Simulation vs. Playability: The Background Discussion for a Blog Series

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be discussing how some games balance their desire to simulate a certain activity with the need for a game to be playable. Most of the posts will be dealing with role playing games, but I might wander into wargame territory from time to time.

Let us take as a given for the purposes of our discussion that, with the exception of purely abstract games, most games are a simulation of some central conceit.

For example, both Chess and Men of Iron are to one degree or another simulations of medieval warfare. Men of Iron has what Elias, Garfield, and Gutschera (2012) would describe as higher "intensity" of the medieval warfare conceit than Chess, but both do share that central conceit. On the Elias, Garfield, and Gutschera "Scale of Intensity for Conceits," Chess is rated a 3 (Very Light Conceit) while Men of Iron would likely be rated around an 8 (Simulation, but with many sacrifices to gameplay).  As a further illustration Tic-Tac-Toe rates a 1 (Purely Abstract) and Squad Leader ranks a 10 (Full-on Simulation).  This might make one wonder where Advanced Squad Leader would rank, but I digress.

I understand that there are those who may disagree with the initial premise that "all non-abstract games are a simulation" either as a mere tautology, and others who completely disagree with the premise as an a priori. I believe it will prove useful for the series of discussions I hope to have about role playing games as simulations of the various subjects they address.

The framing of games, and in particular role playing games, as simulations should not be confused with Ron Edwards' GNS (Gamist, Narrativist, and Simulationist) system of game play analysis. As I interpret GNS Theory as a theory of play that can inform design and not a theory of system deconstruction and design. As Ron states in the above linked essay, "These terms, or modes, describe three distinct types of people's decisions and goals during play." These are player goals toward which games may be designed, but in my opinion a "Simulation" is not the same as a "Simulationist" game. 

To illustrate, the excellent Narrativist game The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a simulation of storytelling as the good Baron himself might engage in it. It is not a simulation of the Baron's adventures, though James Wallis considered making a game where players could enact those adventures, it is instead a simulation of storytelling in a particular style. Another example of a game that is a simulation of storytelling is Tales of the Arabian Nights. Both Baron and Arabian Nights simulate the activity of storytelling within their conceits differently, but in the end the game play of both are best described by the stories created within the rules of the game. There is a reason that Wallis calls these kinds of games "Story-Making" games. So it's possible to have simulations of storytelling that results in story-making which in the end results in storytelling when the results with game play are shared.

Okay, enough of the metaphysics of games being simulations. Let's move forward please -- ed.

Games are also about fun, and to be fun games must be playable. This is as true of role playing games as it is for any other kind of game. As Robin Laws says in his masterwork Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering, "Roleplaying games are entertainment; your goal as GM is to make your games as entertaining as possible for all participants." 

The key part of that statement is "as possible for all participants." Because players come to a gaming table with different "ideas of fun" as highlighted in Edwards' GNS theory, roleplaying game design must make decisions between the level of depth of simulation and the playability of the system. Some players find granular verisimilitude and accuracy of representation entertaining. For these players reading Chapter H of the Advanced Squad Leader rulebook is as much fun as actual game play. Other players might enjoy quick systems or systems that foster the creation of narratives.

Historically, one of the conflicts that has resulted from the attempt to design "good" games is a tension between "realism" and "playability." In Issue 8 of MOVES magazine (1973), Victor Madeja argued that "Commercial wargames fail to accurately represent modern war. Although no game will ever recreate the confusion, horror and destruction of war, we should at least expect a wargame to partly simulate the decision-making process involved in actual battle. Instead we have chess-like caricatures of reality. What semblance of realism we were led to expect is sacrificed on the altar of playability" (Emphasis mine). For Victor, there was a clear distinction between realism and playability and he thought that games at the time leaned too much toward playability and not enough toward actual simulation .

You can purchase access to the first 60 issues of MOVES magazine for the very reasonable price of $19.95 at Strategy and Tactics Press.

By Issue 14 of MOVES (1974) John Hill, the eventual designer of SQUAD LEADER, addresses the conflict by stating, "One of the hardest problems facing any war game designer is the careful balancing between playability and realism. Actually, any reasonably competent wargamer could probably design a realistic 'simulation,' but to design a good game is something else. As an example, 1914 was an excellent simulation of corps level fighting of that era, but as a game it was worthless -- it couldn't be played." John Hill would eventually go on to become an advocate of what he called "abstraction." This was a controversial game design philosophy in which the designer cared less about "what actually happened" and more concerned with the "effects" of what happened and how to model those effects. So, for Hill the fact that gunfire affected morale was more important than modelling the specific physical effects of bullet trajectories. Examples of "abstraction" designs in role playing games include D&D's "hit points" and the "effects based design" of CHAMPIONS.

The tension between simulation and realism is one that has been discussed in role playing games since the origin of the hobby. In the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE, Gary Gygax writes, "Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school." -- You can see in this discussion the origins of Edwards' GNS theory. -- "AD&D is assuredly an adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author's opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity...As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it can be deemed only a dismal failure...Those who...generally believe games should be fun, not work, will hopefully find this system to their taste."

In his paragraph on design intent, excerpted above, Gygax clearly puts himself in the "abstraction" design camp. His discussion of Hit Points in the DMG also makes this clear, whereas those who criticize hit points or how armor "makes it harder to hit and doesn't stop damage" fall more into the simulationist camp. I would like to say that I disagree with Gygax that his game "does little to attempt to simulate anything." I would argue that it is simulating heroic fantasy, but it is doing so from an abstractionist position. It's a small distinction, but not an unnecessary one.

As an aside, most gamers or designers are a combination of abstractionist/simulationist. Ken St. Andre, the designer of one of the most abstractionist rpgs I have ever played, doesn't like armor class systems because they don't simulate what he wants. This is the case even though his TUNNELS & TROLLS combat system sacrifices specificity for playability and speed of play.

When it comes to the tension between "simulation" and "playability" there is not a procedural definition of what is right or wrong. What is right or wrong doesn't even depend on what is being simulated. What determines whether it is better to favor simulation or playability is how that decision works within the rules set and the goals of the game itself. Sometimes it is important that a game be a good simulation of what it is trying to represent. CHAMPIONS is very much an "effects based design" system in character creation, but its combat system simulates the panel to panel flow of comic books extremely well. VILLAINS & VIGILANTES has a random character creation system that favors simulation -- though it also includes GM "rulings over rules" -- over abstraction as it defines specifically what Flame Powers and Ice Powers do and how they work rather than define effects and have you decide what matches what. Both are good games.

In the coming weeks, I'll be looking at some games and how they address the Simulation/Realism vs. Playability/Abstraction conflict. I'll be starting with VILLAINS & VIGILANTES and how it emulates Force Fields and Telekinesis in its simulation of super heroic conflict. While I think that the V&V system overall is quite good, I believe that the designs of these two powers demonstrate good "simulation" on the one hand and "awkward" simulation on the other.

I'd like to leave this conversation with two quotes for Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball from their Things we Think About Games.

1) Theme and gameplay are two different things.
2) Balance is not the same thing as fun.

Elias, George Skaff. Garfield, Richard, and Gutschera, K. Robert (2012), Characteristics of Games. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

[Vintage RPGs] CHAMPIONS 1st Edition -- A Blast from the Past

The CHAMPIONS super hero role playing game is one of the best super hero role playing games ever designed, and the game to which all super hero rpgs are compared.  CHAMPIONS wasn't the first role playing game in the super hero genre, that honor goes to the game SUPERHERO 2044 which I discussed in an earlier blog post.  CHAMPIONS even builds upon some of the ideas in SUPERHERO 2044.  CHAMPIONS used the vague point based character generation system of SUPERHERO 2044 -- combined with house rules by Wayne Shaw -- as a jumping off point for a new detailed and easy to understand point based system.  CHAMPIONS was also likely influenced by the melee combat system in SUPERHERO 2044 in the use of the 3d6 bell curve to determine "to-hit" rolls in combat.

