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| The Adventures Of Superhero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks |
"I didn't pick my superpowers, they picked me"Careers have been made in the comic book industry by being able to dream up new and imaginative superheroes and villains, yet "point-build" roleplaying games expect players to do this - sometimes at a moment's notice - right there at the games table.
In this article about my general preference for random character generation, I have leaned into superhero RPGs for the most part as this is where I have largely encountered this issue.
The out-the-door epic scale of some comic book heroes, compared to the street-level 'normality' of others, also helps make my point about emulating genres, even if in an exaggerated manner.
Sometimes a player will arrive with a preconceived idea for a character, but more often than not - especially if, for example, the players are not totally au fait with the superheroic oeuvre - there's be a lot of umming, ahhing and staring off into space before he or she cranks out a thinly veiled clone of an established, popular character.
This mental constipation can also lead to further frustration and ultimately taint a player's opinion of your campaign before the first adventure has even begun.
Anyone can pick up their dice and within 20 minutes to half-an-hour have the outline of a unique character, ready to play.
It's quick and easy, but there also remains an element of choice - so the experience doesn't go to the other extreme and the player feels totally at the mercy of the gods of fate.
Under normal circumstances, that is playing the "rules as written" in the 2nd Edition Villains & Vigilantes of my youth, each player character gets 1d6+2 rolls across his choice of the five tables of superpowers (powers; devices; magic/psionic items; skills; and magic/psionics) plus a random drawback from the "weaknesses" table.
The player must discard one of his rolled powers and if he wants to drop his "weakness" he has to scrub off a second of his random powers.
Now, of course, the observant among you would have realised this can mean a character ending up with only a single superpower.
Back when we were running our superheroes as a play-by-(snail)-mail game at the dawn of time, we addressed this very issue in our introductory material:
"Whenever someone rolls up a character and then moans: 'But I only got one power! What use is flight?' ... stop and think. If you woke up one morning and suddenly found you could fly would your first reaction be: 'ohhh, boring, wish I could fire blasts of super-heated energy and fry people's skin off..."You just have to look at classic TV shows like Heroes, No Ordinary Family or Misfits or the original X-Men comics to know that people with a single superpower can thrive in a superhero milieu if enough effort is invested by the writer/player into developing the character's personality and backstory.
On the other hand, game-wise, this striving for realism is often more an ideal than a true reflection of the game as it relies on the other players not having rolled up Superman, Dr Manhattan, or Captain Marvel.
Comic book superteams usually represent a broad spectrum of power levels, but there has to be some degree of compatibility and synergy between team members in a game - no one wants to be the Wonder Twin stuck back at Titans Tower, while the team are off facing Deathstroke or Brother Blood.
This, again, ultimately comes down to discussions between the player and the Gamesmaster.
Comic book superteams usually represent a broad spectrum of power levels, but there has to be some degree of compatibility and synergy between team members in a game - no one wants to be the Wonder Twin stuck back at Titans Tower, while the team are off facing Deathstroke or Brother Blood.
This, again, ultimately comes down to discussions between the player and the Gamesmaster.
If he genuinely believes his character is unplayable (or unable to gel comfortably with characters generated by the other players), it's quick and easy to start the random generation process again - rather than endure the mathematically complex juggling act of point balancing, min-maxing and optimisation that goes into "points-buy" character builds.
I've played several different supers systems over the years, but the most memorable characters I - and my peers - have created at the table have all come via the random generation process (e.g. my Acrobatic Flea, Steve's Silverfist, Pete's Hurricane & Brutus, and characters from other V&V games, such as Dave's Nightgaunt and Mark's Copernicus).
I guess my issue is with the idea of "wholly designed characters", and this pretty much applies to any genre, probably because I was introduced to gaming via "old school" Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller.
Both of these systems employed - very different, but no less inspirational - random character generations methods.
I really admire the random "story path" method of character creation in Traveller (yes, your character used to be able to die in the process and, no, they no longer can), but also the fantastic 'group' method of random character creation in Beyond The Wall & Other Adventures from Flatland Games.
This clever folk fantasy system sees your party creating its home village as part of the character creation process, as well as weaving meaningful connections between all the player-characters which, in turn, influence their starting statistics and abilities.
Meanwhile, I have friends who draw Tarot cards to stimulate ideas for their character's personalities and I don't see random generation as being any different.
I've played several different supers systems over the years, but the most memorable characters I - and my peers - have created at the table have all come via the random generation process (e.g. my Acrobatic Flea, Steve's Silverfist, Pete's Hurricane & Brutus, and characters from other V&V games, such as Dave's Nightgaunt and Mark's Copernicus).
I guess my issue is with the idea of "wholly designed characters", and this pretty much applies to any genre, probably because I was introduced to gaming via "old school" Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller.
Both of these systems employed - very different, but no less inspirational - random character generations methods.
I really admire the random "story path" method of character creation in Traveller (yes, your character used to be able to die in the process and, no, they no longer can), but also the fantastic 'group' method of random character creation in Beyond The Wall & Other Adventures from Flatland Games.
Meanwhile, I have friends who draw Tarot cards to stimulate ideas for their character's personalities and I don't see random generation as being any different.
When it comes to superheroes, all the major teams (such as Justice League, Avengers, Watchmen, Teen Titans etc) feature characters with a broad range of power 'levels' and abilities.
It's only certain structured teams - such as the Fantastic Four - who could be seen to have roughly equivalent power levels.
