Upcoming Superhero RPGs Coincidence or Zeitgeist

[Thomas Shey]

I love ot when people suggest a 25+ year old game as an answer to "I wish the games industry served this need."

It can take a long time for the computer age industry to catch up when a game has a certain footprint. The turn-based part of the industry spent forever and a day trying to find the new Master of Magic, Master of Orion or XCOM. In the last few years you've seen a number of tries at superhero CRPGs that clearly had some influence from Freedom Force (and various other games), but a lot of the talent has been tied up with licensed products instead, and those are intrinsically more limited.

 

[Umbran]

Do you all think this may be a coincidence or just the sign of the times?I doubt Captain America Brave New World could have triggered this RPG Superhero Renaissance, but maybe it did.

No. That movie was released last month. Takes longer than that to prep up for these kickstarters.

Invincible has gotten a game because the show has shown enough popularity and longevity to call for it. Outgunned is just going through various genres one at a time, and Supers is next on their list. Just coincidence.

 

[aramis erak]

Actually according to DTRPG, Masks is the top-selling superhero ttrpg ("Adamantine" seller). I know a lot of players who like the system for its narrative focus, but IMO it's too focused on relationships instead of what makes comic book superheroes fun:

Adamantine only needs 5,000 on-DTRPG sales...

That was the starting run of one of the WEG DC games...
... but we don't know how many of those actually sold.

It is an impressive number for DtRPG, tho'
Note also - bundle sales don't count for the included product, and different editions each have separate sales recognized in the badge.

For comparison...

Sentinel Comics	Mithral (≥2000)
Prowlers & Paragons Ultimate Edition	Platinum (≥1000)
SWADE Supers SB	Platinum (≥1000)
City of Mist	Mithral (≥2000)
Abberant	Platinum (≥1000)
Tiny Supers	Platinum (≥1000)
Icons	Mithral (≥2000)
Mutants and Masterminds Deluxe Hero's Handbook	Mithral (≥2000)
Icons Assembled	Mithral (≥2000)
Mutants and Masterminds PDF Mega Bundle	Platinum (≥1000)
Mutants & Masterminds Hero's Handbook	Platinum (≥1000)

Mutants and Masterminds has at least 4000 sales across the various core variants. (There are two more player cores with gold which are not in the above table.)

City of Mist is the least superheroic of the ones I've read.

Oh, and be aware: the reason bundles don't count? People like me. I didn't know that I'd gotten City of Mist nor Prowlers & Paragons. They were in some charity bundle I got for some other items. The bundles do track the bundle's sales, but those don't count towards the corebook.

DriveThru RPG Metal Tiers

Since Amazing Tales has now earned all the various ‘best selling’ metal badges from Drive Thru RPG, and since I see questions about this pop up from time to time I thought it might be u…

amazing-tales.net

 

[Autumnal]

It's not a super hero zeitgeist until a Mystery Men TTRPG is made!

I would so do this with QuestWorlds, were I of a mind to do it.

 

[Corinnguard]

It can take a long time for the computer age industry to catch up when a game has a certain footprint. The turn-based part of the industry spent forever and a day trying to find the new Master of Magic, Master of Orion or XCOM. In the last few years you've seen a number of tries at superhero CRPGs that clearly had some influence from Freedom Force (and various other games), but a lot of the talent has been tied up with licensed products instead, and those are intrinsically more limited.

I had some fun times playing Master of Magic, Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2: Battle of Antares.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Invincible has gotten a game because the show has shown enough popularity and longevity to call for it.

Well, yes, but the comic version of it ran for a bit over 15 years from 2003 to 2015, spawned multiple spinoffs (with another one coming), and got the kind of sales figures and critical acclaim that lets a comic get a tv series in the first place. And of course Kirkman having done Walking Dead didn't hurt any either.

It's not just the show that makes this an attractive IP.

 

[Umbran]

It's not just the show that makes this an attractive IP.

Even good comic book sales and reviews are not enough to suggest enough market recognition of the property to expect good RPG sales.

So, while the property may be cool in general, if you want to know why the RPG is launching now, as opposed to some prior time, the TV show is the reason.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I had some fun times playing Master of Magic, Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2: Battle of Antares.

A lot of people did. The old Microprose games had a big footprint.

 

[dbolack]

I love ot when people suggest a 25+ year old game as an answer to "I wish the games industry served this need."

That's how I feel about Wing Commander

 

[ngenius]

Wikipedia is ace. I was looking into the artist who has a cool, almost modern superhero comic style of art, her name is Daniela Giubellini. And I am guessing the Two Little Mice team is Riccardo Sirignano and Simone Formicola.