[recruiting maybe] Simple Superheroes - Artifice City

[Thondor]

If you've always wanted to make your own Superhero - This Game is for You.

Recruiting? Well this is an old thread, and I primarily wanted to let everyone know who was interested in the past that Simple Superheroes is now on Kickstarter. But if there is a bunch of interest . . . who knows? Maybe I'll consider reviving it, or running a new one.

Who is Thondor?
I am the designer of Simple Superheroes. I’ve been around ENworld for a while, and played in a few PbP games here and even run one (briefly).

[Sblock=Who are the Players]
Fireinthedust - Doctor Nexus - Maj. Sir Nethaddeus Cavor, MD, PhD etc (mutated Genius in armour)
Mark Chance - American Dreamer - Aiden O'Leary (Former police officer with uncontrollable pre-cognition)
Walking Dad - Yarko the Great - real name? (Master of Magic)
Zerith - Zeta WiP - Zeta (A living locomotive - Steam)
HarryBModest - ? - ? (Teleporter)

Rogue's Gallery for character write-ups.
[/Sblock]


What is Simple Superheroes?
A structured free-form Superhero Game in Pre-release. (Now on Kickstarter).
You can download The Heart of Simple Superheroes for free which lays out the majority of the rules of the game.

What are the Assumptions for this Play-by-Post?

1. Your character will be a City-level hero. Meaning he can have pretty wacky powers, but there will be notable limitations.
2. A friendly, bantering, not particularly high realism game. Your costumed heroes out to foil the villains diabolical plot ‘nuff said.
3. All players are on a Team. Team name TBD.
4. Scenario’s/Issues will be short. I’m hoping to have a short quickly resolved story or two. Hopefully this will fit in well with the drop-in drop-out nature of PbP.

[sblock=The Universe: Post-War - Artifice City]
I've outlined the answers to the questions. At this point I am open to feedback and suggestions.

Spinning a Universe questions:


1. How long have there been people with superhuman powers?
- Since the close of WWII. At least this is the commonly held belief.

2. Did and does the emergence of people with powers meaningfully affect the world?
- Not a lot. The main result has been creating one more thing for the news to report about. Heroes are pretty well balanced by villains.

3. Will the events of the story that will be told significantly change the status quo or do things mostly return to normal between story arcs?
- The status quo returns at the close of story-arcs.

4. Who was the first superpowered individual? Are they still around?


5. Is there a dominant source of powers, or banned sources?
- The Enhanced Soldier program (Project 33) or its ‘spin-offs' is a common source.
- All sources are welcome.

6. Does any of the following exist, and if so how prevalent is their presence and are they known to the public?
- Aliens: unknown
- Other dimensions/planes: unlikely.
- Alternate realities and alternate Universes: unknown.
- Time travel: No. (Not this time .)
- Real pre-cognition or post-cognition: Yes, though it is not widely known.

7. How does the media and government treat those with powers? Are they even aware of meta-humans?
- The government mostly ignores meta-humans. The media regard heroes with a bit of awe.

8. How prevalent are super-powered individuals in the developing world?
- irrelevant all conflict will be home-grown.

9. Does the Universe use real cities and geographies or fictional locations?
- The Universe is primarily set in Artifice City. A name that embodies the booming and innovation of the 1950's with the possibility of deception.

10. What are the Moods, themes and levels of realism?
- Cheesy Plans, Monologues, fairly low ‘realism.'

11. Do people die? And stay that way?
- It can happen, but is rare.

12. How do powers affect national and international politics?
- We could introduce Communism into the mix here, but I think we won't really focus on it. Unless someone is keen?

13. How does all the collateral damage from superhuman battles get repaired? Who foots the bill and how do they keep up with the work?
- In this booming economy? No problem.

14. When is the story set?
- 1950's

15. What other things besides being a criminal or hero do superpowered humans use their powers for?
- People with powers wear costumes. They either fight the good fight or the bad one, ‘nuff said.

16. How did the heroes (the player characters) come together
- To be Determined.

[/sblock]

Character Creation
This is outlined in detail in Heart of Simple Superheroes.
Note that making your character should feel like Brainstorming. I’ll probably discuss at least a few points for each players character to make sure we are on the same page.

Example Characters:
There are two example characters on the website; and a couple more in the forum.
Below is a straightforward example formatted appropriately.

