Superhero Game Advice?

[Amaril]

Hey everybody :smallsmile: So I've been wanting to run a game for my current group for quite a while now, and of all the ideas I've got kicking around in my head, my favorite right now is a superhero game. I have an idea for a premise, involving mutagenic superpower-granting gas, time travel, and an impending alien invasion, but I don't have many specific details planned, and I haven't really brought it up with my group just yet.

I thought it might be a good idea to talk to you guys and see if anybody has any general advice about running superhero games. What kinds of stuff will many players expect, what are the most important details to know in advance, tips on making supervillains more interesting, cool and interesting spins on superhero comic tropes, anything you can tell me that might be useful to know. Also, of lesser importance, I'd love to hear people's recommendations on good superhero systems to use--I have a copy of Mutants and Masterminds 2e, and it seems ok to me (if a little complicated), but I can just as easily imagine my game working in another superhero system, or something more generic like FATE or Savage Worlds. Anybody have any advice for me?

[TheIronGolem]

Depends. What kind of tone and theme are you looking to do? Silver Age goofiness? Grimdark 90's style with giant guns and "blood" in everyone's name? Lighthearted action-comedy like the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

[Arbane]

One bit of advice: make SURE everyone's on the same page regarding things like morality (black-and-white, shades or grey, shades of black), mortality (will super-punching a normal person result in a KO or a decapitation), silliness, and how closely the world resembles ours _BEFORE_ you get a team consisting of Opus the Penguin, Captain Marvel, and Freddy Kreuger.

[Amaril]

Depends. What kind of tone and theme are you looking to do? Silver Age goofiness? Grimdark 90's style with giant guns and "blood" in everyone's name? Lighthearted action-comedy like the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

I'm not super familiar with superhero comic book history (no pun intended :smalltongue:), so my frame of reference is somewhat limited. The biggest part of my inspiration for the plot comes from inFamous, but I think I'm looking for a tone closer to something like Chronicle. I'm picturing this as a story about normal people in the real world we all know, suddenly granted superpowers and forced to figure out what to do with them.


One bit of advice: make SURE everyone's on the same page regarding things like morality (black-and-white, shades or grey, shades of black), mortality (will super-punching a normal person result in a KO or a decapitation), silliness, and how closely the world resembles ours _BEFORE_ you get a team consisting of Opus the Penguin, Captain Marvel, and Freddy Kreuger.

Like I said, I'm going for a fairly realistic tone here, and maybe a slightly lower power level (compared to Silver Age stuff for example). Morality will definitely be more akin to real-world shades of grey than heroes vs. villains, and the kinds of battles you see in superhero movies today, with entire city blocks being leveled and eight-figure special effects budgets, will only happen once the characters' powers start reaching the upper limits of their development.

[Mr Beer]

OP, are you familiar with the Wild Cards series? It should be mandatory reading for anyone wanting to run a gritty low to medium level super campaign.

[Amaril]

OP, are you familiar with the Wild Cards series? It should be mandatory reading for anyone wanting to run a gritty low to medium level super campaign.

I've heard of it, and its concept of Jokers and Aces actually inspired one of the big elements I want to include with my superpowers (spoilered for length).

Basically, the characters (along with the whole first crop of superhumans) will initially get their powers from breathing the mutagenic gas I mentioned in the OP, which the government developed from scavenged alien tech and was experimenting with before they had an accident and a bunch of bystanders got exposed. The effects it has on every individual are extremely unpredictable, but the exposed people tend to fall somewhat into two general groups based on the type of their mutations. Alphas tend towards less noticeable mutations on a genetic or cellular scale--most of them will have powers like telekinesis and energy control. Omegas usually get more obvious physiological mutations like claws, wings, and exoskeletons, and Omega mutations often come with nasty side-effects like psychosis and hallucinations. A person's mutation trends are partially uncontrollable, but they can be influenced somewhat by the mental state the person maintains and the actions they take--people with a more positive attitude, who keep their destructive impulses in check and seek to help others, will exhibit more Alpha characteristics, while those who tend towards aggression and violence will find their Omega mutations becoming more numerous and pronounced. Depending on the system I end up using, this may or may not be represented mechanically somehow, with an effect on the powers available to the players based on what kinds of stuff they get up to.

Anyway, if you think it would help me, I'll definitely give Wild Cards a read.

