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Any Supers Game that feels Super?
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<blockquote data-quote="Wofano Wotanto" data-source="post: 9392609" data-attributes="member: 7044704"><p>The game <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/483357/stalwart-the-world-s-niftiest-superhero-rpg" target="_blank">Stalwart</a> came to my attention the other day, and (at a whopping one dollar and 16 pages of reading time) is probably worth a look. The standout element for me is their mechanic for being reduced to zero health, which they call being Felled. Instead of being down or dying for the rest of the scene, you have a 50-50 chance at the start of each later round to get back up at 50% of your max health. If you fail to get up three times in a row or someone manages to attack you or after you've gotten back up a certain number of times (I think the max is 5, but normal range is probably 1-3) you become Defeated, and testing to get up takes much longer (not in combat, basically) and your Health cap is reduced until you have some downtime to heal. All that is in the DTRPG preview, so I don't see an issue with reiterating it here.</p><p></p><p>The whole mechanic is intended to reflect the common comic trope of a super seemingly being taken out and ignored, only to recover and throw themselves back into the action later. I think it does a decent job of it within its parent system (which is very light - 16 pages, remember?) and could serve as a seed for homebrewed rules to do something similar in other systems. The obvious concerns would be making the combat drag, reducing actual risk too much, and the swing factor in terms of how long recoveries can take, but that's something for playtesting to resolve. Health systems vary a lot between systems too, so adjusting what your maximum and recovery caps are would probably be needed - the system is essentially giving you multiple "health bars" in a 2X/X/X...etc. pattern, with the possibility of being taken out at the end of any one of them.</p><p></p><p>If I see a major flaw in the Stalwart version, it may be that it's too easy to get a "finisher' attack in while someone is Felled, making the whole block of mechanics little more than a de facto action tax. Hard to be sure if that's the case - the mechanics for preventing a finisher aren't too defined and it might be harder than it looks - but it's something to consider if porting the concept elsewhere.</p><p></p><p>It's a more interesting "Out" mechanic than Sentinel Comics uses (which is more of a consolation prize so you have something to do if you drop early and involves very little decision making), or the way regeneration frequently works in other systems.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Wofano Wotanto, post: 9392609, member: 7044704"] The game [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/483357/stalwart-the-world-s-niftiest-superhero-rpg']Stalwart[/URL] came to my attention the other day, and (at a whopping one dollar and 16 pages of reading time) is probably worth a look. The standout element for me is their mechanic for being reduced to zero health, which they call being Felled. Instead of being down or dying for the rest of the scene, you have a 50-50 chance at the start of each later round to get back up at 50% of your max health. If you fail to get up three times in a row or someone manages to attack you or after you've gotten back up a certain number of times (I think the max is 5, but normal range is probably 1-3) you become Defeated, and testing to get up takes much longer (not in combat, basically) and your Health cap is reduced until you have some downtime to heal. All that is in the DTRPG preview, so I don't see an issue with reiterating it here. The whole mechanic is intended to reflect the common comic trope of a super seemingly being taken out and ignored, only to recover and throw themselves back into the action later. I think it does a decent job of it within its parent system (which is very light - 16 pages, remember?) and could serve as a seed for homebrewed rules to do something similar in other systems. The obvious concerns would be making the combat drag, reducing actual risk too much, and the swing factor in terms of how long recoveries can take, but that's something for playtesting to resolve. Health systems vary a lot between systems too, so adjusting what your maximum and recovery caps are would probably be needed - the system is essentially giving you multiple "health bars" in a 2X/X/X...etc. pattern, with the possibility of being taken out at the end of any one of them. If I see a major flaw in the Stalwart version, it may be that it's too easy to get a "finisher' attack in while someone is Felled, making the whole block of mechanics little more than a de facto action tax. Hard to be sure if that's the case - the mechanics for preventing a finisher aren't too defined and it might be harder than it looks - but it's something to consider if porting the concept elsewhere. It's a more interesting "Out" mechanic than Sentinel Comics uses (which is more of a consolation prize so you have something to do if you drop early and involves very little decision making), or the way regeneration frequently works in other systems. [/QUOTE]
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