Quote from: Sommerjon;934881Bitching that the story is decided by the story?

Full on dumb.

With infinite time, a monkey could eventually type out the works of Shakespeare.

Your posts? Same monkey, about 13 seconds.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934884MSH = FASERIP, MHR = Cortex-whatever.

Yeah, I got which one you mean, it just took me one more post.

Quote from: Sommerjon;934881Bitching that the story is decided by the story?

Full on dumb.

It isn't dumb at all.  If player choice is dictated by the needs of the story then players become spectators rather than participants.  This makes for bad gaming. IMO.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;20665423I think you're mistaken about that, but that's a topic for another thread.

It is indeed if you are talking about the real world.

But when talking about the settings of D&D worlds, he is undisputably right. In fact, I'd say that anyone who cannot assume the idea of a world with objective Good and objective Order is best advised to never play a Paladin, or a Cleric or Druid for that matter, in any game that features alignment mechanics.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934874most superhero comics.... Literally everything is decided by the needs of the story, so everything is fungible, which is a quality of the genre which makes for poor gaming unless you go something like the MHR route.

your words not mine shitstain

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934885With infinite time, a monkey could eventually type out the works of Shakespeare.

Your posts? Same monkey, about 13 seconds.

Not my fault your blathering got you so foaming at the mouth you made yourself stupid

Quote from: Madprofessor;934890It isn't dumb at all.  If player choice is dictated by the needs of the story then players become spectators rather than participants.  This makes for bad gaming. IMO.

Except Billy here was talking about..... wait for it, wait for it..... superhero comics.

People are, in varying degrees, arguing apples and oranges and mixing it with their own favorite recipe for beef-stew-as-gaming.

Superheroes settings have their own conceits and sub-genres that most people don't even recognize. Much like RPG's do. The issue is what are the conceits of your setting - *which* Marvel/DC universe are you talking about? The Pre-Crisis Earth where Superman can move planets and stupid shit like that? or the Byrne-era Post-Crisis Earth Superman that was completely de-powered? Is it the gritty street-level reality of Daredevil? Or the cosmic alien-invasion-averting capers of the Avengers? Yet according to comics, in general, they all exist simultaneously. The thing that people miss is the context. Batman in Detective Comics is *not* the same Batman in the JLA. Spiderman in his comics is not dealing with the same shit as Spiderman when he guest-stars in the Avengers. Marvel Ultimates is not the same conceits as the 616-Marvel etc. They're different sandboxes - though those differences are minimal. From a GMing perspective - it's everything. Because you need to be solid on what you want from the game. If you think you're going to just "wing it" - then you're setting yourself up for results that will generally disappoint you.

That should be the first premise of your attempts at GMing supers: What is the context of this setting I'm running. And second should be the scale and sub-genre (if any) you're pursuing. And yes, if you wanna mix these genres you gotta start thinking about powerscale.

I'm going to be the guy that says abstracting scale is *not* a good idea. It's one of the many reasons I detest Cortex-spawned Marvel game. I'm a firm believer in the Jim Shooter editorial school for comics - you gotta have rules and limits to these characters. That's where the importance of the system you use comes into play. It has to capture the conceits you want your PC's to deal with. And your scale needs to be reasonably codified so you and your players know wtf you're actually capable of rather than leaving it to dice.

I've used: Champions, V&V, DC Heroes (Mayfair edition), M&M (3e), Icons, GURPS for supers. For me - what works best is FASERIP with a few modifications. It's fast, easy, handles scale remarkably well. It does need some tweaks but that's easy.

In terms of running a game - I'm not sure what's so difficult? Choose an established setting - Marvel, DC, Darkhorse, Image, all of them, make up your own - figure out where the PC's fit in, assemble some plot-points for your villains, make some NPC's and locations to create connective tissue - /run game.

Quote from: Sommerjon;934893Except Billy here was talking about..... wait for it, wait for it..... superhero comics.

Well, I'm not really invested here so I don't want to argue, but he was also talking about how those superhero comics could be translated into gaming when he said "Literally everything is decided by the needs of the story, so everything is fungible, which is a quality of the genre which makes for poor gaming." Right?  I happen to agree that the story driven formulas of superhero comics translate somewhat poorly at the table.  That's all.

