A supers-system for me? ... Grim Tales?

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, it's now the next evening and I'm a little more coherent.

Anyway, I've been asked to run a low-powered supers game of some sort. Something in the vein of Hellboy, Watchmen, Punisher, etc.

I was trying to decide what to use to run it. I know there are quite a few d20 Supers products out there ... "Mutants and Masterminds", "Deeds not Words", "Blood and Vigilance", etc.

So far M&M is the "biggest" name in d20 Supers, that I can see. From what I read, though, it doesn't seem to do "low power" very well. IronMan, SpiderMan, Superman ... sure, but Hellboy, Rorchach?

I know little enough about "Deeds Not Words". I've gotten 3 RPGObjects products in the past ... Darwin's World 2nd, which rocks ... but Blood and Space and Blood and Relics were, while okay, perhaps less than what I was looking for when I picked them up. Unfinished-feeling.

The only complaint I've seen on B&V is that it's ... unfinished-feeling.

Anyway, I was contemplating Supers and about 2:30 am I thought about the exceedingly-detailed CR breakdown in Grim Tales ... allowing you to tack powers onto a PC and effectively track their CR. I was wondering if this would be an effective way to run a low-powered Supers game:

Let everybody create a character of CR 7. Let them REACH CR 7 however they want, with a minimum of 4 PC Levels. 3 CR of special powers, 4 PC Levels. 5 PC Levels and 2 CR of advanced gadgetry. Etc etc.

I'm noticing that the few people that originally responded on the Grim Tales line said they didn't think it would work very well, so I'm generalizing my question out to any suggestions people might have as to a product that might best do what I'm looking for it to do.

My current plan is to run something along the lines of Hellboy. Possibly even Hellboy (sans GURPS, though if people think the GURPS-powered RPG would super-simply solve the problem I'm sure the interested parties might not mind learning a different system. I've avoided GURPS for the last decade, though.).

Just a lower-powered Noir supers.

--fje

 

[DanMcS]

If you're worried about hanging-in-there-ability of PCs, just power cap them, say they have to take 5 levels of PC classes and can take up to two CR worth of powers.

If I wanted DR, fire resistance, and extra strength, I'd just take all my levels in tough and point-buy/spend the 4th-level ability increases on strength increases

The talents and feats are varied enough that people will probably want to take a lot of class levels, anyway.

 

[BryonD]

Supers is a bit outside the sweet spot of Grim Tales.
But the low power supers idea is certainly workable.
Also, there is plenty in GT that could simply be used to augemnt your game.

Anyway, if you wanted straight Grim Tales Low Power supers, I would advise giving the characters the 2/3 CR multiplier that monsters are allowed for chapter 13 abilities. I know Wulf disagrees with me on this because the concept is to encourage characters without lots of special abiltities. But the concept of supers is that they DO have these abilties.

 

[d4]

Just a lower-powered Noir supers.

you just described Nocturnals, a setting book for Mutants & Masterminds that just came out a few months ago.

PCs in a Nocturnals campaign are assumed to be PL5 or 6, much lower-powered than standard supers but still above normal. i haven't run it, but on the M&M boards there are many people who say they have run lower PL games with no problems.

Nocturnals is based on a comic book of the same name, but as far as i can tell it is very much in the Hellboy feel.

edit: though you wouldn't need to pick up the Nocturnals book to run your campaign, i thought i'd add. the book is almost entirely fluff, describing the world of the Nocturnals comic book. i think there's only 4 pages of actual rules in the book. so basically, what i interpret that to mean is that you could run the type of campaign you are looking for with just the standard M&M rules.

 

[JimAde]

I'd just like to chime in with my opinion of GURPS Supers: Ick.

I'm a big GURPS fan and have run and played in dozens of GURPS games. But I really don't like the way they do Supers. Champions/Hero is a much better system with only marginally more bookkeeping.

Haven't played any of the d20 supers games, yet.

 

[Morrus]

Four Colors to Fantasy handles low powered supers pretty well:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=2201&SRC=EnWorld

 

[Stormborn]

I will second the ICK on GURPS Supers. I think GURPS can so somethings well, and have ton of their source books mainly for the info in them, but my limitied experiance with the Supers book is dissapointing.

I think your idea for a Grim Tales Supers would work, however have you considered Green Ronin's Psychic Handbook? Ascribe different origins for the powers and different names. Use it with d20 Modern or Grim Tales.

Mutants and Masterminds, BTW, is coming out with a Noir handbook accordnign to a recnet issue of Previews.

 

[jonrog1]

Second that Green Ronin Idea. I'm really going to get off my @ss about that FX Powers project. Stupid TV show, interfering with the gaming...

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, I picked up B&V. 6 bucks was worth a look. Ledded ran some supers with it, which was an interesting StoryHour read, which is what piqued my curiosity to look at it.

It's basically a secondary Skill system. Skill points and Power points, and they work rather similar in nature to Psychic Skills.

I actually sort of like the way they lay on top of and fit into d20Modern AND allow you to run non-Super characters alongside with ramped up skills/feats/stats ... which would then let me add in The Psychic's Handbook (rocks the casbah) and the Psychic as an AdC. I could also include my revisitation of SFX from Alternity, which functions alot like Psychic skills, and finish up my SFX Adept AdC ...

--fje

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Just to pop in very quickly--

I have used Grim Tales to run my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen one-offs quite successfully.

One might argue that it's a bit more mundane than even a low-power supers game, but, for example, I ran the group at 12th level, with some extra vampy powers for Mina and the usual extraordinary stuff for Hyde and Griffin with no problem.

I do recommend staying within the feats/talents framework whenever possible and keeping brute-force CR additions to a minimum.


Wulf