[sblock=Pacifier]
Example character using Standard array

Pacifier
Identity: Gregory Barnes

Talents
Accurracy: 2- quick-silver blows [O]
Mobility: 2- quick-silver step [F]
Toughness: 4- titanium body [D], 2- larger than life [F]
Might: 4- iron blows [O], 3- strength of iron [F]
Brains: 3- diamond mind [D]
Senses:

Superpower Finesse: 2- strong, 2- fast, 2- resilient

Weakness: Made of metal.

Lifepoints: 7
Strainpoints: 6

Relations: 2- Mandy (gf), 2- Truth, 1- Ted's sports bar

Now the above is all that is really needed to play Pacifier. However, some discussion "with the GM" is warranted.

Description of Talents:

Quicksilver Blows (accuracy -2): Pacifier can stike fast with accuracy. While his "iron blows" is more potent, he might use this in combat to try and smash something, grab something or similar actions requiring precision.

Quicksilver Step (mobility - 2): Pacifier is fast. He could have just as easily called this talent "run."

Titanium Body (toughness - 4): Pacifier's body is completely metallic making him highly resilient to physical trauma.
Note that this does not protect him from a large number of attacks including energy (things like acid, fire, cold, lightning), magic, mind-effecting, or anything that simply needs to touch him like a net.

Larger Than Life (2- toughness): This gives Pacifier an extra positive Lifepoint and an extra negative Lifepoint. His negative 1 repeats.

Iron Blows (4- might): Pacifier hits with impressive force. He can use it to smash foes, walls and even steel (his Titanium Body keeps him from hurting himself).

Strength of Iron (3- might): Pacifier is inhumanly strong. He uses this Talent to lift bend and twist, really anything where raw strength is called for. He can easily lift a motorcycle.
Note that without this Talent Pacifier would not be any stronger than an average human.

Diamond Mind (3- brains): Pacifier knows and protects his own mind. This protects him from all sorts of mind-affecting Talents, including persuasion, mind-control and fear.

Personality and Background
This is where a player writes about the characters origin, motives, interests, personality

[/sblock]
[sblock=Character Creation Tips
First find a hero and power concept.

Defenses: There are a lot of forms of defenses. You won’t have enough Talents to defend from all kinds of attack. That’s what friends are for.

Usually specific Talents trumps generic ones

Talents are meant to be narrow - a single ‘fire’ talent does not give you ultimate control over fire. In fact if you only have one fire Talent you may not be able to light a cigarette, instead you might light your head on fire.

The above is why Superpower Finesse is good.

Spending Strainpoints and pooling Talents are you friends.
[/sblock]

[sblock=Combat Example

This is to illustrate how the die mechanics work.

A gunman attacks Pacifier. The gunman gets 2 d6. Pacifier uses his Titanium body to resist, which is rank 4, giving him 4 d6.

Gunman's Attack
1d6;1d6 → [2] = (2)
1d6;1d6 → [3] = (3)

[link to roll] [link to character]

Pacifier's Titanium body vs gunmanPacifier's Titanium body vs gunman
1d6;1d6;1d6;1d6 → [5] = (5)
1d6;1d6;1d6;1d6 → [6] = (6)
1d6;1d6;1d6;1d6 → [5] = (5)
1d6;1d6;1d6;1d6 → [1] = (1)

[link to roll] [link to character]

2's and 1's are completely ignored. 3's and above are considered basic sucesses.
The highest die of each contestant is compared. Then the next highest etc.

The Gunman's 3 does not exceed Pacifier's 6, so the bullet deflects harmlessly off his steel flesh.
[/sblock]

------------Some new details

[sblock=Talents Intent]
The 'letters' next to the Talents are the talents Intent. The standard intents are as follows:
Offensive [O]
Defensive [D]
Functional [F]
Reactive [R] - reactive Talents respond to a Trigger, allowing the character to cause something to happen 'out-of-sequence'. The Trigger by definition should be narrow.

Non-standard Intents:
Time [T]
Potency [P]
Hard-Tech [H]

Time and Potency are often used for characters like Yarko the Great who can 'cast any spell' or gadgeter characters who can 'build anything.' Its also how you can handle a green-lantern type concept.

Hard-Tech is an additional designation. A Talent will have one of the 'standard' intents as well as the Hard-tech intent eg [FH]. Hard-tech Talents cannot be pushed by Strainpoints and are more likely to be damaged or malfunction. They do however have one situation where they excel; such as body-armor being especially good at blocking bullets. In this one situation they gain a rank/die.
[/sblock]

[sblock=Defenses]
Generally speaking there are several forms of defenses that don't overlap.

