James Nicoll Reviews

Inspired by Aaron de Orive’s 2020 First Ten RPGs, a brief account of the roleplaying games I have played most recently, beginning with the most recent and working backwards. Number Ten: Steven Long’s Hero System 5^th Edition.

As one might guess from the title, this is the fifth version of the venerable Hero System. Originally designed to simulation superhero comics, Hero Games wanted a core system that could be adapted to a wide range of genres. Because Hero was originally designed with the challenges of fitting Jimmy Olsens on the same scale as Superman, the system is in fact not particularly well suited to campaigns where everyone is ​“normals” or rather it’s ill suited to producing characters whose stats are distinguishable; Basic Roleplaying or even *choke* GURPS would be better choices. As well, HERO never offered the abundance of world books Steve Jackson Games has over the decades. 

Still, if the campaign you want to run involves demigods in garish clothes punching each other in the face for great justice, this is a perfectly acceptable choice. Although the mechanics are math-heavy compared to modern, more narrative focused games, this is in aid of a system that does its best to provide a framework in which any conceivable superheroic character can be designed. 

This iteration is at the upper end of my tolerance for complex systems – If I used Hero for something, I’d be more likely to use 1989’s version of Champions than this particular descendant – but a Hero Fifth Edition game would be quite thinkable. Which I can tell you is not true of Champions Now.