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If you’re interested in a rules-lighter game that can run super heros of mixed power level together while focusing more on the characters as characters rather than complex mechanics then you might find a true gem here. However, those that are uncomfortable with highly interpretive rules that require substantial GM trust and may even be applied inconsistently should avoid this one.
The Physical Thing
This 133 page (six pages of ads) softcover book showcases notably below average production values. The art ranges from average to poor in quality, the book is in black and white, and there is nothing artful about the formatting or presentation. However, the text is easy to read, the table of contents is detailed, and many helpful charts are provided. This is a low budget production, but it is clear that a lot of love and detail was put into it. Be aware that Truth and Justice uses informal writing throughout.The Ideas
The core idea behind Truth and Justice is that most RPGs deal in terms of strictly defined abilities, damage as hit points or level, and generally have mechanics that may make them great RPGs but unsuited for representing what occurs on a comic panel. Truth and Justice embraces super hero reality, and integrates all of a character’s abilities into a fight. If you ever wanted an RPG where the wit of Spider-Man or the Flash could help win a fight as well as a punch then this is it.Under the Cover
Chapter 1 The Superhero Genre 14 pages.Scale and style of the game, common superhero tropes, and other general introductory material is provided here. The idea is to either present superhero comics to the newcomer or refresh the memory of the old hand. Either way the chapter does a good job of bringing up important concerns about superhero roleplay, and starts the reader thinking about what sort of game she would like to run with Truth and Justice.
Chapter 2 T&J Rules Overview 10 pages.
The game is entirely skill based and there are two types of skills: Qualities and Powers. Qualities are the sort of mundane abilities that everyone could potentially have while Powers are clearly superhuman abilities. In both cases Qualities and Powers are user defined. While there is a set list of them to chose from in Chapter 4, a user can create whatever ability they care to imagine. In general a chosen concept should be neither too broad nor too narrow, and the GM is the arbiter for what is too broad or narrow in a given campaign.
So effectively all the skills are user defined keywords, and that’s why drives the game play. The Flash or Spider-Man could have the more mundane qualities Wit: +2, or even Jokes: +2 in a more narrowly focused game. They might also have Compassion: +4, Doesn’t Know When To Shut Up: -2. Spider-Man might have Loves Mary Jane: +4. You get the general idea, there can be no exhaustive list of Qualities because they are entirely user defined.
Powers work the same way. A player could take the Armor power, as presented in the book, and gain all of its abilities. On the other hand they could just create a power called Yak Hide: +4, for their character Yak-Woman. Yak-Woman might also have Caustic Saliva: +2. With her Caustic Saliva Yak-Woman might strike someone with her tongue, spit acid at her enemies, or chew through a steel bar. It’s a silly example, but I hope you get a feel for it.
Skills in Truth & Justice range like this: Poor: -2, Average: +0, Good: +2, Expert: +4, Master: +6. Skill checks are made by rolling 2d6 and adding the relevant modifier and comparing the results either to an opponents roll or to a set target number (TN) set by the GM. That is a large part of the game system, and it’s nice and simple.
The reason a user defined skill system works here is that characters only use those skills when they’re appropriate. If Yak-Woman’s Caustic Saliva can help her escape Doctor Hunter’s Power Manacles then she rolls 2d6+2 (for her Saliva) against either a static TN set by the GM or 2d6+(Dr. Hunter’s Power Manacles skill). Her Saliva probably wouldn’t help her if, for example, Dr. Hunter trapped her in a sphere of sound. Similarly, if she shot the ground at his feat with her Caustic Saliva he could not use his Armor to defend against the attack. The game caters to clever playing.
Additionally a character’s Qualities and Powers can be combined. If Yak-Woman had the Quality (remember, not a super power but something you or I could have) Escape Artist +4 then she might be able to combine it with her Caustic Saliva when escaping from her bonds. “She weakens her bonds just enough to slip free!” In such a case she would roll 2d6+2(Saliva)+4(Escape Artist) or 2d6+6. I consider this to be a system problem to an extent because it encourages players to align their Qualities and Super Powers to get a significant bonus. While it’s all well and good when Spider-Man gets a +4 because he’s saving Mary Jane, what about the character that takes Karate or some other much more combat focused Quality? This can easily result in sickly powerful stacking bonuses, which makes this a system where a GM must closely watch character creation.
