Supers Campaigns: A New Approach

[Ancient History]

Stupid idea that just came to me: one of the problems with any established supers game, like those based on actual comics or Mutants & Masterminds or whatever, is that they drop the PCs as one more group of heroes in a 'verse already populated by supers, some of whom are established as Batman/Superman level big-shots and heavy hitters.

Fuck that sideways.

Why not start a game where the PCs are the first superheroes? Let them define themselves - why they chose to hero around, what their costumes look like (if they have costumes), their origin stories can be whatever they want - and then you work from that. If one guy at the table has a story involving aliens, those guys might be one of the Big Bads in the campaign. One guy got his powers from a government super soldier experiment? He's not the only one. You let them set up the playing field, and then you role with it.

I like the idea because it makes the campaign very personal for the players, and at the same time it produces a really nice progression - if the PCs are the first costumed heroes, then maybe they do start out dealing with muggers and bank robbers. Maybe Dark Knight Returns and Watchman style they inspire criminals to costume up and take to the streets. As the only supers, they become important enough that evil geniuses will specifically target them as "the only ones that can foil my plans!"

And it creates a nice tension for a long campaign, the PCs knowing that they're the first, the most visible, the most experienced heroes - it builds confidence, because their level sets the tone of the campaign. It's a world where they're the heroes, and people watch them fly by and wonder, not vice versa.

I need to curl up into a fetal ball and sleep now.

[Schleiermacher]

...yes?

The only reason why supers campaign settings like the ones you mentioned don't do this is that you can't have a published supers campaign setting with no powered NPCs. But the vast majority (we're talking 80-90%) of supers games I've seen, run and played in have been one of three things:
- set in a preestablished, non-gaming related 'verse, like the Marvel, DC or Gundam settings spesifically because the players want to rub shoulders with those characters, either with OCs or by portraying some of them,
- set in the established, homebrewed setting of one or more previous supers campaigns which at least some of the players have history with,
- OR exactly what you are talking about.

It's good advice, but it's not exactly groundbreaking.[/i]

[K]

Supers settings are for children and can't be adapted to the real world regardless of the changes you make.

In the real world, Batman would be caught within weeks and imprisoned for the rest of his life. It would take as long to find him as it took to find the Boston Marathon Bombers.

Secondly, you have the storytelling elements wrong here because one's actions are not cheapened by the potential actions of others. Batman's story and accomplishments are not cheapened by the fact that Superman exists and could have done them easier.

Everyone's story is unique and important because it is their story and they are the only one that participated in it. The people that Batman has saved will thank him because Superman was obviously doing something else and could not have helped even with his superior alien god powers. Even if Superman was saving the planet at the time, it does not diminish the fact that Batman was saving a waitress's life at the same time.

Third, challenges aren't challenging if the hero can't be challenged. This means that you can't just tell Superman stories by having him school street crime. You can pull out the kryptonite out every time, but that gets boring as shit and the demands of drama require at least an enemy of equal power eventually.

Fourth, playing a Supers RPG without detailing a Supers meta-culture seems like a giant missed opportunity. Comics like Transmetropolitan or Powers are so great just for this aspect of the Supers myth alone, and not using them is a waste.

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

Supers settings are for children and can't be adapted to the real world regardless of the changes you make.

I don't understand this. By "can't be adapted to the real world," do you mean that published supers settings don't work for tabletop role-playing games regardless of the changes the DM makes? Or By "can't be adapted to the real world," do you do you mean published supers settings don't work at all because they don't hold up under scrutiny?

In the first case, I agree. Most published supers settings for decent games (e.g. San Angelo, Champions Universe) are uniform in their badness and painfully steeped in cliche, while innovative settings (e.g. Aberrant, Brave New World, Underground) are humped by painfully bad mechanics specific to a world so bleak and ugly that players and MCs don't want to set adventures there. Those that can split the difference--and I can only think of one, the Heroes Unlimited setting Century Station, with abysmal Palladium mechanics but an interesting, easily adapted, and cliche-light setting--are rare, but at least extant.

