[Review] Of Dreams and Magic

Introduction

The name’s Davenport. I review games.

So the other day a superhero walks into my office — cape, underwear on the outside, the whole nine yards.

“Let me guess,” I says, “You want me to review a superhero game.”

“Huh?” he says. “Oh, this!” He looks down at himself. “This is just my Animus.”

“Your what?”

“My Animus. My dream form.”

“Okaaay…” I says. I’d seen this type before. Best to humor’em. “So what’s the job?”

I’ll be damned if he doesn’t break out a pouch full of herbs and chalk and rat skulls. Before I can say a word, the guy does a Voodoo ritual right there on my desk. And when he’s done, there’s a rulebook sittin’ there. Of Dreams and Magic, it says.

“…Was that your superpower?” I says.

“Oh, no,” he says. “That’s just some magic I picked up along the way. Here, I’ll give you the PDF copy, too.”

He proceeds to pull a freakin’ datajack outta his skull and plug it into my trusty laptop.

“What in the Hell kinda game is this?” I says.

“Like the title says, it’s about dreams and magic,” he says.

If this is what this guy’s dreams are like, I think to myself, I know someone who’s been hittin’ the sauce before bedtime.

Anyway, here’s the review.

[Review] The Singularity System

Introduction

The name’s Davenport. I review games.

So the other day a Gladius light starfighter with Handling 3, Mobility 3, Tactical Speed 1000, Hull 20, Armor 8, Plasma Torpedo Launcher (Centerline), Top Mounted Pulse Laser Turret, Systems 3, ReAct -10, Fire Control System, Crew Protection, Hardening 5, and Shields 20 lands outside my office.

The pilot hops out, and when he takes off his helmet, I see that it’s Devon Oratz of the End Transmission Games crew. I invite him inside, and he tells me he’s got a review gig for me: The Singularity System, an all-purpose science fiction roleplaying game.

“All-purpose?” I says. “Well, it had better have aliens and cybernetics and psionics and spaceships.”

“Well,” he says, “most of the aliens and the cybernetics and psionics are in our supplements — the rules modules. But boy, do we have spaceships! Mechs, too! And loads of other types of vehicles! Here, take a look!”

Turns out he was right. He shows me pages and pages of vehicles.

I tell him that I’d give it a go, but I warn him that I’m not one for readin’ page after page of starship specs.

I couldn’t say much for his ride, either. Everybody knows the Gladius ain’t got nothing on the Dragonfly starfighter with Handling +1, Mobility 3, Tactical Speed 500, Hull 30, Armor 10, Turbolaser (Center Line), Belly Mounted Turret (Pulse Laser Turret), Two Rocket Pods, Six hardpoints, System 6, ReAct -10, Fire Control System, Hardening 6, Shields 60, Chaff 8, ECM, and Damage Control.

[Review] Yggdrasill

Introduction

The name’s Davenport. I review games.

So the other day I answer a knock on my office door, and who’s standing there?

A Viking. With a shield and an axe.

And glasses.

“Hullo,” the Viking says. “Andrew Peregrine, line developer, at your service. I’m here to tell you about Yggdrasill, the fantasy game of Norse adventure!”

Turns out he was a Viking with glasses and a Limey accent.

“Your helmet doesn’t have horns,” I point out. ‘Cause it didn’t.

The Limey Viking chuckles. “Well, two points: First, I’m dressed as a Norseman, but not as a Viking. All Vikings were Norsemen, but not all Norsemen were Vikings.

“And second, Vikings didn’t have helmets with horns. That’s a myth.”

“You mean like them worshippin’ Odin?”

“No, that was real.”

“Odin was real?”

“No, Odin was a myth.”

“…A real myth?”

“Yes. And in Yggdrasill, Norse myths are real.”

“So in Yggdrasill, Odin is real”

“Yes.”

“But Vikings still didn’t have horns.”

“No. That myth is a myth.”

