DC Heroes Role-Playing Game Gets New Reprint from Cryptozoic

Cryptozoic Entertainment is reprinting the classic DC Heroes Role-Playing Game to celebrate the RPG's 40th anniversary. A Kickstarter pre-launch page for the new "archival edition" of DC Heroes went live earlier this week, with Cryptozoic promising a "faithful reissue" of the original game line with upgrades and exclusive dice. From the looks of a promo image for the new project, it appears that the line will be published in a single volume.

DC Heroes was originally designed by Greg Gorden and published by Mayfair Games. The game uses a 2d10 system to resolve checks, with players consulting a table to determine the success or failure of checks. Additionally, the game's attribute point system was logarithmic in nature to allow for the game to handle the immense range of powers within the DC Universe. Three editions of the game was published between 1985 and 1993, with the game incorporating various contemporaneous comics events such as Crisis on Infinite Earths and Death of Superman.

No launch date for the Kickstarter has been announced. A full description of the project can be seen below:

DC Heroes is an innovative and award-winning role-playing game that was first published in 1985. It allows you and your friends to take on the roles of iconic Super Heroes like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg, or to create heroes of your own. The object of the game is to create brand-new stories pitting these heroes against The Joker, Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Sinestro, or any of the hundreds of other villains who threaten the DC Universe!

Over eight years of product releases, DC Heroes produced dozens of adventures and sourcebooks, many featuring contributions from some of DC’s finest writers and artists of the 1980s—Jack Kirby, Alan Moore, Denny O’Neil, George Perez, John Byrne, and many others. Thousands of gamers and comics fans are still playing DC Heroes even though it’s been unavailable for decades.

To celebrate DCH’s 40th anniversary, we’re reprinting the line in definitive archival editions. Whether you’ve never experienced DCH before or you’re a long-time fan looking to plug the holes in your collection, we’ve got you covered.

 

[Greg K]

By the way, if anyone is interested in the full product lists for DC Heroes 1e, 2e, and 3e, here is an index

 

[GDGD]

I still own all my DC Heroes books, which is a testament to my admiration of the game, since I've long-since purged most of my older gaming materials. I would say, however, that by modern standards the system is a bit clunky. It suffers from a forced symmetry that doesn't always work.

Here's an example: In DC Heroes, there are 9 attributes, 3 each for physical, mental, and mystical. In each set of attributes, one is your acting value, the next your effect value, and the last your resisting value. Sounds logical, but it produces attributes like Influence and Aura. What's the difference? Well, Influence is a character's ability to influence others, while Aura is the extent to which that influence actually does anything. That's an awfully nuanced distinction to require two separate attributes. I'd love to see the example of someone with high Influence and low Aura or vice versa.

Super happy to see the game back in print, but I'd be happier if someone took on the task of modernizing the system. Fundamentally, the system has two earth-shakingly amazing ideas. The first is using an exponential progression rather than linear. Someone with a Strength of 4 is twice as strong as someone with a Strength of 3. So when you see that Superman has a Strength of 25, it gives you some idea of how cosmically strong he is, and also how elegant it is to fit that sort of power scale into a manageable number range. The second is defining every value in the game using the same metric, called APs (and I mean everything). So you aren't dealing with kilograms, kilometres, kilometres per hour, metres per second squared, you are dealing with APs. How fast can I run? It's your Dexterity in APs. How much can I lift? It's your Strength in APs. If you preserved those two ideas and streamlined the system around them, you'd have a truly amazing RPG.

Random other thoughts:

• I think the rights to DC Heroes is and always has been owned by DC Comics, not Mayfair Games, so it would be interesting to know how Cryptozoic managed to get a license.
• Pulsar Games Inc. published a version of the game, with all references to DC characters stripped out, called Blood of Heroes.
• Mayfair used the DC Heroes system in another game called Underground back in the 90s. I recall reading but not playing it; my memory is that it was a worthy homage to the distinctly subversive comics of the era, like Hard Boiled and Marshall Law

 

[dbolack]

I think the rights to DC Heroes is and always has been owned by DC Comics, not Mayfair Games, so it would be interesting to know how Cryptozoic managed to get a license.

I know over the years this has been the subject of some debate - the ownership of the game product may have been resolved. Still, I've never seen a proper authoritative account from Mayfair come out and say that the game was definitively owned by DC versus the assumption based on the awkwardly worded copyright statement.

• Pulsar Games Inc. published a version of the game, with all references to DC characters stripped out, called Blood of Heroes.
• Mayfair used the DC Heroes system in another game called Underground back in the 90s. I recall reading but not playing it; my memory is that it was a worthy homage to the distinctly subversive comics of the era, like Hard Boiled and Marshall Law

Ray was the primary or Sole author on that bad boy.

 

[Autumnal]

Is there a reason to go 1e over 2e?

Much better maps and setting detail in 1e. Famously, Alan Moore used the first edition Gotham City sourcebook in the issue of Swamp Thing where he (Swamp Thing, not Moore) tears through Gotham City neighborhood by neighborhood. The map has a couple dozen neighborhoods, each described in some usable detail.

The second edition map is a blob with half a dozen vague areas and a bunch fewer specific locations.

And it’s like that across the line. I found the 2e books consistent letdowns, and shifted to getting them only when they covered something 1e hadn’t, even with pre-Crisis vs post-Crisis hurdles.

 

[JEB]

I think the rights to DC Heroes is and always has been owned by DC Comics, not Mayfair Games, so it would be interesting to know how Cryptozoic managed to get a license.

Cryptozoic has the license to produce the DC Deck-Building Game (as well as some other DC merchandise), which might mean they have general rights to DC tabletop products.

 

[Greg K]

Both DC and Greg Gorden have claimed ownership of the system mechanics in the past (with current Pulsar's licensing of the mechanics being caught in the middle). As I understand it, both DC and Greg Gorden are involved. Cryptozoic, as mentioned, has ties with DC and Greg Gorden has been working alongside with Ray Winninger.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've been digging on the internet about the different DC RPGs over the years and . . . I find it amusing that each time Mayfair, West End, or Green Ronin published a version of the game, DC rebooted their comics universe making the setting of the game "obsolete".

To be fair, DC seems to reboot their universe every time a new TV season starts.

 

[Autumnal]

If I recall correctly, DC hasn’t been able to go five years without a major reset since Crisis. At some point ya gotta consider laying foundations differently, and building differently on them.

 

[teitan]

Cryptozoic has the license to produce the DC Deck-Building Game (as well as some other DC merchandise), which might mean they have general rights to DC tabletop products.

Yep precisely. They saw an opportunity and negotiated with DC to do this project.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I wonder how the Mayfair DC Heroes game compares to the two other licensed DC games, West End's DC Universe and Green Ronin's DC Adventures (based on the Mutants & Masterminds game).

I own digital copies of DC Adventures, but not the other two. Never played any of them . . .

All three are pretty different given the second was derived from D6 Legend and the third from Mutants and Masterminds (and though it predated it, pretty much the third edition of that).