The Game Formerly Known as Panels

[Clinton R. Nixon]

A long time ago, I started work on a superhero game based off of relationships instead of lists of powers called "Panels." To tell the truth, it was a complete knock-off of Hero Wars, and I gave it up, even though Jared and a few others kept pestering me to finish it.

I've let it percolate through my mind for months, and have it nearly done - I'm going to spit it out here and let it rest for a while. Also, I don't have a name for it. My biggest influences on superheroes these days are Warren Ellis' stint on "The Authority" and watching too much "Smallville."

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The Game Formerly Known As Panels

Characters are part of a team of superheroes, all with lives outside of this identity. The team may be "loose" (acquaintances) or "tight" (with a secure hideout, and relationships between the team members).

These team members are the only superheroes of note with their area. The area, or scope, of the game is defined before character creation.

Scope Levels
Neighborhood: The heroes are low-powered guardians of their local neighborhood, cleaning up the streets for the kids.

City: The heroes are the paragons of the city (or town), protecting it from harm against outside influences.

Nation: The heroes are the well-known protectors of an entire nation. They might be government-sponsored, or might be independent, even protecting a people from their own government. Their enemies may be as large as other nations.

The World: "Authority"-level action, where the heroes are near-gods protecting a world from harm and from itself.

The Galaxy: Marvel Comics-like cosmic guardians.

Character Creation

Characters' power is ranked by a simple "Power" statistic, ranging from 1 to 10. Normal people have Power 1, always. Anything above that is super-human, with 10 being cosmic god-like power. Players can choose any power level they like.

You then choose your character's Spheres - the area(s) in which they are skilled. This even works for normal people - a doctor would have Power 1, Sphere: doctor. Examples of superheroes (with kind-of-well known copyrighted guys):

Batman: Power 1, Spheres - vengeance, fighting
Spiderman: Power 3, Spheres - strength, agility, danger sense, web-slinging
Jenny Sparks (from The Authority): Power 7, Spheres - Spirit of the Twentieth Century
Superman: Power 8, Spheres - strength, flying, x-ray vision, heat rays

You can write down as many Spheres as you like, with 5 being a good maximum guideline. Depending on your group, this can be as abstracted as you like: notice Jenny Sparks with "Spirit of the Twentieth Century." In the comics, she's shot lightning through the sky to hit a dozen airplanes, been strong, tough, smart, and I think she's even flown. The Twentieth Century is all about innovation, electricity, and movement - it all fits. Spiderman could have been abstracted to "Spider powers" and that would have been fine.

Given what you have so far, consult this table:

Code Select Expand


Power Points for Triggers (positive/negative)
1 20/4
2 18/4
3 16/5
4 14/5
5 12/6
6 10/6
7 8/7
8 6/7
9 4/8
10 2/8


Triggers are emotional stimuli for characters - relationships or issues which drive them forward (or keep them down). At character creation, these can be ranked from +1 to +5.

An example:

Frank Furst, The Spirit of Vengeance

Power: 3
Spheres: Guns, anger, tracking, strength

Positive Triggers (16)
--------
Anger over dead wife: +4
Loves children: +3
Hates the Mafia: +3
Protects Kimmy, his "adopted" street-kid daughter: +5
Looked up to by local prostitutes, who he protects: +1

Negative Triggers (5)
--------
Guilt that wife's death was his fault: -3
Soft spot for kids (won't attack if a kid's in danger): -2

Note that the positive and negative triggers will often be about the same relationships or issues - what drives us on may also weigh the heaviest in our heart.

Resolution

Like most games, there are uncontested actions and contested actions. Uncontested actions are things like climbing a fence.

For uncontested actions, roll your Power in d10s if your Spheres apply to the action (otherwise, roll 1 d10.) Add any positive triggers that apply to each dice roll. Subtract any negative triggers that apply to each dice roll as well.

Example: Frank needs to climb a fence in order to catch some Mafia footmen that are on the run. Climbing falls under "strength," so he rolls 3d10, and ends up with 2, 4, and 8. He has "Hates the Mafia" at +3, so these rolls are modified to 5, 7, and 11.

For a roll to be a success, it must be over 5. For each 5 over that (10, 15, 20, etc), the die earns an extra success. Frank got 5 [1 success], 7 [1], and 11 [2], so he has 4 successes total.

