Superheroes in Spaaaaace!

[greyorm]

So, I was outside with the kids the other day, watching them jump on the neighbor's trampoline and wondering how best to drag them inside without them screaming their heads off about it, given that a wicked storm was brewing up and outdoors was not going to be comfortable shortly.

Now, even knowing I'm supposed to be working on Rose, Mist & Thorn and DeadSpace, this idea pops into my head that simply doesn't want to go away. Space Ghost.

I'm sitting in a lawnchair, watching the clouds boil up above, feeling the wind pick up, and it hits me: Space Ghost. Damn, they did a number on him, turned him into a total mockery. He was cool in his day, flying around space, zapping things with power beams, breathing vaccum like it was air, and having not one Boy Wonder sidekick, but TWO (and a monkey).

Thus, while dragging the kids inside and ignoring their screams of, "NO!" (which subsided quickly once the rain hit us), I began wondering about superhero games -- specifically, superhero games set in outer space.

Justice League, Superman, Teen Titans, Space Ghost, Herculoids (sort of), etc. All of them have these storylines that take place "out there" on all these other worlds in the galaxy. The hero teams visit other planets crawling with alien life and alien civilizations, beat up weird looking bad guys, fight and fly space ships, and ignore the general physical principles of a vaccum and stellar distances.

And I thought, "Damn, I've never wanted to do superheroes until JUST NOW!" So I figured, why the heck not.

My main problem, however, is that I've never done superheroes. I've never played even one superhero game. I don't own any, never even cracked the cover of one.

Thus, to get started I figured I need to seriously bone up on the subject before delving into a mechanical system for it: what are the superhero games out there? Which ones should I check out and which ones are simply rehashes of the same old crap? Do any of them deal with or do anything along the lines above?

[sayter]

lets seee theres Heroes Unlimited (Palladium) with their few books for it like Villains Unlimited an Aliens Unlimited (which focuses almost entireyl on space. ) They also ahve some other superhero esque games in Palladiums library (Mutants and Superspies is another good one. )

Then theres Abberant, which is White Wolfs version. a good game, too. And the new d20 one...er  Mutants and Masterminds i think its called.

and there are quite a few others out there. many handle space topics, thoguh none exclusively

[ironick]

Aberrant's sister game Trinity (formerly known as Aeon) deals more with space, although you play psions, but they're kinda like superheroes ;)

Also, there's DC Heroes, Champions (Hero system), and Marvel Super Heroes, which is token-based.

And of course there's Stuper Powers!

Nick

[Lonoto]

Capes is supposed to be a pretty good superhero game, and Tri-Stat dX/BESM handles super-heroesqu type stuff.

As for what a superhero game is supposed to do... that would depend on the game. Some superhero games allow the players to make the big hard choices (I think this is what Capes does, but never played...), some just let you fly around with a cool cape and beat on baddies. Just think about the most appealing part of a Superhero game in space and make that the theme for your game I guess.

So, there's my two cents.

[ironick]

Ooh, I forgot Necessary Evil, for the Savage Worlds system.  It's kinda unique in that you play the supervillains fighting against an alien invasion after all the heroes have been killed off.

Nick

[Eero Tuovinen]

For a more analytical take, I'd like to talk about what the superhero games are, rather than what they are. This will be short and simple, because it's not a complex topic.

All superhero games to date are about point-buying yourself the hero you want, and taking him to GM-led adventures. The latter part is the same it is in D&D, so there's nothing new in that. A good GM will use your flaws (which you took in chargen to get points) to spark the adventures (because a flawless hero is like a duck, it never gets wet), but other than that, it's pretty much up to the GM to do what he wants to.

The former part, however, is where the superhero games really are, because that's what D&D doesn't do. There's two qualities that are valued in a point-buy system, balance and flexibility. Ideally you can make just the hero you picture in your head, and the system supports you by modelling his superpowers for you. Ideally this ideal hero of yours will be "balanced" compared to the heroes of the other players, whatever weird choices you make in distributing your points.

Now, the game that does this all is Champions, or the Hero System. Get that, and you have all you need to understand superhero games to date. They all do the same thing with the power lists, combat rounds and minimal GM constraint. Even that Marvel game, which just uses resource management instead of dice.

--

Beyond those, there's a bunch of games outside the tradition, like With Great Power, Darkpages (was that the Sorensen game?) and Capes and some others. However, being outside the Champions tradition, you have to check each out separately and decide if it's even about superheroes (all are not, they just happen to have them). The trick is to learn to classify the f***ing things based on a fast skim, otherwise you're out there all day. Just check if there's a long power list, and leave it at that.

