What makes a successful superhero game?

[overgeeked]

I think at least one of us confused my point.

Well, you certainly confused my point.

Metacurrency awards are good at representing frequency, which seems like what you're talking about, because they're self-regulating; the player brings them in in part because it seems appropriate and in part because they want the metacurrency points, but either way they'll take care of it themselves.

The problem cuts in when you want to represent intensity, that is to say how strong the effect is supposed to be. Example: acrophobia. This could range from "avoids situations with heights whenever possible (even when tactically inconvenient)" to "the above, but takes serious penalties to operate in that situation" to "cannot force themselves to engage with heights deliberately under any circumstances." (This latter actually probably represents my degree of personal acrophobia).

There are ways to deal with that sort of distinction, but they tend to require more fine-grained metacurrencies than almost anyone seems to deal with, so you never see it in practice.

You're talking about handing the player shiny tokens for RPing these kinds of things that they can spend later to do cool stuff.

I'm talking about using these kinds of things as recovery mechanics or heat sinks for damage.

Taking a step back it's a question of how to get players to emulate the things we see in the fiction. Carrots and sticks, though carrots always work better than sticks. The common approach is metacurrency. But that means we have to build a system for that and noodle through all the possibilities, permutations, etc. This action is worth 1 shiny token, but that action is worth 15 shiny tokens, etc. And we have to accept that some players just won't engage with these mechanics. So how do you get a player to engage with genre emulation? Make the carrot shinier and more integrated into the play loop.

What I'm suggesting is instead of metacurrency give the PC 3-5 vents or heat sinks. Player defined. The player hits the button and the PC recovers damage, uses, tchotchkes, whatever.

As I see it this has four benefits over standard metacurrency setups. First, it more closely emulates real people. We're inconsistent. This setup would make for inconsistent use of vents. Second, it more closely emulates the actual fiction. Action-adventure fiction...and especially superhero fiction...tends to follow a clear pattern of action scene then soap opera scene, or action action soap. This setup would push for more soap scenes. Gotta recover from the last fight before getting into the next one So tie recovery to the soap scenes. Third, it requires less rules and writing. Fourth, it removes the possibility of the player hitting the button repeatedly to stockpile metacurrency. Once you're fully recovered, that's it. No more going back to the well.

Your PC is angry and frustrated about the last fight so they have to vent. Once they vent they feel better and are ready to face the next challenge. Which is almost exactly what you see in superhero fiction.

You could still have metacurrency, but it would be less bloated and used for other things.

 

[chuckdee]

They stretch across at least two genres, same way the Punisher does. Note that the distinction between the Black Widow and and some spy characters is almost invisible, and the difference between Cap or the Winter Soldier is sometimes little other than the fact they're superhuman in attributes when being used in certain ways. If you pulled the helicarriers out of it and subbed in something like a set of weaponized space stations Captain America: The Winter Soldier would have been in that category.

in what category? I don't see how helicarriers vs space stations has anything to do with genre as I look at Moonraker...

 

[chuckdee]

Anyway Bucky and Black Widow imho are super-spies who only get the Superhero tag because they happen to be in a Superhero movie.

Bucky has been Captain America before... he has the exact same boost as Captain America, i.e. the supersoldier serum. It's not black and white by any means.