Starting a tabletop supers game.

[Wook]

So I'm starting a HERO 5th rev game. With a baby gamer at the table I got the following, amazingly well balanced, group out of it:

A Gargoyle Brickette. A very durable brawler with a very high str. Hunted by the Holy Roman Inquisition.

A teleporting fencer. This is the baby gamer, first time gaming, and she cribbed most of the style off Hiro from Heroes. We made sure she had a useful teleportation multipower and between Str and maneuvers cranks 3d6 with a HKA sword.

A mentalist magic user. He uses necromantic magic for "mercenary" good and has the "jedi mind trick" along with a very uncomfortable healing ability.

I attached some of my notes on the setting so you guys have an idea of the world they're in. :D The game is set in the year 1970. I only had the timeline worked out through about 1969 anyway so I figured that'd be a good place to start.

[AnotherSKip]

Cribbing is Perfectly allright, Echo from my campaign is basically Cable from Marvel going Waaay different. Just make sure they understand that: they can do what is on their sheet, which we did try to modle as closely as possible on the charcter but what they did last week may not even matter.

[Stephane]

Looks like you've got a good start there, ****.

[Strongman]

A teleporting fencer. This is the baby gamer, first time gaming, and she cribbed most of the style off Hiro from Heroes. We made sure she had a useful teleportation multipower and between Str and maneuvers cranks 3d6 with a HKA sword.


I've been thinking of creating something similar in V&V but a martial artist who can open small teleportals, striking his opponent through them from a variety of angles and negating a lot of defensive powers and mods and maybe not letting his foes roll with the punch unless they can detect hidden or danger or something similar. Kind of a neat thing but would have to be used by a "regular" martial artist of some sort rather than some super-powered puncher like a Superman or Hulk to balance it out.

[Wook]

I've been thinking of creating something similar in V&V but a martial artist who can open small teleportals, striking his opponent through them from a variety of angles and negating a lot of defensive powers and mods and maybe not letting his foes roll with the punch unless they can detect hidden or danger or something similar. Kind of a neat thing but would have to be used by a "regular" martial artist of some sort rather than some super-powered puncher like a Superman or Hulk to balance it out.

The nice thing, perhaps the nicest thing, is that once you understand how the rules for champs works it's VERY easy to balance a character.

[Imaginos]

I actually had a character like that in V&V, but I don't recall if he had any offensive powers to go with it. As a side bonus, he could divert his actions to use a teleport defense (used Force Field defense for it). If the attack "hit" the defense, it went into his portal, which would be targeting an opponent.

So bad guy shoots at me, I abort and use the defense, his attack hits the portal. My portal, unbeknownst to them, was open behind his buddy who just got hit (use the original attack roll against the new target).

[Imaginos]

The nice thing, perhaps the nicest thing, is that once you understand how the rules for champs works it's VERY easy to balance a character.

It is also VERY easy to abuse the 'balance' rules and create a monster. But that depends on what the GM will let you get away with. :th_angelsmiley4:

[Imaginos]

To the original post...

Nice start. I like that you are putting thought into what got you to where you are (something skipped in a lot of supers games). Also neat treatise on magic in the setting.

[Strongman]

The nice thing, perhaps the nicest thing, is that once you understand how the rules for champs works it's VERY easy to balance a character.

Champions is one RPG that I never bought. The character sheets always seemed to indicate that the rules were very complex and I was always satisfied with the V&V rules (for the most part). Some nice supplements were tempting but, despite all of the money that I've spent on gaming over the years, Champions was never purchased.

[Wook]

It is also VERY easy to abuse the 'balance' rules and create a monster. But that depends on what the GM will let you get away with. :th_angelsmiley4:

Active point caps and recognizing what is/isn't abusive is a critical skill for sure. A champions GM is expected to make use of rule zero in a judicious and fair fashion. The designers do a solid job of outlining the items in the powers, adders, skills, and limitations that lend themselves readily to abuse and an excellent job of articulating what the different power levels should look like.

For balancing things I LOVED Fuzion's "Rule of X" mechanic. One stop shopping for mostly balanced characters that limited the need for Rule Zero.

[Wook]

Champions is one RPG that I never bought. The character sheets always seemed to indicate that the rules were very complex and I was always satisfied with the V&V rules (for the most part). Some nice supplements were tempting but, despite all of the money that I've spent on gaming over the years, Champions was never purchased.

Game play essentially matches GURPS. Everything is based off 3d6 and damage rolls can involve 8-20 dice depending on the power level you're dealing in. Character creation is very complex though. You have something like 8 base stats, 6 figured characteristics, and different point costs for skills, powers, and miscenaneous items like vehicles and bases. Then adders and limiters on powers bring fractions into the deal. I can create characters in my head mostly but it's a math intensive process.

OTOH I've found no other system that lets me craft a 1:1 expression of my imagination for game play as well as HERO so I'm more than willing to deal with the complexity.

[Imaginos]

OTOH I've found no other system that lets me craft a 1:1 expression of my imagination for game play as well as HERO so I'm more than willing to deal with the complexity.

I agree that, if you have a character idea, you can pretty much build it in HERO if you know how the rules work. I got rid of much of my Hero 5th stuff only because I got tired of being the GM (with the extra work of building the stuff with the rules). It got much easier with Hero Designer, but it pretty much really needed Hero Designer. I think the software should be part of the base rulebook instead of an additional purchase.

[AnotherSKip]

One of my gamers swears by HD...

it also keeps you from making certain 'mistakes'.

[Wook]

Here designer is indeed the awesomeness. :D