As you read this, I am among the teeming masses thronging the halls, game rooms, hotel lobbies, and restaurants of Gen Con 50. I struggled a bit to come up with a good theme for this week, as I'd already covered the ENnie Awards nominees to some significant degree. Then I remembered my first Gen Con ever, and that led me down the merry path you see below. It doesn't hurt that I am deeply involved in superhero gaming and game development right now, as those who've been reading this regularly will attest.
CHAMPIONS (4TH EDITION)
Bear with me, this will make sense in a minute…
It’s Gen Con, many, many years ago. It’s in Milwaukee still, which should tell you something. It’s early 90s, though I just can’t remember the specific year (I am terrible with that kind of thing, always remembering experiences, never really dates).
It’s my first Gen Con, though, and it’s alongside some of the most amazing people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with – Steve Peterson, George MacDonald, Ray Greer, Bruce Harlick, and Rob Bell among them. I’ve just fully launched my career as a writer and game designer in the tabletop RPG industry, you see, and this was my chance to be at the Big Show with those who took a chance on me with a couple of books – High Tech Enemies and Champions Universe, in specific.
This was also the era of “The Big Blue Book,” the George Perez-covered Champions 4th Edition. I will forever have a permanent place, center-stage, in my heart-of-hearts for this game, and especially this edition (which, for me, will always remain the best version of the penultimate* superhero game of our hobby).
Thus, for me, Gen Con 50 represents Super Games Week! Five core superhero games, representing this incredible RPG genre that launched my career.
(*) – Yes, I have a thoroughly biased reason for saying it that way, which will become very clear in the months to come (unless you’re already following my Patreon).
Champions is simply the best super role-playing game ever created. It gives you complete control over every aspect of your superhero and your world. Champions is all that is needed to bring the four-color heroics of comic books to life. This contains the award winning HERO system rules, The Champions source book, as well as Campaign Book: everything necessary for instant heroic super team!
HEROES WEAR MASKS (5e)
Super Games Week flies on even as we begin to gather for Gen Con 50. One of the great wargame companies in gaming history, Avalon Hill, lives on with more RPG offerings here in the 21st Century. This includes their take on d20-driven superhero gaming, and they’ve adapted their popular OGL/Pathfinder-driven Heroes Wear Masks game to the 5th Edition of D&D.
Dungeons & Dragons has always been a game about bravery and heroism, an adventurer fighting to survive in a world beset by magic and evil. It’s a very short trip from there to the world of superheroes.
D&D games and superhero fiction have a lot in common. They are both tales of powerful, extraordinary individuals, some heroic, some definitely not, who go out and have adventures. Saving a town from being destroyed by a rampaging monster works equally well as a Dungeons & Dragons sessions or an issue of a comic book. The core experiences fundamentally click.
The original Heroes Wear Masks sought to bring superheroes to Pathfinder.
This version gives the same treatment to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.
If you are familiar with Fifth Edition, you will recognize most of the rules. If you are familiar with superheroes, you will be familiar with most of the setting. If you are familiar with both, you will be right at home here.
A metropolis strains under the weight of crime. The police are helpless against a new breed of costumed super-being. The city cries out for heroes.
Will you answer the call, or help burn it to the ground?
ICONS
Arguably one of the easiest-yet-most-satisfying superhero games ever created, ICONS is Steve Kenson’s love-letter to the original Marvel Superheroes, with just a dash of FATE-ish influence to dig into the 21st-Century style of gaming. This is our Pick for today’s Super Games Week!
Those looking for deep character-building experiences won’t find that here (instead, look to tomorrow’s Pick, Mutants & Masterminds, also by the incomparable Mr. Kenson), but for fun (and random) characters in a quick-and-easy superpowered bash of a game, you cannot go wrong here.
It’s time to be a hero!
Icons is a tabletop game of superhero adventure, creating exciting stories of the imagination with your friends, based around the heroes you create. The Assembled Edition of the game features:
Icons is your all-in-one package for superhero roleplaying adventure: quick, easy, descriptive, and fun!
Steve Kenson, designer of the best-selling Mutants & Masterminds delivers a superpowered role-playing game inspired by the fast-playing old-school games and the new generation of narrative role-play! Within its pages are complete rules for character creation, abilities and powers, random adventure generation, a rogue’s gallery of villains, and all the superheroic action you can handle!
