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Best Game for Cosmic Level Superheroes?

  • MSH

    Votes: 5 17.9%
  • DCH

    Votes: 6 21.4%
  • Heroquest

    Votes: 4 14.3%
  • Champions

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • ICONS

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Masks

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • Other - Post Below

    Votes: 10 35.7%

  • Total voters
    28

Voros

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On one of the recent Grognard Files podcasts Ian Cooper comes on and talks Heroquest and Heroquest Glorantha and mentions they intend to release some more Heroquest supplements including one for 'Cosmic Superheroes.'

That caught my attention as I just finished reading Jim Starlin's Warlock and have his run on Captain Marvel and Kirby's The New Gods up next on my tablet to read. So I find the notion of a Cosmic Superheroes game intriguing and think Heroquest would be a good fit.

Has anyone ran a MSH game at the Cosmic level? Back when I played we were at the Daredevil/Spiderman and X-Men level of things, never dipped into the Unearthly level to see how it played. How about DCH?

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I haven't done a ton of this, but if I were to do so, I'd pick a system that has attributes that are an a relative scale rather than an absolute one, to keep the numbers reasonable. For example, in ICONS, the scale is 1-10, with 3 being "normal joe," but you can adjust the benchmarks so that "normal" is relative to, say, demigods instead of Earthlings. Then the game just plays as always.
 
DC Heroes will do it without breaking a sweat; it's built right into the exponential stat system for that very purpose.

But that New Gods image has to go. It's not even by Kirby, for the love o' Jack!
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Outside of an exponential or relative stat system which game would you say gives the best support for the kind of craziness you see at this level of superheroing: time travel, other dimensions, sudden resurrections, multiple selves, the destruction of stars and planets?
 
Outside of an exponential or relative stat system which game would you say gives the best support for the kind of craziness you see at this level of superheroing: time travel, other dimensions, sudden resurrections, multiple selves, the destruction of stars and planets?
A lot of that reminds me of the Doctor Who RPG, but that's not exactly supers ...

I'm looking through my stuff, and realizing how little I have for cosmic supers. I have a couple of concise settings for ICONS, but they mostly just focus on setting info, not a lot of new mechanics. It strikes me that I'd probably have the easiest time by using Fate, and combine things from both supers and scifi settings / toolkits. The scif stuff in particular could be handy for galactic scale adventures, space travel, space combat, planet-busting space-stations, etc.
 
DC Heroes will do it without breaking a sweat; it's built right into the exponential stat system for that very purpose.

But that New Gods image has to go. It's not even by Kirby, for the love o' Jack!

I thought it looked off. But familar. It is by Benjamin Marra who does some interesting surreal indie comic work.

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DCH is the answer. The Anti-Monitor (from Crisis on Infinite Earths) is about as cosmic as you can get in DC and his stats were around 30 APs but the chart goes up as far as you like.
 
Outside of an exponential or relative stat system which game would you say gives the best support for the kind of craziness you see at this level of superheroing: time travel, other dimensions, sudden resurrections, multiple selves, the destruction of stars and planets?
There was a surprisingly large number of Legion of Super-Heroes products for DC Heroes. Those 1,000- to 2,000-point guidelines for PCs are well into the cosmic range at about 4 to 8 times the normal starting level.
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There was also some cosmic Green Lantern material. I would've preferred more Batman or Aquaman, but they didn't ask me.
 
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There was a surprisingly large number of Legion of Super-Heroes products for DC Heroes. Those 1,000- to 2,000-point guidelines for PCs are well into the cosmic range at about 4 to 8 times the normal starting level.
There was also some cosmic Green Lantern material. I would've preferred more Batman or Aquaman, but they didn't ask me.

Not familar with Legion of Super-Heroes but those supplement covers look to be the right stuff, thanks!
 
The first Legion sourcebook pictured by Dumarest was really good and I’m not a huge Legion fan. Mayfair made quality material.
 
As always my recommendation is always 1) MSH or 2) DCH, though in this case I'd say that DC on a whole is geared towards a higher power level than Marvel. That said, MSH specifically tackled "cosmic level superheroics" with a series of sourcebook modules that may be worth checking out whichever system you go with.

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BASH UE does it right in the book. In the GM's section is a breakdown of different subgenres of supers, ranging from Pulpy sword & Sorcery to Cosmic scale heroes, with adjustments as needed to the rules to get the feel right. I used that to run a great one shot years ago. The heroes were going toe to toe with starships and tearing them apart. They also faced off with a sentient moon whose eye fired a beam that would wipe out all life on a planet, and a second beam that would reanimate them as zombies.

