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First of all, there’s a number of points I’d like to evacuate before I get started. I’m not into superheroes. I don’t usually read superhero comics, and apart from a few exceptions (Miller’s “Dark Knight” and Moebius’ “Silver Surfer” spring to mind), I have rarely enjoyed them. On the other hand, I recently saw X-Men on TV and found that to be rather enjoyable. But on the whole, don’t count me as a superhero guy.
So why purchase Godlike ? Fair question. I confess that my main motivation was ORE, the Greg Stolze designed game system. I’m not a game system nut either, mind you, but I have recently been very frustrated with combats that drag on forever in RPGs and it started to seem to me like the “believable vs. fast” equation in RPGs was one that would never be solved. When I read about the ORE system and realised that Greg Stolze, the guy who had designed the already impressive system for Unknown Armies, was behind it, I decided to give it a try.
There was another angle that worried me slightly about the game, and that was of course, the theme. I remember reading a comment in the French RPG press a year or so back about Godlike (or was it about Weird Wars ?) that said : “How typical of these tasteless Americans”... They linked it all back to “Charnel Houses of Europe”, and the general idea was that there were some subject matters that were just not role-playing material.
I don’t subscribe to the idea on the whole. It’s a broad generalisation, and if the point is not to shock people for whom the subject matter is painful, then there’s an awful lot of games out there that shouldn’t have been written. So I wasn’t approaching Godlike thinking “they should not do such a game”, but rather worrying slightly about how the war was going to be portrayed in the book and how it would handle the “difficult” issues that are inevitable when dealing with the subject matter...
Enough banter. Rather than review the book chapter by chapter, which would be dull and makes for a boring read (that’s if you’re still with me), let’s start with an overview of the game, and then look at the good, the bad and the ugly...
So what’s the premise ? Well, a few years before the start of World War II, Germany displays to the world a flying man, the first of many “Talents” to come. The “Talents” are superheroes with relatively limited powers, but powers that definitely give them an edge on the common man and an edge in fighting the war. The game casts the players as Talents enlisted with the Allies, but the rest is up to the players and GMs. They can have roughly any background they like and have a lot of leeway in choosing their powers.
The setting posits that despite their involvement, the Talents don’t have a major influence on the outcome of the war or on wartime society. Both the short fictions that introduce each chapter and the long section describing the war events contribute to the suspension of disbelief on this specific issue. Also, nowhere does the book suggest why the Talents have appeared or specifically what triggers their “birth”, although trauma seems to contribute to it.
So let’s look at the good :
- The System : WOW ! The system is not good. It’s extraordinary ! In fact if I wasn’t worried about the lame pun, I’d say it’s Godlike. Oh drats, I did it... Seriously though, it does all it sets out to do, and deserves its name : ORE = One Roll Engine. With one roll of several d10s (a la Storyteller Stat + Skill pool), you resolve everything. In non-combat situations, everything means do you succeed, by how much and how fast. In combat situations, everything means initiative, hit roll, damage and multiple actions. All in one roll. Sheer brilliance. Basically, the way it works is you want your dice to match. No match means you fail. The higher the match the better, so a low match may mean a failure too. The more dice match, the faster you act (both in and out of combat). There’s a little more complication to this in combat, but that’s roughly it. Simple, comprehensive. As I mentioned above, the system was my main reason for getting Godlike and I am certainly not disappointed ! An added bonus for some is the inclusion of d20 rules for those not keen on ORE.
- The “Talents” : The section on “Talents” and “Talent powers” makes for an interesting read, and is comparatively simple to use while still flexible. Godlike splits powers in three areas : hyperstats, which are above normal human stats, hyperskills, which are above normal human skills and “miracles”, which are non stat or skill related powers. For miracles, what you have is a power design method (point-buy) called the “Gourmet” approach, which really allows you to customise everything. Then you have a list of 40 pre-designed power categories called the “Cafeteria” approach. These are flexible enough to cover nearly every power you could imagine, making the “Gourmet” thing redundant for me, even though I’m French ! I’m no expert on superhero RPGs, but I have painful memories of a Champions character creation that let me think this may be “easy” compared to other staples of the genre. There is one thing I didn’t like about the Talent powers, but since it’s more a consistency issue than an issue with the powers themselves, I’ll deal with that later on.
