Epic level Champions

[Doc Democracy]

Just been reading the How to beat Dr Destroyer thread.

 

There was an interesting side discussion on epic level games that I thought might be worth exploring in a thread of its own.

 

I think that the design of Champions when it first came out was partly balanced due to the spread of attacks, defences and abilities and there was no way you could have decent attack, defences etc etc and some of the absolutes (eg. desolid) priced at a level where, if you bought them, they would be your main schtick.

 

If you ramp up the points available then everything becomes possible. Everyone can have the variety of attacks and defences, there are few blind spots or needs to cover other things.

 

I was wondering if people playing very high point games designed their games in ways to re-introduce some of the balancing that had to take place when every point was precious.

 

It is only right that every Epic Hero be bulletproof and that human normals be unable to touch them. Does that mean the game becomes boring attrition? Does it mean you push each Hero through the Epic level in only one direction.

 

How did you get those Heroes to feel vulnerable in the game?

 

Doc

[megaplayboy]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

Well, I have a few suggestions, based on my own experiences, wrt character design requirements.

 

1. Build your character around a tight concept, and specify at the outset what sort of abilities fall outside of that concept--IOW, define not only what your character can do, but what they can't do.

2. For really high-powered campaigns, define situations or circumstances where the character's powers either don't work or are less effective--say, they normally romp around in a 50 foot armor-suit, but they can't take it everywhere with them; or their magical prowess requires the use of gestures, so if their hands are bound, they are much less effective; or when they're away from the ocean/earth/sunlight for too long, their powers begin to decline. There are lots of examples of this sort of thing in the comics.

3. Write the character up with a major physical limitation--a vulnerability or susceptibility, a physical limitation on their powers, or somesuch. As a GM, make sure at least one bad guy is aware of this.

4. Give the character a couple of strong psych lims, or one total psych lim, that can occasionally work against them.

5. give the character a major background complication--like unluck or a more powerful hunted--which create situations where they can't get it done all by themselves.

 

Note that all 5 of these things will generally be unaffected by the point level of the campaign, even if it changes dramatically over time.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

and two examples of epic champions from tv space ghost and birdman

example creature king captures space ghpost and confiscates his power bands he is powerless until he regains them

birdman when he was kept out of direct sunlight by his foes his power gradualy weakens

[megaplayboy]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

Those are fair examples. I'd add Superman(can't rearrange matter, resurrect the dead, alter reality, read minds or any number of other things; powers reduced/impaired in presence of kryptonite, under a red sun or red solar radiation or when deprived of sunlight for an extended period; susceptible to kryptonite and k-based attacks, vulnerable to magic attacks(or his defenses largely don't work against it); overconfident, doesn't use powers at full effect unless he knows his opponent can take it, protective of innocents; lots of very powerful hunteds who have definitely worked together against him before) and Batman(he's a human being, when all is said and done, with no superpowers; if you take away his gadgets, a whole suite of stuff goes away; has a de facto vulnerability, being human(limited to max legendary range human stats); obsessive as heck, slightly overconfident at times, loner mentality; lots of powerful enemies and a little bit of unluck). Flash and Green Lantern are also very good examples of powerful heroes who are shtick-limited, have some meaningful constraints on their abilities, appropriate psych lims and powerful enemies.

 

Thor used to have his "if I'm separated from my hammer for more than 60 seconds I turn back into a squishy normal with a limp" situation, too. There are plenty of examples from comics(and other fiction/mythology) of various ways in which extremely capable heroes are constrained or the boundaries of their ability are set.

[Egyptoid]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

Give every PC a job, and make them do it. (Faceman, Bruiser, Intell, Mystic Master, Transport, Healer, etc)

 

 

Give every PC a unique schtick (repertoire, propensity, or domain)

and don't let anyone else, especially PCs do that also.

(technology, karate, magic, medicine, comic relief, psionics, etc)

[teh bunneh]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

I ran a high-level super campaign. Characters were around 650 points. I put a (soft) limit on attack and defense powers, which made the characters rather broad rather than super deep. It worked pretty well. Like Egyptoid said, everyone had a schtick, in both personality and power, which they stuck to, but of the two personality was more important.

