The Forge Archives

OK, don't have much time but wanted to throw this topic out while it was figural.  I've been on a supers kick of late.  Green Ronin's excelent point-build supers game Mutants & Masterminds as well the the Daredevil movie (a geek feeding frenzy for me) got me thinking about a more narritive supers game centered on character conflict, melodrama, and real pain.  

Sorcerer sprand immediatly to mind... with no modifications, tweaks, or alterations required- Sorcerer covers perfectly the sort of super-gritty, street level, supers/vigilante style game.  

I'm not thinking about anything especialy innovative as far as demonics or humanity definition goes... most old-school super hero origin stories hit the same notes.  Spiderman abandons selfishness when his uncle is murdered... daredevil becomes a masked avenger & crusading lawyer when his father is killed... Batman takes to the streets at night to exact vengence on the criminal classes who slew his parents...  Just about all the classic 'street level' supers risk crossing the nigh-invisible line which seperates the good guy from the bad guy.  Despite its flaws, the Daredevil movie did a good job of highlighting this risk... as well as the brutal physical and emotional tole spending your nights cracking skulls in the name of justice.

So Humanity is simple- it is empathy, it is the ability to know right from wrong.  It is the knowing the ends don't always justify the means.  Loose it, and you cross the line, you become the villian.  You would burn the village to save the village.  Your driving motivation (or burning obsession) remains- you want a world in which your people are safe, you want streets free of crime, you want people to know the truth- but you are no longer concerned about the consequences of your actions in pursuit of it.

So it is a game of obsession, or using the powers of evil to fight evil... always a loosing game in the long run.  Can you get out, change, become a better person before the obsession consumes you?  

The Premise is also pretty basic- what would you sacrifice to make the world a better place?  Would you destroy lives- your own first, then others?  Would you inflict pain?  Would you kill?  

Demons are... well, pretty diverse and varried.  They may manifest as actual demons- a street-level Doctor Strange type who literally Summons and Binds, who makes bold-face deals with inhuman monsters in order to battle all-too-human monsters.  The might manifest as mutations of the physical form, as evolutaionary leaps which carry with them their own new urges, instincts, and needs.  They can be strictly internal functions of the driving obsession.  Pretty much anything goes, but a character's demons will be related strongly to their methodology.  What demons actually are isn't all that importiant- that they are is all that matters.  

Score descriptors will follow conventional lines, but I'll borrow a page from Sword on advanced combat options, and on the use of Unnatural score descriptors to cover low-key super-ness ('Mutant" on Stamina, "Psychic" on Will etc).  Prices can be personal things (such as a Code Against Killing which makes Humanity checks to resist taking life automatic failures) or more like super-vulnerabilities which would modify damage or reduce certain types of rolls in some situations.  

URGE Covers some of the same ground, but I wanted something with a somewhat broader focus as fewier issues with groups of characters, though I'll certainly be hitting URGE (and Schism for that matter) for inspiration.  

Has anyone run a game like this (any Actual Play would be very helpful)?  Every played with this sort of thing?

Thanks all,

-Ben

Hi Ben,

Overall, I agree entirely. There's a reason I'm citing Batman: The Animated Series (and its movies) in the filmography for Sorcerer - I can't imagine a more powerful demon than the Wayne gravestone in The Mask of the Phantasm, metaphorically speaking.

The only concern I'd have with, say, a mini-supplement based on this idea is that exact issue, though - the degree to which the "demon" metaphor was expressed as in-game demons. In many ways, the game is built for that in-game expression to be a big deal, yet in the material you're describing, it usually exists as a metaphor (and it's why these guys tend not to have over-kewl powerz either).

What do you think?

Best,
Ron

P.S. The Daredevil movie was fucking awesome.

Check out the Elseworlds line for some excellent demon/Batman ideas, most notably the Haunted Gotham miniseries, which simply kicks ass.