The number of successes needed to achieve something can be found on this chart:

Code Select Expand


Successes Effect
1 Normal human ability
2 Limits of human ability (lifting a small car enough to pull a child out)
3 Beginning of superhuman (leap a 10 foot fence)
4 Superior (lift the back end of a Lincoln Town Car off the ground)
5 Amazing (throw a 100 pound piece of concrete a city block)
6 Baffling (leap to the top of a 20-story building)
7 Frighteningly powerful (punch through a bank vault door)
8 Incredible (knock 20 jet planes out of the sky with lightning bolts)
9 Unbelievable (lift a city block, streets, building and all, and fly away with it)
10 God-like (change the world)


This is a rough guideline - most actions will be contested. In that case, both people involved in a situation roll, add and subtract triggers, and count successes and compare. A tie represents a stand-off - otherwise, there should be a clear winner.

Combat and stuff

I haven't figured out all the combat stuff yet. Damage will be the number of successes you garner, and I imagine that will be just a trigger - 3 successes of damage mean a -3 trigger to every roll until healed.


Anyway - as a start, how does this look? I'm especially interested in Jared's thoughts, as he's been shouting praises about this thing all over the internet without knowing what it was going to be like.

Last thought - it's amazing how many superheroic weaknesses are metaphors for emotional triggers. Superman, for example, is weakened by kryptonite - a piece of his home planet. He feels extreme guilt for being the only survivor of his dead home planet. He'd have the trigger:

Grief over destruction of home planet (weakness to kryptonite): -5.

[mahoux]

Good God man!  Keep working until this is done, resources be damned!

Seriously though, I have gotten on a severe superhero kick after buying the Unbreakable DVD, so this is really the genre (Superheroes) that I am into.

I especially like the idea of tying negatives to positives.

Keep going.

[Zak Arntson]

I can't tell you how glad I am you're picking this up again, Clinton.

Issues:

The current system allows for whiffs, unless you elaborate differently than I'm thinking. The Hulk may fail to lift a truck or something in your success system. But in the comics he doesn't have to worry about it. Ever. There should be some sort of auto-success mechanic. Or you only roll when the outcome is in doubt (i.e., Hulk doesn't pick up the truck because the villain distracts him).

Also, why bother with a complicated damage system? Most superheroes are either Fine, Hurting or Unconscious. And can go from Hurting to Fine pretty quickly, especially if their triggers are involved.

Suggestion: I would elaborate on the outcome and reason for rolling the dice. It shouldn't be a simple, "Can I hurl a lightning bolt," but rather, the rolls are made when it has an emotional impact. Your superhero could pummel villains all day without any rolls, but when it comes time to defend your city (Trigger - Defend home +3), you gotta start rolling.

[J B Bell]

In the spirit of ripping off (uh, I mean, "taking inspiration from") Hero Wars, I'm not certain there is a need for separate "negative" or "positive" triggers.  This would seem to be contextual.  A powerful love for someone, e.g., would be a positive in fighting for them, but a negative modifier to understanding that they have betrayed you.  ("My beloved Jewel, an agent of F.A.R.T.?  Absurd!  I should clock you just for suggesting such a thing!")  A well-defined Trigger shouldn't need seperately laid out positive & negative configurations, IMO.

--JB

[Clinton R. Nixon]

JB -

I dig it. I really wanted a method in which you could create triggers that worked both ways. I think I'll still limit your number of triggers based on your Power, which fits the comics fine: the Rhino gets his ass handed to him everytime, not because he's not powerful, but because he's got nothing really going on to live for.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

[quote="Zak Arntson"
Issues:

The current system allows for whiffs, unless you elaborate differently than I'm thinking. The Hulk may fail to lift a truck or something in your success system. But in the comics he doesn't have to worry about it. Ever. There should be some sort of auto-success mechanic. Or you only roll when the outcome is in doubt (i.e., Hulk doesn't pick up the truck because the villain distracts him).

Also, why bother with a complicated damage system? Most superheroes are either Fine, Hurting or Unconscious. And can go from Hurting to Fine pretty quickly, especially if their triggers are involved.
[/quote]

Zak,

You're out of your damn mind. :) (I'm kidding, of course.) Anyway, the whiff factor is low - you have a raw 50% chance with each die, and lots of dice mean you should see successes.

