Why Not Supers?

[Tyberious Funk]

In 30 years of roleplaying, I've never been able to get a Supers game off the ground. I got close on a couple of occasions, starting a couple of games using DC Heroes, mostly by dressing it up as Totally Not Supers (TM). One game was Buffy-style (before there was a Buffy RPG), with PCs playing demon-hunters with mystical powers... the second game was dark-future, cyberpunk-style game where players could have psychic powers. On both occasions, the players were interested until they saw the ruleset with Batman and Superman on the cover. The snickering and snide comments about spandex started almost immediately.

On other occasions, I've had flat-out refusals. I know a lot of gamers that will basically play any genre except supers. A bit like people that say they love all music except country, it's always seemed kinda narrow-minded to me. Apparently playing an Aasimir Cleric/Sorcerer with a shedload of magical items, fighting orcs and zombies and traveling the planes... perfectly normal, but playing, say, a billionaire playboy that secretly fights crime... completely ridiculous.

I know heaps of people will pipe up and say they love the genre. But I don't think I'm wrong in saying that it is less popular than fantasy, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, modern, and probably a lot of other genres.

What gives?

 

[Endless Flight]

If the players don’t buy it, there’s no chance.

 

[Dammit Victor]

I've had pretty good luck with supers games in the past.

 

[Tulpa Girl]

Because the world is a cruel and imperfect place, and often taunts us with happiness and joy destined to be forever out of our reach.

Or, a lot of people just aren't that into superheroes, or more precisely, what they think superheroes are. Sucks, but there you go.

 

[Fenris-77]

I really like Supers games, but I haven't gotten to play many, and I have found them to be a tough sell sometimes. Not sure why.

 

[Gringnr]

I've had the opposite problem with one of my groups. It's the only genre I can consistently get them to the table for.

Not sure what I'd recommend in your case. I grew up reading comics, and my love of superheroes predates my love of RPGs. For me, discovering supers RPGs was like trying chocolate and peanut butter together for the first time. It was two great tastes that taste great together. But then, the "people in ridiculous outfits punching each other" aspect is a feature, not a bug, as far as I'm concerned.

But, yeah, that's a tough one. Short of a second group, I couldn't offer a fix. If your players have no buy-in, it's a non-starter.

 

[Apparition]

Nothing is for everyone. I can't stand the medieval fantasy genre, which is extremely popular in both tabletop and video RPGs. It makes it very difficult to find a game both my friends and I want to play. You just have to hang in there and be proactive.

 

[Gringnr]

To your point of popularity, I've always (and of course, I have no data only anecdotes) seen supers and one of the "Big Four RPG Genres". To wit: fantasy, sci-fi, supers and horror. Sure, there are others that are recurring enough that I'd call them "big", but not as big as those. Namely, western and espionage.

 

[Vidgrip]

I only enjoy playing RPG's that parallel the fictional genres that I enjoy reading. For me it's literary, I guess. The novels I enjoy reading are fantasy, sci-fi, or historical and those are the genres I game as well. I have never been into reading comic books at all and never understood that fascination some of my friends had for them. Supers movies generally don't do it for me either. I think it's the only geek-gene I was born without.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

The weird thing is that I love watching the superhero movies but I'm not interested in superhero rpgs or the comics.

 

[David Johansen]

In the earlier days of the hobby when D&D and fantasy were getting established there was a strong stigma attached to super heroes and comic books. They were widely seen as childish, immature, and emotionally unhealthy things only suitable for boys under 8 or so. Even liking comics as a teenager was shameful and quite possibly gay. So it's really no wonder that superhero games never took off the way D&D did. Nowadays grannies in their sixties are wearing Captain America and Thor t-shirts. So it's a big shift.

Another issue though is that super heroes are a harder model mechanically and structurally. I love 'em, but they often represent the high end of complexity. Of course, if Marvel had been smart enough to stick with the TSR Marvel Superheroes rules they might just rule the market these days. But now there's too many contenders and the official games have often been, well, not TSR's Marvel Superheroes at any rate.

 

[Endless Flight]

That’s their loss. Supers are awesome.

 

[cranebump]

My most successful Supers campaigns have all been set in pre or WW2 eras. Don’t know why. Maybe it’s because the lines are clearly drawn

 

[Spartan]

I’ll admit supers as an rpg genre has never interested me. That being said, if someone was running HERO I’d give it a shot, you know, for science.

