Upcoming Superhero RPGs Coincidence or Zeitgeist

[Reynard]

I'm not really a fan of super hero games. I like more grounded RPGs, but I did recently pick up a copy of a super hero game

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Super hero games aren't really about power level, they are about tropes and motivations and costumes (even if "costume" sometimes means "cool outfit"). You can play a grounded gritty superhero game, a la Kick Ass.

5E is a high fantasy game. That's different.

Oh, wait, did I miss the joke?

 

[Corinnguard]

Super hero games aren't really about power level, they are about tropes and motivations and costumes (even if "costume" sometimes means "cool outfit"). You can play a grounded gritty superhero game, a la Kick Ass.

5E is a high fantasy game. That's different.

Oh, wait, did I miss the joke?

Roll for Perception and Insight. Some of the supers in a superhero RPG make use of magic or rely on a magical artifact. If you dropped Dr. Strange into a D&D setting, how different would he be from that setting's most powerful spellcasters?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mean, I wouldn't have said it if I didn't think it was true.

But yes,I think opinions are generally more strongly held about what supers gaming should look like, both in rules and in tone,than space opera.

Yeah, I was mostly being rhetorical.

The problem is that what happens with space opera and with superheroes is quite different.

People tend to disagree about what a space opera game should look like in what it represents (in other words the things it covers and the assumptions it makes) and with supers games about how it plays (how the mechanics focus and what sorts of things you have to pay attention to in play).

But I've got to say that the closest thing the hobby has ever had to a dominant SF game was Traveler, and it failed-out for too many people early on to even be that (consider how poor a job it is to play out a Star Trek or Star Wars style game; it can probably do a credible job for something like The Expanse but that's a relatively narrow (albeit comparatively popular) style/setting. It was a little more successful back in the day because a big part of the written SF of the time looked a bit more like it, but that hasn't really been true for decades now).

Of course you can argue that D&D doesn't look much like a lot of fantasy either (especially if you get away from the chicken-and-egg of fantasy that's influenced by D&D) but that just gets back to the issue of first-entry benefit.

 

[Thomas Shey]

As a side note, which I've mentioned elsewhere, I don't really have a superhero game I'm entirely satisfied with any more. At various times I've run Villains and Vigilantes, Champions, Superworld, AMP Year One, the old Mayfair DC Heroes and M&M (both 2e and 3e)., along with, most recently BASH UE.

No SHRPG entirely satisfies me now (even the ones I like best I think have issues I'd have trouble ignoring); I'm not actually sure its entirely possible for one to satisfy me now. And that's pretty ironic since supers may well have been the genre I've run most in my gaming career (fantasy being the only competitor, but I think it loses).

 

[Theory of Games]

En World needs a drinking game where every time someone posts a thread that isn't about D&D, we all take a shot when someone mentions D&D in that thread.

We'd all stay smashed

 

[Corinnguard]

En World needs a drinking game where every time someone posts a thread that isn't about D&D, we all take a shot when someone mentions D&D in that thread.

We'd all stay smashed

Assuming we all fail our poison saves.

 

[Corinnguard]

And let's not forget that some species know how to handle their alcohol. Ex. Dwarves and the Pandaren.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

What do you want to know about it? I'm acquainted with the main author.

I know all about it.

I was hoping others may have already seen various updates for it.

Here is current one =

Just Cause Universe: A Prowlers & Paragons TTRPG worldbook​

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/localheropress/just-cause-universe-a-prowlers-and-paragons-ttrpg-worldbook/?ref=kicktraq

 

[RenleyRenfield]

And this one

Blood & Justice: Shadows of Nocturne​

A villains book for Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bunneh/blood-and-justice-shadows-of-nocturne

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Invincible is mostly a pastiche of a lot of common superhero tropes; there are some distinct world building elements, but other than that the only thing that distinguishes it is that it ignores one common convention of superhero fiction (i.e. it doesn't assume superhuman levels of force don't produce, well, the kinds of things you'd expect when used on a human or near human body).

My wife and I were talking about this week's episode and I argued that Invincible is really a very conventional Superman story, just drilling down on two things: 1) How tough Superman's villains need to be to challenge him in combat (which is why the best Superman stories tend to be ones where they attack him through other means) and 2) the consequences of being Superman, including the collateral damage and all the people he cannot save, no matter how hard he tries.

These are things that DC doesn't want to fully engage in -- they don't want to talk themselves out of the Superman business any more than they want to send Bruce Wayne to therapy and let him resolve his issues in other ways -- but yeah, at the end of the day, Invincible is basically Kirkman trying to win an argument in his local comic book shop, plus jokes and a great cast.