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Dawn of Legends is an RPG supplement for Savage Worlds created by Daring Entertainment. A superhero setting and system, Dawn of Legends is a massive pdf, chock full of content. Unfortunately, Dawn of Legends, despite several bright spots and innovations, falls far short of its contemporaries in the super hero RPG market, and should be passed over for revised Necessary Evil or other better superhero games.
For those who want to see why this is, quickly skip to the Powers section and the Characters. For a fair review, I go through each section, rating and reviewing them on their own merits. Some familiarity with the Savage Worlds system may be needed to understand certain parts of the text.
Overview
The book starts with a usable Table of Contents, giving page numbers for the contents as, with accompanying bookmarks allowing for rapid navigation. The book has no chapters, merely content.
Foreward
In many ways, this is where Dawn of Legends makes several pretentious promises it fails to live up to, including: “Dawn of Legends brings the best of comic books to life at your table.” “…what you hold in your hands is not only the first step in bringing a new era of four color action to Savage Worlds, it’s a new era in the Savage Worlds license.” Perhaps the most honest statement in the foreward is: “…I had my doubts that a super-powers system could meet my critical standards and that truly mimicked the four-color action of comic books…” The foreward also contains a run down of the books various contents.
Introduction to Neo Earth
The Introduction to Neo Earth is actually pretty solid. The basic setting feels much like a combination of Aberrant and Champions: a well thought out world, where super heroes have had an actual impact upon science and society. Superhuman power classifications are pretty slick, and some of the setting ideas (no kid sidekicks- that’s child labor!) are pretty interesting.
The Importance of Backstory
Starting off by recommending a book on philosophy and superheroes, rather than reading comic books, the importance of back story seems to veer off the mark from the start. There is an inclusion of twenty questions, which while some may be insightful for some characters, many are less than helpful. The included life path chart is less than inspired: several of the paths are repetitive and few of them actually generate a character with a useful background. In other words, a lot of emphasis on good backgrounds with no real tools to provide them.
Making A Hero
A basic rundown of character creation starts here. Some of the flaws in layout really come out here. We are given the motivations section here, after the background generator, with no real way of linking it to the backstory section. Setting rule hindrances allow for a very frontloaded character, with 4 minor and 2 major allowed. This means that your starting hero can take the power advancement twice right off the bat (110 points for powers- important later) and still have enough points for two edges or attribute advancements, though you may have a bag of troubles. We’re also introduced to two new traits for Savage Worlds- Mental Resistance and Spiritual Resolve. These are basically Toughness for Smarts and Spirit, an interesting idea with a lackluster resolution (see later text on Powers). The first real section is a list of edges, and there are a lot of them. Some of them, like the leadership style edges, are overpowered. Some of them, like the battle cape edge, are a wonderful addition to superhero campaigns. Some include things that are better described as powers, like a lack of organs and immortality. There are plenty of hindrances as well, some representing non-human traits. Between these, you can manage to build a plethora of robots and alien entities. After this, we come back to setting rules (put after the edges, rather than collecting them in one place). We find out our characters have six bennies with a huge list of new benny uses- not too bad. There is also a list of combat rules and options. Charging is by far the worst, turning every travel power into a potential combat power as long as your character is tough enough to survive taking half damage, while the rules for throwing people and objects appears to be more advanced and complete then Necessary Evil’s normal throwing rules.
Popularity
Popularity adds in an interesting system, whereby public favor and its advantages provides real in game effects. This system is an okay measure of how popularity can effect a teams public appearance and wealth, though it may be more paperwork than needed, requiring a checklist of maintenance after every game. Additionally, negative public perception is a little too harsh, even giving Bad Luck for no real reason. Teams like the X-Men or other unpopular teams are greatly penalized.
The Wealth system is equally unwieldy. The Wealth edges quickly take characters from poor to disgustingly wealthy with little effort, while the Windfall edge can be used to become even more disgustingly wealthy- just in case several million leaves you feeling poor.
Super Teams
One of the cooler ideas in the book is that super teams get stuff, almost like a character of their own. As soon as a team is formed, a team is treated much like a character of its own. The team has it’s own popularity, wealth, edges, and hindrances, allowing one’s character to develop separately from one’s base of operations and team atmosphere- a nice change of pace from games that force players to choose between their base and their own abilities.
Building Artifacts and Gadgets
In this section, a rigorous series of rolls is laid out for the purpose of creating new occult or technological devices. It starts with a Wealth roll, then an appropriate Knowledge roll, before finishing by spending power points- a strange system, considering just spending power points feels a lot less aggravating. Superman, just gets stronger, Iron Man? Long series of pointless rolls for genre simulation.
