What makes a successful superhero game?

[jian]

I mean...it's serialized superhero fiction. I doesn't make logical real-world sense. It's not supposed to. It's the whole "why doesn't Gandalf use the Eagles to fly the ring to Mount Doom on page 5 of Lord of the Rings" problem, i.e. it's a story and follows story logic. It's not a game, it doesn't follow gamer logic. To me that's a feature not a bug. The closer games can get to working like actual stories work, the better.

I mean, yes and no? I agree that it’s a criticism you can extend to many superhero comics - Cap never beats the Red Skull either - but it’s more or less unique to the two big superhero universes, which insist on going on forever (nearly a century now and counting) with their characters rather than letting them age, retire, and die, and getting new ones. Pretty much every other form of serialised fiction, superhero or otherwise, doesn’t do this, often because of real-world limitations (ages of actors, a single ageing writer, etc). Marvel and DC are also required to maintain sales every year or even every month, so popular characters are never allowed to stop and have to be brought back every few years to relive their greatest hits for the audience, like zombie Rolling Stones.

Batman is particularly bad because it’s never really come to terms with its basic premise and how it engages with the realities of crime and society, and it only has about three stories which are trotted out anew with the same old characters every so often. It’s entirely believable that Gotham (at least the bits we see, hopefully not the entire population of 8 million or whatever) is actually in Hell and Bruce is being punished by some supernatural force. It’s all as depressing as heck.

 

[rmcoen]

I've played in four "SH" campaigns. one V&V, two Champions, and one M&M. (don't know the editions of any of them, sorry). The V&V game, we were definitely street-level; a telepath/telekinetic, an empowered martial artist, a "speedster" (actually "stopped time" in small increments), and a squishy blaster. We struggled against hordes of government agents (think the TV series Heroes, just discovering our powers), then started to face other new "supers".

One Champions game we were the "Avengers Carribean!" (psssh! confetti spray - yes, we paid group design points to have that special effect whenever our name was said), based in Ann Arbor, MI. Standard Hero Level; I was an ex-air force Johnny Storm-like, and then we had a college student hulk-like, a mastermind illusionist, a slow speedster/blaster, and a martial artist. We fought science-accident monsters in the diag, and got sent on the inconvenient missions the actual Avengers didn't want to bother with.

The other Champions game I ran, hacked to simulate Bubblegum Crisis and power armor suits. And we discovered that a simple AK-47 - according to the book stats - is more powerful than our "60pt powers, one 75pt specialty" supers! 5d6 ranged killing attack was super lethal. Granted, the powered armor supers could survive a full auto burst, but they were down; on the other hand, the supers had many utility power they had to use creatively. So... high street-level effective power?

the Mutants & Masterminds campaign, we were again "high-street level". Like Legion of Superfriends cartoon show power, real Silver Age stuff. I was a spellcaster with a magic staff and ankh found in an Egyptian tomb; all my powers were themed by egyptian gods. We had a nuclear-powered hulk-like, an elementalist that was literally half water and half fire, a super-skilled government agent (and also our Fixer, getting us jobs)... and Ghost, a person out of phase with the world who could only affect it with his powers (we officially didn't even know he was there, just sometimes bad guys fell down or lucky things happened we couldn't explain).

So 3 out of 4 games, "high-street level". Kinda like D&D 5e and bounded accuracy, we could try to fight dragons (real threats, world-enders), but we still had to be careful around goblins (cops, agents, thugs with guns). And the 4th was low street level.

I don't think I'd want to play in a Justice League (Superman, plot-armor Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern) game. Yes, there should absolutely be problems you can't punch -- and you shuldn't be able to solve those problems by using a single power.

 

[overgeeked]

I mean, yes and no? I agree that it’s a criticism you can extend to many superhero comics - Cap never beats the Red Skull either - but it’s more or less unique to the two big superhero universes, which insist on going on forever (nearly a century now and counting) with their characters rather than letting them age, retire, and die, and getting new ones. Pretty much every other form of serialised fiction, superhero or otherwise, doesn’t do this, often because of real-world limitations (ages of actors, a single ageing writer, etc). Marvel and DC are also required to maintain sales every year or even every month, so popular characters are never allowed to stop and have to be brought back every few years to relive their greatest hits for the audience, like zombie Rolling Stones.

That's not true. Look at just about any serialized fiction and you see the same thing. James Bond. Different actors playing the same character over decades. Doctor Who. Different actors playing the same character over decades...fighting some of the exact same enemies. Star Trek TOS. They've recast many of the characters at least 2-3 times now. Detective novels. Look at any of the big name characters and their careers span decades longer than they should because the writer keeps writing books about them. On and on and on. Serialized characters that don't do this are the exception, not the rule.

