What makes a successful superhero game?

[Thomas Shey]

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.

Actually, these days it does. I'd argue its underfed though.

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.

There was a set of natural disaster rules in one of the supplements for Hero at one time, but it might have been as far back as 4e and I don't remember precisely where it was.

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.

Yeah.

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.

Its probably not something that beyond that you should force anyway.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sorta.

It’s possible to model stuff like that in HERO as discrete, alternative power suits that require access to a base and time to do the swap. I’d probably do that via Multiform for an Iron Man PC with specialized armors.

For PCs with lower powers, a VPP or Multipower might be more appropriate- again, requiring time & a bass to swap out.

The only problem you run into with that approach in Hero is its typically discouraged embedding Multipowers in Multiforms, and doing it with a VPP even moreso.

 

[overgeeked]

I took that to include aftershocks and other soon after the quake potential failures ( gas leaks, etc. )

Fair point. That could be but there’s nothing calling that out. The section is otherwise fairly detailed on how disasters function. So if that was their intent it’s a major oversight.

Supers! and Supers! RED have systems for natural disasters. I say "systems" because IIRC they're different between editions. They're simple, but functional.

The best kind of system.