Fantasy Superheroes

[Alcamtar]

Has anyone done a fantasy superheroes game?

 

I'm not normally a supers fan, but after watching some of the recent superhero movies (Capt America, Thor, etc) it looks like a lot of fun for an over the top action game. It also reminds me a lot of high level D&D, except that system doesn't really capture superhero action. But that's why we have HERO!

 

My basic idea for a fantasy superheroes game is to take some of the supers tropes and inject them directly into a fantasy setting. For me that probably resembles D&D, which is fine since both supers and D&D seems to have a kitchen sink, gonzo, anything goes philosophy. Some of the ideas I have in mind:

 

- The PCs are superhuman, not merely skilled men. They are dragonblooded sorcerers, divinely appointed (and gifted champions), ogres wielding demon swords, giants, ordinary elves...

- The local government relies on the team to handle the "big problems". No pussy footing around in dungeons fighting orcs by the handful... the PCs deal with thousand year old necromancers, dark lords, dragons, demon princes, etc. And of course supervillains.

- There are supervillains. Some of them have "agent" minions.

- The whole thing has a four-color comic book "Be a hero!" flavor. Don't try to get all realistic and serious.

- The focus is on defeating, not killing. Villains are recurring characters. PCs should have a code against killing.

- The campaign is designed more like a soap opera than a quest. The PCs have a base city, there is a cast of recurring characters, each PC probably has a nemesis, and the PCs are heavily tied into the setting with DNPCs, etc. They might even have secret IDs.

 

I hate to say it but the old He-Man cartoon pretty much fits this model. I don't want to to be as cheesy as that though, and I want it to be more epic than that.

 

It would be an opportunity to fight the really big epic monsters, travel the planes, basically do all the high-level fantasy stuff that we never really seem to get to in regular games. And do it in a BIG way.

 

This would also address an issue I've sometimes had with Fantasy Hero: it can he *hard* to kill your foes unless the PCs are significantly more powerful (read: employ excessive force.) Sometimes you want the orcs to just go down with a single chop and not have to worry about them. Especially when there's a whole army of them and the GM doesn't want the bookkeeping! Beefing up the PCs so they are slinging around DC 12 attacks should pretty much solve this problem. As long as you're going that far, it's a small step to fantasy-champions.

 

The non-lethal supers setup also solves another problem in fantasy hero: spending a couple hours statting up a bad guy, only to have them slaughtered dead as soon as the PCs meet them. Too much work! If I'm going to go to that much work, I want them to stick around for a while.

 

Of course I want to preserve the fantasy flavor, so I'm thinking:

 

- No spandex.

- No inherent flight, unless it is a racial ability (wings) or a device (flying carpet).

- Magic items instead of technology. This is really just a matter of SFX. Of course if tech was allowed then it would turn into a sort of "sword and planet" style setting which could be cool, but it might also start to just feel like a regular supers game.

- No cosmic VPPs. Magic should usually be in the form of spells and should feel like magic, not superpowers.

- I'm wondering if a fantasy setting needs to prefer killing attacks over normal attacks? That seems to be the norm in fantasy, so violating it might seriously alter the fantasy flavor. I suppose important baddies could always be immortal and not permanently killable - you can chop them into hamburger, but unless you seal them in a magical vault they'll be back. Hmm, this might actually cover the fantasy aspect better. Cause you really don't want to wade through 10,000 orcs and only do normal damage. (Well, enough normal damage and it won't matter...)

 

Anyway has anyone done this? I'm sure you have, so what I'm really asking for is what you recommend as genre conventions, best practices, general advice, etc.

[Escafarc]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I've always wanted to run "Fantasy Supers" you don't need "Killing" attacks. I think this is an example of what you're talking about:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ1XDzF2TTg

[L. Marcus]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

Check out The Atlantean Age -- very high powered fantasy.

[Lucius]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

Examine each of the elements of Hero's superheroic/heroic paradigms and cherry pick the ones you want.

