Quote from: Tristram Evans;935018You know, I was always partial to Mr. Jip. Nightmare just seems too far out of Dredd's league

I dunno. Look at the world (almost) destroying events that Judge Dredd has dealt with, even with Judge Death, who helped kill all life on at least one world. What's a little Nightmare next to that? Even if Nightmare is too much for Dredd, that's why it is a crossover with Dr Strange.

Quote from: AsenRG;934990Yes, and that's why I don't like games that try to adhere to the superhero genre. None of my players would be able to suspend disbelief if PCs and NPCs alike should be acting according to the canons of the superhero genre:D!

Then don't play the stupid game.

Honest to Crom, 90% of these discussions boil down to "Games I don't like suck!"  If somebody doesn't like four-color superhero comics, they're not going to like games about four-color superheroes. Why is that so fucking difficult?  I've lost count of the number of threads I've seen over the years that boil down to "I don't like X, why do games about X suck?"

I don't like horror as a genre.  I don't start threads about "why do horror games suck?"  I didn't like Roger Zelazny's "Amber" books, I'm not even going to bother looking at any game about it.

"I don't like this, why do games about this suck?" is such a stupid-ass question that people who ask it should be punched in the nutsack repeatedly until they get smarter.

I don't like green bell peppers, but I don't go to cooking forums and start threads like "Why do recipes for green bell peppers all suck?"

The conceits of the "super-hero" genre are *literally* what you make it. All the talk about the "politics" of having super-powers is *precisely* the same politics of being "high-level" in a fantasy-game or having a 100-ton mech in a cyberpunk-game.

When saying that in light of Marvel and DC in general, it misses the larger point of why those characters, like the Flash or Superman don't take over the world? Because it's not in their character to do so. This has been explored a bazillion times in the comics. There are times where Batman has actually had Superman's power and he raged against Superman because he finally realized how powerful Superman was and essentially didn't use his power to enforce order. But these are narratives of comics - not of RPG's. That's for the GM to decide. There are specific tones to DC and Marvel that are implicit to both settings - in DC, superheroes are trusted members of society (you pick which ones). In Marvel - there's a much more paranoid level of suspicion. In your RPG - you get to decide. It's really that easy. It's no different than asking yourself - "how would people react to a PC that suddenly could fly and went around helping people." Which breadcrumbs to the inevitable point of the character that arrives that does the exact opposite. Conflict ensues.

I suspect the issue here is that many folks have less "experience" with comics than other genres? I still don't think this should be an issue for RPG's. My players knew almost nothing about comics until I ran them through their first FASERIP game... and now it's probably their favorite game/system we've played for the last twenty-years. I would almost say it's our default. (which is shocking to me - as we're all die-hard D&D players)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935022Then don't play the stupid game.

Honest to Crom, 90% of these discussions boil down to "Games I don't like suck!"  If somebody doesn't like four-color superhero comics, they're not going to like games about four-color superheroes. Why is that so fucking difficult?  I've lost count of the number of threads I've seen over the years that boil down to "I don't like X, why do games about X suck?"

I don't like horror as a genre.  I don't start threads about "why do horror games suck?"  I didn't like Roger Zelazny's "Amber" books, I'm not even going to bother looking at any game about it.

"I don't like this, why do games about this suck?" is such a stupid-ass question that people who ask it should be punched in the nutsack repeatedly until they get smarter.

I don't like green bell peppers, but I don't go to cooking forums and start threads like "Why do recipes for green bell peppers all suck?"

I will personally wrap a D.O.N.G. Blackbelt around the stalk of your pee-hole for this brilliant post.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935022Then don't play the stupid game.

Honest to Crom, 90% of these discussions boil down to "Games I don't like suck!"  If somebody doesn't like four-color superhero comics, they're not going to like games about four-color superheroes. Why is that so fucking difficult?  I've lost count of the number of threads I've seen over the years that boil down to "I don't like X, why do games about X suck?"

