[RPG]: Truth & Justice, reviewed by jhkim (3/3)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11615.phtml

John Kim's Summary:

If you like Fudge or similar rules-light games, this is a solid RPG tailored for superheroics, though with some rules quirks. If you want something tactical, detailed, and/or objective, this probably isn't your boat.

Go to the full review for more information.

[Dan Davenport]

Excellent review!

I particularly liked what you had to say regarding super-scale damage. That <u>would</u> make Batman types pretty easy to take out. However, it's my understanding that only hand-to-hand attacks backed by super-strength automatically do super-scale damage, while ranged attacks do normal damage unless the attacker spends points to make it super-scale.

[Blackberry]

How would you compare your problems with the system (damage bookkeeping, scale problems between normals and supers, and confusing application of stats) with the HERO System, which is commonly cited as having all three of those problems?

[Tim Kirk]

A more interesting note on damage is that you can roll damage into social/mental or other traits meaning sure Batman may take a heavy punch, but it just means that his "injuries" means he misses a business meeting at Wayne, Enterprise/Waynetech whatever its called these days--and now is suffering an attempted takeover that is close to suceeding because he took a hit on his Astute Businesman +4 trait.

The game allows one to create social/mental/physical combat results from the fallout of conflict (its not that the guy punched him so hard it hurt his business but the injury it caused impaired him at a crucial time.)

[Brand_Robins]

Originally Posted by Tim Kirk

A more interesting note on damage is that you can roll damage into social/mental or other traits meaning sure Batman may take a heavy punch, but it just means that his "injuries" means he misses a business meeting at Wayne, Enterprise/Waynetech whatever its called these days--and now is suffering an attempted takeover that is close to suceeding because he took a hit on his Astute Businesman +4 trait.

Yep, but if he gets hit by someone with Expert Super Strength, the levels of Super-damage can be brutal. If they beat him by 1, he's knocking off 12 levels of nasty -- which will pretty much FUBAR most start-level characters. If you get hit by a Master Super Strength with more than a margine of 1... forget about it.

In my T&J games I houseruled that Super-Strength does not, in fact, to super scale damage to living peoples automatically, and made it much more expensive to do super scale damage to them in general (more expensive than a haymaker -- I think we ended up going with 4 or 5 hp) -- just to stop the number of 1 hit takedowns for those without Super Armor.

This, of course, is a personal preference (I don't think the Hulk should take people down 15 times faster than Magneto), and was easily done without breaking the system. T&J's real strength is its flexibility.

[Fred]

Originally Posted by Brand_Robins

Yep, but if he gets hit by someone with Expert Super Strength, the levels of Super-damage can be brutal. If they beat him by 1, he's knocking off 12 levels of nasty -- which will pretty much FUBAR most start-level characters. If you get hit by a Master Super Strength with more than a margine of 1... forget about it.

I believe this is supposed to simulate that fact that Batman will always be seeing dodging foes such as Killer Croc, who are superstrong. They can't probably hit Batman, but if they do, he's going down. After all, he's just human.

Tchau!

[Blackberry]

Originally Posted by Fred

I believe this is supposed to simulate that fact that Batman will always be seeing dodging foes such as Killer Croc, who are superstrong. They can't probably hit Batman, but if they do, he's going down. After all, he's just human.

Right. Remember, in the example of play in the preview chapter, Snow Owl can still dodge Brick's super-strength with a mundane dodge, just as Joe Thug can dodge Snow Owl's ice blasts with a mundane dodge. It's just the damage that increases.

[Tim Gray]

And IIRC you can use Hero Points to avoid damage; certainly to get some back again.

In case people haven't spotted it: Batman can soak up way more levels of damage than Superman in T&J. Using the Intense Training power to convert power ranks to quality ranks gives you more ranks in total. Taking a Meta-power (eg Kryptonian) gives you fewer total ranks. It's just that it's much harder to get that damage through on Superman.

At least, it is if it's straightforward physical harm. An attacker using something more inventive that gets round Invulnerability, eg using Failure ranks, might take Superman out early on.

[jhkim]

Originally Posted by Blackberry

How would you compare your problems with the system (damage bookkeeping, scale problems between normals and supers, and confusing application of stats) with the HERO System, which is commonly cited as having all three of those problems?

It's a little hard to compare a highly crunchy system like HERO with Truth&Justice.

Clearly, damage bookkeeping is much less than HERO but more than, say, Fudge. HERO has a huge amount more bookkeeping in general. On the other hand, I don't see that HERO has problems of interactions of the normal/super scale. It has some scale problems at the very big (where you have an unwieldy number of dice), and at the very small (i.e. below average human). But the scale is smooth between agent, super-agent, and superhero. HERO is rather unusual that it has carefully defined rules for superpowers and how they interact -- I've more often heard the opposite complaint that powers are narrowly defined by effects. i.e. You can't use your lightning bolt power to power an electrical machine unless you previously defined something like a multipower with END Reserve, Usable By Others.

As I started my review with, I think the two (HERO vs T&J) are pretty clearly very different animals.