Wow, I remember when playing superheroes was as easy as rolling a pair of d10's. We had random character creation, steamlined rules which didn't answer every question you might come up with, and a host problems with balance. Like characters you read about in comics who would go down in one panel to the right villian. ex/ what do you mean (fill in the blank) only has 36 health? Guess the days of TSR/Marvel designing games together have past.
I learned how to cube a number thanks to Villians and Vigilantes (your carrying capacity in that game determined basic HTH damage). I've done all of the point based games and even tried a few of the ones which have came out this decade. But we always return to D&D. It just is such a nice system. I have fallen in love with the 4e mechanics (and that is despite owning my first book in the 70's). It has an inherent beauty in the simplicity of it while maintaining the structure. Gamma World takes it a step further IMO.
But as I am looking over and over at these two bright shiny Gamma World boxes, all I want to do is convert it slightly into a superhero game. Change a little description here and there, build my Alpha mutation deck around whatever character I am imagining and head off to the modern city scape battling evil masterminds and super villians. It might require a little work, but it would be so worth it.
Using a heroscape figure, his character is a store dummy (built on a metal frame) in the shape of wolverine. It even has metal claws. It came to life over the course of ten years, slowly at first. In the first five years it read all of the posters on the walls which detailed a lot of wolverine's powers, origins, and attitude. So it is an animated dummy that thinks it is wolverine.
Silly at times, but pretty fun for us geeks.
And yes, thinking of it as very "Saturday Morning Cartoon" will help -- I recommend repeated viewings of Thundarr the Barbarian for inspiration!
Those flying orb robots which shot lasers... "We ride!"
I think my life was influenced by a healthy dose of "Saturday Morning Cartoon". Still trying to figure out how Firestar made her way into a team with Peter Parker and Bobby Drake.
Yeah, GW has the kernel for a pretty good superhero game.
And yes, thinking of it as very "Saturday Morning Cartoon" will help -- I recommend repeated viewings of Thundarr the Barbarian for inspiration!
Ookla! Ariel! We Ride!
I have all the episodes on my computer and edited key narrative video moments that begin and end each encounter and session.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thundarr_the_Barba... has a great episode guide and some information on it.
Someone did a hombrew rpg: www.rpglibrary.org/settings/thundarr/wor...
Good stuff.
GW wouldn't be a great supers game, but it would be a fun, fairly easy one.
There are already very good supers games out there, of course. The 4th Ed of 'Champions!' for instance, is pretty hard to beat - as the 5th and 6th eds of that game could tell you...
...
GW wouldn't be a great supers game, but it would be a fun, fairly easy one.
Yep. As is, GW is fun and easy. I think the one thing I would change is the omega tech concept of SuperScience from many dimensions littered about in a post apocolyptic world. I think the Alpha mutations always in flux do to alpha waves, makes a good backdrop for a world of super heroes and villians.
Interesting to see I am not the only one who thought this. This was my intital thoughts after reading the book for about 15 minutes... "Hmmm choosing origins that complment... and perhaps perhaps choosing permanent Alpha Mutations as encounter powers that compliment...."
First, just change the setting into a standard metropolis. Second, let players pick Alpha Mutations (or even permanent Omega Tech, if they are Genius types), that have to do with thier Origins, and do away with Alpha Fluxes (unless the player has a reason why they Flux), and then reflavor some of the Origins, putting emphasis on human-like physical features.
I think it'd work really well if you do away with a little bit of the randomness. Heck, if you even wanted more guns / grenades / heavy weapons / sniper rules, you could pull those out of Amethyst 4E for more complex modern & future weapon rules alongside your Omega Tech.
I'd think the thing to do would be to go 'chicken method,' so a player can pick a couple of origins suited to some super theme, name, costume or whatever. Player decks would be a must. You might let players have only an Alpha or Omega deck, rather than both, or a set number of cards divided between the two. Players would draw only from their own decks. That way, they get apropriate powers for their character, but don't always have the best one for the situation available (because the writer forgot about it or it was inconvenient to the plot or *explantation to be retconned later*).
(because the writer forgot about it or it was inconvenient to the plot or *explantation to be retconned later*).
You, sir, know your comics writers all too well.
Of course, it /is/ a comics shop...
...and (bit of a stretch) Ectoplasmic/Mind-Breaker.
Hmm... has anyone posted an Invisible origin in the homebrew thread yet?
And yeah, we need an invisible one for her
Deadstop
Just posted one. Feel free to comment. :-)
Hehe nicely done. I put in some constructive criticism.
