What makes a successful superhero game?

@Thomas Shey I didn't know 6th ed had gone and gotten a hero point system. I haven't actually read the 6th ed rules except for Fantasy Hero Complete, which I admit I only skimmed. But I have definitely borrowed some 6th ed concepts for my homebrew HERO. e.g. got rid of figured characteristics.

Its an optional rule, and like I said, its pretty weaksauce (same for its power stunting system). My guess would be that Steve Long or whoever put them in did so reluctantly (which I can understand a little better with the Power Stunting; at some point you have to decide that its not going to be a cheap VPP. Most of the games that do one have it fueled from a metacurrency which keeps it in hand. As I recall, Hero just does it off a skill roll.)


4th ed has some details about things like fires (from house to forest to chemical), electricity, and chemical spills. But as far as I remember there was nothing specific about ways to run a natural disaster. But, as others have suggested, disasters are the perfect chance to run a skill challenge. Certainly how'd I'd run it nowadays.

I distinctly remember something about tidal waves and earthquakes. Of course, given my age and general memory, I could be conflating it with a different system, too. :)
 

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As for multiform power armour - I'm totally for it. My best, by which I mean most elegant and well thought out, Champions character was a multiform power armour type.
 

As for multiform power armour - I'm totally for it. My best, by which I mean most elegant and well thought out, Champions character was a multiform power armour type.

There's no reason you can't use it for ones where the armor is individually relatively simple. Its just that there's some serious by the book objections to doing multipowers (which are used for the traditional multiple weapon systems). I'm not sure I've ever seen a power suit done for a PC that didn't have one (and its not even super common on ones you see build for villains).
 


I admit I never noticed rules against multipowers in multiforms. I guess that was my personal bias applying blinkers...

As I recall, it was a more general "No frameworks in Multiforms", and I suspect it was to avoid some degenerate point shaving shenanigans. There were already some pretty abusive Multiform setups as it is (ironically, one of which they featured in an example character).
 

I'm just saying I can't say I ever saw someone reduce the cost of a Multiform or a VPP just because they thought the player wouldn't use it much.
Were I GMing a PC like that, I’d allow it, with the caveat that the more regularly they started using it, the more inclined I’d be to make them have to buy that reduction off in part or entirely.

IOW, following the spirit of the rule that a character who “loots” gear from an NPC eventually has to pay for it on their sheet.
 


It's not about how many powers a hero has; it's about how much heart they have!!!

Ummmm…
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So, what do you think? What makes a successful superhero game?
I'm almost wanting to say "nothing."

Over the years it seems like every attempt eventually gets too complicated to run.

In theory I think the best example I have seen is City of Mist - but I don't own it yet, I own another game in the same line: Legend in the Mist, so this is based on an assumption that it would hold up. It's very rules light with no stats or numbers to things, just tags a lot of narrative roleplay.

And that's where the elusive solution, should it ever be found, would lie.

A system without numeric definition to things and without tactical combat. You need to describe everything in terms of narrative dramatic flow. Like a comic book.

That's the only way to have radically different scales in play, and keep them all story relevant. It's also the only way to allow "anything" without trying to detail out "everything".

Super Hero RPGs have been my main thing for most of my time in this hobby - starting in 83 when I found Autoduel Champions in looking for a supplement to Car Wars. I've tried a lot of different games, I've spent years running several of them. Some of them held up better than others. Some worked in their early editions, and then got too complicated. But even that was only when we limited our idea of a super hero to something fitting the game mechanics. In that regard even Silver Age Sentinels was too pre-defined and it's probably one of the looser flowing games I'd GM'd.

So right now I'm thinking the answer is very close to City of Mist - but maybe not exactly where that is as that is, I believe, tailored to a specific narrow sub-genre. However it may be circling around the impossible answer.
 

I'm almost wanting to say "nothing."

Over the years it seems like every attempt eventually gets too complicated to run.

In theory I think the best example I have seen is City of Mist - but I don't own it yet, I own another game in the same line: Legend in the Mist, so this is based on an assumption that it would hold up. It's very rules light with no stats or numbers to things, just tags a lot of narrative roleplay.

And that's where the elusive solution, should it ever be found, would lie.

A system without numeric definition to things and without tactical combat. You need to describe everything in terms of narrative dramatic flow. Like a comic book.

That's the only way to have radically different scales in play, and keep them all story relevant. It's also the only way to allow "anything" without trying to detail out "everything".

Super Hero RPGs have been my main thing for most of my time in this hobby - starting in 83 when I found Autoduel Champions in looking for a supplement to Car Wars. I've tried a lot of different games, I've spent years running several of them. Some of them held up better than others. Some worked in their early editions, and then got too complicated. But even that was only when we limited our idea of a super hero to something fitting the game mechanics. In that regard even Silver Age Sentinels was too pre-defined and it's probably one of the looser flowing games I'd GM'd.

So right now I'm thinking the answer is very close to City of Mist - but maybe not exactly where that is as that is, I believe, tailored to a specific narrow sub-genre. However it may be circling around the impossible answer.
You sound like me. Have you heard of the FKR? Free Kriegsspiel Renaissance. It sounds like what you're talking about. Not a game but a playstyle. Genre emulation and world immersion without worrying about mechanics much if at all. It can work great with the right group.

Ben Milton over on Questing Beast has a short video on it.

 

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