In 1984, before it became the Evil Miniature Empire we’re all familiar with, the British firm Games Workshop published a superhero roleplaying game called Golden Heroes. Physically, the game was superb, with a very elegant layout and excellent B&W interior art, including some work by Alan Davis himself ; the game system featured many innovative concepts, which made GH a very serious contender to the two games that dominated the superhero RPG field back in those days, Villains & Vigilantes and Champions – or to the first official Marvel RPG, which was published by TSR the same year. Compared to these three games, GH really had a style of its own ; it also deliberately focused on translating the tropes of the superhero genre in RPG terms and was probably the first RPG to succeed at this.
For various reasons, GH ceased to support the game in 1986 and GH ‘went underground’. During the decade that followed, superhero gaming was (at least on the commercial level) dominated by the various licensed Marvel and DC comics RPGs : Marvel had three, DC had two (with a third version underway) ; more recently, the superhero gaming niche went through some sort of renaissance with the publication of Guardians of Order’s Silver Age Sentinels (which is apparently no longer supported), the lively rebirth of Champions and the rise of Green Ronin’s OGL-based Mutants & Masterminds as the most critically-acclaimed superhero RPG of all times.
...AND THIS IS NOW !
And now Golden Heroes is back as SQUADRON UK, a small press RPG in PDF format, available from its own website as well as from RPG Now (and RPG Now Edge). As its title implies, it has a distinctly British feel (for those who think « British » and « superheroes » don’t go well together, think again – and just read Alan Moore’s legndary run on Captain Britain) but can really be used for any type or style of superpowered heroes.
Beneath its old-school style and its small press presentation, SqUK has a lot to offer. Back in the late 80s, Golden Heroes was easily the best superhero RPG on the market – yes, better than Champions, Villains & Vigilantes or the Marvel / DC official games (and I’ll say nothing about Superworld)… and what do I actually mean by better ? Three things : faster, easier and, above all, far closer to the feel of superheroic comics.
The big question, of course, is how does the SqUK game system compare with that of more recent games ? Is there still a place for a 1980s old-timer in our world of OGL and NGS ?
Well, for a start, the age of the game system is, in itself, a proof of its reliability and functionality : the SqUK rules have been tested for many years – and it shows. Some of the game mechanics may seem a bit weird or arbitrary at first glance (especially by today’s standards) but the rules work well in actual play – even very well if you play with a referee who ‘knows the ropes’ of the system.
When Golden Heroes first came out back in 1984, its system was perceived by many gamers as a mix of traditional concepts and extremely innovative ideas : today, the ‘traditional bits’ might sometimes feel a bit dated (or ‘genuinely old school’, depending on how you look at it) and the innovative ideas… are still as briliant and original as they were some 20 years ago.
The ‘campaign ratings’ system, in particular, is still one of the best (I’d even say THE best) character development system ever designed for a superhero RPG – it goes beyond the usual ‘development-means-improvement’ pattern and offers an amazingly accurate rendition of character development as understood by comic books writers. Whether you intend to play a classic Silver Age campaign or darker, postmodern heroes, the SqUK rules allow you to easily and precisely reflect your character’s personality and psychology in game terms, without unbalancing the game with piecemeal, min-maxing weaknesses or overly complex character building rules. Want to know more about these wonderful campaign ratings ? Read on !
FORMAT & PRESENTATION
Physically, the game consists of two PDF e-books : Book 1 (48 pages) gives the rules for character creation as well as a detailed description of more than 50 superpowers. Book 2 (59 pages) covers two main topics : combat (of course) and campaigns – a subject which the SqUK rules handles in a really masterful way (but more on this later).
Book 1 costs 4.99 $, book 2 costs 5.99 $ - so that makes a total of slightly less than 11 $ (okay, 10.98 $) for the complete game. And SqUK IS a complete game ; unlike many recent (and far more expensive) games, which always save some optional, revised or advanced rules for future supplements, SqUK gives you everything you need for years of playing and campaigning.
