What makes a successful superhero game?

[Thomas Shey]

Agreed, it's not exactly a physics sim...
But it can be used as one, since the base assumptions of the core engine work relatively well as a physics sim.

There are more accurates ones. It's not quite off-label use, as the variety of spinoff games using the engine approach it as a physics engine, dropping the powers and replacing them with genre specific tweaks to the core engine.

The greater degree they do that, the more they tend to fail though; the assumptions baked into it as a superhero game tend to fail out if you're using any real scope outside a supers game, because they show their roots. This includes such basic things as the fact its far easier to knock someone out than kill them in the game (as compared to the real world where the inverse is, effectively, true)

You can hack on it enough to make that all go away, but it requires considerable hacking.

(Note that most games using Hero use the powers for some purpose; about the only ones that didn't were Danger International and Justice, Inc.). Oh, I guess probably not Western Hero either.

Fantasy Hero was originally a standalone, like Danger International, Robot Warriors, Star Hero, and Justice, Inc. These titles, prior to the HSR4 unification, were adapted cores, with Star Hero and Fantasy Hero being reprised for 4th, and 5th, and 6th as splats.

Like a number of other games (Traveller, RQ, and others), MacDonald and Peterson intended it to be partially a sim...


Simulation is in its roots... just not simulation of the real world as we live in it. "designed to reflect real life (as seen in comic books)" is the key element. Not all physics engines are our physics. (And, while the sheet can be told apart from later editions, it's instantly recognizable as the parent of the later editions' more streamlined sheets.)

However, Hero backs in certain elements that are superhero conventions that are not supposed to be visible to people in the setting. Such as the fact its easier to blow through a concrete wall than kill a human (because beams that do the former in the comics often hit people not avowedly superhuman physically without doing the latter. Its a baked in genre convention and has nothing to do with how the physics of the world is supposed to work from an interior view).

 

[aramis erak]

(Note that most games using Hero use the powers for some purpose; about the only ones that didn't were Danger International and Justice, Inc.). Oh, I guess probably not Western Hero either.

The magic system of FH 1 was not the same as the powers of C1/2/3; it had different balance.
Justice Inc has the aura reading rules.
Star Hero 1e (based upon C3) wasn't quite the standard power list, either, but VERY close. SH2 was a sourcebook for HSR4.
Only Danger International was without obvious powers.

AFAICT, Cyber, Western, Martial, and Horror Hero are all after C4/HSR4 only ever as sourcebooks.

It's also interesting to note: C4/HSR4 brought in the languages rule from Danger International.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Re: The Superman/Batman problem in HERO

If you’re clever, there’s ways to make it work.

First of all, assume both have the same number of build points.

Second, since the bulk of Supes’ abilities are inherent, most of those points will be in actual super powers.

Arguably, Batman won’t have many inherent attributes well outside of human normal. So where to put those points? His wealth, his base, his gear, his contacts for starters. Then skills, along with skill levels that he can apply as needed. Even so, you’re probably still using a fraction of the points used in a Superman build.

What to do?

Part of my answer is that you have to model his arguably superhuman ability to plan on defeating any super being he knows of. More than one story arc has mentioned that he “has a plan”. To model this, I’d give him a largish Variable Power Pool that he can use to implement a plan. It would require using his base and making one or more skill rolls, but it could put him on a path to deal with almost any challenge, given time and intense study of his target(s).

 

[Thomas Shey]

The magic system of FH 1 was not the same as the powers of C1/2/3; it had different balance.

It wasn't identical, but there was a lot of overlap; the only heavily different items were its invisibility sub-in and some powers that (at the time) were unique to it. Note that by the time of 4e that was no longer true however.

Justice Inc has the aura reading rules.
Star Hero 1e (based upon C3) wasn't quite the standard power list, either, but VERY close. SH2 was a sourcebook for HSR4.
Only Danger International was without obvious powers.

AFAICT, Cyber, Western, Martial, and Horror Hero are all after C4/HSR4 only ever as sourcebooks.

Well, yeah, after the time of 4e there were no true standalones.

It's also interesting to note: C4/HSR4 brought in the languages rule from Danger International.

They also imported the general structure of the martial arts rules, though I'm not sure the costs were the same. Prior to that MA in Hero were much more abbreviated and worked somewhat differently.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Re: The Superman/Batman problem in HERO

If you’re clever, there’s ways to make it work.

First of all, assume both have the same number of build points.

Second, since the bulk of Supes’ abilities are inherent, most of those points will be in actual super powers.