 

For example, if I were doing it:

 

Knockback: Not by default, but permitted as an Advantage. Giants and Dragons and some spells would probably have it; a mighty Hercules type might have it as a Naked Advantage on STR.

 

Hit Locations: I'd probably use them, but perhaps not for all attacks....many spells and things like that Giant's club may do more general damage.

 

Equipment: Money or Points? Or some other choice like using a "Pool" or having most characters buy with money but some invest points to have special gear or a kind of in-game guarantee of availability?

 

You'll have to answer these questions for yourself of course, but I'm just pointing out the questions for you.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I want to buy the palindromedary with money and then use the 5 pt double rule to get 128 of them....

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

Exalted can be a good inspiration for this as well. Superpowered fantasy can be very fun to play and since it's fantasy, you can get pretty crazy.

[Orion]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

Fantasy doesn't have to have death and killing attacks. The Xena and Hercules tv shows are great examples of the "no one really gets hurt" type of fantasy. Make all the really important villains undead (lich, vampire, etc) so there is a built-in excuse for them coming back. You could also make them demonspawn, children of gods, etc. They can be killed, but only with a specific weapon that has been lost for centuries, or only under an eclipse. This death, if ever allowed to happen, would be the culmination of the campaign.

 

Make sure all players know ahead of time that you plan this style of campaign. While interesting, I could never do it. For me, fantasy is serious. Letting the villain escape at the last second is one thing, but when my sword connects, there better be blood on the ground and death in the air.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I'll agree with Hercules, but Xena left a lot (and I mean a LOT) of rapidly cooling bodies behind her.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

 

 

This would also address an issue I've sometimes had with Fantasy Hero: it can he *hard* to kill your foes unless the PCs are significantly more powerful (read: employ excessive force.) Sometimes you want the orcs to just go down with a single chop and not have to worry about them. Especially when there's a whole army of them and the GM doesn't want the bookkeeping! Beefing up the PCs so they are slinging around DC 12 attacks should pretty much solve this problem. As long as you're going that far, it's a small step to fantasy-champions.

 

I want to know where people are getting this from? I've never had this perspective of Fantasy (or any other genre minus Supers) Hero but I hear it time and time again. In fact, I have the opposite perspective. I think things are sometimes too easy to kill in Fantasy Hero, especially once the players know what the hell they are doing. Are players and GM's piling on the Body and Defenses in Heroic Fantasy games? I can understand your Fighter types and tough monsters having 15+ Body but most foes shouldn't have that much. Defenses are pretty much limited to what kind of armor the characters can afford/find unless the GM's are allowing characters to pile on Combat Luck or Armor spells. Give a character a magic sword capable of doing 2D6K base damage and they should be able to slaughter just about any Orc or Goblin the GM throws at them. Do these campaigns not use Martial Arts? Combat Skill Levels? Talents like Deadly Blow? Hit Locations? Impairing/Disabling/Bleeding rules? All of these things when used together make the game so unrelentingly DEADLY that I oftentimes have to fudge the villians dice rolls so my players survive long enough for me to reveal the plot to them!

[Manic Typist]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

The only thing I can see about Fantasy that makes it "harder to kill" things is the potential pervasiveness of healing magic, etc.

 

Otherwise, yeah, it can get quite deadly even with just Hit Locations and sectional armor.

[danbuter1]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I like the OP's ideas except I'd want killing and violence to be the normal setting, like other rpg's. Having a group of supers wandering a fantasy setting would be awesome.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I've wanted to do this for a long time, including city-based adventures involving things like crimefighting, costumes, rooftop prowling, etc.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

- The focus is on defeating, not killing. Villains are recurring characters. PCs should have a code against killing.

 

I ran a short campaign with two of my friends when the larger group was not available - their superhero characters got sucked into a fantasy dimension and translated to the fantasy ideal of thier characters.

