New Random Alpha Parse Updates Popular

WORG's FAQ

This FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document covers useful and/or interesting things to know about the DCH/BOH (DC Heroes / Blood of Heroes) mailing list and its online database WORG (writeups.org). It covers more than 15 years of work from dozens of people on a complex set of subjects, and is thus a smidgen longer than we'd like - hopefully the organization compensates for the length.

Last revised -- 30th of October, 2009.

 

TABLE OF CONTENT OF THE FAQ

All items can be clicked to go straight to the corresponding answer.

 

 

 

0/ Fundamentals

0.1/ OK, first I should warn you guys -- I know nothing about role-playing games. What does the 'game stuff' stuff means?

Well, it's a bit complicated really - you probably should check the wikipedia article about role-playing games.

Basically, the 'game stuff' is a specialised language, in the same sense that a computer language is a language. Here we chiefly use this language as a descriptive tool - the characters are described using the vocabulary of the DCH "language". Whereas the English language is a bit vague for such purposes ("this guy runs about as fast as most cars, and, hmmm, he seems able to lift a large car over his head too"), the much more specialised DCH 'language' allows us to express the same things in a much more succinct and precise way ("Running: 06, STR 07"). Once you have learned the DCH language, we can describe characters to you in a comprehensive and brief fashion - how strong, how charismatic, how fast, how intelligent, able to belch flames of such and such destructive potential, probably able to withstand such and such attacks, how knowledgeable about physics, how far they can throw a foo', etc.

Of course this language is not just descriptive. The goal of role-playing games is to be played, and thus to feature the character in new adventures, using the description in DCH language on writeups.org to simulate his abilities.

Another consequence of this site being role-players-oriented is that a fair bit of attention is devoted to the personality of each character. This is a very important aspect of the character and his/her continuity, obviously, but one that is not usually covered in more general sites, encyclopaedias, sourcebooks, etc.

Even if you don't intend to ever play a RPG, you might be interested in reading a copy of the rules of DC Heroes or Blood of Heroes so you understand what the numbers and other specialised bits do.

0.2/ OK, second I should warn you guys - I know next to nothing about comic books. Why do you people produce so much material about comics?

Super-heroes comic books are one of the most content-rich literary constructs ever produced. The main fictional universes are connected with each other, and tales about those universes have been told for more than 70 years by hundreds of writers and artists. Many of those were very talented, some of those (such as Jack "King" Kirby) were major contributors to the history of the arts. They are shared literary worlds, but even beyond that have a concept of 'continuity' (the stories, characters, locations, plots, subplots, etc. are intended to remain coherent from one appearance to the other, no matter who is writing or drawing about them).

Thus, the richness in terms of protagonists, antagonists, supporting cast, locations, overarching plots, relationships, background, backstory, etc. probably beats anything out there, and has often been called by literary scholars a 'modern mythology'. In fact, the wealth of content and backstory in super-hero comic books is only approached by other mythologies, such as the Classical mythological stories, the medieval Matters, the Arthurian stories, Star Wars, the large body of myth about the Vedic gods, urban legends, etc.

Even though it has thousands of entries, writeups.org only addresses a very small percentage of the wealth of content to be found in those super-heroes mythologies. And many of our entries are about other genres and media anyway - such as action movies, pulp fiction, horror movies, science-fiction, action-adventure video games, TV series popular among role-players, etc.

 

1/ Contributing to the community

1.1/ Goal of the community

The community exists for discussion about the DC Heroes Role-Playing Game system, also known as Blood of Heroes and nicknamed MEGS (Mayfair's Exponential Game System). Common topics include discussion of game campaigns, rules question, debating optional changes to the rules, writing up published characters famous and obscure, writeups of home-grown characters, GMing advice, questions and remarks about the game universes, etc. Though it turned out that character writeups were a very popular subject of discussion, they should not obscure the rest !

Discussion of closely related material (comic book, movies...) is also fairly common, though it is a secondary activity. Off-topic subjects are discouraged and off-topic subjects with a potential for conflict, such as politics or religion, are not tolerated beyond the briefest glimmer (barring some exceptional cases).

1.2/ Real short history

The original community was founded around 1995 by Joshua D. Marquart as a mailing list ; for years it was hosted on the servers of the nice folks of small technology company Idyll Mountain. In 2002 it became a group on Yahoo!, though many people keep calling it "the DCH mailing list" due to its 1990s format. Though these things are hard to tell, it seems to be one of the most active online communities for a largely out-of-print role-playing-game, with hundreds of messages per month.

The community, with Josh as its interface and editor, was behind much of the content for the Sidekick rulebook published by Pulsar for Blood of Heroes. A further evolution of this content comprises much of the new rules in Blood of Heroes : Special Edition, the current version of the game system. Eventually, the Pulsar property was bought by members of the community in an effort to further improve it.

The online archive for writeups (and the format and expectations for writeups) have likewise been under constant, if slow, improvement and eventually became an online database hosted at writeups.org. The initial version was a homepage with a funky javascript navigation, made around 1997 ; a database and the domain name appeared around 1999. A thorough revision of the site was done in 2004, and the glorious (if glacial) struggle to have another major revision done eventually succeeded in early 2009. This is the wonderful pine green web site you're currently reading.

1.3/ Advice on joining the community

First - if you are actually reading this section rather than jumping right in... congratulations. You are a person of smarts and experience !

Like all communities (online or not), the DCH mailing list has its set of implicit social rules - barging in with a preconceived notion of how it works (perhaps based on the puzzling notion that all Internet communities are the same) or no interest toward established standards is just too big a potential for waste.

Newcomers are encouraged to read a bit through the older messages to gain a sense of standards. Exchanges are expected to be courteous, calm, mature, open-minded and productive ; grammar and spelling are expected to be standard (barring disabilities, English as a second or third or fourth language, etc.) and in 15 years of existence so far there have been about two memes/private jokes. Conflict and grandstanding are generally discouraged so everybody can feel comfortable and appreciated ; signal is greatly encouraged over noise.

Generally, if you're about to say something you wouldn't say to Ivan Drago, to his face, while he's in a bad mood... don't.

The rare moderation messages are normally preceded with a [MODERATION] header in the title.

1.4/ Spam control

Spammers are immediately banned from the group after the first such message, and the group remains largely spam-free. Such bans are no longer announced, since that just doubled the clutter from spam messages.

1.5/ Piracy

The community is hosted for free by third parties (currently, Yahoo!) and has to make sure it doesn't lose that. The main way of overstaying our welcome with Yahoo! would be to have complaints filed about us regarding infringement of intellectual property - such as providing instructions, support, encouragement, etc. about pirated comics, RPGs and the like. In order to make sure we're not kicked out, the moderator requests that community members do not ask for, or offer, pirated material. This is not an ideological stance on the moderator's part, but simply a precaution.

We also prefer not to have material written by Mayfair writers reposted in a way that infringes on that intellectual property, though this stems more from a respect toward those writers than a concern about getting evicted from our little virtual space.

A subtopic within this subject is the distribution of unauthorized copies of DCH/BoH material on the DCH Yahoo List. While electronic copies of some now-defunct RPGs are freely available on public websites (notably the original Marvel Super Heroes RPG from TSR), no such public repository of either the DC Heroes nor the Blood of Heroes RPGs exists. Furthermore, discussion regarding distribution of unauthorized copies is discouraged on the list for the following reasons:

"For reference, though, republication (i.e., scanning and distributing) might incur Pulsar's wrath (we're kinda required to defend our position as sole licensee of the system), could incur the owner's wrath (they may have a direct interest in defending the use of the system, since failing to do so could jeopardize the Pulsar contract), but will almost certainly incur the wrath of Time-Warner, who own all the DC trademarks.
"Trademarks, unlike copyrights, *must* be vigorously defended, because you can get out of a trademark infringement suit by showing a single case where the trademark was not defended in the past. That's why Disney is always in the news suing local bakeries for making unofficial Mickey Mouse birthday cakes for people."(1)

Limited quotation of selected stats or passages of the rules is considered fair use for discussion purposes. More than a paragraph or two of quoted text or an entire character writeup from the Mayfair or Pulsar materials would begin to cross into inappropriate territory -- please use your best judgment. Exchanges of such material on a personal basis off-list are acceptable. For example, it's fine for someone to request Superman's official DCH stats to be emailed to him off-list, but don't post those stats to the list itself.

