Superhero RPG w/o the kitchen sink?

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's what I did with my Supers:1900 campaign, basically set in the world of Space:1889.

I didn't care too much about gods vs techie vs aliens vs mutants...I just wanted PCs who had turn of the century ideas, clothing and so forth. It worked out great, too: the gadgeteer was based off of James West (Wild, Wild, West TV show), and the strongman was (among other things) a balding, handlebar mustachioed, club wielding, leopardskin wearing bruiser. Even the sonic based PC was thematically on point, with a looooong name lifted from a floridly titled piece of classical music, "Sonata (something) in key of something)."

 

[Plane Sailing]

Late to the party, but I'll agree with others here - it is pretty much the DM's job (or opportunity) to set the parameters for a campaign.

The rules books are just toolsets for handling a whole range of superpowers; DMs can set a campaign, define the parameters which they think are reasonable and then go to it.

Cheers

 

[Stormonu]

While it is out of print and only available through e-bay or PDFs, I think Brave New World will fit. It is very close to the feel of The Watchmen.

<edit>Gah! How did I moss so many people already mentioning it?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Gah! How did I moss so many people already mentioning it?

Too busy being a rolling stone, I suppose.

 

[prosfilaes]

Eh, it's not for everyone, but neither was Underground. I do remember it struck a chord within me when I bought it. I was a big fan of the comics that inspired it.

A lot of the issues with setting are too subjective to debate. (Though I liked both Underground and Aberrant.) But I'm curious about the rules; did you find that the character classes in the book made up a coherent useful set? Did you find that the additional books made the classes a better set of options?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A lot of the issues with setting are too subjective to debate. (Though I liked both Underground and Aberrant.) But I'm curious about the rules; did you find that the character classes in the book made up a coherent useful set? Did you find that the additional books made the classes a better set of options?

I wish I could give you a good answer- I bought the game and most (if not all of the supplements) and remember liking it- but I never got to run or play it.

Part of that is that my love of HERO made it my go-to game, so I often bought games to yoink from. Part of that is that I found very few gamers with whom I could play supers games with. Combine those 2 factors, and the result is that HERO accounts for 90% of my supers gameplay.

In the end, just like Aberrant, Godlike, Silver Age Sentinels, Underground and a few others, BNW sat on my shelf while HERO got most of the playtime. Only M&M and Heroes, Unlimited got anything resembling significant play besides HERO.

But like those other games, I could see (at the time) how the mechanics fit the settings, and while limited, still felt...right.

Perhaps I can give them a look-see in the next few days.

 

[Stormonu]

Too busy being a rolling stone, I suppose.

Okay, I'm turning off the spellcheck on my iPad, this is getting ridiculous.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It's a poor workman who blames his tools- I'm posting from an iTouch. All you need to do is slooow dooown.

(And by now, you must have heard of the FU Autocorrect! and Damn You Autocorrect! websites...hilarious, but not Grandma friendly.)

 

[Greg K]

Changoo,

My favorite supers system is M&M 2e, but why couldn't you just use FASERIP and limit the character concepts for the campaign. Many titles were often their own self contained little universes except for a few appearances or crossovers. As GM, you can choose who, if anyone, to bring in for an appearance. Heck, you could choose not to have any Marvel characters show up or use the system to run a non-Marvel universe game (which many people did and do).

Don't get me wrong, I love comics, esp marvel and DC. FASERIP was one of my favorite games.

But I yearn for a game that captures the superhero feel w/o having every single trope tossed into the mix. Here's a mage, there's a mutant, there's power-armor dude. Oh, and they have every possible power you can imagine.

Is there a game where the setting is a bit more focussed?

Thanks in advance,

 

[pawsplay]

In terms of pre-made settings:
- Wild Talents has wide open character concepts but some basic unity for origins
- Adventure! is good for Golden Age pulp/comics action at a low to medium power level. Trinity is kind of cool for futuristic psionics, but I hate the psionics rules and recommend converting.
- Wildcards is a focused setting, with powers all being essentially psionic or advanced alien tech.
- The cinematic X-Men would work.
- Godsend Agenda has a fairly unified concept.

In terms of games, you could use just about anything. Take DC Adventures and disallow Magic is a descriptor. Use DC Heroes and disallow Mystical Powers. Or require them. GURPS Supers or Hero System can do essentially anything.