Superheroes

[joshua neff]

What about having Archtypes (I like "Channelers of Arcane Power", sounds cool) with Descriptors that further describe what the super can & can't do? Personally, I'd be loathe to add more rules--the one thing I HATE about superhero RPGs is how everything is quantified & qualified. Keep it freewheeeling & weird.

[sdemory]

    You, sir, smell like a genius! That makes quite a bit of sense... although I love the quantification of superhero games, I understand where that can keep things from staying dynamic.
    Would it make sense to have limitations offer more dice for the pool? Rebis can't do as much as Jane, but what s/he can do is much more controllable and potent because s/he's got that "negative-man" limitation or something.
    My only potential problem with that is that it could make group character creation dynamics a bit clumsy... unless one created group disadvantages which were saddled on individual characters. That makes little sense. I'll try to clarify later.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Problem solved.

I'm going to use one of my own creations (The Code) as a basis for this game, albeit with some adjustments:

The players will create a team using a set number of points plus additions from "issues" (as described earlier in the topic). Their individual Motivations will detract from the set number of points (so a tightly-wound superhero like Batman or Wolverine is better off alone than with a group...or rather, the group is better off without members like Bats or Wolvie).

The set number of points will act like a "team" Motivation pool that each member can draw from. There will be a Trouble-ish mechanic for hosing characters (and with enough Trouble, the entire team). Dunno how that will work yet.

Origin/Power will become a kind of secondary Objective/Motivation. Origin is kind of your character's "potential" Power. Unlike Motivation, you can only spend Power points to boost your Power.

Obviously, the Ability Sequence will have more rungs than it does now.

Super powers will work "narrativistically" -- for example, a healing power will let your hero heal faster than normal, but there won't be any hard, fast rules for it (you can knit a broken bone in a few days rather than a few weeks). Weaknesses will also be split into Personal/Power weaknesses. Pretty basic -- it will either knock you down on the Abillity Sequence or will lower your Power in certain situations. Other Power weaknesses will just be situational (such as, "doesn't work in daylight" -- pretty self-explanatory).

Also, I'm going to write in "World Widgits and Game Gizmos" like the "Spectronometer" (dials the game from Monochrome to 4-Color to True Color) so that the players and GM can tailor the game world to their liking (the Issues mechanic falls into this category).

Now to write the sucker!