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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dannyalcatraz" data-source="post: 9732975" data-attributes="member: 19675">To me, that’s kind of the “role-play” aspect of the superheoic genre, not really the mechanics.So the GM has to present the players with options to do heroic things beyond punching Prof. Terribad in the face.  But then the players have to make the decisions to perform those heroic acts beyond punching Prof. Terribad in the face.  And TBH, for certain PCs, punching Prof. Terribad is their “raison d'être”, while others will be doing everything they can to minimize collateral damage and unintended casualties caused by all combatants.(See, for instance, the original incarnations of DC’s Hawk & Dove.)And part of THAT is depends on whether your players can really get inside the superheroes they’ve created.I’ve mentioned several times in this board that my best ever campaign was a supers game set in an expanded version of the Space:1889 setting, using HERO for the mechanics.  I really peaked as a GM running it- I’ve never even come close to the level of worldbuilding, storytelling and game management than I did running that game.  It lasted for over a year.But at least half of that campaign’s success was due to the 100% buy-in I got from the players.  Not only were their PCs created in harmony with the setting, they really played within their characters’ boundaries as written.  Even when doing so had negative consequences, characters who had “codes of honor” didn’t take cheap shots, for instance.  Characters with more passive/pacifistic builds contributed to victories without compromising their ethics.  Etc.And not to put too fine a point on it, when I tried to run a campaign years later in a different city with different players using the same setting and M&M as the mechanical ruleset, it was a slow-motion disaster. It fizzled in just a few months. Not only was I not as locked in, but the players were somewhat…detached.  (One guy didn’t realize that the campaign included the potential to go to the Moon, Mars and Venus until a month after we stopped playing it.)</blockquote>

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