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How this review came to be

My preferences for roleplaying games in general and superhero games specifically is for a simple, self-consistent rules system that I don't have to think about, that makes intuitive sense to me, and that gets the hell out of the way whether in a superpowered battle over midtown or roleplaying a quiet character moment. In my mind, superhero games should be as fast and dramatic as the source material they are trying to emulate. And while some superhero comics are dark, gritty, and deadly, I am not really looking for that in a superhero game. Power design should be flexible and intuitive; when imagining a power, it should be fairly obvious how to do it under the system and not feel like I'm shoving a square peg into my round eye. I am not really concerned with power balance, but anything that looks imbalanced to me (creator of the most inefficient builds) is definitely a problem. I don't like playing canon characters from established universes, but the game should definitely allow me to recreate them from scratch if I wanted to.

I have run or played Champions (Hero 4th/BBB), Marvel Superheroes (FASERIP), Marvel Adventures (SAGA), DC Heroes, Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat), Villains & Vigilantes, Mutants & Masterminds (1st and 2nd editions), Godlike, Wild Talents, BASH, and Truth & Justice (see my review). I have also run homebrew superhero games using BESM, Over the Edge, diceless/freeform, and (the latest) Fudge. I own, but not have played (and maybe have not fully read), Marvel Universe (diceless), DC Universe (WEG), D6 Powers, Necessary Evil (Savage Worlds), Cosmic Enforcers, Hero Force, and Guardians of Metro City (by the author of Resolute as well as free games sitting on my hard drive like Powergame, Four Colors (Cynthia Celeste Miller), Four Color System (FASERIP clone), and others. It takes quite an effort to get me excited about a new superhero game and I have often felt burned by games that promised more than they delivered. Even the free ones.

So when I saw a game advertised with the slogan, "For three bucks, can you really afford NOT to find out?" my incredulity sirens blared. It didn't help that I did not care for the last offering or that the playtest left me cold. But really, it just annoyed me that the same game was advertised twice in Ads/Promo in the span of a week. Apparently, this was a result of how the Press releases work, but it did end up with me setting off a minor flame war (not with the author, but someone else who came to defend him) and then receiving a comp copy of this three buck superhero rpg to review.

I unfortunately don't have time to playtest it, so I will make references to the play test report.

Page 1

And that brings me to the layout. There are some basic (though not major) flaws in this otherwise clean three-column design.

• The left and right margins are only a half-inch. Forget trying to three-hole punch the printed PDF. Even folders which simply clip the pages together need more inner margin.
• There is not enough space between the text and the footer. Several times as I was reading down the first column, I read "Resolute: The Superhero RPG" on the footer, mistaking it for a continuation of the column.
• This is not so glaring, but something I wish more self-publishers would take note of. Turn on hyphenation. It not only prevents the spacing of justified columns from getting wonky, but it helps unjustified columns (as in the case here) look less jagged.
• And while I'm being a layout Nazi, can I say that the first line indentation is twice as large as it needs to be?

Ok, I'll stop nitpicking the layout. It's functional and he generally does a good job with table and art placement. Oh, and there is a short table of contents (with 7 sections) and a brief introduction on this first page as well.

I. Backdrop

The setting is our modern day. Fifteen years ago, the earth is visited by The Emissary (Silver Surfer analog?), who warns the earth of a pending alien invasion and gives humanity the secret to unlocking the "omega gene," the key to superpowers.

Other features of the background:

• The Messari, the tentacled, psychic aliens, who were twice beaten off, but who will inevitably return
• Nativity, the presumptive campaign city of 50 million that grew from the ashes of a city razed in the first Messari invasion
• The Citadel, a city filled with crazy supervillains
• United World Council, that "supersedes all national governments" with a fleet of 500 helifortresses
• The UWC's official superhero group, the Guardians
• Apocalypse Mutants who want to overthrow humanity
• Redeemer Mutants who want to protect humanity
• Pariah supers who live in secret, such as in the underground ruins of Nativity (Morlocks, anyone?)
• "Gods and titans of myth and legend" (but none are detailed)

II. The System

A short table showing a ranking progression of mass, speed, etc. is included. (These are pretty standard for superhero games.) The highest rank listed is Supreme (+13, DR of 20), which corresponds to 500 tons, 30,000 deg. F (sun’s core), Light speed, or the hardness of Adamant.

