I've had some real duds here on the Forge lately, so this is me hoping for a strong collection of replies this time. I've pretty much arrived in a rut for my other game designs so I'm clearing my head of them by working on something different.

Lately I have been wanting to design a rules lite superhero game. The following is a beta idea for a method of creating Powers using Keywords as loose restrictions.

There exists 40 Keywords. During Character Creation you either roll up two or choose two. This is likely based on an agreement between the players at the table.

Rolling for Keywords isn't as painfully random as it sounds. You roll two sets of 1D100, pick one result for the X-Axis and the other result is used for the Y-Axis. Then you do it once more. This gives you a small amount of control over what you receive.

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Keywords form the core of each character's Power. Once a player has his Keywords he expected to detail his theme. What do your Keywords mean to your character? Does Undead mean you are one of the unliving or does it mean you can channel the thoughts and powers of the undead?
This step ensures that even those with similar Keywords will have different Powers.

Once you have your Keywords, you create 3 Techniques*. Techniques are representations of what your character knows how to do with his Powers. Think of Green Lantern and the way he learns to do different things with his power ring... Heroes begin with great power but they only unlock their true strength by using and understanding their power. As the game progresses... The players will get chances to acquire new Techniques at the behest of the GM.
[right]* I'm wondering if Techniques is the best term I can come up with, I've been considering Extensions lately...[/right]

Techniques are encouraged to be narrowly defined but are only as mechanically detailed as the players at the table agree is necessary.
This means that if your group agrees on it, you may have to define how many feet you can teleport, whether or not you can teleport to places you've never seen before, if you can teleport others with you, etc...

My question is... does there exist too much creative freedom here for this to be a viable option for creating powers?

Any suggestions, observations, questions, comments, criticisms and such things are welcome. As long as they pertain to the topic, of course. :)

Suggestions regarding more/different Keywords are both welcomed and appreciated. =D I do realize that some of the Keywords are insanely vague while others overlap... The overlapping part is fine, in my opinion, because the origin of the power may yet be very different.

As a minor note... The standard power level is meant to be only slightly above street level. Imagine Batman only with powers that are narrow in scope. Nothing on the scale of Batman, Thor, Hulk, Wonder Woman, etc...

Here is the system "in motion"... so to speak. =D

. . . . . . . . . .Roy Gulvin
Occupation: Mercenary
Weapons: Katana, Various Small Firearms
Keywords: Sound, Speed

. . . . .Techniques
Silence Is Golden

Roy may project a field of complete silence around his body. Any noise that occurs within this field will be nullified completely as well as any noise that enters it. This field is invisible and very malleable, he can choose to cover only specific parts of his body.

Roy can project his aura of silence at a distance to cover objects no larger than 4’x4’.

Roy is capable of moving almost as fast as sound, about 900’ per second. However, he is only able to do this in short bursts. This power also allows Roy to react with the alacrity required to operate at speeds of 900’/sec. The aura generated by his Powers protects his body and clothing from friction.

By centering his speed bursts directly into his hand, Roy can move his fist so fast that he creates a minor sonic boom. This concussion of sound is strong enough to deafen normal humans and harm any who come in contact with the sound waves. Roy is completely protected from the sonic boom because of his Silence Aura.

I thought I'd try it out and see if the system stays 'in motion' when it's out of the creator's hands. So far, it's decently interesting!

Calvin Spalk
Occupation: Librarian
Weapons: sharp wit (archetyping others), precariously stacked books
Keywords: Teleport (chosen - I mean, come on), Energy (42,29 - 'electricity' was my other choice.)

Techniques

Conservation wrote:
Calvin can teleport a distance equivalent to the amount of energy he is willing to take from both his destination and point of origin. At Absolute Zero, Calvin cannot teleport. Teleporting across the country would sap a significant amount of power (a small scale power-outage, if only taken from one end) while crossing the room could decrease the temperature of nearby hot-drinks a single degree. Energy needs only be local to his points of origin and destination, and accessible energies are electricity and heat - or otherwise excited molecules. (no 'life-force' draining here. No borrowing from chemical processes, either.)