- The Background : Nearly half the book (150 pages out of 354) is dedicated to a date by date account of significant events of Word War II, beginning with the first sighting of the German Talent who “started it all” and ending with the first signs of the Cold War in 1946. This may sound like an awful lot of space devoted to something that can essentially be picked up from most history books, but it’s actually very good both at blending the talents in the background of “real” history and at giving you a flavour for the events of the war. It’s also a great canvass from which to pick events that would be the backdrop to an adventure or a campaign. Fictional events (ie. events involving Talents) are signalled with a bullet hole that lets you know that it’s either a fully fictional event (like when two talents confront each other on the field) or an event which really happened but explained by the existence of the Talents. Actually it would have been nice to have two different signs for these different “bullet holes”, but that’s just cause I’m too lazy to checks things up myself.
- The TOG Campaign : Actually, the word “campaign” is a misnomer as far as RPGs go since there are no adventures included here, but it’s a background military campaign that is included at the end of the book, complete with additional training for PCs, important officers, etc. On the whole its believable and in line with the rest of the material. I wasn’t overwhelmed, but its a nice inclusion and well done.
Now for the bad :
- The “suspension of disbelief” issue. As I said above, I’m not a superhero nut by far, so my expectations in terms of internal consistency are maybe above that of others. Some elements of the background really stayed stuck in my suspension of disbelief sieve. Let me explain : on the whole, the feel of the game is gritty, it’s superhero, but you can still die tomorrow, it’s superhero, but every effort is done to make you believe in these guys, believe in their suffering as soldiers and as pariahs. And then, you have “The Ape”, the man who changes into a Gorilla, you have “Cormorant”, the British super with his invisible Dragon friend (Peter and Elliot, anyone ?), and “Baba Yaga”, the mad Russian super who changes into a house. Not to mention the fact that most of not all the Talents mentioned have silly names. I understand these may be staples of the superhero genre in general, but it doesn’t talk gritty to me, it talks silly. The game would have been ideal if the powers had been more serious in their outlook. It would have made a consistent whole and helped suspension of disbelief. Oh well, you know what will be featured and not featured in my games !
- The “American” outlook : I guess I was expecting this to some extent, and being a European you cannot help but realise that the book has been written by an American for Americans. It’s not that the writer isn’t sensitive to the plight of Europeans, but reading the whole background section, you get the feeling that World War II was first and foremost an American war happening in the Pacific. Assuming this was a conscious editorial choice, I understand the reasons, it’s called catering for your audience. Still, I couldn’t help but notice it, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that most of the French words, sentences, etc. in the game were incorrect. The name of the first French Talent means absolutely nothing in French, and there’s a mention of some local holiday based on a Talent intervention that’s supposed to mean “the day of such and such” but actually means nothing.
- A few system glitches : I haven’t properly playtested the game, since I only ran one session with it, which involved no PC Talents, just regular French Resistants. ORE does what it sets out to do. However, it is fundamentally unlike other resolution systems in that the success curve is incredibly steep to begin with and then flattens out quickly. In other words, the difference between rolling two dice and five dice is enormous. The difference between rolling 5 and 8 is marginal. What this means is that basically, a character rolling two dice has a 10% chance of success and there’s no mechanic in the game to increase that chance if you want him the roll to be easy. This is particularly blatant with things like perception. So either the GM needs to adapt to a new rolling paradigm (do not ask for rolls if you don’t want to risk everyone failing), or you can use an easy fix and give bonus dice for the action. But that’s not suggested in the game. Another apparent glitch comes from the hit localisation mechanic. Basically, the height of your successful matches determines the hit location. In absolute terms, that’s fine, except that there’s a Talent called the hard dice that gives you an automatic 0 dice on all related rolls. So if you have a hard dice in coordination, you’re most likely to shoot well, but it’s going to be to the head. And if you have two hard dice, then that’s an automatic success to the head. If you want to shoot the hand though, you’re out of luck...
And the ugly :
The only thing ugly about Godlike is the book itself. I like the logo, but that’s where it stops. If I hadn’t read reviews and decided to purchase it anyway, I don’t think I even would have opened the book. The inside is not much better. Even though the layout is readable, it’s also painfully dull, with archive black and white photographs, sometimes modified to feature some superhuman feat. The binding also looks flimsy and I suspect it won’t last long. I’m not too fussed about these things as I purchase a game mostly for its contents, but if they matter to you, you better be prepared !
Overall assessment
Godlike isn’t perfect. In terms of both system and setting, however, it’s damn impressive. It’s both original, well thought out and appealing. It’s also a good and tasteful take on WW2, one that allows for interesting roleplaying without cheapening the themes. There’s an expansion of Godlike in the works called Wild Talents which is a more generic superhero game, without the WW2 background. If Wild Talent is as good as Godlike, I may end up finally owning a generic superhero game. Something I thought would never happen...
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