Ireesponsible supers game

[Atrelegis]

After playing prototype, I kinda want to run a game up to 2 players, wherein the players are powerhouses with absolutely no available barrier to their abuse by regular, 'normie' means, except for a handful (say 3) antagonists of equivalent power.

Can anyone provide me with ideas on how to run this game? How can you keep the player's interested with such a concept?

[Kylarra]

It really depends on the type of powers that they have, but assuming your typical "Superman" character who has a crapload of offensive powers and not something like mind control.

The biggest things you'll want to deal with are morality issues and probably mystery-type things. Stuff that can't be solved by just punching people in the face [necessarily, you could just punch the "right" person.]

[Glimbur]

You'll want characters with well fleshed out backgrounds and motives. Thag LargeHuge who showed up yesterday from an interdimensional portal and just wants to be left alone might not be too active. The Crimson Crusader, hero of orphans and animals everywhere, dedicated to stamping out child labor, animal testing, and hot dog vendors has more motive to get out and do things.

Have you decided on a system yet? Mutants and Masterminds is supposedly good for superheroes with a little GM guidance, and Savage Worlds has a supplement called Necessary Evil you could steal the rules but not setting from.

[bosssmiley]

• Watchmen is the classic fodder here.
• Alan Moore's Twilight of the Superheroes notes are also worth looking over.
• Superman: Red Son shows us a world where the Man of Steel creates a Communist Utopia (he - supposedly - doesn't have the human failings that wreck the theory).
• Enigma asks what happens when the superman appears without villains to fight.
• You might want to mine the B-movies Hancock and My Super Ex-Girlfriend for ideas.
• Warren Ellis' Supergod looks at how people might use science to create god-like beings, and how these gods might not be quite what was expected. It's very much in the Zelazny Lord of Light tradition.
• Warren Ellis' Freakangels is about a world where the Midwich Cuckoos grew up and decided they didn't like the world as they found it.
• Warren Ellis' versions of Stormwatch and The Authority were practically made of this trope. Half the stories were about the politics of superhumans, and questions of conscience vs. realpolitik.

"Do you know what twenty superhumans working in concert are capable of? Stormwatch could expunge all life in this city in under an hour. Given a day, twenty superhumans could destroy all life on Earth [...] This is the reality of the world you're taking on as Special Security Advisor, Mr Grosbard. Feel a bit sick?"
-- Jack Hawksmoor

(yes, I'm interested in the catalytic effects superpowers would have on human society, and in what our reactions to them says about the human condition)

Theme and plot? Present the players with insoluble moral dilemmas, and see how they go about solving them. Show that useless oaf Reed Richards how it should be done.

System? Something that can cope with superpowers (and that doesn't collapse as it scales) would probably be good. Scion, M&M, TSR's old Marvel Superheroes RPG...

[The Glyphstone]

Hmmm - I thought this was going to be a thread about a supers game where all the characters were misfits/irresponsible/outright jerks, like Hancock.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

If you know the White Wolf system, running a game of Scion or Exalted (using the rules, but not necessarily the flavor) in a world where every other character follows the rules for generating normal humans (which, while from nWoD, can easily be adapted to Scion or Exalted) might get the sort of feel you're going for.

[seedjar]

Hmmm - I thought this was going to be a thread about a supers game where all the characters were misfits/irresponsible/outright jerks, like Hancock.

I was thinking he was talking about slum lords. Making property management into a roleplaying game might be kind of boring though.
~Joe

[Thatguyoverther]

I'd use Hero System. But I'd always use Hero System if I could.

Good character backgrounds are essential for Super hero games. Things like money and power don't work well for motivators when the heroes could steal from Fort Knox, and fist fight with tanks.

Dead parents, endangered girlfriends, puppies/small children in peril are all good if cliche motivators.