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To start out, this book is graphic-novel sized, making it a little smaller than an average RPG book, but just big enough to fit perfectly on your shelf with your other Hellboy graphic novels.
Dakini by Christopher Golden The book opens with a short story by Chris Golden, who has written two novels starring the Hellboy character. It's a quick story but does well to set up the Hellboy universe and the characters for the uninitiated.
Introduction The book starts with a brief introduction, the layout of which will be familiar to anyone who owns a Steve Jackson product. The basics of role-playing and why they made the game is described, and they give a brief timeline of the Hellboy universe's history.
Chapter 1: Creating Characters The next 35 pages are spent on character creation. It's basically just a specialized version of the GURPS system with all the rules layed out specifically for the weird horror style of Hellboy's world. I can't imagine this information making a lot of sense to a non-GURPS player, as the authors speed through the basics a little fast in an effort to get to the new and different advantages and disadvantages. The book has some interesting ones, like Conjoined Twins and Independently Focusable Eyes, which I'm guessing are both new to GURPs. (Although don't quote me on that.)
Chapter 2: Playing the Game This chapter is simply an overview of the GURPS Lite rules, and will be familiar to anyone who has played GURPS or GURPS Lite. It describes the basics of game play, including combat. Not much new or different here.
Chapter 3: The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense 30 pages are devoted to the history and agents of the BPRD, the organization that employs Hellboy and his allies. We get the history of the Bureau, a 5 page strip co-written by Mignola, as well as complete profiles of all the BPRD agents, Hellboy (all 855 points of him) included. The chapter rounds out with rules on creating your own BPRD agents, including several templates (field investigator, psychic investigator, and psychokinetic to name 3).
Chapter 4: Nazis and Other Human Foes This chapter covers the majority of the BPRD's foes, at least the human side. We get a brief history of the Nazi party before jumping right in to the characters, including the 745 point Rasputin and all his allies.
Chapter 5: Paranormal Abilities This chapter gives a quick overview of magic and a little more detailed view of psychic powers and how they work in the Hellboy universe. Both play heavy roles for both the players and the NPCs in Hellboy, and I expected a little more attention to be paid to them, but they give readers enough to play with for a good while. Anyone who wants more will have to pick up GURPS Magic or Psychics to fill it out.
Chapter 6: Beasts and Monsters One of the meatiest chapters of the book gives complete GURPS rules for all the monsters Hellboy has met in his adventures, from frog monsters to Baba Yaga to the goddess Hecate. This would be vastly useful to any GURPS horror player, as it gives a great range of freaky new critters for players to encounter.
Chapter 7: Weird Science and Advanced Technology This chapter gets short shrift considering its source material. It really only gives us a short overview of the strange technologies Hellboy has either used or encountered, with little information on how to incorporate the weird science aspects in to the game. More information could have been put in to this one easily.
Chapter 8: Running the Game This chapter is a pretty typical "how to gamemaster" chapter, although the authors do a decent job on explaining how to incorporate the spirit of the Hellboy universe in to the game. It is somewhat short, but it remains a very concise, well put together explanation of gamemastering.
The book rounds out with "City of Night", a short and so-so introductory adventure and appedixes listing all the Hellboy books published so far as well as other GURPS resources that could be useful to a Hellboy game. The final page and a half are the ever important index, a part of every good RPG book.
Hellboy is only so-so as a stand-alone game, and quite frankly, I doubt anyone who has never played an RPG before would have an easy time picking it up and playing it. But it is easily the best resource for Hellboy out, and Mike Mignola's influence on both the art and editorial level are seen easily. The entire book is filled with Mignola's art, with nearly every page featuring at least one illustration. The game also offers a few new and different advantages and disadvantages to GURPS players. The setting and characters alone are one of the best I've seen designed for the system. I'd highly recommend this game to any fan of Hellboy or weird fantasy in general.
