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The downside here is that the game is so mechanics lite as to be almost systemless. Character creation is handled by giving the character whatever abilities make sense, all actions are resolved through simple rolls against a set difficulty or, in rare circumstances, opposed rolls, and most of the rules exist in the intellectual ether created by players and Editors negotiating over what characters can do. This is definitely not a product for everyone and will likely only appeal to those folk who want just enough system for their freeform play to have a comic book feel.
The Physical Thing
This 133 page black and white hardcover showcases substantially below average production values for its $25.00 price tag. While this is a small press product, which means it doesn’t have the amount of resources a big name product would have, this book is of poor quality by small press standards. The art is of average to bad quality and might be passable if it wasn’t badly pixilated. Images have been blown up to a size they were never meant for, making already low quality artwork painful on the eyes. Combine that with a general lack of artwork, which often hurts the later portion of the book discussing example characters, and you end up with an ugly book.The editing is good for the most part, but occasional errors still creep through. Two early pages are completely reversed, and while that doesn’t render the product unreadable it is both confusing and irritating for the reader (note: the author says this has since been corrected). The formatting here also leaves a lot to be desired. The borders look bad while the rest of the formatting is very plain. The margins are very small, and while I like the increased text density this produces it also results in the product being difficult to read at times as the text is too close to the binding.
The Ideas
The author is clearly a fan of super heroes, and that’s a good thing. Hearts & Souls embraces comic book conventions and incorporates monologues, inspiring speeches, and heroic behavior directly into the rules. The philosophy here is that players should be able to play whatever character they envision and the rules should focus on that character striving to overcome great obstacles.Under the Cover
This product is broadly organized into four distinct sections. There are no chapters, however, so I’m going to call them the Rules, Example of Play, Editing, and Setting sections for the purpose of this review.The Rules section is easily the best part of the product. Hearts & Souls makes use of d4, d8, and d12 dice – an unusual but interesting choice that scales nicely. Abilities on the Human Scale use d4s, those on the Superhuman Scale use d8s, and those on the Cosmic Scale use d12s. Most characters will be rolling d4s and d8s in Hearts & Souls, as there is a logical scaling in power that occurs with each jump that makes characters with Cosmic Scale abilities pretty crazy. Scale means about what you think it would. My throwing a baseball would be a Human Scale event while a god throwing a planet would be a Cosmic Scale event.
In addition to each ability having its own power level rating (Scale) that determines what type of dice are rolled, each ability also has a value for expertise (Rating) which determines how many dice are rolled. Ordinary for one die, Exception for two dice, and Spectacular for three dice. A character with a Super Human ability at Exceptional would roll 2d8, for instance. Rating, unlike Scale, typically reflects training and general capability with something rather than how inherently powerful it is.
These Scales and Ratings are applied to six Capabilities: Might, Deftness, Resilience, Brains, Prowess, and Resolve. The Capabilities are largely intuitive, reflecting a character’s physical and mental, well, capabilities. My only gripe here is that Brains and Prowess both seem to involve intelligence and, based on the text, I can’t clearly discern what Prowess is for. The product says it represents skills (but only mental skills) but I’m not sure that helps me. It feels like the author wanted to have three physical and three mental Capabilities but, in achieving that symmetry, ended up creating an unnecessary and redundant mental Capability.
In addition to having those six Capabilities at whatever scale and rating the player and Editor (GM) think makes sense, a character will have a few other abilities. All characters have a Drive, which is their reason for being a super hero. For the good guys these Drives are broadly split up into Love, Guilt, Community, and Spirit of Adventure. In play Drive is very important, because a player can talk about their character’s internal monologue related to the Drive in order to re-roll the dice at no Stress cost. Super powers each have a Scale and a Rating just like Capabilities. In fact, they’re just like Capabilities and a Lightning Blast roll might be opposed by a target’s Deftness or Resilience exactly the same way a punch (using Might or Deftness) would be (though opposed rolls are rare and it’s usually the player rolling against a set difficulty). The book only presents very brief descriptions of 11 powers, citing the difficulty or providing a complete power list as the reason for having so few. This makes sense considering that Hearts & Souls is more interested in the player’s conception of what the hero can do than tirelessly stating out every little power.
Character creation is mostly free form. Players choose a single Drive (or create their own), write down whatever super powers the character has, and then assign a Scale and Rating to all their Capabilities and Powers. Each Power has four values, Attack, Defense, Movement, and Manipulation. The Editor has final approval of the character, which is the check to keep things from being “too powerful.” While the game does not discuss this, an Editor could assign a certain number of Ratings and Capabilities or create their own system if they don’t care for how freeform Hearts & Souls is.
Example: I’m making a hero for a new Hearts and Souls game. I want to play Leandra Felix, a young Mexican immigrant to the United States who has manifested powers of a most unusual sort – the ability to increase, decrease, and tie destiny to inanimate objects. She dodges bullets by removing their miniscule destiny to harm her and stops run away trucks by making it their destiny to tip over. It’s a complex super power, but easily represented in Hearts and Souls with no book work. I’ll call it Destiny Control She uses that power to protect the immigrant community, so I go ahead and assign the Drive of Love (in the form of love of her community). She’s quick and clever, but not particularly tough or smart. Here’s what my final character sheet looks like:
Name: Leandra Felix
Concept: Young woman fights to protect her family and community.
