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Your Character's Costume?


GoldenAge

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WHERE'S MY SUPER SUIT???

 

Hey gang, I was just wondering how you all address the ideas of costuming for your superheroes. The comics have addressed this in several ways, from Unstable Molecules to the Comics Code Authority.

 

Superman's suit was made from his Kryptonian blankets and swaddling by Martha, Spiderman wore an alien symbiote, Batman wears a high-tech Wayne Industry battle suit, Iron Man is, well, Iron Man... Star Labs and Shield often help to provide suits, Green Lantern's is a galactic police uniform created by super-science, Wonder Woman's is forged from Zues' Aegis and Dr. Manhattan is just plain naked! I love some of theses and hate others, but I'd love to hear how you ALL handle superhero costumes in your campaign.

I'll start. Honestly, in our long running game (EPIC CITY) we handle suits much like the comics; some are science, some are magical some are armor and some are just continually ruined. I've long wanted to expand on the availability of unique suits and the material and the time necessary to create them. Since my players have just made a major (and permanent) jump back in time, I thought now would be the right moment to exploit such conundrums.

 

Certain things just don't exist in this time. There are no nanites or intergalactic material (our INVASION hasn't happened yet), there are no mystical armors or magical shields to be had (yet), and tech is slightly behind what they're used to (which would make repairs to specialized tools and armor difficult, if not impossible). They think they're going back to a simpler time, and in many ways they are. But I'm afraid that the reality of costuming might be a harsh slap in the face (at least until they figure the specifics out).

 

So how do you handle super heroic costuming. Or do you even care and just hand wave it?

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In my current Champions campaign, two of the heroes combined their talents (Fashion and teleportation) to create costumes that are stored extra-dimensionally and swap out with their normal clothing on demand.  (This is the justification for many of the heroes' Instant Change powers.)  As to damage during fights, we don't typically cover that, though I probably should (if for no other reason than to add some flavor to the battles).

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In my current campaign:

  • Character's powers come from Native American magic - so the costume is magical and appears when they need it
  • Character is electrical in nature and changes the fabric in their clothes into their costume
  • One character literally carries her costume in a bag and changes into it - nearest bathroom stall
  • One character is the incarnation of the angel Gabriel and just manifests into Gabriel
  • One character is a neolithic native American and wears whatever clothes he feels like wearing that day
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Mostly, if it comes up, it's handled via some technobabble or mystobabble.  Often, a character's costume is tied to their origin in some way ("Wait, you've been naked this whole time?!). 

 

If someone needs a durable costume provided for them, I've got a "Inertial Weave/Thermastrand" (see technobabble) blend that can be used.  It even provides up to 8 rPD and 8 rED for negligible mass).  it's also the default material for many super-organization field agents and it can be made to look like almost any other material (handy if you're worried about assassins but want to look like you're wearing a normal business suit).  Combine it with Duralloy plating, and you can get some real armor going (16 rPD & rED). 

 

There's actually a handful of wonder-materials available in the campaign (liberally stolen from various super-hero and sci-fi sources).  TV Tropes is a great place to mine for such things:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Unobtainium?from=Main.Unobtanium

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Iron Maiden wears a wool cloak, tank top, tights, leather skirt and boots and cloth mask. It's protected by the tk shield that protects her, so there's some damage--mostly to the cloak--but not much else.

 

Black Knight just wears whatever he can scrounge up, since his whole schtick is that he can take immense amounts of damage and instantly heal up. His clothes get shredded all the time.

 

Most characters in my games/stories have no particular special costume defenses. Either their powers protect the costumes, or the costumes can and do get damaged. There's no miracle fabric to be had.

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The idea of the bullet resistant spandex(BRS) was not that far from mainstream, citing a Wired article @ https://www.wired.com/2001/10/abfabs/, so I don't feel the need to justify getting the BRS costume. 

 

As for costuming that can work with your superpowers, I like the idea of trying to use realistic sources when I can. For a bunch of electrical based characters I've run, I have, in the past, allowed them to wear latex costumes or Darlexx®, if they have the resources, which Wikipedia describes as 'an omnidirectional warp knit fabric laminated to a monolithic film', and which I always thought could potentially have insulation properties that would protect against electricity.

 

I've also thought that spider silk as a fabric would be cool, as its tensile properties are well known to Spider-man fans, but that it's been hard to generate enough silk to create clothes from what I've read, but easier to stretch disbelief in being more accessible for many superhero worlds.

Edited by cptpatriot
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In my current Champions campaign, two of the heroes combined their talents (Fashion and teleportation) to create costumes that are stored extra-dimensionally and swap out with their normal clothing on demand.  (This is the justification for many of the heroes' Instant Change powers.)  As to damage during fights, we don't typically cover that, though I probably should (if for no other reason than to add some flavor to the battles).

 

Heh, gotta point about covering damage in battle.  People are going to wonder why my guy's T-shirt is pristine after taking a point blank EB to the body.  (maybe "battle aura" covers clothing. :yes: )

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Liberty

 

Blue short tunic style dress.

Gold Spiked Crown

Gold "U.S." Earrings

Gold Bracelet on Right Wrist with a Crystal Torch Symbol.

Gold Bracelet on Left Wrist with a Crystal Book Symbol

Gold Belt with "U.S." symbol on belt buckle.

Gold sandals.

Gold Torch with Crystal Flame

Gold Book Shaped Shield with "July IV MDCCLXXVI" on it.

 

Liberty is 5'5", 110 lbs, Blonde Hair, Blue Eyes.  

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Juno

 

Long red sleeveless textured dress

Gold bracelets, belt, and necklace.

Black Gladiator sandals.

Roman Gladius Sword carried in a sheath on her back

.45 cal cavalry pistol carried in holster on right hip.