 

One of the things I told the players as they were coming up with characters, was that I was more interested in their background and personality than I was in their powers. I told them, "It doesn't really matter if the team has three bricks, as long as you've all got strong and unique personalities. The Avengers had Hercules, Thor, Wonder-Man, and Namor all working together. They had basically the same powers, but they were all different people, so the team worked well."

 

It made for some good roleplaying.

[lemming]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

I've run high powered as well. I think Sam Bell did it best. He managed to run a Galactic game with characters ranging from 450-1200 points. A lot of different schticks and motivations. Everyone had three different characters, low, medium, high powered and depending on the session, there would be chars from the different point scales.

[Ice9]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

1. Build your character around a tight concept, and specify at the outset what sort of abilities fall outside of that concept--IOW, define not only what your character can do, but what they can't do.

Definitely agree with this one. Even at semi-high point levels, it's often easy (build wise) to grab everything that might conceivably be useful - the only thing preventing everyone from being "Omni-Man" is their concept. Especially important for characters with a "magic" or "transhuman level techology" SFX - unless you decide on some limits, those concepts can pretty much spread to anything. At the same time, you don't want to pick too narrow a SFX, unless you're intentionally trying for lower-powered - something like "the Swordmaster" often runs out of room to expand at cosmic point levels.

[dmjalund]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

for a Tech guy you could state that some powers are possible but difficult (e.g. Mind powers required a bulky focus)

[Mickael]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

Maybe the powers of high levels can require the players to take the "side effect" limitation, implying that they will use these only in dramatic situations.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

Another option is the Dragonball Z "power up" shtick, where it takes some extra time to get to higher power levels, and where there are side effects to some forms of powering up (and where you might have to meet certain conditions before getting to the next level of power).

[casualplayer]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

One way to handle Epic level games with vast budgets of points is to not allow unrestrained spending where the players just nab every stopsign and caution power on the list. It's amazing the justification that some people can come up with to have Desolidification, Damage Reduction and Danger Sense for their character. Let's just call them The Three D's.

 

There's also the option-paralysis problem of "I can do anything," where the game drags because there are too many choices on how players deal with a problem. As a GM you often have to rely on a Ticking Time Bomb to instill a sense of urgency in your complacent gods. Or use a cosmic GMPC or railroad the plot, neither very welcome ways to motivate.

 

With great power comes great responsibility. Or great ennui.

[casualplayer]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

I've run high powered as well. I think Sam Bell did it best. He managed to run a Galactic game with characters ranging from 450-1200 points. A lot of different schticks and motivations. Everyone had three different characters' date=' low, medium, high powered and depending on the session, there would be chars from the different point scales.[/quote']

 

That sounds like the Legion method where everyone has a Superboy-level character but everyone also has an Invisible Kid, keeping every level of gaming power fresh and fun. Then occasionally you have the Ultimate Threat which takes the whole team to defeat.

[lemming]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

That sounds like the Legion method where everyone has a Superboy-level character but everyone also has an Invisible Kid' date=' keeping every level of gaming power fresh and fun. Then occasionally you have the Ultimate Threat which takes the whole team to defeat.[/quote']

 

That was the feel of it.

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

you might try giving the heroes lower level powers like a tv show super-hero

thatway they still have power but things can happen to them

[Chimera 12]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

you might try giving the heroes lower level powers like a tv super-hero

thatway they still have power but things can happen to them

 

To be honest, I'm not sure how much "lower everybody's power level" is going to help in a thread about how to run a specifically high-powered game.

 

On the other hand, now you've got me wondering what kinds of powers a superheroic TV might have...

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

maybei should've written tvSHOW super-hero

[Susano]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

maybei should've written tvSHOW super-hero

 

That's fine if you want to run a TV-show styled supers game, which until Heroes came out, was usually pretty low-powered indeed. But the OP was asking about high-powered games. Like the Justice League or the Avengers. How do you keep a game challenging when you have PCs akin to Superman, Thor, Namor, Iron Man, Wonderwoman, Batman, Ms Marvel, and so on?

