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Author Topic: So I Think I'm Going To Design a Superhero Rpg  (Read 848 times)

David Johansen

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So I Think I'm Going To Design a Superhero Rpg
« on: April 15, 2008, 12:41:25 AM »
Well, I was all fired up to do some GURPS Supers 4e and then I made a character.  He's an interesting enough chap but the disconnect between Strength, Innate Attacks, and Damage Resistance makes my eyes bleed.  I still like GURPS but it still is a horrible mess when it comes to super strength.

So anyhow, here's an overveiw of what I'm thinking:

Stats and Skills are rated from 1-10 for humans but with ratings up to 30 being supported.

Stats and skills are discrete artifacts that do not modify each other.

Stats in particular have fixed game mechanic roles they cover

Strength = Melee Damage
Endurance = Injury Threshold
Agility = Movement Rate
Reflexes = Initiative
Willpower = Social and Intellectual Threshold
Intelligence = Social and Intellectual Damage

anyhow, I'm still fiddling with what I want stats to do exactly but I want it to be very direct, clear, unambiguous, and separate from skills

2d6 + rating over target number
Contests are won by the high roll
Resisted actions use the targets rating as the target number

Unarmed Damage = 1d6 + Strength - 6 with every fourth point becoming an extra die.

Damage will be a straight forward low injury threshold with lots of hit points system.

Powers will be specific and levelable, that is to say you can have several levels of fire bolt but fire bolt and lightning bolt are completely separate rules entities.  There won't be any sort of power modifiers either.

However, the source and nature of powers will provide a cap on the level that can be assigned to a power and damage will often be related to the nature of the power rather than the level which will generally improve things like range and area of effect.
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David Johansen

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So I Think I'm Going To Design a Superhero Rpg
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2008, 12:42:35 AM »
Paragon (I was tempted to call him F4 or Phantom)

Stuart Roberts certainly never expected the life he wound up living. He was a clean cut, athletic boy with good grades in highschool, but he was never very popular. He was just too straight laced, honest, and determined to do the right thing. And little by little, doing the right thing made him more and more powerful.

When he ran into traffic after a little girl's dog, he was just fast enough to get away with it. When he put himself between a gang of bored students and a homeless man he walked away without a mark on his skin. And then, one day the Demonic Desolator attacked his school and there was Stuart standing in front of the monster trying to talk it down. Nobody was surprised when it backhanded him aside. Even Stuart was surprised when it broke its hand after which he proceeded to beat the fiend into submission. Before long he was flying.

Stuart wasn't from a religious family. He wasn't even sure he believed in God but he believed quite firmly that his new found powers obligated him to protect the weak and help the unfortunate. Donning a mask and calling himself The Hawk, he set out to fight evil and make the world a better place but the media soon gave him a new name: PARAGON.

Stuart has been fighting the good fight for twenty years now. His heroism is lauded by the media and he has the good will of the police, other heroes, and government. But once the mask comes off, Stuart Roberts life is quite different. Crime fighting ment missing classes and not having time to study so he never got an education. Employers let him go for being unreliable. His relationships inevitablely ended either when he told them why he missed so many dates or when he didn't. Digging into his own pockets to help people out has left him destitute. And so the mighty Paragon scrapes by on whatever part time jobs he can get, mostly in the fast food industry, but lately he's been working at a laundromat folding shirts.

Bit by bit his real life is effecting his heroic life and it may only be a matter of time before whatever force has empowers him deserts him for one more worthy.

