Hi!
  I was trying to come up with a way to make a Supers game without the laundry list of powers. I think I have it, let me know what you think:
Characters are made of Traits, Traits are divided into 7 categories:
1) Superpowers (This is a Trait with the Power Tag and Super Tag and at least one other Arena Tag - i.e., Physical, Mental or Social).
2) Powers (This is a Trait with the Power Tag and at least one Arena Tag) - Powers differ from Super Powers in that they cannot always be brought into play in a conflict in its Arena (sometimes you are not strong enough to overcome that physical challenge). While Super Powers can always be used to overcome challenges in their Arena.
3) Abilities (Abilities only have the Ability Tag). Abilities fall into the realm of human potential. They impact challenges, but not on the same scale as Powers or Super Powers.
4) Standard Traits (These have no Tags). Standard Traits have no mechanical weight and are simply used to define your character in terms other than kewl powerz.
5) Marks (A Mark only has the Mark Tag). A Mark is a weakness that can be applied to any arena of conflict. This represents an aspect of human weakness that is present in your character (Such as Mark of Greed or Mark of Witlessness).
6) Weaknesses (This will have the Weakness Tag and at least one Arena Tag) a Weakness should impair your progress in its Arena most of the time, but not all of the time. These are extraordinary weaknesses that require special care to overcome, like Batman's reliance on a Utility Belt.
7) Super Weakness (This is a Trait with the Weakness Tag, the Super Tag and at least one Arena Tag). This is a catastrophically bad weakness. It will almost always come into play in conflicts in this arena and will be nearly impossible to overcome. Think of Samuel L Jackson's character in Unbreakable when you want to imagine a Super Weakness with a Physical Arena Tag.

Remember, there is not list of Traits, just come up with a Trait and assign it Tags. For isntance Deceptive could be a Super Weakness, Weakness, Mark, Standard Trait, Ability, Power or Super Power. Its up to you.

So, based on that introduction, Char gen is as follows:
Have a complete character design in mind, then do the following:
Select 3 Tags for Powers and Super Powers. In order to get a Super Power you must spend at least 2 of these Tags (one for Super and one for each Arena)
Select 3 Abilities
Select 3 Standard Traits
Select 1 Mark
Select one Weakness Tag. In order to get a Super Weakness you must spend at least 2 of these Tags (one for Super and one for each Arena)
You can get Extra Abilities by selecting extra Marks (on a one-for-one basis)
You can get extra Tags for Powers by selecting extra Tags for Weaknesses (on a one-for-one basis)
You are done!
  And all of this (except for Standard Traits) feeds directly into the Resolution mechanic.

Example:
Uber Man
Super Strength (Power, Super, Physical)
X-Ray Vision (Power, Mental)
Observant (Ability)
Popular (Ability)
Smart (Ability)
Seeks Truthiness (Trait)
Seeks Fairness (Trait)
Protects all Equally (Trait)
Alter Ego (Mark)
Green Rocks (Weakness, Physical)
  This is a starting character. As you can see, He has an edge on knowing things that are hidden (X-Ray Vision) and can overcome almost any physical challenge.

  The idea is to make Comic book-style super heroes. But, I wanted to open the door to player creativity. So, this sort of flexible system is perfect.
  So, what do you think?

Hi!
  to see how these Traits work together, check out this post:
http://www.therpgsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10773

How does your system compare to similar 'free-form' systems, like Risus for example?

AoF,
  I don't know to be honest. I never played/read RISUS.
  I guess I was trying to take it away from freeform, but still give creativity. So, the Traits have real mechanical constraints (Arenas of conflict, etc) and using them creates real mechanical effects in the game world. But, I can see how it could turn into some kind of freeform mess with just a little nudging, any suggestions to avoid that?

This is a really good list, which I got from someone on these forums. It's a list of "things that characters in RPGs often do", and it's meant to be a starting point when you're thinking about designing skills/classes/etc for a game. For example if you were doing a 'standard' fantasy game you might decide that Gadgeteering is a special skill that Gnomes have. Whereas in a science-fiction game it might be broken down into 10 different skills.