[Marhault]

What have we missed so far. . .  Villains & Vigilantes is a classic (Hey, I liked it, anyway) superhero game.  It isn't point based either.  Underground is about more or less superpowered characters, but not really "superheroes in the traditional sense.  Urge, Clinton's Sorcerer mini-supplement is also worth mentioning.

[Resonantg]

Palladium also does their Superhero SF source book "Skraypers" in which a world of supers comes under alien invasion.  Not Supers in space, but something of interest.

[Darcy Burgess]

Well, I'll bang the drum for my personal fave.  Check out Godlike.  The system is slick (IMHO), but as Eero pointed out, it is definitely geared towards a GM-driven storyline (like just about every other supers game).

Personally, I think that's merely a factor -- whether it's good or bad depends entirely on your tastes.

Godlike is technically geared towards Supers in WWII, but there's absolutely nothing about the game that stops it from doing the four-colour stuff you want to.  It scales relatively well from gritty to Super-man style, with numerous plugin rules for adapting it.

And as an aside, Jeff Dee (creator of V&V) basically came out and said that original "random" V&V had the potential to be horribly broken.  He eventually released a points-based chargen system.  Unfortunately, I've lost the link.

Best of luck, the whole "retro heroes" idea sounds like a lot of fun.

[greyorm]

Thanks for the pointers, everyone. I will begin checking these out as my time permits.

Darcy, I ran into Dee's follow-up to V&V the other day on RPGNow, so I know what you're talking about.

Eero, many thanks for the analysis, it was very helpful!

If anyone has any more games to name, or other thoughts regarding the questions I raised above, please, feel free to speak up.

[Stickman]

There's a lot of factors going on in this choice, but for me Capes is a must-try sort of game. It's extrememly simple to start with, and is set up so every hero is exqually capable of altering the story. It does require more work from the players though, so might not be an optimal choice for certain types of younger players.

Beyond that I'd have to recommend Mutants and Masterminds, which picks up most of the good stuff about D20 (it's well defined, reasonably simple, familiar in some cases) and adds in a fudgable 'damage save' to prevent counting hit points. Definately worth a look (and the book is very nicely put together)

Hope that helps,

Dave

[Danny_K]

Cartoon Action Hour is designed to emulate the 80's cartoon shows that you referred to.  I've never seen the game, but the author, Cynthia Celeste Miller, is really cool, so her game may be as well.

A little off the beaten track -- Angel, by Eden, is basically a superhero game dressed up as an angsty TV show.  The demon creation rules work very nicely for creating supers.  (Eden is also developing a game based on the MMORPG City of Heroes).


Also, a plug for Green Lantern.  I think he was pretty much the ultimate space-travelling superhero, since he was just the Earth GL, part of a much larger galaxy-wide organization (at least until the friggin DC editors starting screwing with the continuity).  I think the GL Corps would make a great backbone to build adventure parties around.

[Adam Cerling]

My best superhero game experiences came out of the middle child of the Marvel systems which used TSR's SAGA card-based system. Play with cards was fast and easy, suiting the loose and cinematic style my groups preferred. The superpowers list was thorough, enabling us to create just the heroes we imagined.

[Allan]

Can't get enough of that GL.  There's also Legion of Super Heroes, Starjammers, and Alien Legion, for more source material.

As far as system goes, I love point-builds and grew up on Champions, but since then I've used the Over the Edge system for some good, simple superhero games.  

If you don't have the pre-game prep time (or the interest) to point-build exactly the power you imagine, then Over the Edge (or the generic Reverse RPG), allows you to define your power however you want.  The power could be as huge as god-like super-strength and invulnerability, as subtle as enhanced senses, or as specific as telepathic communication with fish, it doesn't matter.  All powers are represented by a single number, and the game mechanic determines if the power helps you in a given situation.  It's up to the players to describe how the power applies to the situation.  Atomic Sock Monkeys' PDQ system seems to opperate under the same principle.

My point is that it's possible to have flexibility and balance without a detailed point-build system.

I also recently played Hero Clix for the first time.  I was impressed with the way damage caused the characters to change their powers and tactics.  It forced the supers to use a variety of different powers (instead of relying on their biggest power) and to save their big guns until they'd taken a few hits.  I thought these elements made the fight feel more like a comic-book super-battle.

[Bob McNamee]

I still intend to try using the basic game mechanics behind Trollbabe to do a superhero saga. I like the way it will tie in relationships...and rerolls of course.

Bob McNamee