Golden Heroes
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1984 (Games Workshop)
 Games Workshop 1984 edition, cover art by Alan Craddock | |
| Designers | Simon Burley, Peter Haines |
|---|---|
| Publishers | Games Workshop |
| Publication | 1982 (amateur) 1984 (Games Workshop) |
| Genres | Superhero fiction |
| Systems | Custom |
Golden Heroes is a British superhero role-playing game that was originally written and published on an amateur basis in 1981, and then republished in a more complete and professional form by Games Workshop in 1984.
Golden Heroes is a superhero game not affiliated with any line of comic books (unlike Marvel Super Heroes, for example, which is based on the superheroes found in Marvel Comics.) Because of this, a player has to create their superhero from scratch, not based on a pre-existing superhero.[1]
The first step in character generation is to randomly determine via dice rolls the character's basic attributes of Ego, Strength, Dexterity and Vigor.[1] The dice rolls also determine the character's superpowers. There is an opportunity for the player to modify abilities somewhat, but not to change the superpowers.[1] A character can only keep their full set of powers if they can justify them all in a plausible origins story.
During play, the player must keep track of the superhero's private life, what happens during leisure time and the work done while using the hero's secret identity. Characters are "rated" after each game and are more likely to succeed in future games if they behave in ways consistent with Comic Book tropes.
Publication history
Golden Heroes was developed at University of Birmingham by Simon Burley and Peter Haines in 1981, who self-published their manuscript as a 60-page mimeographed book. Burley and Haines shopped the book to Games Workshop, who expanded the material to include Marvel characters in the hopes of acquiring a role-playing game license from Marvel Comics. When Marvel awarded the license to TSR instead, Games Workshop expunged the Marvel content and published the result as Golden Heroes in 1984. The box cover art by Alan Craddock is meant look like the cover of an American comic book of the time, complete with a fake bar code and a fake Comics Code Authority approval badge. Interior art was by a plethora of British artists, including Brian Bolland, Kevin Bulmer, Mike Collins, Declan Considine, Alan Davis, Kirk Etienne, Brett Ewins, Jon Glentoran, David Hine, Gary Mayes, and Brendan McCarthy,[2] several of whom were working for the British comic book 2000 AD at the time.
The following year, Games Workshop published two adventures and one supplement for Golden Heroes:
- Legacy of Eagles
- Queen Victoria & The Holy Grail
- Supervisor's Kit
Games Workshop also published content for the game in their house magazine White Dwarf, and produced a line of metal miniatures.
Twenty years after Games Workshop let the Golden Heroes line of products lapse, one of the original creators, Simon Burley, resurrected the game as Squadron UK in 2006.[3]