Pyramid Review: Sidekick Sourcebook

Pyramid Review

Sidekick Sourcebook

Published by Pulsar Games

Written by Joshua Marquart

$20.00

The Sidekick Sourcebook, in computer terms, is a massive patch for The Blood of Heroes RPG. This book updates and clarifies the entire game system in one sweep. The Blood of Heroes uses the old Mayfair Exponential Gaming System, or MEGS, and the rule changes in Sidekick Sourcebook have been accumulating ever since MEGS was originally introduced.

Advantages, drawbacks, bonuses, limitations, powers, and skills all undergo revision or replacement. Page four starts with replaced items, and goes on to list the rest of the revisions, category by category. New additions are left out of these pages -- the complete, updated lists are on pages 183 and 184.

Some of the new additions include powers like Scramble, which alter the way a character uses his abilities, or diminution, which shrinks the target. Old powers have the basic rulebook information repeated, followed by the clarifications that update them to the Sidekick Sourcebook. Most of the additions under Skills is listings of new subskills. Artist for example, now has Graphic Designer as a subskill, and Military Science now has Cryptography. In addition to the modifications, there are also new rules. These rules are broken up into different sections: Basic rules, covering the entire game; Genre-specific rules, with advantages such as Crime Syndicate Rank, or rules like Excessive Force, which allows fatal damage from bashing . . .

This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.



Article publication date: August 20, 1999

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