I don't like horror as a genre.  I don't start threads about "why do horror games suck?"  I didn't like Roger Zelazny's "Amber" books, I'm not even going to bother looking at any game about it.

"I don't like this, why do games about this suck?" is such a stupid-ass question that people who ask it should be punched in the nutsack repeatedly until they get smarter.

I don't like green bell peppers, but I don't go to cooking forums and start threads like "Why do recipes for green bell peppers all suck?"

Then don't whine about people bitching about games they don't like?

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934974They aren't  "four-colour silver age American superheroes", but I thinks thats what you dont want.  Your observation that superhero systems try to be universal, is because superhero comics comprise every genre. Judge Dredd is obviously not the same genre as Doctor Strange who is not the same genre as Will Eisner's The Spirit who is not the same genre as Guardians of the Galaxy which is not the same genre as Swamp Thing,etc, etc. But its all superheroes.

It would be interesting to know what the OP wants.

Quote from: tenbones;935025I will personally wrap a D.O.N.G. Blackbelt around the stalk of your pee-hole for this brilliant post.

Why, thank you.  It will go quite nicely with the blue ribbon my wife placed there.

Guess we know who started the 'everyone get an award' phenomenon.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934974Yes, absolutely.

They aren't  "four-colour silver age American superheroes", but I thinks thats what you dont want.  Your observation that superhero systems try to be universal, is because superhero comics comprise every genre. Judge Dredd is obviously not the same genre as Doctor Strange who is not the same genre as Will Eisner's The Spirit who is not the same genre as Guardians of the Galaxy which is not the same genre as Swamp Thing,etc, etc. But its all superheroes.

Superhero  should really be a somewhat restricted category mainly golden through modern comics with costumed heroes and certain tropes in place. The Spirit is an edge case, it  was originally closer to costumed adventurer  pulp

Most modern comics are often  "powered people" as are things like Judge Dredd despite using some "Superhero" tropes, Heck the new Logan movie despite having superheros in it is post apocalypse with powered people.


Of course figuring out what exact tropes and how much of them qualify is a whole 'nother  ball of wax.


That said most games are doable if the GM and the players understand what the game is about, the rules are decent and well understood. Otherwise it will fail

A personal example, we  had a GM wanting to do the old (late 80's) Iron Man Armor Wars as a campaign using FASERIP , it failed since no one except him regularly read Iron Man , there were lots of inappropriate concepts and while everyone understood the comics of the era, not enough player buy in. Game went bye bye after a few sessions

I've had the same thing happen in a a friends  attempt to run Privateers and Gentlemen where no one had read anything about or understood anything about the Napoleonic  era and of the players I was the only one who understood anything about the sea or what a midshipman might do in that time . One lousy session is  all we got and back to D&D

This applies basically to everything and why you see little Temukmel for example. Its hard enough these days to get people to read  rules (we Internet era people live distracted lives) much less 30 pages on a profoundly alien culture, I have read all of the books and IIRC the novel Man of Gold and all you'd get from me is a polite No Thanks as I find the culture and background of only modest interest. Its high quality but Arab/Aztec and whatever else in in their is too foreign to my knowledge base or interest to make me a worthwhile player. Most players are worse than me with many not knowing anything or having the social graces to decline politely . Hell Harn which is full of Euro tropes is too much for most people.

That's why games on well understood franchises (Star Wars) or Tropes get played but less usual games don't.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935022Then don't play the stupid game.

You mean, like my own post upthread where I stated that I don't play four-colour superhero games because I don't like the genre:)?

What you quoted was my reply to a poster saying "all genres depend on suspension of disbelief, some genres make it easier". So, of course, I replied that the supers genre makes suspension of disbelief a very hard mental challenge for most people I know.
Or if you prefer, the genre itself isn't helping you to make a game about it, unless you default to narrative systems:p.

