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Unlike the original edition, this one starts with introductory paragraphs on what a roleplaying game is and in particular what a superhero game is. Wild Talents is a superhero game only in the broadest sense that characters happen to have superpowers; the setting given in the hardcover edition is a gritty world where “Talents” rarely wear costumes. At the same time the rules, while striving toward realism, also try to emphasize superhero comic action.
Part 1: The Game describes the game system, starting with Chapter 1: The One-Roll Engine: At the core of the Wild Talents system is a mechanism for resolving both attack success and damage on a single roll while also allowing realism, thus “The One-Roll Engine” or ORE. Rolls are done with a dice pool resembling that in White Wolf games: You have an intrinsic stat and possibly an added skill. Each has a scale ranging from 1 to 5. That is the number of ten-sided dice you roll for a given action. Thus for combat driving you pair your Coordination stat with your Driving skill- if the stat is 3 and the skill is 2, you roll 5d10. You are looking for matches. In the new game the stat list is somewhat altered: Body, Coordination, Sense, Mind, Charm and Command, where Body is both strength and toughness, Coordination is dexterity, Sense refers to all of the five senses, Mind is reasoning, Charm is personality and Command is both leadership skill and command over oneself (in the prior game Command was 'Cool', Mind was 'Brains' and the personality functions of Charm were under Command).
In both versions of Wild Talents (as in the predecessor game GODLIKE) the concept of Will is paramount. The sum of Charm and Command is a character's Base Will, which is also the base for one's Willpower stat, which is used like hero points for various temporary boosts or to fuel abilities. This matters in that depleting one's Willpower causes a Talent to lose some of his abilities. In the new edition, one's Will is invested in certain factors that are quantified as Passion (internal motivation) and Loyalty (to some external concept or thing). You divide your Base Will between these to depict the intensity of these motivations so that the higher the score, the more Willpower one regains by defending that cause, or loses by failing to do so.
Getting back to the ORE: When rolling a dice pool you not only look for matches, you check for both height (how high the numbers are) and width (how many numbers match) where height measures how well you did and width measures how fast you did it. This is done in shorthand as width x height where rolling three 5s is a 3x5. Width also matters where time is the factor; subtract the width of a successful roll from 5. For instance if a car repair job is measured in a factor of hours and the roll is 2x3, it takes 3 hours to fix the car (base of 5 minus 2 width, in hours). There are also new options for the “loose” unmatched dice, like a “beginner's luck” rule where you may get a bonus for rolling 6 or higher even if nothing actually matches.
Since you can never roll more than 10 dice in a pool (because more than ten would guarantee a success) there are two other variants used mainly with superpowers: Hard Dice and Wiggle Dice. A Hard Die (hd) is always assumed to be a 10. A Wiggle is a “wild” die that can be assigned any number and matched to any number in your dice pool. A Wiggle Die (wd) is more expensive than a Hard Die (which is in turn more expensive than a regular die of its type) because there are some occasions when you don't want to roll a 10, and because if you have Hard Dice in a pool, you must use all of them or none. If your attack power is all Hard Dice, you WILL kill people. Also, using Wiggle Dice means that you can make a match with anything. Although in both cases, these special dice are under the ten-die limit for a dice pool. These dice pools are further modified by penalty dice (an increased difficulty like a called shot is -1d to the pool) or even “Gobble Dice” where the GM removes the highest die from the roll. The latter normally happens when a character takes damage, or when he tries to attack beyond long range.
The rest of this section goes over permutations of the ORE, like multiple actions (take the worse die pool of your two actions and take 1 die off for each), taking extra time (+1d per extra action taken) and contest vs. opposition (the former is a contest between which die roll is better, the latter case, such as combat, is an opposed roll where success inflicts gobble dice on the other side). Then you get an example of combat (the Talent Squad vs. Dr. Jurassic again) in between sidebars of game terms.