MUTANTS & MASTERMINDS
Yesterday, Super Games Week featured Steve Kenson’s exceptionally light-and-fun ICONS. Today, we take a look at the other end of the spectrum, the very expansive and complete Mutants & Masterminds Deluxe (3rd Edition) rules. Considerably more complex, M&M is founded on a d20-oriented engine, but it diverges considerably from the standard OGL experience. Fans love the enormous flexibility, and the “saving throw” orientation of the resolution system is novel and effective.
This is arguably the top superhero game in the marketplace, or at least one of them.
Fly into super-heroic battle with Mutants & Masterminds! You and your friends take on the roles of super-powered heroes in a world of criminal masterminds, paranormal terrorists, destructive brutes, and other insidious villains. You get to thwart their evil plans and bring them to justice!
Since 2002, Mutants & Masterminds has earned its title as the World’s Greatest Superhero RPG, inspiring countless game sessions and winning many awards for excellence. The Deluxe Hero’s Handbook is the revised and expanded core rulebook of the game’s Third Edition and it gives you everything you need to have your own super-heroic adventures:
So what are you waiting for? Choose your powers. Put on your mask. Fight the forces of evil and… Save the world!
PROWLERS & PARAGONS
Amidst the chaos and clamor of Gen Con 50 – where I am wandering the halls or rolling some dice as you read this – I am closing out my Super Games Week with a fantastic gem created by my dear friend and partner-in-crime, Leonard Pimentel. This is the first edition of his Prowlers & Paragons superhero game system, and it’s absolutely brilliant in its design and execution. He and I are even now preparing to release the Ultimate Edition, which will take this from a really fun superhero game to what I believe will become “the next Champions.”
Take a look, enjoy the simplicity and the excellent player-narrative elements mixed with elegant straightforward mechanics, and watch for the next iteration to absolutely knock your socks off!
(Then again, if you’d rather not wait and want to see it “in progress,” come check out my Patreon…)
Prowlers & Paragons (or P&P) is a tabletop roleplaying game with a narration-driven, rules-light system designed to emulate four-color superhero comics. Let’s break that down so you can see what you’re getting yourself into.
P&P is a tabletop roleplaying game. We’re going to assume you’ve got this one covered.
P&P is a narration-driven system. The rules in this game are not effects driven. For the most part, they don’t tell you what happens. Instead, they tell you who gets to describe what happens. And that’s what it’s all about in P&P: describing what happens. Both the players and the gamemaster (GM) take turns narrating events in the game world. This makes P&P feel more like an exercise in collaborative storytelling than a typical roleplaying game. However, P&P isn’t totally freeform and open-ended either. There are rules that help determine what characters can do and how they compare to one another, especially in combat! This prevents the game from devolving into a never-ending debate about what is and isn’t reasonable.
P&P is rules light. It’s chock full of gross oversimplifications and blatant inaccuracies that mimic comic book tropes rather than real-world facts. This also makes P&P a simple game with a streamlined set of rules. Once you know what you’re doing, you should be able to play without ever opening the book.
Finally, P&P is designed to emulate four-color superhero comics. This game is about the heroic things the characters do and the heroic burdens they shoulder. Mundane matters get little attention. There aren’t any detailed rules for dealing with money and wealth, but there most definitely is a rule for smashing into a bank vault. Let’s be perfectly clear: This is not a deep and cerebral game. P&P was designed to let you play stories about super heroes who save the world and beat the snot out of villains who richly deserve it. Like so much of the genre, P&P is a gleefully unapologetic exercise in heroic wish fulfillment.
Core Rules!
The core rules are finally here!
Included here are 2 versions of the game, one in full beautiful color and one with crisp, black-and-white line art so that your printer won’t break up with you for printing it out. Both are 142 pages long and include:
Chapter 1: Introduction: Um … it’s an introduction. What did you expect?
Chapter 2: Action: This chapter include most of the rules you need to play the game, including rules for narrative task resolution and comic book slugfests!
Chapter 3: Characters: Here is where you learn how to make heroes! We have full character creation rules that allow you to create street level prowlers, cosmic paragons, and everything in between.
Chapter 4: Heroism: This chapter explains the use of Resolve and Adversity, the narrative currency that players and gamemasters use to bend the rules of the game and even the game world itself in their favor.
Chapter 5: Wonderful Toys: You like gear? Then this is the chapter for you. This chapter includes weapons, armor, miscellaneous equipment, vehicles (and yes, vehicle combat rules), and even rules for creating your own makeshift items on the fly in the middle of a story. What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter 6: Big Bad World: It’s a big world full of bad stuff that give heroes headaches. Disasters, Diseases, Hazards … ther’re all in here.
