Chars with conditional SPD: surprising escapes, boss fights, and other ideas

[Cantriped]

You see this kind of thing a lot with the Justice League, their power level seems to rise and fall dramatically depending upon the whim of the writer of that issue. For that reason I think it might not be such a good idea to use any given comic/episode to justify the relative power or game elements attached to these characters. When adapting such characters to HERO I would instead suggest either:

A:  Use their "average" abilities, taken from as many sources as possible to determine the game elements to assign to a character.

or...

B:  Select a single, narrowly defined source, such as a particular episode (or a range of episodes) of a given series, and base the character's game elements only on the abilities the character has displayed up to that point in the given source.

[massey]

You see this kind of thing a lot with the Justice League, their power level seems to rise and fall dramatically depending upon the whim of the writer of that issue. For that reason I think it might not be such a good idea to use any given comic/episode to justify the relative power or game elements attached to these characters. When adapting such characters to HERO I would instead suggest either:

A:  Use their "average" abilities, taken from as many sources as possible to determine the game elements to assign to a character.

or...

B:  Select a single, narrowly defined source, such as a particular episode (or a range of episodes) of a given series, and base the character's game elements only on the abilities the character has displayed up to that point in the given source.

 

I've written up well over a hundred Marvel and DC characters.  I've got my own standards for how I build them.  As time goes by, those standards change.  But as time goes by, I become more convinced that to build characters who operate the way we see them in comics, you have to recognize that each author is basically running their own campaign.  Whoever is writing X-Men now (if they're even still around, I hear rumors about current comics and I cringe), they're basically different characters than they were during Chris Claremont's run in the 70s and 80s.

 

It's beneficial to have an "average" writeup, because when some new player comes in and asks "how tough is Wolverine?" you want to be able to answer his question.  But you shouldn't be surprised if he differs from that build at any particular point in time.  Generally I try to have one character sheet that can cover most of their abilities, recognizing that sometimes characters roll a 17 to hit, and sometimes they roll a 5.  Sometimes they crap out on damage and sometimes they roll great.  Sometimes you can't hit to save your life, and sometimes enemies fall before you like wheat before the tractor.  But it's okay to have a "Batman, 1970s" character sheet.  And a "Batman, 1980s" sheet.  And a "Batman, 2000s JLA" sheet.

 

I also think that one thing that might help is to have genre settings that had some actual game rules impact on the campaign.  For instance, in the Golden Age, almost any character could be knocked unconscious by a blow to the back of the head.  Hero gives a x2 Stun multiplier for an attack from surprise.  But in the Golden Age, an old lady could break a flower pot over your head and you were out cold.  That old lady couldn't have been doing more than 3 or 4D6, so you ether make all your human characters weak, or you make it a campaign rule that attacks from surprise do an additional x2 Stun (x4 total).  So an old lady whacking you in the back of the head is really doing 3D6 (say she rolls 12) x4 = 48 Stun.  That'd lay out most any mystery man, no sweat.

 

In a Silver Age game, you might allow people to make Power Skill rolls with no penalty, to become sort of a mini-VPP., but each effect is usable only once per session maybe.  So if I have a 12D6 Energy Blast "fire blast", and I make my power skill roll, I can melt the ground under someone and use it as a 6D6 Entangle.  Or maybe I can make big fire hands that grab somebody (40 Str TK), or a fire shield that protects pedestrians from falling debris (12/12 Force Wall).  You could only do each one once per session, which encourages creative thinking and unusual tactics.  In the Silver Age you could also have unlimited pushing, provided it's not to damage a living being.  A 60 Str brick blowing all his End and pushing to 130 Str, then smashing a robot to pieces would be fine.  So would pushing like that to pick up a building.  But you can't push like that to hurt somebody.

 

There could be campaign standards like this even for different types of comics.  In an X-Men game, you've got these standards, in an Avengers you have these different ones.  Coming up with a set of rules and guidelines that the comic has been written with could help in such character modeling.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Deathstroke has the power of cool, as in "he wins because we like this character" so he gets whatever powers he needs, no matter the situation or how rational it is, for him to be able to win.  He went from a guy with super reflexes to being nearly the Flash with regeneration and all this other crap.

[Hadmar von Wieser]

Agree to Massey, Cantriped, and Christopher Taylor:
Modern superheros have a complex mythology, sometimes comprising more than a dozen versions over up to 70 years and media as different as comics,TV, movies, PC and console games, and RPG - all of them with different artistic approaches and needs.
That's one of the two reasons why I started this thread about variable SPD to depict "exploding actions", "breakout characters" and "different dramatic impact". :-)