Writeups that revise or expand on existing official stats are entirely acceptable, though it's best in such cases if such writeups include at least as much new material as previously-existing stats.
(1) http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-heroes/message/38995

1.6/ Peer reviewing

The DCH mailing list and its pet WORG are a classic example of community-generated, high quality specialized content -- and it started a decade before the whole Web 2.0 thing, too. :-) Thus, content that is written to last (writeups, proposed optional rules changes and clarifications, articles...) goes through an informal peer reviewing process. Other community members will comment, ask questions, suggest changes, point out what they think are mistakes, offer alternative approaches, etc.

The objective of this is to improve the work before publication, and it is expected that all relevant comments will be taken in account and duly credited in the "Helper(s)" section of the work. One does not have to blindly agree to everything, of course, but our long experience has been that it is nearly always better to receive help and discussions. Of course, the peer-review sections can only work if everybody is honest and open-minded, and more interested in producing quality collective work than in "defending opinions". Diplomacy is always necessary, and backing points with examples to help the main writer is always a plus.

Sometimes no peer can comment on a work - for instance because the character is so obscure nobody else knows much about them, and the writeup seems fairly straightforward and clear. Sometimes discussions last for months as the community tries to nail down something complex, without a clearly superior solution ever emerging. In those cases an effort is usually made to talk about viable alternative approaches in the entry.

1.7/ Contributing writeups for publication

Writeups are of course welcome ! You don't even need ask whether people are interested, they are - though you may want to check on writeups.org whether the character in question has already been covered. However, to facilitate peer review of a writeup and to allow for its eventual publication, a writeup has to fairly rigidly respect the current format. This is largely because the conversion to publication format is done via PERL scripts, which need to parse standard texts in standard places to do the tagging.

Reading this wonderful FAQ will give you pretty much everything you need to know, including the awe-inducing standard writeup format that you can just copy, paste and fill out.

Writeups are published on writeups.org in a somewhat random way - it could take weeks, or months, and in some rare cases, years. There are, however, simple ways to put your writeup into the "quick wins and low- hanging fruits" column for the WORGmeister, greatly increasing your chances of quick publication since it does not mean a slew of unpaid work for him. Your stuff is likely to get through much faster if you :

1.8/ Contributing illustrations

The community tries to provide crisp, high-quality illustrations for the writeups and articles published on WORG, based on published art, movie stills, etc. While it's an enjoyable job to prepare those illustrations, it's also a lot of work, and any help is welcome ! Here's the WORGmeister's advice:

First, I really encourage you to grab the images while you're doing the research for the writeup - not after. It's much, much easier that way.

When doing an illustration bar, I usually try to get :

For minor characters I'll usually just do just a body shot. For major characters and visually interesting ones there might be a greater number of peekchurs. And of course, characters who have had multiple looks will need more pictures.

The illustrations should be the best available. There may be thousands of photos of Britney Spears on the web, but when somebody does a Britney Spears writeup it'll be important to go hunting for *good* photos, which express the character well - not just random pics with a high Google Image rank. In most cases, we try not to reuse art found on the Net, but to generate our own scans and screencaps from the original material.

Quality should be quite high (a quality 10 jpeg in Photoshop, or a 600 dpi scan) - crisp, dynamic images look muuuuch nicer than slurred, low- res pictures. It is thus usually best to scan (or do video caps) than to fetch off the net.

For the body and action shots, the general idea is to get images that are quite taller than they are wide - 2:1 or more. The width of an illo column in WORG is limited (300 px). Human perception being what it is, images that are broader than tall will look tiny, while images that are taller than broad can look decently big. Do not hesitate to crop away details (such as a cape, an outstretched arm, etc.) if that allows you to significantly increase the height to width ratio.

I usually do the Photoshoping to turn the various images into one bar - resizing, cropping, colour balancing, lighting/contrast, etc. and the cut and pasting. Feel free to do so if you want - just have white bars in place to separate the individual pictures, like in a comic book.

If you *like* working with image-retouching software such as 'toshop or the GIMP, you can choose to go one step beyond for you own enjoyment. Things to consider include :

1.8.1/ I like the pictures. Tell me more about image editing work

The first Photoshop tip is that it might actually be affordable using education rebates - check with a friend who is a teacher or a student, and you might have a pleasant surprise. Also, remember that GIMP is free and does 90% of what Photoshop does - it probably has some equivalent tricks. There are some other pieces of software such as PixelMator that may meet your needs - look around for recent articles comparing solutions for your OSes of choice.

So, you've got a scan of a comic book picture, and you are working on making it pretty for WORG inclusion. Because you are aware that in many cases the WORG illustrations are going to be the neatest, most comprehensive illustration for that character on the web, and you feel up to that responsibility. Hot dang!

First, let me repeat - the Magic Wand, though it looks sultry and seductive, is rarely your friend. Comic book printing usually means some ink bleed (except for recent, high-end printing and paper), which means the borders between things are not clean, which means that an image detoured with the Magic Wand will look dirty and corroded. With experience you can use it a bit, but:

Speaking of which - the main tool in my experience is the Polygonal Lasso. Zoom in and use it as scalpel to remove everything around the character. Do the detouring in five or six chunks, so that you don't lose your work if you accidentally double-click. It's much like sewing - you are sewing surgical thread at the edges of the character, then cut the background off. At first detouring a guy looks daunting, but as experience builds up you can do it in a handful of minutes. It looks neat and crisp, and with experience it's often actually faster than using the Magic Wand.

In some cases, Image->Adjustment->Replace Color can be a solid ally, by increasing the Lightness so the background colour becomes white. It does require a certain experience, though, and is best used on smaller areas (especially those where the drawing and the background colour are intertwined due to numerous small details such as flowing hair). Remember that you can use the Polygonal Lasso to roughly select the right areas, then replace a background colour -- it will not affect the non-selected areas where somewhat similar hues might be found. In some happy cases this makes very quick, quite clean detouring possible.

Do not hesitate to Image -> Rotate Canvas before you start the work. It's rare for scans to be perfectly vertical, and it's much easier to get rid of black panel borders if the image has been adjusted thus. To control for orientation, use the Rectangular Marquee Box along a line that should be vertical or horizontal and see if it deviates from the perfectly-aligned Marquee Box.

Older comic book printing means that images will often be faded. Thankfully, Photoshop gives us an arsenal of tools to deal with that.

Another issue is low-quality printing and paper making the four-colour dot matrix obvious (especially in comics printed in the 1980s and before), and/or giving a general "grainy" look to the colour. Thankfully there is a quick and easy way around that, which rpg.net taught me:

On the contrary, for good-quality images (mostly from recent, computer-coloured and separated comics on decent paper), the Sharpen filter applied to the image can bring back some details that might be lost, since the images we use are not that big. It's often worth to use it on a good quality capture that was pretty large, and which you shrunk to a 300 px or 500 px width (don't forget to use a bicubic sharper algorithm when shrinking the image in the first place).

Experiencing with image reconstruction is worth it. The easier thing is to get rid of elements which rudely intrude on the image - a bit of a word balloon, a caption box, somebody's hand or a bit of debris before the character you want to detour, etc. "Painting over" the annoying detail with the Eyedropper Tool and the Brush Tool might work, but often it will look odd since it results in an expanse of uniform colour. Use it to brush away small obstacles, but not large ones, and lower the opacity of the brush so it will still look sufficiently grainy.

For large things you want to make disappear, we can use more surgery - this time, grafts. Use the Polygonal Lasso or Rectangular Marquee Box to select an expanse of background. Copy it, Paste it - now you have a bit of 'tissue'. You can move it with the arrow (the Mover tool), and 'graft' it over the intruding bit by flattening the layers once it is in place. Several such 'grafts' might be necessary, but you can make the offensive bit disappear under natural-looking 'graft tissue' you took millimetres away from the graft site.

The Edit->Paste Into function is very good for such grafts, once you've grokked the basic idea. Just select a larger area of the texture you want to apply, use the Polygonal Lasso to select the smaller area you want to cover, and Paste Into. Magic!

And of course always save as a Quality 10 .jpg in optimised format.

If you want to add text, the standard is jet black Myriad Pro, regular, 12 pts, Sharp, for an image with a 100 px/inch resolution.

1.8.2/ You got an example?

Sure. Here's an example, which is just the one I just happened to work on - the main Arnim Zola shot. Nothing exceptional (I'm *definitely* not a trained professional), but it illustrates some bits well.

It's at http://writeupsorg.free.fr/data/inset/Photoshop_example.jpg -- on some browsers you may have to zoom in if the image gets resized to fit the window.

