Thomas Shey
Legend
I just wanted to emphasize it, because its easy for people at a casual look to see Aberrant as a traditional supers game because of the powers and costumes and it really kind of isn't, at least outside of kind of narrow focus.
Any Supers Game that feels Super?
- Thread starter Starfox
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I just wanted to emphasize it, because its easy for people at a casual look to see Aberrant as a traditional supers game because of the powers and costumes and it really kind of isn't, at least outside of kind of narrow focus.
Starfox
Hero
I really like this method of providing motivation. What drives the PCs is not fear of their own death, it is fear of bad consequences for the setting and the NPCs they care about. I do this a lot.
aramis erak
Legend
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The equivalent in MHRP is buried in the damage paragraph:
With the persistence of MHRP damage, it's a very different tone, despite the extreme difficulty of actually killing someone in MHRP. It also doesn't explicitly place death in the player's hands.
Yep, That's important. As is that either side can use overcomes to shove the current position fore or back.
Note that this aspect can take time to develop in a group...
And some players would let it happen for the fun of doing a supers fighting an insurrection... if your players are that type, you may have issues with SCRPG. I've a couple of that sort... it's not a flat dealbreaker, but it the whole group is of that mindset, it can break the motivation loop.
The call-out box on 14 is all about death... I'll quote the first Para for other's benefit - it helps to show the tone:
SCRPB p14 said:
The equivalent in MHRP is buried in the damage paragraph:
Note that you take stress on d4S→d6S→d8S→d10S→d12S→Stressed Out→d4T→d6T→d8T→d10T→d12→long term outMHRP pOM24 said:
With the persistence of MHRP damage, it's a very different tone, despite the extreme difficulty of actually killing someone in MHRP. It also doesn't explicitly place death in the player's hands.
Thomas Shey
Legend
Honestly, if that's not the primary driver for characters in a superhero game, they're not playing superheroes no matter what the game system says on the tin.
aramis erak
Legend
Beg to differ... Deadpool, Blade, any of the noir type supers, both in the 30's/40's and the 90's/00's...
Deadpool fights evil because it amuses him to do so.
Blade is a hero in the greek sense - the protagonist and one the audience is supposed to emotionally bond to, and has superpowers, albeit from a supernatural curse...
Ant Man is, well, pretty much mercenary at first. It's a Job.
And then there's the DC Television Multiverse, most specifically Batman and both Arrows... Ollie at first is fixated on undoing the corrupt legacy, no matter whether or not the side effects hurt those nearby; only later does he start to take into account the side effects other than being caught. Thea, once she dons the hood, wait, no, from the get-go, is fixated upon personal goals that just happen to include taking down mostly the same folk as her brother, and getting totally blotto drunk and/or stoned. Then we get both Black Canary and White Canary... both radical serial murderers... just ones who take on individuals who happen to have gotten away with things. Oh, and Flash's mentor is a time travelling universe hopping psychopath... The only ones that really are specifically
The Arrowverse is divided; we have the Arrow series with a bunch of wealthy sociopathic putative heroes who happen to do less harm than good, and Batman, who's no better, vs the genuinely out for the common good Flash. I didn't see enough of Constantine to know much about him.
And that's before the local hero who is just ideologically opposed to other supers... Baron Dr. Victor von Doom...
Not always presented as a villain. Not always presented as a hero. Really doesn't give a rat's arse about anywhere but Latveria and, for sentimental reasons, Marvel's version of NYC....
And, of course, there is The Hulk. In his Bruce Banner phase, yes, he cares. When in Hulk Mode, he's more a force of nature than a heroic being... but usually, when hulked out, either Bruce aimed himself at the bad guys or some other hero directs him... at least until Bruce learns to... "Stay Angry."
@aramis erak
I took @Thomas Shey's point to be that good super hero RPGing centres character motivations other than id-driven survival and self-aggrandisement of the classic D&D variety.
Pointing to characters like Deadpool, Arrow, The Hulk etc doesn't refute this point. It reinforces it: none of these characters figure in stories of brute survival and power-ups of the classic D&D sort.
I took @Thomas Shey's point to be that good super hero RPGing centres character motivations other than id-driven survival and self-aggrandisement of the classic D&D variety.
Pointing to characters like Deadpool, Arrow, The Hulk etc doesn't refute this point. It reinforces it: none of these characters figure in stories of brute survival and power-ups of the classic D&D sort.
aramis erak
Legend
I think you need to reread his post.
THe interp I get from it is the only superheroes worthy of the name are those motivated by the potential for others' loss.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
That depends more on what era of comic books you’re focusing on. We see a lot more complexity in hero motivations in Bronze and Iron Age stories than the Silver Age.
Thomas Shey
Legend
And I'll beg to differ back. Ant Man and Blade may have conflicted interests, but for all they tell themselves otherwise, any time there's going to be a bunch of people hurt, that wins out over whenever it comes up. And Deadpool?
He's not a superhero. He's costumed super who sometimes does heroic things out of a sense of fun and annoyance.
And as he acknowledged himself later, he was not a hero back then.
That's my point; just because someone is in a costume and is highly trained or powered individual doesn't make them a superhero. As I referenced in regard to Aberrant, there's more to it than that.
Thomas Shey
Legend
I do not know of a single bronze age hero who does not fit my statement even if its alloyed with other things, and quite a few characters in the Iron Age are not superheroes. As I said, there's more than the visuals involved.
There's absolutely room for people with powers games. As Aberrant says, some of them might even involve costumes and code names. They just aren't superheroes.
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