Why does no one want to GM superheroes?

[bigdamnhero]

But no one actually wants to play SuperHeroes any more.

They want Deadpool or Punisher or some other murder-hobo with powers.

I'm fortunate to have the exact opposite experience with players. I'm not sure what my "secret" is besides being lucky enough to live in Denver which has an awesome gaming community. But it helps that I run and play a lot of games at local conventions, so I can use those to meet, screen & recruit new players and GMs. People who want to play murder hobos know I'm not the GM they're looking for and vice-versa.

 

The players need to come up with a reason why they might hang together out of suit. That isn't on the GM. The players have an obligation to contribute.

I'd say it's a joint responsibility, but I agree it's absolutely critical. Most genres don't have the dual-identity trope to the same degree as supers do, so you only have to come up with a reason for them to hang together professionally - generally no one cares what they do when they're off the clock, if there even is such a thing. It doesn't help that modern supers comics are so heavily-infused with brooding loners who don't work well with others. (Lookin' at you, Logan.)

 

Whenever I start up a new campaign, we start with a joint character generation & development session, and one of the specific questions I insist on having answered is "Why are you all working together?" I refer to it as avoiding Sub-Mariner Syndrome, a call-back to the early Defenders comics where 1-2 pages of damn-near every issue had to be spent on "How do we convince Namor to work with us this week?" No one wants to play that week after week.

 

That said, I also chart out all the players character hooks and look for ways to bring them together. "OK, Inertia's SID is a social worker, so she's organizing a charity fundraiser; Promethean is attending in his Billionaire Playboy SID, and he and Scarecrow are dating, so she's there too; Enigma's reporter SID is covering the event..." etc. Yeah, some assembly required. But once you do a couple of those, you start building more connections between their SIDs and it becomes easier.

 

Another trick is to have the PCs all meet in their SIDs first. My last 4-color supers game started with the PCs as normals all getting to know one another and having to work together. Cue radiation accident and now they're all superheroes, but their relationships pre-date their powers.

 

The worst are those where the players don't engage with the campaign and don't actively participate in the storytelling, or where the GM does nothing to motivate the players and compel them to action. Players on both sides of the GM screen must do their part.

My pet peeve is I have a couple players who routinely come up with rich, detailed backstories...in their heads. I recently introduced a new NPC, and one player got very excited and said it would be awesome if it turned out the NPC was actually a member of "the Council Of Vengeance." Blank stares all around. "I told you about them, right?" That one actually turned out to be fairly easy to incorporate, so I went with it. But once a couple years ago I brought in a minor character from a PC's backstory, only to have the player go "Wow John, it's good to see your arms & legs have grown back...I told you he was a paraplegic, right?" [head desk] We now have a "Backstory that isn't written down is not canon" rule.

[Balabanto]

1. GMing is a lot of work. GMing superheroes is even more work: higher power level, juggling multiple character identities/lives, etc. GMing Hero System is even more work on top of that (or at least it can be). So yeah, that's a big ask for people with jobs, lives, relationships, etc. I enjoy it myself, but I can understand why others may not be able to to throw themselves on it.

 

2. Most RPGers are most familiar with fantasy gaming, and the fantasy tropes they're most familiar with don't translate well into the superhero genre. Plus in my experience a lot of fantasy GMs really like to punish their players for being good guys, which makes those players understandably reluctant to play in a game where the whole point is to be good guys. Or they don't want to GM, because they don't understand how to reward players for being moral. (Which is really kindof sad when you put it like that...)

 

3. For players/GMs who really enjoy roleplaying, there's sometimes the perception that superhero games are just one big combat after another. Ironically, for those who just want to dungeon crawl, I've heard the complaint that superhero games have too much roleplaying and focus on Secret Identities and so forth. [shrug]

 

4. I've heard some players say they don't want to play superheroes because comics are too grim & gritty and no fun now. Simultaneously, they feel 4-color games are old fashioned kid stuff. Or they don't want the focus on "realism" of Iron Age games, but find Silver/Bronze Age games unrealistic. So that can be a tough needle to thread.