While CHAMPIONS wasn't the first super hero rpg, it was the first that presented a coherent system by which a player could design the superheroes they read about in comic books.  The first edition of VILLAINS & VIGILANTES, which predates CHAMPIONS, did a good job of emulating many aspects of comic book action but the ability to model a character in character design wasn't one of them.  CHAMPIONS was released at the Origins convention in the summer of 1981, and it immediately captured the interest of Aaron Allston of Steve Jackson Games.  Allston gave CHAMPIONS a positive review in issue #43 of the Space Gamer magazine, wrote many CHAMPIONS articles for that publication, and became one of the major contributors to the early days of CHAMPIONS lore.

Reading through the first edition of the game, as I have been doing the past week, can have that kind of effect upon a person.  The writing is clear -- if uneven in places -- and the rules mechanics inspire a desire to play around in the sandbox provided by the rules.  George MacDonald and Steve Peterson did more than create a great role playing game when they created CHAMPIONS, they created a great character generation game as well.  Hours can be taken up just playing around with character concepts and seeing how they look in the CHAMPIONS system. 

There are sites galore about CHAMPIONS and many reviews about how great the game is, and it truly is, so the remainder of the post won't be either of these.  Rather, I would like to point out some interesting tidbits about the first edition of the game.  Most of these will be critical in nature, but not all.  Before going further I will say that though CHAMPIONS is now in its 6th edition and is a very different game today in some ways, the 1st edition of the game is highly playable and well worth exploring.

• One of the first things that struck me reading the book was how obviously playtested the character design system was.  This is best illustrated in the section under basic characteristics.  In CHAMPIONS there are primary and secondary characteristics.  The primary characteristics include things like Strength and Dexterity.  The secondary statistics are all based on fractions of the primary statistics and represent things like the ability to resist damage.  Where the playtesting shows here is in how players may buy down all of their primary statistics, but only one of their secondary statistics.  A quick analysis of the secondary statistics demonstrates that if this were not the case a buy strength then buy down all the secondary stats related to strength infinite loop would occur.  
• It's striking how few skills there are in 1st edition CHAMPIONS.  There are 14 in total, and some of them are thinks like Luck and Lack of Weakness.  There are no "profession" skills in 1st edition.  To be honest, I kind of like the lack of profession skills.  Professions in superhero adventures seem more flavor than something one should have to pay points for, but this is something that will change in future editions.  
• There are a lot of powers in CHAMPIONS, but the examples are filled with phrases like "a character" or "a villain" instead of an evocative hero/villain name.  It would have been more engaging for the folks at Hero Games to create some Iconic characters that are used throughout the book as examples of each power.  The game does include 3 examples of character generation (Crusader, Ogre, and Starburst), but these characters aren't mentioned in the Powers section.  An example using Starburst in the Energy Blast power would have been nice.
• The art inside the book is less than ideal.  Mark "the hack" Williams has been the target of some criticism for his illustrations, but his work is the best of what is offered in the 1st edition book.  It is clear why they decided to use his work in the 2nd edition of the game.  Williams art is evocative and fun -- if not perfect -- while the work Vic Dal Chele and Diana Navarro is more amateurish.
• The game provides three examples of character generation, but the designs given are less than point efficient and one outclasses the others.  The three sample characters are built on 200 points.  Crusader can barely hurt Ogre if he decides to punch him (his punch is only 6 dice), and his Dex is bought at one point below where he would receive a rounding benefit.  Ogre has a Physical Defense of 23.  This is the amount of damage he subtracts from each physical attack that hits and it is very high.  Assuming an average of 3.5 points of damage per die, Ogre can resist an average of 6.5 dice of damage per attack.  Yes, that's an average but the most damage 6 dice could do to him would be 13.  That would be fine, except Crusader has that 6d6 punch, and Starburst...oh, Starburst.  All of Starburst's major powers are in a multipower which means that as he uses one power he can use less of the other powers in the multipower.  The most damage he can do is 8d6, but only if he isn't flying and doesn't have his forcefield up.  Not efficient at all.  One might hope that character examples demonstrate the appropriate ranges of damage and defense, these don't quite achieve that goal.
• The combat example is good, if implausible.  Crusader and Starburst defeating Ogre?  Sure.
• The supervillain stats at the end of the book -- there are stats for 8 villains and 2 agents -- lack any accompanying art.  The only exception is Shrinker.  
• Speaking of artwork and iconics.  Take that cover.

• Who are these people?!  I want to know.  The only one who is mentioned in the book is Gargoyle.  It's pretty clear which character he is, but I only know his name because of a copyright notice.  Who are the other characters?  Is that "Flare"?  Someone once told me the villain's name was Holocaust, but that could just be a Bay Area rumor.  If you know, please let me know.  I'd love to see the stats for that guy punching "Holocaust" with his energy fist.

CHAMPIONS is a great game, and the first edition is a joy.  If you can, try to hunt down a copy and play some old school super hero rpg.

[Superhero RPGs] Changling of the Teen Titans: The Same Hero in Different Systems

Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis know that  I consider Different Worlds magazine to be one of the great publications of what James Maliszewski calls the Golden Age of D&D.  The magazine ran from 1979 to 1987.  It was initially published by Chaosium, then by Sleuth Publications, and finally by Different Worlds Publications.  Two of those companies are still around today, and one is going very strong.

I was particularly impressed with Different Worlds' famously reprinted issue 23.  That issue was a "Special Superhero Issue" that contained articles by the designers of CHAMPIONS, VILLAINS & VIGILANTES, SUPERGAME, SUPERWORLD, and SUPERHERO 2044.  That's right, the designers of all the major superhero rpgs of the time had an article in that issue.  Add to this a cover illustrated by Bill Willingham and stats for the X-men in three different game systems (V&V, Champions, and Superworld) by the game designers, and you have a truly special magazine issue.  I would argue that it is the single best issue of a gaming magazine published to date.

 

The success of this issue led Tadashi Ehara -- the magazine's editor -- do make the Special Superhero issue a somewhat regular feature, and a year later with issue 30 in September of 1983 the magazine had a special "New Teen Titans" issue.  This issue provides statistics for the New Teen Titans -- Nightwing and crew, though he's still Robin at the time -- for CHAMPIONS, VILLAINS & VIGILANTES, and SUPERWORLD.  Three systems that each handle super powers differently, but that are all workable systems.  The statistical representation of the characters, all done by the system designers, reveal interesting things about the rules themselves.  This is especially true for the character of Changeling.  As a shape shifter, his powers are a challenge to emulate.  How do you design a character who can become any animal?  It's a difficult design question, but one that comes up from time to time in the comics.  It is also a question that eventually led CHAMPIONS to adopt the "Multiform" power, a solution that I've never been fond of.

 

Starting with CHAMPIONS, the character of Changeling is represented as a relatively normal heroic character in his base statistics, but has all of his shapechanging powers in a single 200 point multipower with all of his abilities represented as variable "multi" slots.

133 pts.   200 pt Multipower (+1/4 only reasonable creatures, +1/4 x6 END Battery) 

27m        Growth (200 pts)

  7m        Density Increase (50)

            7m        Flight (50)

It goes on like that to include a number of possible power combinations.  It's a solution, but one that isn't much better than the "multiform" solution later implemented.  I have always liked the use of a multipower in order to simulate this kind of ability, but I prefer one of two options not presented by Steve Peterson here.  First would be the each "animal" is a different "ultra" slot in a multipower.  Thus Gorilla would be one slot and Monkey another.  The other way would be to have several multipowers.  One for offensive abilities, a second for defensive, a third for movement, and a fourth for "variable senses and options."  Any of these can work, but as you can see any version also requires a lot of work by the player to get what they want.

