Superhero games

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Much like GURPS, the benefits of the BRP system, such as it's realistic style, are at odds with the genre. With Super campaign we don"t want reality, we want the reality of the comics. So when "Mr. Invulnerable" falls off the roof of a 10 story building, we don't want him to go spat from 30d6 damage-we want to see him stunned, and a bit hole in the asphalt.

Sounds more like Roger Rabbit
But what do I know about Superheroes? Nothing. Ok, I read some Superman comics as I was 8.

But I liked the X-men films 1-3. Are X-men superheroes? Or just mutants? If they are superheroes then I could imagine to use BRP for a x-men superhero setting. x-men dont seem to be over the top or immortal or flying around with light-speed. (which I personally found always very silly)

They just have some very interesting mutant powers but are otherwise rather normal mortals.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by drohem

Years ago my group ran a successful Superworld campaign with mulitple GMs. We would trade off adventures and each GM had a regional sphere of influence.

We came to the same conclusion as Nightshade. Our best adventures and encounters were at the beginning of the campaign, and it broke down once the heroes became powerful. Designing villians for the high-powered heroes became difficult.

If used as written, the advanced Superworld tended to mitigate this, ironically because it pretty much capped advancement at some point; most powers had caps based on attributes, and even if you used powers to boost the attributes, even that had limits (there was essentially no way in the game to have more than a 24 Power, for example, and since Power/2 capped most offensive powers, this made a practical limit of 12 dice for most offenses. There was a multiplier cost for bypassing this, but at that point the practical limit on total power points tended to start coming in pretty soon).

That doesn't mean you couldn't start to run into some issues even within that range, but they were generally manageable if you were cautious.

The big issue was that there were simply character types from superheroes that were essentially undoable, usually because they were too powerful, too broad, or both. If you could live with that, the rest would mostly work, though people had to pay attention to their defenses and the like.

As some said, though, the interaction of skills and powers was a little problematic, and the Super-Skill power as written didn't really do what it needed to.

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Unfortunately, Super gaming doesn't get a lot of respect from fantasy RPGers. I once had a guy who refused to play a Super hero RPG saying that the powers were silly. Later the same night, while playing D&D, I pointed out how in our group of four characters, we had one guy with superhuman Strength, another who drank a potion of elongation, a third who could go invisible, and the guy who through supers were dumb had points of fire breathing and a necklace of fireballs, and could fly. My Fantastic Four analogy won my argument, but ticked the guy off more than convincing him to play. Still, he stopped giving us flak for playing supers.

Great story!

Maybe "realistic" mortal heroes like Batman or his enemy joker work with DBRP. In this respect one could even use an additional hero points subsystem (finally! yeah!) to enable him his incredible bat stunts.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

Great story!

Maybe "realistic" mortal heroes like Batman or his enemy joker work with DBRP. In this respect one could even use an additional hero points subsystem (finally! yeah!) to enable him his incredible bat stunts.

Realistic heroes do work better than 4 color heroes in BRP. A Captain America type, with good stats and great skills, and a high AP shield would be easy. Batman, a little more difficult, due to gadgets, and more powerful heroes more problematic.

Still, SUPEROWLRD did handle the high power characters fairly well. My character concept for the "Wildcards" setting was a teenager whose family was killed by the swarm, and felt powerless for not being able to save them. When she got superpowers, I literally had her become the most powerful heroine she could image, Supergirl, and gave her most of the same powers, although toned down to fit within my point allowance, and she had to be a bit delusional to get enough extra points to do it. She may not have matched up to the DC character, but she could pick up a M1 tank.

[drohem]

Yeah, it all depended on your mindset at the onset. DC heroes are severely overpowered in my book. I find Marvel heroes more plausabily in my mind.

If you tried to re-create a comic book hero with Superworld, then you would run into issues. However, if you created a hero from scratch within the Superworld rules framework, then you can create some really cool heroes.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

Sounds more like Roger Rabbit
But what do I know about Superheroes? Nothing. Ok, I read some Superman comics as I was 8.