Chapter 7: Friends & Foes: A veritable rogues gallery at your disposal. A host of mundane (and not so mundane) npcs, from Athletes to Zombies, a large number of animals from Bats to Zebras (yes, of course there are dinosaurs in there), and a collection of archetypal supers from the Acrobat to the Weather Controller that you can used as villains, or even as heroes if you’re in a rush.
Chapter 8: Playing the Game: This chapter provides both players and gamemasters (but mostly gamemasters) with tools, tips, and tricks for running the best super hero roleplaying game they can run. We give you our thoughts about playing and running roleplaying games while desperately trying not to sound patronizing.
Chapter 9: From the Ashes: A light-hearted (and rather forgiving) introductory adventurefor a group of heroes of standard power level.
The world needs heroes.
Take a Stand! Join the Fight!
BE A HERO!
-----
And there we are, folks. I hope you're having a superheroic time, whether you're here with me in Indianapolis for Gen Con, or celebrating gaming in your own way this weekend.
For myself, this is a strange Gen Con in a lot of ways. I have no games planned (didn't commit to attending until much too late in the event submission process), and I don't have my usual "Exhibit Hall duties." Savage Rifts is up for some ENnie Awards (and I am a Dream Date for that), so that's one thing I am committed to. The other is Wednesday night's Diana Jones Awards.
Other than that? Gonna buy a handful of Generics and see what tables I can sit at...
The Adventure Continues!
Note that I use affiliate links in all my posts as a way to generate additional revenue for my efforts; I make my Picks and other article choices, however, based on the desire to share a wide variety of things with you. Thank you for your support.
Sean Patrick Fannon
Writer & Game Designer: Shaintar, Star Wars, Savage Rifts, much more
Please check out my Patreon and get involved directly with my next projects!
CHAMPIONS (4TH EDITION)
Bear with me, this will make sense in a minute…
It’s Gen Con, many, many years ago. It’s in Milwaukee still, which should tell you something. It’s early 90s, though I just can’t remember the specific year (I am terrible with that kind of thing, always remembering experiences, never really dates).
It’s my first Gen Con, though, and it’s alongside some of the most amazing people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with – Steve Peterson, George MacDonald, Ray Greer, Bruce Harlick, and Rob Bell among them. I’ve just fully launched my career as a writer and game designer in the tabletop RPG industry, you see, and this was my chance to be at the Big Show with those who took a chance on me with a couple of books – High Tech Enemies and Champions Universe, in specific.
This was also the era of “The Big Blue Book,” the George Perez-covered Champions 4th Edition. I will forever have a permanent place, center-stage, in my heart-of-hearts for this game, and especially this edition (which, for me, will always remain the best version of the penultimate* superhero game of our hobby).
Thus, for me, Gen Con 50 represents Super Games Week! Five core superhero games, representing this incredible RPG genre that launched my career.
(*) – Yes, I have a thoroughly biased reason for saying it that way, which will become very clear in the months to come (unless you’re already following my Patreon).
Champions is simply the best super role-playing game ever created. It gives you complete control over every aspect of your superhero and your world. Champions is all that is needed to bring the four-color heroics of comic books to life. This contains the award winning HERO system rules, The Champions source book, as well as Campaign Book: everything necessary for instant heroic super team!
HEROES WEAR MASKS (5e)
Super Games Week flies on even as we begin to gather for Gen Con 50. One of the great wargame companies in gaming history, Avalon Hill, lives on with more RPG offerings here in the 21st Century. This includes their take on d20-driven superhero gaming, and they’ve adapted their popular OGL/Pathfinder-driven Heroes Wear Masks game to the 5th Edition of D&D.
Dungeons & Dragons has always been a game about bravery and heroism, an adventurer fighting to survive in a world beset by magic and evil. It’s a very short trip from there to the world of superheroes.
D&D games and superhero fiction have a lot in common. They are both tales of powerful, extraordinary individuals, some heroic, some definitely not, who go out and have adventures. Saving a town from being destroyed by a rampaging monster works equally well as a Dungeons & Dragons sessions or an issue of a comic book. The core experiences fundamentally click.
The original Heroes Wear Masks sought to bring superheroes to Pathfinder.
This version gives the same treatment to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition.
If you are familiar with Fifth Edition, you will recognize most of the rules. If you are familiar with superheroes, you will be familiar with most of the setting. If you are familiar with both, you will be right at home here.
A metropolis strains under the weight of crime. The police are helpless against a new breed of costumed super-being. The city cries out for heroes.
