|
The saddest part is this: quote:There's a recent issue of Avengers where Captain America gives out orders and he tells Thor and Iron Man to fight some villains in the sky while the rest of the team rescues people here on the ground. That recent issue of the Avengers is like every third or fourth issue of the Avengers. That's like the core scenario of superhero teamups right there, and dude is talking about it like it's some neat little thing.
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 01:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 01:30 |
|
|
potatocubed posted:Let's see, which other superhero RPGs were kicking around in 1999? Heroes Unlimited, Champions (aiee), GURPS Supers, the SAGA version of Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Role Playing Game or whatever multi-word title it had going on... what others? Aberrant and Godlike came out in the late 90s. Also, Blood of Heroes which was basically a repackage of the old DC Heroes game after the devs lost the DC Comics license. EDIT: Sorry, Godlike came out in 2001
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 02:21
|
|
|
Putting aside the dice weirdness and level gated powers, straight effects based systems have been the obvious choice for this kind of medium-crunch superheroics stuff since the 1980s. If you want to pursue a rules as physics approach then it's so obviously the way to go. It seems like such an amateurish misstep, like some sort of superhero rpg heartbreaker but given the biggest platform possible
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 02:31
|
|
|
PeterWeller posted:The saddest part is this: Plus the only proper lesson to take away from that should be that Cap needs 4e Warlord-style powers. Or even better a narrative equivalent ; I know there’s some in a lot of PbtA games but I’m thinking of the Soldier’s I Love It When a Plan Comes Together move from The Sprawl.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 02:33
|
|
|
Technically we already got a Marvel superhero game where the power differences didn't really matter but Marvel Heroic was too pure for this world.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 03:11
|
|
|
EverettLO posted:Putting aside the dice weirdness and level gated powers, straight effects based systems have been the obvious choice for this kind of medium-crunch superheroics stuff since the 1980s. If you want to pursue a rules as physics approach then it's so obviously the way to go. I actually think the power trees in Marvel Multiverse are the only thing worth saving. It's a reasonably novel approach to supers and we could all use a little more 4E chargen in our lives.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 03:19
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:I actually think the power trees in Marvel Multiverse are the only thing worth saving. It's a reasonably novel approach to supers and we could all use a little more 4E chargen in our lives. Hopefully future ones will be a lot less specific. The Spider-Powers were especially egregious as just being "These are useful if you want to play as a Spider-Man" but looking at Black Panther reveals that half his powers are named after Cap quotes like "I can do this all day" and so on. I hope the blast and elemental control sets and so on aren't like "Optic Blast -> Optic Sweep -> Optic Hurricane" or "The Goddess Commands Wind!" or something.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 04:07
|
|
|
theironjef posted:Hopefully future ones will be a lot less specific. The Spider-Powers were especially egregious as just being "These are useful if you want to play as a Spider-Man" but looking at Black Panther reveals that half his powers are named after Cap quotes like "I can do this all day" and so on. I hope the blast and elemental control sets and so on aren't like "Optic Blast -> Optic Sweep -> Optic Hurricane" or "The Goddess Commands Wind!" or something. I don't know. If they get too generic, then you're just back to "I have Energy Blast d10". I'm tired of seeing supers as either Ice Blast d10 or Energy Blast 2d6, Armor Piercing, Half-Stamina, Elemental Effect: Cold, Increased Range +2. I'd enjoy a 4E middle ground. I think the Spider-Powers are okay, given how many Spider-People there are in the Marvel universe. Like, there are a lot. Fair cop on Black Panther, but I'm excited about the idea of a game where ice powers, fire powers, laser powers, and explosive cards aren't all just "energy manipulator" powers. To be clear, I'm excited about the idea of that game. I'm not terribly excited about Marvel Multiverse.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 04:35
|
|
|
It amazes me how Marvel Heroic Roleplaying solved this issue by actually addressing it -- Big Powers are strong but weak powers are more likely to get you plot points and the disparity feels bigger than it actually is because it's such dice sizes in a pool -- and these guys come in with all that knowledge and gently caress it all up.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 04:44
|
|
|
