A Review of Field Guide to Superheroes Vol. 1 by Jason Tondro

Field Guide to Superheroes Vol. 1 by Jason Tondro and published by Vigilance Press is the first in a series of four supplements for the ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying system published by Ad Infinitum Adventures. The supplement describes ten superhero archetypes, with an actual superhero example given for each. The book is covered by the Open Game License and therefore some of it is considered to be Open Game Content

The supplement is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $7.95, although it was purchased at the discounted price of $5.96. The PDF has 71 pages, of which one page is the full colour cover, one page the front matter and two pages the Open Game License and three pages the Introduction.

The Introduction explains how the book is arranged, and that the archetypes are derived from a hero’s origin, rather than their powers, gives a brief overview of the ten archetypes and how the book can be used.

The ten different archetypes are Alien Hero, Android, Animal Hero, Armored Wonder, Astronaut, Avatar, Comic Relief, Creepy Hero, Dark Avenger and Defender. Each gives an overview of the archetype and the sort of powers, abilities, specialties and qualities they might have, as well as related heroes, before covering an example of that archetype in detail, from history to powers, all suitable for the ICONS game.

The final section, A Worlds of Wonder Lexicon, gives some details on various places, organisations and other information for the setting described. Some of these have been mentioned in the text of the various heroes covered earlier; others may be in other books in the series.

Field Guide to Superheroes Vol. 1 in Review

The supplement itself has no table of contents. The PDF is bookmarked, having all ten archetypes, all ten heroes and the Lexicon in it, but not the Introduction. The navigation is therefore okay, but could be better. There are a number of full colour illustrations in the supplement. Almost all of these are within each archetype. There are two images in each archetype; a general one for the archetype itself and a specific one for the particular hero described. The layout is all in one column, with some sidebars, but all the text is in capitals which makes it rather odd to read – those familiar with internet behaviour will get the impression that the book is “shouting” at them. The book is generally free of errors; a few minor ones were noticed.

The supplement is designed for the original version of ICONS rather than for the Assembled Edition, but it should not be too hard to convert it. Many of the options remained the same; they will only need tweaking.

This book is not merely a collection of ten different superheroes, or superhero archetypes, but part of an entire setting, called Worlds of Wonder – superheroes, and villains, are called “wonders” in the setting – as are the other supplements in the series.

The superheroes are covered in an above average level of detail, and many of them interact with each other as well as the setting. There are different uses for the book; as a source of pre-generated characters, as part of an entire setting or as a source of inspiration for creating new superheroes. This does have the disadvantage that the book does feel a bit “confused” – it is doing several different things, rather than one. Still, Field Guide to Superheroes Vol. 1 is worth a read for anyone planning on running an ICONS game, although at the full price it may be a bit pricey for what it is.