There is a happy medium in using Handwavium and more hard-core mechanical representations.

One of the best ways is to establish "Super Gear" as Powers themselves and using the normal task-resolution you'd give to Powers to the gadgets. Special considerations should be -

Destructibility/Durability - Gear should be damageable. To be impervious to damage is a Power unto itself (Cap's Shield). But this idea should not be just for gear/gadgets, but it should be applied to *everything*. Breaking things is a big part of the tropes of super-powered combat.

Scarcity - The capacity to create this gear should be clearly outlined. Even if it's limited by resources (money, material rarity) or handwavium (special machine that only Tony Stark or Ray Palmer has created), should be in line with whatever downtime tasks are established for the game, I'm specifically speaking about civilian life. It also should apply to things like special ammos, fuels etc to justify that gear. I don't mean this to sound TOO complex, you should have shorthand ways of handwaving this. In MSH - your Resource rank will let you purchase anything a couple of ranks or lower with no check. Tony Stark doesn't make resource rolls for fueling up his private jet.

Cost - whatever you're using to determine resources, your crafting system should be plugged into it so people can easily eyeball the cost of things. The more you tie it to the stats and material rarity of your items the easier it is.

Quote from: tenbones on November 05, 2021, 03:07:42 PM
There is a happy medium in using Handwavium and more hard-core mechanical representations.

Agreed.

Quote from: tenbones on November 05, 2021, 03:07:42 PM
One of the best ways is to establish "Super Gear" as Powers themselves and using the normal task-resolution you'd give to Powers to the gadgets.

I was actually thinking of the maxim for a good effects-based system: "there's at least three ways to do the same thing, but differently."  So like crafting in M&M can be reflected by either using the existing crafting rules, taking the Variable power and claiming everything is a gadget in your utility belt (when it's actually just the Variable power in action), or spending a Hero point to have the gadget your gadgeteer needs (an expensive, but viable, approach). 

Quote from: tenbones on November 05, 2021, 03:07:42 PM

Destructibility/Durability - Gear should be damageable. To be impervious to damage is a Power unto itself (Cap's Shield). But this idea should not be just for gear/gadgets, but it should be applied to *everything*. Breaking things is a big part of the tropes of super-powered combat.

I'll be honest, I like to go the other route and have "special gear" be indestructible by default, but breakable either through limitations on the power/gear or through "GM Intrusion" style mechanics.  I think the end result is the same (indestructible gear costs more), but the base assumption is different.

Quote from: tenbones on November 05, 2021, 03:07:42 PMScarcity - The capacity to create this gear should be clearly outlined. Even if it's limited by resources (money, material rarity) or handwavium (special machine that only Tony Stark or Ray Palmer has created), should be in line with whatever downtime tasks are established for the game, I'm specifically speaking about civilian life. It also should apply to things like special ammos, fuels etc to justify that gear. I don't mean this to sound TOO complex, you should have shorthand ways of handwaving this. In MSH - your Resource rank will let you purchase anything a couple of ranks or lower with no check. Tony Stark doesn't make resource rolls for fueling up his private jet.

In "What If Tony Stark Lost the Armor Wars" the issue ended with an AIM scientist uploading all of Tony's schematics onto the internet for the world to share, so that anyone with the means could make their own Iron Man armor (or armor variant I'd imagine).  There was also a Guardians of the Galaxy set in the far future where an alien civilization discovered a suit of Iron Man armor, reverse engineered it, mass produced it, and used it to become a threat to the galaxy (while making Tony Stark their patron god). 

Meanwhile, over in the Wild Cards series of novels, super invention was (usually) revealed to actually be a super power tied to the inventor and not the gear.  Mr Inventor could build an time machine, but he'd be the only one who could use it because the machine didn't actually do anything, but he was the one providing it with power.  Which is one way to make sure super inventing doesn't get out of hand, but also doesn't really mean much (it's "just" another power ultimately).

Point being: how you handle crafting can greatly impact characters and setting alike.

oh there is a bazillion ways to skin the cat. Just some design paths lead to other considerations systemically that have to be addressed, than others.

And at each stage there is always a way to insert handwavium to smooth things over - you just have to figure out where that sweet-spot is.

I'll use MSH as an example...

1) Resources are an abstraction cooked into the Ranking system. The Ranking system demands that anything within 1 Column increases the starting value by +1 Column in value. Anything 2 Column Ranks below are ignored.

