Superhero Campaign

>>48715755
Mutants and Masterminds is good. Supers Revised is good. FATE is okay if you hate crunch. GURPS is okay-good if you love crunch. All four are highly versatile.

The only campaign I was in faltered early. Don't forget the drama.

>>48715840
Thanks. How is Worlds in Peril? I know some of the "Powered by the Apocalypse" games are way better than others, though I've never played any of them.

Why did it falter? And I won't.

>>48715840
Thanks. How is Worlds in Peril? I know some of the "Powered by the Apocalypse" games are way better than others, though I've never played any of them.

If you don't mind sharing, why did it falter? And I won't.

You might want to checkout Wild Talents

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>>48715755
M&M is the easiest to use, but also the easiest to break. The rulebook even says so.
Champions is a a little harder to learn, but is more balanced with just as many options.
GURPS can do anything, but that means you have to learn how to do anything, then just use what you need.
As for running it, it's most important for the players to feel like they are accomplish acts of heroism. Keep them in situations where "Unwavering power", "devious cunning", and "just in the nick of time" are all phrases you can uses regularly.
If you're looking for inspiration, I'd check out My Hero Academia. It shows a very good grasp of the spirit of superheroism.

>>48715755
This probably isn't a whole lot of help, but for my superhero campaign I basically did it as somewhat freeform puzzle-solving-ish thing. The only dice-rolls were a d100 that I would use to determine the current strength of a hero's power at any particular action. Danny Sink wants to shoot water from his sink hands? Roll to determine whether a trickle comes out or you flood the room. Scientist man wants to biologically fuse with corn to trick someone into eating him? Roll d100 to see how suspect the corn looks. He wants to burst out of the person that ate him? Roll to see whether you burst out of his chest or cause mild heartburn.

It really works better for humorous one-shots, but if you want to try something like that it can be a quick and hassle free way to dive right into the experience and keep momentum going.

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>>48715755
Go dark. Watch Powers. Use Godlike / Wild Talents.

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Don't play super heroes. Play reluctant super villains. Use Better Angels!

>>48715755
I've had great success running heroes unlimited for the last 30 years.
Lets be extremely clear though. Heroes unlimited. NOT RIFTS. NOT ANYTHING ELSE UNDER THE PALLADIUM UMBRELLA! JUST HEROES UNLIMITED!
When you start to mix in the rest of palladium it kinda stops working. Very rarely I use ninjas and superspies or mystic china.
In the last 5 years I started using powers unlimited 1, 2, & 3. Those are all things made to be used with heroes unlimited though

>>48715877
>>48715914
Not that guy, but Worlds in Peril was a bit hard to wrap my head around, and I've played a bunch of different PbtA games before. It's got some interesting elements, but the one or two times I played it didn't quite click (admittedly, I didn't have much time with the rulebook). I probably wouldn't recommend it as your first PbtA game, but I'd give it a read if you're at all interested.

Powers are free-form, and you nominate powers that are easy, doable, almost impossible and actually impossible for your character. When attempting to manifest a new power, you kind of figure out where it lies on that continuum and roll, on 7-9 you perform the stunt, on a 10+ you add it to your sheet. It's got a neat element for burning your bonds with the rest of the world to help you succeed at power rolls, that I figure represents your growing alienation from the rest of humanity.

Masks is another PbtA supers game that represents the growth of teens/sidekicks into adulthood. It deals with relationships and who you allow yourself to look up/who you let dictate who you are.

>>48715877
>>48715914

Played a few games in Worlds in Peril, and a friend is running a game in it.

I think the less number crunchy approach fits the genre well.

>>48715755
I only played Mutants and Masterminds: I recommend you run it to a group of friends. Do not run it for complete strangers, because you might get powergaming assholes who will bitch and whine for days to get what they want instead of shutting up when you make your GM call.

>>48715755
Bump for interest. I've been wanting to run a Superhero campaign for a while.

How do I get players out of the "we'll terrorize people to get the information we want out of them" murderhobo mindset for a supers game?

I mean, only some versions of Batman will do that, how far he'll take it depends on the writer, and not every superhero will even go that far.

>>48722935
Have your psycotic Villians be reasonable. Remember that time The Flash talked to trickster and convinced him to turn himself in to the insane asylum while promising to visit to play games? Give them moments where they realize psycotic Villians are not just punching bags, but people that really need help.

