[R00kie]

I have to say I'm not as impressed with Wild Talents as your review indicates you are. Once I've got around to playing it my view may change however my current feelings are:

The O.R.E. system is inovative and impressive. It has a really gritty feeling to it which is neither a good nor a bad thing, but does influence what games played with it will be like. My few quick attempts at test fights have been surprisingly quick and a lot of fun, but also deadly. In fact its good enough that I will probably use it for any White Wolf style games I ever run in place of the White Wolf system.

The background setting and section on world building are superb. Archetypes are a nice idea allowing GMs to quickly customise what sort of characters appear in his games. The art throughout this game is also superb. I haven't as yet read through the World Gone mad setting or the sample adventure.

However the section on power design is poor. When stood up against the likes of either Hero 5th edition or MnM 2e if not only shows cracks.. it crumbles. The choice to base costs on effects is the correct move, however the system needs to take into account that attacking and defending are far too generic for the only combat effects, and that out of combat effects needs to be broken down a lot. It just doesn't work to assume all out of combat effects are equally valuable. In addition the maths behind costs needs to be stated explicitly as a formula. Its not difficult to work out, but its omission is inexcusable. To a large extent the caffetery style example powers list, combined with a large chunck of GM veto should get around this problem, but it is still true that unusual characters will be unneccesarily difficult to build with this system and large numbers of house rules will need to be invented for all sorts of character concepts.

In addition I have huge concerns about willpower, and in particular willpower regeneration. Many powers are going to end up with huge willpower costs. As an example I tried to create a character with a power similar to Hiro in NBCs Heroes!. A radius effect Time Fugue costs 1 willpower per person effected per dice. Affecting ten people with a 5d Time Fugue will cost 50 willpower. Unless the character has huge amounts of willpower they are going to have to cut heavily into their base willpower just to use the power (and this can only be replaced through character advancement). Alternatively, even if they do have a huge pool of willpower, they can only replace this through either rest (at a point per night), saving people, or perfect successes (pairs of 10s). Its going to be a very very long time before the hero can use that power again. Again I could solve this with a simple house rule (or two)

I don't believe Wild Talents will every be usable for a high end game. I would never consider trying to represent the Authority using Wild Talents - the likes of the Doctor, the Engineer etc. would be well beyond its capability to emulate, but it would be perfect for a Watchmen, Dark Knight, Wildcards or Zenith type campaign, where heroes are just step up from the normal man, death is common and life is cheap.

My final feeling is the Wild Talents is a good game, but not great. For Heroic Four Colour settings with high end supers it doesn't compete with Mutants and Masterinds 2e or Silver Age Sentinel (although its better than MnM 1st Ed) . Character creation is clearly inferior to MnM 2e. If wins over Hero for simplicity, but looses out on versatility. For the area where is excels though it looks like it wont be beaten.

The best parts of the book (based on the parts I've managed to read) are definately the whole ORE system and the section on world building. The weakest section is definately the section on power building. I cannot comment on the two section at the end I haven't read yet.

I haven't actually tested it with players yet, but it looks like Wild Talents will become my game of choice for low level gritty campaigns, whilst MnM 2e will remain my game of choice for anything either high level or heroic. I really wish I'd had Wild Talents when I ran my Noir inspired 1930s Dames, Guns and Powers game, for which it would have been perfect. When I've finished those last two sections, and got around to trying the game out with players later this month I'll probably write a proper review. So far my feeling is positive, but not as positive as your review would suggest.


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Update: Having played some more and searched the web for resolutions to my willpower concerns, there are two rules which help resolve the extreme willpower issues:

Firstly "Indomitable Will" provides an expensive unlimited pool of willpower which can only be accessed when the player is low on willpower. Its at first appear extremely expensive.. but assuming you were using the optional rule allowing you to avoid injury by spending willpower is probably very good value.

The second rule may or may not be official. I can't find it anywhere in the rulebook, but Dennis Detwiller (the Game Designer) mentioned it in a post of the Yahoo forums on Feb 27th 2007, so that makes it official enough in my book. He suggests a "No Willpower Cost" Extra at a cost of x2.

Also, having read the "World God Mad" chapter and the adventure I can confirm that they are up to the standard of the rest of the book. In fact the adventure is far above the standard I would normally expect of an introductory adventure.

Wild Talents is rising nicely in my estimatation. I'm still not sure if this game could ever replace MnM 2e as my Superhero game of choice, I'll have to give it a proper trial, but its already well ahead of Aberrant, Authority, Blood of Heroes, Brave New World, Champions/Hero, DC Heroes, GURPS, Marvel (Both of them), Silver Age Sentinels and various other Super Hero systems I own. If only that chapter on crafting powers was better I would be able to recommend this game without any hesitation.