 

[Simlasa]

The only supers game I've played is Icons, which was weird fun.
The only one I've run is Superworld, which I liked.

I think I'm odd man out though, in wanting to play low-powered games with shades of gray morality and pulp-era aesthetics. So like The Shadow and early Batman... fighting gangsters, sorcerers, mad scientists and Nazis. Like a street-level version of City of Heroes.

 

[David Johansen]

I had on and off Heroes Unlimited games in store for years but my most successful campaign was a second edition Champions game in High School that ran for over a year but collapsed when I handed of GMing duties to my younger brother.

I think the best story from the store game was the time the very nineties psycho clown character ran into various alternate versions of himself and the much hated hero Paragon. It was really silly.

 

[cranebump]

The only supers game I've played is Icons, which was weird fun.
The only one I've run is Superworld, which I liked.

I think I'm odd man out though, in wanting to play low-powered games with shades of gray morality and pulp-era aesthetics. So like The Shadow and early Batman... fighting gangsters, sorcerers, mad scientists and Nazis. Like a street-level version of City of Heroes.

I’ve often wanted to run a CoH style campaign using King’s Row as the backdrop. It’s got that gritty, neglected feel. Like just teetering on the edge.

Speaking of: I have a pair of characters on the Homecoming server right now who are street level types native to the Row. One is the KR Angel, the other is the KR Devil (abbreviated just to make the name shorter in game). I also set my first 3 AE arcs in the Row.

And, of course, my main, Acrobattle lives there, and runs “Sweet Eats” Bakery.:-)

 

[Apparition]

I’ve often wanted to run a CoH style campaign using King’s Row as the backdrop. It’s got that gritty, neglected feel. Like just teetering on the edge.

Speaking of: I have a pair of characters on the Homecoming server right now who are street level types native to the Row. One is the KR Angel, the other is the KR Devil (abbreviated just to make the name shorter in game). I also set my first 3 AE arcs in the Row.

And, of course, my main, Acrobattle lives there, and runs “Sweet Eats” Bakery.:-)

What shard do you play on on Homecoming, out of curiosity? I'm on Excelsior.

 

[David Johansen]

HERO and BRP are both things of beauty, real art and economy of motion. But both have issues that make them less suited to mass market success.

 

[Trippy]

I was brought up gaming in the UK, and while there was an awareness of super hero games, I don’t think they ever took a hold in the way the other main genres did. For me, the main genres in gaming are Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror and Supers. For the first three, we can see certain iconic games - D&D, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu and so the main archetypal genre game for Supers is still, probably Champions. But Champions is still problematic for me....mechanically, at least. While it was influential and innovative for its time, I do think they could have given the system a major polish up and modernization in more recent editions which they really haven’t done. Champions supplements are often well written, creative and it all feels quite encyclopedic about the supers genre, which I like, but I’ve never really played it and doubt I ever will as written.

So what are the alternatives?

Well, both Marvel and DC have made excellent games over the years, but because of the licensing, they don’t really last in a way that makes them readily available now. Mutants & Masterminds is essentially a D20 version of Champions in a way, although its supplements still don’t quite seem as authoritative as the Champions supplements for some reason. It does have a more streamlined system than Champions (notably roll high mechanics makes everything seem clearer to me), however I don’t actually like the way saving rolls work in play. Specifically, when the 'damage roll’ is rolled by the taker rather than the giver, which is essentially what happens, it seems to rob the player of the satisfaction of making a ‘big hit’. Moreover, it means the GM ends up rolling a lot of dice and, coupled with a stat track for NPCs that are quite complex to glance over quickly when you’re running a game.

I guess, I ought to like Icons by contrast, as a much more simpler system. I like the random generation of characters - which helps if you get analysis paralysis a lot as I do with the more points based design. However, a lot of the time when I randomly roll the characters they come out a bit thematically incoherent. I think a balance could be struck, which you’d get in supplements I suppose, but the rules light nature of it make me feel that I don’t really want to get a load of supplements to make it work. And I think the art direction came across a bit too 'children’s morning cartoonish' to me also. I probably shouldn't discount it on that basis.

Wild Talents, and the Godlike game that came before it, ought to be right up my alley, as a contrast, but somehow `it still leaves me a bit cold. Not sure why, although Godlike was too narrow a premise for me, and the system just feels a bit gimmicky I guess. Maybe I should try it again? I also find a lot of other indie games, and other small published games, just don’t grab me enough to want to try them.

A bunch of generic games seem to put a certain degree of emphasis on supers, including GURPS, Fate, Savage Worlds, BESM etc. This follows in as much as demonstrating the influence of Champions or BRP (Superworld) which were written in ways that were pretty universally applicable. However, I regard them as generic universal systems, primarily, rather than specialist games and that counts against them on this particular use. There are also a bunch of games that are really supers games in disguise - including some WoD games (or more overtly in Scion and the Trinity Continuum), Amber, In Nomine and Nobilis in a way, Feng Shui perhaps, and Toon (!)....

So.......Toon is the best game ever for supers!? It is easy to run, simulates the indestructible element of most super heroes pretty effectively, and has crap art like Icons. Why not?

 

[Dammit Victor]

My main superhero tics are either "new universe" supers, or... even if I'm not specifically running eXiles using MHR, I'm drawn to eXiles-style games.

Back when Four Color to Fantasy was a thing, I attached it to d20 Modern and then used the Menace Manual to grab all my extraterrestrial and extradimensional threats.

 

[cranebump]

What shard do you play on on Homecoming, out of curiosity? I'm on Excelsior.

Mostly Excelsior, though my KR toons are both on Everlasting. All of my 50s are on Excel.

 

[David Johansen]

I ran a GURPS Marvel campaign last fall or was it the fall before that? Oh well, it didn't go very well really. A lot of interest and a lot of people looking for something other than the actual main continuity Marvel universe complete with Dire Wraiths and Transformers.

 

[Picaroon Jack]

I've not had any luck running a "classic" 70s/80s style superhero game. At all. However, I did run a successful late 1930s game (much like cranebump), and then earlier this year pre-pandemic, I ran a modern game where the "superheroes" were the registered, super powered, federal agents, but the characters were the unregistered, hit and run resisters.

Both times I used the Worlds in Peril rules and in the modern game, the Brave New World setting.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I've not had any luck running a "classic" 70s/80s style superhero game. At all. However, I did run a successful late 1930s game (much like cranebump), and then earlier this year pre-pandemic, I ran a modern game where the "superheroes" were the registered, super powered, federal agents, but the characters were the unregistered, hit and run resisters.

That's similar to my experience. I can't get players to buy into silver age morality, but something with a twist on that is a lot more likely to get the numbers.

 

[David Johansen]

Yeah, it's very hard to sell the players on being good guys who wear tights and yet that's essential to the silver age tone.

The modern Marvel movies are very iron age in their look and feel.

Still, I think Paragon was unduly hated. He's the result of a psychological experiment and his powers wax and wane based on whether he feels he's doing what is right. He's in his forties, can't keep a job or a relationship due to his powers. When they've met him he's been working in the back of the grocery store or at a fast food restaurant. And yes, he's a bit of the preachy goody two shoes archetype but as a tragedy. I've never seen players hate an NPC quite so much.

 

[cranebump]

I've not had any luck running a "classic" 70s/80s style superhero game. At all. However, I did run a successful late 1930s game (much like cranebump), and then earlier this year pre-pandemic, I ran a modern game where the "superheroes" were the registered, super powered, federal agents, but the characters were the unregistered, hit and run resisters.

Both times I used the Worlds in Peril rules and in the modern game, the Brave New World setting.
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I’ve wanted to run WIP, but there’s several “unlocks” of playbooks that can occur in play (if I remember right), and I kinda just wanted players to grab their playbooks and stick with them, choosing powers as they grew. Unless I’m not properly interpreting how these unlocks occur?

 

[Dammit Victor]

It occurs to me that we're skirting around the edges of the problem: "superhero" isn't really a genre anymore, because of how broad it's become.

Silver Age, Iron Age, and Modern Age are all very different prospects and a lot of people say they like supers, but only like one of them, and a lot of people say they don't like supers and, again, only dislike one of them. (But they still won't play the others, because they're "supers".)

And Silver Age is what people most likely mean by "supers" both ways. It's a hard sell for a lot of players, for the same reason that courtly intrigue is a hard sell for a lot of players-- having a lot of constraints, especially social constraints, on their behavior runs counter to the power fantasies that a lot of players (including myself) run on. Think about how your D&D group acts in the throne room of the king, or the lair of an ancient dragon... and it's hard to imagine how they'd possibly enjoy having to be polite and deferential to mere mortals.

Not to mention, superhero gaming is particularly susceptible to mismatches between these sub-genres. I have seen a lot of problems caused by GMs saying they want a Silver Age game, expecting their players to play like SIlver Age superheroes, and then dropping Bronze Age ungrateful civilians and straight-up Iron Age villains on them. And then they don't understand why nobody's getting what they want.

