Golden Heroes

Trends in game design tend to mirror the underlying themes of popular culture. Many current games emphasise angst, emotional intensity, and the darker side of life and human nature. But there are some of us who can still remember when roleplaying was fun, pure and simple. Golden Heroes was a game from that era.

In return for parting with your hard-earned you received the oversized box typical of the time, with the standard two-book format game looking hopelessly lost at the bottom. You had your Player's Book, and you had your Supervisor's Book. (Like many other games companies, GW have tried and failed to come up with an alternative to the good old-fashioned Gamemaster) Oh, and not forgetting the cheap and cheerful set of dice you always got with games in the eighties, the ones where you had to highlight the numbers in crayon so you could read them.

All in all, no great shakes as far as presentation goes, but then I tend to think that too much importance is placed on the way a game looks nowadays, when it's the content that really matters.

Arriving as it did alongside other superhero RPGs based on certain well-known comics series, GH at once offered something a bit different. For a start, it didn't make the assumption that you would play established (American) heroes. Instead you were encouraged to set up your own homegrown campaign, using familiar settings and background your players would understand. In addition you got an Appendix of pregenerated villains (including the impossibly hard Blacksun), and a nifty little introductory scenario - Crossfire - to get you straight into the action.

Character creation used a simple random system, with one important proviso. Your hero required a detailed rationale, explaining the origins of his powers, and just why he'd decided to use them to blast bad guys and save the world instead of going into showbiz. In order to demonstrate how to make positive use of a rationale to create an interesting hero, the designers provided eight sample characters, all derived from the same seven random powers. Occasionally skills and powers were discarded where they didn't fit the rationale. You couldn't simply have a random assortment of superpowers, there had to be a reason behind every ability. It sounds obvious, but not every game went to such lengths to emphasise the need to rationalise your character, especially back then.

Combat, always a central feature of any superhero RPG, was simple and easy to learn. A number of elements combined to make GH combat a tactical challenge, and not just a number-crunching exercise. Rounds were composed of four Frames, with important characters (heroes and powerful supervillains) utilising all four, and lesser mortals three or even two for the man in the street. With complex tasks, like using a superpower, requiring 2 Frames (an Action), and mundane tasks just one, you had to think carefully about how you made use of your round. And a system of finite Energy Points prevented the use of a powerful Energy Attack every round. Although it was simple, everything about the system encouraged creativity, and that's what made the game fun.

Golden Heroes' most notable innovation, however, was its system of Campaign Ratings. Rather than using experience points or levels, your hero was rated according to performance in three main categories: Public Status, Detective Points, and Personal Status. Each had five sub-divisions, covering elements of a hero's life such as Public Relations, Heroism, Contacts, Conscience, and Success Rate. As well as providing a constantly evolving personal roleplaying guide for each player, the Campaign Ratings were used by the Supervisor as an aid to judging the outcome of a range of encounters. If you had a high Public Status, people would listen to you, and treat you with respect; low Detective Points might make vital clues hard to come by; while Personal Status reflected how the hero coped with his dual life, and might affect his work, friends and relationships. It was a well thought-out and workable system, and a similar idea can be seen in Chaosium's Pendragon game, governing Personality Traits and Passions.

Initially well-supported by supplements, as well as numerous articles and scenarios in White Dwarf, Golden Heroes was all too soon a victim of the general decline in interest which saw superhero games slide into obscurity. Which was a pity, as it was a simple, enjoyable game that recognised the importance of good roleplaying and character development, it just didn't allow them to get in the way of the fun.

On a personal note, it was the first game I ever played in, and will always remain special to me for that reason alone.