In a classic moment during the climatic final battle, one of the heroes had to hold the moon's eyelids shut with his super strength, because it was going to wipe out his home planet. While he was doing that, another hero with Telekinesis moved his homeworld out of the path of the beam as his strength failed him, while a third flew so fast to grab the super strong hero (who was now in the path of the eyebeam). If that isn't cosmically epic, I don't know what is
 
There are different kinds of cosmic. Silver Surfer and Galactus teaming up to beat up Ego, the Living Planet type of cosmic can a stretch some rules systems to breaking points. However the Guardians of the Galaxy (any version) or Legionof Superheroes aren't that different from the X-Men of the Avengers.
 
There are different kinds of cosmic. Silver Surfer and Galactus teaming up to beat up Ego, the Living Planet type of cosmic can a stretch some rules systems to breaking points. However the Guardians of the Galaxy (any version) or Legionof Superheroes aren't that different from the X-Men of the Avengers.

I don't really consider GotG or legion to be cosmic scale games. They're space/sci-fi games for the most part. Once in awhile they will wander into Cosmic territory (Like the Great Darkness Saga for the Legion, and whenever the GotG face off with Thanos), but for the most part, they're not. Ironically, BASH covers this in their subgenres
 
Just cracked open the rulebook for the first time in a while and was reminded what a great game BASH is :smile:

I haven't run it in some time (I'm into Supers! Revised more, as I find it fits better with my style of running games), but I am going to be working on a pdf supplement (a short villains book) for it in a few weeks
 
Wild Talents, mostly because it handles superheroes changing the course of history very well.
 
On one of the recent Grognard Files podcasts Ian Cooper comes on and talks Heroquest and Heroquest Glorantha and mentions they intend to release some more Heroquest supplements including one for 'Cosmic Superheroes.'

I've been pushing SuperHeroQuest as the best system for running Super Heroes for a good number of years, so it is nice to see it as one of the options on a poll.

That caught my attention as I just finished reading Jim Starlin's Warlock and have his run on Captain Marvel and Kirby's The New Gods up next on my tablet to read. So I find the notion of a Cosmic Superheroes game intriguing and think Heroquest would be a good fit.

For me, it fits perfectly. You avoid all the minimaxing and difficult builds, each power is an Ability, with extra bits as Breakouts. You match Power against power in a contest and so on. For me, it just works.

Has anyone ran a MSH game at the Cosmic level? Back when I played we were at the Daredevil/Spiderman and X-Men level of things, never dipped into the Unearthly level to see how it played. How about DCH?

I've run a couple of scenarios for Thatcher's Britain using SuperHeroQuest at conventions and they have generally gone down well. Some people think HeroQuest is a bit wishy-washy and doesn't have enough crunch, which is fair enough.
 
My first choice is MSH - it's my go-to. I run high-powered games all the time.

That said, I also think DCU is a FINE choice as well for high-powered awesomeness.
 
One game I hope will have support for cosmic level play, given all the cosmic stuff that happened in the card game it's based on is Sentinel Comics RPG.

Kickstarter's going on right now, but you can check the rules (somewhat) from a download on the campaign page.
 
Having been studying the Starter Kit to hopefully run it this weekend, it seems like it runs on a pretty flat curve, much like the card game (which allows gun-toting vigilantes and martial artist handymen fight alongside cosmic energy wielding badasses with no noticeable disparity in power or scale).

And, honestly, I'm okay with that.
 
Yeah, the ability to put Expatriette (no powers, lots of guns), Legacy (Supermanesque analog), and Captain Cosmic (sort of Green Lanternish) in the same team and everyone contributes is pretty great
 
But that New Gods image has to go. It's not even by Kirby, for the love o' Jack!
That actually is Kirby, but it's the cover for the final issue of the reprint series from '84, when he was, sadly, well past the height of his powers.

Edit: I'll second DC Heroes for cosmic level shenanigans. If you wanna go balls-to-the-wall, get the 1st edition as it was designed for the pre-Crisis DCU where Superman could inhale entire planets into his lungs.
 
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That actually is Kirby, but it's the cover for the final issue of the reprint series from '84, when he was, sadly, well past the height of his powers.

I've edited the original cover, it is now Kirby but the original was was by Benjamin Marra.
 
Where did we put the pillory post? I'll find the tar but someone else needs to get the feathers.
 
If we're supposed to be keeping feathers, that does put a kink in my flamethrower vs geese plans...
 
I think MSH and DCH both do fine jobs of it. I voted MSH, but I can think of better options not yet available.
 
Wait I can't believe no one has mentioned Cosmic Encounters!
 
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