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The name’s Davenport. I review games.
So the other day my superhero pal Captain Wonderful drops by, lookin’ even more smug than usual. I ask him what gives, and he just pulls a copy of this GODSEND Agenda game out from under his cape.
I give it the once over. Looks like a supers game usin’ that D6 System that worked pretty well for me back in my Star Wars days.
“That’s great and all,” I says, “But there’re plenty of supers games out there. Why’s this one got you grinnin’ like the catbird?”
“It’s a secret,” he says.
What is it with superheroes and their secrets, anyway?
“But if you were to, say, review the game,” he says, all sly-like, “I suppose I could let you in on it.”
So it was business. Why can’t anyone ever just stop by to say “hi”?
Since you’re readin’ this, I obviously decided to give it a go. Why not? I’m always lookin’ for a good supers game, and I hate bein’ left out of a Big Secret.
Here’s what I saw with my Reviewer Vision.
Substance
GODSEND Agenda uses the D6 System – specifically, a modified version of the modern-day D6 Adventure rules set. (The book includes all the rules you need to play, mind you, so the latter isn’t required.) I’ve covered the essentials of the D6 System in my review of the Star Wars Roleplaying Game: Second Edition, Revised and Expanded, so I would advise anyone unfamiliar with the system to read that review first – the mechanical bits, at least. I’ll be referring to it here and there in this review to save time and space.The abridged version: the game rates pretty much everything in pools of six-sided dice that are rolled and added together, sometimes with “pips” of +1 or +2. So, “D” universally refers to “d6,” and a score of 3D+2 would mean that the player rolls three six-sided dice, adding 2 to the total. One die is always the “Wild Die,” which open-ends on a 6 and indicates that something’s gone wrong on a 1.
Chapter 1: Character Creation
The game spends no space on introductions to roleplaying or the like, jumping right into character creation. As we’ll see, this presents a bit of a setting-related problem, but we’ll get to that soon enough.
Power LevelsThe game rates heroes in Power Levels from 1-6, with 1 being street-level vigilantes with little to no real powers and 6 being truly cosmic entities. Each Power Level has an associated number of creation points, caps on Disadvantages, and ranks in Powers. Level 3, with 120 creation points, a maximum of 10 points of Disadvantages, and a maximum of 15 ranks in Powers is the default.
For 4 creation points, the player can purchase 1 attribute die (or 3 “pips”). For 1 creation point, the player can purchase 1 skill die or 3 specialty skill dice. Advantages and Super Powers have their own specific costs. The human attribute scale is 1D-5D, and no more than 3D can be applied to any one skill or specialization of a skill.
Playtest: To try out the system, I decided to convert my ongoing game of Hollow Earth Expedition. I chose this route for several reasons: (1) I didn’t want to end my HEX game in order to try out this system; (2) my players and I had some issues with HEX’s Ubiquity system anyway that I thought a D6 System game might address, and (3) GODSEND Agenda is supposed to be able to handle any historical era anyway, including, presumably, the pulp era. Now, for those of you who haven’t read my HEX review – shame on you, by the way! – I should explain that my PCs were on the high end of the pulp hero power spectrum, created to be the equals of the likes of Doc Savage or the Shadow. You might think that Power Levels 1-2 would be ideal for such characters, since this full-blown supers game suggests a starting Power Level of 3.
Nope. As it turned out, I had to crank the knob up to Power Level 5 to get to the level of competency I was after – characters of broad competency and natural ability levels at the human maximum in three attributes each.
I think part of the problem was the limit on starting skill dice. While the game does offer some Advantages that boost skill dice under specific circumstances – +2D for using a Trademark Specialization, for example – starting out with Batman-worthy levels of skill pretty much requires starting out with superhuman, or at least maximum human, levels of attributes. In discussing this issue with the author, I’ve been told that Batman isn’t a starting-level superhero. That’s all well and good, but why then should it be kosher for starting-level superheroes to match Batman based upon their attributes?
