What makes a successful superhero game?

[Gorgon Zee]

I will confess to never having been in a supers campaign that went really well. And also to never having read a system I'm really happy with. I've systems I like and memories of great campaigns in high and low fantasy, pulp, urban fantasy, cosmic horror, stephen-king horror, kids-on-bikes, military, space fantasy, epic scifi and firefly-level sci fi, historical, comedy -- but not supers.

I've kept FATE, WEARING THE CAPE, GODLIKE, and SENTINELS OF THE MULTIVERSE, and those are all enjoyable, but it seems that the need for cool combat powers tied to soap-opera interactions makes it hard to make a single system work well.

I'd run GODLIKE specifically for a military superhero game, but for generic super-heroism probably WEARING THE CAPE would be my current go-to. But with lower enthusiasm than I'd like.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

For me, to be considered a successful game, I need my supers game to have a fair amount of customization and to be somewhat crunchy. Rules light / Narrative games do not work for me especially with a high amount of GM Fiat and designers who just have a casual love and or affinity for the Supers genre.

Games like CHAMPIONS (now HERO SYSTEM) and MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS allow me to create characters that simulate the power sets of Iron Man (any of the armors) to Yuuske Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho. For me any game that skimps on character creation is not for me because most of the time I'm not looking to play existing characters, I'm looking to run or play with original characters in a new setting of a radically different version of a existing universe.

At the same time during play there needs to be a decent amount of respect for power scaling (some thing that American comics since the 90's have been increasingly crap at and Manga and anime kind of excel at depending on the title). For example there's NO WAY Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece) from the Enies Lobby Arc or the Marine Ford Arc would be able to handle DolFlamingo from the Dressrossa Arc. But somehow Gambit is able to defeat Gladiator (from the Sh'iar) with a deck of cards?!? C'mon y'all...

I put that example out there just to point out that as much as we love comics (some of us anyway) that a supers game should try to emulate some element of what we read and see in comics but ultimately its a GAME. And it should be treated as such. I'm not looking for it to be a comic that I "play".

I've run and been a player in more than few Supers games and by far it's my favorite genre to play in as it's the one I'm the most familiar with by far, both from an american comics standpoint and an manga/anime standpoint as well. There are purists who will fight me on this but I think that manga/anime particularly in shonen do a vastly better job at defining power sets and the limitations of those power sets than American comics do.

 

[darjr]

Huh? the DC Heros 40th anniversary kickstarter is still open for late pledges. FYI.

 

[overgeeked]

Games like CHAMPIONS (now HERO SYSTEM) and MUTANTS AND MASTERMINDS allow me to create characters that simulate the power sets of Iron Man (any of the armors) to Yuuske Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho. For me any game that skimps on character creation is not for me because most of the time I'm not looking to play existing characters, I'm looking to run or play with original characters in a new setting of a radically different version of a existing universe.

I found the old MSH game more than sufficiently robust enough to model Iron Man and the like. Did that one not do it for you?

 

[overgeeked]

Huh? the DC Heros 40th anniversary kickstarter is still open for late pledges. FYI.

Yeah. That one's dangerous. I am a late backer and my order was locked and card charged on Thursday. I'm really excited about that one.

 

[darjr]

Yeah. That one's dangerous. I am a late backer and my order was locked and card charged on Thursday. I'm really excited about that one.

lol. At first you said dangerous and I was like “oh, no” then I read the rest of your post and now I’m like “OH NO!”

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I found the old MSH game more than sufficiently robust enough to model Iron Man and the like. Did that one not do it for you?

I played MSH with the Ultimate Powers Handbook for a long time. My friends and I then found both DC HEROES (MEGS) and Champions in short order and was like "Oh snap!! We can actually CHOOSE our powersets?!?" LOL.

But to answer your question, no. It did for the time before we knew what else was out there. But once we ventured away from it, we wondered how we ever settled for it, and we NEVER went back. I don't look back on that game with enthusiasm or nostalgia at all.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Huh? the DC Heros 40th anniversary kickstarter is still open for late pledges. FYI.

LOL. I have a sealed box of DC HEROES 2nd Edition. I also still have my 3rd Edition books. And I still almost got caught up and backed that kickstarter.

 

[overgeeked]

I played MSH with the Ultimate Powers Handbook for a long time. My friends and I then found both DC HEROES (MEGS) and Champions in short order and was like "Oh snap!! We can actually CHOOSE our powersets?!?" LOL.

But to answer your question, no. It did for the time before we knew what else was out there. But once we ventured away from it, we wondered how we ever settled for it, and we NEVER went back. I don't look back on that game with enthusiasm or nostalgia at all.

Huh. You can pick your powers etc in MSH, too. That’s what we did. Model the sheet after the character in your head, done. And there’s no math involved. I want to play a character with Un (100) strength. Write that down. Etc.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Huh. You can pick your powers etc in MSH, too. That’s what we did. Model the sheet after the character in your head, done. And there’s no math involved. I want to play a character with Un (100) strength. Write that down. Etc.

That's great and all, but then you ignored the rules of character creation to do whatever you wanted. My friends and I played this when it first came out, both the basic (yellow) and the later version, with the blue box, and while the rules gave you the choice of picking your character origin, your ability scores you had to roll for.

You also had to roll for the number of powers and the power category, but could choose or randomly roll for the actual powers.

And there was math involved, unless you just made up what number you wanted your health and karma to be since both are secondary stats. Health is the combined F, A, S, E scores. And Karma is your combined R, I, P scores.

So again, it's great that you did whatever you wanted to, but we played the game pretty much as written.

EDIT: For full disclosure, I still have a copy of the actual rules, so I confirmed all of this before I came on here and replied. Yes I'm a pack rat. But I'm getting better! Honest! LOL.