The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Once upon a time, a little comic book company named Image was born from the creatively frustrated staffers of the Big Two. Discerning superhero gamers generally chose Champions or DC Heroes. It was a time of new growth and a creative spirit. Heroes & Heroines is a creation of that time, something that could possibly only have come about in the wild frontier days of the new superhero world.

This is not a good game. It is not even a very competently produced game. But it was my superhero game of choice during college.

HEROES AND HEROINES Capsule Review

I. The book

The cover is durable, color. The cover art is by James E. Freel III, the author of the game. It's pretty bad. The interior art is of the quality produced by comic book fans during Algebra; it is also by James E. Freel III.

II. Chapter Summary

The Chapters are not numered. The table of contents is really more like a bad index than a table of contents. So I've decided not to include a Chapter Summary.

III. Game Overview

"True, it's better than Hero System, but is it better than no system at all?" mused one of my friends in those days.

This is a rules-lite, setting-lite game. -- Two factors that made it extremely attractive to me. I had been a Hero System player for some time, becoming jaded with the excessive amounts of math required and the quest for Disadvantage points. And what was the use of so much complexity when characters with a high SPEED drown faster but have no more velocity than the average person? Then there was DC Heroes, another classic. But it had been long out of print, and I had grown frustrated with the quirks of its exponential AP system. Players could be difficult to find, too. Marvel Super-Heroes was just Feeble (1). What I really wanted was a game in which I could sit my players down, have them invent superheroes, and be playing a game an hour and a half later. I wanted clarity, but not too much math. But Silver Age Sentinels had not yet been invented. I despaired.

I found Heroes & Heroines on the shelf while browing. It had one sourcebook, The Maxx. The Maxx was a bizarre, unique, probably genius sort-of-superhero comic book published by Image. Heroes & Heroines's selling point was this: a generic superhero game, with licensed sourcebooks. That was a cool idea. Even better, I thumbed through it and noticed, instead of Strength, it had Bench Press Weight, and most Powers were described in very simple terms, like "Flame Project: 12 2d8 damage, range 500 feet" or "Telekinesis: one ton." Forget Hero's Power Modifier's; here was a return to the DCH concept that if you wanted control over flames, you bought Flame Control. The Powers were modular, meaning you could build each Power buffet style. There were no Skill rules; instead, a few select skills appeared as Powers. I liked that concept; heroes were, and were only, a few statistics and some Powers. Leave the rest to the narrative!

So I bought it. I read through it, and we played it. It worked just fine for my purpses. It had a certain retro appeal in its polyhedral dice (sometimes mixing types, like 1d8 1d10 for certain combinations of abilities). Light-projecting super-heroes, desolidifying super-assassins, telepathic humanoid ninja rats, powered armor warriors all came to life. Eventually, my players began to pick up on a dirty little secret. What they were enjoying was my game, not THE game. The rules sucked! Let's talk about those rules, shall we?

First, character creation. The Motivation section seems to have been paraphrased from DC Heroes the way a student writes a report from the World Book Encyclopedia. Creation is mainly point-based. But you also get the thrill of rolling up a character. For instance, your IQ is 90 1d20. In the likely event you aren't happy with your attributes (which are basically average), you can raise them by spending points. Not Hero Points, Character Points, or any other kind of points, just, "points." You get around 500-700 points. The attributes are Bench Press Weight, IQ, Reflexes, Agility, and Stamina. Bench Press Weight seemed like a cute idea, but it turns out, it's not just the amount you can bench, but a general strength attribute, so they (James E. Freel III) should probably have called is simply "Strength." As it is, it gets abbreviated BPW throughout the book. Besides determing your ability to bench press, it gives you a melee damage bonus and some hit points. IQ is an IQ score. Mainly it gives you Mental Hit Points and represents your character's IQ score. For instance, "My character has an IQ of 140." It has little effect on game play. Reflexes is your reaction speed, Agility is gross movement. In practice, your Reflexes gives you more Defense Rating and somewhat less Attack Rating, while Agility was the opposite; together, they generate your Initiative bonus. Stamina modifies your Hit Points and determines your Heal Factor Modifier; it also limits the number of times you may use a particular Power. The game never defines average for Agility, Reflexes, and Stamina, although heroes start with 9 1d6, and Olympic athletes are between 30 and 40 or so, apparently.

