Justice League Assemble!
Please note: the current West End version of DC Heroes is not
something I've seen. This is not a review of it; rather, it is a review
of the older white-covered softback DC Heroes by Mayfair Games.
There is something about superhero games which both attracts and
repels people. There's the promise of having a great game worthy of
telling your (gamer) friends about for years to come. Unfortunately,
it's balanced by the threat of twink-laden power gaming, especially when
the system lets you create someone like Planet-Thrower Man (old
Champions fans will remember the planet-chucker).
The hardest thing to do in a comic-book game is create the rules.
Comics action almost begs for a game that can stand up to it in
real-time, something tailored to the experience. Let's see whether DC
Heroes does this - and is thus worth the foil-coated paper it's printed
on - or whether it's just food for the Hunger Dogs.
If Superman died, what chance do we stand?
Mayfair Games published their third (and final) edition of the DC
Heroes Roleplaying Game in 1993. Hal Jordan was still Green Lantern (not
for long), Wally West was still struggling with his powers as the Flash,
and Superman just got his clock cleaned good by Doomsday. If nothing
else, it was a heck of a time to be a superhero.
I hardly need to say anything about the setting of DC Comics itself.
Either you like it or you don't. What I need to tell you about is how
well the book presents it - whether someone just reading the book can
understand the setting well enough to play in it. The rest of you, skip
to the next heading (unless I've got you enthralled).
Thirty-two pages are devoted to describing the DC universe. I include
the character descriptions (29 of them plus the Batman Who's Who
detailed writeup) because the universe is defined and was "discovered"
by those exact characters. None of it is throw-away material; even the
"postcard" on magic from Neil Gaiman is a very informative ten
sentences. The reader gets a quick look at many places, which the GM
will have to flesh out using imagination or comics. There is a quick
paragraph on relations with the law - always a good thing to see.
There's a lot of historical info - probably more than most GM's will
need, but I like that kind of thing - and the more recent time periods
seem to have suffered for it. Luckily, the DC universe keeps a pretty
close concordance with our own.
Of course, there is no substitute for actually reading the comics,
but few of us have the time. Here are a few compilations I would
suggest; none of these are necessary but many help. The history of the
DC universe is summed up in a few books: Crisis on Infinite Earths,
Legends, Zero Hour, and the recent DC 1 Million. Each is excellent,
though Crisis is very pricy. If you're interested in alternate settings,
try Watchmen, Frank Miller's original Dark Knight stuff, or Kingdom Come
(or heck, make your own universe). Superman: Peace on Earth is
essential for anyone who is playing Superman, whether GM or
player.
The "standard" DC Heroes campaign focused on a early Titans-level
game (that means Nightwing, Starfire, Changeling, Cyborg, Arsenal, etc.,
not titan as in super-high-powered), which is roughly equivalent to
Marvel's X-men.
Jonah Hex - one eye, but man could he shoot.
The system used in DC Heroes (now known for some obscure reason as
MEGS - Mayfair Exponential Gaming System perhaps?) has two sides to it.
One of them shines. One does not.
The shining side: this thing scales like a dream. Any superheroic
level you want will come out to a somewhat reasonable number. Even
Darkseid's massive Warp ability (the highest ranked ability in the game)
comes out to a 65. Superman's strength is a 25. The basic idea is that
everything is rated in AP's (Attribute Points, even if it's not an
attribute). Time, distance, weight, money (ick, see below), skills,
attributed, etc.. All rated in AP's. These AP's are exponentially
scaled, with each one being twice the level of the last one.
Want someone to lift one ton? Just check the chart in the back, look
up one ton on the Benchmark AP's table, and give your character a
strength of 6. Bet you didn't know Aquaman's four times as strong as
you.... He's got a Strength of 8. And you thought he just talked to
fish.
An exponential scale may seem clunky, but it works well in practice
and is somewhat in tune with "comics reality." All nine attributes
(divided into social, mental, and mystical) are done this way.
Superpowers have the nice facet that it's hard to "twink" them. Sure,
you could take a 26-AP Fire Blast (trust me, that's buff. That could
hurt Superman) as a starting character, but you might want to have
points left for something else... attributes, for example. As in any
game, the GM will have to watch for some things, but not much.
Combat is almost always important in a superhero game. DC Heroes does
admirably here. The system includes the always-important Hero Points
(Karma for MSH fans, Hero Points for players of Valence 592, Fate Chips
for Deadlands hombres, whatever you call 'em), rules for knockback and
haymakers, fast lookup tables to see how fast you run or how much you
lift, sweeps with telephone poles, Flash-style (or Nightcrawler-style)
multi-attacks, and most of the stuff you expect from comic book
combat.
The chart system is a bit crufty, but not too bad. Make a photocopy
of the Action Table and Result Table; you'll be glad you did. It makes
things much faster. Also, though the XP system requires one to read
through the book once ("Standard award? What the heck is a... oh, here
is on pg 133!"), it doesn't work badly. There is the usual "if you
try to kill someone, no points for you" stuff, which you expect in a
game with Heroes in the title.
The side that doesn't shine: while the system scales remarkably well
for Robin-level and above, Robin is still much higher-powered than your
average human. The average attribute is a 2; the best people in the
world will have an attribute from 5 to 11 (depending on the stat). It's
very, very chunky on the "normal human" level, which is a strike against
it in my book.
Even nastier are the Money rules. You essentially make a Wealth check
every time you buy something expensive enough, and have a 2% chance of
going flat broke each month regardless of your plans and wealth. The
Gadgetry rules tie into this in an equally horrible way; even a simple
spy camera becomes massively expensive. I suggest carefully throwing
away the parts of the money and gadgetry chapters that you don't like.
Omni-gadgets are awful nice - keep the concept around to help
Batman-type characters. But paying the Hero Point cost every time you
use up an Omni-gadget is murder on your character's advancement.
Last, I do have one small gripe about this system. There are no rules
for what Marvel calls a "Power Stunt." A power stunt is sort of pushing
the limits, using your power in a way that you haven't before and which
is entirely new. For instance, using your Superspeed to create a
damaging sonic boom. In the original Marvel Super-Heroes you just blow
100 Karma and k'bang, you get to use the Sonic Blast power once. Do it
nine more times and it's yours to keep. In Abberant you can stretch
yourself in similar ways, but you risk gaining "taint" (bad stuff). DC
doesn't have anything like this, and I really wish it did.
So, Brainiac-5.1, what did you think?
One strangely disappointing factor about this book is the relative
lack of comic-book art. All the major characters are illustrated, but
not much else. Nothing compared to Abberant, or even GURPS Supers. This
is the main reason the book gets a 3 on Style. Other than that, it looks
nice. The cover is great, the headers and sidebars really stand out, and
the boldfacing of items (which is important in their descriptions) is
thankfully perfectly consistent. Though there is no index, the book is
arranged well enough that with the table of contents one should be
fine.
The system, overall, shines well. It's hard to find a super-hero game
that can handle both Batman and Superman, and DC Heroes does it
admirably (though at the expense of leaving out the common (wo)man).
You'll need those photocopies of the Action and Result tables, but
otherwise it holds together very well. This, plus the good amount of
info packed into DC Universe Appendix gives the book its Substance
rating of 4.
In my opinion, it's a shame this thing is out of print. There are
better games available, but I felt this was an excellent fit of system
to genre and setting.
One final note: the MEGS system (hopefully with a revision or two)
does appear in the Blood of Heroes superhero RPG by Pulsar Games,
which I have not seen.
Meanwhile, the DC Universe license went to West End Games. They
publishes the current version of DC Heroes, which I also have not seen.
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