"Hero system skirmish gaming" Topic

Crossposted from Hero System Forum:

I was thinking of Hero and my newly-found infatuation with miniatures games. I've got the books I bought, but no roleplaying group or any signs of getting back into RPGs. No need to sell them though if I can find a use for the ruleset: Why not run a co-op game of skirmishing through campaign scenarios with a set of miniatures and some terrain?

I've got the idea from Two Hour Wargames All Things Zombie game, and the way the ruleset allows people to play linked scenarios with miniatures in a campaign. Couldn't Hero manage the same thing, and with multiple genres as a bonus?

Could I bend the rules enough to allow two players to play in a cooperative manner, so the "mooks" or enemies are run by a set of guidelines that could be formed before starting a campaign? It's easier with zombies, where the reactions vary between "hear sound, go towards it" or "see human, eat it", but how could I run a Hero game so the bad guys are controlled by an "AI" to allow for cooperative playing of the game. Traditional skirmish where two teams are battling or competing for a goal would work fine I think. I'd need an AI system in place for co-op to work.

We've got a basis for running miniatures in Hero: inch equals two meters (IIRC). Fifth edition books would work fine as a basis, and I've got a couple of source books already. Skirmish -level games have only a handful of miniatures per side, so the costs would be reasonable. Unbalanced "forces" in a battle is possible too, with the use of weaker hordes of npcs, so the game can be as realistic or cinematic as I'd want it to be. Smaller scale minis allow for more terrain on the table, but I'd like the detail of 28mm minis because of their usually excellent sculpts.

Hero has a skill-system in place, so it offers some depth in addition to miniatures skirmishing, maybe allow the use of skills to setup for the next battle, using social skills to gain some help, contacts to acquire new weapons and supplies, and ways to proceed in a scenario like using stealth or climbing skills to gain a tactical advantage. Characters gain experience points after battles, this allows for a rpg-like approach to the game. Depending on the scenario objectives, the players could "lose" a scenario and as such, gain less experience and have to find a new approach to a situation, but the game would still go on and basically run like a RPG, albeit with miniatures and pre-made terrain.

Including "down-time" and "go-time" as a part of the campaign would allow different characters to get the spotlight in a given scenario, and would lessen the blow of a PC getting shot up badly and having to recuperate. All that can be included and taken care of in a down-time phase of a campaign, in addition to creating new characters and figuring out what the PCs want to do next and what kind of a scenario to prepare for the next sessions of gaming. In addition to being "realistic" it allows for a sense of continuity and depth to the running campaign, where all the RPG -stuff can be included in the game as just another option for the players (counting bullets, learning skills, resupply, healing times etc.). The narrative created in this way would be deeper than what you get in a "standard" skirmish war game.

About the "AI", which is the difficult part. All Things Zombie uses a reaction -system, where a given miniature activates and moves, until it comes across another miniature, which again gets to react to the first miniature. I've yet to study the rules in-depth (been busy buying miniatures), but it all works out in a way that allows the game to run itself basically. How to use the standard initiative sequence in Hero to run a game without a GM? Does it need a rework? Would one player take over the "enemy" characters, or would each player run a mob of different NPCs so two players would be playing against each other as well as on the same side, so to speak. Don't know yet, this is just my initial spark of interest towards the idea of Hero+miniatures, but I've yet to work out the details. Any ideas?

After some replies:

Good ideas guys. I was thinking of writing a set of tables that takes some concepts like "force quality" into account, familiar stuff from war games. Basically, we've got elite NPCs who might fight to the death, and then we have some gnarly goblins who might just run away after their big ogre support falls down dead. EGO or PRE would work as a basis for morale rolls. The Battlegroup war game series has a force morale feature, where the battle is lost after having to rally enough men or taking too much losses. This is a somewhat realistic feature that would work well in almost any setting.

Then I'd steal some ideas from other games (ASL), like having the NPC mob be immobile and unaware until an INT roll succeeds or a character fails a stealth check. A mob leader could only activate if he notices they're being stalked or picked off one by one. You'd get sneaking around as a feature in a skirmish game with this tweak.

Different types of units, like ranged and melee, would always act by their simple parameter of always using their main attack as a priority, like archers and berserkers acting by their own guidelines. Special attacks would be used as soon as possible to inflict maximum damage, or on the strongest PC, or the most heavily armed PC.

Random rolls for who gets attacked is a good idea, should work out fine. Assigning priority to figures or groups of figures before the game could prevent rolling for every reaction, like saying that ranged units always attack the most heavily armed member of a group, or always attack the closest figure and such. If a character is "famous" enough, let's say that his character point total is a lot more than other PCs, he would be a priority target in some cases, like a big monster always attacking him, or every monster would be attacking him etc. All these tactics would depend on the monster group, and how "smart" in combat they are, all setup before playing a scenario. Just switching these parameters from game to game would allow for a lot of variety in battles and keep things fresh.

Then we've got objectives. This adds another level to NPC reactions. Say the NPCs are robbing a bank, so getting the cash and getting out fast would be their priority. A couple of figures in the group are given overwatch priority, where they try to keep the PCs at bay, while the other characters would rush for the cars with their bags of money. You could add combat parameters to the overwatch figures, like always attacking the PC with the biggest weapon, or who has the highest "level", or just using suppressing fire to prevent the PCs from maneuvering. Give each figure his guidelines and play the scenario out. Should be simple enough, like plotting an RPG adventure, but with some more detail.