But I liked the X-men films 1-3. Are X-men superheroes? Or just mutants? If they are superheroes then I could imagine to use BRP for a x-men superhero setting. x-men dont seem to be over the top or immortal or flying around with light-speed. (which I personally found always very silly)

They just have some very interesting mutant powers but are otherwise rather normal mortals.

Well, the issues are that the X-Men movies are to some degree, toned down versions of the comic characters (the exception being Storm who seems approximately the same power level--note that she whipped up a collection of tornadoes at will in the second movie). It would be able to handle most of those, but largely because it ignores or reduces the power of the more over the top comic X-Men.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Trifletraxor

I think you are on to something there. BRP with its nitty gritty realistic approach does not really fit well as an enginge for toon-like superhero gaming. Were there ever any published scenarios for Superworld or any of the other superhero games?

SGL.

- 1 scenario pack called 'Bad medicine for Dr Drugs', which is for a teen hero campaign (not good, compatible with Champions, 2nd Ed and Villains and Vigillantes)
- a second scenario book called 'Trouble for H.A.V.O.C', which contained 3 scenarii, one of them clearly drawn from Cthulhu mythos.

Plus Superworld companion (additional rules, conversion for champions, and some other things)

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by drohem

Yeah, it all depended on your mindset at the onset. DC heroes are severely overpowered in my book. I find Marvel heroes more plausabily in my mind.

If you tried to re-create a comic book hero with Superworld, then you would run into issues. However, if you created a hero from scratch within the Superworld rules framework, then you can create some really cool heroes.

If your's is the 1st ed of DC Heroes, you're getting pre-crisis characters, which are GROSSLY overpowered. If I remember well, Superman's strength was 50, as a normal one was 2, and each increment was a doubling. That meant 48 doubling, or 2 power 48 times the normal strength.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by drohem

Yeah, it all depended on your mindset at the onset. DC heroes are severely overpowered in my book. I find Marvel heroes more plausabily in my mind.

If you tried to re-create a comic book hero with Superworld, then you would run into issues. However, if you created a hero from scratch within the Superworld rules framework, then you can create some really cool heroes.

What made "Supergirl" world was that she wasn't actually Supergirl, but a watered down copy. It gave the character some depth too. Basically, she couldn't handle the death of her family, and rejected her normal identity for her delusional one. It was sort of interesting, since it would be difficult to psychoanalyze someone who could duplicate the powers and abilities.

Her biggest vulnerabilities were not so much to more powerful villains, but to villains with knowledge of the comics. She was worried about being exposed to Element #36 on the periodic table. We knew it would have no effect on her, but she figured it was lethal.

But yeah, overall DC character are more powerful than Marvel ones (pre-crisis Superman can, and did bitchslap the Hulk), making them harder to work out in most RPGs.

As will any 4-color "team" campaign, the GM needs to vary the challenges in order to ensure that all the heroes are useful. Sometimes this can be funny.

"Yeah I can fly. Oh, fly a PLANE-no I can't do that! I could carry the plane there, though. If it doesn't break in half. But pilot one, no."

Hey, can Clark Kent drive?

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Kloster

If your's is the 1st ed of DC Heroes, you're getting pre-crisis characters, which are GROSSLY overpowered. If I remember well, Superman's strength was 50, as a normal one was 2, and each increment was a doubling. That meant 48 doubling, or 2 power 48 times the normal strength.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Yup. With Jimmy Olsen STR 2, Pre-crisis Superman STR 48, and post-crisis Superman STR 25, the difference between post-crisis and pre-crisis Superman is the same as between the post crisis man of steel and Jimmy!

By comparison, most of your Marvel heavies, such as the Hulk, the Thing, Iron Man, Thor and the Submariner would be around STR 13 in the old DC game.