Godlike: probably the best RPG about super-powered soldiers fighting in WWII.
Also my favorite RPG about super-powered soldiers fighting in WWII.
I bought the first edition in hardback back when it came out in 2001 when it first came out and haven't looked back. Best bit of a bad year, methinks.
Anyway, Godlike: it's an easy game to learn, and not exceptionally difficult to master, and because I have a habit of running it for people who've never played it, I've written up a simple guide for players.
If you want a far better summary of character creation than I could ever provide, you can find a more cogent, complete and professionally written piece (from the actual creators) free HERE at DrivethruRPG!
You'll also probably want a CHARACTER SHEET.
Very handy.
You can buy the full game HERE.
And you should. It's good.
PLAYING THE GAME
Godlike uses a dice pool of 10-sided dice (and only 10-sided dice) to resolve absolutely everything. You roll stat+skill and then look for matches - that is, two or more dice coming up with the same number. Any matches are a success.
The number of dice that match is called the Width. The number on those matches is the Height. Width dictates how quickly you do it; height dictates the quality of the action.
So, if your character has the stat Brains 3 and the skill Mechanics 2, and wants to fix his car over a lazy Sunday, he rolls 5D and sees how many dice come up the same. Let's say he rolls 1,3,3,8,10. He has two threes - which is written as 2x3, Width 2, Height 3. That means he succeeds
If he'd rolled 6,6,6,7,8 it'd also be a success (3x6).
If he rolled 2,2,2,4,4 he has two sets (3x2 and 2x4). He can choose which set he wants - the wide one or the high one.
Whichever one he chooses, he fixes his car.
All well and good when you're doing something where time is on your side. But what about if two people are running a race or playing chess or trying to woo a potential lover? Who wins? It's the same thing - except now the Width and Height are in direct competition.
Bob and John are running a footrace. Bob has 4D in his pool while John has 5D. Bob rolls 2x9. John rolls 3x1.
John's 3 width beats Bob's 2 width. It doesn't matter that Bob ran better and arrives without mussing his hair, while John's crossed the finish line a sweaty mess - it's a race, and John got a higher roll: he got there faster.
In combat the speed and height of a match matter. Say Bob has Coordination 3 and Rifle 2 (5D) - he wants to shoot John. John is unarmed and decides to jump behind cover - he has Coordination 2 and Dodge 2 (4D).
Bob rolls 2x10. John rolls 3x1.
Now, if you look at your Godlike character sheet, there's a silhouette of a man, broken down by numbers and into individual blocks.
Each block is a "health point" and the numbers next to each limb signify what's hit. Each time you roll in combat, the height of the match is what part of the body gets injured.
There are two types of damage in Godlike: shock and killing.
Shock is being battered and bruised - it's signified by a slash (/); if a limb fills with shock, you can't use it until it heals - if your head fills with shock, you're unconscious until it heals. Thankfully half of your shock damage disappears at the end of combat. Shock damage scratches a line through a health box.
Killing damage, on the other hand, is bad. It bleeds out over time; it can't (normally) be healed except with surgery. If a limb gets filled with killing, it might well have been blown off! Take four killing to your head and you're dead. You signify it with a cross (X).
Worse, shock stacks into killing. Get punched in your arm or stomped on the head repeatedly, and once a limb's filled with shock, any further shock immediately turns into killing. Ouch.
So back to combat. Bob's rolled 2x10, which means he hits John in the head with a shot from his rifle! Both speed and damage are decided by Width, and a rifle typically deals Width+2 in killing and shock damage - e.g. 4 killing and shock damage.
Four shock and four killing fills the head of the silhouette with killing damage, meaning John is dead, dead, dead.
But wait- Bob's superb headshot doesn't mean anything if John's width beats his. In that case John acts first - and by the time Bob pulls the trigger, he has already flung himself behind cover.
In this example, John does not die in the end. Having dived for cover before the trigger was pulled, he has lived to fight another day.
There are a bunch of other rules in the core book involving the usual gamut of choking people to death, spraying machine-gun bullets, catching fire and crashing planes into buildings. But in the end, it all pretty much boils down to rolling a dice pool and hoping to beat the other guy's width.
Oh, and if you roll to gun down a mook and someone else shoots or punches you before you do, you lose a successful dice from your own pool. That's fine if you rolled more than two dice in a match - but not so good if you only had a pair.
SPECIAL DICE
Normally you just roll your dice and look for matches. But Talents sometimes have special dice in their powers - and only when it comes to powers.
> Hard Dice
> Wiggle Dice
A Hard Dice isn't rolled - instead, it's always considered to be a 10 in height. If someone has two of them, they therefore always succeed at their roll. If they want to lift something super-heavy, they don't have to roll, it always works. If they have them in a combat skill, it always hits the head. Want to shoot someone in the head all the time (so long as no one just punched you and made you drop a dice)? Take 2HD.