There are two ways in which male characters differ from female character. First, a male Hero's BWP starts at 200 lbs, while a female starts at 100 lbs. To go from 100 lbs to 200 lbs cost zero points. Second, females start with only 13 hit points to a male's 15. I'm not sure what happens with robots.

Then you get Powers. There are two damage charts for Powers, one for slow progression and one for fast; the first is used for additive Powers, like Energy Punch (which added to your punch damage), the second for direct attacks, like Energy Attack (an energy blast attack). Range is similar, with the fast progression chart mainly being used for sensory Powers.

Martial Arts is a good sample Power. A character has a natural base Attack Rating and Defense Rating of 1; Martial Arts allows you to raise these for 5 points per 1. You can also learn to roll with physical blows; basically, this is specialized Invulnerability at 2 points per 1 hp absorbed. You can also spend 25 points per extra Martial Art attack ("punches, Kicks, weapons, etc."). Finally, it notes, "Some martial art techniques allow the Hero to inflict more damage with his attacks than normal." You can buy additive damage, from the "Power Attack Chart 2." Martial Arts has a base Point Cost of 5 which must be paid first.

Boxing and Wrestling are simpler Powers; they simply provide higher AR and DR you can substitute for your own, rather than the open-ended Martial Arts ability. Their cost is the Base Cost.

Energy Attack is the ability to shoot rays of energy, "Whether it be Radiation, nuclear power, or some other energy form that is not already covered in the current list of powers." It has a cost of 10 Base, uses Range Chart 2 (like most attack Powers) and Power Attack Chart 1 (likewise). You must choose from whence the attack originates, or pay 8 points for any part of your body. For 20 points, you can use Energy Attack as a sort of shield, if you have the Initiative and use your action. It has an Attack Rating of 6.

Those are some basic Powers. Now let's make some comparisons. Firstly, there is no reason to be an invisible Wrestler, since Wrestling provides AR 2 and DR 3, while Invisibility provides AR 4 and DR 5.

Martial Arts attacks are 25 points each, and must be hand to hand. Super Speed allows multiple attacks against one opponent for 45 points. The power of Training (in your Powers) also offers the same benefit as Super Speed, but for 50 points apiece, with the ability to affect multiple opponents at -1 AR per opponent. Not so badly balanced.

Given the nature of the Power Attack Chart (costs increase as you head up the chart), it need hardly be mentiond that combining Energy Punch with Natural Weaponry is more efficient than either alone. Body Weaponry, incidentally, provides an AR of "2 (See below)" and does not mention anything in the description about Attack Rating. Energy Punch, incidentally, has an AR of 1. I don't know what happens if you combine Energy Punch, Body Weaponry, and Martial Arts.

Some attack powers are better than others. Magic Blast has the same cost, damge, and range as Energy Attack and Lightning, but has an AR of only 4. Why? Because. Possibly because for 30 points extra, it can ignore armor, but I can't say. Ice Blast and Fire Blast both use Power Attack Chart 2 (the slow one), making them far less efficient. True, with Fire Blast you can buy an exposive area, and for 30 points extra, the damage of Ice Blast can coat an opponent with ice, but... assuming you don't buy either, you start with a lower AR, and do less damage for the same points with your attacks than Energy Attack. Why? Because James E. Freel III hates you.

