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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 5408469" data-attributes="member: 151">Many good points are made above and I won't add to them.  Assuming you're looking to rationalize here, there are several approaches.Approach 1: Go the Marvel Knights/Wildcards route, where crime is on the level of someone like the Punisher and the Kingpin.  If you're really looking for a degree of verisimilitude (and as PCat says, you're probably in the wrong genre), then embrace it.Approach 2: Let it go and accept that any number of reasons and rationalizations exist.Let's start with a few examples:  Most heroes have secret identities.  They go about their daily lives INCOGNITO.  Peter Parker might carry a back-pack with his camera, spidey light (anyone remember that?), his costume and some school books.  When Doc Ock attacks Times Square, he can change...FAST.  He only packs the essentials and makes sure it's stuff that doesn't reveal him accidentally.  That's why we don't see Spidey toting the <a href="http://marvel.wikia.com/Spider-Armor" target="_blank">Spider-Armor</a> around.  Too heavy and conspicuous.  Next: as the X-men would be the first to tell you: superheroing is something that happens to you when you're making other plans.  Playing a game of baseball?  Going to a bar?  Hanging out with Beatniks at a poetry-jam?  Shopping for clothes in a mall in Calgary?  Catching a commercial flight?  Going ice-skating in the park?  Well, guess what?  You're about to be trapped in your own danger room, ambushed by a trash truck run by Arcade, watch Unus the Untouchable rob a bank, get attacked by Alpha Flight, be intercepted by Factor Three (or Alpha Flight or a lot of others), and copied by the Super-Adaptoid.  For the X-men, these sort of things are just a normal Tuesday.  Unless you're going to wear all your equipment all the time, you better not get dependent on it.  Because as often as not, you're going to be ambushed or find yourself in a battle just because of bad timing.Further, most heroes DO have that stuff...just not for the first fight or close to hand.  Reed Richards can prepare and get what he needs.  The Beast can cobble together a short-term gadget.  Tony Stark and Peter Parker make MacGuyver look like a kindergartner with improvised stuff. But often, these solutions are impractical, expensive or prone to malfunction.Also: consider the 'Rule of Equals'.  Superheroes often are opposed by villains appropriate to them.  A utility belt for Superman would not just be superflous...it wouldn't survive the punishment  of battle with Atlas or Mongul.  Batman has solutions for many villians...but some of them become weaknesses or liabilities against the wrong villain.  And captured villain gear?  Often too dangerous for anyone except the original user...and often even too dangerous for them (they were just reckless).And lastly, consider that superheroes generally exist in a world where Infinity Gauntlets, Cosmic Cubes and 5th dimensional beings exist.  There are very few defenses against everything, so specializing on your own personal talents is normally the best way to survive.  Strictly speaking, there's always someone with a bigger gun.Are these rationalizations?   You bet your bippee they are.  But that's the point.  Like Hong's Chickens in D&D, if you look to closely, things don't really make sense in most game settings.  Which is because it's a game, not a simulation.  Superhero stories where heroes are as fragile as real people isn't necessarily the stuff of fun games (though it can be, it's the more challenging route, IMHO).A better tack might be to do something like the Avengers, the Legion of Superheroes, The Order or even the Justice League Unlimited settings.  Places where heroes are part of organization that has considerable resources when they need them and gives them some degree of flexibility at the same time.  But at the same time can rescind access to items and loot in a logical fashion.  ("The NSA says you can't keep Doctor Malice's Ray Gun...it's unstable.  Into the Vault, I'm afraid.")</blockquote>

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