One of the big differences between Qualities and Super Powers is that Super Powers can strike “ordinary” people and objects with significantly more force than Qualities. Qualities are always at a disadvantage, so while a Soldier might have mundane Armor that protects him from damage it will pale in comparison to Yak-Woman’s Yak-Hide. Points devoted to the Super Powered skills can be traded in, at a large bonus, for more Qualities thereby allowing players to build characters more like Batman. While Qualities are often at a disadvantage against Super Powers, a character with a lot of Qualities has some advantages to help deal with this as discussed later.
In addition to Qualities and Super Powers there are a few other values that players need to pay attention to. Hero Points are extremely common and, to a large extent, drive the game forward more than anything else. They are gained through doing superhero appropriate things, like saving innocents, as well as when a character gets screwed by a plot device. Example: Dr. Psycho hypnotizes Yak-Woman, turning her against her friends. Yak-Woman’s player gains 2d6 Hero Points. It also occurs when a super hero’s weaknesses come into play, and generally any time folk are acting in character and causing the game to run like a comic book.
Hero Points can be traded in for some very powerful benefits, including rolling an extra d6, sharply increasing damage dealt, and shaking off damage taken. While player characters gain Hero Points during a session, Villains start with a limited number that dwindle during play. Thus a given villain starts off strong but ultimately weakens as the heros gain strength. This is meant to simulate comic book stories, and I think it’s a neat idea.
The downside to Hero Points focuses around the character advancement system. Experience points in this game are called MAX, and a character’s MAX represents their maximum number of Hero Points that may be held at a time. MAX may also be spent to increase powers and abilities, but it drops the character back down. So a character with a MAX of 10 might spend 8 of it to increase a Super Power, which drops them to a MAX of 2. Thus they can now only hold two Hero Points.
Gamemasters are expected to track every occurrence of Hero Point gain during a game session. Whenever a character gains a point, or just gains, the GM makes a tic mark. Once the tics eclipse the character’s current MAX that MAX increases by 1 and the tics reset. This results in a system that rewards players for acting in character and following super hero tropes. It also gives some weird results. It encourages characters to spend MAX often to upgrade their characters and seems like it could result in an imbalance in characters over time. Personally, I really don’t care for advancement systems that strongly involve gaining the GM’s favor. Hero Points are largely given based on whether the GM likes what’s going on at a time, so it is easy for me to imagine the shyer player being left behind because they lack some of the social skills of the other players.
While I don’t want to discuss every minor mechanic presented (there are quite a few) super heros can develop Spin-off Stunts that ultimately may become Signature Stunts. These are alternate or special uses for their powers that either allow the power to do something new or give it a bonus. In either case it takes Hero Points to power the Stunts, so characters wont want to use the same move constantly. The Dragon Strike of a martial artist would be a good example of a Signature Stunt. Neat stuff.
Chapter 3 Characters 9 pages.
Character creation involves all of the basics, from origin to goals to beliefs, that you would expect with any character. The only real difference here is how Qualities and Super Powers are chosen. Basically a player has 10 points to spend, in even increments, on Qualities, including one at -2 that tends to be a disadvantage. A player then spends 6 points, in even increments, on Super Powers. Powers at 0, or Average, cost 1 point.
Yak-Girl, for example, might have:
Qualities: Kind to Animals: +4, Veterinarian: +4, Loves Rock and Roll: +2, and Overweight: -2. Powers: Yak-Hide: +4, Caustic Saliva: +2.
Once again, these modifiers are added to a 2d6 roll. They can stack at times for larger bonuses, and Powers are always much better than Qualities. However, a character may trade in Super Powers points for a handful of extra Qualities at character creation. This results in more Batman-like characters that are broadly talented but have no real powers. They have an advantage in their versatility (lots of keyword skills to help counter an adversary) and in the beating they can take (lots of Qualities to downgrade).