“…Okay. So Yggdrasill is a game of Norse adventure with myths that are real.”

“Precisely!”

“But Vikings were never horny.”

“That is not what I said!”

Sheesh. There’s no pleasin’ some people.

Anyway, here’s the review.

[Review] Chill 3rd edition

Introduction

The name’s Davenport. I review games.

So the other day I’m sittin’ at my desk catchin’ up on the funny pages, when all of a sudden the temperature drops about 40 degrees. I’m just about to get on the horn with the landlady to complain about the A/C goin’ on the fritz — again — when a message in blood appears on the wall.

GREETINGS, FOOLISH MORTAL, it says. ARE YOU PREPARED TO FACE THE HORRORS OF CHILL?

“I won’t have much choice until the landlady fixes the damn A/C,” I says. “And by the way, I hope you’re gonna clean that up…”

I hear what sounds like a dead guy sighin’.

NO, FOOLISH MORTAL, the writin’ says. CHILL THIRD EDITION.

And from outta nowhere, a floatin’ rotted hand plops the core rules on my desk and disappears.

“Oh, right!” I says. “I heard about this. The horror game. I hear they really cleaned up the rules this time around, too. Sure, I’ll be glad to give it a look.”

I figured I’d better get to reviewin’ it right away, too.

After all, the writin’ was on the wall.

[Review] Luchador: Way of the Mask

Introduction

The name’s Davenport. I review games.

So the other day I’m in my virtual office, just mindin’ my own business — which don’t work out for me that often — when I look up and see this big, oiled-up, muscle-bound fella standing there. At first I think it might be a stick-up, but then I figure that a robber’s face mask wouldn’t be all red, yellow, and gold. And that he’d be packin’ heat, not a microphone.

You wanna know the sad thing? The guy was the most normal visitor I’d had in months.

“Hola, mi amigo!” he yells into the mike. “Rey Dinamita is IN… THE… HOUSE to tell you of Luchador: Way of the Mask!”

Okay, luchadors. I’d heard of these guys. Mexican masked wrestlers. This was makin’ some sense now.

What wasn’t makin’ sense was why the guy felt the need to leap up on my desk.

“LUCHADOR!” he yells to some audience I couldn’t see, finger pointed at the ceiling. “The ONLY game that pits brave masked wrestlers against the likes of master criminals, aliens, and zombies!”

“Ah, gotcha!” I says. “I reviewed Zombie Smackdown, and it has luchadors and zombies…”

“NO game can best Luchador!” he declares, pointin’ at me now. “It will meet Zombie Smackdown in the squared circle at Slamfiesta IV!”

“How are two books supposed to… You know what? Never mind. Just tell me how the Hell you go in here without me seein’ you.”

“Through the lucha door, of course!”

[Review] Cold Steel Wardens

Introduction

The name’s Davenport. I review games.

So the other day I’m just relaxing in my virtual office, enjoying a virtual Lucky Strike, when this fella comes swinging in through the window. He looks pretty much like one of those masked supers guys… ‘cept with more belt pouches. And skulls. And guns. And belt pouches.

“All RIGHT!” he says, brandishin’ twin Uzis at nothing in particular. “WHO’S ready for Cold Steel Wardens — the game that blows the living [CENSORED] out of evil??”

“Uh… I guess I am,” I says, “if that’s your way of sayin’ you’ve got a case for me.”

“Damn straight,” he says. “Had enough of these namby-pamby four-color so-called ‘superheroes’?”

“Well, actually, I…”

“THAT’S where Cold Steel Wardens comes in! The IRON AGE of Comics, baby! 100% pistol-packing, power-blasting, neck-snapping, scum-wasting BADASSES!”

He unloads a few rounds through the ceiling. To emphasize his point, I figure.

Or maybe he was just doin’ his part against roofies.

