DC Heroes RPG

[JNAProductions]

I keep hearing this game brought up, and always with glowing reviews.

But I don’t actually know much about it-or what makes it better than something like M&M.

Can this thread be used to enlighten me?

[EggKookoo]

I was going to write a lot, but first check this out (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Heroes).

Why was it so much fun?


I loved that they had a single abstract conflict-resolution system that worked for combat but also everything else.
I liked that they wrapped to-hit, damage, auto-fail, and critical hits into a single roll.
At the time (mid-80s) it was pretty advanced in that it had things like advantages and drawbacks you could apply to flesh out your PC beyond simple ability scores, skills, and stats.
They created a system where PCs like Superman could fight alongside PCs like Batman without the former always outshining the latter.
Despite the rules being couched firmly in the DC Universe, the game encouraged you to come up with your own creation that would feel at home there. It was inviting.
It was simpler than Champions, more elegant than Villains & Vigilantes, and smarter than Marvel Super Heroes. I've never played M&M so I can't compare.

[Anonymouswizard]

From what I've heard it kind of hit upon things like exponential scales before other games, but from what else I've heard it's got very few advantages compared to modern superhero systems. It also apparently uses preset powers over a power building system, but that's more a matter of taste than inherently better or worse (building characters is simpler, but you have to work through a larger list* compared to Wild Talents or M&M).

So yeah, if it appears in a DC comic you can probably get it, but you're unlikely to be able to purchase the ability to turn off the sun (which you can in WT but not M&M).

* I'm guessing.

[EggKookoo]

So yeah, if it appears in a DC comic you can probably get it, but you're unlikely to be able to purchase the ability to turn off the sun (which you can in WT but not M&M).

Matter Manipulation. The limit is that you can't build a legal PC out of the gate with enough APs to affect the sun, but in theory you could build one up to that level.

[Scots Dragon]

It was simpler than Champions, more elegant than Villains & Vigilantes, and smarter than Marvel Super Heroes. I've never played M&M so I can't compare.


The two share a lot of DNA and honestly if you like one there's a good chance you'll like the other.

I started with Mutants & Masterminds, but of the older superhero role-playing games I'd definitely say that DC Heroes is best.

[Anonymouswizard]

Matter Manipulation. The limit is that you can't build a legal PC out of the gate with enough APs to affect the sun, but in theory you could build one up to that level.

Meanwhile you can just about get two Hard Dice in Suppress Nuclear Fusion (minmaxed to have the range and area to affect the sun) in WT, it only leaves you with about 80 points with a standard character but you can do it!

But yeah, not really an advantage or disadvantage, more 'WT just suggests giving more points'. It doesn't sound like DC Heroes is bad, just not better enough than in-printvgames to be worth seeking out (although it is at least cheaper than Nobilis).

[EggKookoo]

Meanwhile you can just about get two Hard Dice in Suppress Nuclear Fusion (minmaxed to have the range and area to affect the sun) in WT, it only leaves you with about 80 points with a standard character but you can do it!

But yeah, not really an advantage or disadvantage, more 'WT just suggests giving more points'. It doesn't sound like DC Heroes is bad, just not better enough than in-printvgames to be worth seeking out (although it is at least cheaper than Nobilis).

The base power of your DC game is a decision you make at the start. Or rather the GM makes about the campaign, I suppose. There's really nothing stopping you from making a super high-powered game and every player gets a ton of hero points to assign to powers. In such a campaign, you could make a sun-stopper right out of the gate. I guess you'd do this if the campaign was about stopping someone like Galactus or taking on Celestials directly.

Also, DC's dice roll system is open ended. You roll 2d10, and if you roll doubles you get to roll again and add the new numbers to your original result. If you keep rolling doubles, you keep going. So in theory even if you don't have enough nominal power to pull off something really huge, the dice could allow it to happen. Of course you can't control that.

I don't know how well DC holds up against modern games. A lot of praise comes from how well it stood out back in the day. It was pretty forward-thinking. Even the way the rules were written didn't assume you already played a lot of D&D, and broke free of a lot of D&Disms that a lot of other games fell into. For example, while you do have hit points in a sense in DC, you really have three different sets of HP, and they double as a measure of how hard you are to damage (so, a kind of inherent armor, maybe?). These are your Body, Mind, and Soul, which take damage from physical, mental, and magical attacks respectively (damage types!). If one or two of these are reduced to 0, you're unconscious. If all three go down, you're dead. Most heroes and villains were really high in one and relatively low in one, both offensively and defensively. It's an example of the kind of thing DC did very well -- a simple mechanic that added a lot of depth and personality.