Fate, Character, and Ka PointsLots of games have Drama/Fate/Hero Point mechanics. GODSEND Agenda has three of them. Starting characters get one Fate Point, five Character Points, and Ka Points equal to twice their Presence attribute.
Fate Points work like Force Points in Star Wars D6, doubling the number of dice for a roll. Characters get them back at the end of a game if they’re used in accordance to their moral code.
Character Points add one extra Wild Die per point spent (except that a “1” is just a 1); however, they also serve as experience points for character improvement. Characters earn these in all the standard XP reward ways: roleplaying well, achieving objectives, having fun, etc.
Unlike the other two, Ka Points are unique to GODSEND Agenda and represent the very essence of the universe in the setting. For assorted costs, these babies allow characters to purchase Fate and Character Points for immediate use, gain flat bonuses to rolls, buy off damage, or take extra actions. Characters can even share Ka Points or pool them together through physical contact. (Of course, those last two require that the characters are aware of Ka’s existence in the first place, which isn’t a given in the setting. More on that in a bit.) Characters regenerate Ka Points at a rate of 2 per day, with more returning as the characters fulfill their roles in the universe: their Archetype (see below).
I’m lukewarm on all these assorted points floating around, to be honest. I’d just as soon have one point that can fulfill all of these functions, which Ka Points are pretty close to doing already. I do understand the author’s desire to keep the pre-existing point systems from the D6 game line, however.
Playtest: In any case, being used to point mechanics for damage reduction in cinematic games, I wanted Ka Points in play. Frankly, I was surprised that D6 Adventure didn’t have some variant of that rule that I was able to find.
AttributesJust a quick note about Attributes, here. The game uses the D6 Adventure set of Reflexes (agility), Coordination (dexterity), Physique (strength and constitution), Knowledge, Perception, and Presence. For me, that’s pretty close to the ideal breakdown. I can handle strong guys being naturally hardier, but I’d rather not have natural gymnasts also be natural crack shots.
Oh, there is one other thing: Physique doesn’t translate directly into Strength Damage in the same way that Strength did in Star Wars D6; instead, characters take half of their Physique or lifting skill die total, drop the pips, and round up to get the final total. However, once a character reaches superhuman levels of Physique, the attribute translates directly into Strength Damage. While I understand that this prevents normal humans from dishing out outlandish amounts of hand-to-hand punishment, the dividing line between human and superhuman Strength Damage seems rather abrupt.
Character ArchetypesGODSEND Agenda works under the assumption that heroes will follow one of a number of archetypes, such as the Dark Avenger, the Icon, and the Rogue. Each archetype offers a bonus to Advantages or skills related to that archetype’s modus operandi. More importantly, characters regenerate Ka when they conform to their archetype in specific ways; e.g., the Dark Avenger regains 2 Ka when bringing the guilty to justice. If this seems both a little too integral to the system and too restrictive on character design, the Adventurer archetype acts as a sort of catch-all with its completely open skill/Advantage bonus and the extremely loose Ka regeneration criterion of “doing what’s right.”
Nevertheless, the assortment does assume that the characters will be true-blue heroes of some stripe. Even the Rogue regains Ka not for being roguish, but rather for using his skills “to help atone for past deeds.” This works fine if you’re going for some variant of 4-color superheroics, but I don’t see that as a given considering the unorthodox nature of the setting.
Playtest: For example, several of my characters wanted to play ultimately good-hearted but mercenary sorts – Han Solo types. As written, the system would only reward them when playing up the “heart of gold” sides of their characters.
SkillsSkills tend toward the broad end of the scale, which isn’t surprising, given the option to specialize. The system hard-links skills to specific attributes and makes no effort to artificially balance the number of skills going to each attribute; e.g., Knowledge has 10 associated skills, while Physique has only 4. I like the grouping of hand-to-hand combat skills under Reflexes and ranged weapon skills under Coordination. Having the lifting skill increase Strength Damage makes an otherwise ignorable skill seem more worthwhile, and making willpower a skill rather than an attribute allows it to rise more quickly without dragging along a group of arguably unrelated abilities; e.g., it’s possible to be a charming ladies’ man without being resistant to feminine charms.