• Physical resilience
• 'Energy' resilience
• Mental resilience
• Dodging
• Magic resilience

Minor overlaps in the above are possible, but it wouldn't cover all cases. You might have 'arcane shield' that protects against magic and mental control, but doesn't protect against persuasion, intimidation, and fear.

CornerCases

There is also a whole bunch of cornercases, or odd situations that a character might not be protected from.
Sonic, gases, injections or intoxicants, being blinded, and probably a few other things I can't think of.
Usually a hero can be effectively immune to a cornercase if they have a rank 3 talent that would protect them. Having 3- sonar makes a character effectively immune to blindness.
[/sblock]

[sblock='Narrowness' of offensive Talent example]
We'll start with a one shot wonder, someone with a single powerful Talent. Let's call this character Bob.

Bob v1
Might 5- Telekinetic Blow [O]

Now Bobv1 can hit things with a massive amount of force with his telekinesis. It is an almost instinctual blast of power that is over a very short (close) distance. He tends to make dramatic hand gestures (like punching the air) when he does so. He can smash large objects with it (like doors).

What can't Bobv1 do?
He can't hit a small target with it.
He can't hit someone who is far away or deliberately keeping their distance.
He would probably hit both people in a grapple.
He can't lift things. (He can only knock them over or break them.)
He cannot lift himself into the air.
He can't defend himself at all.

In short he has no Finesse.

So ... Let's add a few Talents

Bob v2
Accuracy 3- Telekinetic Manipulation [F]
Mobility 2- Telekinetic Stability [F]
Might 5- Telekinetic Blow [O]


Telekinetic manipulation gives Bobv2 the the ability to pick up small objects, or flip a switch across the room, or pull a gun out of someone's hand (if he's lucky).
It also makes him a little more flexible with his Telekinetic blow, he should be able to effect things slightly further away from him.

Telekinetic Stability is used to 'push off' of surfaces to keep Bobv2 light on his feet. he might aslo try to break his fall using this Talent. If he advanced this Talent further he might be able to levitate.

So how about the restrictions on Telekinetic Blow? They are still largely the same, but a Game Master 'Judge' should be a little more lenient since Bobv2 has several Telekinetic Talents, meaning that he has 'Finesse'.

[/sblock]

 

[Jemal]

Is this just an official recruiting thread for the other thread we've been discussing your game in, or were you planning to run a second game in the system?

 

[Thondor]

This is the 'official' thread for the game. As the GM, having the first post is very helpful.

 

[fireinthedust]

Here's Doctor Nexus, what I have so far. Based around the Iron Man, but I'm re-working him. I've lowered some numbers, but it's very basic right now.

EDIT: fixed it up somewhat, added a rough history. The armor strength is there because, well, he's in power armor.

[sblock]
Doctor Nexus
Identity: Maj. Sir Nethaddeus Cavor, MD, PhD, ESQ, MA, MSc, CRA, MDMA, ABC, CPR, IOU and MRS.

Accuracy: 3- Stun Blasters [O,H]
Mobility: 3- Cavorite Flight [F, H]
Toughness: 3- Artifice Armor [D,H], (?) Morphic Reformation [D]
Might: 3- Armored Strength [F,H]
Brains: 4- Super Genius [F], 3- invent suit-enhancements [F,H],
Senses: 2- Sensor Suite [F,H]

Superpower Finesse: 3

Weakness: Morphic Form: if not in his suit, Dr. Nexus transforms into a morphic mass of proto-matter, a stretchy form of himself. This would be handy if he could control it better, and in private he practices, but for now it is a challenge his genius is working around. His suit’s coherence field keeps him together, so long as the power is active in his suit.

Strainpoints: 6
Lifepoints: 6

Relations: 3- Man of Science, 2- Lady Livinia, 2- Alien Morphology


Description of Talents:

Artifice Armor: Doctor Nexus’ suit of power armor is quite resistant to the rugged lifestyle of a man of action and super science.
Sensor Suite: Using his armor’s scanners, he can analyse various substances, structures, machines and life-forms. His genius may then postulate what it is he’s discovered.
Super Genius: Arguably his greatest weapon: Doctor Nexus is a man of science and vision, such that important persons including the Queen and the President often call upon him to solve various important problems. It allows him to look at a problem, such as rewiring a giant robot, creating a cure for the disease from dimension X, to piecing together a working understanding of an alien language. Roll successes to determine if he can solve a problem using his inimitable genius.
Create Suit Enhancements (3- brains): Doctor Nexus can invent things from his suit by re-routing power, polarizing and re-polarizing the probability streams of the flux reducers, and other similarly indescribable processes. This gives Doctor Nexus a chance (rolled) to have enhanced his suit to have a particular ability. The GM sets the difficulty of the challenge to have the desired enhancement. Enhancements act as rank 2 Talents.