Chapter 2: Building a Character: “Building a character is a cooperative process between GM and player.” The GM sets a point total for how powerful the characters are supposed to be (a GODLIKE-style game is not going to give as many points as a 'four-color supers' game). This is on a scale where “Normal Human” is 40-100 points, “Earth-shaking entity” is 500 to 750, and the book recommends a beginning point level of 250. A stat die is 5 points for a regular die, 10 points for Hard or 20 for Wiggle, and a skill die is 2 points for regular, 4 for Hard and 8 for Wiggle. Normal humans can't have Hard/Wiggle Dice or Powers. In building a character, you have to start with an Archetype that defines your character's origins and intrinsic abilities. These are further defined in Chapter 5. A Wild Talents character can also get Powers, which in this edition include Hyperstats, Hyperskills and Miracles. The first two simply add dice to a given stat or skill and can push that trait above 5 dice, while a Miracle is a power that cannot be defined simply by increasing normal ability (like turning invisible or summoning objects). Miracles usually have to buy their own dice pools. Hyperstats are actually 4/8/16 points respectively per regular/Hard/Wiggle die while Hyperskills are 1/2/4 (they cost less but can be neutralized). Rules for point costs on Miracles are given later. At this stage buying up your Base Will from the Charm+Command total is 3 points per extra Base Will; the final Base Will is the base for Willpower, which in turn can be bought up for 1 point per point.
The book emphasizes the tone the GM wants to set for the campaign, which will affect point totals (again, the 'Gritty' game gives less starting points than the four-color) and also the parameters of what powers and abilities characters should have. The GM is encouraged to write up a player briefing as to what abilities are allowed in the game, as well as which optional rules are being used.
3: Stats and Skills gives specifics on how the basic traits work. All humans have at least 1 die in each of the six stats, although 2 is average and 5 is very rare. Some Archetypes allow a character to buy Hard Dice, Wiggle Dice, or Hyperstats/Hyperskills. (In these cases, the character might get more than 10 dice in a pool but still cannot roll more than 10; the extra dice simply allow one to compensate for penalties and the like.) Body governs physical feats like barehand damage, lifting, sprints and jumps (5 Body lifts 800 lbs, sprints 20 yards in a combat round and can do a running jump of 6 yards). Coordination governs agility feats (at 6d and higher you can try to dodge gunshots), Sense allows you to differentiate between sense data (at 6d you can do the Daredevil trick of using other senses to compensate for being blinded), Mind affects academic skills and recall attempts, Charm governs persuasion (Charm over 6d allows a character to use it almost like mind control) and Command not only allows command over most NPCs but at higher levels allows the character to ignore penalties from injury or trauma.
Skills are very broadly defined and one can usually roll a stat “unskilled” but usually not with optimum result (you can land a plane if the guy at the tower can talk you down but that doesn't make you a pilot). GM options for such include specialties in a broader skill (for 1/2/4 points) or an “Occupation” skill that covers all the skills a particular occupation would be expected to have (like 'FBI Agent') for 5/10/20 points. There is also the option for treating character Contacts as separate Charm-based skills or a Wealth rating that applies to anything money could be used for (at 2/4/8 points per Wealth die).
This section also covers how Base Will and Willpower are used. Willpower allows one to power Miracles, bump one's Initiative rating by one, buy off a width die a power that would alter one's character, or shake off damage (buy off one point of Shock, reduce a Killing damage point to Shock, or spend 2 Willpower to buy off 1 Killing Damage.) Similar to the White Wolf definition between Willpower point and permanent Willpower dot, Base Will is the permanent Will stat. You can burn one point of Base Will to get any number of bennies, such as being saved from death or 10 Willpower points, but Base Will requires experience points to get back and if for some reason you run out of Base Will (for instance if you run out of Willpower points, anything that would cause you to lose more Willpower will take off one point of Base Will instead) then you can't use your Charm or Command dice at all. If you have no Willpower points (or Base Will goes to 0) then all dice pools are cut in half and all Hard and Wiggle Dice become regular dice.