ZPE wrote:
Calvin can teleport himself and a noticeably limited amount of mass (read: the aforementioned stack of books) without using any energy. The distance is limited to 1 mile and, for reasons unknown to Calvin and other zero-point energy researchers, works only 75% of the time.

Plug-in wrote:
Calvin can create a tele-portal, separate from himself, of any given size with its own points A and B. The cost of maintaining this hole is pretty severe. Size is more expensive than duration. A baseball-sized portal for one hour needs the same amount of kilowatt-hours as a home uses in a single day. A doorway-sized portal could reduce temperatures at both ends to freezing in a few minutes. Calvin has wondered about the possibility of moving the Earth to the Sun's place -- while the math might work out, he's unsure whether he has to live through the 'appearance' stage in order for things to work out.

I'm glad you decided to try your own hand at creating some Powers. =) I really like Conservation of Energy, very smart description! Beautiful method of blending the Keywords, too. These are the sorts of things I imagined smart people doing with this system. =D

Roy has 4 Techniques because I have always had the idea for this character in my head... and he wouldn't be complete without being able to do all of those things. =) To be fair, veteran super heroes will end up having a lot more than 3 Techniques.

As a side note, I encourage folks to alter any mechanics' numbers to suit specific power levels.

Your point about the Energy Keyword is spot on. It really isn't a necessary either... When I typed it in, I had a narrow vision of energy blasts and beams to be honest. I hadn't given any thought to what energy really means. But hey, that is why I am putting this idea before the people... so smarter folks can tell me I look stupid. ^_~

I would question the following inclusions to your table: Energy, Cosmic, and Shadow/Dark (one or the other. The opposite of Light is cool.) To me, the addition of one of those to my power base makes me definitely above Wonder Woman

As a contrast to the previous idea, you can give a more mechanically specific definition to the limits of each Technique.

HeTeleports wrote: The menu/table is an excellent idea, able to create some interesting powers. If you wanted, you could reduce the size of the menu and go for more creative combining...
Space + Move = Teleportation OR Flight
Speed + Fire = Super Speed with leaving a blazing trail OR Pyrokinesis of such limited order, like when you try to light the barbecue after leaving the gas on too long and it does that Whoosh that burns the hair off your arm

Random generation can be a handy helper in times of creativity.  I'm all for optional randomness.

Hugo Babbage
Occupation: Revolutionary
Weapons: Metallic web and javelin
Keywords: Create, Machine
Techniques:

Hive

Babbage is tracked and followed by dozens of variously designed, bug-like robots, which scamper unseen in the shadows.  The creatures will become hostile if he is threatened, and sometimes have a life of their own.

Babbage can see what his hive can see, and may have the smallest robots scout under doorways and through windows ahead of him.

Through modification and self mutilation, Babbage has lost a sense of his humanity.  The machines in his body whir and chatter of their own accord, and create endless supplies of new bugs - which crawl out from under the skin - if his other bugs are destroyed.

Sebastian wrote:
By limitations, I also mean the intensity of the kind of power you have, sort of, I suppose, a power level.  What sort of area can I affect?  How fast can I go?  These also need some guidelines, but maybe they work differently?  Once you know how your technique interacts with a world, what sort of limitations does it have with that effect?  In other words, let's say I take Hive and label it 'Attack'.  So now we now what I can do with the Hive power.  How intense will this attack be?  Does that even matter?

Mr. Youssef is correct, Sebastian.

Techniques should be narrowly defined... they are what your character *knows* how to do with his powers. Its not the same as everything he *can* do with his powers. For instance, Hugo's theme is that he has a robotic bug factory within his body (Shino!). His techniques would demonstrate what he can do with those bugs. Say one Technique is that he can cause the bugs to explode, another would be that the little buggers can relay visual and audio information back to Hugo when he requests such information and another could be that nano versions inhabit his skin and make him super tough.