Both books have the same cover, depicting a obviously British costumed hero (draped in a Union Jack cape) watching modern-day London by night – not very dynamic, perhaps, but it aptly captures the distinctive atmosphere of the game. The interior art is sparse but OK by small press standards. The text is presented in a three-columns layout which sometimes looks a bit ‘crammed’ - especially on pages where several tables are present.
BOOK 1 : CHARACTER CREATION
The Usual Stuff
At first glance, character creation seems a typical old-school affair, with attributes being rolled as in D&D and attribute scores being used to derive or calculate various modifiers and secondary scores. That being said, the number-crunching is kept down to a very reasonable level – nothing like V&V or Champions.
On the whole, character creation is a very easy and quick process, with no agonizing choices or hidden complexities. Among the nicest features of the system are the possibility to replace a superpower by an advantageous background – like briliant scientist (chemical or mechanical), rich (industrialist or inheritor), contacts (criminal or government), immortal (think Thor, Namor etc), previous training etc : a very elegant and efficient system, far simpler and at least as convincing as the more numerous and more specific advantages offered by most other superhero games.
Another nice feature of the character creation system is the way it avoids using superfluous stats or ability scores that are not completely consistent with the superheroic genre. Let’s take two examples : attributes and skills.
Attributes
In SqUK, characters are defined by four basic attributes : Strength, Vigour (stamina etc), Dexterity and Ego. That’s right – no intelligence, charisma or similar stat. The only mental stat is Ego, which measures a character’s will and strength of mind – it’s the only mental stat, because when you come to think of it, it’s the only relevant mental stat in a superhero game.
Consider your favorite comic book superheroes : if you know the characters well, you can easily tell how strong they are, how resilient, how dextrous or even how mentally resistant they are – but you would really have a difficult time trying to tell how ‘intelligent’ or how ‘charismatic’ they are. Why ? Let’s begin with intelligence. In the comics, the vast majority of heroes could be rated as « smart enough », which shows that intelligence, in its broadest sense, is not really a significant trait here. Of course, you have the scientific geniuses – characters like Reed Richards, Magneto or Doctor Doom… these guys may all have an exceptional (or even phenomenal) brain but when you look at the effects and manifestations of this awesome intellect in the stories, these effects almost always take the form of inventions or, on a more general level, the ability to reach amazing levels of knowledge or competence in various scientific fields.
So in a superhero RPG, we don’t really need an intelligence stat : we need a system with specific rules for inventors, from amateur gadgeteers to peerless scientific geniuses – and it’s just what the SqUK system provides. The same reasoning was applied to all the other activities usually linked to intelligence or similar stats, such as alertness, perception or detective work, which are all covered in a way that actually tries to mimic the comics (and really succeeds at it), instead of trying to graft genre tropes onto a pre-existing or generic system which already has its own conventions.
And what about charisma ? Well, as for intelligence, the SqUK answer is as elegant as it is coherent with the tropes of the superhero genre – but since this answer involves campaign ratings, which are described in Book Two, we’ll come back to this topic later.
Skills
Characters in SqUK have no specific ratings for things such as climbing, sneaking, breaking into computer systems or piloting planes… because in the comics, these things only matter for heroes who have a superior or significant degree of skill.
And that’s exactly how SqUK handles the question of skills : most of a character’s occupational or hobby skills are simply defined by his background (ie if your character has the Briliant Scientist background, she is automatically an expert in her field and if your character is a history student, well, he does have a good working knowledge of history, without having to spend points on a specific history skills).
The only skills which are (and need to be) described in game terms are the ones that may play an important part during superheroic adventures – things like piloting, escapology, disguise or even computer expertise – and are treated as simple binary skills (ie you either have the skill or you don’t) : if your character has the Pilot skill, he is a very, very good pilot, period. Want more detail ? Just work it out with the referee, as part of your character’s background !