Cavorite Flight: The rare substance allows Doctor Nexus to defy gravity, currently making a giant suit of armor fly.
Stun Blasters: Damage is effective but non-lethal, as he is not merely a man of science... but a man of peace. (ie: he blasts you, you’re not dead when you go down)
Morphic Reformation: When unconscious or dead, Doctor Nexus’ body reforms itself; eventually he will regain consciousness, and either make his way to his armor, or find a way to build another coherence field (however slowly).


Group: TBA
Orientation: Hero
Role: Smart Flier

Doctor Nexus is a brave and accomplished scientist, part of the Manhattan project, and many other such government taskforces for years. He has pioneered a number of fields, including Xenobiology, advanced robotics, theories on time travel and the existence of other dimensions. (His family is a long line of heroic aristocrats, doctors, scientists and landed nobility, the good ones who you'd want to have be your aristocrats even if you don't like the concept of an aristocracy or class system.) Nethadeus is incredibly brilliant, and had collected every available title and distinction before he was twenty, when his family moved to America to work on defenses for the great war, settling in New England and Manhattan.
Most recently he himself was drawn into the world of super science as a subject rather than an observer, when he was singled out during an alien attack towards the end of WW2. His brain was to be added to their collective morphic mind computer, but he broke free and helped to turn back the tide of the invasion. His new form means his entire body acts as a brain, every fibre of the morphic mass being able to compute and store information despite whatever punishments it may undergo; yet without help he loses his human appearance. His Lady Livinia at his side, faithful despite his physically being a giant glob of goo, he invented his mighty power armor and coherence field, which allows him to maintain his human form. His inventions are more fantastic than ever, but he has begun to spend time fighting the rising menace of super villains alongside his never-ending quest to discover and improve mankind.
[/sblock]

 

[Mark Chance]

This looks rather nifty. Here's a stab at a character:

[sblock=American Dreamer]
Identity: Aiden O'Leary

Talents
Accuracy: 4 Like Castor & Pollux [O]
Mobility: 3 Olympian [F]
Toughness: 3 Tough as Nails [D]
Might: 3 Powerhouse [F]
Brains: 2 Investigator [F], 2 Police Procedure [F]
Senses: 2 Precognitive Dreams [F], 2 Sense Danger [D]

Superpower Finesse
* Perfect Athlete 3
* Precognitive 2
* Former Policeman 2

Relations
* His Family 3
* Truth, Justice, and the American Way 2
* Rizzo the Snitch 1

Lifepoints: 6
Strainpoints: 6

Weakness: American Dreamer cannot fully control his precognitive powers. Often, his dreams are partial or vague, and infrequently he suffers from "waking visions".

Description of Talents:
* Like Castor & Pollux (Accuracy 4): American Dreamer is a highly skilled boxer and wrestler as a result of intensive training.
* Olympian (Mobility 3): American Dreamer could qualify for the U.S. Olympic team in track & field and gymnastic events as a result of intensive training.
* Tough as Nails (Toughness 3): American Dreamer is a well-conditioned athlete and fighter as a result of intensive training. He can really take a punch, resist pain and fatigue, et cetera.
* Powerhouse (Might 3): American Dreamer is a first-rate powerlifter and strongman as a result of intensive training.
* Investigator and Police Procedure (Brains 2): American Dream is trained in criminal investigative techniques and police procedures.
* Precognitive Dreams and Sense Danger (Senses 2): American Dreamer often has dreams that warn him of impending dangers and/or point him in the direction of helping others, solving crimes, et cetera. These precognitive powers can alert him about immediate danger in time to react, sometimes before the danger happens.

Personality and Background: Aiden O'Leary comes from a family of cops. His grandfather was a cop. His father is a retired cop. Both of his brothers are cops. So, naturally, Aiden wanted to be a cop as well, and, for a time, he was. He served with pride and distinction on the city's rough streets. When he took a bullet to the head trying to foil a hold-up, Aiden's life changed in more than one way. The injury somehow unlocked precognitive powers over which Aiden has only some control. His "waking visions" proved particularly troublesome. He couldn't be a cop suffering from this sort of "brain damage". So, Aiden resigned and became a private investigator. When the situation calls from it, he dons his fedora, domino mask, and red-white-blue trenchcoat to fight crime as the American Dreamer.
[/sblock]

 

[Thondor]

@fireinthedust:
Four points:
1. Doctor Nexus has one to many rank 3 Talents. It should be a rank two. Keep in mind that rank two doesn't really allow for inhuman traits.