 

Prior to my last 4-color Champions game, I sat down with all my prospective players and we talked through what comics tropes they likes and which ones they hated. The one that topped the most-hated list was something I hadn't thought of: the futility of catching supervillains and sending them to Arkham or wherever, knowing they'll have escaped by next Tuesday. Once I swore not to do that - or at least not often - everyone got a lot more interested.

 

 

If the players are sensing that level of futility, then you need to have them deal with breakouts. Let them recapture a couple of those guys when the escape attempt happens, unless something happens where everyone gets out. And YES, this happened, for a variety of reasons, mostly not paying attention to who was imprisoned, how they were imprisoned, what they did with their free time, and an unlucky accident. This triggered an incident where the entire prison burrowed away. Well, most of the villains escaped. Literally, this had never happened before, although they were really mad, they couldn't dispute the logic of what happened. Always point out in these situations that things might have worked out differently if someone in the group had said something. If not, they have no one to blame but themselves.

[Melanie_Dawn]

Sorry I am so late to the thread, I just joined the site. I have been roleplaying for (not to give away just how old i am-no woman would do that willingly LOL) 20+years off and on. I have been jonesing to play a supers game for a long time. I played GURPS (supers) WAY back in art school. and we played a very brief DC game last year, and it whetted my appetite for more. So I have been digging into various supers games. I Bought a few Champions books (Complete, powers, Millenium City and Gadgets and Gear {I pray those last two are compatible since i noticed they are not the same edition}) in order to figure out what i want to try (I'm sort of a game hoarder, so i buy books I may never use... not sure why, but i've always done it. Anyway, I wanted to add to the convo a little here, if that's okay. 

SuperHeroes is my favorite genre to run or play.  But no one actually wants to play SuperHeroes any more.

 

They want Deadpool or Punisher or some other murder-hobo with powers.

 

 

That's a yawn-fest! And WAY too easy. Just be a blood hungry "vigilante" is sorta cliche at this point isn't. To me, that style would appeal to a younger audience, but i suppose older people may like that.

 

The thing that helps me as a GM is that all players are strongly encouraged to have a history write-up for their character (if they don't want me asking them time and again). I make them aware that a history gives them a starting point for future skills and powers, and gives me adventure ideas I can do with their character. Everyone likes having their character shine and this encourages them to do this. Having a history also helps them decide what Psych Limit, Hunted, etc their character might have.

 

Having said that, this helps me get heroes together. As a group, we try to make supergroups. If a character is deemed to be an "independent", then the hero typically ends up helping a particular hero or group of heroes. That gives a reason for the hero to get involved with an episode. I have one superheroine who's history is closely tied in to another superheroine's, so those two are a team - easy way to get involved.

 

I don't deny that it can be a challenge being a supers GM but fortunately, there's more than one GM in the campaign.

 

When I played in the DC I mentioned earlier, we were encouraged to give a very brief and on the vague side background. Most of the players were new to roleplaying (only the GM and I seasoned gamers). So it was easy on them. I love giving my character deep backgrounds, but with enough open-ended-ness to allow the GM to play with it, if he or she so chooses. 

[BoloOfEarth]

Prior to my last 4-color Champions game, I sat down with all my prospective players and we talked through what comics tropes they likes and which ones they hated. The one that topped the most-hated list was something I hadn't thought of: the futility of catching supervillains and sending them to Arkham or wherever, knowing they'll have escaped by next Tuesday. Once I swore not to do that - or at least not often - everyone got a lot more interested.

 

Regarding the "superprison revolving door" trope, I think one big reason for this is that a GM could put several weeks into creating a balanced and challenging group of villains that pique the players' interest and (most important to me) the players have fun fighting -- and then they're usually almost immediately captured and locked away for who knows how long.  So, barring a superprison breakout, you have to find ways to either (1) ensure that the villains almost always get away, or (2) create such powerful villains that they almost always beat the heroes.  I think most players would hate either of those even worse than the prison breakout.