 

I would have a concern about requiring Codes versus Killing, just like people say, make it clear that due to the nature of the villains, their dark patrons have a habit of re-using useful tools. Each time they come back there should be something substantially different about them to reflect the death and corruption they have suffered since the last encounter.... :-)

 

 

Doc

[Orion]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I'll agree with Hercules' date=' but Xena left a lot (and I mean a LOT) of rapidly cooling bodies behind her.[/quote']

 

I'm not sure about this. I wasn't a regular viewer, but it seemed like a lot of mooks and minions were defeated when they were tripped, knocked down, got tossed across the room, etc. Even the fights with weapons seemed to be hitting people in the gut and knocking the wind out of them. The violence was so cheesy and fake that was never able to see it as actually being deadly. Maybe it was supposed to be so, but I never took it that way.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

 

I would have a concern about requiring Codes versus Killing, just like people say, make it clear that due to the nature of the villains, their dark patrons have a habit of re-using useful tools. Each time they come back there should be something substantially different about them to reflect the death and corruption they have suffered since the last encounter.... :-)

 

 

Doc

 

 

....I really, really like this idea, and will have to use it myself.

 

 

 

And trust me on Xena. Joxer and Gabrielle didn't kill much at all. Xena would cut a dozen throats with a single throw of her... whatever it was, and THEN she'd go to work with her sword. Or worse, her fingers.... (though she mostly just used pressure points for torture I suppose)

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I've always wanted to run "Fantasy Supers" you don't need "Killing" attacks. I think this is an example of what you're talking about:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ1XDzF2TTg

 

i rember on aloca childrens show hosted by bozo the clwn and a puppet character called sooper dog was syndicating hanna barberra cartoonsa viewer wrote in asking whether the arabian knights were magicians or super heroes the answer was for all practial purposes they effectiely were the super hero team of their ancient world

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

....I really, really like this idea, and will have to use it myself.

 

 

 

And trust me on Xena. Joxer and Gabrielle didn't kill much at all. Xena would cut a dozen throats with a single throw of her... whatever it was, and THEN she'd go to work with her sword. Or worse, her fingers.... (though she mostly just used pressure points for torture I suppose)

 

She used a Chakram! She must have had at least 10 Combat Skill Levels with that sucker too, with all the Bouncing and Multiple Attacks she pulled off with that sucker!

[csyphrett]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I have to agree about the combat skill levels. She once ended a groundhog day loop by figuring all the angles and saving everybody with one throw.

CES

[Alcamtar]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I've wanted to do this for a long time' date=' including city-based adventures involving things like crimefighting, costumes, rooftop prowling, etc.[/quote']

Hmm hadn't really thought much about the city-type adventures. That could be fun. I think I'd lean towards a hint of a Dark Champions vibe though. I guess it depends on how "serious" you want to play it.

 

Costumes? Don't want to lose the fantasy flavor. I could totally see a Zorro-style character with a mask and a secret ID, or a "secret" werewolf, or the mysterious black knight. Most characters could have a signature outfit (Distinctive Features): Thor has his armor with the little disks on it and a winged helmet, Raistlin had his black robes and weird golden eyes, Dar (the Beastmaster) has a fur loincloth and pouch, etc. On the cheesy side, there's that guy with blue lipstick from the D&D movie.

 

There was a movie that had a team of professional "dragon slayers" with oversized weapons and spiky armor - was it Dragonheart? I loved their costumes. A fantasy superhero game could/should be totally metal. A setting like Savage Slaygoria would be perfect for an over-the-top, metal, Korgoth of Barbaria/GWAR game. (Hmm, maybe the concept is drifting here a bit...)

 

Lots of folks have commented on the killing attacks. I think I'm inclined to keep the killing attacks, but with the caveat that villains tend to come back even if you kill them. When they come back, they usally (1) are different, (2) are stronger, and (3)are burning for revenge. The more you dismember and mutilate the body in order to get them to stay dead, the more different they'll be when they return. Distintegrate them and you're likely to be facing a noncorporeal and angry spectre from beyond the grave. Every death is a new "radiation accident."

