My love/hate/fascination with high-powered games.

[Simlasa]

This is my muddled thinking on a ongoing conundrum... do forgive if I'm overlooking the obvious.

I've never played Exalted, but have circled that game for years, buying bits of 1st edition, reading some of it... but never trying to really learn it or play it.
Similarly, I've got a cyclical interest in superhero games... as well as the World of Darkness games (supernatural supers?).
I don't quite understand where my interest falls... because while I like characters with strange powers, the 'power fantasy' aspects of such things don't interest me at all. I like interesting powers, but I've no desire to play 'invincible' characters (I dislike a whole slew of the common tropes from comics, which I think are a mistake to try to emulate in TTRPGs).
Anime is another siren that calls to me... but not the giant swords or 'save the world' type of epics. I like the color and peculiarity but a lot of games aimed at anime seem to ultimately go for high-powered antics ala Dragon Ball Z (and fail in similar ways to what I see in Supers games).
Same love/hate also goes for Rifts, regardless of any concerns about its system.

I've also never had a love of min-maxing in any system.

What I DO like is the wide variety of weirdness in such settings as Exalted or Anima Beyond Fantasy... weird powers, weird characters, weird locations.
And now that I think of it, I DO love Dungeon Crawl Classics... which can be very high-powered at moments, but not so reliably that it renders any character invulnerable (at least up til lvl 5... the furthest I've taken it).
It seems like something like Traveller, with near-zero mechanical character progression but a VAST potential for strange vistas and oddball characters ought to suit me... but what are some other possibilities that eschew the zero-to-hero motif while providing lots of wild environments/plots/characters?
Call of Cthulhu can get pretty strange while keeping its PCs squishy, I'd like more of that sort of thing.
One of my touchstone TV series along these lines is The Lost Room, which has uniquely powered objects wielded by very vulnerable/mortal characters, along with secret societies and underground economies. I've seen people suggest Unknown Armies as feeling similar, but I've got no experience of that system.
What's like Planescape/Spelljammer without the levels/D&Disms?

What/where are the wild and weird street-level (in terms of character power) games?

 

[Silverlion]

The "Sigil & Shadow" RPG is one that feels very street-level. "Hit the Streets" is very much a street-level supers game (albeit it's very very light which may not offer the craziness you want.) Hellas: Worlds of Sun & Stone, is one with lots of options while still (mostly) managing for human-esque characters who are not gods (despite being born to them.)

 

[Agemegos]

It seems like something like Traveller, with near-zero mechanical character progression but a VAST potential for strange vistas and oddball characters ought to suit me... but what are some other possibilities that eschew the zero-to-hero motif while providing lots of wild environments/plots/characters?

Mechanically, I suppose that one of the Fate-based sci-fi builds such as Diaspora or Ashen Stars might offer you another way to get along without character capabilities escalating out of control.

I have some thoughts about making the societies of "planets of the week" exotic in ways that are interesting in RPG. If you're interested, I outlined some of them in an early thread almost two years ago. You might want to review that: https://www.rpgpub.com/threads/make-exotic-societies-interesting.6548/#post-283680

GMs sometimes complain of Traveller that it makes three campaign premises prominent — the free trader campaign, the mercenary campaign, and the scout campaign — and that each of these has specific limitations in the way of bringing a party of PCs to a series of unfamiliar exotic societies and giving them a task to do or goal to accomplish on each that will bring them into opposition with the exotic features at an appropriate level of contact. I think you do have to be careful of the Traveller chargen system's way of handing out starships and crushing debts, but that apart from that it is easy enough to come up with dozens of suitable campaign premises for PCs in a Traveller-like setting that then present no mechanical difficulties.

 

[Chaotic Wooster]

Kult (at least the first couple of editions) never ceases to remind the player characters how vulnerable they are, and is easily able to throw a few gentle reminders (grisly injuries or death) at them. Further, while they can master skills, the various creatures from outside the illusion/reality are frequently much better than humans can ever possibly be. Magic is arduous and slow work, the spells are very specific and rarely do anything for powergaming.

The only way to attain major power is enlightenment (basically impossible in any campaign of sane duration) or being transformed into something from Metropolis. Which inevitably takes the character out of the player's hands soon after.

 

[Simlasa]

GMs sometimes complain of Traveller that it makes three campaign premises prominent — the free trader campaign, the mercenary campaign, and the scout campaign — and that each of these has specific limitations in the way of bringing a party of PCs to a series of unfamiliar exotic societies and giving them a task to do or goal to accomplish on each that will bring them into opposition with the exotic features at an appropriate level of contact.

I always pictured less militaristic Traveller games that were more about intrigue ala characters like Retief, Slippery Jim Digriz... and stories like Idris' Pig by Margaret St Clair.

Kult (at least the first couple of editions) never ceases to remind the player characters how vulnerable they are, and is easily able to throw a few gentle reminders (grisly injuries or death) at them.

Kult is similar to Call of Cthulhu in that way, which I like... but though I think CoC has the potential for some stranger vistas, they're both generally pretty much grounded on Earth (aside from the occasional sojourn in Metropolis, the Dreamlands, Carcosa, etc.).

 

[Agemegos]

I always pictured less militaristic Traveller games that were more about intrigue ala characters like Retief, Slippery Jim Digriz... and stories like Idris' Pig by Margaret St Clair.