PARAGON (Stuart Roberts)

ST 12 [20];
DX 10
  • ;

IQ 12 [40]; Per 10 [-10]; Will 12;
HT 12 [20];

Base Lift 34 / 106 / 2554
Basic Speed 6.75
Damage 12d / 14d

Higher Purpose [5];
Strength 10 (Super Effort +300%, Moral -20%) [380];
Damage Resistance 40 (Moral -20%, Tough Skin -40%) [80];
Damage Reduction 1/2 (Moral -20%) [40];
Flight (Moral -20%) [32];
Enhanced Flight Move 2 (Moral -20%) [32];
Attractive [4];
Police Contacts (Skill 15, Somewhat Reliable, 12-) [4];
Reputation +4 (pretty much everyone while he's Paragon, even the bad guys know they can trust him) [10];
Hard Fists [1];
Skin Tight [1];

Callous [-5];
Code of Honor (Silver Age Hero's) [-15];
Dependant (Nephew, 125 Points, 9-) [-20];
Enemies (He's been a superhero for 20 years) [-60];
Hide Bound [-5];
Honesty [-10];
Impulsive [-10];
Overconfident (doesn't realize his powers have started to fade) [-5];
Pascifism (Cannot Kill) [-15];
Secret Identity (Possible Death) [-30];
Poor [-15];

Neat Freak [-1];
Respects Lawns and Flowerbeds [-1];
Always Courteous [-1];
Takes the High Road [-1];
Attends a Variety of Churches Regularly [-1];

Area Knowledge (city) 12, IQ [1];
Area Knowledge (USA) 12 IQ [1];
Brawling 12 DX+2 [4];
Computer Operation 12 IQ [1];
Current Affairs (headline news) 12 IQ [1];
First Aid 12 IQ [1];
Housekeeping 12 IQ [1];
Intimidation 11 Will [1];
Savoire Faire 12 IQ [1];
Singing 12 HT [1];
Swimming 13 HT [1];
Foot Ball 11 DX+2 [2];
Theology 10 IQ [1];
History (American) 10 IQ [1];
Throwing 11 DX [4];
Gardening 12 IQ [1].


Notes
Anyhow, he's a flying brick as I said, but not one that's built for maximum efficiency though cashing in on the fat -20% Moral helps. I went with the idea that he's slowly becoming jaded and bitter as a result of his civilian life because I think it adds a layer of interest to what could easily be an annoyingly preachy character. Instead he's getting to the point where he sees a lot of other people's problems as being their own fault and its slowly erroding his powers.
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David Johansen

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So I Think I'm Going To Design a Superhero Rpg
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2008, 10:18:47 AM »
Of course, the main reason is that I have this Awesome setting I want to get back to, but I need a system.  I've had some offers to tie it to other people's games but, unfortunately one of the things I've decided is that I want to totally avoid an advantage / disadvantage type of points buy system and do something much more like V&V.  For this reason I'm afraid Fuzion, Savage Worlds, Sillouhette, JAGS, and several others are just not what I'm after.

Also, Galaxies in Shadow just isn't a good fit.  Believe me I've been trying, but at some point I have to confess that it just won't work.
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Pelorus

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So I Think I'm Going To Design a Superhero Rpg
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2008, 01:09:18 PM »
I wrote something like this for my 23rd Letter system though the human range was 1-9, low level supers 10-19 and cosmic supers 20-29....

As I already had psychic powers, bolting on superhuman abilities was really easy.

The whole system was then based around three levels...

Human / Basic Superhuman / Advanced Superhuman
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Rob Lang

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So I Think I'm Going To Design a Superhero Rpg
« Reply #4 on: April 17, 2008, 10:01:05 AM »
The only think I can think to add at this point is:

How does this supers game differ from other supers games? What will be its big selling points? Why not use another established system?

David Johansen

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So I Think I'm Going To Design a Superhero Rpg
« Reply #5 on: April 17, 2008, 10:40:05 AM »
Well it's going to be much more like Heroes Unlimited or Villains and Vigillanties in its execution.  Only cleaner and more direct.  Character creation will be quick and easy.

It will be very tactically oriented too.  And super stats will scale well unlike Savage Worlds, GURPS, and Heroes Unlimited.

Stat scaling is the reason Galaxies in Shadow will never work well for supers.

To the best of my knowledge there isn't a wargamey supers game with distinct powers out there.

It will be a points build game but not in the usual sense.  Even so, it's a project I'm thinking about down the line, not one that I'm in a hurry to finish today.

Don't get me wrong, if FUZION had delivered as promised or GURPS was open source or at least not downright hostile to liscencing I wouldn't be designing a game at all.
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