[TheIronGolem]

I'm not super familiar with superhero comic book history, so my frame of reference is somewhat limited. The biggest part of my inspiration for the plot comes from inFamous, but I think I'm looking for a tone closer to something like Chronicle. I'm picturing this as a story about normal people in the real world we all know, suddenly granted superpowers and forced to figure out what to do with them.


Okay, cool.

Start small with your villains. Don't throw other supers at the players right away; let them knock regular people around for a bit to get a feel for things. Once they're comfortable, then spring powered bad guys on them.

Organized crime is a good place to start. Maybe the players all know some NPC who's being targeted by the Mafia/Yakuza/whatever for some reason, and they need to figure out a way to save him. That can bring them into conflict with a low-level lieutenant and his goons. Once they defeat or placate that guy, they come to the attention of a bigger fish in the outfit. Rinse and repeat as many times as you like before you decide they've earned the personal enmity of your equivalent of the Kingpin (http://marvel.com/universe/Kingpin). Now you've got your first major "supervillain".

As for powered villains, start smallish there too. Maybe the players investigate a series of brutal assaults (or murders, depending on how dark you want to get) on the local youth, and the trail leads them to a longtime bullying victim who suddenly developed superstrength and a vengeful streak. How do they deal with that? Next, your mob-boss hires himself some super-powered mooks to deal with the players. Some of the old comic-book tropes like foiling super-powered bank robbers can be appropriate too.

Overall, make sure your villains have believable goals and rationales, and their personalities should match. If your Big Bad is supposed to be a genius chessmaster type, don't have him robbing banks to raise money for his scheme. That kind of thing is for goons who only think short-term. He can get money through embezzlement, or fraud, or even perfectly legitimate business.

Another important question to ask is whether the world at large is aware that superpowers are suddenly a thing. If so, you need to decide whether they're happy about it. You can establish that by creating some high-profile events (that occurred prior to the game's start) involving supers that shape the public's perception. Want them to hate and fear supers? Some maniac ran through Times Square exploding cars with his mind. Want supers to be loved and trusted? Some flying guy kept an airliner from crashing into the Super Bowl. Either way, that's what most people expect supers to behave like. Alternately, there haven't been any such events yet, and this is the players' chance to establish supers' public image themselves.

Maquerade (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Masquerade) or no masquerade, the government is going to notice your super-powered guys sooner or later. Do they try to recruit them? Study them? Kill them? Maybe there are multiple factions, after all, governments are big organizations that don't always get along internally. If they pick "recruit" and the players go along with it, maybe things go well for a while but then they start getting tasked to do things that aren't so good, for "national security". Another hard choice to make.

Be very careful with time travel. It's hard to do "right", and easy to make an incomprehensible mess of your story. Figure out the rules of time travel early, think through their implications, make sure the PC's get a chance to learn them, and stick to them.

Recommended media: Heroes*, Powers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powers_%28comics%29), early issues of Marvel's "Ultimate" lines, particularly Spider-Man and The Ultimates. Agents of SHIELD just started, but looks like it's shaping up to be in this vein as well.

*Good show, but only one season unfortunately. Some people may tell you there were more. These people are not to be trusted about anything ever again. They want to hurt you and your loved ones.

[captpike]

also keep in mind that every superpower does not have to be directly useful in combat or superpowerful. get creative with the minor powers, maybe even have a early big bad guy with a minor power that he found a way to make super useful, say he can vaporize very small amounts of metal (by by firing pins)

[Mr Beer]

Anyway, if you think it would help me, I'll definitely give Wild Cards a read.

I very much recommend it. Also there's an old GURPS sourcebook for Wild Cards which could be useful (more so if you use GURPS).

Another medium power level setting with grittiness is the comic The Boys by Garth Ennis. I wouldn't use the setting as such since you already have that sorted but there's plenty of cool ideas to use.

EDIT

Your setting looks good BTW.

[Amaril]

Another important question to ask is whether the world at large is aware that superpowers are suddenly a thing. If so, you need to decide whether they're happy about it. You can establish that by creating some high-profile events (that occurred prior to the game's start) involving supers that shape the public's perception. Want them to hate and fear supers? Some maniac ran through Times Square exploding cars with his mind. Want supers to be loved and trusted? Some flying guy kept an airliner from crashing into the Super Bowl. Either way, that's what most people expect supers to behave like. Alternately, there haven't been any such events yet, and this is the players' chance to establish supers' public image themselves.