Chapter 2: Disadvantages & Advantages
This chapter offers an abundance of options to help customize characters outside of their superhuman powers. (I say this despite the fact that certain Disadvantages and Advantages, such as Achilles’ Heel, Strange Appearance, and Efficient Ka, apply largely to superhumans.)
Playtest: What Advantages did not do was offer a lot of offensive “oomph” to my players. They got the most mileage out of skill-boosting Advantages like Skill Bonus, Skill Minimum, and Trademark Specialization – the latter being essential for any would-be Green Arrows out there – while levels of Hard to Kill became a dumping ground for excess points.
Chapter 3: Powers
Obviously, any superhero game is going to live or die by its superpowers. GODSEND Agenda does fairly well in this regard, taking the “cafeteria” approach in lieu of an effects-based system but with enough power enhancements and limitations to allow for quite a bit of customization. Power costs per rank vary by the power’s utility and any enhancements and/or limitations assigned to it.The chapter includes almost 100 powers – even more if you count each variant of Ranged Power Attack as a separate power. The list covers most of the basics alongside a few oddities like Omnivorous and Speak with Plants. Some form of “web-swinging” power struck me as the most obvious omission. The chapter does a great job with “Elemental Manipulation” powers, though, including Air, Body, Earth, Flame, Gravity, Ice, Ka, Light, Matter, Magnetic, Plant, Size, Sound, Time, Water, and Weather.
As an aside, I wasn’t entirely clear on the use of the “Managing Skill” listed for some powers. In some cases, the use was obvious; e.g., Marksmanship for aiming blast attacks. In others, however, such as Matter Manipulation, the dice allotted to the power seemed to cover the full scope of its use.
Playtest: I was also pleased that several “powers” could be interpreted as extraordinary but “mundane” abilities – among them, Combat Sense, Fast Reactions, and Luck. By the same token, I felt frustrated that certain special effects are available to characters with sufficient levels of Super Attribute but not corresponding levels of relevant skill. In other words, a character with pure Super Presence can sway an entire crowd with a few words, but a character with matching levels of Presence plus the Persuasion skill could not. Again, “super-skilled” characters get shortchanged.
Chapter 4: Game Mechanics
Once again, I’m not going to rehash the entire system as described in my Star Wars review. I will say that the game puts the D6 system through its paces, incorporating just about every “what if?” scenario that came to my mind: use of related skills, taking extra time, rushing, etc. The chapter also includes some workarounds to issues GMs might have with the system. For example, initiative uses Perception rolls; however, an optional rule gives bonuses to those with high Reflexes and/or search skill. The system even includes a solution to the handfuls of dice that superhuman ability levels may demand in the form of a dice simplification chart, allowing players to roll either five dice (including the Wild Die) or just the Wild Die itself and add a bonus based on the number of excess dice.The chapter also includes the system’s quite serviceable vehicle rules – possibly not the best placement, since some of the topics prematurely discuss combat.
Chapter 5: Combat
The combat system makes several improvements over its Star Wars incarnation.Perhaps the biggest to my mind is that active defense now requires a single roll for all incoming attacks until the defender’s next turn, meaning that players no longer have to guess how many attacks they’ll need to defend against – and hence, what multi-action penalty they’ll have to take. On a related note, characters get an optional bonus to their default passive defense value of 10 dependent upon their Reflexes or dodge.
Right up there on my list of improvements is the option to use Body Points (essentially hit points) rather than Wound Levels – much more to my taste. The latter requires a roll of Physique plus armor and any special abilities versus damage and comparing the difference on a table, while the former only requires a roll of any armor or defensive abilities and the subtraction of any damage that gets through from Body Points. Better still, those who still want to make use of wound effects without using the Wound Levels option may do so based upon the percentage of Body Points remaining.
Yet another optional change appealing to my gaming sensibilities: accuracy can affect damage in the form of 1/5th of the difference between the attack and defense totals. True, this adds an extra calculation, but it serves to reward skilled combatants who rely on more than pure firepower.