 

That said, as I approach the one year mark of running my current Champions campaign I've only had one supervillain team break out of PRIMUS custody, and they immediately called the hero team to brag that they were trashing the PRIMUS base and dare the heroes to show up and recapture them.  (Hey, it was the A-Team -- it was all part of their "plan coming together.")  Oh, I also had one villain get found "not guilty" in court because someone else was playing dirty pool with the prosecutor.

 

I'm steadily running out of villain groups to face off against the heroes, so I'm gearing up for a mass breakout from Stronghold.  To take some of the sting off it, I'm setting things up for the heroes to be able to permanently de-power the villain team that will be (mostly) responsible for the breakout.

 

My point being, there's a reason for that trope.  It may not be a good reason, but it's there nonetheless.

[TheDarkness]

Also, even in comics, there are some villains who, for reasons made clear even before the encounter, are almost always going to require a long process of defeating their plans before they themselves are going to be put away. Kingpin in daredevil is often such a case.

 

As for villains that are actually present at the crimes a lot, I try to think of what their escape plans are and what elements must be in place for those escape plans to work. The first time the heroes meet a particular group of villains, there should be details that they see, but don't seem germane UNTIL the villains have to try to escape and that element has to do with one of their escape plans. The next time, the heroes will check details closely, and the reward of catching the difficult to catch villain is that much more.

 

Also, like the heroes, certain villains will be technically almost impossible to capture. Not necessarily the high point ones. Any teleporter, by their very nature, should almost always escape, PC or NPC, and so the PCs will likely form a plan for that eventuality.

 

Likewise, super groups, PC or NPC, should be incredibly difficult to capture en masse. So, if the heroes have, over time, defeated three villain groups, a fourth group might erupt out of the few from each group that eluded capture. Given that this group may not be as powerful as any of the groups the individual members came from, but made up entirely of villains who have proven difficult, even impractical at times to try to capture, this group could make wily adversaries who can cause the heroes a lot of challenge, without it being the kind of duke it out challenge that might favor the heroes.

 

One element I'm working on for a game is the prison system for super powered individuals. The contingent of guards includes a rotating roster of supers, and if they suspect that a certain prisoner has some plan afoot that they cannot find out, they may call in heroes who have experience with that villain in order to try to figure out what is going on. The balance of power in such a prison is always shaky, as they can only design it to deal with the powers they know the prisoners have, not the powers they might develop while there. So this can create some scenarios with those villains even though they are captured, and introduce new villains that their foes have started working with while incarcerated.

[Spence]

Late return to the thread…

 

 

So I noticed  many people find supers games hard (or harder than D&D style games) to run.  

For me a supers game is extremely hard to start, but once it is up and running I find it to be the easiest type of RPG campaign for me to run across the board.

 

Here is how I like to start a campaign.  Or at least how I like to in perfect circumstances

 

First off I sit down with the 3-4 players that intend to be in the game.  I’ve done it with 2 and I have started games with 5 or 6.  But 3-4 starting players works best for me. 

 

The first “creation” session does not actually mean a characters are created.    Instead I tell them my concept for the city and world where the campaign will be centered (including maps) and they tell me what ‘type’ of super they wish to play.  We all discuss and beat ideas about to get to a consensus.   

We decide on the general PC premise and point range.  My general starting point is that the PC’s are already experienced standard supers and part of a recognized super team.  

For CC that would be 400/75 (15/5/10).   

 

The second session is actual PC building.  We get together as a group and build the pc’s.

First we build the PC's with at 400 points with up to 75 complications.  

Now if they cannot think of good in character complications that use up the full 75 points, they can give me the left over points.  I use them as Mystery Complications, things I can spring on the players at suitably dramatic points of the plot.  {insert evil laughter here }.  We also build any headquarters or vehicles.

 

Once the “core” characters are complete we “power up”,  15/5/10.

The campaign “core” characters already have some experience.

Each player “spends” 15 points.

Then 5 points.

Then 10 points.

They cannot keep or combine the points, they must be all spent at each interval.  This, however imperfectly,  slightly simulates spending experience. 

 

Then, with copies of the PC’s in hand I go off to finalize the world, the threats and the villains.

 

Sometime down the line, usually a couple weeks, we begin session #1. 