A kitchen sink supers setting--wherein the universe holds everything from the Punisher to the X-men to Dracula to Galactus--is, ultimately, nonsense, and writing that from scratch to where it all holds together is impossible even for George R. R. Martin (c.f. Wild Cards).

If it's the second case, isn't this true of every setting? Replace supers in that statement with cyberpunk, fantasy, pulp adventure, or, hell, even World War II, and you end up with a game world that crumples under intense scrutiny because heroes are supposed to be heroic, and, in the real world, heroism gets heroes killed, and that game ends.

So, yeah, which is it?

In the real world, Batman would be caught within weeks and imprisoned for the rest of his life. It would take as long to find him as it took to find the Boston Marathon Bombers.

Not that I'm looking to justify a real-world Batman, but if a 200 IQ billionaire with a decade's training by the world's masters of investigation, martial arts, and stealth can't evade the police for longer than a couple of weeks, there are some activists, most wanteds, and terrorists who'd like a word. Admittedly, that happens in the real world at about the same demographic rate of comic book superheroes, but that shit happens.

Fourth, playing a Supers RPG without detailing a Supers meta-culture seems like a giant missed opportunity. Comics like Transmetropolitan or Powers are so great just for this aspect of the Supers myth alone, and not using them is a waste.

Did you mean Astro City? 'Cause while Spider Jerusalem is super, I don't think he's, like, literally a super.

[Prak]

Yeah, I was confused by the Transmet remark too. Though I figured he meant the culture of the future. Hell, if you took almost any person off a City street and put them in our time, they'd be considered super for their genetic enhancements alone.

[K]

A kitchen sink supers setting--wherein the universe holds everything from the Punisher to the X-men to Dracula to Galactus--is, ultimately, nonsense, and writing that from scratch to where it all holds together is impossible even for George R. R. Martin (c.f. Wild Cards).

Other settings can handle various amounts of logic, but a Supers setting immediately stops feeling like a Supers setting if you try to insert any logical consequences at all (see Wild Cards, The Authority).

Wild Cards is what a "people with powers" setting looks like if you apply any logic at all. It has no heroes who fight crime, few recurring characters, battles in the streets are almost non-existent and lead to characters exiling themselves afterwords, fliers get pilot licenses and approval from the FAA, and people with powers have real jobs.

There are no mental gymnastics where teams of vigilantes allowed to fight crime/villains would be permitted, so you have to accept that you get a free pass on literally anything in a Supers setting. It is nonsense and only works because of that, and Batman gets to beat up Superman because it's a Supers setting and not because it makes any damned sense,

[K]

Yeah, I was confused by the Transmet remark too. Though I figured he meant the culture of the future. Hell, if you took almost any person off a City street and put them in our time, they'd be considered super for their genetic enhancements alone.

I think I meant Astro City. My recall of comics that I read over a decade ago is spotty.

[Username17]

One of the big advantages of playing a table top supers game is that you get to mix and match NPCs from Marvel and DC without worrying about licensing bullshit. As such, the "world" that the game presents is going to get trashed right away. It's just a stand in, because as soon as the rubber hits the road and you start actually playing a real game, Pulsar is going bye bye and being replaced with Starfire and Solitaire is getting the axe to be replaced by Doctor Strange.

The only thing a Superheroic game has to do with their built-in NPCs is to make obvious expies that the people can swap in the actual (but sadly trademarked) characters that they love and hate.

-Username17

[Prak]

I think there is some amount of mental gymnastics that allows for (some) supers.

Batman gets to go around beating up violent psychos to get his rocks off because the police of Gotham are so inept that it would be hilarious, if not for the fact that a crazy guy in a bat costume is the average gothamite's only defense against another crazy guy in clown makeup. The fact that Batman only beats up criminals means the military doesn't much care either. Hell, you could almost make a case that Gotham is so dystopian that Congress held a special vote to make it it's own sovereign city state so that America only has to care about it when crazy people from Gotham jump the fence.