QuoteHonest to Crom, 90% of these discussions boil down to "Games I don't like suck!"

Putting it at only 90% is a bit overly optimistic, what's going to happen to your grognard credentials at this rate:D?

(Although I admit that it's true. Games I don't like, undeniably suck, because I didn't like them;)!)

QuoteI've lost count of the number of threads I've seen over the years that boil down to "I don't like X, why do games about X suck?"

I'm not sure the OP doesn't like superheroes, though. It seems like he likes some sub-genres of superheroes and not others, coupled with a preference for some kinds of systems and not others, and is now wondering why he has never met a combination of those that's to his liking;).

Quote from: 5 Stone Games;935056Superhero  should really be a somewhat restricted category mainly golden through modern comics with costumed heroes and certain tropes in place. The Spirit is an edge case, it  was originally closer to costumed adventurer  pulp

Most modern comics are often  "powered people" as are things like Judge Dredd despite using some "Superhero" tropes, Heck the new Logan movie despite having superheros in it is post apocalypse with powered people.

I think the important thing to understand is that "superhero" is a character archetype, not a genre. We can talk about the spandex set, but even then, very few fit into any narrow sort of definition in terms of the Four Colour crowd. Batman switches from pulp hero, to gothic detective, to action hero/gadgeteer, to sociopathic vigilante depending on the time period and/or needs of the story. The Fantastic Four are science adventurers  in true early 60s schlock tradition, as at home in the pages of Marvel Team up as they would be in a sequel to Disney's The Black Hole or remake of This Island Earth. The X-men rarely do anything in  the way of crimefighting, unless they happen to be visiting the pages of a crimefighting superhero's book, mainly getting into protracted fights with idealogues. Its basically "Martin Luthor King vs Malcolm X as played by the cast of Beverly Hills 90210". Hellboy has almost nothing to do with traditional four-colour superheroics, rather being a monster playing occult detective, or, more recently, "Milton's Paradise Lost meets Lovecraft with some Popeye thrown in". The range of characters that actually fit into the very narrow concept of "puts on costume, fights crime" is ultimately a small fraction of whats represented in Superhero comics, and one can't really draw an arbitrary line in the sand without excluding many major characters that pop culture associates with that term.

If one defines superheroes as wearing colourful costumes to hide their identity, that includes everyone from The Scarlet Pimpernel to The Phantom of the Paradise.
If one defines superheroes as having supernatural abilities, that excludes Batman, Daredevil, Green Arrow, and a host of others.
If one defines superheroes as devoting their lives to fighting crime, that excludes Excalibur, Dr. Strange, Swamp Thing, Silver Surfer, etc etc.

And so on. But if one simply takes "superhero" as a type of character, a "larger than life hero", one can see how the archetype can be applied to any genre, any time period, any location. The Matrix was basically Superman in a cyperpunk setting. Frank Herbert stated that Dune began with him wondering what the social repercussions would be of an actual Superman existing. There's a good reason that Hercules, Robin Hood,and a host of mythological characters show up in some form or another again and again in modern comics; they belong there as much as any contemporary hero, and most of the original Golden Age superheroes were thinly-veiled etsys of them to begin with.

Quote from: Simlasa;934995There's Mystery Men by the fine fellow who wrote Blood & Treasure, Bloody Basic, and Tales of the Space Princess.

There's also Sentinels of Echo City, based on Michael Desing's B/X style OSR game, Saga of the Splintered Realm.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;935095There's also Sentinels of Echo City, based on Michael Desing's B/X style OSR game, Saga of the Splintered Realm.

Also Guardians! Which is an OSR supers rpg.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935053Why, thank you.  It will go quite nicely with the blue ribbon my wife placed there.

That's only a reminder to take your Viagra.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;934972Well, I have Unknown Armies and Mage: The Ascension, but are they really superhero RPGs?

Not really, but they'd be decent simulation for an Invisibles game.

JG