Upcoming Superhero RPGs Coincidence or Zeitgeist

[Theory of Games]

Actually according to DTRPG, Masks is the top-selling superhero ttrpg ("Adamantine" seller). I know a lot of players who like the system for its narrative focus, but IMO it's too focused on relationships instead of what makes comic book superheroes fun:

 

[RenleyRenfield]

It's great if you've got a copy, but just cruel to recommend to anyone who doesn't.

I got you boo

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (link)

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Well, if the Invincible RPG does well, I think we'll probably see a book of generic additional powers to go along with it, which will be the basis for a generic superhero RPG.

Depends on how restrictive the license turns out to be. They might be able to do whatever they like in terms of added material, but it's not impossible that they may be stuck with a fairly snug design straightjacket. We can hope for the former, of course.

I got you boo

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (link)

I got mine already and I won't hog another as a spare, but that's probably a big help to someone.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Depends on how restrictive the license turns out to be. They might be able to do whatever they like in terms of added material, but it's not impossible that they may be stuck with a fairly snug design straightjacket. We can hope for the former, of course.

Given the wide range of supers we see in the comic/show, even if they keep a tight lid on things, it shouldn't be hard to make a generic supers game that can cover Marvel/DC-style heroes pretty easily.

Last week's episode featured the Elephant, a Rhino parody who attacked a fast food restaurant in a misguided attempt to raise awareness for veganism. Switch the costume, dump the motivation, and you've got your Rhino stats.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think one that hit a good amount of its books and deadlines was Prowlers and Paragons?

Anyone keeping up on that game and its many updates?

What do you want to know about it? I'm acquainted with the main author.

 

[Thomas Shey]

(Just responding to the final line, which was a response to "So if you were asked "What is the go to Superhero RPG?" what would be your answer?")

The lack of an industry standard is in part why the genre of TTRPG hasnt yet penetrated the general consciousness. Or to put it another way, if a non-gamer came to me and said, "I am digging Superhero media and culture and have never played an RPG before. What's the game to play?" I don't have a good answer. And the flame of curiosity can be easily snuffed out. People have many legit gripes with D&D, but it's ubiquity is what makes it a good entry point into the hobby for the overwhelming majority of people. There is no gateway superhero rpg.

I'm not sure I'd find a good answer to that for most genres. Some may have more or less well known games, but outside the fantasy genre (and that one because of a historical accident) I don't think any have that, or have for a long time at best.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There are lots of supers games because everyone has OPINIONS on supers. I really like M&M3 but my supers group prefers M&M2 or Hero. I can't stand narrative supers games but lots of people put Masks at the top of the heap. I think it may be the most divisive TTRPG genre.

As an aside: I'm still waiting for that really great superhero cRPG.

Do you really think SF (or even more narrowly) space opera is really any better here?

 

[Thomas Shey]

City of Heroes was so close but fumbled some key things, partly due to weird worldbuilding choices.

They were mimicking a a lot of standard MMO tropes that don't match up well with superheroes for the most part.

(I was one of the playtesters on Eden's abortive FTF adaptation and boy was it obvious there).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Given the wide range of supers we see in the comic/show, even if they keep a tight lid on things, it shouldn't be hard to make a generic supers game that can cover Marvel/DC-style heroes pretty easily.

Last week's episode featured the Elephant, a Rhino parody who attacked a fast food restaurant in a misguided attempt to raise awareness for veganism. Switch the costume, dump the motivation, and you've got your Rhino stats.

Invincible is mostly a pastiche of a lot of common superhero tropes; there are some distinct world building elements, but other than that the only thing that distinguishes it is that it ignores one common convention of superhero fiction (i.e. it doesn't assume superhuman levels of force don't produce, well, the kinds of things you'd expect when used on a human or near human body).

 

[dbm]

To the original question, I think it’s a little bit of option A and a little bit of option B. Superhero media is at an all time high, so probably has more fans than it has had in a long time. That means the intersect between supers fans and TTRPG fans is probably at its highest ever?

I think supers as a genre suffers for accessibility and staying power a little in comparison to fantasy. The dominant supers stables (DC and Marvel) seem to generate interest in playing specific characters rather than leveraging slightly more open archetypes or broader character types. And those IP characters are usually locked behind temporary publishing partnerships. So, a smaller range of systems that people are actively looking for and those games often fall out of print. Which stops a game getting a big install-base like D&D has, and that in turn makes it harder to get a game group together specifically to play supers. Yes, there are expy characters but people are less likely to know what they are looking for here.

My personal favourite super system is Savage Worlds with the latest Super Powers Companion. SWADE as the core engine is already great for pulp action and supporting a wide range of scenes / challenges. The SPC adds on an effect-based powers system and some campaign rules to tweak things to better simulate supers media.

An interesting aspect of the SPC is that the powers are built from a completely different pool of resources than ‘regular’ character development, and your powers themselves hardly ever improve. This means character growth can happen in terms of learning to use your powers better but the powers themselves are fairly static. I find this very effective in longer term play as you can start of really powerful without the issue of a power growth curve on top of that making characters unchallengeable over time. And while supers characters in media have variable capability based on the current author they don’t typically go through the ‘zero to hero’ arc unless it’s a key theme of the series, like Invincible’s own story arc. You can implement that if you want to (it’s a trivial house rule) but static power levels is the baseline.