My hack is to give the players bonus XP for taking notes.
What are your TTRPG Goals for 2025?
- Thread starter Reynard
- Start date
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Yeah I've often considered that.
My issues are with supers are:
A) I've read a huge amount of comics but the only ones that really resonate with me, personally, are where the heroes do try to change the world. I don't think this sort of "we just punch supervillains and solve crimes and prevent alien invasions" approach that most supers stuff is something I'd be very creatively fulfilled by lol. And I think that a "change the world" campaign might be quite hard to write for, even with a lot of player help. (Speaking of which, I need to read The Power Fantasy, which I understand to be very much about this.)
B) All but one of my players like supers stuff but they all like really different bits/styles of it, kind of clashing ones, and trying to find a middle ground that they'd all like isn't easy. I thought I could convince them into playing MASKS, because honestly I think "powerful teen superhero team" is closest to a middle-ground one can find, but they were all a bit standoffish about it (sigh). Like the New Warriors is probably the best model here.
C) Finding the right system is a challenge. People have a million recommendations, but they're rarely driven by analysis of the mechanics and the impacts on play those have, yet I know from previous superhero games I've run, that's absolutely huge and can totally change the vibe. Like HERO/Champion is definitely not going to work for us, because it has a lot of flexibility but always plays, to me, in a way that feels like WW2 skirmish combat wargame that just happens to feature people with powers. I guess there's always FASERIP. Certainly we need something pretty immediate/direct.
Two things that do attract me beyond the ease of keeping a campaign going (which you helpfully pointed out):
1) Supers tend to be very mobile and often need to leave situations urgently because of the demands of RL or whatever, so if we have someone miss a session or w/e, if it's not in the middle of combat (and we try to avoid ending sessions in/just before combat), that's probably going to be pretty easy to explain, especially if set in the modern day. Contrast this against most fantasy and even a lot of SF situations where a PC leaving or not being present is often implausible.
2) With most supers systems I've come across, the overhead on creating bad guys isn't too severe (Champions being a notable exception), so they tend not to be DM-killers in that way!
On a different note I got Triangle Agency recently, which looks completely amazing but I want someone else to run it for me, not to run it myself, dammit! I guess that's a goal!
Emerikol
Legend
I am necroing thread but interesting topic. I want to play some GURPS. I like the detail it gives me for the NPCs and the rules as physics. I like that it is a toolkit that I can mold to any approach I want. If the sessions run smooth, I will adopt it. I also like the idea that later I can play in more settings than just fantasy.
Do you have players experienced with GURPS or are you going to be teaching it?
Emerikol
Legend
I will be teaching it to experienced roleplayers who have never played GURPS.
GURPS Lite is a good onboarding tool, as is GURPS dungeon fantasy.
Emerikol
Legend
yes I've bought a ton of stuff already. I'm comfortable with the rules. I'm on the sjgames.com boards a good bit as well as here. I come here mostly to discuss theory.
GURPS is relatively easy to "get". In play it is really only as complicated as you want it to be. Like Hero, though, character creation can be overwhelming for folks not used to point buy.
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