19th Level

There have been a number of RPGs based on Marvel Comics but my favorite remains the original game, as published by TSR in the 1980s. It's been around 25 years since I've played the game but I still have very fond memories of the game. I believe TSR made the game from 1984 to 1993. There were two main rules sets - the original basic game in 1984 and the advanced game which was releases in 1986. TSR later published a revised basic set. The game reflected the changing Marvel universe - it began with a strong Bronze Age of comics feel, though over time it acquired the Iron Age feel of late 1980s and early 1990s comics - the proliferation of X-Men teams, supernatural characters, etc. Though strongly rooted in the Marvel Universe, the game had rules for your own characters, teams, headquarters, etc.  The mid-1980s saw a number of "table-based" RPGs - Chill, Gamma World, Marvel Super Heroes, and Conan are the biggies I can think of. Of the TSR games, I think Mar...

I have a mixed record with superheroes. I love superhero comics, but my success rate with superhero campaigns is rather limited. That said, there will be some superhero entries on this list - games I have had the opportunity to play and enjoy. I had the opportunity to clock some time running an Icons campaign and definitely had a lot of fun. It's clearly a relative of Fate, though with a good dose of TSR's old Marvel Superheroes RPG in the mix as well. Icons does a good job of emulating what you see in a comic book. Characters can slam foes and send them flying. By using Determination, characters can activate Qualities (like Fate Aspects), avoid Trouble, and up their effort to retry failed tests. A character who dies is out of play for at least an issue, but after which may make a miraculous return based on an explanation come up with by the GM and player. No, this is not a gritty simulation of realism. Superman, Captain America, Phoenix, Bucky, Professor X, Doctor D...

I certainly could be mistaken, but to the best of my knowledge there's not a Fate Accelerated Superhero RPG Venture City , a type of cyberpunk superhero setting, and Daring Comics RPG, a more traditional superhero RPG for Fate. Admittedly. Fate Accelerated is a variant of Fate Core, but I think there's a great opportunity for a Fate Accelerated Superhero game. Fainting Goat Games does have a Villains Accelerated supplement which is a listing of supervillains in Fate Accelerated, giving a good example of how one might realize such characters. . Off the top of my head, I can think of two main Fate Core products - Like most Fate campaigns, it would be important in a Fate Accelerated superhero game to get general agreement on the type of game you're looking for. One could have cosmic superheroes like the Green Lantern Corp down to street level superheroes such as Batman and Daredevil. Of course, comics like Justice League have put Batman and Green Lantern together, but ...

My last post on Domain Play in Superhero RPGs  received a fair amount of discussion which gave me some additional food for thought. One of the biggest takeaways is there are two primary ways of handling a PC or major NPC ruling over a nation in a superhero game (or any other genre as well). The easiest way would be to simply make it a point of the character's background. In many comic books, the fact that a character rules or is royalty in a far-off land is perhaps an interesting plot point that gets used every once in a while. This is fairly common in comic books, particularly in the Silver and Bronze Ages. If, on the other hand, domain play were to be a major point in the game, then you would want to have rules that facilitate such a game. You would want to manage the domain's resources, be able to generate events, handle conflicts/alliances/wars with other domains, managing espionage, etc. You'd certainly want this to be superhero-centric. For example, a dispute o...

Given I've been thinking a lot about domain play lately, I had a passing thought this evening as to whether or not such play is applicable to superhero gaming - given I'm running an Icons game at present. After a little reflection I realized it absolutely is. As seen by the image at the top of this post, superheroes and supervillains are often at the heads of nations and organizations. There's a number of ways to realize this in play. At the most obvious there is the example of superpowered beings ruling over entire nations. You have Black Panther's Wakanda, Namor's Atlantis, Doctor Doom's Latveria, etc. The nation of Genosha has gone from a mutant-dominating apartheid state to a mutant sanctuary ruled by Magneto to being destroyed. Beyond nations are entities beyond Earth - Asgard, the Skrull Empire, etc. One thing worth noting is the rulership of such nations tends to be a bit on the unstable side. All of the examples I listed above have their...

"We'll leave as soon as you're ready. Docking bay 94." - Han Solo "To ensure you make it to your gate in time, please plan to arrive at least 2 hours before your flight." - TSA It occurs to me that the Evil Galactic Empire isn't too horrible when it comes to port security. Though when one things about it, in the United States airline security was very minimal until the 1970s, which brought metal detectors into use. Again in the 1980s security increased with the Lockerbie bombings, requiring that the only baggage that could be checked in was baggage that accompanied a passenger. Between playing Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu game set during Prohibition, and setting up Port Henry for our superhero game (with its international airport and harbor) there's been cause for consideration about spaceport/seaport/airport security. I noticed it is most prevalent with Star Wars, largely because our heroes are doing things the Evil Galactic Empire doe...

