What makes a successful superhero game?

[Gorgon Zee]

I will confess to never having been in a supers campaign that went really well. And also to never having read a system I'm really happy with. I've systems I like and memories of great campaigns in high and low fantasy, pulp, urban fantasy, cosmic horror, stephen-king horror, kids-on-bikes, military, space fantasy, epic scifi and firefly-level sci fi, historical, comedy -- but not supers.

I've kept FATE, WEARING THE CAPE, GODLIKE, and SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE, and those are all enjoyable, but it seems that the need for cool combat powers tied to soap-opera interactions makes it hard to make a single system work well.

I'd run GODLIKE specifically for a military superhero game, but for generic super-heroism probably WEARING THE CAPE would be my current go-to. But with lower enthusiasm than I'd like.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

For me, to be considered a successful game, I need my supers game to have a fair amount of customization and to be somewhat crunchy. Rules light / Narrative games do not work for me especially with a high amount of GM Fiat and designers who just have a casual love and or affinity for the Supers genre.

Games like CHAMPIONS (now HERO SYSTEM) and MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS allow me to create characters that simulate the power sets of Iron Man (any of the armors) to Yuuske Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho. For me any game that skimps on character creation is not for me because most of the time I'm not looking to play existing characters, I'm looking to run or play with original characters in a new setting of a radically different version of a existing universe.

At the same time during play there needs to be a decent amount of respect for power scaling (some thing that American comics since the 90's have been increasingly crap at and Manga and anime kind of excel at depending on the title). For example there's NO WAY Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece) from the Enies Lobby Arc or the Marine Ford Arc would be able to handle DolFlamingo from the Dressrossa Arc. But somehow Gambit is able to defeat Gladiator (from the Sh'iar) with a deck of cards?!? C'mon y'all...

I put that example out there just to point out that as much as we love comics (some of us anyway) that a supers game should try to emulate some element of what we read and see in comics but ultimately its a GAME. And it should be treated as such. I'm not looking for it to be a comic that I "play".

I've run and been a player in more than few Supers games and by far it's my favorite genre to play in as it's the one I'm the most familiar with by far, both from an american comics standpoint and an manga/anime standpoint as well. There are purists who will fight me on this but I think that manga/anime particularly in shonen do a vastly better job at defining power sets and the limitations of those power sets than American comics do.

 

[darjr]

Huh? the DC Heros 40th anniversary kickstarter is still open for late pledges. FYI.

 

[overgeeked]

Games like CHAMPIONS (now HERO SYSTEM) and MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS allow me to create characters that simulate the power sets of Iron Man (any of the armors) to Yuuske Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho. For me any game that skimps on character creation is not for me because most of the time I'm not looking to play existing characters, I'm looking to run or play with original characters in a new setting of a radically different version of a existing universe.

I found the old MSH game more than sufficiently robust enough to model Iron Man and the like. Did that one not do it for you?

 

[overgeeked]

Huh? the DC Heros 40th anniversary kickstarter is still open for late pledges. FYI.

Yeah. That one's dangerous. I am a late backer and my order was locked and card charged on Thursday. I'm really excited about that one.

 

[darjr]

Yeah. That one's dangerous. I am a late backer and my order was locked and card charged on Thursday. I'm really excited about that one.

lol. At first you said dangerous and I was like “oh, no” then I read the rest of your post and now I’m like “OH NO!”