Golden Heroes

The Role-Playing Game of Superheroes

Review by Michael Dawson

written by Simon Burley and Pete Haines
Games Workshop US. 9110 E. Red Branch Rd, Columbia, MO 21045
Released. December 1984
Catalog No. 01012
Price $13.00
Complexity: Beginner
Solitaire Suitability: None

Golden Heroes is the first of Britain's entries into the rapidly expanding roleplaying game market. Since it comes from the established people at Games Workshop, it features high production values and some artwork from the UK's more noted comic illustrators. There is also artwork by some very poor amateur comic illustrators. The game offers players familiar concepts in character creation and combat resolution. The rules are highly abstracted and simplistic.

The system is boxed in two volumes that come with a pair of percentile dice and 3D6. The smaller first volume is the players' book and the larger second volume is the supervisor's (referee) book. The supervisor's book also contains a set of center page reference sheets designed to be pulled out for easy use.

Golden Heroes has not brought anything new to the field of comic book simulations. It is yet another random character and power generation system that, if anything, is less flexible and adaptable than several other systems already available. Throughout the system presentation, the editorial style of the rules is that the system should not be customized in the least; that there is actually no need to adapt the highly specific Golden Heroes rules to an individual campaign. The system fails to realize that some players like to run antiheroes, that others might want to custom design their characters before they start running them, or that an occasional referee might want to run a campaign that is set somewhere aside from a generic superheroic mirror of the real world.

If a ref or player wanted to do any one of these things, large chunks of the system would have to be abandoned or totally revised. The system does not even offer the obvious option of rerolling useless or contradictory powers that do not fit into the player's character conception. Anything that the player cannot fit into the conception must be forfeited. This encourages players to create outlandish and silly characters just so they can keep all of the powers that they have been stuck with by the random generation system.

If the buyer is looking for a system that allows only a specific main-stream comic campaign to function, and if the buyer wants a high level of abstraction in the moment-to-moment running of the campaign, then Golden Heroes could be a fair amount of fun. If this kind of system gets in the way of your role-playing or game enjoyment, then Golden Heroes is to be avoided.

The replay value of the system seems limited. in short order, the collection of mundane schedules and records necessary to keep track of how your character spends all of his time making maximum use of the incidental training possibilities would become tedious. Why not just find a system that does more to encourage role-playing? A player is tempted to get as much downtime or campaign time to pass as possible because the only way to improve the abilities of your character is to spend time practicing on the new skill.

There is no other kind of experience system aside from pure referee whim. Spending time talking and relating to other characters when not absolutely necessary delays the advancement of your character, so that in Golden Heroes role- playing is discouraged.

The rules are organized rationally for the most part, though putting the powers listings directly after the rest of character creation instead of at the back of the player's book behind combat would probably have been a better idea. There is also a great deal of repeated information from the player's book in the supervisor's book.

Questions of game balance and level of suspense maintained in the game are relatively moot, since in a role-playing game such considerations are really thrown off onto the scenario and the skills of the referee. However, the introductory scenario provided in the back of the supervisor's book is a much better written piece than the rest of the game system. There are a slightly above average number of opportunities for role-playing, and the situations in the scenarios are novel and confusing for new players.

Though no other credits are given, it seems as if the scenario was written by someone other than the person who wrote the game system.

If Dungeons and Dragons is considered the standard level of excellence in gaming systems, then Golden Heroes can be considered innovative. The authors have taken the unwieldy D&D combat resolution model that states that a heavily protected target is harder to hit than a lightly armored one and have added secondary systems that simulate comic book combat. However, this combat model is not the way it works in reality or in comic books. Heavy armor makes it easier to be hit and harder to be damaged.

A character who lacks highly resistant defenses is at a disadvantage in Golden Heroes. It is not really possible to create as effective a character who relies on not being hit as a main defense. The innovation in Golden Heroes is generally referred to as second generation innovation; it is the process of dealing with as many different character options as possible with a specific rule for each option rather than creating a single uniform resolution system that works for all situations in the same manner.

When looking at other rules outside of the combat section, the system's ability to really represent a comic book world begins to fade out. The authors assume that all characters will have secret identities, for example. Of course even in the mainstream comic world, there are famous characters who live very openly as Joe Smith, Superhero. Also, sections like the one on personal status seem to put the cart before the horse in deciding that if a character has low self esteem then he will have bad luck and his chances of fumbling are increased. it does not seem possible to have a character who has high self esteem and bad luck at the same time.

Golden Heroes is a system that does not guarantee parity between characters even when they are just starting out. There is no guarantee that two characters with the same number of powers will be near the same level of effectiveness in or out of a combat situation. These failings might not be noticed by a beginning player during the first few months of play, but sooner or later any group of players will almost certainly outgrow the low level of sophistication found in the system.

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