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I have a friend who has asked me to be on the lookout for DC Heroes for some time. I ran across one book (a red booklet, called "The Rules Manual") at a local Half Price Books and got it for him. Thanks to a Christmas of not getting much new to read on the can, I had the opportunity to give it a once-over, and enough things impressed me about it that I thought I'd write a quick review.
Now, I can read Wikipedia like the next guy, and know that DC Heroes Third Edition from Mayfair, with its system christened "MEGS," is considered 'the bomb' and that there's an active fan base out there (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-heroes/). Don't have that, haven't read it. I think this is from the 1989 Second Edition - it's one book from a boxed set, has no copyright date on it, and doesn't mention a previous version (the 1985 First Edition was also a boxed set), but it includes an art scene I think is from the "A Death in the Family" Batman storyline where Robin dies, which saw print in 1988-1989. I'm reviewing just this 72-page booklet entitled "The Rules Manual." It refers to a Read This First booklet, a Welcome to Gotham City solo adventure, a Character Handbook where all the powers are, and a GM screen. But, Half Price didn't have them! Caveat: I'm sure the third edition or the newer tweaked Blood of Heroes version is better, whatever, don't complain about it – this is admittedly a review of a historical artifact.
Style
Quite decent. The layout, while uninspiring, is quite readable. I'd describe it as "state of the art 1980s RPG." The graphical design reminds me a lot of Star Frontiers (1982). It is in red and black, which is used to good effect in the tables. It has real DC comic excerpts inset throughout – not many of them, maybe 1 every 3 pages on average, and often they're pretty small, but they are relevant to the text – Wonder Woman deflecting bullets in the section on blocking, Batman cradling a dead Robin in the section on death, etc. Certainly it has none of the thuggish editing errors so prevalent in today's RPGs. Ah, the youth. The organization is particularly good. It's broken up into chapters, and the first "Rules" chapter is very clear, going through specific ideas clearly delineated by red headers announcing e.g. "Idea One- Attribute Points" and listing specific rules or steps with large numbers next to them. Sidebars or examples are in boxes with red shaded backgrounds. Anyone looking to write a "straightforward" RPG (where the rules aren't all deeply couched in the style of the game, like Lacuna or whatnot, but you just want to explain the rules in the most straightforward manner possible) could take hints from it. Few more recent RPGs are as well presented – ah, Spycraft 2.0, what did I do to you for you to hurt me so… The other thing I'll mention under style is that all the rules are quite adequately illustrated with examples – in fact, often one main example and then a bunch of little quizlets designed to test your understanding, This is great. So it's not overly "pretty" as a book – but it is very well presented; kinda like a "For Dummies" book. And hey, it was the '80's.
Substance
I'm not going to go through all the rules in equal depth; I'm mainly going to point out things I thought were especially good takeaways or were weak/confusing.
Chapter One: The Rules
Only 8 pages, broken into eight "ideas". The first is the idea of "Attribute Points", which is a little bit of an odd term for their abstract measure of quantity. 0 AP's is 50 pounds, or 10 feet, or the like, and the "real value" doubles for each additional AP. So 5 APs of distance is about 320 feet. (Well, technically anything from 161-320 feet.) They provide a benchmark AP table (in the GM Screen) so this serves as a very good way to abstract all measures in a way such that they can all be handled by one core mechanic. The next idea is Attributes. The thing I really liked about this is that they have 9 attributes arranged into a 3x3 grid. I have no idea how to do tables in rpg.net-ese, so I'll try this:
| Dexterity | Strength | Body |
| Intelligence | Will | Mind |
| Influence | Aura | Spirit |
The first row contains the "physical" attributes, the second "mental," and the third "mystical" (though you could call it "social" without a problem IMO). Similarly, the first column contains the "Acting and Opposing Attributes" (the attributes that determine your chance at doing something), the second column the "Effect Attributes" (that determine your degree of effect), and the third column the "Resistance Attributes" (that you use to resist effects). So for example, in hand to hand combat, which is governed by the Physical Attributes, you compare Dexterities to see if you hit someone, use Strength for how bad it hurts them, and Body to resist the hurt. I really like the symmetry.
For resolution, there's a 2d20 roll (roll high, doubles explode) and you compare acting vs. opposing attributes on a table to get the success number. Then, you compare effect vs. resist on a second table to determine effect. Tables aren't used much any more, but there are only 2 of them so it's OK. You get "column shifts" under a number of circumstances, which aren't totally self-explanatory; I had to read over them a number of times and I expect I'd get them wrong a bit before I got used to them.