 

Juno is 5'11", 130 lbs, with reddish brown hair and green eyes.

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My characters have a variety of costume approaches.

 

Earth Girl "wears" flower vines growing out of the soil she's made of. It's a distinctive look for someone that really has no needs in the way of protection from the elements or modesty.

 

Kurzhaan the Conquerer wears magical armor; a full suit if he knows he's going off to a tough battle, a more comfy John Carter-esque kilt and bracers with belt and shoulder straps to hang weapons from most other times. As a werewolf he also ends up naked a lot if shapeshifting is involved.

 

Young Scratch doesn't really have a costume, he just wears punk style regular clothing. The one constant element is a glowing pentragram belt buckle.

 

Super Model doesn't have a single specific costume either, her schtick is wearing outlandish haute couture for adventuring.

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Generally, we don't deal with it.  Characters are assumed to get their costume however they want.  I'd suggest that in a fully-developed superhero world, there would be some sort of supplier for a standard superhero costume.  Like I'm the Amazing Bug-Man, a high school kid who got his powers after eating a radioactive insect on a dare.  And for the first month or two, I'm running around in some ugly looking homemade suit.  But after I meet the local established super-team, and help them defeat a bad guy, one of them pulls me aside and says "hey buddy, how about we hook you up with a real costume?"  The stuff stretches, doesn't rip, comes in a variety of colors, and the manufacturer is secret-ID friendly and doesn't ask a lot of questions.  There's probably a fireproofing treatment that lets those self-immolating types use their powers without flashing their junk to everyone afterwards.

 

In a "superpowers appeared yesterday" campaign, all suits would be a one-off.  There probably are a lot more characters fighting in jeans and a t-shirt.  The expectation is that eventually one sort of suit would become common, but it hasn't happened yet.

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As a GM I usually assume that Superhero Fashion are built of something like Reed Richards' Unstable Molecules (which he DID share with all of the Heroes in the MU).

 

As a Player I usually assume the same thing.

I do have a character who's costume is made of magic
One who has special Nanotech that keeps her and her Costume looking great
I even have a PC who fights crime totally naked. (Though she's a big Housecat ie like a Savannah cat, only with totally black fur, and a uplifted brain)
Oh I guess I have another PC who fought crime naked, they were an insectoid warrior from a high magic world
That doesn't even count the Powered Armor Suits (both Technological and Magical)

It's one of those things that I don't consider to be important or fun. So I ignore it. Heck even when I am playing Heroic level games we tend to handwave/ignore damage to clothing/armor. I guess if one of the PC's had unluck and we wanted to do something funny with a bad roll.

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In my TASK FORCE stories, I handwaved it away until about 1987 in-universe.  At that time, the team's tech wiz made some breakthroughs in long-chain carbon-based nanocomposites which (after rebuilding his own suit) he used to provide his team-mates with low-profile armor (basically bullet-proof spandex).  Historically, this is consistent with the work Rice University performed on advancing state of the art with buckyballs and carbon nanotubes.  In-universe, it's the origin of Destreum once Doctor Destroyer steals it.

 

Don't judge me for having been a materials scientist once...

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Generally, we don't deal with it.

 

Yep. We've always dealt with it by not dealing with it, too. ;)

 

Seriously: the majority of the players have characters with signature superhero costumes. They can decide for themselves how 'structable the costumes are. For my own characters--

 

Well, I've got a very small selection of actual spandex commandos with their own super suits. All of these characters tend to have never-destroyed (though sometimes ripped, if only briefly) costumes. I've got one "reluctant hero" (retired, _FINALLY_!) who never wore a costume: he wore a replica (after replica after replica after replica :D ) of a leather field jacket his father gave him shortly before he was "outed" as a paranormal. I had a female magic-oriented character who wore denim street clothes (the cotton was essential to her magic) and hiking boots (leather) instead of a costume. Her "magicness" must have been the reason her clothing was never damaged and rarely sullied.

 

The others were either powered armor characters (I think I mentioned a preference for sci-fi, right? ;) ) or physically altered in such a way (and this one:https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0EQze was both! ) as to make costumes-- clothing, even-- unnecessary and often downright impossible. Armorine (the link for the as-yet uncolored artwork my brother did of one of her forms) and Tree (my homage to Marvel's Thing that every used to think was an homage to Swap Thing and now think is a rip off of the tree creature from Guardians of the Galaxy) come to mind.

 

 

For some crazy reason, my Speedsters _always_ have costumes. Always. Even the villains. Now Freight Train does not, but he's also a pretty poor Speedster. :D Most of my characters (not all) have costumes of some sort, but I've got a couple of each variety that don't. Except Speedsters! :D

 

 

 

Don't judge me for having been a materials scientist once...

Judge you? Dude! I want to _hug_ you! :)

 

(Unless you were involved with polyester, in which case I would like to congratulate you with a nice, firm neck shake. [i'm terribly allergic. Try buying boot socks without polyester. Ugh] )

 

 

I think Christopher Taylor hit it spot-on: Super Hero costumes are one of the absolute basic staples of comic books. Let it ride. :)

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If they can justify buying instant change, then I don't worry too much unless I want to make things interesting.

Otherwise yes it is a real issue in my worlds. I like to keep it real. And that is a real issue.

Sometimes the players will surprise you with their ideas.

 

I've always tried to provide a good explanation for the use of instant change if my PC has it.

 

Paladin is a power-armor char. His battlesuit is "stored" shunted away in null-space. A chip implanted at the base of his skull sends a signal to move the 'suit from/to that null-space.

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My current Champions character dresses like a classic 1930s film noir detective, because he IS a licensed private detective, and finds that looking the part is good for business. His magical protective aura also protects his clothes, and if they do get damaged, they're not hard to replace.

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