A character can lose Willpower through personal defeats, attempting to save someone but failing, etc. One can gain Willpower through rolling a set of natural 10s (on regular dice), doing something that the whole gaming table thinks is cool, successfully saving another, or defeating another Talent in combat (gain Willpower equal to his Base Will). Otherwise, a PC usually gains Willpower through the factors of motivations: Loyalties and Passions. Again, a Loyalty is to some external thing while a Passion is a personal motivation. This chapter goes over how to use these in the game- in particular how a player should be proactive in trying to roleplay a motivation and add it in the game ('Don't just wait for the GM to work it into the game; he has enough on his plate already'). The GM is also advised that it's especially fun if a PC's motivations conflict with each other and even better when they cause conflict with other characters. The end result is that “Willpower, the fuel of superhuman powers, gives the players an immediate, palpable stake in the roles they play.”
In Wild Talents, there are three means of character advancement: Experience points, Willpower and Base Will. It's also mentioned in this chapter that there are rules for Disadvantages- sorta. You don't actually get any character creation points for these. “Sorry. Really, the list is just too long, and if we start giving Points for one or two of them we’ll have to devote a whole chapter to all the rest, and nobody wants that. Nobody on our staff, anyway.” Instead, if you want to have a Disadvantage like “Blind” you just write it on your sheet and then agree to be hindered by that Disadvantage, such as volunteering NOT to make a Perception check one would otherwise be eligible for. Such attention to character concept is worth an extra XP, as is great roleplaying or otherwise going “above the call.” You automatically get one XP per week for showing up. The normal cost for improving a stat is the same as its point cost in character creation, but this assumes both the time and opportunity to do full training. Without such a point of Base Will is required in addition. A PC can also spend Willpower in game at a “moment of crisis” to boost a trait; but this requires Willpower equal to what you would spend with character points to increase the stat, PLUS a point of Base Will. Technically you can only buy new Meta-Qualities outside your Archetype if you purchased the Mutable Meta-Quality at character creation (p. 99). There are also some characters (like intelligent robots) who have no Base Will, meaning no Willpower; so you can use Experience Points to improve but not Base Will or Willpower. An allied character can spend his own points of Will to help you along, but that character gets to choose where the Willpower is spent.
4: Combat shows how combat works in the ORE. It is basically like it was in prior editions: Each turn works along these lines- declare, roll, resolve. Characters declare actions in order of lowest Sense rating first, because characters with higher Sense ratings are able to react to others' actions and possibly preempt them. (If characters tie for Sense, use Perception Skill and Mind stat, in that order, as tiebreakers.) In the declaration phase the player must announce if he is doing special maneuvers like multiple actions. In the roll phase all characters roll their dice pools. Since all characters have declared their actions, all roll at the same time and the players determine the width and height of result rolls. In the resolve phase, actions are resolved in order of greater width: A 5x5 beats a 3x10. If a character takes damage from an attack, he loses one die off his match, which will of course reduce his width and initiative even further, and this “dodgeball rule” means that if a character gets his dice pool reduced to one success (no matches) then he doesn't get to go at all.