2) The Cost of building anything is calculating the highest effective Rank of the item applicable for that thing. So a weapon is defined by its stats: Range, Material Strength, Damage. Whether it looks like a baseball bat, a laser rifle, or boomerang is irrelevant. Each of those stats has a Rank. The highest Rank is the starting cost. For anything within 2 Ranks bumps up the cost by +1. Anything below that threshold is ignored.

Vehicles - Control, Speed, Body, and Protection - same thing.
Powersuits - Material Strength, Stats augmented, Powers etc.

And THAT'S IT.

When the total cost is determined - you have to make a Reason check to build it. Obviously advanced stuff requires the Reason (or powers) to actually make that design work. There are rules for "special requirements" when making stuff that is beyond the normal tech-level of your setting. That's why the Reason score illustrates the level of technology that PC can comprehend (and why Tony Stark and Reed Richards are *really* freakishly smart) that keeps Joe Schmo from making his power-suit work.

Destructibility - I agree with you that it can be a problem when your Tech based guy gets his shit destroyed. Couple of thoughts on that - MOST Tech-based guys tend to have money and facilities to build their stuff. Since I run Sandbox style it's part of the game for my tech-based PC's to deal with those eventualities. MSH is pretty generous with "repairing" destroyed stuff, in that if you have the facilities it's "assumed" that thing can be healed/repaired by the normal rules in such facilities with the appropriate skills possessed.

Savage Worlds has an actual Power (Vehicle) where it's a super-tricked out iconic vehicle (powersuit or whatever) that if it gets destroyed, it gets fixed by next session - via handwavium. This is how Batman destroys the Batmobile (and all the other Bat-vehicles) and is patrolling the streets in it next issue.

Granted as a player you're *paying* for this Power. Savage Worlds is all about tropes and keeping the action rolling, not the granular details.

If you really want Superman, use FATE. A more narrative approach is needed with someone who can move planets and fly through suns. Honestly, M&M, GURPS Supers and Champions don't hit that level of power correctly unless the adventure allows the highest level of capability. Could I design Superman for M&M? Sure but I need PL15+ which kind of breaks any notion of stopping him outside of using Kryptonite.

Weaver Dice (a game made to emulate Worm) doesn't have many hard rules, but it does take the concept of a Tinker from Worm.

Basically, a super genius but only with a narrow focus. Something like biotech, miniaturization, vehicles, etc. Some have wider focuses but downsides. There's one character who can build anything...once, after that it fails to function, often explosively.

You could get some mileage with that. Say your super genius works primarily with anti-gravity and hovertech. You could have them build a flying car, sure, but what else could they do? Build a hammer that sends you back 20 feet? Jump boots? A grenade that sends people up into the air by reversing gravity temporarily?

Lots of possibilities. Would be a pain to make rules for it all, though.

Quote from: Theory of Games on November 06, 2021, 06:55:41 PM
If you really want Superman, use FATE. A more narrative approach is needed with someone who can move planets and fly through suns. Honestly, M&M, GURPS Supers and Champions don't hit that level of power correctly unless the adventure allows the highest level of capability. Could I design Superman for M&M? Sure but I need PL15+ which kind of breaks any notion of stopping him outside of using Kryptonite.

Actually PL 15 was right where they put Superman in the DC Adventures books for Mutants & Masterminds 3e; and the way you challenge him is A) can't be everywhere at once, B) Darkseid, Brainiac and Doomsday all have higher PLs than even Superman while Zod's crew is about equal to Superman and Lex Luthor's PL is lower but has significantly more Power Points than Superman does (same for Batman, who is PL 12, but has more Power Points than literally any other NPC they gave stats for). Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter are also around PL 14-15 too.

So the way you play Superman in M&M is just to NOT team him up with with PL 8 Robin or PL 10 Nightwing, but with Batman (who's got way more points in way more categories) and the rest of the Justice League who all have similar Power Point totals and Power Levels and put them up against the forces of Darseid or any number of other global threats.

If you wanna do a lower tier game, use Young Justice; Superboy, Wonder Girl, Robin and Impulse (plus whoever they've been teamed up with in whatever their current iteration of the comic is) as they're all PL 10-12 and have about the same point totals.

yeah PL15 play handles Superman/Bats just fine.

MSH - handles Superman/Thor/Silversurfer level play just fine too. So does DC Heroes.