Now since it is Supers I generally run it in an Episode format with at least three story arcs, one main and at least two sub-arcs.   If someone can’t make a session, It is extremely easy to run a sub-arc or even a filler episode, even if only one player can be there.   I believe in a game that uses player “stables”.  A player can have multiple PC’s, they just cannot play more than one in a given session.    Mystery Complications are handy, and with the trope of Heroes being Captured or Trapped, having a second PC to play during the incredible and exciting rescue is helpful too.  The format also makes it easy to add new players, either in one shot guest appearances or as new regulars. As a note, all PC's after the initial start are built normally without any "power-ups".   Many times players, especially new to Hero or Supers in general, will retire their first PC early on and build a new PC closer to what they were really thinking they wanted. 

 

For me, a supers campaign is the easiest game to run once it gets off the ground and is actually underway.  After the first few sessions the campaign practically runs itself.  And as you build up a stable of Supervillains to plague the heroes, the plot will write itself.

 

The key is getting past the first initial arc that sets the entire tone and establishes part of the evil cast of villainy.   It has to be collaborative with the players and their PC’s.  The villains have to be threats, but within the power scope of the PC’s to challenge.  Not too easy, but not too hard.  And that cannot be determined until the PC’s are in actual play. 

 

I always hold back my favorite villains for later on down the storyline.   The villains I use initially are ones I don’t mind permanently sidelining if they do not fit.   Ones I can ditch with no real impact. 

 

Of course sometimes I can never use a favorite villain because they just do not fit the tone/feel of the game which can be a bummer.

 

But in the end, when you finally get a campaign launched and running, supers is the easiest to maintain around the varied schedules that result from jobs and kids…..

 

At least for me…

[bigdamnhero]

For me, a supers campaign is the easiest game to run once it gets off the ground and is actually underway.  After the first few sessions the campaign practically runs itself.  And as you build up a stable of Supervillains to plague the heroes, the plot will write itself.

Agreed. I think partly because superheroes tend to be more reactive than PCs in other genres, ie they're mostly reacting to what the Villains are doing. So anytime you're stuck or didn't have time to write an actual plot, the PCs get a call that "[Villain] is tearing up downtown!" and off you go.

[Spence]

Agreed. I think partly because superheroes tend to be more reactive than PCs in other genres, ie they're mostly reacting to what the Villains are doing. So anytime you're stuck or didn't have time to write an actual plot, the PCs get a call that "[Villain] is tearing up downtown!" and off you go.

 

That does tend to help

[Amorkca]

Once the “core” characters are complete we “power up”,  15/5/10.

The campaign “core” characters already have some experience.

Each player “spends” 15 points.

Then 5 points.

Then 10 points.

They cannot keep or combine the points, they must be all spent at each interval.  This, however imperfectly,  slightly simulates spending experience. 

 

 

 

Can you give an example or two of what you did here?

[Basic204]

SuperHeroes is my favorite genre to run or play.  But no one actually wants to play SuperHeroes any more.

 

They want Deadpool or Punisher or some other murder-hobo with powers.

 

The idea of a recurring themed Master Villain as an ongoing archenemy just doesn't seem to occur to anyone anymore.

 

And just forget modern players working together to create superHeroes that will complement each other and set the stage with opportunity for the GM to weave a great story.

 

I have a great group of roleplayers and we can have fantastic games with everything from FATE and GUMSHOE to Shadowrun to even D&D 5th.  Fun games that take full advantage of  storytelling/narrative in the systems. 

 

But try to do anything with superpowers and the current excuse for comics rear their ugly heads and you get Murder Hobo's Inc. 

 

So the closest thing I have run in the supers world is ICONS with the flavor if the Tick or the animated Teen Titans (2003-2006 version).

 

Though to admit, my current group is very story oriented and have actually read a comic that doesn't involve a drug addicted murder-hobo becoming a sober murder-hobo.  I've been working up a small campaign to try in the new year.

