Bullpen: Not Just Another Supers RPG

[Daniel Solis]

Yeah, you're right. Upon re-evaluation, the "schools" concept makes rather unpleasant generalizations about comic readers and the artists themselves. I apologize if I offended anyone.

[Jay Turner]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. :)

Jack, I think a lot of your concerns are already in the game, but they might not be set out like they should. I'm notoriouosly bad about considering my own knowledge to be part of the book, and so I forget to put in certain things that I know in my head are part of the game.

For other characters, the players always have the right to create new supporting characters and to claim NPCs as supporting characters. All it really takes is an Appeal roll to do that. Players can create extras, heroes from other books who make cameos, sidekicks, and even villains as the game progresses. It's up to the Editor to see that these created NPCs get proper time in the storyline. Still, the players only get direct control over their primary heroes, but through Appeal rolls they can influence the other characters in the world a bit.

So, you think that waitress in the coffee shop would make a cool extra? Roll Appeal; a success means you can write up a little background for her, or possibly even take her under your character's wing and train her over time. Think the team needs some help in the upcoming battle? Fine; try to see if a hero from another book will come in. Roll Appeal; a success lets you create an NPC hero that will work alongside your team for a specified amount of time.

I don't want to deprotagonize the main heroes. Superhero teams have some serious turnover, so if someone wants to make a new primary hero and swap the old one out (or make his current one an extra), that's fine, but something like that will promt the Editor to call for a Publicity Stunt check and could therefore affect your Appeal.

I could probably do with more examples of what you can do with Appeal and Publicity Stunts.

Along those lines, I think that the artist part of the equation can be done with Appeal and Publicity, too. Maybe each team comes up with an art style and an artist's name to draw the series, since a book can only have one penciller, really, at a time. Then, as a Publicity Stunt, someone could call in a guest artist or hire a new one. The idea would be to find an artist whose style works alongside your own character's Fans--Jack Kirby's style wouldn't work for a hero with Fans that like something a little more Frank-Miller.

That opens up the possibility for team-wide stats. I'd have to give it more thought, but maybe giving the series itself an Appeal score could help with some of these things. It'd certainly give a method for doing series-wide Publicity Stunts (like new artists, etc.).

I'm also toying with the idea of giving the Editor the power to drop a player's Appeal score as a penalty for taking advantage of the narrative power they're given. Say a player keeps rolling Appeal and turning the villains into pushovers (well within his right), then the Editor might be justified in threatening a drop in Appeal, since the readers are losing interest in reading a story where the heroes never face a challenge.

For your suggestion about dividing the player/character line more, I think I could do that in layout. I could have a separate chapter for Caliber and one for Appeal, since those are really the representatives of the book/writer dichotomy. I can see where those might be confusing. In Bullpen, J. Jonah Jameson's hatred would most certainly be a Weakness, just as Commissioner Gordon's friendship would be a Power.

I really want the stories in Bullpen to mirror the convoluted, insane, and complex stories in comic book. Players should feel free to swap out their current character, have him return as a villain for an arc, then have him redeemed and take him back over again as a PC--perhaps with an evil clone of himself out there hunting him down for revenge.

I'm starting to warm quite a bit to the idea of giving the series an Appeal rating of its own. What do you guys think?

[LordSmerf]

After reading the original PDF over the weekend, here's what i've got for you:

The Good:
Player voting, when i first talked with you about Bullpen (very briefly) i was trying to figure out how to model Appeal.  I went through dozens of really bad dice and modifiers models.  You just went and modeled Appeal by seeing how things actually appeal to the audience (in this case the players).  The problem is simple, number of players can skew results badly.  In a game with two Artists and an Editor then the maximum bonus is +3 on Publicity Stunts, in games with 5 Artists and an Editor you could get a +6.  I don't know what the solution might be, but i think it needs some work.

The concept.  I've thought this to be pretty good from the get-go.  And i think it's shaping up nicely.

The Bad:
The Caliber resolution stuff.  It seems kind of generic.  It's very simple and effective, but it doesn't seem to capture anything about comic books.  That's not something that you nessecarily want, but i think that when you resolution system captures the spirit of the materiel it works out better.

Possible broken appeal booster.  You may choose not to raise your Caliber on a rewrite, you get a number of goals equal to you rewritten Caliber, you may raise your Appeal on a rewrite.  A Caliber 1 character finds it much easier to accomplish all their goals, raise Appeal, leave Caliber at 1, get 1 new goal and repeat.  Perhaps you should keep a track of the total number of rewrites and require a goal for each one?

