ive been wanting to build my own fire emblem homebrew for awhile (i have lots of feelings abt the potential for dragons and gender in FE) so i am absolutely delighted to find other people's takes on it :DDD
Heroes Of Lite is a Fire Emblem fan TTRPG. Possibly even THE Fire Emblem TTRPG. It's good.
The PDF is 72 pages, cleanly organized, with a lot of custom art. It's easy to read, there are tables and icons, and the overall vibe is consistent from page to page. The art varies a little in style, but it's all super charming.
Contents-wise, Heroes Of Lite runs on recognizable d20 mechanics, but this is a fully fleshed Fire Emblem conversion. It says it's simplified, but it still has you doing formulas, so not a lot of fidelity is lost. In fact, if you're specifically a fan of FE's mechanics, you're going to have an exceptional time here. If you just like strategy TTRPGs, there's still plenty of meat to dig into.
In terms of the Fire Emblems that Lite covers, it's a pretty wide range. You get ranged daggers from the later games. Beast transformations from the Radiances. Super moves, barriers, and breakbars from the gatcha title. And the weapon triangle + movement types that the series as a whole is known for.
Character creation in Lite is crunchy and detailed. It never feels like it devolves into excess minutia, but you definitely do math. Outside of the math, though, your choices are meaningful. Picking a movement type fundamentally changes how you experience battle maps. The game's Skill lists are wide and deep.
Progression in Lite is also satisfying. Levels are milestone, with combats and and quests both awarding them, and this means you get a pretty steady flow of stat points to allocate. You also get a new Skill every few levels, and new equipment at a modest pace. There's even customization paths for weapons. It's neat.
Some things that aren't modeled by Lite include class changes, weapon degradation, and Thracia/Genealogy's baffling abduction system. Triangle advantages exist, but are limited in strength. Supports exist, and you can swap out which one you're receiving a bonus from between maps. Characters are KO'd instead of killed by default, and can be resurrected with an action, forcing enemies to be a little more relentless or maps to use win timers to get a squad wipe. Lite also has a very rules-light out of combat mode that gives the characters and story a little more space to breathe, plus an optional dice manipulation system called Divine Dice that's one of the more inventive ways I've seen of letting players adjust dice.
For GMs, there's a full GM section and bestiary, with everything from advice on how to tell a Fire Emblem story to specific directions on customizing assets for your campaign. There isn't a sample adventure or sample maps, which might be a barrier to play, but if you've got a GM that already likes strategic map design, you're in good hands.
Overall, this is an incredible project. As a fan game, it's definitely among the best. And if you have zero familiarity with Fire Emblem but want to play something tactical, you'll still have tons of fun. It does take some work from the GM to set up, but a GM who's already used to 5e or FE will find Lite extremely easy to learn. There should be way more eyes on this game. I strongly recommend it.
Minor Issues:
-Page 22, "Each unit may Moving and Act" Move
-page 22, "which may be effected by Terrain" affected
-page 30, "replace the results of any roll--player of GM" maybe a semicolon here, I had to read it several times to understand it was an em dash.
You are too kind! Thank you for your thoughtful review of HoL, and we are so glad that you are seemingly enjoying playing it. These are the sorts of comments that make it all feel worth the effort we've put in. Both of us are Fire Emblem mega-fans, and this game is a bit of a love letter to the series; it's delightful to see someone be able to point out all of the little places we've drawn inspiration from.
Thank you as well for drawing our attention to the typos, we're making note of those so that we can make sure they're fixed for the final release (and we are in the process of hiring an editor to catch any others). If you ever have any other feedback or notice any other issues, please feel free to submit it through our feedback form, too. We check it weekly.
We hope you have a lot of fun with Heroes of Lite!
I don't know itch.io well so I have no idea if people other than the creators can see what I wrote in my review! So I'm writing a comment too!
Hey everyone! HoL is a great system and the people who made it are really swag and cool! There isn't much number crunching and it's easy to GM for! Hella!