 

I love playing real superheoes

[Shadow7]

I know it's been awhile since this thread was active, but I recently started Super Heroes campaign with a bunch of friends...since the rules for the Hero System was too complicated for everyone to pick them up, I decided to use the LARP rules from Champions game without actually doing the role-playing or the dress up.  Although the rules sometimes need to be adjusted with each mission, it has actually been really fun.  We have now finished three missions.  I have always found that the Super Heroes genre is the most appealing because it sets the characters in real present time pitting them against real life events or situations.  Since all of the PCs are new, and I didn't want to just exclusively GM, I decided to add a NPC hero to the superhero group that serves as a quasi-member.  His name is Nocturnal and since part of his story is that he can only appear at night, it prevents him from taking over for the PCs, but at the same time giving them a guide to help them out and a chance for me to play a little as well.  This month we will be finishing (hopefully) our first campaign series, and I am looking at offering two campaign missions to the PCs that will overlap each other and lead to the other mission that they didn't choose at first.  Since the PCs weren't familiar with the whole character creation, I actually created their characters based upon their personalities and their interest. As funny as this may sound, it is scary how quickly the characters have resembled their PCs, to the point we in the group call each other by our Super Hero names for fun!  Since most of the characters are standard Super Hero characters, we don't really have a problem with the adventure resembling street vigilantes out for blood, more of a Justice League or Avengers type of feel to heroes gathered to protect their city in this case, the city of Los Angeles.   At the end of this first series (4 sessions), I am looking towards awarding my PCs with some experience points to help them grow in their powers, probably between 3-5 pts, depending upon involvement and creativity.  Anyone have any advice on how to give meaningful xp without giving too much?  The campaign involves 4 PCs. Thanks!

[Spence]

 Anyone have any advice on how to give meaningful xp without giving too much? 

 

Well, since the players did not build their PC's due to a lack of understanding of the creation rules I would suggest not giving them XP. Instead keep track of their contributions in play and at specific points in the campaign (Milestones) ask them what they would like to see improve in their PC's and spend 10-15 XP on each PC.

 

I don't know what character sheets you are using, but I would use one stripped of costs that just shows the active abilities.

 

Later, after they have played a while and have figured out how the game rules work (not character creation, but play rules) you can ask them if they want to give creation a go.  Once they actually create a PC of their own you can go to XP by session or you can accumulate it and give them XP by milestone.  

 

But I would not award XP by session to a group of players that do not understand creation rules.   Do it for them by Milestone.

[Spence]

That's just...sad.

 

Yes......yes it is

[Doc Democracy]

My idea of superhero advancement is more about how mainstream they become, moving from being an unknown powered being, apparently fighting crime but an unknown quantity watched just as closely by the authorities as potential villains. As time goes on they begin to get resources and contacts with the potential to draw on corporate and/or government expertise. Ultimately getting fawning press instead of risking potentially being labelled vigilantes.

 

There is often no need to increase power levels in a supers campaign, though everyone likes to get some personal growth every now and again, it cannot be the fantasy style zero to hero campaign, they should already be heroes...

[Spence]

 they should already be heroes...

 

Key statement.

The issue is that the definition of Hero has drifted over the years.

[bigdamnhero]

My idea of superhero advancement is more about how mainstream they become, moving from being an unknown powered being, apparently fighting crime but an unknown quantity watched just as closely by the authorities as potential villains. As time goes on they begin to get resources and contacts with the potential to draw on corporate and/or government expertise. Ultimately getting fawning press instead of risking potentially being labelled vigilantes.

 

There is often no need to increase power levels in a supers campaign, though everyone likes to get some personal growth every now and again, it cannot be the fantasy style zero to hero campaign, they should already be heroes...

This. Also I see it frequently about gaining more control (buy down/off a few Limitations) and versatility (a few more slots in the Framework) and the like.

 

I've never actually played with the Champions LARP rules, but it seems like they they did a really good job boiling "the feel" of Champions down to a bare-bones rule set.

[jammer397]

I typically get stuck GMing and was really losing interest in RPGs in general till a friend told me about Champions. I find GMing Champions so much fun and it's what makes the game great to me. Voice acting and acting out the different heroes and villains the players runs into is great.

