Power Level chart for supers RPG help needed

[Phillip]

I am working on some ideas for 2 supers RPGs, one using single polyhedra dice and one using custom-made cards (basically SAGA lite).  I would like to know if anyone has seen or created a good Power Level chart for ranking things like weight, distance, time, area, etc. on a superheroic level using a 1-10 scale (think DC-level, with guys chucking mountains and moving the moon and such).  I have seen Mikko Kappuinin's PowerGame PL chart, and I am searching for similar charts to get ideas on what would be good increments.

[AnyaTheBlue]

Well, it sounds like it's going to depend on what sort of power levels you want.

If you want 10 steps, you need to decide if they're going to be linear, logarithmic, or somewhere in between, and what the top and bottom will be.

Do you want Superman kicking the Moon out of Orbit?  Better think about not scaling linearly and having a pretty high upper limit (so things will be pretty coarse grained at the top end).

If, on the other hand, Superman can just about lift an Airplane, but that's it, well, then you can make the top end about whereever you want, and work out how to scale down from there.

I'm just using Superman as a convenient shorthand for 'really powerful superbeing'.  Season to taste!

[Tony Irwin]

I am working on some ideas for 2 supers RPGs, one using single polyhedra dice and one using custom-made cards (basically SAGA lite).  I would like to know if anyone has seen or created a good Power Level chart for ranking things like weight, distance, time, area, etc. on a superheroic level using a 1-10 scale (think DC-level, with guys chucking mountains and moving the moon and such).  I have seen Mikko Kappuinin's PowerGame PL chart, and I am searching for similar charts to get ideas on what would be good increments.

I dug out my Marvel Superheroes Saga pack, it goes

Automatic
Easy
Average
Challenging
Daunting
Desperate
Superhuman
Unfathomable
Cosmic
Godlike
Impossible

but I realise that doesn't really give you what you're after. Do you feel at all that your desire for detailed realism (even just on a 1-10 scale) might end up conflicting with your wish for a rules lite system?

Silver Age Sentinels has progression charts with three columns to refer to; fast, medium, and slow. I don't know how to do tables but let's see if i can quote a portion of it up here...

Fast: 1, 10, 100, 1k, 10k
Medium: 1, 5, 10, 50, 100
Slow: 1, 2, 4, 8, 15

So there's 3 different charts for figuring out what powers can do and they are used for determining progression for weight/distance/area, whatever is required. So for  something like Mind Control you could use the Slow chart, so a level 5 power/difficulty lets you control 15 minds at once. Or maybe the Medium chart for establishing how many hours you can control minds for, so level 5 mind control lets you control em for nearly 5 days. Anyway the idea is that the writers gave themselves three different scales in the assumption that any power imaginable could be described in terms of at least one of those scales.

I realise it still doesn't give you what you wanted (sorry!) but it may prove useful.

Tony

[Andrew Martin]

I am working on some ideas for 2 supers RPGs, one using single polyhedra dice and one using custom-made cards (basically SAGA lite).  I would like to know if anyone has seen or created a good Power Level chart for ranking things like weight, distance, time, area, etc. on a superheroic level using a 1-10 scale (think DC-level, with guys chucking mountains and moving the moon and such).  I have seen Mikko Kappuinin's PowerGame PL chart, and I am searching for similar charts to get ideas on what would be good increments.

The new Marvel Universe RPG (MURG) as an extensive chart system that might be useful to look at.

Another system I've got floating around in my head is something like this:

Street -- Super PCs can destroy a door, smash through most walls, lift a car, move as fast as a slow car,  jump up over trees or into an upper story building and similar.

City -- Super PCs can destroy a building, smash through even concrete reinforced walls, lift a truck, move as fast as a speeding car, jump over buildings and similar

Nation -- Super PCs can destroy city blocks, smash through bank vaults and similar obstacles, lift a 'plane, move as fast as aircraft, fly as high as a plane and so on.

Continent -- Super PCs can destroy cities, smash any obstacle, lift a ship,  move as fast as a jet, fly into orbit, and so on.

Earth/world -- as above but better! :)

Cosmic -- as above but better! :) :)

[Phillip]

Thanks for all who responded.  In order of posts:
AnyaTheBlue:  I don't really want it logarithmic exactly, just a set of reasonable benchmarks that progress in a pseudo-logarithmic fashion.  THe benchmarks should be recognizable - ex. distances - a few feet, dozens of feet, football field, etc.; time - seconds, minutes, hours, days,...  I don't want it to be 'realistic'; these will just be benchmarks to help give a rough idea of different power levels.  And yes, the top level would be cosmic level feats, such as moving the moon out of orbit.

Tony Irwin:  Rules-lite is more important than realism.  I hadn't looked at the SAS charts enough to realize they work that way:  I will check it out.  However, I am going for a set of rough benchmarks, not absolute number progressions (if such a thing is possible).  However, the 3 charts to gauge different level progressions has a grain of an idea...

Andrew Martin:  I think you have come the closest to what I am looking for with your power level chart, something more abstract that gives a general idea of the capabilities of supers.  I have a copy of the MURPG D&R chart, but it does not have the upper limits I was looking for (like Superman).  Perhaps your idea warrants a different kind of resolution mechanics that what I had in mind as well, something different that would do a better job of envoking the four-color genre (using panels as a measurement of action, narrative-based mechanics, supers archetypes, boiling down supers capabilities from an abstract angle, rules encouraging genre tropes (like pushing powers, subplots, changes in the character, etc.), and some balancing factor for allowing Batman and Superman to fight side by side.