And now I have this desire to go through various other famous superheroes and try to come up with origins for them, lol.
I came up with a scattering of Xmen. Sadly my knowledge of them is fairly limited. Its been forever since i read/watched anything of them other than the recent 3 movies.
Prof X – Mind Deceiver / Mind Coercer (Or Hypercognitive Mind-Coercer)
*Rogue – Power Thief / Hawkoid
Wolverine – Eng.H / Felinoid
Cyclops – Eng.H / Radioactive
Storm – Electrokinetic / Weather Witch
Phoenix – Darkling / Telekinetic
Nightcrawler – Darkling / Teleporter
Gambit – Exploding / Eng.H
Magneto – Magnetic / Telekinetic (With houseruled TK)
Sabertooth – Yeti / Felinoid
Mystique – Darkling / Shapeshifter
Edit: Here's a few more ;)
Venom – Nightmare Shapeshifter
Sandman – Seismic Goo
Green Goblin / Hobgoblin – Demonic Arcanist
Beast – Simian Yeti
Kitty Pryde – Insubstantial / Hypercognitive?
Doctor Octopus – Hypercognitive Squidling
* Has origin that is Work In Progress
I have a request: Do some DC super heroes!
I have a request: Do some DC super heroes!
Edit: ./facepalm Wow, yeah all of the ones i did were Marvel. I can probably think of some Batman / Superman villains. Dont know much else of DC but them. And Sandman, but I cant think off the top of my head who from there i could use.
Superman - Seismic Alien
Mr. Freeze - Cryokinetic Seismic (Reflavored)
Scarecrow - Nightmare Empath
Azrael - Angelic EngH
Killer Croc - Saurian Sharkoid
Poison Ivy - Plant Fungoid
Brainiac - Alien Android
General Zod - Seismic Alien
Those are ones I could thikn of off the top of my head ^^
Flash
wonder Woman
Wildcat
Dr Light
Captian Cold
Red Torando
Hawkman
Green Lantern
Blue devil
Blue beatle
Martian Manhunter
Killer Frost
The Ray
Animal man
Clayface
Green Arrow
Hawk & Dove
I could think of more I'm sure but that should keep you busy. We've made some Thundar referances on this forum. What do Y'all think about
Thundarr- EngH/ Mythic
Oogla- Yeti/ Simian
Ariel- Telek/ Magn
While I agree that Logan was a human who was engineered, the origin as written is a human who was engineered for high Int rather than Str or Con. (I totally get where you were coming from with Felinoid, though.) At very least, I'd put Felinoid as the Primary, although even 16 seems a little high for Wolverine's Int.
Beast, on the other hand, IS a highly intelligent character. I'd actually use Engineered Human/Simian or Engineered Human/Yeti for him.
Also, I think there needs to be a generic "Flying" origin for characters who don't have a sonic burst attack.
So good use of reflavouring and you can make almost any of the mid-tier superheroes. Modelling something like Superman is a lot harder.
Next time I use Gamma World its going to be a Supers game, rather than Post-apoc, and I think I'll give each PC a choice of one permanent Alpha Mutation, those powers allow for closer adaptation of classic superheroes.
I was thinking of Wolverine last night, trying to model both his Claw attacks and his fast healing. The best combo out of the published material I could find was Felinoid/Reanimated. ..,
I was thinking the same thing.
Keep in mind though, that most of the supers that are published are well beyond 1st level and may have 3 Alpha Mutations. So don't limit to just origins.
Some Superheroes / Supervillains are difficult to do because they only have one real shtick, or they're mostly normal or just highly intelligent as opposed to mutants/supers, so I skipped over those tat i could think of that were like that.
Flash is a good example - he's just a straight up Speedster, nothing else (to my knowledge). "Engineered Human" as was pointed out, has a certain empashis other than being just human, though it could be used to take the 'normal dude who uses tech to augment his natural prowess' as well.
Mmm cool. Reanimated would work certainly in terms of actual powers (hence why i put (Reflavored) on Mr.Freeze and such.
Some Superheroes / Supervillains are difficult to do because they only have one real shtick, or they're mostly normal or just highly intelligent as opposed to mutants/supers, so I skipped over those tat i could think of that were like that.
Flash is a good example - he's just a straight up Speedster, nothing else (to my knowledge). "Engineered Human" as was pointed out, has a certain empashis other than being just human, though it could be used to take the 'normal dude who uses tech to augment his natural prowess' as well.
I might suggest that The Flash is a Speedster/Ectoplasmic since he has a way to phase through solid objects by vibrating his atoms.