d20 Super Heroes --- coming in July '06 from WOTC

[nharwell]

I often wonder what I saw in the first woman I loved.

And we'll not get into some of the music choices of my youth...

Ahem.

That said, following the tune of the rest of the post, for us, MSH did the job but was always sort of substandard. DC Heroes was an instant hit and we dumped MSH almost immediately upon learning it. It did a much better job of emulating the genre for us.

Wow, another fan! Despite it's flaws, DC Heroes (3rd edition) is by far my favorite supers game. I've yet to find another supers game that handles the genre so well (although M&M is a good game...).

 

[Vigilance]

That said, following the tune of the rest of the post, for us, MSH did the job but was always sort of substandard. DC Heroes was an instant hit and we dumped MSH almost immediately upon learning it. It did a much better job of emulating the genre for us.

DC Heroes is another fine supers game.

For me, when Im in the mood for supers I want one of two things: a complex system able to handle the supers campaign of MY design (that would be hero) or a rollicking, fun and easy system that does the majority of the work for me.

Most of the time that was MSH (though I ran a LONG campaign set in Gotham with DCH using the Batman sourcebook) and these days its Blood and Vigilance.

 

[takyris]

Chuck, with respect, to come in with the tone you had and then claim that you were just talking innocently and that the reaction from M&M people just proves your point is... a trifle disingenuous.

If you don't actually understand what in the tone of your first few posts might have irritated the M&M folks, then that is indeed a shame and a pity.

I don't really feel strongly one way or the other about the game, nor can I without seeing some previews. I enjoyed M&M but couldn't get my players interested in a campaign because there were too many new rules, and my friends weren't interested enough in a superhero game to learn a new ruleset for it. A game that plugged into d20 Modern, which they all understand at this point, might solve that particular issue. It'd be a question for me of whether the plugged-in system felt more like a d20 Modern fight or a comic-book fight. From the little I played with other games that added superheroic stuff to d20 Modern (or just d20 in general), it didn't feel as comic-book-y as M&M did... so I likely wouldn't bother. I'd just start a spy, d20-Modern-Call-of-Cthulhu, action-adventure, police-procedural, X-Files, or Firefly game... or any of the other games that are already out there, and which d20 Modern, with plug-ins from WotC and other publishers, does just great in my opinion.

(No opinion on HERO, having never played it. Tried Marvel when I was far too young for it and didn't like it. I might enjoy it now, but M&M exists and has rules I already mostly know... not that it helps, since my players still think that's too many new rules to learn.)

So in a nutshell, the game I've tried that best replicates the feel I want is the one my players don't want to bother to learn, and the games that look easy enough to plunk into d20 or d20 Modern don't give the feel I want. If WotC's book solves both issues, I'll happily play that.

It'll be interesting to see what WotC does in relation to what's already been done in the field, though. They have a lot of material to borrow from, a lot of places where they could play it safe or range further afield. While everything I've seen from them in d20 Modern (save the core book) has been an exercise in playing it safe and not deviating from the existing system and trying to make all the systems cross-over-friendly, they could decide to go crazy with this one. I don't think they will, but they could. And, not sitting in their focus groups or looking at their sales reports, I can't honestly say what makes the most sense for them, moneywise. Scary as it may seem, many companies not yet out of business have solid reasons for doing what they do in their games.

 

[Ymdar]

Well I may be a bit late for this thread but I must say one thing:
No matter how good M&M is or what quality d20SH will be, most of the players who are new to the d20m line will most likeley choose d20SH over M&M.
I think its because the more advertisement WoTC has.

 

[Jim Hague]

And as an aside, for the Marvel folks lamenting the lack of books:

[links removed]

Enjoy, heroes!

 

[Teflon Billy]

...But if you want to run a game where the PCs don't have superpowers, this will be the go-to game.

What the...?

D20 superheroes is going to be your game of choice for a game where the PCs don't have superpowers?

You might find a better fit elsewhere man

 

[Von Ether]

What the...?

D20 superheroes is going to be your game of choice for a game where the PCs don't have superpowers?

You might find a better fit elsewhere man

I think I where he's going at ...

Have a game where all the PC's are mutants or super soliders? Or perhaps a space opera where every race has some funky ability that goes beyond just a feat?

There's a lot of rpg ideas that would be easier to run with mid-range super hero rules, but without the four-color flair.

 

[buzz]

* It'll be a 96 page softcover. A lot of folks were put off by d20 past, and quite a bit of that is because it didn't have room to cover much.

It might be a 96pp softcover. And even if it is, it doesn't have to cover the whole of human history. Barring specific sub-subgenres, supers is basically "today" + "superheroes".

It'll be almost as hard to cover superheroes in 96 pages as it was to cover the rennisaince through WWII.

Champions, Villains & Vigilantes, and the original MSHRPG managed to do it. Given that all you really need is super-powers rules and some basic genre advice, 96pp is a good amount of room.

* It'll suck, or otherwise be of limited use. Class and level based systems don't work that well with superheroes. I can't see them making anything particularly good without introducing incompatibility with the rest of d20 Modern.

Both of these statements are an assumption on your part.

This is essentially the first time Wizards will have any real competition.

Wizards has no competition.

Ultimately, if there's anything that can compete against a 96 paged softcover from a less than successful WotC line, M&M is it.

I don't know if WotC is looking to "compete" against anything. It's entirely possible that this is simply another product that rounds out their d20M line, as well as a design challenge the designers (and accountants) found worth undertaking.

I'll happily set this on my shelf right alongside my M&M and Champions books, if it's good. That's all I really care about.

 

[Vigilance]

Chuck, with respect, to come in with the tone you had and then claim that you were just talking innocently and that the reaction from M&M people just proves your point is... a trifle disingenuous.

If you don't actually understand what in the tone of your first few posts might have irritated the M&M folks, then that is indeed a shame and a pity.

With all due respect taky, I am fairly certain no one knows what I am feeling at any given time over the internet

I can see how my comments could be interpreted as trying to stir up trouble, but that wasn't my intent.

As for whether or not folks believe me when I say that, well I can't control that now can I?

I am a huge fan of comics and RPGs. Put those together and you're looking at a guy who owns and has ran just about every supers game from Hero, to GURPs (great game for just about any genre BUT supers), MSH, DCH, M&M (maybe the best executed d20 game from a business and production standpoint ever), DNW, Godlike (awesome... just awesome) etc etc.

Wanting to design a supers game of my very own got me INTO this business in fact.

What all of the above means is that *I* do not have a dog in this fight.

But I do expect there to be *be* a fight, at least from M&M's very loyal and devoted fanbase.

And I also feel that many of the comments already posted in the thread back this up: people saying d20 Supers won't be as good, when all we know is a pagecount (if we even know that); people looking at "pagecount 160" and saying "well that can't be right- it'll be 96 pages and that's not enough" (and again- we don't know one way or the other).

Shrugs. I guess people are going to spin my comments as snidely anti-M&M because they perceive me as having a dog in this fight when I really do not. Despite my personal preference for building my supers games on top of d20M, I am simply a fan of the whole supers RPG genre and think M&M is a great game.

I have pitched ideas to my boss for superlink products.

I plan to buy d20 Supers the day it comes out, just like I bought Godlike, Foundation and M&M the day they came out.

Chuck

 

[Sketchpad]

Personally I don't see what the arguement is about ... M&M isn't d20 ... it's OGL. I'll probably snag a copy of d20 Supers and compare it to the other superhero games that I have In all honesty, almost any superhero game can emulate the genre IF the GM is willing to let it