Original Characters

[Michael Hopcroft]

How hard is it to find and create a superhero concept that isn;t a "clone" of some existing superhero or supervillain? Have so many superheroes and supervillains been created in various medias and games that everything has already been done?

Or is everything just a riff on some very old concepts?

[cubist]

The medium has been around for so long now(comics and RPGs) that chances are good what you come up with will appear derivative of something else. This isn't always a bad thing and can be done as an homage. Or, the true trick might be in coming up with a new twist on an old theme. The character I played last week in Micheal's SAS game is an example- he's asuperhumanly strong guy who throws lightning and thinks he's the god Zeus. The twist?: He also thinks he's Dr. Seus, see hwere this is going? That's right, i played Dr. Zeus- an arrogant, opionanated ladies man who loves kids and is more than alittle nuts. He wears a "cat in the hat" style hat, a toga and one shoe, two she, red shoe, blue shoe. The trick is in the personality and the details.

[Hermit]

I think it is very hard to come up with anything totally original concept wise (Though a Rhyming Cat in the Hat type Olympian surely qualifies *chuckles*) and the best thing you can do is either find a new twist on an old theme, or find a concept that's so old, it's new again

[cubist]

You should see Evil Steve's character, the only word that I can think of to describe him is Pimpadelic

[mattingly]

the only word that I can think of to describe him is Pimpadelic

Pimpadelic? That sounds like a recent plant elemental PC of mine -- Doctor Venus Flytrap -- the baron of botany; the warden of the garden; the inspiration for vegetation; the one adora of all the flora. But in his non-Swamp-Thing-esque ID, he was a black man with a pointy goatee, extra large subglasses, a large pink floppy hat, a wide-lapel suit with a puffy shirt, elevated disco shoes, and a pimpdaddy cane. Oh, yowza!

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft
How hard is it to find and create a superhero concept that isn;t a "clone" of some existing superhero or supervillain? Have so many superheroes and supervillains been created in various medias and games that everything has already been done?
Or is everything just a riff on some very old concepts?

Now we get into the discussion of Archetypes.

Bricks: Hercules, Gilgimesh
Energy Projectors: Zeus
Speesters: Hermes
Mystics: Circe, Prospero
Mentalists: Rasputin, Mesmer
Patriots: Uncle Sam, Columbia

Yes... in a way, everything has been done. But (as mentioned above) delivery is everything. Sure, you're going to get the wealthy-playboy-in-power-armor, and there is nothing wrong with that. But you also are going to get the High-Tech Mecha possessed by the primeval spirit of the earth as well. In the end they both may be powered armor characters, but they also are vastly different in concept and delivery.

This is where HERO (as a game system) begins having us think in term s of stats instead of results. When used properly, the system allows us to make our creativity into a playable character, bying turning the concept into stats. That's where the strength of this system lies.

[cubist]

Originally posted by mattingly
Pimpadelic? That sounds like a recent plant elemental PC of mine -- Doctor Venus Flytrap -- the baron of botany; the warden of the garden; the inspiration for vegetation; the one adora of all the flora. But in his non-Swamp-Thing-esque ID, he was a black man with a pointy goatee, extra large subglasses, a large pink floppy hat, a wide-lapel suit with a puffy shirt, elevated disco shoes, and a pimpdaddy cane. Oh, yowza!

Dave that's just wrong, man. But here's the scenario- Michael wanted a silver-age feel game with odd characters, so we give him the aforementioned Dr. Zeus, and the following:
Che- yes, a reborn brickesque Che Gueverra
Jinx- Think Stitch and you're about there- scary as hell but never actually managed to really hit anything ...
And Evil Steve's character, the piece de resistence-
The Spirit of 76! No, not a patriot character(as I initially expected) but a black man with a passion for all things seventies- it was horrid! Mirrored lapels on his ultra flahy coat, pimp hat and cane, all of it. That, plus he was a walking arsenal with Captain America-esque abilities.

Damn that game was fun!

[Tom McCarthy]

One of my players wanted to play a young man whose father had been killed by an evil military/government cabal so they could use his research to make soldiers for an arctic post-nuclear battlefield.

