Superhero games

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

'Pulp' is a pretty open description... not really a genre or a style, though some people nowadays assume it to mean a high-flying, gonzo, kitchen sink of tomfoolery...
If I wanted to play cinematic games Spirit Of The Century seems to be the darling-boy for that right now over on RPG.net...
But some folks (like me) don't like cinematics...
I don't want 4 color superhero games but do like the idea of gritty games centered on vigilantes with odd powers... some of them might wear spandex but that won't keep them from being turned into pulp.

BRP seems well suited to that sort of thing.

I was thinking of pulp as in the style of 1920s-30s fiction. Since you listed the Shadow in your concepts SotC came to mind, since it is designed around that style era. Another nice thing is that SotC is derrived from FATE, which has a much gritter damage track.

If you want gritty with superpowers, then games like CORPS come to mind. Even BRP might work if you keep the power levels down.

Another option would be the approach for horror adventures. That is add/pervert a non-super RPG to handle powers.


Personally, I like cinema style, or "pulp style". For something like the Shadow or Green Hornet (the latter I wrote up stats for in SotC), SotC would be my first choice. The system allows you to pull off the sort of things that happen in the pulps. For instance, the "Master of Disguise" stunt lets a PC drop out for awhile, and then take over an nameless NPC, unmask and reveal himself. That's perfect for the Shadow.

[Simlasa]

Yeah, I've kinda got a chip on my shoulder about SOTC... mainly because of the ravers on RPG.net... who think it can do anything and everything better than anything else.
You're right about The Shadow... I was thinking of him... and a lot of the 'lesser powered' heroes... like The Spider and The Avenger.

I don't think heroes like that would overpower BRP...

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

Yeah, I've kinda got a chip on my shoulder about SOTC... mainly because of the ravers on RPG.net... who think it can do anything and everything better than anything else.

SotC is nice, but does have it's own flaws and shortcomings. I found it neat becuase it is a radical shift from the sort of RPGs I am familiar with. Still, it isn't a bad game, does have a free SRD available, and shouldn't be penalized becuase of what fans type about it.

Originally Posted by Simlasa

You're right about The Shadow... I was thinking of him... and a lot of the 'lesser powered' heroes... like The Spider and The Avenger.

I don't think heroes like that would overpower BRP...

Basically the non-powered heroes. Most pulp heroes didn't have powers per say, but were very skilled, and made use of advanced science and or mystical traditions that were new to the west.

I agree that such heroes wouldn't overpower BRP. In fact, in one CoC campaign, th GM swiped liberally from early Batman. Hugo Strange was one of the reoccurring villains, and one players was gifted at running Batman.

The biggest problem with pulp heroes is that some are "too good" in too many fields to work well in BRP. The Shadow (the pulp version and the radio version) and the Green Hornet (especially the radio version, before SuperKato) are workable in BRP. Someone like Doc Savage is, in many ways, worse than a character with a superpower. Savage is annoyingly, an expert in everything, and is perfected well adjusted and a prime physical specimen to boot. At least Batman has emotional baggage.


In mnay respects CoC 1920s can handle pulp, but you'd probably need to beef up the characters a little to get them up to the standards of pulp heroes. Actually the rules for Supers from WoW could do nicely, if the GM puts caps on, or outright restricts some of the more blatant powers.

For example the Green Hornet would be easy. Most points would be spent to get the right characteristics and skills, with a few points spent for a gas gun (say level 6 or so), and some speed for the Black beauty (to hit 200mph back in the 30s and 40s).

[Simlasa]

It hadn't occurred to me before, but Doc Savage must have been the inspiration for Buckaroo Banzai... brain surgeon, inventor, man about town.

The guys I game with have wanted to play a superhero game for a while... but we keep going round and round with what we want. We all seem to have different power levels as our ideal.
Another thing I'd like to try is a BRP version of The Whispering Vault... which sometimes is described as a something like a superhero game... 'Clive Barker's Superfriends' I think the line is... I don't think Vault's powers are so extreme though that they'd 'break' the system... they're just odd. It'd probably be a good fit for COC with some stuff from Superworld.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

Where exactly do these figures come from? And when? There's a dearth of reliable figures in the industry, so I'm intrigued to know what these numbers actually represent. This is sales in France, correct? Up to what date?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

The figures were the ones given by the french editors, compiled by a french mag in 2000 (Backstab) for the french editions.
For the english langage ones, it was estimates given by the main importers.
And it was the sales in France only, even if I'm sure that for the french language editions, it was the total sales made by the editor for all french speaking countries (Jeux Descartes for CoC, Oriflam for all the others).
I also remember an aticle by MOB in an old TotrM where he reviewed the french RQ and explained that the Oriflam sales for France were in the same league as the ones of AH worldwide, but I've never checked that.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by drohem

I might get stoned for saying this, but...

My group is currently playing a World War II Supers campaign using the net PDF Deeds Not Words for the d20 system. We are playing the gritty campaign mode with mulitple GMs. Each GM runs a one-shot adventure with his own PC doing some support role away from the main group. We started in late 1936 and are currently in spring of 1938.

I just ran an adventure where the group entered Austria via Switzerland about a week after it was annexed by Germany to rescue a Polish-Jew scientist who specialized in genetics and mutants and get him across the Danube River into Czechoslovakia.

Thus far we have had a really mix of fights and PC's. Some of the PCs are bruisers (Experiment and Supernatural Origins) and some are regular people (Baseline Origin).

We originally started a normal supers campaign with the d20 net PDF Powers Overwhelming, but quickly called it Powers Overbroken and abandoned those rules in favor of Deeds Not Words.

There are two supplements for Deeds Not Words: Laying the Smack Down and Bold Costumes, Black Hearts.

Supers is the least favorite genre for me (literary and RPG). However, I found that the combination of World War II, gritty campaign mode, and mulitple GMs have really sparked my interest in this type of Supers campaign.

Anyway, if you're looking for a decent supers rules set, and don't mind d20 system, then you should check out Deeds Not Words.

Given what you say here, you might want to look up Godlike
on the Web at some point, if you haven't already heard about it.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

Yeah, I've kinda got a chip on my shoulder about SOTC... mainly because of the ravers on RPG.net... who think it can do anything and everything better than anything else.

That's pretty much "I've fallen in love with Game X" mode though; I've heard that from people about any game with any general purpose utility over the years--including BRP...

[TriOpticon]

Originally Posted by drohem

Anyway, if you're looking for a decent supers rules set, and don't mind d20 system, then you should check out Deeds Not Words.

I had not heard of these rules before. Thanks for the info.

[GerallKahla]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

That's pretty much "I've fallen in love with Game X" mode though; I've heard that from people about any game with any general purpose utility over the years--including BRP...

True enough - I've been accused of this with BRP, but they keep playing my games...

As for SotC, I've played it twice. Once in it's original form, another with it mutated to support roleplaying in Conan's Hyperboria.

SotC didn't give me the feeling like I was affecting anything; the system didn't keep my attention too long, and I bowed out of further sittings.

I just couldn't feel any traction with the system. But that's just my opinion, obviously.

-regards-

[drohem]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Given what you say here, you might want to look up Godlike
on the Web at some point, if you haven't already heard about it.

I've read of its existence, but never researched any further. I'll take a look. Thanks for the heads-up.