The character, of memorable design, has been detoured using the lasso. Since the rest of Kirby's composition is now out of the picture, Zola has been rotated to be more vertical - there is no reason anymore to keep him slanted since it's now an illustration without a story or a background. Furthermore, rotating him meant the image was narrower, meaning it could be bigger once resized (think about it).

The printing has been corrected for during the scan, so there is no need to tweak any graininess - what exists is fine. The colours did fade in the thirty years since this issue was printed, though, so once detoured the image was auto-levelled and had its highlights tweaked a bit. It's now more vivid, which fits since it's Kirby art and should be bright and vital. And we're talking about a guy who dresses in orange and purple. I chose not to make the colours too warm, though.

The tails from the word balloons have been edited out. This was done using small copy-pasted purple squares and orange shapes taken millimetres away from the offending balloon tails, plus some lines and brush strokes of the same brownish-black shade used for the shadows and lines in the art. If you look close enough, and know what you're looking for, you can see small differences in colour and shapes marking the image reconstruction (especially on the right side).

The image has not been made super-ultra-slick - it's still a bit grainy, the contrast should be tweaked some more, the blacks might stand being darker and more solid, the colouring is obviously flat and pre-computer colouring and separation, etc. But it could be done using very simple tools in a fairly short time, no artistic skill was needed, and the imperfections attest that it's actual, period comic book art of the character by the King. Professional re-colouring and reconstruction would blow this out of the water, but it's still a much better illustration than an "untreated", non-detoured excerpt from the original.

1.8.3/ What is the format for said pictures?

There are two main formats - columns and banners. Columns are the ones running vertically on the left of the text, banners are the ones running horizontally within the text.

All are Quality 10 .jpg images (in Photoshop parlance). All banner illustrations are exactly 500 pixels wide, and all column illustrations are exactly 300 pixels wide (if you are not using high-end image editing software, leave the resizing to me, since otherwise you risk degrading your work due to poor quality resizing algorithms).

There are still a handful of columns that are 400 pixels wide (almost always group shots), but these will eventually be phased out since banners are nearly always better. Making columns wider is not under consideration at this moment due to the popularity of highly portable Internet terminals (such as mini-laptops/netbooks, smartphones such as Iphones, etc.) which have limited screen space.

1.9/ I'm using my gmail address to check the Yahoo! Group and things seem wrong and sinister

Over 2007 and 2008 there have been documented incompatibilities between e-mails sent by the Yahoo! Groups and the gmail pop routines, which likely still exist to this day. People receiving individual e-mails will miss some e-mails (especially in long discussion threads, and anything they sent to the group using their gmail addy) and people receiving digests may have to use the "View Whole Message" link at the end to see, well, the whole message. If you just *have* to use gmail, the digests are the best way to reduce issues, though it's not perfect either.

If one is bumping into persistent e-mail-related issues, the group can of course also be read through its web interface.

1.10/ Sarge! I wanna contribute to the war effort, but I can't write huge... things with super-detailed histories and stuff like those Special Forces guys do! What do I do, sarge? What do I do?!?

At ease. Nobody expects new contributors to write like the veterans - *especially* those who do not have English as a first language. People will appreciate a fairly short writeup or asking basic questions to get started.

We invite you to consider a few tricks if you don't want to crank out super-detailed mega-lengthy writeups:

1.11/ Sarge! I wanna write the Stupendous Squirrel-Salamander Man up, but he already has a writeup!

At ease. If you want to write *exactly* the same thing, you can make detailed comments instead so we can average out your take with the other people's take and add your material, to increase accuracy. Averaged guesses from informed people are a very powerful mean to produce accuracy.

If you want to write something a bit different (say - there is a very old Namor the Submariner writeup, but you want to specifically write Namor as he appears in the first 20 issues of his 1990s series, because you own those issues and you feel he's a bit different in those) - go ahead ! Just specify what your frame of reference is, so readers can understand which writeup address which version/time frame of the character. Readers can always decide which version is more useful to their current interests.

 

2/ DCH and Blood of Heroes - an orientation

2.1/ Standard version of the game

Currently it's Blood of Heroes : Special Edition, as published by Pulsar Games in 2000. This set of rules is a moderate evolution over the DC Heroes 3rd edition rules.

Those writeups can thus mostly be read by people familiar with DC Heroes 3rd edition and, to a large extent, the 2nd edition (though we recommend getting Blood of Heroes : Special Edition). The Files section of the community site at Yahoo! has a paper about the differences between 2nd and 3rd.

Many writeups use new Powers, Skills, Advantages, etc. that have been developed or refined by the DC Heroes mailing list after the usual peer-reviewing process. Most are currently available in the "Files" section of the DC Heroes Mailing List Yahoo! site at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-heroes/ - a very useful document and a must-read font of coolness for writeups.org readers and writers alike. These documents are evolving toward a web format, to be published as WORG entries.

The community also uses some conventions (readings of the rules) which are discussed in this FAQ.

2.2/ Real short history of the versions of the game

The first edition (DC Heroes 1st edition - the light blue box) was published by Mayfair in 1985. It offered pre-Crisis DC characters, with the pre-Crisis scale and genre, and the system still had some weak areas, such as Gadgetry. This core, groundbreaking design was largely the work of Greg Gorden, who is behind much of the power and elegance of the system. While it is an interesting read, it is not recommended that one buy the 1st edition to run a modern DCH game.

The Batman RPG published by Mayfair (as a single book) has been jokingly called edition 1.75 of the system. The Batman RPG appeared on store shelves just prior to DCH2E but DCH2E was *designed* first. Jack Barker edited and pared down the DCH2E manuscript to assemble the Batman RPG, with an abridged list of Powers and a simplified Skill set in order to focus on Batman-style adventures. The Batman RPG was released to coincide with the release of the Tim Burton Batman movie.

The second edition (DC Heroes 2nd edition - the black box) was published by Mayfair in 1989. It was a considerable, some say brilliant, overhaul of the system, making it remarkably smooth. It offered a post-Crisis roster and scale.

The third edition (DC Heroes 3rd edition - the glittery book) was published by Mayfair in 1993. More smoothing and improvements and overhauls, but mostly compatible with the 2nd edition. Like the second edition, the work was headed by Ray Winninger, who occasionally participates to the DCH/BOH community discussions.

In 1997, Pulsar reprinted the rules text from the third edition as the first edition of Blood of Heroes. Different title and publisher, exact same rules except for not mentioning any DC character.

The Sidekick Sourcebook, mostly based on the DC Heroes Mailing List's Fourth Edition Netbook project, was published by Pulsar in 1999. Many consider it edition 3.5.

Blood of Heroes : Special Edition (BOH:SE) was published in 2000. Many consider it to be the fourth edition of the system. Much added content and many tweaks and improvements, but does not stray far from the third edition rules.

 
The system, sometimes called MEGS (Mayfair's Exponential Game System), helped pioneer many concepts that are now part of modern super-heroes gaming - Subplots, Hero Points, Altering the Environment, etc. Its creators designed variant systems, sharing some of the core ideas of the MEGS system, which powered two critically-acclaimed RPGs that are still fondly remembered - Torg and Underground. Some of the design choices live on with the current category leader, Mutants and Masterminds, which drew inspiration for some of its features from the best traits from previous leading super-hero games.

2.3/ Current status of the game

Pulsar Games, the publisher of Blood of Heroes, offered to sell the intellectual property pertaining to the game system, which was bought in 2004 by members of our community. The current moderator of the DCH mailing list and administrator of the writeups.org site eventually decided not to participate to the initiative in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

The project of publishing a new, improved edition of the game system has been considerably delayed by unexpected legal difficulties that arose after the sale. As is common in such situations, the parties will not release statements about it. Hopefully, this complex situation will eventually be productively resolved.

The current edition of the rules thus remains Blood of Heroes Special Edition. It can still be bought in mint state from mainstream resellers, for instance at Amazon.com, so it's not entirely out of print.

2.4/ Common Internet talking points about the game

DCH/BOH is generally considered an out-of-print game (no official material has been released in years, though as noted above the books can still be bought new), and thus most newcomers are likely to learn about it from Internet discussions, posts and reviews. While those are usually fine (especially when they explain that DCH/BOH is the greatest thing ever, and has been known to cure mumps and restore sexual enjoyment), there is some common wisdom about the game that is of a more negative nature. The four points one is likely to run into in any given discussion are:

Another approach for people running street-level games has been to modify the Action Table and the Results Table to have columns that are one AP-wide -- since they're not going to use the whole Tables and in particular the higher AP levels, they feel free to 'zoom in' on the left side to better fit their games. This also makes CS modifiers less drastic, and combat manoeuvres giving CSs of bonuses less powerful.

