Favorite superhero RPGs?

[Umbran]

Do you even have evidence that he's a Nazi (an extremely inflammatory term) or that he's planning to use any money to hurt other people? The link you attached appeared to go to people making the same accusations you are.

Mod Note:
How about we just note that the positions he has supported would be in great violation of our inclusivity policy, such that banning would result.

Going further than that would probably get into politics, which we really don't need to do here.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I’m talking about how you need to parse damage dice for 1 / 2-5 / 6 results to work out killing damage, on top of summing the dice for regular damage. If you are rolling 14 dice for damage like one of the characters did, that takes time. And it didn’t add to the play experience for us.

Yeah, you're not wrong. From what I've personally seen this is the thing that makes the most people say "WTF?" when they try Champions.

But I've gotten some pretty maths averse folks to try it and they got to the point where it came naturally pretty fast. There's tricks to counting BOD and STUN for handfuls of d6.

Not to dismiss your experience of it! But I've found this way of doing damage does make it easier for me to run non-lethal fights. (eg. your classic DnD "introduce the PCs to each other bar brawl" and of course the average super hero slugfest.)

 

[DrunkonDuty]

This probably belongs in the unpopular opinion thread but here goes...

A couple of folk have mentioned a game's ability to be able to model having wildly different powered characters, eg. Batman and Superman, on the same team.

I think that Batman and Superman (or Hawkeye and Thor) just don't belong on the same team. At least, not doing the same things. Batman (and Hawkeye) should be doing things like infiltration, gathering evidence to take down evil corporations and corrupt politicians. Superman and Thor fight space gods. I mean, they can theoretically be on the same team, but they shouldn't really be on the same missions. Maybe troupe play is the answer.

This is more about the genre than game systems. I mean, sure, in Champions one can easily spend 500 points on both Thor and Hawkeye and have Hawkeye's arrows doing the same damage as Mjolnir. But it wouldn't be true to the source material.

Of course, the source material often isn't true to the source material so I know I'm on shaky ground here. Like I said, unpopular opinion.

 

[pemerton]

I think that Batman and Superman (or Hawkeye and Thor) just don't belong on the same team. At least, not doing the same things. Batman (and Hawkeye) should be doing things like infiltration, gathering evidence to take down evil corporations and corrupt politicians. Superman and Thor fight space gods. I mean, they can theoretically be on the same team, but they shouldn't really be on the same missions. Maybe troupe play is the answer.

This is more about the genre than game systems. I mean, sure, in Champions one can easily spend 500 points on both Thor and Hawkeye and have Hawkeye's arrows doing the same damage as Mjolnir. But it wouldn't be true to the source material.

I think this essay made a good point in relation to this topic, within the context of a discussion of balance and protagonism:

"Balance" might be relevant as a measure of character screen time, or perhaps weight of screen time rather than absolute length. This is not solely the effectiveness-issue which confuses everyone. Comics fans will recognize that Hawkeye is just as significant as Thor, as a member of the Avengers, or even more so. In game terms, this is a Character Components issue: Hawkeye would have a high Metagame component whereas Thor would have a higher Effectiveness component.​

There are various ways a higher "metagame" component can play out - as well as "fate points" or other "It's my lucky day"-type abilities, this can also include influence over theme or subject-matter of conflict.

 

[cbwjm]

This probably belongs in the unpopular opinion thread but here goes...

A couple of folk have mentioned a game's ability to be able to model having wildly different powered characters, eg. Batman and Superman, on the same team.

I think that Batman and Superman (or Hawkeye and Thor) just don't belong on the same team. At least, not doing the same things. Batman (and Hawkeye) should be doing things like infiltration, gathering evidence to take down evil corporations and corrupt politicians. Superman and Thor fight space gods. I mean, they can theoretically be on the same team, but they shouldn't really be on the same missions. Maybe troupe play is the answer.

This is more about the genre than game systems. I mean, sure, in Champions one can easily spend 500 points on both Thor and Hawkeye and have Hawkeye's arrows doing the same damage as Mjolnir. But it wouldn't be true to the source material.

Of course, the source material often isn't true to the source material so I know I'm on shaky ground here. Like I said, unpopular opinion.

I think these two character types can be modeled well with M&M or Icons, even if the power budget is the same. In the case of M&M, they did stat superman and batman at different power levels but you could run similar characters at the same PL well I think. Essentially the two complement each other more of less in the same way that you describe. While superman battles the space gods, batman is sneaking onto the space gods' ship to destroy it from within, or he's taking on the minions before they can follow through with their boss's plans.