Will you answer the call, or help burn it to the ground?
ICONS
Arguably one of the easiest-yet-most-satisfying superhero games ever created, ICONS is Steve Kenson’s love-letter to the original Marvel Superheroes, with just a dash of FATE-ish influence to dig into the 21st-Century style of gaming. This is our Pick for today’s Super Games Week!
Those looking for deep character-building experiences won’t find that here (instead, look to tomorrow’s Pick, Mutants & Masterminds, also by the incomparable Mr. Kenson), but for fun (and random) characters in a quick-and-easy superpowered bash of a game, you cannot go wrong here.
It’s time to be a hero!
Icons is a tabletop game of superhero adventure, creating exciting stories of the imagination with your friends, based around the heroes you create. The Assembled Edition of the game features:
- Quick Hero Creation! A few die rolls are all it takes to create your hero, giving you the spark for your imagination to bring it all together. Describe character abilities on a numerical scale, or use adjectives like “Great” and “Amazing,” as best suits your style and situation.
- Flexible System! Just a few basic game mechanics resolve in-game actions, but they expand to cover a wide range of options, making Icons easy to learn, but broad enough to keep things interesting.
- Heroic Determination! Bring the qualities of your heroes into play to gain advantages or perform amazing stunts, or to create trouble, from personal drama to weaknesses, in order to make your hero even more determined to save the day!
- Universe Creation! Collaborate to create your own comic book universe and play out the stories of the different heroes in it.
Icons is your all-in-one package for superhero roleplaying adventure: quick, easy, descriptive, and fun!
Steve Kenson, designer of the best-selling Mutants & Masterminds delivers a superpowered role-playing game inspired by the fast-playing old-school games and the new generation of narrative role-play! Within its pages are complete rules for character creation, abilities and powers, random adventure generation, a rogue’s gallery of villains, and all the superheroic action you can handle!
MUTANTS & MASTERMINDS
Yesterday, Super Games Week featured Steve Kenson’s exceptionally light-and-fun ICONS. Today, we take a look at the other end of the spectrum, the very expansive and complete Mutants & Masterminds Deluxe (3rd Edition) rules. Considerably more complex, M&M is founded on a d20-oriented engine, but it diverges considerably from the standard OGL experience. Fans love the enormous flexibility, and the “saving throw” orientation of the resolution system is novel and effective.
This is arguably the top superhero game in the marketplace, or at least one of them.
Fly into super-heroic battle with Mutants & Masterminds! You and your friends take on the roles of super-powered heroes in a world of criminal masterminds, paranormal terrorists, destructive brutes, and other insidious villains. You get to thwart their evil plans and bring them to justice!
Since 2002, Mutants & Masterminds has earned its title as the World’s Greatest Superhero RPG, inspiring countless game sessions and winning many awards for excellence. The Deluxe Hero’s Handbook is the revised and expanded core rulebook of the game’s Third Edition and it gives you everything you need to have your own super-heroic adventures:
- A flexible and powerful system for creating the hero that you want to play.
- A huge variety of super powers, skills, and advantages to choose from and customize.
- A core system that emphasizes action and uses only a single 20-sided die.
- Integrated rules for gadgets, vehicles, and headquarters.
- Ready-to-play archetypes and a Quickstart Character Generator if you want to get to the action even faster.
- Advice for Gamemasters on creating and running your own adventure series.
- Introductions to Mutants & MasterMinds premier settings, Emerald City and Freedom City.
- Two brand new adventures, Ghost Town by Seth Johnson and Time of the Apes by Christopher McGlothlin.
So what are you waiting for? Choose your powers. Put on your mask. Fight the forces of evil and… Save the world!
PROWLERS & PARAGONS
Amidst the chaos and clamor of Gen Con 50 – where I am wandering the halls or rolling some dice as you read this – I am closing out my Super Games Week with a fantastic gem created by my dear friend and partner-in-crime, Leonard Pimentel. This is the first edition of his Prowlers & Paragons superhero game system, and it’s absolutely brilliant in its design and execution. He and I are even now preparing to release the Ultimate Edition, which will take this from a really fun superhero game to what I believe will become “the next Champions.”
Take a look, enjoy the simplicity and the excellent player-narrative elements mixed with elegant straightforward mechanics, and watch for the next iteration to absolutely knock your socks off!