Substance

Setting

Cold Steel Wardens (hereafter CSW) is a game about the Iron Age of Comics — the gritty era ushered in by the the likes of The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. Superheroes often pack heat. Superheroes often make tough moral choices. Superheroes often bleed. Superheroes often die.

The setting certainly allows for superpowers, and from multiple sources; however, they tend to be low-key and limited. Powered PCs won’t be lobbing cars or flattening skyscrapers. Indeed, Spider-man is beyond the scope of the default level of the game, and Wolverine would be pushing it. Heroes of this scale may exist. They just aren’t the PCs.

For that matter, superheroes may not even be “super”. Powers are also optional. It’s entirely feasible to strip them from the setting altogether. This highlights the fact that “mundane” superheroes in the setting are perfectly able to keep up with their powered brethren.

Note that while the setting does allow for multiple power sources, the presumption is that all powered heroes are some form of human. You can have a supernatural power source, but you aren’t going to be a demon. You can have cybernetic parts, but you aren’t going to be a robot.

Powered or unpowered, vigilantes must deal with the fact that their activities have been declared illegal. This severely restricts in-costume activities to sneaking about at night. Even swinging about like Spidey and Daredevil seems ill-advised. This makes going on patrol for crime rather problematic. In fact, any hero unable to sneak most likely will find himself having to change into costume when the action starts. In short, being a costumed hero in this setting is a real pain in the ass. That may be realistic, relatively speaking, but it may not be much fun for some players. Just something to keep in mind.

The default setting is New Corinth, a.k.a. “Smoke City”, a Detroit-like Rust Belt metropolis riddled with decay and corruption. The book describes the city and its eight major districts in terms of the five Knowledge skills — Historical, Cultural, Scientific, Criminal, and Esoteric — making for easy reference. The book also includes a map, although only three specific locations are identified per district.

As a nice touch, various sections include a “The Lights Go Out…” subsection providing non-canon behind-the-scenes explanations for what’s going on in the main text, many of which are quite cool and some of which are downright weird.

The book divides NPCs into three levels of increasing power and system detail: Mooks, Made Men, and Masterminds. Of these, the game includes 23 Mooks (including 6 animals and a zombie), 15 Made Men, 8 Masterminds, and 8 pre-generated heroes. I was able to get a lot of mileage out of these offerings in my game. I do wish there were more “monsters” included other than zombies, if only to get a better feel for what the setting allows. (I do know from my GenCon game that monsters do, indeed, exist. Boy, do they ever…)

System

Character Creation

Players begin with 32 Vital Points to assign on a 1/1 basis to the eight Vitals (attributes) that give the system its name of MAFIANAP: Magnetism (charisma), Accuracy (hand-eye coordination), Force (strength), Intellect, Agility, Nerve (constitution), Awareness, and Psyche (willpower). I always appreciate games that distinguish hand-eye coordination from overall agility. A Green Arrow type shouldn’t have to have Spidey-like agility in order to be a natural crack shot.

The Vitals scale is 1-10, with 3 considered average, although that’s not a hard cap — NPCs may exceed that range, and even PCs may break the 10 barrier on occasion. For perspective, a character with Force 10 can lift a ton without effort. If that seems like a lot, well, it is… but keep in mind that Spider-man can lift 10 tons without breaking a sweat. A better comparison might be 1970s-era TV superheroes, for whom special effects budgets made single-handedly flipping a car the pinnacle of super-strength.

Players then receive 85 Generation Points to buy Skills, Masteries, and Powers. Note that superhuman attributes are not treated as Powers in this context, which means that if you want a character to have an extraordinarily high Vital, you’re going to have to compensate with correspondingly low Vitals elsewhere. My group didn’t like this. Upon consultation with the author, we decided to allow for the purchase of additional Vital levels with Generation Points at the admittedly high 5/1 ratio permitted when spending Experience Points.