The game is both intentionally and inherently open-ended... the restrictions of which are to be generated by the players at the table when characters are being generated in addition to Theme (see below for more information). From there, the GM will determine what sorts of threats will responsibly and reasonably challenge the players and the powers they have access to. I'm thinking that anyone who creates a veteran hero will also be required to create a nemesis as well. That could be fun. =)

When it comes down to specific attack/defense mechanics, its a pretty simple matter. Average strength weapons with no special effects deal damage equal to the Effort of the Power Control die. Powerful weapons might deal double but have a crippling weakness. Weak weapons might only deal 1/2 of the Power Control die but they can have additional effects such as area attack, stunning, etc... Stacking effects may require the application of weaknesses or flaws. This part of the system will contain loose guidelines and the players at the table will decide what is fair, as with most of the game.

I agree that the best Keyword combinations are made up of a generic and a specific. The original idea involved two different tables with one being a colorful power type (electricity, magnetic, machine) with the other being a verb (control, move, attack) but I couldn't really fill out the 2nd table all that well.
A suggestion within the game text might be to roll for a Keyword and then simply select the second one to ensure the combo is craptastic. I can't really think of any solid solutions outside of replacing the weaker Keywords...
Utilizing only one Keyword per hero might be a good idea for street level play...

I have decided to include Theme as a required part of the game now... Basically, from your Keyword you must define your Power's Theme. This will help enforce tighter restrictions than what is offered by Keywords. Take Hugo, for example, his theme already exists above. This means that he won't be able to summon giant plasma mini-gun cannons from outer space ever though a different character with Create/Machine could do that if it fit their pre-existing theme.

Here is another example...

Duke has the Teleport and Shadow Keywords.
Duke has access to the Shadow Dimension. A world that mirrors our own but where shadows are living entities called Shadowkind. Each Shadowkind is connected to a specific person. Duke is able to enter this dimension and move throughout it as he pleases. This allows him to reappear in the Material World in different locations.

This power creation system has effectively done a good job of avoiding the "one-trick pony" powers.

Devising threats sound do sound cool. However, review your premise first. The suggestion of creating a nemesis as part of your character creation can smack a little closely of having an evil me running around.
Still, that's not a bad idea, but it's good to have the premise set (or at least figured out). Once it's set, you can brainstorm several good ideas into the premise -- feeling out how each one should work.

I'm glad it does something right. =)
Exploring the system's strength is as important as doing the same to it's weaknesses after all!

Yeah, maybe a nemesis shouldn't be required but simply there as an option. I just think that writing out an origin and back story that includes a major recurring villain is fun. =) That said, the default assumption is that heroes are beginners and haven't had much, if any, chance of using their powers before play starts.

So, Mr. Youssef... Do you have any suggestions as to new Keywords? I really want to bump Energy and Space off, at bare minimum but for some reason every idea I get just sounds ridiculous.

For instance, dividing Animal into more specific Keywords... like Arachnid, Reptile, Mammal, etc...

MacLeod,

The Theme idea is useful, and explains the system more easily (so that people like me who didn't do their homework the first time round can get the concept quicker).  Good job.  Now we have a pyramid, with theme at the top, keywords underneath, and techniques at the foundation.

[Ed - You could add in another layer to that triangle, using the '2nd table' action clauses.  Theme -> Keyword -> Action -> Technique.  Any line drawn through those layers would end up with a specific technique.]

You're looking to replace energy and space... I've done some research and in doing so came up with a few items:

Stunt (Super athlete, acrobat, run up walls, bullet time)
Luck
Possession (Occupying other minds, animals, objects, swapping bodies)
Social (You already have strength and intellect, why not social?)
Network (Lots of allies)
Ghost (With connotations of insubstantiality, death, the undead, stealth, and other stuff... You have all of those already, of course)

Hm, perhaps this pyramid visualization could be used to explain the game concepts easier...?
That said, you derive Theme from Keywords so I believe Keywords would be at the very top.

An Action table isn't a bad idea conceptually... I'll have to look into what size I could make such a table before trying to make it a part of the game.

