The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I went to Origins this weekend looking for a couple new games I had heard of. I really enjoy superheroic roleplaying and was looking to purchase a copy of Pinnacle's Brave New World. They didn't have it out yet, but I did get an Aberrant from White Wolf, and I got to hear about Champions 5th edition. Since so many people already reviewed this beauty called Aberrant, I'll tell you a different story. Walking down the aisles, I passed by a small booth where the word "Heroes" caught my eye. It was the Pulsar Games booth. I had heard of them online, they bought the rights to the old Dc system from Mayfair. I didn't pick up the Blood of Heroes book, because I had also heard that it was simply a reprinting of the old 3rd Edition Dc game, but I flipped through it and I wasn't too impressed. They also had another book called the Sidekick Sourcebook, which I picked up to look through as well.

The art didn't impress me either, but at the back of the book was a small insert for a game called "Bloodsuckers Live", and just after reading a couple lines, I had to get this book. The Bloodsuckers insert was part of the adventure included with Sidekick, something you pass out to your players, and it was funny. It describes an undead LARP (a BLURP) where you play a depressed vampire (or ghoulie) and have powers which include Soul Suck and Atomic Soul Suck (which are acted out by a wedgie or an atomic wedgie). Each character has Depression Points and the goal is to get rid of the depression points and be the least depressed bloodsucker by the end of the game. If you wanted to go in depth, they recommended clan names like "Slobberatu" and "Venture-Capitalists". What really got me was that this was just the insert.

The adventure that went with the insert runs like this: The heroes go to a gaming convention called ConCON. They find out that this guy who used to be the star of Space Trekkers the New Wave (a thinly-disguised Star Trek tv-show) had been killed. One of the "fan suspects" is the man who created a boardgame where you have to kill a starship captain (a thinly-disguised Cheapass Games game named "Space Captain Jimmy" instead of Kill Doctor Lucky). Following the trail leads the characters to suspect the star of another space show (a thinly-disguised Babylon 5). They discover through various clues that all fingers point to the Bloodsuckers Larp (a thinly-disguised Vampire LARP), where they have to fend off a bunch of rabid fans who are more than they seem. The characters can even enlist the help of Devilish Games (a thinly-disguised Chaosium) to help summon B'Luga the Whale God (a thinly-disguised Ctulhu) to help them out. Other trails lead to Sorcerers of the Shore (A thinly-disguised WOTC) and their game of fairy magic, Glamour (a thinly-disguised Magic). All in all, the adventure looks like it might be tough to pull off, but it's detailed, though a couple times there are paragraphs repeating themselves. Pulsar better get a better editor. The "sex-scene" style section that is read to the players when Morganna (A thinly-disguised Elvira) gets on stage is hilarious. There is even a thinly-disguised Blade in the game, who's a combo of a Klingon and a vampire (as a Star Trek fan, I found this funny). The picture of (who I can only suspect is) Morganna looks terrible, as does most of the art in this section. They even put the map for the game on one of the main reference pages. Terrible layout.

The characters included with the game, the Guardians, are playable and unique to each other but look somewhat weak, which is probably because they are made with a cheap amount of points. The pictures are passable here except for the Saint guy who has a face like a sphincter. The backgrounds are standard backgrounds, except they run "into" each other and work into a sort of sub-campaign. There is a thinly-disguised Tick character, an Impulse-look-alike, and what seems to be a Green Lantern (and Corps) called the "Runestone" in the book. They aren't bad, and are passable as "It could be this guy" and the stories behind them save the characters from actually BEING the characters who they are probably based off of. The history is a little bland and dull, and the book seems to be missing a couple of characters (Mr Magician is mentioned a lot but never seen). What makes these characters unique is a Subplots section for the GM's eyes only which talks about subplots devoted to each character and how to use them in a campaign if you gave them to your players. This is a new thing to the Dc (or should I say Blood of Heroes?) system, and it's a good idea. That and the "450 points" section telling how many points each character was made of so you can use them in your own games are useful. Pulsar should keep those in their game.

I have played the second edition Dc game, and it looks like a lot of new rules are added here, but I don't know the main rules well enough to even use them in my game. There is a large section on how to create your own powers, which is quite detailed, but again, I don't play the system, though all these new rules sections are well written. A lot of the art looks unfinished, as though it was sketched and not completely done. Some of the art looks really good, but most is bad, and it's all full page or quarter-page pictures, which doesnt interest me. There's even a 2-page spread of 2 pictures that are so unnecessary that Pulsar could have just left that section out and saved a tree. The layout looked a lot better than their older book, but that's not a hard task to accomplish. Maybe some sidebars and a smaller font would have helped this book and maybe cheapen the cost. For 15 bucks it would be worth it, not 20.

All in all, the adventure is amusing and the new powers and abilities and rules look useful to those of you who play the older system. The characters arent bad and I guess you could use them in your own games like the book says. If you want more rules for your Dc or Blood of Heroes game, this book is probably necessary. The art is terrible, dont get ti for the art. The back of the book says it is optimized for use with the Blood of Heroes game, but the guys at the booth said it works with the 3rd Edition Dc game fine. If I were Pulsar, I'd hire new artists and maybe a new way to layout the book and a new editor, but this has got to be an improvement from what I saw and heard about their original book.