The scaling mechanic was one of the main reasons why I decided to use GODSEND Agenda for my Hollow Earth Expedition game. Creatures and objects have a size rating starting at 0 for the average human. Larger creatures are easier to hit but soak up more damage, while smaller creatures are harder to hit but more frail – ideal for a game involving, say, dinosaurs.
Playtest: Overall, the changes made GODSEND Agenda combat run far faster than it ever did in Star Wars D6 . Of course, part of this may have been due to the fact that my group of pulp-level heroes plowed through the goon-level Nazis with ease, taking hardly a scratch – something to keep in mind when pitting supers against relatively normal humans. By the same token, the scaling system made a T-rex a truly terrifying opponent, annoyed by a hand grenade and only driven off only by a carefully-aimed shot to the eye. For some reason, the book places a list of difficulty modifiers to skill use here rather than in the previous chapter. Nevertheless, they’re certainly handy to have.
Chapter 6: Equipment
The equipment chapter leans heavily toward the modern era – unsurprising, given the game’s default setting. However, the weapons listings do include some nods to earlier eras, among them the Colt .45 Peacemaker, the flintlock musket, and the ever-popular Tommy gun. Given the range of melee weapons featured, I was a little surprised to find mundane armor omitted altogether.The chapter also includes the game’s system for creating gadgets and artifacts. The mechanics work simply, with the player purchasing powers and abilities for the gadget at a total point cost multiplied by 25%, 50%, or 75%, depending upon how easily the device may be lost or stolen. The character then makes a roll to create the device against a difficulty based on its point cost, followed by paying the point-based monetary cost of the device.
Playtest: I was easily able to create a collapsible quarterstaff that both served as an unusually-powerful weapon and aided with the character’s acrobatics. What I couldn’t seem to model was another character’s “Mr. Hyde” serum, given the lack of rules for one-shot devices.
Chapter 7: The World of GODSEND Agenda
It’s at this point that I must warn you of spoilers. I do so with the caveat that I don’t know exactly how a GM could run this game without revealing at least some of these spoilers, for reasons that will become obvious. Still, prospective GMs deserve a chance to give it a try, so if you’re a potential player and want an “untainted” look at the game’s universe, please skip down to the Style section.Okay, moving on, then…
This chapter offers up the hidden truths behind the GODSEND Agenda setting.
The most fundamental truth is that all superhuman powers spring from the universal force known as Ka. It doesn’t matter where superhumans think they get their powers – it’s all about the Ka. This may annoy players who design “conventional” comicbook origins for their heroes, only to discover that these were merely delusions. On the bright side, Ka can do pretty much anything, including serve as a substitute for magic, which is otherwise absent from the setting. (The power “Ka Manipulation” is, essentially, sorcery.)
In the setting’s distant past – or possibly future, because there’s some time travel at play – a prison starship piloted by the Angelos, high-tech alien servants of the godlike Ka-user known as El, comes under attack by a frigate piloted by Chimerans, El’s shape-changing, Ka-using enemies. Prisoners on the ship include both Chimerans and Elohim, Ka-using rebels against El’s rule but mortal enemies of the Chimerans. In the ensuing battle, both ships are flung through space and time and end up on Earth – the prison ship to Earth’s ancient past, the frigate to Roswell, New Mexico in 1947.
The Elohim resolve to follow a variation of the strategy of galactic conquest used in their former service to El, using their powers to pose as the gods of myth and help advance humanity. The Chimerans continue their war with the Elohim, becoming the monsters of myth. The Angelos pursue both sets of prisoners and eventually become the source for the Biblical angels. Meanwhile, the advanced Ka-using humans known as the Atlanteans make peace with the Elohim and seed certain humans with Ka-using potential that would erupt with the eventual arrival of the Chimeran horde.
Eventually, the Elohim decide to cut the flow of Ka to earth in order to reduce their own power and prevent further Elohim-backed conflicts like the Trojan War. Not long after, the Angelos found monotheism and launch a crusade to stamp out the Elohim “false gods.” As a result, alien interference in the affairs of humans drops off markedly.