Some Powers have a strange structure. Training, for instance, allows you to a) increase the AR or DR of a Power for 12 points per 1 (rarely an efficient use of points, in case you were wondering), b) buy Mental Hit Points at 4 points per, c) "Other forms of training may be created by the HM and the player to meet the needs of the character and HM", and d) extra attacks at 50 points each. Others are actually similar but unrelated Powers, like Dimension Travel, that has three subsections, Teleport, Dimensional, and Alternate Time Lines. I suppose I might as well mention there is also a completely separate Teleportation Power. Vampirism is another; there are two subsections, Classic, and Energy. The first also gives you traditional vampiric weaknesses, although you can spend 10 points per weakness to get rid of them. The second makes you an Energy Vampire, who does not create other vampires and suffers only from the weakness of needing energy, which can be removed for 30 points.

That's Powers, mostly.

That brings us to Weaknesss. There are suggestions, although Weaknesses give you no points. As the author puts it, "This would only creat Heroes with too many weaknesses, due to the players greed and desire for more power." Vampires, of course, get no breaks.

Combat is mercifully straightforward. Compare AR to DR on a chart, roll d20. Damage is likewise; roll damage, subtract Invulnerability.

Experience has an innovative concept; your advancement is tied to your base points, and you do have a Level, that starts at 0. For instance, a 3000 point Superman levels slower than a 500 point Robin, the Boy Wonder. For every 4 levels, you can raise one Power AR or DR, or your natural ones, by 1. You also get 1/100 your points in additional points, negating any benefits you might have imagined from what I said about the innovative concept. The experience points you get at the end of the adventure are the total of the bad guys' points, divided by four. Okay, there are worse systems.

The editing is awful. Besides the author's choppy way of speaking, there are glaring errors, like the fact that the sample scenario's villain appears as Domain and Dominion in different parts of the text.

There is no "game world," although there is some genre advice:

"The history of a character can help develop the personality of the Hero and may help determine what powers the character should have. He could be a mutant for example, born with special abilities, or an alien from a distant solar systm whose planets' gravity differs from our earth, thus granting him remarkable powers, etc."

There are also some crappy sample characters in the sample adventure, like the Paladin (who has "Special Power: The Paladin is able to increase his Bench Press Weight through faith up to 80 tons"), Alex (a psychic martial artist), and Tina (his sister, who can animate objects and with whom he has a psychic bond). I can see the comic book now, The Adventures of Alex, Tina, and the Paladin.

There is an Animals section that has stats for the Bear (Brown), Cat (Domestic), Cheetah, Conra, Crocodile (American), Dog (Hound), Eagle, Elephant (African), Gorilla, Horse (Draft), Lion, Scorpion, Tiger, Dolphin, Shark (White), Squid (Giant), Whale (Blue), and Whale (Killer). There are stats for Mythical Beings: the Cyclops (Bench Press Weight: 2800 lbs.), Dragon, and the Genie (Jinni).

And in case you were wondering, a "Small Balistic Missile" has a Damage of 10 4d10 and a Range of 60 miles. A Lance does 6 1d12, while a Club does BPWD 1d8. That's right; BPWD stands for "Bench Press Weight Damage."

There is a Durability Chart, giving the Damage Points (like Hit Points, only not) and Invulnerability scores of Adamantium, Steel, Plastic, Motorcycle, etc.

IV. Conclusion

Yes, it's true. You can use a to-hit chart and some damage and Invulnerability ratings to run a superhero game with little in the way of actual rules.

V. Epilogue

Well, I've forgiven Hero System to an extent, and have been playing it again. Blood of Heroes brought DC Heroes third edition, for all practical purposes, back in print, and I've had an easier time pushing funky game systems onto my players the past few years. Those two classics are now joined by Silver Age Sentinels on my "best of superheroes" list. It is certainly everything I yearned for in my days of despairing over Champions. The PMV chart has some echoes of Power Range Chart 2. And character creation is a snap.

Sometimes, it's good to look back, and take stock of where you've been. It's also nice to reflect, from to time, "It's not the game system, it's the GM." Don't ever underestimate the power of an imagination, a few pieces of paper, and some funky dice.

