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You Gotta Have Character
A Review By DT Butchino
First and foremost, “You Gotta Have Character” is a sourcebook for Hero Games’ excellent Fifth Edition Hero System … though the contents could easily be used to inspire adventures and non-player characters in other systems. Let me also say that this book reprints almost two dozen characters from Jason Walters column of the same name that appears regularly in Digital Hero, the official e-zine of the Hero System. That all said, this book is an incredible asset for anyone running historical or time travel campaigns. Those who are familiar with Steve Jackson Games’ “GURPS Who’s Who” books will be most pleased with this collection of factual people in history (though some have a bit more dramatic treatment I believe).
The introduction to this particular book is a bit more entertaining than the common introduction. Within it, Walters humorously accounts his multiple requests to work on the columns with Darren Watts. Several of the highlights within the tale are footnoted and address at the bottom of each page. There are several books that could use an introduction like this, both gaming and non-gaming.
The entries of each character cover multiple pages and are decently illustrated as a whole. Each entry includes biographical information, game play information, stats and a bibliography. Also, in many of the entries, there are small tidbits associated with the character, such as quotations and era notes. I won’t spoil too much here, but I will say that the choice of characters, while a bit eclectic, give a good example of the flexibility of the Hero System, as well as presenting a good span of history in such a short amount of pages. I was mostly impressed with the content of each character. I’ve never been a huge historian, that’s more my wife’s area of expertise, but there are a few areas of history that I’ve fancied and, the characters that are from those areas, are well done and give more than enough information for someone to run a game. In fact, I would honestly recommend this book to anyone looking at time travel campaigns, as it offers some interesting figures that players could run into (or in some instances play).
The book itself weighs in at around 128 pages and carries Hero’s trademarked design within it, offering characters in the format that Fifth Edition Hero players have become accustomed to. My only gripe with the book is the organization. In all honesty, I would’ve liked the book if it were organized by timeline rather than the mish-mash arrangement that’s used. It’d be very handy to even have a timeline listed in the back of the book, but, unlike the majority of the Hero books, there isn’t even an index in the back.
Overall, I liked the book … but, as a Digital Hero subscriber, I also enjoyed the original articles that appeared in the e-zine. Of the characters listed, I really dug Miyamoto Musashi and Lord Byron, both of which were, in my honest opinion, well designed and faithful to what I know of the characters (as well as being a bit enlightening in some areas).
A Review By DT Butchino
First and foremost, “You Gotta Have Character” is a sourcebook for Hero Games’ excellent Fifth Edition Hero System … though the contents could easily be used to inspire adventures and non-player characters in other systems. Let me also say that this book reprints almost two dozen characters from Jason Walters column of the same name that appears regularly in Digital Hero, the official e-zine of the Hero System. That all said, this book is an incredible asset for anyone running historical or time travel campaigns. Those who are familiar with Steve Jackson Games’ “GURPS Who’s Who” books will be most pleased with this collection of factual people in history (though some have a bit more dramatic treatment I believe).
The introduction to this particular book is a bit more entertaining than the common introduction. Within it, Walters humorously accounts his multiple requests to work on the columns with Darren Watts. Several of the highlights within the tale are footnoted and address at the bottom of each page. There are several books that could use an introduction like this, both gaming and non-gaming.
The entries of each character cover multiple pages and are decently illustrated as a whole. Each entry includes biographical information, game play information, stats and a bibliography. Also, in many of the entries, there are small tidbits associated with the character, such as quotations and era notes. I won’t spoil too much here, but I will say that the choice of characters, while a bit eclectic, give a good example of the flexibility of the Hero System, as well as presenting a good span of history in such a short amount of pages. I was mostly impressed with the content of each character. I’ve never been a huge historian, that’s more my wife’s area of expertise, but there are a few areas of history that I’ve fancied and, the characters that are from those areas, are well done and give more than enough information for someone to run a game. In fact, I would honestly recommend this book to anyone looking at time travel campaigns, as it offers some interesting figures that players could run into (or in some instances play).
The book itself weighs in at around 128 pages and carries Hero’s trademarked design within it, offering characters in the format that Fifth Edition Hero players have become accustomed to. My only gripe with the book is the organization. In all honesty, I would’ve liked the book if it were organized by timeline rather than the mish-mash arrangement that’s used. It’d be very handy to even have a timeline listed in the back of the book, but, unlike the majority of the Hero books, there isn’t even an index in the back.
Overall, I liked the book … but, as a Digital Hero subscriber, I also enjoyed the original articles that appeared in the e-zine. Of the characters listed, I really dug Miyamoto Musashi and Lord Byron, both of which were, in my honest opinion, well designed and faithful to what I know of the characters (as well as being a bit enlightening in some areas).