Fast forward to 1908. The command section of the Chimeran frigate finally arrives on Earth and explodes over Tunguska, Russia, triggering the latent gene seeded by the Atlanteans. Suddenly, superhumans start cropping up all over the place. (Those who don’t die in the process of the transformation, that is – a plague of deaths blamed on the flu outbreak of 1918.)
Fast forward again to 2010. The world resembles the four-color landscape of comics, with Ka-users of every stripe donning colorful spandex and fighting epic battles of Good vs. Evil in the finest superhero tradition. But some of them know the truth about their history… and out in space, the real Chimeran horde is on its way…
Note the flexibility this premise offers: adventures can take place all across the history of human civilization, from the mythic past to the four-color near future and all points in between – including, as previously mentioned, the two-fisted pulp era.
But here’s the problem: As you’ll see in my discussion of the following subsections, even if you want to keep the truth a secret from the players and present the game as a standard superhero setting, character creation requires that you offer up the various racial options and their associated perks and drawbacks. Oh, you could decide that all of the players are going to play members of a given species and leave the players thinking that the perks and drawbacks they get are standard, but I’m never big on defining players’ characters for them. I should also mention that the chapter does offer discounted powers for human-based superheroes – which I used in the creation of my pulp heroes – but the selection of this package, too, affects the character’s place in the game’s cosmology.
Each of the following subsections includes write-ups iconic members of the groups in question. I’m particularly fond of the Power Elite, a group of horribly mutated Nazi Chimerans lead by their father, Aryan Superior, a literal Nazi superman. On the other hand, the sample Elohim from the Egyptian pantheon seem rather weak. For example, while I realize that they’re shadows of their former selves, I’d still think that for living gods, a superhuman Physique would be the rule rather than the exception.
AngelosThese guys are probably the least PC-friendly of the lot. They all know the Big Secret of the setting, they’re all fanatically loyal to El, and they all kill Chimerans on sight. They also can’t use Ka by design, instead bleeding it off in the form of haloes and fiery wings.
On the upside, the Angelos have access to the most advanced technology in the setting, including their ubiquitous battle armor, railguns, and lightsaber-like swords. If you want a game of pure high-tech monster-busting action, the Angelos might be the way to go.
AtlanteansAtlanteans are highly-evolved humans with centuries-long lifespans and a very low birthrate; hence, any Atlantean PCs most likely will be in on the Big Secret.
Aside from their age, their main shtick is their use of “sorcery” – i.e., superpowers that all have drawbacks related to the trappings of magic, such as gestures and incantations. If you want a Dr. Strange or Dr. Fate in your group, an Atlantean’s a good choice.
Black OctoberThis is an organization of humans who manifested superpowers as a result of the genetic experiments of the ancient Atlanteans. Dedicated to combating the Chimeran threat, their thefts from the world’s governments to fund their activities has lead to them being labeled terrorists.
They work especially well together and possess a grim resolve that allows them to ignore wound penalties. Unfortunately, their bodies cannot forever contain the Ka that powers them, inevitably leading to death by explosion at around age 30. Also, they have no choice but to obey the orders of an Atlantean, which, as the chapter points out, may create some party friction.
ChimeransUnsurprisingly, Chimerans get a discount when purchasing powers related to shapeshifting. They also all possess the power of Metamorphosis, allowing them to cocoon themselves for an extended period, reshuffle their powers and physical attributes, and emerge as a very different being.
Chimerans are a hive-minded race; however, the Chimerans who’ve fallen to Earth are cut off from that hive mind and have developed free will, making them suitable PCs. What’s more, some groups of Chimerans don’t even remember what they really are, allowing for Chimeran PCs who aren’t in on the Big Secret. Of course, the GM would have to either conceal the natural abilities of Chimerans from the players or else come up with a really good explanation for them.
