Review of Digital Hero #15

[Secret Master]

Minions:

Since nobody else in the wide, prose-heavy world of Digital Hero readership has seen fit to review this fabulous issue of our beloved magazine, Secret Master has taken it upon himself to cease his plans for world conquest and emerge from his hidden lair in snowy antarctica so that he might comment upon the brilliance exhibited by several authors in Digital Hero #15.

When Last We Left our Heros: Fearless Leader Steve Long gives everyone excellent reasons they should buy the upcoming books Monsters Minions & Marauders and Alien Wars. I am especially looking forward to Alien Wars: To Serve Man anybody?

Heroglyphs: Since our beloved HERO rules system is not an especially complex one, Fearless Leader Steve Long splits DEX into three separate attributes for a little extra fine tuning.

You Gotta Have Character: A work of genius, or at least by one.

Dreadwood, Missouri: See above.

Battleforge: Fellow Traveler W. Jason Allen provides us with a useful background NPC who straddles the line between hero and villain. If you're a master villain in need of someone to manufacture high powered magical contraptions, look this guy up. If you happen to be a master villain who is also Dark Seraph, better look out!

Ghost Stories: Fellow Traveler Michael Surbrook provides us with a thoughtful overview of several types of ghosts, as well as how they can be used in our campaigns. Well researched.

Baron Roberto: Comrade W. Ross Watson provides us with a fine 1000 point slacker/ Master Villain (tm) who would rather coattail a genuine world conquering mastermind than do his own work. We all know guys like this, don't we?

Secret Origins: Commissar Michael Satran's article made me laugh so hard that almost swallowed my own identity concealing, reflective, flash-defense-providing face mask! Details the slightly outdated but powerful villain team The Alliance of Evil as they attempt to adjust to the harsh realities of the 21st Century. Fearless Leader Darren Watts, I think we have just found another recruit for the Apes of Wrath!

Secret Master

[BoloOfEarth]

Egads! I've been scooped!

Sorry for not posting my normal review earlier. I've been working on something I think I'm going to submit to Digital Hero, and didn't finish typing my review. (It's about half done.) Hopefully I'll have it tonight or tomorrow.

[watson]

Great review, Secret Master. Good to see someone is keeping the reviews alive

Also, I'm glad you enjoyed Baron Roberto.

For those of us who don't know, who or what are the Apes of Wrath?

[Darren Watts]

Originally posted by watson


For those of us who don't know, who or what are the Apes of Wrath?

At Dundracon '03, IIRC, several of us were playing in Derek Hiemforth's Super-Friends game. Dan Reiley was playing Grodd, and as the Legion of Doom was taking its customary pounding from the heroes, Derek asked him what Grodd was doing. Dan surveyed the battlemap sourly, seeing that most of his allies were captured or unconscious, and replied, "Thinking about forming my OWN villain team." This started us off on a series of jokes about all-gorilla teams, and who Grodd would recruit (like Mallah, and the Super-Apes, etc.), and we started batting around team names: Primate Force, etc. Derek, who'd patiently waited during all of this silliness, said quietly, " I've got it. The Apes of Wrath."

Well, we all liked this name so much that we decided it needed to be part of the Champions Universe, so Jason and I keep agitating to make a villain team with that name. (And besides, now that M&M has an all-talking-gorilla villain team, wouldn't it be a great excuse for a crossover? Dr. Silverback meets Chimpanzoom in...Apes of Wrath!!!) dw

[Susano]

Originally posted by Secret Master
Ghost Stories: Fellow Traveler Michael Surbrook provides us with a thoughtful overview of several types of ghosts, as well as how they can be used in our campaigns. Well researched.

There will be several follow-ups to this article. Expect to see similar material for vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and so on in the near future.

(This was all part of one big book I did for pre-DOJ HERO y'see...)

[Mephron]

Originally posted by Secret Master
Secret Origins: Commissar Michael Satran's article made me laugh so hard that almost swallowed my own identity concealing, reflective, flash-defense-providing face mask! Details the slightly outdated but powerful villain team The Alliance of Evil as they attempt to adjust to the harsh realities of the 21st Century. Fearless Leader Darren Watts, I think we have just found another recruit for the Apes of Wrath!

I was there when Mike - who is my GM - started designing the Alliance, and paused, and said, "They need a brain in a jar." And he stared at me and said, "Build it."

