Quote from: tenbones;935024I suspect the issue here is that many folks have less "experience" with comics than other genres?

I think that's probably the main issue, here. Comic books and/or superheroes take in so many different styles and subgenres that without further clarification, it's a useless generalization. A friend wants to run a superhero game? That essentially tells me nothing. Are we going to be doing a Heroes for Hire thing, where we basically do a 70's style blaxploitation/kung fu movie with street-level superpowers? Are we going to be the Justice League? Are we going to be the Suicide Squad? All comic book superheroes, all very different.

One has to be into comic books enough to have a grasp of how much territory that really covers, so that one can be aware of what one's options are. Then one can pick and choose and narrow down what one actually wants to do from there. And if all one has to work with is "I read the Invisibles and some Spider-Man comics one time," then one just isn't there yet.

I could totally run a superhero game where everyone make a colorfully psychotic gangster, and then we plan to rob a bank. (I'd call it The Gotham Job.)
 
Or I could run a superhero game where gritty, hard-boiled street-level crimefighters team up to take down a ninja clan.

I could also run a superhero game where we all make square-jawed do-gooders in capes and bright primary-colored tights, and foil comical bank robberies by chucking Hostess Fruit Pies at the ne'er-do-wells.

All of those are superhero games, all of those would be fun if you could find some players who were willing to buy-in, but they're completely different from one another. None of them are doing it wrong.

And there just isn't a system that's going to do the cognitive heavy lifting for you, there. You either bring your own genre awareness, or go do something else.

(Or, I suppose you could just start reading comic books you like until you find a style you want to emulate.)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;934970I've had a lot of fun playing CHAMPIONS but it's a difficult genre, I'll admit.

I like the concept of the Champions/Hero system. We just got done with a high-powered space opera campaign using it. I think the biggest problem I had with it was that it ended up with 4-5 'obvious best' powers (let's say blast, entangle, flash, and mind-control) and then just varied the defenses used ("okay, optic ray--it's a normal blast power, but this time you defend against it using your flash defense stat instead of energy defense stat").

Quote from: Barghest;935148I think that's probably the main issue, here. Comic books and/or superheroes take in so many different styles and subgenres that without further clarification, it's a useless generalization. A friend wants to run a superhero game? That essentially tells me nothing. Are we going to be doing a Heroes for Hire thing, where we basically do a 70's style blaxploitation/kung fu movie with street-level superpowers? Are we going to be the Justice League? Are we going to be the Suicide Squad? All comic book superheroes, all very different.

One has to be into comic books enough to have a grasp of how much territory that really covers, so that one can be aware of what one's options are. Then one can pick and choose and narrow down what one actually wants to do from there. And if all one has to work with is "I read the Invisibles and some Spider-Man comics one time," then one just isn't there yet.

Exactly. It's like talking about "fantasy as a genre" and presuming it's all just like Dragonlance novels. Comics happens to be one of the things that I've done longer than RPG's including having worked in the industry, plus I own about 30k comics not counting TPB's, so it comes really easy to me. I can see how others approach it without having that benefit and it can seem overwhelming.

Hell I can't even get near Warhammer because of that same effect. There's so much lore and assumptions I'm totally blind to - I literally don't even know where to start, so much so I have little interest in doing it myself. (someone hold my hand pwease?) So I can understand how nuts it might seem - given most comic continuities are vastly more Byzantine than nearly any other shared world continuity in existence. And I'm being fairly serious. Following the story of /pick a random Marvel/DC comic hero - makes following the history of a WWE wrestler's storyline look like a recipe for making ice-cubes.

Quote from: Barghest;935148I could totally run a superhero game where everyone make a colorfully psychotic gangster, and then we plan to rob a bank. (I'd call it The Gotham Job.)
 
Or I could run a superhero game where gritty, hard-boiled street-level crimefighters team up to take down a ninja clan.

I could also run a superhero game where we all make square-jawed do-gooders in capes and bright primary-colored tights, and foil comical bank robberies by chucking Hostess Fruit Pies at the ne'er-do-wells.

All of those are superhero games, all of those would be fun if you could find some players who were willing to buy-in, but they're completely different from one another. None of them are doing it wrong.

And there just isn't a system that's going to do the cognitive heavy lifting for you, there. You either bring your own genre awareness, or go do something else.

(Or, I suppose you could just start reading comic books you like until you find a style you want to emulate.)

Yeah, I'd agree with all of this. To be honest approaching Marvel/DC in order to run a super-hero game for the relatively uninitiated is a bad idea. IF I were going to - I'd pick a self-contained alternate reality from Marvel/DC or I'd make one up whole of cloth. I pretty much do that anyhow in my FASERIP games. I've even got plans to use Space Ghost and the Hanna Barbara cartoon characters in my next game (Herculoids, Might-Tor, Biiiiirdmaaan! Kazaam! etc.) as their own space-superhero team to interact with a Marvel/DC space-hybrid game.

Quote from: tenbones;935255I've even got plans to use Space Ghost and the Hanna Barbara cartoon characters in my next game (Herculoids, Might-Tor, Biiiiirdmaaan! Kazaam! etc.) as their own space-superhero team to interact with a Marvel/DC space-hybrid game.