Yet another approach has been to have a modified AP system, where it takes two additional APs, not one, to double any given quantity. This is sometimes known as the "1.5 scale APs", though of course that is not a mathematically correct description.

Generally speaking, though, the granularity point is a tad odd. 'Common human Attributes range' tend to be between 1 and 10, or even 1 and 12, in most Attributes and Skills. The narrowest ranges are BODY and STR - common human range being 1-6 and 1-5, though there are exceptions. Thus, the narrowest range for a 'normal human' attribute in the game is 1 to 5, which is... comparable to the two leading game systems of the 1990s, namely the classic Storyteller game system from White Wolf (one to five dots being the basic range for Attributes and Skills) and the 2nd and 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons (where the dice modifier is the main effect of a stat).

2.5/ Hey guys, so what's the current status of the game system ownership, eh ?

The original owners of Pulsar sold the company to its current owners in late 2003(1). The new owners have stated their intention to continue the Blood of Heroes line as recently as March of 2007(2) but have cited the need to address certain issues first, including the legal question of the game's ownership.

Ray Winninger, author of the DC Heroes RPG Second Edition and editorial director for Mayfair's DC Heroes line, summarized his understanding of the ownership question as follows:

 

John Colagioia, one of the new owners of Pulsar Games, commented on their current status in March 2007:

"We've been dealing frequently with the owner's legal team to try to get a handle on who owns what, who licenses/can license what, and how much room there is to change things. When I have an update of use, I'll relate it here, because it'll mean big things are coming on Pulsar's side, too."(4)

Colagioia also stated that "While I'd like it to be otherwise, this is about all I can say on any of these (and related) topics, and would very much appreciate keeping any further questions/speculation off-list, since such has the potential to damage our position at a sensitive time. I can't stop you, of course (and wouldn't if I could), but it'd be appreciated." (4)

Further inquiries regarding the current legal status of the MEGS System and any DCH/BoH properties would be best directed toward the above parties as appropriate, and we encourage everyone to follow John Colagioia's request.

(1) http://www.pulsargamesinc.com/
(2) http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-heroes/message/39370
(3) http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-heroes/message/45554
(4) http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-heroes/message/38995

 

3/ Editorial policies for writeups

3.1/ How do the version numbers in the writeups (v1, v1.2, v2...) work?

The versioning rules help us keep track of a writeup and see how definitive it is. They have been refined down the years, so some older writeups on WORG may have a version number that doesn't follow the current rules.

Since they grew organically, it is best to explain the versioning rules through a few sample version numbers :

3.2/ What is the basic research methodology?

For us, the primary source is queen.

"Primary source" means the actual comic book, film, book, manga, etc. from which the character is drawn. Anything that happens there is direct material for the writeup. This is in opposition to "secondary sources" (narrative captions in a comic or off-screen narrator in a movie, sourcebooks, interviews with editors or writers, Who's Who entries...). Material in the secondary sources can be used, but with skepticism. For instance, comic book characters will often be claimed to be the best in the world at what they do, while the actual skill levels they display are not that exceptional. In other words we believe in the classic adage for writers - "show, don't tell".

Tertiary sources are writeups done for other game systems. They can be used as a checklist, but are not considered to be trusted material.

What Ifs, Elseworlds, fan fiction, etc. are not usually considered to be a viable source and do not inform the writeup. Unless, of course, they are the subject of the writeup - or of a part of the writeup.

In short, the writeups we do are as faithful as possible to the events in the primary source material, and try to distance themselves from opinions on that source material. Generally, any speculative material on our part is noted as being that, unless the speculation is about a trivial detail (the make and model of a handgun, or reasonable Mystical Attributes for a character who is not seem interacting much with others due to a low number of appearances, or whether the character likely knows how to drive).

3.3/ How much research do you guys do for writeups?

This has also evolved over the time.

In the mid-90s, many writeups were assembled from memory and after re-reading key stories and old notes by people knowledgeable about the character, then debated with other knowledgeable (or simply curious) list members. Published writeups for other game systems (especially TSR's classic Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Game) were also used as a viable source. The level of quality, with hindsight, seems close to that of most published sourcebooks for super-hero games, though not entirely satisfying because we are compulsive freaks of nature.

As time went by we became more and more attentive to quality and extensive research, and it became not uncommon for writeups to have been done after pouring over nearly every single appearance of a character. Obviously, this is difficult for characters with 40+ years of history - hence the various writeups describing characters at a precise point in time, or for a specified era ("current", "classic", "early 70s", etc.) - and it's not the case for every writeup we do.

In most cases, the amount of research done should be easily visible by the amount of detail in the history and personality sections and some technical details. Generally, we strive for more precision and detail than would be available in any reasonable commercial supplement, because we can - many people will enjoy the equivalent of five printed pages on an obscure character they remember liking fifteen years ago, but few people would *pay* to have five pages of a glossy, full colour hardback sourcebook cover that character.

3.4/ Writeups not passing quality control

Some old things, or writeups from authors who do not seem reliable, are simply not published.

There is, however, a grey area of very old writeups, capsule writeups (the author couldn't or wouldn't do a full writeup), stats recovered from hard to find material and reposted on the list (Dragon Magazine articles, uncommon Mayfair material...), old but interesting notes, writeups which are but slightly updated official stats with a Who's Who profile, etc. The WORGmeister finally made the decision to include some of them on WORG - though it makes the site feel less professional than he would like, it's still interesting and usually unique (or at least convenient) information.

The preliminary nature of the material is usually obvious, and the version number for this stuff is normally well below v1.

Ideally, all such writeups will eventually be revisited and redone. Ideally. Even more ideally, writeups that are OK but too old and too undetailled or too amateurish or too garbled should be redone - and many actually will be. Better illustrations would also be cool for some of our older work. Ideally...

3.5/ How do you deal with Marvel and DC's 10-year timelines?

"Ten-year timeline" refers to editorial decisions at both Marvel and DC - who publish the majority of the characters we discuss about - to have their main super-heroes world always cover about a decade of history. Thus, when reading Marvel stories in 2001, we were to assume that events setting the modern Marvel Universe in motion, such as the fateful Fantastic Four flight or the death of Uncle Ben, occurred around 1991 ; all Spider-Man and Fantastic Four stories since had taken place between 1991 and 2001. And when reading stories in 2010, we have to assume that the trigger events took place in 2000, and that everything since occurred between 2000 and 2010. This approach is thus also known as the 'sliding time scale'.

So how does the DCH mailing list deal with it in its articles? The short answer is that we don't -- writeups are normally done describing what happened in the primary source, without contortions to fit it into a 10-year timeline. If a story is published during the 1950s, then it happened during the 1950s. Please note that this is NOT the Marvel or DC stance, as used by the fine writers of the sourcebooks and most editors . This is because, unlike them, we cannot make authoritative retcons. All our efforts to make a character fit within a ten-years time line would have very little value and would only result in confusing entries.

In cases where there are conflicting timelines and/or continuities, there normally will be explanations (often convoluted) about the mess in the writeup, and possibly speculations about how to fix a timeline (see for instance the "Cold War Suicide Squad" entries, the Crazy Quilt entry or the first Carol Danvers entry). Final reconciliation of chronologies is left to individual GMs, who probably do not run a 'strict' Marvel or DC Universe campaign anyway.

Also see the "Leon Genetic Sequence" article on WORG for one way to deal with this, and more material about the 10-year sliding timeline.

3.6/ How do you deal with Crisis, Zero Hour, etc. at DC?

In most cases, writeups will be specifically for a given iteration of the character - for instance the pre-Crisis Earth 2 version of the Huntress, or the post-Zero Hour version of Saturn Girl. I think there are a few 'trans-reboots' writeups left around, covering the character both pre- and post-Crisis, but these are no longer supported by our editorial preferences....

... except in some cases where the character has very few pre- or post- Crisis appearance *and* no seeming contradiction between the two eras. In this case, since doing two nearly identical and sketchy writeups would not be very interesting, the character is often treated by the writer without era distinction. For a detailed example of this see the entry for the Question (Ditko take).

In the case of characters existing right at the juncture of a reboot, there will be clarifying material in the writeup (see for instance the entry for the second Fury (Lyta Hall) or the early, original Black Lightning entry).

3.7/ Some writeups for very old DC characters have a mention that they are a "Pre-Crisis writeup on a post-Crisis scale", or "adjusted for modern DC universe", or some such comment. What does that mean?