That said, I'm not worried about the whiff factor. The thing I didn't state before that I should have is that a failed roll doesn't mean you didn't do something - it means it didn't make a difference. If you're a superhero, and fail your roll going over a fence, it doesn't mean that you don't make it over. It means that you made it over slow, and the bad guys are far ahead of you.

In the same fashion, if the Hulk tries to pick up a truck and hurl it at someone, failure on his roll doesn't mean he didn't pick it up. It means he didn't hit anyone.

[Zak Arntson]

I missed that always over 5 rule. Much clearer :)

Oh, and your clarification is perfect. Of course the Hulk picks up the truck. It just flies into a mall instead of the robot baddie. Again, this game will rule.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

That said, I'm not worried about the whiff factor. The thing I didn't state before that I should have is that a failed roll doesn't mean you didn't do something - it means it didn't make a difference. If you're a superhero, and fail your roll going over a fence, it doesn't mean that you don't make it over. It means that you made it over slow, and the bad guys are far ahead of you.

In the same fashion, if the Hulk tries to pick up a truck and hurl it at someone, failure on his roll doesn't mean he didn't pick it up. It means he didn't hit anyone.

Yes. I describe this in InSpectres as "What is your character's goal in performing this action?" If the Hulk's is to just smash something, what's behind it? Let's say Bruce Banner is trying to get control back and he's trying to vent his rage. If he fails, it doesn't mean he can't smash that truck (of course he can, he's the fucking Hulk!)...it means that the whole smashing business isn't doing anything for him.

I'm going to re-read Clinton's initial post a few times so I can really comment on it. Clinton pushed me to finish Schism, now I gots t'push back!

[Walt Freitag]

I don't believe a single Power level that applies to a character's every Sphere will be sufficient if you're playing with a wide range of Power levels in the same game, using the current rule for contested actions. If Superman is searching for Batman who's hiding in Gotham City, he would get to apply a Power of 8 using flying and/or x-ray vision. Batman, even assuming he has a Sphere of Gotham City Knowledge (as he should), would only get to oppose with 1 die (which, come to think of it, is no different from not having the power at all). But this situation should be a roughly even contest. It's not a fistfight, in which Superman would be expected to have an overwhelming advantage; it's a contest of sheer power over local savvy which ("historically" in the comic books) makes for a fairly even match between the two.

Similarly, Spiderman's webs often fail against more powerful opponents, so a Power of 3 makes sense for that. But his agility should be in the incredible to unbelievable range, which allows him to hold his own against higher Power levels. As things stand, any big dumb guy with, say, Baffling strength would succeed in clocking Spiderman most of the time when contested by his agility.

It might work in the current form if there were some mechanism for deciding in which Sphere a contested action is going to be contested. Big slow dumb (but strong) guy attacks Spiderman in the Sphere of strength. Spiderman contests the action in the Sphere of agility. Somehow it is established which Sphere will be decisive (flip a coin?). If the Sphere is strength, Spiderman rolls three dice and Big slow strong guy rolls seven, probably winning. If the Sphere is agility, Spiderman rolls three dice and Big slow etc. rolls one, probably losing. This has potential, but I'd guess that you don't want to add another step to resolution. Ergo, I think Spheres have to have their own individual Power levels even though this reduces the system's ability to sum the character's super powers up in one number and one broad Sphere description.

I second mahoux's approval of tying negatives to positives. I've been pursuing a more explicit version of the same idea in my dream game (where it becomes very simple; strengths being reversed into weaknesses is a staple of dreams) and I think it's far more broadly applicable than that.

- Walt

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Walt -

I get what you're saying: you're actually repeating my first model of the game, which would have had something like this:

Spiderman
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Agility: 8
Webslinging: 5
Strength: 3

Loves Aunt May +4
Feels responsibility over Uncle Ben's death +5

I'm going to think about it more, but I want to be explicit here: I'm not trying to model everyone superhero - these guys are fiction, and as such, some in every flavor under the sun.

I'm trying to make a game where the most important thing for success is how the situation strikes your character emotionally, and so I've ramped down the factor of super-powers, and replaced them with lots of emotional triggers. Characters in here are more like the Authority than anything else, in that their powers are very undefined, and can be used in multiple ways.

(And considering all that, I thought about your Batman/Superman bit. Seems to me, I was thinking about something all wrong. Your Power isn't a factor of superheroic science nonsense (radiation, mutants, whatever), but just a factor of how much "power without purpose" you have. Batman would be at a 6 or 7 within his spheres, which would be things like "Gotham City Knowledge, stealth, kicking ass" or even simpler "Human vigilante protector of Gotham City."

