Normals Unbound [Paperback]

Brannon Boren (Author), Patrick E. Bradley (Author), Monte Cook (Illustrator), Storn Cook (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1992

A sourcebook for Champions: the Super Role-Playing Game and all other Hero System games, including the new Hero System 5th Edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Gold Rush Games Stock #HG420

From the Back Cover

Your fantastic powers enable you to save the world from Terror Inc., but can you save your own failing marriage? You can keep Ripper in jail, but can you keep your kid brother out of a gang, or off of drugs? Stopping Black Diamond from robbing a bank is no problem, but can you stop Ananias Topps from taking control of crime in the city?

Normals Unbound is the Champions sourcebook for "normals" - the Enemies book for your secret ID. Between the covers of Normals Unboundyou will find men, women and children with powers and abilities to affect the life of a hero more profoundly than any destructive energy blast from Mechanon ever could. These are people who cannot be dealt with by simply slugging it out with them or blasting them with a neutron beam. A hero must use his head and his heart in meeting the challenges these normals present.

Normals Unbound details over fifty of the "normal" NPCs that make up a majority of John Q. Public in any campaign: street people, businessmen, politicians, reporters, cops, judges, psychics, students, teachers, scientists, pilots, jocks, entertainers, and many more. Also included are a few minor "hero" NPCs and several special characters like Iggy the Vampire and Sparky the Wonder Dog.

Playable with Champions and all other Hero System games, including the new Hero System 5th Edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Gold Rush Games (January 1, 1992)
• ISBN-10: 1558061606
• ISBN-13: 978-1558061606
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,818,961 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent resource for any campaign, March 14, 2005

By 

Methylbromide "Book lover" (Northwest United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Normals Unbound (Paperback)

This book is a lot of fun to read, and must have been fun to put together. While not everyone in the book is "normal" (in fact, at least one is a powerful supervillain) it does provide an excellent range of characters from 25 points on up. Most fall in the 50 to 150 point range.

Each is a full character with skills, background, personality and a hook into the campaign. The book assumes the default Champions campaign setting, and several character backgrounds are tied to it - including Defender's housekeeper Wendy - but it is easy enough to unbundle the character backgrounds for use in any setting. In addition to Wendy, the NPCs include members of congress, a university computer ubernerd with AI assistant, a crystal ball gazing psychic, a martial arts instructor, an airplane test pilot, police, common thugs, a pimp, a prostitute, and more.

One of the things we've done in our games is take one of these normals and add 100 to 200 points worth of powers for "instant superhero". Extremely handy when in a hurry or just looking for something different. To see how easy this is [...]
This book makes a great resource for anyone running a superhero campaign, and not just for Champions / Hero System. Yes, that means Mutants & Masterminds and Silver Age Sentinels game groups will benefit from it tremendously as a source of ideas, characters, campaign concepts, etc.