What makes a successful superhero game?

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Naw. Again, that's primarily an artifact of specific sorts of "these were all separate characters the comics slammed together in a group" stories. I could probably name a dozen supergroups across comics without blinking where the most potent and least potent members could be handled in most SHRPGs, because normally that isn't a gap writers build in when doing a group from the ground up. Heck, its not uncommon for new versions to compress this when they have the opportunity (when the Timmverse JLA came out, the particular composition of the group compressed the higher end members so they were still within shouting distance of each other in a way the comic version rarely had).

 

[overgeeked]

Naw. Again, that's primarily an artifact of specific sorts of "these were all separate characters the comics slammed together in a group" stories. I could probably name a dozen supergroups across comics without blinking where the most potent and least potent members could be handled in most SHRPGs, because normally that isn't a gap writers build in when doing a group from the ground up. Heck, its not uncommon for new versions to compress this when they have the opportunity (when the Timmverse JLA came out, the particular composition of the group compressed the higher end members so they were still within shouting distance of each other in a way the comic version rarely had).

And you think a team-based superhero RPG should not be based on the team-based comic books? Okay. We're never going to agree on anything if that's your starting position.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And you think a team-based superhero RPG should not be based on the team-based comic books? Okay. We're never going to agree on anything if that's your starting position.

Read what I wrote again. I don't think it should be based on the team based books that mostly contain characters not written to be part of a team. This isn't a problem you see with groups where the characters were part of a team from day one, and that's much more analogous to most RPG teams than "these characters existed for years before the team occurred." I don't see a particular need that the extremes that latter produces needs to be represented when that's the minority of super teams.

 

[GrimCo]

Like old X men where they were alpha/beta mix. In general, X men teams were for most part balanced and all members were of similar power. Fantastic 4, Guardians of the Galaxy, Teen titans, Doom patrol, Suicide squad are all in the same boat, where everyone is on similar power level. In contrast, Justice League, Avengers, new X Men, they all have huge power gaps between their members.

Some groups prefer playing first type of teams, other second. Both are valid choices, it's just down to preference.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Like old X men where they were alpha/beta mix. In general, X men teams were for most part balanced and all members were of similar power. Fantastic 4, Guardians of the Galaxy, Teen titans, Doom patrol, Suicide squad are all in the same boat, where everyone is on similar power level. In contrast, Justice League, Avengers, new X Men, they all have huge power gaps between their members.

Yup. It was even true of the Legion of Superheroes when Superboy, Supergirl weren't present (as they weren't originally before Clark started time travelling to hang out with them). Though the original "New X-Men" weren't that wide apart until they started pushing Storm's power up and got into the whole Phoenix thing.

Some groups prefer playing first type of teams, other second. Both are valid choices, it's just down to preference.

My only point is that you don't have to (though there's nothing wrong if your game is set up to) have the ability to handle wide power levels within a group to make a perfectly viable, broadly usable superhero RPG. People act like its the default case when its really only true with a couple of prominent cases (and not all versions of those; I can point at an incarnation of the Avengers that didn't exactly have massive gaps in it), its not only universal, once you move away from those specific groups it isn't even common.

 

[overgeeked]

Like old X men where they were alpha/beta mix. In general, X men teams were for most part balanced and all members were of similar power. Fantastic 4, Guardians of the Galaxy, Teen titans, Doom patrol, Suicide squad are all in the same boat, where everyone is on similar power level.

That doesn't match my experience with most of those teams at all.

The original X-Men, Cyclops, Jean Grey, etc. All different power levels. Unless somehow Beast with his big feet and acrobatics was on par with Jean's telepathy and telekinesis. Which he wasn't. The All-New, All-Different X-Men circa 1975's Giant-Sized X-Men #1 with Storm...an African goddess who can control the weather for miles around...standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a teleporting acrobat who blends into shadows, aka Nightcrawler. Literally pick an X-Team and they'll have different power levels.

Fantastic Four, sure.

Guardians, depends on the version.

Teen Titans? Really? Robin, aka Nightwing, on the same team as Wonder Girl and Kid Flash. It's the Junior Justice League.

