Bullpen: Not Just Another Supers RPG

[Jay Turner]

I'd love some feedback on Bullpen, a comic-book RPG I've been working on. The premise of the game is a little experimental: Instead of playing a superhero in a comic book world, you're a creator in charge of a character in a team-based superhero comic book. You, the other players, and your Editor (the GM-type) create stories in comic book form (issues, story arcs, etc.). Each player has control over the story through an Appeal score, which represents how much that player's hero is liked by his audience. Play to your fans and your character will get away with more plot inconsistancies than he would otherwise. You can even try publicity stunts, like new costumes, new powers, new supporting cast members, and even a new artist to try and impress your readers. Meanwhile, your hero and his teammates live their lives in the comic-book world, fighting crime and developing their own places in the world.

I was inspired by Elfs to take a look at the separation between characters and players, but I also wanted to see if I could tie in a third party (the series' readers) as an influence on the action in the story. The game features a for-narration resolution system and a system for not only advancing your characters, but developing them as well.

This is still an early draft, but I think it's complete enough to show. I'd love your feedback on this; this is the most experimental concept I've put on paper, and if it works, awesome, but if it doesn't, I'd love to hammer it until it does.

You can get the PDF at http://www.zobiegames.com/bullpen.pdf. If anyone has trouble getting it, let me know and I'll email it or something.

Thanks for your time. I'm interested to see what you guys think.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Shot-from-the-hip comment, about the series reader, make this a part of the mechanics. At least in early editions of Soap, the characters each had a secret. If this secret was ever revealed, then the character can die. The logistics being that the secret is what kept the audience interested in the character. Once the audience lost interest, you're on borrowed time.

"Audience" in this case is a fictitious audience watching the soap opera on television. This is a pure construct as a means to provide logistic for the rule and the rule effects play. You could do something similar with your game. Perhaps some kind of "sales" logistics?

[Jay Turner]

Maybe it's too early in the morning, but I'm not sure I understand. The readers already are a part of the mechanics, in that your Appeal rating represents how much they like you and your character and how lenient they are when you want the plot to lurch conveniently in your favor. When you want to try to increase Appeal, you have to do a Publicity Stunt to try to win the audience's favor and get their attention--the more creative and fitting the stunt, the more likely it is to succeed in getting you more fans. On the topic of fans, your character's Fans add to your chances of successfully using Appeal to alter the plot. So when your character works in a way that appeals to his or her Fans, you'll find it easier to shape the story of the title.

Was the audience's role not clear in the PDF as posted? I'll take another look at SOAP.

[Phillip]

Fantastic game, Jay.  Captures the essence of comic books very well.  I think this and Capes & Cowls are my two favorite super RPGs now.  I'll try to post a few first impressions.
- The best thing this game has going for it is the superhero-game/writer-metagame thing.  I really like this, it makes it different from all the other supers RPGs I have seen.
- I am not sure that I like the task resolution system.  I don't know exactly why, it just seems a bit unwieldy.  I don't have any suggestions on how to fix this, other than maybe simplifying it a bit.  Doing so would probably not be easy without breaking something else, though.
- Since the players are writing the same comic book title, why shouldn't they be able to affect the other players' heroes with narration?  It should be much harder though, maybe voted on.

[Phillip]

As a matter of fact, Jay, I am going to borrow some of your ideas and some from C&C and redo the supers RPG I just finished 2 weeks ago to make it better.  My hat is off to you, sir.

[LordSmerf]

Jay, i'm glad you finally got a Bullpen PDF up.  I've always thought the idea to be incredibly ambitious.  I'll read it and get back to you.  Also, i'll try to get back over to the Zobiegames forums.  I always enjoyed our discussions...

EDIT: I haven't read it yet so i'm not sure how you address it, but Audience is going to be the hardest thing to execute.  The ability to lose your appeal, basic concept appeal, and cultural shift will probably be very difficult to model in-game, but they are the most interesting things (for me anyway) about Audience.

Thomas

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Maybe it's too early in the morning, but I'm not sure I understand. The readers already are a part of the mechanics,...

My bad, then. It was late when I posted & I didn't take the time to read the PDF. It was a from the hip comment on the comment about addressing the comic readers. I may have been a little confused, so please take it as such.

Upon reflection, you might have an interesting concept game here. It can be a statement about comic books and marketing and such. Things like how two heroes always fight when they first meet or a character that is not very popular may go through radical change to try to boost sales (compare Dr Fate to Fate)

[Jay Turner]

Phillip,

Thanks! I've never had a game of mine called someone's favorite of any kind. Then again, I just started doing this. ;)

The resolution system came from an attempt at working initiative, success, and result into one roll. Originally, you'd roll, then the highest number die would go first and resolve itself based on the number on the die. The problem I found with that was that it meant that whoever went first did best, and that people with lower initiatives would necessarily fail. I didn't like that at all.

