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Message: <blockquote data-quote="javadragon" data-source="post: 2009291" data-attributes="member: 6152">I have been looking for a good supers system for quite sometime now. I have looked at Vigilance, Deeds Not Words, 4 Color To Fantasy, Hero, Mayhem, Paragon, and Godlike. My search isn’t over yet. The GoodNatural 20 Press set out to create a toolkit for super heroes that could be "bolted" on to any existing D20 game. I think that they have succeeded. If you are looking for a way to add superheroes to your games look no further this is your dream product. Moreover, I think that this product will become immensely more useful with the release of D20 modern.They have also provided some very good guidelines for creating and running a superhero game. In fact Chapter 5 of this book would be on my recommended list of reading materials for any new GM’s looking at running a supers game for the first time. The background system is interesting and innovative. I think it is a very nice way of getting new GM’s to use a PC’s background in their stories, which is something that many new GM’s have problems with.Over all production quality is very nice. It has a finished and polished feel of a print product with only a few minor errors here and there. Artwork and layout are both well done. My only problem is the small margins. If you plan on printing this thing out and binding it you should be okay. If you want to hole punch it or clip it you will have a harder time but this is just a minor nitpick.So why hasn’t my search ended you ask? Well Read on….The BadAs I stated before this system is a generic toolkit that is designed to be added to any existing D20 game system. However, like most things generic it works well for most things but is not great at anyone thing. In my opinion 4 Color To Fantasy fails to capture the feel of the comic genre. The first thing that contributes to this problem is the lack of an "energy" concept. This means that a character can maintain his force field or shot energy blasts all day long with no adverse side effects. I know that a lot of people don’t like the concept of “I only have 5 eye blasts left in me!” but in the comics quite often characters are pushed to their limits (i.e. “I can’t maintain my force field much longer!”). In all honesty I was really hoping for a system that made endurance checks for prolonged power use just like prolonged physical activity does.This book also seems to ignore many of the common comic hero types. One stated reason for this is that they didn’t want to recover stuff that already exists in D20. The idea being why create a magic system when many already exist. I have no problem with this line of thinking at all. However, what if you want to do something like the punisher? Your existing D20 might have great firearm rules for "Joe Six Pack" but many systems will lack the rules for the John Woo style gun toting warrior.  It would also be nice to see some guidelines for creating an armored hero. You can do it with the rules but it is not immediately obvious how to go about it. Even just an “Armored” template would have been nice.The UglyMy big complaint here is simply that many common powers/concepts from the genre are missing. Now hold on you say, they are releasing a big book of powers (might not be the real name). They didn’t want to release a pdf that went into triple digits. They say that people don’t like large pdf’s. Now I can only see three lines of thinking behind this:1)    Some people don’t like reading more than a hundred pages on a computer screen. I don’t see how this problem is solved. If you buy the supplement you will have read just as many pages on the screen in the end.2)    Some people don’t want to print out that many pages. See my reasoning in point one. How does this change? If you print both you products what’s the difference?3)    They would have to charge more than people want to spend. Once again see above. Now for missing concepts:1)    Duplicating your self! Common this is pretty common.2)    Usable against others. I honestly cannot believe that this wasn’t included. Just about every other (if not every other) generic toolkit has this.3)    “Dynamic Powers”. For example if you have telekinesis you may want it to use it as a force field. But if you divert power to your force field you can no longer lift as much right?ConclusionIf you want to add some powers to an existing D20 product it’s great and deserves a 5/5. However, if you wanted to run a comic genre game it doesn’t quite seem to capture the "Feel". For a straight superhero game it’s only a 3/5.</blockquote>

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