The Fires of War is officially "The Algernon Files 2: The Fires of War", being a sequel to Blackwyrm Games' Algernon Files, a Mutants and Masterminds sourcebook based on a setting of the authors' design and independent of the Green Ronin M&M books.

Whereas the "official" Green Ronin setting has its history detailed in the Freedom City book, FoW details the Golden Age/post-World War II period of the Algernon Files universe. In the introduction, the authors define the Golden Age in comics as going from the late 30s to about the early 50s when DC Comics did a second version of The Flash. At the same time, the introduction stresses that FoW is neither a "genre resource" nor a historically detailed book; it simply covers the major players in the superhuman universe at around 1942, serving as a prequel to the first Algernon Files.

Chapter I: Introduction also introduces the format of the book's writeups, which, like the first Algernon Files, includes the interesting sidebar of "Public Knowledge." Each character has certain background elements or secrets that are not publicly known. In the M&M system, these are handled as high Difficulty Class numbers (DC 10 confirms that The Silent Knight is a member of the Sentinels superteam; a DC 30 confirms that he is actually several agents who use the identity). In Hero System, the difficulty increase is represented as a penalty to a relevant Knowledge Skill (with that DC 30 fact translating as a -10 penalty to the roll). Writeups also include character pictures within scale of each other, although my download didn't pick these up (this is more a problem of my Acrobat software than the PDF). The introduction concludes with a 2-page Timeline of the period between 1935 and 1954, along with cursory game information on the infantry weapons of the era.

Chapter II:Allies details FDR's official US hero team, the Sentinels, along with the slightly less official British Defenders of the Crown, and several independents like the aforementioned Silent Knight(s). These cover most of the tropes: exiled Prince of Atlantis, spiritual symbol of the USA, Doc Savage-type who turns out to be a genetic experiment, and so on.

Chapter III: Enemies goes over an extensive list of Axis villains, most of whom are either in the Emperor's Hand (Japan) or "Die Einzatzgruppen Ubersoldaten" (Germany). Some of the ideas in this section are direct steals (like a midget mastermind named Loveless), while others are interesting twists on a used idea: In Fires of War, the young boy driven to fight evil because of his parents' murder trained extensively and became a Nazi assassin.

The second part of Chapter III details a lot of solo or independent villains who also reflect the themes of the period, like basing one's entire power/costume concept around a pun- most notably, the hired thug who gained his powers through alchemy and became "The Element of Crime," aka "The Criminal Element." There are also several very good master villains who are detailed with their Bases and other perks.

At the end of both books is a section called "Pages From History", a nice touch detailing what happened to each of the characters written up in the book and how they died or what they're doing now.

The Comparison

Out of curiosity, I asked to get copies of both the Hero and M&M versions of the book. One difference immediately becomes clear: The Hero version of the book is 228 pages (26.3 MB) while the M&M is only 128 pages (7.64 MB). This is because the Hero System character format takes at least a page in itself along with the character background writeup, whereas the M&M version is designed to where the powers can be listed as sidebars on the same page, so that no given writeup exceeds a single page length. However, the Hero versions of the characters are very well done, despite odd little quirks (e.g. odd-numbered Comeliness scores when COM costs 1 point per +2 stat) that have always been present in official Hero material. The characters use a lot of the material in 5th Edition like the Autofire Skills and Combat Luck, and also make interesting use of the optional Talents presented in sourcebooks like Fantasy HERO.

It's worth noting that the M&M version uses the 2nd edition of Mutants & Masterminds, and it's too bad I didn't get to look at that corebook more extensively before reviewing Fires of War. Simply looking at these character examples, it's clear that the 2nd Edition is a lot more versatile than the orginal, with a wide range of new feats that specialize the character in the same way that the 2nd and 3rd editions of Mayfair's DC HEROES game did.

It should also be noted that each version contains notes detailing changes that the authors made for each system. The M&M book has an appendix with special Feats that they made, namely "Ace" (allowing a pilot or driver to use his combat Feats with his vehicle) and the highly effective "Combination Attack", which is similar to how Hero 5th Edition now allows for multiple attacks in the same Phase. The M&M Appendix also includes suggestions for tactical movement, which is a bit over-emphasized in D&D/D20 but perhaps underemphasized in M&M. The main rules point in the Hero version deals with the Speed Chart; most supers deliberately have no more than 4 SPD, making normals more competitive- this is to emphasize the mixing of the beginning superhero world with the prewar Pulp/daredevil world. And the authors make a good point: "After all, just because a man can shoot death beams from his eyes, why should he run, think or shoot any faster than a man with a pistol or a sword?" That said, certain of the characters are plenty fast, namely speedster Jack B. Quick, with a 33 DEX, 8 SPD, and a noncombat Run measured in kilometers. Finally, the authors also decided to print the "finished" versions of certain Powers that are now reverse-engineered in HERO 5th Edition, namely Regeneration, without writing up the full power design like official rules.

Overall, you wouldn't waste your money on Fires of War if you use it in Hero System, and the new rules for Mutants & Masterminds make it a very good advertisement for the 2nd Edition.

Style: 3

I'm giving Fires of War a default rating on this one because of my aforementioned problem getting the art and vehicle descriptions.

Substance: 4

Fires of War has very good writeups for two very good game systems, and although full use of it would require using the Algernon Files setting, there are several great ideas that can be adapted for a World War II/Pulp Era game.

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