This approach may seems simplistic at first but works very well in play – when was the last time you saw the Ghost Rider (you know, the guy with the flaming skullhead and the big, mean motorbike) say or think things like : « Gee, I’ve really become a better biker over the years… ». No. Johnny Blaze was an superb biker right from the start – that’s how things work in superheroic genre and that’s how they work in SqUK : in this game, your character doesn’t start as a ‘low-level’ novice who will have to go through dozens of adventures before reaching the level of competence you wish he had right from the start.
In this game, your character starts as a hero – and his ‘personal development’ over the campaign will be far more significant (and far more interesting to play) than a mere increase of skill levels or hit points. In SqUK, your character starts as a superhero and grows like a superhero – but more on this later.
A Few Rough Edges
My only problems with the character creation system are Defence Class and the way the system handles hit points – or more properly the calculation of hit points.
Let’s start with Defence Class. Defence Class (DC) is measured on a ‘lower-is-better’ scale like that used for Armor Class in the old versions of D&D – which is really not intuitive, no matter how you try to justify this. A character’s DC determines how difficult he is to hit in combat and how much damage (if any) is absorbed by his armor or protection ; it also directly affects his ability to actively dodge oncoming attacks. In SqUK, these three things (difficulty to be hit, damage absorption and dodging ability) are resolved separately (which makes sense) but they are all connected to DC in one way or another – and this actually makes things look more complex and clunky than they really are in practice. The whole thing would have been far simpler to figure out if the three concepts mentioned above (difficulty to be hit, damage absorption and dodging ability) had been defined as independent entities right from the start – since they ARE used independently during combat. The rules could really have benefited from some streamlining here – something along the lines of what was done for Armor Class in D&D 3.
SqUK actually uses two distinct hit points totals : Hits to Kill (HTK) and Hits to Coma (HTC). This distinction between lethal and subdual damage is a necessity in any superhero RPG and works well in play. HTC and HTK are rolled randomly, using 1d6 per point of Vigour – that’s right, if you have a Vigour of 10 (an average score for player-characters), you roll 10d6 to get your HTC total and 10d6 to get your HTK total. This procedure has two side-effects. Side-effect n°1 : Since HTC and HTK are rolled completely independently from one another, you may end up with characters who are extremely hard to kill but comparatively easy (or even very easy) to knock out – or the other way round. Within the context of a superhero RPG, this does not make much sense, no matter how you try to justify it. One might object that such extreme results are very rare, because of the bell-curve effect and the generally very high number of dice rolled - which leads us to side-effect n°2. The more dice you roll, the more the results tend to ‘average out’. In other words, most heroes HTC and HTK totals will be very close to their Vigour score multiplied by the average d6 roll (3.5) : a hero with a Vigor of 10, for instance, will generally end up with a HTC or HTK total of 30-40. So, since especially high or low HTK & HTC totals are at the same time not very logical and extremely rare, wouldn’t have it been far more practical to simply calculate HTK and HTC by multiplying Vigour by, say, a factor of 3 or 4 ?
But enough number-crunching : let's talk about...
...Superpowers !
Superpowers are rolled randomly on a single d100 table – yes, it’s a very old-school way of creating characters. But it’s also a very simple (and fun !) way to come up with unconventional, wonderfully bizarre or truly original characters. Let’s face it : point-based systems may ‘allow you to create just the character you want’… but they’re also the surest way to end up with uninspired clones of Marvel or DC characters.
OK, you say, but using a random superpower table completely prevents players from using their imagination ! Wrong. It simply asks them to use their imagination in a different way – not to select the powers of their character, but to rationalise these powers into a coherent character. Once the powers have been rolled, the player must imagine how and why his character would have such a combination of power.
Does it work ? Yes. Is it fun ? Yes. The SqUK rules demonstrate this in a section called ‘the eight powers challenge’ : five players are given the same set of random-rolled powers and are asked to come up with a rationale and an origin story based on these results. In the end, you get five completely different characters, each with his own style, personality and background. I’ve tried this myself – and it really works, provided you’re willing to exercise your imagination a bit.
