What tropes does a superhero rpg need to include and explain, and help Gm's make use of (or help them ditch them entirely)?


What do you want from a superhero setting?

Quote from: Silverlion;655703What do you want from a superhero setting?

Very broad strokes.

The only Non-Marvel, Non-DC setting I've ever used in a supers game was the Necessary Evil, which takes most of the would-be major players of the setting and blows them up before the PCs get started, leaving me to fill in the vast, remaining gaps as I saw fit.

First, i'd ignore the definition "tropes" unless i'd want it to overflow with clichés, to be taken seriously, satirical, ironic and/or to joke with.

Ok, a lot of tropes is unavoidable, i just wouldn't call them "tropes".
Like:
Supervillains
The good hero
The bad hero
The reluctant hero
The minions
The Supervillain(s) that want to take over the world(cue: OF COURSE! (sorry, i have been looking at Nostagia Critic a lot lately).)

Variants of powerbeams and flight, of course.

The kissass-minion

.... But, i do ask of you, for npc's, try to play with, mix and match, and even mismatch the stereotypes, like "Villan that constantly end up saving people instead", "Hero? with a sockpuppet that is ... equalling an imaginary kissass-minion", or a superhero that gets employed by a supervillain just to be able to earn money(last one is an idea from a webcomic that builds a bit on that situation).

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;655712Very broad strokes.

The only Non-Marvel, Non-DC setting I've ever used in a supers game was the Necessary Evil, which takes most of the would-be major players of the setting and blows them up before the PCs get started, leaving me to fill in the vast, remaining gaps as I saw fit.

Oh, that's a given in Lone Star City. Its up to the PC's to be the good guys, not some NPC's.

It was in the previous edition of H&S too that the "named" heroes were mostly gone.

I don't think the tropes of any genre should be forced upon the players, though I dont mind rules that support or encourage engaging in tropes, as long as the players have free choice. What RPGs offer (something no other form of entertainment does) is the ability for a person to enter a fictional world and make the choices they would have instead of blindly following the same choices made by cliches of the genre. this is a strength that is diminished in many of the focused "genre-mechanics" games, and I think it really is a disservice to one of this hobby's great sources of appeal.

On the other hand, there's many tropes that are useful as "plot" ideas for a supers game.