Quote from: jibbajibba;471101Surely a key point is to do with the use of powers.

In a supers game a key thing is for the PCs to be able to use their powers. If the majority of powers relate to combat then the only time a player gets to use their powers is in combat.

Lastly combats are one of the few events where all players can participate.

I've been thinking about that. And I've come to the conclusion that it is precisely this thinking that is why Superhero games do a bad job of genre emulation.

Oracle can't contribute in combat. Batman can contribute in combat against Darkseid, but everyone thinks it is retarded when he does. And it's not even limited to the low-powered Gotham Bubble inside DC. Going over to Marvel for a moment, how many X-Men have powers that don't affect combat meaningfully or at all?

The comicbook superhero genre has a lot of non-combat characters in it. But it also has invulnerability and super strength levels being thrown around that a lot of characters become effectively non-combat characters much of the time. When Magneto and Juggernaut start waving their dicks around, no one calls upon Angel or Jubilee to start throwing punches.

Most of a comic book - from the standpoint of page count - is composed of chases, investigation, and public relations. Of those, literally every character can participate in the public relations mini-game, and almost every character should be able to do things during chases and investigation.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;471105I've been thinking about that. And I've come to the conclusion that it is precisely this thinking that is why Superhero games do a bad job of genre emulation.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;471105Most of a comic book - from the standpoint of page count - is composed of chases, investigation, and public relations. Of those, literally every character can participate in the public relations mini-game, and almost every character should be able to do things during chases and investigation.

This really really depends on the comic.  Especially in the 80s but even today, there are a lot of comics that have whole-issue slugfests - as well as many that are almost all investigation.  Further, not all superheroes participate equally in chases and investigation.  

The thing is, for comics it's not important that the team all have evenly distributed spotlight time.  A single-hero comic like Spiderman will have usually have the main character constantly doing things.  However, team comics like X-Men will have characters drop in and out of the storyline for long periods - just like side characters in Spiderman.  Long stretches or even a whole issue might focus on just one or two of a superteam.  The Flash might chase a wily supervillain all over the world, while Batman researches his plot and the others stand ready.  

In a comic, this isn't a problem.  However, in an RPG it doesn't work very well.  

Further, while there are various RPGs that have complex mechanical systems for investigation and chases, in my experience it has often been just as fun to handle these by simple skill rolls and GM moderation.  Lots of my HERO system games have been fun as well as having a majority of time spent on investigation, social interactions, and so forth.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;471105I've been thinking about that. And I've come to the conclusion that it is precisely this thinking that is why Superhero games do a bad job of genre emulation.

Oracle can't contribute in combat. Batman can contribute in combat against Darkseid, but everyone thinks it is retarded when he does. And it's not even limited to the low-powered Gotham Bubble inside DC. Going over to Marvel for a moment, how many X-Men have powers that don't affect combat meaningfully or at all?

The comicbook superhero genre has a lot of non-combat characters in it. But it also has invulnerability and super strength levels being thrown around that a lot of characters become effectively non-combat characters much of the time. When Magneto and Juggernaut start waving their dicks around, no one calls upon Angel or Jubilee to start throwing punches.

Most of a comic book - from the standpoint of page count - is composed of chases, investigation, and public relations. Of those, literally every character can participate in the public relations mini-game, and almost every character should be able to do things during chases and investigation.

-Frank

I agree with that but if you have a game with super powered heroes but they spend all the time doing stuff that anyone could do, PR, dealling with their gran, rersearching in the library etc then the question is why did I spend 30 point on invulnerabilty if we are never going to use that. Imagine wolverine in an episode of columbo or mr fantastic in bridgitte jones diary

For the last 3 years I've been running mostly supers games; a mix campaigns, one shots, high powered and street-level, online and face to face and all to good effect. The genre just comes natural to me and with MSH and Icons I've found two system that really I like. It's fun, wonderful and easy.

So basically, from where I am standing there is no problem or intrinsic sucking.

Had you asked me three years ago I'll freely admit I had my concerns and had a trouble wrapping my head around how to run a seemingly reactive game and how to avoid it just being a villain of the week slugfest. If you search this forum you'll even find me asking advice on the subject.

So I guess my point is, as with all things, running supers presents it's own specific challenges but with practice and experience you learn it only get's better.  

Who knew?

Seems to me what the superhero genre of RPGs would benefit from is a troupe style system like Ars Magica.

It should also be mentioned, that different comics have different amounts of story and combat. I expect the page count in a Batman comic to have little combat, but a lot of investigation and social interplay. But an issue of X-force, I expect to have a whole lotta combat, with some pages with exposition thrown in there, to explain the gratinous violence.

Worse, is when someone makes a character (like Batman), but expects the game to treat them like the main character in their own comic, than how they operate in a group (Batman being a prime example; Batman in JLA is rarely seen, figures out the MacGuffin, and needs the help of the League to defeat the bad guys. Based on the cartoon, my wife commented "Batman has a power: he saps the intelligence out of the other heroes, so he can figure out how to beat the bad guys." ...I love my wife!)

Quote from: Sigmund;471157Seems to me what the superhero genre of RPGs would benefit from is a troupe style system like Ars Magica.

I'm sure I'll get accused of having an anti-traditional RPG bias for saying this, but the dirty little secret of tabletop RPGs is that the basic logistics - DM on one side of the table behind his screen controlling the whole world, except for the 4-6 players on the other side of the table each controlling one character each - were designed solely for the dungeon crawl/tactical wargame style of play and simply don't work for any kind of fiction genre emulation.  Even if we restrict the genre list to "action/adventure", there are virtually no examples of 4+ protagonists sharing equal screen time/page count/story influence in every scene in the work anywhere in the source.

