Components:

The Deluxe game comes in a sturdy, high quality, colorful flat box–although being oversized might make it a difficult fit on some shelves. Inside are 2 main rule books, a book of short fiction, a supplementary booklet, and a sheet of maps. Interestingly, the books are in Trade Paperback format. Thats a convenient size to handle, but makes it difficult to refer to the rules in game–words near the spine in the middle of the books become a little challenging to read and theres no way theyll stay open to a desired page by themselves. No complaints on quality, though, save for the maps which are basically 8 1/2 x 11 laser printed pages–glossy wall posters would have been nice given the price. The only real disappointment is the minimal amount of background information; Issaries will shortly be coming out with a series of Players Guides which include full background and character information for various regions, but it would have been nice to have had at least one of these included in the boxed set.

Layout:

Theres a few pages of nice B&W art, but no illustrations specifically related to the text. The layout is ideal for a casual perusal of the books–the background material is tightly integrated with the game mechanics which makes for an enjoyable cover to cover read, but combined with the lack of an index makes looking up specific items very difficult. A nice job is done of setting off play tips and examples, however.

Fortunately, they thoughtfully provided a booklet (which also contains full size character sheets) with a quick rules summary. This will hopefully minimize the need to refer to the actual rule books very often.

Setting:

Hero Wars is set at the end of Gloranthas Modern Age; the location featured in the core rules is the Dragon Pass. Located in south central Genertela (Gloranthas northern continent), Dragon Pass is a place where cultures clash and religions collide. This cauldron of politics and aggression will serve as a flash point for the Hero Wars, which will envelop all of Glorantha and change the course of history. It is a time of turmoil and upheaval, of gods reborn, of great cataclysms, and great heroes who all know a little magic.

Featured in the first two Players Guides will be the Lunar Empire–a mighty power encroaching into the Dragon Pass–and the barbarian followers of the Storm God Orlanthi who seek to preserve their freedom. The true depth of Glorantha (which has been developed for 30+ years) is beyond the scope of this review, but Greg Stafford says Hero Wars is by far the best of all games set in Glorantha to capture the shape of the world I had been seeking for years.

The Game:

Well, those who give bonus points for games with fresh new mechanics will want to run out and buy this one, and those who give demerits for new games that insist on inventing a whole new game vocabulary may be put off by the 12 page glossary included in the booklet. Some terms are just color (like grimoires instead of spell book), but keeping a handle on abilities, augmentations, enhancements, edges, handicaps, masteries, and bumping takes a little work at first.

Character generation is entirely free form. Players are encouraged to write a 100 word grammatically correct paragraph describing their character (Actor) from which the player and GM (Narrator) will extract stats for the character sheet. This centers around a system of Abilities and Keywords. An Ability is anything the character can do from skills, to attributes, followers, advantages, flaws, and personality traits. These are pulled right from the text of the narration. A sentence which reads Ruger is widely traveled in the east gives rise to the ability Widely Traveled in the East. Absent are the traditional RPG attributes like Strength, Intellegence, etc. Keywords are basically ability packages–every character will have a Culture, Occupation, and Religion Keyword which grants a number of standard Abilities appropriate to that package.

Each of these Abilities has a corresponding rating, which somewhat disappointingly starts at a standard assigned number. This will tend to make all starting characters with the same Keywords appear somewhat similar on paper. Because of the free form nature of Abilities there is no set skill list, and players are given the opportunity to use any skill they have if they can explain how its appropriate. The GM then sets an Improvisation penalty based on how much of a stretch it is. For example: Characters trying to flee a monster may each be using different Abilities like Fast, Sprinter, or Good at Running. They would each be used the same way, although the GM could decide to give the Good at Running character an advantage over the Sprinter in an endurance race. This type of system may be quite challenging for veterans of GURPS style games to GM as there is absolutely no description of even the standard Keyword Abilities to serve as a guide.

The actual mechanic starts off fairly simply with roll 1d20 equal to or less than your Rating. From there, however, there are quite a few twists and turns. First of all, skill levels routinely go much higher than 20. 40-50 would be fairly heroic while 150-200 downright god-like. Each multiple of 20 is considered a Mastery Level (which for some reason is abbreviated w), so a skill of 46 becomes 6w2, which means to roll 6 or less on 1d20 to succeed, but your success level is Bumped up by 2 steps due to the 2 levels of mastery. When characters oppose each other, Masteries are canceled so only the higher level character gets Bumps equal to the difference.

Combat is truly free form. Characters start with a number of Action Points based on how skilled they are. Initiative is in typical high total to low total order. During each characters turn they stake a number of these points–a lot if they intend to be aggressive, few if they intend to be cautious. An opposed roll vs. the opponent is made and checked on a matrix. The results cause the loser to forfeit the number of points staked or some multiple thereof. Points lost may sometimes be transferred to the winner. This is very different from the standard roll to hit, roll to damage, check for wounds system of most RPGs. The loss and gain of Action Points does not represent injuries, but rather jockeying for superior position, morale, fatigue and the like. What exactly is happening is left totally for the players to describe. Gaining Action Points could be due to ducking behind a pillar, jumping on a table, or the thrill of seeing your enemys blood. Loss of Action Points could be due to a superficial cut, a weapon beaten aside, a stumble, or a fall down a flight of stairs. None of this has any direct impact on the mechanics save what the GM may choose to award in the form of future modifiers. When a combatants Action Points reach 0, he is down. Only then, based on how negative the total gets, is an actual physical wound assessed. Edges and Handicaps are added as a way of altering the stake bid.

Impressively, this system can be used to play out any antagonistic encounter from haggling with a merchant to defending ones self in court (although simpler methods are provided for encounters of minor importance).

Verdict:

Hero Wars may not be everyone’s cup of tea–those whose gaming experience is defined by GURPS, RuneQuest, RoleMaster, or the Hero System may find themselves challenged by the open style of play and lack of definitive rules–but anyone who collects RPGs, are fans of free-form gaming, LARP-type play, or who are tired of the angst of White Wolf story telling and wants to try epic fantasy on for size wont be disappointed by adding this title to their collection. It is a system which truly leaves everything that is happening to the descriptive imagination of the players.