The Fire and Water Podcast Network has recently added to their lineup! DC RPG: The Hero Points Podcast, by Siskoid of the famous Blog of Geekery, has already reached its fourth episode in which they covered the 1990 Justice League Sourcebook with Booster Gold on the cover.

That beautiful cover is by Kevin Maguire and Joe Rubinstein. But it's also worth looking at the back cover, with a pull quote attributed to our hero.

While the covers are nice, most who bought this sourcebook did so for the role-playing content inside. The book even includes stats for role playing as the Capitalist Crusader!

You can find scans of those pages or listen to the podcast at FireAndWaterPodcast.com. Keep up the good work, guys.

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I'm not typically a podcast guy (I can't listen at work, and I have more than enough to listen to otherwise), but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize talent when I hear it. (Well, actually, people tell me I have a tin ear. But never mind that now.)

Shag of FirestormFan.com and Siskoid of Siskoid's Blog of Geekery have teamed-up to present a new podcast about role-playing games. Their first installment is about the Mayfair Games DC Heroes Role-Playing Game. Booster Gold fans should recognize that as the first game to feature Booster Gold as a playable character — in the mid 1980s!

DC Heroes Role-Playing Game featured stats for both Booster Gold and Skeets, as well as a Booster Gold-themed module, "All That Glitters," that included Goldstar and Jack Soo.

You can find previous Boosterrific Blog posts about Booster's role in the game here. Boosterrific.com also hosts a single-player Flash version of the board game from the "All That Glitters" DCHRPG module here.

So if you're the sort who likes to listen to people talk about long-discontinued role-playing games, give the Fire and Water podcast a try. You might be glad you did.

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No role-playing game set in an alternate universe would be worth playing if it didn't at least attempt a rule system to explain the behavior of the "supernatural" powers and abilities of the universe's inhabitants. Of course, DC Heroes used MEGS rules to control the interaction of the players within the artificial environment. That means that every person, place, and thing that the players may encounter within the artificial universe of the DC Heroes universe must be adapted to the MEGS rule system. The Mayfair game designers did not let the players down.

Several sourcebooks were published to explain and expand the DC Heroes environment. In addition to new ready-made characters, these books contained rules, equipment, and locations designed to replicate the bizarre and sometimes impossible nature of the DC Universe as found in the comics. Of specific note to Booster Gold fans is the 1993 DC Technical Manual.

The DC Technical Manual, written by Jerry A. Novick, was an extensive look at the equipment used by the science-based heroes of the DC Universe. It includes such a variety of items as Deadshot's Wrist Magnums, Starman's Cosmic Rod, and the Blue Beetle's Bug. And it also spotlights Booster Gold's futuristic equipment, both in flavor text and some simplified, technical-style drawings.

The sourcebook, subtitled the S.T.A.R. Labs 1993 Annual Report, presents its supplementary information from the point of view of a 20th-century scientist. While this makes the sourcebook a more interesting read, it also makes it a less useful role-playing tool. As a result, the book offers very little insight into the actual workings of Booster Gold's futuristic equipment. It is not, however, without it's merits.

Equipment detailed in this sourcebook was considered an update to previously printed material. For example, Booster's powersuit, which was detailed in the All That Glitters module, but here it is twice as strong and sturdy as previously presented. In keeping with rules updates, all of Booster's equipment now has a Reliability Number (R#), indicating how durable that equipment is. The lower the number, the more reliable the equipment. Not surprisingly, all of Booster's equipment has a Reliability Number of 2, the lowest possible number.

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Boosterrific resumes the Mayfairstivus celebration with the most important supporting character in the life of Booster Gold: his robot sidekick Skeets!

Skeets is included as one of three ready-made Player Character in the All That Glitters game module. Skeets is fast, smart, and tough, everything a good sidekick needs to keep up with a hero like Booster Gold! And Skeets comes with a built-in support network with the 25th century Space Museum. (You really never know when that sort of thing might come in handy.)

The other ready-made characters for the module are Jack Soo, Vice-President of Research and Development at Booster Gold International, and Trixie Collins, BGI receptionist. Who wants to role play as the receptionist, you ask? Don't worry, the game developers thought of that: "NOTE: For the purposes of this Booster Gold adventure (and only this adventure), Trixie has once again adopted the Goldstar role" [pg.6]. Problem solved.

Like Jack and Trixie, Skeets would be left behind once Booster moved from the BGI mansion into the JLI embassy. At least Skeets would be revived a few years later, and has since resumed his role as Booster Gold's number one fan.

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Booster Gold's role in the DC Universe is unique, but not because of his powers or abilities. After all, other heroes are invulnerable and have energy rays. Booster's contribution to the tapestry of the DCU is his unusual personality: part well-intentioned hero, part greedy cad. It is these characteristics more than anything else, that mark his value in a role-playing environment. And the game developers at Mayfair Games recognized this.

Well before Booster Gold was included as a character card in the second edition of the game, developers recognized the potential of this newcomer to the DC scene. Booster was made the star of his own game module in 1987, scant months after his comic book debut. The module, titled All That Glitters after the common misquoting of Shakespeare, featured Booster Gold struggling "with the dilemma of battling villains at the cost of losing valuable merchandising contracts." The module designer, Greg Gorden -- also one of the chief architects of the Mayfair Exponential Gaming System, went so far as to create rules, board, and pieces for the fictional Mayfly Games' Booster Gold Board Game featured in the game module. It's a clever bit of verisimilitude that further draws RPG gamers into the DC Universe. (The Booster Gold Board Game has been adapted into a single-player Flash-based game here at Boosterrific.com. You can find it here.)

The 1987 game module When a Stranger Calls by Ray Winninger also features Booster prominently. The module's scripted subplot is a crossover with All That Glitters and hinges on Booster's decision whether or not to temporarily abandon the Justice League International to continue on the promotional junket for the Booster Gold Board Game as detailed in All That Glitters. Whether the always-capricious Booster stays or goes is up to the player. Neither choice is out of character, and therein lies the role-playing enjoyment that Booster Gold represents.

BONUS BOOSTER GOLD!: Booster Gold is scheduled to make an appearance on tonight's episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold, "Darkseid Descending!", on Cartoon Network at 7:00 PM EST. The episode features Booster and the rest of the Justice League International.

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