Those writeups, resurrecting characters who have been out of continuity for more than twenty years, serve niche purposes. Those are for weird time-travel adventures, dimensional echoes, etc. and for people who want to play in the DCU of yore. They are also useful for those with their own campaign worlds, but who want pre-Crisis DCU stuff, or characters very much based on it, in their world.

"Post-Crisis Scale" itself is community jargon for benchmarks, using DCH's second edition (post-Crisis, rather than pre-Crisis first edition material) Superman writeup as a cornerstone. Roughly, this means that DEX/AV/OV rarely exceed 15APs, STR/EV is almost never greater than 25APs, and BODY/RV, for all but the most invulnerable characters, is no higher than 18APs. All official writeups in the second and third edition of DC Heroes were done on that scale. This reflects editorial policy at DC - it was felt that during the late Silver Age, power levels had just gotten over the top and made it difficult for readers to relate to the characters and not see them as absurd and camp. Thus, the post-Crisis Superman no longer juggled planets, and everything was aligned to match - meaning lower APs.

"Post-crisis scale" also affected lower power levels, as DC established Batman as the paragon of human capabilities in most areas. While the effects were less visible than for the higher power levels, this also meant numerous adjustment in AP values for human-level DC characters between first edition/pre-Crisis and second edition/post- Crisis.

There are a number of reasons this has become standard on the list, but one of the most important is that second edition and later DCH materials are easier to access, making that a de facto standard of how powerful our readers expect writeups to be and what is most useful in their campaigns. In addition, most displays of massive power in the pre-Crisis DC Universe can be 'written off' or 'explained away' as exaggeration, artistic license, or a different genre. This means that the overwhelming majority of characters already fit this 'scale' by ignoring those actions which seem too unbelievable and have a ready explanation at hand.

So I guess that, with very few exceptions, MEGS writeups on WORG are "for DC 3rd edition to BOH:SE systems, on post-Crisis scale". Players interested in a Silver Age-type, over-the-top campaign where Superboy can move the Earth with his super-breath are best referred to DC Heroes First Edition writeups from Mayfair.

3.8/ How do you handle the Roman numeral thing for characters where more than one guy used the name?

We haven't entirely renounced the Roman numeral thing... yet. Basically we'll check available sources to see how many other guys used the name before that character, and slap a Roman numeral on (say, Cat III or Wonder Woman II).

However, due to retcons, Hypertime, imaginary stories, parallel words, What Ifs, Elseworlds, etc. being serious and rigorous about Roman numerals would be nigh-unfeasible. Discrepancies and differences in opinion about who is Ghost Rider III and who is Ghost Rider II are inevitable, so don't pay too much attention to the Roman numerals. We don't.

Increasingly, the current Marvel reference usage, using the real name of the character (for instance Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze)) is used.

In any case, Roman numerals only apply to characters with the same name and within the same continuity. There are some examples of publishers each having characters with the same name, but that doesn't count for Roman numerals attribution.

3.9/ Where do you guys find the height and weight for those characters?

If the characters have official entries in some sourcebook, we'll use that (unless the data really seems wrong). If not, we'll simply make something up by looking at how tall or heavy the characters seems to be compared to other characters with established height and weight. We thus generally respect comic book conventions when doing this -- i.e., the women will be noticeably on the lightweight side for their height (despite usually being brazenly three-dimensional), while men will be a bit on the heavy side unless they are unusually tall (highly athletic physique, I guess).

If there are several official-looking values for a character, or we make an estimate for somebody who later receives official values, we'll often do some form of average between the various values. Or just grab the latest one if it seems intended to represent a more recent state or to correct a previous mistake.

3.10/ Why do so many Marvel writeups have characters lifting more than 100 tons?

In the 1980s, Marvel had a bunch of very, very good sourcebooks written, which gave numerical values for the strength of many of their characters. There was an editorial decision that the top value for powerhouses such as Thor or Hercules would be 100 tons (12 APs); apparently it was felt that having people lift more would stretch suspension of disbelief.

However, in the actual comics, many characters routinely lift more than 100 tons - the earliest famous example having been Sasquatch, stopping and throwing back a DC10 while it was attempting to take off, or ripping hundreds of tons of rock out of Tundra. Since it is obvious the 100 tons ceiling is not being followed by Marvel writers, we base our estimation on what the characters actually do, not what the sourcebooks say. Remember, for us, the primary source is queen and no lying editors will deceive us. Beside, Marvel sourcebook writers increasingly refer to "class 100" power, no longer really meaning 100 tons but something above that.

With time, a fairly regular curve has emerged between "Marvel tons" and DCH APs. "Class 50" characters tend to gravitate around 12 APs, "Class 75" around 14 or 15, "Class 90" around 16 or 17... It's definitely not a hard and fast rule, though - in part because Marvel's statement may be contradicted by what is actually seen in the primary sources.

3.11/ The description sections are often short - "see illustration(s)"

This is a quirk of the WORGmeister, that has spread to a few other posters. This is mostly due to the admin doing most of the Photoshop work for illustrations - the work on the description section is thus done with the polygonal lasso and colour manager, not words.

3.12/ Most major DC characters aren't there. Why?

Initially, this list was based on the DC Heroes game, by Mayfair. It was thus a given that everybody had the full official DC stats roster, from the cards in the Black Box (the second edition) to the Mayfair Who's Who volume #1-3 (#4 was never published). Most of the list still being old-timers, nobody needs such stats, and just republishing Mayfair material would be a blatant violation of the intellectual property.

Most of that published material is still available from used book sellers, eBay, Amazon.com and other online book sellers, Internet game stores, etc. - often at quite affordable prices.

However, when the time comes to revise old official writeups (because they include errors, are really becoming obsolete, somebody feels like doing a complete overhaul of a favourite character, etc.) we tackle major DC characters.

3.13/ What about the "DC Universe history" section at the end of many writeups?

Due to the DC Heroes game roots, it was also assumed in the mid-90s that the default gaming universe for the list was the DC Universe.

When non-DC characters started being written, it thus became usual, within a few years, to include suggestions for porting the character to the DC Universe so they could be used in games set in that universe. Since it often can be an amusing exercise, both to write and to read, that tradition has continued. Unless the writeup's author can't be arsed to come up with one - it's not a crucial section, after all.

3.14/ What is the policy about reproducing published material?

In some cases, writeups include borrowed material - something written for other sites and books, and which the WORG contributor decided to reproduce as part of the entry.

All such borrowed material is expressly noted in the first few lines of the writeups. At the least there will be the name of the author of the material or the URL, and, if possible, both. If the material has been edited, enriched, etc. this is also noted.

Part of this was started for a simple reason - sites disappear, especially if hosted on community sites like Tripod, the now-deceased Geocities, etc. Thus our policy of copying and crediting instead of just linking. Many excellent sites have already disappeared over the last ten years, and I'm quite glad the duly credited material has been saved on WORG.

This is not our preferred mode of working, though. We favour original material, and many of the writeups which quoted material from other sites have since been rewritten to only include original material.

3.15/ How open are you to comments and corrections on published writeups? What are the dark and depraved secrets of the WORG Patrol?

As long as the comments respect the work and intelligence of the author (i.e., no fanboyish rants or people coming in Just Knowing The One Truth About That Character), we are fully open. Be aware that in some cases the original poster is no longer part of the list - c'est la vie.

Posts regarding comments and corrections are best done with the [WORG Patrol] header in the title of the mail, so the editor has an easy time finding them when he rolls his sleeves up and starts making those corrections (usually every few months). The doughty WORG Patrol regularly signals typos, potential mistakes, missing words in sentence, unclear paragraphs, points that should be better explained or justified, etc. in our published material as part as our quality policy.

3.16/ Are you guys obsessed by obscure characters? There are tons of them in your stuff

Yes, that's how it turns out. I think there are several reasons to this:

3.17/ So what are the maximum human stats in the DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes?

There ain't none.

The chances of having a human being with, say, a STR greater than 05 are vanishingly small, but such persons exist. The chances of finding somebody with more than a 06 are one out of two or three billions, but such persons exist. Et caetera.

If you absolutely need a list of max human characteristics, check out the stats for peak-human people such as Batman, Captain America, Lex Luthor, Dr. Strange, Dr. Doom, Batgirl III (Cassandra Cain), Hal Jordan, Shang Chi, Lady Shiva, etc. and draw your own conclusions.

3.18/ How well-aligned are the writeups.org stats with the Mayfair stats?

