Blood of Heroes: Special Edition (BoH:SE) essentially combines Pulsar’s Blood of Heroes and its Sidekick Sourcebook into one seamless manual. BoH:SE also includes new rules material, a revised campaign section, new interior artwork, and a Dave Dorman cover.
Background: The Quick History
Though the game mechanics could be used for almost any genre, make no mistake about it, this is a superhero game. The core rules are drawn from the Mayfair’s DC Heroes Role-Playing Game, which went out of print several years ago. At some point, Mayfair lost the license to the DC characters. Later, the company went into financial reorganization. To make a long story short, Pulsar, Inc., a small fish in the gaming industry, obtained the rights to the underlying game system, tacked on an original campaign setting, and gave it a go.
Pulsar’s first effort, Blood of Heroes, was not generally well received. A scathing, but accurate, review was posted on RPGnet by J. Andrew Kitkowski on 3-28-00. Kitkowski praised the award-winning Mayfair Exponential Gaming System (MEGS), but observed that Pulsar’s version added almost nothing to it. Citing poor layout, bad artwork and a hackneyed setting, he concluded that the consumer would be better served by buying a copy of the Mayfair version on e-bay.
Meanwhile, Joshua Marquart, a talented freelancer, had compiled, with the aid of a fanatical and masochistic cult known as the DC Heroes Mailing List, a wonderful compendium of new powers, advantages, drawbacks and stunts, tailor-made for the game. Pulsar wisely acquired this material and assembled it into the 180-page Sidekick Sourcebook. This production met with substantially better reviews on RPGnet: See articles by: Robert Dalmont (7-9-99), Adam Stein (7-24-99), and Christopher Tatro (7-27-99). The general consensus was that this was a good to excellent rules supplement, but that the art still left a lot to be desired.
Pulsar decided to merge the two books into a “Special Edition” with an aim toward (1) improved art and layout, (2) a more interesting and coherent character setting, and (3) even more bells and whistles. After a long wait, the Special Edition is now available.
Equally Quick Note on Personal Bias:
Where am I coming from? I’m just a gamer. I’ve got no connection with Pulsar Games whatsoever. I’m not a designer, developer or writer, and I don’t know two cents about the gaming industry. I just know what I like and what I don’t.
Back in the 80’s, my gaming group was torn between two superhero game systems: DC Heroes and TSR’s “Classic” Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game. Even though most of us were Marvel fans, we eventually settled on DC Heroes as the system that better suited our needs. We liked the way it handled key powers, such as mimic, growth, superspeed and sorcery. We liked the way it distinguished between mental and mystical attributes. We liked the way it handled variable damage. It had a certain mathematical elegance to it and, comic book physics notwithstanding, it just felt more “realistic.” This was not a put-down of the TSR product. We liked the way the Marvel version handled “power stunts.” Most of us thought it had a better “parent” universe. And we were very impressed with TSR’s support system of modules, sourcebooks and character compendiums. But Mayfair still had the better combat mechanics and powers - the real cornerstones of a superhero game.
Like Norman Bates nurturing his mother’s corpse, our group remained faithful to DC Heroes long after it died. But the old books got more torn and tattered every year. Then I came across Pulsar’s efforts. It took like, I don’t know, forever, to get my trembling hands on the Special Edition, and now it’s here.
Style:
I. Art: It still needs lots of work. The Dorman cover is great – a huge improvement over whatever that thing was on the original cover. The interior art is somewhat improved, but still pretty bad. Granted, they got rid of all those annoying “Kabooom” balloons, and there are only a handful of drawings that actually inflict physical pain. Someone even went to the trouble of erasing the six-sided dice that appeared in the gaming table drawing. But it’s still the weakest part of the product. One thing they could really use is some variety. All the robots look alike. All the black knight types, all the martial artists and all the demons look alike. All the “bad girl” Xena-types really look alike. These guys really need to get out more.
II. Layout: Bland, but easy to read.
III. Clarity: Big, fat bonus points here. Mayfair’s rules were pretty clear to begin with, but someone went the extra mile in this department. I guess you call that “editing.” You might not realize this if you’re new to the game. Take my word for it. When you’re dealing with a book this size and this packed with powers and stunts and whatnot, there are just hundreds of little questions that don’t pop up until the munchkins in your group start pushing the envelope. I was amazed at how many rules clarifications this book contained. They are very subtle, and will go unnoticed by casual gamers, but this is an area where the Special Edition positively shines. If you don’t think this is important, try playing TSR’s Marvel SAGA system sometime.
IV. Setting: Not so hot. This is just a theory, mind you, but here’s what I think happened. When they put out the original edition, they used some kind of backyard, homemade gaming universe. Like most such products, it probably looked a lot better from the inside. This was drastically edited for the Special Edition. An effort was made to present a sort of “archetype” gallery, but I’m not sure that they pulled it off. One thing that is lots of fun, is to speculate about which “real” comic character is represented by the Blood of Heroes version. The Husk is probably DC’s Spectre. The Baron is Marvel’s Dr. Doom. Enforcer GX-80 may be the Guyver. Mindhammer is … well, never mind.
To be honest, most superhero campaigns are custom-designed by the GM anyway - often a mix of the Marvel and DC universes. I doubt that Pulsar is ever going to create a comic universe as good as the “real” thing, and they just didn’t need to invest 100 pages in the effort here. I would have preferred sample write-ups of just a few archetypes, with an expanded list of aliens and animals, a few homemade gadgets, and maybe a ritual magic compendium.
Substance:
A lot of things were done well:
1. Except for some minor tweaking of costs (for building point-based characters) and the editorial clarifications mentioned above, Pulsar was smart enough to leave the Mayfair system intact. This means that BoH:SE remains entirely compatible with the second and third edition DC Heroes and all of the related products and internet support sites. If this seems like a “no-brainer,” ask Champions fans about the Fuzion system.
2. There are more than 30 new powers. By and large, these powers aren’t just synonyms for pre-existing powers; they tend to address abilities that were difficult to represent with the previous rules such as: Anatomical Division, Fluid Form, Friction Control and Probability Manipulation. It looks as though an impressive amount of thought went into these and they should be very playable. This was my favorite part of the book. In addition, a section was added on creating new powers, which gives GMs some helpful design and cost guidelines.
3. New combat options are introduced. Mayfair’s system already had excellent basics that allow for fast play with plenty of tactical maneuver options. BoH:SE adds a “cinematic element” with optional maneuvers like the “dupe,” the “counterstrike,” and the “ricochet.”
4. There is now a short section on “Power Tricks.” This does a nice job of adapting TSR’s old system of “Power Stunts” to the Mayfair system. It gives characters greater flexibility with their powers but, as always, at a cost.
5. Formerly, Magic was treated like the poor stepchild of Gadgetry. Now it gets its own section, complete with new specialties.
6. Gadgetry has also been updated with new rules for creating robot and cyborg characters. Again, the system is balanced and elegant.
7. There are gazoogles of new advantages, drawbacks, bonuses and limitations. It’s easier than ever before to model existing superheroes or to create really wild ones.
From a substantive point of view, Pulsar’s product can now claim its place as Mayfair’s rightful heir to the smoothest and most imaginative superhero system on the market. Now, if they’d just work on those pesky production values …..
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