How skilled do Superheroes have to be?
In my current Steampunk Pathfinder E6 game, the party is 4th level. I'm going to boost them to 5th after the next game or two.
In E6, professional competancy is achieved at 1st level while professional mastery is achieved at 4th level. In any group of old, dedicated men, veteran soldiers, or motivated try-hards, you are going to have some 4th level people, maybe even a 5th. While the party is 4th level, which makes them the top of their professions, their skill isn't unheard of.
All that seperates them in power from common folk is PC classes instead of NPC classes, magic items, and a few super powers. Still, statistically, there are a lot of 4th level warriors that could get out and mix it up, and in a city like London, their are 5th level people here and there.
If not level, what makes a super hero a hero? Extra power? The willingness to get out there and mix it up? Being in the right place at the right time?
How are super heroes perceived if their technical ability is in the realm of normal people?
I think being a superhero is not about power, it's more like being part of a tradition or a movement. Essentially you need enough people in your world to roughly conform to (some) common tropes like fighting crime and wearing masks for it to become a thing.
Put it this way. A guy play music. If he plays jazz he's a jazz musician, if he plays rock he's a rocker, if he sing folks tunes he a folk singer and we are all comfortable because he can place him, even if the jazz musician is more fusion orientated or the folk singer frequently steps into pop or country.
If this guy doesn't pay music of an genre ever heard before with instruments that fit in no particular tradition you would not have a label for his music. It would just be his music.
So take the Marvel Universe at it 1960 origins. Four guys get hit cosmic rays and discover they have great powers. They decide to use their powers for the benefit of mankind and call themselves the Fantastic Four. There aren't any superheroes yet (yeah I know, there's all that Golden Age stuff ), there is just the Fantastic Four. They don't have secret IDs or costumes, just a uniform made of "unstable molecules" designed to work with their powers.
A few years later, a teenager get's bit by a radioactive spider and developers superpowers. He dresses up like a spider hoping to use his power for profit as masked wrestler but tragedy ensues and to atone he vows to use his powers for the greater good. He never consciously decides to become a superhero - there is still no such concept in the world.
Meanwhile, upstate Charles Xavier is training young mutants to use their powers safely, a nuclear scientist is turned into a rage-filled monster and the Norse god of Thunder decides to slum in on Midgard for a while.
The point I am getting at is that the first generation of superheroes aren't trying to be superheroes at all. Like the musician who plays no known genre of music, they are all doing their thing.
But once there are enough of these guys around certain similarities, ways of doing things and even rituals start to emerge. So after a while "superhero" does indeed become a thing. And second and third characters who grew up in the shadow of these heroes can actually aspire to become superheroes. So when Nova discovers his alien armour or Patsy Walker her Hellcat suit they already know what to do with their power and how to behave like a superhero the same way that you'd know how to be a jazz man or a rocker. And likewise the public know what to expect.
So if you really wanted to transplant the concept to a fantasy world, you'd need for there to be a tradition of Zorro and Robin Hood characters already established so that when the player characters start righting wrongs wearing masks and going by heroic super names the public and bards in particular know what to make of it.
...For a people-oriented food product, you made a good post.
And his post makes perfect sense. In the Steam Punk world the characters are in now, there isn't any superhero culture - just random crazy shit from the technology and people going mad or finding enlightenment. When they were in the bronze age setting, I had a lot of half angles and things of the sort, so the police and people knew who exactly what super beings were - though at that time the PCs weren't at all powerful.
In that way - I guess being a hero is just being out there, doing it - kick ass style, while being a super hero is being really good at it / having a power normal people can't compare to.
Quote from: Narf the Mouse;471984...For a people-oriented food product, you made a good post.
Why thanks. :-)
Quote from: Cranewings;471985In that way - I guess being a hero is just being out there, doing it - kick ass style, while being a super hero is being really good at it / having a power normal people can't compare to.
In other words, D&D characters.
The problem with trying to define Superheroes by common tropes, is that these tropes are common, at best, not definitive. There are many superheroes who don't wear costumes, there are plenty that don't actually get involved in crime-fighting specifically, there are plenty without secret identities, and there are plenty without any actual superhuman powers.
And while Soylent Green's post made a lot of good points, he is completely off in regards to the history of the Marvel Universe. The FF were by no means the first, they were merely the first new ones of The Silver Age. Hell, one of the FF
took their name from a WW2 superhero they admired/resembled.
Sure, with hindsight you can see how the MU goes way back and how (largely through retcons) it's all meant to fit in. But when Fantastic Four #1 first came out, you didn't know this was meant to all happen in the same continuity in which Captain America fought the Nazi's 20 years earlier. When normal citizens first saw the Human Torch they didn't exclaim, "Hey, it's that android from WWII?"
In fact it was quite a surprise to see Spider-Man meet the FF ( he has hoping to join the FF believing there would be a steady pay cheque - again not really understanding how the superhero gig worked).
Quote from: TristramEvans;472001In other words, D&D characters.
I see what you mean, and in a way it makes sense, but it gets lost in the fact that D&D publishes and promotes the idea that lots of NPCs have lots of levels, regular NPCs can have 9+ PC class levels, dah dah dah.