When one takes damage, it can be Shock and/or Killing. Shock damage is concussion damage that recovers fairly quickly while Killing is invasive damage that takes a long time to recover and may of course end up killing the victim. Sometimes Killing damage is downgraded to Shock due to armor or other factors; however, once all points in a particular Hit Location are filled with Shock, any more Shock converts to Killing. This works on a simple silhouette table where 10 hits the Head (being the highest height) and the Head has only four points of damage. Hits to 7-9 hit the Torso, which has 10 boxes. The other rolls hit limbs, and each limb has 5 damage boxes. Filling all the boxes in a location with Shock and/or Killing damage means the limb is unusable or the character loses dice (for a Torso shot) or is knocked out (for a Head shot). If all boxes in a limb are filled with Killing damage, it's permanently damaged or, depending on the type of attack, may be cut off. If your Head or Torso are full of Killing, you're dead. Each day of rest heals half the Shock damage in a location (until it goes to 1, then the next day of rest heals it completely). For each week of bed rest, 1 point of Killing is converted to Shock at each affected location. Medicine Skill can help speed healing of Killing damage and First Aid can help with Shock. Armor in this system is Light Armor (LAR) and Heavy Armor (HAR). Light Armor, like that of soldiers' helmets, reduces all Shock on a hit to one point and converts base Killing to that location to Shock up to its LAR rating. (If you have LAR 3 and get hit for 6 Shock, the armor converts it to 1 Shock. If you get hit with 6 Shock and 6 Killing, the LAR turns the 6 Shock into one, and converts 3 of the Killing into 3 more Shock- so you take 4 Shock and 3 Killing.) Heavy Armor, like that of tanks (and many superheroes) reduces the width of a damage roll by its HAR rating, but only counts if the result reduces the width to 0. Thus HAR is all or nothing, and anything capable of exceeding its rating will do its full damage. (One option suggested to get around this is to say that HAR blocks all attacks that don't have a Penetration rating capable of piercing it.) Penetration reduces both LAR and HAR by one times its factor. You can technically stack LAR and HAR but most modern armor types are too bulky to allow this, although that doesn't apply to super-defense powers, of course.
As in previous editions of GODLIKE and Wild Talents, this game stresses the concept of mental trauma. When one sees (or participates in) something traumatic, such as torture, this calls for a Stability Skill check; failure means that you either lose half your Willpower and withdraw from the situation immediately, or tough it out and lose ALL Willpower. It is also mentioned that as per the rules above, a villain might target an enemy hero via his motivations, which explains why a hero's loved ones keep getting threatened in the comics.
Chapter 4 also goes over certain combat maneuvers like doing a called shot (-1 to the dice pool and set one of your remaining dice to the hit location you want) or blocks and dodges (which use the Gobble Dice mechanic). There is also a rule for mass combat and minions; minions are essentially a mass dice pool with dice equal to the number of minions in the group (for each group of 10 or less, of course). The experience grade of a minion group determines how good they are at anything (the more experience they have, the lower the difficulty to command them, the lower their difficulty in performing skills, and the higher the difficulty to demoralize them).
Following this there's a list of common hand weapons and firearms, which are handled very abstractly, such that all pistols from the .38 service revolver to the .50 AE Desert Eagle, do Width in Shock and Killing (a 2x4 is 2 Shock and 2 Killing to location 4, the left arm). If this isn't enough for you, there's a set of advanced options where 9mm is the base for damage, the .38 cal is +1K and the .50 AE is +2SK (Width +2 in both Shock and Killing).
Finally, the Combat chapter goes over “environmental” effects like poison, cold, electrocution and just how much damage you take from being in a vehicle crash. As in real life, ALWAYS wear your seat belt.
Part 2: Powers This section starts with Chapter 5: Archetypes. As in the prior edition, a player must select an Archetype as the starting point for his PC. An Archetype is a fairly broad “power origin” that consists of three types of mechanical elements: The Source (special effect of one's powers), Permissions (the types of powers one can get via the Archetype) and Intrinsics (traits that have to be bought as intrinsic to this character type, like a vulnerability to sunlight or an alien ore). It's mentioned that the first Source on an Archetype is free but one can buy others- so that if for instance your character is both Divine and Technological in origin, something that nullifies his divine powers would still allow his super-tech to work. As an example of this, they reverse-engineered the original GODLIKE Talent package as an Archetype. Being based mainly on Willpower, the Talent's Source is Psi (mental powers), Permission is Super (15 points, can buy all Miracles, Hyperskills and Hyperstats), and Intrinsics include Mandatory Power (free inherent ability to perceive other Talent powers in use), No Willpower, No Way (powers don't function at all if Willpower is 0, -5 points) and Willpower Contest (another Talent who sees you use your power can bid his Willpower points to interfere with it, requiring you to bid Willpower to stop him, and in any case both parties lose the points they bid; -10 points). The penalties on Intrinsics balance the high cost of the Permission, making GODLIKE Talent a net 0 point Archetype.