I was working on another game idea at the time, one modelling first-person shooters, and in that game I had people roll four dice, keep the results as initiative, and then spend a die when that die's number is called. When it's your turn, you roll the die you're spending, and you resolve the action that way. I liked the reinforcement of having a die for a counter to represent your initiative--in many ways, it works like a multi-turn initiative chart, like you'd see in Everlasting and other games, but you have an organic representation of it there in front of you with a number on it. The idea of using dice not only as resolution mechanics, but also as game pieces, appeals to me.

So in the system as it is, you roll to find out when you get to go (adding any super-speed or fast-reaction powers to your results), then roll each die to figure out if you succeed when that die's number is called. It handles initiative, multiple attacks, full defense (save your rolls and spend them to interrupt actions), etc., while also giving you a concrete way to see when you act next.

Does that explain it any better? Does it change your opinion on the system in any way? If not, that's cool. I'd love to hear what you think could be different.

As for players affecting other players, I think that could be a group contract thing. The thing about narration is that you are free to narrate that you nailed a guy in the face, sending him crashing through the wall, but you're not allowed to narrate how slowly he gets up or what he says or does in response. The narration "rules" suggest that everyone must go along with the scene as narrated by those who went before.

an example:

The heroes need to get up to the roof of the warehouse, in which they suspect the evil Sludgemagnet has set up shop. Unfortunately none of the heroes can fly, or even climb all that well.

Lunk, a super-strong, super-dumb pile of sentient rubble, decides that he needs to toss one of his friends up onto the roof. He decides to grab Firebug (the nearest hero) and toss him up there.

Lunk's and Firebug's players both roll, because Firebug doesn't like the idea of being tossed anywhere--his Fans respect his independence, and it wouldn't do him any good to look like a tool. Lunk's player rolls (8 3), and Firebug's player rolls (5 1)--a pitiful roll, but modified a bit by Firebug's Flicker 2 power. It's still not fast enough, and Lunk wins. His Super-Strength 5 Power is easily enough to get Firebug up onto the roof. Lunk's player gets to narrate the scene.

Good:
"Lunk grabs Firebug before he can react and gives a might heave, sending Firebug flying up onto the roof. Firebug arcs high over the edge of the roof before landing somewhere atop the building."

Bad:
"Firebug struggles and whines as Lunk grabs him and heaves him up onto the roof. When he lands, Firebug stands slowly, grumbles, and then shows Lunk a particular finger as he brushes himself off."

The former narration is good, because it gives a good picture of what Lunk did, but it doesn't "put words in Firebug's mouth." It's a hero's creator's right to have his character react to things, not someone else's. Firebug's player should feel free to interject that Firebug was struggling as Lunk lifted him, as long as his interjection doesn't interfere with Lunk's narration in any real sense.

Is that what you were thinking?

[Jay Turner]

Maybe it's too early in the morning, but I'm not sure I understand. The readers already are a part of the mechanics,...

My bad, then. It was late when I posted & I didn't take the time to read the PDF. It was a from the hip comment on the comment about addressing the comic readers. I may have been a little confused, so please take it as such.

No problem, I thought that might have been the case. I'm thrilled to have any feedback at all, so please don't think I took offense or anything. :)

Upon reflection, you might have an interesting concept game here. It can be a statement about comic books and marketing and such. Things like how two heroes always fight when they first meet or a character that is not very popular may go through radical change to try to boost sales (compare Dr Fate to Fate)

I'm glad you mentioned the "Heroes fight at first meeting" thing. I might want to put that into the Editor section, or mention a fight with other heroes in the Publicity Stunt section. There are other Stunts I want to mention, like "Second Monthly Series," which gives you a second "instance" of your hero you can use in case something happens to your current one, or "Crossover," which enables you to pull in a popular hero from another series to bolster your readership. I need to toss in some more examples of that sort of thing. :)

[Jack Spencer Jr]

Kind of reminds me of when someone revamped the Hulk several years ago and to cash in he was crossovered all over the place and the writer on the Hulk got peeved and went, fine, I'll make my Hulk grey. Sort of the push/pull of artistic control and the sales-pushing stunt thing.

[Jay Turner]

Kind of reminds me of when someone revamped the Hulk several years ago and to cash in he was crossovered all over the place and the writer on the Hulk got peeved and went, fine, I'll make my Hulk grey. Sort of the push/pull of artistic control and the sales-pushing stunt thing.