Either RPGs have to give up on having genre emulation as a goal, or they need to change their basic logistics from the DM + 5 players/one player, one character model.  Troupe style play is one possibility, although I don't think Ars Magica's specific implementation goes far enough.  The way Fiasco handles roles is also worth looking at.  GM-less play with four or less players who can change roles frequently is something I've seen, but you have to buy into emergent plot rather than predefined scenario.

"Genre Emulation" is an inherently flawed goal. "Adaption Distillation" is what I look for in a genre RPG. Something that creates the feel of "being a character in a comicbook universe" rather than the feeling of "playing out a comic book panel by panel".

Otherwise, all superhero RPGs would have one stat: Popularity. The more popular a character is, the better they are at everything they do.

Quote from: daniel_ream;471216I'm sure I'll get accused of having an anti-traditional RPG bias for saying this, but the dirty little secret of tabletop RPGs is that the basic logistics - DM on one side of the table behind his screen controlling the whole world, except for the 4-6 players on the other side of the table each controlling one character each - were designed solely for the dungeon crawl/tactical wargame style of play and simply don't work for any kind of fiction genre emulation.  

Christ! My LORD! NOW I UNDERSTAND! For the last 34 years I have been running games as the GM, during which we spent maybe 6 months total dungeon crawling, and for the last 15 or so not even running Fantasy! AND ALL THIS TIME, WHILE WE THOUGHT WE WERE HAVING FUN WE WERE JUST DELUDING OURSELVES!!! We MUST have been MISERABLE! HOW DID WE STAND THE HORROR!!! How did we not SEE it simply didn't work???!?

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;471248Christ! My LORD! NOW I UNDERSTAND! For the last 34 years I have been running games as the GM, during which we spent maybe 6 months total dungeon crawling, and for the last 15 or so not even running Fantasy! AND ALL THIS TIME, WHILE WE THOUGHT WE WERE HAVING FUN WE WERE JUST DELUDING OURSELVES!!! We MUST have been MISERABLE! HOW DID WE STAND THE HORROR!!! How did we not SEE it simply didn't work???!?

-clash

Commie!

Quote from: flyingmice;471248Christ! My LORD! NOW I UNDERSTAND! For the last 34 years I have been running games as the GM, during which we spent maybe 6 months total dungeon crawling, and for the last 15 or so not even running Fantasy! AND ALL THIS TIME, WHILE WE THOUGHT WE WERE HAVING FUN WE WERE JUST DELUDING OURSELVES!!! We MUST have been MISERABLE! HOW DID WE STAND THE HORROR!!! How did we not SEE it simply didn't work???!?

-clash

OH MY GOD. ZE TROOF. :eek:

How could we have been so BLIND?!

Quote from: One Horse Town;471249Commie!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;471248Christ! My LORD! NOW I UNDERSTAND! For the last 34 years I have been running games as the GM, during which we spent maybe 6 months total dungeon crawling, and for the last 15 or so not even running Fantasy! AND ALL THIS TIME, WHILE WE THOUGHT WE WERE HAVING FUN WE WERE JUST DELUDING OURSELVES!!! We MUST have been MISERABLE! HOW DID WE STAND THE HORROR!!! How did we not SEE it simply didn't work???!?

-clash

I nearly snorted root beer through my nose. What are ya a comedian?

Quote from: daniel_ream;471216I'm sure I'll get accused of having an anti-traditional RPG bias for saying this, but the dirty little secret of tabletop RPGs is that the basic logistics - DM on one side of the table behind his screen controlling the whole world, except for the 4-6 players on the other side of the table each controlling one character each - were designed solely for the dungeon crawl/tactical wargame style of play and simply don't work for any kind of fiction genre emulation.  Even if we restrict the genre list to "action/adventure", there are virtually no examples of 4+ protagonists sharing equal screen time/page count/story influence in every scene in the work anywhere in the source.

Either RPGs have to give up on having genre emulation as a goal, or they need to change their basic logistics from the DM + 5 players/one player, one character model.  Troupe style play is one possibility, although I don't think Ars Magica's specific implementation goes far enough.  The way Fiasco handles roles is also worth looking at.  GM-less play with four or less players who can change roles frequently is something I've seen, but you have to buy into emergent plot rather than predefined scenario.

Magnificent seven? Oceans 11 thru 13? The Dirty Dozen? The Good the Bad and the Ugly? Inception? The Invisibles? The Avengers? The fantastic 4? The Legion? The JLA? Battle Beyond the Stars? Battlestar Galactica (new Series)? Star Trek? G-Force?

 I think there are plenty of 'team' genres.....

Yes, ha ha, you're all very clever.  Doesn't make me any less right, though.

Quote from: jibbajibba;471287Magnificent seven? Oceans 11 thru 13? The Dirty Dozen? The Good the Bad and the Ugly? Inception? The Invisibles? The Avengers? The fantastic 4? The Legion? The JLA? Battle Beyond the Stars? Battlestar Galactica (new Series)? Star Trek? G-Force?

 I think there are plenty of 'team' genres.....

Of course there are.  But "team genre" <> "there are 4+ protagonists who are present in every scene and have roughly equal screen time".  In every single one of your examples, the majority of scenes involve only two or three participants, no matter how large the cast nominally is.

To drag this back on topic, Gardner Fox, the original writer for the JLA, had a stock formula of splitting the team up into two- and three-member groups precisely because it was too hard to write scenes where the whole team was present and active.