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Simon Washborne (Beyond Belief Games) has, to my mind, an excellent track record in the independent game design scene. His most successful title must surely be the well-received Barbarians of Lemuria which has already spawned a couple of spin-offs: Dogs of WAR and Barbarians of the Aftermath.
Supers! is not related to Barbarians or earlier releases, rather it is a new game system that initially looks to have borrowed much from West End Games’ Star Wars but on closer inspection turns out to be a unique development of the dice-pool game.
Firstly, the physical thing; well, I’m not sure, I only have the PDF and as yet I can’t print it due to a house-wide ink shortage. What I can tell you is that it’s 74 or so pages long and peppered with suitably comic-book style illustrations of heroes and villains (Darrel Miller provides the art and it’s consistently good throughout). The PDF download comes in two files; one is the text, the other the colour cover. I’m not sure why Simon chose to do that but when I quibbled, he sent me a single file that included the cover and the text – you can’t say fairer than that!
The text is presented in a large Times-style font with comic-book themed headers. I’m guessing that the font is 14-point which is really huge for this kind of publication and Simon certainly could have shaved several pages from the document had he chosen a more reasonable font size. I also find Times to be a terrible boring font but that’s neither here nor there. The upside is that when I print it as an A5 booklet, the text will still be legible.
Secondly, the content, the important stuff. The book opens with a very brief discussion about superhero role-playing, the players and the game master (or Judge as the role is referred to here). If you’d only ever played fantasy role-playing games and had no idea how a comic book game could work, this section would not help you. The rules assume that you are familiar with role-playing games and super-heroics, yet space is wasted on a terse description of play and the Judge which seems a touch incongruous.
Next we discover that only six-sided dice are used in this game (joy!) and that a dice-pool mechanic is employed. I always favour systems which stick to the good old six-siders – the most versatile of dice! Simon also reveals the design goal of the game here: a complete superhero game without a phone-book sized rule book. I recently noticed the two volume set of the Hero RPG at my local game store; the A to L and M to Z of superhero games.
So, about the system and we’ll start with character generation.
You begin either with a rough concept of the character you’d like to portray or a quick peek at the power section to see what peaks your interest. You aren’t expected to agonise over a pre-game history of how you became super-powered; in fact, you’re encouraged to fill in those blanks as the game progresses. After your concept you begin designing the character by allocating 5 points (or dice) to the character’s 4 resistances. Each has a base score of 1, plus 1 for each point you spend. Resistances are Composure (keep it together), Fortitude (toughness), Reaction (speed of thought and action) and Will (willpower). These are similar to ‘hit points’ and are reduced by different types of attacks or situations. It’s a nice touch and different from the usual methods of keeping track of your character. Each point in a resistance allows you to roll a six-side die to defend against appropriate attacks.
When a character is forced to take ‘damage’ the player has the choice of which resistance will be reduced; an example of play in the text describes a hero getting knocked out of the sky; the player chooses to reduce Composure since the character is demoralised that she could fall for such a lame trick! I like it.
After resistances, the player may spend 3 points on aptitudes, which are broadly defined skills. Each begins with a rating of 1 point in every aptitude so everyone has at least a chance of succeeding, unless the Judge deems otherwise. For both aptitudes and resistances the maximum score is 3 points – the peak of mundane ability. Additional points can be spent if the player choses not to spend all of his or her allocated power points but these must be used to develop narrower ‘specialities’ and even if a character ends up with 5 points in the fighting (say, Karate) aptitude and is therefore eligible to roll 5 dice in combat, only the 3 highest will be counted since a roll of 18 is the limit of normal human achievement – another excellent touch. Points not spent on resistances and aptitudes can be spent on powers but that might leave the character a little light in some key areas.
The player then has 12 points, or dice to spend on the right choice of powers for his or her character. Initially, no power may be rated higher than 5 dice but powers can become more potent over time as the character’s heroic career progresses. There are 41 individual powers, each described in some detail but with plenty of room for player extrapolation. For example, the sample character spends one point on the Stretching power; the player describes this as an advanced contortion ability that allows the character to easily get out of tight spots. Nice. The author encourages players and judges to develop new powers using the existing selection as templates and I can see that this would be quite easy even for inexperienced gamers.
Players can gain additional points to spend on powers by taking complications that relate to specific powers. Attaching a complication increases the rating of the power by 1 or 2 points which I’m guessing would put the maximum initial power rating at 7 rather than the stated 5. Complications are common in super hero role-playing games and are used to add a bit of flavour and variety. Two characters may have the Armour power but for one it’s tough skin and for the other it’s a powered suit. The powered armour is a ‘complication’ since the character without his armour is as puny as an average Joe Shmoe.
Power boosts are the opposite of complications, they cost power points and increase the effectiveness of specific powers by, for example, adding an area of effect to the character’s power-blast attack. Interestingly ‘knockback’ one of the mainstays of the comic books and superhero games is a power boost so you won’t be able to use your shock blast to scatter Doctor Dark’s minions unless you buy the boost. I don’t have a problem with this since it negates the need to build in pseudo physics to your damage effects. In addition, perhaps the judge wants to run a two-fisted pulp adventure where combatants don’t automatically knock each other through the scenery? No problem, don’t use the knockback power boost.
Advantages and disadvantages (ads and disads) are next providing further options to personalise your character and boost your chance of success with any dice roll if you’re smart enough. An advantage can add a bonus die to any endeavour providing the player can come up with a logical way for it to have an impact on the situation. Using an advantage (example: Allies) allows the judge to call on one of your disadvantages when you least expect. You can use a disadvantage too, which allows you to decide how it comes into play (rather than the judge) – and allows you to go ahead and call on your Allies for help without fear of an unwelcome Enemy turning up at grandma’s house. You can buy an advantage for a power point or take one for free if you also acquire a disadvantage. This is a nice simple way to even up characters and provide excellent story hooks.