Character abilities are ranked +0 to +10 and are bought with Character Points (CP) on a familiar cost scale of 1, 3, 6, ..., 45, 55. Non-linear cost scales can cause balance problems, especially when abilities stack, but the system is simple enough to avoid those pitfalls. And the ability range is low enough so that adding up the costs aren't too much of a pain.

The Core Abilities are Agility, Focus, Melee, Might, Speed, Sense, Stamina, and Willpower. This is actually a pretty good list. The only real oddball is Focus, which is used for targeting “all powers [that] control and manipulate energy or magic.” Speed determines how far you can move each turn and how many actions you get per round.

Other Abilities include not only superpowers like Binding Attack, Force Field, Mind Control, and Telekinesis but also skills like Burglary, Law, Science, and Stealth (high ranks of which is how you get Invisibility). I like this approach and have used such for my own Fudge-based games. But the actual power descriptions bug me. Here are some specific examples:

• Physical and Energy attacks are resisted by different powers (Armor and Energy Resistance, for example). Even Champions recognized that Armor could stop both physical and energy attacks, though it effectively allowed players to set the ratio between the two.
• With the Phasing power, you actually have to make a roll to pass through solid objects.
• Growth and Shrinking are a bit wonky. Getting bigger gives you armor (which doesn't help against energy attacks) and getting smaller increases your speed (which means you actually run faster the smaller you get).
• In a flashback to the great healing debate of the Silver Age Sentinels playtest, the Healing power allows you to “restore wounds to others once per round” (emphasis mine).
• The Duplication power is fairly limited (1 duplicate per rank). “Any attack against you will only strike you on a 1 on D6; all other attacks automatically strike your duplicate first.” To me, this only makes sense if you have 5 duplicates in your immediate proximity.

None of these issues are insurmountable or prevent the game from being played and enjoyed. But there will certainly be a fair amount of power tweaking and negotiations. The closest Resolute comes to a social ability is Mind Control.

Adaptations are a bunch of 1-point abilities such as Burrowing, Immortality, and Telepathy. Telepathy only allows you to send thoughts or read sent thoughts. For reading surface thoughts of unwilling victims, you need the adaptation ESP. There are no powers for probing memories.

III. Building a Super

The total CP available for buying abilities, etc. ranges from 0 (Normal Human) to 300 (Godlike). 50 CP is a typical superhero.

Enhancements are another hodge-podge of abilities like Contacts, Improved Range, and Sidekick. The costs range from 1 to 5 CP, some bought at multiple levels.

Limitations give back 1 to 3 CP by taking things like Allergies, Monstrous, and Secret Identity. This is standard superhero rpg stuff.

Rounding out character creation, there are three Combat Traits: Fate, Turns, and Wounds (the latter two based on your Speed and Stamina, respectively). Fate points are used to add to rolls. And I'm pretty sure the rules imply you can use these after the roll is made, to turn a known failure into a success. Fate points return at the end of every encounter, which is quite different from how other systems use similar mechanisms. The number of fate points is based on your highest-ranking ability, plus any bonus from the Luck ability (which is doubly good if Luck is your best ability).

III. Combat

To hit rolls are opposed ability rolls and the margin of success (the amount by which the attack beat the defense) is added to the damage roll. And here we run into the first major balance problem. All else being equal, it is always better to increase your attack ability (agility or melee) than your damaging ability (energy projection, might, etc.). The non-linear ability costs help this somewhat, but it is generally more efficient to focus your points on the attack rather than the damage.

Damage rolls are also opposed ability rolls, like might versus armor for a punch. The number of wounds suffered is equal to the damage roll divided by the resistance roll (truncated). So if you roll a 20 on damage against a 7 resistance, you deliver 2 wounds. For one less wound of damage, you may also elect to have the opponent suffer one of the following effects: Knock Back, Knockout (which doesn't actually knock them out, but increases the difficulty of the next recovery roll (see below)), or Stun effect. I consider this the most interesting element of the combat system.

