Hi people,

I’ve been lurking around on these boards for a while now, and thought it was about time I posted something. Go easy now, will ya? :)

Anyway, here’s an idea that I had brewing in my mind for a few weeks now (which I call Idol). This may take a while to explain. The idea involves a near-future ‘cyber-punk’ type setting, in which media and entertainment play a large part. In this setting, Superhumans (Superhumans are usually artificially produced via cybernetics and gene therapy/engineering etc. there are no comic book style origins as such) are very popular and have almost a religious following, similar to some Movie and Rock stars today.

The TV networks take advantage of this by producing the most popular television program on the air ‘Heroes live’ (for lack of a better name at the moment). Here is where the PCs come in; they are all Superhumans that participate on this show, earning both fame and money. The show itself is sort of a cross between a game show and a fly on the wall documentary about the daily goings on about the heroes; what does a superhuman do in his time? How does he deal with his fame and popularity? Of course there's a bit of Big brother and Survivor in there as well.

The GM runs the game in the style of a show host or commentator, asking questions about what the super is planning to do in a given situation and then commenting the results in a sports-show like fashion.

Mechanics: Not sure about the system so far, but it’ll probably be quite a simple fortune/drama hybrid. One thing I definitely want to include is a mechanic which gauges popularity; at the end of an ‘adventure’, this is used along with other modifiers to simulate an opinion poll/vote to determine how much the sponsors pay the hero (money can then be used to upgrade powers). Modifiers include obstacles tackled or things that the public would like. This might set up a conflict between what the hero thinks is heroic and what the public does (example: Does the bloodthirsty audience like mercy or not?).

Powers: since I haven’t worked out the mechanics, this is difficult to comment on, but what I’m thinking of is a quite simple three level system of powers (i.e. super strength 1, 2 or 3). Where each level allows you to succeed at certain things, like in some certain die pool systems.

That’s all I can think of to put in this post, any advice, thoughts, comments?

I read this, and I get this sudden scene in my head, of fans being interviewed about the heroes...

"My favorite? That would have to be Bloodbath. He has no mercy on those guys, man. Steal a purse? Broken arm, at least. Violent crime? Death. I love him. Oh, Vigilance? Yeah, he's alright, but he lets them off too easily. I mean, some of those guys have the money to hire pricey lawyers and promo ads for Justice TV (A reality-TV courtroom drama run by the same network that does Heroes Live) and they're back on the streets, y'know? Of course, he's consistent about his morals, so I can really respect that. He hasn't once compromised them, and I've got all 3 seasons on tape, so I can vouch for that. Bloodbath's still my favorite, though."

What I think is that this could be incorporated into the game. After the "play session" The GM could interview all of the players, where they take on the roles of fans commenting about the other player characters, but never their own. Playing this role well can get a few ratings points for their character, but it would act more as a MVP award.. The players rate the others in the group.

Villains and Vigilantes actually had similar rules for the Charisma score.

[Pause as Mike runs up to the attic to retrieve core rules. Turns out he can't remember the Charisma rules for a game he last played seventeen years ago.]

V&V is an "I" game, or a game where the player plays a version of himself, in this case with superpowers. So under the definition of Charisma it says that it's the player's own personal magnetism to start but that later it is also a rating of his public image.

Then, as part of devlopment the Gm is supposed to give or take away points of Charisma depending on how much publicity the adventure's events caused either in his favor or against. Also, the player can get points like this for donating cash as well. For these points to stick, the player has to roll over his current score, meaning that the higher the score, the harder it is to actually increase the score.

Looking at that, I realize that I incorporated the same mechanic into a game recently (not just for Charisma but for any Trait). Interesting how most mechanics have been around forever. That rule was written some time between '78 and '82.

Mike