Athletics
Persuading
Communication & Protocol
Detection
Driving, Riding & Piloting
Gadgeteering
The Medical Arts
Wilderness Mastery
Scholarship
Intrusion
Combat
Magic

Another place that I'd start would be by looking at the most famous superheroes - the Justice League & the Fantastic Four say - and trying to come up with a system that could allow you to have a character who was based on any of them.

OK,
  I am trying to create a Supers system that doesn't have a list of powers though. I mean, its been done to death: Hero System/Champions, DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes, Heroes Unlimited, etc.
  The goal is to let the players make the Superhero they want. Then provide rules to make sure it doesn't fly out of control. Its sort of inspired by ditv (and other games with variable traits) where you can make any trait, assign it dice and that his how it works. And that game is not freeform at all.
  It does rely on players not wanting stupid stuff like the power to make anything pink or the power to destroy the universe. But outside of extreme jerkiness, the game backs up the player's creativity I think, don't you? And if not, what do you see that I am missing?

The immediate trouble with your write-up is that its definitions don't really define things - for example

Quote1) Superpowers (This is a Trait with the Power Tag and Super Tag and at least one other Arena Tag - i.e., Physical, Mental or Social).

This is meant to define Superpowers, but it doesn't, because the reader doesn't know what a Power Tag, Super Tag etc are.

It's like saying "AC is the thing that's compared to your THAC0 in a To-Hit Roll".

Instead of doing that, you'd (hopefully) define it in real-world terms: "AC is Armour Class, it's a measure of how much protection you get from armour and/or a shield", and only then go on to say how it interacts with other in-game concepts.

AoF,
  You are right.
  The idea is this:
Standard Trait - This is just descriptive/motivational Traits

Abilities/Marks - These are the limits of human abilities. A Strength Ability represents someone in a Strong Man competition or an Olympic weight lifter.

Powers/Weaknesses - These are Super human. Someone with the Strength power can chuck a tank!

Super Powers - These apply to every conflict in the arenas of conflict it has tags for. Someone with the Strength Super Power can chuck a mountain!

Super Weakness - This is like Samuel L Jackson's character from Unbreakable. It almost always applies to the arena it has a tag for and it is massively debilitating.
  Is that a better explanation?

QuoteAbilities/Marks - These are the limits of human abilities. A Strength Ability represents someone in a Strong Man competition or an Olympic weight lifter.

Powers/Weaknesses - These are Super human. Someone with the Strength power can chuck a tank!

Super Powers - These apply to every conflict in the arenas of conflict it has tags for. Someone with the Strength Super Power can chuck a mountain!

wouldn't it be simpler to just have 'Strength', and then have possible levels representing upper-human ability, super-heroic ability etc?

AoF,
  Well, there are two answers that I have for that question:
1) I don't think it would be simpler to list every conceivable power. Or even to just list a power's effects like Hero System/Champions does. Every attempt I have seen has been either convoluted and complicated or incomplete
2) I don't think that a list facilitates the kind of characters I want the system to be able to make. I mean how many times have you gone to make a character in another game and felt the constraints of the system limiting your choices? Don't get me wrong, sometimes that is very fun, but often the more fantastic the genre gets, the harder it is to be really creative, right? I mean, how hard would it be to make a truly unique and different character that another player might see as a Wolverine rip off or just across between Captain America and the Punisher? I am not trying to say its impossible or that you can't do it with other systems, but that my system will be simpler to use when it is done, sound good to you?

Quote from: dindenverI mean how many times have you gone to make a character in another game and felt the constraints of the system limiting your choices?

What's an example of this (for superheroes)?