As I work on mapping out Port Henry for our Icons game, I'm finding myself reminded of a challenge I often have when setting the scene. How much detail is enough? What is too little? I myself tend to be a bit on the sparser side, something which has its advantage as it allows players to fill in blanks, but presents its own challenges, especially if different players have fundamentally different views of what something looks like. At times like that I really wish I had some talent for drawing. I'm pretty handy at maps, especially when using digital tools like Campaign Cartographer. But my ability to produce a non-schematic/map-type drawing is limited to Risus-like stick figures. I'm not sure the diagram here is quite evocative enough to use as a visual aid tool during a game. What I'm thinking about now is how to best give a feel for the environment of the city. As an example, I'm picturing the various incarnations of Gotham City, each of which has its own person...

We had our first game set in Port Henry last night - not a ton of details about the city played a large part as a lot of the game was taking Icons for a spin for the first time. However, our heroes did stop a vile communist villain from destroying the Port Henry Nuclear Power Plant from going kaboom and that's a good thing. Unearthly Adventure Comics #251 is in the record books. I have been getting a better idea of the city with an eye towards adventure opportunities. You can see the marked up map above, a bit different from the previous version. Some highlights: I pushed the map further east to add some additional islands. One is going to be home to one or more amusement parks, another will be a prison. There's probably room for a monument on one of the islands. I'm contemplating Port Henry being consolidated from multiple cities, a pattern often observed in cities. New York consolidated its five boroughs at the end of the 19th century, Chicago incorporated Hyde...

"When you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat ax." - Robert Moses The fact that I absolutely love maps probably explains why I'm in the process of building a map for Port Henry, home of our superhero game, with far more detail than is required. As a kid, the first things that got my attention in The Hobbit  were the excellent maps. I studied New York City subway maps so much that to this day when I visit New York and get asked for directions on the subway I can accurately send them on their way (I stay up to date - I really want to live long enough to see the 2nd Avenue Subway come fully into service). Our game is kicking off in late 1957, after the launch of Sputnik. This is the era of urban planners like Robert Moses. People with good attentions but rather married to the idea that the automobile is the answer (regardless of the question) and any problems with that answer can be solved by more lanes. I've kept that in...

Our Icons campaign has a home city that actually has a name. We worked through a few possible names and came up with Port Henry. Our city occupies where, in the real world, can be found New Jersey's Great Bay. Though it is indeed a decent sized bay, it averages about five feet depth. It is one of the nation's best preserved wetlands so I feel a little guilty virtually draining and dredging much of it. To be honest, we didn't quite know what Port Henry was named for, it just sounded neat. It brought to mind Henry Hudson, though cities tend not to be named after a person's first name. After some thinking I went with a fictional son of Patrick Henry, Founding Father and independent Virginia's first governor. Like many people of his era, did not see all of his children survive. We're going to create a fictional son of Patrick Henry, Thomas Henry, born in 1758. In the American Revolution, Thomas Henry served as an officer in General Washington's army. T...

We'll be rolling up some Icons characters Monday night and giving some details to our setting. If nothing else, I need to give the home city a name... I've had mixed results with superhero games, though I'm hoping a combination of a good group, straightforward rule system, and some lessons learned from past games will help.  Among the things I've learned is to make certain the campaign has an easy springboard for ideas. With that in mind, I've been thinking about the history of the world. The characters will be in the lead of the late-1950s second wave of superheroes in the world, after the Golden Age. I'm not planning for a full Silver Age feel in terms of mimicking the Comics Code Authority, but communist menaces, lost worlds, and super-science are all up for grabs.  I've been giving some thought to how in this campaign world the "Golden Age" came to an end. I'm picturing the disgrace of the two primary Golden Age superheroes in ...