Heroes & Heroines
Heroes & Heroines Playtest Review by Robert J. Grady on 29/07/02 Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 2 (Sparse) A relic of another era in superheroic gaming. Product: Heroes & Heroines Author: James E. Freel III Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Excel Marketing Line: Cost: $19.95 Page count: 118 Year published: ISBN: SKU: EXL 3003 Comp copy?: no Playtest Review by Robert J. Grady on 29/07/02 Genre tags: Modern day Superhero	Once upon a time, a little comic book company named Image was born from the creatively frustrated staffers of the Big Two. Discerning superhero gamers generally chose Champions or DC Heroes. It was a time of new growth and a creative spirit. Heroes & Heroines is a creation of that time, something that could possibly only have come about in the wild frontier days of the new superhero world. This is not a good game. It is not even a very competently produced game. But it was my superhero game of choice during college. HEROES AND HEROINES Capsule Review I. The book The cover is durable, color. The cover art is by James E. Freel III, the author of the game. It's pretty bad. The interior art is of the quality produced by comic book fans during Algebra; it is also by James E. Freel III. II. Chapter Summary The Chapters are not numered. The table of contents is really more like a bad index than a table of contents. So I've decided not to include a Chapter Summary. III. Game Overview "True, it's better than Hero System, but is it better than no system at all?" mused one of my friends in those days. This is a rules-lite, setting-lite game. -- Two factors that made it extremely attractive to me. I had been a Hero System player for some time, becoming jaded with the excessive amounts of math required and the quest for Disadvantage points. And what was the use of so much complexity when characters with a high SPEED drown faster but have no more velocity than the average person? Then there was DC Heroes, another classic. But it had been long out of print, and I had grown frustrated with the quirks of its exponential AP system. Players could be difficult to find, too. Marvel Super-Heroes was just Feeble (1). What I really wanted was a game in which I could sit my players down, have them invent superheroes, and be playing a game an hour and a half later. I wanted clarity, but not too much math. But Silver Age Sentinels had not yet been invented. I despaired. I found Heroes & Heroines on the shelf while browing. It had one sourcebook, The Maxx. The Maxx was a bizarre, unique, probably genius sort-of-superhero comic book published by Image. Heroes & Heroines's selling point was this: a generic superhero game, with licensed sourcebooks. That was a cool idea. Even better, I thumbed through it and noticed, instead of Strength, it had Bench Press Weight, and most Powers were described in very simple terms, like "Flame Project: 12 2d8 damage, range 500 feet" or "Telekinesis: one ton." Forget Hero's Power Modifier's; here was a return to the DCH concept that if you wanted control over flames, you bought Flame Control. The Powers were modular, meaning you could build each Power buffet style. There were no Skill rules; instead, a few select skills appeared as Powers. I liked that concept; heroes were, and were only, a few statistics and some Powers. Leave the rest to the narrative! So I bought it. I read through it, and we played it. It worked just fine for my purpses. It had a certain retro appeal in its polyhedral dice (sometimes mixing types, like 1d8 1d10 for certain combinations of abilities). Light-projecting super-heroes, desolidifying super-assassins, telepathic humanoid ninja rats, powered armor warriors all came to life. Eventually, my players began to pick up on a dirty little secret. What they were enjoying was my game, not THE game. The rules sucked! Let's talk about those rules, shall we? First, character creation. The Motivation section seems to have been paraphrased from DC Heroes the way a student writes a report from the World Book Encyclopedia. Creation is mainly point-based. But you also get the thrill of rolling up a character. For instance, your IQ is 90 1d20. In the likely event you aren't happy with your attributes (which are basically average), you can raise them by spending points. Not Hero Points, Character Points, or any other kind of points, just, "points." You get around 500-700 points. The attributes are Bench Press Weight, IQ, Reflexes, Agility, and Stamina. Bench Press Weight seemed like a cute idea, but it turns out, it's not just the amount you can bench, but a general strength attribute, so