If your wounds get to 0, you are felled and done for the rest of the round. At the end of the round, you can roll to recover, which gets harder each time you are felled. If you don't recover, you're defeated. If you do recover, you can participate in the next round. The rules don't say how many wounds you get back on a successful recovery. The play test report says you return with 1 less wound and -1 Stamina. Lastly, if you take more than twice your wounds (I assume either cumulatively or from a single attack), you are dead.

There are two perfectly reasonable rules for dealing with mooks:

1. You can attack a number of mooks at once equal to your attack rating
2. Mooks do not roll for recovery and are out of the fight once felled.

Special combat rules include Charging, Constriction, Ground Attacks, Improvised Weapons, Pulling Punches, and Explosives. There are no rules for disarming, tripping, feints, teamwork, etc. The closest to grappling rules are for Constriction which are a bit odd. To grab an opponent, you roll might versus might, and if you win, you can maintain a hold until you let go; there are no rules for escaping a hold.

In summary, the combat system involves a bit too much rolling and missing rules. In the play test report (and really, this is all I have to go on since there is no sample combat in the rules themselves), all the rolling (especially for recovery) really turned me off.

V. Running the Game

Power stunts (using powers in unorthodox ways) are allowed, but they require an ability roll to succeed. I can't tell if failing a stunt check counts as a turn in combat or if you can try something else. Otherwise, the guidelines are pretty straight-forward.

I didn't find anything egregious or innovative in this section.

VI. Devices

Permanent items like vehicles and bases are built using resource points. Everyone has resource points based on their total CP and groups can pool them to buy big things. The wealth enhancement determines basically what kind of base you have (penthouse, space station, etc.), but you spend resource points to buy abilities for it. Seven sample vehicles from motorcycle to battle walker are provided along with rules to build your own based on size, control, durability, speed, etc.

In general, I'm not a big fan of gadget rules that are distinct from other character generation rules (and Resolute does have an omni-gadget super ability), but these are simple enough to use for those who like the idea of playing out building a gadget or item. Compared to the DC Heroes gadget rules, these are a breeze.

VII. Rogues’ Gallery

I liked seeing these types of simple benchmark characters and ready-to-go opponents. My only complaint is that it needed artwork. This was also a perfect opportunity to include notable figures of the setting, but since the setting was abandoned back in section I, there is none of that here.

Appendix: Adventure Hooks

Final Thoughts

As I asked in my CAH:S2 review, "Do I need another fantasy, pulp, superhero, supernatural horror, or generic system if I already have several other games that fill those niches?" Is there enough new and interesting in Resolute to buy it? No. Not even for $3? Not really. There are plenty of free games out there. I'd recommend it over Hero Force ($3.95 for 13 pages), and I like it better than some of the rpgs I mentioned at the beginning (mostly because it's lighter than Champions or DC Heroes and Wild Talents and I don’t get along). But it's yet another small rpg that has found its way onto my hard drive without that special spark that makes me want to convince my gaming group to play it. I'd certainly play it if someone offered, but I know I'd find myself straining against the power descriptions.

Many people will find Resolute as incomplete because of its missing combat rules, no guidelines for character advancement, short list of powers, lack of background detail, etc. As a short, cheap, small press PDF, I don't mind this so much, but anyone looking for a comprehensive superhero rpg will be disappointed.

Side Note: I definitely like Resolute more than the author's previous superhero game, Guardians of Metro City. The latter was bogged down my unintuitive character creation and a d3-based dice pool layout. However, GMC had much more generic superhero rpg campaign creation advice, sample NPCs, and other GM support.

Style: 3. This includes the same +1 bump I gave T&J for being a small press PDF product.

Substance: 2. There just isn't much compelling or exciting here.

Lastly, there is no character sheet. Not that I think there needs to be one, but some people like those things.

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