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Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946

Godlike: Superhero Roleplaying in a World on Fire, 1936-1946

List Price: $39.95
Your Price: $39.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Godlike, a great WWII super-hero game
Review: Godlike is a game set in World War II that manages to play with and break most previous super-heroic conventions.

If you want to play 4-color All-Star Squadron type WWII capes and cowls, that option is there but the default setting for the game is a gritty and brutal world where the players don't wear costumes to show their powered status out of fear of enemy snipers taking them out.

The game probably owes more to George R.R. Martin's Wild Cards or Saving Private Ryan than standard super-hero comic books.

The book is self-contained and while supplements will be coming out, none are necessary to break the book out and play a successful campaign. Furthermore, in an alternate history game, a supplement is only a library (or an Amazon.com) away.

The system makes combat fast and brutal. Their O.R.E. (One Roll Engine) gives damage, hit location, and initiative in one easy to-hit roll. The character creation is also quite simple, a nice change from past super-hero systems with mind-numbing number crunching.

All in all I can't recommend this book enough, it is a great role-playing game.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Solid Game
Review: One of the best superhero games on the market. Uniquely simple, the Godlike system allows for fast and easy play. There are some flaws in the system, namely hard dice, but no system is perfect. The setting is great and the book does a good job of developing the World War II era. My biggest problem with the book is that many original copies had poor binding. Luckily, the producers of the book will allow you to send it back and get a new book with good binding.
If you are a fan of superhero gaming, this is the game for you.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Interesting, but it needed to bake longer
Review: There is a bunch of things to like about both the game system and the world offered by this RPG. While not unique, the dice-pooling system allows combat to proceed at a decent enough pace to keep the main meat of the story from being bogged down. The background is well thought out and the writers did a good job weaving their differences into the real WW2 history, but they wasted far too many pages going over the small non-changed details when a simple timeline would have presented the material just as well while taking up far less space.

On the down side, the list of skills is not anywhere near where the skills are bought - and the master list itself contains a great number of inconsistencies. Both the Editor and Binder should be taken outside for a good thrashing. There are so many grammatical errors throughout the book that you don't even attempt to understand anymore. However, it is those cases where entire paragraphs end up contradicting previous paragraphs that will have you really scratching your head. The binding is just so bad its not worth re-hashing the issue - think the original Champions BBB binding.

In conclusion, this is a solid effort and welcome addition to the superhero RPG arena. It still needs a great number of rough edges knocked off, but by its 2nd or 3rd edition I believe it could stand as an equal with any other the top-tier RPG.

Greatest Strength: World feeling
Greatest Weakness: Will system

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent concept
Review: This is a very impressive game, and even if you don't role-play, the background info is worth reading for the pure enjoyment. Two things stop me from giving it the 5 stars it would otherwise deserve: A weak binding (at least on my copy), which makes me scared to reread it for fear it'll start falling apart; and all the typos. It's hard to believe that with all the care, the skill, and the sheer LOVE that was obviously put into this book, it was sent to the printers with multiple, really distracting typos on every page. I hope there will be a second edition soon to fix those problems, because otherwise, it's 5 stars all the way.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Terrific Game & Easy system to learn....
Review: Where to start...How 'bout the introduction. It gives a good amount of information on what to expect in the game, what went into designing the game, items you'll need to play, reference materials for background to the game (not required) and a good glossary of terms.
Next- Game Mechanics. We're getting to the meat now. This is a well written section (as is the entire book) that discribes how to resolve actions, combat and damage. It uses a dice pool based on 10 sided dice. Higher numbers are better and you look for matching numbers for the result, so the larger the die pool, the better. One roll will give you both how well you succeed and your damage (if your in combat). VERY easy once you get used to it.
Pt. Three is Character Creation-These six pages give you the info you'd need to make a basic character. Each character is detailed using six stats. Once you've assigned your points to your character is time to move on to-
Pt. Four- Talents (aka-Powers) These sixty two pages will finish up your character. Talents range from Flight to Healing to Transform. Each power is bought in terms of # of dice (dicepools..) and are powered with your WILL characteristic. No Will? NO Power!
The rest of the book contains Background material for the time (World War 2) along with information on various "super-men" from around the world. The whole book has a good 40's feel to it by using photos (some doctored, some not) like the "Time" magazine with the "Indestructible Man" on the cover.
Also, a "Field Manual" is included covering the firearms, tanks, artillery, etc of WW2. As is a section on running a "Godlike" Campaign.
Finally, besides a great index, are the "Open Game Content" rules. Yes, you can play Godlike with the d20 system if you'd like to.
Overall, a terrific product and one of the best RPG products produced this year. A few typos here and there, but if you're interested in World War 2 and Super Hero gaming, this is the book to get.


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