Arguably, Batman won’t have many inherent attributes well outside of human normal. So where to put those points? His wealth, his base, his gear, his contacts for starters. Then skills, along with skill levels that he can apply as needed. Even so, you’re probably still using a fraction of the points used in a Superman build.

What to do?

Part of my answer is that you have to model his arguably superhuman ability to plan on defeating any super being he knows of. More than one story arc has mentioned that he “has a plan”. To model this, I’d give him a largish Variable Power Pool that he can use to implement a plan. It would require using his base and making one or more skill rolls, but it could put him on a path to deal with almost any challenge, given time and intense study of his target(s).

You can actual burn a lot of points for a Batman expie on skills and talents. Only reason it isn't a bigger problem is Overall levels can allow you to avoid investing too much in any one skill.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Oh, you can ABSOLUTELY burn tons of build points in skills. But after a certain point, your result will feel less like Batman and more like someone who is best in the world at everything. This begs the question of why be a crimefighter instead of making the world better for EVERYONE with their inventions, etc.

 

[Vael]

I've done a FATE Superheros campaign and tried Masks and Blood of Heros ... where I practically ragequit during char gen. And my take is if I need a spreadsheet to build my character, I'm out. That said, the other, highly narrative campaigns also were challenging. Masks ... because actual powers were divorced from the personality type of your young superhero, I found I didn't like any of the playbooks.

FATE lasted the longest of the three, neither of the others got past char get ... and here I found the looseness a challenge to GM.

So, I dunno. Too crunchy and trying to define every power isn't fun, but so is the Airy fairy narrative of FATE that had me work too hard to manage it.

 

[dbm]

Too crunchy and trying to define every power isn't fun, but so is the Airy fairy narrative of FATE that had me work too hard to manage it.

This is very similar to my feelings, and why Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion is my personal favourite system. For me, it successfully threads the needle between tangible and flexible definition of stuff in a supers context.

In my opinion and experience the core rules are solid, and provide satisfying mechanical support for more than just combat challenges, which is important in supers.

The power system is separate from the ‘regular’ character development system, which means that a character can start as powerful but they may only have a lower level of skill in applying those powers. This also takes away the pressure you may otherwise feel to keep upping your powers in a purely point-buy system with no hard constraints on how you spend those points. By default your power level is fixed though this is an easy house rule if you want powers to grow over time.

Savages Worlds has a cool element of ‘setting rules’ which are rules modules that can be applied to a campaign to tune the feel of the game. The Super Powers Companion bring in some new ones around team attacks and power stunts to add the flexibility you see in the supers genre, and there is also guidance on what mixture of setting rules will help create different types of supers campaigns (‘four colours’, gritty and so on).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It is a game. What's wrong with it being a game?

Because HERO/Champions specifically mechanically feels like a game in a way that's very perceptible to a lot of people, not like a superhero anything.

Specifically in combat it feels like a very detailed squad-level skirmish wargame, that just happens to be superhero-themed.

It got in early, and has a lot of extremely clever system design (some of it years ahead of its time), and at least some of the groups that played it in the 1980s (from accounts I've read, which were detailed and interesting, and sadly seem gone from the internet now) were very much not playing it as a skirmish wargame, but focusing on RPing the social and so on aspects of being superheroes, which I presume mitigated this factor a lot, but it is an issue.

Like, it's fine to have a gamist game, I've enjoyed a lot of them - 4E D&D for example (5E is pretty gamist too). The trouble is when it gets in the way, and the complex turn structure, detailed hex-based movement and range, precision (and quite difficult for a lot of people) character building of HERO/Champions, lack of in-built stunt/boost-type stuff, lack of support indeed for a lot of supers combat tropes (at least in 1980s and 1990s versions of HERO, maybe it changed?) but strong support for playing tactically made it quite... distinctive.

There's a reason why most supers games after that tend to lean increasingly focused on genre emulation (and later on, increasingly by being "narrative"). Because that was what people were finding they wanted after playing HERO/Champions (which isn't to say it's a bad game, it just doesn't strongly support the genre/vibes it's theoretically about - a very common issue in 1970s through 1990s games and even not uncommon with 2000s games, albeit a rare one now).

 

[Gorgon Zee]

No, I’m disagreeing with the idea that story points are in any way a means to balance these characters. Even starting the Doctor with zero and the companion 12 the Doctor wildly outshines everyone else. Even removing story points from the Doctor entirely, start at zero and never earns any, the Doctor still outshines everyone else.

First, Just checking that you have actually played a campaign, or is this just theoretical?
Second, do you think that if everyone else had 1000 story points, the doctor would still outshine everyone? Because if not, story points ARE a way to balance this, you’re just saying that more are needed for balance.