GOLDEN HEROES

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This Page Started 1999
Updated : Oct 2004

Golden Heroes

Role Playing Game

This is an excellent superhero RPG but is no longer published. It was written by English authors for Games Workshop in 1984, but when GW picked up the license for DC Heroes, they dropped GH. I understood that the contract allowed the copyright to revert to the authors, Simon Burley (remove NOSPAM Simon.Burley@NOSPAM.virgin.net)& Peter Haines. It was produced as a boxed game with soft-back books for the player and GM (the covers were designed like a comic). There were two modules as well and a GM screen. Some articles were printed in White Dwarf magazine at the time including scenarios and rules updates.

This is a great game with a unique British feel. I think this makes it very special, not just for a role-playing game but especially for a superhero game. It isn't the least bit twee or contrived. It has a very fresh, un-influenced style. It is much more like a para-normal / super-powered RPG, which is what an RPG should be, than a game aping Marvel or DC characters with Marvel/DC style. Golden Heroes allows you to build PCs very quickly without trapping you into mimicking comix characters you know already. The combat system is brilliant. There is also an original Campaign Ratings system, which rates PCs at the end of each game, on Public Status, Detective Points and Personal Status.

I have played Champions, but Champions is very cumbersome and laborious, in creating and playing characters. GH creates characters very quickly and easily, & makes your powers valid by obliging you to make an origin story for your PC. You can custom build your PC or, use random tables and lose the powers which don't fit. You are not loaded with drawbacks, as Champions does. There are some limits in the powers and some inconsistencies in GH. Interestingly, the game uses measurements in metres and kilos, rather than yards or pounds, unusual in 1984, but it makes calculations easier. Articles in White Dwarf did improve the tables and gave extra powers (web-slinging). The original game has a wide selection of powers, but could stand a good over-haul.

Better yet, Golden Heroes provides an astonishingly quick and easy combat system, using 'frames' (like the frames on the page of a comic), which produces fights exactly like the battles in comix. You can have long boxing matches, throw cars around etc., or you can have vicious, realistic fights, injuring or killing bystanders. As a player though, it is quite difficult to die. You can hit opponents easily (and they can hit you), you can do a lot of damage quickly and you can take a lot of damage. You can fight off thugs and goons easily, but a good opponent will provide a great challenge. You can be the last hero standing and just fight off the enemy until your partners get up again. It is really entertaining and the best combat system I have ever seen.

Combat is played in rounds, each PC has 4 frames in the round to do things in (lesser NPCs have 3 or 2 frames) and your opponents also have 4 frames. Movements take frames, a punch takes 1 frame, a shot takes 2 frames, special manoeuvres take 3 frames, e.g. swinging down into somebody. To dodge an attack takes the same frames as the attack and can avoid or halve the damage. Best of all, you can steal frames from the next round to use for dodging, but not for attacking. So you can survive this round, but start the next round with fewer frames. But then you can steal frames from the next round! And so on, till you get a break and can fight back or escape. This produces really thrilling, desperate fights, fantastic for a superhero game.

You have hit points for Hit To Coma and Hit To Kill. If you are punched, you take a lot of Coma damage but only a little Kill damage. If you are stabbed or shot, you get more Kill damage than Coma. You recover Coma damage quickly, with a few rounds rest, but Kill damage takes hours to recover. The GM can fool you with drawn-out, entertaining fights, or can shatter you with extreme power and aggression. Whichever style you play, the combat system is so open and flexible. In some games, I gave supreme opponents 6 or 8 frames a round, a big advantage and a shock to the players.

Golden Heroes also has a Campaign Ratings system. At the end of the playing session or story, the GM rates the players through several factors, Detective Work, Public Relations etc. This gets totalled up for a final score, the higher score, the better your rating.

The Campaign Ratings system is a bit awkward, but the result is used for things like Luck or influence. You don't have to actually succeed in your activities, just trying will earn you a good rating. This encourages good superhero ethics (!) and quickly downgrades bad players. We found it useful in a superhero campaign to encourage PCs to be nice to the public, instead of just lording it over them.

I haven't seen this idea in other games. It seems quite adaptable; if you can work out what is important in your campaign, you can guide players along. It seems better than things like rewarding with experience points, or character goals or whatever, but it can take a while to rate the players.

If you do find Golden Heroes anywhere, snap it up. It is one of the best RPGs I have used and you can adapt its ideas to other genres, especially the combat.

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