Covok posted:It amazes me how Marvel Heroic Roleplaying solved this issue by actually addressing it -- Big Powers are strong but weak powers are more likely to get you plot points and the disparity feels bigger than it actually is because it's such dice sizes in a pool -- and these guys come in with all that knowledge and gently caress it all up. Forebeck probably wanted something a bit crunchier (and mechanically distinct for legal reasons) from MHRP and the Cortex System. The problem is that, yeah, getting granular with powers and the inevitable splatbook addons leads to power creep, the same way granular wizard powers and feats and other poo poo starts out unbalanced and gets progressively more unmanageable. Nuns with Guns fucked around with this message at 04:56 on Apr 21, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 04:50
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:I don't know. If they get too generic, then you're just back to "I have Energy Blast d10". I'm tired of seeing supers as either Ice Blast d10 or Energy Blast 2d6, Armor Piercing, Half-Stamina, Elemental Effect: Cold, Increased Range +2. I'd enjoy a 4E middle ground. Yeah, that's also fair. I've just played enough supers video games and MMOs to be recalcitrant about the possibility that this game is going to suggest that I play as Spider-Guy, the new hero on the scene defined by how he's similar to but not as good as Spider-Man.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 04:54
|
|
|
Superheroes have a big gap between practical RP gaming and the imagined role. Kids pretending to be Spider-Man, and adults playing spider-man video games, don’t think up awkward dilemmas where being a super and functioning as a regular person come into conflict (which RPGs can be good at exploring). Nor do they think of how a scarce amount of web fluid could be tactically deployed to obstruct a villain with certain capabilities (which RPGs can also be good at). They pretend to, or video twitch gameplay, shooting webs, punching baddies, and swinging through the streets for pure physical fiore (both of which RPGs obviously suck at because it’s out of their scope) And this makes it really hard for a mainstream game to actually have good mechanics. It’d be cool if fire blasts and ice blasts weren’t just both “manipulate energy” but it’s not so cool if the rules text for both is just cut and pasted and the only reason to use two different names is to hide the modelling restrictions of the genre. Fun random memory: before “quantum bears” were a thing, “a supers game with only one stat” was the go to grog term for an allegedly out-of-touch indie design.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 05:18
|
|
|
I wanna show up to an Avengers game with Aunt May but it turns out I spent all my points on Ally and then summon Doc Ock to fight for me by promising that he can take me on a date if we win. String him along long enough and eventually my Aunt May will outrank Spider-Man, because she has the Superior Spider-Man at her beck and call. Checkmate. Strontosaurus fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Apr 21, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 05:19
|
|
|
Strontosaurus posted:I wanna show up to an Avengers game with Aunt May but it turns out I spent all my points on Ally and then summon Doc Ock to fight for me by promising that he can take me on a date if we win. Superior Spider-Man was Doc Ock in Peter's body. This... may be a problem for your plan.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 05:43
|
|
|
The Marvel system seems pretty smart. Not as a game to play, but as an idea to sell. They figured out that people don't actually want a catalyst for collaboratively improv/writing interesting superhero team-up fiction, they want a rigid system of power levels and fictional physics that they can analyze and theorycraft and write social media essays about why they're wrong.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 08:31
|
|
|
People are gonna argue about that time Captain America held back Thanos' hand for like 5 seconds and how this doesn't line up with his canonical power level and in this thread I will... (1/169)
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 13:52
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:The Marvel system seems pretty smart. Not as a game to play, but as an idea to sell. They figured out that people don't actually want a catalyst for collaboratively improv/writing interesting superhero team-up fiction, they want a rigid system of power levels and fictional physics that they can analyze and theorycraft and write social media essays about why they're wrong. And having a con stat in a superhero RPG is just sad.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 13:55
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:The Marvel system seems pretty smart. Not as a game to play, but as an idea to sell. They figured out that people don't actually want a catalyst for collaboratively improv/writing interesting superhero team-up fiction, they want a rigid system of power levels and fictional physics that they can analyze and theorycraft and write social media essays about why they're wrong. Ah, the Woke Advertising maneuver. And we fell right into it...