Hard Dice lack finesse, as they always do the maximum damage. But as a minus, they're often slow (because you're not normally going to take more than 2 of them).
Wiggle Dice are magic dice - you can put them down as anything you want them to be. If you have 3D+1WD in your dice pool for shooting Nazis, you roll the regular dice first and then you add the Wiggle Dice to it as whatever you want.
Roll 3,3,7 and you can put your Wiggle Dice as an extra 3 (3x3, pretty fast but low in height) or as a 7 (2x7, slow but strong).
Having just one wiggle dice guarantees a match, all the time.
Wiggle Dice are expensive but great when you have a skill - like Rifle - where you might want to guarantee shooting people in the legs and taking prisoners.
Better yet, if someone kicks you in the balls while you're trying to do something, you lose a regular dice first and not the Wiggle Dice. That makes them better than Hard dice.
MAKING A CHARACTER
Every human in Godlike has six STATS. Each begins at the minimum of 1 (incompetent). A stat at 3 is considered exceptional, 4 at Olympic level, while the peak of human capability is the maximum at 5. The skills are:
Body - for physical strength, sports, climbing, lobbing grenades, and so on.
Coordination - dodging, shooting, driving a car, flying a plane, anything reflex based.
Sense - seeing things, hearing things, smelling things, alertness and all that jazz.
Brains - memory, mathematics, medicine, tinkering and military tactics.
Command - telling people what to do (through leadership or intimidation).
Cool - staying calm, shrugging off psychological trauma, staying frosty on guard duty, etc.
Each stat begins at 1 and players get a further 6 points to spread between them. An average, normal, typical person has 2 in each stat.
Stats are all well and good until you realize 2 dice is only going to get a match about 10% of the time. And that's not great. You want more dice; which is where SKILLS come in.
Skills add to the stat when you roll them. Have Body 2 and Grenade 2? You roll 4 dice when lobbing grenades at Nazis.
Like stats, a skill cannot have more than 5 dice in it.
Every militarily trained Talent starts with a bunch of free skills, either through commando training or combat experience. They're freebies. And they are:
Brawling 1, Climb 1, Cryptography 1, Endurance 1, Explosives 1, Grenade 1, Knife fighting 1, Machine Gun 1, Map Reading 1, Mortar 1, Navigation (Land) 1, Parachuting 1, Pistol 1, Radio Operation 1, Rifle 1, Running 1, Stealth 1, Submachine Gun 1, Survival 1, Tactics 1
That means your average commando with stats of 2 rolls 3 dice when shooting someone with a gun, jumping out of a plane, or trying to work out the best way of dealing with a machine-gun nest blocking their route. 3D isn't bad - it's a roughly 30% success rate. And the guy shooting at you probably only has a 30% chance of hitting you too.
But you want more skills. So here you go: you get 20 points to put into whatever you want. Want "Bazooka", "Language: German", "Seduction" or "Mechanical engineering"? Go for it. Spread 'em out or clump 'em up.
According to the rules you can't have a skill with more points than it has in stats, e.g. if you have Body 2, you can't have Grenade 3. Have Coordination 3 and you can have Rifle 3, but not Rifle 5.
But that's unduly limiting, so here's my house-rule: you can go one above your stat in a skill. E.g. if you have Coordination 1, you can have Pistol 2, but no higher.
If you're really flummoxed for where to put skills, there's a handy random generator on the Arc Dream website, where you roll 5D to find what you learned before you got sent off to war.
HOWEVER: there's one skill you're really going to want to take -
MENTAL STABILITY
Whenever bad things happen or you see terrible sights (and, oddly enough, those happen a lot in war), you're going to need to roll Cool+Mental Stability to not freak out or panic or run away or just sink to your knees and toss your gun away.
Keeping your cool is vitally important in Godlike, because your superpowers - or Talents - are directly affected by it. When bad things happen, like seeing your friends killed or failing in your mission, a little bit of your ego gets chipped away. And your ego is what keeps you going.
Finally, add your Cool and your Command stats together. That's your Base Will. For most people it's 4. As we said earlier, if you're a Talent, Will is what fuels your power.
And that, as they say is that. Congratulations. You have made a perfectly viable character in Godlike. Not a particularly survivable character. Not a Talent. But 99% of the people in the war are this guy. Cannon fodder.
ADDING TALENTS
So here's the cool part. The meat of the game. Here's where you make yourself super.
There are three types of powers.
