Game of the *ahem* week, Heroes & Heroines

I admit, I am not doing these every week but I also have a job. Neener, neener, neener.


Next Game, Heroes & Heroines.
Author: James E. Freel III
Status: Very very out of print.
Genre: Generic Supers
Year: 1992

I have a soft place in my heart for this one, because H&H is the first game I successfully ran a campaign. I learned some important lessons from those sessions but I will go into those on another post.

This game came out when comic books hit surged in popularity in the 90s, with a simple idea. Make a generic game, then publish licenced source books from publishers. Sadly, no source books came out. I came across this game in the discount rack of my FLGS.

The rule book is slim, and the game is very rules light. Creating a hero is a mix of rolling and point buying. Heroes have 5 stats, Bench press weight, IQ, reflexes, Agility and Stamina. There are over 230 powers in the book, nothing special here except for quite a bit of overlap in my opinion. (i.e. Energy Blast, Fire Blast & Force Blast all could be rolled in to one power.)

The combat rules take up just 7 pages and are quite straight forward. Simply put, compare attack rating vs. defense rating on a handy chart and roll over that number on a d20 to hit.

After combat comes weapons and experience, nothing special to note here really, except that exp is based on the build points of the NPC beaten. Then a section on animals. Except for mythical beasts, the section does not give any info on how to grant experience.

Next is the obligatory adventure, where the superheros need to fight an evil wizard at his castle. Yes, an evil wizard, not too super heroic but with two of the regenerated heroes being name 'Alex' and 'Tina' its par for the course.

Lastly is the character sheet. One sheet and quite basic, but I've found thought play its too small for a typical hero fit all his info.

I would of like to have seen a few additions to the book. The game lacks stats for a generic baseline human, so you don't gain exp for beating up goons that are robbing a bank. There are two villains, two goons and the afore mentioned three heroes but there could of been more given. Finally, the weapons list lacks any sort of bow, so if you want a Green Arrow/Hawkeye type you'll have some extra work to do.

There are sourcebooks for the comic 'The Maxx' & 'Deathwatch 2000' but I have only seen them on ebay. There may be others as well.

I have found, through game play, that this is a good supers game. Yes, it has a few drawbacks but it plays well. If you are willing to put put some time it to world creation, it can be a nice long term campaign.