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Wild Talents
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Wild Talents is a complete superhero roleplaying game built for fast, thrilling action. The Wild Talents game system-the One-Roll Engine made famous by such games as Reign, Godlike and Monsters and Other Childish Things-is fast-paced yet detailed, with an emphasis on the dangers of heroism and the importance of willpower and motivations. The rules for creating superpowers from scratch offer tremendous flexibility, with enough simplicity to make it easy to play and enough depth to suit any gamer, and make the game eminently easy to customize. Wild Talents includes an in-depth alternate version of modern history, which builds on the acclaimed setting of the World War II game Godlike and extends it to the present day and to Talent-influenced events that reach into the depths of government secrecy and beyond the stars. Kenneth Hite's analysis of superhero campaign worlds guides you through the construction of wholly unique superhero settings, worlds whose history fits perfectly your vision for your setting and style of play. Wild Talents (Second Edition) is a full-color hardcover book which includes: Complete rules for creating characters, creating new powers, and running the game. Guidelines for building alternate superheroic histories that fit your characters and style of play. An extensive history of a World Gone Mad, from the first appearance of Talents in World War II to the present day, more and more warped by human beings who have superhuman powers.
Wild Talents is a complete superhero roleplaying game built for fast, thrilling action. The Wild Talents game system-the One-Roll Engine made famous by such games as Reign, Godlike and Monsters and Other Childish Things-is fast-paced yet detailed, with an emphasis on the dangers of heroism and the importance of willpower and motivations. The rules for creating superpowers from scratch offer tremendous flexibility, with enough simplicity to make it easy to play and enough depth to suit any gamer, and make the game eminently easy to customize. Wild Talents includes an in-depth alternate version of modern history, which builds on the acclaimed setting of the World War II game Godlike and extends it to the present day and to Talent-influenced events that reach into the depths of government secrecy and beyond the stars. Kenneth Hite's analysis of superhero campaign worlds guides you through the construction of wholly unique superhero settings, worlds whose history fits perfectly your vision for your setting and style of play. Wild Talents (Second Edition) is a full-color hardcover book which includes: Complete rules for creating characters, creating new powers, and running the game. Guidelines for building alternate superheroic histories that fit your characters and style of play. An extensive history of a World Gone Mad, from the first appearance of Talents in World War II to the present day, more and more warped by human beings who have superhuman powers.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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October 13, 2021
It's great fun, but it's also absurdly janky. Everything about this adaptation of the One Roll Engine is clunky and borders on unwieldy at times. It's worth playing, though. You can make literally any superpower you can think of, and you can make it mechanically distinct. There is a [frustratingly complex but] comprehensive superpower creator, plus a ton of prepackaged superpowers that you can furnish a superhero or supervillain with.
If you're a player, do yourself a favor and have your GM make your character for you. Tell them your concept and leave it in their hands. It's so easy to game this system, even by complete accident, that it's better to let someone else give you a balanced character rather than make it all yourself and accidentally break every encounter you face.
Case and point: a superpower that gives a person a paralyzing headache. You can make that with little to no effort and for cheap, give it to a psychic superhero, and cheese every encounter. A person's head has four hitpoints, and you can design your power to deal four damage directly to the head, with a guaranteed success of 4x10 (see my Monsters and Other Childish Things review for a better description on how ORE works). Alternatively, you can have armor that requires a person to beat a roll of 5x10 to even cause a single bit of damage to you.
Letting your GM make your character is giving away a level of control that is uncomfortable even at the best of times, but it's strictly necessary in this game.
If you're a player, do yourself a favor and have your GM make your character for you. Tell them your concept and leave it in their hands. It's so easy to game this system, even by complete accident, that it's better to let someone else give you a balanced character rather than make it all yourself and accidentally break every encounter you face.
Case and point: a superpower that gives a person a paralyzing headache. You can make that with little to no effort and for cheap, give it to a psychic superhero, and cheese every encounter. A person's head has four hitpoints, and you can design your power to deal four damage directly to the head, with a guaranteed success of 4x10 (see my Monsters and Other Childish Things review for a better description on how ORE works). Alternatively, you can have armor that requires a person to beat a roll of 5x10 to even cause a single bit of damage to you.
Letting your GM make your character is giving away a level of control that is uncomfortable even at the best of times, but it's strictly necessary in this game.
Displaying 1 of 1 review