Archetypes are intended to serve the GM in defining how superpowers work in his game (e.g. in GODLIKE there is only that one Archetype, meaning all powers are based on using Will to override reality) and also serve as convenient templates for similar characters. Artificials (robots, etc.) would normally use the same Archetype, for instance. Vampires or members of a particular alien race would be other possible examples.
Having addressed what powers a PC can get in his character concept, the book then goes to Chapter 6: What Is A Power? A power, again, can be a Hyperstat, a Hyperskill, or a Miracle. It is emphasized in this edition of Wild Talents that one can build similar powers from any of these three models, depending on what you want. The example they give is a character with a flame power. If he buys Hyperbody as “Flaming Fists” he gets straight bonus to damage. If he buys the effect as a martial arts technique he can buy it as a Hyperskill add to Brawling, subject to the limitations of using Brawling as a skill (not against an opponent at range, and not if you're restrained or otherwise unable to punch). Whereas buying “Master of Flame” as a Miracle allows for a wider range of abilities; flight, flaming 'force field', etc. Mechanically the difference is that Hyperstat or Hyperskill would add to an existing dice pool, whereas a Miracle is something that cannot be extrapolated from normal human abilities (e.g. flight) and therefore uses its own dice pool.
All of these powers, especially Miracles, are built out of Power Qualities. There are three qualities: Attacks (self-explanatory), Defends (ditto) and Useful, as in, useful out of combat, like a flame power that starts campfires, allows you to fly, etc. (The prior edition of WT used a fourth quality, Robust, which meant that the power stayed on if the character was knocked out; in the new edition, all powers are assumed to be 'robust' unless they take the 'Fragile' Flaw.) Qualities increase the base cost of a power per die, which is doubled for a Hard Die and quadrupled for a Wiggle Die. The cost of each Power Quality is 2 points per, though this isn't immediately obvious; I had to look around page 106 where the cost was confirmed almost as a side note. There are also Extras (advantages that increase the power's effectiveness, and cost) and aforementioned Flaws (factors that reduce the power's utility and thus its cost). Any given quality has one effect, so a “Master of Flame” Miracle with one Useful quality could either create flames or allow the user to fly, not both. Having both effects would mean either buying a separate power or folding in another Useful quality. Furthermore each Power Quality starts with one Power Capacity for what it affects: The Power Capacities are Mass, Range, Speed, Touch and Self. For instance with the “Master of Flame” power you could have the Attacks, Defends and Useful (Create Flame) qualities, and both the Attacks and Useful qualities would have the Range capacity (throw flames at range) while the Defends quality would have Self capacity, since you're using it to defend yourself.
Chapter 7: Extras specifically lists the Extras used in the power creation system. This is on a +1 to +4 scale where a +1 bonus is at least minimally useful and +4 is an “amazing” improvement. (Of course, the same scale applies to Flaws, in reverse.)
Next of course is Chapter 8: Flaws. These follow obvious but important rules. First, a Flaw that doesn't actually limit the power isn't worth any cost break. Second, a given Flaw applies to only one Power Quality; for it to apply to all Qualities in a power it has to be applied to each. Flaws can never reduce the base cost of a Hyperstat, Hyperskill or Power Quality to less than 1 point per die. And finally, Flaws always apply if taken. You can't choose for a power with Flaws not to be affected by them. It's worth noting at this point that in the previous edition the default mode of powers (specifically Miracles) was that you had to “bid” one Willpower point to activate one; if you failed your first roll with the power, you lost the point. Now you don't have to bid Willpower just to turn a power on. In the new edition a power with Willpower Bid has a -1 Flaw. A power with Willpower Investment (you don't lose the points, but they're 'committed' as long as the power is on) is also a -1. A power with actual Willpower Cost is -2 (like the Aces and Cosmic Power Miracles from the cafeteria). There is also a Base Will Flaw for a power that costs one point of Base Will every time it's activated- that's a -4 value.
