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Post by alcamtar on Apr 5, 2014 9:49:56 GMT
I finally picked up the old 4E Horror Hero used for the first time at a local bookstore (hi Powells!) It's been on my to-buy list for over a decade, just never got around to it before now.
Been reading through it and I like it quite a lot. It seems to have something that GURPS Horror was lacking. The GURPS book was very generic and I felt it lacked atmosphere, felt cartoonish. These days horror pretty much means vampires, zombies, or Cthulhu. Horror Hero focuses on classic supernatural horror, more mystery and less splatter. Mostly it seems to be a campaign supplement (with no less than three separate campaigns!) but it has a lot of GM advice, and some new rules. The Spirit rules are very interesting. I could see using these in Fantasy Hero, it would lend a whole new dimension to magic and change up the monsters a bit. Almost all games follow the D&D model for how monsters are done, but the Spirit rules feel much more like literature or cinema.
I wonder why the Spirits concept was dropped? They would be easy to port into 6E... though rewriting monsters would be a bit of work. Really just an expansion of the existing AI Computer rules.
Any love for Horror Hero here?
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Susano
Double Digit Master
Posts: 73
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Post by Susano on Apr 7, 2014 13:55:55 GMT
My beef with Horror Hero was that it was too many character sheets and not enough examination of horror genres and campaigns. But, a lot of pre-5E books were like that. Mystic Masters was a prime offender.
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Post by Chris Goodwin on Apr 7, 2014 16:52:28 GMT
I liked Mystic Masters well enough for what it was. I had a problem with Champions in 3-D; I was wanting an Ultimate Dimension kind of book, sort of here's how you do interdimensional adventures. What we got was a random dimension generator, five or six worked example settings, and thirty or so one-page dimension summaries. I could have done that myself. I'm willing to accept that it was expectation clash on my part, rather than any inherent problems with the work, but I think Mystic Masters had better information on extradimensional adventuring. As did, IIRC, the Ultimate Supermage (I must be the only person who bought that PDF).
I bought Horror Hero, read through it, and barely remember it. I know the Spirits rules were there, but they were also in the Hero System Almanac. Was Allen Varney's Anopheles world (Cthulhoid horror with giant insects) in Horror Hero also? That one was one of the worked examples in Champions in 3-D. I quite liked the Spirits rules, as they were another cool way to work with the system, but I remember most people not liking them.
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Susano
Double Digit Master
Posts: 73
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Post by Susano on Apr 7, 2014 22:48:50 GMT
No, Anopheles was only in Champions in 3-D.
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Post by Tasha on Apr 17, 2014 8:09:02 GMT
No, Anopheles was only in Champions in 3-D. Wasn't there an expanded version of that floating around the early web? or the old Red October BBS?
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Susano
Double Digit Master
Posts: 73
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Post by Susano on Apr 17, 2014 13:19:51 GMT
No, Anopheles was only in Champions in 3-D. Wasn't there an expanded version of that floating around the early web? or the old Red October BBS? Possibly. I recall Alan Varney did something with it... and I think I used to have a copy of his material in electronic format.
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Post by CRTaylor on Apr 18, 2014 14:57:36 GMT
Yeah some of the Champions 3D stuff was on Red October first, I had it downloaded when I got the book. I loved Champions 3D but it didn't deal very much with how to run alternate dimension games so much as show it in the various types.
Horror Hero works well and it is a pretty good supplement, but I still think Call of Cthulhu does it best. As for the spirit rules, I agree, they should have been retained and officially made part of 6th edition like vehicles, bases, and automatons.
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Rex
Double Digit Master
Posts: 33
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Post by Rex on Apr 19, 2014 20:33:03 GMT
I really want an updated Horror HERO so bad I can taste it. With some serious attention paid out towards the various genres and some of the overlap it has with a couple of others, and not to mention a nice treatment for Horror and Supernatural Comics as well.....
I suppose I could start actually sorting out all these notebooks I used to expand upon the old Horror Hero.... Stupid Work Schedule.....need to win the lottery or something so I have time to actually work on something I like to do.
~Rex
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Susano
Double Digit Master
Posts: 73
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Post by Susano on Apr 27, 2014 14:00:57 GMT
Ken Hite was going to do Horror Hero, IIRC.
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Susano
Double Digit Master
Posts: 73
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Post by Susano on Apr 27, 2014 14:01:43 GMT
If you can find it, look for Ken Hite's GURPS Horror. Also, his book on running horror RPGS—Nightmares of Mine.
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Post by tikiman on May 3, 2014 20:23:49 GMT
What were "the Spirit rules"? Seen Horror Hero, never been into the genre so never even looked inside. Now, if it were more like "Ghostbustin' Hero" I might be into it.
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Post by Chris Goodwin on May 3, 2014 22:15:50 GMT
If you were to consider Vehicles and Computer/AIs to be separate character types, then Spirits were yet another. Characters with no body (nor BODY), Strength, or Constitution, there were some additional rules (and Powers) for running them. Never really caught on with most people, though I loved them.
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