Hero Name: Mime
Actual name: unknown
Physical appearance:
> 6' 0" man. Wears a mime costume while covered head to toe in black+white stripes.
Powers/abilities:
>Sound does not exist within inches of his body, making almost all of his movements completely silent, and makes his voice nonexistent. Has to use a keyboard program to speak.
>Can create invisible non-magical items such as cars, boxes, firearms, tripwires, and any mundane item except food. These items dissapear after a short time but are visible to Mime. Creation is instantaneous.
History:
>To be determined based upon setting and affiliation with other party members.
Thoughts?

>>48723185
I'd change "Sound cannot exist within inches of his body" to "His body cannot create sound" otherwise your character is deaf.

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>>48715755
If you run Mutants and Masterminds make sure that you put heavy limits. No time traveling or dimension hopping for example; another one would be to limit power extras and flaws to two-three MAX with a few exceptions if the power makes sense thematically for the character. Power arrays should also be limited, otherwise your players might try to exploit them. Also limit the variable power, since it has the potential to be game-breaking pretty easily.

>>48715755
imo the most important thing is to make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to tone. Superheroes can be dark n edgy explorations of alienation and power, or you can be fighting moon-gorillas who stole the statue of liberty.

>>48724045
Going for a tone much like CW's Flash, minus the romantic subplots. So, there's darkness present, and sometimes it gets REALLY bad, but there's also the kind of wonder that can only come from running at 500 MPH while fighting a giant telepathic, super-intelligent gorilla, or visiting a parallel universe with a retro-future aesthetic where your best friend's dad is a lounge singer.

>>48715755
I really like Marvel Heroic. It uses a dice pool mechanic that only uses three dice from the rolled, which means that you can have a wide gulf in power levels and things still work out fine. There are limits to this, but it'd be hard to actually reach that point unless cosmic-tier nonsense starts happening.

I also enjoy Supers Revised (which is free) and while I haven't played it yet, AMP: Year One is pretty interesting.

Ultimately go with whatever you think is most satisfying, or maybe just what's easiest to get off the ground based on your needs.
The most important thing is definitely good taste and a sense of self awareness in your players. Frankly in most supers games you can break shit if you want, and it's up to the group to be self-regulating.

>>48719126
>>48723961
I think it's less important to put in heavy limits, and more important to just be aware of what the most broken powers are, so that you can use GM fiat to say no to particularly bad characters.
Making an OP character in M&M is so easy that the real achievement is getting a character who represents an idea or archetype as best as possible, so... remind your players of that, I guess.
>>48724107
Objectively the best tone.

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>>48715755
I want a cute hero to try to stop me when I rob a bank

>>48715755
Weaver Dice, my guy

Worm has the grittiest setting

>>48725081
Why would you go for grimderp? Do you hate yourself?

>>48725128
Grimderp =/= Gritty, funposter

Besides faggot, you can not do Saturday morning tights and cape and not be 90's punisher

Worm is good because it takes the best aspects of superhero stories and combines them with cold reality as well as really creative and unique powers.

>>48725365
>Besides faggot, you can not do Saturday morning tights and cape and not be 90's punisher
Not that anon, but 99% of mainstream comic books fall somewhere between those two things, from the late 70s through to today.

>>48722935
You need to let them know that comicbook genre conventions are in force
You are playing a super HERO not a psychotic douche-nozzle with superpowers like you do in D&D
Let your players know that you expect them to act like a hero they would want to read about

Hey guys I have a question about a power I'm trying to make for a M&M 2e character.

If I make a Perception Range; Sense Dependant, Reaction effect, would it auto hit anyone trying to Mind Control, Mind Read and Possess me, or only hit people with mental senses like Detect Magic, Magic Sight, Cosmic Awareness, Aura Reading, Precognition and Danger Sense? I'm trying to base this on Pheromones and Petrify from Ultimate Power.

If only the later, what can I do to also hit Mind Read/Mind Control? Alter the wording on reaction to "being sensed by mental senses or targeted with Mind Reading Mind Control" seems the easiest but I'm not sure the DM will allow it. Maybe buy the trigger power feat? Linking it to a similar Reaction effect targeted to mental attacks would be too expensive.

The base idea is a supernatural aura of fear that hits anyone that sees the character with supernatural senses or try to directly attack his mind.

>>48725445
That anon was trying to buzzword away my suggestion of Weaver Dice, I replied by detailing the false dichotomy we were presented with by said anons accusation

I ran a campaign years ago and the superhero kettle is starting to boil again.

Thing is, I am thinking of rebooting everything with a crossover event that restarts the universe while also bringing back the old characters in rapid succession.

Trying to think of a good title for the event though.

Here's some of the ideas I have for the story though:

> Battle of Four Cosmic Gods
Blue, Red, Yellow, and Black Gods want to mold the universe in their image.
> They draft teams of champions from the universe - Heroes, Villains, and otherwise - to stage a fighting tournament. The being with the last team wins.
> Unbeknownst to them, another being from before time is about to awaken
> Geneside! The Destructor and The Creator! The Alpha and The Omega!
> An awakened Geneside threatens this universe with the creation of a new universe!

Thoughts?

>>48727506
Hmm... a name for this event...

Apocalypse? Rebirth? The Fantastic Four?

>>48727671
The Cosmic Crisis

>>48726787
Emotion Control: Limited to Fear (-1), Sense-Dependent (-1) [insert supernatural vision sense here], Action (+3 - standard->move->free->reaction); 3PP/Rank. That's very cheap, all things considered.

UP warns that GMs should limit the Action extra on attack powers - it's a very, very quick way of breaking the game. Consider that essentially you're getting a free attack literally on every person who looks at you with their supernatural senses, every round, and anybody who tries to attack you with a mental/supernatural power ALSO gets a free attack against them. That's pretty much overkill.

Personally I wouldn't allow the "sees the character with supernatural senses" aspect of this power at all, only the "try to directly attack his mind" part.

>>48728171
Can you help me stat
>>48723185
More specifically,
>Can create invisible non-magical items such as cars, boxes, firearms, tripwires, and any mundane item except food. These items dissapear after a short time but are visible to Mime. Creation is instantaneous.

>>48719797
Isn't villainry a given as soon as you give your players superpowers, or at least 4-5 sessions down the road?

>>48728631
Not yet in my campaign, though one of the player characters is an absolute edgelord and is pretty frivolous with he he teleports behind people and snaps their neck.
Not even kidding.

If he wasn't sort of a package deal with the best, most fun player/player character at the table I wouldn't have invited him. But, I've been able to trick him into roleplaying a few times. It's okay in the end.

>>48728575
Sorry. Too drunk at the moment, on my phone, and getting ready to watch a movie with my roommates. Maybe later - if I remember before 4 hours from now.

>>48729633
>teleports behind and snaps necks
Owl/man soldiers.

>snaps neck
>finds self face-to-face with Mutant Owlperson
>roll to save eyes

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>>48729633
It's not so bad, every superhero team always has room for one edgelord.
ONE edgelord.

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>>48730296
Do you even darkness?

>>48725365
>best aspects of superhero stories
>cold reality

nah on both counts, try

>angstangstangst
>frantic handwaving
>shitty prose

>>48723226
>>48723185
Mime powers are actually REALLY powerful for how silly they look. Deafness is actually a good drawback that works with the character design.

>>48730335
Being the silent brooding type doesn't necessarily make you and edgelord.
And if anything that's LESS interesting to have in a gaming party.

>>48730335
guy who got randomed the edge power and tries to own it but its just not him

>>48725035
Welp, now I now what I'm writing if I ever get into erotic literature/hentai
>Unbeatable powerhouse villain who just does whatever he wants because no one can stop him.
>Takes a liking to the new heroine in town.
>Overpowers her and fucks her whenever she tries to stop him.
>Eventually he start causing trouble specifically just to call her out.
>She keeps going along with it because She'd rather have him have his way with her than risk him hurting more people.
>Another hero offers to help her defeat him but she sheepishly declines because as conflicting as it is, she's started to enjoy it.
>Starts to just pretend to resist.
>It slowly dawns on both of them that, in his own weird way, he loves her. because with all his power he can have anything he wants, and all he wants is her.

Want to throw in my recommendation for Marvel Heroic. Of all the supers systems I've tried, I feel that it captured the feeling of a comic book while still having enough crunch and mechanics that it isn't a freeform mess.