Right. Also think back to the Superman Red/Blue fiasco or the revelation a few years ago that Spider-Man was really a clone of Peter Parker for the preceeding few years. Hell, even the Death of Superman stunt back in the 90s. These plots are no more unbelievable than any others in comics, but they didn't go well with the fans. Superman's Death got him tons of mass media attention, but the fans just got annoyed--especially when he returned, none the worse for wear.

Not to turn this thread into a comics discussion. That's the sort of thing I want the Appeal/Publicity system to represent. That, and the fact that fans will turn a blind eye to poor continuity if it's done in the interest of one of their favorite characters.

[Jay Turner]

The PDF has been updated with a change to the Publicity Stunt system, as suggested elsewhere.

Anyone have any gut feelings about the system or the overall concept? I'm trying to line up some playtesting, but in the meantime, I'd love feedback on the rules as they stand. I'd really love thoughts on the character/player/audience dynamic, too, if anyone has any opinions.

Thanks!

[Jack Spencer Jr]

It seems to be a solid game AFAICT but as a statement about comic books and thus making it unique when compared to other super heroes RPGs I would like to encourage you to take it a couple steps further. Exactly what those steps are will be up to you, but here are some similar off-the-cuff suggestions.

I would dispense the idea of one character, one player. Tunnels & Trolls had the idea of a 'stable" of characters for the player. This seems to fit here, I think. The idea is to try to gain as much appeal from the audience.

You also might want to add stats for the players as bullpen artists as well. This will help with the looser player/character set up.  Some comic readers think Byrne walks on water. So does Byrne. Adding this will make it more like a storytelling waqrgame, deploying your characters to the best ends to gain popularity for the player himself.

I think a harder line needs to be drawn between the in-game comic book world and the players as comic book artist. With Weaknesses and Haters, I thought Haters were like J Jonah Jameson for Spidey or everybody for the X-Men.

Following the above ideas I can see players making characters and then using them in games to try to raise their own appeal so they can make more characters and thus gain more appeal. So the player appeal would be a resource that can be spent to make characters or to do stuff with the characters. I also wouldn't limit the players to just heroes. Villians and fifth business players are also good fodder. The guy who created Rick Jones probably gained all kinds of points, as it were. Heroes become villians become heroes and back again all the time.

I also see characters trading hands among the players like card in a game of go fish. a player can buy or rent a character from another player if they think they'll get some appeal out of it. A player can retire a character that has lost too much appeal and it will go into the backlog file and can be pulled out at a later date and revitalized.

All of this may be a direction you don't want for the Bullpen, but it may proove to be an idea.

[Daniel Solis]

It's pretty solid, systematically speaking, but I agree that it's got a few more steps to go before really becoming a statement on the comic industry.

Another suggestion may be to incorporate the popularity of a particular artist's style. Perhaps you could supply a couple "schools" of artist like realists, expressionists, juvenile (big boobs, big explosions), and so on. You could give each of the types different packages of traits representing their niche appeal among the audience.

For example, the juvenile artist draws big muscles, big boobs, big explosions and cool robots. The kids love it. However, that appeal rarely lasts much past the age of 15, after which point the core audience becomes pimply-faced, dateless dorks. Mechanically, this could be expressed by chances for extreme failure and extreme success, but nothing in between. This represents the fickle nature of their target audience, kids.

At the other extreme, you could have expressionists like Neil Gaiman (though he doesn't actually draw his comics) and Sam Kieth, both spend more time exploring their characters' personality and relationships than fighting alien invasions. The kids aren't really that into it, but the young adults and older audience really dig that stuff and are a much more stable, reliable.

Some ideas for schools off the top of my head, ignore the goofy names:

Juvenile - Big boobs, musclebound killer characters with cool weapons and dark, mysterious pasts. (Wolverine, Punisher, Lobo, Lady Death, Spawn.)

Realist - Completely photorealistic art style like Alex Ross. (Um... Alex Ross stuff.)

Expressionist - Crazy storylines with troubled characters who go about their lives, however mystical and magical, trying to deal with their personal issues. (The Maxx, most of the Vertigo titles.)

Indie - Completely off-the-wall stories and art that could never make it in mainstream unless deemed "underground," thus making it "cool." Lots of opportunity for moving on up to the land of merchandising for the ambitious indie. (Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, Squee!, Lenore, Grrl Scouts, Sam & Max)

There should be a school for the absolutely serious "art" comic like Maus (the story of the artist's grandfather's experiences during the holocaust in which the jews are represented as mice, the nazis as cats).

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I don't think that's a direction I would go, Daniel The schools of art seem a little tweeky. I like big boobs, big explosions and cool robots and I am unpimpled and married. Since the game is supposed to focus on super heroes, the indy category seems out of place. As do the others, but indy is like having rules for crime dramas like law & order when making a pro wrestling game.

Personally, I think that the popularity of a particular artist is a better idea that any style school or grouping, but that's just me.