19th Level

When it comes to Supers RPGs I've not had a ton of luck. I think it is largely because there's a number of genre conventions in superhero stories, primarily in comic books, that don't translate well in an RPG. Getting captured, letting the villain get away, etc. These are things that don't just sit well with most gamers. With that in mind I've a bit less experience in supers gaming than in other genres. Off the top of my head I've run or played in: Marvel Superheroes (TSR, original and advanced games) Champions 3rd Edition DC Heroes (Mayfair, 1st and 2nd editions) Mutants & Masterminds (own all 3 editions, played 2nd) Wild Talents As with a number of earlier entries, it comes down to two main games. I played a ton of the old TSR Marvel Superheroes game. It really seemed to capture the Marvel Universe of the 80s and early 90s rather well and was fun and easy to play. I have also done a brief Wild Talents game, using the Kerberos Club...

About ten years ago Hobgolblyn Press came out with the World War II superhero RPG game Godlike . Superhero might not be the right word though - it presented a gritty world where being superpowered was no guarantee of your survival. For most "talents" a bullet to the head could kill you as easily as any other soldier. Even if you were armored that armor was dependent on your willpower. If your will failed you, your armor would too. The game found its way to Arc Dream. Knowing that people were using it for non-WWII superhero games they did a pre-Kickstarter crowdfunding operation to produce the Wild Talents  RPG based off of Godlike . I wasn't part of the crowdfunding but I did manage to snag one of their extra copies. I will say one thing for that first edition - its binding rivals the old TSR 1st edition AD&D books - for some strange reason it slipped out of my car at my daughters' daycare as a blizzard was beginning. Unable to find the book at home and seeing...

Batman is not impressed with my genre emulation issues. Despite my loving comic book superheroes I've had limited luck in long-term superhero RPGs. I've been thinking that a bit of late with the summer movie season in full swing with an allotment of three superhero movies (I remember a time when there would usually be none...) Sooner or later I'll want to try my luck at another one so it's with a little bit of self-interest that I give some thought as to what it is that makes superhero campaigns challenging, at least for me. I think that genre emulation is something important to the superhero RPG, typically balanced with how it handles action. In games such as   Smallville  genre emulation is the most important thing, even linked to the action. Why you are using your powers and for whom plays a huge role in how effective you are in a game of Smallville . The game I think handled genre emulation best while keeping the action level high was TSR's Marvel Super...