AoF,
  Sure, the idea I had for a DC Heroes game we were going to play in a couple of months was Mole Man. But, I can't get it to work right. For instance, moles have claws, but if I give my char claws, I can't use them without doing killing damage. But killing damage costs me XPs. So, I either have to say my character looks like he has claws, but doesn't, get claws and not use them, or get claws, use them and advance more slowly than other characters.
  I know other games don't have the killing damage restriction, but I am sure if you look back at an old game you played, you probably had a sinilar xperince of wanting to make a character that fir the genre, but not the rules...
  Another example would be creating a Super Strength power that was not related to lifting and punching. Like what if a player came to you and said I want my character to look like a world-class body-builder, but not necesarily be able to lift more than a normal human...
  I don't know how Champions would do that, but DC Heroes would treat it like an Advantage, but that is not Super by any stretch and Heroes Unlimited has equally liniting ways to deal with this. But in my game you just put 'Super Strength (Super, Power, Social) ' on the character sheet and you have a character that can influence ANY character with their gorgeous muscles. How does that strike you?

Quote from: dindenverSure, the idea I had for a DC Heroes game we were going to play in a couple of months was Mole Man. But, I can't get it to work right. For instance, moles have claws, but if I give my char claws, I can't use them without doing killing damage. But killing damage costs me XPs. So, I either have to say my character looks like he has claws, but doesn't, get claws and not use them, or get claws, use them and advance more slowly than other characters.

So, if I understand you right, you mean that you want the character to have claws, but in game terms for them to be normal hands, rather than use a special 'claws' feature in the game rules?

I think most good GMs would assume you can do that, or any other purely 'cosmetic' thing that fit into the campaign world, without any cost.

QuoteAnother example would be creating a Super Strength power that was not related to lifting and punching. Like what if a player came to you and said I want my character to look like a world-class body-builder, but not necesarily be able to lift more than a normal human...

In D&D terms, that sounds like having a high Charisma. Or if you wanted to go into more detail - for example is he muscly like a broken-nosed thug or muscly like an underwear model - in 3rd edition you could do that with skills (a 'thug' type might have a relatively low Charisma, but lots of Intimidate eg).


I'm not really sure that there'd be more than about 20 common super powers. Every superhero has their own look, but in 'mechanical' terms their powers tend to do more or less the same things.

AoF,
  OK, there are three comments I will address.
1) Well, in DC Heroes/Blood of heroes, Claws is a Power. It doesn't replace your hands, it just gives you a claw attack that gives you a bonus, but is killing damage. And again, you are right, I can just fudge the game or my character to match the situation, but this is a pretty basic example of the rules getting in the way of creativity. I am not saying its insurmountable or that I can't get over it (we are all stlll planning on playing and I am looking forward to a good game). But I am saying that even on this small little scale, having a list of defined powers can make life harder, not easier just as easily as it can do the opposite.
2) Your charisma example is not  bad on a D&D scale for a low level character. But we are talking about Supers. What I want is a super power that can be used with an affect on par with Meteor Swarm? Where the character can literally influence any character with their super good looks, even mortal enemies. Even if you gave a D&D character a 50 Charisma, it doesn't quite do that, or compare to Meteor Swarm, can it?
3) 20 powers... Well, Heroes Unlimited has 208 Powers, Blood of Heroes/DC Heroes has 197 and 5th Edition Heroes System/Champions has 150 pages of Powers (that's not even counting Power Modifiers or other character traits). Even BESM which has done a lot to consolidate Powers and to group similar effects has 77 Powers. I think its fair to say that lists of powers can get out of hand pretty quick. And even when they do, it still does not cover the ultimate possibilities that players can come up with. To bring it back to something you might know better, how many Spells/Feats/Class Abilities are there in D&D 3.5? More than 20, right?

  I am not so full of ego that I think this one game will make everyone happy or solve every problem with character design for Supers Games. But, I do think that this solves a lot of the problems I have seen with chargen in a Supers Games. And I think it hits the goals I have set for myself:
1) Foster as much creativity as possible
2) Allow for simpler resolution mechanics
3) Do not promote freeform play or hand waving
4) Provide structure for defining how a power can effect the world in a way that can be planned for and supported
5) Reward player effort in creating interesting characters that have mechanical weight.