The game groups Skills into five general categories — Physical, Investigative, Social, Knowledge, and Technical — with each category covering five Skills. Skills cost 1 Generation Point per level. Skills are fairly broad under most categories; the Physical Skills, for example, are Athletics, Armed Melee, Armed Ranged, Stealth, and Unarmed. Investigative Skills, by contrast, are very specific: Canvass, Examination, Investigation, Notice, and Research. This makes creating a detective type — something axiomatic for the setting — fairly difficult. On a positive note, it does encourage teamwork.

For every 3 points in a Skill, characters receive a Specialty, such as Medicine under the Scientific Skill or specific weapons like Knife under Armed Melee.

The system really begins to shine with Masteries, which cost a flat 3 Generation Points each and most of which have prerequisites in the form of Skill levels and Specialties. These can be as simple as having an Investigative lab or as flashy as the Archery Combat Style, which lets you do more damage with bows, make easier called shots, and use bows and arrows as improvised melee weapons. Very cool.

Powers

CSW includes 26 powers:

• Adhesion
• Affliction
• Alter Emotions
• Animal Control
• Artificial Limb
• Blast
• Chameleon
• Elasticity
• Elemental
• Flight
• Force Field
• Healing
• Illusion
• Immunity
• Invisibility
• Mind-Link
• Phasing
• Sense
• Sensitivity
• Size Change
• Sorcery
• Speed
• Surge
• Telekinesis
• Teleport
• Toughness

Powers have an initial purchase cost, then have a cost of 2 points/level. Like Skills, for ever 3 levels of a Power rating, the character gains an Optional Effect; e.g., a character with 3 levels of Blast can gain Dead Eye, rendering anything less than total cover ineffective against the attack.

At the default level of play, powers generally aren’t that, well… powerful. Don’t get me wrong: they are very useful. It’s just that basic characters are unlikely to be heavily powered and powerful. Teleporting, for example, is line-of-site and of limited range (10 x Teleport rating in yards). And strictly in terms of damage, Blast really isn’t much better than a gun.

Really, unless you’re going to start characters at one of the optional higher levels, powers are going to be more of an edge than a theme. Just to be clear, this isn’t a criticism. I like to think of standard CSW heroes as something akin to modern-day incarnations of powered pulp heroes like the Shadow, who battles crime with psychic powers backing up his twin .45s. If you want a character who solves pretty much every problem with his powers, on the other hand, this probably isn’t the game for you.

I do think gadgetry could use a bit of work, in two respects. First, while powers can be defined as gadgets, there’s no indication in either setting or system terms of how such devices could be built. And second, while the Sorcery power, which allows limited use of all other powers, can be defined as gadgetry, the associated Strain (see below) cost of the power doesn’t really make sense when used in that way.

Equipment

Money in the game is handled in a hybrid of hard numbers and abstract wealth. A hero’s Wealth and Status Rating is equal to his combined Intellect and Reputation. This amount times 50 is an employed hero’s monthly income in cash, and heroes also start with $1,000 to purchase equipment. That’s not very much.

In play, however, characters can roll their Wealth and Status Ratings against a difficulty based on the cost of the item. If they succeed, the item is purchased with no impact on Wealth and Status. If they fail, the item is still purchased, but with a reduction to Wealth and Status equal to the degree of failure. This mechanic didn’t come into play much in my game, but I do like having the option of rolling or simply paying in hard cash.

Weapons and equipment are all of the mundane sort, although a sidebar describes how the Weaponsmith Mastery may be used to create custom ammunition for bows and guns. Weapon stats include everything from light pistols and knives up to grenade launchers and chainsaws, with certain weapons having appropriate perks or flaws; e.g., whips give a bonus to disarm attempts, and chainsaws are just plain awkward to use in a fight.

