I’m in the habit of reading and summarising RPGs for my own fun and also to think about GMing, and my latest project this week is Stalwart ‘85, the latest version of the Stalwart superhero RPG by Michael Desing.
Desing has been developing neat superhero RPGs for a while - the first one I noticed was Sentinels of Echo City, which is an OSR superhero RPG (basically, what if the writers of MSH had used D&D 1E for their baseline). Stalwart ‘85 occupies the same sort of space as Tiny Supers or Triumphant - simple but effective rules with some tactical options.
The rule I like best in Stalwart ‘85 is Felling. Basically, when you run out of HP, you’re Felled - so far, so standard. But in this game, you can then roll to see if you can stand back up in half HP, and can do this 2-3 times a scene. This is actually a pretty good emulation of what happens a lot in superhero comics, when characters are taken out by a villain’s sneaky attack but then come back to the fight a couple of rounds later. This basically happens in almost every superhero battle but I’ve never seen a decent mechanic for it before now.
To repeat how I put it on rpg.net, it’s like this:
Version 1 (most superhero games):
Magneto: Ha ha, X-men! Welcome to die! MAGNETIC SHOCKWAVE!
X-men: WTF? (Everyone except Rogue goes down.)
Rogue: Great, now what am Ah supposed to do? (Lasts another round before Magneto takes her out too.)
(Everyone wakes up in cybernetic harnesses regressing them to infanthood with a creepy robot nanny feeding them baby food.)
Wolverine: Goo ga goo goo ga. (Great, we’re being written by Claremont again.)
Version 2 (Stalwart)
Magneto: Ha ha, X-men! Welcome to die! MAGNETIC SHOCKWAVE!
X-men: WTF? (Everyone except Rogue goes down.)
Rogue: Roll dem bones, X-men! I’m gonna evade like a bat out hell!
Magneto: Gah! X-chicken!
Cyclops (recovering first): On your feet unless you like baby food, guys! (Uses Leadership to help everyone else recover.)
Desing has been developing neat superhero RPGs for a while - the first one I noticed was Sentinels of Echo City, which is an OSR superhero RPG (basically, what if the writers of MSH had used D&D 1E for their baseline). Stalwart ‘85 occupies the same sort of space as Tiny Supers or Triumphant - simple but effective rules with some tactical options.
The rule I like best in Stalwart ‘85 is Felling. Basically, when you run out of HP, you’re Felled - so far, so standard. But in this game, you can then roll to see if you can stand back up in half HP, and can do this 2-3 times a scene. This is actually a pretty good emulation of what happens a lot in superhero comics, when characters are taken out by a villain’s sneaky attack but then come back to the fight a couple of rounds later. This basically happens in almost every superhero battle but I’ve never seen a decent mechanic for it before now.
To repeat how I put it on rpg.net, it’s like this:
Version 1 (most superhero games):
Magneto: Ha ha, X-men! Welcome to die! MAGNETIC SHOCKWAVE!
X-men: WTF? (Everyone except Rogue goes down.)
Rogue: Great, now what am Ah supposed to do? (Lasts another round before Magneto takes her out too.)
(Everyone wakes up in cybernetic harnesses regressing them to infanthood with a creepy robot nanny feeding them baby food.)
Wolverine: Goo ga goo goo ga. (Great, we’re being written by Claremont again.)
Version 2 (Stalwart)
Magneto: Ha ha, X-men! Welcome to die! MAGNETIC SHOCKWAVE!
X-men: WTF? (Everyone except Rogue goes down.)
Rogue: Roll dem bones, X-men! I’m gonna evade like a bat out hell!
Magneto: Gah! X-chicken!
Cyclops (recovering first): On your feet unless you like baby food, guys! (Uses Leadership to help everyone else recover.)