This method can really create truly unique characters. Would have I been able to create such characters using a point-based system ? Definitely not. The SqUK promo describes the character creation as ‘addictive’ and… well… it’s definitely true !
Despite what the above may imply, the system is not absurdly random and allows for a greater degree of player control than it may seem at first : if they so wish, players may upgrade powers that have already been rolled instead of rolling new ones and several powers are actually very generic in nature (such as Field Manipulation, which may cover anything from magnetic control to electrical manipulation or gravity alteration), offering a wide choice of possibilities for imaginative players.
Many powers are treated in the binary mode : either you have them, or you don’t. Some powers have two, three or even four grades of potency, allowing for differing degrees of power, finesse or efficiency - just like in the comics, once again.
Some of the powers are very well defined – like Energy Attack (with its specific Energy points pool and various ‘signature’ options at higher grades) or Martial Arts, which exists in two different forms : Oriental martial arts and Pugilism (which has the ‘Sunday Punch’ special attack !).
Another excellent feature of the system is the way it handles Psionics and Magic. In most superheroic RPGs, psychic and magical powers are treated as general superpowers – which is often a very reductive approach, especially in the case of magic. In SqUK, Psi powers and Magic are handled with specific rules that really manage to emulate the way these abilities are handled in superheroic comics – and all this in a few pages…
Do I have some (minor) gripes with the superpowers section ? Yes.
There are a few surprising omissions – no form of Absorption, for instance – a few redundant entries (I really don’t think there should be a difference between the Gymnastics skill and the first grade of the Agility power). Also, some powers which are quite rare in the comics (like Mass Variation or Radar Sense) should really have been treated as specific forms of a more versatile power (Radar Sense, for instance, would have make more sense as a specific type of Heightened Senses than as a stand-alone power) ; a few powers (like Field Manipulation or Shapechanging) may also feel a bit too freeform for players who want hard-and-fast rules.
I also feel that the distinction made between ‘minor’ skills and ‘major’ ones could have been avoided, since all major skills could (and should) have been treated as powers in their own right, rather than as skills proper – but these are minor points at best and every referee worth his salt should be able to adjust the superpowers table to suit his own tastes with little or no difficulty (I’ve done so myself).
BOOK 2 : COMBAT & CAMPAIGNS
Let’s start with combat – one of the most important aspects of superheroic gaming. The main objective of the SqUK combat system is to duplicate the ‘feel’ of comic book combat.
Does it succeed in accomplishing this objective ? Yes. Could some mechanics have been simplified or streamlined without hindering this comic book feel ? Yes again.
Combat & Actions
Before we explore the combat system in greater detail, something must be said about the SqUK rules in general. By now, you will have noticed that I made no mention of a “task resolution system” or similar game mechanic. The reason is simple : the SqUK rules do not have such a system. Like in most old school games, you roll a D20 for this, a D6 or D100 for that and so on.
As a GM, I generally prefer systems with some sort of unified core procedure. Yet I must admit that such systems do not always work that well for superhero games – especially when it comes to feats of strength, such as lifting, breaking or throwing heavy things. In SqUK, actions like feats of strength, attacks, dodges or resisting mental attacks all have their own specific sub-system – which is not as impractical as it may seem, though, as long as the referee has a good working knowledge of the system.
In the case of SqUK, these specific sub-systems are generally quite simple to integrate and work smoothly in play. There are exceptions, of course, like the rules for parrying or grappling, which are not very intuitive or dynamic… but on the whole, the SqUK combat rules are a superb simulation of comic book combat : punches and energy blasts can cause spectacular knockbacks, for instance, and attacks made by goons or thugs are far less ‘costly’ to dodge or block than attacks made by villains and other major characters.
In SqUK, an acrobatic hero in the style of Daredevil, Batman or Spiderman can easily avoid the bullets of a dozen mafia thugs – just like in the comics. And just like in the comics, a single attack by a major villain is usually more dangerous for a hero than the guns of a dozen thugs – not because this major villain is inherently deadlier or stronger, but simply because he IS the major villain.
