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I really wanted to like this game. I loved Star Wars and thought the d6 system had a lot of potential. I didn't care much for Hercules & Xena, but figured that was a rough first draft of the Legend system, so the DC game should really rock. Alas, it was not to be.

Let's start with the obvious. The cover is just awful, probably some of the worst comic art I've seen in a long time. Almost all of the interior art is vastly superior, being taken straight from the comics themselves.

Opening the book up, a quick checks shows, yes indeed, no index. When will they learn? The paper feels like comic newsprint. While this may be an attempt to duplicate the "feel" of comics, it had me constantly worried that the pages were going to tear out after too much use.

Next is a quick rundown of the rules. Unlike Star Wars' d6 system where you total the numbers on the dice, DCU counts successes and failures, much like White Wolf's Storyteller system. On a d6, a 1-2 is a failure, and a 4-6 is a success. One die rolled is always a wild die which works a bit differently. On the wild die, a 1 is a critical failure, a 2 a failure, 3-5 a success, and 6 a critical success. If the wild die rolls a 6, you count the success and roll the wild die again. The game comes with special dice, five regular and one wild. The regular dice have the superman emblem to show success and Darksied's face for failure.

Then we have the obligatory solo adventure. Does anyone use these? This one is a total waste of 13 pages. The idea of providing a sense of how the rules work is good, but only if it shows you the mechanics as you go. Based on the solo adventure, anytime you try something you need 4 or more successes to succeed, 3 or less and you fail. Not very helpful.

What to say about the art? The book has 1 3/4 inch margins on the outside margin within which are little medalions with small images from art elsewhere in the book. The regular art is mostly color an invariably quite large. There's several full page pictures and more often than not half page or more. Its pretty, but one has to wonder how much all that color added to the cost and whether the space could have been put to better use. More on that later.

So what about the rules? For anyone familiar with the d6 system, it starts out in familiar territory. The book sets five levels of power for characters, from 65 dice at level 1 to 85 dice at level 5. Seeing how Batman is supposed to be level 1 and Superman level 5, I found it hard to see how 20 dice made that much of a difference for this categories to mean anything.

The now mandatory advantages and disadvantages section follows, and then skills. The game uses six attributes: reflexes, coordination, physique, knowledge, perception, and presence, with the appropriate skills being based on each. Personally, I've never understood why so many games felt the need for what are essential two dexterity skills, or why strength and endurance are often bundled together, but maybe that's just me.

Then there's the powers. A decent enough selection to be sure. The book tries to avoid the trap that Mayfair's DC game ran into where you essentially had 5-6 energy blast type powers. Powers are broken into categories: physical, mental, transportation, protection, and manipulation. Manipulation in turn is divided into physical, elemental, force, and universe. I'm not quite sure what the point of dividing them up like this was as the power's type doesn't really have any effect on the game. Specialties and limitations are available if you don't want your hero to have all the abilites of a given power, or what's extra.

For example, if you want just an energy blast, you take the appropriate force manipulation power, limited to just the energy blast (which makes it cheaper). Or, if you want your energy blast to affect a big area, you take an enhancement that increases the cost.

Good enough in theory, but here things start to fall apart. First, there are almost no examples of how powers work. The worst are the manipulation powers which are designed to allow heroes to do a lot of different things, but only the most general guidelines are given. For example, we're told that 5D of elemental control allow syou to affect one aspect of the element, but no guidlines are given as to how much of the element the hero can affect, for how long, or in what way.

Another example. Green Lantern, one of the signature characters of the DC Universe. His power ring is defined as Energy Manipulation. That's it. Nothing on flight, life support, or anything else. So all that must fall within Energy Manipulation, right? Well, sort of. The power description says it allows the hero to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum. Nothing on making big green fists or creating giant cages. So we turn back to the power modifier section in the back of the book . . . and see that Energy Manipulation doesn't even have ANY modifiers listed. The only power for one of the main characters, and they give ZERO examples of how the power works.

Part of the frustration is that the sample difficulties and what examples there are are buried way back at the end of the book in what I guess passes for the GM section. This means you are constantly having to flip to one section to see what a power or skill can do, then flip to the back of the book to see what the appropriate modifiers are supposed to be. Incredibly annoying.

And how about source material? We get a quick tour of the DC universe and a timeline that will have long-time comic readers scratching their heads (let's face it, who can keep track of all the restarts and time shifts in DC these days?). We get stats for 16 heroes and 20 villains. That's it. The game also fails to at least provide benchmarks for attributes and power levels so you could have some idea of what other DC characters would look like under these rules.

Even worse, the way their stats are presented is basically as a long run-on paragraph making it all but impossible to figure how what they have and what they can do unless you write it out yourself. Strangely enough, five sample characters are provided on filled-out character sheets, but they aren't real DC characters and frankly are some of the lamest character's I've seen since Blood of Heroes came out.

Finally, there's a section on building gadgets, the eternal bane of Mayfair's DC game. Unfortunately, WEG doesn't seem to be doing any better. Basically, you write up the stats for the device, research it (1 roll), design it (2nd roll), and then build it (3rd roll). That's it. No point cost, nothing. Three rolls and you can build anything from a batarang to a Mother Box. Why anyone would be anything but a gadgeteer in this game I have no idea.

If this review seems overly harsh it may be because I had such high hopes for this product. WEG's Star Wars line was one of the uniformly superior gamelines on the market. Each book was well-written with sharp production values. Clearly, WEG's bankruptcy and layoffs have taken a serious toll on the company. This book needed a lot less art and a lot more information and examples.