System

CSW uses a d10 dice pool mechanic. When testing Vitals, the player rolls a number of d10s equal to the Vital in question, where 1 = -1 success, 2-5 = 0 success, 6-9 = 1 success, and 10 = 2 successes. Testing Skills is similar, except that Skills form the pool and Vitals serve as automatic successes. As you might imagine, this means that the target numbers for Vitals tests must be lower than those for Skills tests. This also means that Vitals tests are more variable. I think it might have been more efficient to treat Vitals tests as Skills tests, with the Vital scores serving as both the die pool and the bonus and keeping the difficulty levels the same. In any case, the die rolls proved to be nicely transparent in my playtest.

Combat

An Agility test determines initiative. Attacks have a difficulty based on the target’s Defensive Value, which in turn is the target’s Nerve + Agility. This makes the Defensive Value somewhat akin to armor class, since being tough makes you harder to hit. I found that to be a bit problematic, as it meant that the big bruiser type in my game was both hard to hit and hard to hurt, but having a fixed target number does save a roll.

Damage is a standard roll based on some combination of Force and weapon damage, depending upon whether the attack is unarmed, armed melee, or armed ranged. As with Vitals tests, this makes results fairly random; however, an attack that succeeds by 5 or more is a critical hit and does double damage.

Damage takes the form of Strain and can be physical or mental. Characters have Physical Strain equal to 3 + (3 x Nerve) and Mental Strain equal to 3 + (3 x Psyche). In addition, both sorts of Strain have a Breaking Point equal to 1/3 of the total. If damage hits the Breaking Point, the character must test Nerve (for physical damage) or Psyche (for mental damage) or take an Injury or a Temporary Psychosis, respectively. (On a critical hit that results in damage meeting the Breaking Point, the target gets no Nerve test to avoid injury.) An Injury or Psychosis can be Minor/Temporary, Moderate/Minor, Severe/Moderate, or Terminal/Severe, depending upon how far below the Breaking Point the damage goes.

This is where combat gets really nasty. I had several NPCs bleed out or otherwise go down due to Injuries, and recovery from Injury or Psychosis is a long process. (Even the Regenerate Optional Effect of the Healing power is slow and difficult.)

Driving home the game’s grittiness is the fact that non-lethal attacks cannot achieve critical successes. That means heroes trying to do the “right thing” are hamstringing themselves. (And on a related note, the Blast power can’t be used non-lethally at all.)

The combat section covers a number of fancy combat maneuvers, although many more moves fall under Masteries, and what I consider the coolest move of all, the Silent Takedown, is actually a Specialty of the Stealth Skill. Remember the Dark Knight yanking the hapless goons into the darkness in Batman Begins? There you go.

Vigilance Dice

These are the game’s version of Fate/Drama/Hero Points and can be used to add dice to a roll, to re-roll, or to assume a degree of narrative control. The big difference here is that the dice are a communal resource, the use of which must be agreed upon by all players, despite the fact that the GM replenishes the pool when challenging the individual characters’ flaws, memories, motivations, or stances — or when the players roleplay these aspects particularly well of their own volition. What this means, of course, is that less active roleplayers will benefit from the actions of more active roleplayers. This arrangement didn’t grate on anyone in my group as far as I could tell, but then, most everyone contributed to the roleplaying equally.

Also, you may notice that I didn’t mention damage reduction in the list of Vigilance Dice applications. That’s correct: They don’t do that. Again, gritty.

Style

The artwork is pretty mediocre throughout. There’s nothing truly ugly about it, but nothing particularly eye-catching other than the cover art. The writing, by contrast, does a great job of evoking the gritty feel of the setting. No typos stood out to me, and the layout keeps the book very readable.

Conclusion

Cold Steel Wardens does exactly what it sets out to do: Presenting a grim-and-gritty world of morally ambiguous Iron Age superheroic crimefighting. Aside from a few system tweaks, I’d say the main problem with the game is, perhaps, simulating the source material a little too well. As previously mentioned, not only are Iron Age superheroics dangerous, but they’re also a pain in the ass. Imagine having to even consider taking a cab to a stakeout, for example.