Steve Perrin's SUPERWORLD adaptation was to just give Changeling all of the powers -- heightened strength, shrinking, growth, armor, movement, etc. each with a conditional use modifier of "only in certain shapes."  This is followed by a list of shapes that Changeling can assume: man, bear, cat, bird, canine, snake, elephant, octopus, and so on.  Any animal that he has listed, he can become.  And the GM and player can discuss which powers are appropriate to the form.  This is a pretty good solution, but it also requires bookkeeping with regard to building and then maximizing each form.

Jack Herman in his VILLAINS & VIGILANTES adaptation highlights the "rulings over rules" nature of the V&V system.  In this game, there is not shapechange power that quite captures Changeling's ability.  So Herman gives Changeling the following power:

TRANSFORMATION (Shapeshifter/Creatures): PR for each change equals the square root of the number of Basic Hits possessed by the new form assumed.  Any shape having over 20 Basic Hits cannot be maintained for more than 11 turns.  Smaller shapes have no time limit.  Only creature/animal shapes may be assumed, including intelligent non-human species, but he must be familiar with the creature to copy its shape.

 That's it.  Leaving the player and GM to design each and every animal the player can turn in to.  Other than having to design a lot of animal stats, this is a pretty nice adaptation.  It is also one that Herman had to invent as the power isn't in the rulebook.  That's the nature of V&V though.  House rules rule the day.

When the DC Heroes RPG eventually came out, they represented Changeling in the following way.

                                                                                                                           

He's got stats that are at the high end of normal human ability, except for his Body stat which is quite good.  His shape change power is represented by... well... the shape change power which is as follows:

I am a big fan of the DC Heroes solution.  It is similar to Herman's, but balanced by being a very expensive power to have at high levels, though inexpensive enough for a starting character to purchase it.  It limits abilities to existing animals, and many can be found in the appendix.  Like all of the options though, it does require a player to have a number of character sheets at the ready to represent Changeling in multiple forms.

I think it is interesting how the different games each approached the design challenge that a shape changing character brings.  I don't know that any has a perfect solution.  I like DC Heroes' solution, but only because their underlying AP rules structure means that each numerical value has a very specific meaning.

[Gaming Library] Aaron Allston's STRIKE FORCE: A Must Own GM Resource

At the Origins convention in 1981 Hero Games released what would become one of the best selling super hero role playing games of all time, a game that is still around and which has served as the IP behind a  computer MMORPG.  That game is CHAMPIONSand it is one of the great games that the hobby has produced. 

CHAMPIONS has a large and active fan base, though it does seem to have dwindled a little between the 5th and 6th edition of the rules.  That dwindling may soon find itself reversed with the recent release of CHAMPIONS: LIVE ACTION and upcoming release of CHAMPIONS COMPLETE.  I've been of the opinion the past couple of editions of CHAMPIONS and the HERO rules have become a little bloated, and it seems that the designers behind CHAMPIONS COMPLETE agree as their upcoming rulebook is only 240 pages in total.  While much can be, and has been, written about the CHAMPIONS game, there is one supplement for the game that transcends the game itself and is one of the best "how to run a campaign" supplements ever produced...for any game system.

When CHAMPIONS was released in 1981, Aaron Allston worked for The Space Gamer magazine which was then a publication of Steve Jackson Games.  Steve Jackson returned from the Origins convention with news of the game and asked Aaron to review the game for the magazine.  Aaron did so and his positive review appears in issue 43 of The Space Gamer.  This article was quickly followed by a "proto-Strike Force" article entitled "Look Up in the sky..." in issue 48. 

In the article in issue 48, Allston describes how he came to be a CHAMPIONS player and game master -- he would later become one of its premiere contributors.

The superhero campaign of CHAMPIONS which I run, which is successful enough that it's been thrown out of TSG playtest sessions (it was crowding out all the other games), began as an irritation. Steve Jackson came back from Origins with the news that some new company in California had nabbed the name CHAMPIONS; I'd hoped to use CHAMPIONS on a personal game project.  I could review the Hero Games offering if I wished.  Wonderful.

 Looking over the rulebook, though, I was impressed.  The game appeared clear and coherent after a single read-through and seemed to faithfully simulated the four-color stuff of comic books.  Extensive solo playtesting ensured almost immediately, with the heroic Lightbearers waging a running war with the criminal mastermind Overlord.

In the end, Overlord's munitions-running scheme was wrecked; the Lightbearers disbanded, with one member dead and two others unwillingly allied with the villain; and I had chosen to run CHAMPIONS on a regular basis.

 There is a good deal more to the article in which Allston shares with potential players and game masters some guidelines and some pratfalls that might happen as one plays a super hero campaign.  How does one exactly acquire a super hero secret headquarters anyway?  One can see the foundations for the book STRIKE FORCE in the article, and Allston provides a nice glimpse into what can contribute to the running of a successful game.  As good as the article is, it pales in comparison to the CHAMPIONS sourcebook that Allston wrote based upon that early -- initially merely a playtest -- campaign.

Aaron Allston's STRIKE FORCE is one of the better campaign sourcebooks ever written.  It has a very simple arrangement.  It begins with a section on campaign use.  This section is not a how to plot an adventure section, as by 3rd edition CHAMPIONS had a pretty good chapter on that, rather it was advice for dealing with very specific problems.  This chapter covers the following:

• The "Character Story" -- discusses how to help players develop the character stories that they dreamed up when they initially created the character.
• Simulating the Comics -- discussed how to keep the players behaving in a four-color fashion.
• The New Player
• Aging the Hunteds -- How to make "Hunted" behave like real world constant interactions rather than as a mere random roll done each week.
• Listening to Your Players
• Ground Rules
• Translation Follies
• Types of CHAMPIONS Players -- The Builder, The Buddy, The Combat Monster, The Genre Fiend, The Copier, The Mad Slasher, The Mad Thinker, The Plumber, The Pro from Dover, The Romantic, The Rules Rapist, The Showoff, and The Tragedian.
• Character Conception Checklist
• How to Ruin Your Campaign

If Allston had written no other sections than the "types of players" and "how to ruin your campaign" sections of the sourcebook, this would be an invaluable resource.  Allston's breakdown of player types builds upon some of the discussions which had been going on in Different Worlds magazine and other places in the game-verse, but his clear description of the varied motivations of players is spot on and extremely useful.  Between STRIKE FORCE and Robin Law's book on Game Mastering Rules, you have almost everything you need to run any game successfully...if you follow the advice that is.

In addition to the overview on Campaign advice -- generic campaign advice -- Allston then continues providing an invaluable tool by giving us a look into his own campaign in the subsequent chapters of the book.  We are given an "Abbreviated History" of the STRIKE FORCE campaign, which can be used as an example or as an outline for one's own campaign.  He provides the full roll call of the STRIKE FORCE and SHADOW WARRIORS teams as well as Independent heroes and a number of Villains from the campaign.  This is followed by a detailed history of the campaign -- both his real world work and the in game history.  In the history, Allston shares some of the storytelling challenges he faced and how he overcame them in play.

If you can find a copy of the book, I highly recommend it.

[From The Archives] Surprised by Superhero 2044 -- The First Superhero RPG was More Influential than You Might Think

This post was originally published in June of 2010. Given the "rolling" format of blogs, I thought that I would repost it for newer readers. I was nicely surprised by Superhero: 2044, and will be blogging about Supergame soon as well as I own both the first and second editions of that superhero game.  After reading this review, Donald Saxman was kind enough to include the test of the post in a reprint of the game. 