Like I explained in my last post, I'm planning on having superhumans start appearing suddenly in the wake of a bioweapons accident. I've never been too much of a fan of the masquerade theme in superhero stories, so it's something I'll probably downplay in my game. Humanity will definitely become aware of the existence of superpowers pretty soon after they start showing up--just as soon as some of the Alphas get enough of a handle on their new powers to really become superheroes, and the Omegas start going crazy enough to begin their homicidal rampages. Because the players are going to be among the world's very first superhumans (having been among those exposed to the initial accident), the public reaction will probably be determined largely by whether the PCs end up being the former fighting to stop the latter, or the latter themselves.


Be very careful with time travel. It's hard to do "right", and easy to make an incomprehensible mess of your story. Figure out the rules of time travel early, think through their implications, make sure the PC's get a chance to learn them, and stick to them.

Oh, I'm well aware of the pitfalls of time travel. Rest assured that I'm not planning on having it be a common occurrence, or (God forbid) something the players can do themselves :smalleek: It's part of my idea for the overarching plot, in which allies of the PCs travel back in time from the future to try and accelerate the development of humanity's superheroes in preparation for the aforementioned alien invasion, which in their reality resulted in humanity's near-annihilation.

God, it's great being able to finally do super-cliche stories like that with a straight face. Superhero stuff is awesome :smallbiggrin:

[Tengu_temp]

Make it so everyone creates characters together if possible. Looking at all the sheets carefully and comparing them before play is mandatory. I can't think of any superhero system that's good at balance (the price you pay for having such open hand in creating characters), so you have to make sure everyone's characters are roughly on the same power level. It's not fun when one character is Superman and another is Matter-Eating Lad.

[Amaril]

On the subject of my alien invasion--does anybody have any ideas about making cool aliens for superheroes to fight? I have a mental image of the species right now, spoilered below. If anybody has any criticism or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

The image I have is of tall, slender humanoids with four arms, sort of like the Ethereals from XCOM (although without the long flowing robes). As I'm picturing them right now, they're eyeless and sightless, navigating primarily by echolocation--this is a result of them having developed underground in darkness on their homeworld (they also have almost no pigmentation as a consequence of this). I'm also thinking they'll have a very militaristic and imperialist culture. They were the ones who originally developed the superpower mutagen that humanity later stole from them, and mutated super-warriors are the primary means by which they conquer planets (the physiology I described above is their natural, un-mutated form--many of their soldiers will have significant type-Omega mutations, so their appearance will have a lot of variation). As for why they're interested in Earth in particular, I'm not sure yet--it might just be that they like to conquer any planet they come across because of their culture, but I'm not sure how much I like that idea.

Regardless of what I end up doing with them, the aliens won't be showing up at all until near the end of the game (at least, not in person). I want the invasion to be an endgame threat that the PCs will only have to deal with once they've had some time to increase their powers, and hopefully get the planet as ready as possible to fight them off.

[Jay R]

On the subject of my alien invasion--does anybody have any ideas about making cool aliens for superheroes to fight?

Variety. Give them each unique powers.

It's possible that they have come to earth because humans now have developed super-powers, and they are here to :

a. investigate them,
b. destroy them before they become a threat, or
c. invite them into the galactic federation.

Possibly there are two separate races in a galactic-wide war. Earth might hold a strategic position, or any super-powered beings could be an important resource for.

Or possibly the invasion is a group of renegade aliens, fleeing the generally law-abiding Galactic Federation.

And don't assume that the aliens will tell us the truth at first.

[Amaril]

Variety. Give them each unique powers.

Covered :smallbiggrin: Like I said above, superheroes are their primary weapons, and each is unique.


It's possible that they have come to earth because humans now have developed super-powers

Cool idea, but it wouldn't really fit with what I had in mind at the moment. Originally, the aliens came and attacked us before we even had superheroes of our own--it was during the invasion that we managed to steal some of the mutagen and figure out how to use it. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to beat them, so eventually a few of the last remaining human supers came up with their brilliant idea of sending an alien spacecraft with samples of the mutagen back in time to before the aliens got here, so that we could find them and create our first superheroes before the invasion and be more ready for it when it finally arrived. Doing this created an alternate reality (that's the time travel theory I'm working with here), of which the PCs are inhabitants. Point being, I need a reason for the aliens to have come to Earth in the original reality, when we didn't have superheroes until later.