Iron Man, at least in the movies, gets to do his thing because he beats up terrorists outside of the country, and if he's in the US, he is generally responding to an attack on his life and usually not killing anyone. Any legal issues can be handwaved because he's seriously that rich.

The Avengers are a government sanctioned special forces squad managed by the ultimate intelligence agency.

Superman gets to go around doing his thing because... I don't know, people worship him, or something. Honestly, there is a finite number of supers for whom these mental gymnastics work. It's possible that Spider-Man is allowed to do his thing because the New York City police chief has a soft spot and so obstructs any concerted effort to bring him down through losing reports and "Sorry, Mayor, the guy's a freaky mutant, and it's not like we can just shoot him on sight"

[Hey_I_Can_Chan]

I think there is some amount of mental gymnastics that allows for (some) supers.

While it's sort of easy to justify pre-existing costumed do-gooders, justifying their genesis is a great deal harder. There is seriously no good goddam reason why Batman wears a bat costume and fights crime when A) he could be wearing street clothes and a mundane disguise, and B) he could be focusing his wealth and power on just building a safer Gotham.

I mean, Peter Parker invents a instant-setting, eco-friendly projectile-ready polymer in his bedroom and instead of selling it and setting up Aunt May and himself for life he fights crime incognito wearing a spider costume.*

Saying, "Superheroes exist, and you're one," is an absolutely fundamental supers game premise, but if you start the game with a bunch of folks down at the local community college or Denny's or whatever and empower them and there's no history of superheroism, chances are first thoughts aren't, "I should don distinctive spandex and fight crime," but, "Holy shit, how do I cash in on this?" and then, "How long until this kills me?"

The mental gymnastics only work when there's a gym to begin with.
_________________________
* A red and blue spider costume. The fuck, Parker? Have you ever even seen a spider?

[hogarth]

One of the big advantages of playing a table top supers game is that you get to mix and match NPCs from Marvel and DC without worrying about licensing bullshit.

I've played in many, many superhero games, but never one that did this. Is this really something people are into?

With regards to the original post, the "first heroes in the world" idea has some appeal to it (cf. Watchmen, Aberrant RPG, the TV show Heroes, the movie Kick-Ass), and I've considered running a campaign like that. But in general, I prefer a campaign setting where you have enemies with a lot of history and "mythology" instead of having every new villain start out as a blank slate.

[Username17]

One of the big advantages of playing a table top supers game is that you get to mix and match NPCs from Marvel and DC without worrying about licensing bullshit.

I've played in many, many superhero games, but never one that did this. Is this really something people are into?

Generally the setting I see used in any Supers game is "you are new characters that you write yourselves, some of your antagonists are new characters written by you or the MC, lots of NPCs are taken from various comic book sources".

When you're playing a hero, it simply means more to beat Brainiac than it does to beat Mechanon. When you're playing a villain, it simply means more to beat Iron Man than it does to beat Defender.

I can't recall ever having played in or heard about a game that actually used VIPER instead of repainting it as HYDRA.

-Username17

[virgil]

One of the big advantages of playing a table top supers game is that you get to mix and match NPCs from Marvel and DC without worrying about licensing bullshit.

I've played in many, many superhero games, but never one that did this. Is this really something people are into?

Generally the setting I see used in any Supers game is "you are new characters that you write yourselves, some of your antagonists are new characters written by you or the MC, lots of NPCs are taken from various comic book sources".

When you're playing a hero, it simply means more to beat Brainiac than it does to beat Mechanon. When you're playing a villain, it simply means more to beat Iron Man than it does to beat Defender.

I can't recall ever having played in or heard about a game that actually used VIPER instead of repainting it as HYDRA.