 

According to Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Schick and Steve Perrin in Different Worlds #23, Superhero 2044 by Donald Saxman is the first commercially available superhero themed role playing game. Saxman's game was publishedin 1977 under the name Superhero '44. The game wasn't entitled Superhero 2044 until the game's second edition, when it was by Lou Zocchi's Gamescience Inc. later that same year. While I am a huge fan of super hero role playing games, and a student of the history of rpgs, this game sat on my bookshelf for years without a complete reading. Its lack of a list of itemized superpowers, and the mechanics of how they worked, was one of the key reasons that the game languished for so long on my shelf without a thorough examination. Apparently, Donald Saxman intentionally left a formal list of superpowers out of the book in order to respect the copyrights of various comic book publishers -- though that didn't stop artist Mike Cagle from providing a cover illustration filled with characters who bear an uncanny similarity to many popular comic book characters.

I just couldn't ever muster the desire to read or play a superhero role playing game that lacked a robust super power system. The recent release of Icons by Adamant Entertainment got my mind focused reading a new super hero rpg, and this opened the door for Superhero 2044 to work its way off the book shelf and into my reading pile. I quickly devoured the booklet and have come to the following conclusions.

First, Superhero 2044 is almost unplayable with its Rules as Written (RAW). The game is a jumble of multiple systems and contains no fewer than three major design directions, none of which are flowing in the same direction.

Second, without Superhero 2044 modern super hero role playing would not be what it is today. Those three major directions I mentioned above? Each of those had a significant influence on the super hero games that came after Superhero 2044. Without this game, there would be no Champions, Supergame, or Golden Heroes. Each of those super hero games lifts a concept out of Superhero 2044 and structures a game around that concept.

Superhero 2044 is more than the first super hero role playing game, it is the foundation upon which many games followed.

It was the first superhero game to include point based character construction. Though the point expenditure was limited to the building of a character's "attributes" and were not a part of "power design." This innovation, and at the time of Superhero 2044 this was a significant innovation, is one of the major design starting points for a number of super hero role playing games -- not the least of which is the Champions game.

Influence on Champions

Speaking of Champions, in addition to being inspired by the point based character design of Superhero 2044 it is evident that Champions melee combat system was influenced by Donald Saxman's game as well.

In Champions combat is resolved by taking a character's "Offensive Combat Value" and subtracting an opponent's "Defensive Combat Value." The result of that subtraction is then added to 11 to find the number required to hit an opponent on a roll of 3 six-sided dice. Champions combat system is one of the best on the market and the fact that it uses a comparison of combatant's effectiveness, and a bell curve resolution system, are among its chief strengths.

In Superhero 2044, you take a character's "Stamina" and subtract his opponents "Stamina." The difference between these two numbers is compared to the Universal Combat Matrix which gives you a number between 3 and 18 that the character must roll on 3 six-sided dice to determine if the character hit his opponent. It should be noted that this combat system is only used for "melee" combat in Superhero 2044, where it forms the foundation of Champions combat.

The Champions version is more elegant, as the result of the initial comparison is the modifier to the 3d6 roll, but it is the same system. It is as if the designers of Champions playtested and refined the Superhero 2044 melee combat system. Champions combat has some significant differences overall to Superhero 2044, but one can see that one echoes the other.

Influence on Supergame

Like Champions, Supergame was influenced by Superhero 2044's point based character generation system. Given its own 1980 design date, and the fact that it was a part of "California Gaming Culture," might hint that Supergame itself also influenced Champions. One sees the underpinnings of Superhero 2044 is in the purchase of a character's starting attributes.

Both systems feature something that many modern gamers might consider odd. All of a character's attributes start at zero and can be increased -- this itself isn't odd to the modern gamer. What is odd is that both games have attribute levels where the character is suffering from a disability. In Superhero 2044, if a character has an Endurance of less than 20 that character is "fatigued" or worse. In Supergame, a character with an "Agony Score" of less than 15 "may either move or attack, but only one per turn." There are similar penalties for "Vigor" in Superhero 2044 and "Physical Score" in Supergame. The names of the attributes and the level of effect are different, but one can see the similarities. Most modern systems would start a character with a base number of points sufficient to not be fatigued or incapacitated, but both Superhero 2044 and Supergame allow for the possibility.

But it isn't the point based character design where Supergame bears the most similarity to its predecessor. Supergame includes rules for building specific powers -- though not as robust the later published Champions -- that are themselves an innovation over the state of gaming at that time and a step beyond what were offered in Superhero 2044.

The area where Supergame most reflects Superhero 2044 is in its ranged combat system. In Superhero 2044, ranged combat is decided by rolling a six sided die and adding/subtracting to the die total applicable modifiers. This sets the target number that must be rolled, or higher, on a second roll of a six sided die. For example a character with a 20 Dexterity (-1) shooting an opponent at point blank range (-3) with a shoulder weapon (-1) rolls a 6 on a six sided die. This gives a modified result of 1 (6-1-3-1=1) and means that the character hits if the player rolls a 1 or better on the second roll. This system, with some differences in modifier values, is the system used in Supergame.

Influence on Golden Heroes

While I was intrigued by the way that Superhero 2044 influenced the design of American super hero role playing games, I was amazed at how it had influenced a British one. In White Dwarf magazine issue 9, game designer Eamon Bloomfield reviewed Superhero 44 -- Superhero 2044's first edition -- and wrote the following:

"Each character fills out a weekly planning sheet indicating whether he is patrolling, resting, training, or researching. This...show[s] how many crimes of what type he's stopped this week and at what damage to himself; without actually having to play the event...Overall good fun and realistic and a welcome addition to any role playing fan's collection. Certainly as a postal game it has a great future."

The weekly planning sheet is one of the most intriguing aspects of the Superhero 2044 game and the most playable aspect. The game includes weekly planning sheets that provide a number of "activity blocks" to which players assign particular tasks, like fighting crime or resting. Golden Heroes, Games Workshop's super hero role playing game, featured a campaign system that bears no small similarities to that of Superhero 2044. Games Workshop was, and still is, the publisher of White Dwarf magazine and so it is easy to believe that this game review sparked some discussion of "planning sheet" style campaign play.

Golden Heroes features a campaign system that heavily relies on something very similar to Superhero 2044's weekly planning sheet. They have a system that uses something called a "Daily Utility Phase" or DUPs. The game describes them as follows:

The scenarios played in each week occupy a certain number of DUPs for the characters involved. Any remaining DUPs can be devoted to other pursuits such as training, improving powers, developing scientific gadgets, etc.

Thus at the end of each scenario, you must inform the players how many spare DUPs their characters have. Preferably then, or at worst at the start of the next game session, the players must tell you how their characters have spent those DUPs.

The player's allocation of DUPs is compared to various campaign ratings, something vary similar to what Superhero 2044 calls "handicaps," in order to determine what events happen to the character and how much the character is able to improve over time. Both systems are dynamic and change as characters interact with the game world. The Golden Heroes system is more developed and is a part of a more complete system of mechanics, but it is unarguably a descendant of the Superhero 2044 system.

Closing Remarks

I wish I had read Superhero 2044 much sooner than I did. It is a definite diamond in the rough. While it would be difficult to play RAW, it has a large number of innovative mechanics and ideas. The fact that it contains enough ideas to influence no fewer than THREE super hero role playing games in their design is a significant achievement in and of itself. One cannot truly understand the development of the hobby without reading this game.

I think I will try to play the game itself soon, though I don't know if I will try to design a comprehensive powers system or use an existing one to supplement the game, as the campaign play system still stands out as something that has some depth and would be useful in a number of games. Given the abstract nature of the campaign planning system, one could easily adapt it to another game for use.

