The HERO system is arguably still the best roleplaying system available - sensible, consistent and as close to balanced as anyone has yet been able to achieve. The only weakness is that the system is

fairly complex, so that generating items and characters on the fly is a fair bit of work - a problem compounded by the relatively small number of source books (compared to some systems, anyway).

Still, HERO gamers tend to be both fairly imaginative and free with their ideas - and the web has proven the ideal medium for their distribution. Even if quasi-medieval japan is not your cup of tea, there

should be something in the links below to pique your interest, spice up your campaign or just waste a few hours browsing....

I've put a number of useful Hero-related things on this site, to wit:

• The Sengoku Campaign - a game set in 16th centry Japan, complete with character sheets, maps, adventure threads, background info and fiction detailing the game through the players eye's.
• The Gothick Empires campaign - my long running Fantasy Hero game, where magic and technology have collided in a renaissance-era setting.
• Occasional Action Theatre! Individual adventures suitable for an evening's entertainment with a strong bias towards Hong Kong Action. Adventures come with maps, cut-out counters and
• character and NPC sheets with plenty of art.
• My own modest collections of characters and character art from other games I've played in or run.
• The Random Fantasy Hero character generator I use for generating NPCs for Gothick Empires. It's mostly for fun, but can generate reasonable characters.
• The Ultimate Grimoire - a collection of nearly 1000 spells - both my own and gleaned from other sources - rewritten in a common format that will be easy to use in any Hero System game, plus
• hundreds of magic items, plus advice on designing magic for use in your own games.
• The house rules I use (mostly for Heroic-level games) which have also been fairly widely adopted by other groups.
• The Mass Combat Table for mathematically correct mass attacks, when you don't want to roll for several dozen (or several hundred) attacks

I have a number of friends whose pages offer something to the Hero gaming community. So they all merit direct links (after all, what would the web be without a little self-indulgence?)

Forthwith:

• Peter (Fitz) Fitzpatrick's page and art gallery.
• Lise Mendel's homepage (formerly the home of Women in Gaming).
• Mike Surbrook's HERO character extravaganza and source for the Kazei 5 and Silent Mobius Zeta games.
• Brian Smaller's homepage, featuring various Hero system campaigns.
• The home of Pete's Wednesday Night Superhero Campaign

In addition, there are several Hero-related sites that deserve individual links:

• HERO Games - for all the obvious reasons
• Mark Arsenault's Gold Rush Games - because among other things, they have a page devoted to their game set in medieval Japan, entitled.... Sengoku. Gad! Uncanny, eh? Unfortunately, it uses the new Fuzion system but it could still prove a useful sourcebook. Still, an' all, they also have some useful links of interest to Sengoku gamers - especially the list of Chambara movies available through Blockbuster Video and direct from Mark.

And to keep you enthralled for hours:

• Since the sad demise of Shelley's Gratuitous Links, the premier source of Hero links is the roleplaying section of the Open Directory project, which has a ton of Hero gaming sites
• In much the same vein is Bob's Heroic Links page.
• The Circle of Heroes Homepage has a fair number of HERO-related items on it - including some of the best designed pages I've seen. I'm not on the ring any more, since I've had problems with the ring working, but this link will take you to the homepage.
• Hero games discussion board Where people toss around questions and answers on various Hero topics - each with their own board
• HERO System Combat Applet. Generate instant combat report between Sam Bell's Marvel Character write-ups with this Java applet - or download it and add in your own characters
• HTML Hero. Generate spiffy HTML character sheets, just right for adding to your web site. It checks your math too!
• For those of you who want writeups for your favourite comic book superheroes (or even for comic book superheroes you've never heard of) try the Great Netbook of Real HEROes
• Robert Hall has a ton of stuff for Fantasy Hero on his website

 On to other gaming Links

Back to the Sengoku page