[Walt Freitag]

I'm not trying to model everyone superhero - these guys are fiction, and as such, some in every flavor under the sun.

Understood. But keep in mind that the comic book superheroes are also shaped more by the needs of storytelling than by any form of realism. So the ability to represent e.g. Batman vs. Superman is a reasonable (though certainly not a conclusive) test of a system's narrativist compatibility.

I'm trying to make a game where the most important thing for success is how the situation strikes your character emotionally, and so I've ramped down the factor of super-powers, and replaced them with lots of emotional triggers. Characters in here are more like the Authority than anything else, in that their powers are very undefined, and can be used in multiple ways.

That's why I was concerned about Power. Having the Power factor alone determine the number of dice rolled doesn't ramp down that factor enough. It appears too, well, powerful compared with other elements of the system where contested actions are concerned. Sure you could be constantly creating emotional situations that give the the Power 2 guy an even shot against the Power 7 guy, but if you're doing that constantly, why have the Power be so predominant in the first place?

Batman would be at a 6 or 7 within his spheres, which would be things like "Gotham City Knowledge, stealth, kicking ass" or even simpler "Human vigilante protector of Gotham City."

Exactly.

How about this: rate the action for centricity within its Sphere, and make that its effective power (number of dice), at least up to the character's overall power level if there still is one. Spiderman using webs to trip up fleeing bank robbers would get 6 or 7 dice. Spiderman using web-balls to deliver a punch at a distance might get 3 or 4 dice. Spiderman using webs to bandage an injured person's wounds would get 1 die... no better than a boy scout using linen bandages.

- Walt

[Bailywolf]

How about this.

Rank heroes with a single power rating.  For a bastard like The Hulk this works pretty well- all his powers fall into the same range (the strength, the invulnerability, the jumping ect).  Supes is another example of a pretty level charcter.  

When all your Spheres rate out at 8, that's all the book keeping you need.

Now that I think about is, Spidy is a pretty level character too.

Anyhow, here are some possibilities:

Rank Spheres with +/- notation.  Supes has Invulnerability at his power rank...but Invulnerability to magic at -6.  

Bats has Vengence, Detective, Inventor, and Remain Unfound rated with varous +'s...but his base power is still quite modest.



Then equiptment, gizmos, and such can further modify totals.  




Please, wrap this up in a nice PDF.  I'd love to see more.

[Bailywolf]

Give on-the-fly powerstunts a negative shift based on how far from the Sphere's definition they sway.  Realy flexible Spheres can do more...but take a harder negative shift.  Dr. Strange's magic can do damn near anything the plot demands... but sometimes it's too weak, sometimes really strong.


Some powers might be tied to a power pool.  Roll a die, loose a die from your pool.  Like Apollo from The Authority...if he doesn't sunbathe, he taps out.  In sunlight, he can use his powers as much as he likes (it refreshes as quick as it is used)... away from sunlight, he burns up his internal reserves.

[Matt Steflik]

What about calling it "Tragic Heroes"?  Here's why.  Taken in a Greek sense, "triggers" could be interpreted as "tragic flaws".  A true tragic hero is not thoroughly evil or thoroughly good, but is rather a mixture of both.  They suffer changes in fate due to "errors" in judgement based upon operating upon what they believe to be right. Again, sounds like triggers...acting on them could produce positive or negative repercussions and could be viewed by others to be "good" or "bad" behaviors, depending upon the audience.  There's nothing like a superhero plot where a hero does a "bad" act for a "good" reason (or visa versa).  Typically, audiences feel pity for tragic heroes because they are not inherrently evil, and the suffering that they undergo because of their actions tends to seem greater they they deserve (superheros really tend to "beat themselves up" when they fail or make mistakes...lots of "super angst"). What do you think?

[Matt Machell]

I like the way this is headed. I like the fact that the powers can be as abstract as needed, and that you tend to get a bonus when it matters to the character.

I'd quite like to see triggers fluctuating in some way because of events in the story. Say I had a hero who normally gets a trigger of "looks out for kids", what happens when he fails to do this? Some way of modelling that comic book angst thing: Maybe it gets boosted up, and can only be brought down to it's original level by some sort fo narative resolution.

On a side note, have you checked out Planetary? Another great Warren Ellis penned supers comic.


Matt