[Enforcer84]

It may have been mentioned. But the difficulty of GMing Supers in my experience, is that some players don't want to play within the genre. We've seen the discussions here about things like being captured (DEATH BEFORE DEFEAT) and the use of killing powers. 

 

I've had some great games but I've also had games that I GM'd or played in in which a few players who just won't play the genre and those games fall apart awfully quickly and we're back to fantasy where the mindset is less difficult.

[zslane]

Yeah, I think that kind of resistance exists towards almost any genre that's not fantasy. It takes a special group of players to pull off a Morrow Project or Call of Cthulhu or Bunnies & Burrows campaign for precisely this reason. Maybe the overwhelming prevalence of D&D has led to this "fantasy-only" mindset?

[bigdamnhero]

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me "That sounds like a cool game, but I only play fantasy..."

[Spence]

Yeah, I think that kind of resistance exists towards almost any genre that's not fantasy. It takes a special group of players to pull off a Morrow Project or Call of Cthulhu or Bunnies & Burrows campaign for precisely this reason. Maybe the overwhelming prevalence of D&D has led to this "fantasy-only" mindset?

 

Amazingly I have a group that enjoys my "Trail of Cthulhu"/"Call of Cthulhu"/"Fear Itself" games a lot.   I never have a problem filling the game.  Due to life, most of my games have been short story arc or one shots, but I am gearing up to be able to run a full campaign.

 

I have floated a Champs campaign with a liberal dose of GUMSHOE style mystery and they are all game but I am making pre-gen PC's.  The plan is for the pre-gens will be training characters to teach Hero and "set the tone" of the world.  Afterwards they can all either keep playing the pre-gens or build their own characters armed with an understanding of how the build rules actually work.

 

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me "That sounds like a cool game, but I only play fantasy..."

 

Unfortunate but too true.

Edited January 13, 2017 by Spence

[TheDarkness]

What's always funny to me is that fantasy and sci fi and comics were the nerd genres of my youth, but traveller players were few and far between, Champions players the same.

 

It's not like the same people aren't reading fantasy, sci fi, and comics in a ton of cases.

 

I think it's more a coincidental culture that sprouted up. I think D&D marketed more effectively at the start, and it ended up being the go-to genre. It's not like there is an innate desire for humans to specifically want to battle troglodytes, but not stormtroopers.

[zslane]

There's also the fact that D&D established the murder hobo as the default style of play, which naturally appeals to teenage boys. Other genres don't typically deliver the same ethically bereft power trip as D&D.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think there's interest in the superhero campaign out there, but its such an unusual genre that some people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept.  When I ran my sadly truncated Golden Age Champions campaign, two of the players just weren't superhero guys.  One made a Image-type gun wielding Captain America sort, the other was a super spy martial artist with swords.  They fit the genre all right, but they weren't first and foremost heroes or moral scions, they were guys with abilities fighting enemies.  As the game went on I was trying to shape them into something more, but it didn't last long enough, sadly.

[massey]

I think there's interest in the superhero campaign out there, but its such an unusual genre that some people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept.  When I ran my sadly truncated Golden Age Champions campaign, two of the players just weren't superhero guys.  One made a Image-type gun wielding Captain America sort, the other was a super spy martial artist with swords.  They fit the genre all right, but they weren't first and foremost heroes or moral scions, they were guys with abilities fighting enemies.  As the game went on I was trying to shape them into something more, but it didn't last long enough, sadly.

 

A lot of people really aren't that familiar with Bronze Age superhero adventures.  They haven't read enough of the comics to recognize the genre conventions.  Silver Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, they have no idea what the differences are between these books.  Their familiarity with superheroes comes primarily from the movies, and maybe some cartoons that they saw ten years ago.

 

So when Superman snaps General Zod's neck, this player thinks "cool, that was badass".  He doesn't react negatively because he doesn't recognize that this is a departure from the normal behavior of the character.  So when he writes up his Superman clone, he gives it a 6D6 HKA "neck snap", because that's what Superman does, right?

 

It would be like asking me to play a character from some anime.  I generally don't watch anime, and I wouldn't know how the character was supposed to behave.