[Andrew Martin]

and some balancing factor for allowing Batman and Superman to fight side by side.

I think the best way of doing this is have equal player power, not equal character power.

[Valamir]

Somebody somewhere...and I really apologize for not remembering who it was to give proper credit to...an an interesting idea about player / character balance.

The game used some form of token that had certain out of character meta game uses the player could call on.  The less powerful PC generated more of these tokens.  So in the game, batman is relatively weak, but the player has a lot of dynamic input through the tokens.  Superman is insanely powerful, but the player gets virtually no tokens.

I don't remember the specifics of how it was implemented, but the concept seemed pretty solid to me.

[Phillip]

Sounds like a great idea.   Seems it would represent Batman (wits) as well as Superman (raw power), and heroes that are a little of both, like Spiderman.  Too bad you can't remember how it was implemented.

[Tony Irwin]

Somebody somewhere...and I really apologize for not remembering who it was to give proper credit to...an an interesting idea about player / character balance.

The game used some form of token that had certain out of character meta game uses the player could call on.  The less powerful PC generated more of these tokens.  So in the game, batman is relatively weak, but the player has a lot of dynamic input through the tokens.  Superman is insanely powerful, but the player gets virtually no tokens.

I don't remember the specifics of how it was implemented, but the concept seemed pretty solid to me.

A similar idea is kind of touched on in this thread where for a Lord of the Rings game we talk about having different types of characters. One type offers loads of skills, attributes etc, the other type offers the player lots of director stance. Players can pick a character type that suits their style of play. So Aragorn and Gandalf would have all kinds of stats for tackling in game problems, Merry and Pippin would be much more sparse in skills, but their players could seed lots of things into the game (like Ent allies just when they need them).

I think Jasper was talking about three variatons on this for character types but I can't link to his rules page to see what he went with.

[Phillip]

Definitely pointing me in the right direction.  Something along the lines of Power (brute force), Wits (outsmarting foes and using advantages) and Luck (deus ex machina) or something similar.  Maybe a stat to measure influence both in the game world and in a meta-game sense (the super's popularity with the comic readers, maybe).  What I am trying to get away from is the usual method of clear definition of powers and skills in most games - I feel that, in the sense of fighting and affecting the environment, the final effect is all the same.  For example, if a building is on fire, the Human Torch could put out the fire by absorbing it, the Thing would do it by ripping up a water main, Storm could call rains, etc...  but the end result is the same - the fire is put out.  I don't want to make it too abstract, because that would lose the differences in characters (this could be solved by coming up with some sort of specialties that would give bonuses to certain actions).

[Tony Irwin]

What I am trying to get away from is the usual method of clear definition of powers and skills in most games - I feel that, in the sense of fighting and affecting the environment, the final effect is all the same.  For example, if a building is on fire, the Human Torch could put out the fire by absorbing it, the Thing would do it by ripping up a water main, Storm could call rains, etc...  but the end result is the same - the fire is put out.  I don't want to make it too abstract, because that would lose the differences in characters (this could be solved by coming up with some sort of specialties that would give bonuses to certain actions).

Cool, Phillip, that matches with my own tastes for gaming just now, so I'm personally keen to see where you go with it. One thing though, although in your example the immediate effect is the same (fire gets put out), the ultimate effects can be very different. Chicks love the Human Torch for his ability, but The Thing gets chased by insurance companies.

It would be interesting to see if you could tie it into your system that the characters need to deal with the consequences of their actions in future scenes. If you're inclined that way, it means that the players are constantly creating their own problems to solve, and makes sessions very much about the player's characters instead of the GM's story.

Also it addresses the concern that different super powers should be treated differently by the system. But instead of describing those differences in terms of range or energy type, you're describing them in terms of their future impact on the story.

[Mike Holmes]

The game used some form of token that had certain out of character meta game uses the player could call on.  The less powerful PC generated more of these tokens.  So in the game, batman is relatively weak, but the player has a lot of dynamic input through the tokens.  Superman is insanely powerful, but the player gets virtually no tokens.

Isn't Buffy like this?

Mike

[Phillip]

The problem, Tony is that there IS no system right now...  I am just throwing out ideas like sonar to see what echoes back, and this is the best board and forum for it.  I wasn't even thinking in terms of a non-conventional approach until Andrew Martin's first post.  Describing powers in terms of their affect on the story sounds like a very good idea, but I can't think of how that would work for more mundane things like leaping long distances or a keen sense of smell, at least on an abstract level.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Do we really need another superhero game that uses power levels, scaling and reality modeling (2 = 150 lbs. = 30' = two minutes, etc.)?

What is the hope for writing this? That this system is going to catch on like hot biscuits and gravy and usurp HERO, Champions and Mutants & Masterminds as the be-all, end-all superhero gaming engine?

- J

[Phillip]

Jared, the power levels should be abstract, not absolute.  Just to give a rough estimate of what heroes can do, since a lot of players will want to have at least a general idea of what they are capable of - more along the lines of, 'I can run as fast as a jet' or 'I can punch through a concrete wall' or 'I can jump several miles in one leap' as opposed to exact numbers.  

As far as it catching on, or usurping other systems, or being the be-all, end-all superhero game, I am not that arrogant or conceited.  I just wanted a rules-lite game for my own use that perhaps some other people could enjoy (maybe both of them...), not to 'write the ultimate Supers game.'  M&M, SAS, Hero, etc. just don't float my boat as far as being fast and easy to play, that's all.