One of the most original features of the SqUK combat system is the way it handles initiative and action phases.
Instead of having action points, initiative levels or such similar ratings based on their attributes and superpowers, all superpowered characters receive 4 Frames per round, with each Frame being the equivalent of a single pannel on a comic book page. In other words, the number of things a character can do during a combat round does not depend on his abilities but on his dramatic stature : thus, normal people and most thugs get only 2 Frames per round, not because they’re inherently slower than heroes, but because they are not as important to the story as the heroes or their main antagonists. As an extra touch of system finesse, minor superpowered characters (or major ordinary humans) may be given 3 Frames per round, and characters with super-fast characters a la Flash or Quicksilver can use ‘half-Frames’ to perform actions at amazing speed – just like in the comics when a single pannel shows multiple images of the same superfast character…
Actual initiative is handled by a simple d10 contest that allows the winning side to use some of their Frames at the start of the round, before letting their opponents (provided they’re still able to fight) use all of their Frames – an idea which may seem a bit quirky ay first but which aptly captures the ‘us versus them’ feel of comic book combat.
Another fine feature of the combat system is the way it encourages player-characters to develop their own combat techniques by using their powers in new, inventive ways (Remember the “fastball special” combo attack by Wolverine and Colossus ? Or the way Captain America topples opponents by throwing his shield ?) – but unlike most of the other “power stunt” systems, you have to actually practice such tricks before they become fully operational. In SqUK, training and practice are a full part of the game and are actually fun to play.
Which leads us to the real gem of SqUK...
Campaigning
Remember my reference to charisma several paragraphs ago ?
How on earth do you rate a superhero’s charisma ? Take the Beast, for instance – yes, the big X-Men guy with blue fur and prehensile feet. Depending on your perception of the character, you might find him extremely charismatic – he’s a confident and strong-willed individual, who doesn’t take s**t from anybody… but you may also view his unusual, beastly appearance as a serious social handicap. In such a case, an objective Charisma score would make little sense – and the Beast is by no mean a unique case. And we could also add that the Beast may have problems with his appearance for first impressions but that his personality makes him a very likeable fellow and that his reputation and popularity as a hero generally supersedes the reactions of unease he may once have caused in people…
Note that the same line of reasoning could be applied to many other weird-looking (or obviously ‘alien’) heroes such as the Vision, Martian Manhunter or our good old Thing Ben Grimm.
But let’s take another example that shows that a standard Charisma system doesn’t really work for superheroes - that of the great heroes, the living legends. Why do characters like Superman, Thor, Wonder Woman, Captain America or Hal Jordan (the silver age Green Lantern) are perceived as ‘charismatic’ ? Because they had a really high Charisma score right from the start ? Nope. Because their formidable superpowers give them some kind of ‘super-aura’ or ‘super-presence’ ? Mmmh, perhaps. Because people know they’ve saved the world or at least a few major cities a dozen times in their career ? Certainly. Because they’ve been around so long, regularly helping humanity in its darkest hours ? Absolutely.
This is exactly how the SqUK rules work.
Heroes have a Public Status total, which measures their fame and popularity – well, nothing so original here, you say. Wait.
This Public Status total is actually the sum of five specific ratings : Backing (support – or lack of support – from the authorities), Heroism (how close the character is to the classic four-color hero), Public Relations (how the character himself behaves with the public), Identification (how easily the public may identify to the character) and Practice (the most important rating, which is a direct reflection of the character’s most important accomplishments : saving the world gives you a Practice of 10 while solving a minor crime or confronting a few thugs gives you a Practice of 2). The first four are rated on a compact 1-5 scale (and are thus very easy to assess) while Practice is rated from 1 to 10.
So not only does this system tell you how popular (or unpopular) your character is, it also tells you WHY– and in the case of heroes with a low Public Status, it also shows what the hero should try to do to improve his public image.
