DC Heroes

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"Blood of Heroes" redirects here. For the 1989 science fiction film, see The Blood of Heroes.
DC Heroes Role-Playing Game
Image:DC Heroes First Edition Box Cover.jpg
DC Heroes 1st Edition Box Cover
Designer Greg Gorden (3rd Ed.)
Publisher Mayfair Games
Publication date 1985 (1st Ed.)
1989 (2nd Ed.)
1993 (3rd Ed.)
Genre(s) Superhero
System Mayfair Exponential Game System

DC Heroes is an out-of-print superhero role-playing game set in the DC Comics universe, published by Mayfair Games. Other than sharing the same licensed setting, DC Heroes is unrelated to the West End Games DC Universe.

DC Heroes was critically well-received, and despite its out of print status still retains an unusually large and active online community (Statistics).

Contents

[edit] Gameplay

The game system in DC Heroes is sometimes called the Mayfair Exponential Game System (or MEGS). DC Heroes uses a logarithmic scale for character attributes. The scale allows characters of wildly different power levels to co-exist within the same game without one completely dominating a given area. For example, although Superman is orders of magnitude stronger than Batman, Batman is capable of surviving a straight brawl with Superman for a short period. Conflicts are resolved using an Action Table and two ten-sided dice. The die rolling system involves re-rolling any double result (the same number of both dice), so that any result is possible.

Hero Points, which are used as experience points, can be spent during play to influence Action Table Results.

[edit] History

Mayfair Games published the first edition in 1985. During the same time-frame, DC released its twelve-part "maxi-series" Crisis on Infinite Earths, which dramatically reshaped the DC universe. As a result of this timing, both Silver Age and pre-Crisis writeups were included alongside new, post-Crisis versions of the characters. While it was groundbreaking in its time, this edition of the game is now considered obsolete by the online community.[citation needed]

The second edition, published in 1989, incorporated material from the Batman Role-Playing Game and the Superman Sourcebook. These materials included rules for advantages, drawbacks, and gadgetry.

The third edition, published in 1993, further refined the rules by revamping the point costs of various abilities.

[edit] Blood of Heroes

Mayfair Games eventually sold the rights to the Mayfair Exponential Game System to another company, Pulsar Games, which later released the Blood of Heroes role-playing game. Blood of Heroes is largely derived from the third edition of DC Heroes but without a license to use DC Comics' intellectual property. DC-brand characters were instead replaced with new characters created specifically for the Blood of Heroes universe.

The setting included with the game is a 1990s-style superhero world with a heavy influence of occult and magical beings, which accounts for the much more detailed magic system included in the game.

A subsequent edition, Blood of Heroes: Special Edition, incorporated a large number of rule tweaks as well as lots of new material, often derived from proposals from the online community.

In 2004 Pulsar Games was sold to new owners. Since then, nothing has been done official with the game, leaving it inactive.

[edit] Status of the MEGS Game System as of May 2008

As recently as May 1st 2008, posters on the DC Heroes Yahoo Group continue to allege that the current owners of Pulsar Games are presently engaged in an ongoing legal battle over who currently owns the rights to use the Mayfair Exponential Game System.

These same posters attest that the original Pulsar owners did not actually have the legal authority to turn over the MEGS license to their successors, as was believed, and that the current owners must resolve the legal dispute before they can publish any further MEGS-based game material.

The current owners have not been heard from on the Yahoo Group in approximately four years. Those who post claiming inside knowledge of the situation aver that the legal proceedings prevent the Pulsar owners from speaking publicly while the case is ongoing.

Whether these claims prove factual, or mere rumor, they are the only current information on the fate of the MEGS system in nearly four years.(Link to the DC Heroes-MEGS-Blood of Heroes Yahoo Group Posts. Sign-in Required)


[edit] External links

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