 

I've not run in anything that high-level... but IMO, I'd go with the ideas of:

 

1) Character definition -- know you character's personality and role on the team

2) Give the PCs high-powered threats -- alien invasions, omnipotent robots, uber-compitent world conquerors, and so on

3) Challenge the PCs with things their powers can't resolve. Make then use their brains, their Skills, Contacts, and SIDs

[Lucius]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

To be honest' date=' I'm not sure how much "lower everybody's power level" is going to help in a thread about how to run a specifically [i']high[/i]-powered game.

 

On the other hand, now you've got me wondering what kinds of powers a superheroic TV might have...

 

beware the supertelatubbies!

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Epic palindromedary

[phydaux]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

Got to be honest, I didn't read the whole thread yet. Great topic, though, and I do have some thoughts.

 

I uaed to play a BUNCH of GURPS. I even reped for SJ Games and ran games at Cons & demos at local game stores.

 

I liked GURPS, but one of the problems of the system was the 3d6 bell curve game engine. Now you're gonna say "Wait, Hero has a 3d6 bell curve game engine." Yes, but in Hero it's my bell curve vs your bell curve. In GURPS it's just your bell curve vs the dice.

 

That means as your skills approach >16 you just never fail at anything. Once you reach a level of points where all your stats & skills are 16 or more then the character is just broken, because it will never fail at anything.

 

In Hero system as long as PCs & NPCs are all roughly on par then bell curve rolls fall back to the 9-12 range where failure is always a real possibility.

 

That's why whenever I run Hero I always put out "campaign norms." DCs, CV, SPD and Defense for all PCs must fall inside campaign norms. And the players have my word ad GM that all my NPCs will fall within campaign norms as well.

 

"What? I'm the GM. I would never lie to you guys...."

 

Now I also have a rule that PCs can excede campaign norms in one area if they wish. But if they do, then the character must be below campaign norms in TWO other areas.

 

So if you want to be "The Strongest" then you can be, but you better also be slow and awkward. Or if you want to be "The Fastes Man Alive" you can be, but you better be made of glass and hit like a little girl.

 

So as long as the GM enforces campaign norms then Hero System scales.

 

But it does totally suck to be Green Arrow when you're in this lineup:

 

[Enforcer84]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

nuh uh! He has the super-power, "Dating the hot blonde in fishnets."

And he could shoot Batman in the head "JUSTICE!"

[phydaux]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

he could shoot Batman in the head

 

How do you shoot the devil? What do you do if you miss?

[Susano]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

How do you shoot the devil? What do you do if you miss?

 

Blame it all on Verbal Kint.

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

That sounds like the Legion method where everyone has a Superboy-level character but everyone also has an Invisible Kid' date=' keeping every level of gaming power fresh and fun. Then occasionally you have the Ultimate Threat which takes the whole team to defeat.[/quote']

 

Has anyone had a long-running game that worked this way? I have thought about doing something like this a couple of times, but I have my doubts about its long term viability. Most people would always want to play the most powerful person that they can, especially if the other players have access to a high level of power. If you mixed power levels within a PC group , them someone would feel left out. If everyone was always required to match one another in a specific story, then why have multiple characters at all?

 

But it does totally suck to be Green Arrow when you're in this lineup:

 

It would be fun to play, if you weren't obsessed with power levels. Some of the best storylines in comics have underpowered characters coming up with the win. I remember Hawkeye saving the Avengers from the Collector basically singlehandedly. I remember Ant-Man taking out a bunch of Avengers by himself. Chameleon Kid figured out how to survive an encounter with a po'ed Daxamite by himself. Great stuff.

[lemming]

Re: Epic level Champions

 

Has anyone had a long-running game that worked this way? I have thought about doing something like this a couple of times' date=' but I have my doubts about its long term viability. Most people would always want to play the most powerful person that they can, especially if the other players have access to a high level of power. If you mixed power levels within a PC group , them someone would feel left out. If everyone was always required to match one another in a specific story, then why have multiple characters at all? [/quote']

The game I described went a few years. Team ups were story based. My weak character was an infiltration specialist and often teamed with one of the high powered brick. It worked well in our group.