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The Darker Side of Heroism Here's the alternative (villain's perspective?) on DC Heroes. There are already a number of reviews which were, in my opinion, too positive on the topic. So read on, true believers! DC Heroes has languished on my shelf for a long, long time (over 15 years), since I read the absolutely glowing review by Allan Varney in Dragon #165 (now also online here: http://www.allenvarney.com/rev_02.html) and ran off to buy it. At this stage they had run out of the 2nd edition. I did manage to get my hands to the 3rd edition, and I am assured the basic rules are very similar to the 2nd, which he reviewed. While not on RPGnet, having found this I thought that wandering gamers needed to see the flip side. As afficiadocios of the system know, the core rules (MEGS) went on after sinking Mayfair Games to be republished as Blood of Heroes and do the same to Pulsar, while the other half of the game (the setting) was licensed back out to WEG for another game, d6-based naturally, that I haven't seen in detail. I admit we played the thing only once in this time: its exponential system looks good *in theory*, but is as clunky as could be expected.

The Core Mechanics The problems with the system start with character generation, with 9 attributes - STR, DEX, BODY, INT, WILL, MIND, INFLUENCE, AURA, and SPIRIT - this is a 3x3 pattern of Physical/Mental/Physical x Acting/Effect/Resistance. For physical contests this works (compare DEX vs. DEX to see if you hit, then STR vs. BODY to determine damage) but the designers tried overly hard to create symmetry around this through the system...e.g. rather than a single Charisma you have separate values for if you can persuade someone (INFLUENCE), and by how much (AURA). Characters also have a WILL stat used for determing "mental effect values" - which can include, for example, how much a character notices on a Perception check - unlike most systems WILL has nothing to do with a character's ability to absorb mental damage (that's MIND). In actual play, the core mechanic has a couple of strange quirks. For one thing, any check will require 4 values (an Acting Value and an Opposing Value for the die roll, then an Effect Value and a Resistance Value to work out how well you did) - whether or not you care about how much result (RAPs) you get. The system also handles stacking badly - most defensive powers (Armour Skin or Force Field, for instance) simply add to your Body value for resistance purposes, relatively inexpensively - though there is a trade-off in that they won't increase the amount of damage a character can take. In theory all of this is to create an "exponential" system, where a 1-pt increase is double the power, and so handle superheroes who have statistics of unimaginable might. This generally does work, though you probably can't actually build a superhero that needs to use the upper half of the table with the points provided. Not without taking that lethal allergy to oxygen, anyway.

Character Generation If you for some reason actually have to play this, using pregenerated DC Universe heroes is probably the best option, as the point buy system is reasonably laborious (and points-tight), partly due to the number of attributes. Even a minimal "1" rating will cost you, not that you're allowed to just have an 0 for an attribute. Powers have a "base cost" which nets you a useless (rating 0) power, which you can then buy up from there. Given that attributes will always be at least 1 and Powers/Skills have a base cost anyway, a system where you start at a rating of 1 for free and then buy up from there would have been an improvement. Attributes don't improve powers or skills directly at all, though the designers do try to work around this with "linking" - if you buy a skill at the same score as the appropriate stat you receive a discount (-2 factor cost). Heavily-skill based characters such as Batman can take the advantage "Intensive Training" for an additional -2 (though its something of a trap since the advantage puts up the cost of Powers as well). The Powers system is quite detailed, and does make use of the core mechanics fairly well, though it could use more bonuses and limitations. An obvious expansion to the system might be to use an expanded Bonuses and Limitations system that applies to Skills and Attributes as well (such as using Restrictions on physical attributes to represent various handicaps, adding Power Burnout to Wealth, or so forth)

Hero Points and Combat Here's where it gets really wacky. Some systems don't believe in granting rerolls or luck points - DC Heroes isn't one of these. Other systems give players a pool of points they can use for rerolls, and perhaps the GM gets a few as well - DC Heroes isn't one of these, either. DC heroes instead gives the heroes a limited number of points for rerolls, then gives the GM a bazillion Hero Points to make sure the thugs can clean Batman's clock. Potentially every NPC has their own Hero Point reserve, and while PCs have to worry about saving points for Character Advancement the NPCs can burn them continually. (A flaw it shares with the original Marvel Super Heroes game). This aspect of the system resembles an amazing cheat-a-thon for the GM, who can up their dice rolls as much as they want as often as they want. The combat example (Superman vs. Doomsday) showcases this reasonably well, though I'm reasonably sure the example is structured as it is, from being the reworking into game terms of an actual comic book battle (I believe I saw the same battle in the novel "The Life and Death of Superman") and may just be using point spending to rig the match in accordance with comic book reality - Doomsday constantly uses moves that drop his attack from 26 to 4 with no benefit (Charge), spends tons of points on Initiative, and gets hit with an 80-ft Knockback at thousand-to-one odds (a 30+ dice roll on 2d10 with exploding doubles), while superman occasionally passes on actions and consistently rolls "1s" on initiative. One nice thing about combat though, is that it divides actions into "Automatic Actions" and "Dice Actions" - something simpler and more intuitive than (say) D20s "standard + move-equivalent" actions.

Overall I have rated the product a "2" - style down due to lack of artwork for the most part, and Substance limited due to the fun-sucking nature of the core mechanics.