Every Supers game I've run or seen has never used Marvel/DC characters; lots of stuff like Mechanon. Wait, sorry; the most recent campaign I ran had a PC alicorn princess that crossed dimensions from the My Little Pony universe.

[Chamomile]

The only reason I can see not to use established heroes and villains is if you want to give your setting a distinctly different feel and style from the Marvel or DC universes (inFamous is a pretty good example of a super hero story that chucks all the usual super hero tropes, and where Iron Man would not fit in). If you're going to be doing the standard heroes and villains schtick anyway, there's no reason not to use HYDRA and the Joker.

Getting the hero/villain setup started is more difficult. Usually it's easier to swallow if you put it someplace close to a century in the past.

[Josh_Kablack]

Every Supers game I've been part of was either:

A> An import into the marvel/DC verse, using the licensed-at-the-time system for such a thing

B> A massive collaborative exercise in shared worldbuilding. When each of the players concepts out a couple of the villains, then they end up a whole lot more invested in the game, and more amenable to losing some scenes against those villains.

[K]

I think there is some amount of mental gymnastics that allows for (some) supers.

Batman gets to go around beating up violent psychos to get his rocks off because the police of Gotham are so inept that it would be hilarious, if not for the fact that a crazy guy in a bat costume is the average gothamite's only defense against another crazy guy in clown makeup. The fact that Batman only beats up criminals means the military doesn't much care either. Hell, you could almost make a case that Gotham is so dystopian that Congress held a special vote to make it it's own sovereign city state so that America only has to care about it when crazy people from Gotham jump the fence.

Even if you assume that Gotham is corrupt, inpept, and distopian, it all falls apart when you realize that a single crime boss could kill Batman by simply loading up explosives on his next hyst and remotely detonating them. Killing a small number of mooks to kill a guy whose power is "slightly better fighter than other people who are good at fighting" is crazy easy in the real world.

I mean, Batman couldn't even survive the IRA.

Iron Man, at least in the movies, gets to do his thing because he beats up terrorists outside of the country, and if he's in the US, he is generally responding to an attack on his life and usually not killing anyone. Any legal issues can be handwaved because he's seriously that rich.

Iron Man is an Ayn Rand fantasy. Literally, the "Iron Man confronts Congress" from the first movie is a nearly shot-for-shot remake from an old version of Atlas Shrugged with Iron Man standing in for John Galt.

In the real world, Lockheed Martin is not allowed to kill terrorists and civilians just because they have the weapons and a shit-load of money (and they do have those, for the record).

The Avengers are a government sanctioned special forces squad managed by the ultimate intelligence agency.

No government is going to give autonomy to a bunch of people who are qualified only to kill things.

For example, the best sniper on the police force does not get to be the Chief of Police and decide policy or tactics.

Superman gets to go around doing his thing because... I don't know, people worship him, or something. Honestly, there is a finite number of supers for whom these mental gymnastics work. It's possible that Spider-Man is allowed to do his thing because the New York City police chief has a soft spot and so obstructs any concerted effort to bring him down through losing reports and "Sorry, Mayor, the guy's a freaky mutant, and it's not like we can just shoot him on sight"

There really is no point where Superman isn't outed as Clark Kent in like three minutes of his first television appearance.

After that he can still fight crime for a while because he's an alien sun god and no one can really stop him, but the whole superhero thing where he is allowed to have friends and a normal identity is long gone.

Eventually, he'll get lonely and be honey-trapped with some kryponite and then spend the rest of his days in a kryptonite cell.

------------------------------

Superhero stories unravel really quickly when you try to apply logic. You have to accept a culture that doesn't even question the morality or practicality of letting untrained and unaccountable vigilantes roam the streets and do whatever they want.

I mean, the instant you even start to consider the Federal disaster relief funds being used every time the Hulk takes off his shirt, the genre falls apart into incoherence.

[Schleiermacher]

Most of that is completely true, but so the fuck what?

