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Background
A few years ago. We were approaching the end of Gen Con and two of my Hero Games friends, the Scottish-looking Darren Watts and the extremely likeable right-wing hippie Jason Walters, had been asking me if I wanted to go to a Lucha Libre game with them. Now, I’ve grown out of those fake WWF fights since I hit age 14 or so, and at first I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing some masked people pretending to fight each other in a ring, but eventually my friends’ enthusiasm reeled me in and as soon as I knew I didn’t have to do a restaurant review anymore I joined them to the performance.
On our way up to the arena, Darren and Jason raved about the rich background Lucha Libre has. Apparently, the Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre was founded in 1933 and the sport really took off a few years later, when Spanish wrestlers emigrated to Mexico because of the Spanish Civil War. The first celebrity was Rodolfo ‘Rudy’
Guzman, a luchador who first tried to imitate El Murcielago (‘The Bat’), a wrestler who always entered the ring wearing a black cape that looked like the one Bela Lugosi wore in the immensely popular Dracula. After the real Murcielago complained, Guzman abandoned the act and tried to don several different personas before settling on ‘El Santo’, wearing a simple costume and a silver mask. A decade later, El Santo had his own comic book. During this time, a slew of Lucha Libre films were released and by 1958, wrestler Fernando Oses was able to convince El Santo to star in his own movie. The genre quickly expanded, with luchadores not only battling the likes of themselves, but vampires, werewolves, mobsters, Asian martial artists and aliens as well. Since then, the sport has spread its wings to fly over the United States and other parts of the world as well, leading Americans like Darren and Jason to become enamored with it and inspiring them to write an entire game based on the genre.
While watching the luchadores squaring off against each other, my friends often commented on what was happening. It was like my first real introduction to the background of soccer in 1998: by getting to know the players and their system, the sport suddenly becomes a lot more interesting. It has to be said that, as a martial artist, I liked some of the maneuvers shown to us as well, even though many
of them were probably meticulously choreographed. It’s what will happen when you read Lucha Libre Hero: even if you’re not interested in the sport, you might be sucked in by the general tackiness of it all, the pulpy Good Guys, the traditional Good vs. Evil fights and the over-the-top storylines. Yes, this genre has much in common with the pulp genre, including just as many or more seemingly-random elements out of popular culture in order to create suspense, surprise or addictive bewilderment. So let’s go on to the actual review…
Review
Just in case anyone would doubt the authors’ motivation to write Lucha Libre Hero, both Darren and Jason include notes on why they chose to cover this genre, or why they were attracted to it in the first place. Both do a good job, with Jason focusing on the fact that these ‘non-super powered superheroes’ are a lot more believable than their DC and Marvel counterparts and Darren talking about initial and eventual fan reaction.
There’s about 10 pages of background on Lucha Libre. The history of the sport seems to be well-documented, but personally we would have loved to see more actual examples and recaps of actual storylines.
The chapter on character generation lists typical Archetypes, several Package Deals (the Basic Luchador, Brawling Rudo, Crimefighting Luchador, Occultist Luchador, Luchador Noir, High Flyer (an expert at acrobatic moves), Mat Technician (a wrestler who’s specialized in Submission Holds, Pressure Squeezes and Escapes), Sneaky Rudo, Comic Sidekick, Mad Scientist, Mobster, Plucky Girlfriend, Professor and Thug. There’s also a wide variety of Action Stunts, which, according to HERO System tradition, are all based on Powers, Advantages and Limitations. For example: the Action Stunt ‘I Am not Impressed, Señor’ grants +20 PRE (20 Active Points), Only to Protect Against Presence Attacks (-1), for a total cost of 10 points. Some of the Action Stunts, like ‘Augmented Haymaker’ and are pretty straightforward, while others, like ‘No! Not My Labatory!’ and ‘Ojos in the Back of His Cabeza’
sound corny, but fit the tropes of the genre perfectly. The same holds for the six gadgets presented in this chapter, such as the ‘Bullet-Deflecting Cape’ and the ‘Translocation Machine’.