  What do you think given that context?

Quote from: dindenverAoF,
I don't know how Champions would do that...

In Herosystem you buy the mechanic you want and apply the special effect to it.  

So your claws should be Tunnelling  (lets say 40 points for 3" and 12 defense), with an OIF claws (making it cheaper.. 27 pts).  You don't do killing damage with them (or any damage with them) unless you buy killing damage or hand attack (with the claw focus).  

(There is also no penalty for using a killing attack in terms of mechanics... after all there are some ubertough beings where a killing attack might be the only way to clip some stun/ subdual damage on them.  Now if you actually kill someone, then there are ingame consequences... but that is another issue).

Your influence people.. in Champions is either bought with a huge presence and some social skills  or a large area effect mind control with low to modeate dice. Which one depends on if you want to have this happen "in combat" or how you want to utilize the influence.


The reason why superhero games have powers lists is two fold:
1) It serves as examples for the "imagination impaired".  You go through the "power list" in see what is there. You then choose from that list.  Unless your players are superhero comic fans, they may not know what is really available to them without such a list.  

2) The list serves as a "what you can do" option for the game.  There was a small superhero game that was being playtested.  "I want the power to influence people telepathically," was innocently asked. "Sorry, you can't. There is no mechanic for how you can  do it in the game. Unless we do a lot of hand waving, which isn't fair, can't do it."  (Given the background setting, there was a reason for this lack of psionic powers.. but in the playtest.. they didn't have access to that information).  

Thus the list of powers is there to provide both inspiration and fair and balanced game mechanics for the power effect.  

New Hero Players have a problem because they go looking for what they want "Claws" lets say, versus what effect they want (tunnelling and killing attack) because Heros is effects based, with special effects added rather than Powers Based (GURPS and to a lesser extend Mutants and Mastermind). And you experienced the problem with power based systems, as claws provided you with "effects" you did not want (i.e. the killing attacks).


So you will have a game with this short list of powers.  
1) Will those power effects cover everything that you expect a superheroic game will cover? (i.e. can you do most comic books supers)
1b) If you have a specific setting that has limited powers in mind, this argument becomes different.. so we need to know

2) Will there be a number of effects/ powers that will need handwaving because they are not covered by you list of 20?
2b) if there is no handwaving, how will you cover those things outside your list? What mechanics will be used?

3) Is your list going to be big and vague with over arching categories? If you go that way, you will probably have little small sub categories inside them to explain certain mechanics.  Which is a cheat as those subcategories are really powers.

Offense (blast, blade, blind, entangle, etc)
Defense (armor, forcefied, avoidance, etc)
Movement
Adjustement Powers
Body Powers
Creation Powers
Comunication Powers
Deception Powers
Mental Powers
Perception Powers
Super Attributes
Super Skills
Super Experience
Super Equipment

This is the rough list of Meta Elements for G2. Each trait attached to Meta Element uses one of the associated mechanics. Each of those Elements has an average of 5 mechanics associated with it.
3b or are you going to be somewhat specific?
Super Attributes-  In my mind these break down into:

Super Strength
Super Endurance (Constitution)
Super Speed
Super Agility
Super Intelligence
Super Memory
Super WillPower
Super Empathy
Super Chi
Super Luck
Super Appearance
Super Presence

4) Now your game could go the Abstract Way:
Fire Powers, Ice Powers, Cat Powers, Utility Belt, Archer, Computer Empath, etc

Thus you can do an effect and have some conversion to traits to the amount of game effects applicable. (Of course then you will have a list of game mechanics that these traits will plug into).

If your resolution system is abstract this is easier.  (I use my firepowers to fly down and save the innocents (goal).  Okay that is three dice for firepowers, one die for hero, vs the villian's superstrength of 2d. Now roll for the scene.


Do we have a rough list of this 20, or is this still just a magical number?