The thing is, though, that such problems may well be more of a feature than a flaw to those likely to enjoy this game, just as dealing with the filth and drudgery of the Warhammer world can be seen as a feature of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. As such, I have to give this game high marks for a job well done.

[Review] Rotted Capes

Introduction

The name’s Davenport. I review games.

So, you ever have one of those days?

You know: the kind where a zombie wearin’ a cape and tights comes flyin’ through yer office window?

“Greetings, tasty citizen!” he says. “Faster than a speeding hearse! More powerful than a crematorium! Able to leap tall tombs in a single bound! It is I, Captain Cadaver, the World’s Mightiest Mortality!”

“Great,” I says. “Since I never had a flyin’ zombie bring me a pizza, I’m guessin’ you’ve got a game for me to review.”

“Indeed I do!” he says. “Rotted Capes, the game of a superheroic zombie apocalypse! And before you ask, the answer is yes! Superheroics and zombies can go together!”

He didn’t have to convince of that.

His power of super-stench was workin’ just fine.

Substance

Setting

Simply put, Rotted Capes presents a more-or-less four-color superhero Earth that has experienced a zombie apocalypse of unknown origin. The catch is that while normal victims of the “Z-virus” turn into “normal” dumb, shambling zombies — well, usually — superhuman victims turn into fully intelligent but totally amoral super zombies. To make matters worse, most of the big-time superheroes fell during society’s collapse, leaving only the “B-Listers” — the sidekicks and understudies and guys with no monthly comic title whose action figures collect dust on the store shelves — to carry on the fight.

These are the PCs.

The book goes into a good amount of detail regarding the default setting of Paradigm City, both before and after “Z-Day”, including a map of important locations. (I particularly like the fact that research at the local comic and gaming stores can provide information on zombie survival techniques at the GM’s discretion.) Also included are details about local A-Listers, B-Listers, and pre-Z-Day artifacts.

I also appreciate the details provided on life for a B-Lister after Z-Day. Groups of survivors (known as “Enclaves”) tend to be no larger than a few hundred people, and the threat of super-zombies means that staying hidden is just as important as staying fortified. The book details Enclave politics and how the B-Listers factor in — everything from running the show to being rivals to the Powers That Be. Among the nice touches are two good reasons for superheroes to keep wearing costumes: (1) it makes them a symbol of hope to the Enclave and (2) it covers up scars from burning, the only way short of amputation to stop the Z-virus.

I generally find one-monster settings to be a bit tedious, but Rotted Capes easily avoids the issue in multiple ways. First, obviously, are the super-zombies. Second, the “regular” zombies come in multiple varieties themselves, including some with weird abilities like phasing. (Try setting up a solid perimeter defense against that.) And third, normal human Z-virus victims who possess the latent potential for superpowers become abominations: monstrous zombie freaks of every shape, size, and capability. (The book includes write-ups of several varieties of normal zombie and a wonderful rogue’s gallery of super zombies, but no abominations, sadly.) And that doesn’t even include the non-zombie adversaries, super and otherwise.

Where the game stumbles a bit is its fuzzy description of just how all-encompassing of a superheroic setting this world was before Z-Day. For example, all of the superheroes seem to be human. Are there alien, robotic, or supernatural superheroes in this setting? I really don’t know, although a careful reading of various sections of the book reveals some degree of alien contact and the existence of threats neither (super)human nor zombie, including demons and a subterranean species. But is it possible that some benevolent deities from another dimension could come to the rescue? Could a malevolent alien empire take advantage of the zombie chaos to invade? Again, I really don’t know. Now, I totally get that the emphasis here is on zombies… but superheroic settings tend to be fairly anything-goes by default. Knowing where Rotted Capes draws the boundary lines in this regard would have been helpful.

On balance, though, this is a minor complaint. The game does a great job of melding four-color superheroics with zombie survival horror.