Of course, Lucha Libre is a wrestling sport and so it’s only fitting that no less than 36 pages are consecrated to combat. We’ve always written that the HERO System has some of the best martial arts rules out there, together with GURPS Martial Arts, Ninjas & Superspies, World of Darkness: Combat and the Organic Rules Components RPG’s (In Dark Alleys,
Fates Worse than Death and Tibet), but this time the HERO designers have outdone themselves. Even at a glance, it is obvious that a lot – and we mean a LOT – of research has been done in order to create the impressive 8 pages of (very appropriate) maneuver tables. Let’s just list the maneuvers listed on the second page: La Cerrajera, La Corbata, The Cravat, Full Nelson, Gory Special, Grounding, Hammerlock, Mandible Claw, La Palanca, El Puente Olimpico, Pumphandle, La Rosa, Straightjacket, Torture Rack, La Trituradorita, Wrist Lock (all ‘Standing Holds’); Atomic Piledriver, Backslide, Crippler Crossface, DDT, Face Driver, La Guillotina, Huracantana, La Majistral, Monkey Flip (all ‘Takedown Holds’); Basic Pressure Squeeze, Crush, Deadly Pressure Squeeze, Grappling Throw, Super Pressure Squeeze (all ‘Pressure Squeezes’); 619, Armbreaker, Backflip Kick, Bicycle Kick and Big Boot (the first of the ‘Strikes’). Even more astoundingly, Darren and Jason have gone through great pains to explain every single (set of) maneuver(s), usually in one or two paragraphs. This is great stuff, even though taking a lot of maneuvers quickly becomes inordinately expensive. Maybe there should also be a list of ‘similar maneuvers’, cutting the cost if the specifications of one correspond with those of another.
The number of Gimmicks and Special Maneuvers has thankfully and rightfully been kept to a minimum, even though the rules on Signature Moves and Finishes could have been fleshed out better.
We also learn a lot about the actual Lucha Libre rules and how to roleplay Lucha Libre combat. The additional RPG rules cover using flair to create ‘special effects’, disarming, double teaming, etc. The double team rules especially again fit the genre perfectly, with maneuvers such as the Aided Piledriver, the Rocket Launcher and the Double Team Crucifix Powerbomb. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, such as Routines (wrestling moves that are too complicated to be regarded as single Maneuvers: Diamond Dust, Iconoclasm, Leap of Faith, the Shiranui, Sunset Flip and Vertebreaker), a paragraph on throwing and being thrown and – especially – Transitioning, which is when an attacker transitions from one Maneuver to another during a fight. Again, all of these rules promote realism, but also make for even more interesting strategic options, while having a rare graphic element that will entice avid role-players who like to describe everything they do in detail too. For those who like rules variations, there’s options for them as well.
Of course, no HERO System supplement would be complete without gamemastering advice and tips on how to use the book in other settings. Our favorites include Secret Plan 69 (psychotronic espionage) and Sexo y Violencia (an over-the-top adult version) for Dark Champions, Contra DEMON and Heroes de la Iglesia (in which the PC’s work for the Vatican) for Horror Hero, Cyber Luchador for Star Hero and Una Rosa Sobre el Ring (where the PC’s lives exist solely on TV) for Ninja Hero. The chapter closes with some plot seeds, even though there’s no actual adventure included.
In true HERO tradition, we get some complete NPC write-ups, about 32 pages in all. Some of the heroes and villains are fictional, some are based on real-life wrestlers. There’s also a host of monsters, including the hilarious Blonde Martians and Franquesteins. All in all, there’s not much to go by, but it’s enough to start running a campaign.
The section on Mexico City is a neat inclusion and is followed by a short adventure titled Contra Todo Mal. Lucha Libre Hero ends with a recap of most of the HERO System rules, so that the entire book can be used without the core rulebook, which is a great idea. The decision to end with this section also makes sense, as gamemasters who already have the far more extensive HERO System rules set won’t be annoyed by the constant repetition of rules they already know well while reading the new stuff.
Lucha Libre Hero is a fun supplement/role-playing game/campaign setting, which can easily be dropped into most existing campaigns. The combat rules are awesome, but there’s some minor flaws as well. We would have liked more NPC’s and monsters and even more background flavor text about Lucha Libre, for example. The book is a soft cover black and white affair, with most art being at least passable and stretching up to good without taking your breath away, and the lay-out being the standard 2-column pages we’ve come to know from this publisher. Most importantly, even the rules are very much in keeping with the genre (even though we often wondered where the accents were on the Spanish words), making for a very entertaining, interesting book. A very good effort indeed.