That sounds really excellent to me... those old Hanna Barbara shows are full of potential and have barely any baggage (canon) compared to Marvel/DC heroes. Herculoids is a particular favorite and a font of weird villains who show up for one episode and then disappear.

Quote from: Simlasa;935270That sounds really excellent to me... those old Hanna Barbara shows are full of potential and have barely any baggage (canon) compared to Marvel/DC heroes. Herculoids is a particular favorite and a font of weird villains who show up for one episode and then disappear.

Exactly! And I actually did a glanceover as to what these characters could pull off - and they easily fall in the Marvel-scale of power. Granted some had silly redundant powers, Space Ghost comes out as quite a power-house, Might-Tor does as well; he's like Baby-Thor. Herculoids all can be nicely statted-out.

build up some infrastructure around them and hurl them into a galactic space-opera in Marvel/DC and you got instant campaign. Or hell - just play within their own universe and sprinkle what you want from wherever.

The key to success is careful management of expectations.  So talk to your players to make sure everybody's expectations for 'a superhero game' are compatible.

Jesus H. Murphy, it's not difficult.

Now somebody get me a beer.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;935067I 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 key to success is careful management of expectations.  So talk to your players to make sure everybody's expectations for 'a superhero game' are compatible.

Now somebody get me a beer.

Quote from: tenbones;935286Herculoids all can be nicely statted-out.

Here are some of them, for AD&D.

For those of you unhappy with Supers RPGs, what does your favorite RPGs do right in their genres that you don't find done right in comparison for Supers?

And somebody should start a FASERIP thread where we can talk about the original game and the clones.  

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935022Honest to Crom, 90% of these discussions boil down to "Games I don't like suck!"

But, but, but games I don't like do suck!!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935022I 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?"

Wimp.

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.

What are the big differences between Mystery Men, Guardians and Sentinels of Echo City?

Any particularly worth a read over the others?

Do they have free PDFs?

Quote from: Barghest;935148(Or, I suppose you could just start reading comic books you like until you find a style you want to emulate.)

The noob is making crazy talk!!

:eek:

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;935305The key to success is careful management of expectations.  So talk to your players to make sure everybody's expectations for 'a superhero game' are compatible.

As GM, I dictate what kind of game I'm offering to run. If I say to a player: "I want to run a bronze age style street-level supers game taking cues from the Roger Stern era" or "I want to run a Silver Age horror-supers crossover in the Marv Wolfman tradition",and they don't immediately know what I mean, then they aren't going to be a good fit. Which is fine, I wouldn't want to run a Star Trek game for someone who had never seen the show, or a western game for someone unfamiliar with the associated films. But I'm not going to base it on player expectations, that would be as haphazard as saying "I want to run a science fiction game", and then have a roundtable discussion while one person references Star Wars, the next X-Files, another Robotech, and another The Outer Limits. Unless one is going for gonzo, it would be unmanageable to accommodate.

Quote from: Spinachcat;935314And somebody should start a FASERIP thread where we can talk about the original game and the clones.  

God, I would drone on for AGES...

Here's an idea for an improvement.

Everyone knows that the best part of every superhero story is the origin myth. If you disagree with this, you have no soul and don't understand basic truths about humanity.

In the games, the origin myth is pretty much always in the past: you start play knowing your character's powers, so all you have in front of you is the boring part - flying around and fucking up all the lame people who can't keep up with your amazing skillzzzzz.

So, how about a game where you start as a normal and have no real control over what powers you might or might not get. It's totally an open question as to whether you have a super power, or will ever get one. The character doesn't know, and, more importantly, neither does the player. And if it turns out that you gain a special power, maybe you don't have any idea what limits it has. Or how it will change. Or how it stacks up against other forces of nature and superherodom.

That's a superhero game I'd be stoked to play.

Quote from: Larsdangly;935318Everyone knows that the best part of every superhero story is the origin myth. If you disagree with this, you have no soul and don't understand basic truths about humanity.

i'll accept my lack of soul, and state that I could go the rest of my life without seeing or reading another damn origin story.

We all know Batman's Origin Story, and Batman just isn't the same without it.  It is the source of his character, and his response to that old tragedy and how it drives him, is the new tragedy he lives every day.  You can say the same about a lot of Supers.  Their Origin Story is what gives them their humanity despite their superhuman abilities.  It gives them their emotional resonance, even if the Story is that they don't remember it.

The problem is, Batman didn't go away, and 100 years after his first appearance, we'll still be seeing movies with slow-motion shots of his dying mother's pearls hitting the filthy stone of a dark alleyway.

Origin Stories are shit mainly because it's the same goddamn characters with the exact same stories being rewarmed, stirred and shoved down our throats year after year, it's like Thanksgiving in Hell where there is no original meal, only past-date leftovers.

Origin stories are often key, and kinda neglected in many RPGs.

I could definitely see playing a Zero Level Funnel in a Supers RPG.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;935316God, I would drone on for AGES...

Make it happen!!