Icons you'll have the same power budget (I think they settled on 45 points if doing point buy) but they end up doing something similar, the paragon fights the paragons, the crime fighter fights the minions and infiltrates the base.

 

[The Stray]

This probably belongs in the unpopular opinion thread but here goes...

A couple of folk have mentioned a game's ability to be able to model having wildly different powered characters, eg. Batman and Superman, on the same team.

I think that Batman and Superman (or Hawkeye and Thor) just don't belong on the same team. At least, not doing the same things. Batman (and Hawkeye) should be doing things like infiltration, gathering evidence to take down evil corporations and corrupt politicians. Superman and Thor fight space gods. I mean, they can theoretically be on the same team, but they shouldn't really be on the same missions. Maybe troupe play is the answer.

This is more about the genre than game systems. I mean, sure, in Champions one can easily spend 500 points on both Thor and Hawkeye and have Hawkeye's arrows doing the same damage as Mjolnir. But it wouldn't be true to the source material.

Of course, the source material often isn't true to the source material so I know I'm on shaky ground here. Like I said, unpopular opinion.

Different gaming groups will have different opinions here. It will depend on what people are looking to get out of their games. If we replace Superman and Batman specifically with "a flying brick" and "a crimefighting detective," though, then yes, those are absolutely character archetypes that should be able to show up on the same team, the same way that a fighter and a rogue both have spots in an adventuring party.

RPGs work best when they are focused on team dynamics and when there's niches that each character is able to fill that another one struggles to. A superhero game isn't any different in that regard. And IMO a good superhero game should focus just as much on the personal lives and interpersonal soap opera dynamics as on the missions. there needs to be both spectacle AND soap.

 

[overgeeked]

RPGs work best when they are focused on team dynamics and when there's niches that each character is able to fill that another one struggles to. A superhero game isn't any different in that regard. And IMO a good superhero game should focus just as much on the personal lives and interpersonal soap opera dynamics as on the missions. there needs to be both spectacle AND soap.

Absolutely. Claremont had the formula down. Epic fights and soap opera lives. Though I’d rather there be advice on adding soap to a traditional game than a game with designated soap mechanics. So many storygames fall flat for me because they push too narrow of a story. As much as I love Masks: A New Generation, and most other PtbA games, deciding your character’s entire arc at character creation is just weird to me and undermines the whole ethos of “play to find out.”

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I did say it would be unpopular... In hind sight perhaps I should not have said "just don't belong on the same team."


But I also said: Thor and Hawkeye should do different things. So yes, I agree with you folks who say (and I paraphrase) Batman should sneak around doing sneaky stuff while Superman battles Darkseid.

Where it fails for me (and I suspect most people) is situations like Batman easily evading Darkseid's nega beams. Something that, canonically, even Flash can only barely do. Yes, I know we can be meta about it and say "well, you can't kill off Batman so of course he survives." But to me that's a total arse-pull. It's bad writing. You want Batman to survive Darkseid? Don't put them in direct confrontation. Which brings me back to find another way for Batman to be useful, i.e.: do sneaky stuff.

So I'll amend my previous unpopular opinion to: Thor and Hawkeye should be on different missions. I mean, would you really want to try to quietly infiltrate a Hydra base with Thor in tow?


As for supers and soap. Bring it on, baby. Claremont had it right. Supers is just soap opera with spandex.

 

[Kannik]

I played a tonne of Champions (both BBB and FREd) in the past, and love the effects based design to be able to create a huge swath of different hero types. Also liked the Disadvantages idea to ensure the characters had some (which, of course, like the effects/point-buy system, works best when players aren't working the hardest to game the system (of which I was guilty of in my youth)). Bell-curve dice was another plus. Plus many of the items listed already in this thread, including the downsides of the attack/KA split of damage and the dice counting, plus the bucket load of dice thing, plus the in-play minutia-ness that can feel counter to superheroic action.

In that vein I think MHR (or the Cortex Prime "Giant Corporate Owned Superhero Comics Heroic Roleplaying" clone) would work excellent for a supers game.

 

[pemerton]

Batman should sneak around doing sneaky stuff while Superman battles Darkseid.

<snip>

Thor and Hawkeye should be on different missions. I mean, would you really want to try to quietly infiltrate a Hydra base with Thor in tow?

One thing I really like about MHRP is that it allows both the fight-y mission and the sneak-y mission to be resolved without the sneak-y turning into just GM-decides.