Incorrect categorization: Fuzion / Cyberpunk / Hero System

I don't know who is responsible for the categorisation of these systems, but linking these three separate games together under Fuzion is really weird and blatantly incorrect. Some history: Cyberpunk 2020 and HERO system are two very different systems, created by different companies. They have nothing in common, in terms of character design, game system, or setting. HERO games went through a period where they couldnt afford to publish products, and had a brief licensing merger with R Talsorian (who make Cyberpunk). Together they created Fuzion, a hybrid system that shared some elements of both systems, but is a completely different game from either of the two previous. It's most similar to Cyberpunk, in that you can maybe use characters from each game without alteration. But you cant use HERO system characters in Fuzion, or vice-versa, without conversion. Fuzion was a failure, and abandoned by HERO and talsorian. Though it's open lincense has meant that some small press publishers have taken the system and made their own games with it. HERO games reverted to their own publishing, and abandoned Fuzion, and their games are NOT compatible with it. So, I can see a reason you might link Fuzion and Cyberpunk 2020 under the same category, but if so, the category should be named Cyberpunk 2020, not Fuzion. The current situation is like you decided to put all D&D games under the heading Gamma World. Fuzion is the lesser partner, the less-significant game, and shouldn't be the heading. And hero games should be a completely separate entity in the list. To recap: HERO System and Fuzion are not part of a shared game system and are not compatible with each other. They are not made by the same publisher (anymore). They basically have nothing to do with each other. Cyberpunk 2020 and fuzion have some similarities, and Talsorian Games made the fuzion system, so you could put them under the same heading, but if so, the heading should be Cyberpunk 2020. It wouldnt be unreasonable to have all 3 as completely separate entities in the list, especially since, for instance Basic roleplaying, Hawkmoon, Mythras, Renaissance, and Runequest are all listed separately and are all built on the same game engine and are vastly more similar to each other than any of these three games I've mentioned are. (Honestly the BRP family of games is just as baffling and could do with some re-categorisation). This isn't just a categorisation issue, it harms HERO and Cyberpunk players. That list of games is LONG, and for the longest time, I though there was no Hero or Champions sheet, because it never occurred to me to look under F. I'm sure Cyberpunk 2020 players will have missed that sheet too, because it shouldn't be under F. Is there any chance of getting these corrected?

I've noticed that too. I've tried to change it, but I guess it never stuck, or someone keeps changing it back. Just to add confirmation to GG, I have had a very long professional relationship with Hero Games (pretty much the life of 5th Edition), and GG's account is accurate.

I just noticed someone has changed the header for this group to cyberpunk 2020. Thank you! That's only half the job though. All the games under the CP2020 title are fine excepr for Hero 6e. Can you break that out, into its own entry? Pretty please. For reference, to show how radically different they are, here's a typical example of a cyberpunk character sheet, with a Champions one to follow:  And here's a champions sheet: Pretty much the only thing they have in common is that you roll dice. Everything is different: the stats and skills you have, the kind of dice you roll, how damage is done, what actions you can take in combat (and how many), what skills out of combat exist, what special powers exist and how they work, etc. They really are radically different systems. And just as important, produced by different game publishers.

I've edited the page. Hopefully it will stick. Hero Games is listed under H, and under C as "Champions (Hero Games: 6th Edition)''' | Author: Evan Sampson", since it is frequently referred to as that. It is no longer under Fuzion, where it should never have been.

Great! let's hope it sticks. Yeah, the original name for system was Champions, the more generic Hero System came later. They are still separate lines, with Champions probably being the bigger line. 

If you open nearly any book for fifth edition, you'll find my name in the credits. It was my system of choice for nearly 20 years.

My comments were mainly as additional reinforcement for anyone else reading (especially those that might be tempted to undo the changes). i saw you mention in another post having done a lot of work for hero system, and had no doubt you knew this.

I'm just glad the system is getting some love around here. The dice system is not easily supported by Roll20's built-in commands. Yours and MarkL's recent efforts have been very welcome. Now they only need to be integrated to an updated functioning character sheet. Heromaker's extendible output templates would be ideally suited to help with providing highly formatted data for an import script.

HERO was my favourite system for a long time (not sure if it was 20 years, but it's getting there), and I am feeling a lot of nostalgia for it now and plan to play a game soon. So I'll probably end up making a few more tools. I've been looking at that existing character sheet and been a bit surprised at how faulty it appears to be. I'm no character sheet guru, but If I find the time, I'll fix the most egregious issues (or clone a different sheet and tweak it to work for hero system).

One of our group was expressing a wish to run Champions. I haven't even glanced at v6. How difficult would it be to run v5 on a v6 sheet do you think?

