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Since the early days of RPG's, there has always been a desire by companies to create product that is easily consumed by the masses. TSR created the famous Red and Blue D&D books back in the day and since then every major company has tried to come up with ways to make their games more publicly accessible. GURPS lite, the White-Wolf demos, etc. are great examples of a simplified game designed to get new players into a product. They're free but hardly complete games in and of themselves.
One of the most notorious systems for toughness to get into has been The Hero System. Since the notorious Big Blue Book of 4th edition, Hero has seen criticism for being too chunky and far too wordy. 5th edition seemed to verify this, looking like a hardback phone book. Those who knew Hero were fine with 5th but the mountain of accessibility had grown even bigger.
In 2004, Hero made the decision to make the Hero System accessible. They made Sidekick...
In a nutshell, Sidekick is a distilled version of the Hero System. They basically took the hopped-up engine of the Hero System, stripped out the cute tricks and left a simple, meaty RPG system that anyone who can do math can access.
The book opens with the basic concepts and ideas of what and how Hero works. It's very basic but sets up the rest of the book.
The next chapter involves character creation and is the meat of the book. The book gives clear, concise rules on building characters with a character building example. The book leaves out some of the more fancy 5th edition toys here but the core remains. This section also includes very detailed examples of how different powers work to imitate different effects in different genres. This really helps new players to understand the way HERO functions.
The next section covers combat. Here again, the book leaves out some of the combat gimmicks and options but leaves the meat. This section rounds out with a nice example of how combat works.
The rest of the book gives a general overview of HERO and the rest of the world. Weapons, Vehicles and object interaction are given a light dusting with simple lists. No creation rules are present but not missed. The rest of the book covers sample characters from a few genres.
This book simply surprised me. I learned Champions on the old 3rd edition book with Champions 2 and 3. This book covers about 80% of that and costs only 10 bucks!!! I could build a character faster and easier with Sidekick than with my old 3rd edition books, 4th edition or 5th edition.
This is the ultimate book for new players. It teaches the basics and gives enough foundation to play in HERO in a mere 128 pages. A great feat indeed.
Style- 5 I've seen major rulebooks from other companies that aren't this well organized or that look this good. The layout is great and makes the most of 128 pgs. without looking cluttered. The book is easy to access and find what you want.
Substance- 5 I've spent three times as much on a rulebook and not gotten the game I get from Sidekick. The book doesn't cover every single effect or ability but it gives more than many other books give at a much higher cost. This is the ultimate bang for your buck...
My Take- There are very few books I can call a must-buy these days...this is one of them. If you have EVER played an RPG, you owe it to yourself to spend $10 and get a sample (a very big sample) of one of the hobby's great systems.
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