We are very attentive not to drift away from published writeups and trigger a power creep or a power drain, but several WORG writers have decided to allow competent "civilians" such as Lois Lane to have scores matching their observed performance, and to have superhumans and people in costume who are not hugely athletic, smart, magnetic, etc. to have mediocre scores.

On the precise subject of STR allocation, Ray Winninger noted : "I tended to rule that an average man has a 2 STR, the average cop or gang member is one better at a 3 and most low level superheroes are one better than that at a 4. I made exceptions when they seemed warranted. I didn't allow for any gender differences in my statting (i.e. I always assumed that women are equivalent to men)." ; he further notes that he, in effect, shared Mark Gruenwald's "people in a costume are Olympic-level athletes" rule of thumb when it came to STR. We assume that a very similar kind of "hierarchy" existed for other Attributes and Skills.

Occasionally foregoing those rules of thumb was not simple for the DCH community, and may have triggered a drop in power levels (especially for obscure villains) despite all precautions, but it was strongly felt that doing so better reflected the source material. Hence, whereas the Mayfair people would have been reluctant to have somebody with a code name and costume have stuff below 04 and not have a few 05s and 06s here and there, the DCH community has numerous obscure characters who, despite having a code name and a costume, generally hover around 3 or 4 because, honestly... they don't demonstrate anything above that. *Still*, the inherited Mayfair policy means we are very unlikely to give 02s even to a character that seems to be, say, of average of even somewhat-below-average intelligence or agility if he has a code name and costume.

Mr. Winninger illustrated our shared concern about how important "anchoring" stats is : "During much of my time working on DCH, I was a hardliner on stats. I personally rewrote most of the stats we published for two reasons: 1) I wanted to make sure that all the stats had a consistent voice and 2) I was maybe the only person regularly working on DCH who read almost *all* of the DC Comics in that era; when I assigned a stat, I could balance not only against other characters in that title but against the whole of the DCU. The Bierbaum's Legion book was an interesting anomaly for us--it came toward the end of the line, I was already lowering my involvement with DCH and the Bierbaum's LSH was one of the few DC Comics that I didn't read (for whatever reason). As I recall, I was putting a lot of work into the aborted Sandman project at the time."

As for the risks of power creep... Many key contributors are pretty tight-fisted, many commentators are wary of power creep and in many cases, when a writeup is revised and goes v2, the author realizes he was too conservative. So power drain is probably a more serious concern than power creep.

Every few years there is also a discussion to recalibrate HP scores across our writeups, to prevent drifting away from established precedent.

3.19/ Is everything on WORG authoritative?

Writeups.org entries, in about 98 or 99% of the cases, mark speculative elements as being speculative - for instance "this Character never demonstrated the following Skills, but given his known military background it would be very odd if he did not have them" or "it was strongly implied her teleportational powers were inborn, but it is possible she uses a Gadget - for the sake of the stats they are considered to be full Powers".

The role-playing writeup format, though, means we have to fill *some* blanks, and it is simply impossible to mention for each such bits how speculative we're being. Some concrete, common examples:

Thus, if you want to use Writeups.org material as reference (say, for an Internet discussion) do not hesitate to come and ask how this or this bit was obtained. The writer may no longer be around or may not precisely remember the research, but polite discussion is always welcome!

3.20/ Several writeups on WORG mention 'no-prizes'. Wuzzat?

You can first check the full explanation here.

As we write increasingly detailed writeups, we tend to run into a number of continuity issues or incoherent/under-documented bits. This can be a problem since our editorial policy is never to inject original material in a writeup about a published characters without being excruciatingly clear that it is our own stuff and is not canon.

"Here is some no-prize material to address that problem" is handy in the role of signalling that we are suggesting an explanation that is not canon, but explains why the story took place in such and such a way. For instance, the character Deathbird has a randomly fluctuating power level without any explanation or acknowledgement about it - our no-prize material, clearly signalled as such, will explain this power fluctuation and thus what might have happened "behind the scenes".

In the usual belt-and-suspenders approach, no-prize material will usually be doubly or triply signalled as being original hypotheses.

3.21/ What is the usual editorial policy about individual continuity?

Eh - that's the kind of arcane matter that's very important when you're writing (or reading) writeups but seems utterly incomprehensible and unimportant for anybody less involved in the process. Let us explain the issue.

Many comic book characters have been around for decades, and written by a succession of authors as the world evolved around them. Thus, for most characters there exists a number of 'takes' on their characterisation, values, supporting cast, etc. In in-universe terms it's the same person, but in terms of analysis it's a slightly different character when it comes to the personality, game stats, special sections, atmosphere, etc. So far so good?

Furthermore, we have elements such as retcons, where a new bit of the character's past is revealed in ways that may or may not clash with the established biography. A typical example of a retcon would be asserting that the powers of a well-established character have always been mutant powers, even though nothing of the sort was ever mentioned before. Or that a new character had such and such dealings with a well-known character in the past, even though the new character was never seen or mentioned before.

Therefore, it is often counter-productive to try to simply write a major character up starting with the first appearance and ending with the latest issue. The character evolves in a variety of successive directions, and large chunks of what happened may be later revised or even completely invalidated.

Thus, there are two major ways to write about such characters - the "emergent history" and the "retroactive determinism", to whimsically borrow from a more serious field.

The "emergent history" approach is to simply document the character solely from period material, *with* a clear beginning date and end date. Such a writeup provides a snapshot of the take on the character that existed back then, without attempting to create strong ties with the rest of her history, integrating later revelations and retcons, etc. (though those elements may be discussed in special sections). Essentially, it treats the take on the character during this era as an autonomous character, and assumes that GMs (and/or players) are specifically interested in this take of the character. Examples of such a work is the Scarlet Witch (Early Years) entry or the Marvel Boy III (Bob Grayson) (Classic) entry. It is simple enough (though choosing the beginning and end dates can be tricky), but it offers but a narrow snapshot of the 'greater' character. It may also look strange to people who are mostly familiar with a different take of the character.

The "retroactive determinism" approach is also almost entirely based on period material, and also often covers the character between two specific points in time... *but* it works later information and retcons about the character and her life back into the material. It's a delicate exercise with the following objectives:

For examples of "retroactive determinism", see the Lady Shiva (Early) entry for a simple example, the Black Widow entries for a more intricate example, and the Carol Danvers entries for a really, really involved example.

Sometime the two approaches are mixed, with one entry of each kind - this is the case for several Agents of Atlas such as Jimmy Woo, Venus and Marvel Boy.

There is no doctrine as to which approach to choose in which case, really - it largely depends upon how well the writer thinks he can address the discrepancies between the takes and rationalise the overall history of the character *without* resorting to original material or further retcons. It also depends whether the character's career is bisected by continuity reboots (such as the Crisis on Infinite Earths), whether some of the takes of the character are clearly outliers that can be isolated in a separate entry (as a close-up on an atypical part of their career and behaviour), etc.

3.22/ Some articles are written with, like, all weird spelling and stuff

Several frequent collaborators use British English spelling and diction because of their fabulous Europeaness.

3.23/ Why is there often a space before the question marks, and the exclamation marks, and the colons, and the semi-colons, etc.

Typographical rules vary from country to country (and from decade to decade, in some cases). Many writeups on the site are done by Frenchmen and thus follow French typographical rules, which tend to have more whitespace than US ones - which is not a bad idea on a computer screen. Some sections (such as the quotes) are usually prepared to follow French typographical rules, as they make it easier to spot the tone of a quote. Some writeups are also typed using the old double-space between sentences convention, but you can't display that on a web page without tons of no-break spaces codes everywhere.

3.24/ A lot of the entries are rather meaty and detailed. Is the goal a full coverage?

This is chiefly a role-playing game resource. Though it is possible that one might need characters for bit parts, we assume that the entries will be used to have the characters play a rich and lively role in the campaign (perhaps even as PCs!) and that GMs want to convey the uniqueness, style and continuity of each character - in terms of mannerisms, modus operandi, backstory, relationship with other characters, specific abilities and weaknesses, etc.

Thus many entries are not really overviews - they are more like a lecture or an encyclopaedia entry. Of course, each of our 'lecturer' as his or her own style or preferences.

 

4/ Game stats stuff

4.1/ Some of those Powers and Skills are not in the rulesbook, right?

Most of the new Rules, Powers, Advantages, etc. have been handily organized in a document that you can find in the Files section of the community - http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dc-heroes/

Sometimes, a writeup includes the explanations about the new Power, Advantage, etc. - but this tends not to be the case when said Power, Advantage, etc. has become common knowledge for the community. This also avoids having out of date versions of the new Power, Advantage, etc. floating around, embedded in some writeup nobody can quite remember, and confusing people who find conflicting versions.