Chapter 4 Superpowers 23 pages.
This is a lengthy, largely comprehensive, list of example super powers. The biggest thing worth mentioning is how the game handles broad powers as opposed to more narrow powers. The example given is Weather Control, which is often a whole lot of different powers but seems more natural to buy as Weather Control. Characters who buy really broad powers like that end up having restrictions imposed. In the case of Weather Control they may be spending Hero Points to use many of their abilities. In the case of Sorcery they may be having to bargain with demons for their powers at inopportune times. Very little in the way of system is given for this, it’s all up to the GM.
This leads to my biggest criticism of this chapter. Yak-Girl’s Yak-Hide power is a fine power, it’s simple to apply but it wont have all the bonuses it otherwise should unless we look at the Armor power here. A lot of the powers presented have bonuses, penalties, and other individual rules tweaks that makes an otherwise rules-light game much heavier. It also means that players who are most likely to think of a descriptor will then need to reference these powers, discuss the exact properties of the power with the GM, and then have the mechanics they will use. While this is great for individualizing powers, it is extremely susceptible to GM interpretation. It would be extraordinarily difficult to build a character without the GM in the same room to work with.
The system is, at the same time, simple and needlessly complex. I actually like the personalized take on power creation, but it will rub a lot of folk the wrong way.
Chapter 5 Super-Conflict 10 pages.
Typically conflict between characters is going to be resolved through an attack and a defense. Anything that could reasonably apply to the situation may be used for either, though a purely defensive ability requires Hero Point expenditures to be used as an attack. Why this is not the case for offensive abilities I’m unclear on, but as with a lot of the other material in the book it is strongly a matter of GM discretion. A sword can deflect bullets, a fire blast can melt them, or tough armor can just absorb the attack.
There are a few different factors that can make combat more complex than just a pair of opposed skills, mostly the way different powers interact with one another and how Qualities and Super Powers interact. Without going in to that the biggest one of concern is that characters may freely stack up attacks, at no cumulative penalty. While this is subject to the same reasonableness standard as using an attack Power to defend with, it can lead to some sickly large modifiers. While on the plus side it does reward teamwork, which is good, it may reward it too much. The characters are losing out on that other 2d6 roll, but in an opposed roll system that is on average going to be fine. The opponent would have gotten to defend against both attacks anyway.
Allow me to clarify why stacking Qualities with Powers and multiple team member attacks can cause problems. Say our hero, Yak-Girl, is beset by the Blaster Brothers. The Blaster Brothers are former hunters and have the quality Rifles at +4. With nothing else they fire guns at Yak-Girl by rolling 2d6+4, and since the Quality goes up against her Power she will have a notable advantage when defending with her Yak-Hide +4 armor (because of how armor works, not worth going into). 2d6+4 vs. 2d6+4 with an advantage for Yak-Girl since it’s a Quality vs a Power, no big deal.
Lets expand the example a bit. The Blaster Brothers are named for their powerful Blaster Rifles, a Power that fires energy beams at +4. Since it meshes perfectly with Rifle they now do 2d6+8 against Yak-Girl’s 2d6+4. An extra +4 modifier on a 2d6 roll is huge, this is likely to hurt Yak-Girl quite a bit. Now if they fire at the same spot, using teamwork, just one of them rolls 2d6+16. Yak-Girl’s Yak Hide +4, because of its special status as Armor, will probably be able to save her against such a furious assault. Any other hero would be toast.
It’s a little unfair in a capsule review to say that some of the Powers, as written, are far more desirable than others but that seems to be the case. Armor, in particular, seems exceptionally powerful as it allows a character to ignore or absorb significant amounts of damage. On the other hand, Armor is a lot easier to get around by being clever and Taunting the enemy into danger or using an Ice Slick to take them down. I have some concerns, but they don’t affect the final rating since I can’t test them out right now. I do wonder if the unpredictability of combat in this game can cause some difficulties, since just using the keywords in a creative manner can be a very effective means to winning a conflict.
Speaking of damage, here’s how it works. Say the Blaster Brothers managed to beat Yak-Girl’s roll by 4, bypassing armor and everything else, such that she takes 4 units of damage. Every time she suffers damage she has to lower a Quality or Power by 2 points.