Traditional RPG.  The materiel seems as if it could benefit from a departure from traditional RPGs.  One of the reasons comic book plots are so convoluted is that they are so fluid.  New heroes pop in and back out, villains show up and return if they are popular.  I would think that some sort of system that encourages this freeform stuff while still giving players a sense of personal ownership would be good.  I'm trying to figure out just what would be appropriate, i'll let you know if i have a semi-decent suggestion.

The Skinny:
Even though i have more bad than good listed, i think this is an excellent beginning to an excellent concept.  I don't know how much of this matches your vision for the game.  Perhaps i just want to play something different than you want to make.  There's a lot of good that i didn't mention.  I've got some ideas kicking around in my head now...  If anything fruitful comes of them i'll let you know.

Thomas

[Jay Turner]

Thanks, Thomas! Please do keep me posted if you have any ideas.

On Player Voting: I see what you're saying there. The case can be made that if the players are being honest about their feelings on the Publicity Stunt, then the ones that deserve to pass will, those that don't won't, and those that split the votes are more of a toss up. Maybe I should put more weight with the hero's fans, and perhaps fight it with the series' Appeal rating to represent how overall readers of the comic feel about that hero's Stunt.

I'm very open to suggestion on this. Appeal has been one of the hardest things to nail down; the stuff in the PDF is simply the latest version I've written out.

On the Caliber 1 Appeal Boost: I see what you're saying here, too, but I think there's some inherent balance in remaining Caliber 1. This means you'll never roll more than 1 die when your character does anything, you'll never have more than 3 Power points, etc. Sure, your character is popular enough that you as its creator get to chew the scenery, but hey, you deserved it if you made it through those Publicity Stunts to get the higher Appeal. If you think about comics, you can probably find examples of heroes whose personal abilities aren't so great, but whose appeal to the readers keeps him in the action--I want to say Plastic Man (from JLA)is the prime example. From a non-superhero (but still occasionally a comic) perspective, think of Xander from Buffy. He's no more powerful than the average human with some vampire experience, but he remained more or less unscathed throughout the series (until right at the end). Appeal carried him through, not Caliber.

On Caliber being generic: That might be one of its strengths. From a design standpoint, I wanted to avoid giving each character a Strength/Dex/Con/Int/Wis/Cha breakdown, just because when it comes down to it, decisions in comics aren't made based on a character's detailed stats, but rather on what that character needs to do in the story. Still, Superman will usually beat The Flash, who would typically have little trouble with Steel, who could probably kick the booty of someone like Beast Boy. You don't need to know that Superman has Speed 5 while Flash has Speed 6; you know that Superman will win because he's more powerful overall (not to mention his obvious Appeal margin).

That's sorta what I'm going for: that ability to guage a hero's power level in one look, with a list of his distinguishing powers and strengths underneath.

On "traditional RPGs": I like the idea of each player running a particular character as their PC. There's a sense of ownership on playing a single character that's your character, and I tend to shy away from RPGs that either give a communal pool of characters or ask players to make character trees. As stated earlier in the thread, I'd have no problem allowing players to swap out characters (though I'd ask for an Appeal roll) or creating a small troupe of NPC extras that orbit their character in a story sense. Every hero needs those. As long as it doesn't fire the series directly off into left field, the Editor should allow it. That said, I'd like each player to invest themselves most in one particular character each, and will likely aim any rewrites more specifically in that direction.

Please let me know if anything else pops up. I may try to dilute my concept into something simple and direct and post it in this thread before I begin my next rewrite/organization draft.

[LordSmerf]

I think you misunderstood one of my points.  It's not Caliber i have a problem with, it has some advantages.  Instead i have a problem with the resolution mechanic.  That's what strikes me as generic, it doesn't really carry any flavor with it.

Thomas

[Jay Turner]

I think you misunderstood one of my points.  It's not Caliber i have a problem with, it has some advantages.  Instead i have a problem with the resolution mechanic.  That's what strikes me as generic, it doesn't really carry any flavor with it.

Ah, you're right, I did misunderstand. Honestly, I've been kicking this game around for more than 7 months, and it's had this resolution mechanic (or one like it) for so long I can't imagine the game without it. It was originally made to go with cards, if that adds much in the way of flavor.

The system has its strong points, I think:

1) It models differently powered characters fairly well; character who've done something in their careers will do better than those who haven't, but there's always a chance for the Thug to do some damage.

2) It models a frame/page structure pretty well; Each die in front of you represents a frame of a comic page, and there are a certain number of pages in a combat scene. I could model this better with a better description of time--say, to fit in things like splash pages and the like a little bit better.

3) It gives you a tangible, visible way to guage your Initiative and know when you get to go. The timing for your next few moves are there, right in front of you, and it's not the same from round to round, like you'd see in some other iterative systems.

4) It gives Powers an edge when they're applicable. When you can apply a Power to a situation, you're more likely to succeed. It's pretty simple to come up with and map new Powers in the system: You simply come up with a Power, give it a score, and decide in what circumstances you get the bonus.