Batman is particularly bad because it’s never really come to terms with its basic premise and how it engages with the realities of crime and society, and it only has about three stories which are trotted out anew with the same old characters every so often. It’s entirely believable that Gotham (at least the bits we see, hopefully not the entire population of 8 million or whatever) is actually in Hell and Bruce is being punished by some supernatural force. It’s all as depressing as heck.

Again, only if you expect fiction to conform to real-world expectation. It's a good, fun, pulpy beat 'em up. That's all. It's not meant as commentary of social issues or crime. It's children's fiction.

 

[jian]

That's not true. Look at just about any serialized fiction and you see the same thing. James Bond. Different actors playing the same character over decades. Doctor Who. Different actors playing the same character over decades...fighting some of the exact same enemies. Star Trek TOS. They've recast many of the characters at least 2-3 times now. Detective novels. Look at any of the big name characters and their careers span decades longer than they should because the writer keeps writing books about them. On and on and on. Serialized characters that don't do this are the exception, not the rule.

Again, only if you expect fiction to conform to real-world expectation. It's a good, fun, pulpy beat 'em up. That's all. It's not meant as commentary of social issues or crime. It's children's fiction.

I’m sure we can agree to disagree, but no, this is not the case. Serialised books (detective stories, thrillers, fantasy novels, romances, and yes, the James Bond novels which only span 1953-63) commonly do reflect the passage of time to some degree, depending on the subject matter, and are limited by the lifespan of their writers at the very least - even Poirot, whose books span five decades between 1920 and 1970 (though the last book is explicitly set earlier than this), has a natural ending written in (Curtain, written in 1940) because Christie knew that the suspension of time is absurd. The James Bond films are reboots, not continuations, and therefore have to reinvent themselves for each new generation. Star Trek reinvents itself for the generations and is limited by the age and appearance of its actors.

Even in the superhero genre, comics which are not bound by the Big Two’s conventions often do reflect the passage of time because they’re written to have a continuous story. Two obvious but different examples are Invincible (quite long but specifically written with a beginning and end) and Astro City (very concerned with the development of characters and the city over the decades) and I would strongly argue that they are the better for it. Even within the Big Two, the stories that are designed to have a natural beginning and end - Starman, Avengers Academy, etc - are better and more satisfying in my opinion because of that, whatever happens to the characters afterwards.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Which, to me, is a clear indicator that the game is poorly designed. If it's meant to emulate superhero fiction, it shouldn't be a struggle to use the game to create superhero stories.

This prioritized wide differences in capability as a defining trait of "superhero stories". That's hardly been universally true.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The other Champions game I ran, hacked to simulate Bubblegum Crisis and power armor suits. And we discovered that a simple AK-47 - according to the book stats - is more powerful than our "60pt powers, one 75pt specialty" supers! 5d6 ranged killing attack was super lethal. Granted, the powered armor supers could survive a full auto burst, but they were down; on the other hand, the supers had many utility power they had to use creatively. So... high street-level effective power?

Someone misunderstood something if they were treating an AK-47 as 5D Killing. That hasn't been true in any edition of Hero ever. That's about the damage of a light artillery piece; even a 20mm autocannon was classically only 4D killing. (I'm not sure any conventional weapon would have both that damage and be autofire).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Even in the superhero genre, comics which are not bound by the Big Two’s conventions often do reflect the passage of time because they’re written to have a continuous story. Two obvious but different examples are Invincible (quite long but specifically written with a beginning and end) and Astro City (very concerned with the development of characters and the city over the decades) and I would strongly argue that they are the better for it. Even within the Big Two, the stories that are designed to have a natural beginning and end - Starman, Avengers Academy, etc - are better and more satisfying in my opinion because of that, whatever happens to the characters afterwards.

Though I'm not sure you can talk about the continuous run even with the Big Two in the last few decades given the frequent reboots. They may not have a true ending, but they don't really continue without interruption either.

 

[overgeeked]

Though I'm not sure you can talk about the continuous run even with the Big Two in the last few decades given the frequent reboots. They may not have a true ending, but they don't really continue without interruption either.

Exactly. It's not the same Batman from his first appearance to this week's issue. The DC Universe has been rebooted at least 9-10 times.

Every DC Comics Reboot, Explained

DC has a long history of reshaping its continuity.

screenrant.com

 

[Thomas Shey]

Exactly. It's not the same Batman from his first appearance to this week's issue. The DC Universe has been rebooted at least 9-10 times.

Every DC Comics Reboot, Explained

DC has a long history of reshaping its continuity.

screenrant.com

Yeah, I don't think Marvel has been quite that bad, but they clearly keep playing variations on the theme, too. And I'm not talking Elseworlds and alternate universes here.

 

[overgeeked]

This prioritized wide differences in capability as a defining trait of "superhero stories". That's hardly been universally true.

As a bare minimum for a passable group RPG based on superhero fiction it's not a stretch at all to look at team-based superhero comics as the primary source among many.