Very good game. So good it can even be seen as a generic system.

I love the feel of this game and how it plays. It has the feel of Champions but with a faster, smoother system. Character creation is as flexible as any superhero game out there, but the time it takes to make characters, especially for a GM, is amazing.

One of my favorite 'Supers' RPGs - I love D6 dice-pool systems, and this is no exception. Art, layout, and mechanics are all solid and straightforward. Plenty of character examples are given, and as usual, I generate a Spider-Man character to see how it looks, just as I do in every super-hero game.

I'd play this game in a heartbeat. I still prefer Supers! for absolute simplicity, but this is VERY close, and honestly, much more attractive IMO!

I really like this book. great sysyem with plenty of options to make the kinds of characters you want to play. and the layout is exceptional. esdy to read and find what you need.

Purchased this after watching ArcaderZero's review on YouTube. The system is easy to learn and makes for great gameplay. Character creation is a lot of fun and provides good guidelines re: series power level. Definitely one of the best supers RPGs I have ever played. I can't wait to play more!

I really love this system. It is one of my favorite two current super hero rpgs. Rules wise it is simple to learn and it has a robust character creation system that offers just enough crunchiness to feel competitive with more math heavy games like Champions and Mutants & Masterminds. The actual gameplay is rather nice as well, bypassing the problems the more math intense games tend to have, and instead focusing on narrative control of a scene. This makes for a really nice supers game that can satisfy both the narrative players crowd and the more rules hungry math focused crowd of players. I don't want to spoil to much about this game as it is a true gem to read.

I would recommend this game for players of games like Champions or Mutants & Masterminds who find the math oriented nature of combat to feel very clunky and not very comic book like. Likewise I feel that fans of other narrative games, such as Cortex Prime, could look at this and have a good alternative game to use if their players want more crunch in the character creation.

Alternatively I could see this game being used to create a really good fantasy game as well. I have often used super hero rpgs to run Dungeons & Dragons games. I feel character creation is much more fun in such situations and combat tends to work better.

Prowlers & Paragons is one of those games I will return to often both for inspiration and to use when running games.

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/09/review-prowlers-paragons-ultimate.html

This one has been sitting in my TBR pile for so long I actually feel kinda bad that I am just now getting to review it. But this is my unofficial superheroes month so but late than never I guess.

Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition

I like supers games. While I might be suffering from a little bit of superhero burnout right now I still enjoy these games. While I have not found the Prefect-for-Me supers game, this one is very, very close.

For this review, I am considering the POD and PDF I got from DriveThruRPG via their 2019 Kickstarter. The book was ready rather quickly I am just really slow on my review.

PDF and Hardcover, 192 pages. Full-color covers and interior art.

This is a supers game so one of the first things I consider is the art. I know, that seems shallow of me, but comics are a visual medium. So are superhero movies and TV shows. The art of P&P is gorgeous. I read through it and wonder where is the comic that should be attached to this game? No comic. But the game still looks great.

Foreword and Introduction

The foreword from Sean Patrick Fannon talks about the game he wanted to create and then discovers that the original P&P from Leonard Pimentel did more or less everything he wanted. This new P&P updates the old with some new ideas from both Pimentel and Fannon.

The Introduction covers the game and various glossary terms to get you going.

Chapter 1: Basics

The game mechanic is very basic and very easy to use. Every trait, ability, power, or what have you has a score. Figure our what you want to do, find the right combination, add those numbers up, minus any negative modifiers, and then roll that number of d6s. "2s" and "4s" are one success, "6s" are two successes. Compare that to the Thresholds table and you will know by how much you succeed, or fail.

Some special d6s would be nice, but that could get cost prohibitive. Keep in mind Fannon's original supers game was called "Handfuls of Dice" so it's good you can use regular d6s here!

Actions, Combat, Resolve, and Adversity are all dealt with in more detail in chapters 3, 4, and 5. But it is great to have here to get an idea on how to create your characters.

Chapter 2: Characters

The heart and soul of any supers game are the super themselves. Here we cover how to create your characters which will include types and power levels. This is a point-buy system so you get so many points depending on your power level and then use those points to buy everything you need.

Abilities are your base abilities like what you can find in most games. Agility, Intellect, Might, Perception, Toughness, and Willpower. Similar to D&D and very similar to Unisystem. 1d (1d6) to 6d represents the human norm. Talents are like skills, but broader. We also have our huge list of Powers. Powers can have Pros and Cons. For example, Ironman and Green Lantern both need to have a power source for their powers. This would be a con. Characters can also have Perks (Wealth for Batman) and Flaws (Compulsion, also for Batman).

The powers seem pretty comprehensive. Very much similar to say Mutants & Masterminds or other supers games.

This is the largest chapter of the book as expected.

Chapter 3: Action

This is the shortest chapter since action rolls are pretty easy to figure out. Again you are rolling a bunch of d6s (determined by abilities, talents, powers, and other modifiers) and counting your successes ("2s" and "4s" are 1, "6s" are 2). Compare that number to the Thresholds chart. You can also embellish your actions.

Chapter 4: Combat

Combat is largely a specific type of action, but since fighting bad guys is so central to many supers games and the variety of ways to engage in combat, this one is a bit larger and on its own.

Chapter 5: Resolve and Adversity

It is not the powers that make heroes the heroes, but their ability to do what is right and fight on. This is Resolve. Resolve allows the heroes to push through the tough times, to help their allies, to be able to "do this all day." It is a bit like the Drama Point system in Unisystem (Buffy, Ghosts of Albion). You can save it for the right moment for the best heroic action. Adversity is what challenges them.

Chapter 6: Equipment

Utility belts, flight suits, fast cars, even swords, bats (baseball, not the flying kinds), and your base of operations are all covered here.