That's why it is a genre, because it's primarily ruled by its own idiosyncratic internal logic. Other than that it's just cheap sci-fi. (or thriller, I guess, for some characters/stories.)

[K]

Most of that is completely true, but so the fuck what?

That's why it is a genre, because it's primarily ruled by its own idiosyncratic internal logic. Other than that it's just cheap sci-fi. (or thriller, I guess, for some characters/stories.)

The fantastic elements of a super-hero story are a package deal.

This means that you can't make a "Supers RPG" if you fuck with any of them because it won't feel like to a superhero story to people any more. The crowd that comes to the table for a Supers game won't be happy to get a bait-and-switch to a sci-fi game.

[Neurosis]

Stupid idea that just came to me: one of the problems with any established supers game, like those based on actual comics or Mutants & Masterminds or whatever, is that they drop the PCs as one more group of heroes in a 'verse already populated by supers, some of whom are established as Batman/Superman level big-shots and heavy hitters.

Fuck that sideways.

Why not start a game where the PCs are the first superheroes? Let them define themselves - why they chose to hero around, what their costumes look like (if they have costumes), their origin stories can be whatever they want - and then you work from that. If one guy at the table has a story involving aliens, those guys might be one of the Big Bads in the campaign. One guy got his powers from a government super soldier experiment? He's not the only one. You let them set up the playing field, and then you role with it.

I like the idea because it makes the campaign very personal for the players, and at the same time it produces a really nice progression - if the PCs are the first costumed heroes, then maybe they do start out dealing with muggers and bank robbers. Maybe Dark Knight Returns and Watchman style they inspire criminals to costume up and take to the streets. As the only supers, they become important enough that evil geniuses will specifically target them as "the only ones that can foil my plans!"

And it creates a nice tension for a long campaign, the PCs knowing that they're the first, the most visible, the most experienced heroes - it builds confidence, because their level sets the tone of the campaign. It's a world where they're the heroes, and people watch them fly by and wonder, not vice versa.

I need to curl up into a fetal ball and sleep now.

Whoa. I'm currently running a Hero 5E campaign that is EXACTLY this. It started in January of this year and is currently in hiatus due to missing players.

For what it's worth, this is actually one of the stock approaches SUGGESTED in some of the core Champions 5E books.

[hyzmarca]

Superman gets to go around doing his thing because... I don't know, people worship him, or something. Honestly, there is a finite number of supers for whom these mental gymnastics work.

Superman gets to go around doing his thing because he's Superman. Be could literally smash all of Earth's armies in a couple of seconds. And that's if he was deliberately being slow. It's the Anthony Freemont problem. If someone with godlike powers exists in real life it doesn't matter what he does. You just try to stay out of his way and avoid pissing him off, because he can always do worse and it is absolutely impossible for you to stop him.

There really is no point where Superman isn't outed as Clark Kent in like three minutes of his first television appearance.

After that he can still fight crime for a while because he's an alien sun god and no one can really stop him, but the whole superhero thing where he is allowed to have friends and a normal identity is long gone.

Eventually, he'll get lonely and be honey-trapped with some kryponite and then spend the rest of his days in a kryptonite cell.

While he'd certainly be outed as Clark Kent, it's fairly easy for him to get people to pretend that they don't know. Just as everyone in Peaksville Ohio pretends that everything Anthony does is good.

I believe in one Justice League episode Clark explained that he'd go insane if he had to be Superman all the time and didn't he didn't have his normal life as a stress-relief valve.
You do not want an insane Superman with no acceptable stress relief; that way lies Irredemable. So you pretend to not know and keep up the Charade as much as possible.

And since he can adapt to Kryptonite over time, you don't try to capture him. Even if you succeed he will eventually break out and then you're screwed.

[hogarth]

The fantastic elements of a super-hero story are a package deal.

This means that you can't make a "Supers RPG" if you fuck with any of them because it won't feel like to a superhero story to people any more.