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 14:07
|
|
|
Splicer posted:There's nothing wrong with a rigid system of power levels and fictional physics. D&D 4E was a rigid system of power levels and fictional physics. Spiderman in 4E would just have a ranged power that restrains and the player says it's his webs doing it.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 14:32
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:That's true, but it was also removed almost entirely from the fiction whereas the Marvel thing seems to try and map every particular use of a power that a writer may have once come up with to its own discrete ability, which keeps players from coming up with their own stuff if it can't be mapped to an ability they have. It seems more like the 5e paradigm where Doing A Thing is THIS SPELL and it works THIS WAY down to prescribing details of what it looks like.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 14:43
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:I actually think the power trees in Marvel Multiverse are the only thing worth saving. It's a reasonably novel approach to supers and we could all use a little more 4E chargen in our lives. It's certainly an interesting vision - a superhero rpg that represents its own thing rather than being designed to ape its source material in the same way D&D doesn't so much ape the fantasy stories its supposedly modeled after but creates its own thing. I dunno if this game is going to be that, though. That would require a solid vision and some serious design chops.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 14:52
|
|
|
My Lovely Horse posted:That's true, but it was also removed almost entirely from the fiction whereas the Marvel thing seems to try and map every particular use of a power that a writer may have once come up with to its own discrete ability, which keeps players from coming up with their own stuff if it can't be mapped to an ability they have. It seems more like the 5e paradigm where Doing A Thing is THIS SPELL and it works THIS WAY down to prescribing details of what it looks like. Splicer posted:a bad rigid system of power levels and fictional physics.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 14:54
|
|
|
It's not like Marvel Heroic was balanced, exactly; if I remember right, Thor's Godlike (D12) powers are typically going to beat anything Daredevil brings to the table in a straight fight. But there were ways of getting around that and you could easily put them on the same team or opposite sides of a fight. There are various ways superhero RPGs have dealt with the disparity, and I guess they just, uh, don't want to do those. MockingQuantum posted:I don't even mind the rulings not rules argument with a lot of lighter systems though! I'm okay with rules-light systems that sort of just shrug their shoulders at a whole aspect of the play experience. I don't know that it's a great solution, but I'm okay with it. potatocubed posted:Let's see, which other superhero RPGs were kicking around in 1999? Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Apr 21, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 14:56
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Not really, all the 4E powers (well... maybe not the early Fighter powers) had distinct names and flavour, you were just strongly encouraged to reflavour as needed. Labeling every single parkour power "web(thing)" on the first iteration and then sticking with that as you parsed through additional characters falls under Yeah, and I'd argue that 4E didn't itself strongly encourage reskinning so much as the community around it did.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 14:59
|
|
|
Yeah, thinking about the flavor thing, I think it's weird. As noted above, Black Panther has a power called "Do This All Day", which is clearly a reference to Captain America. It lets you spend mental health to get physical health, it's part of the Martial Artist tree. (A tree that Captain America doesn't have.) The flavor text for the power is "The character draws on their inner strength to heal themselves." That all feels fine to me. It's taking a pretty standard ability, putting it in a tree, slapping some flavor text on it, giving it an iconic name. I'm actually fine with all of that. With regards to the web-restraints... My Lovely Horse posted:Spiderman in 4E would just have a ranged power that restrains and the player says it's his webs doing it. Splicer posted:Not really, all the 4E powers (well... maybe not the early Fighter powers) had distinct names and flavour, you were just strongly encouraged to reflavour as needed. Labeling every single parkour power "web(thing)" on the first iteration and then sticking with that as you parsed through additional characters falls under a bad rigid system of power levels and fictional physics. Edit: PeterWeller posted:Yeah, and I'd argue that 4E didn't itself strongly encourage reskinning so much as the community around it did. CitizenKeen fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Apr 21, 2022 |
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 15:06
|
|
|
Arts-and-Crafts Man? Look at this Paste Pot Pete erasure. I struggle with Double Cross, but it's the best system for reskinning because it just doesn't do things like "damage types." Say your heat ray is actually a freeze ray or whatever, the only distinctions are between the skills you're rolling to use powers.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 15:08
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:Arts-and-Crafts Man? Look at this Paste Pot Pete erasure.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 15:09
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:It's not like Marvel Heroic was balanced, exactly; if I remember right, Thor's Godlike (D12) powers are typically going to beat anything Daredevil brings to the table in a straight fight. But there were ways of getting around that and you could easily put them on the same team or opposite sides of a fight. Are there even any metaplot points or other balancing mechanics in this game? Even the early 1980s TSR FASERIP game had Karma Points players could spend for narrative purposes. About the only good thing I can see about this game is that at least they didn't make the laziest possible choice and try to build it on top of D&D 5E.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 15:17
|
|
|
In reference to the 'Spider'-powers. After reading more of the Multiverse quickstart/playtest, it's pretty obvious that those are just reskin thematic names for a more generic type of power. The sample characters they included (with Power Ranks) were Black Panther(15), Captain America(15), Captain Marvel(25), Groot(15), Iron Man(15), Rocket(10), Spider-Man(10), Storm(15), Thor(20), and Wolverine(10) and they only included the power trees those characters had access to.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 15:47
|
|
|
FMguru posted:The combination of a clunky, complicated, crunchy system with detailed skill trees and giant dice pools with "well, it's the GM's job to make sure everyone gets an equal chance to shine" is really something. Delivering a giant 300 page brick of a game system and then throwing all responsibility onto the GM for making sure it delivers anything resembling a fun group experience - I mean, wow. It feels like this is becoming more and more common since 5e’s designers defaulted to “your GM will handle it” when asked rules questions online. It makes me so loving mad.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 17:11
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:Emphasis mine. I mostly agree with you, but I am curious how an official source is supposed to do reflavoring. Like, as a player, I can take the "web goop" power and say "Well, it's actually paper mache because I'm Arts-And-Crafts-Man." But does that work for the official source of characters and powers? 1) give them evocative but generic names, you write down the "real" name on the sheet. The most  of solutions, but absolutely fine.2) name them for the most iconic examplesgive them the names for the people who most iconically represent them, when applicable. This is what I meant above. I don't have access to the power trees but I'm assuming webswinging, wallcrawling, and webglide are all part of some form of mobility tree. Webswinging and wallcrawling as names are absolutely fine because Spiderman pretty much defined the genre, and if daredevil's billy club is represented as "webslinging (billyclub)" that's fine. Webglide though, if that's the actual name of the power as opposed to the spidername, is a huge weird flag, because it implies they didn't do a second pass on already decided powers and go, for example, "Gliding's more of a squirrel girl thing, let's name it Gliding Squirrel" 3) same as 1) but the names can have mechanical impact, like there's some kind of fate points system so "web slinging" can be compelled to be shut down by slippery walls while billyclub grappling hook cannot.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 17:19
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/DnDMovie/status/1517175961099259909
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 17:28
|
|
|
Lumbermouth posted:It feels like this is becoming more and more common since 5e’s designers defaulted to “your GM will handle it” when asked rules questions online. It makes me so loving mad. Thing is, 5e at least doesn't have a much crunch. It has pretty much the reverse. Doing the same thing when a game with a ton of crunch nonetheless fails is even worse than 5e, because it means the crunch is making the GM's task harder, not easier.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 17:33
|
|
|
First of all, talking about old superhero games and nobody's mentioned Villains & Vigilantes yet?  It sounds like the Marvel designer wondered if there were any modern supers games, looked at C5E and Masks, and stopped. Just the minimum of research and effort.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 17:34
|
|
|
CitizenKeen posted:I don't know. If they get too generic, then you're just back to "I have Energy Blast d10". I'm tired of seeing supers as either Ice Blast d10 or Energy Blast 2d6, Armor Piercing, Half-Stamina, Elemental Effect: Cold, Increased Range +2. I'd enjoy a 4E middle ground. If it helps, Sentinels RPG is at minimum adjacent to what you want here. To make a long story short, character creation involves you taking blocks of power sets, which include both the assorted Super Strength d8s and Fire Control d10s you mentioned, and the dice tricks to make you actually feel unique and interesting in play. In this step you take the Occult power source, so you take these powers and this subset of the dice tricks Occult offers and flavor them appropriately for what dice tricks you're matching with what power. In this step you take the Speedster archetype and do the same. And once it's all said and done, you have a character sheet that should uniquely feel like the guy who made a devilish pact to jump really well that you set out to make. The only problem is that there's only a dozen or so sample characters in the core book, and you really need a critical mass of examples if so much of a character's feel is in getting the flavor right for your dice tricks.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 17:55
|
|
|
Lurks With Wolves posted:If it helps, Sentinels RPG is at minimum adjacent to what you want here. To make a long story short, character creation involves you taking blocks of power sets, which include both the assorted Super Strength d8s and Fire Control d10s you mentioned, and the dice tricks to make you actually feel unique and interesting in play. In this step you take the Occult power source, so you take these powers and this subset of the dice tricks Occult offers and flavor them appropriately for what dice tricks you're matching with what power. In this step you take the Speedster archetype and do the same. And once it's all said and done, you have a character sheet that should uniquely feel like the guy who made a devilish pact to jump really well that you set out to make. Sentinel Comics is definitely adjacent to what I want, and I currently consider Sentinel Comics chargen to be best in class.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 18:14
|
|
|
Splicer posted:Well, BTW, all those powers are from the "Spider-Powers" set, not a mobility set. So Webgliding and Webtrapping are in the power set along with Spider-Pheromones, Venom Blast, and super strength. I don't know if that makes it better or worse.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 18:27
|
|
|
Mirage posted:First of all, talking about old superhero games and nobody's mentioned Villains & Vigilantes yet? Hey! I've mentioned it! I even did an abandoned FATAL & Friends of 1st edition!
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 19:07
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/DnDMovie/status/1517175964358234114 Which Forgotten Realms character does everyone hope gets to be in the after-credits stinger of this?
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 19:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 25, 2024 01:30 |
|
|
Nuns with Guns posted:https://twitter.com/DnDMovie/status/1517175964358234114 The Heroes of Darkmoon.
|
|
#
?
Apr 21, 2022 20:18
|
|