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omg so excited to try it!!
ive been wanting to build my own fire emblem homebrew for awhile (i have lots of feelings abt the potential for dragons and gender in FE) so i am absolutely delighted to find other people's takes on it :DDD
Heroes Of Lite is a Fire Emblem fan TTRPG. Possibly even THE Fire Emblem TTRPG. It's good.
The PDF is 72 pages, cleanly organized, with a lot of custom art. It's easy to read, there are tables and icons, and the overall vibe is consistent from page to page. The art varies a little in style, but it's all super charming.
Contents-wise, Heroes Of Lite runs on recognizable d20 mechanics, but this is a fully fleshed Fire Emblem conversion. It says it's simplified, but it still has you doing formulas, so not a lot of fidelity is lost. In fact, if you're specifically a fan of FE's mechanics, you're going to have an exceptional time here. If you just like strategy TTRPGs, there's still plenty of meat to dig into.
In terms of the Fire Emblems that Lite covers, it's a pretty wide range. You get ranged daggers from the later games. Beast transformations from the Radiances. Super moves, barriers, and breakbars from the gatcha title. And the weapon triangle + movement types that the series as a whole is known for.
Character creation in Lite is crunchy and detailed. It never feels like it devolves into excess minutia, but you definitely do math. Outside of the math, though, your choices are meaningful. Picking a movement type fundamentally changes how you experience battle maps. The game's Skill lists are wide and deep.
Progression in Lite is also satisfying. Levels are milestone, with combats and and quests both awarding them, and this means you get a pretty steady flow of stat points to allocate. You also get a new Skill every few levels, and new equipment at a modest pace. There's even customization paths for weapons. It's neat.
Some things that aren't modeled by Lite include class changes, weapon degradation, and Thracia/Genealogy's baffling abduction system. Triangle advantages exist, but are limited in strength. Supports exist, and you can swap out which one you're receiving a bonus from between maps. Characters are KO'd instead of killed by default, and can be resurrected with an action, forcing enemies to be a little more relentless or maps to use win timers to get a squad wipe. Lite also has a very rules-light out of combat mode that gives the characters and story a little more space to breathe, plus an optional dice manipulation system called Divine Dice that's one of the more inventive ways I've seen of letting players adjust dice.
For GMs, there's a full GM section and bestiary, with everything from advice on how to tell a Fire Emblem story to specific directions on customizing assets for your campaign. There isn't a sample adventure or sample maps, which might be a barrier to play, but if you've got a GM that already likes strategic map design, you're in good hands.
Overall, this is an incredible project. As a fan game, it's definitely among the best. And if you have zero familiarity with Fire Emblem but want to play something tactical, you'll still have tons of fun. It does take some work from the GM to set up, but a GM who's already used to 5e or FE will find Lite extremely easy to learn. There should be way more eyes on this game. I strongly recommend it.
Minor Issues:
-Page 22, "Each unit may Moving and Act" Move
-page 22, "which may be effected by Terrain" affected
-page 30, "replace the results of any roll--player of GM" maybe a semicolon here, I had to read it several times to understand it was an em dash.
You are too kind! Thank you for your thoughtful review of HoL, and we are so glad that you are seemingly enjoying playing it. These are the sorts of comments that make it all feel worth the effort we've put in. Both of us are Fire Emblem mega-fans, and this game is a bit of a love letter to the series; it's delightful to see someone be able to point out all of the little places we've drawn inspiration from.
Thank you as well for drawing our attention to the typos, we're making note of those so that we can make sure they're fixed for the final release (and we are in the process of hiring an editor to catch any others). If you ever have any other feedback or notice any other issues, please feel free to submit it through our feedback form, too. We check it weekly.
We hope you have a lot of fun with Heroes of Lite!
It's a great game! Thank you for making it!
I don't know itch.io well so I have no idea if people other than the creators can see what I wrote in my review! So I'm writing a comment too!
Hey everyone! HoL is a great system and the people who made it are really swag and cool! There isn't much number crunching and it's easy to GM for! Hella!