Dumarest
Vaquero de Alta California
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- Jan 20, 2018
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Well, my work has decided that investigators are doing too much overtime and is forcing us to take one-hour lunches off the clock and get overtime authorized in advance, so I find myself with time on my hands since I usually take only the state-mandated 30 minutes (and wouldn't even take that if the state didn't force me to). So...what to do? I finished the novel I brought with me this morning and the only other reading material I have at hand is Frederick Forysth's The Dogs of War (which I quit reading about 45% of the way through because the build-up was taking too long and I just wasn't that interested in seeing how it played out from there as there were no characters I cared about either), 2nd edition Boot Hill, and Golden Heroes. So let's read Golden Heroes: The Role-Playing Game of Super-Heroes.
The "Players Book," which is designed to look like a Bronze Age Marvel comic book complete with a banner across the top and a fake UPC in the bottom left corner box, starts with the Introduction, wherein it is explained that the players will be controlling the actions and developing the personality of a comic book Superhero (capitalized in the book, unclear why). We also learn that there is no game master or referee, but rather we have a Scenario Supervisor (hereafter abbreviated "SS"), running the game for the players. Too bad they didn't come up with a nifty abbreviation for players as well. Missed opportunity. It's spelled out very clearly that the SS will have a hand in helping the players create their superheroes, and that the players "should become familiar with the dice" because they'll need to be rolled several times in creating a superhero. The Dice: this paragraph just lays out how the various dice are abbreviated and which dice are needed. You'll need to become familiar with the d6, the d10, and the d20. "You are now ready to embark on issue number 1 of Golden Heroes: The Origins of a Superhero."
The Basic Character explains there are four Attributes: Ego, Strength, Dexterity, and Vigour, for which you will roll 3d6 to generate a score from 3 to 18. Ego is the measure of your character's "will power." It also determines how powerful your mental and/or magical powers are and how resistant you are to "such things as brain-washing and hypnosis." I really like that there is no Intelligence attribute, much like Pendragon or Boot Hill; it's up to the player to determine how smart his hero is. (Later we'll see a section on Advantageous Backgrounds that will let you become a Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, or Reed Richards type if you like.) Strength measures strength and helps you cause or resist damage. Dexterity measures manual dexterity, unlike many games that include agility or alacrity under the term, and a high Dexterity will help you hit your opponents. A low Dexterity does the opposite. Vigour "is a measure of how fit and healthy your character is." This will determine your Hits to Coma (HTC), Hits to Kill (HTK), and Recovery Rate Modifier. Basically when you take damage of various fractions of your HTC or HTK, you may be staggered, stunned, knocked out, hospitalized, or dead. A character's Movement is based on adding up your Strength, Dexterity, and Vigour and dividing by 6 (rounding to nearest whole number). A character can swim at 1/5 his normal Movement rate. All this stuff should be written in pencil, by the way, as it may be affected by your superpowers or the "Previous Training" Advantageous Background.
Now we come to the part where we roll up some random powers: Creating Your Superhero. The SS will allocate a number of Power Rolls or allow you to generate a random number (from 5 to 10, so not a huge range). I kind of prefer each player generating a random number. Some of the powers on the random table are actually increases to your attributes like Strength and Vigour. Also, they haven't said so yet, but skills and Advantageous Backgrounds are essentially powers as well. Before you roll your random powers, you can decide to discard any number of your rolls and instead choose an Advantageous Background in place of each roll you're giving up. However, you don't select your Advantageous Background until after you've rolled up your random assortment of powers, the idea being you will therefore avoid incompatibility. Some superpowers have "grades," which is basically a rank or a level. A higher grade means it's more powerful. If you roll the same superpower more than one time, you increase it by a grade; if there are no grades for that power, you just roll again instead. If you roll a superpower that has grades, you can forgo a roll and upgrade it by one. If you want to upgrade it by two, you have to give up two more rolls. Upgrading a third grade will cost three more rolls. And so on. So if you rolled Strength as a power and wanted to be really, really strong, you could for instance take Strength Grade 4 but it would cost you a total of seven power rolls (including the initial roll that got you the power). Personally I like this because it makes the higher levels of a power rare at the start of a campaign. In the "Supervisors Book," the game will cover how you can increase powers during a campaign.
If you saved any power rolls because you want to choose one of the Advantageous Backgrounds, your SS will tell you whether you get to select one or have to roll randomly from a list of such things as "Rich - Industrialist," "Brilliant Scientist - Mechanical," "Contacts - Criminal," and "Previous Training." There are five other options as well. Your character may get special resources, contacts, increased attributes, or even be immortal depending on what you choose or roll.
Next up is one of the best parts of Golden Heroes: Background & Rationale. After you've rolled up your motley assortment of powers (and Advantageous Background, if any), you have to figure out a rationale for your superhero that explains how and why these powers all make sense together. Essentially you're explaining your origin story. For any power you can't rationalize, you give it up. Now, players are usually pretty slick at coming up with rationales in my experience, so it's no big deal, but now and then a player has a neat concept where a power just makes no sense and in my experience mature players haven't made a fuss over giving up "Weather Control," for instance, if they had an aim of playing a masked vigilante Batman type of character. The rulebook gives eight examples of rationales for very different heroes created from the same seven randomly rolled powers. This part of the book is really cool because it shows how far you can stretch the same set of powers into utterly different concepts, from a space cop to an armored hero to a bug-man to magic-sword-wielding barbarian and four more for good measure. Your rationale/origin story works best if it provides some plot hooks and possible rivals, enemies, and complications for your superhero. The SS judges whether your rationale is acceptable.
