the math, this game isn't for you. I see a lot of complaints about math-heavy games like this and GURPS, and frankly, if you aren't willing to put in the work, plenty of other games out there may suit you better. This is the same with all the reading needed to play Runequest; if you don't want to put the work into learning about people and cultures, you will miss out, but there are always alternatives.

Sometimes, I like a game to be more complex since those who want to love and play the system will put in the effort. The community will be smaller but more interested, engaged, and knowledgeable.

Hero System is one of those games. If you buy into and learn it, you can design any other game imaginable using the same framework. It scales from gritty, low-level street heroes to cosmic superheroes.

It is a worthwhile game, and the design system itself is a hobby in its own right.