Drive: Love (for her community)
Might: Human Scale / Ordinary – 1d4
Deftness: Human Scale / Exceptional – 1d4
Resilience: Human Scale / Ordinary – 1d4
Brains: Human Scale / Exceptional – 2d4
Prowess: Human Scale / Ordinary – 1d4
Resolve: Human Scale / Exceptional – 2d4
Power: Destiny Control. Attack: 2d8, Defense: 3d8, Movement: 2d4, Manipulation: 2d8
Tasks are easy to resolve. If the relevant Capability is of a higher Scale than the task requires (say Superhuman Scale for a Human Scale action) then the character succeeds automatically. If the task requires the same scale the character has then they roll the dice against a 2, 4 or 6 difficulty. If they beat that, then they succeed. If not, failure. Players may attempt to resolve challenges of a Scale higher than what their character has (Human Scale Brains trying to solve an interdimensional puzzle considered Superhuman) but the difficulty goes up and the whole thing is solely at the Editor’s discretion.
Attacks and other situations where one character goes up against another are also easy to resolve. Differences in Scale may once again result in automatic successes or failures, but most tasks will involve an opposed roll with the higher value winning the conflict. Note that the Editor rarely rolls in Hearts & Souls, instead assuming villains succeed unless the hero makes a roll against a set difficulty. So, heroes roll attack rolls against a difficulty and defense rolls against a difficulty while villains tend to just have set target numbers.
The final, but most important, concept to discuss is Stress. Stress is a mix of damage, actual stress, and failure generally that builds up one point at a time. Failed rolls and re-rolls (without a monologue for a free re-roll) both cause the character to accumulate Stress. Some characters also have Stress Triggers that cause additional stress, usually representing their super hero weakness. When Stress builds up high enough (usually 2 or 4 points but sometimes up to 6 based on the character’s Resilience or Resolve) a Stress Event occurs, usually some sort of notable failure for the character whether it’s a physical injury or emotional trauma. Good guys can work off stress through humor, maintaining their commitments, and generally being a comic book super hero.
Villains have Stress too, but they can ignore it for a brief period and let it build until they fail at their current scheme. Villains work off stress through monologues that reveal their plans and other similarly appropriate acts for a comic book bad guy. This is a neat idea because it allows a villain to survive early encounters, explain their plan and burn off that early Stress, and then have a final encounter.
So that’s it. Roll against a (usually) fixed number, re-roll if you fail, possibly take some Stress. Stress builds until a larger failure is suffered. Fans of rules lite games will be pleased with the skeletal system presented in Hearts & Souls, though it may be too ethereal even for folk who like having little system. One problem here is a complete lack of game elements in the system. I can’t discern any strategy or any reward for clever tactics – just rolling and talking to work off the inevitable Stress.
As weak as the system is the rest of the product is no better. The Example of Play is passable, providing a fine presentation of the game. My only real quibbles with it are that it’s not particularly exciting (just to me personally) and that the system seems so lite and straight forward that I don’t get a lot out of the Example of Play. Still, it’s a worthwhile inclusion and I’m glad the product has it – even if I wish it was shorter. Those who are uncertain how Stress works in the game can figure it all out by reading through the example.
The section on Editing, or GMing, a Hearts & Souls game may help brand new GMs but folk who have run a game will take little, if anything, away from this section. In fact, I felt like the author was actively trying to fill space with some of the suggestions. For example, the tips on running a chase scene involve four bulleted points: *Who is pursued? *How extreme is their desire to flee? *Who is the pursuer? *What means will the pursuer take to capture their targets? Most of the advice is like this, so painfully generic and unhelpful that the reader just wont know what to do with it. The information on super heroes generally is also very weak, and it’s highly unlikely a reader will take anything away from this part of the book.
The included setting takes up over 70 pages and is mostly a long list of NPCs. The setting is highly derivative of familiar comic books, which is a good thing because it provides familiar characters and themes for anyone wanting to run Hearts & Souls. Unfortunately the NPCs aren’t very exciting and the setting is far from being compelling (or even detailed) enough to make me want to play in it. If anything, this section is useful as a source for quick NPC bad guys, but nothing more.
My Take
Why such a low score? Both the presentation and ideas here are very weak. I can think of other games that do what Hearts & Souls is trying to do and make good use of game mechanics. With no character creation rules and an extremely simple system for resolving tasks that incorporates auto successes and multiple rerolls, I’m uncertain who this game will appeal to. Even folk who like system lite games often want some sort of reward for cool description and neat ideas, which is lacking in Hearts & Souls (except in the form of monologues and Stress relief). With the low quality Editor advice, weak setting, and overly lengthy example of play a consumer may find themselves having purchased only a skeletal rules system that spans a few pages and leaves most of the details to the purchaser.If you aren’t concerned with presentation and want an extremely rules lite system that puts most of the rules in the elusive Social Contract between the Editor and Players then Hearts & Souls may be what you’re looking for. While the system neither encourages fun nor strategy, seeking solely to present classic super hero comics, it may be just the thing some groups of almost-freeform roleplayers are looking for.