After the first two outlines of this system, one for invention and one for upgrading equipment, we get to jury rigging, which is the same system, only you don’t spend power points and will have the invention usable for one scene before burning out. An okay system.
It also notes that higher level gadgets and artifacts still function fine when taken by a player. Meaning that if you steal Doctor Freezo’s Frost Beam, your deadly archer Sureshot can fire it better and deal a sick amount of damage for as long as he holds on to it.
The invention system feels not only pointless, but ripe for abuse in the hands of the wrong player, since there is nothing preventing people from using any device they can get their hands on.
Powers
The meat of any superhero system, this is where the game really breaks down. Remember when I mentioned that a character can start off with 110 points? This is where that becomes important. The truth of any superhero system is that it can break very easily due to the sheer number of powers available- balance can be hard to achieve. Dawn of Legends fails to even attempt a form of balance.
At every Rank of play (Novice, Seasoned, Veteran, Heroic, and Legendary for those unfamiliar with Savage Worlds) one’s Power Limit increases, starting at level 6. 6 is then the highest level a power can be bought to right off the bat in this game. However, each power costs a different amount in the game… only there is little in the way of rhyme or reason as to what any given power costs.
I made two quick power point builds/characters to demonstrate this idea, both made with the max allowable 110 points:
Special Boy vs. Better Boy Powers: Powers: 15 points on Color Manipulation 6 15 points on Daze 6 30 on Camouflage 6 30 points on Invisibility 6 30 on Digestive Adaptation 6 30 points on Disintegrate 6 12 X-Ray Vision, full 12 points for ESP 4 10 Mental Resistance 4 10 Super Smarts 2 10 Spiritual Fortitude 4 10 Super Spirit 2 2 Self Destruct 2 Self Destruct 1 points left over 1 point left overAs can be seen, Special Boy’s powers cost the same per level as Better Boy’s. However, in almost every case there is a Better power you can take that is equal in cost. Camouflage is worse than invisibility. Digestive adaptation works like disintegrate, only it doesn’t work at a distance and can’t be used on people. X-Ray vision can see through walls, while ESP lets you use all your sense through walls. Color manipulation lets you change the color something is- for equal points per level, you can get Daze, which can potentially knock people right out. There is little to no rhyme or reason as to why similar powers cost the same, why they cost what they do, or why some powers were included at all.
Of special note are the Mental Resistance and Spiritual Fortitude traits. While the Super traits only give half the resistance, they give an actual dice for use in contested rolls. Additionally, Mental Resistance and Spiritual Fortitude have NO use in the game out of the box. It can be inferred that a Psychic Blast (Mental Ranged Attack) or Soul Rending Strike (Magic Melee Attack) might target these extra Toughness traits, but no system for altering powers in this way is given. Doing it for free may cheapen things too much as these traits will usually be lower than normal Toughness, making it an easy KO for most characters.
There is also the balance of Toughness, Damage, and other forms of Defense. While Toughness and Parry can reach truly insane levels, the only way to deal with ranged attacks for a non super tough character means buying Evasion or Deflection (equal costs, Deflection is better). The power works on making a roll, only when aware of an incoming ranged attack, and then hoping your roll is superior to the attackers roll- your defense actually goes down if you roll worse. This power costs 5 points per level, takes an action to use, and is only truly worth it if your Evasion is better than an opponent’s attack. Six levels of this gives a d12 1 to dodge. OR you could purchase Super Toughness for a 12 toughness, giving an average character a toughness of 17. Of course, damage starting off in the game is insanely high, a 6d6 attack perfectly achievable, doing two wounds to a 17 toughness on average, pasting less powerful characters. Once we reach the higher echelons of the game, however, there are power edges to increase Toughness by 2 a level… while raising damage dice up by a die type. Now, at Heroic, a Blaster will be Shooting 9d8 blasts with their Tier edge, while the Toughness of our Brick is now 41 or so. The blast does an average of 45 damage, meaning the Brick takes one wound, only shaken if he’s grown a little tougher. Now, this represents a nearly maxed out toughness or attack- anybody in the middle may find themselves frustratingly unable to hurt the badguys or splattered on the carpet by the blast that finally hits them. At Legendary levels, utterly maxed out by edges, our Blaster shoots 12d10, averaging 72 damage, while our Brick has a Toughness of 77 or more. The damage levels of the game have become truly epic and unwieldy at this point, with the sheer volume of randomization allowing for low rolls to mean nothing and high rolls to potentially splatter even the most invulnerable of characters- it also seems to have no grounding in thoughts of balance or how Toughness and Damage interact. While at low levels, a wound per four extra damage seems reasonable, high levels may need adjusting to wider margins to prevent inconsistent fights that range between laughing off damage and instantly pulping.
