Seriously?

I got invited to a game recently.  I'm not sure about it, but I"m pretty certain that the game isn't for me.  It's a superheroes game, which isn't a genre I have a problem with, but the guy wants to play Fifth Edition Hero System.  Further, he asked everyone what their favorite type of character to make is:  Brick, Martial Artist, Energy Projector, Psychic, or Speedster?  The last bit, was that we've been told nothing about the setting or game, though after repeated pleadings, found out that we'll be "saving the world" because we're "nice guys" and that there have apparently been superheroes since WWII, and giant monsters have attacked Japan, but that hasn't changed the world notably.  Oh, and since being invited, the game has changed from being a couple of times a month to weekly.

I know there are people out there who think that sounds fun.  Hell, I know there was a point in my life when I was one of them.  I guess I've just changed.  But, at this point in my life, that game sounds miserable.  Let me unpack the reasons why:


Firstly, let me begin with Hero System Fifth Edition.  The version I have is 370 pages long, and at least 300 pages of it is rules.  There was a point in my life when reading gaming rules as long as my undergraduate Criminal Justice textbook would have sounded like a good time.  Not anymore.  The guy running the game has been running it for a decade or two, so he knows it, but most of his players won't, and the system itself is very old school.  You have to do math to make attack rolls.  I'm not particularly adverse to math in principle, but gaming systems have evolved since I was in college, and this one is seriously showing it's age.  I also foresee difficulties when people are trying to figure out what to do and want to look up how something works in the book, because there's only one copy, and you can't find them easily because it's been out of print since sixth ed came out.

Secondly, my tastes in gaming clearly run very different than this guy, as evinced by his question.  I find characters interesting based on what they want, what they're willing to sacrifice to get it, and why they do things.  None of those matter when selecting "Brick, Martial Artist, Speedster, etc."  His sense of what a character is hovers entirely around what the characters can do.  My sense of what a character is hovers entirely around what they're like.  The only place on a character sheet where the characters personality comes in is in the disadvantages.  He's capped disadvantages in a bunch of ways.  So, I'm thinking that this isn't a game for me.

My last few concerns require a little unpacking:  I care about setting and world, and I need to be able to believe in the world to some extent.  I can buy into a world where superheroes fought in WWII.  I can't buy into a world where superheroes fought in WWII and society developed exactly as it did in ours.  I don't need huge changes, but Eisenhower could have been a superhero, or giant monsters smashing Japan repeatedly might have prevented it from being a dominant economic force in the 80's and 90's.  Is there a government program trying to turn superheroes into weapons, because that's a little different than what's going on in society right now. 

Anyone interested in a game that discusses these changes should check out Wild Talents by Arc Dream Publishing.  Hell, anyone interested in a superhero game should check out Wild Talents by Arc Dream Publishing.  It manages to do everything Herosystem does in less pages, with a better, more modern system. 

Also, for scheduling, I can't imagine setting up a recurring commitment every Sunday that expects to be kept.  My life needs too much flexibility, and Sunday is often a day when we do chores in the house.  But, also, when I have deadlines for cases, that ties up my schedule and weekends.  I know that, when I was a kid, I made plans like that, but modernly, that's just not realistic.

But, it was nice to be invited, I guess.