They kidnapped him, experimented on him, brainwashed him, and gave him animalistic reflexes and claws. He broke out of their Alaskan base, killing many soldiers, and wound up an agent of the Canadian government, doing black and covert ops. he was to be the pragmatic 'willing to kill' hero forced on the otherwise four colour team.

It's a fine origin, very much in genre, and I certainly allowed it. But I thought it sounded derivative of Claremont/Byrne X-Men and Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon X. The player claims never to have read Weapon X (he's probably right, though his memory is spotty).

[cubist]

If the character hasn't already been named, have him be found by a french-canadian who dubs him Carcajou(the french word for Wolverine), at least you now have some small variation...

[ProfessorM@ss]

Originally posted by Michael Hopcroft
How hard is it to find and create a superhero concept that isn;t a "clone" of some existing superhero or supervillain? Have so many superheroes and supervillains been created in various medias and games that everything has already been done?

Or is everything just a riff on some very old concepts?

Something that I've found interesting to play is a really obvious variation on a theme with an unexpected twist.

I once played a typical Captain America clone...with a variation: he was a black guy who was made during Vietnam. And, boy, was he cool!

I followed the Captain America theme exactly, but with weird twists. For example, my guy got frozen in ice, and when he woke up, he suddenly leapt up yelling "Who you callin' 'buck?'!" (a variation on Cap jumping up and yelling for Bucky when the Avengers woke him up)

The comic relief in such characters can be enormous. Heh heh heh...I have very pleasant memories of my PC: "So I says to the man, 'Shield? Shield? Gimme a gun, you *@#%@%!$!'"



--->M@ss

[Delthrien]

On Hero Central, I actually have what I have come to dub, "The White Trash Capt. America."

He's strong, fast, can take a hit, fights well, has "light" armor and has a throwing shield/weapon. The difference?

He's done jail time (framed, but there ya have it...). He drinks like a fish and with no discernible effect (immune to alcohol). His armor is a "heavy" leather jacket (old steel plating added into lining), his fighting skills lean more to the "bar-room brawling" side than the "military trained" side (dirty in-fighting), and his "shield" is a stainless steel hub cap he found in a junk yard...

Loads of fun!

[MisterVimes]

Since we're on the Cap-Clones...

In my longest running campaign, we had two Patriot/Bricks: Patriot and Mr. America.

Patriot had a very cool variation on the Cap-froken-in-the-ice secondary origin. Instead of being a man out of his time, Patriot was a man out of his world. He was from '"The Real World" and had been transplanted into the campaign setting. He'd been a little accountant guy that could now lift tanks.

Mr. America was a little different. He was a hollywood actor, handsome, smooth and totally self absorbed. The government took him, image-managed him and gave him super-powers. He was basically the guy the government pointed to and said: "Here... Here is your hero". As the game progressed, Mr. A discovered that the government wasn't always right. He fell in love with a memeber of the "Outlaw Goodguys" and turned into a REAL hero on the inside... it was a very satisfying evolution to the character.

[tiger]

While most characters can be seen as offshoots or copies of existing Comic Heroes. The backgrounds and modification stops them from being copies.

I have a hero that glides around, walks up walls and can cut open cars with his claws. While some aspects are copies of Wolverine or Spiderman as a whole it's a new character.

Let's face it after 50-60 years of comics it's hard to design a 100% never before seen hero.

Herc is a copy of Thor, in some respects. But totally different in the finished product.

[Supreme]

Hey, let's face it, most "original" super-heroes and villains are themselves reworkings of mythical characters. Superman is Hercules redone in a modern urban setting. I like to make characters that are hybrids. I cross Batman with Iron Man to make "Steel Shadow" Batman's attitude, Iron Man's armor. For two campaigns, one Golden Age the other Silver Age, I made two characters named "Champion". Both were Superman rip-offs in powers, but the changes from age to age was modeled on Green Lantern. Golden Age Champion got his powers from the goddess Athena, and lost his powers when surrounded by seawater (that mean, old Poseidon). Silver Age Champion got his powers from "cosmic radiation" and lost his powers when surrounded by lead.

[Hermit]

I've done similar things, and it works out great. A personality transplant to the powers of another can mesh to shape a unique character, at least in your campaigns.

Mind you, I still haven't made my grim dark avenger of the night with Spider powers, but it is on my 'to do' list.