Of course, this combat lethality analysis only analyzes the basic attack and defenses. Unorthodox stuff like Age manipulation can let you instantly kill a 20 something on a good roll, or be completely stymied by a character with the Immortal Edge.
Movement powers also display some amount of strangeness. Text says that horrible destructive sonic booms are caused at any speeds past level 2 in Flight and Superspeed (despite the speeds listed not breaking the sound barrier until level 4) with no way of mitigating this. While perhaps ‘realistic’, few characters in comics are forced to manage their sonic booms, the Flash and Superman moving as fast as they pleased. In what way is this mechanic ‘four color’?
Power creation lacks much in the way of guidance as to what powers are ‘okay’ to purchase. Champions used a system where a big Stop or Warning sign hung out around the powers bound to cause trouble, making it easy to know what to watch for. Games like Mutants and Masterminds hindered psychic attacks by putting them in a slightly different system and making them more expensive to prevent mind bullets utterly destroying the game. Some precautions like these would be welcome additions.
Power Frameworks make powers a great deal cheaper, so much so, it seems as if there is no point in the sheer number of power points provided. The power frameworks provided are so cheap and effective, a starter character could easily afford three of them, making a dangerously overpowered game even more so.
To summarize, the powers have no pretense of balance and show little forethought as to how they would interact. The massive toughness and unwieldy damage totals lead to enormous character gaps that can turn the average comic slugfest into a one sided bloodbath that leaves only the strongest characters standing. While you could make a Batman type character, the sheer cost of being a skill oriented crime fighter without invulnerable skin and laser fists make it a very risky proposition, as a bad roll can dodge you into some bullets.
The section ends with a long list of power modifiers, both negative and positive, as well as a basic power creation set up and list of useful charts.
Gear in the Neo World
Gives several setting specific sets of powered armor, as well as a list of weapons and vehicles you can already find in your Savage Worlds book, reprinted here for no real reason. Missing from these powered armor suits is the actual cost of the power frameworks they sport, making it harder to gauge how powerful they are in comparison to heroes- not that it’s reflective considering the unwieldy power system.
GM Section
Starting with the origin of superhumans, or ‘Neos’ in the setting, the GM section starts out innocently enough, detailing out some of the power origins of the world, both mystical and genetic. This gives way to a world section, where in the contents of the worlds Neo population and the state of each nation is given. This section has it’s ups and downs- some of these countries sound more interesting then the main setting, some are just contrived set ups for lower numbers of Neos in higher population countries. Explanations of Neo purgings in China, lack of technology in India (incorrect in the modern day), Canada lacking any reason, it seems a good deal of the book is dedicated to showing how awful the rest of the world is to the United States. Noteworthy exceptions include Japan and India, with giant monsters to fight in the former, and flamboyant glory hounds and noble rogues in the latter.
Autumn Arbor
The history of Autumn Arbor is long and detailed, though many of the details are seemingly superfluous. While there are some major events throughout the history, some of the events involved feel as if being given a play by play of individual comic book story arcs, some of which don’t make significant enough impacts on history to matter. The Calendar of Important events feels anything but, and can best be summed up in the following order- there was a crime family (and superheroes), there was world war II (with superheroes), there was a silver age, a ban on heroes, and then the heroes came back.
Maps of Autumn Arbor are actually pretty nice, looking very real and giving a good bit of detail to the local geography.
A Guide to Autumn Arbor
Once again, we see a mix of useful and mediocre. Details on transportation, local business, and other features and fixtures of the setting’s main city range from useful plot seeds to useful details to boring and unnecessary page fillers. Giving a new name to a generic shopping outlet without having some import to it is just wasted lines- we all know what a JC Penny or Walmart is. Theres no need to give it a new name and face.
I have to give the section credit for it’s sheer volume and detail on the city, including its underworld. However, the setting falls apart again as we take a closer look at its characters. Many of these characters sport excessively long and boring backgrounds, usually sporting awful pun based names. Mimes with Attitude & the Vignette Gang are only the tip of this iceberg.
