Superhero RPGS

[Desdichado]

Since I don't see anyone talking about a six inch teleport but you, I'll assume it is a style and taste thing. I suppose flexibility can be a bad thing for some people. Though really that ability sounds like something that might pop up in the Mystery Men movie.

Sorry, the direct quote was 10 inches. My bad.

 

[Black Omega]

Those aren't actual inches, but scale tabletop inches, each of which represents two feet, IIRC.

If we are talking HERO, a hex = 2 meters, though my group usually just makes it six feet.

Still, IMO it's an overly complicated way to do what is essentially just a stylish description of using the hide skill.

I've seen probably five ways to do the Batman effect, but personally I agree. Hide in d20 and Stealth in HERO work well enough. It's not even really a combat thing, he usually does it to end conversations.

 

[Voneth]

That's more of a MnM conversion of the Hero style of doing it.

A more standard way for Batman to hide:
- Batman uses the Bluff skill to get the person to look away, then uses his massive Hide skill to vanish and skulk away.

Alternately, you could very easily create a Hide in Plain Sight super-feat (like the Shadowdancer ability) for Batman.

Oh, admittedly that would be the easy way to do it, but Cedric wanted to a "super power" way to do it. Besides, some of my fun in MnM is finding how many different ways I can do it, without a lot of math. I sort of like the concept of making "minipowers" with feats, it should come in handing for a pulp style game.

In the meantime, a "Vanish without a Trace" power could also use Alternate Form:Shadow.

 

[Black Omega]

Sorry, the direct quote was 10 inches. My bad.

Oh, Cedric's quote. For some reason I looked right past that. My bad.

For the record, that's not the best way to do the Batman Effect in HERO, IMHO. But it is one way people have come up with. Is the fact you can try to do things in terms of powers, even if skills are a better way to do it, something bad about a system?

 

[Mythtify]

I realy enjoy Silver Age Sentinels, tri-stat edtion. You have the ability to create any hero you can think of. the rules work for any style of play that you can come up from.

The tri-stat rules are easy to learn. The setting given with the book is very good, though not needed to play.

The book itself is very well written. The designers give lots of insight into the design of the game.

All in all a very high quality product.

 

[Cedric]

A few points...since we seem to be hung up on the Batman power I made an example of...heh.

First, people can see through stealth and hide. So while yes, they are good examples of a way to do the abiliity, I don't care for them because if I'm playing Batman...I don't want someone to see my doing my cold shoulder disappearing act at the end of a conversation...or hearing me for that matter either.

Second, as for just making it a skill, instead of having it be a "superpower". In terms of pure efficiency...it might take me 15 character points to get a stealth skill high enough where I would think I could do the disappearing act. Whereas, I can plug this "teleport away from a conversation" ability into an already existing "I'm frigging Batman" Multipower for 1-2 character points.

So yes, it is something just for flavor. But in the grand tradition of flavor, I want it to be cheap...and I want it to work correctly.

Hence, teleport with the listed limitations that I plug into my Batman Multipower.

Cedric

 

[nHammer]

If somebody in my Champions game wants to pull the quick dissapearing trick after a conversation I'd just let him (as long as there was some shadows around). I wouldn't make him have special skills or powers. It's not like it has a major effect on the game.

Of course that's just me.

 

[Michael Tree]

I'm with nHammer.

I find that Hero encourages an attitude of "If it isn't on your character sheet, you can't do it."

I run games much more fast and loose than that, and MnM has clearly defined rules for that: hero points, power stunts, and flexible skills.

I encourage player characters to come up with new clever uses of their powers in play, and reward players for thinking of stylish descriptions of their actions, wheras in Hero characters simply can't come up with new uses of powers in play (unless they have a power pool or a generous GM), and the modifiers encourage simple straightforward actions instead of elaborate flashy ones.

 

[EntropyDecay]

After reading this thread, the M&M storyhour from Insight [formerly known as MnM_UH] and many reviews for different superhero RPGs, I think M&M is the system my group and I are going to be most satisfied with, since it seems to be very flexible regarding power creation and the rules are easy enough for fast paced comic battles.

Chris
*who is going to join the M&M crowd*

 

[s/LaSH]

All this talk of Batman's disappearing schtick reminds me of GURPS and its rules for, well, schticks (as handily explained in the GURPS Lite rules on the web; I've never actually played the system). It's probably too powerful for a GURPS schtick, though.

But seriously, what is it that Bats does? He hangs out on rooftops and ambushes thugs. Stealth is his trading card. It wouldn't be Bats if he didn't have maximum stealth abilities. From that perspective, he needs no real powers - just super-heavy-duty Move Silently, Hide and Bluff (to get the Commissioner to glance over somewhere else. "Look at these prison records, Jim"). I probably wouldn't even bother making checks unless the 'victim' was good with Listen or Spot.

Sadly, I've never taken a good look over Hero System rules, so I can't speak for them. I know they've got stealth skills of various types, but not how they work.

Although I do find it telling (in terms of simplicity) that the sample PDFs I downloaded can fit a HERO character's statblock on one page, while M&M has a bunch of archetypes in the front of the book - two to a page, with customisation options, big colourful graphics, and an illustration of each.