The game also features a detailed setting for super hero play. The setting lacks the microscopic detail of modern settings, but for the time the game was written it is quite intricate. Like the game itself, its setting is one that inspires addition and extension rather than provides a complete painting.

Donald Saxman has created something pretty special here and I'd love to see someone take this system and make a modern edition out of it. It would take some work, but it would be worth it.

J is for Justice Inc. and James Bond

Two of the -- about 6 -- game designers that I credit with helping to lift role playing games out of the ghetto of the dungeon crawl and into the world of narrative play are Aaron Allston and Greg Gorden. To this day, I still love a good dungeon crawl, but it was designers like Allston and Gorden who showed me that role playing games could be an immersive, interactive, narrative experience that would last for years. They did this by designing games that provided excellent advice for game masters and designing mechanics that fostered/supported narrative play.

I mentioned that Allston was one of the first people to review the Champions role playing game in my H is for Hero System entry. Allston was a quick convert to the system, but he also became one of its biggest promoters and one of Hero Games' better freelance game designers. His Strike Force sourcebook is one of the best super hero game campaign guides ever written, and its advice for running gaming sessions/campaigns are valuable for game masters running any gaming system. In 1984, Aaron Allston and Mike Stackpole (who had also worked on Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes) joined the staff at Hero Games to design a role playing game that would allow players to experience the pulse pounding action of the pulp stories of the early 20th century. The book is nearly flawless in its presentation and design. The mechanics are clearly presented and are able to simulate the wide array of stories that were featured in the pulps.

But the greatest asset of Justice Inc. isn't the rules, it is the Justice Inc. Campaign Book. This booklet is a fantastic collection of essays that discuss how to run a role playing game campaign. The book covers everything from Crimefighting, Espionage, Action and Horror to Spicy Stories and Science Fiction. It truly covers the pulps as a whole and doesn't get caught up in the erroneous mindset that pulp only equals "The Shadow" or "The Spider." Those are great characters, to be sure, but the pulps include Robert E. Howard, C.L. Moore, H.P. Lovecraft and others. The stories run the gamut of genre, and Allston and Stackpole know their stuff. The advice in this 80 page book belongs in any game master's library.

Especially useful are the "Secrets of Successful Gamemastering" listed on pages 6 and 7. The list is short, but it cuts right to the point. The list is as follows:

1) A Gamemaster is an entertainer.
2) Be fair.
3) Be firm and consistent.
4) Be flexible.
5) Use dramatic license.

It was the first rule on that list which was mind-blowing to me when I first read it. It was a direct argument against the "DM is God" mentality that was prevalent during the early era of role playing games. It put the onus on the GM not to just "challenge" the players, or to crush them at a whim, but instead to make sure that the players are having fun. To quote the discussion after the rule, "The thrill of discover, the heart-pounding moments of suspense, and the laughs from humor beat the hell out of the drudgeries of constant warfare and treasure harvesting." It is a mantra that I have tried to live up to for years. Sometimes -- as is the case with some of my 4e sessions -- I fail, but I think that my Eberron players have had some pretty good times and have some stories to share.

Rising up from the ashes of the acquisition of SPI by TSR in the early 1980s, Victory Games -- made up of former SPI employees -- released the James Bond 007 role playing game in 1983. After TSR had purchased SPI, TSR largely ignored SPI titles and it seemed that the acquisition had more to do with limiting competition than acquiring useful IP. Ironically, it was the Lorraine Williams era of TSR that re-released a lot of the neglected SPI titles. But if TSR had never purchased SPI, then Victory Games would never have been created and it is possible -- just possible -- that the James Bond 007 game would never have been designed and that would be a shame.

Gerard Christopher Klug is credited with "Game Design, Development, and Project Coordination," but anyone who is familiar with the old SPI/Avalon Hill system of designing games knows that it is likely Gregory Gorden and Neil Randall (credited as "system development") who did the bulk of the innovative work on this project. Those who are familiar with Greg Gorden's other work -- DC Heroes, Deadlands, Torg, Star Wars and a host of other games -- can see his influence all over the place.

There is a lot to like in James Bond 007. It has an easy to use rules system and some of the best adventures ever written for any game, but the contribution that altered the way that I viewed role playing games -- and informs my sentiments against "roll a skill check for everything" or "If the player doesn't know/ask it then they don't know/can't find out" mentalities of many GMs -- was their Fields of Experience mechanic. You see, in the world of James Bond, there are some things that the characters just know, and Gorden and crew came up with a system to emulate it. It isn't anything fancy, but it was revolutionary then -- and is still revolutionary as Robin Laws' Gumshoe system demonstrates for modern gamers. Put briefly, "There are no dice rolls involved when a character uses a Field of Expertise in play. He either knows the information required or how to perform the task, or he does not. A Field of Expertise will always fall into one of two categories -- information and performance." The GM notes go into even greater detail about Fields of Knowledge recommending that GMs use mechanics to step in to help when players don't ask questions.

A lot of "mystery" adventures bog down in rpgs because the players fail a roll, or fail to "look under every nook and cranny of a room." In the world of James Bond, if the character had the Forensics or Cryptography Field of Knowledge that was enough to keep the ball rolling. Give the clues. Don't interpret them for the players, but let them have the information themselves. Sometimes, their own interpretations end up being better than your original idea and can take adventures down entertaining paths. This was the kind of play recommended by James Bond 007, and it was so different from the puzzle-deathtraps -- like Tomb of Horrors -- of other games that it changed the way I play forever.

Both of these games are sadly out of print, but you can find them at fairly affordable prices on eBay. I cannot praise them highly enough.

H is for Hero System

Champions, the first Hero System role playing game, was released in 1981 at the Origins Game Fair. One of the first individuals to purchase the game was game designer and magazine editor Aaron Allston who quickly reviewed the game for The Space Gamer magazine in issue 43. By issue 48, The Space Gamer was featuring articles about Allston's Champions campaign, as he became one of its biggest advocates. His review was very positive, but it also contained a fair amount of constructive criticism. In particular he criticized the overly combat oriented nature of the rules set:

There is nothing on "extracurricular" characteristics of the superheroes -- there is no way to determine professional skills or wealth, for example. In the comics, Dr. Mid-Nite can use his medical skills to aid a badly wounded comrade, but in CHAMPIONS the injured soul must be rushed to the hospital, as there is no way for characters to be doctors. There is no way to see if the character is a playboy millionaire or a struggling science student. In short, within the scope of the rules, you can create Iron Man, but not Tony Stark, The Huntress, but not Helena Wayne.

To a certain degree, Allston was perfectly correct in his criticism. The skill list of the first edition of Champions, on pages 10-12, was sparse. It included only the following skills: Acrobatics, Climbing, Computer Programming, Detective Work, Disguise, Find Weakness, Lack of Weakness, Luck, Martial Arts, Missile Deflection, Security Systems, Skill Levels, Stealth, and Swinging. There is a complete and utter lack of professional skills in this list. This is also true of the second edition of the game. While the second edition improved the layout of the rules, clarified many rules descriptions, provided sample characters, and eliminated the sub-par Vic Dal Chele artwork from the product, Allston's critique could still stand.

Hero Games quickly released a series of related role playing games -- Espionage and Justice Inc. -- which had a more "street level focus" and thus had more "granular" skill and "perk" lists. Since these games dealt with Spy Stories and Pulp Adventure, and the heroes were more "human" than the superheroes depicted in Champions, these games included rules for knowledge skills, science skills, and the like.

The third edition of Champions still neglected these "secondary" skills, but most GMs had already begun to incorporate them into their games as the "Hero System" released more and more products. Eventually Hero Games released Danger International -- a serious update of Espionage -- Fantasy Hero and Star Hero proving that the underlying Hero mechanics could be used with any genre.