Then Chapter 9 gives us the newest version of A Miracle Cafeteria, the pre-made powers list. This is in the format of Miracle's name, cost in parentheses, Qualities (as initials, so a power with one of each quality is A D U), any Extras or Flaws applied to a given quality, and its capacities, then the Miracle's effect. For instance, Heavy Armor is listed as Heavy Armor (6) (final cost), Qualities: D, Defends Extras and Flaws: Armored Defense (-2), Endless +3, Interference +3, Capacities: Self. This is where Endless is an Extra making the Miracle stay on until the character chooses to turn it off without having to roll for it every round, and Interference is a potent Extra allowing the power's dice to block any attack dice of their height or greater (as opposed to the normal rule where width beats height on speed, meaning an attack with more width than your defense 'gets the drop' on your block attempt). If you take this Miracle with Hard Dice (at double cost, of course) it acts like Heavy Armor/HAR in the combat rules, meaning it automatically blocks all attacks with a width lower than the HAR rating in dice. However the Interference mechanic also means that again, any attack that does have a greater width than your total HAR still gets through as though it “went first” before a block attempt. The Armored Defense Flaw means the power performs much an armored barrier so that if an attack with Penetration reduces your HAR to 0, it provides no defense at all. This makes Heavy Armor a “really thick eggshell” which for “tank” characters is probably best used in conjunction with Light Armor (which is 3 points per die in this system).
Finally, this section ends with Chapter 10: Choosing Your Powers. This is basically a player's advice chapter. In other parts of the text, there seems to be a theme of proving how it's possible to balance even the most “broken” powers in play, as with the Suppress Nuclear Fusion example, or buying a PC 10 hd of Invulnerability. Sure, he's impossible to kill, but if some other character can teleport him into a nova, he's still out of the way.
The author of this chapter confirmed that the game can be “minmaxed” in such manner and the text implies that one of the goals is to see how opponents can get around your unbreakable powers (often by attacking the Loyalties and Passions that feed your Willpower, which reinforces your abilities but depletes them if you run out of it). But Chapter 10 has a few short tips allowing the non-minmaxer to stay competitive, like a super-dodge based on Dodge Hyperskill and Permanent Extra, bought as a Hard Die, so that two of these (20 points total) will reduce an attacker's width by at least two.
More importantly, a philosophy of “collectivism,” or rather cooperation is emphasized not only between players but between players and GM. Again, a player could make an “ultimate” unbalancing power, but this threatens to “ghettoize” other players who aren't as able or willing to crank out the most bang for the buck. By the same token PCs should try to have a fair balance of attacks and defenses, to make the GM's job easier: Otherwise a villain who could threaten the team brick would probably kill the character without similar defenses. (Especially in this game.) After the advice text, there's also a random character generator using the ORE to get random power/skill sets, so naturally it's called “One-Roll Talents.”
Part 3: The World
Chapter 11: Building Superheroic Histories is basically the same text as in the original edition. It's noteworthy as the origin of Arc Dream's four-axis rating system for superpowered settings, using the traits of Red (how easy it is for superhumans to change history), Gold (how easy it is for characters in the setting to change), Blue (the 'lovely and pointless' bits of fantasy and outright absurdity common to comicbook universes) and Black (how strongly 'black and white' the morality of the setting is). For instance on a 1 to 5 scale, GODLIKE is Blue 1 (the only fantastic elements are the Talents) whereas The Adventures of Dr. McNinja is Blue 6 and Axe Cop is maybe Blue 8.
Chapter 12: A World Gone Mad is the history of the Wild Talents world starting from the GODLIKE period around the 1936 Berlin Olympics and ending around 2007. It is much longer than the timeline in the prior edition (142 pages in itself) and differs substantially in some areas. Notably,
After this the sample adventure and characters have been replaced with a fairly long section of appendices. First is Appendix A: Sample Characters, which actually gives full writeups for “The Odd Squad”, Grey (the first known Wild Talent) and several other examples from the setting history, including the Talent Squad and Dr. Jurassic.
