So if you allow killing in your superhero games, and the characters aren't law enforcement officers, how do you deal with the fact that murder is a crime?  Or is it OK when they do it because everybody knows they're the good guys?

I ask because 40 years ago when John M. Ford wrote a spaceport module for Traveler, he got a LOT of shit from gamers for suggesting that if the authorities were in a firefight with miscreants, if the PCs grabbed their blasters and waded on in, the authorities might assume they were part of the bad guys.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1025888So if you allow killing in your superhero games, and the characters aren't law enforcement officers, how do you deal with the fact that murder is a crime?  Or is it OK when they do it because everybody knows they're the good guys?

I ask because 40 years ago when John M. Ford wrote a spaceport module for Traveler, he got a LOT of shit from gamers for suggesting that if the authorities were in a firefight with miscreants, if the PCs grabbed their blasters and waded on in, the authorities might assume they were part of the bad guys.

I have the cops chase/shoot at the PCs in my supers game for much lesser infractions than murder. But when they do remove an NPC from the setting (my favourite euphemism for murdering a baddie they can't stand) it's usually heavily premeditated and they rarely leave much evidence behind.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1025888So if you allow killing in your superhero games, and the characters aren't law enforcement officers, how do you deal with the fact that murder is a crime?  Or is it OK when they do it because everybody knows they're the good guys?

Given my usual campaigns, mentioned above:

A) Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

B) War makes evil men of us all.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1025888So if you allow killing in your superhero games, and the characters aren't law enforcement officers, how do you deal with the fact that murder is a crime?  Or is it OK when they do it because everybody knows they're the good guys?

Hasn't that been something of a common trope in the comics? That the law considers Batman/Spiderman/Whoever-man to be a bad guy vigilante? The 'hero' walks a fine line... and many villains thought they were on the side of justice.
I'd assumed it was part of the reason for keeping a secret identity... in addition to hiding from the bad guys.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1025871The FASERIP system was created and existed before the Iron Age of comics took over Marvel. It was very much a Bronze Age game that enforced Bronze Age sensibilities. That's the reason why that game punished so harshly for killing. Because it was outside of the boundries Marvel had previously existed in.

It also is why the game itself had problems when they started importing Iron Age characters via later supplements. They just didn't fit within the paradigm of the game.

The Bronze Age of comics came AFTER the Iron Age.  It was a reflex on dialing back on the constant ultra-violent revenge porn that was being shot out, it takes Iron Age seriousness and tries to apply a Silver Age's sense of fun and responsibility to frame it.  When done well, it can be thought provoking, or can just be fun, but not as silly as some of the stuff in the Silver Age was.

The first 'Edition' of the FASERIP system came out in 84, the Advanced Version came out in 86.  Both the Punisher and Watchmen, two of the biggest influences of the 80's Iron Age era, came out in 86.  They could have implemented a system for those types a heroes, if interested, but instead stuck with the Silver Age of storytelling.  Which again, is perfectly fine.  The real problem with the Karma System was in it's awards, you could ignore crimes if you did charities for example.  It actually harmed those who would be superheroes, by knocking off points for property damage that did not involve innocents.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1025888So if you allow killing in your superhero games, and the characters aren't law enforcement officers, how do you deal with the fact that murder is a crime?  Or is it OK when they do it because everybody knows they're the good guys?

Since when is being a Superhero been 'OK'?  As pointed out, Spiderman and Batman, who since the Silver Age, and even through the Iron Age did NOT kill, were still shot at by police, both legit and corrupt.  Killing is a personal thing, it will affect anyone.  But some times, when you look at all the variables you can and only one solution proves to be the best option at the time, do you let the Joker gas thousands of people to die a horrible death?  Or do you break his neck and end him and his threat?  Sometimes, that's all you have.  And that's what you have to deal with.  It's not going to be easy, or 'fun' for the character, but for the player that sort of moral dilemma helps shape their hero.

It's not for everyone, but it's a style of play I can respect.  Just like I can respect those who prefer the four colour Silver Age style of the 50-60 and 70's.  Or Golden Age or Bronze or whatever.