Points left over at this stage can be allocated to other areas or to the mysterious competency pool. Now, my understanding is that the competency pool allows you to draw on dice for use in a game session to increase your chance of success and boost your rolls over 18 for mundane actions. However, this isn’t really explained in any great detail. One specific reference tells the reader to ‘see page 41’ which is a rather nice full-page picture of the Hulk with a tan but no details on competence another will send you to page 40 where there is some talk of its use but not enough.
The game mechanics are simple and effective. A static table of difficulties provides the target number for unopposed task resolution. The table is divided into mundane, exceptional and super target numbers and as stated earlier you’ll need a super power or competence dice to get past the mundane limit of 18. Limiting the results by character type is a seamless way of separating the supers from the normals – a character with a 4 dice specialisation in the shooting aptitude will never be able to do as well as a character with a 4-die super power and this is how it should be.
You’ve probably already figured out how opposed actions work – both characters involved roll their dice whether they be resistances, aptitudes or powers with the highest roller succeeding.
Combat kicks off with initiative going to the highest roller of the reaction resistance (except for mooks and henchmen – more on them later). The attacker decides which power or ability he is using to attack with and the defender chooses an appropriate defensive ability or power. The rules state that not every power will be a suitable attack or defence but what they really say is ‘if you can convince the judge that your armour power can be used as an attack in this particular situation, go for it’. This really encourages quick-thinking freeform play.
You can defend against any number of attacks (losing one die with each defence) but can only use a power once. So if you use your flame shield to ward off bullets don’t expect to use it when Sledgehammer whacks you with a steel girder. Similarly you can only attack with a power you haven’t already used so coming under a barrage of attacks early in the piece might limit your offensive options. Excellent! Players can’t fall back on one power that seems to be great in every situation – a problem that I’ve encountered many times in other super hero games.
Now, I’m not sure if I like the way damage is calculated and I can’t say how well it works as I’ve yet to run the game in group play but here goes: compare your attack roll to the target’s defence roll if the rolls are equal or the defender scored a higher total, no damage is done; if the attacker rolled higher (up to double the defender’s score), one point of damage is done; up to triple the defender’s score is worth 2 damage, four times is 3 damage and so on. If the defender rolls 12, the attacker will need to roll 25 to score 2 points of damage. I can see this taking a long time to whittle down a tough opponent – remember the target chooses which resistance suffers the damage.
After each game session the judge awards the characters with a bonus die that can either be added to the competence pool or used to increase a resistance, aptitude or power by one point.
Non-player characters are handled nicely. My favourite is the mook; mooks don’t roll dice they simply have a rating of ‘1’ so 5 mooks will have a rating of 5. Their reaction score will be 5, when they defend they score 5 and when they attack, they score 5. Each point of damage suffered knocks out a mook and reduces the overall rating. The rules suggest splitting large numbers of mooks into groups since 20 mooks will likely be able to take out the toughest hero which is not in keeping with the genre.
Henchmen are like mooks only tougher; they have a rating between 3 and 9 but are otherwise the same as mooks, so a henchman rated at 5 is just like fighting 5 mooks.
Super villains are built the same way as player characters with low-level villains having less points to spend and mega-villains having more. The competency dice pool can be used to add a bit of punch to villains without re-statting them. Also a nice touch, I just wish competency was explained in greater detail.
Chapter six, entitled ‘Disasters’ explains that being a hero isn’t just about battling villains which brings to mind that great scene from the first Fantastic Four movie where the heroes save the day when a traffic snarl-up nearly costs lives. Given the way Mother Nature has been throwing her weight around recently, this is also a very topical section. Several disaster and hazard types (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions etc.) are detailed together with the powers that might be of use in averting the crisis. I wasn’t expecting to find this section and I’m glad it’s here – I don’t think I’ve ever used a natural disaster in an adventure element but I certainly will now.
The final chapters of the book contain a brief introduction to Supersville and a good selection of sample characters that give the reader an insight into what can be achieved with the character generation system. Supersville (described as an ‘almost blank canvas’) contains some interesting adventure seeds but only one for each of the six locations described.
Supersville didn’t float my boat as I tend to create games where super heroes and villains are rare but not everyone plays that way. However, I would much rather have seen an introductory adventure instead of a few short paragraphs describing a generic city. Horses for courses I guess? The good news is that I understand Simon is working on an adventures supplement for the game.
I really liked the sample characters section. The author manages to convey a fair bit of atmosphere and background in a few well-chosen words and the roster includes low-level supers, standard characters of the type the players might create and mega-characters with many high-powered abilities. The characters can be used as examples or dropped wholesale into an existing game. Finally we have a bare-bones character sheet to round out the book, it’s nothing special but seems to get the job done. I often find that a really evocative and attractive character sheet lifts expectations and can put players in the right frame of mind. This sheet doesn’t do that.
In summary, this is an excellent super hero role-playing game that frequently finds new ways to present familiar game elements and almost always hits the genre target. I would like to see more details on the competency pool – I feel I know how it works but I had to visit several sections of the book to gain the knowledge, it really needs its own section. I love the way the powers are drawn with broad strokes allowing ample opportunity for the inventive player to interpret what’s written and the combat system is fast, easy and definitely has a comic-book ‘frame-by-frame’ feel thanks to the way that attackers and defenders must employ their powers.
This game will not appeal to those looking to model physics and match each advantage with an equal and opposite disadvantaged measured by a fine-grain scale. This isn’t that game. This game is for free-form, ‘wing-it’ players and game masters and I think I fall into that category. At $8.00 this is definitely money well spent – I will probably use the system for non-powered pulp adventures as well as a typical 4-colour campaign I have up my sleeve!
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