Superhero 2044

Superhero 2044
By Donald Saxon
Gamescience, Inc. 1977

Availability is only through third-party - EBay and the like.  As far as I know, the game has been out of publication since the late '70s.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Superhero 2044 is certainly one of the first three RPGs that I played as a kid.  It might be the first but I am pretty sure it was the second.  That being said, I only ever had photocopies of the equipment lists, map of Inguria, and most of the character creation rules.  The rest we just made up.  We were awesome like that.

This is also my first review by request! Go me!

Casting our minds back to the summers of the early 80s, a group of kids might be found playing a game of superheroes and supervillains.  The average game went a lot like this:  a few PCs enter a Circle K to rob it.  A shoot out with the police happens.  The PCs, if they survived, were now wanted criminals, who went on a crime spree, knocking off liquor stores, banks, convenience stores, until they were inevitably killed or captured.  On a couple of occasions, enough money was acquired to build cool vehicles.  I remember that a character of mine built an AT-AT and Mikey's character built a hovercraft.  Of course, none of knew what a hovercraft was, so the vehicle was more airplane than anything.  Obviously, characters are supposed to be heroes.  Since we didn't have the rulebook, we did not know that and chose to play villains.  

Mikey (Michael Thayer) had a couple of older brothers and one of them must have owned the rulebook, which is where we acquired the photocopies.  These 5 or 6 pages of a rulebook kept us into superhero games until the yellow box of Marvel Superheroes came out.

This review is based on a pdf that somehow appeared on my hard drive.  I cannot confirm where it might have come from but some deviant obviously found it online and sneakily put it on my computer.  Reading the pdf makes me realize how little of the game we were following.  Honestly, our games were better than the way the game is supposed to be played.

Before I start the actual review, I must state that I have a serious dislike of superheroes nowadays.  I loathe those ridiculous superhero movies.  My knowledge of comic books stops around 1988 or '89.  I will endeavor to not let my dislike color the review of this game.

The book is 44 pages long.  It was typed on either a typewriter or a really early word processor, if they had been invented by 1977.  The pdf is difficult to read, most likely due to the poor scan.

After the introduction by Mr. Saxon, the book jumps into the history and setting of the game from the [then] current 1970s through 2044, when the game is set.  There was a nuclear war, which lasted six days.  Some alien fellows came to earth called the Formians, some people, called Uniques, developed super powers; the remaining governments after the war created the Science Police, who are tasked with suppressing anything that will lead to another nukefest.  

The game takes place on the island of Inguria, which is an island in the pacific that survived the Six Day War unscathed.  There is a few high-tech city on the island, a port, an active volcano, and apparently a boat load of superheroes.  The New Whole Commonwealth of Nations is the remaining worldwide organization (basically the United Nations, after a worldwide catastrophe).  The island itself is a a republic, run by a senate with an elected president.  There are three major political parties, which include the New Republicans (pro individual rights in public but curtail individual rights behind the scenes; they are also really into eugenics and enjoy having Uniques around, they are big spenders of public funds, and have pushed through a bill to allow the buying and selling of human body parts).  Opposing the New Republicans are Citizens' Rights Party (pro technology, anti Unique and anti Formian).  The last party is Popular Progressive Party, which is very small, and their major plank is to oppose genetic manipulation and to increase the world's population after the massive depopulation due to the war.  

The next five pages of the book detail the island itself, and the cities upon it.  The major cities are Bloomburg, Martinstown, and Nash City.  There are a couple of maps of the island and some information on newspapers, the streets, schools, arts, and finishing with a place called the Superhero Shop, which the GM can stock with tech which he wants his players to have access, plus, it doesn't state this, but the tights have have to purchased somewhere, I guess, and why not buy your spandex while also buying your super space laser X duplo-beam!

Character creation takes three pages (I had the first two as a kid).  Characters are statted out with 140 points divided between Vigor (meat hit points and used to avoid disease), Stamina (melee combat and running), Endurance (fatigue, torture resistance, poison resistance), Mentality (memory and intelligence), Charisma (the usual), Ego (mental attacks and resistance), and Dexterity (also, the usual).  A player then has to pick one of three types, which modifies the ability scores.  The three types are Uniques, which have actual powers (Superman, Spiderman), Toolmasters, who use equipment to fight crime (Iron Man, maybe Batman), and Ubermensch, who use training and physical skills (Tarzan, also maybe Batman).

One thing the game lacks is a list of super powers.  This is a problem, I think.  As kids we just decided that Uniques get one "major" power or two "minor" powers.  The rules state that players decide what the powers will be, provided the GM approves it, but the powers will be limited.  Powers gain strength as the character improves (no Superman at character creation!). I think that this is a good way of doing it but I wish there were an entire page of examples so the players know what sort of range of power they should be deciding upon.

Combat is stamina vs. stamina for physical combat and ego vs. ego for mental combat.  Combat is 3d6, roll high, vs. a difficulty number.  The difficulty number is attacker's stat with defender's stat subtracted, and then referenced to a chart.  I don't recall what we did as kids but I know it wasn't this.  I assume we just rolled percentile vs. ability score, but I don't remember.  There is a page of wargame-inspired modifiers - I mean a few pages.  Modifiers can be based on class of weapon, range, number of attacks, etc.  Mr. Saxon went all out on chart after chart of modifiers.  This has to be a holdover from wargaming.  Damage is done to endurance and/or vigor, depending on the weapon.  Endurance heals very quickly but vigor damage requires medical care and time to heal.

Movement is hex-based.

The equipment list is good and covers many of the things an aspiring superhero would want to buy.  I do remember asking my dad as a kid what an apartment costs per month since it isn't listed.

The majority of the rest of the book involves superheroes patrolling the island, handicap scores due to frequency of patrol, and, thank God for this, rules for litigation and insurance.  I'm not joking.  99% of super "heroes" in those horrid movies should all be locked up for property crimes, manslaughter, and a host of other crimes.  Sorry about that.  Back to the regular review.  I would say 1/3 of the book is rules on patrolling.  I'm happy I didn't have this part of the book as a kid.  Basically, heroes are expected to patrol sections of the island and dice rolls determine which crimes are witnessed.  Chart.  Chart.  Chart.  Oh, look, here are another couple of charts.  Reading the rules, I think it would work as the author expects but I don't expect that I'd enjoy it.

Interestingly, the time in the game is based on real life.  A player will turn in his patrol plan to the GM and if the group meets up two weeks later, two weeks would have passed in the game.

The book ends with a couple more character examples.

⇒ GRIT:  ★★☆☆☆ The book really needs either a power list or a page of sample powers.  There is negligible information on character advancement.  The number of charts is very reminiscent of a 70s wargame and will slow down game play significantly.  

⇒ VIGOR:  ★★★★☆ I am rating this 4 stars based on the book doing what it sets out to do.  With the massive amount of prep the players and GM put into patrolling, the game can potentially go on forever, due to the entirely random (though modified) chances of crimes happening.  Personally, as I stated, I would find this style of play very boring.

⇒ GRACE:  ★☆☆☆☆ The book (the pdf, rather), though it has a pretty cool cover, is really ugly and difficult to follow.  I assume that all of the charts were placed to have them all fit since there is not much rhyme nor reason as to where you find them.  The art is really rough, though I enjoy the Astrotank (an army tank with Korean war-era jet wings on it) and the superhero I dubbed The 'Sploitation Blaster due to his rocking afro and jetpack.