Chapter 7: Environment

Street-level supers might be limited to the mean streets, but a supers game can take you anywhere and the players need to know how to handle these situations.

Chapter 8: Friends and Foes

I always love these chapters in Supers games. We get a variety of heroes and villains to help populate our worlds. Often they are the authors' homages to the heroes and stories they love, but also to fill certain niches. This chapter starts out with the basics; animals, extras (NPCs), and then we move onto the main heroes. There are variations of some classics here; your speedster, your blaster, you martial arts expert, the super soldier, and so on. If you have read a comic...well...ever then you should know what to expect here. I can almost judge a game by how many of these heroes I'd like to use. So far this game is doing great since all of them seem interesting me. These are followed by the Foes. They are also very interesting. Sure in both cases (heroes and foes) are built on very, very familiar archetypes, but that is also why they work.

Chapter 9: Superhero Gaming

This last chapter covers running your Prowlers & Paragons games including creating villain and their motivations. Also creating scenes, stories, and series.

This is followed by a character sheet, a list of Kickstarter backers, and a good index.

Honestly, this is really a great supers game. It is a little less on the complexity scale than say Mutants & Masterminds, but more so than say Icons.

while the notion of rolling say 20+ d6s can be daunting for really powerful characters, the fact that you are just looking for success makes it go really fast. Plus dropping a handful of dice for an attack? Yeah, there is sublime satisfaction in that as well.

There is also a free Quickstart and free Character Sheets.

Character creation is pretty fast and very fun. I am going to have to come back to this game for some more!

Cannot rave enough about how much fun this system is to play. The highly narrative nature of the game lends more to the idea of playing a character out of a comic book than any other system I've tried. The dice system is simple and smooth enough to get players through combat without undue delays or hangups. In all, an amazing game system that must be experienced.

Awesome. Simply, awesome. I loved the original Prowlers & Paragons so very much. In my mind, it was a love-letter to FASERIP, but also so much more. One of my favourite things about the system was the Taking Action rules that allowed the players to directly impact the collaborative storytelling being brought to life by everybody around the table.

Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition updates the original edition into its very best version. It clarifies some things that were vague in the original edition and adds so many more things that were missing. They managed to sand the rough edges and polish the rules to perfection. I find it to be the perfect balance between story and crunch.

You can use Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition to quickly build and run any superhero story your imagination desires. There are resources available that allow you to convert almost any superhero character from comic, cartoon or movie to the Prowlers & Paragons system. Although I encourage everyone to support Evil Beagle Games and also purchase their P&P UE setting, roster and adventures books, you only really need this book and a fist-full of d6 to get your Superhero TTRPG fix. Excelsior!

This is the superhero RPG I have been waiting for...for years. Takes the broadness, flelixibility and balance of Champions or Mutants and Masterminds and, without sacrificing any of the cool aspects, makes it an easy to play, narrative-driven fun game without the headaches. The character creation is not only uber-flexible, allowing any superhero concept you can think of, but it is also simple. This not only makes it a joy to create characters but also means it is new player friendly.

Excellent book for running a superhero game and a great diversity of powers. Great printing job and no smudges on the pages themselves.

My only issue is when I ordered the premium hardback and it came in with some bent corners and a unremovable fingerprint on the back from when they were putting the laminate on the covers.

Otherwise, I love it.

This has quickly become my favorite modern super hero RPG. It can handle any supers situation, any power level, has a great mix of (light) crunch and cinematic story telling. It comes up with a lot of great mechanics for handling minions making it quick and easy to run combat with dozens of minions. Another great invention is the "super mook" which is a quick rule to making up a villain on the fly during play. The art is fantastic, the layout is top notch (reminds me of Mutants and Masterminds, but that's a good thing). The list is powers is fantastic, you can build ANY hero you can think of. You can also build in any genre, Saturday morning cartoon heroes.. check, four color comics.. check, gritty realism... check. Combat is not bogged down with hefty math. Character creation is also quite easy with a simple point buy system. This game although deep, is very accesible to new players. My only wish is that they would come out with custom dice.

Simply the best mid-crunch Supers RPG I've ever seen in 37 years of roleplaying

As said in other reviews, it does hit a sweet spot between ICONS and Champions. It's got as much depth and detail as Mutants & Masterminds and the detail of deep character creation but without being bogged-down by number-crunching.

The narrative style is deep, creative and easy, but if you want a more traditional system of determining success in rolls, it has that option too.

Speaking of options, it also has gritty realism rules if you want a darker setting than that of it's default four-colour world.

The layout, graphics, design, writing and art is first-class and upon thorough reading, there are no apparent typos or errors.

It's also a testament to how robust and well-designed this game is, that when I converted DC and Marvel characters from other game systems, they exactly fell within the appropriate Power Levels (Street, Low Level, Standard. High Level, Legendary or Iconic) with Superman at 226 points (Iconic) Wonder Woman at 175 points (Legendary ) and Spider-Man at 107 points (Low Level)

A thoroughly top-class, beautiful and deep super hero roleplaying game.

This is THE supers game. I has all the tricks and tools anyone needs to run a supers game of any genre.

It's system is the perfect blend of simple narration and crunch. Successes give the players narrative control, while failure hands it off to the GM. There's also a complications mechanic that makes things interesting.

The character creation system works. Like some other systems, it uses a point-build that is flexible and comprehensive. Anyone can build anything they want with a little work and a lot of imagination.

If you play supers, this is your game.

This game is nothing short of exceptional! Easy to learn mechanics are both elegant and allow the gameplay to focus on storytelling and role-playing. Beautiful artwork throughout the product really brings it to life. Prowlers and Paragons brilliantly captures the tone and theme of what a Superhero roleplaying game can be. I highly recommend this product for both experienced role-players looking for an awesome new game, and also for newer gamers.

• Tarkenton