 

[Dumarest]

I run superhero games all the time, generally Bronze Age in tone, and it's a lot of fun. The key is making sure the players all understand what they're buying into and enforcing it. The guy who wants to play a trenchcoat-wearing, brooding vigilante who can't control his killing rages needs to be shown the door if he can't come up with a suitable character concept.

 

[TristramEvans]

I've had the opposite problem with one of my groups. It's the only genre I can consistently get them to the table for.

Jelly

 

[EmperorNorton]

You know, I love superhero games, but I'll admit that it is not the easiest to run. Unlike say, Fantasy Heroics, Supers, especially street level supers, are more reactionary than active.

Instead of setting the agenda, the agenda is usually set by the villain attempting to do something.

 

[chuckdee]

All of my successful superhero games have been low powered or high powered. In between sort of works, but it seems more successful at one spectrum or the other.

You know, I love superhero games, but I'll admit that it is not the easiest to run. Unlike say, Fantasy Heroics, Supers, especially street level supers, are more reactionary than active.

Instead of setting the agenda, the agenda is usually set by the villain attempting to do something.

One way I've found around that is to plot as if there were no superheroes, i.e. criminals going to criminal. The PCs then try to unravel that, rather than responding to some threat all the time.

 

[Doctor Wombat]

I've been running supers games since I got my hands on the revised edition of Villains and Vigilantes back in 1982. Lots of Marvel Super Heroes, then Champions 4th Edition, then Mutants & Masterminds 2nd and 3rd Editions. My games have always tended more towards the Bronze Age in tone than Silver Age, with some Modern Age influences. Probably due to the fact that I cut my teeth on Bronze Age Marvel comics.

I've always found it one of the easiest RPG genres to run, because I've absorbed such a gigantic amount of superhero media over the years.

I've almost never gotten the chance to play in a supers game though, outside of the occasional convention game.

 

[Silverlion]

I've run supers games all over the place, even for people who were hesitant, but not completely unwilling, but I worked on talking to them about what they thought would be fun. It's kind of funny as I was running a game and a villain got taken out, and I made a very visual comics "page" ending. He asked me a few questions later about it and asked if I were of a particular religion. I did indeed belong to said group, but it hadn't been intentionally something I was putting in the game. Just thinking in comic book visuals that impacted me in the past, and how I could run games with those visuals. (The exact scene wasn't religious by intent, just that it follow comic end pages from the eras I enjoyed.)

The first priority for me is talking about expectations. Now, I'm a hard "no" for killing, but I also put it into H&S1E and in 2E, that whatever goes for players goes for villains--sure the villain will put heroes in deathtraps---but there is always a way out, and usually a relatively easy one if they work together. I think a lot of people have been Gmed like people I met playing Hero. Which was the worst supers gaming ever for me. If players want to turn killing on--at game setup? Sure we can do that, but that means their characters CAN also be killed.

But it wasn't the system so much as the GM setting things up as a more miniature game. Where he placed our characters on a map and said here is what is going on--great visuals, good ideas. But then I hit the roadblock. He arranged an innocent victim to be killed--and we could "try" and stop it, but by the nature of using Hero, and its build mechanics, and the decision to put us on a map at a specific point--prevented any of us from getting to the victim in time. Literally, I was a speedster, but he'd set the event beyond my movement speed at a point I couldn't quite reach before bad stuff happened.

A game is not fun if a character cannot have an impact on events in the play. Period. Some people have seen this, and yes, it occurs most commonly in a supers game run by a railroading GM. Setting up a specific situation the PC cannot impact. I'm sure it happens in other games, but in supers, it really dis-empowers the whole concept of the genre. Heroes should always have a chance to make an impact and make a change>

I also suspect its gamer's innate fear of mind control. Which isn't a guaranteed thing in other games but a common trope in supers. Some people absolutely do not want their characters out of their control. Just like some are unwilling to accept certain negative consequences of bad things in settings. (Like Paladins in 1E AD&D risking alignment change for acting against their functional alignment and code.) Or defects developing in a mutation oriented game like Gamma World. (Although I've noticed it more in players of not-Gamma World games, who don't expect changes to their character out of their control at all, like Exalted. I knew exactly why one player quite a GM's game because of a negative consequence to the PC from events he didn't intentionally create, choose, or cause.) I mean wounds are one thing, injuries are alright, but it goes to a variety of different games like the fact that also in Exalted due to its rules, I can literally enforce my choices on another PC via social combat.