(...more to come...)
The "Players Book," which is designed to look like a Bronze Age Marvel comic book complete with a banner across the top and a fake UPC in the bottom left corner box, starts with the Introduction, wherein it is explained that the players will be controlling the actions and developing the personality of a comic book Superhero (capitalized in the book, unclear why). We also learn that there is no game master or referee, but rather we have a Scenario Supervisor (hereafter abbreviated "SS"), running the game for the players. Too bad they didn't come up with a nifty abbreviation for players as well. Missed opportunity. It's spelled out very clearly that the SS will have a hand in helping the players create their superheroes, and that the players "should become familiar with the dice" because they'll need to be rolled several times in creating a superhero. The Dice: this paragraph just lays out how the various dice are abbreviated and which dice are needed. You'll need to become familiar with the d6, the d10, and the d20. "You are now ready to embark on issue number 1 of Golden Heroes: The Origins of a Superhero."
The Basic Character explains there are four Attributes: Ego, Strength, Dexterity, and Vigour, for which you will roll 3d6 to generate a score from 3 to 18. Ego is the measure of your character's "will power." It also determines how powerful your mental and/or magical powers are and how resistant you are to "such things as brain-washing and hypnosis." I really like that there is no Intelligence attribute, much like Pendragon or Boot Hill; it's up to the player to determine how smart his hero is. (Later we'll see a section on Advantageous Backgrounds that will let you become a Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, or Reed Richards type if you like.) Strength measures strength and helps you cause or resist damage. Dexterity measures manual dexterity, unlike many games that include agility or alacrity under the term, and a high Dexterity will help you hit your opponents. A low Dexterity does the opposite. Vigour "is a measure of how fit and healthy your character is." This will determine your Hits to Coma (HTC), Hits to Kill (HTK), and Recovery Rate Modifier. Basically when you take damage of various fractions of your HTC or HTK, you may be staggered, stunned, knocked out, hospitalized, or dead. A character's Movement is based on adding up your Strength, Dexterity, and Vigour and dividing by 6 (rounding to nearest whole number). A character can swim at 1/5 his normal Movement rate. All this stuff should be written in pencil, by the way, as it may be affected by your superpowers or the "Previous Training" Advantageous Background.
Now we come to the part where we roll up some random powers: Creating Your Superhero. The SS will allocate a number of Power Rolls or allow you to generate a random number (from 5 to 10, so not a huge range). I kind of prefer each player generating a random number. Some of the powers on the random table are actually increases to your attributes like Strength and Vigour. Also, they haven't said so yet, but skills and Advantageous Backgrounds are essentially powers as well. Before you roll your random powers, you can decide to discard any number of your rolls and instead choose an Advantageous Background in place of each roll you're giving up. However, you don't select your Advantageous Background until after you've rolled up your random assortment of powers, the idea being you will therefore avoid incompatibility. Some superpowers have "grades," which is basically a rank or a level. A higher grade means it's more powerful. If you roll the same superpower more than one time, you increase it by a grade; if there are no grades for that power, you just roll again instead. If you roll a superpower that has grades, you can forgo a roll and upgrade it by one. If you want to upgrade it by two, you have to give up two more rolls. Upgrading a third grade will cost three more rolls. And so on. So if you rolled Strength as a power and wanted to be really, really strong, you could for instance take Strength Grade 4 but it would cost you a total of seven power rolls (including the initial roll that got you the power). Personally I like this because it makes the higher levels of a power rare at the start of a campaign. In the "Supervisors Book," the game will cover how you can increase powers during a campaign.
If you saved any power rolls because you want to choose one of the Advantageous Backgrounds, your SS will tell you whether you get to select one or have to roll randomly from a list of such things as "Rich - Industrialist," "Brilliant Scientist - Mechanical," "Contacts - Criminal," and "Previous Training." There are five other options as well. Your character may get special resources, contacts, increased attributes, or even be immortal depending on what you choose or roll.
Next up is one of the best parts of Golden Heroes: Background & Rationale. After you've rolled up your motley assortment of powers (and Advantageous Background, if any), you have to figure out a rationale for your superhero that explains how and why these powers all make sense together. Essentially you're explaining your origin story. For any power you can't rationalize, you give it up. Now, players are usually pretty slick at coming up with rationales in my experience, so it's no big deal, but now and then a player has a neat concept where a power just makes no sense and in my experience mature players haven't made a fuss over giving up "Weather Control," for instance, if they had an aim of playing a masked vigilante Batman type of character. The rulebook gives eight examples of rationales for very different heroes created from the same seven randomly rolled powers. This part of the book is really cool because it shows how far you can stretch the same set of powers into utterly different concepts, from a space cop to an armored hero to a bug-man to magic-sword-wielding barbarian and four more for good measure. Your rationale/origin story works best if it provides some plot hooks and possible rivals, enemies, and complications for your superhero. The SS judges whether your rationale is acceptable.
(...more to come...)
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