Quote from: Madprofessor;934898I happen to agree that the story driven formulas of superhero comics translate somewhat poorly at the table.  That's all.

I think half the run is running through a comic plot line and seeing how it plays out. Sure, you know what the story is about but so long as you're not being railroaded having events play out different can be interesting.

If you are looking for a game that "does not suck" you need to list out the ones you've tried then people will know those already fall into your suck zone.  If you want some balanced rules to start with for superhero battles look at HeroClix.  You'll need to build you're own RPG aspect around it but it provides some solid mechanics.  The biggest thing for Superhero games for me, that makes them work, is getting into the genre and character.  Even Deadpool has his own conventions.  If you can't get past that, and the Americanism of it all, you will never enjoy the genre.

Maybe something from games where you have character drives and goals, such as Burning Wheel, may help.  (full disclosure really dislike Burning Wheel in general but this part of it may work)

Lastly, monologueing and staying true to your story are what you give xp for not combat or saving the day.

Check out BASH! Ultimate Edition.  It's point-buy like Champions and Mutants & Masterminds, but much lighter.  And it comes with advice as to how to tailor your campaign for whatever setting you plan on using.

I quite enjoyed the Aberrant setting, although the rules were pretty poopy. It had a consistent "this is where superpowers come from" which I liked. Sadly, it had the double-fuckery of WW by way of metaplot (although a decent one, it still was a metaplot) and "power-payment through suffering" (but not as badly done as most other WW stuff).

City of Myst looks pretty cool and has killer comic book art. I'm no PbtA expert, but it's getting good feedback.

Quote from: Madprofessor;934854Imagine a fantasy setting where everybody is a zero level human except the PCs and villains who are 20th level immortals who go around fighting each other endlessly with cool powers because their alignment dictates it.  I don't know, maybe I am not being fair, but I don't think its the rules, rather I think it is hard to generate an interesting game given the basic conceits of the genre.

Hey, good explanation of why 4e was such shit.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934884MSH = FASERIP, MHR = Cortex-whatever.

That was me I think, I swapped the initials, fixed now.  I'll thwap myself with the bucket.

Comics books and actual super hero settings as vs. powered people settings require a lot of buy in "Kayfabe" in wrestling parlance to make any sense

This doesn't translate well to the rules as physics engine idea common in most games,

Not only that its often hard to get the players to have the social buy in.

 Two examples, Batman and the Flash

Batman is decently realistic in the sense that an exceptional rich person could be a vigilante in say I dunno Chicago. However it only fits in a limited kind of milieu , basically "the USA 1930-2000" or similar societies   . Modern Batman would essential be a rich White vigilante beating the crap out of poor non Whites and the occasional crazy person or Eastern European gangster. The social ramifications of the Batman have to be ignored


Also a lot of social dynamic of such settings is from a less developed era. Batman makes no sense with the surveillance state of modernity unless you assume he is running it. Heck anyone with very basic analytic skills and half a brain could figure out that Bruce Wayne either is or someone he is paying is probably the Batman and all the people he is angered could just cap him from a half mile away. Granted the Dark Knight movie sort of touched on it but it wasn't really a comic book movie

The Flash too fails political reality. ignoring the physics which is the easiest buy in, what happens if it gets political? It actually doesn't matter what side but Barry could basically exterminate the ruling class of any culture anywhere in moments and could not be stopped

the net result is every setting with high powered supers and poor player buy  in ends up Old Man Logan


and note this isn't a new problem in gaming , Aberrant the RPG came out in 1999 and basically was about the trope. They got away with it by making "Supers" less than a year old

Another example is the Mutant City Blues RPG  but it gets around it by not being a super hero game but a powered persons game /police procedural as well

classic four color games can work, I've played them in the old FASERIP rules but only with high player buy in and mechanics that have the right feel . These days its hard to get these things together,

Quote from: CRKrueger;934911That was me I think, I swapped the initials, fixed now.  I'll thwap myself with the bucket.

The confusion is understandable. MWP had three books to release and couldn't get the third one out before the line was cancelled. Though I think it was a good game, the support wasn't there so it's no surprise most people don't know about it.