The ISSUE (no pun intended) is the capacity of the GM to handle that kind of play in a meaningful manner. This where sandbox play for those kinds of games becomes both easier and more difficult than episodic adventure-based fare.

In a sandbox game, my assumptions are you've layed the foundations on the conceits of the world and what players with that level of power mean by those conceits in the world.

Take invincible - pretty solid set of rules. Omni-Man is a Lone Big Gun in national/global threats. When he's not dealing with that kinda shit, he's a family man living his normal life (with huge strings and motives attached). His *real* life is spent making sure no one learns of his true motives.

Superman - is similar in that he's responding to national/global threats in mainline adventures, but unlike Omni-Man, Superman cares about all the little people, so you can throw all kinds of personal stuff at him, bus's flying off bridges, cats in trees, whatever, to the degree that his schtick is solidified in the time-allotment you wanna give him (or whatever analog your PC's are using of him). Plus he has his "day job" which is a natural springboard into all his super-stuff.

The idea is that in a Sandbox you should be paving the infrastructure of the world to accommodate these powerhouse characters with what they do when they're *not* in their tights. This gives you a lot of leeway for lesser-powered/capable PC's who will struggle with stuff that is "trivial" to the Cosmic guys.

And THAT should be something players of Cosmic-level heroes should understand LONG before they get into the campaign. Superman *could* clean up Gotham if he wanted to. He doesn't because well that's Batman's "thing". Sure it doesn't make *real* sense... but you know, Supers are not really about that. In fact the pathos and drama that exists in that weird reality is PART of the genre itself. There is a hidden loathing that Bruce has for Clark *because* he suspects that Clark could *do* more... just like Clark is secretly terrified he's never doing *enough*.

But those boundaries are generally always observed. This is the kind of hidden stuff a sandbox Supers GM has to understand and passively enforce... if you don't...

... this brings us to the disadvantage of running a Supers game episodically, especially with players that don't really grok the genre...

That is "Why am I putting up with this shit?"

In episodic games where the only thing that matters is the adventure, most of the civilian stuff gets chucked out the window. MSH's modules are largely in this vein (which is also why I never use them without great contextualization). So PC's are not really grounded into anything and want to cut loose. At high powerlevels there is nothing really to keep the game from flying off the rails unless you as a GM have a good understanding of how these things can be dealt with. It's common at my table for players that are not that familiar with the Supers genre to fuck up, and cause a lot of inadvertent carnage, but I let it roll by having the world react to it, and make it part of the learning process.

When you're in full adventure mode without any real context outside the adventure itself, it's trickier. I suspect since most people GM like this, it's also why Supers is a huge turnoff since "control" is an illusion such GM's wrestle with, and letting their players have that kind of power is unsettling to them.

Supers *does* require a lot of GM discipline to run, especially long-term. And it requires letting your players have the kind of power that is completely unrealistically attainable in other RPG's. But the cool thing is - that's part of the fun. I get a lot of satisfaction when my players get the realization of how truly powerful their character is (when we're playing at that level). I love letting them indulge in it.

Of course... at some point... the real responsibilities of having those powers comes into play... muahahah.

I'm a fan of supers games. Started with Marvel in the eighties, V&V, Champions, Marvel Advanced and they were all swept aside when DC Heroes came along. Even that isn't perfect though because it groups Attribute Points (APs) into columns and tends to bunch 'street level' characters into a narrow group so they pretty much look the same, give or take an AP.

I house ruled the campaign I run so that every AP counts and ditched the table to make it faster. It uses 2D12 (and more D12s if you spend Hero Points or use Skills, roll a bunch and pick two, discard the rest) and is opposed so you roll 2D12 + Acting Value (Dex) vs 2D12 + Opposing Value (Dex). If the acting value is equal to or higher than opposing value, look on the red column of the table I cooked up, add a modifier to Effect value then Effect - Resistance=Result APs. No Hero Point bidding, no column shifting, no increasing Acting or Effect values. I got rid of the 'massive pile of hero points therefore I win' scenario which was becoming a problem in a long term campaign.



It's much faster and I can rattle fights off in seconds plus compatible with all write ups from 1e to 3e (and Blood of Heroes). Been doing it this way for years and haven't broken it yet.

I guess my point is that with a few simple tweaks your favourite 'almost perfect apart from...' can be closer to perfect. I say closer because the DC Heroes gadget rules still make me frown. Can't please all of the people all of the time...