What makes a successful superhero game?

[Thomas Shey]

Advancement is superhero fiction is so weird. Sometimes there’s an obvious skill or power increase over time while sometimes there’s nothing for years or decades, then a massive leap ahead. Or the perennial favorite of complete power swaps. It just doesn’t map to standard RPG expectations of advancement.

The one general exception is the teen-supers genre, where some visible advancement is almost always present over time. That's admittedly a special case, however, and your general point is sound.

(That said, you can make some of that argument for any persistent episodic fiction. Most of them the characters are at least semi-static, but it'd be unlikely most people would want that in an RPG based on it.)

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I think a supers game needs some sort of narrative currency that lets the PC put their thumb on the scale. E.g. FASERIP's karma system was a revelation to me back in the day. And that's something Champions does not have out of the box. Luckily, a hero point system isn't hard to tack on and I have my own house rules for them now.

Some sort of system for "natural"* disasters is a good idea. Again, I will note that my two favourite supers games, Champions and FASERIP, do not have such a thing. You're expected to model scenario's by extrapolating from the basic rules. And you can. But it would save a lot of work if they had some guidelines.

Super PCs really benefit from connection to the world. (I think all RPGs benefit from this, but for supers it's essential.) So a mechanism for connecting the character to the game world is needed. Champions disadvantages system does the job quite nicely; but the RAW could make it clearer for players that that is what it's for.

Interpersonal drama between PCs is an important trope. But I struggle to think of how one can put this into a game system; other than basing it on disadvantages.

*The inverted commas are because this is a supers game. When there's an earthquake there's every reason to suspect Mole People. Frankly, I always suspect Mole People.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think a supers game needs some sort of narrative currency that lets the PC put their thumb on the scale. E.g. FASERIP's karma system was a revelation to me back in the day. And that's something Champions does not have out of the box. Luckily, a hero point system isn't hard to tack on and I have my own house rules for them now.

Some sort of system for "natural"* disasters is a good idea. Again, I will note that my two favourite supers games, Champions and FASERIP, do not have such a thing. You're expected to model scenario's by extrapolating from the basic rules. And you can. But it would save a lot of work if they had some guidelines.

Super PCs really benefit from connection to the world. (I think all RPGs benefit from this, but for supers it's essential.) So a mechanism for connecting the character to the game world is needed. Champions disadvantages system does the job quite nicely; but the RAW could make it clearer for players that that is what it's for.

Interpersonal drama between PCs is an important trope. But I struggle to think of how one can put this into a game system; other than basing it on disadvantages.

*The inverted commas are because this is a supers game. When there's an earthquake there's every reason to suspect Mole People. Frankly, I always suspect Mole People.

There was at least one Marvel-Phile article in Dragon dealing with natural disasters in MSH, I think.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Really? I'll have to track it down.