They just don't like it.

When you combine risk, mind control, and the expectation of silliness---some people find it unappealing. On the other hand, sometimes my supers games have people who just embrace silliness and have fun with it. Even when otherwise it's not a thing. (I'll admit, that Gamma World works on a precarious balance between gonzo, and serious post-apocalypse, that it managed well early on--but lost sight of for a bit.) Sometimes meandering too serious (Alternity) other times swinging TOO silly (GW for 4E AD&D, though with a few fixes it's the best iteration of 4E I've seen.)

The first thing to do is to ask "Why not?" of them and ask for a real answer, no shrugs, but actual words. "Tell me why you don't want to try this?" Or something.

I'll note one issue that GAMES have over comics--if player heroes capture a villain, they can stay in prison, unless, the players enjoyed confronting them.

Don't use the revolving door of the prison trope.

 

[Tyberious Funk]

The weird thing is that I love watching the superhero movies but I'm not interested in superhero rpgs or the comics.

This right here is the phenomenon I can't understand... When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, comics were seen as being for geeks and nerds... Even among other geeks. But in this day and age? The MCU is massive. The DCU is... well, the movies might not have been great, but still... Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam, all did pretty well. And of course, the DC animated universe has been big too. Massive success, and mainstream acceptance just hasn't translated into more people gaming in the genre.

 

[Skywalker]

I have struggled with running and playing supers RPGs more than any other genre and I love superhero comics and movies.

My issue is arises from the fact that the genre is one filled with narrative devices and tropes that go beyond what is contained or capable in the setting itself. Superhero RPGs have generally ignored this aspect, instead focusing on try to deal with the myriad of in-setting possibilities with either a light rule set which hand waves the options or a dense rule set which models all the options. However, a supers RPG needs to have a set of narrative rules for the player to interact with as well as those for the PC for it to feel like the comics and movies in the genre. RPGs have only really been exploring these kinds of narrative mechanics in the last 20 years or so and has not really started to refine these concepts into something that is fun, accessible and playable until the latter half of that period.

The first supers RPG that worked for me as GM and player was Masks: the New Generation by Magpie Games. The teenage supers angle helped to focus the specific type of drama being aimed for, but its ruleset supported and conveyed the right narrative as well. Hopefully, we will see more RPGs along these lines in the future.

 

[Trippy]

Also.....teenagers bug the hell out of me.

 

[Simlasa]

However, a supers RPG needs to have a set of narrative rules for the player to interact with as well as those for the PC for it to feel like the comics and movies in the genre.

I think that's where I jump off the ship. I don't want to emulate the comics or the movies... at least not the DC/Marvel stuff. I want to avoid a lot of those problematic tropes... like a hero discovering a new use for a power to get him out of situation A, then forgetting it next issue when it would have gotten him out of situation B.
Just like I don't want to play fantasy games that give PCs plot armor to match the written fiction they're inspired by.

 

[TristramEvans]

I think that's where I jump off the ship. I don't want to emulate the comics or the movies... at least not the DC/Marvel stuff. I want to avoid a lot of those problematic tropes... like a hero discovering a new use for a power to get him out of situation A, then forgetting it next issue when it would have gotten him out of situation B.
Just like I don't want to play fantasy games that give PCs plot armor to match the written fiction they're inspired by.

Same. I want to roleplay a character in a world where superheroes exist, not act out a series of genre tropes.

But I am interpretting Skywalker's post slightly differently, in that superhero comics are very often as much relationship dramas as they are action stories, yet a lot of superhero RPG tend to focus on the latter and ignore the former. Without debating my personal tastes regarding narrative game mechanics and the systemization of social interactions, I could see the desire for a game that at least addresses these elements and places some of the game's focus on them.

 

[Dumarest]

Same. I want to roleplay a character in a world where superheroes exist, not act out a series of genre tropes.

But I am interpretting Skywalker's post slightly differently, in that superhero comics are very often as much relationship dramas as they are action stories, yet a lot of superhero RPG tend to focus on the latter and ignore the former. Without debating my personal tastes regarding narrative game mechanics and the systemization of social interactions, I could see the desire for a game that at least addresses these elements and places some of the game's focus on them.

That's about 25% of the rules content in the Gamemaster's Manual of DC Heroes. 35 years later RPGs are still playing catch-up.

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