they (James E. Freel III) should probably have called is simply "Strength." As it is, it gets abbreviated BPW throughout the book. Besides determing your ability to bench press, it gives you a melee damage bonus and some hit points. IQ is an IQ score. Mainly it gives you Mental Hit Points and represents your character's IQ score. For instance, "My character has an IQ of 140." It has little effect on game play. Reflexes is your reaction speed, Agility is gross movement. In practice, your Reflexes gives you more Defense Rating and somewhat less Attack Rating, while Agility was the opposite; together, they generate your Initiative bonus. Stamina modifies your Hit Points and determines your Heal Factor Modifier; it also limits the number of times you may use a particular Power. The game never defines average for Agility, Reflexes, and Stamina, although heroes start with 9 1d6, and Olympic athletes are between 30 and 40 or so, apparently. There are two ways in which male characters differ from female character. First, a male Hero's BWP starts at 200 lbs, while a female starts at 100 lbs. To go from 100 lbs to 200 lbs cost zero points. Second, females start with only 13 hit points to a male's 15. I'm not sure what happens with robots. Then you get Powers. There are two damage charts for Powers, one for slow progression and one for fast; the first is used for additive Powers, like Energy Punch (which added to your punch damage), the second for direct attacks, like Energy Attack (an energy blast attack). Range is similar, with the fast progression chart mainly being used for sensory Powers. Martial Arts is a good sample Power. A character has a natural base Attack Rating and Defense Rating of 1; Martial Arts allows you to raise these for 5 points per 1. You can also learn to roll with physical blows; basically, this is specialized Invulnerability at 2 points per 1 hp absorbed. You can also spend 25 points per extra Martial Art attack ("punches, Kicks, weapons, etc."). Finally, it notes, "Some martial art techniques allow the Hero to inflict more damage with his attacks than normal." You can buy additive damage, from the "Power Attack Chart 2." Martial Arts has a base Point Cost of 5 which must be paid first. Boxing and Wrestling are simpler Powers; they simply provide higher AR and DR you can substitute for your own, rather than the open-ended Martial Arts ability. Their cost is the Base Cost. Energy Attack is the ability to shoot rays of energy, "Whether it be Radiation, nuclear power, or some other energy form that is not already covered in the current list of powers." It has a cost of 10 Base, uses Range Chart 2 (like most attack Powers) and Power Attack Chart 1 (likewise). You must choose from whence the attack originates, or pay 8 points for any part of your body. For 20 points, you can use Energy Attack as a sort of shield, if you have the Initiative and use your action. It has an Attack Rating of 6. Those are some basic Powers. Now let's make some comparisons. Firstly, there is no reason to be an invisible Wrestler, since Wrestling provides AR 2 and DR 3, while Invisibility provides AR 4 and DR 5. Martial Arts attacks are 25 points each, and must be hand to hand. Super Speed allows multiple attacks against one opponent for 45 points. The power of Training (in your Powers) also offers the same benefit as Super Speed, but for 50 points apiece, with the ability to affect multiple opponents at -1 AR per opponent. Not so badly balanced. Given the nature of the Power Attack Chart (costs increase as you head up the chart), it need hardly be mentiond that combining Energy Punch with Natural Weaponry is more efficient than either alone. Body Weaponry, incidentally, provides an AR of "2 (See below)" and does not mention anything in the description about Attack Rating. Energy Punch, incidentally, has an AR of 1. I don't know what happens if you combine Energy Punch, Body Weaponry, and Martial Arts. Some attack powers are better than others. Magic Blast has the same cost, damge, and range as Energy Attack and Lightning, but has an AR of only 4. Why? Because. Possibly because for 30 points extra, it can ignore armor, but I can't say. Ice Blast and Fire Blast both use Power Attack Chart 2 (the slow one), making them far less efficient. True, with Fire Blast you can buy an exposive area, and for 30 points extra, the damage of Ice Blast can coat an opponent with ice, but... assuming you don't buy either, you start with a lower AR, and do less damage for the same points with your attacks than Energy Attack. Why? Because James E. Freel III hates you. Some Powers have a strange structure. Training, for