(Then again, if you’d rather not wait and want to see it “in progress,” come check out my Patreon…)
Prowlers & Paragons (or P&P) is a tabletop roleplaying game with a narration-driven, rules-light system designed to emulate four-color superhero comics. Let’s break that down so you can see what you’re getting yourself into.
P&P is a tabletop roleplaying game. We’re going to assume you’ve got this one covered.
P&P is a narration-driven system. The rules in this game are not effects driven. For the most part, they don’t tell you what happens. Instead, they tell you who gets to describe what happens. And that’s what it’s all about in P&P: describing what happens. Both the players and the gamemaster (GM) take turns narrating events in the game world. This makes P&P feel more like an exercise in collaborative storytelling than a typical roleplaying game. However, P&P isn’t totally freeform and open-ended either. There are rules that help determine what characters can do and how they compare to one another, especially in combat! This prevents the game from devolving into a never-ending debate about what is and isn’t reasonable.
P&P is rules light. It’s chock full of gross oversimplifications and blatant inaccuracies that mimic comic book tropes rather than real-world facts. This also makes P&P a simple game with a streamlined set of rules. Once you know what you’re doing, you should be able to play without ever opening the book.
Finally, P&P is designed to emulate four-color superhero comics. This game is about the heroic things the characters do and the heroic burdens they shoulder. Mundane matters get little attention. There aren’t any detailed rules for dealing with money and wealth, but there most definitely is a rule for smashing into a bank vault. Let’s be perfectly clear: This is not a deep and cerebral game. P&P was designed to let you play stories about super heroes who save the world and beat the snot out of villains who richly deserve it. Like so much of the genre, P&P is a gleefully unapologetic exercise in heroic wish fulfillment.
Core Rules!
The core rules are finally here!
Included here are 2 versions of the game, one in full beautiful color and one with crisp, black-and-white line art so that your printer won’t break up with you for printing it out. Both are 142 pages long and include:
Chapter 1: Introduction: Um … it’s an introduction. What did you expect?
Chapter 2: Action: This chapter include most of the rules you need to play the game, including rules for narrative task resolution and comic book slugfests!
Chapter 3: Characters: Here is where you learn how to make heroes! We have full character creation rules that allow you to create street level prowlers, cosmic paragons, and everything in between.
Chapter 4: Heroism: This chapter explains the use of Resolve and Adversity, the narrative currency that players and gamemasters use to bend the rules of the game and even the game world itself in their favor.
Chapter 5: Wonderful Toys: You like gear? Then this is the chapter for you. This chapter includes weapons, armor, miscellaneous equipment, vehicles (and yes, vehicle combat rules), and even rules for creating your own makeshift items on the fly in the middle of a story. What could possibly go wrong?
Chapter 6: Big Bad World: It’s a big world full of bad stuff that give heroes headaches. Disasters, Diseases, Hazards … ther’re all in here.
Chapter 7: Friends & Foes: A veritable rogues gallery at your disposal. A host of mundane (and not so mundane) npcs, from Athletes to Zombies, a large number of animals from Bats to Zebras (yes, of course there are dinosaurs in there), and a collection of archetypal supers from the Acrobat to the Weather Controller that you can used as villains, or even as heroes if you’re in a rush.
Chapter 8: Playing the Game: This chapter provides both players and gamemasters (but mostly gamemasters) with tools, tips, and tricks for running the best super hero roleplaying game they can run. We give you our thoughts about playing and running roleplaying games while desperately trying not to sound patronizing.
Chapter 9: From the Ashes: A light-hearted (and rather forgiving) introductory adventurefor a group of heroes of standard power level.
The world needs heroes.
Take a Stand! Join the Fight!
BE A HERO!
-----
And there we are, folks. I hope you're having a superheroic time, whether you're here with me in Indianapolis for Gen Con, or celebrating gaming in your own way this weekend.
For myself, this is a strange Gen Con in a lot of ways. I have no games planned (didn't commit to attending until much too late in the event submission process), and I don't have my usual "Exhibit Hall duties." Savage Rifts is up for some ENnie Awards (and I am a Dream Date for that), so that's one thing I am committed to. The other is Wednesday night's Diana Jones Awards.
Other than that? Gonna buy a handful of Generics and see what tables I can sit at...
The Adventure Continues!
Note that I use affiliate links in all my posts as a way to generate additional revenue for my efforts; I make my Picks and other article choices, however, based on the desire to share a wide variety of things with you. Thank you for your support.
Sean Patrick Fannon
Writer & Game Designer: Shaintar, Star Wars, Savage Rifts, much more
Please check out my Patreon and get involved directly with my next projects!