I might use one of the other suggestions you provided, though...

[SimonMoon6]

In general, be prepared for adventure plot structures to potentially be completely free-form. Obviously, a D&D style dungeon where you lead people by the nose from one room to another isn't gonna cut it. Imagine everybody as a tier 2 caster that never needs downtime to recharge their spells.

Of course, it depends on the powers the PCs have. Scry and 'port tactics are completely reasonable. Don't expect to throw an army of mooks at the PCs while the main bad guy gets away if the PCs can just teleport past the mooks and get to the bad guy immediately. Don't expect the heroes to be forced to grudgingly cooperate with one badguy in order to find out information about another badguy if the PCs can simply read minds and find out everything.

And while you might say, "Well, of course, that's just like a standard D&D game with high tier casters in it," that isn't quite true. Every D&D monster has ways to avoid the tactics of D&D adventurers (like, for example, spell resistance). Supervillains generally don't have "superpower resistance" (because that would be lame), so expect that the PC's powers will WORK every time they use them.

But one good thing: if the PCs decide to be murder hobos, you can actually send cops and other superheros after them!

[PhallicWarrior]

I actually ran a campaign in a setting similar to the one you described. The twist I used for the campaign was very effective, and you might want to consider stealing it. (I won't mind.) The twist that the aliens in question released the mutagen intentionally, viewing the self-destructive conflict between supers and normal humans as inevitable, and beneficial to their invasion plans (They'd "soften up" worlds they planned to conquer by dropping meteors loaded with the mutagen so the two factions would fight each other and wipe each other out, so they could move in and take what was left with overwhelming force.) Of course, the timely influence of our heroes managed to mend those fences and as a result the aliens arrived to find a unified force of superheroes and the world's armed forces standing in their way.

In addition, I can't recommend Mutants & Masterminds enough. It may seem complicated, but it really isn't. (It's all front-loaded into chargen; the rules of the game proper are easy as pie.) And there are very few systems that handle low-level supers as well as 2nd edition. (3e is a more mechanically-sound system, but it's not as granular as 2e, which will matter.)

[Amaril]

So, another thing I'm having a little bit of trouble with. I need to engineer the circumstances of the original accident that caused the mutagen exposure so that all the PCs have some reasonable excuse to be in the area at the time without restricting their character backgrounds too much. This incident will be the very starting point of the game, so preferably it would grant them the opportunity to do something or have a goal in mind. Right now, the idea I have in mind is that the military is transporting a shipment of the prototype mutagen to a facility in the PCs' home city by plane, and it ends up crashing into the airport (for reasons I know, but won't go into now), releasing the gas and exposing anyone who happened to be in the building at the time of the crash. I don't think it should be too hard for the players to come up with reasons for their characters to be waiting at an airport, so that shouldn't restrict them too much. Does that sound like a good idea? And if not, can anyone help me come up with something that would work?

As an aside, I'm thinking of calling the mutagen "Pandora", in reference to the name's meaning of "talented". Seems to make sense for something that grants people extraordinary abilities (although I admit, I picked it because I like the sound of it and justified it later :smalltongue:).

[Mr Beer]

As an aside, I'm thinking of calling the mutagen "Pandora", in reference to the name's meaning of "talented". Seems to make sense for something that grants people extraordinary abilities (although I admit, I picked it because I like the sound of it and justified it later :smalltongue:).

Also because of "Pandora's Box"?

[Amaril]

Also because of "Pandora's Box"?

That too, of course, but the connection there is less obvious, so I didn't bother mentioning it :smallsmile:

[veti]

Right now, the idea I have in mind is that the military is transporting a shipment of the prototype mutagen to a facility in the PCs' home city by plane, and it ends up crashing into the airport (for reasons I know, but won't go into now), releasing the gas and exposing anyone who happened to be in the building at the time of the crash. I don't think it should be too hard for the players to come up with reasons for their characters to be waiting at an airport, so that shouldn't restrict them too much. Does that sound like a good idea? And if not, can anyone help me come up with something that would work?