I like the idea of morale checks. These would be the thing that could prevent any character from acting in a turn. Depending on the level of failure (need to look this up in Hero), a PC or NPC could lose a number of segments in which they couldn't act, leave cover or work toward their objectives. Basically failing a morale check temporarily takes you out of the fight, leaving the opposition free to achieve their objectives or organize their attack or do anything else that their guidelines dictate. This would also take some control away for the player characters in true war gaming fashion.

A thought:

I'm thinking that probably a lot of RPG systems would work for miniatures skirmishing with some added tweaks, but HERO is one of the better ones since up until the sixth edition they had movement values in miniatures terms.

Hero is part of the "Tactical" lineage within RPGs, but the family is smaller than you might think. Until WotC's D&D made it a fashionable design choice with 3rd edition, the trend was away from strong tactical combat engines in RPGs. Hero had been dead for several years, TFT was a distant memory, RQ had gone narrativist, and Traveller couldn't make up its mind whether to keep the tradition of Snapshot or not. TSR had let Battlesystem lapse, depriving D&D of its grip on a tactical skirmish ruleset.

Any of the strong tactical games can be used to run skirmishes, because they don't require a referee to adjudicate combat. Factors like well-defined movement rates, terrain effects, ZOC, and the interaction of special rules all contribute to that.

HERO is a great RPG and the combat system can be easily used for small tactical, detailed skirmishes. Funny how some miniatures games have tried to do very detailed skirmish combat rules when an RPG like HERO does a better job.

For mooks and such, seems you could pretty easily port over Two Hour Wargames' "Non-Player Enemy Forces" rules to manage mooks and baddies, and when used with the fast-kill/damage rules for mooks/NPCs could make for some interesting gaming. Though I recall my gaming group whining about how their HERO PC's took a bleeding leg shot while the NPC mook just got knocked out, etc. "It's not fair that my PC takes such specific damage!" LOL!

FYI . . .

Ganeshs Games just came out with theirs called "Power Legion".

8)

I have not played "Hero" since its ancestor Champions, but it sounds like a logical idea for what you want to try. I have heard of people doing this with GURPS, which has a crunchy skills and combat (at least in advanced combat chapters) system, so if you believe the Hero system works for you then that should be good enough.

Many complain D&D 4th devolved into little more than a combat system with "cutscenes" between encounters, so the lines can be blurred quite easily between (1) a miniatures campaign using RPG base rules with miniatures and (2) an RPG campaign using miniatures.

I think a miniatures game would work fine with Hero. Like SBMinisguy said I could steal NPC activation from THW and work out a co-op game just fine.

There are many good skirmish rulesets out there to try, but I've already got the Hero books I bought, so I might as well try to run a game based off of those rules. As a plus, there's the possibility of character advancement and using the skill system for creating a variety of situations.

We used to run multiplayer "danger room" combats with Hero system all of the time when we didn't have the time or desire to run our regular Champions campaign.

GURPS is also a great RPG system that's ideal for small skirmishes -- HERO Lite, basically.

Hero is a great system. Combat can be a bit slow if you use all the options, however. Since you mentioned 5th Edition, look at the sidebar on pages 252-254 "Nine Ways to Speed Up Combat." Those are some good suggestions for speeding up play.

I would probably ignore hit locations and bleeding rules as well.

Champs was one of my favourite systems back in the day. I think it would make a great skirmish game.

Xin

I've been weighing different possibilities on what to run with Hero. I like the fact that I could possibly run any miniatures game I can come up with by using this system.

I was thinking generic small-scale fantasy games, maybe Dark Champions with modern miniatures, and post-apocalyptic/sci-fi games. Whatever minis I buy first, that will set the stage for my upcoming games.

My preferred scale of 28mm can be on the expensive side though, so I should follow through on any plans I set in motion. So far I've got Dark Champions books for Hero, but I've been contemplating buying D&D 3.5 books and Fantasy Hero to run a mash up of Hero D&D with the system, and using Forgotten Realms as the base setting. That could be too restrictive though. I could buy some monsters and dungeon tiles for quick gaming easily though.

To run modern urban games, the terrain becomes the big thing to worry about. Lots of buildings and interiors would need to be made, and so far the idea of modern skirmish gaming doesn't strike me as much as a fantasy romp through dungeons though. Dark Champions has a great choice of villains and heroes though, readily statted out, and the city book I've got would be useful for setting the stage. The game could be run as a pseudo RPG with character skills making a difference in gameplay, and adding modern horror monsters would add some interest into the gameplay. Choices, choices…

I'm writing a squad -based conversion for Hero System using my WW2 collection currently.

If anyone wants to test this thing, I'll do writeups of the rules I've come up with here.

The rules will have Player Characters as Heroes (Leader types or squad members) and Mooks as soldiers. It's a pulpy -type WW2 adventure game currently, with only the infantry mechanics being worked out currently.

The HERO System power building framework is a big thing in this conversion, and I'm looking for ways to integrate it into a larger scale miniatures game system, where you can use the system to game a wide variety of situations using whatever minis you have at hand, in great detail like a skirmish game between important characters, but zooming out to squad level when needed to speed up play and rule out scenario elements like mooks :)