With the fourth edition of Champions -- the edition I believe is the best -- the skills and perks systems from the various offshoot Hero System games were incorporated fully into the Champions rules and the Hero System became truly universal.

But there were still players who -- like Allston early on -- wanted more granularity in the rules set. It wasn't enough to have rules for medical skills, there needed to be rules for flash light illumination, or the ability to moderately adjust the temperature in the room for heat/cold based characters. Some fans wanted every little minute detail to be codified in some purely mechanical system -- and thus the Hero System 5th Edition was born...and eventually a 6th edition.

All of the rules sets are good. I don't think any are sub par. I do think that they level of granularity and the ever increasing pressure to mechanically represent every last detail of the character has become a bit of an obsession for the rules and for some Hero players. I remember when the Hero players began to post on the Green Ronin boards about the Mutants and Masterminds skill system. Steve Kenson wanted the "ultra-skilled" characters like Batman or Mr. Fantastic to buy "Super Attributes" that implied that the character was equally proficient in all skills related to that attribute. I thought Kenson's proposal was magnificent, the former Hero players -- and some d20 players -- dissented. They wanted each skill to be purchased separately and the level of proficiency to be paid incrementally.

The fans of the granular won out, but ought they have. Is it really necessary for a rules set to have specific representation of knowledge skills and/or professional skills? Can't a character write a robust background for he character and have the GM rule, using judgment and common sense, how that background affects a situation?

Do we really need to have players roll dice to see if their Nobel Prize winning Physicist character understands string theory? Or is it better to have that be an improved/acted out scene that the GM can plan for and leave clues using the assumption of player proficiency rather than leaving it to arbitrary die rolls?

Table top role playing games aren't computer games after all. The reason we have mechanics for combat is to avoid "I shot you...no you didn't" Cops n' Robbers situations. They prevent arguments by providing a buffer between the player and the Game Master. They minimize the perception that the GM is just out to get you.

With non-combat/non-contested attributes, like wealth or education, are those things to be quantified or things to be incorporated into narrative?

For me, they are best things left incorporated into narrative -- unless someone is trying to outperform someone else. One might need mechanics for a duel of wits, but one doesn't need mechanics for "training."

All that aside, and the Hero System can easily be run without the skill system bogging things down, the Hero System is one of the great additions to the gaming hobby. It was one of the first games to use point build characters. It incorporated war game techniques and role playing game mechanics in a wonderful fashion, and was the first system to fully emulate the superhero genre while allowing full design control to the players.

Some of the best Hero System products are (in no particular order):
1) Champions -- 4th Edition
2) Danger International
3) Justice Inc. -- partly written by Aaron Allston
4) Fantasy Hero -- for 5th Edition Hero

A is for Armor -- Simulating Armor in Role Playing Games

In the almost 40 years that role playing games have been around, a number of traditional mechanics have evolved in order to simulate how armor protects individuals in combat situations. For decades people have debated the merits of the various systems and which more realistically emulates the underlying "physics" that ought be emulated by a rules set -- the important word being "ought." The mechanical preferences of players and systems is in part due to the fact that different games not only represent different time periods, they also represent different genre that often have very different levels of lethality when it comes to the combats being simulated.

Though there are countless ways that armor can be emulated, I have found that there are four basic mechanical structures that have been used to simulate the effectiveness of armor in combat.

1) Armor Class systems. The first role playing game to utilize an Armor Class system was the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game -- the first role playing game. In a "pure" Armor Class system, the armor the character is using affects how difficult the individual character is to hit in combat. In these systems, characters in better armor are harder to hit than characters in "worse" armor. Also factored into a character's Armor Class is how agile a character is, and thus how adept they are at physically avoiding damage. The system used in Dungeons & Dragons has its roots in the combat resolution matrices used in classic wargames like Gettysburg -- the so called traditional CRT. These tables compare an offensive skill value to an opponents defensive value and provide a numerical value representing the probability of scoring damage on an opponent. Just as a tank in Panzerblitz might have a defensive value of 6, a warrior in an Armor Class system might have an Armor Class of 6.

The average damage that any character receives during any given combat round can defined by the following linear equation:

Damage = (Probability of an attack hitting)*[average weapon damage + damage bonus] + 0

2) Damage Reduction systems. For many, the abstract nature of an Armor Class system seems less than intuitive and is less than satisfactory. To some, it doesn't seem intuitive that armor "makes you harder to hit," instead in can be viewed as reducing the amount of damage that a particular attack does when it hits. The first role playing game to use a Damage Reduction system was Tunnels & Trolls -- the second role playing game published. Damage Reduction systems vary in their complexity and end results. In some systems like The Fantasy Trip or Dragonquest, armor not only reduces the amount of damage your character takes from a blow, but it might actually decrease your own combat effectiveness as the system emulates how much a bulky suit of armor might affect your own combat capabilities. In these systems, there can be certain suits of armor that render certain weapons entirely ineffective as the maximum damage they can cause is less than the Damage Reduction value of certain suits of armor. This was not the case with Tunnels & Trolls, but has been for others.

The damage that any character receives during any given combat round can defined by the following linear equation:

Damage = (Probability of an attack hitting)*[average weapon damage + damage bonus] - Damage Reduction

3) Armor Penetration systems -- A modification of Damage Reductions systems are those systems where armors have an Armor Value that must be exceeded by a roll of a weapon's Penetration die. The innovative RPG Dragon Warriors uses this system for its damage determination. In this system while the value of the protective value of the armor, and the damage rating for any weapon, is static, the chance that the armor prevents damage is a variable number. In this case, the armor doesn't prevent the character from being "hit," nor does it reduce the amount of damage done. Instead, the armor acts as a barrier that either blocks all the damage of a "hit" or none. Like the earlier Damage Reduction system, there are circumstances where a given armor might be impossible to penetrate with certain weapons.

The damage that any character receives during any given combat round can defined by the following linear equation:

Damage = ((Probability of an attack hitting)*[Probability of weapon bypassing armor's Armor Value])*[Weapon Damage].

For example, Sir Hereward has a 50% chance of hitting Ambassador Vyle with his longsword. Sir Hereward is attacking with a longsword (d8 penetration and 4 damage), and Vyle is wearing chainmail (AV = 4). Assuming that Sir Hereward has no bonus to his penetration roll from Strength or magic, his longsword would penetrate Vyle's chainmail on a roll of 5,6,7, or 8 on an eight sided die (50% of the time)his average damage to Vyle would be:

Damage = ([.5]*[.5])*[4] or an average of 1 point of damage per attempted attack. Any successful attack would automatically do 4 points of damage.

4) Combination Systems -- the majority of the remaining systems appear to be combinations of the above mechanics. The Palladium Fantasy Role Playing Game uses a variation of the Armor Class system with the addition of the damage armor blocks being absorbed by the armor which can be destroyed if it takes enough damage. The GURPS game uses a Damage Reduction system that also includes a "Passive Defense" system that allows for armor to make an opponent miss outright. The Hero series of games -- because of its effects based nature -- actually uses both systems. One could represent Armor in Hero as either reducing the chance to hit, or reducing the amount of damage done -- though the system always includes some element of a Damage Reduction system. This is also true of Green Ronin's excellent Mutants & Masterminds game system (and their True 20 system as well), which uses both an Armor Class system and a Damage Reduction system and can have armor simulated either way. Games like Mayfair's sadly out of print DC Heroes role playing game have armor work in a modified Penetration system.