That origin story has some implications that you might consider restrictive. One: there are probably quite a lot of people affected. Two: they'll all have had the chance to observe each other at the time of the accident, which might make it problematic to have a secret identity. Three: airports tend to be heavily surveilled (lots of security cameras around), so there's every chance that, at the least, a few government agencies also know exactly who they all are. And four: the players themselves will work out all the above, especially point 3, quite quickly, so they'll be expecting the feds (or whoever) to come knocking on their door.

About the aliens: a lot depends on how you want your players to interact with them. If you want them to be "clearly different, clearly enemies, see one and punch its lights out", then you can't beat something with an exoskeleton, like the 'prawns' from 'District 9' or the bugs from 'Starship Troopers'. Let there be obvious physical reasons why it's hard for the aliens to masquerade as humans, or vice versa. On the other hand, if you want subterfuge and suspicion to play a large part, then something the approximate size and shape of a human would be indicated, like those stupid lizards in 'V'.

[Amaril]

One: there are probably quite a lot of people affected.

That's not only not a problem, it's part of the reason I came up with it. I want there to have been a lot of other people exposed at the same time as the PCs--that'll mean there are lots of other supers developing alongside them, who they can make into allies or enemies depending on their actions. Also, there won't be as many as you might expect, since a lot of people will probably die in the crash, and many more will be killed by Pandora exposure (I guess I forgot to mention it still kills most of the humans who breathe it--the government hasn't quite got it working perfectly yet).


Two: they'll all have had the chance to observe each other at the time of the accident, which might make it problematic to have a secret identity. Three: airports tend to be heavily surveilled (lots of security cameras around), so there's every chance that, at the least, a few government agencies also know exactly who they all are. And four: the players themselves will work out all the above, especially point 3, quite quickly, so they'll be expecting the feds (or whoever) to come knocking on their door.

Well, I said a while back that I wasn't planning on having secret identities be a big thing in this setting--it always seemed kinda implausible to me. I do kinda want it to be an option, though, albeit not a universally accepted requirement for superheroes...and now that you mention it, since the US government knows about Pandora and the effects it can have, they're going to be pretty interested in keeping track of the people who get exposed. What I originally wanted to do was create a situation where there are suddenly so many supers cropping up and causing chaos that the feds have a hard time reining them all in, which would allow the PCs a greater degree of freedom, plus the opportunity to make a difference by helping to restore order to the situation (or take advantage of the chaos to have some fun wrecking s***). Still, though...now I'm not so sure about that idea. Anybody else have anything to say about it?

[Beleriphon]

I have a copy of Mutants and Masterminds 2e, and it seems ok to me (if a little complicated), but I can just as easily imagine my game working in another superhero system, or something more generic like FATE or Savage Worlds. Anybody have any advice for me?

Mutants and Masterminds isn't actually that complicated as a rule set. I'd actually wager that by and large it is easier than D&D in many ways. The most complicated thing is the designing the powers the first time, but if you keep two things in mind you'll find things much easier. The first is if you have to roll something to attack or defend the Power Level the GM has chosen limits how powerful the effect is and the second is that the game is effects based. That means that "Blast" is not just Iron Man's repulsor beams, it is any attack made at range that uses the normal Damage rules. Using Second Edition you'll find things like Cosmic Blast (its just ranged damage with a Cosmic power description).


Well, I said a while back that I wasn't planning on having secret identities be a big thing in this setting--it always seemed kinda implausible to me. I do kinda want it to be an option, though, albeit not a universally accepted requirement for superheroes...and now that you mention it, since the US government knows about Pandora and the effects it can have, they're going to be pretty interested in keeping track of the people who get exposed. What I originally wanted to do was create a situation where there are suddenly so many supers cropping up and causing chaos that the feds have a hard time reining them all in, which would allow the PCs a greater degree of freedom, plus the opportunity to make a difference by helping to restore order to the situation (or take advantage of the chaos to have some fun wrecking s***). Still, though...now I'm not so sure about that idea. Anybody else have anything to say about it?

If you're looking for an American real world response to a wide variety of legal situations I can only suggest reading lawandthemultiverse.com (http://lawandthemultiverse.com/)from the first post. It a blog written by a pair of lawyers about how real world laws apply to comic books situations. For example Superman doesn't need to be examined by the FAA since he doesn't fly by mechanical contrivance, and neither does Tony Stark as long a the Iron Man suit doesn't weigh more than a certain amount (making it an ultralight aircraft). Batman is probably a state actor which means evidence he digs up can be and probably would be excluded on a regular basis.