Example: Yak-Girl is struck by the blast, dealing with immense amounts of pain. She knocks Kind to Animals down to +0 and Veterinarian down to +0. This represents her being in an almost berserk state, where she can no longer think as critically and is desperate just to stay alive.
Typically the first skill that gets downgraded like that in a fight is used to spin off a small story hook, such as the one I described in my example. The book uses an example of a person with Jogging who loses their Jogging skill first and represents that as the character being thrown feet first into a car, or twisting their ankle on the broken pavement. It’s a neat idea, but how many times does the character get their leg busted up before it starts to get old? Presumably in combat most players will drop Qualities completely unrelated to the current events first, which likely limits them to just a few choices. While it may be fun to have Loves Mary Jane always result in a plot complication, it’s going to get tiresome. But then, as with all the rules, the rules here are only meant to be enforced when it seems like fun.
Non-combat encounters work the same way. A chess match between Yak-Girl and a Blaster Brother could result in Yak-Girl dropping her Loves Rock and Roll skill to represent the pissy mood she’s in. Non-combat skills can even be integrated into combat. Taunting another character can degrade skills in the same manner as hitting them with a truck, providing an excellent way to bypass an enemies Armor or other strong advantage. That’s kinda neat, and it often rewards the characters using the scene to their advantage, but it’s also a little weird that the fast talking jerk character is the best one for taking down the heavily armored bad guys.
Hero Points strongly affect combat. They allow for alternate abilities, add dice to rolls, increase damage dealt, allow heros to recover from wounds, allow for scene alteration, and generally drive the combat forward more than anything else. They’re extremely powerful.
Characters fully recover at the end of a scene, which is nice and does tend to represent comic book wound recovery.
Chapter 6 Gamemastering 15 pages.
A general GM discussion, similar to that found in other RPGs, is found here though this one is much more focused on running Truth and Justice specifically instead of RPGs generally. Vague rules for vehicle and animal creation, rules for using trophy rooms, a discussion of how to build more powerful characters (though the game says you shouldn’t allow it for PCs then says you should do what you like), a discussion of how villains tend to act in comics, and similar material composes this chapter.
Chapters 7, 8, and 9 Example Settings 31 pages.
Three example settings are presented here. Each setting includes Public Knowledge, Secret Knowledge, and NPCs that exist in the world. They’re each interesting, if somewhat bland, and could serve as a springboard for a new campaign. An example campaign outline is provided for each as well.
Chapter 7 is devoted to Second-String Supers, a modern supers setting with a dose of mysticism attached to it. The big hero of the city has gone into space to deal with aliens, and the characters are the ones left behind to defend the city.
Chapter 8 is devoted to Supercorps, a setting that places more of a real world perspective on supers. Essentially most people with powers just work for major corporations, which has resulted in a significant rise in corporation power.
Chapter 9 is devoted to Fanfare for the Amplified Man, a setting where the player characters are the only super powered beings in the world. It explores what they do with their newfound gifts.
Chapter 10 Bibliography 3 pages.
A simple Bibliography listing all the works referred to in the book.
Chapter 11 Random-Roll Inspiration & Handouts 6 pages.
This chapter rounds out the book with a variety of random tables to help generate ideas for character creation. A single page sums up most of the rules in the game, which is a fantastic addition.
My Take
In terms of game mechanics this is a very loose game. That, ultimately, is both the beauty and horror of the system. With a like minded group of friends who all want the same thing this can shine beautifully. With a relatively new group, or one with differing tastes, I foresee it as a problem. Too much is left up to what the GM thinks is appropriate, in all respects. Hero Point awards, power creation, Quality and Power keywords, etc.Nevertheless, I think this looks like a fun game. Players largely get to play what they want, they don’t have to work about an effects based system (just write down Web Shooters +2 and move on), and a lot more attention is paid to the people behind the costumes than one finds in other games. For all of these reasons I will reach for Truth and Justice as my first choice for telling stories focused on the personal aspect of comic book characters.