System

Character Creation

Creating a superhero in Rotted Capes is a fairly straightforward point-buy process, with starting experience going to purchase Attributes, Skills, and Powers. By default, the PCs are bottom-of-the-barrel B-Listers; however, to the game’s credit, it includes point costs for the creation of everything up to truly cosmic-level superheroes. (Probably not the best choice for even superheroic zombie survival horror, but it’s nice to have the option.) If nothing else, the relative point values showcase the stark power differences between B-Listers (150 starting experience) and A-Listers (600 starting experience).

While the game doesn’t have classes, per sé, players do select a power source (Super-Human, Skill Hero, Tech Hero) and an archetype (Blaster, Brawler, Controller, Infiltrator, Heavy, Transporter). The former gives an Attribute bonus and some unique Advantages and Disadvantages; the latter provides an additional Attribute bonus and discounts a range of relevant powers. The combination can create a very broad range of classic superhero types, although as previously mentioned, nonhuman supers are excluded.

Characters have eight Attributes: four physical (Might, Prowess, Quickness, Vigor) and four mental (Charisma, Insight, Logic, Resolve). Attribute scores correspond to both a base die type and a passive numeric modifier, and the scale is truly impressive — greater than that I’ve seen in many “pure” superhero games. In fact, the scale is open-ended — as all superheroic scales should be, to my mind — and reaches a lifting weight of 524,288 tons and a speed of Mach 368 before resorting to multipliers.

Skills are fairly broad, such as Melee and Pilot. Some skills, like Melee, allow for the application of the skill across the full range uses but with the possibility of purchasing a Focus for a bonus; e.g., a character with Melee can engage in everything from unarmed combat to fighting with a polearm, but the character might be particularly good with swords. Other skills, like Pilot, require a Specialization that is the only allowable use of that skill; e.g., a character with Pilot is not automatically able to fly both a hot air balloon and a jet. This arrangement hits my personal sweet spot on the subject. Helping to speed things along are a small set of skills possessed by every hero in the setting and skill sets that offer a bundle of professional skills (e.g., Detective, Engineer, Survivalist) at a discount.

Character creation also features an advantage/disadvantage system that is particularly effective in simulating superheroics, with aspects such as special vulnerabilities, strange appearances, and uncanny knacks with martial arts and weaponry of various sorts.

Powers

Of course, it would hardly be a super game without superpowers, and Rotted Capes includes 48 of them, along with 17 perks/flaws to customize them. Adding to the flexibility is the concept of emulated powers: the ability of certain powers to mimic the effects of other powers, albeit at a weaker level. For example, a character with the Force Field power can use the field to strike foes at a distance, mimicking the Elemental/Energy Blast (Kinetic) power. The only omissions that really stand out to me are weather control and any sort of magic/omni-power/”power cosmic”.

The one aspect to powers that may turn players off — so to speak — is the concept of “Burnout”. Heroes have a Burnout Threshold equal to their Discipline (based on Charisma and Resolve) or Fortitude (based on Might and Vigor). Some powers have Burnout values, and if a hero accrues Burnout in excess of his Burnout Threshold, there is a 1-in-3 chance that all of the hero’s powers with Burnout values will shut down for the remainder of the scene. (Burnout levels drop for every possible action during which the hero doesn’t use a power with Burnout.) That’s not something common to either superhero comics or (to the best of my knowledge) superhero RPGs. It does add an extra level of grittiness to the setting but may not be a good fit for those seeking “pure” supers versus zombies.

Equipment

Equipment warrants a brief mention here, if only because the heroes are apocalypse survivors, superpowers notwithstanding.

First of all, the section makes an important point about the role of equipment. In a campy game, equipment takes a backseat to exploring and kicking ass, while in a gritty game, finding necessities like food, fuel, and medical equipment could be the motivation for whole adventures.