I'm pleased to be responsible for what most people consider the most useless/stupidest knowledge skill of all time. And I'll once again hit him with a car and tell him to get an account here so he can read this stuff.

[bcholmes]

Originally posted by Mephron
I was there when Mike - who is my GM - started designing the Alliance, and paused, and said, "They need a brain in a jar."

Pick me! Pick me!

"In school, all the other kids laughed at me because I was just a brain in a tank."

[BoloOfEarth]

Okay, I guess I’ll chime in now. Sorry for the atrocious delay.

This was a fun issue to read, very entertaining and informative. It was nice to see something from the Western genre (Dreadwood), modern-day mysticism (Ghost Stories), as well as something that could be used in Ancient Egypt (Hatshepsut). Mind you, I’ve never run anything in those genres, but all were well worth the price of admission.

Cover: A very nicely done cover by Jeff Ward. I especially liked the misty background

When Last We Left Our Heroes: HERO continues to fill out its product line in Fantasy and Sci-Fi with two more sourcebooks. Both sound quite good.

HEROglyphs: I really liked this optional way of doing DEX, primarily because it is remarkably close to how some friends and I changed DEX for a dimension-hopping HERO game. The stat names were different, but other than that it was pretty close to Steve’s text. It worked pretty well, too, even without changing costs from 1/1 point.

You Gotta Have Character (Hatshepsut): Another excellent adaptation of a historical figure from the esteemed Jason Walters. IMO, it had a perfect balance of historical accuracy and minor adaptations for game usability. I especially liked the story text at the start; it was entertaining and gave a nice view of her personality.

Dreadwood, Missouri: This was one of my two favorite articles in this issue. I’ll probably never run it, but it read like good historical fiction with admittedly not-nice protagonists for the players to run. The adventure seems like the Wild West meets The Gauntlet meets a half-dozen horror movies, and seems like it would be fun (if a bit twisted) to play. I really liked the semi-subtle touches, like the names of the tavern and store.

I’m assuming the Medicine Man’s objects are NND Does Body (the text doesn’t say that, but I’d run them that way).

At first glance it seems like the characters are completely outgunned, but I noticed that each area gives a different PC or pair of PCs a chance to shine, especially if they distribute the Medicine Man’s objects with care and approach things properly.

The artwork really impressed me. Did Tom Miskey do any illustrations for other HERO work? If not, a hearty welcome to the HERO art crew, Tom! The character illos were very nice.

The map was pretty simple and straightforward; I’d have liked details inside the buildings, though it might be difficult to include many details without cluttering it too much.

Battleforge: An interesting supporting character for a Champions game, with obvious uses for interacting with player characters and NPC villains alike. I wish I’d seen him a few years ago, when one of the player characters in my game was a mage and the players ran into Dark Seraph enough times to develop a deep emnity. He would have been an interesting ally of opportunity.

The picture was good, too. I liked the runes on the sword and the flame details on the armor.

Ghost Stories: More excellent stuff from Michael Surbrook. While I’ve heard of ghosts and poltergeists (who hasn’t?), I’d never heard of the Old Hag before. All three were well done, and the artwork on each was also good.

I did have one question: why the BOECV on the Poltergeist Effect (TK), especially since it’s No Range? Objects don’t have EGO, so this seemed an odd Advantage to me.

Baron Roberto: A quite powerful master supervillain, indeed frighteningly powerful. I can’t think of many (other that Dr. Destroyer) for whom he could be the right-hand man, though I’m sure some people out there have home-grown world-conquering baddies that would qualify. I liked the special effects of his visible mind link to the Magician.

At the risk of complicating him, I think I might change his hyperkinetic attacks to multi slots, then add an invisible hyperkinetic force wall just for fun. Or perhaps add it outside the multipower. Just an idea to give the players even more fits than they’re already likely to have when they meet the Baron.

Secret Origins: My other favorite article, this came across as just tongue-in-cheek enough to make me want to include them in my Champions universe. (You know the villain team is a keeper when the players begin poking fun at them, like “The Flowers… of Doctor Brutallo!”) I already am making plans to introduce them, probably following the “Digging Up the Dead” scenario mentioned in the text.

The characters were all quite entertaining individually, and I can’t wait to run them both as individuals (against individual PCs) and as a group. Plans are already in the works…

Of the character illustrations (which were all good), I liked the good Doctor’s pic best, with the Armageddon Mind a close second.