Hyperstats - they're exactly what they sound like. Buying points in hyper-body increases your Body stat above the human limit of 5. You can lift tanks (or at least cars). Someone who's hyper-cool isn't fazed by things and doesn't feel pain. And so on and so forth. These are the most common Talents, and are the second cheapest.
Hyperskills - these are more tightly defined than hyperstats, and where you get Hyper-Snipers or Hyper-Mechanics or people who can lie through their teeth with such egregious charm that everyone believes them. These are the cheapest powers to buy because they're only useful in specific situations, but within their niche they can be brutally powerful - a guy with Coordination 3 and Rifle 2 who buys 4 points in Hyper-Rifle rolls 9 dice when shooting folks - a 99% chance to hit.
Miracles - these are the widest range of powers. Maybe you can fly or teleport. Or fire laser beams from your eyes. Or turn invisible. Or you can make any metal you see turn to the consistency of water. Unsurprisingly, these are the most expensive powers - because they're hand-tailored by the creator and the GM.
A Talent has 25 or more points to spend on Talents, depending on the style of campaign. 25 points is for a crunchier, low-level campaign - and that's not a lot.
Here's what Talents cost:
Hyperstats cost 2 points for a regular dice, 5 for a hard dice and 10 for a wiggle dice (this was explained above). You write that cost (2/5/10).
So let's say your character has Body 2 and you want to bump that up to Body 6 (so you can punch tanks without hurting your hands and lift a jeep). You buy 4 hyperstat dice in body for a cost of 10 points. Simple.
Stats over 6 also give you cool effects. Hyperbodies can rip apart armor up to their overall stat and gain extra health blocks on their damage silhouette. A hypersense Talent can make you practically impossible to ambush. A hypercool Talent can start controlling their autonomous responses, like breathing.
Hyperstats are great if you're thinking of a character who's good all-round at a variety of skills.
Hyperskills cost (1/3/7). If you've got Coordination 2 and Rifle 2 and you buy 6 points in Hyper-Rifle, congrats, you now have 10 dice to shoot people with. That's a 99.something% chance of rolling at least one match, assuming no one just shot you that round and you had to drop a dice.
Hyperskills are cheap, so you can buy a little across a big swathe. Even 1 dice in a bunch of linked hyperskills (say 1 or 2 in Rifle, Stealth, Grenade, etc.) is seriously worth your time.
On the other hand, hyperskills won't increase your overall ability to lift things or sense things or think faster, like hyperstats do. Hyper-rifle might make you shoot more accurately, but a hyper-coordinated guy can catch arrows out of the air, contort and roll like a chimpanzee, toss a stone with unerring accuracy and otherwise do much more than merely bop people with a bullet.
Miracles are the complicated ones. They start at a base 1/2/4 and then rise in price depending on what you're trying to do.
Does your power hurt people? Add
+1/2/4 to the cost. Does it defend? Yep, another +1/2/4. Can you use it outside combat? Again, another +1/2/4. And finally, is it robust - as in, does it work when you want it to? +1/2/4.
So, let's work some powers out.
Shooting laser beams out of your eyes? Well, it's base 1/2/4 for cost. It does damage, so 2/4/8 - and it's robust, so 3/6/12. Plus, you can use it outside combat (for, say, burning down doors) and you want it to defend (by being able to zap bullets flying at you). Overall, it costs 5/10/20.
That's pretty expensive. Buying 4 dice in it will cost 20 points.
How about being
able to turn anything you see a different color? Well, it can't hurt someone and it
can't defend you - I'm dubious it'd be useful outside of combat too -
but I suppose it's handy if you turn a Wehrmacht tank bright pink so
Allied planes can bomb it. So, let's say it costs... 2/4/8. A cheap cost, for a not particularly useful power.
Miracles require talking with the GM, but most operate the same as other skills. If you bought 3D in Teleportation, you roll your 3D whenever you want to teleport something somewhere. Have 3D in Lazer-Eyes? You inflict Width in damage.
CAN I MAKE MY POWERS CHEAPER?
Why yes, you can. All Talents - be they hyperstats, hyperskills or miracles - can have Extras and Flaws attached.
An Extra makes a Talent "better" or more useable. For instance, the "Always On" extra ensures that a power remains on until you turn it off or take damage.
If you had Always On attached to hyper-body, you wouldn't need to roll to lift a jeep or throw a brick through a telegraph pole - you could do it automatically. If you had it attached to invisibility, you could remain invisible forever - even while you were asleep!
Unsurprisingly, these increase the cost of the power.
Flaws are the opposite - they make powers "weaker". For instance, "Nervous Habit" requires you to do something to make the power work. If you have to shout "Boo!" to fire lightning from your fingertips or run fast and jump in the air before you can fly, your power is more limited.