As far as I remember, the only difference that would affect a character sheet is that derived attributes (PD/ED/SPD/etc) aren't actually derived anymore, and arent connected to base stats (STr, DEX, etc). So their costs are different - if the sheet has the cost calculation hardcoded, it would be a pain. (The current sheet, for all its flaws, actually doesn't have any cost calculations built in, so it might be usable - depending on other flaws with it.) But aside from that, you could easily use the same character sheet for both.

FWIW, I would highly recommend not having the sheet do character cost calculations. If you've ever looked at Heromaker, you can see that the math gets very complicated and interdependent very quickly. And there's no real point to going halfway about it either.

Yeah, for champions games especially, it would be very tricky.  I did make an excel spreadsheet years ago that managed cost calculations automatically, including elements like limitations or advantages that apply only on part of a stat, etc., so I know it's doable. CSS could be used to hide cost calculation elements when not in use, but then again, I'm not great with CSS... So, the simpler approach would definitely be to leave it manual.

Yeah, I did the whole thing with Excel, and then again with Filemaker Pro. It's daunting but doable, if you manually do some stuff like language interdependencies, which are only amenable to a brute force approach. I think that the sheet would get very complicated. But of course, if it worked...

For crying out loud... Someone has undone the hero system changes in the character sheet list. Is there any way of determining how they are being reverted and who is doing it, so we can explain to them directly?

I knew it! I knew I had fixed it before!

Hmm. When making a change, is it not enough simply to save the page? Do I also need to press the "publish" button? If so, what's the point of the "save changes" button?

Where are you making these changes? Is it something you can do on the character sheets github? I don't know where the sheet category information is stored.

Ah, I think we are having a fundamental disconnect. I have been editing the  Character Sheet Index on the Wiki. I've just checked and my changes are still there. I thought just now that you might have been talking about the Looking For Games list, but that has it listed as "Hero Games (Champions). Then I realized, you are probably talking about the list under "Create a Campaign". That indeed has it listed under Cyberpunk 2020. I would suggest making your first post more clearly state which list you are talking about and re-post it in the Bugs forum. It might get dev notice, then.

G G said: Where are you making these changes? Is it something you can do on the character sheets github? I don't know where the sheet category information is stored. It's stored in the approved.yaml file on Github, which is not normally intended to be edited by sheet authors. In this case, though, making the change in a pull request together with an appropriate explanation is probably the best way to get dev attention on this matter and propose a solution at the same time.

Thanks for the suggestion, Jakob. Keith, I was referring to the list that shows up when you are selecting a character sheet for your campaign.

I eventually caught on. At least the Wiki is correct, now. And LFG seems to be as well.

I'd sell a Kidney to be able to import a file from Hero Designer into roll 20.

If there was any kind of importer, Herodesigner is eminently set up to produce exactly whatever format would be needed. You could even set up an export template that would be formulated to run a gigantic ChatSetAttr macro to pull in all necessary values. It wouldn't be simple, but it could be done, provided you had a satisfactory sheet to use.

What does a hero designer output file look like? can you post an example, on pastebin or similar.

Mine is many years out of date, but IIRC, it saves as an XML file, and uses PHP templates to translate these to HTML, RTF, TXT, or whatever you want. The website has shared space where fans can upload templates to share. This approach allows people to create or tweak character sheets to print just so, or to display just so on the web, and saves the programmer of the app from having to build or support printing resources that work across platforms. You output your character in preferred format by interpreting the XML, (choosing a template), and Heromaker exports, for example, an HTML file for your website, or an RTF file to print out for a paper sheet, and so forth. The documentation for template creation is pretty robust and easy enough to do that even I could make one, with little programming experience. So in theory, you could make a php template to structure a datafile to fit exactly what your importer needs, or probably easier, just script an interpreter to read the raw XML.* MarkL probably has a much more up to date copy, but if he doesn't post one, I can post an old one for reference. ______________________________________ *for a given value of "easy".

Cyberpunk Red, the upcoming update to Cyberpunk 2020, will apparently be using Fuzion. As will the Witcher RPG. So It's not completely dead. Though I'm not sure if the generic Fuzion sheet will work for those, given that its expected to be given updates. On another note, wouldn't 2020 and Mekton come under Interlock anyway?

Good catch - Interlock is the correct name for CP 2020 and related systems. So, I see three distinct groups, each of which is a different system: Hero System (including Champions) Interlock (including Cyberpunk 2020, Mekton, and any similar games) Fuzion (including Bubblegum crisis, and a few games not on roll20 yet, like Shaintar, and if you're correct, the new Cyberpunk Red)