For GMs, the Chimerans offer an endless array of monstrous adversaries – both the Chimerans themselves, and their offspring. Chimerans can mate with anything capable of reproduction, you see, creating superpowered hybrid horrors of all sorts.
ElohimThe originators of the GODSEND Agenda itself, these guys are about as close at the game comes to a default PC race. Masters of Ka, they get discounts on Longevity, Ka Manipulation, Sustenance (they can live off Ka), and Cosmic Awareness. In an interesting twist, they’re subject to a mental plague known as “Lethe” that leaves them believing themselves to be the deities they’re impersonating, allowing for PCs unaware of the Big Secret. The text isn’t clear on whether the disease affects Elohim pretending to be “mere” superheroes, however.
The section also includes examples of the Atenmest, or demigods, such as Achilles and Gilgamesh, as well as a sampling of artifacts and relics. The latter seem woefully underpowered to me, unfortunately. The hammer of Thor, for example, dishes out less damage than a mundane broadsword.
U.S.E.R.United States Eugenics Research, or U.S.E.R., is the setting’s S.H.I.E.L.D. analog: an organization of superspies and superscientists dedicated to countering the threat from superhumans. With a presumption of no powers but a hefty discount on gadgets, U.S.E.R. agents make great human cohorts or foils for superhumans – the equivalents of everyone from Nick Fury to Iron Man. A U.S.E.R.-only campaign could be great for some high-tech monster hunting as well. And there’s even room for literal superspies in the form of robots, cyborgs, and subjects of the superpower-inducing A.E.G.I.S. serum. These might be good choices for superheroic characters who aren’t in on the Big Secret, depending upon how much the GM wants U.S.E.R. to know and how much U.S.E.R. wants to tell the characters.
The section includes a generous list of spy gadgets, potentially saving players loads of time in gadget creation.
Chapter 8: Game Master Section
The bulk of this chapter takes an unusual approach to GM advice: rather than offering up a single view of the setting, the chapter features GODSEND Agenda as interpreted by both the author and several other writers, including Matt Forbeck and RPGnet’s own Sandy Antunes. While some of their ideas to keep the Big Secret don’t answer the questions I’ve raised in this review, they do show the wide potential the game setting offers.StyleAfter some notes regarding player rewards, the chapter offers still more iconic characters from the setting, including a villainous rock band lead by the being once known as Pan. (I particularly like the creepy 41-year-old woman stuck in a 10-year-old body with super-strength and poisonous spit.) The section also includes some mundane generic characters, both human and animal.
The artwork of this 8-1/2” x 11” hardback works well enough for me. Nothing really blew me away, and some of the pieces seem a little too silly for the relatively serious take on the subject matter, but overall it’s consistent and reasonably good. The layout, however, needs serious work, with inconsistent fonts, line spacing, and paragraph spacing giving the text a frequently shoddy look.The writing remains friendly and engaging throughout, although I couldn’t help feeling that the author had trouble in places conveying how to interpret both certain rule and setting elements.
Conclusion
I seem to possess a bias against superhero settings with a unified source for powers. GODSEND Agenda manages to circumvent that bias with a setting that’s remarkably flexible and expansive. The system likewise made me believe that an additive dice pool system could work for supers, albeit with the shortcuts provided for excessively large pools. What the game doesn’t quite manage to do is convey how the game’s Big Secret should work in play. True, the GM chapter offers several options, but none of them seem to completely mesh with the “baseline” setting as described in the book as a whole. And I’m still troubled by the rough time the system gives primarily skill-based heroes.Still, the game does present a fascinating new take on superheroes using a generously detailed setting and a classic game engine with a load of new tricks up its sleeve. If you’re looking for a supers system that doesn’t reinvent the wheel paired with a supers setting that does, this could be your game.
SUBSTANCE:
- Setting
- Quality = 4.0
- Quantity = 4.0
- Rules
- Quality = 4.0
- Quantity = 4.5
STYLE:
- Artwork = 3.0
- Layout/Readability = 2.5
- Organization = 3.0
- Writing = 4.0
- Proofreading Penalty = <0.5>
- Organization = 3.0
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