[Susano]

Originally posted by BoloOfEarth
Ghost Stories: More excellent stuff from Michael Surbrook. While I’ve heard of ghosts and poltergeists (who hasn’t?), I’d never heard of the Old Hag before. All three were well done, and the artwork on each was also good.

I did have one question: why the BOECV on the Poltergeist Effect (TK), especially since it’s No Range? Objects don’t have EGO, so this seemed an odd Advantage to me.

BOECV allowed the power to work while the character is Desolid for starters. It also makes it work in an Indirect manner in some applications (like making light bulbs spin inside an lamp). And it would affect the DEX, not the EGO of objects.

[Mephron]

Originally posted by BoloOfEarth
Secret Origins: My other favorite article, this came across as just tongue-in-cheek enough to make me want to include them in my Champions universe. (You know the villain team is a keeper when the players begin poking fun at them, like “The Flowers… of Doctor Brutallo!”)

Just to give context to this: A female super-scientist in the second team to encounter them was badly injured in the next fight (not with the AoE, but someone else). And in the hospital room, Gadget Queen awakens, painfully, and looks over to find... a flower arrangement. Checks the card. It's from Dr. Brutallo.

"Wait, You mean I received... the FLOWERS of Dr. Brutallo!?"

(I'm also going to note that the first team he encountered found that he was travelling in a SUV for a bit. When we tracked it down, we figured we'd make it harder for him to get away. So we let the air out of the tires.

"We've flattened... the TIRES of Dr. Brutallo!!".)

So yes, he shows up and references to the X of Dr. Brutallo go fast and furious. He got punched hard (58/18 on 10D6!) by the team brick and someone said, "And now, I will roll... the KNOCKBACK of Dr. Brutallo!!"

May you have as much fun as we do.

[Samurai007]

Originally posted by BoloOfEarth

The artwork really impressed me. Did Tom Miskey do any illustrations for other HERO work? If not, a hearty welcome to the HERO art crew, Tom! The character illos were very nice.

Thanks a lot Bolo! It means a great deal to hear that someone appreciates my work!

I previously did some interior illustrations for DH #8 and 11, as well as the cover for DH #9 (the 3 superheroes leaping out of the Hero book). The pictures for DH #15 were a real rush job... 11 pictures in 7 days, start to finish, so I'm glad they turned out ok. Now that I've shown I can meet very tight deadlines, I'm hoping for some work in an actual book (hint, hint... )

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Samurai007
Now that I've shown I can meet very tight deadlines, I'm hoping for some work in an actual book (hint, hint... )

Well you deserve it because you art is very nice. I love the pics you did in this issue, and the onces you did for the Terran Empire articles a few months back too. Very professional clean crisp artwork. I hope to see more of your work in the future, even if you are a heathen SAS player.

[starblaze]

I liked the issue alot myself.
My favorite has to be the Armageddon mind, not only because he is really powerful but because he actually hands out pamphlets about why Dr. Brutallo must rule the world.

I can't wait to use that in a game.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Originally posted by Darren Watts
At Dundracon '03, IIRC, several of us were playing in Derek Hiemforth's Super-Friends game. Dan Reiley was playing Grodd, and as the Legion of Doom was taking its customary pounding from the heroes, Derek asked him what Grodd was doing. Dan surveyed the battlemap sourly, seeing that most of his allies were captured or unconscious, and replied, "Thinking about forming my OWN villain team." This started us off on a series of jokes about all-gorilla teams, and who Grodd would recruit (like Mallah, and the Super-Apes, etc.), and we started batting around team names: Primate Force, etc. Derek, who'd patiently waited during all of this silliness, said quietly, " I've got it. The Apes of Wrath."

Actually, I think it was at KublaCon 2003.

Derek "Dear god, what mischief has my innocent comment wrought?" Hiemforth

[Galadorn]

Originally posted by BoloOfEarth

Cover: A very nicely done cover by Jeff Ward. I especially liked the misty background

I agree

Ghost Stories: More excellent stuff from Michael Surbrook. While I’ve heard of ghosts and poltergeists (who hasn’t?), I’d never heard of the Old Hag before.

The hag is mostly from Russian myth: Babba Yaga and her Dancing Hut. There are other Hag stories too: kinda the Russian version of a witch - but with much more physical muscle.

I really loooooove the hag art: Good job David.