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Sidekick Sourcebook
Author: Joshua Marquart Category: game Company/Publisher: Pulsar Games Line: Blood of Heroes Cost: $20.00 Page count: 185 ISBN: 0-9665280-1-8 Capsule Review by Robert Dalmont on 07/09/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Modern_day Comedy Vampire Live-action	I went to Origins this weekend looking for a couple new games I had heard of. I really enjoy superheroic roleplaying and was looking to purchase a copy of Pinnacle's Brave New World. They didn't have it out yet, but I did get an Aberrant from White Wolf, and I got to hear about Champions 5th edition. Since so many people already reviewed this beauty called Aberrant, I'll tell you a different story. Walking down the aisles, I passed by a small booth where the word "Heroes" caught my eye. It was the Pulsar Games booth. I had heard of them online, they bought the rights to the old Dc system from Mayfair. I didn't pick up the Blood of Heroes book, because I had also heard that it was simply a reprinting of the old 3rd Edition Dc game, but I flipped through it and I wasn't too impressed. They also had another book called the Sidekick Sourcebook, which I picked up to look through as well. The art didn't impress me either, but at the back of the book was a small insert for a game called "Bloodsuckers Live", and just after reading a couple lines, I had to get this book. The Bloodsuckers insert was part of the adventure included with Sidekick, something you pass out to your players, and it was funny. It describes an undead LARP (a BLURP) where you play a depressed vampire (or ghoulie) and have powers which include Soul Suck and Atomic Soul Suck (which are acted out by a wedgie or an atomic wedgie). Each character has Depression Points and the goal is to get rid of the depression points and be the least depressed bloodsucker by the end of the game. If you wanted to go in depth, they recommended clan names like "Slobberatu" and "Venture-Capitalists". What really got me was that this was just the insert. The adventure that went with the insert runs like this: The heroes go to a gaming convention called ConCON. They find out that this guy who used to be the star of Space Trekkers the New Wave (a thinly-disguised Star Trek tv-show) had been killed. One of the "fan suspects" is the man who created a boardgame where you have to kill a starship captain (a thinly-disguised Cheapass Games game named "Space Captain Jimmy" instead of Kill Doctor Lucky). Following the trail leads the characters to suspect the star of another space show (a thinly-disguised Babylon 5). They discover through various clues that all fingers point to the Bloodsuckers Larp (a thinly-disguised Vampire LARP), where they have to fend off a bunch of rabid fans who are more than they seem. The characters can even enlist the help of Devilish Games (a thinly-disguised Chaosium) to help summon B'Luga the Whale God (a thinly-disguised Ctulhu) to help them out. Other trails lead to Sorcerers of the Shore (A thinly-disguised WOTC) and their game of fairy magic, Glamour (a thinly-disguised Magic). All in all, the adventure looks like it might be tough to pull off, but it's detailed, though a couple times there are paragraphs repeating themselves. Pulsar better get a better editor. The "sex-scene" style section that is read to the players when Morganna (A thinly-disguised Elvira) gets on stage is hilarious. There is even a thinly-disguised Blade in the game, who's a combo of a Klingon and a vampire (as a Star Trek fan, I found this funny). The picture of (who I can only suspect is) Morganna looks terrible, as does most of the art in this section. They even put the map for the game on one of the main reference pages. Terrible layout. The characters included with the game, the Guardians, are playable and unique to each other but look somewhat weak, which is probably because they are made with a cheap amount of points. The pictures are passable here except for the Saint guy who has a face like a sphincter. The backgrounds are standard backgrounds, except they run "into" each other and work into a sort of sub-campaign. There is a thinly-disguised Tick character, an Impulse-look-alike, and what seems to be a Green Lantern (and Corps) called the "Runestone" in the book. They aren't bad, and are passable as "It could be this guy" and the stories behind them save the characters from actually BEING the characters who they are probably based off of. The history is a little bland and dull, and the book seems to be missing a couple of characters (Mr Magician is mentioned a lot but never seen). What makes these characters unique is a Subplots section for the GM's eyes only which talks about subplots devoted to each character and how to use them in a campaign if you gave them to your players. This is a new thing to the Dc (or should I say Blood of Heroes?) system, and it's a good idea. That and the "450 points" section telling how many points each character was made of so you can use them in your own games are useful. Pulsar should keep those in their game. I have played the second edition Dc game, and it looks like a lot of new rules are added here, but I don't know the main rules well enough to even use them in my game. There is a large section on how to create your own powers, which is quite detailed, but again, I don't play the system, though all these new rules sections are well written. A lot of the art looks unfinished, as though it was sketched and not completely done. Some of the art looks really good, but most is bad, and it's all full page or quarter-page pictures, which doesnt interest me. There's even a 2-page spread of 2 pictures that are so unnecessary that Pulsar could have just left that section out and saved a tree. The layout looked a lot better than their older book, but that's not a hard task to accomplish. Maybe some sidebars and a smaller font would have helped this book and maybe cheapen the cost. For 15 bucks it would be worth it, not 20. All in all, the adventure is amusing and the new powers and abilities and rules look useful to those of you who play the older system. The characters arent bad and I guess you could use them in your own games like the book says. If you want more rules for your Dc or Blood of Heroes game, this book is probably necessary. The art is terrible, dont get ti for the art. The back of the book says it is optimized for use with the Blood of Heroes game, but the guys at the booth said it works with the 3rd Edition Dc game fine. If I were Pulsar, I'd hire new artists and maybe a new way to layout the book and a new editor, but this has got to be an improvement from what I saw and heard about their original book. Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)