5) It gives a single mechanic for resolving fussy Powers. Things like Flight are automatic (Superman can lift off whenever he likes), but if two heroes have a flight competition (or a hero needs to catch a flying villain), it's easy to compare the outcomes using the same system you'd use for any other power--Roll respective Calibers, add the applicable Power bonus to each die.

6) It's simple. It pays for its simplicity by being a bit generic, sure, but it saves time spent looking through a book for rules, or at least, it should. The same roll of the same stat (with different Powers) dictates the resolution of every conflict that involves an actual character's abilities.

Hrm. I suppose I'm evangelizing now; I apologize. I like the system; I designed it for another game of mine that I think it fits better, but honestly, I've locked it into place in my mind. If anyone has a better idea, I'd love to hear it. :) This exact system wasn't custom made for Bullpen, but it's derived from one that was. I still have the original, I think, if anyone would like to see it for trivia's sake.

[LordSmerf]

I don't know if i have a better idea, and if you like it by all means keep it.  I would be interested in seeing how it runs with cards...  I was thinking about card mechanics the other day in conjunction with Bullpen anyway.

On a different note.  I was wondering what you thought of making Appeal point based instead of stat based.  You can spend Appeal to change things, you gain appeal through publicity stunts or through making your character play to the audience.  This would make appeal sort of a currency, you can only push your readers credulity so far without rewarding them...  I don't know, seems interesting to me anyway.

Thomas

[Jay Turner]

Originally, Appeal was both a point-based and a roll-based system, like White Wolf's Willpower stat. You had a rating that you'd roll to do things that tested your audience's reaction, and you also had points you could spend when the audience's reaction didn't matter as much to you--basically, you're saying "Screw the readers" and doing it anyway. You could spend Appeal points to automatically get the successes that you'd be trying for on an Appeal roll. I couldn't reconcile the way they acted together. I wanted a system where rolling Appeal risked losing Appeal, and you regained Appeal by doing cool stuff without spending Appeal to do it. The current system is an attempt to simplify things by making Appeal work more like Caliber.

I have been tossing around an idea to make the whole thing point-based, more of a resource-allocation system than a rolling system. The card-based idea is almost in the middle of the two ideas, because it had rules for you retaining high cards for future actions and setting aside one card to represent your default defense value for the page.

I'll try to find time to clean up the card-based document and post it.

Ideas on Appeal?

[hermes]

Jay,

  I haven't had a chance to do a thorough reading of Bullpen yet, but I have given it a quick glance and it looks like an interesting take on the genre.  If I have a chance to do a proper reading I will try to give you some more useful feedback.  Having said that, I always enjoy seeing different approaches to the superhero genre and I think yours is one that is unquestionably different from any of the others that I have seen.

Phillip,

I think this and Capes & Cowls are my two favorite super RPGs now.

  I just wanted to let you know that I have been keeping somewhat abreast of the discussions going on and I did want to thank you for the tips of the hat to C & C (plural tips because you also mentioned it in a previous post as well).  Such kindnesses do not go unnoticed or unappreciated.  I am actually putting the final touches on my teaching degree right now so my free time for game writing is rather limited (apparently someone decided that teachers need to do lots of work as some sort of rite of passage or something along those lines).  However, I do try to spend a little time thinking about C & C during my downtime and will continue to work on it slowly but surely.

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.

  Sounds intriguing.  Don't keep us in the dark for too long.

Glenn

[LordSmerf]

My suggestion reagarding Appeal, after some thought and a rereading of the Universalis rules is this.  Appeal is points based, you may spend a point of Appeal to interrupt a point of narration, to establish a Fact, or to gain control of a conversation.  Interruptions take effect after the current Fact (if one is being stated) is finished, if no fact is being established then the interruption is immediate (even in the middle of a sentence, kind of like a narration ending as the action picks up).  Facts and Interruptions are not under the Editor's control.  Conversation control is however, the Editor may veto a conversation takeover for the purposes of plot continuity/advancement.

In order to gain Appeal: Rework fans so that instead of broad groups (or possibly in conjunction with them) state specific actions that appeal to your audience.  Whenever you perform one of these actions (throwing an enemy through a window, striking a dramatic pose and tossing off you trademark line, whatever) you gain a point of Appeal.  You could even allow for more Appeal for an action if the audience especially appreciates it (the action is rated at 2 or 3 instead of at 1).

That's pretty rough, but i think a solid system resides there.  I don't know if you want to take that direction with the game, but i think that it better models your Appeal level as something that can be spent and regained.