A simple flaw reduces the cost of a power by -1/2/4. More debilitatings one reduce the cost more. For instance, the "Shy" flaw means your power can only be used when no one can see you - it lowers the cost by -3/6/12.
E.g. I want to be able to fly really fast. I decide I can't attack with it but it is robust, it can defend and it's useful outside of combat. Its cost is 4/8/16.
I want to make it so I can turn fly endlessly, just hover, even when I'm asleep. The GM agrees that costs +1/2/4.
The cost is now 5/10/20.
It's bit expensive for my tastes, so I pick a couple of flaws.
First, I decide it's a bit obvious. When I'm flying more than walking speed, I glow like a flare. The GM agrees that makes me a target and visible at night, but so long as I'm slow, I'm safe. He decides that flaw is only worth -1/2/4.
I also say I need to take a running start before I can take off. The GM agrees. He says that's another -1/2/4.
My power now costs 3/6/12. Much cheaper.
I buy 5 dice in it for 15 points. 5D puts my top speed at 55mph.
I have 10 points left over, which I sink into my Base Will.
A full list of flaws and extras is available free HERE.
ALL ABOUT WILL
You'll remember we mentioned earlier that Will powers your Talent. Your Base Will is COOL+COMMAND, but the actual Will you use for Talents fluctuates. It rises when you do well. It falls when you do badly or are depressed.
Whenever you see your friends die or you get a Dear John letter or the mission seems FUBAR, you need to roll that COOL+MENTAL STABILITY to try and ensure you don't sink.
Worse, every time you want to use a Talent, you roll your power's dice pool and hope for a match - just like any regular test. The difference here is that if you fail to make a match, you lose 1 Will.
If your Will ever hits 0, your Talents permanently stops working until you get out of your funk. That includes your hyperstats and hyperskills, which can be incredibly embarrassing if you're a 90lb weakling (BODY 1) with hyperstat 8 and lose all your Will.
If you're at 0 Will and you lose another COOL+MENTAL STABILITY roll - well, bad things happen. PTSD. Insanity. Perhaps even an unravelling of one's psyche.
For people who have superpowers, this is obviously bad news.
ADDING TALENTS (EVEN EASIER)
If you're really not worried about the type of Talent you have, you might prefer to roll on this handy randomization chart. Or just pick.
For instance, with 25 Will points to spend as a new character you might decide to go for:
10 Will Points: Hyperbody +5D
10 Will Points: Harm 3D (No Defense; Flaw: Jumpy)
That's 20 Will spent, with 5 Will remainder to sink into Base Will.
TALENTS VERSUS TALENTS
So how do you defeat a guy who can lift a tank and fire heat-beams from his hands? Such combat-capable super-powered folk have a habit of tearing apart regular infantry like a wet paper bag. so if you're a normie, you shoot him and hope he falls over.
When Talents fight Talents, however, things go a bit different. For one, Talents automatically know another Talents when they see one (if they're using their power anyway, and no matter how subtle). More importantly, they can also negate another Talent's attacks (albeit, only those targeting them).
This all happens before any dice are actually rolled.
So, if Cpt. Lazer-Eyes declares he wants to zap Mr. Gravity with his heat-rays - and Mr. Gravity knows that he's targeted - instead of rolling the dice and being fried like a normal grunt, a Contest of Wills begins.
A Contest of Wills is a battle within the minds of the two Talents. It happens instantly and is a bit like a poker game.
First Mr. Gravity spends a Willpower point from his pool of Will to override and negate the lazer attack.
Now, with his power negated, Cpt. Lazer-Eyes has a choice. He can either back down or spend another point of Will to override Mr. Gravity. In other words, he's got to spend 2 Will to use his power.
Will Mr. Gravity spend another Will point to negate this one? In this case, he's spent 2 points.
This very quickly becomes a war of attrition. If Mr. Gravity has a lot of Will, he may well outbid his opponent - potentially even depleting Cpt. Lazer's Willpower to the point he can no longer power his Talent.
More importantly, as the dice haven't yet been rolled, it's perfectly possible for Capt. Lazer-Eyes to spend all that Will and then flub his dice-roll and suffer another loss of Will from that.
Working out when and how much Will to spend to stop an enemy Talent targeting you, and when to let it through, is an important skill.
IN SUMMARY
So there's how to play Godlike in a nutshell. Or at least, there's how to understand how to play Godlike - a fair bit isn't covered.
Either way, here are some links to other Godlike material. I'll be updating these over time with some scenarios and campaign ideas I've scribbled on the back of beer mats over the last twenty-years (God, doesn't time fly?).
Hopefully you find them useful!
Thirty-Three Godlike Pre-Generated Talents
Seven Pre-Generated PCs for the "Glazier" Scenario
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