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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2010524" data-attributes="member: 18387">The Basics:  Bold Costumes, Black Hearts is a supplement for Cryptosnark's superhero game Deeds Not Words.  It is a book of stats and back stories for supervillains, suitable for use with any campaign. It's sort of a Monster Manual for superhero games.  There is no specific Cryptosnark Universe or "continuity" so these villains be plugged into virtually any game. The book is divided into three sections. The first contains examples of  particular villainous archetypes, fleshed out with individual stats, personalities and back-stories. There is, for example, a giant, super-strong thug, a super-thief who commits crimes out of boredom, an alien invader from another dimension, a  probability-manipulating psychopath with no goals beyond getting rich and  being left alone, a Doctor-Doom style world-conquering Arch-Villain, and so forth. There's even a Batman-style lunatic with no superpowers and a costume based around a weird obsession (he even leaves clues for the heroes to follow, just like  most of the Caped Crusader's foes) The reader is encouraged to use these archetypal characters as inspiration for creating their own villains. Although these are generic villains in one sense, and it would be easy to customize any of them and give them  names of your own, they are all superbly well realized NPCs, at least as good as anything I might ever be able to dream up myself, and you'll probably want to use them as-is, right out of the book. They all have completely different goals, styles, objectives and methods.  You could find antagonists for a grim and gritty game, a lighthearted four-color romp or anything in between.The next section contains six supervillain teams, organized in increasing order of toughness and lethality.  The first one is a colorful but non-superpowered girl gang, who are a lot like Charlie's Angels or the Dirty Pair gone horribly wrong.  The last, most terrible group is a hilarious cabal of aged villains from the 1930s, who while old and feeble, have so much experience and so many levels that they can give the toughest imaginable group of PCs a tough time (that's a fantastic, original idea, by the way, and one the author uses for all its worth).The third section of the book contains write-ups for solo villains who don't really fit the archetypes listed above.  They're a mixed bag of character concepts, at all different levels of power.  You have to pick through the material more carefully here-these extra characters aren't listed in any particular order of strength, but there's lots of good stuff here for just about any campaign.In addition to listing stats and personalities for about 70 evil NPC antagonists, the book contains some new character classes for villainous NPCs only (this works really well in a class/level based system like Deeds Not Words).  There is also a (hilarious) chart for generating random henchmen, notes on Evil Schemes and a collection of villainous quotes out of literature.  What I  Liked:  Priced at $6, this book is far bigger and far, far better than it has any right to be.  I have come to expect a high level of quality and economic prices from Cryptosnark Games, but this one is still a real find.   All of the NPCs in this book are distinctive, intriguing and cleverly thought out. The Archetypal characters are properly Iconic, but cleverly individualized.  Even Bulkington, the super-huge, super-strong thug is memorable and unique.  Doctor Deadline, the Batman-style obsessive villain, is the freshest and most interesting version of this tired old archetype I have ever seen in a role playing game.  It's a great idea to organize the supervillain teams in ascending order of lethality.  I've never seen this dome before, and it really gives it the  kind of structure that so many collections or supervillains lack..  The teams themselves are all built around strong unifying concepts, and all of them but the "War Saints" are highly original as well. They all have utterly distinct flavors, motives and styles.  The best two teams are probably the clique of elderly jazz-era villains who commit crimes to relieve the boredom of retirement and the creepy, ghoulish "Nocturne". The individual team members are, by and large, as well fleshed out as the solo villains and could easily be adapted for use on their own.  This book would have been worth twice the price for the section on teams alone.It is a wise choice to give us "plug and play" NPCs who aren't the product of any particular campaign background.  Most Superhero GMs have their own game worlds and are looking for materials they can smoothly integrate.   The book is also much better organized than most published collections of villains.  By looking at the names of the archetypes, you can easily find the right NPC for the sort of plot you have in mind.  The writing style is clear, literate and witty.  The author can be very funny when he wants to, but doesn't get carried away with it.  He seems to be widely read, but isn't a snob about  superhero comics. He clearly loves and respects the genre and knows what makes it tick.  The list of villainous quotes is a great touch and it also shows the depth of the author's understanding.  What I didn't like:  some of the extra villains in the third section seem a little rushed and under-written, and there aren't any illustrations for them.  Not that they aren't well-thought out-in fact every one of them is a strong concept.  They're just brief.  I understand that a scrappy little game company like Cryptosnark can't always afford as much art as they'd like (in fact the low production values are part of Cryptosnark's charm) but it still would have been great to see character portraits on one or two of them. In Conclusion: Bold Costumes, Black Hearts is one of the best supplements of its kind that I have ever seen.  It would be amazing coming from one of the major houses, at four times the price.  Coming from tiny little Cryptosnark, at a mere $5, it's nothing short of astounding.  At this price, the question is whether you can afford n</blockquote>

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