There are plenty of varied models in the science fiction of the Forties, Fifties, and early Sixties. You have espionage and clandestine ops as in Poul Anderson's Flandry of Terra stories, revenge quests like Jack Vance's Demon Princes series, Ulyssean wanderings in E.C. Tubb's Dumarest, undercover ops against pirates, smugglers, and spies in E.E. Smith's Lensman, confidence trickstery in Vance' Galactic Effectuator. The thing is that they don't need very much in the way of specific rules support (unlike, say, the trading rules you need for a free trader game) and I think the authors of the early Traveller material thought that they went without saying.

 

[Telok]

Exalted, ... World of Darkness ... Rifts, ...Traveller, ... Call of Cthulhu ... Planescape/Spelljammer

Might I suggest a brief check of the Dungeons th Dragoning 40k 7e system? The TVTropes page gives, I feel, a reasonably sedate and modest overview. Then, if you become interested, there is a wiki.

 

[Nick J]

I've had this nagging notion for several years to tweak base Mythras with Destined superhero powers and Luther Arkwright Psionics and then plop it all down in some weird mashup universe of Jadarowsky's and Moebius' Incal/Metabarons and the implied setting embedded in the backstory for the Githzerai and Githyanki in the original Fiend Folio -- shards of reality floating in a void of phlogiston, each pocket world governed by its own near-godlike powers and all of them scheming against the multitude of the other petty godlings of other realms.

EDIT: Of course Destined just dropped this year, so that is a new addition to my alchemical hodgepodge

I almost feel like World Without Number/Stars Without Number could accomplish this, but I dislike the constant hit point gain in that system.

 

[chuckdee]

Ashen Stars

This isn't Fate based. It's Gumshoe.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What/where are the wild and weird street-level (in terms of character power) games?

I would suggest Spire: The City Must Fall. It has the Planescape vibe in that it's a really evocative setting. It will feel oddly familiar to most folks, while also turning tropes on their heads. The characters do increase in capability as you play, and some of the upper limits of the most advanced abilities are pretty crazy, but they're still vulnerable. It's a kind of spy game... the characters are covert insurrectionists inside a fantasy city. It has a very street level feel to it.

The companion game, Heart: The City Beneath, takes the same concepts and applies it to dungeon delving. There's more crunch and power creep with this system, but again, the characters remain vulnerable. The most advanced abilities in this game are significantly powerful, but also result in the character's end, so they're a double-edged sword.

Of the two, I'd say Spire is more suited to what you're looking for, but both are worth checking out.

 

[Simlasa]

I've had this nagging notion for several years to tweak base Mythras with Destined superhero powers and Luther Arkwright Psionics and then plop it all down in some weird mashup universe of Jadarowsky's and Moebius' Incal/Metabarons and the implied setting embedded in the backstory for the Githzerai and Githyanki in the original Fiend Folio -- shards of reality floating in a void of phlogiston, each pocket world governed by its own near-godlike powers and all of them scheming against the multitude of the other petty godlings of other realms.

Mentioning Moebius and Jodorowsky definitely gets at the sort of thing I'd been wanting. When the Luther Arkwright game first came out I was wanting to aim it at Moebius' 'Airtight Garage' mixed in with elements of The Incal. Full of wild and outlandish elements, but not 4-color supers... more Heavy Metal and 'underground' comix.
Also, mentioning Moebius reminds me to take a look at Ultraviolet Grasslands.

 

[Dammit Victor]

I hesitate to suggest a game that's been languishing out of print for over twenty years... but Alternity Science Fiction Roleplaying has a ton of material for street-level superheroes and urban fantasy. The Beyond Science: A Guide to FX sourcebook adds a couple of magic systems and non-cybernetic/non-psionic superpowers. If you want more mutations, the Gamma World Campaign Setting has you covered.

And if you're looking at AD&D settings, there's a popular houserule conversion that'll allow to at least start on a conversion.

Another left-field suggestion is Shadowrun 4e or Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition. Make all of the player characters Physical Magicians (for free) and let them decide how to assign their Magic rating and divide it between Adept powers and spellcasting.

 

[Sharrow]

There are plenty of varied models in the science fiction of the Forties, Fifties, and early Sixties. You have espionage and clandestine ops as in Poul Anderson's Flandry of Terra stories, revenge quests like Jack Vance's Demon Princes series, Ulyssean wanderings in E.C. Tubb's Dumarest, undercover ops against pirates, smugglers, and spies in E.E. Smith's Lensman, confidence trickstery in Vance' Galactic Effectuator. The thing is that they don't need very much in the way of specific rules support (unlike, say, the trading rules you need for a free trader game) and I think the authors of the early Traveller material thought that they went without saying.

From Traveller Book 1 (1981):

Traveller is basically a conversation game. It requires pencil and paper for notes, lists, and computations. Beyond that, it calls for a handful of six-sided dice for the generation of random numbers useful in combat and commerce. Everything else is optional, and depends on who is playing and what they want to play.

This passage is not as clear in the first (1977) printing, so I think the authors realised that not everyone had the same starting assumptions as they did. But it also makes it clear that they expected that most of the game would be by conversation, not constant dice rolling and skill checks.

 

[Sharrow]

For the OP: GURPS is surely capable of what you're after, though there might be some construction required, more or less depending on how particular you are about various optional rules, setting knobs, etc.

 

[Baulderstone]

Kult is similar to Call of Cthulhu in that way, which I like... but though I think CoC has the potential for some stranger vistas, they're both generally pretty much grounded on Earth (aside from the occasional sojourn in Metropolis, the Dreamlands, Carcosa, etc.).

In Call of Cthulhu, the PCs fearfully try to keep the sleeping gods from waking up and destroying the world. In Kult, the PCs are the sleeping gods and the rest of the universe is fearfully trying to keep them from waking up.