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

DC Universe Roleplaying Game
Author: Fred Jandt, Nikola Vrtis Category: game Company/Publisher: West End Games/Yeti Line: DC Universe Roleplaying Game Cost: 28.95 Page count: 254 Capsule Review by Andrew Ross on 12/11/99. Genre tags: Superhero	I really wanted to like this game. I loved Star Wars and thought the d6 system had a lot of potential. I didn't care much for Hercules & Xena, but figured that was a rough first draft of the Legend system, so the DC game should really rock. Alas, it was not to be. Let's start with the obvious. The cover is just awful, probably some of the worst comic art I've seen in a long time. Almost all of the interior art is vastly superior, being taken straight from the comics themselves. Opening the book up, a quick checks shows, yes indeed, no index. When will they learn? The paper feels like comic newsprint. While this may be an attempt to duplicate the "feel" of comics, it had me constantly worried that the pages were going to tear out after too much use. Next is a quick rundown of the rules. Unlike Star Wars' d6 system where you total the numbers on the dice, DCU counts successes and failures, much like White Wolf's Storyteller system. On a d6, a 1-2 is a failure, and a 4-6 is a success. One die rolled is always a wild die which works a bit differently. On the wild die, a 1 is a critical failure, a 2 a failure, 3-5 a success, and 6 a critical success. If the wild die rolls a 6, you count the success and roll the wild die again. The game comes with special dice, five regular and one wild. The regular dice have the superman emblem to show success and Darksied's face for failure. Then we have the obligatory solo adventure. Does anyone use these? This one is a total waste of 13 pages. The idea of providing a sense of how the rules work is good, but only if it shows you the mechanics as you go. Based on the solo adventure, anytime you try something you need 4 or more successes to succeed, 3 or less and you fail. Not very helpful. What to say about the art? The book has 1 3/4 inch margins on the outside margin within which are little medalions with small images from art elsewhere in the book. The regular art is mostly color an invariably quite large. There's several full page pictures and more often than not half page or more. Its pretty, but one has to wonder how much all that color added to the cost and whether the space could have been put to better use. More on that later. So what about the rules? For anyone familiar with the d6 system, it starts out in familiar territory. The book sets five levels of power for characters, from 65 dice at level 1 to 85 dice at level 5. Seeing how Batman is supposed to be level 1 and Superman level 5, I found it hard to see how 20 dice made that much of a difference for this categories to mean anything. The now mandatory advantages and disadvantages section follows, and then skills. The game uses six attributes: reflexes, coordination, physique, knowledge, perception, and presence, with the appropriate skills being based on each. Personally, I've never understood why so many games felt the need for what are essential two dexterity skills, or why strength and endurance are often bundled together, but maybe that's just me. Then there's the powers. A decent enough selection to be sure. The book tries to avoid the trap that Mayfair's DC game ran into where you essentially had 5-6 energy blast type powers. Powers are broken into categories: physical, mental, transportation, protection, and manipulation. Manipulation in turn is divided into physical, elemental, force, and universe. I'm not quite sure what the point of dividing them up like this was as the power's type doesn't really have any effect on the game. Specialties and limitations are available if you don't want your hero to have all the abilites of a given power, or what's extra. For example, if you want just an energy blast, you take the appropriate force manipulation power, limited to just the energy blast (which makes it cheaper). Or, if you want your energy blast to affect a big area, you take an enhancement that increases the cost. Good enough in theory, but here things start to fall apart. First, there are almost no examples of how powers work. The worst are the manipulation powers which are designed to allow heroes to do a lot of different things, but only the most general guidelines are given. For example, we're told that 5D of elemental control allow syou to affect one aspect of the element, but no guidlines are given as to how much of the element the hero can affect, for how long, or in what way. Another example. Green Lantern, one of the signature characters of the DC Universe. His power ring is defined as Energy Manipulation. That's it. Nothing on flight, life support, or anything else. So all that must fall within Energy Manipulation, right? Well, sort of. The power description says it allows the hero to manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum. Nothing on making big green fists or creating giant cages. So we turn back to the power modifier section in the back of the book . . . and see that Energy Manipulation doesn't even have ANY modifiers listed. The only power for one of the main characters, and they give ZERO examples of how the power works. Part of the frustration is that the sample difficulties and what examples there are are buried way back at the end of the book in what I guess passes for the GM section. This means you are constantly having to flip to one section to see what a power or skill can do, then flip to the back of the book to see what the appropriate modifiers are supposed to be. Incredibly annoying. And how about source material? We get a quick tour of the DC universe and a timeline that will have long-time comic readers scratching their heads (let's face it, who can keep track of all the restarts and time shifts in DC these days?). We get stats for 16 heroes and 20 villains. That's it. The game also fails to at least provide benchmarks for attributes and power levels so you could have some idea of what other DC characters would look like under these rules. Even worse, the way their stats are presented is basically as a long run-on paragraph making it all but impossible to figure how what they have and what they can do unless you write it out yourself. Strangely enough, five sample characters are provided on filled-out character sheets, but they aren't real DC characters and frankly are some of the lamest character's I've seen since Blood of Heroes came out. Finally, there's a section on building gadgets, the eternal bane of Mayfair's DC game. Unfortunately, WEG doesn't seem to be doing any better. Basically, you write up the stats for the device, research it (1 roll), design it (2nd roll), and then build it (3rd roll). That's it. No point cost, nothing. Three rolls and you can build anything from a batarang to a Mother Box. Why anyone would be anything but a gadgeteer in this game I have no idea. If this review seems overly harsh it may be because I had such high hopes for this product. WEG's Star Wars line was one of the uniformly superior gamelines on the market. Each book was well-written with sharp production values. Clearly, WEG's bankruptcy and layoffs have taken a serious toll on the company. This book needed a lot less art and a lot more information and examples. Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 2 (Sparse)

DC Universe Roleplaying Game