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View Full Version : [Suggest-a-system] Rules medium for street-level superheroes/masked vigilantes



Kiero
2014-01-14, 04:27 AM
By way of background, my group is supposed to play weekly, but we don't play if someone can't make it. The upshot is that we tend to manage 2-3 sessions a month, and we're starting to muse on having a "backup game" as an alternative for when we can't all make it to the main game.

Something we're discussing as a potential premise for that backup game is an episodic, street-level supers thing. We haven't played anything supers at all in the nearly six years I've been with the group, so it would mark a complete change of pace to our usual fare.

The reason for street-level/masked vigilantes is that it shouldn't be too over the top. The idea is that a normal human with exceptional training (and/or equipment) should be just as viable a character as someone with genuine superpowers, thus at the lower end of the powers scale. I highly doubt this will be a costumed sort of affair - more like the modern "masks and black body armour" aesthetic.

Setting could either be contemporary/modern or early 20th century - doesn't really matter what's attached to the rules as long as it can accomodate.

On to the rules side of things. GURPS, HERO and M&M are out right away, they're far too crunchy and not our thing. Something of the heft of nWoD is what we mean by "rules medium". I suspect the likes of Capes would be too light. Nothing D20-based (as in derived from D&D 3.x) and they don't like Savage Worlds.

What's out there?

Mr. Mask
2014-01-14, 06:55 AM
Twilight 2013? I haven't tried it, but I keep hearing about it having great gunplay. I don't know how heavy or light the rules are.

Shadowrun is another idea, if you're able to make some creative changes.

Zavoniki
2014-01-14, 09:06 AM
Wild Talents might be for you. Its lighter than GURPS and M&M(probably about 20-30% less rules than M&M) though the basics of the system are a bit harder to grasp conceptually. You can easily have well-trained normal humans competing with super-powered people on an even level. It's pretty easy to make unbalanced characters(The book gives an example power for turning off the sun) so use character build points as a guideline. The system has very very deadly combat so keep that in mind and it requires you to know exactly what kind of character you want to make before you start character creation.

Find it Here: http://arcdream.com/home/category/wild-talents/