The Saga
In this section, a smattering of advice on Gamemastering and comic books genres is given in a little over two pages. The gamemaster advice is barely existent and the comics knowledge is incomplete at best.The first mistake made is that it simplifies down the tone of the comic genre into two camps: four color versus gritty realism, with one described as the moral equivalent of the super friends, with the other involving sympathetic villains and heroes who kill. Anyone whose read a comic book or watched a comic book movie in recent years can tell that there are definitely some inbetweens here- Hancock’s villains were anything but sympathetic and he murders a few. Spiderman is a four color comic that has thrived on sympathetic villains for years. Clearly, there is a mental disconnect from the subject matter here.
We’re then given a list of the ages of comics (Golden Age, Silver Age, and a three part “Modern Age”) with a snippet on what these ages were about as well as how they went down in Autumn Arbor and Neo Earth. While the Golden Age follows the usual model (superheroes appear, help out in World War II), the Silver Age is a dark time of governmental oppression of heroes. During the modern age, midway through we have an alien invasion that kills most of the heroes of the world, setting the stage for the main setting- an alien invasion just like in Champions New Millenium and City of Heroes.
At this point, I want to revisit the promises of the Foreward that reference ‘four color action’. We have a system where in heroes splatter like bugs on a windshield, and by their own definitions, a setting where in ‘four color’ isn’t the tone- it’s a dark, realistic, and gritty world, full of impact on government, politics, and moral ambiguity. All heroes are basically cops under control of the law, right or wrong, with foreign powers usually cast in a negative light- Mexico’s superman is a great champion for good, who sacrifices his enemies to the Aztec God of War. Why couldn’t Mexico’s superman be truly heroic without some kind of taint? Why are Canada’s heroes unloved and a joke to their own people? Why are Russia and China so low on superheroes? Why are teen heroes illegal? It seems to me that this book becomes confused on what it promises and what it provides- this is not a four color world.
Adventure Basics
In Adventure Basics, there is some redemption of previous poor advice. The section on Drama and Morals drives home a few points of running a super hero game that really can’t be understated- that of morality and player motivations. The difference between a good superhero and superhuman mercenary is often their motivation; making a really cool superhero means having a motivation that can really drive someone to greater things. The interplay of morality in adventures is often the only way to truly test people who can throw buildings and survive the sun’s heat: power and responsibility are truly the primal hero axiom, and whether you kill a villain or jail him can reflect not only what your hero believes, but how what he believes effects the world, with the repercussions leading to even more questions. Kryptonite has never killed Superman, but the endangerment of others, his social responsibility, whether he is alien, god, or man, it’s the moral questions that really challenge him. While this section could have been longer, it is good to see it included.
The bit on making NPC memorable is solid GM advice.
Adventure Generator
If you truly need a kick start to your idea for a story, and you can’t generate something from character based information or your own ideas, this generator is an okay tool for having a random, one shot, superhuman conflict.
The Comic
The comic suddenly listed seems to have no point whatsoever. It doesn’t give me insight into the world, comic book action, or really much of anything other than a strange short story of some family going to a show for the Vanguardian. It just eats up pages and certainly doesn’t leave me excited about the game or setting.
Handbook to Autumn Arbor
In this section we are presented with some of the characters of the setting along with their stats. I really would like to have something positive to say about this section, but I can’t think of anything. The characters provided have long, often uninteresting backgrounds with excessive detail in areas you don’t need to know, without providing much in the way of plot hooks, campaign use, or anything really useful. The best of the lot is American Glory, a wrestler that gets more powerful as people cheer, but the others are boring at best, obnoxious at worst. Awful word play based name’s like Mech Daddy, Full Metal Jacket (he’s a Bee!), and Fire Arm paired with uninspired character art doesn’t help either.
I think Mech Daddy bothers me the most. It's based on old slang and the worst word play. Didn't the character think to update to a name that didn't cause people to groan in pain, or is that one of his powers?
General Details Worth Mentioning Art: The art has some ups and downs: some of it’s very good, some of it’s pretty bad, and a lot of it gets used over and over again throughout the book.
Page Count: The pdf is 284 pages.
Overall
This book fails to deliver on it’s promises, bringing an unwieldy and redundant addition to Savage Worlds. While it has a few good edges and some interesting setting pieces, the system is so broken as to be unsalvageable, the setting a mixture of mediocrity, darkness, and bad puns. As a big fan of superheroes, I’d had very high hopes for this game, hopes that were utterly dashed.
If you want to play a superhero game in Savage Worlds, buy Necessary Evil revised and use it’s system. Champions and Mutants and Masterminds are also good options. There are plenty of good super hero role playing games to buy- unfortunately, this isn’t one of them.