I just replaced Cosmic, Energy and Space with Adaptation, Luck and Possession.
I'm not sure if those are the best replacements but I think they are less broken/useless than the originals.

I like the idea of using Possession for more than just taking over the living. =)

An Action table isn't a bad idea conceptually... I'll have to look into what size I could make such a table before trying to make it a part of the game.

The original idea involved two different tables with one being a colorful power type (electricity, magnetic, machine) with the other being a verb (control, move, attack) but I couldn't really fill out the 2nd table all that well.

That said, you derive Theme from Keywords so I believe Keywords would be at the very top.

I'm not sure if those are the best replacements but I think they are less broken/useless than the originals.

For “energy,” I might recommend Blast. You said you were thinking of an energy beam of some kind.
For “Space,” I might recommend Move. Crossing space is a superpower. Adding to the universe’s room is a little ‘above street level.’
“Ghost” might be genre-breaking, but if you’ve got a strong enough premise (which sets the specific genre we’re in), it could make some creative powers.

About the nemesis thing, I don’t mean to discourage that. It’s legitimate to have an evil archetype, but for everyone to have one seems a little confining for character’s. Before going too far, down that conversation, I’d like to hear a little more about what you’re aiming for in the game.

It really depends on the way each Keyword is interpreted. In the actual game text, the super powered street level idea is suppose to make a strong impression on the reader. Additionally, the players at the table are the final arbiters of what sticks and what doesn't. So if the crew wants to include four color interpretations, so be it. =) I don't personally intend to use the system in this way but I still wouldn't want to make it impossible to achieve.

Sebastian wrote: Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes, or perhaps you were being polite

You're right.  Now it looks more like an hourglass than a pyramid.  There goes that abstraction.

You're doing a great job.  I like character generation and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the game.

wrote: About the nemesis thing, I don’t mean to discourage that. It’s legitimate to have an evil archetype, but for everyone to have one seems a little confining for character’s. Before going too far, down that conversation, I’d like to hear a little more about what you’re aiming for in the game.

It seems like a tightly designed game can get you closer, rather than devising a superpower generation system that’ll fit universally. (Mind you, GURPS has already done it for some years. Math-heavy, but they’re a market leader.)
Were you aiming for heroes without the ‘super’? If so, any particular type?

Sebastian finished his post first, and his last sentence is similar to where I'm going. To tie CharGen deeper into the game, we'd like to hear the rest of it. ... Does that require a different thread?

I think I'd need more background to help you to come up with a name.  So far, all I've got in my head is mutant vigilantes in a chaotic world, so I can only come up with names for that kind of picture.  What about... um... (I'll give explanations at the end...)

Stained Saints of Crepusculum

Havoc Point

The Babel Watch

Snarl of the Shepherds

Defenders of Bedlam

The second one could be the name of one of the towns, or something...  Snarl is a nice word because it means two things, one is a kind of growl, the other is a kind of knot.  So the snarl is both the tangle and the aggression of the vigilantes as they strive to oppose the oppressor.  If you give me some more background I can try to help some more, if you like this kind of style.

I like The Babel Watch the best out of your list. =)

I might take Snarl of the Shepherds back then. :)

Its agreed then!

I was thinking about how I can make this system a little better or perhaps more functional... Talislanta came to mind.

I know I haven't even playtested this game yet but I think too much. =)

What if Techniques were built around Action Words? This would limit the precise mechanics of each Technique.

For those who don't know... The 'Modes' of Talislanta 4e are; Alter, Attack, Conjure, Defend, Heal, Illusion, Influence, Move, Reveal, Summon, Transform and Ward.

So what do y'all think?

MacLeod wrote:
What if Techniques were built around Action Words? This would limit the precise mechanics of each Technique.

For those who don't know... The 'Modes' of Talislanta 4e are; Alter, Attack, Conjure, Defend, Heal, Illusion, Influence, Move, Reveal, Summon, Transform and Ward.

You are likely right. =)
I think what I'll do is include this idea... but as a mechanical suggestion instead of a required act of creating Techniques. See where it goes from there. =D