Thomas

[Jay Turner]

Thomas, I'd like Appeal to both be something lost and regained and something checked in certain situations. Here are a couple of different situations using Appeal:

You're fighting Dr. Terror on the roof of his warehouse lab. Dr. Terror was in the middle of his horrendous life experiments when you got there, so there's a raging storm. Dr. Terror's minions have you down and are about to beat on you. Your Caliber checks are down by -5, which gives you a pretty good chance of being put out of the fight this round. You call for an Appeal check--maybe the readers are feeling forgiving this time. You roll Appeal, succeed, and describe lightning streaking through the sky from the storm and hitting Dr. Terror's iron skullcap. The Doctor is stunned, as are his minions, giving you a chance to escape from their grasp. Had you failed the Appeal roll, your dramatic plea for help would have gone unheeded, and you'd have to find a way out of the situation solely using the character's abilities.

You're fighting Dr. Terror in the same situation as above, but in this case, you don't have any Fans that are relevant, and you know Dr. Terror is a well-loved villain in the series. You think, Damn the torpedoes!, and you decide to make the plot choice whether the readers like it or not. You spend a point of Appeal, and Dr. Terror takes one in the head from the raging storm. Now your effective Appeal rating is down by one until you refresh it somehow.

I kinda like the idea of Appeal being something you can either check (when you care about the readers enough to trty and figure if they'd support you in that case) or spend (when you want to take advantage of their "kindness"). I think if you take their opinions into account, they'll be kinder on average, but there's only so many times you can act without keeping them in mind before you find that they're less willing to give you that dramatic leeway.

So maybe a hybrid system is the way to go. When I was considering doing that, I had trouble 1) deciding if the Appeal stat should be the same as the number of Appeal points; 2) figuring out how to handle the loss and regain of Appeal points; and 3) deciding whether rolling Appeal should put Appeal points on the line in the event of a failure.

In this case, with this sort of system, a Publicity Stunt means more as a means of regaining Appeal than losing it.

I like the idea of basing Appeal bonuses on something more narrow. I had an idea how to do that, but I didn't write it down and lost it. It was similar to your idea, though, Thomas. I think it was something akin to the Goals under Caliber--something you's like to do in order to attract more fans.

Glenn, Thanks for the feedback! I'm open to any suggestions or comments you have.

[LordSmerf]

I would say that if you want to roll and pay, make the points the same as the stat.  Spending them would be pretty major.

Let me see if i can briefly sketch what i'm thinking in terms of Appeal.

1. At game start establish a target audience for the comic itself.  Target audiences should have a few very specific desires.  I'm thinking stuff like Maniacal Laughter, Extreme Violence, Rebellion Against Authority, Use of Firearms, etc.  Start with just a few Expectations (as i will now call them).  Any time a character good, bad, or ugly meets an Expectation they get a point of Appeal.

2. When creating your hero's Fans, again include detailed Expectations.  Anyone can meet a Genre Expectation and gain Appeal, your character can also meet a Character Expectation and gain Appeal.

3. If a character wants to violate Expectations (either personal or genre) then it costs Appeal.

4. Allow "weight" for Expectations.  Assuming that there is the expectation: Exploading Heads x2, causing a head to expload would net 2 points of Appeal.  Violating this Expectation (i'm not sure how to determine whether an action violates or not yet) would lose you 2 points.

5. Consider capping Appeal at the total of all Expectations applicable to a character.  (All Genre + All Personal Expectations).

I'm not too sure about my personal feelings on rolling and spending, i'd like to see your reasons ennumerated.  If it's just personal preference, that's also great.

If you have any questions or comments about what i've got here please let me know.

Thomas

[Jay Turner]

I think my reasons are in the post above. Spending points represents making decisions without keeping the audience in mind, while rolling Appeal represents taking the audience into account when making those decisions. It models the difference between relying on the readers' constant love of the book and taking risks, and making "artistic license" decisions that the readers might not agree with.

One way I had considered to do things was this: You roll Appeal by default, and if the roll failed, you'd have the option of spending Appeal points and getting your way anyway, at the expense of reader loyalty. You can earn those points back, of course, but you have to work to do it.

I'm trying to model the power readers have over the plot of a comic, but also the creator's ability to disregard those readers and the consequences of doing so. I think rolling represents the chaotic whims of the fans pretty well, while the option to spend points leaves some of the power in the hands of the creators/players.

[LordSmerf]

That makes sense.  I'm not sure if i like it or not, but i do understand your position.  And of course i'm not sure that i don't like it either...

Thomas

[Jay Turner]

I've posted the old card-based resolution mechanics, as-is, to my website. You can get it here.

I kinda like that mechanic, too. It doesn't cover Appeal at all, but it might make for a more interesting system for solving "everyday" checks.

Take a look, if you will, and let me know what you think? Do you prefer the card system over the dice?