It is interesting to note that practically none of the new Powers, Advantages, Skills, Drawbacks, Limitations, etc. arose from a game-centric perspective - they weren't designed because it would be cool or because somebody wanted to increase the uniqueness of his munchkin. Rather, they arose as a necessity to model existing, published fiction characters, and were discussed and reviewed at length, in particular to assess whether we *really* needed them.

4.2/ Matching the stats against the stats benchmarks, I get some odd results. Am I sick?

No, it's OK - if you match the official stats against the benchmarks, you'll get some odd results too. That's because the benchmarks for Attributes in the various MEGS rulesbook to date are, in most cases, wrong. For instance the benchmark for INT is expressed mostly in terms of education (which has nothing to do with INT), the one for WILL is mostly expressed in terms of resolve (which is not really WILL), etc.

Our approach here is two-pronged:

This means, of course, more coherent stats, and characters that do what they are supposed to be able to do in game. The text in benchmarks is, in many cases, unfortunate fluff, and we hope it'll be rewritten in future editions of the game.

4.3/ What about the Vehicles (SEAL) skill?

"SEAL" is an abbreviation for "Sea, Air, Land", a common set of Vehicle Subskills. It's quicker and easier to type than "Sea, Air, Land" or (all except Space).

And no, it has nothing to do with the US military.

4.4/ Do you use the Martial Artist EV rules from Blood of Heroes Special Edition? Several entries make me think you don't

Damn, you're perceptive. Yes, many key contributors seem to ignore the EV limitation in BOH:SE, probably because they have about 20 years of familiarity with the game and many of them tend not to apply this comparatively new rule. This certainly can be confusing for people who came aboard with BOH:SE, and we apologize about that. The initial rule was that Martial Arts can sub for EV, period. Likewise, the note that a given character has Techniques tends to be omitted even when it should be there.

4.5/ In some writeups I see Powers which have the Bonus of being their own AV. Isn't that, like, the default?

A very common house rule among list members (and presumably outside the list) is that combat powers do not as a default include their own AV - there are simply too many characters who are powerful but inaccurate and vice versa. Having Physical combat Powers default to DEX for AV, Mental ones to INT and Mystical ones to INF seems to work better when it comes to modelling characters without a slew of Bonuses and Limitations.

Problem is, it's *so* common that people... sort of forget to note it in the "Reasons" section or "Bonus and Limitations" block, most of the time. But it's a fairly safe bet to assume that the house rule above was on the writer's mind.

4.6/ Sometimes I see entries with Skills that are pointless, usually below or equal to the Unskilled level for that character. What gives?

Usually, it's one of three cases :

In many cases the explanations are given right in the writeups, but this was not always the case for older entries.

4.7/ How do you interpret Skin Armor?

In basically all Writeups.org entries, Skin Armor is assumed to protect against Physical Damage (as noted in the description) with a definition of "Physical" that excludes energy attacks (Energy Blast, Flame Project, Lightning... but not some forms of purely concussive Mental Blasts or Energy Blasts). The WORG interpretation of Skin Armor does not protect against energy attacks.

Other interpretations of the Power are fine - this is just our local interpretation. A consensus was reached early on in the existence of the community and everybody since then "knows" that Skin Armor works that way, but different interpretations are fine. Just keep our take in mind when using our material, to make sure there is no misunderstanding.

4.8/ Shouldn't [Character] have Detective (Law), too?

Detective (Law) actually does fairly specific things - see our List Rules file for full explanation. Recent writeups correctly model this closer reading of the Subskill in question, but some older writeups still have people with Detective (Law) whereas they should actually have some Familiarity, Expertise or Scholar in some legal field(s).

4.9/ Whaddya mean [Character] has Creepy Appearance? Dude, she's hot! And why doesn't Dreamboat Dude get Attractive? Look at those shoulders!

The naming of the 'new', Sidekick/BOH:SE Appearance Drawbacks - Creepy, Distinct - and their game effects sort of fumbled the ball, unfortunately. It is quite confusing and counterintuitive even for experienced contributors. The published writeups follow the rulebook so far, but giving up and writing revised appearance Drawback rules is increasingly tempting.

As to the Attractive Advantage, precedent in both the official material and the peer-reviewed community material is to only give it to characters who have a clear track record of heightened social prowess toward people with a potential romantic interest in them. In many movies and comic books, it is common for just about everyone to be preternaturally attractive, so not every buxom mega-hot chick is going to have a special game Advantage - they are the norm. It takes a clear track record of having the -1CS to the OV/RV of relevant Persuasion attempts to get Attractive, as with any other Advantage.

4.10/ So, is the power Heat Vision or Laser Beam?

Heat Vision was the Power in DC Heroes - in Blood of Heroes it became Laser Beam so it would not just be a clone of Energy Blast, and be less Superman-centric. Thus it is normally Laser Beam that gets used, but there have been some instances of Heat Vision coming back from the dead. Usually, it's because somebody got distracted and/or it just fitted the character being described so well.

In any case, Heat Vision is just a generic Energy Blast-type power with a heat effect.

4.11/ Some Skills are weird and I can't find them in the "List rules" file. What's up with that?

Many characters have flavour skills such as Artist (Cooking) or unusual groupings such as Weaponry (police weapons), Animal Handling (Horses) or Weaponry (USMC infantry weapons). Though those are not standard or defined in the rulesbook, it is felt that those tiny innovations are rather straightforward and easy to use in a game, barring some weird circumstances. Stop upholding the Man by oppressing our creative flower freedom, dude!

 

5/ Questions about official Mayfair material

5.1/ Many people find it weird that Knockback Damage is Killing Combat. Is it OK to make it Bashing instead?

From a discussion with Ray Winninger: "I agree that it doesn't represent certain comic books very well. The original intent was to make some of the more powerful heroes think twice before unleashing their full fury on lesser characters--when Superman punches a burglar, he'd never think about hitting with his full EV. Perhaps Killing damage from Knockback is best classified as a 'Genre Rule.' "

5.2/ Aren't Critical Blows and Devastating Attacks a bit weird? Can Robin really take down Godzilla by kicking him in the nuts?

In some cases, definitely. From a discussion with Ray Winninger: "That's a possibility, though I think I prefer the idea of raising the Hero Point costs for increasing AV/EV, etc or maybe even charging Hero Points to launch Critical Blows and Devastating Attacks. DAs and CBs are necessary to explain a lot of the odd outcomes that happen in the comics. They're also important for gameplay reasons--they prevent players from feeling completely helpless when facing a vastly superior foe. ("I'm only Hawkgirl. What am I supposed to do against Brainiac?;" the comics have certainly depicted the equivalent of Robin kicking Godzilla in the nuts on more than one occasion). Still, the intersection of Hero Points, Critical Blows and Devastating Attacks is one of the idiosyncracies of DCH (maybe its equivalent of the Daredevil Problem).

(If I remember correctly, the rules outlaw Devastating Attacks when playing some Genres, no?)"

They, in fact, do. The discussion then veered toward whether doubles and HP spending were sufficient to explain those occurrences, rather than special attack rules, and how most of the weird cases happened due to the low OV of targets with Growth, but Ray unfortunately had to leave.

5.3/ Are, say, Skin Armor and Force Field supposed to stack?

Short answer - no. Long answer - no, but you might allow exponential addition (e.g., 6 APs + 8 APs = 9 APs). This point is also covered in more detail as the Defensive Stacking clarification in our List Rules document, but since this is a very common question - and usually the first significant rule interpretation issue one runs into with MEGS - it is also mentioned in this FAQ.

5.4/ Why did Batman drop from a DEX of 10 to a DEX of 9 in the third edition?

No, this wasn't the broken back thing -- this occurred later and the chronology simply doesn't work. The matter is important, though, when you are writing up some of Batman's opponents and all sorts of similar characters. And, since Batman is a cornerstone in terms of character stats, representing a sort of "soft cap" for humans, this change in DEX has significant consequences. We were able to reach Ray Winninger, who kindly answered :

"I changed Batman's DEX to 9. The trend in the comics, at the time, was toward a grittier, more down-to-earth Batman. As I recall (and over a decade later, the details are hazy so I may remember this wrong), the change was made for two reasons: a) to reduce the number of thugs Bats could comfortably Multi-Attack when expending maximum Hero Points, and b) I seem to recall that a comic in that era cleanly established that Lady Shiva was a more capable martial artist than Batman (though Bats would still win the fight due to his experience, superior intelligence, etc). Rather than raise Shiva's Martial Artist skill to the very problematic figure of 11, I decided instead to lower Bat's DEX/MA to 9.