Just to demonstrate the simplicity, flexibility and beauty of the system, let’s take a few examples. You want to play a hero with a very unusual or ‘alien’ appearance ? In game terms, this translates as a low Identification rating – people are generally a bit uneasy around blue-furred mutants or green-skinned martians. This lower than usual Identification rating will impact on your character’s overall Public Status… but he could counterbalance this by behaving like a true hero (raising his Heroism) or by showing what a nice guy he really is on television (raising his Public Relations). And if he saves the city and receives credit for it, his Practice rating will boost his overall Public Status – perhaps to the extent that his ‘weird looks’ really don’t matter anymore.
But wait… what if this hero began to behave in a less heroic fashion – perhaps as a consequence of some personal tragedy or because some fiendish villain has taken control of his actions ? And what about the effects of negative media coverage ? With SqUK Public Status, you can handle all these situations in a way that makes them meaningful for the players – and their characters.
SqUK also uses similar rules for two other important totals : Personal Status and Detective Points.
Personal Status reflects the character’s self-confidence, self-image and personal balance : like Public Status, it is the sum of a single 1-10 rating (Security, how safe and stable the character feels) four 1-5 ratings : Conscience (any dark secrets or skeletons in the closet ?), Expression (which covers the difference between having reliable close friends or family and being a loner with no social life), Success Rate (reflecting the impact of a character’s recent victories or defeats on his personality) and Public Response (which is directly tied to Public Status).
What are the effects of Personal Status in game terms ? Heroes with very high Personal Status can gain Hero Points and are harder to intimidate, dominate or manipulate with mental powers, while Heroes with very low Personal Status have to spend time fighting their inner demons or mopping up the mess of their private life – and thus have less time for training and practicing. A character’s Personal Status can also affect his luck, so that heroes with an extremely low self-image tend to be accident-prone, while super-confident dudes just seem naturally lucky. This system allows you to really play every kind of hero or anti-hero : four-color boy scout, tormented tragic anti-hero, stone-faced avenger, devil-may-care badass (Wolverine, anyone ?), jinxed teen-ager, rogue vigilante…
Even though the original GH/SqUK rules were written in the early eighties, this system lends itself perfectly to the darker or more psychologically detailed heroes that began to appear in the late 80s – indeed, these rules could even be used to reflect the complex psychology of heroes like Nite Owl, Rorschach and other characters from Alan Moore’s Watchmen.
What about Detective Points ? This is the slightly kitsch name given to another total of five ratings that basically represents a hero’s ability to do detective work, get information from contacts and operate at street-level - so now you have a system that really rewards urban vigilantes like the Batman, Daredevil and other streetwise heroes. Such characters may not have flashy superpowers but they know the streets and will probably be far better than cosmic powerhouses when it comes to tracking down criminals, investigating crime scenes or getting ‘the word on the street’. Most superhero RPG make it quite difficult to run teams like the Justice League, where ‘low-level’ costumed crimefighters with no superhuman powers can cooperate with ‘high-level’ mega-heroes who can fly in outer space, lift buses and perform other titanic feats. In SqUK, you can have such a team – and everybody will have a chance to shine, from Nightshade the masked detective to Stellar the cosmic sentinel.
Of course, the campaign chapter also gives you rules about using your financial resources, creating high-tech devices, developing power refinements and other staples of the superhero genre – it even has rules for patrolling !
FINAL WORD
Is Squadron UK (SqUK) worth your money ? Definitely yes.
If you are already running a superhero campaign, no matter what game system you actually use, SqUK’s character development and campaign ratings system is, in itself, worth the price of the whole game. And if you intend to run such a campaign but are still looking for a genre-specific game system that mixes old-school reliability with innovative ideas without getting bogged down by min-maxing, overly complex or just superfluous rules, well… SqUK may well be the game you’re looking for. It really does justice to the superhero genre, with its full diversity of styles, eras and flavors.
Nuff said !
For more information, see the official SqUK website.
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