Then you have two pieces by Greg Stolze. Appendix B: How to Play a Roleplaying Game is a good deal more detailed than most such pieces. It is basically a “player's advice” chapter in contrast to a “GM's advice” chapter (which follows). Like Chapter 10, it mentions how some players are prone to “minmax”- and this is not necessarily a bad thing, (since this reveals serious investment in the game) except insofar as it is accompanied by behaviors that make the game less fun for everyone else. This goes along with another point that is mentioned on one level or another throughout the book: The game should be a cooperative effort between GM and players. This section also deals with important points such as: when you agree to play in a game, show up; a game based on Days of Our Lives is going to have different parameters than one based on Saving Private Ryan, and the question “Why does 'badass fighter' get a whole chapter devoted to it while 'compelling public speaker' does not?”
Appendix C: How to Run a Roleplaying Game follows suit with GM advice. It discusses plot, plot hooks, how to make things fair and interesting for everybody, and how to run all of this in the rules. Notably it goes over each of the four axes (Red, Gold, Blue and Black) and a few game tweaks for how to enforce the axes you've set for your game. Last, you have Appendix D: Adventures, Scenes and Challenges which broadly goes over how to write a scenario in terms of what could affect a character with certain powers and how to get him involved in the action. Again, it is advised to lean on his Passions and Loyalties as built-in tools.
Finally, Wild Talents has some fairly concise and readable reference sheets for building characters (including the character sheets) and an average Index.
SUMMARY
Wild Talents Second Edition is indeed a refinement on the principles of the first book, although I'm still not sure about the results.
Its power creation system has about as many options as HERO System, but while in some respect it might seem like less math than HERO (since you're using whole numbers instead of fractions) you also have to calculate exactly how many Qualities and Capacities you're going to cram into a given Miracle, and since they go into more detail on how to build adjustments into Hyperstats and Hyperskills, that adds another level of complexity still. One of the issues with Wild Talents as a universal system is how some of the effects are described in a non-generic manner. For instance the Burn Extra is obviously used to model how the effects of how fire damage continue until the fire is extinguished, but in the system it is also used to describe other continuing effects, which is a bit misleading. As compared to how HERO System called this principle the “Continuous” Advantage for attacks and now uses the video game term “Damage Over Time.”
Also the dynamic of the ORE in combat creates its own version of the “glass ninja” problem, where any damage that gets past your dodge or bulletproof defenses is not only going to hurt, but hurt hard. As mentioned above though, the text does provide methods of dealing with this, if you take care to use the hints.
Which leads to another point that is frequently addressed in the text and in prior reviews of the second edition: It is a VERY “high trust” game. The reader is often advised that much of the game is based in cooperation between the GM and an individual player, or GM and the group. Again, this is because Wild Talents, like HERO System, theoretically lets you do anything, so the GM especially has to decide how much of “anything” he's going to deal with. The setting background actually provides a good example of how this plays out in practice: In direct contrast to the “high-Red” premise of GODLIKE, Arc Dream's world after World War II shows how Talents can change the world rapidly and radically, which in itself will require not only serious decisions on what powers a character has but what kind of setting would be created by their presence.
Thus the Wild Talents Second Edition gives us a better example of how the system works as a universal system and an engine for superheroes, although I don't think it's as user-friendly as other systems and not for everybody. In both mechanics and tone it has a very experimental feel. The text itself says: “In Wild Talents we trust you, the players, to build the kinds of characters you want to build. The amazing things that Wild Talents characters can do are pretty cool. What they choose to do, though- that's what really intrigues us.”
If that philosophy appeals to you, then this will be your kind of game.
Style: 4
Wild Talents Second Edition is written with both enthusiasm and imagination to produce a unique science-fiction/superhero setting.
Substance: 4
The game has a very flexible rules engine, but with enough options that it's not always easy to grasp.
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