Isn't that just a "no true Scotsman" assertion?

I daresay that if you ran a superhero story in the Kick-Ass universe, it would work just fine, but it sounds like you're saying that's not a real superhero story.

[Wiseman]

I think there is some amount of mental gymnastics that allows for (some) supers.

Batman gets to go around beating up violent psychos to get his rocks off because the police of Gotham are so inept that it would be hilarious, if not for the fact that a crazy guy in a bat costume is the average gothamite's only defense against another crazy guy in clown makeup. The fact that Batman only beats up criminals means the military doesn't much care either. Hell, you could almost make a case that Gotham is so dystopian that Congress held a special vote to make it it's own sovereign city state so that America only has to care about it when crazy people from Gotham jump the fence.

Even if you assume that Gotham is corrupt, inpept, and distopian, it all falls apart when you realize that a single crime boss could kill Batman by simply loading up explosives on his next hyst and remotely detonating them. Killing a small number of mooks to kill a guy whose power is "slightly better fighter than other people who are good at fighting" is crazy easy in the real world.

I mean, Batman couldn't even survive the IRA.

Iron Man, at least in the movies, gets to do his thing because he beats up terrorists outside of the country, and if he's in the US, he is generally responding to an attack on his life and usually not killing anyone. Any legal issues can be handwaved because he's seriously that rich.

Iron Man is an Ayn Rand fantasy. Literally, the "Iron Man confronts Congress" from the first movie is a nearly shot-for-shot remake from an old version of Atlas Shrugged with Iron Man standing in for John Galt.

In the real world, Lockheed Martin is not allowed to kill terrorists and civilians just because they have the weapons and a shit-load of money (and they do have those, for the record).

The Avengers are a government sanctioned special forces squad managed by the ultimate intelligence agency.

No government is going to give autonomy to a bunch of people who are qualified only to kill things.

For example, the best sniper on the police force does not get to be the Chief of Police and decide policy or tactics.

Superman gets to go around doing his thing because... I don't know, people worship him, or something. Honestly, there is a finite number of supers for whom these mental gymnastics work. It's possible that Spider-Man is allowed to do his thing because the New York City police chief has a soft spot and so obstructs any concerted effort to bring him down through losing reports and "Sorry, Mayor, the guy's a freaky mutant, and it's not like we can just shoot him on sight"

There really is no point where Superman isn't outed as Clark Kent in like three minutes of his first television appearance.

After that he can still fight crime for a while because he's an alien sun god and no one can really stop him, but the whole superhero thing where he is allowed to have friends and a normal identity is long gone.

Eventually, he'll get lonely and be honey-trapped with some kryponite and then spend the rest of his days in a kryptonite cell.

------------------------------

Superhero stories unravel really quickly when you try to apply logic. You have to accept a culture that doesn't even question the morality or practicality of letting untrained and unaccountable vigilantes roam the streets and do whatever they want.

I mean, the instant you even start to consider the Federal disaster relief funds being used every time the Hulk takes off his shirt, the genre falls apart into incoherence.

I don't think the original post was even about applying real world rules to supers. Just about everything from comic books falls apart once you apply real life to it. I mean the presence of Thor alone would cause massive religious wars. What's your point?

And as to the thing about established settings, at some point there had to be someone who first decided. "Powers? Sweet! Superhero time!"

[wotmaniac]

Secondly, you have the storytelling elements wrong here because one's actions are not cheapened by the potential actions of others. Batman's story and accomplishments are not cheapened by the fact that Superman exists and could have done them easier.

I think that there are those that would differ with you on this.

(sorry -- it's late, and I'm in a bit of a silly mood)

[Neurosis]

I don't think the original post was even about applying real world rules to supers.

My game setting is all about doing this, albeit selectively.

[Wiseman]

I don't think the original post was even about applying real world rules to supers.

My game setting is all about doing this, albeit selectively.

How so?