Advice for Superhero World of Darkness Splat

[PolygonPrism]

Recently I've decided to try my shot at making a homebrew splat for World of Darkness based loosely on Princess the Hopeful and Hunter the Reckoning, but I'm having some trouble organizing my thoughts and creating a comprehensive project since I've never tried to do something on this magnitude before. While I have a basic understanding of what I'm aiming for, I'm worried that the project will end up derivative of the other games I'm taking inspiration from and I don't want to fall into the old trap of trying to "outdo" the inspirations only to end up with an inferior copy of them. If anyone has any advice to give on this that would be really helpful. So far, this is the basics of the gameline at the barebones basics.

Splat Name: Beloved the Promise - A superhero splat of humans granted with miraculous power and tasked with using it to help bring about a better world. The term is derived from how they use compassion and integrity to fuel their powers. Might change the name since I'm not too sure if it has a good ring to it.

X Splat: Calling - How a hero is called to make the world a better place. Might change this to something along the lines of "Vocation" or "Destiny". This is the most developed so far.

1) Adventurer - Explorers and Pioneers. Those who discover and reveal. Ex: Dr. Who, Miss Frizzle, Indiana Jones
2) Artisan - Inventors. Those who create solutions to problems. Ex: Tony Stark, MacGuyver, Engineer (TF2)
3) Crown - Ideal leaders and judges tasked with guiding mankind to a better future. Ex: King Arthur, Neo Queen Serenity, Princess Celestia
4) Innocent - Good Samaritans and compassionate idealists. They believe in the best of others. Ex: Mr. Rogers, Pollyanna
5) Martyr - Healers and protectors who sacrifice themselves for others. Ex: Madoka Kaname, Izuku Midoriya
6) Muse - Artists who create beauty and inspire intense emotion through their work. Ex: Jem and the Holograms, Orpheus
7) Philosopher - Counselors and keepers of forbidden secrets and wisdom. Ex: Merlin, Gandalf
8) Slayer - Monster hunters and warriors. Ex: Doomguy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
9) Rebel - Investigators and Instigators who purge corruption through chaos. Ex: Aladdin, Nancy Drew

Y Splat: Nation - A placeholder term for a subculture within their community with a specific approach to creating a better world and carrying out their duties. This is the least developed and most subject to change. This also specifies what "genre" of hero you can play. Ideally I'd like somewhere around 12 for the sake of variety, but so far these are the only ones I have.

1) Heart Guardians - Magical Girl/Boy option
2) The Eternal Jubilee - Comedy; Clowns, Jesters, Comedians, Tricksters, and Toons
3) Guild of the Eternal Road - High Fantasy; Traditional D&D style adventurers and mythical heroes
4) Embassy of Tomorrow - Sci Fi; Heavily inspired by Star Trek and speculative fiction
5) The Unchained Motley - Modern punk meets Conan the Barbarian.
6) House of the Raven - Goth/Dark Romantacism

Z Splat: Domain - The piece of creation a PC has forged a special connection with either through focusing on addressing a specific problem that plagues the world, or by utilizing that part of existence in how they help others so extensively that they formed a deeper connection with it. Each Domain offers control over it's namesake and it's corresponding element. Is currently further along than the Nations but still needs work.

1) Oceans/Seas - Water
2) Sun - Fire
3) Night - Dark
4) Nature - Life/Plants/Animals
5) Death - Decay/Entropy
6) Fortune - Probability
7) Future ones will include Light/Energy, Dreams/Thoughts, Air/Weather, Directions, and Earth/Stone/Jewels.

Any advice, questions, or feedback is appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope this isn't too long a post.

[BerzerkerUnit]

I wrote one of these a few years back, I’ll see if I can find the documents.

Update: I think I lost my nwod additions (I had one for Aberrant, one for Aliens, and one for Demon) when a PC bricked a few years back.

Here’s an archived thread where most of my ideas were fleshed out:

https://www.rpgpost.com/topic/10376-aberrant-rpg-nwod-aberrant-conversion/

Good luck!

[Anonymouswizard]

My first suggestion would be to simplify. 9x12 is a massive number of options to cater for before you even get into Z-splats. Not even Changeling or Geist has that many in it's corebook, start small and build up.

Next, Calling. Is this what you do, or the kind of philosophy you follow? If you pick either of these you can send your options down to 4/5, although honestly I think some could be combined already (fold Artisan into Muse and Martyr into Innocent). I honestly think you're better off sticking to four or five strong archetypes.

On Nations, eh they're generally fine. Surprised to see no League of Philanthropic Gentlemen style option for your pulp heroes though.

Domain: I'm highly surprised this is the Z-splat, it seems to be the only one with any influence on your powers.

Honestly, it might be worth swapping these around. Make your X splat Domain (what drives you to change the world), your Y splat Calling (how do you go about changing the world), and your Z splat Nation (what does your ideal world look like.

[Tzardok]

I did once play with the idea of adapting Worm to WoD. Powers that come from trauma fit well, don't you think? I propably would have called it Parahuman: The Trigger. Maybe that will inspire you.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Have you checked out Scion? It's a White Wolf game about super-people. It's not explicitly WoD, but there should be plenty of stuff you can use.

[PolygonPrism]

Thanks for the advice everybody, I'll make sure to take a look at some of the games you all mentioned to see how they handled the concept. I also really like the idea of a pulp fiction adventurer's league, so thank you Anonymouswizard for the recommendation.

To answer the questions and criticisms brought up in the chat, the reason why I want so many options for character customization is because I'm following the design philosophy of the new WoD line that started with 5th Edition Vampire the Masquerade. While I do appreciate a lot of the CoD lines, I'm not too big a fan of how simple they are. Having only four to five options per tier of character creation feels too limiting to me and I've always liked games that give you a wide variety of options to choose from. I do appreciate the mechanical revision it provided tho.

Also, each splat tier in this game is designed to either give a character new powers or cultivate what was already there. So both Nations and Domains would have an impact on a PC's abilities. Callings specifically are both what they are meant to do and the philosophy that surrounds it. So for instance, a Slayer would have a much different skill set and viewpoint than a Muse and both their powers and their beliefs feed into one another. Ultimately the Callings are meant to work together, but obviously it's never that simple in practice. This friction between allies who are struggling to work together due to their differences, yet also needing each other because of those differences, is something I wanted to include from HtR since none of the PCs are supposed to be perfect angels. The force that chooses these people and gives them their powers can't just pick out perfect, infallible paragons because that's not a standard that anyone can realistically live up to. Especially not in a setting as dire as the world of darkness where people typically have a lot more baggage. So instead it tries to find people who are willing to at least try to become better, and then help them slowly grow into genuine heroes from there. Transformation is one of the themes of the game that I want to include, both in how the PCs change over time in response to their powers and how their use of it impacts those around them.