instance, allows you to a) increase the AR or DR of a Power for 12 points per 1 (rarely an efficient use of points, in case you were wondering), b) buy Mental Hit Points at 4 points per, c) "Other forms of training may be created by the HM and the player to meet the needs of the character and HM", and d) extra attacks at 50 points each. Others are actually similar but unrelated Powers, like Dimension Travel, that has three subsections, Teleport, Dimensional, and Alternate Time Lines. I suppose I might as well mention there is also a completely separate Teleportation Power. Vampirism is another; there are two subsections, Classic, and Energy. The first also gives you traditional vampiric weaknesses, although you can spend 10 points per weakness to get rid of them. The second makes you an Energy Vampire, who does not create other vampires and suffers only from the weakness of needing energy, which can be removed for 30 points. That's Powers, mostly. That brings us to Weaknesss. There are suggestions, although Weaknesses give you no points. As the author puts it, "This would only creat Heroes with too many weaknesses, due to the players greed and desire for more power." Vampires, of course, get no breaks. Combat is mercifully straightforward. Compare AR to DR on a chart, roll d20. Damage is likewise; roll damage, subtract Invulnerability. Experience has an innovative concept; your advancement is tied to your base points, and you do have a Level, that starts at 0. For instance, a 3000 point Superman levels slower than a 500 point Robin, the Boy Wonder. For every 4 levels, you can raise one Power AR or DR, or your natural ones, by 1. You also get 1/100 your points in additional points, negating any benefits you might have imagined from what I said about the innovative concept. The experience points you get at the end of the adventure are the total of the bad guys' points, divided by four. Okay, there are worse systems. The editing is awful. Besides the author's choppy way of speaking, there are glaring errors, like the fact that the sample scenario's villain appears as Domain and Dominion in different parts of the text. There is no "game world," although there is some genre advice: "The history of a character can help develop the personality of the Hero and may help determine what powers the character should have. He could be a mutant for example, born with special abilities, or an alien from a distant solar systm whose planets' gravity differs from our earth, thus granting him remarkable powers, etc." There are also some crappy sample characters in the sample adventure, like the Paladin (who has "Special Power: The Paladin is able to increase his Bench Press Weight through faith up to 80 tons"), Alex (a psychic martial artist), and Tina (his sister, who can animate objects and with whom he has a psychic bond). I can see the comic book now, The Adventures of Alex, Tina, and the Paladin. There is an Animals section that has stats for the Bear (Brown), Cat (Domestic), Cheetah, Conra, Crocodile (American), Dog (Hound), Eagle, Elephant (African), Gorilla, Horse (Draft), Lion, Scorpion, Tiger, Dolphin, Shark (White), Squid (Giant), Whale (Blue), and Whale (Killer). There are stats for Mythical Beings: the Cyclops (Bench Press Weight: 2800 lbs.), Dragon, and the Genie (Jinni). And in case you were wondering, a "Small Balistic Missile" has a Damage of 10 4d10 and a Range of 60 miles. A Lance does 6 1d12, while a Club does BPWD 1d8. That's right; BPWD stands for "Bench Press Weight Damage." There is a Durability Chart, giving the Damage Points (like Hit Points, only not) and Invulnerability scores of Adamantium, Steel, Plastic, Motorcycle, etc. IV. Conclusion Yes, it's true. You can use a to-hit chart and some damage and Invulnerability ratings to run a superhero game with little in the way of actual rules. V. Epilogue Well, I've forgiven Hero System to an extent, and have been playing it again. Blood of Heroes brought DC Heroes third edition, for all practical purposes, back in print, and I've had an easier time pushing funky game systems onto my players the past few years. Those two classics are now joined by Silver Age Sentinels on my "best of superheroes" list. It is certainly everything I yearned for in my days of despairing over Champions. The PMV chart has some echoes of Power Range Chart 2. And character creation is a snap. Sometimes, it's good to look back, and take stock of where you've been. It's also nice to reflect, from to time, "It's not the game system, it's the GM." Don't ever underestimate the power of an imagination, a few pieces of paper, and some funky dice.