Superhero Games

Hey, I'm back and am slowly getting over my problem of bloggers block, hoping I can produce something new and interesting. One thing that I was thinking about recently was different kinds of games, IE the types of role playing games that exist and what the most and least common stuff is. One big thing is that fantasy is huge, and I can see a few reasons why. Obvious ones are that it's relatively easy to work from since almost anything can be used for it and you can modify various epics from different cultures to produce a fairly interesting story. Couple that with the fact that the first RPG (Chainmail, later D&D) was fantasy based and it's also what's had the most time to 'mature'. Also popular is the post apocalyptic game which again has some good source material and also has some fairly venerable roots. The horror game can be a bit hit or miss but has a nice pedigree, and to be blunt I almost classify Whitewolf as its own genre. One genre that's been kicking around in my head lately is the superhero RPG (and it might be because I started playing City of Heroes Freedom).

What intrigues me about this genre is that it doesn't really have an iconic game the way that fantasy does with D&D. It isn't for lack of trying either, Palldium has a couple superhero books, Mutants and Masterminds has gone through several editions, I am fairly certain that GURPS has something specifically for superheroes, and if not you could probably cobble something together fairly easily, whitewolf has Aberrant, as well as Scion if you consider that a part of the genre. There are a lot of interesting superhero type games, I've run a few games of Savage Worlds Necessary evil, I played in the tri-stat Authority game, I also played in a game using the rules from the recently released Mutants and Masterminds book that has a strong eye on DC. I've played in several superhero style games and run others and I've observed a few things that tend to happen or be problems of the system, and I'm unsure if it's a a problem of RPGS in general, a problem of the systems they attempt to use, or if it's native to the concept of a superhero RPG. There are a few problems that I've noticed cropping up in the superhero games that I've played, I also want to get into the concept of online superhero games like DC Universe or City of Heroes.

One problem I've observed has to do with game balance between players. Now some of you are going to say that balance is irrelevant in a game of player to player, but I have to disagree. I'll also clarify, balance shouldn't mean that every character is identical, but it should mean that one person shouldn't be able to do everything by themselves easily while the rest of the group just sits there. When I go to a game I am going to play, and if one person is able to not only outperform me but outperform everyone else at the table when given the same resources there is a problem somewhere. The problem can come out in a lot of different ways, but I guess one good comparison might be Superman and Green Arrow. Both are heroes, both have a good sized fanbase, the thing is that Superman can do everything that Green Arrow is capable of easily and more besides where it isn't so true the other way. This isn't about who can beat who up, this is simply that in an RPG environment unless the group is rushing off to deal with multiple threats individually one person shouldn't be able to neutralize a threat that would normally require the combine efforts of the rest of the group. In some superhero games this is more common than others, it can either be that a player found a loophole that allowed them to get nigh infinite power or are able to hit so hard/fast or have a power that can change things enough to where they are able to neutralize any and all enemies. When a player is able to make it so that they themselves cannot be threatened by anything and simultaneously can cause a lot of damage there is an issue, though the degree to which it is a problem could be debated. One example that I'll use is from the recent Mutants and Masterminds game. I won't go into all of it and some of the arguing that came in, but our gadgeteer was able, due to the nature of the system, turn a moon into gas, launch an ancient warship and an enemy base into the sun hopefully never to trouble us again. We needed to end the game and it worked, and the person playing the gadgeteer was very scrupulous about not overshadowing others, only going full tilt at the end. The problem was that his character was able to mimic every single power at a level that exceeded anyone else in the group. There were other issues too with certain powers but I'd probably need to be a bit more in depth with that game to give a full argument on it.

The second issue has to do with player to game and this has to do both with what mechanics can allow for and a side effect of players going in different ways than a comic character might. One example can be found in the old tri-stat game set in the comic continuity of the authority. The problem in this one is that certain powers in the tri stat system can allow for...shall we say interesting combinations. Some are fairly simple, a person who wants to have a really powerful energy blast buys up an attack power, kits it out with a few extra bells and whistles, then grabs the 'augmented attack' power and chains it to their attack power and cranks the damage up to 11. Other tricks are a bit more complicated, one of them is that you could give damaging powers a backblast effect where you would be injured by it, then take powers that when you are injured convert the damage into temporary health levels or even into extra points you could pour into existing powers to further augment them. You can probably guess where that would go in terms of problems. There were also issues with people putting container powers into container powers and the like. Now some of this was probably just an issue of the system, but there can be other problems too. A character that is hypothetically perfectly balanced in a system can also be difficult to challenge, and that's even assuming that you aren't using something like the Palladium or early Marvel Superhero games that involved random rolls for powers wherein a person could be anywhere on the chart from 'Dog man! With the incredible power to...smell things really well and speak with canines!" to "Titan, Demigod with the power to manipulate all forms of energy, fly, teleport, and is impervious to any and all forms of physical harm that don't include element X!" No game can properly account for both characters at the same starting point without either killing dog man messily or Titan stomping everything. To go back to the main issue of what a player might do with a powerset that a comic book character might not, I give you the standard codifier of a weak powerset, Aquaman. Aquaman is actually hypothetically the most powerful superhuman on earth. Go to the logical conclusions of being able to command 2/3 of the worlds biomass and can make them act without thought of self preservation, and this even ignores the fact that he has the kingdom of atlantis at his disposal. From a slightly different angle, I once had a character called the Wraith, his main powers were insubstantial form and superspeed, I believe he also had a special tracking power and an attack that was designed to weaken enemies. The person running it actually refused to allow that character in because with it I could track any criminal anywhere, evade almost any enemy, and in essence be nigh untouchable. The problem that the person running had with the game wasn't that I was devastatingly powerful, but that I would be difficult to plan for, no villain could escape and actually making me harmable required such a degree of preparation that it was impractical for him. There's another area where things can get a bit wonky too and it has to do with the both the genre and the general system. Superhero games are very difficult to build challenging villains for. In point buy games the challenge is making a villain that is a challenge for the group without being fatal, which can be tricky without any kind of challenge level system. There are some other issues too, a group of players can all have wildly different powersets that can either take out an enemy much faster than anticipated or could end up inadvertently neutering one or more players. In a comic book it's one thing to neutralize a few heroes because it either helps move the plot along or explains why some of the A list heroes don't just nuke the enemy or how they got around the various detection and scanning abilities of different heroes. But in a game, it kind of sucks to have to sit out for most of a session because the person running accidentally or on purpose made the enemy du jour immune to your capabilities.

There are other things too but I really need to finish and post this, not to mention that I'm sure at least some other people will offer ideas or comments.