2. Morphic form is primarily a weakness, you can probably have a two there. I would suggest something like 'alien biology' which would protect you from things like intoxicants and similar, particularly if they are designed to effect humans. The idea you currently have of 'reforming' after anything (eventually) is probably a little strong.

3. We may wish to discuss the hard-tech designation a little more. Each hard-tech talent needs a narrow circumstance where you get a bonus die for each. So do you have some ideas for these?

4. At 3 cavorite flightshould befairly limited, so what are it's drawbacks? slow? actvation round,etc ?


Mark Chance:
Welcome aboard. At first blush looks pretty solid. You've classified two Talents as Reactive and this is probably not appropriate. I'll follow up more soon.

 

[Thondor]

I'll help each character with a superpower finesse rating once we have settled their final set of Talents.

American Dreamer:
1. I'd encourage you to take at least one Relation to a person or people. Its good to have some variety here. His siblings and Dad are good candidates. Taking all Values gives me/us a little less to work with as storytellers.

2. How did he gain his enhanced strength, resilience and skill? Training? A mysterious side effect of the head trauma?

3. Reactive - Precognitive dreams and Sense danger are probably not reactive. Reactive talents are meant to respond to a trigger that isn't an attack on you.

a)If you are using Sense Danger to protect youself then it is probably just Defensive. If your using it to protect others is could conceivably be reactive.

b) I would probably just make Precognitive Dreams functional. For it to work he would need to be asleep or possibly in deep meditation.
​

You can take a look here for a longer discussion on Reactive Talents.

 

[Mark Chance]

[MENTION=31955]Thondor[/MENTION]: Changes made.

 

[Thondor]

@Mark Chance; nice! Two comments:

Pre-cognitive.
Normally we don't have traits which are clearly inhuman at rank two. I am happy have you with this Talent at rank two with the understanding that it is a strongly mixed blessing. The dreams will sometimes be mis-leading, prevent your character from sleeping properly, and happen at inconvenient times -- like in the middle of a fight.
In short I get to give you a hard time with it. If you want me to give you a little less of a hard time you should up the rank.


Relations & Ally's

You have 'Rizzo the Snitch' as a Relation. It's important to note that an ally -- eg someone who will go out of the way to help you, or is particularly useful, should be reperesented by a Talent. (Moon Knight's moon-copter pilot Frankie would be a Talent that Moon Knight has, Frankie would probably also be a relation.)
Mechanically what you are expressing with the Relation is that your character enjoys spending time with Rizzo and cares about him. The Rizzo Relation doesn't give you any mechanical benefit to finding information, although as GM I may well choose to provide information through him.

Finally
Superpower Finesse:
If you keep the Talents as is I would say he has the following Superpower Finesses:
3- perfect althlete
2- Pre-cognitive
2- Former Policeman

 

[Mark Chance]

Pre-cognitive. Normally we don't have traits which are clearly inhuman at rank two. I am happy have you with this Talent at rank two with the understanding that it is a strongly mixed blessing. The dreams will sometimes be mis-leading, prevent your character from sleeping properly, and happen at inconvenient times -- like in the middle of a fight. In short I get to give you a hard time with it. If you want me to give you a little less of a hard time you should up the rank.

That's pretty much what I'm envisioning, which is why I described it under the weakness. American Dreamer's fugue states can be a liability, especially for a police officer, which lead to his resignation from the force.

Relations & Ally's You have 'Rizzo the Snitch' as a Relation. .... Mechanically what you are expressing with the Relation is that your character enjoys spending time with Rizzo and cares about him. The Rizzo Relation doesn't give you any mechanical benefit to finding information, although as GM I may well choose to provide information through him.

That's cool. I'll flesh out a bit more about the relationship between Aidan and Rizzo after a while. I'm picturing them as having been best friends as children who made rather different decisions about how to get by in life.

Superpower Finesse:
If you keep the Talents as is I would say he has the following Superpower Finesses:
3- perfect althlete
2- Pre-cognitive
2- Former Policeman

I'm not sure what that means, but okay.