Beginning with Morrison's JLA run, I would have reset the scores to 10.

At some point, I think I concluded that 10 should remain the absolute limit for most "street-level" Martial Artists. Karate Kid, from the LSH, would be an obvious exception to this general policy; there are undoubtedly others. I temporarily lowered Batman's value to 9 during the era in which DC was trying to define him as a bit grittier and more down-to-earth than the pre-Crisis Batman. These days, I'd definitely restore it to 10, where he'd be joined by Lady Shiva, maybe Cassandra Cain, maybe Deathstroke."

By the time the discussion ended, we could not determine why Ray considered Martial Artist: 11 to be such a problem -- Multi-Attacks are limited by movement speed in the pre-BOH:SE rules. The ancient truth may never be known. :-)

5.5/ Who wrote the stats in the otherwise excellent 2995 Legion sourcebook? Some stuff is, like, weird.

Another answer from Ray : "Definitely not the Bierbaums. I don't recall who wrote them--certainly not me as I never read a single issue of the Bierbaum's LSH. They never looked quite right to me either."

5.6/ Was DC Heroes RPG material used by DC writers to write comic books?

Quoting Mr. Winninger again:

"Absolutely true. I had a series of lengthy conversations with all sorts of DC writers and editors when compiling the game stats and rules for DC HEROES. I personally worked with : Mike Barr, Andy Helfer, Denny O'Neill, George Perez, Alan Moore, John Byrne, Neil Gaiman, Marv Wolfman, JM DeMatteis, Steve Englehart, Paul Levitz, Mike Grell, Dan Jurgens, Paul Kupperberg, Jack Kirby (!), Roger Stern, Jerry Novick and (undoubtedly) several others I'm forgetting.

In most cases, we'd have a quick phone call and then I'd prepare detailed questions and the folks from DC would answer them. (For example, "With maximum effort, Superman can lift-circle one-a tank, an apartment building, a skyscraper, an aircraft carrier, the moon, or more."). In other cases, we collaborated much more closely. I had a series of lengthy conversations and back-and-forth with Alan Moore on Watchmen, Paul Kupperberg and I co-wrote the Doom Patrol sourcebook, etc. Lots of the DC folks we worked with wrote original blurbs for us for the 2nd edition of DCH.

A lot of the material we created and compiled was used for DC for a long time after DCH gave up the ghost (and may still be in use). I know that my Green Lantern sourcebook was used by several of the writers who have written GL in the intervening years."

 

6/ The Holy Mandatory Thrice-Blessed Obligatory Write-Up Template

Respect the template. Love the template. Revere the template. Deviation from the template will be punished by horrible death, involving angry ants with a bad case of diarrhoea. The template is the Law.

The template is currently being reworked. What's below is the old version. Ask on-list if you need the current version of the template. Thanks.

Example template (if you think this is nitpicking, do I have a Turabian or Chicago for you...):

Name of character v1.1
By Name of the author
Source of Character : Such and such movie, comic, book, game, etc.
Helper(s): People who made useful comments and/or provided useful material
Reasons: Stuff about your technical choices, the context of the writeup, the version of the character being covered, etc.
Usual Genre : With any relevant explanation. Skip if not important.

Name of character
"Quote A of multiple quotes !"

"Quote B of multiple quotes !"

Character 1: "Dialogue part 1 !"
Character 2: "Dialogue part 2 !"

Name of character
"Insert quote here if there is only one quote - and delete all of the previous name + quotes section"
A XXX points Character (only for those who want to calculate this)
Dex: 01 Str: 10 Bod: 01 Motivation: Motivation. Note how attributes always have two digits.
Int: 10 Wil: 01 Min: 10 Occupation: Occupation. Note *exact* name of attributes.
Inf: 01 Aur: 10 Spi: 01 Wealth: 001. Note how Wealth, Init, HPs always have 3 digits.
Init: 012 HP: 100

Powers: Power A: 01, Linked power B*: 01, Mystic-liked power C (ML): 01, Mystic-linked and linked power D (ML)*: 10. If no Powers whatsoever, skip.

Bonuses and Limitations :
Power A has Limitation 1 (-2)
Power B has Limitation 2 (-50 BC, -2 FC)
If no Bonus and Limitation to Powers whatsoever, skip.

Skills: Linked skill (subskill A, subskill B)*: 08. If no Skills whatsoever, state it.

Bonuses and Limitations:
Skill A has Limitation 3 (-1)
If no Bonus and Limitation to Skills whatsoever, skip.

Advantages: Language (Language A, Language B), Headquarters (Expansive), Schtick (Schtick A, schtick B). If no Advantages whatsoever, state it.

Connections: Connection A (High), Connection B (Low). Note the plural to Connections. If no Connections whatsoever, state it.

Drawbacks: MIA toward X, Attack Vulnerability (pink fluffy dinosaurs, -2CS to RV), MIH of Y, MIH (pink fluffy dinosaurs). If no Drawbacks whatsoever, state it.

Rituals: Ritual A [Casting Time: 01, Necessary component : a goat, Power A: 08]. If no Rituals whatsoever, skip.

Equipment :
Gadget A [BODY 04, EV 03 (04 w/STR, 05 w/Martial Artist), Power A: 04, R#02. Notes : Note how BODY and EV are not followed by a colon because they're technical terms. Bonuses & Limitations : Note the use of the ampersand so the parsing script can distinguish it from the sections above)

Gadget B [DEX 01 STR 04 BODY 06, Skin Armor: 04]

Gadget C, WHICH CANNOT BE TAKEN AWAY [BODY 04]

Gadget D, WHICH CANNOT BE TAKEN AWAY [/DEX/ 04 /STR/ 08 /BODY/ 10, Notes : those are italicized/substituting Attributes. Note the lack of punctuation other than the slashes]

If no Equipment whatsoever, skip.

 
Section about interesting gaming stuff if any:
Paragraph A. See writeups who have such sections for examples of "interesting gaming stuff" - complex Powers, interesting Trick Powers or unusual usage of a Power or Skill, describing an unusual Subskill or unique Schtick, etc. Extra credit for having the title of that section be the title of a song, or a quote.

Paragraph B.

 
Previous stats (if any):
Paragraph A. The most common example of "interesting gaming stuff" - a section about how the stats of the character change before or past a certain point. It is almost always preferable to explain such changes in a dedicated section like this one, rather than in the main stats block. If the differences are drastic, make several distinct stats blocks.

 
Name of pet, sidekick, etc. if any:
Stats as above

 
Background:
Real name: Bob
Other Aliases: The Mighty Bobster (skip if no other alias)
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: Bob Sr. (father, deceased), Sue (mother)
Group Affiliation: Group A. Note the singular to affiliation.
Base of Operations: Mobile ; formerly Kansas
Height: 5'9" Weight: 170 lbs
Eyes: Brown Hair: Black

 
Powers and Abilities:
Paragraph A.

Paragraph B.

 
History:
Paragraph A.

Paragraph B.

 
Description:
Paragraph A.

Paragraph B.

 
Personality:
Paragraph A.

Paragraph B.

 
DC universe history:
Paragraph A.

Paragraph B.

If nothing applicable or character is from the DCU proper, skip.

 

7/ The Amazing, Stupendous, Uncanny Entry Edition Procedure

This procedure -- which is amazing and stupendous, but also uncanny -- allows contributors to revise their articles as they see fit, practically by themselves.

The four main user cases I can see for this are:

I'm well aware that many people are a bit reluctant to turn back the clock and work on something that they have released months or years before. My experience, though, has been that entries can be significantly improved with moderate effort once they've gotten out of one's mindspace for a few weeks or more. I think that this is pretty universal among writers - usually the problem is more with stopping to fiddle with the text. And of course, for ESL folks with older published entries, their English will likely have significantly improved.

While of course everybody has their own ways, I would encourage contributors to consider a light but regular schedule to review their older entries (say, one entry every Saturday morning) for polishing. With the sheer amount of content on WORG, the random button, etc. the readers do not limit themselves to recent entries ; they are reading your old stuff all the time.

HOW TO EDIT YOUR STUFF ON WORG

This is simple :

BONUS (slightly more complicated stuff):

 

8/ Who's to blame for this?

Contents-wise, the name of the primary writer and their helpers are always noted for each entry. As to the site delivering that content:

 

Enjoy writeups.org ! If you have further questions, you can of course come to the discussion group and ask away.