Besides attributes, characters get powers (you know, super ones), skills, advantages, and drawbacks. And Hero Points. Hero Points are interesting in that most games out there nowadays use points of this sort in a "one at a time" manner. You have a very small number of them and you use one on some roll to improve it. In DC Heroes, you must have a bunch of them because you spend them "like money." To push a given roll you might have to pay 6 points plus an overage of 15 points et cetera. Not bad, necessarily, but different.
The chapter ends badly. Everything else is good here, although the deeper parts of column bumps and hero point rules get a little confusing. But the "Automatic Actions" section is a mess. Many actions you don't have to roll for, like picking up something you have the Strength to pick up. But let's say you want to try harder. Well, then you roll the AV vs the AV as the EV as a Dice Check and use Hero Points and pay a Push Fee and have Column Shifts… I wanted to cry out "just Take 10, dammit!!!"
Chapter Two: AVs and the World
Here's where the APs really start hitting their stride. This section describes how to do "AP math", which at first is a little counterintuitive because of the "doubling" feature of APs. For example, how far can someone with speed of 4 APs cover in 1 AP of time? 5 APs, because distance=speed + time. The rules are simple, you just have to take them at face value and not try to figure stuff out using your old Physics formulas. Breaking and throwing things are covered specifically, which is great for a Supers game.
Chapter Three: Combat
A fairly normal Combat chapter follows. I wondered about a couple things – like people can activate their protective powers for free at the beginning of a phase (round), which means there's no "getting the drop on the Invisible Girl when she's not looking" (ok, so she's Marvel, sue me). And it uses the old school concept of declaring actions if you lose initiative to promote "fair play." Damage can be Bashing (nonlethal) or Killing (lethal) at the inflictor's discretion, whatever the attack (you can do nonlethal with guns). I like this, but then they have some very odd exceptions - like Knockback damage is always Lethal, as are falls, fires (as long as they're not from a Power, in which case they can be Bashing)… I don't know what's up with that, if you can shoot someone "nonlethally" you can knock them back into a wall nonlethally.
Chapter Four: Character Interaction
This is a straightforward description of how intimidation, interrogation, et al. work. I like that they note that heroes do more than bust heads all day.
Chapter Five: Gadgetry
This section is longer than the core rules section at 12 pages, though a lot of it is real-world and DC-world examples, which are great. Anyone can design a Gadget, which can be assigned Powers and Attributes. Parts have to be bought and a Hero Point cost has to be spent. That segues into…
Chapter Six: Wealth
Not sure this needs to be a chapter to itself, it essentially just says that wealth is measured in APs and you roll to get it, as in d20 Modern.
Chapter Seven: Gamemastering
This contains a good if eclectic batch of advice for a GM, from "make sure there's enough chairs for everyone" to "challenge the player's minds" to "what do you do when they go off the track of the adventure?" That's nothing to write home about, but the section on creating an adventure is very nice and thorough, and something many games lack. Hero Point awards are here too.
Chapter Eight: Subplots
I really like that they spend a good-sized section of the rulebook on this topic, which is writing the characters into the plot. Though these are called "subplots", one might argue that these things, like Spider-Man's romance with Mary Jane Watson (ok ok, what can I say, I'm more of a Marvel guy) are certainly more long-lasting parts of a campaign that which weirdo villain you thrashed this week.
Appendices!
Who can live without appendices? Well, everyone, that's why you have it out. But anyway, there's Advanced Rules (negative APs, stunning, upkeep, and more), Genres (humor, action, mock-real, gritty, real), the Action Wheel (describing a wheel-based lookup version of the tables), Animals (huh?) and Designer's Notes. Oh, now I see, they do say it's Second Edition. The notes say they didn't change much of the core rules from 1e, except for Pushing, and retooled Gadgets and Wealth. And it mentions that the boxed set contains 150 character writeups! Eek!
Summary
From a Substance point of view, I'd say that the rulebook has a lot there. It's interesting to me that the game evolved only a little from edition to edition, much like BRP. If the core is simple and elegant, there's only so much screwing around you can do. I really like the Attributes and the AP system, and think that with a little more streamlining around the Push/Hero Point area this could be a real solid game even by today's standards. Many old games aren't a pleasure to read, but this one was!