From the above discussion, you can see that regardless of the expressed preferences of those who use Armor Class Systems, Damage Reduction Systems, or Armor Penetration Systems, the average damage per attempted attack can be expressed in a similar linear equation for each. That equation being:

Damage = [chance of doing any damage]*[average damage] - Damage Reduction. Even D&D uses this equation, it's just that the Damage Reduction is always equal to zero. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game did attempt to add some granularity to this linear equation through the use of a weapon vs. armor modification chart which added or subtracted from the probability to hit based on which weapon was being used against which specific armor. This system wasn't widely used for a number of reasons, not the least of which were that it was unduly complex and that it didn't include sufficient modifications for weapon use against monsters.

As an aside, one could argue that DC Heroes is one of the few games that breaks completely free of the simple linear damage equation I gave above. It still can be represented in a linear equation, but the variables are modified based on a hit and damage resolution tables that aren't purely linear in its expressions.

Which is your preferred Armor simulation system?

Are there any simulation methods I left out that you admire?

A Gamer's Treasure -- Different Worlds #23

To say that Different Worlds Issue #23 is one of the highest Superhero Themed Gaming Magazine issues of all time would be an understatement. It closer to the truth to say that this particular issue of Different Worlds is one of the best -- if not the single best -- issue of a gaming magazine ever published.

Issue 23, the "Special Superhero" issue, was published in August of 1982 just as superhero roleplaying games were beginning to emerge in the marketplace. 1977 had seen the release of Superhero 2044. This game was quickly followed by the release of the 1st edition of Villains and Vigilantes by Jeff Dee and Jack Herman and Supergame Aimee Karklyn and John Hartlove. By the time Champions emerged in the marketplace in 1981 at the Origins Game Fair, where it set a new standard in superhero gaming, the genre was well established as a successful gaming milieu.

During the early 1980s, fewer gaming magazines were "House Organs" that existed purely to promote the products of the company that published the magazine. The vast majority of these magazines were published by gaming publishers, like today, but these publishers frequently featured articles containing content for their competitor's games and advertisements for their competitor's products. Dragon, The Space Gamer, and Different Worlds were published by TSR, Steve Jackson Games, and Chaosium but they didn't limit themselves to promoting their own products. Of these magazines, Dragon ran the fewest articles covering competitors' products but it contained a significant amount of external advertising. It wasn't until the publication by Steve Jackson Games' AutoDuel Quarterly that a company produced a magazine with the sole goal of promoting a single product line.

If Dragon was the stingiest when it came to containing articles about other companies' offerings, Different Worlds and The Space Gamer were in heavy competition for which magazine was the most generous in supporting the hobby first and the company second. Both were excellent magazines that are sorely missed today.

It is in this environment that Different Worlds issue #23 "hit the stands" and set a high mark for what a magazine could do in support of the hobby itself. If you were considering starting up a magazine that covered the whole RPG hobby -- I'm looking at you d∞ -- this is the issue I would point you toward to demonstrate how to do a themed issue.

The issue had content that supported all of the major superhero roleplaying games of the day, had reviews of several of their products, and had reviews of some of the smaller emerging titles of the time.

Let's have a look at the issue:

Superhero 2044: Part-Time Superhero -- This five page article, written by the game's designer Donald Saxman, provided designer notes for the game, supplemental rules, and an adventure that players could run in their own campaigns. The inclusion of a couple of new characters is helpful to GMs and players who want to use this system.

Villains and Vigilantes -- Pages 14 and 15 of the issue have a detailed discussion, by game designer Jeff Dee, of the history of the game and the changes that Dee and Jack Herman made to the system for the newly released (in 1982) 2nd edition of the game.

Supergame -- Jay and Aimee Hartlove have a four page article that has a detailed discussion of the game's development and history. This article also includes Supergame conversions of The Incredible Hulk (Marvel), Raven (DC), Captain America (Marvel), Wonder Woman (DC), Batman (DC), Spider Woman (Marvel), and Wolverine (Marvel). This article prompted years of searching for copies of Supergame, a search that was not completed until 2002 when I found copies of the first and second edition at the War House in Long Beach. Modeling existing characters within a specific gaming system is one of the best ways to demonstrate what the benchmarks of a given game are and Jay and Aimee did a bang up job in this issue. They also discussed the limitations of their game.

Champions has two articles back to back in the issue. The first is a set of designer notes by Steve Peterson. Modern Champions players may not be able to envision a day when Steven Long wasn't the man behind the rules set, and he has been a boon for the game, but it's nice to read what the creator of a game thought of his rules and how he wanted them changed for the second edition. The first edition of Champions was a 64 page rulebook released in 1981, Hero Games released a second edition of 80 pages a year later. That "revised" edition contained a number of significant changes. This second edition was the edition of the game I cut my teeth on, though the 4th edition was the one I played the most and still find to be my favorite edition. What is particularly praiseworthy in Peterson's notes is how responsive he was to how the game was being played. Given that he was a decade before the internet -- though there was a significant BBS community for the game -- it is even more remarkable.

The second article for Champions is an article by Glenn Thain, a name you will find repeated in many of the early superhero rpgs and someone who has a knack for testing the limits of systems in character design, where he presents statistical representations for the John Byrne era X-Men. This article shaped the way that I viewed game balance for quite some time. In hindsight I think that Thain's fandom for the characters made him make them a little more powerful than they would have been written up by a more neutral evaluator. Regardless of quibbles, Thain presents some good guidelines to be used in individual campaigns that wish to model superheroes. Thain provides statistics for Sprite (Kitty Pride/Shadowcat), Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Wolverine, and Magneto (giving one villain). Given the accuracy of the emulation of the abilities of the characters, this article is a great demonstration of the versatility of the Champions system -- even before it became a 900 page omnibus.

Superworld -- Given that Different Worlds was a Chaosium organ, one would expect to find a section discussing their superhero entry Superworld and Steve Perrin provides a nice designer notes and errata article for the first edition (the one in the Worlds of Wonder boxed set) of the game. Superworld is based on the Basic Role-Playing system, and as such has one of the most intuitive mechanical systems as its underlying structure. Tell someone that they have to roll 11 or less on 3d6 to accomplish a task and they may or may not understand what the probabilities of success are. Tell them that they have a 55% chance and it is instantly crystal clear. Superworld's system is a percentile based one. It is no wonder that this game became the basis for George R. R. Martin's shared world anthology Wild Cards. The game is versatile and easy to understand. The first doesn't have a large power set, but that was soon changed with a second -- and stand alone -- version of the game.

Like Champions, Superworld gets an article wherein the X-men are modeled using the system. In this case the X-Men represented include a couple missing from the prior article. They are Angel, Storm, Professor X, Sprite (Kitty Pride/Shadowcat), Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Cyclops, Colossus, and Magneto (the villain).

In the reviews section of the issue, there are reviews of Supervillains by Task Force Games (a deservedly negative review by Steve Perrin), The Official Superhero Adventure Game by Brian Phillips (a relatively positive review of the independently published game -- a game that I desperately wish to own), Death Duel with the Destroyers an adventure for Villains and Vigilantes (a deservedly positive review by Steve Perrin), The Ysgarth System (a mixed review of a game that became the foundation of a near impossible to find superhero rpg entitled Challengers).

There are many other noteworthy aspects to the issue, not the least of which is the sweet Bill Willingham cover, so if you are a fan of superhero rpgs you absolutely must track down a copy of the issue. My personal copy is one of the "Collector's Reprints."