So in keeping with diving into Icons, let's go ahead and take random character generation out for a spin... Phase 1 - Origin Phase 1 has us rolling for our character's origin... So rolling 2d6 I got an 8, which means my character has a gimmick. Phase 2 - Attributes So for Phase 2 I roll 2d6 and look up on a table for my Prowess, Coordination, Strength, Intellect, Awareness and Willpower. Attribute Roll Adjective Lev el Prowess 10 Great 6 Coordination 6 Fair 4 Strength 6 Fair 4 Intellect 10 Great 6 Awareness 11 Incredible 7 Willpower 9 Great 6 Some extremely impressive mental stats and  pretty bad-ass fighter as well. I can swap any 2 attributes and I can also bump up any mental attribute by 2 but I'm going to hold off for now and see what else I get. It should be noted that my Awareness of 7 (Incredible) counts as a superpower when it comes to determining Determination (the Icons equivalent of Fate Points...

After a number of iterations. I've settled on a game engine for a superhero campaign. In the end I'll be using Steven Kenson's Icons.  For those unfamiliar with Icons, it is a bit of a hybrid of Fate and TSR's Marvel Superheroes RPGs. Let's take a look at a sample character in Icons, an adversary taken from the main rulebook. Fate uses Fate (or Fudge) dice, 4dF. The Fate dice are six sided dice, with 2 sides marked with a plus, 2 with a minus, and 2 blank. A 4dF roll gives a range of -4 to 4. Icons uses a similar mechanic - essentially it involves rolling d6-d6 to generate a range of -5 to 5. Technically the initiator rolls their stat plus a d6 and you subtract from this result an opponent stat or difficulty plus a d6.  Unlike Fate, Icons does not use stress tracks or consequences. It has stamina points which are pretty similar to hit points. For most tasks you roll a d6 plus your ability score or power. Abilities are pretty broad but can get bonu...

I'm currently working my way through James Patterson's Grand Expectations , covering the history of the United States from the end of World War II and Watergate. Currently I'm in the 1952 presidential election, though the book isn't 100% sequential - for example, it covered the end of the Korean War before diving into the 1952 election.  One thing I'm finding fascinating is the multiple facets of American life in the late 1940s and early 1950s. On the one hand, we see the United States enjoying prosperity which, to our eyes, is hard to believe. But that assumes you were white. And not a farmer. Or a woman looking for her own career. Or non-straight. Or having unpatriotic views. There's a definite undercurrent of fear at the communist menace. The commies are everywhere. To be clear, there were unions whose leadership did indeed receive marching orders from Moscow. And the Soviet Union did indeed engage in espionage. But it is also clear how much ...

Gotham City. Metropolis. Central City. Star City. Coast City. Opal City. DC Comics has a number of fictional cities in the United States. As a counterpoint, Marvel Comics tends to use real cities, though it does have its share of fictional nations such as Latveria and Wakanda. As I work out a superhero setting I have to confess to preferring the DC Comics method. I'm the type of person who likes "getting things right" and setting a game in a city can put me into a research loop. To be sure, it's a mental block on my part. It's one of the things I like about setting Call of Cthulhu games in Arkham. However, creating a fictional city gives its own type of problem. A city needs to go somewhere. And good places for cities tend to be occupied by... well, cities. Being a Brooklyn originally boy my bias tends to be a city along the eastern seaboard and no further north than the mid-Atlantic. Gotham City is probably my main inspiration, with influences from S...

After a lot of discussion and examination we've come down to our final candidates for a superhero game system - and also we're narrowing in on elements of the campaign and the setting. Our two final candidates are Supers! and some form of Fate . I've talked about Supers! before. In its favor is a very straightforward game engine. When you want to do something you determine what stat it is you want to use and you roll a bunch of six sided dice, based upon that stat. That stat could be some skill, a superpower, your ability to resist something, etc. It encourages some creative narration, especially in that you typically can only use an ability to defend once per round. See below for an idea of a Supers! set of character sheets, as excerpted from the game: As one can see, the game is emphasizing simplicity when it comes to stats. There's a number of different Fate games. I'm considering three of them. They are: Daring Superheroes Fate Core with Venture...

I received a number of useful comments from my previous post as I consider systems for a possible superhero game. With that in mind, I've eliminated several games and have a few more to consider. Eliminated: Hero System/Champions: I'd love to try this out but I sense this is creating more work than I want at this case - only about half the players in the group have any experience with the Hero System coupled with a need to run the game on a virtual tabletop. Mutants & Masterminds: Certainly lighter than Champions, but truthfully I'm trying to keep things a bit on the lighter side. Wild Talents: One of my favorite games, running it on a virtual tabletop is a bit more complicated than I'd prefer, with everyone needing to roll simultaneously and ordering everything accordingly. Still in the running is Daring Comics. I'm still in the process of digesting the game but I've been liking it so far. I do need to consider if I want to run such a strongly n...