[SimonMoon6]

It also apparently uses preset powers over a power building system,

Sort of. If it gives you the default versions of every power so that you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time you want to build a character with a standard superhero power (like "Heat Vision" or "Flame Project"). But it also gives you the option to add Bonuses or Limitations to those powers so that you can customize those powers if your particular character has a weird version of those powers.



I keep hearing this game brought up, and always with glowing reviews.

But I don’t actually know much about it-or what makes it better than something like M&M.

Can this thread be used to enlighten me?

There's so much to discuss.

First of all, there are nine ability scores. Three physical scores (DEX/STR/BODY), three mental scores (INT/WILL/MIND), and three social/mystic scores (Influence/Aura/Spirit). The six non-physical scores act the way that the three physical scores do in terms of their kind of combat. So, a charisma check might involve "attacking" someone's INFL/SPIRIT with your INFL/AURA, in the exact same way that a physical attack would involve attacking someone's DEX/BODY with your DEX/STR. The first stats are used to try to hit (or try to dodge) the attack, the second stat is used for damage, and the third stat is used for absorbing/ignoring damage.

For a lot of people, it seems weird that there are three charisma stats when a lot of people try to ignore the one-and-only charisma stat that some games provide, but it works incredibly well.

Ability scores are exponential (or logarithmic, depending on how you look at things). An average person has a score of 2 in every ability score. Each increase in an ability score doubles the effectiveness of that ability score. So a STR of 2 can lift 200 pounds (if I remember correctly), meaning that a STR of 3 can lift 400 pounds, a STR of 4 can lift 800 pounds, and a STR of 5 can lift 1600 pounds. This means that immensely powerful characters can be represented easily. The post-Crisis Superman only needs to have a 25 STR, while the pre-Crisis Superman only needs a 50 STR (for the most part... some people will quibble with this, saying he needs more).

Powers are rated in the same way. A person with Heat Vision of 5 does as much damage as a person with a STR of 5. Likewise, skills work the same way. A person with a Charisma skill of 6 is just as effective at influencing someone as a person with an Influence of 6 and Aura of 6. So, skill, ability scores, and powers are all using the same system to determine how well they work.

Every attack, skill check, or other action involving dice uses the same table to determine whether it works or not. Half the table is the "did you succeed at all (did you hit?)" half and the other half of the table is the "how successful were you (how much damage did you do)" table. The result is all based on one die roll. In physical combat, you'd be using DEX vs DEX in the first table and STR vs BODY in the second table.

So, everything is simple. Take for example, the ability to negate someone's powers. In a lot of games, that's a complicated mess. In DCHRPG, you have a rating for your "Neutralize" power. Maybe you have a Neutralize of 10. Then, you'd use your 10/10 (like DEX/STR) vs someone's power rating. If they have Heat Vision of 5, they'd defend with 5/5. And the "damage" you score is how many points of Heat Vision you take away from them. And if you want to neutralize several powers at once, it's just like punching several people at the same time, which is just a standard combat maneuver called Multi-Attack. You get some penalties to hit and to damage, but you have the chance to do damage to all of the targets (and you don't need some special advantage or feat to be able to do this).

Everything in the game is this easy. There are no complicated gritty parts to the game system, but the system covers everything well.

One more thing that I enjoy that others might not: the game is designed to simulate comic books. Often comic book writers have the "wrong" person win a fight, like when Spider-Man beat Firelord. The game system totally allows that to happen. "Hero Points" can be spent to give an advantage on an attack roll (or to give an advantage on defense). And the "exploding" dice means that sometimes people will roll a much higher number than one would expect, causing much more damage than should normally be possible. This is a feature, not a bug.

Any kind of character can be built. There's no limitation like in M&M where you can't have too much ability to dodge attacks if you already have a bunch of invulnerability. Now, some might call that a flaw as character creation can be a little... out of control if the GM isn't watching carefully and disallowing insane things. There are a lot of ways for a player to abuse the system if the GM doesn't disallow things. But the GM doesn't worry about not being able to create Superman or Count Nefaria or anyone else who is both hard to hit and hard to damage.