Doom Patrol depends entirely on the version of the team. Any version with Mento has a serious power imbalance problem.

Suicide Squad, sure. That's down to the premise. Gadget-based supervillain convicts sent to go do wetwork for the government.

Some groups prefer playing first type of teams, other second. Both are valid choices, it's just down to preference.

Absolutely.

The larger point being that RPGs are mostly team-based activities. Most team-based comic books are in no way balanced. Even restricting your source material to the smaller sample size of roughly-balanced team books, it's all-but impossible to balance superpowers mechanically, unless you're going so far away from physics simulation that you end up in almost pure story game.

 

[Theory of Games]

It WAS a trade-off if it was in a Slugfest; Dodging only worked against ranged and charge attacks, while evading worked against melee, and only one combatant at that. It also meant you could not make any attacks that round. Blocking also meant no other actions.

So the Daredevil vs. 5 thugs problem remains.

There were other defensive options: Evasion was ideal for close combat, as well as Blocking. I mean, the player making the FEAT roll might botch it, but the option was there regardless. The player could take both a defensive and offensive action on the same turn, which for a combat system, was well ahead of its time

 

[aramis erak]

The original Champions, the soft cover book that came out in 1981, was something like 64 pages long. It really didn't get too far into physics or anything else by today's standards. It would be considered rules light these days.

And what a great, flexible, extensible, creativity-inspiring game that was epic to the extreme! Still have my original copy in a box around here somewhere.

The mechanics are 99% the same, except that many powers weren't in the system yet.
Champions 1e is 64 pp., minimal art, few examples.
Champions 3e is 142 pp. Much more art, many more examples. More villains and iconics, all on full sheets plus more description.
HSR 4 is not huge; 224pp... but includes almost everything from Champions 3rd, plus the powers from two supplements, plus the base and vehicle rules. A lot more specific power modifiers.
Champions 4th is 352pp... and is the HSR 4 plus a bunch of supers specific materials.
Hero System Fifth Edition Revised is 592 pages... mostly better descriptions of mechanics. and plenty more specific modifiers.
6th de-links the figured atts, but otherwise is similar to 5th.
Excepting martial arts and figureds, it works the same across the editions. (Martial Arts gets a BIG change.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

SIGH

This thread is whetting my appetite for playing in a supers game again. I haven’t been on the player side of a GM screen in a supers game in more than 20 years. And the last one I ran was still more than a decade ago.

 

[aramis erak]

And you think a team-based superhero RPG should not be based on the team-based comic books? Okay. We're never going to agree on anything if that's your starting position.

There are severa kinds of Team comics I've seen...

Fantastic Four, X-Men, TMNT: Most of the cast is stable long term, some changes at reboots. Characters are created specifically for the team... tho' certain characters may also have solo series.

The TV "Why the «bleep» are they together?" ones, such as Superfriends/JLA. Spiderman & Friends (Spidey, Firestar, and Iceman).

The team of shared threat: pretty much any of the Secret Wars or "Crisis of" titles. Avengers is clearly this in the movie. Age of Ultron isn't. Supergirl, The Arrow and The Flash crossovers on TV, noting that Supergirl is a different continuity, and the characters discuss the differences onscreen.

Then you have the Unit model: they're part of some agency, and are assigned together, no choice involved. Agents of Shield is the key exemplar on TV. A close variant is the Master and students, such as New Mutants.

And finally, the family model: in the TV Arrow show. Red Arrow is Olly's sister. The Canary is his exGF. White Canary is his exGF's sister, and Olly's fling... Plus Olly's Bodyguard sometimes doubles as The Arrow. Two big disfunctional families. Oh, and they all are hunted by the father of the Canary sisters.
Also, Supergirl and Superman teamups. The occasional calling upon the Amazons in Wonder Woman. Thor and other Norse Gods in Marvel. Even, occasionally, teaming up with Loki.

I've probably missed some nuanced subset... I don't right know which flavor Teen Titans is.

But not everyone wants to be the team of professionals of Alpha Flight ot the X-Men, and many wouldn't want to play the ad-hoc team who decide to stay together.