[.ca] Silver Age Sentinels: d20 Edition (ISBN 1894525639)

Mutants & Masterminds blows this book away:
O.K. - Look past the black and white, non-gloss pages, with artwork that cannot compare to Green Ronin / Super Unicorn's masterpiece 'Mutants & Masterminds'. Look past the fact that most people who want to play a superhero RPG will want to play in the modern day, not in the 'silver age' which will detract immediatly due to the title of this book. Look past a system that isn't completely d20 (which, lets face it, no superhero RPG I have seen is EXACTLY verbaitum a translation of d20 made into a super-powered game). What you are left with when you look past all that is a decent game for people who have never read a comic book, but have heard all about them from their friends who are able to read. Was I too harsh? If you don't believe me, buy this book, Amazon has a wonderful return policy.

Good superhero RPG'ing, Good d20, Good book:
This is worthwhile purchase if you like d20. I'm using it for both item design, enemy/GM Char design, AND superhero RPG. The rules are solid, and I like 99% of this book. And the art is great! It's B & W art, but it adds to the 'silver age' feel. I wish it included a GM's screen, but what books do? My biggest complaint is that the Index is lacking. That said, I have seen no other d20 books as nice as this except for the Wizards' D & D books and d20 Modern.

Character Classes for Superheroes?:
I have spent a long time looking for the perfect superhero RPG and this is NOT it. Not only did I find the book painfully hard to read because of the busy border and cramped looking layout, it tries to pigeonhole superheroes into character classes. I just couldn't imagine playing a superhero that was a 2nd level Costumed Hero and a 3rd level gadgeteer. Go play mutants and masterminds. It may be a bit more expensive for a smaller book, but it is so much better for this genre.

A Flexible Superhero RPG That is Actually Complete:
Silver Age Sentinels (SAS) is 336 pages of D20 superhero gaming goodness. It is not, however, like most of the other D20 games that you may have read or own. Instead of trying to jam D & D into a pair of spandex tights, Guardians of Order (GOO) chose to adapt the excellent D10 Tri-Stat version of their game to D20. While most of the core D20 concepts like character class, hit points, armor class, etc. are still intact, other concepts or mechanics might work a bit differently or have a different name. For example, objects have an armor rating instead of a hardness and armor absorbs damage instead of increases armor class. At the heart of SAS is the flexible power creation system pulled straight out of the Tri-Stat version. Picking powers is a simple matter of paying a set number of points for each level of the power. There is no need for a calculator. You should have little trouble simulating most any super power you will find in comics and the simple power modifier value system allows you to easily personalize each power for your character. Over a hundred pages of the book is devoted to the Empire City campaign setting (which is New York City with the serial numbers filed off). You get a short history of the world, a timeline and an overview of the current global situation, all of it taking into account the presence of super beings and their influence of course. A mini-atlas of Empire City details sites of interest around the city. As a blessing for the Game Master (GM), the book includes complete write ups for seventeen heroes and villains, and a selection of adventure seeds. If you aren't adamant that your D20 games have to be completely compatible with D & D and you enjoy superhero gaming, SAS should bring you many hours of entertainment. It has most of the flexibility of a rules-heavy system like Hero, while maintaining the D20 concepts that you already know and love. Throwing in a campaign setting and lots of GM advice makes it one of the best deals in gaming today. Check it out.

"d20" Superheroes Doesn't Get Any Better:
Believe the hype. If you want the BEST d20 superheroes RPG out there, then buy this book. Sure, it's in black and white, while M & M is in color - but then again, "Sin City" is in black and white, where "Youngblood" was in color. Yeah, that's the comparison that I'm making here. While I am familiar with both SAS and M & M, there is no better d20 superhero RPG, for role-players (not roll-players) anywhere else. I hate to sound like a representitive of the company, but I have gotten rather annoyed with those reviews which state that Mutants and Masterminds "blows this book away." If you want to run/play a quality superhero game which most reflects any comic genre that you'd want to do, then this is the way to go. Leave M & M on the shelf. And if you don't believe me? Well, then take into consideration that "The Authority" RPG (and "Stormwatch" supplements) will be using the same rules/system as SAS. DC/Wildstorm couldn't have made a better decision, and I urge you to do the same. Don't get lost in the M & M powergamer "craze"...