I don't care for it, myself, for a few reasons.

1) It just seems contrary to the genre for me. The thing about superheroes is that they show the constraint not to use their powers to that extreme. That there is a line they will not cross. That's the balance against them having all these amazing powers which can easily be abused.

2) From a gaming perspective, it falls into the same problem as ongoing comics. If you kill a major villain, then you need to replace them with a new one. Unlike a lot of the Golden Age, heroes now don't just fight random, generic gangsters. All their villains are expected to be unique and colorful and have original abilities and origins. Building a good and memorable rogues gallery can be hard enough in and of itself. If you let them die, then you have to keep making new ones over and over. That's almost impossible to do, unless your campaign is one which has a definitive beginning, middle, and end and will only take place along that one story arc, with the expectation that there will be deaths and you don't plan on replacing them.

3) Also from a gaming perspective, however, is the competitive nature between GMs and players. Players, including myself, want to win. GMs want to keep the main villains around to keep being threats, especially if they are major arch-villains behind the overreaching plots. If the players aren't given decent opportunities to defeat the villains, even lesser ones working for the main villain, because they keep escaping somehow, it can lead to some resentment in not having any sense of closure or victory throughout large portions of the campaign. This can lead to the danger of the players getting sick of being robbed of what they feel is victory or progress and deciding to finish off the villains before they can escape again. This isn't an issue with comics, since the heroes react as the writer/GM wants, but ina  dynamic game, there is effectively more than  one writer, and they all have to be satisfied with the result.

I see your Spiderman and Batman and raise you Superman.

And if Superman kills, hail our Kryptonian overlord.  Cuz Earth is fucked.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1025932The Bronze Age of comics came AFTER the Iron Age.

the Bronze age of comics is considered to be from 1970 - 1985. The Iron Age supposedly started in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1025932The Bronze Age of comics came AFTER the Iron Age.

You've got your ages confused. It's Gold, then Silver, then Bronze, then Iron/Modern. The Bronze Age scaled back the silly extremes of the Silver Age, both in terms of power and absurd plots. Real issues like racism, drugs, abuse, and poverty were addressed, and death happened. But unlike the anti-heroic Iron Age, killing was rare, and genuine heroism was still the dominant theme. O'Neil and Adams' run where socially-conscious Green Arrow brought Green Lantern down to earth by showing him problems like poverty, or Claremont's Dark Phoenix storyline in X-Men, are both classic Bronze Age. It's a good compromise between the absurd abstraction of the Silver Age, and the anti-heroic pessimism of the Iron Age.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1025932The first 'Edition' of the FASERIP system came out in 84, the Advanced Version came out in 86.  Both the Punisher and Watchmen, two of the biggest influences of the 80's Iron Age era, came out in 86.  They could have implemented a system for those types a heroes, if interested, but instead stuck with the Silver Age of storytelling.

Wikipedia seems to think the Bronze Age ended in 1985, but the effects of Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, and Crisis on Infinite Earth took a while to kick in. While the game appeared at the end of the Age, MSH is almost 100% Bronze. Anti-heroes like Wolverine and Punisher existed, but they weren't the norm. You could make killing attacks (hack & slash, shooting, etc.), but heroes lost all their Karma if they killed anyone, and even villains were mechanically discouraged from murder.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1025949I see your Spiderman and Batman and raise you Superman.

And if Superman kills, hail our Kryptonian overlord.  Cuz Earth is fucked.

Mark Wade's Irredeemable runs with that concept. The Plutonian is a Superman-analog who snaps. It's got a bit too much murder and weird sex, but it's a decent series that keeps adding new twists until the end (10 graphic novels, however many issues).

Quote from: The Black Ferret;10259351) It just seems contrary to the genre for me. The thing about superheroes is that they show the constraint not to use their powers to that extreme.

How much of that restraint comes from the heavy-handed censorship of The Comics Code enacted in 1954? There was a time when Batman carried a gun and regularly killed his adversaries. The old serial version of Captain Marvel has the hero machine gunning fleeing thugs and throwing another one off a roof.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1025888So if you allow killing in your superhero games, and the characters aren't law enforcement officers, how do you deal with the fact that murder is a crime?  Or is it OK when they do it because everybody knows they're the good guys?