All heroes start play with a few basic weapons and ammo, a “starter pack” of equipment in groupings like “Survivalist”, “Technician”, and “Medic”, and additional “Acquisition Points” equal to their combined starting ranks in Scavenge and Urban Survival. I like this, because it prevents an extended shopping trip through the equipment section while rewarding survival-oriented characters with extra equipment right out of the gate.

Finally, I appreciate the fact that the melee weapons table includes damage ratings for outrageously heavy non-weapon items like light poles, trash dumpsters, and cars, along with rules for hurling such things.

System

The core mechanic of Rotted Capes involves rolling and adding together the results from the Action Dice (always 2d10) and the relevant Attribute Dice, then adding to the result any modifiers based on Power Ranks, Skill Ranks, Advantages, Tricks and/or Circumstances. Attribute Dice open-end. Action indicate an auto-success on a 20 and an auto-failure on a 2, and if auto-failure would have succeeded anyway, it becomes a Critical Success.

The net effect puts me in mind of Earthdawn’s “step die” system combined with a more conventional roll + attribute + skill system. I really like the fact that Attribute Dice are the ones that open-end rather than the Action Dice, thereby benefiting more powerful characters. And while I’m not a huge fan of auto-successes and -failures, I do appreciate the fact that Critical Successes are at least partially ability-dependant.

In addition to Action and Attribute Dice, PCs starts with a number of Plot Dice equal to their lowest attribute score and equal in size to the PCs’ lowest attribute scores. These dice may be added to rolls (in which case they, like Attribute Dice, open-end) or may be spent for a number of effects that range from ignoring wound penalties to gaining an advantageous complication of some sort. Interestingly, however, Plot Dice cannot be used to directly negate damage. This would seem to tip the scales a notch in favor of gritty over campy.

And speaking of damage…

Combat

Rounds of combat in Rotted Capes are broken down into a 12-tick “Clock”. Participants roll a number of d10s equal to their Initiative scores, take the lowest, and then act when that number comes up on the Clock. Actions taken cost 1-6 ticks, and the book provides 14 possible combat maneuvers in addition to simple attack and defense.

Damage is random based upon weapon type, with Might and Quickness adding to melee and ranged damage, respectively. (Basic unarmed damage is simply 1.) Armor reduces damage, and any damage that gets through comes off of Stamina, representing the character’s endurance. In addition, damage that exceeds the character’s Fortitude puts the victim in danger of knockback (including that of the over-the-top comicbook variety), stunning, and Wounds, the latter representing truly life-threatening damage.

I do wish that degree of success had more of an impact on damage, but the fact that the Martial Arts Advantage increases unarmed damage and the fact that Quickness adds to ranged damage helps in this regard.

I should also mention that the presence of Wounds, with their potentially long-term and deadly effects, also serve to make the game more gritty than campy by default. However, the divide between Stamina and Wounds also effectively helps the game simulate combat with zombies. Specifically, zombies don’t take Stamina damage at all and can only be stopped by taking Wounds, which means that they can really take a beating, as it should be.

Style

The art blends superheroes and zombies just as skillfully as does the text. Illustrations match the feel of modern superhero comics with a healthy dose of grisly zombie survival horror. The juxtaposition of comic sans headers with blood-spattered borders give the book the overall look of a comic hastily dropped in the gore during the flight from a zombie attack.

The writing manages to capture the bittersweet feel of a once-glorious four-color world brought low by the zombie plague while maintaining a dark sense of humor. The text and layout make for an easy read, and no errors stood out to me. In terms of organization, the book includes both a detailed table of contents and a large index. My only real issue was the large gap between the basic rules and combat, which necessitated more page-flipping than I’d have preferred.

Conclusion

I confess that Rotted Capes accomplishes what I thought it could not: namely, it serves as both a full-blown superhero game and a full-blown zombie apocalypse game. I honestly could see using it for either, but the true genius of the game comes in its blend of both. In short, this is a game that does exactly what it sets out to do, and it does it well. I can’t offer much higher praise than that.