But the FF are the exception, not the rule, as this "style" of team also tends to share a common origin story as well.
Generally I find that point-buy systems, without a degree of randomness, don't gel for my tastes and style of gaming.
The whole idea of artificial balance is ridiculous and fails to simulate either 'real life' (whatever that means to you, of course, in the context of sci-fi, fantasy, and superpowers) or the comics, novels, films, TV shows etc that your games seek to emulate.
Let's strip this down to ridiculous basics: Players A and B each design 100 point characters; Player A just uses the 100 points and takes no weaknesses, but if Player B takes "heavy smoker" for a bonus of 10 points or "terminal illness" for 50 points, why should Player B's character then have more powers and abilities than Player A? It makes no sense.
I'm not saying character's shouldn't have weaknesses (in fact, as with V&V, I like the risk of random character weaknesses), I'm saying I don't see how the 'reward' for taking them in a point-buy system reflects any degree of verisimilitude.
[Footnote: I strongly recommend you check the highly entertaining Adventures Of Superhero Girl, from 2013, by the talented Faith Erin Hicks, for a wry take on the idea of superheroes with real lives. I can't praise it highly enough - just read and enjoy!].
It's only certain structured teams - such as the Fantastic Four - who could be seen to have roughly equivalent power levels.
But the FF are the exception, not the rule, as this "style" of team also tends to share a common origin story as well.
Generally I find that point-buy systems, without a degree of randomness, don't gel for my tastes and style of gaming.
The whole idea of artificial balance is ridiculous and fails to simulate either 'real life' (whatever that means to you, of course, in the context of sci-fi, fantasy, and superpowers) or the comics, novels, films, TV shows etc that your games seek to emulate.
Let's strip this down to ridiculous basics: Players A and B each design 100 point characters; Player A just uses the 100 points and takes no weaknesses, but if Player B takes "heavy smoker" for a bonus of 10 points or "terminal illness" for 50 points, why should Player B's character then have more powers and abilities than Player A? It makes no sense.
I'm not saying character's shouldn't have weaknesses (in fact, as with V&V, I like the risk of random character weaknesses), I'm saying I don't see how the 'reward' for taking them in a point-buy system reflects any degree of verisimilitude.
[Footnote: I strongly recommend you check the highly entertaining Adventures Of Superhero Girl, from 2013, by the talented Faith Erin Hicks, for a wry take on the idea of superheroes with real lives. I can't praise it highly enough - just read and enjoy!].
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ReplyDeleteSorry, I originally wrote my comment so early in the morning I was half asleep. It was very poorly written. Let's try this again...
DeleteI debated with myself (and honestly I still am debating) whether this should be a comment response or an entire post on my own blog. Who knows, it may end up being both. Assume these are simply my initial, reactionary thoughts on the subject (since that's what they are).
I generally dislike random character generation personally and I especially don't go in for it with Superheroes. Sure, I've had tons of fun wth Villains and Vigilantes myself over the years; it was my very first Super RPG after all and indeed the first game I bought with my own money (though I had to split the cost of purchase with a friend).
Unfortunately, for every cool character we made with this system, we ended up wasting time making characters who had 1 power and it was Waterbreathing. That or someone with Flame Power, Paralysis Ray, and Stretching and a Weakness that equally didn't fit. Yes, that character might be 'effective' but that combo makes little to no sense and we'd end up re-rolling anyway. More time wasted.
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Siegel and Shuster, Bob Kane and Bill Finger...none of these creators 'rolled randomly'. They had an idea, they refined it, and over time their characters improved and became further defined. Sounds like Champions to me and Champions is point buy. As my dear Champions GM and Guru, the late, great William Corpening once said, "Superman started with Super Leaping but once he had enough Experience Points, he bought Flight."
I guess I've also, for the most part at least, had fewer people playing Superheroes with me who were unfamiliar with Comic Books. Nowadays, between Marvel movies, the Boys, The Invincible animated series, and Anime and Manga like My Hero Academia, Tiger and Bunny, One Punch Man, and many others, I can toss a pebble with my eyes closed and practically guarantee I'll hit someone familiar with Supers.
Sure, you don't want to just see clones of existing characters but honestly, I don't. I see power sets copied, a Speedster like the Flash or a Super Soldier like Captain America, but akways with a twist that makes them their own character. It isn't hard.
My personal approach is to combine the powers of one or two characters with the personality type of one or two others and then give them a visual look patterned after yet two more. This has given me some of my favorite PCs including my best one ever - Starguard: Powers of Superman+Green Lantern-kinda, Personality of Thor with a little Namor, The Sub-Mariner, and a look inspired by Green Lantern and The Vision.
When I sat down to write him up, or rather when William did, using the game mechanics, I got to decide if he was Stronger than he was Fast. Does he have Heat Vision and how powerful is it compared to his Invulnerable Skin? Does he Fly or just Leap Tall Buildings in a single bound? It was up to me. It's always up to me in point buy and point allocation systems. It's my character and I get to determine what he can and can't do and honestly, that's how I want every game to work. Yet another reason D&D and other such games don't do it for me. Don't give me a Class and random stats. Give me the tools to build the kind of character I want to play.
If I knew at any point, I had forgotten that the Flea came about through random generation. That's pretty awesome!
ReplyDeleteI don't have the brain power to have come up with such a character on my own 😂 If we'd been playing a point-buy game at the time, I expect I'd have created a Wolverine clone or something similar (he was popular back then as well! 😉) that I would have forgotten about by now.
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