Ideas for disparate character power levels

[Tonguez]

My understanding is that the Smallville RPG did this really well. I never played it myself but it’s mentioned a lot when this topic comes up. It’s a Cortex game, hough I think an earlier iteration than MHRP or Cortex Prime..

Smallvilles Cortex K did it good for Smallville - since it used a soap opera relationship mechanic rather than ‘skills’.
The six Soap Values were Duty, Glory, Justice, Love, Power, and Truth and then you got to add Relationship Dice.
characters were built with Distinctions (eg Clark is “Big hearted”) which when roleplayed earn Plot points that can be used to trigger Abilities.

eg if Clark wants to save Lois he rolls his Love dice + Lois dice, if he has shown his compassion and got a plot point he can spend it to use his Super-breath or Super-strength or something.

 

[RivetGeekWil]

My understanding is that the Smallville RPG did this really well. I never played it myself but it’s mentioned a lot when this topic comes up. It’s a Cortex game, hough I think an earlier iteration than MHRP or Cortex Prime.

I personally ran Galaxies in Peril with three PCs Of varying power levels and that worked just fine. It’s a Forged in the Dark game.

Everything in Smallville (and MHR) is in Cortex Prime, so Cortex Prime does it well too. But even MHR balanced super-powered versus not super-powered similarly even if the traits weren't the same. It doesn't matter if something is a d12 Super Punch or a d12 Disapproving Look, they're both d12s. Something being "super" doesn't come from the objective die rating, it comes from the narrative permissions and SFX.