For tips, be very sure that your players want the same kind of supers campaign that you do. There's a wide berth for superhero stories and if everyone shows up something different, you're going to have trouble juggling expectations.

>>48724263
>>48730996

Gotta go with Marvel Heroic. It just does so many things right. The resolution mechanic is a pretty simple dice pool, but the main mechanic of the game boils down to bartering for a meta-currency called "Power Points". These are kind of like Hero Points in Pathfinder, or Fate Points in Fate. This in itself is nothing groundbreaking, but the way it's implemented jives so smoothly with how a superhero game works.

Power points do the standard meta-currency things. They can give you extra dice in your pool, let you do fancier moves, all that stuff.

A common way to generate these Power Points is through activating your character's "Limits". Every superhero power set, for instance, has at least one Limit. A Limit, as the name implies, is a way to shut down or otherwise fuck with your power. A common example is "Gear." If you trigger your limit, you get a power point.

Add to this the fact that initiative is determined by whoever's currently acting (it's more balanced than you think; players who just all go first and save the NPCs for last leave themselves open to some horrifically painful alley-oops) and you get a framework that's designed to set up some fantastically comic-booky moments. Only in this game will you ever hear a player say:

>"I'm Captain America, and I'm throwing my shield at Doctor Doom. I'll activate my Gear Limit and take a Power Point, and oh shit he caught it! Doom's going next."

And then the GM stares in bafflement for a second and figures out what Doom wants to do with Cap's shield. It's fantastic.

Then you've got the Doom Pool, which basically translates to "Power Points for Bad Guys" that the GM can use to do things like separate someone from the group or even prematurely end a scene (giving him an excellent chance to have the villain escape and cackle about how he'll be back). So fucking good.

Back in March it was announced they'll be kickstarting a setting-agnostic new edition, but we haven't heard anything since.

>>48715755
Been playing and running super hero games using Hero System for 22 years.

For the first couple have I'd have the players do a little background, maybe with some shared history. Then start of with a major threat to the city like a rampaging monster or villain, so you can jump right into the action.

You can work on more complicated plots and schemes for the players to unravel, once they're more of a cohesive party, ie latter sessions.

>>48728575
>>48729808

Back, and not quite as drunk. Secret Life of Walter Mitty - great movie. Might be even better while sober.

Okay, so... creating invisible objects is going to be very dependent on each "type" you're creating. Remember that M&M is primarily an "effects" based system - you choose an ability and then a descriptor for said ability. A good example - Blast (ranged damage) can be anything from Batman's Batarangs to Superman's heat vision, even that one dude's weird bone spike things that he threw in X-Men 3, depending on your descriptor and what other effects you layer on.

Boxes? Create Object + Subtle 2 to make an object out of "invisible force".

Invisible Firearms? Blast + Subtle. Coincidentally, that's also how you'd do firearms with silencers.

Invisible Tripwires? Blast + Subtle + Triggered.

Invisible cars? Bit more tough to deal with off the top of my head while tired and under the effects of alcohol. Normally vehicles would fall under Equipment rules. Give me some time to think it over, maybe I'll have an answer for you or someone else will if this thread is kept alive.

Any mundane items? If they require a save for something, then decide what power they should go under plus Subtle 2 for invisible. Otherwise, just straight Create Object + Subtle 2 to make them invisible. If you want more in-depth, come back after 4PM EST or so tomorrow, I'll try to be on a little after that, after I get off work.

>>48719930
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS

MY NIGGA. I wish HU got a bigger mention on /tg/, palladium that isnt rifts is the shit

>>48728575
Not >>48728171
But as thanks for his help I'm helping you. Assuming M&M 2e.

Create Object, Independent (+0), with the power feats Subtle x 2 (for invisible objects) and Precise (for mechanical parts). 2pp/rank takes a standard action, which is less than 3 seconds. You can increase to 3pp/rank for two objects a round. I don't think any DM is going to allow it as a free action.

>>48728171
Don't I need to up range to Perception, before adding Sense Dependent? Also, I like Limited to Despair more. It avoids being blocked by a feat.

I've also agreed with my DM to keep to only three ranks. That way it is a free attack but usually not a hit, unless it's against minions.
It was also a trade off, my DM didn't allow for a Immunity to mental effects.