I ask because 40 years ago when John M. Ford wrote a spaceport module for Traveler, he got a LOT of shit from gamers for suggesting that if the authorities were in a firefight with miscreants, if the PCs grabbed their blasters and waded on in, the authorities might assume they were part of the bad guys.

Shoot 'em all and let ghu sort it out!

Quote from: Simlasa;1025970How much of that restraint comes from the heavy-handed censorship of The Comics Code enacted in 1954? There was a time when Batman carried a gun and regularly killed his adversaries. The old serial version of Captain Marvel has the hero machine gunning fleeing thugs and throwing another one off a roof.

Does it matter? It came into existence in 1954, so very few people remember those years. Nearly everyone's idea of how super hero comic books work was defined by the Code.

Quote from: Pat;1025982Does it matter? It came into existence in 1954, so very few people remember those years. Nearly everyone's idea of how super hero comic books work was defined by the Code.

History matters, yeah. The Comics Code had a blandifying effect across the board. Also, plenty of people like to go back and read the original tales of their favorite heroes.
My point is that there's nothing about the 'not-killing' rule that's sacrosanct, we who would like less cartoon violence with our supers are not changing the 'genre', are not trying to take it someplace it's never been (not that anyone was overtly claiming that...).

Quote from: urbwar;1025955the Bronze age of comics is considered to be from 1970 - 1985. The Iron Age supposedly started in 1985 with Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Quote from: Pat;1025956You've got your ages confused. It's Gold, then Silver, then Bronze, then Iron/Modern. The Bronze Age scaled back the silly extremes of the Silver Age, both in terms of power and absurd plots. Real issues like racism, drugs, abuse, and poverty were addressed, and death happened. But unlike the anti-heroic Iron Age, killing was rare, and genuine heroism was still the dominant theme. O'Neil and Adams' run where socially-conscious Green Arrow brought Green Lantern down to earth by showing him problems like poverty, or Claremont's Dark Phoenix storyline in X-Men, are both classic Bronze Age. It's a good compromise between the absurd abstraction of the Silver Age, and the anti-heroic pessimism of the Iron Age.

So what I'm getting is the Iron Age never actually ended then.  Which seems odd to me (again, just me) because until at least 81 if not later until it's disbandment in 2001, the Comics Code was still plastered firmly on most comic covers, also Busiek's Astro City that came out in '95 was a serious step back from the blood and guts violence that lead to the introduction of Cable and Deadpool.  There's a lot of comics that just aren't Iron Age anymore, they've got some modern sensibilities, but they're lighter, more about the fun that the Silver Age.  Atomic Robo being one that comes to mind.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1026043So what I'm getting is the Iron Age never actually ended then.  Which seems odd to me (again, just me) because until at least 81 if not later until it's disbandment in 2001, the Comics Code was still plastered firmly on most comic covers, also Busiek's Astro City that came out in '95 was a serious step back from the blood and guts violence that lead to the introduction of Cable and Deadpool.  There's a lot of comics that just aren't Iron Age anymore, they've got some modern sensibilities, but they're lighter, more about the fun that the Silver Age.  Atomic Robo being one that comes to mind.

Ages are just tendencies, so there will always be exceptions. Ages also tend to be defined by milestones, and much as I love Astro City, it's nowhere near as influential as Superman appearing in Action Comics #1, Flash reappearing in Showcase #4, or Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, and Crisis on Infinite Earths. The problem with the Modern Age is while a lot of people think we may be in a new age, there's no defining event everyone can agree on that signaled the start of it, and they're struggling to describe its characteristics. That's also why the term Iron Age is less in vogue, because it's no longer as good a description as it was in the 1990s.

It's worth noting that ages are often retroactively defined -- the term "Bronze Age" didn't appear until 1995, and that was a similar gradual transition. Ten or twenty years from now, there's a good chance 2018 will be considered a different age from 1995. But right now there's no consensus.