Thursday, November 09, 2006
The hunt for an ideal superhero RPG continues. Many games have been vetoed outright because they're too complicated (Hero and GURPS Supers) or not complex enough (Wushu), but I think we've managed to narrow it down to a handful of potential games:
BASH (Basic Action Super Heroes) -- I looked over the demo PDF and the play examples available on the Website, and the game looks to have everything I'm looking for. Character creation looks to be quick and simple while still having the chargen options we're looking for. Play is based around rolling 2D6 and multiplaying it by a stat or power (numbered between one and five). I've been having a little discussion with the designer on RPG.net, and when I said the amount of multiplication concerned me, he gave me a couple of suggestions for speeding up play (one of which was having a basic multiplication table sitting next to me). I've purchased the PDF from RPGNow, but I haven't yet read it over.
Villains & Vigilantes -- This classic still has a bit of a following, from what I've been led to believe. When I mentioned it to Logan, he ordered a couple of copies of it. Hopefully it turns out to be worth it. Although V&V's default play style is "play yourself as a superhero," I'm told it's easy to modify that by creating PCs as if they were NPCs. Logan told me he took a quick look through V&V and saw numbers with decimal points; then Lawrence confirmed this morning that V&V is math-intensive. Depending on how math-intensive it is, it still might very well be a good option for the supers campaign.
Hearts & Souls -- I don't know much about this one, but when I looked at the official Website, one thing really stood out. According to the site, success and failure are based on the motivations of the characters. It focuses on why the characters do what they do. I don't know how it works, but I like the sound of that. I bought the PDF along with BASH from RPGNow today, but again, I haven't had a chance to read it over yet.
Mutants & Masterminds -- The Law's short-lived Freedom City campaign is the only thing I miss about the d20 System. M&M is the only d20-based game I still wish I was playing, and I miss my Dr. Strong character. Although creating characters was a pain in the ass and not all that fun, the gameplay was solid. I'm sure my fun playing Dr. Strong was largely due to the story and subplots The Law was crafting, but I could definitely see myself playing in another M&M game. While I don't actually own a copy of M&M, I'm currently borrowing Logan's copy to look through it. If not for how complex and time-consuming character creation is, I'd jump at running M&M. I don't enjoy the thought of having to do supervillain creation over and over and over again with M&M, though. That said, it's not out of the running yet. After all, I may not actually need many villains for the campaign.
The campaign itself will begin in our world -- where supers are nothing more than fictional characters. The first session will see the once-normal player characters gain superpowers. The entire story arc will be no more than twelve sessions long, but over that time, they'll have to deal with a very real-world perception of supers and their actions. At the same time, though, the game is meant to eventually turn into a more four-colour supers campaign with super brawls and the emergence of even more super-powered individuals.
I'll be running a fine line between realistic and four-colour, and it's already giving me problems. When it finally gets going, though, I think it's going to kick some serious ass.
BASH (Basic Action Super Heroes) -- I looked over the demo PDF and the play examples available on the Website, and the game looks to have everything I'm looking for. Character creation looks to be quick and simple while still having the chargen options we're looking for. Play is based around rolling 2D6 and multiplaying it by a stat or power (numbered between one and five). I've been having a little discussion with the designer on RPG.net, and when I said the amount of multiplication concerned me, he gave me a couple of suggestions for speeding up play (one of which was having a basic multiplication table sitting next to me). I've purchased the PDF from RPGNow, but I haven't yet read it over.
Villains & Vigilantes -- This classic still has a bit of a following, from what I've been led to believe. When I mentioned it to Logan, he ordered a couple of copies of it. Hopefully it turns out to be worth it. Although V&V's default play style is "play yourself as a superhero," I'm told it's easy to modify that by creating PCs as if they were NPCs. Logan told me he took a quick look through V&V and saw numbers with decimal points; then Lawrence confirmed this morning that V&V is math-intensive. Depending on how math-intensive it is, it still might very well be a good option for the supers campaign.
Hearts & Souls -- I don't know much about this one, but when I looked at the official Website, one thing really stood out. According to the site, success and failure are based on the motivations of the characters. It focuses on why the characters do what they do. I don't know how it works, but I like the sound of that. I bought the PDF along with BASH from RPGNow today, but again, I haven't had a chance to read it over yet.
Mutants & Masterminds -- The Law's short-lived Freedom City campaign is the only thing I miss about the d20 System. M&M is the only d20-based game I still wish I was playing, and I miss my Dr. Strong character. Although creating characters was a pain in the ass and not all that fun, the gameplay was solid. I'm sure my fun playing Dr. Strong was largely due to the story and subplots The Law was crafting, but I could definitely see myself playing in another M&M game. While I don't actually own a copy of M&M, I'm currently borrowing Logan's copy to look through it. If not for how complex and time-consuming character creation is, I'd jump at running M&M. I don't enjoy the thought of having to do supervillain creation over and over and over again with M&M, though. That said, it's not out of the running yet. After all, I may not actually need many villains for the campaign.
The campaign itself will begin in our world -- where supers are nothing more than fictional characters. The first session will see the once-normal player characters gain superpowers. The entire story arc will be no more than twelve sessions long, but over that time, they'll have to deal with a very real-world perception of supers and their actions. At the same time, though, the game is meant to eventually turn into a more four-colour supers campaign with super brawls and the emergence of even more super-powered individuals.
I'll be running a fine line between realistic and four-colour, and it's already giving me problems. When it finally gets going, though, I think it's going to kick some serious ass.
// posted by Chris @ 2:35 PM 
Number of visitors since Jan. 7, 2004:
