Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Work progresses with the mighty red pen. Currently fixing and adjusting powers with new progressions and fixing typos and other clarifications.

I wish I had more time to do this stuff but...cest la' vie.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Super power advancement

So many of my powers advance at assorted rates. I really want to stabilize that into a few different charts.

many powers (especially the stat boosts) will remain on a one for one. But many of the manipulation, TK/lifting, and damaging powers need to all advance at certain uniform rates that aren't flat. Someone who is a 10 in TK should blast someone who is a 5 by orders of magnitude.

What these orders of magnitude are is still up in the air but here are the 4 basic lines of growth.

Blue is the static 1 for 1 flat line advancement
A - Orange is +1,+1,+2,+2,+2,+3,+3, +3,+3,+4 a slow upward curve in power
B - Yellow is +1, +2, +2, +3, +3 ,+4, +4,+5,+5... a slightly faster upward curve
C - Green is +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, +6 ,+7, +8 ,+9, +10 a fast power curve

I am thinking that most powers will use the yellow line for effects, while lifting will use the green.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tGg0sRgvBIs0U9AFrpLomYA&output=html

For lifting powers this would change the 250kg/power rank (2500kg at rank 10) to 250kg x the number on chart A (5500kg)/B(7500kg)/C(13750kg). All of which would work with RL's proposed Heightened lifting power which would also advance in a similar curve for exponential lifting power.

Most of the damaging manipulation powers would stick with the flat line damage as that isn't their main use. If someone who controls flame wants to shoot fire they can pick up Powerblast for that.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Working on updating with the changes as suggested by the playtest group.

Saving Throws

I really do not like the concept of saving throws as skills but we'll give it a try.

I've added 2 new skills - Toughness and Willpower.

Dodge works to get out of the way aka a Reflex save
Toughness works to reist poison and other physically debilitating things
Willpower resists mental manipulations

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Back to Work and other stuff

First of all, welcome to any new readers coming from any number of gaming sites and any random wanderers of the web. I've been a bit delinquent in proceeding in my work here. RL has been a bit hectic and I really have had little time to do much.
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Anyways, my friend AT my possibly begin drawing on someof this stuff for his NC games on TangledWeb (link on the right over there -->). Please understand that his system and mine are separate but you and he are welcome to any concepts found here. He's going for a more freeform system and I'm going rules and roles. He and I have been speaking about various superhero systems and other what nots for many months now. I am happy to help him out as he has helped me.
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Back to work, time to start hammering out system stuff. The playtest was bogged down, my fault, and lost a few players but it's back on track. Now having a multiple Thug fight that should be able to stress some interesting points in the system.

Monday, May 18, 2009

The END of the list!

Holy Biscuits! I have reached the end of the list of powers. Some need to be revamped or rebuilt. Some need to be written, but I have reached the end. Whoot. Now to go over and revamp and fill in the blanks.

What have I missed? Are there any powers that you can think of that I am missing?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

3/4 done!

Well 3/4 of the powers are done. M-Rz is finished (with the exception of a few powers that still need to be brutalized into submission in my head).

Next up S - Z

Monday, May 4, 2009

I'm going to have to figure out how to C&P the Rules discussion from TW to here so I have an off line reference doc for easy use to make the changes from there that have bene discussed.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Thugs and goons

Some quick and dirty goons are up.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Attribute Charts

Done! Well sort of. The basics are there but I need some help filling them out. For you superhero geeks out there fill me in on where Silver Surfer sits on the Brawn chart or whatever.

I also need something for Intelligence over 10 to give a bonus to, I'm thinking science, engineering, lore and academics checks.

Back to WORK!

Alright, aafter a 2 week hiatus (vacation time) I am back at it.

I have added in the multiattack (ambidexterity) powers in the Out-of sequence list as well as the first attribute chart. I will be back on track making changes as we go.

Over on the TW thread we are discussing how to fix/balance the alternate form power. We shall see if there is a major overhaul on that.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Hyper Attack and Natural Weapons

Since Google Docs is giving me grief right now I'll post this here.

Rule: Hyper Attack and Natural Weapons will use your base Melee attack, plus any skill points in the melee skill (Brn/Cor) plus a specialty of the melee skill appropriate to the power. Other touch based powers do not follow this rule as they are manifestations of something other than a direct melee attack.

Natural Weapons
Range – Personal
Duration – Constant
Resisted - NA
Description – The character has some form of super weapon that is a part of their body. This can include claws, fangs, horns, tail spikes, etc. The weapons do power rating d10+brn damage on a successful melee attac k. These weapon(s) can be retractable or not at the choice of the character. Natural Weapons can be used as part of a multiple action as they are an extension of the body.
Attributes – Brn/Cor
Skill Use – No associated Skill. There is a melee specialty associted to this power though. Without that specialty all attacks default to base melee skill.
Example – Bob has Natural Weapon 4. He has a pair of Moose horns that do 4d10+brn (s)damage.
Suggested Weakness - Deformity, Painful Manifestation

Hyper Attack
Range – Personal
Duration – Instant
Resisted - Dodge
Description – With a mighty punch/kick/headbutt/etc. the character can manifest some form of damaging blow (possibly coupled with energy or a specific material chosen at creation). The blast damages only the target, unless something intercepts it. Damage is equal to 1d10xpower rating +Brn. Damage is b with 1/2 of the damage being e damage appropriate to the additional effect if any. If there is no additional elemental effect all of the damage will be b type damage.
Attributes – Brn/Cor
Skill Use – No associated Skill. There is a melee specialty associted to this power though. Without that specialty all attacks default to base melee skill.
Example – Bob has Hyper Attack 4, he can slam an opponent with his Flaming Fist for 2d10+Brn b damage with an additional 2d10 e damage from the flames.
Suggested Weakness – Visual Display, Verbal Manifestation, Artifact

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Fixes

Armor numbers fixed. Teleport and Precognition posted in out of sequence. Other minor changes have happened.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

OMG Mind Control

I knew this day would come. Writing up one of the most fought over powers I have ever encountered. Mind Control.

Players either love or hate this power. They love to use it, hate to have it used on them, and especially despise the possibility of another player using it on them.

Any thoughts? I think this should be a GM limited power, as in the GM should limit access to only NPC's. Player using Mind Control can readily get out of hand.

Out of Sequence powers moved

Out of Sequence powers moved into their appropriate areas.

Also a bunch of new power shave been added in assorted areas.

Monday, April 6, 2009

.pdf?

Now for another question.

Would it be useful for ya'll for me to build a .pdf file of everything all rolled up? This .pdf would of course be updated (not very regularly but often enough).

I am already considering condensing everything built thus far into a single MS Word file and formating it to reduce page spacings ( making the powers and weaknesses 2 columns, reducing the box sizes in the life path area.) for myself. I will need to build a Table of Contents but that would be easy. Turning that into a .pdf is simple.

EDIT- Done...now with spell checking and grammar fixes. I only wish my formatting had been kept. Ach well, can't have everything.

Combat and Damage Systems

Ok folks here's the deal with damage and fightin'

Right now here's how it works (basics).

Scenario #1
Bob attacks George with a knife.
To calculate Bob's attack we take the average of his Brawn 4 and Coordination 4, 4 total. Then we add his melee skill +4, and his melee:knife specialty +3 for a total of +11. Bob rolls a 7 on his d10 for a total of 18.

George attempts to dodge. George's Dodge total is his Coordination 3 and Reflexes 5 averaged to 4, plus his dodge skill of 6 (total bonus of +10). George rolls a 5 on his d10 for a total of 15.

Bob beats him by 3 so he hits George. Bob rolls damage (d10/2+Brn) he rolls a 4, halved to 2 and adds his Brawn of 4. Bob deals 6 points of damage.

Here's where the damage application arises. First of all hit location, unless otherwise stated all attacks strike the torso. Since Bob didn't declare a specific attack location this is where he hits.
Knives deal "severe" damage. There are 3 kinds of damage; Basic - blunt trauma, minor bruising, etc., Severe-Traumatic wounds, gun shots, etc., and Elemental - Burns in their myriad of forms. The human body, being relatively soft, can absorb only basic damage, this is a character's hardness value. Or the value of B damage that is negated, or ablated. If a character has armor that armor does 2 thing for him, the first thing it does is convert some of either S or E damage (sometimes both) into B. Then it ablates/negates/absorb a certain amount of B damage (which can include the damage it just converted). once the remaining number is figured out it is applied to the character as a single number.

Scenario #2 - ranged with armor
Bob shoots George with a Shotgun (slug) dealing 6d10 damage. Dealing a total of 35s damage. George is wearing a slugvest (bullet proof vest) which Converts 20 s and absorbs 15b. with a little math 15s and 5b is left over after the armor. George has a hardness of 6 (he's a bruiser in this scenario) and can absorb all 5 of that B damage but not the s damage. George takes 15 damage.

A little clunky but it works and is decently accurate. Some folks will have issues with immerssion into the game, but this can be dealt with more indepth later as things go from "How I originally thought them up" to a more refined a workable system with testing.

Now for more complexity

Scenario #3 called shot

Bob shoots George in the head with a Sniper Rifle. He needs to roll to hit at -5 (called shot to the head, limbs are -2). He hits and does 30 damage. Even with a big helmet, this kills George instantly. Nothing in the world that I know of can take a .50 cal sniper round to the head and live. Most vehicles would be disabled by this kind of weapon too.

Scenario #4 - critical hit roll

Bob shoots george and beats him by 10. Whoohoo critical hit. Bob can choose to pick a location, or roll for a critical hit. The critical hits system breaks down simply.
#1 Roll for location.
#2 Roll for special effect based on location, apply effect.
The crit table will be up sometime in the next few days.

Now my end question to everyone is - do I simplify this further by unifying everything into a single type of damage or keep it as is?

Saturday, April 4, 2009

You want to help?

if anyone reading this and helping out wants to write fluff, or do almost anything to assist feel free. I am open to help and all credit will be given where credit is due.

If this is ever published (which I doubt but it is concieveable) I will ensure that all posters, playtesters, and contributors get a cut and credit.

Of course it may never amount to much but the thought is there.

Much of it will be fleshed out on the rules side as playtesting begins and things are tweaked/scrapped/rebuilt/created/etc. But Fluff is not one thing I intend to make too much of for this system. If you want to take what I have and use it for (something other than toilet paper I hope) be my guest. Just no publishing it without permission please.

Friday, April 3, 2009

New power set being built

New powers Document M-Rz going up.

Updates

Updates some minor stuff through the system and will continue to do so.

Updated the Character sheet too.

Gear

Everyone loves some gear. Its now up on the right there.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Getting closer....

Well today is the day that marks...well the first few playtesters are getting lined up and the fact that I have finally made it down to the Inhuman Attribute series of powers.

That means I have written out over 100 powers, out of about the 300 in the list.

Magic, or is it Magick, Magyk, Magiyckky, or something

Okay I have been thinking about the who "Magic" ideal and at this point there are 2 ways of going about it. Neither is mutually exclusive though so my thoughts are.

1. Magic is just a fluff way of saying how you activate you powers. This limits you to the powers and weaknesses you have but the weaknesses will form the spells/wands/books/amulets etc.

2. Magic as an independant power. It will work much like Gadgets and have the capability of mimicing other powers at a lower level. So if you have magic 4 you can mimic Powerblast 3. If I go this route I am thinking of making it very similar to gadgets where you will need to research your "spells/incantations/etc" each one will have set effects and can be activated on command once it has been researched. Your Fireball spell will always mimic Explosive Powerblast 3 even if you progress to Magic of 7, unless you research a more powerful version of that spell.

Going with both of these ways is equally viable as going with either of them. Both are very versatile, one has more direct power, the other has more versatility for a magic character if they are able to prepare/research enough spells.

Comments/criticism?

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Weakness ideas.

Nice break..back to work on more powers.

Anyone have some more ideas for weaknesses? I'm thinking of adding an assortment of psychological issues, a "somatic component" or movement based weakness.

I have also thought of having a a proximity limitation...basically if you are outside of a certain area or radius then you are powerless or at least greatly reduced in power. This is for those one city only heroes, or possibly "protector of the forest" ideals.

Terrain, light level, phase of the moon, weather or some other environnmental requirements might just make a decent weakness.

Also an advanced recharge item, like the green lantern....but that's basically already covered by the limited use weakness.

What else?

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

What's in a name? Part 2

So for humans and other living things I originally thought about how to describe their capability to absorb damage. This got me to thinking about what damage to a person means...mechanically.

A person is made of meat (effectively) and they can resist a certain amount of hurting through will power, musculature, and general durability. So I looked at some other systems names for this. The classic "Hit Points", "Wounds", "Damage capacity", others. I decided to be a bit off the wall and call mine Meat Value. Because really what is a person but meat. A person's total amount of meat needs to be chopped up before they die, unless a specific body part is destroyed. From Bob the trucker to Billy the Nerd there isn't too much variation in the world for actual meat volume in a person. The exception to this generalization or the muscular and the fat versus the anorexic.

So Brawn and Endurance go into the Hardness and Meat Value traits of a character.

I am thinking of changing this to be Damage Capacity or something similar, something more generic that can be better applied across the board to all parts of the game, not just meaty things. As would a car have meat value or metal value? Or just Damage Capacity?

Character Creation Clarified

Ok, so I started to try to drum up some interest by trying to get a PbP gamestest going yesterday. This may take a while. So in the interest of smoothing out some rough spots I will outline the process of character creation to everyone.

Step 1 - Get a character sheet or piece of paper, and a pencil (there will be some erasing)
Step 2 - Open up the Character Life Path link ---->
Step 3 - Decide which direction to build you character from. Do you want to build from birth to adult or decide on a job to start with and work backward from there? Both ways are explained in the document.
Step 4 - Start following the paths to get the numerical set up for your character.
Step 5 - Spend you bonus points - either on Bonus Traits or on increasing your attributes or skills. You can set aside a maximum of 10 bonus points to buy some power skills if you know you are making a super hero.
Step 6 - Breathe some life into them... add some details and write a story that follows their path. Here is also where you will write down the "Motivations" of the character which will come into play in the rewards section.
Step 7 - have the GM approve or disapprove the final character and then maybe Super powers can come into play.

Hopefully this is help out some of the folks looking into this system. I need to get back to work on building it more. Right now I have a framed house with some walls, no sheet rock or insulation yet, but the stick frame and roof are up.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Welcome

if you are here from TTW...great! Look to the right and you will see what is finished so far. No worries though, anything that isn't complete as of yet will be hashed out and fixed before being played with. I will be getting the equipment and junk up in the next day or so. Thanks see you all back on TTW or possibly even here for a while.


EDIT: Good lord spell checking before posting would be a good habit to get into.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Go-go gadget ???

So I have apower that will allow someone to make gadgets. This would be one of the "Batman" powers out there that covers many bases for a single price.

I am having trouble making this a semi-balanced power.

A character should be able to make a certain number of gadgets. Possibly even an unlimited number of them. But how to limit this in such a way to make it fair for others to play along side someone who has this power.

I want the power to be able to simulate almost any other power, but not quite as well. The bat grappling gun is cool and usefull, but not as cool as having the actual grapple shooting power of say Spiderman. A deathray by recurring villain Doctor Stupid should be deadly, and scary, but not like being hit by a Powerblast from Cyclops.

Prep time is one of the big limits I want to build into it. Say 1 day of work per rank in the power. The character can build a gizmo that simulates a single power, that gadget has a power rating equal to the character but no skilled uses or effects, anyone can use said gizmo.

Any help out there or other ideas on how to fix up this power?

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Movement Modes

7 new powers are up in the Out of Sequence doc.

Movement mode- fly/swim/swing/etc.

Monday, March 9, 2009

The beginning of the rewards is up
Adjusted the powers a bit. I'm going with the "Power Blast" name as I just can't handle the lameness that is Damage Blast. There has to be some flavor built in, beside my bad humor in the examples.

Starting a new set of powers today F-(I dunno yet) but the first doc is over 20 pages long.

Set up an "Out of Sequence" power list for powers that get renamed or built out of order.

Going to hammer down some of the rewards material today some time.

Rewards

Ok since rewards is becoming a nice topic I'll C&P the discussion over to a new thread to keep thing separate.

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jeffd said...
Another question: What's the reward system look like?Your reward system will, more than anything else, determine how your game is played. Players will do what they get rewarded for. D&D rewards killing things and taking their stuff, which is why D&D is almost always some form of a dungeon crawl. White Wolf's RPGs reward exploring & resolving plots created by the Storyteller. Both are very typical structures, used by lots of RPGs. There are lots of other reward systems out there though - some reward the players for introducing their own complications and then overcoming them, etc.
March 8, 2009 1:54 PM
Greyen said...
Very true, I can't argue with that.
March 8, 2009 1:54 PM
Greyen said...
As for rewards there will be 2 systems one for RP..a karmic reward thing I'll get into in the next day or two and another for action somewhat like the Storyteller system.Mainly the exp will be spent like storyteller system. As for Karmic rewards they will be used somewhat like force points in the starwars games. If you do something that reifroces your character's main motivations you get points which youc an spend to boost yourself for a turn/action. If you do something that is against your main motivations then the GM can use them agaisnt you.-sorry a little drunk, typing skills already bad, made wrse by alcohol.
March 8, 2009 1:58 PM
jeffd said...
The thing to think about with the reward system - what do you want the players to do? Not the characters, the players.
March 8, 2009 3:39 PM

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To which I say, that I want a few things in a game.

1. Have fun - Mind you this does not need to be joyous social party, but something enjoyable. I've played in some really mind bending games that have had me and some of the other players so deep into it that tears have come (Jaime's 3 player Vamp game was memorable for this). Others have left me with nightmares or at a minimu have had me up thinking (Jim's Werewolf, and one of my PbP's are good for this). Some of the fun also comes in good old fashioned hack and slash (Turbo Dungeon D&D here in Belgium). So fun comes in many flaovrs.

2. To make players/GM think and be challenged - Its a boring game if there is no challenge for the GM or for the players. Which is a sign of good players and GM if they can challenge each other with out making it personal or something more than a game.

3. To learn - One of the most important things about any game, in my mind, is to put yourself into another person's shoes and act as they would. This can really build some excellent life skills in some ways by forcing a person to think about things in ways they would have not in their everyday activities.

Caveat--All of this can be taken too far, Real Life comes first.

So what do you think?

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Break- RL news

FYI- I have been approved to go to Officer Candidate School. Dunno when yet but there will most likely be a 4 month break in my access to the board. Officail notification for when has not been published yet but hopefully in the next few days it will be.

Whats in a name?

If you scroll down in the Powers list you will find a long series of powers that are all variations of the basic Energy Blast. Now I am trying to build it so a blast of cosmic ray and a spray of ice shards, or a fire blast, or a laser or an acidic glob are all based around the same set of ideas/rules.

Now should all of these be called "Energy Blast, xxxxx" or Something else?

Maybe "Damage Blast"? (sounds dumb to me but maybe it will grow on me.)
Maybe "Power Blast"? (This may be the best as its general wording is good)
Maybe something I haven't thought of yet....

Any words of wisdom from my miniscule number advisors out there? There are at the time of posting this 4 people who visit this site (one of which may be me).

Friday, March 6, 2009

More Powers! Fun ones too!

Alrighty then..8 more powers up today as well as some work on the system itself.

Elemental Control type powers as well as the first few direct damage Energy Blast forms.

Lets See-
Direct - hose/beam
Direct - basic
Direct -AoE
Direct - MIRV
Direct - PBAoE
Direct - Shotgun/Spray
Direct + DoT
Direct - Homing (trades accuracy bonuses for damage)
Direct - Sniper
Direct + incapacitate
Direct + other side effect (confuse/etc)
Direct + knockback
AOEDoT (will include PBAoE DoT)
-----done----
Any kinds of direct damage energy/elemental blast forms that I'm missing from the list above?

Thursday, March 5, 2009

To -Do list

Examining this as a serious undertaking I have built my self a large to-Do list.

These things will be created in time. Not neccessarily in order either. But so far I estimate that I have over 60 pages of material finished with about another 100 to go.

Then there will be fluff....maybe.

To-Do dist is on the right

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Alright, back on track.

Some System Basics are up. More advanced and indepth stuff to come.

This should outline much of how the system works. Its really basic.

I have noticed that there is a ton of editing that I need to do. But I need to get all of this stuff written before I go and edit too much as I have found out editing will bog down progress and the urge to finish this project.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Still here still working . Works been crazy lately, not much time to do much beyond some minor edits and a few more powers.

With luck work will slow down over the next few days.

Monday, February 16, 2009

More Weaknesses

All of the Weaknesses that I have come up with thus far are now up on the right side there. There will be more to come later on.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Weaknesses

So, the basic rules for weaknesses are up and soon some basic weaknesses are going up as I need a short break from writing powers.

Which by the way, I am into the D's. I will add more into the sectiosn already completed as I progress but for now I want to get the big list completed and then add to that. I'm shooting for 200-250 different powers to choose from. And lots of weaknesses, dunno how many yet but more than likely 50+.

Edit- First few weaknesses are up.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Back on Track - more ideas

So I'm back on track writing power descriptions after a short hiatus. We are now almost done with most of the C's. 34 of over 200 powers done...ugh.

As for the weakness conumdrum I think I'm going to have it be a mix of the below ideas on a previous post.

Characters start with 5 ranks in powers for free, they can take upto to 10 more (total 15 ranks) if they take an equal number of weakness ranks. In addition if a power goes above a certain rating, I'm thinking 5 right now, then they will begin to develop more weaknesses. The total number of powers may also affect this.

Another idea a friend of mine had was a karma/motivation scale. Works something like this.

Your character has 2 motivational ideals - say glory and money. For every major action that bring glory or money to him he gains some karma points. For everything that he does that makes him look dumb or costs him lots of money he gains negative karma. (Notice both are gains). the GM tracks how much karma the character has and the player can opt to add X amount of karma to a roll on a 1 for 1 basis, but he doesn't know if he has any positive karma. If he spends more karma boosting his rolls he also gains negative karma. The GM can use the negative karma to boost the rolls against that character. This would allow a character (if played intelligently) to have some really truly awesome moments, and for one played badly to be smacked like a bitch .

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Powers added and thoughts on power/weakness relationship.

Several New Powers added. I may start putting up the weakness description. Still trying to work out a mechanic on how to have them in play.

Are they set in stone at character creation? Do they gain power as the character grows?

Here's what I am thinking of so far. Powers and the associated weaknesses must have a relationship of some sort.

Option 1- A base character at creation gets say 5 points to put into powers. He can take upto another 10 points if he take an equivalent amount of weaknesses. With a maximum starting power rank of 3. After he gains some exp he can then buy more powers etc.

Option 2 - A Character get 10 points in powers at start . Any power over 3 must have an associated weakness worth power level -3. The character must have a number/level weakness for each power beyond the third. As powers grow they must add weaknesses or have their existing weaknesses grow in power also.

Option3 - ??? a mix of the above?

Dunno yet. Any input?

Sunday, January 25, 2009

How much power?

How much power should a new character start with?

A couple of powers at low level? A few powers at mediun level? Phenomonal cosmic power?

A side note to this is what/ are weaknesses going to work into this?

All heroes above a certain pwoer level need a weakness or weaknesses. So far some of the powers have associated weaknesses that will work with that power. What benefit does this give beyond the fact that having wweaknesses may allow you access to more power? Does there need to be more?

New Here?

Hopefully my posts on Giantitp.com will generate some more input. If you are here from there, or somewhere else. Welcome and please comment and help me get this system growing.

First Set of Powers complete

Here's the first drop of powers A-Armory.

Yes I'm going through the list alphabetically.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Power Mechanics

The basics of the power mechanics is up. I am going to be working on building the individual powers and how they work.

The question now becomes - How much power does a character start with?

Powers

A basic list of 290 some powers culled from about 5 different lists of power has been posted to the right. Take a look and see what I'm missing and what needs changing. Its just a list for now. I am in the process of builing the complete power system. It will need some help that's for sure.

I'm still trying to work out how to do weaknesses. Heros need weaknesses, in my mind at least. And the more powerful the hero the bigger more entertaining the weakness.

Superman is allergic to Kryptonite. Some of it kills him, some helps him, some just saps his strength. While it is supposed to be rare...every villain seems to be able to get their hands on some. It also seems like every villain out there knows of that weakness too. That sounds like a good weakness.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Power break down

So...powers and how to break them down into meaning ful ideals that can be expressed as numbers and dice. The hard part in other words.

(I do feel like I'm talking to my self in this blog, and I largely am, but it helps anyways.)

Most of the power systems I have seen have treated powers like sets. For example one of the worst and most powergaming systems Palladium...If you have "energy control" you get 5 little powers that fall under that heading. Same with Aberrant (one of my favorite systems but least favorite worlds). Looking at the comic books and other systems I think breaking it all down into individual powers that can be bought at a cheap rate but only do 1 thing might be more effective.

Lets look at the body transformation guys out there.

Iceman- Icebody, Ice generation, ice shaping, ice blast, ice enhanced movement modes. He pretty much gets it all at once.

Johnny Storm - Fire body, fire blasts, fire based flight. I'm not a huge fan but he down't have the fire control powers of Pyro. But then again Pyro doesn't generate flames like Johnny (Pyro has flame throwers for that).

Collossus - Metal Body, enhanced strenth in metal form ( a weakenss based upon another power being active simuteneously) but no control powers or blasts. Leaping maybe.

All of the above transform into an inorganic (something). They all get s suite of powers that compliment their transformation but the set isn't as complete in some as it is in others.

So if we break it down- what we are really looking at is several different powers with different fluff.

Body Transformation - turns your body into another substance
Enhance movement mode - fly/ice surfing/extra strength leaping
Manipulate element - allows to shape/animate a substance
Generate element - produce an element in quantity
elemental blast - shoot element X for appropriate damage

Now the real question lies in how to break down the manipulation powers- is each separate shape a power? - this would make Green Lantern extremely expensive to make, even with his numerous weaknesses to counter that.

Or are there some basic shapes that can be used as separate powers? ie- wall, hand, etc. Or would that come down to a power control skill roll?

Powers and associated skill

Something I have been thinking of is having a power control skill associated with a specific power. This would be rolled as an attack or for specific fin control situation.

For example: Cyclops is attempting to blast Pyro - he rolls his Eye Beam skill vs. Pyro's dodge to hit.

or someone playing a telekinesis (TK) based character is attempting to pick a lock using TK from across the room. He would roll his TK skill in addition to a lock picking roll for a fine manipulation effect.

This stems from a few situation but can lead to some fun as character are learning their powers they can have some great oops situations as they bazooka blast something they wanted to hit with a small beam.

It also comes from a great old story line involving the White Queen and Iceman. Iceman had little control over his powers but a huge amount of power available. The White Queen possessed him and since she had a much greater grasp of this skill was able to use Iceman's powers far better than he was able to. In the realm of this game that would equate to having a high rating in the power but a low skill (Iceman) being taken over by the someone who had high skill in the same power set.

What do you think?

Character Sheet

A Basic Character sheet has been added.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Bonus and Negative Traits are up. Basically Merits and Flaws from White Wolf, and other systems that have used different names.

Superpowers

What are your favorite power groupings? Individual powers?

Do you favor heroes having weaknesses or not?

What weaknesses would you like to see in a supers game?

First Update

On the left hand side you will find the beginnings of the System.

All of this is still in drafting stages and needs some more polish. Still to come within the next few days - Some gear, bonus/negative traits, more system basics.

The beginning and why I do this.

I have played a great many games from too many different systems. Fantasy, horror, humor, sci-fi, space opera, cartoons, anime, you name it I've probably played the genre in more than one system.

I like superhero games. They are more fun to me than most other genre's. I have a few problems with playing them though. Most are overly complex (Champions, the original Marvel RPG), or too simplified (Aberrant, Marvel Card Game RPG). Sometimes the characters are godlike, other times they simply suck (Almost anything d20, or Palladium).

I want to make a new system. Remove most of the fluff and focus on the system. Something anyone can use and is realistic with out being overly math heavy. Complex enough to be able to articulate the bulk of reality in numbers but squishy enough to allow the GM and players to insert it into nearly any world.

So far I am building it for a modern/near future time frame. This can easily be altered with some changes to skills/gear/powers to replicate nearly any human based population.

I'll start posting updates and changes as I go.


PS: Thanks to those who helped me get the basics down a few years back: Jim, Phil, Wolf.