Friday, December 16, 2011

Willow & Tara: DC Heroes

DC Heroes from Mayfair Games was one of the "Big Games" for me back in the day.  One of those games that was like entering into an entire sub-culture, not just a game.  You know like old World of Darkness, Call of Cthulhu, Rifts or Exalted.  One where they have their fans and they are very loyal and the entry seems to be a bit high.

I loved DC comics at the time, though I was slowly going over to Marvel.  I never got into DC Heroes.  Villains & Vigilantes seemed easier to get into coming from D&D and when I finally got back around to Supers, it was Marvel Super Heroes.  I feel I missed out on something though to be honest.

DC Heroes has a certain style to it.  A certain elegance I see now on the other side of several graduate level statistics courses.  It is a game I'd love to give another chance too. Course parts of it seem pretty dated too. Tables with "column shifts" and exploding doubles.  Course that sounds exactly like the kind of thing that would get the OSR's blood pumping.  I also like it because in many ways DC Heroes is the antidote to "grimdark" and "gritty", not that you can't do those with this, you can rather easily, but DC Heroes was about being a hero, being the good guy.



I have not done a lot of posting of Willow and Tara in a while.  When "Season of the Witch" died down and "Generation HEX" never took off I had run out of creative juices.  Plus I had moved on Ghosts of Albion by then and other games.  Though Gen HEX was going to be my supers/animie/comics game.  I still have great plans to run each "issue"/episode/adventure with a different rule set.  But I am not likely to get to it all now.  More's the shame.  In any case here are my girls, in their Generation HEX best.
Since these are very seasoned vets of many battles they are starting higher than your average character.

Willow Rosenberg

DEX: 2 STR: 1 BODY: 3
INT: 9 WILL: 4 MIND: 5
INFL: 11 AURA: 13 SPIRIT: 12
Initiative: 22  Hero Points:  20



Mystic Link:
Empathy (Will) 2, Magic Blast (Spirit) 6, Magic Shield (Spirit) 6, Mystic Shield (Will) 5, Telekinesis (Will) 7, Telepathy (Int) 5 (9 with Tara), Teleportation (Will) 4, Truesight 3

Limitations: Since the events in "Season of the Witch" Willow has no limitations on her powers.

Skills:  Detective 2, Gadgetry 5, Medicine 1, Occultist 7, Scholar (Supernatual) 7, Scientist 5

Connections:  
Business (high),  Supernatural (high)


Motivation: Learn more about her power

Wealth: Affluent  (maybe a bit higher, but not Multimillionaire)

Job: Semi-retired software designer and CEO, teacher

Race: Human (Homo Magi is what she would be in the DC universe)

Origin: Mystical Heritage (Major)

Alter Ego/Aliases: none

Base of Operations: Boston, MA


Tara Maclay 

DEX: 2 STR: 2 BODY: 3
INT: 8 WILL: 5 MIND: 4
INFL: 10 AURA: 14 SPIRIT: 12
Initiative: 20  Hero Points: 20


Powers: Mystic Link:
Empathy (Will) 6, Heal (Spirit) 4*, Magic Blast (Spirit) 2, Magic Shield (Spirit) 3, Mystic Shield (Will) 2, Telekinesis (Will) 4, Telepathy (Int) 5 (9 with Willow), Truesight 5

(*Heal is not in the rule book, but something Tara can do.  At 4 AP she can heal 4 AP of damage per touch)

Limitations: Since the events in "Season of the Witch" Tara has no limitations on her powers.

Skills: Animal Handling 2, Artist (dancing) 4, Artist (singing) 5, Artist (painter) 4, Occultist 6, Scholar (Witchcraft) 7

Connections:  
Supernatural

Motivation: Responsibility of Power

Wealth: Affluent

Job: High school art teacher, girls counselor

Race: Human (Homo Magi)

Origin: Mystical Heritage (Major)

Alter Ego/Aliases: none

Base of Operations: Boston, MA

Willow and Tara in Generation HEX
In Generation HEX we pick up a few years after the events from Season of the Witch.  Magic is outed and the first generation of magic using children are reaching high school age. One of which is their own daughter. Tara is an art teacher and girls counselor at a school for magical teens.  Willow, having sold off her software firm is also teaching.  They relocated to Boston, MA and despite being older, there is still plenty of adventure left to have.

Willow and Tara in the DC Universe
Personally I would think that the girls would have fared much better in the DC Universe than in others.  I can easily see them both joining the Teen Titans, or depending on when we do this, Young Justice.    Though Willow would need something else to do than turn evil since that was already done by Raven.
Given their backgrounds I would expect they would be viewed as resources into the occult and supernatural worlds the same way that Zatanna, Doctor Fate and Madame Xandu are.  Only less dangerous to deal with.  In the DC universe though, the nod has to go to Zee.   I am assuming a more magic-rich world than the 1st edition rules laid out, maybe something closer to what we saw in the 3rd ed DC Heroes.

In either case the girls work as a team.  Willow is the heavy hitter, but Tara has a greater store of power and more subtle powers.

3 comments:

Alex Osias said...

Interesting. Wasn't there a sorcery skill -- you could stick a limitation on it limiting the sorcery to researched spells.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

I didn't see that in my 1st ed books, maybe it was something they added later.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

I didn't see that in my 1st ed books, maybe it was something they added later.