 

PCs also tend to come back (if they want to). I don't want clerical heal-bots, but there are always weird magics, holy hermits, and "houses of healing" to restore fallen heroes. Healing is much more fun as a quest or a plot device than an obligatory after-combat chore. A villain might even bring a hero back from the grave for his own nefarious purposes. I think if healing is mostly free and easy to come by in the setting, the PCs might not need their own healing magic.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I think fantasy superhero is pretty doable as a genre, particularly in Hero System. You can have legendary humans, demi-humans, angels, demons, giants, titans, demigods, faerie, etc. Powerful spells and magic items which can grant a full range of powers and heightened stats. Open-ended, too. You could even go all Spelljammer if you get bored.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

Every death is a new "radiation accident."

 

Definitely a better deterrant than a 15pt code against killing!

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

Definitely a better deterrant than a 15pt code against killing!

 

Like, say, a Code Against Dying.

[Lethosos]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I recall there was an Ebberon HERO campaign that went that way somewhere... "The Brelish Rose" comes to mind.

[Surgo]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

I always thought that superheroes was the correct way to run Fantasy Hero. I am running a rotating-DM superhero Fantasy Hero game right now (well, more accurately, starting one up). It's actually using the old D&D Planescape setting -- we're all D&D veterans, but found that 3rd edition D&D really can not do mid- to high-level Planescape (the level you care about in that setting) at all, thanks to the abundance of movement spells. Carceri just doesn't hold much interest as a prison plane when everybody 9th level and higher has Plane Shift.

 

Thus running it in Fantasy Hero, with the Teleport power substantially limited (in my ruleset it requires OIF with at least Bulky -- giving you portals and astral dreadnoughts but not Plane Shift), and all my players are pretty excited for it. My magic system uses a cosmic VPP but you have a cap on the spells you know (minor variations within spells allowed) -- I guess it's not really how a VPP is "supposed" to work but the cost in character points seems to come out pretty much right so that's good.

 

To get back to the thread though, I couldn't really imagine running a Fantasy Hero game without doing it as superheroes. Though to be honest I couldn't really imagine doing Hero as a whole without superheroes either so maybe I'm not the best judge.

 

edit: I can post my campaign rules if anybody cares, but the only really interesting thing is probably the magic bits. Also looking into doing a social combat system but I haven't written that yet.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

Check out The Atlantean Age -- very high powered fantasy.

 

I would also recommend the 5E Champions villain compilation, Arcane Adversaries. It's full of occult-origin supervillains, most of whom could be translated to a high-powered fantasy setting with little effort. And like most 5E books it's half-price in the Hero Games online store.

[Vondy]

Re: Fantasy Superheroes

 

Has anyone done a fantasy superheroes game?

 

While I've never called it fantasy superheroes and didn't think of it that way on a conscious level, almost every high fantasy game has followed similar aesthetics, dramatic tropes, and principles. More bronze age comics with a than the four-color tone you describe, but similar. I don't run high fantasy very often because I generally prefer to draw on REH, Moorcock, Leiber, Robert Asprin (thieve's world), and their ilk for my fantasy inspirations, but the high fantasy games I've run were a great deal of fun, too. What you describe is easy to do and works very well.

 

As for your question about killing attacks: I'd treat it the way I would a super-heroic game where killing attacks (esp. by goons) are common. Just make sure the headlining dramatic personae have enough resistant defense not to sweat it. And, if you are running more "four color" make sure players know, while hacking their way through hordes of mooks - and while fantasy runs on the conceit of treating demons, inhuman monsters, etcetera like robots in four-color (CVK doesn't apply) - that humans, demi-humans, etcetera do fall under the general CVK (probably a 10-pointer) and when they do die it will probably be in dramatically appropriate ways they may return from with people saying "no one could survive that!"

 

Also, if the PCs understand the paradigm you are going for, killing their foes should not always be the most desirable outcome, which means you need to think about why that is the case - or what those other outcomes might be.