Surprised by Superhero 2044 -- The First Superhero RPG was More Influential than You Might Think

According to Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Schick and Steve Perrin in Different Worlds #23, Superhero 2044 by Donald Saxman is the first commercially available superhero themed role playing game. Saxman's game was publishedin 1977 under the name Superhero '44. The game wasn't entitled Superhero 2044 until the game's second edition, when it was by Lou Zocchi's Gamescience Inc. later that same year. While I am a huge fan of super hero role playing games, and a student of the history of rpgs, this game sat on my bookshelf for years without a complete reading. Its lack of a list of itemized superpowers, and the mechanics of how they worked, was one of the key reasons that the game languished for so long on my shelf without a thorough examination. Apparently, Donald Saxman intentionally left a formal list of superpowers out of the book in order to respect the copyrights of various comic book publishers -- though that didn't stop artist Mike Cagle from providing a cover illustration filled with characters who bear an uncanny similarity to many popular comic book characters.

I just couldn't ever muster the desire to read or play a superhero role playing game that lacked a robust super power system. The recent release of Icons by Adamant Entertainment got my mind focused reading a new super hero rpg, and this opened the door for Superhero 2044 to work its way off the book shelf and into my reading pile. I quickly devoured the booklet and have come to the following conclusions.

First, Superhero 2044 is almost unplayable with its Rules as Written (RAW). The game is a jumble of multiple systems and contains no fewer than three major design directions, none of which are flowing in the same direction.

Second, without Superhero 2044 modern super hero role playing would not be what it is today. Those three major directions I mentioned above? Each of those had a significant influence on the super hero games that came after Superhero 2044. Without this game, there would be no Champions, Supergame, or Golden Heroes. Each of those super hero games lifts a concept out of Superhero 2044 and structures a game around that concept.

Superhero 2044 is more than the first super hero role playing game, it is the foundation upon which many games followed.

It was the first superhero game to include point based character construction. Though the point expenditure was limited to the building of a character's "attributes" and were not a part of "power design." This innovation, and at the time of Superhero 2044 this was a significant innovation, is one of the major design starting points for a number of super hero role playing games -- not the least of which is the Champions game.

Influence on Champions

Speaking of Champions, in addition to being inspired by the point based character design of Superhero 2044 it is evident that Champions melee combat system was influenced by Donald Saxman's game as well.

In Champions combat is resolved by taking a character's "Offensive Combat Value" and subtracting an opponent's "Defensive Combat Value." The result of that subtraction is then added to 11 to find the number required to hit an opponent on a roll of 3 six-sided dice. Champions combat system is one of the best on the market and the fact that it uses a comparison of combatant's effectiveness, and a bell curve resolution system, are among its chief strengths.

In Superhero 2044, you take a character's "Stamina" and subtract his opponents "Stamina." The difference between these two numbers is compared to the Universal Combat Matrix which gives you a number between 3 and 18 that the character must roll on 3 six-sided dice to determine if the character hit his opponent. It should be noted that this combat system is only used for "melee" combat in Superhero 2044, where it forms the foundation of Champions combat.

The Champions version is more elegant, as the result of the initial comparison is the modifier to the 3d6 roll, but it is the same system. It is as if the designers of Champions playtested and refined the Superhero 2044 melee combat system. Champions combat has some significant differences overall to Superhero 2044, but one can see that one echoes the other.

Influence on Supergame

Like Champions, Supergame was influenced by Superhero 2044's point based character generation system. Given its own 1980 design date, and the fact that it was a part of "California Gaming Culture," might hint that Supergame itself also influenced Champions. One sees the underpinnings of Superhero 2044 is in the purchase of a character's starting attributes.

Both systems feature something that many modern gamers might consider odd. All of a character's attributes start at zero and can be increased -- this itself isn't odd to the modern gamer. What is odd is that both games have attribute levels where the character is suffering from a disability. In Superhero 2044, if a character has an Endurance of less than 20 that character is "fatigued" or worse. In Supergame, a character with an "Agony Score" of less than 15 "may either move or attack, but only one per turn." There are similar penalties for "Vigor" in Superhero 2044 and "Physical Score" in Supergame. The names of the attributes and the level of effect are different, but one can see the similarities. Most modern systems would start a character with a base number of points sufficient to not be fatigued or incapacitated, but both Superhero 2044 and Supergame allow for the possibility.

But it isn't the point based character design where Supergame bears the most similarity to its predecessor. Supergame includes rules for building specific powers -- though not as robust the later published Champions -- that are themselves an innovation over the state of gaming at that time and a step beyond what were offered in Superhero 2044.

The area where Supergame most reflects Superhero 2044 is in its ranged combat system. In Superhero 2044, ranged combat is decided by rolling a six sided die and adding/subtracting to the die total applicable modifiers. This sets the target number that must be rolled, or higher, on a second roll of a six sided die. For example a character with a 20 Dexterity (-1) shooting an opponent at point blank range (-3) with a shoulder weapon (-1) rolls a 6 on a six sided die. This gives a modified result of 1 (6-1-3-1=1) and means that the character hits if the player rolls a 1 or better on the second roll. This system, with some differences in modifier values, is the system used in Supergame.

Influence on Golden Heroes

While I was intrigued by the way that Superhero 2044 influenced the design of American super hero role playing games, I was amazed at how it had influenced a British one. In White Dwarf magazine issue 9, game designer Eamon Bloomfield reviewed Superhero 44 -- Superhero 2044's first edition -- and wrote the following:

"Each character fills out a weekly planning sheet indicating whether he is patrolling, resting, training, or researching. This...show[s] how many crimes of what type he's stopped this week and at what damage to himself; without actually having to play the event...Overall good fun and realistic and a welcome addition to any role playing fan's collection. Certainly as a postal game it has a great future."

The weekly planning sheet is one of the most intriguing aspects of the Superhero 2044 game and the most playable aspect. The game includes weekly planning sheets that provide a number of "activity blocks" to which players assign particular tasks, like fighting crime or resting. Golden Heroes, Games Workshop's super hero role playing game, featured a campaign system that bears no small similarities to that of Superhero 2044. Games Workshop was, and still is, the publisher of White Dwarf magazine and so it is easy to believe that this game review sparked some discussion of "planning sheet" style campaign play.

Golden Heroes features a campaign system that heavily relies on something very similar to Superhero 2044's weekly planning sheet. They have a system that uses something called a "Daily Utility Phase" or DUPs. The game describes them as follows:

The scenarios played in each week occupy a certain number of DUPs for the characters involved. Any remaining DUPs can be devoted to other pursuits such as training, improving powers, developing scientific gadgets, etc.

Thus at the end of each scenario, you must inform the players how many spare DUPs their characters have. Preferably then, or at worst at the start of the next game session, the players must tell you how their characters have spent those DUPs.

The player's allocation of DUPs is compared to various campaign ratings, something vary similar to what Superhero 2044 calls "handicaps," in order to determine what events happen to the character and how much the character is able to improve over time. Both systems are dynamic and change as characters interact with the game world. The Golden Heroes system is more developed and is a part of a more complete system of mechanics, but it is unarguably a descendant of the Superhero 2044 system.

Closing Remarks

I wish I had read Superhero 2044 much sooner than I did. It is a definite diamond in the rough. While it would be difficult to play RAW, it has a large number of innovative mechanics and ideas. The fact that it contains enough ideas to influence no fewer than THREE super hero role playing games in their design is a significant achievement in and of itself. One cannot truly understand the development of the hobby without reading this game.

I think I will try to play the game itself soon, though I don't know if I will try to design a comprehensive powers system or use an existing one to supplement the game, as the campaign play system still stands out as something that has some depth and would be useful in a number of games. Given the abstract nature of the campaign planning system, one could easily adapt it to another game for use.

The game also features a detailed setting for super hero play. The setting lacks the microscopic detail of modern settings, but for the time the game was written it is quite intricate. Like the game itself, its setting is one that inspires addition and extension rather than provides a complete painting.

Donald Saxman has created something pretty special here and I'd love to see someone take this system and make a modern edition out of it. It would take some work, but it would be worth it.